Screen-free Week: Apr 30 - May 6, 2012

"Screen-free Week" (Apr 30 - May 6) urges us to curtail the time spent in front of TV/handheld screens consuming passive and sedentary entertainment, especially for the kids.

Shouldn't need a special week to celebrate this conscious limitation/abstinence, but, am sure it serves as a reminder to be more purposeful about it.

I don't think we'd be making any major adjustments for this celebration thanks to a long-established house rule, primarily for the kids: School days are not Watch days.

This simplified the whining and negotiating, and the ambiguity surrounding it based on my mood and whim: If this is not a weekend (Friday evening through Sunday evening), then we don't get to watch. (Holidays and Vacation days are exempt from this rule as they are not "School Days".)

Of course, there's always the associated whining about, "Why is it a school day today? I wish it was Friday already!" But, at least, the TV is off and they are chasing each other around the house or otherwise engaging in interactions and activities of their choice, not even entertaining the possibility of asking for the TV to be turned on, knowing that none of their wiles will produce the desired result.

And, weekends aren't automatically plonk-in-front-of-TV days either. They have to earn each half-hour of "watch time". Doing chores like folding the clothes, sweeping the floor as well as random acts of tidying up (making the bed is Ana's favorite) or helping out (sous chef duties seem to be Og's current favorite), or hours of outdoor play lets them earn this privilege on non-soggy weekends.

Plus, there is always other fun things to do than sit and stare at the TV even on weekends.

Of course, I do hand them the iPad and take that extra dose of migraine medication and lie down with a cold compress, curtains drawn, as and when the situation arises, weekend or not. No guilt there, as overall, I am convinced their screen time is within an acceptable range that D and I are comfortable with.

Where am I going with all this elaboration? Nowhere in particular. Just that we embrace the Screen-free Week in principle and do what works for us. Which, I guess, is what I envision happening around the world anyway, thanks to the awareness raised by the Screen-free Week celebration.

East Indian

It was just another Wednesday evening. Opting to pick my battles that week, I had temporarily capitulated - the Laundry Battle wasn't worth it. Or so I thought.

Woman proposes. Universe disposes.

With all of Oggie's pants in the hamper, muddy and beyond an acceptable second chance, it was either send him in Ana's pants or sew a new one that evening. I was leaning towards Ana's pants when this little voice in my head chastised me.

As I gathered the grass-stained socks and musty wet towels, mechanically probing for special rocks and  carefully saved dandelions in the pants pockets, Oggie materialized beside me squealing, "I want to help you do the laundry, Mama! I want to go with you!"

So, off we went, the two of us, down the stairs, when a jaunty refrain caught me by surprise coming from the resident youngest, "♫Andrew Jackson got rid of all the Indians...♫"

"What? Who got rid of ALL the who now?" I asked with deliberate innocence.

"Andrew Jackson, Mama, he was a President. And, not ALL the Indians, Mama. Not your family in India. Don't worry. You are East Indian. He got rid of the other kind of Indians who lived in America", came the prompt and confident explanation.

Not bothering to suppress the unbridled laughter, I quietly accepted the influence of birth order, knowing how obsessed Ana was about John Coulton's Presidents as she started wading her way through the Encyclopedia of the Presidents and their times.

And how nice it is to have bite-sized anecdotes and tidbits handed down from Papa to Ana to Og, who retains and regurgitates with gusto.

[image source: twentydollarbill.info]

The Cheshire Cheese Cat

The Cheshire Cheese Cat
A Dickens of a Tale
by Carmen Agra Deedy & Randall Wright
illustrated by Barry Moser

Take the best cheese in England, a literate and resourceful mouse, a well-meaning solitary cat with a potentially shameful secret and his nemesis of a savage feline beast, a raving Tower raven, and add in some colorful human characters including our very own Mr.C. Dickens, the writer, and put them in an absurdly intricate yet easy-to-unravel situation, and you have the makings of a riotous story for pages to come.

Add to it the brilliance of English language and compound story-telling, and there is a sure winner.

Although this hilarious romp is marketed for the young adult around middle grade or thereabouts, I had such a fantastic laugh that I am convinced it is for all ages. Well, ages 8+ perhaps as the Dickensian tale with its wry humor and sophisticated patter would be lost on the beginner readers.

Better yet, I think it is best enjoyed by the discerning adult who can get the subtle references and chuckle heartily. But then, that's just a perk, an incidental frolic. The book stands on its own thanks to some exceptional writing and shrewd characterization.

I did read it a few chapters to Ana and caught myself explaining the references and interrupting the flow in the process needlessly. Plus, I couldn't stop myself from quizzing periodically, "Do you get it? Isn't it funny?" and getting this piercing stare of what's-wrong-with-you-today from Ana that I decided to back off and let her read it when she is ready.

Ye Olde Cheshire Inn makes the best cheese in all of England. Pip, the talking, reading, writing mouse manages to herd his motley pack lodging in this Inn, while ensuring plenty of the best cheese for their consumption.

Into this harmonious dwellings is introduced Skilley, fleet of foot, a cat among cats. Or so he would have been, but for a secret: his love for cheese. Skilley, even though he is ashamed to admit it, is a cheese-loving cat who cannot bring himself to catch, let alone eat a mouse. But dares to present himself as a mouser at Ye Olde Cheshire Inn.

Pinch is the impending danger lurking around the corner: a perfectly foul villain who kills mice just for fun, and is Skilley's nemesis.

Maldwyn is a misunderstood raven kidnapped from the Tower of London, or so he believes.

There is no way I will be able to do justice to the style of language and characters and narration. It is not to be taken seriously, the book, I mean. How can I when one of the pages in the book is an entry from Dickens' journal that reads:

                 
                               C. Dickens

Those were dire days indeed.

The times were cruel

ghastly

appalling

It was the worst of all the days the world has seen-

Oh, why can't I write an opening for my new novel that stands out from all the rest?

...

I'm at Ye Olde Cheshire today with my friend Wilkie. I was looking forward to a marvelous afternoon of cheese and chummery, but with my well of words tapped dry, I can only despair.

...

I think I'll just jump in the Thames.

Or become a lamplighter or a chimney sweep.

Anything but a writer.

Of course, little ones may not get the reference to the Tale of Two Cities, but it doesn't take away from the story.

Chapter Ten has some creative type-setting like the ones I've seen in books with concrete poetry - the font style and arrangement makes it an enhanced reading experience.

The black-and-white illustrations capture the characters and moods perfectly, adding a bit of humor to it that is subtle yet forceful.

I can only imagine the kind of fun the authors must've had while writing this book.

All's well that ends well. There are a few knots in the proceedings which get straightened out to everyone's advantage in the end, with a surprise last minute entrance from a mysterious visitor who sorts things out as is expected of her.

This is a book I'd love to have in my bookshelf to reach for at will and read a few pages at random and know that I will be entertained and amused each time. I am adding it to the as-yet-non-existent Reading List for the kids when they are ready.

[image source: schoollibraryjournal.com]

A couple of slightly off-beat books

By now, the 7 year old has some genres (non-fiction, realistic fiction, historical fiction, fairy tale fantasy, modern fantasy, folktales, mythology) she prefers but is always open to explore others. And some books don't necessarily fall into one genre or another, may span a few, and may just remain difficult to label. Which is fine...

Of course, she doesn't really care about the genres and probably has just a generic notion about fiction/non-fiction, it is just my adult mind that has extracted these genre labels from the books she has enjoyed reading so far.

Anyway, a few random picks from the library impressed the 7 yo enough for their own reasons that I wanted to jot down here. They are "off-beat" in the sense that they are not the typical picture books or chapter books she has been exposed to, not the classics either; and not necessarily full-blown quirky, but the kind of books I would not have thought of adding to her Reading List, if we had one.

Seven Lady Godivas
The true facts concerning history's barest family
by Dr.Seuss

If the cover image did not catch the 7 yo's attention I would have been surprised. There was not just one but seven Lady Godivas, all of them bare-bodied because, "they were simply themselves and chose not to disguise it."

Originally published in 1939, this is the first book for adults by Dr.Seuss and apparently it did not sell then, but is now considered a collector's item. Dr. Seuss had severe apprehensions about its publication and considered it his "greatest failure".

The book presents a possible story behind seven well-known horse sayings like, "Don't ever look a gift horse in the mouth!" and "Don't put the cart before the horse." and so on, each Horse Truth discovered by a Godiva sister whose mission in life it was to find one before wedding and settling down. And, they chose to do it with not a stitch of clothing on.

Other than the Seussian drawings of naked women, I found nothing terribly objectionable to make me agonize over letting the 7 yo girl read it. Some of the references about the Peeping brothers (Peeping Tom) and the horse sayings themselves are probably out of the range of her current depth of understanding, but, at its face value, the book is funny and imaginative. I am glad Ana loved reading it a few times and even sharing the parts she found most entertaining.

Country Mouse Cottage 
Town Mouse House
How we lived one hundred years ago
by Nigel Brooks & Abigail Horner

Set in the early 1900s, the two books present aspects of day-to-day life - one in the country and one in town.

"Welcome. I am Edward Country Mouse. I'd like to show you around our house" starts this charming little book. We find out Edward lives with his Ma and Pa, and his sister Rose, his twin brothers Fred & Barnaby in a cottage on their farm. It is mid-summer in the year 1900. Each of the family member has chores that keep them busy from dawn till dusk.

Ana instantly loved the Country Mouse Cottage - the clothes and shoes and alarm clock (similar to the one she has now) all caught her attention right on the cover.

The water pump was my favorite page to read to her. I had one like that when I was about Ana's age and had to pump water for all our needs - washing, bathing, cooking, even flushing the toilet! I had a lot of fun reminiscing and telling Ana about how different my life was when I was her age, and this book opened that door for us.

The watercolor illustrations are delicate and ethereal yet solid and earthy at the same time - a rare combination. I simply loved them. The same reason I still love Beatrix Potter's elegant watercolors - they just transport me to another world, a world of such beauty and simplicity that I want to escape into it.

There is even a page dedicated to their Village School - a common classroom in which big ones, little ones and the in-betweens all gather for some learning. When Edward shares the school rules and says "... our bottoms might be caned" if we don't obey, it certainly caught Ana's attention about the sort of disciplinary actions prevalent in those days. As a matter of fact, I remember the knuckle-beatings and spanking widely practised in the Lower Elementary school I went to. "I am so lucky they don't do that in my school, Mama, I would not like that at all, it would hurt so much!"

Needless to say, Ana was obsessed with Rose's and her mom's clothes in all the pages. She did express concern over Pa's Clay Pipe as she is just becoming aware of the smoking habit that she started noticing in public.

The true hardships of country life are not dealt with in detail in Country Mouse Cottage; an idyllic picture with just enough jolt of reality to make it romantic for the young reader makes this a wonderful reading experience.

Town Mouse House is much similar in concept, set in an upper class house in a generic town in 1900. Augustus Town Mouse shows us around and we learn about terraced houses with butlers and governesses and cooks and house maids.

No!

No!
by David McPhail

This book evinced a mixed reaction in me: I was at once awed by the profound message and confused by the presentation.

I did not intend to read it to the recently-turned-4-yo but he ended up skimming through it and showing interest anyway that I did 'interpret' the book for him. Since both the 4 year old and the 7 year old manged to get the core message out of it, I wanted to share it here.

Worldess picture books are amazing when well done, especially when it is an allegory. The illustrations in this book are evocative: the full-page panel focuses our eyes on exactly what the author intends for us to see and infer. The muted warm colors and clothes evoke emotions we associate with the bygone era.

It is interesting to read that most illustrator-authors illustrate to satisfy their creative urges and not with a target audience in mind. David McPhail shares in this interview, that not only is pen and ink his medium of choice,  he also prefers to illustrate for himself first and it is incidental if others like it as well and want to buy his book.

A little boy writes a letter, meticulously puts it in an envelope, affixes the postage stamp and puts on his coat to walk through a seeming war zone to drop it in a mailbox.

On the way, he sees bombers in the sky targeting a patch of land, a huge tank blowing something up in an alley he has just passed, soldiers marching by breaking down a door while kids stare out a window curiously... the story progresses on in this vein where the boy sees atrocities on his walk to the mail box, some of which can seem incomprehensible and confusing to kids (especially the one where a man is vandalizing a public poster of the president).

And at the mail box, the boy is confronted by a bully, but he takes a stand and yells "No!", the only word used thrice in this book. "No?" wonders the bully. "No!" states the boy firmly. Then, mails his letter and trudges back unharmed.

All dismal so far and I was debating letting the kids read this book when I skimmed it first. But then, the story takes a turn.

As the boy walks back, he notices the soldiers handing out presents to the kids (why they had to break down the door in the first place is a natural question kids asked), the tank helps flatten and plow the field that the bomber targeted earlier, and a bomber airplane now drops a bike on a parachute for the kids - which the bully and the boy receive, with the bully giving the boy a ride back home on this new bike.

And, what was in that letter that the boy wrote?

Dear President,
At my school we have RULES.
NO PUSHING.
NO PUNCHING.
Do you have any RULES?

The idea of taking a stand to effect a change, refusing to be bullied or treated unfairly comes across loud and clear in this book, even though the second half of the book might cause some confusion in the young minds in the context of how the events unfolded in the first half.

I remember feeling apprehensive about reading  How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz to Ana a couple of years ago. The illustrations and the gentle message won over and the book graces our home bookshelf garnering repeat reads when we are in the mood. Unfortunately, No! did not win us over that way.

Understandably, the 7-yo got more out of No! than the 4-yo who took it literally as he doesn't comprehend war or bullying. But, something about the wordless picture book and the correlation between bizarre events at the beginning making more sense in the second half appealed to the 4-yo who did read the book to himself a few times despite my disinterest.

[sample pages here: http://us.macmillan.com/no/DavidMcPhail]
[image source: us.macmillan.com]

Happy Birthday, Honey Pot!

You are so much more mature than I ever was, my little girl,
and I am humbled by it.

You are so much more thoughtful than I am, and I am grateful for it.

You are so much more inquisitive than I ever will be, and I am inspired by it.

You will grow into your own person and the world will see you with its own eyes, but to me, you'll always be the precious little thing who came into my life to teach me how to be a better person.

As we were sorting through the umpteen digital photos to pick just one from each year that you've been gracing us with so far, to create a Timeline chart to mark your special day to share with your friends, I couldn't help reminiscing... and couldn't help being amazed at how much you are able to do at this tender age.

Watching you roller skate with your Papa, holding hands and gracefully gliding along knowing you are not going to fall as long as he is by your side, I couldn't help wishing that you feel the same connection with him no matter how old you are.

What a gift it is - to be easily pleased by the littlest things, to live every moment with gusto, to seek and discover the joys of life... to be thrilled about the Skate party and to be overjoyed with the simple home-made Rainbow cake.

Happy Birthday, Ana!

Kids Craft: Roll Printed Wrapping Paper

Right about four is when Ana got into this activity we call "Roll Printing" - a lovely way to create unique wrapping paper. And, now that Oggie is about that age, he got introduced to it recently.

Whereas Ana chose hearts and flower stickers, Oggie chose helicopter, car and letters for his work. And, as with Ana, after a few attempts, Oggie got comfortable enough to pick up paint by rolling over the paint plate, and roll the loaded roller pin over the paper (quite a tongue twister there!)

We used a flat plastic lid to spread the paint that will be picked up by the roller (we had used the backside of a pan with Ana.) Other than that, the project is much the same as described in that older post.

We used brown paper as well as easel/butcher paper for this. I let Oggie choose/mix the colors, just tempera paints, undiluted.

Two here, two there

Quite a Spring Break it was. Ana had 2 weeks off, whereas Og had one. So, the week of overlapping vacation was managed somehow, juggling our schedules, taking time off from work and so on.

I try not to rant in this space, but, every once in a while I feel the need to vent. And school closures are one such where parents who work outside home and have no relatives in town, no support group, no daycare/camps nearby (or the means to afford it) are left clambering...

And, it is not just major school breaks - it seems a norm that once a month or so school is closed all day for some reason; and again, once a month or so there is early dismissal (half-day). Lucky are those who have family in town to help out considering the frequency of non-school days happening in these parts.

Naturally, one or the other parent has to make serious adjustments in their work schedule (and be glad that they are able to, and can still keep the job) to accommodate such closures, but I shudder to think how a single parent manages it all...

Thankfully, the extra week that Ana had for Spring Break was a time D could travel and work and so dropped Ana off at Nana's in Canada. Ana had a blast with Nana, it was too short a visit but she is growing into her own person and Nana loved her company. But, Nana has to work as well and she made some adjustments to spend time with her grand-daughter...

So, it was just Oggie and me for a week, with Oggie going to school and me going to work and then hanging out together the rest of the time. He loved the one-on-one attention.

Whereas Ana prefers to do independent work by herself most of the time since her pre-school days, sitting still and focusing for hours at a stretch, Oggie likes company. He likes to have people around him. He likes to work in pairs or more. He loves to talk non-stop. Does not like to sit still.

Oh, he is capable of focusing on a work for long duration with full concentration and he does it when things interest him. But, for the most part, he is an attention-seeker. So, in the interest of sanity (and rounded development), I try to give him more of positive attention than negative when I can. It is not always easy. I am usually multi-tasking and parallel-processing.

Which means, we do have plenty of moments where I am in the kitchen and hear a gleeful voice from the living room inviting, "Mama, look at me! I am jumping on the sofa!" knowing that he is breaking a house safety rule when I have to deliberately take that extra moment to not respond with an immediately exasperated "Get down now!" but rather with a calculated neutral, "Do you want to help me make pasta salad in the kitchen now? Or should we make lemonade?"

And by mid-week of this two here, two there, it was clear that Oggie was missing Ana's company more than she was missing his. They did talk on the phone twice but not quite a conversation per se.

Anyway, when Ana got back right on time for Easter, I was grateful that they enjoyed each other's company by sitting quietly side-by-side on the lush unkempt grass coloring the eggs using oil-pastel-resist.

The Voyage of Turtle Rex

The Voyage of Turtle Rex
by Kurt Cyrus

 A couple of documentary-style shows - viz., National Geographic: Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure and BBC's Before the Dinosaurs: Walking with Monsters got us interested in creatures of the prehistoric waters of our world.

 And, Turtle: The Incredible Journey helped make the connection between archelon and today's leatherback sea turtles.

 So, archelon, plesiosaurus and mosasaur were easily the three top creatures that impressed the young aspiring-palebiologist and the resident wannabe-paleontologist.

 After a quick intro to dinosaurs via a few children's Dinosaur picture books, the kids got seriously interested in these pre-historic creatures. No more cute dinos in jammies and tutus talking adorably and teaching a lesson of some sort.

 And so when I came across The Voyage of Turtle Rex at the library, I was impressed with not just the language and illustrations but the fact that we are transported in time while not deviating much from factual details, allowing us to be in the midst of these giants.

 There is no discounting the appeal of rhyme in children's books - especially non-fiction picture books - and the appeal of a young protagonist who must brave all odds to survive by just doing what (s)he needs to do, is programmed to do.

 The book opens with the leathery shell of a turtle egg tearing and a tiny hatchling scrambling on its flippers to get to the sea and start its life's journey. We immediately start rooting for this vulnerable little being. It must cleverly dodge large stomping feet and chomping jaws, wait for the cover of darkness to slip into the relative safety of the vast ocean. And once in the ocean, it must dodge big teeth and even bigger appetites, lay low and get bigger.

 Time, like a turtle, passed silently by, 
stirring the sea, swirling the sky. 
The hatchling who hid in the seaweed was gone... 
grown to a two-ton archelon. 

She glided past plesiosaurs, calm as you please. 
She swam with sharks under rolling seas. 
She crossed paths with mososaur, massive and dark: 
muncher of archelon, gulper of shark. 

Of course, she makes it, our little protagonist. The story goes a full circle when at the end, the helpless hatchling we saw at the shore in the beginning returns to the same shore to lay her very own eggs.

 And then we are reminded that
Gone is that sea and the creatures it knew. 
Archelon. Mosasaur. Pterosaur, too. 
Gone is the plesiosaur's clam-cracking smile... 

But we are left with a hopeful note about the circle of life and evolution:
And somewhere a sea turtle bolts from the shore, 
scraping a trail to the sea once more. 

The illustrations are stunning, with the relative sizes impressing upon us the beauty of the massive prehistoric life forms. The details of the turtle's shell, the vastness of the blue-green waters, the depiction of movement in the sea... all provide this surreal feeling of being there in that era, swimming along.

 All in all, a fantastic find that became a favorite at bedtime, garnering many repeat-reads. And, was shared in both the kids' classroom, on several occasions.



[view author's site]
 [image source: http://www.kurtcyrus.com/My_Picture_Books.php]

Four books the 4 yo enjoyed

As I was typing the list of titles here, I realized that these four books have at least one thing in common: they are each written and illustrated by the same person. Something about author-illustrated books (or illustrator-authored books) appeal to me a lot. No doubt, some brilliant collaborations have produced some amazing books but the fascination for "written and illustrated by" is rather compulsive for me.

There Are Cats in This Book 
by Viviane Schwarz

This had both the 4 and the 6 year old amused by the clever way in which it pulled in the reader to interact. The little flap-like pages with cat-shaped cutouts and such novelties had Oggie reaching for it to read by himself.

 Tiny, Moonpie and Andre are three cats who love to play, and nap. The book starts with them purring under a blanket which is just a flap-page, which when turned reveals the cats as if the blanket were pulled off of them. The cats egg the reader on to turn the page and join in their play.

Oggie's favorite? The page with a tidal wave full of fish with the cats struggling to stay afloat urging us to turn the page so they can get out of the water.

 This book turned out to be a lot of fun for the new reader in the family, with just a few words and entertaining visuals.

For some reason, the books designed for Beginner Reader like the I Can Read! books haven't really appealed to Oggie (and incidentally, they didn't appeal to Ana at that age either, a few years ago).

[image source: SmithsonianStore.com]

Stuck 
by Oliver Jeffers

We read How To Catch A Star by Jeffers and Oggie found it odd that the little boy was trying to find a star at daytime "when the stars don't come out", and was shaking his head when the boy does befriend a star just as he set out to, telling me emphatically that that is not the star he was looking for. (The little boy ends up with a Sea Star, not the Sky Star.)

Anyway, since we liked Oliver Jeffers' illustrations in that first book, we read Stuck. A boy's kite gets stuck in a tree and he tries various ways to dislodge it, all of which involve him throwing things up into the tree which in turn gets stuck until finally the kite gets loose and falls back to him.

Why does he throw things in the tree, Mama? Why can he throw the animals on the tree? And many such questions indicated how literally Oggie was taking this book.

And in the last page, the tree is shown stuck with the various things the boy threw up there to dislodge his kite, except it has something like a rocket-ship stuck in the tree whereas none of the pages earlier showed him throw that rocket up there. Baffling for a detail-oriented recently-turned-four year old, but, it did not deter him from enjoying repeat-reads anyway.

[image source: amazon.com]

I Want My Hat Back 
by Jon Klassen 

The bear has lost his hat. He looks for his hat. He finds his hat. The end. So what's all the fuss about this book? Well, one has to read it to understand all the buzz.

It took a couple of reads for Og to catch on, with me lingering longer on  relevant pages at subsequent reads without explaining.

The poker-faced expressions of the animals despite all that is going on, and the comical way in which the bear races back when he knows where he has seen his hat is priceless.

The last page is hilarious.The resident 6 yo breezed through the book and at the end couldn't help asking, "Did the bear really eat the rabbit?"

It appears so, little girl, it indeed appears so.

I loved the illustrations and the whole presentation. It is clever, comical and subtle.

[watch a video clip here]

[image source: schoollibraryjournal.com]

That's How!
 by Christoph Niemann

How does the digger work, Mama? How does the airplane fly in the sky, Papa?

For kids who wonder about how things work but are too little to pay attention to the factual explanation, this fanciful book lets them imagine how things might work.

Presented in the form of a Q&A between two kids, one asking the Q and the other saying, "Hmm... let me think" and then attempting rather far-fetched answer like Airplanes held together and operated by Chickens, Whale and Octopus propelling a Freighter, this book is by no means a serious one meant to help kids understand machines.

Of course, on every page, Oggie laughed aloud before he emphatically stated, "No, that's not really how it works, I know, Mama..." even though he doesn't quite know how they really work.

[image source: laughingsquid.com]