What My Children Are Reading - 4/2/11

Like all good Texans (some good Texans? or at least the ones who like to read?), we're making headway into this year's Bluebonnet nominees. If you're not a Texan, the Bluebonnet Award was established in 1979 to encourage Texas children to read more books, explore a variety of current books, develop powers of discrimination, and identify their favorite books. (Yes, I borrowed that directly from their website.)

Kids who read at least 5 of the current year's titles can vote on their favorite one. The last two winners, The Uglified Ducky by Willy Claflin (in 2010) and Help Me, Mr. Mutt! by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel (in 2009), were high on our lists. Faith and I were also very partial to Martina the Beautiful Cockroach by Carmen Deedy from the 2009 list.

Two years ago, we read 14 of the 20 (and I read an additional two others that caught my eye but were too old for Faith), while last year we only managed 10 of 20 due to length, age level, and interest level.

We're starting again with a new list and going to try to add a few per week to our reading list. Our first three choices were:

Imogene's Last Stand
Imogene's Last Stand by Candace Fleming - Yes, we've read this before and it made one of our "What We're Reading" lists last year, but Faith & I loved it, so we're including it again. Imogene is a little girl who loves all things history, and is in a fight against her town to save the local historical society from becoming a shoelace factory.

Louisa: The Life of Louisa May Alcott
Louisa: The Life of Louisa May Alcott by Yona Zeldis McDonough - This one is a longer picture book that tells the life of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women. Faith read one of my old copies of Little Women awhile back, so we both really enjoyed this one. I hadn't realized that Little Women was loosely based on her own life, and Faith was quite delighted with that information.

Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse
Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer - This was a truly unique find this week. The entire book is fairy tales told in reversible poetry. Read down one side first, then reverse the order to read the opposite view, F&B were laughing quite a bit because the opposite view often comes from the fairy tale villian. I can't imagine the talent and patience it takes to be able to reverse one's writing into a second coherent verse.

We did read a bunch of other things this week--plenty of other library books (several series ones for Faith, random fun stuff for Ben), but none that stuck out as much as the Bluebonnet selections. We'll share more next week too, can't wait to see how many of the 20 we make it through this year!

Comments

  1. Those books all sound great. I really want to look for Mirror Mirror for my daughter.

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  2. Loved Imogene. I still need to check out Mirror Mirror.

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  3. Oh, Mirror Mirror sounds pretty interesting! Thanks for joining WMCIR!

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  4. We are reading Evolution of Calpurnia Tate right now. It is fabulous! I think it is on the Lone Star Reading List maybe?
    We are doing it for the book club at the Amon Carter Museum.

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