Book Updates:

We've been reading a lot around the house these days. Seriously, the television has been on less than an hour in the whole last week. On our bookshelves these days:

Christopher: "The Mysterious Benedict Society" and all of its sequels. These are great books (I even started reading the first one myself) and he's been having a lot of fun with them. We're waiting for the 3rd in the series from the library and in the meantime he's re-reading Percy Jackson. I think he'd love the 39 clues books, but he hasn't gotten started yet.

Cate: We've been working to figure out what a "just right" book for her is. At this point, it's more about content than the reading of the words, and getting used to tackling bigger books and not giving up after a few chapters. The fairy books by Daisy Meadows have been a godsend, and she's enjoyed a few of the Pony Pals series. It's been a bit appalling that her favorites this summer have been the Barbie Junior Novels. I know I shouldn't care -- they are nice, fairly thick books with more drawn out plot-lines for her to read and she devours them. I just wish her tastes didn't run so quickly to Barbie princesses. Blech. Should I care or just be happy she's finding books that inspire her to want to read?

Read-Alouds: Yes, we're still addicted to Harry Potter. There were a few days last week where we got little done around the house because we were at the end of one of the books and we HAD to finish now. We're now into "Half-Blood Prince." I keep wondering when or if Cate will get scared or the content will become too mature for her. They get more and more mature and dark as they progress. By this point in the story, there are real consequences to people's actions. I stop often to ask her questions about her understanding of the books, and I'm fairly amazed by the amount of detail she's recalling and her ability to think about Harry's world. She has some fun insights about the characters and has some good predictions about what she thinks is coming. I say I'm reading it out loud to Cate, but Toph listens in. It's actually a very intimate and fun family time.

Jenny and Greg: Greg and I have been totally immersed in Steig Larson's Millenium trilogy. I'm about half way through the final book -- "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest." Greg has gotten very little sleep in the past week -- I catch him at 1:30 a.m. still reading these books. They are fairly addictive, as most of the world can tell you. I also enjoyed "Road From Coorain" by Jill Kerr Conway and have an interest in reading her sequel. It's an interesting memoir about growing up in Australia and the movement between growing up on a sheep farm in the bush to coming to town for an education. Next up -- "Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield for my book club.