The Weekly Geeks meme this week gives a choice between two of my favorite topics in celebration of International Children's Book Day (April 2nd) and National Poetry Month: "Reading to children" and "Poetry." Option A is called "Be a Kid" and Option B is called "Be a Poet." I must combine the two to share a favorite memory of our 2-year-old daughter (now age 30) reciting poetry to her beloved Gramps.
Looking back at those years of raising our children (those years that went by with lightning speed!), B and I have recognized that if we did nothing else right in raising those two wonderful human beings, we got it absolutely right with the books and the poetry, which became part of their souls!
So turn up your sound and listen to a short, scratchy recording of our daughter reciting the nursery rhyme, "One Misty Moisty Morning", to her gramps on his 61st birthday. In this recording, she is exactly the same age as our Grandboy is now, (2 years old). Right now I am almost the same age as my Dad at the time of this recording. A poignant reminder of the passing of seasons. and as I said before, of lightning speed!
Illustration by Gustaf Tenggren
Napoli's Zel is a dark and psychological retelling for young adults. It is told in first-person narrative for each of the three main characters: Zel, Mother, and Konrad, the one who brings her love and freedom. With this type of narration, you completely understand the story behind each character, and the reasons for each character's actions. It is a story of obsessive love, abuse, and of the redemptive power of love. I listened to the audiobook version, narrated by Alexandra O'Karma, and it was a powerful rendition of a powerful story! This is not a story for young listeners/readers.
On a much lighter note, Rapunzel's Revenge, a graphic novel by Shannon Hale and her husband, Dean, was a lot of fun. Definitely in the category of a "fractured fairy tale," this graphic novel is set in the wild, wild west, and Rapunzel's long, long braided hair is used as a lasso and very effective weapon throughout the book. The humor is silly, in the best possible sense of the word, and I chuckled all the way through it. Lots of fairy tale fun from an author I always enjoy!
Robot Dreams, by Sara Varon, is a wordless graphic novel for children. Library Journal called it a "small, "simple" story of friendship and letting go..."This is another very nicely done graphic novel published by FirstSecond Books, a company with vision and a great place to start if you are just discovering the world of graphic novels. They are pulling in the best authors and artists, and their collaborative projects are terrific! I highly recommend spending some time on their web site!...A dog purchases a robot kit so that he might have a friend to hang out with. The robot, a mellow type, enjoys hanging out with the dog, eating popcorn, watching movies, and going to the library. A trip to the beach, however, turns out to be a less than stellar idea when the robot goes swimming only to rust up and find that it can no longer move. The dog goes home for the night, intending to take the robot along later. Unfortunately, the beach is closed the next day and the poor robot is stuck on the sand, dreaming of things both good and bad. As the months go by, both robot and dog have their own small adventures, real and unreal. By the end, however, they each find new and separate companions. The last image in the book is of the robot seeing the dog with another robot, and understanding that this is a case when you’ve just got to let the person you love go.
Poe was a performer who only knew how to play
Publisher's Comments:The Fairy Rebel, by Lynne Reid Banks, was sitting on the shelf at the library when I stopped by to pick up some books for my classroom last week. I was familiar with LRB because I had read her book, The Indian in the Cupboard, many years ago, so I brought this home to read hoping that it would be something I could read aloud to my second graders. It's actually written more for intermediate readers, and after reading it I thought it would be perfect for fourth or fifth graders.
The Fairy Queen strictly forbids fairies from using their magic power on humans. But after Tiki accidentally meets Jan, a woman who is desperate for a baby daughter, she finds it impossible to resist fulfilling her wish. Now up against the dark and vicious power of evil, this fairy rebel must face the Queen’s fury with frightening and possibly fatal results.
I was immediately captured by this pink-haired, blue jeans-wearing, kindhearted rebel fairy, Tiki, and her elf friend, Wijic. It was fun to think of the world of faerie being right in your own backyard, and the chance encounter that brought all the characters together happening as Jan was sitting in her own garden.
B and I just finished a college course called "Classics of British Literature." No, we didn't have to register and go to classes during the week. We bought this class from The Teaching Company, and have enjoyed watching these lectures (48 of them) in the comfort of our own home, usually while we ate a bowl of sherbet after dinner one or two evenings a week. Each lecture was 30 minutes long, the lecturer was John Sutherland, and the course was a grand introduction to British literature from the earliest roots to the present.More than just a survey course, Classics of British Literature shows you how Britain's cultural landscape acted upon its literature—and how, in turn, literature affected the cultural landscape. Professor Sutherland takes a historical approach to the wealth of works explored in these lectures, grounding them in specific contexts and, oftentimes, connecting them with one another.We enjoyed the course very much, and were proud of ourselves for completing it. We didn't have homework and weren't required to read specific things before and after each lecture, although we could have! The list of works of literature discussed is extensive and would keep us reading for years and years! We simply enjoyed his lectures, many of them on some of our favorite authors and books. And we learned a lot!
While it is vital that we appreciate the universal and transcendent quality of literature, according to Professor Sutherland, we also need to appreciate "as fully as one can, the conditions that gave birth to these works of literature; to reinsert them, that is, back into history."
The end result is not a laundry list of famous works but instead a mosaic of Britain's history as revealed through the individual threads of its most revered literary masterpieces. Throughout the course, you discover how each work is linked to others that have come before it—whether building on its predecessors' work or casting it aside to challenge readers and audiences with new ways of understanding a changing world.
Library Thing has a fun feature -- it's called their "Legacy Libraries," which are lists of the personal libraries of famous readers. It's interesting to look at those lists and compare them to the books you have on your own Library Thing list. It's really interesting to see which books you have read in common with those famous readers!
photo by Andre Kertesz
Raven and the First MenHaida culture is fascinating and these stories are short and fun to read. Raven, the trickster, is the central character in this mythology, and in the first story he's the one responsible for releasing the sun from a small box and for making the stars and the moon.Haida Gwaii, the islands of the People, lie equidistant from Luxor, Machu Picchu, Ninevah and Timbuktu. On the white man's maps, where every islet and scrap of land, uninhabited or otherwise, lies now in the shadow of somebody's national flag, and is named for preference after a monarch or a politician, Haida Gwaii are shown as the westernmost extremity of Canada, and they are named not for the Haida, who have always lived there, nor for the Raven, who somewhat inadvertently put them there, but for a woman who never saw them. Her name was Sophie Charlotte von Mecklenburg-Strelitz, but the British called her simply Queen Charlotte, for she was the wife of the Mad King of England, George III.
So the Raven, who often likes to call a rose a skunk cabbage, just to see what trouble he can cause, has tricked us again, Haidas and outsiders alike, with this one. He has us trained now to point to Haida Gwaii and say "Queen Charlotte Islands."These stories were told there well before Queen Charlotte's time.
Before there was anything, before the great flood had covered the earth and receded, before the animals walked the earth or the trees covered the land or the birds flew between the trees, even before the fish and the whales and seals swam in the sea, an old man lived in a house on the bank of a river with his only child, a daughter. Whether she was as beautiful as hemlock fronds against the spring sky at sunrise or as ugly as a sea slug doesn't really matter very much to this story, which takes place mainly in the dark...Bill Reid was the author of a number of other books, but he was also a wonderful artist. The sculpture of Raven and the First Men is one of his finest works. It's on display at the beautiful Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC, and I'll never get over the awe I felt when my husband and I first saw it. Bill Reid's beautiful sketches are at the beginning of each story in this book. According to the back cover of this book, Robert Bringhurst is "a poet, cultural historian and scholar of Native American literature." He, too, has published other books of stories and poetry. The collaboration of these two artists made this book a lovely thing indeed, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in mythology, folktales, or art!
Indian Hut, Queen Charlotte Islands
One of the things I loved about teaching 6th grade for sixteen years was teaching our Middle Ages unit each spring. Reading anything regarding Medieval times has been a fascination for me for all those years, so I was happy to see that the Weekly Geeks topic for this week is:Among my favorite books that take place during Medieval times, are the Brother Cadfael series of mysteries by Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter). They completely transport me to the 1100s, Shrewsbury, England. The mysteries are compelling, and the authenticity of setting is incredible. It's like you are there!Is there a particular era that you love reading about? Tell us about it--give us a book list, if you'd like. Include pictures or some fun facts from that time period, maybe link to a website that focuses on that time. Educate us.
Do you have a favorite book that really pulled you back in time, or perhaps gave you a special interest in that period? Include a link to a review of it on another book blog if you can find one (doesn't have to be a Weekly Geek participant).
It's been a long time since I read a book the way I did when I was a kid. You know, when you found a book that really grabbed you and you couldn't stop reading, and that's all you wanted to do... That's what happened to me with The Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly. I love that feeling, and I really liked this book. It was powerful and dark, definitely not a children's book...full of fairy tales retold with a twist...and with a story about grief and loss, courage, and growing up."Instead, while others aided you along the way, it was your own strength and courage that brought you at last to an understanding of your place in this world and your own. You were a child when first I found you, but now you are becoming a man."This is a remarkable and powerful book. The last few pages were so beautifully written they took my breath away. The story lingers and haunts you for awhile.
Many people have read and reviewed this book. After reading Chris's (Stuff As Dreams Are Made On), Nymeth's (things mean a lot), and Dewey's (The Hidden Side of a Leaf) reviews of this book, I knew I had to read it. It was a perfect beginning for the Once Upon a Time Challenge III.
I'm so excited that Carl V's Once Upon a Time III challenge is underway! I've finally decided what I'd like to read for my Quest, and I know it's going to be another wonderful journey!
