Plumfield Moms

Our Librarian Life: July 2024

Welcome to our July 2024 episode of Our Librarian Life where we chat with our dear librarian friends, Kristi Stansfield and Sherry Early, about our reading lives. We are so glad that you are here!
Valerie’s Living Library
Who Should We Then Read Volumes 1&2 by Jan Bloom
1924 Project
Plumfield Library Renewal Template
LibraryThing
TinyCat
Biblioguides 
Semicolon
Book Review Roundup 
Mighty Networks
Shelf Notes
Picture Book Preschool
Find us at The Card Catalog website: https://thecardcataloglibrarians.com/ 

Book Review: A Mathematician's Lament

 “The first thing to understand is that mathematics is an art. The difference between math and the other arts, such as music and painting, is that our culture does not recognize it as such.”
There is an astonishing amount of power and truth packed into this 140-page book. If, like me, you feared and resented math in school because it made you feel stupid, perhaps you will understand why Lockhart’s lament almost had me crying by the end of the second chapter. Crying for “what if?” What if I had had even one math teacher in school who had loved mathematics as an art and taught it as such? What if even one of my teachers had given me time to explore the beauty of patterns and have ideas about them? What if, sometime in my twelve years of school, even one teacher had believed, “Being a mathematician is not so much about being clever . . . it’s about being aesthetically sensitive and having refined and exquisite taste”?   

Reflection: God Can Garden in Wagon Tracks

"Paths, wagon tracks, and roads are fit for their intended uses but are difficult places for vegetation to grow. Reclaiming them for growing things would take back-breaking work. But if God wants hard-packed earth to produce fruit, it will. Just because a place looks like barren desert to me doesn’t mean it would be the least bit difficult for God to grow a garden there if he chose. “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Reflection: In Whom Do You Now Trust?

“For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: ‘Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.'” (Isa. 8:11-13 ESV)

Plumfield in Person: Why Libraries?

"Through a series of extremely fortunate events, over the past nine months or so, I have become acquainted with several women scattered around the country who run private lending libraries. The ones I know are homeschoolers or former homeschoolers who collected good books for their children’s education and edification. At some point each of them began to share books with other families. Along the way they developed their own process. Each has her own method of storing books, cataloging them, shelving them, and lending them.
These women are not trying to duplicate the public library any more than homeschoolers are trying to duplicate public school. There is no formula for the “right way” to open your own lending library. It starts with a desire to fill a need.
We’ve been so immersed in our current system that we believe we’ve always done it this way. Often, the first response is to hasten to a board meeting expecting to effect reform within the system. That could happen. But we also have the option to repossess our freedoms and reinstitute our institutions."  

Book Review: Team Burger Shed by Tavin Dillard

Team Burger Shed by Tavin Dillard made my reserved and faintly aloof husband snort and then laugh out loud. And I wasn’t even reading it to him. In fact, he was sitting on the couch reading his own book while the kids and I were talking about Tavin Dillard’s latest antics in the chapter I had been reading. I reached for my phone and turned on the audiobook to play a section for my boys. Before I knew it, I was laughing at my husband, because he could not resist laughing at Tavin. I don’t know what else to say… this book makes my daughter roll her eyes, me groan, my boys fall over themselves laughing, and even drew my otherwise reticent husband into the fun. I have concluded that this is a quintessential boy-humor book that is fun for the whole family. Even if half of the fun is just laughing at those who think it is hilarious. 
 
https://plumfieldmoms.com/plumfield-moms-book-reviews/team-burger-shed-by-tavin-dillard

Reflection: Dressed for Action

"Peter later elaborates on this. “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13). “Preparing your minds for action” is one way to translate the Greek words that mean, “girding up the loins of your mind.” Picture, then, gathering up extraneous thoughts and fastening them out of the way, preparing your mind for exertion.
The book of 1 Peter is full of instructions for inspecting the readiness of our minds. Be holy as He is holy. Purify your souls by obedience to the truth. Love one another earnestly with pure hearts. Live as people who are free yet as bondservants (doulos) of God."

Reflection: The Holy One of Israel

"Because God is the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator, it stands to reason that his ways and thoughts are higher than ours. But he explicitly tells us who he is if we’re willing to seek and hear."

Our Reading Life: June 2024

Tanya’s References
The Winged Watchman by Hilda Van Stockum 
Plumfield Reads Book Club Packets: The Winged Watchman
Hilda Van Stockum
Patsy and the Pup by Hilda Van Stockum 
Little Old Bear by Hilda Van Stockum
The Mitchells Books by Hilda Van Stockum 
The Cottage at Bantry Bay Series by Hilda Van Stockum 
The Borrowed House by Hilda Van Stockum 
When the Dikes Broke by Alta Halverson Seymour  
Sarah Kim’s References
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott 
The Arthurian Trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliff 
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
Sara Masarik’s References 
Gary D. Schmidt Interview
S. D. Smith, Beloved Author
Jack Zulu and the Girl with Golden Wings (Jack Zulu Series) by S. D. Smith and J. C. Smith
The Found Boys by S. D. Smith
Mooses with Bazookas and Other Stories Children Should Never Read by S. D. Smith
Diane’s References
The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells by Rebecca Rego Barry
The Wordhord by Hana Videen 
The Deorhord by Hana Videen
General References
Biblioguides 
Semicolon
Book Review Roundup 
Mighty Networks
Shelf Notes  
 

Reflection: Are You Persuaded?

"Like most of us, I haven’t physically committed the big, obvious sins like murder and adultery. I can honestly say I don’t outright lie or steal. But am I persuaded of what Jesus says about the sins of the heart?"