Reading and Eating

Yay!  We have the Internet again, so we're no longer living like savages!  Except that the big truck carrying all of our belongings is still in a warehouse in St. Louis, so that's lame.  Today I registered the kids for school and they were able to check some books out of the school library.  They have all been reading happily for hours.  Huzzah!  That reminded me that I had not yet blogged about our latest Mother and I Book Club picks.

In May I had Harrison read Holes by Louis Sachar and he had me read Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson.  It has been years since I've read Holes, so Harrison had to tell me the entire story again.  We both agreed that it was a great book and that it was perfect for his age.  Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life was kind of the worst.  The cover and illustrations made it look like it might be similar to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, but it's so not.  It's super heavy and not at all fun to read.  I'm sure there are young kids out there who can relate to the main character's crappy life, but Harrison and I just thought it was a big downer.

Harrison and I decided to go to Fitz's one last time to talk about our books.  They brew their own sodas and just seeing this picture makes me thirsty.

I decided to go nuts and get the gooey butter cake and cream soda.  It was the best gooey butter cake I'd ever had.  Rats!  Now I'm hungry, too!

Since Harrison had recommended that book to me, I didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him it sucked.  I asked him if he enjoyed the book and he said, "No way!  But that was the only book I could find that I had read and you hadn't."  One of the rules of our book club is that we have to read a book before we recommend it.  We decided we would spend the summer reading lots of middle grade books so that we can have plenty of recommendations for each other the rest of the year.  So . . . help!  What books have you and your 10-12 year old kids enjoyed?  I would love some suggestions!

Harrison and I have a little inside joke about Phyllis Diller (as one does), so we were pretty excited to see that she has her own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Off I go to judge another sock skating competition.

There and Back Again

This month for our Mother and I Book Club (I changed the name to sound less juvenile.), Harrison gave me The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and I gave him Divergent by Veronica Roth.  I had not planned to let Harrison read the excellent Divergent series for a few more years because I felt the boy/girl scenes were a little too intense for someone his age.  However, a long boring story would make it clear that this was the only book I had to offer him at the time.

Of all of the YA novels set in a dystopian future and centered on a regular girl who falls in love and begins to question the system, this one is definitely my favorite.  I love that right and wrong aren't always clear in this series.  Harrison read it really quickly and really enjoyed it.  He said he would be in the Dauntless faction because he likes to climb on things.  We went out and saw the movie, which is fantastic (Helloooooo, Theo James.), and I was happy that he was as excited to see it as I was.

We went to Llewellyn's Pub for our book club meeting and there was totally a dwarf sitting behind us.  Nice!  By April 20th, I still hadn't started reading The Hobbit and Harrison was worried.  It had taken him seven months (off and on) to get through it and he didn't think I'd be able to make our deadline.  He even let me off the hook and gave me a shorter, quicker read.  As happy as I was to have an out, I knew it was important to keep my promise.  

I remember someone telling me once that there are two kinds of readers: those who savor books and those who devour them.  I devour books, and Tolkien's books demand to be savored.  That's part of their charm, I guess.  I loved his use of language.  Here was one of my favorite passages:

"There is nothing like looking if you want to find something . . . You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after."

I think Tolkien said it better than the Rolling Stones.  I loved this book.  I want to read it once every year, I think.  It's absolutely perfect and I'm so glad my son has good taste in books and that now I can cross one more book off my list of books the BBC says I should read before I die.

I took the kids to St. Charles one last time yesterday (before our book club meeting).  We walked around and remembered all of the good times we've had in that pretty city.

 It was May 1st.  So . . . it's May.  We move in May.  [Keep it together!]

[77 year old spoiler alert.]  It's May 1st when Gandalf and Bilbo come to the last road in their journey, the journey that leads home.  This passage made me cry:

"Merry is May-time!" said Bilbo, as the rain beat into his face.  "But our back is to legends and we are coming home.  I suppose this is the first taste of it."
"There is a long road yet," said Gandalf.
"But it is the last road," said Bilbo.

We're coming to the end of our journey here in St. Louis and even though there's still a month left, it is the last month.  So there will be many times over the next few weeks where we'll do something for the last time.  Like, eating ice cream on the bench in front of the Riverside Sweets and Ice Cream Parlor in St. Charles.

This picture doesn't really have anything to do with what I was saying.  I just felt it should be noted that Thursday was a good hair day for me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to the adventures ahead in our new home, but that doesn't make it easier to leave.

Found: Cakes and Geese

Last night Harrison and I had our Mommy and Me Book Club Meeting.  This month I had him read The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale and he had me read Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix.  Because the book Found involves following clues and searching for answers, I thought it would be fun if Harrison and I went on a scavenger hunt.

The city of St. Louis turns 250 years old this year and to commemorate this birthday, 250 birthday cake sculptures have been placed throughout the city.  There were a high concentration of birthday cakes to be found in Forest Park, so we drove around the park taking pictures and talking about our books.

Here's the Art Museum cake by the statue of St. Louis.  This cake doubles as a crummy commercial for Southwest Airlines.

We also found these nine cakes at (Starting top row left): The Jewel Box, the World's Fair Pavilion, Steinberg Ice Skating Rink, St. Louis Zoo, Ted Drewes, Missouri History Museum, Forest Park Visitors Center, Grand Basin, and the Muny.  

We also found a goose!  I wanted to get a picture of me with the goose (You know, like I'M the goose girl?), but no go.  That goose was mean!  Also, I cut off the "S" in Shannon Hale's name.  Oops.

My super secret reason for wanting to do this book club with Harrison was so that he would read The Goose Girl.  No lie.  I knew he would never read it on his own.  (Duh.  It's called The Goose Girl and has the most feminine book cover, ever, with a blurb from the author of Twilight.  Come on!)  He absolutely loved it!  He said it was nothing like what he thought it would be and he would definitely read the rest of the books in the Books of Bayern series.  Winning!

Harrison is a big fan of Margaret Peterson Haddix.  He's read nearly everything she's ever written and he's told me about all of them.  May I just say that the woman is a little bit . . . off?  Read the description of any of her books and you're bound to be mildly disturbed that this woman writes children's books.  In the prologue of Found, a mysterious plane lands at the airport and it is discovered that inside are 36 passengers: all babies.  What the WHAT?!  The rest of the book takes place 13 years later and finding out who the babies actually were and where they came from was a pretty cool reveal.  I like Haddix's style, but am still a little bit afraid of her.

Neither book left us with much to discuss (mostly because it had been years since I'd read The Goose Girl and I couldn't remember much about it), but we had SO MUCH FUN running around in the rain and taking pictures.  Also, Harrison had to go to the bathroom really bad and nothing was open, so he made his mark somewhere in Forest Park.  Memories . . .

Plus, any night that ends here is a success.  It's no Goodberry's, but it will do.

The Good Old Days

Last Saturday Harrison and I got together to discuss our February picks for our Mommy and Me Book Club.

This month I chose Wonder by R.J. Palacio for Harrison to read.  I loved this book about a young boy with a severely deformed face beginning middle school.  The story is told from the perspectives of the boy (August), his sister, and his friends.  It's touching, funny, and well-written.  Harrison said he was surprised by how much he liked it.  It was interesting to hear which parts made a big impression on him.  This is a fantastic book to read together with your fifth grader.

Harrison chose The Giver by Lois Lowry for me to read.  This was Harrison's favorite book he read last year and he couldn't wait to talk about it.  It's a Newbery Medal winner and one of those classic books that they make you read in school that somehow I never got around to reading.  It's the story of a young boy in a dystopian world where everything is perfect and everything is under control.  No one has any choices or feels any real pain or joy.  (You know, Satan's plan.)  Everyone in the community is assigned a role when they turn 12 and the main character, Jonas, is given the role of "Receiver."  He is to be the receiver of all of the memories of the community before "sameness" was implemented.  Guess who gives the memories to Jonas?  That's right: The Giver.

I thought this book was fantastic.  There were a few intense and disturbing scenes and if Harrison had not already read it, I would have been hesitant to recommend it to him until he turned 12.  So, use your best judgment, parents.

What I loved about both of these books is that they dealt with that bittersweet age right between childhood and the teenage years.  Harrison is in 5th grade and all his friends will be moving on to middle school next year.  (In Arizona, sixth grade is elementary school.)  He's at the age when the boys and girls are starting to pair off and playing with lightsabers is no longer awesome.  He's eager to grow up and enjoy more freedom, but has no idea what responsibilities lie ahead.  I loved reading about that time of life that I have worked so hard to forget.  I'm hoping it will help me be more empathetic as Harrison's world keeps changing.

Harrison has been playing basketball with the local Catholic league for the past three years.  We've had so much fun watching these boys grow up and cheering them on.  Harrison, especially, has shown incredible improvement.  The first thing he does when he gets home from school is go shoot hoops.

[It went in!]  His first year on the team, he didn't score once.  The second year, he scored once.  This year, he's scored multiple points in most of his games.  Growing a few inches probably helped, but Jeff likes to give credit to the NBA video game they play together.  Whatevs.  The season ended last week and I'm already sad that we won't get to watch these boys grow up.

Last week Harrison participated in a cup stacking tournament.  Yes, that's a thing.  It's harder than it looks, but not so hard that we ought to be having tournaments and giving kids medals for it.  Oh, the sad, sad state of our physical education system!  Harrison didn't win any medals, but he took it well.  There were a lot of sad kindergartners who went home disappointed.  It was funny to watch them and realize that Harrison totally would have cried about it if he had gone home empty handed as a kindergartner.  I love that he's growing older and wiser.  And it's probably okay if he's not an amazing cup stacker.  He's got plenty of other things going for him.

The Candy Shop Runner

A couple of weeks ago I read a book that I knew Harrison would like.  The problem is, Harrison never never ever reads books that I recommend to him.  It's weird.  Anyway, I told him that we should start a book club where we give each other a book to read and then we go out and discuss them.  He was all for it.  (Winning!) 

I gave Harrison The Maze Runner by James Dashner.

He gave me The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull.

Yesterday we headed down to The Loop in St. Louis and found Miss M's Candy shop.  They had something I'd been looking for my whole life:

What?  I was curious, okay?

Harrison chose a giant package of Warheads, which he would later declare "a huge mistake." 

Since Miss M's didn't have anywhere for us to sit and discuss our books, we headed next door to Piccione Pastry (a delightful Italian pastry shop).

Harrison and I shared a chocolate cannoli and it was amazing.  The bacon chocolate was a huge disappointment.  Should you ever find yourself deciding between the two, take my advice: Leave the bacon chocolate.  Take the cannoli.

We both really liked both books, but I have to admit that it took me about 150 pages before I really got into The Candy Shop War.  I couldn't get over how stupid the kids were being.  (Don't take candy from strangers, duh!)  Also, based on the title, I was expecting something . . . cuter.  It's not cute.  It's creepy and bizarre.  But once I gave into that, I enjoyed it.  The Maze Runner is also creepy, but I was expecting that, so I was okay with it.  Harrison loved The Maze Runner and has already finished the whole series, which made our book discussion a little difficult.

Me: Do you think they sent the girl on purpose?
Harrison: Ummmmm. . . well, in the next book--
Me: NO, DON'T TELL ME!

He has also read the sequel to The Candy Shop War, so I had to keep him from spoiling that one, too. Most of all, it was just nice to spend one-on-one time together.  I think this is going to be fun.

That's his over-the-moon face.

(Also the face he makes when he's sucking on a Warhead.)

December Book Review: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Our Mommy and Me Book Club came to an end today as we discussed our last book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg.  Chloe and I were both sad to see our fun year of reading together come to a close.  I thought that was the secret reason she took FOREVER to read this book.  Not so. 

 

From the Mixed-Up Fiels of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is the delightful tale of Claudia and Jamie Kincaid and how they run away from home and take up residence in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  That's all you need to know, really.  I don't want to spoil anything.  This book is a 1968 Newbery Medal Winner and is really fantastic, but a lot of the older references made it difficult for Chloe to fully comprehend the story while reading it on her own.  I had never read it before, but if I had I definitely would have read this aloud to her.  She understood the plot, but had several questions about it during our discussion today at the St. Louis Art Museum.

 

"Dedicated to art and free for all." 

The St. Louis Art Museum is one of the many free places to visit in the city, but we had never been there.  I was happy to be able to check something off my bucket list. 

 

"Love Your Mummy."

Chloe is very good to stand out in the cold while I changed the settings on my camera.  She loves her mummy.

"Little Dancers"

This sculpture or statue (Hmmm.  What's the difference between a sculpture and a statue?  Just Googled it and I still don't know.) is by Degas and contains both stone and textile elements.  Her tutu is made of muslin and the ribbon in her hair is satin. 

"Claude and Chloe"

We saw a lot of really cool art and also, too, a lot of crap.  Chloe kept saying, "Don't go in that room, Mom.  There are a lot of naked people."  I hope she meant in the art work. 

"My Museum of Art is THIS Big"

We weren't able to find a good spot in the museum where we could hide out for the week.  Maybe we could have looked harder. 

"Lake of Frozen Dreams"

I asked Chloe if she were to run away from home (Don't!), which brother would she take with her.  She said she would take Harrison because he's older and smarter.  I asked her how long she thought they would last on their own.  "A few minutes," she admitted.

"Frigid Understanding of Youth"

Art is so interesting to me.  I remember in a class in high school we had weekly debates and the first one was "What is art?"  We never did answer that question and I'm still trying to figure it out. 

"Wasted Wasteland"

The works of two photographers were on display at the museum.  One of them blew me away and the other one didn't seem like anything special at all.  Who decides which artists are good and which are not?  I would like to talk to that person.

"Girl in Snow"

Near as I can tell, photographs that are art are printed in black and white and have either overly dramatic or on-the-nose titles.  I declare the previous three pictures of this post "art." 

 

I once saw Judd Hirsch, Joe Morton, and George Wendt (You're too young.) in a Broadway production of the play "Art" in which one of the men buys a "painting" that is nothing more than a blank canvas.  It seems like they did a good job debating what constitutes "art" in that play, but I was too busy restraining myself from yelling, "Norm!" to pay attention.  I think I'll go back and read it.

"Not Art.  Just Mom."

After the museum, Chloe and I went out to lunch and tried to remember all the books we read last year.  (We couldn't remember "Ivy and Bean."  What does that say?)  Chloe said her top three books last year were: 1) Junie B. First Grader, Dumb Bunny, 2) Peace Love and Cupcakes, and 3) Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth. 

 

This book club was pretty much the greatest idea Santa has ever had.  I highly recommend doing it with your children.  The books were fun and gave us a lot to talk about, but just spending time one-on-one time together once a month has been great for our relationship.  I think Chloe is going to take great care of my in my old age.  That's the goal, right?

Here's a complete list of our Mommy and Me Book Club Books:
January--Peace Love and Cupcakes
February--Fancy Nancy: Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth
March--Ivy and Bean
April--Juny B, First Grader: Dumb Bunny
May--Amelia Bedelia Means Business
June--Every Thing On It
July--No Flying in the House
August--Just Grace Goes Green
September--Anne of Green Gables
October--Princess Academy
November--The Doll People
December--From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

November Book Review: The Doll People

This month for our Mommy and Me Book Club, Chloe and I read The Doll People by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin.  I know that one shouldn't, but I totally judged this book by its cover.  Its beautiful, beautiful cover. 

The Doll People is the story of Annabelle Doll, the eight year old daughter of Mom Doll and Dad Doll who has been living in the same dollhouse for the last hundred years.  Nothing ever changes, until one day a new family, the Funcrafts, move into the human's house.  There's a mystery involving the disappearance of Annabelle's Auntie Sarah 45 years earlier and lots of adventures involving the attic and the human family's cat, The Captain.  All of it is beautifully illustrated by Brain Selznick.  This is the first book in a series of books about the Doll family.

For our book club discussion, I decided to take Chloe and her favorite doll out to lunch at the American Girl Bistro on a windy Saturday afternoon.  Neither of us had been to an American Girl store before, so we weren't aware that there would be a two and a half hour wait for us to eat their tiny overpriced food. 

We decided to have lunch next door at Cheeseburger Cheeseburger and get some dessert at the bistro.  I'm guessing those diner folks get a lot of business from the American Girl store, considering they immediately brought out a high chair for Chloe's doll, Moonie.

Moonie is a My Friend Mandy doll that I got when I was a little girl.  I don't even remember her real name, but Chloe named her "Moonie" a long time ago.  One of the things I loved about The Doll People was that the dollhouse had been handed down from mother to daughter over the years.  It gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling when I told Chloe to go get her favorite doll and she brought out my favorite doll.

After lunch, we headed back to the doll store and looked at all the doll clothes that cost more than anything I own.  Chloe got her picture taken with her favorite doll, Saige.  I scored major mommy points for knowing who that doll was.  (Thank you, girls I babysat who made me sit through that Saige movie starring Jane Seymour and the third hottest guy from Dawson's Creek.)

Here's the hair salon where you can pay to have a professional do your doll's hair.  Did you know that was a career choice?  Why did I even go to college? 

Eventually the maître d called our name and we sat down at the bistro bar.  They were very kind to Moonie, which was nice because she was clearly not from around there.  The waitress brought her some lemonade, no charge. 

Chloe and I had fun talking about the book and how much we loved it.  There's a great theme throughout the story about when to play it safe and when to be brave.  There was also a great lesson about making new friends and not judging people before you get to know them.  I asked Chloe if she thinks her toys come to life when she's sleeping.  She said, "I didn't used to until I read that book and saw all those movies about it."

I ordered the chocolate mousse in a flowerpot with cookies on the side.  Best chocolate chip cookies I've ever eaten in my life.

We had such a fun afternoon together and now I know where to go to buy $60 pajamas for Moonie.  Chloe and I would definitely recommend this book, the cookies at The American Girl Bistro, and the cheeseburgers at Cheeseburger Cheeseburger.