A Marathon Post--I'm Just Behind on Blogging!

The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure (ISBN-13: 978-1594485688)

As promised, here is one of those “I did this crazy thing for a year and it brought me profound insights into my own life” books. Wendy McClure, (like me) was obsessed with The Little House on the Prairie series when she was little. (Or the “Laura and Mary books,” as I called them.) But let me just say right here that Ms. McClure was a total lightweight. She hadn’t even tried making butter until she embarked on her Laura-channelling adventure. Heck, I made butter, candles, helped can peaches, sewed samplers, built campfires in the snow, ate sugar-on-snow...you get the point. Maybe I had a little advantage in that I grew up with a big field of long golden grass beside the house that could effortlessly be transformed into a prairie, and a big sister who could sew prairie skirts. Still, when it comes right down to actually doing any living-history activities, Wendy McClure gets bored, or even a bit snide, like when she refers to a modern-day back-to-the-lander woman as “crazy” for having a loom and a roomful of yarn. Puh-leeeze.

It’s interesting to realize though, that it’s not unlikely that some of the my most basic values about what it means to be a competent human being might have some roots in the Laura and Mary books. For instance, you should learn to do as much for yourself as possible. Practice baking bread, growing a garden, sewing and crocheting, woodworking, doing art, fixing plumbing. Also, acquire tools and learn how to use them. Be physically strong or at least not too squeamish. Be adaptable and try to look on the bright side. Take pleasure in small things if you can’t get the big things. These are all qualities I’ve tried to pass on to my kids, without being too conscious of it, and I think that worked out pretty well. What I’m realizing more and more in these scary times is that I think they might just be better-suited to facing the probable challenges in their lives because of it.

The story of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life was not nearly as simple as the books she wrote made it out to be. Thom and I had a discussion about whether or not she would be criticized now for pretending that every word was true, when it’s clear from historical records and her own letters and journals that she took a great deal of liberty with events. But Laura was a storyteller, not just a documentarian. She had a strong sense of the narrative she wanted to create, along with a feeling that she wanted to document a way of life that she felt people should not forget. So what if she didn’t actually see Pa make that door latch in Little House on the Prairie. She probably remembered something similar from another house, but it fit better into the story there. I suppose the issue is simply with how she represented the books. Anyway, it doesn’t bother me that every detail wasn’t experienced in exactly the way it is described. We are all storytellers of our own lives. Most of us just do it only for ourselves.

So even though I wished that Wendy McClure had been willing to get her hands a little dirtier (after all, that’s really how you travel to “Laura World,) I guess she did make me think over those books again. I’ll probably read one again too. 

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian by Ioin Colfer  (ISBN-13: 978-1423161615)

I got in trouble with a parent over the Artemis Fowl graphic novel last spring. Darn Scholastic switched up a few things to make it more teen-friendly without warning us poor defenseless librarians. My fault, of course, for not checking, but a "free" graphic novel is a hard thing to resist and I usually only have a couple of hours to tally up the book fair and decide what I can afford to keep and what gets stuck back into those shiny silver cases. Anyway, it was good to get a reality check on the novel series by reading the very last one. As remembered, Artemis is a great character. Uber-wealthy and off-the-charts brilliant, Artemis thinks he is invincible and is basically out to take over the world. As the series goes on, he realizes his own faults and tries to become a better person. Of course we know he is worthy, because of the love he inspires in the human and fairy characters around him. And all of this character-development comes with a boy-friendly mix of mild potty-humor, shoot-outs with mostly non-lethal weapons, and daring rescues involving fairy technology. It's sad when a book challenge focuses on one word or image, without understanding the whole context of a series. Sigh.

The best part of The Last Guardian was an intriguing little bit of the Fowl family backstory alongside some Fairy history. We humans don't come off very well, by the way. But when the world is pushed to the brink of destruction, it turns out, surprisingly, that the humans pull it together and start doing what they should have been doing all along (i.e. alternative energy, local solutions, pulling together to get through a crisis.)  The book lacked some of the humor of the early books, (and you would definitely not want to start with this one) but there is still plenty of action, dwarf gas, and undeniable proof that Artemis can't claim to be a criminal mastermind anymore. And there is even the opening for the series to go on, if Colfer really wanted to return to it. 

Turning High-Poverty School into High-Performing Schools by William H. Parrett, and Kathleen M. Budge (ISBN-13: 978-1416613138)

This is the last of the poverty-related books I will read this summer. I have a lot buzzing around in my head right now that I'm not exactly sure what to do with, but I think it will be valuable. This book both lays out some of the research regarding the effects of poverty on students, and suggests ways that schools can reform their practice to better serve these students.( I'm not sure if it, by itself, has enough background information, so I would recommend reading it with A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne)  This book can function as a workbook for a school, or even a team, to evaluate their current practice and identify action steps to move forward. There are numerous rating scales and checklists to assist in this practice. 

One thing that all the books emphasized is that it is absolutely crucial to have high expectations for students living in poverty. It got me wondering if part of our problem in Manchester is the low expectations that surround us as teachers. After all, the "public" (as voiced by the Union Leader) is constantly judging us as failing. Calls for abandoning the system proliferate. Teachers are not only failing, they are failing while being expensive--which is the ultimate sin. How would things be different if we were surrounded by people who believed in us? Who celebrate how hard we work? Who, when we are mired and burdened by the day-to-day effort of teaching, could have a clear vision of where we were headed, and could cheer us along when we lose our way? 

Now for the more lightweight books--I can't read such weighty tomes all the time! I'm going to have to go and get a handful of picture books.

Micro Monsters by Christopher Maynard (ISBN: 978-0-7894-4756-2)
I'm  usually not squeamish, but YUCK! This book gives all the details on the tiny living things that may share our bodies with or without our knowledge--like lice, mites, and bed bugs. Actually, it's pretty fascinating. The electron microscope images are amazing. No space alien could look weirder than a head louse or a flea magnified a gazillion times. I think that the gimmick of having the bugs speak in first "person" is an unnecessary distraction. The material by itself is engaging, and the mix of a narrative style with the scientific content is confusing.
Cloth Paper Scissors magazine
This is what in our family we call a "dumb dumb magazine." In other words, it's just for fun. I like to look at the pictures and imagine all the projects I'd like to do if I had more time and space.
In a Circle, Long Ago (ISBN: 0-679-85807-5) by Nancy Van Laan
Native American poems and legends, written for a young audience. My favorite is the one about Crow bringing the water, which reminds me of Raven by Gerald McDermott. I think I like it because it has the most familiar beginning-middle-ending format. I'm not sure what it is about Native American stories, but the often seem to end too abruptly.