Reminder: Saturday is Free Comic Book Day!

Since 2002, the first Saturday in May has been “Free Comic Book Day”.  Don’t forget to find a participating store near you.  What? You or your kids don’t enjoy  free comic books?  Never mind, there will be more for the rest of us!

60 Kindergarteners go into a library…..

…no, it’s not a joke, but an actual real-life scenario that happens weekly at my children’s elementary school.  Not sure whose great idea THAT was, but suffice it to say that initially the scene resembled that of the Filene’s Basement annual bridal gown sale. The temperature in the sizable room goes up to about ten thousand degrees; you can feel the electric hum of those sixty 5-year-olds who don’t really  know their own names or how to read; the three different classroom teachers fleeing the chaos, leaving the library staff to handle the melee.  The little ones cry because they can’t find a good puppy book, or because they forgot to bring back their old book, or because they want the book NOW, or because their best friend got the book they wanted, or because the stupid library volunteers don’t know their names, either! Do you know how much the library resembles a CDC petri dish with 60 kindergarteners-worth of runny noses, fingers in noses, hands in pants, spewing coughs and sneezes?  Since the start of this “class”, things have calmed down a bit: the kids know what to expect, we know them better, they choose from a set of pre-selected books, and they get two stories, all in a 35-minute period! Now the only crying in the library is that of the parent volunteers who still require tremendous patience and effort to get through that frantic period.  Sobbing and crying aside, I don’t know how I’ll ever go back to work with a “real” job – I am SPENT after my two-hour volunteer stint at the library.  “Hard day at the library, honey?” asks my 12-hour a day lawyer husband.  Hard day, indeed!

My Two Cents on the whole “Tiger Mother” Brouhaha

I know that the hullabaloo around Tiger Mothers has died down, but I’m putting in my two cents for the record.  A few weeks ago I read the Wall Street Journal’s article about Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” with great interest. I was, of course, intrigued, since I’m one of the most strict mothers I know. I’m not the only one that doesn’t allow screen time during the week? Extra worksheets if you’re having trouble? Setting high expectations? Want to be ahead a grade or two in math and science? I also happen to share Ms. Chua’s loathing of the “Playdate”.  Wow – I could see where she was coming from, since I see both sides of the parenting spectrum here in the affluent suburbs. What I didn’t expect was the foaming-at-the-mouth vitriol leveled at Ms. Chua. The comments came fast and furious after the article was published, mostly in defense of the “Western” way of parenting. What about the child’s self-esteeem? Winning and losing can wait until adulthood! Rank them in order of excellence? What about the child’s creativity? Yowza, you get a trophy for participating in anything around here; where and when do the kids truly learn the relationship between effort and achievement?

After the article came out, I read her entire book, and it is obvious that most people who commented had not. While laugh-out-loud funny at times in the first half of the book, the second half of the book has Ms. Chua sharing the heartache and disappointment and guilt at having the Tiger Mother approach not go so well with her younger daughter. Ms Chua chose the path she thought best for her children, the same path that produced Ms. Chua, yet she ignored even the advice of her own mother (to whom she owes everything, according to Chinese culture). The Wall Street Journal came up with the title “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior”, and this is partly the reason that the “Western” moms freaked out. My take on the visceral reaction is that, at least in the affluent suburbs, mothers waited to have children until they were well along in their careers. They left successful careers to raise their children, so any hint that they’re not superior parents chafes as if they got a bad performance review at work, or didn’t get a bonus or something. The reactions seemed emotional and knee-jerk, while some adult children of Chinese mothers weighed in on both sides of the story. I read the book because I saw a lot my parenting style with my children (though obviously Ms. Chua was excessive), and I wanted to be informed before weighing in on it.  Ms. Chua’s book is a memoir, not a how-to book.  She also doesn’t come off looking too good in it, so perhaps writing this book was penance, or maybe looking back she loathed her own childhood, but didn’t really know how to do it any differently.

Are her daughters happy? I guess only they can tell us, but to entirely dismiss the concepts of practice, training, hard work, searching for excellence, expectation-setting, and making decisions for our children against their wishes might just make us “Sheep Mothers”: following the herd, seeking the parental path of least resistance, convincing ourselves that our kids must be great, they live in an affluent suburb! 

Perhaps we could be “Chameleon Mothers” – adapting our methods, disciplines, and expectations to suit the situation, to suit the child.  I’m guessing that many of us could benefit from a little more time sporting tiger stripes.

Boobies! The birds, I mean….

In my very important role as unpaid parent volunteer at our elementary school library, I observe a lot of funny things.  I mostly like to vex the little people by telling them jokes they don’t understand, or by pulling their little legs about just about anything: like how I sleep under the desk so I can be at library first thing in the morning, how I pretend there’s an earthquake when the kids play roughly with the model of the moon, how I’ll ask “did I mention that I’m an unpaid parent volunteer?” when they’re being difficult.

One consistent source of amusement comes from my efforts re-shelving the millions of books the little dears take off the shelves in their search for the perfect kitten, pony, or football book. Often the unwanted books end up in messy piles atop the shelves, or even all over the floor. Almost every week, I find that the “Boobies” book has been taken off the shelf, browsed, and left on top of a shelf five rows away from where it belongs.  Boobies (Sula nebouxii), of course, are those silly blue-footed, clumsy birds that live in the Galapagos Islands. The third-graders (we think we have it narrowed down to them) are fascinated by them.  One third grader asked the librarian for the correct pronunciation of the bird’s name (asking in front of the whole class), because she just wasn’t sure of it.  Pretty cagey, huh?  The librarian looked at her and said “Boobies.”  Then everybody burst out laughing, librarian included.  It warms my heart to see this kind of thing, because it’s completely age-appropriate taboo-testing.  It’s not like the fifth graders who keep trying get onto Facebook on the library computers (seriously??).  Enjoy the fascination with Boobies while it lasts; next thing you know they’ll be texting…. or worse!

I’ve purposely shelved the Boobies where they don’t belong – in with the frogs.  Let’s see if they find their Boobies this week!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Brush up on your Swedish, or practice reading subtitles, because the film version of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” opens in the U.S. on March 19th. Locally, it will be in Cambridge (Kendall Sq.), Boston (Commons 19), and West Newton. See the official trilogy website here.  Haven’t read the book yet? Order it on Amazon.com now for only $5.50! One reviewer called the movie “the biggest thing to come out of Sweden since ABBA”.  Now that’s a recommendation!

PS:  the book is part of a trilogy, and the Swedes have made all three movies with the same cast, kind of the way the Lord of the Rings stuff was done.

PPS: Hollywood has signalled that it is interested in making its own version of the movie, which means they’ll crap it all up and put Reese Witherspoon in it or something.

Virginia is for lovers……

...but not ALL lovers!

…but not ALL lovers.  Over the last few weeks, the great Commonwealth of Virginia has been the subject of a number of controversies: Virginia is not for explicit-Anne-Frank-diary-readin’ lovers: Anne Frank, legendary 14 year-old author of a diary written during the Holocaust, originally published by her father in 1947, is the subject of scorn and allegations of loose morals in the commonwealth of Virgina.  While hiding out from the pesky Nazis, she penned a diary describing her feelings, her daily life, and dramas of the families hiding out together, before eventually being discovered and put to death in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.  Cue the banjo music: the Culpeper, Virginia school department has yanked the ‘definitive’ version of Anne Frank’s diary from the classroom. The book was assigned to honors level 8th grade english students, and one parent complained about the book two months after the students’ assignments were due. The school board yanked the book, because “they dont’ want to make waves”. It seems now that the two copies held by Culpeper’s reputed library are either lost or missing. I guess it’s because the software the use for managing circulation doesn’t have a ‘burned’ category. The book was deemed inappropriate due to some feminine issues (menstruation, brief discussion of female body parts, use of the word “vagina”), and some suggestive language. The ‘definitive’ edition includes pages and passages that Mr. Frank had originally excluded from published versions of his daughter’s diary. Culpeper, Virgina, is about 50 miles southwest of MacLean, and is described as ‘rural’. Culpeper is home to around 15,000 people (and only 43 are registered sex offenders), and the town’s website boasts a wine and Moonshine (legal) attraction, but they don’t come off sounding too much like hillbillies.  It may be worthwhile to note that teen pregnancy in Culpeper, and in Virginia as a whole, is on the rise, and that influences like Anne Frank can only contribute to loose morals.  So tune back into “Jersey Shore”, and sext your naughty picture to your high school boyfriends, but stay away from that nasty book!  

  Virginia is not for snowball-throwin’ public-disruption-lovers: the Commonwealth has been the victim of severe winter storms, and has seen record snow accumulations, which has made local law enforcement quite testy.  Harrisonburg police arrested two James Madison University students for throwing “missiles at occupied vehicles” during this week’s snowstorm.  In laymen’s terms, they threw snowballs at a plow and an unmarked police car.  These are felony charges, and these boys could face one to five years in prison and a maximum $2,500 fine.  Virginia jails are full of these kind of trouble-makers, but let he who has never pelted the big plow trucks cast the first snowball.  

  Virginia is not for fancy-pro-abortion-advertisin’-license-plate-lovers:  The Virgina legislature has yet to approve a state-issued license plate that supports “choice”, despite having approved a “Respect Life” license plate already with approval. The pro-life plate is available in 23 states already, and Planned Parenthood and NARAL are just now getting in on the action, feeling like they’ve got to get in on the license plate action, the way Pepsi wants to be offered everywhere Coke is. The issue over license plate sponsorship is rather silly: all across the country people pay extra money for special plates with environmental, educational, sports-fan related, music, etc. The issue is using state governments to channel money to the programs the plates support. One Virgina legislator has proposed that a single set of plates that can accommodate most issues facing today’s drivers: “Am not!” and “Are too!”, or “I’m for it” and “I’m against it” could also be used. This would eliminate all the special plates and decals for which the registry makes no extra money.

Twilight

I’m having a hard time getting through the first ‘Twilight’ book; I’m finding it really tedious and annoying, and it’s unlikely that I’ll finish it. I came across this summary, though, so I feel better that I’ve at least got the whole concept down. Enjoy it and another fine insightful work at The Oatmeal (I recommend How to use an Apostrophe, and the Marvelous Man Boobs if you’re not too squeamish).

Heartwarming book from the school library

I volunteer at the elementary school library a couple of days a week, and that time is mostly spent re-shelving books after the little monsters completely destroy the library while searching for the just right book on puppies, kittens, or Waldo.  I came across this touching book: “Jack the Bum and the Haunted House” by Janet Schulman (copyright 1977).  From the book jacket:

“Winter is approaching and Jack the Bum (hero of Jack the Bum and the Halloween Handout) has nothing to his name but a bed roll and one wet boot.  it isn’t easy to find a comfortable place to live, but Jack is as fearless as he is homeless.  All ends happily in this romping tale, with Jack emerging as the hero of the day.  Janet Schulman has written yet another hilarious book for beginning readers, and James Stevenson’s illustrations once again perfectly complement the text.”

Jack the Bum was looking for a place to live.  Several of the story’s children offer up their tree houses, dog houses, and tents, but none will accomodate Jack.  The children learn of an abandoned house which is rumored to be haunted, and suggest Jack squat there.  It turns out that it isn’t haunted, rather, it’s the hideout of Jules the jewel thief, who was scared off by Jack, and Jack goes to the police with the information to catch Jules. Now the town has no need for Jack:

“And when it was light, they took Jack to the highway at the end of town.  “Thanks for your help in catching Jules, but our town law is ‘No bums allowed’!  Everyone works in this town.  You better move along” said the police.

Isn’t that how the movie Rambo started?  By being escorted outside the town line?  Anyway, the kids and their families hunt Jack down, and the owner of the abandoned building wants to hire Jack to keep an eye on the place:

“Who says I want a job?  I am a bum,” said Jack.

Finally, Jack relents:

“What a good job for me – at least for a while,” he said.

Too bad this series ended in the late seventies, huh?  Don’t worry, we still have a few at our school.  We’ve also got “Jack the Bum and the Halloween Handout”, but not “Jack the Bum and the UFO”.  Ms. Schulman has penned a number of other children’s books since then, but none as colorful as the Jack the Bum series.  Do we use the word ‘bum’ anymore to describe homeless people?  Would you scold your child if they called a homeless person a bum? I wondered about the use of the word ‘hobo’ in a recent post, too.

Real Housewives of Middlesex County

Today I stopped in at the annual Fall Book Fair at our elementary school, and came across this ill-timed title from Mo Willems:

 

I acted all disgusted and asked if this was some kind of sick joke – thankfully (for the first time in my entire life) everyone knew I was joking.  I bought every copy they had.  Then I visited to school nurse to let her know about the panic-based literature to which we were exposing our children (she also knew I was joking).

Harry Potter – Horny at Hogwarts

Just a few brief comments on “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”: 

I went to see the movie with a couple of close friends (one of whom had already seen the movie, but didn’t tell us until near the end), and had re-read the book prior to seeing the film.  My overall impression was: “boy, the kids are really bad actors!”.  I read somewhere that “there are only two more movies till the end of Daniel Radcliffe’s movie career”.  That may be entirely correct.  I must say that Rupert Grint was the best of the bunch, showing some comedic skills, but the rest of the bunch are really weak.  The adult cast is stunning, and it must pain them to have worked with these children for so long.  The show-stealer has to be Alan Rickman’s superior Severus Snape.  He delivers each line (though there were too few of them) with such acidity, it’s delicious! I didn’t much care for the ending vis a vis the book, but it will do.

As for the story, there was way too much innuendo in the movie: Cormac McLeggen licking his fingers in a naughty way while leering at Hermione, Ginny feeding Harry a pie, Ginny sliding down Harry to tie his shoe…wait a second.  I think Ginny’s a ho!  She spent most of the book snogging a number of boys, but her relationship with Harry was botched completely in the movie (for those that like the books better, like I do). I also didn’t much care for the “added scene” where there was a minor battle at the Weasley’s house.  Their house ended up on fire, yet all the good guys stood around and watched it burn – no spells for rain or water or anything?  What’s the spell for editing this….”deletio scenus”, I think.  It was just OK.  I give it a grade of ‘C’ – there’ll be no OWLs awarded here!