A Booknic – Notes on the Spring Reading Challenge

We had a booknic earlier this week as part of our Spring Reading Challenge.

I’m not sure why the girls are sitting at the end of the blanket but to each her own.

The last few days Harper has enjoyed paging through Sesame Street guessing game books: Big Bird’s Guessing Game about Shapes, Cookie Monster’s Guessing Game about Food, etc., so I brought a stack of those out for her.

Hadley read He Came with the Couch by David Slonim and then decided to draw a picture of whoever or whatever it is that came with the couch.

Kinda, kid.

I read a few pages of Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool.  I bought this book at Calvin not because it won the Newberry, but because I heard Clare speak at the Festival of Faith and Writing. “I’ve always had a strong need for story,” she said in her talk, “The Transformative Power of Story.” When I heard her speak, I couldn’t wait to get her book, and so far, I love it.  I think the main character, Abilene, would be great friends with Scout Finch, which suits me just fine. There are also characters with the names Hadley Gillen and Hattie Mae Harper so I don’t think I can go wrong.

I got stuck on the sentence, “….it’s best to get a look at a place before it gets a look at you” when the girls realized pinecones had fallen from a tree nearby.

I watched them gather pinecones and thought about those words for a bit. I thought about weekday mornings when the girls and I wave at the neighbors as they go off to work or put their kids on the bus for school. I thought about going to the gym and knowing several people by name now because we’re there at the same time and how we talk a bit and laugh, too.

I like taking a good look at a place before it gets a look at me, but it feels good when it the place that’s looking begins to feel welcoming and friendly.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked after they’d moved on to another tree.

“We’re baking a cake for the dinos and the ponies!” Harper told me.

The girls started baking a cake just as I got to the part where Abilene finds out she has to write a story during her summer break. Due September 1.  Her teacher, Sister Redempta, gave her the assignment.

When it comes to roses, Abilene thinks, “….there’s some more rosy and some more thorny….[Sister Redempta] was sprouting thorns…”  I have a feeling Abilene will change her mind, and if I could talk to her, I would say one of the last things Clare said in her lecture.  That is, “You go on with that story and enjoy every last bit.”

I know I will.