I suspect my boys will manage to find Portnoy's Complaint on their own. Maybe I'll unschool Philip Roth when they're older....strew the books around the living room and see what happens. ;) I've heard of him but don't recall having read anything by him....I'll check him out!

I read it in grad school; I don't think I'd even heard of it before that. Mostly I just remember finding it terribly unpleasant. That and the big tooth :D

If we're talking just novels, my list might look something like this: *an Edith Wharton (maybe House of Mirth or Ethan Frome...I've actually only read HOM and Summer, but Summer isn't one of her better known works and, IMO, it's kind of creepy) *a Faulkner (for HS probably The Sound and the Fury, possibly Light in August--I'd need to re-read it) *Willa Cather (this is where most people seem to recommend Death Comes for the Archbishop; I haven't read it; I've read My Antonia and The Professor's House, and I think either of those would be good) *The Great Gatsby *A Farewell to Arms or The Sun Also Rises *Welty's Delta Wedding *Invisible Man *Their Eyes Were Watching God *All the King's Men *Song of Solomon or Beloved ...I thought I had more room...I'm pretty pre-1960 loaded. Maybe a Vonnegut? One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Philip Roth (uhh, perhaps not for high school. Not Portnoy's Complaint, anyway, not if I have to discuss it with my own kid). Jean Toomer's Cane almost made the list, too, though it's not exactly a novel--it just screams Modernism so loudly. If it's everything, I'd put in a few Welty short stories. Also stories by Katherine Anne Porter, Peter Taylor, and Flannery O' Connor. Maybe A Raisin in the Sun, a Tennesee Williams, and Death of a Salesman. Poems by T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Robert Penn Warren, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Gertrude Stein, (can I sneak Auden in here?), Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, ...really I'd probably stick all the Agrarians in there, because I like them. Yeah, I love making lists.

We got in the habit of less frequent baths back when we had a bad drought here. We did once a week for the kids with spot cleaning in between then. I noticed that that really worked just fine, so we never got back to pre-drought levels. They usually get 2 baths a week now.

I read Mockingbird in middle school, and I tend to still look at it as a middle school book--sort of a gentle introduction to symbolism. Reading back through your post about choosing what to read....oh dear, I'm going to have so much trouble narrowing down American lit! Fortunately, I'm not nearly so attached to any other country's lit, so I can make nice, reasonable, unbiased lists for everything else :D

I'm not really sure. Nine is kind of an odd number, isn't it. The more I read through the notes, the more I'm inclined to think the book was intended as a college text (it doesn't seem to specify one way or the other). They do say you wouldn't necessarily teach all the books in a single course. My guess is these were just the books they could agree on for inclusion on the list and it happened to be nine...but really I don't know.

It seems like As I Lay Dying is the Faulkner most taught in high school, probably as much because it's short as because it's accessible. I think most high schoolers could handle (and probably enjoy) The Sound and the Fury. I'd only do Absalom, Absalom! with a particularly advanced and literarily (I made that word up) inclined high schooler...or maybe just because I can't stand the thought of my kids ending up never reading it at all ;)

My first thought is...it it really a standard thing that no one will groom a cat if she's not up to date on shots? My vet doesn't even recommend most shots for indoor cats (I took mine in a few weeks ago, and the only thing she suggested was a rabies shot "for legal reasons") What about a groomer not affiliated with a vet? I know that may not solve the whole problem--if you're worried about ongoing grooming costs or other expenses for the cat, but if it's just the need to get shots that you're worried about, I would think there must be ways around that. On the other hand, she is getting older and will likely have more medical expenses in the near future, so now might be the time to think about re-homing her, given that you have the opportunity, if you think that's going to be a hardship. It's so tough, though, I know. If she were with her aunt, at least you'd be able to visit her regularly. :grouphug:

Dunno. I guess they were just looking for a cut-off date and WWII was as good a choice as any...this is close to 40 years ago, so anything post WWII would still have been relatively recent--I would guess they wanted to choose books old enough to have already passed a sort of longevity test.

We find that free dining usually makes up for the price difference between staying on and off property at Disney (or even actually makes it cheaper). We get two connecting rooms at Pop. I share your frustration with not being able to search for suites on the big travel sites, though--I haven't figured out a way either!

I agree! But it was post WWII so it didn't meet the criteria they set for the list. There are a number of his poems in the anthology.

Just a thought...one thing to keep in mind about a lot of published delayed vac schedules is that they're designed to get kids "caught up" by school age so that there aren't any hassles with enrolling kids in school. A parent who's planning on sending a kid to school might want a schedule that pushes things as late as possible, spreads them out, and cuts back on required doses while still meeting all school requirements. My concerns as a homeschool parent are somewhat different.

It hit me last night as I was falling asleep (I almost had to get up and come downstairs to post :lol:) that Invisible Man is post WWII as well, so that may be why it doesn't make the list (Native Son is on the secondary list; I tend to associate the two because I read them in the same class in college, and I'm always surprised when people pick Native Son over Invisible Man for lists like this). Now that I've had a break from italicizing, I'll go ahead and put their secondary list, too. I don't think that it, overall, holds up as well as the first list--which is kind of what I said in the other thread--that I think there's a fairly stable "first tier" of American lit, but that the second tier is more subject to cultural trends. these are, according to the editors, "other novels with which, for a variety of reasons, we think the student should have more than a passing acquaintance." There are a couple on there I've never even heard of. And still no Edith Wharton or Willa Cather (or Eudora Welty, but, much as I love Delta Wedding, she can be covered pretty well with short stories).

Grapes of Wrath is on their secondary list. So which of those books would you drop in favor of Grapes of Wrath? Lori--there's tons and tons of poetry and short stories in the book...this was their list of novels that should be covered but that they didn't have room to include. Which makes me wonder how much they think it IS possible/advisable to cover in a year-long course....if they have 1800 pages of poetry and short stories PLUS nine novels!

For my youngest, we alternated hib and polio with dtap (started at 4 months, I think) until he'd had all of those (maybe around 18 months or 2)? I think that's all he's had so far (he's 4 now). Or maybe he's had one measles shot? I'm hoping to get the MMR split up for him, but our ped only has it in sporadically...so I can't remember if she had it available and he had a measles when he was 3 or 4 or not. If she doesn't have the separate shots when he does his 5 year, I'll probably go ahead and get the regular MMR. He'll get varicella at some point by the time he's 9 or 10 if he doesn't get it naturally, and then we'll do hepB around puberty.

I know reading lists are a pretty popular topic around these parts, but since I love reading lists and can talk about them forever...I thought I'd start this thread with a slight twist for those who share my reading list mania. I was looking through my bookshelves the other day and came across a giant anthology/textbook of American literature that I picked up somewhere or other years ago. It's called American Literature: The Makers and the Making. I've held on to it for many years and through several long-distance moves because two of its editors are Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren (the other is R.W.B. Lewis), and I tend to trust their opinions on literature more than those of the average textbook editor. I'm not sure if it's intended as a high school or college text. The book is nearly 2000 pages of short stories, poems, essays, and occasional excerpts from novels...but it was a list of recommended novels in the introduction that caught my eye when I was looking through it the other day. Then they give a list of other novels that they also consider important, but not quite important enough to make the list, which I'm not going to type out. I thought the list was interesting particularly in light of the thread on canon formation the other day. This is a list from 1973. How does it compare to similar lists today? How did it compare to similar lists of its day? The first thing that strikes me is that all the books are by white men. Overall, I like it, though honestly it wouldn't have occurred to me to put Henry James or Crane or Dreiser in my top 9, but I don't know if that's because they've fallen somewhat out of favor in academia as a whole or just because they happened not to play a huge role in my own education (although I did read The American in grad school and, I'm pretty sure, at least parts of Sister Carrie in high school, so it may be that they did play a role yet completely failed to make an impression on me). If I were making my own list (and I guess I will be in a few years), I might leave most of this intact, but sub in Invisible Man, something by Edith Wharton, and then maybe Their Eyes Were Watching God or Delta Wedding. If we expanded it to after WWII I might add in RPW's own All the King's Men and maybe something by Toni Morrison. But mostly I'm glad I still have awhile to think about it :) And you?

Because you trust that you have a completely reliable narrator? ;) But, yeah, I know what you're saying. I also didn't remember the part about different religions; it's been a few years since I've read it.

I think that's a cynical reading of it, though. I mean, it was the way I read it at first, too, but then I started to think maybe I was being too cynical, because I tend to be. Cynical. I don't think there's anything in the text that necessitates that reading; I think having a narrator who doesn't know the truth is such a deliberate choice...it's not that the stories people believe aren't true, it's that we can't ever know for sure whether they are or not.

In the book's world, there is no way of knowing what the real story is. The narrator doesn't know either, right? I think it's meditation on the nature of truth and belief...going back to the "this book will make you believe in God" thing. Is it that we'll believe in God/the tiger because we WANT to--because the alternative is too grim to bear? Or is it that we DO believe in God/the tiger, even though it seems impossible, because the simplest explanation isn't always the right one? There's no figuring out the "real ending" because the narrator doesn't have access to the real ending--we can't go back and look for clues, because there's no narrative voice that knows what's true. Just like with life/God/faith/belief--you're not going to get a definitive answer from the author, so how to do you decide what your truth is?

Okay, see? I'm not "that person" who turns threads into debates. Bill is! Also, he just called my kids dirty :lol:

When you really need to be suspicious if if they claim the chickens are free range AND have a vegetarian diet. You can do one or the other, but not both!

Chickens will eat anything that doesn't eat them first :lol:

Smilies are always very helpful in conveying tone, so I got it :D:D:D:D

okay. Then I posted the stats about Finland to explain why I chose not to. But the OP specifically said she wasn't looking for reasons WHY people made their decisions, which is why I didn't post mine in my first post. Just feeling a bit persecuted for being singled out, as I don't think I've ever in my life been accused of being the person who turns a thread into a debate. But, again, I do apologize for my role in prolonging the debate; I should have started a new thread if I felt so compelled. OP--incidentally, in your first post you said that you didn't have your sons circumcised and in your last one you said that you did. Just a head's up that you have a typo in one place or the other.

I didn't "turn it into a debate." My first response in this thread was merely an answer to the question. Both of my other posts have been specifically responding to another poster who did not just answer the question, but suggested that people who did not circumcise their children were failing to take into account anecdotes about boys who needed circumcisions later in life and then posted again making the same point. I apologize if my comments were off-topic, but I'm not the one who started the tangent.