What kind of books are we looking for when our child first learns to read? First, Charity demystifies some of the lingo surrounding early readers. (What are early readers? WHY early readers? What are transitional books? ) Charity will tell you what she really thinks about Junie B. Jones, Ivy + Bean, and the Magic Tree House Series. She shares her recommendations on early chapter books. Charity will help you frame a solution for your precocious reader, your very young child with the very high reading level.

Please enjoy the extensive book list for the best early readers and beginning chapter books!

AND

Please use this book list for your PRECOCIOUS READER!

(Note: Charity receives a percentage of the book sales made through these links. Thank your for off-setting the costs of this podcast!)

Find quick book recommendations by following Charity on Instagram.

Enjoy essays on the Bright Wings' blog OR find great book lists personally crafted with you in mind!

Are you ready to have the biggest parent-teacher conference of your life? Listen as Jeremy Adams describes the pandemic of vacuity that is afflicting our young people. A decorated and most-beloved CA teacher, Jeremy Adams is the author of Hollowed Out: A Warning About America's Next Generation. He demonstrates the "uniquely perilous" position of our young people. What is he seeing in his classroom that is so different from 5-10 years ago? Why are teens "friendless and depressed...lost in a miasma of alienation and stupefaction"? Why are they uncurious, stunted, and uninformed? And most importantly what can we pour into them so they are no longer "hollow"?

Purchase Jeremy Adams' Hollowed Out: A Warning About America's Next Generation

Read "The Death of Gratitude In the American Classroom," by Jeremy Adams, originally published in The Public Discourse.

Also:

• The Rise of Zoombies: Lifeless, Detached Students Have Returned to My Classroom
• My Late Father Was A Great Teacher. He Wouldn't Last a Week In the Modern Classroom.
• Keeping Our Youngest Generation From Becoming the Lost Generation

The Antidote! Links!

• 1000 Hours Outside
• The Family Dinner Project. Check out their research and ideas.

Find quick book recommendations by following Charity on Instagram.

Enjoy essays on the Bright Wings' blog OR find great book lists personally crafted with you in mind!

At listener request, Charity answers some of your most practical and theoretical questions about going to the library.  Should you go to the library? What should you do about story time? Can going to the library with toddlers be fun? How do you navigate that situation? How do you choose what books to bring home? What are your parameters for decision-making? How do I find a book that isn't in the catalogue? What the dickens is the difference between Libby and Hoopla?! Answers to these questions--and stories shared by Charity Hill--await you.

Find quick book recommendations by following Charity on Instagram.

Enjoy essays on the Bright Wings' blog OR find great book lists personally crafted with you in mind!

As part of an ongoing initiative, Charity Hill reviews children's books. In this episode, Charity reviews two novels by Sara Pennypacker: Pax and Here In The Real World. In Pax, we find a deep relationship between a boy (Peter) and his partially domesticated fox (Pax), a search for a moral identity, and a quest to make peace. Finally, Charity wonders if the end is satisfying to a readership that craves an answer to Peter's search. Charity praises Here In the Real World  for its masterful ability to propose problems (character vs. parents, character vs. friends, hope vs. cynicism, chivalry vs. feminism) with rich and nuanced responses. In both novels, Charity notices how Pennypacker uses the titles and the characters names to alert us to deep meaning.

Thank you for purchasing through the links. I receive 10% of sales.
To purchase Here In the Real World
To purchase Pax

Find quick book recommendations by following Charity on Instagram.

Enjoy essays on the Bright Wings' blog OR find great book lists personally crafted with you in mind!

Marcie Stokman, founder and president of Well-Read Mom, joins Charity for a conversation. Marcie tells of the need she saw that motivated her to found Well-Read Mom. Marcie and Charity share how deep reading, in a community of women, has impacted them. They talk about the "moral imagination" and how fiction shapes a sense of truth and goodness. Charity and Marcie urge you to "take care of our heart" as ingredient to mothering.

A book list that includes some favorites from Charity and Marcie's families.

How does reading help us "navigate complex social relationships" and the "empathetic responses that maintain them"?
AND
Are we rendering ourselves intellectually and physiologically incapable of deep literacy? What can we do to save our minds?

Find quick book recommendations by following Charity on Instagram.

Enjoy essays on the Bright Wings' blog OR find great book lists personally crafted with you in mind!

Stories of strong girls and women show us that there  is something distinctive about being a girl, about being a woman. Good literature, with strong female characters, has so much to offer! We wonder what is distinctive about being a girl? What is the feminine genius? Does my daughter have a heroic role to play? Where is the literature that supports my daughter in developing her identity as a particular feminine genius? Hear how stories of feminine strength display courage "as the form of every virtue at its testing point."

Please enjoy this booklist, full of fearlessly positive books about being a girl!

Find quick book recommendations by following Charity on Instagram.

Enjoy essays on the Bright Wings' blog OR find great book lists personally crafted with you in mind!

Finish the conversation between Julian Peters, comic artist of Poems to See By  and Charity Hill.  We reflect on Julian's visual interpretation of "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden  from Poems To See By, the role of beauty in comics, and the suitability or unsuitability of adapting certain works of literature to comics.

Please refer to this link to see Julian Peters' images of  "Those Winter Sundays" on the blog.

You can pursue all the rich content of Poems To See By  by purchasing it through my affiliate link.

To learn more about Julian Peters, visit his website.

Find quick book recommendations by following Charity on Instagram.

Enjoy essays on the Bright Wings' blog OR find great book lists personally crafted with you in mind!

Join the first part of the conversation with Julian Peters, comic artist of Poems to See By as he teaches Charity the differences between comics and illustrations. They reflect on two of Julian's visually interpreted poems from Poems To See By and consider international comic traditions, and the role of beauty in comics.

Please refer to this link to see Julian Peters' images of "Musee des Beaux Arts" on the blog.

You can pursue all the rich content of Poems To See By  by purchasing it through my affiliate link.

Find quick book recommendations by following Charity on Instagram.

Enjoy essays on the Bright Wings' blog OR find great book lists personally crafted with you in mind!

As part of an ongoing initiative, Charity Hill reviews children's books. In this episode, Charity reviews Kimberly Brubaker Bradley's The War That Saved My Life. In the book review series, Charity offers praise, summary, and analysis of the text so that parents can decide which books are worth reading. Charity praises the quality writing and the powerful proposal within the narrative that evil can serve the purposes of good. Yet, Charity questions whether The War That Saved My Life  is really a book that is psychologically appropriate for children under 13,  given the abusive family relationships. Podcast includes brief references to violence.

Find quick book recommendations by following Charity on Instagram.

Enjoy essays on the Bright Wings' blog OR find great book lists personally crafted with you in mind!

Join Charity Hill's glee as she explores tall tales. She distinguishes what makes tall tales a distinct kind of story from fairy tales. Then, she explores why tall tales are fun--and funny! She wonders if its possible to love truth and still "play with it." She shows how delightful the disparity between reality and hyperbole can be. Then, Charity shares with us some of the best tall tales she has found--some old, some new! Book lists and book links below!

Listen to Legend of Tall Talkin’ Sam by The Okee Dokee Brothers!  They sing real good! ;)

Episode 15: Tall Tales Or This World Is Larger Than Life BOOKLIST
Rattlebang Picnic by Margaret Mahy
Meanwhile, Back At the Ranch by Anne Isaacs

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Find quick book recommendations by following Charity on Instagram.

Enjoy essays on the Bright Wings' blog OR find great book lists personally crafted with you in mind!