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The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

Apr3

Organizer Daughter and a friend and I watched the movie version of this book by Jane Yolen this afternoon in conjunction with the urchins’ study of World War II. I read the book a long time ago and didn’t remember much about it. Hence, the ending quite shocked me, as I vaguely remember it shocking me when I read it.

If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s a tale of sixteen year old “typical teenager” Hanna Stern who, when she is forced to attend the annual family Seder, tries to avoid hearing the interminably long stories that her elderly relatives tell about their WW II experiences. However, during the Seder, a mystery intervenes (or is it a dream?), and Hanna is somehow transported back to Poland in the year 1940. She attends a Jewish wedding with some of her relatives who think she is a cousin who has been ill with a fever, and at the wedding, tragedy strikes. The Nazis come to take the Jews to “work camps”, and because Hanna has ben completely inattentive to her family’s history and heritage, she has very little idea of what will happen next to her and to her Polish, Jewish family.

I wouldn’t recommend the movie for any children younger than 13 or 14. Even my high schoolers were, I think, shocked by some of the scenes of brutality and horror that took place in the concentration camp. And that’s despite the fact that I think the movie sort of understates and even misrepresents the reality in some ways. The inmates of the camp are a lot more free to interact and a lot more warmly dressed than I would think was the true state of affairs. Anyway, this movie is for mature teen and adults, and I think it did my teens some good to see enacted some historical facts that they had only read about until now.

The movie stars Kirsten Dunst as Hanna and Brittany Murphy as her friend Rifka.

Bringing Back Kate, or What’s Up, Professor Grant?

Apr2

Brown Bear Daughter and I watched the 1938 Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant movie Bringing Up Baby the other night, and I realized about halfway through the movie that one of my other favorite movies, What’s Up Doc?, made in 1972 with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal, was just a take-off on Bringing Up Baby, practically a remake. Absent-minded professor meets lunatic girl who brings his ordered life crashing down around him—and coincidentally ends his engagement to the wrong, boring girl. Screwball comedy. Innocent mayhem. Lots of laughs in both movies.

I like Katharine and Cary better than Barbra and Ryan, but for some reason I think What’s Up Doc? is the funnier movie. Madeleine Kahn, as Ryan O’Neal’s boringly hilarious fiance, adds a new layer of comedy to the second movie and almost steals the show. Hepburn would never have let herself get upstaged by anyone. Don’t you wish The Great Kate were still around to make more memorable movies? I’d love to see What’s Up Doc?, revised and updated, but starring magically young again Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

Advent: December 7th

Dec7

Every year on this date, my mom would ask me, “Do you know what today is?”

“Christmas? Almost Christmas? The beginning of Christmas?”



I eventually learned that December 7th has nothing to do with Christmas. Go here for an article by Maggie Hogan on commemorating this “date which will live in infamy” in your homeschool.

The book Early Sunday Morning: The Pearl Harbor Diary of Amber Billows, Hawaii, 1941 by Barry Denenberg is one of the Dear America series from Scholastic. Go here for more information on the book and some activities to accompany it.

Other books for children and young adults:
Air Raid–Pearl Harbor!: The Story of December 7, 1941 by Theodore Taylor

A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor by Harry Mazer

World War II for Kids: A History with 21 Activities by Richard Panchyk

Links:
Phil at Brandywine Books: The Last Survivors of Pearl Harbor.

Michelle Malkin: Remembering Pearl Harbor.

George Grant posts Franklin Roosevelt’s December 8th “Date Which Will Live in Infamy” speech, broadcast on radio worldwide.

From Hawaii, Palm Tree Pundit comments and links to a few others who remember this date.

Children’s Fiction of 2007: Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance by Eleanora E. Tate

Nov16

I like historical fiction. I liked this book set partly in Harlem, New York City, 1921 and also in Raleigh, N.C. But I must say that the author is a namedropper. Every single famous or semi-famous black American who could have been expected to show up for a cameo appearance in Harlem in 1921 is in this book: Caterina Jarboro, Duke Ellington, Bert Williams, Marcus Garvey, James Weldon Johnson, even Madame C.J. Walker, who was dead by the time of the story, but living on in her prosperous business of providing hair care products for “Colored folks’ hair.” Then, too, the author uses historical events and places to lend authenticity to her story: the lynching of two black men in North Carolina in 1921, the North Carolina Negro State Fair, the first musical produced on Broadway starring black entertainers called Shuffle Along, and many historical markers and occasions.

I did feel as if I were in a Black history class every once in a while when I read the book, but then the story would come along and pick me back up and deposit me inside a narrative about family and friendship and forgiveness that was absorbing and universal in its themes. Celeste, the main character, lives in Raleigh with her father and her Aunt Society. Celeste’s mother died four years before the beginning of the story. In the first part of the book we spend some time getting to know Celeste (shy and quiet, but talented at playing the violin), Aunt Society (grouchy and strict), Celeste’s Poppa (hard-working and indulgent toward his only daughter), and Celeste’s almost mythical Aunt Valentina who lives in a mansion in Harlem, an actress who drives a big car and wears fancy clothes.

Then, everything changes for Celeste when her beloved Poppa must go to a sanatorium to rest and recover from tuberculosis. Aunt Society can’t take care of Celeste, and the only option left is for Celeste to go to Harlem and live with Aunt Val. Harlem life isn’t anything like what Celeste expected, and later the book changes course once again when Celeste must leave all the friends she’s made in Harlem to go back to North Carolina. The characters in the novel are complicated and multi-dimensional, and Celeste must learn, as she grows up physically, to grow in her assessments of other people, to forgive, and to understand, even as she becomes more confident in her own decisions and abilities.

I think I’ll give this book to my sixteen year old daughter who’s studying twentieth century history this year. We’re covering the decade of the twenties, and even though my dear daughter is a little older than the target audience for this book, she could learn something and enjoy reading it.

Other views:

Celebrate With Books: “This is a delightful book, rich with a strong female character, who is witty and very self reliant. The author (Tate) makes the reader feel as though you are there in 1921 Harlem, New York.”

A Fuse #8 Production: “It’s so frustrating that I liked this book. I liked it so much. I thought the story of Celeste was fascinating and that the arc of the story said some wonderful things. But there were at least 75 pages that could and should have been taken out right from the start.”

Eleanora Tate’s website (including a study guide for Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance)

Sadie Hawkins Day

Nov3

Anybody here old enough to remember the origin of this holiday?

Al Capp, cartoonist, wrote the comic strip Lil Abner and created the characters of Daisy Mae, Lil Abner, Pappy and Mammy Yoakum, Joe Btfsplk, Schmoo, and, of course, Sadie Hawkins.

From the official Al Capp website:

Sadie Hawkins Day, an American folk event, made its debut in Al Capp’s Li’l Abner strip November 15, 1937. Sadie Hawkins was “the homeliest gal in the hills” who grew tired of waiting for the fellows to come a courtin’. Her father, Hekzebiah Hawkins, a prominent resident of Dogpatch, was even more worried about Sadie living at home for the rest of his life, so he decreed the first annual Sadie Hawkins Day, a foot race in which the unmarried gals pursued the town’s bachelors, with matrimony the consequence. By the late 1930’s the event had swept the nation and had a life of its own. Life magazine reported over 200 colleges holding Sadie Hawkins Day events in 1939, only two years after its inception. . . . When Al Capp created the event, it was not his intention to have the event occur annually on a specific date because it inhibited his freewheeling plotting. However, due to its enormous popularity and the numerous fan letters Capp received, the event became an annual event in the strip during the month of November, lasting four decades.”

Sadie Hawkins Day is often celebrated on the first Saturday in November, but you can have your own Sadie Hawkins event anytime in November. You single ladies have any plans?

Terms from Mr. Capp’s famous comic strip were an integral part of my childhood, and I never even knew that most of them came from L’il Abner. How many of you are familiar with: Kickapoo Joy Juice, Lower Slobbovia, Fearless Fosdick, Jubilation T. Cornpone, “if I had my druthers”, and “double whammy”? All of those familiar-to-me characters and phrases and places came from the creative mind of Al Capp. I think my parents must have been weaned on L’il Abner and Co.

Children’s Fiction of 2007: Someone Named Eva by Joan M. Wolf

Oct29

There’s probably more than one reason that I enjoy reading fiction written for children, but one of those reasons is that even the best of children’s fiction is somewhat simple and straightforward. Children, and adults like me, want a story, a beginning-to-end, satisfying, well-written story that gives us something to think about in the process. Someone Named Eva was such a story.

The novel is appropriate for any child who’s mature enough to deal emotionally with the essential plotline: a Czech child is stolen from her home and sent to a school for training young Aryan Nazis to serve the Fatherland. Milada qualifies for this “honor” because she is blonde, blue-eyed, and her nose is the right length. Before she leaves, her grandmother tells her: “Remember who you are, Milada. Remember where you are from. Always.”

Easier said than done. Milada, whose named is changed to the German Eva, hears so many lies, repeated so often and so convincingly that she begins to lose her grip on truth and her sense of her own identity. Her German teachers tell her that her parents died in an air raid, and even though she knows that they were arrested by the Germans themselves and that she was taken away from them, Eva begins to doubt her own memories. Could such “brainwashing” really happen? Of course, it could; Someone Named Eva is based on a true story of a Czech village burned to the ground for supposed collaboration with the the Allies and Aryan-looking children given in adoption to German families during World War II. Many of those children did forget their own native language and their family and cultural heritage.

I was reminded of Hitler’s famous dictum (not actually formulated by Hitler, but attributed to him anyway): “people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.” I thought, too, of Satan, and how his colossal lies are repeated over and over again throughout our society and of how we eventually begin to doubt the truth in favor of the oft-repeated lie:

Money will make you happy. Lots of money and stuff will make you supremely happy.

People and relationships can wait. Pursue the urgent rather than the eternal.

God can be mocked. You will not really reap what you sow.

You are not loved. God cannot be trusted. Live for the moment because that’s all you’ve got.

We believe the lies, act upon them, and lose our own souls in the process.

I’ve gone a bit far afield from the book Someone Named Eva, but a book that can make me think about such important issues is only simple in the sense that it is honest and direct. Oh, the power of a simple story.

Someone Named Eva was nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction. Read more about author Joan M. Wolf here.

Other reviewers write about Someone Named Eva:

Elizabeth Bird at A Fuse #8 Production.

1904: Music

Oct8

George M. Cohan published Give My Regards to Broadway and Yankee Doodle Boy both in 1904. My students had never even heard of Cohan, and one of them had never even heard of any of his songs. Not the two above. Not You’re a Grand Old Flag. Not Over There. Someone has neglected these urchins’ musical education.

Go here for an NPR profile of Cohan and his music.

My family watched the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney as George M. Cohan. Cagney won an Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of the song and dance man, and I thought it was delightful film.

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?

Multicultural Soldier Boys of World War II

Aug19

Eyes of the Emperor by Graham Salibury. A Japanese-American boy in Hawaii, Eddy Okubo, experiences the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, lies about his age, and joins the Army. Because of his ethnic background, Eddy is given a special assignment that tests his commitment, patriotism, and endurance.

Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac. A Navaho boy, Ned Begay, hears about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, disguises his age, and joins the Marines. Because of his ethnic background and fluency in the Navaho language, Ned is given a special assignment that tests his commitment, patriotism, and endurance.

I read both of these in quick succession and found them to be similar in tone and in plot, but I liked both anyway. I would imagine that if you know any boys who are WWII buffs, these would be great to recommend.

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

Aug7

I spent the day yesterday, unexpectedly, in the emergency room at a nearby hospital. (Everybody’s OK now, but emergency rooms take t–i–m–e.) Of course, I had to take some reading material along, and I chose a book I’ve been meaning to read for a long time: The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. The book is a nonfiction thriller about an outbreak of Ebola virus in suburban Washington, D.C. Did I mention that it’s NONfiction?

As I read about Ebola, maybe the nastiest virus yet discovered, and about how 60-90% of people infected by the virus don’t survive, and about a hospital in Africa that was literally wiped out by an outbreak of Ebola virus, I was sitting in the emergency room listening to a baby crying and people groaning, and I was wondering what kinds of germs, bacteria, and nasty viruses were floating around in the air. The emergency room nurse saw what I was reading and reassured me that “most of those hemorrhagic fevers stay in Africa or Asia, hardly ever here in the U.S.” Since I was reading, at that very minute, about how monkeys from the Philippines carried Ebola to Reston, Virginia in 1989, I was not convinced that the danger was as minimal as the nurse seemed to think. In other words, “hardly ever” isn’t good enough. Do we really need to import thousands of monkeys into the U.S. each year for medical research, anyway? Can’t the researchers go to the monkeys, if it’s really necessary?

Philosophical and practical questions aside, The Hot Zone is well-written, informative, exciting, and scary. The book was best-seller back when it was first published over ten years ago (1994). So some of you have probably read it. If you haven’t and you’re looking for a plot device for your terrorist thriller or apocalyptic dystopian novel, you could probably find it in this book. I can only imagine what that emergency room would look like if one of the viruses in this book managed to get loose in Houston. A long wait would be the least of our worries.