A Real Book for Real Book Lovers

August 5, 2009

I just have to weigh in on The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet

by Reif Larson. What a beautiful book! When you see it on a shelf, you have

to pick it up. When you feel its heft and the cool smoothness of its old-

fashioned cover, you have to open it. When you peer into its pages full of

wide-open prose bordered by quirky marginalia, you have to start reading it.

By the time you’ve read one chapter, Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet has you under

his spell. You care about him. You want to go where he goes and see the

world as he sees it. Even when this hero’s journey takes a circuitous path

and the fiction becomes stranger than truth, you willingly suspend your

disbelief to explore the depths of the universe of T. S. Spivet. Here’s a

book that made me glad it rained during my vacation so I could curl up and

read it uninterrupted. Even in the age of GPS and Google Earth, there’s a

place for a carefully crafted story of a boy whose mind contains a map of

the universe, just waiting to be rendered, contour by contour, onto archival

paper with a properly sharpened pencil. Its very existence gives hope that

there will still be real books for real booklovers when all these electronic

gadgets finally flicker and go dark.

When I went to Amazon to post my five-star review, I read some of the

other reviews. Jeez. Who are these people? Don’t they know that books are

supposed to be different than movies? In a book, the author, acting as the

reader’s guide on a journey of exploration, can vary the pace and go on side

trips to deepen  the reader’s experience of the world between the covers.

The intelligent  reader, unlike the movie viewer,  isn’t locked into a

relentless rollercoaster ride going only in one direction at a predetermined

pace, but is free to meander and savor the details or speed up and forego

some of the pleasures, and maybe even backtrack to reexamine pieces later

when their relevance might become more apparent. It seems to me that people

who start whining "are we there yet?" while T. S. reads his mother's story

about his distant ancestors just don't get it. They don't realize that a

story is a map of the consciousness, and that the contours of each person’s

story arise from the consciousness of their parents and their parents’

parents.  Okay, so maybe sometimes T. S. doesn’t really sound like a 12-

year-old, and maybe it’s not “realistic” that he would find a Winnebago on

that platform car. Tsk! As if A. A. Milne consistently stayed within the

confines Christopher Robin’s emerging skill set! And how “believable” was it

when Dorothy’s house landed on the Wicked Witch in Oz? It’s a story!

Can’t they just say “Hah! What next?” and go along for the ride? We

should pity them. We should pity anybody who is so busy finding fault that

they can’t enjoy the good things in life.

The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet is a work to be treasured.

This is one reader who is grateful that Reif Larson and the people at

Penguin Press have put this beautiful book out there, despite the economic

risks in this hostile territory where anybody who reaches toward the sun is

immediately surrounded by snipers. Here's hoping they don't get discouraged

before they give us a sequel! Live long and prosper, Sparrow!

Watching the coverage of the conventions and campaigns has prompted me to reexamine, yet again, some assumptions about demographics. All those politicians and pundits keep making assumptions about who we are and what we think based on what groups we're in. If you're a ******, and most ****** support xxxxxx, then you must also support xxxxxx. Doesn't that just pluck your last nerve? As if it's not enough that we're divided into groups based on gender and race and religion and age and education and income, now we're also grouped by what activities our kids participate in.

So now I have to come clean. I'm not just a Montessori mom, a soccer mom, a swim team mom, a band mom and a Girl Scout mom. I'm also a hockey mom. It doesn't matter that my kids are grown. I know these experiences have left indelible marks on my soul. But does that mean that total strangers can predict my voting behavior based on my membership in these groups? Heck no.

What does it mean to be a hockey mom? Uh, it means that your kid (usually your son) played hockey. Maybe this was your idea, or maybe it wasn't. Maybe you really were against it, but you knew how to choose your battles. So, you did your share of getting up way too early in the morning to get that kid to practice. The bite in the air, the ice on the windshield, the pitch dark—remember? You sat on those cold bleachers enough times to learn that a foam seat cushion really does make a difference. Sometimes you even remembered to bring yours. You cheered when your team was winning. Maybe you cheered more when it wasn't. Maybe you went to lots of games or maybe you didn't because other responsibilities kept your elsewhere. But either way, you dealt with the smell that emanated from that equipment and you worried about injuries. And the kids grew and changed, and if you were lucky they lost interest in hockey before they lost their teeth.

Not all hockey moms are lipstick-wearing pit-bulls. Okay, the image sparks a chuckle. But it's just one more example of judging people based on what group they're in. Sure, if you went to enough games you can remember some times when people in the bleachers acted like pit-bulls, but usually they were dads who didn't wear lipstick. Most of the moms I knew would cringe when the growling and yowling got nasty. Of course, the exceptions are most memorable. If thirty moms stand quietly with their hands in their pockets trying to stay warm and one screams at the ref, who gets noticed? Whose story gets told over the burgers afterward? And what do we hear about the other thirty moms?

If Sarah Palin thinks she's speaking for the vastly diverse group of humans who are or have been the parents of hockey players, I need to set the record straight: This hockey momma's for Obama.

In Gossamer, Lois Lowry shows us how to use our gifts to cultivate resilience and ease human suffering. Here a master storyteller has meticulously crafted a delightful tale of  growth and healing, chock-full of adventure, magic and lovable characters. But this is more than a story for children. It's an inspiration for those who guide children on their journey to adulthood.

Mysterious creatures of the night, more like angels than faeries, flutter and flicker through the objects of our lives finding fragments from which to form dreams to bestow on us. In Gossamer a young apprentice dream-giver discovers how to use her gossamer touch to find the right fragments to give healing dreams to an abused and angry eight-year-old boy.

Lowry has deftly interwoven the story of the young boy and his elderly foster mother with the story of the young dream-giver and her elderly mentor. Both wise old mentors facilitate the growth of their charges by seeing them for who they are and providing just the right kind of support when support is needed. The youngsters develop along different timelines—the baby dream-giver develops into a competent professional in the few weeks it takes for the troubled boy to being to let go of his anger and make the first steps toward recovery.

Underpinning the story is a beautiful metaphor for the workings of the human psyche. We are composed of memories that are tied to the objects of our lives. The things we use and touch are imbued with traces of our interactions. Our internal equilibrium depends on anchors to good experiences in the world. When we are threatened by evil nightmares or stressed by difficult times, these attachments to goodness help keep us safe and whole.

Surely kids will enjoy the story of the mischievous sprite who grows up to be a benevolent force in the universe. But perhaps this allegory will mean more to the mentors—parents, grandparents, teachers, therapists, and writers of stories for children. "We do such important work," says Thin Elderly. "Sometimes we forget that."

What is this important work? Children need to make connections to what is good in this world so they won't fall apart when assailed by the forces of darkness. We can help them build these connections by helping them to sort the fragments of their lives: by sharing good times, by listening and accepting, by interpreting experiences, by pointing out examples and counterexamples, by revisiting cherished memories. It's not just about the fragments, it's about the interpretation of the fragments, and how they can be arranged to create a coherent and resilient sense of self in the world. The more good connections they have—to good people, to good experiences and to good ideas--the stronger they will become.

A summary of a new report from the National Mathematics Advisory Panel appears in today’s Washington Post. It says that "students need a deeper understanding of basic skills, including fluency with whole numbers and fractions." Does this surprise anybody?

This week as I was teaching my community college students about how to use the information on food labels to make good eating decisions, I again watched the "I don’t do math" curtain fall across their faces. ("Who, me? Manipulate numbers and understand what they mean? Forget about it.") But these people want to be nurses and pharmacists and respiratory therapists. What will happen to their patients if they don’t know where to put the decimal point, or if they can’t recognize that a measurement is significantly out of line?

Quantitative reasoning is not just for students who will become scientists and engineers. The number sense and logical thinking that emerges when kids master core skills enables them to make better decisions in all walks of life. Which laundry detergent is a better buy? Is this sub-prime mortgage a good idea? What does the doctor mean when she tells me that six out of ten people who take this antidepressant get better? Understanding what numbers mean is essential as we evaluate our options every day. 

Too often, kids get to a point where math seems "hard," and they just stop doing it. How can we help them get past those rough patches and continue to develop their quantitative reasoning skills? Teachers need to help kids succeed by giving the right lesson at the right time. When they spend enough time practicing basic skills and applying those skills to problems of everyday life, they can discover all kinds of interesting things about numbers. Here’s hoping that reading about Becca in Danger: Long Division will help to inoculate kids against the math anxiety that paralyzes so many young adults.

..As I walked home from the little park where Harmon threw sticks for Bud, a smallish bird flew close overhead, leaving me wondering: what was that flash of yellow? Flicker? Too small, and no white rump. Goldfinch? I've never seen one land on the ground like that, right between the sidewalk and the street. A mockingbird flew out of a dormant crabapple, landed next to the little bird, hopped twice and flew off. Why didn't the little bird fly off? I approached quietly. It stayed motionless, except for its breathing, the bright yellow tips of its tail feathers spread in a neat row on the greening grass. Its brown head was tucked under its wing, all but hiding its mask. A cedar waxwing, all alone, and plum tuckered out. I stood guard for a few moments, wondering what would happen if one of those stray cats that prowl the neighborhood came by. I went home, got my camera, and returned to see it hopping on the grass. As I approached it flew up to the branch of a cherry tree. Expecting it to fly off any second, I took a picture from too far away, and then crept forward. It returned to a different patch of grass between sidewalk and street, breathing heavily. It opened its beak, panting. I could see the red inside its mouth. Then it hunched its head between its shoulders, and let me take its picture before it flew across the street to take up a perch on the neighbors' flower box. Good luck little guy. Get some rest. Hope you can find your flock. And watch out for those cats.

Early adolescents can get so locked into their own egocentric view of the world. One good way to stretch their brains is to get them to see the world through the eyes of somebody who is different from themselves. Fiction can help.

Ethan Suspended, a young adult novel by Pamela Ehrenberg, is a great example of a story that can promote understanding across ethnic divides. Diverse people in this story, both young and old, come to better understandings of each other through ordinary, everyday interactions. As Ethan gets to know people who come from outside his previous comfort zone, readers grow along with him in their realization that these folks are human beings too. Felix and Daron and Diego and Sharita are all people that Ethan would never have hung out with during his previous life in Maple Heights, PA. Gangs, drug dealing, missing school to babysit—all that stuff is way outside Ethan's experience. But when he moves to DC to live with his grandparents, he finds regular kids dealing with this stuff on a daily basis. His grandparents seem like they are from a different planet, but as he understands them better they become real people to him.  As Ethan's mind gets broadened, so does the reader's. It's a great vehicle for teaching tolerance.

Is it a Jewish book?

Well, yeah, it has Jewish characters in it. The grandparents seem a lot like other Jewish grandparents I have known – my own kids' grandparents, for instance.  But they're not that different from other non-Jewish grandparents. You know the way Ethan's grandmother wipes off his face using spit on her thumb? My mother used to do that to me and she wasn't Jewish.  We see that this family has lots of values which could be considered "Jewish," but they aren't exactly "observant." Ethan's diet in Maple Heights included non-kosher foods. The dietary differences in his grandparents' home seem more due to age than due to culture or religion. While they don't celebrate Christmas, we don't see them celebrating any Jewish holidays or keeping the Sabbath.  Still, there are probably lots of Jewish kids these days who are just like Ethan, not really connected to the "old ways," but not feeling like they are totally part of the mainstream either. You might say that this "stranger in a strange land" theme is part of the archetypal Jewish experience. So, I have no trouble seeing that this is a "Jewish" book.

However, I do have a problem with labeling books and categorizing them according to their ethnicity. We shouldn't build ghettoes in our libraries -- Christian books here, Jewish books there, black books here, white books there.  I consider it offensive that our local library, for instance, shelves all the "black interest" books together, separate from the rest of the collection. Puh-leez. There are way too many white folk who would never take a book off the shelf of black books, and way too many black folk who let other people limit their book selections. If the books are integrated, the people are more likely to stumble upon books that will help them see life through the eyes of someone different from themselves.  This is one great hope for promoting better understanding.  I wonder how my own world view would be different if I had not stumbled upon the works of Chaim Potok and Leon Uris as teenager.

Through novels, people can find out what other people think. If you put Ethan Suspended on the "Jewish" shelf, then non-Jewish kids won't think it's for them. And it is. It's for everybody. Sure, Jewish kids of today will relate to Ethan, and their parents and teachers will consider this book "suitable." But also, reading Ethan Suspended can give Non-Jewish kids a look at what's going on in a Jewish kid's head.  They can see kids like themselves through the sympathetic eyes of a somewhat puzzled stranger. This is important. This is why even if Ethan Suspended might be considered "Jewish", I would argue against labeling it that way so that it will be read by lots of different kinds of kids. Because, after all, it's really about tolerance.

My novels are much better than my greeting card verses. Really. I hope. Here's a challenge for you: Put something that's important to you into Seuss-ameter and post it for others to think about. Here's hoping they'll spend enough time thinking about how they would say it better that the message will actually get through.