We went to the library the other day to kill time between pick-ups. I didn’t intend to check out anything, and didn't even bring in a bookbag. But of course I came home with a stack large enough to fill 2 bags. The librarian, who was very kind to us when we first applied for cards, now seems to groan almost audibly when I approach the desk to check out.
This is what happened: While the kids played on the computer, colored and did puzzles, I meandered by the Christmas books, looking for an Advent meditations book. Found 1, Watch for the Light, a companion to Bread and Wine, which I love, from Plough Publishing House. The Christmas books were by the books about books. Hmm, couldn't resist. So I brought home 2: Book by Book by Michael Dirda and Sara Nelson’s So Many Books, So Little Time. Then I espied 2 large, beautiful coffee table books: At Home with Books, which is photos of rich people’s home libraries, and Treasures of the Library of Congress. I want to ingest these things, the pictures are so mouthwatering. Every time we go to DC I intend to go to the Library of Congress, but the desires of others in our party usually outweigh mine.
I’ve been loving Sara Nelson’s book, although it’s a little dated, from 2003. This Jewish journalist, wedded to a SNL set designer, gets a dream job: write about reading a book a week and relate the books to your personal life, instead of critiquing them. She comments that the books she likes are the ones that feature characters who are most like herself, and maybe that’s why I’m enjoying this book so much. Of course, there are the major differences of faith, lifestyle, and political bent between Ms. Nelson and myself, but I identify with her love of books, her reluctance to loan them or get rid of them, a burning desire for more shelves, an itch to discover the next big thing combined with a prejudice against the current big thing, a fear of running out of books while on a trip.
Another difference: she came to a voracious appetite for books later in life. I spent maybe 75% of my youth curled up in a blue velvet wingback chair reading book after book. I have a list I made in about 6th grade of the 256 novels I read that year. In high school, my goal was at least a book a week, if not two, from a list of college bound reading material. Granted, I was more about quantity than quality, but at least I gained a passing familiarity with a number of classic authors, some of whom I revisited in college, where I studied, what else, Great Books and English. So again I was really a survey reader.
Now my reading life is relegated to a few hours late at night, a few moments waiting in the school pick up line, maybe half an hour on the stair stepper, or, dare I admit?, in the WC, where I have been known to hide much longer than necessary to finish a chapter. But I have tried to read more attentively, at least some books, looking for lines to remember or images to return to. And I’ve tried to be a more social reader by participating in book clubs when convenient, and now reading book blogs. My own blog could perhaps use a more focused approach – i.e. just being a blog about what I’m reading – but it’s also my substitute for Facebook and my attempt to try to capture thoughts and events that mark my life: a response to blog envy, or a way of reminding myself that I have plenty of things to be thankful for in my own life.
Part of what I’m enjoying about Nelson’s book, is not, surprisingly, the book lists because I don’t care for most of the books she reads that I’ve read and don’t want to read the books she recommends (lots of biographies and bestsellers), but her humorous articulation of the resonance between her books and her life. Often I make only general comments about a book because I am intimidated by the feeling that I have to say something that shows insight instead of just sharing a response, and usually I don’t have time to process “insights,” so I don’t often spell out why I love certain books.
I like Sara for her love of books; I envy her job; I wonder at her willingness to spend a day in bed ignoring her husband and son to finish a book - reading can be alienating when you find yourself hiding from your family to finish a book, forgetting to make dinner.
Library disappointment: I’m Santa Claus and I’m Famous by Marjorie Weisman Sharmat. I thought I read a book of hers I liked, but this one made me wonder how many insipid holiday books can exist at one time, and why did I check this out? This one is the comic book style story of a boy who wakes up and is anointed by Santa to be his replacement, so he spends his life getting fat, building toys, taking care of reindeer and cultivating a beard. The schtick is that he is telling this to a group of school kids at a career fair. So at the end they all want a job as Santa, too. The gratuitous “meaning of Christmas” message at the end is that the kids can all practice by giving out love and kindness.
Library joys: Lovely version of All Things Bright and Beautiful illustrated by Bruce Whatley. I’ve loved this poem since reading James Herriot’s Irish vet books as a preteen. I don’t remember knowing the poem before reading those books, despite having spent the first 7 yrs of my life as a Protestant. This version has light watercolor images of a girl on a farm, perhaps reminiscent of Herriot.
A better Christmas book for a preschooler: Who is Coming to Our House? by Joseph Slate and Ashley Wolff. Simple illustrations accompany a repetitive poem about preparing the stable for the coming of baby Jesus.
Rediscovery of The Best Loved Doll, a favorite from my girlhood, by Rebecca Caudill. The illustrations are monochromatic, not stunning, and the story about a girl who decides to take her beat up but beloved doll Jennifer to a friend’s birthday party, instead of one of her showier dolls, verges on saccharine. Betsy's favorite doll looks bedraggled - nearly hairless - next to the other girls’ dolls, but ends up winning the award of the title at the end of the party. What did I love about this book as a child? The fact that the dolls could talk? The idea of the birthday party? The message about love being more important than looks? Betsy sacrifices a prize to take Jennifer so that she will have fun at the party. Happily, even though I had to force my seven year old daughter to sit down and read it with me because she wasn’t attracted by the looks of the book, she ended up loving it herself. A problem at our home: So many toys, even after a radical downsizing before our move, that most of my kids do not have a favorite toy. Time to downsize again.
And a find for the older boys: The newly published third installment of the Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. We all loved the first one. I never got around to the second, but they are fighting over the third.
In the Shadow of the Past
2 months ago
13 comments:
Furniture envy: The blue wingback chair looks so nice in your living room, but it would look better in mine. Nevertheless, you earned it.
Ignoring your family to read: reminds me of "The Uncommon Reader" and the Queen's corgis hating her books for being spoil sports. I'd like to read that one again.
Finding books for kids: my boys keep bringing these dumb Goosebumps books home from the school library. Do you have a remedy for their age level?
Hmmm, Captain Underpants? Diary of a Wimpy Kid?
Just Kidding, what about Trumpet of the Swan or Charlotte's Web?
Neal Gaiman's Graveyard Book or Coraline
Roald Dahl books?
Lemony Snicket?
The Spiderwick books?
Edgar Allan Poe?
Louis Sachar books?
Jean Fritz and Clyde Robert Bulla have good historical fiction
EL Konigsburg
Mouse and the Motorcycle? Bunnicula?
Jon Scieszka has a funny Time Travelers series (Summer Reading is Killing me is one)Flat Stanley and Weird School might be a little young.
James loves these Guardians of Ga'hoole series about owls, which, while formulaic, at least aren't grossout like Goosebumps.
Joe and Ben liked Hardy Boys.
I generally prefer children's literature to grown-up books, and I thought the Captain Underpants books were pretty neat, but a couple of years ago there was a thread on Touchstone which contained a comment by a homeschooling mother about how distressed she was to have to see a cardboard cut-out of Captain Underpants when she took her children to the library. I couldn't figure this one out. Was it because of . . . underpants? I mentioned that I had learned to read from comic books, which elicited pity and disapproval from the combox crowd. This sort of disapproval also was new to me. I mean, I have a doctorate, and have published as a scholarly writer; surely comic books didn't ruin me. Or maybe they did. Maybe that was it all along.
At any rate, I love to read, and I wish I could find more than ten minutes a day to do so. Being able to read and read and read without interruption is my fondest fantasy these days. And I think Captain Underpants is swell.
Hey Pentimento - Sorry about the snootiness of my reply to BD. I have known and avoided homeschoolers of the stripe you mention, and only knocked Captn U and the Wimpy Kid (who is also very funny and more clever than Captn U and doesn't have as many references to farting. The boys nearly got in a fist fight over who got to read the newest one first. Same with Mysterious Benedict Society Number 3.) because they're the kind of books you don't have to bargain with your kid to read. I have had to strike more than one deal with the kids (e.g.: No reading Harry Potter for the 5th time, or books about French Fries from outerspace (can't remember the title), until you've read 2 of the books I've picked out) to get them to read more than just the next big series. Getting them to read saints' books, for instance, was especially difficult until I found some comic book lives from Pauline Press and a couple other publishers.
As for comics, maybe the other homeschool moms didn't notice the higher philosophizing going on in, say, Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts. There was a priest at Notre Dame, whom I sure had at least a couple degrees, who regularly used a Peanuts cartoon as the lead in for his homily.
The great thing about children's lit is that even if you only have 10 mins and are half asleep you can make it through some really good children's books. And some of these new series, like the Percy Jackson novels and the Inkheart series or say, the Shakespeare Stealer books, or even the Sisters Grimm books, of which I've only skimmed one (most of these are a little old for BD's oldest), inspire greater literacy by incorporating myths/classics. And I have loved Kate DiCamilla's books adn Katherine Paterson's books and the Jeane Birdsall books about the Penderwicks, which are every bit as beautiful as a good adult book. And Madeleine L'Engle's books, which were shunned by Michael O'Brien in A Landscape with Dragons, and so therefore shunned by a number of homeschoolers. My heart is racing thinking about some of these favorites. I told my husband I was just going to be a minute, but I started thinking of more good titles.
On the other hand, there is a need to discriminate against some books out there which don't just have bad form, but bad philosophy, and although you could take this argument to the extreme, I have to say that I have banned the Goosebumps series after reading one and skimming a couple others when I volunteered at the kids' school library when we lived in Indiana, because they only serve to frighten, and my kids are nightmare havers. I couldn't find anything redeeming in the book I read. Also banned is Philip Pullman, an agressively anti-Christian anarchist (there's an interview out there somewhere where he talks about his desire to teach kids to question dogma and authority and how he wants to undermine the Christian worldview. Even if his books were any good at all, I wouldn't want to financially support this guy (or encourage the library to buy more copies). Sweet Valley High books haven't been an issue so far, but when my daughter reaches for one, I'll probably make her put it back. Not that she won't read some trash behind my back, I'm sure (Twilight?).
So anyway, I appreciate your comment as it got me thinking more about children's lit. Sorry to get longwinded. Now to go talk to my husband.
Oh, Emily, I didn't think you were being snooty at all. Sometimes I think that my tastes are too small-c catholic and not big-C enough. I mean, you're right, most pop culture ic crass and awful, but there is a lot of rollicking good fun in there too, cf. Captain Underpants et al. And I feel conflicted because my whole career has been in the realm of high art, and I must admit I think that the music I've been involved with for most of my life is superior to most pop crap. But I also love a lot of pop music, and some, I believe, is on the level of the best classical music. Likewise literature.
I was looking for information on the Charlotte Mason educational philosophy, and, while I love the emphasis on beauty, I was chagrined that books that were "merely entertaining" were discouraged. I'm just the kind of zealot that if I got into it, I'd throw away all books that were not beautiful, down to Dr. Seuss, who's merely awesome. And then I'd regret it.
Oh dear. What was Michael O'Brien's complaint about the wonderful Madeleine L'Engle? I mean, what could possibly be wrong with her theology? I'm reading A Wind in the Door alternately with Newman right now.
Speaking of which, I just found this essay by Sally from First Things explaining all about it (and I'm left breathless, as always, by the marvelousness of her writing).
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/10/001-fantasy-and-faith-4
Sally's article is great, Pentimento; thanks for sharing. And keep your Dr. Seuss. There's a kind of Puritanism at work in some home school materials which misses out on a lot of the "rollicking good fun" stuff that makes learning a joy. I love the Charlotte Mason philosophy, especially her emphasis on cultivating beauty and spending lots of time out of doors. You've probably found the Catholic Charlotte Mason web page, and Ambleside, and Living Books, etc... my quibble with some of these is that a lot of what they recommend was written before about 1950, and seems to me to count as "twaddle" to me: pedantic, saccharine, and boring. Great lit in there, too, including lots of Shakespeare,(counteracts the Puritan aspect, I guess). L'Engle would be great as a living science text, I would think, although I don't understand all her physics myself!
Well, shucks. Yes, I always loved A Wrinkle In Time. Some of her grownup fiction is embarrassingly bad (and very trendy-wannabe Episcopalian), and not all her "young-adult" books are so good, but WIT is a winner, in my view.
One of my boys taught himself to read by deciphering the captions in military books I let him check out of the library (we probably still owe fines on one called Amphibious Techniques), while the other taught himself via the captions in Usborne Books, of which we possess many.
We've kind of tired of Lemony Snicket -- after about the seventh book, we started to get too depressed, although the funny stuff is still very funny.
Got to go put dinner on -- the children are eyeing one another in a ravenous way which I am finding unsettling. But I'd love to talk more about kid-lit later. My favorite subject (well, one of them)!
I have looked at some of those sites, yes, but sometimes I wonder if I actually have the patience to do Charlotte Mason. I get pissed off if I have to stay out in the cold too long, and I like Captain Underpants.
I found more on O'Brien's thesis online. One of the touchstones of his argument against L'Engle seems to be the idea that the traditional meaning symbols is immutable. So a dragon or a snake, traditionally symbols of evil, can be made good only to the detriment of the children reading the books that change the symbolism.
I take issue with this, because Christianity itself reversed the meaning of innumerable symbols. The cross itself was a symbol of cruel, sadistic punishment; the roads to Rome were lined with crucified criminals as a warning to visitors there. If we hewed to its pre-Christian meaning, then, the cross would simply mean horror. And the fact that Christ chose Rome as the center of His Church also was a reversal of all that the city traditionally symbolized.
No doubt O'Brien would have a valid argument against me. I have loved his novels, but I think in his non-fiction life he sometimes goes too far in the direction of seeing evil lurking everywhere (like Rod Dreher in a different way, perhaps). But then again, maybe I don't go far enough.
Well. There is plenty of fun to be had in this combox. We turn off the internet on weekends, but hubby's in the workshop, so I'm just taking a little peak at what's going on out here. Was reading a review about the Goosebumps that made a very good point about how it feeds suspense and adrenaline, making reading more of a glandular activity than an intellectual one. Cracked open one of the books and sure enough: One titillating cliff-hanging chapter after another. Which then of course spoils their brains for any less glandular reading. So I banned them. told them they couldn't check out any more, and told teacher not to let them. D seemed relieved. It was as though he were reading them out of peer pressure, but was relieved to have a reason not to. N, of course, took issue with my banning, and whined for a long time. I finally told him I'd pay him to read Huck Finn. Money motivates the boy like nothing else. Mother of the year award, here please.
Comics are very much the thing right now, thanks to Michael Chabon, and Jonathen Lethem, and all those too cool literary novelists. I think more and more people will creep into the light saying comics helped shape their literary mind. Nothing to be ashamed of there.
Reading Homeschooling with Gentleness this morning, and I could see myself falling into that puritanical frame of mind too. I'm not sure why I feel like it has to be an all or nothing. Send my kids to school and absolve myself of making a stand on what they read, even those damn goosebumps that come home from the library--or homeschool, put on the long skirt and second guess everything I put in front of my kids to read. But like you, P, when I read about CHarlotte MAson, I thought about standing outside in the cold, and shuddered at the thought.
N read the first couple chapters of Twain and said, "I don't think he's Catholic." Another one to worry about?
Ha, BettyD! Is Nick trying to get out of reading Huck Finn or is he a home-school wannabe? Twain was decidedly not Catholic - one time I checked out a picture book life of young Twain, and it began with him skipping out of school and church and going on about not liking institutions. Didn't keep it long from the library. So am I a hypocrite from letting my kids read Twain and not Pullman? Well, at least he's not making any money for his books anymore. And he's a much better writer. Is Twain's anti-establishmentarianism hushed up because of his talent or because he has "classic" status? Maybe you should pay Nick to read something like Tom Playfair that is much more of a chore to get through!
I had forgotten about O'Brien's symbols argument, Pentimento. And since you had looked up Sally's article, I never went back to look at O'Brien's book. There does seem to be a double standard, especially when we're all circling around a "Christmas" tree these days. It seems that the appropriation of symbols - like the point you made about the cross - gives them even greater power.
This thread makes me want to go back and pick up L'Engle's books "Summer of the Great Grandmother" and "A Two Part Invention," which my mom used to keep by her bed in a big stack of magazines and books, and which were part of my early education on marriage and death. I wonder what I would think of them now.
Sally, you're right Lemony Snicket does get old after awhile. I read the first few and the last. But I loved his clever asides. A lot of these series books seem to be the same story told over and over. But kids love them. And publishers must love the guaranteed bucks. I loved the first Mysterious Benedict Society, but haven't been motivated to read the next two.
P and B, you don't have to do Nature Study YOURSElves to do Charlotte Mason style HS. Think of it as a break for you: Just send the kids outside to play so they can see how the changing seasons are affecting their yard. And look, with narrations, you don't have to stand over your kid and say, "WRITE!" nor do you have to reread their work later; just have a nice little conversation like: "So what can you tell me about this book?" "I don't know" "Did you like it?" "I guess so." "What did you like?" "It was funny." Unless you have a talker who wants to tell you every. single. detail. The problem I had with Charlotte Mason was that I would start reading a book, or looking at art books, or take a walk to the little nature park near our house, and forget that I was supposed to be doing this WITH the kids. If you have them do a workbook page, then you're much less likely to take over.
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