Schooling, Audio and More...

After a few days/weeks of total chaos, school has finally begun for everyone in my household. The private school likes to mess things up and start one day after the public, therefore messing up my babysitting schedule. Anyway,....this year I am: a yoga student, a teacher, a mom, a wife, a Daisy leader, a department chair,a book reader and reviewer, a person vying for a position on a book award committee, a tennis player,a small business owner, an oblate, a soccer mom, a critic teacher and many, many others. So, things have been a bit crazy around here.

I did get time to finish the 7th 39 Clues Book: The Viper's Nest. Yes, I'm a bit behind, but I have the rest waiting in a stack. We're half way through Book 8, eagerly awaiting 9 and 10. When are the movies going to begin? If there was ever a series written to be made into films, this one is it! Sometimes I get bogged down with all of the information in this series, but I do have a prediction as to what Amy and Dan are looking for. This is a must read-aloud for building predicting skills with kids. I read Book 1- The Maze of Bones to struggling readers last year and they loved it. The action makes the series incredibly appealing. Additionally, I am really enjoying the audio versions on my walks around the neighborhood. The narration is well-paced and the voices are wonderful considering all of the characters in the series.

Reading Lately....

So, this is one of the books my daughter and I read together and I have to say that Scholastic has a winner with this one in the tween set. Orphans Dan and Amy Cahill are in a race with the rest of their extended family to find the secret to the "family treasure". We loved roaming all over America and Paris with the duo. Lots of action for kids and edge of your seat kind of suspense. I personally loved the fact that Dan and Amy took their babysitter with them so they technically wouldn't be without an adult on their travels. While this one was done by Rick Riordan, the next one, due out on Dec. 2, is written by Gordon Korman, a perennial favorite of mine.




We also read this one together and it got the 8 year-old interested in historical fiction, which has also been a favorite of mine. Though there was lots of gore and death, it seemed the extreme realism didn't bother her enough not to pick up another Dear America book right away for her Historical Fiction book project.





I am re-reading The Boy in Striped Pajamas because the movie is coming out soon and also because I'm writing a district unit for our historical fiction genre study.