Across the Page

The Secret Soldier is a remnant from my own childhood. I remember really liking the slim chapter book about a girl who posed as a man in order to be a soldier, so I was eager to read it aloud this week as an accompaniment to the era of history we’re studying. Both girls really enjoyed it as well; Older Daughter, who has had many opportunities to read it on her own and thought it looked boring, asked after the first chapter if she could take it to bed for evening silent reading. I, always looking for ways to encourage such initiative, nevertheless said no. And I’m glad. We had a good time together with it.

Younger Daughter in particular loved Joining the Boston Tea Party, which features some kids whose grandmother takes them back in time to take part in the Boston Tea party. She wanted to hear it multiple times. I liked it too, but I have mixed feelings about books with both text and word bubbles. At least it was clear in what order to read the word bubbles in this one, but I still had my usual angst about creating enough different voices to represent the characters.

Okay, so this isn’t the book cover for Snowflake Bentley, a beautiful picture-book biography of Wilson Snowflake Bentley.  But in the early stages of his passion for crystals, he did recognize that snowflakes showed up best on a black surface. Katie, affectionately referred to as the abominable snow dog because she comes in covered with the stuff, represents just one way this book made an impression on us. Snow has always been magical. But we’ll never look at it without increased wonder after reading this Caldecott winner.

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That’s it for the reading noted in my title. A few more worthy of quick mention:

• When I was Young in the Mountains, a beautiful eulogy to a close-knit family and a way of life;
• The Finest Horse in Town, a recounting of the mythology surrounding a legendary gray horse;
• Mouse Tales, Mouse Soup, The Lion and the Mouse (read Amy’s review!), and Two Bad Mice.

These last few tales were in honor of last week’s unexpected visitor to our pantry in the middle of the day. It turned into quite the adventure and involved chasing the beady-eyed creature down the stairs and all around our walk-out basement for at least 10 minutes. I upsized my equipment from a Gladware container to the mop bucket to the wastebasket to a broom. Finally we three hollering ladies herded it, like any self-respecting family of border collie owners, out the back door.

They’re not nearly as cute as in the books. And they have a habit of running straight at you, just when you’re steeled to pounce. I can’t be murophobic, though, because I was still glad this bottom link in the food chain survived another day.

Visit Read-Aloud Thursday at Hope is the Word for more reading reports and ideas!

Tags: history living books, read-aloud thursday