Book Worms

Our homeschool review was today, which was so much better than last years.  I don't think I did that much different, I totally think it was my reviewer last year.  Anyway, we tried to keep track of all the books the kids read this year and I wanted to make a record of it.  So here it is:

Bailey’s Reading List

Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Prince Caspian

The Silver Chair

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Horse and His Boy

The Last Battle

The BFG

The Magician’s Nephew

George’s Marvelous Medicine

The Twits

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Moon Over Manifest*

Sherlock Holmes*

Aesop’s Fables*

Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nimh

Julie of the Wolves

Julie

Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Number the Stars

Caddie Woodlawn

Little House in the Big Woods

Streams to the River, River to the Sea

The History of Mankind*

The Great Brain

The Westing Game

The Missing Friend (American Girl Books)

Elijah of Buxton

The Best School Year Ever

The Phantom Toll Booth

Breadcrumbs

Tom Sawyer

The Indian in the Cupboard

Return of the Indian

Sideways Stories from Wayside School

Exploring the Solar System

The Whipping Boy

King of the Wind

Seven Wonders of Sassafrass Springs

Tale of Troy

Spy on the Home Front

Farmer Boy

Ramona the Pest*

Ramona the Brave*

Ramona and Her Father*

Ramona and Her Mother*

Ramona Quimby Age Eight*

Little House on the Prairie

Anne of Avonlea

Dead End in Norvelt

Bigger than a Breadbox

Bud Not Buddy

The Mighty Miss Malone

Mummies in the Morning

Written in Bone

Night of the Ninjas

Dinosaurs Before Dark

George Washington’s Socks

The Tale of Troy

Spy on the Home Front

Heart of a Samurai*

Hattie Big Sky*

Rascal

The Bad Beginning

The Reptile Room

The Wide Window

The Miserable Mill

The Austere Academy

The Ersatz Elevator

The Vile Village

The Hostile Hospital

The Carnivorous Carnival

The Slippery Slope

The Grimm Grotto

The Penultimate Peril

The End

Nature

Where the Red Fern Grows

Mrs. Frisbee and the Raths of NIHM

Old Yeller

Kneeknockrise

My Father’s Dragon

The Great Brain

The Indian in the Cupboard

Return of the Indian

Matilda

Fantastic Mister Fox

The Twits

George’s Marvelous Medicine

The BFG

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

James and the Giant Peach

Over Sea Under Stone*

Greenwitch*

The Dark is Rising*

The Grey King*

Silver on the Tree*

Hikaru No Go Graphic Novels:

1. Descent of the Go Master
2. First Battle
3. Preliminary Scrimage
4. Divine Illusions
5. Start
6. The Insei Exam
7. The Young Lion’s Tournament
8. The Pro Test Preliminaries: Day Four
9. The Pro Test Begins
10. Lifeline
11. Fierce Battle
12. Sai’s Day Out
13. First Professional Match
14. Sai vs. Toya Koyo
15. Sayonara
16. Chinese Go Association
17. A Familiar Face
18. Six Characters, Six Stories
19. One Step Forward
20. The Young Lions!
21. Great Expectations
22. China vs. Japan
23. Endgame

Abigail's Reading List

The BFG

Matilda

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

12 Dancing Princesses

Junonia*

Tale of Despereaux*

Caddie Woodlawn

Strider*

The Little House in the Big Woods

Adventures of Dr. Doolittle*

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever*

The Story of the Other Wise Man*

The Best School Year Ever

Farmer Boy

Little House on the Prairie

By the Shores of Plum Creek

Beezus and Ramona*

Over Sea Under Stone*

Greenwitch*

The Dark is Rising*

The Grey King*

Silver on the Tree*

Ramona the Pest*

Ramona the Brave*

Ramona and Her Father*

Ramona and Her Mother*

Ramona Quimby Age Eight*

Anne of Avonlea

Anne of Greengables

The Bad Beginning

The Reptile Room

The Wide Window

The Miserable Mill

The Austere Academy

The Ersatz Elevator

On the Shore of Silverlake

Little House in the Big Woods

The Secret Garden

Hikaru No Go Graphic Novels:

1. Descent of the Go Master
2. First Battle
3. Preliminary Scrimage
4. Divine Illusions

15. Sayonara

Once in a Lifetime

Okay, it was really twice, but it happens in twos and Lucy and Seth will probably only see it once since they weren't born last time it happened. It was such a big deal that my husband who hates cars and traffic was willing to drive for an hour chasing an opening in clouds to see it, and see it we did. Although I will have to grant that NASA had a much better view:

I love astronomy!

#14 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Perhaps reading this right now, with all that is going on with my family and me being on an emotional roller coaster wasn't the best idea, but it did what I wanted it to, gave me an escape.  Unfortunately, the emotions in the book only helped to exaggerate what I'm already feeling.


I was surprised by the course the book took.  Wasn't really expecting it.  At least not one of the story lines, the other one was rather predictable, but clever so I still liked it.


After reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" I researched more about it.  I knew that it had been written in Swedish and translated into English and that it had been published posthumously in the United States.  The original title, Män som hatar kvinnor, which translates to "men who hate women" is a much more descriptive title and gives one a better idea of what the book is about.  There are parts that are pretty graphic and it contains quite a bit of swearing, but neither are gratuitous.  The subject matter of the story is brought much more brightly out of the writing because of the graphic scenes, and the swearing seems appropriate given what the characters have to deal with.  You leave those scenes feeling the desperation of the situation, nor feeling as the though the author were trying to glamorize that kind of behavior.


I also sensed an underlying European-ness to the story.  I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it has a European flair to it.  The way the story unfolds and the way relationships are built relate very much to my experiences with German culture when I was in High School.


All in all I liked the book, it was engaging and really that's all I wanted at this point.  I'm planning to read the rest of the trilogy, but I'll wait for a while until my nerves are a little less frayed.

#13 Written in Bone

I picked up this one for Bailey.  He loves science and history, and I thought this would be a good way for him to see how science can work to help historians.

"Written in Bone" follows the story of the rediscovery of the original Jamestowne settlement, James Fort, the discovery of a body in the garbage cellar of the William Neale family, the triple lead casket burial in a church in Maryland, and a discussion of finds of particular interest.  The stories focus on what can be told about the people from their remains, which 400 years after the fact happen to be mostly bones.

It is fascinating to read about how they determine ancestry, which happens to deal with markers on the skull, how they figure out how long the settlers were here, which has to do with how much carbon-13 there is in the bones, and how much you can tell about disease from the bones, a baby that had rickets.
There is also discussion about how the anthropologists went about trying to match names with the remains.

The pictures in the book are amazing and the text is well written, exact but not overly technical.  I could imagine using this book during a history class, or as part of a science class.  Either way, it's pretty amazing what you can tell from a person's bones.