MOTHER BRUCE by Ryan T. Higgins In Mother Bruce written and illustrated by Ryan T. Higgins, grumpy Bruce doesn't like anything, except eggs. One day, the eggs he's getting ready to cook, hatch. Since he is the first thing to be seen, he becomes their "mother." What follows is a hilarious series of events as Bruce tries to rid himself of the little goslings. Will he succeed or will the goslings help Bruce find something to care about besides himself? Delightful illustrations make this book a fun read for all ages! Mother Bruce is winner of the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award, New Illustrator Honor and E.B. White Read Aloud Award.

INSECT RESOURCES Four great simple paperback books for our younger readers! - The Butterfly Alphabet Book by Brian Cassie and Jerry Pallotta - A great introduction of butterflies worldwide in ABC order! - Bugs are Insects by Anne Rockwell - A good basic intro for kids on the world of insects and their makeup. - Fireflies by Megan E. Bryant - Want to learn a little more about the amazing abilities of fireflies? This book will answer your kids questions. - Are You a Dragonfly? By Judy Allen and Tudor Humphries - I never realized how amazing dragonflies are until reading through this simple book Now go discover the amazing world around you!

SANJI'S SEED by B.J. Reinhard Sometimes we need a book to share with our children about the importance of honesty. Knowing that you can depend on a person's word has a value in today's world that can't be measured by gold. In Sanji's Seed by B.J. Reinhard the worth of this character trait comes to light. Sanji is a young, poor boy who lives in India. One day, while he is out at the bazaar, he sees the gates open to the palace and goes inside. Several young men are standing around the king's messenger who announces that since the king has no children, he is looking for the next heir to his throne, but there is a test. Each boy is given a seed to plant and tend for one month. At the end of that time they are to return to the palace with their pot for the king to review and decide who will be the next king. When Sanji doesn't get the results he desires from his seed, he has some important decisions to make. ALONGSIDE ACTIVITY- This is a beautiful picture book that can launch some very important discussion in your home! - With the setting of India, you can discuss the social system and the how honesty is more valuable than a social level. -Luke 16:10 - the theme of the story!

PIPPI IN THE SOUTH SEAS by Astrid Lindgren Spunky, outgoing Pippi Longstocking is at her antics again in Pippi in the South Seas by Astrid Lindgren. After reading the first book in the series, Callie could not wait to get her hands on the continuing adventures. After living a while at Villa Villekulla, a letter arrives from Pippi's father, King Efraim Longstocking, announcing his arrival to take her to Kurrekurredutt Island, where he is king, for a visit. The adventures wouldn't be complete without Pippi's best friends and neighbors, Tommy and Annika. Their parents graciously allow them to go (my motherly brain says "what are their parents thinking?"). That's when the real adventures begin with sharks, thieves, and huge pearls used for playing marbles by the island children. If you enjoyed Pippi Longstocking or if you have read all the Ramona books and are looking for something similar to jump into, this book will not disappoint! An interesting side note I learned about Astrid Lindgren, the author - she married, became a mother of a boy and girl, and was an editor in a Swedish publishing house. When her seven-year-old daughter became sick with pneumonia, she asked her mother to tell her a story about someone named Pippi Longstocking, and the young heroine was born. Three years later, when Astrid Lindgren hurt her leg and had to stay in bed, she wrote the stories down, and Pippi Longstocking became known worldwide. ALONGSIDE ACTIVITY- Haha - on this one do the opposite of everything Pippi does! HEADS UP - Pippi is tremendous fun, but sometimes you have to have the talk about what we really do in serious situations! One that I did address with Callie is at the end of the book none of the children want to ever grow up. Pippi gives them each a pill that will supposedly keep that from happening. They look suspiciously like peas, but I still had the discussion that we NEVER take medicine from our friends!

INSECT RESOURCES A few weeks ago I shared some butterfly book resources, but I'm resharing the Butterflies and adding the Insects and Spiders Field Guides by the National Audubon Society today. Field guides are a wonderful resource to have around to identify unknown crawlies that you may come in contact with. It really is quite satisfying to flip a rock and see the quick scurries, and when your sweet son or daughter ask, "What is THAT?" you can pull out your handy dandy guide while your supermom cape flaps in the breeze! (You can also download an app on your phone for identification, but I do like to revert back to thumbing through the pages of guides. It helps to teach patience and paying attention/detail skills!) ALONGSIDE ACTIVITY- Go catch and identify some insects! Try at different times of the day and at night around an outside light. Flip rocks, check around your flowers, and look under the leaves of your garden plants. I saw a really cool idea once where some missionary kids in the jungle hung a white sheet outside with a single flashlight shining on it in the pitch black of night. They saw some amazing insects

ALL-OF-A-KIND FAMILY by Sydney Taylor I have a confession to make! There are lots of children's classics that I have never read (and I have read a lot of books!).Lots of them are sitting on my bookshelves, because they have been parts of homeschool kits as the kids' readers. Last Friday before leaving on vacation, a book friend stopped by to discuss...books! Those visits are always great fun! Anyway, somehow All-of-a-Kind Family came up. I had never read it, and she promptly told me to pack it to read on vacation. I am so glad I did! All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor is the sweet story of a Jewish family set in the early 1900s. There are five girls, Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte, and Gertie, and their mother and father. The story shares their day-to-day lives as their mother makes dusting a game with ten buttons, the celebration of their Jewish holidays, getting through scarlet fever, the love of their weekly trip to the local library, and a couple of very sweet surprises. This is the type of story that you envision curling up with your elementary age kids and sharing. After finishing this book in the car on the way home from vacation, I promptly lifted it up and asked my own crew if anyone had read it. Lauren immediately piped up saying she had read it many times, and it was one of her favorites! ALONGSIDE ACTIVITY- There are 2 Jewish holidays mentioned in this book. You can do a little research as to why the Jewish people celebrate these days. -Consider cooking up a Jewish dish to experience together.

THE SECRET LIVES OF BACKYARD BUGS by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards The Secret Lives of Backyard Bugs by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards is a true gem of a book! If you have ever wondered what a certain insect's life cycle looks like, or if you stumble across eggs on a plant or a larva and wonder what it is, this book is for you! Filled with lots of actual photographs, this book documents loads of backyard bugs in various cycle stages. Packed around the photos are lots of bullets of information on the particular stages. The back of the book has several different guides for quick comparison of eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults that you can use in a pinch! Very well done and very engaging!

THE HOBBIT by J.R.R. Tolkien. Illustrated by Jemima Catlin. "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." So begins J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. At the start we are introduced to Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit who prefers order and cleanliness and the expected. But this Hobbit who enjoys his comfort is about to be thrust into the most uncomfortable and perilous of journeys he could ever have imagined. When Gandalf selects him to be the lynch pin in a quest by the dwarves to regain their stolen mountain home from the dragon, Smaug, Bilbo at first rejects the idea, but after overhearing the dwarves scoff at the idea of him coming, Bilbo commits to going to the ends of the earth if necessary. What follows is a beautiful tale of righting wrongs, of the forming of unbreakable friendships, the testing and forging of character, and the knowledge that this journey may result in the laying down of their lives for each other. I highly recommend the illustrated version, especially if you have younger children that you are reading to out loud. Jemima Catlin's whimsical artwork is found on almost every page of the book and is delightful! ALONGSIDE ACTIVITIES- There are so many fun activities you can do with this book! To introduce our family to the book, my oldest daughter headed up the making of a Hobbit meal. There is actually a cookbook called An Unexpected Cookbook: The Unofficial Book of Hobbit Cookery by Chris- Rachel Oseland. We enjoyed the Mushroom, Beef, and onion Hand Pies, Chester Pudding, and Hot Apple Cider. - Listen to some of the music from the movie, The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey. We especially love the dwarves rich voices in Misty Mountain and the fun in Blunt the Knives. - Do you live close to the woods or a state park? Go on your own hiking journey, no matter if it's short or long! Enjoy God's beautiful creation around you!

SUP SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN by Gene Luen Yang One of the books I wrote about towards the beginning of this Facebook Group was Dragon Hoops, the true story of author Gene Luen Yang in comic book form. (You can use the search to find that post.) Today I'm returning with one of Yang's Superman comic books, Superman Smashes the Klan. This is considered one from the series of DC Graphic Novels for Young Adults. I'm going to start off by saying I tread carefully in the world of graphic novels/comic books, and I tread carefully in YA. So the combo already had me a bit in hyper awareness mode! Loosely based off a 1940s Superman radio serial called "The Clan of the Fiery Cross," Yang puts his own spin on it. I tried to read a little about the original. One of the main ideas was to show how the Klan had infiltrated the police and levels of government. In Yang's version the Klan is in a low level of the police department and a major area of a local business. They are committed to the idea of "One Race, One Color, One Religion." The main race that the Klan is after is Asian in this particular story. There is an African American character that they do go after as well, but definitely the focus is Asian persecution. (During COVID-19 we saw an upswing in violence against Asian individuals.) Several of the characters in this story are struggling to "fit in" and be "normal" including Superman who keeps several of his abilities hidden, because they would reveal that he is actually alien. Of course all Klansmen are white. At first I was thinking this was going to be an anti-white book. Yang balances this out with Lois Lane and Jimmy from The Daily Planet being white and okay characters. We have a Unity House Community Center run by a priest, rabbi, and minister that is helping the community. I tend to get itchy when we talk about unity in religions, but it is realistic for these three to work together. Overall, I find this comic book to be "okay." I find I am tired of division. As a Christian, I believe that all races came from Adam and Eve. Therefore we are all related. There is no true "white" or "black." There are only varying shades of brown. HEADS UP- There are a couple of swear words.

UNFINISHED TALES OF NUMENOR AND MIDDLE EARTH by J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Illustrated by Alan Lee, John Howe, and Ted Nasmith Somehow this ended up being the week that two Tolkien books were finished, so you're going to see a lot of Tolkien on this week's posts! It has been a while since I read the Lord of the Rings series, but when I saw J.R.R. Tolkien's Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth at the bookstore, it went in my pile! Now before we really dig into this one, I have a confession to make. There are people out there in the world who LOVE Tolkien. They learn the Elvish language, they can keep all the places and people straight, they remember the history, and the genealogies. I do enjoy Tolkien, but I am not on that level. Sometimes my brain short-circuits and there might be a slight stream of smoke that comes from my ear that lets everyone in the surrounding vicinity know that my brain is really trying to keep all the connections made. BUT I'll tell you why I do enjoy it. They are some of the ultimate adventure stories. They are stories where Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, Man, etc throw themselves all in for the cause of righting wrong deeds. There are characters who give the ultimate sacrifice for causes they believe in and Tolkien writes in such a way that you can imagine yourself alongside the journey and the struggle. It really is a parallel for today's world in which we must constantly be battling back the darkness that wants to continue to infiltrate our world. So on to Unfinished Tales. First published in 1980 and then republished in 2020 with the addition of several beautiful illustrations (more on that later), Unfinished Tales provides additional information on some of the characters and adventures from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. There is a large section devoted to Galadriel and her history, the Black Riders, the 5 wizards, how Gandalf convinced Thorin about taking Bilbo on the journey of reclaiming Misty Mountain, and more. With 439 pages plus a lengthy index that follows, this book has a lot of extras to enjoy. When I closed the cover after reading Unfinished Tales, I was really struck with how much Tolkien put into creating the history, lands, and characters of his LOTR/Hobbit series. These books were not just a series that were written and then done. He created an entire in-depth world of several lands and covered many generations of characters. It takes a certain type of person, but they really are a wonder to read! About the Illustrations! There are three Illustrators that contributed to this book: John Howe, Alan Lee, and Ted Nasmith. All three have amazing credentials, and it is clear why they were chosen to illustrate Unfinished Tales. Since there are three, I'm not going to elaborate much. I wrote about John Howe in my King Arthur post, so you can check that out for additional information. HEADS UP/SPOILER ALERT ON ONE TALE- There is a slight heads up to share. There is a tale where unknowingly a brother and sister end up marrying. When they find out, they commit suicide.

HELLO LIGHTHOUSE by Sophie Blackall I know I've already shared Hello Lighthouse with you all, but it has been such a hit with my three-year-old niece while on vacation that I'm going to post it again. She isn't necessarily loving all the words. She's loving to hear the repeat refrain of "Hello! Hello! Hello!" She loves to see when the baby is born and how she grows up in the pictures. We've even named the lighthouse keeper and his family. They are Henry, Clara, and Samantha. When you read a book multiple times you can expand outside the words and make it your own special story!

LIFT THE FLAP BUGS AND BUTTERFLIES by Emily Bone. Illustrated by Nat Hues. At 46 years of age I can honestly say I still enjoy looking at lift-the-flap books. I get a feeling of lifting the top of a treasure chest to discover what's inside each time I open a flap! Usborne doesn't disappoint when it comes to packing their lift the flaps with information and pictures to discover. Yesterday, my 3-year-old niece and I were looking at this book, Bugs and Butterflies. I had pulled it out, because we are starting on bug collections around the Killiany house. (More info on that below if you would like to join us!) She loved opening a few flaps and hearing a bit of information before turning to the next page. I let her lead the way on what her interest was and together we enjoyed butterflies, bees, water bugs, etc. We didn't open every flap or read every word. Then we closed it up and off she went on her next little adventure. If I pull out that book today when she's around, I'm sure she'll be back up next to me, ready to check out a few more pages and have another look at her favorites from yesterday. The experience was enjoyable to her! Why am I sharing this with you? Make sure that when you are reading to your kids you are giving them a "bite" that they can handle! The goal isn't always reading that book, cover to cover, in a sitting! Books are like food for the brain. Delightfully fill your little one up to a satisfying level and then send them on their way to the next adventure! Do not overstuff them to the point of misery! I will be sharing some "bug books" over the next few days as the Killiany kids are on the hunt for a few amazing insects to mount in a collection. We have opened this up to our local homeschool community, and I have put together some simple instructions with YouTube links on how to complete the process. If you are local and would like to join us or if you are not local and would like to do it in your area, PM me with your email, and I will send out the info. Give me a couple days to get the email out!