On The Go Family!: 2009

Friday, August 28, 2009

A year of books

I’m allowing myself to depart from my usual blog style, because I LOVE BOOKS. And, so do my kids. The kids weren’t too excited about ancient Olympia, or the Temple of Artemis, or Pompeii, but their books kept them company on our travels! I got to read some of them myself! We had a bit of a “dry spot” in rural Italy with nowhere to buy books in English. That changed in Venice when we stocked up on the next Stephanie Meyer and Christopher Paolini - sheesh, paid big Euros for those books (we didn’t buy a single souvenir—not even a fridge magnet!)

When we got to Cape Town we were delighted with our local Wordsworth Books at Long Beach Mall. They got a lot of my money, as they had lots of good mid-grade and YA stuff from the UK and elsewhere (not to mention some comfy chairs for the kids and Garfield comics the kids devoured while we were grocery shopping). A couple of bargain bookshops filled in the gaps, and later we got some needed sequels at the Simonstown public library. How TERRIFIC to be homeschooling without TV for 8 months, living by the beach.

So, here are photos of the boys’ reading journey, and the booklist is posted also. (The links on each caption point to blog posts of the region).

Central Park, NYC On the Deck of the Queen Mary 2

Train to London Provence, France

Driving Through Nice and Monaco Colletta, Italy (Liguria Provence)

On the Venice Vaparetto (water bus) Lido Island, Venice

Dubrovnik Croatia Corfu, Greece Cruise Cabin Reading

On the train to ancient Olympia At the Acropolis, Athens Greece

On the tour bus in Turkey. We visited the amazing ruin at Ephesus, The Temple of Artemis ruin, a Turkish carpet factory, and the final home of the Virgin Mary. Not sure if the kids remember any of that! But there are no complaints as look as they have a good book.

Ephesus, Turkey

Rhodes, Greece Santorini, Greece

Waiting for the train, Pompeii At the Catacombs, in Rome

In Cape Town, South Africa At the Blue Route Mall, Cape Town

On the Paris Metro (more Paris here)

Our Booklist:

William Nicholson: Seeker; Jango; Noman
Terry Pratchett: Johnny and the Bomb
Christopher Paolini: Brisinger
Anthony Horowitz: Necropolis; Raven’s Gate; Evil Star; Night Rise
Terry Deary: Fire Thief
Kai Meyer: Waterweaver
Mark Robson: Dragon Orb, Firestorm; Longfang; Shadow
Katherine Emmons: Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary (my old Belize visitor’s guide! Alex read it for Science)
China Melville: Un Lun Dun
Simon Morden: The Lost Art
Rick Riordan: 39 Clues. Maze of Bones
Oisin McGann: Small Minded Giants
James Patterson: The Dangerous Days of Daniel X;
Rafael Abalos: Grimpow, the Invisible Road
Geraldine McCaughrean: Tamburlaine’s Elephants
Stephanie Meyer: The Host; Twilight; Eclipse; Awakening Dawn
Branch et al: Two Oceans: A guide to the Marine Life of South Africa
Joan Lennon: The Seventh Tide
Will Peterson: Triskellion
Lois Lowry: Gossamer; Messenger; Gathering Blue; Giver; The Willoughbys
Roald Dahl: Danny and the Champion of the World
Douglas Richards: Prometheus Project: Trapped
Elizabeth Laird: Crusade
Angie Sage: Septimus Heap, Magyk; Physik
Garth Nix: Sabriel; Lirael; Abhorsen
JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit
Joe Craig: Jimmy Coats, Revenge; Sabatoge; Killer; Target
Robert Muchamore: Cherub, Recruit; Divine Madness'; The Killing; Maximum Security; Class A
Johnathon Stroud: Golem’s Eye; Amulet of Samarkand; Ptolemy’s Gate; Heroes of the Valley; The Leap
Peter Dickinson: Ropemaker
Michael Grant: Gone
Emma Clayton: The Roar
Mike Wilks: Mirrorscape
Esther Forbes: Johnny Tremain (Alex’s schoolbook)
Sharon Creech: Walk Two Moons (Jordan’s school book that we all read!)
Yoshiko Uchida: Journey to Topaz
Cornelia Funke: Inkdeath
Mark Walden: Hive, the Higher Institute of Villainous Education
Jeff Stone: Crane (we lost the thread of this series after Crane, which seemed to be only on the US)
Phillip Pullman: Northern Lights (Golden Compass) Tried to convince Jordan to finish this one, but he didn’t like it!

Now we are in Palm Desert, with too much TV and too much Internet! But, the book list continues to grow:

James Patterson: Maximum Ride, the Angel Experiment
Cliff McNish: The Silver Child
David Gilman: Blood Sun

A Bad Day (Aug 8)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Yes, we are back in the USA

(I’ll post more pictures soon)

Well, we aren’t nearly as excited about Home Depot and Costco as we thought we would be. We are missing the beach, the clean air, a more relaxed life! But I’m enjoying Mexican food, hearing Spanish, talking to friends. Jordan is happy to have his favorite fast food (but we’re going to limit that, kiddo). Alex is delighted with super-duper speedy and cheaper internet. Tony will sign up for Netflix soon and has been meeting old work buddies. We rediscovered the public library and community college (I want to take a sculpture class for fun). What I didn’t miss were all these ugly tattoos and body-piercing (yes this is pretty much a mostly USA thing) and the consumer choices are just way too overwhelming to enjoy! (We are still buying fresh fruit, fresh chicken and veggies and COOKING—will see if that lasts). And, we have a slew of landlord blues (but nothing we can’t handle), and we really miss our doggie, Kei, who died on the trip from Wyoming to California. He’d been sick with something unexplained and the vet couldn’t help. We are happy he waited for us, though.