Summer Hits - Check them out!

I came across a great new find for our family at the library a few months ago: Disney Educational Productions.  So much more than Bill Nye.

We first borrowed Where the Red Fern Grows after I finished reading it aloud to Carmen and Chloe.   Then sometime after that one of the kids asked me about what would you do if you were both blind and deaf which made me think of Helen Keller.  When I went to look for books about her at the library I found another Disney Educational Productions DVD:

A remake of The Miracle Worker.  Incidentally, the script for the play of the same title is available at the public library and would be a wonderful school production.  I might have to ask the drama teacher what she thinks when Carmen is in Jr. High.

After we watched The Miracle Worker I just started searching for anything in the Disney Educational Series.  Most of what I found were of greatest appeal to Carmen.  She's very interested in the stories of WWII.  I think the whole concentration camp thing is deeply puzzling to her, but she finds inspiration in stories of heroism during that troubling time.

We enjoyed this portrayal of Anne Frank,

And we also enjoyed a new story, Miracle at Midnight, about Danish citizens who saved thousands of their Jewish community members from the Nazis by helping them escape to Sweden, which remained unoccupied during the war.

Carmen doesn't do riding lessons any more, but she still loves horses.  (Not that you have to love horses to love this movie.)  Justin Morgan had a Horse is the story of the man who risked money and personal reputation to establish the first American breed of horses.

Just this week we watched The Loretta Claiborne Story about a Special Olympian and the family and friends who supported her and the blessing the Special Olympics were in her life.

(And Hooray!  I just got a call from the library that another title I've placed on hold is ready for pick-up.)