5 Road Trip Field Trips for Black History Month

It’s not as though you need an excuse to add more diverse history to your homeschool studies, but February is a great month to explore some of the terrific Black history-focused museums around the country. If you can score passes to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, you won’t want to miss your chance to check out this latest addition to the Smithsonian museums. But if Washington, D.C. isn’t on your February travel list, there are several other Black History Month destinations worth a field trip. 

Exhibit at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
Birmingham, Ala.

Birmingham earned the not-so-esteemable nickname Bombingham during the 1950s and 1960s when racial tensions led to horrific violence in the Alabama city, so it’s appropriate that the city’s civil rights institute is located across the street from one of the black churches bombed during those tumultuous years. Inside, the museum does a terrific job showing what life was like for Black Americans from the 1800s through the end of the 20th century—and how different their lives were from the lives of contemporary white Americans.

Chicago's DuSable Museum of African American History (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

DuSable Museum of African American History
Chicago

Many people don’t realize how much of the Windy City’s history was shaped by Black Americans — did you know, for instance, that the founder of Chicago, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, was an African-French Haitian? The DuSable attempts to repair that omission, chronicling and interpreting the lives of Chicago’s Black community and serving as a fulcrum for Black activism and social justice in the midwest.

Slave pen exhibit at the National Underground railroad Freedom Center (Wikimedia Commons)

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
Cincinnati

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center sits on the Ohio River, once a symbol of freedom for enslaved people since it separated free Ohio from slave-holding Kentucky. A highlight of the museum is the reconstructed “slave pen” — a sort of holding jail for enslaved people before they went on the auction block, but there are a number of noteworthy exhibits focusing both on the institution of slavery and the struggle for freedom.

Exhibit at the Museum of the African Diaspora (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Museum of the African Diaspora
San Francisco

A museum that focuses on Black achievement and history beyond slavery and civil rights? Count us in. There are many stories to tell about the black experience in the United States, but the Museum of the African Diaspora honors Africa’s art, culture, and global influence with a frequently rotating selection of exhibits. (Bonus: The museum bookstore is amazing.)

International Civil Rights Center & Museum (Photo: Wikimedia commons)

International Civil Rights Center & Museum
Greensboro, N.C.

The Woolworth lunch counter where four black college students staged a sit-in in 1960 became a touchstone of the civil rights movement, so it’s a fitting spot for North Carolina’s civil rights museum. The lunch counter is still there — along with a number of exhibitions that highlight the challenges, triumphs, and tragedies of the civil rights movement. 

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Readaloud of the Week: Black Panther: The Young Prince

BLACK PANTHER: THE YOUNG PRINCE by Ronald L. Smith

(Okay, I might be a little excited about the Black Panther movie. But this is an excellent readaloud even if you have somehow managed not to become obsessed with the trailers for the film.)

T’Challa is destined to the be the Black Panther, but right now he’s just a 12-year-old prince happily growing up in the hidden, technologically advanced kingdom of Wakanda. He’d be perfectly happy playing all day (and getting into trouble every now and then) with his best friend M’Baku, but his father, the King of Wakanda, has other ideas. Almost before he knows what’s happening, T’Challa has been shipped off — along with M’Baku — to school in the United States. But T’Challa’s in for more surprises: His new public middle school on Chicago’s south side is about as far from the peaceful, sophisticated world of Wakanda as he can imagine. It’s hard enough figuring out to navigate the social world of his new middle school while maintaining his secret identity, but when strange things start happening at school and T’Challah — a.k.a. T. Charles — decides to investigate with his new friends, he may be in over his head.

This isn’t a graphic novel, but it definitely feels like a comic book read. It’s funny — we had just recently watched Coming to America together when we read it, and we kept comparing the two texts — but it also feels like a meaningful middle grades origin story for the superhero we know is coming. I love that in his T. Charles persona, T’Challa is able to embrace his nerdy side and make friends based on who he really is and not on the fact that he’s the prince of a powerful kingdom, and it feels like T’Challa likes that, too. There are definitely middle grades themes running though this story that you probably wouldn't see in a more adult Black Panther tale — a lot of time is spent on issues of friendship and bullying at T’Challa’s new school — but these feel like reasonable challenges for a kid who finds himself suddenly thrust into the world of middle school. Similarly, the book’s big evil is much smaller and simpler than the evil we’re expecting in the big screen version, but again, the story feels right for its middle grades audience. It’s a fun, action-packed story with great characters who develop through their experiences. Recommended.

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Stuff We Like :: 2.9.19

Let me just state for the record that the weekend got here *just in time* this week.

what’s happening at home/school/life

Suzanne and I rounded up our favorite reads of the month. Now I have to go snag a copy of her Virginia Woof fan fiction or I am going to have to live with more readerly regret.

I am a little obsessed with not getting the flu right now, so that’s probably why I felt the need to update our science of infection reading list.

Last week’s readaloud of the week feels like a good way to start a conversation with our kids about how to deal with racism when we see it.

I made a little list of the shows and movies we’re looking forward to streaming in our homeschool this month. Maybe you have some suggestions to add?

One year ago, we published a reading list to get you started on a Nelson Mandela unit study. (Also: Shelli’s review of The Birchbark House and ideas for breaking the February cabin fever rut.)

Two years ago, we were digging into some of the great works of the Harlem Renaissance. (Also: It must have been the lead-up to the Great Backyard Bird Count weekend then, too, because we put together a birds unit study.)

Three years ago: Every day is Star Wars Day, and Shelli had some fun ideas for your Star Wars celebration.

Four years ago: Everything you ever wanted to know about Suzanne.

the links i liked

This is so exciting: Kwame Alexander has his own book imprint!

The Challenger explosion is one of my first “current events” memories — my teacher at the time had applied to be the teacher-astronaut, so we followed Christa McAuliffe’s story closely. Her death was so shocking to me. I love that these teachers are taking some of her lesson plans into space — it’s the most fitting tribute I can imagine.

I mean, this essay is interesting whether you are obsessing over the Wrinkle in Time movie or not, but especially if you are obsessing over the Wrinkle in Time movie you should read this: What do we mean by “dimensions,” and how do they affect reality?

This is probably one of the most upsetting pieces about health insurance you’ll read this year. Read it anyway.

I may or may not actually make it to the theater to see Black Panther, but I would go stand out in the rain to watch its fabulous cast walk down the red carpet. 

Not sure if it’s great news that there’s a new prize that honors detective fiction that’s not based around women’s rapes and murders or depressing that the pool of potential honorees is so small. Either way, I’m glad to have a new place to look for my next mystery fix.

If loving RuPaul is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

what i’m reading and watching

I have discovered Hilary McKay’s books, and they are carrying me gently through the murky emotional landscape of this week, which has felt like a month. (Do you have weeks like that?) They are all about the Casson family, which includes an artist mother, a lovable but disreputable father, and four children (all named for paint colors): Cadmium (Caddy), Saffron (Saffy), Indigo, and Rose. They are warm and messy and British and affectionate, and I love them the way I love Noel Streatfeild or Elizabeth Enright books. If that sounds up your alley, maybe start with Saffy’s Angel, in which Saffy finds out she’s actually adopted and makes a lovely friend. (The other books are Indigo’s Star, Permanent Rose, Caddy Ever After, and Forever Rose — and if (like me) you find yourself totally hooked and not ready to quit hanging out with the Cassons just yet, you can also read Rose’s Blog, which is a too-short collection of blog entries written by the youngest Casson after her brothers and sisters are off to college, etc.

I am continuing my Madeline L’Engle readathon, too. (I seem to be in readathon mode.) I finished A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and technically, I suppose, I should have read An Acceptable Time next to finish out the official Time Quintet, but I feel like I have to start with the first Polly story instead, so I read through The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Water, and I’ve got A House Like a Lotus lined up for my weekend reading. (When I finish with Polly, I have to go read all the Austin family books so that I can catch up on Zachary, and then, finally, I can get back to An Acceptable Time. I have a method.)

what’s happening in our homeschool

One thing we were interested in exploring this Black History Month is what life was like for people living in Africa during the Middle Ages. (I may have talked A LOT at dinner about Black Tudors, but it was so interesting and anyway, my poor kids are used to it by now!). I found a book by Patricia McKissick called The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay: Life in Medieval Africa that seemed like just the kind of thing we were looking for, and we’ve really been enjoying reading it. It focuses on the years 500-ish to 1700-ish C.E., and it’s clear that there’s not a lot of primary source material available to work with — the line between history and myth gets blurry in places, but as long as you know that going in, I think it’s a great place to start learning a little about a time and place that doesn’t get a lot of historical coverage.

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Library Chicken :: Suzanne and Amy’s Favorite Reads in January

Yeah, yeah, we read all the time, but what did we read this month that was really excellent? We’re so glad you asked!

Suzanne’s Picks

GROWING UP ETHNIC IN AMERICA: CONTEMPORARY FICTION ABOUT LEARNING TO BE AMERICAN edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan

This excellent anthology collects authors like Sherman Alexie, Amy Tan, and Louise Erdrich in stories ranging from humorous to heart-breaking. It would make a great spine for a homeschool high school lit class, and I liked it so much that I immediately went in search of other anthologies edited by the Gillans. 

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THE WEIRD: A COMPENDIUM OF STRANGE AND DARK STORIES edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

“Weird” is a difficult genre to describe — it’s something of a cross between horror and sf/fantasy, and it may be my favorite kind of writing just now. A shelf of “Modern Weird” would include books by Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Helen Oyeyemi, and the co-editor of this anthology, Jeff VanderMeer, but this massive (over 1100 pages!) and thoroughly enjoyable collection goes back in time and around the world to collect weird tales from a diverse group of authors. Full of wonderful and disturbing stories, this anthology is more than an introduction to the genre, it’s an education. 

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A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles

I know y’all have heard of this one because EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU must have been on the hold list ahead of me at my library but oh my gosh was it ever worth the wait! In 1922, 30-year-old Count Rostov is sentenced to permanent house arrest (for the crime of being an aristocrat) at Moscow’s Hotel Metropol, but he’s determined to enjoy life nonetheless. It is SO CHARMING and DELIGHTFUL and we all need more of that right now so run out and read this immediately (or at least put yourself on your library’s hold list and settle in for the wait). 

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THE PHILOSOPHER KINGS by Jo Walton

This sequel to The Just City, continuing the story of the time-traveler philosophers who attempt to create Plato’s Republic in an experiment set up by the goddess Athena, met my very high expectations set by the first book. As usual, I can never guess where Walton is going, but I always enjoy the ride. I don’t want to give away any spoilers but I will say that we get to meet another one of Athena’s relatives in this one. 

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EVERY HEART A DOORWAY by Seanan McGuire

I’d had this fantasy novella (first in the Wayward Children trilogy) about a boarding school for children who had disappeared into magical worlds and had trouble readjusting when they returned to their old lives on my list for a while, but Amy’s positive review pushed it to the top, just in time for the release of the final book in the series. Can’t wait to read the next one! 

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HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff

This was YA author Rosoff’s debut novel and wow, she started off with a bang. (No pun intended.) Rosoff’s narrator, Daisy, is an anorexic American teen who is sent off to England to stay with cousins just before the start of a massive world war that results in England’s occupation. The details of the war are deliberately left vague, leaving the reader to focus on Daisy’s powerful tale of determination and survival. Sometimes very grim, but so good. 

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VIRGINIA WOOLF: A BIOGRAPHY by Quentin Bell

Bell’s biography of his aunt Virginia is the original account of her life, but I didn’t expect to be so charmed by his wry narration. He treats his topic with the casual informality appropriate to a nephew and I only wish he’d written a dozen other Bloomsbury biographies for me to read. This is a great place to start if you’d like a biographical introduction to Woolf and her world.

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VANESSA AND HER SISTER by Priya Parmar

This fictionalization of Virginia’s relationship with her sister Vanessa, told in Vanessa’s voice (with occasional letters to and from assorted Bloomsburians) and covering the time period from the beginnings of Bloomsbury up until Virginia’s marriage to Leonard, is another great view into Woolf’s world. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but Parmar does a wonderful job with the characters’ voices and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

 

Amy’s Picks

THE SORCERER TO THE CROWN by Zen Cho

Okay, Suzanne, you were right and I should have listened to you sooner, and I’m sorry, but also this is how you are going to feel when you finally get around to watching Firefly, I’m just saying. 

Zacharias Wythe, freed slave, is not the Sorcerer Royal England expected. (The Society has time-honored standards, you understand, and this whole situation is very … unusual.)

Orphaned witch Prunella is not the proper young lady that Mrs. Daubeney's School for Gentlewitches expected her to become. (Her unladylike knack for magic certainly comes in handy, though.)

Together, they may be England’s only hope to rescue the country’s worryingly dwindling magic supply.

This book has all my favorite things about magic stories (complicated rules! fairies! schools for wizards) and all my favorite things about Jane Austen (complicated rules! biting social satire! non-stop charming-ness!), and reading it was pure escapist delight. Why isn't there a sequel yet? Don’t follow my example and wait more than a year to read this one. 

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UN LUN DUN by China Miéville

We just finished this as our family readaloud mainly because we all liked it so much that we just raced through it. (I am still hoarse, and no math has been done, but we are all very happy and well-read.) Un Lun Dun follows the classic Wonderland plot line: A girl with a special destiny finds herself in a weird version of the world she knows (Un Lun Dun = UnLondon) and is charged with saving the city from the evil Smog, as the prophecies have declared she will do. Only, the prophecies haven’t taken into account the fact that her best friend tags along for the adventure, or that things might not go exactly as they’re written. 

Un Lun Dun is very much in the spirit of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (with more whimsy and less blood), and just as in Neverwhere (which is apparently available in a version that's ILLUSTRATED BY CHRIS RIDDELL, which has totally sidetracked me because now I have to go buy this immediately — OK, continuing), the best parts are when the protagonist is making her way through the weird neighborhoods of UnLondon and connecting with the abcity's weird inhabitants. The story itself follows a very predictable hero plot line, with a few cheeky twists to keep you on your readerly toes, and some of the characters seem not quite fully developed, but it's fun and silly and enjoyably epic.

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CLOUD AND WALLFISH by Anne Nesbet

My 4th-grader and I read this together, and I swear I learned more about life behind the Iron Curtain from this book than from all my years of education. (In all fairness, history courses have a tendency to peter out after World War II — have you noticed that?) Anyway, I think this would be a great living book for a late 20th century history study. 

Noah definitely doesn’t understand what’s happening when his parents pick him from school in Virginia one day in 1989 and move to Berlin, where Noah has to remember a new name, a new family history, and a new set of rules, starting with “They will always be listening.” Noah’s new friend Claudia is dealing with a new life, too, since both her parents have died — and she doesn’t think it was an accident. As their friendship grows, so does Noah’s certainty that something is very wrong in East Berlin.

I couldn’t really get into The Americans (I know! It’s clearly a me-problem!), but the taut is-she-a-spy plot around Noah’s mom is unnerving in a keeps-you-reading kind of way. And Noah and Claudia’s relationship, which becomes real through their connection to imaginary worlds, really reminded me of Jess and Leslie’s friendship in Bridge to Terabithia. Noah’s obviously not a spy, but this book manages to have all the qualities of a great spy novel while still being believably about a middle school boy. My son loved it; so did I.

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JANE, UNLIMITED by Kristin Cashore

Jenny at Reading the End (my favorite book blogger who isn't Suzanne) called this “Rebecca as a choose-your-own adventure, by way of Diana Wynne Jones,” so there’s no way I could not read Jane, Unlimited after that, right? I’m so glad I did because Jenny was right, and this book is my new best friend.

Sensible, practical Jane is still mourning the loss of her beloved guardian Aunt Magnolia when she gets invited to a party at a huge and mysterious manor house called Tu Reviens. We all know this story, except that we don’t: For Jane, one decision points her toward five possible futures, each one with its own complicated Gothic house genre: an Agatha Christie-ish mystery, a spooky tale of paranormal horror, a space opera (I know, but it totally works here), a spy thriller, and (my favorite) a portal fantasy.

You can definitely feel the echoes of Jane Eyre, Rebecca, Northanger Abbey, and all the other classic Gothic house novels in these pages and several of the alternate futures pay tribute to genre classics, but there’s no mustiness in the decidedly modern storytelling. (Our heroine wanders the mysterious halls in her Tardis pajama pants, thank you very much.) I love that it’s open-ended: There are five stories and five endings, and you really do choose your own adventure — nothing gets tied up into a neat “the end” bow for you, and if that drives you crazy, you should absolutely skip this one. For me, though, the playfulness of the narrative is a big part of the charm.

(Suzanne, did you read this one? You should read this one!)

If you made it this far, you should share your favorite recent-ish reads in the comments!

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Readaloud of the Week: The Lions of Little Rock

THE LIONS OF LITTLE ROCK by Kristin Levine

One question that comes up a lot in our homeschool these days is “How do you do the right thing when everyone around you seems to be doing the wrong thing?” My kids and I have been so sad to read about expressions of racism in our neighborhood and anti-Semitic comments at the middle school down the street, and we've really struggled with how to respond to hateful comments about immigrants from people we have known for years. Where does all this other-ing come from? And how can we respond to it in a way that’s productive and positive? I don’t know the answers, but I think it starts with being committed to doing the right thing, and The Lions of Little Rock is a great book to kick off a conversation about what “the right thing” might look like for your family.

Shy, anxious Marlee has finally found a friend who really understands her, and thanks to brave, kind, outspoken Liz, Marlee has started to come out of her shell. But then Liz gets kicked out of Marlee’s segregated middle school because the administration finds out that Liz has only been passing as a white student. Marlee knows it’s wrong to treat Liz differently because of the color of her family’s skin, but racial tensions are high in Little Rock, where the local high schools have closed rather than follow the federal government’s order to integrate. With her mom urging her not to rock the boat and a whole city that seems to be against her, Marlee knows it’s going to take all of her courage to speak up for what she knows is right — but she’s finally found something that matters enough to face her fears.

Set during in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the turbulent 1958 school integration period, this book tackles the issue of racism in a thoughtful and meaningful way. The fact that Marlee’s friend Liz is able to “pass” as a white student really hammers home the arbitrary ridiculousness of racism, and I appreciate that the book (mostly) resists the urge to paint characters as clear villains or heroes. A lot of racist people, the book suggests, have been taught to think that way, which means they can be taught to think another way. Marlee and Liz’s friendship is particularly sweet — I like the way that they make each other better people. Marlee definitely gains a lot of strength and bravery from her relationship with Liz, but Liz also grows through her relationship with Marlee. And, of course, I love that Marlee loves math and classifying things and dreams of being involved with the budding space program, even though she can’t help noticing all the NASA scientists are men.

If I have to nitpick, I wish the adult characters had been as nuanced and adaptable as the kids — some of them, especially Marlee’s mom, never developed satisfactorily for me. (But maybe that’s always going to be how adults see children?) There’s a Bible verse that repeats through the story (“But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.”) — it felt to me the same way a verse of poetry or bit of the Dao De Jing or other inspirational tidbit would feel, an idea that Marlee carried as a kind of mental talisman, and the book doesn’t have any particularly Christian undertones. Endings are hard to pull off for character-driven stories like this one, and I think the plot gets away from itself a little bit at the end, but it doesn’t detract from the book’s overall quality for me.

Quotable: "We tell kids that sometimes. We pretend the world is straightforward, simple, easy. You do this, you get that. You're a good person and try your best, and nothing bad will happen. But the truth is, the world is much more like an algebraic equation. With variables and changes, complicated and messy. Sometimes there's more than one answer, and sometimes there is none. Sometimes we don't even know how to solve the problem. But usually, if we take things step by step, we can figure things out."

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What to Stream in Your Homeschool This February (You Know, If You Want)

I thought it would be fun to round up some of the relevant-to-homeschool-life shows and movies that are available for streaming this month. My definition of relevant-to-homeschool is pretty much anything that I would be excited to watch with my own kids, so your mileage may vary and I would love to know what you’re looking forward to in your family’s queue! (I've tried to flag R-rated or otherwise questionable programs, but every family is different, and it's always a good idea to vet something before you show it to your particular kids.)

The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Streaming on: Amazon Prime

If you watch one documentary series for Black History Month, this is the one I’d choose: In six intelligent, detailed, wrenching episodes, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., traces the history of African Americans from the earliest days of slavery to the modern day.

Complementary reading: A Kid's Guide to African American History

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I Am Not Your Negro
Streaming on: Amazon Prime

This emotionally charged documentary focuses on the book James Baldwin didn’t write and connects the historical civil rights movement to the growing Black Lives Matter movement. It’s fierce, intense, and powerful, and it will probably make you fall in love with James Baldwin and break your heart a little.

Complementary reading: The Fire Next Time

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Akeelah and the Bee
Streaming on: Hulu

Honestly, I can’t believe we haven’t watched this one yet. It’s a movie about a spelling bee! It pretty much had me at “h-e-l-l-o.”

Complementary listening: The soundtrack for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

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Ella Enchanted
Streaming on: Netflix

This Cinderella-story-with-a-twist feels more substantial in its print version, but the movie is fun for a family movie night. I think we’ll watch it one of those Fridays when we order pizza and don’t want to get off the couch.

Complementary reading: Ella Enchanted, natch

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National Parks Adventure
Streaming on: Netflix

If you’ve ever wanted to watch a glorious cinematic backdrop of our national parks, here’s your chance: This IMAX film explores some of the best know parks in the United States and celebrates the history of the National Park Service and “America’s greatest idea.” Since we’ve been making the most of our free 4th grade park pass this year, I think it will be fun to add a few more parks to our road trip list.

Complementary reading: Your Guide to the National Parks: The Complete Guide to all 59 National Parks

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Love and Friendship
Streaming on: Amazon Prime

Yes, thank you, we will watch a Jane Austen adaptation, especially one featuring a villainous Kate Beckinsale as a widow on the hunt for financial and social security. 

Complementary reading: Lady Susan

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What We Do in the Shadows
Streaming on: Amazon Prime

Not everyone will want to watch a vampire mockumentary with her teenage daughter, but since my particular daughter likes nothing better than making fun of my obsession with Buffy, I’m hoping we can get a lot of laughs out of this film, which follows the adventures of four vampire flat mates. (Most of the laughs come from the fact that they all got vamped a different times, so they see things like, say, sneaking into nightclubs, from very different perspectives.) It's rated R, FYI, for violence and "adult situations."

Complementary reading: Sucks to Be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (maybe)

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Amelie
Streaming on: Hulu

I have loved this movie since the first time I saw it, and I am so excited to watch it with my now-16-year-old daughter. Amelie’s childhood loneliness makes her a particularly observant young adult, and over the course of the film, she slowly moves from watching other people’s lives to working to change them for the better. It’s a candy-tinted movie full of whimsy and charm — definitely on my Top 20 list. It's rated R for a couple of sex scenes.

Complementary reading: Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions

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West Side Story
Streaming on: HBO

It’s the Sharks versus the Jets while Tony and Maria fall in love in a Technicolor New York City. This musical take on Romeo and Juliet keeps the feuds and vengeance (never a good combination) but adds racism and identity to its themes, plus a jaunty soundtrack and delightfully acrobatic dancing. Romeo and Juliet was our Shakespeare for the fall, so it should be really fun to watch this movie together.

Complementary reading: Romeo and/or Juliet: A Chooseable-Path Adventure

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The Cutting Edge
Streaming on: Amazon Prime

I’m always going to pretend that the Winter Olympics makes this ice skating movie essential family viewing. (I’m also going to cry at the end of their routine every single time I watch it.)

Complementary reading: Skating Shoes

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The Trader
Streaming on: Netflix (but not until 2/9)

I’m really excited about this Georgian documentary — I’m trying to engage my kids with more cultural anthropology, and this film, which follows a woman who collects old clothes and home goods to trade for food at a community market seems like a great point of entry. (Plus it’s only 22 minutes, so I’m hoping it will leave them wanting more.)

Complementary reading: Saturday Sancocho

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Mozart in the Jungle
Streaming on: Amazon Prime (new season starts 2/16)

The fourth season starts on February 16. Even if you’re not a classical music fan, it’s easy to get hooked on this series about the players in NYC’s classical music scene.

Complementary reading: The Composer Is Dead

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Lincoln
Streaming on: Netflix (but not until 2/21)

Daniel Day Lewis is a surprisingly convincing Abraham Lincoln in this biopic, which spends a lot of effort to get the details right, down to General Grant’s reddish-brown whiskers and Lincoln’s White House mantel decorations. It gets a bit bogged down in talk and cumbersome detailed (largely historical but a few invented), but as biopics go, it’s pretty good. I meant to watch it when we were covering the Civil War last year, but since we didn’t get to it, I am glad to get to watch it for Lincoln’s birthday month.

Complementary reading: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

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Stuff We Like :: 2.2.18

I’m mixing up the format here a little since I’ve been doing this for four years now! (How has it been four years?)

What’s happening at home/school/life

With Facebook’s new changes, the best way to get notified when new posts go up may be to sign up for email notification or the newsletter. (We won’t ever bug you with other stuff.)

Beverly has some ideas for doing a mid-year review. (It’s a great way to check in with your goals and make any adjustments before diving into the second half of the year.)

If you are looking for a funny book to read together, may I suggest our most recent Readaloud of the Week?

Suzanne had an excellent week in Library Chicken. (And I’m off to get on the endless holds list for A Gentleman in Moscow.)

One year ago, Suzanne was reading all the Hamilton and Hamilton-adjacent books she could get her hands on. (Also, I had some problems with Belzhar and we published a book-a-day reading list for Black History Month.)

Two years ago, Shelli was dabbling in calligraphy, building with Zoob, and reading Treasure Island. (Also, Lisa discovered the magic of following her kids’ passions and Shelli shared her family’s favorite math games.)

Three years ago, Tracy wondered why homeschooling always seems easier in hindsight.

Four years ago, Amy Hood joined the HSL columnists team. (The winter issue was her last — her family has moved on to other learning adventures — but I miss her already.)

The links I liked

I’m kinda thrilled that Murphy Brown is coming back. 

Remembering Ursula LeGuin. 

A record number of women are running for political office in 2018. 

Take the Good Place morality quiz. (I am Janet.) 

The Hairpin is going away so I just want to give a shoutout to one of my favorite pieces there: Six fairy tales for the modern woman. 

How do we talk about politics to people who don’t see what we see?

You shouldn’t work more than 39 hours a week.

What I’m reading and watching

I am counting down the days until the Wrinkle in Time movie with a massive Madeline L’Engle reread, starting with the Time Quintet, of course. We reread A Wrinkle in Time together, but I finished A Wind in the Door (now I want to write a whole science curriculum based around L’Engle’s books, don’t you?) and Many Waters (one of my stealth L’Engle favorites on my own). I’ve got A Swiftly Tilting Planet on my night table, but I am definitely not planning to stop there.

If you know me at all, you know that I will read a fluffy British rom-com about someone who works in a bookstore and moves to Scotland in a heartbeat, so the The Bookshop on the Corner was inevitably going to make its way to the top of my TBR list. Nina, recently laid-off from her library job, buys an old van, outfits it into a mobile bookshop, and travels around rural Scotland matchmaking books with their perfect readers. It is just exactly what it claims to be and nothing more, but since that was just what I wanted I have no complaints.

We are starting Un Lun Dun for our new readaloud, and I am super excited to get into it. I love Mievelle’s distinctively weird adult novels, so I have high hopes for this middle grades novel, that’s got a premise kind of similar to Neverwhere.

Are you watching The Good Place? We should all be watching The Good Place, but now it’s time for the finale, and I’m trying to figure out how long I can stretch out the last two episodes so that the season isn’t over for me. (Spoiler: It will not be long.)

What’s happening in our homeschool

My son really wants to take a class that’s a couple of grade levels above his — the issue isn’t so much that he’s not intellectually ready to handle the class but that he doesn't have the ability to keep up with the writing, so he’s been passionately and excitedly working on improving his handwriting. You guys, this is after years of being a seriously reluctant writer. I do not necessarily think that wanting-to-do-it is the answer to everything, but with this particular kid, it has been the catalyst for pretty much every single academic breakthrough. On my end, I’m feeding him writing workbooks (we have a bunch of different ones, so I have no particular system — I just want him to get all the practice he can) and encouraging him when I see an opportunity for him to write something down. And, I will admit, I’m breathing a sigh of relief because even though I know people all do seem to manage to get the hang of writing eventually, I have spent a lot of time worrying about it anyway.

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Library Chicken Update :: 1.31.18

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!

LIBRARY CHICKEN PLAY-BY-PLAY: So today I dropped by the library to return three books (that I had not yet read, prompting much gnashing of teeth on my part) so that I could pick up three holds that would expire tomorrow. (I still have three additional holds waiting for me, but I’m hoping I can read three of my new books quickly — meaning in the next six days — and return them before those holds expire.) Meanwhile, I returned a couple of books from my husband’s card. (REMINDER: PLEASE DO NOT INFORM MY LIBRARY OF MY ILLICIT USE OF THE SPOUSAL CARD.) I had to wander around for a few minutes to give the librarian time to check in my newly-returned books before grabbing the holds, and I perhaps maybe might have picked up an additional book (by the author of one of the books I had to return unread) to check out on the spousal card. But there’s no problem here because I CAN QUIT ANYTIME I WANT. (In my defense, A.S. King’s I Crawl Through It looks bizarre and amazing and I was very sad about returning Please Ignore Vera Dietz unread.)

• GREAT SHORT STORIES BY AMERICAN WOMEN edited by Candace Ward
• BLACK AMERICAN SHORT STORIES: A CENTURY OF THE BEST edited by John Henrik Clarke
• GROWING UP ETHNIC IN AMERICA: CONTEMPORARY FICTION ABOUT LEARNING TO BE AMERICAN edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan

As you may be able to tell, I’m still working on my massive backlog of anthologies, along with trying to read more diversely. The American Women collection is a Dover Thrift Edition with 13 stories. It has a few classics I’ve read before (yes, I’ll read “The Yellow Wallpaper” again!) but mostly I picked it up because it included Louisa May Alcott’s fictionalized satire of her father’s (failed) utopian community: “Transcendental Wild Oats.” Black American Short Stories was a great introduction to writers I would like to read more of (and had surprisingly little overlap with another anthology I’ve read recently: The Best Short Stories by Black Writers 1899-1967). By far my favorite part of this chronologically organized collection was towards the back of the book, where we started to get some wonderful female writers, including Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Alice Walker, and Eugenia Collier. The anthology that I most enjoyed, though, was Growing Up Ethnic in America, which collects authors like Sherman Alexie, Amy Tan, and Louise Erdrich in stories ranging from humorous to heart-breaking. This collection would make a great spine for a homeschool high school lit class, so it’s definitely HOMESCHOOL RECOMMENDED.

(LC Score: +3)

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THE POISON ORACLE by Peter Dickinson

Peter Dickinson has written some of the most bizarre mysteries I’ve ever read and I’m having a great time working through his backlist. This one is set in an Arabian palace that’s shaped like an upside-down ziggurat and follows a British linguist who runs the Sultan’s private zoo while performing language experiments with his (the linguist’s) best friend, a chimpanzee. And then things get odd. Once again (as in the first of the James Pibble mysteries, The Glass-Sided Ants’ Nest), Dickinson has created a fictional primitive tribe and once again I’m a little worried that the entire premise falls somewhere between “very concerning” and “straight up super-racist” (and that’s not even including the racism in the linguist’s depiction of his Arab employer) but I just can’t resist Dickinson’s strange little books.

(LC Score: +1)

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• THE DETECTIVE WORE SILK DRAWERS by Peter Lovesey
• THE LAST DETECTIVE by Peter Lovesey

Two entries from two different mystery series by the same author. The Detective Wore Silk Drawers is the second Sergeant Cribb mystery, set in Victorian England, where Cribb investigates a murder linked to illegal bare-knuckle boxing. The Last Detective is a contemporary mystery (circa 1991) introducing detective Peter Diamond. And here’s where I admit that I did NOT like Det. Diamond AT ALL. Why did I continue reading the book, you ask? Because one of the plot points in the murder (which took place in Bath, England) revolved around the discovery of long-lost Jane Austen letters and OF COURSE I’M READING THAT. By the end of the book... well, I still didn’t like Diamond all that much, but if I could grow to love the sexist, racist, determinedly un-PC Andrew Dalziel (in Reginald Hill’s great series of mysteries beginning with A Clubbable Woman), I’m willing to give Diamond one more chance.

(LC Score: +2)

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A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles

I know y’all have heard of this one because EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU must have been on the hold list ahead of me at my library but oh my gosh was it ever worth the wait! In 1922, 30-year-old Count Rostov is sentenced to permanent house arrest (for the crime of being an aristocrat) at Moscow’s Hotel Metropol, but he’s determined to enjoy life nonetheless. It is SO CHARMING and DELIGHTFUL and we all need more of that right now so run out and read this immediately (or at least put yourself on your library’s hold list and settle in for the wait).

(LC Score: +1)

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THE PHILOSOPHER KINGS by Jo Walton

This sequel to The Just City, continuing the story of the time-traveler philosophers who attempt to create Plato’s Republic in an experiment set up by the goddess Athena, is tied with A Gentleman in Moscow for my favorite read of the fortnight. As usual, I can never guess where Walton is going, but I always enjoy the ride. I don’t want to give away any spoilers but I will say that we get to meet another one of Athena’s relatives in this one.

(LC Score: +1)

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HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff

This was YA author Rosoff’s debut novel and wow, she started off with a bang. (No pun intended.) Rosoff’s narrator, Daisy, is an anorexic American teen who is sent off to England to stay with cousins just before the start of a massive world war that results in England’s occupation. The details of the war are deliberately left vague, leaving the reader to focus on Daisy’s powerful tale of determination and survival. Sometimes grim, but so good.

(LC Score: +1)

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VANESSA AND HER SISTER by Priya Parmar

This time around in my Girl Who Read Woolf project I picked up this fictionalization of Virginia’s relationship with her sister Vanessa, told in Vanessa’s voice (with occasional letters to and from assorted Bloomsburians) and covering the time period from the beginnings of Bloomsbury up until Virginia’s marriage to Leonard. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but Parmar does a wonderful job with the characters’ voices and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

(LC Score: +1)

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EDGAR ALLAN POE: HIS LIFE AND LEGACY by Jeffrey Meyers

We’re reading Poe in this semester’s short story class so I wanted to brush up on his life story. The short version: he was super-talented but also terrible. Meyers is, I think, overly generous to the irascible and thin-skinned author (and I found that I enjoyed Kenneth Silverman’s very scholarly Edgar A. Poe: A Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance a bit more) but this is a solid introduction to Poe’s eventful life.

(LC Score: +1)

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• RETURNED UNREAD: LC Score -5
• Library Chicken Score for 1/31/18: 6
• Running Score: 12

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

• 100 YEARS OF THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES edited by Lorrie Moore and Heidi Pitlor (more short stories!)
• SISTER BERNADETTE'S BARKING DOG by Kitty Burns Florey (a mini-history of the art of diagramming sentences because why not?)
• NECESSITY by Jo Walton (final book in the Thessaly trilogy)
• ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE by Gail Honeyman (after another long wait on the hold list)

Why You Need a Homeschool Review Mid-Year

The halfway point of your homeschool year is a great time to check in with your kids about what's working — and what isn't.

For many homeschoolers, the year is halfway through, and maybe you are wondering what you’ve accomplished? The New Year is a perfect time to reflect on your homeschool plans, and give a good review of everything you have done so far. Rather than feel pressured to do what other homeschool families are doing, take time to reflect on what is, and isn’t working in your homeschool. 

A mid-point review will propel your homeschool forward and help you tweak areas that need a little extra attention. Here are five tips for reviewing your homeschool year.

Whenever a new year approaches, I start with the goals I set way back in the summer. 

1. Review your goals

Whenever a new year approaches, I start with the goals I set way back in the summer. The wonderful thing about goals, is that they can be changed. Take a hard look at what worked, what partially worked, or what didn’t work at all. Adjust your goals as needed, or write new ones. As homeschooling parents, we sometimes get goal setting wrong for our children. Just as we think we have it figured out, the kids do a complete one-eighty and turn us on our backsides. Kids learning does not happen in a straight line, so know that your goals will need adjusting, rewriting, or just plain tossing out. 

2. Stay organized

Staying organized is paramount in homeschooling. Believe it or not, I was far more organized homeschooling three children than I am with just one. Keeping up with three kids, each with five-plus subjects and extracurriculars, is enough to make any homeschooling mom a bit crazy. I had a detailed system each week for doing lesson plans, reviewing work, and reaching goals. As the last child moves up through the ranks, I find that I’m still organized, but perhaps far more relaxed. 

At the midpoint of the year, I review several things:

• Is my child on track with the amount of work completed? Is he chapters behind, on track, or ahead? If lagging, a schedule change may be in order. If your child is ahead, it may indicate that a more challenging curriculum is needed. Be aware that children often learn in bursts and might tackle several topics or chapters very quickly. They might also struggle with topics that are challenging and spend significant time to complete them. A few weeks behind or ahead doesn’t likely warrant an immediate change. Observe to see if a speed-up or slow-down is a recurring pattern or the normal ebb and flow of childhood learning.

• Is the quality of work acceptable? Is my child getting the work done just to get it off his plate? Or is he spending quality time on the topic? 

• Are grades on point? If you use grading as a measurement in your homeschool, are your children where you want them to be? Do you need to outsource extra help to get them over a hump?

• What curricula is not working? Don’t be afraid to toss that math curriculum if it’s making everyone miserable, and doesn’t encourage learning. 

• Is your portfolio up to date? Those in states that require mid-year reporting, or portfolio review will want to stay on top of paperwork. Take care of that now before the mid-point review. 

• Ask your children what is working, and do more of that. Toss out, adjust, rearrange, or revamp what isn’t working. Involved kids are more invested in their learning.

3. Don’t Worry What Others Are Doing

Comparison can quickly derail any homeschool. The quickest way to feel like a failure is to compare yourself with other homeschooling families. It doesn’t matter if the Jones’ children go to music class every day and play five instruments. Homeschooling allows us to meet our children where they are and to create a learning environment developed specifically for them. Comparison will always make you feel like you are living in a world of lack, rather than abundance. Celebrate the milestones and joys along the way, and resist the urge to compare. 

4. Avoid Overwhelm

Overwhelm can quickly turn the best day, into the worst. If a mid-year review has you wondering if you were ever out of your car for more than five minutes or wondering how you managed to get any homeschooling done, you might need to scale down what you are doing. Jam-packed schedules can lead to burnout and overwhelm. Are the fun things constantly being pushed to the side so that you can squeeze in one more activity? Take a hard look at your schedule to see what can be dropped in the coming year. Drop things that no longer serve you or your child (clubs, playgroups, co-ops, homeschool groups, music, classes, sports, etc.). Save your time for those things that make your heart sing. 

5. Ignore Opinions

Don’t give power to people who aren’t responsible for making decisions about your children.  Friends and relatives may be full of advice, ready to tell you what they think you should do. Relatives may be quick to point out all the things that they think are going wrong, where you lack in parenting skills and knowledge, and what your children need in terms of a solid education. Let them know that their opinion isn’t needed at this juncture because you have made the best decision possible for your kids. Spend some time creating appropriate responses that honor your choices, while emphatically letting them know that you have it all under control.

Mid-year reviews are a perfect time to reflect on all you have accomplished and where you want to be in the coming months. Reviews are also a great way to open the lines of communication between parent and child. 

If you feel like you are never accomplishing enough, keep a journal of your daily activities, milestones, and significant leaps in learning. It’s an incredible reminder of the path you have chosen in home educating your child!

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Readaloud of the Week: The Bad Guys

THE BAD GUYS by by Aaron Blabey

Sometimes, you just need a book that you can count on to make everyone laugh out loud, and that’s definitely what you get with The Bad Guys. Fans of funny elementary chapter books like Captain Underpants or The Stinky Cheese Man will be glad to discover a new silly series, but there’s a good chance everyone in your family will be giggling at this story.

Mr. Wolf (whose villainous ways you may remember from Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs) is tired of everyone thinking he’s the bad guy, so he decides it’s time to reform his reputation. This is no easy task for a fairy tale villain, of course, so Mr. Wolf enlists the help of a few of his good friends: Mr. Snake (also known as the Chicken Swallower), Mr. Piranha (also known as the Butt Biter), and the notorious Mr. Shark. Together, this band of bad guys hatches the ultimate do-gooder scheme: Rescue to 200 dogs from the Maximum Security City Dog Pound. What could possibly go wrong?

Go into this read knowing that this book prioritizes the punch line above all else — including plot, character development, narrative continuity, and literary quality. Funny is the point, and there’s plenty of funny. With minimal text and witty illustrations, The Bad Guys is also a good gateway book for a reluctant reader, who may well pick it up for a reread after your readaloud. Mostly, though, it’s a book you can laugh your way through together, and when your homeschool needs a little dose of laughter, this book is a solid bet.

Quotable: “What do you do if a cat is stuck in a tree?”
    “Eat it.”

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New Books Roundup :: January 2018

As part of my resolution to do a better job keeping up with reviewing new books in 2018, I’m going to dedicate one Friday each month to rounding up interesting new books you might spot on your library’s “new releases” shelf.

THE SONG OF SEVEN by Tonke Dragt 

Technically, this isn’t a new book, but since it’s newly translated into English (reading challenge bingo square!), I say it counts. I also say it’s utterly delightful, and you should probably get your name on the library hold list, stat. I have fallen in love over the past couple of years with the weird sweetness — I don’t know how else to describe it — of Scandinavian children’s literature, and I can see that I am going to have to broaden my reading horizons to the Netherlands, too, now.

Frans van der Steg leads the least adventurous life imaginable — except for in his fantastic stories, which keep his class of mischievous students spellbound while he’s telling them. So when Frans gets a mysterious job offer that launches him into an even more mysterious adventure, he’s equal parts delighted and terrified. Frans finds himself tutoring a not-particularly-nice count’s charge at their isolated mansion just outside of town — a job, he discovers, that he’s been hand-selected to do by the boy’s friends in town, who are determined to get him away from his evil guardian. Mixed up in all this is the mystery of the treasure hidden by the mansion’s original count, which legend tells only this particular young boy can discover. Frans must figure out the clues, forge new alliances, and convince his new student that he’s on his side before time runs out.

There are lots of wonderfully weird bits — a happy forest dweller and an anarchistic biker might actually be the same person, a card trick-playing man might actually be a magician, and the mansion’s staircase maze interior creates moments both spooky and hilarious. I love the old-fashioned vibe of the language, which echoes both classic fairy stories and the swashbuckling stories Frans tells his students at school. Geert-Jan, the lonely heir and Frans’ new student, is both lonely and rebellious, and his developing letters-based relationship with the students in Frans’ class is one of the sweetest parts of the book. There’s a motley cast of characters, good and bad, and Frans is a likable hero — choosing an adult to anchor a late elementary/middle grades book like this is an unconventional choice, but something about it really works for me. I’m going to be recommending this to everyone.

(I just discovered that there is a Dutch television series based on this book that’s supposed to stick pretty closely to the story, and I cannot rest now until I get my hands on a copy.)

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THIS IS NOT A LOVE LETTER by Kim Purcell

This is not a great book. There’s a lot of good stuff here: issues of class, race, and mental illness, which feel relevant and important. I like the set-up of the book, which consists of Jessie’s letters to her boyfriend — her smart, athletic, star student boyfriend, who also happens to be black in a very white town — after he goes missing after a jog. (While they were dating, he wrote her a love letter every day.) I think Jessie’s character, grown up just south of comfortably middle class, has a believable voice. I mean, I even like the cover, which has a wistfulness that promises good things. It just didn’t come together into a good book for me. Maybe it was the editing? It’s tricky with epistolary novels (which this counts as, I think, so reading challenge bingo!), I know, because you have to balance writing believable correspondence with moving a story forward clearly, but I don’t think this book found that particular line very often. Not a winner for me.

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WINTERHOUSE by Ben Guterson 

I quite liked this middle grades book, though it feels a little like The Mysterious Benedict Society Lite, which may just be an unfortunate publishing coincidence. Still, if you resist the urge to compare it to the adventures of Reynie et al and read this book on its own merits, it’s fun read with an engaging central mystery and lots of likable characters.

Orphan Elizabeth Somers hasn’t had a happy Christmas for as long as she can remember, and this one promises to be the worst yet: Her awful aunt and uncle are shipping her off to a hotel in the middle of wintry nowhere with no suitable cold weather gear and no spending money for food or anything else. Winterhouse Hotel, a warm, welcoming place full of friendly faces, delicious meals, and a generous staff, turns out to be a delightful surprise, and Elizabeth can’t decide if she’s happier about the hotel’s marvelous library (she loves to read) or her new friend Freddy, who’s also spending Christmas alone and who shares Elizabeth’s love of word games. Everything would be perfect if it weren’t for the creepy couple who seem to be paying a little too much attention to Elizabeth and the book she shouldn’t have stolen from the library’s restricted section.

The big-picture mystery is a little unpolished and some of the more obvious plot twists feel like they drag out forever, but the strength of this book is in its quotidian charm. Elizabeth’s bookish inner monologue is a pleasure to follow, and the daily rhythms of Winterhouse come to life so that you, too, feel like a guest at this charmingly over-the-top holiday hotel. I loved the little scenes, exploring the hallways or visiting the kitchen, and the little moments, like Elizabeth and Freddy’s scavenger hunt, much more than the big reveals or adventure. And kudos to this book, which is already showing up on Goodreads as Winterhouse #1, for ending on a solid resolution — sure, it’s clear that more adventures could follow, but it definitely does not indulge in my middle grades lit pet peeve of ending the first book on a giant cliffhanger. I’d recommend this to bookish kids who enjoyed The Greenglass House or Pseudonymous Bosch. 

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THE BONE THIEF by Alyson Noel

Here’s another middle grades book that might scratch a fantasy loving kid’s readerly itch.

Grimsly is the only regular kid in Quiver Hollow, where being extraordinary is the norm. His friend Ollie can bend spoons just by looking at them. Another friend can levitate at will. The waterfalls flow up, and magic is everywhere. Still, orphaned Grimsly feels like he’s found his niche with his adopted wizard guardian and his part-time job as pet funeral director. In fact, he’s one of the most popular kids at his school — which, he worries, may be causing major problems when the town’s magic starts to drain away. The problem turns out to be even more sinister, and Grimsly must set out on a quest to restore the weirdness to his adopted hometown before it disappears forever.

The best thing about this book is its Tim Burton-ish vibe, which resonates through the book in weird and delightful ways. It’s fun to see the trope of a magical kid in the real world subverted: Grimsly’s total ordinariness is completely out of place in the fantastic community of Quiver Hollow, but it may turn out to be what makes him special. There’s a little icky creepiness, a deliciously evil headmaster at a particularly nasty school, and just enough danger and tension to keep you on the edge of your seat, but it’s the world building and the characters that really shine. The worst thing? The villain feels a little cartoonish — his motives aren’t satisfactory at all — and there are a lot of questions that never get answered about Grimsly’s origins and family history. (There are hints and explanations, but they don’t really gel into anything coherent by the end of the book.) Also: I am not a fan of people murdering rabbits, even — perhaps especially? — in literature. Save the rabbits! But definitely consider this book for a middle grader who isn’t quite ready for something like Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children or Neil Gaiman’s more grown-up stuff.

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THE IMMORTALISTS by Chloe Benjamin 

I read this because I kept seeing it mentioned everywhere, and I was ready to fall in love with it — but alas, it wasn’t for me.

The premise is interesting enough: Four siblings visit a fortune teller in 1969, and she tells them when each of them is going to die. All four kids become obsessed by what she’s told them, and the fortune teller’s prediction shapes their lives in significant ways. Would you want to (maybe) know your fate? It’s an interesting idea, but the execution didn’t work for me. Maybe part of that isn’t the book’s fault — from the descriptions, I expected some elements of magical realism that never emerged, so I felt like the story left me kind of hanging. But I don’t think my expectations were the only problem: A lot of what happens in this book ends up feeling kind of trite and even a little manipulative (which wouldn’t bother me so much if the heavy-handed emotional manipulation were actually effective, but it’s mostly not), and I never really connected with the characters. Not my favorite, but some people have raved about it, so I could just be missing the point.

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Library Chicken Update :: Top 10 Fiction Books Read in 2017

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!

It’s still January, right? Which means there’s still time to sneak in one last Top Ten Favorites List before tackling all the books on The Millions Great 2018 Book Preview or trying to catch up with everything on the 2018 Tournament of Books shortlist. So if you’re looking for some great fiction to read this year, here are my suggestions!

TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING: BOOK ONE OF TERRA IGNOTA by Ada Palmer

It does feel just a bit risky to put book one of a trilogy on a top ten list when I haven’t read books two and three yet. I’ve been burned before by trilogies that started out amazing and went rapidly downhill. But Palmer’s vision of the 25th century — written in the style of an 18th century novel — was too wonderful to leave off the list. I can’t wait to read her follow-ups: Seven Surrenders and The Will to Battle.

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THE IMPERIAL RADCH series by Ann Leckie

One science fiction series that I did read in its entirety in 2017 was Leckie’s space opera trilogy: Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy. We follow our protagonist to a satisfying conclusion at the end of the series, but Leckie’s galactic empire is big enough to hold many other tales, and I’m looking forward to reading Provenance, a new novel set in the world of the Imperial Radch.

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THE SMALL CHANGE trilogy by Jo Walton

Walton goes back in time to rewrite history in her Small Change series, which imagines a near-fascist England after Germany is victorious in World War II. Farthing, Ha’Penny, and Half a Crown are alternate histories that read like thrillers, and (unfortunately) they felt particularly relevant in 2017.

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THE SUPERNATURAL ENHANCEMENTS by Edgar Cantero

I love haunted house stories. I love epistolary novels. Cantero thoughtfully puts these two genres together for me in The Supernatural Enhancements, so of course I because an instant fan (and early reader of his Cthulhu vs. Scooby Doo follow-up, Meddling Kids.)

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WHITE IS FOR WITCHING by Helen Oyeyemi

Another haunted house story — plus this one has creepy twins, so you know it’s going to be awesome. It was hard to pick just one Oyeyemi to put on the list, given that I spent 2017 binging through her backlist, but this was the first novel I read by her and it’s unforgettable, along with being super-creepy in the best way.

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RADIANCE by Catherynne M. Valente

Space whales, lunar movie studios, and a private investigator on the trail of a missing filmmaker: this novel is almost impossible to describe as it jumps from film noir to silver-screen gossip columns to serious Oyeyemi-level creepiness. Try to hold on to something sturdy when you’re reading it.

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THE INTUITIONIST by Colson Whitehead

Before the zombies of Zone One and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Underground Railroad, Whitehead wrote this strange and moving story of the first black female elevator inspector and her involvement in the great schism between the Empiricists and the Intuitionists. I would not have guessed that anyone could make the philosophy of elevator inspection fascinating enough to carry me through an entire novel, but I should know better than to underestimate Whitehead.

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ALVA AND IRVA: THE TWINS WHO SAVED A CITY by Edward Carey

I’ve noticed that “weird” seems to have been a theme for my 2017 reading, but even among the other odd and bizarre entries on this list, Carey’s novel stands out. Alva and Irva are twin sisters obsessed with the scale model they’ve created of the city they live in, Entralia. Carey is best known for his Iremonger trilogy (for younger readers), but his earlier adult novels are also great (and very strange) reads.

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DUST AND SHADOW: AN ACCOUNT OF THE RIPPER KILLINGS BY DR. JOHN H. WATSON by Lyndsay Faye

Sherlock, Watson, and Jack the Ripper: this is the best post-Conan-Doyle Holmes novel I’ve ever read. In other great news, Faye’s new collection, The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, means that I can spend even more time adventuring with my favorite Victorian sleuth.

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ORLANDO by Virginia Woolf

I’ve always heard that this time-traveling gender-swapping novel of romance and adventure was charming and utterly delightful. Turns out that it is even more charming and utterly delightful than I expected.

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And Because I Read So Many Great Books Last Year, Here Are a Dozen More Awesome Novels:

On Turpentine Lane

By Elinor Lipman

A Hundred Thousand Worlds: A Novel

By Bob Proehl

On Beauty: A Novel

By Zadie Smith

The Last Days of New Paris

By China Miéville

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A Head Full of Ghosts: A Novel

By Paul Tremblay

Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel

By George Saunders

Magpie Murders: A Novel

By Anthony Horowitz

House of Leaves

By Mark Z. Danielewski

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The Rabbit Back Literature Society

By Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (Claire DeWitt Novels)

By Sara Gran

Hag-Seed: A Novel (Hogarth Shakespeare)

By Margaret Atwood

Today Will Be Different

By Maria Semple

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A Resolution to Let English Be Part of the Humanities

Does English seem wildly different than it was in your school days? For me, high school English class in the 90s (at least for the good years) was presided over by a teacher who seemed like a wise guide who could help us walk through mental exercises that would lead us toward being thoughtful, competent, wise adults ourselves. I’m sure that the actual state standards were more detailed than this, but I imagine that our English teachers operated from a few major objectives: read good books with the students, talk about the big ideas in those books, and teach the students to write.

Then the standardized testing movement roared through our country and, along with pressure from the well-intentioned notion that every child should shoot for college admission, consequently English class became reduced more and more to a means to an end. Now, instead of pondering the choices that led T.S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock to have those overwhelming feelings of hollowness and regret, teachers are expected to spend more time checking that everyone can answer a question on the end of course test about an inference that could be made in line 40, which literary device is used in lines 23 and 24, or how context clues could be used to ascertain the definition of a word in line 32.     

And it’s not just a thing that’s happened in public schools. Standardized test culture has influenced the homeschooling community as well, whether it’s because many of us are required by state guidelines to submit our children to periodic standardized testing, because we want to steer our college-bound kids toward ACT and SAT scores that will open up as many scholarship and admission opportunities as possible, because we know that we might need to place our children into the public school system and don’t want them to be completely unacclimated, or because of the pressure we feel from a culture that increasingly wants everything quantified. 

But… have you read the online comments section lately on… well, just about anything? Whatever your politics, I think we can agree that people these days seem meaner and less empathetic.

Our culture needs the lessons of great literature like never before. In 2018, let’s resolve to elevate literature back to its position in the humanities. Let’s resolve to look to the big ideas in literature as a balm that will insulate our children from a world of keyboard bullies. Let’s resolve to look to books to help us remember those common denominators that unite us.

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Readaloud of the Week: Audubon, On The Wings Of The World

AUDUBON, ON THE WINGS OF THE WORLD by Fabien Grolleau

Audubon, On the Wings of the World is a beautiful graphic novel about the life of John James Audubon. It was written by Fabien Grolleau and illustrated by Jérémie Royer. Most the story is based on Audubon’s own writings about the adventures he had while journeying through America at the start of the 19th century on a mission to paint every bird that inhabited this land.  With only a few artists’ tools, an assistant, a guide, and a gun, he encountered many dangers, foul weather, and illness. He also had a difficult time being taken seriously by scientists. But nothing would deter him from his life’s quest. Royer’s illustrations are the best part of the book, and they will make you want to linger over the pages. 

If your family loves birds, this is a must read. My boys and I love birds, and I’ve tried to teach them a little about John James Audubon in the past, and I’ve showed them his paintings, which you can view and download for free at audubon.org. When I saw this book recommended by another birder on Twitter, I checked it out from the library, and I loved it. I read it to my eleven and eight-year-old boys, and they liked it too. I would love to follow it up someday with a more detailed biography of John James Audubon. I know liberties had to be taken to make the graphic novel work.

Some parents might want to read it over before letting their children read it, and you may want to read it with them, too. Naturalists in the 1800s hunted and collected their specimens before drawing them, and Audubon followed this practice. This book also makes it pretty clear that he was married to his quest to record all the birds of North America, so he was a pretty horrible father and husband. Since the dialogue in the book is sparse, I sometimes had to explain to my boys what was happening. They weren’t quite old enough to understand all the facial expressions and other visual clues in the illustrations. There are some mild swear words and a few illustrations of Native American women with naked chests.  

I think it would make a great supplement to any homeschool’s American history studies, especially for a mature student.

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Stuff We Like :: 1.19.18

We got snow! That makes twice this winter, and I loved having an excuse to snuggle up in our pajamas for a bonus vacation day right after the start of the new semester. (I also stressed intensely about whether I need to schedule a make-up day for my first AP English class of the semester, but I got to wear my pajamas all day, so I think the balance worked out in my favor.)

around the web

I love the idea of the antilibrary—instead of feeling guilty about the books we buy and don’t actually get around to reading (I’m looking at you, The Corrections), we should see them as reminder of all the things we don’t know, all the things we still have the opportunity to learn. I’m not sure this will convince Jason that I need another bookcase in the bedroom, but you know I am going to try.

If you need a laugh this week, you need to read these examples of toxic femininity in the workplace: “Members of the all-female upper management of a company never think to talk about sex in the workplace. As a result, they forget that sex exists and uniformly fail to perpetuate the human race. This is a global phenomenon that accelerates the demise of our species.”

It’s not a short read, but I thoroughly enjoyed this piece about the seismic shifts happening in U.S. pop culture right now. With shout-outs to everything from Moonlight to Get Out to Ellen Willis, it’s a fascinating look at how the present political climate is shaping art—and a timely reminder of why critics matter.

There are SO MANY TERRIBLE history books out there right now, and if you have accidentally bought one when it was cheap for the Kindle, you will definitely want to read this.

at home/school/life

on the blog: Suzanne’s starting fresh with Library Chicken for 2018

also on the blog: Beverly has some great advice for keeping the holiday spirit alive in your homeschool all year

one year ago: A funny fantasy book list, or what to read when you’ve run out of Edward Eager

two years ago: A Mary Tudor reading list

three years ago: The importance of me-time for homeschool moms

reading list

I picked up a copy of The Knockoff by Plum Sykes because I will pretty much read any book about people working at glossy women’s magazines, and I loved the idea of this one, about an older editor-in-chief who must suddenly cope with the digital magazine world. (I may identify with this premise a little.) It was a bummer, though — the main character wasn’t that sympathetic, and her foil, the up-and-coming digital guru was so utterly unlikable and ridiculously villainous that it just got silly. I’m glad it was a quick read because life is too short, you know?

A much better read was Cloud and Wallfish, which has been on my list for a while and which we’re finally getting around to. It’s set in Berlin in the late 1980s, before the Wall came down, and Noah’s parents have given him a new name, a new birthday, and a new bedroom—in Berlin. Luckily, he also finds a new friend, Claudia, who lives in the same apartment building and who suspects that her parents’ deaths might have been invented by her grandmother. Claudia and Noah (now called Jonah) create their own secret world by covering maps of Berlin with their own drawings—these parts may remind you of Bridge to Terebithia, with the increasing pull of imaginary worlds. We really enjoyed this. It’s the best kind of middle grades historical fiction with a story and characters that feel genuinely compelling and tons of historical information. (I feel like I learned so much about the history of Berlin reading this.)

Also read: The Ambrose Deception by Emily Ecton, a love letter to Chicago that tries to borrow some of the puzzle-solving charm of books like The Mysterious Benedict Society and Book Scavenger with mixed success. (If you enjoy those kinds of books — or if you love Chicago — it’s definitely worth putting on your list.)

at home

My son got an iPod for Hanukkah (not from me), which he mainly uses to make YouTube videos and send me dog memes all day. I’m ambivalent about devices for kids—I don’t love how addictive they are, but they can be so incredibly useful—but I do really love when my phone beeps and there’s a pug pun.

If you’re following along with the Classical humanities class I’m teaching at Jason’s hybrid high school, we’re kicking off the spring semester reading list with Antigone, Nicomachean Ethics, and SPQR. 

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This Week in Library Chicken :: 1.17.18

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!

It’s the first Library Chicken Update of 2018! We’re wiping the slate clean and starting over from scratch in honor of the new year. I’m looking forward to a great year of reading, but mostly I’ve been busy rearranging my to-read list and (finally) copying it over from Amazon Wish Lists to my goodreads account. There’s no easy way to do this (that I’ve discovered), so I’m going through and transferring it book by book, which takes a while when you have [ACTUAL NUMBER REDACTED BECAUSE I’M EMBARRASSED BY THE EXCESSIVENESS OF IT ALL] books on your list. It’s a wonderful way to waste time online, though, and I’m much more cheerful afterward than if I’d spent the same amount of time on Facebook or Twitter being brought up to date on all the horrible things happening in the world.

Also new this year, in an effort to make it look like I’m accomplishing something by lying around and reading all day (and because it seems like a lot of fun), I’m officially tackling three reading challenges: BookRiot’s Read Harder Challenge, the Popsugar Reading Challenge, and of course our very own HSL’s 2018 Reading Challenge! Happy reading, everyone!

THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY by Edmund Crispin

Gervase Fen #1. New year, new mystery series! This 1940s series stars an Oxford don as our sleuth. In fact, as Fen says early on in this erudite murder mystery, set around the production of a new play in Oxford: “I’m the only literary critic turned detective in the whole of fiction.” I love it when books break the fourth wall, so I’m definitely looking forward to #2.

(LC Score: +1)

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FUN PHANTOMS: TALES OF GHOSTLY ENTERTAINMENT edited by Sean Manley and Gogo Lewis

THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH DETECTIVE STORIES edited by Patricia Craig

This week I start the short stories class at our hybrid homeschool (Poe! Jackson! Wodehouse! more Poe!), but I’ve still got anthologies stacked all over the floor, waiting to be read. Now that I’ve (re)discovered the joys of short fiction I have, as usual, become a bit obsessed. I’ve taken a break from The Modern Tradition this and 50 Short Masterpieces that to veer into genre with some ghost and detective stories. Fun Phantoms is an unusual 1979 collection that specializes in humorous ghost stories, some of which are classics (e.g., “The Canterville Ghost” and “The Open Window”) and some of which (ahem) are not. Meanwhile, The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories takes us all the way from the classic early days of alibis based on train schedules and locked room whodunits to the 1980s with P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. I do have a bone to pick with the editor: at a minimum, a story included in an anthology of “detective stories” should actually have a detective in it. If it has a murder but no detective, that’s a crime story, and that, I would think, belongs in a whole other anthology.

(Challenge Accepted: HSLs “A Collection of Short Stories”)

(LC Score: +2)

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THE WEIRD: A COMPENDIUM OF STRANGE AND DARK STORIES edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

“Weird” is a difficult genre to describe —it’s something of a cross between horror and sf/fantasy, and it may be my favorite kind of writing just now. A shelf of “Modern Weird” would include books by Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Helen Oyeyemi, and the co-editor of this anthology, Jeff VanderMeer, but this massive (over 1100 pages!) and thoroughly enjoyable collection goes back in time and around the world to collect weird tales from a diverse group of authors. Full of wonderful and disturbing stories, this anthology is more than an introduction to the genre, it’s an education.

(LC Score: +1)

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CARTER & LOVECRAFT by Jonathan L. Howard

THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM by Victor LaValle

H.P. Lovecraft is classic weird, and modern authors have been having a wonderful time in the past few years revisiting and revising him. And he does need some revising: H.P. is unfortunately as well known for his virulent racism and sexism as he is for tentacled mind-melting hell-beasts. Howard and LaValle both play with that reputation in different ways. In Carter & Lovecraft, an ex-cop private eye gets mixed up with the last Lovecraft descendant — who happens to be both female and black — and a plot to change the rules of reality in very unpleasant ways. (SPOILER: By the end of the novel things are looking fairly bleak for our heroes, but the sequel, ominously titled After the End of the World, just came out for all of us who want to read what happens next.) In The Ballad of Black Tom, LaValle reimagines Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook”, often described as H.P.’s most racist tale, by telling the story from a different perspective, creating a powerful novella that comments both on the original work and on modern day society. (SPOILER: It also includes a tentacled hell-beast or two.)

(LC Score: +2)

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EVERY HEART A DOORWAY by Seanan McGuire

I’d had this fantasy novella (first in the Wayward Children trilogy) about a boarding school for children who had disappeared into magical worlds and had trouble readjusting when they returned to their old lives on my list for a while, but Amy’s positive review pushed it to the top, just in time for the release of the final book in the series. Can’t wait to read the next one!

(Challenge Accepted: home|school|life’s “The First Book in a Series” and “A Book You Can Read in One Day”, ReadHarder’s “A One-Sitting Book”)

(LC Score: +1)

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THE COMMON READER: FIRST SERIES by Virginia Woolf

I’ve read several of Woolf’s novels, but this is the first time I’m tackling her essays. Her narrative voice is, as always, engaging and very pleasant to spend time with, but I was a little intimidated by the French and Greek quotations that she apparently expects her “common” reader to be able to handle.

(LC Score: +1)

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VIRGINIA WOOLF: A BIOGRAPHY by Quentin Bell

PORTRAIT OF A MARRIAGE: VITA SACKVILLE-WEST AND HAROLD NICOLSON by Nigel Nicolson

I picked these up as part of my ongoing Girl-Who-Reads-Woolf project. Bell’s biography of his aunt Virginia is the original account of her life, but I didn’t expect to be so charmed by his wry narration. He treats his topic with the casual informality appropriate to a nephew and I only wish he’d written a dozen other Bloomsbury biographies for me to read. In Portrait of a Marriage, Nicolson presents the autobiographical writings of his mother (and Virginia’s great friend), Vita, along with his own history of her life. Vita’s portion is mostly an overwrought account of her wild affair with Violet Keppel/Trefusis, still ongoing at the time of her writing. Both books together present a fascinating account of two unique partnerships made up of talented and original people: Virginia and Leonard, and Vita and Harold.

(LC Score: +2)

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RETURNED UNREAD: LC Score -4

Library Chicken Score for 1/17/18: 6

• Running Score: 6
• Challenges Met: 4

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

• Growing Up Ethnic in America edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan (short story collection about learning to be American)
• Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales by Ray Bradbury (revisiting one of my favorite authors)
• The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton (sequel to The Just City)
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (finally got my hands on this one after spending months on the hold list)

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How to Keep the Spirit of Gratitude Alive All Year

Gratitude. It seems to be in the forefront of our thoughts especially during the holidays. But, how many of us genuinely practice gratitude all year long? 

Aside from the heart-tugging commercials about donating to your local food shelter, or adopting a family on Christmas; there are ways to teach your children how to have a heart of gratitude not just in the giving seasons.  As homeschoolers, we have the unique opportunity to instill and share values of gratitude with our children all throughout the year.

1. SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION

Encouraging gratitude in children is best done by modeling the behavior. Daily routines of expressing gratitude help children understand that the practice begins at home. 

Try some of the following:

• At dinner time, have each child and adult write down one thing they are grateful for that happened that day.
• Place the folded pieces of writings in a gratitude jar. At the end of the week or even on New Year’s Day, read the entire jar’s worth of writing. It’s a great reminder not only of how much you have shared as a family but about those who care for you each day.

2. ASK FOR HELP

Asking for help is something that everyone must do at some point in life. Asking younger children to help with meal preparation, clean up, and daily chores helps them realize that contributing makes a difference to everyone. People feel appreciated when others lend a hand and help. Talk to your children about the experiences of both giving and receiving help.

3. VOLUNTEER

Regular volunteering can foster a lifelong attitude of giving back to community. While volunteering around the holidays is always needed, making time to serve all year long, exposes children to the long-term benefits of helping and gratitude.

Families sometimes find it difficult to search for opportunities for younger children to volunteer, but children of all ages have many opportunities to give in their community. Those people who aren’t as socially active as they used to be often love the presence of young children and helpers. After volunteering, ask your children how they felt, how they think those that they helped felt, and what more they could do to help in the future. Remind children that gratitude is often unspoken, and that their purpose is to help others, even if words of thanks don’t always accompany the act. 

Consider some of the following if you’re having trouble locating volunteer opportunities:

• Visiting nursing homes to play board games with the residents or to sing songs.
• Maintaining a garden at group homes.
• Helping at a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm.
• Donating food and care at animal shelters.
• Offering lawn care to elderly.
• Spending some time in a soup kitchen or clothing outlet for the homeless.
• Putting together bags for the needy with toiletries, lip balm, protein bars, socks, gloves, and hats. Check with your local shelter to see what they need.
• Knitting or crocheting hats for premature babies.
• Walking a neighbor’s dog. 

Try to make volunteering a regular tradition to foster gratitude all year long.

4. GIVE EXPERIENCES, NOT THINGS

Instead of Grandma and Grandpa giving your children plastic toys for every holiday and birthday, encourage them to give the gift of experiences and time. Experiences help grow and deepen family connections. 

Ask relatives and friends for memberships to the zoo, or aquarium. Or perhaps a special lunch and movie date can be become a new tradition. Take lots of photos of the event, and gift the giver with a special card or photo album of the wonderful day as a thank you. Children will remember and cherish the special outing for years to come.

5. EXPRESS GRATITUDE FREELY AND OFTEN

Children learn from observing the behavior around them. Be sure to express your own gratitude for their efforts, and for being part of the family. Show kindness and gratitude when you are out in stores or markets or whenever kindness is shown to you. It’s easy to overlook small efforts as not being worthy of gratitude, but even small acts of kindness go a long way in the eyes of children.  

Instilling the gifts of gratitude in the hearts of children does not happen overnight.  

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Readaloud of the Week: Stuart’s Cape

STUART’S CAPE by Sara Pennypacker

“Adventures only happen to people with capes,” Stuart realizes, but that’s okay because he’s got a hundred of his dad’s old ties that he can use to DIY a cape for himself.

If you love Pennypacker’s Clementine and Waylon books, you’ll be happy to discover this whimsical early chapter book. Stuart is the new kid in town, and he’s worried about everything: man-eating spiders lurking in the closet of his new bedroom, getting locked in the bathroom at his new school, not making any friends in third grade. Antsy and anxious waiting for what’s going to happen, Stuart decides to make his own adventure, starting with a cape he makes by stapling together his day’s tie collection and one purple sock. And sure enough, Stuart’s new cape sets him off on fantastic adventures, including learning how to play pretend with help from a dinosaur and a gorilla, growing giant toast, and learning how to fly with a little assistance from his Aunt Bubbles’s angel food cake. (Of course, once he’s soaring through the sky, he has to figure how to get back to the ground. . .) It’s silly, playful fun that also manages to be sensitive to the very real worries of childhood.

This is one of those laugh-out-loud readalouds that you can finish in a couple of relaxed reading sessions, which makes it a great get-you-groove-back readaloud for your post-holiday homeschool. Stuart is a winsome little worrier, and the book’s black-and-white illustrations are sweet and playful. And if you love it, you can follow right up with the equally charming sequel Stuart Goes to School.

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Stuff We Like :: 1.12.18

Happy weekend!

around the web

I still remember how it exciting it was when Bridget Hughes (a girl!) got the top job at The Paris Review, and I am a huge fan of the work she’s done at A Public Space. So this piece about how Hughes has been systematically erased from the Review’s history made me really sad.

I think all of us who work from home can appreciate this ode to the home offices that would never be featured in home design magazines but that we love anyway.

Haven’t you always wondered what it would be like to be a bee? This is my favorite neurobiology read of 2018 so far. :)

at home/school/life

in the magazine: I just signed off on the winter issue’s final proofs, so expect it in your inbox soon!

on the blog: Suzanne’s favorite nonfiction of 2017

one year ago: Suzanne’s guide to reading the Brontes

two years ago: Tips for organizing your homeschool library

three years ago: Carving out time for yourself

reading list

I put The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh on my library holds list back when I was thinking about teaching it as part of a classical literature curriculum. but I’m just now getting around to reading it and I want to recommend it to everyone. It’s fascinating! The book starts in the 19th century with an English engraver who basically taught himself cuneiform with the tablets at the British Museum and started to piece together the story of Gilgamesh, then meanders — along several equally interesting detours — back 4,000 years to the time of the historical Gilgamesh. Some of the literary connections the author tries to make feel like a stretch, and I’m not sure he really dives into the more interesting implications of some of his ideas, but overall, this was a terrific read.

Apparently, this was a heavy-on-nonfiction week, because I am also going to rave about The Goddess of Anarchy: The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical. I did not know much about Parsons beyond the blurb on the book jacket going in, and I definitely had that “How is she not in a history book!?” feeling as I was reading. Parsons was born to an enslaved woman about a decade before the Civil War, but her radical labor organizing feels way ahead of its time — Parsons (and her husband who was executed for his inciting rhetoric that may have provoked a Chicago bombing) believed that armed struggle was the only way to destroy capitalism. Honestly, the book is a little on the dry side writing-wise, but Parsons is so interesting that it felt like I was reading a novel.

Our readaloud lately is What Goes Up by Katie Kennedy, and it’s pretty much exactly the right blend of funny, smart, and exciting. Rosa, Eddie, and hundreds of other science-smart teens are hoping to get into a top secret NASA program, but the competition is stiff — and the program comes with plenty of hazards, too. I feel like this is kind of a stealth book right now, so get it at the library before other people start discovering it and the hold list gets crazy.

at home

Jason got a Roku stick thingy for Hanukkah, which came with a free month of HBO — so, way behind the rest of the world, we’re binging Game of Thrones. There are many interesting things about it, but seriously, why does HBO only make series where women are generally marginalized and abused characters? It’s like every show is The Handmaid’s Tale. 

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Library Chicken Update: Top Nonfiction Books Read in 2017

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!

Happy New Year! Before we return to our regularly scheduled Library Chicken updates, we’re going to take a look back at the past year with Library Chicken’s Top Ten Favorite Nonfiction Books Read in 2017 so you can load up your to-read list. 

2017 was a big year for nonfiction here at Library Chicken HQ. Usually, nonfiction makes up about 20-25% of my annual reading, but this year it was up to a whopping 31%, including the following fantastic reads (in no particular order):

THE GIFTS OF IMPERFECTION: LET GO OF WHO YOU THINK YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE AND EMBRACE WHO YOU ARE by Brene Brown

Self-help books are something of a gamble for me. Am I going to read something that can help and inspire me as I navigate daily life, or am I going to experience pages of cutesy (and trademarked) Self-Help Lingo? (Don’t forget to buy the calendar, daily planner, and ticket to the seminar!) Brown’s short but engaging book definitely fell in the first column. I was still thinking about it (and enthusiastically pushing it on my very patient friends) months after I first read it.

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A PARADISE BUILT IN HELL: THE EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNITIES THAT ARISE IN DISASTER by Rebecca Solnit

I really needed this book in 2017. Rebecca Solnit (author of Men Explain Things to Me) writes about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and how humans generally respond to tragedy and disaster not with panic or selfishness, but by reaching out a helping hand to their neighbors. A great read if you’re looking to restore your faith in your fellow man.

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NEUROTRIBES: THE LEGACY OF AUTISM AND THE FUTURE OF NEURODIVERSITY by Steve Silberman

A fascinating look at the history of autism as a diagnosis. That history can be at times infuriating and deeply upsetting, but it always feels topical and relevant to the conversations we’re having today (or should be having) about creating a society where neurodiversity can thrive.

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BOOK OF AGES: THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF JANE FRANKLIN by Jill Lepore

Benjamin Franklin’s youngest sister, Jane, was his faithful correspondent for years and inherited her own set of intellectual gifts, but was denied access to education and opportunities to exercise her talents. A bittersweet but compelling history by the author of two other nonfiction books I enjoyed in 2017: The Secret History of Wonder Woman and Joe Gould’s Teeth.

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THE PEABODY SISTERS: THREE SISTERS WHO IGNITED AMERICAN ROMANTICISM by Megan Marshall

Sophia, the youngest sister and a talented artist, married Nathaniel Hawthorne. The middle sister, Mary, married the American educator Horace Mann, and was a writer and educator in her own right. And the eldest sister Elizabeth--well, she was too busy running a bookstore and teaching with Bronson Alcott and getting her brother-in-law Hawthorne a job and hanging out with Emerson and Thoreau and creating kindergartens throughout the land and basically BEING AWESOME ALL THE TIME to get married. Marshall mysteriously ends her history halfway through the sisters’ lives, but it’s still a wonderful introduction to these amazing women, and once you’re finished you can read her biography of another talented and unfairly forgotten woman: Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.

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A HOUSE FULL OF DAUGHTERS: A MEMOIR OF SEVEN GENERATIONS by Juliet Nicolson

Nicolson traces the fascinating and scandalous history of her female ancestors, including her grandmother, Vita Sackville-West. An entertaining truth-is-stranger-than-fiction account of flamenco dancers, vicious inheritance battles, and shocking (for their time) lesbian relationships.

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HARRIET TUBMAN: THE ROAD TO FREEDOM by Catherine Clinton

I spent part of 2017 catching up on American history that I’d missed (and that my education had neglected). Clinton’s biography is a wonderful introduction to Tubman, a real life superhero. Just put Harriet on all the money already.

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MARCH by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

This three-volume graphic novel series tells the story of another American hero, John Lewis. It’s a must-read history of the civil rights movement, at a time when we desperately need to remember and learn from the accomplishments of earlier generations.

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BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I don’t know what more I can say about this deservedly much-praised memoir of being a black man in America. Toni Morrison calls it “required reading.” Listen to Toni.

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STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING: THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF RACIST IDEAS IN AMERICA by Ibram X. Kendi

I think it’s okay to be a bit dubious when a book describes itself as “definitive”, but this history easily earns its subtitle, and was perhaps the most important book I read in 2017. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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