The Diamond in the Window

We Recommend: Twelve-Year-Old's Fashion Edition

It's We Recommend, in which we attempt to match kids up with their perfect book. Got a kid in your life who needs a recommendation (or do YOU need one)? 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, so be sure to look there.

My friends, we have arrived. No, I don't mean riches, public acclaim, or a fabulous future. It's better than that! I believe we have reached the point where we receive We Recommend requests from—gasp!—actual readers.

Witness this, I say:

Age: 12 (but very mature)
Interests: Fashion/clothing, drawing (anime, people, dresses/outfits), reading, fantasy books, photography, animation, acting, singing, dancing, horseback riding, magic, Legos
Past books/stories has liked: The Clique series, the Uglies series (Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras), The Mother-Daughter book club series, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Harry Potter series, Percy Jackson sereis, Diary of a Wimpy Kid series,  Black Cauldron series, Secrets of My Hollywood Life series, Princess Diaries series, Hunger Games series

That is, in full, the actual text of the email. Can I tell you how much "but very mature" absolutely kills me without being condescending? (Though no doubt, she is very mature.)

Anyway the real question is, of course, what should we tell this kid to read? Clearly, series are a thing. But the first-place position of "fashion/clothing" makes me think that clothes are what really matters. I wondered if Ballet Shoes might work, because I so much love the descriptions of the clothes in that, but I know it won't do for most 12 year olds. Too sweet and naive. A 12-year-old I know loved Philippa Gregory, but, I don't know, ick. Too soft porn, I think. So what? Well, as I do in times of need, I turned to Diana, who said with utter confidence, "Oh, tell her to read Cardcaptor Sakura." I won't trouble you with how many times I had to keep asking her to repeat the name so I could understand it, while I kept saying "Eh? What? I don't understand. What did you say?" like I was 90.

(Image Courtesy manga.about.com)

Diana says, "It's about a girl who has magic powers and her best friend is an amateur fashion designer, and the person who wrote in likes manga so...."

So there you go, that's what I got. But I feel like there must be some whole other genre of girl fashion designed fantasy books out there (maybe Circle of Magic by Tamora Pierce? Isn't there a girl with fabric magic as her power?). 

At any rate, I'm fully willing to stand behind Diana's (admittedly insane-looking) pick. Anybody else have any suggestions? Put them in the comments.

Is It Challenging Enough? or How Reading Is Like a TARDIS

Here's how the question is usually formed (and it comes a lot—in emails, conversations): My kid can read things a lot more difficult than s/he does read. In fact, all s/he reads are comic books/stupid romances/unbearable series name here. Is this OK? Should I, I don't know, do something?

Here's the thing: I am not a teacher. I have no real idea of what they should be reading at school, other than that it should be wonderful. But what we talk about here isn't school. People are writing in about books outside school, that most excellent category, and for those I have made my strong bias clear: kids should read what they want to read. It's one of the few cases in the world where I actually know what I believe with very little doubt.

What makes me crazy is the way the world around them talks about reading. About reading levels.

I hate reading levels.

I understand that teachers need some way of helping kids into books that aren't too much for them. But the idea of saying that Where the Wild Things Are is somehow of a lower level than, say, Nancy Drew, or that a person would be better off reading Pippi Longstocking than The Clique—if The Clique is what is, for whatever crazy reason, calling out to them: this is wrong. At least outside school it is.

We read—well, we read for lots of reasons. To break apart the frozen sea within us. To escape the world and its terrors. To remember that there are other worlds outside our own. If a kid needs to sit and reread every single monstrous Berenstain Bear book even though she's 13, then that's what she needs to do. Who knows why?

Perhaps part of the problem is that when we look at what a book seems to be, we only see the outside. You can look at Little Bear: it says it's an I Can Read! book. And you might think "Oh, that's for little kids, my kid is in 5th grade, maybe he should be reading something else?" But here's where reading—my titles tell no lies!—is like a TARDIS. It may look on the outside like a beginning to read book. But Little Bear, and every single other book in the whole entire world, is much bigger inside than you could ever imagine from looking at the outside. The outside is just a disguise, to prevent people from realizing that you are about to leave this dimension.

So here's the thing: for anyone who writes in and asks whether they should try to get a kid to read more challenging books, I think: nope. As my eminently quotable husband said recently, when we were chewing over which school to send a person to: "The schools all talk about how challenging they are, but what I want them to talk about is how inspiring they are. They talk like those things are equivalent but they're not."

Whatever it is you're seeing when you see your kid splayed out on the living room floor with some dumb book—what you're seeing isn't what you think you're seeing. It's just the outside of the call box, as it were. And the cool thing is, you never find out why a particular book pulls them in and takes them somewhere. It's just between them and the book, forever. 

And also? We've started watching Dr. Who with Diana. In case you couldn't tell.

And Now You Shall Cry

While I love to read, I am hesitant to get on the whole "Reading is GOOD FOR YOU" train sometimes. Not because it isn't, but because that's not what I personally love about it. Reading is this wonderful thrilling subversive ride you can take, and I feel like sometimes it gets misclassified as medicinal and...it just feels wrong.

But even as I believe that, I know, too, that it actually IS good for you. It has the power to transform lives. It can change a person's trajectory. It is one of the few things I know of that can catapult someone out of the cycle of poverty, it can make people safer and more powerful. It can change a person's whole life. As it does in this amazing story from Nicholas Kristof, which you can find here. I really must insist that you read it, I think.

That story makes me remember so many important things: lurid book covers are wonderful. Letting kids wander in libraries is wonderful. The impulse toward compassion rather than punishment is wonderful, and has the ability—just like reading does—to change a person's life.

So go, read that story, and maybe tear  up a little, and try to bring those things to our own lives and schools: books, compassion, forgiveness. It's not all demagoguery and resentment and fear out there, there are all these people in the world trying to help one another. If we could just get out of their way and let them do their work, that would be so very excellent.

Reading Aloud: The Next Generation

There was a lab report due. A lab report of a wily and difficult nature, because it consisted mainly of following the directions exactly and if you diverge from them in any way it will cost you precious points off and destroy you. That kind of lab report. And Diana is, let's say, not inspired by having to follow directions exactly. Not, how would you say, gifted at it. It was a long night. A long long long long long night. And at the end, when it was 11 p.m. (!) and we were waiting to review the finished version of said lab report, it was clear that some sort of pleasant celebration was needed. A dance party was proposed. But somehow instead, my extremely brilliant husband read her a story. What is the perfect story to read to someone who has just slogged through a hellish lab report and come out the other side, bloodied but unbowed? I'll tell you what it is: "The Nose," by Nikolai Gogol. It is perfect. It brings joy. It releases stress. It saves the world.

I sort of hate the whole prescriptive nature of "You should read to your 12 year old x times per week." However. I will say that when things are bad, and it feels like there's nothing good around? Reading absurdist Russian literature with your kid might just renew your faith in the world and everything in it.

We Recommend: Bar Mitzvah Books? Or, How Do You Tell Kids Over 8 Anything?

It's We Recommend, in which we attempt to match kids up with their perfect book. Got a kid in your life 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 (especially with this one), so be sure to look there!

This one is a little funky. We got the following lovely email from a reader:

My daughter (age 11) is increasingly getting invitations to bah mitzvahs, which she says she wants to attend because all her friends are going. Since my husband and I are atheists we've been having trouble explaining to her the whole concept of a spiritual journey to adulthood and what Judaism is about.  I don't feel good about letting her go to a bah mitzvah just for the sake of the party but if she goes to the service I feel like she needs some background information first.  Any ideas (fiction or non-fiction) about something she could read?

Trying to figure out a way into thinking about what sort of book might work here brought up a whole huge question, which is: how are you supposed to tell anyone anything? I mean, there's a whole wide world between Dinosaurs Divorce and Who Moved My Cheese (or whatever self-help books are now sweeping the nation: The Secret? Skinny Bitch? I don't read these so much, though I would no doubt benefit).

Sure, the American Girl books have moved in their juggernaut-like way to take up the slack, and I think there is even a section in A Smart Girl's Guide to Manners about attending religious celebrations of other faiths, but where are the books of yore! You know, the All About Christmas or All Dogs Have ADD or whatever fact-filled well-meaning book you put in the blank? Because the truth is—wait, well there are two truths. One truth: 11 year olds do need help in figuring out what the heck is going on in the world, whether it's Bar Mitzvahs or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Socialism—there is a world of things they have inklings about but don't fully understand. Another truth: they don't seem all that keen on having the information given to them.

Now that second truth there comes with many caveats. For instance, many kids are happy to get information from each other, as my daughter's encyclopedic but entirely second-hand knowledge of Dr. Who proves. Also, I did witness a rather thorough and diligent study of A Smart Girl's Guide to Middle School on the part of a 10-year-old cousin in our house. But it isn't as simple somehow. And there aren't all the books out there.

So? What I figure would help is a novel. A good, funny Judy Blume-esque novel about a girl (or boy!) preparing for a bat or bar mitzvah. With chaos. And shenanigans. And a troubling little brother/sister. Such a thing must exist, right? But I don't know it is.

So this is a call to readers far and wide: does this book exist? Does one a little bit like it exist? If so, put it in the comments!

And for what it's worth: Blubber, which is excellent, has an excellent scene AT a bar mitzvah, even if it's not exactly the point. It's a turning point in recognizing the humanity of others, though. And it's a book that is always worth reading. Also? It completely worth going just for the party. Everyone else is.

Half-Baked Theories: A Series

You know how people are more and less susceptible to hypnosis? With some who just can't be hypnotized, and others who fall under the spell even if they're just in the audience? (Please note: all complaints about the appearance of hypnosis here can be directed to The Lathe of Heaven, which I just read and is now stuck in my head in small and surprising ways).

Now add to that notion two triggers: 

1) Chestnut said, "Wait, let me tell you what she said." Then almost to herself, "She's so funny." She was talking about a fictional character. This fictional character.

2) On Twitter (sorry! I know!) I follow someone named Theresa Lauren wrote: "People keep acting like I'm supposed to care more about them than I care about fictional characters. It's so weird."

Result? My brain took these three things and mixed them up to form half-baked theory #1. There are some people who are susceptible to fiction. As in: they just believe it. I am one of them. The characters seem just as real (if not more so) than the people I meet in regular life, the worlds created have just as much actual weight. It's not exactly "liking to read," which you hear people worrying all the time. "Why doesn't he like to read? I always liked to read at his age!" It's more fiction-centered, it's just...buying the whole concept of an alternate world. And you can have it more strongly and less, like the ability to see in three dimensions (see Oliver Sacks's The Mind's Eye, which is pretty crazy and wonderful).

And here's the nice thing about a blog: I can spout this whole half-baked theory and no one will stop me as a write it and say, "But wait, what about...." I can just get it out of my system, and carry on with my day.

However? I really think it's true. And fair warning: there are more half-baked theories coming. 

Your Book

You know those stores that exist in an alternate reality, where you wander in and there's an impossibly old proprietor, and amid the dusty shelves in the back you find a crystal ball that really works/a monkey's paw that will curse you/a magical book especially for you?

These places sometimes exist in reality, is the thing. Or if not these places specifically, places that do the same thing. Like the truck stop on the highway to Delaware in 1980 (maybe somewhere on route 95?), where a Greyhound bus I was on stopped when I was 16. We riders wandered in at two in the morning, amid a haze of fluorescent lighting and bleary truckers, and there was a wire kiosk of paperbacks, on which there was ONE and only one copy of this book:

Oh my did I love this book when I was 16. It cost me just as much money as I had at the time (maybe $3.99?). My friend and I passed it back and forth between us, so we could both have access to it (that and Young Sinners, but that's another story). We read it over and over. And it seemed pretty clear to me at the time (and actually seems just as clear in retrospect) that the book was there for me and only me, that if someone had visited that truck stop 15 minutes before I got there it wouldn't have been there. It got beamed down as I entered the place, a flash of literary kismet.

You wouldn't think this sort of thing happened much at Barnes and Noble, would you? And yet....

Normally we go to the indie bookstores, which our neighborhood is lucky enough to have. But Chestnut had a $25 gift card, and so to Barnes and Noble we did go.

Once we got there, I went somewhere else, because for Chestnut to make a decision—not easy. It takes a long time, there is much vacillating. It was probably around 45 minutes before she came to get me, so we could think about whether The Fairies of the Forest (or something similar) was right, or should she consider Dear Dumb Diary, or or or.... And as we were talking it over, there, on the display shelf, was this:

"How about this?" I asked her. She picked it up. And that was it—she wanted it. Even though neither of us had heard of it before. Even though it cost $17 and she is the most frugal of book-buyers. She just knew it was the book for her. And she was right.

The crazy thing is, what was it doing on that shelf? It wasn't with a stack of others like it. It was published in 2010, for heaven's sake. But there it was, a sign of the literary powers that watch over us all, and every now and again bestow their favors.

The book is the story of a very smart 5th grade girl with cerebral palsy, and what it's like for her when she starts inclusion classes, where other people start to realize that within her drooling nonworking body is a sharp, funny, longing to connect mind. And it's not all positive, it's not all easy—but it's really good. And it was just right for Chestnut, for whom this girl lived.

Thank you, book gods.

I'm not the only person this happens to, right?

We Recommend: Books with Shy Characters

It's back to We Recommend, in which we attempt to match kids up with their perfect book. Got a kid in your life 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, so be sure to look there!

Well, let's all stagger back from our various holiday indulgences and start thinking about books, shall we? Starting with this wistful request:

I'm looking for chapter books that deal with the subject of shyness and features a girl character. I have a second grade girl who is shy, quiet and loves to read. It seems that books for girls around this age have a lot of outrageous outgoing characters (Judy Moody, Clementine) and I think they're fun but yesterday we were talking about about shyness, how people see her as shy and she didn't like it. I was trying to say that some of us are just quiet and observe the action a little more before jumping in, and it's good to have more people in the world who are listeners, etc etc. I'd love it if she could see a good girl character in a book that deals with this well. It's not that I want to encourage her to stay "shy" but I'd love if she could see more of her qualities in a positive light in another girl. Girls with a quiet strength? Any ideas?

Interesting, no? Most general views of the shy and the bookish—well, let's just say if there was a Venn diagram involved it would have a lot of overlap. But shy characters as the main characters in kids books? That's a little more difficult, mostly because just like in regular life, shy people are not so good at grabbing our attention. Which is sort of what you want a book to do, no? So really, the shy girl books tend to work in one of two ways (how's that for a bullshit made up belief I just came up with?): either the shy narrator has a rich inner life to which we are privy, with lots of luminous/incisive visions of the world around them (think of Laura in the Little House on the Prairie Books, who talks often about her paralyzing fear when she goes into town and has to see and talk to people),  or, in the grand tradition of the seminal Ramones film Rock 'n' Roll High School, they have to have a PJ Soles to match the...whatever the shy girl's name was. Shy girl is matched with outgoing girl, so the story moves along but we are also able to experience shy person's vulnerability/sensitivity. Something like The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (oh how I love that book!). Or, for a sweet second grader like the one described above? This:

Here's what is sad: I don't remember which one of these girls is the shy one. But I know that one of them is! And what's particularly nice is that these books don't equate shyness with goodness or sweetness; they let the shy person have her own strong character, despite her reticence. And there isn't judgment of the "shy is better" or "why don't you just go introduce yourself!" varieties, simply description. One kid is one way, another is different, this is how they are in the world. Oh! Also Betsy-Tacy would work; Tacy is so shy!

But enough from us. Come on, all you shy ones—we know you're out there. What have you got for this girl to read?

Let Me Hear You SCREAM!

We are here to talk (briefly) about gifts. Yes, it's too late for that. But bear with me.

So my new relaxed strategy? If you see something that looks right for someone, just buy it and be done with it—no "I'll look around and see if I can find something better." No "maybe I can find an even more perfect version of this if I..." Just no: you buy it.

And if you don't find something that looks right? Buy a close approximation. Also? Go to only small nice stores where people won't be mean to you. Go to BookCourt or Community Bookstore if you live in Brooklyn, and you will be soothed by the pleasant book-filled atmosphere, and be able to buy something for every single person you care about. Don't go to more than two stores in one day. Bring a nice, decisive small person with you (thanks, Chestnut!) so they can just tell you: Yes, buy that.

I know all this would have been more helpful more like, hmm, a week ago? But then I wouldn't have been able to tell you this last part. If you know a very particular type of person, a person who has a dark sense of humor, a person who appreciates an evil grin, a person who loves cats, and you want to make that person scream with happiness? And you want that not to be an expression, but an actual out-loud scream of happiness? Buy them this:

Note: I did not buy this book for Diana. Our neighbor did. There was a whole lot of happy screaming. Then just hours of happy raptness interrupted by sporadic reading aloud, or should I say proclaiming? At any rate: I think I can say we recommend it.

Book as Gift

I was talking to my...person-whose-complicated-relationship-to-me-doesn't-have-a-clear-name, let's just say she's my sister-in-law. Anyway, she has spent a lot of time lately with my heavy-reading nephews, and in this season of gifting etc she asked them what they wanted. They expressed the sentiment that what they wanted was toys. And please, not a book?

Before we get carried away with our feelings on this particular point, let me just say that I knew what they were talking about. I mean, do you remember how cools toys are? Toys are great! They are fun, and the fun comes all at once—it's immediate. I identified with what the boys said, is what I'm saying.

But. Of course there is a but. As in, but I was thinking: A toy is sort of like the popular kid—infinitely appealing in ways both nameable and indescribable, but bound to disappoint you in the end. But a book? A book is like that nerdy kid, who doesn't seem so great at first but reveals, over time, unexpected depths of affection, humor and mischief, providing more true pleasure than a dozen Barbies (or popular kids, or this is where the two strands of the metaphor merge and dissolve).

That's what I was thinking. And the truth is, of course I will end up buying my nephews toys, because I have just the right things in mind (I hope). And because I want to respect their wishes (that's pandering, right?). And I know they have, and will continue to have, a million books in their lives. 

But me? I could really use a great book right now. And I like to think (though no doubt I am wrong) this is partly because I have come to appreciate what actually makes me happy as opposed to what only promises to.

Doesn't that sound edifying? It's maybe less so when you see the actual books I am coveting.

But no matter, enjoy whatever you have, everybody, be it books or toys or family or good food or all those good things. Have a good holiday!