Carolyn Astfalk has a first Wednesday of the month book review linkup!

It’s the start of a new school year, and for history, we are doing Story of Civilization, Volume III: The Making of the Modern World from TAN books. So far, I have to say SOCvIII it’s not as robust in activities as was SOCvI (the ancient world up through the Christianizing of the Roman Empire). However, it’ll do, and as before, I’m using this year’s history to assign literary study. My 4th grade daughter is thrilled that this means we will be reading a lot of Royal Diaries series. We started with Isabel: Jewel of Castilla–Spain, 1466. It was okay. Not our favorite, but it was a great introduction to book reporting on main characters versus minor ones, as well as setting.

We also are working our way through re-upping our Marian Consecration. 4th grader received this book for a First Eucharist gift, and we did the consecration that year for the Feast of the Immaculate Heart… which is great, but it’s also a moveable feast, so I lost track of when it was this year, and we didn’t renew in time. For good or ill, I’ve moved our consecration date to Our Lady of the Rosary, which I can put in my calendar as ALWAYS being on October 7.

As for this Marian Consecration for Children by Carrie Gress, it was great for a second grader. Gress uses stories from children’s literature to illustrate virtues and our relationship with God and Mary. That said, I think 4th grade is getting a little too old, and I will probably look for a new book for next year.

Trying to read ahead for appropriateness, I picked up Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. This is the story of a young girl who lives on a well-to-do ranch in Mexico during the Great Depression. It’s billed as a reverse-Cinderella story, and it delivers. I know it sounds corny, but through her reversal of fortune, Esperanza really does learn the true meaning of worth and value. I’d say a third-grader with good reading comprehension could tackle this. There’s ample opportunity for discussion on classism, racism, prejudice, the Dirty Thirties, and even where our food comes from and who gets it to us. There is some death in the story, but there’s nothing graphic/nightmare-inducing.

  I’ve also read both My Queen, My Mother: A Living Novena as well as Forgiving Mother: A Marian Novena of Healing and Peace. These are great books for those of us working on healing the oft-neglected mother wound. My Queen approaches Mary as someone with power to influence even temporal events, living among us still, especially among the poor and needy. Forgiving Mother shows us Mary’s role as ideal mother, someone who hurts with us and for us when the people who are supposed to love us most fail us.

Keep your eyes peeled over at Catholic Mom for a book club on My Queen, My Mother, starting October 5.

And as I wait for my edits on Broken Grown-up’s Guide to come back to me, and since we are in a slower season for the Shakespeare play I direct each year… I have time for leisure reading! So I scrolled through Carolyn Astfalk’s previous months of Open Book, and I thought I’d start with this one: A Bound Heart by Laura Frantz. I really wanted something light and sweet, given how heavy my real life has been of late, and A Bound Heart does not disappoint.  It is quite slow to get started, so much that I almost gave up, but I hung in there, and I’m enjoying it.

What are you reading?  Don’t forget to link up YOUR #OpenBook reviews over at Carolyn’s!