Rainy Day Reading

Incentive was high today to get through the basics quickly.  It was raining and that is cause for celebrating here in the desert! Late morning, we piled into the car with our umbrellas in tow.  As we headed out to the mountain range near our home to hike, the rain picked up.  With the streets starting to flood, I realized that hiking was out of the question.

We made a quick detour to the library. With a stack of fresh books in hand, we settled in for the rest of the day! 

 

We are wrapping up our exploration of astronomers.  I was pretty disappointed with the offerings on Isaac Newton at our local library.  I was reminded once again how important it is to preview books in this day and age...  I'm thankful for Amazon reviews that saved me the trouble with this biography.  {Have you ever checked amazon reviews before checking a book out from the library?  It has saved me on more than one occasion.}  From the cover it looks quite engaging.  But why, oh why do authors feel the need to devote an entire chapter of a children's book to wild speculations about homo se xuality?  ugh.  After a little bit of research, I discovered that this author incorporates homosexual content into several of her biographies.  She's now on my 'avoid' list. 

Based on our enjoyment of the biography of Johannes Kepler that I wrote about a few weeks ago, I made the trek up to "Oma's library" this morning and retrieved this engaging biography about Isaac Newton.  We are hooked.  It is so fun to watch my kids become wrapped up in the story and learn some great science in the process.  We've been eating apples and jumping off chairs to test the limits of gravity this week!

:warning: soap box rant ahead...

We live in such a sex-crazed culture and it grieves me that it has infiltrated our children's books.  I think we've lost touch with what is appropriate for children and what isn't.  In my opinion, discussing a person's sexual orientation, in the context of one's scientific achievements is irrelevant.  This is  especially true in a children's book.  There is a time and a place to discuss the ways of our fallen world, but this is not the context and this is not the time.  And besides, wouldn't we much rather our children hear about the beauty of marital love before they understand the ins and outs surrounding how it has become twisted?   Maybe I'm alone in this - and that's ok, but I would prefer to protect my children at this age and discuss these topics on my terms and in the timing that I deem appropriate if possible.

I'm thankful that there are options and that I have the freedom and opportunity to select books that are not only rich from a literary standpoint {another one of my soap boxes}, but also that steers clear of inappropriate content.

Yup, we'll stick to the Sower Series whenever possible for biographies!  And at the rate that libraries are ditching good books, I'll probably start buying books that we find especially delightful.  Maybe someday, my grandkids will get to benefit from 'my' library just like my kids get to now.

We did find a few good books at our library on various astronomers including: Nicolaus Copernicus: the Earth is a Planet, I Galileo, Galileo's Journal.