With fall whistling in through our drafty windows, we’ve begun to insulate ourselves with good reading for the growing darkness. Gnomes! Plants! Trucks! Babies! Animals! (and parents, oh my.)

Here is what we’re diggin’…

I scored this amazing hardcover Gnomes book at St. Vincent De Paul Thrift Store a few weeks ago. (I bought this one for Sage. Really. It isn’t for me.)

As Sage scoured the pages on our drive home he whispered from the backseat, “Mama! I know how deer lose their antlers now. The gnomies saw them off with ti-i-i-i-iny saws!” ‘Nuff said. This book rules.

While Sage likes the Gnome book allot, right now he is fully immersed in and loving The Green Kingdom, a plant book from the Childcraft series.

You remember Childcraft, right? Circa 1970’s, every classroom had a set right beside the World Book Encyclopedias. He is learning about single-celled organisms, evolution, the move from sea to land, and much much more. Very cool stuff.

Lupine is a bit obsessed with three books right now.

The Big Truck Book (complete with a corner chewed off by a friend of Sage’s years ago) has been threatening to drop off its cover from overuse for many months. You can’t really go wrong with pictures of big trucks. Page after page. Of trucks. Trucks. And more trucks!

Another Lupine love is Everywhere Babies.

She loves it for its babies. I love it for it’s breastfeeding and babywearing images, a rarity in mainstream books we find. We like it so much that I can overlook the bottles that elicit a “wha dat?” from my wee one.

And Old Mac Donald had a Woodshop was one of Sage’s favorite reads at a friend’s house when he was small.
We picked up a copy for him that we read everyday for about a year around this same age. It’s back in action again. This book would explain why Lupine’s beloved baby is called “E-I-E-I-O Baby” these days. Very sweet read.

But the real reason for this post is to tell you about this book: Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves.

If you’ve run into me at the park, the coop, a wedding, or a funeral in the past three months I have surely already done my best to force you towards the nearest bookstore to buy a copy. In case you’ve escaped my mania until now, it is an amazing read.

After reading only three chapters I dipped my toe in this compassionate parenting style with amazing results. The foundation is Non-Violent Communication (NVC), a movement that I have only recently heard about but that seems right up my alley. This book is NVC for parents and kids. In essence, through love, respect, validation, and listening we can heal our relationship with our children and help grow amazing, sincere adults.

Happy autumn reading to all of you!