24 Days of Thanks, 2011-Style

I bring you Dani’s Second-Annual, November list of Thanks (Better Late Than Never). Chockablock with over-earnestness, a smidge of cheekiness, and an occasional disregard for paradigms (even while enthusiastically participating in larger hegemonic structures).

 Day 1: I am thankful for my muses, all of them and all of you, but most especially for Partner. Somehow when I bounce words and ideas off of him, they come back to me making sense, and sense is good.

‎Day 2: I am thankful for the opportunity to watch people learn to read. There is so much magic in watching a person figure out how to untangle the squiggles and have the power to decode the textual communication that surrounds us.

‎Day 3: Today I am thankful for cold wind, especially those cold fronts that blow in during the night, giving us a break from the hot hot hot.

‎Day 4: Today I am thankful for Body Armor. From the top of the head to the reinforced drawers, may it always protect our soldiers (including my brother) from harm.

‎Day 5: I am thankful for cake. And bakers.

Day 6: Today I am thankful for Legos and for our local library’s Great Lego Build Off. The Sonars have been spent MANY hours this month building amazing things, trying to figure out what their entries will be.

‎Day 7: Today I am thankful for proximity—living close enough to walk or ride bikes in most of our day-to-day activities.

‎Day 8: I’m thankful for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Day 9: I am thankful for our health insurance. With allergies, infections, asthma, eyeglasses, teeth, hernias, and regular old bodily maintenance and prevention, I don’t know what we’d do without it. I wish everyone had affordable access to adequate coverage.

‎‎Day 10: I am thankful for the agitators, the skeptics, the questioners, and the people who just wouldn’t shut up in the face of something wrong. Change, progress, and improvement only happen when people are willing to stand up and say something.

Day 11 (Veteran’s Day): I am thankful for those who have chosen to serve our country, who fulfill the promises that our government makes in our name.

Day 12: I am thankful for packed Saturdays. For the many enrichment opportunities for the kids, and for the teachers, coaches, and volunteers who make these opportunities possible.

Day 13: I’m thankful for my seventh-grade keyboarding teacher, Mrs. Horcasitas, who taught me to touch type like the wind. Zoom zoom.

Day 14: I’m thankful for eyeglasses. Four out of five occupants of this house are now eyeglass wearers. Sonar X6 should really watch out.

Day 15: I am thankful for our fabulous piano teacher. Our days are now filled with bits and pieces of music. Tanya is structured and patient, and has given The Sonars a gift that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Day 16: I am thankful for Librarians! They know how to find almost any bit of information you could want. They organize and protect ideas. Fiercely. Some might poetically call them the Guardians of the Flame of Knowledge. That sounds so sexy.  Which is great, because librarians ARE sexy.

Day 17: I’m so thankful for small kindnesses. For holding open the door for someone, for smiling and exchanging a few words, for compliments that are small coming from the giver, but huge for the receiver, for simple, warm-hearted gestures that cost nothing, but feel priceless.

Day 18 (I told you I’d catch up): I’m thankful for all of you. Whether it’s something you’ve read, the music you’re listening to, your thoughts, observations, or actions, you challenge me, you break my heart, you make me laugh, you make me dance, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. You people Rock My Socks Off!

Day 19: I am thankful for fruit loops. And friends to share them with.

Day 20: I am thankful for ICE. From the polar ice caps to the jingle in a drink to an ice pack for an injury (or sore typing wrists), I am so grateful for cold, solid, water.

Day 21: I’m thankful for internet access. Without it, I could not share this list with all of you quite as efficiently.

‎Day 21: I am thankful for antibiotics. We live in a world where they are often taken for granted and misapplied, but they quietly and unglamorously prevent serious illness and save lives every day.

Day 23: I am thankful for frustration. Weird, right? But when I get frustrated, I know I’ve reached a limit, I know I have a challenge to face, I know that I need to alter my course or bear down and push through to (hopefully) find the satisfaction of accomplishment on the other side.

Day 24: I’m thankful for holidays and vacations, chances to set aside the routine and be with people we love and do things we wouldn’t normally do, like make pie and marshmallows and roast turkey and stay up too late.

Day 29 (Bonus): I’m thankful for NaNoWriMo and the inspiration, motivation, and excitement that gets me to write down fresh ideas every fall.

Day 30 (Excess): I’m thankful for readers. And writers. And idea-sharers. And inspirers. And you. I’m very thankful for all of you.

What I've Been Doing Instead of Writing, Halloween Craft Edition

I’ve watched some soccer and started teaching an adult literacy class. But mostly I’ve been working on Sonar Halloween costumes. Please click to embiggen any photo.

Last year Sonar X11 was a headless guy. This year he started with a conceptual costume, “The Balance of the Universe,” but may transform this piece into a black and white jester or clown. Oh, and no, I didn’t do this. He is eleven and needs me only to run the sewing machine from time to time.

Sonar X11’s Halloween maskLast year Sonar X8 was Gimli the Dwarf. This year, continuing the martial fantasy theme in a slightly different direction, he wants to be Sir Lancelot. He made the sword. This one gets to reuse the Santa boots that Sonar X11 wore in third grade. En garde, villein. 

Sonar X8’s Knight of the Round TableLast year Sonar X6 was a recycled Harry Potter, so this year he wanted something splashy. I balked at the Instructable for the Indiana Jones Lego Minifig, but we came to a compromise: regular minifig, built my way. We still need to cut out the face so he can see when he wears it.

Sonar X6’s Lego Minifig headThe primary materials here are two pool noodles and an empty oatmeal container. Plus some yellow sheets of foam and a good amount of duct tape.

The guts of Sonar X6’s lego minifig costume piecesWe spent Sunday morning goring up the front of the house. We inherited the grave stones from awesome neighbors (I think they’ve been pictured here before), but the bloody paint sheets are ours. The cheerful mums are for irony, of course. Not pictured is the entire scene backlit by a red porch light in the dark, a smoke machine, and a Sonar dispatched behind a sheet to surprise passersby.

Instant graveyardVisitors must pass through the bloody plastic to get to the front door. Plus mums.One view from the front door. The little guy makes a lot of noise. 

ABAW August Supplement: Kids' Books

I have given up trying to keep track of everything the kids have read, but here are some notable items from the past month. 

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger.  Dwight makes an origami Yoda. Yoda answers questions with special insight, even though his maker is clueless. How can this be?  And how does this whole middle-school thing work anyway?  Such a cool concept.  Be sure to check out the website for the book, and vote for which figure should star in the sequel.  

Zombiekins by Kevin Bolger, illus. Aaron Blecha.  Anytime we come across a book that all three read with enthusiasm and giggles, we know we have a keeper.  This is one of those books.  The story of a patched-together stuffed animal that comes to life when exposed to moonlight, Zombiekins is creepy good fun.  I still can’t get any of them to read Bunnicula.  This is Bolger’s second hit in our house. You might recall the Sonar obsession a few months ago with Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger.  

Palazzo Inverso by D. B. Johnson.  A stunningly beautiful picture book that can be read in circles, or all along the bottom pages, then flipped over and read backwards along all the top pages. You can read the entire book at the author’s website, but there is real joy to manipulating the book in your hands.  

The Widow’s Broom by Chris Van Allsburg.  If you’ve read any Van Allsburg picture books, you know the art is always spectacular, and this one is no exception.  

The Ultimate Origami Book by John Morin or Teach Yourself Origami by John Montroll.  We had a bit of a paper plane and origami extravaganza going on around here all summer.  Several origami books were dragged into and out of the house, but the Sonars tell me that these two were the best of the lot in terms of the clarity of the instructions and the number of figures they folded from each.

Good Poems edited by Garrison Keillor.  Our bedtime-story routine goes like this: one kid chooses a picture book and a poem to read to the others, then I read a chapter out of a bigger book.  They can choose anything they want that they are able to read themselves.  We do not censor.  The choices they make sometimes open up an opportunity for conversation.  They usually choose a short poem, most frequently out of Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein or The Rattlebag, edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes.  But I also bring home poetry books from the library to mix it up a bit.  The Good Poems collection is full of great stuff, grouped thematically.  Imagine my surprise and giggles when a very earnest Sonar X7 recently read “Sonnet” by C. B. Trail out of the section called Lovers.    

The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.  Each Sonar has read at least one book from this series, and I’m sure that they will all read more. Sonar X7 is the leader here, working his way through much of the series over the past two months.  The Winter Knights and Stormchaser were his favorite books this summer.   

Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel by Michio Kaku. You might recognize Kaku from several television and radio appearances, most recently Discovery Science Channel’s Sci-Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible.  Sonar X10 brought this one home, and though some of the science is above his head, he flipped through and browsed and read significant portions of it before handing it off to dad, who read the whole thing.  Just so you know, the accepted definition of Anti-matter, matter moving backwards in time. You’re welcome.  

The Dragon Codices.  These are part of the Dragonlance universe of books.  The codices are a series of middle-grade books focusing on different colored dragons.  So far there are seven books, but ten are planned.  If you’re interested, begin with the Red Dragon Codex.  Bronze Dragon Codex was Sonar X5’s favorite book this summer. 

What are they reading now?

Sonar X10 has just finished The Monsters of Morley Manor by Bruce Coville and has moved on to The Lost Years of Merlin by T. A. Barron.

Sonar X7 is reading The Hobbit.  

Sonar X5 just finished Zombiekins and hasn’t chosen another book yet.  

All-together we’re reading Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer.  

ABAW June Edition

Summer vacation has blown apart all of our routines.  Everyone is reading. A lot. More than during school because of the long, hot afternoons.  I just have no idea what everyone else read during June.  

I read seven books in June. One for the kids, six for me.  All but one book this month were part of different series. 

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Sonar X10 tried to read this book a year or so ago, but quit after a few chapters.  When prodded, he admitted that he didn’t like the story because everyone in it seemed so mean.  When the kids decided we would read this story out loud together, I was curious about that sense of meanness.  There are several characters in the book that are mean bullies, but more than that, the story is full of complicated maneuvers and twists of detail that are both fun and occasionally confusing.  Out-loud reading gave us the chance to pause when things got tricky and sort them out as best we could.  The main character is Reynie, an exceptionally bright orphan. He is joined by three other gifted kids, each with his or her own talents.  Sticky remembers everything, but is often sad and lacks confidence.  Kate is physically clever, can move her body with precision and grace, is is exceptionally confident and daring.  Constance is supremely obstinate.  The four orphans are recruited by Mr. Benedict, a grandfatherly man who needs the children to help him infiltrate a school, which is the front for an insidious plot to take over the world.  The bad guy is Mr. Curtain, a brilliant egomaniac.  Constance names their team The Mysterious Benedict Society and they set off to thwart Mr. Curtain.  They use codes, hard work, diplomacy, and deception to infiltrate Mr. Curtain’s organization.  The team themselves are good kids, but they face snarky bullies and a bizarre school structure.  Ultimately they have to work together and trust each other and their individual talents to figure out just what Mr. Curtain is doing and how he’s doing it.  The kids really liked this book, and we look forward to the others in the series.  

His Majesty’s Dragon (Temeraire Book 1) by Naomi Novik

Napoleonic wars. Naval intrigue. Cannonade. Dragons! Patrick O’Brian with a dash of Pern. I admit that I don’t much like the stifling manners and sea-sweat & leather atmosphere of most Master-and-Commander-type books, but this book was fun.  The series is named for the main dragon, who is also my favorite character. Temeraire is a rare dragon, curious, charming, and on his way to being wise.  His captain, Will Laurence, an awkward transplant for His Majesty’s Navy, strikes me as a bit stiff and naive sometimes.  The closed society of the flying corps is strikingly different than society at large, with more progressive codes of behavior and opportunities for women.  I look forward to the second book, which brings in Chinese culture and the continued threat that Napoleon will try to take back his dragon. 

Grave Peril (Dresden Files Book 4) by Jim Butcher

This is my favorite in the series so far. The characters and world-building are settling-in comfortably, so the tropes of each book feel familiar.  Surprises continue to pop up. Dresden has a new sidekick, Michael, a knight of God.  Butcher uses Michael to introduce the nuances of power inherent in Faith.  Dresden’s personal history and background take a leap forward, as does the mythology of the world.  The Nevernever begins to play a  more direct role in the action.  Every volume in the series has grim moments, but this one was for me especially grim, as truly horrifying violence strikes very close to Dresden this time.  Dresden is frighteningly damaged in this story.  He’s cut down in several ways.  He is in peril, as the title suggests.  He balances close to the edge of something—insanity, darkness, blackest grief.  I’m curious how he will go forward. 

The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson.  

I’m going to write about these three books in a separate post.  Know that they were very good, very complicated, and occupied a great deal of my time in June. 

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium Book 1) by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played With Fire (Millennium Book 2) by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Millennium Book 3) by Stieg Larsson

Tinkers by Paul Harding

The Pulitzer Prize-Winner for Fiction this year. This is a quiet, contemplative, melancholy book.  The words convey the stark beauty and practical elegance of the final thoughts of a man in the days before his death.  Structurally, the book takes place in the final week of George’s life, as he lies dying in a bed in the living room of the house he built, surrounded by his family. The narrative encompasses George’s death, but also his contemplation of his father Howard’s death, and his grandfather’s death as well.  The prominent metaphor of the book is of a clock, connected to George because he has spent the last several decades fixing and rebuilding clocks.  Each piece of the story, like each piece of the clock, is disassembled in a quiet and orderly way, the ticking of the other clocks marking time.  The time of the narrative corresponds to the length of one winding of a clock-about eight days or 192 hours.  Mechanically speaking, in a clock, there is one point that marks the beginning of the clock’s cycles.  All other times on the clock are determined relative to that beginning point.  The lives of the men in the story are similarly marked by a profound point, a moment that is sealed in their memories, a moment they contemplate with cyclical certainty, against which all other experiences of their lives are measured.  A beautiful book that inspires quiet reflection on both the nature of the book (I reread several sections when I finished), and on the cycles of my own life. 

ABAW May Edition

A.  Book.  A.  Week. (with echoes. echoes. echoes.)  We read bits of several different series this month. Also, slim notes this month. Winging it on memory.

Books I Read to Myself that Had Little or Nothing to Do With my Children

Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman

Through touchingly frank stories about her own experience as a parent, Ayelet Waldman tries to get at what it takes to be a good mother in America.  The threshold is incredibly high.  In fact, it might be impossible.  Even when we work ourselves to the edge of mental breakdown, work as hard as we can to please everyone and do everything, someone still thinks we’re not doing it right.  By that unattainable standard, we are all bad mothers.  Waldman’s stories are funny, heartbreaking, honest, and rich with detail on topics such as learning disorders, depression, abortion, religion, breastfeeding, maternal boundaries, sex, and GUILT.  Waldman’s style and tone are engaging and familiar, and I found myself jotting down phrases and sentences here and there as I read.  My favorite:  “I always tell my kids that as soon as you have a secret, something about you that you are ashamed to have others find out, you have given other people the power to hurt you by exposing you.”  So wise.  I couldn’t help but reflect on my own experiences with motherhood as I read.  I admire Waldman for sharing these very personal experiences.  She’s a great writer and strikes me as smart and tough, and I would throw myself in with bad mothers like her any day. 

America’s Cheapest Family by Annette and Steve Economides

This was a straggler among the books I read for our personal finance checkup last month.  Unlike some of the others last month, this one was more oriented toward practical, everyday actions to improve family finances, plan for the future, teach our children how to handle money, and dig out of debt. 

Jane Slayre by Charlotte Bronte and Sherri Browning Erwin

I resisted this one for a while.  Okay, for about a week.  I resisted mainly because I love the original.  It’s one of those books that is a sort of memory anchor for a particular personal transition in my life.  So I resisted, worried that this derivative would tamper with that memory anchor.  Turns out I had nothing to worry about.  Jane Slayre is fun.  It doesn’t have the musty atmospherics of the original, but Erwin exploits the spaces around Jane’s story in clever ways.  I preferred the innuendo-packed camp of Pride and Prejudice with Zombies, but I think I may be finished with the supernaturalization of the classics.  I wonder if there’d be any interest in rewriting classic horror and suspense novels to remove the supernatural elements?  No?  Didn’t really think so.

Grave Sight (Harper Connelly Book 1) by Charlaine Harris

Grave Surprise (Harper Connelly Book 2) by Charlaine Harris

An Ice Cold Grave (Harper Connelly Book 3) by Charlaine Harris

Harris has received notoriety as the creator of the Sookie Stackhouse universe, but she has other notable characters in her repertoire as well.  The main character of this series, Harper Connelly was struck by lightning as a teenager, and since then she’s had the uncanny ability to find dead bodies and know how they met their ends.  Of course, most people think she’s a fraud, but she and her step-brother Tolliver now travel the country trying to make a living with Harper’s talent.  They fall into creepy situations, dance around their own personal family mysteries (including a sister who disappeared many years before), and try to help the dead be found.  Whereas the Sookie Stackhouse books trade in camp, dark humor, and a delicious (pun intended) kind of vampire hypersexuality, the Harper Connelly books have a milder, more serious tone.  Harper is a more or less regular woman with a very irregular ability.  Though she occasionally meets other people with different types of extra-sensory perception, Harper’s world is not populated by vampires or supernatural monsters—only the occasional human one.  The books are well-plotted, with each volume working as an independent mystery, while still feeding the overall arcing story of the series.  There are no uber-villains, just crimes and mysteries to be solved, skeptical and downright mean people to be faced, and relationships to be negotiated.  My favorite character is the much-pierced and tattooed young man who shares some kind of intuitive awareness about people with his flamboyant grandmother.  All of Harris’s books grab me by the ears and don’t let go.  I always read them in a day or two, sneaking pages here and there throughout the day.  The fourth volume in the series is due out later this year.  Great beach/vacation reading. 

Storm Front (The Dresden Files Book 1) by Jim Butcher

Fool Moon (The Dresden Files Book 2) by Jim Butcher

Harry Dresden is Chicago’s only openly practicing wizard.  His world looks a lot like ours, only there’s magic and monsters, and an enigmatic place called the Nevernever.  The tone of the books very much echoes hard-boiled detective fiction.  Like the Harper Connelly series, I can’t put these books down.  Well-plotted and well-paced, every chapter ends with a hook that won’t let me go.  I find Harry’s character charming without being smarmy.  There are moments of sarcasm and levity, but also some pretty grim scenes as well.  The series numbers at least twelve books so far, with more in the imaginings by the author.  Another great choice for beach/vacation reading.  

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

I loved this book right from the start.  A multi-perspective, multi-generational, multi-country story about Oscar de Leon, an American of Dominican descent.  A literary gamer-geek to the nth degree.  Diaz gives us an epic narrative that both educates on the history, politics, and culture of the Dominican Republic (with the aid of copious footnotes), and the personal history of the life of Oscar.  No matter how different he seems from everyone else in his family and neighborhood, Oscar is both the product and the victim of his cultural history.  I found each new section a bit jarring as I tried to identify the narrative voice, and become oriented to what part of the story was unfolding.  That disorientation, I think, added to the sense of confusion and alienation that many of the characters feel.  If I neither belong here, nor there, where are my anchors?  Oscar’s sister Lola is a compelling character, but in the end, the sections narrated by Oscar’s friend and Lola’s boyfriend, Yunior, were the most thought-provoking for me.  Yunior and Oscar shared more similarities than Yunior is willing to admit, though they are dramatically different in terms of their demonstrations of masculinity and intellectualism.  I wonder in the final pages of the book whether Yunior is telling the story of Oscar as a way of understanding himself better, whether Oscar is a sort of manifestation of Yunior’s own personal struggle.  Diaz won many awards for this book, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. 

Books I read Out Loud to the Children

Drizzle by Kathleen Van Cleve

We loved this book.  Polly Peabody lives on a magical rhubarb farm where it rains at precisely one o’clock every Monday afternoon.  Some people think there is a logical and scientific explanation to the rain and the chocolate rhubarb, but when a life-threatening illness strikes Polly’s brother and the rain suddenly quits, Polly begins to discover for herself what makes the farm tick.  Full of literary allusions (a central trope involves a volume of Emerson), this book resonated with our young to middle-grade kids without being condescending.  The emotions portrayed are raw and honest.  Polly explains what happened and how it felt when her grandmother died, and is faced with the possibility that her brother will die as well.  Polly feels alienated in her new middle-school and has a hard time making friends.  Van Cleve creatively finds ways for Polly to act-independently, navigating a confusing set of realistic family relationships and one perceived betrayal as well as the mystery of the farm.  A really charming book about self-discovery that demonstrates that the magic inside is what really moves the world.  

The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

The kids loved this one almost as much as I did.  Check out my comments on it from last September here.

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

We laughed out loud at several points in this book.  What happens when a  modern writer tells an old-fashioned story about four old-fashioned children with atrocious parents?  Throw in a charming and capable Nanny, a lonely, mourning industrialist, and an abandoned baby, along with a fair dose of mischievousness, kid-humor, and an extended candy bar joke, and you get The Willoughbys.  Another smart, snappy book full of literary allusions, complete with a cheeky glossary of all the big words, and an annotated bibliography of other old-fashioned stories that inspired Lowry.  Deeelightful.  The kids quote this one extensively, but if I share their favorite quotes with you, you’ll think they’re crude.  Or you might just think they’re giggly kids.  

Sonar X9 Read a few things too!!

The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 1) by Michael Scott

The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 2) by Michael Scott

Attack of the 50 foot Cupid (Franny K. Stein Book 2) by Jim Benton

Ghosthunters and the Incredibly Revolting Ghost (Ghosthunters 1) by Cornelia Funke

Ghosthunters and the Gruesome Invincible Lightning Ghost (Ghosthunters 2) by Cornelia Funke

What We’re Reading Now

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson  (me) This is the second try for me.  I quit after fifty pages the first time.  I was assured it will get better, and it did.  Nearly halfway through now, and I must know what happens.  

The Sorceress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 3) by Michael Scott (Sonar X9)  Won’t call him that much longer. Last time, in fact.

The Mysterious Benedict Society (MBS Book 1) by Trenton Lee Stewart (out loud)  A fun book so far, full of puzzles.  Fun to read a story about gifted kids to gifted kids.  Every few pages we stop because they want to talk about something.