Friday is Reading Day!

I think one of my favorite things about home schooling is Friday. Every Friday the kids put away their workbooks and read for hours. Usually I assign the book, but they can ask for something specific. Mae, for instance, has read about half of Watership Down and has asked to read Quest for Celestia (Steven James' rewrite of Pilgrim's Progress), just as a break. Oliver is reading God's Adventurer, about Hudson Taylor. Nathaniel is reading his Spider Man collection.

Now before you jump all over me about letting my nine year old read Spider Man on a school day, let me remind you that he's only been reading for about a year. I'm pretty excited that he can read Spider Man. I draw the line at Calvin and Hobbes, since it's been read to him so often he can quote it.

I'm trying to incorporate the classics (depending on your definition of "classics"). Mae has chosen The Scarlet Letter for her next book. And I'm trying to catch up on my own classic reading. Quite frankly, the old stuff makes for better reading than the new stuff, tho I've recently discovered Anna Quindlen and am enjoying her work. Well, not the Blessings. It just didn't ring true for me. Kinda like reading Jamie Langston Turner's No Dark something or other. Turner's one of my favorite authors, but that one just was preachy. Drove me nuts when she changed characters mid book. She just didn't seem to have her heart and soul in the second character, but was using him as a tool to teach (preach).

Has this turned into a critique? Because I sit here thinking about another book I recently read which was a complete waste of time. The Steadfast Surrender, by Kathy Moser. Unfortunately it was my first Moser and I won't read another. I hope I'm not offending any Kathy Moser fans, or maybe you can tell me of another of her books that will redeem my opinion of her work? This particular book was a feminist's dream. By the end of the book the men were all completely written out. A bunch of women living in a house, happy and complete raising children without husbands or fathers. No remorse or hardship as a result of a divorce. Men were completely irrelevant. It was painful.

So I probably shouldn't blog when I'm sick. My ugly side comes out. But boy does it feel good to let that out. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Until I write again ...

Flea