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Living and Learning: December 10, 2008

Dec10

Z-baby and I were going to pick up her brother from his math class, and we had this rather random conversation:

Z-baby: When someone becomes president, on the day he becomes president, do they have a Big Party or something?

Semicolon Mom: Yes, they do. It’s called an inauguration.

Z-baby: Does everybody in the whole country have to come?

Semicolon Mom: No, just his friends and supporters and other people who live close to Washington, D.C. will be there.

Z-baby: Why does Barack Obama have to be president of Texas anyway? Why can’t he just go be president of New Mexico or something?

(Impromptu geography/government lesson ensues in which Semicolon Mom explains that New Mexico and Texas are both part of the United States, and Mr. Obama will be president of all fifty states in the U.S.)

Z-baby: Well, at least maybe it will snow tonight!
extremely reluctant reader, the only one I’ve had to be so allergic to learning to read. (No, she doesn’t have a learning disability. She’s mostly just lazy and opinionated.) Anyway, I’m glad to have her bringing me a book and reading parts of it to me, with a smile!

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born December 10th, Emily Dickinson, Mary Norton, Rumer Godden.
Will Duquette reviews In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden.
Semicolon review of Pippa Passes by Rumer Godden.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born December 10th, George Macdonald.

Dating the Gospels

Dec2

A friend and I were discussing the truth claims of Christianity and reliability of the gospels, and she made the statement that the “gospel” that was recently discvered that talks about the marriage of Mary Magdalene and Jesus pre-dates the four canonical gospels. I didn’t know if that was true or not, but I doubted that it was.

So I challenged her statement and said I’d look it up. Here’s what I found in a cursory search on the internet:

First of all, The (so-called) Gospel of Philip does not say that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married, but it is the source for Dan Brown’s fictional account of that marriage.

The book’s origins can be traced to the Gnostic community that arose several years after the death of Valentinus (c. 160); written more than a century after Jesus walked the earth, the book cannot represent eyewitness testimony about him. Some of the brief excerpts found in Gospel of Philip may stem from the early second century; however, the date of the final form of the book is closer to the late 200s. ~The Truth About Da Vinci

See also here, here, and here, all sources, Christian and non Christian which place the composition of The Gospel of Philip later than 100 AD.

As for the canonical gospels, F.F. Bruce says in his book The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?:

The New Testament was complete, or substantially complete, about AD 100, the majority of the writings being in existence twenty to forty years before this. In this country a majority of modern scholars fix the dates of the four Gospels as follows: Matthew, c. 85-90; Mark, c. 65; Luke, c. 80-85; John, c. 90-100.4 I should be inclined to date the first three Gospels rather earlier: Mark shortly after AD 60, Luke between 60 and 70, and Matthew shortly after 70. One criterion which has special weight with me is the relation which these writings appear to bear to the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. My view of the matter is that Mark and Luke were written before this event, and Matthew not long afterwards.

But even with the later dates, the situation is encouraging from the historian’s point of view, for the first three Gospels were written at a time when men were alive who could remember the things that Jesus said and did, and some at least would still be alive when the fourth Gospel was written.

None of the above settles once and for all whether the Christian gospels are historically accurate nor whether the so-called Gospel of Philip has any truth in it, but it should settle the matter of whether or not the Gnostic Gospel of Philip predates the canonical gospels. It doesn’t.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born December 2nd.

Carol’s Meme for November 29th

Nov29

I just found Carol Magistramater’s meme from last year for the November 29th birthday of three of my favorite authors.

1. What was the first [Alcott, Lewis, L’Engle] book you read?
Alcott: Little Women, probably. I was in a play based on the first few chapters of the book when I was in fifth grade. I was Jo.
Lewis: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I don’t associate anything special with reading this book, but I’m sure I started with the first Narnia book.
L’Engle: A Wrinkle in Time.

2. If you could be a [Alcott, Lewis, L’Engle] character for a day, who would you be?
Alcott: I’d be grown-up Jo with the big house and all the boys running in and out.
Lewis: Lucy, of course, having tea with Mr. Tumnus.
L’Engle: I’d be Katherine Forrester Vigneras playing the piano in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

3. Do you prefer [Alcott?, Lewis, L’Engle]’s fiction or nonfiction?
I always prefer fiction, although C.S. Lewis’s nonfiction apologetics and essays are profound and have been quite influential in my thinking.

4. Which [Alcott, Lewis, L’Engle] book would you recommend to any reader?
Readers of Lewis should start with the Narnia books unless they’re adults with a low tolerance for fantasy. In that case, Mere Christianity is the book for the nonfiction crowd. Eight Cousins is actually my favorite Alcott book, along with an immediate follow-up read of its sequel Rose in Bloom. A Wrinkle in TIme is a good place to start with L’Engle unless again you don’t care for children’s science fiction. In that case, I would suggest A Severed Wasp or A Ring of Endless Light.

5. Which [Alcott, Lewis, L’Engle] book did you dislike?
The Last Battle is my least favorite of the Narnia books, although even that one has some excellent scenes in it. Some of Madeleine L’Engle’s early young adult romances feel a bit dated, but I enjoyed them anyway.

6. What is your favorite [Alcott, Lewis, L’Engle] quote?
Lewis: “A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere–‘Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,’ as Herbert says, ‘fine nets and stratagems.’ God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.”
L’Engle: “Love always has meaning. But sometimes only God knows what it is.”
Alcott: “Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.”

7. Which [Alcott, Lewis, L’Engle] book would you like to read next?
I’d like to re-read The Silver Chair, my favorite of the Narnia books. Certain Women by Madeleine L’Engle is an adult novel about the Biblical King David and about a modern-day David, an actor who engages in serial polygamy in about the same way that David of the Bible loved many women and had many wives. I’d like to re-read it, too. No Alcott right now, thank you.

8. What biography of [Alcott, Lewis, L’Engle] would you recommend?
I haven’t read any biographies of Madeleine L’Engle, but I can recommend her autobiographical trilogy that begins with A Circle of Quiet.
For C.S. Lewis, I read Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis by George Sayer a couple of years ago and thought it was well-written and balanced, not too adulatory nor too negative. (Reviewed here by Carrie at Reading to Know.)
Invincible Louisa by Cornelia Meigs won the Newbery Medal in 1934. I remember thinking it not a bad book at all, but Ms. Meigs’ style and vocabulary are probably too challenging for most children today.

9. Rate the ALL authors by order of preference.
1. C.S. Lewis
Lewis is the best writer and the most profound thinker of the three, the one whose work will stand the test of time. I predict that Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and Till We Have Faces, in particular, will be read and appreciated a hundred years from now.
Jared at Thinklings: Remembering Jack (2005)
Lars Walker at Brandywine Books: The Feast of St. Jack and The Great Man’s Headgear
Hope at Worthwhile Books reviews Out of the Silent Planet, the first book in Lewis’s space trilogy.
Heidi at Mt. Hope Chronicles writes about her appreciation for the works of C.S. Lewis.
Jollyblogger reviews Lewis’s The Great Divorce.

2. Madeleine L’Engle
Ms. L’Engle is the most likely of the three to have her work become dated. However, the science fiction quartet that begins with A Wrinkle in Time may very well last because it deals with themes that transcend time and localized concerns. And I still like The Love Letters the best of all her books, a wonderful book on the meaning of marriage and of maturity.
In which I invite Madeleine L’Engle to tea in June, 2006, before her death last year.
A Madeleine L’Engle Annotated bibliography.
Semicolon Review of The Small Rain and A Severed Wasp by Madeleine L’Engle.
Semicolon Review of Camilla by Madeleine L’Engle.
My Madeleine L’Engle project, which has languished this year, but I hope to get back to it in 2009.
Sweet Potato reviews A Wrinkle in Time.
Mindy Withrow writes about A Circle of Quiet.
Remembering Madeleine: Obituaries and Remembrances from September, 2007.

3. Louisa May Alcott.
I love reading about Ms. Alcott’s girls and boys even though many people, almost all males and many females, are too jaded and feminist, to enjoy books that celebrate the joys of domesticity and home education.
Circle of Quiet quotes An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott on the wearing of blue gloves.
Carrie reviews Little Women, after three attempts to get though it.
Framed and Booked liked Eight Cousins the best just as I did.

November 29, 2007: To This Great Stage of Fools.

There you have it: an impromptu celebration of three very fine authors. If you have anything to add, please leave a comment.

Semicolon Author Celebration: Samuel Johnson

Sep18

Today is the birthday of lexicographer, essayist, novelist, literary critic, and eighteenth century celebrity Samuel Johnson. He was born in 1709, so next year will mark the 300th anniversary of his birth. Commonly known as Dr. Johnson, he was the subject of James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the most famous biographies ever written in the English language.

More about Dr. Johnson.

Quoth Samuel Johnson:

“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”

“A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.”

A lady once asked him how he came to define pastern as the knee of a horse: instead of making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at once answered, “Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.”

“A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”

“Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”

“But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.”

“I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.”

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

“I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.”
More quotations from Dr.Johnson.

Some of Dr. Johnson’s more creative definitions:

LEXICOGRAPHER: A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

NETWORK: Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.

OATS: A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

PATRON: n. One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery.

Samuel Johnson, the critic:

Samuel Johnson on Lord Chesterfield: “This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!”

On Thomas Gray: “Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way and that made people think him great.”

On poet Christopher Smart: “Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart showed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question.”

On John Milton: “Scarcely any man ever wrote so much and praised so few.”

Happy Birthday, Dr. Johnson!

Semicolon’s September: Celebrations, Links and Birthdays

Random Harvest by James Hilton

Sep15

I read Lost Horizon a long time ago, and I’ve seen the movies. I enjoyed the book and the movies. Random Harvst by the same author is a different book, but it has the same feel to it. The characters have, and give the reader, that same longing to return to a simpler time and place; it’s a romance in the best sense of the word, just like Lost Horizon.

In fact, either finishing Random Harvest or a hormonal flare or both made me feel incredibly sad and nostalgic tonight. Then, I had a discussion with Eldest Daughter about politics and nuclear weapons and the war in Iraq and American imperialism and the global economy (yeah, all that), and that made me even sadder. So this review may or may not be truly indicative of the quality of the book. When you factor in romanticism and politics and hormones, anything can happen.

Random Harvest is an amnesia story about a man who loses three years of his life when he is wounded during World War I. The man, Charles Ranier, finds himself in Liverpool on a park bench and remembers everything that happened to him before he was wounded but nothing of the past three years, the ending of the war, and his return home. I’m not sure, but I think Hilton was trying to say something about the collective amnesia of the British people on the brink of another war because they had purposely forgotten the lessons of World War I. The book indicates that the pursuit of riches and economic power and the crusading spirit of the socialists are both inadequate substitutes for personal relationships and commitment to or faith in something beyond the here and now. Actually, I’m not sure Mr. Hilton was embedding such a didactic message in his book, but that summation approximates the message I got out of the book.

Mostly, Random Harvest is just a good story. There’s an impossibly romantic surprise ending, and I didn’t catch on to it until the last few pages of the book. So the finale was quite satisfying. And the story itself moved along somewhat slowly, but with enough going on to keep my interest, and just enough philosophical speculation to make me think a bit without straining my brain too much.

And the writing is very British and very 1940’s. Here’s a sample quotation that made me think of blogging:

“Those were the happy days when Smith began to write. As most real writers do, he wrote because he had something to say, not because of any specific ambition to become a writer. He turned out countless articles and sketches that gave him pleasure only because they contained a germ of what was in his mind; but he was never fully satisfied with them himself and consequently was never more than slightly disappointed when editors promptly returned them. He did not grasp that, because he was a person of no importance, nobody wanted to read his opinions at all.”

Smith would have been a perfect blogger.

Random Harvest was a fun, sort of melancholy-producing, book, and if you like amnesia books set in the 1920’s, written in the 1940’s, you should try it out. Other time-bending, amnesia books with a similar feel to them:

A Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan. Semicolon review here.

Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey. Not exactly an amnesia story, but it reminds me of Hilton’s style somehow. Semicolon review here.

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin. More modern and young adult-ish. Semicolon review here.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson. Also YA and more of a twenty-first century feel. Semicolon review here.

Anne Perry’s William Monk detective series features Mr. Monk as a late nineteenth century private detective suffering from amnesia. His assistant/love interest/foil is a nurse named Hester.

Any more amnesiac selections that you can remember? Mr. Hilton’s birthday was on the 9th of September, by the way. I forgot.

Semicolon’s September: Celebrations, Links and Birthdays

Semicolon Author Celebration: William Sydney Porter, aka O Henry

Sep10

I’m not much of a fan of short stories. They’re too short for me. Just as I get interested in the characters or the plot, the story is over. The End.

However, I will make an exception for the short stories and sketches of William Sydney Porter, nom de plume O Henry. The reason he thought he needed a pseudonym will be revealed later in the post, ala O Henry himself who was a great fan of the twist at the end of the story, the reveal that surprised the reader into laughing wryly and shaking his head gently.

Will Porter was born on September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. He came to Texas at the age of twenty in 1882 hoping to get rid of a persistent cough. (Texas used to be a haven for tubercular patients, not that Mr. Porter had tuberculosis. He may have thought he had.) He worked on a sheep ranch, then moved to Austin where he worked as a pharmacist, draftsman, bank teller, and then a journalist. He married a wife Athol, who did have tuberculosis, and the couple had two children, a son who died soon after birth and a daughter, Margaret.

He and Athol moved to Houston, and he wrote for the Houston Post (newspaper, now defunct). It was the bank teller thing that got him in trouble. The bank he had worked at in Austin was audited, and some money seemed to be missing. Mr. Porter was accused of embezzlement, andhis father in law posted bail. But William then did a very stupid thing. He ran away to New Orleans, then to Honduras. He was on the lam for about a year, but heard that his wife was dying back in Austin. So he returned, managed to stay with his wife and daughter until Athol died, and then he was sent to the penitentiary in Ohio to serve out a five year sentence. Why Ohio? I couldn’t find any reason. Maybe interstate banking or something?

Anyway, it was in prison that W.S. Porter really began writing prolifically and in prison that he decided that he needed a new name, a psuedonym. He became the New York short story writer, O Henry, and he became famous. Unfortunately he also became an alcoholic, and he died in 1910 of cirrhosis of the liver, penniless and alone.

Famous O Henry stories:

The Gift of the Magi: the classic Christmas story that O Henry called “the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house.”

The Ransom of Red Chief: In this story two would-be kidnappers are foiled and bamboozled by a ten year old brat. I read it out loud this evening to two of the urchins, but one fell asleep and the other one, Karate Kid, thought he could have outwitted those bungling kidnappers with more style and intelligence than the boy in the story.

The Last Leaf: A story about superstition, selfishness, and sacrifice. I’ve read it and enjoyed it although I could see the twist at the end coming halfway through.

The Last of the Troubadours: J. Frank Dobie called this story “the best range story in American fiction.” It’s about the feud between the sheep farmer and the cowman and about the actions of a quixotic troubadour.

The Furnished Room tells of a young man’s search for his runaway love, run away to sing on stage in the theaters and music halls of New York City.

The Book Den on O’Henry’s short stories.

Semicolon’s September: Celebrations, Links and Birthdays

Semicolon Author Celebration: Tasha Tudor

Aug28

I’ve written about author Tasha Tudor here at Semicolon before. I even invited her and Madeleine L’Engle to tea, before the deaths of both authors made that impossible. Her books, and particularly her illustrations, are old friends here in our home. So, I was trying to explain to myself what it is exactly that is so endearing and captivating about Tasha Tudor’s stories and illustrations.

First, there’s the obvious fact that, whether or not it’s possible or even truly desirable, all of us long sometimes for an agrarian past, a more wholesome, less complicated, time period and culture when families enjoyed simple pleasures like baking bread or playing dolls or rolling hoops in the garden. And Tasha Tudor’s books evoke such a lost time and place.

Second, if you read about Tasha Tudor’s life, you see that she tried to live the life that her books idealized. Yes, she was divorced (twice), a single parent, and she was born and grew up in Boston, about as far from a simple New England farmhouse as you can get. But it didn’t matter because she chose as an adult to live on a farm and garden and raise animals and wear nineteenth century farm family clothing and cook in the fireplace. She actually lived out, however imperfectly, the life that many people dream of and never even try to achieve.

Third, her books and illustrations are deceptively simple. You look at them, like you look at a Norman Rockwell painting, and you think, “That’s a cute picture of some kids swimming in the creek or a family of dolls or a garden in the summer.” But the illustrations draw you back again and again to look at the details, to note the vine curled around the edge, or the little dog in the corner, or the ruffle on the girl’s dress, and you realize that’s there’s more and still more to explore and study and enjoy. Tasha Tudor’s illustrations for classics such as The Wind in the Willows or The Secret Garden are especially intriguing as they look so right and appropriate for the classic time period of the book in question and yet give new insight into old familiar stories.

Three reason to love the work of Tasha Tudor, author, illustrator, and gardener. I’m sure there are many more. If you’ve written about Ms. Tudor in a past post or today on her birthday, please share a link with us as we celebrate her life and work here on her birthday. Just leave your name or the name of your blog and a link to the post celebrating Tasha Tudor in the Mr. Linky below.

She would have been 93 years old today.

1. Janet
2. Tasha Tudor Day at Story Book Woods
3. Rose Cottage Tasha Tudor Tea
4. Poopsie Celebrating Tasha Tudor
5. Heidi\’s Birthday Celebration
6. Junie Moon
7. Marilyn on Tasha Tudor\’s Iced Tea
8. MarmeeCraft
9. At the Pink Gate
10. Cay\’s Author Fiesta
11. Creekside Cottage
12. Deb\’s Tasha Tudor Day
13. Miss Mari-Nanci: Thank You Tasha
14. ~Vicki: Tea and Blackberry Tarts
15. Christina in MA		 16. Judy: Simply Thrift
17. Lynn: A Mother\’s Journal
18. Lady Laurie
19. Laurie\’s Celebratory Tea
20. Karen: Thankful for Tasha
21. Jamie: In the Garden
22. Brenda: Tasha Tudor Day
23. Island Sparrow
24. Karla\’s Cottage
25. Terri: How to Celebrate
26. Margaret\’s Earthly Paradiseo
27. Gillian\’s Memories of Tasha Tudor
28. Spinneretta Remembering Tasha
29. Noel
30. Jenny		 31. Cathy Santarsiero
32. Thistle Dew
33. Jill: A Tribute to Tasha35. Betzie
36. Carrie – Oak Rise Cottage
37. Happy Birthday Tasha! by Barb
38. Mary at St. Athanasius Academy
39. Gumbo Lily Remembering Tasha Tudor
40. Gumbo Lily Part II
41. Sue at Country Pleasures
42. Plumwater Cottage
43. Emily: Christmas with Tasha Tudor
44. Faith Girl

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Semicolon Author Celebration: Betsy Byars

Aug7

Betsy Byars was born August 7, 1938 in Charlotte, North Carolina. That would make her seventy years old today. According to her website and according to Wikipedia, she now lives in Seneca, South Carolina with her husband Ed Byars. Both Ms. Byars and her husband are licensed pilots, and they live on an airstrip and over an airplane hangar. I assume they also own an airplane.

Ms. Byars has written over sixty books, the first one published in 1962. In 1971, she won the Newbery Medal for her book, The Summer of the Swans, about a fourteen year girl, Sara, and her handicapped younger brother, Charlie, and a very long summer day. She’s also won a National Book Award, and an Edgar Award, and the Regina Medal from the Catholic Library Association.

Author Celebration: Alexandre Dumas, pere

Jul24

I missed last week’s celebration on the July 17th, the birthday of Isaac Watts, because of my blog issues. (Nasty old spammers!) However, I am just barely here in time to celebrate with you all the birthday today, July 24th, of Alexandre Dumas, French playwright and novelist who was born in 1802 and died December 5, 1870 at the age of 68. His grandmother on his father’s side was an Afro-Carribbean former slave, and his father was a general in Napoleon’s army who fell into disfavor and poverty. Alexandre’s father the general died when Alexandre was three years old, and his widowed mother tried to give him an education. He loved books and read everything he could.

Tous pour un, un pour tous, c’est notre devise.
Translation: All for one, one for all, that is our motto.
The Three Musketeers, Ch. 9: D’Artagnan Shows Himself

Dumas moved to Paris when he was twenty (similar to D’Artagnon), and he began to write plays and magazine articles. His first plays were quite successful, and he soon began writing novels in serieal form for the newspapers. He eventually became so popular that “Dumas became known as the King of Paris and a saying held that, ‘when Dumas snores, Paris turns in its sleep.'”

He hired a stable of writers and assistants who helped him turn out novel after novel in addition to a prolific number or journal articles and nonfiction books on crime and French history and politics. His most famous novels are The Three Musketeers and its sequel Twenty Years After, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask.

How can we celebrate the birthday of this very popular author, perhaps the most widely read French author of all time?

1. Start reading one of his novels. I’m planning to check out Dumas’s Le Reine Margot, which purports to tell the story of Marguerite de Valois, the daughter of the infamous Catherine de’ Medici and King Henry II of France.

2. Listen to Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. The story of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King was written by E. T. A. Hoffmann. Alexandre Dumas’ adaptation of the story was set to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

3. Teacher notes for The Three Musketeers.

4. Enjoy a Three Musketeers bar.

5. Watch a movie based on one of Alexandre Dumas’ books. Dumas’ works have inspired more than 200 films. I recommend:

The Three Musketeers (1973) with Raquel Welch, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Michael York. The newer one (1993) with Kiefer Sutherland and Chris O’Donnell is OK, but I like the old one better. Oliver Reed will always be my image of Athos.

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002). The story’s better than the movie, but the movie’s not bad. Rated PG-13.

6. Play Three Musketeers. Have an adventure. All for one and one for all. Do kids pretend such things anymore?

7. Make a musketeer costume.

8. Teacher activities for The Count of Monte Cristo.

Do you have anything to say about Alexandre Dumas or his books? Share a link here for his birthday celebration.

1. Nick Pelling (The Dumas Club)
2. Barbara H. (The Count of Monte Cristo)		 3. Becky (The Three Musketeers)
4. SuziQoregon (The Three Musketeers)

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Happy Birthday to John Calvin

Jul10

On this date in 1509, John Calvin, or Jean Chauvin, was born in Noyon, Picardie, France. His father was a lawyer who sent young John to the University of Paris at the age of fourteen to study theology. He later changed his area of study to law. Sometime during his university studies, Calvin was exposed to Protestant ideas, and he became a proponent of those ideas to the point that he was forced to flee France along with his mentor, Nicholas Cop, Rector at the University of Paris. He went to Basel, then to Geneva, then to Strasburg, and back to Geneva. He pastored, helped govern, and wrote theology in these places, especially in Geneva, until his death in 1564.

Calvin said:

There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.

The fruit of the womb is not born by chance, but is to be reckoned among the precious gifts of God.

Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.
Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.

We must see to it that the pulling down of error is followed by the building up of faith.

In the darkness of our miseries, the grace of God shines more brightly.

God . . . makes us rich with the river of his grace . . . so that those things which men call fortuitous events, are so many proofs of divine providence, and more especially of fatherly compassion, furnishing ground of joy to the righteous.

Interesting facts about Calvin (from Wikipedia and other sources):

Calvin took only one meal a day for a decade, but on the advice of his physician, he ate an egg and drank a glass of wine at noon.

Calvin, knowing the benefits of business, was instrumental in founding and developing the silk industry in Geneva.

At the age of twenty-six, Calvin published the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion .

Calvin’s cousin, Pierre Robert, was a translator of the Bible into the French language.

For kids:

This fictionalized biography by Joyce McPherson stays close to the facts of Calvin’s life while adding in some dialogue to make the story come alive. The book includes many of the most important people in Calvin’s life, including Nicholas Cop, Mathurius Cordier, Pierre Viret, William Farel, and Martin Bucer.