Archive | May 2006

Works for ME Wednesday

May31


A bookcase headboard is a wonderful thing. Engineer Husband built our bed and headboard a long time ago. If you don’t have a bookcase built into your bed, I suggest a small bookshelf near the bed. Where else can you keep those books you’re planning to read as soon as you can get to them? Stacks on the floor are neither aesthetically pleasing nor convenient to access.

So, my simple works-for-me Wednesday tip for readers is: keep those books near the bed in the headboard or in a small bookshelf. Then, read yourself to sleep.

The Walking Drum by Louis L’Amour

May30

Despite the fact that Mr. L’Amour is famous for his novels of the American West, this book, The Walking Drum, is not about the West at all. It’s set in 12th century Europe and the Middle East and concerns a young man named Kerbouchard, the son of a druidic Celtic woman and a pirate father. As the novel begins, Kerbouchard’s father has been captured and sold into slavery and his mother has been murdered before his eyes by a neighboring enemy. Kerbouchard sets out to find and free his father and to avenge his mother’s death, but before long, he is himself taken captive by a band of corsairs.

I said this novel wasn’t a western, but Kerbouchard is a twelfth century cowboy adventurer by another name. His philosophy of life is summed up in these words: ” . . a strong man need wish for no more than this: a sword in the hand, a strong horse between his knees, and a woman he loves at the battle’s end.” Kerbouchard travels from Moorish Spain to Paris to Kiev to Constantinople, usually on the run from various enemies he has made in the course of his travels. He finds and leaves a girl in every port —or city. His quest is to find his father, but he takes a rather roundabout way to get there. The plot of the novel is made up of battles, daring rescues, escapes from prison, strangely chaste love scenes, and more battles. Kerbouchard is a self-proclaimed pagan, but when in Spain he takes on the outward practices of the Muslims and in Paris he taunts the Christians with their superstitious ways. The author clearly preferred medieval Islamic culture to medieval Christian culture, and he tells us again and again how refined and educated and tolerant were the Muslims of Spain and the Middle East and how superstitious and backward and intolerant the Christians of Frankish lands were. Perhaps so, although I doubt the contrast was quite so great as this book makes out.

Mr. L’Amour’s novel is full of historical references and details, and for anyone interested in twelfth century European life, it would be a wonderful beginning to a study of that century. (L’Amour in the Author’s Note at the end of the book: “One of the best means of introduction to any history is the historical novel.”) For instance, here’s a description of the course of study in the Paris universities of the time:

Hungry for learning, young men came to Paris to learn, many of them walking for days to reach the city. Only a few had sufficient money to maintain themselves. Books were scarce, paper expensive, teachers diverse in attitude. After three years a student might be received bachelier-des-arts, but two years more were required to get his master’s degree or license. To become a doctor of medicine required eight years of study, and to earn a degree of doctor theology the student had to present and defend four theses. The last of these was a challenge only the exceptional dared attempt, for the candidate was examined from six in the morning until six at night, nor was he allowed to leave his place to eat, drink, or for any other purpose. Twenty examiners, relieving each other every half hour, did their best to find flaws in the preparation of the student.

Ah! students today are such wimps; a two hour test is considered cruel and unusual punishment. And we romanticize classical education if we believe it only consisted of the delightful study of Latin and rhetoric in an open-air classroom. All educational systems and methods have their advantages and their difficulties.

L’Amour obviously planned to write a sequel to The Walking Drum; he says as much in the Author Notes. However, according to his official website, he never got around to writing the two other books in his planned trilogy about Kerbouchard and his adventures. Kerbouchard, who thinks of himself as a student and a philosopher, is not really a deep thinker (see philosophy of life above), but he’s an interesting character. It might have been fun to see what difficulties L’Amour could have dropped him into and retrieved him from in the sequels. As it is, you’ll have to make do with volume one of the life and adventures of Kerbouchard, student, merchant, pirate, soldier, and rescuer of fair maidens.

Two more nuggets from L’Amour/Kerbouchard:
“Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”
“There is no miraculous change that takes place in a boy that makes him a man. He becomes a man by being a man, acting like a man.”

Yes and amen.

100 More Things To Do When You’re Bored: Summer Edition

May28

Last year about this time one of the urchins was concerned that she might be bored over the summer. So I made her a list of 100 possible things to do when she was tempted to use the B-word. This year no one is using the word, but the natives, who insisted upon taking a hiatus from regular schoolwork this week, are becoming restless. So I’m making another list, mostly cribbed from a selection of my favorite blogs.

Yes, we’ll be doing plenty of math this summer, but a Saxon lesson a day only takes about thirty minutes to an hour. And even I can only read for most of my day. Then what?

1. Build fairy houses in the backyard.
2. Start a nature scrapbook.
3. Canstruction.
4. Play chalk games. or draw pictures with chalk on the sidewalk.
5. Make mud pies and have a tea party.
6. Have a real tea party with some friends and tell stories.
7. Play with rice.
8. Make a yummy salad and eat it.
9. Paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
10. Work a jigsaw puzzle.
11. Copy a famous painting.
12. Get your bicycle out, clean it up, and get it ready for summer.
13. Practice folding a shirt.
14. Make a poster collage.
15. Make some playdough.
16. Preschool Paper Crafts
17. Mix 2 cups water with a little food coloring, add 6 cups of cornflour/cornstarch to make goop. (I hate it, but my urchins love it.)
18. Cut out and play paper dolls.
19. Watch a familiar DVD dubbed in a foreign language.
20. Make a house of cookies.
21. Volunteer to help a neighbor for free—just because.
22. String beads on dental floss to make a necklace.
23. Listen to Peter and the Wolf and act it out.
24. Make a milkshake or a smoothie.
25. Start this “childhood in a jar” project.
26. Make a lapbook.
27. Learn to sew.
28. Write a story.
29. Watch a Shakespeare play on video. HT: Buried Treasure.
30. Have a backyard carnival.
31. Make up a math scavenger hunt game or a treasure hunt for a younger brother or sister or for a friend.
32. Learn the alphabet in sign language.
33. Make sand pictures.
34. Make birthday cards for all your friends and relatives for the year. Date them and file them in date order to be ready to send.
35. Make a kite and fly it.
36. Plant a flower bed.
37. Write an old-fashioned, hand-written letter to a friend.
38. Go for a bike ride.
39. Try origami (Japanese paper-folding) or make a paper airplane and fly it.
40. Make a collage.
41. Play store—or library–or school—or???
42. Spring/summer clean.
43. Play a card game.
44. Play in the rain.
45. Play a map game.
46. Put on a play.
47. Open a day spa.
48. Build with LEGOS.
49. Learn a few magic tricks and produce your own magic show.
50. Give yourself –or a friend –a pedicure.
51. Take a long, hot bath.
52. Play hopscotch.
53. Swing. (“Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing ever a child can do.”)
54. Go camping–or stay home and camp out in your own dining room.
55. Create a new word. My new word for this month is semicolonic. I’m now trying to popularize it.
56. Start a lemonade stand.
57. Make and walk on tin-can stilts. We read about these in Ramona and Her Father.
58. Make a summer snack.
59. Blow bubbles.
60. Play with water guns.
61. Play scoop ball.
62. Laugh 400 times today. Keep count.
63. Visit a playground. But don’t go to the park on an August afternoon in Houston. There’s a story there that I’ll tell someday when I get over the trauma of it. It may be a while yet because it all happened about fifteen years ago. We’re talking Houston heat, sand, buried shoes, lots of tears and one exhausted, hot mother. I should have laughed. Not a happy memory.
64. Practice your Morse code— or your tap dancing.
65. Create your own Roxaboxen.
66. Arrange some flowers for a centerpiece.
67. Watch a movie based on your favorite children’s book.
68. Go to the library.
69. Memorize something meaningful: a psalm, a poem, a passage from the Bible, the Gettysburg Address.
70. Pop some popcorn.
71. Climb a tree.
72. Bathe the ponies. Or your dolls. Or the dog. Not the cat.
73. Practice tying knots.
74. Swim.
75. Wash the car, or wash someone else’s car.
76. Collect some canned goods for the food bank.
77. Dance to whatever music you have available.
78. Iron some clothes while listening to a recorded book.
79. Paint a picture: use watercolors, tempera, oil paints, acrylics, what ever you have on hand.
80. Organize your own marching band.
81. Draw a map of your block or of your town, or trace a map of your country and fill in the states or cities or other features.
82. Get a haircut. If you’re really adventurous, give yourself a haircut. (Has anyone ever done this—as an adult? I’m much too klutzy to cut my own hair.)
83. Find a joke and tell it someone else.
84. Practice playing a musical instrument. If you don’t play an instrument, try learning to play one, maybe the recorder or the harmonica.
85. Shoot baskets or play tennis.
86. Interact with nature.
87. Make your own fireworks for the Fourth of July. Engineer Husband really used to do this when he was a young adolescent, and I can’t believe his parents let him. He tried to make nitroglycerine once, but he got scared and made his father take it outside and dispose of it! Maybe you should just read about how fireworks are made and then imagine making your own.
88. Read another list of 101 things to do in the summer. You could stay busy reading lists of things to do and never really do anything!
89. Use fabric paints to decorate a shirt.
90. Walk around your block and pick up all the litter you can find.
91. Visit a nursing home. Bring handmade cards or pictures you drew or something to give away.
92. Read the book of Ruth in the Bible. Or another book of the Bible.
93. Rearrange the furniture in your bedroom.
94. Clean out your closet.
95. Make up a scavenger hunt.
96. Make a macaroni necklace. Or string beads.
97. Water the yard or the houseplants or the flowers you planted.
98. Write each of these activities on a separate piece of paper and fold the papers and put them in a jar. Choose two or three papers out of the jar whenever you need a suggestion for something to do.
99. Run around the block 3 times.
100. Make your own list of things to do when you’re bored.

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

May25

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. Blaise Pascal

Calling all Walmart-haters, here’s another chain for you to demonize–Nakumatt. Next time I’m in Kenya (ha!), I think I’ll check it out.

Ariel at Bittersweet Life on obedience in the Christian life: ” . . . the cliff is where we always live. Obedience is always a desperate situation. We are constantly living in a state of moral emergency from which only Christ can extricate us. And awful things begin to happen when we make out as if obedience is merely a hobby.
When we remember that life in Christ is lived out on a cliff face, then we habitually drink deep of Jesus, the “fountain of life.” Obeying him is never easy. But we become addicted to Christ instead of our sin.”

Sarah Louise has some practical advice for graduates and for their parents, pretty good advice from an experienced graduate.

And Diane at Circle of Quiet writes about plans for the summer: ” . . .math for our family is like a cranky relative who gets resentful if you don’t visit often enough. Take the summer off? Well, you could get the cold shoulder for weeks, maybe months. It’s as if you’d never seen each other before. All those afternoons getting acquainted over tea could be for naught! So, we take care to nurture our math relationships all summer long. It saves a lot of trouble, and a lot of wasted time.” Absolutely, I agree. My best advice for homeschooling during the summer is, “Keep doing a little math every day.” Read for pleasure or for information, and DO MATH DAILY.

Random Thoughts on LOST, the TV Show

May25

WARNING: Spoilers ahead. If you have not seen the final episode of LOST, the second season, you may want to skip this post.

Now that we (and the scriptwriters) have all summer to think about the two seasons of LOST that have already aired, and we can, at our leisure, predict, criticize, praise, and analyze, I have a few random questions and ideas and observations on LOST, the only TV show worth watching* for the Semicolon family.

1. I re-watched the pilot last week with Engineer Husband, who has yet to understand the attraction although we continue to have hope that he will become as addicted as the rest of us, and I noticed that several threads have been dropped, so to speak. What explanation have we gotten for the polar bears? Another Dharma experiment gone awry? Also the possible hallucinations that various of the islanders have seen? Jack’s father? The beautiful horse that Kate saw? Were Charlie’s hallucinations drug induced? And what’s happened to Rousseau? And how did that slave ship get to the island, and why was it full of dynamite? What happened to the Dharma people who were on the island before the plane crash and before Desmond got there?

2. Were all the characters on LOST running away from something or else looking for something in Australia before their plane crash? Jack was looking for his father; Sawyer was gunning for his father’s betrayer. Hurley was looking for the origin and meaning of the numbers; Charlie’s trying for a Driveshaft comeback. Locke wanted to prove he was a man (??) or something, to go on an adventure. Kate and Anna Lucia were both running from the law. Jin and Sun were trying to escape, Jin from Sun’s father and Sun from Jin and her father. Rose and Bernard were looking for miraculous healing. Sayid was looking for his lost love. Boone went looking for Shannon, and Shannon was running from herself. Michael was, of course, looking for his boy. I’m not clear on why Eko was in Australia, and is Claire the only main character who actually lived in Australia in the first place?

3. The finale episode reminded me of the first few chapters of Genesis. Did Eko believe that God had commanded him to push that button, that it would be sin not to push the button? Locke says that the button is meaningless, and he has Desmond going along with him until the end. Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that if they did they would surely die. Eko says he is absolutely sure that if they don’t push the button they will all die. Locke/Satan says they will not surely die, but rather they will become like gods, knowing freedom.

4. However, are all the supernatural elements in the story –the healings, the dreams, the ties between all the characters– going to be explained in the end as scientific, natural phenomena? I certainly hope not. If LOST is just a story about a big evil multi-national corporation and a rich manipulative daddy who wants to protect his daughter from a poverty-stricken jailbird, then it’s not that interesting anymore. The spiritual themes are what give it depth. On the other hand, all the emphasis on Fate as the moving force behind the events on LOST is dissatisfying, too. I don’t believe in Fate, and I don’t see how such an impersonal force could produce such intensely personal stories.

5. Are the LOST people going to change, be redeemed in religious terms? Locke said, before he lost his own faith, that they all had a second chance on the island, a chance to make things right. Will Charlie really stay an ex-addict? Can Sawyer ever be anything but a con-man? Is Kate a heartless murderer? Has Jack forgiven his father? Will Eko build his church?

6. Should the people behind this show wrap everything up next season? Can the excellence be maintained through more than three seasons, or will it disintegrate into a series of soap opera episodes in which resolution is promised, but ever really delivered?

7. I love the literary references in LOST. The Dharma film was hidden behind The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Henry the Other was reading The Brothers Karamazov (given to him by Locke), entirely appropriate for this show with its themes of sin and redemption and the father-son relationship. Sawyer, of all people, is the big reader in the bunch, reading whatever he can find from the plane’s wreckage. He’s been seen reading A Wrinkle in TIme by one of my favorite authors, Madeleine L’Engle, and Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret by one of my least favorite authors, Judy Blume. The question in the latter title seems appropriate for the LOST survivors. Sawyer also read Watership Down in one of the episodes, and if you know that story, it’s all about survival and leadership and defending a group against its enemies. in the finale, Desmond’s is devoted to Dickens, saying that he’s read everything the man wrote, except for the book he saving to read just before he dies, Our Mutual Friend. That’s a book I haven’t read, so can anyone tell me what significance it might have to Desmond or to the world of LOST?

It’s about time television offered something fun and significant and thought-provoking. I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a TV show as much as this one. If you’ve not seen the show, I recommend you get the DVD’s and watch*. Thank you Mr. Abrams and Mr. Lindelof.

LOST quiz, emphasizing spiritual and Biblical themes in the first two seasons of LOST.

*Not for children. There’s a lot of violence, somewhat graphically displayed, and there’s enough sexual content to make me uncomfortable. I wish the writers had been confident enough to leave out the sexual content, at least on screen, but that would require a level of restraint that is not to be found these days in Hollywood.

Book Friends

May24

“That book that can give me an idea or a new slant on an old idea is my friend.”–Louis L’Amour

Which books are your friends? I know, you like this about one book, you learned something from another. But which ones are true friends? What books gave you new ideas or enlarged old ideas and became your friends? Which ones do you return to over and over because they are not just aquaintances, books you passed an hour or two with once, but friends?

Mr. L’Amour shares about both friends and acquaintances in Education of a Wandering Man. We can certainly learn from both. But let me introduce you to some of my best friends. Maybe you know them, too.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. Hobbits make wonderful friends–loyal, brave, trustworthy and fun to know. They give out birthday presents on their own birthdays, and they’re fond of good cooking and frequent meals.

The Severed Wasp by Madeleine L’Engle. I keep on learning about community from Mrs. L’Engle, and about spiritual growth and about Christ.

The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown. It’s important to know what’s important, to distill the essential meaning in a leaf or an apple or even a person.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. It’s probably time to re-read Screwtape. For a demon, he’s a pretty smart fellow.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It’s time to re-read this one, too. I love Dickens’ scenes and characters.

I could go on and on. Who are your book friends?

Works for ME Wednesday: The Book Basket

May24

Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer started something called “Works for Me Wednesday” about a month ago. Everybody posts some (household) tip that works for them and then links back to Shannon’s post for that Wednesday. OOOh, OOOh, I wanna play! The trouble is that I don’t KNOW any good tips that work for me. I’m homemaking challenged.

Oh, OK, this one sort of works. We keep all our library books in a laundry basket in my bedroom when we’re not reading them. I just paid a $34.00 fine at the library this morning, so this idea for keeping the library books rounded up must not be working all that well. Or maybe it’s just that I fail to renew the books on time every time, even though the library sends me an email reminder that the books are almost due a couple of days beforehand and even though all I have to do to recheck them is go online to the library website and put a check mark beside the titles of the books I want to renew.

Anyway, it kind of works for me!

Summer Reading Challenge

May24

I’m quite fond of setting goals and making lists and formulating plans —even though I don’t follow through very well. So when I found Amanda’s Summer Reading Challenge, I joined up immediately. Here are my summer reading goals:

1. Read 10 Newbery Award or Newbery Honor books that I’ve not read before.

2. Re-read five books from my (college) Advanced Reading Survey course, and post about them here.

3. Read as many of the books that I bought at the used book sale as I can.

4. Read at least three of the books from the list I gave my AP US history students, three that I’ve not already read. Here’s the list I gave my students. They’re supposed to choose one to read over the summer.

Foster, Genevieve. The World of Columbus and Sons.
Bradford, William. The History of Plymouth Plantation.
Edwards, Jonathan. Personal Narrative.
Forbes, Esther. Paul Revere and the World He Lived In.
Marrin, Albert. The War for Independence.
Bowen, Carolyn Drinker. Miracle in Philadelphia
Ambrose, Stephen. Undaunted Courage.
Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America
Ambrose, Stephen. Nothing Like It In the World.
Douglass, Frederick. Life of an American Slave.
Blumberg, Rhoda. Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun.
McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom.
Shaara, Michael. The Killer Angels.
Oates, Stephen B. With Malice Toward None.
Stone, Irving. Men To Match My Mountains.
Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull House.
Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives.
Strasser, Susan. Never Done.
Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery.
Terkel. Studs. Hard Times.
Ambrose, Stephen, Band of Brothers.
Houston, Jeanne. Farewell to Manzanar
Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize.
Haley, Alex. The Autobiography of Malcom X.
Kennedy, John F. Profiles in Courage.
Lewis, Anthony. Gideon’s Trumpet.
Colson, Chuck. Born Again.
Bernstein, Carl and Robert Woodward. All the President’s Men.

I’ve already read the ones in bold print. Any suggestions for which US history books I should start with? Do you have any suggestions for which Newbery Award books I should not miss? I’ve actually read a lot of those.

If you’re having trouble setting your own reading goals for the summer, Amanda also has a few suggestions for you.

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

May23

The only other book I’ve read by Booth Tarkington was Penrod, a story about a mischievous boy growing up around the turn of the century. I remember it as funny and profound upon the subject of boyhood, kind of like Tom Sawyer.

The Magnificent Ambersons, aside from the time period, the early 1900’s, and the setting, the American Midwest, is not at all like Penrod. As an under current in the book, Tarkington preaches about the general nastiness and inevitability of urban sprawl and how the automobile and the factory have destroyed community and cleanliness and all that makes life worthwhile. Preaching aside, Mr. Tarkington still manages to tell an engaging story, a sort of family epic, the rise and fall of the Ambersons.

Georgie Amberson Minafer is a spoiled rich brat, reared in luxury and with a sense of entitlement. The Ambersons, George’s mother’s family, are the center of society in their “Midland town.” From the beginning of the novel, the author sets Georgie up for disaster; the entire town is waiting for George Amberson Minafer to get his “come-upance”. As George grows up the reckoning is delayed again and again, but the most casual reader must know that George’s pride goeth before a fall. George’s favorite word for other people, all others who aren’t Ambersons, is “riff-raff”. His attitude can only and always be described as condescending, even with the young lady with whom he falls in love.

So, The Magnificent Ambersons is first of all a cautionary tale. Pride is destructive. Things change; no one stays on top forever. Fortunes come and go. Only those who are strong, wise, and flexible, and maybe even lucky, can persevere to enjoy the good life.

However, the book is not just a preachy, moralistic fable. It’s a picture of life at the turn of the century, of how change affects different personalities. It’s a love story about a mother who idolizes her son, and a young man who loves his family pride more than he cares for the woman who is willing to overlook many of his faults and who could have made him happy. And the ending is about forgiveness and hope and the possibility that broken things can be, if not mended, perhaps made new.

I’ve not seen the Orson Welles movie based on this book, but I plan to do so. After reading the novel, I can see how this book would make a great “old movie”. No modern remakes, however, nowadays a writer and director would most likely ruin the movie version with gratuitous sex and a plot in which only the characters’ names were borrowed from the original book.

A Work in Progress review of The Magnificent Ambersons.