Wondrous Words: Words I Didn't Expect to Find in a Poem, Or, You Can Put Anything, Literally Anything, Into Verse

In honor of National Poetry Month

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered, or spotlight words you love.  Feel free to get creative! It was first created by Kathy over at Bermuda Onion and is now hosted at Elza Reads.

 

The Best Animal Stories

Why are there so many great animal stories? Stories about dogs. Stories about horses. Stories about cats. Stories about rabbits. Even stories about wolves or bulls or otters. I love them all.

Here are some of my favorites.

Good Dog, Carl.        The Story of Ferdinand.        Black Beauty.         The Red Pony.

Because of Winn-Dixie.         White Fang.          The Yearling.         The Incredible Journey. 

Where the Red Fern Grows.         Gentle Ben.         Old Yeller.         Misty of Chincoteague.

The Black Stallion.          Seabiscuit.          Lassie-Come-Home.         Watership Down.

Sounder.         Tarka the Otter.          Marley and Me.         All Creatures Great and Small.

Do you love animal stories like I do? 

Have you read any of these? 

Do you have favorites I've forgotten?

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.

A Week In Which a Painted Bunting, a Blue Grosbeak, a Summer Tanager, and a Scarlet Tanager Stop By My House

 

Beautiful weather this week, and we spent lots of days outside, looking at water birds at Quintana Beach County Park, looking for pollinators for the Pollinator Project, looking for butterflies for Texas Butterfly Monitoring. My husband and I (truth alert: mostly my husband) spent one day putting together a cabinet to store the books I have collected for my Little Free Library. And I read and enjoyed five good books this week including Woman in White (thank you to all who recommended it), Wonderworks, and Dictionary for a Better World.

Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature (Nonfiction Challenge)

Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry (National Poetry Month)

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (Classics Club)

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron (Book Club)

Dictionary for a Better World: Poems, Quotes and Anecdotes from A to Z (Picture Book)

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman (Nonfiction Challenge)

Yes, and...Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr (Daily Meditation Reading)

Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion (Naturalist Book Club)

Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life With Words by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge (National Poetry Month) 

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Chapter-a-Day Read)

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain (Classics Club)

100 Poems to Break Your Heart (National Poetry Month)

 

This week has been the Los Angeles Festival of Books, the Texas Library Association Conference, and Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon. Whew! That's a lot of bookish events in one week. 

Good Thing #1

We picnicked at Quintana Beach County Park with our friends.

Even masked, even socially distant, it was wonderful to see them.

Good Thing #2

Migratory birds are stopping by my house! 

I was beyond excited.

L to r: Painted bunting; Scarlet tanager; Blue grosbeak.

Good Thing #3

We watched News of the World this week.

I've heard several negative reviews, but we liked it.

 

I'm happy you found your way to the Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is a place for us to link up and to share what we have been doing during the week. It's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

Some of the things we often talk about at the Sunday Salon:

• What was your week like?
• Read any good books? Tell us about them.
• What other bookish things did you do? 
• What else is going on in your life?

Other places where you may like to link up over the weekend are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below. 

Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon: Blogging. Birds. Books.

 

HOUR 24

Closing Survey

1. How would you assess your reading overall? I had a delightful time.
2. Did you have a stategy, and if so, did you stick to it? I focused on reading and watching birds.
3. What was your favorite snack? It was the first time I had chocolate in a year. What a treat.
4. Wanna volunteer for our next event? Stay tuned for the recap post!

5 books and 12 birds

I almost filled in my BINGO card!

HOUR 16-23

------------snooze----------

HOUR 9-15

Mid-Event Survey: 
1. What are you reading right now?  Lost Among the Birds
2. How many books have you read so far? 4
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? I hope to finish the one I'm reading.
4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? It's been a bit tricky trying to read and keep up with birds.
5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? There is such a thing as eating too much chocolate.

HOUR 5-8 

HOUR 1-4

Opening Survey!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? I'm here, looking out at my bird feeders, in Alvin, Texas. 
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? Bird books.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? Ice cream! It's been over a year.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! Retired librarian. Recently acquired fascination for birds. 
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do differently today? Blogging. Books. Birds.

PRE-READATHON

I've completely lost count of how many times I've done Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon, but it might be as many as twenty-five times. 

I know how to prepare.

I've got a nice stack of books, plus an audiobook, plus some ebooks. Lots to choose from, heavily leaning toward poetry books and bird books. 

Nothing but healthy snacks this time. Hey, life is short.

I set my goal to read for at least ten hours, visit others' blogs, and play some bookish games, including Bingo.

I'm all set.

Are you joining in? It's not too late to sign up.

Spring Fling at Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary: We're Here for the Birds

It's a beautiful place. Lots of places to walk. Or climb up high. And it's walking distance from the Gulf of Mexico.

And that's why it's here. Thousands of neotropical birds make a pit stop here after flying for hours nonstop across the Gulf. 

We are here for the birds.

Some of them are elusive.

Lesser nighthawk

Northern parula

Others seem to enjoy being the center of attention.

Hooded warbler

Lincoln's sparrow

Step carefully. It's a sanctuary for more than just birds.

Western diamond-back rattlesnake

Colorful Book Covers

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm; Hemingway; and I Start a New Library Project

 

Four children's picture books plus a children's classic along with one light romance and The Divine Comedy. 

I had somehow expected an insipid and overly-optimistic main character, but I loved Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, as a character and as a book. I trudged through The Divine Comedy and finally got to the end; I'm glad I read it, but I'll never read it again. I loved People We Meet on Vacation...until I didn't. 

The links take you to the complete reviews.

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (Chapter-a-Day Read-Along)

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin (1001 Children's Books)

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry (Romance)

Delicious! Poems Celebrating Street Food Around the World (National Poetry Month)

Eve's Ducklings by Maria Monte (Picture Book)

Our World Out of Balance: Understanding Climate Change and What We Can Do (Picture Book)

Welcome Home, Whales by Christina Booth (Picture Book)

Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature (Nonfiction Challenge)

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman (Nonfiction Challenge)

100 Poems to Break Your Heart (National Poetry Month)

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Chapter-a-Day Read)

The Art of Taking It Easy (Happiness Project)

Yes, and...Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr (Daily Meditation Reading)

Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion (Naturalist Book Club)

Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life With Words by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge (National Poetry Month) 

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (Classics Club)

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is virtual this year.  It runs from April 17 through April 23. Most of it is free. Register for it here.

Viet Thanh Nguyen, the author of The Sympathizer, has a new book out, The Committed, and he spoke via Inprint Houston last week. He was hilarious, but somehow I cannot imagine that either of his books are funny. Maybe I'm wrong.

Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon will be held Saturday, April 24 from 7 am CDT to Sunday, April 25 at 7 am CDT. Sign up for the readathon here.

We watched all three episodes of Ken Burns' new series, Hemingway, last week. He seems to be a person who experienced both great joys and great sorrows, sometimes both at the same time.

Any recommendations for what to watch next? 

Cape May warbler at Quintana in 2019

Good Thing #1: Spring Fling at Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary. This was such a Wonderful Good Thing that I had to write an entire post about it, appearing Wednesday on my blog.

Good Thing #2: I went to the Native Plant Nursery at the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory near me, and I came home with fourteen plants for my yard. I'm not completely sure what I actually brought home, and I can't wait to see what happens after I put them in the ground.

Good Thing #3: I've brought home our Texas Master Naturalist chapter library, and I will start soon to catalog them and organize them and label them. I'm delighted to begin this project.

I'm happy you found your way to the Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is a place for us to link up and to share what we have been doing during the week. It's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

Some of the things we often talk about at the Sunday Salon:

• What was your week like?
• Read any good books? Tell us about them.
• What other bookish things did you do? 
• What else is going on in your life?

Other places where you may like to link up over the weekend are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below.