Friday Links – Books and Such

— Someday, when we live in a place where people walk around the neighborhood, I’d like to build a Little Free Library. Besides being such a great community contribution, the little structures themselves are amazingly creative and would be such fun to design. Would your neighborhood use a free book exchange?

— Cam found a copy of The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide* at Daedalus Bookshop downtown and, despite having read them all before, I am enjoying the book immensely. Apparently, the Hitchhiker stories went through many changes between radio broadcasts, books in the USA, books in the UK, recordings, etc and Adams claims in the introduction to this version that this is the definitive edition (at least until something new comes along…).

— We’ve been reading the Spot books at bedtime, which is fun because I remember having them read to me as a child. The flaps are really exciting, however, which is also fun but doesn’t really bring about a calming bedtime atmosphere.

— Other favorite storybooks of our resident 20-month old child are currently the Llama Llama’s Little Library set, which she was given for Christmas; Do You Know New? which is really intended for infants but has a baby on the cover and mentions “blue” – two things she really likes right now; Ten Little Rabbits, which was one of the very first purchases we made for baby before she was born (possibly the first, actually. Priorities!) and is my personal favorite; and some Raggedy Ann books Cam found to start what will have to be an ongoing collection.

— Angry Chicken’s post about Building a Family Library has so many great ideas, not the least of which is the necessary designing of special bookplates!

— I’ve started volunteering with Literacy for All here in Charlottesville, doing a weekly ESL tutoring session with a lovely woman from El  Salvador. I am learning a great deal about  1. How generally ridiculous the English language is; 2. How to explain idioms (“pain in the neck”, “his heart is in the right place”); 3. Keeping my mouth shut so my student can figure words out on her own; 4. Making conversations genuine while also correcting pronunciation and grammar; 5. Keeping a conversation going in the first place – I am such an introvert, this is really a challenge! 6. Organizing and planning lessons… the list goes on and on. I hope my student is learning something too!

And now I am off for a short adventure with the intergalactic hitchhikers. And this friday list is getting in just under the midnight wire. Happy weekend!

* Amazon links include my affiliate account information.