A book sale, and my cataloging project

We've had sick kids, so we haven't read a whole lot this week.

Kristen started reading The Wind in the Willows to Jaymie tonight. Amazingly, neither Kristen nor I have read it yet.

Last Thursday I went to a book sale at a local private school, and came away with about 40 books for $4.00. We were very excited. There were a bunch of Magic Schoolbus books (some from the original series by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen, some based on the TV series). All of the kids love these right now, including Stanley, surprisingly enough. Another find was King Bidgood's in the Bathtub by Audrey and Don Wood.

When I got home, I became curious about the number of children's books we had in the house. I borrowed a bar code reader from work, downloaded a copy of Readerware, and set to work cataloging our collection. We have about 500 children's books that we own, plus about 30-40 at any time from the library, which surprised me -- I would have put the number at about half of that figure.

The long-term project is to have a searchable database of our family library available online. For now, maybe I'll highlight a few books each week from our collection that we really like, especially since Julia keeps picking dreck like The Lion King Little Golden Books that we have.

read to Jaymie and Julia, March 15, 2005

Wow, I haven't posted in a while. I finally finished reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to Jaymie. This was a more challenging read-aloud for her -- lots of nautical terminology and courtly language. She spaced out more than once during the reading. Still, she liked it, and was disappointed on the nights that we didn't read.

I liked reading it to her. The episodic structure of the plot lends itself nicely to reading aloud over a number of nights. Plus I got to read the word "poop" a lot (It took Jaymie a while to realize I wasn't joking).

Rather than try to catch up, I'll just start again with what we read tonight. Kristen wasn't feeling well, so I read to both Jaymie and Julia.

Grandpa's Teeth by Rod Clement. Someone has stolen Grandpa's teeth from the glass by his bed, and the whole town is under suspicion. To avoid appearing guilty, everyone must walk around smiling all the time, with disastrous consequences. A fun read-aloud if you like to do silly voices, as Grandpa gums all of his words. From the Library

The Littlest Matryoshka by Corinne Demas Bliss, illustrated by Kathryn Brown The adventures of a little matryoshka doll who is separated from her older sisters. A nice story for girls, especially. We bought this book for the girls along with matryoshkas for their very own a couple of Christmases ago.

Reading from the past week

I haven't been very good about updating this past week, in part because I'm reading The Voyage fo the Dawn Treader to Jaymie now in the evenings, while Kristen reads to Julia, so I don't have much new to report on a nightly basis, and I don't know exactly what's being read to Julia. Here's a list of some of the library books she's heard over the past few days:

Heckedy Peg by Don and Audrey Wood. I've listed this before, but this is a great favorite of Julia's.
The Spooky Tail of Prewitt Peacock and Cock-A-Doodle-Dudley by Bill Peet. Also listed before, and often requested by Julia.
Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose by Dr. Seuss. I loved this book as a kid, so I got it for Julia. I think she liked it.
And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss. I've been getting a lot of Dr. Seuss for Julia. I realized a while ago that our kids have never heard a lot of these stories.
John Philip Duck by Patricia Polacco. Patricia Polacco is a favorite around our house. I haven't read this one myself yet.
Ira Says Goodbye by Bernard Waber. I haven't read this one either, but it's the same Ira from Ira Sleeps Over, which we like around here.

Stanley's been requesting If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff several times a day. He also has asked for our copy of The Magic Schoolbus: Lost in the Solar System by Joanna Cole, illustrated by Bruce Degen. Surprisingly, he sits through the whole book, which is quite a bit longer than his usual fare. I'm not sure what he likes about it. He is familiar with the TV program based on the books, since we have borrowed some of them from the library, so perhaps that is what is keeping his attention.