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Born July 12

Jul12

Johanna Spyri was born July 12, 1827 at Hirzel, Switzerland. She wrote the children’s classic, Heidi. Does anyone else remember reading Heidi Grows Up and Heidi’s Children, sequels to Heidi? I read both sequels as a child, and I remember that Heidi marries Peter the goatherd and that they have twins. I think there was some kind of mystery associated with Heidi’s ancestry, too, and something hidden under some tiles on the floor. I’d enjoy reading all three books again, just to see if they’re as good as I thought they were.

Other birthdays today:

Henry David Thoreau, b. 1817.

Bill Cosby, b. 1938. “In dealing with kids, no matter how little we understand their explanations, we must always remember that we’re the adults. What this means I have no idea. It certainly means nothing to the kids, who instinctively seem to know that adults are merely strange people who have dopey ideas like “Stop throwing peas at your sister.”

Pablo Neruda, b. 1904. Chilean poet whose real name was Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Il Postino, an Italian movie that won a couple of Oscars in 1996, features the story of a postman who learns to appreciate poetry while delivering the mail to Pablo Neruda’s country home. Unfortunately, both the real Pablo Neruda and the fictional postman in the movie ended up embracing Communism as a cure for all the world’s problems.

Happy Birthday, Mr. White

Jul11

Today is the birthday of E.B. White, author of two very different and useful books: Charlotte’s Web and The Elements of Style.

An admonition to bloggers from Elements of Style:

It is now necessary to warn you that your concern for the reader must be pure: you must sympathize with the reader’s plight (most readers are in trouble about half the time) but never seek to know the reader’s wants. Your whole duty as a writer is to please and satisfy yourself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one. Start sniffing the air, or glancing at the Trend Machine, and you are as good as dead, although you may make a nice living.

For bloggers, you can forget about the nice living and substitute “blog stats” for “the air.”

charlotte's web Oh, and by the way Charlotte’s Web is one of the few books that should be read aloud to every English-speaking child before he grows up. Can you name any other books that would be included on that very short list?

Helen Keller, b. 1880, d. 1968

Jun27

In 1953 a documentary film “The Unconquered” was made about Helen’s life; the film won an Academy Award for best feature length documentary.
In 1962 “The Miracle Worker,” first a Broadway play, was made into a movie starring Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan and Patty Duke as Helen Keller. Both actresses won Academy Awards. There are a couple of TV versions of the same movie/play, but the classic 1962 version is best.

Helen Keller Kids’ Museum Online

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” –Helen Keller

Books about Helen Keller:
A Picture Book of Helen Keller by David A. Adler, Holiday House, New York, 1992
Helen Keller: Courage in the Dark by Johanna Hurwitz, Random House, New York, 1999

Story of My Life by Helen Keller.

The Braille Bug Site has activities to encourage understanding of the blind and the visually impaired by sighted children. The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) created the Braille Bug web site to teach sighted children about braille and to encourage literacy among all children.

As the result of a Presidential Proclamation in 1984, the week of June 27th has been designated Helen Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness Week.

Helen Keller for Young Readers

Helen Keller, by the way, espoused some ideas as an adult that I would strongly disagree with. She called herself a socialist, advocated birth control and supported Margaret Sanger, and she was a pacifist who believed that WW I was a ploy to make more money for the rich capitalists. She also helped found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Helen Keller was a follower of the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth century Swedish New Thought heretic.

Born June 26th

Jun26

Pearl Buck, b. 1892. She was born in West Virginia, but since her parents were only on furlough from the mission field in China, Pearl grew up and lived much of her life in China. She was homeschooled by her mother and by a Chinese tutor. After the publication of her second novel, The Good Earth, Pearl Buck won both the Pulitzer Prize and, ten years later, the Nobel Prize for Literature. She was able to have only one natural child, a daughter, Carol, who was mentally handicapped as a result of PKU. Mrs. Buck adopted seven more children.

Charlotte Zolotow, b. 1915. Charlotte Zolotow celebrates her 90th birthday this year. She’s written over 90 books for children and edited many more.

Born June 25th

Jun25

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

Big Brother is watching you.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.

What English author, born in 1903, added these ideas and terms to our collective wisdom? Hint: If you’ve never read 1984 or Animal Farm, you should. Both books are directly applicable to current events. (Senator Dick Durbin: U.S. soldiers are Nazis. Terrorists are victims. War is peace. Freedom is slavery.)

Also born on this date, Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Busy Spider, among other favorites. I noted last year on this date that The Grouchy Ladybug would make a great blog title. 

Born June 24th

Jun24

Ambrose Bierce, b. 1842, author of The Devil’s Dictionary. Bierce was irreverent and cynical, but funny. Here are some samples of his wit from The Devil’s Dictionary:

AUSTRALIA, n.
A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.
BACCHUS, n.
A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
CONSERVATIVE, n.
A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
DELUGE, n.
A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.
EDUCATION, n.
That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
FORK, n.
An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
GNOSTICS, n.
A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.
HASH, x.
There is no definition for this word — nobody knows what hash is.
INSURANCE, n.
An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
KLEPTOMANIAC, n.
A rich thief.
LAUGHTER, n.
An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals — these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example, but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has not been answered by experimentation
MISFORTUNE, n.
The kind of fortune that never misses.
NEWTONIAN, adj.
Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.
OPERA, n.
A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.
PAINTING, n.
The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
QUOTIENT, n.
A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another — usually about as many times as it can be got there.
RASH, adj.
Insensible to the value of our advice.
SENATE, n.
A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
TURKEY, n.
A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.
UN-AMERICAN, adj.
Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.

This entry was posted on 6/24/2005, in Birthdays.

Born June 23rd

Jun23

Theodore Taylor, author of The Cay and The Trouble with Tuck, was born on June 23, 1921 in North Carolina. He also has an autobiography out. I haven’t read it, but I like the title: Making Love To Typewriters. The Cay is a good coming-of-age story, by the way, about a boy from the Southern United States during WW II who is marooned on an island with an elderly black man.

Jean Anouilh, b 1910. French playwright. We read Anouilh’s Antigone last year for a class I taught at homeschool co-op. It was . . . interesting, sort of existentialist. Anouilh quote: “One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.”

Born June 19th

Jun19

Blaise Pascal, b. 1623 In 1656, while he was still in his early thirties, Pascal began collecting material for a book, Apology for the Christian Religion. H wrote down his thoughts “upon the first scrap paper that came to hand . . . a few words and very often parts of words only.” These fragments of thought became, after his death at age 39, the Pensees, edited by a group of monks who shared his Catholic faith. Some pensees:

“Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.”

“There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners, who believe themselves righteous.”

“Misery induces despair, pride induces presumption. The Incarnation shows man the greatness of his misery by the greatness of the remedy which he required.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Prince of Preachers, b. 1834.

Every Sunday evening Mrs. Spurgeon was accustomed to gather the children around the table, and as they read the Scripture, she would explain it to them verse by verse. Then she prayed, and her son declares that some of the words of her prayers her children never forgot. Once she said, “Now, Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance they perish, and my soul must bear swift witness against them at the day of judgement if they lay not hold of Christ.” That was not at all in the modern vein, but it was the arrow that reached the boy’s soul. “The thought of a mother bearing swift witness against me pierced my conscience and stirred my heart.” There was enough in him to cause his mother anxiety. His father recalled that his wife once said to him, speaking of their eldest son, “What a mercy that boy was converted when he was young.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon: A Biography by W.Y. Fullerton

I would that my children had a mother like Susannah Wesley or Elizabeth Spurgeon, but God has given them me, and my prayers, poor and inconsistent as they are, must be enough. Finally, of course, it is God’s mercy and grace that must suffice.

Love, Twue Love

Jun16

Love means not ever having to say you’re sorry.

Author Erich Segal was born on June 16, 1937.

Ah, nostalgia! Who else remembers the days when Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal were the icons of Hollywood’s cult of romantic love? If one could just find a love like the love in Love Story, it would be possible to live happily ever after.

Author Lars Walker on America’s National Religion of Romantic Love. Although I am very happily married, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

“Everyone who has come near to salvation in the religion of Romantic Love discovers that he is not in fact among the Elect. That Beloved who seemed to be all he could dream of turns out to be less than anticipated (even in good marriages). The changes in himself that the lover expected to see don’t all appear either. He finds himself in the end one-half of an ordinary couple, neither especially beautiful nor especially romantic nor any longer young. And in the end there’s death for all involved.”

I don’t want to spoil a good movie, but Love Story doesn’t provide salvation for any of its characters either. Oh, and love means asking for and accepting forgiveness many, many times over the course of a lifetime.

Movie Trivia Quiz: What post-Love Story movie includes this conversation, and who played Howard and Judy?

Judy: Love means never having to say you’re sorry.
Howard: That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.

Oh, and by the way, Erich Segal said that the character of Oliver Barrett IV was based on Al Gore and his Harvard roomate, Tommy Lee Jones. But Tommy Lee Jones had a small part in the movie, not Al Gore.

Born June 14th

Jun14

Harriet Beecher Stowe, b. 1811. Harriet Beecher was one of eleven brothers and sisters, and she and her husband, professor Calvin Stowe had seven children of their own. In 1852, Harriet published her most famous book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Later, during their retirement years, the Stowes lived across the lawn from another famous author, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). During the time that the Stowe family and the Clemens family were neighbors in Hartford, Connecticutt, Mark Twain wrote his most famous novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Laurence Michael Yep, b. Mr. Yep writes mostly historical fiction for children and young adults. The books are usually set on the West Coast or in Asia and feature Asian or Asian American characters. I’ve read Dragonwings and Dragon’s Gate and enjoyed them very much. Laurence Yep also has a connection with Mark Twain. Two of Yep’s titles are The Mark Twain Murders and The Tom Sawyer Fires.