The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma

Rudyard Kipling’s How the Leopard Got its Spots is one of many pieces of literature that The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards alludes to. Perhaps the most telling allusion is the line from an Emily Dickinson poem – “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant”, since Jansma’s book is a series of slanted tales told by a highly unreliable narrator. The fact that you never really even know this narrator’s name enhances the colorful telling of the chapters that read more like individual interconnected tales than a novel. The narrator makes it clear in the opening chapter that he is a writer, and piques the reader’s interest by announcing “I’ve lost every book I’ve ever written.” His life story – from childhood to adulthood – is told through episodic adventures that take him all over the planet. Europe, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Iceland. For a while, he assumes the identity of Professor Wallace and teaches Methods and Practices of New Journalism in Dubai. This entertaining chapter includes a portion of one of Wallace’s supposed lectures on truth in journalism which announcing that, “Ours is a new generation of plagiarists. Armed with Wikipedia and Google, we can manufacture our own truths”. Throughout the novel he maintains a rivalry with Julian, who is also an author, and a romantic quest for Evelyn, who eventually becomes a princess.

At one point, the narrator muses, “Somewhere, once, I read that the only mind a writer can’t see into is the mind of a better writer.” Jansma is clearly a reader’s writer. The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards is a reader’s theme park of a novel. Holden Caulfield narrating The Princess Bride. Scattered throughout are literary references, doppelgängers and leopard sightings – real and imaginary. I enjoyed this book largely because Jansma fuels my faith in the value of literary fiction.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

Oh I do love a book that you don't want to finish reading because reading it is so lovely!  Those books don't come along very often, but with the help of a knowledgable sales woman at Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville, NC this one made its way into my hands.  Moshin Hamid is an author I discovered last year when I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist - which has lately been made into a movie!  I loved the novel and look forward to seeing the movie.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is couched as a self-help book and written in second person. Chapter headings suggest earnest instructions for attaining wealth - Get an Education, Learn from a Master, Work for Yourself.  In each chapter, the individual that the speaker is giving instructions to ages until the final section - Have an Exit Strategy - when the end is near.  This nameless individual learns about life, love and business in a nameless Asia location, and ultimately realizes what is more important than riches.  

I don't know whether I agree with the reviewers who make Gatsby comparisons.  I do agree with the sales clerk who convinced me to buy the book that it is one you long to dip back into - reread sections - because the prose is as liquid as the cover image.  Near the end, the narrator cautions, 

We are all refugees from our childhoods.  And so we turn among other things, to stories.  To write a story, to read a story, is to be a refugee from the state of refugees.

If I were still teaching, this is a book I would love to discuss with students.  A relative short read, it will be a good book club book.  One that Dave Eggers calls "Completely unforgettable".

Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles by Ron Currie Jr.

Ron Currie Jr. came on my reader radar when colleagues at the high school started shoving copies of his Everything Matters in my face a few years back.  Currie is a rising talent, having won a Young Lions Fiction Award from the New York Public library in 2007 for his first books, God is Dead.  I was excited when I recently spotted this new novel on the Recent Releases display at one of the coolest independent bookstores I have visited in a long time - Malaprop's Books in Asheville, NC.  I broke my moratorium on book buying and started reading it in the car, read more in the hotel, finished it as soon as I got home, so I could give it to that Currie-loving colleague - my rationalization for buying a new book in the first place.  Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles is an experiment in metafiction.  Ron Currie is both author and main character ( a la Tim O'Brien).  One of the first things a reader notices is that some of the pages are only about one third covered with text.  Some half full.  Not many full consecutive pages in the book at all.  This is because Currie jumps subjects like a jack rabbit.  Some pages are about Ron's unquenchable love for the elusive Emma.  Some are about his father's death.  Some are about being banished to a Caribbean island where he is frequently violently knocked around by locals.  Some are, most obscurely, about Ray Kurzweil's Singularity, predicted to occur in 2045.  I kept turning pages because the book began with a hefty promise for excitement.

The first thing you need to know about me is that I am a writer. . . . I quit writing for one reason, then stayed for another.  The first reason was I killed myself, which obviously makes it hard to go on writing.

Ron Currie's suicide propels the narrative but details and motives are murky and I didn't end up believing any part of the story that the authoritative narrative voice promises is completely capital T  - true.  I wanted to love it - but in the end the ploy was as flimsy as the title.

Glamping with Mary Jane Butters

I first heard the name Mary Jane Butters when I came across her line of glamping inspired fabric for Moda.  I purchased some of the laminated red fabric to use for a placemat set for my Etsy shop.  When I first listed these placemats, I sold a set within a few hours - which means the glampers are out there!

To fuel my recent interest in glamping, I went in search of my favorite source of information - books!  After a cursory search for books on the Internet, I happened upon a book that looked like the perfect resource.  I was in luck when I found the local library could get me Glamping with Mary Jane Butters.  This book is THE manual for glampers and a feast for the eyes. It is full of gorgeous modern photographs, sepia-toned archival photos, vintage snapshots of Mary Jane's own childhood family camping adventures from the 50s, and kitschy illustrations of fifties era glamour women captioned with clipped vintage typewriter-font advice. In the introduction to this primer, she acknowledges generations of adventuresome women by "Viewing Women's History in 3-G - Grit, Grace and Glam".  

Butters is, herself, a brash and ballsy outdoors woman.  A little reading up on her life made me feel disgustingly sedentary and docile. After many camping experiences around Utah as a child with her family of seven, she took a job after high school as a fire look-out atop a mountain in northern Idaho.  I KNOW!  Then she became a wilderness ranger.  Then she built fences, herded cows and raised an organic market garden.  Then she founded PCEI.org, a regional environmental group in 1986.  Readers of her magazine and website can learn about her philosophy of simple organic living - and see her retail product line.  And, then there this great book of hers.

Every bit a how-to guidebook, the table of contents includes section titles such as Trailers, Gear and Safety, and contain information as basic as it is necessary.  The section titled "Gettin' Hitched" is literally about how to hitch a trailer and includes a glossary of towing talk defining trailer tongue, hitch ball and coupler lock.  In the Housekeeping section, Butters tackles everything from laundry and bathing to building a tote-able toilet seat and lid from materials available through Amazon.com.  Later she gets to the fun stuff - glamping eats and entertainment - and she includes recipes and DIY patterns for setting up the perfect Glamping retreat.

Butters instituted an annual International Glamping Weekend set for June 1 and 2, 2013. Maybe I'll round up a few of my gal pals, get out my Glamping accessories, whip up a pitcher of Happy Glampers punch and a batch of Smoked Bacon and Mustard Salad from her recipes, and host a backyard Glamping event!

The Dinner by Herman Koch

Dutch author, Herman Koch, serves up a multi-course meal of mental manipulation in The Dinner – a novel that became an instant international best seller after its publication in the Netherlands in 2009. The setting is a trendy and very expensive Amsterdam cafe, where ordinary people have to wait months for a table, but not when the reservation is for Serge Lohman, a diplomat presumably on the way to becoming the Prime Minister. On the evening that encompasses the entire plot present of the novel, he is dining with his wife, Babette, and his brother, Paul, and his wife, Claire. The evening, and the novel itself, is divided into five courses – Apertif, Appetizer, Main Course, Dessert and Digestif. With each new course a bit more of the story is served through flashbacks narrated by Paul. Paul is a classic unreliable narrator and my patience with him was thin even before the main course when the tragic event involving the teenage sons – cousins – of the two couples is revealed. Their boys have committed a heartless crime – but plot digression reveals that the heartlessness in this family may be thicker than a little heap of “lasagna slices with eggplant and ricotta held together with a toothpick” on Paul’s plate. This family’s moral fiber has unravelled long before this dinner. If this book is a five course meal, I have to admit it left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. All of the characters are flawed, the stealthy and riveting plot twists that the cover blurbs promise are unfulfilled. At best, the book is a dark satire about the inhumanity society is capable of accepting as palatable.

Wonder by R. J. Palacio

I read this book after seeing a full page ad for it in The New York Times Book Review and looking at the corresponding book trailer on YouTube. The main character, 10 year old August Pullman, is born with a facial deformity that makes people look away in horror and keeps him out of public schools until the beginning of 5th grade, when the book begins. He opens the narration of the book and says, “I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.” His parents decide he is ready to face the stresses of Beecher Prep School. His entrance into the mainstream is supposed to be softened by his introduction to Jack, Julian and Charlotte, young “leaders” chosen by the principal to show Auggie around the school before the year begins. Of course, children don’t become friends simply because adults want them to, and kids are cruel – a lesson Auggie must learn time and time again. Wonder has won many “best book” accolades and been described as one that will make children and adults treat others better. I loved Auggie and wanted to cheer him on in the truthful, sad sections of the book that he narrates. I thought the narrative structure was weakened by the alternative voices used by the author – various friends, and Auggie’s sister, Olivia. I felt these other narrators did little more than re-narrate the same events rather than advancing the plot. But there are so many other positives about the book, one of which is the Choose Kind pledge on a Tumblr site advocating the book’s anti-bullying mission. Also, I really loved the Precepts used by one of the teachers to frame his instruction for the year -
“When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind.” —Dr. Wayne Dyer
“Your deeds are your monuments.” —Inscription on ancient Egyptian tomb
“Have no friends not equal to yourself.” —Confucius
“Fortune favors the bold.” —Virgil
“No man is an island, entire of itself.” —John Donne
“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” —James Thurber
“Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.” —Blaise Pascal
“What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.” —Sappho
“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.” —John Wesley
“Just follow the day and reach for the sun.” —The Polyphonic Spree
“Everyone deserves a standing ovation because we all overcometh the world.” —Auggie Pullman

What Teachers Make - In Praise of the Greatest Profession in the World

This book continues to give teachers hope

Taylor Mali is a teacher advocate and performance poet famous for a poem he wrote called "What Teachers Make".   The poem - and video that by now all my teaching friends have seen - grew into a crusade and now an inspiring book about the intrinsic rewards of teaching.

The poem began as a response to a lawyer who insulted Mali and the entire teaching profession at a dinner party in 1997.  In the introduction to the book, Mali explains - "For the lawyer, it really came down to how poorly compensated teachers are — no intelligent person would take a job that paid less than what he was making as a lawyer. At the party that night I was so furious inside that I couldn't come up with a clever comeback, so I bit my tongue and laughed politely. But the next day, January 1, 1998, I wrote a poem that was the forceful response I wish I had delivered that night. The poem was called "What Teachers Make."

Last year, when I heard Mali had written a book expanding the sentiments of this poem, I preordered it and read it cover to cover when it arrived.  I wanted to wave it in the face of every co-worker I knew who needed encouragement.  In the suburban school district where I taught high school English for 30 years, the last several have been really difficult for teachers.  Mali sounds a battle cry for continued professionalism in a doubting age with chapter titles including "Making Kids Work Hard", "Your Child is My Student", and "Lightbulb Moments and Happy Accidents".  These chapters elaborate on the tough work teachers do and how difficult it is to continue to be rigorous with children in a society that has become lazy.  One where parents are micro-managing the school lives of their children, but have no idea what they are really doing with the cell phones they have given them.  The happy accidents Mali refers to occur most often when effective teaching influences the desire for life-long learning by providing students with relevant assignments, alternative assessments, risk-rewarding learning environments, and engagement with the narrative of the learner’s life.

Mali also has a chapter called "Fighting Back Against the Attack on Teachers".  In it he recognizes the greed and excess that permeates so much of society.  He understands that "Profit in the short term has come to trump sustainable and equitable long term growth," and acknowledges this voracious machine has finally set its sight on teachers. What he does not understand - and frankly neither do we who have devoted our lives to teaching - is the recent characterization of teachers as lazy and greedy.  He writes, "Only someone with very little understanding of what teaching requires would say such a thing."  He suggests putting anyone who doubts the commitment it takes to succeed into a classroom for a year.  He finally illuminates the truth - "All of the teachers I have known need one hour outside the classroom for every hour they spend in the classroom.  So next time you hear someone talk about the paltry number of hours teachers put in every day, double it."  He also discusses teacher burn out and cites the statistic that fifty percent of teachers quit by the fifth year of teaching.  It is just too much work for too little pay.


I love this book.  I was reminded of it this week when a guidance counsellor friend posted the video on her Facebook page (thank you, Tara).  Last year before my husband, English department chair, and I retired, we entertained the thought of buying one for everyone in our department to take out and read on dark weekends like this one. Instead we played the video at our last department meeting and entrusted one copy to the department library.

Today, I would place this book in the lap of every one of my friends in the profession as a reminder of why you were called to teaching in the first place.  The greatest profession in the world has never been great because of what you make.  You are worth so, so, so much more.

NW by Zadie Smith

 I just finished reading NW by Zadie Smith and I'm not sure how to describe it.  It is a big book, an important book by one of the freshest voices of a new generation of writers.  I asked for the book for Christmas because reviewers compare its literary style to James Joyce - a comparison that has merit.   But her style is also analogous to video game structure, or rap music, or maybe jazz.  The title refers to the London's north west corner, where central characters Natalie (aka Keisha), Leah, Nathan and Felix grow up together in public housing (British terminology = council estate).  I was drawn into the complicated lives of these characters and found the basic thread pretty easy to follow although the narrative voice changes frequently - as does the pace, the setting, the tone and even the font.  The book is gritty, dismal and urban, and although it is distinctly British, it is filled with universal truth that will allow it to stand the test of time.  I honestly believe it may be Zadie Smith's masterpiece novel.  Coincidently, the line that made me pause near the very end - "This is one of the things you learn in a courtroom: people generally get what they deserve." - is a variation of "We accept the love we think we deserve" from The Perks of Being a Wallflower from my previous review.  Again, great literature rings with human truth.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - A Movie Review

This slim book is THE most popular book I ever put in the hands of a high school student in my 30 years of teaching.  After finally getting around to watching the movie adaptation last night with my adult son, who is home on a visit from out of state, and two of his best friends from high school, I realized my thoughts on the importance of this book are long overdue.

I had to dig back to my old analog (notebook) reading journal to find the date when I first connected with this book.  I knew I had discovered it at the University of Pittsburgh bookstore during the summer of 1999 when I was there for a week-long AP teachers workshop.  Stephen Chobsky is from Pittsburgh and the book was on a small shelf labeled Local Authors.  I think the cover caught my eye.  I brought it home, read it in July and wrote in my reading journal that I thought it was ” . . . going to be the Go Ask Alice of a new generation of readers . . .”

When I returned to school that fall, I was finally teaching AP English.  I clearly remember waving the book and singing its praises to my students.  No one had heard of it.  I had to do a lot of cheer leading to get my one copy circulating.  But then a funny phenomena struck!  A dELiA’s store opened in the fairly new shopping mall in our town.  And on a few of the circular clothing racks throughout the store were piles of BOOKS!  Books – in the most popular local shopping magnet  for young girls!  Suddenly, girls were buying copies along with the latest trendy t-shirts and bringing them to school to pass around.  And they were sharing them with BOYS.   The Perks spark was ignited.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an epistolary novel, narrated by Charlie who is a freshman at a Pittsburgh high school in the 1990s.  His mental health is fragile, as he is fixated on the untimely death of his aunt with whom he was very close.  As he begins high school, he is friendless and on the fringe – a wall flower – until he is welcomed into a band of senior misfits which include Sam and her step-brother, Patrick.  The peaks and valleys of their senior year – homecoming, SATs, college acceptance letters, prom and graduation – educate Charlie almost as much as the stabilizing influence of his beloved English teacher, Mr. Anderson, who recognizes Charlie as a kid who can find solace in books.

Perhaps that is the single most potent charm of The Perks of Being a Wallflower for an English teacher.  It is a book that you can hand to almost any student.  I label them lovingly, because  every high school classroom has at least one of every type – honors kid, goth kid, stud athlete, closet gay, band nerd, cheerleader, loner.  Each type would hand it back to you with a comment about how much he could “personally relate” to it. It became a gateway book.  If it is possible that a small but potent reading experience can turn a reader on to the stronger stuff, this book made kids whisper at my desk, “Do you have anything else like this I could read?”

Over the last decade, I listened to countless oral book reports, collected numerous mix-tapes, evaluated PowerPoint presentations and book journals written about this novel, but there is no rubric for the truth.  This book smacks of the reality of high school.  Like Catcher in the Rye, it is a book you want a student to find on his own, and read without a grade attached.  But high school kids don’t grow up surrounded by books anymore.

I am normally incensed when original book covers are replaced by glossy movie star images,  (The Great Gatsby with Leonardo will give me the shakes) but this time, I don't mind.  Probably because Stephen Chobsy, a respected filmmaker, adapted his novel for the screen and directed the film.  The characters are flawlessly brought to life by Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller, whose faces grace the new book cover.

The soundtrack of pop songs matches the spirit of the 90s and the Come on Eileen dance number, where Charlie looks on from his wallflower perch is pitch perfect.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show scenes were filmed at The Hollywood Theater in Dorman, Pennsylvania where Chobsky, himself,  saw the movie as a teenager.

The scene in the movie where the perfect song plays on the radio as Charlie's perfect girl appears to fly above the problems of life standing in the bed of a Ford pick-up truck was filmed in inside the Fort Pitt Tunnel.  Chobsky calls this scene a symbolic rebirth - the ultimate symbol of transition.
So, watching the movie last night with three grown kids who bonded in high school and have stayed close for six years since made the movie even better for me. They talked about how awkward high school is for everyone.   It is a marathon run through a dense fog of hormones, relationships and power plays.  The kids who seem best at it are sometimes the least prepared for the challenges of the real world, and the wall flowers are often the ones who turn up at 10 and 15 year reunions and shock everyone with their totally together lives.  The best anyone can hope for in high school is a few true friends who will buoy you up when you are down and fly with you when you are soaring.
My son talked about being a freshman in marching band.   Some senior boys took him under their wings and convinced him to play the tuba his sophomore year  (Ben, Jeff, Tim and Tres - wherever you are - I still thank you.) They were smart, funny, older boys from my AP English class who turned drudgery into fun.  They helped him transition into other new friendships.  Sophomore year he started hanging out with the two guys we watched the movie with.  They buoyed each other up when they were down and still fly around together.  They all read the book at various points of high school.  They each still have the book today.

We decided the movie is The Breakfast Club for a new generation of kids.  I would have watched it again as soon as it ended.  And I admit to having a few tears in my eyes.  The classic quote is as true for adults as it is for teens -

This is my first year as a retired English teacher.  I have read a few books in the last year I would love to wave in the faces of my students.  I miss sharing books with kids. I probably bought a half dozen copies of The Perks of Being a Wallflower in the years since 1999.  I probably loaned them all out and never got them back.  I can't find a single one in the house today and I miss seeing that book on the shelf.  I miss the classroom when I recall that as a teacher, I had the power to be a life-changer.  I got to hand a kid a book.

Hump Day giveaway

Today is the day we have been waiting for! Our re-Lit Candles were discover by Stacy at Inkspot Workshop back in January. Stacy grew up in the a Cleveland area, and loved the look and mission behind our candle venture. She sponsors a monthly giveaway on her blog where she pairs two shops and offers a chance to win $50 of free merchandise from each shop.
The contest is open today and runs through midnight on Friday, February 15. Please tell all your friends to enter. I would LOVE to have the winner be someone who is already a friend and supporter of our cause.
Remember, a portion of our proceeds go to support the good work of Ohio City Writers!

re-Lit Candles - A Recycling Initiative for Literacy

Every single day, someone asks us - "What are you doing now that you are retired?"  Well, today we finally have something to show for our fall efforts.  We have posted the first images of re-Lit Candles on Etsy, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest - and now - here.  My husband and I began meeting with our close friends during the summer to discuss what we would do in retirement besides drink wine by candlelight out on the deck late into the night.  We had retired from 30 years as high school English teachers, and our friend, Laurie, retired at the same time with the same length of tenure as a Media Specialist.  We commiserated about all of the books we brought home from school, all the changes being made in public schools - and all the wine bottles in our recycling.  Would the neighbors start to talk?

Sometime in August, we decided in earnest to set aside some of our newly acquired free time for the Greater Good.  And re-Lit Candles was born.  We played around with many names, but we wanted to keep a focus on Literature - and more importantly, Literacy.



We made up a word!  Why not!  Reliteration - noun - the purposeful enjoyment of natural light.



We wrote our "story" and David designed a Kraft paper label which we had printed by the good people at Ink It Press in Vermilion, Ohio.  The prototype labels were printed on the back of Trader Joe's bags, but we figured we would go broke shopping to keep labels in stock.  We found a source of bottles that were not being recycled.  Jim practiced cutting and sanding bottles, with much trial and error.  Laurie researched wax supply and wick resources.  We practiced filling containers, watching wicks burn - all the while drinking a bit of wine to keep encouraged.



David took advantage of some rare winter Ohio sunshine to take 150 photographs today.  This one features a school desk from the school his father and grandfather attended in Delaware, Ohio.  Old books make good props.  They burned plenty of candles in The Grapes of Wrath - didn't they?



Even Shakespeare looks like a good choice next to the right candle.



We are hoping to do a Craft Fair in Cleveland in February.  We are talking to area retailers.   I applied for a transient vendors license.  Above all, we want to keep the focus on literacy and intend to send a portion of our profits to a local literacy initiative.



What have we been doing?  What we enjoy, what makes sense, what is good.

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

I was excited to read Sweet Tooth after hearing that McEwan's narrator, Serena Frome, is the first female narrator he has written since Atonement.  I was also interested because it is described as both a spy story and a love story.  Frome is employed by British Intelligence in the 1970's and Operation Sweet Tooth engages her to infiltrate the literary circle of a new writer on the scene, Tom Haley.  Serena falls in love with the prose and the man.  The opening passage of the novel warns the reader that the relationship will be flawed when Frome admits - "I didn't return safely. Within eighteen months of joining I was sacked, having disgraced myself and ruined my lover, though he certainly had a hand in his own undoing."  I enjoyed the novel's meta-fictional experimentation.  Within the chapters which advance the plot are long passages of Serena's summaries of the books by Haley that she is reading.  Those plots were, perhaps, even more interesting to me than the rest of Serena's  adventures.  I still prefer Atonement.

A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote

Everyone has a favorite Christmas story, and mine begins “Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago.”   The story is A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote, originally published in Mademoiselle magazine in December 1956.  Autobiographical and bitter-sweet, the tale is narrated by a seven-year-old and tell of his oddly childlike older cousin with whom he bakes and delivers fruitcakes every Christmas.  The beginning of the story recounts the complicated procedure of collecting pecans and purchasing ingredients – even a visit to a Native American bootlegger named Ha Ha Jones who sells them the requisite whiskey.  As they work together, they discuss the possible recipients of this year’s fruitcakes – neighbors as well as people, like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who they have never met.  The general sense is that the bond between Buddy, the boy, and Sookie, the much elder cousin, is special.  When they separate after the cakes are made, to fashion gifts for each other, the simple joy and frustration of Christmas gift giving is beautifully articulated – It’s bad enough in life to do without something YOU want; but confound it, what gets my goat is not being able to give somebody something you want THEM to have.

In my early days as an English teacher, my “gift” to my students was a reading of A Christmas Memory.  I believe I began reading the story to tenth graders because it was included in their Anthology of American Literature textbook.  I would choose a day close to the holiday break, turn on some appropriate instrumental background music, and invite them to read along in the text, or simply sit quietly and listen.  I hung a little “Reading in Progress – Do Not Disturb” sign on the door handle and for about 40 minutes, I would read and they would listen – enthralled by the beauty of the story.  I’m not just stroking my ego – I know they were enthralled.

The two relatives make kites for each other, and take them out to a field to fly them on Christmas day.  Against the background of the winter sky, Buddy listens to one of the most poignant reflections on life and death I have ever read – My, how foolish I am! You know what I’ve always thought? I’ve always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don’t know it’s getting dark. And it’s been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling. But I’ll wager it never happens. I’ll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are, just what they’ve always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes.I would finish reading, and look up at the class and see smiles of understanding and, more often, eyes filled with tears. There were a few years that graduates returned to my classroom on their first Christmas break, just to hear the story again. The story is that moving.

But what moves me to write this reflection is my understanding of how much students, and their capacity for story, changed over the course of my thirty years in the classroom.  I don’t remember when I stopped this personal Christmas tradition.  At some point I realized that sustained silent listening is as rare as a good Christmas fruitcake these days.   Contemporary students, with cell phones in their pockets and instant gratification monitors finely calibrated, would rather have a candy cane or day off to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation as a holiday classroom treat.  I know one year – somewhat recently – I read A Christmas Memory instead having my AP students write their previously scheduled in-class Hamlet essays, and they seemed moved to tears of joy and relief.  The story is still included in our tenth grade anthology, but I don’t know of any of my former colleague who still read it with their students.

The story may be more dear to me since our visit to Monroeville,  Alabama a few summers ago. Truman Capote and Harper Lee shared their childhoods in Monroe, and it is fictionalized as Maycomb in Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

 

Writing Self Portrait in 1972, Capote said, As a child, I lived until I was ten or so with an elderly spinster relative in a rural, remote part of Alabama. Miss Sook Faulk. She herself was not more than twelve years old mentally, which is what accounted for her purity, timidity, her strange, unexpected wisdom. He wrote two stories about Sook: A Christmas Memory and The Thanksgiving Visitor.

A Christmas Memory is worth reading once a holiday season.  It remains my favorite Christmas story.

Holiday Reading Memories

On Pinterest, every idea is a new idea worth sharing. I can skip over the home remedies that aren’t as new as tried and true, but when I saw this idea being repinned with comments like “Great idea for when I have little ones”, I decided to go public. When my daughter was in second grade, I got the idea to wrap up all of the Christmas children’s books in the house and put them in a big wicker laundry basket on the hearth to open and read one with her each night at bedtime from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

She LOVED it. It became a tradition that continued through middle school. When she was little, I saw it as a good way to hurry bedtime. Many nights she begged to unwrap a book before she was bathed and dressed in her pjs, and the answer was always that she had to be ready for bed before we could read. Of course, my ulterior motive was to encourage reading. Always to encourage reading! Even though both of my kids still seldom read for pleasure, it isn’t because they didn’t grow up surrounded by books. The book-a-night Christmas tradition could begin at a very young age. I remember one of the first Christmas books that my kids begged for night after night was Carl’s Christmas. They adored all of the Carl books by Alexandra Day, and I liked the creative story telling they encouraged.

Each year, I would buy a few new books to swell the pile and wrap them along with the old. I swear my daughter could snoop out the new books by feel. And certain traditional books were obviously shaped. Chris Van Allsburg’s Polar Express was a long rectangle and easily selected. Certain books, including The Polar Express, were favorites and, therefore, saved for later in the season.

 
Another favorite was Yes, Virginia There is a Santa Claus – this one is clearly marked “The Classic Version” by Francis P. Church. Rereading these favorites strengthened our Christmas spirit. Once the Christmas tree – always real in this house – was up and lit, the bedtime reading would move from the bedroom to the family room in front of the tree.

As she got older, I suggested each year that perhaps it was time to just put the books in a basket unwrapped, but she pleaded with me – “not this year – not yet“. So I tried to find less juvenile reading selections. I always relished a trip to the book store (Yes, Virginia! We had book stores) and I found humor in Santa Cows and How Murray’s Saved Christmas. Santa Cows was one that I would also take in to school to read to my classes, working it in as a fine example of a parody – both of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and Field of Dreams!

Part of the magic of this yearly tradition is giving a child a chance to open a present of literature. The unwrapping is physical, but the savoring of each story is intrinsically valuable. One of the books I included is the only childhood Christmas book that I remember reading over and over again – with the exception of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. It is a little book of poems, stories and songs published by Ideals.

Even tonight, when I open the shiny cover, I discover poems I can still repeat by heart. It looks like the book has a 1958 copyright, and the inked inscription suggests it was a gift from the preacher to my parents, but that book is as dear to me as any Christmas memory.

 

 recently drove to my daughter’s college to take her out to dinner with a few of her new friends, and the subject of Christmas traditions came up. She described – with glee – the book-a-night Christmas tradition, and tried her best to make her friends jealous. She will return from her first semester away at college this weekend, and the deeply nostalgic, Chrismas-loving part of me wants to hurry up and wrap the books. They are all in a box on a closet shelf these days, stored but not buried away like some vestiges of my children’s childhoods.

This Christmas, I sit in a family room lit by the lights on another real tree, in a house strangely devoid of the sounds and energy of kids. I don’t know if Pinterest is the right platform for spreading the word – but if it is, then spread it. Read with your kids! Start a tradition that will keep them talking for the rest of their lives. This idea is inexpensive, but I guarantee you and your children will be rich in memories for years to come.

15,000 Page Views!

A little blog that began as a simple way to remember what I had been reading has reached 15,000 page views.  I'm pretty tickled.  Thank you to all my readers and I certainly hope I continue to provide some guidance about books.

I was thrilled to see that I had read seven of the novels included in the New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2012.  Included in the list is Shine, Shine, Shine which I wrote about back in the summer beginning with my claim "This is it".    It would make a great Christmas gift book for the reader on your shopping list.

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

I have long been a Barbara Kingsolver fan and waited patiently to get my copy of her new book from the library.  I am still trying to be really, really good about not bringing more books into the house since the stack of boxes we brought home from school are a standing reminder of our addiction.  I avoided reading much of any review of the book and was very glad I didn't know the specific subject through the first two chapters - so I won't spoil the surprise for my readers in case you want to experience the anticipation that I felt while reading.  Simply put, Kingsolver takes on global warming in this expertly crafted - and very readable - novel set in her own Appalachian territory.  I say readable, because this is a book I would recommend to students and friends alike.  Kingsolver uses colloquial vernacular, contemporary cultural references - Facebook, text messages and viral videos - to cement her connection with a wide range of readers. Dellarobia is a bright but dissatisfied mother and housewife when she witnesses a spectacle in the hills around her home.  Her husband, Cub, and domineering in-laws, Hester and Bear, are forced to reckon with attention when the unnatural phenomenon brings scientists, protestors and casual gawkers to their property.  The novel seamlessly weaves religious, agro-environmental, educational, and philosophical issues. The essential debate of the novel occurs in one of the final chapters when a stereotypic media talking head shoves a camera in the face of Ovid Byron, an expert research scientist, and tries to spin what he deems a crisis into a story of uncommon beauty.

P.S. For all my former students reading this - There are several sentences in this book I would be reading aloud to you today, especially the one where she assumes her preacher took honors English in high school because he seems to "know the difference between Homer's Ulysses and the one by James Joyce, and how to get down to business with a metaphor".  I loved her minor character, Mrs. Lake the Honors English teacher, even though Kingsolver made her "about a hundred years old" and most likely "dead by now."  Ha!

Cyber Monday Sale at my Etsy Store

Hop on over to my Etsy store and take advantage of 10% off of all items, now through midnight tomorrow night.  Sales are happening!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LindasOtherLife

Black Friday Sale at my Etsy Store

Sleep in! Avoid crowds! - Shop Handmade and Local

Tomorrow only I am having a sale for my Facebook, Twitter and Book Blog friends.  If you buy something from my Etsy shop on Black Friday AND live in my local area, I will take 10% off the purchase total and refund your shipping costs when we arrange a delivery for your items.  If you are interested in a special order - certain color or type of fabric - just ask.  Visit my shop - 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LindasOtherLife

Or email me at my business address - lindasotherlife@gmail.com

Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

When your hairdresser recommends a book that made her laugh so hard on vacation that people wondered about her sanity - and then goes the extra mile and brings the book to the salon to loan - you have to read it.  I was unfamiliar with Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess: Like Mother Theresa Only Better).  The comparisons to Tina Fey and David Sedaris are correct - she is a hoot.  The book is purportedly a memoir of her twisted upbringing with parents who make Jeanette Walls' (The Glass Castle) parents look like the safe bet.  A tiny bit of the humor of her stories about her red neck father's hunting may have seemed a bit more believable because I read most of the book as I spend a luxurious night alone while my husband was overseeing the antics of his nephew's bachelor party taking place in an unfinished hunting cabin in Southern Ohio.  I have seen guys like her father, but never had them brought to life in such hilarious detail.  Every chapter - and they have titles like:“Stanley the Magical, Talking Squirrel”; “A Series of Angry Post-It Notes to My Husband”; and “My Vagina Is Fine. Thanks for Asking” - is a crazed rant about a single episode of her life and most of them are illustrated with vintage black and white photographs captioned to document the events.  If you want a better introduction, check out the book trailer 

How to Sell Your Crafts Online by Derrick Sutton

This post is a bit overdue and may border on shame-less self promotion, but if you are following this book blog, then you are probably familiar with my other life as well (www.lindasotherlife.com).  As a retirement gift, I was given this how-to book by a dear friend who knew of my intention to open an Etsy shop.  I have spent a good bit of time this fall sewing and sewing and designing in preparation for the grand opening which took place on October 26th.

If you can't wait until the end of this post - you can hurry on over to http://www.etsy.com/shop/LindasOtherLife.  

I have been doing a lot of sewing with oilcloth and chalk cloth.  I'm particularly proud of the reversible chalk cloth table runners I've been making.

Label dishes, dips, drinks - let guests be creative!

I also had a brain storm and came up with these Dear Santa placemats with a chalk cloth slate for Christmas Eve milk-and-cookies notes to Santa or those ever-changing wish lists.

So - shameless self-promotion aside - this book is the best resource for anyone interested in opening an Etsy shop.  There are so many details I would not have thought of - having a separate email address for your shop, creating an appealing shop banner, wrapping and packaging hints.  I keep referencing it and so far, the ideas have been very beneficial.  

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

The title of this literary memoir almost scared me away as it seems the ending is clear from the beginning.  Schwalbe has recorded with detailed poignancy the conversations he and his mother, Mary Anne, had about books as they sat in the waiting room of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2007 when she was being treated for advanced pancreatic cancer.  His mother was a remarkable woman, having taken trips to war torn areas, and was dedicated, at the very end of her life, to building a library in Afghanistan.  The beauty of this book for me is in the book discussions.  I wish I were teaching The Kite Runner right now (as I would be right now had I not retired) so I could share the comments about characters and their choices in both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.  So many of the texts in this book are texts I am deeply familiar with from teaching AP English, and very they are dear to me as well.  Later in the book, they discuss The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a post-9/11monologues of a young Princeton educated Wall Street employee who returns to Pakistan.  The ambiguity at the end of that novel is richly debated by Schwalbe and his mother.  Of course, this book reinforces my fundamental belief that we read, as human beings, to learn about the otherness that we may never experience first-hand - particularly the otherness of gender, race, birthright and suffering.  My favorite reflection in the book appears early: "Still, one of the things I learned from Mom is this: Reading isn't the opposite of doing; it's the opposite of dying."  Wow!

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

I am a brand new Jonathan Evison fan.  I don't know that I had ever heard of his other novels All About Lulu and West of Here but I'm going to seek them out now because I didn't want this novel to end.  My husband and I are suckers for road trip novels or movies and I almost missed the image of the van on the the cover of the book which previews the trip taken by Ben Benjamin, a down-and-out caregiver, and his charge, nineteen-year-old Trevor who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.  They are the road's most unlikely traveling pair, but they manage to bond with even less likely pilgrims - Dot who is running from her past, Elton who is running from the law, and Peaches who is ready to deliver her baby at any moment.  Each character has been genuinely screwed by the gods of fortune - Benjamin has his own demons to flee - but there is something about a shared quest to see Old Faithful that propels the spirit.  Although a course in The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving offered at the Abundant Life Foursquare Church behind the Howard Johnson qualified Benjamin to take on the responsibility for Trevor's care, his character cautions the reader that no manual prepares us for life - "Listen to me: everything you think you know, every relationship you've ever taken for granted, every plan of possibility you've ever hatched, every conceit or endeavor you've ever concocted, can be stripped from you in an instant."

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

 

Although I received an advance readers copy if this book months ago, I jus got around to reading The Chaperone and I wish I wouldn't have waited. A work of historical fiction, this novel focuses on the Roaring Twenties, the early age of Hollywood, Prohibition, Women's Rights, unwed motherhood, birth control and even homosexuality. The title character is charged with chaperoning teen-aged Louise Brooks (1906-1985) as she travels to New York City to study dance. I knew nothing of Louise Brooks's career in film but have since done some reading and learned about her rise - and fall - as well as the scandals and her writing about it all in Lulu in Hollywood. Still, the central character is the chaperone, Cora Carlisle, whose own personality is transformed by her venture beyond her farm life in Kansas. The fact that she is reading Wharton's The Age of Innocence on the train to New York appropriately foreshadows her own enlightenment.

 

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks

 

I had an imaginary friend as a child - I am an only child, so I needed a friend. Matthew Dicks novel about a fragile young boy named Max is narrated by his imaginary friend, Budo, whose engaging and naive voice reminds me of Emma Donoghue's narrator in Room. In fact, this novel bears comparison to both Room and The Lovely Bones. Budo knows when Max is in trouble, but as a imaginary friend he has limited powers in the real world. Much of the novel concerns how Max is treated by students and teachers when he is in school, and Dicks has created teacher heroes and teacher devils to drive this story. I loved that he had the good teacher reading The Tale of Despereaux in the last chapter. This book will definitely appeal to high school students and ring true with anyone who has ever imagined a friend.

P.S. My imaginary friend died with my tonsillectomy when I was five. Dicks and Budo agree many imaginary friends are present in hospitals and many don't make it past kindergarten.

 

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

I am always excited about finding an honest-to-goodness, laugh-out-loud funny book now and then. Maria Semple has written for television – arrested development, Mad About You, and Ellen. She lives in Seattle where fictional Bernadette stages her “disappearance from the stresses of her life”. Bernadette is mother to precocious Bee, wife of Elgie the Microsoft guru of robotics and a MacArthur grant recipient in her own right for her architectural masterpiece – The Twenty Mile House – a pioneer in green building. But everything she would seek to build crumbles and when frustrations mount – she stages a vanishing act so funny it had me reading pages out loud. Don’t miss the transcript of Elgie’s fictional TED talk! I had seen this book advertised in several women’s magazines and couldn’t wait to get it from the library. I won’t say where I read it – but a picture is worth 1,000 words.