Archive by Author | Sherry

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney

Oct2

I have read this book, and I think it rocks! It starts out with him (the wimpy kid) saying that it is a journal and that he told his mom not to get one with the word “diary” mentioned anywhere in it. The book is about a boy named Greg Hefley. He loves video games and whenever he is grounded from them he sneaks a game to his friend Rowley’s house and plays it there. I guess that you could call this guy a… how should I put it… well he is very… moronic. Of course, I can’t really say that because he doesn’t do much that would make him a moron and he usually is the one, in his journal of course, calling other people morons. He has a brother named Rodrick. Rodrick has a band called “Loded Diper”. Of course, that isn’t how you spell it, and if you told Rodrick that, it would be news to him! Later in the book, he gets a job as a school paper cartoon writer. He and Rowley were going to use a comic called “Zoo-Wee Mama!”. They gave up on that one and used a comic called “Creightin the Cretin”. This book is very funny, and I hope that everyone else who reads it loves it as much as I did!

Note from Mom: This review was written by ten year old Karate Kid. The management is not responsible for the use of the word “moron” in the review. In fact, I told someone that it is not polite or kind to call anyone a moron or a cretin, even a fictional character.

Children’s Fiction of 2007: The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies

Oct2

Jessie and Evan Treski are brother and sister. Evan is good at making friends, talking to people, and understanding feelings. Jessie is good at math and planning and organizing. When their normally close and supportive sibling relationship turns sour, they take their dispute and make . . . lemonade.

Math and marketing combine in The Lemonade Warto produce a story that teaches many lessons. But it’s never didactic. The book is successful on so many levels. It can be a story about a brother and sister who learn that they need each other. Or it can be a story about a brother and a sister who learn that they can do things for which they’ve always depended on each other for help. Or it can be a story about how to succeed in business, and about what mistakes to avoid. Or it can be a story about misunderstanding and envy and unkindness and love and reconciliation.

This book presents a great picture of a brother and sister working through jealousy and pride issues in their relationship. It’s also a good book to recommend to math teachers who want to incorporate literature across the curriculum. Or to math nerds who need to realize that there are other important skills that they might need to hone. Or to kids who are not so good at math who need to know that their talents are valuable, too. Or to kids or adults who are interested in kids going into business for themselves. I can think of lots of people who might like this book.

The Lemonade War has its own website with games, news, author information, and teacher helps.

Some other classic books that combine business, mathematics, and story:

The Toothpaste Millionaire by Jean Merrill.

The Seventeenth Swap by Eloise Jarvis McGraw.

Any other suggestions?

1902: Twentieth Century Music

Oct1

I am studying twentieth century history with a couple of the urchins this year, and I thought it would be fun, and perhaps instructive, to listen to some popular tunes as we study through the century. We started in 1900, but the first songs I introduced were both published in 1902. 1902 was, of course, pre-recorded music and pre-radio for all practical purposes. Music back then was sold, not on CD or tape or even LP record, but as sheet music. Yes, this idea of not being able to purchase a recording of the latest musical composition, but rather having to buy the music and produce your own rendition or go to a concert hall somewhere to listen, was a new concept for the urchins.

At any rate, a couple of popular songs published in 1902 were:

In the Good Old Summertime lyrics by Ren Shields and music by George Evans. George “Honey Boy” Evans was originally from Wales, but he joined a minstrel show when he was a young performer of about twenty years of age. After that, he performed in blackface for much of his singing career, just ike Al Jolson. (We watched the movie The Jolson Story, and the urchins and I agreed that it was interesting, but much too long.) To get back to Honey Boy, he and Mr. Shields were fooling around one day when George mentioned the “good old summertime” and out of that chance remark came a hit song —or what passed for a hit in 1902. It was published, sung on Broadway, and people played it on their pianos and sang about the good old summertime for many years thereafter. Still do sometimes, I suppose.
Information from Vaudeville, Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America by Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, Donald P. McNeilly.

In the good old summertime,
In the good old summertime,
Strolling thru’ a shady lane
With your baby mine.
You hold her hand and she holds yours,
And that’s a very good sign
That she’s your tootsie wootsie
In the good, old summertime.

Tootsie wootsie????? The urchins got a kick out of that one. (Complete lyrics and music.)

The Entertainer by Scott Joplin. Wow, I didn’t know that Scott Joplin was from Texas! He was born in East Texas and grew up in Texarkana, of all places. When he published The Entertainer in 1902, he had already had a success with his Maple Leaf Rag. Of course, I know The Entertainer from the movie The Sting, and my urchins know it only because Eldest Daughter played it for recital once a upon a time. (Isn’t it amazing how memorable those recital pieces become after having been practiced ad infinitum.) Mr. Joplin’s music is one of the earliest examples of “ragtime”, a musical genre that became all the rage in the first decade of the twentieth century. Ragtime is “music characterixed by a syncopated melodic line and regularly accented accompaniment, evolved by black American musicinas in the 1890’s and played especially on the piano.” You can listen to a really quick tempo version of The Entertainer here.

Can you tell that I’m not an expert on music, classical, popular, or otherwise? But I’m having fun. Those of you who are music people, how would you describe a piece of music played fast?

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born September 29th

Sep29

“It seems to me,” said Sancho, “that the knights who did all these things were driven to them… but… why should you go crazy? What lady has rejected you…?
“That is exactly it,” replied Don Quixote, “that’s just how beautifully I’ve worked it all out – because for a knight errant to go crazy for good reason, how much is that worth? My idea is to become a lunatic for no reason at all…”

He is mad past recovery, but yet he has lucid intervals.”

Engineeer Husband has been reading Don Quixote aloud to the urchins, especially Karate Kid, in the evenings for some time now. KK says it’s a good story, but Don Quixote is being really stupid. I think they may have completed about a fourth of the book; they don’t read every night. At this rate, they ought to get to the end by the time KK gets to high school.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born on this date in 1547.

The Cybils Are Here: Press Release

Sep28

Will Harry Potter triumph among critical bloggers? Will novels banned in some school districts find favor online?
With 90 volunteers poised to sift through hundreds of new books, the second annual Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards launches on Oct. 1 at The Cybils blog. Known as the Cybils, it’s the only literary contest that combines both the spontaneity of the Web with the thoughtful debate of a book club.
The public’s invited to nominate books in eight categories, from picture books up to young adult fiction, so long as the book was first published in 2007 in English (bilingual books are okay too). Once nominations close on Nov. 21, the books go through two rounds of judging, first to select the finalists and then the winners, to be announced on Valentine’s Day 2008.
Judges come from the burgeoning ranks of book bloggers in the cozy corner of the Internet called the kidlitosphere. They represent parents, homeschoolers, authors, illustrators, librarians and even teens.
The contest began last year after blogger Kelly Herold expressed dismay that while some literary awards were too snooty, rewarding books kids would seldom read, others were too populist and didn’t acknowledge the breadth and depth of what’s being published today.
“It didn’t have to be brussel sprouts versus gummy bears,” said Anne Boles Levy, who started Cybils with Herold. “There are books that fill both needs, to be fun and profound.”
Last year’s awards prompted more than 480 nominations, and this year’s contest will likely dwarf that. As with last year’s awards, visitors to the Cybils blog can leave their nominations as comments. There is no nomination form, only the blog, to keep in the spirit of the blogosphere that started it all.
See you Oct. 1!

And I get to be on the panel that winnows down the Middle Grade Fiction nominees to five finalists. So head over to the Cybils blog and make your nominations.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born September 28th

Sep28

William Mickle, b.1735. Scots poet. I can identify with the theme of this poem, There’s Nae Luck about the House. Engineer Husband doesn’t have to travel too often, but when he is gone, there’s no luck about the house at all.

Rise, lass, and mak a clean fire side,
Put on the muckle pot,
Gie little Kate her button gown,
And Jock his Sunday coat;
And mak their shoon as black as slaes,
Their hose as white as snaw,
It’s a’ to please my ain gudeman,
For he’s been lang awa.
For there’s nae luck about the house,
There’s nae luck at a’,
There’s little pleasure in the house
When our gudeman’s awa.

Sir WIlliam Jones, b. 1746. Philoligist and student of Indian history.

The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have spring from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit, and the old Persian might be added to this family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia.

Kate Douglas Wiggin, b. 1856, author and educator. She wrote Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and The Birds’ Christmas Carol. Eldest Daughter always thought Rebecca compared rather unfavorably to L.M. Mongomery’s Anne of Green Gables, but I remember enjoying both books and both heroines.
Read Rebecca online.
Wiggin also wrote an autobiography, My Garden of Memories, and an adult novel, The Village Watchtower. I added both to The List last year, but I haven’t found copies of either one yet.

Edith Mary Pargeter, b. 1913. She wrote several fine historical fiction novels, including The Heaven Tree Trilogy about a thirteenth century family of British stonecarvers. Of course, Pargeter’s more famous series of books takes place a century before the Heaven Tree books, and she wrote them under a different name. If you’ve never read these and if you have a morbid taste for bones, you should go immediately to your nearest library and check one out. An excellent mystery.

Caddy Ever After by Hilary McKay

Sep26

I’ve decided after four books that I really love the Casson family. They’re totally bonkers, as the British would say, but I enjoy them anyway. Probably it’s the bonkers part that makes them fun. Anyway, I described the family and the first three books here.

Caddy Ever After, the latest installment in the Casson family saga, is only tangentially about Caddy, Cadmium Casson. Caddy is hardly mentioned until page 152, but all the things that happen to various family members in the first part of the book are leading up to the grand finale which does involve Caddy’s wedding. So I guess the book could be about Caddy, sort of. I’d suggest reading the first three books in this series, Saffy’s Angel, Indigo’s Star, and Permanent Rose, before you read Caddy Ever After because it took me that many books to suspend disbelief long enough to believe in the Cassons. Now I’m a believer.

The point of view in this book changes from Rose to Indigo to Saffy to Caddy and back to Rose, but Permanent Rose lives up to her name and supervises everything. She’s a permanent fixture in the Casson family books and as the series has continued, Rose has stepped up to center stage. She’s the one who makes things happen, good and bad, and she reminds me a bit of my fourth child, Organizer Daughter. Except Organizer Daughter would never be as uninhibited as Rose is because she (OD) has two uptight parents instead of just one.

Enough psychoanalysis, enjoy these books for the humor, and don’t try most of the stunts the Cassons get away with at home. Or maybe we should try a few Cassonities before things get too dull around here. (I just noticed that in the paperback edition of this book, Caddy’s half face is on the other side, the spine side, of the cover. How odd!)

YA Fiction of 2007: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

Sep25

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is an atypical romance story in which girl meets boy at about the same time girl has a head injury and loses four years of her memory. And it turns out that girl already has a boyfriend, not the one who’s there when she loses her memory. In fact, there’s even another boy who’s her best friend, and she doesn’t remember him either. So there’s lots of scope for misdirection and suspense and who-will-get-together-with-whom. (In fact, one of the characters in the book says that the entire story reminds her of a Shakepearean comedy.)

And, for the most part, it works. Naomi Porter, the girl amnesiac, is a junior in high school with an already complicated life and set of relationships before she has the accident that wipes out her memory. Afterwards, things only become more complex. Does she hate her mother whose divorce from her father Naomi can’t remember? Does she hate her father’s new girfriend, Rosa Rivera the tango dancer? Is Will her best friend or something more? Is James, the tortured but handsome movie maker, her true love, or does she love Ace, the popular tennis player? It may sound like a trite romance, but beneath the surface of the story Ms. Zevin deals with some substantial questions about memory and how the past informs the present.

Unfortunately, for Christian young adults, some minor details about the plot and characters may be offensive. If you can ignore the lesbian friends and the assumption that most, if not all, teenagers have casual sex with their boy/girlfriends, the book is an excellent read with some thoughtful themes interspersed with the romance and confusion.

Children’s Fiction of 2007: Do Not Pass Go by Kirkpatrick Hill

Sep24

Deet’s dad is in jail. He’s been taking drugs to stay awake so that he can hold down a second job, and somehow he got caught. It’s a first offense, but nevertheless Dad gets sent to jail for a six month stretch. A first, Deet is humiliated, angry, and confused, but slowly he begins to see that having a parent in jail is not the end of the world.

Good story. Good characters. Deet is the super-organized, hyper-responsible, oldest child, and both of his parents are a little too loosey-goosey and disorganized for the family’s own good. Some of that irresponsibility is what gets Deet’s family into this mess. Deet has a great teacher at school in whom he can confide via a assigned “quotations journal.” (Deet writes his reflections on various quotations from his quotation book.) Deet also meets other people who visit their loved ones in jail, and he becomes friends with some of them. These are the good parts of the story.

However, all the way through the book, I felt as if I were trapped in a sociology lecture about prison reform. The author inserts comments on how many people the United States jails and how high the illiteracy rate is among prison inmates. I liked the story parts, but when the author “went to preachin'” I had the impulse to skim. And sometimes I did.

Welcome Autumn

Sep23

Here in Houston, we may wish for autumn to come, may long for the sweet relief of cooler weather and lower electricity bills, but pretending that the end of August or the beginning of school or the day after Labor Day is really the beginning of autumn is farcical. We can only start pretending on the first official day of fall: September 23rd, the autumnal equinox. Mind you, the weather hasn’t arrived yet, but we can start pretending. Let the longing for autumn begin! After all, Autumn is only a state of mind.

Here’s my favorite autumn poem:

Vagabond Song by Bliss Carmon
THERE is something in the autumn that is native to my blood–
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

Bloggers Celebrate Autumn 2006

Dawn listed her autumn delights, in many of which I share her joy.

Queen Shenaynay said goodbye to summer and listed her accomplishments for the season past. She said she didn’t do as much as she would have wished, but I’m totally impressed by what she did do. How would you like to come over and clean out my closets, O Queen of the Beehive?

Fa-So-La-La. also of the Beehive, had an equally impressive list and farewell to summer.

MotherReader listed the accomplishments of the summer and wishes everyone a Happy School Year.

Lars Walker said that September 8th was the first day of fall in Minnesota “in terms of the nuance in the air.”

Cindy of Dominion Family was looking forward to fall.

Kim’s Hiraeth: Autumn Harvest Soup

Journey Woman associated fall with Robert Frost’s Mending Wall. I agree that Frost is a fall/winter poet. Snow, New England, fall work on the farm, trees–these are the images that I think of when I think of Frost. I like Robert Frost. Is he out of fashion now?

And the Seventh Carnival of Children’s Literature at Wands and Worlds had a fall harvest theme. Sheila Ruth had lots of good, fall, bookish links for lovers of children’s literature to enjoy.

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples; some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies . . . The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Bloggers Celebrate Autumn 2007
Pipsqueak has an autumn poem at The Common Room.

Clarice at Storybook Woods shares Autumn Bliss.: a collection of links, and pictures, and posts about autumn.

Autumn Rain is celebrating New Year’s Day: “Why?” I asked yesterday. “Why do we have to celebrate New Years in January? Why not September or October? Why not at the beginning, the real beginning, of the year? It would make so much more sense.”


Fall Curriculum Helps
Preschool Activities for Fall

Pumpkin Poems and Songs

Why do leaves change color in the fall? An explanation and two related science experiments.

In Living Color: Fall Leaves, a homeschool fall unit study.

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Fall Book Lists:

Autumn Unit Study from Seven Pillars Booknook

Autumn Booklist from the same source

Top 10 Books About Fall Literature

Autumn Picture Books.

Christian Science Monitor: Book buyers and bookstore owners offer tips as to fall’s best new books. None of them appeal to me, judging from the descriptions in the article. Maybe you’ll be luckier.

Seattle Times: Fiction dominates the autumn landscape.

Boston Globe: Picking Favorites for the Fall.

SEPTEMBER MORN
Written by Neil Diamond and Gilbert Becaud

Stay for just a while
Stay, and let me look at you
It’s been so long, I hardly knew you
Standing in the door
Stay with me a while
I only wanna talk to you
We’ve traveled halfway ’round the world
To find ourselves again

September morn
We danced until the night became a brand new day
Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play
September morning still can make me feel that way

Look at what you’ve done
Why, you’ve become a grown-up girl
I still can hear you crying
In a corner of your room
And look how far we’ve come
So far from where we used to be
But not so far that we’ve forgotten
How it was before

September morn
Do you remember how we danced that night away
Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play
September morning still can make me feel that way

1979 Stonebridge Music (ASCAP)

In addition to Robert Frost, I also like Neil Diamond. I have eclectic tastes.

Books for Elementary Age Readers:

MoominValley in November by Tove Jansson. “Early one morning in Moominvalley Snufkin woke up in his tent with the feeling that autumn had come and that it was time to break camp.”

B Is for Betsy by Carolyn Haywood. ” . . . this morning Betsy was so busy feeling unhappy that she forgot all about the birds. Betsy was unhappy because today was the first day of school. She had never been to school, and she was sure she would not like it.

The Moffats by Eleanor Estes. “The way Mama could peel apples! A few turns of the knife and there the apple was, all skinned! . . . Jane sighed. Her mother’s peeling fell off in long lovely curls, while, for the life of her, Jane couldn’t do any better than these thick little chunks which she popped into her mouth.”

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. “It was a dark and stormy night.”

Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard Atwater. “It was an afternoon in late September. In the pleasant little cit of Stillwater, Mr. Popper, the ouse painter, was going home from work.”

Freddy Plays Football by Walter R. Broooks. “Jinx, the black cat, was curled up in the exact center of the clean white counterpane that Mrs. Bean had ust put on the spare room bed.”

Revised and added to from September 23, 2006.