For Love Of The Library

One of my favorite childhood memories is library day at Atherwood Elementary. Not only did library day have the advantage of breaking up the typical routine of the school day to make it seem special, it also ended with the best prize ever: a new-to-me book to tote home and lose myself in. Our school library was tiny--no more than a big closet, really--and the close quarters did not allow for very many bodies or extended perusing. Wandering in the stacks for hours or pulling multiple books from the shelves just to scan through the pages was for trips to the public library. The school library was all about business. Two rows of chairs facing each other lined the narrow hallway outside the library door and only a few students were allowed in at a time. While the rest of us waited. Most of the time I thought I would go mad with anticipation. I truly resented every second the other kids (most of whom were at the front of the line because they behaved boorishly in the first place) took to find their books. I knew none of them cared about reading as much as I did and I felt that should matter. The only downside to library day was that it didn’t come often enough. A week is too long between books. In Anna McQueen’s Lola at the Library, Lola feels my pain. She hates to wait for her book fix, too. A girl’s gotta have her books.

http://www.amazon.com/Lola-at-Library-Anna-Mcquinn/dp/1580891136

http://www.annamcquinn.com/

And That Has Made All The Difference

A student recently asked the class if a book had ever changed their lives. Since reading is neither a strong suit nor a popular pastime of the college demographic, many students seemed puzzled by his question. Some disagreed with the notion that something as basic as a book could be life changing. But a few of us, a precious few, knew just what he was asking. Heads nodded enthusiastically, and the literature in our veins spilled out in excited babble. Has a book ever changed my life? Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. Changed my life, added to my life, saved my life, made my life better, bearable, bittersweet. Harper Lee taught me what being brave in the face of inexcusable ignorance looks like. J.D. Salinger gave voice and meaning to my pain and angst. Kurt Vonnegut showed me truth in absurdity. Elie Weisel broke my heart, pierced my soul, and made redemption real. I even belong to a reject-consumerism group that has “W.W.C.I.D.” (“What would Caroline Ingalls do?") as a mantra. But perhaps I was most affected by a slim volume easily read in one sitting. Antoine de Saint-Exupery was not even forty when he put pen to paper and created the profound work of self-discovery The Little Prince. It is so physically insubstantial, one could never guess its philosophic weight. But it should always be read by everyone. I chose Counting With The Little Prince for Scarlett because I couldn’t bear for them to be strangers any longer.

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Counting-Little-Prince-De-Saint-Exupery/book/0152

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint-Exup%C3%A9ry

I Told You So

One of the most frustrating things for a mother to be is right. Despite what our teenagers and toddlers think, we don’t want to be right because that usually means we have predicted some dire outcome, been resoundingly assured we are wrong this time, and lived, once again, to see our ability to predict the future fully validated. You’d think we could get some sort of satisfaction out of this. But we don’t, because we are most often the ones who have to fix whatever went awry after we predicted it would. I can’t even count how many gallons of liquid I have sopped up after being begged for a “full glass this time and I promise I won’t spill.” I don’t know how many knees I have bandaged after my warnings of potential injury went unheeded again. I never want to add up all the money I have spent for uneaten restaurant food that a “starving” child just had to have and then left untouched. But the worst I-was-right is when a child insists on bringing some impractical item that they swear on their lives they can’t live without and will carry until their arms fall off…and it ends up getting dumped off on you about five minutes after leaving the car. That makes me crazy. In Helen Oxenbury’s Tom And Pippo Go For A Walk, Tom insists on bringing Pippo despite his mother’s suggestions…and Pippo ends up in the mud. At least mom didn’t have to carry him.

http://www.amazon.com/TOM-PIPPO-GO-WALK-Oxenbury/dp/0689712545

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

Scrap Happy

Whenever I see the warning signs for addiction, I can’t help thinking about my relationship with scrapbooking. Not to minimize the challenges people face in overcoming their demons, just to acknowledge the similarities between all kinds of fixations. As I talk to my students about the secret codes groups develop in their communication, I use scrapbook lingo and insider knowledge as examples. When I mention photo split squares fluttering out of your clothing and a few students non-verbally react with knowing glances at their friends, I know I’ve found a scrapping sister (or maybe brother someday). When I tell the story of seven year-old Keilana dragging a friend back up the stairs to slide down again in sleeping bags because “you can’t make a decent page with only two pictures,” the croppers get it. But the biggest connection seems to come when I admit to having staged my kids’ activities to match stickers or paper I want to use. Sad, but true. Also very common in scrapbooking circles. We’ve tried to get our children to eat popsicles adorably. We’ve draped our babies over pumpkins. But more than anything, we’ve dumped our kids in giant piles of leaves raked just for picture-taking occasions. I don’t think my kids have ever spontaneously played in the leaves, but I have many pages of pictures of them doing it--because there’s lots of really cute autumn paper. In Betsy Franco’s Fresh Fall Leaves, the kids are having fun. I wonder if it was their idea?

http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Fall-Leaves-Betsy-Franco/dp/0590962965

http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Betsy-Franco/1941168

Cold Shoulder

I like winter activities in abstract. I’ve enjoyed cutting out paper snowflakes, buying cute mittens, and watching “Frosty the Snowman” every Christmas. I think snow angels look cool, ski lifts look exhilarating, and steaming hot chocolate looks delicious. I understand the appeal of winter stuff--it’s the practical application where my interest wanes. As I’ve admittedly mentioned before, I’m not a big fan of the cold. And by fan, I mean having any love for. And by cold, I mean below 70 degrees. I embrace my weather wimphood with Southern California-born, Golden State-bred, sun-soaked pride, but I can understand, in theory, the attraction of the white stuff. I would much rather stay in the crackling-fire lodge than go down the mountain, but there is something impressive about the folks who swoosh with style. I could never swoosh with anything but the dangerous awkwardness where emergency room visits are born, so I have to envy the ones who can. I have always wanted to be the kind of person who loads up the car with inner tubes and hits the roadside slopes with all my winter-loving friends, but all I can think about when contemplating such a day is that there is no way my toes will stay warm enough to make the tubing worth it. Wimpy, I know. But it’s who I am. In Shirley Neitzel’s The Jacket I Wear In The Snow, one little girl crashes her sled…but thanks to a million layers of clothes, it’s no harm, no foul.

http://www.amazon.com/Jacket-I-Wear-Snow/dp/0688045871

http://www.shirleyneitzel.com/activities.htm

The Name Game

I recently saw a site for the “Top 100 Baby Names” of 2010 and two of my daughters are on the list. I felt a tug of annoyance at this since I have had some misplaced pride over finding unique names for my kids and bucking the trends. But I got over it pretty quickly as my eye was caught by another link: the “Top 100 Pet Names” of 2010. And what I saw surprised me. In the past couple of years a strange phenomenon has been occurring: the baby name list and the pet name list have been growing more comparable until now the top names are just a few places off from list to list. Since people have not become more likely to name their children Fluffy and Spot, that can only mean pet owners are more likely to name their animals people names. It makes sense--people are delaying parenthood more than in the past and the place is now filled with pooches and kitties. And everything that goes with that. There are pet pictures with Santa that then make it to the family Christmas card. People have Facebook pages for their four-legged kids. Many people refer to the pets of their grown children as their “grandpets.” Mother’s Day greetings now include women with “furry children.” And so on. In Judi Barrett’s Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing, there are a lot of ways animals are not like people. But I know a lot of people who disagree.

http://www.amazon.com/Animals-Should-Definitely-Wear-Clothing/dp/0689708076

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

Temper, Temper

There’s a reason the twos are referred to as terrible. And it’s because they have to be called that in the name of accuracy. I know some people say two is not some evil threshold that, once crossed, leads to a place of bizarre brat behavior and three-alarm fits. But they have either never met a two year-old, are in massive denial, or both. That first even number birthday is D-Day (as in drama) for the battles to come. No piece of clothing they have to wear, should wear, or you want them to wear will be donned without and until a meltdown of cataclysmic proportions. Sharing is like being burned with acid. Bed, bath, and beyond are contact sports. What they ate yesterday with relish and abandon will prompt a screamfest today if it is even suggested, or, god forbid, placed in front of them on a plate that was their favorite at breakfast but is now a loathed albatross from which they must escape. And so on. Virtually every moment of every thousand-hour day. It makes sense--they are big enough and aware enough to have preferences but too small to get what they want most of the time--but it sure is tough for the big people who have to ride the conniption roller coaster on a regular basis. In Edna Mitchell Preston’s The Temper Tantrum Book, all the baby animals in the jungle are expressing their frustration. And every living thing in a ten-mile radius knows about it.

http://www.amazon.com/Temper-Tantrum-Book-Mitchell-Preston/dp/0140501819

http://www.alibris.com/search/books/author/Preston,%20Edna%20Mitchell