People of the Book

Could I resist a book about the travels of a beautiful illuminated book? No, I couldn’t.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks It’s 1996. Hanna Heath is a young Australian book conservator, asked to work on the famous Sarajevo Haggadah. This book, which really exists, tells the story of Passover, and is a very rare example of a Jewish illuminated book. As Hannah takes apart the book to remove its horrid nineteenth century binding and examines all its pages, she finds various artifacts in it – a white hair, a butterfly wing, a red stain, and salt. Hanna’s journey around the world to find out what these things are is interspersed with the stories of how the artifacts came to be there and the people of all three monotheistic religions who cared for the book over the centuries. There’s a reason this book has been a bestseller – it’s got good characters, fascinating settings around the world and through history, and a compelling plot.

Pirates and Parenting

A while back, I mentioned that I was doing a pirate picture book bibliography. I’m feeling a little too lazy to post everything up here, but it’s here – Not Too Scary Pirate Books.

Did I say that Mr. FP would never stop listening to Snack Time? Ha ha! Well, he’s probably still listening to it in amnachaidh’s car, but in my car, we are now listening to Peg Leg Tango by Captain Bogg and Salty I’m now hearing “I am a pirate in this world” and “There’s a pirate party shakin’ on the ship!” around the house. Their web sites all seem to be down, but there are a few copies of their two more recent albums (this one included) left on Amazon. This is pirate fun for all ages.

A little more about tantrums: The parenting book I last reviewed, Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline was recommended by a friend, who heard about it in her Raising Your Spirited Child class. I’ve a couple friends now who took that class, and both have noted remarkable increase in harmony and cooperation since then. Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka is on my reading list. Last week I heard from another friend with a four-year-old that reading just the first two chapters of her more recent book, Kids, Parents and Power Struggles: Winning for a Lifetime took tantrums from ten to fourteen down to two a day. I’ll have to interloan it to get hold of it, but I didn’t want to deprive any of y’all that might be in need of such assistance until then. Also still on my parenting to-read list is How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, who also wrote Siblings without Rivalry, which I reviewed a while back.