Bookfest!

Yesterday on the way home from work I met my family at Bookfest. The big annual booksale run by lifeline. The charity supports people in so many ways when they are down on their luck. Books start from 50c and the most expensive I bought was $6. We spent about $120. I had fun last night rearranging everyones bedroom bookshelves, and rotating the new books with the old in the family shelf. We don't keep all our old books either, so we tend to donate as many bags as we take home. I grabbed a couple of kids books with good animal and colour pages to help teach those to the kids I work with. I like that the animal book has lots of different sheep on the sheep page, and lots of dogs on the dog page. This helps the kids to realise all those different looking animals, belong to the same species, and then that all those different creatures are animals that live with people. I also found a book with only one word HUG. The kids can follow the story from the pictures and learn about sequence, without needing to read words. Some books are by Raymond Feist, author of Magician, one of my favourite early fantasy books. I usually don't reread but am starting to compile books that my son can read as he gets older. My husband is beginning to read also, and he likes to own things, where I usually am happy to just borrow. They both seem to enjoy the whole fantasy genre. I got one from Anne McAffrey who wrote a whole series about the dragons of Pern. A twist on fairy tales with "Blood red Snow white", that is set in Russia during the time of the 1st world war and the political revolution. It was shortlisted for a childrens award, but I will enjoy reading it too I think. Labrynth, which is a search for the Holy Grail type book. With a book called "A secret history" I am detecting a theme in my books of having some history woven in.Tim Winton, who is an Australian author. Anita Shreve, because I have never read her. A copy of spiritwalk, by Charles DeLint. I love his books and have read most, so this is another one for the family to read. I need the second book in the Eragon series, but I figure those books are huge, so I have another year or two to find it 2nd hand, before my son wants to read them. I am going to try to wait until he is ready, and then read them together. One my son found, was a follow on to Peter Pan that looked good. Lots of girly books and magazines for my daughter. A collection of John Steinbeck, a copy of Pygmalion, and a few cook books. I haven't covered it all obviously. I just want to sit in bed and read them all. I am almost finished a book called "Why you should read Kafka before you waste your life". Oddly enough I have never read Kafka, but if the book is accurate then most of the translations are skewed by the popular interpretation of his motives. I am mostly liking the history given in the book, which he is using to set the background. Being that Kafka was a German-Jew, and most interpret his work through the lense of the Holocaust, the author tries to show the mind set of Prague before all that happened. I learnt very little about world history at school. What I learned of Australian history was not very inspiring. Even our Anzac Day education told little of the causes of the wars we were involved in. So I am making a point of taking it all in now. I can't teach my kids if I don't know it myself.
On that point, I have discovered kids really love to learn. They don't like being tested so much but learning to do stuff is great fun. That's why so many kids have rooms full of discarded toys. You get it, you learn everything there is to know about it, then it's life is over. Next! I am going to make a point to help my kids learn stuff they can use. Cooking, reading, functional science, money, and about the world. I found our Atlas and Globe are both old enough to have East Germany, and not have Ukraine, or Georgia and all of those previous Soviet states. That's a place to start on my History/Geography lessons.
The sun is out for now though, so I might take my books to the park with the kids for a bike ride. I also need to make a visit to my sisters slumber party tonight, but I think with that many girls I should be able to sneak out early to read some more. I like time with my sisters better when I don't have to share them.