Homeschool Discoveries

Miss M and I finished Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes a few days ago.   This Newberry Award-winning story tells the story of a family and their very smart pup named Ginger.   Mystery and intrigue surround Ginger from the time he is purchased as an “unsavory character” seems to be spying on him and his master, Jerry.   Ginger soon goes missing, presumably stolen by the unsavory character.

While the overall premise of the book is that of a mystery story (and Jerry, along with his sister Rachel, go to great lengths through the book to investigate what might have become of Ginger), there are also a lot of little vignettes that give back-story and depth to the characters.  I had mixed feelings about this as I read.  On one hand, these little sub-stories were often funny or cute.  On the other hand, I found myself thinking, “just get to the point already”.  I really wouldn’t have missed many of them.

Overall, Miss M and I definitely enjoyed Ginger Pye, but I have enjoyed many of our other bedtime read-alouds from the past few months to an even greater degree.

Our new bedtime read-aloud is The Saturdays.  We’re three chapters into that one, and so far I am liking it a lot!

Favorite Picture Books This Week:

I’m not sure exactly which book was Mr. E’s favorite this week, and Mr. K spent the week asking for “Chuggington” and “Cars” books again.  But hands down, my favorite picture book we read this past week was 11 Experiments that Failed by Jenni Offill.  This book is hilarious.   In this story, a curious young scientist tries out some interesting theories, with even more interesting results.  Everyone in our family was laughing at this story.

Kids who are fans of Mo Willem’s Elephant and Piggy books would probably also enjoy I’m a Shark by Bob Shea — the style is a bit similar.  This one had the boys and I laughing a lot too.  It features a shark with some attitude who might, just might have some issues with spiders.

I really liked the illustrations in Road Work Ahead by Anastasia Suen.  The text was pretty average — a simple story in rhyme about various kinds of road construction.  But the pictures were so cute I was actually distracted from the text as I tried to spot various animals that appeared on most of the pages.  My favorite — a chicken who peeks out behind a pole where a “lost pet chicken” sign is posted and is seen on a later page “crossing the road”, of course!

I’m linking up with Read Aloud Thursday @ Hope is the Word!