snow days – Peaceful Reader

Snow days coming our way…

Did you know that we are about to get hit with a major snowstorm here in the Midwest? Yes. Lots of snow, high winds, crazy kind of weather. We’ve had two smaller storms but no snow days. We are due and I am ready. Hot chocolate and pancakes, lots of reading here we GO. Sadly we are not wusses though so it takes a major snow to cancel school. I checked out a few snow books to get me in the mood. Here are a few of my favorites from our public library.

Hooray for SNOW! by Kazuo Iwamura: Sweet squirrel family learns to play in the snow altogether. Lovely illustrations.

Here comes Jack Frost by Kazuno Kohara: A young boy, feeling blue during winter, has a chance meeting with Jack Frost and makes a new friend to play with all winter long until Spring begins to sprout. Lovely woodcut illustrations.

Snowman’s Story by Will Hillenbrand: Sweet wordless picture book with forest animals and a snowman with a treasured book sharing the love of reading. I love the Bear and Mole series by Hillenbrand also so no surprise that this one is a hit as well.

Peter and the Winter Sleepers by Rick de Haas: Peter lives in a lighthouse with his grandmother and his dog Leo. During a particularly snowy week the lighthouse becomes a makeshift home for many forest animals! Peter and his grandmother welcome a freezing rabbit, an owl, birds, bats, a squirrel family, and finally one lone, cold fox. The house is starting to smell, there are droppings everywhere but worse yet they think fox might have eaten Gull. My teacher brain says this book is great for empathy, grit, kindness, and problem-solving.

First Snow by Peter McCarty: I love Peter’s work! Pedro comes to visit his bunny cousins and snow arrives the very next day. Pedro doesn’t like the cold so he’s unhappy to see his first snow. Poor Pedro complains as all the neighborhood bunnies frolic in the snow but, of course, he sleds down a big hill and loves it. No more complaining! Lovely illustrations.

Cheers to a snow day. Our traditions include hot chocolate and chocolate chip pancakes, Gilmore Girls, reading, and lots of cuddling under big blankets. I’m ready like I said.

Creepy Bugs

It’s been over a week and my computer has been violently ill. It wouldn’t let me get on our wireless and it was acting just plain loco! The frustration was high when my men were still surfing with their sleek Apples! Ugh.

Lucky I have a wonderful techie friend who’s taken it home to restore it. He confirmed the buggy diagnosis. It seems to be going around as I got a quirky tweet from a friend who thought she’d been hacked-which is how it started for me right before Christmas.

When you haven’t bloged for awhile it feels weird to come back-a little like calling an old friend after a long time. I miss Pinterest and Facebook but really miss my blogging friends!

Some life updates:

-Read emma and me by Elizabeth Flock and Sing Me Home by Jodi Piccoult.
-new refrigerator is backordered but at least ordered.
-today was an awesome SNOW DAY, allowing me to get holiday decorations put correctly back.
-cooked many wonderful meals that I’m anxious to post.

I’m typing on my son’s IPad and hope to have my healthy computer back some time next week.
In the meantime have a peaceful day wherever you are!

Terrible Storm by Carol Otis Hurst

Apparently I have a fascination with snow books at the moment as we are still knee-deep and frozen in the Midwest. Terrible Storm relates Hurst’s grandfather’s experiences surrounding The Blizzard of 1888. Both grandfathers were going about their daily business; one was chopping wood and the other delivering milk when the storm hit, they both take cover and remain snowed in for three days. The social grandfather is stuck in a barn with several animals for company while the more solitary grandfather is stuck at the White Horse Tavern with a group of people.

While it isn’t a thrilling tale it has a good storyteller quality to it. Eventually each grandfather makes it back to their own comfort zone by shoveling out with other townsfolk. The illustrations are beautifully drawn and show a different era, making it a wonderful way to show students how people dressed and worked in the 1800’s. No snow blowers or cars (Grandfather Fred delivered milk in a horse-drawn wagon). I love to read this kind of HF to students because they are so amazed by the differences and this one in particular is a quick read, making its point with little text compared to many other elementary historical fiction picture books. I enjoyed the author’s note at the beginning about her grandfathers tales. Click here for Carol Otis Hurst’s website. This one is the perfect choice for an easy read-aloud about history or the weather. I picked this one up from the public library and I think on my next visit I need to look for books on Spring!! I’m picturing a beautiful book about tulips!

Snow, Snow, Snowmen

A Really Good Snowman

Daniel J. Mahoney

2005

This is a sweetly told story from the polka-dotted snow ball endpapers to the story inside. Jack is busy building a paper airplane when he hears his little sister, Nancy clomping toward his room and Jack is not excited.He hides his paper airplane behind his back, away from her eyes. The next pages show why Jack isn’t enthused to have Nancy’s help with his plane. She’s messed up other projects of his but luckily, Jack remembers he needs to help his friends at the Shady Woods Snowman Contest. He distracts her by taking her with to the park.
When Jack’s friends, Angie and Melden remind him the rules say only three to a team, Nancy gets pushed to build her own snowman. Everyone’s having fun building their snowmen until Jack hears some older boys teasing Nancy. Jack comes to her rescue and then decides to help her instead of his friends.
Peaceful Girl and I read this moments ago for a bedtime story. Even though the characters are bears, foxes, rabbits and mice she could fully relate to Nancy’s heartbreak over her brother’s quick abandonment and her glory when he returns to assist her.
I’ve tried to explain this often to my teen-age son, the hero worship little sisters place on big brothers and he doesn’t take it to heart as much as I hope. My peaceful girl said this was definetely a two-thumbs-up story and she had some interesting thoughts on the brother/sister relationship. Hits on issues of teasing, bullying, family relationships and winning. Daniel J. Mahoney’s website-click here. After exploring his website I realize I have none of his titles on hand in my school library-I need to change that after reading this one.

Highly Recommended-Elementary

5/5 peaceful stars

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give
                                            too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
              • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your
                        teasers

Here’s my teasers:

“What are you two?”
“Goddesses!” grinned Aurelia.
“Can I be a goddess as well?” Rebecca asked.
p. 38 of Paula Morris’ Ruined, a fabulous New Orleans ghost story!

One might think I could have produced this TT a little earlier in the morning since it is a snow day here but I read this book until my eyes could no longer stay open a moment longer and so waking up was a bit difficult!! What a problem:) I plan on finishing the book today!!! Yeah, for snow day even though it means we will be going to school until something like July!
Whatever your doing today…Happy Reading!