Fostering curiosity in kids (and their parents) since 2011

What’s The Eight-Year-Old reading this week?

Our mostly-weekly survey of the tidbits that cross The Eight-Year-Old’s desk. This week, The Eight-Year-Old indulges in end-of-school year comfort reading, does her best to learn to speak cat, and samples a piece of Jane Austen’s pound cake. 

A sampling of this week’s books:

May29

Being a Dog is a Full-Time Job by Charles M. Schulz

When I get stressed out, I read Jane Austen. The Eight-Year-Old reads Peanuts, and this collection, judging by the look of our copy, is one of her favorites.

How to Speak Cat by Aline Alexander Newman

How to Speak Cat is packed with information on how cats communicate with their chosen humans through ear flicks, tail twitches, tummy flops, puffy tails, droopy eyes, and of course, meows.

Clifford the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell

After an unfortunate storage incident this week, several of The Eight-Year-Old’s picture books were forcibly ejected from their bookshelves in the Family Cave. The books spent the week piled in stacks along the walls while Mommyo debated whether to build a new set of bookcases for the Family Cave or simply to thank the books for their service and donate them out to new readers. Decisions, decisions.

Meanwhile, The Eight-Year-Old has been having a wonderful time rereading old favorites, now that they are at last within easy reach. (We had put the Cliffords and other too-easy picture and board books on the top shelves of the old bookcases in an effort to keep The Eight-Year-Old focused on more age appropriate books.)

In the news:

Breakfast of Champions: Jane Austen’s Pound Cake (The Guardian)

In case you missed it, The Guardian ran a story a week or two ago with the recipe for Jane Austen’s go-to breakfast pound cake. Equal parts (by weight) butter, sugar, flour, and eggs, this cake is dense, moist, and sinfully rich, despite the complete lack of spices. Best paired with tea.

The Eight-Year-Old: “Make sure it’s an old-timey kind of tea, Mommyo, but not cambric tea. I’d never drink that stuff.”

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