Summer has been quite dry here and yet the weeds in the
garden continue to grow. Thankfully so have the vegetables. I finally just
started requiring the munchkin spend 20 minutes weeding in the garden a day
without me looking over her shoulder. The plants are big enough that she won’t
mistake a weed for one.
My husband found this collection of short videos by the
London Philharmonica Orchestra. They are only 10 to 20 minutes long. He’s
having our daughter watch one every day to learn about all the instruments. She
balks at sitting down with them, but then she is fascinated by them. (I think
it’s partly the lovely accents.) Maybe she’ll have a choice for school in a
year or two?
One thing I am grateful for this summer is that my daughter
seems to have taken a much deeper interest in reading. It’s totally unexpected.
We started with anime and she has moved on to the things in her book case that she
never got around to reading. Frankly, I’m a little afraid she is going to run
out of things to read!
That got me started thinking about books I loved as a kid.
Then I started asking my family and friends about books they loved as a kid.
One of my favorites was The Mystery of the Crimson Ghost by
Phyllis A. Whitney. Like most teen girls, I was horse crazy. Of course, it didn’t
help that I grew up on the same street where they held horse auctions every
other Friday and I walked horses to cool them down after polo matches one year.
I spent years trying to find this book again because I didn’t have the
title quite right. I finally ran across it and found out it was by none
other than Phyllis Whitney. This was the perfect story for a horse crazed
teenager with a love of mysteries. Janey goes to visit her Aunt Viv on
summer vacation and sees a mysterious crimson ghost dog across the lake.
There’s also a beautiful horse across the lake. In order to ride
the horse, she’ll have to figure out the mystery surrounding the crimson ghost.
I’m hoping I can find a copy of it for her. I want to order
a few books to just have around that she “might” pick up. But, thankfully,
there’s also Overdrive through our library.
Here’s some from our Overdrive catalog that I’m looking
forward to (hopefully) getting her to read.
The Wishing Spell by Chris
Colfer
Alex and Conner Bailey's world is about to change, in this
fast-paced adventure that uniquely combines our modern day world with the
enchanting realm of classic fairy tales. The Land of Stories tells the
tale of twins Alex and Conner. Through the mysterious powers of a cherished
book of stories, they leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign
land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with the fairy tale
characters they grew up reading about. But after a series of encounters with
witches, wolves, goblins, and trolls alike, getting back home is going to be
harder than they thought.
The City of Ember by Jeanne
DuPrau
Since 2003, readers of all ages have been captivated by
Jeanne DuPrau's bestselling dystopian story about a doomed city and the two
children determined to escape it. Now new and old fans alike can
celebrate The City of Ember with this deluxe edition, which includes
an introduction by the author and a brand-new story!
Flush by Carl
Hiaasen
You know it's going to be a rough summer when you spend
Father's Day visiting your dad in the local lockup. Noah's dad is sure that the
owner of the Coral Queen casino boat is flushing raw sewage into the
harbor–which has made taking a dip at the local beach like swimming in a
toilet. He can't prove it though, and so he decides that sinking the boat will
make an effective statement. Right. The boat is pumped out and back in business
within days and Noah's dad is stuck in the clink.
Now Noah is determined to succeed where his dad failed.
He will prove that the Coral Queen is dumping illegally . . .
somehow. His allies may not add up to much–his sister Abbey, an unreformed
childhood biter; Lice Peeking, a greedy sot with poor hygiene; Shelly, a
bartender and a woman scorned; and a mysterious pirate–but Noah's got a plan to
flush this crook out into the open. A plan that should sink the crooked little
casino, once and for all.
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