Reading

In the county in which we live, the schools assign all children reading homework each day. My 1st grader is supposed to read 15 minutes a day and my 6th grader is supposed to read for 20 minutes a day. I am very fortunate that both boys are avid readers so there is no challenge in getting this task accomplished.

I split the reading time with my 1st grader. He reads a few pages and I read a few pages until he is done. I've read some very interesting books with him. This is a brief overview.

If I could, I would call Dav Pilkey, bake him huge cake and give him a big hug for creating his Captain Underpants series. We tried to get our youngest to read the books his brother had enjoyed at his age, like the Magic Treehouse series. Though the series offers a wide range of topics, I think he quickly grew bored with the books' formulas.

One day, he picked up Captain Underpants at the library and sat down and paged through it. He was enthralled. He paged through, giggling at the drawings and the crazy antics of the main characters, Harold and George. Within about 6 weeks, we had completed the entire series of books. I no longer heard my son tell me that it was too hard to try new words. All I had to say was, "Dav Pilkey wouldn't have put that word in this book if he didn't think you could read it." I did get an occasional, "Stupid Pilkey," in reply, but he did keep going.

Many people are opposed to the whole graphic novel genre. To those of you who think that graphic novels are glorified comic books and have no literary value, I offer you this: They will get the most unwilling reader to read and that is the most important thing. There are words on a page and as much as we would all like our 7 year olds to read Tolstoy, it isn't likely to happen. Get them going on something that entertains, discuss the book with them and you will be giving them skills that they will apply when they are ready to read Tolstoy.

Stay tuned to this space for more children's book recommendations. Enjoy your day!

Back Again

Being a person who enjoys the approval of others, I was pushed away from my blog by excessive negative feedback on blogs in general. I didn't want to be perceived as "that person" who had to tell everyone every little thing about themselves. But, I missed my opportunity to share and converse about events that I find interesting. So I am back.

I will not bore you with my opinion of the economy today except to say that it is bad and I am tired of turning on the TV and radio and hearing about how bad it is. I will wear my rose colored glasses and try to remain optimistic. This mess was not created in a day and it will take time to resolve.

Moving on to more interesting things, I am still finding time to read and have been reading and pondering a work by Reginald Hill called "The Price of Butcher's Meat." It's a classic British mystery with the crusty police officer, the overbearing heiress and a huge cast of characters. The first part of the book is written in two narrative styles, the first is a series of emails from one sister to another, and the second is the recordings of the convalescing crusty cop. I enjoyed the different perspectives the two characters provided about the others in the story but there was one element of the narratives that bothered me. In the emails, the author used misspellings and poor punctuation all the time. I have to wonder why this is an acceptable literary device? My son has a teacher who sends email that are completely void of capital letters and have limited punctuation. I know that if my son turned in any assignments in this format, his grades would suffer. Have text messaging, IM, Facebook and other social networking made standard written English a thing of the past? I hope not.

One more comment on the book. I don't think I should have to wait 150 pages for a murder. I would rather have the murder earlier on, especially since the author gave little in the way of character development to the victim that would have made me feel that the murder of this person was forthcoming. I got that the victim was mean-spirited, controlling and manipulative but that, for me, was not enough cause for the murder.

I have also maintained time in my schedule cook. I am so happy that eating home-cooked meals is the new chic thing to do. I am a Recessionista and I don't even know it!

I was conned by Oprah into making sweet potato fries. I coated them with olive oil, cinnamon, sugar and salt and put them in a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes. They were very flavorfull but not crispy at all. They were simply julienned sweet potatoes. I was very disappointed until I read about the the experiences others were having with these little gems. Evidently, it turns out that sweet potatoes are too high in water to ever crisp as fries. But you can get them to crisp as thinly sliced crisps. Slice them thin, spread them evenly on a greased pan, salt them, and bake them at 200 degrees for 45 minutes. Check them for crispiness and repeat (without adding any more salt) for another 45 minutes. Homemade potato chips are very yummy. If you haven't tried it, you should.

That's all for now. Enjoy your day.