May Reads

My reading list for the month of May

25 Ways to Communicate Respect to Your Husband: by Jennifer Flanders: One of my desires as a wife is to show my husband more respect.  We honestly do have a great marriage.  I do respect him and think he is the most wonderful man in the world but I also know that this is an area in my marriage that I can always grow in.  I want my husband to walk around and know without a doubt that I respect him.  I thought this book was great.  Flanders identifies 25 ways to show respect to your husband.  At the end of each brief chapter she lists a number of practical steps to take in order to be more respectful.  I am blessed to be married to a wonderful man but I do think it would have been nice if Flanders had added an appendix for women who are married to difficult men.

The Traitor's Wife by Allison Pataki:  I really enjoyed this historical fiction novel which told the story of Peggy Shippen Franklin who was the wife of Benjamen Franklin.  I never know exactly how much to share about a fiction book that I enjoyed but let's just say I found this book to be thrilling and would highly recommend it.

The Mix & Match Guide to Companion Planting by Josie Jeffrey: I have been interested in companion planting for the past three years since I began raising my own garden.  (Growing up I helped in our family's garden.)  I thought the format of this book was really neat.  It includes three sections of different plants which can be mixed and matched in order to determine which plants to plant next to the others.  There is a symbol on each plant that can be matched up to the other plants.  This tells you how beneficial the plants would be to one another.  You can learn more about the book here.  While I thought this was a really cool aspect, the book was really overwhelming.  Although the author mentions huge charts that she utilized at her home, they are not to be found in the book.  It doesn't really provide any specific examples.  Personally I like to plant marigolds by tomatoes.  A typical garden layout using companion planting would have made this book awesome!  This book would really be improved if it included more information similar to the book Carrots Love Tomatoes which I have also read.  (Please note that I did receive this book for free from Blogging For Books in exchange for this review.  My opinion did not have to be favorable.)

Living on Less by the Editors of Mother Earth News: This book was really hippy but the crazy thing is I really enjoyed it!  :)  I do realize that my family and I are not going to tackle the majority of the projects in this book.  We have no desire to build a non-traditional home and my husband would have a fit if we started milking goats or butchering our own chickens.  (Though I might be tempted to borrow a few books on raising goats from the library just to make him squirm.)  :)  There are many aspects of this book that I enjoyed.  I really enjoy the title "living on less" which really sums up a lot of our mentality in our family.  We really believe that it is possible to live a great life while living on less money.

The Early Years by Sonya Shafer and Karen Smith: The subtitle of this book reads "A Charlotte Mason Preschool Handbook" and that is exactly what it is.  I really enjoyed this book which encourages parents to think twice about pushing worksheets on their young children.  This book emphasizes the importance of children spending hours upon hours of time outside.  I fully agree that spending time outdoors (at least a couple hours daily) is really important.  The one aspect of the book which I don't agree with is the fact that they recommend waiting until a child is 6 years old to begin any sort of formal schooling .  I do see great wisdom in waiting on worksheets, flashcards, etc but I think that some children will be ready for formal schooling at age 5.  Our son is currently 4.5 and up until this point we have been really laid back about worksheets.  Sometimes he asks to work on a maze or activity (often at church) but we do not push it.  What we do push is spending at least 2 hours outside everyday and I am intentional to talk to him throughout the day.  One of our main goals in our son's early education is to create a love of books.  Since he was very young we have read to him.  I don't mean that we just read him a bedtime story every evening.  I mean that we read all the time.  We regularly check out a dozen children's books from the library each week which we enjoy throughout the week in addition to books that we own.  He also listens to books on tape and we read chapter books aloud.  So far he absolutely loves books and looks forward to the day when he will be able to read for himself.  :)  Overall I gleaned a lot of helpful ideas and encouragement throughout this book.

What books did you read last month?