Senses

I see the wasps. I hear the bats, yellow tailed black cockatoos, cuckoos and cicadas. I taste the blueberries, watermelon, mangoes and strawberries. I feel the heat, sand and sea. I smell cut grass and smokey skies. Summer.

Paper Dust Covers

These are worth a look!

http://www.bookcityjackets.com/blog/about/

Have fun!

How to Read Aloud, by Mem Fox

This is a great section on how to read aloud:

http://www.memfox.net/reading-magic-intro

Most helpful in our reading aloud endeavours!

And this section:

http://www.memfox.net/reading-magic-and-do-it-like-this

and this one:

http://www.memfox.com/ten-read-aloud-commandments.html

Enjoy!

Secret Society (Reading Magic by Mem Fox)

This is a very interesting read!
So much of what she says strikes a strong chord with me.

"...I'm most passionate when I speak as an ordinary mother. Reading aloud to my daughter was a fabulous experience. We bonded through all sorts of marvelous books. We came to know and love each other better through the variety of stories we shared. I hadn't realised that reading aloud regularly would mean Chloe would learn to read without being taught...

When we take the time to read aloud to the children in our lives, we bond closely with them in a secret society associated with the books we've shared. The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks that fly when a child, a book, and the person reading make contact...We have such a rollicking good time, and we relate so warmly to our kids as we read together, that it becomes a delicious 'chocolate' kind of experience...

Reading aloud and talking about what we're reading sharpens children's brains and helps develop their ability to concentrate at length, to solve problems logically, and to express themselves more easily and clearly. The stories they hear provide them with witty phrases, new sentences and words of subtle meaning...

Because words are essential in building the thought connections in the brain, the more language a child experiences - through books and conversation with others, not passively from television - the more advantaged socially and educationally that child will be for the rest of his or her life...

One of the unsung but cozy effects of reading aloud is the private language that develops in families through shared language and shared book experience...We were knitted into the same familial fabric by a book language that meant nothing to people outside our immediate little trio. It was a private 'togetherness' code that connected us all...

So great is the power of reading aloud that Moreen Fielden, headmistress of The Gillespie School, a private elementary school in San Diego, reads aloud to her entire school every Friday..."


There'll be more on this, later.

from Reading Magic by Mem Fox

CS Lewis books

Earlier this month Captain picked up Prince Caspian off our bookshelf.
I said...'Stop', and purchased the first three in the Narnia series to complete our set.

He has since read
The Magician's Nephew...17-20 July
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe...20-24 July
The Horse and His Boy...25-27 July

and has now begun Prince Caspian.

I also managed to find another book in the Swallows and Amazons series, and he began Pigeon Post yesterday.

Fireproof

Never Leave Your Partner Behind

A lovely couple from our local church put on a special Candlelight Dinner followed by the movie Fireproof.

A great inspiration for the married couples in our church, with a strong gospel message.

At the same time our latest Challenge newspaper had an article entitled:

Avoid The Top Reason For Marriage Failure

"It has been my experience that the number one reason behind the collapse of marriage is plain, old fashioned selfishness...

Marriage is not so much about finding the right person as it is about being the right person...

As simple as that statement is, it has enormous consequences for you if you decide to put it into practice because it forces you to stop focusing on yourself and to begin focusing on the other person, which is the essence of true love...
I find this kind of wisdom about relationships in the Bible, especially the Proverbs.

Here are just two for you to think about:

"An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is as rottenness in his bones."

Excellent here refers to a virtuous woman - a woman of tremendous class and quality. A woman who is proud of her husband; one who shows him respect and is unashamed to do so. Such a woman has the highest place in a man's life - she crowns it! But a woman who openly despises her husband and is constantly critical of him and his decisions is like an infectious disease. Simply put, a woman can make or break her man. If she is going to "make"him, then she will need to be unselfish.

And husbands are also told "to rejoice in the wife of your youth".

In other words, instead of moaning and complaining about what she does and does not do, remember why you married her in the first place and keep on encouraging those good things in her today. How easy it is for us men to forget all the good things about our wives and only focus on the negatives that we see.

If we want to change our relationship for the better then we must stop focusing on ourselves and begin asking ourselves how we can better serve our partner - this is called unselfishness and it has the power to transform both you and the other person."

(Rob Furlong, from Challenge newspaper, edition 315)

Whittington

by Alan Armstrong
Captain finished this book last week. He just has to have a book to read.