One more class down! And I squeaked by with an "A"! So, it's two weeks of freedom and then on to American Fiction in the Fall.

Books I read this summer:

• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
• Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
• Perfect Madness by Judith Warner
• A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting by Hara Estroff Marano
• Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

If I had to pick my favorite, The Glass Castle wins hands down. Walls writes an honest account of life with her neglectful, selfish parents, and yet there is so much love and forgiveness woven with the harshness. The memoir is disturbingly beautiful.

I also really enjoyed A Nation of Wimps, even though she calls homeschooling the "hottest of hothouses" when it comes to parenting (hothouse parenting is her term for helicopter parenting in case you are wondering). I agree, to a point. Some people homeschool in order to shelter their children from the world or turn their children into little geniuses. This is hothouse parenting, and I don't believe these should be the goals of homeschooling. My personal goal is to create a desire and love for learning in my children, and I think this is the goal of most homeschoolers I know. It's not that I think the public schools are bad, but I do believe they have a different focus and goal, namely the TAKS. I understand this focus; their funding is somewhat based on TAKS scores, so the kids need to perform well on it. If we could afford a private school, like Coram Deo for instance, I would send my kids off to school in a heartbeat, but that's not something we can do. So for now, I am choosing to homeschool.

Reading Same Kind of Different As Me was pretty cool because it is set in Fort Worth, so I knew the places the authors wrote about. I wouldn't call this one brilliant or anything, but it was moving.

Well...I gotta run....William just dumped all the puzzles all over the playroom floor. Boys!