I had an hour or so when I snuck outside to the hammock for some alone time while the kids played computers this evening. This happened to be just enough time to read the rather quick read that is Wilde Deception by Ruth Rowland. This is the second book in the Cosset Cove Cozy Mystery Series and was a free find on Amazon. I have not read the first in the series but I really did not find that it hurt my enjoyment of this short story any to have missed it. 

I found a few grammar/spelling/word issues… the most jarring for me was the word draw instead of drawer which made me re-read the sentence. One discrpency that had me running to my google was when the author described the main character Charlotte Wilde (reporter and owner of the local small time newspaper, who was once a reporter in the big city) and her friends Clara and Abigail (aunts to…) and Amy to a New England Pot Roast. This is fine and dandy until she described the CHICKEN as being very tender… as far as I can tell anytime someone is talking about a pot roast it is BEEF. Not a major complaint but it did bother me enough to leave off reading the story long enough to see if I was right or wrong on my assumption before diving back in. 

Wilde Deception does not have a big romantic theme to it, there are potential love interests as far as I can tell and the characters tease Charlotte about it a bit, but it is not necessary to the mystery. I did find I did not have (even in retrospect) enough information as I read along to solve this mystery. This is not a hindrance to me as I rarely try to figure out the who done it in advance, but for some could be a problem.

The other main character is a rather large Maine Coon cat called Barney who had a role in this story and apparently a rather major role in the previous tale. 

The story is light and fast paced but enjoyable. I enjoyed this quick glimpse into the life of Charlotte Wilde. It was entertaining and humorous as well as still being a traditional cozy murder mystery. So if you have a nice block of time some sunny afternoon do give this a try. And if you read the first book – Wilde Murder do give me your opinion! Sad but true my current book budget is a big old ZERO so for now I will enjoy my freebies and continue my list of to purchase! 

April 18-19

Sometime tv lines up perfectly with schooling. Today we lucked out and the Wiki episode of Electric Company (the new version) dealt with tempo which we discussed in regards to music with Mr. Popper’s Penguins chapter 13. We had two pieces of music to listen to… The Merry Widow Waltz you can listen to HERE and Schubert’s Military March.

There was also the concept of training animals. After we discussed how each boy would train his special unusual pet from chapter 2, we also watched a short piece on how people in another country train their animals to do something special. We chose the cormorants in China who are trained to fish. Though the word SLAVE comes up in the video… the kids seemed to miss that one!

The secondary penguin book of the day was Life Cycle of a Penguin by Lisa Trumbauer. We used another print out and Gavin illustrated the portion that will show on the lapbook when folded up with a life cycle representation.

Life cycle of a penguin

This week we also made our own newspaper article. The kids told me their story, we worked on a title and “photographs” and put it all together to go in our lapbook.

Our article

Oh and shoveling, but that was MY job, well Baba’s, then mine and then Ken’s… so much snow.

Shoveling

Thursday is the new cousins with Nana and Baba day and this time they took the twins with them. So the littles and I took the opportunity to get in the workbook zone and bust out some pages.

Workbooks

We broke for snack before supper and had pre popped popcorn and cartoons.

Snacks

While it snowed and snowed and snowed.

SNOW in April??

Friday was a snow day for many areas around us due to a massive dump of snow and the plows not keeping up. So we went bare minimum with our spelling, nature journals and regular journals (the twins had to journal their evening with their cousins and Nana and Baba) and then it was a mix of gaming and outside fun. The snow was PERFECT for creating.

Table and chairs

Miss Trinity coloured us a special penguin… an adorable penguin. AND made a beautiful bracelet. Craft bucket win!

Bracelet

Penguin

Sometimes we just need a lazy day… thanks to the Novaks for suggesting the snow day!

Fun in the snow