I find that my children are ready for me to read chapter books aloud at about the age of five or six.
Snowy and I have galloped through a number of delightful read alouds this year, some familiar to me from reading to the girls, others new to both of us. So I thought I'd share the 'hits' of the year so far, the ones that I've enjoyed reading as much as Snowy has enjoyed listening.
Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson - first in a series of books about the amusing adventures of the Moomins and their odd but charming friends.
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder - if I'm honest, Snowy was lukewarm on this one, but I have fond memories of reading it to Lucy and Arwen when they were little, if that counts ?
Tumtum and Nutmeg by Emily Bearn - sweet story of two mice, Tumtum and Nutmeg, with just the right amount of danger to enthrall.
The Rescuers by Margery Sharp - more mice, more thrilling adventures, Snowy's favourite so far.
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - see previous post
All the Nanny Piggins books by R.A.Spratt - see previous post
Peter Pan by J. M.Barrie - again, I've written about this previously.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl - what self-respecting child isn't going to enjoy this book ? For the littlies, it has the advantage of not being as frightening as some of Dahl's other books.
Mr Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater - we're reading this now and I've been looking forward to reading it to Snowy ever since I read it to Arwen five years ago. Funny characters, funny animals and gorgeous illustrations by the Newbery and Caldecott winner, Robert Lawson ( who wrote the nuanced and utterly beautiful Rabbit Hill, but that's another post.)
Coming up next ? The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S.Lewis. Being old enough to hear that book is like an initiation in our home...
What six year old needs dreary old comprehension sheets and writing exercises when he can have a diet of books like these to entertain and absorb ?
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
In Praise of Martha
"In Praise of Martha" is the title I've had in mind, for a number of years now, for my next book.
Martha is rather hard done by and I'd like to exult her. I know it's lovely to sit at the feet of the prophet, but unless you are going to go all yogic, someone has to sustain your body whilst you are feeding your soul and that someone is Martha, the original slave-over-a-hot-stove. I don't see why Mary couldn't have helped out with the flatbreads and falafels beforehand. Actually, I don't see why Jesus couldn't have preached in the kitchen and given them both a hand with the washing up.
However.... this weekend just gone I enjoyed a visit from one of my oldest and dearest friends, K, who lives in Canberra and because she is somewhat more informed about life outside of my loungeroom, she told me that our former creative writing teacher, Ron Pretty, was launching his 7th book of poetry the very next day.
So on the Sunday I gussied myself up, waved goodbye to the cherubs and met K at the Friend in Hand pub in Glebe. On a weeknight, it hosts crab races. On the weekends, Poets. I was impressed because it had a sofa, so it was a bit like being in my loungeroom, only more esoteric. I was also happy, in a shallow and vain sort of way, because I'd been dreading turning up to an event 16 years older than when I'd last seen many of those whom I expected might attend, only to realise that I was older but so were they - so it still felt like K and I were among the youngest people there.
Such shallow thinking shows you that I was actually in desperate need of a poetry launch, in need of Brook Emery's passionate introduction to Ron's book - his celebration of a poet and of poetry, the vocation of language - in need of Ron himself reading from his book. I needed to hang my apron on its hook for the afternoon and listen.
"Postcards From the Centre" works with dark themes deftly. To hear an alchemist take the material of the world and turn it into spoken gold, to hear the heft and balance of it, must be a similar experience to that of Mary. Food she did not know she was missing until she tasted it. Food that could never come from the kitchen or the hearth. Language taken seriously, however deft - even playful - is a tool of nourishment and of transcendence.
The spell survived the bus ride home but broke amidst the cacophony of greetings from my best-loved ones. I will always be more Martha but perhaps Ron's book will remind me to listen from the kitchen doorway, at least.
Martha is rather hard done by and I'd like to exult her. I know it's lovely to sit at the feet of the prophet, but unless you are going to go all yogic, someone has to sustain your body whilst you are feeding your soul and that someone is Martha, the original slave-over-a-hot-stove. I don't see why Mary couldn't have helped out with the flatbreads and falafels beforehand. Actually, I don't see why Jesus couldn't have preached in the kitchen and given them both a hand with the washing up.
However.... this weekend just gone I enjoyed a visit from one of my oldest and dearest friends, K, who lives in Canberra and because she is somewhat more informed about life outside of my loungeroom, she told me that our former creative writing teacher, Ron Pretty, was launching his 7th book of poetry the very next day.
So on the Sunday I gussied myself up, waved goodbye to the cherubs and met K at the Friend in Hand pub in Glebe. On a weeknight, it hosts crab races. On the weekends, Poets. I was impressed because it had a sofa, so it was a bit like being in my loungeroom, only more esoteric. I was also happy, in a shallow and vain sort of way, because I'd been dreading turning up to an event 16 years older than when I'd last seen many of those whom I expected might attend, only to realise that I was older but so were they - so it still felt like K and I were among the youngest people there.
Such shallow thinking shows you that I was actually in desperate need of a poetry launch, in need of Brook Emery's passionate introduction to Ron's book - his celebration of a poet and of poetry, the vocation of language - in need of Ron himself reading from his book. I needed to hang my apron on its hook for the afternoon and listen.
"Postcards From the Centre" works with dark themes deftly. To hear an alchemist take the material of the world and turn it into spoken gold, to hear the heft and balance of it, must be a similar experience to that of Mary. Food she did not know she was missing until she tasted it. Food that could never come from the kitchen or the hearth. Language taken seriously, however deft - even playful - is a tool of nourishment and of transcendence.
The spell survived the bus ride home but broke amidst the cacophony of greetings from my best-loved ones. I will always be more Martha but perhaps Ron's book will remind me to listen from the kitchen doorway, at least.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Meatless Monday
It could be Meatless Wednesday, I suppose, but in the interests of alliteration as well as saving the planet, Meatless Monday it is.
Silverbeet Curry
6 large potatoes cubed.
1 onion
5cm ginger
garlic
1tsp each of cumin, coriander, mustard seeds
6 curry leaves
1/2 tsp tumeric
400g can of tomatoes
bunch of silverbeet, washed and chopped
coriander
Chop onion and garlic, grate ginger and fry. Add spices and fry till fragrant. Add potatoes, tomatoes and enough water to cover. Bring to the boil, lower heat and simmer 25 min. Add silverbeet and coriander, simmer 10mins. Serve with flatbreads.
Flatbreads
250g plain flour
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup warm water.
Mix to a dough. Leave for 30 min covered in bowl. Cut into 8 pieces. Roll out nice and thin, cook in a hot frying pan until brown and puffed up on one side, turn over and brown other side. Keep warm.
Silverbeet Curry
6 large potatoes cubed.
1 onion
5cm ginger
garlic
1tsp each of cumin, coriander, mustard seeds
6 curry leaves
1/2 tsp tumeric
400g can of tomatoes
bunch of silverbeet, washed and chopped
coriander
Chop onion and garlic, grate ginger and fry. Add spices and fry till fragrant. Add potatoes, tomatoes and enough water to cover. Bring to the boil, lower heat and simmer 25 min. Add silverbeet and coriander, simmer 10mins. Serve with flatbreads.
Flatbreads
250g plain flour
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup warm water.
Mix to a dough. Leave for 30 min covered in bowl. Cut into 8 pieces. Roll out nice and thin, cook in a hot frying pan until brown and puffed up on one side, turn over and brown other side. Keep warm.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Poetry Saturday
Odysseus by W.S.Merwin
Always the setting forth was the same,
Same sea, same dangers waiting for him
As though he had got nowhere but older.
Behind him on the receding shore
The identical reproaches, and somewhere
Out before him, the unraveling patience
He was wedded to. There were the islands
Each with its woman and twining welcome
To be navigated, and one to call "home".
The knowledge of all that he betrayed
Grew till it was the same whether he stayed
Or went. Therefore he went. And what wonder
If sometimes he could not remember
Which was the one who wished on his departure
Perils that he could never sail through,
And which, improbable, remote, and true,
Was the one he kept sailing home to ?
Because I love a poem that can do all its telling in 17 lines.
Always the setting forth was the same,
Same sea, same dangers waiting for him
As though he had got nowhere but older.
Behind him on the receding shore
The identical reproaches, and somewhere
Out before him, the unraveling patience
He was wedded to. There were the islands
Each with its woman and twining welcome
To be navigated, and one to call "home".
The knowledge of all that he betrayed
Grew till it was the same whether he stayed
Or went. Therefore he went. And what wonder
If sometimes he could not remember
Which was the one who wished on his departure
Perils that he could never sail through,
And which, improbable, remote, and true,
Was the one he kept sailing home to ?
Because I love a poem that can do all its telling in 17 lines.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Reading with my Eyes Closed
Reading Chapter 3 of Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff and wishing that I could read whilst peering from behind my hands, the same way I watched almost all of the Lord of The Rings movies. ( I've only seen the scenes with the elves in. Nothing bad happens when Legolas is around. )
It's the girls' new read-aloud. Marcus, a young Roman, has taken charge of a Roman fort in Britain and Chapter 3 involves a battle between the British and the men of the fort. Any other time, I'd be on the side of the Druids - battle-thirsty, charging with their feather-tipped spears under a new moon. Today, I was desperate for Rome to prevail, testimony to the force of the writing and the skill with which Rosemary Sutcliff has developed her main character.
She has a beautiful technique. I talked to Lucy about it the day we began the book, the way she creates immediacy through dialogue, before describing the setting (allowing us to picture ourselves both in the action and in the scene ) before moving on to explanation, exposition.
Chapter 3 ends with the heroic Marcus sacrificing himself under the wheels of a British chariot in order to gain his men extra time to retreat to their fort. I peeked at the next chapter and luckily Marcus has somehow survived. I know this might mean that I need more of a life, but this book is really exciting!
It's the girls' new read-aloud. Marcus, a young Roman, has taken charge of a Roman fort in Britain and Chapter 3 involves a battle between the British and the men of the fort. Any other time, I'd be on the side of the Druids - battle-thirsty, charging with their feather-tipped spears under a new moon. Today, I was desperate for Rome to prevail, testimony to the force of the writing and the skill with which Rosemary Sutcliff has developed her main character.
She has a beautiful technique. I talked to Lucy about it the day we began the book, the way she creates immediacy through dialogue, before describing the setting (allowing us to picture ourselves both in the action and in the scene ) before moving on to explanation, exposition.
Chapter 3 ends with the heroic Marcus sacrificing himself under the wheels of a British chariot in order to gain his men extra time to retreat to their fort. I peeked at the next chapter and luckily Marcus has somehow survived. I know this might mean that I need more of a life, but this book is really exciting!
Back to Not-School
I'd like us to be year-round learners, but it ends up being more practical to take term breaks when the schools do, so this was our first week back. Snowy insisted that school could be just as easily accomplished in bed, in one's pyjamas. We bargained. I got him down to "I'll get up and get dressed and just do reading lessons." Deal.
Not that a 'normal' week for him is vastly more strenuous. Reading, writing and 'rithmetic , an art lesson from 'Artistic Pursuits' , a science experiment or some nature study or reading from a science related book, a read-aloud after lunch and before bed, gym on Mondays and some co-op learning and a whole lot of play every second Thursday. It's enough.
Of course, his real learning happens all the time, pj's or not. It's sometimes hard to tease it out and put it into convenient categories. It's Wednesday this week, when he spent hours designing and making and playing a Lego board game, based on the ones he's read about online. It's yesterday's conversation about how to handle things when "the big boys won't let J and me on the trampoline". It's realising that he can read shop names and street signs and maps of the mall.
The girls have had a relaxed week as well - lots of writing, reading, a drama workshop, some craft, a co-op lesson on politics. It's a tightrope though - enough formal work to satisfy our registration requirements, not so much that it smothers any love of learning or detracts from what Charlotte Mason, the 19th C educator, described as 'the atmosphere of learning'. When I'm busy ticking off to-do lists, I feel a false sense of success. The only way I can truly gauge the success of what we are doing is the level of engagement an activity generates. Arwen writing her blog is learning. Lucy trialling watercolours versus watercolour pencils for her picture book is learning. Sometimes I forget this, become focused on my lists, and that's when learning degenerates into a matter of jumping through hoops.
I'm not a push-over though when it comes to the important things though. Snowy will get his reading lessons. Lucy and Arwen will settle to their maths. Skills like those are non-negotiable because they are doorways to learning and I would be negligent not to provide my children with those keys. Everything else is up for discussion.
Except Latin. I'm enjoying that so much the girls can't possibly quit...
Not that a 'normal' week for him is vastly more strenuous. Reading, writing and 'rithmetic , an art lesson from 'Artistic Pursuits' , a science experiment or some nature study or reading from a science related book, a read-aloud after lunch and before bed, gym on Mondays and some co-op learning and a whole lot of play every second Thursday. It's enough.
Of course, his real learning happens all the time, pj's or not. It's sometimes hard to tease it out and put it into convenient categories. It's Wednesday this week, when he spent hours designing and making and playing a Lego board game, based on the ones he's read about online. It's yesterday's conversation about how to handle things when "the big boys won't let J and me on the trampoline". It's realising that he can read shop names and street signs and maps of the mall.
The girls have had a relaxed week as well - lots of writing, reading, a drama workshop, some craft, a co-op lesson on politics. It's a tightrope though - enough formal work to satisfy our registration requirements, not so much that it smothers any love of learning or detracts from what Charlotte Mason, the 19th C educator, described as 'the atmosphere of learning'. When I'm busy ticking off to-do lists, I feel a false sense of success. The only way I can truly gauge the success of what we are doing is the level of engagement an activity generates. Arwen writing her blog is learning. Lucy trialling watercolours versus watercolour pencils for her picture book is learning. Sometimes I forget this, become focused on my lists, and that's when learning degenerates into a matter of jumping through hoops.
I'm not a push-over though when it comes to the important things though. Snowy will get his reading lessons. Lucy and Arwen will settle to their maths. Skills like those are non-negotiable because they are doorways to learning and I would be negligent not to provide my children with those keys. Everything else is up for discussion.
Except Latin. I'm enjoying that so much the girls can't possibly quit...
Monday, July 19, 2010
Do As I Do!
Just to let you know that Arwen is now blogging (or plans to!!) at Hobbit Happenings - click on 'my profile' to find the link. It will be a great read once it is off and running - recipes, quizzes, movie reviews and more....
Running Away from 'The Running Man'
I've just emailed the book club to cancel 'The Running Man' and I'm trying to put my objections to it into words. It isn't a 'bad' book, meaning it isn't twaddle. It's written by a part-time English teacher, so you'd expect it to be reasonably well-written, which it is. It has important and worthy themes - the redemptive power of art versus war, the importance of friendship and of truly seeing the other.
The gloominess of the novel however is pretty unrelenting. Maybe it was because I read this whilst all head-achey, with the kids all away on sleepovers, and was feeling a little bleak myself, perhaps it was one lot of bleakness amplifying another but I found it an oppressive book. One of the main characters is a Vietnam veteran, another - the running man of the title - the survivor of a house fire that killed his wife and infant daughters, and this book doesn't manage to transcend their brokenness, even though the story states that it does, through the awakenings that the relationship between the veteran and his teenage neighbour creates.
I'm not trying to shield the kids in the book club from 'heavy' themes. Our very first book for the year was 'To Kill A Mockingbird', after all! But I do feel that it takes a very skilled writer to deal with unhappy topics in a way that leavens despair and leaves the reader - if not the characters - in a position of hope.
Perhaps it's in the way a writer integrates their theme into their prose. I've replaced 'The Running Man' with the Millard book I mentioned earlier, 'A Small Free Kiss in the Dark'. It actually covers very similar territory - love and art as antidotes to war - but it does this in a more energised, hopeful and transcendent way. This is in spite of its plot encompassing various types of loss. Why ? Where is the difference between Millard and Bauer ? It must lie in the language used.
I'll have to re-read the Millard book and try to be more exact. Her book left my mind brimming with colour, bright and solid like the chalks her teenage hero uses to create his art. The Bauer book made me feel grey and insubstantial.
The gloominess of the novel however is pretty unrelenting. Maybe it was because I read this whilst all head-achey, with the kids all away on sleepovers, and was feeling a little bleak myself, perhaps it was one lot of bleakness amplifying another but I found it an oppressive book. One of the main characters is a Vietnam veteran, another - the running man of the title - the survivor of a house fire that killed his wife and infant daughters, and this book doesn't manage to transcend their brokenness, even though the story states that it does, through the awakenings that the relationship between the veteran and his teenage neighbour creates.
I'm not trying to shield the kids in the book club from 'heavy' themes. Our very first book for the year was 'To Kill A Mockingbird', after all! But I do feel that it takes a very skilled writer to deal with unhappy topics in a way that leavens despair and leaves the reader - if not the characters - in a position of hope.
Perhaps it's in the way a writer integrates their theme into their prose. I've replaced 'The Running Man' with the Millard book I mentioned earlier, 'A Small Free Kiss in the Dark'. It actually covers very similar territory - love and art as antidotes to war - but it does this in a more energised, hopeful and transcendent way. This is in spite of its plot encompassing various types of loss. Why ? Where is the difference between Millard and Bauer ? It must lie in the language used.
I'll have to re-read the Millard book and try to be more exact. Her book left my mind brimming with colour, bright and solid like the chalks her teenage hero uses to create his art. The Bauer book made me feel grey and insubstantial.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Back to Our Usual Programming
OK, now I've got that off my chest, back to books.
To read this weekend -
The Australia Book by Eve Pownall - research for Snowy's Thursday afternoon all-boy co-op.
The boys like it when our activities involve edibles. I am wondering how to combine the consumption of sugar with a study of Canberra...
Does My Head Look Big In This ? by Randa Abdel-Fattah. Our first book club book for the coming term. Thought it might be an interesting time to read the story of a young girl who decides to wear the hijab, especially in light of the recent French legislation. Hoping it's a good read as well.
The Running Man by Michael Gerard Bauer. Another book club selection. A boy, a Vietnam vet, a tragedy, a miracle.
To read this weekend -
The Australia Book by Eve Pownall - research for Snowy's Thursday afternoon all-boy co-op.
The boys like it when our activities involve edibles. I am wondering how to combine the consumption of sugar with a study of Canberra...
Does My Head Look Big In This ? by Randa Abdel-Fattah. Our first book club book for the coming term. Thought it might be an interesting time to read the story of a young girl who decides to wear the hijab, especially in light of the recent French legislation. Hoping it's a good read as well.
The Running Man by Michael Gerard Bauer. Another book club selection. A boy, a Vietnam vet, a tragedy, a miracle.
Not my Usual Answer
Got chatting to a Dad at the park yesterday as I watched Snowy scramble to the top of the climbing frame. I'm still not used to having older kids and it makes me laugh to see Snowy showing off for the littlies, to see the way they watch his moves as though they were studying how to be six. Homeschooling came up, as it always does, and I glossed over the reasons why, as I always do.
There's a reason for the glossing over, which is that many people don't really want to know, just want to poke and prod at the weirdness of it all. In the beginning, I saw every query as an opportunity to advocate for home education. Some people were curious, some were dismayed. There was a great deal of wonderment and head-shaking and I learnt to save my energy for more important things - like the education of my children - and to deflect the questions of strangers.
Thinking it over last night, I realised that it had become a habit - useful for dealing with random playground chat, less useful when I minimise the reasons the kids are not in school even to myself. Jokey reasons - We could never get to school on time. Wishy-washy reasons - school doesn't suit some kids. Earth mama reasons - I miss them when they're gone.
When the real reason was that I couldn't bear the system, the institution of school. I tried hard, and so did Lucy, for the six months she was in kindergarten. Until the day I turned up to Monday assembly. I tried not to be cynical as the 'awards' were handed out. I tried not to be bothered by the principal cheerily and mindlessly telling the students how special they were, how special this school was, how they - X Public School - were 'the best'. So much praise, so few details. Then it was time for the anthem. The children stood and were told to face the flag. The mothers stood and faced the flag as well. It was 2003. Our government had fed us lies, ignored our marching. We had just sent troops into Iraq. There was no way I was standing up to face the flag. Where were we, America, home of the patriot ? My daughter was standing and singing, her teacher was standing and singing, every other parent was standing and singing. I was sitting. I was not singing. I was conspicuous, frowned at by the mother nearest me. This was not citizenship. It was a rally, training our children to be 'good', to be 'obedient', to do as they were told....training us, their mothers, to do as we were told. To regard ourselves as 'the best' and loyal to our special group, our special school, our special nation. Reading, writing and arithmetic...and raising little fascists.
Yes, I know it's extreme thinking, and yes, I know most teachers and most students are caring and thoughtful people, good citizens. Plenty of people can live within the system and not feel compromised, not be compromised. They can shake it off. I couldn't, not then.
And sometimes I am so busy making a joke of it, making it comfortable for strangers, that I forget the fire and urgency of the decision to quit. It doesn't exactly make for easy playground chat.
There's a reason for the glossing over, which is that many people don't really want to know, just want to poke and prod at the weirdness of it all. In the beginning, I saw every query as an opportunity to advocate for home education. Some people were curious, some were dismayed. There was a great deal of wonderment and head-shaking and I learnt to save my energy for more important things - like the education of my children - and to deflect the questions of strangers.
Thinking it over last night, I realised that it had become a habit - useful for dealing with random playground chat, less useful when I minimise the reasons the kids are not in school even to myself. Jokey reasons - We could never get to school on time. Wishy-washy reasons - school doesn't suit some kids. Earth mama reasons - I miss them when they're gone.
When the real reason was that I couldn't bear the system, the institution of school. I tried hard, and so did Lucy, for the six months she was in kindergarten. Until the day I turned up to Monday assembly. I tried not to be cynical as the 'awards' were handed out. I tried not to be bothered by the principal cheerily and mindlessly telling the students how special they were, how special this school was, how they - X Public School - were 'the best'. So much praise, so few details. Then it was time for the anthem. The children stood and were told to face the flag. The mothers stood and faced the flag as well. It was 2003. Our government had fed us lies, ignored our marching. We had just sent troops into Iraq. There was no way I was standing up to face the flag. Where were we, America, home of the patriot ? My daughter was standing and singing, her teacher was standing and singing, every other parent was standing and singing. I was sitting. I was not singing. I was conspicuous, frowned at by the mother nearest me. This was not citizenship. It was a rally, training our children to be 'good', to be 'obedient', to do as they were told....training us, their mothers, to do as we were told. To regard ourselves as 'the best' and loyal to our special group, our special school, our special nation. Reading, writing and arithmetic...and raising little fascists.
Yes, I know it's extreme thinking, and yes, I know most teachers and most students are caring and thoughtful people, good citizens. Plenty of people can live within the system and not feel compromised, not be compromised. They can shake it off. I couldn't, not then.
And sometimes I am so busy making a joke of it, making it comfortable for strangers, that I forget the fire and urgency of the decision to quit. It doesn't exactly make for easy playground chat.
Poetry Friday
The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm by Wallace Stevens
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. the truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
For my Lucy, calm and quiet, my reading girl.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. the truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
For my Lucy, calm and quiet, my reading girl.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
More Books Read
Coincidentally, the SMH yesterday republished an interview with the now-deceased author of The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson. I was surprised to learn that the book's heroine, Lisbeth Salander, was inspired by Larsson's thoughts on what the iconic children's book character Pippi Longstocking would be like as an adult. Both Pippi and Lisbeth are figures who create chaos, leavened in Pippi's case by a healthy dose of humour and a warmth towards the society and population with which she lives. Lisbeth Salander is a hacker, physically strong, intelligent and capable of great violence, a character who embraces and exploits the chaos her actions create but who lacks the ability to laugh at herself or with others. She is Pippi gone wrong, Pippi caught by the policeman and taken out her own story, Pippi lost, silent, gone underground.
Larsson also commented that he aimed, in his trilogy, to integrate Swedish society into the story, to make the connections between individuals, events and social structures explicit. I think he succeeds in this. It makes a great excuse for anyone who feels slightly embarrassed about reading popular fiction....
Larsson also commented that he aimed, in his trilogy, to integrate Swedish society into the story, to make the connections between individuals, events and social structures explicit. I think he succeeds in this. It makes a great excuse for anyone who feels slightly embarrassed about reading popular fiction....
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Books Read This Week continued
Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt - another 'story of homeless children' classic, this time American.
After the four Tillerman children are abandoned by their mother in a car park, thirteen year old Dicey, the eldest, must find a way to keep her family together as they travel across America in search of an aunt they have never met.
It's a well-written book, with sympathetic, high interest characters and plot. There'll be a lot of lesson plans out there on this book, making it 'perfect' to give to Lucy to read this term for English. Yet I find myself ambivalent about doing that, about spoiling with duty a book that could be read with 'mere' pleasure.
I know that analysis can sometimes add to pleasure. I know that the skill of deep reading, once mastered, gives pleasure. But I don't want Lucy to lose any books in the learning.
I don't feel nearly so ambivalent about the books I set for book club. It seems a more natural process - to read, to think and then discuss - than using a text to 'explore' a particular technique or theme.
Reading about A Small Free Kiss in the Dark, it was suggested in a set of teacher's notes that the book is good material for "discussions and explorations of homelessness". I'm sure it is, but reducing a novel to its themes and motifs seems to deny it something more substantial, the wildness and joyousness that a created thing has by virtue of its creation, something that can't be taught or discussed but is a private experience between the reader and her book.
After the four Tillerman children are abandoned by their mother in a car park, thirteen year old Dicey, the eldest, must find a way to keep her family together as they travel across America in search of an aunt they have never met.
It's a well-written book, with sympathetic, high interest characters and plot. There'll be a lot of lesson plans out there on this book, making it 'perfect' to give to Lucy to read this term for English. Yet I find myself ambivalent about doing that, about spoiling with duty a book that could be read with 'mere' pleasure.
I know that analysis can sometimes add to pleasure. I know that the skill of deep reading, once mastered, gives pleasure. But I don't want Lucy to lose any books in the learning.
I don't feel nearly so ambivalent about the books I set for book club. It seems a more natural process - to read, to think and then discuss - than using a text to 'explore' a particular technique or theme.
Reading about A Small Free Kiss in the Dark, it was suggested in a set of teacher's notes that the book is good material for "discussions and explorations of homelessness". I'm sure it is, but reducing a novel to its themes and motifs seems to deny it something more substantial, the wildness and joyousness that a created thing has by virtue of its creation, something that can't be taught or discussed but is a private experience between the reader and her book.
Poetry Saturday
Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae by Ernest Dowson
Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lillies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I cried for madder music and stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lillies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
I cried for madder music and stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Books Read This Week
Trash x 2 - Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter, in 'Finger Lickin' Fifteen' and 'Sizzling Sixteen' by Janet Evanovich. What can I say ? These books make me laugh out loud.
Not Exactly Trash - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by the Swedish author who isn't Henning Mankell. Long. Distracting. Lots of pleasingly unfamiliar Swedish names. An unlikable heroine who was thankfully confined to intensive care for most of the book.
Literature - Private Life by Jane Smiley. Not sure if it's a reflection on Jane or on me that I gave up on this book 20 pages in. Something about the way she structures her sentences makes them unreadable for me, I just keep drifting from the page.
The Good Stuff - YA books read as research for Lucy's book club next term.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. Heard Levithan interviewed on The Book Show about this novel - collaboration and was curious to see how it worked. I am so not the target audience for a book about two boys with the same name, dealing with love, depression, acceptance, musicals and coming out. Other than being distracted by the strange sense that one of the characters ( Tiny - large, gay, singer, choreographer, performer ) had stepped out of Glee and straight into this book, it was very readable. Even though part of it is written in instant messaging, something that would normally bother me a lot. It transcends its issues, moves smoothly between each author's voice, ends with hope.
Hope is a major theme in Glenda Millard's A Small Free Kiss in the Dark also. What a beautiful title! A homeless boy in a war-torn city that is not-Melbourne, creates a family for himself, learns to act decisively and learns to love. Sounds sentimental, a little cliched ? Not to me. I enjoyed a earlier book of Millard's, The Naming of Tishkin Silk, which the girls declared 'boring', so I'm curious to know if this more recent novel is one of those kid's books beloved by adults and rejected by the kids themselves. There is a quietness to Millard's prose that may not immediately grab a younger reader, but to watch characters like hers stumble towards love and its varied revelations is a gift.
Not Exactly Trash - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by the Swedish author who isn't Henning Mankell. Long. Distracting. Lots of pleasingly unfamiliar Swedish names. An unlikable heroine who was thankfully confined to intensive care for most of the book.
Literature - Private Life by Jane Smiley. Not sure if it's a reflection on Jane or on me that I gave up on this book 20 pages in. Something about the way she structures her sentences makes them unreadable for me, I just keep drifting from the page.
The Good Stuff - YA books read as research for Lucy's book club next term.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. Heard Levithan interviewed on The Book Show about this novel - collaboration and was curious to see how it worked. I am so not the target audience for a book about two boys with the same name, dealing with love, depression, acceptance, musicals and coming out. Other than being distracted by the strange sense that one of the characters ( Tiny - large, gay, singer, choreographer, performer ) had stepped out of Glee and straight into this book, it was very readable. Even though part of it is written in instant messaging, something that would normally bother me a lot. It transcends its issues, moves smoothly between each author's voice, ends with hope.
Hope is a major theme in Glenda Millard's A Small Free Kiss in the Dark also. What a beautiful title! A homeless boy in a war-torn city that is not-Melbourne, creates a family for himself, learns to act decisively and learns to love. Sounds sentimental, a little cliched ? Not to me. I enjoyed a earlier book of Millard's, The Naming of Tishkin Silk, which the girls declared 'boring', so I'm curious to know if this more recent novel is one of those kid's books beloved by adults and rejected by the kids themselves. There is a quietness to Millard's prose that may not immediately grab a younger reader, but to watch characters like hers stumble towards love and its varied revelations is a gift.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Poetry Saturday
Limbo by Seamus Heaney
Fishermen at Ballyshannon
Netted an infant last night
Along with the salmon.
An illegitimate spawning,
A small one thrown back
To the waters. But I'm sure
As she stood in the shallows
Ducking him tenderly
Till the frozen knobs of her wrists
Were dead as the gravel,
He was a minnow with hooks
Tearing her open.
She waded in under
The sign of her cross.
He was hauled in with the fish.
Now limbo will be
A cold glitter of souls
Through some far briny zone.
Even Christ's palms, unhealed,
Smart and cannot fish there.
Painterly, restrained, compassionate.
Fishermen at Ballyshannon
Netted an infant last night
Along with the salmon.
An illegitimate spawning,
A small one thrown back
To the waters. But I'm sure
As she stood in the shallows
Ducking him tenderly
Till the frozen knobs of her wrists
Were dead as the gravel,
He was a minnow with hooks
Tearing her open.
She waded in under
The sign of her cross.
He was hauled in with the fish.
Now limbo will be
A cold glitter of souls
Through some far briny zone.
Even Christ's palms, unhealed,
Smart and cannot fish there.
Painterly, restrained, compassionate.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Definition of luxury
Lying in the bath at 10am, listening to Snowy vacuuming the lounge room. Sounds like child labour ? I swear he volunteered.
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