No Balloons for Me

My mother, who is wonderful in many many ways, has the small flaw (if you can even call it a flaw) of being terrified of sudden loud noises such as...well balloons popping, fireworks etc.  So as you can probably guess my brother and I never had balloons at birthday parties. As such, whenever the kids I work with do something with balloons I am just as excited as they are because I haven't had my whole life to get sick of them. There is a guy, we call him the balloon man but his real name is John Cassidy check him out here, who does an awesome show that is a mix of comedy, magic, and making really awesome things out of balloons. 

The Balloon Man

        

My wonderful mother and I

So, as you can imagine, I was really excited to read a book called 21 Balloons, by William Pene du Bois.  After reading the book I am happy to say that my excitement was entirely justified and this is, in fact, a terrific book. Check out this line from the introduction, "half of this story is true and the other half might very well have happened."  I love that line.  It's such a great answer for all of those people who demand, "is this true?"  Who cares if it's true it's a great story so lets just enjoy it!

Also this book has an intermission in the middle.  How awesome is that? Of course by that point I was so engrossed in the story that I didn't even pause for a proper intermission, I just blew right through it. The book is Professor William Waterman Sherman retelling his adventures as he tried to live a year in a hot air balloon traveling around the world.  He set out to go wherever the wind took him and he certainly had some grand experiences along the way. Listen to his tone as he describes the scene when his balloon first took off, "there was considerable confusion and what appeared to be a street fight. This was most flattering." 

Because it is Professor Sherman retelling his experiences the book reads just like some old explorer came up to you and said, "let me tell you a story."  And this makes it so fun to read. 

Loving balloons, having grand adventures, enjoying a story...that's kids stuff. 

Goes Round and Round

So the title of this book is The Wheel on the School so of course the wheels on the bus go round and round is immediately stuck in my head.  Fortunately Meindert DeJong's tale is not one of whiny babies, mean bus drivers, and spinning wheels. It is the story of one girls quest to bring storks back to her small dutch village.  I didn't know that in these villages the roofs are too steep for storks to nest so villagers would attach a wooden wagon wheel to their roofs to provide a place for the storks to nest.  Neat, right?

The first thing that struck me about this book happened on the very first page (if you love the first page that's always a good sign).  This is how DeJong describes the village, "In five of those houses lived the six school children of Shora, so that is important.  There were a few more houses but in those houses lived no children just old people.  They were, well, just old people, so they weren't too important. there were more children too, but young children, toddlers, not school children so that is not so important either."  Isn't that great!

Also, just as a side note, there were six school children five of whom are boys.  In my group at reading camp there are three boys and two girls.  I have learned that boys are crazy and I have no idea what to do with them.  I can only imagine what this teacher did with five boys and only one girl. Sorry about the gender bias but if you have spent any time in a classroom you know boys are tricky.

Luckily this teacher was pretty brilliant.  Listen to this piece of advice he gave his students, "We can't think much when we don't know much.  But we can wonder!" What a wonderful statement to make.  Children are naturally inquisitive and full of wonder.  How refreshing to see a teacher who encourages this.  In fact even though bringing back the storks was Lina's (the only girl-just saying) idea it was the teacher who executed a lot of the searching and planning.  Of course I'm not going to tell you if the storks come to the village or not-that's for you to read and discover.  I will say that this book was a joy to read-so much fun.

Also, as a final note, this book was published in the fifties before political correctness so sprinkled throughout you have delightful little statements like this, "I'll take a chance on you.  Fat kids are usually pretty honest.  They have to be, they can't run away."

Letting yourself wonder...that's kids stuff.

I Don't Get It

We all know that sometimes kids make stuff up.  My group of students at reading camp have wild imaginations and I am constantly delighted by all of the crazy ideas they come up with.  Whether it's designing their own story, pondering why a character did something, or coming up with ideas to put into our ocean mural their thoughts are so original, and it makes me wonder when do adults stop thinking like that? But I also have to admit, sometimes I don't get it.  Sometimes they have to explain it more and even after that sometimes I still don't get it.

Carolyn Sherwin Bailey's Miss Hickory is kinda like that.  It's original and unique and kind of a crazy idea but I have to admit I don't get it.  It is the story of Miss Hickory who has some sort of twiggy homemade body with a nut for a head-I think.  The story takes place in the woods as Miss Hickory has to move out of her corncob house and into an abandoned nest. It chronicles her adventures adjusting to her new "country" life and all of the friends she makes along the way.

The story has some endearing moments, especially when describing Christmas festivities.  Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, I love everything about it and I was thrilled to read about how the woodland animals celebrate.  Also Miss Hickory has a very endearing point of view.  Take this for example when she discovers that groundhog is afraid of his shadow, "what makes him do that? I find my shadow, on a night when the moon is high, very pleasant company."

But while parts of the story are simply charming, other parts seem to hit you over the head with their morals.  This book was published in 1946 so I think its a sign of how times have changed.

Creating a crazy story...that's kids stuff. 

I Love Dogs

I know, I've talked about this before-a lot.  But it's true! I really do love dogs.  And in today's book,Ginger Pye by Elanor Estes, the title character is a dog!  How great is that! I mean the book is really the story of two siblings who get a dog as a pet and all of the adventures they have with the dog, but still it's mostly about the dog.


And Ginger Pye is filled with all of the happy, delightful, silly things that I love the most about dogs.  The first is the way owners take such pride in their dogs.  This is how Ginger's owner, Jerry, describes Ginger, "He was still just a tiny puppy, yet he could already catch things in his mouth! Soon he would know everything."  But my favorite part about this book were the chapters where Ginger speaks for himself.  That's right in this book Ginger is not just a silent pet but a fully developed character with thoughts and actions.


Here is one of my favorite excerpts from Ginger's thoughts, "There was another dog in this house and he was in the shiny mirror! Ginger Pye gave this new dog a friendly woof for he did not realize all in a second that this was his enemy dog that was going to torment him and only stay in shiny places."  Ginger's enemy dog is of course Ginger's reflection but that's not how dogs think.  Este captured perfectly the way I always picture dogs thinking and it was a delight to read.


This book has heart, and an inspiring story but what I most love about it was that was fun.  Yes there is a deeper message but I want this post to just celebrate the whimsy and fun that I so cherished in this book.


Embracing the fun...that's kids stuff.  

I See People

This summer has been a bit of a lonesome time for me.  My usual friends have gone off to internships or summer jobs and so I am a bit of a loner in State College.  Don't get me wrong, I get along great with the girls in my class and we chat and have a good time before and after the kids come-but we haven't really made that step to where we can hang out after class.  This suits my introverted nature just fine.  Especially after a day with my highly energetic group of students I am happy to come home and just unwind.  On Saturdays, if I don't have work, it would not be unusual for me to spend the whole day at my house and not see another person.

Even when factoring in my semi-reclusive life I was still shocked by this statement in Ann Nolan Clark's Secret of the Andes. "I have not seen people before, not that I can remember.  Isn't it wonderful that I can come here and see them every day?"  What!!?? This kid, Cusi, had never seen people before!!  Besides the head shepherd, Chuto, Cusi had lived his whole life seeing only llamas-not people. The two cared for the llamas in a valley hidden in the mountains of Peru. This was just crazy to me.

After that shocking revelation the rest of the book is a story of Cusi's journey (both figurative and literal) to self-discovery.  This book is based on Inca legends and incorporates a great deal of Inca culture which makes it a really interesting read.  The story is good, but the culture embedded within the story makes it great. This book also touches on the tension between the Inca and the Spanish.  On his journey Cusi has many encounters with the Spanish but he still chooses Inca ways.

Cusi leaves to find the story of his life, who he is and where he came from, but he returns with-well I can't say that would spoil the ending.

Embracing your culture...that's kids stuff. 

To Be an Artist

I am spending this part of my summer working at Penn State's Summer Reading Camp.  My group is comprised of seven kids who just finished kindergarten or first grade.  The team name they picked for themselves was fire bomb and that just about sums them up.  Our whole day is centered around giving purpose to literacy, in this case learning all about the sea so that we can make a museum exhibit (for a real museum that's opening downtown-way cool right?).  Reading and writing are intimately connected-in this case we read so that we can make art and write about what we learned for our exhibit. Needless to say I am learning a lot about the sea and I come home exhausted everyday.

Juan, in Elizabeth Barton de Tervino's I, Juan de Pareja, knows the relationship between reading to writing.  When his mistress is teaching him how to write he has this epiphany, "I learned from Mistress what sound each letter represented, and it came to me with a flash of joy that in learning to write I would also learn to read."  In my nerdy way I thought this would be a book about reading-but it's not.  It's a book about art which is just as good.

Juan is a slave who is sent to live with and work for the painter Velaquez.  In this process he learns about art, painting, life, friendship, and love.  Juan learns much from Velaquez, "he afforded his art the highest respect, that of never taking it for granted.  Always, as long as he lived, he tried to learn more, in order to do it better."  When one of the apprentices asked if art should be beauty Velaquez answered, "No, Cristobal.  Art should be truth; and truth unadorned, unsentimentalized is Beauty.  Art is Truth, and to serve art I will never deceive."

As I'm sure you realize by now when Velaquez teaches about art he is also teaching about life.  It is not always so philosophical-sometimes he uses humor.  When Juan cautions that Velaquez's rendering of the pope may be a little too stern Velaquez responds that he painted what he saw and, "we are all a bit fond of our faces, Juanico, no matter how they seem to others" so the pope would still like it.  This is another one  of those rare books where you don't just see the main character for one important experience you get to know then across their entire life.  And Juan had a truly fascinating life.

Never deceiving, liking your face...that's kids stuff. 

Culture Shock

In Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond Kit travels by boat from the only home she's ever known in Barbados to Puritan Connecticut to live with her aunt and uncle after the death of her grandfather.  Needless to say she experiences some pretty serious culture shock.  I can sympathize a little with Kit.  As I have mentioned before I spent a semester of college studying abroad in Greece.  The language was different, the alphabet was different, the people looked different (I have very pale skin, which I have pretty much come to terms with until I got to Greece and once again felt pasty), even when they did speak English it was different.  But I had the luxury of living with other students.  When things got to different I could go back to my apartment and bask in the familiarity of people who spoke my language and had my background.

Kit had no such luxury, and to make her transition even harder she moved in with Puritans.  I'm not sure what you know about Puritans, I've always been fascinated by their society and took a couple of courses in early American History to learn more, but here's the main point: they work hard and they shun vanity.  Kit came from Barbados where she was basically royalty and had all of her work done by slaves.  Life was a little different.  But Kit manages to adjust-even if she remains a very unorthodox Puritan.

Kit builds friendships with her two cousins and spends many a pleasant hour talking with them. Kit grows especially fond of her cousin Mercy, who after a battle with a fever was left permanently weakened. When a man comes to call Kit catches Mercy looking at him and based on that look provides what may be my new favorite description of love. "The flame that had burned in Mercy's eyes had such purity, such complete selflessness that everything Kit had ever known seemed dim in its light.  What it must be to care for someone like that."

This book has something for everyone.  It has drama, mystery, suspense, humor, and of course a love story-three love stories actually.   It also provides a little peak into the life of New England Puritans and some of the tensions leading up to the revolutionary wary.  All in all it's a pretty fantastic book.

Embracing a new culture, aspiring to love purely...that's kids stuff.