Tragic Sandwich

Tag: reading

  • BookTalk: Bedtime Reading

    A year and a couple of weeks ago, we started reading chapter books at bedtime. We all curl up in Baguette’s bed and read the next installment of the current literary adventure.

    Baguette is working on her reading skills, and we’ve always read picture books to her (that is, when she wasn’t grabbing them from us and turning away to page through them on her own, as she often did at age two). And Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book remains an oft-requested favorite.

    But now that she’s in grade school, I want to be sure that focusing on phonics and sight words doesn’t get in the way of exposure to the books Mr. Sandwich and I loved at her age.

    So, what have we been reading to her? Thanks to Goodreads, I have a list. In no particular order:

    The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White (This was our first, and it was new to Mr. Sandwich and me as well as to Baguette. We all liked it, and I suspect we’ll re-read it one of these days. And we did not remember how drily funny White was.)

    Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard Atwater (Cute enough, but not my favorite)

    Who Was Alexander Hamilton? by Pam Pollock (our first foray into nonfiction; we need to do more of this)

    The Princess in Black (#1) by Shannon Hale (our first foray into kind-of graphic novels; we need to do more of this, too)

    Illustrated Stories from Aesop by Susanna Davidson (there were far more of these than I think are strictly traditional)

    Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry (still sweet, but surprisingly hard to read aloud)

    The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (there is some weird stuff going on here)

    Stuart Little by E. B. White (I’ve got to be honest. Stuart creeps me out a bit on more than one level.)

    Yours Sincerely, Giraffe by Megumi Iwasa (a recommendation from Cloud that we’re glad we took)

    All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor (I remember loving these books when I was young, but I’m not sure this really grabbed Baguette)

    The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum (more weirdness, and he did not like suffragists)

    The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary (I’ve always liked this better than Stuart Little)

    Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (I remember being kind of meh on this as a kid, but now that I have a better sense of Manhattan, and parenting, and autism, I like it a lot. And yes, I think Harriet is autistic. Read this.)

    Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (Still wonderful, and I am so sad that White wrote only three children’s books.)

    James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (I always preferred this to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; books about journeys have always intrigued me–although I could have done with a bit less of the Cloud Men on this go-round.)

    The Borrowers by Mary Norton (I really admired the creativity with which the author outfitted the Clock’s quarters, but nothing much happens for a very long time.)

    Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum (This one was my favorite as a kid, and the weirdness continues.)

    Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge (We’re reading this now, and this book is mistitled, unless Hans Brinker becomes really pivotal in the next few chapters. So far, the book is mostly about richer boys on a wintertime skating tour of The Netherlands.)

    book cover showing a swan with a trumpet tucked under one wing
    The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White, with illustrations by Fred Marcellino

    I’m feeling pretty good about the fact that we are on book number 18–and this list alone doesn’t account for the summer, when Baguette just wanted us to re-read Sandra Boynton’s Little Pookie books over and over and over. Which we did, because why not? It was summer.

  • Give One Book: Warren Mott High School

    I love books. I love reading. And I want other people to have the chance to read, too.

    Too many students in this country don’t have that opportunity. We can do something about that.

    What should kids read? I’m sure we could all come up with plenty of suggestions, but the answer, really, is “what they want to read.” That’s what works best.

    Schools don’t get enough funding, and when they do, it’s often not for books. But books are available in the world.

    So here’s what we can do. Send a book–just one book–from this Amazon Wishlist to Warren Mott High School. And then share this post wherever you can. Ask more people. Let’s see what we can do.

    High school library with partially filled shelves of books, and tables and chairs in the foreground

    Want to choose your own book? Try non-fiction, STEM books, Manga. Want to send supplies? They’re on the list, too.

    Warren Mott High School, just outside Detroit, has about 1,650 students, and some 25% of them are English Language Learners. According to the New York Times, their library budget for this year was $500–enough to buy abut 30 books. And that’s after two years of no budget at all.

    You can do this. We can do this. Give one book.

    Photo by Elliot Glaser, Teacher Librarian, Warren Consolidated Schools, Warren Mott High School

  • BookTalk: More Please, The Hungry Animal Book

    book

    Dorothy Kunhardt is famous for writing Pat the Bunny. She also wrote More Please, which we discovered via Baguette’s speech therapist and may be the most maddening thing we own.

    Baguette calls it “Make a Doggie.” I’m not sure why, because you don’t do that. You “feed” tiny pieces of posterboard shaped and colored like various items into the die-cut mouths of animals.

    From a technical standpoint, I’m impressed. This was not easy to create.

    From a parental standpoint, ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME????

    The tiny pieces of posterboard are really tiny. Every time we read this book (and when it’s in rotation, I’m talking four or five times a day), I have to do an inventory of the parts. The text is maddeningly simplistic and sing-song. And the illustrations are just bad.

    But Baguette loves it, and it definitely plays into her affection for animals.

    Oh, and if you lose any of those tiny pieces? Yeah, I can’t find a replacement for less than $65 (a month ago, that price was $150). Hence the inventory.

    If I didn’t like that speech therapist so much, I’d feel like she owes us an apology.

  • Your Mileage May Vary

    This morning, when I took Baguette to daycare, she was excited to be there. She opened the door to the classroom without being prompted, and she ran up to a group of girls and started playing with the same toys they were using.

    (This is HUGE. Six months ago, she would have retreated to the corner with a book. Now she chooses to play with the other kids.)

    She picked up a toy ice cream cone and said, “Ice cream!” One of the other girls said, “Don’t eat it!”

    I said, “Oh, it’s okay. I think she knows the difference between the toy and real ice cream.”

    The girl said, “Sometimes babies put things in their mouth.”

    Every child in that room is 3 or 4.

    I said, “Well, she isn’t a baby.”

    “Yes, she is. She can’t talk.”

    One of the other little girls–we’ll call her Daisy–who has been in the same room as Baguette since they were both infants, said, “She can’t do anything.”

    Baguette dropped the cone and headed for the bookshelf, where she selected Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street. It’s the book she’s most likely to pick up at school. I think I know why; it’s because no one in that book would be mean to her, with the possible exception of Oscar.

    Daisy said, “Well, she knows Hebrew.”

    I said, “She knows Hebrew?”

    Daisy said, “Uh huh.”

    I answered, “She’s still learning some things, but she’ll learn faster if you’re nice to her.”

    Bestie came over to the bookshelf to hang out with Baguette, and gave her a one-armed hug.

    Parenting is harder than being in your 40s.

  • It Could–Would–Have Been So Much Worse

    Another writing prompt from Ginger at Ramble Ramble: Tell us a story from ninth grade.

    Okay.

    Just before ninth grade, my family moved from Maryland to Texas. As far as I was concerned, it was two years too late. All my life, I’ve had a Five Year Move Clock in my head, and I always felt like we stayed places too long.

    So while some kids might have found this to be a horrible time to move, I was ready. Sure, I was going to miss the friends I’d grown up with. But I was more than ready for new sights and sounds and people.

    Texas provided plenty of all of those. For a girl from the outskirts of D.C., it took some getting used to. Fortunately, I had some help.

    First, there was the library. I didn’t know many people for the first semester, so I went to the school library a lot. And by “a lot,” I mean three times a day. I’d go before school and check out a book to read between classes. I’d return it at lunch and get another book, which I’d read between classes. And I’d go back at the end of the day to return that book.

    (I am a very fast reader.)

    Second, and more importantly, there were Beth and Kelly. Those are not their real names, because on this blog, no one has a real name. Unless I tell a story about a celebrity. I’m not sure if I’ve done that. But if I do, I’ll probably use the celebrity’s name.

    Beth and Kelly were friends from middle school. They, like me, had decided to join Pep Squad. I don’t know their rationales, but I joined Pep Squad because my mother thought it would be a great way for me to know people on the first day of school, and I thought it would be a great way to get out of P.E.

    Pep Squad had a week of summer training for new members, and when I arrived, I knew no one. But Beth and Kelly took me under their wing (wings?) and made me part of their group. While we didn’t do all of the drills together, we did meet for lunch every day and exchange stories. Kelly invited me to her birthday party (where I discovered MTV). They welcomed me into their existing circle of friends. We had classes together. They gave me people to stand with at the bus stop at the end of the day.

    And while each of them later moved and changed schools, and we lost touch, I know that they made my freshman year of school bearable. They made it possible for me to decipher a new community and find my way.

    Later, I found out why all of this happened. It turned out that, before camp started, they decided that they were going to find someone who looked like she had no friends, and be her friend.

    They picked me.

    They were 13 years old, and they decided to make someone an insider instead of an outsider. They chose to be inclusive instead of exclusive.

    We hear a lot about bullying. Maybe there would be less of it–and maybe it would be easier to endure–if we tried to get our children to think more like Beth and Kelly.

    It’s not that I had no problems in high school. Of course I did. We all did. But those problems were made easier because I had a place in that school. And Beth and Kelly helped me find it, by making a conscious choice. At age 13.

    Three Friends

    Photo by Xiaozhuli, via Flickr. Creative Commons.

  • Reading Over the Holidays

    Here’s what I’d like to read this week:

    Here’s what I think I might actually get through:

    January 2013 issue of Better Homes and Gardens

  • On Reading

    Reading

    I’ve always loved to read. I started reading on my own at age four and just kept going. I almost always have a book with me (particularly now that I have an iPod Touch with the Kindle app), and I often have multiple books going at once. I hope that Baguette will love to read–and she certainly seems to be enjoying it at the moment.

    My approach with her is to let her enjoy the book in whatever way she wants to at the moment. We started by reading to her, particularly as part of a nighttime routine (oh, hey, I guess we did have one of those once). Then, she decided that we were not allowed to read to her. She would grab the book out of my or Mr. Sandwich’s hands and move away from us so that she could flip the pages on her own, narrating what she saw on the pages.

    Then she started letting us read again–but now she’s open to more approaches. Sometimes we’ll read it carefully page by page. Sometimes we’ll read whatever page she wants to turn to, regardless of order. Sometimes I’ll ignore the text and ask her what she sees on the page. Since we usually read books more than once in a row, we often wind up doing all three in any reading session.

    The other night I was in the kitchen, and she was in the living room. I peeked around the corner, and there she was, sitting in the middle of the rug while she flipped through Elmo’s Valentine.

    I don’t care whether she reads books in print, or on a tablet, or off the inside of her eyelids if that’s the technology that is in use when she’s older. But I do hope that she always loves to read.

    Photo by Mathom, via Flickr.

  • Read Any Good Books Lately?

    It’s been a while for me–well, not that I haven’t been reading, but I haven’t been reading books about parents and/or families, or related issues. Meanwhile, Baguette has been exhibiting an interest in Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5. I hope she’s not reading ahead to see how she’s expected to behave at age two. But I really wish she’d read up on sleep.

    How about you? What would you recommend?

  • Go, Dog, Go!

    Go Dog Go!

    Baguette loves books, but she won’t let me read to her. She grabs the book out of my hand and goes through the pages in whatever order makes sense to her, pointing and chattering about what’s on the page.

    At least, that’s what happened until Monday morning. On Monday, as I was getting her ready for day care and me ready for work, she picked up the board book version of P.D. Eastman’s Go, Dog, Go! and handed it to me to read. When I asked her if she wanted to read it herself, she pushed it at me. So I read it to her, and then read it to her a second time. And I realized that now I have to build reading time into our morning.

    This is tricky. In order to have time with Baguette in the evening, I have to leave work no later than 5:00. That means I have to be at work by 8:00 a.m., which means (with my commute) that I drop her off at day care at 7:00. This works as long as she’s up between 6:00 and 6:15. In order to get my morning stuff done before she’s awake, I get up at 5:30. And that’s already earlier than I want to have either of us wake up. So squeezing book time into that morning is not easy.

    But she also wants me to read it to her at night. Last night, as we were trying to get her to wind down for the evening (and that is no simple task–Baguette hates to go to sleep), she had me read the book. And then read it again. And again. And again. I think I read it at least eight times, always in the slow, soothing delivery I’d normally give to something like Goodnight, Moon. Seriously, you have never known so many fast-moving dogs to travel at such a measured pace.

    But as I look at the book–which I’m now a little crazy about, myself–I am struck by the illustrations in a way I haven’t been before. They really do have an energy and an excitement, and I’m starting to wonder if Dr. Seuss and the Eastmans (and possibly the Berenstains) haven’t done all of us a disservice.

    Because real life just doesn’t measure up to these books.

    Look at that first page, where the dogs jump out of an enormous bed. Isn’t that bed huge? Doesn’t it look like a great place to sleep? Are you that energized when you get out of your bed in the morning? I know I’m not. I don’t think I ever have been.

    And the dogs who travel “by boat.” I want to hang out on that boat. It’s got a doghouse with a diving board. It’s the most awesome dog houseboat imaginable. Look how enthusiastic the swan-diving dog is!

    Mostly, though, it’s the last page (spoiler alert!). Have you ever been to a party as much fun as the dog party? No, I didn’t think so. None of us have, and we probably never will. Parties are fun, but the dog party surpasses them all.

    Real life. It’s just not like board books. And that’s a sad realization.

    Photo by Creative Nickie, via Flickr.

  • Domestic Bliss

    Mr. Sandwich and I are sitting on the couch, as we do. Each of us leans against one end so that both of us can stretch out. It’s cozy and good.

    Just now, he has fallen asleep in front of The Colbert Report. I’d get up, but he’s holding my ankle in one hand and I don’t want to disturb him. It’s been a busy week. We both need whatever sleep we can get.

    I’ve spent a fair amount of time on the couch this week; I stayed home sick yesterday and came home at lunchtime today. And although I’d rather feel well, the result is that I’ve been able to spend some time doing one of my favorite things: sitting on the couch and reading magazines.

    It’s even better now that we have a bay window. That meant that I was also able to sit on the couch, look out the window, and watch the wind blow through the trees. It was a very windy afternoon. I’m mildly curious about what was thumping on the roof every now and then, but apparently I wasn’t curious enough at the time to see if I could spot anything.

    So the combination of couch, husband, magazines, TV, view, and a cup of tea (there was also tea this afternoon) is a pretty tough combination to beat. It may not be dramatic, but it sure is good.