Our In-Home Branch of the Public Library

What I'm about to show you is embarrassing, I'm told. I don't personally think it's embarrassing, because I have zero sense of personal shame, but I do recognize that you are probably going to think that this is very, very weird.

Okay, here it is. This is an entire bookshelf in our home. Ninety-nine percent of this bookshelf holds materials from our town's public library and our university's libraries. We call it the Library Bookshelf:

At the top left there, you see some undergrad chemistry textbooks that I've checked out from the IU library. I was studying biology through the MIT OpenCourse system, but kept running into a bunch of chemistry that I didn't know, so I switched to chemistry. Of course, now that I'm studying chemistry, I keep running into a bunch of electricity stuff that I don't know.

When Will was researching for her Biography Fair project, way back in the fall, we all got really into Jules Verne. Now, most nights of the week, Matt reads aloud to us a chapter of The Mysterious Island before the kids go to bed. We keep having to return it to the public library and check it out again, because it's something like the longest book ever.

I got interested in Lewis and Clark after Syd chose a documentary on them to watch as a family some time ago. A friend suggested the historical fiction of James Alexander Thom, all of which was clogging up the library bookshelf for a while before I decided that I would save them all as a treat to read on our big road trip this summer, but in the meantime I also got interested in the Native Americans of that time, especially the ones who lived in what is now Indiana, and will be incorporating a lot of that material into our Indiana study.

I always have a ton of teaching materials checked out from the IU School of Education library. They give me a LOT of help in teaching math, especially, but they also have manipulatives, textbooks, board games, and children's books, and their lending period is immense. The kids' Latin textbook actually belongs to the School of Ed, and I think that we've only had to return it and check it out again once in the past year. Most of those Latin books on the shelf (though not all) are from the IU libraries, actually, as well as that whole Saxon Math collection--I like Math Mammoth, but I always have my eye out for alternatives.

The magazines belong to us. I don't know why, but I can never seem to sit down and read a magazine unless I'm on a road trip, so I save them up.

Will wants to learn to solder. I feel doubts about this.

Those entomology books are also all from the IU libraries. I've finally decided on a humane-ish killing jar, but I still can't figure out where to buy the chemicals to charge it.

Homemade pizza is a staple in our house.

We always have a lot of materials that support our Story of the World studies on our shelves. I really should return the rest of our Ancient Egypt materials, since we'll be coming back to Ancient Egypt again in a few chapters. We completed the Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (or something like that) chapter this morning, and I think that instead of bothering with spending another week doing mapwork for fictional characters, we'll move straight on to Hammurabi next. Looks like I'll be doing another library search!

Yes, I am very interested in post-apocalyptic fiction. Anything will do, although I love zombies the most. Matt keeps most of his pleasure reading in the car, since he likes to hide out there to read during his lunch hour at work, so imagine another big stack of graphic novels and histories there.

Syd's earning her Potter badge right now in Girl Scouts, so we've got some pottery and ceramics books on the shelves. Will's interested in woodworking, which explains those books, but just decided this morning to start earning her Geocaching badge, so expect a bunch of geocaching books on the shelves in a couple of days.

Both girls read non-fiction books about animals, comic books, joke books, and trivia books. I just replenished Syd's stack of easy readers, so there are about twenty more on the shelves than there were in this photo.

Will's also really into fantasy, and also novels about kids who rescue pets, or girls who help ponies, etc. Those titles come and go at lightening speed, however, so the specific ones are pretty hard to pin down. I do know that right now she's reading Tom Sawyer, a book that we own, but only because she came up out of nowhere one day and asked, "Why can't I understand what Jim is saying?"

I paused, closed my eyes, and contemplated all possible contexts, before my library science and liberal arts training pinged and led me to the correct conclusion: Jim, whose speech is written in dialect, friend of Huck Finn but also of Tom Sawyer, whose book I know we own. Will and I then had a lovely conversation about why it's tacky to write in dialect, what such writing is trying to show, and why black men of that time might not have learned, or be comfortable speaking with, correct grammar and pronunciation.

I need to move us into a dinosaur unit, so that we're all experts for our summer dino dig. I'm still unsure of exactly where to start, however, since we've studied dinosaurs so often before.

I'm hoping that we'll stay with the bird study, as we focus more on Indiana-specific wildlife.

The kids' monthly day-long nature class has an emphasis on survival skills; they find that kind of disaster-prep reading fascinating.

We've backed off a bit on Will's history of video games study, just because we've had so much else going on. I need to check in to see if it's still an interest, and if it is, we need to get back in it.

Soooo... yeah. That's our bookshelf. Sometimes people come over, happen to see it, start to browse, then ask, with horrified fascination, "Are all those... LIBRARY BOOKS?!?"

Um, yes. Yes, they are. So if you've ever been at the library trying to check something out, only to realize, frustrated, that ALL the DK biographies are missing, or ALL the James Alexander Thom novels, or ALL the children's books on pottery, then you'll know:

I have them, and I'm not giving them back until they're three days overdue.

Or Maybe One of These?

Today the other one has a fever, so it's another morning of PBS and the Magic for Kids DVD, uprooting my plans to leave the house for cake mix, ice cream, thrift-store pillowcases, and a photo grey printer cartridge. The Letter of the Day, however, is R, and the Number of the Day is 8.

I've fallen back in love with the other two options for my entry into the Color Class of the photo contest at the Monroe County Fair. Here's one option: It's from the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. I like that it's a self-portrait but since the mirrors are all wonky, my camera isn't pointed straight at myself, and I like the angle of the self-portrait. I also like the two images of Willow within the photo.

This one is Sydney just after she finished nursing. I like the dreamy quality, but it's also pretty grainy.

Which do you think is the best of the three?

Just Like in Little House on the Prairie

My entry for the Creative Class!

The big kid stayed in bed with a fever all morning, watching TV and accompanied by her sister, and yet today I still managed to make an egg breakfast nobody ate, fetch juice and "bunny crackers" and juice and peanut butter sandwiches and juice, ineffectively clean the house, work on the computer, curse at the printer, put a child down for a nap, conduct a large-scale craft project with another child, get into a big argument about the clean-up of said craft project, search every freaking where for tap shoes, get children dressed for dance class, continue argument about craft project clean-up, take children to dance class (even the one who had a fever this morning because I NEEDED A BREAK), work on the computer during dance class, take children home from dance class, take the car to the shop because its brakes are being funky, visit Hobby Lobby for party supplies (icing bags and tips, biiiiiiiig cake pan, candles), have serious conversation with tearful child about how we can't afford to buy her every single party supply in the store for her party (This was huge for me. I seriously want my kid to say, "Wow, Mama! A jump house--that must have cost a fortune! A cake shaped just like a dinosaur--no telling how long it took you to make that! I couldn't ask for anything more!" Instead she's all, "I want a cupcake stand to hold the cupcakes I want! And these purple glittery sprinkles! And these whistles shaped like dogs!" Seriously, what gives?), conclude argument about clean-up of craft project at home (not quite a win, but not quite a loss), melt down from low blood sugar, eat dinner, feel better, go on long bike ride continually harangued by husband because I tend to keep bike in first gear, go home, put kids to bed, collapse.

In other news, the big kid and I are currently being worked up into a complete lather because we have decided to enter stuff into our county fair. It's something that only townies do, but I've been here for eight years now, and it's time. 

Entering the county fair is about as awesome as it gets. There are a million categories, even for kids, and I think that everyone gets a ribbon, and first prize? It's a dollar. Awesome, right? 

So the big kid is entering about a million of the Young Child contests, including jewelry (she beaded a frankly half-hearted necklace but a much better crown), quick bread (is it appropriate for a four-year-old to enter beer bread?), photography (Polaroid film is on our shopping list for tomorrow), collections (hello? Dinosaurs!), and paper art (I have the sweetest fingerpainting with foam heart collage that she did last week during a break from painting the playhouse. Seriously, it rocks). I, too, am entering tons, including recycled art (I'm thinking my favorite fatty steg), sewing for children (pillowcase dress?), holiday ornaments (I made these crazy spiderwebby wire things with black beads while the big kid was throwing beads around the room this afternoon), photography, and whatever else I can come up with before Wednesday (I only found the entry information this week, and not being a townie, on account of they just KNOW things, I practically had to hack into somebody's server to find it). 

I'm making Matt enter, too--he's going to enter some of the comic strips we've drawn into the Sketch category, and tomorrow night he's getting out the Legos to show the big kid, because they have a Lego category both for adults and young children. See? Awesome. 

I've even got my dear friend to come over on Wednesday so we can go over to the fairgrounds all together and I can make her enter these messenger bags and purses she crochets out of plastic bags. Crochets, people. Out of plastic bags.

So my photography entries are pretty much ready, except, you know, that I still have to crop the borders off them and matte them and buy a frame and frame them, but yeah, pretty much ready. 

This is my entry for the Black and White Class:

It's the big kid with a sparkler. I like how abstract it is, how you maybe can't even tell that it's a child with a sparkler. It's just chaotic and beautiful and maybe frightening, just like my life.

Do you enter your county fair? You should.