What We Are Reading

In addition to our Sukkot books, we have been working our way through a couple of chapter books.  The first, Little House on the Praire, lives in my bag and we read when we have lunch out just the two of us or when we unexpectedly find ourselves with extra down time.  Today for instance, we were blessed with some unexpected quiet time because the friends we were to meet were running late.   So we read "Praire Day" under a tree at the park.  This is not the first time Froggy and I have started this book.  The last time though we were using a beautiful hardbound library edition with the most lovely illustration.  The only problem was the book weighed a ton and I was reluctant to cart it around.  So our opportunities to read it were few and far between.  There is a great deal that happens in each chapter and having too long between chapters made it hard for Froggy to keep the continuity. This time I think she is enjoying it much more.  We are still reading it slowly and talking about it a great deal.  Today we had a lesson in how to kilt up your skirt to do the washing complete with a demonstration of the value of kilting up one's skirt.  We also made our own corn cakes.  Froggy insisted at first that Laura could have them but she could not because Laura was Christian.  It took some prying and discussion to understand what prompted that belief.  It turns out that Froggy felt corncakes were not kosher because Ma cooked them in bacon fat.  I explained to her as I cooked that while Ma might use bacon fat or lard, we would use margarine and the Jewish settlers on the praire would have used shmaltz instead of lard.  Froggy did relent in her opinion and try one although she was still uncomfortable with the idea.  She had a similar issue with hot dogs the first time she was allowed one since the reason she was always given was they are not kosher since in most places you cannot be sure.

The second chapter book we are reading is Meet Samantha.  Froggy is fascinated with history right now and would rather meet each American Girl and learn about their time period than stick with one character and follow all her adventures.  So that is what we are doing.  Samantha's uncle has an automobile that Granmary despises. It turns out Froggy had no idea what an automobile was. A car that she knows but automobile was new.  And she could not conceive of anyone disliking them.  We watched a video of someone starting an old Model T.  It was fun to see her reaction.  Aunt Laura worked in the car manufacturing industry for a long time and brought Froggy a model of an old (although not Model T level old) car when she was younger.  I pulled it out to show Froggy some of the changes cars have gone through.  She was fascinated but somewhat overwhelmed.

Come join the reading blog hop over at ReadAloud Thursday ,Feed Me Books Friday and Mouse Grows Mouse Learns,