Happy Pi and St. Benedict Day!

It's 3/14! Happy Pi Day! As my mom would say, it's a good day to measure circumference and area! And that we did. We spent our lunch today measuring and calculating the circumference of our bowls and cups.

It's also the feast of St. Benedict. It's a great day to read this lovely book. (Unfortunately, I have somehow lost ours in the last month. We spent thirty minutes looking for it and then gave in to the fussy baby who needed attention.

A Thousand Words

Favorite Nativity Books

It seemed like a nice plan. This year as we read through our Nativity books, I thought I would post reviews. Some of them would be reposts from previous years. Some would be new reviews. It didn't happen. Life is often like that. I've long since quit beating myself up for things like this. Lots of other good stuff happened in our family this Advent season. And lots of stuff didn't happen. And Christ was born anew in our hearts as we reflected on His birth in the cave.

I've posted many reviews about some of our favorite Nativity books in the past. You can find them by clicking on the link at right for the posts tagged as "40 Books of Nativity." Or just click here. Since several people have emailed me and asked about other books, I'm posting some comments and links for some of our favorite new books here. Each year I try to give each boy a new Christmas book. Often St. Nicholas brings the books and leaves them in our stockings on December 6th. We've been doing this for quite a few years and so our collection is really growing. Sometimes I get over zealous (like this year) and the boys also get a Christmas book on Christmas Day. And we also have lots of grandparents and great grandparents who often give us books. All of this means that we have quite a few new favorites. Check out some of these for your collection if you'd like!

We Three Kings
This is definitely a new favorite. My #2 son got this for Christmas this year. I just LOVE the illustrations of Gennady Spirin. The text for this book is simply the lyrics to the carol "We Three Kings." The illustrations are spectacular and even include some nice images of six-winged cherubim.

The Friendly Beasts  And this is a work from another of my favorite children's illustrators, Tomie dePaola. It also uses the text of one of our favorite carols. This one is "The Friendly Beasts." It might be a great little preschool carol, but I love it for anyone. The book made a perfect Christmas gift for my #3 son on his first Christmas.

Through the Animals' Eyes: A Story of the First Christmas

One of my boys got this lovely book last Christmas from his Baba and Dedo. It simply tells the Nativity story, but it is illustrated with lovely simple illustrations which each feature a different animal that might have been present at the time of the first Nativity. It's fun to find the animals in the pictures. And the end of the book gives information about each kind of animal and what is known about it and its natural homeland. The lovely illustrations combined with simple story text and detailed "science information" at the end make it an interesting book for my oldest as well as my younger guys. And the photo here doesn't do it justice. It has a lovely hardbound cloth-covered binding with gold letters that make it quite a nice display piece during the holiday season.

First Christmas
This is another example of beautiful hardbound cloth-covered binding with beautiful gold text. The illustrations in this book are also fabulous. They are based on Coptic icons and are colorful beauties. The text is a bit long, but the gorgeous artwork makes up for it. I used this in my Church School class this year and both the children and parents loved it. Thanks again to our Baba and Dedo for this great find!

The Very First ChristmasThis book was given to my oldest last Christmas on the recommendation of my dear friend.  It definitely did not disappoint. We really enjoyed reading it this year. It gives lots of details about the first Christmas and is fairly consistent with Orthodox tradition about that Holy Night. It was a very fun read for my oldest especially. He thinks he's getting too old for picture books (though his quiet delight in "listening in" and the excited look on his face when we pull out an old favorite both betray that he is not too old), but this was a nice balance that seemed detailed enough for him to really enjoy and even discuss afterwards.

 

 Who Is Coming to Our House?

I'll confess that I just love that I again have an excuse to buy good board books. St. Nicholas brought this to my #3 son on his first St. Nicholas Day. It's a sweet little book about the animals preparing for the Christ child to be born in their "house." My 5-year-old loved it as much as his baby brother will love it next year. He even asked me to reread it several times in succession.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

What can I say? It's a classic. And we are Dr. Seuss lovers around here. Somehow, we've never had our own copy of this in our collection. This problem just had to be solved. So, St. Nicholas brought this to son #2 this year. Everyone needs an annual reminder about the Grinch and the Whos in Whoville, right?

Magic Tree House #44: A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time 

So, my boys love the Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne. This is one of her newest and my oldest was really wanting it this year. Perfect timing for Christmas. This story deals with Charles Dickens and how he wrote his classic A Christmas Carol. When I bought it, I realized that we really need to add the original Dicken's classic to our collection. So, that's a plan for next year. I think that will be good timing for #1 to try out a little Dickens.

Why the Chimes Rang and Other Stories (Illustrated Edition)
After reading my posts about our Nativity books two years ago, a dear friend who has known me since my birth sent this book to my family as a gift. She told me that for many years it was her Christmas tradition to read the title story, "Why the Chimes Rang" to her three boys (who are now grown men and fathers and also my lifelong friends). My boys and I really enjoyed this story this year. I know it's going to become a favorite tradition for us. It's reminiscent of the themes in the Drummer Boy, with a bit of a different approach. I cried. But my boys are quite used to that.

I'll add these thoughts about reading books during Advent (or any time of year). Deliberately reading through our favorite books each Advent is such a joy. One of my favorite parts of this tradition is that it reinforces for me the great benefit in sharing great literature with my children. It often surprises me how much sheer delight they get from revisiting stories that they've enjoyed in years past. My oldest sighs with excitement when we pull out The Gift of the Magi each year. How I love that he delights in this classic O. Henry that I first met in the 7th grade! And I can't wait until #2 is ready to really enjoy it. Also this year we read together a special book for me. It is Kate Douglas Wiggins' The Bird's Christmas Carol. This book is special because it was a favorite of my great grandmother. When I was growing up we lived many, many miles from her and rarely saw her. In fact, I only saw in her in person twice before I turned 18. (After that I started making a habit of visiting her almost yearly until her death at age 101 when I was 24.) However, she was a huge part of my childhood thanks to beautiful letters written in her lovely penmanship and also thanks to the miracle of cassette tape players. She would record herself telling us stories and reading us books on cassette tapes and then send them to us by mail. My sister and I often went to sleep at night listening to her read stories to us. Oh, how I loved to hear her lovely and kind voice! And how I remember the words of the Wiggins story read from her lips. I had a copy of it myself, but when I read it silently, I always heard her voice. So, this year, it was so touching to share it with my boys. And it was even better that they absolutely loved it and waited eagerly for lunch each day to hear the next chapter. It is funny and sad and beautiful all at once. And I can't wait to share it with them again next year. And the next year. And the next year. It's as fun as it was to listen to it each night. And the next night. And the next night. Literature bridges the years and generations in fantastic ways.

Good Fast!

It's day 4 of the Nativity fast and we're well on our way with some of our favorite family traditions. You can read about them here and here. In the past I've done reviews of our Nativity books. You can find those by choosing the tag on the right for "40 books of Nativity." We've added some to our collection since then, so look for new reviews here soon.

The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
A review by AMM, age 9


Kid spies battle an evil genius in The Mysterious Benedict Society! The name of the author is Trenton Lee Stewart. This exciting adventurous mystery will take you far

At the beginning Reynie meets Mr. Benedict and joins a team of four spies. A fellow spy decides to name the team the Mysterious Benedict Society. The Society fits together important clues and riddles. In the end they fight an epic battle against their enemies.

I liked this book because it has kid spies. If you like exciting adventure stories then you will love this book.
                                                                        rated pg

Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis

Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis
A review by SJM, age 5
(a review dictated after hearing the book read aloud)

I really like this book! This book is about Caspian trying to kill Miraz. My favorite characters are Caspian and Reepicheep. Caspian is a prince in Narnia. He is trying to become king. Reepicheep is a mouse. He has a giant team of mice. He has a feather on his head. He has a sword like a needle. He has no shield. His mouse friends have no feathers in their heads. None of the mice have shields. Reepicheep is a great fighter because he is so small he can poke his needle sword into people’s feet. The book also has Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy from the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I think kids will like to have their moms read this book to them. If they are higher than six, they can read it themselves. Keep out kids below three, because they won’t understand.

A New Direction

Almost a year ago I announced on this blog that I would be going private. Then I never did it. I toyed with how I would do it and how to invite people for quite some time. But I never could get the energy to make it all happen. So, I just abandoned this little place of the internet for a year. The truth is, when I made this post, I was right at the height of first trimester pregnancy misery. For many reasons it was time to pull back. Today I'm watching my four-month-old son sleep peacefully. And I am finally finding energy to return here.

I've thought about this blog quite a bit over the past year. What would be a good way to use this space? How would I feel comfortable using it? What would really be worthwhile to readers? What could I do that would be worthy of the few precious minutes I have to offer each week and month?

The part of this blog that I've enjoyed the most is the book reviews. Based on comments I've gotten from some readers, that is the part you enjoyed most, too. And lately I've been looking for a good place for the 9-year-old voracious reader in my house to share some of his written work. We've been toying with letting him publish some of his book reviews on various book websites. And then I got an idea.

So the new direction of this blog is quite simple. It's explained in the header. Look for this to be a place to find thoughts, reviews, suggestions and ideas from the readers in my house. We'd like to share our thoughts about what we read together and individually. And we'd love to hear your comments too. Look for more content coming soon!

[In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I have set up an Amazon Associate account and tied it to this blog. This means that if you click any link to Amazon on this blog and purchase the book, our family will get a percentage of your purchase in the form of Amazon credit. We are in no way asking you to buy through this blog, nor are we doing it to satisfy any monetary need. I simply thought that my kids would enjoy the opportunity to add to their book collection by means of their own writing. Any revenue we receive will go towards the purchase of new books for our family, for other families, or for giveaways here. And we promise reviews of our purchases!]

Going Private

At the beginning of November, this blog is going private. After about a year of considering and reconsidering, I've decided that being on the open web is not a good idea anymore. So, I'm going to do with this blog what I do with most of my other blogs and go private. It will be open to readers by my invitation. I have many friends and family who read this blog, in addition to a few cyber-friends who read along, too. I'd love to have you continue reading if you'd like to. If you want to be included, please send me an email. I will add you to my list of invited friends. Please contact me by November 1. At that time, the blog will be closed to open readers and will be read by invitation only. If you need to send me a request, send it to my email, erin elizabeth m (with no spaces) [at symbol] Yahoo . . . [you know the rest], or leave a comment here.

Sportsmanship

I feel very strongly about having my sons play team sports. There are so many important life lessons to be learned on the soccer pitch, on the baseball diamond, on the basketball court, on the futsal court: integrity, hard work, teamwork, cooperation, humility, diligence, they are all virtues I'd like to encourage. And sometimes they are best encouraged by a coach and another group of boys. This interview with Troy Polamalu is so lovely. Who hears any professional athletes talking about the battle against pride these days? My prayer that my sons feel this way about their sports experiences.

Monarchs

It's that time of year - the great monarch migration! The monarch butterflies are flooding through our area right now as they head south to Mexico on their fall migration routes. I never even knew about this migration until I moved to the Great Plains several years ago. But now we look forward to it and check out various places around town where they hold monarch watches this time of year. This year my oldest is taking a great homeschool science class at our local nature center. Yesterday they went out on the prairie, caught a monarch and tagged it. He is so excited that someone in Mexico will probably find and read that tag and researchers will be able to do more work on tracking the migration patterns. They also made some cool folding paper monarch "airplanes" like these on this site. My youngest also gets excited about the monarchs because he learned all about the migration on this awesome Little Einstein DVD (which is also the reason that he shoots out "It's Beethoven!! whenever he hears Ode to Joy).

I love it hands-on science. I often wish I had learned science more like this as a child. Maybe then I wouldn't have disliked it so much!

Music in nature

I love this! It's going to make for a great music lesson tomorrow.

Grace, Humility and Hope for September 11

It has been 8 years since the that tragic day in America. I imagine I will always remember how many years it has been since the day planes destroyed the World Trade Center and the parts of the Pentagon. I'll remember because it will always be the same number of years as the age of my oldest son. I'll probably always remember nursing my infant as I watched the tragedy unfold on TV that morning. It was a scary way to begin motherhood.

But today, eight years have passed, that infant is a third grader and a big brother. And, for good or for bad, there was no mention of the World Trade Center over our family breakfast this morning. But there was mention of September 11. Why? Because it's the feast of St. Euphrosynos the Cook! We spent our breakfast reading this wonderful book, which my boys (especially my oldest) have grown to love over the years. I think they love the stories about St. Euphrosynos as a boy and his difficult but rewarding relationships with the other monks in his monastery. And I'm sure they love the gorgeous illustrations. But this morning as I read it, I thought about St. Euphrosynos' humility and his forgiveness. Euphrosynos was treated poorly by the others as a child, and by other monks as an adult. But he was patient, humble and forgiving. And that spirit of forgiveness seems a perfect model for today, the anniversary of a day when many people were wronged and violated. And I know it's a good model for me today, this week and this month as I continue to struggle with how to relate to those who wrong me, my children, my friends. Forgiveness is hard, hard, hard, but it's worth it, not only in eternity, but even in that very moment.

And then, several friends posted this lovely story today from the NPR archives. It's from the "This I Believe" series and is about forgiveness after a tragedy in Vietnam just a few years before I was born. It is certainly a perfect image for us today.

May we all learn to embrace forgiveness in our daily lives through the prayers of the humble young monk Euphrosynos!

Miss Mary

Tonight I listened a little more closely to the prayer that my 3yo has been regularly praying for well over a year. Yes, my husband was right. This little guy is dutifully praying:

"Miss Holy Theotokos, save us!"

I wonder if that's what he's been saying all along. If so, I'm sure Miss Mary (the Most Holy) is listening with love!

General Washington

On our recent trip to the DC area, one of our many busy days was spent at Mount Vernon. I could write a whole post about how great that long day was. I would mostly talk about the beautiful gardens and orchards which have been recreated after archeological digs to discover exactly where Washington had planted his plants and trees in his experimental gardens. Or I might write about the master blacksmith who actually works there on the property, in the original blacksmith shop, creating hinges and tools for the historical restoration that is in progress. But, maybe I'll save that post for another day. What I really loved was how much my boys were taken in with the history at Mount Vernon. They both have been completely captivated by the story of George Washington: the boy, the soldier, the general, the president, the farmer and the hero. They both had some spending money to use at various gift shops during the week. It had been given them by their great grandma when we arrived at her house. My oldest was spending his in little chunks everywhere. My youngest is more deliberate and had been carefully waiting for the perfect purchase. At Mount Vernon, that little guy decided it was definitely time to spend his. He departed from the Lady Washington Shop with a hat and a gun just like General Washington. The photo above is of him in the gardens at the estate. He's been speaking of himself in the third person, "General Washington needs to do this, General Washington doesn't like that . . . " ever since.

And today, I'm afraid that perhaps some other part of Washington has rubbed off on my little imp. Around 4 PM he emerged from the playroom to find me working on the laptop in the living room. He looked at me very seriously.

"Mommy, I will not tell a lie," he said.

"OK." I responded.

"I will not tell a lie. I broke the DVD player. I really did. Come see what I did."

I followed him back to inspect the scene of the crime.

He's right. He broke it. So, we may now be living more and more like General Washington. The digital switch already left this non-cable family with no channels at all (we're not so conveniently geographically located for the digital converter box to work well). So, we were already mourning the loss of PBS. And now, I guess, our beloved movies can't be watched on the TV either. Maybe we really will just move to Mount Vernon. I think I could deal with it.

On World Literature: Thoughts on Alexander Solzhenitsyn

We are approaching the one-year anniversary of the death of a literary giant of the 20th century: Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, who reposed in Russia last August. Those who read one of my private blogs may remember that last August I posted briefly on the death of this writer and his relationship with another of my favorite writers: Fr. Alexander Schmemann. In the picture here, they are both pictured with yet another of my favorite writers (though most don't think of her primarily as a writer), Fr. Alexander's wife, Matushka Julianna Schmemann. She recently published this book, which I just love.

Many of my readers know that I am a student of Slavic languages, literature and linguistics and that I teach Russian language, culture and literature at a university. From time to time, family and friends will ask me about certain Russian writers and my thoughts on their works. Though most questions center on the 19th century prose giants (Tolstoy and Dostoevsky), Solzhenitsyn's name comes up quite often. I'm no true scholar of Solzhenitsyn, but I've read a fair amount of his works, some in Russian and some in English translation. So, when asked, I tell people the truth. I have mixed thoughts about Solzhenitsyn. I love some of his works, and I think others are just OK. I agree with some of his worldview, and I think some of it is also a bit too extreme. But I also always tell them this: if you want to read his best work, go find the short story "Matrenin dvor" ("Matryona's House"). It is my absolute favorite of all of his works. In fact, it is tied with three other short stories for my favorite works of all world literature.* So, when last night I listened to a great podcast by Fr. Thomas Hopko about Solzhenitsyn, I was delighted to find that Fr. Thomas and I share many opinions, especially a love for "Matryona's House," which can be found in English translation in this volume.

For those who are interested, take 40 minutes of your time, and listen to Fr. Thomas' podcast here. It's a great overview of Solzhenitsyn's life, works, worldview and his role in world literature and Orthodox Christian faith in the 20th century.

*And, since I know someone will probably ask, I'll go ahead and fill you in on my three other favorite short stories, listed here in no particular order.
"Megalos Masteras and His Work," Borislav Pekić, as found in this collection
"Live and Remember," Valentin Rasputin
"The Gift of the Magi," O. Henry