Eight Cousins ~ Louisa May Alcott

Orphaned as a young girl, Rose goes to live on the "Aunt Hill," the hill endearingly called so by those in the area. Her six aunts live on this hill, each with their own family. Each, also, have their own ideas of how to raise her and as she has no parents, and her guardian uncle is on his way back from across the seas, she is subject to obey them.
But soon, Dr. Alec, her guardian uncle, comes and blows her aunts ideas out of the water.
Adjusting to the new care instructions underway she also is trying to figure out how she, an only child, feels about her 7 rambunctious boy cousins.
I really enjoyed this book. I was quite taken with all the characters. I wholly recommend it to any one. I think a young child could even understand it, if it was read to them. It's just a sweet story.

Magic Tree House Series ~ Mary Pope Osborne

Siblings Jack and Annie have discovered a tree house in a forest in their hometown of Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. Being children, they have to explore the structure. The tree house is filled with books on every subject imaginable, and a spoken wish to travel to one of the places pictured is supernaturally granted. Surprise: The tree house is magical!

The first few books in the series have Jack and Annie trying to discover who owns the tree house and how the dwelling is magical, and going on adventures in the meantime. Each book takes them to a different place and period in history: from exploring pyramids in ancient Egypt to crossing moats with medieval knights in Europe to escaping ninjas in China. As Jack and Annie go on their adventures they get into scrapes that always cause them to have to consult with the book that corresponds with where and when they are, so the reader learns facts as they are enjoying a fictional story.

I’ve been reading the series to my daughters, and the stories captivate them. My 5 year-old especially likes them. She asks every night if we can read Magic Tree House. The books are only 10 chapters long and are illustrated so young listeners and readers will stay interested. I have been in disagreement, though, with some of the facts contained in the books. The first book, Dinosaurs Before Dark, used information like “50 million years ago..”, etc. so I had to tweak what I read to them. Other than that I suggest reading them.

Sarah, Plain and Tall ~ Ptricia MacLachlan

Anna and Caleb live with their father out on the prairie. Their mother died while giving birth to Caleb. Their father puts an add in the paper for a bride. Sarah answers the add and comes to live with them on the prairie ... the story is familiar if you've seen the movie. I grew up loving this movie, it's one of my Mama's favorites. I think I also loved this movie because the siblings share the names of my older brother and me ... although I was happy to learn that in the book Anna is older then Caleb ... not the other way around as it was with me and my brother. *wink*

I just love this book, honestly I do. I'd never read it until just recently. It's a cozy, home-y, exciting, make you fall in love with all the characters kind of book. Read it, read it, read it!

This story is told by Anna, the oldest child who greatly misses her mother, but has to be strong (as the house chores all fall to her). Her little brother talks a lot and asks many things. He's a very curious child. Their father is strong, quite, reserved, and deeply misses his dead wife.

Sarah answers the add in the paper. She writes letters about herself to the family. She is, as she describes herself in a letter "strong and I work hard and I am willing to travel. But I am not mild mannered." She leaves out that she has a very strong will and is quite stubborn. She lives by and loves the sea but she says she was come to the prairie. She will come by train and will wear a yellow bonnet.

Sarah arrives, with her cat Seal. Many hardships await her as she becomes accustomed to the ways of the prairie ... death of farm animals, chickens for eating (not pets), no rain for months and months, no neighbors for miles and the hardest, no sea.

Anna doesn't want Sarah there because she's afraid she'll learn to love Sarah but Sarah will end up leaving because the prairie is too hard. Caleb loves her right away and is always looking for things that Sarah says that mean she'll stay.

In the end they all come to love her, but will she stay with them on the prairie or will she go back to her beloved, greatly missed sea?

Kenny and the Dragon ~ Tony DiTerlizzi

In the land where rabbits raise sheep is where we find Kenny ... er ... Kenneth, but all his friends call him Kenny, so by all means ... we find Kenny.

Kenny isn't your ordinary rabbit, I mean, besides the fact that his father and mother raise sheep, and besides the fact that they walk and talk and also besides the fact that Kenny rides his bike to town to go to school every day, Kenny isn't your normal rabbit. He loves reading and learning and books, books, books. Most kids ... er ... rabbits in school don't like to read and learn, they go because their parents send them.

So, that's the world of Kenny the rabbit, he lives on a sheep farm with his father and mother and loves books.

One day, while mother rabbit is making supper, soup I believe, father rabbit rushes into the kitchen, scared to death and hyperventilating ... there's a dragon sleeping on top of the hill where they graze the sheep! He then proclaims they're moving without a moments hesitation before they get eaten. Mother rabbit says she's not leaving until Father tastes the soup to see what it needs and they've all had supper and the dishes are done. Father agrees and after eating supper, he calms down and says they aren't moving after all.

Kenny is wild with excitement, a real dragon! After supper and dishes and homework, he dons his "armor" (which consists of several pots and pans, a broom, a garbage can lid, etc.) and heads out to see the dragon. To his great surprise he and the dragon become best buds. Now he has but two friends. His other friend, in town, is an old badger who owns a book store (a fellow book lover that lends books to Kenny as often as Kenny needs them). The badger often entertains Kenny with tales of knights in shining armor, dragon slayers and the like.

Soon, in spite of how Kenny and his parents try to keep the dragon a secret, news spreads and the king (I don't remember where he's from, I think he just appears) calls upon a retired knight to slay the dragon and save the town. It's up to Kenny and his friends and family to save the dragon. Will they succeed?

I thought this book was wonderfully written. DiTerlizzi uses wonderful descriptions and writes well, I finished this book in under four hours! Although it's written for a younger age group I still enjoyed it. :) I recommend this book to those who have the slightest interest in finding out what happens to Kenny and the Dragon.

Meet Samantha & Samantha Learns a Lesson ~ Susan S. Adler (An American Girls Collection)

This sweet series of books for young girls tells the story of Samantha, a wealthy orphan living in 1904. Samantha’s parents have died in a boating accident, and she lives with her grandmother in a stately Victorian home somewhere presumably in the New England area. (That’s my best guess anyways.) The reader follows Samantha’s every-day life growing up in America over a century ago. Samantha has house servants, she attends an academy solely for girls, and she befriends a young lady who is poor and works in a neighbor’s home.

Along with the ordinary adventures that a 9 year-old commonly finds themselves involved in we also get a glimpse into life in the U.S. and the drastic changes that were taking place during this period of industrialization. After the story is complete there is extra historical information pertaining to the time period complete with photographs of real people and items.

I have been reading these books to my daughters, ages 5 and 7, and they seem to like them. I find myself stopping in the middle of the story though and explaining “the way things were back then” as life without an automobile or even living in a house with 3 stories are foreign concepts to my girls. It is very helpful to have the extra information at the back of the book to refer to. I also enjoy the length of the books as they are usually only a half a dozen chapters which make them excellent for reading a few chapters a night before bed. I recommend them for young girls up to about age 12 although I remember reading them as a teenager as well. And I'm enjoying them again as an adult.

Prairie Songs ~ Pam Conrad

Set back in the "Soddy House" days of Nebraska, this book is told from young Louisa's point of view. It does well to show the hardships of the early settlers; such as gathering buffalo chips instead of wood for the fire, soddy houses instead of wood houses, not a neighbor for miles and nothing but miles and miles of open grass and not a tree insight. It also gives a glimpse of what winter would have been like as well. The book is about a Doctor and his wife who move to the "wilderness" of Nebraska from New York into a soddy near Liousa and her family. Liousa and her family do all they can to help the new couple feel at home. Part of the story is either you come to love the praire or completely hate it. I asked an eleven year old girl what she thought of the book and she said she liked it.

I, however, had a slightly different view. Sadly, Conrad (the authoress) has many of the characters use swear words to emphasize their point. The way the husband and wife treat each other is also another down point, as well as the father's attitude toward his children. But hard times did tend to make people a bit harder, so maybe I'm just being overly picky.

Another thing I thought that Conrad could have left out was a scene in which someone dies and she goes into some detail (a little much I thought) in describing the scene and how the dead person looked. Depending on what a child is accustomed to in their normal day to day life, a scene like that may not effect them at all, I just thought it was slightly over the top.

I, personally, am probably not going to read this book again, nor would I recommend it to any one. But, that's just my personal opinion.

Old Yeller ~ Fred Gipson

Who doesn't love a story about a boy and his dog? I'd seen a movie based on this book many times, it was a favorite movie, so I was very excited to actually read the book. Needless to say, I loved it!

Living in the Texas Hill Country, Travis, 14, is put in charge of his little brother, mother and family farm as his father goes off on a cattle drive. Shortly after his father leaves an old "yeller" dog comes to the farm. Travis wants nothing to do with the dog at first and wants to run him off the farm, but after Yeller saves the lives of Travis' family, Travis decides he's alright after all and grows to love the dog deeply. Many things happen in the father's absence such as bull fights, wolves, skunks, wild hogs and stubborn mules. Of course there's always the fields that need looking after, the harvest brought in, and the hunting to supply the meat. Without warning hydrophbia (rabies) starts to spread in the area around the farm. Animals die and the family is forced to deal with watching the animals die and then taking care of the corpses. After a wolf with hydrophiba tries to attack the family Travis is faced with a heart-rending decision that had me in tears.

The book is told through the eyes of Travis, but even though it's written from a boy's point of view there is no doubt that any girl would greatly enjoy it, too. I did. :)

I read this book aloud to a couple of younger children and they were always begging for more at the end of each chapter and I was right there with them, it was so captivating and exciting. We finished the book in less than two days. I highly recommend this book for anyone, not just the children. *wink*