Newsletter - Bear Necessities - July 10, 2026 Book Bums Book Bums Newsletter

Hello Book Bums families!

We hope you'll bear with us as we get excited about bears this week. Dr. Christy shares all her bear-related plans and activities for her family's Gatlinburg trip; and, of course, we share what you need to know about those confusing bear homophones.

Read on and enjoy!

Bookbums.com is an Amazon Associate; We earn from qualifying purchases. This means that if you click on a link to Amazon.com and make a purchase, We may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We do recommend the products. Feel free to find them by other means.

Kindle unlimited is a great way to Enjoy reading and listening to books, Click here to start a free trial.

Word of the Week

nadir (nay-deer) noun/person, place, or thing - the lowest point

Hopefully getting lost on our way to the campground is the nadir of our trip, and nothing else will go wrong.

Literacy Calendar

On July 16, 1951, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was first published.
This high school lit class classic features protagonist Holden Caulfield who is famously fed up with everything phony.
Salinger himself was quite reclusive; he died in 2010 at the age of 91.

From our Bookshelves

Kin is about two girls who were born in the same town in Louisiana during the 1950’s. Neither girl knew her mother. Vernice’s mother was killed by her husband when Vernice was six months old; and Annie’s mother, Hattie, left town when Annie was just a few days old. The two girls grew as close as sisters. They called one another “cradle friends” because they had spent so much time together from birth.

Kin is so beautifully written that it’s worth the heartache you’ll certainly feel as you experience the girls’ vastly different life paths as they become vastly different women—who never stop loving one another. I adored both women, and my life is richer for having read this book.

Here’s what Oprah says about Kin.

Tips for Families

I mentioned last week that I’d share what I plan to do with the kids while we’re in Gatlinburg, TN.

Here are the books I purchased to read to the kids so they can learn lots of interesting facts.

I purchased these bear figurines so the kids can compare a few different kinds of bears.

I got a 100-piece black bear puzzle because that’s nice and easy even for the younger kids. We always have a puzzle going for the adults, so I thought I’d get this one so the kids can begin the tradition.

I got these wooden bears for the kids to paint as a keepsake.

For the older kids, I got this diamond painting kit. My grandkids love doing diamond art. I am hoping I can get some of the adults in on this one too. I have extra diamond art sticky pens so many people can work on it at the same time. It might take quite a few trips to Gatlinburg to finish!

I’m hoping to have the kids make a life-size black bear’s paw print and then use it as a cover for a black bear fact book.

Here are some facts you may not know:

The front paw of an adult black bear is typically 5-7 inches wide.
Their claws are usually 1-1.5 inches long (which is quite helpful when it comes to climbing trees).
A female bear is called a sow while the male is called a boar.
Adult, male black bears can weigh around 300 pounds.

Pause for Poetry

Furry Bear

by A.A. Milne

If I were a bear,
   And a big bear too,
I shouldn’t much care
   If it froze or snew;
I shouldn’t much mind
   If it snowed or friz—
I’d be all fur-lined
   With a coat like his!

For I’d have fur boots and a brown fur wrap,
And brown fur knickers and a big fur cap.
I’d have a fur muffle-ruff to cover my jaws,
And brown fur mittens on my big brown paws.
With a big brown furry-down up to my head,
I’d sleep all the winter in a big fur bed.

Practical Grammar

We know bare means naked and a bear is an animal, but do you have to do a double take when you say things, “I’d like for you to bear/bare in mind…”

Here’s what you need to know:

Bear is an irregular verb that means to endure, carry, or support.

You must be careful with its past tense and past participle forms.

present tense: bear/bears (e.g., "I cannot bear the pain" or "It bears repeating").
past tense: bore (e.g., "She bore the heavy weight").
past participle: borne (e.g., "I have borne the costs").
bear with me: The correct spelling for asking someone to be patient or wait a moment is bear with me (not bare with me).

Tips for Raising Readers and Writers

Would you pay your kids to read books?

I asked my husband, over lunch this week, what’s he’s reading. He said he was reading a book called Quiet. I asked about what he’s learning and how he’d heard about it, and he said the book was listed in a TikTok post I’d shared with him last week.

There is a man on YouTube who’s sharing that he pays his kids $4000 to read 40 books. (It sounds like the kids read about 10 books each year they’re in high school.) I was intrigued when I heard about it. I thought that that $4000 could be a very good investment, and I passed the idea by my husband.

I’ve never been one to incentivize reading. Reading should be the reward. When we “bribe” our kids to read, it positions reading as something one must endure only to receive a prize. That’s not at all what we want to do.

But if we approach it as paying for our kids’ educations (for these are nonfiction books) . . . Well, that might be something I could get behind.

What do you think?

Here’s the list promoted by the Dirt Road Academy. I’ve indicated the books my husband and/or I have read and would certainly recommend in bold text.

Shoe Dog
Psychology of Money
Atomic Habits
Mindset
How to Win Friends and Influence People
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
Steal Like an Artist
Born a Crime
The Four Agreements
Think Again
Grit
The Obstacle is the Way
Unbroken
The Gifts of Imperfection
Quiet
The War of Art
The Five Love Languages
Endurance
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
The Richest Man in Babylon
The Millionaire Next Door
The $100 Start Up
Creativity, Inc.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Crucial Conversations
Daring Greatly
Educated
Becoming Steve Jobs
The Hard Thing about Hard Things
Man’s Search for Meaning
When Breath Becomes Air
So Good They Can’t Ignore you
The Defining Decade
Why We Sleep
The Anxious Generation
Amusing Ourselves to Death
Thinking Fast and Slow
Sapiens
The Lessons of History

We’d add:

Take the Stairs
Ego is the Enemy
Deep Work
How the Word is Passed
The Mona Lisa Vanishes
The Good Life Method
Tattoos on the Heart
How to Hide an Empire

What would you add to the list?

News from Book Bums

Our signs at the Monroe Book Bums are installed, and we couldn’t be more excited!

And many thanks to those of you who provided leads for signage options for our West Chester location! We’ll begin checking our options this week. You’re the best!

Tips for Teachers

When kids are trying to read a word, direct them to point to the first letter in the word and to make the sound that’s associated with that letter. Then make the sound for the next letter. And the next. Then direct your child to slide those sounds together to see if they can recognize the word those letters represent.

If your kids can accurately produce the sounds for each letter of the alphabet, but they have difficulty reading basic words (like dig, sap, cut, and tub), you’ll want to stop working on decoding and begin promoting a strong awareness of the sounds we hear in words. Try playing these games for a few weeks:

I’ll say it slowly, & you say it quickly. (/b/-/e/-/d/)- ___ (bed)

Say a word, slowly stretching-it-out, sound by sound. The kids “snap” or slide the sounds back together, naming the word.

I’ll say it quickly, & you say it slowly. (neck)- ___ (n-e-ck)

Say a word. Kids stretch out the sounds, one by one, into individual parts.

How many sounds (phonemes) are in the word ___? (ch-e-s-t, 4)

Say a word. The kids stretch the word into individual parts, counting the number of sounds they hear.

Just for Fun

If you know someone who would benefit from our newsletter or tutoring at Book Bums, please share this email with them! Thank you.

Follow Book Bums on Facebook

Visit our website for more infomation

Our mailing address is:
7967 Cincinnati-Dayton Road Suite L
West Chester, OH 45069

Newsletter – Bear Necessities – July 10, 2026