Library Mama

Growing up, reading aloud was what my family did together. Maybe some during the day when we were little, but always every evening after supper. Whoever was assigned to be the dishwasher of the evening could dictate the book, and everyone else would gather around to listen, doing crafts or artwork to keep the hands busy while the ears listened. After I went to bed, if I had nightmares, I would creep halfway down the stairs to listen to the comforting sound of my father’s voice, reading aloud to my mother. Though I know they read more, in my mind’s ear, it was always either Hornblower or the Dragonriders of Pern. As a family, though, the series we read over and over again were Swallows and Amazons, the Chronicles of Narnia, and the Lord of the Rings. The last, early enough that I experienced a brief burst in popularity with my fourth-grade classmates, when our teacher read Fellowship aloud to us and I was the only one who knew what happened next. Those memories are why I felt compelled to read this book.

The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma This memoir comes from a young woman who made a promise with her father at about age 9: they would read together every night. At first, they planned to read for 100 nights, but as they reached that goal, they aimed for 1000 and then kept right on going. They read through Alice Ozma’s mother leaving, through her late high school drama evenings and her father’s larangytis, right through until she left for college. Alice Ozma (named, of course, for her father’s favorite storybook heroines) narrates the story. I’d heard a lot about this book, and was slightly disappointed that it spent more time talking about what was going on around the reading than discussing the books they read. There are quotes from the books heading the chapters, and a bibliography at the end, but this is more memoir than reading reflection. It’s enjoyable as a memoir, but I want you, Dear Reader, to be more prepared than I was for the actual content of this book. Ozma paints a glowing portrait of her father, so dedicated to reading to children that he would hide her in a sleeping bag under his desk at work if she claimed to be sick, so that he could still read to his classes at the school library where he worked. More heartbreaking was his early retirement, when his school board decided that library time should be mostly about learning to use computers, with not more than five to ten minutes spent being read to. I wish for every child to have as dedicated a read-toer as Ozma’s father.

Originally posted at http://library-mama.dreamwidth.org .

The No-Cry Discipline Solution by Elizabeth Pantley “No-cry” may sound radical, but this is a gentle and practical guide to parenting. Pantley starts out with a chapter devoted to parenting myths, such as, “If my kids don’t behave all the time, I must be doing something wrong.” Kids will misbehave, and you will do things you’ll wish you hadn’t. Then she covers a basic theory of discipline: understanding why children misbehave, looking at the long term to decide what’s important when dealing with younger children. She has chapters dealing with major everyday problems such as tantrums, whining and hitting. An important and unusual chapter deals with managing your own anger and frustration as a parent. These are the core of the book, but the second half or so is devoted to short sections on a multitude of common problems with targeted solutions, such as biting, trouble with daycare drop-offs and pick-ups, and so on. I don’t agree with her on everything – I’d wish for a more nuanced discussion of praise, for example. I do like the approach, starting with a discussion of each problem, how to prevent it from happening in the first place and what to do when it happens. In an analogy that stuck with me, Pantley says that having just one or two parenting techniques is like having a little sandwich baggy of solutions. If they don’t work, you’re out of luck. She aims instead to offer you a laundry bag full of techniques, for you to practice and find ones that work for you and your family. Pantley may not have any child-related degrees, but she knows what she’s talking about. In addition to four children of her own, ranging from primary school to college, she has done a lot of research, both of the reading and the hands-on variety. Her methods are tested with a couple hundred kids, from several countries, of many ages, and from many different types of families. They are aimed at raising loving, happy and functional adults, as well as maintaining peace and order now. This is an extremely useful and excellent book.

Charmed Knits: Projects for Fans of Harry Potter by Alison Hansel When I first saw this book advertised, I thought that I wasn’t really a big enough Harry Potter fan to want a book like this. Then I actually saw it. I guess I’m a bigger fan than I thought. Now I’m longing to knit Mrs. Weasley’s initial sweaters, recreated in tweedy yarn with soft rolled edges, sized for children, adults, or Christmas ornaments. Her clock is made into an afghan, with the arrow conveniently pointing to “at home”. The striped scarves from the movies are included in both the wide stripes of the early movies and the narrower double barred versions from the later movies, with matching hats and mittens. A Hogwarts v-neck sweater with narrow stripes in house colors at the cuffs and waist is subtle enough to wear without any but other fans noticing, while only the most die-hard of movie buffs would recognize the (still nifty) zigzag cabled hat and mittens from Hermione’s trip to Hogsmeade in the fourth movie. Knit mismatched Dobby socks, including a pair with Snitches on one sock and broomsticks on the other, wand cozies, a miniature stuffed Errol, house elf hats for babies. The patterns look well crafted, the book is nicely put together, and there are projects for both the rabid and the shy Harry Potter fan.

Did I mention I’ve been on a gardening kick lately? Here’s what I’ve been reading. You’ll note aspects of our yard as well as my interests in herbs and organic gardening. Every one of these books included “easy” as a keyword. My ideal garden is one where I do a little work in spring and maybe fall, and then don’t need to do much of anything the rest of the year.

Easy Care Shade Flowers by Patricia A. Taylor Don’t limit yourself to hostas and ferns in the shade! Taylor has some theory, profiles of outstanding public and private shady gardens, and lists of good plants by type (shrub, perennial, annual) and by region (given by regional experts). The only thing I felt was a little short was help planning your own garden.

Beautiful Easy Herbs by Laurence Sombke This is a book that I am still drooling over, even though most herbs want lots of sun, which I don’t have. The author first profiles one hundred easy-care herbs, with growing habits and uses. This was a little disappointing, as he doesn’t include medicinal uses at all. Since this information is easily available elsewhere, though, that’s not such a great loss. Where I really loved the book was the garden plans. He included lots of plans for different herb gardens, including colonial, culinary, tea, Mediterranean, flowering border, and bird and butterfly. Every design included a layout, which plants to buy from seed and which in pots, short descriptions of everything, and a first year and following years care guide. I was absolutely smitten. I’d be out in the garden with a shovel right now if it weren’t for that pesky sun issue.

Ann Lovejoy's Organic Garden Design School by Ann Lovejoy Organic gardening may be good for the planet, but Lovejoy gets into that only briefly in this comprehensive look at organic garden design. For her, the primary benefits of an organic garden are minimal care, plants that thrive without taking over, and gardens that tie into the surrounding landscapes. The pictures are beautiful, and the descriptions inspiring. The hitch, of course, is the amount of planning and research that goes into making these extremely site-specific gardens - though she give lots of suggestions, they seem mostly geared towards the western U.S. The book leads you through it all, though, concluding with a 30-pages workbook to help figure out what you want and how to get there. If you follow the steps and do the research, you’ll be rewarded with a garden that needs little more than annual compost to keep it beautiful.

<Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott I really like Anne Lamott. She talks, as usual, about the messiness of life and the difficulty of acting the way you want to. About how when she's in the depths of despair she wants God to fix it right now, with big gestures and miracles. And instead the grace comes slowly, through friends and her own hard work, but is there nonetheless. Her stories are about teaching Sunday School, walking the dog, death, raising a teenager. Somehow, she manages to tell stories of herself at her worst and make herself sympathetic and so funny I could hardly keep myself from reading the whole thing alound to whomever happened to be around.

Trying to research Waldorf, and this book came in a grocery bag of Waldorf-related books. Interesting, though not really helpful for doing Waldorf with children.

Tapestries: Weaving Life’s Journey by Betty Staley People change around every seven years, says Staley, and they tend to go through similar challenges at about the same time. In this book, she talks about these challenges, and illustrates them with interviews from a dozen people around the world narrating that phase of their life. It had some really good insights, though it was not the easiest book to read.

Parenting without Punishment by John W. Maag, PhD This is a radical title, but the advice is based firmly in famous psychologist Erickson’s work. So, while the advice is different from most parenting books, it’s grounded in what will work to get a well-behaved child, rather than objecting to punishment from a philosophical standpoint. What seems to me to be the crux of his argument is this: punishment really only works if it is applied absolutely consistently every time, and there is nothing else reinforcing the behavior that makes it worthwhile to continue in the face of punishment. Using punishment to react to bad behavior puts children in control. And it’s important to recognize that changing behavior should mean increasing good behavior, not just eliminating bad behavior. He’s got lots of anecdotes and practical techniques for dealing with behavior problems ranging from the ordinary to the extreme – keeping in mind that every child and situation is unique and there isn’t going to be a magic bullet. The solutions seemed focused on children six and up, but some could be used for younger children as well. I particularly liked his tests for evaluating solutions: Could a stranger understand both problem and solution? Does your proposed new behavior make the old impossible? If a dead man could do what you’re asking your child to do, it’s probably not a realistic expectation for a real child. It’s a little on the dry side, but also pretty short, and summarized nicely in the epilogue.

Circle of Magic – the Circle Opens: Sandry’s Book, Tris’s Book, Daja’s Book, Briar’s Book by Tamora Pierce amnachaidh and I listened to this whole series in the car (separately). The four short books go together nicely to form one main story arc. It’s something like an earth magic Hogwarts, with children of different backgrounds – noble, merchant, trader, thief - coming together at the monastery of Winding Circle, finding they have unique magical powers and learning how to use them. The plots are entertaining but fairly predictable – the heart of the books are the four young mages and the circle (formed in book one) that binds their magic together. The recordings are done by Full Cast Audio, each character with a different reader and narrated by the author. It took me a little while to get used to the slightly exaggerated enunciation that the producer apparently prefers, but once over this little hump, the full cast presentation works very well. I’m sad that only one book of the following quartet has been recorded, with no apparent plans to do the other three.

Baby Catcher by Peggy Vincent As a teen, in an era when options for women were quite limited, Vincent’s parents told her to become a nurse, because she’d always have a job. And with her first OB rotation, Vincent was hooked on birth. In the era of Twilight Sleep, a patient refuses to lie down or take drugs. “Please lie down! What if the baby falls out?” Peggy pleads. “Well, darlin’, that’s the whole point, ain’t it?” the woman responds between contractions. She chronicles her path to becoming a Certified Nurse Midwife, working at the Bay Area’s most prestigious birth center and doing home births (then covered by insurance.) The meat of the book are the birth stories, beautiful, bizarre, and hilarious. From that first rebellious mother to births in lesbian communes and on board ship, barely-caught births and breech births, births in hospitals and at home, this is a heart-warming tale from a midwife passionate about birth and women’s right to birth choices. If you’re interested in birth, but less in scary medical facts like Born in the USA (or need to recover from reading it), this is the perfect book.

Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman In which our heroine Julie, a somewhat retiring high school student, shares her passion for Jane Austen with her best friend, Ashleigh, who does not do anything by halves. She sets them off on a quest to find Mr. Darcys, beginning by crashing the ball at the local prep school. Unfortunately, they both seem to fall for the same Mr. Darcy. The ending is a bit predictable – but the way there is both sweet and very funny. Although it’s geared towards teens, adult Austen fans would probably also enjoy it.

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd Jessie Sullivan thought she was happy with her life and in love with her husband, Hugh. She also thought that she had left Egret Island, her childhood home off the coast of South Carolina. But when her mother unexpectedly chops off her finger, Jessie goes back to help. She finds herself falling in love with the island again. Most unexpectedly, she also finds herself falling in love with a Benedictine monk. Even though reading about adultery like this is terrifying for me, Kidd possesses the uncanny ability to take freakish plot elements and turn them into a beautiful and profound story.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan The dilemma is this: If you can eat anything, what should you eat? How do you pick? This is particularly relevant today, when there are more options and fewer rules (or many more systems of rules) than ever before. Journalist Pollan traces four meals (fast food, big organic, small farm, and foraged) back to their sources. What he finds is unexpected and fascinating. It’s no surprise that fast food isn’t great for people or the world, but Whole Foods organic doesn’t fare too well either. I was daunted by starting this rather thick book, but found it to be fascinating and fast to read. And it contains enough trivia to fill the needs of trivia buffs for a good long while: How many ingredients in a chicken nugget come from corn?

Once again, I try to prove that I can think of things besides babies. So, two alternate reality fiction books, and escape by retail therapy.

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde This is the third book (of four so far) in a series of literary science fiction starring our heroine, Thursday Next. The books are action-packed and hilariously funny, full of subtle and not-so-subtle references to classic literature. “Science fiction” here means alternate reality, not spaceships, as Thursday is from a 1980s England where history and the rules are just a little different. In this book, though, Thursday is hiding from the evil Goliath Corporation in the world of fiction – taking over the part of a character in an unpublished mystery, while continuing her apprenticeship with Miss Haversham of Great Expectations as a JurisFiction agent. Even here, though, it looks like someone is out to get her. Her husband was eradicated by Goliath in the previous books, and now she’s struggling to keep her enemy, Aornis, from erasing her memories of him as well. I’m afraid I’ve simplified things a great deal – Fforde seems to add another layer or two of complication to the world with each book in the series. If you’ve read the previous two books, you won’t want to miss this one, and it may even make sense. If you haven’t, avoid getting lost in this one by starting with the first one, Lost in a Good Book, in which Thursday sets out to rescue Jane Eyre, who has been kidnapped from her book.

Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling The year is 1998, and the world is our own. Mike Havel, a former Marine turned private pilot is flying a family to their cabin in Montana when his plane – and his watch, and their guns, and all the city lights around – stop working. Meanwhile, in Oregon, folk musician and coven leader Juniper MacKenzie is playing a tavern gig when the same thing happens (except she’s happily not in a plane.) The technology of the past couple hundred years has all stopped working, and only those who can adapt will survive. Yes, it requires a major leap of faith to believe that the principles that make our technology work could change overnight. This improbability is brought up several times over the course of the book, but it’s not the focus of the book. Instead, it focuses on what makes a society stripped down to the bare bones work. Our two heroes pick up a bunch of followers with useful skills – a Tolkein fan whose Legolas delusions are suddenly essential, rodeo hands, SCA members with knowledge of fighting and metal crafting. Besides practical skills, the book looks at the importance of myth and belief, as our heroes adjust to being treated as such, and the leader of a small coven suddenly finds her previously marginalized religion in demand. I enjoyed the characters, reflecting on the deeper issues, and was pulled in by the action. And yeah, as a Scadian, it’s pretty funny to read a book where SCA membership could be a life or death matter.

thepurplebook by Hillary Mendelsohn And for a complete change of pace – shopping. Ok, you might think, as I generally do, that a guide to internet shopping is pretty superfluous when you have Google. But if you do shop – or want to shop – on-line, this book is pretty darn useful. It’s divided by major shopping categories, and gives brief one or two sentence reviews of different on-line retailers, along with telling what they sell and icons saying how expensive shipping is, how easy the site is to use, etc. I do wish that her icons included general price ranges for the store, not just shipping, but this is a relatively small quibble, as one can generally tell from the reviews how high-brow a store will be. While some of the retailers were familiar to me, many of them were not – whole worlds of cool sites to browse opened up! I don’t plan to buy it for myself, especially as they come out with a new edition every year, but it’s definitely worth checking out at the library.