The Diamond in the Window

We Recommend: Inconsistent Animal-Lover's Edition

It's We Recommend, in which we attempt to find readers the perfect book. Got a kid who needs a recommendation? Write us at thediamondinthewindow (at) gmail (dot) com with the age, reading tastes, favorite books, and any other relevant (or irrelevant) information, and we'll give it a shot. And really? All the good suggestions are in the comments.

Perhaps you remember a We Recommend from a long time ago, when a teacher wrote in asking for help selecting presents for some kids who were leaving her class? First of all, you guys rocked the recommendations, because the presents were apparently a hit. And, the teacher wrote in AGAIN asking for help. Can you even deal with what an awesome teacher this is? But I've got to warn you all: this one is a challenge.

I've got a boy, ten years old but young for his age, with some learning difficulties, sweet and loving and quirky and silly. His reading level varies from day to day, so it's hard to pin down, sometimes he'll struggle with Dr Seuss and some other days he'll read sentences out of Natural History books fluently. We'd like to get him reading chapter books, which he has resisted so far. My plan is to find an easy chapter book series that he just won't be able to resist -- but I've no idea what that could be. He *loves* animals and wants to be 'a naturalist' when he grows up, and he also likes pirates and Star Wars.

Wow. And the nonfiction ones (at least sometimes) are easier than the fiction? Or at least the Dr. Seuss? Well it sounds like context helps. I'm going to go with the loving animals, and the naturalist side of things.

What's frustrating is that there are a whole lot of Junior Veterinarian and horse early chapter books, but they are pretty aggressively girl-oriented. I must say, he also makes me think of Hatchet, which is of course too hard. And of Trumpet of the Swan. The whole idea of wilderness and animals and all that. But a series is also requested (and with good reason, it sounds like) because if he is thrilled and inspired by one then the others will be all the more tempting.

But what?

I am thinking of Ranger Rick, to be honest. I know it's not a series, and it's not even a book, but it will entrance him I think, and there will be longer stories for when he's ready for that, and shorter ones for when things are not going that way. Though a quick look at the web site seems to indicate that Big Backyard might be easier.

OK, so here's what I'm doing—something I never do. I am going with an author I know, but a series I don't. I love Cynthia Rylant—she has the crazy ability to know what is compelling to kids. And these books look lovely, with a special emphasis on sea animals. That's right, it's the Lighthouse Series. (Sorry, the link is just for one, I couldn't find a good home for the whole series).

I fear I may have traveled too far from his Star Wars and pirates love, but I couldn't think of the right thing. All the lovely woodsy E.B. White is too hard I think. And this does look really sweet.

But what I'm really getting at here is: hey excellent readers, got any suggestions? Put them in the comments (please!).

A Didactic Tale to Illustrate Just How Much the Teacher Rating System Pisses Me Off, a True Story

Once upon a time, a very smart girl was taking her 4th grade ELA test (that's English Language Arts for those of you who have escaped the horror). The girl loved to read, and everyone thought she would perform outstandingly well, just as she had on the ELA test she'd been subjected to in 3rd grade.

What no one knew was that the very smart girl had been fuming for weeks about her curtailed reading time, and her shortened read alouds—all in the name of test prep.

But, the Board of Education insisted on test prep. And so the teachers reluctantly did test prep. They were beginning to worry that their careers might depend on these tests results. They were right to worry.

The day of the test came, and the children lined up in neat silent rows. And the teacher handed out the test. The children dutifully lowered their heads and began to work. They filled in oval after oval, they read stupid passage after stupid passage. And then the smart little girl got to the stupidest passage of all. And she just...stopped. She looked at the passage, a story about a squirrel, and something in her rebelled. The passage was insipid. The questions were foolish. She wanted only one thing—to read. And so she reached into her desk and pulled out a book and she read.

Of course, all hell broke loose. The child on the other side said, "Hey! You're not allowed to read!" The teacher strode towards the little girl, plucked the book from her hand, put it back in the desk and turned the desk around so the child couldn't do it again. But not before the state test proctor, who'd been passing by in the hallway, darted in.

Hissed whispers between the teacher and the proctor. The proctor insisted that the child be reported for cheating. The teacher, who knew the little girl, promised that it was not a case of cheating. Back and forth they went, until somehow the teacher prevailed. The child was told to resume the test.

But she refused.

The teacher, knowing the importance the middle schools would place on this test, tried with her eyes to convince the child to resume the test. She wasn't allowed to speak, of course, because that would have been cheating.

The child refused.

Instead she crossed her arms in front of her. And she just sat there. Eventually it started to snow, and she gazed outside at the giant flakes and watched them fall.

And she didn't do a single other question on the test.

When the test was over, the children filed out, all except for the girl. The teacher asked her to stay. "Why did you do that?"

The child set her jaw. She hunkered down. "That test was an insult to my intelligence."

The teacher sighed. She'd read the passage. It was, indeed, an insult to the intelligence of all the children who had taken it. But that wasn't the point. "I realize you don't like the tests. But there are going to be lots of things in this world that you don't like, and sometimes you just have to suck it up. You're smart, but you still have to do what you have to do. It's part of life." And the little girl grudgingly nodded.

That year the little girl did worse on her ELA test than she had the year before, no doubt giving her teacher a terrible rating in the moronic New York City teacher ratings, currently posted for the world to see in New York Times. Because those ratings are based on how the child does on these tests from one year to the next. And they are a textbook exercise in stupidity and wastefulness.

That one-on-one talk the teacher had with that little girl about how sometimes you have to suck it up and just do what you need to do? There was more good teaching in that one moment than in all the years of test prep the little girl has been subject to, before and since. And that teacher is the same one who instilled in her students a love of reading so strong and deep that there were many moments of absolute enthralled silence in that classroom.

Now, class, I have a few questions for you about the passage you just read:

Does anyone know how much it costs to write these tests? Print them? Administer them? Grade them? Millions, right? And can anyone tell me why the hell is that money going to this crap instead of to my kids foreign language program (may it rest in peace)? My children's art programs (RIP)? My children's libraries?

Anyone?

 

We Recommend: 9-Year-Old Warrior-Fan Edition

It's We Recommend, in which we attempt to match kids up with their perfect book. Got a kid in your life who needs a recommendation? Write us at thediamondinthewindow (at) gmail (dot) com with the age, reading tastes, favorite books, and any other relevant (or irrelevant) information, and we'll give it a shot. And really? All the good suggestions are in the comments.

You know what's nice? That so many people write in who say, "My kid loves to read and...." All kinds of kids—boys, girls, young, old, silly, fearless. It reminds you that as much as you hear and see about the world going to ruin, there is another side as well. Now let's see if we can help this young lady:

I have a daughter who is an excellent reader. If given the option to do anything it is always to read. I keep hearing conflicting information. From some teachers they say let her read whatever she chooses. This is what I have been doing. Others say the books she reads are fluff or dessert books not great writing or substance. Her favorite series is Warriors. Her current teacher says it is fine no big deal. I am just curious: am I holding my daughter back and not challenging her enough or opening her reading up enough. Or would I just be forcing it on her? She does read other series so she doesn't just limit herself but I think typically she reads books that are easier for her than she could read. The only issue is once she starts more challenging books they are scary or don't interest her. Even Harry potter and Lightning Thief seem scary. And she started The Name of This Book Is Secret and The Mysterious Benedict Society but parts get scary and then she stops reading them.

OK, for the first part? The part where she wonders if it's OK for her to read whatever she wants? My answer is here, and it is always yes (so far—I suppose some intense porn habit might give me pause, but I have not yet encountered this). In fact, I am beginning to be highly suspicious of the very word challenging.

The scariness factor is something else. But I think it pretty much disappears if you let the kid read what she wants. When I asked Diana for recommendations, she said, "She's scared of The Lightning Thief and not Warriors? Why not?" And of course, I have no idea. I suspect it may just be she's not ready for it to be people who are in peril, only cats. And so I go with Diana's suggestion, which may not allay concerns that she's reading fluff but will likely bring her great joy, Guardians of Ga'Hoole.

I offer this up in the spirit of: don't worry, parent, you won't have to read it. But! It seems like it will fit the bill admirably. And there appear to be approximately one million of them in the series, though I can't vouch for the quality of the later ones (or these ones, exactly). I do think she will love them.

But help us out, readers. Do you have ideas for what other books might work for this reader? Put them in the comments.

Half-Baked Theories: The Happiness Graph and Foolish Ideas About Gender, True Love, etc. With CHARTS!

Here's a little half-baked theory that I've had for a while. Except maybe it's not exactly a theory, it's more like a...thing I've noticed.

Here we go: the happiness graph. Basically, I was teaching a class of SAT prep students long, long ago and I was trying to let them know that better days were ahead. To do this, I made a quick line graph of my happiness levels from 1st grade or so up through college. There was a sharp happiness drop-off in 7th grade, which only gradually repaired itself as the subject went to college (see how scientific? I said "subject"). But more or less I was trying to tell them that things can be terrible and then eventually they get better.

Then, to avoid doing the work we should have been doing, I had them all graph their own happiness levels up to the present. Here's what was crazy. Most of the girls had charts that more or less corresponded to mine. I think we can ascribe this to the fact that 7th grade girls can be...unkind. The boys? Different—they didn't have a happiness drop off until 9th grade.

Except! Here's where things got kooky. The sweet boys, the nerds—the guys who made sense to me? Their charts had the same 7th grade drop off that the girls had.

And lest you think that it was that class alone or that they were influenced by my own history, not at all. That year I asked everyone I encountered to graph their happiness over the same span (yes, I was a whole lot of fun) without telling them anything about them, and lo and behold this alignment held up every time. Excellent nice guys = horrendous happiness dip in 7th grade.

So what the heck? Does being miserable in 7th grade turn boys nice? Are nice boys more likely to be miserable in 7th grade? I mean, I know that there must be excellent nice guys who were happy and sunny all the way through, or the reverse—but I didn't find them.

What does it all mean? And does it have anything at all to do with reading?

But How Does It END? Or, Middle Grade Books, Jeremy Lin, and Reality

I spent FAR too long yesterday writing a bedtime story about Jeremy Lin. I couldn't help it! As a lapsed Knicks fan and a sucker for narrative, I'm as susceptible—if not more so—to linsanity as the next person. It started out so well, too: "Once upon a time there was a sad basketball team in a strange place called New York City."

But I didn't post it. Here's the problem—and here's the problem with life, which also happens to be the problem with the books Chestnut is reading now (Oooh, a segue!): I don't know how it will end. Which means I can't make any promises that it will end well.

It used to be so simple! Chestnut would read a book, and then tension would happen. She would worry: will the pony find its way home? Will the child find its mom? Will everything be OK? And I could always say "Everything will be OK. Honey, it's a book for little kids, I promise you that they will make sure that nothing horrible happens."

Except then people get older and for the first time she read a book and said, "I'm worried she won't win the big competition!" And like an idiot I said, "Honey, of course she will...." Except she didn't. It wasn't a book for little kids anymore, it was more complicated and nuanced and...realistic.

All of which reminds me of my, er, distaste for reality.

I know, I know—life isn't always going to end well. Things will happen that are difficult. People won't always win their big competitions, they won't always find their way home, they won't always find their moms. But those truths? They are painful.

As for Jeremy Lin? While I can't necessarily say "and they all lived happily ever after," I try to remind myself that it's just a game. And that he's already done amazing things. And I can remind myself, too, that this is the reason watching sports is so gratifying: it's the one thing on television where you really don't know how it will end. And that's great. Even if it is sometimes a little painful.

We Recommend: Detailed Illustrations for the Younger Set

It's We Recommend, in which we attempt to match kids up with their perfect book. Got a kid in your life who needs a recommendation? Write us at thediamondinthewindow (at) gmail (dot) com with the age, reading tastes, favorite books, and any other relevant (or irrelevant) information, and we'll give it a shot. And all the good suggestions are in the comments, so be sure to look there.

How I think of myself: all-seeing. Wide-ranging. Flexible.

How I actually am: stuck in the confines of my life and circumstances.

For instance: I feel like I know a lot of children's books. But really? The books I know now seem to be only the ones my (constantly and frighteningly getting older) kids are interested in.

So it is with a bit of culture shock along with fond memories that I get a request like this one. Check it out:

My daughter is 3 1/2. She also loves being read to, and we do this every day, sometimes a couple of times every day. 
She has enjoyed board books in the past (Sandra Boynton, Taro Gomi) but for the last year or so is into what she calls "real" books, which means one made of regular paper (!). She has loved Alexandra Day's Good Dog Carl series tremendously, also Margaret Wise Brown, Oliver Jeffers ("Up and Down" and "Lost and Found") and some of Dr. Seuss (she loves the "drama" in Dr. Seuss I think). A current favourite is "I Live in Brooklyn" by Mari Takabayashi. 
We find that she is increasingly likes books with a 3-4 of lines on each page and incredibly detailed illustrations. 
We are a multilingual family, so picture books work as well because we can work with various different languages at the same time (books by Jan Ormerod--"moonlight," and "sunshine" are huge hits, and continue to be). "Season-related" books, especially those to do with very cold winters are a bit difficult to relate to because while we lived in NYC for ten years we have now moved to India where the weather is pretty much the same through out the year! 

She's 3 1/2! This used to be something commonplace for me, but now I feel like "Awww. She doesn't have homework!"

But let me not get awww-ed away from our task here, which is to find this sunny-sounding person something good to read. I must say I like her style: I, too, am an admirer of Good Dog, Carl. I too dig Mari Takabayashi. I too enjoy the drama of Dr. Seuss.

The trouble is, of course, that I don't know any of the new books, because people in my house don't read them. So I will be relying a lot on you, generous reader, to come up with a few good things in the comments.

I am thinking about the detailed illustrations, because that is one of the best things about reading with the tiny. They can spend so long analyzing what's going on! And it's reminding me of all my old favorites: Babar, and Marshmallow Kisses, and ALL of Richard Scarry with his excellent crazy accidents going on all over. She would do well to get these.

But the one my kids truly loved reading was Sidewalk Trip, also illustrated (if not written) by Mari Takabayashi. Particularly appreciated: it has tiny drawings of cakes and cookies.

But as I said, I am not hanging with the picture-book crowd. Help me out, readers, what should she get?

 

Coming of Age: Kids Reading...BLOGS????

As I've mentioned before, for a long time I've wondered just when it is that kids get to adult books. I mean, there have been adult books woven in there for a long time now: Calvin Trillin (perfect), James Thurber, bizarre parenting books. But as with all things child-related, we haven't exactly moved along the linear path I expected. I thought a person might go from board books to Ballet Shoes to The Secret Garden to The Hobbit to, I don't know, Stephen King, to David Lodge (is this making me sound crazy?).

Instead, I watch people go from alphabet books to Nate the Great to the Boxcar Children, back to alphabet books, a mercifully brief foray among books featuring the Olsen Twins, back to the Boxcar Children, an intense Animorphs affair, then Warriors, then too widely varied to really make sense of: fantasy, manga, Cooks Illustrated, the Clique books, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...and so on.

And then, without warning (or do I mean, with far too much warning but what the heck am I going to do about it?), a new true love: Mimi Smartypants.

I...I don't know what to think. I mean, I love to read Mimi Smartypants. She's funny and smart and interesting, but—as with so many other things in life—I guess I feel like, "This isn't what I expected at all."

I appreciate that the kid has taste. And there wasn't really anything comparable when I was coming up. I was filching Fear of Flying off my mother's bookshelf. And my poor, narrow, only-thinks-of-things-in-relation-to-itself brain doesn't quite know how to make sense of this since I don't have a similar experience. I've watched her build a library over the years, it's just that I never expected her to come up with a blogroll.

Sure it's nice that when she says "Please, please, please, could I just use your computer to look at..." it ends with "mimi smartypants" rather than, say, "cute overload." It's just...I don't know what it just is. Is it that it's so obviously grownup that it freaks me out? Is it a vision of the person she is going to be?

When I ask her about it directly, she says (delightedly) "But she and I have the exact same sense of humor!"

Why can't I get my head around this new reading phenomenon? Do you guys know?

Books for Breakfast

First, let me acknowledge that I am enough of a spendthrift and an old-fashioned person to not only get the New York Times delivered daily to my house (paper form!), but also to read it over breakfast and read various interesting points out loud to whomever is near. Yes, of course this is an irritating habit. And I know that Twitter has now taken over this role in the world, but if you ask me twitter and breakfast do not mix.

All of which is to say: I read during breakfast. Therefore, it puts me in a weak position with regards to forbidding my children to read at breakfast. But as most parents know, reading a book at breakfast is invitation to falling down the warm welcoming well of things-that-don't-involve-getting-ready-for -school. And given the speed at which people in my house move, there really isn't time for any of those things.

So what's the responsible thing to do? Give up my own morning paper? Impossible. It would break my heart.

Read my paper while the children suffered bookless? I don't know if I have the stomach for it.

Carry on in our current fashion, which involves everyone reading through breakfast and then all of a sudden realizing what time it is amid a lot of rushing and stressing and yelling along with unpleasant screeching  from me when I realize someone has holed up in the bathroom reading and is, in fact, not yet dressed or even close to ready.

Is this crazy? There must be a better way, but I cannot imagine it. It can't be to ban breakfast reading, can it?

We Recommend: Love and Relationships and Families

It's We Recommend, in which we attempt to match kids up with their perfect book. Got a kid in your life who needs a recommendation? Write us at thediamondinthewindow (at) gmail (dot) com with the age, reading tastes, favorite books, and any other relevant (or irrelevant) information, and we'll give it a shot. And all the good suggestions are in the comments, so be sure to look there.

Can I tell you how wonderful it is to have an email account where you get heartfelt, thoughtful requests for great books? As opposed to, say, work emails about deadlines and missed comments and general misery? It is very wonderful.

Anyway, I think you will find today's request particularly affecting (though perhaps I am just tired and loopy?). You be the judge:

I have an 8 year old daughter who theoretically loves to read (she says she does) but in reality starts a lot of books but doesn't finish them.  She ripped through the first Harry Potter, but only got halfway through the second.  She started Mary Poppins but didn't get far.  She has loved reading (on her own) Ivy & Bean, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Betsy-Tacy.  Together we have read The Little House books, the Penderwicks, the Ramona books, most of Roald Dahl, and lots of Judy Blume. She is happy for more challenging books if we read them together, but on her own I think she struggles a bit and gets easily discouraged.  Today she said she wasn't that keen on the Harry Potter books because bad things kept happening and that she preferred books 'about love and relationships and families'.  Any suggestions gratefully accepted.

Love and relationships and families? What an appealing little person this is!

This email made me think several things. One: she is not ready to read full-on complex chapter books. When we read as grown-ups, I think we lose sight of the fact that it's not just difficult words that make a book hard to read. It's convoluted sentences, or sentences that jump from one page to another, or even just the prospect of 300 more pages. And when it's too hard, it's just no fun.

I know that reading parents get impatient. They want their kid to find all the awesome books that they themselves have loved—it's hard to wait. And I think we forget, too, just how old we were when we read things. We have this fuzzy image of "When I was a kid," and don't remember (maybe) that we were in 6th grade when we read Judy Blume or Harriet the Spy or whatever it was. Or maybe we were in 3rd, but it's different for everyone, and no one's interest is served by matching a kid with a book that is too hard. And Harry Potter? It's scary. I don't think I would ever have read it when I was 8. I couldn't even stay in the room to watch Batman.

So this parent is lucky: the kid is happy to be read to. To that end, I would say read aloud! Read all of the many stories in which bad things DON'T keep happening. Read her Ballet Shoes. Read her Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great! Read her Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's Magic! Read her All of a Kind Family, too.

But for her to read? I consulted with Chestnut, who is the absolute perfect person to talk to about a case like this. She thought about it and considered The Cobble Street Cousins. Which could be really great. But then she thought about it a little more and said, "I've got it!" And I think she does.

A kid wants to read about "love and relationships and families"? You can bet Chestnut will give her love and relationships and families. Sarah, Plain and Tall is excellent, and heartfelt, and sweet. My only worry? It might be too hard, but I don't think so. And if it is? Her mom can read it to her, and she can take the Cobble Street Cousins on her own, and curl up in her room, and read about love and relationships and families some more.

But maybe there are other great ideas? Put them, as always, in the comments.