Friday, February 22, 2008

Another New Title

Even though we got about 8-10 inches of snow today, it certainly feels like spring here at Hillside!

We have another new book to announce, and I can't help feeling it's something bright on the horizon of winter, like the slowly lengthening days, full of promise.

Introducing:


Great Yarns for the Close-Knit Family,
Over two dozen original hand-knit designs
inspired by one dozen fantastic family read-alouds

The book will be available March 12th and we're now accepting preorders on the website. Each preorder will receive a pair of birchwood knitting needles that can be used for some of the hand-knit projects.

So what are these projects and why is Hillside doing a knitting book?
Well, this book features knitting projects that accompany great works of children's literature:

Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Canadian Summer by Hilda van Stockum
The Hobbit By J.R.R. Tolkein
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little House in the Highlands By Melissa Wiley
The Lost Island by Eilis Dillon
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle
Redwall by Brian Jacques
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Wheel on the School by Meindert de Jong

While your family enjoys reading aloud these great "yarns" you and/or your children can be knitting the projects. All the projects are original designs by Mary, the knitting guru.

Visit the Hillside website to find out more about the preorder.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The Mystery Revealed At Last


In our closing-for-Christmas post we alluded to a homeschooling resource book that we would be publishing this year. I'm very happy to announce this book to you now!


Haystack Full of Needles,
A Catholic Home Educator's Guide to Socialization
by Alice Gunther


Most of us at one time or another have had to wrestle with the issue of socialization, either in dealing with friends and family members who question our decision to home educate, or from our own hearts as we worry about our children's hopes for friendship. In this book Alice shows that "Socialization is not the weakness of home education—it is its strength and joy."

Alice chronicles her own path from skepticism about home educating's ability to provide sufficient social experiences for her children, to the flowering of a local home school group that provides its members with meaningful social experiences within the context of home educating.

Full of examples and practical suggestions, this will be an extremely uplifting addition to your cache of home education resources. We'll post more details as the book nears publication. We expect to release this book in the spring.

(Cover design by Ted Schluenderfritz)