Kid Reading Report: Age 9

My kid has been reading to herself a lot in the past couple of months; first she powered through the Percy Jackson series, gobbling the five books down as fast as we could reserve them from the library.  Now she’s renewing her acquaintance with the Ramona books, and dipping back into her old chapter-book favorites, the Rainbow Magic series (I admit I’m relieved she can read these on her own this time around). Her school is running a reading-incentive program where she gets stickers and chances at prizes for reading every day, so she’s been assiduous about making sure we sign her record sheet. She still likes picture books sometimes, too, especially if they’re funny; she borrowed Cordelia Funke’s Pirate Girl from her school library last week.

Then there are the night-time read-alouds, chosen by her kids’-book-besotted parents. Now that she’s nine, we’re breaking out the big guns. A few weeks ago, we read her A Wrinkle in Time. I don’t think she would have liked it so much last year—too weird, too complicated, too scary, especially the part where Charles Wallace is subsumed by IT—but we called the timing right and she was totally entranced, though Madeleine L’Engle’s habit of ending every chapter on a cliff-hanger made it very hard to find a point to stop reading each night.

Then, yesterday, we happened to be looking at a cute, accessible picture book one of her grandparents gave her about Leonardo Da Vinci, and I oh-so-casually mentioned that there was a really good kids’ book that was partly about another famous Italian artist, Michelangelo, and that it was also about two kids who run away and hide out in a huge museum in New York City and discover a mystery about a statue that they think Michelangelo might have carved. She begged to hear the first part of the book, and soon we were deep into From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.  I’d tried to interest her in this book as a read-aloud last spring, before our visit to New York, and she’d scorned it. But this year it was just the right time.

I wondered whether the Metropolitan Museum has any kind of guide on their website to the art that Jamie and Claudia encounter during their fictional sojourn in the museum, and, lo and behold, they do. Sort of. They also devoted an issue of their kids' newsletter to the book (opens as a PDF file). Sounds like the 16^th-century canopy bed that the kids sleep in isn’t there anymore, and neither are the pools where they bathe and gather coins. Today we read the part where Claudia and Jamie have breakfast at the Automat, and I had to explain about the Automat, which I remember visiting as a teenager, and how it was like a whole restaurant full of vending machines. And also how it’s not there anymore either.  

Oh, well; things change. But, fortunately, they don’t change so much that The Mixed-Up Files is less comprehensible or less enjoyable for my daughter than it was when I picked it up some 35 years ago.  Getting to share it with my kid is a treat that was worth waiting for.

A Word about Service

A couple weeks ago my children's school in Brooklyn participated in their first school-wide community service day. The purpose of this day of service was to give kids some hands-on experience with community service. Students and parents were encouraged to bring in $1 to fund the many wonderful projects they made reality. Students, staff, teachers, administration and parents all pitched in to give back to local organizations.



Over $600 was raised by the program and the service projects included:

• Baking dog treats for animals at BARC
• Making "Adopt Me" bandanas for the ASPCA
• Planting bulbs in front of the school and at the local public library branch
• Raking leaves in Cooper and McCarren Park
• Reading to younger students at local day cares
• Volunteering at local food pantries

As a parent I am thrilled to see our public schools giving back to the community. Today our children are learning about social values at school and (hopefully) at home.

Nice work kids!

Remembering Esther Hautzig on Remembrance Day

In the United States it's called Veterans' Day; in Canada, it's Remembrance Day; England calls it Armistice Day, recalling the end of World War I. No matter the name, tomorrow is a day when many people think about war and its costs: for those who fight, those caught in the crossfire, and those waiting at home.

Children who live in a war zone, and those whose parents are fighting, have no choice: they know about war, whether anyone wants them to or not. More sheltered kids, who live without first-hand knowledge of war, often encounter the concept through books.

It was like that for me. Even though the United States was at war in Vietnam when I was born and throughout my early childhood, and even though World War II had dominated my parents' childhoods (so much so that my dad remembers thinking that the newspapers would have to close down when the war ended, because there wouldn't be any news), war was much more of a literary concept for me than as a real-life historical one.

And one of the first books I remember reading about war was The Endless Steppe, by Esther Hautzig.

The Endless Steppe, which is based on Hautzig’s own life, starts on a beautiful, sunny morning. The narrator wakes up as usual in her apartment, which is part of a compound where she’s surrounded by loving relatives and material privilege. But her life is about to change forever: the Communists have taken over the city of Vilna, where she lives, and she, her parents, and her grandmother are about to be arrested as capitalists and sent to Siberia.

The rest of the book is the story of the next five years, as Esther and her family adapt to privations, hunger, unbelievably harsh weather, crazy orders from the military which controls their lives, and, maybe worst of all, isolation from the rest of their loved ones and uncertainty about their future.

I read The Endless Steppe before I knew much about World War II, or even about my own family’s history (my grandmother was also from Vilna, but I didn’t make the connection at the time), and , later, lumped the book in my memory with the many Holocaust books that I was to read in the next several years. When I re-read it a few years ago, I realized that it is a Holocaust book mainly by omission, and that in fact the family’s years in exile in Siberia most probably saved their lives: when they return to Vilna at the end of the war, they discover that most of their extended family has been killed by the Nazis.

So many of the small details in this book have stayed with me:  how Esther has to go to the bathroom so badly while they’re lined up waiting for the train to exile; the sweater she’s wearing, which is to become something like a second skin for her during her years in exile;  the vegetables that her flower-loving grandmother plants in her Siberian garden, because food is more important than flowers; the special boots that Esther saves up to buy near the end of the book and insists on wearing for the family’s return to Vilna, only to discover that they are hoplelessly unfashionable outside of Siberia—in five years, she’s become a stranger, an outsider, in her old home.

Esther Hautzig died last week, after a long life of work with children and books: writing, editing, and volunteering for the New York Public Library. So on this Remembrance Day, I’ll be remembering not only the soldiers who fought, and who still fight, but the kids like Esther, whose worlds are turned upside down by war. The Endless Steppe opened my mind to that understanding—that for many kids war is not just a faraway word--and I’ll always be grateful to Esther Hautzig for writing it.

Trick or Treat for Kidlit Links

As October turns to November, things start to get more end-of-year-ish, don't they? I mean, tonight we Fall Back, which means that tomorrow (at least up here in the northern climes) it will start to get seriously dark in the late afternoons. The trees are transitioning from their glorious technicolor to...well...bare. And you just know that as soon as all the Halloween displays are stripped from the stores, the Christmas/Holiday/New Year's stuff will be going right up.

In the book world, the end of the year means lots of best-of lists. For the second year in a row, Susan Thomsen at Chicken Spaghetti is compiling all the "Best Children's/Teen Books of the year" lists in one handy spot. So far there are only two lists on her list-of-lists, but I'm sure there will be lots more soon.

Speaking of best-of lists, the other day I happened upon a really terrific list of the 100 Best Book Blogs for Kids, Tweens and Teens at Online School. Some of my very favorite kidlit blogs are included, as well as several that are new to me and some that I've perused once or twice and always meant to get back to. Just a short time surfing around this list yielded a whole trick-or-treat bag's worth of cool stuff. Here's just a taste of what I found

• In Shen's Books, a blog about multicultural books, I found two posts about books with biracial characters: one on picture books and one covering books for older kids. I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately, and am happy to see such great lists!

• I loved this behind-the-scenes post by Alvina Ling on the Blue Rose Girls blog about what really happens at a publishing house when good news--in this case, the news that Grace Lin's Where The Mountain Meets the Moon was chosen for Al Roker's Book Club--comes down the pike.

• And last but not least, via Bottom Shelf Books, a blog with a delightfully grown-up perspective on picture books, I discovered that the hero of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day has his very own twitter stream.

Off to wait for trick-or-treaters now (and maybe read something good while I'm at it)-- wishing everyone a happy (and not too scary) Halloween!

Cold Season is Back

Why is it I love Indian summer? Right now my whole family is in various stages of a cold. I feel like we have been through this whole thing before, but here we are sick again.

Colds are extremely contagious (through sneezes, touches or coughs from another person), your child will most likely get one when in contact with other infected kids or family members.

Symptoms:

• Runny nose that lasts 5 to 7 days
• Congestion
• Sneezing
• Wet or dry cough that lasts about a week
• Possible low-grade fever
• Scratchy throat
• Symptoms usually last for one to two weeks
  

Treatment: Medication can’t cure a cold, but it can help your child feel better. Try an over-the-counter cough suppressant, decongestant, antihistamine or other children’s cold medication. Have the whole family wash their hands frequently to avoid spreading germs. Be sure your children drink lots of water and juice to keep hydrated.

Remember to check with your doctor before giving a child any type of medication. If the symptoms are getting worse, interfere with daily activities, are accompanied by a fever, wheezing, difficulty breathing, or last longer than two weeks, it’s time to have the doctor take a closer look.

But most of all, make some soup! Need a good soup recipe?

Try this chicken soup and rice recipe inspired by Maurice Sendak or if you have no time, then buy some soup and serve it up in her favorite bowl.

Shivery Reads for Halloween

I admit it: I'm not a big fan of the horror genre, in books or in movies. Oh, I have an intellectual appreciation for the deliciousness of the carefully placed detail, the careful dilineation of gore...I just, personally, scare way too easily to enjoy it.

But at this time of year, when fake spiderwebs hang from doorways, and I work in the shadow of a row of witches' hats strung above the children's info desk at the library, it's hard to avoid thoughts of the macabre. And, once I think about it, okay, there are a few spooky kids' novels that I've liked. They're not Halloween titles, exactly. But they all sent chills down my spine:

The Owl Service, by Alan Garner. Three teenagers accidentally tick off the dark forces of Welsh mythology, who then possess them and force them to re-enact a centuries-old tragedy. While I was reading this book--as an adult, mind you--I developed a morbid fear of the hallway between my bedroom and the bathroom, and if I was up too late would have to switch on all the lights if I ventured out that way.

The Sea of Trolls, by Nancy Farmer. While it's not classified as horror, this book has a number of horrific elements, not least the half-troll Queen Frith. When Jack, the young hero, accidentally casts a spell that makes Frith's hair fall out, he has to travel to the farthest reaches of the land of trolls to undo the damage, or Frith will hold his little sister captive forever.

Skellig, by David Almond. I have never read a satisfactory description of this book, and so I'm certainly not going to try. Suffice it to say that the title character's undefined quality is a large part of his/its creepiness, and that the friendship and even love that the kid characters develop for Skellig is things that makes this book stay with me.

Well-Witched, by Frances Hardinge. I read this book when it first came out, and wrote in some detail about it here. Two years later, I think I'm mostly recovered. Except from the part where the boy grows eyes on his knuckles. I don't think I'll ever entirely get over that.

The White Darkness, by Geraldine McCaughrean. Not all horrors are supernatural. This thriller sends its heroine (and its readers) to the furthest frozen reaches of the Antarctic-- and the truth about her "uncle"'s plans for her, which are creepier and crazier than you can imagine. Really.

The Changeover, by Margaret Mahy. You know how little kids love to get hand-stamps at the library? For a long time after reading this book, I couldn't give a kid a hand-stamp without getting the shivers.

All these books would be good for kids of about ages 11-14. Maybe younger, if they're not as wimpy as I am.

Some more Halloween-y links:

• My Librarian Mom post on "scary but not too scary" books
• North Vancouver District Public Library halloween booklist: Strange, suspenseful, and spooky
• Scholastic guide to horror genre
• Scholastic list of spooky early chapter books
• Scholastic list of scary stories for older readers
• Scholastic list of picture books for Halloween

More than the Water Pump Moment: Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan

Here’s a famous moment: It was 1887. Seven-year-old Helen Keller had been blind and deaf since toddlerhood. She was completely wild and undisciplined (she had a terrible temper and her parents couldn’t bear to frustrate her further). Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, was trying to get her to understand that there were words for everything. She put Helen’s hands under the water pump outside her house, fingerspelled the letters “W-A-T-E-R” to her, and suddenly Helen got it. Her face lit up, she spelled the letters back to Anne Sullivan, and she vocalized her long-lost baby word for “water.”

That moment was a breakthrough for student and teacher; a true epiphany. It was the climax of the play and movie “The Miracle Worker” based on Helen’s early life. And now it’s been memorialized in a statue of Helen Keller that has just been added to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol.

For many disabled people, and for non-disabled people (like me) who have been fascinated by Keller and Sullivan since childhood, news of this statue is both a thrill and something of a source of frustration: because that famous moment was the end of the movie, but it was just the start for Helen Keller. She learned to fingerspell and read and write Braille and even to speak. She graduated with honors from Radcliffe at a time when hardly any women went to college, and went on to become a scholar, author, world traveler, public speaker, and political activist, advocating for women’s suffrage and for peace. She was friends with Mark Twain and Eleanor Roosevelt. She was a person to reckon with.

It’s true that, as a narrative for kids, it’s hard to beat the water-pump story. I have a theory that the story of Keller’s struggle to communicate has a special resonance for children who are having a hard time learning to read, and also for those who love reading, because it’s all about the power of language and also about the amazing things that a passionate and determined kid can accomplish. Plus, Anne Sullivan, Helen’s teacher and lifelong companion, is an equally compelling character: not only was she just as passionate and determined as her student, but she was barely out of her own teens when she started working with Helen, was partially blind herself, and was still shadowed by a childhood of miserable poverty that’s like something out of Dickens.

One book that tells Sullivan’s story is Helen Keller’s Teacher, by Margaret Davidson. I read this one as a kid and still remember the wrenching chapters about her childhood in an almshouse. Miss Spitfire: Reaching Helen Keller, by Sarah Miller, published just a few years ago, is a masterful retelling of Sullivan’s story. Although the book is published as fiction, as the author imagines herself into Sullivan’s thoughts and writes in her first-person voice, it’s prodigiously well-researched and is based on Sullivan’s writings and on actual events.

There is no shortage of kids’ biographies of Helen Keller herself. The World at Her Fingertips, by Joan Dash, also amply covers Keller’s adult life and her formidable personality, in a narrative format. Helen Keller: Rebellious Spirit, by Laurie Lawlor, is a great introduction for older kids (about 10 and up) and adults. There are lots of photos, and the author doesn’t shy away from relating the more controversial aspects of Helen’s life, such as her support for socialism.

Of course, books like the ones I’ve listed have an advantage over stand-alone statuary: they can use words to depict a series of events, to at least try to capture the totality of someone’s life. A statue has to pick one representative moment, and I’m not sure that the moment depicted in the U.S. Capitol statue is the one I would’ve chosen, despite its fame and its narrative power. I wish there was a way for that statue to honor the accomplished adult person that Helen Keller became, who harnessed that stubbornness and intelligence that had made her such a difficult kid, and used them not only to fingerspell “Water” but to become a force for change in the world.

The Back-to-school Grind

Ok, so now the new clothes have been worn (possibly torn) and the school supplies are already starting to get lost. Your family is really back to school when your kids finally are into the routine of waking up early enough to arrive at school on time. On difficult mornings I may resort to coaxing them out of bed with hot cocoa...whatever it takes to start the day with a good mood.

After school the time crunch doesn't stop, especially if you are signed up for a few activities like my kids. There are some evenings when we barely manage to finish the homework before it's time to go to bed. We are trying to keep our schedule manageable so we are more inclined to schedule play dates on a Friday or weekend. Looking for a few pointers on how to manage homework? Check out Scholastic.com's Gradeschool Homework Guide.

How did we make it to October without losing our marbles? Well, we found that it was helpful to establish a routine where clothes are picked out the night before, complete with shoes, socks and jackets. Any choosing should be done before bed. You can also check out the forecast to plan an outfit that matches the weather. The days are getting crisp so be sure to throw an extra layer into the backpack.

My mother-in-law used to even sets her breakfast table the night before. I find that a little too ambitious but it may help your kids get started on breakfast while you finish getting dressed. You may want to have your kids tell you before bedtime what they will want for breakfast, and then stick with it. For kids who need lunches packed, have those ready (or mostly ready) the evening before as well, so all that needs to be done is a few last-minute touches before you dash out the door.

It's Cybils Time Again!

It’s time for the Cybils once again! This is one of my very favorite kid book awards, bestowed by children’s and teen book bloggers. Last year I was on the Easy Reader judging panel, but this year I’m taking it easy and just watching and reading as the nominations roll in.

One of the things I like best about the Cybils is its democratic nature: you or I or anyone who loves kids’ books can participate in this process by nominating one or more favorite books published in the past year. I wrote some tips for nominating Cybils titles last October, and there’s a shorter introduction on the Cybils website here. This year the dauntless Cybils organizing committee has streamlined the process: there’s a handy nomination form on the website, and if you click on a book category you can see a list of all the nominated titles just by scrolling down a sweet little window in the screen. This makes it easy to see if the book you want to nominate is already listed.

Nominations have been open since October 1, and will close in just five days, on October 15. If (like me!) you haven’t had a chance to nominate anything yet, this late start can be tricky—you might find (like me!) that some of your favorite books have already been added to the list.

For example, someone has already nominated one of my very favorite kids’ books of the last several months, When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead. It’s in the Middle-Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy category, which makes sense, because the plot does hinge on a pretty big science-fiction-y element. (Though what I love about the book is how much it feels like realistic slightly-historical fiction, set in the exact era during which I grew up (the late 1970’s), in a neighborhood (the Upper West Side of Manhattan) where I spent a lot of time around then. It’s just that some things about it are slightly…off-kilter. And then even further off. But all in a completely grounded and believable way.) 

Anyway, I didn’t really think I’d get to nominate it, because I read so many raves about it from other bloggers before I’d even picked it up. But since it’s already on the list, I can nominate another book I loved without fear that When You Reach Me won’t get its chance. The Cybils are friendly that way.

But I only have five more days! And so do you!

My Favorite Banned Books

We’re right in the middle of Banned Books Week, which this week runs from September 26 through October 3. In honor of the occasion, the American Library Association has a spiffy new Banned Books Week website that even includes a map of recent book challenges. Not only that, but this year the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers’ Foundation for Free Expression have teamed up to bring us the Kids’ Right to Read Project which tracks book censorship incidents and supports those fighting challenges and making sure that kids and families have a rich and varied array of reading materials available to them.

As a librarian and a reader, I love Banned Books Week (even though I think that “Banned and Challenged Books Week” would be a more accurate name for it). Last year, I wrote about one reason I think it’s misguided to censor books for young people. This time around, I’m featuring five of my favorite recently-banned-or-challenged books, from youngest to oldest age group:

• ·         And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell; illustrated by Henry Cole

Unlike many books about same-sex parents, which tend towards the didactic, this true story of two male penguins and their adopted chick is totally charming.

• ·         The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman (Volume I in His Dark Materials series)

For years I wondered why so many book challenges were directed towards the Harry Potter series while Pullman’s His Dark Materials books, published at about the same time, are so much more subversive of organized religion. They’re also riveting, stunningly imaginative, and gorgeously written.

• ·         The Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Various titles in this series have been challenged over the years, and usually for the same reason: too much information about sex. But that’s part of the point of the books, which follow Alice as she navigates her way through adolescence. Alice’s mother died when she was a baby, so she’s constantly looking for information about growing up. Relatives like her father, her college-aged brother, her stuffy aunt, and freewheeling cousin, and friends, like devout Elizabeth and daring Pamela, often give her contradictory advice, which she does her best to sift through. Along the way, her readers get a wide range of information and perspectives with their story.

• ·         Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison

Georgia Nicholson is a silly, feckless, unabashedly (well, sometimes abashedly) boy-chasing British teen. Sometimes I get impatient with her character, who makes some missteps along the way and isn’t always a great friend, but this book isn’t a primer on How To Act; it’s just a kick to read. The language alone is so funny and breathlessly zippy (and the over-the-top Britishisms are so goofy) that I find myself smiling over and over while reading it.

• ·         Fat Kid Rules the World, by K.L. Going

I can see why this Printz-award-winning young-adult novel might disturb some parents: its hero, a self-described fat kid drifting through high school, finds redemption and meaning through his friendship with a teenage drug addict who encourages him to play drums in a punk band. But that pulling of no punches, combined with a real sweetness that comes through in all the main characters (our hero, his friend, and even his straitlaced dad) is what gives this novel its power and poignancy.

For more about Banned Books Week from a librarian’s perspective, and a handy list of the most frequently challenged book titles, take a look at Scholastic’s web page on The Freedom to Read!