Sometimes People March by Tessa Allen and Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice

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Sometimes People March

Sometimes People March, written and illustrated by Tessa Allen, 32 pages, published 2020

I thought this was a nice, easy book to introduce kids to the many reasons people protest and how. There is a double page spread of signs from different marches. The last few pages focus on how a march is started by one person who talks to another and another until there are enough of them to march together and lets kids know that person could be them. I also appreciated the index in the back with the specific marches each picture represented.

Gage’s thoughts…

There are many reason people march. People protest for clean water, freedom, the Earth and people they love. We also protest against litter. The most important thing I would march for is clean water

Something Happened in Our Town

Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice. Written by Michael Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard. Illustrated by Jennifer Zivion. 40 pages, published 2018

This book focuses on two families, one white, one black, in the aftermath of the police killing a black man. Not only is this a great way to see the perspective of different races to the tragedy, but also generations. Since we have talked about police shootings and protesting at different points over the summer we spent more time talking about how important it was to see a situation from a point of view that you couldn’t really understand completely, but one you could still respect and sympathize with. There were a lot of resource pages in the back for parents and teachers. The illustrations were gorgeous.

Gage’s thoughts…

What’s the point of the story?

You can change the world by doing little things. Black and white should be treated fairly, equally. They still aren’t though.

Who would you recommend this book to?

People who think everyone should be treated the same.

Have you ever seen racism?

Not that I remember in person, no.

Does that mean it doesn’t happen?

No.

Favorite part of the book?

When Emma and Josh became friends with Omad.

At the end what happened between Emma and Josh?

They worked together for the same purpose, to make a new friend.

Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea: Marie Tharp Maps the Ocean Floor by Robert Burleigh

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Gage has been obsessed with shipwrecks and sinking for a while. I thought the Titanic class would be good (and it was!), but it has ushered in a YouTube video obsession with all things sinking. Check out Cardboardia and know that he has watched these videos more than one time. So, I chose this book hoping it would help move his attention to something else. And I banned Cardboardia for the weekend to save my sanity.

Gage’s thoughts…

Marie Tharp loved to draw and figure out how the world worked. She used sounding, that is measuring the sound that goes to the bottom of the sea and bounces back, to confirm continental drift, the world land is splitting apart. She was treated differently because she was a woman (this was 1948) and was told she couldn’t go on a research ship because women were bad luck.

Thankfully, we live in different times and Gage didn’t understand the bias of women not being treated as equally smart as men. Every time it comes up in a book he makes sure to tell me how smart I am 😉

Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman and 20 Fun Facts About Stonehenge by Michael Sabatino

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I’ll be honest, I have no idea what’s going on with this new WordPress editor, so I’m trying this Instagram block for fun. You can see Gage with the last two books. We can always be friends on IG too, come on over and say hi.

Anyway, since this is a trial post to see how this works I’ll keep it short.

Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Divya Srinivasan

Gage’s thoughts…

Cinnamon lives in a castle and she cannot see or speak. She’s surrounded my jungle and mountains. There were prizes of a parrot, picture of an aunt and mango groves if you could get her to talk. The tiger shows up. He says he eats humans. The tiger was going to make Cinnamon speak. First, he tried pain, then terror, and then love. He got her to speak. He got the prizes but gave them to the village and he and Cinnamon walked into the jungle.

20 Fun Facts About Stonehenge by Michael Sabatino

Gage’s thoughts…

Stonehenge is between 5,000 and 3,500 years old. It was built so it lines up with the sun on the longest and shortest days of the year. One of the wild theories is that aliens from other world visited Earth and helped make it. They found skeletons buried there so it may have been a graveyard. The smaller stones came from a quarry in Pont Saeson, Wales (160 miles away). I would love to visit Stonehenge because it looks col and I want to study the rocks.

He also read

The Prehistoric Planet (Galaxy Zack, #3)
Around the Clock
How to Read a Book
In the Night Kitchen

The Seed of Compassion: Lessons from the Life and Teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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IMG_5708 (2)The Seed of Compassion.  Illustrated by Bao Luu.  40 pages.  Published 2020.

We read a Bible worksheet every morning to start our lessons and we follow it up with Mindful Movements from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book for kids.  This was a nice book to read right after that to solidify positive thoughts to start our day.  The Dalai Lama talks about his mother and how she taught compassion from the heart in the short years he lived with her before being chosen as the next Dalai Lama at four years old.  I love when books open up discussions that let me know what’s going on in that big brain of his and this one did that.

Gage’s thoughts… 

This is a memoir.

The Dalai Lama is the head of Buddhism.

Compassion is caring for one another.

This passage sums up the book…

“But only humans have the ability, with discipline and effort, to train the mind.  It’s what makes us different from all other animals.  It is our superpower.  And it is where the seed of compassion thrives.”  pages 32

I’d recommend this book because he’s a good person.

 

He also read to me Love which was pretty sweet.

 

The Secret Cave: Discovering Lascaux written and illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully

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IMG_E5693 The Secret Cave.  40 pages. Published 2010.

We’re studying ancient history and took this tour (watch it, so cool!) of Lascaux last week.  I was excited to find a book about the discovery of this cave, by four boys and a dog, no less!  I liked the cave map, the illustrations and the last two pages of the real story best.  The story in the book was okay, but could have better appealed to kids, I think.

Gage’s thoughts…

Main characters- Jacques, Jojo, Simon, and Marcel

This book is fiction based on real people.

Four boys find a cave under a fallen tree.  They went in to search for gold.  They found lots of cave art.  Marcel wanted to keep it a secret, but it wasn’t a secret for long.  Too many kids knew so they had to tell their teacher.  The teacher was amazed.  Their discovery was put in newspapers all around the world.

My favorite part is the illustrations.

I would recommend this book to people who like history.  I’m glad I read this book because I learned a lot.

 

We also read Life in the Stone Age: DK Readers L2 and Isle of You.  Gage appreciates me having younger books like the Isle of You around when he has to read to me.  I don’t mind.  Surprisingly, he liked the whimsy of it and making an Isle of Gage is something going on our schedule this week 🙂

My 30 Day Challenges is No More

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When Jason and I started a blog together a few years ago we had some fun ideas.  What could you accomplish in 30 days?  We did a few together (a documentary a day being one) and Jason teaching himself the piano in 30 days was my all-time favorite.  My favorite personal challenge was my very first one and one I still do every September, read a book a day.  I also did write a novel in 30 days and haven’t looked at it since.

Anyway, it just never turned into what we had envisioned it to be.  It kind of sat there taking up too much space in my head.  When it came time to renew the domain name today I chose not to do it.  I don’t regret letting all of the good stuff go poof! in the night along with the rest.  It’s not where I’m at right now and it’s not how I want to be spending my time.

But, I will be moving some challenges over here, most specifically my September book a day challenge.  But now that I’m homeschooling Gage I don’t have time to read a book a day, not even a short one, so we’ll be posting reviews of the books we finish every day with Gage being responsible for most of the content.  These are mainly going to be picture books but they’ll be others too.  Going from book to blog is going to be a part of his homeschool this month so we’ll see how he progresses.  He excited to participate here, among friends.  See you in the morning with our first post!

This Week(s) – School has begun

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Fave pic – IMG_E5658 We finished our first full week of homeschool and he still loves me.  I’ll take that as a win.

Highlights of the last few weeks…What a blur they have been!  We started homeschooling on Monday and it’s been an learning and stressful week for both of us.  He gets frustrated when I expect too much from him and I get frustrated because I’m not sure how much to push.

We had one morning that was a total bust with tears, but I put us both in time out and after lunch pulled out something I had saved for a rainy day.  We read The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon. We went online and learned about some of the things the Audubon society is doing for birds and nature today, bought a few things from their store in support, used the book How Many Guinea Pigs Can Fit on a Plane to figure out how many birds it would take to fly off with Gage (about 960 hummingbirds or 6 eagles) and how many twigs are in their nests.  And then I gave him the Lego set I had up my sleeve of three different birds to build.  We both had a reset and he had a great two days after.  Sometimes you just have to go with it.

Also, homeschool related because that’s what’s going on right now, I signed him up for his first Outschool class on Zoom and he loved it!  It was about the Titanic and it was 55 minutes every night this past week.  On Friday they had to give a short presentation on the passenger they chose.  It was good for him and I’d like to do one a month.  They have hundreds of class offerings and they’re very affordable.

I had planned the first 30 days of homeschool, but after the first week have decided to drastically alter how we’re doing things, lol.  As part of  this redo Gage will be providing a review of a picture book we read every day in September.

Books we finished in homeschool the last two weeks…IMG_E5659 I’m so glad that he loved Bunnicula as much a I did. IMG_5611 Water Protectors was great.

Currently reading…The Stone Girl Dance Away with Me

Currently listening…61 Hours (Jack Reacher, #14)

Reviews posted…Evvie Drake Starts Over,  Gone Tomorrow, This Blessed Mess (my favorite of this list), H is for Homicide.

On the TV…We watched the first season of The Umbrella Academy on Netflix and really liked it.

Movies watched…Da 5 Bloods poster.jpeg Watched this mainly because it had Chadwick Boseman in it. I’m so sad that he is gone so young.  The Kissing Booth 2 poster.jpg

Plans for the weekend…since I’m switching things up for homeschool I’m swamped with planning yet again.  Gage has two doctor’s appointments this week, one virtual, one in person.  That should be fun.

Stay well, my friends.

 

 

 

 

 

H is For Homicide by Sue Grafton

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H Is for Homicide H is For Homicide. Finished audio 8-12-20, 3/5 stars, mystery, pub. 1991

Kinsey Millhone series 1-A is for Alibi, 2-B is for Burglar, 3- C is for Corpse, 4- D is for Deadbeat  5-E is for Evidence 6-F is for Fugitive 7-G is for Gumshoe

It started with the murder of Kinsey Millhone’s sometime drinking buddy, an insurance claims adjuster. But before long Kinsey stumbles onto a massive insurance scam. Going undercover as a wisecracking vamp, Millhone descends into the Los Angeles nether world of machismo and gang hideouts. Her companion, terrified at having crossed the violent crook Raymond Maldonado, is Bibianna Diaz — no Girl Scout herself.   from Goodreads

I love Kinsey and this one was okay, but she did seem to reach beyond her talents by going undercover, inadvertently really, for the police.  I was worried for her, but also questioned why she didn’t just walk away from a very dangerous situation.  I really like this series, even though some of it feels dated.  Kinsey is ahead of her time so she remains just right for any time period.

 

This Blessed Mess: Finding Hope Amidst Life’s Chaos by Patricia Livingston

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This Blessed Mess: Finding Hope Amidst Life's Chaos This Blessed Mess. Finished 8-7-20, inspirational, 5/5 stars, 141 pages, pub. 2000

This is a book about struggle. It is about how struggle overtakes us without our permission. It is about what lies within struggle and beyond it. It is about what we can do with struggle and what it can do with us. Material for this book has been gathering in me for thirty-five years, since I first faced reality as a young adult and strained to comprehend the dynamics of life’s difficulty. I write out of my experience, recognizing clearly that my life has been far less painful than the lives of so many around the world and across time. This book is simply an expression of my effort to understand my own events, shared in the hope that it might speak to the lives of others. A collection of what is especially meaningful to me is offered here–insights and images from my own life, from study and conversation, from songs and books. Mostly there are stories. All of them point to the same thing: Life is filled with struggle. Struggle is filled with Love. Life is, as the title says, “This Blessed Mess.”   from Goodreads

I used this as my morning devotional and it is a perfect read for this time in history, even though it was published in 2000.  I mean it’s all about dealing with chaos and it speaks to the crazy times we’re living in.  Livingston tells stories about her own chaos and how that led her to new discoveries and insight.  This would be beneficial for any woman, but especially those who like their inspirational stories told from a Christian viewpoint.

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child

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Title: Gone Tomorrow (Jack Reacher Series #13), Author: Lee Child Gone Tomorrow. Finished 8-7-20, 3.5/5 stars, thriller, pub. 2009

#13 of the Jack Reacher series (1-Killing Floor, 2- Die Trying, 3 – Tripwire, 4 – Running Blind, 5 – Echo Burning, 6 – Without Fail, 7 – Persuador, 8 – The Enemy, 9 – One Shot, 10 – Hard Way, 11-Bad Luck and Trouble.  12-Nothing to Lose )

Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of tell-tale signs. Mostly because they’re nervous. By definition they’re all first-timers.

There are twelve things to look for: No one who has worked in law enforcement will ever forget them.

New York City. The subway, two o’clock in the morning. Jack Reacher studies his fellow passengers. Four are OK. The fifth isn’t.

The train brakes for Grand Central Station. Will Reacher intervene, and save lives? Or is he wrong? Will his intervention cost lives – including his own?   from Goodreads

I’m a Reacher fan and I loved the hook.  He identified a suicide bomber but tragedy still struck.  What came after was a war-time backstory and a senator ready to run for President.  I listened to this one and there were some very disturbing images that will be stuck in my mind forever and I’m not happy about it.  This was not even close to being a favorite even with the subway scene and NYC and Washington DC setting.