Enjoyable and Inspiring Books

I have mentioned before how much we love reading books aloud together. Every day after lunch (unless our schedule is really messed up) the kids and I sit down on the couch and enjoy 1/2 hour to an hour of me (almost always anyway) reading aloud to them. We read some from the Bible, some history and some geography and we read something fun. That something fun is often educational too but it is a story.

 One of our top favorites of the year has been a book I just happened to pick up at our library. It is: The Family Nobody Wanted by (the mother) Helen Doss. This book had us laughing so hard together! It is a true story about a family but the things they did weren't always normal or usual and the way Helen tells about it is truly hilarious much of the time. The just of the story is that Mr and Mrs Doss were unable to have kids but they wanted some (especially Helen). They decided to look into adopting but because of their low income it was hard for them to get them though they were able to adopt one. They wanted more and found out that children of other races especially mixed races were hard for orphanages to place in the 1940s. Anyway over the course of less than 10 years they ended up adopting 12 children. I highly recommend this book and am hoping to buy it for our shelves soon!

  A book that we just finished is called We blazed the Trail by Dorthy Dowling Prichard. It is a quite short story of a trip that Dorothy took with her family when she was a child from MN to Yellowstone National Park in a car before there were hardly any roads. That is interesting but what is really inspiring in this book is the section that tells about her father Micheal Dowling. When he was a boy (14 years old and an orphan) he got stuck out in a snowstorm in MN and end up freezing his legs and hands. They had to cut off both lower legs, one arm and all the fingers from the other hand. He never let that stop him however. He learned how to use what he had. He decided he didn't want to take the welfare that the county offered him he just asked if they could send him to one year of college and then he would take care of himself after that and he did! He ran and owned businesses, became mayor, got married and had a family, Was very influential in getting roads across our country and was quite involved in politics including getting elected as a state representative. It is a very inspiring story! Here is more about this interesting man. And here is a video that was made of him.

We also just finished Founding Fathers, Uncommon Heroes by Steven W. Allen. I had read it to myself earlier and really enjoyed it and we had fun reading it together. It was one of those books that stretched the kids minds and vocabulary which is good!

We just started reading The All-of-a-kind family together. This is a favorite series of mine and Mara's and the others decided it seems pretty fun as well.

I do love books! Do you have any favorite read alouds? I would love to hear of them!