May 17 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 20- Down and Out

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Adriana Zoder

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell was the book I had to read for the May meeting of my reading group. I did not enjoy it. It describes poverty in Paris and then in London. I don’t like reading about poor people, especially when they spend most of their earnings on alcohol.

While reading the book, I did have all sorts of thoughts about Protestant countries (like England) versus Catholic countries (like France). Have you noticed that Protestant countries tend to do better economically? That they have a bigger middle class than Catholic countries? That the contrast between the very rich and the very poor is not as striking?

Religion has a lot to do with life – more so than we realize. Religion influences one’s take on work, for instance. There was an atheist in the book who hated the bourgeoisie and stole from every employer he ever had simply because he hated anybody with a business. Of course, he was also a Communist. Continue reading »

May 10 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 19- Traveling Mercies

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Adriana Zoder

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott is a funny book if you can put up with some language and an enormous amount of liberal concepts. If you can get past that and focus on the Christian experience the author shares, along with good writing and great humor, then you will enjoy this book.

A single mom and a recovering alcoholic, Lamott makes a living as a writer of mostly nonfiction, memoiristic books. The introductory chapter to this book will give you her conversion story which can be summed up in the following: she was an alcoholic and a drug user, then she met Jesus, and then she quit. But see, I just made it boring. She makes it fun over several pages and you get to sense the heart of God through this process, the incredible love of the Creator for Anne Lamott, working her over and over until she finally surrendered. Continue reading »

May 6 2016

Essentials Curriculum Review

Posted on May 6, 2016 by Adriana Zoder

For the past four months, I have been teaching spelling from a curriculum from Logic of English, called Essentials. My children are in second grade and kindergarten respectively and we started LOE Essentials in January, in the second semester. I geared this curriculum mainly towards the oldest, but the little one could benefit from it too. She is learning how to read and spelling is reading in reverse. So I have included her in our lessons, especially in the beginning, during the Pre-Lessons.

Teacher’s Manual and Student Workbook

I decided we needed the Pre-Lessons after administering the Placement Test very informally, over breakfast. Even though my son can write in cursive (we did not do manuscript at all), spelling has come difficult for him. We have tried four other curricula and I have no seen great results. He does the work, remembers the spelling for a few days, then he does not. Continue reading »

May 3 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 18 – Madame Bovary

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Adriana Zoder

I read Madame Bovary painstakingly. It took me longer than a week because I had to put it down over and over again. I was not sure I could finish it. It pains me to see characters – especially women – making foolish mistakes again and again. When I finally came to about 80% of the book, – yes, I read it on my Kindle – I started enjoying it. Why? Because Emma Bovary was finally hitting rock bottom.

I don’t like reckless behavior, whether in real life or in literary fiction. I understand why Susan Wise Bauer included this novel in her list of 32 best novels to read from Western literature. It is the first novel chronologically which puts an end to Romanticism and starts Realism as a current in literature.

Gustave Flaubert shocked many people with the realistic depictions of every day life and the adultery Madame Bovary engaged in while married to Charles Bovary, a country doctor in Yonville, France. Flaubert even got sued over the book, which shocked the sensibilities of many in the 19th century.

Apr 26 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 17 – Founding Mothers

Posted on April 26, 2016 by Adriana Zoder

Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts makes for very good historical reading as long as you can peel off the layer of mockery she dishes all over the Founding Fathers. Ms. Roberts has done a lot of reading to bring us details about the wives and mothers of the Founding Fathers, but she presents it through her liberal lens and that is a pity.

Casting aspersions upon the heroic and the patriotic is not the way to go when you tell the stories of our Founding Mothers. Yes, women were lacking the vote and right to property back then. Yes, women were perpetually pregnant and barefooted in the kitchen. But why do you have to mock the men for it?

The men were the product of their era. Many of them came around on the issues of slavery and education for women during the years described by this book. Some even started wondering about the womanly vote. It all takes time. I take issue with Cokie Roberts’ history of the Founding Mothers because of the tone she takes towards the Founding Fathers.

Do you really have to tell us three times in the book that Alexander Hamilton was a womanizer and Martha Washington named her tomcat after him? Would one time not have been enough? Do you really have to throw sarcasm at Benjamin Franklin for being a pig – for a pig he was? Why can you not recount some of his good parts – for he had many? Why magnify the men’s defects and paint a picture of only their growth areas? What kind of history is this?

Ms. Roberts sounds like a feminista with a chip on her shoulder – someone who has not completely recovered from the gender war. I would like to reminder her, next time she rattles on about the wonderful, enlightened European nations, that Switzerland only got the vote for women in 1971. Wrap you mind around that historical fact, Ms. Roberts! Continue reading »

Apr 19 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 16 – Stories of Composers

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Adriana Zoder

Stories of Composers For Young Musicians by Catherine Wolff Kendalls makes for great bedtime reading. (I have been reading to my children since they were infants. We read before going to bed but we also read throughout the day.)

My children take violin and piano lessons and my goal is to make classical music a delight for them. As such, we play classical music during our meals and we read as much about composers as we can. I have invested in some CDs about composers’ lives but my children were still too small at the time – we are talking preschool age.

They are now 6 and 8 and these stories seem to go over better. It will be an interesting test, after reading this book with them, to re-visit the initial CDs and see if the kids have a better reaction to them.

Because they did enjoy this book. It was a bit boring for my six-year-old in the beginning, because the book has no pictures beyond a portrait of the composer. But she soon realized these composers fell in love and married – well, most of them did. She is in this phase of awakening to romance. Continue reading »

Apr 12 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 15 – Mommy, Can We Practice Now?

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Adriana Zoder

Mommy, Can We Practice Now? by Marie Parkinson is another helpful book for parents whose children are involved in music lessons. Paying for violin or piano lessons is one thing. Making sure the kiddos practice every day at home without losing one’s temper is another thing altogether.

First, let me tell you a story. I have a friend who puts her children in a public school. She does not understand why I homeschool. That’s fine. We respect each other and have wonderful conversations about being a mom and cooking and life in our small town.

She definitely does not understand why I pay somebody else to teach my children violin and piano when I can play violin and some piano – albeit not at a concert soloist level. Indeed, it may seem inconsistent. To say “I am not a violin teacher by training” is the same as to say “I am not a physics teacher by training.” Which means I really have no business tackling my children’s education as a homeschooler, overall.

But this is where I disagree. Physics or chemistry or reading or any other school subject are very different from the arts. Music and art are best taught by somebody who is trained as an artist and, even better, as a teacher of artists. Continue reading »

Apr 7 2016

Adler on DVD

Posted on April 7, 2016 by Adriana Zoder

Last month, I came across this wonderful DVD with talk-style seminars by Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren about how to read a book. This DVD was produced by Encyclopedia Britannica probably as a companion to How To Read A Book – the actual book by that title. But it got lost and found only in recent years.

Walking while watching Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren

You can watch a clip here or here so you get an idea what to expect. Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren are sitting at a table discussing how to tackle books and why. If you read the book you should also get the DVD. If you have not read the book, you should get the DVD, especially if you are not 150% psyched about reading a book about how to read books. The DVD contains the same information as the book, but it reinforces it in conversational style.

The two men discuss the reasons for reading and explain how to read The Great Books – the best collections of ideas produced by Western civilization. They break down the types of reading a person can do: for pleasure, information, fun, entertainment, or for a challenge etc.

The books that are tough for you to read, those that are above your level, those that make you scratch your head – you should be happy when you find something like that. If you only read what you can grasp, how can you grow? How can you stretch and reach higher than where you are? This is a great point especially for home educators. Continue reading »

Apr 5 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 14 – About Grace

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Adriana Zoder

About Grace by Anthony Doerr is really not just about a girl name Grace. It is about fathers and daughters, runaway fathers, separation and psychology, precognition, dreams, Alaska, and the Grenadines. And, mostly, it is about snowflakes and insects.

This is Doerr’s first novel and critics agree that it is something special. Personally, when I read it, I felt transported and enlightened. I felt inspired even more to invest in family.

David Winkler, the main character, learns the hard way that family is not so much what you are given but what you are able to keep. He also said something that touched me so much, I put the book down and went to a different place to cry. He said that grandfathers are successful fathers who have been promoted to the next level. Continue reading »

Mar 29 2016

Tuesday Tome Week 13 – Four Seasons in Rome

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Adriana Zoder

Anthony Doerr is quickly becoming my favorite writer. Last year, I read “All The Light We Cannot See” and was really touched by it. Now I know it was not just the plot, it was also the way Doerr writes. Because “Four Seasons in Rome” is very different from “All the Light…” You see, “Four Seasons…” is a travel memoir, while “All the Light…” is a work of fiction, a novel.

Two very different pieces, connected by the same author. It is clearly his writing that can turn any story, true or fictional, into an experience that enriches life. His writing grips me and haunts me and helps me see life differently. It inspires, energizes, and changes my perspective on the banal details of life. No wonder Doerr has received several literary awards, including the Pulitzer for “All the Light…” and no wonder he was named one of the 20 best young American novelists by Granta. He is that good.

The subtitle of “Four Seasons in Rome” is “On twins, insomnia, and the biggest funeral in the history of the world.” So what is going on? The day Doerr’s wife gave birth to twins, they received an envelope in the mail, offering him a fellowship to live in Rome for one year and write something. Anything. The offer came from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. How could they say no? Continue reading »

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