Belated Thanks

[alikander]

As usual, I am apologizing for being slow to respond.

Thank you to all who commented on my request for chapter books--on or off LJ. I confess I was rather overwhelmed by all the Ps: Poppletons, Putters, Poppers, Penguins, Pippys, etc. It took me awhile to force myself to sit down and sort them all out. However, I have done so, and, given the time of year, made an Amazon list for use by family members. (After the holidays, I'll turn to the library to fill in the gaps, hhw.)

In the meantime, I turned to items on hand. I considered Charotte's Web, but I felt that the opening, with Fern being so upset by the imminent dispatch of the runt, would be too traumatic. I then grabbed Little House in the Big Woods, but in a rush, needing a book right away, without pre-screening it as I should have.

I was part way into the first chapter with Fiona, before I realized that it starts with slaughtering their hog for the winter. D'oh! However, LHitBW handles this without the emotional upheaval of CW, so it didn't upset Fiona. Instead, she was fascinated for a few days by the idea of bladders (Laura and Mary get the pig's bladder to play with). It was a great opening for talk of anatomy; they have a nice human torso model in her classroom which came in very handy.

Anyway, Fiona mostly enjoyed LHitBW, especially the Christmas and party chapters, but ran out of interest for the last chapter or two. We've gone back to shorter form books for now (last night was The Sleep Book), but it was good to get a break from the usual books for awhile.

Comments

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

I never did answer that post, did I?

Maggie's first chapter book was "The Mouse and the Motorcycle," and it's gotten us started on others. She LOVED the Catwings books by Ursula LeGuin. Now we're reading Little House books, although I've told Eric that we're going to have to wait til she's a little older for some of them. I'm not ready to read to her about Jack dying yet. But we've read Big Woods, Prairie, and now we're reading Farmer Boy, which is one of my favorites because of all of the FOOD! But it's long, and Maggie has a hard time paying attention to it. I'm sure we'll read these again in a couple of years. Meantime, I'd love to see your list, because we're going to need some more soon. :)

[alikander.livejournal.com]

Farmer Boy was my favorite, too. I preferred its more civilized setting. Although, I just discovered that when they talk about it taking place in "upstate New York," they meant WAY upstate NY, like North of the Adirondacks, practically in Canada.

I'll email you a link to my Amazon list, so you can see the books, if you can see past the pink Corolle clothes.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

I actually loved the "untamed wilderness" settings of the Little House books, enough that I thought someday I wanted to live in the middle of nowhere. Imagine my surprise when I moved to Los Angeles in my 20's and loved it more than anyplace I'd ever been! I think maybe I didn't understand myself very well as a middle-schooler. Does that happen? (-: How did you find out where they were in upstate NY?

Pink Corolle clothes! We need some of those too!!! I was just wondering if there's a way to get those on an Amazon wishlist. Cool. (Got the message, BTW, thanks! Off to go check the link....)