Archive for the ‘read it’ Category

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of reading aloud The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy to my girls. We are nearly to the end of the book and the girls and I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

It’s a sweet tale of four very clever, self-sufficient sisters and their summer vacation.  The Penderwick girls’ mother died when the youngest sister was a baby.  The girls have learned to care for each other with the help of their kind though somewhat absent-minded father.  Each of the girls have wonderfully distinctive personalities and interests.   And I love the sense of family pride and honor each of the girls have.

The adventures in the book are decidedly ordinary, but they are told with such insight that they seem like grand adventures.  And isn’t that exactly how childhood is?  You don’t need to ride a camel across the Gobi desert to have an adventure…. as a child, you just need to search for a lost rabbit or climb a tree to escape from a cruel landlady.  The Penderwicks has left us wanting to read just one more page… Pleeeease.  And I know we will all be sorry to have this wonderful story come to an end.

Since I mention great read aloud books for girls, I have to share one of my very favorites: The Ordinary Princess. I loved this book when I was young and I could hardly wait to read it aloud to my girls.

It is a story of a young princess who is the seventh princess in a family of lovely princesses… each one more beautiful and more perfect than the last.  She is expected to be the most splendid princess of all.   That is, until a fairy godmother comes to her christening and gives her the magical gift that she should be ordinary.

While the gift of ordinariness shocks and dismays her family, the ordinary princess, Amy, grows up to be a delightful girl.  She has none of the qualities valued in a princess, she has mouse brown hair and freckles and would rather climb trees than play the harp.  But rather than being cool and austere like her sisters, Amy is lively, quick-witted, and kind.  When her parents attempt to marry her off to a stuffy prince, she runs away… and has adventure and in the end she falls in love with someone as ordinary and extraordinary as she is.

I love the values this book teaches.  You don’t need to look or be what our society thinks is perfect.  The way to happiness is to be true to your self.  There are gifts whose value is far above physical beauty.

Every year,  since my husband and I were married we have bought a new Christmas book.

We’ve bought some wonderful books over the years, but Red Ranger Came Calling by Berkeley Breathed is one of our most beloved books.

My husband won’t be happy that I’m writing about this, but he gets choked up every time he reads Red Ranger aloud to the kids.  (Personally, I think it’s because he sees himself in the main character of the book… Prickly.)

It’s a tale about a cynical young boy named Red and his skepticism of the existence of Santa Claus.  As Red says, “… a kid’s life was one long opportunity for having the rug pulled out from below him at every step.  Myself, I was determined to stay on my feet.”

The story is set during the Great Depression and the struggles of those times are woven deftly into the plot.  As are themes of resourcefulness, gratitude and faith.  Red wants nothing more (or less) than a bicycle.  Well not any bycicle, but a “Buck Tweed Two-Speed Crime-Stopper Star-Hopper Bicycle…. but it was 1939, and although Christmas Eve had arrived, dreams were unaffordable.”

This book is as witty and funny as it is wise.  And in the end, Red discovers sometimes our dearest wishes are granted… just not the way we expected.  When the last pages are read, I challenge even the most cynical reader not to feel a bit of wonder and even hope at this delightful story.