Words and pages...

Funny things kids say in class--

2012-02-05T07:19:00.000-06:00

I wish I could remember all the funny comments students make in the course of a year. My sister is visiting this week from far far away. I've been telling funny student comments and thought, Oh, why not put them in my blog? So here they are: Comments from the little people:

How does a teacher get the attention of her students? As a librarian I have tried a number of methods. Each works at various times. Sometimes this is what I get:

One method that nearly always works is counting backwards from 5. Usually, I get total attention by 4 with all heads turned toward me and sounds dropping off immediately. Because my students feel so comfortable with me (I am wild and woolly as a reader)--well here's what Kindergarten did one day. I started the backward counting and they joined in and counted backwards with me. So, ha ha, they made a game of it. I had to beg their pardon and ask what they thought they were doing. There, that settled them!

On another occasion I just looked at them--you know, the evil eye that teachers can give. One girl asked, "Are you going to say 'Grrrrr" now?" Oh my gosh! That Grrrr is a throaty, impatient sound I obviously picked up from my mother. I didn't even realize I did it, too! I asked, "I make that sound"? "Yeah, you do." Anyway, I had to laugh at that one!

And the last one I can remember for now happened just last Friday. I have a treasure box (a small trunk about 2 feet long and 1 foot wide) filled with knick-knack, doodad type stuff costing one dollar or less. I dole out these little "treasures" based on good thinking, good behavior, special kindness one shows another, and the like. One first-grade girl has made a game of it. Every week she asks, "Can we go to the treasure chest today?" I give her all sorts of answers. On Friday as I sat and checked out books, she asked her weekly question. I looked at her and said, "Blah blah blah blah blah," over and over, each time she asked. She kept asking, "What does that mean?" Another girl looked at her, looked at me, and said, "Blah blah blah blah," also. This may sound rude out of context, but it wasn't meant to be. The original girl, the one who asked, finally said, "Oh, I get it. I'm not supposed to ask." Right! My rule about the treasure chest is that it is opened based on spontaneity, not planned (except in rare cases).

Also on that same Friday with that same first grade class, I received a funny comment from a seventh grade student. The language arts teacher and I have an arrangement: On Sustained Silent Reading days, she can send a couple of students to check out books (if I don't have a class at that time). Well, first grade girls were there--we had finished story time (a children's abridged Black Beauty) and they were searching for their books. One seventh grade boy said to me: "Why are you letting them run around and you don't let us?" He was perhaps exaggerating a bit, but the point and I said it: "They are not really running--they're skipping. Besides, they are excited about books. How can I fuss when they're that excited about finding just the right book?" But the funny part is based on his own comment: Why would boys old enough to be in the seventh grade want to run around the library? (Incidentally, they would and I have to have them cease and desist.)

Those are just a few of the funny things say!

An excellent nonfiction series--

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-06:00

Here are the facts: I'm a librarian. My students are 3-13 years old (K-3 through 8th grade). I didn't like graphic books (similar to comic books but loftier in content). "Levi Strauss and Blue Jeans," one of the books in the Graphic Library: Inventions and Discoveries series, has totally changed my mind.

Graphic books have gained almost virally in popularity over the last few years. As a stubborn librarian, I put my foot down concerning the addition of graphic books to our collection. I thought children should read words, not look at pictures. What nonsense and silliness! Nearly always on the cutting edge, I fell down on this one. Oh sure, I've added some titles the last couple of years, you know, those half-way books like Fashion Kitty and A Very Merry Christmas (Geronimo Stilton, No. 35). Of course, The Adventures of Captain Underpants led the way.

By the time of the Graphic Library history/biographies, entrenched librarians like me were ready. We could peek into books like this. Well, lo and behold, when what to my eyes did appear--an informative, both verbally and visually, book about the making of blue jeans. I was fascinated! To Nathan Olson's research and words are added to-the-point illustrations by Dave Hoover, Keith Williams, and Charles Barnett III. How they divided their labor, I don't know, but the finals results are truly revealing.

So, what can a student learn? The title page itself foreshadows THE details that made Levi's stand out above the others: orange thread, seagull V symbol on the pockets, and the little red symbolic Levi's label to the left of the pockets. Originally, Strauss started out with canvas for a strong pair of pants for miners, cowboys, railroad workers, and other tough jobs. When he no longer could obtain canvas, he...no, you must read and see for yourself how denim became the domain for jeans.

All of this story is told succinctly in just a few pages (25), but other details are added in two more pages. The book concludes with a glossary, internet sites to visit, a list of books to read (aha!), and Olson's sources.

Librarians, teachers, parents, if you are in doubt about the quality of this graphic information book, cease. I am amazed at how much I learned--and retained through words and illustrations. This book is well worth your money! The intended age is about second through fifth grades, although interest in blue jeans could carry it further. As a suggestion: For students (including older ones) who finish assignments early, have a display of graphic books at hand for quick reads (and addition of basic knowledge)!

An excellent nonfiction/biographical series for school libraries!

2012-01-04T08:50:00.000-06:00

Here are the facts: I'm a librarian. My students are 3-13 years old (K-3 through 8th grade). I didn't like graphic books (similar to comic books but loftier in content). "Levi Strauss and Blue Jeans," one of the books in the Graphic Library: Inventions and Discoveries series, has totally changed my mind.

Graphic books have gained almost virally in popularity over the last few years. As a stubborn librarian, I put my foot down concerning the addition of graphic books to our collection. I thought children should read words, not look at pictures. What nonsense and silliness! Nearly always on the cutting edge, I fell down on this one. Oh sure, I've added some titles the last couple of years, you know, those half-way books like Fashion Kitty and A Very Merry Christmas (Geronimo Stilton, No. 35). Of course, The Adventures of Captain Underpants led the way.

By the time of the Graphic Library history/biographies, entrenched librarians like me were ready. We could peek into books like this. Well, lo and behold, when what to my eyes did appear--an informative, both verbally and visually, book about the making of blue jeans. I was fascinated! To Nathan Olson's research and words are added to-the-point illustrations by Dave Hoover, Keith Williams, and Charles Barnett III. How they divided their labor, I don't know, but the finals results are truly revealing.

So, what can a student learn? The title page itself foreshadows THE details that made Levi's stand out above the others: orange thread, seagull V symbol on the pockets, and the little red symbolic Levi's label to the left of the pockets. Originally, Strauss started out with canvas for a strong pair of pants for miners, cowboys, railroad workers, and other tough jobs. When he no longer could obtain canvas, he...no, you must read and see for yourself how denim became the domain for jeans.

All of this story is told succinctly in just a few pages (25), but other details are added in two more pages. The book concludes with a glossary, internet sites to visit, a list of books to read (aha!), and Olson's sources.

Librarians, teachers, parents, if you are in doubt about the quality of this graphic information book, cease. I am amazed at how much I learned--and retained through words and illustrations. This book is well worth your money! The intended age is about second through fifth grades, although interest in blue jeans could carry it further. As a suggestion: For students (including older ones) who finish assignments early, have a display of graphic books at hand for quick reads (and addition of basic knowledge)!

This truly is a worthy book!

War Horse: A Novel (Review of a book now a movie)

2011-12-24T06:30:00.001-06:00

Note: I wrote this review for Amazon, on January 18, 2009.

"War Horse" is a story of courage and endurance by horse and man, conveyed through the destruction that is war. Told from the viewpoint of the horse, the story can draw in the most reluctant reader, as children often feel more empathy for animals than people. Because of descriptions of grueling labor and unsound working conditions for the horses, the book is best directed toward fourth grade and up.

Joey, a gorgeous bay with four white stocking legs and a white cross on his forehead, is the War Horse. Albert is his 15-year-old human who trains and loves him. When his father sells the horse to the cavalry for service in World War I, Albert swears to join when he is old enough and find Joey.

The insanity of matching a cavalry of horses and riders with sabers against soldiers with rifles and machine guns has to be one of the most insane moments in war history!! One-fourth of the horses are killed in the first battle. All but two die in the next battle this cavalry faces. Joey and his equal, Topthorn, a huge black Arabian, survive, only to be taken as prisoners by the Germans.

What Joey and Topthorn face as part of the team to pull the hospital cart to the battle front over and over is made right by kind treatment their German masters give to their wounds and injuries, and treat their fatigue at the end of day. Joey's worse experience comes when he and Topthorn and others must pull the artillery. Because these soldiers are dead tired themselves and also starving, they are not as attentive to the horses.

The most horrifying scene occurs when Joey is totally alone and runs and runs from the sound of cannons until he is trapped in No Man's Land, a barren area between the French and English on one side and the Germans on the other. Two rolls of barbed wire separate the land from the trenches. Joey finds himself in this area. What transpires is an incredible and beautiful moment in the midst of an insane war.

***
SPOILER ALERT! Read no further if you don't like to know anything about a book's ending.)

Of course, you must know that Albert is re-united with Joey. How that comes about is purely contrived, but welcomed by a reader weary of the horrors of war for both man and horse.

Last week a fourth-grader asked me (I'm the school librarian) for a really good book to read. I showed him several. When he saw "War Horse," he wanted it at once. The next day he told me, "This is a great book." He was already half-way finished. So I went home and read my copy.

You will never look at a horse the same way again. Joey tells us about the people who tend him. Are they heavy-handed, hard, tender, kind, caring? What is it like with each type of person? What is it like to be a horse? But the best lesson is that horses are no longer used in battle (until a reader commented that horses are being used in Afghanistan! Barbarity in a barbaric place. What can one expect? Note: I'm speaking of war and war conditions, not the Afghan people or soldiers.)

Now the film version is getting rave reviews. I look forward to seeing it!

Washingto Square: a film version

2011-12-24T06:14:00.001-06:00

Darwinism, selective adaptation, rationalism, a stone cold universe--these are the main characters in the film adaptation of Henry James' novel "Washington Square." I wept for the futility of the motives of the players. Forlorn-ness, weariness, desperation--these are feelings Henry James (author) passed out with plenitude to both Morris and Catherine, the exquisitely needy main characters.

Catherine, an only child, who lives at Washington Square, under the strict supervision of her doctor-father, is a most emotionally deplete character at the begining. Played with utmost perfection, with downward stares, gazes from under obedient eyes, a shrinking of body in the presence of men, Jennifer Jason-Leigh lived that character. So does Chaplin as Morris with perfect beauty, necessary emotional repertoire and glib talent with tongue and ready story. He is as extraordinarily handsome as she is plain. Yet, by steady and intense tender attention, he brings out a lively Catherine no one has ever seen, least of all her domineering father.

This is a story of want meeting need, with each discovering in the other the answer to each dilemma, with one (Morris) knowing what is needed, the other (Catherine) just feeling what is wanted. They meet at an engagement party (so ripe a setting for possibility). It is amazing to watch Morris see Catherine and fall instantly in love with her. Or is it a game? Her father, the wealthy doctor, thinks so and discourages her at every turn. Personally, I watched carefully for any slippage in his facial control to detect a false face or mocking smile. But never. He seemed genuinely to care. On the other hand Catherine refuses--initially-- to accept or believe his intentions. Her father has well-trained her to believe she is stupid and plain and desired by men only for her future fortune.

At the beginning when I spoke of despair and weariness, I mentioned these in accordance with the scientific and philosophic views of the day: the cold indifference of the universe, the non-involvement of the religious with daily life, almost a cold, calculating universe in its own way.

There is in some religious circles today the belief that prayer not only changes the one prayed for, but the one doing the praying. Although an anachronism, surely the context is the same: Morris does fall in love with this poor creature he is wooing. That is my impression. Of course, she loses herself passionately.

That's all I need say about the film. For sure, it is a powerful drama that unfolds before one's eyes and, for sure, the ending is both expected and incredibly sad. Yes, how can we ever push ego into the bushes and seize the moment and take a chance? Why are we so stubborn? Can there occur a merging between these two? What would it take? Everything? Nothing? Can we go too far past a certain point? Oh, I could keep asking these questions, but the answer remains the same: It is what James made it to be. His book reflects the values not only of his day, but our day as well. The story could go differently today, but should it? Can there be too much in a relationship to return to its purer moments?

Addendum: Added in response to a reader comment:

I accept as valid the reader-response (in this case, the viewer-response) genre of criticism. The author/director presents to his/her audience a version of some form of the Truth. The viewer can accept that view as one of the Truths of the universe or not. James was presenting the idea of the possibilities available to plain, but wealthy young women. In this film there was only one, Morris wants Catherine for her money. That's it. If she didn't have money, he would never have shown interest. One particular line shows this: "I wasted two years of my youth courting you AND your money (my emphasis)"-- Just recently I heard a phrase that really stuck in my head: "I settled." Compromised, accepting less than what is truly desired. Catherine would have settled at that moment. Years later she refused to take less. Maybe I did read more into the story than what James intended (rationalism, Darwinism), but I think I can justify my declaration. Morris was willing to "settle" with plain Catherine BUT wads of money (survival of the fittest?) and she, too, with such a charming and handsome man, having decided he did love her (the Watchmaker is sitting in the heavens, so we live life as we find it, not relying on a god to intercede--or is this Ann Rand-ism/objectivism?)

My final question is: Do we take love in whatever form we find it OR do we live by moral and ethical values, for self-respect which is cold and empty. Which causes more pain? Less? The film deeply disturbed me--on a personal level, not as a random viewer-- because of its lack of acceptable alternatives, indeed as life is often lived!

How does James present Morris in the novel? Does he come to love Catherine at all or is his behavior all a game for gain? After such a film, reading the novel becomes necessary...

Best 10 Books( I read) in 2011 (regardless of publication date)

2011-12-10T17:27:00.005-06:00

10. Sartoris by William Faulkner or Zen Ghosts by Jon J. Muth
Why two books here? Because I could not make up my mind. A classic by a Nobel winner in literature or a thoughtful, fairly philosophical book by a children's writer? Sartoris is the first novel by Faulkner that I've read in a many, many years. See Choice #2 of my Top 10 for the reason why. Sartoris claimed my full attention with its tale of characters who represent the Old South and the rising of other classes among them. Zen Ghosts is sheer mastery of both logic and magic, words and illustrations. It also requires attention to detail to contemplate its depth of meaningl

9. Ultimatum by Matthew Glass
A slow-paced, detail-setting first half with a hurtling-beyond-belief second half. A political agenda by a very hope-filled president who truly wants to solve problems, find solutions, especially for the eminent, ongoing climatic devastation. His plans are disrupted by one little decision that changes the course of his presidency. A fascinating read, especially the ever-developing conflict between this president and the Chinese leader, who represents a totally different way of approaching the world and his own leadership. Too late he learns why presidents have various kinds of advisors. Frankly, be prepared for a slow beginning which builds to a powerful and provocative second half and raises most disturbing issues and questions.

8. 61 Hours: A Reacher novel by Lee Child
I could have picked any of the Reacher novels, but this is one of two I read in 2011, the other being The Affair (which is not nearly as strong as 61 Hours). From page one, this novel is non-stop action, a book difficult to put down for any length of time. Reacher finds himself in North Dakota, the coldest state in a cold period. As usual he finds himself helping local law officers, the sheriff and a particular deputy, keep an important witness safe until she testifies. As usual it is one murder after the other with violent and evil characters contrasted with a couple of good people. The story takes place within 61 hours and concludes with the most puzzling ending of any Reacher novel.

7. Young Samurai: the Way of the Warrior by Chris Bradford
Since serving as a children's librarian, I have come across a number of really fine series of books written for older children. The Young Samurai series is one of the best. The story is set in feudal Japan in the late 1500's. Jack Fletcher is a monkey on his father's ship which is beset by ninja off the coast of Japan. The only survivor is Jack, who is "adopted" by the local samurai lord and is then trained in samurai school. You can begin to imagine the adventures and momentous times he has in each book of the series. I read the six in the series one after the other. The seventh and final book should be published soon.

6. Conspiracy 365: December by Gabrielle Lord
This is another of the fabulously exciting series for older children. Young Callum is told on New Year's Eve by a total stranger to run away and stay away for one full year or 365 days or he would be killed. A conspiracy is tied in with his family's name. He needs to find it and solve it before the year is up. There is not one dull page or a single false note in the story. This is a wowzer--and there are 12 books in the series, each for a month of the year that he is away from his home. Lord throws in a few red herrings along the way. Usually good at solving these riddles, I didn't this time. I suspected several of the characters as being the "villain." Of course, one of my choices was guilty.

5. Crocodile Tears (Alex Rider) by Andrew Horowitz
This is the last, until recently, novel in the Alex Rider series. Alex is forced into becoming a fifteen year old spy for jolly ol' England and the queen's service (mainly because both his dad and uncle were also spies). I almost must rate this one as my most favorite (after Paulsen's Hatchet series, which I read in 2009). Alex Rider can do anything--and it's all believable because Horowitz slips in the necessary bits of information that prepares the reader for sometimes utterly fantastic things that happen to Alex or he causes. Another wowzer!

4. Lucky's Lady by Tami Hoag
Normally, I don't read bodice rippers--too unrealistic. Does a man really totally love a woman like those found within cover of such a book, that is. Looking for a book, I found this on my Hoag shelf and did not remember buying it or how it got there. Took it down and was hooked on the first page. No matter the genre, I want to be hooked on the first page. This is a delicious book. Here's the benefit. Imagine exactly what you want in a man, both physically and emotionally, intellectually, professionally, and Lucky is it!! Even with a ponytail (which I do like!). This Lucky is a Cajun who lives in the South Louisiana swamp and makes his living mysteriously, at least he likes his life secret after being a POW for too long. Serena and Lucky, of course, immediately bristle up to each other, while simultaneously develop deep attractions which must be answered. The surrounding story is a worthy ecological one: save this particular swamp. Developers have it on radar to buy and build. An exciting read without unnecessary details.

3. In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke
Do you read books that--swish--go right through your brain and are forgotten minutes after reading them? Some linger and linger. "In a Perfect World" is one that lingers. It begins quite chickish and quickly becomes apocalyptic. The airline flight attendant is attracted to the handsome pilot, who gives up others for her. However, she must be willing to take on his kids. Their relationship is fine until a pandemic strikes the world and he is confined to Europe while she is stuck with his kids--at his insistence. Meanwhile, Jiselle takes in an elderly neighbor and her own mother, with whom she has had a struggling relationship. This is a story of struggle, survival, and building community within one's own home. A profoundly affecting story!

2. William Faulkner: the Cofield Collection by Jack Cofield
I've had this book for 30 years. I actually bought it at a bookstore in Oxford, Mississippi, within hiking distance of Faulkner's home. I've looked at the photos many times over the years, but recently, I took the book out again and actually read the print. I felt I was tracking Faulkner's life from beginning to end. I thought I "knew" him, but learned so many more details of his life. He was a horseman to the end, and eventually died from injuries, the results of a fall. He courted Estelle, but she married another, who died in WWI. Faulkner pursued again, they married, then produced their beloved daughter Jill. Faulkner's story is based entirely on the photographs in the book, collected and arranged by one of his close friends. That's how the reader knows if the truth is being told. I took my time and studied each photo. Then I got out all my Faulkner novels and stories. I stopped reading halfway through "The Sound and the Fury." When I retire, I'll finish it.

1. The Terror by Dan Hawkins
This book is a stunner! Out of a slow beginning come the details of searching, searching by explorers/adventurers, trying to find a waterway from the Atlantic to the Pacific--there, at the top of the world in the frozen Arctic. The novel is historical fiction at its very best. A friend tried to read the book and became bogged down in the details and gave up. After I read it, I insisted she try again because of the sheer imagination of the author in inserting a mythical monster into the story. At the first mention of this huge monster in the pages of a superlative explorer book, I was very disappointed. However, the last 100 pages are the most satisfying of any book I've read in a long, long time. Utterly fascinating!

Action series for boys!

2011-10-15T10:21:00.002-05:00

Finally, I'm taking time to write a blog feature I've had on my mind a good while. Action series for boys! There are so many series of books for boys--and so entertaining and thrilling, page-turners all!

At school in the library where I tend the books, I am delighted each time I find a new series in a catalog or online. Usually, the boys have not yet become acquainted with them; sometimes, they tell me about a series. And, no, I'm not a sexist--I encourage girls to read them, too. So, in no particular order, are these series, the books therein, and a brief synopsis.

1. The Hatchet series by Gary Paulsen. I must confess that, although I love all the others, this one probably sticks out in my memory best for its raw and very chilling adventure in the Canadian wilderness. Brian is almost 13 when his plane goes down--the pilot had a fatal heart attack in flight. During his miraculous attempt at flying and landing, the plane goes off course hundreds of miles. Brian is not rescued for many weeks and manages to survive with just his wits and a hatchet.

In chronological order

Final comments on my fasciitis

2011-09-23T06:43:00.002-05:00

It's been a week since I had that horrendous injection to rid myself of a very painful condition --inflammation of the fascia tendon that runs along the bottom of the foot, heel to that expanse of foot we call the ball. Stress it and you'll see --or feel--what I mean! Excruciating pain so intense a person cannot walk on it!

I tried a celestone shot (hip shot), physical therapy, a foot orthodic, massage, crutches--each helped, except the crutches, and even all together, I still limped along with pain.

It's time--so I got the shot--yeah, the one with a needle going straight into the heel. As soon as the doctor came into the little room, I started crying from anticipation. EVERYONE, including that doctor, warned me how painful that needle is! Then I started sobbing--I was so fearful!

He injected my foot. YES, the pain was so bad that I actually screamed. The scream was already out before I could do anything to stifle it. I apologized and the nurse tried to make me feel better: "You're not the first to scream!"

Did that shot work? Yes, almost immediately the pain lessened (but did not disappear). It's been a week and I made it through Book Fair, but went home every night with excruciating pain, which lessened after I put my feet up and gave them a rest.

Here's my advice: Get the shot. Don't wait! I could have had relief a week earlier! The pain is real but lasts--what?--maybe three seconds. It was over in scarcely the time I had to scream. I'll know (if there's a next time) not to wait. Pain relief is good even if it takes pain to get that relief!

Update on my fasciitis

2011-09-13T07:21:00.001-05:00

It's been over a month since I awoke that awful Saturday morning and could not put weight on my right foot. Later at the local quick care clinic, I discovered I had the dreaded, terrible planter fasciitis (I have stopped saying "planter," because, inevitably, people think I have warts on the bottom of my foot. Of course, that comes from NOT knowing about the word "planter" that is followed by the word "fasciitis." Even this computer doesn't know the term--it underlined it to tell me I had misspelled it. Alas, I haven't.)

So what about my update? I had some choices for treatment when I did go to an orthopedic doctor: a shot right smack in the middle of the pain and physical therapy. The doctor told me I would have faster relief, maybe immediately, with a shot. But wait, he said, there's a kicker: the shot is VERY painful. Well, yeah, I thought, a shot in that meaty part of the foot. I would think so. Of course, I went with physical therapy.

My therapist was such a darling, delightful young man. Ah, too bad I'm an old lady. Oh yes, pardon me. The therapy. Heat wraps, painful exercises, deep laser treatment, and, oh joy--deep tissue massage. It was very painful, but the relief was wonderful. He also taught me exercises to do at home to strengthen and stretch that ol' fasciitis.

That bottom of the foot tendon that is connected to the well-known Achilles tendon screams with pain when it has been strained and abused. Runners of all ages often learn of this condition and anyone who repetitively stresses the foot. I had been limping from the pain of an old injury with my left foot, thus placing undue stress on the right. Thus, that awful Saturday morning.

Physical therapy didn't work fast enough for me. The pain remained, not that original searing, sharp needles pain, but enough that walking on that foot was terrible.

That brings me to the needle, that two-inch long needle filled with--hopefully--relief. In the little room the nurse kept telling me that it was a painful shot. Yes, I've been told. EVERYONE I talked to who had had the shot warned me, but the relief was worth it. OK, let's see.

EVERYTHING anyone had told me, warned me about is absolutely true! The pain was hideous. I cried. I actually felt myself scream. I sobbed. What a whiny baby I was! Actually, I think my horror was more anticipation than actuality. No, the pain is awful.

Yes, I did get immediate relief, then that thudding pain returned. Also, a heel injected by a long needle does become deeply tender. Is the pain gone? Not quite yet--

Farmer's Market

2011-09-05T13:16:00.001-05:00

I found out late in the game that I could sell my crafts in our local Farmers Market. So I applied, was accepted, and participated the last two Saturdays. Last Saturday, Sept. 3 was the last day untill the fall season begins.

It is quite different being a strolling buyer and a stationary vendor. The buyer can shuffle along, glancing to and fro, stopping just where the eye, the interest, and whim takes her. The vendor has the advantage of meeting a variety of people who come to his/her booth.

In between customers I watched all the people around me, both vendors and shoppers. Here is my list:

1. Many friends, male and female, made it a twosome to shop, just look, or actually buy something.

2. People who attend Farmers Martet go, intending to spend money

3.People liked my items and told me so. I even sold a few things, enough to make it worth my time.

4. There are two kinds of marriages, whether the couples are old or young. One type walks apart, never touching, rarely speaking. Sometimes the husband walked ahead, sometimes the wife. I was saddened by most of them. The other kind held hands or leaned into each other, chatting, stopping together, looking at merchandise together. Most of the happy couples still had separate money. Cool. Sometimes the wife had to ask permission to buy; only one man did and his wife coldly told him no.

5. What was available for sale? All those vegetables and fruits, to be sure: tomatoes, red potatoes, onions, eggplant, purple, green, and white, squash, zucchini, okra, peas, beans, peppers of various colors, and so on. Jellies, jams, preserves galore, breads of all kinds. Specialty ethnic foods: Italian sausage, Turkish foods, Lebanese foods, Indian curries, Mexican burritos, coffee drinks, Louisiana wine. Then vendors like me: I have totes, wall hangings, purses, toy bags, stuffed cats, pillow cases. Other vendors have little girls' dresses, play outfits, nightgowns, pajamas. Birdhouses with fabric for outer wall decorations. Beef, pork, and chicken, home raised, frozen for sale, and a brochure explaining the benefits of grass-fed animals for food.

6. The remarkable thing about Farmers Market is the individual expression of hard work, creativity, tenacity, and the American Dream of success in these individual endeavors. I felt privileged to be among these people.

It was a great day! I'm looking forward to Fall Market, beginning in October!

Beware--planter fasciitis

2011-08-20T15:50:00.000-05:00

When I was 30 years old, I played tennis with some college kids, 18, 19 years old. I had always been agile. After a game I jumped over the tennis net. No big whoop until that awful day. I jumped--no problem, but when I landed, I landed, bam, on my heel bone, the left heel. That was the most extraordinary pain--extraordinary as in horrific, torturous, terrible. Someone took me to the emergency room. The way the x-ray was taken showed a sprain only--no heel damage. Would it have made a difference if the doctor had known my heel bone, that tip of the skeleton, had been crushed one-half an inch? Well, of course, I'll never know.

I went to Europe three months later, still in pain, and still on crutches. I managed luggage and carrying all my own personal items. Age, I was young, independent and capable. I could get around on those crutches better than most people on foot.

Summer was over, school started, and the football coach demanded to know why I was still on crutches. "Get a shot," he told me. Cortisone. I did and began walking the next day. That's when I learned the magic of cortisone, but that's another story.

My body had to learn to re-align itself to the new dynamics of one leg one-half inch shorter. Believe me, there is a difference. The use of monthly feminine products became painful--new alignment. Even intimacy became painful until my body adjusted.

The year went by with periodic flare-ups of heel pain. During these flare-ups, I learned that I had cracked another bone on the side of the same foot playing basketball a few years before the tennis episode. I knew it was painfully sprained, but a new x-ray showed a slight realignment where that crack was.

Soooo--this past spring, both injuries, done so long ago, declared war on my aging body. I limped painfully for weeks, through cortisone shots, through pain medicine. Painfully. Then one Saturday morning I awoke to a new raging pain in the heel of my right foot. What??!! My right foot?! Could not be. No, no! How will I walk if BOTH feet are in pain? I could not walk on that right foot--literally, I had to crawl. I massaged, rubbed on arthritis gel, cried, but nothing worked. I managed to get myself to a clinic where I learned about the terrible planter fasciitis. A terrible thing.

I keep thinking about early humans. What was it like to develop this condition if there are no clinics, no doctors, no medication, nothing? What did they do? Through the centuries, right up to today. Why do I ask? Because there is no surgery, no relief, except time. Yes, I can go to physical therapy, which is absolutely wonderful for what?--a few hours? Gotta work. Means gotta walk. Back to square one. Pain.

So, what is planter fasciitis? I'll start with what it is not. It is not planter's warts. People have heard of that condition--it's totally different. "Planter" means "bottom of the foot," and that's the only thing the two conditions have in common. Warts are on the bottom of the foot, or planter. The fascia is a thick tendon that connects from the Achilles tendon, which itself runs along the back of the leg--they connect at the back of the hell, the two tendons--then to the toes. The worst tear or strain or inflammation occurs in the heel. Oh, to exacerbate matters, the heelbone spins out a spur to counteract the pain of the fascia. That spur can be removed (if one wants another boatload of pain), but one must simply wait for the fascia to heal.

Again, therapy and medication are good, but so temporary. There is one more means of alleviating the pain: a horrific cortisone injection into the heel itself. I by-passed that when the orthopedist himself told me it was painful, and get this, does not help some people. I opted for physical therapy. The therapist gave me exercises to do to stretch that fascia tendon, plus ice and heat treatment.

One more thing, I saw an ad on television for an orthotics device conveniently at this time and ordered it. I've walked around the house with it and think it may help. If so, I'll come back and say what it is.

My experience with planter fasciitis confirms what my mother always told me: Time will heal all wounds. Not all, but you know what she means.

For more information, here are a couple of links about planter fasciitis:

http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/front/foot/plantarfaciitis.htm

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/plantar-fasciitis-topic-overview

Summer time in the library

2011-07-28T11:53:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I just have to put on my shoes, throw a few things in the car, and drive to my school library to work a while. Something there is about a silent library in the summer when no one else is around.

What's a school library without children in it? A really quiet place! I can get probably three times as much work done in one hour when the building is deserted as when children are bop-bopping through. When I say the building is deserted, I mean really really quiet. No one is there at all! My principal allowed me a key so I could come in the afternoons. That's when I dive into work. Know the phrase: "In another world?" That's how I feel.

But, ah, the incredible number of books I can process and automate! It's truly phenomenal! This summer I completely rejuvenated the Louisiana Collection (eighth grade must study Louisiana history) by weeding, repairing, cleaning, and adding new books. It is now neat and organized and ready for eighth grade assignments.

I found several books that I want to review and Louisiana writers that I want to celebrate. Until next time, I remain--a quiet librarian!

What? Not read a book?

2011-07-17T10:42:00.001-05:00

What? Is it possible? Never read a book? Read, present tense, definition: "to read or peruse written or printed matter." But what does that mean? Perhaps an answer becomes clear when we look at etymology (word source and origin).

"Origin: before 900; Middle English reden, Old English rǣdan to counsel, read; cognate with Dutch raden, German raten, Old Norse rātha; akin to Sanskrit rādhnoti (he) achieves." (source: Dictionary.com)

What's most interesting to this librarian is the Sanskrit: "achieves." What does it mean to "peruse written or printed matter"? If one knows all the skills and applies them to a process of deciphering (basically, reading is deciphering), then meaning occurs. Thus: achievement.

What's the point of finding meaning? I don't know about you, but I would not find life worthwhile if I didn't learn something new, then apply or find meaning, using knowledge gained during that skill-using, deciphering that printed matter, and achieving a new level of existence.

What brought on all this musing are two separate conversations. A week ago a friend from the past called and left two frantic messages on my answering machine. "May I use you as a reference? I have to submit my application right away!" It was hours later when I returned home and this frantic call. I called immediately. My friend from the past was seeking a teaching position in the same school where I taught so long.

During the course of our conversation, I told him about my new personal reading project: Faulkner's novels from beginning to end to look for growth and change. He was so pleased as he, too, is a Faulkner fan. Then he told me his shock: He could not believe that teachers don't read, including English teachers. (He is also an English teacher, as was I.) That's right, I agreed. They don't. There is always some excuse: too many papers to grade, children to raise, husbands, church work, one thing and then another. I told him during all those years of my own lesson plans and paper grading that I always found time to read both for personal relaxation and professional growth. I didn't have to ask--I knew he is also a reader. That teachers, as a whole and generically speaking, don't read is, indeed, shocking. (I'm sorry to reveal this about my profession.)

The other day I connected through Facebook with another friend from the past, a local, public official. He called and we chatted awhile. I asked if he read (remembering my other friend's shock). He said he never reads, other than professionally--reports and such. He named his high school and said students were never required to read a book. I told him if he didn't read, his brain would dry up. He said, exactly. He knew his brain was "dried up" and laughed at himself.

So, it seems to me that, as a librarian, I should do something to keep students interested in reading. Nearly all children love books, their pictures, the pages, turning pages, holding the book. Books are treasures to them and I'm the book goddess. As they reach middle school age, first boys, then girls start dropping books and the reading process. I recommend books, keep displays out that highlight both popular books (Wimpy Kid, Underpants Boy), and lists of books. By 8th grade there are those who are done with books and I cannot convince them otherwise.

Writing this blog has determined my goal for next school year: Keeping books alive, keeping reading alive, keeping that perusal of printed matter going, and keeping brain achievement alive for the rest of their lives.

Reading as personal pleasure. Reading to develop professionally. Reading for the joy it brings. Reading for a glimpse of human truths, both beautiful and ugly, considering their truths in order to make a difference in the world. In my personal setting (Catholic school), reading to enhance spiritual growth.

Reading is a wonder. I want to be part of a child's discovery and maintenance of this wonder. I'm looking forward to a good year!

Addendum: Those bad roots!

2011-07-15T15:30:00.002-05:00

At the end of my last post, I described this root system that destroys plants. It seems to exist independently of actual plants that are attached to roots and is simply an entity of its own--just roots. It is very pervasive, determined, and very destructive.

Here's what it does:
1. Wraps its roots around the root system of another plant.
2. Exudes this product that looks like tiny styrofoam balls found in some potting soils.
3. Totally takes over like in the corporate world.
4. Poisons big chunks of the soil, making it resemble sawdust.
5. Has a root system that grows acros the top couple of inches of soil.
Here's what it looks like (my photos are not very clear)

See the little clumps at the ends of the little tendrils (although that word is too sweet for this hateful root!).
Here is an example of the top couple of inches being turned over, showing how the soil has merged into this amorphous blob.

This is, believe it or not, a lantana. It's just short and squatty. Normally, lantanas grow prolifically and bloom all summer in those tiny trumpet flowers grouped together to form a cluster. Not this one. This is its third year and never does it bloom. Why? That nasty root system keeps wrapping around the lantana's roots. Now that I've removed them, it will try, but will show flower buds that won't bloom!

I've tried to tell a story here: one of vicious, pernicious behavior, one of destruction and murder. I've tried to build empathy for the plants in its path and a vivid picture of the root's own suffocating path, but at long last--and probably only temporarily, I have uprooted (at least in places!) and removed this fiend!

Why do I need to work all time?

2011-07-13T13:39:00.000-05:00

Summer, ah, summer, that time of rest and relaxation, renewal, refreshment--OK, well, maybe for other people. I seem to have lost the ability to relax and renew. I am stuck in the workaholic mode.

I spent a total of 40 years as a teacher or librarian and lots and lots of school children. Ah, I remember--in my youth--hearing that such and such had taught for 40 years before retiring. I thought--again, at the time--that anyone who spent that long teaching, that, well, something was wrong with them. I mean, come on, 40 years?!!

Now that I am now that teacher, I just want to know where the years went. Where? And why didn't I do something else. Was it destiny? Lethargy? Fear of the unknown? Love of the job? I don't know. I did look and found a couple of things, but at the last moment, returned to the classroom. Once I was offered a job as a flight attendant with a major airline and turned it down at the last minute and returned to the lesser paying job of English teacher. Another time I could have taken a pay cut as a publicist for a national motel chain. Chickened out on that one. Lesser pay? You've got to be kidding!

In August I will return for my 41st year as a teacher, this time my seventh year as a librarian. For the first time ever, I kind of look forward to it. Maybe cooler weather will return.

But to the point at hand: This is the sixth week of summer and I have spent the entire time painting my house. I've owned it (with the bank) for nearly seven years and this is its first new coat of paint. Actually, my house has vinyl siding. I know it is silly and anti-productive to paint vinyl siding, but I tell you the siding is pale yellow, maybe you will understand. Frankly, I don't like yellow, especially pale yellow. Additionally, it is paired with chocolate. Yep, my house was pale yellow and chocolate, the color combination I most dislike in house color. Plus, dark green doors and grill work in front and peach shutters (my doing). Ug, I am so tired at looking at those colors and --

Since I plan to live here until the end, I want to live in a house with pleasing colors (to my eyes), even on vinyl. Sooooo, I picked a nice lavender for the siding, a deep grayish purple for the gutters, and a pleasant, cool, low-key chartreuse for the door and shutters. I love how everything looks now! Here are some before and after shots:

Before


After

Not only have I been painting, but I am digging out this horrid root system in ALL my flower beds and vegetable garden. The thing has these hairy roots with little balls which wrap around any other "invading" root system (you know, flowers, vegetables, even new trees) and tries to suffocate it by poisoning the soil. This root system sucks out all the nutrients in the soil, hoping to kill the invader. Any flower, if it doesn't die, just sits there and does not grow. It just exists. Weird--

An affair of the heart and mind--

2011-07-07T14:14:00.000-05:00

I have so many books in my house--more books than any one else I know. I mean, I have a huge personal library with bookcases in every room. Take that literally! Actually, multiple bookcases in most rooms.

OK, what's my point? I picked up a book the other day and sat down with it. I haven't looked at this book in several years. It's William Faulkner: The Cofield Collection. After reading the caption(s) on each page and studying every picture over a couple of days, I wrote a review on Amazon, which follows:

"I bought "William Faulkner: The Cofield Collection" in that little bookstore in the town square in Oxford, Mississippi some 20 years ago. It's been one of my treasures, a book that I've looked through time and time again and used to show photographs of Faulkner to my high school English classes when we read something by him. In re-organizing my house this summer, I found this treasure and finally sat down and read the captions and studied the photographs page by page as they reflect his life year by year. What I wish is that every devotee of Faulkner had a copy of their own. It has certainly revived my interest in Faulkner's fiction yet again.
What does a writer look like? Where does he come from? What are his influences? What was Faulkner the man like? His interests? His loves? What made Faulkner, well, Faulkner? Cofield, another Oxford resident, actually touches on the answers through this pictorial essay, but note: There is not one whit of gossipy information.
Starting with the preface by the one responsible for this particular photographic volume (there are other volumes) and ending with a wonderful, full-page, half-smile close-up of Faulkner, a succinct but revealing eulogy, and a genealogy chart, this book swept me through Faulkner's life, almost as if I was there.
Quick now: What did you learn about Faulkner by studying the photographs and reading each accompanying brief caption? In no particular order:

1. Faulkner was a horseman. Jack Cofield, fourth-generation photographer and curator of this book, states that Faulkner would have been a fine veterinarian.
2. Faulkner was a very private man (I knew that but not the extent). Example: He would not have gone to Sweden to accept his Nobel Prize. His wife Estelle convinced him to take their college-age daughter Jill and make it an European tour. He agreed to that. There's a photo of him as he works on his acceptance speech during the flight over.
3. He and his animal groomer had a mutual admiration and respect for each other. In fact, Andrew had his own horse for his own personal use. Faulkner had many spills during his riding days. The last one led indirectly to his death when he was 65 years old.
4. Faulkner considered himself a moderate in race relations. It annoyed him to no end to be called a racist.
5. Although I loved all the photographs, one really stood out: that of the swollen river most likely the river in "As I Lay Dying." The very idea of Anse trying to cross that river was sheer madness. But no, he really had his own hidden agenda and it was not to fulfill his dead wife's last vengeful request.
6. The photos of Faulkner and Estelle have always bothered me. Their poses show them as having a restrained relationship, but now I see them as witness to his demand for privacy. She does give him a goodbye hug before he and Jill leave for Sweden.
7. The family asked for privacy--and got it--for his funeral.

Taking this photographic journey through a favorite writer's life was a pleasure. I have stood in that town square, walked the path up to Rowan Oak, oogled the wall where he wrote notes for the time line in one of his novels, viewed his old shoes under his bed. The photos in the book reflect those images. One cannot always stand in a special place, taking in surroundings, wondering this, that, and the other. However, a book of photographs is the next best thing to being there.
"The Cofield Collection" is a true treasure that I can re-visit any time I want."

That ends the review. But more happened. I kept thinking about Faulkner and felt a strong desire to dig out all my Faulkner books and read the ones I haven't read and reread the ones I have. So now I'm beginning my own Faulkner marathon, beginning with his third book, "Sartoris," or the book which piqued his own interest in serious writing. He loved how his characters stood up on their own legs and looked around (that's a paraphrase). He had created a livng being he could control. How he controlled them and what they had to say and do and live and act are things he loved.

When someone (ignorantly--my own word) accuses Faulkner of racism, I know that person has not carefully read Faulkner's works, if at all. In "Sartoris" he infuses his black characteris with humanity and realness.

I will say more after I finish reading "Sartoris." The point I want to make in this blog is how careful a reader should be.

I also want to say that maybe, in your senior years, you might want to fall in love with a favorite writer of your youth all over again. I know I have---

Update for blueberry farm

2011-06-02T04:23:00.000-05:00

It is just about time for blackberry picking in Louisiana. My favorite place to pick is Shuqualak (sugar-lok) Farms. I'm writing this update because people are looking for places to go. I'm getting several clicks a day about my blog written last year.

I received a post card (I'm on their mailing list) about prices and availability. I am SO disappointed that a notice at the bottom of the card reads: "U-pick closed for 2011." No reason cited. One of the reasons I chose this particular place is the opportunity for self-picking. I love that--it brings back memories of childhood and summers and grandparents.

Anyway, I like this farm, the people who own and run it, the product. I will return, but I will also look for another place to go out into the fields, under the hot, blazing sun, and pick my own blackberries.

Shuqualak Farms: From Shreveport, take I-49 South, then Exit 186 to Highway 175, go North 2 miles. Turn right on Gravel Point Road, then right at the farm. Their phone number is 318-797-8273. The owners are Broox and Judy Harris. Open June 4-July 4.

The trouble with neighbors

2011-05-15T11:24:00.001-05:00

"Good fences make good neighbors." Taken from the poem "Fences" by Robert Frost. (As a side note: Is it true that writers, by the very nature of their occupation--and I use the word both economically and metaphorically)--a breed apart, a breed most difficult to live with?) But that's an aside and better treated later.

My point is literal: good neighbors and not-so-good neighbors. Like Scarlett O'Hara, I consider land sacrosanct, If it's mine, ask before coming on it. Of course, if you're going to knock on my door, please do so without permission, but step back and don't present a threatening presence in my face when I open the door (although I always look out before opening). This is simple courtesy and an indicator of safety rules being followed in today's society.

My land juts down to the bayou--my house at the top of a 35 degree slope. My deck has steps that go down to what I call "Down Below." The man, two owners before me, built up this slope, leveled it off, and installed a swimming pool, meaning the top of my hill is flat. Imagine my surprise and deep dismay to open the gate to go "Down Below to work in my garden which is established along that incline only to discover a couple sitting just beyond my garden along the bayou fishing.

All I could think to say was: "I beg your pardon." The young man, maybe early college, turned and said, "Yes, m'am?" (That's how we talk and behave in the South towards people older than we are) No movement to move, no scurrying. Just "Yes, M'am?" as if he had every right to be there.

"Who are you and why are you in my yard?" I still maintained my composure.

"We're fishing. We always fish along the banks and have since we were little kids." He told me he was my neighbor's grandson. He explained that all the kids along the bayou had fished like buddies all these years. I wanted to say, well, not in the eight years I've lived here because I had never seen him up close. I maintain a casual, neighborly relation with the older man who lives next door. He is my mother's age. His wife died not long after I moved in. He and I used to chat the first couple of years, then he began having trouble walking and had to rely on one of that little walking devices. You know, you lean on its handles and its legs walk with you. It's basically a stabilizer. My mother now sometimes uses one.

Even though I saw the grandkids only from a distance, I could hear them every summer, all summer on the other side of the wooden fence, playing. laughing, and splashing in his swimming pool. I used to laugh with them at their antics, so basically I knew this young man. OK, I said, fish ahead.

I don't know who lighted up, but the smell of cigarette smoke disgusted me. Should I say something? I held my tongue, jumped up and went to the nearby nursery to purchase a few more plants. Lo and behold, let me repeat, lo and behold, when I returned, it wasn't just two of them--I bet there were a dozen people sitting in my back yard (Down Below) along the bank, fishing, and one even casting a net for crawfish. I thought, Oh my goodness! What the heck do I do now?

Luckily, the neighbor's son, with whom I have had many little chats, was there. A more even-keeled man you could not find. Someone asked, Do you want us to go? Well, yes, I did. I was about to do more digging and I didn't care for them to hear me grunt and groan as I worked--and yes, talk out loud to myself. I didn't say anything, but the son did, and they all dispersed. He stayed and we talked gardening and possums and raccoons and snakes for a while.

So far, the story ends well. If I go back down and find my garden all torn up, that will be another ending. But here's the kicker and the reason I maintained my cool: My older neighbor was the first person to move in a house on the street in this new subdivision way back 40 years ago. He had the developer change the initial property line. Imagine you're standing on the street right between the houses. Wouldn't you think that the line would go right between the two? Well, it does not. The neighbor in what I call a horrible act of selfishness had the developer slant that line to give him more of the bayou. His property line takes in a good third of what should be my back yard and, conversely, one-third of his front yard is "mine." You see what a hideous problem it is?

That owner who put in the swimming pool also built a pool house as if the reasonable line were there. The entire back quarter of the pool house is on his legal property. And the dividing fence the previous owner of my house put up?--entirely on my neighbor's property!

My neighbor informed me of the property problems early on and has never said another word about any of it since then, but you may understand my reluctance to demand anything yesterday. Besides, pleasantness is always better and he has always been helpful to me!

If anyone reads this and has any suggestion about any legal way I can change the property line, I would be so happy to hear/read them!!

Childhood's End--a classic sci-fi novel, but also apocalyptic

2011-05-03T08:07:00.001-05:00

"Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke is one of those unforgettable novels. Nearly sixty years after it was written, the novel remains on student reading lists and sits among the classics, not only of science fiction, but also provocative literature.

For what is better than a novel which demands thought and a resulting discussion? Even though reading is a solitary experience, discussing novels creates a communal experience. "Childhood's End" provides great shared experience of many minds focused on one book.

That's just it: "Childhood's End" is more than science fiction--it is also apocalyptic, but most importantly, and, appropos to this discussion, it is a novel of ideas. The irony is how many of Clarke's ideas, or at least some form of his ideas, have come to fruition.

Case in point: the hit television series "V" features two of his visions: the Overlords ("aliens") and a hidden agenda. In "Childhood's End" Clarke focuses on one family: a mother and a father and two young children, who come to represent the uninitiated, the pure or nearly pure of mind (depending on age), the modeling clay, metaphorically speaking. For gradually, each child learns new skills which develop into powers.

In "V" the aliens have come for dark purposes; in "Childhood's End" for birthing purposes. Each time I taught this novel at the high school level, I always felt so sad at the end, when the children merged to become something else. It is this something else that I am here to review.

Note: Spoilers ahead!

In the last couple of years there has been much talk, much speculation, much re-examination of history and the Bible. Many believe the earth as we know it will end in 2012, according to the Mayan calendar system. Many talk of wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters, the world in chaos, signifying that the Rapture is near and Christians will be taken up to Heaven, leaving nonbelievers on Earth to face what will come. There are second chances.

Clarke proposed some 60 years ago a scenario of the end. The physical world was the Earth with people still in chaos. The Overlords bring peace and prosperity. What they don't know is that this peace allows for the development of ESP and other paranormal activities of the children to heighten, then develop. There are even hints of "Lord of the Flies" with the movement of the children to a central location to become. Finally, their minds cocoon and when they leave their bodies, they join the Overmind "out there." Their leaving the Earth pulls out all energy and the Earth--pow! is obliterated.

Although Clarke is proposing something much grander than death and destruction, or even deconstruction--a figurative and possibly a literal joining with the Overmind as a wonderful thing. The movie version even shows a giant fetus, almost fully developed, floating in space, as if in preparation for the next phase of existence.

Although Clarke eschewed religion, allowing only possibly for a mild form of Buddhism, his final image of a pure mind about to join a super mind does have biblical overtones.

Reading and discussing with others ideas contained in a work of literature is a very communal experience. It brings people together for a sharing and exchange of ideas. It opens minds to new possibilities, or in a contrary manner, tears us further apart. I offer this review as a gift--my mind to yours and whatever may happen afterward.

2011-04-10T14:18:00.002-05:00

Note: I've been away from my blog for several months now, working on other things. I'm back.

"The Witches of Worm" was selected as an Honor book as part of the 1973 Newbery Awards. As with any awards or honors bestowed at set intervals, I sometimes question choices. This time, not! "The Witches of Worm" deserves its honor.

In fact, "The Witches of Worm" is shockingly good. It's a thriller for children ages 9-12, the target audience of the Newbery books. The only reason this book is in the children's section is that the main character is 12 years old. In fact, this book is transitional to the young adult category which can visit more controversial subject matter, which is the case here.

Witches. Hmmm, an unusual topic for children 9-12. Jessica checks out from the public library a book about the witches of Salem. She's reading it in her favorite place--a nook, a cave in the face of a hill near the apartment she shares with her mother. Twilight comes. Then a rustle, then a mew. There's a tiny kitten wriggling along the dirt. Where did it come from? Where is its mother? And those eyes, or lack of eyes. What's wrong with it? But the landlady is a cat lover, so Jessica scoops it up to show Mrs. Fortune, a woman who knows, let's say, many things.

Thus begins "The Witches of Worm." Mrs. Fortune almost forces the kitten on Jessica, to her care, although Jessica has never liked cats. The kitten is not eyeless--it's just a kitten whose eyes have not yet opened. Jessica must feed it every two hours and wipe its bottom. Jessica calls it Worm because it wiggles like a worm and is also hairless. It's an Abyssinian, according to Mrs. Fortune, the hairless Egyptian cat. You see? Mrs. Fortune knows many things.

Are you beginning to feel the hairs along the back of your neck shiver just the tiniest bit?
Jessica spends much of her free time alone. Her former best friend, Brandon, who also lives in the small apartment building, has moved on to male buddies and trumpet lessons. Her two best girl friends are also gone. And Joy, her beautiful mother? She spends her evenings elsewhere with Alan, her newest boyfriend who is talking commitment (but not as a father).

That leaves Jessica and Worm. Worm, Worm, Worm, that troublesome cat. Why, he has begun to talk to Jessica, invade her thoughts, make her do things. Joy finally has Jessica talk to the school counselor who gives her a photo as basis for a psychological story, a story that becomes profoundly disturbing. The photo, a black and white, shows a baby on a blanket near an older woman. As Jessica describes the story, several people come along. The baby's not theirs. Then the old woman leaves. It's not her baby either. No one knows who the baby is, where it belongs, or why it's there. Finally, someone covers it up. End of story.

This is not a book for the tender-hearted. In fact, as librarian, I would put this book only into the hands of that upper age group, as a provocative book meant for a mature reader. I don't want to reveal anything more, except to declare there is a "happy" ending to this story about serious things. There's redemption but without the hammer of didacticism.

For such a powerful book, why didn't "The Witches of Worm" win the gold medal in 1973? Julie of the Wolves did. Gold and Honor--yep, a mighty combination. Both are must-reads!

Shooting Kabul

2011-01-19T07:17:00.000-06:00

I am often very kind in my assessment of particular books because of their purpose. Such is the case with Shooting Kabul by newcomer to writing, N. H. Senzai, who grew up in San Francisco and Saudi Arabia. She tells the reader it is a story that had to be told, one that continued to niggle at the back of her head until she got it out.

Shooting Kabul is loosely based on her husband as a child and his family leaving Afghanistan because of the Taliban. It involves degrees in agriculture earned in the United States and a return to Afghanistan to improve farming techniques. After the Taliban's return to primitivism and total control of government and culture, the family's efforts (and efforts of many other families) were no longer wanted. It became unsafe to stay, thus a dark-of-night escape to asylum in the United States.

But that's not why I gave this book five stars. The writing, plotting, characters, plot conflicts--all would rate four stars. Ends are too conveniently tied and plot events are manipulated. But guess what? I don't care. Here's why Shooting Kabul is a five-star book for children 9-12 and any older audience who wants to know more about Afghan culture.

1. The novel provides an up-close look at a typical Afghan family, actually, a Pukhtun family. The Pukhtuns make up the largest ethnic group of the Afghan peoples, comprising 42 percent of the population. The reader learns a little about religion, language, food, daily habits, family life. A "little" means just enough to weave into the story without overdoing it. The glossary of unfamiliar names and Afghan factos is included in the back of the book, as well as a further reading list.

(Extra Credit is one of the recommended books, a book I recently reviewed.)

2. The plot is timed during the Sept. 11 attack on American soil, thus "forcing" American attacks on the Muslim people in American and how they dealt with those attacks.

3. Friendships that cross racial and religious lines. Both Fadi, the main character, and his older sister, form relationships with others: Fadi with a Chinese-American classmate and his sister with an Anglo.

4. Good family relations. Children cannot possibly get enough examples of good family relationships in life or books.

5. A photography component. Fadi's father Habib taught him how to photograph while they were in Afghanistan and gave him his old Minolta camera. In San Francisco Fadi joins the photography club in his middle school and enters a competition with one of his photographs. Seeing photography as an art form being promoted is a real boon for this book.

The most serious problem in the novel is the loss of the youngest child, Miriam, while the family is leaving by dark-of-night. During the mad rush to climb into the escape truck, Miriam is left behind. A six-year-old girl. There was no turning back with the Taliban hot on their trail. One of the prizes of the photography contest is a trip with a let's-call-it-National-Geographic photographer to one of three countries for a photography shoot (with a parent, of course). One of the countries is India. Fadi believes he can win that trip and find his sister.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would like to see it in the hands of good teachers. librarians, home-schoolers, and parents to begin a dialogue to improve American-Muslim relations.

Shooting Kabul? A photography term, of course, to tie all components together. Fadi and his dad "shot" many photographs of their city in Afghanistan, starting his love of photography and the twist it plays in the story.

The inimitable Mr. Clements

2011-01-19T07:06:00.000-06:00

Allow me a bold statement: Andrew Clements is, quite simply, an excellent writer--among the very best for children! His earlier novel for older children (9-12 and above), Frindle, WAS his best creation, but now, I'm thinking that Extra Credit belongs right there on the shelf next to Frindle as Clements' tour de force novel.

Frindle is about the creative impulse and the impetus behind an idea to make it FLOW. Yet--when Clements made me get down on the floor in this novel and "see" those mountains-- wow, there are no words to express that moment of discovery that makes Abby see those mountains with Sadeed.

Abby Carson is a sixth grader in the middle of the year, who is advised that she will probably need to repeat sixth grade. Her scores are just too low and she has shown no signs of improving or even wanting to improve. Such a fear becomes her wake-up call. Please, what can I do? An extra credit project--write to a pen pal and create a display of your letters on the bulletin board.

So Abby gets a pen pal in Afghanistan--a pen pal chosen by the village elders. They pick Sadeed because his English and his writing skills are the best of all pupils in the village--however, Afghan culture prevents boys and girls from communicating, so his younger sister becomes the front as the letter writer.

Cultural differences await and will spill over into each other's neighborhood, becoming the focus of a situational divide. That is absolutely all I can reveal about this deeply impacting short novel. If I were in the classroom, I would make Extra Credit required reading.

Reasons why this novel should be read by middle school students:
1. It's an excellent story.
2. The implications cause the reader to consider his/her own life in comparison
3. It's a great cultural introduction to a totally different way of life
4. It teaches geography and a bit of history
5. By happenstance, it raises the issue of compassion and encourages the reader to stretch one's sense of unique place in the universe

Bottom line: Extra Credit is most highly recommended!

I also highly recommend Frindle as a wonderful addition to school, classroom, and personal libraries.

Messin' with a classic!

2011-01-10T22:09:00.001-06:00

Soooo, we're really going there? We're gonna change that ever-awful, offensive N- word to "slave?" "N-" (I can never ever bring myself to write that word, even in a blog for academic support of a classic): (from Dictionary.com)

–noun

1. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive.

a. a black person.

b. a member of any dark-skinned people.

2. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a person of any race or origin regarded as contemptible, inferior, ignorant, etc.

When Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, published in 1884, he used the first sense of the word: "a black person," the "acceptable" term of the time, although Twain probably used the word sardonically. After all, the most contemptible people in the Midwest and South are treated in his novel with only the slightest humor and more with Juvenalian satire, contemptuously, revealing their callous and inhumane selves.

As long as Huck and Jim, the "N" of the narrative, are on their raft, in the arms of the mighty Mississippi, they are safe. Touch land, touch evil. Meet it in the flesh. When Huck decides to go to Hell by freeing Jim, he shows his true color (pardon the pun). One of the kindest, most compassionate characters in literature is Jim.

"Slave": (from Dictionary.com)

–noun

1. a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant.

Technically, within context of the novel set during the time of slavery, Jim could be referred to as a slave, but that changes Twain's intent: satire. Satire is a hard master and only readers with the strongest stomachs can take this tonic/toxin. The way of life of the South with people as slaves--as property, as subjects to others--was certainly offensive, abusive, murderous. How else to lull the sensibilities of ignorant, racist readers if not with the practice of the "n-" word. Did Twain know he would one day offend? That's not the question: Did he care? The novel and Twain's use of the "n" word are part of American history as reflected in its literature.

Huckleberry Finn stands as it is. Leave it alone. If not, what's next? The Bible?

For further discussion of using the "n" word in a class setting:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/teachers/huck/section1_2.html

WYNTON MARSALIS "CHEROKEE"

2011-01-10T05:03:00.000-06:00

Wynton Marsalis

2011-01-02T19:38:00.000-06:00

I have long followed the career of Wynton Marsalis, a New Orleans native. I just viewed a "60 Minutes" segment, featuring Marsalis in Cuba. Everywhere he goes, he teaches the importance of music, especially as it applies to children. His main thrust--after the music, of course-- is spreading a love of jazz. Wynton Marsalis is a national treasure through his promotion of the arts, music in particular.

Here are some ways to get to know Wynton Marsalis:

Joan of Arc by Mark Twain

2010-12-31T17:57:00.000-06:00

I write reviews which post on Amazon. I've been doing this for at least three years. My association with the other reviewers has been mixed, but mostly productive and beneficial, mostly pleasurable and amiable. The greatest benefit is meeting people who read all kinds of things. I'm an eclectic reader. It has been fantastic to "meet" other people who read deeply as I do (and frivolously as well).

The most shocking thing for me is that I am not as knowledgeable of writers and books as I thought I was. Just recently I discovered that Mark Twain had written a novel called Joan of Arc, one he considered his masterpiece. I didn't know it existed. So I read it. It took me two months to read, mainly because I found it tedious. Poorly written? Heavens no! The style is masterly. After all, Mark Twain did spend 12 years researching the topic and two years in writing the book. It truly is his masterpiece. I finally figured that the first two sections were written rather historically and the last section more like fiction.

Joan of Arc is not an easy read, but it is definitely a worthy one. I know Joan of Arc now. I know Mark Twain much better. It is my recommendation that you meet both as they come together in this novel:

Here is my review as it appears on Amazon:

Joan of Arc had no peer. "She is the Wonder of the Ages" and "the Riddle of the Ages." "In the world's history--she stands alone...." These thoughts come from the pen of Mark Twain (Samuel Longhorn Clemons) in his essay about Joan of Arc, located at the end of his mighty historical novel about this French peasant girl's too short life.

Twain absolutely loved Joan of Arc and found her just about a perfect gem. In saying that she stands alone, he compares her life and accomplishments with those of genius of various fields. Without exception, he says, all other genuises had background training, education, experience, practice. Joan alone was the master of everything she did the first time. The only one! She commanded an army as general at age 17, never having ridden a horse before or even seen a soldier. Everything she predicted came true. She decimated the case against her in the courtroom even though she was allowed no counsel and was chained 24/7 in the company of English soldiers. Add to that her ignorance in reading and writing, basing her responses on strict memory of proceedings and charges, evidence and its twisted nature.

Twain spent 12 years researching information about Joan of Arc and found his mother load in France's dusty archives. What he discovered was "The Official Record of the Trials and Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc" written in 1456 and buried in the Archives until re-discovered in the 1800s. Twain then had access to what he termed as "the most remarkable history that exists in any language...." (441). And it told a grand tale.

Joan of Arc came from a simple, backward village of Domremy in the Lorraine region (fairly near Germany). Voices began talking to her, advising her to round up an army, then drive the English out of France, and restore the King to his throne. She's a mere 16 and knows nothing beyond the limits of her village.

Why Joan to lead an army? Why Joan to sacrifice her life for the freedom of France? One thing Twain never says in this biographical/historical novel is that God chose her. He refers to the Voices (St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret), which Joan names. In life Twain was agnostic, but certainly never hinted through word or tone that he doubted her.

Various sources, various literary critics always include Twain as America's best novelist with "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" as best novel. Of course, others give the nod to other writers and name each one's "best" novel. The fact that Twain wrote this deeply profound and compassionately told novel confirms his reputation as America's Best Novelist. This is his best novel.

"Joan of Arc" is narrated by an 80-something-year-old childhood friend and constant companion of Joan, someone dear whom she appointed to be her secretary and recorder of history in the making. Being with her for the two years of her march through France and during the trial allowed him to record--accurately--all that happened to Joan and because of Joan.

The book itself is divided into three parts, not necessarily equally. The first deals with Joan, the Voices, and her gathering of an army. Frankly, despite my interest, I found this section tedious, albeit necessary for those details. One technique Twain included numerous times in Part I and Part II was narration of the amusing things various characters did. All chapters were short, thankfully, these, too. In actuality, usually each narration of these amusing characters was a brief distraction from the heaviness of plot development. I am reminded of both Silas Marner by George Eliot/Mary Ann Evans and by Twain's own Huckleberry Fin.

Part II details Joan's march through France to find the Dauphine in order to restore him to the throne of France and to narrate some of the battles they fought. As well, France is involved in the Hundred Years War, which Joan judiciously ends before her capture at the walls of Paris.

Part III is the most rousing. By this time--page 309--the reader has invested so much time and effort in reading this 452 page book in small print that discovering anything negative is heart-wrenching. Wisely, Twain does not describe the details of the actual burning, but he makes the reader feel those chills and recognize Joan's horror at the very thought of being burned at the stake. No descriptions were necessary.

Joan died this horrible death largely because of political/religious motivation by a bishop with powerful desire for higher office and because of loss of pride for being embarrassed in court by a "mere girl." Of actual evidence against Joan as a witch was her wearing of male clothing--battle armor, even though the Voices commanded it.

After her Rehabilitation, Joan was eventually named a martyr. She served her God well and knew how it would all end. Her behavior was always pure, full of integrity, honesty, patience, obedience, and endurance. Twain closes his book with this statement: "--[S]he is easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced" (452).

Slovenia/Slovakia

2010-12-26T14:29:00.003-06:00

I am amazed that people from these two countries--Slovenia and Slovakia visit my website. Why? What is their reason? How do they find me? Is this some sort of coincidence?

I ask these questions because I visited Yugoslavia, back in 1984, before the country was divided. Why did I go? I went with the ex-husband as part of a business/pleasure trip. We planned a three-week travel trip around a good chunk of Europe. He had never been and was terribly envious that I had toured most of Europe three times already. This was my fourth trip.

We planned trips around the wineries he represented with the distribution company for which he worked at the time and around sites of places included in the various high school courses I taught at the time.

He represented Avia (Ah-ve-uh), a Yugoslave wine, inexpensive and quite delightfully tasty. We wrote ahead, booking a tour of the winery and a tasting of various offerings. It was a profitable excursion all around, especially for the ex-. Here's a link to the winery: http://www.aviawines.com/

Avia Winery is located in Ljubljana, a beautiful, part-modern, part-medieval city, that sits along the Sava River, right in the heart of Slovenia. A dear aspect of the people is their pride. We found ourselves lost and were seeking directions to our hotel. No one claimed to know English. "No English," we heard a number of times before a brave soul ventured to try his English. In fact, they all spoke English at various levels of experience, but wanted to speak perfectly and thus were afraid for us to hear them speak (just as I would have been in their place and am when I meet French speakers).
This man's English was better than I've heard actual Americans speak their own language. Anyway, he directed us on our way, leaving a very positive opinion of Slovenians.

If you're a blogger on Google, then you have at your use various charts that show who visits your site by country, by traffic source, and which posts they visit. I keep getting visits from Slovenia, usually two daily. Today, a visit from Slovakia showed up and I decided to write a brief blog, plugging these two countries and my pleasurable memories of them. Thank you, Slovenia.

Note: Slovakia was the other half of Czechoslovakia and now is the Slovak Republic. It was not part of our trip, but still interesting in that people there demanded their own country--and got it!

Note 2: One of the things our host at Avia suggested we do while in Slovenia was to go through one of the many caves in their area. So we did--and what a thrill! The guide told us that, at one point on our rail trip through this huge cave, we would cross the border of East Germany (this before the Fall of the Berlin Wall)! I know that "amazing" is an over-used word these days, but it perfectly describes that cave! Oh, we all had these overalls to put on to protect us from the frigid temperature inside the cove! It was all so -- amazing!

Note 3: The best, most lavish breakfast we had in all of Europe (and we were cheap) was in Ljubljana at our hotel. I have forgotten exactly what we had, but memory does tell me that it was "the best" and at a low price!

Here's a link to another blog dedicated to information about Slovenia:
http://www.igougo.com/journal-j14637-Slovenia-Slovenias_Highlights.html#ReviewID:1246725

In case you are interested in reading further about Slovenia:
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A Time of Reflection: Our Savior Is Born This Day

2010-12-25T09:50:00.001-06:00

Every time I sit down to write a new blog, I am blank. I have nothing to say--until this morning. There are two books and a year-old blog that speak to me.

The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado is, of course, symbolic for each of us "crippled" by sin. There are Mary and Joseph and the new-born baby, Bringer of Peace, Leader of Battle, quietly making a peaceful tableau of parents and child, a quiet moment of love and family. Yet there is room for a crippled lamb.

So Christmas Day--every year--is a repetition, a repeat of that quiet family scene. Every year we spend huge holiday time getting ready for Christmas, celebrating Christmas, then recuperating from the excess energy. Yet it all has meaning, even the gross materialism--for the materialism is yet another form of "crippledness"--our "crippled" desire to give to others. It's crippled because it is extreme, yet that extreme is still part of our desire to give of ourselves, monetarily, financially, making it a burden. It is part of that crevice in our psyches that corrupts our values. It's our sin repository.

A year ago I commented--in a digression--about our Free Will and God's demand for submission and obedience. How can we have both? Here's that paragraph from "Our Savior is born," December 24, 2009:

"Christ was born. Jesus lived and was crucified. He accepted his role. It seems an escape clause when we say we are not meant to understand the ways of God, to simply accept by faith. Obedience is required. Humility. Submission. Questioning. I've already stepped out of the circle. Control issues bother me. The garden and the forbidden fruit--the first of the obedience tests, yet the questioning, the choice of Will over submission that occurred so early in the human story."

It's that "crippled" lamb in the manger scene again. It needs to be there, it wants to be there, yet its flawed nature makes it feel unworthy. Of course, Lucado does not actually use that thought--unworthiness--in his story, but we all know how it feels. Are we really worthy to be there? A pastor in a church I once attended said that, upon entering the gates of heaven and seeing Christ for the first time, he would fall prostrate, feeling totally unworthy to be there. No bowing on the knee as the Shepherds and Wise Men did. It's that testimony to and reliance on Faith.

And that though leads to Battle, another excellent book in DK's Eyewitness books. It is all about the history of battles, weapons, wars, leaders. And that reminds me of Christ, a leader in battle against sin and corruption. Yet, He, too, in His human form, questioned. In the garden He asks if this task (crucifixion and death) can be removed. His difference from Adam and Eve, though ignorant in intention, is that He did not act. He accepted obedience.

But that's the last act. Today we celebrate the first act, set into motion from the very moment of creation. The Creator gave his creations Free Will and choice, very difficult gifts, but gifts nonetheless.

Each year that we celebrate the birth of our Savior, we celebrate with gifts, on our knees, in our crippled state. We celebrate the Leader of Battle-to-be, at this moment peaceful, quiet, calm. The Prince of Peace only after we render our Wills to his kingdom. Celebrate.

Baby Booming!

2010-12-05T19:44:00.000-06:00

December 2010. Well, Baby Boomers, here we are at the cusp, having taking a long, long journey to get here. We're going to turn 65 next year. What?!

One of my favorite lines in literature comes from Billy Pilgrim's grandmother on her death bed. She beckons Billy Pilgrim to her side. He thinks she will have something profound so say--and so she does, but not in the way he wants. "How did I get to be so old?" Her tone is clearly plaintive.

How did I get to be so old? Today at lunch I mentioned that "my people" were going to turn 65 next year. "What do you mean by 'your people.'?" asked my great-niece, now 12 years old. And thus a little history lesson leaped forth from my head like Aphrodite abirth in the foam.

"America's men were at war as a result of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 until the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. With the end of the war, men marched home by the thousands and thousands, meeting wives, finding wives, and making babies. Beginning in June 1946 those little bundles began the huge birth explosion, creating the largest baby boom in American history and finally ending in 1965.

Some of us were born in the first half of 1946, but in my graduation class of 1964, only a handful in comparison to that vast number of June-December-borns. My mother lived in San Diego, where my father was stationed in the Navy. As soon as she learned she was pregnant, she headed home to Shreveport, LA. My grandmother accompanied her to the doctor one day. The lady sitting next to her asked what was wrong with her little girl. "Why, she's eight months pregnant," my grandmother declared. My mother was tiny and had a tiny baby.

Thus, the beginning of the Baby Boom, changing statistics forever in American history: building schools, colleges. Then Vietnam came along, our war, our social conscious, our shame, our loss of victory. My mother, ever the patriot, urged my brother to go to Canada if his number was called. And his lot was next, but the end of the war, the photo showing Vietnamese hanging on the helicopter forever burnished in our memories. A war that caused generations to collide. A war that caused one set of Americans to spit on another. My brother never had to go.

And afterward, we documented our behavior. Perhaps the most all-inclusive movie about our generation is Tom Hanks' award winning Forest Gump.

Another disturbing movie of the time was , an anti-material things movie.
Tom Cruise shows the horror of coming home disfigured in , Born on the Fourth of July. Or, The Deer Hunter with damaged veterans.

Another movie showed the Boomer disdain for those age 30 and over (ha!). One book and movie (can't remember title) has those oldsters placed in compounds and safely out of the way, so they can rule the day. But every day ends and the leader turns 30 and faces his turn in the shade.

And "free love" and integration and civil rights. Bra burning, divorce, freedom, freedom, freedom, and then entrapment in that freedom. What did we do with that freedom? We changed the world. Yes, we really did. Remember the Beatles and the protest from adults they wrought? One thing leads to another. Drugs, mind-bending, overdosing, chemical fry-outs. Entrapment in the freedom.

But African Americans had the right they should have had all along: the right to a better and equal education. Women earned the right to be doctors, bankers, anything they wanted to be--and loaded with stress. Freedom.

This isn't where I meant to go when I started. I'm a Baby Boomer. I was a teacher. I made a difference and I'm about to retire from my librarian job--

When I turned 64 (am I really talking about myself who thought I would never grow old), I constantly sang that Beatles song to myself as consolation: "Will you still feed me, will you still need me when I'm 64?" Well, no is the answer. I'm no longer married and revel in that freedom but am sometimes overwhelmed in its entrapment of less income. Will I still feed me, will I still need me when I'm 65?

Why I read young children's illustrated books...

2010-11-22T13:28:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I wrote about books for older children and young adults. Today, hooray, it's those illustrated books. I declare most of them were created for the child-at-heart adult. None can demonstrate better than Pete the Cat!

How shall I describe our Pete? Fun, fun, fun! Frankly, I want to be just like Pete: unflappable, flexible, and adaptable. Make lemonade out of lemons. Go with the flow. One reviewer indicated the lesson is terrible: Accept your fate. Oh, I disagree. Pete saw no fate--just circumstances to turn into the next pleasant venture on his road of life. Pete? At the beginning he has new white shoes which he loves. In each adventure he steps into colorful piles, each time turning his shoes into a new color. Does he whine? Does he complain? "Goodness no!" He just sings a new song about blue shoes, red shoes, brown shoes. Oh, yes, there IS magic in this story, Virginia!! In my school library PK-4 practically demanded Pete the Cat for three weeks in a row. Never mind my new choice--they wanted Pete!! So Pete it was--for three straight weeks.

Here's another lovable book: Widget, the story of one dog and five cats. The dog comes through the kitty door one night during a story and discovers bowls of food, beds enough, and a kindly old woman who loves them all. Widget must act like a cat to be accepted into the kitty domain. He does, but when their Woman trips, falls, and becomes unconscious, kitty meows and wails and caterwauls simply do not "get" the neighbors. So Widget barks and barks. Kitties join in. Woman is saved, Widget is a hero, and becomes a dog once again. A totally fabulous book.

Here's another dog and cat book: Hondo and Fabian, one of my secret favorites of all time! Just as the illustrations are soft pointillism, so the the story. Hondo gets to go to the beach and play with his dog friend. Fabian has to stay home and gets played with by the "baby," (a just-walking toddler). She finally escapes and hides to await Hondo's return. When he does, all is right with the world once again. The sequel is Fabian Escapes, which I also adore! Fabian escapes the house to explore but has to hide all day under the house to escape attack by neighboring dogs!

With the ads on television for Disney's new movie, Tangled, I got out a Caldecott winner of one version of Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky to read to the little ones. Even though beautifully illustrated with Renaissance details, the story of Rapunzel and the witch frightens young children, along with Hansel and Gretal, especially the version by Paul Galdone. Do you know what rapunzel is? Greens! The mother-to-be craves rapunzel she sees day in and day out from her bedroom window. There's a price: the owner of the garden (a witch) gets her baby at birth, then hides her away.

Olivia Saves the Circus is a pure delight! There is a fine line for parents in allowing their child creative freedom and limiting their right to cross the line (so to speak). Olivia's creator walks that line. In this book Olivia is a one-man, er, one-pig circus performer. She is the circus (her imagination) and in her presentation to the class.
"Olivia," says the teacher. "What?" responds Olivia. "Is that true," asks the teacher? "Mostly true," Olivia calmly replies.

And another is Stellaluna, a wonder of illustrations by Janell Cannon. Ms Cannon can take the simplest creature and bring it to life in the most joyous ways! Stellaluna, the fruit bat, is lost in flight one night and lands in a nest of baby birds. She must adapt her ways to theirs to stay, but discovers her true fruit bat calling one night. Illustrations range from poignant to humorous to joyous. It's a must-have book for the 4-8 group!
Two other whimsical books by Cannon are Verdi (the story of a python) and Pinduli (the story of a hyena). Yes, count on Ms Cannon to make the these into lovable creatures.

One any list of fabulous illustrated books are those by David Wiesner, particularly Tuesday and The Three Pigs. Wiesner's viewpoint is always out of the box and past the lines. In the pig story the pigs climb in and out of the book to share their story with readers, all the while bringing in characters from other books. It ends with no deaths, not even the wolf's.

I'll close with a Christmas story, that of Humphrey. The reader is unaware that this camel belongs to one of the Wise Men of the Christmas story until the end. All along the trip Humphrey is most disagreeble (as camels tend to be), until he meets the baby. Then he, too, wants to share.This illustrated book is a surprise favorite of the holiday season.

There are more reasons for reading illustrated books for children, but these stand on their own as spokespersons.

Why I read children's and young adults novels

2010-11-20T17:05:00.000-06:00

Say the term "children's books." What comes to mind? Perhaps Alice in Wonderland? Or the stories about Peter Rabbit or illustrated books about that naughty but clever pig Olivia? Children today are so lucky to have all these wonderful books that did not exist in my day (back in the day).

In the children's section of my local branch library these were the books: all the various of fairy tales--Blue Fairy Book, Yellow Fairy Book, the Brothers Grimm, Mother Goose, Hans Christian Andersen's tales, all the Black Stallion novels, the dog books--Lassie, Big Red--Nancy Drew, the Bobsey Twins, and the Hardy Boys mysteries.

By high school I was reading the classics, not realizing these were books I was supposed to hate. Ha! My favorite books were Wuthering Heights and Exodus and Gone With the Wind. "Heathcliff," I yelled across the imaginary moors of my mind, just as Catherine did. I feared what was in the attic in Rochester's mansion in Jane Eyre. "Oh fiddle-dee-dee," I declared with Miss Scarlett when perplexed. And, oh, how I wanted Rose to choose Mac in Rose in Bloom, THE most romantic book I've ever read (at least from the memory of a sixth-grader)

Children today, of course, still have these books, but they have so much more, oh so much more. Lately, I've been reading as many of these books as I can to be an efficient recommending machine as librarian in my school. I want to give readers as many books as I can for variety, theme, appeal to both boys and girls, and so on. Here I go:

First, the best I've read: Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech. Two children, twins, boy and girl, age 13, are the main characters. They live in an orphanage and go to live with an eccentric, aging, Baby Boomer couple. Here's a link to my Amazon review: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1R41QEP5LUGAX/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Other books by Ms Creech include Love That Dog, Hate That Cat, Walk Two Moons.
Books by Robert Cormier: These are NOT heart-warming and are serious and reflective of a terrible human condition. Not for easily disturbed older children and middle school students. Why do I recommend them? Because they do reflect life--unfortunately.
The Rag and Bone Shop is profound. It will haunt the reader long after the last page is turned. A friend and I still disagree concerning the ending. Other Cormier's books I can recommend is We All Fall Down and The Chocolate War. Again, these are not happy books.

In my introductory comments I listed Rose in Bloom and want to call attention again to this, my personal favorite book in middle school. I would love to see this group of students begin a renaissance with Louisa May Alcott books. I read and loved them all in the sixth grade! Others: Little Women, Jo's Boys, Little Men, The Eight Cousins (the precursor to Rose in Bloom).

Another favorite writer in middle school in my library is Caroline Cooney with her milk carton series as a purely popular favorite.
Janie finds her picture on the the milk carton one day during lunch. Shock is hardly the word for her reaction. Why is SHE on that carton? The explanation is beyond the pale. The next three novels take up Janie's search for the truth of her life.
Others in the series include The Voice on the Radio, Whatever Happened to Janie?, and What Janie Found. Read the entire series.

Then find Code Orange, a young adult medical thriller. The main character finds a medical journal left by his grandfather, opens it, perhaps looking for a topic for is science fair project, finds a packet, opens it and, poof, this powdery substance explodes. Then he fears he has been exposed to smallpox. The novel is a race against time to discover the truth.

I recently discovered Gary Paulsen's Hatchet series and could not put these four books down. Hatchet is the first of these survival novels. Twelve-year-old Brian crashes into a lake in the Canadian wilderness on his way to spend some time with his father. The pilot has a heart attack. The novel tells the story of how Brian survives with only a hatchet. Imagine three months of living on your own in survival mode. After he was found and returned home, Brian found it difficult to live in civilization again. The next three novels detail more trips into the wilderness. Each is as exciting as the next: Brian's Winter, The River, and Brian's Return.

Another thriller/adventure is Elephant Run by Roland Smith. It is set in Burma (now Myanmar) during World War II. Fourteen-year-old Nick Freestone is sent from bombarded London to his father's teak plantation. A hidden interior of the plantation provides escape from Japanese military who confiscate the plantation for its own headquarters in Burma. A fascinating story of Japanese occupation and elephant handling.

Another exciting read is The Great Wide Sea, a first novel by M.H. Herlong. Not one word is false in this first-person narration by Ben, a fifteen-year-old who loves sailing with his father and brothers. After the mother dies, the father kind of goes off the deep end, selling the house and all their possessions to buy a sailboat and they go off around the hundreds of islands that make up the Bahamas. One morning the father is gone and the three boys must go into survival mode. What a page-turner!!

Then there's Write Before Your Eyes, with a little wordplay in the title. Twelve-year-old Gracie acquires a strange journal at an estate sale, only to be haunted by "the Cheshire Cat" throughout the novel. He wants the journal back. You see, whatever the writer puts into the journal comes true! What escapades ensue!

Part II later

The New Librarian/Media Specialist

2010-10-28T07:10:00.002-05:00

"Go paperless," proclaims the computer technician in my school district. I asked him recently if he planned to come by our fall book fair (knowing what kind of answer he would give). "Do you have ebooks?" he, indeed, did ask.

That's a good question to ask a librarian in the 21st Century, for the librarian's role has changed in the last ten years. And either we change with the times or we walk into the deep freezer and join the frozen meat or step into that gummy residue that preserves insects on trees. In plain language, do we remain "librarians" (as I am in my little parochial school location--the library and the one classroom not technology rich) or do we embrace and embolden ourselves to become Media Specialists, as my colleagues call themselves in the public domain?

What finally pulled me out of Fossil Land is this four-day workshop for librarians/media specialists. Previous to this one, I have participated in two other workshops: "Online Resources" and "Thinkfinity," another website-rich educational experience. For the hundredth time in the past five years or so, I wish I were young and starting over now, at this point in time, with all we know about cyberspace and its connective webs and machines, about methods of teaching/collaborating/facilitator of learning. It's a new world in education. (I'm blatantly and blythly ignoring the silliness and waste of NCLB.)

After a day of introductions to mind-boggling lists of websites for media specialists to use in their own instruction and ones to share with their teacher-colleagues, we were given several assignments in preparation for tomorrow's class. One asked us to read an article, now four years old, and respond to it. This blog is my response.

Three Roles for the 21st-Century Teacher-Librarian

"Three Roles for the 21st-Century Teacher-Librarian" by Michael B. Eisenberg (copyright privilege forbids my posting this article or the website from which it is taken) clarifies the role of the librarian in this new age of cyberspace, the clouds, "out there." Is my response paperless? Indeed, it is. As for "out there," for those who are just about clueless about the vastness, think about this. See that little blinking character that sits next to the spot of the page where you type. Well, imagine it offpage, out of sight. How do you get it back on the screen? What I'm asking is that you think of how lost your little blinker can become if you don't know which direction to take it. That becomes a description of patrons in your library who don't know how rich in resources your library really is and the terrible responsibility it is to show them

That responsibility is exactly what Eisenberg writes about. In a sentence, his thesis is that librarians of the 21st century should be instructors, facilitators, advocates, and managers with the direct purpose of ensuring "that students...are effective users of ideas and information" (from page one of his article).

Specifically, the media specialist now has (or should have) three functions: as information literacy instructor, as reading advocate, and as information manager. In providing this information, the media specialist no longer is a lecturer, but a facilitator. The student is an active participant in his/her own acquisition of ideas and information.

So just how does the librarian accomplish these goals? By taking charge of her own library program, making it indispensable to users, and promoting that necessity to one and all. How do we do this? By rethinking what we do, finding ways to provide what is needed for patrons, and changing perceptions of what a library should be and provide.

The library as a favorite place

Several years ago, I worked part-time at night at my local branch library. I had not much used my local public library since childhood. What I found really was surprising. For example--get ready for this!--on Saturday mornings, at nine a.m., at opening time, people were jammed around the front door, eagerly awaiting those magic doors to be opened to a magic land. When the doors were finally unlocked--gasp!--those people rushed to the computers. People were clamoring to get into the library! Why? They had important missions to accomplish using cyberspace, the clouds, out there! As part of its program, our local public libraries hold regulary scheduled classes to teach patrons how to use word documents, search engines, and valuable websites.

What about my little parochial school library? Six years ago, when I was hired, my library was a dingy, dusty warehouse. I did the first thing any self-respecting librarian would do: I made that place into a magic kingdom--clean, bright, colorful, comfortable, inviting. All it lacked was a serious weeding of ancient books and a generous addition of new books. Six years later I'm still working on both.

But now, today, after one day of this workshop, I have been given a mask of oxygen, a burst of new life, a yearning and burning to bring my little parochial school library into the 21st century. Even retirement-age librarians can be rejuvenated to become cyber-savy, technologically adept with a deep need to pass on this excitement to teachers and students, to become their partner in becoming effective users of ideas and information.

Eisenberg also points out that the blame game simply won't work here. Tsk, I intended to whine and carry on about how my library has only one computer, that I have no projector or whiteboard to at least show students how to use various websites that they can navigate at home. No, he says, rethink your options. It is the librarian's responsibility to create "active, vibrant, engaged, and meaningful" library programs. I have not done that.

Three roles

First, let's look at the three roles that Eisenberg sees for media specialists. Information literacy is a huge responsibility, encompassing print, non-print, and electronic information. Add to that the types of outcomes found in the standards for the library program. In addition to information literacy, students should know how to pursue independent learning and social responsibility concerning that information.

As a reading advocate, the librarian has a huge role. Eisenberg states that "reading proficiency is ...the number one predictor of student success." As information instructor and manager, the librarian has the huge responsibility of showing students and teachers alike how to find and access information, then use it effectively. Our future depends upon it.

Where is the justice?

2010-10-09T13:46:00.002-05:00

When I "retired" over seven years ago, I thought I would relax and do whatever I wanted. I have in some ways but have worked part-time as a children's librarian in a small Catholic school , now in my sixth year. What kind of retirement is that? I always tell the greeter at my local Wal-Mart: "Better watch out. I may get your job some day!"

As for blogging, when I began, I thought--At last a vehicle for my rants. Yet--look at the time between entries. It is now October 8 and I last published a blog on September 4. That's over a month ago!! I have not had anything to say--or say publicly--in a month. I could continue to rant about this particular crazy woman, chronic liar, and general wacko I met on Amazon, but I won't. Said enough, didn't make any difference. I could rant about my mean-spirited great-niece who bites all the hands who feed her, but she's still just a child at twelve. Maybe she will learn kindness and fair play one day. I just hope it won't be too late. Or I could rant about--well, any number of things, but just don't have it in me.

What I will write about is the unfairness of life. Case in point: My sister and her husband--all those years ago--decided mutually that she would quit working at her job after she had children and be a stay-home mom. She loved it, threw herself over 100% into it, was gung-ho, finding things for them to do, places to go, activities for participation. She was one of those moms you always see around school, helping here, then there, always of great use.

Her husband is a control freak, my sister is an independent thinker--clashes began at once. He wanted the dishes arranged on the shelves in the cabinets in a certain way--What?! declared my sister. It's a kitchen, I'm a woman, now let me be! Nope, no deal. His way or well, no other way. Nothing on the cabinet tops, nothing on the walls, not one decorative thing, not even pictures of their children, nothing. One rare visitor (he didn't like to have company because he began drinking as soon as he hit the threshhold) asked where they had just moved from. His mother was a dirty housekeeper and clutter nut, so he allowed nothing to look like his childhood home. Thus the bare bones, unlived-in look.

His power of persuasion extended to his kids. They, too, came to believe that, since he worked and made the money, everything was his, not their mom's. In the current, ongoing divorce, they think it unfair that he is not getting everything. So, what kind of impression did she make on them? Neither child, both adults, one married with two children, respects their mother and are just as rude to her as the husband was. He is currently living with another woman, awaiting divorce to marry her. He never needed Viagra with my sister, but he does now. Guilt? Older body?

At least he moved on with his life and is not stuck in the past, harboring resentment. He was not generous in the settlement but agreed to more than I imagined possible. My sister is in poor health now, way overweight with bad knees, intestines, headaches, shortness of breath, chest pain, and heartache. The heartache is not from losing her husband--she was glad when he moved out a number of years ago, but from mistreatment by her family who are supposed to love and cherish her, especially now in her need.

I just wanted to write this, not that I have any great point to make. I don't. My life isn't much better, but at least I don't have to worry about mistreatment by people who are supposed to love me. (I don't have children.)

I will say that breaking the bonds of childhood, of home treatment, of parental influence are almost impossible....

A slant of poetry...

2010-09-04T14:37:00.000-05:00

As a 30-year veteran teacher of English at the high school level, I was genuinely surprised to learn that middle school students think a poem must rhyme to be called a poem. We all had a meeting of the minds this week in discovering types of poetry together and that a library class can feature poetry.

It was not even necessary for me to explain a poetry lesson in a library class. As one girl pointed out to the dismayed boy who considers poetry somewhere between Sasquatch and Jaws (it's gonna getcha!!) that the library has ALL kinds of books, including poetry! Good girl, Coco!

Actually, I have an ulterior motive (or several) in offering three poems for discussion on this second library lesson of the year. I'm going to do some oral reading to the middle school students, in fact, "Hate That Cat,"

Hate That Cat: A Novel

To do it justice, I needed to introduce some of the poetry as integral units of the novel. Creech's novel is completely written in journal form by a young boy, possible fifth or sixth grade, very bright and utterly creative. Part of the assignments are his responses to poetry his teacher introduces. This happens to be one of the most joyous books I have ever read for many reasons: the character, the style, the content, the creativity, and the deep compassion and love the boy reveals toward his mother.

Anyway, the poems are printed in the back of the book. However, in my oral reading, I wanted the students to have prior knowledge of those poems. (Note: Prior knowledge is one of the keystones for comprehension of what one reads. And according to Mem Fox in "Reading Magic," reading aloud to students should continue all through school. Our ancestors listened to the tribal storyteller; such storytelling is ingrained and needs to be revitalized.

Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever

Here's the first one: "The Red Wheelbarrow"

(Note: Many learned that the word is "barrow," not "barrel"-an interesting factoid.)

"The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

Standard response: "That's not a poet--a poem is supposed to rhyme!"

Look at that red wheelbarrow! What does it look like? This:

or this:

It's that simple! "So much depends" upon how you see things, your imagination, your viewpoint of simple things. Students came away with a new understanding of poetry, I think.

Or: "The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls;
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Fascinating observations on this traditional, but intense poem: An eagle is hunting; Zeus on his throne, throwing a thunderbolt; an old eagle dying and falling, and so on.

And the last, which is explanatory:

"Love That Boy" by Walter Dean Myers

Love that boy,

like a rabbit loves to run
I said I love that boy
like a rabbit loves to run
Love to call him in the morning
love to call him
“Hey there, son!”

This one was a given for middle school students.
Great discussions! Fun classes!

Next week: "Hate That Cat" by Sharon Creech--

Each new school year brings new experiences!

2010-08-29T14:12:00.003-05:00

I realize my title is a duh! Of course, a new year brings new experiences. This is just to introduce my new and wonderful experience. This is my sixth year in elementary/middle school. Prior to five years ago my total educational experience was with high school students. Each of my preceding five years at this small Catholic school, I would have one, maybe two really serious readers, that is, middle schoolers who would read

Lord of the Flies, Educational Edition

Pride and Prejudice

The sixth grade girls had a class visit on Friday. After our road trip with Dewey, they began looking around for books to check out. I heard one girl say, "I've read Pride and Prejudice. Have you read Sense and Sensibility?" The answer: "No, but I've seen the movie. Is the book here?"

So, what have I discovered? It's time to add more classics to our collection. One had checked out a collection of short stories by a Victorian writer. I told her the vocabulary was fairly difficult . Her indignant response: "Mrs. Polhemus, this is the Claire! You know I can read this!"

See that blur? That was I, speeding to discover from my books and internet, proper choices for this band of girls. Let's see: Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom by Louisa Alcott, all of Austen, better copies of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I might as well get them a hard copy of Silas Marner (Signet Classics). They keep asking for romance. Yes, there's a lovely, little romance woven into this novel of Victorian sensibilities and woe. Let's see--what else?

Sidenote: It was "the Claire" who introduced me to Caroline Cooney's [The Face on the Milk Carton]{Cooney, Caroline B.][Paperboundmassmarket] and the following books in the series.

What about Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly as romance book (a modern classic)?

More to come--

Classic Literature Reading List for Middle School Students

By: LuAnn Schindler
Many middle school students enjoy the connection with a young adult novel, but classic literature never goes out of style. Several humanities organizations have established a classic literature reading list that emphasizes the importance of reading timeless books.
This list introduces new characters and alien worlds to the middle school set. Several of these books are commonly taught in middle school English classes, so adding them to a summer reading list can give your child an advantage when they come up during the school year.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
A Stranger Came Ashore by Mollie Hunter
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Amos Fortune, Free Man
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey
Dragonwings by Laurence Yep
Enchantress From the Stars by Sylvia Engdahl
The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Ghost Belonged To Me by Richard Peck
Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Horatio Hornblower Series by C.S. Lewis
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
Incident at Hawk's Hill by Allan W. Eckert
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Island of the Blue Dolphin by Scott O'Dell
Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
Journey to Topaz by Yoshiko Uchida
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
The Last Mission by Harry Mazer
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Irving Washington
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
M.C. Higgins the Great by Virginia Hamilton
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James and Christopher Collier
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
National Velvet by Enid Bagnold
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
Poems by Robert Frost
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Shane by Jack Schaefer
Story of My Life by Helen Keller
To Be a Slave by Julius Lester
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Where the Lilies Bloom by Vera Cleaver
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
The White Mountains by John Christopher
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Childrens Philosophy

2010-08-26T12:12:00.002-05:00

Childrens Philosophy

If you (as teacher or librarian) are seeking a little something different, try this link for some thoughts on philosophy as found in children's literature.

GOING A RAMBLING WITH POOH AND ROO

2010-08-26T07:01:00.002-05:00

God bless A.A. Milne, for I am sure he is in a special place in heaven where children's writers are given a proper acknowledgment. Milne created those wondrous characters: Christopher Robin, Winnie the Pooh (Pooh Bear), Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, Roo, and all the others--those lovely, lovely characters. In stuffed, plush form, they come alive for children to enact stories from the book, to invent their own stories, to work out their own problems. (A child's fantasy life is rich and full, dark and deep, magical and scary.) Plush animals are simply vehicles to get to those places in the psyche.

Winnie The Pooh Bean Plush Set (3 pcs) - Pooh Eeyore & Tigger
As for Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore, they will always remain in that Hall of the Greats, specially loved. I recently gave this trio to my two great-nieces with birthdays just four days apart (plus three years), one three, one six. Their mother absolutely loved the Pooh when she was the same age, so I am sure the tradition will continue.

As described in Amazon's product information, each stuffed animal is 12-13 inches, soft and plush, with no dangerous external parts that can come off. The only way that these animals can be destroyed is to love them to pieces (much like the Velveteen Rabbit,
another perennial favorite) Bunglie Bunny Plush Toy (Colors May Vary)--this is the closest I could find to the rabbit in the Amazon storehouse.) Case in point: The three year old insisted that I tie her helium balloon with colorful ribbon streamers to her Pooh. So I tied them to an arm. "No, neck," she indignantly told me. "Neck?" I quizzed. "He will choke with ribbons tied around his neck." "Neck," she insisted. So, neck it was. Then up and down, up and down, she tossed poor ol' Pooh. He'll survive. He always does.

Technically, this is not the exact trio I bought for my nieces, but it is close. Actually, Kohl's department store is continuing its campaign of offering special books for $5 accompanied by special plush toys, each for $5. Money goes toward a children's health and education fund. This campaign features three new and beautiful stories about Pooh and friends created by the Disney team (I also could not find any of these at Amazon. Maybe soon.) For more information about the plush toys, books, and Kohl's contribution: http://www.kohls.com/kohlsStore/kids/kck.jsp

Not only did I buy a set of animals and books for my nieces, but also for my school library. This week I have girls (the boys and girls alternate weeks between Art and Library for smaller classes in each subject). I read "Winnie the Pooh: Nature's True Colors" while the girls held the three plush animals. Every couple of minutes I would have the girls pass the animals to another so that by the end each girl had held all three.

In this particular book Pooh and Roo went "a rambling" (for a non-directed walk in nature, but more directed to experiencing whatever they encountered: sky colors, wind rustling, brown toads, and so on).

At the conclusion I told them we were going "a rambling" (actually, next door to our Catholic school is the cathedral and a lovely prayer garden with benches in quiet nooks. So, despite the 100 degree heat, we went "a rambling." Perhaps it might have gone better if one of the girls wasn't all id (Freud) and concerned that she be the first to hold Pooh, the first to have a bench and oh, so and so MUST sit with her, and "Oh, I saw that bench first! I'm sitting there." Somewhere our rambling lost its focus.

Yes, thank you, most of the other girls enjoyed this quiet, simple endeavor: smelled the flowers, admired the bees buzzing around the water flowing over the rocks in the water fountain. In fact, they (we) were fascinated by all the bees landing on the thin layer of water flowing over the watermelon-sized rocks surrounding the base of the actual fountain. One group quietly found the only bench in the shade and quietly sat and listened to the wind blowing through the leaves and tall, decorative grasses. I was delighted that they made the connection with the story of the ssshhhhhhh sound of the rustling.

I look forward to trying this experiment with the fourth and fifth grade girls Friday afternoon and will report then its success or lack thereof.

At any rate: Live long, Pooh!

When sixth grade boys don't want to read, what will get their attention?

2010-08-22T23:31:00.002-05:00

Every librarian's dream occurred in my last class on the last day of the first week of school. It was such a zinger, I must share it!

The sixth grade boys came in, we did our continent review, added some new information to what they knew. I collected their maps for further work next time. Then I read to them the first few pages of "Night of the Howling Dogs," one of the contenders for 2010's Louisiana Young Readers' Choice, sponsored by the State Library of Louisiana. This is a rip-roaring adventure story of the first order (along with themes of relationships, bullying, courage, and finding oneself). I had read one page when one of the new boys raised his hand: "Can I check out that book?" Oh, yes, you can, I thought. "Sure, of course," I actually said.

But what I'm getting to is what happened with another new student. Nearly all the boys in this sixth grade class are readers, but this one new student told me he didn't like to read. Usually, I can find nonfiction that will appeal to their interests. I showed him the Believe It or Not section. Soon, he came with book in hand. It was "Oh, Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty." Oh ho, my fine young friend. So that's your taste, I thought to myself. "Let me show you another book you might like," I actually said aloud.
Dino Poop & Other Remarkable Remains Of The Past
He was actually embarrassed at first. I assured him the book was legitimate scientific study, as I had read it myself. After checking it out, he took that book to one of the reading nooks with pillows. The laughing and downright giggling that came from that corner warmed the cockles of my heart. Those boys had discovered that books can be fun, that they are worthy of reading and sharing.

I also discovered that it is most helpful to read as many of the books on the shelves as possible. This summer I read a number of new books. Two came in handy in classes this week. In the class of fifth grade boys we were talking about Africa. One of the boys asked if giraffes came only from Africa. Wow, I thought, I read that this summer in Animal Lives: Giraffes (Animal Lives (Teacher Created Resources)), one volume in a multi-volume series. In fact, the spots on giraffes differ from region to region. And, yes, they are found only in Africa.

When we discussed Antarctica, I could tell them that it never rains there. Someone asked why the Arctic Circle wasn't a continent. Another answered because there is no land mass there. A fine book to consult--and I'll put these books out next week-- is Antarctica (True Books)

Oh what a delight for a librarian! What a fine end to a tiring first week!

Addendum: I've discovered a new series to add to this list--the Conspiracy 365 set of 12 books, each corresponding with a month (making 365 days). I can speak only for book one: "January," which is a thrill ride from page one to the last page! Surely, the "reluctant" reader will find these irresistible!

My first day of school

2010-08-19T06:51:00.002-05:00

On my first day of school I was "absent"--that is, Ms Judy was not there. Instead, I sent Ms Zelda, the gypsy storyteller from Romania to take my place. (I am a librarian in a PK3-8th grade Catholic school.)

So what does a gypsy wear? Anything that looks the part according to my imagination, faulty or not. Initially, I intended going as Mother Goose. I went to my favorite fabric store to look at costume patterns. Would you believe there are NO Mother Goose costumes!! I did find bonnets from prairie days that I thought would suffice, but that meant a pinafore and in this weather (fringes of H....) a pinafore plus a long skirt plus a slip--oh my! My fabric store friend, also mother of one of my students, then suggested a gypsy costume! Yes! I have clothes that could be accessorized to look gypsy. So back home I went!

It was so much fun finding all the parts to my costume: long skirt with little reflective pieces of medal and tiny little bells attached to each piece, making the tiniest jingle sound as I walked--no, no, not that loud--tinier, yet tinier, barely audible, but enough to exude magic. Then I added a long-sleeve matching blouse--oh, did I say the skirt is yellow-orange? The blouse also but a clashing non-match. Too hot for long sleeves anyway!

Aha! Found it--the perfect top--a little lace and nylon number in beige. Perfect! The lacy cap sleeves made it acceptable (we cannot wear sleeveless blouses in my school, unless, of course, we wear a jacket of some sort over it). I tied a long sparkly brown and white gauzy scarf around my waist/hips to let the fringe dangle. Then jewelry: about seven necklaces of matching browns, oranges, gold, green, and finally, long gold hoop earrings.

Reaction of the four-year-olds, most of whom I had as three-year-olds. "You're not Ms Zuba. You're Ms Judy!" "No, no, darlings. I not Ms Judy. I'm Ms Zelda from Romania."
They finally let me pretend to be Ms Zelda, all the while letting me know they were on to me.

I fared no better with second-grade boys (Boys and girls alternate every other week with Art and Library to keep classes smaller for those two subjects). "You're Ms Judy, not Ms Zelda." "Aw, come on boys, use your imaginations." So they did (but they wanted Ms Judy. I guess I should be flattered.)

One boy kept looking all around. "What are you looking for, Thomas?" I asked him. He replied: "We haven't been here all summer and I just want to take it all in." What a lovely response!

Same story with third grade boys. They simply did not want me to be Ms Zelda on their first time back in the library after a summer's vacation. I'll do this again later when they maybe need a change in routine, but for now, I am touched that they wanted the real Ms Judy.

One final note: One middle school teacher told me the middle school girls LOVED my outfit (I never wear dresses), so on Friday when my middle school classes come to the library, I will wear another gypsy-look outfit. For now, though, I will remain Ms Judy.

I plan to book-talk some of our new books, read an excerpt from Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech, and, oh, of course, show a book on Romania!

READING MAGIC BY MEM FOX

2010-08-15T08:20:00.002-05:00

"A terrific book matters to us as human beings....If it has affected us profoundly, one way or another--to laughter or tears, horror or delight, disgust or dismay, fascination or fright." So writes Mem Fox in her incomparable "Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever."

But it's not the book alone that changes the lives of our children. It is the act of sharing and sharing completely, totally, and doing it with gusto and fun, with laughter and tears, horror and delight--well, she said that before.

But listen to this: "If every adult caring for a child read aloud a minimum of three stories a day to the children in their lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation" (12). Now the scary part: "[T]he crucial connections that determine how clever, creative, and imaginative a child will be are already laid down by the time that child turns one" (14). Reading aloud to a child and engaging in conversation about the story does so many things: teaches words, values, ideas, concentration, problem solving, self-expression, thought.

Fox tells us that children need to hear a thousand stories read aloud before they learn to read for themselves. That's three stories a day for one year, not counting the three years or more prior to school. Ideally those three stories should be one favorite book, one familiar book, and one new book. She avidly advocates reading the same favorite book over and over to teach the rhythm and structure of language. Read it until the child reads it.

The most important reason we should read regularly to our children is to meet the most important reason of all: children need to know above all that they are loved by their parents. Reading as little as 15 minutes a day will create this bond of talking and sharing that creates this language bond.

My favorite story Fox tells is this one concerning her own child Chloe (Note: the Foxes are Australian). During a picnic before her mum had unpacked the picnic basket, Chloe asked about the "afters" (dessert). Mum replied they had to eat first. "Well, one must sustain oneself," she said in a six-year-old huff.

I laughed and laughed at that. Reading together creates a private family bond, the Foxes from Winnie the Pooh, source of the sustaining line. Chloe's father, on occasion, had eaten all the chocolate and responded with "Well, one must sustain oneself" line. Chloe picked it up, knowing its meaning and its source.

Fox includes so much important information, including how to read aloud: Body position, using our eyes and facial expressions, making that eye contact, using vocal variety, and general animation. Reading aloud is an art form!

She gives three secrets concerning the magic of reading: print, language, and general knowledge and how to make the three come together. What does she think of phonics? Her chapter title says it all: "Phokissing on Fonix." Her special chapter on Boys and Reading explains the utter necessity of a father reading to his children.

Bottom line: This is a fantastic manual in learning how to read aloud, what to read aloud, why to read aloud, but above all--to read aloud, interact, share, discuss, enjoy!

PET PEEVES

2010-08-14T10:49:00.007-05:00

Why do we call them Pet Peeves when pets are our adored friends? At any rate, two dictionaries define "pet peeve" as: "A particular or recurring source of irritation"--or "Something about which one frequently complains; a particular personal vexation."

A personal recurring source of irritation, a particular personal vexation. Here are some of mine as I think of them.

1. However, Number 1 as Number 1 for me refers to those who think the highway is their personal byway and so choose to drive in the left lane-- the lane meant for passing, not cruising, not owning, not blocking, not clogging, but passing--and in its subtlety or blatancy-- for speeding. This website provides a chart listing the law for each state concerning the right and left-lane driving: http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/right.html

Although posted by an individual, he provides links to official websites. Here is the bottom-line policy regarding left lane driving:

"The Uniform Vehicle Code states:

Upon all roadways any vehicle proceeding at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then existing shall be driven in the right-hand lane then available for traffic ...

Note that this law refers to the "normal" speed of traffic, not the "legal" speed of traffic. The 60 MPH driver in a 55 MPH zone where everybody else is going 65 MPH must move right."

It is so annoying and vexing and irritating to get behind that someone who "owns" the left lane and blocks those who want to pass. Often, I pass on the far right while the road hog clogs traffic. And say a few unpretty words.

2.The use of blogs for personal grievances
Originally, I stated a person's name and why this person is one of my pet peeves. After just a couple of days I realized I was doing the hateful thing she does--using my blog as a personal attack. I deleted my comments, then stated the obvious.

3. The use of poor grammar when the user knows better.

The use of "ain't"--The common response: "Ain't" is in the dictionary! My response is: "Guess what? So are fruition, tintinnabulation, onomatopoeia, feckless, prodigious, and so on. I don't hear you using those words."

My point is that we go to school to get an education. Not to use it is not only a waste of money but ignorance of the worst kind. Those who grew up in illiteracy and truly do not know proper grammar, thus speak with words like "ain't" and "he don't know no better" are not a source of annoyance. Those who know better and refuse to use their brains are one of my pet peeves.

4. People who think teachers choose that occupation because they cannot do anything else. My only suggestion: Ask to sit in your child's classroom for an entire day. Just one day. Or substitute for a teacher just one day. You'll change your mind.

FAVORITES!

2010-08-04T07:38:00.001-05:00

How do I know when my young patrons like, no make that LOVE a book I read aloud to them? Facial expressions? Sure. Comments? Certainly! Hand clapping at the end? Definitely! Yet--those still not the absolute proof that kids LOVE a book. So, what is? When I ask who wants to check out this book? Hands go up all over the place! I do! I do! Me! Me!

(Never mind how I settle this--oh, you want to know? I have tried having the interested children pull a slip out of a box. The one who draws the one colored strip gets the book. Fair, but this makes the children unhappy when they don't pull the colored strip. I've tried guessing numbers. Same result. So, what works when many want the same book? I put it aside and we go on to other choices. By the end the one who remembers the book I put aside gets it. If more than one is left, I promise it the following week. This works for me.)

What books become FAVORITES? Here is a list of favorite books from last school year:

"Molly the Pony" is a story of a Katrina survivor--this one a horse who later loses a leg because of a dog bite. Students were riveted to this story, especially when Molly became a therapy horse for children and older citizens also with a disability. They had so many questions and comments to make!

Another book which absolutely fascinated children is an older book--"Koko's Kitten" is the true story of an ape who learns sign language and eventually asks for a friend. They give her this kitten. A wonderful story.

A companion story is "Little Beauty" by Anthony Browne, which children love even more because of the surprise element at the end. Also, this book is filled with incredible illustrations rather then the real-life depiction through photographs in Koko.

"Katie Loves the Kittens" is so much fun to read. A highly excitable terrier, Katie is simply delighted when kittens join the household. However, her exuberance terrorizes the kittens and Katie must learn to control her excitement. See any lesson in this?
&nbsp;&amp;nbsp;

A book that, surprisingly, both boys and girls loved was Ladybug Girl. Please click here for my review: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3I3XHSCFOGK6K/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
Basically, it is about the daily-ness of life.

An inexplicably beloved book is "William's Doll." William does not understand why his brother and father do not want him to have a doll. He wants to nurture it, put it to bed, take care of it. Finally, his mother convinces the father to allow this wish to fruition. William gets a doll. What a great lesson! To make this concept desirable, I brought in a doll before I read the story and asked for a babysitter during story time. Both boys and girls wanted to hold the baby. I showed them how then carefully placed our baby with a boy. I picked this particular class first because there is a William in it--a leader. He held the baby first.

(Note: I know there are two images for Katie loves the kittens. I don't know how to delete one.)

Ways to read

2010-07-30T12:59:00.004-05:00

What should I read? Any ideas?

What should I read next?

How do I know what is valuable?

Should I join a reading club?

Should I use someone else's reading list and adapt to my own needs?

Just how do I go about reading?

It can be perplexing with the millions of books out there on shelves and in cyberspace. You've completed your education--or should I say degree--are we ever finished with our education? Now you say, Just give me a reading list. Tell me what to read and I'll read it.

Should you go that way? You can. It's certainly better than reading the same ol' kind of books for the rest of your life. Please allow me to make some suggestions:

1. Read eclectically, that is randomly, from this list, that list, what you run into in review forums, what friends and family advise, what you see in emails (I think of that book President Obama was carrying that incited so much controversy), and so on. This is certainly a legitimate way to read, keeping you abreast of what's new and classic and downright fun and entertaining. I just read Craig Ferguson's memoir because he mentioned it on his late night show. Found it fun and informative. I read what friends on Amazon recommend and find my horizons expanding, for example Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski.

But am I missing anything really great by reading eclectically?

2. Read by genre:
-Biography/autobiography/memoir
-Science fiction (even if you don't think you like it). Google or Bing a list and read a classic first or something highly recommended. My recommendation here is Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
(A note about recommendations: Who recommended it? Is it someone you know and trust, someone whose tastes and interests parallel or intersect yours, or someone you would never follow? Always consider the source of recommendations!)

-Fantasy: I'm told that EVERYONE should read The Lord of the Ring cycle. I never have, so maybe that should go on my list.Here's a reading list for science fiction/fantasy:
http://www.starrigger.net/recommended.htm

-Historical fiction: Again read a highly acclaimed book first if you've never delved here. There are fantastic examples out there. One of my particular favorites is Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, a book set in medieval England. or, of course,
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, even if her history is a little altered.
I just found a fantastic historical fiction reading list. Here's the link:
http://dannyreviews.com/s/historical_fiction.html

-Realistic fiction, for example, Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, or

-Young adult fiction: There are fabulous examples here, all falling under their particular genres. Don't pooh them away as written for tweens and teens. The quality and themes are also applicable to adults. One of my particular favorites is Tangerine by Edward Bloor. It is dramatic, humorous (laughing out loud funny), warm, compassionate, everything a good story should be.
Another example is one I recently read: Firegirl by Tony Abbot.

Or Andrew Clements' finest (but any of his books will suffice) is Frindle (a word now in the dictionary).

Or the fantastically popular Harry Potter series or Twilight series (YA fantasy):

My favorite series in YA is Alex Rider, which could be classified as a spy thriller.
Here is the first in the series--Stormbreaker--and I just discovered that there is a Book 8. Oh. My. Goodness. Excuse me while I order it--oh, here it is:

For a really fun and thorough list of all kinds of genres and sub-genres, check this link:
http://www.cuebon.com/ewriters/genres.html

For my own suggested reading list, look to the left of this blog. For another way to read, try my list to the right: alphabetical list of books.

There's no dearth of reading lists or reading material. They are out there in cyberspace, just beyond your fingertips. The more you use your brain, the stronger it gets. The more you read the more you know. Oh, I'm a librarian. We know all these sayings.

The theme of evil in us

2010-07-27T15:39:00.000-05:00

Lord of the Flies is singularly the most important novel for required reading, whether assigned in school or self-imposed. It regularly appears as number one on my own list of best books.

Let's play "What if." What if a plane carrying a full load of school boys crashes on a deserted island with no adult survivors? What would happen to those boys? What would you expect to happen?

William Golding works with this premise: an idyllic setting, innocent schoolboys. One boy, an older boy just short of teenage years, a boy with fair hair, assumes leadership to stir the others into some semblance of organization and survival mode, much like adults would do if adults were present. He also saw a need to defuse the web of fear of the younger ones. Where are we? How long will we need to wait before someone comes for us? All questions with no answers at this time.

Ah, yes, Golding tells us, everything goes well for a while. But remember the "scar" made by the crashing plane? Something ugly is on this island (but it's not the scar). It's in the bushes, in the dark, in the depths, in the depths of hearts, and it grows like the malignancy it is.

A blatant revelation of what is about to come occurs when Roger silently and stealthily watches a littl'un, unbeknownst to the little child. All the little'un is doing is running a stick through the sand, disturbing a crab in a tiny pool of water. Even he imposes control and fear on a helpless creature as Roger boldly picks up a couple of rocks and tosses them the youngster's way. He deliberately misses but comes closer with each throw. Next time he will probably hit the young boy, but not yet. This taboo--deliberately and unnecessarily causing pain to one smaller than you--has not been broken--yet.

Although the dance of the spears, the primeval chants, the attack and killing of the pig, then feasting on its flesh, their kill, are shocking acts of savagery, this event is foreshadowed by the seemingly innocent lob of the stones. From a casual incident, but one with eventual intentionality, the ritualistic slaughter is not so far-fetched or surprising. Golding prepares his readers. This is how the chaos of society starts. It begins with one simple disconnect from the rules. It begins in the minds and hearts. Will I do what society expects? Will I follow the rules to keep things running and working? Do I break a rule or two for my own enhancement. Will I feel a power surge if my rock hits that littl`un?

Ralph would probably speak of the terror of knowing that rules WILL be broken. He would speak of the utter horror that any rule can be and will be broken and he won't live to tell about it. Just ask Piggy.

This novel is the only one I taught over and over during the twelve years I worked with high school seniors. My other choices I would switch around those years, drop some, add some. This one I kept. It is that important. I think of "Lord of the Flies" as a necessary manual for societal behavior and an effort to keep the chaos of evil at bay.

Is it even necessary to ask how many times that rock has been thrown since this novel was published in the 1950's? Or how much chaos has imploded so many lives?

Like the way of manuals, some remain in circulation and are deeply read; others fall by the wayside out of disinterest. Some are thrown in the trash. Lord of the Flies--what is its current status? And society--how is it doing? Reader, are you a little bit fearful?

Addendum: (posted 7-27-2010) I recently viewed the film, Killer Inside Me, with Casey Affleck. This, I thought, is the perfect example of the consequences of taking that first step of hitting someone with a stone. How we have changed since the 1950's!

The new Bond

2010-07-26T12:15:00.000-05:00

Quantum of Solace

(Plot Details: This review reveals minor details about the movie's plot.)

What a moral morass is Quantum of Solace. But what movie-making! Daniel Craig is a James Bond hitherto unknown, with Director Marc Forster taking him to places never before explored.

Quantum: the smallest amount of a physical quantity that can exist independently. If Bond (with Craig wearing his clothes and his mentality) receives just a quantum of solace (that smallest amount) by movie's end, then how much revenge filled his brain, his heart, his very essence? This is a Bond unstoppable, unimaginable, brutal--the epitome of a cold-hearted killer who seemingly just stepped out of an opera house peopled with evening clothes or the streets ferociously gang-dominated, tux on, weapon in hand, seeking that quantum of solace. Beware!

This is a Bond that even "M" cannot control. She tries. Lord help her, she tries. Bond's job is on the line, her job is on the line. Never before has "M" been anything than totally self-assured, but this is an "M" who finds herself behind the matresses, a woman reduced to just a woman who removes her makeup at night like any other woman who works a 9-5 job. The only problem is "M" is supposed to be a force of power, control, behind-the-scenes domination. Who took her whip? Bond, of course. His mission is not impossible nor is his identity a mystery. All he seeks is a quantum of solace.

So a British man of mystery to the unknowing eye is really a secret agent with a license to kill. And kill Bond does--without hesitation, without remorse, without doubt. He spares only two moments to matters other than his revenge-driven quest: he gingerly embraces his old friend Mathis, and he has the obligatory sex scene. The embrace is necessary, even the scant sex scene is incongruous in context and should have lay on the cutting room floor, and initially erased right out of this script.

Calling the character of Camille (Olga Kurylenko) the "Bond girl" is an insult to this character. This is not the same-ol', same-ol' sexy girl who makes Bond's acquaintance in bed. This is an equal, also seeking a quantum of solace. Let the viewer take note: Everything is new about this Bond film.

Even the villain is less than a pure force as in the past. Superficially benevolent, he is buying up dry lands (with water on them) to make a killing (take that literally and metaphorically). Only in the occasional moment does this villain show his hidden evil. Why the lessening of caricature so notable in previous Bond films? To contrast Bond's unrelenting force of revenge? To show that all characters are capable of their opposite? Or perhaps to show the moral morass that our universe has become?

The outcome of Bond's quest is, of course, expected. He seizes his quantum of solace, but he is forever changed. Daniel Craig takes the viewer with him and shows what he (as actor and agent) is really capable of. What will the next film show about Bond's character, about Craig's incomparably nuanced acting?

What is the source of Bond's need for revenge, his quantum of solace? That answer is found in Casino Royale.

Recommended:

Firegirl by Tony Abbott

2010-07-21T12:31:00.002-05:00

"It wasn't much, really, the whole Jessica Feeney thing....She was a girl who came into my class after the beginning of the year and was only there for a couple of weeks or so....Then she wasn't there anymore. That was pretty much it." Those are the thoughts expressed by Tom, a seventh grader, in the opening paragraph of "Firegirl" by Tony Abbott. The words seem simple, but they grabbed this reader. The essence of something profound just seeps through the simple tone of those words.

As librarian in a PK-8 Catholic school, I seek out books that will engage reluctant readers, not only to read, but to read compassionately. My school's motto is "Kindness is practiced here," so anything that can evoke kindness is a must-have book. "Firegirl" is definitely one of those books.

A bit overweight and highly self-conscious, Tom is not the expected candidate to befriend a lonely, excluded, severely burned girl who joins his class just after school begins its fall session. In fact, Jessica is so badly burned that students are horrified by her condition and fearful that they will get it, too, all the while knowing that such a condition is not contagious. Consider: These are children at an age when rejection is devastation. They feel that her "freak"-ish condition will harm them in some way and thus treat her as a pariah, then make up horrible stories concerning the origin of the fire that burned her. Anything to ward off her condition, one they impulsively, compellingly, subconsciously do not want--to stand out in such an undesirable way.

Yet Tom, who has one friend, and not a very pleasant one at that, is touched by her condition. When the teacher asks Tom to deliver a homework assignment to her house (they live just a few streets from each other), he agrees, but reluctantly. During prayer, since he sits closest to her, holds her hand. His selfish friend will not.

Jessica and her parents are in town for special medical treatment for Jessica and will leave when it's over. Her three weeks at this school with these kids, particularly Tom, will change both her and Tom in wonderful ways. "Wonder n. One that arouses awe, astonishment, surprise, or admiration; a marvel" --from www.answers.com

Early in the novel, I kept wondering why the author chose such a devastating condition to include in the lives of middle school students. What point was he going to make? Frankly, I was a bit leery of his intentions. By novel's end, I was stunned by the author's thoughtfulness and purpose. In fact, this is a book I may read aloud to middle school students this year to discuss compassion and all it holds and indicates.

This is a fine book to add to the middle school library. No doubt!

2010-07-21T12:25:00.001-05:00

2010-07-18T08:17:00.004-05:00

The Killer Inside Me

2010-07-09T13:31:00.003-05:00

Note: This is the first movie review I've included in my blog. The film is both controversial and mesmerizing. Everything about this film noir is superlative, but make no mistake, it is about the hidden person within us. In this case, the hidden person is violent--and Director Michael Winterbottom hides nothing--so, beware the content of this review as well.

I watched Killer Inside Me simply because Kate Hudson is in it. Not that I am a fan, but she appeared on The David Letterman Show to promote it and declared it unlike anything else she has done. Oh, how true! Normally, she plays fluff characters. This time, this time she plays a woman in love with a man who becomes quite simply, quite horrifyingly Jekyll/Hyde.

Who are we? Who is inside us? Is there a secret person just yearning to come out? How much is your public persona the very same being you harbor when no one else is around? Or does the mere presence of a particular other person urge the Shadow Self to declare itself? (Shadow: Jung's definition of the dark side)

Casey Affleck is the title character and plays it with absolute conviction. Was it difficult going home after a day's shoot and returning to normal life? I wonder now what is normal for an actor who inhabits a character like Lou Ford, for this character and his actions made me sick. Note: I am not equating Affleck with Ford, but his stellar performance IS perfection.

I was flipping through movie choices when at the very bottom of the line-up, normally where the pornographic movies are listed, when I spotted this title and quickly rented it, remembering Kate Hudson's interview, not giving a single thought to the film's location. I should have. It has sado-masochistic, graphically violent content. Sickening content.

To what ends? What was the director's intent? Michael Winterbottom directs this film noir with an unflinching eye for veracity and sadistic boldness. He leaves some things to imagination, but vividly shows the circular route to self-destruction when a person loses hold on moral turpitude. He also shows what could be way down deep inside, idling, waiting to come out, as it is in Ford. In fact, I keep reflecting on Lord of the Flies, when one of the older boys continues to throw rocks closer and closer to one of the little ones, just short of breaking with societal rules. Lou Ford, however, takes this disconnect far deeper and, actually, to the utmost when he takes lives in the cruel abandonment of compassion, showing a total void of what makes us human.

The people in this 1950s West Texas town all know each other and have for years. Lou Ford is one of its favored boys all grown up and now deputy sheriff. Little did anyone know what he and his older sister (maybe stepmother, Affleck doesn't always enunciate clearly) did for fun. These memories serve as the trigger to his nihilistic, dead-end, dead-making behavior that rises from his assignment to chase the beautiful young prostitute (Jessica Alba) out of town. Instead, he connects psychically and sexually with her, opening the door to his hellish personality, the Shadow self, as Jung describes it.

There is always that little door in one's mind that must remain closed and locked. To open it is to invite disaster, mild or torrential. Once that door is open, it can never be closed again. Lou Ford opens that door when she slaps him. Let me be blunt: Violence begets violence. In fact, violence is pretty much a character in this film.

The number of murders good ol' boy, soft-spoken, loved-by-all Lou Ford commits from that point on is simply incredible. As with any deviant psycho personality, he believes he will continue his behavior undetected, although The Mentalist's Simon Baker is on to him. In the end Ford will be punished, but not the way the viewer may think or expect or want. Nor is the ending a good one. Just more shocking, horrifying aftermath.

So, what was Winterbottom's purpose, other than producing a very stylish, well-made film noir? The lessons are worthy: deviant behavior does not go unpunished, your companions may determine your future, doing something because it feels good may not be a worthy goal to pursue, it's best to leave some things alone.

Kate Hudson? Yeah, it's a different role all right. She definitely plays a character way out of her comfort zone. In fact, I did not recognize her in any way.

Trailer: http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/05/25/the-killer-inside-me-trailer/

Another Katrina story: Molly the Pony

2010-07-07T10:29:00.001-05:00

What happened to the people of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina? Many stayed. Many relocated elsewhere. Some returned. And the animals? "Molly the Pony: A True Story" is just one story of many. In this case Molly was left with the intention of the return of her owners.

Molly was a "lucky" pony. Her owners left her enough hay to last the two weeks she spent in a barn in isolation and lock-down after the hurricane was over. During the storm the wind blew off the roof, allowing rain to fall inside and provide enough water to last those two weeks. Her owners had locked the doors to keep Molly safe; the abundant hay was surely an unknowing miraculous act for Molly. If you will remember, various people from the New Orleans area immediately started search and rescue efforts for people and animals alike after the storm. Molly is just one story.

A nearby neighbor took in Molly until her owners could return. As with many, they chose to relocate. Molly became Ms Kay's new addition. The story could have ended here but would not be as interesting as what happened. A huge dog wandered into the pasture and attacked Molly, biting her severely on one front leg. The wound would not heal and Molly lost her leg. The cover picture reveals that Molly was fitted with a prosthesis and learned to live with it (many horses could not). This still is not the end of a wonderful story.

The third phase of Molly's journey is her becoming a therapy horse--you know, like dogs and cats are. With the story of her own prosthesis, Molly is taken to various homes and institutions where she touches lives of children and senior adults with their own disabilities.

I summarized this wonderful story so that readers will know what "Molly the Pony" is about and why this true story is so worthy of being part of everyone's library. Although it was written for children--my library students, 4- and 5-year-olds were so intrigued!, adults will also love this lesson in persistence, determination, and a dogged/horsed will to live. Highly recommended!

Two Bobbies--a very special Katrina story

2010-07-03T10:19:00.002-05:00

Note: Louisiana Young Readers Choice recently announced (March 1, 2011) that children in grades 3-5 statewide voted Two Bobbies as its number one favorite book for 2011.

Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship, and Survival--this story touched my heart profoundly, beginning with the cover illustration and the title. But then I know the story of Katrina and its devastation. I know that animals were left behind, not out of indifference or neglect, but out of necessity. Who knew that people wouldn't be returning to their homes any time soon or, in some cases, never? That means animals essentially, through no one's fault, were abandoned. Artist Jean Cassels captures the essence of devotion behind this oh-so-poignant story: dog looking at cat with closed eyes. A flooded street is depicted in the background. These two were "abandoned." But there is much more to this story.

Typically, when I write reviews of children's books, I test the book on at least one group of students in my school library. I am the librarian. This time the book arrived in a box of books via Fed Ex after school closed, so I am the testee. Frankly, I was moved to tears by this story. Much of it is speculation. How could Kirby Larson and Mary Nethery know exactly what Cat and Dog did during their journey to the animal shelter? But the two animals had to have a history together, so the two writers imagined one.

Young cat, young dog, both bob-tailed, perhaps were taken in together by their owner as two of a kind. Perhaps the dog was chained when the floods came, when the owners left, thinking they would return soon. Perhaps these owners left enough food for a few days. When days turned into weeks, apparently Dog broke his chain and he and Cat took off together. Perhaps they came across other strays, big and vicious. Perhaps they starved a bit (when they were finally taken in, their ribs were showing).

Whatever their scenario, they survived together for several months after the hurricane and before the next set of humans adopted them. The two companions, Dog and Cat, finally found a work site where a worker was keeping his dog. These two had a place and sure food--finally--for just one week. That's when the boss man said the two had to go.

They were taken to one of the animal shelters that spring up when animals need taking in. This is the place where an amazing discovery was made. When Cat and Dog were separated by race, Dog howled and barked and carried on until Cat was put in his cage with him. Finally, a human made the discovery that Cat was blind and Dog was his seeing-eye dog!

Now look again at the cover. Go back through the book and regard each illustration again. Cassels shows the viewer/reader this little tidbit--the cat's blindness, the dog's solicitude--in each illustration, but subtly.

The story does have a happy ending. The two are adopted together. This part of the story is also precious.

Bobbie (the Dog) and Bob Cat survived the storm, the flooding, and hardships lasting months. Their friendship and their survival are doubly special because of their unique situation and circumstances. Because of the merger of wonderful illustrations and a sensitively rendered story, this book is highly recommended!

Home canning!

2010-07-01T14:04:00.000-05:00

I've grown my own cucumbers and turned them into pickles for years now. It's a very satisfactory experience, or "Putting up food when it's at its freshest is like sealing the best parts of summer inside a jar." That's a quote I found on the Globe Life website.

So far I've put up ten pints, both wide-mouth and regular, of pickles.

The other thing I've done this summer is put up four and one-half gallons of blackberries into quart and pint packages. What I do with these is make blackberry cobbler, my favorite dessert. Because I took the time to drive down to DeSoto Parish and pick blackberries for two hours at a time in the hot, blazing sun, I simply froze them. Later I will make blackberry preserves, cobbler all winter, or just grab a bag of ones I added sugar to and eat from the bag. That is such a refreshing experience!

The bag to the left has sweetened berries (that make their own juice).

Family of four!

2010-06-23T11:26:00.000-05:00

I wonder if it is discouraging to be a duck and go through all the mating rigamarole, have nine tiny ducklings and end up with only three almost-adults. What happens to all those ducklings from the time of birth until they reach adulthood? Do they know their numbers are diminished? They stick like glue to each other now and never past a whisper from their mother.

Update on Mirapex!

2010-06-17T09:44:00.001-05:00

My own experiment had to be altered. I spent one 24-hour period of time without Mirapex and with this new medication, Amandatine, used most often in treating the flu. I could sleep only two hours because the legs went wild, kicking and thrashing. I cried all day from frustration and in late afternoon took a Mirapex. It went to work within the hour. At bedtime I took one more, slept well--six hours! This morning I am experiencing dizziness and nausea, a small price to pay to keep my sanity.

What has occurred to me is why my doctor didn't prescribe a medication actually designed to treat fibromyalgia and, I feel sure, its offspring--restless legs. Questions to be asked... Answers hotly desired!

Our first summer adventure!

2010-06-15T09:12:00.000-05:00

I started a tradition three summers back by taking my three great-nieces and -nephew on adventures (or field trips--adventure sounds better, don't you think?). Over the last two summers we've done a number of things, but the one they clamor for every summer is our trip to Norton Art Gallery.

Not only is Norton a deposit for art, but it also boasts acres of azaleas of all colors and sizes--a visitor's paradise in the spring when these flowers are in bloom and site for annual picture-taking. Amongst all these flowering shrubs is a lake and man-made stream with little picturesque bridges and rock placements. We walked through this stream until we learned--the embarrassing way--that the water is off-limits to feet!

Inside Norton is the largest privately owned collection of western art in the country, art created by Remington and Russell. However, the collection is much larger than that. In fact, Norton owns one of the few extant elephant folios by Audubon, a book my five-year-old niece remembers viewing almost a year ago.

The last section I want to mention is the children's play section in one of the gallery rooms. It's the only place where items can be touched! Climbed on! Fingers stuck in noses! (see picture for details).

The life-size alligator fascinates little ones! Little Bo Peep and her missing sheep! Wilbur and Charlotte! Red and the Wolf! And a puffed-up frog prince!

My nephew was off on his own adventure with another family the day I took the girls. This summer Cadie, almost three, joined us for the first time. Brag time: she can buckle her own seat-belt but her five-almost-six-year-old sister has to be buckled! She was so hesitant in the art gallery at first--so big and imposing, but by adventure's end, she was ready to gallop through the halls, in need of being quieted. Her 12-year-old sister was so embarrassed!

We took Cadie through the doll room. She squealed with delight when she saw all those dolls. But the item that drew the most attention from the two youngest was the Peter Ellenshaw wall-sized painting of a dwarfed monastery nestled amidst those breath-taking Himalayas! It is positioned to be viewed through two rooms and still looks huge. A painting of Norton itself Carolina declared, "That's this building."

Oh, notice the blase look of the middle schooler above! And Cadie? That look belonged to the we-first-got-here-hesitant Cadie.

Judy's Creations

2010-06-14T14:18:00.002-05:00

Last summer I recovered pillows and brought in new ones which I covered with my wild matching colors of chartreuse, aqua, purple, magenta, and orange. These pillows became a focal point in the new decorations in the school library where I am librarian. I even took my sewing machine to the school to sew and rip and resew.

I had so much fun! In fact, that was the first time I had done any extensive sewing in years. For too many years I graded papers and did lesson plans. As librarian I work hard during the day and do plan lessons, but grading papers? Minimal and easy.

All this is back story to a new craft and hobby I assumed during Christmas holidays. I looked through pattern books at my favorite craft store and found this pattern for a cat. Hmmm. Can I do this? It turns out, why yes, I could. Here's an example:

This is one of my favorites: Japanese Cat!

Bug Baby on the left and L'il Princess on the right.

And purses. I've created a mini business in purses. Here are a few:

So this is my work. I want to share it. I want to send out my purses to all the world--to create fun in toting one's possessions that need to be at hand on a daily basis, to have fun pulling out a checkbook from a purse that looks like a wine tasting or an English countryside spewed with polka dots or an antiqued look of Americana in anticipation of our annual holiday. Or any of the other fun purses I have created.

Someone recently told me that these purses are easy to make. Yes, they are, I said. Go make one. That's the point. Who wants to make a purse when you can find me and buy one already made and ready to tote!! I have the fun of mixing and matching patterns and colors, what goes where. Oh, the joy of colors! My favorite one pictured above is the first one: brightly striped, outdoor fabric matched with dramatic black. Isn't it glorious! Here's one more:

This one gets a wow, don't you agree?

Mirapex--should this drug be banned?

2010-06-12T23:56:00.002-05:00

I've taken Mirapex for about three years now.

"MIRAPEX is a medication used in the treatment of moderate-to-severe primary restless legs syndrome (RLS). Restless legs syndrome is a neurological sensorimotor disorder characterized by an urge to move legs in an effort to alleviate the effects of leg symptoms.¹ Clinical trials of patients taking MIRAPEX for RLS have demonstrated significant improvement in range of RLS symptoms compared with placebo.^2,3

"Important Information about MIRAPEX: MIRAPEX is indicated for the treatment of moderate-to-severe primary Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS).
Patients have reported falling asleep without perceived warning signs during activities of daily living, including operation of a motor vehicle, which sometimes resulted in accidents. Hallucinations and postural (orthostatic) hypotension may occur. In clinical trials for RLS, the most commonly reported side effects of MIRAPEX that were more frequent than with placebo are nausea (16% vs. 5%), headache (16% vs. 15%), fatigue (9% vs. 7%) and somnolence (6% vs. 3%).

http://www.mirapex.com/HCP/

It took me two and one-half years to figure out that it is this medication -- so effective in alleviating Restless Leg Syndrome symptoms --that makes me literally fall asleep while driving--without warning. By the Grace of God I have not had an accident--I wake up as I head off the road.

Or fallen asleep while at the computer. With my face on the keyboard without a clue that I'm going to sleep. Scary stuff!

My doctor investigated other medications for substitution. Each one has the same effect: falling asleep without perceived warning. If you've never experienced Restless Leg Syndrome, count yourself VERY fortunate. It's worse than Fibromyalgia, that other bug-a-boo that plagues my existence. RLS can drive a person insane, I imagine. But knowing there's a possibility of having an accident is even worse!!

"What is restless leg syndrome?

Restless leg syndrome is a common cause of painful legs. The leg pain of restless leg syndrome typically eases with motion of the legs and becomes more noticeable at rest. Restless leg syndrome also features worsening of symptoms during the early evening or later at night. The characteristic nighttime worsening of symptoms in persons with restless legs syndrome frequency leads to insomnia.
Restless leg syndrome usually begins slowly. Over time, the legs become more affected. Less frequently, restless leg syndrome can affect the arms."
http://www.medicinenet.com/restless_leg_syndrome/article.htm

So, what's my point here? As my doctor and I were discussing Mirapex and its very negative effects, I began to get more and more apprehensive. Do without my RLS medication? A very terrifying thought (if you have RLS, you know what I mean--I hope you do not have it!). It means not being able to go to bed at night. Lying there with wildly thrashing legs is horrible!! That feeling. I would rather have a toothache, menstrual cramps, fibromyalgia pain, for pete's sake!! than restless legs.

My doctor and I concluded with a new prescription which I have not filled yet--still holding onto Mirapex. However, as I decreased from 2 to 1 tablet each night, I have dual results--I have kicking legs but they're not wild. I have some relief but not enough. I'll name the new medication at a later date after I have a trial run with it.

-oholicism

2010-06-08T08:49:00.000-05:00

_Oholicism, oholics--yes, authentic words, at least words in the dictionary. If you're one, you already recognize the designation, don't you? Rage-oholic, sex-oholic, shop-oholic. An "oholic" is a person of a particular addiction, or multiple addictions. Even though one may feel awful guilt in indulging, stepping into the waters again--even if those waters are different--make life feel better--so temporarily! It's the long-term effects that can be so devastating.

Hi, I'm Judy, and I'm a Shop-oholic. At one time I was that Alc-oholic. Got over that. Now I'm a shop-oholic and wreaking financial devastation on myself. Today I must shed some possessions to make ends meet.

More later...

What have I read?

2010-06-02T12:08:00.001-05:00

Posted on this blog are two nice reading lists: one is arranged by the alphabet, the other just a hodge-podge of books I have eyed, but not read. Let's see how I have done since making those lists.

From the alphabet list, I have read:
As I Lay Dying
Dracula
Kidnapped
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
1984
Smilla's Sense of Snow
The World According to Garp
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

The problem is that I read all of the above years ago and not one since I posted this list. Tsk-tsk!

Second list, or My Very Ambitious TBR list:
Vincent de Paul http://www.amazon.com/review/R17EE11X86WSQS/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
The German Mujahid
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2SG0HJ31GG0D6/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
The Giver
http://www.amazon.com/review/RF3300V629Z30/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
Imperium (at the bottom of this page is a book jacket. Please click on it for a my review.

I haven't done any better, except that I read ALL of these since posting the list. I will do better now that I have called my attention to my own reading lists. Let's call them:
Judy's Summer Reading Lists!

2010-06-02T07:52:00.000-05:00

Early morning hydrangeas!

Books picked up at a warehouse sale!

2010-06-01T05:39:00.001-05:00

Summer reading lists. Find one almost anywhere. As a librarian I look for lists to recommend to my patrons, in this case, middle school students. As today is the last day of school, I will have a little stack of these titles in bookmark form for each student to pick up . Even if they don't find them during the summer, the books will be displayed for their perusal come August. Call it Back-to-School Reading List then!

Oh, I bought these at a Scholastic warehouse sale at half-price, or less. They're trying to lessen their inventory; I'm trying to update mine. It's a perfect match!

1. Sasquatch, Roland Smith: recommended by Booklist, School Library Journal, and ALA
2. Sky High: Mission One, A. J. Butcher
3. Firegirl, Tony Abbott: Golden Kite Award Book (Link: http://www.scbwi.org/Pages.aspx/Golden-Kite-Award
4. Magic Can Be Murder, Vivian Vandi Veldi: A VOYA Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Book of the Year
5. The Christopher Killer: A Forensic Mystery, Alane Ferguson: An Edgar Award Nominee
6. The Wild Girls, Pat Murphy: Winner of the Christopher Award
7. Cat Magic, Holly Webb
8. Dog Magic, Holly Webb (If I include cats, I must include dogs!)

For more lists and awards, please click on this link:

http://us.macmillan.com/MacmillanSite/categories/Childrens/AmericanLibraryAssociation/ALA100BestBooksforTeens

Blueberries!! Blackberries!!

2010-05-30T14:31:00.003-05:00

This is information taken directly from the internet. Last summer my family and I enjoyed picking our own blueberries and blackberries so much that I returned twice more to have more in the freezer! Take an ice chest, stop when you get hot, cool off, then return to the fields! Just moderate your activity with the weather temperature.

DESOTO Parish: Shuqalak Farms - blueberries and blackberries

Gravel Pointe Road, Frierson, LA, Phone: 318-797-8273. Email: williamburris@bellsouth.net. Open: 7 days a week from 7 am to 7 pm from June to July 15th. Directions: I-49 South Exit 186,Left Hwy175 North 2 miles Turn Right on Gravel Point Road. Turn right at Shuqualak Farms.

A visitor writes: "This is a family owned farm. We pick blueberries and blackberries here every year. You have the option to pick or they pick for a few dollars more a gallon. They clean and bag the berries for you. It is a wonder [sic] experience for the kids." (ADDED: June 20, 2008) (UPDATED: May 27, 2009)

Caddo Parish

Lenox Acres Blueberry Farm - blackberries, blueberries, restrooms

6501 Vardaman Road, Keithville, LA 71047. Phone: 318-925-8461. Alternate Phone: 318-286-9076. Email: lenoxsteve@bellsouth.net. Open: Tuesday to Saturday from 7 a;m to 11:am Evening pick Tuesday and Thursday only 5 pm to 8 pm Closed Sunday and Monday. Directions: Go south on Mansfield Road (Hwy 171) from the intersection with Bert Kouns Industrial Loop approximately 8.5 miles to a stoplight in Stonewall, La. Turn right on Stonewall Road and go west approximately 2.5 miles to intersection with Keithville-Keatchie Road Turn left and go south half mile to Vardaman Road. Turn right on Vardaman Road and go west 1.1 miles to entrance on left hand side of the road. Click here for a map and directions. Blueberries and Blackberries: June 1 to July 10. Payment: Cash, Check. (ADDED: June 08, 2009) (UPDATED: April 07, 2010)

Poverty Hollow Farms - blueberries, figs, http://www.pickyourown.org/LA.htm

9143 Crawford Road, Oil City, LA 71061. Phone: 318-995-7924. Alternate Phone: 318-995-7117. Email: mfhead@bellsouth.net. Open: Sunday through Saturday, 7am to dark. Directions: Highway 1 north & I-220 - north to "Y." Take left fork (Hwy 1) to Vivian & OIl City. Continue north until you CROSS Caddo Lake. At first blinking light make 45 degree right turn at La Highway 538. Continue north through Oil City. Turn right onto Crawford Road, continue 1/2 mile. Turn right into grey gravel driveway. Sign by road reads "Poverty Hollow Farms." Continue south on driveway. Pull in behind the green house. Click here for a map and directions. Blueberries: 01 June to 31 July, Figs: 15 July to 10 August. Payment: Cash, Check. (ADDED: July 24, 2009)

Endings have beginnings...

2010-05-29T13:20:00.000-05:00

Carolina became a kindergarten graduate on Wednesday. She's ready for first grade. She's ready to open those books and start as an emergent reader. When she was two years old, she sat in her great-grandmother's lap and so plaintively asked: "When will I be able to read like Chelsea?" (her older sister). Carolina loves books. She loves stories, her favorite being "Three Little Pigs." You know how we all have that one fairy tale that excites our imagination in secret, mystical ways? That's Carolina's--three little pigs. What is her connection? Being thrown out? Having a wolf/monster at the door? Cooking/Defeating that wolf? For now, Carolina is set for summer and looks forward to first grade. First grade!

The wolves are back!

2010-05-29T07:30:00.000-05:00

I've been in love with wolves for as long as I can remember, perhaps from childhood when I read Jack London. When I read a recent review of "Never Cry Wolf," by an Amazon friend, I had to respond with this newly acquired book in the school library where I work, "The Wolves Are Back," by another long-time wolf-lover, Jean Craighead George and illustrator, Wendell Minor. As a lovely touch, Minor declared his dedication to "All the people who made it possible for the wolves to return to Yellowstone."

On each page of script, the final sentence is: "The wolves are back!" On that first page the reader learns that the wolf pack has killed an elk. On the second page we learn that others also eat from that kill: ravens, a golden eagle, a grizzly bear, magpies, mice,and sexton beetles. "The valley was sharing food again. The wolves were back."

On the third page of script is the horrid back story. By 1926 there were no more wolves in the forty-eight states. Directors of the national parks had given the go-ahead for hunters and ranchers to kill every single wolf they saw. Reader, did you know that? (I'm assuming this is true.) Only gentle animals were allowed to roam in national parks: deer, elk, antelope.

By request from park visitors who wanted to hear the wolves howl, ten adult wolves were returned to Yellowstone in 1995. With them they caused the return of the Vesper sparrow. How? The elk herds had eaten all the grasses the bird needed for food and nesting. The wolves frightened the elk into the mountains, the grasses grew back, and the birds returned.

A similar occurrence with bison and flycatchers. When erosion stopped because grasses grew back, the beaver found willows to use to create dams and ponds and waterbirds and fish and frogs and dragonflies. The wolves thinned out the coyotes (do wolves eat coyotes?!), squirrels returned, badgers returned.

With grasses and ponds came flowers and bees and butterflies, hummingbirds.

"The wilderness is in balance again." Please ask why. Why? "The wolves are back."

If all this seems simplistic, please remember this is a children's story with information made approachable for children. Pleasing story and breathtaking artwork combined, children will love this book. I know because the classes I read to absolutely loved it, proving that romance with wolves extends beyond age barriers!

The illustrations are just as heart-inspiring and poetic as the script. I wish I could tell you what artistic technique Minor used, but I don't know what he used or how. Close examination shows individual hair strokes on the wolves and all the other animals. The variety of greens on the rolling hills and fields is simply breathtaking. Amazing!

Don't miss this beautiful book! It's not just for children!

Cypress knees advantage

2010-05-29T07:21:00.000-05:00

Early morning on the bayou, algae and all!

Now a close-up of cypress knees!
This morning I found a mysterious, single duck egg just pretty much laying around. No ducks, male or female, in attendance, just one abandoned duck egg!

Addendum 3: Oh happy day! Success!

2010-05-28T09:48:00.001-05:00

The saga continues--oh happy day, Mallard Number Three was allowed to join the close-knit group!! Frankly, I was delighted and relieved to see that Mallard Three was back in the covey, swimming guard over his future eggs, his future children. It was his right! First in, then out. Then demanding back in!

I went down below to work again in my garden yesterday. I heard them chatting away, swimming parallel along the bank toward my yard and landing. I couldn't see them because of the stand of trees, but when they swam past those and into the open--oh I almost whooped for joy. All four males and Mama-Duck-to-be! Three mallards and the White Duck. I wonder how the situation was resolved. The BLue Heron? A quiet agreement among gentlemen? Justice prevailed, nevertheless--or what seems like justice to me.

On Saturday, Third Mallard was part of the group, then not part of the group on Sunday. On Monday, he tried and tried and was rejected and rejected from rejoining the group. On Tuesday, he LOUDLY demaded his justice! If not with men, then with ducks! Oh happy day! On Thursday, he's back in!

Addendum 2: Try, try again, screeching and hollering!

2010-05-27T12:05:00.000-05:00

Third mallard is still trying to reclaim his post as third/second/first mater with Mama-Duck-to-be. Yesterday, he made an effort to rejoin his group, but was chased away. Today (Tuesday), oh my goodness. That mallard was screaming and quacking and pitching a furor over his loss, his line of progeny. He rasied a ruckus today!!! He let everyone, both up and down the bayou, both animal and human, know that he was VERY upset with the chain of command. Still, the two mallards and Cheater White Duck adamantly deflected all his claims, his efforts, his ruckus. "Go on," they told him. "You Lose!" Even the Blue Heron got into the screaming match, in support of the third mallard. No matter. Third Mallard still did not get into the Circle of Life--the four.

Know what Mama-Duck-to-be said about it all: "Whatever." What more could she say? She's just a female in a long line of females. That's the way of life for females in the wild and some in the tame.

Addendum: White duck has been accepted!!

2010-05-24T09:37:00.000-05:00

I went down below late yesterday to work a bit more in my garden and there was the crew: Mama Duck and her three suitors/maters/fathers-to-be, including the white duck. They were nestled in the grass at the top of the low bank adjoining the bayou, snoozing.

I sat in the grass to watch them awhile, when out of my perepheal vision, I saw a third mallard swimming determinedly across the bayou. At water's edge he dipped out onto land and waddled and hopped onto the ledge to join the others. Oh no, one of the settled mallards said. Who are you and what do you think you're doing? Out, out, out!

That poor mallard tried and tried to join them, but no, the others were not having him. My question is: Was he one of the original three mallards who escorted Ms Duck on Saturday? How did White Duck displace him? Was he one of the fathers? Or an interloper?

I'm not a duck, privy to duck talk and maybe will never know. Oh how devastating to be rejected! Ducks! Interesting creatures!

Duck life

2010-05-22T12:55:00.000-05:00

Down here on the bayou we have ducks, i. e. mallards and those white ducks. There are probably five mallard males to one female. I don't know the sex of the whites because males and females look identical (to me). During mating season--which I thought was over!--the mallard hen is courted and mated by as many males as other males allow. Typically, I've seen groups of three dominate and mate, then protect her until the ducklings hatch.

Today I witnessed five males, that's four mallard males and one white male, ahem, have a go at her. Since the white is not one of them, the mallard males (mm from here on) really tried to prevent this miscegenation. They failed. He held her under the water so long that I thought she would drown. But no, it all worked out. She swam for the edge, climbed up on a log and started preening and shaking her tail feathers. Oh, yes, she did. Each of the males gathered near her and also preened and kind of stood in the water, flapping their wings as if bragging. (All of this is human interpretation.)

I didn't get my camera until mating was over, so I missed that part. Here is a series of photos which tell the story....after!

2010-05-12T23:11:00.000-05:00

Some of the most amazing flowers blossomed this spring in my yard and pots. These gorgeous lilies are one example. Their rich and vivid color are simply breathtaking, so much that I put this picture as my cell wallpaper and now here in a post.

I haven't gotten into the dirt yet (with its healing powers) because I have spent so long raking and bagging 50 bags of leaves and pollen droppings from the huge pin oak tree in the front yard. Then I had to go "down below" and pull out the layer of weeks covering my back yard below the deck and next to the bayou. I'm told that the bayou was once the Red River now diverted and reduced to bayou status. Whatever, I love it and the huge cypress tree that grows just inside the depths of the water.

I witnessed two sets of ducks--three males and one female in each set--mate in my yard. It wasn't pleasant but better than when they get her in the water and hold her head under. Such short unpleasantness produced a flock of nine ducklings. The second set of parents have not produced yet. An odd thing this year is the discovery of two abandoned duck eggs, one tucked in under some weeds next to a tiny cypress tree and the other in the open space of a cypress knee. I don't know what that was about. I also found the glass egg I set out last fall. It was tucked under a cement block along the sloping hill to the bayou. I have to walk uneven-legged on this yard. Mowing is quite the adventure as well!

There's a blue heron that fishes the banks and squawks and flies off when I appear. Two white egrets, but not together, also live and work along the banks. Birds do not have an easy life. In our neighborhood there are these half-breed pigeon/doves that mixed blood sometime back, creating huge breasts and ringed necks. Robins deck the front yard. One befriended me last year when I was still digging a new flower bed. I tossed him all the grubs I found. He blessed me (I think).

My vegetable garden is next. I'm a little late but I will plant accordingly.

Distortions and hammers on ordinary blogs

2010-05-04T15:04:00.004-05:00

" I know a woman reviewer on Amazon that will write about her feelings, about books, products, with such insight- but humiliate you, in comments deliberately seek to inflame, distort, she was nicknamed for this "the hammer," she has commented on my mothering, teaching, life, goes onto and into characters I would think to carry on her strange dichotomous relating."

The above is taken from a recent blog by a woman who is the very model of twisting, distorting, inflaming because at her core is a very angry and vengeful woman. She has written and written and written about me--mostly inflamatory and distorted things, seizing on half-truths to twist them into something totally different.

Her latest little ditty is to brand me "the hammer." The most amazing thing is that she took this term out of context to make it become what she wanted to say about me. I reviewed a hammer on Amazon because I review home improvement products. One of my Amazon friends dubbed me "Hammer Judy," a name meant in fondness. This angry blogger believes that I attack her out of the blue when in actuality she always attacks first. Have I attacked her? Of course. Have I said negative things about her? Of course. When attacked, I do often respond (not a wise thing, especially in this case). Does she EVER mention that I apologized publicly and that she has never apologized for a single thing! She even believes that she was right to attack me. Oh brother!

I first met her as a reviewer on Amazon. She wrote insightful, amazing reviews and I--oh woe!--befriended her. I paid hell for that friendship eventually with thousands of negative votes and long, long notes that attacked me personally and all my circle of friends. Why? No one could ever figure out what would set her off or ticked her tail! She has an uncanny ability take my words, twist and distort them and use them to attack me!. To read her comments, one would think every word she writes is true--and I would have believed her if her comments hadn't been against me. That's how I know what she writes is half-filled with poison and half with the truth. Therein lies the problem: How does one distinguish between her reality and her delusions? Answer: with difficulty! She will also take things I say and incorporate them into her rants as if subsuming my qualities. Strange...

Foolish me, I befriended her twice--after a long cooling down period and because she began to respond to the reviews of a mutual friend who was always kind to her. Foolish, foolish me. This time what caused her to implode was that mutual friend's very negative review of a book both she and I love. Her response to him was very personal, very negative, and far too extreme. Then she wanted me to choose her or him. I chose him. I paid again with hostility and twisted comments, things that just make one's mouth hang open with the orneriness and downright sickness behind the words.

I'm finally responding to her latest round of attacks on me, twisting a term of fondness into one of hatefulness. I am "the Hammer,' and I'm striking this blow for myself.

Addendum: There's much more to this story--there's always more, it seems--but dealing with this person is a no-win situation in that she does not "hear" the other side--merely her own blown almost beyond recognition. I was married to a person who, when wrong, would vociferously take whatever the situation and twist it to create a horrific verbal attack of unequal proportions in order to hide his own wrong. I thought he was the only person like that-- until now.

Cleaning out winter!

2010-05-02T00:09:00.001-05:00

After an incredibly cold winter with freeze after freeze I could not imagine anything coming up this spring. But look! Entire clusters of dianthiuses! The irises have already bloomed. You know they are the only plant not to drop leaves. Instead, they just curl in on themselves, self fertilizing. Let's see what else we have...

A little wider view of the front bed. There was a magnolia tree growing smack dab next to the driveway when I moved in seven years ago. I had it cut down! Magnolia trees--the state tree of Louisiana-- are beautiful. The lemony aroma of the creamy yellow and white flowers is just remarkable. But oh! What a mess those trees make all year long. Two years ago I dug and dug to remove the stump and these long horizontal roots which fed toadstools all the time. What a job--it lasted one and one-half years getting those roots out! But the flower garden I created is so worth it. These are the plants that came up for the first time. I've done nothing to this garden except remove dead leaves from a neighbor's pin oak tree.

This is my back garden. I call it my English garden because it is small and dotted with hostas and azaleas. Well, I don't know what makes an English garden, but it feels like one. I just started cleaning out winter here. But look at the amazing hosta leaves! It is a mystery why the size of the leaves tripled in size. But I'm pleased!

Every spring these vivid yellow flowers spring up from this ground cover. When they finish blooming, I'll go round and pluck them off. The entire stem comes right off without damaging the new plant that grows at the bottom and continues on into the fall. One of God's amazing creations!

Will "the book" die?

2010-03-02T07:43:00.009-06:00

(Note: This is an ongoing work in progress. I apologize for the inconvenience...)

Will the book--the printed word-- die?

This question has been roiling in my head for a couple of weeks now. Because I am a school librarian, such a question would concern me. (Even if I weren't a librarian, I am concerned.)

Before I get to the topic at hand, here's the back story. You must know--and understand--that my principal is a science person--a hands-on, lab-based, former science teacher. She brought Science Olympiad to our school. In our second year of competition our team won second place in a competition hosted by a huge private school in Texas, a competition that brings in schools from many states. This year we won first. What she cannot do, she finds people to do. She has inspired our two science teachers to excel, to go beyond one's duty. One of those teachers is 69 (my point being that age is often irrelevant). I could go on and on about this principal who was hired five years ago to take on a run-down school with low teacher morale, with discipline problems that shouldn't exist in a Catholic school, and has made it into the place to be.

I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy.
Frank Zappa

It's good to find a quote like the above to include in a blog about the death knell of books, don't you think? It's good that they (books) still exist--still, definition: "Verb, 1. stand still - remain in place; hold still; remain fixed or immobile." Is the concept of a book static, fixed? Does it "remain in place"? Ponder those words a minute.

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.
Christopher Morley (1890 - 1957)

If a book is "still," can it cause the reader to "fall in love"? Seems contradictory, now doesn't it? One holds a book in hand, one engages with the words, the symbols of thought from the author, the gift-giver. The reader soars, or dips, or dives, or paddles, or coasts, or laps, or zips, or roars. It's a swim. It's a flight. It's a trip of some kind. Ah, do you ever notice that very moment when your mind engages with the creative momentum of the author? It's really divine. I mean that literally.


How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

During the summer before I entered the eighth grade, I had read all the books in the children's section of my local library I planned to read: all the dog books, the fairy tales, the Poohs and Wonderlands, the horse books, the Nancy Drews. (I'm a Boomer. There were no lovely children's illustrated books as exist today.) I wandered to the adult section. No alarms sounded. No lights flashed. I was surprised. I found Gone With the Wind, my first adult novel. I practically read non-stop. Then I found Exodus, even more adult. This young woman, still a girl really, entered a new era of her life from those two books. What came next, odd, I don't remember, but Thoreau certainly had it right.

Which in some odd way takes me back to my principal. A couple of weeks ago she said to me that Kindle and other ebooks would take the place of libraries, that libraries were on their way out. Frankly, she said, she would be glad to see the end of physical books because they take up so much space after one reads them. She has boxed up all her books, she said, and stored them in the garage.
Was I indignant? Did I fire back with the irrefutable proof of the living and pulsing and vibrant concept of books, as well as their physical allotment of space? No, I didn't. I didn't defend books at all. I was, well, I was speechless. Could someone really say that books and libraries were dying?

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)



Wonder what my principal would say if she ever wandered through my house? There is at least one bookcase in every room, including hallways, laundry room, and bathroom. In the main rooms bookcases line the walls. I also have stacks of books everywhere. Yes, it's a big clutter of books, but I love having my friends all around me. I pretty much know where everything is and can locate a particular book fairly quickly. Box them up? Not a chance!


Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.
Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972)

I've been reading books by Ryszard Kapucsinski, a Polish journalist, who traveled the Third World reporting on the human condition via wars, transitions of power, military juntas, soccer games, Herodotus. The first ball of light he gave me was through his book, Travels with Herodotus. The book was fabulous, literally and figuratively. Rather than summarize my thoughts on his book, here is the link to my review: Judy's review of Travels with Herodotus. The second illumination came from The Other, in which the journalist shows the reader, cogently, what it is like to be "the other," an unspoken term that blithely and--like a blight--coats our daily language--if only we were aware. I also reviewed it: My review

Although I remain very fond of Travels (it was my first meeting with Ryszard), I most learned from Imperium, his profound, imminently readable, quotable, and digestible book (in that it is "food" for thought). The history of the Soviet Union: its rise and fall, was utterly interesting, informative, shocking, riveting--a year's worth of reading in one book, a full curricula of study. I was mesmerized. Again, here is the link to my review: Review of Imperium.

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations - such is a pleasure beyond compare. ~Kenko Yoshida

This quote summarizes the physical act of reading. Lamplight, book before you. If you're a reader, you immediately connected with the quote. If not,






(more to come--

The subject is cats and addiction...

2010-02-04T00:39:00.012-06:00

Meet my Saints Who Dat Cat!! I sew a line of kitties from McCall's pattern M5259. I have about 20 of these in various colors and patterns. More are shown below:

Saints Who Dat Kitty!!

LSU Tiger Kitty

St. Patrick's Kitty (one of my favorites)

Valentine Kitty who had a tatoo put on her leg in support of the Saints!!

Valentine Kitty 2

Laundry Kitty (this is maye my favorite)

Mardi Gras Kitty with yellow bowtie

Mardi Gras Kitty with Mask and Beads Legs

Favorite lines from favorite poems

2010-01-01T08:39:00.001-06:00

Twitter: I was just thinking of this: favorite lines from favorite poems. Here they are:

"The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

Had to set down the entire poem. I had such fun with this poem as an English teacher in another life. I used it as a basis for descriptive writing.

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" by Walt Whitman
I was mesmerized by the beauty of Whitman's word choice for this poem I read for an assignment in college. That memory is one permanently etched in my mind like the day of JFK's assassination.

OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot,

Almost any Emily Dickinson poem:
Here's one stanza:

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

"Mending Wall" by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

"The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot (my favorite poem)

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Just the first few lines of this long, convoluted, historical, symbolic, archetypal poem will suffice to introduce a rich rich poem in the pantheon of American literature. (although Eliot was an expatriate).

A continuing post...

New Year's Resolutions

2010-01-01T00:36:00.000-06:00

A common theme has run throughout my life: aloneness, sometimes accompanied by loneliness, sometimes by bitterness, sometimes by frustration. It seems I've always been alone. I'm the wallflower that you didn't know. On the outside I smile and flit here to there. Her lonely? No way! She's too bubbly. Only on the outside. Sometimes inside. Mostly alone.

I always wanted to be a writer until I discovered I have no story in me, except this one: A young woman, so desparately alone, is finally committed to a rest place, an asylum, a sanctuary, free from being pulled apart, to begin her real life--found in books. Isn't that sad?

Instead, I have words and put them to use in writing about other people, at least until I started blogging. Now all kinds of personal stuff boils out of me, mainly because I know not many (any?) people read my blog. I feel too sorry for myself. Where's my joy?

So, New Year's resolutions! Make any? I never do because it is all so futile.

1. Pray again. Be spiritually connected again. I have such childish views of God. My mother doesn't attend church because she is so hard of hearing. It would all be just buzz in a church, so she watches church TV every Sunday. One week a pastor fervently asked his audience to pray, really pray for one special thing, a very personal, special thing to prove that God answers prayers. My mother is a voracious reader and was gradually losing her eyesight to cataracts. Her doctor would not perform that surgery until her blood pressure went down. For two LONG years she struggled with medication, diet, rest, exercise, everything, but it remained too high for him. When she prayed for her surgery, that's when she had us call another doctor, who saw her, and promptly set the date for the first procedure, then the second. Now it is done and she sees again! No doubt, God answered her prayer or set things in motion for it to be answered!

So, I've been saving my special prayer until I knew exactly what would be special for me. Here it is: a new job. No more children. No more lesson plans (which I don't write anyway). No more discipline (a problem I utterly hate dealing with). Just a new job that pays the same meager amount I'm making now. That's my prayer--a new job, having nothing to do with schools.

2. Unclutter. Been working on it. Seems I get nowhere, but I'm so far from where I started that I know I have accomplished so much. So far yet to go.

3. Diet and exercise. The age-old problem of gaining weight and not exercising. When spring comes again, I can work in my yard, hauling and lifting, digging and carrying on in the yard. Great exercise! Diet by eating properly and proportionately!

4. Force myself to keep in contact with people. I am becoming a hermit.

5. That's a good start. That's enough.

Cadie's new clothes!

2009-12-28T13:26:00.000-06:00

Everyone in my family loved my Christmas pictures of Cadie so much, I am going to share them!

New clothes!

I can get it off the hanger!

Really!

Oh no, she's gonna try 'em on!

Cadie, don't take off your clothes!

OK, lean on me!

Now the other leg...

The arms...

Oh, how pretty!

I'm shy again.

Our Savior Is born

2009-12-24T23:19:00.000-06:00

http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/Jesus-Birth.htm

I was looking for a Bible verse to use when I found this website comparing the stories of the birth of Christ as related in Matthew and Luke. The article cites similarities in the two versions and then differences. Even as a struggling seeker of religious faith, I have no problem with conflicting stories in the Word of God, for I do not see them as conflicting, but as parallel, as another slant to the same story. Who ever tells identical stories is actually revealing coordination. The differences lend credence to the authenticity of the Bible.

Christ was born. Jesus lived and was crucified. He accepted his role. It seems an escape clause when we say we are not meant to understand the ways of God, to simply accept by faith. Obedience is required. Humility. Submission. Questioning. I've already stepped out of the circle. Control issues bother me. The garden and the forbidden fruit--the first of the obedience tests, yet the questioning, the choice of Will over submission that occurred so early in the human story.

Ah, but I digress. I came here to celebrate the birth of Christ and the beauty of forgiveness and salvation. A new life. A pure life. With a very old soul, the oldest inside. Wisdom. Peace.

May the Spirit of God be with you every minute during this time of family togetherness. It wasn't easy for Mary and Joseph and it may not be for us, but we have the Spirit of Christ with us, in us. May God also grant you a properous New Year.

And please check out this website: http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/Jesus-Birth.htm

The Beauty of Shreveport

2009-12-23T13:31:00.001-06:00

Visitors and others in love with the beauty of nature comment every year that Shreveport is one of the most beautiful places in the world during the spring. Mostly reasonable temperatures, fairly frequent rains, and a slight humidity contribute to a climate conducive to engendering the birth of flowers--of every variety (or close to it!)

In my one little corner under a giant cedar tree (which drops its little needle-leaves all year), here are some shots of what grew this summer. It only took me five years to reach this point, but I oohed and aahed all summer into fall until the first freeze.

SHREVEPORT, LA by Eric Brock

2009-12-21T10:35:00.001-06:00

Mention Eric J. Brock’s name in Shreveport and almost anyone can identify him as “the history guy.” Local history has been his passion since he was a child, so compiling this book of photographs, Shreveport, La, detailing the history of Shreveport for the Images of America was a work of love.

“Shreveport was born about the same time as photography,” is the first sentence, but Brock laments the lack of early photographs. The ones that make up this book come largely from his own collection, which began with several early photos shot by Bill Grabill of Grabill Studios, founded by his father in 1918.

History has a way of beginning auspiciously. Capt. Henry Miller Shreve, one of the most influential navigators of the 19th century, invented what he called a snagboat which broke up logjams. The Red River in the 1830’s was beset by a 180-mile logjam. Once this jam was opened, the area now known as Shreveport was right on a crosshairs path for prosperity: located where the area meets the old Texas Trail (roughly Interstate 20 today) and Red River, then as now open to river traffic to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.

Capt. Shreve and his company established the westernmost city in the United States in 1836 with Shreve Town, later renamed Shreveport. Shreve himself never lived here, choosing St. Louis instead.
As Brock points out, Shreveport has always been a city of contradictions, e.g., a city of many religious structures, but home to the largest (and legal) redlight district in the nation in its time.
In addition to a number of photographs of the logjam, an early photograph shows the first mayor, John Octavius Sewall in 1839, oddly enough, a native of Maine.

Exemplifying Shreveport’s early religious diversity is a photo showing parts of St. Mary’s Convent, B’nai Zion Temple, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, and First Methodist Church. Only the convent is no longer in existence; all others extant.

If you ever go through one of the museums in New Orleans depicting the cotton and paddleboat industry, you will see something similar to this photo of men standing over their cotton bales (c1880), waiting for their transfer to steamboats to New Orleans. Caddo Parish was the largest producer of cotton in Louisiana during the 19th century.

An early engraving shows tar being burned to fight the yellow fever plague of 1873, during which time the city’s population was reduced by 25 percent.

A photograph marks the grave of Mary Doal Cilley Cane, “the Mother of Shreveport,” the first white woman who set foot in Shreveport. She founded Cane City, later renamed Bossier City, just across Red River from Shreveport, and was married to two of Shreveport’s founders, William Smith Bennett and James Huntington Cane.

Brock includes an impressive array of old, most now demolished, a few still standing, imposing residences built in downtown Shreveport. One which caught my eye is the E.B. Herndon house located at 947 Jordan St., site of of my school, St. John Berchmans Catholic School. The original Herndon House was built in 1875, remodeled in 1897 with a second story addition, then demolished and St. John’s built.

Truman Capote’s father, Arch Persons, lived in Shreveport, and is shown with little Truman Persons on his lap. The writer later took his stepfather’s name. Another person of note is Van Cliburn, one of the nation’s–and world’s– premiere pianists, shown in concert with adoring female fans hugging the stage-top.

A very historic photograph is this one: the roof garden of the Washington-Youree Hotel in 1924. Perry Como made his radio debut from here. In its heyday the hotel took up three-fourths of a city block, had seven restaurants and a multitude of other shops and amenities. The hotel was imploded in 1980.
The final two photos show Brock’s vision of Shreveport. One is a 1920s view of Betty Virginia Park, typifying “the natural beauty” of Shreveport, its “beautiful, lush foliage and tranquil scenery.” The other is modern–angles and verticals of buildings downtown, which Brock calls, “the heart of Shreveport both spiritually and economically.”

The Ugly Duckling

2009-12-12T01:07:00.000-06:00

In a talk to a high school fine arts class, the local symphony conductor told a story about his neighbors. When their daughter came to babysit, he asked if her parents were going to the symphony performance. "Oh, they've already seen this one," she replied. He was surprised, he told the class, because each conductor and orchestra have a different take on the interpretation of the music. To prove his point, he played--via cassette tape-- three different versions of one movement from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and discussed with the class those differences.

All this is background to the reason why someone would create another "version" of an established fairy tale. Dear Reader, this is a version of "The Ugly Duckling" you will want for your very own children, classroom, or library. It is gorgeous! Even better, the storyteller, Stephen Mitchell, has added elements not found in the original story by Han Christian Andersen. Illustrators Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher also show us a new way of seeing. Just as that conductor demonstrated with music, each writer and illustrator "sees" the story in a slightly different way. In this book that way is remarkably different.

The question is: Is this "Ugly Duckling" worthy enough for print? Walker Books (publishers) thought so in 2008 when they published this version. Let's examine it for ourselves.

1. The illustrations are simply eye-popping. Once you stuff those eyeballs back in their sockets, take a close look at the texture and patterns on every page, especially duckling's feathers. There are swirls and twists, criss-crosses that resemble a type of lace. Extraordinary! Inquisitive children love to look all over the place in an illustration just to test their knowledge of things. It's Field Day here!

2. The author also adds his take on events. This is my favorite. It concerns mother duck, who is initially disappointed to find a huge egg that takes too long to hatch. Later, when neighbors in the barnyard say snitty things about her "ugly" child, she defends him: "He may not be pretty, but he has a very good heart. He's kind and considerate, and that's worth at least as much as good looks." There is a return to this theme at the end of the story for a wrap-around effect. I like that very much!

(I cannot help but look at all these illustrations as I turn the pages. How long did it take to create all these patterns then tediously draw each all over the place?)

This is one of those books I found on the discount table at a local bookstore. Why in the world would THIS book be discounted? Anyway, I bought it with my own money with the idea of giving it to the library where I work. However, some books attach to my heart and make me keep them. "The Ugly Duckling" will now join my Olivia series and the Fabian and Hondo books, Mirrette and her high wire, among other books special to me. Yes, it is definitely worthy.