What we're reading now

It's been a while that I've been trying to find books that Faith is interested enough in to read through for fun of her own volition, like she did The Boxcar Children.  (Still does, actually, as she's reread it a time or two.)  We had some success with Ramona Quimby, as she read most of Beezus and Ramona in one day, but she was disappointed that Ramona grows up from book to book; Ramona really is more entertaining as a preschool force of chaos totally alien to the viewpoint of her big-sister protagonist than the after-school special about how to deal with school/ parents working or being out of work/ dads quitting smoking she morphed into.

It was my mom that hit upon Hank the Cowdog.  She's in her second year of mentoring a boy at a local grade school, and the school librarian suggested the series as a popular choice.  My mom's been getting the books from the library, and Faith's been tearing through them.  She can easily read one a day.  (Fortunately, there's sixty books in the series right now, but she's still going to run out eventually.)  There are audio books too, and Eric's gotten into the characters listening to the CDs.  He's reading the first book now, a chapter a day, for his daily reading/ spelling/ vocabulary lesson, and the kids have been building a replica of the ranch Hank lives on in the spare room at my parents' house, using my old Fisher Price farm set, cardboard, craft sticks, and markers.  They have a chicken house, a machine shed, a gas tank, a pond, and a corral, in addition to the barn and main house.