Year 3 - Day 185 - July 3

We were supposed to go to PA to watch fireworks and see friends tonight but sadly that didn't happen. I'm bummed because they have the best view of fireworks from their driveway. The town sets them off down the street and you can go outside JUST before they start, watch them sitting on pavement (which cuts down on bugs) and then go back inside as soon as they're over and resume enjoying the AC. That's much better than the firework viewing of my childhood, which involved hours of being outside to stake out a good place, trying not to get eaten alive by mosquitoes and green head flies, and then dealing with the traffic and horn honking after the show was over!

This is another BES book. It took me more time than several of the others combined. I'm excited to have a book to give to my high readers, but I'm thinking this particular title would have fit better in the middle school group of titles. Maybe not though, because there's nothing completely inappropriate and I do always bemoan the fact that as soon as books get harder to read, they get inappropriate. This story jumps back and forth in time and has a couple different narrators which I'm excited to introduce to kids that don't often see that in literature. It's set during the civil war and while the main characters are a little younger than I believe is completely realistic, it's interesting to see them grow from their horrible experiences on the battlefield.