Cocooon of Chaos

Library Basket: When the story hits home....

image here, "Ghost Wings" by Barbara M. Joose

Oliver's new favorite task at the library is to re-shelve certain areas. Well, this past week he picked the J shelf and really went to town. So, as we were putting each book back, I happened upon this one. I stopped in my tracks because it was one of my favorite illustrators and I have a mild obsession with monarch butterflies. (Title of this little blog, friends?!) Anyhoo, it is my dream to go to Oaxaca, Mexico someday and see the millions of monarchs in the forest, soaking up the glorious sun before making their arduous migration. Well, this gem of a book explains how this phenomenon relates to a young girl in Oaxaca whom recently lost her best friend, her grandmother. Upon opening the book, I decided to read it to Lillian at the library, but as the story began, tears choked my voice and I promised to finish when we got home. Let me tell you, I'm so glad I stopped. I decided to wait until Ava got home because I know she, too, would find great solace in this book. So, I grabbed my hankie and sat down to read with my girls. We were a beautiful mess.

The author combines the scientific fact of the monarch migration and the spiritual beliefs of the Mexican people in such a way, I'm teary just thinking about it now.  She explains some believe the monarchs carry the souls of the departed and come down on the magical days of Los Dias de los Muertos to be with their earthly loved ones to celebrate. I should explain something here: my very first blog post was about Los Dias de los Muertos and a little excerpt from that post to explain why this book meant so much to us just a few days ago:

On a personal level, last summer I lost twins. It was a devastating blow for our family and my husband and I were left in a state of confusion. We were unclear how to function as partners, parents, and grieving individuals. It was a dark, hurtful time in our lives but our compassionate four year old summed it up best when she was explaining it to one of her dolls, "Mummy's babies were very sick and had to go heaven. They turned into butterflies and flew up in the sky. But, they still come to eat the flowers and be with us." Ava resolved such a complicated issue and it is through her simplicity and grace that I was able to pick myself up and move on.

I've never, ever forgotten that conversation my sweet girl had with her dolls. The innocent words of a four year old pulled me out of such a deep, dark pit of grief...then, and now.

 I am not going to lie. Grief sucks. For the past month, I've been up and down, depending on the day. I miss my Nana so very much. She was more than my Nana, she was one of my best friends. I saw her every week and she dispensed advise I wanted to hear and didn't want to hear, she understood me when I didn't understand myself, she knew my kids better than I did, she was honest about everything and never held back, and she was my sweet indulgence. Mothering is a pretty self less gig and being a mother of 7 boys, she knew this better than anyone. During our weekly visits, she never let me get up, make my own tea, get my own piece of cake, or take my own children to the bathroom.  Even though I was still a mother in my thirties, I never stopped being her granddaughter.  

That being said, this book tore at my heart strings because I could not only identify with the little girl's loss, but could marvel at the simple beauty of finding spiritual meaning in Nature.  I kid you not, after we read this book, we were playing in our yard and counted 20 (yes, 20!) butterflies. No, they were not monarchs, but regardless, the message was heard.  I will always be her granddaughter and so many of her wonderful traits are carried within the hearts of my children.  All of this from a picture book...when we are open, the right things enter our lives.  I could have easily closed that book because it was too much, but I didn't. I'm so very, very, very glad I didn't. My days are indeed brighter, my friends.

And, as always, I must be honest here. I hesitated with this post. Is it too personal? Is it too much? But, then, after having the mister read it and seeing him cry, too, I know that it was too personal and it was too much, but, it is our life. And life is not full of joyful sing songy moments, it is peppered with heart-wrenching ones, too; after all, how could we ever appreciate the good ones without the bad? A million thanks, my friends, my family, and the superb mister for always being there to read my scribbling....

Reading, Listening, & Watching

Stretching beyond the library basket this week and including some things we've been watching and listening to, too.

Our current musical favorite, Alabama Shakes. 

 

Devin and I watched this for date night Saturday and jeez, I'm still thinking about it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm in the process for designing a reading and writing group for "at risk" girls and went back to one of my absolute favorites, The House on Mango Street. If you have not read this book, read this book. I re-read it every year and appreciate it more each time. It is one of my top five books. 

The other, Esperanza Rising, was a find at my local library's book sale...one of my favorite days of the year. Yes, I'm serious. Anyhoo, it is a young adult novel that I can not keep my nose out of; partly due to the fact that the main characters are both named Esperanza and truly embody the meaning of their names, which is hope.  There is a bit of history mixed into Esperanza rising, which I also love.

As an undergrad, I was required to take a Young Adult Fiction course and to be honest, I was not thrilled. What could I possibly learn from juvenile literature when I had been immersed in the "masters" for so long. Well, let me tell you, I was shocked. That class was where I read one of my favorite books of all time, Out of the Dust. Think about it, Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Twilight Saga all came from the Young Adult genre. (Shamefully, I've read none.) My point here is, don't limit yourself...

Leave me a comment below and let me know what you've been reading, listening, and watching! I'd love to know and add to my list...

From the Library Basket

Lillian's pick: Little Owl's Night. A beautifully illustrated book about an owlet who wants to know what day time is all about. Magical illustrations...

Oliver's pick: The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse. This book is based on a painting of a blue horse and encourages children to not always follow the rules...create your own, like a yellow elephant or a polka-dotted donkey. I've read this book everyday at least 10 times. Due to the size of our house, we really try to limit the amount of books we purchase--because we have so many already--but this will be a purchase for sure.

And Ava's pick is My Life with the Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall. We're a bit obsessed with this remarkable woman as of late and I dug through my teaching box and found this gem of a biography. Jane Goodall not only explains what she did in Africa, but more importantly, she encourages children to realized the power they have to change the future, even in the small choices they make. Since reading this, Ava has started her own Nature Club at school (meetings are at recess) and I just LOVE reading her field journal. (More on the homemade field journal on another blog post!) Also, it encouraged us to join Roots and Shoots and line up a babysitter for Oliver so we can take the girls to see  "Chimpanzee"...if you see it the first week, money is donated to the Jane Goodall Institute, so get going, my friends! 

My short break from school is over, but I'm having a hard time putting this down. 

So dear friends, what are you reading in your neck of the woods? Leave me a comment and let me know! Happy reading!

 

Favorites from the Library Basket

The library is a weekly jaunt for us...sometimes, it involves all 5 of us, other times, just two of us. Whatever the case may be, I love getting lost in the book stacks and then the calm that permeates when all the good books come home and find their space in someone's hand or in the basket. 

Ava's pick: Alia's Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq (totally age appropriate way of telling a touchy story) Also, a good one to read is Librarian of Basra

Lillian's pick: This is Paris (she's a bit obsessed with Paris, you see!)

My pick: Me...Jane (the story of Jane Goodall, a personal heroine of mine)

the last page made me cry...naturally.  I had the privilege of attending a speaking event of Jane Goodall's and I'm still left utterly inspired, nearly a decade later.

Oliver is currently obsessed with Lucy Cousin's Maisy.  Luckily, our two libraries are well stocked! Nothing is cuter than him running around with his fire hat on screeching "Nee nah, Nee nah! Fire truck coming!" Thank you, Mrs. Cousin's for the little british influence!

What's in your library basket? Happy Reading!

My life in photo snippets

this is what it is going to be for a while, my friends...pictures and a few words, sometimes mine, sometimes others.

"The stories and pictures we take to our hearts as children remain with us always."~Shirley Hughes

Sunday Family Dinner

I could spend hours in this space writing about how important I feel meal time is for families, but things have to be done, homework caught up on, and lunches made. So, rather than me write about it, please do check out Laurie David's The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with your kids, one meal at a time. Such a great book with wonderful recipes, but more importantly tips on how to stay connected to your kids, the earth, and yourself.  We are fairly adamant about dinner time in this house. It is the time where we decompress, reconnect, and laugh. For me, Sunday dinners are my favorite. We usually take a bit longer to cook the meal, sip our wine a bit slower, and savour each bite just a  bit longer.

That being said, I think I may have blogged quite a bit about Lillian's love of cooking. She throws herself into the kitchen completely--never fearful of what she is touching, tasting, or cleaning. After perusing The Usborne First Cookbook, she found our Sunday dinner for this week: Sausage Rolls. Rather than store bought sausages, she wanted to make her own. We have a meat grinder Kitchen Aid attachment that she LOVES using. So, in went the chicken and some spices, and out came sausage! Devin and Lillian then made pastry crust to encase the sausage, and voila a delicious, homemade sausage roll with tomato sauce that she also made and fresh green beans.

 
We borrowed a blessing from Laurie David's book:

A Blessing for a Parent to Say to a Child by Rabbi Naomi Levy

May all the gifts hidden inside you find their way into the world.

May all the kindness of your thoughts be expressed in your deeds.

May all your learning lead to wisdom, may all your efforts lead to success, may all the love in your heart be returned to you, may God bless your body with health and your soul with joy, may God watch over you night and day and protect you from harm, may all your prayers be answered.

Lovely, no?! The topic of discussion this evening was Lillian's dream farm. She named it Sunset Meadows and her pizza restaurant on site will be called Lily Pad. She gave each of us a job: Devin will be in charge of the sheeps, cows, and goats, milking them, making cheese, and then working in the restaurant making pizzas with the said cheese; I will be the server (life of servitude!); Oliver will give farm tours on the tractor and be in charge of all the machinery; and Ava will be in charge of the horses. Sounds lovely, actually. This may just be some childhood dream, but we all have to start somewhere. And let me tell you, friends, I know in 20 years I'll be standing with a paper and pen in my hand taking someone's pizza order and looking at my daughter and husband doing what they love best...together. Happy Sunday.

Great Big Ol' Book Swap

Yes, another idea sparked from my summer purging of this house: a book swap. I'm finding we are outgrowing books at a much faster pace now that both girls are reading and I'm reading the same books I read to the girls when they were toddlers, to Oliver. I'm sorry, as much as I love Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?, there are only so many times in my life I can read it...over and over again. So, I reached out to some friends and we did a great big ol' book swap. Everyone brought books, put them on the table, and we swapped. So much fun seeing books I knew, didn't know, and wanted to know!

 
And, of course, we had to have some kind of bookish craftiness, so I set up a table with scrapbook paper I found on clearance at a local craft store (much sturdier than regular paper), ribbon, stickers, and markers. The kids had great fun making their own bookmarks. It is a great feeling passing something along that was loved by our family to another family. This sparked more swapping ideas in my head...after all, the holidays are not so far away!

 

 

Books of the Week

I'm not sure why, but the books of the week were a bit sad this time around. Both girls picked the same books when I asked them their favorites, which actually surprised me. I should say, they are sad but inspiring and touching, too. 

 
The first book, Eight Days: A Story of Haiti is based on a true story of a boy trapped under his  house for eight days after the devastating earthquake. It does not go into gory detail at all, but rather explains how the boy pushed through, thinking of things that made him happy, and survived relatively unharmed. I would advise a reading without children first, because it will make you weep. I could barely get through the book, I was sobbing so hard but my audience was an understanding one, hugging and wiping away my tears. (Lily shed a tear or two, too because she thought it was so sad and happy at the same time.) The pictures, too, are breathtaking. The illustrator writes, "I hope the illustrations in this book reflect the beauty of Haitian life before the earthquake, and what is possible for the future." Really, a great read.

 
The second book, The Magic Brush: A Story of Love, Family and Chinese Characters tells the story of a grandfather teaching  his granddaughter Chinese through illustration and imagination. The pictures are simply beautiful and as you read, you do feel like you are right along the magical journey driven my the little girl's imagination. The grandfather passes away and the little girl decides to teach her little brother all that her grandfather taught her. Such a sweet book.

Any favorites from your little ones lately? Do tell in the comments area.

National Book Lover's Week

 
I learned earlier in the week that this week was the official National Book Lover's Week, a week I am happy to celebrate! I'm currently reading Kate Morton's, The Distant Hours and happened upon this passage:

"All true readers have a book, a moment...where real life was never going to compete with fiction again."

This got me thinking about all the books I have read--I was an English major, after all, so I've spent quite a bit of time reading books I both loathed and loved. Although there is no way to narrow down a favorite, I can easily compile a list of the ones that left an impression on my soul and make me who I am...

Books from my childhood:

Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary (still ever present in my life, as they are Ava's favorite!)

Babysitter's Club Series by Ann Martin

The Phantom Toolbooth by Norton Juster

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey

Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (Devin proposed to me at the statue in Boston)

Books that I love:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Outsiders and That Was Then, This is Now by S.E. Hinton

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Sula and Mercy by Toni Morrison

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The Odyssey by Homer

Mythology by Edith Hamilton

King Lear and Othello by Shakespeare

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Trinity by Leon Uris

The Constant Princess by Phillipa Gregory

Collected Works of Emily Dickinson

Library of Congress: Poems of Robert Frost

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

Well, the list could go on and on. When my nose is stuck in a book, everything disappears and I love being transported somewhere different, simply on the wings of words. As of late, I have a rather adorable companion on my bookish journeys...

 
Please, do tell some of your favorites in the comments. I'd love to add to my own list. Happy weekend to everyone....

Books of the Week

Our weekly library jaunts were put on hold for a bit during the end of the school year, because we seemed to be ridiciously busy. In all honesty, I forgot all about doing the Books of the Week in my little cocoon here until Ava reminded me yesterday. I'm pretty sure I've rambled on about the importance of using your local library, especially in these very shaky economic times. It is funny because as a kid, I never went to the library. It was no fault of my parents, but rather the community I lived in; the libraries in my neighborhood were outdated, archaic, and sterile. Now, if my children are bored--which is a constant complaint lately--the first thing they ask is if they can go to the library. I just love it. So, here are our choices for this week and I do promise to keep this up, if not weekly then biweekly!

Lillian's Pick:

 
 
Independent Dames: What You Never Knew About the Women and Girls of the American Revolution

My girls are absolutely fascinated by history and I feel it is my duty to let them know there were so many other players than those that I learned about...so many forgotten people, like women, who paved the way for us today. Lillian just devoured this book.

Ava's Pick:

 
 Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave

Oh, how Ava loved this book! I found her curled up on the couch with it everyday, either reading it or just looking at the gorgeous pictures. Not only are the illustrations breathtaking, but the prose is so lyrical and poetic. It tells us the story of Dave, a slave who did not let his position in life quelch his artistic desires. On each pot, he etched a small poem. Really, a must read.

Any new favorites in your abode? Do tell by leaving a comment below. Happy reading!