July 2021 Book Reports

The Frontlines of Peace: An Insider's Guide to Changing the World by Séverine Autesserre - link to my post (library copy)

While the Kettle's On poetry by Melissa Fite Johnson - I read this book to complete my local library's 2021 reading challenge. I needed a Kansas Notable book. It's a small book of poetry centered on modern life. There were a few poems I enjoyed, most especially "Ode to Washing Dishes" and "Something about a Walk." (library copy)

Alone by Megan E. Freeman - In this middle grade free verse novel, a twelve year old girl wakes up to find herself alone in her small town. She learns to fend for herself, leaning heavily on a neighbor's sweet and protective dog. It's marvelous, and apparently worth reading more than once since my own twelve year old swiped it from my stack to re-read it. The ending wraps everything up a bit too quickly, but my older daughter pointed out the reasons behind her predicament are not the point. It's all about her own development and growth. (library copy)

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha - This book was mentioned in an alumni magazine I read recently, and I grabbed it from the library. I'm always keeping a look-out for books set around the world for our high school geography studies, especially ones written by people who are within the culture. (The author has lived in both the US and South Korea as well as Hong Kong. The book weaves together the stories and lives of a group of young women living in the same apartment building in South Korea. It's not a particularly flattering depiction of life there, but the women grow into new dreams as they support each other, strengthening their relationships and recognition of their worth. In any book written from different characters' points of view, it can be a little confusing to remember who is telling the story at any given time, but this one is pretty clear. The plot is subtle. At first I was disappointed in the ending, but the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated it. There's a little too much talk of intimacy, not generally not in a flattering way, for me to want to share it with my high school students, but I enjoyed it. (library copy)

That Quail, Robert by Margaret A. Stanger - This little book introduces a quail who moved into a house, becoming one of the family. It would work for a family read-aloud, but it's not as much fun as (copy from PaperBackSwap.com)

New Worlds to Conquer by Richard Halliburton - Halliburton is always a delight to read, though also always obviously playing to the 1920s audience in his depictions of indigenous peoples and cultures, as well as happy to include anything that hinted of scandal and the ridiculous. This book includes a story of a friend who accidentally surfed nude into an unsuspecting group of nuns and their female students on a picnic outing. In this book, he writes about his exploits in Central and South America, many of which are included in his Book of Marvels. I began reading thinking I might include this book on our high school list of geography books for the Americas, but I decided against it. As much as I might have enjoyed reading it, there were far too many instances of 1920s racism for me to want to hand it off to one of my students as an official school book. If one of my high schoolers sees it on my shelf and wants to read it, I'll allow it, but there's no need to assign it for narration. (purchased used at a library sale)

Wood, Water, and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town by Hannah Kirshner - link to my post (library copy)

Ourselves Book 1 by Charlotte Mason - I only read the first part of the book, because I was thinking of assigning it to my older daughter this year. It's a great easy introduction to habit and character formation. I'll write more about it when I read the second book...which may be next year. (purchased copy)

Creator and Creation by Mary O. Daly - link to my post (purchased copy)

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Amazon, Bookshop, and PaperBackSwap are affiliate links.

March and April 2020 Book Reports

Strangers in a Strange Land: Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World by Charles J. Chaput - link to my post (inter-library loan copy)

The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol by Nikolai Gogol, translated and annotated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky - link to my post (Kansas Dad's copy)

Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment by Robert Wright - This book would probably be better titled "How Successful Mindfulness Meditation Practices Seem to be Explained by Recent Scientific Research" but that's not quite as catchy. While the author takes some time to explain Buddhist philosophy, he's really only interested in the aspects of it that define and direct mindfulness meditation. Anything "religious" (Buddhist/Christian/etc.) is set aside, though respectfully. The supporting relationship between recent research and scholarship and mindfulness medication practices is fascinating. Kansas Dad (who was the first to listen to the book) was immediately asking questions about the Truth found in this modern research and how it might be related to what we know is True through our Catholic faith. He also found interesting lines of thought in considering past failures and potential successes in evangelizing amongst those who follow Buddhist philosophies. I am still thinking about this book and its implications. (purchased Audible book)

The Stand by Stephen King - Believe it or not, I didn't seek this book out in the midst of the impending pandemic. It literally just happened to be next on my list. I enjoyed reading it and found some scenes presented in unexpected ways. Overall, however, my view of the great battle between Good and Evil varies considerably from that of King which led directly to a feeling of dissatisfaction with the ending of the novel. I also know just enough biology and genetics to be distracted by what are probably inaccurate predictions of how such a deadly epidemic would happen. Of course, he didn't have the "luxury" of coronavirus in his past at that point. (library copy)

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin - I picked this book up at our library sale. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though it's certainly not for the young or sensitive reader. I was surprised at how thoughtful Steve Martin is and at the honesty with which he shared some of the difficulties in his life while still being respectful of the privacy of some of those closest to him. It was a good read. (purchased used)

Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge - This book is Mr. Muggeridge's comments on Mother Teresa and his interviews and television recordings with her. It's more a collection of thoughts than a focused book. It was interesting to read as a glimpse into how St. Teresa of Kolkata was viewed and understood in her own lifetime, but it's not a comprehensive book on her life or her philosophies. I enjoyed it, but it will not be the book I offer to my Level 4 student next year. (library copy)

The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life by Doug Bock Clark - link to my post (library copy)

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare (No Fear Shakespeare) - This is one of the recommended Shakespeare plays for high schoolers in the Mater Amabilis™ curriculum. (See the English course here.) While this play is much lighter-hearted than Hamlet, which First Son and First Daughter just finished reading, it still surfaces questions about marriage, fidelity, trust, and responsibility toward children. I'm not sure I'd consider it one of the top ten plays a student should study in high school, but if you've already read many of the more common ones, it's a good option. It's not too long and contains one of the most unusual stage directions of all time: "Exit, pursued by bear." (purchased copy)

Mother Teresa of Calcutta: A Personal Portrait by Fr. Leo Maasburg - link to my post (library copy)

It's Not What It Looks Like by Molly Burke - This was one of the better Audible originals offered free to members. I've never watched the author's YouTube channel, so her story was entirely new to me. I enjoyed her youthful voice and her ability to speak authentically for the blind and other disabled people. Her story includes some tough struggles with depression, anxiety, and suicide ideation, which could be difficult for some people to hear, but are shared to support and encourage others. (offered free to Audible members in August 2019)

Theatre of Fish: Travels through Newfoundland and Labrador by John Gimlette - I read Gilmette's Wild Coast and requested this because I enjoyed that one so much. Theatre of Fish is a little more depressing overall, though it has similar moments of witty remarks and insight. There are quite a few references to multiple instances of terrible abuse at the hands of priests or religious. (requested from PaperBackSwap.com)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez translated by Gregory Rabassa - link to my post (requested from PaperBackSwap.com)

I have received nothing for this post. All opinions are honest and my own. Links to Amazon or PaperBackSwap are affiliate links.

A Land Nearly Undiscovered: Wild Coast

Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge

by John Gimlette

John Gimlette travelled extensively in Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. He obviously devoted a great amount of time to researching the area and learned at least a minimal amount of languages that allowed him to communicate better with the people he met. While a travel book, it's nearly as much one a journalist might have written.

This could be a fantastic addition to the Mater Amabilis™ Geography course in high school for South America, scheduled for Level 6 year 1 (eleventh grade). I say could be because there's quite a lot of violence and depravity in the book, because there was quite a lot of violence and depravity in the land. There's an entire chapter on Jonestown, nearly all of which is disturbing at one level or another. (This chapter is early in the book and one of the hardest to read; you could just skip it and enjoy the rest of the book.) I think First Son, who would be sixteen or seventeen by the time he read this book, would be fine. But if I had a young ninth grader and wanted to jump into South America rather than Asia, I would pass on this book.

That being said, I enjoyed this book immensely. It really brought this part of the world to life for me, revealing its past and present in a way I can't imagine enjoying without traveling there myself.

Mr. Gimlette didn't just research historical records before his trip. He read all the literature he could find. Interspersed in his own travels are snippets of quotes from other authors and his own reflections on them, often with humor and appreciation despite acknowledged deficiencies. On Evelyn Waugh:

All he seemed to want was to suffer, to find some distant and barbarous place, and to go there and hate it. Eventually he chose Guiana -- not that he cared much about it. This was not supposed to be a voyage of enlightenment but a punishment. Even the book he wrote, 92 Days, sounds like a sentence. He arrived that new year, and after hating Georgetown (too big, too dull, too much sugar), he set out to hate the interior.

There's a lovely interlude at a Benedictine monastery.

At exactly the moment they promised, their euphonious chanting would lift up out of the trees and carry out across the river. Loosing off canticles into this vast expanse of light and silvery water must have felt like addressing heaven itself. 'The only way I can live with celibacy,' Brother Pascal once told me, 'is by having all this beauty.'

Mr. Gimlette describes the forest as he was nearing the end of his journey.

The superlatives necessary to express the density of forest simply don't exist. The roadside was like night-time, packed with spikes and armour. As for the canopy, it looked equally defiant, a thick phalanx of huge brain-like structures, riding at anchor. I'd lost count of the schemes and colonies that had foundered under this magnificent vegetable onslaught.

The author has a few other books which I intend to read, including one on Paraguay which might also be useful in the South American course.

In the end, this is a brilliant book of depth and humor about an area still full of mystery as it struggles from a difficult past through a complicated present. Share it only with mature students and pre-read for anyone sensitive.

This post contains my honest opinions. I have received nothing in exchange for it. I borrowed this book from the library. The link to Amazon is an affiliate link.

Off the Trail: In Ethiopia with a Mule

In Ethiopia with a Mule

by Dervla Murphy

This book appears for Geography of Africa in the Mater Amabilis™ Lesson 5 plans.

Originally I picked it up because I thought my son might enjoy it more than The Flame Trees of Thika and Out of Africa, being of a more adventuresome nature. It is certainly more adventurous. Dervla Murphy is a travel writer from Ireland who started her career with a book on her bike ride from Ireland to India. She wrote In Ethiopia with a Mule after hiking through Ethiopia in late 1966 and early 1967. She walked, climbed, and tumbled more than 1,000 miles in just over three months, then lived in the capital another six weeks.

Ms. Murphy arrived in Ethiopia from Ireland with more money in her pocket than most Ethiopians will ever see, as well as the support of local dignitaries, but she depends on the people of the country as she travels through lands without hotels, sleeping in homes she finds along the way and leading a mule she cannot load. Her descriptions are lively, beautiful, and often humorous.

On the last lap I passed a big British War Cemetery and gazed into it enviously, feeling that a cemetery rather than a hotel was the obvious resting place for anyone in my condition.

Ethiopia's landscape is intimately learned when traveling by foot. Ms. Murphy often traveled by barely perceptible tracks through mountain passes and river valleys. Her joy was as much in the physical struggle to trek each day as it was in the physical beauty surrounding her.

Then quickly a faint pink flowed up from the hidden horizon -- giving mountains and valley a new, soft, shadowed beauty -- and soon this had deepened to a red-gold glow which seemed briefly to hold all the splendour of all the dawns that ever were. To lie beneath such a sky, surrounded by such peaks, brings an almost intolerably intense awareness of the duality of our nature. We belong to intimately and joyously and tragically to this physical world, and by its own laws we soon must leave it. Yet during these moments one knows, too, with humility and certainty, that each human spirit is immortal -- for time cannot destroy whatever element within us reverences the glory of a dawn in the mountains.

Later, as she travels around Lake Tana, her descriptions are reminiscent of the treks through Africa by the likes of Stanley and Livingstone.

Twenty minutes later I had discovered that the 'grassy plain' was a peculiarly hellish semi-swamp. Apart from patches of black mud, in which we occasionally sank to our knees, the vegetation was diabolical. Thick, wiry grass grew shadow-high, the stiff, dense reeds were seven to nine feet tall, and a slim, five-foot growth, which looked dead, had such powerfully resilient thorny branches that I soon began to imagine it was deliberately thwarting me.

Ms. Murphy is at her best when she writes of her lonely hikes and the harsh beauty of Ethiopia. Her forays into religion and culture are more difficult to reconcile to a modern reader. Though she is less colonial than earlier writers, the 1960s are still a long way to the modern conception of equality. It's difficult to know how much of her comments on Ethiopia arise from her own impressions and assumptions and how much might be accurate if we looked at economic development and historical records of the 1960s.

She often writes disparagingly of the efforts to bring Ethiopia into the modern world with technology and education. Though I personally found her statements bemoaning these efforts to be excessive, I think there is room to consider what the relationship between a more technologically advanced society and one less so should be. How lovely it would be to share what is good and beneficial and somehow withhold that which is polluting or alienating. Ms. Murphy seems to think every bit of shared culture will only inflict damage on the people of Ethiopia.

What damage are we doing, blindly and swiftly, to those races who are being taught that because we are materially richer we must be emulated without question? What compels us to infect everyone else with our own sick urgency to change, soften and standardize? How can we have the effrontery to lord it over peoples who retain what we have lost -- a sane awareness that what matters most is immeasurable?

I heard something similar in our local town recently, though I think precluding participation in a world economy is not possible, even if it were preferable. More to the point, Ms. Murphy's own experiences, however, dramatically show the suffering of Ethiopian people without access to sanitation and health care. It seems inconceivable that she would really insist we withhold such medical and institutional advances that might improve health and well-being.

If you are considering sharing this book with your students, be aware Ms. Murphy has some disparaging comments on the Ethiopians Church. For example:

Lamas rarely encourage bigotry and racial arrogance -- as Ethiopian Coptic priests frequently do, by teaching that Ethiopian Christians are the only true Christians in the whole world. This defect is not exclusive to Coptic priests, but it is extra-pernicious in such a remote land, where a pathetic national superiority complex tends to run wild for lack of sobering comparisons with other nations.

She admits ignorance of the church, but comments on it anyway. She also describes the celebration of a church feast that, according to the author, included widespread and accepted infidelity. True? Misconception? Misunderstanding? There's no way to know.

There are a few other unconventional situations, such as that of a joint temporary wife, who "seems happy in her new role."

The n-word appears once, as a descriptive adjective for a color. The author engages frequently in rather unsafe behavior, like eating wild mushroom even after local children told her they were poisonous. She is robbed multiple times and is often in physical danger.

This is one of the alternate books for Geography - either as a substitute for the travel or adventure memoir or as free-reading to bulk up the course. Apparently I love geography because I have bulked up our course substantially with mapping exercises and three assigned books in addition to the travel and earth studies books. I think this book would be a good replacement for The Flame Trees of Thika, if you had a mature student more interested in high adventure than a child's memoir, especially for someone with hiking and climbing experience. In general, I prefer The Flame Trees of Thika. I think it's an easier read for students who might feel overwhelmed by the heavy Mater Amabilis™ schedule. It also seemed less critical of life in Africa, more just descriptive and accepting. While In Ethiopia with a Mule introduces some interesting topics for discussion like economic development in Africa, it does so in a brash and derogatory way, often sentimentally praising the traditional life of the Ethiopians while simultaneously presenting it as filthy and unhealthy. It is a complicated book.

For our homeschool, I'm going to keep Four Years in Paradise as our travel or adventure memoir. In Ethiopia with a Mule will be listed as a third term read. My student can choose between it, The Flame Trees of Thika, and Out of Africa. These are recorded only in a reading journal with brief notes for each chapter (who did what and sometimes why). I'm fairly certain First Son will choose The Flame Trees of Thika based solely on the size of the printing and the number of pages. First Daughter may happily read all of the above.

I have received nothing in exchange for this honest review. I purchased In Ethiopia with a Mule used. Links above to Amazon are affiliate links.

Beauty, Adventure, and a Connection to Kansas: Four Years in Paradise

Four Years in Paradise

by Osa Johnson

Osa Johnson is one of my personal heroes. Kansas Dad finds this enormously amusing since (as he says) the only thing we have in common is that we are both white women who lived in Kansas. She married Martin Johnson and travelled the wild Pacific Southwest islands and Africa in the 1930s. She and her husband were photography and videography pioneers. Among other accomplishments, they created the first silent films of the wildlife on the plains of the African Serengeti. Spoiled by modern documentaries, it's impossible for us to imagine how people felt watching herds of elephants, giraffes, and antelopes leaping across a screen. There is a small but fantastic museum dedicated to Martin and Osa Johnson in her hometown of Chanute, Kansas.

This coming school year, First Son will be exploring Africa in his tenth grade geography course. The high school beta plans from Mater Amabilis™ recommend The Flame Trees of Thika for the Travel/Adventure book of Africa, which I read earlier this year. It was lovely and there wasn't really a reason to choose anything else...except...I kept feeling like it wasn't exactly what I wanted. After a while, I realized what I wanted was a book about the Johnsons. I glanced through the options from our library and then read Four Years in Paradise. In it, Osa describes, in a wandering kind of manner, their experiences living in Kenya, near what they called Lake Paradise, filming and photographing the life of Africa.

We were attempting what all but a few regarded as fantastic and impossible, to make an authentic film record of vanishing wild life as it existed in its last and greatest stronghold. And if in some over-civilized future, cities should crowd out the elephants and wars should bomb the giraffes from the plains and the baboons from the treetops, our films would stand--a record for posterity.

Like every European or American in Africa in the 1920s and 1930s, Osa and Martin Johnson brought their own prejudices. Throughout the book, they refer to the African men who worked for them as "boys." Mrs. Johnson often writes disparagingly of their work ethic, though it's clear she respected some of them tremendously. She also sometimes writes about the Africans' natural "savage" state and compares them to children. These kinds of attitudes are pervasive and simply have to be addressed.

Over the years, Mrs. Johnson built a home in the forest complete with garden and multi-course meals every evening. But she also fished and hunted for their meals and protected her husband by covering fire when necessary as he filmed the more dangerous wildlife like lions, elephants, and rhinos.

Below us stood a big bull elephant, knee deep in a pool. He was the very picture of drowsy contentment. Save for the slow swinging of his trunk and the languid fanning of his huge ears, he was almost motionless. His bath was built of great rocks, covered over with beautiful lichen and mosses, green and gray and rusty-red. Floating on the water were large blue and white water lilies. The pool was shaded by magnificent trees festooned with silvery moss. Thousands of butterflies--blue, yellow and white--fluttered around the animal.

First Son will probably not be very interested in the handful of recipes included in the book, but there are plenty of exciting and fascinating stories, revealing the richness of the Johnsons' lives in Africa.

"Life is just too short," Martin went on. "It's a pity we can't live five hundred years with so much beauty to enjoy and so much work to accomplish."

I first borrowed this book from the library. I tried to find a copy to purchase like theirs, in hardcover with photographs, but ended up with one on slightly thinner paper. I hope it lasts through all the kids reading it. As a bonus, it is autographed by Osa Johnson. I linked to a recent paperback version above, but I am not sure it includes the photographs which are a wonderful addition to the text.

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. All opinions are my own. I borrowed this book from the library and then purchased a used copy online. Links above to Amazon are affiliate links.

Adventure and Archaeology: Turn Right at Machu Picchu

Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time 

by Mark Adams

After spending half a career editing travel and adventure articles, Adams quits his job and spends months hiking around Peru guided by an Australian remarkably like Crocodile Dundee. Those of us more confined to the States can travel along with this marvelous memoir. Archaeology, history, culture, nature...all humorously intertwined. If I were looking for a book on Incas and Peru for South American geography for a high school aged-son (as I will in a few years), this is perfect. It's on our list.

Peru's borders contain some of the world's most varied topography and climate. Measured in square miles, the country is not especially large. on a globe it looks like a swollen California. Within that space, though, are twenty-thousand-foot peaks, the world's deepest canyon (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon), unmapped Amazon jungle and the driest desert on earth....Scientists have calculated that there are thirty-four types of climatic zones on the face of the earth. Peru has twenty of them.

One of my goals for our high school geography course is to present my students with books and articles that challenge a Eurocentric viewpoint (which we cultivate in our history studies), reveal current life in non-Western countries, and explore the relationship between the past and the present in a way that allows them to appreciate God's presence in lives around the world and throughout time. While probably impossible to do perfectly, the attempt is worthwhile. Adams's book captures much of the attitude I am seeking. While respectful of Incan heritage, Adams presents a balanced view.

Today, perhaps because Machu Picchu is so popular among the spiritually inclined, the Incas are sometimes portrayed as a peaceful race who graciously invited neighboring tribes to join their thriving territorial conglomerate. In reality, they could be as brutal as the conquistadors.

Because Adams shapes his journeys around those of Hiram Bingham III, the relationship between Incas and those who came after (whether from Europe or America) is woven throughout the book. Adams respects the skills of the Incas, both those of the architects and those of the builders.

Up to now I had been thinking of these places as Bingham had when first starting out, as self-contained lost cities and holy sites, akin to abandoned medieval villages and churches. Trails were just lines on a map connecting the dots. But if John was right, the Incas had seen things very differently. These sites and trails were more like organs and vessels, the circulatory system in a living body.

Later:

The stonework at Machu Picchu is just the most conspicuous aspects of its brilliance. The citadel is also, in the words of the hydrologist Kenneth Wright, "a civil engineering marvel." Someone had to have made the climb up to the ridge around 1450 A.D. -- historians' best guess -- and decided that this remote saddle between two jagged peaks, with dizzying drops on two sides, could be cleared, leveled and made suitable for habitation and agriculture.

Be aware there are mentions of coca use, overindulgence in alcohol, and some swearing.

Adams appears to be a fallen-away Catholic, not denouncing the faith, but seemingly disregarding it. There are a few shocking revelations that may surprise young Catholics.

(Colonial fun fact: after Columbus returned home to report his discovery, Pope Alexander VI briefly set aside fathering children with his various mistresses to issue a papal bull dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal--which is one reason that most South Americans speak Spanish, but Brazilians speak Portuguese.)

This sort of flippancy is not false, but would need to be placed within the context of a study of church history (something Mater Amabilis™ does well). There are similar comments about the missionary family which raised Hiram Bingham III.

There's little flowery language here. When Adams wants to describe a natural scene of tremendous beauty, he uses a superlative adjective and moves on.

In Kant's epistemology, it means something limitless, an aesthetically pleasing entity so huge that it made the perceiver's head hurt. Machu Picchu isn't just beautiful, it's sublime.

What he lacks in poetics, he balances in sensible assessments of history, his own humility, and respect for the relationships between people and the environment. His experiences also encourage us to take time to really explore our world.

I have received nothing for this post; all opinions are my own. I checked this book out from the library. Amazon links above are affiliate links.

Haliburton Again!: The Glorious Adventure

The Glorious Adventure

by Richard Halliburton

We read the Book of Marvels by Richard Halliburton in Level 3 (year 1 and year 2) and enjoyed them immensely. In this book, he follows the path of Odysseus to the Trojan War and home again. The escapades are often irreverent, frequently involve alcohol (and at least one encounter with drugs), and approximate the geography of the Odyssey. But it's thoroughly fun!

At one point, Halliburton tries to run the original marathon, tracing the route of Pheidippides from Marathon to Athens. Overwhelmed by thirst, he requests wine from a local bartender.

Glass after glass was emptied. In fact so much wine disappeared that when I sought the road again it reeled about in the most amazing manner. I had to hold tight to keep from being thrown by it. Running was too redic'lous. I felt so jolly, just rolling along and stopping to tell everybody in English that everyshing was all right, since the Pershuns were in wild flight.

And so on. I found it amusing, but it probably would be unwise for teens to subsist on a constant literary diet of Halliburton who engages in plenty of drinking and smoking in the midst of his sometimes ill-advised adventures.

He writes eloquently of Troy.

Its fame is imperishable; its romance is inexhaustible. To our own far-away new world its great name has echoed, and I, for one, am proud to have answered its calling, to have lain atop the crumbling battlements in the twilight with the wind whimpering fretfully through the grass-grown ruins, and with the ghosts of Priam and Hecuba, Helen and Andromache drifting beside me, as each night they mount to the Scaean Tower to watch, with hollow anguished eyes, the ghostly horses of the ghostly Achilles dragging Hector’s shadowy body before the silent, sleeping, sorrow-laden mound that once was Troy.

In search of Stromboli (keeper of winds), Halliburton hires a boat to take him out in the night to gaze on the erupting volcano.

Every twelve minutes the white hot bubbling lava was shot upward into the black night amid great fountains of sparks that illuminated heaven and earth with their blazing. Then the flaming geyser would fall back on to the slope, and in waves upon waves of molten rock ripple glitteringly two thousand feet down to the hissing sea. The more solid masses not rolled, but leaped, in a few wild bouncing plunges, leaving a trail of sky-rockets and little meteors behind them, and fell thundering into the water. The crater boomed unceasingly, the terrace flashed and flamed. For ten eruptions – two hours – we sat in our boat, a hundred yards offshore, and marveled each time the more at this brilliant, blazing waterfall of fire.

Then, of course, they climbed it, despite protestations from all the people in the town at its foot.

Finally, “home in Ithaca,” he sits and imagines the confrontation between Odysseus and the suitors playing out before him as if he were seated in a balcony above Odysseus’s hall.

The last scene of Homer’s epic poem has been played, the last page read. I close the book regretfully, and turn my eyes from the precious little volume to the sunset which, viewed through the shining olive trees on Ulysses’ castle site, is enflaming the western sea. Never had I know a sky to be so radiant, so gold,--a glorious end of a glorious day and of an immortal story. On such a scarlet sky as this, three thousand years ago, Ulysses and Penelope, reunited, had watched the darkness creep.

Over and over, he convinces his companions to follow him in ludicrous adventures. They climb mountains, swim in the Blue Lagoon, hike to a mountain cave and tell outrageous and blatant lies to each other while pretending to be island maiden and Odysseus. Yet it all seems full of delight in the myth and epic, reveling in the brilliant blues of the Mediterranean.

First Son is reading this book in Level 5, Year 1, ninth grade, following the beta Mater Amabilis™ plans found in the Facebook group. He's also reading both The Iliad and The Odyssey. Halliburton's book could not be an accurate retracing of Odysseus's journey, but it is the journey of a young man who appreciates the beauty and lasting fascination of the epic, and reveals some of that enduring legacy to the reader.

I received nothing in exchange for writing this review. All opinions are my own. I purchased this book used. Links above to Amazon are affiliate links.

Wonder and Awe in Israel: In the Steps of the Master

In the Steps of the Master

by H. V. Morton

This book is on the list of optional additional reading for geography in Level 5 (ninth and tenth grades) on the Mater Amabilis™beta plans (available in the facebook group for high school). When I saw it, I immediately searched online for a used copy because I loved Morton's A Traveller in Rome which I read in 2016 before (mostly) going to Rome. I chose this book because there is a chance First Son will have the opportunity to visit Israel during his high school years and I thought this book would be an excellent preparation for that experience. I haven't quite decided whether he can handle any additional reading, but it's still a possibility. Either way, I had the pleasure of reading this book myself.

Morton travels through Israel with a Bible, his imagination, and immense curiosity. His writing allows the reader to see the world through his eyes beautifully.

As the sun goes down, a stillness falls over Egypt. Water channels that cross the fields turn to the colour of blood, then to bright yellow that fades into silver. The palm trees might be cut from black paper and pasted against the incandescence of the sky. The brown hawks that hang all day above the sugar-cane and the growing wheat are seen no more and, one by one, the stars burn over the sandhills and lie caught in the stiff fronds of the date palms.

The book was originally written in 1934 when Israel was under British rule. It reveals clearly the condescension of the British even while the author is trying to be sympathetic or complimentary to many of the people who make Israel or Palestine home. Once, a Belgian tells of how they have been traveling and visiting with the protection of the Arab Legion (a kind of police force of the time apparently organized by the British) and says:

"Things like the Arab Legion...justify your colonization."

If, however, you can recognize and overlook that attitude as a remnant of a time long past (attempting to avoid as much stereotyping as possible yourself), this book glows with the spirit of wonder and awe at being so near the home of Jesus.

 I do not know for certain whether the Via Dolorosa is really the road on which Jesus carried the Cross, and neither, I think, does anyone else. Its route depends on the situation of Pilate's judgment hall and the unknown position of the Gate Genath. But it does not seem to me to matter very much whether it is the actual road or a memorial to the actual road. What is important is that men and women who have walked upon it have met there the vision of Christ.

In some ways, Morton's sense of adventure and desire to explore deeply the geography and history of the land reminds me of Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels. Amazingly, he manages to find a guide to take him through Hezekiah's Tunnel even though:

It is wet, messy and dangerous, and you have to explore it at night in order not to stir up the water of the Virgin's Fountain in which the women of Siloam wash their clothes during the daytime.

Later, he writes of the journey through the tunnel.

The first three hundred feet were simple, but then the tunnel became low and we had to walk bent double. There were also pot holes in which we suddenly sank well over the knees. The total length of the tunnel is over a quarter of a mile, so that I had plenty of time to regret my decision to explore it and to admire the common sense of all those people who refused to go with me.

And yet, he describes the tunnel clearly, wondering about the men who created it, the fear through which they worked, and some of the mysteries that still surround it. Then he describes the beauty of the world into which he emerges.

As we went on through the lonely valley with its crowded tombs, we came to the foot of the Mount of Olives and saw the little walled Garden of Gethsemane, with the light of the moon falling between its cypress trees and lying across its quiet paths.

As he travels, he often sits with his Bible and reads the passages in the very places they happened. He describes them in detail, exquisitely filling them out with his imagination. At the end of his description of Salome's dance and the execution of John the Baptism, he writes:

The executioner goes with his sword down to the dungeon. He returns with the head of the Baptist, still warm. And the night wind moves the hair.

The book ends as Morton comtemplates Easter in Jerusalem.

The moon hung above the Mount, touching the ridge with a gold haze, washing every white track in light, painting each olive tree in shadow against the rocks. How hushed it was in the light of the moon. Not a footstep rang in the streets below me; no one moved in the silence beyond the wall. Above the black shadow of the Kedron Valley I could see the moonlight silvering the trees in the Garden of Gethsemane...

I don't know if anyone today is writing such lyrical travel books, but at least someone is reprinting the Morton ones. If I ever make it to Israel, I'm taking this book with me.

I received nothing for writing this post. I bought a used copy of In the Steps of the Master and borrowed a copy of A Traveller in Rome. The links above to Amazon are affiliate links.

School Week Highlights: Week 4

What a week for non-book learning!!

1. First Daughter was up and building early one morning with her K'nex sets (Marbles and Wildflowers plans). Apparently she wanted proof she had completed them because she took some pictures on my camera.

2. We went to children's adoration.

3. Second Son had his very first soccer practice! He forgot his glasses but managed pretty well.

4. Kansas Dad had a conference in St. Louis last week. A few days before he went, we decided to take the whole family. (Pure craziness!) So we drove to St. Louis on Wednesday. Usually Kansas Dad prefers to drive, but he downloaded a bunch of papers and midterms to grade and I drove. I missed our exit off the turnpike so we went a longer route and almost missed our exit in Kansas City, but we made it!

5. My parents came down from their home in Illinois to spend less than two full days with us. That was really a treat for our kids - a hotel and grandparents!!

6. On Thursday, my dad drove us all to Illinois to visit the Cahokia Mounts State Historic Site. My brother-in-law (who has a PhD in early American history) recommended it for learning about pre-Columbian Native American culture and people. The interpretive center there is exceptionally well-done. They have recreations of Cahokia homes in a little village you can wander through, to Second Daughter's especial enjoyment.

7. We climbed Monks Mound, the highest one, and admired the arduousness of digging the soil, carrying it up steps, and layering it carefully to build the mound. It was hot and I forgot the water, so the kids were not too happy even once we reached the top. But they survived.

It's hard to tell, but the Arch is in the background. We debated going up in it, but decided to wait until the museum at the base reopens.

8. The kids swam in the hotel pool for about two hours. Hotel pools are magical places to them. This one was shallow enough I didn't have to get in to make sure Second Son didn't drown. Dad and I sat under the umbrella and talked. Kansas Dad got back from his conference early enough to join them, which they loved.

9. We played games with my parents in the evenings and didn't always have the TV on. (There were three televisions in our suite. How crazy is that?)

10. On Friday, we only had a few hours in the morning before Kansas Dad's conference ended. My dad drove us to the St. Louis Science Center. It was easy to drive there and park and our local science museum membership gave us free parking (avoiding the $10 fee, though the museum itself is always free). We couldn't see a planetarium show as it was closed for cleaning, but the rest of the museum was entertainment enough. The kids spent a long time building sails and testing them at one of the better types of "build and test" exhibits I've seen. The materials are durable so they weren't all broken and the test is quick and easy to adjust. All the kids redesigned their sails for great improvement in the time we were there.

They also had kiosks for programming Mars rovers, a bridge that crossed over a six lane highway with radar guns (and lots of neat bridge building and engineering activities), a flight simulator on which all the kids were able successfully land their planes, exhibits on water for Second Son's Rivers and Oceans, and exhibits on mountains and earthquakes that matched Second Daughter's studies.

We usually skip driving through St. Louis between Kansas and my parents in Illinois, but it would be very easy to get off the road, visit this museum for a few hours, then hope back in the van to drive the rest of the way and it would certainly be worth it.

11. We drove home on Friday after Kansas Dad's conference (which also went well). It was a long drive with multiple traffic snarls around accidents and, again, I drove quite a bit including around Kansas City with the sun in my eyes. We got home really late but stopping wasn't an option because...

12. Second Son had his very first soccer game! They were adorable on the field. (I remember when I though the U8 kids were so big when First Son played but now the 8U kids seem so tiny with my youngest on the field!)

Second Son is in orange.

1t3. And...First Son, First Daughter, and Kansas Dad went to a taekwondo tournament. First Daughter received firsts in her form and her sparring. Kansas Dad also won first for sparring. First Son received silver but only after the judges had to decide because he and his opponent were evenly matched even in the sudden death round.

14. Then Kansas Dad and I made it to a fundraising dinner for his university, a lovely dinner outside with some of our favorite people at our table.

We also celebrated First Daughter's birthday, but that will be another post...in about four months at the rate I'm going.

Adventuring Through the Orient: Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels (Level 3 Year 2)

Mater Amabilis™Level 3 recommends Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels, spread over the two years of the level, the Occident in Year 1 (sixth grade) and the Orient in Year 2 (seventh grade). I wrote about the Occident and how much I loved it last year. The Orient was just as riveting. In it, Halliburton continues his travels with a group of young people through Europe and Asia.

In the second chapter, exploring Halicarnassus, Halliburton writes:

How sad, how cruel, that this world should have been so completely destroyed; for was it not, perhaps, a better world than ours? We have radios and airplanes and motorcars, but Demetrius and Diomede, like most Greeks of that Golden Age in history, had the time and the desire to love beauty, and to understand beauty, and to live for beauty.

In the chapter on Timbuktu, the author describes how he purchased slaves on a previous visit. He cared for them well and, in the end, paid the slave dealer to take them back. I'm not sure what would have been better and perhaps it wasn't possible, but it seems like he should have at least explained why he didn't set them free. The story is quite funny as the slaves act like the children they are and frequently take off their few clothes.

The chapter on Victoria Falls is particularly beautiful, as befits the Wonder.

Before us and below us screams a hurricane of bursting water. We are on the downstream rim of the chasm, the rim which faces the falls. The curtain of water, opposite, is only 250 feet away, but we can not see it. For in this narrow abyss in front of us, and for half a mile on either side, the Zambezi seems rather to explode than fall. The violent blasts of wind shoot the clouds of smoke far up into the sky. These clouds condense and fall again and rise again, in perpetual motion and never-ending fury. They beat upon us and blind us. The shock of so much power dashing downward at our feet is physically painful. We are half-drowned in spray. 

The book ends on the peak of Mount Fuji in Japan as the sun rises.

Lifted up into this holy realm, on the white crown of the magic peak, we too stand there, as moved, as lost in rapture, as the kneeling, praying pilgrims. And as we watch the miracle of the morning unfold, each of us, after his own fashion, gives thanks to the Master Hand that made the beauty and the wonder of the world. 

[UPDATE June 2020; I wrote a kind of master lesson plan for The Geography Coloring that better avoids assigning the same map in multiple years than I did with my original plans, which were rather haphazard. I will leave First Son's assignments below, but here are the updated plans for the Orient.

Chapter 1 - Turkey on p. 28
Chapter 2 - Mark where Halicarnassus would have been on the map on p. 30
Chapter 3 - Island of Rhodes on p. 30
Chapter 4 - visible parts of Egypt on p. 28
Chapter 7 - part of Crete shown on p. 30
Chapter 8 - Find or add Timbuktu on p. 37
Chapter 9 - Mark Victoria Falls on p. 37
Chapter 10 - Saudi Arabia on p. 28
Chapter 11 - Jordan on p. 28
Chapter 12 - Israel on p. 28
Chapter 13 - Cyprus on p. 28
Chapter 14 - Lebanon on p. 28
Chapter 15 - Syria on p. 28
Chapter 17 - Iraq on p. 28
Chapter 18 - Kuwait on p. 28
Chapter 19 - Iran on p. 28
Chapter 20 - India on p. 28
Chapter 21 - Pakistan on p. 28
Chapter 22 - Afghanistan on p. 28
Chapter 23 - Bhutan on p. 28
Chapter 24 - Nepal on p. 28 (Optional: The Top of the World by Steven Jenkins)
Chapter 25 - China on p. 28
Chapter 26 - Mongolia on p. 28
Chapter 27 - Sri Lanka on p. 28
Chapter 28 - Cambodia on p. 28
Chapter 29 - North and South Korea on p. 28
Chapter 30 - Japan on p. 28

END UPDATE]

As last year, I assigned some mapwork in his Geography Coloring Book as it was appropriate. I bought this book a few years ago and we use it over and over again, coloring in new pages as we work through geography and other lessons.

Chapter 1 - Color Turkey and Greece on p 18.

Chapter 2 - Mark where Halicarnassus would have been on the map on p 30.

Chapter 3 - Color the island of Rhodes on p 30.

Chapter 4 - Color what you can of Egypt on p 30.

Chapter 5 - Nothing this week.

Chapter 6 - Nothing this week.

Chapter 7 - Color the part of Crete shown on p 30.

Chapter 8 - Mark Tibuctoo on p 37.

Chapter 9 - Mark Victoria Falls on p 37.

Chapter 10 - Color Saudi Arabia on p 31.

Chapter 11 - Color Jordan on p 30.

Chapter 12 - Color Israel on p 30.

Chapter 13 - Color Cyprus on p 30.

Chapter 14 - Color Lebanon on p 30.

Chapter 15 - Color Syria on p 30.

Chapter 16 - Nothing this week.
Chapter 17 - Color Iraq on p 31.

Chapter 18 - Color Kuwait on p 31
Chapter 19 - Color Iran on p 31.
Chapter 20 - Color India on p 32.

Chapter 21 - Color Pakistan on p 32.
Chapter 22 - Color Afghanistan on p 32.

Chapter 23 - Color Bhutan on p 32.
Chapter 24 - Color Nepal on p. 32. Also read The Top of the World by Steve Jenkins.
Chapter 25 - Color China on p 33.
Chapter 26 - Color Mongolia on p 33. 

Chapter 27 - Color Sri Lanka on p 32.
Chapter 28 - Color Cambodia on p 34.

Chapter 29 - Color North and South Korea on p 33.
Chapter 30 - Color Japan on p 33.

First Son's copy of the Geography Coloring Book is an older one, but First Daughter has the third edition and I checked that the page numbers are still accurate.

The Book of Marvels remains my favorite book of Level 3.

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Bookshop and Amazon are affiliate links.

Story and History: A Traveller in Rome

A Traveller in Rome

by H. V. Morton

Before our trip to Rome, the priest who was leading the trip lent me three books: Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling (which I had already read), A Traveller in Rome, and Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces (which I didn't have time to read, what with the Grand Adventure and all). This book I did read, however, and it was an absolute delight!

H.V. Morton was a premier travel writer in his day (this book was published in 1957). His delightful writing abounds with history, art, architecture, and stories of his own wanderings in Rome. He would make an acquaintance and then end up somewhere amazing and generally off-limits, like the Papal Gardens.

On his visit to the Papal Gardens, his guide points out a bouquet of fresh flowers in the hands of a status of Mary, telling him the Pope has picked them for her.

What a beautiful moment this must have been: the old pontiff all alone in the garden in his white caped soutane and his red velvet shoes, looking about among the hedge banks on a quiet sunny afternoon for wild flowers to give the Madonna.

He evokes the sounds and spirit of earlier times in the city.

One can imagine what it must have been like to walk through the deserted Forum on a day of the games and to hear the flapping of this great awning, then to be pulled up by a savage roar of sound from eighty thousand voices.

Never failing to find the humor in stories of old and unexpected accomplishments, he wrote of the Altar of Peace, awarded to Augustus when peace descended upon the Empire. The altar was in pieces, scattered, and some still buried.

How all these detached fragments were brought together, and the other parts dug out from beneath the palace, is one of the great romances of excavation; and when the Fascists come up for judgment perhaps the reconstruction of the Altar of Peace will cancel out their graceless Via della Conciliazione.

My anticipation for our trip only increased while reading this beautiful book.

When darkness falls the old streets of Rome sink back into a former existence and fill with a stealthy vitality. Ancient palaces stand in the narrow ways like masked conspirators, and the network of stout iron grilles which masks their lower windows brings thoughts of knavery and prisons; the forms of men ahead, slipping into archways or side turnings, rouse in the mind the fears that such streets seem designed to provoke. Happily, sometimes from an upper storey floats down the reassuring voice of Bing Crosby, saying that love is all.

Though not Catholic, Morton appreciated the faith at the heart of Rome. He attended a Mass spoken by an American priest at the altar of St. Gregory at St. Peter's. After the Mass, waiting for his friend, he ducked into a confessional himself, just to chat with the amiable priest. Their conversation ended abruptly when a woman appeared.

We were interrupted by a woman who slipped into the confessional with her little burden of sins; soon she would emerge without it, looking much happier.

As they walked away from the church, the American priest asked him what most impressed him about St. Peter's.

I told him that it was not its size, but its continuity. There is nothing else in the world like it. The seed of faith, love and reverence planted on this hillside in the days of pagan Rome had grown into this colossal shrine, and the size of St. Peter's, the fact that you scarcely know where to look or what to look for, disguises its function: that it is really a shrine, the trophy of Anacletus grown and developed beyond imagination of its originators.

While writing about the Vatican, he shared anecdotes about Popes and events. I especially enjoyed one about a Protestant who tried to convert the Pope.

The most determined missionary was a Scottish minister who had convinced himself that the 'whore of Babylon' in Revelations was the Pope, and that it was his duty to go to Rome and win him over to Presbyterianism. He managed to get near the Pope during a ceremony in St. Peter's and, approaching, cried in a loud voice: 'O thou beast of nature with seven heads and ten horns! thou mother of harlots, arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls! throw away the golden cup of abominations, and the filthiness of thy fornication!'

The Swiss Guard would have thrown him in prison, but the Pope took a kindlier view.

The Pope paid his passage home to Scotland and remarked that he was 'obliged to him for his good intentions and for undertaking such a long journey with a view to do good.'

Just before leaving Rome, Morton visits St. John Calybit, at the time one of the best hospitals in Rome, on Isola Tiberina, an island in the Tiber. Run by the Brothers of St. John of God, the hospital was built upon an ancient place of healing. Of course, his inquiries lead to a tour and conversations with the brothers.

And when I stood on the Tiber embankment and looked back at the island, I thought that in a world in which evil is striving for the mastery of the minds of men, it is with happiness and gratitude that ones sees in places such as this how a good deed can grow and prosper through the centuries. To seek out good thoughts and to reverence them is the privilege of those who have lived for no matter how brief a time in the mother city of the western world.

 If you are going to Rome, this book is superb preparation. If you cannot go to Rome, assuage yourself with this book; it's almost an adequate substitute.

Kansans in Rome

Originally, we intended our Grand Adventure to last five weeks. We modified our plans, cutting a whole week from our trip, when we were offered the opportunity to accompany some graduate theology students from Kansas Dad's university on a guided trip to Rome.

Worth every minute.

We have hundreds of pictures, of course. Here are a just a handful of my favorites.

This is an armadillo, representative of the New World, sculpted by people who had never seen an actual armadillo, on Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in Piazza Navona.

Here's one of only two pictures of Kansas Dad and me. Despite 17 people willing and able to take our picture. We were too busy actually looking at everything.

 We spent most of our time in churches, but we didn't neglect the Forum and Coliseum entirely.

Below is the front of St. John Lateran, the site of one of four sets of Holy Doors in Rome we were able to enter during the Year of Mercy.

One of my favorite church crosses ever - Sant'Eustachio, patron saint of hunters. This is a good picture for Kansans in Rome. An excellent coffee shop is right across the plaza.

Below is the Oratory of the Crib in St. Mary Major. We attended a sung Sunday mass there, absolutely beautiful. One of my favorite mosaics in Rome is there, on the triumphal arch. I failed to get a good picture, though, after they turned off the lights at the end of the Mass. One side shows Jerusalem and the other Bethlehem.

The dome of St. Peters in its entirety, as it was meant to be. (This picture is from inside the Vatican Museum.)

Below is one of the stained glass windows in Assisi, one of my favorite places on earth. In addition to the tombs of St. Clare and St. Francis in Assisi, we prayed before St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Monica, St. Agnes, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Peter Claver, St. Cosmas, St. Damien, and others in Rome.

We saw the Pope, too.

We have really had the most amazing spring, but we're glad to be home for a while. It's time to dive into summer!

Background Music for Adventure

We have a subscription to Spotify and spend many an hour of evening chores listening to playlists we've created there. Thinking about our summer travel plans, including the Grand Adventure, I decided to purchase a few of our favorite songs and make a CD to take along with us. Not only would we fill some of the driving time with music, we'd be giving the children a soundtrack of our own for our Grand Adventure.

After making the first CD of songs Kansas Dad and I especially like, I realized it might be fun for the children to choose some favorite songs as well.

In the interests of revealing exactly the kind of people we are, here are our 2016 playlists.

Kansas Dad and Kansas Mom's Vacation CD

• Girl of My Dreams by Brandon Heath on No Turning Back*
• Sing Brave by Brandon Heath on No Turning Back*
• London by Brandon Heath on What if We*
• Love Never Fails by Brandon Heath on What if We*
• Best Thing by Adam and I on Meanwhile in Virginia*
• If I'm Taken by Adam and I on Adam and I*
• We Have Love by Adam and I on Adam and I*
•  Be Kind to Yourself by Andrew Peterson on The Burning Edge of Dawn*
• After the Last Tear Falls (2014 version) by Andrew Peterson on After All These Years: A Collection*
• The Silence of God (2014 version) by Andrew Peterson on After All These Years: A Collection*
• Lovely Tonight by Joshua Radin on Wax Wings*
• Lead Me by Sanctus Real on Pieces of a Real Heart*
• Time Is Love by Josh Turner on Punching Bag*
• Small Things with Great Love by Danielle Rose on I Trust**
• Marianne by L'Angelus on Ça C'est Bon**
• Ça C'est Bon by L'Angelus on Ça C'est Bon** 
• The River by Garth Brooks on The Hits*** (I guess Garth isn't into digital music.)
• Unanswered Prayers by Garth Brooks on The Hits***
• Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flatts on Feels Like Today***  

We also took a number of CDs that we own, particularly those by Christopher Williams and Carolyn Arends. My Christopher Williams favorites are The Silence in Between and When I was Everything. We often saw him perform years and years ago in Boston and New York. I happily packed along Just Getting Started, which you can download for free here. (I contributed to the campaign to create the album. You're welcome.)

I asked each of the children to choose three songs for their own vacation CD. I could almost have made this CD without asking. I love how this collection of songs perfectly captures who they are right now.

• The Force Theme (from Star Wars IV: A New Hope) by String Player Gamer*
• The Weekend Whip (Lego Ninjago Official Theme Song) by The Fold* (It took a surprising amount of time to find the exact requested song on iTunes, and I never did on Amazon. None of the remixes would do.)
• The Noon Balloon from Goodnight Songs*
• Everything Is Awesome on The Lego Movie Soundtrack*
• Another Irish Drinking Song by the Minions on the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack*
• Let It Go from the Frozen soundtrack*
• Matchmaker, Matchmaker from Fiddler on the Roof***
• If I were a Rich Man from Fiddler on the Roof***
• Sabbath Prayer from Fiddler on the Roof*** (I picked this one.)
• I Just Can't Wait to be King from The Lion King soundtrack*
• Hakuna Matata from The Lion King soundtrack*
• I've Got a Dog from Sandra Boynton's Frog Trouble*
• 47 Beavers on the Big Blue Sea by Phil Vischer***
• Camouflage by Braid Paisley on This Is Country Music*
• The Lion Sleeps Tonight (re-recorded version) by the Tokens*
• Livin' on a Prayer by Bon Jovi from Slippery When Wet***

I also purchased And Now It's Time for Silly Songs with Larry because it was a recent favorite and inexpensive.

As always, we took complete copies of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Fiddler on the Roof, both CDs we've own for (cough) decades.

In order to save space, I sometimes burned MP3 copies of CDs with multiple CDs on the same disk. Going forward, I think I'd sacrifice space to have just one album on each disk because we often got tired of listening to the same kind of music and wanted to switch but then it was hard to find our spot on the CD again. Obviously, if you have a fancy phone or music-playing technological doodad, this is less of a problem. (We bought a smartphone for the trip, but without the kind of memory we'd need to put the music on it.)

I do wish we had taken along some classical music particularly suited to the landscape. There were times I wanted something like Beethoven or Mozart, but I hadn't brought anything along. We're hoping to visit Rocky Mountain National Park later this summer (since we missed it on the Grand Adventure) so if you have recommendations for a classical piece evocative of mountains and alpine environments, please let me know.

* purchased on iTunes
** purchased on Amazon with a free MP3 credit
*** owned on CD

The italic print: Links to Amazon are affiliate links. As an affiliate with Amazon, I receive a small commission if you follow one of my links, add something to your cart, and complete the purchase (in that order). Every little bit helps - thanks!

World Travels with Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels: The Occident (Level 3 Year 1)

Mater Amabilis™Level 3 recommends Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels, spread over the two years of the level, the Occident in Year 1 (sixth grade) and the Orient in Year 2 (seventh grade). I debated about finding an alternate title as it seemed expensive, but everywhere I looked online the homeschool voices resounded with praises for this book and lamentations that nothing else was comparable. I found Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels at the bargain price of about $28 including shipping using BookFinder.com. It may be cheaper to buy the two copies separately, but I like having it all in one book. (When I checked earlier this spring, it looked like the complete book was more reasonably priced than each volume separately.) I did talk seriously with First Son about our copy, explaining it was an older book that would require gentle handing.

[UPDATE June 2020: Halliburton's Book of Marvels has been reprinted by Living Book Press.]

Today I'd like to add my voice to the others singing the praises of The Complete Book of Marvels. This is by far my favorite Level 3 book!

Richard Halliburton writes as if he is traveling with a group of young people beginning in California, traveling east across the United States and then through Europe, ending in Istanbul. Written in the 1930s, the descriptions and stories are, of course, missing a few decades of history, but it's simple to supplement with some searches online if necessary. Each chapter swirls from geography to history to inspiring descriptions to travel adventures. There are ample photographs in the book, some from the author's own travels. His stunts like swimming the Panama Canal and thrusting a stick into the a smoking crack of Vesuvius thrill the reader and are perfect for reading rather than doing.

The descriptions astound and delight. Reading about places I'd been, I yearned to return. Reading about new and exotic places, I suddenly felt a wanderlust, a desire to venture out into the wide world. Halliburton invites the reader to venture to the edge of volcanoes, the pinnacle of mountains, and the dungeons of castles. In the chapter on the Iguazu Falls, he writes:

Then, abruptly, we reach the edge of a terrific mile-wide abyss, and stand before what seems, at the moment, to be all the beauty in the world changed into mist and moonlight, floating out from among the stars, and falling and fading into a bottomless fissure in the earth.

There are also exquisite descriptions of the wondrous, like the Blue Grotto:

Magic has been worked on everything. About us hang the draperies of an azure fairyland. The rock of the cavern walls has been changed to a curtain of soft sapphires ashine with silver spangles. And the water we float on is no longer water. It's a bottomless sky shot full of unearthly blue light. Blue--blue--blue--silvery, shimmering, fairy blue dances on the ceiling, electrifies the quivering lake and touches the very air with supernatural radiance, overwhelming us with its blue beauty.

[UPDATE in June 2020. I'm going to leave First Son's schedule below, but I want to share an updated one here from a Master Lesson Plan that allows a student to use the Geography Coloring Book over five years while avoiding duplicate assignments as much as possible. Pick the one that works best for you.

Chapter 1 - California on p. 3
Chapter 3 - Washington on p. 3
Chapter 4 - Arizona on p. 3
Chapter 5 - Nevada on p. 3
Chapter 6 - New York on p. 3
Chapter 8 - Washington, D.C. on p. 3
Chapter 9 - Florida on p. 3
Chapter 10 - Mexico on p. 3
Chapter 12 - Haiti on p. 3
Chapter 13 - Panama on p. 3
Chapter 14 - Peru on p. 14 (or p. 17)
Chapter 15 - Argentina on p. 14 (or p. 17)
Chapter 16 - Brazil on p. 14 (or p. 16)
Chapter 17 - Spain on p. 18
Chapter 18 - France on p. 18
Chapter 21 - Switzerland on p. 18
Chapter 23 - Italy on p. 18
Chapter 27 - Greece on p. 18
Chapter 29 - Russian Federation on p. 18 (may be colored from earlier study)
Chapter 30 - Turkey on p. 18

END UPDATE]

First Son read one chapter each week, narrating it orally. I also assigned him mapwork in his Geography Coloring Book as it was appropriate. I bought this book a few years ago and we use it over and over again, coloring in new pages as we work through geography and other lessons.

Chapter 1 - color California on p 11
Chapter 3 - color Washington on p 11
Chapter 4 - color Arizona on p 11
Chapter 5 - color Nevada on p 11
Chapter 6 - color New York on p 7
Chapter 8 - color Washington, D.C. on p 7
Chapter 9 - color Florida on p 8
Chapter 10 - color Mexico on p 12
Chapter 12 - color Haiti on p 13
Chapter 13 - color Panama on p 12
Chapter 14 - color Peru on p 17
Chapter 15 - color Argentina on p 17
Chapter 16 - color Brazil on p 16
Chapter 17 - color Spain on p 21
Chapter 18 - color France on p 21
Chapter 21 - color Switzerland on p 22
Chapter 23 - color Italy on p 23
Chapter 27 - color Greece on p 23
Chapter 29 - color European Russia and Asian Russia on p 26
Chapter 30 - color Turkey on p 30

First Son's copy of the Geography Coloring Book is an older one, but First Daughter has the third edition and I checked that the page numbers are still accurate.

I am eagerly anticipating the second half of this book as we venture into the Orient!

Links to Amazon and Bookshop are affiliate links. I have received nothing in exchange for this post.