The Hundred Dresses

Everyone should read The Hundred Dresses because it teaches you not to tease people.
It's about a girl who is very poor and she says she has a hundred dresses all lined up in her closet, even though she only wears the same one every day to school.
Note from Mom:
The Hundred Dresses was very moving, and a great way to teach children about racism and prejudice as well as bullying. I love a story that can subtly teach a lesson instead of sounding preachy and trite.

There is even a guide to teaching the lessons from The Hundred Dresses in the classroom:

Black Beauty

Black Beauty was a very famous story. I enjoyed it. I even read more chapters than my Mom! And now I'm going to do harder books. The author wrote Black Beauty because she wanted to teach that animals have feelings too.

Note from Mom:
Caleb has taken a break from schoolwork for the last few days and has gotten a tremendous amount of reading accomplished. He's read several chapter books this week. I had never read Black Beauty either and especially enjoyed reading part of this book aloud. I never realized Black Beauty was narrated from the perspective of the horse.

Swiss Family Robinson

Two days ago I read Swiss Family Robinson. And it was interesting, very interesting. I liked the part when they reached the island. And before that, they lived in Europe. There was an ostrich and they ate one and captured one. And they gathered antelope to eat in cold weather.

They saw a 14 foot long boa constrictor! And they had 2 dogs. Their names were Turk and Flora.

Note from Mom:
Caleb devoured Swiss Family Robinson in a couple of hours. I had never read it so I enjoyed reading a couple of chapters with him. The book is quite similar to the movie but the boys were a tad more enthusiastic with the guns than I would've liked! They were always shooting the animals. But it was a great adventure story.

Spiderwick Chronicles

This is Mom speaking ;)

Caleb hasn't been interested in blogging much this week, probably because he's read The Spiderwick Chronicles 3 times since he got it 3 days ago.
I take that as a sign of his approval of it!

I liked it too... I read it aloud to the kids the day we got it. It's a good "What to read after Lemony Snicket" type of book.

I will ask him to come back and give his official review tomorrow.