Last Week's Library Haul Vol. 1

Last week I celebrated my birthday and my only real birthday wish was to go to the library and pay some overdue fines I had been avoiding for years.  This allowed me to reactivate my library card, and allowed Little Ish and Lily to get their own library cards.  I forgot how much I enjoyed libraries, and am very excited to be back in the business of borrowing books.  The kids are just as excited.

Ish and I have decided that as a way of getting in the habit of using our library that we will be making a weekly library trip as a family. I will be documenting what the kids and I are checking out as a sort of weekly project.  Mostly this is for my record keeping purposes, but I though it might also provide other people with ideas of what they or their children might want to read next.

Little Ish checked out:
In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories  retold by Alvin Schwartz
Little Ish declared certain stories in this early reader book too creepy for him not because of the text necessarily but because of the pictures.  He thinks perhaps listening to the CD recording of this right before a nap also was not a wise idea.

My First Ghost by Maggie Miller and Michael Leviton
Apparently, Little Ish was on a ghost kick last week.  This book however was a very sweet and funny story of what it is like to have your own [friendly] ghost.  Little Ish declares this one a good book and thought it was silly and fun.

Pokémon Watch Out for Team Galactic by Michael Teitelbaum
Due to all the hype about Pokémon Go, Little Ish has been very interested in Pokémon as of late.  This DK Early Reader happened to be on his reading level.  He said he liked the book because he got to learn about a bunch of different Pokémon characters that he didn't know about before.

Liliana checked out:
Apples and Oranges: Going Bananas with Pairs by Sara Pinto
This picture book is a hoot and it is a shame that it is out of print.  All of the kids enjoyed reading this book.  If you like elephant jokes, you will probably like this book.

Brave Potatoes by Toby Speed
Lily really enjoyed this book, but as the ones reading this book aloud Ish and I found the cadence to be a little bit off and therefore difficult to read.  Overall, I found this quirky book to be just okay.

Birds of a Feather: A Story About Telling the Truth by Cynthia Stierle
This book was a completely lackluster book involving the characters from Disney's Aladdin. It didn't even really meet the goal set forth in its subtitle.

Atticus checked out:
Peek! A Thai Hide and Seek by Minfong Ho Illustrated by Holly Meade
This book was completely charming.  The illustrations match the playful tone of the book.  It seems to be aimed at the 2-5 yearold crowd.  Although this book was checked out for Atticus, it was Lily who had me read this book to her every day this past week.  It is surprising that this book is no longer in print.

Race from A to Z by Jon Scieszka
I really liked this Trucktown alphabet book but Atticus wouldn't even look at it.  It is well done, but I think it really depends upon the kid whether or not it is a worthwhile book to check out.

The family checked out:
Everything On It by Shel Silverstein
I checked this out for us to use at poetry teatime.  As is usual with Shel Silversteins poetry,  it didn't disappoint.  A few times during the week, Little Ish picked this one up and read several of the poems aloud to me while I nursed Zélie.

Bananas in My Ears By Michael Rosen Illustrated by Quentin Blake
This book of stories and poetry delighted the kids all week.  Little Ish was a huge fan of the Nat and Anna stories, and I particularly enjoyed the What If poems.  I wouldn't be surprised if we check this out again in the future.

I checked out:
The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber
I read a few reviews of this book recently and thought it might have helpful advice now that Ish and Lily are getting more interested in money and how it works.  I am still working on reading this book, and already it has given me a lot to think about.  I am excited to implement a couple of the ideas I found in this book.

What have you checked out of the library lately?  Any good book recommendations?

Boston at Twilight

When we were visiting my family, I took the opportunity to walk down to the water one night at twilight.  The sole purpose of this outing was for me to capture photos of the Boston skyline.  It was a fun challenge for me as I don't often work with slow shutterspeeds and tiny apertures.  In an ideal world, I would have used a tripod and would have fired the shutter remotely; in my not so ideal world I used fence posts and hoped that I didn't shake the camera too much while releasing the shutter.  Overall, I am pretty happy with how these turned out.

A Dream Come True

There are matchbox car kids and dinosaur kids; there are outerspace kids and knights of the round table kids, and then there are basement guy kids.  Atticus is my basement guy kid.  First off , a basement guy is Atticus's word for all guys who ride trucks, climb ladders, and use machinery.  Construction workers are basement guys.  Landscapers are basement guys.  Firefighters are basement guys.  Aside from getting to use a lawn mower (which might make him faint out of sheer amazement), one of Atticus's life goals is to get to climb on trucks.  When we visited my family in Massachusetts this June, my brother made Atticus's dream come true.  Since he is a firefighter, he was able to arrange for my kids to visit the firehouse and climb all over the fire engine.  All three big kids enjoyed it.  They especially liked when my brother's coworkers let them spray water from a pressurized can.

Plans Failed

At the beginning of June, I had all of these great plans for getting back into blogging regularly during Ish's summer break.  These plans clearly failed.  It was a good failing though as it allowed me to spend Ish's summer break not worrying about writing or getting photos edited in a timely manner.  I do, however want to take time to document our summer adventures so I will be spending the next week or two posting a little bit of what my family did this summer.