Saturday, January 17, 2009

Library Loot: a new meme for me




Sarah at SmallWorld Reads pointed me to a new meme: Library Loot. Since we take great joy in hitting our local library frequently and always come home loaded up with stuff, I'm happy to take part in this one.

Currently we have 72 items checked out; I won't go into all of them.

Right now we are listening to the audio of Around the World in 80 Days, written by Jules Verne and narrated by Jim Dale (of Harry Potter fame). Actually since it lives in the car, I also carry on with our own copy of the book when we have time to read in the house (which we've been short on lately). I'd missed this as a kid and am loving it now. (Another perk of homeschooling, people - exposure to lots of great books that the kids might get into in school, but the parents may miss forever.)

Two books on paper quilling: Paper Quilling for the First Time, and The New Paper Quilling. This is my girl's new fave craft and she is putting together a presentation for our homeschool reading group on Monday. If you have a crafty girl, or are one yourself, check out paper quilling. She has made some beautiful designs without a lot of expense or a long learning curve (read: frustration).

Treasure Island, which is to be our next car book. As with Around the World... I will go between the borrowed audio in the car and the owned hardback at home.

Luncheon of the Boating Party, a novel for me, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir: The Luncheon of the Boating Party: Anatomy of a Painting (out of print) to go along with it. I'll probably go through at least some of the 2nd book with the kids, along with some other books on Renoir, at some point. Oops, this isn't supposed to be about what I'm doing with books, just what the books are...

Since we are studying World War II in our history we've got a boatload on that topic; some are yet to be read and some are ready to go back. They include: Early Sunday Morning: The Pearl Harbor Diary of Amber Billows (Dear America series), One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping: The Diary of Julie Weiss, (also Dear America), The Story of D-Day, a Landmark book by Bruce Blivens, The Journal of Ben Uchida, Citizen 13559, Mirror Lake Internment Camp (My Name is America series) and Weedflower by Cynthia Kakohata. These are all books the kids will read or have read on their own, not read-alouds. I picked up Farewell to Manzanar for myself, but I don't know if I will get to it.

The boy has a few books about Chuck Yeager, which he was to read and present at our reading group. But preparations for the Boy Scout winter camp took over, so he gets a pass this month. He'll read the books anyway.

Since we've had some flurries lately, we picked up The Snowflake, Winter's Secret Beauty for browsing.

Last night my girl and I were wandering around our "usual" branch and came upon a stack we'd never noticed before: the oversized books! What a treasure! We picked up The Comics: Since 1945, a huge coffee table book that's making her laugh and bringing back some memories for me, Blue Planet, a gorgeous DK book about the oceans, and The Illustrated Book of Guns which the Boy Scout will devour. We decided we will allow ourselves 2 oversize books per visit from now on.

The seminarian doesn't have too much out from the public library right now, just The Basic Writings of Neitzsche.

Then there is the usual assortment of cookbooks, craft books, fiction, nonfiction, art (Oh, Carrier War: Aviation Art of World War II kept the boy occupied for quite some time). I usually pick up a few books for the kids each visit - things I'd like them to read if they find them interesting, or books featured in the library, or found on a blog. They greedily pick up a lot on their own, too. I grab several for myself each time, too, but I don't get a lot of reading done - if a book seems worthwhile, I just add to the "to be read" list. Maybe someday, eh?

Next week I'll just follow the rules and post what we pick up then. Till then, if you are looking for some reading ideas, head over to Library Loot at A Striped Armchair.

4 comments:

Sandy said...

Woo Hoo! A meme I can actually do! How fun. I always get good book ideas at your blog.

Sarah at SmallWorld said...

72 items!! It's probably a good thing we're not allowed to check out that many or I'd be in big trouble with fines! Library Elf has recently stopped working with our library, so I'd be a mess.

THANK YOU for the paper quilling idea!! I showed that to my 11 yod and she was excited! You'll probably see that book on our library loot next week!

Eva said...

I haven't tried out Around the World in 80 Days, but I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea last year and was pleasantly surprised. :) That's a lot of World War II books-Weedflower reminds me a book I read in elementary school about a Japanese-American girl whose famiy was interned...I think it was called something like Moonbridge. Oh-and feel free to add more than just the book titles; I think it's fun to read what you're going to do with the books, I'm just too lazy to do it myself! lol

Anonymous said...

As a quiller of over 48 years I'm glad to see the craft being passed on to a new generation. It has changed quite a bit since I was 1st quilling but they joy you find in creating things never changes. I'd love to see what you create.