Born To Be Bad

Girls love the bad boys. It’s a common cliché, a hasty generalization, an irrational assumption. And, in the opinion of this former girl, a pretty fair characterization. Maybe it’s a maternal instinct, our inner Wendy made manifest, that draws us toward these fixer-upper Peter Pans. Or tragic self-esteem issues. Or something. You’d like to think that, as self-actualized, independent women nurturing daughters with multitudes of horizons open to them, we would have evolved out of the attraction to misfits and malcontents but, alas, the naughty ones still catch our eye. Case in point: there’s a boy in the mainstream population at the junior high who I’ve watched grow up these last three years. He is smart without being dorky, athletic without being brutish, and cute without being unapproachable. But the girls take no notice. He will make a great partner, husband, and father someday, but the girls flock instead to the black-wearing boy whose hair hangs in his face, who casually tosses around adult profanity, and never does his homework. What is our hero’s great crime and deficit? He’s nice. He holds doors, listens respectfully, and even gets involved in service projects. Chick magnet suicide. There’s hope, though. Some girl (who has likely been a moth burned by the bad boy flame) will eventually figure out what a catch he is and reel him in. But until then… In Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline and the Bad Hat, the straight-line girls think their naughty neighbor, Pepito, is the cat’s meow. They’ll learn.

http://www.amazon.com/Madeline-Bad-Hat-Ludwig-Bemelmans/dp/0670446149

http://www.madeline.com/author.htm

The Nose Knows

My childhood home had an interesting array of neighbors--the elderly couple who didn’t use electricity on Sundays and put ketchup on their eggs, the mysterious recluse with a house that was surely haunted, the professional couple who had meticulously tended roses rather than children, and the family with teens, tire swings and a broken down truck. But the place where I spent the bulk of my not-at-my-house time was the Romaldos--with their sprawling, ever-changing room assignment and their jungle of a yard ready for adventure. I can see now that what I considered a thrilling rejection of the mundane was actually the best efforts of a frazzled single mom working full-time and raising six kids younger than twelve. I’m sure most people saw the chaos (and undoubtedly commented on it in coffee klatch whispers), but, coming as I did from the land of order and conformity, the utter mayhem was hypnotic. And my favorite part was that backyard. It had once been the object of attention--covered patio, koi pond, stone waterfall, landscaped lawn--but by the time I got to it, all of that was covered by weeds, vines, dirt and, prolifically, eucalyptus leaves. Recently I caught the scent of eucalyptus and, as invariably happens, I was instantly transported back to when I was bold and brave and wild. In Deborah Hopkins’ A Packet of Seeds, the lonely main character can’t settle into her new life until she resurrects some of the scents of the old. I know how she feels.

http://www.amazon.com/Packet-Seeds-Deborah-Hopkinson/dp/0060090898

http://www.deborahhopkinson.com/

The Final Word

In a recent bestseller about travel and self-discovery, the author experiences a dilemma when she is asked to come up with a single word to describe herself. How do you distill all that you are to its most essential? When I spent a moment wondering what word would most clearly paint a picture of who I am, I realized how hard the job really is. Especially for someone who uses words all the time. One seems pretty stingy and impossible. I recalled a few years ago when I was the caretaker for a child with Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum that is often characterized by dysfunctional social interaction, who was so much smarter than everyone his age that the only activity successful at keeping him entertained was for me to come up with vocabulary words he’d never heard before but could use all the time after learning them. One day as he sighed restlessly distracted through a car trip (always an iffy time for behavior issues), I asked him if he was suffering from “ennui.” Fascinated by hearing this new term, even more so when he discovered it meant “oppressive boredom,” he began describing himself daily as possessed of ennui. Even on busy days, he still felt that he’d found his one word. In Kevin Henkes So Happy, a boy, a bunny and a tiny seed all struggle to define who they are and what they want to cure their boredom. I’m still working on my word.

http://www.amazon.com/So-Happy-Kevin-Henkes/dp/0060564830

http://www.kevinhenkes.com/default.asp

Girl Power

When Keilana was a preschooler I had my first exposure to the Power Rangers. Since we did not have cable, the same video got played incessantly. At first, the frenetic action and obnoxious characters drove me nuts. And that Rita voice? Unbearable. But Keilana was hooked and when Keilana decided/decides she is going to fixate on something, the smart thing is just to leave her to her own devices. Surprisingly, the Power Rangers began to grow on me and I liked that the girl Rangers kicked as much hiney as the boys, wearing the same costume with sensible shoes for fighting evil rather than some cleavage-bearing, stiletto heels get-up. I discovered this was the case, at least in the early imported episodes, because the original Japanese version had all male Rangers (yes, even the pink and yellow ones) so the action sequences preserved to lower costs were all performed by men, but that didn’t matter to me in the long run. I wanted Keilana to feel empowered and she got the Power Rangers go-ahead. Skirts were added when the show started making money here, but the shoes were still flat, the goods still covered and the action still equal, so the Power Rangers were mother-approved. Scarlett is far behind the Power Rangers craze, but she has Dora the Explorer. I like Dora--she’s plucky, persistent, and bi-lingual. In Emily Sollinger’s Crystal Kingdom Adventures, Dora brings color back to the realm while wearing shorts and tennies. We’ve come a long way, baby!

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Crystal-Kingdom-Adventures/Victoria-Miller/Dora-The-Explorer/9781416984986

http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Emily-Sollinger/22760555

I Know It When I See It

They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and that has broad application. As a reusing recycler (and ex-wife), I’m particularly glad that things deemed unfit or no longer valuable in one situation can have life and value beyond it. But the dividing lines still have a bit of the arbitrary to them, I think. It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? I wrote recently about And Tango Makes Three, the true story of two male penguins at the Central Park Zoo raising a baby from an adopted egg and also the most banned and challenged book of the last five years. Not one word in the book contradicts common Christian theology (in fact, it’s pretty innocuous even for a children’s book), but it has been thoroughly vilified as “shocking,” “obscene,” and “not suitable for children” because it “contradicts Christian values.” Which is odd since the story is about animals with no agenda and is reported by authors who were just observing. Given that, consider this: the book that was the 1993 American Booksellers Association’s Book of the Year and the winner of the 1993 International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award is a fictional account of the beginning of the world where animals anciently pre-date humans, animism is central, and God is referred to as “she”--all problematic and contradictory for Christian theology. So, what’s up with that? It’s not that I didn’t like Douglas Wood’s Old Turtle. It’s just that I think the penguins got a bad rap.

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Turtle-Douglas-Wood/dp/0938586483

http://www.douglaswood.com/

Nothing But The Truth

I can’t lie. Oh, I’d like to be able to, but my body won’t let me. If I try to be untruthful, I trigger such a massive “She’s lying!” physiological response that people can sense the utter ridiculousness of believing me. Lying is so mysterious to me that I find those who do it smoothly (unless they are parenting, sleeping with, formerly married to, or come from me) fascinating. The cool demeanor of the practiced liar is like black magic--dangerous and yet captivating, too. I would make a terrible double agent or ex-husband or customer service representative, ’cause those folks make a point of lying all the time. It’s in the job description, for heaven’s sake. No, lying is not something I can do, which is ironic since, as a college instructor, it’s something I’m exposed to every day. Like the student whose toddler-voiced girlfriend called me pretending to be his mother telling me that he was on the East Coast for a funeral and wouldn’t be able to attend class…and then made the mistake of going to the local copy center, where he bumped into me. Or the student who couldn’t make it to school because of a case of mono…and then posted “Off the hook!” pictures of himself doing body shots off a sorority girl the night before. And so many others. In Stan and Jan Berenstain’s The Truth, Brother and Sister Bear figure out what everybody has to learn eventually--mothers know everything so lying just wastes time.

http://www.amazon.com/Berenstain-Bears-Truth-First-Books/dp/0394856406

http://budsartbooks.com/prod.cfm/pc/CHIPH/cid/43

Just The Facts, Ma'am

Have you heard that more domestic violence occurs on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day? That statistic was reported years ago in an article on gender equality and has been incorporated into countless messages since. It sounds barbaric and likely compels the hearer to feel that something should be done. As it should. But there’s a problem. The problem is that since the article first appeared questions have surfaced about the research techniques used in the first place and the dissemination of the information after the fact. However, that disclaimer usually gets left out of any citation and the study keeps getting validated. Maybe rightfully so. It could be accurate, but we don’t know because the authorship of the study always seems hard to pin down. Another piece of information often (incorrectly) cited from the original article was that thirty million people, mostly women, die every year from eating disorders. Which, of course, made women’s groups go the proverbial ape you-know-what. Until someone took a second and realized that would mean the equivalent of the entire state of California would be dropping dead annually. That seemed unlikely. After a lot of digging and dead ends, it was discovered the original source claimed thirty million people are affected by eating disorders each year. That seemed more likely. But tracking down the truth was a big job. In Harriet Ziefert’s Who Said Moo?, Rooster has a heck of time getting to the bottom of things. Ain’t that the way of it?

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Said-Moo-Harriet-Ziefert/dp/1929766475

http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,1000018411,00.html

This Hurts Me More Than It Hurts You

Did you ever have someone in your life do something mean in the name of teaching you a lesson? I understand the school of hard knocks works, but it always seems a little harsh when family members are the professors. Years ago a high-ranking guy in my religion of origin came to town, and though I don’t recall all of his presentation, one story comes to mind often. He wanted to go to a dance as a young man and asked his mother what chores he would have to do to get permission. She gave him a list of jobs and told him that if those tasks were finished by a certain time and with proper attention to detail he could go. He worked all day with great industriousness, careful to be thorough, and, when late afternoon came, reported that he was finished and ready to go dancing. Then came the part of the story that still bothers me. His mother told him he could not go. Not because he had shirked any of his responsibilities, but because sometimes life will be disappointing and young people should learn to live with disappointment. I’m sure I was supposed to marvel at the wisdom of mothers who produce great men, but all I’ve ever been able to muster is anger at how ludicrous and cruel that was. I don’t and didn’t get it. In Babushka’s Doll, Tasha’s grandma teaches her a lesson the hard way. Which is apparently not the nice way.

http://www.amazon.com/Babushkas-Doll-Patricia-Polacco/dp/0689802552

http://www.patriciapolacco.com/author/bio/bio.html

In Living Color

Isn’t it funny how much we associate some people in our lives with certain colors? Keilana was born at Easter time and whenever I see groupings of pastels, I think of my Bunny Baby. My mom loves all shades of blue, especially cobalt, so dusk and those fancy glass bottles of water remind me of her. And now anything red brings my Scarlett to mind. I can’t see any of these colors without thinking of the people entwined with them in my memory. Of course, people also gravitate to colors that speak to them for some reason. I love all things pink--cotton candy, ballerina tutus, bubblegum ice cream--and would wear it every day if I didn’t think my academic credibility would suffer. Keilana formed an early and intense bond with the color purple, once even dyeing her hair a vivid lavender that suited her perfectly and made her look like some exotic alien babe from Star Trek. One of my colleagues is really, really into frogs and this naturally makes green her default color of choice. Some people decorate their baby nurseries or reception halls to match the colors of their favorite school or sports team. And what about those crazy people who paint themselves for football games and then dance around half-naked in the freezing cold?! Color not only brightens and enlivens our world, it becomes part of our identity as well. In Keith Kimberlin’s Colors, rainbow kittens share their multi-hued treasures. What color has your name on it?

http://www.amazon.com/Colors-Paw-Prints-Early-Learning/dp/1419401130

http://www.keithkimberlin.com/

Stubborn Streak

As a teenager, I had a step-mother only ten years my senior. Which was like having a sister with the power of a mother. Not a good combination. Needless to say, we had a complicated, volatile relationship and one of the things I most remember about it was learning that I don’t really like anyone telling me what to do. Even if I am just about to do it myself, once someone else makes it a requirement, I lose all interest in doing it. Ever. When my step-mother, let’s call her “Batty,” was around, I would walk past a basket of laundry and think to myself, “I am going to fold those clothes.” It never failed that at that exact moment Batty would say something about me having to fold the clothes before I could do anything else and then someone would have had to break my arm to get me to do what I was walking across the room to do five seconds before I was told I had to. It’s not mature or healthy, but I have to own it. At the junior high, we have a rotating schedule for collecting recycling from the outside cans, but I am often happy to do it just because. Unless it is my week. Then I balk and chafe at having to do it. What is that?! In Julie Sykes’ I don’t want to take a bath, Little Tiger is my won’t-do-it-if-you-tell-me-to soulmate. Just don’t tell him he has to be.

http://www.amazon.com/I-Dont-Want-Take-Bath/dp/1888444207

http://www.juliesykes.co.uk/

Daddy Duty

Some guys were born to be dads. Despite all the complaints of men who can’t commit to having children or caring for the ones they already have, there are a select few who have daddyhood in their soul…and not just procreative ability in their, um, jeans. Long before Scarlett arrived, her daddy was learning how to care for her. When we started sitting for a friend’s new baby, Nick didn’t have any small people experience--never changed a diaper, never fixed a bottle, never gave a bath, never even held a really tiny one--but he stepped up admirably. I thought when we agreed to help that “we” actually meant “me,” but I forgot who I was dealing with. Nick took the same teachable, focused approach to childcare that he does to everything he considers important and knew most of what I learned through years of parenting my own kids in no time. I felt comfortable long before I ever imagined I would leaving them to their own devices, knowing that the little guy was in good hands. That experience made Nick realize he had a Scarlett-shaped spot no one else could fill and he spoke of wanting to be a dad many times in the next year or so. And never has any little girl been more loved. In Laura Krauss Melmed’s The Rainbabies, a man and his wife have everything they could ever want but it isn’t enough until their magical, rain-dancing daughter comes along. Sometimes it happens that way.

http://www.amazon.com/Rainbabies-Laura-Krauss-Melmed/dp/0688107559

http://www.laurakraussmelmed.com/

Fear Itself

I wish I was described as “fearless” and “brave.” Well, maybe I wish I just was fearless and brave and then it wouldn’t matter how I was described. I don’t know what it is--being the oldest, having an active imagination, a natural ego-centrism--but I feel like I have more fears than most people. Or maybe I’m just afraid I do. I want to live with steady-hands, throw-caution-to-the-wind bravado but that seems fraught with peril. I am frightened by closed-in spaces to the extent that I can’t wear turtlenecks. I am afraid that I’ll get hurt or fired and won’t be able to take care of the people I love. I am so afraid I will lose those people and never hear from them again that I won’t erase three year-old answering machine messages. Really. I am becoming a bit of a hoarder with things like fabric and paper and yarn because I’m afraid I will need them and not have them. Seriously. You’d think I grew up during the Depression, for heaven’s sake. These are all very real daily realities, but the big daddy scare of my life is an all-consuming fear of the dark. The fact that I am also an insomniac night owl who is afraid of the dark is just another one of life’s little ironies. In Barbara Shook Hazen’s The Knight Who Was Afraid Of The Dark, our hero overcomes terrible fear to win fair maiden. Which was a relief, because I was afraid he wouldn’t.

http://www.amazon.com/Knight-Afraid-Dark-Picture-Puffins/dp/014054545X

http://www.barbarashookhazen.com/

It Takes Two To Tango

Some of my favorite authors have written banned or challenged books. J.D. Salinger, Mark Twain, Maya Angelou, Kurt Vonnegut, Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell. What’s that? You don’t recognize those last two names? That’s interesting, because they are the co-authors of the most challenged book of 2006, 2007 and 2008 and the most banned book of 2009. What kind of subject matter could possibly garner that kind of censure, you ask? Murder? Blasphemy? Corruption? War? Pornography? Racism? Impropriety of the biblical “knowing” kind? Nope, none of those. The book that parents, politicians and religious groups have most wanted off the shelves and out of the classrooms for nearly half a decade is about…drum roll, please…penguins. Yep, you read that right. The flightless, tuxedo-wearing birds. Not all of them, of course. Just three very specific ones in the Central Park Zoo who had the chutzpah to mess with some people’s view of the world, even though they were just being them. Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three is the true story of two chinstrap penguins at the famous New York City landmark who spent six years together playing, loving and raising a daughter born from an adopted egg. And now you’re wondering why such a sweet (and did I mention true?) story would cause such a fuss. I’ll tell you, but you might not believe it. The problem is that both Roy and Silo were boy chinstrap penguins. That’s the truth. And some people just can’t handle the truth.

http://www.amazon.com/Tango-Makes-Three-Peter-Parnell/dp/0689878451

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Parnell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Richardson

I Need You

A boy at school is obsessed with the Berenstain Bears. Actually able to read only the odd two-letter word, he has memorized every word on every page. He thumbs through them reciting aloud until they are dog-eared, and then disintegrate beyond repair. They are his go-to place, his comfort objects. Considering no one else has his level of fascination for the books, the constant monologue can get pretty tedious for anyone within earshot. Given this and a real concern that being so fixated on one thing is not helping him progress, some of the adults in the classroom work on diverting his attention elsewhere. Sometimes the books even take a vacation for awhile. Which makes sense, but also gives me pause. Grown-ups have comfort things that give each day routine--cups of coffee, food that isn’t good for them, Farmville--but the kids don’t get to weigh in on those. I can just imagine what would happen if anybody suggested the adults needed to drink something else for the day and declared the coffee off-limits! Scarlett is my only binkie baby and, boy, is she dedicated. She has to have one for her mouth and several in each hand. She looks like Binkie Wolverine. Now that she’s two, we get more disapproval for letting her be attached to it, but we really are at a loss to see why we should take it away. In Helen Oxenbury’s Tom and Pippo’s Day, boy and monkey are never separated. They’re more comfortable that way.
http://www.amazon.com/Tom-Pippos-Pippo-Board-Books/dp/074456123X

http://www.amazon.com/Helen-Oxenbury/e/B000AP9MX6/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

What's In A Name?

The genesis of nicknames is a complex, fascinating process. Since group endorsement is required for any name to stick, rarely are they self-generated. Remember Bud Bundy trying to assume the identity of “Grandmaster B.?” The closest his social group, in this case the dysfunctional Bundy family, would let him get to self-naming was to call him “Flabmaster B.” The other derivations were worse. Nicknames are so tenuous in their fledgling stage that often, even if a suitable choice has been made, it doesn’t survive the vetting process. When I was pregnant with my first child (and then each subsequent child), I determined that the baby’s nickname should be “Roo,” like the little kangaroo of Winnie the Pooh fame. It’s perfect, right? I’m the mama “Kanga” and my tiny new bundle would naturally be a “Roo.” Despite my best efforts all four times, I couldn’t make it happen. And the ones that did stay around were rarely as cuddly as “Roo.” Keilana ended up as “Miss Muffet” and “Beast.” Connor is “Son-Son or “Con-man.” Addison got “Bratty Addie” and “Addie-San.” And now Scarlett has come along to join the crew. The most common nickname I use for her evolved from Patricia Cornwell’s forensic detective character, Kay Scarpetta. So, at the park or playground I am usually calling “Scarletta!” the whole time. Weird, huh? The other one she gets is “Miss Mouse,” for some unknown reason. In Jan Ormerod’s Miss Mouse’s Day, the narrator really is a mouse--but she can’t help that.
http://www.amazon.com/Miss-Mouses-Day-Jan-Ormerod/dp/0688163335

http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Jan-Ormerod/707595

Ours Is Not To Reason "Y"

When Time magazine named their 2007 Person of the Year, we were in for a big surprise. When the announcement finally came, it was “You,” as in “us.” The support argument was that since ordinary people had become so pivotal in public communication--through blogging, Youtube, reality television--and the Person of the Year must have some great impact on American society, it would be foolish not to recognize the everyday person. That Person of the Year cover even had a framed reflective surface to simulate looking in a mirror. The opposing argument was that Time had copped out and pandered to readers rather than making a difficult, politically-charged choice. I disagree. For the good or the ill, average people are more of a public presence now and that presence does have a great impact. Besides, “you” is one of my favorite “y” words. Think about it. If there was no “y,” some of the most crucial things we say--I love you, I forgive you, I need you--wouldn’t be possible. No, Time magazine made the right call and so did those folks who put the English alphabet together. Now that I’m thinking of it, lots of “y” words play a central role in my world--the catharsis of “yell,” the scrumptious of “yogurt,” the celebration of “yippee,” the brightness of “yellow.” When Alice K. Flanagan wrote Yum! The Sound of Y, she picked other nicely representative “y” words. There are yucky messes, and, of course, a yak. Did she get it right? Yes!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product

http://www.jacketflap.com/persondetail.asp?person=4901

Why Can't We Have Nice Things?!

Remember when jelly jars had cartoon characters on them and when they were empty you used them for drinking glasses? The comedian Judy Gold does and has childhood memories of her mother using the jars as company glassware. When one of the glasses gets broken by one of the kids, as was not only predictable but inevitable, she laments, “Why can’t we have nice things?!” It’s funny because it’s true. One of the first lessons you learn as a mom is that it is fruitless and depressing to maintain your pre-kid level of attachment to material things. The first time something you used to love gets destroyed by a tiny person you still do love, there’s a massive moment of existential angst pitting maternal devotion against egocentric ire. Mommy wins for the first of endless times and you never get to have “nice things” again. Being a big sister prepared me for this, but there are still a few moments that stand out. One in particular. I had received a strawberry-shaped sugar bowl years before Keilana came along, and I really loved it. One day when she was four, she accidentally knocked it on the floor and it shattered into a million pieces. My heart broke, too, but one look at her stricken face and I had to let it go. In Paeony Lewis’ I’ll Always Love You, Alex finds out mommies love you even when you break their stuff. It’s true, but I only buy plain sugar bowls now.

http://www.amazon.com/Ill-Always-Love-Paeony-Lewis/dp/1589253604

http://www.paeonylewis.com/

It's Not Easy Being Green

Despite having family members who can make plants grow with tropical abundance, I have two thumbs that are the depressing brown of wilted leaves. I am where plants go to die. At least I was. Now that I’m working on letting go of some of those old ways of defining myself, I have decided to embrace the inner gardener I know must be hiding in some corner, however remote, of my soul. Besides, Scarlett is young enough not to realize how green-thumb challenged I am and just knows she loves to be outside. Her Bampa is one of those folks with the magic touch, so he has set her up with her own first gardening set including tools, seeds, and everything to get started. We put all the stuff on the kitchen table (a ten year gap between toddlers has addled my brains), and dug in. The mess was epic but the results were encouraging. We set them on the back porch, watered them with her tiny watering can, and kept watch on them every day. And, truly miraculously, a few tiny, brave sprouts are peeking through their dirt covering. We did it! We’re gardeners! Well, maybe Scarlett is a gardener and I just helped. Either way, green things I planted are in the world now. Jill Mitchell’s A Garden shows creatures, in adorable form, you can find in the great outdoors. She doesn’t show how the garden got grown in the first place. That’s the information I really need.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1862020108/ref=nosim/?tag=yasni-20

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1096481

Do Bee Good

Remember “Romper Room”? We watched it every day--which is saying something since my mom was rabidly anti-television. I was drawn to Romper Stompers, badgering my mom into making some with coffee cans and string. But the pivotal moment was always when the Magic Mirror came out. The picture is still sharp in my memory: all those lucky kids in the studio and exponentially more kids at home in an expectant semi-circle waiting to get “seen.” Miss Sally would hold that unique-in-all-the-world mirror up and it was magic because she could see all the children in the world. And then she would start calling some of them by name. “I see Billy, and Susie, and…” It seemed she would eventually see me. But she never did. Not once. I was an avid fan, wearing my Romper Stompers in the den to prove my loyalty. At first, I would even wave my arms, but when I got a little older I realized how childish that was. She just didn’t see me. The funny thing is, I seem to encounter a number of adults who felt similarly shunned, hearing only other names, not theirs. Who were all these kids that did get called then?! My husband can never claim he didn’t get recognized by name, though. In Ole Risom’s I am a Bunny, the main cottontail introduces himself as “Nicholas,” which is probably why Nick’s beloved aunt and uncle gave him the book for his first birthday. Some kids have all the luck.

http://www.amazon.com/Am-Bunny-Golden-Sturdy-Book/dp/0375827781

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/24/arts/ole-c-risom-80-publisher-of-children-s-books.html?pagewanted=1

Censored

I have a confession to make. I have a complex relationship with Maurice Sendak. It started a long time ago, but, darn it, I’m still affected by it. I’ll give you the basic gist of what happened. From the time I was little, my mom would gather up the kids and we would all walk to the public library, pulling a red wagon of books to return and pushing the stroller of anyone too small to make the trip on foot. So, the Reseda branch of the library is where my memories of choosing books according to my own interests began. However, it is also where I first learned that people have different ideas of acceptable reading material. The majority of the books I chose were greeted warmly by my mother, and I hauled or carried enough of them home to stretch my arms out forever. In fact, I only remember one time when a book got vetoed. As a kindergartner, I wanted to check out Maurice Sendak’s nearly new In The Night Kitchen but it was a no go. Apparently, some women at church had been talking about their suspicions that Mr. Sendak must be a pedophile since some of his illustrations included main character Mickey in the nude. Therefore, I wasn’t allowed to be exposed to his books. It’s weird how things change over time because the only thing I noted about the nakey pictures was that it seems like Mickey is intact. And I’m O.K. with that.
http://www.amazon.com/Night-Kitchen-Caldecott-Collection/dp/0060266686

http://www.answers.com/topic/maurice-sendak

I Speak For The Trees

Years ago, I discovered Fred Meyer, a giant everything-in-one-place store similar to Super Walmart but with less evil and awesome childcare. A few years later, the single California store in a predominantly Northwestern chain closed its doors. The mammoth building sat empty, in view of the freeway, forever while rumors swirled about its future. And then one day I came over a rise on the off-ramp and saw that the entire building had been leveled overnight. I was swept by nausea as I absorbed the magnitude of such obscene waste. Demolishing a ten year-old, up-to-code building merely because new commercial tenants (a Lowe’s built virtually in the footprint of the bulldozed warehouse) want something specific enraged me. I was angry for years. I’m still angry. I experienced a similar sucker-punch moment the first time I drove past Chico’s old Downtown Plaza Park and saw it laid bare in the name of progress, raped of all the beautiful trees allegedly so “diseased” they had to be removed for public safety but healthy enough to be replanted on the property of the developer. I happen to unexpectedly like the metropolitan feel of the new plaza, but it took me weeks to picture the gaping hole where the gazebo had been without tearing up. Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax is not subtle. I guess the narrative master wanted the message to get through loud and clear: Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

http://www.amazon.com/Lorax-Classic-Seuss-Dr/dp/0394823370

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Dr._Seuss/

Where's All My Soul Sisters?

Three months to the day before Addison was born, we learned we were getting a little sister. We crowded into the ultrasound room peering expectantly at grainy, elusive images on the monitor waiting for some confirmation. The technician asked if we had any preference, and we were divided. The boys had either been flexible or non-committal until then, but the girls, eight year-old Keilana and I, were decidedly in girl camp. Keilana so she could have a majority and me so I could give Keilana what I never had--a sister. The technician then asked if we had any guesses. Since I had dreamed Addison into being long before she came to be, we all guessed girl. And the woman with the magic wand said, “You got it!” I went straight out and bought the girliest pink shoes I could find, just to make it real, and looked forward to a little sister for my brood. But change is always a bit unnerving. As I left for the hospital on the day Addison arrived, I looked at my two earthside kids, especially Connor, tiny in the middle of a king-sized bed, and wondered how it would work out. I needn’t have worried. After some typical adjustment, Addison became what she was always meant to be: a necessary part of our family. In Ed Young’s My Mei Mei, Antonia longs for a sister until reality trumps fantasy and she’s not so sure. Thankfully, there’s a no refund, no return policy on sisters.
http://www.amazon.com/My-Mei-Ed-Young/dp/0399243399

http://www.embracingthechild.org/Bookspecialyoung.htm

Monkey Business

It’s astounding, humbling, and thought-provoking to observe monkeys in action. While watching a Jane Goodall documentary that particularly resonated with me, I was transfixed by the similarities between chimp and human behavior. There were teenaged girls cooing over babies, tiny boys posturing like big apes, and even a chilling incident where one chimp who had stayed inordinately attached to his mother dispatched a newly-arrived sibling in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. So, if monkeys are so much like us, I guess we just lucked out in evolutionary roulette, huh? Charlton Heston’s damn, dirty ape experience notwithstanding, they got the cages and we got the keys. When I was five, my family went to the zoo where we spent time at the monkey habitat. It was very busy and the animals were subjected to waves of gawkers, but seemed utterly unfazed, until one monkey chose me out of the crowd. To my delight and the amusement of the quickly growing swarm of spectators, the chimp would mirror my every move. We danced in tandem for quite awhile, until the bystanders got restless. As I turned to leave, the chimp and I locked eyes and I felt an unbearable sadness that I could walk freely away and he never could. In Esphyr Slobodkina’s Caps For Sale, the naughty monkeys are tricked into giving up their prizes but not their freedom. Esphyr escaped Russia with her family as a girl--perhaps she knows something of being held captive.
http://www.amazon.com/Caps-Sale-Peddler-Monkeys-Business/dp/0064431436

http://www.slobodkina.com/about%20esphyr.htm

Stormy Skies

We’ve started taking Scarlett to the library. With mixed results. I have such rose-colored memories of the church that books built, it didn’t occur to me that two year-olds aren’t yet aware of the library behavior policy. It all went fine at first. We stopped at the front to get Scarlett a library card since there is no longer a minimum age requirement. She had insisted on wearing her ladybug fairy wings for the occasion, so it all seemed magical. For about five seconds. The moment we stepped in the children’s section, the darling little fairy everyone was fussing over turned into Destructo Girl with me chasing like a maniac behind. She whipped through the shelves, pulling books off as she went, expressing her naughty delight at the top of her impressive little lungs. In seconds, I gave up trying to make this a “teachable moment”--getting at her eye level, using a calm voice, explaining expectations in simple language (you know, the touchy-feely stuff our parents think is ridiculous)-- and concentrated on surviving it without being banned from the library for life. Hurricane Scarlett roared through the stacks, seemingly unstoppable, until one book caught her eye and she stopped dead in her tracks. Melissa Lagnegro’s Sealed with a Kiss, from Disney’s Step Into Reading series, is for beginning readers, not toddlers, but Scarlett doesn’t know any better. Either way, it was enough to get her to settle down and look quietly at the pictures. A welcome lull in the storm.
http://www.amazon.com/Sealed-Kiss-Step-into-Reading/dp/073642363X

http://www.jacketflap.com/persondetail.asp?person=109806

The Good Old Days

We got our first microwave in 1976, before my brother who is now in his mid-thirties was born, and the darn prehistoric thing still works. It is giant and analog, with a dial instead of a digital readout, and doesn’t do anything except cook stuff, but it has lasted for more than three decades without needing a single repair. Nothing made today lasts like that. It is one of my big gripes--planned obsolescence, the intentional shoddy and temporary manufacture of even expensive things so that they only last a few years at best before needing to be replaced in a consumer-fixated culture. We pay thousands of dollars for cars made of plastic, hundreds of dollars for phones and computers which become ancient history before we can get them activated, and most of our disposable income (and sometimes far more) to replace things we didn’t really need in the first place with more stuff than we could ever need. And the old stuff goes in the dumpster and then the landfill. It’s even an end-of-school rite of passage here in Chico. Not that my corner of the world is immune. I go into the Dollar Store, thinking I’m being thrifty, and end up leaving with fifty dollars worth of complete crap without even really knowing how it happened. In David McPhail’s Ed And Me, a little girl has a long, loving relationship with the family truck, which still starts right up even after a freezing winter. Ah, the good old days.

http://www.amazon.com/Ed-Me-David-McPhail/dp/0152448888

http://www.eduplace.com/kids/tnc/mtai/mcphail.html