Captain Underpants versus Voices from a Medieval Village

I laughed when I first read of the  growing disenchantment surrounding The Newbery Medal, the literary award for children's books. I wasn't wholly convinced to take it seriously by The Washington Post's take.  Of 25 Newbery winners and runners-up from 2000 to 2005, most of them dealt with issues some would consider too heavy for young minds to process. Four of the books dealt with death, six with the absence of one or both parents and four with mental challenges such as autism. The rest centered on tough social issues. Okaaay. 

This piece in the online magazine, Slate, convinced me that a literary war is brewing. (That or the winter storms left some of us with a tad too much time on our hands.

I get that prizes are big business. Since Oprah doesn't read children's books, the Newbery is one of the few ways sellers of children's books have of generating buzz and boosting sales. The golden seal of the Newbery affixed to the cover of a book is enough to get me to pull it from the shelf and peruse the pages. Whether I buy the book or not depends on if I think my 7-year-old will be interested in the storyline. My son is an emerging reader whose motivation to do the heavy lifting of reading depends on the literary reward. Some of the Newbery choices are hits with him, others are, in his words, snoozers.

So many of his choices, Junie B. Jones, Henry Huggins, Encyclopedia Brown and Cam Jansen aren't award winners. But my son loves them. So I guess it says something that I have more of those books on my shelves than those bearing the golden seal.  But what it says, in the grand scheme of things, isn't much. 

Winter at its best

I haven't taken that walk yet. A spot near the fireplace and the Sunday paper caused a delay. But my son is taking in enough of the outdoors for both of us. 

Of Winter Storms and Time Well Spent

I woke up this morning to twenty-five degree temperatures, high winds and a landscape blanketed under snow. The last week has been like this meaning I can never again say I live in a region of milder climes. There is nothing mild about having to empty the outdoor water systems and drag in the grill and all of my potted plants. The bird bath froze with water in it before I could move it so I just have to pray it doesn't crack. We're use to grilling year round so storing it for even for a week or two is a bummer. My husband went out and stocked up on flashlights and candles but he also did himself one better and made reservations at the Four Seasons in the city. I knew there was a reason I married that man!

 

I'm sitting here clutching a cup of hot coffee with a winter scarf wrapped around my neck wondering how much longer the skinny, tall tree in front of my window will last before the wind muscles it down like a high-school wrestler.  One of the new Mercedes-Benz hybrids just came down the hill, rounding the bend and passing my window, rolling smoothly along the icy plane and chunks of snow and dirt as though it were July. That Benz seemed to say, "neither sleet nor snow will keep me from going about my day!"  Reality check: Just looked up the sticker price and guess I'll stick with what I have in the garage.

If the weather is too bad for mere mortals, I've got plenty to do here. One of the reasons I started this blog was to take a personal look at several areas I write about professionally. The first is education. By the time I finish sorting out the best educational options and services for my 7-year-old I'm certain I'll be either crazy or qualified to write a book. (Hmmmm. The two could work hand-in-hand.) I want to do this over the holiday break so he returns to school, and I to work, with maybe not all of the answers but at least a new direction. The old route is a dead-end and I don't want my beautiful boy stuck there. Second thing I've got to do is finish a compilation of essays on fiber art. Part of that process includes making a square that will be part of a quilt for an artist friend, a fierce sista who favors Hawaiian batiks and tranquil hues of the ocean. She is also one of the smartest public advocates for children in this part of the country. She deserves a quilt so gorgeous all she and visitors to her home can do is stare at it.

But maybe a walk first.

There is something bracing about freezing cold air. I feel like I burn more calories when I'm out in it, even if I just went to the end of the driveway for the newspaper. My plan is to slip into my ski wear and see how far outside I get. The options are that in an hour or two I could be sledding down some of the mountainous hills we have around here, or I could be as I was last night, reclining on the couch under a shawl with a book in one hand and a beverage in the other. There's no shame in my game. Either way I'll let you know.

White Knights for Black Friday

We'll find out on the news later this evening whether shoppers went out and saved all of our economic hides. I'm refusing to participate. The best way to help America's credit addiction is to begin to just say no. 

Don't worry, I'm not trading Coach loafers for Birkenstocks I'm just saying I've had enough of rollercoaster ride our economy has us on. Someone once told me, when I complained about wanting to lose a few pounds, "eat less, move more." That simple. 

As Sinead O'Connor sang, "I do not want what I haven't got." 

Addendum: St. John suits and cashmere throws war mightily with me to be the exception to the rule.

Can I just tell you?

I usually love that opening sentence before the host of the NPR program "Tell Me More," takes it away in a dash of intellectual fury. But this recent podcast by Michel Martin left me wondering if there's any hope for the media when so many of us live in a bubble.

Yes, I said us. When Michel talks about the trade offs made by Michele Obama, including giving up her own income, her privacy and, let's face it, some of her power as a person equally as important and valueable as her husband, I agreed. I understood when Michel talked about her husband, a successful attorney who represents high-profile clients. But at some point the line from the movie Broadcast News came to mind: "What do you do when your life exceeds your dreams? Keep it to yourself."

Americans facing record foreclosures and the largest unemployment rate in recent history don't want to hear Michelle Obama whine about too many butlers or how the opportunity to help lead the largest wealthiest nation on the planet places a crimp in her future plans.

Luckily, our incoming first lady is too smart and self-aware to do this. But can I just tell you that I don't want anyone else doing it either. Those of us privileged enough to choose to work or not, to have household help or not and to have to worry about choosing our words in public as we flit from one social event to the next, are damn lucky. We may bemoan our exalted status as we stand in front of our closet wondering what to wear tonight but we ought to keep these things to a whisper. The explanation that such bemoaning is not about money or status but about the intangibles, doesn't fly. Fixating on the intangibles is a luxury most women catching NPR on the fly as they rush from one necessary task to the other don't have.

Everyone has their right to an opinion. And I'm exercising mine right now. The world is scary. We need all hands on deck, even the most bejeweled.

Martin is right that black women have always worked. We've always had our own career and piece of money. And I get it that a move to the White House interrupts that flow for Michelle Obama. Yes, the next four years will be all about the presidency. But this is more than a charitable trade-off. It is the steps that lead to large spheres of influence. Improving the lives of ordinary Americans will be the public's reward if this all goes right. And for the Obamas? Well when they exit the White House, they and their children will find the world theirs for the taking. Need a job that pays gazillions, here's one. Need a top-notch surgeon, this one's on speed-dial. Need anything from the yawning list of things most families do without, its yours. That's how power and affluence works. I don't know anyone who doesn't get that. But back to the Broadcast News guy, "Keep it to yourself."

And while my heart is working harder than Beyonce, let me add my voice to the call for more diversity among the chatter about Michelle Obama. Aren't there viewpoints beyond a parade of well-heeled, politically-connected women with D.C. area codes? I only ask because from what I've read on the website The Root, every writer is looking for the incoming First Lady to be vindication for their particular set of principles. One writer heralds Michelle Obama as the new poster child for stay-at-home black moms. Another writer says Mrs. Obama puts an end to feminism because she is under 50 and non-white.

Wow. To have all of these expectations placed upon one's back, I mean if there is anything the public can sympathize with Michelle Obama about, it is that.

The White House through the eyes of the butler

This is a touching story about a White House butler who has served presidents from Truman to John Kennedy to the Carters to the Reagans.

What struck me in the story, besides its simple beauty was how well the presidents and their families treated this man who was for all intents and purposes  part of a vast array of household help. To know that people still take time out of their busy lives to treat others as individuals deserving of respect and recognition gives me hope for mankind.

I'm still jet-lagged from spending the last week on the East Coast. Like the rest of the country I'm keyed up with anticipation over the future of our country under President Barack Obama. I'm trying to keep my expectations low. Interviewing policy experts, politicians and ordinary people, I realize that alot of hopes lie with Obama. Too many in my estimation. The peaceniks aren't going to get their quick end to the war. Iraq is a bloody quagmire and Afghanistan is as unbreachable as Sudan. Obama may be able to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians but President Carter did also and we see how long that lasted.

Closer to home, I'm excited about the challenge our new president sets before each of us: to change our lives. We can't go on the old way. Those of us who voted for Obama did so because we believe in his potential to change our world. But we shouldn't forget that the other part of that bargain included believing in our own ability to change. It is time to live simply, so others may simply live. 

No need to take vows of poverty or silence. I rather like the idea of enjoying what I have, whether its money or the biggest mouth this side of the Mississippi. I've always exercised a certain joie de vivre but mostly around significant events or objects. Now, everything must become significant. Every touch, every bite, every smell signals that I am alive and have elected change. Thinking of it, I am elated and if I'm honest, a bit tired. Change requires energy. :)

Et tu?

President Barack Obama and way too much champagne

More than 130 million Americans voted in yesterday's election, the most in our history! Folks rose to the occasion!

I wrote about this momentous occasion in my column this week. And then I ran out of the office like I was being chased.  My rationale for not working election night, the most important day for journalists was this:  when I look back I want to remember that I witnessed this election surrounded by people for whom the moment held the same magnificent meaning. 

We used the fine crystal for our bubbly and settled down to an evening of election returns punctuated by whooping, fist bumping and dancing around our living room. I knew I would have a headache the next day, and I do. But the most important election in my life time, and that of my parents and grandparents was no time to pretend to be unmoved. 

My neighbor, a stay-at-home mom who home schools her three children and believes in homeopathic remedies, baked an "Obama" cake, a chocolate-covered ring adorned with M&Ms added throughout the night to match the number of electoral votes won by Obama.

Surprises for me, included the large swaths of Latino voters in Florida who normally break Republican but voted this time for Obama. He pulled the young vote and his technologically efficient campaign ought to be a model for anyone planning to seek public office. 

Throughout the night and today, people have sent me anecdotes that tell me I'm not alone in my euphoria. There was the hard-bitten corporate lawyer happily ensconced in his fifties and his suburban McMansion breaking down in tears when Obama reached the winning number of electoral votes.  There was my home-schooling neighbor who spent the day making "get out the vote" calls for Obama and related the elderly Minnesota woman she talked to who was half-blind and in her 90s but was awaiting a ride to the polls so she could vote. No one wanted to let history pass them by. 

The Wall Street Journal attributed Obama's win to angst over the economy. But it was about so much more. In the Seattle area where I live, voters overwhelmingly approved tax increases for everything from parks and roads to fire stations. Angst doesn't send 130 million to the polls; hope does.

I'll leave off  with a sweet letter to our new president from the writer Alice Walker. Her charge to Obama: cultivate happiness, responsibility and good will in his own life and it will be a model the rest of America will follow.  Words to live by. Et tu?

Our kids: self-confident or fearful of failure?

I've been struggling with how to encourage my second-grader to try harder even when the task seems impossible. He is gifted in so many ways and because of the praise heaped on him from so many corners, seems to have an abundance of self-confidence. But he becomes almost paralyzed with fear when something requires significant effort. This fear is visible whether he's putting together a Lego set with an unusually large amount of pieces or working on a school project. His fear of failure is palpable doing those times, even as we seek to soothe him by telling him he is likely to succeed and in the event of failure, learned something that will make success more likely the next time. The whole if at first you don't succeed, try try again mantra.

I saw this article in Education Week, a newspaper devoted to education issues. It has me wondering. If we do our jobs as parents right, our kids will have more successful moments than not. But does that make them fear the prospect of fear to the point of avoiding risky efforts, such as areas they aren't strong in? How do we balance praise, the need to instill self-confidence with the reality that they will struggle at some things? So many adults play it safe, not venturing into areas that will require considerable risk, is this something our children learn from us? Is there anything wrong with that?

Kidney stones, middle fingers and 2nd grade angst

Is it just me or does the news publish a threat to our children every day. Today, it was this story in the New York Times about the growing number of children diagnosed with kidney stones. Typically the province of the elderly, kidney stones are a pain not to be wished on anyone. Hold your thoughts while I get up for a glass of water.

Back. Unlike a growing number of people, I can't ignore the news. It would be like ignoring the elephant trampling through my living room. I try to pick and choose but nothing creates a magnetic pull on my eyes like stories about children. Whether its awful things happening to some poor child, like actress Jennifer Hudson's family, including a 7-year-old nephew, found shot to death. And don't let me turn to the international section where stories on Darfur and other horrors await. ..

Lighter moment: racing into the city this am to get my son to school on time (always an iffy proposition for us) and myself to work, I noticed a friendly-looking burgundy Toyota Prius race by in the slower lane, jet over just a hair ahead of the car in front of me and take the next few miles of curves like it was the Indy 500. Now we're off the highway and in the city and the same car zooms up behind me, swerves into the next lane, passes me and other cars and zooms back in our lane narrowly missing behind rear-ended. The drivers' response to the honking horns was a middle finger stuck out of the window, raised high. Here's the funny part: I get to my son's school and guess what car was parked crookedly in front: the Prius! A kindly but hurried looking man opened the door for one of my son's classmates, pushed him toward the building, suddenly grabbed him back, shoved a lunch bag into his hand and then pushed him forward again. No words were exchanged btwn the two. Some days I guess we're too busy to use our words, or give our kids the drop off they deserve.

Lastly, second grade angst. I'm desperate to hear how you're dealing with heightened academic expectations in school and a child that just wants to chill. Homework in second grade is just plain wicked. It also seems our teacher puts a lot more emphasis on student's behavior than their intellectual abilities. When asked how a student's day was, she's more apt to talk about behavior than classwork. Yes, children must learn how to behave in school, a place much different than home. But it is a process, not something they instinctively know when they arrive for kindergarten, right? Behavioral ups and downs that fall within the norm should be expected. I'm more interested in academic ups and downs which could be signs of serious problems. Looking for perspective here.

A good death

It takes no small amount of money and fearlessness but one can control their death down to the final moments. The New York Times recently featured a woman who lived out her final months at the Hotel Carlyle, taking walks around Central Park and lingering at the piano bar in the evenings. 

A much better exit from this life than that granted to Oscar winning actress Jennifer Hudson's mother and brother. That story is unfolding but it appears to be the same old bs that made some of us leave home and never look back.

School is in session

In between the steps moving me through the days of my life, I find rare moments to take a breath. Unfortunately, I haven't used those moments to come here. School began, Jackson is in 2nd grade this year. I have high hopes but then I have every year since he let go of my hand and walked into kindergarten.

I have a strange dual relationship with school. I've spent much of my career writing about the highs and lows of public education, yet my husband and I chose a private school for our son. The cost is unfathomable in this sense: how can we spend upwards of $20,000 to educate one child and yet turn parismonious when it comes to educating millions of children? I'm doing what I must for my child; he needs the small, nurturing environment and freedom from rules characteristic of independent schools. He isn't ready to be held accountable in a formal, rigid manner. On this I'm unapologetic. 

My grandparents and parents went through hell to gain their progeny the right to walk into any classroom. Now we can. We have the legal and economic wherewithal to choose any academic setting. This is the civil right we all possess. Yet, it is fraught with peril every step of the way. I think my son is getting the best education possible, but some days I just don't know. I don't know if he is held to the same standard as other kids, whether he is encountering the stereotypes common for boys in the classroom, never mind kids of color. Is he seen as more than a justification for FTEs or as proof of a school's embrace of diversity? Is he more than a cog in the wheel? I think parents frequently wonder and for the most part we trust in the system, private or public,  and keep moving. But how? How do we keep moving?

Put down the camera and the pen: just take it all in

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination with such style and fanfare it will become the new standard. Not the stadium of course, few politicians will ever be able to fill 76,000 seats. But there was so much imagery, from invoking MLK's March on Washington to the Federalist columns that framed Obama during his speech, making him look like a statesman. Our statesman.

When Michelle Obama and the girls came out it was like an updated, diverse version of the Kennedys in the White House. The regal, gorgeous wife, the kids bounding around looking every bit part of an American family. 

I wanted to tell my husband what that moment felt like, grab the computer and blog about it to you guys or click the camera in my mind to preserve the memory forever. I did none of the above. All I could do was stare the television screen, absorbing the monumental moment my son and grandsons will learn about in school.

Hillary knocked it out of the park

With grace, fierce intellect and an unshakeable sense of purpose, Hillary Rodham Clinton did her thang in Denver last night. She did her best to unify the fractured Democratic party.

She came with a mission that was threefold: thank and console her supporters; remind the rest of us of her place in the nation and in history and and why we should expect to see her again in 2012 and, last but not least, exhort everyone with a brain to get behind Barack Obama or explain to their shrinks why four more years of George Bush/John McCain is acceptable.

For me, what this election comes down to is the future. My future, that of my family's and of this nation. I want everyone, or darn near everyone, to have health insurance so they stop going to the emergency room and running up bills that those of us with insurance then pay. I want more emphasis on education and less on fighting wars. I want the return of our moral authority, not our ability to bully other countries.

Mostly, I just want peace. And although my life is really good, I can't know peace while 19-year-olds are dying in Iraq or coming back without their legs. I can't fake peace when children are going to horrific schools while my son enjoys the best our educational system has to offer.

Chatting with an acquaintance recently, she archly told me she doesn't read the newspaper or listen to the news. "It is too depressing and I don't want to live my life in fear," she said.
Nice try. The reality is kids will die in wars, people will suffer without health care and it will all happen even if we pretend not to notice. I know there is an emotional cost, but my conscience demands that I notice. I want a president who notices. Et tu?

Do children need to know for whom the bell tolls?

A friend of ours has just discovered he has a serious illness. Once he gets over the shock I think he can face the gravity of all this. I think, or hope, that at some point  my heart won't sink like a stone when I think of him. But the awful part, the thing I can't get my head around is that this has happened to a young, vibrant person with a daughter the same age as my son.

We parents struggle mightily to ensure death or nothing related comes near our children. We will give up our own lives to preserve theirs. Death is something that will come for all of us but we want to put it off as long as possible, more I think, for our children's sake than our own.  As I type these words my son skitters about the kitchen making a get-well card for his grandpa who is hospitalized with pneumonia. Grandpa's wife, my son's Nana, sits distraught 3,000 miles away. To cheer her up my son empties his Halloween stash and requests that I take him to the post office tomorrow so he can mail Nana a snack. 

To my son, sick feels like an aching tummy or a stuffed up nose. He is innocent of the word's wide and horrific bandwidth. I would like to keep it this way (he is only 7) but two of his friends now have seriously ill parents. Time to pick up one of those books I've passed over in the bookstores, the ones advising how to talk with young children about death. My instinct is to go slowly, but I also don't want him struggling for answers alone. 

Color Struck

Oh no they didn't. The mad social scientists at the New York Times' blog, Freakonomics, perked up a slow news day by wading into the age-old debate in black America over skin tone.

Economist Steven D. Levitt co-authored a Harvard University paper, "The Plight of Mixed-Race Adolescents" that asserts biracial kids exhibit terrible behavior but are all really, really good looking." Deep breath. Another. And another. Now discuss. I'll start.

I don't care whether the paper was written at Harvard or the London School of Economics, there is no scientific basis for assigning behavior by race or skin tone. Judging from the uproar the blog created, I suspect there is more outrage over the other side of the coin: biracial people are beautiful. Say what?

Dismissals of the notion of beauty being based on racial mix are flying. I've heard responses from the tepid, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," to the more interesting point that it is dark-skinned men who are considered real and beautiful men while paler male tones are just "pretty boys."

Since nearly all African Americans are of mixed ancestry, we're essentially talking about ourselves. Some of us have a white ancestor, others a white parent. Think Barack Obama. One would believe the recent success of Italian Vogue's all-black model cover would put to rest notions of beauty based on color. But America was built on absurd racial notions and they don't die easily.

Blacks are no longer required to have skin lighter than a brown paper bag to enter elite social milieus. But some of the twisted standards of beauty linger. I'm talking about the way black people can tease each other about their place in the hiearchy by invoking notions of field vs. house slaves. Both were owned but the latter held a higher status, working indoors and presumably eating and living better. Slaves in the house tended to have lighter complexion. Blacks, largely women, still remain obsessed with hair texture, an insecurity the hair care industry has profited from. And when it comes to love, color-struck remains more than a notion.

Farai Chideya takes up the issue with roundtable guests on her NPR show, "News & Notes."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/newsandviews/2008/08/mixedrace_kids_cuter_but_worse.html

Et tu?