Thursday, August 16, 2007

Summer Reading

From an Unschooling Yahoo group I read suggestions for the following books and checked them out right away from the library.....

Surviving the Applewhites, by Stephanie S. Tolan
I enjoyed this book a lot. I liked the conflict between the characters.
My favorite part was when he realized that no one cared that he was spiking his red hair everyday and that it really was a lot of upkeep and work each morning. Then he realized that no one cared about his black clothes & jacket which was too hot to wear nor did they care about the rude sayings on his shirt.
I also like how he helped with the caterpillar situation in the garden, thus creating the butterflies on display for the son.

Carry on Mr. Bowdwitch, by Jean Lee Latham and John O'Hara Cosgrave II
I liked this book a lot too. He was a brilliant man. I enjoyed the parts where he wanted to learn something, so he found books and copied them, then translating a book to learn Latin going on to learn other languages the same way.
My favorite part was when he was so emotional (when normally so calm) about the tables being wrong in their calculations. He was so dedicated to mathematical perfection. (that's why I like math, only right or wrong answers)

Cheaper by the Dozen, by Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
This book was pretty good. I think the old movie, which I like and have seen several times, did a good job of following the book. So it was easy to picture the events because they are in the movie. (the OLD movie, Clifton Webb & Myrna Loy, not new the Steve Martin one.)
There are a few more events and more descriptive parts to the babies and childcare in the book.
I enjoyed when the mother took all of the kids on a railroad trip across the country to see her parents. That was quite an undertaking and adventure. Also, like in the movie, when the birth control woman comes calling and is exasperated to see that she had been tricked when the 12 kids come running through at the father's call.

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