Are we talking about the Lang Fary books here? (The Red Fairy Book, The Olive Fairy Book, etc.) I don't mind at all Middle Girl reading them - they seem quite age-appropriate to me.

My apologies.

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I would far rather get the comments questioning our educational choices (even the just plain rude ones: most recently, "Is today a school holiday?" "No, we homeschool." "Well I won't say what I think about that.") than the unsolicited litany of Reasons I Could Never Homeschool. That's just awkward.

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Highlight of this Sunday - our parish bulletin line break fail: "If you are seriously ill, the Church wants to celebrate with you the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick."

I agree, though I'd note that these aren't even censorship in the sense people usually mean - they're first-amendment-protected speech, even if we disagree with the speakers. (And if the book is "Assembling Your Kitchen Meth Lab: Middle School Edition," I might not disagree, but that's another thread). I worry more about the old-fashioned kind, where the state expresses an interest in what you're ordering from Amazon. We do plenty of private home censoring, but in the sense that we have thousands of books that are worth reading, which we acquired instead of offensive twaddle. And we put the Genet and Bataille on the higher shelves. I don't think of it as negative censorship - preventing a child from reading a certain book - but as positive censorship - providing an abundance of interesting, worthy reading.

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EDITED: Because MCT grammar is no more reflective of the last hundred years of linguistic understanding than that of other, cheaper, programs.

Finished 2. Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, vol. 2 An excerpt from the girlfight between Bradamante and Marfisa: 'Though courteous with others I may be, I will not show such courtesy to you, Who are endowed with every villainy, And insolent and overweening too.' As in a rocky cavern by the sea A piercing wind is heard to shriek, just so Marfisa's rage is uttered not in speech (She cannot find the words) but in a screech. She wields her weapon, aiming it as much At her opponent's steed in paunch and breast As at the rider. At a skilful touch Upon the rein, it rises to the test And leaps aside; at the same moment, such Is Bradamante's rage, that, lance in rest, She strikes her adversary down again, Sending her sprawling backwards on the plain. ------------------------------- Tom Jones is underway. I finally decided what challenges I wanted to do: Chunksters, Catholic, and my own private half-fiction challenge: no more than 50% of my reading to be English-language novels/short stories. Otherwise Balzac and James may consume all.

I would like to hear more anecdotes from the emergency workers here. So I can feel better about my own house.

If you are already in the habit of frequent, prayerful spiritual communion, don't change it. IMHO.

It will be a re-read for me, and one of my favorites. I don't really start despising the denizens of great literature for another century. Right now the only thing keeping me going through my forced read-aloud of Tale of Two Cities (which Middle Girl loves) is the unrealistic hope that, before the end of the book, Lucie Manette will go to the guillotine.

Hmm. I made it through 2 1/2 of the books, then halfway through To Let, I realized that I found most of the characters, especially those who were supposed to be the most sympathetic, to be insufferable. Undoubtedly further evidence of my literary misanthropy.