Book Review:
Steven Caney, Steven Caney’s Ultimate Building Book
Philadelphia: Running Press Kids, 2006
A couple of weeks ago at the library, AJ and I may have stumbled on the best book ever written. Or at least “the coolest book ever written,” says AJ.
Steven Caney’s Ultimate Building Book has it all. It’s entertaining. It’s interesting. It’s philosophical. It encourages free thinking and free play. And if you were stranded on a desert island, it might even help you survive. If you had a whole stack of these books, for instance, you could build a shelter with them, as books do a good job at withstanding compression (see pages 354-355).
The Ultimate Building Book is extremely comprehensive. It’s a big book and might be daunting if it weren’t so engagingly written. The first part of the book covers all kinds of structures, large and small. It discusses the different people involved in building and offers an overview of architectural style and history, not just of buildings, but of many kinds of structures. There’s a section on architecture in nature – how animals build things and what we can learn from them. And there’s a big discussion on tools, which doesn’t just talk about things in your toolbox. I found all of this very interesting to read and especially enjoyed some of the sidebars, particularly one discussing the bridges of Merritt Parkway, which I loved as a child growing up in Connecticut, and another telling the story of the town of Roosevelt, NJ, which I knew nothing about but am now completely fascinated with. . There are also chapters on style and scale, on invention and inspiration (and how to find it).
The second half of the book, though, is where AJ’s attention is firmly focused. It’s all about projects. Many of the projects relate to the architectural and construction ideas introduced in the first section. In the books introduction, the author says he had originally set out to write a book about making toys out of common building sets, and some of this is in evidence in the projects. But many of the projects use creative, cheap materials that are often easy to scavenge at home. There’s an entire chapter on building out of rolled up newspapers. Many of the projects use basic geodesic dome construction technology. Some of the projects are things I’ve seen before, but most are new. I was particularly taken with a set of giant Lincoln logs made out of cardboard paper towel tubes filled with expandable insulating foam. And I am seriously considering building the small greenhouse made out of PVC pipes for my garden. AJ has his eye on another PVC pipe project, a sort of sculptural sprinkler made out of a crazy array of capped pipes with holes drilled into them at a few key places. There are Rube Goldberg machines and marble tracks. There are forts and games and puzzles. There are a whole bunch of projects made out of food, including dominos made out of crackers and M and Ms, totem poles made out of fruit, and a set of building blocks made out of Jello and ice cube trays. And there are some remarkable projects made out of nothing but coat hangers and zip ties.
At the end of the book is an appendix “For Parents and Other Teachers” that talk more about the projects, the building sets he refers to and how to buy and use toys to maximize open-ended play.
I cannot put this book down. It’s overdue at the library, because every time I pick it up to take it back, I end up sitting down to read something. Then I have to show it to AJ and we end up getting up and doing some project or another. This book has made us look differently at the things in our house and at the house itself. Although we’re already somewhat prone to environmental consciousness, this book has inspired us to find new ways to use things we might otherwise have thrown away. This is why I think it may be the best book ever written. It has inspired us, given us tools, spurred us to action. This is what books for children should be. This is what any good book should be.
I regret that I have only two thumbs to give to this book. Maybe if I constructed some gigantic skyscraper-like prosthetic thumbs out of cardboard tubes and glue, my review would come across with a more accurate level of enthusiasm.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go convince my husband to let the grass grow a little so we can make a maze in our back yard. The instructions are on page 556-557.
Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Book Review: Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs
A few weeks ago, AJ found that he had some money left on a bookstore gift card and we headed off to spend it. After wandering through the bookstore for a while, he ended up with a book neither of us had ever heard of before, Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs. AJ was attracted to the large cartoon hippo lying on its back with its legs in the air and xes for eyes. Clearly this was a book about a dead hippo.
But it's much more interesting than that. Belly Up is a terrific murder mystery that keeps you guessing until the bitter end. It takes place in a zoo and is full of interesting information about animals and zoos, which AJ loves. But what he loves even more is that it is funny. Teddy is a smart and somewhat cynical 12-year-old kid, the son of the Funjungle's resident ape expert and wildlife photographer, who suspects the recent death of the zoo's mascot was no accident. Teaming up with the celebrity daughter of the zoo's wealthy owner -- and with a little help from mom and dad -- Teddy sets out to find out how Henry the Hippo really died.
Belly Up is Gibbs' first book and it's a good one. It's also a particularly good one for gifted readers, I think, because it's a smart and interesting story and the vocabulary is more complicated than you often see for this age group. That said, some reviewers at Amazon have expressed discomfort with some of the language, which includes some minor swearing. Personally, I didn't find anything too egregious but if you are the kind of parent who is less tolerant of that kind of language, you might want to preread the book and see what you think.
My one beef with this book is the editing. It is possibly the worst copyedited book I have ever read. And that's saying something. There were so many extra words and omitted words, that it detracted from the story. AJ and I were reading it together and it got to the point that when we'd sit down to read, AJ would say "how many mistakes do you think we'll find tonight?" The most problematic of the errors is when one of the minor animal characters changes it's name in one chapter from Henrietta Hippo to Hildegarde. I was half tempted to mark up the book and send it back to the publisher. This author deserves a better showing than this. It's a terrific story well told. The book's quality should match the work the author has clearly done.
But if you can get past the errors in the text, AJ and I each give Belly Up two thumbs up. We hope there may be a sequel, or at least another book, from Gibbs in the not-too-distant future.
But it's much more interesting than that. Belly Up is a terrific murder mystery that keeps you guessing until the bitter end. It takes place in a zoo and is full of interesting information about animals and zoos, which AJ loves. But what he loves even more is that it is funny. Teddy is a smart and somewhat cynical 12-year-old kid, the son of the Funjungle's resident ape expert and wildlife photographer, who suspects the recent death of the zoo's mascot was no accident. Teaming up with the celebrity daughter of the zoo's wealthy owner -- and with a little help from mom and dad -- Teddy sets out to find out how Henry the Hippo really died.
Belly Up is Gibbs' first book and it's a good one. It's also a particularly good one for gifted readers, I think, because it's a smart and interesting story and the vocabulary is more complicated than you often see for this age group. That said, some reviewers at Amazon have expressed discomfort with some of the language, which includes some minor swearing. Personally, I didn't find anything too egregious but if you are the kind of parent who is less tolerant of that kind of language, you might want to preread the book and see what you think.
My one beef with this book is the editing. It is possibly the worst copyedited book I have ever read. And that's saying something. There were so many extra words and omitted words, that it detracted from the story. AJ and I were reading it together and it got to the point that when we'd sit down to read, AJ would say "how many mistakes do you think we'll find tonight?" The most problematic of the errors is when one of the minor animal characters changes it's name in one chapter from Henrietta Hippo to Hildegarde. I was half tempted to mark up the book and send it back to the publisher. This author deserves a better showing than this. It's a terrific story well told. The book's quality should match the work the author has clearly done.
But if you can get past the errors in the text, AJ and I each give Belly Up two thumbs up. We hope there may be a sequel, or at least another book, from Gibbs in the not-too-distant future.
Monday, November 9, 2009
History begins at home
This morning, I was reading at one of my new regular stops, Playing By the Book about her latest book-inspired project, a mural-sized family tree that she made with her daughters (check out the whole blog -- it's full of great ideas for pairing books and activities with kids). It got me to thinking about how I ended up as an historian. I was pretty disdainful of history as a class in school. I think I may have had an exceptionally dry bunch of history teachers. But I read a lot of history as a child, especially after we moved to England where histories for children were more cultural than political. I was particularly enamored with the works of R. J. Unstead, especially the book on English history he wrote for children, Looking at History: From Cavemen to the Present Day. I checked the book out of the library so many times, that my parents eventually bought it for me. It is a tome. After I'd committed that to memory, I moved on to Unstead's books for adults, which I liked nearly as much. But it wasn't just the books that drew me in. It was that while living in London, I was in the middle of history. It stared at me from every corner. The flat I lived in was nearly 200 years old. There were places to go where the roads were built in Ancient Roman times. There were castle ruins to be visited, a statue of Queen Boadicea to touch, stone circles to find in the countryside. History meant something to me there, because I could see the stories everywhere I looked.
There was another book I loved, one that I'd actually discovered before I moved to England and which I returned to when I went back to the States. This one was not about history but about how to be an historian. David Weitzman's My Backyard History Book is part of the Brown Paper School series that first came out in the 1970s, about which I've raved in these pages before. The entire series is about outside-the-box thinking and it should be in every teacher and parent's toolbox. My Backyard History, as the title suggests, takes the viewpoint that history starts at home. Look at your own history. Follow it back. What do you find? Make a family tree or a time capsule. Think about what makes your time different from other eras. Talk to your relatives and your neighbors. What are their stories? How do we preserve our history? How can you preserve yours? These are all questions that continue to interest me. I ask them daily in my own research.
AJ isn't inherently interested in history, or, at least, he suffers from being the child of two history freaks. But we've figured out ways to work family history into other projects. For instance, every year for Veteran's Day, AJ's school has each child decorate a star on which they write the name and branch of service of someone close to them. For the past couple of years, AJ has written his great grandfather's name. Since AJ never met his great grandfather, who died many years before he was born, I used the opportunity to tell him some stories about his grandfather and to look at pictures together. This year, AJ decided he wanted to do someone he had actually met. So we wrote to my great uncle B, who was a career army officer. He wrote back an amazing letter with many details I'd never knew. He enlisted in the army at 18 during World War II and trained in the infantry for a Japanese invasion, but was spared combat when Japan surrendered in the wake of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At 19, he went to officer training school and became a second lieutenant and learned to govern occupied territories. He was a paratrooper in Korea and flew a helicopter in Viet Nam. After he related many exciting stories, sometimes funny , sometimes sad, he wrote a paragraph that was heart-wrenching, addressed directly to AJ. He told AJ how hard being a soldier was sometimes, but how rewarding it was too. He told him how he still felt guilty about some of the decisions he made, but that he had done the best he could and he trusted God to forgive him. It was incredibly personal, just the kind of thing you almost never see in history books. Just the kind of thing that means more coming from someone you know.
Later today, AJ and I will read this letter together. We'll both learn something about our Uncle, about our family, and about our national history. If you're not lucky enough to be surrounded by history, make your own. Find a copy of My Backyard History and get out and start talking to people. You never know what kind of stories will emerge. I'm thinking that the letter from his great great uncle and the book his father wrote for kids about the Korean War might do the trick.
There was another book I loved, one that I'd actually discovered before I moved to England and which I returned to when I went back to the States. This one was not about history but about how to be an historian. David Weitzman's My Backyard History Book is part of the Brown Paper School series that first came out in the 1970s, about which I've raved in these pages before. The entire series is about outside-the-box thinking and it should be in every teacher and parent's toolbox. My Backyard History, as the title suggests, takes the viewpoint that history starts at home. Look at your own history. Follow it back. What do you find? Make a family tree or a time capsule. Think about what makes your time different from other eras. Talk to your relatives and your neighbors. What are their stories? How do we preserve our history? How can you preserve yours? These are all questions that continue to interest me. I ask them daily in my own research.
AJ isn't inherently interested in history, or, at least, he suffers from being the child of two history freaks. But we've figured out ways to work family history into other projects. For instance, every year for Veteran's Day, AJ's school has each child decorate a star on which they write the name and branch of service of someone close to them. For the past couple of years, AJ has written his great grandfather's name. Since AJ never met his great grandfather, who died many years before he was born, I used the opportunity to tell him some stories about his grandfather and to look at pictures together. This year, AJ decided he wanted to do someone he had actually met. So we wrote to my great uncle B, who was a career army officer. He wrote back an amazing letter with many details I'd never knew. He enlisted in the army at 18 during World War II and trained in the infantry for a Japanese invasion, but was spared combat when Japan surrendered in the wake of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At 19, he went to officer training school and became a second lieutenant and learned to govern occupied territories. He was a paratrooper in Korea and flew a helicopter in Viet Nam. After he related many exciting stories, sometimes funny , sometimes sad, he wrote a paragraph that was heart-wrenching, addressed directly to AJ. He told AJ how hard being a soldier was sometimes, but how rewarding it was too. He told him how he still felt guilty about some of the decisions he made, but that he had done the best he could and he trusted God to forgive him. It was incredibly personal, just the kind of thing you almost never see in history books. Just the kind of thing that means more coming from someone you know.
Later today, AJ and I will read this letter together. We'll both learn something about our Uncle, about our family, and about our national history. If you're not lucky enough to be surrounded by history, make your own. Find a copy of My Backyard History and get out and start talking to people. You never know what kind of stories will emerge. I'm thinking that the letter from his great great uncle and the book his father wrote for kids about the Korean War might do the trick.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Book Reviews
My daughter Dusty spent quite a lot of time over the summer reading books. Part of the reason was her obvious love of books. The other was to boost her AR scores. She's hoping to get into the 100-point club this year, at the very least. So far, she's earned 50 points. I thought I'd review (and recommend) three of her favorites.
The Beastly Arms by Patrick Jennings
Of the three, this was the book I read to Dusty. It's the story of a middle-grade boy, Nick, and his mother, a photographer, who live in New York City. Nick's parents are divorced and they need to find another apartment as the landlord is threatening to raise the rent. Again.
Nick's a photographer, too, of clouds. He's able to use the darkroom where his mother works and there is quite a bit of detail about the film developing process, something Dusty hadn't known much about. Nick also has a knack for ascribing animal characteristics to the people he knows and meets. He's an animal...sympathizer. He owns Miriam, a kangaroo rat, who spends most of her time in his shirt pocket.
Quite by accident one afternoon, Nick stumbles upon a strange building - with a plaque on the wall that reads: The Beastly Arms - down a dark alley in an iffy neighborhood he's normally not allowed to be in. He is drawn to the building and knocks on the door. The owner is a strange man, Mr. Beastly, who, as it happens, turns out to have an apartment available. For $200.
Eventually, Nick and his mother move in. Nick is aware that Mr. Beastly is hiding a secret and he sets out to discover it. I'll divulge no more as I'd hate to reveal the secret of Mr. Beastly. We both enjoyed this story a lot and I'm glad to learn the author has written many more.
Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke
Dusty loves Inkheart and is plowing through Inkspell this fall. I found Igraine at the library and thought Dusty might like to read something a tad shorter by the same author. Dusty continues to talk about how much she loved this story about a girl who is a member of a family of magicians but wants to be a knight. When someone steals an important spell book from the castle, Igraine goes into full warrior mode to solve the crime and retrieve the book.
Hot Air (Edgar and Ellen) by Charles Ogden
This is one in a series of Edgar and Ellen books. I found it in the library one Saturday and Dusty loved it so I recently ordered another for her birthday. It's always a relief to discover a new series of books she likes or a prolific author because it means she'll be kept happily occupied for awhile.
Edgar and Ellen are devious twins who enjoy making mischief in their town of Nod's Limbs. They pull pranks and outwit evil doers and that's about all I can tell you about this series as I haven't actually read it. But, I have it on good authority from my resident eight-year-old, that its "really good." A series certainly worth exercising the library card for.
The Beastly Arms by Patrick Jennings
Of the three, this was the book I read to Dusty. It's the story of a middle-grade boy, Nick, and his mother, a photographer, who live in New York City. Nick's parents are divorced and they need to find another apartment as the landlord is threatening to raise the rent. Again.
Nick's a photographer, too, of clouds. He's able to use the darkroom where his mother works and there is quite a bit of detail about the film developing process, something Dusty hadn't known much about. Nick also has a knack for ascribing animal characteristics to the people he knows and meets. He's an animal...sympathizer. He owns Miriam, a kangaroo rat, who spends most of her time in his shirt pocket.
Quite by accident one afternoon, Nick stumbles upon a strange building - with a plaque on the wall that reads: The Beastly Arms - down a dark alley in an iffy neighborhood he's normally not allowed to be in. He is drawn to the building and knocks on the door. The owner is a strange man, Mr. Beastly, who, as it happens, turns out to have an apartment available. For $200.
Eventually, Nick and his mother move in. Nick is aware that Mr. Beastly is hiding a secret and he sets out to discover it. I'll divulge no more as I'd hate to reveal the secret of Mr. Beastly. We both enjoyed this story a lot and I'm glad to learn the author has written many more.
Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke
Dusty loves Inkheart and is plowing through Inkspell this fall. I found Igraine at the library and thought Dusty might like to read something a tad shorter by the same author. Dusty continues to talk about how much she loved this story about a girl who is a member of a family of magicians but wants to be a knight. When someone steals an important spell book from the castle, Igraine goes into full warrior mode to solve the crime and retrieve the book.
Hot Air (Edgar and Ellen) by Charles Ogden
This is one in a series of Edgar and Ellen books. I found it in the library one Saturday and Dusty loved it so I recently ordered another for her birthday. It's always a relief to discover a new series of books she likes or a prolific author because it means she'll be kept happily occupied for awhile.
Edgar and Ellen are devious twins who enjoy making mischief in their town of Nod's Limbs. They pull pranks and outwit evil doers and that's about all I can tell you about this series as I haven't actually read it. But, I have it on good authority from my resident eight-year-old, that its "really good." A series certainly worth exercising the library card for.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Book Review
What to Read When by Pam Allyn
Avery Press (Penguin Group), 2009
Last night, it was my turn to put Red to bed. We read for half an hour – books she chooses – and then she gets to read to herself for fifteen minutes until lights out. Red doesn’t know how to read but she’s developed that book love that, to paraphrase a famous movie, is the start of something beautiful. It took awhile to hook her, unlike her older sister who taught herself to read at four; Red is a more physical, outward and gregarious kid than her sister was. But, the closer she gets to kindergarten, the more she’s gotten interested in being read to.
Her first choice of the evening was Harold and the Purple Crayon, one of many books her sister has graciously gifted her. Dusty’s moved on to bigger things, namely Inkheart and Harry Potter (I don't think I need a link for this one).
Harold is one of my most favorite children’s books. There are probably a hundred books in that category but Harold’s near the top. I am still envious of his power to create his world own with a simple purple crayon. He can draw a city, a tree, a dragon, nine pies (which flavors, I wonder?), an ocean. He can get himself in trouble and then rescue himself. All alone. No parents required. He has the utmost confidence in his abilities and when he’s lonely, he draws a friend.
I recently won a copy (through a contest held at the 3Rs) of Pam Allyn’s What to Read When. I was curious – I mean, we’re preaching to the choir here – to know what books she felt were important and when. Particularly, since Dusty is reading four grade levels above her own.
The search for challenging books with appropriate themes is becoming trickier. Dusty’s not ready for middle school books about puberty and sticky friendships involving boys. She doesn’t really want to know about sex and how babies are made. Trust me; we’ve ventured down that road before, inching along until the stop sign went up. So, I’m always looking for new books to introduce her to. At school, her teacher is encouraging her to read classics (rewritten for an elementary school audience, I assume) such as Treasure Island, Oliver Twist, and Robinson Crusoe.
So, when What to Read When arrived, I sat down with a pen to take notes and star new books to find for Dusty. The book is divided into three sections. The first (the preaching to the choir section) discusses the importance of reading to children, outlines how to help your child become a lifelong reader, and lists fourteen “Landmark Books” – books so important to the author, every child should read them.
The second section is a chronological listing of books to read to each age, birth to ten. The third section looks at books that fall into fifty themes. Oh, pardon: Fifty Essential Themes. Or rather, Forty-Nine, since Allyn wusses out and invites us to create our own essential fiftieth theme. I have a few beefs with that section but I’ll get to it in a minute.
First – Landmark Books. There are fourteen listed. I’ve read all of them. I’m sure you have, too. I agree with the author’s choices – only one of these books do I question as being “landmark” (Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman – is she our only token African-American heroine still? What year is this?) – but guess what isn’t there? Harold and the Purple Crayon. What is, you ask? Madeline, Charlotte’s Web, Pat the Bunny, Curious George, A Snowy Day, etc. The list ends with Harry Potter. The list is not so much wrong, as dated. And seriously limited. I don’t disagree with any of the choices but feel that way too many really important books were left out. And then, because this is a list that apparently covers the first ten years of a child’s life, I thought, gee, why bother? Fourteen books? Are you serious? Every single one of them, except Harry Potter, was written before I was born. And I’m well over forty. I suspect Ms. Allyn is, too.
I think she should have spent more time at the library, talking with librarians (and if she did, she must have gotten there via a time machine), because there are so many really wonderful books, books I consider modern “landmarks” (Not a Box by Antoinette Portis, for example; or The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle – which is not mentioned here at all), that have been written since 1966, that may get overlooked if one used this book as their main guide. Which, of course, it shouldn’t. It’s not a bad starting point for a parent who is not necessarily a hard-core reader. But it’s a decent place to begin.
So, I won’t belabor the point. More recent books show up elsewhere.
The second section is, to me, the most useful section. It divides books up by ages – and subdivides them by subject and/or theme. Books listed for birth to two include Goodnight Moon (on the landmark book list and published in 1947), some Eric Carles, some books about words and numbers and faces. The usual.
Since Dusty is my oldest child, and my most challenging in terms of her reading level, I was particularly interested in the lists for eight, nine and ten year olds. These lists include fiction, nonfiction, cooking, poetry, science, humor, plays, and art, among other categories (they differ for each age). Many familiar books are here: Bunnicula, Captain Underpants, David Macaulay’s Castle, Where The Sidewalk Ends, etc. But, these sections were also filled with plenty I was unfamiliar with: Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, to list a few. Almost every book listed under “Books for Building Complex Thinkers” (Age Nine), Dusty’s read already. But, just having three in that category that she hasn’t read gives me three more books to introduce to her.
The final section is entitled “The Fifty Themes: All the Best Books for the Moments That Matter Most.” A tall order. My biggest problem with this section was the way the headings – the themes – were alphabetized. “The Challenges and Joys of Siblings” is under C. I’d put it under S for sibling, since that’s the theme, not “challenges”. Ditto with “The Complexity of Sharing.” I’d also put that under S for Sharing rather than C for Complexity. What. Ever. You’ll have to refer to index to find what you’re looking for. A very strange choice.
I think that while this book attempted to do too much, it’s not bad. It’s a good place to start. While I’d agree that “Adoption” is a good theme (if it’s relevant to your situation), I’m not sure I’d equate it to “Bath Time.” Which underscores my biggest issue with this book: it’s trying to be all things for all ages. Readers, and parents, would have been better served with perhaps a series of books that really encapsulated the best books for narrower age groups.
Reading aloud to each age group is also different. When I read to Red, I’m frequently interrupted because she likes to point out letters. Or, I stop and ask her what c-a-t spells. With Dusty, I’m interrupted because she wants to know what a Receiver is and why it’s not necessarily a good thing to be one (The Giver). She likes to think ahead, guessing what might happen next. She might stop to look a new word up in the dictionary. I think that’s the kind of information parents need. Kind of the literature version of the What to Expect series on the care and feeding of babies and children. My children (almost five and eight-and-a-half) have different reading requirements, different expectations. Not that the introduction of What to Read When is lacking, I think the book's attempt to be all things is.
That said, there are plenty of books my children haven’t read that are listed here and that’s worth it for me. It’s not a bad reference at all but as a hard core reader raising hard core readers, it’s just not quite enough. Or too much. I can’t decide.
Avery Press (Penguin Group), 2009
Last night, it was my turn to put Red to bed. We read for half an hour – books she chooses – and then she gets to read to herself for fifteen minutes until lights out. Red doesn’t know how to read but she’s developed that book love that, to paraphrase a famous movie, is the start of something beautiful. It took awhile to hook her, unlike her older sister who taught herself to read at four; Red is a more physical, outward and gregarious kid than her sister was. But, the closer she gets to kindergarten, the more she’s gotten interested in being read to.
Her first choice of the evening was Harold and the Purple Crayon, one of many books her sister has graciously gifted her. Dusty’s moved on to bigger things, namely Inkheart and Harry Potter (I don't think I need a link for this one).
Harold is one of my most favorite children’s books. There are probably a hundred books in that category but Harold’s near the top. I am still envious of his power to create his world own with a simple purple crayon. He can draw a city, a tree, a dragon, nine pies (which flavors, I wonder?), an ocean. He can get himself in trouble and then rescue himself. All alone. No parents required. He has the utmost confidence in his abilities and when he’s lonely, he draws a friend.
I recently won a copy (through a contest held at the 3Rs) of Pam Allyn’s What to Read When. I was curious – I mean, we’re preaching to the choir here – to know what books she felt were important and when. Particularly, since Dusty is reading four grade levels above her own.
The search for challenging books with appropriate themes is becoming trickier. Dusty’s not ready for middle school books about puberty and sticky friendships involving boys. She doesn’t really want to know about sex and how babies are made. Trust me; we’ve ventured down that road before, inching along until the stop sign went up. So, I’m always looking for new books to introduce her to. At school, her teacher is encouraging her to read classics (rewritten for an elementary school audience, I assume) such as Treasure Island, Oliver Twist, and Robinson Crusoe.
So, when What to Read When arrived, I sat down with a pen to take notes and star new books to find for Dusty. The book is divided into three sections. The first (the preaching to the choir section) discusses the importance of reading to children, outlines how to help your child become a lifelong reader, and lists fourteen “Landmark Books” – books so important to the author, every child should read them.
The second section is a chronological listing of books to read to each age, birth to ten. The third section looks at books that fall into fifty themes. Oh, pardon: Fifty Essential Themes. Or rather, Forty-Nine, since Allyn wusses out and invites us to create our own essential fiftieth theme. I have a few beefs with that section but I’ll get to it in a minute.
First – Landmark Books. There are fourteen listed. I’ve read all of them. I’m sure you have, too. I agree with the author’s choices – only one of these books do I question as being “landmark” (Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman – is she our only token African-American heroine still? What year is this?) – but guess what isn’t there? Harold and the Purple Crayon. What is, you ask? Madeline, Charlotte’s Web, Pat the Bunny, Curious George, A Snowy Day, etc. The list ends with Harry Potter. The list is not so much wrong, as dated. And seriously limited. I don’t disagree with any of the choices but feel that way too many really important books were left out. And then, because this is a list that apparently covers the first ten years of a child’s life, I thought, gee, why bother? Fourteen books? Are you serious? Every single one of them, except Harry Potter, was written before I was born. And I’m well over forty. I suspect Ms. Allyn is, too.
I think she should have spent more time at the library, talking with librarians (and if she did, she must have gotten there via a time machine), because there are so many really wonderful books, books I consider modern “landmarks” (Not a Box by Antoinette Portis, for example; or The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle – which is not mentioned here at all), that have been written since 1966, that may get overlooked if one used this book as their main guide. Which, of course, it shouldn’t. It’s not a bad starting point for a parent who is not necessarily a hard-core reader. But it’s a decent place to begin.
So, I won’t belabor the point. More recent books show up elsewhere.
The second section is, to me, the most useful section. It divides books up by ages – and subdivides them by subject and/or theme. Books listed for birth to two include Goodnight Moon (on the landmark book list and published in 1947), some Eric Carles, some books about words and numbers and faces. The usual.
Since Dusty is my oldest child, and my most challenging in terms of her reading level, I was particularly interested in the lists for eight, nine and ten year olds. These lists include fiction, nonfiction, cooking, poetry, science, humor, plays, and art, among other categories (they differ for each age). Many familiar books are here: Bunnicula, Captain Underpants, David Macaulay’s Castle, Where The Sidewalk Ends, etc. But, these sections were also filled with plenty I was unfamiliar with: Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, to list a few. Almost every book listed under “Books for Building Complex Thinkers” (Age Nine), Dusty’s read already. But, just having three in that category that she hasn’t read gives me three more books to introduce to her.
The final section is entitled “The Fifty Themes: All the Best Books for the Moments That Matter Most.” A tall order. My biggest problem with this section was the way the headings – the themes – were alphabetized. “The Challenges and Joys of Siblings” is under C. I’d put it under S for sibling, since that’s the theme, not “challenges”. Ditto with “The Complexity of Sharing.” I’d also put that under S for Sharing rather than C for Complexity. What. Ever. You’ll have to refer to index to find what you’re looking for. A very strange choice.
I think that while this book attempted to do too much, it’s not bad. It’s a good place to start. While I’d agree that “Adoption” is a good theme (if it’s relevant to your situation), I’m not sure I’d equate it to “Bath Time.” Which underscores my biggest issue with this book: it’s trying to be all things for all ages. Readers, and parents, would have been better served with perhaps a series of books that really encapsulated the best books for narrower age groups.
Reading aloud to each age group is also different. When I read to Red, I’m frequently interrupted because she likes to point out letters. Or, I stop and ask her what c-a-t spells. With Dusty, I’m interrupted because she wants to know what a Receiver is and why it’s not necessarily a good thing to be one (The Giver). She likes to think ahead, guessing what might happen next. She might stop to look a new word up in the dictionary. I think that’s the kind of information parents need. Kind of the literature version of the What to Expect series on the care and feeding of babies and children. My children (almost five and eight-and-a-half) have different reading requirements, different expectations. Not that the introduction of What to Read When is lacking, I think the book's attempt to be all things is.
That said, there are plenty of books my children haven’t read that are listed here and that’s worth it for me. It’s not a bad reference at all but as a hard core reader raising hard core readers, it’s just not quite enough. Or too much. I can’t decide.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Book Review: City of Names by Kevin Brockmeier
Kevin Brockmeier, City of Names
New York: Viking, 2002
When I was a kid, I lived at the public library. Sometimes I'd go to look something up or to check out a book I loved. But my favorite thing was to wander the shelves looking for something to call to me, something in the title or perhaps the shape of the spine, to pull it off the shelf and take a look. Many times the book went straight back where it came from, but if I was really lucky, I'd find a keeper. For some reason, maybe because it was my own discovery and no one told me about it, those books were often the ones that stuck with me the best. Natalie Savage Carlson's The Family Under the Bridge, Sydney Taylor's The All-of-a-Kind Family, and Meindert' de Jong's The Wheel on the School were several I found this way and all are still well-remembered and much beloved.
AJ has come to shelf-wandering later than I did. It is, I think, because public libraries are a lot different than they were when I was growing up. There are many more distractions -- computers with games and internet connections, playrooms, art projects to do. It wasn't really until first grade, when he got to go to his school library and pick out his own books that he started to figure out the pleasures of wandering the shelf and finding something good.
A couple of weeks ago, we all took a trip to the public library in the next town, which is much larger and nicer than our local branch. AJ was in a browsing mood and came out with a number of good books, one of which turned out to be a real find: City of Names by Kevin Brockmeier. AJ and I both enjoyed it. It turned out to be one of those books we read out loud at the same time AJ reads it to himself. He's read it 3 times since we checked it out and is hoping to squeeze in one more read before it's due back at the library next weekend.
City of Names is narrated by Howie Quackenbush, a fifth grader at Larry Boone Elementary School in the town of North Mellwood. Howie's been an only child, but his mom is pregnant and he's finding himself with a few too many Taco take-out dinners and a little more time on his hands. Howie looks forward to getting his school book club orders each month, but is surprised to discover that instead of the copy of 101 Pickle Jokes he requested, he gets The Secret Guide to North Mellwood, a map of his town with mysterious names. The map turns out to allow him to travel around his town, into homes and businesses even after hours. But Howie doesn't know where the map comes from or what exactly he is supposed to do with it. And when another unexpected book order delivery comes and leads him to mysterious underground rooms all over town, the mystery only deepens. Howie gets to the bottom of the mystery, with the help of his best friend Kevin Bugg and the girl who makes him blush, Casey Robinson, and his artist-Aunt Margie, just in time.
The story is engaging, but what really struck me was the quality of the writing, which is a definite cut above most books written for the 8-12 age group. His command of language and his way of spinning out a story was perfectly paced, and his characters were unusual, compelling and convincing. In lesser hands, this story would have taken much more than 137 pages to tell. Brockmeier's authorial skill should come as no surprise. Although this was Brockmeier's first novel for children (he has since written at least one other, Grooves, A Sort of Mystery ), he has written a number of acclaimed novels for adults, and has the sort of credentials that writers envy. He's a graduate of the Iowa Writers workshop and has racked up a host of honors including a Michener Fellowship, an O. Henry prize, and inclusion in Granta's Best of Young American Novelists (2007). As an author of adult fiction, Brockmeier is known for turning the sci fi genre on its ear. I was first introduced to him by an article in Slate a couple of years back called, "Who is Kevin Brockmeier", whose author Megan O'Rourke calls Brockmeier's A Brief History of the Dead, "a novel that gracefully captures modern-day anxieties about terrorism and futuristic decay—and a book that makes us feel, for a moment, how strange it is that humans live in glass and metal boxes suspended above the ground. This, after all, is what fantasy can do best: restore our sense of wonder."
There are elements of fantasy in City of Names as well, but it is the attention to realistic detail that had AJ from the beginning. He immediately identified with Howie as an only child, as a kid still trying to figure out where he fits, a kid who loves school and books but longs for adventure. And he loved the form that adventure took, especially that it involved kids exploring without much supervision.
Brockmeier so perfectly captures his narrator, that even though I'd forgotten which grade he was in as I sat down to write this post, I was certain he had to be eleven years old. Without browbeating the issue, Brockmeier delicately addresses Howie's ambivalence over his impending big-brotherhood and his uncertainty about his changing feelings for his longtime friend Casey. He is a boy on the brink of puberty, but he's not there yet and he's in no real rush to arrive.
AJ also loved the book's humor, the map (although he wished there'd been a copy of the map in the book to look at), the idea of "secret names" and the esoteric words used for those names -- we spent a lot of time with the dictionary because AJ wanted to know what words like "dolorifuge" ("something to drive away pain," OED) and "floccinaucinihilipilification" ("the action or habit of evaluating something as worthless," OED) meant. I loved the linking of the map with Howie's soon-to-arrive sibling in unexpected ways and the attention on the importance of what we call things. This book is highly recommended and was perfectly pitched for my second grader (who only squirmed a little at the very brief mention of kissing, but then, so did Howie), but could easily sustain the interest of older children as well. AJ is hoping to discover a sequel on the library shelf one day.
New York: Viking, 2002
When I was a kid, I lived at the public library. Sometimes I'd go to look something up or to check out a book I loved. But my favorite thing was to wander the shelves looking for something to call to me, something in the title or perhaps the shape of the spine, to pull it off the shelf and take a look. Many times the book went straight back where it came from, but if I was really lucky, I'd find a keeper. For some reason, maybe because it was my own discovery and no one told me about it, those books were often the ones that stuck with me the best. Natalie Savage Carlson's The Family Under the Bridge, Sydney Taylor's The All-of-a-Kind Family, and Meindert' de Jong's The Wheel on the School were several I found this way and all are still well-remembered and much beloved.
AJ has come to shelf-wandering later than I did. It is, I think, because public libraries are a lot different than they were when I was growing up. There are many more distractions -- computers with games and internet connections, playrooms, art projects to do. It wasn't really until first grade, when he got to go to his school library and pick out his own books that he started to figure out the pleasures of wandering the shelf and finding something good.
A couple of weeks ago, we all took a trip to the public library in the next town, which is much larger and nicer than our local branch. AJ was in a browsing mood and came out with a number of good books, one of which turned out to be a real find: City of Names by Kevin Brockmeier. AJ and I both enjoyed it. It turned out to be one of those books we read out loud at the same time AJ reads it to himself. He's read it 3 times since we checked it out and is hoping to squeeze in one more read before it's due back at the library next weekend.
City of Names is narrated by Howie Quackenbush, a fifth grader at Larry Boone Elementary School in the town of North Mellwood. Howie's been an only child, but his mom is pregnant and he's finding himself with a few too many Taco take-out dinners and a little more time on his hands. Howie looks forward to getting his school book club orders each month, but is surprised to discover that instead of the copy of 101 Pickle Jokes he requested, he gets The Secret Guide to North Mellwood, a map of his town with mysterious names. The map turns out to allow him to travel around his town, into homes and businesses even after hours. But Howie doesn't know where the map comes from or what exactly he is supposed to do with it. And when another unexpected book order delivery comes and leads him to mysterious underground rooms all over town, the mystery only deepens. Howie gets to the bottom of the mystery, with the help of his best friend Kevin Bugg and the girl who makes him blush, Casey Robinson, and his artist-Aunt Margie, just in time.
The story is engaging, but what really struck me was the quality of the writing, which is a definite cut above most books written for the 8-12 age group. His command of language and his way of spinning out a story was perfectly paced, and his characters were unusual, compelling and convincing. In lesser hands, this story would have taken much more than 137 pages to tell. Brockmeier's authorial skill should come as no surprise. Although this was Brockmeier's first novel for children (he has since written at least one other, Grooves, A Sort of Mystery ), he has written a number of acclaimed novels for adults, and has the sort of credentials that writers envy. He's a graduate of the Iowa Writers workshop and has racked up a host of honors including a Michener Fellowship, an O. Henry prize, and inclusion in Granta's Best of Young American Novelists (2007). As an author of adult fiction, Brockmeier is known for turning the sci fi genre on its ear. I was first introduced to him by an article in Slate a couple of years back called, "Who is Kevin Brockmeier", whose author Megan O'Rourke calls Brockmeier's A Brief History of the Dead, "a novel that gracefully captures modern-day anxieties about terrorism and futuristic decay—and a book that makes us feel, for a moment, how strange it is that humans live in glass and metal boxes suspended above the ground. This, after all, is what fantasy can do best: restore our sense of wonder."
There are elements of fantasy in City of Names as well, but it is the attention to realistic detail that had AJ from the beginning. He immediately identified with Howie as an only child, as a kid still trying to figure out where he fits, a kid who loves school and books but longs for adventure. And he loved the form that adventure took, especially that it involved kids exploring without much supervision.
Brockmeier so perfectly captures his narrator, that even though I'd forgotten which grade he was in as I sat down to write this post, I was certain he had to be eleven years old. Without browbeating the issue, Brockmeier delicately addresses Howie's ambivalence over his impending big-brotherhood and his uncertainty about his changing feelings for his longtime friend Casey. He is a boy on the brink of puberty, but he's not there yet and he's in no real rush to arrive.
AJ also loved the book's humor, the map (although he wished there'd been a copy of the map in the book to look at), the idea of "secret names" and the esoteric words used for those names -- we spent a lot of time with the dictionary because AJ wanted to know what words like "dolorifuge" ("something to drive away pain," OED) and "floccinaucinihilipilification" ("the action or habit of evaluating something as worthless," OED) meant. I loved the linking of the map with Howie's soon-to-arrive sibling in unexpected ways and the attention on the importance of what we call things. This book is highly recommended and was perfectly pitched for my second grader (who only squirmed a little at the very brief mention of kissing, but then, so did Howie), but could easily sustain the interest of older children as well. AJ is hoping to discover a sequel on the library shelf one day.
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