Anne Frank's Diary

I'm reading The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition. You may or not be aware that the original book was considerably edited, for several reasons. Her father, Otto, felt that some of her discussions of her mother Edith, Edith's and Otto's marriage, sexual matters, and even of some other people, were not appropriate for the public. Later, with Otto's approval and editorial help from others, a complete edition of the diary was published. (I think that was published right when my eighth grade English teacher had the class reading the earlier version, for what it's worth.)

This is like reading an almost entirely different book. Some sentences I recall from previous readings are worded differently, as well as entire passages that I've never read before. I'm also glad that I had recently read The Hidden Life of Otto Frank and have gthat much more background about the building. It is difficult, even with the floorplan in the book, to picture the Secret Annex and the rest of the building at 263 Prinsengracht, but I've read enough now to understand somewhat.

Nothing about the Holocaust is ever an easy read, but I do recommend these books.

Book Sale Pt. 2

We found another Carolyn Haywood on the return trip! That alone made it worth the going. We also found several other good books, both picture books and others. One I couldn't pass up was Round Trip by Ann Jonas. It's a fascinating picture book about a day trip- when you come to the back of the book, it literally turns around (or upside-down, to be more precise) and the pictures are standing on their heads, turned into something else entirely. As I recall, it was a Reading Rainbow book years ago, and I'd had it out of the library when I was a little girl. Delightful to find the same thing now.

Book Sale Pt.1

The county Friends of the Library is having their book sale this weekend, so we went over yesterday and will likely go again tomorrow. We came away well, with several additions to my collections (including the ever-elusive Carolyn Haywood!) and some for our homeschool and general reading shelves. We also got two cds, one of Christmas music and one of carousel music. All in all, a successful time. I hope we'll find more.

I love these books!

The artist we're learning about in our homjeschool right now is Ruth Heller. When I went looking in the library I only found one book under her name in the Easy Books section,and then I recognized the artwork as the same ase in the books about the parts of speech. Behind a Mask, Up Up and Away, and several others are books she's written and illustrated that ewxplain the parts of speech, done in rhyme. I was framiliar with them beforehand, obviously, and then I found several in the junior non-fiction section. I would highly recommend those books for any homeschooling family. Parents will learn something, as well as everyone enjoying the pictures. I imagine they could serve as a good introduction in grammar.

20 years. Right.

I've been following the CPSIA debacle pretty closely, thanks greatly to Deputy Headmistress over at The Common Room and a few others. The latest absurdity is that the commission claims that children's books have a useful life of 20 years. If, which is not specified, that means that a given copy might wear out after that much time, I can see an in-some-cases point. But just as the whole rest of this mess, nothing is spelled out as being so narrow.
The Headmistress' response was extremely well done, as always. She included a book called The Story of the Bible. This is a retelling of the Bible, as the name implies, but at an older reading level than the Children's Story Bible
by Catherine Vos. It was first printed before the turn of the twentieth century.
We have in our posession a copy of that book, which I think is the 1911 printing, that is the one and only thing I've ever seen, let alone that I have, that belonged to my great-grandfather John Towson. (This would have been Father's maternal grandfather.) It's beautiful, bound nicely, and a very good book for teaching Bible. Guess what: I fully intend to use it when Bluebonnet is older. We have my mother's copy of the Catherine Vos book, which we've been using for Bible since she was born (we're on our third read-through already). As a matter of fact, the 1950s Vos book is in less-pristine condition than the older one; evidently Mother et al used hers more. (A good problem to have with a book of Bible stories!)

Congress- have a reality check.

Books With Bluebonnet

We've been reading some very good selections in our homeschool this week. For starters, the artist we've been looking at for the last two weeks is a favorite of mine, Tasha Tudor. We have several volumes of hers ourselves, and we also checked out Thistly B from the library. It seems to be one of the less-available Tasha Tudor books, but it's just as pretty as any of her others. It's the story of a canary and his mate, raised in a nursery by a brother and sister.

We also have read The Hullaballoo ABC by Beverly Cleary, and Round is a Mooncake by Roseanne Thong. The two choices are nothing alike and both very good! In the first, farm children have more clean and grubby, noisy fun than you could imagine, going from "Aha! I see you" to "Z is for Zoom!". This looks like a great choice to read to a group of children.
The second shows vignettes of the life of a Chinese-American family, with the narrator identifying things in several shapes, from both cultures. My favorite is the part where both a pizza box and dim sum are described as square.

In father's words, I about blew a gasket!

You need to understand several things about Father.

1.He is known for some odd turns of phrase (such as the above.)

2. He can be dramatic.

3. He will tell you unequivocally that Theodore Roosevelt stands as the greatest of our presidents.

4. He does look a little bit like TR.

Now that you know that, the story will make some sense. I have an old copy of Theodore Roosevelt: Man of Action, one of those orange-covered biographies that were available in the 60s. My original copy was library discard from the school where I went for grade school; that one we had gotten rid of but then my uncle got me a new copy as a joke several years later. At any rate it's a very good child's biography of TR.
Bluebonnet pulled that off the shelf today and looked at it. Next thing I knew, she was looking at an illustration of TR playing with his children, and telling me "Opa, Opa"!

Father will laugh fit to kill when I tell him this.

Anne of the Island- spoiler alert in case you haven't read them!

When my cousins and I got into one of our book discussions about a year ago, we got on to the Anne books. My uncle, overhearing us, commented that he's always rather infuriated with Anne for the length of time it takes her to decide to marry Gilbert. I laughed at the time, nodded and thought my uncle was right.
I'm re-reading my falling-apart copy of Anne of the Island right now, and am even more convinced that he was correct. For the first time in my memory I have found myself crying over one of the Anne books. Gilbert is so incredibly patient, and loves Anne so thoroughly, that my heart breaks for him even though I know what will happen in the end. I think Anne's "relationship" with Royal Gardner is extremely ridiculous- the sort of thing that she would have imagined for herself, and indeed did imagine for herself. In light of Philippa falling in love with someone so utterly unlike anyone she thought she'd marry, it's painful to see Anne insisting that she must have only her ideal herself. How utterly blind she is!
I was reminded, by Gilbert, of R., the man who's about to marry my lifelong best friend L. in a couple months. L. and R. had met while L was involved with someone else, and from all I can tell it was similar. R. didn't push anything- he just waited until L. made up her mind. Same as Gilbert. I have no idea if R. has any knowledge of the Anne books, but I sat down and wrote a note, which I dated the day of their wedding and will put in with the cards at the reception, mentioning Gilbert and more or less telling him to take good care of one of the best girls ever.

P.s.- there's a hilarious chapter that immediately follows Anne's rejection of Gilbert. In that regard LM Montgomery did a very good job of comic relief. The same is missing from after Jo's rejection of Laurie in Little Women.

A Charming Book!

Yesterday I read a little book called A Necklace of Raindrops, by Joan Aiken. It's not new, although the copy from the library wasn't very old either. It's a collection of original stories, each separate from each other. I'm hesitant to call them fairy tales because that's somewhat the feel, but not the typical medieval fairy tale setting; they're more latter-day without feeling too "modern". One story concerns a quilt carried off by a thief, and another has the characters in a girl's books coming to life to play at night.

I was blessed enough to learn a little bit about the craft of storytelling from a dear lady who went on to Heaven a few years ago (at age 90). Her name was Sally Gottschling, and everyone who knew her, would tell you that she was the storyteller. (Some of the best stories she told were ones which put herself at the punchline! Ever since she taught me the little that I know about how to tell stories, I've kept my radar out for stories that would be good to tell. I think one of the stories in this book, "The Three Travelers," is one that I'd like to learn for telling. My repetoire is limited right now, with only three that I can truly tell well and without practice- and two of those are for Christmastime!

A Necklace of Raindrops is a definite gem, which I'd have no reservations about any child reading.

A Quote Concerning Hospitality

"The potatoes are boiling, the kettle's singing, and I daresay, Mr. Beaver, you'll get us some fish."

You may recognize that from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Perhaps because of the way it was read on a recording I used to borrow from the library, that sentence has always stuck with me and come to mind whenever hospitality is at hand, especially the more spur-of-the-moment hospitality. Remember the Beavers and have company!

Reading a favorite

It may be somewhat silly, but for about a year I've already been reading older-children's books aloud to Bluebonnet. I love children's literature in my own right, so I get to enjoy them too. right now we're reading Robert McCloskey's Homer Price. Robert McCloskey is, I'm afraid, a sadly overlooked wroter in our American lexicon. His writing and illustrations are both wonderful, slightly similar in style to Rockwell IMO.

Homer Price is a boy whose age isn't defined but is likely around 12. He lives a very American small-town life in 1940s Ohio. He seems to be a bit more observant than average, as he notices such things as exactly how an old maid outwits both of her suitors, and figures out what must have become of a missing bracelt. That observant quality, however, is not a flippant attitude toward the adults, just Homer's trait. The spoonerizing Sheriff and other characters in Centerburg make it a pretty funny read-aloud. I really recommend this one and its sequal for boys, but (obviously) it's enjoyable for girls too.