Homeschool Update: May 2022

Poetry 

From Favorite Poems Old and New, edited by Helen Ferris (Doubleday Books, 1957), I read aloud: "Trains" by James S. Tippett, "Barbara Frietchie" by John Greenleaf Whittier, "A Nautical Ballad" by Charles Edward Carryl, "The Archer" by Clinton Scollard , "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Swimming" by Clinton Scollard, "The Brown Bear" by Mary Austin, "All But Blind" by Walter de la Mare, "The Spider and the Fly" by Mary Howitt. 

Music

M., C., and E. read Turandot from The Random House Book of Opera Stories as well as the version by Marianna Mayer. Then they watched an animated version as well as a full stage production from the Metropolitan opera. They learned to sing "The Battle of New Orleans" and "Crown Him with Many Crowns." 

Art Appreciation 

E. completed the first two levels in Child-Size Masterpieces. All three girls looked at paintings from The Vatican Art Deck and The Louvre Art Deck, including Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio, Madonna of Chancellor Rolin by Jan Van Eyck, and The Deposition of Christ by Rogier Van der Weyden.  

English 

C. continued to work on Grammarland. M. completed Rex Barks lesson 3-1.

At lunch time, the girls listened to Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright.  

E. read books from the Cowboy Sam series , books from the Dan Frontier series, My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett, Pony Scouts series by Catherine Hapka,  and Katie Woo and Friends by Fran Manushkin.  

C. read Redwall by Brian Jacques and The Trouble with Jenny's Ear by Oliver Butterworth, as well as some of  Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfeld.  

M. read The Erie Canal by Samuel Hopkins Adams, The Santa Fe Trail by Samuel Hopkins Adams, Kit Carson and the Wild Frontier by Ralph Moody, Remember the Alamo by Robert Penn Warren, Simon Bolivar: The Brave Liberator by Arnold Whitridge. 

Science

We completed our science work for this school year, so for fun the girls watched some Sci Show Kids videos. C. did the Levitating Lantern Kiwi Crate, and E. did the Bird Koala Crate. 

History 

From Abraham Lincoln's World, M. read:  Victoria is Born; Hard Times and Bad Kings; Victoria, Who Was She?; Charles Dickens, or, David Copperfield; Wild Turkeys and Waste Time; The Story of Brazil; The Drama of Greece; Ulysses Grant, Named and Renamed; Railroads Are Here;  A Three-Day Revolution; Young Patriots of Italy; A Bloodless Revolution; Union and Liberty; Time Makes an Old Idea New; The Sultan's Guest; India; Li Hung Chang, a Boy of China; Slavery, What to Do About It?;  Abe Lincoln of New Salem; Remember the Alamo;  On to Oregon; Into Darkest Africa; Young Lion vs. Ancient Dragon; R stands for Regina; Corn and Potatoes; Rebellion in Canada; Steam Across the Atlantic; Behind Japan's Closed Door; Wedding Bells; Authors and Visitors; Telegraph and Photograph; On to the West; To the Halls of Montezuma;  Gold!; Canada; Corn and Potatoes, continued; The Year 1848; A Beautiful Uniform or a Spiked Helmet; The Peace Festival; Napoleon III; Der Tolle Bismarck; At Home in Springfield; Free Soil and Slave; Uncle Tom's Cabin. 

C. learned about Pompeii from The buried city of Pompeii: what it was like when Vesuvius exploded by Shelley Tanaka. She watched Pompeii Walking Tour in 4K Part 1 and Behind the Scenes of the First Excavation of Pompeii in 70 Years. We also read One Day in Ancient Rome by G.B. Kirtland. 

Then we covered the New Testament. We briefly used In Bible Days by Gertrude Hartmann, but I quickly determined that it wasn't in line with Catholic (or really any branch of Christian) teaching and we switched to The Holy Bible Adapted for Young Catholic Readers edited by Jane Werner Watson and Charles Hartman and illustrated by the Provensens and Feodor Rojankovksy. On her own, C. read Tomie dePaola's Parables of Jesus and Miracles of Jesus. 

C. finished history for the year with the section about the fall of Rome from Builders of the Old World.  

Math

C. worked on the addition and subtraction exercises in Singapore 2B. 

M. worked on Challenging Word Problems and geometry.  

Art 

M., C., E. made Mother's Day cards for me and their grandmothers. 

Religion 

We read from the Catholic Children's Treasure Box volumes 3 and 4. 

Read-at-Home Mom Report: May 2022 Wrap-Up

My Month in Books

#ShortReads22

 

This month, I participated in a short story and essay read-a-thon hosted by booktubers Chantel Reads All Day, What Brings Corina Joy, and Mitzi Reads and Writes. I completed the whole Bingo card. Here are the pieces I read and which prompts they fulfilled.

• From The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: "A Case of Identity" (1800s)
• From Flowers in the Rain and Other Stories by Rosamund Pilcher:  "Flowers in the Rain" (weather) 
• From Chestnut Street by Maeve Binchy: "It's Only a Day" (another country); "Liberty Green" (color in title); "The Cure for Sleeplessness" (written by a woman); "Dolly's Mother" (name in title)
• From The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg: "The Only One of Millions Just Like Him" (number in title); "The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted" (2000s)
• From Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang: "The Evolution of Human Science" (science fiction); "Story of Your Life" (adapted to screen)
• From Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor: "Total Effect and the Eighth Grade" (essay); "The King of Birds" (favorite author); "The Fiction Writer and His Country" (free space) 
• From Kinsey and Me by Sue Grafton: "The Lying Game" (mystery)
• From Telling Time by Nancy Willard: "The Birds and the Beasts Were There" (nature)
• From The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang: "Toads and Diamonds" (fairy tale); "Beauty and the Beast" (fantasy) 
• From Fables for Our Time by James Thurber: "The Unicorn in the Garden" (humor/satire) 
• From my Kindle Library: "Gruff" by Rachel Kovaciny (retelling); "No Match for a Good Story" by Rachel Kovaciny (new-to-you author) 
• Found online: "Winter Dreams" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1900s); "Joy" by Anton Chekhov (translated);  "The Wedding-Knell" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (gothic horror), "The Destructors" by Graham Greene (allegory) 
• From the public library: Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris (play)

40 Re-Reads Before 40

 

I'm officially halfway finished with this project! My first re-read of the month was  Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells (5 stars), which I first read when I was in college. The audiobook was excellent and I enjoyed the world of the story every bit as much this time around as I did the first time.  The second re-read I picked up was 11th grade assigned reading: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (5 stars). I liked this book fine as a teenager but appreciated it so much more 20+ years later. I also re-read two books that I have often identified as favorites:  That Summer by Sarah Dessen (5 stars) and Empire Falls by Richard Russo . Dessen's writing never disappoints, and Russo does a beautiful job of capturing small-town life.  My last re-read of the month was Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes. Julia Whelan's narration of the audiobook highlights just how great the dialogue is.  

Read-Alouds

  

I read two books aloud to my girls this month. I had never previously read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (5 stars), and we all loved it. Reading aloud in a Yorkshire accent isn't easy, but it was worth giving it a try. We also read The People in Pineapple Place by Anne Lindbergh (4 stars), which was mostly a light, easy fantasy read, but it had a lovely unexpectedly poignant ending. 

Challenges and Book Clubs

 

I read Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (5 stars) for the Goldberry challenge, where the May prompt was to read a book your mom (or grandmother or wife) loves. Gone with the Wind is my mom's favorite book and I totally understand why. I could not put it down. For the Read Your Bookshelf challenge, the prompt was a new-to-you author. I read my ARC of The Treehouse on Dog River Road by Catherine Drake (3 stars). I loved the premise, but there were a lot of little problems in the book that would have felt minor on their own but which, taken together, became tedious. For the Buzzword Reading Challenge, the prompt was a book with a direction in the title, so I chose Up Island by Anne Rivers Siddons. This was the most disappointing book I've read by this author so far, and were I not trying to become a Siddons completist someday, I probably would have abandoned it.  For the summer (May 19 to August 19), I've created an ebook reading challenge for myself to help me prioritize some digital books, especially Kindle Unlimited titles I will lose access to when my subscription expires in August. For that I read two books Cloaked by Rachel Kovaciny (4 stars) and 6 Dates to Disaster by Cynthia T. Toney (5 stars).  

For the Ronald Welch Zoom book club that my husband and I have going with a friend we read Captain of Dragoons (5 stars). I loved it because it surprised me and made me gasp, even though this might just be because I am not a careful reader and missed a lot of cues. For #WorldFullofBooks, the theme was Shakespeare and I kind of copped out and read a cozy mystery involving Shakespeare instead of tackling a place as I had intended. The book was Untimely Death by Elizabeth J. Duncan (4 stars). It was well-written and had a unique feel compared to other cozies, but I don't plan to continue the series. 

Mood Reading

 

My mood reading was a bit eclectic this month. I read three romance novellas by Ali Hazelwood: Under One Roof (4 stars), Stuck with You (4 stars), and Below Zero (3 stars). The sex scenes in these are about as graphic as they can be, and I skipped them entirely on the audiobook. The writing in the rest of the stories is brilliant, but I do wish authors would tone down the sexual detail. (Below Zero had the most sex in it, and Under One Roof was the best story of the three.) 

I also read 10 Steps to Girlfriend Status by Cynthia T. Toney, which is book two in the Bird Face series. (6 Dates to Disaster, mentioned above, is book 3). Toney is like a Catholic Judy Blume, and I love all of her books that I've read so far. I also listened to Falling for Your Best Friend's Twin by Emma St. Clair, which is a rom-com that actually made me laugh. I plan to read more from the series this summer. My husband suggested that I read Adam and the Golden Cock by Alice Dalgliesh (4 stars) one day, and I did so in one sitting. Finally, I read The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer, which was a gift from the same friend who does the Zoom book club with my husband and me. I enjoyed my first Heyer experience, melodramatic though the story was, and I'm excited to try more of her books.

As for the rest of the family's reading...

A. (girl, 2 years old)

• Babies by Gyo Fujikawa 
• The Baby's Catalogue by Janet and Allen Ahlberg

R. (boy, 2 years old)

• Adventure Awaits by Henry Cole 
• At the Pond by David Elliott
• In the Woods by David Elliott
• Demolition by Sally Sutton 
• Construction by Sally Sutton 
• Roadwork by Sally Sutton 
• A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mr. Rogers 

E. (girl, 4 years old)  

• books from the Cowboy Sam series 
• books from the Dan Frontier series 
• My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
• Pony Scouts series by Catherine Hapka 
• Katie Woo and Friends by Fran Manushkin 

C. (girl, 6 years old) 

• Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfeld 
• Redwall by Brian Jacques
• The Trouble with Jenny's Ear by Oliver Butterworth  

M. (girl, 8 years old)

• The Erie Canal by Samuel Hopkins Adams
• The Santa Fe Trail by Samuel Hopkins Adams
• Kit Carson and the Wild Frontier by Ralph Moody
• Remember the Alamo by Robert Penn Warren
• Simon Bolivar: The Brave Liberator by Arnold Whitridge

My husband 

• The Prisoner of Pineapple Place by Anne Lindbergh
• The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden
• Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
• Captain of Dragoons by Ronald Welch

Up Next for Me

In June I'll be focusing on finishing Tess of the D'urbervilles with the Close Reads podcast and reading Foucault's Pendulum for the Goldberry challenge prompt of a book your father or husband loves. (My husband asked me to read this one.) I'm also planning to read All in Good Time by Carolyn Astfalk and Book Lovers by Emily Henry. 

I'm adding this post to the link-up for An Open Book at CatholicMom.com. 

Homeschool Update: April 2022

In the interest of simplifying my record keeping, I've decided to switch to monthly homeschool updates. I'm also going to focus less on the routine of our day and more on the materials we use for each subject. From time to time, I might make some separate posts to record how we divide up our days, but I'm finding that these posts are most useful as an archive of what we used to teach certain subjects and at what grade level. 

April included Holy Week and Easter Week, as well as an abundance of playdates that required a lighter workload. It was also the month in which we submitted our homeschool review forms to our umbrella organization. Both M. and C. have "completed" this year in terms of paperwork, but we will press on regardless. 

Poetry

From Favorite Poems Old and New, edited by Helen Ferris (Doubleday Books, 1957), I read aloud: "There are so many ways of going places" by Leslie Thompson, "To the Dandelion" by James Russell Lowell, "Stocking Fairy" by Winifred Welles, "On Easter Day" by Celia Thaxter, and "From a Railway Carriage" by Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Music Appreciation 

M., C., and E. continued listening to my husband read aloud Carmen: The story of Bizet's Opera by Robert Lawrence. When they finished the book, they watched a production of the opera on video. After that, they listened to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and Beethoven's  Eroica Symphony On YouTube M. and C. watched the Keeping Score documentary about the Eroica Symphony. 

Art Appreciation

During the final days of Lent, we looked at many of the paintings and sculptures related to Christ's Passion that are included in the Vatican Art Deck and the Louvre Art Deck. We also took a close look at da Vinci's The Last Supper, using this article from Catholic Icing to point out key features and to learn about the Apostles. We watched this video about Caravaggio's Deposition of Christ.

English

We finished our lunchtime read-aloud of The Golden Name Day and then read Carvers' George by Florence Crannell Means.  This was a fascinating book, and it also complemented our study of plants for science. After that, I started reading aloud The Secret Garden. 

C. read The First Men in the World and The Fantastic Flying Journey, and then moved on to Redwall. She is enjoying imagining the voice of Cluny the Scourge and has announced she would like to be him for Halloween. I also read aloud Floating Island by Anne Parrish to her, and we both really enjoyed it. It combines all the best elements of our other favorites: The Doll People and Baby Island. In Grammarland, C. worked on nominatives and prepositions. 

Independently, E. read Busybody Nora by Johanna Hurwitz, My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett, In a Dark Dark Room and Other Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz, and Warton and Morton by Russell E. Erickson. To her, I read aloud All About Sam by Lois Lowry. We have now started Here Come the Elephants by Alice Goudey. 

M. has been diagramming one sentence per day from Rex Barks. She creates the diagram in Google Drawings and then shares it with me so I can check it. She is also working on doing pages in the Macmillan McGraw-Hill Treasures grammar curriculum. 

History 

M. finished The Year of the Horseless Carriage after reading these sections: Napoleon: Emperor; Beethoven; Richard Trevithick; Robert Fulton; James Madison; Napoleon: Defeated; and George Stephenson. 

Then she started Abraham Lincoln's World and read these sections: The Year 1809; Napoleon The Next Emperor; Because of England and Napoleonl; Young Creoles of Venezuela; Ships and Trips and Businessmen; Tecumseh, the Falling Star; Sam Houston Becomes the Raven; The Year 1812 in North America; 1812 in South America; To Moscow and Return; Don't Give Up the Ship; Andrew Jackson, the Indian Fighter; A Boy and a Fish; Napoleon Defeated; The Very Young William Gladstone; Just Before and After the End; Back to the Kings Again; Trails to the West; Abe Moves to Indiana; Robert Lee of Virginia; Harriett Beecher, the Preacher's Child; What About Missouri; Steamboats and the Law; Kit Rides to Santa Fe; Benito Juarez, a Boy of Mexico; Toda America es Mi Patria; Citizens of the World

She also read No Other White Men by Julia Davis Adams, Violet for Bonaparte by Geoffrey Trease, The Slave Who Freed Haiti: the Story of Toussaint Louverture by Katharine Scherman, The Pirate Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans by Robert Tallant. She looked through The Incredible Journey of Lewis and Clark by Rhoda Blumberg.

C. finished with Ancient Greece and began studying Ancient Rome. In Builders of the Old World, she read The Wooden Walls Save Athens, The Golden Age of Pericles, Lovers of Wisdom, Greece Loses Her Freedom, and The Gifts of Greece to Civilization, followed by The City of the Seven Hills, Early Roman Heroes, Rome Becomes a Republic, How the Early Romans Lived, Going to School in Rome, Rome Conquers All Italy, Rome and Carthage, How the Later Romans Lived, and Cornelia's Jewels. 

We also read aloud In Search of a Homeland, the children's retelling of the Aeneid by Penelope Lively, and then started Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfeld, and C. watched Virtual Rome and Ancient Rome 101. 

Science 

We finished BFSU Volume 1. The girls monitored the beans they planted in baggies, tracking their progress with drawings until they germinated. Only E.'s grew leaves and a stem, so we mainly focused on that one.  M. and C. also picked a few random weeds outside and we brought them in to identify and learn about them. We also read about some wildflowers from a Fandex Family Field Guide.  

M. and C. watched these videos: 

• How Does a Seed Become a Plant? 
• Erosion and Soil
• The Swish Machine Rube Goldberg machine 

Our read-aloud of Carvers' George was also part of our plant studies, and we found this clip of his voice to listen to so we could better understand the author's descriptions of his distinctive speech.  

Math

C. finished Singapore Primary Mathematics 2A and moved on to 2B. 

M. worked on Challenging Word Problems 3 and geometry proofs using worksheets found online and Geometry by Harold R. Jacobs.

E. used flashcards, rods and the soroban to learn about place value. 

Health 

M. and read the nutrition section from The Body Book for Younger Girls. She also came to the twins' check-up with me and watched their exam.

Physical Education

M., C., and E. rode bikes on most of the nice days. M. and C. went on a couple of bike rides with Daddy. All three girls played on the trampoline at our friends' house, and they visited the Adventure playground for a playdate.  

Art

M., C., and E. did chalk designs in the driveway and colored Easter-themed coloring pages.

Religion 

We attended the Novus Ordo Easter vigil and then Mass in the extraordinary form on Divine Mercy Sunday. We read aloud Catholic Children's Treasure Box volumes 1 and 2. 

Read-at-Home Mom Report: April 2022 Wrap-Up

My Month in Books

40 Re-reads Before 40

I re-read five more books for my 40 Re-reads Before 40 project. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (3 stars) was one of the few adult books I read when I was working as a librarian. The first time I read it, I thought it was brilliant. This second time around, with much more reading experience under my belt, it just didn't seem as remarkable. Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach (5 stars) is a YA novel about Felton Reinstein, whom puberty transforms into a high-performing athlete practically overnight. Herbach is a master of first-person narration, and this was just as good the second time around as the first. I read A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (4 stars) in eleventh grade and re-read it this month with Close Reads. I definitely got more out of it this time than I did as a teen - the emotions of the characters resonated much more strongly. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (5 stars) was a new favorite that I discovered in 2019. This time I listened to the audiobook. It's such a charming read for book lovers. Finally, after a friend asked me whether Avi would be a good author for one of her kids, I was reminded of Nothing But the Truth (3 stars). My memories of this one were very different from what is actually in the book. I usually don't like full cast audiobooks but I actually enjoyed the production of this one. 

Read-Alouds

I completed three read-alouds with my kids in April. The first was part of my 6-year-old daughter's history studies. In Search of a Homeland by Penelope Lively (4 stars) is an illustrated children's retelling of the Aeneid. I didn't love it as much as I loved the Rosemary Sutcliffe retellings of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but it was still good. I also read aloud Floating Island by Anne Parrish (5 stars) to the same child. This was like The Doll People meets Baby Island, with a clear vintage feel. I read aloud All About Sam by Lois Lowry (5 stars) to my four-year-old. She absolutely loved it and wants to read the rest of the series. 

Challenges and Book Clubs

I read The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (4 stars) throughout Lent with a small group of Close Reads listeners. I liked it, but I didn't love it the way I loved The End of the Affair. My local book club chose The Seven Last Words by Fulton Sheen (5 stars) for our April book. I struggled to get into Fulton Sheen's writing in the past, but I absolutely loved this book and will probably read it again during some future Lent. The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman (5 stars) was my pick for the Buzzword Reading Challenge, the April prompt for which was  big and little. I have never read a Waxman book I didn't love, and I especially enjoyed this one because of the child characters. For the Read Your Bookshelves Challenge, I needed to find a book with my initials in the title.  I ended up reading a romance novella set during Thanksgiving, Thankful for Love by Kristen Ethridge (4 stars) which does include K, R, and F.

The #WorldFullofBooks group on Instagram read poetry in April, and I ended up getting really into the theme. I finished The Divine Comedy (5 stars) on Easter with 100 Days of Dante. Then I listened to Three Simple Lines by Natalie Goldberg (3 stars), which is her memoir about discovering and attempting to write haiku. Then I read a novel in verse, The Lightning Dreamer by Margarita Engle (2 stars), which was too heavy-handed with its feminist message, but which I decided to finish anyway because it counted for the Goldberry books challenge prompt of a biography of a non-American. I finished out the month will three poetry collections borrowed from the public library: Felicity by Mary Oliver (4 stars), The Rain in Portugal by Billy Collins (3 stars), and And Short the Season by Maxine Kumin (3 stars).

Review Copies

I read three review copies this month. Birdie's Bargain by Katherine Paterson (3 stars) had some questionable theology in it that would keep from me giving it to my Catholic kids even though I like the writing. All the Right Reasons by Bethany Mangle (5 stars) was an unexpected 5-star read about a mother-daughter relationship that is challenged when they go on a reality show to find a new love connection for the mother. To Marry and to Meddle by Martha Waters (4 stars) is the third book in a regency romance series. I haven't read the first two yet, but this one was so funny and well-written that I'm planning to go back and listen to the others. 

Nonfiction Mood Reading

My mood reading was very eclectic during April. I picked up three nonfiction titles. This Beautiful Truth by Sarah Clarkson (5 stars) is a great spiritual read about how to find God in our lives in times of darkness. Clarkson isn't Catholic, but this book is very Catholic-friendly. I saw a lot of praise for it on Instagram and it was absolutely well-deserved. I think this is Clarkson's best book to date. I borrowed Present Over Perfect (3 stars) on audio from the library after hearing Shauna Niequist on What Should I Read Next? There were some good little nuggets to be gleaned from this, but I felt like I always had to be on guard against all the self-help rhetoric, some of which is contrary to Catholic teaching. I chose to listen to Bomb Shelter by Mary Laura Philpott (4 stars) based on how much I enjoyed her previous book, I Miss You When I Blink. I enjoyed this one as well, but it wasn't a 5-star read like the earlier title. 

Fiction Mood Reading

Friendshipped by Savannah Scott (3 stars) is a clean romantic comedy I learned about on Instagram. I have been trying out a few different authors and series, and this one was a fun palate cleanser.  Billy Miller Makes a Wish by Kevin Henkes (5 stars) is the sequel to The Year of Billy Miller. I listened to the audiobook to preview it for my kids, and I'm pleased to say I have no qualms about letting them read it. I listened and read along to Snow in April by Rosamunde Pilcher (5 stars). I had one false start with it where my mind wandered and I had to start over, but it ended up being a 5-star read. I just love Pilcher's writing style. I ended the month with the next book in a favorite series I have been neglecting, Stayin' Alive by Julie Mulhern (4 stars). As is often the case with mysteries, I loved the setting and characters but have already forgotten everything about the murder. 

As for the rest of the family's reading...

A. (girl, 2 years old) 

• E is for Easter by Greg Paprocki 

R. (boy, 2 years old)

• Ollie's Easter Eggs by Olivier Dunrea
• National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Animals
• Home for a Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown and Garth Williams 

E. (girl, 4 years old)

• Dan Frontier series 
• Ling and Ting: Not Exactly the Same by Grace Lin 
• The Golly Sisters Go West by Betsy Byars 
• Hooray for the Golly Sisters by Betsy Byars 
• The Skeleton Inside You by Philip Balestrino
• Hot as an Ice Cube by Philip Balestrino 
• Snakes are Hunters by Patricia Lauber 
• The Pig War by Betty Baker 

C. (girl, 6 years old)

• The Fantastic Flying Journey by Gerald Durrell 
• Redwall by Brian Jacques 
• Lulu and the Rabbit Next Door by Hilary McKay 

M. (girl, 8 years old)

• No Other White Men by Julia Davis Adams
• Violet for Bonaparte by Geoffrey Trease 
• The Slave Who Freed Haiti by Katherine Scherman 
• The Pirate Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans by Robert Tallant 
• Andrew Jackson by Clara Ingram Judson 
• Make way for Sam Houston by Jean Fritz 
• Cody and the Secrets of the Universe by Tricia Springstubb

My husband 

• The Fort of Gold by Eilis Dillon
• Dan Frontier Goes to Congress by William Hurley
• The King's Beard by Leonard Wibberley
• People of Pineapple Place by Anne Lindbergh 

Up Next For Me

My big focus for May will be on reading Gone with the Wind for the Goldberry reading challenge where the prompt is to read my mother's favorite book. I also want to read The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer which a friend gave me for Christmas, and I need to read Captain of Dragoons by Ronald Welch for  a discussion with my husband and that same friend. I'm also doing a short story read-a-thon hosted by Chantel Reads All Day on YouTube. 

I'm adding this post to the link-up for An Open Book at CatholicMom.com.