Spring Break Reading

Spring Break at our house isn't actually a lazy experience. It usually involves a lot of digging in the garden, new business initiatives and debate tournament excitement. But we do manage to get in a bit of extra fun reading. (Well, actually that goes along with the digging; we task one laborer to read to the rest while we do the drudge-work.)

So, what are we reading? Starting indoors, we will be reading Regenerate Our Culture, the teen-run webzine that launched yesterday. William Buckley's New Republic should watch out, Regenerate Our Culture is literate, engaging and well-researched.

Next, an e-book, Secrets of Successful Homeschooling. Who are you and why are you thinking of homeschooling? A single parent? An organizationally challenged mom? A mother of dozens who is tired of answering the “do you know what causes this?” question? An experienced teacher looking for fresh ideas? Secrets of Successful Homeschooling lets you hear from a chorus of different lifestyles and even different countries on the hot topics in the how-to’s of homeschooling.

In Part One you’ll read the stories of several homeschools with different challenges, and glean innovative ideas about how to handle the bumps in your road. For instance, though I am not a single mom trying to do everything for my household, I still use Teri Camp’s idea of making my children part of the team every day.

Part Two gives you an insider’s look at learning styles, homeschool categories and a translation of all those buzz-words: the Principle Approach, the Classical Method, Un-schooling, Unit-studies…Many of the chapters link you to resources and research.

So hurry on over to Spunky Homeschooler and order Secrets of Successful Homeschooling. Since it is an e-book, you won’t even have to wait for the postman. You could be reading it tonight!

And what will we drag out to the garden? We'll take a cookbook. No, really! But SUCH a cookbook! The Supper of the Lamb, by Robert Capon, uses reflections on food, hospitality and the Old Testament sacrificial system to expound the Divine banquet to which our God invites us. We'll undoubtedly skip the 100+ actual recipes, and opt for the meditations on beauty, love and Divine purpose.

And when we get too hungry, we'll revisit Christopher Wren's Beau Geste series: Beau Sabreur and Beau Ideal. They are all out of print, but well worth the hunt. You'll laugh and cry at the self-deprecting self-sacrifice of the Geste brothers and their French Foreign Legion cohorts, the elegant Major Henri de Beaujolais and Texas Rangers Hank and Buddy. Mystery! Intrigue! Romance! Sand! and more than their share of desert cafard (madness).

Happy reading!