Ok, summer is a month in for me, so I'll include some here that I've already read in the past 4 weeks or so...alas most of them are jfic. It's my time of life. Sophia reads, she's just impatient because she has dyslexia and visual problems involving words and letters jumping and waving around--which is different from dyslexia, by the way). Graphic novels are perfect at this stage (and manga, if I read it first). But she wants to be a part of the greater reading world. So I'm going to spend a lot of the next several years reading these kinds of things....
1. Fogmound II: Faradawn by Susan Schade. A graphic novel/jfic novel (every other chapter is graphic novel) about a group of talking animals in a post-apocalyptic world.
2. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen: memoir about an ex-Mennonite who is dumped by her bipolar abusive husband and is forced to move home to her in-the-world but not of-the-world Mennonite parents. I'm done with this if anyone wants to read it next. It was funny and touching and good.
3. The Undivided Heart by Michael Casey: This has been on my reading list for two summers now. It's thick reading. Chapters like "Spiritual Desire in the Gospel Homilies of St. Gregory the Great." My oblate director did a year long series on it and I'm using her emails as a guide.
4. Everyday Hospitality by Thea Jarvis: I have a ton of Benedictine spirituality books and I've read about 60% of them. Here's one I haven't.
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney: Sophia started it but put it down. I kind of want to read ahead of her and see if it's worth her while to pick back up. I'm thinking not, but I'll try.
6. The Silver Chair by CS Lewis: Because that's next on Sophia's bedtime story list. Honestly, the Narnia Series jumped the shark for me in Prince Caspian. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was excruciating, like a bad role-playing game. But I'll keep going. It'll be good for me.
7. In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden: Sr. Mary loaned this to me last year and It's sat here nagging me. I started the first few chapters and I think I could sit by the pool and consume this one.
8. Missouri Department of Conservation Archery Manual: it's designed as a course to teach children archery. I've already got experience doing that, but I think it would be nice to really know what I'm doing, like with the right vocabulary terms.
9. Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary: Maeve's next bedtime book.
10. Mossflower by Brian Jacques: the next in the Redwall Series. Sophia wants to get more into them; I think they'll lose her attention read silently. But they're excellent and I don't want her to give up.
77. Doberge Cake
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I've never made one before.
It's Mardi Gras, at least for a little while longer, and I lived in
Houston, which is close enough to East Texas and Louisiana ...
4 days ago
4 comments:
My boys really like the Redwall series. Well, okay, my husband likes them and thinks they are great reading and WANTS my boys to like them. But my boys want to like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Captain Underpants.
Boys will be boys, I guess.
I've never read a Benedictine book, what are they like. I have recently taken an interest in spiritual literature and mow that I am done with Streetwise Spirituality , my first, I am in search of more.
@Texas mom- I'm not sure that you should force literature choices on kids, thats how they learn to hate reading.
I find that good readers sometimes need an oomph into good literature. I think poorer readers need to be encouraged to read just about anything--kids magazines, comic books, etc. My husband (good reader) had a librarian point out things like Ivanhoe when he was in middle school. And it was good for him...
Benedictine spirituality books, for the most part, are very accessible. A good "gateway drug" would be anything by Fr. Dominic Garramone or Fr. Daniel Homan. Deeper (less "pop") stuff would be BR. Benet Tvedten, Kathleen Norris, Norvene Vest (fellow OblSB's), and much meatier stuff by Michael Casey (a cistercian, a strict observance BEnedictine), obviously Thomas Merton, and Joan Chittister.
I entered this path via Fr. Dominic but quickly soaked up anything Joan Chittister had to say. There are many others--many oblates write books and many, many monks do (The Gospel According to Dawn, if you can find it, is beautiful, IMHO).
Many, many oblates start their path via Kathleen Norris. I found her writing to ring very true but not be the end all be all of lay Benedictine experience that many seem to.
I had Mennonite in a Little Black Dress in my hands the other day, wondering if I should pick it up. I might just do it.
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