Something Under the Bed is Drooling by Bill Watterson

About : Calvin
Type of book : comic book.
I thought it was pretty funny.
It's about a 6 year old boy who can change his world with his imagination.

Literature course

As I think all of my readers know, I homeschool my children.  This year, we are officially doing a literature course.  The deal is this: children have to choose a certain number of books from my list (below) plus the same number of books of their own choice.  They write a review of each book they read.  We probably discuss it (especially the Shakespeare and Chaucer) both while they're reading and after.  They also each write in a journal.  Because as best I can tell, everything needed in an English course is encompassed in the regular, practical use of English - reading, personal writing, writing for an audience.  We'll probably cover persuasive writing and presenting when we get into politics and/or social studies.
Most of the books for the younger children we get from the library; most of the books for the older children are available for free online.
The list:

Up to age 9 - pick your age from this list, then the same number of others of your own choice
Rascal the Dragon (each book in the series counts as 1)
McCormick-Mathers challenge readers (each story counts as 1)
20th century children's book treasury (each story counts as 1)
Make way for McCloskey
Any Caldecott with words
Any scriptures (one chapter counts as 1)
Other options - just ask!

Age 10+ - half your age and half your age (so 10 reads 5 and 5; 11, 5 and 6 or 6 and 5, etc )
On the revolutions of the Spheres
French for Reading
Novum Organum
Shakespeare - Sonnets
Shakespeare - Plays
Peloponnesian war
Herodotus - histories
Canterbury Tales
Any Jane Austen
Any Louisa May Alcott
Frankenstein
Dracula
The Illiad
The Odyssey
Any scriptures - one book counts as a 1 (e.g. Genesis)
Other options - just ask!

Larklight by Phillip Reeve

Told from the viewpoint of Art Mumby, this is about the adventures that he and his sister Myrtle have across space. Set in the Victorian era and written as if the Victorians were right about everything that they thought about how science was going to advance (steam power for everything, alchemy, inhabitable planets, etc...) I really enjoyed this book.

Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

By LessWrong

In light of my previous scathing review,
let me share a few words on something I actually like today.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is Fanfiction of unusually* high quality**, here is the setup.

The Blurb: "Petunia married a biochemist, and Harry grew up reading science and science fiction. Then came the Hogwarts letter, and a whole new world that had never heard of Science. And new friends, like Hermione, and Professor McGonagall, and Professor Quirrell."

While this is technically accurate, it leaves out some of the more awesome^ parts, like the extracurricular student battles, Harry^^ being a Chessmaster, or the sheer number of shout outs, references, and jokes that make it awesome.

Content Rating: I would put it at Teen/10+
Swearing: Mild to none (I honestly do not remember)
Anything Else: Mild, some battles between students with stunning spells,oh, and the (nonlethal) duel in azkaban
Recommended For: Audiences both mature and geeky enough to enjoy it.

*Not hard. Probably.
**Good writing, solid characters, no need for (drastic) rewrites after posting***
***Apparently, Miles Vorkosigan is still at Hogwarts.
^DISCLAIMER: All opinions expressed are mine, and probably not laws of the universe.
^^And Draco, and Lucius, and Dumbledore, and Professor Quirrell.

Temple Dress Bag Pattern

My Relief Society asked me to make up this pattern; I thought this would be the easiest way to make it available to everyone who might want it. 

These images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.  If you want to use them for something outside the scope of that license, contact me by leaving a comment on this blog (this post or the most recent post), and we will discuss it. (Mostly this means: you can use it, but say where you got it, and ask me first if you want to charge.)

Tuesdays At The Castle by Jessica Day George

When princess Celie's parents leave to get her oldest bother from wizarding school they leave everything in her and her two older siblings' hands. It was light and funny but it nevertheless kept a hold of my attention the whole way through, and I quite enjoyed it.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

This book is more of an overview than an in-depth look at any of the sub-facets it touched on - but as an overview, it was fantastic.  I now want to read through his references: about the cataloging of facial expression, the definitions of taste and texture, and the experience (and measurement) of unconscious prejudice. 

It was a very ambitious book - exploring the experience of unconscious decision-making, when it happens, when it can be relied on, and when it leads us to error.  And at the end of it, I feel like I do have a better idea of when it's useful to follow those lightning impressions, and when they really need to be re-examined.  It's not a complete picture - something I've been trying to sort out for a long time - but as far as it goes, it's a well-reasoned model.