All posts by Abby

Book groups, Children's literature

Castaways of the Flying Dutchman

Yesterday’s 5th Grade Book Group book was Brian Jacques’ Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, a book that had been recommended by one of the group members.  Though I started out not liking the book much, by the end I was hooked by its vivid writing, great characters, and unique premise.  Divided into three unequal sections, the story begins with a young mute boy who winds up on the ill-fated ship The Flying Dutchman as he escapes from his cruel stepbrothers.  This first section of the book sets the stage for the boy’s future: when an angel condemns the captain and crew of the ship to wander the world for all eternity, that same angel spares the boy and his dog, granting them eternal life and youth in exchange for their helping those in the world who are in need.  Dog and boy are also granted the ability to speak and communicate with each other. 

The second small section of the novel covers the time that Neb (the boy, who later calls himself Ben) and Den (the dog, who later calls himself Ned) live with a poor shepherd in South America.  Neb and Den bring joy and love to Luis’s life, and though he dies a few short years after they arrive at his cottage, the angel tells them that they gave Luis the happiest years of his life.  Mission accomplished, time to move on.

The largest section of the book is the third, which fastforwards a couple of hundred years to an English village that has been threatened with destruction by an unscrupulous man who wishes to raze all of the homes and open a limestone factory.  Now called Ben, the boy and the dog, now called Ned wander on to the scene when they both feel called to the place (surely guided by the angel).  In my opinion, this chunk of the story is by far the best, as Ben and Ned work with the villagers to defeat the evil developer and to prove that the villagers own their properties.  Following clues in an ancient scavenger hunt, they work as a team to solve the mystery of where the deed to the village has been hidden, and of course Ben and Ned make many wonderful friends in the process.

There is a happy ending, but also a sad ending: the developer is thwarted and defeated, but Ben and Ned must move on just as the happiness begins, driven on to their next destination by the angel’s ringing of a bell, unable to bid goodbye to their new friends or to even pick up Ben’s rucksack before leaving.  Jacques has written two sequels to this adventure, which I’m anxious to read (and ashamed to admit were missing from our library’s collection).

As always, the real question here is: what did the book group think of the book?  Though more than half of the book group members hadn’t come close to finishing the book, we were still able to have a terrific conversation about it.  Surprising.  The kids who had read the whole book were gushingly enthusiastic about it, and some of those who hadn’t finished it were inspired to renew their copies and take them home once again.  (I suspect that those kids who didn’t read the entire book simply ran out of time, because the writing is denser than any of our recent books.)  In discussing the book, we teased out the reason that Jacques put Ben and Ned on The Flying Dutchman, made connections to movies and books (like Pirates of the Caribbean and Tuck Everlasting), and shared the bits of the story that we liked best.  There were no earth-shattering revelations in our book discussion, but it was lively and fun, and the kids proved once again that they have matured and grown into an excellent and intelligent book group. 

And if you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it.  It’s not often that I do that!

Blog administration

More news soon…

Between doing the taxes and tutoring three nights a week and preparing for storytimes and book groups and attending the Joe Jackson concert a week ago, I simply haven’t had the time to write a post recently.  But I do promise to put up a new post tomorrow evening, since the 5th grade book group will be over by then (I need to finish reading that book tonight). 

I know that if I had more time available to me I’d still find ways to fill it, but it really does feel like there just isn’t enough time to do everything that I want to do. 

Etc.

Premiere!

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Tonight is premiere night for my sister Jean!  She is the writer and director of the documentary 1:47, which will be getting the full red carpet treatment tonight at its world premiere.

To learn more about 1:47, visit Jean’s blog.  Scroll down to her March 30 post to follow a link to a television interview that she did about the project.

Good luck, Jean!!  I’m so proud of you and really wish I could be there tonight!!

Pop culture, Spare time - Culture

American Idol

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Yup, it’s true – I do still watch American Idol.  Why not.  And this season has been pretty great so far.  I’m blown away by the number of talented singers this year, and by the fact that there aren’t any singers who make you cringe and shake your fist at the screen.

I’m hard pressed to make any predictions of who might win, since the contest truly seems to be a week-to-week thing, but I will list my personal favorites – the contestants who I’d like to see continue on to the end:  Michael, David A., David C., Carly, and Brooke.  So if those guys can hang on to the final five, I’ll be psyched.

And now I’ve got to stop writing, since George Clooney is due up on the Today show…

Children's literature, Spare time - Culture

Reading

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Back in fifth grade, I was very competitive with my best friend Heather.  Heather always did just a bit better on spelling tests, and she was a much faster reader than I was.  I vividly remember sitting at our round four-person table in our semi-open classroom (it was the seventies, baby) during reading time, one eye on how fast Heather was turning her pages and the other eye on my own page.  My goal was to keep up, but man was it hard.  I knew I was losing threads of the story in my effort to keep pace with Heather.

And today I still struggle with my reading speed.  I prefer to read slowly and savor a writer’s choice of words, but that takes time.  There are only so many hours in a week that are available for me to read, and there are times (like last evening) when I feel very pressured to just get through the book.  (Last night’s book was the choice for today’s teen book group, I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter, which I loved despite having to gobble it down in one sitting.)

I’ve been following Roger Sutton’s admonitions to lovers of children’s literature recently on his blog, and I do totally understand his thinking.  We should be reading adult literature as well as children’s literature – we should be retaining that intellectual balance in our reading lives.  But how??  I’d wager that Roger Sutton has time in his work day for reading children’s literature (it just makes sense that the editor of the Horn Book would be allowed time to read on the job), and then he can use his off hours for reading adult books.  I don’t have that luxury in my role working in a very busy children’s room.  And then, three days a week, I leave my main job and toddle off to my second job tutoring.  And then, after I get home from tutoring and eat dinner, there is always a stack of children’s books waiting for me that I MUST read.  Most are for the weekly book groups that I run at the library, and a few are children’s books that are so popular with the kids that I know I need to read them to see what they’re all about.  And then too, there are the other parts of life that need to be lived: concerts, walks in the sunshine, household chores, quality time with the spouse.

I miss my old friends Jane Austen and Henry James and Thomas Hardy, but I can’t seem to make time for them anymore.  I know I’ll never be a faster reader, and I doubt that I’ll ever have the extra time available.  What’s a girl to do??

Storytime

Storytime update

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After several months of teaching myself new approaches to storytimes, I’m finally hitting my stride with both the Toddler and Infant storytimes.  It’s taken a lot of hard work, and I’ll admit to getting myself fairly worked up and stressed out about these two storytimes in the early months, but I’ve managed to find my own rhythm for each.

I’m still using Storytimes for Two Year Olds by Judy Nichols as my starting point for the toddler storytimes.  Nichols’ book contains a huge amount of useful information, suggestions, activities, and book suggestions, but she masterfully leaves enough room for the reader to add his or her own personality and ideas.  As I’ve become comfortable with the format and the age group, I’ve started to make each storytime my own.  Rather than depend on Nichols’ book suggestions (most of which are not in my library’s collection), I’ve found books that are in our collection that work beautifully with toddlers.  Instead of always using her suggested fingerplays and songs, I’ve pulled in some from Hugh Hanley’s collection that are more fun and less forced.

And, most importantly, I’ve mastered the art of using the flannelboard to tell stories.  Last week I premiered my masterpiece (so far, hopefully there will be more masterpieces to come): a full set of flannelboard figures for Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle.  It took me several hours to complete the figures, but they’re pretty fantastic, and the kids loved the story when it was told in that graphic format.  Happily, too, I had the foresight to make the figures on my own time, with my own supplies, so they belong to me and not to the library, and can go with me wherever my future might take me.  Wise, wise, wise – I left far too many materials behind when I left my last job.

And Betsy Diamant-Cohen’s Mother Goose on the Loose curriculum has made the infant storytimes a breeze.  Now that I’ve been using the MGOL format for a few months, I’m finding that the kids and parents who regularly attend are relishing MGOL’s predictable repetition, and we are having a real blast together.  And Jennifer has started up a Wednesday morning session of MGOL, which hopefully will build and grow just as the Tuesday session has. 

Now that I’ve reached a level of comfort with these two storytimes, and now that I’ve built up a library of materials and lesson plans, I feel like I can relax more and enjoy each storytime more than before.  And, I’m left with more free mental energy to use for ordering books.  It’s all good, all very positive.

Young adult book review

And the vortex spits me out again…

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A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer, and I praised the series for being fun and engrossing – for pulling me into its vortex.  Ah, the difference three books makes. 

I’ve now read all three published books in the series (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse), and reached the point of not wanting to ever read another word about these characters.  Maybe I overdosed by reading all three books in a two and a half week span, but I think that’s being generous. 

So here are a few of my harsh criticisms of the series, which are bound to make me some enemies:

  • Bella is annoying.  Very, very annoying.  The girl never seems to grow, change, or develop in any way: the Bella we meet on the first page of the first book is the same Bella that we leave on the 650-th page of the third book.   
  • Meyer overuses two words to the point of nauseum:  “grimaced” and “smirked.”  Can’t her characters engage in any other facial expressions than these two?
  • Speaking of repetition, why does Bella always have to a) pass out or b) be so exhausted that someone has to pick her up and physically carry her?  I can see this happening once in a while, but I’ve lost count of the number of times Bella is carried around in the books.
  • And, yes, more repetition:  Edward habitually takes Bella’s face between his two hands in order to gaze into her eyes.  Over and over and over again this happens.  Gag.
  • Then there is the surplus of Important Relationship Discussions in these books.  How tedious.  You’d think that after a year of dating, Edward and Bella would be tired of only discussing their starry-eyed feelings for each other.  Can’t they ever go bowling together?  Or watch T.V. together?  Or something???
  • Edward, by the way, is about the dullest hero to appear on the pages of a romance.  Yawn.
  • And then the stylistic quibble:  Meyer is a clumsy writer.  She tells, rather than shows, and writes copious amounts of prose where half as much would do.

My problems with the books lead me to make two conclusions:  these books are decisively sexist, and very much aimed at a young teenage female reader who has yet to experience a relationship of any depth or commitment.  Why sexist?  Because Bella consistently passes out, has to be carried, and needs Protection from her adoring male admirers (and occasionally from the rest of the vampires and werewolfs).  Yes, some of the other vampires are female, but our attention is focused on Bella, and Bella is a stupid, helpless, fainting female who can’t take care of herself and manages to bungle things up on a regular basis.  About all that Bella can handle doing is cooking dinners for her father, who, despite many years of living on his own, can’t seem to cook anything besides eggs.

As for the intended reader, I readily admit that I do NOT fall into the intended reader category.  I’m middle-aged, cynical, and happily married.  But I’d like to argue that that shouldn’t matter.  Even if the books are aimed at starry-eyed young female readers, Meyer could still add a bit of punch to her plots and backbone to Bella.  She could take her characters from that wonderful first fizzy phase of their relationship into a deeper, more realistic, established relationship.  Edward and Bella could, and should, move on and grow and change.  Meyer wouldn’t lose her teen audience if they did.

Now that I’ve left the magnetic pull of these books behind, I seriously doubt that I’ll bother reading the fourth one when it is published this summer.  I feel like I’ve lost the last couple of weeks to reading the series, and don’t want to waste any more time on them.  On to other, hopefully better, books! 

Storytime

That ol’ ego

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My ego took a major beating this morning.  Major.  During today’s “Mother Goose on the Loose” program, there was one child who kept crying – not constantly crying, but intermittently crying.  Head down on the floor, hands over the ears, absolutely miserable crying.  About half-way through the storytime, I realized that she only cried when I was singing.  When I was reading a story, or doing a fingerplay, she still looked a bit grumpy and out of sorts, but she didn’t cry.  As soon as I started singing, she’d wail in agony.

Of course, I do think there was more going on here than just my singing:  the child was about four years old, far older than the other kids attending, and she had to share her mother with her little brother who is about a year old.  And, she just gave off the vibe of being generally cranky and “off” today (mom’s exasperation was palpable).  I’m guessing that she’s probably coming down with a cold or the stomach bug that has ravaged the town.

But even figuring these factors in, her crying made me very conscious of my singing for the first time in quite a while.  I’ve gotten to the point that I just go ahead and sing during my storytimes, without pausing to think about how dreadful I probably sound, and as a result my storytimes have become pretty fun and fairly popular.  If I’m not self-conscious, I can allow myself to have fun.  If I have fun, everyone else seems to follow suit.  Today, though, I had a few minutes of awkwardness as I paid total attention to myself and my performance. 

Luckily, I was able to let it go after those few minutes, and soon I was singing again with gusto.  Sure, my singing stinks, but I haven’t heard any of the moms who sing like angels, either.  Perfect voices are not what infant storytimes are all about.

Spare time - Culture, Young adult book review

Sucked in to the Twilight vortex…

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So, where have I been these last few days?  Reading, reading, reading — totally consumed by and sucked into the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer.  Over three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) I read the first two books, which comes to about 1000 pages, I think, and I have Eclipse at home waiting for me. 

This is my first paranormal romance (despite rumors to the contrary, Jim is NOT a vampire!), and I’m kind of enjoying it.  Reading Meyer’s books is a bit like eating those yummy fruit flavored Twizzler-type candies that we sometimes buy at Idylwilde: very addictive, can’t stop myself, but I feel a bit ill once I’m done.  Probably that ill feeling wouldn’t be there if I didn’t guzzle the books down in one sitting, but I have to know what’s going to happen next.

So my verdict on this series?  Compelling plot line, interesting premise, and a few excellent characters.  I have to admit to not liking Edward’s character much, though; to me, Jacob is far more appealing and well-rounded than the rather grumpy and two-dimensional Edward.  If I were Bella, I think I’d choose fun, sunny Jacob over boring Edward anyday.

After all this compulsive reading, I’m feeling a bit googly-eyed and incoherent, but it’s a good bet that I’ll be settling in with Eclipse next weekend…and then counting the months until the last book in the series is released.  They’re not great literature, but they are addictive and very, very fun.  Two thumbs up from me.