The Diamond in the Window

Against The Lord of the Rings?

Here's what I had: a kid who started at The Boxcar Children, then went to Secrets of Droon, to Animorphs, to Warriors, and ever onward. There were many side trips: to all things Pokénon, an ongoing love affair with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, many, many, many manga. A long, deep dance with The Sword in the Stone. The Princess Bride continues to make appearances. Throughout it all, Dungeons & Dragons has been, shall we say, an abiding interest.

If there was anything I thought I could predict, it was a trajectory. What did I see? I saw fantasy. Magic. Other worlds.

I sat back with my arms crossed and (possibly) a smug look on my face, and waited for The Hobbit to make its appearance, followed closely by The Lord of the Rings.

And waited.

And waited.

Then, a year or two ago, I asked her if she'd read The Hobbit. She had, she said. "Meh." I said, "Really?" Her dad said, "Try The Lord of the Rings. It's better."

She read The Lord of the Rings. "Meh."

?

Before I go further, full disclosure: I was not a Tolkien kid. My sister was. She had the full on "Come to Middle Earth" poster on her door, she read The Hobbit many, many times. And I don't know whether it felt like her turf, or I needed to assert my difference, but I just didn't go for it. I didn't like The Hobbit, I didn't even try Lord of the Rings. 

I've read Lord of the Rings as an adult and I really liked it, but that's a different thing, isn't it? But Diana? I kept waiting for her to discover them, it just seemed too obvious—inescapable! But it just didn't happen. There was no love, only indifference.

And then this year—things changed. She was in the middle of talking about something else and she said, "—so I was explaining why I hate Lord of the Rings, and then—."

"Wait, what?"

Yup. She will now go—happily!—on the record as being out and out against The Lord of the Rings. "But why?" I asked. And she knew! She said, "It is utterly without humor."

Wow. I just.... I don't remember thinking about books that way. And the thing is: she's not wrong, exactly. It's just that I didn't expect things to go like this. 

Being a parent is weird.

Girls Read Guys Read?

There was a mass purge of bizarre branded items, review copies and other freebies where I work a few weeks ago, and I spent most of my time at the books table, where, among other things, I got this:

I just thought: what self-respecting children's book blogger would pass this up? Not that I'm exactly a self-respecting children's book blogger, but I try to be. It's a lot of memoir-type writing by male authors.

It came home with me and went to live on the coffee table, which is essentially our holding pen, where things wait to be blessed or damned. Did I read it? Of course I didn't read it. I've been too busy feeling sorry for myself for an array of ordinary-life trials and browsing aimlessly in the internet to actually read anything. Who did read it? Diana.

What a strange cognitive dissonance it is to see a girl reading a book that cries out on its cover: Guys Read.

She came at it fairly pissed off: "What do you mean guys read? Are you saying I can't read this?" She soon transitioned to irritation and suspicion: "This isn't a novel at all. It's not even fiction? WHY would you have Garth Nix, who is so awesome at writing fantasy, write something that's not even fiction?" Which gave way to absorption. She just read it. And read it. And then she read it some more. It migrated up to her room, where it lives happily shuttling between her desk and her dresser, a much-sampled, confusing new genre.

She did want to know why there would be a book just for guys, the very concept rubbing her the wrong way, and gnawing at her easily triggered injustice reflex. I talked a little bit, and probably none too coherently, about the covers that a lot of YA and middle-grade books have, and how they might be embarrassing for a guy to carry around, and the general stereotypes of who likes to read etc. She took it under consideration.

She feels that books should have no gender. I feel like that's sort of akin to saying there should be no racism. Of course there shouldn't be, but given that it's there, it's better to acknowledge it and try to eradicate it? Right? Maybe?

But really, what I thought would end up being about gender, instead ended up being about a kid reading authors she loves, but reading them in another genre—reading their memories, their actual voices. It's been strangely earth-shaking for her, at least that's how it looks from the outside. When you read a novel by Garth Nix, he's there on the cover, but other than that you're inside his mind. He vanishes from sight, because you're looking through his eyes. When you read his nonfiction story of his youth, he's there in front of you, inescapable, a person. It's like the end of the Wizard of Oz when they lift the curtain.

Did you guys ever read memoir type stuff when you were kids? What do you think?

The Great Ones: Judy Blume, Queen of the Ordinary (in the Best Possible Way)

Here is what I think Judy Blume does: she manages to make a person live and speak.

And she's not about showing off: she doesn't go for the smartest characters. Or the best. She's not about kids' being precocious. She goes for the ordinary: for Jill in Blubber. For Margaret.

And there's something so ennobling about their supposed ordinariness, because of course just as there is no normal, ordinary is similarly elusive. By not making her characters superspecial, she allows them their full humanity, and it feels like grace. 

Blume is willing to honor her characters' everday concerns—and she never talks down to them. Even while you feel the wry authorial eye having a reasonable perspective—Oh! How I love Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great!—there's no distance, either sentimental or contemptuous. It's as if she's just being a mother in the best possible way for her characters: wryly amused, clear-eyed, loving. It's almost a way of imagining what it feels like to be good enough.

I feel like I sound borderline insane here, but at least I know I mean it: I think that the way her writing works, its intense power (and no, I'm not talking about Forever and Ralph, people) is its unpretentious humanity.

She's just so awesome.

Maurice Sendak

I'm not even the right person to write a remembrance of Maurice Sendak. I never knew him personally of course, and while I read In the Night Kitchen and the Nutshell Library many hundreds of times, my heart always belonged to the Where the Wild Things Are, and I think (from what I read and hear of him) that the focus on that one book frustrated him.

I don't remember reading at as a little kid. Though I must have, because I came upon it in my room, in a house we moved to when I was in fourth grade. I remember sitting on my green carpet. It was afternoon, I think, and I pulled it down from my bookshelf (why was it there?) and I read it. I knew I was too old for it, but I didn't care. I didn't remember ever having read it before. I know exactly where I was and how I was sitting when I read,

That very night, in Max's room a forest grew
and grew—
and grew until his ceiling hung with vines and his walls became the world all around

Those pages have meant my very life to me.

When Diana was tiny, she was a possessed little demon of colic and rage. Every night we would cycle through every single thing we knew how to do to try to stop her crying—crinkle a plastic bag near her ear, sing, jounce, bounce, walk, feed her, rock her, take her outside, bring her inside, try her bouncy seat, crinkle a plastic bag near her ear, sing—over and over. Then one night, when she was three months old, far too young to understand any of it—I lay down on the bed, exhausted and empty, and I lay her down, still screaming, next to me, and I opened my copy of Where the Wild Things Are. (I still have it, from when I was a kid.) And I started to read to her. And she stopped screaming. She just listened, and watched.

Probably she was just caught by the papery sound of the turning pages. Or maybe she was just done crying right then, for mysterious baby reasons of her own. I don't know.

But it was the first book I ever read her.

I will miss his being part of this world.

 

I'm So Very Tired: Putting to Sleep Books

My children are, in a word, old. Well, they're old for children. They have opinions. They walk by themselves to the bookstore and haunt the manga section. They have plans that don't include me, at all.

Even so, we still have people who wander in during the evning, or in the middle of the night, prey to bad dreams and worries and being unable to sleep.

But we don't have the awesome sleep books of yore. When they're little, there's that whole class of soporifics, books that end with the main character snug in bed, and the moon shining, and, you know, zzzzzzzzz.

I loved those books. Not just because they're often great books (do I really need to haul Goodnight, Moon out here, people? I will!), but also because they WORK. And when I say they work, I don't just mean that they work on the small ones, they work on me.

All my life I have had trouble falling asleep. And it's not like the books were foolproof—for me or them. There were many times when I read in that sslllloooooowwww sleep-inducing voice, "And then he nestled under the soft covers, and..." while the kid was working to see if she could fit her foot behind her head. And no doubt part of my susceptibility had to do with the insane amount of sleep deprivation. But reading Big Red Barn, with a not quite toddling person lolling against your side, warm and loose and full of milk—it's generally a sleepy situation. And I don't get to do it anymore. And I'm still tired! But there are no books or situations like this for me anymore (though my husband does swear by a glass of chilled vermouth and The Golden Bowl—start with any paragraph you like—in the afternoon).

It's been more acute lately, this missing of those sleepy books. People are under stress, not sleeping as well as they might, and—well. Let's just say you might have found me in my living room the other day, reciting what I could of Big Red Barn from memory.

But I know there are lots. It's not just Margaret Wise Brown, right? Can you remind me? We can make a list in the comments, those books that just laid you (or your associated tiny person) flat out.

The Great Ones: Louis Sachar

As I said earlier, I am starting a new—feature? Section? Tag? I'm not sure what to call it, or even what it is, but I do know why I'm doing it, even if I don't know what to call it. I'm doing it because sometimes you just get bogged down in reading things that aren't so great. And you think to yourself, "Well, it's pretty good," and "Maybe I'm too critical," and "Maybe I expect too much." You might think "It's me—I'm just too tired to enjoy this properly" or "my expectations were probably too high."

But when you read something really great, all doubt falls away. The book lives. All you want to do when you're not reading it is to get back to reading it. It's a whole world.

People who can create these whole worlds—people who can do it over and over and over, for different age groups, who can connect (seemingly) effortlessly with kids through some crazy organ between their shoulder blades (note: this is just a theory)—these are the great ones.

Like Louis Sachar.

The first book I ever read of his was Holes, and it was awesome. Then Diana fell in love with Sideways Stories from Wayside School. She would declaim it throughout the house, thrilled. She brought it home from school over and over again. OK, I said to myself. He can write the awesome serious-ish novel and the crazy zany stories for younger kids—OK. He's versatile.

And that's when I read Don't Pick on Me, part of the Marvin Redpost series. A book about a kid accused of picking his nose. And I realized: Louis Sachar was always awesome.

How does he do it? Ah, if I only knew. There's something quintessentially unafraid about his writing, something honest and true and freakishly authentic. There's a there there, if you know what I mean.

And so today here on a random Thursday in May on the Diamond in the Window, we honor him. Because it's a wonderful thing that there is greatness out there. It makes the rest of the world almost OK.

Why Would They Have a Book Like That for Kids? Or, Woe to the Sensitive Soul

Long, long ago, when everyone in my house was much younger, there were certain books that had to be banned. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. See, some books were just too painful to read—their stories were too traumatic, their messages too sharp. And while we generally view ourselves in the tough as nails bunch here, when a book is too harsh, too real, too gritty...well, we have to stop reading it, that's all.

Public Enemy # 1: Are You My Mother?

The first time we read this, as the baby bird was wandering the parched desperate land, asking the various things "Are YOU my mother?" we got to the snort and—well. That was it. A howl of grief, a gush of tears. "No! No! No! WRONG!" Or something along those lines. The book was slammed shut, and the person refused—refused—to ever read it again. For YEARS. When teachers read it she left the room, when adults pleaded she was stony and unyielding.

Did I explain that it all worked out in the end? Of course I explained that it all worked out in the end! But to no avail. She could not forgive.

It wasn't just this book, and it wasn't just her. Another young person of my acquaintance (do you like how we're protecting reputations here at TDITW?) was traumatized by this nihilistic horror:

Yes, that's right, Five little ducks went out one day, over the hills and far away, Mother duck said "Quack quack quack quack"—but only four little ducks came back.

Oh my god. Only four came back.

The child in question wept. "Why?" she pleaded, "Why would they have a book like that for kids?"

Explanations, again, went pretty much nowhere. Let's just say logic is not the most effective tool with this bunch.

All of which begs the question: What is up with my children? I mean, they're over it. They could (probably) read these books now without turning a hair (they could, right? RIGHT?). But for whatever reason (incompetent reading/mothering) these books just...well, it goes beyond bombed really. They backfired.

I wrote this post because I figured, I can't be the only one. Other peoples kids have misread and turned against well-loved children's classics, haven't they? It doesn't indicate anything bad—of course not! Heh heh.

Your kids have, right?

We Recommend: Facts + Captain Underpants = True Love

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

All the brave young men! Not that this particular piece has to be about boys, really. As hard as I find it to believe, some kids somehow find themselves (or we find them) in the "not interested in reading camp." A very nice 10-year-old girl was at my house the other day, and while Chestnut and I were wrangling about how and when she would do her homework, overheard one of us say "And of course save the reading part for last as a reward."

She said, "Wait! You save the reading for last...for fun? I would rather do a thousand math sheets than do 40 minutes of reading." And bear in mind, this was reading a novel of your choice. I can't understand it or explain but I must acknowledge that this is somehow the case for many people.

Often, though, as with our question today, something happens that changes this person. And if and when it does, we would be wise to honor it properly.

My son (7 - about to be 8) was not interested in reading.  What books he brought home from the library were non-fiction - generally about animals.  He has always loved "fact" books.  We went to the library to try out some books and he fell in love with Captain Underpants.  He read every one in short order, then the 2 Super Diaper Baby books, then the Black Lagoon series - all of them in about 3 days.  I have been reading Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett) to him, but those books are too old for him to read on his own and I am running out of ideas for him.  I just ordered a Stinky book (Megan McDonald) - hoping he will like it, but I would love some other recommendations. 

First of all: Captain Underpants, YES. Because: why not? What's tricky for me is that I don't know (exactly) what he liked most about the Captain. The silliness? The rudeness? The whole package? In any case, the question remains: what next?

I originally thought I should go with The Day My Butt Went Psycho, for obvious reasons. (Also, interesting to me at least, is that this was originally called The Day My Bum Went Psycho due to the author's being Australian, which because I am a stupid American I think sounds even odder and funnier.) However, it's not really a great book. I mean it's fine, but—I want to offer this young gentleman a great book.

So I went to one of the excellent resources out there for boys, Guys Read. Bear in mind: this is an excellent site for any kid. It offers a certain easiness that makes kids feel less like they are being scolded and more like they might just find something awesome to read. It is maybe not being as closely curated as one would wish (I spotted a few inaccurate titles) but it offers kids a chance to vote on how much they like a book by clicking buttons, and hey—when you're 7 that's kind of awesome.

And there I saw a book that is really and truly a great and silly book, that made me realize—duh!—why did he love Captain Underpants? Because it's funny! And so I would give him Sideways Stories from Wayside School:

Because it's great. And it's funny. 

I am, however, aware that I myself am not in possession of a 7 about to be 8-year-old son. So maybe others can chime in, and tell this kid what to read?

And Now We Must Talk About Daniel Pinkwater, Who Is Awesome

Last week my children had to slog through hours and hours of utter foolishness, in the form of the ELA tests.

In order for the tests to be administered, the school had to cancel: humanities. (Of course! We must cancel class now, in order to see whether the teachers are doing their jobs.)

Also canceled? All art and theater classes. (Duh! Who needs to read Shakespeare? What a waste!)

And—wait for it—all independent reading. Because who has time for reading when you're testing kids' reading? Why is that so hard to understand?

Also? A child in Chestnut's class was reprimanded for falling asleep during the test after he was done. Apparently this is NOT ALLOWED.

Sometimes it feels like my children are being educated in a Kafka novel.

All of this, as you can imagine, was torture for both of them. But! There was an absurd, rotund light twinkling at the end of the miserably dark tunnel.

It turns out a brouhaha was stewing (brewing?), because the eighth grade tests used a bastardized version of an excerpt from one of the esteemed Daniel Pinkwater's novels.

You can read a very wonderful interview with him about it here, but essentially: the test writers took a nonsensical story about a rabbit and an eggplant. They changed to be about a hare and a pineapple, made it longer and less funny, and then tacked on a few questions to the end, trying to bend the story to their will. But Daniel Pinkwater being the proverbial monkey wrench that he is, did what I so long to do: he messed them up. Because nonsense is nonsense, and trying to jam it into the rigid idiocy that these tests promote will only backfire. As indeed it did.

They cancelled the question. Oh how I wish it had gone farther than that! It was a bit like watching a bear try to eat a hedgehog. It looked so little and cute, but it did not go down as smoothly as expected.

And oh! How my children loved to read about this! Diana charged around the house announcing "Pineapples!" over and over. Chestnut just beamed. It was so nice, at the end of that stupid, stupid week, to have them see that there something ridiculous had punctured to giant faceless void of the tests that have been bullying them.

I first encountered Daniel Pinkwater when Chestnut brought The Big Orange Splot home from school. She used to sit there reading it over and over on the couch, thinking about how she would change our house. 

I feel like Pinkwater's story is itself a big orange splot. It has (inadvertently) landed right on the roof of the high-stakes testing house, and is shining there in all its absurdity. I wish, oh how I wish, that the people who keep championing these tests could be a little more like Mr. Plumbean, and would look up and see that it shows them what could be.

Instead of making us cancel independent reading for a whole week.

Half-Baked Theories: When Worlds Collide! Or, Some Ideas about Science Fiction and Fantasy and the Fifth Wall

Diana is a meta sort of kid. She likes narrative asides to the reader—Lemony Snicket was an awesome thrill. She likes breaking through that fourth wall. When we watched Blazing Saddles (truly an awesome film for the fart-joke-loving middle school crowd), at the end of the movie when they crash through the walls of the set onto the set of another movie, she gave an audible shriek and leapt to her feet in a paroxysm of joy. It's what she loves about Monty Python—the constant strange balance of the separate worlds, one within the other.

At dinner last night, Diana mentioned, "You know why I love the first book of any fantasy series the best? Because that's the one where they discover the other world."

And I've been thinking about it.

I know what she's talking about. That moment when Lucy pushes through the old coats and ends up in the snowy wood. That sense of otherness, of the world's having more dimensions than you thought it did. And what I was thinking was that maybe that's one way fantasy makes more sense to me than science fiction does. Fantasy somehow implies that there's this world, and then there's another one, and you can move between the two, and that's what's so awesome. Science fiction gives you an alternate world, but it's the world there is—it's the future. It's farther along a continuum but not on a different plane, if you follow my tortured not-quite-mathematically-accurate metaphor.

Of course, once I thought of this I immediately saw that I was wrong. Some fantasy doesn't involve movement between worlds (though my favorite fantasy always seems to). And no doubt some sci-fi posits multiple worlds. But still, I feel like there's an idea here somewhere, if I could only grasp it. Ah, the trials of the half-baked theory.

What do you think? Are you a fan of that moment when one world connects to another? Is it part of fantasy only? And, just because I want to know, what's your favorite intsance of this moment? Please?