Category Archive: Book Reviews
We have a tradition of buying a Christmas book every year to read as a family. I write the year purchased in the front cover and add it to the pile of books from years before. Except, this year my bookshelf-and-armoire-organizing husband organized the heck out of our dining bookshelf and armoire and now I’m not so sure where the pile is. I’m pretty sure I’d find it, though, if I looked hard enough. (Have I mentioned how awesome it is to be married to a guy who vacuums, washes the floors and organizes my chaotic shelves?) Today, however, is not the day of searching for old books; it is the day of buying the new one. So now we have one fabulous Christmas book to enjoy, The Night Before Christmas, retold and illustrated by Rachel Isadora.
Livia learned that Santa wasn’t real last year, so I figured this book’s setting—in a village in Africa, complete with a black Santa—wouldn’t ruin anything for her. If anything, it solidifies the fun of Santa around the world, and how this mythical character is imagined and enjoyed in most every culture. The illustrations are wonderful and the poetry is as Clement C. Moore intended it.
I can’t wait for story time tonight.
Today is a banner day.
My child can [drumroll, please] read. Read! R-E-A-D, READ!!!
Though I love words, they are failing me now as I’m having difficulty describing how much it means to me that Livia is starting to read. Really, the whole thing blows my mind.
We’ve been reading to this kiddo since she was placed in our arms and we’ve never stopped. I signed her up for the library’s summer reading program before she even cared about it and I read competitively to her that season. (And the next year, too. Silly competitive book-lovin’ mama.) Only recently has Livia taken to flipping through books on her own; she wasn’t really the kind of baby who simply adored books. She did read her first word at 3.5 years: b-o-o-k. And we were ecstatic over that.
I ordered the Bob books from Scholastic recently and we cracked them open today. Well, guess who is ready to read? My kid. My five-almost-six year old. Sounding out words, stringing letters together, remembering the new words and reading them correctly the second time around.
Sheer awesomeness. It’s a whole new world.
One more thing. Livia and I wrote our own story—and she read it at least five times today. Here it is. And, sheerly for purposes of geographical translation, “pop” means “Coke” to all you Southerners. ; )
Alright, peeps. I need help finding a good book to read. I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t really read anything since I completed the Harry Potter series back in November.
I’m looking for a really solid, suck-you-in type of story. Fiction or non, doesn’t matter.
Help!
This little exercise has been floating around Facebook and I ignored it until Kristen posted her list today. Fifteen books that you’ll always remember in 15 minutes or less… Here ya go! (In order from earliest read to most recently read.)
Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
Passion and Purity, Elisabeth Elliot
Sarum, Edward Rutherford
The Wheel of Time (#1), Robert Jordan
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey
Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Brothers K, David James Duncan
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
Raising Your Spirited Child, Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver
We finished reading The Hobbit Sunday night. It marked the ending of the first read-aloud book we did as a family and I’ll always be grateful that Jeremy picked it out for us. We worked our way through the book, reading several pages at a time while lounging on the living room couch or sprawled across Livia’s bed. More than one evening witnessed a very tired and squirrelly child—those two traits go hand-in-hand in the Tredway household—alongside one reading parent and one cuddling parent. Oftentimes the reading parent (usually me) also needed to tickle Squirrel Girl’s backside to keep her calm while detailed passages of barreling down the Forest River River or climbing up Lonely Mountain were being read. I have this to say for The Hobbit: the first half was more entertaining for a child than the second. It seems similar to The Lord of the Rings series in that way. The first halves are more lighthearted and full of humorous stories; the latter halves are darker, more serious in nature, and thus more dramatic.
Jeremy ordered the animated version of The Hobbit, which arrived in our mailbox sometime last week. It was driving force in Liv’s resolve to sit still for the final pages of the book as we refused to watch the film before the last page of the book had been read. So Monday night saw us prepare the first ever themed meal at the old homestead… Italian meat sandwiches became Roasted Dragon Meat on Hobbit Bread. Carrot sticks magically turned into Elvish carrots that sat neatly by piles of Dwarvish (Potato) Chips. The final touch, Wizard’s Brew Liv liked to call it, was a glowing blue combination of blue lemonade and Diet Squirt. We sat down for a feast in front of the John Huston-narrated version of The Hobbit, and there we stayed until Smaug was slayed and Bilbo returned safely to his hobbit hole in the Shire.
It was then Livia told us, for the first time, that she was “falling in love…”. With the movie. With that she walked upstairs by herself to go to bed. Another first.
Apparently, I’ve never read The Hobbit. I wrapped up the Lord of the Rings trilogy before seeing the movies—books, then movies, typically the ordering I prefer—but somehow I never got around to The Hobbit… until now.
I had envisioned Livia and I moving on to the next Little House book after we completed Little House in the Big Woods, but Jeremy had a different recommendation. I questioned the sense of reading The Hobbit to a five year old. Silly me! Have I met my five year old? She has an imaginary black dragon named Big Boy living under her bed, say nothing of all the villains she pretends to be on a regular basis. (Though, I should add that she also pretends to be Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We like to keep a healthy balance around here.) This morning Jeremy has been assigned the role of Gollum, which means he has to use the phrase “my precioussss” as much as possible.
It’s been an enjoyable family time for us, this reading of The Hobbit. Last night’s installment brought about two big moments, moments that made me say “oh!” with surprise and excitement of the knowledge of their great importance in the future of Middle Earth.
First, Bilbo, stuck in the deep darkness of a cave, finds a trinket: “He…crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it. He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking; certainly it did not seem of any particular use at the moment.” (p.64)
Did Liv wonder why Mom was making big eyes and silent but silly facial expressions at Daddy at this point?! Yes, I was all geeked out at the first mention of The Ring. One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Second, I love the way Tolkien transitions the reader’s focus into the Gollum introduction. After Bilbo finds the ring, I figured Gollum couldn’t be too far off—even though I’ve never read The Hobbit, I know the story and have seen at least one animated movie version. The Planet Earth series actually came to mind when I read the following description, “There are strange things living in the pools and lakes in the hearts of mountains: fish whose father swam in, goodness only knows how many years ago, and never swam out again, while their eyes grew bigger and bigger and bigger from trying to see in the blackness; also there are other things more slimy than fish. Even in the tunnels and caves the goblins have made for themselves there are other things living unbeknown to them that have sneaked in from outside to lie up in the dark.” (p.66)
Oooo. Shudder. Hello, Gollum!
I’ve been interested in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for some time now. Finally I checked it out from the local library and, now that I’ve completed the spellbinding page-turner The Game of Kings, I am knee deep (or perhaps ankle deep is more accurate) in the story of the Kingsolver-Hopp Family’s year of eating locally. On this first day of spring, I find myself nodding in recognition at the author’s description of her own spring thaw: “I’m a soul on ice flung out on a rock in the sun, where the needles that pierced me began to melt all as one.”
As a mom, I couldn’t help but laugh when her youngest daughter, on the following page, refers to jonquils as tranquils.
There went the last of the needles of ice around my heart, and I understood I’d be doomed to calling the jonquils tranquils for the rest of my days. Lily is my youngest. Maybe you know how these things go. In our family, those pink birds with the long necks are called flingmos because of how their real name was cutely jumbled by my brother’s youngest child—and that was, yikes, twenty years ago.
So will we always call worms cutie pies after Liv’s pet phrase?
**Though I highly recommend The Game of Kings, the first in the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett, I should include a warning: it took me a very long time to get invested in the story. The only reason I pushed through was that Bryonie and Haley loved the books—so I knew the novel deserved my full attention. Though the first half seemed beyond my reading skill and I felt fairly lost, my perseverance was rewarded by the fast-paced, intriguing story-telling of the latter half. Now I’m off to find book two in the series.
I am a poor representative for the Jesse Tree, but I’ll tell you what I know. The Jesse Tree is a way to count down to Christmas Day with your family, a method of accounting for the larger story that lead to the birth of God as a human baby. I’ve been reading New Way to Be Human by Charlie Peacock and, as result, have thought quite a bit about the larger Story that exists. In the author’s words:
It doesn’t matter whether I’m confused and unsure… a novice spiritual traveler, or someone with a heart full of certainties. If I’m serious about following Jesus as his student, I should know the Story he was sure of. Following means stepping into his controlling, explanatory Story.
Luke’s gospel tells the Story of Jesus and the two disciples on Emmaus Road. Luke 24:27 says, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” Jesus told stories in the context of the larger Story he and his Jewish contemporaries already knew—The Book of Beginnings, the Law, the Prophets, the Wisdom Books, and Songs.
Jesus knew the Story he had stepped into. His follower Matthew knew too. Matthew started his gospel account with, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham” (1:1). It’s an account of the genesis of Messiah Jesus, his beginnings, his origins. Matthew 1:17 says, “Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from Christ to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to Christ.”
Why begin with genealogy? Matthew’s message is: “Get this first. You won’t fully understand what I’m about to tell you unless you have the right starting place. If you really want to understand Jesus, you have to know the Story in which he’s participating (and is in fact the climax of). If you know this, you will know better how to participate, and you’ll be less likely to find yourself inside the wrong story or in an insufficient one.”
Peacock’s book had made quite an impact on me so far. It’s encouraging me to learn more about this family I’ve been adopted into (Romans 11:17) and to relish the rich history of God’s people. I like the Jesse Tree because it acknowledges, to quote Sally Lloyd-Jones’s excellent Jesus Storybook Bible, that “every story whispers his name.”
Full disclosure is called for here. The holidays do not generate crafty feelings within me, which means there is no way I would’ve created a Jesse Tree this year on my own. The other members of the Mom-to-Mom leadership team graciously undertook the HUGE project of creating 30 Jesse Trees for Zion, Grace and Redeemer moms this year. So this cool Jesse Tree banner was a gift—and I am grateful! We’ve enjoyed reading verses that correspond to little ornaments each day, then hanging the small symbols on the felt tree. If you want more info on Jesse Trees, I recommend Googling it.
Me: And you were reading your Bible this morning because why?
Liv: I want Winnie to stop biting me.
Me: How was reading the Bible going to solve that issue?
Livia: God gonna speak to that dog.
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The conversation above came after Jeremy found Liv in bed reading her little pink Bible. She had gotten sick in the night and this morning I told her to stay in bed until I had brought her a drink. While I was downstairs, Liv was reading her Bible to figure out right and wrong. She said that the next time Winnie is sick, Livia will read the Bible to her—apparently to teach the wee dog that biting is wrong. My favorite line, though, is “God gonna speak to that dog.” Love. it.
I realize that I’ve been burning the candle at both ends recently, running back and forth between various responsibilities without much pause for reflection or rejuvenation. I was beginning to treat every activity as an obligation… not a great way to live and definitely not a way to enjoy life! On the heels of the realization comes some small stomach virus that has Liv laid up in bed and me kept at home on a sunny and cold Friday. And you know what? I’m thoroughly enjoying the day. My calendar is cleared, we’ve got groceries in the cupboards, and I have an excuse to go slow.
Most enjoyable of all was thirty minutes of reading Little House in the Big Woods to my daughter. Livia laughed at the story of Pa playing Mad Dog with his daughters, and urged me to keep reading the chapter on Christmas. I love connecting her to a series of books that has brought me so much pleasure over the years.
My parents’ apple tree is in full production mode and its limbs are heavy with fruit. Apparently, the tree needed a sturdy trimming last year in order to be this fruitful. We are glad to be recipients of baskets and bagfuls of these tart green apples—and Livia is thrilled to experience apple farm outings in her own Nana and Papa’s front yard!
I plan to make apple butter in the crockpot soon. I made some applesauce as well which didn’t turn out so great. That’s what I get for “winging it” and forgoing all recipes. Gloppy, sticky applesauce. It smelled great and tasted fine, but I can’t say I want to eat it a week later (texture is key!). I am thoroughly enjoying the new Zion Cookbook however and decided to cook up Karen Hunt’s apple muffins. This is the part where I have to eat my words. I’ve told many friends in the past that I DON’T LIKE muffins. (I think I wrote it on the blog, too.) Well, guess what. I made Karen’s apple muffins and they were delicious. Yum-o. Tasted great. So scratch my old prejudice against muffins. New days of muffin-y goodness awaits the Tredway household.
For the record, the new Zion Cookbook rocks. It has a lot more recipes than the old one and has breathed new life into my kitchen. If you’d like one but don’t attend Zion or Redeemer, you can send me an email (). Cookbooks are $15 and I imagine you’d need to include something extra for shipping and handling. Without further ado, I present the recipe for Apple Muffins.
Muffin
- 2 C flour
- 3 t baking powder
- 1/2 C sugar
- 1/2 t salt
- 3 T shortening
- 1 egg, beaten
- 3/4 C milk
- 1 t vanilla
- 1 C apples, peeled & chopped
Preheat oven to 400. Sift together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut in shortening; set aside. Combine eggs and milk. Add to flour mixture, mix until flour is just moistened. Fold in apples. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin tins half full.
Crunch topping
- 1/3 C brown sugar
- 1/2 t cinnamon
- 1/3 C nuts (opt)
Combine topping mixture. Sprinkle over muffin batter. Bake for 25 minutes.