summer reading

this weekend we exchanged our short sleeves for sweaters. the autumnal equinox came in and brought the crisp temperatures. o, i do love this time of year. it made me reflect back on all we did over the summer. i am not sad to see the hot days leave. we had our fill.

we took a lot of field trips {to the shore, to the farm, to the city, to the woods}. we baked a great deal whilst manning our booth rotation at our local farmer's market for our little family business, red apron organic:fresh milled flours.

during the course of our travels as well as our ventures around town, we managed to listen to a few books on audio. hatchet, number the stars, the secret garden. and then i introduced beowulf. 

some of the books were hits some of the books were misses.

an honorable mention

i could hardly wait for the boys to hear the 1,000 year old epic that has monsters and valor to inspire their little adventurous hearts. they did not care for it. at all. that would be beowulf. but the book that most surprised me was the secret garden. they loved that book. not at first. not when they heard the title. but it didn't take long before they were enthralled, reminding me to turn on the cd every time we got back in the car.

i wonder how many boys are missing out on reading this unlikely heroic tale because the protagonist is a girl, and it's about a garden? sometimes heros are the unlikely. this story sneaks up and surprises and made me gasp. the mark of a great book.

but we didn't stop there... 

i read to the littlest all of the e.b. white books as well as dr. doolittle and mr. popper's penguins{we had an animal theme going}. it was delighful. delight-full. the heroism of louis the trumpet swan. the courage of a spider. the adventures of a mouse. the creativity of a man and his penguins. o, so many lessons to glean from these little 1950's classics. so thankful my boys listened to such worthwhile tales.

so last night, as the sun set over the appalachian trail, we snuggled together on the sofa to officially close out our summer reading with a viewing of the 1993 francis ford coppola version of the secret garden. it was illustrious and lovely. the movie managed to stay true to the text (mostly), but in the end we all agreed. we enjoyed the book better than the movie.

xo,

gf