Ms Kessler’s book is an annotated list of websites that provide free lesson plans, worksheets, online games,  posters or materials, and so forth for teachers of elementary-aged children. In a sense, it’s something any web-savvy educator would be able to compile. And yet, the bottom line is that now I do not need to! I have enjoyed browsing through the book, marking the sites I need to return to. There are lots of free resources on the web to explore!

A few gripes I have are probably ones to be expected because we all have different preferences. For example, a few sites Ms Kessler really enjoys are ones I’ve already found and not been impressed with. Some others require accounts in order to download the worksheets or lesson plans. Others provide subscription services for a fee, with only a small fraction of resources available for free. And then some of her links are insanely long gobbleygook: I’m not about to type in 100 characters to get to a website.

Further, I do think Free Resources could be a bit better formatted. Because it’s annotated paragraphs, it’s a lot of text on the page. I don’t want to have to read every paragraph when I’m looking for “what was that one site that did this or that?” But owning the book means I can make plenty of notes in the margins for my own reference.

These are somewhat minor complaints for me. I can’t expect one book to have everything that I love. In general, I think Free Resources will be a great help for me as I get started in my homeschooling journey.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration.

Moby-Dick is about much more than a whaling ship’s voyage, the biology of a whale, or even an insane whale-ship captain’s revenge on a whale. Reading Moby-Dick is a cultural experience, and the novel itself is a marvel in the detail Melville provides to create a composite picture of the mid-nineteenth century America. In addition, despite the clear setting (it could not be the same story without the whale hunting and whale fact digressions), the story is a universal one: fate versus choice, good versus evil, sanity versus insanity, God versus man.

First, although we no longer rely on whale oil for our light, our reliance on petroleum seems to echo the dependence on whale oil. Maybe collecting petroleum is not as dangerous as whale hunting was, but there is something familiar in the narrator’s injunction:

For God’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it. (Chapter 45)

The narrator Ishmael argues that whales are too large and populous to become extinct (see Chapter 105) and yet, today we know that in the 1970s, whales were quite close to extinction because of our dependence on whale hunting for oil (for power, then for cosmetics). We, too, seem to take petroleum for granted in our life.

Ahab also is a universal character, a maniac that, as was suggested in Philbrick’s book, can be interpreted to be an Adolf Hitler or a Osama Bin Laden. “Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm?” he wails toward the end of the novel (Chapter 132). He feels compelled to continue in his insane quest, and the others are dragged along with him. Despite his insanity, the crew is solidly behind him (he has quite a lot of charisma, besides the fact that they are stuck with him on a whaling boat for three years and he’s the leader). Only Starbuck seems to grasp the end that is coming to them.

Melville conveys his symbolic story with subtle humor throughout. Melville seems to question strict religious upbringing as he ponders humanity. For example, in the beginning of the novel, Ishmael feared Queequeg, his strange bedfellow, because he was a “cannibal.” Soon, however, he realized Queequeg was a good man. He even joins Queequeg in his strange worship (Queequeg joined him at his Christian church; why not return the favor?).

I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;—but what of that? Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content; and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.  (Chapter 17)

And then later:

Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras. (Chapter 65)

On the whole, I loved his analogies surrounding cannibals, humans, and sharks. Fleece, the old cook, provides a great lecture to the sharks on Stubb’s orders:

“Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don’t blame ye so much for; dat is natur, and can’t be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here, bred’ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale. Don’t be tearin’ de blubber out your neighbour’s mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else. I know some o’ you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat de brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to bit off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can’t get into de scrouge to help demselves.” (Chapter 64)

And also:

Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and like the great whale, retain, O main! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. (Chapter 68)

Ah, I can’t begin to quote all the beautiful phrases and images Melville created. Here are just a few more.

…damp, drizzly November in my soul… (Chapter 1)

Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild cleams of a newly developing bloom – the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. (Chapter 8 )

Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour; and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows—a colourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink? (Chapter 42)

But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy. (Chapter 84)

She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not. (Chapter 128)

Can you read Moby-Dick without reading the chapters about whales’ anatomy, whale blubber, the history of whaling, the whale hunt, and so forth? Well, you can read the rest of it, but you will not have read Moby-Dick. The whole is greater than the parts. Do I love it? No, I did not. But I certainly loved reading it. Melville created a novel like no other, and it is well worth a slow, careful read.

See a book cover slideshow from the New York Times.

We began our study of Australia by coloring a map with the geographic features (mountains and land with vegetation as opposed to the desert). Then I copied Small World at Home’s idea and we made a giant cookie in the shape of Australia. We added frosting and green sprinkles for the coastal/forested lands, chocolate chips for the mountains, and gel for the major cities. Then we cut it up into the various states and ate it! Raisin loved this project. He was excited to tell his friend, “Guess what? We ate Queensland this afternoon!” He thought it was so funny. Given his age, I’m not surprised that he’s forgotten the names of the states and cities. But weeks after the fact, he still can find the city he was born in (Melbourne) and he remembers about Uluru, which we talked about briefly.

One picture book we enjoyed helped us appreciate the size of the country and the various scenery. Are we There Yet? by Alison Lester was a child’s perspective of a month-long road trip around Australia. Raisin enjoyed learning about the various landmarks and began to understand the vast scope of the country since the road trip lasted so long for their family. He liked following their progress on the map. It was also fun to show him our family picture in the Victorian mountains (he was two months old) and a picture of him with me by The Twelve Apostles when he was about six months old. (We compared our picture  to the illustration of the family by the Twelve Apostles that was in the book!).

We also spent about a week learning about the Great Barrier Reef. We watched a National Geographic video about it (it was geared towards adults, so I sat with him and we talked through the entire movie, and even then he barely made it through it.). We watched Finding Nemo, of course, and make a food chain chart using images from that movie to talk about which animals were predators to whom. We made another board game, The Finding Nemo Game, which rehashed some of the facts about reef creatures, but we didn’t play it nearly as much as we played our Earth Game so Raisin has forgotten a lot of what we discussed. In general, though, he remembers the Great Barrier Reef is a cool thing off the coast of Australia, and he knows what a “predator” is, so I consider that success for us!

Raisin did not show immense interest in learning much about Australia: neither the people (I loved the Dreamtime stories, but I could not get him interested), the history, nor the landmarks interested him. Our unit study ended up being mostly about the animals of Australia, which was fun too. Koala Lou by Mem Fox told of a koala who wanted to impress her mother, so she entered a gumtree climbing contest. I loved the illustrations, which featured all the various animals of the Australian outback. Wombat Stew by Marcia Vaughan was a silly tale of various animals getting the dingo to add icky things to his soup in order to trick him in to not eating the wombat. Although Raisin insisted he didn’t like this story, I caught him singing the Wombat Stew song after we read this book!  Snap! by Marcia Vaughan told the story of some young Australian animals playing nearby the crocodile. They use their wisdom to avoid being eaten. And finally, the ridiculous My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch by Graeme Base is about a woman who adopts the animals of the bush. Told in poetry, the book gets more and more amusing as grandma’s pet animals fill the pages.

I also tried to give my son a very basic introduction to Aborigines and culture, but, as I said, it didn’t go over so well. He did like Big Rain Coming by Katrina Germein, which had Aborigine style artwork. I liked the subtle way the book introduced the young reader to the Aboriginal sensitivity to the land. Together, Raisin and I looked at the boomerangs we purchased when we lived in Australia and we talked about how the art of dots and lines created symbols. He didn’t want to try his own hand at art (he’s just not into crafts most of the time). We did read a very silly folktale called Whale’s Canoe which is supposedly based on a Dreamtime tradition. Joanna Troughton‘s retelling was perfect for Raisin’s age (4).

Whew! It was fun to focus on Australia for two months. It’s hard to believe that I was moving there five years ago. It feels like yesterday at the same time that it feels like a lifetime ago.

We also found a few other wonderful picture books in the past few weeks, but I’ll have to save those for another day!

What great picture books have you read about Australia?

Kate Langloh Parker was fascinated by the Aboriginal traditions as a child, and as an adult, she collected the stories the women told her. Tragically, in her day, such folkloric anthropological research was not appreciated in Australia. In the past century, Aboriginal traditions have been overshadowed by the Western traditions entering into the territory and the 60,000 year old culture is losing it’s solidarity.

Ms Lambert’s volume reintroduces Ms Parker’s anthology of collected stories with sensitivity into a world that may be better equipped to appreciate the culture of the Aborigines. Although I am not an anthropologist, I greatly enjoyed Ms Lambert’s commentary. The stories of Dreamtime are a fascinating look at an ancient culture and religious tradition. I only wished Ms Lambert and Ms Parker had more folklore collected to share with me!

Before I picked it up, I decided to read Nathaniel Philbrick’s small tribute to the novel, appropriately titled Why Read Moby-Dick? (published 2011, Viking). I loved reading of Phillbrick’s personal experience with the novel! Part literary criticism, part author biography, and part personal tribute to a favorite novel, Why Read Moby-Dick? certainly reinforced to my mind the many ways that Melville’s epic surpasses expectations and extends beyond its contemporary era into our own.

I enjoyed reading Philbrick’s manifesto as I began reading the novel myself. It was a reminder that the complexities of Moby Dick are best appreciated when encountered slowly.

A few examples of some concepts and quotes I loved from Philbrick:

The first wave of critics to appreciate Melville’s novel, which was not until after World War I, were impressed that Melville “conveyed the specifics of a past world even as he luxuriated in the flagrant and erratic impulses of his own creative process.” (page 7)

After quoting from the chapter on Nantucket (which ends with a tribute to the sperm whale), Philbrick writes:

And so it ends, this little sidebar of miraculous prose, one of many that Melville scatters like speed bumps throughout the book as he purposely slow the pace of his mighty novel to a magisterial crawl. (page 21)

There is an inevitable tendency to grow impatient with the novel, to want to rush and even skip over what may seem like yet another extraneous section and find out what, if anything, is going to happen next to Ahab and the Pequod. Indeed, as the plot is left to languish and entire groups of characters vanish without a trace, you might begin to think that the book is nothing more than a sloppy, self-indulgent jumble. But Melville is conveying the quirky artlessness of life through his ramshackle art. “Careful disorderliness,” Ishmael assures us, “is the true method.”

I’m about 25% finished with Melville’s novel. I’m entering the first of many treatises on cetaceans. While I know I must read a bit faster to finish in time for my book club, I’m still really hoping I can enjoy the methodical crawl Melville so carefully created in his tome — and I certainly am enjoying, once again, the parallels to today that Philbrick so wonderfully illuminated.

While I don’t think Philbrick is going to convince anyone that is decidedly against Moby-Dick, he may encourage the intimated reader to give it a try. And he certainly got me, an interested reader who enjoyed the book a decade ago, very excited to revisit it.

Patricia MacLachlan’s Kindred Souls (2012, Katherine Tegen Books) is set in a pleasant contemporary rural setting, a setting that I’m not familiar with as a suburban dweller myself. Young Jake treasures his friendship with his aging grandfather, Billy, who longs for the simplicity of his childhood. Jake and Billy visit the rundown sod house in which Billy was born and raised, and Billy challenges Jake to rebuild it. Although Jake does not feel he can do such a hard project, his love for his grandfather prompts him to try.They are “kindred souls,” afterall.

Kindred Souls is a story of inter-generational love, an inspirational story of a child who succeeds in doing a hard thing,  and a gentle reminder to enjoy life now, for life is fleeting. Parents should be away that the easy-to-read middle-grade novel addresses a tough issue, the obviously approaching death of the boy’s elderly grandfather. Not every child will be ready to consider mortality, but for those that are, Ms MacLachlan treats it with tenderness. I doubt children will be disturbed by any implications. The novel is a sweet reflection on a grandparent/child relationship, and the rural farm setting provides a unique perspective on life for a young reader.

I enjoyed Kindred Souls and I look forward to reading more middle-grade fiction as my son gets older.

When I read the book the first time, my son was just beginning preschool, and his imaginary friends were new to our family. I said I was “not about to homeschool” because I don’t have that kind of stamina. I read the book as a call for encouraging creativity (which it is). On this read of the book, my son is finishing his last months of preschool, he’s reading at a second grade level, and he is constantly asking questions about “how” and “why” (today’s question was “why do we have floors?”). Further, I’ve decided to homeschool him. It’s not that I have stamina (I’m not actually sure what I can do) but I’ve become remarkably excited every time I see him learning and I can’t wait to help him along his journey.

The message I received from Awakening Children’s Minds was slightly different this time around as well. Although it certainly is still about creativity in children, I noticed far more often the emphasis on parental involvement in teaching children emotional intelligence. The book is a manual for parents to teach children with patience, and how to do so by reaching them at their level. In short, Ms Berk reminds parents that children are human and need to be approached with respect and individuality. A cookie-cutter approach to education cannot meet children’s needs on an emotional, intellectual, or creative level; each child needs space in which to find their abilities, and parents and teachers are uniquely able to assist as they recognize each child’s needs.

For example, I find myself more often saying to Raisin something like this “You could say ‘Can I have one please?’ or ‘Will you please share?’” instead of “Ask instead of grabbing!” He is much calmer in his response to me when I give him options and ideas of how he can get to what he needs. While I’ve still found his four-year-old temper tantrums frustrating, I feel I understand him a little bit more. His feelings are real, and his frustrations stem from things that to him are enormous and feel nearly impossible to deal with. By helping him realize what he can do, I feel like Raisin has found a bit more comfort in his distressing world. And I hear him saying more frequently now “I feel frustrated!” rather than exploding in tears. (The tantrums over little things still occur, but I see improvement.)

On this reread, I skipped the chapter about teaching children with disabilities: if I feel that is relevant to me at some point, I may revisit this book again. The last chapters, which focused on the ideal classroom setting, reinforced to me the decision I’ve made to teach my son myself. I know our local public school will be unable to meet his needs. In our homeschool setting, I am hopeful that I can help Raisin’s creativity, intelligence, and delight with learning flourish.

Show Me a Story: Why Picture Books Matter

I loved the peek in to the lives of illustrators. Each of them have such different styles of illustration, and the interviews helped me understand their motivations, inspirations, and especially the personalities behind their work. While the volume does not really attempt to explain why picture books matter, as the subtitle suggests, it does inspire the budding artist to follow his or her own style and dreams, and it helps the reader of children’s books, like myself, better appreciate the fine art that makes a picture book what it is.

The book contains brief introductions to each illustrations, the interviews, and a center section highlighting some examples of each illustrator’s work.

Note: I read a digital review copy from the publisher via netgalley for review consideration.

What I really enjoyed about the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency was the African setting (I learned about Botswana by reading a novel) as well as the light mystery (I’m not generally a mystery reader) and the subtle humor and commentary in Mma Ramotswe’s ponderings. Imagine my delight when I saw a children’s middle grade book on display featuring a young Precious solving a mystery!

The Great Cake Mystery introduces young readers to the lovely setting of Botswana and a precocious young girl named Precious who likes to figure things out. Although she thinks it may be many years before she’ll have a mystery to solve, it turns out that someone in her school is eating people’s snacks and she may just be able to figure out who has done it. With her father’s encouragement and her own careful logic, a detective is born in Botswana.

The book is a quick and easy read. McCall Smith speaks directly to the reader on occasion, given the story a personal tone. Although there were a few moments in the book when it seemed the author forgot that this was her first case (such as “it took some time for her to drop off, as it often did when she was thinking about a mystery…”), meeting Precious as a child was delightful. She apparently always was a thoughtful, pleasant person. The mystery is a simple and rather predictable one for an adult reader, but young readers will enjoy the intrigue. The clever way Precious proves the solution to the mystery was likewise impressive and amusing.

Although I’m an adult, I look forward to reading more from Precious’ younger days. I suspect and hope that I also may interest my son in Botswana and Africa when we read this story together. The Great Cake Mystery is highly recommended for the young reader.

As a satirical look at Victorian society in the form of a dystopia, Erewhon fits in with the tradition of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (not Victorian, but one of the first), Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilmore, and Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. But for me, the satire in Butler’s novel was overshadowed by dull prose and extensive explanations of the society. The result is a dull treatise barely worthy of the term “novel.”

As in the other dystopias, the narrator, who is searching for adventure, travels to a different land and finds a completely insulated society that has existed for thousands of years.

For me, finding an interest in the things Butler is satirizing is rather difficult. First, in Erewhon, machines are against the law because of a fear that they will become “smarter” than humans, a commentary on both Darwin’s survival of the fittest concept and the industrial era that Butler was well in the middle of. It’s hard to take the arguments seriously, and yet, from what I read (on Wikipedia) Butler actually was serious:

I regret that reviewers have in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr. Darwin’s theory to an absurdity. Nothing could be further from my intention, and few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr. Darwin….

Besides the machinery issue, the society was also rather conflicted in it’s view of sin and criminality. Sickness was considered a crime and immoral behavior such as stealing or drinking was considered a complaint that must be treated with medicine. I found this an interesting concept to satire in Victorian society, although I struggle to pinpoint just what his implication was for society. Add to that concept a satire of religion (there are two different kinds of banks in Erewhon; people only use the “unofficial” money and make a show of visiting the official banks) and we have the complicated and strange world of the Erewhonians.

The chapters when there was action were somewhat interesting. Yet, for the majority of the book, the narrator quoted from a book of history or policies. These were dry as dry could be. Although Erewhon was a short volume, it dragged. I can’t say I liked it, although it certainly has an interesting place in context as a Victorian satire.

(Writing this post prompted me to demoted the book from two stars to one star on goodreads. Oh dear. The more I think of it, the less I like it!)

At any rate, despite the fact that I didn’t enjoy it, I’m willing to send on my used mass market paperback to an interested reader. If you want it, let me know in the comments. First to request it is the winner. I can send it somewhere in the USA. If no one wants it, it goes to the library book sale!

Because Sappho’s poetry remains for us only in fragments, reading through Ms Carlson’s translations was an enjoyable reminder of the essential building blocks of poetic thought: word choice, simplicity, and metaphor, for example.

Sappho lived in the 600s BCE, writing lyrics and singing them. Of her nine collections of poetry, only one poem remains in full today. In Carlson’s translation, it begins as follows:

Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind,
child of Zeus, who twits lures, I beg you
do not break with hard pains,
O lady, my heart

Sappho’s poem is a beautiful prayer to Aphrodite in which the speaker (a singer, since this was a lyric to a song) asks for an ally in finding love and peace. Ancient Greek poetry was written without punctuation or line breaks, so Carlson has added the breaks. The rhythm is simply gorgeous as it has been rendered, and Sappho’s words and images are memorable.

The reminder of the book contains translations of other remaining fragments of Sappho’s writings, some of which are from actual fragments of Sappho’s collections and others are fragments of poems that had been quoted in other, later author’s works. One side of the page contains the Greek, and the facing page reveals Carlson’s translations. Some pages only have one or two words in English. (Even though there are obviously other letters on the Greek side, only a few words in full remain.)

When you consider how long ago Sappho wrote, it’s no wonder that there is so little remaining of her writing. Yet, it is a bit heart-breaking to see so much empty white space, revealing all that has been lost. Nonetheless, I greatly appreciated the fact that each poem was given it’s own page. It was a powerful reminder that each poem/song really did stand alone at one point. And the images that the very limited fragments provide are beautiful too: they provide ideas and themes that get me wondering, and I appreciate them. Consider fragments such as fr. 38 (“you burn me”) or fr. 117A (“of polished doors”) or fr. 157 (“lady Dawn”).

Others have more lengthy excerpts, such as fr. 34:

stars around the beautiful moon
hide back their luminous form
whenever all full she shines
on the earth

silvery

or the following (fr. 88B)

]me
]

]
]you
]

]
shall love
]

]
]

Something is missing in these, of course, but even with the missing words, it’s so beautiful to me. Sappho’s poetry, while left in pieces more than two millennia later, are inspiring in their succinctness. If only we had more of her poems in full!

See other blogger’s thoughts on Sappho:

• Lifetime Reading Plan
• So Many Books
• Evening All Afternoon
• Jason at 5-Squared

I recalled I’d read summaries of Shakespeare in eighth grade English class, so I determined to find the volume that we’d read. I discovered Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, originally published in 1807, and I’m almost certain that was my eighth grade exposure. It was time to read the volume in full. While I’m glad I rediscovered this classic, I’m hesitant to recommend it for children today.

It’s not to say that there isn’t a place for play summaries for children. Obviously, reading summaries of the plays gave me a background for Shakespeare that I recall nearly two decades later. However, the summaries by the Lamb’s are difficult to get through. Most of the text is exposition rather than Shakespeare’s clever dialogue, and let’s face it, clever as they are, Shakespeare’s plots are quite confusing and detailed. For the plays with which I was not familiar, I found it hard to follow the developing stories. For the plays with which I am intimately familiar (Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew), it was rather disappointing to read a surface-level treatment of what I consider genius of plot and language. Besides, much as the authors intended to keep their summaries unbiased, they did give their opinions in subtle ways (such as Mary Lamb’s interpretation of the end of The Taming of the Shrew, a play I think is rather ironic rather than misogynistic).

The Lambs recognized the limitations to their task. One of them wrote in the introduction the following:

It has been wished to make these Tales easy reading for very young children. To the utmost of their ability the writers have constantly kept this in mind; but the subjects of most of them made this a very difficult task.

The introduction further explains that they intended the summaries to also be for “young ladies” who are not able to be schooled as their brothers may be. The Lambs suggest that boys simply read the original Shakespeare instead of these summaries:

For young ladies too, it has been the intention chiefly to write; because boys being generally permitted the use of their fathers’ libraries at a much earlier age than girls are, they frequently have the best scenes of Shakespeare by heart, before their sisters are permitted to look into this manly book; and, therefore, instead of recommending these Tales to the perusal of young gentlemen who can read them so much better in the originals, their kind assistance is rather requested in explaining to their sisters such parts as are hardest for them to understand: and when they have helped them to get over the difficulties, then perhaps they will read to them (carefully selecting what is proper for a young sister’s ear) some passage which has pleased them in one of these stories, in the very words of the scene from which it is taken; and it is hoped they will find that the beautiful extracts, the select passages, they may choose to give their sisters in this way will be much better relished and understood from their having some notion of the general story from one of these imperfect abridgments; which if they be fortunately so done as to prove delightful to any of the young readers, it is hoped that no worse effect will result than to make them wish themselves a little older, that they may be allowed to read the Plays at full length (such a wish will be neither peevish nor irrational).

Ignoring the comments about what girls can take or not (and keeping in mind that girls did not recieve a comparative education), I wonder why, then, anyone who can read the original Shakespeare needs to read Lamb’s summary. As I mentioned, there is a place for it, I suppose, and I may even find myself using the Lambs’ summaries with my son in our homeschooling when the time comes for it. Summaries do provide cultural context for young readers.

And yet, I can’t help but feel that we should try to find a way to expose our kids to the original whenever possible. Shakespeare’s writing, not just his plots, are what make his plays magnificent.

I’ve been in such a daze that I accidentally titled this post “March plans” before I realized that March is over and this post is to be about my “plans” or “ideas” for April reading. March was a bit of a loss reading-wise, but I expected that. I’m just enjoying my newborn.

Reviewed in March/Read Earlier

• Quicksand by Nella Larsen
• The Mormon People by Matthew Bowman

Read in March

• Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (1807 summaries of the plays for children)
• A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levinson
• Erewhon by Samuel Butler (Victorian satire of society)

I’m feeling like reading again, but my reading is becoming more focused.I have lots of ideas for what I may read in the coming weeks, but I’m not pressuring myself: this isn’t a “plan” and if it all falls through, so be it. I won’t beat myself up.

Because I’m beginning my homeschooling journey with my oldest child, I’ll be reading far more books about teaching/parent psychology. I’m currently rereading Awakening Children’s Minds, and I have a few others checked out: Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child and Raising Your Spirited Child. I also have a review book via Netgalley by Leonard Marcus that contains interviews with picture book illustrators. So far it’s really good.

For school this month, Raisin and I are learning about Australia, which is where he was born and my husband and I (obviously) lived for a time. My interest has been peaked and I have checked out Wise Women of the Dreamtime, a collection of folklore originally collected in the late 1800s. I also might read some Australian fiction if I can find it: I just downloaded For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke (a novel about transported gentleman written in the 1870s) from project gutenberg and another one that caught my eye is The Secret River by Kate Grenville (which Eva recently reviewed). I could maybe read some other Australian historical fiction. Do you have any suggestions? (Peter Carey and I did not get along, for the record, but then I only attempted The True History of the Kelly Gang.)

I still intend to read plenty of classics, and I’m hoping to always be reading a Victorian thus year. Right now, I’ve begun Vanity Fair, and I think I’m going to enjoy it! My book club is reading Moby Dick in May, so I hope to start that early so I won’t be rushed.

And then we have the fact that April is poetry month. I want to read poetry with my son: he’s always been resistant to poetry, but maybe he just doesn’t understand what it is. We’ve been writing stories and he makes up songs all the time and I told him today that his song was a “poem.” He got excited about that; so maybe I have a way in with him!

I want to post on poetry a few times this month. I have requested If Not, Winter, Anne Carlson’s translation of Sappho, and I have Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke on my shelf. That later is not poetry, of course, but at least it’s written by a poet. I’d love to finally get to The Aeneid at some point this month, but it probably won’t happen. Other than that, I have many volumes of poetry to love: I just need to make a point of reading it!

Other possibilities for reading this month: The Great Arab Conquests (maybe a few chapters), short stories by Bessie Head, maybe a light novel from my “read or get rid of” box.

Anyway, as I said, I feel like reading again, but my kids, gardening, cleaning the house, and getting sleep will probably continue to be priority for the most part this month. I hope to stop by the blog a little more often, but we’ll see how it goes!

How was your March? What are you planning (or not planning) for April?

The author’s personal homeschooling style was certainly not for me, and the author’s opinions throughout the book was rather irritating. For example, it seems she was a bit extreme in censoring, such as she refused Dickens in her curriculum for years because he wrote a “ghost story” and those aren’t allowed in her house and she censored artwork by covering body parts with sticky notes.

But I’m interested in the general precepts of the Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling and this book provided a nice overview. I like the emphasis on the fine arts: studying various artists by looking at their artwork, rather than reading about them, and reading classic literature rather than kid summaries of classic literature. I liked the emphasis on narration with young children, and I’ve tried to incorporate more of it in my school at home time with Raisin. (He struggles to write, so it makes perfect sense.)

I liked how A Charlotte Mason Education was so very short (less than 100 pages) and written in a personal, conversational tone. It made it a quick one-sitting read. Even though I can’t say I loved the book because of the author’s extreme personal opinions interspersed throughout it, I feel I have a nice feel for Charlotte Mason education now thanks to reading it.

In general, the past few months have found Raisin steering himself toward the early reader books, partly because he love the sense of accomplishment when he can read to me and partly because I haven’t had as much time to read picture books to him! We have found some memorable picture books in the past weeks, but we haven’t been plowing through them at the rate (30+ a week) that we read them last year. We both are eagerly awaiting the time when Strawberry will show an interest in the board books Raisin tries to show her.

In addition, since January, we’ve done a fair amount of “school at home,” which Raisin regulary asks for because he simply loves to learn. I hope that his interest continues because I’ve enjoyed learning with him.

This post is huge because I don’t want to split it up: it’s much easier to keep it all together. So I apologize that it is so long, but I don’t know when the next time I’ll have to blog will be so here we go…

Early Readers

The Fly Guy books by Tedd Arnold have been a huge hit with my young reader! He loves that he is able to read every since word of the book himself, and the fact that the simple text was divided in to “chapters” gave him an added degree of pride, since that makes it seem like a “big kid” book. Besides the format of the book, Raisin loved the content: what could be better than a boy with a gross pet fly? I cringed every time he requested the books, but the best part was he could take charge of the reading time himself. Since I don’t read these to him, I didn’t have to think too hard about the gross-ness of the concept of a child nurturing a relationship with a fly, of all things.

The Honey Bunny and PJ Funnybunny books by Marilyn Sadler also make an impression on my young reader. Raisin enjoyed the stories: one about magic (P.J. Funnybunny’s Bag of Tricks) and others about buying things for friends (Money Money Honey Bunny), family relationships between brother and sister (P.J. Funnybunny Camps Out), and so forth. I liked the rhyming and rhythm of the stories as an adult assisting my young reader.

The early reader series of We Both Read books (published by Treasure Bay) have begun a new tradition in our parent-child reading. Those books are designed with parent-child reading in mind; parent reads one page, a harder one, and then child reads the next page. Since we discovered these books, when we read together, Raisin likes to take one page and assigns me the other. I love how, even in harder-to-read picture books, Raisin normally does not mind taking charge of a side of the book. This challenges him even when we’re not reading a “We Both Read” book. We’ve read a few of the fairy tale books in the We Both Read series: Jack and the Beanstalk, The Frog Prince, and so forth. I have not necessarily been impressed with the retellings of the fairy tales, but it’s the parent-child format of the books that bring us back for more.

Picture Books

I absolutely adore Marla Frazee’s artwork, and Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers and illustrated by Marla Frazee (Harcout, 2001) had the double bonus of being about babies, a subject I love these days since newborn Strawberry has so recently joined our family. In Frazee’s wonderful style and Susan Meyers’ special text, we follow babies (in general) from newborn-hood to their first birthdays, from tiny sleeping innocence to mischievous crawling.  Each page begins with “Every day, everywhere babies ….” and then we learn something babies do. I like the rhyming of the text. It does nto feel overdone, but it makes for a wonderful read aloud.

Further, I loved how Frazee’s illustrations of babies enhanced Meyers descriptions. My favorite page is this one:

Every day, everywhere, babies are carried –
in backpacks, in front packs, in slings, and in strollers,
in car seats, and bike seats, and on Daddy’s shoulders.

That page’s illustration captures a street scene with so many families and babies that I find myself lingering over the page, looking at the interesting details of each baby and his or her carriers. Most pages are like this in the details. Everywhere Babies is perfect for the family with a new baby – or for any family that loves to reminisce on the process of growing up! (I keep trying to tell Strawberry that she needs to slow down already! These first five weeks have gone far too quickly!)

The Kiss that Missed by David Melling (Barron’s, 2001) is a clever story about a busy father (a king) that didn’t take the time to slow down: and the bedtime kiss he blew to his young son missed, going out into the wild wood where it met with amusing results for the knight he went after it to bring it back home. The Kiss that Missed is part fairy tale but it’s also a practical reminder that settling down and reading a story is an important part of child’s life. Mellings comic illustrations and the shimmery “kiss” to find on each page make this book a hit for young Raisin.

A Child’s Calendar by John Updike, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman was awarded a Caldecott Honor in the 1960s but it’s not just Hyman’s soft and detailed illustrations that are noteworthy. John Updike’s poems give live to the seasons, from the frozen stanzas of January and to the warm months of summer and the festivities of December.

Given the current changing season where I live, I liked April’s poems the best:

It’s spring! Farewell
To chills and colds!
The blushing, girlish
World unfolds.

Each flower, leaf,
And blade of turf –
Small love-notes sent
From air to earth.  …

Each month has four or five stanzas that perfectly match the tone of the month for America, highlighting not just the changing weather but the holidays that make each month memorable. A Child’s Calendar is a wonderful introduction to the months for young reader, but it also is a collection of well-written poems. I can envision encouraging students to word their own poem to the season or month after reading Updike’s rendition. This is something to return to in my homeschooling journey.

And then we come to a classic, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig (published 1969. Awarded Caldecott Medal in 1970). I remember enjoying this story when I was a child, so I was pleased that Raisin also enjoyed it. Sylvester is a donkey with a pebble collection. One day finds a magic pebble that allows him to be granted any wish he desires. This seems like a good thing until Sylvester ends up stuck as a rock for months! Sylvester’s story is an amusing reminder to enjoy what we have and not wish away our lives. Raisin thought this was a very silly story, and enjoyed returning to it to read of the passing seasons as Sylvester hopes to be freed from his accidental wish. Steig’s simple illustrations are still captivating after all these years.

School at Home

And then, even with the arrival of my little one, Raisin and I have enjoyed a few books together for our school time in the past months. (Some of these were enjoyed before Strawberry’s arrival.)

Geography: Antarctica

Raisin has been quite interested in maps and geography, so we began a project of studying the continents, starting with Antarctica. Learning about the continent with a four year old prompted me to learn more myself: a few months ago, I posted about a Sally Walker volume about the continent that I really enjoyed.

Raisin and I also enjoyed a few pictures books about the continent. I like North Pole, South Pole by Nancy Smiler Levinson (Holiday House, 2002), an early reader that compared the climates and animals of the two extremes of the globe. Here is Antarctica by Madeleine Dunphy (Web of Life 2008) was a story about the various animals in the food chain in the format of a “house that Jack built” rhythmic text.

We also read a few other early reader books about the continent that didn’t stand out to me – but Raisin loved looking at all the maps, and he enjoyed being able to read the books himself.

Science: The Human Body

I mentioned previously that Raisin is fascinated by the human body, probably because of my changing body during pregnancy. One book that made him laugh because of the title is You Can’t Smell a Flower with Your Ear by Joanna Cole (Penguin 2004). Joanna Cole, who also wrote the Magic School Bus science books, does a great job of capturing science for the youngest reader. This book is no exception, as she discusses the five senses and the body parts that let us hear, see, feel, smell, and taste. This book is a nice low-level early reader for the interested youngster.

Twenty Questions: Why Do Feet Smell? by Melvin and Gilda Berger (Scholastic, 2012) is a book that Raisin discovered at a Scholastic Book Fair and was very excited to read. (“we can read it during “school time!” he was excited to tell me.) As the title indicates, it contains twenty questions about the human body and answers to them.  From sneezing to smelly feet, the succinct answers were surprisingly informative and interesting. Each page has bright photographs of children, and “do you know?” fact boxes as well.

Much more advanced are two other references that we enjoyed, even though I didn’t read them in full to my son. Discoverology’s Human Body by Steve Parker (Barron’s, 2008) is a brief (32-page) pop-up interactive book simply packed with detailed facts. My son loved the popups: a skull, a skeleton, the muscle system, skin hair that grows and so forth. Although he didn’t hav patience to listen to all the facts and the writing and explanations were too advanced for him, the abundance of information on each page allowed me to find the answers to the questions he had for me about the various parts of the body. I learned from this book each time we sat down with it.

Also full of information is The Way We Work by David MacAuly (Houghton Mifflin, 2008), a 300-page volume full of humorous yet accurate explanations about the workings of the human body, as well as detailed and memorable illustrations that bring clarity to the inner workings of the human body. A friend mentioned this book to me when I indicated my son was working on the human body in “school at home,” and then I promptly saw it on a sale table in Barnes and Noble! Although I admit that I have not read this book in full (and obviously Raisin has not either), I’m looking forward to having it as a resource as we repeated return to learning more about the body.

Science: The Earth

I discovered a fantastic series by Lerner called Early Bird Earth Science. I checked out a number of them on a whim and Raisin was most interested in The Earth’s Crust by Conrad Storad (2007).  I loved how this volume, which is geared for second to fourth graders, brought the facts of the earth (from plates to earthquakes to volcanos) into focus in just 44 pages. The writing was too advanced for Raisin, and with four chapters, we had to split it up into a few days reading, but overall he enjoyed the book. I was quite impressed with the clarity I had after reading the book, and the series provides a glossary, with a word bank at the beginning as well, and many pictures and charts to supplement the text.

Raisin was very interested in the information, but he had a hard time retaining it from day to day. I also was quite burned out from “school time” because of Strawberry’s arrival, so we needed to do something different and fun for “school time.” Using the book as a reference, together we created a board game, with questions to answer in order to move forward and volcanoes and earthquakes to slow us down on our way. Raisin helped me decide which questions to create, he found the pictures in the book that he liked (and I found similar ones online to print for our game board) and we made the board game together. We made it an “open book” game so Raisin could look in the book to find the answers.

We played The Earth Game constantly in the first weeks of Strawberry’s life! We’ve since returned the book to the library, and yet Raisin still wants to play: now, of course, he no longer needs the book because he remembers what a volcano and earthquake are.

So I haven’t been blogging and I haven’t been reading many adult books, but I’m sure getting plenty of kids’ books time in these days!

What have you been reading with your children this month?

• See the introduction post
• See the “join” post, with links to other participant’s lists.

I’ve decided to make my list of 50 books mainly books I own because I’ve struggled to get my own books read in the past years! About ten of the books on my list I do not own, but I wish I did. The rest are ones I’m eager to read but they’ve been sitting neglected for far too long!

I am going for a list of just 50 because, let’s face it, since my daughter was born last month and I became a mother of two, my time for reading has disappeared. I’m hoping to read my 50 books by Strawberry’s fifth birthday: February 22, 2017. That sounds like so far away from now, but my experience is that it will go fast!

To be honest, however, I hope to finish much sooner than five years. I wanted to say  two years, but I’m more realistically thinking three years. My reward for when I finish is that I”ll make a list of 50 books to reread … and then I’ll get to reread them! I can’t wait for that. I love rereading.

My list is here. I’ll update it as I finish books. I am heavy on the Victorians because they are my favorite. But I also added a few ancient classics and some modern ones (although I’m keeping my list of “classics” pre-1950). If it looks like there are authors omitted from a must-read classics list, it’s because I’ve probably already read them. This is a list of books I have not read yet. I love rereads, but this project will stay with new books. I am most excited to read Vanity Fair (which I may start next month if I ever finish the dragging Erewhon by Samuel Butler that I’m reading now). I’ve heard so many wonderful things about Vanity Fair! I’m most scared of The Tale of the Genji which is huge and I’ve heard it drags!

You’ll notice I also have a few other lists I’m working on. I’ve made steady progress on the 101 Great Books for College-Bound Readers since I started my blog four years ago. I’m not crazy excited about some of those books, so I didn’t make those a priority per se. (I can’t image a teenager getting through all of those before college!) I also have favorite authors I want to read the complete works of. Shakespeare is a must, but I left him off my 50 in 5 list because I want to spontaneously decide which play to read next over the next five years. Reading his complete works is my life goal, not a five-year goal. I am also about to embark on the wonderful project called home schooling, so I plan on working on a list of classics to read with my son (and daughter) for that.

What books on this list are you excited for me to read?

I consider myself fairly well read about the history of the Church in the United States, so I was pleasantly surprised by how Bowman’s perspective gave me a new view of Church history. The different personalities of the Church leaders throughout the eras of the Church’s history certainly had an impact on how the Church was administered, how doctrines were taught, how believers were encouraged to live, and how believers and nonbelievers interacted with one another.

I mentioned before (in my post on Arrington’s biography of Brigham Young) that I don’t think I would have gotten along with Brigham Young very well had I lived in the mid-1800s in Utah. As I read The Mormon People, I was once again grateful I live in the era I do of the Church’s history. Yet, reading about the various people and their strong opinions reminded me once again that regardless leader, I must personally focus my testimony of truth on my Savior Jesus Christ and the doctrines He taught rather than depending on personalities of leaders to carry my faith. Even if I’d lived in the time of Brigham Young or Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie (all strong personalities), I could have sustained them in their callings, even if I disliked their opinions on things that may not matter so much as my faith in the Savior.

Although I am glad for the new perspectives of the leaders of the Church throughout history, there were a few surprising items in the book. In his effort to expand on the changing leadership of the Church through the years, Bowman seemed to me to degrade the importance of various aspects of the Church’s doctrine. For example, he states

Correlated materials are designed not to promote theological reflection but to produce Mormons dedicated to living the tenets of their faith. ( page 199)

For clarification, correlation is the system whereby where ever you travel in the world on a given Sunday, the congregation of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) will be studying the same lesson from the same manual in Sunday school and other auxiliaries. The same manuals are used in Bolivia, in the Middle East, in Italy, and in Australia, all places where I’ve personally worshiped with other Latter-day Saints. By creating manuals that can be understood by people of all walks of life in all parts of the world, these manuals provide basic instruction in understanding and in living the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But I personally don’t find that focusing on the basics in Sunday instruction lessens my personal theological understandings. Regularly, the lessons in these manuals and the classes in which I receive said lessons emphasize that my own spiritual growth and understanding is a personal journey.  Does that mean the correlated lessons “produce Mormons dedicated to living the tenets” of my faith? I suppose, but Bowman’s wording makes it sound like I’m being made into a robot, and I don’t see that as the case at all.

Further, I was surprised to learn about the intellectual disputes among Church leaders in the early 1900s, with leaders publicly disagreeing about things such as evolution. Bowman indicates that the leaders of the Church today

conceive of their task largely in terms of ministry and pastoral work, consonant with modern Mormons’ conception of their faith as a way of life and a system of ethical behavior rather than a theological argument. (page 227)

I cannot imagine leaders today arguing, so apparently leaders have come to an understanding of emphasizing what is most important! However, I wished that Bowman did emphasize more frequently that Mormonism is a religion, not a way of life. There are many layers of understanding to the concepts we learn about in Sunday meetings. While I am constantly reminded of the basics in church meetings, reading the scriptures and studying them with an open mind provides me with a rewarding theological education. There is a complexity to Mormon doctrine beyond the apparent superficiality as “a way of life.”

That’s not to say that Bowman disregards Mormonism as a “way of life.” He does not write from his personal perspective, but it’s clear he understands the Mormon faith, and he puts it in context:

Just as the miracles performed by Catholic saints or the ecstasies of Pentecostalism bind other believers to the world of the New Testament apostles, these stories bind Mormons today to the world Joseph Smith experienced. For those faithful believers, the New Testament has not yet dissolved into myth; for Mormons, Joseph Smith has yet to either. (page 38)

In his beginning, Bowman indicates

Americans have admired Mormons for their diligence, their rectitude, their faith and their honesty; they have feared them for their zealotry, their polygamy, and their heresy. (page 16)

The Mormon People does not dumb down controversy. It does not hesitate to examine the disagreements among leaders throughout the 180 years of history since the Church was founded. It also does not discuss the doctrines of the Church in detail, nor provide a comprehensive look at the leaders and key players of the Church throughout that history. From my perspective, though, The Mormon People does what it set out to do: it provides a historic context for the Mormons we see in the public sphere today.

I read a digital review copy provided by the publisher via netgalley.com for review consideration.

In Quicksand, mixed-race Helga Crane, like other protagonists in the Harlem Renaissance novels I’ve read, struggles to find her place in a racist world. The epigram at the beginning of the novel is from a poem (“Cross”) by Langston Hughes. It is an appropriate introduction to Helga’s personal struggle to find her place in the world:

My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I’m going to die,
Being neither white nor black?

Helga is a woman without a family.  Her black father abandoned her Danish mother shortly after Helga was born, and her mother had remarried a racist white man who wanted nothing to do with Helga. Helga’s only support is her mother’s brother, Peter, but as the novel opens, Helga discovers that he too has married a racist person, and Helga is no longer welcome at her uncle’s home. Thus begins Helga’s search for herself: she moves to Harlem, and then on to Denmark, searching for a people among whom she will feel comfortable to be herself.

These various settings for Helga’s search for herself provided a fascinating backdrop to Helga’s struggle. While the other Harlem Renaissance works I have read have addressed the issues Helga faces in Harlem and elsewhere in the United States, I had not yet read of the type of racism (a black woman as exotic) that Helga faces in Denmark. Although none of the situations, from the school where she taught to Harlem to Denmark and back to the USA, helped Helga grow to be comfortable with herself, these various settings provided an interesting dichotomy in the context of her story. What a confusing situation.

I wish I could say that Quicksand is a hopeful look at race and self-identity. Rather, it is a depressing account of one woman’s failure to find a place to belong. She wants to be seen as herself before being seen as a part of a race, and in her era, she fails to find that satisfaction anywhere. . The beginning, the middle, and the end of the novel are all hopeless, and I left the book dismayed that her life situations provided her with no escape. On the other hand, Helga made the choices that brought her to where she was in the end. I found the ending rushed and pessimistic, but that is, I think, just as Nella Larsen intended it to be. Helga got tired of trying to fit in; she made a choice so she would not need to face so many decisions everyday. This pessimism, much as I disliked it, certainly gave Quicksand a realistic feel. How many real women still end up in similar dead-end situations?

I have a personal policy to not post pictures of my children on this site, since it is public, so I apologize that I cannot share with you a picture of my beautiful little girl! I will tell you that she has red hair like I do, like my husband does, and like my son does. And given the fact that she’s half a pound larger than my son was, she looks positively chunky to me! Very squishy and adorable.

I had intended to name her Monkey as a nickname on this site, but it just didn’t seem to fit her. Strawberry Shortcake, on the other hand, is just perfect. So…Raisin and Strawberry it is for my kids here…he he he.

My son, Raisin

My daughter, Strawberry Shortcake

As can be expected, I haven’t felt much like reading the last two weeks since Strawberry made her appearance. But I did get a few things read and reviewed in the first half of the month! Everything I list below was finished before February 22. I even had the reviews started for the last two, I just didn’t get to posting them.

Reviewed in February/Read in January

• Shakespeare: The World as a Stage by Bill Bryson
• Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto (African fiction from Mozambique)

Read and/or Reviewed in February

• Frozen Secrets: Antarctica Revealed by Sally Walker
• Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Faucet (Harlem Renaissance reading)
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (to celebrate Valentine’s Day)
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (for my Classics Book Club)
• Fleas, Flies, and Friars: Children’s Poetry from the Middle Ages by Nicholas Orme (Review copy)
• Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary (for my “learn about Islamic history” project)
• A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond (read aloud to my son; no review coming.)
• Quicksand by Nella Larsen (Harlem Renaissance reading; review in progress)
• The Mormon People by Matthew Bowman (Review copy; review in progress)

My March will mostly be spent cuddling my newborn and cherishing these first days. I am reading her The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett during some of our many feeding times. I’m also reading a Boxcar Children book aloud to Raisin.

Yesterday, I finished Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare (brief plot summaries written in 1807 for children), about which I have mixed thoughts. I may read another Harlem Renaissance novel this month (Cane by Jean Toomer). I’d also like to read a Victorian novel: I’m aiming for something short with Erewhon by Samuel Butler. If I’m up to it, I’m starting Vanity Fair next month. My classics book group is reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame this month, which I read in preparation a few months ago. I may start reading The Great Arab Conquests for my “learn about Islamic history” project, and I have a few review books that I may begin on my nook. I may read some African short stories (I have Adichie’s stories, as well as a slim volume with four stories by both Bessie Head and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o).

I’m really trying hard not to make too many “goals” here. I’m sure the urge to cuddle my baby and nap are going to override everything else. But it’s nice to have options in case I do feel like reading. That’s what I intend this post to be: a list of reading options for me if I do feel like reading when I happen to be awake in the middle of the night with my baby.

What’s new in your home this month?

What books have you read and/or posted about that I may have missed? Obviously, I’m a bit behind on reading blogs. Let me know if I missed something fantastic from your blog!

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary (published 2009 by Public Affairs) has the bonus of telling us from the subtitle that it is a biased work. I further appreciate the fact that Tamim Ansary, an Afghan-American and practicing Muslim, admits that this is a history “through Islamic eyes,” that is, his own. He’s not trying to show a history of the world according to all of those in Islam: this is simply his own perspective, based on his research and perspective.

Destiny Disrupted, then, is just what I was looking for right now. I must admit that I do not have a firm grasp of Western world history, and yet reading Destiny Disrupted showed me how one-sided the perspective I do have is. The Middle Ages in Europe (which I’d put at 600-1400 CE) were a time of tremendous growth and expansion in the Middle World (i.e., those lands in which Islam thrived).

Ansary begins his volume with an introduction to Islam’s beginnings, focusing on the status of the middle world during the era of the founding of Islam, as well as a chapter on the life of Mohammed and the tenants of Islam. Subsequent chapters explain the schisms that arise, the empire(s) that become established and the impressive flowering of intellectual development that arose in the midst of an Islamic “Renaissance.” Having never studied these years from the Islamic perspective, I was not fully aware of the impact of Islamic scholars’ studies on the later intellectual Renaissance in Europe. For example, it was due to Islamic scholars that Europe “rediscovered” Aristotle and the Greek thinkers.

And then, after a few centuries of intellectual plenty, downfall came to the Islamic empires, from the rising up of the Turks to the Christians arriving in the area for the Crusades to the invasions of the Mongols. In essence, Genghis Khan and the subsequent generations sought to destroy the entire Islamic civilization, leading to the destruction of entire cities over the course of a few centuries, from 1050-1250 CE. Although I’d heard the names somewhere, I hadn’t realized the extent of the conquering in to the Middle World, and I was not familiar with the connection between East and West in these years. The facts shared about the Crusades were likewise necessary to learn for me: my memories of learning about the Middle Ages center around the glamor of knights and the “coat of arms” I had to design. Maybe the knights are not the best thing to focus on from those years….

Ansary, being American, wrote from a perspective I understood and appreciated. He wrote of events in Europe just enough to remind me of what I did study in school so I could put the unfamiliar events in context. But he did not focus on Europe so that it distracted from his focus, which was of course life for those in the Islamic empires. On the other hand, because he is a Muslim who was raised in Afghanistan, he had the perspective of one who learned history from the Islamic perspective first, and as such the tragedies and pleasures in Islamic history were brought to life from his personal perspective.

I had to return the book to the library, and I read the book over the course of a month and a half, about a chapter at a time, one or two chapters a week.  As such, I can’t rehash the entire organization of the book or recall specifics of the volume. But memorizing specific facts was not my goal in reading it. I wanted an overview of Islamic history, a context for the contrasts between the American civilization I live in and the Islamic civilizations around the globe, which seem misunderstood in my country and era. For my purposes, Ansary definitely succeeded.

Because I know this is just one perspective, I look forward to reading more about the history of Islam as well as the various civilizations of the world (including Europe during these eras). I hope that my next book on the history of Islam, Hugh Kennedy’s The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In, is likewise as engaging to read and informative for the reader new to the history of civilizations as I am.

Fleas, Flies, and Friars: Children’s Poetry from the Middle Ages

At just over 100 pages, it is obviously just a brief glimpse into medieval children’s poetry and society. Yet, because the annotations are written with an informative but friendly tone, it was a pleasant read for me, a curious historian and admirer of poetry in general. Children in the Middle Ages learned standards of behavior from poetry, as well as experienced the to-be-expected pleasures of lullabies and nonsense rhymes. Poetic stories of Robin Hood were immensely popular, and poetic reminders of school learning (Latin grammar, for example) helped the young child study.

Although the volume is slim and I was not a reader familiar with the status or literature of children in the Middle Ages, I highly enjoyed it. In some respects, it reminded me how some things really haven’t changed. Given the songs I learned in elementary school for learning the parts of speech, the nonsense poetry ridiculing silly teachers, and the poetic stories I still read in picture books, I’m simply pleased poetry has continued to define childhood and that there is a lot more of it to enjoy!

Read as a digital review copy from the publisher via netgalley.

The image on the cover is Carson McCullers.

At my classics book club last night, one of the women had not had a chance to read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (published 1940), but she came to hear the discussion about it nonetheless. She was not familiar with the book, and as we discussed it, she commented on how strange it all sounded.

“It sounds like it’s about a bunch of misfits that no one listens to,” she said.

We all concurred. And yet, such a summary does not do justice to the complexities that 23-year-old Carson McCullers captured in her debut novel, a small snapshot of life in a small Southern town in the Great Depression era.

“Snapshot” is the wrong word, however. McCullers herself was a musician (passing up her acceptance to Julliard for lack of money) and she dubbed her novel a “fugue.”

“Like a voice in a fugue, each one of the main characters is an entity in himself – but his personality takes on a new richness when contrasted and woven in with the other characters in the book.” (Quoted on the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt study guide)

Such is the set up of the book: four lonely people in a small town turn to the only man who seems to care about them, the deaf and mute John Singer. Ironically, this deaf-mute is the only one who “listens” to their concerns and stories. He can read lips, and he is able to speak (he was trained as a child) yet simply chooses not to respond in the conversations he has with the “lonely hunters” who visit him. He responds simply with a smile and a nod. Each chapter focuses on one of the “lonely hunters,” alternating among all of them, including the deaf-mute, who, despite his appearance as a confessor and friend for the others, is in actually the loneliest of them all.

First, there is Mick, a tomboy entering adolescence and struggling to find herself in her large and impoverished family. She’s a musician, trying to teach herself the piano and memorizing the classical music she overhears on the radio as she wanders the streets at night. Then we have Mr. Biff Brannon, a middle-aged café owner and bartender estranged from his wife Alice and hopelessly seeking some connection to people in the small town. Jake Blount is an outsider to the town, arriving drunk and eventually settling down as a carnival worker to pay off his drinking debts. Doctor Copeland is the black doctor of the town, estranged from his own grown children because of their lack of interest in his ideals for the future of his race.

Yet, these initial definitions and descriptions fail to fully encapsulate these individuals: each of them struggles with a personal ideology of life and the meaning of life that they are unable to express to themselves, let alone those around them. Further, their loneliness and concerns are amplified in the novel by the ways in which they relate to one another.

Mr. Brannon wants to connect with people, especially to take care of the children of the town (as evidenced by his concern for Mick:  should he really be selling her cigarettes?). He would have loved to be a father, and instead he must settle for taking care of his young niece, Baby. Jake Blount and Doctor Copeland embrace Marxism and strive to impart the significance of a socialist way of life to those with whom they associate. But although these two men share similar ideas, each time they meet, they argue, unable to properly listen to the other in order to determine that they are saying the same things. John Singer himself lives in Mick’s parent’s boarding house, and as each of these “lonely hunters” tromp their way to Singer’s room, Mick comes to even better appreciate the kindness that Singer imparts as she tries to share with him her deep passion for music. Each of the characters also comes to a certain crisis of faith as they try to reconcile God to the world in which they live, some like Doctor Copeland rejecting God all together.

*spoilers*

John Singer himself is the most complicated of the “lonely hunters,” for the reader doesn’t completely comprehend what he understands throughout the novel. As a deaf-mute, he’s obviously separate from others in the town, and yet, he seems so integral to the comfort of the “lonely hunters” who seek him out. The clue to understanding him came late in the novel, when his dream (Antonopoulous at the top of the stairs, Singer next, and the four “lonely hunters” below him) clarifies how he sees himself. In that dream, one can finally see that Singer idealized his relationship with the insane Antonopoulous just as the four others idealized their relationship with Singer. Singer was just as lonely as those who sought his friendship.

My heart nearly broke when I read his un-mailed letter to Antonopoulous, and I must admit that I was quite emotional as he made committed suicide after Antonopoulous’s death.  It wasn’t only his deafness that drove him to that step: he had met other deaf men at a bar outside of Antonopoulous asylum, but Singer, like the ”lonely hunters” who sought him out, was unable to communicate with those others. He only had Antonopoulous, and without his Greek friend, he could not cope with his loneliness any longer.

*end spoilers*

McCullers originally intended to name the novel The Mute, but (thank goodness) the title was changed. The title comes from a poem.

Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.
Green is that hill and lonely, set far in a shadowy place;
White is the hunter’s quarry, a lost-loved human face:
by William Sharp writing as Fiona MacLeod

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is not a happy novel. It’s quite depressing to read, and it ends without hope for the central characters, as their loneliness is never truly lost. The characters never found their “hunter’s quarry.” The cycle of life for Blount, the aging Doctor Copeland, Mr. Brannon, and Mick will continue to provide loneliness.

Yet, there is something so beautiful in Carson McCuller’s exploration of loneliness in a small society. She was recently married and only 23 years old when she wrote and published her debut novel. The fact that she was so young adds to my amazement at the depth of emotion she was able to portray among so many very different personalities in a fictional novel: each character was searching for something a little bit different to lessen the pain of loneliness. How realistic each character was, and how griping their combined story became!

Having read the novel once, I am not able to fully comprehend the ways in which the characters all wove together, yet I loved the effect. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is not, as I’m sure you have been able to ascertain, a plot-driven novel, but rather a subtle and complex look at human psychology: the hopes, dreams, and loneliness that comes from isolation (for whatever reason) in a small town. It’s a masterpiece for its strong writing as well as its complexities of character. Highly recommended.

The Fiction Picture Book winner is Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell. It’s not the one of the seven I personally would have chosen (although, I’m glad I didn’t have to try to make that call!) and yet it is a fantastic book. I wrote about it here. I found the Nonfiction Picture Book winner (I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat) the most funny of the seven (thoughts here). I have not read all the early reader finalists, but I always love Elephant and Piggie. Other winning books I’ve read include The Cheshire Cheese Cat (thoughts here; I really didn’t like it that much. I found the writing stilted and the plot meh.) and Anya’s Ghost (thoughts here; I really liked this one!).

I am looking forward to reading the nonfiction winner, Amelia Lost, which I’ve heard is fantastic, and I think Raisin and I may give the early chapter book winner a try as well. I’m curious about the volume of Poetry (I actually want to give all the finalists a try some day), and the middle grade fiction is now on my radar. I’m not sure Middle Grade Fiction and the Young Adult novels are my thing, though, as I often find it rather unexciting and get frustrated with the general writing style.

Which books are you most excited to see on the Cybils winning list?

A note: I have not been posting reviews as frequently as I’ve been reading! I have recently finished about four books (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, a history of the world from the perspective of Islam, A Bear Called Paddington, and a review book on medieval children’s poetry).

I’d really liked to write posts on all of these, but I am sitting here 38 weeks pregnant and not finding my brain very cooperative. As much as I want to sit up and type up my thoughts, my body and brain say “just go read some more, this is your last chance.” And “Ugh. You feel miserable. Go to sleep.” So not much energy left for reviewing. When my little one does come, I will probably disappear for a little while, so in short, this blog may be rather quiet for a while until I get my groove back.

As the years pass, Fanny found a friend in her cousin Edmund, to whom she was able to express her frustrations and opinions, although her other three cousins have little patience with “simple minded” Fanny. Edmund knew Fanny, though, and this friendship kept her going. But when her cousins, including Edmund, began courting some of the visitors to Mansfield area, Fanny found herself face to face with impropriety in a society that demanded moral uprightness. She had to decide when she would take a stand and when she would remain silent, all the while considering her own future happiness and her “lesser” status among the wealthy Bertrams and their associates.

Note:  From this point, this post contains “spoilers” of Mansfield Park.

Fanny Price is quite a subdued character. I think if I read Mansfield Park last year, I would have been as frustrated by her as I was with Anne Elliot. From one read of each novel, it seemed to me that both women seemed to just let other people walk all over them and tell them what to do. As it was, I read Mansfield Park at just the right time, so Fanny did not bother me. (I wonder how I’ll perceive Anne Elliot upon reread.) Fanny seemed just right: perfectly proper. Although Fanny’s story seemed much less hopeful and much more frustrating than Elizabeth Bennett’s romantic attachment with Mr. Darcy (she’s still my favorite) or Emma Woodhouse’s ridiculous match-making (she deserves a reread too), I really enjoyed the comparisons I made between Fanny and Ms Austen’s other characters.

First, as the novel is primarily about propriety, I was impressed with how Ms Austen carried Fanny’s propriety so consistently. Fanny did not speak out of turn as Elizabeth Bennett may have, although she had just as many opinions. The difference between the two must have been upbringing, for Fanny had been devalued every day since she arrived at Mansfield. Miss Elizabeth Bennett had a father and a mother (ineffective as they were) that sincerely cared for her and gave her space and encouragement. Fanny’s parents were completely uninterested in her, and the Bertrams looked down on her.

Fanny’s constancy was her trademark. By the end of the novel, of course, everyone from Sir Thomas to Lady Bertram is eager to keep her near, for she is valuable. Although Sir Thomas is frustrated by her refusal to accept Mr. Crawford, Fanny remains steadfast: she will not betray the improprieties of her cousins in order to less his disapproval of herself.

Edmund was less steady. He succumbed to the acting, although he did not want to. I had a hard time at first seeing the problem with acting: I personally love drama. But once Ms Austen explained a little about the play, I could see the impropriety. The intense scene when Edmund, Fanny, and Mary Crawford end up in the old school room was quite the improper one. I thought of Jane Austen’s own experiences. I imagine she was interested in acting herself, but recognized the impropriety in her society for such intimacy. I wonder how contemporaries reacted to the “scandal” of acting a play such as Lover’s Vows.

I could mention the other improper actors and their significance. But I’d rather jump to the ending. Unmarried and naïve Lydia Bennett may have run off with Wickham, but the married Maria Bertram Rushworth running off with the scoundrel Henry Crawford was infinitely more improper. It was shocking to consider it in the novel, and I can only imagine what an affect Ms Austen’s story had on her readers at the time. Of course, the novel does not condone Maria’s actions. ¹ But I loved how everything came full circle for Fanny: good was rewarded, and impropriety sufficiently publicized as evil.

Was it too moral and too well cleaned up? Apparently, that’s why some do not like this novel.

I enjoyed it, however. Fanny’s story reminds me so much of a Cinderella story. She had the step sisters (her cousins); she had the wicked step mother (Mrs. Norris who was simply horrid); she was the drudge of the home, expected to miss parties and balls to meet the needs of the other boring women. Yet, in the end, she had two princes courting her. One “prince” was a false prince, and Fanny, in her moral judgment was able to see through him. The other was a true “prince,” sincere and content with Fanny just the way she was. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a sucker for romance: I love a happy ending. Mansfield Park provided that just when I need it.

End note: This may not need to be said to fans of Mansfield Park, but I couldn’t stomach more than about 30 minutes of the awful 1999 movie. From the first scene, Fanny was not the proper Fanny. I did not like how they wove Ms Austen’s juvenilia into the story. Also, although the Fanny of the novel was full of opinions, the movie version of Fanny Price seemed to speak rather improperly in the small family circle. The real Fanny Price was much more demure and respectful.

Read as my yearly Jane Austen read to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Artist Angela Murray is a light-skinned “coloured” woman in the transitional years of the late 1910s and 1920s. When she gets an opportunity, she leaves her home town in Philadelphia for a life of “passing” as a white person in New York City. The novel follows her subsequent life and choices, creating a complex portrait of her life in an era of conflicting identities. She struggles with her role as a woman, with her choices as a sexually free individual, and also with her challenges to come to terms with her race in a time of both intense racial discrimination and racial contentment in Harlem.

In many ways, Plum Bun reminded me of Nella Larsen’s contemporary novella, Passing (published 1929; thoughts here), in which Irene, another light-skinned woman who occasionally “passed” for white, struggled with her repressed sexuality and her racial identity when she met one of her long-past friends, Clare, who had married a racist white man and always “passed.”

Plum Bun deals with similar issues, but the narrative focuses rather intensely on Angela herself, who is much younger than Nella Larsen’s middle-aged women. Angela’s story is a coming-of-age story, and in many ways I found it more satisfying as a whole because of the intense emotional components developed in the novel as Angela and her sister and their friends aged and experienced the consequences of their choices. Plum Bun is a wonderfully written and developed story that sits solidly in the historical context of the Harlem Renaissance but remains highly relevant to readers today.

From this point, this post may contain thematic “spoilers” of Plum Bun.

The title is based on a nursery rhyme:

To Market, to Market
To buy a Plum Bun;
Home again, Home again,
Market is done.

The five sections of the novel directly relate to this rhyme (“Home,” “Market,” “Plum Bun,” “Home Again,” and “Market is Done”) and such was the nature of Angela’s progression as a developing character and individual. The analogies are unlimited: Is Angela herself the sexually alluring “plum bun,” or is her happiness dependent on finding symbolic satisfaction in life (the “plum bun” of life)?

In some senses, “market” was only open when Angela was willing to sacrifice her past and her racial heritage and pride (and subsequently her relationship with her sister and other “coloured” persons) by dabbling in “passing” on a constant basis in New York City. Once she found satisfaction in herself as a “coloured” woman (her “home”), she no longer needed to consider being a part of the market.

This analogy objectifies Angela: and such was her experience in sacrificing her racial and sexual pride. With Roger, it ultimately became clear to her that she was a lesser object, not because she was “coloured” (which he did not know), but foremost because she was a woman.

“I can’t have women calling me up all hours of the day, making me ridiculous ….”

Surprised, bewildered, [Angela] could only stammer: “But you call me whenever you feel like it.”

“Of course I do, that’s different. I’m a man.”  (“Plum Bun” chapter 4, page 583)

Shortly thereafter, Roger pointed out that Angela had lost her pride in herself from the beginning because of their casual sexual relationship.

“You knew perfectly well what you were letting yourself in for. Any woman would know it.” (page 585)

This passage appears at the approximate middle of the novel, and it provided a turning point for Angela. Although Roger’s attitudes here were steeped in sexual chauvinism and not racial discrimination (which intolerance is of course also a part of his personality elsewhere in the novel), Angela began to see the ways in which her sacrifice of her racial past (as well as her sacrifice of her sexual morals and her womanly pride) has compromised her character.

I loved the last half of the novel for the understandings she gained as she chose to embrace her heritage. Throughout the novel, her mother’s comment that “life is more important than colour” had been a confusing guide for her. By the end, it makes sense to Angela.

In Nella Larsen’s novel, the three main women had chosen three different ways to approach the racial question as they “passed,” but their morals had been decided decades earlier; in Fauset’s novel, one woman had to come to terms with which identity she wanted to embrace. Fauset subtitled Plum Bun “A novel without a moral.” I think Fauset meant that once on her own in New York, Angela approached life without her background of morals. As in a typical bildungroman, Angela had to learn for herself which morals and identities were most important to her personally.

In Plum Bun, I was pleased to see Angela’s ultimate satisfaction by the end (I’m a sucker for a happy ending). As she struggled to find her place and identity, however, her story was a poignant and engaging one, even for a reader almost a century after Ms Fauset penned her novel.

Highly recommended.

Page numbers come from Library of America edition of Harlem Renaissance: Five Novels of the Harlem Renaissance. Plum Bun is the fourth novel in the collection.