This last fall, Rich and I attended the HSLDA Leadership Conference in Baltimore. We had the chance to visit DC and decided to stop by the Library of Congress. In all of the times I’ve been there, I had never made it to the Library of Congress. It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G! I don’t see how one can walk away from there and not want to read, read and read some more…
The part that affected me the most was Thomas Jefferson’s library. Wow. That man loved books. I mean, really, really loved reading books. In fact, after the original Library of Congress was burned by
British troops during the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson donated his personal library as a replacement. Any guesses as to the size of his donation? At that time, he owned 6,487 books. As I twirled around, gazing in wonder at his collection, my mind was taken back to my teen years when I attended the Summit Ministries worldview conferences in highschool. My love for books and desire to read broadly was solidified there and I can still hear Dr. David Noebel giving us one of the first “Quotes of the Day” and telling us…
To be a leader, you gotta be a reader.
We are people of The Book. In order to stand firm, we must be grounded in the book of first importance, The Bible. {Hence our Family Bible Reading Plan.} Reading broadly and voraciously, helps us to think about things and prepares us to have influence on others. As mothers, we have influence. We are leaders, even if that is in a focused capacity. And I want to be a mother who reads, who thinks, who inspires her children in these same pursuits. Our children are watching and ready to imitate. Don’t we want to guide them and inspire them to think deeply, to grapple with tough issues, to be able to understand the past as they forge into the future?
Buuuuuuuuuuuut I’m one of those easily distracted people. I tend to dream big, but struggle with the follow-through. And that is where all of you come into play. This year, I want to READ. I have a stack upon stack of books around here and I’m going to start working through them. I probably won’t get through all of them, but I’m listing out some of the books on my “want to read” list and as the year progresses, I’ll mark them as “READ” and share a bit about what I liked or didn’t like. I have no idea what to expect in many of these, but I acquired them one way or another and want to give them a shot! So I’m viewing this post as a form of accountability and you get a peak at what I’m reading. Ha! Please tell me, I’m not the only one who loves to get a peek at a friend’s bookshelf?
So here’s the great book list of 2014:
Spiritual:
The Bible {my spring Bible study is on 1 John}
Heaven by Randy Alcorn ~ I asked my dad for a couple of his top recommendations and this was the first book he mentioned. currently reading
Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity and the Things We Made Up ~ I’ve had this on my Kindle for a while and since I’ll be reading about Heaven, I decided to hit this one as well.
The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization ~ This is the second book that my dad recommended. It goes into the influence the Bible has had on virtually every aspect of Western Civilization. The examples that my dad told me about were mind-blowing. It sounded fascinating and from a parent’s standpoint, I thought it would be excellent to read as I seek to educate my own children. You certainly won’t find this perspective in any of our library books.
24/6: A Prescription for a Happier, Healthier Life ~ Not sure if this book belongs in this category, but it goes into the benefits of observing the Sabboth. My friend Amanda recommended it, so it is waiting on my Kindle, ready to be read.
The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas ~ An advent devotional from Ann Voskamp. I didn’t get a chance to read this last year, so I’m going to do it this next December.
Marriage:
Power of a Praying Wife ~ I need to re-read this every couple of years. It’s that time again.
My Beloved and My Friend: How To Be Married To Your Best Friend Without Changing Spouses
Parenting/Family/Education/Development:
Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining and Bad Attitudes in You and Your Kids ~ This is my mama reading for our unit on HONOR. The book centers around bringing honor into our relationships. Currently Reading {I should blog about this one… It is amazing.}
Heartfelt Discipline ~ I’ve wanted to read this for a while as I’ve enjoyed many of Sally Clarkson’s books.
First Words: A Parent’s Step-by-Step Guide to Helping a Child with Speech and Language Delays {FINISHED} I checked it out because Greta’s speech is definitely delayed. Love the practical advice even though it was easy to rule out one of the main things she discusses which is Autism. It is chock full of all kinds of practical advice that you can do from home to help your children learn to communicate more effectively.
The Art of Strewing: Instilling the Love of Learning by Piquing your Child’s Natural Curiosity ~ While I’m not an unschooler, I have much in common with this aspect! There is power in creating the environment that draws your children into exploration! So excited to dive in and read this ebook.
Praying for Boys: Asking God for What They Need Most ~ I had the privilege of meeting Brooke McGlothlin last year. Excited to read this one.
Praying Circles Around Your Children ~ At OhAmanda’s recommendation a while back, I snagged this. It was amazing. It was a quick read and I want to go through it again this year.
FICTION or Fun Reading:
In This House of Brede {FINISHED} This was a fascinating, albeit meandering look at monastic life.
Ender’s Game ~ {FINISHED}This is one of my brother-in-law’s favorite books. Rich is reading it for the second time as he just put a request into our library to reserve the movie when it arrives. I need to get on this one so I can have it read before the movie arrives too.
One Hour After ~ {FINISHED} Ok, this was one of those “end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it” books about what could happen here in the U.S. if we were hit by an EMP. Didn’t even know what an EMP was before reading the book. It was a little freaky. Note: It was intense, a little violent in parts and had foul language in it. Think “military-action film” as far as violence and language goes. Although reading about violence is far different than watching it, so it didn’t seem as intense. I’m not a fan of either violence or language. I could have lived w/out the language, but the violence wasn’t over-the-top.
Blogging, Etc…
iBlog Pro <– so excited to dig into this. I contributed a chapter which means one chapter already read! 🙂
Your Blogging Business: Tax Tips from a Bookkeeper Turned Blogger ~ Yup, I made just enough last year to have to pay some medical bills {oh yeah} and start worrying about this {sigh}. I’m figuring out taxes this year!
Misc:
A Million Little Ways: Uncovering the Art You Were Made to Live ~ Living our lives creatively as artists reflecting the Creator God. This sounded Edith Schaefer-ish which naturally makes me want to read it.
Conversationally Speaking ~ This got great reviews so I bought it and now it is sitting here ready for me to read!
Say Goodbye to Survival Mode: 9 Simple Strategies to Stress Less, Sleep More and Restore Your Passion for Life ~ I came home from a blogging conference last year with a stack of great books and this is one of them. My friend borrowed it already and said it is great.
Robert’s Rules, Simplified ~ Now that I’m on a board, I guess I should really read this book. 🙂
There are so many fantastic books here Heather! I’ve added a number of these to my Amazon wishlist and will be sure to come back here to click through again since you referred me – thanks for the great recommendations! 😉
Hi Heather, what did you think of the book First Words on speech? I think I need to do something with my little guy who is still only 2 but I’d like to get a head start. He can string 2 words together, sometimes 3, but isn’t getting many of the sounds right. Would this book help? Thanks dear lady. from Victoria
Hmmm, I’m not sure. It is geared for parents who have kids with autism where they are not communicating at all or very little. Your little guy does not sound like he is having any super serious speech delays. That’s about where my two younger boys were at during that age. My oldest was on the more verbal end. I checked it out because while my daughter shows no signs of autism (her understanding is amazing, she engages and makes great eye contact, etc), she wasn’t verbalizing much at all. “Up peas” and “of u” (for love you) were her only two phrases and aside from that, we could only make out 10-15 other words. She was 28 months old at the time. It was enough to concern me, which is why I started doing research.
The book had helpful lists of concepts and words to help them learn. The basic principles that she put forward to help children with speech delays is to create a realistic play environment and get down and talk to your kids. She provided lists of different types of play and vocabulary that you could use and tips on how to bring them up and give your child a chance to respond.
Since reading the book, I’ve been more purposeful in talking to her, making time to let her reply (sometimes hard to do when you are busy with older kids), getting down to play with her and asking her brothers to stop grunting at her. hahaha.. I hadn’t realized how unhelpful they had been in the helping socialize their sister into talking.
Simply with making more time to play with her and read more to her in a 1-on-1 environment has made a huge difference. Her vocabulary has exploded since then.
I skimmed much of the autism related stuff, but loved her lists. It gave me inspiration for those times when I play with her and in looking for books from the library that could help with vocabulary acquisition. If you like lists for inspiration, than this book could be useful.
Thanks so much for this Heather! My girls were little chatter boxes at the same age, and he is my first boy so it’s all a bit of a learning curve. He doesn’t have autism, and his hearing and vision is fine. I’ve seen the little smarty pants sit down with ‘Mighty Minds’ for 3 year olds and up and put all the tiles onto the right cards. It’s all happening up their in his little head. But there are some sounds he just can’t push out of his mouth! I spoke to someone who assessed him based on my observations, and she didn’t think it was serious enough to get therapy. So I’m trying to find ways of working with him myself, but realise my own limitations as a ‘non-expert’ so need a little guidance from somewhere – make sense? I think I’ll get this book anyway, as it sounds like it will help me be a bit more intentional.
You’re awesome – thank you!
Hahaha… boys and girls can oftentimes be so different, can’t they?
I know you’ll probably like the lists as much as I did. I think you’ll find that as you take care in enunciating clearly – maybe even making a game out of mimicking you and watching your lips and mouth move – that you can help speed up the process of the sound enunciation. We’ve been doing that with Greta and while she is still struggling, we all laugh together as she attempts to copy us! 🙂 I know that it will come. And the more I read about therapy, the more I found that you would simply be paying to have someone come over and interact with your child at this age.
I would also google what sounds kids know when. I didn’t save my links from my search. But it was helpful for me to see the general age ranges that kids master certain phonetic sounds. I had a concern with my middle guy several years ago, but found that it worked itself out in another year (by the time he was 7) and that this particular sound /th/ was normally a later sound to master.
If something looks really outside of those age ranges you can then look into speech therapy. I had a sister that could not pronounce her R’s continuing up into mid-elementary age. She ended up needing speech therapy and there were certain exercises that she could do to help correct her pronunciations.
I’d love to hear how you like the book after you get it.
Ah yes, google is my best friend. Thanks for the tip. I’ll see what I can find online with what sounds he should be making when. Thanks Heather.
Look at this, 2 years later, and I manage to find this post again. I remembered how you took the time to reply like this – thank you! Little guy is doing fine with his speech, just still not pronouncing some of those consonant blends (tr, ch, etc). Tricky train is sicky sain! Does this particular book help with some tips on pronouncing different sounds? Thanks for your time Heather.
Yes. There were word lists to go through and some tips to help. I would try to focus on one at a time what is typically developed earliest and progress from there. Greta has navigated just about all of them and is close to on track for her age.
Fantastic list!! I have a few of the same ones on my list too! Some of them are on my wish list 🙂 happy reading!