Nurturing Narratives

Movin' On

2010-11-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys!

Well, I have some exciting news: I've sold my first novel! Yay! I'm going to be blogging over at Rebecca Serle Books: http://rebeccaserlebooks.blogspot.com

from now on so head on over and of course I will continue to chat your ear off about literacy at The Huffington Post.

Thanks!

New Blog!

2010-10-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I checked in but I've been busy over at The Huffington Post. Please check out my blogs here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/searchS/?q=Rebecca+Serle and let me know what you think! I've been doing a lot of author interviews, which I love, but have a new series coming up in which I rank the top 10 classic children's books...picture, YA, etc. Please post a comment here or over there if there's a book that you think I absolutely MUST include.

Read away!

Nurturing Narratives takes the Hamptons!

2010-08-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun helping to host the children's tent at Super Saturday this weekend in bridgehampton. We made storybooks, colored, ate cupcakes and laughed all day...it was a blast!

I've attached some pictures below for you to enjoy but I wanted to share one anecdote from the day:

The storybooks we made were pattern books and one of the printed questions was: "what words do you use to talk about YOU." The goal was to get the children thinking about words as tools of empowerment and applying them to themselves and others. I was helping the child, not yet of writing age, and asked him who he'd like to talk about. Immediately, he responded "mom!" His mother beamed (she was sitting next to him). I asked the child for a few words to describe his mom and he turned me to, toothy-smile and all, and declared: beautiful and LOVE!

It was a sweet moment.

Super Saturday!

2010-06-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

I have been asked to co-host the children's tent at Super Saturday this year and I am just so darn excited. The host is this amazing non profit SFK that empowers at risk children and teens. It is going to be a wonderful event all around and I cannot wait!

One thing on my to-do list this week is to create some "empowerment storybook lessons" for the children who will be coming through our tent (about 2-6 yr olds). These children are young and "using words" will probably not be available to them in the written form yet but verbally and conceptually? You betcha. I want the children to think about what they love about themselves, what makes them special and unique and what they can do...I can...I am...I will. What can you do? What makes you YOU? What do you dream about? What do you WANT to do?

In playing around with my word document this morning I found that a lot of the lessons I was cooking up were actually working on me! Yea, what DO I love about myself? What DO I dream about? What do I see for my life?

Take some time today to think about what you can do, who you are, what makes you special and what you WILL do with the gifts you've been given. And, for all your parents out there, send any empowerment story ideas my way! I'll be drafting up lessons all week!

Have a great one,

Memorial Day Madness!

2010-06-01T11:48:00.001-07:00

I hope you have all been enjoying my blogs over at The Huffington Post. I realize I've neglected the blog a bit in the last few weeks and my summertime goal is do better....starting immediately.

Memorial Day was so much fun. The weekend kicked off Thursday night with my agency's BEA party. Foundry is definitely where the cool kids are (my agent even got onstage and played bass!) and it was wonderful to catch up with colleagues and friends and dance the night away.

Friday morning found me off to Colonial Williamsburg with friend and fellow writer, Leila Sales. We spent Saturday touring and researching her next novel (fun!) and then it was off to DC to cap the weekend with some friends.

I hope you enjoy the pictures and that you all had a lovely weekend!

-R

What's with this cold front?

2010-05-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

I was all geared up for summer. I changed over my closet last week, inspected which coats had to be dry-cleaned and which I could get away with leaving untreated for next year. I started saying "it's summer" at the end of nearly every sentence (I use the phrase to express how carefree I am feeling. Also, to forgive impulsive decisions). I even folded up my scarves and jammed them into a box at the top of my closet. Then wham! Like a smack to the face this cold front came in. Not only does "it's summer" currently sound ridiculous, it also feels like it's never going to come.

I'm spring boarding, here.

A few weeks ago I was having a discussion with my friend Kate Tempesta. We were talking about what she calls "level four." That place right before you reach the summit where your energy is low, you're worn out, and it feels like the peak is never going to appear. We were talking about work, about how to navigate this "level four." How to hang in there when it seems like what you're working towards might never come to fruition. How to push through to level five.

Of course there are many different tactics: nose to the ground, perseverance, belief, acceptance. All of these worthy of consideration. But sometimes what you really need to do at level four is look around and realize how far you've made it. OK, it's not level five. And OK, you had your flip flops all out and ready and now you've been knocked back into boots but the truth is it's still May, it's still spring, and there are many wonderful things to acknowledge about this particular moment in time.

Speaking of level four...I have begun blogging for The Huffington Post on children's literacy, storytelling and a great many related things. You can read my first post here and please feel free to check back from time to time. I hope it can be a place, like this one, where you will feel welcome and maybe just a little bit inspired.

Here's to level four (and the promise of summer)

-R

blast from the past books

2010-05-03T08:40:00.001-07:00

I was at the New York Public Library this weekend for a children's writing panel and picked up From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg. It's one of my all-time favorites and since I haven't read it in about five years, I'm having a lot of fun. It's an amazingly sensitive book, written with care and grace and humor.

"But it never makes any difference. Going home without knowing about Angel for sure will be the same as going home from camp. It won't be any different. After one day, maybe two, we'll be back to the same old thing. And I didn't run away to come home the same."

I can remember feeling this way as a child, wanting so badly to be different, for something to, finally, be the catalyst to set my adult life in motion. I suppose, if I'm fair, I still often feel that way.

What are you favorite blast from the past books? Do they still hold up when you read them today?

-R

HealthCorp Gala

2010-04-23T09:17:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough Wednesday evening to attend Dr. Oz's HealthCorp Gala. It was at Pier 60 on the water and it was a beautiful (and fun!) evening.

I went because a very good friend of mine Tara Guber was being honored for her work with YogaEd, an organization that she started whose mission it is to bring yoga into the school system. It's an incredible program with some remarkable people attached and it was wonderful to get to celebrate her success. In fact, the entire evening was like a whose-who of the children's world in New York. It was a very different crew than my usual publishing circuit but it was all people who are running programs whose mission is the betterment of our youth. I met a man who brings drumming and musical theater into schools, a woman who is running a program to bring art therapy to preschools and many bigwigs who I (admittedly) was more than a little starstruck at meeting. These are people who inspire me daily, who make me feel, in the moments when it would be easier to crawl up and give up, that what we do is important and beyond important, absolutely vital.

I felt a bit like Cinderella after it was all over, slipping back into my flats and walking the distance home to my Chelsea apartment. But one thing stayed with me from the night and that's the passion all these people have (and sustain) for their cause. I've realized lately it's very difficult to get anything done, really done, without passion. With passion comes the motivation to do amazing things. These individuals are pure proof.

-R

National Library Week!

2010-04-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

In honor of National Library Week I've compiled some links I think are fun and informative. I love libraries. And librarians. And books. And children. And quiet time (ask my roommate, I'm a big fan of quiet time), so I wanted to celebrate on the blog. Thank you, thank you, libraries and the people who work in them. You do us all proud.

Reading Rockets has a great post on favorite books about libraries and librarians. Read it here: http://ow.ly/1wBcp

Jo Knowles has written a lovely post on why libraries are important. And why we should fight to save them. Read it here: http://jbknowles.livejournal.com/369799.html

Betsy Bird's complete "100 greatest kid novels" list. OK, so it's not necessarily about libraries but she is the raddest librarian I know. So, it stays. Read it here: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379/post/1820053782.html

Last but not least celebrate National Library Week by going to your local library. Set up show for a few hours. Read, write and observe. Libraries are special places. It does us all good to remember that.

Read away,

-R

Sundays

2010-04-11T14:32:00.001-07:00

Very close friends of mine had twins last summer and since they were born my Sundays more or less revolve around spending time with them. I usually stop by their apartment once or twice a week to say hello but Sundays are really our time. Sometimes we go for brunch after hanging out with the twins in the morning or we just lounge around the apartment, drinking coffee and gossiping. It's one of my favorite things about my week, least of which is the fact that I think (hope, really) that the twins are developing knowing who their aunt Rebecca is.

When I moved to New York is never occurred to me that I'd miss family. Sure, I knew I'd miss my own family, but I saw that as missing my mom and dad as individuals, not necessarily as people who provide comfort and stability. I've heard people say that New York is a city in which you find your family. That people move here from every corner of the world and are drawn together by circumstance, interest, faith and heart. I realized today, as I puttered around their kitchen, pulling open drawers and setting the table for lunch, that I felt at home. That I felt like I was home. It's a funny thing to wake up in the middle of your life. To have a moment in which you realize that whenever there is, you're somewhere close. Sundays remind me that sometimes just slowing down and taking in the simple pleasure of the people around you is what life is all about. That this is the best it gets.

Although I have a sneaking suspicion that when the twins say "Rebecca," it might get even better.

Have a wonderful week,

-R

Order Rules

2010-04-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

April is shaping up to be a very big month. Birthdays, some travel plans, and, of course, lots of work. My general routine has been shaken up quite a bit which is proving to be challenging when it comes to getting anything really done. You know what I mean, right? The extra-long weekend away or the doctor's appointment during your usual writing time or the lunch meeting outside are all innocent enough, except when they're back to back to back and all of a sudden you've gotten no writing done for a week.

I was speaking to a close friend of mine and kindergarten teacher about this over the weekend. I was lamenting a bit about my schedule, how whenever I become lax in my day structure everything seems to fall apart, and we started to chat about children. Routine is unbelievably important in the early years of life. Yes, childhood is about free expression and exploration but there is a reason the garden is the consummate metaphor of childhood. Children need to feel free to run wild, but in the confines of safety and order. In other words, routine is key. So much of life at that age is new and scary. The magnitude of things a four year old comes in contact with over the course of a day that they fail at is overwhelming. Having a structure and a routine creates a sense of accomplishment and peace. It allows children to succeed at the small things like how to tie their shoelaces and knowing where the crayons are for free drawing time. It's also the reason I love to write children's books. The beautiful simplicity the picture book form allows is something I have always gravitated towards. How best can we tell a story with the fewest words? How can we pay tribute to the ever-present themes of childhood? How can we, at the end of the day, create something that will last?

The experience of childhood changes from generation to generation, certainly, but those beginning years remain the most untouched. They don't know how to work ipads yet (well, maybe some do!) or care that pizza has hydrogenated fat. To them, life is magic. Yes, frustrating and confusing and at times terrifying, but new, and exciting. Everything is an adventure.

Order helps them to feel secure in the wild of this world. To know there are certain things they can count on, even if the rest of life fails them. My guess? It would help us, too. What are the things in your life you need in order to feel safe, fulfilled, content? Make sure they don't leave your day. I'm going to try.

Have a great day,

-R

Catching Up

2010-04-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

It's been way way WAY too long since I posted. A mis-mosh (mish-mosh?) of things are to blame for this most of which in some way involve my absurdly short attention span, the approximate four books that I'm working on, and, of course, chocolate. As my friend Leila would attest to, chocolate is always to blame. I've also been working on some really neat freelance projects with a few educators I wholeheartedly admire. So, all in all, time well spent.

But, I digress.

Nurturing Narratives is growing in all sorts of exciting ways. I was lucky enough to participate in the specialist (it's a word, I decided) of birthday parties last week. It's always such a joy to bring writing to children on their birthday and make language and narrative FUN. Like, CLOWN fun. For me that's the name of the game. Being silly, laughing, making words and enjoying it. We came up with a great story about princesses and faraway places and there was even a dramatic play to top it all off. A lovely afternoon, indeed.

What else?

I was in Portland over the weekend and had the absolute privilege of going to Powell's Bookstore. Has anyone been? It's the Mecca of books, I think. I spent about three hours in the children's section. So long, in fact, that I nearly missed the reading I came there to see. It was wonderful. I've never seen a bookstore quite so fully stocked in my life and everyone was so helpful and friendly. Well, everyone in Portland was so helpful and friendly. Which was appreciated. Especially since it rained the entire four days.

More to come soon. Have a wonderful week!

-R

Faraway Places

2010-01-27T09:12:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Women In Need, an organization that houses women and children (and fathers!) throughout the city. I have been working with them for a few months, bringing Nurturing Narratives to the children in their shelters.

I set out to Brooklyn with a friend and fellow associate committee member in tow. With us we brought How I Learned Geography and Where The Wild Things Are. I decided I wanted to do a lesson on faraway places and get the children, quite literally, outside themselves.

They were a rambunctious batch but as soon as we started reading they were completely captivated. Their eyes were glued to the pages and they were transported to that magical place I call Reader's Anywhere.

See the thing about books is that they are vehicles. We use this world a lot but I have only recently started to really understand what it means. They have the literal power of transportation, to move us from one place to another. To elevate us.

After we were done reading I asked the children to choose a faraway place they'd like to tell a story about. I explained that the little boy in the book used his imagination and traveled to the farthest reaches of the earth simply through his thoughts and that we, too, with the help of some colored pencils, could do the same. Some children chose the beach, others places like Jamaica and Mexico. One little boy, however, chose Coney Island. I applauded his efforts but when I asked him why he chose Coney Island he said, "because you said to pick a faraway place and it is very, very far away."

I was so touched by his words I had to briefly look away. Now I'm not saying every child has to envision an African Safari or a Moroccan desert tour, quite the contrary. Every child has their own, unique imagination which is what makes each of them so special and spectacular. But this is just my point. I saw in that little boy not joy in the prospect of Coney Island but complete lack of an alternative... he simply did not know any other place existed or that it was within his right to call upon one.

I asked him a series of question about why he liked Coney Island and with each one I could see him getting a bit more excited. Something very interesting was happening. He was applying the excitement he felt in reading the books and thinking of faraway places to a place he had been. He was feeling ownership over this exercise and as he began to remember the place, I saw that he was traveling there, too.

When we expose children to books we not only enhance their literacy skills but we also cultivate their own abilities to dream beyond themselves. I was amazed during that class that two picture books had the power to transport these children outside their circumstances and into another reality, a different way to live. By the end of the session the little boy had stuck with Coney Island but boy, was it an imagined version. Full of bright, neon colors, ice cream machines and blue beaches it looked like a paradise to me, too. He didn't write about Egypt but he dreamed up Coney Island with passion, and joy.

Read and Dream,

-R

That Magic Age

2010-01-24T10:56:00.000-08:00

I am working on a new book with a particularly quirky concept and a few weeks ago I asked my friend Kate Tempesta if I could go up to St. Thomas More Playgroup where she works and observe/ do some activities with the children (ages 3-5).

I headed uptown with my notebook in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. I was greeted when I walked in the door by about a dozen smiling faces, excited chatter, and lots of coats and boots. I wound my way around their fabulous library and downstairs to where Kate teaches. A big, open area with lots of room for creative movement.

Without going into what my book is about (I am constantly talking too much about things I shouldn't...or so says my agent), we had a very playful morning doing lots of fun, silly things. It took everything I had in me not to constantly snatch those little ones up and hug them (I refrained as this is frowned upon).

There is just so much joy in that room. There is so much joy in that school! Kate told me after classes had finished that if she's not around children for a few days she starts to feel agitated. That, as they need her to educate, she needs them as well. I get that. I completely get that.

Lately I have found myself working with older children, which I am really enjoying. It is wonderful to get to explore writing with them and have serious and meaningful discussions on words. But, I realized yesterday, I miss the little ones. I miss their playful laughter and puffy-cheeked smiles. I miss the way even the simplest of activities completed correctly brings tremendous triumph. I miss their runny noses and tiny little toes and fingers. I miss that magic age before reality has been completed cemented, where everything and anything is possible.

My program was created for children 3-6 but has since been opened up to include children as old as 12. I welcome the growth and am excited for everything that is happening with Nurturing Narratives and the unexpected yet delightful progress we have made. I am blessed to get to be in the presence of children and each age brings specific challenges and extraordinary joys. Someday soon I hope to return, at least partially, to that magic age. Until then, I suppose I will have to be content writing about it. Fair enough.

*Note: I am working with Women In Need doing storytelling/ narrative-building in their shelters with children 5-8. If you live in the New York area and would like to get involved please stop by their website. They are a truly wonderful organization doing great things in the city.

For the Love of Libraries

2010-01-19T12:11:00.000-08:00

I had to return some books today at the public library and stopped by to say hello to Betsy Bird, infamous children's librarian and blogger. Unfortunately Mrs. Bird was not in but I decided to wander around the children's section anyhow, it had been awhile. I try to get up to the library when I can and do just this: walk around. There is something so magical about not even reading all those books but simply being in their presence. The sheer magnitude of titles is exciting. Old friends and new ones. Recognizable covers and perfect strangers.

As I browsed the shelves and picked up a few favorite titles I was all of a sudden incredible humbled. Humbled to be in the presence of so much remarkable literature, certainly, but also humbled by the hundreds and thousand of writers who have decided to commit themselves to the craft of writing for children.

I was not always a children's writer. In fact all of my published work to date is in the adult sphere. But there was always something about children's that spoke to me, something that promised writing could be challenging, tough, problematic, frustrating, and also incredibly joyful. That is what I feel when I write for children: joy. And in my little corner of the library, all alone and quite as a mouse, I imagined that other writers feel that, too. That there is something about writing for developing minds and hearts that is just, well, downright fun.

Don't get me wrong, a picture book may look like a breeze but believe me, it's not. Choosing the right words, knowing how to challenge and how not to patronize, is a poet's craft. It is a demanding and difficult process but it is, far and away, the most fun I have ever had while writing.

I was reminded of why I write today at the NYPL. That's the amazing thing about libraries that bookstores just don't seem to have. What I'm talking about is dialogue. Dialogue between author and reader and the knowledge that one is, without a doubt, in the presence of shared magic. Because doesn't a book become that much more important, that much more exciting, when there is someone to discuss it with and someone who has come to those same pages before?

Take some time out of your week and visit your own public library. Browse the shelves or sit in a little quiet corner and take it all in. Even without the talking, there is much to be heard.

Enjoy the week!

-R

Winter Reading Series, Part 2- Children

2010-01-19T06:02:00.000-08:00

Somewhere in my envy-induced haze of all the peeps at ALA this weekend I sat down and created a list of my most beloved children's books from when I was young and now old (I just celebrated a birthday, it does feel that way). It was a very fun endeavor indeed and a few made the cut that I just plum forgotten about over the years. Below is my list narrowed down into my top five picks for winter reading. Some are picture books, others are not, all are loved dearly.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week and all you conference-goers are back home safe and sound!

1) Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers. A strange first pic? Perhaps, but this book marked a turning point in my own reading trajectory as a child. I absolutely adored this book about a mother and daughter who switch bodies for the day. It was one of the first novels that got me to realize narrative could be darn near anything you wanted it to be and that story was downright magical.

2) The Runaway Bunny by Wargaret Wise Brown. Funnily enough, neither my mother nor myself remembers reading this book when I was a child but it did make it's way under the Christmas tree this year. I gave it to my mom because, well, is there anything more appropriate? A story about a mother whose love will follow her little bunny to the ends of the earth. I cried (balled) in Barnes and Noble when I read it again in November. A must for any new mother.

3) A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle. This book is a true pillar of children's literature. It was exciting and wonderfully rich when I read it all those years ago and still holds up today. A classic, to be sure.

4) The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. I read these books with my father when I was a child and devoured each one. They are perfect for the cold, winter months. Cuddle up with your youngster or just gift them the book to read on their own. Don't be surprised if by April when the weather warms they are through more than a few! I am a sucker for the originals (only the first 19 were written by Warner) so try to start with those if you can.

5) Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. As one of my trusty readers and friends pointed out about last week's post...can you really have a winter reading list and NOT include Harry Potter? The answer is most definitely no. If you are one of the baffling few who have yet to read the books (there must be one or two, no?) please PLEASE pick them up asap. As I told one of my friends ten years ago when I was beginning my own journey with HP, "if you don't read them, you are only punishing yourself." I still feel that way today. And if you, like me, have been a constant reader, why not start the series over and brush up on your Potter Plots? The next movie will be out before we know it...

Winter Reading Series, Part 1- ADULTS

2010-01-13T16:49:00.000-08:00

If you live anywhere remotely close to where I do (well, except for maybe Florida), it is likely that winter has set in by now, and how. It is cold, sometimes too cold to even snow, and, if you again, like me, live in a city, space is cramped. What is one to do? Read, of course!

I have found that a good book on a cold winter's night can be just what my mood ordered (plus, Glee is on hiatus) and since I do feel the winter has a tendency to get adults down more than children (those of us who are past our snow-angel prime...I know, I know, never too old!) I have decided to, just this once, make this blog about grown-ups. In my mind the winter is the time for meat, for length, for a novel that will work it's way into your heart and spend some time with you. Below are my top five book choices for winter reading. Enjoy! And stay warm.

1) The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud.

This novel is one of the most fascinating character studies I have read in awhile. Set in New York directly before the fall of the twin towers and with a cast of characters, the book asks that age-old question that has been the underbelly of human existence since the beginning: what is truth, and what does it mean to be an authentic human being? I loved it.

2) The Last of Her Kind by Jenna Blum.

Ms. Blum is not only a sensational writer but a remarkable researcher. The book, chronicling the lives of two German women during the Nazi occupation, is a heartbreakingly accurate account of war and the things we do to survive. I especially liked the emphasis on the idea of "remembrance" and how we all bear the burden of our past in different ways. A truly fantastic novel.

3) Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik.

This memoir holds a special place in my heart and I revisited it this winter when I gave it to my father for Christmas. Gopnik, as some of you may know, is a beloved New Yorker writer who moved his young family to Paris in the 90's. Through his expat eyes, one encounters the very real diversion (and subsequent marriage) of the odd, unpredictable nature of the French Life and the timeless romanticism of this beloved city. It is funny, quirky and incredibly lovely. *Read with a glass of red wine and a warm blanket.

4) Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins.

This is another classic favorite of mine and a book I recommend again and again. It is a tale about science, love, and the questions that lead man beyond the realms of human control. It takes place mostly at a research facility in the states during WWII where radioactivity was being explored and tested.

5) My French Life by Vicki Archer.

I was gifted this book last week for my birthday and tore through it. The gift-giver knows I am painfully in love with all things French and came across My French Life thinking it would make a nice coffee-table adornment for my apartment. It does, indeed, but it's also a delicious written window into French life. Meaty perhaps it isn't but divine it definitely is. With rich, edible descriptions of French food, poignant anecdotes about French lifestyle and sensibility and enviable examples of French fashion it is a book to read and re-read. Paired with the delectable text are wonderful photographs by Archer's longtime friend and colleague, Carla Coulson. Enjoy with a cocktail and drift away along the Seine.

How about you all? Any favorite winter reads?

Books and Birthdays

2010-01-12T11:59:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know from my website I do Nurturing Narratives birthdays. Part of the mission of my program is to foster a LOVE of literacy and what better way to do that than to bring books into the birthday realm?

I was talking to a client earlier today about a party for her daughter (we are planning something special with a poetry theme) and it got me thinking that I have yet to share some birthday suggestions on the blog here for you all. So, candles and cakes aside, here are some ideas for a fun (and educational) birthday party.

- An Eloise Party. What little girl doesn't love Eloise at The Plaza? Throw a Eloise-themed tea party where you read Eloise, pretend you are at The Plaza and create your own Eloise adventure. Feeling adventurous? Eloise in Paris also works.

- Move to the beat of the book! This is especially fun for younger children. Get your child's favorite storybook out and asked the children to act it out. You can do everything from symbolic movement (let's all be trees in the forest!) to assigning each child a character to play.

- A Poetry Party. Cut up a bunch of fun words---adjectives are especially great!---and put them all in a paper bag. Have each child choose 10 and create their own poem. Afterwards play "poetry puzzle" and guess whose poem belongs to who...the birthday child can be the reader and get the first guess.

- Storybook Swap. Buy some inexpensive writing journals and give one to each child. Tell them to describe one person or thing in the room is the most descriptive and unique language they can without naming what it is. Then pass the journals to the right and have each child try to draw the object or partygoer based on the description. Then, if it's not already obvious, guess who and what is on the page!

And be sure to spread the literacy love! Sticking to the theme of the party, give out party-favors of your child's favorite book and let each child go home with the poem or writing journal they have created.

Happy Birthday to anyone who is celebrating out there!

-R

New Children's Ambassador

2010-01-07T06:44:00.000-08:00

OK. I know I am a little late in posting this (the news broke 4 days ago, really) but I have just touched back down in New York and, I suppose, better late than never.

As many of you know Katherine Paterson has been named the new national ambassador for young people's literature. She succeeds Jon Scieszka as the second writer to hold the post. Paterson is best known in my book for "The Bridge to Terabithia," a novel I absolutely adored as a child first coming to literature and "Jacob Have I Loved." Perhaps Mrs. Paterson is not part of the youth culture but vetted she most definitely is. She has an impressive resume that spans decades of writing (both novels and picture books) as well as an elementary teaching career. Her books can be dark and a bit dangerous which is probably why she appeals so much to children. She is not afraid of going to places that are not all sunshine. And as we know from watching beloved author J.K. Rowling at work, children respect the honesty of darkness far more than the false reality of endless light.

I am looking forward to Paterson's rein and the twinkle-eyed spirit I hope she will bring to the job post. Some notes to come on winter reading soon but in the meantime, stay warm and happy reading!

-R

Home for the Holidays

2009-12-29T18:29:00.001-08:00

I hope all is well on the home front. It's been quite a busy break. I kicked it off with a Nurturing Narratives session at my old high school. It was so fun to see so many old faces and lots of new, little ones! We read The Night Before Christmas, The Magical Snowman and The Polar Express. Hot chocolate was served and fun was had by all!

I have been reminded this holiday season about the importance of family. About acceptance and about love. Many of us live far from home and even though we miss them it's not always easy to spend 24/7 with our family. They do things differently than we do, they are too loud or too opinionated. The truth is, though, that they help us grow. With each adversity, with every irritation we exhale, we get closer to the real definition of family...love. Some of our families are those we are born into and others are those we create for ourselves. Some of us may be coming home to re-build relationships and others might be re-defining what family means after years. Whatever your situation is, I wish you all a season of love, joy and growth. May we continue to evolve as readers, writers, listeners and people in the new year.

-R

PenTales

2009-12-16T06:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I taught my first class with PenTales, a wonderful organization I have partnered with to help them with their children's curriculum. It's a new age group for me (10-12 year olds) and I was a bit nervous, not entirely sure if my methods would hold up (given that I spend my teaching time with very young children). But I had nothing to fear, they were an amazing bunch. Excited, eloquent, respectful, eager and a real treat to have in my classroom. I am thrilled to be working with them and look forward to a January filled with adventure. I wanted to share the writing exercise we did yesterday in case any of you have older children. I know I talk a great deal about early literacy but the process continues well into grammar school. These children are still, in many ways, coming to the written word. It is a joy to see them grow and expand on the platform they have already built. Here is what we did:

A writing exercise I call the "What If?" exercise.

I spoke at the beginning of class a bit about how stories usually come out of one of three things: people, places and things.

I asked the students what people are called in stories. Characters!

I then asked if anyone knew what places were called...setting!

And the third, things, I call details...little things that make a story special.

The goal is to get them thinking about narrative in terms of elements, so they understand the structure for how a story is built.

I told them we were going to pay some attention to setting today and do an exercise I use when I need to get in the writing mood. I then had everyone close their eyes (I imagine many of them didn't do it but I couldn't tell you, being as that I kept mine closed!). With their eyes still closed I asked them to think about if they could be absolutely anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?

It could be a made-up place, a place from a dream, a faraway place they have never been to or a place that makes them feel really happy and at home. Once they had chosen a place I told them to "open" their eyes in the place (with eyes still closed) and record every single thing they saw.

What does it smell like there? Taste like? What colors are there? What do they feel? Hear? "Look around, remember everything you possibly can about this place." Are there other people there? Who? Where are they? I gave them 30 more seconds to really take some mental snapshots and then had everyone open their eyes, get paper and pen or use a computer, and write it down. Everything about the place they could remember. "Make us feel like we were there with you. Tell us everything you possibly can about this place."

I gave them 15 solid minutes for writing but the children wanted more...as a writing teacher, is there anything better? Afterwards we all sat in a circle and shared our pieces. Some children had written more of a list of details, that read like poetry. Others got really into the description of their place. All of them were wonderful.

Next up: a character description and three details. Then we are going to put all three elements together and start talking about that big one...PLOT!

Read away,

-R

Protective Parenting...a problem?

2009-12-07T07:01:00.000-08:00

I came across this great lit list of 7 fascinating books about our parenting culture. I haven't read any yet so I cannot give a review (I will soon) but I wanted to make some umbrella points that the post seemed to hint at. And, of course, encourage you all to glance at the list and summaries.

The overwhelming feeling seems to be that parents need to relax. The books range in emotion from one that acknowledges and explains our culture of fear to another that says we are downright crippling our children with these methods of protection. Will a room-temperature baby wipe really injure a child? Children need to be exposed to mild discomforts so that as they grow older they can take on more challenging ones. Almost all the books seem to assert that we are doing a disservice to our children by catering to them this much and for this long.

I have always been of the mindset that you cannot spoil a child with too much love, it's an impossibility, but how do we draw the line between love and love's gestures? Certainly we want to buy pre-warmed wipes because we love our children and we want them to be comfortable and happy but how do you distinguish between productive and unproductive acts of love? I'm curious what your thoughts are on this topic and how you parents out there view the current "protective" parenting culture. Comment away!

The 7 Conditions of Learning Language

2009-12-03T06:48:00.000-08:00

I have been reading Helping Children Become Readers Through Writing by Arlene C. Schultze and I'm finding it very illuminating. It is accessible and draws on many staples of literary fact and example. I wanted to share for you all here today Cambourne's 7 conditions of learning language. I have read them before but have greatly enjoyed the reminder as the philosophy is one I agree with and employ.

Cambourne (and Schultze) assert that there are 7 conditions that must be present for a child to learn language. This translates from spoken language to written language over the course of a child's developmental years. They are conditions used mostly in the classroom for teachers of kindergarten and first grade...but why shouldn't parents know, too? If there's one word to describe a great literacy trajectory it would have to be abundance. Abundance of words, of chatter, of books, of encouragement, of practice. As Schultze says "parents do not force children to wait until it is 'talking time' two or three days a week to have experiences with language. Teachers too should allow students plenty of opportunities to independently use meaningful speech, reading and writing everyday." I would add to that that parents, too, should allow children the same written opportunities.

The 7 Conditions of Learning Language

1) Immersion.

When teaching literacy children should be saturated with language. This includes meaningful reading and writing and lots of talk time. A book before bed instead of television, your child's name on the refrigerator spelled out in block letters, nursery rhymes and poems recited out loud. We want to create a culture of literacy at home.

2) Demonstration.

When a child is learning language they receive thousands of demonstrations of speech all the time, every day. Demonstration in this sense refers to demonstrating to a child not just how you read and write but how you LEARN to read and write. This involves pointing at words as you say them, doing shared writing exercises, and, at home, demonstrating your own desire to read. I have spoken before about the importance of a strong "book" presence in the home. Children model what you do, not what you say. Read.

3) Approximation.

Young children use approximation in speech as they are learning to talk. They often do the same as they are learning to write. While a child is praised when they say "writed" they might be reprimanded when they put the same thing down on paper. Children should be encouraged to use approximations both in oral and written language. They are testing out the literary waters and beginning to store information that they will refine as time goes on.

4) Employment or Use.

There should be plenty of opportunities to engage in reading and writing. There should be independent reading and writing time as well as shared reading and writing time. Remember our key word: abundance.

5) Responsibility.

This is a condition I really believe in and love. It refers to the idea that children should be able to decide what topic and what conventions of language they want to master based on their individual needs. They should be responsible for the direction of their own language learning. If a child lives in Southern California, he or she might want to read and write about the ocean. If a child loves art, he or she might want to learn how to write the colors. When children are engaged in what they are learning they retain information much better and often at a much faster rate. Not to mention that then they begin to develop not just a need for but a love of reading and writing.

6) Feedback or Response.

The example Cambourne uses is this one: "How do we get a child to progress from saying 'I goed downtown' to 'I went downtown?'" Correcting a child, no matter how tempting, is not the answer. Instead we should use what is called "feedback and response." When a child says to you "I goed downtown" instead of saying "it's went downtown," we repeat their statement using the correct form of speech and then expand on it.

Example: "You went downtown? How exciting! What did you do when you went downtown?"

When a child hears the correct form in a non-corrective way it registers in their memory. By expanding the statement we also get the child to continue actively constructing language. The same method should be employed in a reading a writing workshop. Approximations should be encouraged and congratulated and then built on verbally. If a child has written "I goed downtown" on the page we can say the same thing in response that we would to a verbal comment and then encourage the child to keep writing from there.

7) Expectation.

Teachers (and parents) can expect that when all seven of these conditions have been met that children will learn how to read and write. Expectation is important when it comes to literacy. We want to let children grow with words in their own time while simultaneously retaining the belief that they will learn, and flourish.

Take some time this weekend to employ the 7 conditions and begin to make them staples in your own home.

Have a beautiful day,

-R

A Waldorf Education

2009-11-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

Receive the children in reverence; educate them in love; let them go forth in freedom- Rudolf Steiner

I believe in a Waldorf education for many reasons. For starters, I was educated in a Steiner school from grades 1-8. I believe it fostered in me and my fellow students a true, fundamental love of learning, one I hope to replicate in my students today. In a Waldorf classroom students engage with the building blocks of education in a holistic way. Children don't just learn about Greece through a textbook but study (and replicate) the ways of the ancient world through drawings, plays, readings and activities. How do you think a child will feel visiting the acropolis when they can call on not only textbook education but real-life experience? When learning becomes fun and we feel engaged in the process we want to continue, it's really that simple. I believe firmly that the right environment (from the beginning) is essential for the lifespan of a student's academic career.

Another thing I value so much about the Waldorf experience is the opportunity for another human being to profoundly influence your child. A Waldorf teacher stays with your children through the duration of their education and can be a huge, powerful force in their development. A child spends more waking hours at school than he or she does
at home and wonderful teachers, the ones we all remember, really know that. They understand that the little lives they have in their classrooms are just that, lives. Not simply heads or brains but hearts and souls.

Some people have trepidations about Waldorf education, saying that it doesn't stress academia early on. This is true. For young children, creativity is the most important thing, not mathematics or reading. But wait, you say, you're all about early literacy, how can you support Waldorf education? I believe in early literacy, yes, but I believe in supporting a child to read through joy. I believe that story, narrative and fun come first and that words follow in their own time. My mother likes to tell the story of how I did not read until the third grade. "The third grade? What kind of education is your child receiving?" friends would ask her. Today I admit I am a bit horrified at the thought. Certainly I wouldn't be as calm and cool as my mother if my students were on the same time plan. But, my mother was not phased. She knew, as Waldorf does, that it would come in my own time. It did, indeed. I'd say I learned to read, and then some. By the time I made my
way to the page I was so excited to be there no one could tear me away.

The world, as we all know, is changing rapidly. I don't pretend that growing up is the same now as it was when I did it simply fifteen years ago. It's not. Things are faster, cruder. There is more that can affect your child, more that you have to be cautious of as a parent. The thing I wish to express and acknowledge is the sacred nature of childhood, that precious time where there is a certain magic to the world. I was blessed to be a part of Waldorf and whether you are a Walorf parent, considering a Waldorf education, or simply want to learn how you can use some of their techniques to support your child, we can all benefit from Rudolf Steiner's approach to education.

To find out about a Waldorf school near you or to learn more about Walorf Education visit: http://www.whywaldorfworks.org/

Have a wonderful week,

-R

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

I wanted to wish everyone a happy and healthy thanksgiving. I have been battling the stomach flu and probably won't be up for too much turkey eating but the hours on the couch have given me some time to ruminate about thanksgiving, and about what I'm grateful for. I even made a list. Ever notice that writing things down helps you see them clearly? Well what better things to see clearly than those that you are thankful for? I encourage you all to make your own lists this year, as well. Get the kids involved! Get out the crayons and markers and coloring pads and WRITE IT: what are you grateful for?

Have a wonderful holiday,

-R

Celebrating Life, and the beginning

2009-11-17T18:16:00.001-08:00

Yesterday marked the 89th year of my grandmother's life. My grandmother is an incredible woman. An artist, a free-thinker, a soft-spoken lady and a trail-blazer all rolled into one. She is beautiful, inside and out and doesn't let any of us forget how many men used to line up around the block to take her out (it's true, too, I've checked with my mother).

In the late hours of the evening yesterday I called her. Just back from dinner with my aunt and cousin she was settled at home and we were both feeling contemplative. After a bit of chit chat about her day I cut to the chase.

"So tell me, birthday girl," I said, "what wisdom do you have for me?"

"I am loved, baby," she told me, "I love and I am loved."

Powerful stuff. We spoke a bit about life, about the importance of love and letting go. About how so little of life is about getting and holding onto the things you want (even love) and how much of it is about growth. How all of it is about growth. We spoke about the death of my grandfather and her resilience and amazing, inspiring ability to always challenge herself. To want to challenge herself.

She was curious about the new book I am working on and wanted to know if I needed any ideas (I love you, grams, but no) and we spoke a bit about childhood, about that magical time where somehow life congeals for the first time and a foundation is built from which to take flight. Which led to some reminiscing about my own childhood, about walks with her in our back woods and roadtrips to museums and park picnics.

One story she mentioned I found particularly illuminating and I wanted to share it here. She told me about how a friend of hers had taken her to a concert the other night. There was a pianist there and when she saw the pianist she was reminded of her childhood, of having to play the piano in school for gym class and being terribly, tragically embarrassed by it. She told me, in that moment at that concert, that she recalled one day before school stopping at a friend's house to borrow a bandage to put on her finger so she could pretend she was injured and wouldn't have to play. She was eight. "I am 89 years old," she told me, "and that is what I think of when I see a piano."

Why is it that we are drawn back to the beginning? I asked her the same question and she didn't miss a beat. "It is where we become," she said, "it is where we get set on the way to who we are." The formative years are so important. They set a tone for the rest of life. I can only hope, my beautiful grandmother, that I will walk an equally magnificent path.

With love,

-R

Teaching Moments

2009-11-17T07:01:00.000-08:00

On Friday I spent some time with a few lovely 5 and 8 year olds and my dear friend and colleague, Kate Tempesta. We did a Nurturing Narratives/ creative movement class and it was a ball. Kate is always a joy to work and be with and the children were no exception. A riot-y bunch, but lovely indeed.

We had a game-plan, sort of. We were going to read a story and then do some movement with it and then make a storybook around a concept connected with it. Simple enough. Wrong. The children were in high spirits and they were squirmy and squiggly and all of things teachers punish on time-out mats. Not us! Being the forward-thinking and holistic educators that we are (ho ho) we went with it, and you know what? It went well. More movement, more laughter, more free drawing, so what? Which brings me to what I really want to talk about today: the importance of teaching moments.

Teaching moments are those moments that you cannot plan for. You cannot schedule when a concept will be illuminated and when a child will provide you with an opportunity to help them learn. The only thing you can do is remain open and calm and be on the look-out. Children teach us the way they need to be taught. If we listen and stay present with them, they will show us all we need to know.

We finally got the children settled on the couch and I launched into, How I Learned Geography. You're rolling your eyes, right? I know, I am obsessed with that book and write about it way too often on this blog, apologies. We were about halfway through when one of the children, a five-year old beauty, looks at me, point-blank, and asks: "is this a nonfiction book?"

Say what? I kind of gaped at her for a moment or two and then explained that yes, actually, this is a nonfiction book and the author had written about something that happened to him a long time ago. All at once, the lesson clicked. A teaching moment. "You know what?" I said, "today I think we are going to make nonfiction books which means we are going to be the characters in our own stories." And we were off. Completely different plan from the original, (pick a person, place and thing to put in your story), but far more worthwhile. Not only did the children show me what they needed to learn, they showed me what they wanted to learn. By recognizing and paying attention to their curiosity, we had a wonderful and fruitful afternoon.

Stay present, stay calm, stay quiet. Even in the midst of the noisy monkeys and lions and bears running around the living room, maintain a sense of peace. When you do you open yourself to really teach children. What ends up happening, of course, is that they teach you.

Read away!

-R

Remembering why we love to read

2009-11-12T10:40:00.001-08:00

Let's face it, we don't have a lot of time these days. Between work and meals and kids and the gym and trying to keep up with new episodes of Glee (yes, me) our days are pretty much packed. Where does reading come in? And why is it important?

At the end of the day turning on the television and disengaging sometimes sounds much more appealing than cracking the pages of that new novel. And if we do actually spend the time getting into a book who knows when the next opportunity to pick it back up will be? Even the best stories can be lost in the shuffle.

What's the harm? We live in a modern world. The children of this current planet might not even have books when they grow up. They very possibly might be able to press a button and internalize a story. And if not that, then certainly holding a book will be considered old-fashioned. Heck, even some libraries are getting rid of their shelves in favor of an online digital space.

I have often said on this blog how important it is for children to see you reading, how so much of what they learn regarding literacy is based on modeled behavior. What I want to argue today, however, is why it's important for YOU to read. Why, regardless of the effect it has on the children around you, it is important for your own well-being.

Reading is active entertainment while television is passive. There are skills we must use in reading that we don't have to when plunked down in front of the tube. We imagine, we synthesize and we decipher.

Our world is based on narrative. Storytelling is the oldest art form known to man. Our lives are built around story. So much of my program involves collapsing the space between child and writer to get them to understand that the things that happen to them in their lives are stories. That even the most mundane of activities has a narrative gem inside. When we read we strengthen our storytelling muscle. We remember a good tale and, just maybe, see the magic in our own lives a little more.

Reading requires we use our own imaginations. Fantasy is an important part of being human. Dreaming big and wide is a gift we have as human beings. One of the things I love about reading is how people can get such a varied experience out of the same book. I love that Hogwarts looks just a bit different in my head than it does in my friend's. I love that, despite the movies, when I pick up those books I still have images of Harry, Ron and Hermione in my head. I love that they are mine. No one sees these characters exactly as I do. When we read, we build the visual world to the words we see and what we create belongs to us alone.

Reading is relaxing. No noise, no neon colors. Quiet and peaceful. Who doesn't need that these days?

As the weather gets colder and winter creeps up on us, I encourage you to make the bookshelf the centerpiece of your home. Think about why you love to read. Remember the first book that got your hooked. Get back in touch with that narrative spark inside us all. Curl up with a hot chocolate, a nice blanket and a book. You will be doing yourself, and your children, a world of good.

Barefoot Books

2009-11-11T05:47:00.001-08:00

I had dinner last winter with a woman named Nancy Traversy, CEO and founder of Barefoot Books. At the time Nurturing Narratives was just a pipe dream and I listened intently to Nancy talk about her company, her ambitions, and her hopes to spread love of literacy around the world. I was impressed, mostly because she had already done it!

For those of you who don't know, Barefoot Books is an independent publishing house that publishes children's books with an emphasis on community, conservation and connectedness. Perhaps the coolest thing about Barefoot Books is their ambassador program. Dedicated to creating an online community where people can dialogue about books, they have also created a program where people can turn that love into profit...right in their own homes. The ambassador program allows anyone to start selling Barefoot Books in your own community. You can set up a book fair, sell to neighbors and friends or simply advertise through a blog or website. If you don't want to become an ambassador I encourage you to follow the link above and join the Barefoot Book's community. I know all of us in the children's world love a good dialogue and I think you would enjoy the chit chat with Barefoot tremendously. I know I have.

Read away,

-R

Fairies for today

2009-11-08T16:24:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share this article from today's New York Times. I love fairy books. That's a terrible generalization, isn't it? But it's true. I like them all and I read just about every one I can get my hands on. Fairies were a big part of my childhood. In fact, the first short story I ever wrote was about the fairies I believed were in my back yard. I think I was eight years old at the time.

Last year, during a memoir class, I revisited that fairy glen. I haven't made a habit of displaying my work on this blog and I don't think I will but today I thought I would make an exception. I hope you all enjoy the below and if you get a chance check out the website for The Night Fairy. Beautiful, isn't it?

There is a path that leads from one place to another. I know because I have been down it before. There was a time when I followed it everyday. I still do, now and again, but the path I use is a replica. The real one has been covered by cement and years. No one travels down it anymore. No one even knows it exists. Before, when it was visible, the path wound from my house down to the backyard. It is a small path, big enough only to walk single-file, if you are traveling with someone else. If you follow it directly the path delivers you to an old oak tree. Right to the base. When we used to wander down it the path’s existence was validation, proof that what we searched for really existed. There was no sense of cause an effect, no idea that our imaginations took flight because of where the path delivered. There was simply that lovely dirt path, the old oak tree and our illusive friends.

We walk on tiptoes through the snow, trying not to make any footprints as we go. “We don’t want anyone to find out,” Bethany says, as she did the first time we went. We are at the spot in about ten minutes. It might have taken us only three if we hadn’t been so worried about leaving tracks. The spot is an old oak tree right down the way from my house. The bark is peeled in places and there is a gash in the trunk that appears like a little open cabinet, the perfect place to store a hidden treasure. We drop down at its base, pulling off our scarves and setting them down.

I peek inside the cabinet.

“They aren’t home,” I tell Bethany, “should we wait?” She considers it and then nods her head.

“It’s cold out,” she says, “maybe they’ll come back soon.”

For about a year now the fairies have been our friends. We leave them presents in their home in the cabinet. We know they like chocolate and granola bars the best because they are always gone when we come back to check. They also keep the things we make them. We have laid down moss in the cabinet for a floor and we made them some furniture out of acorn shells and flower petals.

We never see them. It used to upset me that they didn't want to say hello but Bethany says they are shy and don’t really like people. Together we come here once a week to give them some gifts and see if they will show themselves. In the summertime we braid dandelion crowns from the grass and leave them strung around the tree like Christmas lights. We wait for about an hour each time depending on the weather. There are some days it rains, of course, and we have to go back inside.

Today we have brought two Thermos’ of hot chocolate that my mother made us and we hold them in our un-gloved hands to warm us up. I wish we could leave some for the fairies but we don’t have a cup that small. “Next time we should bring one,” I tell Bethany, and she agrees. We speak softly, there is something about the place that makes us feel we should whisper. Sometimes we tell stories about the fairies, where they have been and where they will go. There is one named Zelda who likes to travel to far away places. We suspect she is the one who likes the chocolate best.

It is cold and we go inside early today, taking care with our footprints on the way back as we did on the way there. When we get inside my mother asks us where we have been but we don’t answer. No one knows about the fairies. They are our secret.

My family moved from that house, the only one I had known, that coming summer. There is an entire photo album dedicated to our last day there. I made my parents take pictures of me next to every piece of furniture, in every nook and cranny. There is a photo of me kissing my bedroom door, one of me standing looking out of the kitchen window. There is a series of photos of me pointing to my favorite stairs, at least four taken around the dining room table. There are pictures on the porch, by the stream in the backyard. There is one of me with my favorite rose bush on our lawn and a rock I named “Barbara.” Yet nowhere is there a photo of my old oak tree and the cabinet fairy home. I know this is on purpose. I would never have revealed their hideaway, never have given the secret of their existence away. Yet still I wish I had something. A confirming glance of what my memory has worked so hard to hold onto all these years.

The day Bethany and I say goodbye we do it there, at the old oak. It is spring and we bring down a blanket to lie on at the tree’s base. Our pockets are stuffed with granola bars, cookies, and some chocolate for Zelda. We have just an hour before I have to be in the car. Bethany has told me that I shouldn’t worry, that she will still come over and take care of them even when I’m gone, but I cannot help feeling a little anxious, there is so much they rely on us for.

“I wish they would come,” I tell her, “I just want to see them before I go.”

We are lying on our backs looking up at the sky. It is blue today but there are more than a few clouds. I wonder if there are clouds in Hawaii. I have been there before but I cannot seem to remember. It is always so sunny.

“Shh,” Bethany says, putting her finger over my lips, “be quiet.”

We continue to lie with our eyes open and our mouths closed. Soon I hear my mother calling to come back up. It has started to rain, a light drizzle. I sit up and see her on the back porch, waving away the raindrops like they are nats.

“I don’t want to leave,” I tell Bethany, tears in my eyes.

“Me either,” she says, taking my little hand and putting it in hers.

“You will visit,” I tell her and she nods fiercely.

“All the time,” she says.

We embrace then, her soft blonde hair tickles my nose as we lay our heads on each other’s shoulder. If I could I would stay this way forever: on a blanket at the foot of our tree with my best friend in my arms.

“We should go,” I say, pulling away and wiping the back of my hand over my eyes, “my mom is waiting.”

We both sit up and Bethany gathers the blanket, scrunching it in a ball and tucking it underneath her arm. We start walking back up towards the house, our footsteps as heavy as our hearts.

“Wait,” Bethany says, spinning around, “stop.”

I freeze in my tracks, my heart racing.

“What?” I whisper.

“Listen.”

It is difficult to make out above the slight patter of raindrops but I hear it too, the hum of wings in the distance. Our eyes widen as we look around, trying to place in what direction they are moving towards us.

“They’re coming,” Bethany says, “they’re coming to say goodbye!”

Sure enough a moment later they fly right by us. They move so fast we are only able to catch a glimpse. A colorful blur above our heads.

“It’s them!” I yell, delighted. They do not go into their cabinet but instead continue on, down past the tree and into the forest below. We stand in silence, our hearts pounding, our eyes wild.

“They are practicing,” Bethany says, turning towards me, a gigantic smile on her face.

“For what?” I ask.

“For the trip,” Bethany says, “so they can fly the long way to see you.”

We link arms and walk side by side up to the house, following the path as we go.

I often wondered when we moved whether the people who bought our house had any children, whether they ever took that path down to the oak tree and saw those fairies. As I grew older the question changed and I wondered what they discovered when they journeyed down, what made the tree special for whoever came after us. And, similarly, what had made it important for whoever came before.

Five years ago when my mother and I were visiting our family in Philadelphia we decided on a whim to make the journey down to our old house in New Hope. I hadn’t been back in eleven years. It is a very odd feeling when memory is tested. In my mind I knew those old roads too well, every curve and pothole, but as we drove down our street and driveway I saw that time had evolved the memory of those roads in a way the actual roads had not. They were the same as when I had left them yet they felt unfamiliar, not nearly as real as the ones I had been meandering down in my mind all these years. I sat in the car wondering if I would feel the same way about the path. Would it look the same as I recalled? Would it be smaller or bigger? And then: would it even lead to where I thought it did?

We stopped at our house and knocked on the door. No one was home. The house had been changed a great deal. An additional den had been added on and a garage stood where there used to be just gravel. My mother went strategically around the house, peeking in any window she could to get a better glimpse of what the interior had become. I, however, took off for that place, the one I hoped more than anything that my memory had stayed true to. I was so caught up in my excitement, imaging my feet on the path once more, my fingers on the bark, holding onto the ridiculous notion that there would be some mark of my past existence there, perhaps an acorn shell or a small ribbon, that I didn’t notice the pool until I had almost fallen inside. The entire backyard had been leveled and filled with cement. In the middle was a black-tiled swimming pool surrounded by white plastic beach chairs, round wooden tables and large, thick canvas umbrellas. The old oak tree had probably been knocked down and split. Perhaps used in the fireplace to keep the house warm or maybe even crafted into this furniture, the trunk with the cabinet now a leg of a table.

I stood there, staring inside at the dark water, trying to find my reflection. I wondered when this had happened, for how long my memory had been calling up a ghost. And then, just like that, I began to weep. There was no more path, no more tree. There was no more future or past, no possibility for the path to deliver someone else to something entirely different than what we experienced there or for me to re-experience the same. Worse still, there was no more Bethany. I didn’t even have the courage to call her on this trip back. I didn’t even know if she still lived there.

The owners came home a few minutes later. There was some confusion and then they understood. They recognized my mother from all those years before. They didn’t have any children, just a big, brown dog I heard the man call “Paul.” I turned around from the pool and watched them walk inside. The house was bigger, whiter, the backyard unrecognizable. In truth, I could have been anywhere. And then I had a thought. I remembered that seeing and believing never had any correlation at this place. We believed in those fairies long before we ever saw them. We knew their names, the color of their hair. We imagined them to be true and they were. Perhaps the path had never existed, perhaps it had never led from one place to another. Right next to that black tiled swimming pool standing on the cement I closed my eyes. I imagined I was wandering down that path to where the old oak tree still stood, the cabinet filled with moss and chocolate, waiting for the fairies to come home again.

When I open my eyes I see exactly that, and for me, it is real.

catching up

2009-10-29T12:55:00.001-07:00

Last week I had the privlege of going up and touring St. Thomas More Playgroup, a wonderful preschool on the Upper East Side. A dear friend of mine and fellow educator, Kate Tempesta, runs a wonderful creative movement class there and I wanted to go and check her and the school out. As I walked around the different nooks and crannies and meandered in and out of classrooms one thing struck me: how visually stimulating the entire place was. It screamed: let's play!

Their library is beyond impressive with thousands of titles. What I loved most about it was how visible and integrative it is. Shelves and shelves of books line most walls and covers face forward so children can see the books. They are truly surrounded by literature. It was wonderful to see.

On Saturday I did a Nurturing Narratives Halloween-themed evening with about ten children. We read The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything and Room on the Broom, two of my now permanent Halloween favorites. I dressed up as Glinda the good witch. It was quite fun.

In other news, the website is finally up! Please check it out at www.nurturingnarratives.org and let me know what you think!

Read away,

-R

Hansel and Gretel: The Halloween Addition

2009-10-28T04:51:00.000-07:00

And now for a bit of literary criticism this morning.

I asked my dear friend Catherine to do a post on fairy tales and she suggested we put it up around Halloween. Fairy tales, on Halloween? You ask. So did I. Apparently the roots are a lot scarier than we know today. Catherine is a fantastic literary critic and has taken an academic eye to Hansel and Gretel. I hope you enjoy her thoughts as much as I did.

As of right now, historians believe that Halloween (shape-shifted from All Hallows Evening) is the step-child of Samhain, a Celtic festival, which roughly translates to “summer’s end”, held at the end of the harvest season. But, as with most celebrations of the harvest, Samhain also honors the deceased members of the community. It is believed that this festival of the dead was carried over to North America during the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1852, and that the present day Halloween, the traditions of trick or treating, bobbing for apples, and spooky costumes were all remnants of those darker, and more superstitious, times.

With that in mind, I thought the Brothers Grimm’s terrifying Hansel and Gretel was the perfect story to look at this month!

Hansel and Gretel combines several important and spooky motifs: the wicked step-mother, the evil witch, the abandonment of children, the edible house, the tricking of the witch, and the triumph over evil.

During the time of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, fairy tales were much, much darker than they are today. Now, because they are so frightening, some parents won’t even consider telling a tale from the Brothers Grimm.

But sometimes a good scare is exactly what a child wants. Though unlike Halloween, the Brothers Grimm deliver a moral lesson, one that every child must learn.

In the beginning, Hansel and Gretel’s family “had very little to bite or sup, and once, when there was great dearth in the land, [their father] could not even gain the daily bread.” Much to the father’s chagrin, the step-mother (who is actually the real mother in a much older version!) tells her husband that in order to save themselves they must abandon the children out in the woods.

According to Bruno Bettleheim (whose favorite fairy tale happens to be Hansel and Gretel), the Mother represents the source of all food to the children, which is why they still want to return home after being deserted. This psychological interpretation is about dependence, in fact, Bettleheim says that, “before a child has the courage to embark on the voyage of finding himself, of becoming an independent person through meeting the world, he can develop initiative only in trying to return to passivity, to secure for himself eternally dependent gratification.” (The Uses of Enchantment)

But, regression and denial will not get poor Hansel and Gretel anywhere. They must overcome their primitive desires to return to their Mother, the womb, or to a time when they were completely taken care of and did not have existential dilemmas of their own that they had to solve.

Stranded in the woods, the children finally come upon a house, albeit a house made of candy, and they immediately eat the house. It doesn’t occur to them that the house could be a place of shelter or a home.

“So Hansel reached up and broke off a bit of the roof, just to see how it tasted, and Gretel stood by the window and gnawed at it. Then they heard a thin voice from inside,”

When the witch asks them who is eating at her house (in a voice that could be misconstrued as the children’s consciences), they answer that it is the wind, knowing full well that they are stealing, and worse, eating this witch out of house and home, something their step-mother feared they might do and therefore abandoned them.

Such unrestrained greediness cannot lead to anything good, especially in the morally structured world of fairy tales.

At first the witch is kind, “she took them each by the hand, and led them into her little house. And there, they found a good meal laid out, of milk and pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts. After that she showed them two little white beds, and Hansel and Gretel laid themselves down on them, and thought they were in heaven.”

But appearances are deceiving. Just as the children gobbled up the gingerbread house, the witch is equally determined to gobble them up!

The witch’s kindness and then inevitable transformation are symbolic of the inadequacies and betrayal of the Mother.

When a child is first born the Mother is the entire world, but even then, the Mother cannot possibly satisfy all of the child’s needs like she once did before the child was born. At the moment of birth the separation between Mother and child begins. As the child ages, the Mother no longer serves the child unequivocally, but begins to focus more of her energy on herself. For the child, this leads to rage and frustration with the Mother, as well as feelings of abandonment.

It is important to note that the first time Hansel and Gretel are abandoned, Hansel saves them, but it is Gretel that pushes the witch into the oven. Hansel and Gretel is one of the few tales that stresses the importance of siblings cooperation. The children move from depending on their parents, which will only lead them to a life of regression, to depending on each other, on people their own age. (This last step is key to understanding Roald Dahl’s children’s fiction.)

In order to stand to their full height as separate individuals, children must overcome their desire to return to infancy. They must also learn to face their fears, their anxieties, and their misgivings, as embodied in the human-like appearance of the witch. In Hansel and Gretel, both the step-mother and the witch must die for the children to transcend their infantile dependence and finally grow up.

Happy Halloween!

No help, please

2009-10-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

I had coffee with a colleague of mine last week to talk about a possible partnership for Nurturing Narratives. Amidst the lattes we talked a lot about child development. My dining partner shared that her daughter has just started the first grade and went through the whole "just right book" routine the day before. She also has real homework now in which she is required to write about the elements of her day and certain things about school. My colleague told me that even though her daughter doesn't get it right all the time (writing, that is) the teachers were firm about this one rule: no help from the parents, please!

No help. None. "What am I supposed to tell her when she asks me if it's right?" she said, frantically. While I don't have children of my own, I understand the predicament. You want to support, sure, but you also want to help instruct.

But there is a reason parents are asked not to participate, of course. Children can easily get bogged down in the language of "right" and "wrong" and it's dangerous to give them too much critical feedback. It prevents them, oftentimes, from running into writing full-speed ahead, from outputting and outputting with no fear of a possible mistake. That is not to say parents should not be able to encourage. Far from it. Positive feedback is perhaps the best gift you can give a new reader and writer. Just remember that everything is right.

Yes, that includes the wrong stuff. Odds are the words won't have vowels and some consonants will be backward but it's all part of the process. Children learn how to write and they learn how to read. It is, with some rare exceptions, fairly inevitable in a literary environment. It's not so much when they come to the written word as much as in what way. By supporting children and encouraging every mistake, we invite them to see writing as exciting and expansive...feelings that will shape their future writing careers.

Embrace the no help rule and encourage away. Also, keep the "mistakes." Many of them you and your child are sure to giggle over in the years to come.

Reading to Felix

2009-10-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

The following post is courtesy of my very good friend Brian. Brian is a fellow writer and stay at home dad to his five month old son, Felix. I know that Brian and Felix already have some reading rituals together so I asked him to do a post on early (early!) literacy. Below are his thoughts on books and his baby boy. Thank you, Brian!

About a week after my son Felix was born, we started reading The Iliad together.

Ok, so I did the reading while he lay in my lap looking cute, staring at the ceiling, or, more often than not, sleeping. I had no pretensions that he was paying attention or getting anything from the work itself. Though if he was, the themes of the epic—mortality, morality, free will versus fate—seemed an appropriate introduction to the human experience. Really, my hope was that the intonation and cadence of my voice giving breath to the musical rhythm of Homer’s verse (in the vibrant translation of Stanley Lombardo) would make some deep, lasting impression on his consciousness, planting the seeds of language right from the start. Some pregnancy books actually recommend reading to the fetus in-utero for a similar reason, but I felt ridiculous addressing my wife’s ripe belly.

We made our way through the first few books of The Iliad before Felix out grew it at a month old. Sitting still for long periods of time was something newborns do—big babies want to move and explore the world around them! So my wife and I introduced block books.

Again, we didn’t care about the actual content so much as his experience with the book as an object. Not surprisingly, pictures excited him right from the get go. Warm colored objects in particular drew his gaze. His favorite was a Baby Einstein book called Mirror Me! The bold, blocky faces made him coo and hoot, and he flashed some of his first smiles to himself in the mirror. Another favorite was the Usborne Touchy Feely That’s Not My Bear. The repetition of the words “that’s not my bear” inspired me to sing rather than read it to him—again drawing attention to the rhythm and musicality of language, and inspiring giggles at daddy’s off-key crooning.

Soon Felix was sitting for longer periods and had developed better eyesight. One afternoon, I propped him up against the pillows and read him Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax. He loved the orange, flame shaped little Lorax, and began ooh, ooh, oohing whenever he saw him. I could see his eyes scanning the page every time I turned, trying to locate the fuzzy little character. This was the first time I witnessed him being engaged by a character on the page, and it was thrilling. Felix was creating his own story, or game if you like, of find the Lorax. In later readings, as Felix became more adept with his hands, he reached out, trying to grab him. This book remains one of his favorite reads.

Improved hand eye coordination has allowed Felix to get involved with reading by turning pages. The thin paper of picture books is more challenging, but block and fuzzy books he flips through with ease. Sometimes, he turns them so fast I don’t have the opportunity to read him the words.

This isn’t to imply that words themselves don’t fascinate him, because they do. Black type on white pages, whether in the form of language or the notes of the sheet music propped up on our piano, intrigue him. The pages he responds to the most in Peggy Rathman’s Goodnight Gorilla aren’t the ones with pictures, but the ones when the lights go out and the character’s word bubbles hover on a black field. He reaches for the letters, as if he could grab them from the page. He does the same thing when sitting in my lap while I read The New Yorker. I like to think that he knows these markings are special.

Felix turns five months next week, and already he displays an excitement and warmth towards books. He’s building a positive relationship with them, which my wife and I hope will stay with him his whole life. The most basic pleasure he experiences with books as physical objects is similar to that some bibliophiles feel when they smell and feel an especially lovely old tome. It’s the very beginnings of a love we’ll nurture and feed in the months and years to come.

Where the Wild Things Are: a review

2009-10-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

I have to say I walked into the theater with almost no expectations. I had heard so many mixed things about the movie I wasn't sure what to think so I just plunked myself down in a chair and thought, I'll go with it.

Go with it I did. From the moment Max's costume-clad frame comes tearing around a corner, I was in. There is something about those opening scenes (and inevitably, the movie as a whole) that makes you feel as though you are that child. You are Max. I loved that the camera held true to Max's height so that it looked like you were seeing the world through his eyes, exactly as he saw it.

The movie made me remember what it felt like to be a child. And no, it wasn't nostalgic. Sure there is a whimsical element to the film but the truth is that I felt sadness, loneliness; I felt like those monsters. I remember how close anger and sadness were as a child, how one could quickly morph into the other. I remember the supreme sense of possibility, of dreams, of anything- is- possible and simultaneously the complete, crippling inability to do anything, the lack of resources. The freedom and the dependence. The safety and the fear. The bold, brilliant desire to be heard, respected, valued and the growing confusion (suspicion, actually) that you may not be as different as you once thought you were.

The sets were beautiful. Magical and fantastical without being frilly. I found Max's dialogue to be superb: exactly the thought process of a child. And some of it was silly. Very silly. But I did not feel as if I was laughing at him. I was laughing, actually, at the completely nonsensical expression of a nonsensical world. Which, of course, makes it all perfectly sensible.

There were some really lovely details like Max's mother typing out the story he narrates (go home literacy!) and the way Sendak's lines were worked into the script.

In the end I'll admit, I had some tears in my eyes. I loved the scene in which he returns home and his mother simply looks at him. Like he's the only thing in the world that matters. I loved their whole relationship, actually, what little we saw of it. I loved that I was torn between wanting to tell Max it would be OK and wanting to tell his mother the same. I wasn't sure who needed the words more which I thought was complete brilliance. I left feeling deeply, the kind of all-encompassing feeling that hits you, right in the sternum. Childhood is hard and anyone who says differently just hasn't been reminded of it in awhile... so why then did I get up from my chair feeling sad that we all have to grow up?

The Big Picture

2009-10-19T07:52:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine asked me the other day if I had any writing tips for third graders to help them with the editing process. Instinctively I answered: focus on the big picture and improvise to get there. Ask the question: what am I trying to convey here?

I don't work with third graders. Nurturing Narratives is for very young children (3-6), but that was my advice. No sooner had I said it than I realized it is the exact OPPOSITE of what I tell my young children. For children who are just coming to writing the big picture is the least of my concerns. It's practically irrelevant. A story they make could be about a bat and a baseball and a tree and a telescope and one thing has very little to do with the other. For them, it's all about process and detail and free-flowing creativity. It doesn't matter if the narrative doesn't have an arc or the characters change from page to page. What I want is for them to have a sense of possibility, to understand that the world of writing can take them anywhere. That as authors, they are limitless.

So when does that change?

Certainly as writers we need a creative direction, a kind of order, a purpose, if you will, but why not stress the joy of the moment, the importance of process? I didn't want to revoke my advice on a whim so I thought long and hard about this. What I came up with was this: in mentioning the big picture I was trying to say intention is what counts.

Intention.

I can't count the number of times I brought this word up in my creative writing classes. I find it to be the most important thing there is when it comes to writing. Knowing what you're trying to say and using all of your resources to say it. For me, intention is the big mama bear of good writing. It is what separates a mediocre tale from an excellent one. It is, in my humble opinion, what every great writer, regardless of style or time, has in common.

How do we cultivate intention? Really believing in what it is we are trying to say is where to start. That is why I think it's so important for children a bit farther down the road in the writing process to have a clear idea of what they are trying to say. Big Picture.

As we grow and develop intention comes into play more and more. We pick out our clothes and intend them to go on our body in a certain order. We make lunch and intend for it to taste a certain way. We brush our teeth, we decorate a room, we pick a job, we chose hobbies and partners and friends. We build a life on intention.

While the creative process is still crucial and freedom of expression should always be valued, I stand by my original "big picture" advice.

Speaking of Big Pictures, I'm now off to see Where the Wild Things Are. Expect a review sometime in the next few days.

Cheers!

Thou Shalt Read

2009-10-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have now made it a commandment.

I must credit the idea for this post to my dear friend who is a self-named "lit nut," mama, and a member of the blogosphere herself. Her children are very young but I asked her what she thinks parents would really like to read here on the blog. She mentioned the importance of children seeing their parents read. I have mentioned in my literary tips how important modeled behavior is when it comes to reading and, as my friend put it, "readers raise readers." If you are not a reader yourself, don't despair. I'm not saying everyone needs to be making their way through Chaucer and Milton every afternoon, what I'm saying is that reading should be a REAL part of every household.

For me, it was my dad. My dad loves to read. Since I can remember he has read about a book a week. Every night before he goes to sleep he picks up the novel he is working his way through and cracks the pages. I saw this growing up. I remember going on family trips and looking at my dad sprawled out in the sun or even just a chair in a hotel room, reading. I remember him on the plane reading, at an outdoor restaurant reading, on a boat, yes, reading. It's no surprise, then, that loving and looking up to my father as I did, I wanted to read, too. As I grew older and had books of my own I began to join his bedtime reading ritual. We read aloud (The Boxcar Children, The Lord of the Rings) but as the years passed we just started reading together. In bed, side by side, he with his novel and me with mine.

More than our reading time, though, I cherished our discussions. Dad loved to talk about books. It didn't matter that we were reading middle-grade books, he wanted to discuss them all. He listened to my impressions of the characters, my expectations for the plot and, inevitably, my thoughts on the ending. These books may as well have been Crime and Punishment, that's how in-depth we talked about them, theme and all. I felt listened to, important and most of all like I had something to say. I felt smart.

I can't stress how important this is for children, how what we do and what we value is more often than not what they will eventually put their attention to. Read. Let your kids see you. Talk about these books. Listen to them. Show them that there is a reason they do what they do in school, because reading matters and real, live adults, adults they respect and love, do it too.

We often think that we have to read to children for them to get the benefits of literacy. What many adults don't know is that simply reading yourself could ignite a true, lasting love of reading in the children that surround you.

Today my dad and I still talk about books. We pass them through the mail and through our (far too infrequent) visits. I always know when he calls me and he wants to talk about a book. His voice is strong and his tone is a little rushed. He'll spill his side and then he'll pause, take a deep breathe and say, "but what I really want to know is, what did you think?" And I smile, and tell him.

Who are the wild things for?

2009-10-11T09:15:00.001-07:00

With all the Where The Wild Things Are hype over the last few months I found this article surprisingly honest.

Do children even like this book?

I pitched it to two five year old children during a Nurturing Narratives session a few weeks ago and to be frank, they weren't thrilled. I thought it had more to do with the familiarity of the text than anything else but perhaps I was wrong. The story is beautiful, rich and symbolically telling...not necessarily the primary things to catch a child's eye. I imagine many, many children will still trek in droves to see the movie (next week?) but I also believe people from my generation could be the primary target.

What do you think? Those of you parents out there...who loves the book more, you or your children?

a lovely afternoon picture walk

2009-10-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to blog about picture walking for awhile now and was reminded of its importance while browsing Barnes and Noble yesterday. Picture walking is a technique many teachers use as a building block of writing. During a picture walk children are shown a series of pictures and they use their own words to come up with a story to match the pictures. There are, of course, many different kinds of picture walking activities. Children can re-arrange actual images in a specific order, they can come up with their own pictures or use ones already in a storybook and they can, depending on their current ability, put their words down on the page or simply speak verbally.

I came across the book Wave by Suzy Lee and knew I had to pick up a copy to use for picture walking. The book is a beautiful tale (sans words) about a little girl at the beach and her relationship to the ocean as she stands at the water's edge. Wave has lovely chalk-like illustrations and a beautiful gray and blue pallet of color. I adored it and hope you all will too. If you'd like pick up the book and settle into a little corner with your youngster. Crack the pages and ask them what they think is going on in each drawing. Talk about the different elements of the picture and they inform each other to build the story. I find that when I do this more times than not the children see far more in these images than I do. They will pick up the little bubbles in the corner, the frown or smile on the character's face, the curl of her dress as it gets wet from the water. After you are finished is the perfect time to make a picture walk of your very own. Get out the crayons and make some pictures together and have fun coming up with a story to go along with them. Don't worry about whether the story builds "correctly" or whether the characters are consistent. Children have a massive creative capacity that sometimes gets distracted. And, after all, it's a writer's prerogative to change his or her mind.

Happy strolling!

-Rebecca

Of Books and Bats

2009-10-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

A friend recommended Bats at the Library by Brian Lies to me and I read it today. I have been wanting to do a Halloween book post but, quite frankly, haven't found many good ones. The one thing "Halloween" themed about this book is that it is about bats. That's pretty much the only place the holiday comes in. Be that as it may I wanted to share it here with you all today because I think it's one of the best picture books I have read in awhile.

Bats at the Library is about a group of bats who go to the library one night because a window has been left open. There they have a "bookish feast," gorging themselves on book after book (metaphorically, they read). They then put on a play of some books and get lost in the tales themselves. There are beautiful, dark and whimsical illustrations and the pallet of browns, grays and splashes of subtle color make the whole thing seem dreamy and simultaneously utterly realistic. The details are quite fun and lovely too. Re: a copy of a book called "Goodnight Sun."

What I liked most about Bats at the Library, however, was the message it gives: reading is magical and is a treasure to be cherished. These bats cannot believe their luck that the library window has been left open and at the end of the book, as they fly away in the pale shades of the morning, they hope and pray that a librarian might be absent-minded again soon.

what book got you hooked?

2009-09-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

http://booksforkids.firstbook.org/whatbook/about.php

The link above is for the "What Book Got You Hooked?" contest.

"What Book Got You Hooked?" invites readers everywhere to celebrate unforgettable books from childhood and help provide new books to the children who need them most. First Book asks visitors to share the memory of the books that made them readers and then vote for the state to receive 50,000 new books from First Book, helping to get more kids hooked on reading."

For me, it was Freaky Friday. I kid you not. I remember reading that book cover to cover at least a dozen times. I read it out loud to my parents, I harassed my friends on the playground. I was in love with that book. That book had magic in it. That book changed my life. There have been other books along the way. There was Eloise in the very beginning, and Wuthering Heights a little later. But Freaky Friday was the one that snagged me, that grabbed me by the navel and said, "look, you're a reader now."

I can't remember enough of it to know what it was about that book that made it the one. Like so much of life I'm sure it was timing, that it got placed into my hands at the very moment I was ready. I just know that when I finished it for the first time I felt like a reader. I felt like I had been let in on a gigantic secret, the way falling in love for the first time feels like no one, anywhere, has ever felt what you are feeling. I also remember saying those famous words out loud, standing in my parent's bedroom, book is hand: "I wish it didn't have to end."

What book got you hooked? Please, share with us!

here at the right time

2009-09-23T15:12:00.001-07:00

I spent this afternoon with a fellow writer friend of mine who had an adorable baby boy nearly 4 months ago (well, his wife did the "having" but now he is staying home with the little guy). We wandered around the farmer's market in Union Square and then settled into City Bakery (ah, lovely afternoon) for some conversation while the baby slept. We talked about everything from our yoga practice to what we're reading and writing and then we sort of hit on a fairly interesting subject...guilt when it comes to happiness.

Let me explain. I am one of the lucky fools who really loves what they do but being the type A (perhaps B now) person that I am I find it difficult to feel accomplished when I take some time off. I work from home so my time is always in my hands. If I decide to do nothing all day Wednesday, that's fine, I just need to figure out where and when I will make the hours up. I love running my own schedule but I find it difficult sometimes to enjoy the time I'm not working, so focused I am on not having my nose to the grind. Perhaps it's New York, perhaps it's me, it doesn't really matter. The point is: who came up with the rule that unless you're frantic and busy you haven't earned the right to indulge in happiness?

My friend was sharing that initially when he decided to stay home with the baby he was a bit harried. "What will I do in 5 years when he starts school full-time?" "What if my writing hasn't taken off yet?" But as the moments at home stretched to days and weeks he began to focus on the supreme blessing of, well, being at home. He started to talk about the beautiful things about being a father and about how if he doesn't get his page count in for the day or something pops up it's OK, because he is enjoying spending time with his son. I was right there with him and for the next hour we weren't two writers on break from our work but two friends who understood that life isn't about accomplishing one thing or the other. It's simply about this moment.

Children are so good at getting us to see this. They are so good at the momentary experience, it is all that exists for them. Without the incessant internal dialogue of the mind they are free to just be. here. now. It's remarkable. I am reminded constantly by my students to just be present. If my mind slips into the future or the past for just a moment, they know, and they make it abundantly clear they are aware I am no longer with them.

There is a balance of course and the proverbial pendulum always swings. We need to work. We need to be productive. We need to give of ourselves and provide a service in the world. We also need to be present. What I realized in speaking to my friend today is that the greatest service we CAN give is to be present...both in our own lives for ourselves and the people we hold dear. When we are really focused on the task at hand we are not only more aware but we are also more productive. All our faculties are going to making this one thing (experience, project, person) the best it can be.

"Live in the moment" sounds so cliche and this is a blog about literacy, not a self-help seminar but I would encourage you to take the motto to heart, even if just for the day. Notice how the children in your life live by this. If you let them, they'll teach you. You just have to listen.

and they danced by the light of the moon.

2009-09-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

I can't quite remember what did it (perhaps a lively discussion of Dave Eggers' Where The Wild Things Are at the Rosh Hashanah table?) but I woke up this morning with a need to reconnect with my favorite childhood storybooks. Period. And the first one I thought of? The Owl and The Pussycat by Edward Lear. This book reminds me of my mother. She used to read it to me when I was a child and her mom read it to her when she was growing up. I hadn't thought about this book in ages but I had a severe, severe need to read it. Off I went to Amazon and I am pleased to report my very own copy is in the mail today but since I had to read the lyrics this minute I went and found them on google and thought I'd post them here for you all to enjoy. I suppose I was a romantic fool from the very beginning. Ah, love.

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'

Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

III

'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

2009-09-17T15:40:00.000-07:00

I am back from California and, I must say, struggling to get back into the New York swing. Too much to do, too little time.

In light of this I am taking the opportunity to post a guest blog from my incredibly talented and dear friend Catherine Borders. Catherine is an expert on children's literature and fairytales and I asked her to write a post for Nurturing Narratives awhile back. The theme was "review your favorite storybook" and here is what she came up with. I think Catherine will join us here from time to time and I hope you all enjoy her post as much as I did. AND, I promise to be back in the blogging zone sometime soon.

Oh, the Place You’ll Go! is a classic children’s book that deals with the weighty topics of free will and death. However, Dr. Seuss addresses them so delicately and with a kind of honesty and clarity that the child is encouraged, not frightened, of the overwhelming tasks that lie ahead.

“You,” the pronoun, is written as a second person singular but intended as a second person plural. Meaning, “you” refers to both the protagonist, the unnamed little hero whose adventures we will soon be following, and the reader. Dr. Seuss is writing in the second person so that hero and reader conflate. It is a tactic used by many children’s writers and one that Dr. Seuss is spectacular at employing.

For the duration of this story, every little boy or little girl reading Oh, the Places You’ll Go! will travel with the hero, become the hero, and understand (subconsciously and symbolically) the existential journey in which we all must partake.

“You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”

The human condition is about making choices. Some people are paralyzed by this and spend all day confused, gnawing at their fingers, unable to decide anything. As if from a surfeit of options they wait, choosing none, and suffer in “The Waiting Place.” But others, others like the hero, are braver than that. Others choose what their life will be, but, and this but is crucial, but only to a certain extent. Dr. Seuss acknowledges and tells the child that there are elements, things, that are out of the child’s control.

“And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.”

The illustrations are trippy and weird, but to a child the entire world seems trippy and weird. The child does not have the tools to interpret all the signs he encounters everyday. Initially, the child’s only relation to the world is in the house. At this time, the house is the world.

The house is the first space a human being encounters. It is a representation, a trope of outside existence. Before a baby can understand itself as a thoughtful, rational, mortal being, before it can understand that it is a separate entity from its surroundings, it knows only the house and the people that inhabit it.

But, there soon comes a time when the child has to leave the house, and this is where Oh, the Places You’ll Go! comes in.

“Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest. Except when you don’t. Because, sometimes, you won’t.”

This is the first time this mantra appears. The second instance is without italics, because, presumably, the child has gotten over the shock of failing at something.

Dr. Seuss does not shy away from the sad or the scary, instead he understands them and tries to prepare the child for the inevitable hard and lonely times. Perpetually glossing over serious subjects can be detrimental to the child’s development, and can make the fall, the “Lurch” from being left behind, even tougher to cope with.

“All Alone! Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot. And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.”

The picture above these words is dark and looks more like an Edward Gorey illustration. The inky hatch-marks, the brittle arbor, the dead trees, the yellow grass, the evil creatures with green eyes that are shaped like tomb stones, and the text itself all are signifiers of death. And though the child does not read death, and does not necessarily even think of death (because perhaps they have no idea what death is or means), the above drawings leave the child with the feeling of death. This illustration impresses upon the child the seriousness, the gravity of making decisions and the text suggests the extreme desire to return to the safety and warmth of the home. Thus, another existential dilemma.

Of course, the narrative ends on a much happier note (apologies if I gave anything away), but does so in such a way that respects the child, something not all children’s authors care about.

Now, if only all of life’s lessons came in such succinct rhymes.

magic maker

2009-09-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm off in LA this week enjoying some family time as well as a prolonged summer vacation. I'll be back next week but in the meantime I couldn't resist posting this adorable Capucine video. It was circulated awhile back so those of you in the know have probably seen it but it's such an amazing display of the power of a child's imagination it's worth another look. Magic.

See you all next week!

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

On Service

2009-09-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

My head is simply buzzing. I just came from a meeting with Women in Need to talk about running Nurturing Narratives in their shelter system. We absolutely hit it off and we are going to start sometime in late September. I couldn't be more thrilled about bringing the program to this innovative, progressive and stunningly compassionate organization. On my walk home I was thinking a great deal about service. I started this program in a time in my life that was quite challenging. Caught up in my own story I had forgotten about the primary goal of the human experience: the requirement to serve. I don't mean everyone has to move to Africa to help orphans (although I greatly admire and respect those who do :) What I'm talking about is living life through the lens of service.

We can serve daily. In the smile we give others on the street. In the moment in which we let a mother and her young children go in front of us at the supermarket check-out. In the way in which we greet those we love and in the kindness we show those who may not give us the same respect. We can constantly serve and in giving to others, we get back ten-fold.

I see with my children that the simplest actions make a world of a difference. On Friday I had a Nurturing Narratives session with two children that reminded me of the importance of kindness as service. We were in the midst of creating some lovely illustrations to go along with a story we had written about a bumblebee and a swan when one child said, "I don't know how to draw a bumblebee." I was about to jump in and offer some suggestions when the other child volunteered. "I'll help you," she said, "See? You have to pick the yellow crayon and then look at the bee. It has wings and black spots, just like this." They proceeded to chat for a few moments as they colored together and when they produced their picture a minute or so later I was, of course, unbelievably pleased. But it was the next exchange that really got me. "Did you know I was such a good drawer?" The child asked her friend whom she had just helped. "I thought maybe," he responded, "But you're really good." Then the little girl looked at her friend and said matter- of -factly, "I'm glad you told me," and they went on to do the next picture.

"I'm glad you told me." So simple, so important. That validation meant so much to this little girl and it made me think of the times I don't speak up that I should. When it really wouldn't be too difficult to simply say, "thank you," or "I love you," or "I'm sorry."

A few months ago I began to wake up and repeat this mantra: show me how I can be of service. Each day brings new challenges and, yes, sometimes finding the courage and compassion to smile at the friend who has hurt you or to not get frustrated at the telemarketer on the phone is difficult. But when we find the patience to give to others what we want in return we not only illicit similar responses back but we also pour kindness into the world.

The simplest actions can make a world of difference to someone in pain. I hope I might touch just a few children with the program and help them to see that the world is a far more compassionate place than they may think is the case.

Also, please check out Women in Need's website. They are an amazing organization doing truly wonderful things for families in the city.

Happy end of summer!

What would Bronte say?

2009-09-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about the relationship between marketing and literature since I read this article over the weekend. Wuthering Heights is now being packaged with a similar cover to Twilight with a sticker on the front that says something along the lines of "recommended by Stephanie Meyer." I must admit that the first impulse I had was outrage. How could publishing houses be so careless as to align Bronte and Meyer? Wuthering Heights is a classic as well as a favorite book of mine. No matter how much we might gobble up Twilight, they are not the same. It's an insult to Miss. Bronte, I exclaimed, and to literature itself!

Hmmm. Then I kept reading the article. Apparently sales have nearly doubled in the UK on Wuthering Heights since the new cover has been marketed. Which means more children are buying the book. Which means, I must assume, more children are reading the book. The steam stopped coming out of my ears and I was left with this question: is there such a thing as going too far when it comes to getting children to read?

Now, I must admit I am ignoring the whole issue of the publishing world being a business and that making money, clearly, is a big part of that business. If you'll indulge me let's set aside this reality momentarily and focus on that question. Is there such a thing as going too far when it comes to getting children to read? Should we ignore the Twilight's of the world and insist that children stick with Bronte (windswept moor cover and all) or should we admit the very real reality that we live in a marketable world. The tools that are available to us now are very different than when I was growing up and coming to literature. It is, in fact, a different literary world. The crossover genre is huge, the visual real of entertainment is overwhelming and the constant dialogue of social media has cut all our attention spans in half. I suppose then we can't blame marketing for going to extremes when it comes to these dusty classics.

But something still doesn't sit right and it's the nagging feeling, deep down in my core, that Bronte would simply roll over in her grave if she discovered this. Here is the rub: it's not authentic. It isn't true that Wuthering Heights and Twilight are the same story. True, we are wide readers and perhaps their audience might be the same but the gesture becomes manipulative in its deception and I must retain that there is no room for deception when it comes to literature. Sure, the entire world is now a big advertisement. I am lied to everyday on the subway, in Soho on those giant billboards, when I look out my window, when I buy my coffee, but in my opinion that is all the more reason to hold out, to insist that literature remain sacred. If we won't do it, who will?

So in answer to my question, yes, I do think there is such a thing as going too far when it comes to getting children to read. Actually, I'd like to re-phrase my question: are there tactics we should not use when it comes to getting children to read? Wholeheartedly, yes. I believe in a world in which a child can devour both Twilight and Wuthering Heights and see them as two, separate entities. To deny books their individuality is to deny children the opportunity to be varied readers and to value and enjoy a wide range of literature. So the next time Sense and Sensibility has a cover that looks like The Baby Sitter's Club, perhaps think about purchasing the traditional paperback instead. It may be less flashy, sure, but it is also far more real. And in the world of fiction sometimes a dose of reality is just what the author ordered.

what's in a book?

2009-08-30T13:54:00.000-07:00

Today my friend Dan and I had a bit of a debate about education. It all started with this New York Times article that seems to have every one's pencils in knots. The article is about the reading workshop and the idea of children choosing their own books to read and independently study. Contrary to how The Times portrays things, this is hardly a new idea. Reading workshops have been around in some form or another since the 70's. Why then is it at the forefront of the education debate now? Standardization seems to be on the tongue. How do we figure out what works in education, implement it, and yet still have room for the fundamental reality that we are dealing with individuals here? My friend Dan works at a consulting firm in Washington DC and has his ear constantly to the political ground. Whenever there is something I don't understand in the news, Dan is my go-to.

I read the article and told Dan I agree with the general sentiment. I am wary of standardization, I think all too frequently we run the risk of education becoming just simply a requirement, something to get through with the least amount of pain. I know I don't have to get into how incredibly dangerous that kind of thinking is. But, I also see the other side. It worries me that children might make it through high school never having read The Catcher in The Rye or Wuthering Heights. I believe giving children the power of their own education is a remarkable thing but I also want to discern exactly what that means. In education there must be a balance between stability and innovation.

But how then do we set the standard? The trend towards standardization seems to be based solely on long-term goals. Testing ability which translates into better SAT scores which translates into a better college application which translates into a better college which translates into a better job...do you see where I'm going with this? That is the primary problem I have with standardization: it is not focused on education but rather on the outcomes of education.

Don't get me wrong, the outcomes are important. I want children to go to good schools, I want them to have the best life can possibly offer them, but not at the expense of understanding what education is really all about. If we teach solely from a standardized perspective we ignore the real reality that education is about individuals. It is about a teacher and the students in a classroom. It is about small moments and triumphs. It is about improvising.

Dan, however, had a very good point: how are we supposed to know what works without some level of standardization? I completely agree. Perhaps there does need to be a model but it doesn't mean that it will never fail us. More important than to stay true to a curriculum is to stay true to the benefits of that curriculum, to ask "what is my goal in this lesson here? And how best might I get there with THIS particular group of students." Of course there are goals in education, to deny that would be foolish. For instance, I want the children who enter my program to leave with their own stories. There are many steps we have to take to assure that happens and I am always keeping in mind what our end goal is. But, the journey doesn't look the same every time, far from it.

No matter what consensus we come up with education will always require that it be tweaked. To deny that is to deny the truth that classrooms are made up of individuals and not every child is going to have the same needs. I think the point of The Times article is not to raise the question of whether or not children should have the power to choose their own curriculum but to simply state that when it comes to education, every child is different and perhaps celebrating those differences leads us to the goal we are really after: a sustained love of learning.

The Story Pirates

2009-08-30T12:52:00.001-07:00

This weekend I went to see The Story Pirates with my friend Stephen Barbara, agent extraordinaire. For those of you who haven't heard of them The Story Pirates are a group of actors, musicians and teachers who go around to schools, lead creative writing seminars and then preform the children's work as skits. It's brilliant and oh so funny. I went to the adult version (8pm show, no children there) but I am itching to go to their younger performance. The show was sensational on every level. It was funny, heartwarming (especially a skit by a first grader called "I Like To Go A Lot to School"), not to mention just spot-on. The talent in this group is extraordinary and what they are doing for these children is simply remarkable. It made me smile when a child came on the screen during their video montage and said The Story Pirates made him feel like a really famous author. Is there anything better than that?

There were so many moments that stood out from the performance but the real meat was, of course, the constant knowledge that these skits and stories had actually been written by children. It never ceases to surprise me how unbelievably imaginative, perceptive and creative children are. We may laugh as a child writes "I like to go a lot to school" but the earnestness and heart behind those words is simply stunning. There was a story about a vampire, one about wetting the bed, another about what it means to be a best friend and one about a child who grows money out of his head. I can only imagine the pride these children must feel seeing their stories come to life like that. I'm sure it is akin to what a "really famous writer" feels when they sit down in a theater to see their adapted novel on screen. How cool that The Story Pirates are giving children the opportunity to feel the same.

I cannot say enough good things about this group and I look forward to letting you all know how the younger performance is. In the meantime, happy weekend!

We're Bringing The Fun

2009-08-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went over some materials for my program with a friend of mine who is a Kindergarten teacher. I often bounce ideas off of her when I feel a bit stuck over a concept or I’m not sure if a specific technique is going to work. We were discussing picture-walking, a practice in which children build a story based on a series of pictures. I have been thinking of employing this technique for the 3-4 year olds of Nurturing Narratives but yesterday I turned to her and said, “yea, I like picture-walking but I want this to be fun! That’s the whole purpose of my program, fun!” She laughed. “It IS fun,” she said, “everything is at that age. It’s all about fun.”

I considered this for a moment. Walk into any kindergarten classroom in this day and age and you are bound to be met with a great deal of noise. Chatter, make-believe, the sounds of read-aloud. You think it’s friendly chaos, I certainly did the first time I went to visit. The truth is, though, it’s fun, and incredibly intentioned. It’s creative. It’s expressive. It’s a place to encourage dialogue and exploration. It's a place for adventure.

I forget sometimes that the things I deem “fun” or, conversely, “required and dull” sometimes only fall into those categories because I put them there to begin with. If no one had told me cleaning was a chore, would I consider it to be one? At some point we decide that reading and writing are “required” and therefore, we no longer want to do them. Which is exactly what literacy programs are trying to avoid today. The switch from reading and writing being fun and explorative to mundane and required.

It’s all in the way we approach it. If I think picture- walking isn’t fun enough for a birthday party, it won’t be. One thing I think we can all agree on is that children learn by example. They model our behavior and pick up on our tone, the way we react to things and to what we give meaning. If I come in thinking, “well, this is educational but by gee wiz is it dull,” chances are they are going to think the same. But, if I come in thinking, “this is the coolest activity and I cannot wait to share it with these children,” I set our time together up to be fun.

The definition of success in the early years, for me, is joy. Period. Do these children love what they are doing? Sometimes we don’t build a story sequentially or the drawings might be mismatched or we might get off course but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we are sparking something inside these children. Igniting some fire for literature that we can nurture and fuel for years to come.

That, to me, is fun.

Some Literacy Tips, take one

2009-08-24T07:22:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in last week’s post that I am a big fan of early literacy. It’s nothing unique. With programs like the Reading and Writing Project by the renowned Lucy Calkins and numerous studies on the benefits of at-home literacy I think you’d be hard-pressed to find an expert who doesn’t think literacy begins early. Even so, I’ve complied some tips for parents of young children to get you started on that journey to the classroom. Before we begin I’d like to make it clear that I am a firm believer in holistic education. What does that mean? I'm about exploration, not forced academia. I didn’t learn to read myself until the third grade. Luckily I attended a Waldorf school where that was perfectly acceptable, the philosophy being that I would come to the page when I was good and ready. For me, it worked, and today writing is not only my career but also one of my deepest passions.

I believe in children coming to the written word on their own terms. What then is early literacy in my book? Early literacy is making the written word as accessible as possible. It is having books on display and constant dialogue. It is talking and sharing and reading. It is making writing a part of every single day.

I have been compiling a list of tips over the past few months and wanted to share a few of my top hitters here with you today. I imagine it’s a topic I will return to time and time again on this blog but for now, here’s our starting place.

Some tips for early, at-home literacy:

1) Make writing as visually apparent as possible. I can’t stress this one enough. The goal is to make books a part of a child’s everyday visual realm so that they become the norm. Stack books on your coffee table, make your bookcase in arm’s reach with the storybooks they love on the bottom shelves. It is important for books to be seen as accessible--- that anyone, anytime, can go and get one to read. Consider books to be the apples of your refrigerator: always available, always healthy, always a yes.

2) Lead by example. If you are on the couch at the end of the day, pick up a novel or flip through a magazine. Share with your child how excited you are to read what you are reading. Offer to read some out loud so they might be a part of the experience.

3) Create writing journals together. Refer to my previous post for some ideas. Let your child see you writing in your writing journal. If something happens at home, like a telephone call from Grandma or a batch of cookies, tell your child that you must stop what you’re doing and go write in your journal. You simply cannot go on unless you write down what just happened. Explain to your child that writing is a way to document special things that happen in your life. Set aside a time for “writing journal sharing” where you and your child can go over what you have written down in your journal.

4) Praise praise praise. No matter what your child puts down in his or her writing journal, it is writing. Children have their own evolution with words that must be respected and encouraged. If you don’t immediately understand what you see in their writing journal, ask them to explain it to you. Chances are they have total ownership of what they put down.

5) Talk. Studies show that the level of verbal communication in a household has a direct impact on a child’s literacy level. The practice of extension in conversation is a great place to start. If your child says, “store,” in reference to a grocery store trip you are about to take, consider answering, “yes, we are going to the store in town. The one with the big, red roof.” Even if your child is not yet able to form sentences hearing you extend what they can verbalize helps them to create memory patterns with words.

6) Make writing a part of your everyday life. Put word magnets on your refrigerator, label things in your kitchen, narrate what you are doing while you make dinner. Writing is dynamic. Show your child that it is an integral part of your existence.

Summer Reading: a review

2009-08-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

As promised, I’m giving you my top five summer children’s lit reads. Given my propensity for emotional additives and lengthy back-story it’s a bit of a blended post. Some of these books are brand new and one is an old favorite but they are all now on my permanent list. I hope they might make their way onto yours, too.

1) How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz.

This book is already all over this blog. I mentioned it in my last post, added it to my book list on my profile, and am deeming it the first title to discuss. It won the Caldecott Medal and is based on Schulevitz’s own experience as a young boy. Yes, there was an actual war. Yes, there was an actual map. And, yes, the young boy did grow up to explore the whole, big, great world.

How I Learned Geography is about a young boy living in a war-town country. One day his father goes to the bazaar to buy bread but instead of returning with dinner he comes home with a map. The boy is furious and believes he will never forgive his father but the map goes up on the wall, a brilliant blast of color, and the boy (like the reader) is inevitably drawn in. He begins to explore the map and likewise the world, as if by lying down next to its massive canvas he is in fact inhabiting the countries he is looking up at. He is led away by the map to far-off, exotic lands. He runs his toes in dazzling, golden sand at the edge of oceans, reclines peacefully under fruit trees and gazes up at impossibly lofty sky-scrapers. In the end, he forgives his father.

Honestly, I can’t say enough good things about this book. In my opinion it does what every good children’s book should do: makes the most complicated concept simple and beautiful without ever stating the fact. There is a lesson, of course, but the real magic is in the exploration itself. We don’t need to hear that a sense of possibility is more important than a full stomach, we intuit it. The book’s power comes from it’s example--- the magnificent gift of an accessible world passed from father to son.

2) There by Marie Louise Fitzpatrick.

Consider this book the Waiting for Godot for the young. The book is about “There,” you know, that magical place that once inhabited renders all of life complete. The zone in which we are constantly referring to with our jobs, relationships, finances and figures. There.

Our young hero is wary of the “there.” He is not sure what he will find once he goes. Will there be dragons? Will there be signs pointing the way? How will he know what is looks like? Does everyone have to go there? As I was reading I couldn’t help asking the same questions. This book is not only a great one to read aloud with children but it’s also, I think, a great reminder for adults as well. We all know that “there” does not exist, that it is a fictional state characterized primarily by the fact that it is absolutely, without fail, completely unattainable. Why then do we pursue it with such gusto? Forgive me for the momentary Gilbert-lingo, but: why are we so concerned with constantly being somewhere we’re not?
I closed the book thinking what the young hero does, “I’m busy today, I’ll go there tomorrow.”

3) Eloise in Paris by Kay Thompson with drawings by Hilary Knight.

This one requires a bit of back-story...

I first fell in love with Eloise because my best friend in the second grade, Bethany Berman Brady was in love with Eloise and Bethany could read. In time on this blog I will share with you my own journey to the written word and how I didn’t learn to read until almost the third grade (it turned out OK in the end) but for now let’s just say Bethany was my hero. And likewise, so was Eloise.

I remember long afternoons spent under the jacardanda tree in her (Bethany’s) backyard, lying on a hammock listening to her read. Bethany did a great impression of Eloise (brisk tone, snobbish but lovable) and an even better one of Nanny and when I read the books today I still imagine her little voice, holding my fingers with one hand and turning the pages with the other.

About two years ago I had the privledge of spending two months in Paris. It came at the tail end of a year in Europe (mostly in Edinburgh, Scotland). I was doing a lot of writing at the time (trying to, anyway) and consequently spent many days loitering around Shakespeare and Company, the infamous English-speaking bookstore in Paris. The store is exactly what one would want out of a bookstore: the appearance of friendly clutter while being systematically organized with oodles of character and a splash of dusty-attic charm. The store has a little loft that serves as a third floor and is only accessible by a small ladder. It’s one of my favorite places in all of Paris. It always struck me as a bit strange, however, that the loft was where the children’s section is. I know many a mother who would have very little interest in seeing her child climb a tall, rickety ladder (and many a shop-owner who would feel the same) but I suppose they are all American. Ah, French sensibility.

Anyway my last day in Paris I ended up in the loft to spend a few quiet moments writing when I saw a copy of Eloise in Paris discarded on a table. I picked it up at once and I have to say, it is my favorite Eloise of them all. Eloise’s Paris is the Paris we all know and adore. It is the Paris of the movies, the wonderful, impossibly romantic, never-changing, iconic, epic city of lights. I bought the copy on the spot (had them stamp a Shakespeare and Company tattoo inside) and consider it to be, hands down, one of my most favorite books on my shelf. I treasure it and if you or your youngster haven’t yet been introduced to Eloise, by all means, let me now make introductions.

4) Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen, illustrations by Kevin Hawk.

I love this book. I really do. It’s simple and straightforward and boy does it have heart. The book is about a lion that one day wanders into the library and makes noise. He is told by Miss Merriweather, the librarian, that the library is a quiet place and if he wants to remain he must not roar. The lion obeys until one day Miss Merriweather falls and the lion must go get help and therefore, must make noise. The book has a kind of no-nonsense sensibility that springs from Miss Merriweather’s unaplolgetic persona and had me laughing. It is also deliciously rebellious in it’s lesson: sometimes, the best thing to possibly do is break all the rules.

Indeed.

5) The Curious Garden by Peter Brown.

My last pick won me over for a variety of reasons. First of all, the artwork is superb. Subtle and poignant and thematically excellent it presents the overgrowth of nature in the most tidy way. Truly a grand feat. Secondly, I read this review by the venerable Betsy Bird and it swayed me in the friendly direction, to put it mildly. And thirdly, well, I’m a sucker for what this book has to say.

Liam, our protagonist, is a young boy living in an overly grey, industrial city. One day he comes across a small and dying garden above some railway tracks and decides to tend to the greenery. As Liam grows as a gardener, the garden itself grows and begins to take over the city. There are wonderful, full-page illustrations of the garden and its personified plants reaching into all kinds of far-off nooks and crannies and lovely images of all the city dwellers in their sunhats and gardening gear getting to work as well. My favorite picture is of Liam in full disguise, dropping off some garden somewhere it doesn’t belong. It’s a smart, sharp book with a soft message and I think one you all will really enjoy.

Well there you have it, my top five summer reads. Now, off to fall!

*Head on over to Mrs. P's corner of the web and check out her storybook contest for young writers. The entry dates are September 1st- October 15th so get writing!

Writing Journals

2009-08-22T16:09:00.000-07:00

I am a big proponent of making writing accessible to children. The more books visible, the better. Writing is everywhere: subway signs, cereal boxes, t-shirts, etc. Writing is a seamless part of life and the more we can point this out the more we can make the word a permanent fixture in a child's growing vocabulary. For this reason, I believe in the concept of a writing journal. Not a diary, a writing journal. Writing can and in some cases should be private but in the early years dialogue is the most important thing and by that I mean a great bounty of words: exchanged, spoken and written-down.

This particular journal is the one I use. I have about seven of them. I bought my first one in Edinburgh and the second in Prague. Yes, I was feeling pretty hoity-toity for awhile. Oh, you know, my special European journal. That can only be purchased in terribly far-away places. Like Romania, and Guam. Last summer, however, I walked into Barnes and Noble in Union Square and low and behold there was my special European journal sandwiched between the wall of greeting cards and the escalator. About as unique as Starbucks.

But, I highly recommend Paper Blanks. Not only are they hands-down the most beautiful journals I have ever come across but they are also incredibly functional. They have a magnetic strip that holds the pages in place that is certainly key for folks like me who might keep less than tidy bags. I have had many a journal ruined because the covers splayed out and the pages all became bent. Not so with Paper Blanks.

Another fun thing to do is to make your own journal. This is an activity children especially love and I find is symbolically very cool: the idea that they are making their very own book. The primary goal of my program has always been to empower children to feel like authors because, in fact, they are. It is a remarkable thing for a child to see the writing process through regardless of whether they can actually put words on a page yet. If you have young children I suggest creating journals together. Go to the store and pick out paper. Talk about all the things you can’t wait to write down in your own journal and ask them what they’d like to put in theirs. Pick out crayons. Get staples or tape or ribbon for binding. Have fun! Remember, writing is a process. Enjoy each and every step.

What's it about?

2009-08-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a friend of mine mentioned to me that she was reading Roberto Bolano's By Night in Chile and I rolled my eyes. I ROLLED MY EYES AT BOLANO. Terrible, I know. She was explaining to me about the poetry of his words and the rhythmic nature of his rolling sentences and how the absence of chapters seemed to signify the absence of time and all I could think was this: what the heck happened to all the plot?

It's a question I have been mulling over a lot lately, given that I spend quite a bit of time in the children's lit world where plot and character are sacred things. It isn't enough to have poetic language or a sound metaphoric structure. No, stuff has to HAPPEN.

I dig that.

While I was getting my MFA plot seemed to be the farthest thing from anyone's mind. My fellow students would mull over language and tone and style and perhaps even setting, but plot? How terribly trite. Ask someone what their story was ABOUT and they'd get antsy. "It's a representation," they'd say, irritably. And then, "duh."

I am constantly jostled between two camps, the first that believes when you sit down to write you must write for you alone otherwise the result will inevitably be inauthentic and the camp that believes that writing, at its best, is a dialogue between author and reader. I admit lately that I seem to be identifying much more with the later.

I'd like to return just momentarily to the question that serves as the title of this post: "what's it about?" Wander through any bookstore and listen in on conversations around the shelves and this is one you're bound to hear over and over again. It is the first question readers want to know: If I'm going to invest my time, money and energy into this, well, what's the story?

Rarely do you hear someone ask "is the language up to snuff?" or "is it written in a minimalist style?" Now I'm not suggesting that there isn't great worth in experimental writing. Pushing the limits on form is part of what defines art and should always, always be a priority. What I'm suggesting is that there are those of us out there (many of us) who want to sink our teeth into a good tale. One that is well written, absolutely, but also one that will capture our attention. That will delight.

This is part of the reason I became so enamored with children's books so many years ago and while I still read them today. And it's not just the Harry Potter's and Ramona's that I'm talking about. It's the picture books, too. How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz was a favorite summer read of mine as was Amelia Bedilia and Eloise, both old friends I returned to this month.

I have often said that I think more adults should read children's literature. Not because they impart great lessons or because reading these books helps parents to understand and better educate their own children (although both are true) but because it is important every once in awhile to return to what made us love literature to begin with, to remind ourselves of a darn good story and to remember that reading doesn't always have to be so serious to be worthwhile.

If we are to teach children to love and appreciate narrative we must also show them stories that can and will spark that love (stay tuned for next week's post in which I review my top five summer children's lit reads). We must give them books that challenge and provoke but also excite and inspire. I'm not suggesting Bolano does not inspire. There are oodles of poems in my document's folder that probably would not have been written without his influence (and might I suggest that could have been a good thing), what I am saying is that as adults we shouldn't be afraid of wanting plot, of wanting juice, of wanting to devour a book as we would a chocolate milkshake.

So the next time you see someone in an aisle at Barnes and Noble asking the age-old question, "what's it about?" perhaps consider pointing them in the direction of the children's section. True, it may not be what they are looking for but it may be just what they need.