July is National Blueberry Month (yes, that’s a thing) so what better way to celebrate than by selecting an oldie but goodie for our July Kid’s Corner? E is four and a half and getting her excited about healthy foods can be a challenge. As an infant and toddler she ate almost everything but at age 3 she started protesting anything that wasn’t a carbohydrate. One thing that has been effective has been to take her to where her food comes from. We are members of a community farm share and, over the summer, we like to take her to pick her own foods. We’ve picked green beans, snap peas, cherry tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries, shell peas, bush beans, husk cherries, and tomatillos. But by far our favorite is blueberry picking. Blueberries are perfect for little fingers and are pretty versatile, thus easily integrated into a variety of foods.
So this month E and I reviewed Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. Keep reading to find out what E thought of the book. We’ll show you what we made with all the blueberries we picked (with recipe), and I’ll end by recommending some of my favorite books to teach young children about healthy foods. Read more
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably seen some of the controversy surrounding Go Set a Watchman. The “sequel,” released last week, was actually written prior to To Kill A Mockingbird and focuses on Scout as an adult. Harper Lee’s editor liked the childhood flashbacks in Go Set a Watchman and encouraged Lee to rewrite the book focusing on Scout as a child and, thus, To Kill A Mockingbird was born.
Rumors and speculation abound around the “newer” novel. The timing of the book’s release along with information about Lee’s ability to provide informed consent — a drastic shift in position after years of stating she never wanted to publish again — is shady to say the least. You can read more about that here. Lack of informed consent in publishing is not new. Kafka requested that his works be destroyed after his death and he was clear throughout his lifetime that he did not want them published. In addition to issues surrounding informed consent, other controversy surrounds Harper Lee. Some have said that Harper Lee didn’t really write TKAM but rather that the book was written, at least in part, by her childhood friend Truman Capote. The Wall Street Journal published a story about data miners who analyzed both books and debunked the idea that Capote wrote TKAM.
Rumors aside, was it any good? Keep reading to see our thoughts. Read more
Next up in our Life in Books series, it’s my turn to share a poem that I loved as a young child. Can you guess which one from the image? Keep reading to find out! Read more
This month’s featured author is another one of our favorites: Margaret Atwood. Atwood has a new book coming out September 29th titled, The Heart Goes Last. I literally did a happy dance around the house when I received an advanced copy of this book! I’ll be posting a review in September. Keep reading to learn more about Atwood and to see our rankings of her books. Read more
Welcome to our second guest review. Periodically, we will feature guest reviews and we will try to pick reviews for books and genres we don’t typically feature on our blog. For these posts, we will be picking books that our guest contributors have rated as among their favorites. We hope you that you enjoy these reviews and they lead you to pick up something new that you could also love. I’ll hand it off to Regina who will introduce herself and share one of her favorite non-fiction books. Read more
Pricksongs and Descants by Robert Coover
Published in: 1969
Reviewed by: Jen and Book Worm
Find it/Buy it here: Pricksongs & Descants
Synopsis (from Amazon): Pricksongs & Descants, originally published in 1969, is a virtuoso performance that established its author – already a William Faulkner Award winner for his first novel – as a writer of enduring power and unquestionable brilliance, a promise he has fulfilled over a stellar career. It also began Coover’s now-trademark riffs on fairy tales and bedtime stories. In these riotously word-drunk fictional romps, two children follow an old man into the woods, trailing bread crumbs behind and edging helplessly toward a sinister end that never comes; a husband walks toward the bed where his wife awaits his caresses, but by the time he arrives she’s been dead three weeks and detectives are pounding down the door; a teenaged babysitter’s evening becomes a kaleidoscope of dangerous erotic fantasies-her employer’s, her boyfriend’s, her own; an aging, humble carpenter marries a beautiful but frigid woman, and after he’s waited weeks to consummate their union she announces that God has made her pregnant. Now available in a Grove paperback, Pricksongs & Descants is a cornerstone of Robert Coover’s remarkable career and a brilliant work by a major American writer.
Book Worm and I feel very differently about this book. Keep reading to find out who loved it and who hated it. Read more
It’s time for a Summer Challenge update! Every two weeks or so we will be posting an update on the challenge along with some ideas for book locations. Still want to join? We will keep the challenge sign up open until the end of this month. You can learn more about our summer challenge here.
In each update, we will give an honorable mention to the reader who posts our favorite book-location pairing since time of last update. Keep reading to find out who is in the lead and to get some ideas for your book locations. Read more
We haven’t done one of these in a while so for those of you new to our blog… Our Life in Books is a recurring post where we both take you through books and literature that were either meaningful to us or contributed to who we are as readers today. We are starting with our early reading experiences in a range of genres and we’ll move forward in time with each successive post. You can check out our past posts here. BW picks it back up with poetry
Where is there a better source of morbid material than in the world of poems? My favourite poem of all time is the haunting The Listeners by Walter de la Mare.
I was introduced to this poem as 9/10 year old (lets admit it was so long ago I cannot accurately remember) when an enthusiastic teacher read it to the class and then tasked us with writing a back story for the horse man.
Here is the poem and if you are not intrigued and touched by the traveller then you are not human (just kidding):
The Listeners by Walter De La Mare
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest’s ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller’s head And he smote upon the door again a second time; ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said. But no one descended to the Traveller; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller’s call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, ‘Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:- ‘Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,’ he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.
For my back story, I imagined the traveller as a suitor to the lady of the house. Knowing he is not worthy of her, he leaves to make his fortune but promises to come back and claim her as his own. When he returns, she and her entire family have been wiped out by a plague (come on is that not a book you would read?)
The funniest thing I remember about the assignment was the back story invented by a male classmate. He imagined that the traveller was the milkman. Wow that is some dedicated milkman! You don’t get service like that nowadays!
To hear a rendition of this poem, see this youtube clip:
We have returned to Africa for our next stop on our world tour of reading. In scheduling these posts, I have realized that I really like African literature and both of us have read a fair amount of African literature this year. This month we are traveling to Zimbabwe! Keep reading to see which book we picked and what we thought. Read more
Synopsis (from Amazon): Erewhon (an anagram for “nowhere”) is a faraway land where sickness is a punishable crime, criminals receive compassionate medical treatment, and machines are banned (for fear they’ll evolve and become the masters of man). Butler’s entertaining and thought-provoking Utopian novel takes aim at such hallowed institutions as family, church, and mechanical progress; its remarkable prescience in anticipating future sociological trends adds a special relevance for today’s readers.
★ Hated it & no redeeming additional qualities noted. Recommend avoiding it.
★★ Disliked it, may have 1 redeeming quality (writing style, novelty, etc).
★★★ Liked it or may have a few interesting qualities.
★★★★ Really liked it & it has at least a couple interesting qualities.
★★★★★ Loved almost everything about it. Only a few, if any, minor limitations noted.
Book Worm’s rating system
★ Bah I really hated this would not even pass this to my worst enemy
★★ I really didn't like this but would consider giving it to my worst enemy for vengeful purposes
★★★ this was an enjoyable way to pass the time not great not horrendous
★★★★ really enjoyed this book there was something about it that made me think
★★★★★ wow I loved this book I am now out recommending it to all my friends, will keep to re read even though I have banned re reads
jenp27
Nicole Del Sesto
The Reader's Room 