Soup With Friends and James To The Rescue

This week was a typical Ohio week with the temps at 15 degrees one day and 40 the next. One of the cold days happened to be this past Tuesday which was our Cook Book Club day, and the theme was soup. I took Cheesy ham and potato soup and Emily took blueberry muffins. Nothing much else of interest went on except the day Emily asked me to make her a snack platter with cheese, crackers, fruit, and veggies. I must have been board because I even broke out the cookie cutter and got fancy with the cheese.

Even though this past week was just an ordinary week, sharing hot soup on a cold day with friends was fun. Just like reading James to the Rescue was fun. James to the Rescue by Elise Broach is a wonderful early chapter book about friends. It is about a family of beetles that reminded me of the borrowers. They spend their days collecting things from the home they share with a human family and avoiding the perils of the baby with the large spoon. But one day as Marvin beetle, his father, uncle, and cousin are on a routine collection mission, his uncle gets hurt. Marvin has become friends with the older son of the house, James; and is forced to seek out his help despite the reluctance of his other family  members.

James does indeed come to the rescue as the title implies but what Marvin does to repay his kindness is fun ans surprising and will not be told by me. After all, you don't want me to spoil the story do you? The only thing about this story that threw me for a few minutes was its use of present tense verbs. This is not a bad thing, just different from the past tense verb usage to which I am accustomed.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. And feel free to drop by my personal website, Fun With Aileen, any day of the week for even more on reading, writing, my very own early grade chapter book, Fern Valley, the sequels, Return To Fern Valley,  and Cooking In Fern Valley, along with my very first picture book, Quack and Daisy! I'm also on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.