Impromptu reading festival

The past seven days have been a blur, but after one rainy day and the promise of several more to come before the weekend, I'm feeling ready to relax. And what better way than with some of my favorite online blogging friends, who've come prepared with a spontaneous carnival of books! Jen Robinson's Book Page has a fun Sunday Afternoon Visits entry, chockablock with links. And assuming you had them all read within a few days, Kelly at Big A little a stepped into the breach with her Tuesday Review Roundup. Both were more than kind enough to include a link to my recent post on travel books about children's lit locations.

And I've been remiss in my erratic blogging not mentioning that the latest edition of The Edge of the Forest: A Children's Literature Monthly is up, with a bunch of articles including a review of Bodies From the Ash: Life and Death in Ancient Pompeii by James Deems, about which reviewer Liz Burns writes, "This isn't about history that is dead and buried in the past; it's about history that is alive." Liz also reviews the movie version of Cornelia Funke's Thief Lord, which was released straight to DVD. And don't miss the Kid Picks column, where every month Edge talks to group of kids about their favorite books. This month, Fuse #8, New York City blogging children's librarian extraordinaire, chats up her homeschool group at The Donnell Central Children's Room, where the kids put in a plug for Freddy the Pig, Jack London, and Jules Feiffer's A Room with a Zoo. And don't miss the link to the Multnomah County Library's website, which offers tips on how other libraries can start their own children's book discussion books. Just the sort of info a homeschooling family might want to pass along to its favorite librarian.

Long weekend report

Tom got the wheat in yesterday, and I got most of the vegetables planted, except for the potatoes, pumpkins, and zucchini, which need more room than my raised bed can afford; they'll go in our garden plot at the corrals, and I also decided that I'd make a "sunflower house" there for the kids to play in. And Tom said that he's going to cultivate the old, large "Baba" (Ukrainian grandmother) garden in our front yard and seed it to grass for a ball diamond, a very popular decision all round.

And we got everything done last night just in time to help with the second-to-last calf, whose mother was struggling a bit, and before the thunder, lighting, and rain rolled in. Always a relief to have the newly-planted seeds tucked in with some showers, which also means the kids and I don't have to water the apple trees this morning before leaving for piano lessons. More relief, especially since after piano lessons we're on to homeschool Gym Day, followed by a quick trip home, a dash back to town for Swim Club, then dinner and, for the kids at least, bed.

I'm relieved to get the main crop for the year in. There's still a bit of barley to go, but we're more than halfway done with the spring seeding. And now for the fun part -- watching everything grow.

New Latin curriculum comparison chart

Paula at Paula's Archives has a brand new page with a Latin curriculum comparison chart, gathered up from discussions at the Well-Trained Mind K-8 curriculum board. I don't frequent the boards, so I'm happy for this resource.

If you're a classical homeschooler and you're not familiar with Paula's Archives, you and your kids are missing a tremendous resource (not entirely secular, by the way). Check the previous link for an index which includes Story of the World resources; lists of literature to supplement history, living science books, movies to co-ordinate with your studies, easy chapter books, oodles of links, and much, much more. And I learned about the brand new Latin page since I'm signed up to receive e-mail alerts via Paula's Yahoo group, a very low-traffic, virtually one-way, group.

Happy Victoria Day

Today is Victoria Day, which in Canada means that this is the long weekend known as the gateway to the summer, much like Memorial Day in the US. Also like Memorial Day in the US, the reason behind the long weekend has been pretty much forgotten. Not only is the occasion now known mostly as "the May long weekend" but many folks at least in Alberta, apparently too tired from making all that oil money, have taken to referring is as "The May long," which makes me shudder.

Victoria's birthday was in fact 24 May 1819, but Canada appropriates the penultimate Monday in order to make a three-day holiday. We Albertans owe her much, not least our province's name, after her daughter, Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, herself named after Victoria's beloved Albert.

While most of our family and friends have run off to their cabins at the lake, or their rattletrap tin-can campers near someone else's cabin at the lake, we stayed put to enjoy the creature comforts of a well-stocked pantry and fridge and our own beds. All of which were much enjoyed last night after a long day of gardening (transplanting, weeding, pruning, accompanied by mama meadowlark bringing worms to her newly-hatched babies) and farming (cleaning last year's wheat for this year's seed, hooking up the air seeder). I'm off shortly to do some watering and load up the truck with all the branches and other detritus from yesterday's efforts, and then to plant potatoes, if it's not too muddy in the potato patch. We're in a race to get the seeding done before the forecasted rain for the rest of week starts.

Almost forgot Saturday, which wasn't a very pleasant day at all weatherwise -- rainy (but which our little trees enjoyed and which softened up the ground for me considerably yesterday) and exceedingly windy. But not a problem as we spent most of the day indoors at the local museum's grand opening for the summer. Laura wore her c1900 dress, charmed all of the adults, did a marvelous job cutting the cake ("I was nervous, could you tell, Mom?") decorated with dozens of tiny icing wild roses.

And I was gifted with some lovely compliments, not just how sweet the children looked (Laura in her dress and the boys as cowboys complete with Stetsons) but how well-behaved they kids were. These last started coming so thick and fast that after some thought on the way home I realized what everyone really meant -- that three kids under the age of nine were interested, cheerful, polite, and made themselves very useful, throughout three hours at a history museum in the company of mostly adults, and senior citizens at that. A good lesson in the practical power of lots of sunshine, water, diligent weeding and patience, not to mention delighting in the dandelions as well as the roses.

The 4th Carnival of Children's Literature is up!

The Carnival is here, the Carnival is here!

In Canada, it's the Victoria Day long weekend, so unless you've been spending your days outdoors gardening putting the crops in, sit back with a cup of coffee and enjoy the fun! I'm going to skim through the Carnival quickly now, and return tonight to savor...

There is no Frigate like a Book for summer holidays

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away ...
(Emily Dickinson, no. 1263)

One of my favorite subcategories in children's literature are those books about the locations of favorite books and stories, and it occurs to me that it's a wonderful and particularly useful niche for this time of year, for those of us (like me) who won't travel too far from home this vacation season and also for those (maybe you) who might be more footloose and fancy free.

So, whether you're planning to spend your summer vacation at home, on the porch or under a favorite tree with a pitcher of lemonade and a stack of books, or whether you have a pin poised over the map and your travel agent on speed dial, here goes:

Heidi's Alp: One Family's Search for Storybook Europe by Christina Hardyment (published in 1987); I found this shortly after it was published, in my single days in a Washington, DC, independent bookshop, years before I met Tom and long before the kids were even glimmers in my eye, and was enchanted. A family with four daughters, ages five to 11, travels from their Oxford home in Bertha, the yellow camper van, through Hans Brinker's Holland, Hans Christian Andersen's Denmark and Germany, and searches for Pinocchio in Pisa, Babar in Burgundy, and, of course, Heidi's Alp. The first chapter, "The Life Adventurous," about how the trip came to be -- fell into place, really -- is marvelous and just as good as the adventures themselves that follow. Both lyrical and practical for anyone contemplating something similar.

Where Was Wonderland?: A Traveller's Guide to the Settings of Classic Children's Books by Frank Barrett, with lovely map illustrations by John Woodcock (published in 1997); I stumbled across this one at BookCloseouts the other year and have been delighted ever since. As Barrett writes in his foreward,

But while you may never find Neverland, you may be as surprised as I was to discover that the home of the Darling family is just a short walk from a London tube station. ...This discovery made me wonder how many other children's books had real-life locations.

The answer, as Barrett discovered and then shares with us, is a great many; included in the book, with excerpts and illustrations from the books themselves as well as the story of how each book (mostly British, with a few exceptions) came to be, are The 101 Dalmations, Watership Down, Thomas the Tank Engine, Lorna Doone, The Secret Garden, The Tales of Beatrix Potter, The Sheep-Pig (aka "Babe") by Dick King-Smith, The Railway Children, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Rob Roy, Winnie-the-Pooh, Cider with Rosie, The Little Prince, Anne of Green Gables, Swallows and Amazons, and more. It's a fairly slim volume, just over 200 pages, and easy to pop in your suitcase.

Once Upon a Time in Great Britain: A Travel Guide to the Sights and Settings of Your Favorite Children's Stories by Melanie Wentz (published in 2002); this was another BookCloseouts treasure. Wentz, an American teacher, did much of the research while exploring England and Scotland with her family. While she covers some of the same ground as Frank Barrett (Watership Down, Thomas the Tank Engine, 101 Dalmations, Railway Children, Cider with Rosie, Swallows and Amazons, etc.), there are some different titles. As well, Wentz divvies up the titles into three sections, "Much-Loved Classic Stories," "More-Recent Favorites" (including Harry Potter), and "British Favorites for Americans to Enjoy". Lots of information for anyone headed across the pond. Curiously, though, the bibliography at the back doesn't include Barrett's book published five years earlier.

Storied City: A Children's Book Walking-Tour Guide to New York City by Leonard Marcus (published in 2003); this one came with us on the kids' first trip to visit Grandmama and Grandpapa in the fall of 2004. The book includes 21 walking tours through all five boroughs and features over 100 "places and spaces" from the obvious, such as the Plaza Hotel (Eloise) to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler), to the considerably less so (the Imagination Playground in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, where you can find the sculpture of Peter, Ezra Jack Keats's young protagonist from The Snowy Day, Whistle for Willie, and Peter's Chair). Since Davy was not quite four years old at the time and we had only two weeks and lots to see, we didn't use any of the walking tours as scripted, but used the book to help locate and learn more about the places and spaces we came across in our travels. The book was also especially handy in putting together a reading list of titles to help the kids prepare for their first ever trip to the Big Apple; I never would have come across The Park Book, written by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by H.A. Rey, otherwise. At 154 pages and about 4"x8", Storied City is a good fit for a jacket pocket or tote bag. Highly recommended, and I keep hoping that Mr. Marcus or a colleague will come up with something similar for, oh, say, Boston...

Here's another, one I haven't read, that popped up while I was writing this:

Storybook Travels: From Eloise's New York to Harry Potter's London, Visits to 30 of the Best-Loved Landmarks in Children's Literature by Colleen Dunn Bates and Susan La Tempa (published in 2002); includes some of the usual suspects as well as Brighty of the Grand Canyon and the France of Linnea in Monet's Garden.

And, because they're tangentially related to the subject of children's literature and might be nice for those families also sticking close to home this summer:

For the kiddies (best served with lemonade):

Storybook Parties: 45 Parties Based on Children's Favorite Stories by Penny Warner and Liya Lev Oertel; you can save these up for birthday parties, but so much better to trot out just for fun, for a tea party or a sunny day, or because you just inflated the kiddies' pool or finished reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and want the fun to continue. Lots of fun for the younger set.

Plays Children Love: A Treasury of Contemporary and Classic Plays for Children, volume II, edited by Coleman A. Jennings and Aurand Harris; we don't have volume I, but volume II includes Charlotte's Web, The Bremen Town Musicians, How the Camel Got His Hump, Pyramus and Thisbe, The Three Little Kittens, and oodles more.

For the adults (best served with iced coffee, iced tea, or a G&T):

Boys and Girls Forever: Children's Classics from Cinderella to Harry Potter by Alison Lurie

Don't Tell the Grown-Ups: The Subversive Power of Children's Literature, also by Alison Lurie

Poetry Friday: Bird Talk

Bird Talk
by Carl Sandburg

And now when the branches were beginning to be heavy,
It was the time when they once had said, "this is the
beginning of summer."
The shrilling of the frogs was not so shrill as in the
first weeks after the broken winter;
The birds took their hops and zigzags a little more
anxious; a home is a home; worms are worms.
The yellow spreads of the dandelions and buttercups
reached across the green pastures.
Tee whee and tee whee came on the breezes, and the grackles
chuzzled their syllables.
And it was the leaves with a strong soft wind over them
that talked most of all and said more than any others
though speaking the fewest words.
It was the green leaves trickling out the gaunt nowhere
of winter, out on the gray hungry branches--
It was the leaves on the branches, beginning to be heavy,
who said as they said one time before, "This is the be-
ginning of summer."

We shall never blame the birds who come
where the river and the road make the Grand Crossing
and talk there, sitting in circles talking bird talk.
If they ask in their circles as to who is here
and as to who is not here and who used to be here,
Or if instead of counting up last year as against
this year, they count up this year as against next
year, and have their bird chatter about who is here
this year who won't be here next year,
We shall never blame the birds.

If I have put your face among leaf faces, child,
Or if I have put your voice among bird voices,
Blame me no more than the bluejays.

From Rainbows Are Made: Poems by Carl Sandburg, selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Go to Liz B at A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy and Kelly at Big A little a for the complete round-up of all the day's poetry offerings.

Bubblicious

Because we've started cultivating in preparation for seeding, which we hope to have done by Sunday, and are up to our necks in things to do (not including a bridal shower tonight and attending the pioneer museum's grand opening in town, a big deal because of the town's centennial this year, and to which Laura has been asked to wear her period dress to help the Mayor cut the cake); and because my shopping cart yesterday in 90-degree heat included a watermelon, three water pistols, a water sprinkler, Dawn dishwashing liquid, and a bottle of glycerin, I leave you with this -- much cheaper than the ready-made stuff and, along with a box of Popsicles, guaranteed to make you universally beloved by small fry -- and hope to see you on the other side.

Bubble Formula

2/3 cup Dawn or Joy dishwashing liquid
1 gallon water
2 or 3 tablespoons of glycerin

Mix gently, and let the children loose with it.

Bon voyage,

best wishes, and safe travels to the Schola family -- L., Jorge, and the girls -- who depart Saturday, portable schoolhouse in hand, on their six-month grand adventure Down Under as they more than live up to the "ola" (Odyssean Learning Adventure) in Schola, from North Cape to the Bluff in the wop-wops. Just remember, malum est consilium quod mutari non potest.*


* from your pal Publilius Syrus. Literally, it's a bad plan than cannot be changed. Not so literally, hang loose, kids, and have a fantastic time. Keep us posted, L. (via Road Schola, coming soon)!

Teamwork

Tom's apprentice went home this morning with a headache so the two-person tile-laying plans at the supermarket bathroom had to be postponed. Tom came home at lunchtime and after the meal he took the kids with him to the shop at the corrals a mile and a half away to work on various parts and pieces being built for the remodel.

So I was washing eggs and laundry and changing sheets in the peace and quiet when after a couple of hours the kids materialized with three very flushed faces and an armful of buffalo beans, a pea-like plant with bright yellow flowers.

"Could we have Fudgesicles please?"
"Where's Daddy?"
"At the corrals. Could we have Fudgesicles?"
"Why did you leave?"
"It was getting hot and we were hungry and thirsty and Daddy's still working." [It was, at 3 p.m. today, 90 degrees F in the shade, which is most definitely not normal for Alberta in May.]
"Then how did you get here?"
"On Laura's bike."
"All three of you?"
"Yes, we took turns. [Gazes impatiently toward deep freeze where Fudgesicles live.] First Davy rode until we got to the yield sign, then we changed every time we came to another birdhouse. When we got hot we dipped our feet in the water in the ditch. As we walked the two who weren't riding were picking flowers for you."

I've never handed out Fudgesicles with more pride.

Not only...

was it about 80 degrees Fahrenheit today and sunny (and temps near 90 in tomorrow's forecast), but on our first trip to town today for piano lessons, we saw the first lilacs in bloom, in front of a house near the supermarket. Just last week on a walk to a friend's house, I noticed that the buds were quite purple, but still tightly furled. For me, there's something about the first lilac that's even more exciting than the first robin. And because there's always at least a week between the first blooms in town and the one's in the country, we're filled with a delicious sense of anticipation.

And tonight, while checking the varieties of our two new roses ("John Cabot" and "Alexander Mackenzie", from the very, very hardy Explorer series), Laura heard a partridge drumming away while cranes swooped slowly overhead.

Since we're home almost all day tomorrow and the weekend's rain has soaked in just the right amount, it will be a day for digging in the dirt.

Brigands and swine

I was ordering some living math books via interlibrary loan, and laughed out loud to see that The Great Take-Away by Louise Mathews, a subtraction story, is catalogued under the following subjects in our library system:

Arithmetic
Brigands and Robbers
Swine -- juvenile fiction

Kudos to the unknown cataloguing librarian with the good vocabulary and even better sense of humor.

Red letter day for Swallows and Amazons

Came home yesterday from our Mother's Day festivities to find a phone message from our homeschooling family friends, the Smiths, inviting us to lunch today and an afternoon of play. I have to admit, I was torn -- on a Monday, with all sorts of schoolwork yet to accomplish and with an hour and a half of Swim Club in the late afternoon afterwards? Fortunately, I came to my senses (after all, the weather forecast was for sunshine and 80 degrees and in Alberta in May that's not to be sneezed at) and these doubts didn't last too long, and I quickly called to RSVP.

Just as quickly, the kids zipped through their schoolwork this morning while I prepared some of tonight's dinner ahead of time. Just before noon, we were off. We arrived at the Smith Family's acreage, which is a forested wonder. Mrs. Smith and her two kids (nine-year-old daughter and 11 year-old-son who is idolized by my two boys) emerged from the trees to beckon us to their fire in clearing, where we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for lunch. Energized by all the carbon in their systems, the kids took off for a clearing and swung on tire swings. Over the next two hours, they variously had water pistol/Super Soaker fights, danced in the sprinkler, admired the Smith kids' teepee, sailed a not particularly seaworthy raft and a much better dinghy in the rain-swollen pond, lost and found boots in the mud, drank orange soda pop, and built a giant castle in the sand only to let an even larger tsunami through. The kids were in the house only a few times to use the bathroom.

During this last, darling Mrs. Smith laid out the tastiest tidbits from her fridge and begged me to make sandwiches and snacks for the kids before heading off to Swim Club; and then she raided her candy stash and dropped tiny boxes of Smarties and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups into the bag.

I was fully expecting my kids to either fall asleep in the truck on the way to town or half-drown in the pool from exhaustion, but they're made of strong stuff and second (and third) winds. And then we came home and they devoured my belated Mother's Day dinner of grilled steak and shrimp with tomato and red onion salad, and raspberries and whipped cream for dessert. And conked out.

Apples of my eye

While I was folding laundry yesterday, Tom and the kids ran off to town for my Mother's Day present, which I learned late this morning was two eight-foot Haralred apple trees, guaranteed hardy to Zone 2 (that's to -40 Celsius/Fahrenheit for you southerners). They couldn't have come up with a more wonderful gift. Davy wants to know if there will be enough fruit for pies in the fall, though I think if we get a few each for eating out of hand it'll be a success.

We spent a beautiful day outside, the perfect antidote to two rainy days (especially Friday, with thunder, lightning, and hail), here and at Tom's parents' house, and were so tired on arriving home 7 p.m. that we opted for leftovers and an early night instead of the planned Mother's Day feast of grilled steak and shrimp. Which means that the holiday will now last for two days instead of only one. Hurray! Especially since we've been invited for lunch and an afternoon of water pistol fights by some of our favorite homeschooling friends.

Mother's day

I found this poem in the small weekly newspaper during our seven-month stay in the West Indies three years ago. It made me smile because usually after dropping off Laura and the gardener's son at school -- a small private one where Laura was in Kindergarten -- the boys and I, one on my hip and the other holding my hand, would wander through the island's one big town, perhaps over to the market on the day when the "market ladies" arrived with their fruits and vegetables from neighboring Dominica or to the library or the merry-go-round that is the supermarkets, where you may find ketchup one week, but good luck the next...

Her Little Shadows
by Barbara Burrow

I saw a young mother
With eyes full of laughter
And two little shadows
Came following after.

Wherever she moved,
They were always right there
Holding on to her skirts,
Hanging on to her chair.
Before her, behind her --
An adhesive pair.

"Don't you ever get weary
As, day after day,
Your two little tag-alongs
Get in your way?"

She smiled as she shook
Her pretty young head,
And I'll always remember
The words that she said:

"It's good to have shadows
That run when you run,
That laugh when you're happy
And hum when you hum --
For you only have shadows
When your life's filled with sun."

A very happy Mother's Day, and all best wishes for lives filled with sun, to Grandmama and Nana, and to all of my mother friends, who love, nurture, sustain, and support*.


*Not least those who mummify chickens, build soapbox derby cars, chant Latin in the car, pursue the Holy Grail of the perfect math or grammar or science curriculum, or take the time and trouble to post links and book reviews, and share with the rest of us what works for you. You know who you are, and I'm glad I do, too.

Poetry snowball

JoVE at Tricotomania was sweetheart this week to send me a subscriber-only article from The Chronicle of Higher Education; for you lucky subscriber types, here's the link.

The article, by Kevin Detmar, a professor of English, entitled "Garrison's Pretty Good Poetry," discusses the Prairie Home Companion host's role as a champion of "good" but not great poetry, and how, "While no one was looking, Garrison Keillor has quietly become the nation's Dean of Poetry":

It would be as churlish to complain of Keillor's success as it would to complain of Oprah's. The comparison isn't just a convenient one: What Oprah has done for American fiction and creative (sometimes very creative) nonfiction since starting her hugely influential book club, Keillor is now doing for poetry, with the same great reach and same built-in limitations. Oprah sometimes seems interested in just one kind of narrative, the narrative of "recovery"; Keillor seems interested in just one kind of poem. Actually, though, that's a bit unfair: It's not that he "seems" interested in only a narrow range of poetry; he explicitly professes to be. He's for the plain-spoken, heard-not-read, low-to-middlebrow poem that hasn't been tainted by association with the scholars. Keillor claims to know the meaning of poetry, and it is singular: "The meaning of poetry is to give courage. A poem is not a puzzle that you the dutiful reader is [sic] obliged to solve. It is meant to poke you, get you to buck up, pay attention, rise and shine, look alive, get a grip, get the picture, pull up your socks, wake up and die right."

Detmar closes by writing, "Those of us who care deeply about poetry have largely abdicated our responsibility to teach regular folk how to read, understand, and appreciate poems, while apparently reserving the right to carp about it when someone like Keillor takes on the job we've shirked. "What we have loved,/ Others will love, and we will teach them how": Those lines from Wordsworth's The Prelude, appropriated for an essay on teaching by the great contemporary-poetry critic Helen Vendler, suggest that lovers of poetry — difficult, challenging, unsettling poetry — have some work to do."

So then I tried Google for a link to the essay, only to discover Say Something Wonderful, Eric Selinger's "blog about teaching, poetry, and teaching poetry, by the Project Director of the NEH Summer Seminar Say Something Wonderful: Teaching the Pleasures of Poetry"; his January post on Vendler and Pedagogy; and also his first wonderful thing to say, from April 2005,

Like physics or chemistry instructors, that is to say, we must be able to explain both results and method, to show our students why certain questions make a poem more instructive or delightful, while others set blinders on the reader’s eyes. We need an informed and confident sense of how to introduce poetry to our students—its nature, its pleasures, its difficulties—and of how to read a poem closely without (as Billy Collins infamously warns) “beating it with a hose/to find out what it really means.” Above all, I guess, we owe it to our students to model how reading—reading closely, reading aloud, reading in bed—can bring poems to life, in every sense of that fine phrase.

Which comes 'round nicely to the Chronicle of Higher Ed article.

Don't miss Professor Selinger's four Lesson Plans for high school teachers at Poetry Out Loud which I mentioned here; speaking of Poetry Out Loud, if you'll be in the Washington, DC area on Tuesday, head over to the POL National Finals at the Lincoln Theater at 7:30 pm; admission is free, but tickets are required.

Also not to be missed -- Prof. Selinger's link in the blogroll to Language Is a Virus where you can find such swell games as Cut Up Machine, Madlib Poem, Magnetic Poetry, Automatic Poetry Generator, Text Collage, Haiku-a-Tron, Poem Engine, and Title-o-Matic (you find the links, it's getting late here).

Or the link in an early post to Teaching the Art of Poetry. All wonderful stuff.

An entrance place of wonders

Jabari Asim's run-down of poetry books for children in tomorrow's Washington Post Book World section includes a review of Entrance Place of Wonders: Poems of the Harlem Renaissance, selected by the aptly-named Daphne Muse:

Any collection of poems from the Harlem Renaissance is likely to include certain familiar names such as Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson. They are all here in The Entrance Place of Wonders (Abrams, $16.95; 9-12), but it's to Daphne Muse's credit that they are not represented by the same ol' poems. Sure, Hughes's "Dream Variations" is here, but so is the less-familiar "To You" and "Winter Sweetness." Ditto for the repertoires of Cullen and Johnson, from which Muse has chosen judiciously. Even so, the most refreshing selections are from nearly forgotten poets such as James Alpheus Butler Jr. and Alpha Angela Bratton. The latter's "Slumber Song," rich with historical resonance, is also a lovely lullaby. "See how the big moon dips and swings," she writes, "Shaking the stars from its silver wings." Charlotte Riley-Webb's splashy illustrations are wonderfully exuberant, as is "Rhapsody," by William Stanley Braithwaite, the poem from which Muse takes her title. Braithwaite's thoughtful gratitude is a fitting coda for the collection itself: "I am glad for my heart whose gates apart/Are the entrance-place of wonders, Where dreams come in from the rush and din/Like sheep from rains and thunders."

Entrance Place of Wonders, indeed. And since Amazon.com's price for the book is only $6.38, compared to the list price of $15.95, you almost can't afford not to buy it, as opposed to borrowing. Might be interesting and worthwhile, too, to compare it to poet Nikki Giovanni's Shimmy Shimmy Shimmy Like My Sister Kate: Looking At The Harlem Renaissance Through Poems.

And do your kids a favor and add some companion books: for older children, say, ages nine and up, Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance by Laban Carrick Hill, and Harlem, a Caldecott Honor book by Walter Dean Myers, illustrated by his son Christopher Myers. For the younger set, the picture books Shaky Bones: A Story of the Harlem Renaissance by Pamela Dell, about Simon Brocade, whose dancing leads poet Countee Cullen to nickname him "Shaky Bones"; and Visiting Langston by Willie Perdomo and illustrated by Bryan Collier.

And with the money you saved on Entrance Place, you can go to BookCloseouts and buy yourself, and your older child, a "scratch & dent" copy of The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, edited by David L. Lewis, for only $4.25. I bought this myself the other month, to add to our growing shelf of Viking Portable Readers, which I hope will come in quite handy for the logic and rhetoric stages.

The weekend's endeavor

Just had word via a Canadian homeschool sale/swap board advising that the book I was hoping for, Mathematics, a Human Endeavor: A Book for Those Who Think They Don't Like the Subject by Harold R. Jacobs, second edition (1982), is still available for $10 CAN plus shipping from British Columbia; the seller will let me know the cost of shipping on Monday.

Since the current edition (1994 -- the fourth edition is expected out next year) bought new from Amazon.ca is $95 CAN, and the next cheapest alternative I can find is the second edition used from the friendly folks at Powell's for $25 US, I'm delighted with the news. Yes, the book would be for me -- and I'm finding I like, understand, and appreciate math better and better the further the New Math recedes -- and not for the kids just yet.

Poetry Friday

A little May Sarton for Poetry Friday, Spring, and Mother's Day...

An Observation
by May Sarton (1912-1995)

True gardeners cannot bear a glove
Between the sure touch and the tender root,
Must let their hands grow knotted as they move
With a rough sensitivity about
Under the earth, between the rock and shoot,
Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit.
And so I watched my mother’s hands grow scarred,
She who could heal the wounded plant or friend
With the same vulnerable yet rigorous love;
I minded once to see her beauty gnarled,
But now her truth is given me to live,
As I learn for myself we must be hard
To move among the tender with an open hand,
And to stay sensitive up to the end
Pay with some toughness for a gentle world.

from A Private Mythology, 1966

*******

Check later today with Liz B at A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy and Kelly at Big A little a for a round-up of the day's poetry offerings.

Classy Mad Libs: Where I'm From

Writing and Living had a beautiful post yesterday entitled "Where I'm From". I was surprised to find that the idea came from a template a la Mad Libs, but with considerably more lyrical results. It's all inspired by a poem which in turn was used as a class writing assignment. Though the grade level wasn't specified, this is something I'd like my kids to give a whirl, especially since it's something that lends itself well to sitting outside on the deck with a picnic lunch when I just can't keep them corraled at the kitchen table any more.

Where are you from? If you decide to give this a try, post a link to your blog in the comments below so I can read the results, please!


Update: Just occurred to me over lunch that this project is a good pairing with word clouds. If you didn't see them when they were making the rounds several months ago, here's the Farm School version, of where I am now,