Books and Reading

Well, we have a snow day today. I'd gotten up to make sure Cedric and Amena were awake and getting up and it was less than fifteen minutes when the call came. Cedric wanted to use my phone right then and there and Amena said, “There's no school! Yahoo!!!” I like Amena's response. I told Cedric to go back to bed and sleep. I don't know if he did but at least I got to go back to bed and slept for a while longer. While I was sleeping, I had this crazy dream.

I'd invited Julia and Jenny Whitcomb over for lunch and they were on their way but I had to go get something. When I got back, there was a lot of snow and so I wasn't able to stop to turn as quickly as normal so I had to back up and then drive up the driveway. When I got to the house, it was different and a woman and her two kids were moving in. I thought, “Great. As long as she understands that this is my house and I make the rules.” It became clear within minutes that she thought it was her house and she wanted to make the rules. I woke up before lunch was ready but at the rate things were going, war was ensuing.

On Good Reads, a website to keep track of the books you've read, rate them, recommend them to others, get recommendations, etc., I set a goal of reading twelve books this year. I include books that I read to the boys as part of school in what I've been reading so my number of books read is somewhat inflated but so far I've read ten. And I'm in the middle of three more. One is The Cultural Life of the American Colonies, one is Women of the 14^th Moon: writings on menopause, and the third is The Phantom Tollbooth. I loved the last when I was younger and since we breezed through the five Spiderwick books in just a couple of weeks, we started yesterday. So far, Joseph likes it. Seth is noncommital.

Women of the 14^th Moon is very interesting. Menopause is not something that I'd really given much thought to but since I just had my 48^th birthday last month, it is something I probably ought to give some thought to. The book is a compilation of pieces, essays, short stories, and poems by various authors and it is quite interesting. So far, I'm a little more than a third of the way through. It is interesting to note that the book excluding bibliography and biographies is 365 pages.

The Cultural Life of the American Colonies is very interesting. In spite of the fact that the very title annoys me because it isn't really dealing with all of the American colonies, but rather just those that went on to become the United States of America. Still, regarding the thirteen mostly British colonies, it is very enlightening and I'm only not quite a third of the way through.

I already mentioned pettifoggers in here. Yesterday I ran across apotheosis which I was not familiar with so I had to look it up. It is a noun meaning 1) elevation to divine status, or 2) the perfect example. Cool. Also, the author used the word fleshpots which I'd seen before but really wasn't sure what it meant. It is a noun, usually used in the plural, which means 1) bodily comfort, or 2) a place of lascivious entertainment.

When the Germans came, they brought many religions with them. I knew that the Mennonites originated in Germany but I'd never heard of the New Mooners, the River Brethern, or the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness. I wasn't able to find anything about the New Mooners but there is a bit of information about the other two. You can look them up if you are interested.

Something I didn't realize because I hadn't really thought about it is that Scotch-Irish refers to Scots who resided in Ireland before migrating to the British colonies. Most of them had no or very little Celtic Irish blood and they were Protestant. Very few Catholic Irish came during the colonial period.

On page 54, the author says, “Social historians of late [this was published in 1957 originally] have shown a growing interest in analyzing the various ores that went into the melting pot and of demonstrating that not all of it fused completely.” I thought that was interesting and not at all surprising. Many areas kept their own languages for a number of years, some up to fifty after migrating to the colonies, before succumbing to English.

I still think that English should be the official language of the United States. If people want to also speak another language, that's great. Honestly, I think everyone should be required to know two languages.

On pages 72 and 73: “Let no one imagine, as school children have sometimes been taught to believe, that our ancestors came in search of 'religious toleration.' Tolerations was a concept that few of them recognized or approved. What they wanted was freedom from interference by opposing religious sects or unfriendly official authorities. Once firmly in the saddle themselves, sects that had been persecuted in England became equally zealous to root out heretics from their own order.”

It seems that Amena and Cedric are learning that people came to escape political and religious issues they didn't agree with. I'm okay with that but I seem to recall that I was taught that they came for religious toleration. I would like to say that I always wondered about that but I can't because I don't remember.

I also managed to finish the three Star Wars books by Timothy Zahn. Joseph told me that we should read all the Star Wars books since we were done with Spiderwick. I'm not sure he understands what that would entail. Over three hundred books. I suppose we could start requesting the books for younger readers from the library and read them but I think even I would want to intersperse them with other books. There really is such a thing as too much of a good thing. One Star Wars book, at adult level, would take many days to read.

I read between 25 and 30 minutes each day and it took us about two and a half days of reading aloud to finish a Spiderwick book and they are each just a few pages more than 100. Yesterday we started The Phantom Tollbooth and read twenty-two pages. If we read 22 pages each day, it will take almost 12 days to finish the book. Since the Star Wars books we currently have are all at least 300 pages and have smaller print, I'm guessing they'd take more than three weeks.

It's about time to go play with sourdough so I'll be back sometime.

Have a great day!