Here’s What You’ll Find in My New Homeschool Planner

As you know if you follow HSL on Facebook, I’ve written a homeschool planner! As you also know if you follow HSL at all, I have strong feelings about planners, so getting to design this one was a lot of fun. My goal was to come up with something that would be really flexible, so it could adapt to changing goals, changing grades, and changing homeschool philosophies. Now that my oldest is about to be a junior in high school, I’ve been through pretty much every stage of homeschooling, so I know that what I want to manage my 4th grader’s schedule is different from what I need to keep up with my 10th grader’s schedule — and that’s totally different from what I wanted with a kindergartener or a 7th grader. And that’s just grade differences — my totally different kids also have totally different ways of processing information and working, so their to-do lists and we-did-that lists usually look completely different. I wanted a planner that could accommodate all those differences, plus my never-ending book lists and the occasional extended rabbit trail or big project. I think this planner gets pretty close. 

The Monthly pages of the A+ Homeschool planner have a space to track attendance.

You will want to see all the weekly and monthly pages, but I think it’s important to point out that this planner encourages you to start not with a to-do list but with the big picture of what you want your homeschool to accomplish. You can skip this section if you hate these kinds of exercises, but I always find them helpful — and because it’s so easy to forget in the middle of February sometimes that you, too, are a person with dreams and goals, intelligence and passion, there’s space for you to set some goals for yourself, too. I find this kind of thing helpful because homeschooling is hard work, and on bad days or when I’m not sure what to do next, going back to these big-picture goals can point me in the right direction and remind me why all this time and effort I am putting in matters.

But on to the main planner! It’s generously sized (8.5 x 11 inches) because I think most planners are a little on the small side. It’s perfect-bound in paperback, so it’s not too bulky and heavy, and there’s no spiral to get caught on your bag every time you pull it out. (Maybe that’s just me?) Best of all (for me anyway), it’s full of containers that you can use however you want.

Bigger Picture: The Year and Month at a Glance

Sorry if you too now have that Beautiful south song stuck in your head, but even if your students have less earwormy names, there is plenty of room to keep up with their studies in the weekly planner pages.

After you’ve set goals, there’s room to pencil in the annual events that you don’t want to forget, like Grandma’s birthday or the dates of the annual Science Fair that you always manage forget about until it’s almost the last day. You can also jot down the deadline for filing your homeschool paperwork (if that applies to you) or events like NaNoWriMo or Pi Day that you want to celebrate in your homeschool. I find this handy when someone says something like, “What if we do the co-op talent show in April?” 

The monthly calendars break it down a little more—as you can see, they’re undated, so you can fill them in as you go. (You don’t have to waste a month of pages if your homeschool shuts down for winter break in December or if you get too busy to even have time for a schedule one month.) There’s a space to mark attendance for up to six students — even if you don’t track attendance as a homeschool requirement, I like being able to go back and see how much time we’re spending on school. I use tick marks to indicate the number of days we spend 4.5 hours engaged in active learning, but you could track individual hours or use the bigger monthly boxes to chart monthly attendance and total the hours for each month in the attendance box. 

The Weekly Schedule

You can organize your planner by subject instead of by student if that makes more sense to you. (Color-coding is always a good idea.)

The best part, though, I think is the weekly schedule. It’s got six rows, so you really do have room to keep up with the schedules for six different kids. (You can see the example page does that.) If you are one of those people who plans out every week in advance, you will love having space to actually do that for every single kid. But what if you only have two kids, or three kids? Do you just have a ton of wasted space? Nope — at least, you don’t have to. As you can see from the schedule I wrote out for my two kids, you can use the sections to organize your kids, or — as I’ve done here — your subjects. (Since I color-code my kids’ homeschool stuff, it’s easy for me to see what’s going on this way.) You could also use multiple squares for students who have more stuff going on or use squares to manage To-Dos, Reading Lists, Writing, and other specific tasks. And while the layout works great if you are an advance planner, it works equally well for people like me who engage in what I call as-we-go homeschooling. Instead of trying to map out what we’ll do in advance, I focus on recording what we’ve actually done each day.

The Extras page gives you a place to keep up with all the stuff that's unique to your homeschool.

Since we all have those things that don’t fit neatly into traditional planners, I wanted to have a space to accommodate everything from tracking project-based learning progress, to individual reading lists, to nature journal highlights, to science supply shopping lists, and all the other things that pop up, sometimes every week, sometimes just every once in a while. The Extras page is designed to accommodate your homeschool as it changes and grows — you can use one list per student for up to six students, but I like treating each section as a mini-container that I can fill with whatever information is most important for our homeschool on a given week.

There’s also a grades page, which may not get much use for you if you’re homeschooling younger kids. (Though you can see it’s a handy way to keep a running progress report for your younger students — that’s how I have used it in this example.) If you have older students, though, especially if you’re working on a high school transcript, having a place to track grades can be useful. Grading has definitely been one of the challenges of homeschooling high school for me, and I really like having the grades next to the work we did that week, so it’s easy to reference if I need to.

You can use the grades page for actual grades but also as a running progress report.

Finally, there’s a section at the back for end-of-the-year evaluations, where you can consider how well you’ve succeeded at accomplishing your goals — or, as is often the case, how they morphed and changed over the year. I love this section because it gives you planner closure — you get to pause, evaluate, and celebrate before you move on to the next planning session.

Oh, and it passes the Three-Step Real Life Planner Test:

1. My son has already highjacked one of my author copies to keep track of his Little Pet Shop school lesson plans. (Yes, my son will write lesson plans for his toys. No, he will not write in a journal.)
2. You can lose/forget about/fail to use this planner for three months and come back to it without having to feel guilty about all the bank pages in the middle. It’s undated, so if you date as you go, you can skip months for spontaneous vacations without notice.
3. It passes the flip test, especially if you use different colored pens for each kid. You can find information you need quickly and without having to sort through computer files whose names totally made sense when you created them but that now do not seem to be named anything relating to what they actually contain if your computer search has any idea what it is doing.

So that’s the scoop on my planner. If you’re interested, it’s available on Amazon — and while you definitely don’t need a planner to homeschool happily, if you think it’s a good fit for your planning style, please check it out. The more of us who shop for secular homeschool products, the more companies will feel that secular homeschool products are worth publishing, and I know we’d all love to see more secular homeschool resources out there.

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Library Chicken Update: 4.25.18

Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!

Pour out a glass of lemonade (you’ll see why in a minute) and pull up a chair for this weeks’ stories of scandalous forbidden love, Lovecraftian Old Ones, and SNOW MONSTERS...

• The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
• The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon

Now that I’m teaching grammar in the homeschool-hybrid school I’ve been running through my list of “interesting grammar books to check out one day” (which, yes, is a list that I actually have) to see if there’s anything I would like to add to the curriculum. These two are definitely cuter and more entertaining than your run-of-the-mill grammar handbooks, but I wonder if the complexity and playfulness of the text and the examples would make them difficult to use with beginners in the classroom. I do think they’d be fun additions to any homeschool reference shelf.

(LC Score: +2)

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Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter by Diana Souhami

Girl Who Reads Woolf (and Woolf-Adjacent Nonfiction): Okay, so Virginia Woolf had an affair (possibly platonic?) with Vita Sackville-West, who was famous for running away with an earlier lover, Violet Trefusis, who in turn was the daughter of King Edward VII’s mistress, Alice Keppel (though probably not the daughter of Edward himself). Are we all clear? The Vita-and-Violet narrative is a hugely dramatic tale, where the abandoned husbands end up jumping into a two-seater plane (in 1920!) to fly to France to retrieve their wives, and forever after, Vita and her husband (and all their relations and descendants) treated Violet like she was some kind of evil disease that Vita had temporarily caught and had to be kept isolated from for the rest of her life. This biography attempts to give us Violet’s side of the story. (I don’t quite understand the title, as Mrs. Keppel doesn’t figure much into the story except as Violet’s overbearing mother, but whatever.) Violet is certainly not the villain that Vita and co. made her out to be, and it’s hard to condemn her given that she was born into a culture that punished her twice over (for being a woman and for her sexual orientation), but honestly there’s not a lot to admire in her behavior. (I was surprised to learn that—like Vita and Virginia—Violet was a successful published writer in later life. I don’t know what to say about that except what was going on at the time with all these fascinating women writers named ‘V-something’?)

(LC Score: +1)

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American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny From the 1940s to Now edited by Peter Straub

This is the second of two anthologies of “fantastic tales” put out by the Library of America (the first is From Poe to the Pulps). Like all Library of America editions, it’s a lovely book, and Straub put together a great mix of genre and non-genre authors.

(LC Score: +1)

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Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw

In this novella, a hardboiled film-noir P.I. (who is more than he seems) goes up against Lovecraftian monsters in modern-day London. Good stuff—my only complaint is that I wanted more!

(LC Score: +1)

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The Terror by Dan Simmons

I LOVE THIS BOOK. Simmons takes the historical story of Sir John Franklin’s lost 1847 expedition to find the Northwest Passage—which already involves polar bears, scurvy, and cannibalism—and adds SNOW MONSTERS. It is completely and utterly awesome. I first read it about 10 years ago, and immediately went around grabbing both friends and strangers on the street to tell them YOU MUST READ THIS. I quickly learned that 750-plus pages of British sailors stuck in the ice (with occasional guest appearances by the above-mentioned SNOW MONSTER) is not everyone’s idea of a great time which is MYSTIFYING TO ME. Apparently though, AMC sees things my way, as they recently debuted their new 10-part series based on the book, starring Ciaran Hinds as Sir John Franklin. (I’ve had a soft spot for Ciaran Hinds ever since he played another British sea captain—Captain Frederick Wentworth—in the wonderful 1995 adaptation of Persuasion.) We don’t get AMC at my house, but the first two episodes were available for streaming and I’ve watched them about three times now and of course I had to run to the library to get the book again and AHHH IT’S SO GOOD. The SNOW MONSTER only makes a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him appearance in the early episodes, but frankly I’m more worried about the scurvy. (I’m sure you’ve heard of scurvy, but have you ever read about the symptoms? It’s basically the ebola of the sea. DRINK YOUR LEMON JUICE, PEOPLE.) Anyway, I love this book and the show looks great and we’ll have to see if I can hold off buying the remaining episodes until it shows up on Netflix or something. (SPOILER: probably not. I can’t be expected to resist SNOW MONSTERS and scurvy AND Captain Frederick Wentworth. Although—HISTORICAL SPOILER—he probably doesn’t make it past the fourth episode.)

(LC Score: +1)

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The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage by Anthony Brandt

My initial read of The Terror set me off on an all-things-polar-exploration-related binge, but fortunately since then there’s been another stack of books published. This is a solid overview of the 19th-century British obsession with the Northwest Passage, including noteworthy explorers like John and James Clarke Ross, Edward Parry, and of course the boots-eating man himself, John Franklin. (He became famous for eating his boots on an earlier expedition to the Arctic.) Brandt also details the confusing series of search-and-rescue expeditions that followed Franklin’s final mysterious voyage. There’s more cannibalism, the occasional polar bear, and as always, an abundance of scurvy, but sadly a complete lack of SNOW MONSTERS.

(LC Score: +1)

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Returned Unread: LC Score: -15 (Yeah, so there was another stack of neglected books that had to go back. I’d blame all 750-plus pages of The Terror but it really isn’t the SNOW MONSTER’s fault.)

• Library Chicken Score for 4/25/18: -8
• Running Score: +10 ½

On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:

• Lytton Strachey: The New Biography by Michael Holroyd (more Woolf-adjacent Bloomsbury reading)
• American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny From Poe to the Pulps edited by Peter Straub (yes, I’m reading these out of chronological order I’M DOING MY BEST LEAVE ME ALONE)
• Resolute: The Epic Search for the Northwest Passage and John Franklin, and the Discovery of the Queen’s Ghost Ship by Martin W. Sandler (I’m betting that scurvy will be involved)
• The Good House by Tananarive Due (I’m not sure which is scarier: scurvy or a seriously haunted house, but in any case I’ll need a break from all that ice)

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Can Parents Find Any Free Time While Homeschooling?

Finding time for yourself as a homeschool parent is essential — but it’s probably not something that’s going to happen on its own. You need a plan — and you need one that adapts with your homeschool.

Once I heard a potential homeschool mom say that she thought homeschooling would benefit her children, but she didn’t see how she could handle the lack of down time. I think this is a valid point to consider, if you are thinking about homeschooling. Parents need time to recharge, or they aren’t going to be good parents, and homeschooling doesn’t leave much free time.

Before a family makes the plunge to homeschool, it’s a good idea for both partners to be clear about their responsibilities and how might they help each other get some down time. If one parent works outside the home, can that parent plan to take the children one day a week to let the other parent have a day off? Can the parent who stays home with the kids make sure the working parent gets some alone time, too, so that their downtime from work isn’t drained by family obligations? Or, is there a way for both parents to work part-time, sharing homeschooling duties? If it’s possible to have these conversations before you begin to homeschool, that will be a big help, but remember — it’ll always be a process because as children grow, so do their needs.

If you’re thinking about homeschooling but you’re reluctant to give up your free time, I’d like to remind you that every day, you are changing with your family whether you realize it or not. Being a parent is all about adapting to your family’s needs, and it may not be as bad as you think it’ll be. What I once thought I couldn’t live without, I find myself living without now, and I’m mostly doing it for my kids, but I’m also doing it for me -- this is the lifestyle that I wanted for my family. When I remember that, the sacrifices don’t seem bad at all.

Looking back at my journey of going from a single 30-something introvert to a married woman with a talkative husband, and then to becoming a mom of two boys, and then becoming a homeschooling mom, I have realized that my abilities to withstand constant company and background noise, the monotony of daily chores, and the lack of free time has improved. How can it not, when I do it out of love? It’s as if this ability to withstand stress is a muscle, and daily life is my workout. With each passing day, that muscle grows stronger. 

But this isn’t to say that I don’t require “me time,” and I’ve learned how to wiggle it into my day. I get up a little earlier than my family, the boys play alone in the afternoon so that I can do work, and then in the evening, I read quietly for a few minutes before bed. Some days this feels like plenty of down time, and other days, I feel like it isn’t enough. I try to remember that my kids won’t always be here, and in the larger picture, I’m so glad that I have this time with them.

How do make time for yourself while homeschooling your kids? Potential homeschooling families may benefit from your insight too.

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Library Chicken Update: 4.11.18

Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!

I completed a MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT this week: I finished moving several years’ worth of to-read wishlists from Amazon (where the wishlist functionality fluctuated almost weekly, making me want to throw things at Jeff Bezos) to GoodReads. Which, yes, I know is actually owned by Amazon. Which makes you think that there’d be a simple way to move information like that over, but no! I had to transfer every single entry by hand. It only took me five months or so! That was fun! With all that time freed up I should now be able to catch up on my reading - except I’m going to start transferring all my LibraryThing entries over to GoodReads also. (LibraryThing is still my main catalog, but I like having the GoodReads functionality. I may be a little obsessed with my book-cataloging systems.)

THE HUNGER by Alma Katsu

It’s been a long while since I last stayed up past my bedtime with a book too good to put down, but this alternate history of the Donner Party was a super-fun, super-scary page-turner. (SPOILER: Even in this version, things DO NOT END WELL.) The only problem with picking the Donner Party as your starting place is that even with the additional of complicated backstories, illicit love stories, and the supernatural, it’s very hard for fiction to top the real-life story. That said, this one is too good to miss.

(LC Score: +1)

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THE FAMILY PLOT by Cherie Priest

A family-run salvage business takes on the job of breaking down an old mansion at the base of Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga (hey, I’ve been there!) and the house - DUN DUN DUN - turns out to be HAUNTED. A fun, compelling read, but I was left wishing that the author had taken the premise even further.

(LC Score: +1)

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MARGARET THE FIRST by Danielle Dutton

This novella imagines the inner life of the fascinating Duchess of Newcastle, a creative, brilliant, and intellectually ambitious woman born into a time (she lived during the English Civil War and the Restoration) that treated her like a freak of nature. It’s an amazing accomplishment by Dutton that will leave you wanting to learn more about this incredible woman.

(LC Score: +1)

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MY HOLIDAY IN NORTH KOREA: THE FUNNIEST/WORST PLACE ON EARTH by Wendy E. Simmons

I have several books about North Korea on my to-read list, but I haven’t gotten around to them, in part because I know they will be difficult emotionally. This one was an easy place to start, but I’m still not sure how I feel about the tone. Simmons went on a 10-day solo tourist trip to North Korea and this book of photographs and short-essay reminiscences is the result. Simmons details her frustration and bewilderment during the trip, every moment of which was stage-managed by government representatives, with sharp-edged humor that can come uncomfortably close to mockery, especially when we’re looking at the visuals of a privileged white American tourist against the backdrop of tragedy that is North Korea. I don’t think her intention was to make fun or be disrespectful, but it’s a difficult line to walk.

(LC Score: +1)

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THE ARGONAUTS by Maggie Nelson

This is Nelson’s much-praised book-length essay on gender, identity, sexuality, motherhood, and relationships - particularly Nelson’s relationship with her non-binary partner, Harry. Fascinating and incredibly erudite; reading this felt like attending a graduate seminar that I was totally unqualified to be at but that I’d managed to sneak into somehow. And I mean that in the best possible way.

(LC Score: +1)

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• ART AND AFFECTION: A LIFE OF VIRGINIA WOOLF by Panthea Reid
• VANESSA AND VIRGINIA by Susan Sellers
• VITA: A BIOGRAPHY OF VITA SACKVILLE-WEST by Victoria Glendinning

Girl Who Reads About Woolf: The first two books here, a biography of Virginia and a fictional re-imagining of Virginia’s relationship with her sister Vanessa (told in Vanessa’s voice), tell the story of the sisters’ lifelong competition and how it broadened into an ongoing argument about the merits of Art versus Literature. Both books show how one sister was narcissistic, demanding, and deliberately cruel, while the other, although not entirely innocent, was continually bewildered by the viciousness of it all. In the first book, Vanessa is the bad guy, while the second one has Virginia as the villain of the piece. It seems most likely that both books, by creating a ‘good sister’ and a ‘bad sister,’ are simplifying what was, by all accounts, an incredibly complex and often challenging relationship. I enjoyed Reid’s biography (though it was at times hard to follow, with each paragraph absolutely crammed full of quotes, citations, and minute details), but I was less impressed with Sellers’ Bloomsbury fanfic (if you’re interested in something similar, I much preferred Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar). Meanwhile, Glendinning’s biography of Vita Sackville-West (Virginia’s friend/lover and the inspiration for Orlando) was a very enjoyable read about another amazing woman (it helps that, unlike the previous bio I read of Vita, Glendinning does not appear to despise her subject).

(LC Score: +3) 

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• Returned Unread: LC Score: -3
• Library Chicken Score for 4/11/18: 5
• Running Score: +18 ½ 

On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:

• The Terror by Dan Simmons (reread—had to pick it up after seeing the first episode of the AMC adaptation)
• Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter by Diana Souhami (a biography of Vita’s lover, Violet Trefusis, to complete my Woolf and Woolf-adjacent collection of women whose names begin with ‘V’)
• Art History for Dummies by Jesse Bryant Wilder (the more I read about the Bloomsbury artists, the more I am embarrassed by my utter ignorance of art)
• American Fantastic Tales: Terror and Uncanny from the 1940s to Now edited by Peter Straub (from the anthology stack)

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Grammar Is as Grammar Does

Every year without fail, I’d have kids who entered my ninth grade English class not knowing the parts of speech. No kidding, about half of the kids who came through my classroom door couldn’t tell me what an adjective is, let alone label one in a sentence. I spent a few years being flabbergasted about it and trying to be the hero teacher who would finally help my students grasp a basic that had heretofore eluded them. It wasn’t until I came into my own as a teacher that I decided to say, “So what? Grammar is as grammar does.” I realized that, short of a Jeopardy-contestant situation, most of us will never need to call upon our knowledge of the definition of a subjunctive clause. We all, however, need excellent writing skills to succeed in careers, to be engaged citizens, and to avoid looking like a cotton-headed ninnymuggins on Facebook. 

That’s when I decided to chuck the weeks of class time I might have spent on grammar book exercises and jump headlong into helping students address the grammar gremlins that were haunting their writing. They were happier, I was less frustrated, and their writing benefitted in ways that no hammering of the nuances of grammatical study could touch. And sometimes on Fridays we’d do Mad Libs, which never made anybody slam a book shut or tear up in frustration. 

Now, this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t do any formal grammar instruction in your homeschool. By all means, please, give your younger students a strong foundation in how our language works. 

But, if by the time your kids have reached high school, you’re both still tearing your hair out trying to grasp all of that jargon, I’m telling you that it’s okay to let it go. LET IT GO. Spend that time working on the writing that’s in front of you, learning from mentor sentences, finding the errors your student makes habitually and digging in to address those issues. 

Your kid’s employer or college admissions officer won’t care if he or she can diagram a sentence. What will matter is whether he or she can produce a well-crafted piece of writing. 

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Stuff We Like :: 4.6.18

It’s the weekend! Words cannot even express how much I like that!

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT HOME/SCHOOL/LIFE

I’m wondering if you might be interested in a high school curriculum I helped put together. (I'd love your opinion!)

Watch the history of our understanding of space travel evolve through these classic space movies.

A controversial question: Why does it sometimes feel like homeschoolers are so flaky?

one year ago: Shelli’s tadpole adventures (I really want to try it this year!), some of our favorite living math books, and the winner of HOMESCHOOL MADNESS 2017.

two years ago: The pleasures of spring homeschooling and a Charles Dickens reading list

three years ago: A flashback to how I homeschooled 1st grade and the everything-is-connected approach to homeschooling

four years ago: How this magazine got started

THE LINKS I LIKED

“The internet does not hate women. People hate women, and the internet allows them to do it faster, harder, and with impunity.” This is one of those great pieces that is also incredibly sad, but it’s really worth reading.

I really dug Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, and I love her even more after reading this piece about how she uses Twitter as an academic tool.

Oh my gosh, go read this if you watched Reality Bites on cable one weekend when you had the flu and realized that Ethan Hawke’s character is THE WORST and how did you miss it the first three times you watched it?

This is an absolutely fascinating piece on how we can use stories to change systems: “We need to develop new processes of collective storytelling to help us navigate these turbulent and polarizing times.”

WHAT I’M READING AND WATCHING

I’m still in the throes of finals season at Jason’s school, so my reading is mostly student papers on Augustus Caesar’s leadership qualities, but I have been reading myself to sleep with Madeline Miller’s new Circe.

When the going gets tough, the not-so-tough watch Parks and Recreation and try to channel their inner Leslie Knope.

IN OUR HOMESCHOOL

This is the time of year when I just feel tired of everything, but this year, I was actually prepared, and we’ve been working our way through The Imaginary World Of… It’s a Keri Smith book, so it’s part doodle, part imagination, and just the thing to give us a much-needed after-breakfast boost.

We’re reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories together, and it is delightful.

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Great Space Movies for Your Homeschool

A century ago, on March 3, 1915, the United States created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the agency that would eventually become NASA. Host your own space adventure by tracing the history of space exploration through these films, most of which were actually screened or supported by the folks at NASA. Watched chronologically, these movies offer a fascinating glimpse into our developing understanding of space travel, but they’re pretty fun just on their own, too.

Destination Moon (1950)

Why: Sputnik wasn’t even ready for takeoff when sci-fi producer George Pal decided to make a realistic movie about what space travel would be like.

FYI: The lunar sets were created by noted astronomical artist Chesley Bonestell.

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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Why: It’s not just a cinematic classic, it’s also one of the most painstakingly detailed depictions of space travel ever created. 

FYI: Kubrick hired technical consultants from more than 50 different aerospace organizations to get the details right

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Marooned (1969)

Why: Released just four months after the Apollo 11 landing, this film used replicas of real NASA equipment. 

FYI: Look for an early Skylab prototype.

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The Right Stuff (1983)

Why: This epic chronicle of the Mercury 7 astronaut program blends archival footage, cutting-edge effects, and meticulously created miniatures for maximum realism. 

FYI: sound barrier-breaker Chuck Yeager was a consultant on the film.

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Apollo 13 (1995)

Why: This docudrama of the ill-fated Apollo mission to the moon is full of insider details. 

FYI: The cast filmed in NASA’s space simulation jet, a.k.a., the Vomit Comet.

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Space Cowboys (2000)

Why: Real astronauts were impressed by the authentic details in this movie about retired astronauts returning to space to repair an aging satellite. 

FYI: The sets were built from NASA blueprints.

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Europa Report (2013)

Why: Kevin Hand, astrobiologist and expert on Europa at NASA’s Jet Propulsion laboratory, was a consultant on this hard sci-fi flick about the search for water on one of Jupiter's moons. 

FYI: Watch for a cameo by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

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Interstellar (2014)

Why: Caltech physicist Kip Thorne was scientific advisor on this film about a search for habitable planets.

FYI: Neil deGrasse Tyson gave it props for its rendition of concepts like Einstein’s Relativity of Time and Curvature of Space.

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The Martian (2015)

Why: NASA's planetary science director, Jim Green served as a consultant on the film, even providing plan mock-ups for a real NASA Mars mission tentatively scheduled for the 2030s. (Fingers crossed!)

FYI: The Martian windstorm that kicks off the events of the movie is a fictional convention—you’re not going to run into big windstorms on Mars.

This was originally published in the spring 2015 issue of HSL.

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Stuff We Like :: 3.30.18

It’s a short Stuff We Like this week because the work and life compartments of my existence are in full-to-overflowing mode.

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT HOME/SCHOOL/LIFE

I’m hard at work wrapping up the spring issue of HSL. This has been a particularly challenging issue — and I mean that in the good way, where it’s pushed me to think harder and dig deeper into some of the big homeschooling questions. Working on it has been really fun.

Suzanne’s Library Chicken list this week includes a haunted house-slash-book about a children’s book author that jumped right onto my reading list, too.

I just loved this piece from Shelli about one of my favorite parts of homeschooling: The only pace you need to keep up with is your own.

The story of King Midas gets a chocolate makeover in this week’s readaloud of the week.

one year ago: A living books list for your Civil War studies, great movies set in the Middle Ages, and nature books for your spring reading list

two years ago: Thirty fun ways to celebrate National Poetry Month and citizen science with the Great Backyard Bird Count

three years ago: Why homeschooling should include dangerous skills and spring bug documentaries

four years ago: Aw, look, it’s our very first issue

THE LINKS I LIKED

I totally judge other people by their bookshelves. (This is partly why I knew I could be friends with Suzanne.)

It’s almost Passover, and I think you will enjoy this celebration of Jewish food — plus, the spinning table is awesome. (There’s flódni!)

Bullying young women online has been going on for as long as the internet, and that makes me so sad. (See also: Twitter violates women’s human rights.)

I used to pore over every issue of the J. Peterman catalog, so I loved this piece about the history of the catalog’s unique illustrations.

How much money does the patriarchy owe you? (Homeschool mom spoiler: It’s a lot.)

WHAT I’M READING AND WATCHING

I’m mostly busy finishing the spring issue and cleaning everything for Passover, so this has been a slow entertainment week. We did start the new season of Masterchef Junior, which is one of our family favorites — it’s no Great British Baking Show, but we love warm-and-fuzzy cooking competition shows.

Since we’re focusing on the Enlightenment in the fall, I’m finally going to give Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle a fair shake. Stephenson is hit or miss for me, but since it’s Enlightenment historical fiction (Leibniz and Newton are characters!), Quicksilver has migrated to the top of my night table pile.

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Library Chicken :: 3.28.18

Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!

We’re almost to the end of March Madness -- I don’t have any idea which teams are playing in the Final Four, but I have been having fun following the Annual Tournament of Books, which wraps up with the grand championship match at the end of the week. As usual, I haven’t read many of this year’s books (too busy catching up with competition entries from years past) but they all sound distractingly wonderful.

AN ENGLISH GHOST STORY by Kim Newman

A dysfunctional family moves into the “most haunted spot” in England, a country manor home previously occupied by a beloved children’s author. This was a fast and fun read, alternating the family’s experience with excerpts from novels written by the previous owner (and other histories relating to the house) and I LOVED it. Next up for me: Newman’s Anno Dracula, an alternate history vampire novel.

(LC Score: +1)

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THE NIGHT GARDENER by Jonathan Auxier

I’ve been falling behind on my middle-grade reading, but this spooky Victorian tale by Auxier was a great way to jump back in. Irish orphans Molly and Kip go to work at a country manor where All Is Not As It Seems (And It Already Seems Pretty Scary). (Note to self: When visiting England, stay away from country manor homes.) This would be a fun read-aloud, though it might get a little intense at times for younger listeners.

(LC Score: +1)

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THE MOVING TOYSHOP by Edmund Crispin

Gervase Fen mystery #3 (and the most well-known of the series). A British poet visiting Oxford discovers a dead body in a mysterious toyshop -- but the next morning, both body and toyshop have vanished. Fortunately, his old friend Professor Fen is there to help with the detecting. Another cheerfully absurd mystery from Crispin, with a sleuth who occasionally seems to realize that he is in a detective novel. (My favorite 4th-wall-breaking scene involves Fen trying to come up with book titles for his author, the best of which is clearly “Blood on the Mortarboard: Fen Strikes Back.”)
(Challenge Accepted 2018: Read Harder’s “A Classic of Genre Fiction.”)

(LC Score: +1)

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THE DEAD MOUNTAINEER'S INN: ONE MORE LAST RITE FOR THE DETECTIVE GENRE by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, translated by Josh Billings

The Strugatsky brothers, sometimes known as the “greatest science fiction writers of the Soviet era,” dive into murder mysteries with this novel (translated from the Russian). A vacationing detective inspector finds himself dealing with a locked-room whodunit set in a remote mountain inn populated by oddballs. Things start out bizarre and only get weirder from there, with a twist or two taking things into the realm of the Strugatskys’ usual genre, science fiction. Very strange but a fun ride and I look forward to tracking down more books by Boris and Arkady.
(Challenge Accepted 2018: Popsugar’s “A Book by Two Authors,” Read Harder’s “A Book of Genre Fiction in Translation,” and HSL Reading Bingo’s “A Book That’s Been Translated to English.”)

(LC Score: +1)

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KING AND JOKER by Peter Dickinson

In 1976 London, members of the British royal family are attempting to cut living expenses while dealing with a vicious practical joker. This, however, is an alternate history version of the royals, descended from Edward VII’s eldest son, Albert Victor (who as it turns out did NOT die young in an influenza epidemic). The youngest royal, 13-year-old Princess Louise, just wants to live as much of her life as possible as a “normal” girl, but the upheavals created by the palace joker lead to some upsetting revelations about the unusual private lives of her family. Though a fairly recent convert, I am a sincere fan of Dickinson’s entertainingly bizarre (and/or bizarrely entertaining) mysteries, and I was excited about this one from the opening epigraph (a Lytton Strachey quote from his history, King Victor I). Unfortunately, the ugly racist caricature of a minor character and a reveal at the end of some awful behavior by a main character (that is then brushed aside as no big deal, reflecting the dismal sexual politics of the time) sucked some of the enjoyment out of this one for me. Here’s hoping that the sequel, also starring Princess Louise, will have a bit less racism and misogyny.

(LC Score: +1)

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JACOB'S ROOM by Virginia Woolf

Girl Who Reads Woolf: This is Woolf’s third novel and her first major attempt at the style of writing that she would become known for. Here she tells the story of a young man (thought to be at least partially inspired by her deceased older brother, Thoby) through the eyes and impressions of the people (primarily women) around him. I hadn’t read this one before but my love-affair with Woolf’s writing continues, even though not much actually happens here and I don’t always understand exactly what’s going on when something does happen.

(LC Score: +1)

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INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri

As you can see, I’m getting back to novels this week, but I still have a stack of short story collections to work through. This slim but celebrated collection from Indian-American author Lahiri lived up to its reputation for me: I thoroughly enjoyed her melancholy but fascinating stories of culture clash.

(LC Score: +1)

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• Returned Unread: LC Score: -4
• Library Chicken Score for 3/28/18: 3
• Running Score: +13 ½

On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:

• SKELETON-IN-WAITING by Peter Dickinson (the second Princess Louise mystery)
• ANNO DRACULA by Kim Newman (see An English Ghost Story above)
• ART AND AFFECTION: A LIFE OF VIRGINIA WOOLF by Panthea Reid (Girl Who Reads About Woolf)
• THE BIG BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (from the anthology stack)

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A Gift of Homeschooling Is That You Don’t Have to Rush

One of the most common questions I see in homeschool forums is what to do when a young child is stuck and not moving forward in a certain subject. Whether it’s math, reading, writing, or another subject, moms often ask, “What are you using?” They feel that they just haven’t found the right resource or curriculum that will help their particular children.

Finding the right resources can help, and as a homeschool mom, it’s probably what I spend most of my time doing besides planning lessons. I search for curricula that isn’t too hard to use and that my children might like. But sometimes, the answer for a child who is stuck isn’t a new curriculum. The best answer might be time.

Whenever one of my boys hit a plateau and didn’t seem to be progressing — or worse, they hated the subject and didn’t want to do it — I slowly came to realize that what they needed was more time. They weren’t ready to learn it. This was very hard for that part of my brain that knew the kids down the street in the local school had already covered the subject. Then I thought, are all those kids in class “getting it”? Probably not. But I bet they are still being forced to work on it. Maybe they are in learning support, or their parents are instructed to do extra work with them at home. 

As homeschoolers, we are granted the gift of time. We are beholden to no one else’s timeline. Isn’t this one of the reasons we wanted to homeschool our children in the first place? Kids benefit so much from a course of study that caters to their individual needs, and sometimes, time is all they need.

I have found that if I wait a year, or, yes, even two, magical things happen:

1. My child is older and so much more capable of learning this material.
2. My child is more mature and understands why learning this material might be a good idea.
3. The little quirks that kept my child from learning are gone. (Such as fidgeting, not focusing, hand hurting, yawning, crying.)
4. Almost any curriculum or resource will work at this point. (Well, your child may like some better than others, but you may find it easier to find something that works.)
5. Most importantly, my child doesn’t completely hate the subject and hasn’t lost any self-esteem.

Is this foolproof and sure to work for every child? Well, of course not. All kids are different, and as a parent, you have to learn to use your instincts. You know what’s best for your child. Maybe there is a perfect curriculum that you just haven’t found yet. Maybe your child needs some outside help. But it never hurts to take your time. Give yourself and your child some breathing room. Take the pressure off. Remember that you have plenty of time to experiment, explore, play, and try new things.

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Readaloud of the Week: The Chocolate Touch

THE CHOCOLATE TOUCH by Patrick Skene Catling

There’s something a little ridiculous about this tale, in which the Midas myth gets a chocolatey spin, but that’s part of what makes it such a great conversation starter. John Midas (yeah, no subtlety there) loves chocolate more than anything in the world — so when he discovers the best chocolate he’s ever tasted in a mysterious candy store, he’s thrilled that everything he eats turns into that marvelous chocolate. Chocolate apples, chocolate milk, even chocolate water — whatever John eats turns into chocolate. Of course, sometimes you just want a glass of cold water, and John is already feeling that his gift might be a curse when it starts intensifying: His trombone turns to chocolate in band, his pencil turns to chocolate in the middle of a math test, and finally, his own mother turns to chocolate when he gives her a kiss.

Greed is bad is definitely the superficial message of this elementary morality story, but there’s much more than that to play with here. If you don’t already know the story of King Midas, read it together (the original is in Ovid) so you can appreciate some of the differences. One you’ll probably notice immediately is that Midas gets his famous golden touch as a reward — he helps out the god Dionysus, who rewards the king with one wish. Midas is the one who chooses to have everything he touches turn to gold, and when he asks Dionysus to take away the gift that has become a curse, Dionysus is happy to oblige. (Well, at least, he’s happy to tell Midas what he needs to do to get rid of it.) The morality angle is much subtler here — Midas’s problem isn’t necessarily that he’s greedy (though he does eschew money after this) but that he hasn’t really taken the time to think through the consequences of his wish. John, on the other hand, kind of stumbles into his gift-slash-curse because of his greed — it’s definitely something that happens to him and not something that he specifically asks for. 

It’s also interesting to look at this book’s take on healthy eating. The story was first published in 1952, a time when eating habits were radically different from what they are now. (You may be surprised that the average kid’s diet was better in the 1950s than in the 1990s, at least partly because of fewer soft drinks, more milk, and more healthy fats.) Nutrition was definitely a big deal at the time as the world recovered from the rationing and food shortages of World War II, and it’s clear from this book that there was a lot of conversation going on about how to promote healthy eating in the wake of wartime austerity. With plenty of food choices, would kids make the healthy choices? How do you make a child understand the importance of a healthy diet in a world of on-demand chocolate? John’s parents ask these questions throughout the book, and while John’s particular case resolves itself — it’s hard to imagine John ever eating chocolate again after what he’s been through — the bigger answers are missing. We talk A LOT about our diets and healthy food today, so it’s interesting to consider how John’s experiences might be different if they were happening in 2018.

I have fond memories of this book from elementary school, when it was part of our classroom library, and we enjoyed it as a readaloud in our homeschool, too. Its 1950s provenance is definitely reflected in its white middle class narrative with clearly defined gender roles — I always think these things make for great conversation about privilege in narrative, but I know not everyone feels that way. All in all, I think it’s a fun read that has the potential to be much more than a morality story — though, honestly, it might be fun to read it alongside something like Everyman, too.

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Stuff We Like :: 3.23.17

The weather right now is like that last person at a party who won’t stop talking to you even though you have already starting clearing the glasses. Go away, winter, it was nice while it lasted, but I’m done!

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT HOME/SCHOOL/LIFE

Suzanne may need a short story intervention, but I appreciate her reading all the crummy collections for Library Chicken so I don’t have to.

We put together a little reading list of YA westerns you might be interested in.

I actually get asked variations on this question a lot: How do you help an unschooler write a high school transcript for a college with a traditional bent?

Our riddled of the week is one of my favorites: The Wild Robot, a middle grades novel that’s part survival story, part meditation on the meaning of being alive.

THE LINKS I LIKED

Colin Kaepernick has (rightly) gotten a lot of press for his political activism, but he is definitely not the first Black athlete to use his position to take a political stand. This is an interesting look at another act of protest in 1969 — and the response to it, which will sound a little too familiar.

Oh, man, how am I just finding out about this exhibit? I would have loved to see it in person, but the pictures are pretty fabulous. 

I think I will be buying all the books on the short list for this year’s Cook Prize, starting with The Hidden Life of a Toad.

This was hard to read (we loved A Series of Unfortunate Events), but it asks a really good question: Where is the #metoo fighting back against racism?

There’s a lot of great writing about Black Panther out there, but this piece is one of my favorites. (Spoilers, though, so go see it before you read it.)

WHAT I’M READING AND WATCHING

Even though A Wrinkle in Time did not hit my sweet spot, I have continued my L’Engle readathon quite happily. You will be glad to know that I did finally make it to An Acceptable Time, the last book in the Time quintet, which stars Meg’s daughter Polly and Zachary Gray, whom Polly meets in A House Like a Lotus and Vicky meets in The Moon by Night. (That Zachary gets around.) I moved on to The Small Rain (one of my favorites), about the pianist Katherine Forrester, who is moody and unlikable but to whom I relate maybe a little much) and to A Severed Wasp, which brings back Dave from The Young Unicorns and Katherine (now in her 70s and on the verge of retirement). After that, I travel back in time to Ilsa, which I scored a copy of at a library sale many years ago before the internet was a Thing. I don’t love Ilsa, which is darker and grittier than much of L’Engle’s other work, but I can’t skip a book, and I have to read Ilsa before I can jump ahead to A Winter’s Love because its main character is married to a descendant of Ilsa’s Henry Porcher. (Mimi, from A Severed Wasp, shows up here as a boarding school friend of the main character’s daughter — she’s also related to the Reniers, who show up in some of the Polly stories.)

I’m also planning classes for fall, and since we’re diving into the Enlightenment, that means I get to reread Gulliver’s Travels (I am reading this one with my son, and he’s finding it hilarious) and Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. 

Did you know Case Histories is a series? I feel like Suzanne told me this, but I must have gone off and immediately forgotten because I discovered it on Amazon and am thoroughly enjoying it. I loved the book — it remains my best-ever spontaneous airport bookshop purchase — and the series is a nice adaptation. (Plus it stars Jason Isaacs, which is pretty much always going to be Very Okay with me.)

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN OUR HOMESCHOOL

My daughter’s doing a current events class, and it’s making me realize that we haven’t spent much time on modern geography. (We can map Mesopotamia and every part of Odysseus’s journey, but the modern world — not so much.) I picked up a copy of Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics, thinking it would help. I don’t know if it’s actually helped us make sense of the map as thoroughly as I might have hoped, but it has definitely got us thinking about how geography influences everything — and maybe that’s ultimately as important as being able to find the capital of Vietnam.

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Library Chicken Update :: 3.21.18

Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!

I’ve got a stack of memoirs and nice thick novels--not to mention my still unread Christmas presents and way too many can’t-pass-up-this-great-ebook-deal Kindle books--waiting patiently for me to get over this short story obsession, but it’s showing no sign of slowing down. I’d like to say I can quit anytime, but (with the occasional break for other ongoing obsessions) I’m not actually sure that I can.

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Virginia Woolf

Girl Who Reads Woolf continued: I really have no excuse for not reading this years ago, but now that I finally have, I’m going to retroactively declare it a personal all-time favorite. (See also: “The Yellow Wallpaper” below.) It felt surprisingly contemporary, which is, I guess, a reflection of how far we still have to go. (Challenge Accepted: “A Classic You’ve Been Meaning to Read” from home/school/life’s 2018 Reading Challenge Bingo)

(LC Score: +1)

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THE CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN READER edited by Ann J. Lane

I had heard of Gilman’s famous feminist horror story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a long while back, but somehow never got around to tracking it down. Fortunately for me, it is anthologized all over the place, so once I embarked on my current Season of Short Stories, it was only a matter of time before I encountered it. And it is CREEPY and WONDERFUL and so much FUN to read — go find it immediately if you haven’t had the pleasure. As is my standard operating procedure, I immediately set out to track down Gilman’s other work, only to find that this is pretty much the only story of hers that is widely known and available. The selections in this Reader, including other short stories and excerpts from her novels (including the feminist utopia Herland) may demonstrate why that is. Gilman used her fiction to try to change the world, to make it a more equal and better place for both men and women, and so with the exception of “Wallpaper”, most of it is simplistic and didactic and not very fun or interesting to read. However, Gilman herself turns out to be a very interesting person, so I’ve got a biography on hold and in the meantime will probably read “Wallpaper” two or three more times.

(LC Score: +1)

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TELL ME A RIDDLE, REQUA I, AND OTHER WORKS by Tillie Olsen

Olsen is another author I recently discovered via my current short story binge. Her two most well-known stories are “I Stand Here Ironing” (which I stop to reread every time it shows up in yet another ‘best of’ anthology and which you should definitely check out after you finish “The Yellow Wallpaper”) and “Tell Me a Riddle” (ditto). She is a deeply compassionate writer and my only disappointment with this collection, which includes her short stories, a fragment of an unfinished novel, and a few pieces of her nonfiction writing, is that it is so very short. Apparently Olsen, who died in 2007 at the age of 95, was too busy being a social activist and labor organizer to sit down and do much writing. Her biography is also now on its way to my home and I confidently expect to be intimidated by her hard work and lifelong commitment to meaningful causes.

(LC Score: +1)

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THE COLLECTED STORIES OF AMY HEMPEL by Amy Hempel

Unlike Gilman and Olsen, Hempel is a modern short story writer. This collection collects her previous four collections, consisting of mostly bite-sized stories of everyday life that mostly include at least one dog. Her fourth collection is noticeably harsher than the first three, with more sex, more violence, and more bitterness, but this was a great read all the way through.

(LC Score: +½, returned overdue)

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• THE NORTON BOOK OF AMERICAN SHORT STORIES edited by Peter S. Prescott
• THE PUSHCART BOOK OF SHORT STORIES edited by Bill Henderson

More giant anthologies! Because clearly I have a problem! I thought the Norton anthology was a not-bad roundup of solid stories, many of which I had encountered previously in similar anthologies, though I didn’t love the slightly lit-snobby introduction or the giant photo of the editor (because editors are a big selling point? what?) that took up the entire back cover. The Pushcart anthology covers Pushcart Prize winners from 1976 to 2001 and boy howdy, do we ever start out with a terrible no-good truly awful entry from 1976. It’s one of those stories about a sexy sexy lady from a male author that leads the reader to wonder if said author has ever actually encountered a female human. One also has to assume that editor Henderson (who chose to include this story) has lived a life entirely devoid of mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, daughters, female friends and/or romantic companions. Unfortunately, it takes a while for the collection to improve after that low-point beginning and I didn’t much enjoy the remainder of the 70s and 80s (aka the Era of Melancholy White Men). Things do begin to perk up in the 90s and it finally gets interesting once we hit authors such as Junot Diaz, Katherine Min, and Steven Millhauser. As is obligatory (by law, I believe) in any anthology of American short stories, a Joyce Carol Oates story is of course included, but the one here was notable for NOT exploding into senseless violence at the end, so that was refreshing.

(LC Score: +2)

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THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY edited by John Updike and Katrina Kenison

This is the third ‘Best American’ anthology I’ve read (see: “yes I know I have a problem” above) and I was frankly not expecting all that much from editor Updike in this 1999 collection covering stories from 1915 to 1998. I was surprised early on by the relative lacks of overlaps (even from the other Best American books I’ve read), but I still dreaded the approach of my least favorite decade, the 70s. Updike shocked me, however, with wonderful stories from the likes of Rosellen Brown and Alice Adams, leading me to the surprising conclusion that maybe I don’t actually hate the 70s, I just hate the MEN of the 70s! Granted, we’re still very much in White Suburbia Land, but believe me when I say it’s a vast improvement. Updike and Kenison are also the first editors of this type of anthology that I’ve encountered who seem to care about how one story flows into the next, and how each reflects its neighbors’ themes. An unexpectedly good read.

(LC Score: +½, returned overdue)

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THE NEW WEIRD edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

The VanderMeers are my go-to couple for weird and wonderful stories and this anthology does not disappoint, even though it is perhaps a teensy bit padded with essays attempting to define the “Weird” genre and an open-ended round robin story that finishes off the book. Nevertheless, a very fun read with many new-to-me authors that I can add to my to-read list.

(LC Score: +1)

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AMERICAN GOTHIC TALES edited by Joyce Carol Oates

I may not always be thrilled to see Yet Another Oates Story in the table of contents of my current anthology, but I do enjoy her editing choices. This was a great anthology of the creepy and horrific in American short fiction, including both the classic “literary” authors and a fair amount of genre representation. It would be a lot of fun to use this as the basis for a homeschool literature course.

(LC Score: +1)

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SISTER BERNADETTE'S BARKING DOG: THE QUIRKY HISTORY AND LOST ART OF DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES by Kitty Burns Florey

Florey sets out to tell the history of sentence diagramming--and as it turns out, there’s not all that much to it, so in this very short book (with many illustrations and lots of blank space) we also get a digression on Gertrude Stein and the author’s opinion on the use of “ain’t”. It’s interesting, but very slight, and Florey occasionally got on my nerves with her “witty” jabs at modern-day political correctness. I felt cheated, though, to learn that she didn’t even diagram all the examples in the book herself, passing off the real Henry-Jamesian monsters to another expert. Sheesh.

(LC Score: +1)

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HOLY DISORDERS by Edmund Crispin

Hey, look: it’s a novel! I was worried I’d forgotten how to read these! This is the second Gervase Fen mystery, staring Crispin’s English professor turned fourth-wall-breaking sleuth in a murder plot that involves mysterious attacks on church organists and eventually leads to dastardly German spies. (It’s set during WWII.) I have to confess that I lost track of the plot fairly quickly, perhaps because I was reading it in 10-minute chunks on my phone while waiting in my car to pick up assorted teenagers from various social/school events, but that didn’t really impact my enjoyment of Fen and friends. As a bonus, one scene seems to exist primarily to give Fen the opportunity to make an extended riff on “The Raven,” so that was fun.

(LC Score: 0, read on Kindle)

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MULTIPLE CHOICE by Alejandro Zambra, translated by Megan McDowell

This quirky, original book has a narrative organized in the style of the Chilean college acceptance exam (think SATs) and was a fun, quick read, though I can’t really count it among my novel-reading this week since it’s barely a novella. The storyline never really resolves into a cohesive whole, but it’s a great book to pick up for an hour or so, especially if you’re looking to get into more works in translation.

(LC Score: +1)

• Library Chicken Score for 3/21/18: 10
• Running Score: +10 ½

On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:

• JACOB'S ROOM by Virginia Woolf (the Girl Who Reads Woolf continues)
• MARGARET THE FIRST by Danielle Dutton (historical novel about Margaret of Newcastle, inspired by Woolf’s mention of Margaret in A Room of One’s Own)
• INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri (another author I’m finally getting around to reading after seeing her in the anthologies)
• THE COLLECTED STORIES by Grace Paley (ditto)

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Readaloud of the Week: The Wild Robot

THE WILD ROBOT by Peter Brown

One day, a robot washes up on the shore of a lonely island.

Roz is an ordinary robot, but she’s definitely not in ordinary robot circumstances. Once she’s extricated herself from her packing crate, she explores the island, which is a wilderness untouched by civilization — unless you count the wrecked bodies of other robots on the shore. Though Roz has the processing capacity to learn the languages of the wild animals living on the island, they want nothing to do with the weird metal creature who has intruded on their space. As time passes, though, Roz figures out not just how to survive on the island herself but also how to help the rest of the island’s inhabitants survive bigger dangers than they’ve faced before. Of course, the mystery of how she ended up on the island is bound to catch up with her eventually — and that may bring the biggest dangers of all.

Even though the main character is a robot, this book is firmly in the classical survival-in-the-wild genre that also includes classics like My Side of the Mountain and Hatchet. In the same spirit, there’s the idea running through the story that the challenges we face in the wild may be harder than life in the civilized city, but there is a value in overcoming them that our more urban lives can’t match. It’s also an interesting middle grades entry into the “what does it mean to be human?” genre, of which Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and I, Robot are excellent examples. Roz is a robot, so she doesn’t feel things the way a living creature would, the book reminds us again and again — as it shows us example after example of Roz caring for other living things. These two stories seems like an unlikely mash-up, but in The Wild Robot, they fit together perfectly.

I particularly like the arbitrary “she” pronoun instead of “it” or “he.” Roz is a robot. Even in the one scene where she’s covered in flowers, she looks like a robot. There’s no reason to refer to her as male or female. But those are the times when I especially love for someone to default to the female pronoun. (This may just be a me-thing.)

Quibbles you might run into: This is a simple story told in simple words, but some of the ideas are quite complex — and there are some dark and sad moments that might be too much for the youngest readers. It may feel like an “easy” middle grades read, but I really think that’s the right audience. The ending is similarly complex — don’t expect a simple “and they all lived happily ever” at the end. 

For me, it sits firmly in the “delightful” category. It’s a lovely story all on its own, but it’s also got beautifully rewarding layers for deeper reading and conversation. Plus, the illustrations are great! 

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Stuff We Like :: 3.16.18

Watching the school walkouts this week was so inspiring, and at first some of the more negative commentary, complaining about the students and the protest got to me a little. Then, though, I realized that this is so much the response protests got during the civil rights movement — and I thought about how we look back now at those people who were brave in the face of criticism and worse. I think about that, and I think about these kids, and it makes me feel better about the whole world.

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT HOME/SCHOOL/LIFE

I have pretty much found my homeschool sweet spot with high school, partly because I get to do things like this comparative literature class built around Studio Ghibli adaptations. (I’m actually going to do a talk on how to do this yourself at the SEA conference this summer if you want to come listen to me nerd out about literature.)

Maggie has some great advice for helping readers trying to get comfortable with reading more.

one year ago: We were down to the Final Four in Homeschool Madness. (Also: Great spring readalouds and our favorite advice for homeschooling the early years)

two years ago: Shelli looks back at a music gap that filled itself. (Plus: Biographies of mathematicians for Women’s History Month)

three years ago: How Shelli homeschooled 2nd grade and preschool

THE LINKS I LIKED

Have you seen this amazing series The New York Times is doing reporting the obituaries of women who didn’t merit obituaries in the paper when they died? Amazing women, like Ida B. Wells and Qiu Jin.

I think this is fascinating whatever side of the political spectrum you fall on: Our level of fearfulness seems to correlate to how politically conservative or liberal we are.

I love Lisa Simpson so much, so I really loved this profile of the actress who gives Lisa her voice.

Before Google, there were librarians.

WHAT I’M READING AND WATCHING

It was spring break for Jason’s school this week, so I have been catching up on all the movies. 

First I finally watched Get Out, which is brilliant, and now I want to teach a class about it because apparently that’s what I want to do when I watch a movie I like now. (Also television shows — I really want to teach an ethics class with The Good Place.) 

Then I watched Black Panther, which I pretty much loved. There were three or four times during the movie where I just started crying because the women were so amazing and strong and beautiful. (The costumes were also beautiful, but they didn’t make me cry.) Can we have more superhero movies like this please?

Jason and I watched Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, and the cinematography was just gorgeous. It was maybe a little too star-studded — I’m sure it’s the inevitable consequence of adapting a movie from a book that has so many characters, but it sometimes felt more like a series of beautifully filmed cameos than a film with fully developed characters. I appreciated the sheer ridiculousness of Poirot’s mustaches (which can only be described in the plural). I thought it was a nice adaptation overall — I’d definitely watch another Branagh Poirot — even if it wasn't life alteringly amazing.

I also saw A Wrinkle in Time, which (as you know) I’ve been so excited about but which, ultimately, was a miss for me. I hate saying that because there were so many things to love about the movie. The actress who played Meg is brilliant, and the movie is often very beautiful, and the story — of Meg coming into an awareness of her own strength and beauty and Meg-ness — is really a wonderful story. It’s just not A Wrinkle in Time. It lacks the nuance and mystery, the philosophy and odd other-ness that I think is what I really love about A Wrinkle in Time. If I didn’t love A Wrinkle in Time and I went to see this movie, I would probably have liked it a lot. But as a hard-core Madeleine L’Engle fan (I’ll update my reading list next week!), it was a disappointment. Did you see it? What did you think?

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN OUR HOMESCHOOL

We love recording cloud observations in our nature journals, so it was really fun to discover that NASA has a citizen science project going on that asks people to do just that. Shelli really inspired me with her year of citizen science, but it’s been hard for me to find projects that actually work with our everyday life so I am really excited about this one.

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How to Support Overwhelmed Beginning Readers

Years ago, I decided to try out a step class at the gym. I arrived early and scouted out a front-row spot because, by golly, I’m a go-getter. The teacher was so friendly as she introduced herself and welcomed everyone to class. And then the horror began. With music blaring and commands flying, everyone knew the steps but me. When they were already onto the next move, I was struggling to replicate the last move. And I was in the front row. The front row. Everyone could see how much I was struggling, how much I was failing. It was mortifying. With almost a full hour of class remaining ahead of me, I gave up. I gathered my things and slunk out of there through a path of people effortlessly doing all of the moves that I just couldn’t figure out. 

No doubt, you’ve had some moment in your life when you felt yourself flailing like I did at step class. You know that feeling — the humiliation, the sense of being underwater, the injury to your confidence. 

Some of our beginning readers feel that way, too. But reading is a critical skill, so giving up and slinking out of class isn’t an option for them. Our job is to make it less overwhelming, to throw our kids the support they need to keep their heads above water.

Here are my real life tips for taking some of the tears and terror out of reading.       

Try Shared Reading Books

Shared reading books feature two-page spreads with one page to be read by the parent and a more simple page to be read by the child. Usborne offers some fiction shared reading selections in their Very First Reading Collection. In addition to fiction readers, the We Both Read series published by Treasure Bay offers some fantastic nonfiction selections at a variety of levels.

Be an Ally with Buddy Reading

When a child is struggling, opening up a book and seeing all of those words on all of those pages can feel defeating at the outset. Make the task feel smaller by taking turns with buddy reading. The child reads one page, you read the next page, the child reads the next page, and so on. Not only does buddy reading give the child a break, but when a child’s fluency is low, causing reading to be disjointed and jerky, the pages read by the parent can be a big comprehension help.

Find a Furry Audience

Lots of libraries have read-to-a-dog programs these days. When they’re done well and with a minimal audience aside from the dog, they really can be motivating for a child. At my house, we’ve also had success with our Humane Society’s Reading Team program. My kids have “work” shirts, they sign up for shifts, and they wear badges at the shelter that identify them as volunteers. In their orientation, they learned that reading to the shelter pets improves the animals’ socialization level, which makes the animals more adoptable. They take their job very seriously, and the results are real. While it can be a struggle for one of my kids to make it through half of a reader at home with me, the same book might be read twice in its entirety at a Reading Team shift. Win-win-win. 

Make Peace with Hitting the Pause Button

When our kids are struggling, we feel a lot of pressure to push, to get them caught up. The thing is, though, that if you’re pushing your child to continue beyond his or her point of frustration or exhaustion, you’re hurting more than you’re helping. It’s okay to be gentle, and it’s okay to push the pause button. Coming back to it hours later (or even the next day) will be much more fruitful. 

Lots of Pictures, Lots of Colors

If you have a spread of workbooks in front of you, which one are you most drawn to? One with crowded pages and lots of black and white text or one with lots of colors, pictures, and open (or negative) space that gives your eyes a place to rest? Just about all of us would pick up the colorful choice first, and we’re grownups. Pictures and colors are inviting. For a child who’s struggling, the importance of that can’t be overstated. 

Use GRL to Find Appropriate Books

Most books that you find on the early reader shelves at the bookstore or library are labeled with a 1-2-3-4 system, and it’s a system that a lot of us find fairly frustrating and misleading. How many times have you opened up a level 1 reader and wondered, “How in the world is a beginner supposed to know this word?” A system I find to be much more accurate is the GRL system, which uses a wider range of alphabetic leveling. In fact, when I when through our own collection of books and labeled each with a GRL level sticker to help my children find choices that would be accessible to them, I was surprised to find that some of our “Level 1” books were rated at the same GRL as some of our “Level 3” books. 

It’s fairly easy to find the GRL of most children’s books via Google search, and the Scholastic website also offers tools for finding a book’s GRL or browsing books by GRL. 

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Readaloud of the Week: Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective

Logic lovers, reluctant readers, and everyone who loves a good puzzle will enjoy these short stories mysteries.

ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN: BOY DETECTIVE by Donald J. Sobol

When you have a kid who loves logic and problem-solving but claims to hate reading, detective stories seem like a perfect solution. Happily, not only did my reluctant reader dig the adventures of Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, so did the rest of us.

Leroy Brown picked up his nickname because of his encyclopedia ability to recall information. At home at the family dinner table, Encyclopedia weighs in on his police chief dad’s cases, often spotting clues the Idaville police force has missed. After school, Encyclopedia takes cases from the neighborhood kids (many time involving the antics of local bully Bugs Meany) for $0.25 a day plus expenses. The real fun, though, is that each story ends with a question, prompting the reader to try to solve the mystery before flipping to the end of the book to find out if his guess is as good as Encyclopedia Brown’s. Some clues went over our heads (I can’t say I am familiar with the velocity difference between cooked and uncooked eggs), but when we were able to piece together the clues and figure out the right answer, it was always thrilling. Because each of the stories is just a few pages, this is an easy readaloud to squeeze into those weeks where you’re super-busy. The short stories are also appealing to reluctant readers, who may be tempted to read “just one more” on their own.

The Encyclopedia Brown series was written in the 1960s, and there are definitely parts that feel dated. No one could call the book feminist, and the characters are a homogenous lot. In spite of that, this first entry in the series makes a fun readaloud, though, that makes a great gateway to other fictional detectives, including Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

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Stuff We Like :: 3.9.18

Seriously, I was typing the headline for this post, and I started with 2014. Can you tell next week is spring break for Jason’s school? I’m ready!

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT HOME/SCHOOL/LIFE

I think Suzanne is trying to read All The Short Stories Ever.

Shelli has some perfect-for-spring readalouds for kids who are interested in birds. 

You may be interested in this list of great epistolary novels to read with your kids, especially if you’re trying to cross that item off the 2018 Reading Challenge.

February was a slow reading month, but there are a few new releases you might want to check out and Suzanne and I shared our small-but-mighty list of good reads.

one year ago: Shelli shared her favorite homeschool gadgets. Plus: How do you know when it’s time to break up with your curriculum?

two years ago: Maybe you’d like to read some great biographies of scientists for Women’s History Month. Also: Rebecca reviews Beast Academy’s comics-based curriculum.

three years ago: Tracy asks, “So what if all they do is play video games?” Also: Alistair Grim’s Odditorium is an odd but charming little middle grades fantasy.

THE LINKS I LIKED

I’m not sure there is a word that sums up Shelly, who is my other half in a profound way, but I loved this piece about the way that women talk about their best friends.

The question on all of our minds: What would W.E.B. DuBois think about the Black Panther movie?

What if Monopoly was even more like capitalism? (Start by ordering turns by privilege.)

Jane Smiley goes in search of the real Grant Wood, and what she discovers is fascinating.

These riffs on the Claudia-focused Baby-Sitters Club covers by Angry Asian Man are totally worth the time suck they will quickly become.

WHAT I’M READING AND WATCHING

I’m making slow but steady Madeleine L’Engle progress — honestly, I’m at the point where it’s sad to think that I will be done with Madeleine L’Engle when I’ve made it through this list, so I don’t mind slowing down a bit. I’ve been on the great Austin family road trip in The Moon by Night, one of the most oddly paced books I’ve ever read and one that makes me want to take a long road trip with my children who would not want to read genetics tomes aloud over the campfire. (The Moon by Night, incidentally, is taking place during the same summer that Adam is off studying starfish with Dr. O’Keefe in The Arm of the Starfish, in case you are keeping up.) I have discovered weird, weird stuff happening in New York City when Dr. Austin takes a fellowship there in The Young Unicorns, which is my least favorite of the Austin books. (I do love Dave, so I am glad he reappears later in a much better book.) And I am just starting A Ring of Endless Light, which is one of my favorites. I’m coming for you, An Acceptable Time! Eventually.

Also near the top of my TBR list is An African American and Latinx History of the United States, which has gotten spotty reviews but which I’m very excited about because its existence is inevitably going to make writing an intersectional U.S. History curriculum so much easier.

We’re planning the reading list for Jason’s high school next year, which means I have been reading all the Swift, Pope, and Voltaire I can get my hands on to prepare to dive into the Enlightenment. (I have to warm up for Kant. No offense, Kant.)

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN OUR HOMESCHOOL

One thing that helping get Jason’s school off the ground has taught me is that is impossible to overemphasize the importance of time management. I’m trying to give my 10th grader more (and more complicated) long-term projects with stages of due dates so that she gets practice managing multiple deadlines. This is a low-stakes business right now, of course, but it won’t always be, so this feels like the time to discover what works for her (and — just as often — what really, really doesn’t work for her). It’s cool to discover things — for example, she is not a fan of the bullet journal (which I, as you know, adore), but she loves those old-school agendas with all the tabs and dividers.

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Library Chicken Update :: 3.7.18

Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!

As I’m writing this, it’s a gray rainy day outside, perfect for getting comfy in a bathrobe next to a giant stack of books. Which is good, because I need to get some reading done if I’m to avoid another embarrassing stack of returns...

• FIFTY BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 1915-1965 edited by Martha Foley
• 100 YEARS OF THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES by Lorrie Moore and Heidi Pitlor

On the principle that anything worth doing is worth overdoing (right? or is that just me? it’s just me, isn’t it?) -- and to recover some of my self-respect after the most recent Library Chicken debacle -- I’ve been frantically reading the massive short story anthologies I checked out a while ago so that I don’t have to return them unread. The annual Best American Short Stories anthology series began publishing in 1915, and I read both the fifty year collection from then series editor Martha Foley, and the centennial collection from current series editor Heidi Pitlor and guest editor Lorrie Moore. There is very little overlap between the two books and you can definitely see how tastes and styles have changed as time has moved on. Unsurprisingly, I preferred the 2015 collection, but the 1965 collection also had its high points (including Dorothy Parker and a very entertaining Ring Lardner story).

(LC Score: +2)

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GREAT AMERICAN SHORT STORIES by Wallace and Mary Stegner

This 1957 anthology starts off with a snobby little introduction about the good ol’ days, when stories were actually about something. After that, we get 24 stories, beginning with the old masters (Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe) and continuing through a selection of “modern” authors that aren’t very well-known today. Unfortunately, two of the authors I did recognize, O. Henry and Eudora Welty, were represented by lesser-known super-racist stories, so that was fun.

(LC Score: +1)

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THE MONKEY'S OTHER PAW edited by Luis Ortiz

The idea for this 2014 collection is interesting: modern authors revisit classic tales of horror and fantasy. The list of inspirational stories (which includes The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Saki’s “The Open Window”, along with “The Monkey’s Paw") is an odd mix, however, and none of the new stories really worked for me.

(LC Score: +1)

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SISTERS OF THE REVOLUTION: A FEMINIST SPECULATIVE FICTION ANTHOLOGY edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer

The Vandermeers are a great editing team who always put together fascinating collections, and this 2015 anthology does not disappoint. Important female writers from both the past (Octavia Butler, Angela Carter, Ursula Le Guin) and the present (Nalo Hopkinson, Catherynne Valente, Nnedi Okorafor) of the genre are represented. Not always a cheery read, but always fascinating.

(LC Score: +½, returned overdue)

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VANESSA BELL by Frances Spalding

My Girl Who Reads Woolf project continues with a biography of Virginia’s talented and intriguing sister, a professional artist in her own right. Sadly, most of it went over my head, due to my embarrassing ignorance of art history and the art world. One of these days I’m going to check out “Art History for Dummies” and try to learn a thing or two…

(LC Score: +1)

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• Library Chicken Score for 3/7/18: 5 ½
• Running Score: + ½

On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:

• The Pushcart Book of Short Stories edited by Bill Henderson (I’M GOING TO FINISH ALL THESE ANTHOLOGIES, PEOPLE)
• The Norton Book of American Short Stories edited by Peter S. Prescott (I’M SERIOUS ABOUT THIS)
• Holy Disorders by Edmund Crispin (Gervase Fen #2; remember when I used to read the occasional novel instead of short stories all the time? that was fun, right?)
• Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande (I even used the read the occasional memoir--that was fun, too)

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Storybooks for Young Bird Lovers

My youngest son loves birds, but he doesn’t always want to read bird guides or other science-related books. He’s just a little too young for that. So I made an effort to find storybooks that featured birds, and these have been a hit with him. There’s also a couple of non-story books here that are great for young kids too. Feel free to leave your recommendations in the comments area too.

MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS

He’s already asked me to read this classic book about one hundred times. Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey is about Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, who are trying to find the perfect spot to build their nest. They finally find it in Boston, Massachusetts.

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CHICKADEE’S MESSAGE

My son’s favorite bird is the black-capped chickadee, so Chickadee’s Message by Douglas Wood was a perfect fit for him. The story is based on a Lakota Indian legend. It’s about the resiliency of the human spirit and how the chickadee became the people’s messenger.

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LOON

Loon by Susan Vande Griek is a beautifully written and illustrated book that follows the life cycle of two loon chicks. 

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OWL MOON

This is another well-loved classic, but I couldn’t leave it off this list. Jane Yolen’s poetic Owl Moon is a pleasure to read aloud. She makes me feel like I’m in those woods “owling” with Pa.

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BIRD WATCH

If you love Owl Moon, Jane Yolen also published this book of poetry about birds. Along with Ted Lewin’s gorgeous illustrations, it’s a lyrical book that you can savor for a long time.

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THE BOY WHO DREW BIRDS

I was so happy to receive this book by Jacqueline Davies as a present for my son who loves drawing birds too. I couldn’t let him go without learning about John James Audubon. It’s the most text-heavy book in this list, so it’s perfect for bird lovers of all ages.

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FEATHERS: NOT JUST FOR FLYING

If you have a child who likes reading about science, this book by Melissa Stewart is all about the importance of feathers and how birds use them.

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THE BIRD SONGS ANTHOLOGY

This isn’t a storybook, but I’m including it here because it’s such a lovely book and my son loves it. Of course, you could just use an app, but there’s something fun about having a book that plays two hundred bird songs. The best part is that you can find used versions of these large, gorgeous books for a reasonable price.

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