I've been feeling like the library's best customer recently . . .

I assume that not all 12 girls and their mothers will want to participate, but a group with 12 mother-daughter pairs would be too large anyway.  I think just 4 mother daughter pairs would be enough to make it a success, so I hope we will get that many. 

If we were a well-established book group, I think it would be best to have the girls help choose the books.  But since this group is just meeting for the summer at this point, and we need a jumpstart, I decided to just pick the six books (we will meet twice a month this summer) and let the girls and moms sign up if they were interested in reading those books.   

I was surprised how difficult it was to pick the books! Each book needed:

1) to be relatively short, because we are meeting every two weeks

2) to provide good material for discussion

3) to be interesting and well-written

4) to be in print and available at both our local library and as a cheap paperback at Amazon

5) to include only material that was appropriate for 11 year olds to read and discuss. 

(A further stumbling block was that my 11 yr old didn’t want me to plan any books she had already read–and she has read a lot.  I ended up planning to read The Giver despite her wishes for new material).

The mix of books I came up with is heavily weighted toward realistic fiction; I struggled to find fantasy and science fiction books that met all of my criteria.  These books have some challenging (yet appropriate) topics, but they won’t be a challenge in terms of reading skill.  I figure it is better to err on the side of too easy rather than too difficult.  These books are also a little on the heavy side–you can’t escape the “life is full of adversity” message in these books–I’m not sure if that comes along with the “good material for discussion” criterion or if the list turned out that way by chance.  

Anyway, drumroll please!  Here are the books I selected:

Listening for Lions                    Gloria Whelan (National Book Award winner), 2005

Rachel has lived in British East Africa her entire life, but when the flu epidemic of 1919 leaves her an orphan, she is forced to leave the only home she knows.  Scheming neighbors coerce her into  pretending to be their deceased daughter and send her to England.  Can she undo their web of lies without hurting others?  Will she ever be able to return to Africa?  Will the mission hospital her parents worked so hard to build ever reopen?

Cousins                                              Virginia Hamilton (Newbery Medal winner), 1990

Cammy loves her  brother,  mom and  grandma—but has a father she doesn’t know and a cousin who is an enemy rather than a friend.  She makes a terrible wish that she doesn’t intend to come true, but when it does, her family must help her learn how to heal. 

The Breadwinner                            Deborah Ellis, 2000

Parvana lives under the harsh restrictions of Taliban rule with her family in Afghanistan.  When her father disappears, Parvana is the only one able to get food for the family, but she must transform herself into a boy and risk her own safety to do it.     

The Bomb                                          Theodore Taylor (author of The Cay) , 1995

Sorry Rinamu lives on Bikini Atoll at the end of World War II.  The Americans liberate Bikini from the Japanese, and life is good until the Americans select Bikini as the best place to conduct atomic tests.  Sorry and his fellow Islanders are asked to relocate.  Will they? Can the tests be stopped?

Out of the Dust                                  (1998 Newbery Medal)                        Karen Hesse, 1997

This novel is written in free verse.  Billie Jo lives in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl during the Great Depression.  Her father’s crops fail again and again, dust seeps into their food, their truck, and their piano, and it seems like things can’t get any worse.  But then an accident takes her mother and baby brother and Billie Jo’s hands are left burnt and useless.  How will she and her father find hope when life seems hopeless?

The Giver                                           (1994 Newbery Medal)                            Lois Lowry, 1993

In a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every family is happy, 12-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the community’s Receiver of Memories. Under the tutelage of the Elders and an old man known as the Giver, he discovers the disturbing truth about his utopian world. (Summary from Amazon.com)

In retrospect, it is obvious to me that Amelia needed a change last year. If your child is reading a couple books a day during school hours, something is wrong. Kids need to be challenged. If there is no challenge, changes must be made. On the other hand, if a child has so many challenges at school that she doesn’t have time left for other activities, or if she has little time for being a 10 yr old, something might be wrong there too.

It is tricky to be the parent of someone who has the option of being challenged too much or too little, but no obvious third option. I’m not the teacher; I can’t adjust the homework load. I can’t make the curriculum just a bit easier for her. I can help her to streamline her life, I can try to help her see that she doesn’t have time to do everything demanded at school, retake her science test until she gets a perfect score, swim every afternoon, go to chess club once a week, go to Activity Days (a bi-weekly church group for girls), enter the Reflections contest (PTA arts program), and study for the spelling bee, etc.

The problem is it makes me sad to encourage her to scale back on the non-school activities that are also an important and enjoyable part of her life (and let me be honest: our life. I am mourning the loss of time to study spelling, because it was something I really enjoyed doing with my daughter). For example, dropping swimming would save the most time, but after her fight to make the swim team, I would hate to see her leave just when she is reaping the rewards of her hard work.

Because of the stress that her homework assignments put on our family, I am often tempted to encourage her to go back to her old school. It can’t be worth it! I say. But despite the stress she evidences and the anxiety I feel, how can I send her back when she says she is happier at her new school and wouldn’t go back for the world?

1) Relax.

2) Displays done by others are rarely as good as you imagine them to be.  Relax.

3) 5th graders aren’t rocket scientists. Adjust your expectations.  Relax.

4) No one else cares.  Relax.

5) Note to self along the lines of NPR’s recent feature “Always attend the funeral.”    Always attend the science fair.  There are a lot of children there who worked hard on their projects and are just dying for someone to stop and ask questions.  To say, “ooh, neat!”  To read their board.  Just do it.  It’s nice.  People like being appreciated and you’ll like being appreciated for appreciating.  Appreciating isn’t hard, it’s pleasant.

On the micro level (the secrets to a good display):

1) Consistent use of fonts.  Limit yourself to 2 or 3 sizes of font and be consistent in your use of fonts throughout. (We used 18, 72, 96.  I might consider going even higher than 18 next time.  96 is not quite big enough, but it was the biggest font I had).   We ended up going with a sans serif font for the titles and a serif font for the rest.  The theory is that sans serif is easier to read at a distance.  It seemed to work visually, but I’m still not sure I’m comfortable with mixing fonts this way.

2) Consistent use of color: Make all the headings a certain color, or make the background a certain color, or make the headings and the body a certain color.  Just decide and stick to it.

3) Don’t forget the color wheel.  The principles continue to apply.

4) Typing  looks great.  Typing beats handlettering for everyone but a privileged few.

5) Cardstock doesn’t wrinkle as easily as regular weight paper when glue is applied to it.

6) Gluestick = best adhesive for the job.  It gives you a few second to adjust the placement.  Purple gluesticks (so you can see the glue) are great.

7) The nicest displays are big and very readable.  Don’t overdo the text!

I didn’t enjoy being the laggard in my kindergarten classes.  But somehow I thought that as I got older and other subjects took the pride of place that coloring, cutting and pasting enjoyed in my kindergarten classes, my poor skills wouldn’t matter so much.

Sigh.  Hellooooooo parenthood: Scissors and gluestick, we must renew our acquaintance.

My daughter’s teacher assured me that of course we should work on her project together.   She could learn by watching me.  As Facebook chatter began to reveal that other parents were beginning to finish up the same project with their kids, I found myself filled with kindergarten angst once again.  What if my picture (display) isn’t as good as the other kids’ (parents’)?  Will the teacher think I’m stupid?

It is pathetic that after 20+ years of schooling I still have something to prove.  Kindergarten angst runs deep.  Here’s hoping that Amelia’s next big project will involve writing Socratic-style dialogues and that I don’t hear the phrase “display board” for a long, long time.

On the radio I just heard that some people are concerned about President Obama’s plan to address public school children next Tuesday. I thought, well, there’s always a minority with strong and vocal views. And then, at almost the same moment, I came across a note from Amelia’s school. They do not plan to show the speech to the children. Their first reason makes sense, they don’t have the bandwidth to stream it without interruption. Their second reason left me incredulous:

This will [also] give us a chance to review the speech so we can select segments that would tie directly to our curriculum. If we do decide to show a clip in the future, parents will be notified to give their permission or to have their student participate in an alternative assignment.

“If we do decide”? You’ve got to be kidding!

[I should not be blogging because I am still so stirred up, but I just can't help it.] This is something that I don’t understand at all. Perhaps some of my more conservative readers could explain this to me, because I can’t make sense of it. My child’s school needs to preview the speech in which the President is scheduled to “challenge students to work hard, set education goals, and take responsibility for their learning” because this may or may not tie in with their curriculum? I have a suggestion: [Such-and-Such] Elementary if you find something about “challenging students to work hard, set education goals, and take responsibility for their learning” that does not tie in with your curriculum, then consider changing your curriculum!

Also, am I to understand that the principal and teachers at my daughter’s school, who are completely unelected are going to substitute their judgment for that of our elected President? Now I understand that a lot of people feel education decisions need to be made at the local level, but this is ridiculous.

Apparently, there’s still the possibility that they will show a “clip” in the future. The entire speech is only twenty minutes! I wonder, does my daughter’s school plan to pre-review the local sports teams that will visit during assemblies this year? Will they edit those presentations for what ties directly to the curriculum? Or perhaps local sports stars have more legitimacy than the President of the United States?

I am shocked and saddened. I really like my daughter’s teacher, but to me this episode is a huge black mark on my view of her new school. On Tuesday, I will be keeping her home to watch the President’s speech. And Duncan’s school? I am calling the principal to ask his plans.

Updated to Add: I spoke with Duncan’s principal. His elementary school (same school district as Amelia’s elementary school) is going to show the speech to all of their 2nd-6th graders. They are allowing parents to attend the presentation with their children if they wish or to opt out and have their children do some other supervised activity. Since there is such a controversy, I think the school is probably doing the right thing. On the other hand, I think it’s ridiculous. They won’t be sending opt out notices for the rest of the assemblies they have this year. And the other outside groups coming won’t be offering them a transcript of remarks ahead of time either.

The principal thanked me and sounded very grateful that I had called. Apparently, he had been talking to people who do not believe the speech should be shown at school before he talked to me and was glad to talk to someone who didn’t think he was doing the wrong thing. It is important not to be silent, even if you agree with the position your school is taking.

Amelia is blessed to have a wonderful teacher this year.  It was hard for me to sit still in my seat during the teacher’s presentation, because I wanted to get up and do a happy dance.  Had the presentation been someone’s Facebook update, I would have sat there and clicked “Like” over and over again.  I wanted to hug her.  [Yes, I do tend to be over the top effusive when I like something, but what if I were only over the top down about things?  Wouldn't that be worse?]

Anyway, basking in the moment of happiness that is realizing you probably got your child’s classroom placement right, that your interference and energy were not for nought, nor were to the negative either, I stopped to think on the excellent teachers who have blessed my life.

I have had a lot of teachers.  Several of them were life-changing.  Mrs. Long helped me to discover a life-long love of reading and an appreciation for science.  Mr. Anderson brought history to life and taught us to recite “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “The Jabberwock.” Mr. Klag helped me to realize that I had talents.  He was interested in who I was and what I thought about.

There was a teacher, whose name I have forgotten, who taught my 7th grade history class.  He taught us how to soak paper in milk and a little lemon juice and then bake it in the oven to make it look ancient.   He also assigned us to do oral history interviews with our neighbors.  Mr. Larson taught us science, and you couldn’t doubt that he was excited about it.  He also taught us French and humility simultaneously.  He helped me to understand the difference between looking for checkmarks and looking to learn.

Mr. Johnson loved me, even though I didn’t love him back.  Somehow, he tricked me into absorbing a lot of geography despite my pride.  Mr. Jeppesen taught me the desire to aspire.  Disappointing him was deeply disappointing to me.  Mr. Hall was kind and tolerant.  Mrs. Roylance taught us to work.

And that is just through  high school.  If it weren’t past midnight as I write this, I would have to continue–sundry Sunday School teachers and college professors easily deserve mention–and I know that there are others as well.   All of these people were passionate about what they taught.  All of these people were genuinely interested in their students.  All of these people changed a life.  Mine. I have found a lot of good teachers.  Thanks to all of them.

Tomorrow is Duncan’s first day of kindergarten.  He turned 5 1/2 years old last week.  He is not nearly as emotively expressive as his older sister, but I think he’s quietly excited. Not that he’s quiet–this is hard to explain.  I was trying to mark the occasion and make it special.  We had pie and said several rounds of “hip-hip-hooray for Duncan’s first day!”  He was very loud.  When I say he’s quiet about it, I mean that he doesn’t talk about how he feels about kindergarten much.  People ask him if he’s excited and he says, “yeah” with a little smile and then turns away from them.

Duncan and Amelia, August 2009

In preparation for the grand day tomorrow he picked out a green sweater he feels handsome in and asked me about soccer:  “Amy [the pet name Amelia insists he and no one else call her] says that all the boys at my school play soccer.  Do you think that’s true?”  [I don't think Amelia was trying to make him feel negatively about his school; she thought her observation might help him to keep playing soccer]. 

[And then, because he doesn't like soccer:] “Mom, do they have any trees in the yard at my school?”  “Yes, Duncan, they do,” I said.  “Do you think a boy can ever just sit under a tree?”

With no prior prodding or interrogation on my part, Duncan told me today what he wants to be when he grows up.  He told me he had four ideas, but he could only remember three of them: 1)Train Engineer, 2) Artist, 3) or a Person Who Makes Cool Stuff.

Meanwhile, Amelia has already started at her new school.  So far, she seems to love it.  Her 5th grade teacher is “her favorite so far.”  The homework load at this school is a bit terrifying for the parent of a daughter who will allow any task to expand to fill all available time (plus more), but five days into it, Amelia herself seems to be enjoying the challenge.  I hope that will remain true in the months ahead.

Pdad gave her the standard “a new school offers the chance to be a new person” spiel.  I was a little hesitant because I didn’t want her to think we weren’t happy with the person she was before.  But his spiel was aimed squarely at her stalwart dress-wearing ways.  Amelia has consistently worn dresses daily [except under duress] since the beginning of first grade.  She gets quite a bit of attention for that from her peers, as you might imagine.  Since she reacted with disdain to the idea of buying some pants for school, I figured she had chosen to travel the same path as before: soft cotton one-piece dresses with no buttons or zippers, difficult fasteners, or offensive textures of any kind.  It’s not so terrible!  If her clothing choices make her odd, they also make her modest, feminine, and age-appropriate.  How much can a parent complain under such circumstances?

But look what I saw when I asked her to lay out her clothes for the first week of school:

Change–”Ready or not, here we come!”

But I did something good this week.  Our city has hosted a wonderful weekly art camp program the past two summers.  Duncan thrives on it.  I’m not sure that it’s because he has artistic talent; I think it might be more because he thrives on the excellent teacher student ratio.  However, even if he may be a little short on some types of artistic talent, there is no gainsaying the fact that he is extremely creative.  When I saw the Walter Wick exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art, I finally understood what shape his sort of talent might take.

Anyway, Art Camp ended last week, and we were left with a big pile of artwork.  We can’t possibly keep all the artwork Duncan generates, but it seemed heartless and wrong just to throw it in the trash.  So we transformed his bedroom into a museum and had the first ever Duncan Pfamily: The Art Camp Collection exhibition.  Family and friends visited.  In fact, after learning that it was for sale, some of the neighborhood children carried away about 1/4 of the artwork on display.  Now possessing 10 or so quarters, Duncan believes himself to be a very successful artist indeed.  I think so too.

One day Amelia came out with rubber cemented eyebrows because she tried on her mask just a bit too early.  Did you know that rubber cement stings like crazy?  Neither did I.

Below I have posted a picture of the very scariest thing that Amelia brought home:

This is a mummified hot dog in a salt-filled coffin made out of paper.  Yes, it is.

When Amelia brought it out to the van, it was not a mummified hot dog.  It was fresh.  Temperatures were nearing 100, and I had just spent the previous hour cleaning and vacuuming the car.  She was heedless of my pleas to abandon said hot dog and coffin on the playground.

Finally, I acceded to the inevitable.  Who was I to stand in the way of curiosity and education?  So we made our way home with hot dog and coffin.  Most of the salt came with us.  This lovely exhibit has now graced my kitchen for the past two weeks.

Are we there yet?

Good books are those we read for entertainment, edification, and education (but not necessarily all three in the same book). Ideally, my children (and I!) will read many books that are”virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy.”  [Rosalie and I must be on the same wavelength because I had written this before I saw her comment on the previous post].  Many books are not praiseworthy because they are mindless fluff and/or poorly written.  Many other books are not lovely or of good report.

As revealed by Therese and Robin’s comments, there are at least two senses in which a book can be bad: a) it can be objectionable because it is inappropriate, either inappropriate in general [not virtuous, not of good report, not praiseworthy] or inappropriate for a certain age group or particular child or b) it can be of poor quality in the sense that it does not have content worth reading or in the sense that it is poorly written [not lovely, not praiseworthy]. Correspondingly, there are two ways in which books can be good.  a) They can be appropriate in the sense that they are not objectionable (a pathetically weak sense of good, to be sure) or b) they can be well written and have content worth reading [lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy].

After reading your thoughtful comments on my previous post, I was surprised to find that I may be the biggest censorship advocate in the group.  As I said before, where books are concerned, I think it is better to err on the side of restricting too little rather than too much.  However,  I disagree with Zina’s comment that “there’s probably nothing *too* bad within the spectrum of what Amelia’s likely to read.”  I think there’s quite a bit of bad stuff out there (yikes, look at the covers of the magazines at the grocery store), in the sense that there are a lot of books that would be inappropriate for Amelia to read ever, and even more that are inappropriate for her to read right now.

I was inspired to write my first post about censorship after finishing the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  I had never read it before and found it as I was searching through reviews looking  for books that would be good for Amelia.  Let me be clear, I really liked A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  Although it isn’t always “lovely” in the most literal sense (because the heroine’s life is difficult as are the lives of those she is closest to), it was praiseworthy.  I would give it a good report!  However, I do not want Amelia to read it.  Not yet.  And especially if we don’t read it together.  I do hope that she will read it in a couple of years.  Tree falls in my “inappropriate at this age” category.  Amelia is ten years old.  The heroine of Tree has to face some adult issues fairly early in her life.  Amelia doesn’t.  She has time enough.

I am interested in whether any of you have read Tree and would take issue with me.  I wonder whether my stand is silly (in a sense it’s not a big deal because Amelia isn’t begging to read it, but the issue of what it is okay for her to read comes up again and again).  Like Zina, I was also a precocious reader.  My mother did a good job of teaching me which books to seek out and which to avoid, but still–I read some books that I would no doubt judge as inappropriate for Amelia.  As Zina mentioned, it is difficult to identify or label the specific harm.  Also, children are naturally curious.  (Advanced readers are perhaps even more curious than most children.  That’s part of why they read).  The forbidden is even more interesting . . . I know all that.  And I am continually surprised at the subject matters my young children are introduced to through my addiction to National Public Radio.  Is sheltering the young even possible in our world?  Does what they read matter?  Especially in mild (inappropriate at this age) cases like Tree?

I know that arguments can be made in both directions.  Like so much of parenting for me, the worry will continue regardless of which path I choose.  It will just change it’s object:  What if she’s too sheltered?  What if she’s unprepared?  What if I cause her to rebel?  What if she grows up too fast?  What if she becomes cynical before ever being both mature and happy?

Two specific categories of books that I worry about for Amelia are books centered around romance and books with sexual content.  Given the state of our culture, I think even fairly young children need to know a lot of facts, and Amelia knows how women get babies. However, despite my commitment to knowledge for my children on this subject, I do not think novels are a good way for children to gain the information they need. First, although I believe Amelia should know the facts now, I hope the part of her life where these facts are hers is a decade distant.  This isn’t information she needs to review frequently.  Second, the books I am concerned about seldom portray the reality I would hope for for my daughter: long term married loving monogamous commitment.  Since that reality is seldom portrayed, I am not eager for her to spend any significant time familiarizing herself with alternate competing possibilities.

I believe light romance can have its place.  I am not about to ban Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  There are good reasons why romance is an attractive genre for both girls and women.  Light romance can be fun and entertaining.  In addition it is often a wonderful vehicle for excellent (and educational) historical fiction.  That said, Amelia is ten.  I think much of the romance reading should wait.  Books that focus too much on young love—kissing and dating in the high school and college set—are harmful, not so much because they are outright objectionable, but because it’s just not time yet.  Amelia won’t be allowed to date for six more years and I hope that it will be at least a decade before she marries.  I want her to walk towards those years, not run.  The next few years will bring the pull of urges that will tempt her to believe that her life should revolve solely around attracting romantic attention, that her worth is her value as someone’s lover.  I don’t need books to introduce her to these feelings or to the world of romantic relationships before she feels its tug herself.

What do you think?  Do you take issue with my characterization of good and bad books?  Do you agree or disagree that knowledge of some things can come too early?

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