What I've Been Reading

Home Education

The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer
The Well Educated Mind by the same
and
The History of the Medieval World - SWB again.

I'm finding some interesting areas of agreement with SWB when it comes to Grades 9-12. Less in terms of subject choice, more in terms of a philosophy of education for young people. 

Fiction

All Clear and Blackout by Connie Willis
A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley
The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten and First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
Earthly Delights by Kerry Greenwood
The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst.
Good Evening, Mrs Craven:The War Time Stories of Molly Panter-Donnes
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
The Soldier's Wife by Joanna Trollope

OK, well, I didn't say it was literary fiction!

Non-Fiction

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Won't Stop Talking
Raising Free Thinkers by Dale McGowan
Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from Consumer Culture
Microbusiness Independence by Anna Hess
Housework Blues - A Survival Guide by Danielle Raine
lol...OMG! What Every Student Needs to Know by David Bohnett

Quiet is my non-fiction book of 2012! It's the first book I can say has literally changed the way I see myself and the choices I make. If you are an introvert, or you know and love an introvert, you need to read this...Radical Homemakers was intriguing, but I  disagree with so much that it needs its own post.

For Book Club

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Lucy and I listened to a BBC dramatisation of The Crucible. It was wonderful. It reminded me how much I've always loved this play.

Read Alouds

Lucy and I have almost made it through A Girl of the Limberlost. It's taken a while. So much melodrama to wade through!

Beowulf adapted by Michael Morpurgo - read along with SOTW

SOTW - Medieval Times - This is the third time I've used this book and I'm happy that Snowy is enjoying it.

The Wandering Wombles
Encyclopedia Brown
Moominsummer Madness
On the Banks Of Plum Creek
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice
A Dog on Barkham Street


They are all Snowy's books and the Moomins need their own post too.  I know we've read more but I can't remember what! I know on his own he's been reading a lot of Big Nate books. And a Pokemon book. Sigh. It's all reading, right ?

Coloured titles are courtesy of Arwen. I'd like to tell you what she's been reading at school, but it seems school doesn't 'do' books. Yes. That does make me mad.

TV Sick-O-Meter and a Few Books

Here is how I knew I was sick. I was lying in bed watching Sesame Street. And my 14 year old, my 12 year old and my almost 8 year old were watching it too. And I didn't care. It seemed like a reasonable way to pass the rest of our lives. Sesame Street was actually the viewing highlight, which at the time didn't bother me but in retrospect I find depressing.

Once I'd hauled myself off to the doctor's for an industrial strength antibiotic - the kind that requires permission from the capital - I improved sufficiently to remember books.

Here are the books I read. They have no complex commentary because I don't want to be out of bed that long.

Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich. Awesome if you like art and crumbling marriages in your novels, and I do.
Secret Smile by Nicci French. Lame but better than kids TV.
The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly. Great-great grandaughter of Jo discovers letters in the attic. Silly but diverting.
A Day in The Life of a Smiling Woman by Margaret Drabble. Short stories. Depressing.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Very readable . And that isn't meant to be faint praise. Awesome if you like restraint combined with weird in your novels, which I do.
All That I Am by Anna Funder. A desperation read which I found surprisingly good. German refugees between the wars. Spies. Bravery. Etc.

There.

Is Mincing Appropriate for Seven Year Olds ?

When I say I don't censor my children's reading, I'm not lying. What I do censor are the books I read aloud.

Like this bit in Farmer Boy - "They have driven out two teachers," he said. "Last year they hurt Jonas Lane so bad he died of it later."

And I won't be reading this bit from our new read-aloud, The Box of Delights.

"Done ?" the porter said. "Er, he was a bad one. He had a row with his father-in-law, and he got a big sharp knife and cut the poor man up, put him through the mincer and sold him to the dog's meat man."

Goes against all principles of non-bowdlerisation. But tell me, could you put a seven year old to bed with visions of murder and mincing in his head ?

Please Come In and Look Through My Bookshelves

Because if I ever come over to your place, that's what I'd like to do, if you don't mind, and yes please, a cup of tea while I'm being nosey would be very welcome indeed!

I took five books off the third shelf down in the lounge room bookcase, the one made in Gaza and given to us by friends of our neighbours, unknown to us, who were moving house and who intuited - in some freakish, The Secret-like way, that I was sitting in my house thinking "Oh how I need a new bookcase!" and knocked on our door and asked us "Would you like a bookcase ?"

Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson is first in the pile. It's set in a Britain that is moving from the rural to the urban, from superstition and folklore to science and modern communications. Flora writes of her new life working in Candleford Post Office with a wry voice and a sharp eye  On visits home to the hamlet of Lark Rise, she chronicles the poverty, the humour and the despair of lives still lived as tenants and craftsmen. The women are dignified and resourceful; the country side is full of meaning and Flora writes with a deep love of place.  My guilty secret is that I love the TV adaptation of Lark Rise somewhat more than I love the book, and this, I fear, means I am shallow.

Underneath is Ron Pretty's Creating Poetry. Ron is a distinguished poet and publisher; he was one of my two lecturers at University. This was the textbook he sometimes taught from. I was young and arrogant and full of disdain for such things as lessons in poetry. Now, of course, I read with relish and have used ideas from his book to teach poetry myself.

Ah, the creative family by Amanda Blake Soule. No photo in case you are having a not very crafty and competent day and the cover - a well groomed mother teaching one child to knit while her baby explores the pencils  and her other child, in cute and quirky homemade clothes, draws - makes you weep...Ideas for family projects that bring crafting, connections and imagination into family life. Completely gorgeous -and useful for me, at one time. I was most successful with incorporating her ideas for 'Family Drawing Time' into our homeschool. We did our fair share of felting and knitting inspired by this book too.  The trouble with me is that I procrastinate. I bought this book at least four years ago and raced out to get a sewing machine so we could make some of the fabulous toys and clothes in the book. I used my sewing machine to make something 'crafty' for the first time this week. There is a problem with this book, and that's that Mrs Blake Soule has a life so crafty, so colourful, so nurturing, so perfect. If you are having a bad day, week, month or year, this book is less likely to inspire you to acts of gentle creativity than it is to cause you to self harm. It's only gotten worse. More children, more books, more  lovely projects on her website. I avoid it these days for mental health reasons, but, you know, if your health and ego are robust, I'd recommend this book with minimal hesitation.

Alice's Cookbook - a culinary diversion by John Fisher. Sentimental reasons only. It was given to me by my Grandma in 1978. I've never cooked from it, though how hard can 'Owl and Panther Pie' be ? Given how long it took me to get to the sewing machine, there's still hope. I may one day just up and cook Lewis Carroll's Oxford Marmalade. The Tenniel illustrations are a bonus.

My girls weren't as keen on this next book as I was. I bought The Turtle and the Universe by Stephen Whitt from the UNSW bookstore, the same day I bought my beloved Wolf Hall. It's straightforward really. It tells the story of the universe by linking the life of the turtle with the life of the universe. It uses analogy as a teaching tool and analogy is what I like best in science books. That's how my brain works, comparing one thing to another. I thought the girls would feel the same way. The girls don't feel the same way. Nevertheless, they have a science journal with diagrams of supernova explosions and narrations about radioactivity to show for the hours they spent listening to me read this enthusiastically. They did beg me to give them a break from living science books afterwards, but that's a reflection on my poor science teaching, not the book. The book is fab and I think you should buy it!


I'd love to know what's on your bookshelves, hint, hint and a jolly big hint. Next time I'll get back to proper homeschooling mama blogging and show you what's on my school shelves.

On the Book List

Almost done with Knight's Castle and A Dog so Small. I've got another book lined up for Snowy, Odo Hirsch's Bartlett and the Ice Voyage. The girls had this on CD when they were little and listened - laughing, chortling, chuckling -  to it so much the CD wore out! So now we have the book, a story of an impatient Queen and the ingenious explorer who brings her Majesty her heart's desire; something exotic, fragile and delicious. I've deviated somewhat from my original second grade booklist, but for those who are interested, it's here.

The girls and I have finished Heist Society.  Light enough to be a fun read, with enough of a background story ( art theft by the Nazis ) to be intriguing. A touch of romance and a feisty, clever heroine.

Trying to find new books for the girls took a while. Both are middle graders age wise, and young adults reading wise, and the dark and gloomy themes of many a YA novel seem to be less Gothic, more Emo. No thanks. We want adventure and girls with spark.

With the help of kindly recommendations and booklists online, we've a few books lined up that sound interesting.

The Explosionist had me at 'alternate Scotland, 1938'. Ooh, Scotland! Ooh, alternate history! The protagonist's name is Sophie. Lovely! I'm not entirely sure the girls will go for this one, but I want to read it.

Between Shades of Grey is one for Lucy. She's been interested in the experience of young girls and women during WWII for a long time now, and has read widely in this area. This sounds like a book she'll read in a day. I know it sounds gloomy, but her tolerance for gloom is greatly increased when in a historical context.

If I can get hold of it, 10 Miles Past Normal by Frances O'Roark Dowell will be our next read-aloud. It sounds as if it's a quirky, coming of age tale, with a heroine who is ready to move on from being 'the girl from the goat farm with the mother who blogs.' Sounds charming and a little left of centre.

Also on the list are the Wolves, Boys and Other Things that Might Kill Me and Sorta Like a Rock Star, both of which I found here.

Of course, we are also impatiently waiting for the for latest Penderwicks novel to arrive at the bookshop and for a new Montmaray book.

Should keep us going till August!

Book Sharing Monday

It's cool and grey today, the stillness punctuated by the kordle of the magpies. A work day. Yesterday was a perfect day; sun, after a week of rain, and washing on the line. A park, a bakery, a loaf of sourdough bread. A trip to the book shop...

The book shop visit was work, as much as spending time in a book shop could ever be work; in other words, not work at all.  We needed books for book club, new read-alouds, something to add to  a study of the Jazz Age. Here's what we found:

Dash and Lilly's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan - Arwen's finished this one already and been generous with praise. I'm only a couple of chapters in but I have high hopes. I've enjoyed books by David Levithan ( in collaboration with others ) before. This is our modern romance for book club; a girl-boy relationship via a red Moleskine journal.

Heist Society by Ally Carter. This is the girls' new read-aloud. OK, so it's not high literature but it is amusing, snappy and reasonably well written, so not exactly from the gutter either. Kat Bishop is a reformed teenage thief from a family of thieves, drawn back into the family business when her father goes too far and steals an art collection belonging to a mobster. First chapter today met expectations...

Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner. The book Snowy really wanted was One Small Dog by the wonderful Phillippa Pearce but we had to order it in. To amuse him at bedtime until it arrives, I thought we'd give Emil a go. We're three chapters down already in this classic tale of a boy who has his money stolen whilst  travelling to see relations in Berlin, his determination to get the money back and his adventures with the detectives he meets along the way. So not a bad interim choice.

Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen is the book I chose for Lucy, to add a little colour to her studies of the Roaring 20's. I felt she wasn't quite at the right age to get the most out of Fitzgerald and decided this story of Midwesterner's Letty and Cordelia's escape to 20's New York might be a lighter and more approachable way of fleshing out the time period.

Before we left the book shop, I took Mrs Emerson's Wife by Amy Belding Brown from the second hand shelves and spent a very pleasant afternoon reading on my bed. I do suspect Ms Belding Brown has taken considerable imaginative liberties with the characters of both Mrs Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and she has thoroughly prejudiced me again Mr Emerson but that's the price you pay for a book that combines "detailed history with a page-turning illicit love story."

The Brontes Vs The Russians

If pre-war, sisterly imagination is your thing – and you have a high tolerance for the idea of the Brontes as rather cantankerous ghosts – The Brontes Went to Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson is the book for you.

She had me on the first page, Miss Ferguson did.

A woman at one of mother’s parties once said to me, “Do you like reading ?” which smote us all to silence, for how could one tell her that books are like having a bath or sleeping, or eating bread – absolute necessities which one never thinks of in terms of appreciation.

And by the end of chapter one I was completely sold.

Three years ago I was proposed to. I couldn’t accept the man, much as I liked him, because I was in love with Sherlock Holmes.

This is the sort of deceptively light whimsy that cheers and consoles and celebrates the imagination all at once. Though it’s probably a sign of my shallowness that I gobbled this up in an hour or two, whereas Summer in Baden-Baden A Novel by Leonid Typkin has been in the house for at least a week and  I haven’t managed to finish the first, never-ending sentence yet. I was mildly interested in finding out that Typkin was a published author for a mere seven days before he died. And I have a theory – already! On less than half a page of reading! – about Typkin’s use of the dash. Still, my advice would be to go for the Brontes and Woolworths makes a nice change from the moors.

Two facts - There is no clip art online for "Gloomy Russian Gentleman". 
The New York Times calls Summer 'Extraordinary!'Indeed!

Interestingly

Chris has to introduce David Vann at an event next week.
Oh, the things we must do to earn our daily bread!

The London Review of Books has a very impressive review of Caribou Island. Apparently.

The Good, The Bad and The ( Slightly ) Shameful

Barbara Pym is good. I borrowed Jane and Prudence, her 1953 novel of post-war British society, because the women on the cover were wearing lovely frocks, one rose and the other emerald green.  Often called a modern day Austen, Pym's characters are wiser and sadder than an Emma or an Elizabeth. Jane, an impractical, dowdy and well educated clergyman's wife who sets out  to play matchmaker to Prudence, her glamourous friend -  Jane's former student, now a 'spinster' engaged in various unsatisfactory love affairs - reflects upon poetry, village life and the nature of men. And women.  A comedy of manners with an undertone of cynicism. The clothes in the novel are wonderful too. It was really rather delicious.

Caribou Island by David Vann was not. It's about an idiot husband whose wife has a terrible headache and they build a cabin out on a freezing cold, isolated island and we gradually find out he's a bastard and she's unhinged and she ends up shooting him with a bow and arrow before hanging herself. Depressingly, she still has her headache when she dies. And in between their adult children have unsatisfactory relationships. There is quite a lot of hype over this novel but it just isn't very good. In my humble opinion, for which I'm sure David Vann cares not a fig!

I'm editing this to add a little more weight to my dislike of this book. Besides an overwrought plot and unbelievable characters, it's very clumsily structured. Characters don't develop over the novel. There are apostrophes in the wrong place. It's meant to be a novel of landscape but I could form no picture at all of the town, the island, the cabin. It reads like a first draft, the kind you'd suggest was put away in a drawer for a year or two.  It's clear that this book was published because Vann's first book sold well and Penguin think they can move this one on the basis of the first. I don't have anything against Mr Vann ( although I'm glad he wasn't my creative writing teacher ) but truly, the Emperor here has no clothes.

Now to the shameful...which of course was the most enjoyable. Isn't that always the way ?  Grave Surprise by Charlaine Harris is about Harper Connelly, a lightening  strike survivor left with the uncanny ability to find dead people. She and her stepbrother Tolliver make a business this way and, asked to find a missing eleven year old girl, they become caught up in all sorts of criminal and murderous high jinks. Charlaine Harris makes me think of a CWA lady making scones. It's all in the light hand.  I read her Aurora Teagarden books over the summer and she does a lovely job of the almost Christie-like mystery. Here, it's all a bit darker - and there's a ghost, which was a bit much even for me...almost.

The Fearless Treasure

It's possible that Lucy loves history even more than me and that's saying something. Lately we've been having some very satisfying conversations about the Russian Revolution. A few years ago it was English history we were exploring and somehow, in my research,  I stumbled upon The Fearless Treasure by Noel Streatfield. Not an actual copy; just the mention. And a mention of it to my Dad turned into a copy sourced just for Lucy's reading pleasure.

We knew all about Noel Streatfield, she of Ballet Shoes, queen of the children-who-perform genre. This book however was a story of England. We made it Lucy's read-aloud and daily traveled back in time with six post-war children. Summoned from various schools and homes by the mysterious Mr Fosse, the children - three boys and three girls - come from a range of backgrounds. There's  Selina, from 'the finest girls' school in the country', the matter-of fact John who can make or mend, feisty Londoner Elizabeth, unloved and wealthy Robert, down-to - earth Yorkshire lass Grace and studious parson's son William.

The children are taken on a quest by Mr Fosse, back through England's history, from Britons to the Victorians and each child discovers along the way his or her own family heritage and use their knowledge, at the novel's conclusion, to compete against each other for a prize. Told as a narrative, The Fearless Treasure captures the flow of English history from ancient times onwards and explores the contributions made to English civilisation by the people and culture from each wave of invasion or settlement.

Black and white sketches by Dorothea Braby break up the text here and there but this history-story never really needs the pause. If read with a hyper-critical eye, an adult might take issue with an undertone of nationalism, made explicit in Fosse's toast at the book's end "to a proud and fearless England". Published in 1953, not a decade after WW2, I find this bias excusable to a certain extent - something I might mention to an older reader but wouldn't allow to diminish the value and pleasure of the book as a whole.

Highly recommended if you're in the mood for a treasure hunt of your own! It's OOP but available here and there.

For more lovely books -and really, who can resist! - visit Book Sharing Monday at Canadian Home Learning.

Didn't the Americans discover America ?

To avoid hearing this comment ( from a source who shall remain nameless! ) in my homeschool ever again, I've been reading this book to Snowy. Where do you think you're going, Christopher Columbus ? by Jean Fritz is a fairly entertaining read - plenty of humour for the young boy-student - but it also takes a nuanced look at the man himself in all his vanity, religiosity and determination. It places Columbus in the context of his times and represents the people of the "New World" with respect. It's a forthright book and I do admit to censoring the bit that explains how Isabella burnt 'heretics' at the stake and then had choir boys singing during the burning so she wouldn't have to hear the screams. A seven year old doesn't quite need that level of detail. However, we're getting a good sense of how much was left to learn about the world in 1492.

I'm also really happy with this little gem, The Adventure of Life by Jean-Benoit Durand. It's a translation from the French, published by Gecko Press in NZ. It's divided into three sections - how this planet and life on it began, the evolution of mammals through to the human race and a section about growth and death in humans and other forms of life. The information is clear and concise, nicely paced and in a narrative style, making it almost perfect for oral narration. It also has lively illustrations which keep Snowy amused as he learns. I'd really recommend this book for a 6-9 yr old age group.

Thoreau and Dickinson for the Younger Set

I like to keep it simple and explore many of the same topics with Snowy as with the girls. He's been listening in to My Contract With Henry but I've also got a picture book my Dad bought for the girls some time back to share with him.

I'd love to share an image of this book, but Blogger has gone crazy on me and won't allow me to show you!
It's The Trouble With Henry: A Tale of Walden Pond by Deborah O'Neal and Angela Westengard. It focuses on Henry's time at Walden Pond and his conflict with the townspeople over a proposed mill. The illustrations of the forest and pond - by S.D.Schindler - are gentle, calm and textured; those of the townspeople are busy and humourous.



I've another lovely little book to share with Snowy about Emily Dickinson. The Mouse of Amherst by Elizabeth Spires is a sweetly imaginative telling of the poet and her life. Narrated by Emmaline the mouse, this small story introduces the reader to Emily, her home and family and her poems. Charmingly, Emmaline is herself a poet, encouraged by her unlikely friendship with Emily. The text is illustrated with delicate and telling black and white sketches by Claire A. Nivola. It's a little masterpiece; appropriate when you consider its subject.

Read Alouds for 7 Year Olds

Here's the list of books I plan on reading to Snowy this year.

Little Pear by Eleanor Frances Lattimore
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
Half Magic by Edward Eager
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
Homer Price by Robert McCloskey
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame
Mr William Shakespeare's Plays by Marcia Williams
21 Balloons by William Pene du Bois
The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston

Some of these books I've read aloud before, when Snowy was little and I'm looking forward to revisiting those, but some of them are new to us both. I'm hoping something fabulous and just-published will come along this year to amuse and entertain as well. This should be a Charlotte's Web year; Snowy refuses to hear of it. His sisters have warned him in advance: Wilbur dies.

If you have a great book lined up to read aloud this year to your under 10's, please share!

Our 2010 Read-Alouds

We've been on holidays for a few weeks now, and as always, I notice how much I miss the routine of our term time days. In particular, I miss sitting down after a morning's work and reading aloud to the children. It eases us from the focused mood of the morning into the afternoon's more diffuse demands.

It's been an excellent read-aloud year for Snowy. A year of listening to stories upside down on the sofa or at the table with Lego or snuggled in my bed. A year of anticipating the next book, the ones he's now the 'right age' to be read. The ones I've posted about  here.

I still read aloud to my big girls and can't imagine a time when I'll stop for good. We started the year with some Sherlock Holmes stories, which had just enough atmosphere to scare us, in a good way. Then Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit - and yes, I cried. We tried two new books after that, When You Reach Me
by Rebecca Stead ( Arwen's favourite ) and The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly.

I loved this book. There's nothing edgy about it. It's a coming of age narrative, told through the relationship and the shared love of science between Calpurnia, a young girl at the turn of the 19th century, living in a prosperous American family of good standing -  with all the expectations that implies -  and her somewhat eccentric Grandfather. Although the theme of this book - be true to yourself - is nothing new, it's written in an amusing, reflective and episodic way that lends itself to reading aloud. Calpurnia is a heroine in the style of an Anne Shirley, though perhaps without the hyperbole. This was Lucy's favourite too.

I've written here before about The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff. She's a mistress of prose, shapes it and turns it and holds it to the light - her tools are a mastery of suspense, a rich vocabulary, an ear and an eye for image. Reading this book aloud was less entertainment and more an urgent engagement. I'm looking forward to Snowy being the right age for this one...

The girls and I finished the year with an attempt at Great Expectations. They came to see it as a sentence - a chapter a day for the term of their natural lives! - so we returned it to the shelf, after Pip's sudden fortune but long before his fall.

Summer calls them away from structure, away from routines. I'm given a season to plan and make lists, to browse and consider, to borrow or buy. And when February comes we'll lean in to each other on the sofa, new books on my lap, and start  reading All Over Again.

When I know what those books will be, I'll share!

What read-alouds are you considering for 2011 ?

What We're Reading This Week

Me - I've just finished reading All Quiet on the Western Front. Late to come to a classic, I know. Distressing and lyrical at the same time. Next I'll either read Birdsong or Regeneration, depending on what's on the library shelf.

Snowy - assorted Asterix books being read to him. Reading an Aussie Nibbles story called Jamie Spy and the Great Cookie Mystery. It should really be called the Great Biscuit Mystery, but anyhow...

Arwen and Lucy - finishing off the final four books in A Series of Unfortunate Events. I find them Amusing but Unbearably Gloomy. The girls find them Hilarious. Lucy is also reading a book I picked up at the library yesterday called Remembrance by Theresa Breslin, set in the Great War. And we're still reading Great Expectations.


It's funny, but it's only reading Dickens aloud that is letting me really see how fine a writer he is, by slowing me down and making me pay attention to the words, I suppose.

Not such a Dangerous Idea

First, I have to say I'm delighted that I've worked out how to post book covers without photographing the damn thing first...it would have been hard to do that with this book because I don't actually own it...but I did go to hear Lenore, aka America's Worst Mom, speak  at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas this weekend.

Not so dangerous, even for me, who is Australia's Most Neurotic Mum - to the extent that I actually had the following thought when Lucy enrolled in St John Ambulance Cadets last year...That's good, because if a homicidal maniac decides to do a mass shooting in the hall, there will be lots of people around with first aid training.

Despite my insane thoughts, Lucy and Arwen are not in fact locked up in their bedrooms 24/7. They have the freedom to go to the park, go shopping at the mall, visit the library, take a walk to post their own letters, hang out at the bookshop or the art gallery, shop at the op-shop, go to a cafe together or with friends, go to the movies with friends and stay home. Alone.

It's not much compared with the freedom I wish they could have but it's a whole lot more than many children have. They are always working on adding ' freedoms ' to the list - walking to their Aunty's house, walking to the next suburb and back, catching the bus to ballet. Sometimes I stall on what I can handle, sometimes they are satisfied with what they've got. It  never lasts long. The girls get restless. Or I tell myself to get a grip because this is a picnic, compared to when they grow up and leave and have every freedom there is.

What I liked about Lenore's talk - besides her funny and extroverted presentation and her props - disposable placemats for trips to McDonald's anyone ? Ones that protect against dirt, germs and cleaning products ? - was her clear explanation of why she thinks this has become an issue at all and in the space of one generation. Nothing radical there either - media, consumer culture, the digitisation of our world. She was well worth the $20 it cost to hear her speak. I'd imagine the book is worth the price as well.

When you hear Lenore speak, she's actually quite moderate. She doesn't think you should neglect your child, just that you should listen to their need for freedom, consider it and sometimes grant it, even if it hurts to send them out into the world.

How much freedom would you/do you give your kids ?

The Glittering Cloud

Hearing about the locust plague-to-be in western NSW on the radio this morning made me think of Laura Ingalls Wilder's brilliant description of the grasshopper plague ( actually, Rocky Mountain locusts ) that beset the family in On The Banks Of Plum Creek.

A cloud was over the sun. It was not like any cloud they had ever seen before.  It was a cloud of something like snowflakes, but they were larger than snowflakes, and thin and glittering. Light shone through each glittering particle. 
There was no wind. The grasses were still and the hot air did not stir, but the edge of the cloud came on across the sky faster than wind. The hair stood up on Jack's neck. All at once he made a frightful sound up at that cloud, a growl and a whine.
Plunk! something hit Laura's head and fell to the ground. She looked down and saw the largest grasshopper she had ever seen.  Then huge brown grasshoppers were hitting the ground all around her, hitting her head and her face and her arms. They came thudding down like hail.
The cloud was hailing grasshoppers. The cloud was grasshoppers. Their bodies hid the sun and made darkness.  Their thin, large wings gleamed and glittered. The rasping whirring of their wings filled the whole air and they hit the ground and the house with the noise of a hailstorm.


Say what you like about questions of  authenticity and the  political incorrectness of the Little House books, Laura writes good, clear descriptive prose.

What We're Reading This Week

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen - stayed up way too late to finish this book. Not because I particularly liked it - the first quarter was funny and involving but after that, Franzen got carried away with his broad canvas - but because I just can't go to bed until I find out how a book ends. This one - shmaltzy. Lost it's way with the whole zero population/save the warbler section, redeemed itself with some portraits of unusual relationships. And with skillful handling of moral ambiguity.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - one of Lucy's birthday books. She appreciated the happy ending...there is no way I would give a 13yr old a copy of Wuthering Heights for a birthday present - Heathcliff is just too awful and Cathy just a wee bit too stupid - but Jane Eyre ? No problem. Except for the sappy ending, in my personal opinion,  but as you've just heard, not Lucy's.  She's reading The Book Thief now.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens -  started reading this aloud to the girls this week. You have to love a serialized novel with its nice, short chapters. Snowy was playing Lego in the loungeroom whilst I was reading and I thought he might be perturbed by shackled and murderous convicts and physically abusive parent-figures, but apparently not...

The girls are also listening to Pride and Prejudice on CD, which Arwen says is slightly funny. She only likes one character - Charlotte - and she only likes her because she has the same name as her ballet teacher. Still, I said Arwen couldn't read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies until she's at least listened to the original. Keep going, honey!  This was another one of Lucy's presents and I know she likes it because of how happy she got when she was given a set of P&P paper dolls last birthday.

Snowy and I are not reading the second half of The Incredible Journey, because I think we are both slightly bored with the travails of dogs and cat. We are revisiting Milly-Molly-Mandy stories instead, which I actually know off by heart now and can read aloud whilst thinking of other things, like....

A post justifying my shameful Jodi Picoult addiction. Stay tuned.

My Year of Meat

Read this on Thursday; an odd read but a good one, hard to explain. It's a portrait of two contemporary women, Jane (of Japanese-American background) and Akiko (a Japanese housewife), and it also manages to be an expose and an indictment of the feedlot meat industry in America. That's a juggling act for sure, and author Ruth L. Ozeki manages it skillfully, even incorporating into the book extracts from The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon in true postmodern fashion.

Jane wants to be a documentary maker and so she accepts an offer to work on a program sponsored by Beef-Ex, called American Wife. Aimed at Japanese homemakers, she must film a different American wife each episode, detailing her life in general and her favourite meat recipe ("Pork is possible but beef is best!") in particular. Akiko is married to the bullying producer of the show who requires her to watch each episode on a Saturday morning, fill out a questionnaire with ratings for Authenticity, Wholesomeness and  Deliciousness, and then cook the featured meat that night.

As Jane begins to discover more about Meat and how the hormones used in meat production have affected her own life, she begins to subvert the aims of the show in her choice of wife, even featuring a lesbian, vegetarian family at one point. Akiko, watching, begins to think about her own life and choices, culminating in revelation of brutal circumstance.


The Year of Meat brings changes, sorrow and awakening to Jane and Akiko. Ozeki casts a critical but compassionate eye over American and Japanese society and their various forms of denial, which are contrasted with the painful honesty of The Pillow Book, read in secret by Akiko.

The only problem with this book is that exposure to  Sei Shonagon's form of observational list writing is addictive. Since Thursday I haven't been able to stop thinking of my life in lists. Shonagon's are better.

Surprising and Distressing Things
Things that give a Pathetic Impression
Things that are Near yet Distant
Things that Gain by Being Painted
Things that Make One's heart Beat Faster

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

In our household of avowed C.S.Lewis worshippers, this comes as heresy, but The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was never a favourite of mine.

Certainly, climbing into a wardrobe only to find it a portal to another world was interesting, in the way that Dr Who's ever-expanding Tardis was interesting. And it was always pleasant to read about Turkish Delight. But the books I read over and again were more likely to feature heroines away in the exotic land of boarding school or dancing school, or in the unreachable past.

I didn't read it to the girls. They listened to it on tape again and again, utterly inhabiting the land of Narnia. They drew pictures and maps of it, made bows and arrows and shields and daggers, designed scenes and plays, wrote and posted letters to Aslan, creating a culture of Narnia in the privacy of their own conversations and their own room.  I never asked them if they had tried to enter Narnia through their own wardrobe but imagined their great disappointment when they discovered they could not.

It was the girls' devotion that put it on my list of Books To Read To Snowy. And this time I did read it, chapter by chapter, lunchtimes.

It's an odd book, dated in its language, full of nursery reassurances - meals, for example, continue to be regular and battles are concluded in time for the Pevensie's bedtime.  The dialogue is old fashioned to a 21st century ear, almost priggish, as when Edmund is speaking to Lucy:

"I say Lu! I'm sorry I didn't believe you. I see now you were right all along . Do come out. Make it Pax."

See kids, there is a point to Latin...


Yet when we reach the climax of the book,  when Aslan makes a  sacrifice of himself, murdered by the White Witch on the Stone Table,  to save the traitor Edmund,  Lewis reaches deep into the wellspring of  human sorrow and wisdom to give us a subversive, anti-cultural hero, in the way that Christ ( this story  being a Christian allegory after all ) or Gandhi  or the Buddha or Aung San Suu Kyi is a hero.

And this archetype, surrounded by talking beavers and marmalade rolls and Father Christmas, is what gives the novel its power and makes it endure. The moral of  this story being  that my daughters recognised the majesty of such a hero long before I did.