you read it here first!

Nancy Pearl loves E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. Of course she does! (I did, too. Last year.)

Neglecting the blog, again

I've been writing elsewhere, though.

Here's my last column for Literary Mama.

And here's today's installment at the Mama, PhD blog at Inside Higher Ed.

Nick's last day of school is today--and I thought I'd post this picture here, since the tattoos are, yes, Dreamdark tattoos. Very cool. The whole concept was his idea; I was just his stylist. (The hair is a spray-on color that washes right out, unlike Mariah's pink hair...)

Thinking about the Other Mother...

Sometimes my friends and I joke that we need clones—one for work and one for home, perhaps? Wouldn't it be great, some days, to have someone else to help raise the kids—someone who wouldn't be bored by the endless play with Lego, who would miraculously make healthy meals they'll eat, who would come up with rainy day activities that are fun for the whole family? Of course on bad days at work I want the clone to sit at the computer while the "real me" goes off to play with the kids. It's all a matter of perspective.

Read the rest in this month's Children's Lit Book Group column....

Teaching and Research

I'm blogging about Jill Biden, my new role model, over at the Mama, PhD blog at Inside Higher Ed. And trying to get to work on my column. Remember that? I do still write it, but only every other month these days. While I'm away, though, you might check out Mama at the Movies, writing about the lovely oldie, Fly Away Home. Back later!

(cross-posted)

Christmas in the country

We're headed south today, leaving my parents' rural retreat and heading back to the city. But my Christmas column is all about the joys of the country Christmas, and of The Wind in the Willows. Enjoy!

(cross-posted)

On running for office

While I'm deeply invested in the outcome of this election, I have to admit I'm tired of the campaign. Running for president seems to me almost nothing like being president, and I'm tired of the minute-by-minute scrutiny of folks doing a job that isn't the job we're electing one of them to do.

This month my column at Literary Mama takes up some books in which children learn a similar lesson. These are books that implicitly say: democracy is hard. You might not actually want to be a leader. Gone are the inspirational stories of my own childhood, in which children embrace leadership and optimistically look forward to making the world a better place. These stories are, in fact, a little depressing in their realism about presidential politics.

Read the rest here...

(cross-posted at the other blog)

where I'm writing this week

I'm shifting back to my bimonthly schedule for the Children's Lit Book Group over at LiteraryMama. Though there are plenty of books to write about, my non-sabbatical year this year is keeping me hopping (or, more precisely, grading) in the moments when I might otherwise be writing a column. So look for that one next month.

In the meantime, I'm still writing every week, on Tuesdays, for the Mama, PhD blog at Inside Higher Ed. I'm enjoying the community of readers over there, so why not click over and join us?

[cross-posted at the other blog]

Telling our Stories

One of my favorite feminist teachings is the oft-repeated mantra that the personal is the political. This doesn't, of course, mean that George W. Bush offers us advice for daily living (whew!) but that the power structures outside our homes don't necessarily stop at the doorway. We don't like to remember that, always--sometimes we want our decisions to feel free, open, disconnected from political realities. But they rarely are. This week in the Mama, PhD blog over at Inside Higher Ed I tell a little more of my story of balancing academe and family. Like all such stories, it's both idiosyncratic and representative, personal and --possibly-- political. Let me know what you think.

But don't stop there. In Capital-P politics, as you already know, there's a lot going on right now. Literary Mama columnists Ericka Lutz (Red Diaper Dharma) and Shari MacDonald Strong (The Maternal is Political) have terrific columns up now about the election, both telling different, but important, stories.

Two more columns at Literary Mama tell stories that don't feel political at all, stories of farewell. But Rebecca Kaminsky (Down Will Come Baby) and Vicki Forman (Special Needs Mama) know well how their stories of love and care are connected up with larger concerns--of how we treat women's particular health care needs, how we care for disabled children, how our families form part of a larger community of love and care.

The first time I ever wanted to take a political action was when, six months pregnant with my first child, I went to a meeting about doing clinic defense. Heavy with a chosen and deeply-loved child, I knew in my bones, my joints, my aching muscles, just how important it was for all mothers to have that same choice, to know their children were chosen as well. Organizers wiser than I dissuaded me, realizing that my condition would be a distraction, a potentially dangerous one. I've mostly stayed behind the scenes since then, hoping that my words and example in the classroom would be seen as the political statement I knew them to be.

This year I've been a little more mobilized--in July I walked a precinct with my newly-registered-to-vote daughter, and we signed up new voters together in the summer heat. She's spending part of her gap year doing more of that, registering voters and phonebanking and trying to be a part of something bigger than she is. Yesterday she finished working on a voter guide for a local progressive organization, and I saw the pride in her eyes as she told me of sending it off and getting it approved. "People will use my work to help them decide how to vote!" Seeing her and other young people get excited about this election is one of the things that gives me hope for the future--as does this new project, YA for Obama (check out Judy Blume! check out John Green!).

Listen to the stories around you--tell your own--you'll make a difference.

(cross-posted at the other blog)

Link Love

Not much time to post today, but lots of links:

• My new column is about growing up, and Peter Pan--who doesn't.
• I'm also blogging about Sarah Palin today at Inside Higher Ed's Mama, PhD blog.
• Even if you don't read my post on Palin, you must read the two excellent op eds over at Literary Mama, by Rebecca Steinitz and Nicole Stellon O'Donnell. Truly, these are must-reads: informative and opinionated in the best ways.
• I linked to this in my blog post, but in case you miss it: the best coverage I've seen on the Sarah Palin/book banning story is in last Friday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Thanks to Betsy at Fuse8 for the link.
  

I'm sure there's more, but that will have to do for now.

(cross-posted at the other blog...)

Watching Me, Watching You

I've got a new column up at Literary Mama; in it I talk about secrecy and surveillance and two books I really liked recently, Little Brother and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks.

As usual, there's lots of great stuff at Literary Mama, so when you're done with my column, go on and check out the rest of the site.

And then go check out my latest little thing over at the Mama, PhD blog. I hope I'm not the only person who remembers Gilda Radner!

Middle Readers

Earlier this year I read an ARC of Steinbeck's Ghost, a middle reader by Lewis Buzbee coming out in September. It's a wonderful novel, a mystery and a ghost story and a love-letter to the Salinas Valley (and to books!) all in one; I think boys and girls from 10 to 14 will love it.

In Literary Mama this month, Lisa Harper interviews Lewis Buzbee about his writing and his parenting. It's a fabulous interview. Here's a great passage on "growing readers:"

Parents need to provide households where they read to themselves for pleasure, and have books around, and then kids will come to it when they come to it, in whatever way they come to it.

This is something I learned as a bookseller. I used to have parents come in and say, I want you to pick out three or four classics for my daughter because all she reads are those horrible babysitter books, or all he reads are comic books or books about lizards, and I want them to have literature. I feel like that’s a great way to kill books for children. On one occasion I was standing there, picking out Dickens and Kidnapped and Louisa May Alcott for the parents, and the girl was sitting on the floor reading the newest The Babysitters Club book as fast as she could because she knew she wasn’t going to get it. For me it’s a rule: if a kid wants a book, you buy them the book.

Read the rest here...

Books for Babies

I went to buy a book for a colleague who had a new baby recently...

As I picked up each book, the anonymous big-box store faded away as the memories flooded in: sitting in the frayed armchair with Nick in my lap, late one night, reading Little Bear's Visit until we reached the part we wanted to hear. Initiating the call-and-response of Eric Carle's Do You Want to Be My Friend? with Mariah, and hearing her echo back the text. Laughing together over the smart dog who travels along with the safety officer in Officer Buckle and Gloria. I could outfit a different library for a new baby every day of the week, if I had money enough and time, and all the libraries would be good.

Read the rest here...

(Cross-posted here, as usual)

"Reading" pictures...

Everything is new to the infant. I remember seeing my tiny daughter, only minutes old, lying in her father's arms drinking in the scenery with eyes wide open, and suddenly realizing what an odd world we'd brought her into.

Shaun Tan and Brian Selznick show us that odd world in their remarkable picture books (or are they graphic novels?) for older readers. Read more about The Arrival and The Invention of Hugo Cabret, here...

(cross posted at Midlife Mama)

On Road Trips and Picture Books

Mariah and I were out on the road last week, finishing up a college tour that put about 1200 miles on our car, allowed us to visit lots of old friends and a weekend with family, and got her much much closer to a decision about what she'll be doing next year. The whole thing had me thinking about picture books. Read this month's column and you'll see why...

(Cross-posted at the other blog...)

Smek-Day and the Cybils

My new column is up over at Literary Mama. In it I talk about why I liked our fantasy/sf winner in the middle-grade category, The True Meaning of Smek-Day, and what intriguing commonalities I found in the books we read. Here's a taste:

the story [of Smek-Day] is as action-packed and adventurous as [several of ] the others . . . which feature plot twist after plot twist, fascinating superpowers (invisibility and flight are the best), and intriguing ways of engaging with technology -- hovercars, a super-reinforced Mercedes, cellphones, convenience stores. These are not, that is, "sword-and-sorcery" fantasy novels, but books fully engaged with modern life and imagining how magic or the supernatural might interact with our technologically-enhanced world.

Read the rest here...

Persepolis

Do you sometimes worry that a movie can't live up to a book you love? How many times have you been disappointed? My first time was with, of all things, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I'd loved the book (by Ian Fleming, of James Bond fame). It was funny and smart and rude (the car had buttons that lit up and said, "Push Me, Stupid!"). The family wasn't gorgeous. There was no "Truly Scrumptious" (though that is a Bond-ish name, isn't it?). The whole thing wasn't just a dream. The movie was an utter disappointment, so great that I have actually never seen it again.

And yet I keep going to see movies made from books. Some work, some don't; some improve on the book, some are just interesting interpretations. Sometimes I can forgive major departures from the novel; sometimes I can't. Sometimes the casting is so right, or so wrong, that it colors your reading of the novel forever. (A tween girl I know is already worried about the casting for the upcoming Twilight movie...)

Persepolis works. And now you can read Caroline's great column about it, too.

Boy Books and Girl Books

This month I remember my past, and look at my son's future...

When I was in the tenth grade our English class took on "coming of age" novels. We read The Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, and (one of my favorite, though still under-read, boarding school novels) Good Times/Bad Times. All three are set in single-sex boys' boarding schools, and there are few women or girls in them. My (male) teacher, I remember, told us we should be able to "identify" with these characters because they were teenagers like us.

Did I mention that this was an all-girl class? Did I even notice, at the time, that we had read not one novel about a girl?

This column may not actually go in the direction you expect it...let me know what you think!

Because Kate asked...

Kate wants a list of good YA reads. What a great idea! Here's one list: the nominees for this year's Cybil award in YA. I can't vouch for all of them--I can't even vouch for more than one! I have read, and can recommend The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie (in fact, I plan to review it soon). (I will also try to rectify my pitiful lack of knowledge of recent YA by reading at least the finalists, once they are announced...)

So here are other YA titles I've enjoyed over the years. Most are relatively recent, but I included a couple of older titles just for fun--

Good Times/Bad Times, by James Kirkwood. I am always sorry not to hear this mentioned along with A Separate Peace and Catcher in the Rye. It was my favorite boarding school novel when I was in boarding school.

Looking for Alaska, by John Green. And his An Abundance of Katherines. Katherines is funnier, both are fabulous. (Here are all my posts on John Green...)

Feed, by M.T. Anderson, and also his The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume I: The Pox Party. I talked about Anderson here and here.

Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. I wrote about Speak here. (I haven't yet read Twisted, which came out this year.)

Weetzie Bat, by Francesca Lia Block. Or you could try Dangerous Angels, which is all the Weetzie Bat books in one. I talked a little about Weetzie Bat here.

Monster, by Walter Dean Myers. I need to read more of his books.

The Attolia trilogy by Megan Whalen Turner. Historical fantasy, and gripping. I said a little about them here.

I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith (of 101 Dalmations fame!). Older YA, a wonderful read. I wrote about it here.

The Way I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff. Amazing post-apocalyptic story.

Un Lun Dun, by China Mieville. I just loved this subversion of the heroic quest narrative. I said a little about it here...

This list is pretty random--I just skimmed through my old reading lists and pulled the titles that still resonate for me. I may pull a few more in the next few days, but this seems like a pretty good start. Anyone else want to join in and nominate another few great YA novels?

weekend reading

While I'm doing my best to keep the snowflake sidebar updated (and I know it's up-to-date through today!), I've had a hard time keeping on top of various other obligations lately. Luckily with writing the results turn up weeks or sometimes months after I do my part--and that's the case this week. My column on critically reading children's books is up at Literary Mama right now, even though I couldn't have written a column this week to save my life. It's like magic!

Here's a taste:

I admit to being troubled by Babar. Not only does he seem to forget about his mother almost immediately after her death, it's pretty clear that buying stuff is how he does it. Then there's the arresting image of the two "naked" elephant mothers running behind the car as Babar, Arthur, and Celeste return to their home in the forest. Why don't they get to sit, too? Why don't they get clothes? Babar has clearly, to use contemporary critical language, assimilated the values of the oppressor, and thus becomes the next ruler of his people. It's a neo-colonialist fable. (read the rest here...)

Just for fun, check out this other take on Babar, too! (Source unknown, but it was too good not to share...)


There's lots more fabulous stuff at LM this week, too. Check out "Wanting, Waiting" by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, and Susannah Pabot's heart-wrenching "Hope."

The Harry Potter Factor

(Cross-posted at Midlife Mama)

My new column is up, and it comes with a spoiler warning. So if you haven't finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but you think one day you might want to--and you don't want to know ANYTHING about it--well, then, don't click on this link. (I don't give it all away, by any means, but I just couldn't keep it all to myself.)

Here's a spoiler-free taste:

17 years. That's how long I've been a mother. It's also how long J.K. Rowling has been living with Harry Potter. She started the series while pregnant with her first daughter, Jessica, in 1990; my daughter, Mariah, must be a little older than Jessica, then, as she's rapidly approaching her 18th birthday at the end of this year.

10 years. That's how long I've been the mother of two: Nick's tenth birthday was this month. It's also how long Harry Potter novels have been out in the world available to read. My mothering life, then, has tracked the Harry Potter series in more ways than one.

Mariah and I began reading the books some time in 1998 or 1999, I think, before the biggest hype but after the first book was available in my public library. At first I didn't know I'd be buying them all (in multiple copies, no less!). I just thought I was sharing another fun book with my daughter.

We read the first few books together, sprawled on a couch, each wedged into a corner with our feet meeting in the middle. As we continued reading, she grew taller -- and her reading got faster -- so we read them sequentially, talking about them over meals...

Read the rest here...