It's Good to Laugh a Little during all this Political Tension and Financial Crisis...

I have been amazed at the number of people watching YouTube, Googling, and sending around e-mails of Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin. Along with all the other political satire going around from Saturday Night Live and other sources.  

I understand because it gets tiring listening to the ads, debates, and CNN night after night and trying to make conscientious decisions. Sometimes I wonder if my opinion matters at all. I enjoy getting a little comic relief from all the serious issues and the stress of trying to understand what is happening in our country and what it means for our future.  

This past week, I have enjoyed reading Christopher Buckley's novel Boomsday. The book is a political satire that has an uncanny ability to point out the absurdity of some of the political issues of our day.      

Boomsday is an especially fun read for bloggers. The zany heroine is a late night blogger who changes the world through her blog entries that are eagerly followed by her doting audience.  

I doubt my "Mommy Blog" with photos of my children will ever have that kind of impact, but the idea of a female blogger changing the world through her blog is certainly fun and appealing.  

Here is a little snippet about the book from Publisher's Weekly:

 Reviewed by Jessica Cutler: It's the end of the world as we know it, especially if bloggers are setting the national agenda. In his latest novel, Buckley imagines a not-so-distant future when America teeters on the brink of economic disaster as the baby boomers start retiring. Buckley takes on such pressing (however boring) topics as Social Security reform and fiscal solvency, as does his protagonist. And get this: she's a blogger. Buckley's heroine is "a morally superior twenty-nine-year-old PR chick" who blogs at night about the impending Boomsday budget crisis. Of course, "she was young, she was pretty, she was blonde, she had something to say." She has a large, doting audience that eagerly awaits her every blog entry. And her name? Cassandra. And the name of her blog? Also Cassandra. Of course, Buckley doesn't let his allusion get by us:"She was a goddess of something," another character struggles to remember, which gives his heroine the opportunity to educate us about the significance of her namesake."Daughter of the king of Troy. She warned that the city would fall to the Greeks," she explains. "Cassandra is sort of a metaphor for catastrophe prediction. This is me. It's what I do." So Cassandra, doing what she does, starts by calling for "an economic Bastille Day" and her minions take to destroying golf courses in protest. Cassandra grabs headlines and magazine covers, and the president starts wringing his hands over what she might blog about next..."

The book is definitely irreverent and even offensive at times, but if you can take it tongue in cheek like the Tina Fey depictions of Sarah Palin then it is a fun romp through the political landscape of our time. 

Here is a link to the New York times Book Review of Boomsday. 

Happy Reading!

Walking with Dinosaurs...

This year for Lil' Expert's birthday we decided to forego the large birthday party and instead he invited one friend to go to Phoenix and see the live show "Walking with Dinosaurs."

The show has been touring across the country and it is definitely worth the investment. Both of my boys loved it.  

During the show, my five year old was jumping up and down with excitement and the two older boys were completely enthralled with the large dinosaurs coming to life.   

Here is a little snippet of the T-Rex, a crowd favorite.

It was great timing because the next week my son's kindergarten class started a unit on dinosaurs. He was still excited about the live show and really participated well in the class discussions and assignments.    

The show is very educational and entertaining. It presented a lot of scientific facts about dinosaurs.  

I would definitely recommend it for kids and adults of all ages!

My Bug Loving Boys...

My Bug Loving boys

Butterfly, Caterpillar

Praying Mantis too!

Backyard Wonderland

Imagination Alive

A Bug Catching Dream!

Storytellin' Boy and Lil' Expert have been spending every spare minute out in the backyard catching a variety of bugs in their large butterfly catcher.  They have collected five or six caterpillars, a giant praying mantis, and a variety of beautiful moths and butterflies.  We keep them for a few hours and then we release them back to the yard. 

The above book they received for Christmas last year, Take Along Guide Caterpillars, Bugs and Butterflies by Mel Boring.  Both boys have been pouring over it to identify the critters we've found in our yard.  It has great illustrations and a lot of fun facts about different insects. For each bug the book identifies what the insect looks like, where to find it, and what it eats.

A couple of days ago, Storytellin' Boy found a butterfly that was beautiful and perfectly intact, but no longer alive. He found it in the parking lot of his sister's preschool.  

He brought it in the car and he said, "Aw... Poor little thing.  I'm going to take him home and put him in a butterfly graveyard." 

He placed the butterfly carefully on a napkin.  He questioned me about what had happened to the "poor little guy." He continued to talk about the colors of the butterfly wings, they were a vibrant blue and black.   He wondered if the butterfly's family might be missing him.  I believe he may have even shed a few tears in the back of the car for this little butterfly. 

It sounds a little dramatic, it's all part of nature and the life cycle after all, but it was moving to see my son's respect and care for nature and his sensitive side. He decided to keep the little black and blue butterfly and placed it on his dresser where he keeps his most important treasures.

A long time ago, William Wordsworth captured the mood of my kids chasing bugs and butterflies:

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey--with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.

By William Wordsworth, 1801

It's Haiku Friday!  More poems here and here!!

Storytellin' Mama is Giving Away Books...

I love to read and I love books.

Summertime is my favorite time to read.  There is something about reading by the pool with a big glass of iced tea while the kids swim and play.  

I am holding my first bloggy giveaway as part of the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival 

I am giving away three books I love.

Kite Runner

Lovely Bones

The Bean Trees

If this is your first time to visit my site, please feel free to get to know me by checking out Mama's Top Posts or Mama's Pages on my sidebar.

Please leave a comment and let me know about a favorite book you have read recently. In your comment specify which book you would most love to win! Please make sure I can contact you through e-mail, or your site. You do not have to have a blog to enter just leave your contact information in the comment section!

The contest will end Friday August 1st 12:00 noon and I will hold a random drawing to determine three book winners. 

To check out more cool bloggy giveaways go here!

Here comes Peter Cottontail...

Cottontail Rabbit 

Eating Creosote bushes

Living in our yard

Kids call you Whitetail

Watch you play through the window

Hop, hopping along.

We have a resident cottontail, just a baby, living in our front yard. The kids and the dogs have been watching the little rabbit through the window for a few weeks. 

The cottontail comes right up to the front window to nibble on flowers. My kids are always checking to see if Whitetail is around throughout the day.  They call him our pet. This is the kind of pet I like, considering we have many high maintenance pets already!

Beatrix Potter wrote the story of Peter Rabbit as a letter to a four year old boy Noel Moore in 1893. Like Whitetail, Peter goes into a garden to help himself to a snack. He gets himself into big trouble. My kids have been enjoying the story since we have our own little mischievous bunny in the yard. The story is timeless, and is just as appealing to children today. Go here

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends, they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.  ~Charles W. Eliot

Regardless of other activities, the best predictor of summer loss or summer gain is whether or not a child reads during the summer!

Haiku Friday! View more poems here and here.

Crickets in the Kitchen

We are having a home invasion of crickets. During the day, they are quiet, but every night is a raucous cricket symphony. They especially love the kitchen. The crickets remind me of summer breezes and cool evening walks, except I can sit right here in my office and experience a full range of cricket harmonies. There are no "Quiet Cricket" relatives living in this house! They have all found their wings.

The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle is one of my children's favorite books. The story is as follows:

One warm day a little cricket is born. He is welcomed by a very big cricket who is trying to teach the little cricket to say hello. The little cricket tries to rub his wings together, but nothing happens, not one little sound.

He is greeted throughout the day by various other insects. A locust whizzes by, then a praying mantis. But even though the little cricket tries to answer them, he can never make a sound. Next he comes upon a worm, a spittlebug and a cicada. Each of them greets the tiny little cricket. The little cricket really wants to say hello, but he just can't get the sound to come out. He is not discouraged. The little cricket keeps practicing all day long to say hello to each different insect that he meets.

The little cricket is enjoying the silence that the night brings when a luna moth sails quietly by. Then he sees another cricket, who is also a very quiet little cricket just like him. This time all of his practice pays off. When he rubs his wings together, he begins to chirp! It is the most beautiful sound the other little cricket had ever heard.

Eric Carle has illustrated the insects to be very realistic looking. At the end of the book, there is a mechanism that makes the cricket chirp. It sounds exactly like an actual cricket.

This is a beautiful book and a great summer read for preschool age children, or you could always just stop by my house and enjoy a noisy summer cricket serenade!

Revisiting the Boxcar Children

We are reading aloud The Boxcar Children.

The first book tells the story of four children (Henry, Jesse,Violet and Benny) and their dog Watch.  Upon the death of their mother and father they are supposed to go live with their grandfather, but they believe him to be cruel. They run away and find an abandoned boxcar where they start a new life of independence.  Henry the oldest does odd jobs, they find dishes at the dump, they bathe in the stream, and have many adventures. Ultimately, their grandfather is reunited with them and they find out he's not such a bad guy. They move in with him and he moves their boxcar into his backyard. 

The books were written in 1942. There are 19 books in the original series. They were written by American writer and first grade school teacher Gertrude Chandler Warner. It is amazing how these stories have stood the test of time even today.  

We have finished the first book and now we are on to the second book Surprise Island. My kids really like that there are four boxcar children (two boys and two girls) just like in our family.  I loved these books when I was a little girl.  It makes me so happy to share something with my children that I cherished as a child.  It has been fun reading to them out loud and reliving the stories once again. 

My kids have been pretending to live in a boxcar.  They have been taking play dishes out into the yard to set up their car and pretending to make beds out of pine needles.  

Storytellin' Boy has had all kinds of questions about pine needle beds.  Are they soft?  Can we plant a pine tree in our yard?  Can we put some needles in his real bed, so he can see what it's like? 

Lil' Expert has also been enjoying the boxcar stories. He has been practicing his reading aloud by alternating  pages with me. His reading is improving every day.  

I would recommend these books for any school age children getting interested in chapter books. They are simple, wholesome, and promote families working together. They are exciting and engaging for young readers.  

Happy Reading!