Reading aloud

I'm blogging about reading aloud at the Mama, PhD blog at Inside Higher Ed today; I also blogged about the president reading aloud over at my other blog just last night. (Click over to it to see the video...) Synchronicity!

what I'm thinking about

When I'm teaching, everything revolves around the books I'm immersed in, and the books start speaking to my present reality. Right now I'm moving on from Frankenstein to Wuthering Heights in one class, and from Alice in Wonderland to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in the other two. And somehow Frankenstein made it into my Mama, PhD blog entry over at Inside Higher Ed today.

In other news, I'm working at home today while I wait for the Verizon installers. The question of the day is, will I finish my grading before they arrive?

(cross-posted at the other blog)

Reading Meme

Caroline tagged me with this a while ago and it's taken me until now to get to it. I'm too busy procrastinating drafting working on a paper to be delivered in mid-November. But I have been working through a few novels lately, so I thought I'd give you a taste of the variety of my reading lately.

First, here are the rules:
"Open the book you’re currently reading to page 161, and post the fifth sentence on the page, then think of 5 bloggers to tag."

OK. I read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go over the weekend, but I'm including it here to prove I do, on occasion, read books for adults. Though I must say, the premise of this novel is scarily like Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion, published two years earlier as a children's novel. And, for what it's worth, I bought the Ishiguro novel used at Plato's Closet, a YA hangout if there ever was one.

Here's the fifth sentence on page 161:
"Well, she never got to make that decision because of what happened next."

Also in progress, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. This one's because I have a student working on an interesting honors thesis on female orphans in children's lit. Rebecca isn't technically an orphan--her mother's living--but she fits the template my student is working with so I'm re-reading the novel.

Page 161 only has four sentences, though, so here's the fourth:
"I wish you could take things easier, child; I am fearful for you sometimes."

(Side note on Rebecca: I'm reading an old paperback I picked up used, but it is one of several books available in the Charming Classics series, packaged along with a necklace. My student and I are amused at how many of the books she's writing about are available in this series: A Little Princess, The Secret Garden (the pendant is a key), Heidi, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, at least--there are many more in the series, though.)

I'm also slowly working my way through Little, Big again. I first read this in college, when I had a chance to interview the author by phone (one of my first bylines). It's a lovely book, and I'm not quite sure why I'm going so slowly through it this time, but doing so makes much clearer to me all the intertextual references (to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, especially) that I missed the first time through.

Page 161, sentence 5: "I mean," Doctor Drinkwater said, reappearing beside him, "that every Christmas seems to follow immediately after the last one; all the months that came between don't figure in."

Nick and I are also working our way through Daniel Pinkwater's Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars (in his Five Novels). We took a little break for the World Series, but we'll be getting back to it soon.

Page 161, sentence 5: "In Alan's case, they would be so grateful he wasn't there, they weren't likely to look into the matter."

Finally, also on my bedside (along with an ever-growing stack of New Yorker magazines) is Jane Yolen's Take Joy: A Writer's Guide to Loving the Craft. I haven't gotten very far with it yet, but I am enjoying dipping into it occasionally. Here's the fifth sentence on page 161:

"I responded: "Every time an editor wants to talk about plots and depth, they bring in the old onion." Now doesn't that make you want to read more?

As for tagging five more--Life in Scribbletown already did it, even before I did; if you're reading it here, feel free!

blast from my past

This week's New Yorker has an amazing piece by Jerome Groopman about colic (alas, not on line). Those of you who knew us when, know we went through a rather trying time in Mariah's first months on earth. She had colic, so we all did. She cried most of the time she was awake--but particularly in the evenings--for the first nine months of her life. She slept well at night from a fairly early age (our saving grace) but the colic, oh, it was relentless. We tried rocking, swaddling, "the colic hold," dietary changes (mine), schedule changes (hers), singing, dancing, changes in environment (for a brief period we tried taking her outside when she cried--sometimes the cold air seemed to change things), and everything else we could think of. Nothing worked, or at least nothing worked reliably. If swaddling worked one night, we tried it the next to no avail. Mostly I think we did what we did for us, to make us feel as if we were helping. She cried for no reason, and when she was done she was done, but we awaited the next bout in exhausted trepidation.

Our doctor, however, informed us that "colic is when the bell curve of parent irritability intersects the bell curve of baby irritability." I invited him to our apartment any evening to witness the ridiculousness of that statement, but he didn't take me up on it. It was something of a relief, then, to find that medical researchers now study colic--some of them must actually believe in it, even if our doctor didn't. It seems from the article that as many as 25% of babies may suffer from colic, which has, according to one expert cited in the article, "no known cause and no known treatment." Babies eventually outgrow it, of course, but to me the heartbreaking part of the article comes in the speculations about the long-term effects: sleep disorders, for example, seem more frequent in kids who have been colicky babies (check!). As for the effects on family life, well, let's just say Mariah's colic wasn't as bad as some documented in the article, but I have no problem believing that "the parents of colicky babies were found to be more dissatisfied with family life . . . than parents of children who had not had colic."

Colic is well in our past these days. We have two fabulous children who delight and astonish us daily. But reading this article put me right back in that place of helpless new parenting, when I first learned that I couldn't make everything right for my daughter no matter how much I wanted to, no matter how hard I tried. That's not a bad lesson to learn, of course--but reading this article reminded me of how hard it was to learn it so early, in quite that way.

The Harry Potter Factor

(Cross-posted at Lessons from the Tortoise)

My new column is up, and it comes with a spoiler warning. So if you haven't finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but you think one day you might want to--and you don't want to know ANYTHING about it--well, then, don't click on this link. (I don't give it all away, by any means, but I just couldn't keep it all to myself.)

Here's a spoiler-free taste:

17 years. That's how long I've been a mother. It's also how long J.K. Rowling has been living with Harry Potter. She started the series while pregnant with her first daughter, Jessica, in 1990; my daughter, Mariah, must be a little older than Jessica, then, as she's rapidly approaching her 18th birthday at the end of this year.

10 years. That's how long I've been the mother of two: Nick's tenth birthday was this month. It's also how long Harry Potter novels have been out in the world available to read. My mothering life, then, has tracked the Harry Potter series in more ways than one.

Mariah and I began reading the books some time in 1998 or 1999, I think, before the biggest hype but after the first book was available in my public library. At first I didn't know I'd be buying them all (in multiple copies, no less!). I just thought I was sharing another fun book with my daughter.

We read the first few books together, sprawled on a couch, each wedged into a corner with our feet meeting in the middle. As we continued reading, she grew taller -- and her reading got faster -- so we read them sequentially, talking about them over meals...

Read the rest here...

random bullets of catching up

• I think I may again be competitive for bad mother award--who else takes her kid to the library and won't let him check out books? Twice? (I saw the librarian looking at me as I was telling Nick that no, we'd agreed we were just there to return books, not to check out, and I really felt bad...)
  
• In my defense, it was the second (and third) time we'd been to the library (three different ones) this week and he still had plenty left to read. And I'm tired of hanging around the graphic novel section finding all the "how to draw anime villains" books.
• We are all (knock wood) recovered from our malaise, but only Mariah is really making use of her good health. She's been working non-stop, baby-sitting and bagging groceries. I expect to be hitting her up for a loan soon.
• When she wasn't working Mariah took Nick to the movies, as I mentioned before. They went to see Ratatouille. Unfortunately Nick decided it was no good so they left before it was over. I'm still not quite sure what he didn't like about it--this is a kid who has sat through Valiant (recently!) with pleasure, after all.
  
• Mariah "treated" Nick to the movies but then had to borrow cash from him. She had deposited all her paychecks in a new bank account and didn't have an ATM card yet. (I know, a likely story!) Maybe I need to be working Nick for a loan rather than Mariah.
  
• Nick is a saver, Mariah a spender. When Nick was about three I brought two large cookies home from some kind of campus event. When I picked the kids up from school/daycare I distributed them. Mariah's was gone before we got home; Nick's was in his lap, still uneaten. Both Mariah and I found this behavior somewhat disturbing. But then again this is a kid whose Hallowe'en candy often lasts until Easter (at which point it has to be thrown away).
  
• We had a wonderful trip to the beach yesterday. Mariah was working, but the rest of us drove out to visit an old friend who was staying there with his family. It was a lovely, low-key visit: mostly sitting on the beach or jumping in the waves and talking. His daughter is a year older than Nick and gets along with him beautifully--it was really nice to see them taking turns on the boogie board, digging in the sand, building a sand-castle.
  
• I am now half-way through my re-reading of Half-Blood Prince and am confident of being ready for the new one when it arrives. Nick is working his way through Order of the Phoenix and I think he's going to make it, too. I get it first; Nick next if he's finished with #6, otherwise Mariah. If he does get it before her, she's allowed to take it at night after he's gone to bed if she promises not to mess with his bookmarks.
• What does it say about us that we have absolutely no routine for the summer, and it is impossible to set up a workable chore schedule, but our reading schedule for Deathly Hallows is already set in stone?
• I have been blogging for four years as of today.
  

Thinking Bloggers

(cross-posted at the other blog)

One of my favorite bloggers has awarded me a Thinking Blogger award--thanks, Caroline!

So now I get to pass it on. And there are lots of blogs that make me think, but many of them have already participated (some twice!). So here are some I haven't seen yet:

• Becca's posts at Not Quite Sure are about mothering, baking, reading, the Red Sox, music, and whatever else she feels like, but they all make me think.
• Tricia, of The Miss Rumphius Effect, focuses mostly on children's literature and teaching future teachers. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of books useful in classrooms, and always thinks about interesting things to do with them.
• Julius Lester's Commonplace Book is a wonderful blog, filled with his original photos, his thoughts about reading, writing, and living, and--right now--a lot of terrific guest posts about books changing lives. I am still working on my response to that one.
• I read the Yarn Harlot whenever she updates, and it's never often enough. Even if you don't knit, you'll love Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's way with words (and, occasionally, with Mr. Washie. Check it out.)
• Writing as Jo(e) has great pictures and wonderful stories about teaching and raising kids.
  

(And if I can add a nepotistic sixth, I'll suggest you check out Dad's blog, too! Beowulf, writing, gardening, libraries, words, he's got it all.)

So, now, here are the rules to keep this thing going:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

Sad Books

SuperBowl Sunday. We're sitting on the couch, nine-year-old Nick between Mark and me. I'm knitting, Nick is reading; only Mark is giving his full attention to the game. At some point, I look over Nick's shoulder and see the arresting illustration from Bridge to Terabithia: a silhouette of Jess's father holding his shattered son, who has just learned of his best friend's death. I put my arm around Nick.

"It's sad there, isn't it?"

read the rest over at LiteraryMama.com

(cross-posted at the other blog)

Random Bullets of Monday

• These waffles really are that good. (No, I didn't make them on Monday. It was Saturday, and I'm still happy about them.)
• What was with the commercials yesterday? OK, Coke had some beautiful visuals, and the Snickers ad was…something. But GoDaddy.com? Please. Stop. Please, I beg you.
• On the other hand, bad commercials made for more knitting. I'm working on a fabulous scarf (sorry, can't find the link!--edited to add: found it!) and it is so much fun.
• I don't like getting up in the dark. That is all.
• How can February be the shortest month? It already feels long.
• Read this if you're skeptical about "virtual reality." Or if you're not.
• And read this, too. We had a dog in the 70s-80s whose mother was a Lab, and whose father was (best we could guess) a Scottie. For some reason we didn't go around touting her as a cool hybrid (a Scotador?). In the article cited (which, yes, Jenny Davidson linked to first, and to the one above as well) the details about pugs are particularly, um, revelatory. And not in a good way.
• I'm sitting with my back to the window and there are patches of light falling on the wall in front of me. Shadows of the steam from the radiator are racing up the walls, steam that is invisible when I turn around and face the blinding light from the window. Maybe getting up early isn't quite so bad.