Fortunately, the sun has a wonderfully glorious habit of rising every morning. When the sky lightened, when the birds awoke, I knew I would never again see anything so splendid as the round red sun coming up over the earth. (From My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George)
James is enjoying the story for the pure, inherent adventure that beckons to every young man. It says, "You could do it."
I'm enjoying the story for quotes like the one above. They say, "I'm looking back now, and am able to convey in words what I felt when I was young."
Another good one today came from Childhood's Happy Hours, (a book we had to supplement with today when we discovered I did something very, VERY bad with the page orders when I printed the second half of the even pages of Jolly Robin *sigh*). Anyway, there is a short story called "The Reading Class", in which a little girl plays school with her doll and her cat. He finished up and then came to talk to with me about it. He thought it was sweet, and funny. Then he quoted me a bit from it:
"Lilian returned to the library, and seating herself in one corner of the large arm-chair, put Isadora in the other. 'Now, Isadora,' said she, 'behave yourself while I look at the pictures, and if I find anything pretty, I'll show it to you.' Isadora, like the well brought-up dolly that she was, obeyed."He chuckled, and said the story was full of little things that just made him smile because he got them and he appreciated that.
John read "My Lady Wind", and we had an interesting discussion about the wind as voices that spread rumors (the spark) and how such carelessness (fire) can destroy many lives and homes. Didn't see that one coming. I don't know what John learned from it, but my lesson today: don't underestimate children's poetry books.
Smidge, announced while doing "maths" (that's where the 's' from the beginning of his other words goes - mystery solved!) today, "I'm ready to learn to read." Well, alrighty, then. Can't get more upfront an invitation than that, can we? In good Spalding fashion, we began with learning the basic writing strokes, and he's on cloud nine.
Zorak is home. It's virtual Friday. Good, good stuff.
Kiss those babies!
~Dy
7 comments:
My Side of the Mountain is a favorite book around here too. (surprise, surprise ;-)
Have you read any books by Meindert DeJong? He *knows* what it is like to be a child. I especially like Journey from Peppermint Street for that reason.
So that's how the conservation of letters goes? I was wondering how it all worked.
One of my all-time favorite books! (Because, you know, I could do it.) Check out www.primitiveways.com for some fun how to on all that wilderness survival stuff.
I loved reading about your poetry discussion. There are great discussions lurking within most of the things we read. Sometimes we don't even know what they will be about until we start them. Ya know? I love to see where those discussions will take me, what new thoughts they will bring, the depth they can add to my understanding and enjoyment of a book and to life.
A local nature center offered a week-long camp based on MSotM. Gonzo was 9 and we got the book on tape. Good for me, because he listened to the whole book three or four times.
There are two other books in direct series and I read both aloud. The Far Side of the Mountain and Frightful's Mountain, which is told from Frightful's perspective.
Gonzo wanted to go to MSotM camp because every camper took home their own flint and steel. Which we are holding for him.
I never read MSotM as a kid. I confused it with the other Mountain book, about the skier who was injured... The other Side of the Mountain.
I appreciate the fact that Sam is not trespassing but is on long-time abandoned family land. I wonder who, if anyone, considered ownership of that land in the old Gribley's absence.
Hi Dy,
I'll try to keep this short. Since I've never commented before I'll tell you that our families are similar and I am a long time reader. I homeschool our 4 boys and 1 girl (the youngest) and my husband read My Side... when we had 3 boys aged 7, 6, and 3 1/2. Now my boys were angels, really, and lots of people said so frequently. Don't worry, boy #4 is the incarnation of Prov. 16:18 to my soul. I should have named him The Humbler. Anyway, the boys were very obedient and what I am about to tell you is something we NEVER in a kazillion years would have thought they would do.
When you said the book makes you feel as if you could "do it," I had chills run up my spine. One night our two oldest angels decided they really could. And so at 3 a.m. they did. Well, they started out anyway, with their backpacks, snacks, and a can do spirit. Probably about 45 minutes later we heard knocking and my husband went to the door and heard "Daddy, we can't get in." Yes, thay had walked to the end of our 1 1/2 mile unlighted road and come back when they decided there was "no place to go." We had NO idea they were planning it and NO idea they were gone. They said they just wanted to be like the boy in the book. I hardly ever retell this story as it still puts my heart in my throat. I felt compelled to tell you and now you can file this under "Rules you never thought you'd have to make."
God bless you and your precious babies!
Mandy
Mandy, I hope you come back to check the comments on this post, because I wanted to thank you so very much for sharing your story. I know it's gut-wrenching to have to relive an experience like that, but I do so appreciate that you brought it up. I will make a point of talking the boys through it, and keeping in the front of their minds that this is a fictional story, that the author never did any of this, but dreamed it up. (Might also point out that we don't know anything about the plants in this part of the world and would likely starve to death in a very short period of time.)
I appreciate that you posted a comment on this. And I'm thankful your story had a happy ending. Thank you. {{hugs}}
(Also, "The Humbler" made me smile - what a delightful way to put it!)
Dy
Smidge is Australian! (or possibly British, I believe they do it too.)
We do maths here... _math_ sounds quite odd to us:-)
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