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It's Book Week time and that means lots of (well for most years) tripping in to schools. This year my delightful friend Deb Abela organised a gathering (colletive noun anyone?) of afternoon teas around the inner west and I was one of the privileged folk to enjoy this time last Monday. Along with Susanne, Deb, Oliver and Jeni, I chit-chatted my way through 13 minutes (which I didn't adhere to) of stories and tales and fun!

Mrs Clift, the teacher librarian at Auburn North Primary School did a great job of getting the kids in touch with us, and even had a few blog posts. Here is their website.

Thanks Auburn North for an awesome afternoon!

Coming up next?
Children's Book Week: November 12-18, 2007, a “celebration of the written word” designed to “introduce young people to new authors and ideas in schools, libraries, homes, and bookstores,” according to the Children’s Book Council, the sponsor of this event since 1919. It’s also the perfect time to gather and share poems about books and reading. As it happens, I have also been invited to offer a regular column on “Everyday Poetry” for Book Links magazine (published by the American Library Association). My column debuts this month and features “Everyday Poetry: Celebrating Children’s Book Week.” Here’s an excerpt:

Poets have been writing about the power of reading and books for generations. With a focus on books and reading, these poems are the perfect way to open a storytime or read-aloud session. In fact, reading or reciting a favorite book poem could become the ritual that gathers children together for these activities. Linking poems about books with books and reading helps underscore the value of literature and making time for reading. Who can resist the following seven activities, great for celebrating each day of Children’s Book Week or any other occasion that highlights the pleasures found in reading and poetry? Just like holding a special party to acknowledge a birthday or anniversary, these moments have a magic all their own and create happy memories related to reading and poetry.

Choral Reading: Upper-elementary students can share “Anna Marie’s Library Book and What Happened to It” by Celia Barker Lottridge from When I Went to the Library: Writers Celebrate Books and Reading (Groundwood, 2002) as a choral reading. This poem begs for multiple readers as many voices detail how one library book is passed from reader to reader to reader. A choral reading of the poem would be appealing for an open house, parents’ night, or any function with readers of various ages. Or, pair up this poem with a reading of Lauren Child’s picture book, But, Excuse Me, That Is My Book (Dial, 2005), about Lola’s search for her favorite library book.

Bilingual Poetry: The poem “Books” by Francisco X. Alarcón in his book Angels Ride Bikes and Other Fall Poems /Los angeles andan en bicicleta y otros poemas de otoño. (Children’s Book Press, 1999) is a poetic celebration of books written in both Spanish and English. If you or an audience volunteer speak Spanish, read the poem in Spanish first and follow with a reading in English by another volunteer. Then have both readers read their versions simultaneously. Encourage the readers to pause at the end of each line and start the next line together. The effect is quite stunning and really communicates the music of language.

Poetry Chant: The poem “Good Books, Good Times” by Lee Bennett Hopkins, from his book Good Books, Good Times! (HarperCollins, 1990), first appeared on a Children’s Book Week bookmark and then became the theme for his anthology of book-related poems. This poem is perfect for chanting with two groups of early elementary–age children in a back-and-forth fashion. Performed like a cheer for books and reading, it’s ideal for opening or closing a read-aloud session.

Read the article for the rest of the 7 tips!

One more scoop: Book Week is moving. Beginning next year, Children’s Book Week will be celebrated in May, specifically May 12 – 18, 2008. So celebrate now and again in the spring with bookends of book poetry!

For more poetry at the Poetry Friday Round Up go to A Wrung Sponge this week.

Picture credit: cbcbooks.org

The Oxford History of The United States series has won two Pulitzer Prizes, a Bancroft and a Parkman Prize. The newest addition, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, by Daniel Walker Howe, looks at the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War. Howe’s narrative history shows how drastically America changed in thirty years. Below Howe, Rhodes Professor of American History Emeritus, Oxford University and Professor of History Emeritus, University of California, looks at how October 22nd resonated throughout America.

On October 22, 1844, somewhere between twenty-five and fifty thousand people gathered in groups all over the United States to watch the sky. They stayed up until after midnight, straining to see Jesus Christ coming out of the heavens. A Vermont farmer named William Miller, undeterred by his lack of knowledge of Hebrew or Greek, had applied his naive ingenuity to biblical study. Calculations based on prophecies in the Book of Daniel had convinced him and his disciples that the long-awaited Second Coming of Christ would occur on this day. (more…)

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By Kirsty OUP-UK

Now perhaps more than ever our society is conscious about offending religious viewpoints. In Blasphemy in the Christian World: A History, a new and timely book, David Nash traces the history of blasphemy from the Middle Ages up to the present day. Today I am thrilled to be able to bring you a piece written by Dr Nash especially for the OUP blog, focussing on Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’, which was accused of blasphemy and caused a huge outcry upon its release almost 30 years ago.

One of the most frequently asked questions about blasphemy is why do people do it, since it sometimes seems such a victimless crime. The Roman Emperor Tiberius suggested that if God was offended by an individual’s behaviour he was capable of exacting his own retribution, so why should man concern himself with such issues. Since medieval times, however, we have tended to automatically think that states and individuals have been progressing away from policing the opinions of others substituting religious tolerance for persecution.

The motives of blasphemers became the subject of some debate in the medieval world. Whether people were misled by the actions of devils or demons, or had spoken blasphemy when scared, or whilst drunk, it was deemed clear that an incidence of blasphemous speech had occurred as some form of accident. In the modern world things have become more complex and the motives of those who blaspheme become linked to issues of personal rights. Our modern western world has empowered freedom of expression but has equally begun in recent years to consider the rights and feelings of those who might be offended by the ideas and words of others. Thus in our modern world artists and writers have been those who have caused most lasting and high profile offence. If these people can cause offence we perhaps should ask why they are prepared to do so.

Perhaps it is most pertinent to ask this question of the film ‘Monty Python’s ‘ Life of Brian.’ This film is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, was recently voted Britain’s best comedy film of all time by a BBC Radio Times poll, and remains the best known attempt to lampoon the history of religion in Britain and America. More importantly it could never claim that its motives were ‘serious’ in the manner that Mel Gibson could with ‘Passion of the Christ’ or Martin Scorsese could with ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’. So what did the Python team think they were doing? Did they set out to undermine and topple the leading religious ideology of the Western World?

Certainly it looked like it; the nativity scene was reworked with fiercely comic content, the Sermon on the Mount focussed upon the stupidity of those at the back who couldn’t hear properly, the crucifixion, moreover was turned into a sing-along comment on the potential miseries afflicting this life rather than paradise in the next. Taken as a whole the film seems unashamedly intent upon offending people – so were these the motives that persuaded the Monty Python team to make ‘Life of Brian’ and stir up the biggest controversy around blasphemy in the Christian World during the twentieth century? We know much about its development through television documentaries, newspaper clippings, and not least through Michael Palin’s recently published diaries. These suggest that ‘Brian’ emerged in the same way that other Python material did. Members of the team wrote separately and sometimes in teams in pursuit of situations that they primarily found funny. The initial idea was to show the life of an individual, ‘St Brian’, who was too late on the scene for all of Christ’s miracles, a situation that was clearly funny without being blasphemous. When the material was eventually put together its sum was greater than the parts and resembled the life story of an inadequate prophet, made inadequate through the shortcomings of the religion and religious people of his day. Thus the Python team began to focus upon the fact that they had produced a send–up of organised religion.

Once again their judgement of what was funny, worked well on celluloid, or adequately expressed their intentions made them cut material from the film. For example, the character of Otto, a Jewish fascist, never made the final version of the film because his presence diluted the power of other scenes. The Pythons could also censor themselves when it was required and this character would have made distribution in America potentially more difficult than it need have been.

So Monty Python wanted to make money, be funny and please its audience, and it succeeded in all of these. It was Python’s opponents who turned ‘Life of Brian’ into a threat to Christianity. It was these attitudes that made the Monty Python team, if only for a moment, become serious about what their film had done and made them strident proponents of freedom of expression. The Bishop of Southwark may have said to them that ‘Life of Brian’ would not have been made if the character of Christ had not existed. John Cleese and Michael Palin might equally have replied that ‘Brian’ would not have been made if the pretensions of people like the Bishop of Southwark had not existed.

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