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The Mighty Miss Malone Christopher Paul Curtis Middle grade
After all the fiscal cliff diving the United States media has practiced in the last forty-eight or so hours, this book seems incredibly fitting to review. Christopher Paul Curtis revisits the height of the Great Depression in Indiana/Michigan - site of his Newbery-winning Bud, Not Buddy - in The Mighty Miss Malone.
The story follows the lives of twelve year-old Deza Malone, her brother Jimmie and parents Peg and Roscoe as their lives spiral downwards into shanty town destitution after Deza's father leaves town to find work, her mother loses her job, and the family, their house.
What happens to a family torn apart by poverty? The Mighty Miss Malone draws a very stark picture. It's not so stark that a young audience will feel overwhelmed, but it is very eye-opening. I watched the effects on my daughters every morning on the way to school (we listened to this book on tape). The enlightenment that life can be very very different, was and, today, is for over fifteen million children nationwide reflected on their faces many mornings.
Curtis provides both a forward and an afterward, first grounding the story in the roots of unshakable family bonds and then providing hard-hitting facts such as the number of children living below the poverty line in the U.S. today. He does a good job of weaving a story that entertains, awakens curiosity and provides information.
From a craft perspective, The Mighty Miss Malone, while solidly built upon characters so real I feel as if I've met them before in my life, follows a plot that is less satisfactory and somewhat random. This could be meant to reflect the very real randomness which wreaks havoc on the lives of so many living at the edge of or in poverty. However, this randomness makes the ultimate resolution to the family's financial woes almost like a deux ex machina. Again, in many ways, finding work during the Great Depression may very well have felt like a deus ex machina. I remember my dad telling me stories about his grandmother, mother of ten children during the Depression, walking down the street and finding a dime and breaking down into tears because she didn't have any money to buy food until she found that dime. So take my comments with that grain of reality salt.
Add to that, however, that Deza does very little to change her plight, unlike Bud, in Bud, Not Buddy, who himself strikes out to find his lone surviving relative. Nor does she solve the internal, emotional struggle, i.e. reuniting the family. Does it matter? Because both the external and internal problems are solved by someone other than the main character, those resolutions are not as intense, nor do they feel as earned. Deza, like the main reader, is along for the ride. We feel with her. We feel acutely. Curtis does an excellent job with that, but we don't ultimately feel satisfied with the story's resolution because Deza hasn't done much to make to it happen. She's suffered, but her suffering doesn't buy her the golden elixir. It's suffering that could continue on indefinitely if someone else (both her mom and her brother) hadn't bought the golden elixir with their actions. Ultimately, it's a bifurcated hero's journey with many hero's solving problems, but none of them is the main protagonist.
Don't let that stop you from reading The Mighty Miss Malone. It's a story worth reading, a time in our history worth revisiting. Maybe if a few members of Congress were to do so, fiscal cliff diving might take on an entirely different meaning.
Oops. Mixing politics with book reviews. Bad, bad reviewer!
For other warm winter reads, plow on over to Barrie Summy's website. Happy 2013!
The Little Match Girl, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
Perhaps the saddest holiday story ever written...the story of a young girl sent out to sell matches on an icy, freezing New Year's Eve...She lights her matches one by one in an effort to keep warm and with each match sees a vision of warmth and comfort. Her last match reveals a vision of her grandmother coming to take her to heaven and she dies in the street on that cold winter's night. A profound story which is heartbreaking, moving, and makes one pause.
If you liked this, try:
The Gift of the Magi
Little Red Riding Hood
The Little Drummer Boy
The Nutcracker
Thumbelina
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Warren, Jill. (2011) Abe’s Lucky Day. Outskirts Press Inc. ISBN 978-1-4327-7305-2. Age 8 and under.
Publisher’s description: Any day can be a lucky day. Abe is a homeless man who lives in the alley behind a bakery and winter is coming. What will happen on his lucky day that will change his life?
Our thoughts:
Introducing us to the varied faces of distress and homelessness, Abe’s Lucky Day reminds us that , while food, warm clothes and dry beds feel great, helping others feels even better. Illustrations permit the child to imagine themselves in the story, and so can feel the heartwarming rewards of selflessness…definitely good for your Litland.com family book club or a preschool classroom. Part luck and lots of kindness, Abe’s Lucky Day infuses a desire for kindness and generosity into its reader’s mind and heart, and is sure to strengthen bonds within the family reading it as well :>) Great for gift-giving, pick up your copy in our Litland.com Bookstore!
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Recently, Professor Ian Sheldon spoke with three eminent economists about some key economic issues of the day, including the views of Professor Robert Hall of Stanford University on the current slow recovery of the US economy; University of Queensland Professor John Quiggin’s thoughts on climate change and policy; and World Bank economist Dr Martin Ravallion’s recent findings on poverty and economic growth.
Further policy-orientated discussions are covered in the journal Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, including articles on climate change and poverty, trade and agricultural policies in developing countries, the causes of food price volatility, and the economics of animal welfare.
Professor Robert Hall on the US economy:
[See post to listen to audio]
Professor John Quiggin on climate change and policy:
Ian Sheldon is currently the Andersons Professor of International Trade at the Ohio State University. His research interests focus on the impact of trade policy. He is an Editor for Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, responsible for articles on a wide range of issues concerning economic analysis and public policy.
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Before I finish out this month’s blog challenge, I’d like to take a few moments to talk about something to which most of us can relate.
When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, my parents and grandparents taught us lessons. Some of those lessons came at the end of a parent’s arm, in the form of a solid hand landing on a padded behind. That was before the days when self-expression was encouraged and corporal punishment was banned as being barbaric and cruel.
I’m just making a point about the differences in society between then and now.
One of the big lessons taught in our household, and in many other homes as well, was that there were places in the world where people went hungry on a daily basis, and that we should be grateful for what was placed before us on the table.
I think everyone between the ages of 45 and 100 has echoing voices in your heads right now that testify to that piece of instruction.
My family was considered slightly poor by the standards of children raised in town, whose folks worked in a shop, for IBM, or the university. My dad was blue-collar, and we lived in the country. Those were big considerations back then, too. I didn’t know any of that until high school.
We didn’t go without food, clothing, shelter, fun, a good car, or the rest of the material things that “mattered.” Most of those living in the country had as many or, in come cases, more of their needs taken care of, than those in town, without our mothers having to work outside the home.
We knew we had it good. It was understood. We learned by example when Mom took the time and effort to feed those who came to the door and asked for food and something to drink. Hobos were common in those days.
Our country culture demanded that we provide sustenance to those in need. It never occurred to her to turn someone away without at least a meal and clean, cold water to drink. Usually she gave them iced tea and whatever was leftover from dinner the evening before.
All of which brings us back to the question of that hunger lesson. I know that there are thousands of children all over the U.S. who go to bed knowing real hunger. I was never one of them, thank God, but I’ve known my share of them over the years.
I got to thinking about that this afternoon, and the admonition drilled into children to this day at the dinner table. Children cannot relate to something they’ve never experienced or seen first-hand. Unless the child who lives in the well-kept house, with all the toys scattered unthinkingly throughout, actually sees the consequences of hunger, it’s impossible to get the lesson across.
I’m tempted to wager that the majority middle-class and upper-lower-class citizens have never known hunger in this country. They haven’t gone a few days without something to eat and decent water to drink. If they had experienced real hunger on a regular basis, I doubt it would not exist in the country for long.
The realization of this difference between my generation and those coming up blazed
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April is National Poetry Month, and I realize that I've almost let the month slip away without any poetry book reviews. Just in time, I came across my Advance Reader Copy of Looking for Me, which went on sale April 17.
Rosenthal, Betsy R. 2012. Looking for Me. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Based on the real stories of her mother and many aunts and uncles, Betsy Rosenthal tells a story in verse of her mother, Edith - the fourth child in a large, Jewish, Depression-era family in Baltimore,
Family Portrait, Baltimore, 1936
We're lined up:
girl boy, girl boy, girl boy, girl boy, girl boy
and in the middle of us all, Dad,
who ordered us to smile
right before the Brownie clicked,
standing stiff as a soldier
no smile on his face,
and Mom's beside him,
a baby in her arms
and in her rounded belly
another one,
just a trace.
Girl, boy, girl, boy, count them up - twelve children in a row house, sleeping three to a bed, always short of money, new clothes and food. Edith's teacher asks her to write about her family, but she doesn't write about herself. After all, who is she in this great big family? Looking for Me chronicles Edith's quest to find individualism in a time when, seemingly, there was no time for such frivolous thoughts. Rosenthal's poetic style varies from free verse, to concrete to metered rhymes. The subject matter varies as well - following the ups and downs of a year in Edith's life, which, while harsh and disciplined, also held moments of great joy and fun,
They're Lucky I Found Them
Lenny, Sol, and Jack
said Mom left them sleeping
on the sofa bed,
or so she thought,
and ran to the store.
But after she left,
they started to bounce
and bounce
and bounce some more.
Then the bed closed up
and they were stuck
until I cam home
and changed their luck.
Some poems are heart-wrenching depictions of life as an 11-year-old Jewish girl who has been touched by death, poverty, meanness, bigotry, and indifference. Others are uplifting,
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Williams-Garcia, Rita. 2010. One Crazy Summer. New York: Harper Collins.
If you haven't heard of One Crazy Summer, you will. Rita Williams-Garcia's latest middle grade fiction is getting a lot of buzz, and justifiably so.
One Crazy Summer is set in a poor neighborhood of Oakland, California, 1968. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern (three African-American girls, aged 11, 9 and 7) travel on their own from Brooklyn to Oakland. Their father, against the judgment of the girls' grandmother and caretaker, Big Mama, has decided that it's time for the girls to meet Cecile, the mother that deserted them. With visions of Disneyland, movie stars, and Tinkerbell dancing in their heads, they set off on the plane determined not to make, as Big Mama says, "Negro spectacles" of themselves. This is advice that Delphine, the oldest, has heard often. She is smart and savvy with a good head on her shoulders, and she knows how to keep her sisters in line. Not much can throw her for a loop, but then, she hasn't met crazy Cecile yet. Cecile, or Nzila, as she is known among the Black Panthers, is consumed by her passion - poetry. She writes powerful and moving poems for "the people" - important work, and she is not about to be disturbed by three young girls and their constant needs for food and attention. She operates a one-woman printing press in her kitchen - no children allowed. Instead of Disneyland and the beach, she shoos the girls off daily to the local center run by the Black Panthers. There, in the midst of an impoverished, minority neighborhood, the girls receive free breakfast, kind words, and an education the likes of which they would never have gotten in Brooklyn. Slowly, they begin to understand the plight of "the people" - the Blacks, the poor, the immigrants, even Cecile.
Although this book has several great themes (Civil Rights, sisterhood, community) and well-rounded strong-willed characters, you can read about them in any number of reviews. As for me, with my teenage daughter preparing to take a trip to Europe next month with the Girl Scouts, one thing from One Crazy Summer jumped
2 Comments on One Crazy Summer, last added: 6/27/2010
As much as I love to read adult novels, especially thrillers, I'm picking up more and more YA novels to enjoy. There are some incredible YA and kidlit authors here in Northern Colorado, so I pick them up first. Check out Laura Resau and Amy Kathleen Ryan if you don't already know their names.
Peter Gill is a journalist specialising in developing world affairs, and first travelled to Ethiopia in the 1960s. He has made films in and reported from Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, South Africa, Uganda, and Sudan, as well as Ethiopia. He recently led BBC World Service Trust campaigns on leprosy and HIV/AIDS in India. His new book is Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid, which is the story of what has happened in the country since the famous music and television events 25 years ago.
This third and final part of our ‘Ethiopia Since Live Aid’ blog feature is an original post by Peter Gill, in which he discusses the West’s view of aid and Africa. If you missed it, on Tuesday we read an excerpt from the book, and yesterday we ran an exclusive Q&A with Peter.
This 2010 ‘Summer of Africa’ has been promoted as a moment of transformation – an acknowledgment that the continent may at last be on the move, that it may be beginning to cast off its image as global basket case, ceasing to be a ‘scar on the conscience of humanity,’ in the phrase of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
It was 25 years ago in July that a great Ethiopian famine and the Live Aid concert which it inspired underlined the physical and moral enormity of mass death by starvation. These events defined popular outrage at the human cost of extreme poverty and began to build an extraordinary consensus around the merits of aid. A generation later, in the teeth of financial gales in the rich world, this consensus is under increasing scrutiny.
Of course aid works and it works at many levels. Charity is an essential characteristic of social relationships. It saves lives and it helps individuals, families, sometimes whole communities to improve their existence. What the big aid flows – from governments and charities – have not done is to change the face of poor societies, to overcome the disgrace of extreme poverty.
Now the western world may have missed its opportunity to fix the problem. It may no longer have the means. It is also far too preoccupied with addressing the processes of how best to deliver aid, and has failed to sort out whether it had the right strategy in the first place.
What went wrong, I believe, is that we kept seeing Africa in our own image – as we would like it to be, rather than as it was. The colonial period may have become history, but the colonial mindset of ‘we-know-best’ has surely persisted. We compounded the error by allowing our hearts to rule our heads in how we spend the aid money. We have been more troubled by the symptoms of poverty than to see where our help was most needed.
Our fortunate way of the life in the West – prosperity allied with liberal democratic forms of government – may be the envy and the aspiration of many in the poor world, but did that give us the right in the name of ‘good governance’ to insist that there are quick and easy steps to achieving it? In the decades after Europe’s helter-skelter decolonisation, was it realistic to ignore the lessons of our own tortured political evolution and demand swift democratic reform as a condition of aid?
Our rich world sensibilities have, rightly, been offended by deaths from preventable diseases and we have, again rightly, poured money into ever more ambitious health initiatives. But we have made little corresponding effort to help African women plan their families by plugging the huge gap in contraceptive needs. Aid expenditure on family planning has actually fallen in the past de
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Michael L. Gillette is the current executive director of Humanities Texas, the state humanities council. Before serving as the executive director, he directed the LBJ Library’s Oral History Program from 1976 to 1991, and then became the director of the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives for twelve years after. His new book, Launching the War on Poverty: An Oral History, pieces together oral history interviews with former president Lyndon B. Johnson and his team of advisers as they undertook the Great Society’s greatest challenge.
This excerpt is taken from an interview with Robert J. Lampman, a staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) from 1962 to 1963 who worked in the Kennedy Administration along with Walter Heller, chairman of the CEA. The Saturday Group, called so because of their Saturday “brown bag” lunches, would meet informally (at first) to discuss how they could approach the problem of poverty and solutions that could be brought about with assistance from the government. Their luncheons were the beginnings of a social movement that would become pivotal in giving assistance where it was needed. Their work is still seen today, in the forms of public assistance that we once never had an option of choosing when survival was the only thing that was of importance.
THE SATURDAY GROUP
LAMPMAN: In that period, May to June [1963], somewhere along in there, Heller asked me to take part in writing up the possible meaning of an attack on poverty- lots of different phrases were used-and to meet with a group of people around Washington at the assistant secretary level and pick brains and get suggestions and criticisms of the idea. We dealt with people from the Bureau of the Budget; from HEW [Health, Education, and Welfare Department] (Wilbur Cohen was an assistant secretary, as I recall, at the time); from labor (Pat Moynihan [Daniel Patrick Moynihan] was the assistant secretary [of Labor]); from Agriculture; from Department of Justice.
There were just a few meetings, as I recall. We’d meet for an afternoon once every couple of weeks or something like that. It was all very tentative and very low-key, at least to start with. People were just speaking their minds. It was almost an academic sort of seminar. Indeed, it was interesting how many people there were Ph.D.s or were backed up by a scholar who was associated with the work. And we had represented people from different disciplines. There were people like Moynihan, who was a political scientists; and Cohen, who was an old hand in the income maintenance field but who was especially interested in this as an issue. There were statisticians, and then there were lawyers. People had very different approaches to the whole question.
We would get into discussion about the definition of poverty. What kind of a concept and what kind of a numbers frame would you have in mind? Some people would say poverty obviously means lack of money income. That had the great merit of being something we had some numbers on. We could say how many people there were above and below some line and where they were and so on. But other people said that’s really not what poverty means; poverty is more or sometimes even less than money. It’s a spiritual concept; or it’s a participation-in-government concept; or it’s a lack of some kind of self-esteem, sort of a psychological or im
The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his.
In December 2000, there were two stories in the Baltimore Sun about two different men, both named Wes Moore. One had just won a Rhodes scholarship, one was wanted in connection with a jewelry store robbery in which an off-duty police officer was murdered. For years, the Wes Moore that won the Rhodes scholarship wondered about the other Wes Moore, who was now in prison, serving a life sentence without the chance of parole. They both grew up poor at the same time, without fathers. Why did one end up speaking at the Democratic National Convention mere hours before Obama accepted the nomination and one end up in prison?
This book doesn't answer the question, because they're not clear. But it tells a story of two boys who grow into two men and the choices they made and why. It shows two very similiar, and two very different lives. I could talk about the details of their lives, but you should read it for yourself to find out. Or, watch Moore explain his book to Stephen Colbert: embed clip:
By the time I had finished my first novel, THE DOG IN THE WOOD, I had already lived in New Delhi for six years and knew that my next book would take place in India. Often, when arriving at or leaving from the New Delhi train station I had seen street kids, barefoot and dressed in shabby clothes, scavenging the tracks for food. I wondered about their stories and the circumstances that would cause a child to run away and end up living in the train station. So I began researching about street children in India while Akash, the main character of my new novel, SARASWATI’S WAY, was taking shape in my head.
I contacted the Salaam Baalak Trust an NGO that works with these homeless boys and also offers daily tours around the train station and adjacent area. The tours are led by young men who are former street children themselves. I took the tour several times and also met the guides alone; to ask specific questions and later fact check what I had written in the book. From these guides I learned that the kids who stay at the train station join together in gangs, searching the trains for food and bottles or magazines to sell. The guides showed me the kids’ hiding places and explained how they pay the vendors on the platform for protection from the police.
Bloggers, please add your link below. Readers, I hope you visit all of today's posters.
Thanks!
Osborne, Mary Pope and Natalie Pope Boyce. 2010. Rags and Riches: Kids in the Time of Charles Dickens. (Magic Tree House Research Guide series #22)New York: Random House.
This is the companion book to A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time, a historical fantasy romp through Dickens' A Christmas Carol,which is why it has the subtitle, Kids in the Time of Charles Dickens, when "Kids in the Victorian Era" might seem more logical.
Charles Dickens lived from 1812 - 1870, largely in the Victoria Era. Queen Victoria reigned from 1837- 1901. Rich or poor, life was difficult for Britain's children in those days. Rich children suffered from serious diseases and were raised largely apart from their parents. Boys were sent away to strict schools while girls studied at home with a governess those subjects which were thought most likely to win them a suitable husband - French, dancing, drawing, music. Of course, they were still much better off than the poor children and street children who filled the streets of London. They slept outside in rags or lived in debtors' prisons or squalid housing. They often worked in dangerous factories for long hours with little or no pay - beginning as young as five years old! Cholera and typhoid were epidemic. Life for a poor child in the time of Charles Dickens was wretched. Rags to Riches explains all these facets of Victorian Era life and more, with liberal use of sketches and period photographs.
It is doubtful that any child can read the accounts in the chapter, "Jobs for Poor Kids," and not be affected. Imagine life as a climbing boy, often only five or six years old,
Since they were small, they could squeeze through narrow parts of the chimney. Climbing boys climbed to the top of the chimney and swept the coal dust out on their way back down. They got cuts and bruises from the jagged bricks. To toughen up their skin, salt water was rubbed into it. If the boys got scared and stopped climbing, the chimney sweeps jabbed their feet with pins or lit fires to keep them moving. At times climbing boys got burned or stuck in the chimneys and suffocated.
Quite a different reality from the friendly, Bert, of Mary Poppins fame!
A children's highlight from the Victoria Era? The birth of the modern children's picture book - Beatrix Potter's illustrated Tales of Peter Rabbit. Of course, without money, poor children likely only glimpsed the tiny little books through shop windows.
This is not an easy topic for which to create a research guide. A chronological approach does not work well, and the many aspects of a child's life are almost too large in scope for a book of this small scale. Still, Pope has created a semblance of order, dividing the topic into six chapters: 'Hard Times for Kids," "What Charles Dickens Saw," "The London of Dickens," "Jobs for Poor Kids," Rich Kids," and "How
8 Comments on Rags and Riches: Kids in the Time of Charles Dickens, last added: 11/8/2010
Just wanted everyone to know I have an interview with Shirley Duke today at Wrapped In Foil on the occasion of her 100th blog post. Congratulations Shirley!
Thanks for hosting. (I am intrigued by Packing for Mars from your last post. Can't wait to see that one.)
Thanks for taking care of this Monday's event. I've checked out the great selection of books that have been offered and will be looking to add them to the Doucette Library's collection. Great stuff!. Tammy
Thanks for sharing this, and for the warm welcome to Nonfiction Monday. I can tell I'm going to enjoy it. (By the way, I know my children would be horrified by the "climbing boy" description. They still have a hard time when they get a paper cut :)
London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew is an extraordinary work of investigative journalism, a work of literature, and a groundbreaking work of sociology. It centres on hundreds of interviews conducted by Mayhew with London’s street traders, beggars, and thieves, which provide unprecedented insight into the day-to-day struggle for survival on London’s streets in the 19th century.
In the video below, our edition’s editor, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, explains why he believes it is still well worth reading today. The interview was conducted by George Miller for Podularity. Robert has previously written this post for OUPblog.
With all the ambitious international goals and targets that developing countries have committed to, from poverty reduction to universal education and access to health care, we’ve observed a not uncommon response by the governments: too strong a focus on the public image of the new programs, not strong enough a focus on making the programs truly accessible. Here’s an example to illustrate our point: On a daily basis, Mexicans are exposed to immeasurable social development propaganda from government agencies. The propaganda is unavoidable because these messages are disseminated via commercials on public transportation, highway billboards, TV and radio, and posters in the most rural communities. Some of the current hot topics of these campaigns are diabetes and childhood obesity, nonviolence toward women and anti-corruption laws.
“Vivir Mejor” (“Live Better”) is the federal government’s umbrella strategy behind many of these flashy ads, and its aim is to eliminate extreme poverty and promote sustainable human development throughout the country. The rainbow-colored logo is impossible to miss and is stamped on nearly everything the government is involved with. “Vivir Mejor” social development campaigns share with the public the services they are entitled to. A man that never got the chance to study when he was young is now completing his secondary education – and you can do the same, for free! A smiling woman is receiving free prenatal health care –and you can sign up for it as well, it’s simple! In addition, many of the “Vivir Mejor” campaigns encourage the public to exercise their rights. This involves procedures like signing up for government health insurance, filing a report in the case of sexual harassment, and requesting information from the government’s transparency portals.
Making people aware of their rights and the social programs they can benefit from is indispensable…in theory. How can these types of public campaigns possibly be inefficient? Why aren’t poor people in Mexico seeking health care or going back to school or reporting abuse of their basic human rights? The first problem is most obvious: there are incredible structural barriers to accessing social services in Mexico; widespread corruption and absurdly bureaucratic procedures prevent Mexicans from registering for social programs or filing reports when their rights are violated.
The second problem is less obvious, but its solution is essential for Mexico to achieve its development objectives: there is a severe lack of civic engagement in Mexico. The lack of participation in pubic affairs that this implies results in the absence of social action and citizen monitoring, as well as the underutilization of government programs. The unengaged citizen lacks psychological preparedness for accessing his or her rights and seeking opportunities for personal development. Some examples of psychosocial barriers to participatory citizenship include the internalization of feelings of inferiority, a lack of intrinsic incentive to bring about change, and insufficient communication and team work skills. All of these factors are directly related to what’s been labeled “low intensity citizenship” in Mexico (Ochoa Espejo).
The solution to the problems we mention lies in the development of an individual’s personal agency. In other words, she needs to feel empowered and entitled to make changes in her life. If social programs were designed to facilitate the acquisition of psychosocial tools like assertive communication, autonomous decision-making, and critical thinking in addition to classic welfare services, citizens would become participatory agents of change. Once engaged, the everyday citizen has an incredible pow
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our new first-lady-to-be is a girl after my own heart. she's a mom of two, supports her busy husband, has understated style and wants everyone to give back. come on, we're 2 peas in a pod!
this monday, january 19th is DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR day and MICHELLE OBAMA'S day to "call to service" the entire country.
the m.o. for M.O. is to get everyone to do ANY kind of community service on monday, (which is also a school holiday, so we'll be looking for things to do). the idea is to "renew america together, one community at a time. it will take ordinary citizens working together with a common purpose to get this country back on track. this national day of service is an important first step in our continuing commitment."
this is an exciting project and one i hope you will consider doing with your families. to find local activities and to learn more about this national day of service, check out the website:
if you can't find anything that speaks to you, please browse the acme sharing archives with over 70 ideas for community service projects to do with your kids.
***extra credit - i would LOVE to hear from you. please let me know how you spent the day, how it affected your kids and what did or didn't work in teaching them the most important aspect of humanity: SHARING.
the great american bake sale is an organization that helps you put on a (see if you can guess what i'm going to write next) bake sale!!! yay, you guessed right!
they send you a poster, give you the low down on sales, give you an email card to forward to friends and set up an account for you. sure, you could do all of this yourself, but somehow it seems so much more LEGIT.
TGABS (my acronym) gives all of the monies raised to a hunger relief organization in your neighborhood. this morning my son and his "girlfriend", charlotte, made a whopping $33. if i may go one step further, i would like to recommend baking rice krispies treats - they are the EASIEST thing on the planet to make. melt butter, add mini marshmallows, add cereal, stir and pour - THE END.
making family time for EXTRAS is a constant uphill battle, i often feel like Sisyphus. but when you see the effects of "extras" like giving, it seems incredibly worthwhile; the kids are engaged, they feel useful and they carry with them a new confidence.
this summer, i challenge you to THE BOX PROJECT. this non profit pairs you with a family living in poverty in the USA. each month, based on the recipient families needs, you and your family send a box, some months it's filled with food, other months medical supplies and another time may be books and toys - each month might be a combination of all of the above.
i love that it's a scheduled amount of time for your family to set aside each month to focus on others in need. there are letters and pictures exchanged and a real bond forms between the two families.
now that the kids are in school and have a rhythm going, how about a class project? greg mortenson (author of THREE CUPS OF TEA, a remarkably inspiring book) brings the pennies for peace program to school kids everywhere.
log onto the site, sign up and "By participating in Pennies for Peace you make a positive impact on a global scale, one penny at a time. While a penny is virtually worthless, in impoverished countries a penny buys a pencil and opens the door to literacy."
the site gives step by step instructions for classes to start a penny jar, weave cultural lessons about the middle east into their curriculum and teach philanthropy.
the lesson: with very little effort we can help do something as grand as BUILD A SCHOOL in a foreign country. we can make a difference.
***added bonus: your child feels powerful and you have a cleaner kitchen junk drawer, a cleaner bottom of your purse and a cleaner drink holder in your car!
0 Comments on Pennies From Heaven as of 10/12/2009 10:25:00 PM
For Blog Action Day 2009, tall tales & short stories has a guest blog post on behalf of CARE. CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. We place special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Women are at the heart of CARE's community-based efforts to improve basic education, prevent the spread of HIV, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters, and helps people rebuild their lives.
Climate change is not only about melting ice caps and polar bears. Climate change is about people.
Swinging weather patterns are creating disasters on a scale that human civilization has never before witnessed. For the world’s poorest people – the ones least equipped to deal with its effects – climate change is devastating their crops, livelihoods and communities.
"Climate change is worsening the plight of those hundreds of millions of men, women and children who already live in extreme poverty – and it threatens to push hundreds of millions more people into similar destitution," says CARE International’s Secretary General Robert Glasser. "A concerted international response to this unprecedented challenge is required if we are to avoid catastrophic human suffering."
CARE is working toward a world where poor people can create opportunity out of crises like climate change. But the current reality is that climate change makes poor people even more vulnerable.
For instance, agricultural production will likely decline in the poorest countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Less reliable rainfall will likely affect planting seasons, crop growth and livestock health – and lead to increased malnutrition. In other parts of the developing world, flooding will likely further diminish the quality of already-marginal soil and could cause outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
Climate change also is hurling many poor families into “Catch-22” situations. For example, they may select crops that are less sensitive to rainfall variation, but also less profitable. As incomes decline and people are not able to eke out a living, children are forced to leave school, assets are sold off to afford essentials, malnutrition rates increase and large-scale migration ensues. The end result? Deepening poverty for tens of millions of people around the world.
What Must Be Done?
At the international level, negotiations to develop a new treaty to guide global efforts to address climate change will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark in just a couple weeks. The United States must help lead those efforts, and forge a strong agreement that caps emissions, stops global warming and responds to the effects already in motion. We must do this for the sake of all of humanity.
What can I do to help?
First, you can make a tax-deductible donation to CARE to help poor families access the tools and education they need to adapt to the effects of climate change, make efficient use of their existing resources and overcome poverty for good.
Second, if you live in the Unites States, you can write your senators and urge them to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, a critical step toward U.S. leadership in tackling climate change. U.S. leadership is critical to making the Copenhagen negotiations a success.
Third, you can join the CARE mailing list to be kept up to date on CARE’s activities and other ways you can take action in the days counting down to Copenhagen.
To donate, take action and join our e-mail list, please visit www.care.org/climate
0 Comments on BLOG ACTION DAY 2009 - CLIMATE CHANGE as of 10/15/2009 5:49:00 PM
Today, 15th October, is Blog Action Day to highlight the issues of climate change.
As bloggers we are asked to come together to blog and talk about the serious issue of climate change and how it is and will affect our world.
I am not a scientist, I am not an expert, but as a member of the human race I believe we are destroying our world in so many ways. I cannot talk about climate change with any authority so instead I'd like to direct my readers to some recent articles and reports I have read or seen.
On Channel 4 news they recently ran a report on drought in Kenya and they asked the question - is Kenya and its people 'among the first victims of climate change?'
The remains of a young elephant which died of thirst. Photo: Channel 4 news.
well, this week marks the national launch of my other baby, Milk + Bookies. i started this non profit in 2004 and it is just now getting off the ground (good things come to those who wait). if you want a new idea for a birthday party or if you know some teens who are looking for a community service project, this is the place to visit: www.milkandbookies.org
there are step by step instructions to throw your own event where you can invite kids to a book store, (or your home) and ask them to choose, inscribe and donate books to local kids who have none.
this is really the same message i share here about giving little ones an experience where they can give back.
This Week is Words Matter Week
Check out the Words Matter Week blog, sponsored by the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors for interesting prompts and daily blog challenge questions. There’s something about ‘Alice’
The Boston Globe features a great article on Lewis Carroll’s book and readers obsession with Alice’s story. In other “Alice” news, Tim Burton’s 3-D movie version opens today!
U.S. Plans New Measure for Poverty
This week the federal government announced it would begin producing an experimental measurement of poverty next year, a step toward the first overhaul of the formula since it was developed nearly a half-century ago.
Teaching kids to read from the back of a burro
For hundreds of children in the rural villages of Colombia, Luis Soriano is more than a man riding a stubborn donkey – he is a man with a mission to save rural children from illiteracy.
0 Comments on Odds and Bookends: March 5 as of 1/1/1900
Without a doubt, Slumdog Millionaire was a great movie. But it still surprised me to see this memoir of the nine-year-old slum dweller and budding actress, Rubina Ali with the help of author Divya Dugar. Sale of the book are to help a slum and also fund Rubina's arts training. Even though the Slumdog story is the major story, you will get an idea of slum life in Mumbai. I still have suspicions about her father's financial goals for her. After all, her wages from Slumdog went completely to him, and there is still suspicions that he really did want to sell her. But if she can stay in school until 18 years of age, she and her co-star will receive a lump sum of money from film producers.
Anyway, I think there is a place for this autobiography. After all, how many people do you know whose home has been bulldozed three times?
ENDERS' Rating: A disturbing peek into a slum
1 Comments on slumgirl dreaming by Rubina Ali (Divya Dugar), last added: 3/28/2010
You can read John Welshman’s previous OUPblog post here.
Getting friends to read a book manuscript is an interesting process, for often they highlight themes that you are only subconsciously aware of yourself. One who read mine commented that he was struck how much there was about the everyday, including shoes.
And it is true that one of the interesting aspects of the evacuation of September 1939 is the way that it shone a light on aspects of people’s lifestyles that had been ignored in the 1930s. Occasionally commentators such as the Labour MP, Fenner Brockway, in the book Hungry England, had noted that poor children wore the plimsolls that were sold in street markets. But more often this was ignored. But the theme of footwear cropped up right at the start of the evacuation process. In May 1939, for example, civil servants realised that the clothing and footwear of some children would pose problems. It was thought that while there were unlikely to be problems in London, or in towns in Kent and Hampshire, there would be in cities in the Midlands and the North. A circular issued that month informed parents about the amount and type of luggage to be taken. Each child was to carry a gas mask, change of underclothing, night clothes, slippers or plimsolls, spare socks or stockings, toothbrush, comb, towel and handkerchief, warm coat or mackintosh, rucksack, and food for the day. Parents were told the children were to be sent in their thickest clothing and warmest footwear. Moreover the evacuation practices held in the summer of 1939 confirmed that many children had neither warm clothing nor strong footwear. In Leeds, for instance, while the equipment brought was generally good, and all the children had come with gas masks, ‘the greatest weakness is in the supply of footwear’.
The civil servants realised that the success of evacuation would depend on the weather, since many parents waited for the winter before buying their children new shoes. And footwear was certainly a problem in some of the Reception Areas. In Lancaster in the North West, for example, the Billeting Officer advised parents that the money spent on their frequent visits would be better spent on footwear and clothing for their children. He wrote that:
It is very desirable to give the children every opportunity to settle down happily in their new surroundings; and for this reason parents will be wise not to visit their children too frequently. The money spent in such visits would be better spent on thick country footwear, raincoats, overcoats, or warm underclothing for the children.
The Ministry of Health responded on 2 October 1939 with a circular on footwear and clothing. This announced that £7,500 was to be distributed in the Evacuation Areas as contributions to boot and clothing funds. Moreover while the circular continued to encourage voluntary effort, there were some important shifts as time went
0 Comments on Plimsolls, Poverty, and Policy as of 1/1/1900
Collier made a quick stop in NYC recently, in which I was able to ask him a few questions about his new book. In Segment 1 he reflects on the shift in the world’s “passionate concern” from poverty to the environment. To hear more from Collier be sure to check in tomorrow for Day 2 of this week long series!
Michelle Rafferty: In the first line of your book you write: “I grew up before nature was discovered.” Can you talk about watching environmentalism explode over the course of your lifetime and when you realized it would be crucial to your work?
Paul Collier: Yeah, I mean environmentalism came in In the early 1970s. I remember there was a book of an image of the earth taken from space called The Limits to Growth, and that was the first sort of statement that the environment might constrain our choices. And as a young economist I remember being very irritated by that. I was working on development, how the poorest countries could escape from poverty and this idea that everything was going to be constrained by environment seemed to me just nonsense. And then things moved on.
Personally I married an environmental historian, and so that brought me pretty starkly face to face with environmentalism. And then more recently, especially after I wrote The Bottom Billion, I now do a lot of speaking especially to young people, especially to audiences full of young people. And I realized that whereas I was their age, for me the passionate concern was how to lift people out of poverty. For young people now the passionate concern is how to protect the planet. And so I often get posed the question, that surely we can’t afford for everybody to develop, because if everybody develops the planet will be ruined. And so I realized I had to confront that question seriously, and that’s what the book tries to do.
0 Comments on The Plundered Planet Podcast Series: Day 1 as of 5/10/2010 9:51:00 AM
Abe’s Lucky Day
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Fenner Brockway, in the book 
As much as I love to read adult novels, especially thrillers, I'm picking up more and more YA novels to enjoy. There are some incredible YA and kidlit authors here in Northern Colorado, so I pick them up first. Check out Laura Resau and Amy Kathleen Ryan if you don't already know their names.
Thanks for the suggestions.