I typically think of summer as a very reading-heavy season, but since every day since March has felt more or less the same, this year's summer reading didn't feel that different either. I also stopped keeping track of the huge piles of picture books the two olders girls read because there were just so many, and they read a lot of the same books over and over again, so the numbers on their reading logs were way down this year compared to last summer. Still, all the kids certainly read or heard a respectable number of books between June 3 and September 2.
Read-Alouds
My husband read aloud a number of classic children's books after dinner during these months: Matilda by Roald Dahl, The Willow Whistle by Cornelia Meigs, Treasure Island, The Men Who Found America by Frederick Winthrop Hutchinson, and The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss. Treasure Island probably made the biggest impact, as now all three older girls frequently break out into spontaneous recitations of "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum." Little Bo Peep (4 years, 11 months) kept falling asleep during The Swiss Family Robinson, claiming she was bored.
I read aloud almost daily after lunch. I read Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfeld as we were finishing up with our homeschool studies of Ancient Rome, and everyone enjoyed the suspense of the mystery in that book. Next, I read two in a row by Elizabeth Enright: Thimble Summer and The Saturdays. We followed that up with Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat. Then Jumping Joan (2 years, 10 months) brought me The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell, and asked me to read it. None of us knew anything about it, but we gave it a try, and it was fantastic! Odd (it's about a hunter and a mermaid and their family of adopted animals), but really very good. We ended the summer with one of my childhood favorites, Ten Kids, No Pets by Ann M. Martin.
Little Miss Muffet (6 years, 9 months)
Miss Muffet hasn't been plowing through the novels as much lately as she did earlier in the year, but she has a read a few: Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum, The Tree House Mystery by Carol Beach York, The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit, Our Little Celtic Cousin of Long Ago by Evaleen Stein and The Legend of Pocahontas by Virginia Watson. She also revisited Stella Batts Needs a New Name by Courtney Sheinmel and The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes as audiobooks. Her favorite thing, though, has been reading through the Favorite Fairy Tales books by Virginia Haviland. She has read the tales from Germany, Russia, Sweden, France, England, Spain, and Denmark. As the summer ended, she was just getting into Redwall by Brian Jacques, which has inspired lots of drawing and pretend play surrounding Cluny the Scourge.
Little Bo Peep (4 years, 11 months)
Bo Peep is still reading tons of easy readers and chapter books. This summer, among other titles, she read three of the Penny books by Kevin Henkes (Penny and her Song, Penny and her Doll, and Penny and her Marble), both Sam the Minuteman and George the Drummer Boy by Nathaniel Benchley, Tom and the Two Handles by Russell Hoban, and The Spice of America by June Swanson as well as Betsy and Mr. Kilpatrick, Annie Pat and Eddie, Away Went the Balloons, Eddie the Dog Holder, Betsy's Busy Summer, and Eddie and Louella, all by Carolyn Haywood. She also revisited Little House in the Big Woods and Rufus M. on audio.
Little Jumping Joan (2 years, 10 months)
It's been a summer of big-name toddler favorites for Jumping Joan, who has discovered Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar, A House for Hermit Crab, and Mister Seahorse), Beatrix Potter (The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of Two Bad Mice), and Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny). She also fell in love with a few different story collections: Sheep in a Jeep: 5-Minute Stories, Sweet Dreams 5-Minute Bedtime Stories, and my childhood copy of 366 Two Minute Bedtime Stories and Rhymes. I also took out all of the old copies of Babybug magazine I saved from when Miss Muffet was little, and my mom sent us a few more she picked up at the Salvation Army, and Jumping Joan has me read two or three aloud every day before her nap.
Jack and Jill
The twins are starting to love books. Jack especially loves Dig Dig Digging by Margaret Mayo, Things That Are Big by Natalie Marshall, and Summer Babies by Kathryn O. Galbraith. He will happily sit and listen to any book and he tries to turn the pages and stares happily at the illustrations.
Jill is a bit more focused on physical milestones at the moment, but in addition to the books Jack likes, she has also heard Ten Little Babies and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox.
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