More Books from our Shelf

Regardless of how hard I work to organize them, we always seem to have extra books here and there throughout the house. I suspect it's because I am continually adding to them. Can you really ever have too many books in a home? I don't think so.

I would definitely say my favorite place to buy books is at my local thrift stores. I have found some real treasures there. And in spite of my quiet grumbles concerning the fact that many of them have raised their prices in this area, I still get them for a small percentage of their original cost. Can't complain about that (well, maybe a little;)

Being that we are electing our next President in just a few short weeks, I thought it would be appropriate to share the following book. It's written by Lynne Cheney (our current VP's wife) and is a wonderful patriotic book for children.

This book is beautifully illustrated, and provides a wealth of information concerning our great country. It's a great, big history lesson in and of itself. The section I highlighted below contains the letter F, which stands for our countries Flag. It shows how to properly fold a flag, as well as different ways the flag is flown (half-mast, ect.). And, of course, trivia concerning the flag.

I paid .99 cents for this book at the thrift store, but you can buy it here on Amazon.com or possibly Ebay. List price is $16.95

More Books from our shelf

Our family loves books. I'm not sure if I taught my children to love books (as funny as that sounds), but I have made sure they were always surrounded by them. And we take time to read together nearly every day. I have posted about our books before...so here are some more books from our shelf.

One of my kids favorite series are the Eyewitness books. We have about 6 or 7 of them that I've picked up at various times from the thrift store or garage sales. They are great books if your kids like to pour over a subject. They are rather large, and just packed with information on the title subject. As you can see, we have a reptile book; I assure you this is only one of many we have on that favorite subject of my middle child.

The other day the artist, and the princess, walked into my bedroom each carrying one of these books. My son wanted to read some of the dinosaur facts to me to see "if I knew...such and such", while my daughter wanted to show me the fox that was "endorable" and "why was it in the doggy book?" LoL.

With books like this, we could almost skip school all together...but my oldest son wouldn't let me get away with that.

Value-tales These are basically biographys with a twist for the kids. They highlight a famous person(s) and a character trait or value that they wish to emphasize in their story.

For example: self-discipline is Alexander Graham Bell, Determination is Hellen Keller, Sharing is The Mayo brothers, ect. They add some sort of animal/critter to each story to help tell it, and to put it on a little child's level. There are around 30 in the series, I've been able to collect about 25 of them from assorted sales. I have seen some listed on Ebay from time to time. Anyway, these are great books.

I admit it's hard for me to resist bringing home a book nearly every time I go to a thrift store. And I can often do so for .99 cents or less. Of course, there is always the library; but I like to keep my books (especially favorites) and they really frown on that there....

*Don't forget this is weigh-in day ...which means as soon as I get the courage to, I'm going to do just that:) And I'm going to post some more low-fat recipes hopefully later on in the day.

Some of our favorite books

I could talk about books forever. Not necessarily eloquently. But I do admit to a definite love affair with books. It really saddens me when I hear a child make the statement "I HATE reading!". I can't help but think of the wonderful things of which they will miss out.

Fortunately, that isn't the case with my children so far. In fact, I've lately been occasionally scolding my oldest son for reading when he is supposed to be doing other things. He tends to get so absorbed in what he's reading, that he loses contact with the "real" world (I wonder who he gets that from?).

So I thought I would share a series that has turned out to be a favorite of both my son, and myself.

About 2 years ago, I discovered the Dear America Series by Scholastic. These are fiction books written in Journal/diary style, but based on real times and events in America. They span a huge variety of subjects: 4 wars, the gold rush, the Oregon trail, Irish/Scottish Immigrants, Native Americans, Pilgrims, Slaves, the sinking of the Titanic, the school for the Blind and many, many more. What I especially like is the amount of detail included, because they are basically day-to-day events.

I told this same son (10 yrs old) to give me a list of 5 things he would like to receive for Christmas. Topping his list was "History Books" (he's definitely MY son). Well, it just so happened I had run across a set of 4 books at the thrift store. And they were all about the male species. They were the My name is America books, which are basically along the same lines. They are all well written, and really allow children to put themselves " in the shoes" mentally of kids that were their age, but in another era.

I can't resist including the Royal Diaries (also by Scholastic) in this post. They are also basically the same idea of a journal/diary but about...well, royalty. There is Cleopatra (who supposedly wasn't that beautiful, but rather intelligent), and Anastasia of Russia was definately one of my favorites.

These books are meant for approximately 10 yrs of age (depending on your childs reading ability) and older, but I gobbled them up myself. And thoroughly enjoyed them! Of course, I told myself I was collecting them for my daughter...the one who is 5 yrs old now.

Most libraries probably have copies of these books to lend out. I love to OWN books (I'm a re-reader) and collected mine through Ebay (which does a THRIVING business of these books-they resell very well) and my local thrift stores. They have wonderful covers (hardback) and attached ribbons.

Well, that wraps up this installment of some of our favorite books. Think I'll take advantage of a school day off to curl up with a book myself. Happy Monday!