Finished:   Lonely Planet’s “The Cities Book”, AKA “The Seven and a Half Pound Book that is also a Weapon”.   Our plan was to tackle two cities a night and we did!  We ended up taking 200 trips around our globe and it was sort of exhilarating to find every single location.

A few final observations:

• really old cities:  
  • Lisbon – since 1,000 BC
  • both Mecca and Jerusalem – since 2,000 BC 
  • Nicosia – since 2,500 BC
  • Dubai – since 3,000 BC
  • Amman – since 3,500 BC 
  • Shanghai – since 3,900 BC

• altitude sickness possibility:  Lhasa/Tibet, Santa Fe/New Mexico, Cuzco/Peru
• city built upon coral:  Male, Maldives
• cities really close to active volcanoes:  Kagoshima/Japan and Arequipa/Peru
• world’s steepest residential street:  Baldwin Street (with a 35% grade), Dunedin, New Zealand.  (yes, we compared it to San Francisco’s Lombard Street; sorry, only a 27% grade)
• cities my son and I would like to visit based solely upon the two page spread in the book:
  • Ljubljana, Slovenia (fairy tale charm with early morning fog making the “weakness” list)
  • Muscat, Oman (pristine beauty)

Finished:   Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s simply excellent book, “The War that Saved My Life”.  I wanted my son to spend a little time reflecting upon how well conceived and well written this book was, so I had him fill out a report card.  I talked about each category before he decided upon a grade.  This book is so deserving of its 2016 Newbery Honor Book award.

Of course, a story problem:  A Vegetable Tasting at Farmer Brown’s:

Farmer Brown has put out trays of cauliflower, sugar snap peas, and turnips because he is hosting a vegetable tasting for local school children (specifically, Ms. Becque’s and Ms. Lesh’s picky first graders).  (There are 18 students in each class.)
Results:

Ms. Becque’s class	vegetables	Ms. Lesh’s class
6 tastes	cauliflower chunks	12 tastes
12 tastes	sugar snap peas	18 tastes
9 tastes	turnip slices with dip	3 tastes

1)  which class had the pickiest eaters?
2)  what percentage of Ms. Becque’s class tried turnips?
3)  what percentage of Ms. Lesh’s class tried cauliflower?
4)  the school district will will have the greatest chance of getting kids to eat vegetables if they purchase which vegetable from Farmer Brown? (answers at bottom of post)

Finishing up the day – we always end each STORIES AND STUDIES session with 3 pieces of classical music.  Unless I have a very specific theme for the evening (like “The Anvil as Musical Instrument” or “Circus Music Classics” – see “Our Music Themes” in title block), I try to promote drowsiness by selecting something soothing for the final selection.  Something like these:

• Song to the Moon, from the opera “Rusalka” (1901), Antonin Dvorak
• The Flower Duet, from the opera “Lakmé” (1883), Leo Delibes
• The Little Train of the Caipira (1930), Heitor Villa-Lobos
• Scottish Fantasy, movement 1 (1880), Max Bruch
• Guitar Quintet No. 4 in D major, movement 3, (1798), Luigi Boccherini
• Sailing By, (1963), Ronald Binge

or these:

• The Dove, from “The Birds” (1928), Ottorino Respighi.  This is the very recording we’ve been listening to for years on our iPod. The best parts:  the cooing of the dove throughout the piece, and the ending (just splendid):

• Theme from “Out of Africa” (1986), John Barry.  We listen specifically for distant rolling thunder brought to us by the timpani:

• Nimrod, from “The Enigma Variations” (1899), Sir Edward Elgar.  Dignified and sobering.  An adaptation of Nimrod was used in the score for the 2017 movie, “Dunkirk”.  No better choice:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answers:  1)  Ms. Becque’s class,  2)  50%,  3)  66%,  4)  sugar snap peas)