Book Chat
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Immersion in Quality Literature
My childhood home was a home of books; thousands of books, I don’t recall many picture books, but we had shelves of quality novels mixed with twaddle. This immersion in quality literature encouraged my own love of reading. Making the decision early on to home educate our children, I began reading about home education approaches and knew our learning would not be reliant on text books. When I first read of Charlotte Mason I was immediately drawn to her love of Living Books, I had found someone whose experience bore out my instinctive thoughts! The past 17 years of parenting have been filled with reading, books are an integral part of…
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Liturgical Year Resources – Spreadsheet
A few years ago my friend Anne inspired me when she shared how she had compiled an inventory of her collection of saint books. Anne’s aim was to utilize her library to the fullest with her children. As I could relate to the feeling of owning many wonderful books but knowing they were not being used to their maximum capacity I promptly started my own compilation. I was finding in particular the books with several different chapters of saints were being overlooked. The idea was to know what resources we had for any saint, to read on their Feast Days. For some odd reason I typed our ‘Liturgical Year Resources’…
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Book Care – Covering Without a Dust Jacket
Family and friends tease me about being rather ‘obsessed’ with covering books. I confess, it is true. I learnt this trick at my mother’s knee. Mum covered her books with a clear builder’s plastic, books that are in still good condition today. Covering really does add to the life of your books. I buy ‘clear gloss premium PVC plastic’ on a huge rolls of 100m lengths. You can purchase smaller rolls than this. Contact your state’s library suppliers to see what they have available (your local library should be able to give you contact details). Do not be tempted to buy a cheaper product, I’ve friends who have done so…
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Loveliness Fair – Children’s Books
Books abound in our home. Picture and chapter books of all genres. Adventures, mysteries, fantasy, classics, history, nature… Good quality books is our mantra. Books that feed the mind and nourish the soul. Books that contain illustrations that capture the children’s imagination and are rich in language. We were blessed to receive a large amount of books from my childhood. Since then we have added to the collection. We haunt library and rotary sales, op shop and garage sales. A percentage of books are purchased and every member of this household holds their own library card. Our oldest children’s first work pay check went on the purchase of books:) A…
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Audio Books
Several months ago our three oldest took the Mercy Academy Learning Style Test. One result that was apparent was that our two oldest boys learn best by audio means. Unfortunately a low budget and no ADSL meant we have done nothing about this despite a fervent wish. Now, however with the installation of our ADSL we can finally download. In case anyone else is on the same journey, I share here some free audio download links. Audio Books For Free Some great titles. LibriVox 1000s of titles here. Light Up Your Brain These look rather light on. Free Classic Audio Books Ahh classics, well we will be downloading from here.…
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Taking Care of Books
I have a little quirk, alright I’ll admit it’s a passion, I love to have my books covered in book wrap. I mean the heavy duty plastic that the libraries use. It gives strength and durability, keeps them looking in good condition,as a ‘new’ book for the next reader, as well as making them more appealing looking. I particularly admire the look of the books with dust jackets. I know I am slightly strange whilst I’m being really honest I like the feel of them. Gee I can see some readers rolling their eyes,(are you giggling Gae?) but I’m sure that someone out there understands just how I feel, someone…
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Reading in Our House During 2007
Our family is a ‘reading family’. Not a day would go by without seeing various members reading throughout the day and everyone curls up in bed with a book at night. Books spill out the book shelves and are stacked in various piles throughout the house. Boxes are constantly being carried back and forth between our house and the shipping container in our yard where more books are stored. Books are the basis of our education, they transport us to other lands, other times, new ideas. They impact on our speech, our thoughts, they are simply part of us. Reflecting back over 2007 I notice a change in our reading…
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What I have been busy doing
I’ve been busy this last fortnight spending many hours entering our personal library into a database. Using Readerware I have been able to create a book database by scanning in the barcode(thank you Prince Charming for the scanner) or entering the ISBN of our books. In many cases I have typed in author and title manually if the book is pre ISBN (1960s). I now have our home library manageable due to this software. The neatest feature that I love is the ‘category’ option. Today I was able to enter in ‘Christmas’ and view our relevant books to aid in my planning for Advent. I first trialled the program for…
