On the First Day of School...

We enjoyed our traditions: the first-day-of-school muffins (cinnamon raisin this year); the painted handprint (my, how that hand has grown since kindergarten); and the list of the sweet girl's favorite things (fun to see how those change too). This year, for the first time, she filled in that list of favorite things on her own rather than dictating them to mom to write down. Yay for learning independence.

I remembered how hard transitions can be for the sweet girl. Even good things, new things. Anything that is "different than how we've done it before" can cause her angst. (I sometimes think she will grow up a major liturgical traditionalist...)

I rejoiced to see all the good things we remembered from last year. Some of the learning habits we instilled last year are still good, solid, worth keeping. Hooray!

I felt defeated when I saw the quick re-occurrence of bad habits. I need to find ways to help S. replace bad habits with good ones. It's not enough to just say "that needs to stop." In my own life, I know that's not enough. What positive things can I put in place of the negative ones I'm trying to let go of? That's the question I ask myself. It's one I need to ask with her too.

I found myself looking forward to some new learning trails.

I almost banged my head against the wall in frustration when I found I couldn't come up with words to explain a simple writing concept. It's so hard sometimes to teach something you love with great passion and intuitively understand how to do. The passion and intuition can be great helps, except when they're not.

I remembered I need to be courageous about challenging S. to do what she can do, and to realize she can do more than she thinks she can.

I discovered we need breaks. The material is heavier and lengthier this year. We need breaks, plenty of them and varied kinds. Fresh air. Bird feeding. Walks. Picture books. Music/dance. Blessing counting. Drawing time. Whatever it takes. There's a reason our family has chosen to teach/learn this way...in fact, lots of reasons. I have to remind myself anew that I don't have to teach "traditionally." That is one of the blessings of this learning life.

All in all...probably the most challenging first day we've ever had. I figure it can only get better and better from here!

The Week in Review (1): Austen Fluff, The Bard, La Belle et La Bete

For the past eight plus years I've been writing reviews for a website called Epinions. How I got started and why I stuck around writing for them is worth a post sometime, and I may yet write it!

But for now I just have to say that I love writing reviews, especially of books and movies. When I write about the things I've been reading and watching here, I often link to my longer reviews on Epinions, and I plan to continue doing that in as natural a way as possible.

Beginning today, however, I thought I'd begin a weekly posting with links to the reviews I've written and published in the preceding week. If something strikes your interest, I hope you'll click over and give the review a read...and you can always feel free to leave me a comment here.

Some weeks I review quite a bit and other weeks not so much, so the length of these posts will likely vary. My goal is to try to get them up on a Friday or Saturday.

This week's reviews feature:

My yearly Austen fluff beach read (we did our mini-vacation to Lake Erie last weekend)~ North by Northanger by Carrie Bebris. This is part of her Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Detectives series and it was surprisingly fun and even more surprisingly touching. Her Lady Catherine is especially spot-on, so if you just can't get enough of Lady Catherine's dulcet tones, I highly recommend it.

A delightful documentary that goes behind the scenes of the 1988 theatrical production where Kenneth Branagh, directed by Derek Jacobi, played Hamlet for the first time. Discovering Hamlet is definitely for theater geeks, but they'll love it.

Jean Cocteau's 1946 romantic fantasy film Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et La Bete). I hadn't seen this in years, but it was just as fascinating as I remembered. Poetic screenplay, visually stunning effects. I just can't seem to keep away from versions of Beauty and the Beast. My review links to some different book and film versions.

..."Watch Your Aim..."

I was cleaning in the kitchen this morning and found a tiny scrap of paper on the floor. It turned out it was a torn piece of my favorite Chinese fortune cookie message ever. I kept it on the fridge for ages, but I guess it fell off. I had to toss it, but that's okay...I still remember the message, which I shall quote here for your amusement and enjoyment.

"You will be a dragon of creative fire this week. Watch your aim."

I provide this especially for my writing friends (you know who you are) who are trying to stoke the creative flames.

Someone should really come up with a whole set of fortune cookie messages that inspire and encourage creativity. Or...wouldn't this be a cool gift for a writing friend...a whole set of fortune cookies filled with writing prompts!

To Buy or Not to Buy: That is the Homeschooling Curriculum Question

We're less than two weeks from the beginning of our school year and I am in major planning mode. I'm printing forms for our binders, getting books set on the shelves, planning lessons, and just generally getting excited about the continuation of our learning journey. Not that the journey really stopped in the summer, but we did take a good, long break from routine. The sweet girl enjoyed six weeks of arts camp, a week-long VBS, and some days in New England during our unexpected family time there. We've still got our family's end of summer mini-vacation ahead, but to all intents and purposes, summer is winding down.

This is usually the time of year when I'm either patting myself on the back because of wise and prudent homeschooling purchases/planning, or groaning because I either goofed something up, neglected to purchase something we still really need, or spent too much on something I ended up wishing I hadn't bought. This year it's actually a combination of all those things, which led me to think a blog post on homeschool curriculum buying (or not buying) might be a good thing.

I am generally the queen of frugal when it comes to homeschool purchases. I have to be, because we're broke (not a joke or exaggeration...it's been true for a while, but it's grown especially true with the recent loss of one job whose significant income has yet to be replaced). Even if I didn't have to be this frugal, however, I suspect I would be anyway, and not just because I'm Scottish! There are so many wonderful learning resources our there, but not every single one is a necessary purchase. And while sometimes the only way you can figure that out is to buy it and hope, other times you can find ways to figure out in advance if a book, curriculum or other resource is right for you and your family.

As we head into our 5th year of homeschooling on the thinnest of shoestrings, I thought I'd pass along a few tips I've picked up along the way.

First off, repeat after me.

Public libraries are your friends.

I know this sounds obvious, but it bears repeating. It's not just that you can find wonderful books, audio and video resources at the library -- and you can. A good library catalog can be a huge aid in homeschool planning. Here are a few ways I like to put our excellent library catalog to use:

~Researching keywords and topics. If I know in advance some of the areas the sweet girl will be studying in history, science, and art (and I do) then keyword searches often turn up excellent resources, including many I've never heard of. If your library catalog system is sophisticated enough, you can search not just "all libraries" within a system but "all juvenile" collections. Refining that way can be very helpful on certain topics, though in the realm of art and music (when you just want to look at great pictures and listen to great composers) searching the whole system is a plus.

~Searching by author. If you fall in love with a given author on a topic, cross-search and see what else they've done. We've found some wonderful things this way!

~Use that hold shelf! Most libraries will allow you to request things from other libraries within the county's system and have them delivered to the hold shelf at your particular library.

~Use ILL. If the system doesn't have a resource, you can go outside the system via inter-library loan and get books sent to you from libraries around the country. This service sometimes requires a nominal fee, though not usually. (And you can usually mark on the ILL form whether or not you're willing to pay for a resource.)

~Borrow first, buy later (if at all). Say you've fallen in love with an online curriculum package but you know you can't afford to buy it. You jot down with pen and paper (or via delicious bookmarks) the books you think would be especially good for your homeschool year. Next step, see if the library has them. Not planning to use them until October? No matter. Borrow them now and discover if they're resources you really want to use. If they are, evaluate them to see if they're something you actually need to own. If the book is chock full of good stuff and you could see yourself needing to continually consult it, refer your child to it, or otherwise use it for a significant portion of the year, you may want to go on and buy it. If it's simply a book you think you could get a good one or two time use out of, and the library has it, then be prepared to request it and have it sent to your hold shelf in time for that portion of your studies. Holds can sometimes come in quickly, but once in a while they don't, so if it's an important enough resource that you know you really want to use it for a given project or unit, put the request through at least two weeks in advance.

Sometimes I discover that a book itself is not something we absolutely need to own, but the book may lead me to other books I didn't know about. Or (in the case of internet-linked books, like those in the Usborne series) I may check the book out of the library for a few weeks, bookmark the websites they refer to, and then return the book. I've begun using the delicious website to bookmark learning sites and tag them for different subjects/units/years, which helps me keep track of what we want to do when.

Besides utilizing the library like crazy, I do have a few other tips.

Don't buy anything on a whim.

Again, sounds obvious, but it's helpful. I probably overthink my buying choices, but I usually find the results are better when I do. I actually bought two things "on a whim" this year, highly unusual for me, and I now definitely regret one purchase and may yet regret the other (though am still hoping to eke something good from it).

It's particularly important that you don't buy on a whim if you don't have very good technology (and folks on a budget often don't) and are looking to purchase downloadable curriculum. PDF files, videos, zip files, MP3s, podcasts -- they're all the rage right now. But these visual and audio resources are only convenient and helpful for you if you can actually take advantage of them. If your computer is old and slow, as mine is, small curriculum resources (manageable sized PDFs, etc.) might be fine to purchase, but larger things are going to give you a big headache. Believe me!

Another trend I'm beginning to see is purchasing access to resources on a site. Sometimes this is an excellent idea, but I still urge caution. Use a website thoroughly before you purchase access rights. Make sure it has a lot of resources you need and that they're organized in a way that's easy to navigate. I purchased access on a website earlier this year which looked great on the surface, but I'm finding less of use than I expected, and it's not in very good order. Nine times out of ten, I find myself going to a similar site that has tons of FREE resources -- a site I already knew and loved. I should have stuck with it and figured out ways to create my own resources for the stuff I couldn't find.

Don't be afraid to take time or to get creative. Or to ask for what you need!

I know lots of homeschool curricula that tell you they've taken all the work out of things for you so you'll have more time. And that can be wonderful. I don't blame them for trying to sell time and convenience, especially since most of us need it. On the other hand, sometimes it's OK if you decide to forgo the pretty package and look into buying that handful of books used from online vendors. It's true -- it might take you two hours and you might only save twelve dollars, but sometimes saving twelve dollars is necessary. And sometimes you may find yourself learning a few things in the process of searching. (On the other hand, don't torture yourself with false guilt if you're having the kind of week...month...year...where time feels so precious that you really need those two hours more than the twelve dollars and decide to buy the pretty package.)

And guess what? That science curriculum you thought looked so cool, the one you couldn't afford to buy? They just might have free sample pages of their workbook. Download them. Study them. Figure out what you can utilize in your own learning environment. I did that last year and ended up creating some nice experiment notebooking pages that worked so much better for our needs than anything pre-packaged could have. I felt so grateful to that company for making some of their materials free, because those materials gave me great ideas. So if you like a certain company's products and ideas, spend time on their website. Order their catalog. Pick their brains. Literally. Many homeschool vendors are families who have been right where you are now. Send them an email. Ask questions. Sometimes they are willing to go above and beyond...they'll answer your questions, suggest resources, point you to their blog (that you may not have known about) or do all other manner of things to help you encourage learning for your kids. The homeschool world, in all its diversity, can be a pretty charitable and encouraging place.

And oh, that's another great part of homeschooling planning.

Swap and share.

You've probably got resources you're not using anymore, either because your kids have outgrown them or they weren't a good fit for your family. Find another family and bless them with those things, either by loaning or giving. Or look for buying/selling boards in a local homeschool group or an online forum. And don't be afraid to ask other homeschooling families if you can borrow. I have friends who have kept me going, in very lean years, by the judicious loan of books and CDs right when I needed them. Sometimes I've up and asked friends if I can borrow something. One year when I simply could not purchase our math curriculum teacher's guides, and couldn't imagine pushing through the year without them (I can be a chicken when it comes to math teaching) I asked a friend if I could borrow her guides. She had children older and younger than mine, and it turned out she didn't need that particular year right then. She was happy to do it. (Just make sure you set aside a "borrowed" shelf, or keep a catalog list of what you've borrowed, so you can return things when done.)

Keeping an eye out for sales and giveaways (through blogs or FB) is always helpful. Sometimes you might also be able to barter or work for resources. I'm a review writer and that has helped me a lot. Maybe there's a company that has a new product. Would you be willing to review it for them? Ask. They might give it to you free or at low cost in exchange for an honest review. Or they might have customer review rewards already in place.

I've ventured far afield! But I hope at least a few of these ideas might spark something for you if you're homeschooling on a budget. If you are, and if you have thoughts, ideas, or questions, I hope you'll leave me a comment.

Wisdom from Jack

A little Monday morning wisdom from C.S. Lewis, courtesy of a friend's Facebook status:

"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts. " ~C.S. Lewis

Irrigating deserts, yes! And remember, deserts can bloom!

Poetry Friday: The Gift

When I was going through old papers the other day, I stumbled upon a few photocopied poems by Li-Young Lee. I can't remember when I first read his poem "The Gift," but coming upon it unexpectedly and reading it again was indeed a gift.

I love the way Lee tells two stories in this poem, linking the present and the past by way of a small silver splinter. The power of memory shines in this poem, as well as the power of the love we carry with us through memories.

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.


The rest of the poem can be found here at The Poetry Foundation. Karen Edmisten is hosting Poetry Friday this week.

Excavating Treasures

My week has had a strange rhythm. Household tasks (cleaning, organizing), lesson planning and trying to figure out the shape of my fall, lots of Penderwicks on audio (the sweet girl has fallen head over heels for the entire series), with VBS happening in the evenings. No other week this summer will look or feel quite like this one.

The organizing in our laundry room ~ which doubles as a sort of attic space/catch-all ~ has been interesting. I found a stash of papers that I clearly pulled from boxes a long time ago, probably during some other organizing season in my life, with the intention of doing something with them. I still haven't done much with them, beyond sorting through to see what's mine, what's D's, what needs to be filed for practical purposes (if anything at this late date) and what can go straight to recycling. It's an odd bunch of papers, ranging from receipts and other bits and pieces of ephemera to articles printed from the internet, snippets of poems I worked on a few years back, and scribbled drawings by the sweet girl at different ages.

It feels a little bit like excavating your life to come across things like this. I had a similar feeling earlier this summer when I went through some boxes of things I'd stored in my sister's attic during college, twenty plus years ago. Only that was a even stranger feeling since the layers went so much deeper.

Except for a few pages that seemed to have tumbled out of a very old writing file and gotten lost, the farthest this pile stretched back was four years. I know it's four years, because I found this little poem I wrote when the sweet girl was in kindergarten and learning to write her letters:

Learning to Write an "S"

I'm sketching a snake
who likes to skate
across my slate.

I also found essays by Kathleen Norris, poems by Li Young Lee, obituaries of and tributes to Madeleine L'Engle, annotated pages on John Granger's thoughts on postmodernism, and recipes for winter squash.

Tired and ear-achey as I am (and that's part of this week's rhythm too) I had to smile over all these treasures.

I Doubt Boadicea Made Bluberry Muffins

It's been an odd sort of day. I've been catching up on household chores and doing some lesson planning for the fall, but it's been slow going since I'm not feeling the best. The sweet girl has been into creating drawings for a story she's been making up, and she's used a lot of chalk pastels. She kept getting chalk on her face and at one point, I told her she looked like a Celtic warrior. Next thing I knew, she'd covered her face with blue chalk.

So naturally I had to get out the Braveheart soundtrack. And naturally we had to dig up our old Story of the World, Volume 1 (Ancient History) to refresh our memories of the Celtic warriors who fought against Rome, especially Boadicea, the woman warrior queen.

We also made blueberry muffins. We'd been planning to all week, and wanted to make sure we got a batch made while we still had some fresh berries. The color seemed to fit the theme, but not much else. It's a little hard to picture Celtic warriors chomping muffins on the run. Though I suppose you never know...

72 Years of Cinema Magic

We had a fun family outing yesterday morning. A local theater has been doing a family film movie club this summer. On certain weekday mornings they run old (sometimes classic) family films, with ticket prices set at $1 per person. Since camp ended last week (and VBS doesn't start till next week) this was the week we could give it a try.

Fortunately, it turned out to be the one week we really wanted to go. We got to see The Wizard of Oz! The sweet girl's first time to ever see it (though she knows the book) and my umpteenth viewing but the first time I've ever seen it on a big screen. Wow -- so many things I missed during all those years of catching it on television.

And how well this film has stood the test of time. My father saw it when it was first released to theaters back in 1939. He was 7 at the time, and was terrified of the flying monkeys. And yes, they're still scary!

The tornado is just an awesome special effect -- and not just by 1939 standards -- the early date just makes it even more impressive. I told D. that in all the dozens of times I'd seen the film on the small screen, I'd never paid the twister much attention. It was there in the background, and my attention was with Dorothy struggling in the storm winds in the foreground. But when you see it BIG -- wow. It's menacing! It just dominates the screen! Last night we found ourselves reading an online article about how they managed the affect (dirt, dust, fans, muslin, wires...) and it's really amazing to realize the creativity that went into that.

Some of the performances really stood out on the big screen too. Margaret Hamilton's witch was delightfully wicked (that last line, when she melts, is just wonderfully delivered) and Ray Bolger's Scarecrow is as sweet as I remembered. The Cowardly Lion was funnier than I remembered. And Judy Garland just about melted my heart on "Over the Rainbow."

Despite a bit of graininess to some of the distance shots, and a couple of segments where the sound was not quite in sync with the picture, it was just a terrific cinematic experience. It makes me wish that theaters would bring classic films back more often. Over the years I've had the opportunity to see a few on the big screen (The Sound of Music, Gone With the Wind) but there are many more I'd love to see. And I love that the sweet girl's first cinematic memory of The Wizard of Oz will be this one.

Happy Birthday, Harry!

I've lived for almost fourteen years in the same very small town. I've walked countless miles on the streets and sidewalks. Every block has multiple memories attached to it.

Would you believe I actually have a literary memory rooted here? It has to do with the drugstore about 3 blocks from our house. It's a chain store that's changed names over the years but still looks much as it did when we moved to town. It's not the drugstore where we have our pharmacy so I'm not there too often, but since it's so close, I do pop in from time to time.

When the sweet girl was an infant, I was going through a difficult season. I was filled with joy over becoming a mom and loving our precious baby, but I was also struggling with postpartum depression. Several family members and friends passed away in the first eleven months of our daughter's life. It was a season tempered by high joys and deep griefs, often tumbling close together.

In the midst of all this, I was not always getting much sleep. Sometimes I just needed a break. My dear husband would say "take an hour" and shoo me out the door, often encouraging me to pick up my favorite Chinese food a few blocks away. I was working part-time at the seminary then and had my own office, and I would often take a book and the Chinese food and go hole up in the office (with the door locked) for about an hour, just to have some alone time.

And it was during that season that I fell in love with the Harry Potter books.

I'd read Sorcerer's Stone several months before. And I enjoyed it. D. and I agreed it was highly creative, especially the final chapters (with that eerie and interesting end we hadn't foreseen). I liked the characters, the humor, the plays on words.

But it was a busy season of life. And while I knew I wanted to go on to book two, I didn't feel compelled to read it immediately, the way you sometimes feel when you finish a story.

All of that changed the day I wandered into that little drugstore down the road, worn out and in need of some reading material. It's such a laugh to think I was looking for reading material in a drugstore, of all places. Our shelves at home are crammed with books. The library's about two blocks in the other direction. I was actually looking for a glossy magazine with pretty pictures, preferably of houses and gardens (I was so very tired right then that I'd discovered home and garden type magazines with pretty pictures were my best bet for reading material during the many hours I was nursing my baby).

What I found was a paperback copy of Chamber of Secrets. Oh, I thought, that's the second Harry Potter book. I've been meaning to read that. I picked it up, made sure I had enough money on me to purchase it, and took it to the counter. And I'm pretty sure I started it that afternoon, quite possibly holed up in my office with a carton of chicken and broccoli and a fortune cookie.

The rest, as they say, is history. I loved Chamber of Secrets. It made me laugh, it kept me on the edge of my seat, and I fell in love with Harry and his friends. It was the book that compelled me -- almost immediately -- to go find the third and fourth books (the only ones out at that time) and to wait with eager anticipation for the fifth. And reading that book propelled me into some of the best communal, literary discussion I've ever been privileged to enjoy, discussion that kept going for years.

So here at the end of July 31st, I tip my hat to the local drugstore, a strange literary landmark if there ever was one. I remain inordinately fond of their magazine and book aisle, though I'm not sure I've ever purchased anything else from it. And I also tip my hat to Harry and to his author, J.K. Rowling, and wish them both the happiest of birthdays.

Brave Writer

I've been working on homeschool plans for the fall and am having entirely too much fun exploring the Brave Writer website. Although I plan to continuing using Writing With Ease for our main writing curriculum this year, I'm looking forward to supplementing with some of the Brave Writer materials. I've also been mining the site and its accompanying blog for ideas (Friday Free Writes, complete with prompts! Poetry Teatimes!) and enjoying some of the posts there.

And I must say I love this saying from what they term the Brave Writer lifestyle, which feels so appropriate for how I'm trying to shape our whole lifestyle of learning that I think I should write it with a gold metallic marker and put it somewhere near my desk: "Remember: depth over breadth, enjoyment over struggle, commitment over clutter."

Little Princess: Book and Film

The sweet girl and I have both been feeling a little under the weather the past few days. Nothing terrible, but extra tired (probably the heat).

Last night her Daddy had to work late, and we decided that we needed a girl's movie night, even though it was just Monday -- movie nights in our household tend to be on Fridays. But hey, it's summer! And it felt good to loll around for a bit!

So during dinner we watched Little Princess, the Alfonso Cuaron directed version from 1995. It was the sweet girl's pick: she's been interested in seeing it ever since we finished our second read-through of the book, which is one of her absolute favorites.

I'd seen the movie before, and remembered a lot of the changes made to the plot, but I'd forgotten how much they seem to miss the heart of the book. I know I'm biased because the book is so beloved. And I continue to struggle with the idea of whether or not faithfulness to the source material is a valid criteria for judging the ultimate success of a film. I'm torn between reviewing a film on its own merits as a film, and providing contrasts with the book. I usually end up trying to find a balance.

At least that's what I tried in this review I posted at Epinions earlier today. If you know the book or the movie, or if you know both, what do you think? Would you agree with my assessment that "striving to act like a princess in terribly degraded circumstances is a real and moving struggle for Sarah Crewe, and that struggle is mostly lost in translation"?

Because sometimes films can have beautiful artistry in their own right and yet retain the heart of the source material. D. and I recently finished re-watching To Kill a Mockingbird, and once again I'm in awe at how well that movie captures the essence of the book. The book makes me weep, but then so does the film. Different sorts of weeping maybe, but tapping the same stream.

Reading and Writing Biography and History: What Matters Most

A friend of mine recently emailed me an article entitled "So Many Different Dietrich Bonhoeffers" by Richard Weikart. Within the context of his wider agenda of discussing the ways in which Bonhoeffer has been made over in the image of various liberal and conservative thinkers, Weikart takes Eric Metaxas' recent biography of Bonhoeffer to task for this very practice. He castigates Metaxas for actual historic errors, a lack of deep understanding of historical and theological context, and finally, for presenting a portrait of Bonhoeffer that is far too evangelical.

I found myself at sixes and sevens when I read this piece. First of all, I should note that I read Metaxas' Bonhoeffer biography this past February. To be more honest, I should say I tumbled headfirst inside it and devoured it. Laying aside, just for a moment, any or all qualms about its historical accuracy or the worth of its interpretive lens (we'll come back to those things) the book was crafted so well from a stylistic standpoint that it was hard to put down. Metaxas, whose book on Wilberforce I truly loved, has a way of warmly inviting readers into the story of his subject. He has a knack of making you feel as though you are in the person's presence. He is also artful in his use of quotes. In other words, he can tell a good story (something I am coming to prize in the world of biography) and his tales go down easy.

But when it comes to writing biography, is spinning a good story enough if one isn't historically accurate? And how much does one's own context come into play in the way one spins a tale?

Although I devoured the Bonhoeffer book, I did not feel the full-hearted love for it that I had for the Wilberforce volume. It left me feeling a little unsatisfied and ragged. In fact, I never reviewed the book, as I normally would such a large volume I'd spent so much time with. It took me a while to muddle through to why, and my reflections helped me to think through how much the shape of a subject's life also affects the shape of a biography.

One reason the Bonhoeffer biography felt untidy and somehow incomplete is that Bonhoeffer's life felt that way. I don't mean to speculate on how Bonhoeffer himself felt when he died. Indeed, the accounts we have of his death seem to indicate that he died peacefully, a man at rest with God. But the fact remains that he was a victim of war; his life came to a tragic and sudden end when he was only 39, and when the war was almost over. Presumably, had the government not discovered Canaris' diaries, it would not have gone after the conspirators. With the war so close to its end, he would likely have been liberated and perhaps gone on to live a long life, thinking, writing, and teaching more. And had he done so, probably many of the questions people raise about his theology would have become much more clear.

The fact that Bonhoeffer was in prison for almost two years before he died also seems to complicate things for Metaxas, and (I would imagine) for any biographer. There's only so much we know about those final two years, most of it from letters and poems Bonhoeffer wrote from prison, or from the memories of loved ones who visited him during that time. The last three months, when he was being moved often and in secrecy, are almost a complete blank. Here is where I really struggled with Metaxas' biography, because he had to rely almost completely on the reminisces of people who just happened to share prison transports and cells with Bonhoeffer. Their perspective can make you feel as though you're viewing blurred snapshots from the final months, and those only taken every few days.

But back to my original musings about what makes good history and biography. Weikart certainly isn't the only critic to call Metaxas' work into question. Fellow evangelicals, though more sympathetic in tone, have also called him on his scholarship. There's a really good article from Christianity Today back in February (yes, I'm late to this party) that rounds up early reactions and responses to the book. Even the author of this article, who lauds Metaxas for his vivid writing (and doesn't dismiss the worth the book still has, which I appreciate) admits that the book is "agenda-driven." But of course he does so within the context of admitting that all history/biography (and even all book reviews!) are agenda-driven to some extent.

To some extent. I repeat that, because it seems to me that sometimes our writing is not so much agenda-driven (which implies we've consciously got our agenda in the front seat, calling the shots) as worldview soaked.

It's true that it helps us to clearly know from what perspective/lens (and potential bias) we're writing from, but writing from one is a given. We can't perch on an imaginary objective pedestal when we write: we write from a given place, time, and culture colored by our own unique personal history and understanding.

I also think there are times when writing from a clearly inhabited perspective is helpful. It's true that there are times when our given perspective distorts what we see and how we report it. But there may also be times when our given perspective sharpens what we see and how we write about it. In this particular case, I'm thinking that, while it seems to be true that Metaxas' understanding of Bonhoeffer's theological context doesn't go very deep, his perspective as an evangelical does help him to ferret out those places where Bonhoeffer manages to get past his own potential biases to critique theological liberalism -- in American seminaries of the period, for instance, or even in the work of his teacher Harnack. Doesn't it seem worth noting the places where Bonhoeffer steps outside the box you assume he would fit most comfortably inside, given the theological training he was steeped in? Does it take evangelical eyes to see those places?

So what, beyond in-depth research and artful telling, matters most when writing good biography and history? I'm still thinking this through. It seems that much biographical writing would be helped by a candid acknowledgment of our own context (with its potential strengths and drawbacks), a willingness to wrestle with at least some key sources that interpret a subject from a different perspective of our own, and a steeping (as much as possible) in the voice of our biographical subject. One reason I love using primary sources when I teach history is that nothing seems to take the place of hearing the actual voice of someone from the time period under discussion. Yes, sometimes those texts will be in translation (and that raises the issue of perspective in translation work!) and we still have to interpret what we read, but a thoughtful wrestling with primary sources can still go a long way toward insuring that we have a thorough understanding of a biographical subject.

More on this another time.

Poetry Units for Modern History

I'm knee-dip in curriculum planning for the fourth grade this fall and loving it. Yes, I know, I'm a bit of a geek that way.

So tell me...if you were planning to introduce/study 4-6 English speaking poets to and with a 4th grader, poets that would correlate with the modern history time period we're also studying (1850 to the present) which poets would you choose? I've already decided on 3, but am hoping to choose another 1-3 poets, and I'm genuinely curious to know who comes to mind for other readers/teachers/poetry lovers. (I'll post more about my selections soon.)

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Literary Mice (Or "I think mice are rather nice.")

When the sweet girl was younger, we seemed to read an awful lot of books about bears and bunnies. Come to think of it, we still do (some old favorites, some new). But lately it feels like everywhere we turn, we're running into literary mice.

I've blogged about literary dragons, so it seems only fitting that I move to the opposite end of the spectrum, at least size-wise, and post a bit about some of our favorite literary rodents. There certainly are a lot of them...

My thoughts started moving in this direction several weeks ago when our family enjoyed a read-aloud of Margery Sharp's The Rescuers. This tale about three brave mice, Miss Bianca, Bernard, and Nils, was the inspiration for a Disney film of the same name which is nevertheless an entirely different story. As much as I like the Disney film, I prefer the book, especially with its wonderful pictures by Garth Williams.

My favorite literary mouse, bar none, is the incomparable Reepicheep. First introduced in Prince Caspian, the second of the Chronicles of Narnia, he absolutely steals your heart in the third volume, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (That I have only reviewed the film version of this story I've loved my whole life is something of a travesty...though it's perhaps understandable. I have a hard time reviewing books I love as deeply as VDT, books that have become part of my heart's terrain.) Maybe I can redeem my shortcoming a bit with this post from the archives about Reep as an Anglo-Saxon warrior.

Kate DiCamillo has certainly added to the prestige of literary mice with her Tale of Despereaux. And who can forget Beverly Cleary's Mouse and the Motorcycle (and subsequent volumes) or E.B. White's Stuart Little?

Perhaps because they're small and unobtrusive, mice often make great observers of history. I'm thinking, of course, of Amos, the inventive mouse of Ben Franklin in Robert Lawson's Ben and Me; the tiny white mouse-poet who befriends Emily Dickinson in The Mouse of Amherst; and Celeste, the mouse with a window on Audubon's world in Henry Cole's gorgeously illustrated A Nest for Celeste.

We've known so many picture book mice I know I can't possibly remember them all. One of our recent favorites is Bella and Bean, by poet Rebecca Kai Dotlich, creative pictures by Aileen Leijten. We also enjoyed Two Christmas Mice by Corrine Demas, illustrated by Stephanie Roth. One of my oldest literary mouse friends is Frederick, in Leo Lionni's book of the same name, about a mouse who stores colors for the bleak winter while all the other mice are scurrying about storing food.

When I think of books for littles, several mice come to mind. Although I'm not a huge fan of the television tie-in versions, during the preschool years we did enjoy the whimsical pictures of the original Angelina Ballerina by Katharine Holabird. Two of my favorite illustrations of books for very young children, John Butler and Jane Dyer, both do themselves proud with mice pictures in While You Were Sleeping and Time for Bed. Mice make gentle bedtime book companions!

Rose Fyleman's poem that begins "I think mice are rather nice..." has long been a favorite in our household. Melissa Wiley features Scottish Robert Burns' poem To a Mouse in The Far Side of the Loch, her second book in the Martha series. (My review of that book is forthcoming; meanwhile here's my review of the first Martha Book, Little House in the Highlands.)

Humorous Kenn Nesbitt gives us the poem "If You Give a Mouse a Motorcycle", a title which manages to pay clever tribute both to Beverly Cleary and to the popular If You Give a Mouse... series of books by Laura Joffe Numeroff.

I know I'm forgetting numerous poems, picture books, and longer stories...in fact, I feel sure I've overlooked some obviously epic mouse. I'd edit as I think of more. (I decided to save literary rats for another post.) And if you have favorite mouse poems, stories, or books, please drop me a comment! I'll be glad to add to the ongoing list.

"Here is the only place I can love Him."

I didn't mean to disappear from the blog. A few days of travel, a moving fully into summer rhythm, and I have found myself needing to take a hiatus from journaling here. I've savored time to do other sorts of writing, reading, thinking.

I've been reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts, a book it's a special delight to hold and read since I've spent many a moment on Ann's blog over the past few years, and because I entered into her gratitude exercise a long while ago. I've been keeping more of those blessing lists in my physical, hand-held journal (which has suddenly felt deeply important to me again) but have yet to transfer any of the lists to the blog. Maybe this evening, or tomorrow.

One of the blessings of Ann's book is her meditation on time, especially the need for us to live in the present moment -- a pearl of wisdom it seems to me so many people have spoken to my heart over the years, but which I continually need to be called back to and to heed again. Her sparse, poetic language flows so beautifully, and I find that once in a while, a line just jumps off the page and straight into my heart. "Here is the only place I can love Him," was one such line this morning. She's referring to her love for God. And here -- this moment, this today. How true this is. We cannot love him in the past because it's gone. We cannot love him in the future yet because it's not here. HERE is the only place I can love Him -- wherever our HERE happens to be.

I say this during a week where I have thought a lot about the past. Time spent at my sister's unearthed old journals and letters I'd left in boxes in her attic two decades and a little bit more ago. Two decades does not seem like a lot of time, but oh the younger self that spilled from those dog-eared notebooks and tattered envelopes. How much I needed to sit with that younger self for a while and laugh and cry and laugh some more and remember her passions and mistakes and bad poetry and surprising snippets of stories. It was good to sit with her, like meeting an old friend.

I say "Here is the only place I can love Him," during a week in which the 95 year old woman who first led me to Jesus is in the hospital in my old hometown. Mrs. B. suffered a heart attack a few days ago; she's weak and frail but peaceful. The same night she suffered her attack, her 67 year old pastor son also suffered a heart attack (how connected are our hearts, I wonder?) and though frail Mrs. B. survived, the robust son did not. I am thankful indeed that my mother and father, who love Mrs. B. as they would their own mothers (she has truly been a spiritual mentor, friend, mother, grandmother, to our whole family) are there with her now. They're able to feed her and pray with her and just be with her, especially in this time when much of the immediate family must be away from her bedside to travel the few hours for the son's funeral. They're able to return a cupful of blessings to a woman who has waterfalled blessings on our family for so many years. And they're doing it in the hospital where my own dad spent a week fourteen months ago, which means they're getting a chance to see doctors, nurses, maintenance people who blessed them then.

I did say maintenance people. The head maintenance man was a tremendous gift to my parents when my father was in hospital. When my mother first met him, my dad was so ill we didn't think he would recover. My mother was at her lowest ebb and had been all alone, praying. She literally thought he was an angel sent to minister to her, his words were so encouraging, his countenance so loving. It turns out he has the voice of an angel, a beautiful gospel-singing voice that he uses to minister to patients. He sang for my dad over a year ago. He sang for Mrs. B. yesterday. "Because He lives, you can face tomorrow."

God will be in all our tomorrows. He is in all our yesterdays (a wonderful thing to know as I meander down this street called memory). But here...HERE...is the only place I can love him. Right now.

Meditation for July

"He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights." ~ Psalm 18:33

I set this verse to a tune this evening so the sweet girl and I can sing it together. We're at the beginning of our third or fourth read through of Hinds' Feet on High Places (an adapted version for children). This lovely book about a character named "Much-Afraid" and the Chief Shepherd who leads her out of the valley of her fears and into the heights of the kingdom of love really seems to speak to my daughter's heart. It speaks to mine too. And so this is the verse on which we'll meditate this month.

Some Favorite Moments

This week has been full of fun moments. Here are just a few...

First, I'd forgotten how wonderful it feels to get dirt under your fingernails. The sweet girl and I have begun planting in our raised bed in the community gardens. We did a few potted flowering plants, and plan to do a few other potted/seedling sorts of transplants (some herbs, maybe a tomato plant or two, or some green peppers) but even though it's late in the season to start, we thought we'd give some seeds a try. We'll see how it goes. I'd almost forgotten the wonderful absurdity of seeds. So tiny they're almost not there -- hard to hold onto when the wind is blowing -- paper thin -- easy to lose -- and YET. We plant them with this cheerful expectation that something real and living will emerge from them, maybe even grow beautiful and fruitful. No wonder Jesus loved seeds as kingdom metaphors.

Then there's the joy of finishing a task, and finishing it well! After the great computer crash of late May/early June, I finally got the homeschool portfolio completely finished. Had a blessedly graced evaluation time with the official evaluator yesterday (sweet girl read to her from "Ramona's World") and today I handed the portfolio with official evaluator letter over to the district office. Hey, 24 hours to spare! The regular secretary wasn't there, but the helpful person in the office filled out the receipt for me. And I wish you could have seen my face when she asked, "So, do you have your affidavit for the 2011-2012 school year yet?" Um. Oh...right...I have to do this *all over again*.... She quickly assured me I still had time, but added some folks just turn them in when they bring the portfolio for the year just finishing. Which is really smart, but far more together than I can manage to be at the moment!

Finally, in the little gifts are sometimes the best gifts category, I've been thoroughly enjoying how much the sweet girl is loving one of her simplest birthday presents. I picked up a new sketch diary for her, along with a set of Crayola "pipsqueak" markers (little ones, brightly colored). They've gotten tons of use, and she's completely enthusiastic. Yes, the big present (a lovely doll she's named Emily Susanah Madeleine) was also a hit, but it's a good reminder to me that a small gift, lovingly chosen, is sometimes the best gift of all.

And without realizing it, I think I just added three things to my ongoing gratitude list. (#s 137-139)

Nine Years Ago...

It's rare that you know exactly what you were doing a given number of years ago on a certain day and time. But when you're commemorating the birth of your first born (and only) daughter, it's pretty easy to recall with great clarity!

Nine years ago right now I was exhausted and marveling over the miracle of the sweet girl's birth. I remember so much of that long day (following a very long night) with great clarity, including the thunderstorm outside the hospital window. Most of all, I just remember being utterly grateful for how the Lord had brought us through a difficult labor and delivery ~ and how precious that little baby in my arms (so tiny!) truly was.

And now I look at my long-legged, slender, twirling, laughing, fancy-dress wearing, short hair-cut sporting, doll hugging, brussels sprouts eating, punny, artistic, loving and creative nine year old...and I marvel even more.

Books About Books

Lately I seem to be on a tear of reading books about books. It started a couple of weeks back when I found A Jane Austen Education on the new book shelves at our little library. No sooner had I finished that than my copy of The Wilder Life hit the hold shelves two towns over.

I'm working on reviews of both, but I found myself wanting to jot a few thoughts here. These were both fascinating reads...highly different from one another in some essential ways, and yet similar too. They both seem to fall into the genre I'm coming to think of as literary memoir, or maybe "book lover's confessional" would be more appropriate.

A Jane Austen Education is subtitled "How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter." (In other words, "everything I need to know I learned from Jane...")

The Wilder Life (a title which could probably lead one into unintended trouble if googled indiscriminately) is subtitled "My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie."

Both books are written by highly literate and liberal folks -- good writers, very educated, with a deep love of story. William Deresiewicz, who used to teach at Yale, has the honor of being perhaps the most interesting male writer I've ever read on Austen. His book is about two-thirds thought-provoking literary criticism (he gives readings of all six of Austen's novels) and one-third memoir/confessional. What fascinates me most about this book, written from the perspective of a Jewish academic who seems mostly secular, is that his main thesis boils down to this: reading Jane Austen helped him to be a kinder, more compassionate, deeper human being. In fact, I think you could actually argue persuasively from his arguments that what he learned from Austen is the need for Christian virtues (and the beauty of holiness).

Wendy McClure, the author of the Wilder book, sounds even younger and hipper than Deresiewicz, whom I gather is about my age (hence not so young and hip anymore, though certainly not decrepit). She's also a lot less academic...though her impressive writer credentials include an MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her prose style reminds me a bit of Anne Lamott, if one could ever imagine Anne Lamott wearing a sunbonnet and trekking across the prairie in an obsessive search for some elusive...something. That is, something that has to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder and her story, something that somehow might connect to the trekker's own story.

I have to admit I laughed out loud multiple times while reading The Wilder Life. I love (love, love) all the Little House books. I've loved them since childhood, and I've loved reading them all to my daughter (except for the First Four Years, which I've not been able to bring myself to put her through yet). McClure knows the books backwards and forwards, and it was easy to fall into a deep kinship with her experience of inhabiting the world of the books so deeply. I too inhabited Laura's story in my childhood. And whenever I enter the books again, I still feel like I do ~ an experience I've had many a time, not just with Wilder's work, but with other writers too, including Austen.

McClure talks about religion more overtly than Deresiewicz, though in a way that shows her discomfort with zealous people who take it too seriously ~ and while one can easily empathize with that, I found it interesting that she was scared off by religious zeal/passion when she was so good at showing so much of her own -- when it came to literature! She tries to be charitable, but she clearly feels ambiguous about how "Christian homeschoolers" (a group she tends to lump together without much differentiation) have approached Wilder's work. That made me chuckle, partly because I'm both a Christian and a homeschooler, and I would likely have some of the same concerns/critiques she has. Wilder has definitely been embraced by the wider homeschooling community, but not always for the reasons McClure assumes and most highlights. There's a tremendous diversity among homeschoolers, even faith-based ones, that she hasn't quite grasped...though it's hard to fault her for that since it's a common misperception.

What Deresiewicz and McClure have in common, despite their different voices and approaches, is that ability to fall completely into stories, to let stories change and shape them. They are passionate readers who have found not just artistry in the pages of books, but themselves. And they're passionate about sharing their insights about what they've learned in the process. Deresiewicz' journey is much more interior/cerebral, though the book takes a surprisingly personal turn in the final chapter as he relates his own story of courtship/love/marriage and gives it an Austen spin. McClure's journey is exterior as well as interior as she sets out on an actual pilgrimage to see as many Laura Ingalls Wilder "places" as she can, and as she tries to sort out the tensions between truth/fiction and the connections (and disconnects) between Laura's life and her own.

Both books also put me in mind of C.S. Lewis. Okay...a lot of books put me in mind of C.S. Lewis, who has helped me learn how to read and think more deeply. (I sometimes feel like Jack hovers between the lines of most things I read, whispering encouragement and pointing out insights.) His words on "sehnsucht" (that deep yearning or craving for something beyond ourselves, something that often feels just out of reach) kept playing through my mind as I read these two authors. And they both seem to be living examples of Lewis' wonderful quote: "We read to know that we are not alone."