School UNFriendly

Feb9

Maybe it’s my own personal homeschool bias, but a lot of the books I read for the Cybils (Middle Grade Fiction), didn’t feel very school-friendly.

I’ve already discussed the confusing mixed messages from and about school in Barbara Dee’s Solving Zoe, and how the protagonist, Zoe, learns and thrives much better outside of school than she does in classes.

In The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Calpurnia has this conversation with her grandfather:

“What are you studying in school? You do go to school, don’t you?
“Of course I do. We’re studying Reading, Spelling, Arithmetic, and Penmanship. Oh, and Deportment. I got an “acceptable” for Posture but an “unsatisfactory” for Use of Hankie and Thimble. Mother was kind of unhappy about that.”
“Good G–,” he said. “It’s worse than I thought.”
This was an intriguing statement, though I didn’t understand it.
“And is there no science? No physics?” he said.
“We did have botany one day. What’s physics?”
“Have you never heard of Sir Isaac Newton? Sir Francis Bacon?”
“No.” . . .
“And I suppose they teach you that the world is flat and that there are dragons gobbling up the ships that fall over the edge.” He peered at me. “There are many things to talk about. I hope it’s not too late. Let us find a place to sit.”

Not exactly a plug for schools, even if the schools that are being criticized are turn of the century, c.1899.

In several of the books, the protagonist is flunking out of school even though he/she is capable of doing the work:
In Bull Rider by Suzanne Morgan Williams, Cam O’Mara is learning a lot more at home dealing with his injured brother, working on the family’s ranch, and practicing his skateboarding and bull riding skills than he does at school.
Author Andrew Clements is known for his “school stories”, and Extra Credit is not an exception to the genre. However, Abby learns more from her extra credit assignment of writing to a pen pal in Afghanistan, completed outside of school time, than she does from her work at school, even though she spends a great deal of time trying to “catch up” so that she can be promoted and go on to seventh grade with her classmates.
In Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson, Lonnie loses his motivation to study anything at all when an insensitive teacher tells him he’s too young to be a real poet. He gets his math instruction from his older foster brother at home.

The Homeschool Liberation League by Lucy Frank was actually more school-friendly than many of the other books that were not about homeschooling. The message I got from Frank’s book was that many different kinds of schooling situations work for different children and young adults at different times.

Which is what I believe. Different strokes for different folks, and let’s live and let live. I have a child in a nontraditional public high school, four young adults who have graduated from my homeschool and who have never been to a public or private school, a young daughter who is trying out an online virtual academy (public school) this semester, and two children who are still homeschooling. There are advantages and disadvantages to each situation. It takes time and energy to find the best educational setting for each child each year. And some times you just hope it’s not too late.

Let us find a place to sit.

Many Happy Returns: February 9th

Feb9

Hilda Gerarda van Stockum was born in Rotterdam in 1908. She grew up in Ireland and in the Netherlands. Her brother, Willem van Stockum, was a mathematician and disciple of Albert Einstein. He was “the first to notice the possibility of closed timelike curves, one of the strangest and most disconcerting phenomena in general relativity.” (I don’t know what that means exactly, but it does sound rather LOST-like, doesn’t it?) Willem died in combat a few days after the Normandy invasion.

The author’s first children’s book, A Day on Skates, won Newbery honors in 1935. Her aunt, the poet Edna St. VIncent Millay, wrote a preface to this story of a Dutch picnic, saying, “This is a book which mothers and fathers will sit up to finish, after the protesting child has been dragged firmly to bed.”

Ms. Van Stockum wrote two series of children’s stories: one set in Ireland about the O’Sullivan family and another set in the U.S. and Canada about the Mitchells, a family growing together and enduring the hardships of the homefront during World War II. Here’s my review of Pegeen, one of the books in the O’Sullivan family series. I found the book at ratty old thrift store in Pasadena, and knowing nothing of the book or its author, I took a twenty-five cent chance. Good call.

Many Happy Returns: February 8th

Feb8

On February 8, 1577, English scholar Robert Burton, was born in Leicestershire. He spent most of his life at Oxford University, first as a student, then as vicar of St. Thomas Church in Oxford.

Burton was a mathematician who had an interest in astrology, and he suffered from depression, or melancholy as it was called in those times, for much of his life. One of his attempted self-cures for his depression was to go down to the bridge at Oxford and listen to the barge men “scold and storm and swear at one another.” Hearing such nonsense reportedly made Mr. Burton laugh uproariously.

In another attempt at treating himself out of his depressive episodes, Burton wrote his most famous book, The Anatomy of Melancholy. A few quotations therefrom:

“I had a heavy heart and an ugly head, a kind of impostume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of.”

“Why doth one man’s yawning make another yawn?” (Yes, why doth it?)

“I may not here omit those two main plagues and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together.”

“Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time, which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which nevertheless will make at the end of it no small deduction for the life of man.”

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

“Aristotle said . . . ‘melancholy men of all others are most witty.'”

Vicar Burton was “most witty,” and I think I’ll add his Anatomy to my TBR list.
Some famous and learned men were fans:

Charles Lamb, the sixteenth/seventeenth century essayist whose birthday is to celebrated soon on the 10th of February: “”I don’t know if you ever dipt into Burton’s Anatomy. His manner is to shroud and carry off his feelings under a cloud of learned words.”

About Samuel Johnson in Boswell’s Life: “Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, he said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.”

Other birthdays on February 8th.

Many Happy Returns: February 7th

Feb7

Born on this date in 1812, Mr. Dickens has been delighting readers for over 150 years.

Dickens Novels I’ve Read: David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend

DIckens Novels I Have Yet to Enjoy: Hard Times, Dombey and Son, Bleak House, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, Little Dorrit, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Favorite Dickens Hero: Pip, Great Expectations

Favorite Dickens Villain(ess): Madame Defarge, Tale of Two Cities

Favorite Tragic Scene: Mr. Peggotty searching for Little Em’ly (Is that a scene or an episode?)

Favorite Comic Character: Mr. Micawber, David Copperfield

Favorite Comic Scene: Miss Betsy Trotter chasing the donkeys out of her yard, David Copperfield

Strangest Dickens Christmas Story We’ve Read: “The Poor Relation’s Story”

Best Dickens Novel I’ve Read: A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield is a close second.

Dickens-related posts at Semicolon:

LOST Reading Project: Our Mutual Friend by Charles DIckens.

Scrooge Goes to Church

Dickens Pro and Con on his Birthday.

Quotes and Links

Born February 7th

Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley

A Little More Dickens

Advanced Reading Survey: Nicholas Nickleby.

Other DIckens-related links:
Mere Comments on Dickens’ Christianity.

A DIckens Filmography at Internet Film Database.

George Orwell: Essay on Charles DIckens.

Edgar Allan Poe Meets Charles Dickens.

Amy is reading A Tale of Two Cities at Hope Is the Word.

An entire blog devoted to Mr. Dickens and his work: DIckensblog by Gina Dalfonzo.

And I have a new Dickens quiz for all you Dickens lovers. (No one did so well on last year’s quiz, perhaps because I offered no prizes.)

Can you match the quotation with the book from which it is taken?

1. “If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, ‘I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!’ your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not?”

2. “How does the world go? I’ll tell you what,” he added, in a lower tone, “I shouldn’t wish it to be mentioned, but it’s a -” here he beckoned to me, and put his lips close to my ear – “it’s a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy!”

3. Persons don’t make their own faces, and it’s no more my fault if mine is a good one than it is other people’s fault if theirs is a bad one.

4. “Don’t ask any questions. It’s always best on these occasions to do what the mob do.”
“But suppose there are two mobs?” suggested Mr. S.
“Shout with the largest,” replied Mr. P.
Volumes could not have said more.

5. There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

Anyone who leaves answers in the comments will receive a visit from yours truly to your blog, a thank you for participating, and a link in a future post. It’s a mad world, but we can always decide to shout with the largest mob.

Many Happy Returns: Poetry Friday with Marlowe and Raleigh

Feb5

Tomorrow, February 6th, is the birthday of poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe.

IMG_3888.JPGCOME live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber-studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
~Christopher Marlowe (1599)

Sir Walter Raleigh wrote this reply to Marlowe’s romantic invitation:

ddddddIf all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complain of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.
~Sir Walter Raleigh (1600)

The host for today’s Poetry Friday is Great Kid Books.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Feb4

Connie Willis has a new book out called Blackout. No, this review is not supposed to be about Ms. WIllis’s new book, a book that I am not going to buy even though I’m a big fan of Ms. Willis’s writing. This post is about the reason that I’m not going to read Ms. Willis’s new book anytime soon. The last line of the Publisher’s Weekly review of Blackout says, “Readers allergic to cliffhangers may want to wait until the second volume comes out in November 2010.”

So. This review is about The Maze Runner and why I’m frustrated with authors and publishers who publish cliffhanger novels and tell us to wait until six months from now, next year, who knows when, for the next installment, which may or may not resolve and complete the story. I already watch LOST, for pete’s sake. Do you know how many unresolved stories I already have hanging around inside my head waiting for the author and the publisher (or TV producer) to get around to finishing the story?

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins “leaves enough questions tantalizingly unanswered for readers to be desperate for the next installment.” (Publisher’s Weekly) Semicolon review of the first book in the series, The Hunger Games.

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness. Sequel to The Knife of Never Letting Go. However, we’re not finished yet. Resolution is yet to come. The story is not over . . .

Don’t Judge a Girl By Her Cover by Ally Carter. The third book in the Gallagher Girls series about a girl who attends a secret school for spies. This one is not so very cliff-hanger-ish, but I still have to carry the details of who’s who and what’s going on around in my head until the fourth book comes out.

The Roar by Emma Clayton “should also feature at the very least a warning label: ‘YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FINISH THIS STORY FOR AT LEAST TWO YEARS. READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL.’ The Roar is a very good story but it doesn’t end so much as it stops, in mid-story.” Semicolon review here.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. The sequel, Forge, is due out this month. Will the second book complete Isabel’s story or not?

And these are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. Some books for which I very much wanted to read “the rest of the story” have faded into the dim mists of my 52 year old memory, and I wouldn’t know what was happening to whom if I did happen upon the sequel(s).

The Maze Runner is a good book. It reminds me of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. It has tension, suspense, dystopian undertones, a bit of romance, and lots of action.

However, the ending is not, an ending that is. If you want to know what really happens to Thomas and the rest of the kids trapped in The Maze, you won’t really be able to find out until . . . Well, the sequel, The Scorch Trials, is due out in October, and Mr. Dashner is still working on the third book in the trilogy, The Death Cure. I don’t think I’ll last that long.

I have a suggestion for publishers and authors. I know that getting readers hooked on a series sells books. I know that you can’t fit all of that wonderful epic novel into just one five hundred page book sometimes.

1. Finish the story before you publish anything. Write all three or all five or all ten volumes of your story before you publish the first one.

2. Publish one book per month or every two months, kind of like Dickens and Thackeray and those other Victorians did when they published their novels in installments. I might be able to remember what happened in the first book long enough to read and enjoy the second.

3. At least, warn us when your novel ends in a non-ending cliff-hanger.

I don’t think anyone is listening. But I only have room for one LOST never-ending series of questions, partial answers, more questions and unresolved relationships and plots in my life. If you warn me that you will be finishing the story in the next decade or so, I might make room in my brain for it as soon as LOST ends in May.

Links and Thinks

Feb3

Melissa at Book Nut has an interview with Roseanne Parry, author of one of my favorite Middle Grade Fiction books of 2009.

This movie sounds good. Has anyone seen it?
Actually, Brown Bear Daughter went to see it with some friends from church and she said it was pretty good. She didn’t rave about it; however, she wants me to see it so that we can discuss.

Haitian author Edwidge Danticat: “My cousin Maxo has died. The house that I called home during my visits to Haiti collapsed on top of him.”

Sarah Palin on Rahm Emmanuel’s hate speech: “His recent tirade against participants in a strategy session was such a strong slap in many American faces that our president is doing himself a disservice by seeming to condone Rahm’s recent sick and offensive tactic.”
I tend to not agree that people should be fired from their jobs because of the words they use, no matter how crude, rude or socially unacceptable. However, Mr. Emmanuel really doesn’t get it, does he?

LOST Rehash: LA X

Feb3

Antagonist: “They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.”
Jacob: “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”

Antagonist aka Smokey aka Fake Locke aka Dark Suit aka Esau—if the writers would just provide a name for the guy I would be pleased.

Are we making any progress at all here in terms of resolving this story?

(By the way, if you’re reading any further, there are SPOILERS!)

Tonight’s double episode was supposed to start providing answers, but all I found out was what was in the guitar case. And I didn’t care about the guitar case contents that much. I recognized the ankh, an Egyptian symbol. It’s supposed to symbolize eternal life. Interesting note from Wikipedia that may have nothing whatsoever to do with LOST: “the depiction of the Ancient Egyptian Ankh was preserved by the Copts in their representation of the Christian cross.” It does look like a cross to someone like me, bathed in Christianity and Christian symbols.

And then they went and “baptized” Sayid, practically drowning him in the process. I felt so sorry for Sayid in this episode when he was talking to Hurley about what would happen to him after death. He was so guilty, and I wanted to run in there and give him the hope of the gospel. “Yes, you’ve done horrible stuff. But you can be forgiven. You’ve been bought with a price! Jesus can redeem you!”

So has Sayid become Jacob? Or vice-versa? Sort of the way Smokey Guy has become a Locke twin? And what’s with Locke having two bodies? One dead and one alive. Was Jacob using Christian Shepherd’s body, and now he’s using Sayid’s?

I think we know for sure who the “good guys” are and who the “bad guys” are. If they’re with Jacob, even after Jacob’s death, they’re good, and if they’re with Mr. Fake Locke, they’re bad guys. And Ben’s so confused, he doesn’t know which side he’s on anymore.

Has Time itself split into two streams? The LOSTies at LAX are going from bad to worse as they pursue their not-so-merry lives. Did you notice that none of the Tailies showed up on the airplane, except for Bernard and that stewardess, Cindy. Where are Libby and Ana Lucia and Eko? And how did Desmond get on the plane? (Ha, Desmond is seeing Jack in another life, brotha!)

Meanwhile back on the island, they’re still alive even after the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. How can that be? And how did Juliet know that “it worked?”

I don’t want Juliet to be dead—again. In LOST no one is completely, totally, without a doubt, dead until they’re buried and Miles can hear them speak from the dead. Sayid wasn’t dead, and Miles knew it. Juliet is dead, at least in island time.

The book that Hurley picked up in the tunnels underneath (?) the temple was Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard. According to Eldest Daughter, who’s a fan of Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling is mostly about the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. For Kierkegaard, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac was an example of “faith” which is contrary to reason and even absurd. The Knight of Faith, against reason according to Kierkegaard, believes that with God all things are possible and works out his salvation “with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12)

Jack tells Locke in this episode that “nothing is irreversible” in reference to Locke’s paralysis. Could this statement also refer to Jack’s decision to detonate the hydrogen bomb and send them all back to their miserable pre-crash lives?

Also, Lostpedia says that Desmond was reading Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. It’s a novel about Indian history and the events leading up to India’s independence. I’ve never read anything by Rushdie, but this Booker prize-winning novel is said to feature “magical realism.” Give me magic or give me realism; magical realism confuses me.

No live blogging at Thinklings, but there are lots of comments.
Bill: “In this series we’ve done flash backs. Then we did flash forward. Now we’re doing flash sidewayses.”

Gearing Up for LOST

Feb1

Christ and Pop Culture: LOST’s Biggest Question

SciFI Wire’s 100 Questions LOST had Better Answer. My favorite/biggest questions of the 100: Who is Jacob? Is he good or evil? (And he’d better be one or the other. None of this dualistic, mumbo-jumbo, “good and evil are two sides of the same coin” nonsense.)

Six Keys to Enjoying the Final Season of LOST. Good advice.

Jeff Jenson does some good commentary on LOST at PopWatch.

LOST Timeline, courtesy of The New York Times.

Don’t forget the LOST Books Challenge.

Hurley’s blog. Well, actually, Jorge Garcia’s blog, Dispatches from the Island.

Here’s the T-shirt I want to watch LOST in.

And, finally, what are you all having to eat at your LOST party tomorrow as you tune in to the season six premiere? I’m a lot more concerned about that than I am about Super Bowl party food. (Who’s in the Super Bowl anyway? New Orleans and . . .?)

What Karate Kid Read: January 2010

Feb1

Operation Redwood by S. Terrell French.
Julian’s uncle decides to chop down all the redwoods around Big Tree, which is a large redwood next to the farm of Robin Elder. Julian and Robin try to save the trees.
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as others, to tell the truth. But it was still pretty interesting. I thought the characters were very funny. I think that this is a good book for really any age, as long as you can read.

Other blog reviews and interviews: Cynsations interview with author S. Terrell French, The Reading Zone, A Patchwork of Books, Into the Wardrobe interviews S. Terrell French.

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli.
Maniac’s parents hate each other. Maniac hates his parents. So he runs away from home and meets up with a black family who take him in and let him live with them.
Definitely a great book! It was funny, creative, and kept you on the edge of your seat. I think that the ending could have been a little better, but all in all, this book is awesome.

(Maniac Magee won the Newbery Medal in 1991, and a movie version of the book was released in 2003.)

Jerry Spinelli’s homepage.

Mathematical Puzzles by Martin Gardner.
This book is full of math puzzles. Some were easy, some were hard, but they were all great. I challenged my parents to few of them. This book strains your brain, but is still lots of fun. Don’t be deceived by the fact that it has math, it has some puzzles that can be solved by pure logic. A fun book, and a good one too.
(I think KK read an older edition of the book pictured to the right. His book was a hardback, and it had a different cover. But the author is the same. Martin Gardner is “an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, pseudoscience, literature (especially the writings of Lewis Carroll), philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion. He wrote the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, and he has published over 70 books.” See Wikipedia for more information)

Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko.
Moose lives on Alacatraz Island where the most dangerous criminals are kept. His father is a prison guard.
This book was just a little confusing, but still my favorite for the month. The characters were interesting, and the plot was great. This book has many twists and turns in the story. Betrayals, roses, flies, criminals, shoes, babies, you name it, this book has it. I was confused by the ending, though.