Dewey's Treehouse: More than just a graduation story

This is a whole family's story.

Congratulations to the Head Girl--and all of you.

Mama Squirrel's Reading List for 2012 (R means reread, § means finished)

J.B., by Archibald MacLeish §
Our Man in Havana, by Graham Greene §
The Big What Now Book of Learning Styles, by Carol Barnier (Recommended!) §
For the Family's Sake, by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay (R)
The Myth of Ability: Nurturing Mathematical Talent in Every Child, by John Mighton (R) §
The Idea of a University, by John Henry Newman
Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life, by Leonard Mlodinow
Rumpole and the Age of Miracles, by John Mortimer §
Rumpole and the Golden Thread, by John Mortimer §
Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders, by John Mortimer §
Remembered Death, by Agatha Christie §
An Expert in Murder, by Nicola Upson (not recommended) §
The House of Silk, by Anthony Horowitz (Sherlock Holmes, but not for weak stomachs) §
The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy L. Sayers §
Strong Poison, by Dorothy L. Sayers §
Busman's Honeymoon, by Dorothy L. Sayers (R) §
The Complete Stories, by Dorothy L. Sayers §
On the Beach, by Nevil Shute (R) §
Lorna Doone (abridged), by R.D. Blackmore §
The Mind of the Maker, by Dorothy L. Sayers
Dante, The Divine Comedy, III: Paradise, translated by Dorothy L. Sayers and Barbara Reynolds
Sesame and Lilies, by John Ruskin (R)
Fermat's Last Theorem, by Amir D. Aczel
Leisure: The Basis of Culture, by Josef Pieper
Exuberance: The Passion for Life, by Kay Redfield Jamison
On the Art of Reading, by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
On the Art of Writing, by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch §
Parts of Pilgrim's Progress (RRR)
84, Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff (R) §
Q's Legacy, by Helene Hanff §
Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery §
Emily of New Moon (R) §
The Ringmaster's Daughter, by Jostein Gaarder § (strong adult content) §
Crimson Mountain, by Grace Livingston Hill §
Where Two Ways Met, by Grace Livingston Hill §
In the Company of Others, by Jan Karon §
The Pond, by Robert Murphy §
Bookless in Baghdad, by Shashi Tharoor §
Goodbye to All That, by Robert Graves
Things as They Are, by Paul Horgan (adult content) §
Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer's Vocation, by William Stafford §
Your God is Too Small, by J.B. Phillips §
Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin §
It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, by Peter Walsh §
The Tightwad Gazette Volume 3 (R) §
I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What it Was, by Barbara Sher §
QuickBooks 2011 for Dummies §

On the Treehouse fridge

"To try to teach literature by starting with the applied use of words, or 'effective communication', as it's often called, then gradually work into literature through the more documentary forms of prose fiction and finally into poetry, seems to me a futile procedure. If literature is to be properly taught, we have to start at its centre, which is poetry, then work outwards to literary prose, then outwards from there to the applied languages of business and professions and ordinary life."--Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination