Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

There was a time in my life when I was afraid of verse novels. You might even say I avoided them. But then I read Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, and I was completely won over by this format of novel-writing. I wish I could remember what inspired me to read it in the first place because whatever (or whoever) it was deserves a lot of credit.

So when I saw all the attention Brown Girl Dreaming was getting on Newbery 2015 lists and found out it was also a verse novel, I ran to get my hands on a copy (which is fairly difficult to do when you're #78 on a library wait list).

For years, I have counted Out of the Dust among my very favorite books, but Brown Girl Dreaming is threatening its position. I definitely enjoyed it, and some of the poems moved past just being enjoyable and truly touched me.

Jacqueline Woodson grew up in the 1960's (yes, it's a memoir in verse). Since part of that growing up takes place in South Carolina, you can imagine that the Civil Rights movement is an important component of the story. But it's also just about the happenings, both tragic and heartwarming, that make up this thing we call life. At its heart, however, it's about Jacqueline's journey to becoming a writer, which after reading her beautifully flowing verse, you'll be surprised there was ever a time when it didn't come easily to her.

Okay, maybe I'm just so new to verse novels that I'm ignorant to any and all flaws, but I was completely blown away by this book. I found myself wanting to dogear every single page, which kind of defeats the purpose of dogearing. Some of the poems left me breathless, like this one entitled, "Ghosts":

In downtown Greenville,

they painted over the WHITE ONLY signs,

except on the bathroom doors,

they didn't use a lot of paint

so you can still see the words, right there

like a ghost standing in front

still keeping you out.

I've read my share of books (fiction and nonfiction) that explore Civil Rights issues, but that poem hit me hard and fast in a new way. In a mere seven lines, it shows how stamping out the sins of the past isn't as quick and easy as painting over a sign. The prejudices linger and hearts continue to hurt. I think it's partly the genre itself (the line breaks, the formatting on the page, the words that are said and unsaid) that is able to nudge those familiar emotions and feelings in a new way, but I was continually impressed with Jacqueline Woodson's imagery and voice, which seemed completely her own (but, like I said, I definitely need to explore this genre further to see if I'm just a sucker for anything written in verse).

The thing I love about a book like this is that, when taken as a whole, it creates a beautifully complete story, but I can also open the book at random and read a poem here, turn a few pages and read another poem there, and each one is enjoyable and complete in and of itself. It's one of the books that's going on my Christmas list this year, in part because I know that it will give something new to me every time I pick it up, whether I have time for just one or two pages or the entire thing.

One of my very favorite individual poems was called "Other People's Memory," which talks about how everyone in the family remembers Jacqueline's birth as happening at a different time of day. Grandma Georgiana swears it happened in the morning, but Jacqueline's mother says it took place in the afternoon, and Jacqueline's father says she was born when it was almost night. I wanted to share an excerpt here, but I couldn't narrow it down to one stanza. It just didn't have the same impact when separated from the rest.

I read most of this book on the 14-hour plane ride to Australia. By the end, in my nearly delirious state, my own thoughts were coming in short, clipped phrases, so I thought, Hey, I'm going to write a poem about what it's like to be on this jet for fourteen hours--a gripping subject to be sure, but one that (luckily for you) I won't be sharing here.

The book ends with a poem called "Believe," which includes these two lines:

I believe in one day and someday and this

     perfect moment called Now.

I think that's really what Jacqueline Woodson set out to do with all the poems preceding this one--capture and share the "one day"s and the "someday"s, but most of all those "perfect moment"s that makes up the present.

Raising Readers: Making Books a Part of Your Family Traditions

Last night, I spent the better part of an hour wrapping up 25 Christmas books.

I did it even though I had a dozen other things demanding I give them that hour.

Some of you will say, "Couldn't you have simplified your life by not wrapping all those books this year?" To which I'd answer, "Yes."

Others of you will say, "Nothing says you had to have all 25 wrapped up for the first day of December. Couldn't you have only wrapped up one or two and finished wrapping the rest later?" To which I'd answer, "Yes."

"So why, WHY, did you spend that precious hour wrapping two dozen books?"

Simply this: I wanted to send a subtle message to my kids: In our family, books matter.

They matter so much that we make them a central and important part of our holiday traditions.

Did you catch the message there? It's not, "Go out and buy 25 Christmas books and wrap them all up so that your kids can unwrap one each day until Christmas."

The message is this: In your family, find a way to make books matter.

You might do this through a book countdown (and if you need ideas for great holiday books, you can check out my 2012 or 2013 posts on the subject).

But there are a million other ways you can send that message to your kids, each one unique to your family.

You might read a chapter each evening from a favorite Christmas book. You might take a family trip to the bookstore and pick out a new book to add to your collection. You might take one favorite book and do some fun activities based on it. You might cozy up in the glow of the Christmas lights and read through a whole stack of your favorites in one sitting. When I was growing up, my dad always read The Forgotten Carols aloud throughout the entire month, and we listened to the accompanying music over and over again.

It doesn't matter so much what you do as just that you do something.

When my kids woke up this morning, they were thrilled to see that stack of presents to kick off the first day of December. It doesn't matter that they've seen all the books before (all but one--I added a long-time favorite, Santa Claus: The World's Number One Toy Expert by Marla Frazee, to our collection this year). In fact, opening up those well-loved books just shows them that books keep on giving, year after year, growing more loved with each reading.

I have three suggestions for beginning a book tradition of your own:

1. Keep it simple. (If it ever gets to the point where wrapping up the books becomes a chore instead of a joy, I will nix it quicker than you can say "Good-bye.")
2. Keep it inexpensive. (Guess what? You can use the library, and go all out with dozens of books and not have it cost you a penny--provided, of course, you don't accrue late fees.)
3. Keep it special. (I wrap up the books because a roll of wrapping paper is a pretty simple and inexpensive way to say, "Look at how special these books are.")

The holiday season is full of traditions, but my hope would be that after the presents are opened and the decorations put away, you still find ways to make books and reading a special part of your family culture.

How do you use books to help celebrate the Season? What are your favorite holiday books? Tell me about your book traditions throughout the rest of the year.

P.S. For more Raising Readers posts, click here. 

The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the Read-Aloud Revival, a podcast I have recently become addicted to. In one episode, Sarah Mackenzie talked to Alice Ozma, author of The Reading Promise (if you'd like to listen to the episode, which I highly recommend, click here). My ears perked up immediately because I recognized the title as being one that has been on my to-read list for a long time (and for the life of me, I can't remember how it got on there in the first place). After listening to the episode, it skyrocketed to the top of the list.

Basically, Alice's story is this: When she was nine years old, her father asked her if she thought they could read aloud together for 100 days straight? He and Alice had been reading together every night for years, so they didn't necessarily need a personal competition to get them to continue this tradition. However, when Alice's older sister was relatively the same age, she had asked their dad to stop reading aloud to her because she thought it was babyish and she could read on her own. Their father was worried the same thing would happen with Alice, and so he turned it into something of a game to make the tradition last just a little longer.

Well . . . 3,218 days later, The Streak (as it came to be known) finally ended. It was the day Alice's dad dropped her off at college. Through her parents' divorce, sick days, arguments, high school activities, and dates, Alice's dad read aloud to her every single night, and because of it, there developed a bond between them that lasted beyond their final day of reading aloud.

Okay, if I needed any more fuel for my passion of reading aloud, this was it.

But first, I want to get a couple of nit-picky criticisms out of the way so I can gush for the rest of the review. First, there were some little inaccuracies here and there, like this one, when Alice describes what it's like when Mary finally finds the secret garden: "The moment we'd both been waiting for since we began the book, the moment when Mary finally found the entrance and saw the garden for the first time, finally came. We turned the page and there it was, suddenly, in all its green and overgrown glory." I actually had to go find my copy of The Secret Garden and check my memory against Alice's because I didn't remember anything green about Mary's first encounter with the garden, and sure enough, Mary actually wonders if anything is actually still alive in it because it all looks so brown and dead. I don't know why that bothered me so much--maybe because it seems like something an editor should have easily caught or maybe like something Alice herself should have remembered. But the result was that I distrusted references to other books I wasn't as familiar with.

Second, Alice wrote this book when she was still in college (she talks about how it all came to be in the podcast), and I felt like her writing wasn't consistent. Sometimes I loved it (and I'll share some favorite quotes in a minute), but other times, it felt really forced--like she was trying too hard to be funny or it was a creative writing assignment and she was trying out a specific technique. It's hard to explain; maybe you'll be able to see what I mean in this example: "From Dickens to Shakespeare, we tried our best to come up with stimulating, appropriately challenging material, but Rabb still had trouble paying attention. Even when we read books involving cats, he simply could not make any personal connections with the text." For me, talking about trying to find "stimulating, appropriately challenging material" for a cat felt less like something I wanted to laugh at and more like something I wanted to roll my eyes over. (However, I want to also add that my own writing annoys me in the same way because I find myself doing the exact same things that I disliked about Alice's writing--sometimes it's just hard to describe things in an absolutely authentic way.)

Okay, minor criticisms aside, here are some things to love about this book (because love it I did):

Alice's dad is a complex character: quirky but down-to-earth; loving but not affectionate; creative but responsible. He reminded me a lot of my sister-in-law's father, who seems to share many of the same traits. And I thought Alice found really wonderful ways to showcase all sides of his personality so that by the end of the book, I really felt like I knew him.

Like, for instance, when she told about this habit her father has where he doesn't want to lie but he also doesn't want to say anything hurtful:

"My father will not lie, so he tries to say the best possible thing that is also the truth. He doesn't realize that this is often worse than just saying what he thinks as nicely as possible. I was used to it and accepted his comments with a shrug, as I did now, but he wasn't always so lucky. Once, a friend of his, made him cookies for his birthday and he accidentally started an argument by saying, when she asked what he thought of them, 'I can honestly say that every one of those cookies has chocolate chips in it.'"

Or, the more poignant moments, like when Alice, as a preteen, gets mad at him for something, but they still go ahead with their reading. She doesn't curl up beside him like normal, and suddenly, she realizes how unusual it was that he had been letting her get so close to him for so many years since he wasn't a very physical person. She said:

"Somehow, my spot had gone for years without mention. Pulling back drew sudden attention to it and made us both think, I assume, how strange it was that the tradition had even last that long. It was something neither of us had ever really considered, and now that we were thinking about it, it seemed awkward and forced, even though it never had been. It would be now."

 And that night ended the physical closeness, which sort of broke my heart.

I also loved the way her dad would edit out words or phrases or entire sections of books he deemed inappropriate or uncomfortable (he rehearsed every night before reading to Alice). The funniest one was when they were reading Dicey's Song, and he suddenly started turning pages quite rapidly, and the conversation with the grandmother became noticeably curt and vague. Just go read that chapter for yourself. You definitely won't be disappointed.

But the reason I really loved this book was just because, at the heart of it, it is all about the power reading aloud has to build relationships, teach us things, and carve out those quiet moments to just be together. I hope that I can continue to read with my boys as they grow older because, at least right now, that is my favorite part of each day.

Alice said, "The Streak could be embarrassing in the right (or wrong) context, but more than anything, it was hard to explain." This book is the explanation, and it is wonderful.

Australia Top 10, Part 1

Within 24 hours of being here in Australia, we'd already gotten our money's worth. I mean that. In that short amount of time, we'd already seen enough to make this trip worth it. The days following have just been icing on the cake (and there's been a lot of icing).

Here are our top ten (through Monday morning):

1. Watching the sunrise over Manly Beach

We are staying with Mike's sister, Anne, and her family. They literally live across the street from Manly Beach. It's unreal. The morning after we flew in, jet lag woke us up at 4:30am. We took advantage of the extra hours to go on a walk around the beach.

2. Finding a water dragon

Every time we facetime with the boys, they want to know what animals we have seen. They were pretty excited about this water dragon we found on our first morning.

3. This view of Sydney

Pinch me.

4. Going from Manly to Sydney by way of ferry

Salty sea breezes, incredible views--what more could you want?

5. This tree in the Botanical Gardens

I believe it's a fig tree. I want it in my backyard.

6. Walking on this path through Hyde Park

The entire length of the path was shaded by a canopy of trees. So picturesque.

7. Paddy's Market

Perfect for satisfying our need to purchase souvenirs. 

8. Frozen yogurt in Chinatown

Following Anne's suggestion, we chose taro frozen yogurt, and we are still talking about it three days later (and popping in to check every other frozen yogurt shop we come across to see if they have the same flavor). It just hit the perfect sweet spot.

9. Hiking Palm Beach

A picture can't capture the beauty of this place.

10. Snorkeling at Shelly Beach

The water was the perfect temperature. We saw lots of fish. And no sharks. Win-win-win.

The more we see, the more we realize we could stay for a year and still not be able to see it all.

The Third Time's NOT the Charm

Mike's and my excitement over our Australia trip has been laced with anxiety over how to do it with a baby. Traveling internationally is intimidating enough just as an adult, but add in a six-month old, and it raises the stakes . . . by a lot.

We've been doing what we could to prepare. I tried out a number of baby carriers to find one that was comfortable for me and for Clark (I ended up going with the Ergo Baby because my friend let me borrow hers, but I also really, really loved the Boba). I refrained from sleep training Clark (haha) because who wants to take a baby on a 14-hour flight if that baby refuses to sleep anywhere but his crib? Not me. And a few weeks ago, I decided the fate of this trip might come down to whether or not Clark would take a binky.

Now let me give you a little history:

With each of my children, I have diligently tried to get them to like a binky (or pacifier, dummy, soother, or whatever you call them in your neck of the woods). Their reactions have varied from absolute disgust to grudging tolerance, but by five months old, each one was officially done with it.

Clark has followed the exact same pattern as his older brothers. He only ever liked the ugly green one they gave us in the hospital, and when we lost that in September (and the replacement didn't suit him), we just let it go entirely.

But earlier this month, as nightmares of trying to calm a fussy baby in a crowded jet filled my mind, I had the sudden inspiration, I'll just get him to like a binky! That will solve all of our problems.

And so I went to Target and bought every style of binky they had. (Mike was quick to point out that when you buy one package of binkies, it's nothing, but when you buy five . . . well, it can add up rather quickly.)

To (hopefully) save money, I only opened one package at a time. I hoped I would find the style he liked early on and be able to return the rest and recoup some of my investment.

With unwarranted optimism, I sterilized the first set and put one in Clark's mouth. I don't know what I expected but certainly not the tongue-thrusting revulsion I got. I mean, he didn't even try! Chomp--thrust! Chomp--thrust! (And a scrunched up grimace for added effect.) He gave me very clear signals, but I persisted.

Two days later, I sterilized the next style.

Same reaction.

Three days after that, I sterilized package #3.

It was at this point that Mike (who, I have to say, was skeptical (and rather unsupportive) from the very beginning) said, "It's not going to work, Amy. You might as well give up."

And it was true. Clark was flat out rejecting every. single. one. He wasn't even attempting to suck on any of them. It didn't matter if he was happy and calm or distraught and crying. There was absolutely no way I could interpret the forceful expulsion from his mouth as a mild dislike for the style: "Sorry, Mom, if only the nipple were a little firmer or I had some air holes on the side or there was a little dinosaur on the front . . . then I would like it." No, I'm afraid there was never even a hint to encourage me.

So my plan didn't work. But I still think about it longingly every day. There are so many times when it would be so nice to just pop it in and have him suck on it contentedly.

For now, I'll just look enviously at your binky-loving baby, and in a couple of years, when you're desperately trying to wean your toddler from his binky, then it will be my turn to gloat. Just a little.

P.S. The happy ending to this story is that Clark was awesome on our flight to Sydney. I think I only wished for a binky once for all of two minutes during the entire 14-hour flight.

Review x 2: The Trouble With Chickens and Fortunately, the Milk

Both of the books below were short, quick read-alouds, so I thought I'd review them together.

1. The Trouble With Chickens by Doreen Cronin


The thing that convinced me to read this book was not the title or the cover or the plot summary. It was the author. Doreen Cronin wrote one of our favorite picture books (Click, Clack, Moo), and when I discovered this chapter book, I knew we'd have to give it a try.

J.J. Tully is a retired search and rescue dog. After seven years on the job, he now lives the quiet life on a farm. But J.J. is not a fan of the quiet life, and so when Millicent comes to him for help, he tries to overlook the fact that she is a chicken and throws all his energy (and well-groomed skill) into rescuing two of her baby chicks. The only problem is, do they really need rescuing? Or is J.J. about to walk into a well-laid trap?

Okay, so I only had two issues with this book. First, the insults. Oh the insults! Why do authors feel compelled to have their characters be so rude to each other? Is it supposed to be funny? Because I am seriously disenchanted.

Second, the story is actually told from two perspectives: J.J. and another dog named Vince. But Vince's first turn isn't until chapter 10, and it really confused the boys and me. By that time, the story was already well established, and we'd already had so many chapters from J.J.'s point of view that we just assumed that would continue for the rest of the book. Then all of a sudden, he was sounding mean (not just rude, but downright mean) and vengeful and dangerous. After a page of that, I backed up and realized that we were now getting Vince's thoughts, not J.J.'s. I really feel like Vince's voice needed to be introduced much sooner (like chapter 2, perhaps?) so that we had some notice that this story was going to be told from two perspectives.

But the boys really liked it, and, aside from the things mentioned above, I did too. I've already checked out the second book, although I'll probably let Aaron read it on his own--not because I wouldn't enjoy it but just because there are so many good books I'm dying to read aloud to them.

2. Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman, illus. Skottie Young

I picked up this book for Aaron to read on his own, but then he liked it so much and it looked so good to me that I decided to read it aloud. He didn't complain. Not one bit.

There was no milk in the fridge on that fateful morning. The kids' mother was out of town, so the father did what any good father would do: he left for a few minutes to pick up a jug of milk. Only . . . it seemed longer than a few minutes. And when he finally got back and the kids demanded, "Where have you been all this time?" he had the craziest story to tell. But fortunately for them, while facing aliens, wumpires, and pirates and dealing with a collision between past, present, and future, he always kept tight hold of the milk. Well actually, not always. But he at least kept it in his sights.

This book is completely unbelievable. And that's what makes it so awesome. Seriously, about a third of the way through (after the father had been abducted by aliens, escaped, only to be threatened by a band of pirates, saved from walking the plank by Dr. Steg (a stegosaurus) in a hot air balloon (which actually turned out to be a time machine), and then almost sacrificed to the Eye of Splod), I thought, How much crazier could this story get? A lot, actually.

The time travel element was completely unexpected and really took the story from just being fun and crazy to wildly creative. I think it ended up being a good thing for Aaron to hear it again right after reading it himself because it gave him a second chance to really get a grasp on all the time travel details and sort them out.

We read it over three sittings, but it's one of those books you could easily read in an hour if you had an empty hour just laying around. It's filled to the brim with illustrations, and in fact is not divided into chapters at all, so it's more like a long picture book. In fact, now that I'm thinking more about it, reading the whole thing at one time probably makes more sense, but don't let that discourage you if you need to split it up like we did.

The whole thing was just so delightfully ridiculous. I'm still laughing over some of the lines, like these ones: "'How does a volcano know so much about transtemporal metascience?' asked one of the pale green aliens. 'Being a geological formation gives you a lot of time to think,' said Splod. 'Also, I subscribe to a number of learned journals.' I coughed, in what I hoped was an ominous sort of way."

After we finished it, I checked out the audio, and Aaron and Max have been listening to it over and over and over again.

Off to See a Few More of the World's Pages

A couple of months ago I reviewed the book, Notes From a Blue Bike. Tsh Oxenreider devoted an entire section to the subject of travel. You might remember that when I talked about that particular section in my review, I mentioned an upcoming personal trip. My exact words were these:

"Mike and I are not terribly ambitious when it comes to traveling (although we do have a big trip coming up in a couple of months that I'm excited to tell you about soon)."

Well, the time has come to tell you about it.

Mike and I are going to Australia.

Yes, Australia.

In two days.

If I were telling you this in person, this is the point where I'd be squealing or doing a little happy dance or at the very least grinning rather obnoxiously.

Yes, we're pretty excited.

The first question people ask when they hear about our upcoming trip is, "Why Australia?"

So I'll tell you: Last July, Mike's brother-in-law (along with Mike's sister and three kids) got transferred to Sydney for eight months. When they first announced their big move, Mike and I joked, "Maybe we'll come visit you." (It seemed like a long stretch since Clark was a brand new baby at the time, plus those three other hooligans we call our own, plus we needed a new roof.)

But the more we thought about it, the more we gave it serious consideration. One by one, we resolved those deterrents. The baby? We could take him with us. The other boys? My mom said she would come stay with them. The roof? We decided we could hold off until next summer (still crossing our fingers on that one).

Also, once Anne and Nate had actually settled in Sydney, we realized we'd be crazy not to go. They live in Manly and are a mere walk away from one of the nicest beaches outside of Sydney. They started exploring and sight seeing from the moment they stepped off the plane and happily volunteered to be our tour guides. They also offered to watch Clark for anything Mike and I wanted to do on our own. It was kind of too perfect, don't you think?

And so in September, we bought tickets . . . and then stared at each other in disbelief.

As the time has drawn closer, I've been obsessively checking the weather. In the last week or so, the temperature around here has plummeted (as I'm writing this, it's 12 degrees), and we've even had some snow. I am not a fan of winter, so Sydney's 79 degrees is looking pretty awesome.

I used to think travel wasn't worth the steep financial and logistics price tag. After all, you have an awesome fling for a week, and then what? Back to the daily grind with nothing to show for all that time and money you just spent. But then in 2008 Mike and I went to Chile while Mike's parents were living there for a year. And I discovered what many of you already know: the memories are the keepsakes and worth every penny. There's just something about experiencing another part of the world for yourself, and especially doing it with people you love, that is absolutely priceless.

In Notes From a Blue Bike, Tsh quoted Saint Augustine, who said, "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." Starting on Wednesday, Mike and I are going to read a few more pages.

P.S. If any of you have visited (or lived) in Australia (particularly Sydney), I'd love to know about your must-sees. (Many thanks to my blogging friend, Melissa, who recently returned from her own trip to the land down under and shared her itinerary with us.)

P.P.S. And since this is a book blog, here are several books I quite liked, all set in Australia:

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Steadman