Monday, June 01, 2009

Reading... DailyLit and Obama: The Historic Journey

I got in on another MotherTalk blog tour, this time for Obama: The Historic Journey. This is a young reader's edition and I'd hoped to get my 9 year old to take a look at it but it's been kind of crazy busy with the end of school so I'm hoping to stick it in his pile of library books or look at it with him in the next couple weeks.

I did get a chance to read this book and I really liked it. The book has lots of great photos and tells clearly and concisely about President Obama's life growing up, people that influenced his life, and the campaign story ending with his inauguration. There's also an interesting section that talks about the New York Times' preparation for the newspaper the day after the election.

I really liked the recap of election night, and the inauguration photos. The inauguration photos show those amazing crowds; I've never seen anything like that before and it's cool how the photos in the book capture the enormity of the audience that day. And election night... well, that was the last night we slept over at the hospital with our baby girl before she came home after being born prematurely. I remember watching the election coverage on TV and being so amazed that it was over so quickly. I remember being impressed with McCain's concession speech and thinking that's how he ought to have run his campaign. I remember parts of Obama's speech and all the teary, excited people shown on TV. All this in between and amongst taking care of our tiny, under 5 pound, sweet baby girl who was almost ready to come home.

Anyway, to sum it up, this book is a great young reader biography of President Obama and it's also a keepsake of the historic campaign and election. Check it out!

In further reading news, I found out about DailyLit a few weeks ago and just finished reading my first book through their site. They have a whole bunch of old books that you can read for free, or you can pay to read some newer selections if you're interested. All you do is sign up and they send you installments of your book(s) every day until you're done. I started reading Walden, The Lost Princess of Oz, and Little Women. I finished The Lost Princess of Oz last night; it was fun to read it this way but I found I missed the pictures. I've read about 5 of the Oz books with my 9 year old and they are all wonderfully illustrated. The author has so many fanciful creatures that it seems to help see an artist's interpretation of them.

I'm continuing with reading Little Women; I haven't read it as an adult and I'm really enjoying it. I decided to put Walden on a break for now; it's some heavy reading. I will get back to it though. Now that I finished my first book with them, I'll probably go back to the DailyLit site and pick out something else to read.

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

How do you have time to do all of this reading with 2 young kids! My daughter is 18 mo and I feel like I can barely keep up with the housework and my crafty hobbies! I used to read all of the time, but I liked to get book reco's from people- I will be adding your blog to my reading list- and I will check out the Daily Lit site! Thanks for stopping by my blog during the SMS giveaway!

MaggieH said...

Hi Vicki!

Welcome to DailyLit! I just wanted to say that I'm glad to hear you're enjoying reading with us.

Cheers,
Maggie
DailyLit.com