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Month in review

Reviews:
All Aboard the Dinotrain by Deb Lund
Are You Afraid Yet? by Stephen James O'Meara
Bailey's Day by Robert Haggerty
A Brief History of Time by Shaindel Beers
Cat Heaven by Cynthia Rylant
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
A Dark, Dark Tale by Ruth Brown
Dead End by Helen R. Myers
Dreamstone by D. A. Hendrickson
The Electric Church by Jeff Somers
The Essential Basho by Basho and translated by Sam Hamill
Excuse Me... Are You a Witch? by Emily Horn
Farewell Atlantis by Terry Bisson
Freckle Juice by Judy Blume
Grampa's Zombie BBQ by Kirk Scraggs
The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry
How to Host a Killer Party by Penny Warner
The Kayla Chroincles by Sherri Winston
The Ladies' Paradise by Émile Zola
Little (Grrl) Lost by Charles de Lint
Little Quack's Hide and Seek by Lauren Thompson
The Man Who Did Something About It by Harvey Jacobs
Owly Volume 1: The Way Home and The Bittersweet Summer by Andy Runton
Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Revolutionary War on Wednesday (Magic Tree House #22) by Mary Pope Osborne
The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
The Soul of the Rhino by Hemanta Mishra
Spot Visits His Grandparents by Eric Hill
The Texicans by Nina Vida
The Thanksgiving Door by Debby Atwell
Twister on Tuesday (Magic Tree House #23) by Mary Pope Osborne
Two Little Trains by Margaret Wise Brown and Leo Dillon
The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman
Veracity by Laura Bynum

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The Essential Basho: 06/26/10

cover art

I remember learning the basics of writing Haiku in fifth or sixth grade. I don't however remember any of the poems I wrote for school. Since then Haiku has been out of sight, out of mind for me. That was until my son and I read Dragon of the Red Dawn (Magic Tree House #37) by Mary Pope Osborne. The story centers on Jack and Annie meeting Matsuo Basho.

Whenever Sean comes across an interesting factual detail in a book he's reading he likes to research what he's learned. Usually he and I will do a web search to find an article but sometimes he wants more.

In the case of Basho, he wanted a book of his poetry. Luckily our library has a copy of The Essential Basho by Sam Hamill. It includes a brief biography of the poet and his most famous haikus. Sean was mostly interested in reading more of his work. So we took turns reading haikus to each other.

I love it when one book will lead to another as Dragon of the Red Dawn lead us to The Essential Basho.

Comments (6)


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Comment #1: Sunday, June, 27, 2010 at 17:37:39

Buffy Garber

Thanks for this review! I'm looking forward to reading it. Maybe my six-year-old and I should try the Magic Treehouse one as well — I haven't read them with her before — I've only glanced at them and the sibling interaction turns me off.



Comment #2: Friday, July 2, 2010 at 10:11:37

Pussreboots

You're welcome. My son was six when we started reading The Magic Tree House series.



Comment #3: Sunday, July, 4, 2010 at 18:26:09

Buffy @ Situations Where You May Need It

Do you find that the sibling relationship is pretty conflictual throughout the series or do you think I just picked up one that was especially that way?



Comment #4: Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 19:24:28

Pussreboots

Annie and Jack's relationship is inconsistent. It starts off terrible in the first four books and slowly improves. By the late 20s in the series their relationship regresses some. They also go from being very skilled to forgetting most of what they've learned. That seems to improve again by the 30s but I haven't read many books. We pretty much gave up at book 27.



Comment #5: Friday, July, 9, 2010 at 20:07:38

Buffy

Good, I'm glad to hear that maybe it wasn't just me being over-sensitive.

We've got The Essential Basho out from the library and I'm looking forward to exploring it. Hopefully my six-year-old will get into it as well. :)



Comment #6: Sunday, July 11, 2010 at 14:18:00

Pussreboots

Enjoy the book. I read a bunch of the haikus outloud to my son. It was a nice way to share the poetry together.



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