Wednesday Hodgepodge: Fading to Fall

1. What's something you'd rate a 10/10? Tell us why.

A book I picked up by accident on a free-books table, and reviewed for our church library. Since the library didn't have the book, I donated my copy...kind of what goes around, comes around? This is what I wrote:

Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times, by Os Guinness (IVP, 2014). “Call it renewal, call it reformation, call it restoration…What matters is that it is a movement that is led by the Spirit of God, which involves the people of God returning to the ways of God and so demonstrating in our time the kingdom of God, and not in word only but in power and with the plausibility of community expression.” This new book asks the old question: how do Christians live in the world but not of it?  Has the answer to that changed? What are the biggest challenges to the church in this century? What are the greatest opportunities? This would be a particularly valuable book for young adults to read as they try to make sense of the world around them, but it is equally appropriate for those of us who may feel we’re playing catch-up with a rapidly changing culture. There are prayers and study questions after each chapter, and the text of the 2008 Evangelical Manifesto is included as an appendix.

2. What job would you be terrible at? What makes you think so?

I can think of several: gym teacher, police officer, telemarketer, bookkeeper, 
waitress.

Sally Henny Penny gets rather flustered when she tries to count out change, and she insists on being paid cash; but she is quite harmless. ~~ Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Ginger and Pickles

3. When did you last take a fall? What's something you're falling for (in a good way) these days?

A literal fall? See the Hodgepodge from four weeks ago.

I'm not sure about the rest of it.

4. According to the Travel Channel here are some of America's best fall festivals-

National Apple Harvest Festival (near Arendtsville PA, close to Gettysburg), Harvest on the Harbor (Portland Maine), German Village Festival (Columbus Ohio), Wellfleet Oyster Fest (Cape Cod), and Wine and Chile Fiesta (Santa Fe NM)

Have you ever been to any of the festivals listed? Which one appeals to you most? Does your hometown have any sort of fall celebration, and if so will you make it a point to attend?

There are fall festivals all over southern Ontario, including fall fairs, the Wellesley Apple Butter and Cheese Festival, and Oktoberfest. They're fun, but not something we're really involved with (except maybe going to the Oktoberfest parade on Canadian Thanksgiving).

5. What is your goodbye message to summer?

You've overstayed here: here's your sunhat, what's your hurry?

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Yesterday afternoon we did not have water in our building, because some needed repairs took longer than they should have. Finally there was limited cold water but not hot, through most of the evening..People in the building were complaining loudly. I walked over to the discount store just before it closed, and bought some bottled water just in case. When I got back, Mr. Fixit had boiled two kettles of water and was washing the dinner dishes. The tap water came back to its original state at about bedtime.

And I thought about people who live without hot water every day, and people who can't get clean water, and people who are without power. We are lucky to be in a place where things go wrong, but do get fixed. It's not something we should take for granted.

Linked from The Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

The Drama of Reading Aloud (Hidden Art of Homemaking, Chapter 10)

"Reading aloud is the best outlet that I know of for hidden dramatic ability.  It is the best development of speaking ability, and the least complicated exercise for the use of one's voice and expression."  ~~ Edith Schaeffer, Hidden Art of Homemaking

If you've read Chapter 10 of Hidden Art, you'll  know that the chapter has very little to do with drama (as in, let's put on a play) and a great deal to do with the importance of reading...aloud, together...in families.  What's often stressed these days is the importance of reading to children, which is also very important and which can be almost the same thing.  But in terms of Hidden Art, this goes beyond simply "a story for the children" and becomes an intergenerational experience.

"I could not wait to begin reading to my first child, Priscilla.  I am afraid I started before she could possibly understand what it was all about, but she enjoyed being talked to just the same.  By the time she was eighteen months old she was clamouring every night for the same poem."  ~~ Edith Schaeffer

"She talks a lot about Peter Rabbit. We had a bunny or something in our own garden a few nights ago, that chewed off some bean vines and marigolds, so the story has become more real! She talks about Peter losing his jacket and shoes...When she sneezes she says “bless you,” but she prefers me to say “bless you my little fur child” from The Little Fur Family." ~~ Mama Squirrel's journal, when the Apprentice had just turned two

"To live through these books together, to experience them as a family, is something quite vivid and real, much much more real than reading alone." ~~ Edith Schaeffer

"We read her Jack and the Beanstalk (the Stephen Kellogg version) ...We went pretty easy on the grind-his-bones stuff, and that didn’t seem to bother her. She talks about the 'logre' (ogre), the golden eggs, and 'magic beans.'  She asked me if Jesus loves the logre."  ~~ Mama Squirrel's journal, just before the Apprentice turned three

"Our children go into the world of school, newspapers, TV, magazines, conversations and modern books, and are deluged with an almost monolithic voice of unbelief and materialism.  We ought not only to 'talk'--but try to take them and ourselves back into the hearing of other 'voices' as we shut out the 'world' and read."  ~~ Edith Schaeffer

"Babar continues to interest, she talks about the characters and asks me questions. At church someone requested prayer for someone who was ill, and she said, 'like the old king.' We’re still reading the Potter books. I have begun reading the authors’ names as I begin books, so now she’ll pick up a book and intone 'Peter Rabbit…by Bay-a-trix Potter...' She says she 'loves' the Beatrix Potter stories. She knows whole lines off by heart, from the five books we have. She carries the books around too." ~~ Mama Squirrel's journal

"...the talent will be employed in making it real to others.  And, incidentally, your own need in this area will begin to be fulfilled."  ~~ Edith Schaeffer

Photos by Mr. Fixit.  Copyright 2013, Dewey's Treehouse.

Linked from the Hidden Art of Homemaking linky for Chapter 10 at Ordo Amoris

"It Pays Makes-Some-People-Very-Nervous-That-You-Want To Increase Your Word Power"

Okay, have you had time yet to read the Big Words article? (First mentioned here.)

Is it undemocratic and elitist to celebrate words? Should those who do have large vocabularies back off and shut up because it might make the less erudite feel bad? (erudite: characterized by great knowledge; learned or scholarly: an erudite professor; an erudite commentary.) Did you catch that first line of the article: "With the Lord of Loquacity on trial in Chicago and schools playing down language to level the playing field...." [italics mine]

How long ago was it we were talking about that example from The Incredibles?

Helen: Right now, honey, the world just wants us to fit in, and to fit in, we gotta be like everyone else.
Dash: But Dad always said our powers were nothing to be ashamed of, our powers made us special.
Helen: Everyone's special, Dash.
Dash: [muttering] Which is another way of saying no one is.

But that whole angle of level playing field, undemocratic, elitist is just missing the point. It's not about a few people having talent for words and time enough to enjoy them (I still love Burgess Meredith). Our collective gift of language is one of the most democratic things we have (please take "democratic" as a positive idea there). It is being able to read and understand the greatest ideas that have been written, and express our own as well, that keeps us from slavery--including slavery to propaganda. What kind of a Brave New World would we be living in if we were limited--by political correctness or any other such foolishness--to using "story" for "narrative," "very big" for "prodigious," and "teach" for "instruct?" (See the "Forbidden Words" sidebar in the article, about OISE professor Clive Beck, who believes that "teachers should avoid unnecessarily big words so that they can 'talk on the same level' as their students.") With such spavined vocabularies, we would be locked out of some of the most influential books ever written--like Common Sense (thank you, DHM). (spavined: adjective 1. suffering from or affected with spavin. 2. being of or marked by a decrepit or broken-down condition: a spavined old school bus abandoned in a field.) What's democratic about that?

How do you teach or learn new vocabulary--by endless drills, by writing out definitions? I can think of several more effective ways:

1. By listening to those who use language powerfully--and that would, we hope, include the teachers Clive Beck wants to limit. (Can you imagine getting "bleeped" for using a phrase like "nefarious villain?")

2. By reading what those same people have written--and though that road may end with books written for adults, it begins much earlier. If we wanted to limit our children's literary menu to books using the easiest and most commonly used words, we wouldn't have read them A.A. Milne, Beatrix Potter ("I am affronted," said Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit), William Steig, the Bible, Jacobs' English Folk and Fairy Tales, Lewis Carroll, Graham Oakley...or Melissa Wiley.

Our Crayons (just turned six) is reading Anne of Green Gables to herself--she doesn't want it read to her. The motivation was that she found a small porcelain Anne doll at one yard sale, and then a copy of Anne at the next one. We already owned two copies, but she wanted this one for her own self, to go with her doll--and it was her quarter. She sits in my grandfather's little rocking chair with her doll beside her, and reads it while Mr. Fixit reads the newspaper. It's way beyond her vocabulary and experience, and I didn't expect her to get past the first couple of pages--but she has read eight chapters already (and did allow me to read her the ninth). I'm sure she skips what she doesn't understand, but she can still tell you a lot about the story, particularly about Anne's imaginary friends. Would she be better off with an adapted version? Define "better off."

3. By reading books that lead us gently through unfamiliar territory--like Melissa's Martha books, set in Scotland in the 1700's. (Want to read an excerpt? And then there's the whole sad business of their current state of abridgement, which is itself a perfect example of where all this is taking us.) (2012 update: sorry, both of these links are now defunct.) Again it was Crayons who first asked to be read these books. She's now acquainted with box bed, waulking wool, governess, kirk, peat, spindle, flax, loch, dustgown, Hogmanay, and pianoforte. When I asked her if those were hard words, she said (I quote): "Kids know DUST and kids know GOWN so you just put them together and make DUSTGOWN." What's a governess? "A lady who takes care of you." No problem.

4. By actively seeking out the specialized vocabulary that we need to learn to do the things we want to do! Sometimes for pleasure, sometimes out of necessity. Pod in The Borrowers Aloft has a very short time to learn the vocabulary (and thus the technology) of building a hot-air balloon [actually it was gas-filled]; his understanding of words like "ballast" and "envelope" is what allows his family to escape from their kidnappers.

From Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH to Roald Dahl's Matilda, the key to freedom has always been reading, reading, reading--and those are just the fictional examples.

Books fall open, you fall in,
delighted where you've never been;
hear voices not once heard before,
reach world on world through door on door;
find unexpected keys to things locked up beyond imaginings.
What might you be, perhaps become,
because one book is somewhere?....
--David McCord

Consider what happens if we lose the ability to look beyond our own place in time and space. We become small-minded, small-souled, wrapped up only in our immediate interests...and vulnerable because we are unable to think clearly.

"But they couldn't do it,
for their poor brains were such
That they couldn't think often,
and hadn't thought much."
--Virginia Kahl, The Duchess Bakes a Cake

Freedom lies in our ability to discern truth and choose right actions. Leadership, courage, hope, conscience, character, faith, critical thinking, magnanimity--all those things are available to those who take and read--but only if we develop the vocabulary to understand.

P.S. Clive Beck responds here, but I can't get a link to the full text--sorry. This link takes you to a few other letters in response--also just the beginnings, though--I hate these subscriber-only newspaper sites! I liked Eileen Reardon's comment: "My first reaction on reading the list of 'unnecessarily big words' Clive Beck would like to remove from teachers' mouths was: Nuts! (Simple enough?) Then I started the cryptic crossword and had a horrible thought: If Prof. Beck has his way, he won't merely be gutting the language of nuance, he'll be taking the fun out of crosswords. Egad!"

P.P.S. One more comment here, linking to the Common Room post "Interesting comments".

Back to the books

Slightly revised November 2020

Here are a few books that worked well during the grade two-to-four period between picture books and bigger fatter chapter books. 

Rumer Godden's children's books. These range from Mouse House, a simple story about a young mouse who makes a mess of a doll's house (reminiscent of Beatrix Potter), to the exquisitely painful The Mousewife; the "coincidence? maybe" Christmas book The Story of Holly and Ivy (about a girl who longs for a doll and a doll who longs for a girl), and the livelier adventures of Impunity Jane. (Boys would listen to that one too.) Even when Rumer Godden is at her simplest, she can't resist poking fun at certain kinds of people; indolent fathers are sometimes painted with more acid than certain conservative catalogues would accept.

Father Mouse scolded the children. "Naughty! Bad mice!" he said. "They can't help it," said Mother Mouse. "There are too many of them." Then he scolded her. "You shouldn't have had so many," he said.--The Mouse House

As I mentioned in the other post, some people would also not feel quite comfortable with the fantasy aspect of Godden's doll's lives; her dolls can't speak to their owners, but they communicate by wishing, occasionally so hard that they crack. But the dolls aren't the only focus of these books: any child who has been bossed around or left behind by older siblings will relate to Elizabeth in The Fairy Doll; and Impunity Jane raises all kinds of questions about what it means to be a little boy and to be honourable and brave. The boy in the story, Gideon, swipes an unloved doll from a neglected dollhouse, but eventually realizes that it was still theft.

But, from far off, she seemed to hear the bugle telling her to be brave, and she knew she must wish, "Gideon, put me back." She wanted to say, "Gideon, hold me tightly," but she said, "Gideon, put me back."

(Of course there is a happy ending.)

Marguerite De Angeli's books: A couple of her books, A Door in the Wall and Thee, Hannah! are familiar to many homeschoolers; but we have collected several less well known ones as well. I don't know how well all these books, particularly her "Pennsylvania Dutch" stories go over with the people concerned; the dialect in them sometimes seems a bit Lancaster-County-tourish, even though they are dedicated, for instance, to "the Children of the Little Red Schoolhouse in the Conestoga Valley of Pennsylvania."

"Supper ready, Mom?" called Ammon. "Ich bin hongry!"

"Ya, ready and waiting," Mother answered....--Henner's Lydia

However, we still like Henner's Lydia as well as Thee, Hannah! and Elin's Amerika for their portraits of very real little girls, who get in trouble and make messes, and usually come to realize in the end that their families' survival depends on their learning responsibility.

What would she do? Knute looked at her but didn't stop paddling. "Now," she said, "the Tomte [a little household helper like a brownie] will be angry. I left the stuga untidy and the hearth unswept, and now I've forgotten the milk, and it will sour! What shall I do? Can we go back, Knute?" "Of course not! We like it sour anyway," said Knute. "Do you think I have nothing to do but paddle several miles just because you can't remember anything?"--Elin's Amerika

Squirrel Reading

Someone found our Treehouse by searching for "squirrel reading." Well, Dewey (like the rest of us) is often found with a book (when he's not out somewhere playing cards). For some reason they would not let him sign up for the summer reading program at the library, but he's keeping a list of some of his favourite squirrel books anyway. Here they are.

1. Babar's Children (Jean de Brunhoff): The squirrels save the day when little Alexander falls into their tree. [Update: Aha! Now I know why this was so hard to find online: it's also called Babar at Home. In French it's Babar en famille, so I guess either title is a fair translation.]

2. Chessie, the Long Island Squirrel (Sachiko Komoto): Chessie's life in the back yard, from babyhood through mamasquirrelhood

3. Squirrel Nutkin and Timmy Tiptoes (Beatrix Potter): Timmy Tiptoes, yes (some major resemblances there to Dewey). (You can read it online here.) Squirrel Nutkin: not so fond of that one (gives Dewey the shivers). (You can read it here.)

4. Attila the Angry (Marjorie Weinman Sharmat): From the inside flap: "Attila Squirrel gets angry at small things, big things, and in-between things. He gets particularly angry at other animals, dust, trees, scissors, toothpicks, and chicken pox. One day, Attila reads an ad. 'Do you have a bad temper?'" Anger management for rodents.

5. A Nutty Business (Ida Chittum): "Farmer Flint dashed for the closet. 'When I went to bed,' he cried, 'this heap of nuts was high as my head. It has shrunk to my shoulders. Now it has shrunk to my waist. Now to my knees! Madam, this heap of nuts is shrinking before my very eyes, or I am growing rapidly taller.' 'You have not grown rapidly taller,' shrilled Madam Flint. ''Tis the squirrels! There goes one, with his face full of our nuts.'"

6. Anything with nuts in it. Or food in it.

Ponytail's things to say

Hi, this is Ponytails. I know some Charlotte Mason. Beatrix Potter and Charlotte Mason lived in the same place and they were around at the same time. Mama Squirrel and me are reading "The Princess and Curdie" and we only have two chapters left. There's a weird creature in the book called Ballbody. He's shaped like a round ball with eyes, nose, and mouth. And there's a green emerald. It's in Curdie's mom and dad's fireplace. And if it's shiny and sparkly green colour, then Curdie's okay. Because he's on a journey that Curdie's friend Irene the princess' Great-Grandmother sent him there for a mission. He's going . . . South, I think? It's either south or west. Or is it east? I think it's south. And if the emerald's uncoloured, then Curdie's in trouble and danger. And it did happen in the story that he did get in danger and in trouble. And his dad went and looked for Curdie's friend Irene the princess' Great-Grandmother. But she wasn't there. So he started going in the way that Curdie was going. And that's all I know about all that. And Curdie has a special touch and he can feel people's hands with his and see if they're turning into animals. Bye for now.

Jemima Puddleduck

Over at The Common Room, The Deputy Headmistress has written a series of three excellent articles talking about how children can be influenced through moral and immoral examples in literature. The DHM was talking, specifically, about books for older children and up, such as Andersen's fairy tales and Jane Austen's novels.

However, Mama Squirrel feels that such influence can begin (as she is sure it does in the Common Room household) at a much earlier age. As a specific example, the youngest squirrelling, Crayons, has recently been asking for Beatrix Potter's Jemima Puddleduck. Over and over again. For anyone not familiar with this story, it involves a duck looking for a secret place to lay eggs (where nobody will take them from her). She runs into a friendly fox who offers her a cozy nest in his back shed. Jemima naively goes back to visit him every afternoon, until she is intercepted by a collie dog who blows the whistle on the fox and prevents her becoming that night's dinner.

It occurs to Mama Squirrel that any child raised on that story (and Red Riding Hood would serve a similar purpose) would be in little danger of being lured by a real-world predator later on. A recent sad example of this in the Squirrel family's town involved some runaway teenagers (skinheads) flopping in an abandoned house...it gets complicated, but the story as one of the Squirrels heard it was that one of said teenagers had to be bailed out of jail by her mother, and came home covered with fleas. Is a skinhead boyfriend to be compared to the sandy-whiskered gentleman? Maybe. In any case, Mama Squirrel's point is only that important life lessons can be taught very early on, and as the DHM says, both by good and bad examples. Better to learn from someone else's stupidity (Jemima's eggs get eaten up and she is escorted home in tears) than from your own.