...butterfly in the sky, you can go twice as high...
After wandering into the used book store down the street, and having one of my neighbors who works there point out the newberry award winning section, I was hooked. Some of my favorite books are the fifth-grade reading level winners, so I bought a couple. I'd just finished rereading Sharon Creech's "Walk Two Moons," which is one of my favorites, and started into Christopher Paul Curtis's "Bud Not Buddy." The author does a great job of writing with the language of a 10-year-old boy, who explains the passing of time with "woop, zoop, sloop." A great story, which includes a message on family history(!), and reminds me of a car trip.
Growing up, my four siblings and I would play the alphabet game (why can't we pass the Antiques shop again so I can get that 'Q' now?), as well as the one Dad made up where he tells us when to start, and without cheating (using the mile markers), we had to tell him when we thought it had been a mile. I was jealous of how well my sister did, and then she explained that if we were going 60 miles an hour, it's a mile a minute, so you just count to 60. Well, these games would last a little while, and then we'd start teasing, poking, putting feet on the backs of others' seats, and the like. One May day in preparation for our Memorial Day cemetery travels, Mom checked out some books on tape at the library, including "Bud, Not Buddy." Woop Zoop Sloop, we all listened and got along the whole time. Since then, we all got really into listening to the Harry Potter series, and Jim Dale's voice became an omnipresent part of the family. My older sister doesn't really care for Harry Potter, but that's leaps and bounds above the trip we took while listening to "On My Honor," and another depressing kids book where he's left alone and everyone dies. Not all books are happy books. Reading "Bud, Not Buddy" again, I remember enjoying it together, inches apart.
...but you don't have to take my word for it...
After wandering into the used book store down the street, and having one of my neighbors who works there point out the newberry award winning section, I was hooked. Some of my favorite books are the fifth-grade reading level winners, so I bought a couple. I'd just finished rereading Sharon Creech's "Walk Two Moons," which is one of my favorites, and started into Christopher Paul Curtis's "Bud Not Buddy." The author does a great job of writing with the language of a 10-year-old boy, who explains the passing of time with "woop, zoop, sloop." A great story, which includes a message on family history(!), and reminds me of a car trip.
Growing up, my four siblings and I would play the alphabet game (why can't we pass the Antiques shop again so I can get that 'Q' now?), as well as the one Dad made up where he tells us when to start, and without cheating (using the mile markers), we had to tell him when we thought it had been a mile. I was jealous of how well my sister did, and then she explained that if we were going 60 miles an hour, it's a mile a minute, so you just count to 60. Well, these games would last a little while, and then we'd start teasing, poking, putting feet on the backs of others' seats, and the like. One May day in preparation for our Memorial Day cemetery travels, Mom checked out some books on tape at the library, including "Bud, Not Buddy." Woop Zoop Sloop, we all listened and got along the whole time. Since then, we all got really into listening to the Harry Potter series, and Jim Dale's voice became an omnipresent part of the family. My older sister doesn't really care for Harry Potter, but that's leaps and bounds above the trip we took while listening to "On My Honor," and another depressing kids book where he's left alone and everyone dies. Not all books are happy books. Reading "Bud, Not Buddy" again, I remember enjoying it together, inches apart.
...but you don't have to take my word for it...
