Tag Archives: Reading

A Summer Reading Plan: The Giver

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Saturday was National Free Comic Book Day, which I stumbled upon completely by accident.  I went on the website to see if any store in our area was participating, and was really surprised to see the book store at the beach listed.  We decided to head over there to visit a friend’s grand opening of his new skate shop, and then I suggested we check out the book store.  Sure enough, they were making it a big deal, and The Boy immediately found 5 free comics he was interested in, like Spongebob, Teen Titans Go, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic, as well.  Then we went to look at the real comics, and found a Sonic comic he didn’t have.

While we were there, I thought we’d look for a book to read together this summer.  I had some ideas, and even looked for “Wonder” which Nancy recommended on my facebook page when I wrote about our backup summer plans in lieu of no summer camp.  They didn’t have “Wonder” yet, but put it on their list to order, and instead, I went looking for “The Giver” by Lois Lowry, which is one of my all-time favorite books, and perfect for The Boy’s age group.

As we talked about it, The Boy was more than agreeable to reading a book with me this summer, and almost sounded excited about it, which in turn makes me excited. 😀

If there is anyone else that would like to read “The Giver” with us this summer, we’ll be doing some book club type stuff on the Simple. I Just Do. facebook page so we can all participate.  I’ll even put the questions in the comments so we don’t have any spoilers if you aren’t quite at the same pace as we are.  Even if you don’t have an upper el or middle school kid to read it with, I highly recommend the book for adults, as well.  We’ll start about the second week of June.  That gives you about a month to get your copy 😉

What do you think?  Are you in?

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Puberty: Review

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GuideWell, The Boy and I just read through The Boys’ Guide to Growing Up by Terri Couwenhoven and I think it was a success.  I didn’t prep him too much, just told him I had a book I wanted to read with him.  We sat down on the couch and I showed him the cover, and we started reading.  At first, he was a little uncomfortable (what 11 year old boy wouldn’t be, reading about puberty with his mom?), especially at the illustrations, but as we kept going, he seemed to absorb the information, and be more comfortable talking about it with me.

It was a lot of information all at once (it took us about 20 minutes), and I know we will have to review a few times, but we did hammer home the difference between public and private, as well as who are the people in his life who are OK to answer questions about this type of thing.  These two things are the most important of all, I think, and this book does an excellent job explaining, as well as creating opening for discussion in both of these areas.

In my last post about this book, I mentioned that it doesn’t talk about sexuality, and it doesn’t.  However it does talk about having a crush, or sexual feelings toward another person, and what signals that person may give if they do not feel the same way.  It also talks about ways to manage these feelings, which I think is appropriate to add in a book like this.  I prefaced this subject with The Boy as being further down the road, in high school, maybe.

I felt like we had a successful conversation about the changes he is or is about to go through, and I feel like both of us are more prepared, which is about all I can ask from any book of this type.  I highly recommend this book as a way to start the conversation.

This Week

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This week I am…

Reading lots and lots of blogs, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (with The Boy), and The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss (recommended here, by Holly Burns at Nothing But Bonfires whose writing I love, and figure if her book recommendations are half as good as her writing, I’m golden!)

Cooking pizza puffs, ugly chicken (looks nasty [nothing like the pic on the site] but tastes sooooooo good), and pasta, using my best friend’s husband’s meat sauce (he’s a chef!)

Anticipating the World Series (Go Tigers!), the delivery of my new Kindle (in November!), the new James Bond movie (love me some Daniel Craig [swoon <3]), Thanksgiving (only 30 days until I see The Man again!), and Friday, always Friday

Listening to Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and Feist (The Metals album) – I LOVE this version of Undiscovered First, especially at about 3:50, when she starts whacking the roof of the car for percussive effect.

Keeping an eye on The Boy’s cold, his reaction to attending his first funeral (maybe), and how he handles one of his best buddies moving away

Finding every excuse not to work out

Getting up the nerve to write a letter to our neighbor about the volume of her TV (or is it a radio) every morning at 5:30am

In disbelief that I’m hearing Christmas music as we begin to prepare for our next concert in class, and hearing the s-word in our forecast

Savoring any sleep I can get, the chocolate chip cookies I made last week, the Ghirardelli chocolates The Man got me for my birthday (my favorites!), my homemade sweet tea, and a relatively quiet house in the evening

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This post is modeled after this one from Ali Edwards…