New Story!

 

Here, from the delightful Improbable Press, I am exceedingly happy to share my very first published story!

As you can see from the cover, the book collects stories of literary women who for one reason or another did not get the ending they, or maybe their readers, deserved. There are so many exciting retellings here and I can't wait to dive in.

My own story follows the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a tale that has intrigued and horrified me since I first read it many years ago. I was interested in the way story can entrap us, from within and without the text, and in the possibility of escape. You might also spot a cameo or two from other hard done by literary girls!

You can buy the book here.

Family film club

For Christmas I finally received the book The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together by film critic Ty Burr (it's been on my wishlist for ages...).



Flipping through it, I loved the films suggested and Burr's style in introducing them. He provides a few 'entry films' for kids in different age ranges as well as extensive lists of movies his kids have enjoyed in various genres. But I was still a bit doubtful as to whether my kids would go for them. While they're happy to listen to books or poems that may be over their heads in some parts (we have recently been into Gerald Durrell - of which hopefully more later!) the films they're used to tend towards the more instant gratification end of the spectrum.

So I told them about the new film club we'd be running, where I choose the films and they can stay (up late, with popcorn) and watch or not, as they choose. We started with Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood. And they loved it! They were engrossed with the humour, the fight scenes and the romance. The three year old didn't really stick it and had to be taken to bed but the rest of us had a wonderful time.

Since then we've watched and enjoyed Singin' in the Rain, Meet Me in St Louis and Bringing Up Baby. These are mostly films I haven't seen either and it's been amazing to share them with the girls. They bring up references from the films (imitating Jean Hagen's nasal "I just can't stand 'im!" for example) and even got used to watching in black and white.

The next film on the list is Stagecoach, if I can get hold of it. And I'm really looking forward to exploring some more movies from Hollywood's golden years. They have so much cultural resonance, familiarity with these films is arguably as important as reading Austen or Shakespeare. And, like the best great literature, it's hugely enjoyable.

Books week ending 13 December

My plan was for December to be full of seasonal books. Not religious, but festive and celebrating a special time of year. I would love to celebrate Solstice more formally than actual Christmas as I feel its meaning is based more on the calendar as opposed to god or consumerism, but other family members are not on board, so the 25th it is. I still think there is plenty of meaning in spending time with family, eating yummy food, and creating our own family culture and rituals.

There are plenty of lists around with all sorts of great books, some of which we even have, although possibly in a box in the garage. However we have not managed anything as impressive as one new book a day or anything like that - I would love a book advent! Maybe next year...



We have been reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I think we tried this last year but didn't get very far in, although the girls enjoy the Muppets version on film. This year we are doing better, despite the insistence that Bob Cratchett is a frog and Scrooge was apprenticed in a rubber chicken factory. Bob (L) finds it rather dull so we have to read in short snatches before he sabotages everything. The girls seem to be enjoying it though, and I think it's the first time I've actually read it. I'm interested that the memories so far (we have only reached the Ghost of Christmas Past) appear to be happy - they make Scrooge himself feel guilty, of course, but it's in contrast to my memories of the film(s) in which his sad and lonely childhood is hinted to be a part cause of his later character deficits. A kind of cod-Freudian retcon perhaps?

Other picture books we have read include Alvin Tresselt's version of The Mitten and Max's Christmas by Rosemary Wells. I do love her pictures of Max; there is no way he is ever going to listen to his big sister's adult-like refusal (or inability) to explain the magic of Santa Claus. I've also introduced Gerda Muller's Winter to Bob - I am always amazed by how much conversation the simple word free drawings can inspire. I have had to resort to a treasury version of Little Grey Rabbit's Christmas by Alison Uttley as our other version has yet to surface - sadly it is missing many of the beautiful illustrations. I still want to try Primrose Wine though, not to mention heather ale and all the other animal treats.




Apart from these delights (I really must see if the library has Jan Brett's Christmas Trolls, and show the girls Melissa Wiley's reading of Hanna's Christmas) we have just finished the decidedly non-seasonal The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I have loved this book for a long time, and it was a wonderful readaloud. I think the fox is my favourite - I once auditioned to play him in a dramatised French version of the story but was hampered by my complete lack of acting ability. I did notice that the various planets on which foolish grown ups counted stars, or reigned over nobody, were somewhat less gripping that the story of the little Prince himself, his flower and the airman who meets him in the desert. Matilda had read this before, although I think she got a bit more from hearing and discussing it, but it was new to the other two (this was a bedtime read so we were happily uninterrupted by three year olds). Nancy kept claiming she didn't like it, didn't want to hear it, so I was surprised when today we were listing our favourite books (for a time capsule tree decoration) and she included it! Unfortunately she did revise her opinion when we got to the end tonight and the little Prince returned to his own planet, possibly leaving his body or even his life behind. I love the ambiguity of this section, but the girls were unconvinced, although Capt. E still loved it. The melancholic element appeals to her I think. The idea that growing to love, or taming, someone, and how this can bring happiness but also sadness, resonated with them though. I shall have to try and remember to ask them, next time we look at the stars, if they think there is a sheep somewhere up there that may or may not have eaten a flower...

Reading Update

Inspired by Melissa Wiley's wonderful booklogs I want to cultivate a habit of recording our reading here. While I try to keep a list on Goodreads of what we read, a blog entry is much more firmly located in time and has more flexibility and room for thoughts beyond simple reviews, making connections and so forth.

Besides we are reading such great books at the moment I feel inspired!

First up, a beautiful book given for Captain Elizabeth's (aka P) recent birthday.



I had my eye on Shackleton's Journey by William Grill a while back having seen it reviewed. I love the visual style and the subject but refrained from buying it because I wasn't completely sure the girls' interest would align with mine. I was still unsure when we began, and to be honest the first few pages didn't grab the two I began reading it to (the birthday girls) - there were a lot of detailed (and gorgeous) illustrated lists and diagrams of Shackleton's preparations for his trip, but the explanation of what he was doing it all for was brief and, being new to them, didn't really resonate. The first thing that properly caught their interest was the full list of sled dog names. Some of them were pretty funny - Bummer, Side Lights, Slippery Neck - and as I read the giggles escalated into a hysteria not entirely appropriate for bedtime! So when we came back to it next (the book is fairly long and I read it in addition to our evening readaloud) the enthusiasm was there ready and waiting.

The colours are muted blues and whites, evoking the freezing Antarctic wastes. Quite quickly the Endurance gets stuck in ice and the explorers and their dogs are stranded. We were gripped by their adventures and the challenges (hundreds of miles of freezing seas! Cracking ice floes! Diminishing stores!), although the part where they had to shoot the dogs was not popular. As a follow up I want to show them some of the footage taken on the journey, including dramatic film of the ship actually surrendering to the ice.

Unfortunately Nancy's book was a duplicate (the wonderful From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler) which does however mean we can swap it for something just as exciting! Stay tuned...

We're also catching up on our Greek epics with Rosemary Sutcliffe's Black Ships Before Troy.



Matilda is very familiar with the Greek Myths from her own reading, and one of Nancy's greatest heroes is Heracles (she always insists on the Greek spelling) so this was bound to be a winner. The illustrations are lovely, and it's brings a lot to the text to be able to point out the shape of the ships and the way a crested helmet looks. We've just finished the tragic saga of Hector (I found some of it hard to read actually, even though I knew all along what was going to happen - the beautiful painting of Hector with his wife and little boy got me) and we're about to get to the death of Achilles. Unfortunately the death of Ajax is coming up too - Capt. E and Matilda have developed a great liking for him (due in no small part to the romantic illustration of him on one page) and they're going to be sad to see him go. Nancy's favourite (of course) is Odysseus, so no worries there at least!

The last regular read I'm doing in the mornings is Life Of Fred.



The maths is way too easy for them really (we supplement with games for the middle two and Hands-On Equations for Matilda) but they love Fred and there is plenty that is worth covering - sets, light years, and lots of vocabulary. I've just bought the Fractions volume which I'm hoping to start out with Matilda once she finishes this round of word problems in HOE.

On top of this their dad is reading them Astrid Lindgren's Ronia, the Robber's Daughter and we are looking at various history encyclopaedias as we approach the Agricultural Revolution in our latest 'rotation' (we're not really rotating to be honest, but prehistory is always fascinating so I thought we'd just begin again at the beginning after our move!).

A book I'm reading currently that has really been inspiring me in our history studies is Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I heard him on the radio and immediately wanted to read his book, and so far it hasn't disappointed. I love particularly the way he avoids my pet hate, the assumption that prehistoric man hunted while prehistoric woman foraged. Instead Harari takes a far more subtle approach, pointing out that the five to eight million people who inhabited the earth just before the beginning of agriculture lived in thousands of different tribes with thousands of different ways of living. So it is pretty much impossible to make any assumptions about the 'natural' way people lived before farming, except that there was a huge array of possible ways.

I've read a few bits out to the girls, especially parts about mass extinctions following human migrations. Unfortunately this did lead to a bit of human guilt! I think there are quite a few parts I can share with them, as the book is written very accessibly. Not being an expert, I can't be sure what the academic reception to it has been - something worth investigating perhaps.