Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Tonight I read Kathi Appelt’s Down Cut Shin Creek: The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky to my 11-year-old, and it was rather nice to have a read-aloud that the two of us could manage in one night. (By the way, it appears to be co-authored by one Jeanne Canella Schmitzer.) It was briefly fascinating, with a solid collection of period photographs, and the topic is one that deserves to be more widely known. I did think its organization was a little iffy–the “typical day” narrative, while a definite asset to the book, blended imperfectly with the fully nonfiction portion–but at under 60 pages, it’s accessible nonfiction for later elementary school, and that matters. Let me know what you and your kiddos think!