Misc.

Maybe I should just become a children’s librarian.  There are so many interesting children’s books out there and I just never seem to get tired of reading them!  It is fun that almost every single time the kids and I visit the library here, I find new titles related to our Expeditions just by roaming the shelves.  And sometimes I am not even browsing but just by walking by a shelf on my way to find something else and a title will pop out at me.  I found a volume of sea stories and poetry that I had overlooked in an earlier search for ocean-themed verse.  When we return from our trip, I intend to explore that one more.

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Ah yes, our trip: we had to cancel our flights because the passport has not yet arrived.  My husband’s boss has been extremely accommodating, however, and it looks like delaying it for another few days (another week?) doesn’t have to mean that we will need to cut short the trip at all.  Even before this, my husband said that he is one of the best bosses he has ever had.  And it doesn’t hur that he is a bit of a travel nut himself.

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Back to talking about books, though: my go-to when I am stressed or feeling overwhelmed or tired when homeschooling is to gather us all on the couch and just read out loud.  It is so enjoyable, the kids are almost always happy to be read to, and it is also relaxing.  As long as I don’t fall asleep, it keeps us all happy.

For our Travel-themed Expedition, we have not focused our reading on “travel” dimension, but rather the destination. So we have read country profile books, “Children in Thailand” or similar themes, that sort of thing.  It turns out that there are not many travelogues written for or by children.  There are a few out there about bicycling across Asia or within the United States, one co-written by a young girl and her mother about “peakbagging” in New Hampshire, and some “travel activity books” which is not at all what I am after.  One site I stumbled upon lamented the lack of travel writing geared toward children and suggested that someone pounce on the opportunity of this wide open market.  We’ll keep it in mind…

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Our children’s collection here has a special focus on what life is like for children around the world, and generally celebrating global color and diversity.  We have found a few good ones in that batch.  I especially like Peter Speier’s book, “People:”

I highly recommend this book by Stacey Shuett that helps kids learn timezones; it isn’t particularly about travel but gets you thinking about people all over the world and what they might be up to at any given moment of the day (or night).  Despite the poor choice of cover it has wonderful illustrations inside.

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Yesterday was the first time I noticed that Rodman Philbrick and Nathaniel Philbrick are not the same person. We have had “The Young Man and the Sea” by R. Philbrick and “The Revenge of the Whale: the true story of the Whaleship Essex” by N. Philbrick on our reading list and not until I went to check out the second one at the library did I notice the difference in first names!

They both live in New England and they are both authors on top of which they also each have several nautical-themed works to their names, so my confusion is not entirely baseless.  Turns out they are probably descendants of an original Philbrick.