We are dog fans in this house, so when I saw this new picture book featuring that noble animal and then noticed it was by one of DS (11)'s favorite authors, I had to check it out.
All three kids enjoyed hearing this tale of a new king who was the pickiest eater in the world (hmm, now who does that sound like? Oh, yes, two of my three children), and the dog who got to eat foods that the chef traveled 'round the world to find to tempt his royal highness.
Much of the book's appeal is in the unique, lovely illustrations by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher--definitely children's book artists I will be on the lookout for from now on. The two of them have collaborated on more than thirty children's books to date.
In addition to The King's Taster, Canadian author Kenneth Oppel has also written Airborn, Skybreaker, and Starclimber, which trilogy DS (11) recently devoured (our library has them in the YA section). Oppel has another series for younger readers (9-12 years, according to Amazon) that features bats as the main characters (Silverwing, Sunwing, Firewing, and Darkwing), as well as several other stand-alone chapter books and picture books.
I can't believe three weeks and a day have gone by since I first joined my fellow bloggers on a Book Sharing Monday. I don't know where the time goes, except that I am finally, after eleven years, catching up on some much needed sleep!
Tonight we read an old favorite--all three kiddos have enjoyed this one, and the four-year-old still requests it. He used to have it memorized, we read it that often. Wish I had thought to record his toddler-ly interpretation of it.
"In the tall, tall grass. . ."
"Crunch, munch, caterpillars lunch!"
And so it goes throughout In the Tall, Tall Grass, by Denise Fleming. Fleming has written other gems as well, such as In the Small, Small Pond, The First Day of Winter, and Beetle Bop. See below for more!
Book Sharing Monday is hosted (note to self: on MONDAYS) at Serendipity.
This book club read is not my usual fare, yet so far I'm enjoying the strange flavor. Høeg also wrote Smila's Sense of Snow, which I didn't read, but vaguely remember seeing on screen and not loathing.
Among all the suggestions given me by wonderfully helpful colleagues via forums on Choralnet, Evoking Sound is the most easily digested and most immediately helpful of the several books I got from interlibrary loan to evaluate. Now if I can just get through its 300+ pages of jam-packed information! Jordan has several DVDs that are going on my wish list.
Tom has been personally helpful via email with a couple of musical issues I've had in the past, and his book gives excellent advice about creating a safe learning environment for singers, amongst a host of other helpful suggestions.
Since I first read The Thin Woman, I've never failed to be entertained by Cannell's British amateur sleuth, and this latest in the series has been fun so far, though this is my "read to sleep" book so I have to confess I haven't gotten very far yet. Have been very, very tired, as is evidenced by my lack of blogging (late nights are blogging time for me).
Haven't read the book cover-to-cover since first discovering it years ago, so am giving the new edition a go now. Am reading the section about preschoolers and feeling guilty that DS (4.5) hasn't gotten the attention he deserves. Ever hear of trickle-down homeschooling? I'm hoping that listening to the other two (DD - almost 8! and DS - 11) recite lists of verbs, etc. will mean that he will magically acquire all he needs up until the time I can actively homeschool a third child without losing my sanity.
Executive function as it relates to kids. Getting organized, staying focused, and controlling emotions. Hmm, there might be something in here for me, too!
A stand-alone novel by the author of The Beekeeper's Apprentice and all the subsequent adventures of its spirited protagonist. The latest in that series is The Language of Bees, which I highly recommend, though, why, Dear Author, oh, why did you leave us hanging so?
At some point this summer, I'm finally going to give in and read this paramount piece of escapist fiction. If you need me, I'll be in 18th-century Scotland.
The McElderry Book of Greek Myths, retold by Eric A. Kimmel and illustrated by Pep Montserrat is a new favorite of ours. The illustrations are extraordinary. At the beginning of each of the twelve myths, there is a full page illustration like this one, at the beginning of "Pandora's Box":
And interspersed throughout the stories on every page
are other illustrations, like this one, from "Prometheus":
It's a beautiful book that we are heartily enjoying during read-alouds this week. My eleven-year-old keeps snatching it when we're not reading it out loud and reading ahead, which is a pretty good recommendation in and of itself. ☺
Book Sharing Monday is hosted at Serendipity. Come join in on the fun!
These guys are hilarious. Thanks to LB for posting about the UK-based electronic string quartet today and to a fellow chorus member (and mother of a very talented young cellist) for mentioning it to us in the first place. Head on over to 3 Ring Binder to see the extremely entertaining History of Music in 5 Minutes. (Though I take issue with the lack of Bach and Mendelssohn in the medley, I give props for the inclusion of Grieg and Rossini.) Below is another fun video of theirs featuring movie music:
You can also see many other YouTube videos by the quartet here,
As someone who unfailingly turns to books to learn just about anything, I had to take a peek at Dominique Browning's review of gardening books in the N.Y. Times Books section (May 28, 2009). I'm so glad I did. Not only did I find a title or two to look out for at the library and bookstore, but my husband heard some pretty serious snickering coming from the general area of the computer while I read. Some of my favorite lines are below, but please take time to read the entire article here.
What the wine cellar was to the ’90s, the root cellar will be to this decade. Same concept, come to think of it: Climate control. Rotation. Status. Expense. By the time you read this, of course, serious gardeners will have sown their oats and tomatoes, but determined neophytes can still catch up.
and
If you insist on growing flowers, or as they are frequently referred to with disdain by vegetable gardeners, ornamentals, then you should own UNDERSTANDING PERENNIALS(Frances Tenenbaum/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $40), by William Cullina.
about the same title:
His description of crassulacean acid metabolism, wherein cacti, yuccas, agaves and sedums open their stomata at night when it’s cooler in order to “bind carbon dioxide on special molecules much like we bind oxygen on hemoglobin in our blood” had me on edge for hours
Sounds like my kind of book.
Concerning compost:
After reading pages and pages about the virtues of wood compost bins versus plastic and wire mesh, I was relieved to learn that I could simply dig a hole in the ground, dump in the kitchen scraps, rake on some leaves and call it a day.
Even about kids and the newly-popularized term "nature deficit disorder":
Not that we can summon much attention for yet another three-word problem, but I sympathize with her point that children spend more time cooped up than chickens.
And for my friends with chickens and guinea fowl:
They roam all over the road, getting to the middle and freezing in place, trying to recall why they wanted to cross. You have to sit patiently in your car until their brains shift into gear.
To end on a note that sings true to me:
You’ll even get a recipe for mint julep — and I can’t imagine a better place for a stiff drink than a vegetable garden.
Rainy weather did not keep the kids from enjoying the "Constellation Court":
One concert down:
A day at home:
Braving the ticks for a spring nature walk:
A wedding:
Another concert:
Revels at the co-op:
We just this past Friday braved the morass of germs that is the Museum of Science to catch the Frogs exhibit before it left. The Dart Poison Frogs were beautiful,
as were the Chinese Gliding Frogs,
but my favorites were the Waxy Monkey Frogs from S. America, who looked like they were smiling:
Bet this little guy was hoping the fossil skeleton would come to life if he pushed the button enough times:
1. Stellarium: an incredible, free software program for a variety of operating systems, that turns your computer screen into a planetarium. We've had lots of fun playing with it this week, especially since cloudy skies have kept us from stargazing.
2. Clay Center Observatory: in Brookline, MA on the campus of Dexter/Southfield schools (where JFK went to school). This Saturday from three until ten p.m. the center is celebrating Astronomy Day, and every Tuesday night in the spring and fall (weather-permitting) the observatory has free public telescope viewings. The center has an LED-lit constellation court, plus a moon court and a sun court to check out. Pictures from the center's website here. Short video from our field trip below.
3. Inside Birding: a series of web videos to help hone your birdwatching skills, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All about Birds website. So far, four episodes are online.
Folk legend Pete Seeger turns ninety today! I was just singing a song of his (written with Lee Hays, fellow member of The Weavers) to M. yesterday afternoon while hammering nails into my raised bed square-foot garden:
Peter Seeger is possessed of that rarest of human qualities - the inquiring mind. This gentle and at the same time fiery and unbeatable spirit pervades his music, his friendships, his beanpole body and his thought. His performances are true to our folk musicians faithfully and sensitively.
From Critic's Corner in what appears to be next week's New Yorker (May 4, 2009):
The YouTube Symphony, a global orchestra assembled from online audition videos, may sound like yet another groan-inducing attempt to make classical music hip. But there’s some method in the marketing madness: YouTube has become a serious resource for professional musicians, who use it to investigate up-and-coming talent.
Read the rest of the article here. There's a great illustration of MTT, as well.
Another little bit of serendipity came my way this week in the area of music meets poetry. Last week my PF post was a poem by Sara Teasdale ("April"), and three days later I sat down in a choir rehearsal to begin working on a song called "A Blessing," by New Zealand-born composer David N. Childs (SATB, piano, flute; published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Inc.). The lyrics just happen to be based on another poem by Sara Teasdale that I find very moving:
You can watch all sorts of videos, from auditions to snippets of the musicians' arrival in NYC to an hour long "Act One" of the actual Carnegie Hall concert, as introduced by Michael Tilson Thomas at the YouTube Symphony Orchestra Channel. MTT called the three-day event "a classical music summit/conference/scout/jamboree with an element of speed dating thrown in." ☺
The composer of the featured musical work in the concert (Internet Symphony No. 1 "Eroica"), Tan Dun, is also the composer of the music in one of my most-loved films, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
The YouTube Symphony Orchestra's show features soloists, chamber groups, chamber orchestra, large orchestra, electronica and multi-media, and samples diverse periods and styles of classical music, including works by Gabrieli, Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Villa-Lobos, John Cage and Tan Dun’s Internet Symphony No. 1 “Eroica.”
Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the first collaborative online orchestra, and can be heard talking about the project here at NPR's All Things Considered. From that article:
From fiddlers to French-horn players to percussionists, musicians in more than 40 countries submitted their auditions via YouTube. They were required to post two videos: one specifically highlighting their instrumental talent and another performing a piece by composer Tan Dun, written specifically for the project.
Ninety musicians from more than three thousand that auditioned were chosen and flown to NYC for a three-day workshop, culminating in tonight's performance.
Thanks to LB for the breaking news alert! I had heard about the project last December, but hadn't thought about it again since then. LB has a great YouTube video of the orchestra posted at her blog. Keep your eyes peeled for the trumpet-playing Clone Trooper!
Music that is new to me: "Horizons," by Netherlands-born composer Peter Louis van Dijk, who emigrated to South Africa with his family at age nine. This piece was originally written for The King's Singers, and has since been arranged for choir by the composer (SATTBB, published by Hal Leonard Coporation). I didn't expect to like this song, but I absolutely love it. It is the best kind of chamber music--its parts fit together like the interlocking pieces of a puzzle, and it creates a vivid picture of the San of South Africa by implementing non-sung vocal sounds and body percussion (snaps, claps, etc.) throughout the song.
This is just a small snip of the piece as sung by the King's Singers on their CD Street Songs, which recording is absolutely pristine. I highly recommend this version of the song.
From the inside cover of the sheet music:
In a cave, somewhere in the Western Cape region, is a well documented San (Bushman) painting of a Dutch (or, perhaps English) ship, resplendent with flags and sails, rounding the Cape. The painting dates back to the early 1700s and serves as a poignant reminder of the incredible powers of observation of these now virtually extinct people.
Sadly, the very people the San saw as gods, certainly in terms of stature and relative opulence, were to become their executioners (with the help of other black tribes). Physically small, the San described their larger neighbours as animals without hooves and were often mistakenly regarded as cowardly due to their non-confrontational approach to conflict with friend and foe alike.
The eland (a large antelope) represented more than just food and took on an almost supernatural significance, while the rain was seen, supernaturally, to be either male or female (either rain-cow or bull), depending on its intensity.
“Horizons” was written at the request of the King’s Singers for their 1995 South African tour, and commissioned for them by the Foundation for the Creative Arts (South Africa).
Lyrics, in part (written by the composer):
Sleep, my spring-bok baby, Sleep for me, my spring-bok child, When morning comes I'll go out hunting, for you are hungry and thirsty, thirsty and hungry (repeated several times)
Small moon, Hai! Young moon, When the sun rises you must speak to the Rain, Charm her with herbs and honeycomb, O speak to her, that I may drink, this little thing, that I may drink, that I may drink, that I may drink.
She will come across the dark sky: mighty Rain-cow sing your song for me that I may find you on the far horizon, far horizon, horizon.
I'm a thirty-something book addict/musician who homeschools three adorable kiddos. At the moment we are pretty eclectic learners, borrowing from Charlotte Mason, Waldorf, Montessori, Classical Ed., and unschooling. In addition to homeschooling and doing music, I also moderate a book discussion group for tweens and nudge my oldest to memorize poetry and recite it at monthly "poetry club" meetings.
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