February---The Princess and the Goblin
by George MacDonald published 1872
Eight year old Princess Irene lives a lonely life in a wild, desolate, mountainous kingdom, with only her nursemaid, "Lootie" for company. Due to her sheltered upbringing, her father being absent attending to affairs of state and her mother being dead, Irene has never known about the existence of the goblins, which lurk in the underground mines.
These goblins are grotesque and hideous beings, who, centuries ago, were human, but due to varying reasons, were driven underground and were malformed and distorted by their new lifestyle. This caused them to despise the humans above the ground and vow revenge against them. Irene and Lootie – who knows of the goblins – stay out late one night and are chased by the goblins, who only appear on the surface at night as sunshine repulses them. Lootie and Irene barely escape the goblins after a miner's child, a boy named Curdie Peterson, appears and sings loudly to the goblins, which drives them away. Curdie states that goblins are repelled by singing, and he and Irene begin to become friends.
However, Curdie soon discovers, after he ventures into the mines and accidentally enters the realm of the goblins, that the goblins are planning a war against the humans on the surface, where they plot to abduct the Princess and marry her to Prince Harelip, the heir to the throne of the goblin kingdom, therefore forcing the humans to accept the goblins as their rulers. The driving force behind this scheme is the vile Goblin Queen, the stepmother of Harelip, who hides a secret – she has toes, a physical trait that goblins do not have and therefore regard with disgust.
With the help of Irene's ethereal great-great grandmother, the Princess and Curdie must hatch a plan to defeat the goblins and save the kingdom.----summery from Wikipedia
This was an enjoyable read by the girls of the family. We had fun following the "spidar web" throughout the house like Irene did in the dark of the underground caves.
We enjoyed some medieval inspired food mentioned in the book. Eggs, ours were chicken and not pidgeon, lentil porridge and a bread of some sort. I remember it was fabulous, just can't remember what I made.
March----A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Mark Twain published 1889
The novel is a satirical comedy that looks at 6th-Century England and its medieval culture through the eyes of Hank Morgan, a 19th-century resident of Hartford, Connecticut, who, after a blow to the head, awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early medieval England at the time of the legendary King Arthur. The fictional Mr. Morgan, who had an image of that time that had been colored over the years by romantic myths, takes on the task of analyzing the problems and sharing his knowledge from 1300 years in the future to modernize, Americanize, and improve the lives of the people.
In it, a Yankee engineer from Connecticut is accidentally transported back in time to the court of King Arthur, where he fools the inhabitants of that time into thinking he is a magician—and soon uses his knowledge of modern technology to become a "magician" in earnest, stunning the English of the Early Middle Ages with such feats as demolitions, fireworks and the shoring up of a holy well. He attempts to modernize the past, but in the end he is unable to prevent the death of Arthur and an interdict against him by the Catholic Church of the time, which grows fearful of his power. --these summaries come from Wikipedia.
We never finished this book....I was pretty well hitting a wall with homeschooling during this month. We did watch a fun lego adaptation on you-tube. Connor read some of it and after the discussion he said he'd like to read it on his own some time.
We did have fun making a telegraph. It WORKED !! yeah. this was a fun activity!
For our treat we made fruit fools....real whipped cream with lots of fresh or frozen fruits and berries added. This was a definite hit with the group.
It's tapping...we got it to work!
April----Mary Poppins
Everyone know the Disney version....of course, we enjoyed the book more. I didn't get the entire book read to Delaney (the others were on their own), but we did get most of it done.
Beryl lead this discussion. This is a new twist to the dynamics of the meetings. We're tying to get the youth in more leadership type roles.
We enjoyed making chalk drawings and jam cookies.
May---- The Hundred Dresses
Eleanor Estes published 1944
The Hundred Dresses is a 1944 children's book by Eleanor Estes, illustrated by Louis Slobodkin. In the book, a young Polish girl named Wanda Petronski goes to a school in an American town, where the other children see her as "different" and mock her. It was a 1945 Newbery Honor book.
The book centers on Wanda Petronski, a poor and friendless Polish-American girl. Her teacher, outwardly kind, puts her in the worst seat in the classroom and she does not say anything when her schoolmates tease her. One day, after Wanda's classmates laugh at her funny last name and the faded blue dress she wears to school every day, Wanda claims to own one hundred dresses, all lined up in her closet at her worn-down house. This outrageous and obvious lie becomes a game, as the girls in her class corner her every day before school, demanding that she describe all of her dresses for them. She is mocked, and her father, Mr. Petronski, decides that she must leave that school.
The teacher holds a drawing contest in which the girls are to draw dresses of their own design. Wanda enters and submits one hundred beautiful designs. Her classmates are in awe of her talent and realize that these were her hundred dresses. Unfortunately, she has already moved away and does not realize she won the contest.
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The students who teased her feel remorse and want her to know this, but they are not sure how. They decide to write her an apology letter and send it to her old address, hoping the post office can forward it.---summaries from Wikipedia
I think this book was my favorite of the year. We had originally chosen The Dark is Rising, to engage our boys, but by this time they had all fallen off the book group wagon...and Delaney and Gayliegh weren't to thrilled with the scary-ness of the book. I had read this one before and loved it. I thought others would too and I was right. We had more thought provoking discussion with this one than we've had with other books....well except maybe The Hobbit, which was another really great read. We also discovered how much the pictures emulated what the story line was too.
Cailin and Rachel lead this one. We were introduced to the different types of characters. Personally, I will enjoy analyzing this in future books. For treats they decorated their own dresses.
