New Things

This week since I didn't have all the farmers' market baking to do, I tried some new recipes out on my family. I made homemade garlic cheese bread sticks and apple cider pulled pork. Both were delicious, but the bread was extra good! I also found several new cookie recipes on Pinterest that I want to try this Christmas.

In addition, I finished canning pears, peeled, sliced and froze apples for fried apples this winter, and I am probably cooking apple butter as you read this. I certainly do love fall harvest!

And finally, I found an autographed book at the bottom of one of my piles that I had not read yet. It is titled The Little Ships and is a historical fiction picture book that I received when I attended Nerd Camp this summer. But don't let the words historical fiction fool you any, this book is based on the real life heroic rescue at Dunkirk.

I don't know about you, but I love autographed books, and although I wouldn't probably have gravitated to this book on my own, I'm glad it's now part of my growing collection. The Little Ships is a story of a boy in a fishing town fifty miles from Dunkirk England during WWII. His father and he, along with many other fishermen in their small ships, set sail for Dunkirk to ferry thousands of sailors to the navy ships waiting nearby. In all, 338,226 soldiers both French and English were rescued by the little ships. This amazing feat is brought to life by Louise Borden in a believable manner and the story is given depth with the muted water colors of illustrator Michael Foreman.

So my suggestion for all you history buffs, WWII enthusiasts, or just plain curious persons is to find a copy for yourself either from your library or at your favorite book store and get to reading!

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by Literacy Musings Mondays for more great blogs as well as my personal website Fun With Aileen where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own chapter and picture books. And finally, you can find me on twitter  @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.

Welcome to Japan!

This past week was spent in a whir of activity as we got ready for an Around The World Event sponsored by our Independent Studies Home School Group. All the children participating were to choose a country, a historical event, or a something similar to give a presentation on. Emily chose Japan because she had lots of  display items her father had brought home from his work trip last year.

She gathered facts, found pictures for her display board, and retrieved all her Japanese memorabilia from various parts of the house. I took it upon myself to create a costume from thrift store items. I scoured the second-hand shops until I found a silky robe that looked oriental in pattern, but it had a very narrow belt that just wouldn't do because traditional kimonos are worn with an obie (a wide silk sash). I kept searching until I finally found a single, silky, black curtain. It was two panels with an attached valance, and I knew if I cut off one of the floor length panels I could whip it into a obie of sorts on my handy dandy sewing machine. Although not exactly authentic, most of the audience loved Emily's make-shift robe and actually thought it was the real deal. Resplendent in costume finished off with Japanese toe socks and flip flops, Emily gave a great presentation.

Before the presentation, we all partook in a dinner. Each family prepared a main dish or salad and a dessert corresponding to the country or historical event that their child or children had chosen. I made fried rice and Japanese Kasutera Sponge Cake. I found the recipe and a wonderful video at a site called Japanese Cooking 101. This cake was super easy to make if you decide you and your family want to try some ethnic cuisine.

 

There were quite a few families participating, so they divided them up into two groups in two separate rooms. The other children in our group also did fabulous jobs.

After all the learning and fun was done, it got me to thinking about some books I've read and enjoyed with Japanese main characters. The first, A Place Where Sunflowers Grow, takes the reader back to WWII and the sad period in our history where we rounded up citizens based on their heritage and an irrational fear. It is am excellent picture book depicting the proud way in which the Japanese detainees held on to a small piece of normalcy and beauty.

The second book, Hana Hashimoto, is the story of a girl who's love of music and her persistence helps her achieve her dream of playing her Violin in the school talent contest. The author, Chieri Uegaki, has also written another book called, Suki's Kimono, which I have not read, but I would love to.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by and join the Literacy Musings Monday Blog Hop where you will find other great blogs, or my personal website, Fun With Aileen, where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own early grade Fern Valley chapter book series and my Quack and Daisy picture book series. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days. 

Remembering...

Memorial Day originated after the Civil War and is celebrated every year on the last Monday in May. It is a remembrance of all the military men and women who have died  serving our country. But this Memorial Day, I want to help  people remember those Americans who were wrongly treated during the onslaught of World War II. They were not spies, they were not traitors, they were not sympathetic to the other side. Their only crime was the simple fact that they were of Japanese decent.

What made me think of this was a book that the children's librarian at Marvin Memorial Library, in my home town of Shelby, recently purchased. A beautiful book called A Place Where Sunflowers Grow by Amy Lee-Tai. It is the story of a Japanese family of artists who were taken from their happy California home and were forced to spend three years in an Internment camp in the Utah desert.

Based on actual events that Miss Lee-Tai's Grandmother experienced, this story is a beautiful testament of human courage and hope. The illustrations by Felicia Hoshino add dimension to this tale, but most interesting of all is the fact that it is written in both English and Japanese.

If you want children to have a real interest in history, a real interest in the plight of others, a real interest in what it would be like to be unfairly taken from everything you've ever known, then this book is a must add to your reading list.

Something even more amazing then my enjoyment of this book occurred this past week as I was shuttling third graders to the YMCA for swimming. I happened to take this book along with me to read while I waited, and on the way home, one of the boys who was riding with me asked about it. I had wedged the book between his seat and the middle console and he curiously pulled it out to investigate. I told him a little about the story, and much to my surprise, he began to read. When we arrived back at school, he wanted to sit in the car a moment longer so he could finish the last page.

So not only do you have my word that this book is an extraordinary read, you also have the opinion of a third grade boy who saw past the girl on the cover and let himself  relive a bit of  history.



The Boy in The Back Who Dared To Read!

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week 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, and my soon to be released sequel, Return To Fern Valley, coming summer of 2014! I'm also on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.


 

A Tale of Two Books...

A few weeks ago I was speaking with our children's librarian, Miss Robin, about a plagiarism issue a friend of mine from the UK is having. This apparently made her think of two very similar books she had read that were published only a year apart. She became very excited about the matter, found both books, and requested that I read them to see what I thought. The first book was entitled Where the Ground Meets the Sky and the second The Green Glass Sea.

Since I was in-between books I took them home and decided to compare the two. Both books were set in the 1940's during World War II and happened to be about the secret facility in Los Almos where scientists and mathematicians from around the world were working to create the atomic bomb. After reading both books, I came to the conclusion that no plagiarism was involved, but I did understand why Miss Robin might have thought there was. Each book used a young girl who was above average intelligence for the main character, each book had a cat and a dog mentioned, each book had a group of boys with a secret club house,  each book had a second young girl totally opposite the first girl as a second main character, and each book used similar terminology. The terminology similarities make sense to me since each author was clearly using words and terms from the nineteen forties, but there were enough differences in the writing and style of  each book to rule out plagiarism.

In case you are wondering what I thought about the books in general, I will give a short review for each. I read Where the Ground Meets the Sky first, so I will begin with it. I love Jacqueline Davies very descriptive style of writing which pulled me in from the beginning. It was a superbly well written book about a horrific true life event, but I was saddened that the main character's mother seemed to be either an atheist or one of those people who simply can't decide what to believe. As a Christian, I would have preferred to see a character who believed in something, but that aside it was still a well written story. The ending is quite sad and has the mother unable to cope with what her husband had helped to create, but that is probably a realistic outcome for this chapter in mankind's history.

Despite its award winning status, I didn't enjoy The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages nearly as well. This was not because it was poorly written, but because it was written in what I believe was second person instead of the traditional third person. The unusual use of person kept throwing me when I read. I did keep reading, however, and found that this book also had a sad ending with the main character's father being killed in an automobile accident.

Although both these books seemed historically accurate for fictional stories and both portray sad situations that were probably accurate to the time period, I personally tend to like happier endings. But if you don't mind sad endings, then perhaps you might want to check these books out for yourselves.

Signing off for now with wishes for a bright and beautiful day!