Where the Grapes Grow Sweet

In this post, I mentioned that we brought a book back from California. The Grapes Grow Sweet is the story of a family bringing in California grapes at harvest time. Beautifully illustrated with rich, watercolor pictures, the book tells the story of Julian and Adrienne Rossi, two children growing up in the fourth generation on a Napa vineyard. The story is tenderly told and every time I read it aloud to my children, I'm drawn into the warmth of this family and the love and respect they have for the people who work with them. As I mentioned in this post, I'm particularly fascinated by organic and biodynamic farming. In this book, the ecology of the vineyard comes alive, showing the insects and other creatures among the grapevines. The pictures are incredibly detailed and with each reading so far, we've noticed something new. There are some extension resources for the book here that have delighted us in the past week.

My girls were so inspired by this book that we took off last week for an impromptu visit to some Virginia vineyards, hoping to see the harvest gondolas. We headed to Loudoun County vineyards first. I found that people in the two places we stopped weren't terribly responsive to the presence of children, despite their website assurances that they were family friendly.

The next week, we went apple picking in Front Royal and then, popped around the corner to Rappahanock Cellars, a vineyard recommended by Janine in the comments of that post. Rappahanock Cellars is a family-owned vineyard and winery run by the the Delmare family. Since there are twelve kids in that family, they didn't bat an eye when I arrived with six.

We had a wonderful time. We picnicked and ran around and breathed in mountain air scented with grapevine. We had an abbreviated tour (it's harvest season), but then we got to stand at the big picture windows and watch huge mounds of grapes be transported to the hopper for pressing. 

The book absolutely came to life! We plan to go back in October because I have hunch it's a particularly wonderful place when the leaves change color. (And because we joined the wine club and opted to pick up our selections;-).

For more about our Storybook Year, please visit  here. 

Degas and the Little Dancer

One of the pointe pieces Mary Beth and her company danced in the competition a couple of weeks ago and will dance again this weekend, begins with the girls posing inside a larger than life picture frame. They are set as if they were dancers in a painting by Degas. It's a beautiful piece that captivated my little girls. Because they'd heard the piece referred to by its stage name, "Degas," they've been tossing the artist's name around quite freely in the past few days. I decided it was time to pay a little more careful attention to who Degas was and how that real life dance number got its inspiration from an entirely different medium

I read to everyone younger than 15, boys and girls alike, the story of Degas and the Little Dancer. It's a based-on-true tale of a poor young girl named Marie who aspired to be the "most famous dancer in the world." She is enrolled in the ballet school where the famous artist frequently comes to paint. When she doesn't have enough money to continue classes, he asks her to pose. His eyes are failing and he's moved from oils, to pastels, and finally to wax sculptures. And the little dancer does indeed become quite famous, though not in the way she expected.

My children are pretty tuned in to art and the book captivated them. We played ballet music for a few hours while they let their imaginations run a little wild. They drew dancers and then chose to color in pastels or colored pencils. In the spirit of the statue, they wanted to "dress" their art in "real" clothes. So, we sewed some tiny tutus and glued them in place. Very sweet. 

Now, I'm looking forward to watching them watch their sister dance this piece again. And I'm going to try to get a picture to add here because I just so love that tableau.

~ Favorite Ballet Stories~

Angelina Ballerina

Ballet Shoes

Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet

Ballet of the Elephants

Tallulah's Tutu

Do you have a favorite? I'll add it to the list:-)

For more about our Storybook Year, please visit here.

Higgins Bend Song and Dance (and a recipe)

A new fishing pier just opened in our neighborhood. We haven't caught anything (yet), but it's definitely a favorite desitination. It was fun to go down there recently and read a favorite fish tale, Higgins Bend Song and Dance.

Higgins Bend Song and Dance is the silly story of outlandish efforts to catch an elusive catfish. The illustrations are big and boisterous and so is the story. It's the kind of book that would have bothered me when I was little because it is so not-true. But it delights my children because, well, I don't know why. What makes a child better equipped to enjoy flights of fancy?

Our fishing pier is on a lake, so we didn't go all out and do river things. But we did talk about the critters who live near our lake. I printed this picture of a great blue heron (our are pretty fabulous) and then read at this site. I clicked on anatomy and showed them the picture and asked them to label their coloring sheets. 

We talked about catfish, cheat sheet here. And then we tried our hands at drawing them. Drawings were watercolored. My intention was to do the actual watercoloring on the pier and use lake water, but it was too windy.

Finally, we made up our own tall tales. Again, the children are much better at that then I am. I think I struggle with willful suspension of disbelief.

That's about it for this book, here. Higgins Bend Song and Dance is a Five in a Row selection, so I'm sure there are all kinds of ideas out there if you want to make a whole week of it. We just did our little afternoon and then responded affirmatively to incessant requests for it at bedtime recently.

And I see a lot of fishing in my summertime future. 

Since I didn't get to a recipe earlier this week, how about fish now?

Baked Fish with Lemon and Capers

• 8 tilapia fillets
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 
• 2 Tablespoons butter, melted (we've discovered Kerrygold butter, oh my!)
• 3 or 4 cloves garlic , finely chopped
• 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh  parsley flakes
• 2 Tablespoons capers
• a generous dash of white wine, if you like
• pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease the pan with olive oil.
2. Rinse tilapia filets under cool water, and pat dry with paper towels.
3. Place fillets in baking dish. Pour lemon juice over fillets, then drizzle butter on top. Sprinkle with garlic, parsley, capers, wine, and pepper.
4. Bake until the fish is white and flakes when pulled apart with a fork, about 30 minutes.

I'm serving with roasted asparagus and a big salad.

 For more about our Storybook Year, read here. 

All the Buzz About Bees

You saw this one coming, didn't you? 

The last couple of weeks, our storybook-a-day has evolved into a rabbit trail of honeybee books. I dug out all out bee books in anticipation of going to meet Ginny's new bees. We read them all and then Katie and Nicky have spent time drawing diagrams and dictating narrations.

The highlight of all of this research, of course, was seeing those bees! They're rather mesmerizing. I can't stop thinking about them. Ginny has much better pictures than my iPhone pictures here. And, we looked for the queen when we were there but couldn't spot her. It was pretty exciting to see these pictures of the queen sighting.

I'm doing a little reading of my own, mostly websites just now, looking to see if there's any possiblity of bees in my own backyard. In the combox on Monday, someone begged me to read Fruitless Fall. Leslie, you'll be happy to know it has been auto-delivered wirelessly to my Kindle. If I read this book and I have to move because i can't bear to be without bees, it's on you;-)

Here are the books in our Bee Basket:

The Life and Times of the Honeybee

The Honeymakers

Are You a Bee?

The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive

The Bee Tree

Honey In a Hive

For more about our Storybook Year, read here. And, there are Storybook Science books, from A-Z, linked here, scroll down on the lefthand side. 

Now, tell me all about your bees, your neighbor's bees, the bees you used to have, the bees you wish you had, bee books for all ages...

Crafty Chloe

Crafty Chloe is a new book that catapulted to the top of my children's best-loved list. The story of a little girl whose talent is creating things, Crafty Chloe tells what happens when Chloe is invited to a birthday party, but can't buy the perfect gift. At first, she fakes a case of Chicken Pops. The pictures of her bemused father are darling. (He was modeled after Todd of Oliver + S fame). Then Chloe gets busy building and sewing. She's resourceful, creative, and downright inspiring.

When this book first arrived, I was busy. My three youngest girls squirreled away to read it to themselves. They came bolting upstairs as soon as they finished reading, yelling, "We have to go  Crafty Chloe Online!" They were eager to try the craft projects there.

It took me a few grocery trips to find a necessary Clementine box. Ours is cardboard. There are no wooden ones to be found. Then, despite the fact that we were at Home Depot three times a day every day last week, they were all out of "normal" paint stirrers.  They were chopping large, industrial ones. I kept holding off, thinking I wanted the shape and size of the smaller ones. Yesterday, between pediatrician and X-rays, I decided to go ahead and get the chopped ones. I  only picked up four. I couldn't bring myself to grab more than that.

I left the paint stirrers at home and headed with Nick to X-ray (he's fine). The kids took over and didn't follow the directions at all. We had blue paint left from the closet project. They even saved a stick for Nick to paint.  Sarah is devastated that this bed is not pink. Other than that, they're rather pleased with themselves. I think Chloe would applaud as well. (All pictures, Mary Beth's phone pix.)

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And Annabelle? She is charmed by her new bed:-) Annabelle was name for this book, by the way.

I'm dashing out the door this morning. Do you have favorite storybooks with craft themes? How about favorite crafts-with-kids books? Please let us know all about it.

For more about our Storybook Year, click here.