Plumfield Moms

"It’s easy to get used to being busy and feeling rushed to get through prayer and devotion time. Perhaps you need a day to change your routine. Set aside your checklist, be quiet, and listen to what the Spirit has to say to you today. Ask God to show you where you need to hear his instructions more clearly. And then, listen."

From that moment forward I became obsessed with adding every living book possible to my collection to share with the children of my community. Sometimes fear and doubt would crowd my thoughts as boxes of books towered around me, but I persevered and books kept coming to me from every possible direction. Shortly after this fire was ignited, I was presented with what I call my confirmation. I heard...

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt  Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt  Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt The Big Jump by Benjamin Elkin Just Like That by Gary D. Schmidt  Zack Taylor: Young Rough and Ready by Katharine E. Wilkie  Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens  Pay Attention, Carter Jones by Gary D. Schmidt  The Labors of Hercules by Gary D. Schmidt  The Sin Eater by Gary...

I have a sweet young patron who is an independent reader but who just isn’t interested in many traditional chapter books yet. Her mother and I have been trying a variety of books to see if one will capture her imagination and help her find her inner bookworm. We have tried a wide variety of subjects, authors, and styles. We have found that she does enjoy Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books, but for reas...

We sheep won’t learn the Shepherd’s voice by having someone describe the sound to us. Perhaps our parents introduced us to the Shepherd. Perhaps it was a friend. Praise the Lord! But they still can’t explain to us the sound of his voice calling our names.

Over the years, I went to many book sales and gathered more and more books for our own children and began sharing them with other families in our church on a casual basis. The collection grew to over 6,000 books, all housed in a 1,200 square foot house, no basement, and five children. There were bookcases in every room.  One day, my husband came home from work and said, “Go look at my car.” “Why,...

Sarah Kim’s References: A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus  Nothing Else but Miracles by Kate Albus To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde The False Prince by Jenifer A. Nielsen The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner I Black Out by Connie Willis  All Clear by Connie Willis Doomsday Book by Connie Willis   Fire Watch by Connie Willis  ...

"This is a touching, but well-balanced story of Velma’s crusade for the wild horses." Velma becomes known as Wild Horse Annie. 

     “Early on a white January morning, Samuel’s mother said, ‘I do wish we had a brown-eyed cow to give us milk for the baby.’”      So Papa sets out to get Mama a cow, and Samuel goes with him. “‘Keep up,’ said Samuel’s father. He looked up at the gray clouds. ‘It’s a long road on a short day.’” Papa takes his best Barlow knife with him, but he doesn’t explain to Samuel how he plans to get a cow...

The Choregos - The Supplier of all our needs.    Peter speaks of the strength God  supplies  to enable each person to use his gifts ( 1 Pet. 4:11 ). In his second epistle, he says that an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly  provided  ( 2 Pet. 1:11 ).

Back in Berkeley the next year, I was now a single mom and had to work. My son’s childcare provider was devoted to books, and I loaned her many of mine. I continued to buy—now from garage sales, and sometimes used book stores (both readily available in a town of readers). When this woman started a preschool, and later an elementary school, they continued to use my books, and I continued to buy. My...

Lou Alice is a kind soul who loves to cultivate beauty wherever she goes. But, Lou Alice is getting older, and it is hard for her to live on her own anymore. A “little girl,” who watches Lou Alice as she goes about her work is the only one who notices when Lou Alice moves out of her home and stops tending to the gardens she planted everywhere around town. The “little girl” notices the loss of Lou...

Best in Children’s Literature Books  The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack  Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey   Lets-Read-and-Find-Out Science Books: Ducks Don’t Get Wet by Augusta Goldin   Five-in-a-Row Card Catalog - Library Cards Biblioguides Online Community  Groups.io Private Lending Library Directory The League of Lending Librarians Facebook group Our LibraryThing/TinyCat Accounts...

This 2015 middle-grade novel by Jennifer A. Nielsen tells the story of a family divided by the Berlin Wall during the Cold War. It is the second historical fiction novel by Nielsen that I have read, and I am glad to have this one in my lending library. It moves at a different pace than that of Words on Fire and is less exciting, but it offers readers young and old a compelling tale of life inside...

Our special page for Michelle Howard at The Card Catalog with all of the things! TruthQuest History Biblioguides online Community

One day, though, as you probably already guessed, when my little house couldn’t hold another book, the phone rang. A friend with a very large home was going on a one-year trip. Would I want to move into their place, and use their front rooms for a library? Somehow, I was just crazy enough to say  yes , because it was a good situation all the way around. Twelve days later, my tiny house was up for...

Landmark Alexander the Great by John Gunther Biblioguides online Community Michelle Howard Page at The Card Catalog

"In nearly every review Sara and I have written for Gary D. Schmidt’s books, we have used the word hard  to describe the situations his characters encounter.  Orbiting Jupiter  takes  hard  to a new level.  *** I am going to SPOIL this story because parents will want to know the themes dealt with in this book before handing it to a child of the age of Schmidt’s typical audience. ***

Schmidt seemingly effortlessly switches in and out of the voices of his characters without missing a beat. Whether he is writing the thoughts and language of a twelve-year-old boy in the American 1960s, or the complaints of a German Jew running from the Nazis, or the self-assured confidence of a Black American girl of the early 1900s, each character sounds authentic and beautifully right. Just as...

I was worried about this one. I was worried that this book would break my heart with grief. I was worried that Schmidt might finally disappoint me and somehow tell this story badly. I was worried that this would fall flat. For some reason, I wanted to love Mara’s Stories . Something in me wanted this book to be powerful and touching and inspiring and good. And, it is. Schmidt did bruise my heart,...

Henry’s father always said, “If you build your house far away from trouble, trouble will never find you.” Probably nearly every review of this book will open with that line. Trademark Gary D. Schmidt, Trouble has a tagline that is repeated again and again throughout the book and that quote is the tagline for this book. But, of all of Schmidt’s books that I have read, that one is the best. It fits...

I also sponsor, through the library, a few activities such as a CM-based Book Discussion group that I’ve been facilitating in our community for more than a decade, as well as a new fun thing,  Conversazione Teatimes , which are basically times to come together for an hour and talk about whatever each person in attendance is currently reading, learning, or pursuing in the realm of arts or literatur...

I got in touch with Liz and Emily Cottrill (now Emily Kiser) and asked how to get started. They got me connected to the Yahoo group for private lending libraries (now at groups.io), where I became acquainted with Kristi Stansfield, who got me started going to the Booksaver warehouse sales in Hagerstown. I attended the local homeschool conference in 2014 as a vendor: “Hello!  I’m going to have this...

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt Just Like That by Gary D. Schmidt The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt  Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt First Boy by Gary D. Schmidt A Long Road on a Short Day by Gary D. Schmidt Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt Trouble by Gary D. Schmidt Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens  David Copperfield by...

I saw “Saving Private Ryan” as a teen. Once you have seen that film, you will never forget what the beaches of Normandy looked like. And if you are like me, you may try to avoid reading a lot more about the invasion because of how tragic it was. Bruce Bliven’s The Story of D-Day: June 6, 1944 helped me. There is nothing that can make this story less tragic, but there is much that can help us celeb...