false 11 493 355 true 5709008 read 6 true 3258299 currently-reading 132 true 3258298 to-read 107 false 3258593 novels 72 false 3258874 children-s 37 false 3894323 parenting 34 false 3258660 nature-writing 30 false 3258587 gardening 19 false 3894442 food 16 false 3258592 horticulture 16 false 3258594 poetry 12 false 3258588 landscape-architecture 10 false 3258597 short-stories http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72683139 to: Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood (Hardcover) by Susan Linn
bookshelves: parenting
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72682232 to: The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World (Paperback) by Susan Linn
bookshelves: parenting
Linn is a therapeutic puppeteer and uses pretend play with hospital patients (children) to help them deal with what is happening to them. Her examples are pretty extreme but you get the idea that stories and playing out scenarios in a safe setting is a great way for kids to explore things that aren't making sense to them.

Linn also fairly passionately argues that popular media promulgates story lines that are played out over and over, diminishing the creative stories children develop. She gives some prescriptive advice like (paraphrased) "read your child the book before watching the movie so they have a chance to develop the characters in their own head first", which seemed sort of a meager suggestion given how much she opposes media. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66641742 to: Angle of Repose (Paperback) by Wallace Stegner
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66639971 The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Hardcover) by Jacqueline Kelly
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66590232 to: The Scarlet Letter (Modern Library Classics) by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Funny thing is, even with all the high school over-analyzing of this book, I still remember tortured parts of it and the sense that we all are so hard on ourselves. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66590186 A Thousand Splendid Suns (Hardcover) by Khaled Hosseini
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66590041 to: Fahrenheit 451 (Paperback) by Ray Bradbury
I read 3/4 of this years ago, and found it depressing and weird. Then I heard Ray Bradbury speak when I was in college and tried again, and didn't get even that far. Not sure why it just didn't resonate for me. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66589590 to: The Complete Oz (Paperback) by L. Frank Baum
I read this when I was 11 or 12, and just loved it. I was into watching the movies too (not just the musical but the other editions of the sequel stories that are part of the original work), and comparing them to the book. This was probably my first experience with the pretty much universally held disappointment surrounding movie versions of books. Dorothy's entrance into the talking mountain and her selection of the right three trinkets to save Oz is still a vivid part of the story for me. Just wonderful, magical. ]]>