Read, For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund
Very, very romantic, which is a good thing. Plus the writing is great. Though I'm not sure about rewrites of my favorite Jane Austen novel, but I put that aside the best I could... YA—for twelve and up I'd say. Getting great reviews. I really couldn't put it down, and yet still, I'm not sure. The original is simply so good—the most romantic love letter in all of literature lives inside those pages.
Read this book for yourself and decide (Especially if you haven't read Persuasion. Then read the real thing. Then watch the movies. In that order.)
Need a great nonfiction book for your kids of any age?
Give them,
Just a Second by Steve Jenkins (who I love)
I picked it out for Shaemus to read to me for homework. He ended up stopping in the middle of reading aloud, telling me he wanted to read it to himself, picking it up and wandering off to another couch where he could just stare at everything and wonder. It is full of unusual facts about time: a gnat beats its wings 1000 times in a second (how do they know that?), a vulture beats its wings just once in a second. In one day, humans use the equivalent of 60 Billion pieces of paper. I didn't think Shaemus would like it all that much, but he did.
Need a great nonfiction magazine to leave around the house in the hopes your older kids (10-14) will read it?
Muse. My kids love this science magazine. Mary who dislikes hard sciences greatly loves this science magazine. She told me the other day that they had the coolest pictures of orchids inside (she pronounced it or-chids with a chah sound, because we are not big gardeners around here. We would like to be big gardeners, but the soil in North Carolina is EVIL).
Calvin is loving Daniel Pinkwater and his book:
The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where TheyWent, and Went There (The Neddiad)
This book is completely weird. Daniel Pinkwater is always completely weird but awesome.
And Mary is loving Jane Eyre! I found some beautiful leather embossed classics at Costco for not too much money (he he). Mary needs nice, beautiful copies of classic novels for homeschool, I told myself to justify my purchases. Then I bought The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Great Expectations, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Jane Eyre.
She started with Jane Eyre, and I was worried she wouldn't like it. Mary does not like to push herself (have I mentioned that before?), and I read this book as a senior in high school.
She loves it. She loves it! She hasn't once complained about the language. I'd forgotten how good a story it is and how a good story can trump everything! (Take that you people that are so worried about children reading on their level!)
Oh, please go out right now and find good books for you and your kids. Have an evening snuggling on the couch or reading in bed all together. A quiet evening. Okay, this has never happened for me, but it sounds wonderful.
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