Continuing with the Moffats - Books 29 and 30

We have thoroughly enjoyed reading Eleanor Estes books this spring.  We read her two books about the Pye  family.  We also read her book The Moffats. Now we've completed The Middle Moffat and are just about to finish up The Moffat Museum.  All these books are set in the town of Cranbury,  Connecticut a fictionalized New England town right around the time of World War I.  We were thrilled when Uncle Bennie Pye (a celebrity of sorts in the town because he was born an uncle) became friends with Rufus Moffat.  It is fun to pick up the cross-references in all the books.

These books make me nostalgic for childhood.  The children's adventures are not extraordinary but understated and so full of quiet humor and sweetness.  The chapter on Slyvie's wedding made me cry.

We highly recommend these charming books.

Go here for more 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Joan of Arc by Mark Twain-Book 28

This book took me so long to finish.  It really dragged out pitifully.  It was hanging over my head all month and I completely had to postpone my Poetic Knowledge Book Club stuff.  I just dropped out of that abruptly because for some reason I couldn't get through this book!  And I had to finish it as I was reading it with two high schoolers as well.

I am pleased to announce our victory!  We all completed the book and, even more, we all announced we thought it was a really great book!

Yup.  Mark Twain can really write.  He brings the character of Joan of Arc alive brilliantly.  She is real, human and holy at the same time.  The story is told through the eyes of her childhood friend and later page and secretary.  I loved that Mark Twain could write about a holy person so well.  I think that is the test of a great writer.  So often truly good people come off as sanctimonious or wimpy in the hands of a mediocre writer.  Twain also gets his trademark humorous characters in as well, mostly in the character of the Paladin and his comrade Noel who is always there to egg him on.  There are a host of other colorful characters as well.

I had tried to read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court last summer but I found it very anti-Catholic and thatt turned me off Twain.  Reading this book there is not a whiff of Anti-Catholicism so I think, perhaps, that Twain brilliantly was showing his Connecticut Yankee's prejudice and not his own.   I'm kind of in awe at how well and completely he can maintain a particular character's point of view.

The story of Joan of Arc is a curious one, how this ignorant peasant girl should rise to head the army of France to lead victory after victory, how she was captured and how the English and some particularly evil men of the church conspired against her.  Mark Twain spells it all out fully.

I am sorry I had such a bad attitude towards this book in the beginning.  I under-appreciated it at first but my appreciation grew as I continued reading and by the end of the book, I was glowing with it!

For more 52 Books in 52 Weeks go here.

Wednesday Photo

Our beautiful, sweet, smart, lovable Sheltie, Tillie.

Tuesday Photo

Candid shot:  Will's reading On the Road and Becky's reading her  Spider Magazine.

This week in photographs

In an attempt to get myself back to consistent blogging, I've decided to post a picture from each day of this week.

Here's Monday's:

Whiteboard art

Unschooling Highlights

Is today really Friday?  How did that happen?  This is just going to be a scattered remembrance of  what went on this week. . . . Let's see.

• Monday was Memorial Day.  We spent the weekend going to our local annual fair.  I think Saturday all five kids biked there (a couple of miles).  That's was kind of cool.  Hannah was the inspiration for this trek.  I think they all had fun.  On Monday itself, I can't remember much of anything except that Josh and I did our Latin homework.  I actually timed how long it took:  3 hours.  
• Rick relented about reading Harry Potter 5 to Becky.  They've been deep into it this week.  Becky is completely enthralled.
• Sean and I have taken walks almost every morning.
• Hannah is really into dieting and exercising.  She's met new people at her internship and has been going to daily mass.  There's a church a block and a half away from her office.  She's been reading up on euthanasia in the Netherlands.  Grim subject!
• Will has been watching lots of movies.  Two that he's talked about are Gone with the Wind and Love and Death (Woody Allen).
• Josh finished his Biology requirements.  He had gotten an incomplete for the class because he didn't turn in completed labs for the 3rd and 4th quarters, but he spent almost all day yesterday finishing that up.  So hopefully he'll get his grade.  Today is his last Biology study group.  Tomorrow he takes the SAT subject test in Bio.  Afterwards lots of kids are meeting at the Silver Diner to celebrate.
• Josh and I are still chugging through Joan of Arc.   Why is it taking us so long to read?????  It's really gumming up the works of my reading plans!
• Last night all the kids, sans Joshua, went to see Kung Fu Panda II.  They said it was much darker than the first one and not really as good.
• Yesterday Becky had a little girlfriend over to play.  It was so funny to hear them talking.  They were analyzing Shakespeare.  The little girl was talking about As You Like It but Becky wasn't familiar with that one.  Then they talked about how dumb Romeo and Juliet were, killing themselves and all and how the Capulets and Monagues were dumb to keep fighting like that.  Then they discuss Hamlet and how in tragedies everybody dies all the time.  Later on they were playing hangman with each other.  Very cute.
• We ran lots of errands this week, though we still need to get shoes/sandals.
• We might be breaking off from our too huge 4H group and forming one closer (in our little town instead of the next one over).  I am excited about the possibilities there.
• Sean and Becky have been working on math more this week in prep for CAT.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can remember right now!

Oregon Trail

Sean and I had a lot of fun playing Oregon Trail.  I've heard about this game for years now but never got it.  Sean got an app for my ipad a couple days ago and we sat down and played together last night.  We had fun.  Here's a link to a youtube review of the game.

Here's a link to the app itself.