The Masks We Wear

Halloween is not my holiday.  Scary and, to me, morbid, I could happily skip the whole thing.  But most kids love it and so I decided to find non-scary Halloween books to read to my students this year.

Illustration by Louis Darling

The first book - or rather, chapter of a book - that came to mind - was the one in Ramona the Pest where she dresses up as "the baddest witch in the world" and participates for the first time in the school Halloween parade.  Reading it to classes over and over, I was struck each and every time by how perfectly Beverly Cleary describes the terror that can come with the anonymity that a costume can bring.  Cleary writes, "Nobody knew who Ramona was, and if nobody knew who she was, she wasn't anybody."  Desperate to assert her identity, Ramona runs back to her classroom and writes herself a nametag, which she proudly holds in front of her costume.

Cleary also describes with emotional clarity the satisfaction children (and adults) can have in scaring themselves - in controlling the amount of fear they experience.  Ramona finds her own mask terrifying and hides it under a couch cushion so she doesn't have to look at it.  But then she periodically "would lift the cushion for a quick glimpse of her scary mask before she clapped the pillow over it again.  Scaring herself was such fun." And while Ramona finds looking at her mask scary, when she wears it - and therefore can't see it herself - she feels brave.  That is, until she feels lost and alone.

Illustrations by Kurt Werth

Written five years before Ramona the Pest, A Tiger Called Thomas by Charlotte Zolotow also uses Halloween and costumes to tackle issues of identity, but from a very different perspective.  Thomas, who has just moved to a new neighborhood, is too shy to approach any of his neighbors.  (And why should he?!?  Shouldn't they come over and greet the new arrivees?  But that is neither here nor there.)  But safely inside his tiger costume, Thomas is brave enough to trick-or-treat, feeling secure that no one will recognize him.  Much to his surprise, everyone knows who he is!  (A Tiger Called Thomas wass reissued with new illustrations in 1988 and again in  2003 and will be published again next year with yet another set of illustrations.  There was an article in the March/April 2017 issue of The Horn Book about the different versions, but unfortunately it is not online.) 

Masks - literal and figurative - can embolden us, change us, or render us invisible or anonymous.

But I still don't like Halloween.

Zeroteenth Birthday Book Quiz, Part 3!

The third, and final, part of our quiz!  Scroll down for the answers.  Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 can be found here.

1.       Which of the following is an epistolary novel?

a.       Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

b.      Heidi

c.       Daddy Long-Legs

d.      In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

2.       In Sisters, Raina is afraid of:

a.       Snakes

b.      Spiders

c.       Cockroaches

d.      Dogs

3.       In Half Magic, the children must hold what when they make their wish?

a.       A magic wand

b.      A coin

c.       A letter

d.      A key

4.       In The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Jamie cheats at which card game?

a.       Poker

b.      Crazy Eights

c.       War

d.      Spit

5.       In The Pain and the Great One, both children think:

a.       The other is keeping a secret from him/her

b.      Their parents love the other one best

c.       The other is smarter than him/her

d.      The other is actually adopted

6.       Eloise lives in which New York hotel?

a.       The Plaza

b.      The Waldorf Astoria

c.       The Soho Grand

d.      The Chelsea Hotel

7.       Little Women is set during which war?

a.       The Revolutionary War

b.      The War of 1812

c.       The Civil War

d.      The Spanish-American War

8.       The last book in the Anne of Green Gables series AND the 4^th and 5^th books of the All-of-a- Kind Family series take place during which war?

a.       World War I

b.      The Vietnam War

c.       The Korean War

d.      World War II

9.        In which TWO books, is someone cured of paralysis and can walk again?

a.       The Secret Garden and A Little Princess

b.      Heidi and The Secret Garden

c.       Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and A Little Princess

d.      Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Heidi

10.   In The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Claudia and Jamie try to figure out the    provenance of what kind of artwork?

a.       A sculpture

b.      A painting

c.       A photograph

d.      A collage
   

Bonus question: What book does the word "zeroteen" come from?

a. Ramona's World
b. Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst
c. Completely Clementine
d. Smile


























Answers:  1. c, 2. a, 3. b, 4.c, 5, b, 6. a, 7. c, 8. a, 9. b, 10. a
Bonus: a.

How did you do?

Zeroteenth Birthday Book Quiz! (Part 2)

And here is part 2... Scroll to the bottom for the answers.  Part 1 can be found here, and part 3 here.

Birthday girl with one of her birthday books

1.       Where does Frances run away to in A Baby Sister for Frances?

a.       Under the sink

b.      Under the table

c.       The backyard

d.      The hall closet

2.       What category of names does Clementine call her brother?

a.       Fruit names

b.      Flower names

c.       Descriptive names (e.g. Patience, Charity)

d.      Vegetable names

3.       Back in China, Shirley Temple Wong was known as:

a.       Rascal

b.      Bandit

c.       Smuggler

d.      Wrangler

4.       Which of the following is a girl?

a.       Sal in When You Reach Me

b.      George in Nancy Drew

c.       Georges in Liar and Spy

d.      Laurie in Little Women

5.       Which of the following children do NOT cut or dye their own or someone else’s hair?

a.       Anastasia Krupnik

b.      Elisa and Russell Michaels

c.       Betsy, Tacy, and Tib

d.      Anne of Green Gables

6.       In Breathing Room, the main character is ill with:

a.       Pneumonia

b.      Bronchitis

c.       Whooping cough

d.      Tuberculosis

7.       In Out of My Mind, the main character can’t speak because:

a.       She has cerebral palsy

b.      She was hit by lightening

c.       She is deaf and only communicates in sign language

d.      She doesn’t want to

8.       In Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Fudge swallows:

a.       A goldfish

b.      A quarter

c.       A turtle

d.      Dog food
 

9.       Sheila Tubman is NOT afraid of:

a.       Dogs

b.      Lightning

c.       Swimming

d.      Heights

10.   In The Secret Garden, Mary moves to England from:

a.       Australia

b.      India

c.       Canada

d.      South Africa

Answers: 1. b, 2. d, 3. b, 4. b, 5. a, 6. d, 7. a, 8. c, 9. d, 10. b.

Zeroteenth Birthday Book Quiz! (Part 1)

For my daughter's zeroteenth (aka 10th) birthday party, I put together a 30-question book trivia quiz for her book-loving friends.  The kids did really well - I think the questions were too easy!  Since I was unable to figure out how to make one of those fancy buzzfeed-type quizzes, I went the old-fashioned route.  Scroll all the way to the bottom for the answers.  30 questions are a lot, so I'll post them in 3 installments of 10 each.  Part 2 can be found here and Part 3 can be found here.  Good luck!

Birthday balloon bouquet

1.        In All-of-A-Kind Family, which girl refuses to eat her soup?

a.       Gertie

b.      Sarah

c.       Henny

d.      Charlotte

2.       In the Ramona books, what game that Henry and Beezus like to play does Ramona
  always ruin?

a.       Chess

b.      Checkers

c.       Tiddlywinks

d.      Twister

3.       In Where the Wild Things Are, the Wild Things have:

a.       A fancy ball

b.      A board game competition

c.       A wild rumpus

d.      A dance party

4.       In the Little House on the Prairie books, Mary becomes:

a.       Blind

b.      Deaf

c.       Mute

d.      Paralyzed

5.       In Anne of Green Gables, when Anne is upset she says she is:

a.       Feeling blue

b.      Down in the dumps

c.       Sadder than a soggy potato chip

d.      In the depths of despair

6.       A frindle is really a:

a.       Pencil

b.      Piece of chalk

c.       Pen

d.      Computer

7.       In When You Reach Me, what game show does Miranda’s mother compete on?

a.       The Price is Right

b.      Wheel of Fortune

c.       Jeopardy!

d.      The $20,000 Pyramid
 

8.       Which character accidentally mails dog poop instead of her mother’s artwork?

a.       Clementine

b.      Anastasia Krupnik

c.       Ramona Quimby

d.      Sheila Tubman

9.       In one of the All-of-a-Kind Family books, the girls go to the library and pick out which  
  book?

a.       Heidi

b.      Treasure Island

c.       Anne of Avonlea

d.      Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

10.   Which of these does Ramona NOT do?

a.      Take one bite out of each of the apples in the basement

b.      Bake her doll in her sister’s birthday cake

c.      Get paint on her hands and leave handprints all over her house

d.    Lock Henry's dog in the bathroom

Answers: 1. b, 2. b, 3. c, 4. a, 5. d, 6. c, 7. d, 8. b, 9. c, 10. d.

How did you do?

It Only Took A Year...

It only took a year, but we did it!  My daughter and I finished reading all 8 books in the Anne of Green Gables series.  I gave her the first book last year, in early June, for her 9th birthday, and I was determined that we should finish before her 10th, as more literary gifts await her.  Thankfully, we met the deadline with over a week to spare.  I had visions of us staying up late in the night before her birthday in an effort to reach my self-imposed deadline.

No, we did not read Anne every night.   My younger daughter is too young for Anne, so if I only had time for joint reading, Anne didn't make the cut.  And there were times when we needed a break, a palate cleanser, when my daughter was in the mood for picture books (which she still loves, much to my delight), or something else entirely.

At times it was tough going.  The language is flowery and old-fashioned.  The middle books tend to be gossipy stories about people Anne interacts with and less about Anne herself.  And the final book, set during World War I, has lots of arcane (to my 9-year-old) references to military personnel, politicians, and battles.

But it was worth it.  There's a kind of satisfaction in finishing a series.  The other series we have done this with are the Betsy-Tacy books, the Ramona books (multiple times, but a much quicker read) and the All-of-a-Kind Family books (ditto, and sadly, the last book was quite disappointing).

I know lots of people have done the same with Harry Potter.  What other series have you read aloud to your children in their entirety?  How long did it take you?

I AM The Audiobook

When I read over at What Do We Do All Day? Facebook page about the Ramona-Henry Huggins audiobooks, about whose existence I hadn't known, although I should have, I realized something: in our house, I AM the audiobook. 

I normally love reading to my kids.  It's one of the most special activities we share.  I have a lot of patience for rereading, too, although there are certain books I do refuse to read aloud (e.g. those Rainbow Magic atrocities).  But when my kids are sick and my reading aloud is the only entertainment they desire, I sometimes start to feel like an audiobook on which they are pressing play.  Over 4 days of my 6-year-old's being sick recently, I read well over 300 pages of the Ramona books Ramona books and we finished the series for the second time.  I've also read it aloud - all 8 books - to my older daughter twice.  If only I had thought to record myself reading it the first time!  (I've known grandparents and other relatives who live far from the children in their lives who have actually done this; it's a great substitute when being together in person isn't possible.)

Of course, reading together provides all kinds of benefits that listening to a recording (whether of me or a professional actor) does not.  First of all, there's the snuggling.  You can't snuggle with a CD player or an ipod.  Second, every time we read together, one or both of us notices something new, or asks a question, or discusses something different.  Sometimes I read, without explaining, difficult words, and sometimes I pause to define them.  Sometimes my daughters have questions, or a topic comes up that wouldn't have when we last read the book a year ago, when they were a year younger.  It would be fascinating to hear a recording of how I read some of these books in the past, and what has changed.

Nonetheless, we all need a break sometime.  I don't need to be a martyr!  And of course, audiobooks are great for the car.  We are city people and are not in the car that frequently, but when we are, good audiobooks also provide some great entertainment without me risking a headache. 

Right now our audiobook collection includes only the Frances books, Soupy Saturdays with the Pain and the Great One (the first chapter book in The Pain and the Great One series) and CDs that came with some of the books we own: the Barefoot Books of tales (like this, this, and this) and Poetry Speaks to Children (with some of the poems read by the poets themselves!).  We've taken The Mouse and the Motorcycle audiobook, one of the Humphrey audiobooks, and one of the Patricia Reilly Giff Zig Zag Kids audiobooks (which I do NOT recommend) out from the library.  We quickly discovered that not all narrators are created equal.  We just checked out the Henry and Beezus audiobook from the library, but it's an older version read by William Roberts.  Anyone know how it compares to the newer ones by Neil Patrick Harris?

I'd like to expand our collection, particularly with chapter books.  In my limited experience, Any recommendations, besides the Ramona-Henry Huggins audiobooks?  Specific editions/narrator preferences appreciated! 

A Hairy Situation

Betsy, Tacy, and Tib's Lopsided Haircuts

The other morning, as I was cutting my daughter's hair to remove it from a comb she had tangled it in in a misguided attempt to curl her straight hair, I started thinking about children, real and fictional, and hair.  Almost every kid has cut her own hair, or cut a sibling's or a doll's hair, or had her hair cut by a sibling.  Not to mention the chewing-gum-in-the-hair-type incidents.

Ella and Her Hair

In the delightful, rhyming Ella Kazoo Will Not Brush Her Hair, Ella lets her hair reach extreme proportions before succumbing to a haircut.

Betsy, Tacy, and Tib, in the second book in the series go overboard when they cut their hair to put in lockets to remember each other by (in case they die) and end up with very lopsided 'dos (see photo above).

In Russell and Elisa, the children take their pretend game of haircut to a new level when they actually cut first Elisa's doll Airmail's hair and then Elisa's friend's hair.

Ramona and Her Crown of Burrs

And of course, in Ramona and Her Father, Ramona makes herself a crown out of burrs, which, predictably to us, but apparently surprisingly to Ramona, gets stuck in her hair, forcing her father to cut it.  This is the scene to which my mind immediately flashed as I dealt with my own daughter's hairtastrophe (yes, I just made that word up) that morning.

Can you think of other fictional characters who get themselves into such hairy situations or do you have a story about yourself or your own child's hairtastrpohe?

Happy 97th Birthday, Beverly Cleary!

Yes, 97!!

Ramona the Pest

What Mothers in Books Do

The other day I fulfilled my children's fantasies by saying to them when they came home from school ("alone" - they waited in the hallway while I entered the apartment and then they came in without me), "Welcome home.  Would you like some milk and cookies?  I just baked some."  I even donned an apron for some June-Cleaver-esque authenticity. They had recently asked me why I didn't do this, saying it is "what mothers in books do."

That got me thinking.  What books had they seen this in?  Granted, we read a lot of classics, many of which are old-fashioned, even dated in certain ways.  In the Betsy-Tacy series, the mothers are constantly offering the children homemade baked goods (although sometimes they've been baked by the "hired girl").  In the Ramona books, I think Ramona mentions that she'll miss the afterschool cookies when her mother starts working (and becomes "liberated" as Beezus says)... but I don't remember any scene before that where her mother actually gave her homemade cookies as an afterschool snack.  I don't remember the B is for Betsy books well enough but certainly one could imagine Betsy's mother baking cookies.  When asked, my 5-year-old cited the families in the Riverside Kids books.  Of course, none of those mothers (except for Ramona's, at times), worked. But when I asked the girls what was different, why those mothers baked cookies, they said, "Because they didn't know then that they weren't healthy."  So there I was, making a feminist mountain out of a nutritional molehill.

I also found it interesting that they said this is "what mothers in books do," not "what mothers do."  So they instinctively differentiated... between what exactly?  Fact and fiction?  The past and the present?

What's funny too is that I bake.  A lot.  But they were fixated on three things: the baked item had to be cookies (preferably chocolate chip), they had to be offered with milk, and they had to be offered after school.  I even let them each have an unprecedented-in-our-house two on the grounds that the saying is "milk and cookies" not "milk and cookie."

In any event, those mothers in books, whoever they are, knew what they were doing.  Our milk and cookies were delicious.

That First Chapter Book Read-Aloud

I just finished reading my younger daughter her first chapter book!  It was Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary, the very same first chapter book I read to my older daughter.  It was a hit both times.  I picked it because Beverly Cleary gets real kids so right (Ramona thinks growing up goes so slowly, Beezus confronts the fact that while she loves Ramona, she doesn't always like her), it is funny (I mean, really, what is better than a kid who takes one bite out of every apple or bakes her doll inside her sister's birthday cake because she is pretending to be Gretel), and it is timeless (the lack of computers, cellphones and other gadgets just doesn't matter).  And of course, there is what it is not: scary, boring, or sad.

What's the first chapter book you read to your children?  Why did you choose it?

Sibling Math: The Age Gap and New Baby as Plot Device

I'm sure you've noticed how authors (and TV sitcom writers) often add a new baby to a family as a way to give them new plotlines.  (Weddings, the other big TV plot device, are not, for obvious reasons, as prevalent in children's books.)  But did you ever notice how siblings in books are often spaced far apart?  Off the top of my head, I can think of the Ramona books (Beezus is 5 years older than Ramona, Roberta almost 10 years younger), Peter and Fudge and eventually Tootsie Hatcher (there's a 5 year age difference between Peter and Fudge and 8 or 9 between Peter and Tootsie) of the Fudge series and, in the books about Anastasia Krupnik, the title character and her little brother Sam (with an age gap of around 10 years).  Less well-known, Johanna Hurwitz's Riverside Kids books also feature siblings with a big age gap: Russell Michaels is 5 years older than his sister Elisa, who in turn is 4 or 5 years older than their new baby brother.

The reason, I think, is that the dialogue and action between the two siblings can be a lot funnier this way.  A two-year-old can't really star in a chapter book... unless he has a much older sibling who reacts to his antics.  There are, of course, books about siblings much closer in age (The Pain and the Great One, another Judy Blume series comes to mind) but I did find it striking that several of the best-loved children's books have brothers and sisters who are pretty far apart, age-wise.

Can you think of other fictional siblings with a big age gap?

Heresy (Or, How Laura Ingalls Wilder and I Don't Have Any Chemistry)

Right now, I'm reading Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder to my 6-year-old and having the same reaction to it that I did 30 years ago: it's okay.  Yup, just okay.  I know this is heresy to legions of Little House devotees (dare I say fanatics?), my sister among them, but these books just don't have the emotional resonance for me that the Ramona series or the All-of-a-Kind Family series (which a friend called, correctly, I think, "the Jewish Little House books") or, for an older audience, Anne of Green Gables, do.  Laura herself was bored during those long winters - why did she think they'd be any more interesting for her readers?  To be fair, the books are not nearly as boring as they could be, but they just don't do it for me. 

And yet, I am finally reading them to my daughter for a number of reasons.  Peer pressure was one - many of her friends are reading it too.  But I also I felt that it was part of the children's canon, books that every (girl) child should read in order to be culturally literate. 

I'm not sure what accounts for the series' appeal, but the hardships faced by Laura and her family and their lack of technology, not to mention what we consider basic creature comforts (like indoor plumbing) are fascinating to some.  But not me.  I can relate to many books that I "shouldn't" be able to - books set in a time and place I know nothing about, like Anne of Green Gables and The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate but not these.  I love plenty of spunky heroines (Anne and Calpurnia again being prime examples) but for me, Laura isn't one of them.  I guess it just comes down to chemistry.  It's just not there between me and Laura.

If you or your child loves the Little House books, why? 

Cracking the Code

Watching my daughter learn to read has been both fascinating and mysterious.  Especially since, at least to me, she is doing so in a rather non-linear fashion.  Bored by most beginning readers, perhaps feeling that picture books were babyish, and entranced by the Ramona series as I've written about here, she announced that she was going to read chapter books before she read "regular" (that is, picture) books (interesting, too, that she still considers picture books the norm).  While she has not quite achieved that goal yet, she is closer every day, sometimes reading whole paragraphs of the Ramona books at a time.

I know that there are two parts to reading - comprehension and decoding.  My daughter's ability to comprehend what she is reading (both the plot and individual words - she is quite good at gleaning the meaning of new words from context) definitely exceeds her decoding ability.  But it is her decoding ability - and inability - that I find most intriguing.  She can sight-read more difficult words such as thought and library, while still having to sounding out simple words like park.  A friend says one day she will just "crack the code."  Has that been your experience or was it a more gradual process?

This post was inspired by the I Can Read Celebration currently being hosted by Playing by the Book and her post about putting yourself in the shoes of a child learning to read.

Kindergarten, Here I Come... or Go!

Most books about a child's first experience with school (which used to be kindergarten, or even 1st grade, as in B is for Betsy, but is now most often preschool) focus on allaying the soon-to-be-student's fears.  Yes, mommy will go away, but she will come back, and while she's gone you will have so much fun you won't even miss her!  There are a number of fine books that take this approach, among them Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdney and The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, both of which focus on separation anxiety and Lucy Cousins' Maisy Goes to School and Maisy Goes to Preschool, which focus on the fun to be had.

But far more interesting to me are the ones that turn this paradigm on its head.  My two favorites involve kindergarten drop-outs.  In the chapter-book classic by Beverly Cleary, Ramona the Pest, Ramona had no fears to allay.  She was only too eager to follow in her big sister Beezus' footsteps and start kindergarten.  But one day, Ramona's beloved teacher Miss Binney tells her she cannot come to school unless she is ready to behave and refrain from pulling Susan's boingy-boingy curls.  Ramona, with refreshing honesty and self-awareness, tells Miss Binney she is unable to do this, and a kindergarten drop-out she becomes.  Ramona's stubbornness keeps her out of school for several days until, after receiving a letter from her teacher, she agrees to return. 

My kindergartener was delighted to discover that Ramona's class, like hers, is housed in a trailer behind the "main building."  Not only that, but Ramona's class had 29 children!  Apparently overcrowded schools and large class sizes are nothing new, although perhaps the parent and public consternation over it is.  Ramona's mother, Mrs. Quimby, certainly expresses no such concern.  Unlike Ramona in 1950s-60s Oregon, however, my daughter does not walk to school herself.

Ramona the Pest is the second (depending on how you count) in this eight-book series which was, remarkably, written over a span of 44 years.  In my opinion these books stand the test of time and I am enjoying them as much, if not more, as I did when I read them the first time.  My daughter seems to agree (although I was dismayed to learn recently that a friend of mine does not), as she and I are on our second cycle of reading the entire series at her request.  I was so pleased (and impressed) when she pointed out that

My daughter's Ramona

upon rereading "you can notice things you didn't notice the first time."  With some gentle questioning (i.e. interrogation), I discovered that she had learned this bit of wisdom from her beloved kindergarten teacher.  She recently named a doll/Purim grogger (noisemaker) that she made Ramona in honor of the series' well-meaning but impulsive, creative and mischievous heroine. 

Ramona and Beezus was the first (and so far the only!) movie my rather sensitive daughter has seen in a theatre.  Despite my aversion to movies based on books, I thought it was a well-done, age-appropriate adaptation and relatively enjoyable for parents, as kids' movies go.  The author herself was pleased with much of the movie, although she disapproved of some moments that were not faithful to the text.  Since the movie is an amalgam of events taken from the entire series, I'd advise reading all the books before seeing it, if you're, like me, a stickler for that sort of thing.

More subversive is Amy Schwartz's Bea and Mr. Jones. Five-year-old Bea and her dad, Mr. Jones, switch places.  Bea goes off to work at an ad agency and Mr. Jones goes to kindergarten.  But instead of this reversal making them appreciate their "proper" places in life, they both discover they love their new lives.  And there they stay, with Bea thinking up ad campaigns and jingles and Mr. Jones acing the colored lollipop game and making good use of his height and excellent motor skills.

Finally, First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg is a more traditional entry in the school anxiety genre.  But even this one has a surprise ending.  The protagonist, whom we do not see fully until the end of the book, reluctantly drags herself out of bed, certain she will hate her new school.  The last page reveals that this unwilling school-goer is... the teacher!