In February, what child doesn’t enjoy receiving and sending colorful Valentine’s Day cards?

And whether children make the cards themselves or simply sign their name to a card they buy, the act of sending and receiving Valentine’s Day cards is one that promotes literacy among young children.

Why?

Because it encourages reading, writing, and even talking about the Valentine’s cards with friends and/or family.

Most children love creating a Valentines Mailbox.

They can make a mailbox for school and one for home, too.

In fact, at home encourage everyone in the family to build a mailbox and exchange Valentines and other cards, notes, and letters all month long.

The mail doesn’t need to stop when March rolls around either.

Children will be used to the practice of sending and receiving mail by that time and they probably won’t want to give it up.

In March, encourage them to create cards and notes for St. Patrick’s Day.

Of course, there are all sorts of reasons to send mail every single day.

And by making it fun for kids to send and receive mail, they start to value the written word more and more.

And they are doing so in a way that is “authentic” because they really want to be able to read what that card from their father says, or they want to know how to spell a word correctly in a message they are putting in their sister’s mailbox.

Using Mailboxes in the Classroom

Teachers can also use the mail as a way for children to write about books they read or topics they study in the classroom.

Letters or cards can be sent from one child to another answering specific questions about a specific book.

The teacher might ask the class to writer a letter to a friend in class telling who their favorite character was in the book, what they liked best about the book, what they would do differently if they were the writing a book like this, etc.

When the children finish writing the letters they can put them in the mailboxes.

Later, everyone can read the letters and share them with the class as a class activity.

Write Notes Throughout the Day

As a parent or teacher, jot little notes and put them in your children’s or students’ mailboxes throughout the day.

If you’re a busy teacher, you don’t have to send a note to every child in your class every day. Just one note a day to one student will do.

It’s also fun if kids can create a mailbox that has a flag that can be raised or lowered when someone puts mail in the box.

The raised flag lets the child know “You’ve got mail!”

In the classroom, children can make reading, writing, and distributing the mail a daily practice at a specific time.

That way, kids won’t be running around to all the mailboxes at all times of day.

They’ll really look forward to the “mail call” part of the day!

The post Valentines Mailboxes an Early Literacy Activity appeared first on The National Writing for Children Center.

Add a Comment

Here Comes Valentine Cat

By Deborah Underwood; pictures by Claudia Rueda

 

Can a cranky cat have a change of heart towards an assumed canine enemy on Valentine’s Day?

You bet this Cat can.

If you’ve enjoyed Deborah Underwood’s New York Times Bestseller listing of cat conversations with a seemingly not to be moved feline, as in Here Comes Easter Cat, Here Comes the Tooth Fairy Cat, and Here Comes Santa Cat, then you are in for a sweet treat on this day for love.

Or, at the very least, in Cat’s case, a day of like!

Who of us does not appreciate a valentine sent from the one we’ve loved, liked or befriended?

But, what if the inference is made by young Cat that a valentine sent to a less than friend, following a volley of a tossed bone and ball, headed over Cat’s fence, is well deserved?

Cat’s crossed arms, picket signs with a dog in full growl mode, plus virulent valentines sent in response to the canine, are all signs of no relent mode on Cat’s part or heart.

Why things have even taken the shocking turn of rocket draft designs and a subtle crafting by Cat, that speaks of sending the canine skyward!

BUT, what if the soft-voiced and subtle offstage querier asks pointed questions of Cat, allowing the thrown bone and ball to be seen and felt in a whole new light? Might the missiles instead be proffers of friendship?

I love the dialectic that occurs between a soft spoken off stage friend and Cat. It’s always permeated not with judgment of Cat’s feelings, but rather, a sort of “Do you think you’ve looked at all the possible responses here?”

And the author sometimes even agrees with Cat’s frustration with the yowling of the neighboring dog, as in:

 

 

       Wow. He is kind of loud, isn’t he?

 

 

Parents and young readers are in for a gentle primer here on the phrase “Never Assume” in the handling of what kids may take as the supposed motivation for actions they interpret as, well, less than friendly.

But then, on a bit of further reflection, bingo, it turns out to be quite another. And that goes for cat, canine or human behavior!

I love the listening ear of Cat’s confidante that serves alternately, and gently, as commiserator, sympathizer, yet also redirector of behaviors, as in:

 

                Gee, Cat. Do you think

                Dog was howling because

                he’s…lonely?

 

                 Aw, Cat!

 

                It’s not too late to be his friend!

 

 

Cat tries yet another neighborly Valentine, prompted by a sweet entreaty from dogdom. Cat’s valentine too, this time out, has less sass, and it reads:

 

 

               Roses are red

               Violets are blue

               Dogs are annoying

 

               What?!

 

 

               except for you

 

 

Behavioral change is possible…in kids and cats. And with the ever cranky, but cute Cat to lead the way, Deborah Underwood and the spot on expressions for Cat, provided by Claudia Rueda, make the learning and laughing curve fun for young readers and parents.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Cat and Liz’s Book Snuggery!

Add a Comment

Here Comes Valentine Cat
by Deborah Underwood; 
illus. by Claudia Rueda
Preschool   Dial   88 pp.
12/16   978-0-525-42915-9   $16.99   g

Valentine’s Day has its haters, and Cat (Here Comes the Easter Cat, rev. 3/14, and sequels) is one of them. Cat can’t think of anyone to grace with a Valentine, and new neighbor Dog doesn’t seem a likely candidate, what with all the bones he annoyingly keeps lobbing over the fence. Using this series’ trademark format — offstage narrator addresses nonverbal Cat, who responds with humorous placards and body language — the book shows Cat’s escalating plans against Dog (starting, but not ending, with a few not-so-sweet Valentines), and then shows that Dog may not deserve such poor treatment. Rueda’s ink and colored-pencil illustrations, surrounded by white space, once again convey lots of information via Cat’s facial expressions and other simple cues. Young listeners should enjoy the simply delivered misunderstandings, as well as the opportunities to yell emphatically at the main character (“You can’t send Dog to the moon!”).

From the January/February 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

The post Review of Here Comes Valentine Cat appeared first on The Horn Book.

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Read more »

Add a Comment

Llama Llama I Love You

By Anna Dewdney

 

How will Llama Llama celebrate this day that both honors one of the strongest of emotions and shows the ones that you love all the sometimes unspoken words that are in your heart?

Llama Llama and Anna Dewdney have come up with one way in this sturdy board book that mirrors your child and all their very sweet Valentine’s day preparation and celebratory activities.

You’re probably sharing in the doing of most of these things with your child; picking out or making Valentine cards for both family members and your child’s classmates. And, like Llama Llama that involves the sending and receiving of same, to those near and far.

A brown-jacketed hippo mailman delivers a bouquet of flowers to Llama’ mama, and Llama Llama, in turn, receives a Valentine heart of chocolates from mom. I confess – via a conspiratorial whisper – that this is one of my favorite parts of the day!

And what child doesn’t like glitter? Glitter and glue are a must on Valentine’s Day, so Llama Llama comes up with a lace-rimmed glittery one for his mom.

And, of course, the small llama saves the best till last; an “I love you” whispered to mom as they cuddle, all snuggled up in her checked padded rocker.

It’s the sweetest part of the day, to my mind, and this board book serves as a perfect patterning for any child’s Valentine’s Day.

But, as you know, there is no one way to say, “I Love You.” Your child probably has their own unique way of saying those words that are so meaningful ANY day of the year!

Please remember to send and receive those words with the ones you love this Valentine’s Day!

 

 

 

Add a Comment

On Valentine’s Day, we usually think of romance and great love stories. But there is another type of love we often overlook: love between friends, particularly between men and women in a platonic friendship. This is not a new phenomenon: loving friendships were possible and even fairly common among elite men and women in America’s founding era. These were affectionate relationships of mutual respect, emotional support, and love that had to carefully skirt the boundaries of romance. While extravagant declarations of love would have raised eyebrows, these friends found socially acceptable ways to express their affection for one another. Learn more about some special pairs of platonic friends from early America, including some very familiar names.

• 

  Eloise Payne and William Ellery Channing

  William was best known as a Unitarian minister and early transcendentalist, but to a bright young teacher named Eloise he was “my dear friend.” Eloise looked to William, seven years her senior, for religious and professional advice, but she wasn’t afraid to rebuke him when he became too critical. When she worried that his affections were waning after he started courting the woman who would become his wife, he replied, “You hold the same place in my heart as ever, and I can now say to you with more propriety than before, that few hold a higher.” (Photo credit: Public Domain via The Frick Collection.)

• 

  George Washington and Elizabeth Powel

  George and Elizabeth met while George was in Elizabeth’s hometown of Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention. George often spent the evening with Elizabeth and she later visited him at Mount Vernon. They had frank political discussions and exchanged gifts for over a decade. For her fiftieth birthday, George sent her a poetic tribute written by a friend of Elizabeth’s, and he signed one of his last letters to her before his death, “I am truly yours.” (Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.)

• 

  Thomas Jefferson and Abigail Adams

  Abigail Adams called her friend Thomas Jefferson “one of the choice ones on earth,” and Thomas greatly admired the wife of his long-time friend John Adams. They both lived in Paris in the 1780’s and attended plays and other events together. Later, he jokingly referred to her as Venus; he wrote from Paris that while selecting Roman busts to send for the Adams’ London home, he passed over the figure of Venus because he “thought it out of taste to have two at table at the same time.” (Photo credit: Public Domain via Library of Congress.)

• 

  Margaret Bayard Smith and Anthony Bleecker

  Margaret and Anthony first met as young adults in New York City as part of the same circle of writers and intellectuals. Some twenty-five years later, Margaret wrote a novel which Anthony helped to edit. The novel’s central love story was based upon her friendship with Anthony. “Has not friendship recollections as sweet and dear as those of love?” she wrote to him. Her answer: “Yes, indeed it has—at least in my heart.” (Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.)

• 

  John Rodgers and Anne Pinkney

  John Rodgers is best remembered as a navel hero who fought the Barbary pirates and fired the first shots of the War of 1812. But while he was across the Atlantic fighting pirates, he relied on his friend Ann Pinkney at home in Maryland to help further his courtship of a young woman named Minerva Denison. Ann reported back to John on his “goddess” and was pleased to extract a confession of Minerva’s love for John which she passed along. John and Minerva married, while John and Ann remained friends. (Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.)

• 

  Benjamin Franklin and Georgiana Shipley

  Benjamin Franklin was notorious for his flirtations with women, but it’s likely that most of his flirting was merely part of playful friendships. Such appears to be the case with a teenage girl he befriended in London in 1772, Georgiana Shipley. He gave her a pet squirrel named Mungo as well as a snuff box with his portrait painted on the lid. He declared himself “your affectionate friend” and she was even more effusive: “The love and respect I feel for my much-valued friend are sentiments so habitual to my heart that no time nor circumstance can lessen the affection.” (Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.)

• 

  Gilbert Stuart and Sarah Wentworth Morton

  Gilbert Stuart is best known for his portraits of presidents, but his friendship with Boston writer Sarah Wentworth Morton prompted his only known poetry. Gilbert created three portraits of Sarah, one of which he kept for himself. She published a poem praising his artistry, beginning with “Stuart, thy portraits speak with skill divine.” He replied that her poetry created “a cheering influence at my heart” and that ultimately poetry was superior to painting. This was a friendship between a very talented pair! (Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.)

• 

  Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson and Benjamin Rush

  The doctor and writer Benjamin Rush had a long friendship with one of Philadelphia’s smartest women, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson. Elizabeth wrote Benjamin frequently from her country estate but sometimes worried she didn’t receive enough letters in return. As she wrote in a poem she sent him in 1793, “One Letter a week she surely might claim,/ To keep alive Friendship; and fan its pure Flame.” He may not have written as often as she would like, but he admired her greatly. She was, he said after her death, “a woman of uncommon talents and virtues” who was “beloved by a numerous circle of friends and acquaintances.” (Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.)

• 

  Eliza Parke Custis and Marquis de Lafayette

  The Marquis de Lafayette formed a lasting bond with George Washington during the American Revolution, and his affections later extended to Washington’s step-granddaughter Eliza Parke Custis. Lafayette was a father figure for Eliza, whose own father died when she was young. Eliza confided her troubles in him and he wrote long letters in reply offering advice and affection. The pair wrote each other for years, with Lafayette conveying his “paternal love” and “most affectionate respectful attachments.” (Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.)

Featured image: Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, Howard Chandler Christy (1940). Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The post Love stories of America’s founding friends appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

The Harp is a string instrument of very ancient lineage that is synonymous with classical music and cupid’s lyre. Over the years, the harp has morphed from its primitive hunting bow shape to its modern day use in corporate branding. Across the globe, each culture has its own variation of this whimsical soft-sounding instrument. Check out these ten fun facts about the harp.

1. The harp is one of the oldest instruments in the world. It dates back to around 3000 B.C. and was first depicted on the sides of ancient Egyptian tombs and in Mesopotamian culture.

2. Nowhere is there a larger variety of harps than in Africa. The harp has a place in the traditions of nearly 150 African peoples.

3. The word harpa was first used around the year 600 and is a generic term for stringed instruments. The verb harp means to talk on and on about one subject similar to a harpist plucking the same string over and over.

4. With a range of one to 90 strings per instrument, the harp can be classified into two main categories: the frame harp and the open harp.

5. A modern harpist plays using only the first four fingers on each hand. They pluck the strings near the middle of the harp using the pads of their fingers. Irish harpists use their fingernails to pluck the wire strings.

6. The rapid succession of musical notes played on a harp is called arpeggio and the sweeping motion of the hands across the strings is termed glissando.

7. Once an aristocratic instrument played for royalty, harpists were challenged with being able to evoke three distinct emotions from their audience: tears, laughter, and sleep.

8. The harp has been Ireland’s national symbol since the thirteenth century.

9. The popular Irish beer, Guinness, also features a harp as its symbol.

10. In the 20^th century, historians and harp aficionados garnered wide-spread interest in reviving the harp and in 1990, the Historical Harp Society was founded and based in North America.

Headline image credit: Celtic Harp. Photo by Holzwurm52. CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The post 10 fun facts about the harp appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

Marvin is a delusional dater. He somehow talked the gorgeous Maria into going on a date with him, and today is the day. Maria is way out of Marvin’s league but he lacks self-knowledge. He thinks he is better looking, better dressed, and more interesting than he really is. Yet his illusions about himself serve a purpose. They give him self-belief and as a result the date goes better than it would have done otherwise. Maria is still out of Marvin’s league, but is at least impressed by his nerve and self-confidence, if not by his conversation.

The case of the delusional dater suggests that self-knowledge doesn’t necessarily make you happier or more successful, at least in the short term. According to social psychologists Timothy Wilson and Elizabeth Dunn, there are physical and mental benefits associated with maintaining slight or moderate self-illusions, such as believing one is more generous, intelligent, and attractive than is actually the case. There are some truths about ourselves which, like Marvin, we are better off not knowing.

Real world examples of the benefits of moderate self-illusions are not hard to find. In my experience as a university teacher, average students who believe they are better than that tend to work harder and do better than average students who know their own limitations. Studies of HIV-positive men have shown that they are more likely to practice safe sex if they believe they are unlikely to get AIDS. Sometimes positive self-illusions can be even self-fulfilling. Studies of women at weight loss clinics have shown they are more likely to lose weight if they believe they are going to lose weight.

My favourite example of the power of self-illusions is a famous study of snake-phobic subjects who were played what they believed were the sounds of their own heartbeats as they were shown slides of snakes. In fact, instead of their own racing hearts, they were played the steady heartbeats of someone with no fear of snakes. As a result, the snake-phobic subjects inferred that they weren’t that scared of snakes after all and became less snake-phobic.

Knowledge of how generous, attractive, or frightened you are might not sound like “self-knowledge.” We like to think of self-knowledge as something deeper, as knowledge of the “real you.” But the real you isn’t something apart from your thoughts, motives, emotions, character traits, values and personality. Knowledge of these things is knowledge of the “real you,” and the question remains why knowledge of the real you should matter. Most of us have heard of the ancient command to “Know thyself” but few have dared to ask what good it does.

Low-end explanations of the value of self-knowledge say that self-knowledge is a good thing because it makes you happier or more successful. High-end explanations say that the real point of self-knowledge is that having it enables us to live more authentic and meaningful lives. From this standpoint it doesn’t matter if self-knowledge doesn’t guarantee happiness or success. That was never the point of “Know thyself.”

High-end explanations of the value of self-knowledge are seductive but don’t really work. To be authentic is to be true to yourself, and you might wonder how you can be true to yourself, to who you really are, if you don’t know yourself. Actually, it’s easy to show that authenticity is possible without self-knowledge. Suppose the opportunity arises to cheat in a card game but you don’t cheat because you aren’t a cheat. In refraining from cheating you are being true to yourself but what makes you refrain from cheating is the fact that you aren’t a cheat. You don’t need to know you aren’t a cheat for you not to cheat. You can be true to yourself regardless of whether you know yourself.

Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. Could this be why self-knowledge matters? The idea that self-knowledge has something to do with finding meaning in your life is promising but controversial. There is plenty of evidence that people find their life choices more meaningful when they are consistent with the kind of person they think they are, but the kind of person you think you are may be quite different from the kind of person you actually are. Being mistaken about the kind of person you are needn’t prevent you from finding your life meaningful on its own terms.

Am I saying that self-knowledge is worthless? Not at all. What I’m saying – and this might be a surprising thing for a philosopher to be saying – is that self-knowledge is overrated in our culture. The truth of the matter is not that you can’t live authentically, meaningfully, or happily without self-knowledge, but that a modicum of self-knowledge might, depending on the circumstances, improve your prospects of living in these ways. While self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, you are unlikely to do well in life if you are grossly self-ignorant. Marvin’s self-illusions might get him through his date with Maria but in the longer term he will save himself the pain of repeated rejection if he stops kidding himself.

The same applies to talentless contestants of reality TV talent shows. It’s hard not to think that delusional contestants who believe they can sing like Michael Jackson would in the end live happier lives if they learned to handle the truth about themselves. How can you plan your life if you are completely clueless about what you are good at? At some point, you need to come to terms with the real you, and the challenge is to figure out how to do that.

Writing in the 17^th century, René Descartes saw self-knowledge as strictly first-personal, as the product of a special kind of mental self-examination. Descartes was wrong. We aren’t unbiased observers of our own inner selves, and the studies suggest that the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves aren’t to be trusted. We all like to think well of ourselves.

A better bet is to try to see yourself through the eyes of others. When it comes to the real you, your friends, colleagues, and nearest and dearest probably have deeper insights than you do. The self-knowledge you get by social interaction is indirect and third-personal but that’s okay. For example, you might not think that you are generous but if everyone you are close to thinks that you are tight with money then that trumps your self-conception. In this case, other people know the real you better than you know the real you.

Of course, seeing ourselves through the eyes of others can be hard to do, especially when their opinion is unflattering. That’s one of many factors which make worthwhile self-knowledge so hard to get. So if self-knowledge is something which matters to you then here is some practical advice: try to accept that reliable self-knowledge is not something you can get by self-examination. Instead, try to see yourself as others see you, and give up any idea that you are always the best judge of the real you. Even with the help of others, a degree of self-ignorance is unavoidable. But if self-ignorance is part of the human condition, so is the ability to get by without really knowing ourselves.

This article originally appeared in LUX Magazine.

The post Self-knowledge: what is it good for? appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

There’s This Thing

By Connah Brecon

 

Here’s the thing – there’s this picture book, and it’s called “There’s This Thing.” We adults struggle too with that indefinable something that is front and center on February 14th. We want to find it, nurture it, express it and keep it alive. It’s so important, it has a day all to itself – LOVE!

But children have the exact same feelings in miniature and Connah Brecon has found a way through “There’s This Thing” of painting with words and pictures the “elusive butterfly” called love. My apologies to Bob Lind for the phrase steal from his 1966 song of the same name. If you want to hear it, I’ve included a link below. Might be nice background music to this read.

 

Across my dreams with nets of wonder

I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love.

        

Mr. Brecon has found a way to express the sometimes inexpressible, through the eyes of a child seeking and finding that certain “something.” Aren’t we all?

How do you receive it? Send an invite? Does the postman even know where the “something” lives? It is a strong yearning, that’s for sure.

Should she leave trails of crumbs for the “something” to follow? Set a trap and wait?

Will it trap the wrong thing? The “what if” scenarios here are many and meaningful, for they speak to the literal mind of the child. The famous arrows of love that hit, and sometimes miss, are mentioned. Shot a few of those myself!

My favorite part of the book is the young girl’s query of whether she should try to be someone else in her quest? So many choices here that she very wisely chooses to be herself in the quest for love.

The hardest lesson of all in this instant gratification society that our young ones are growing up in, is a pretty profound truth – that sometimes – if you wait – it will, and does come to you! And yes, waiting is hard; but worth it.

Mr. Brecon has done a pretty amazing thing in his book. He has taken the very human longing for love and the emotion involved in that longing, and expressed it in a very literal sense, as seen through the eyes of a child.

Love – so simple; so complex and so wonderful. “There’s This Thing” is a book with the look of love. Please read it to a child today that is looking, and while you’re doing that, wrap it in a big hug!

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the seekers and finders out there! Keep looking!  

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5mD_loFlfg

 

 

Add a Comment

http://stuffpoint.com/love/image/39530/

I have posted this poem before, on a quite special occasion since which my Beloved and I have tied the knot yet again in the state of Maryland.  And those pieces of paper we got officializing our marriage are pretty important for many social and political and financial and legal reasons.



But this string of words--that's all they are, which is the miracle--expresses a connection which must touch the inside, human place in everyone who has loved.  Now let that "hollow muscular organ that is the center of the circulatory system" fill up and become your Heart.

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
....................................i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

~ e.e. cummings

The heart of Poetry Friday will no doubt overflow with  love this Valentine's Friday at Merely Day by Day with Cathy.

Add a Comment

How will you be celebrating this Saturday February 14th?  Some see it as a chance to demonstrate the most romantic of gestures, showering their special ones with gifts of affection. Others only need to show an act of kindness to prove they care. Either way, whether it’s Valentine’s Day, International Book Giving Day or Library […]

Add a Comment

Saint Valentine

By Ann Tompert; illustrations by Kestutis Kasparavicius

 

The National Retail Federation polled some 6,000 odd consumers to see how much they will spend on Valentine’s Day. Traditionally, this is the day to celebrate L O V E with special dinners, flowers, cards and candy, not to mention proposals of marriage. Americans spend some $17.3 billion for the day. An additional survey by the American Express Spending and Saving Tracker, put that figure more in the area of oh, some $37 billion, that’s billion, with a colossal B!

Did you know that of the 13 million people that got engaged in 2014, it was estimated 6 million of the 13 million would pop the question on Valentine’s Day?

So just who was this Valentine that precipitated this lovey dovey day we commemorate each year on the 14th of February?

Does anyone remember him and what he did? I was curious, and so I wanted to learn a bit more, and think that I’ve found a picture book whose art and narrative does justice to this man of love.

Kestutis Kasparavicius, honored by the Bologna Book Fair in 1993 as “Illustrator of the Year” is the person chosen to portray Saint Valentine’s life and legend in this picture book portrayal of this initiator of tokens of affection.  

Author Ann Tompert has, in fact, written about others such as St. Nicholas, Joan of Arc, and her book on St. Patrick was selected by “Booklist” as one of the top ten religious books for children in 1998. She also has notable titles such as “Grandfather Tang’s Story”, a Notable Children’s Trade Book in the fields of Social Studies and Language Arts.

But what happened to Valentine? As I mentioned Ms. Tompert presents here a selection of woven together stories about Valentine who seems a bit of a mystery. “Ah! Sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found you” croons Victor Herbert’s song in my head. And, it somehow all fits, right? Makes perfect sense to me that Valentine himself would be a man of mystery.

Seems he may have been a Roman nobleman or might have been a doctor or he may have had a shop quite near the Forum in ancient Rome. Maybe.

We do know he was born near there in the 3rd century A.D. It is known he was a Christian priest during the reign of Claudius II. The rest gets a little murky and legends abound which is where this book takes off beautifully.

Valentine and fellow Christians are persecuted for their faith and are forced to meet secretly in shops, homes and caves in the hills of Rome.

Legend has it that Valentine cut out of parchment, comforting hearts to send to the Christians being held in prison. That’s where the card idea emerged!

Another legend has Valentine performing marriages for military men. Rome apparently banned marriages for them because it wanted to insure undivided loyalty to Rome, instead of a wife and children! Valentine, as I said, conducted these secret marriages.

Valentine even wins the admiration of the emperor, Claudius II himself after Valentine is tossed into prison. Apparently his graceful speech won him over!

My favorite story is the one about Asterius, a Roman lieutenant that has a blind daughter. Relief is sought from the Roman god Apollo and eminent doctors of the time – to little avail. The legend says a bright light filled the young girl’s room after Valentine prayed for her. Asterius and his entire family, servants and slaves are baptized because of the healing.

Claudius is not happy at the news and sentences Valentine to death – and this time he is not spared.

The date is February 14th around 270 A.D. outside the Flaminian Gate where Valentine is put to death.

Did you know it was then referred to as Valentine’s Gate and later the People’s Gate?

Near the gate, a almond tree, symbol of love and friendship was planted near Valentine’s grave.

And guess what? It bloomed for many years on February 14!

Finally, what could be more perfect? Both my grandfather and brother are named Val!

 

 

 

Add a Comment

‘The deepest need of man is the need to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness.’ (Fromm, E. 1957)

The time of year approaches that has gaggles of teenage girls quivering anxiously in school corridors: outwardly bemoaning the late arrival of the postman, while inwardly breathing a huge sigh of relief. At the other end of the spectrum, jaded 75-year-old-long-marrieds dust off last year’s card, re-presenting it safe in the knowledge that (a) it won’t be remembered and (b) he won’t care that much either way. It’s a day that hints at the arrival of Spring, when a question mark can create a frisson of excitement in a recipient or a knowing smile from a long-suffering spouse.

Saint Valentine’s Day, where millions of British pounds are spent on grand, kitsch, or anonymous romantic gestures (chocolate, flowers, lacy underwear, and dinner reservations, not necessarily in that order). It’s become a British industry. It celebrates love or as Samuel Johnson put it, the ‘triumph of hope over experience’.

Valentine’s Day juxtaposes our desire for romance at its best. At its worst, it exemplifies another defining contemporary human characteristic: consumerism. This Western tradition can be tenuously traced back to Valentine of Terni, martyred circa AD 197, for his Christianity. Another possible origin, Valentine of Rome, circa AD 289, was imprisoned for continuing to wed soldiers after Claudius had outlawed marriage, decreeing armies of single men fought better than those distracted by conjugal delights. Awaiting execution, Valentine is reported to have cured the jailer’s daughter of blindness and fallen in love, his final letter to her signed, ‘from your Valentine’.

Historian Noel Lenski, classics professor at the University of Colorado, has unearthed evidence to suggest an ancient pagan fertility festival on 14th February. Lupercalia, a celebration of love, which saw young Roman men strip naked and use goat skins to brush the backsides of young women and crop fields to improve fertility, followed by a matchmaking lottery where men drew women’s names from a jar. Little wonder card manufacturers have chosen to shift their focus from death, sadism, imprisonment, and swinging, from whence Valentine’s Day tradition is suggested to have sprung.

From a partisan standpoint, as a couple psychotherapist, the idealised romance of Valentine’s Day with its fantasy-laden, unconscious projection onto a ‘love object’ is not necessarily good news. The lover’s notion, that the strength of his emotion will ensure a yearned for relationship metamorphoses into a-glorious-sunset-happy-ending, doesn’t predict a stable, long-lasting, and fulfilling relationship. Come to that, neither does love at first sight or your partner resembling one of your parents. And yet romantic gesture, prolific at a relationship’s birth, is the bedrock of most unions and forms part of their narrative. Just ask a couple how they met.

The romantic notion of reality (two individuals from similar socio-economic backgrounds, attracted by their differences/irritating and lovable idiosyncrasies) becoming fantasy (thinking as one, able to read each other’s mind and anticipate each other’s needs) can be traced back to the Bible, ‘Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder’ (Matthew, 19.6).

For the Victorians, love was a periphery consideration. A relationship between a man and a woman was a business contract between two families, with the woman as product and land as prize. Choice in love is a new Western trend. Forced by female emancipation and latterly such freedoms as same-sex relationships, emphasis has shifted away from acreage and towards how to attract a partner, how to fashion yourself as the prize.

Erich Fromm in his seminal work The Art of Loving, advocates love as a skill, to be honed and worked at, requiring knowledge and effort, rather than ‘something one falls into if one’s lucky’. From a consulting room vantage point, the idea of a relationship created between a couple that takes work and attention can come as something of a revelation. There is often real confusion between a falling in love state for couples and the permanent state of being in love. ‘I don’t feel the same about her as when we met and it’s making me depressed,’ is not an unfamiliar complaint.

Falling in love is an exhilarating, almost psychotic experience for everyone that is fortunate enough to feel it. The tragedy is that this new and precious intimacy, triggered by sexual attraction, is impossible to sustain. The infatuation stage, where everything else falls away, is commonly described as a ‘coming home feeling’, where a sense of familiarity nestles amongst the thrill. The bad news is it burns itself out. Nothing except the most dangerous attraction can sustain that undiluted intensity. Who would do the work? Captains of Industry would just stay in bed. Reality must test each new relationship. Can it survive meeting the in-laws? When do the stains on her teeth come into focus – and hopefully not matter. When do the stresses of work and mundane domesticity creep back into consciousness?

Many couples seeking help with their relationship are burdened with the expectation that their love should feel natural; fulfilment of sexual desire, rather like the Holy Spirit, should be around at all times, despite inhabiting a time-pinched world of Internet dating, Viagra, and plastic surgery. They feel that loving should be accompanied by an ease and constant lightness, and so feel cheated or deficient, even deviant in some way when it doesn’t feel like that. Their internal echo of why isn’t every day like Valentine’s Day infuses their relationship with an uncomfortable and unspoken ennui.

So where is the relationship advice at this most quixotic of times? As Valentine’s Day dawns, perhaps Honore de Balzac’s suggestion in ‘La physiologie du marriage’ will resonate: ‘No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.’ Permit a translation. Take it slow, have some fun, keep past relationships in mind, especially that of your parents, and remember, ‘Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.’ (Anouilh, J. 1948)

Headline image credit: Heart. CC0 via Pixabay.

The post What’s love got to do with it? appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

Cocoa and chocolate have a long history in Central America but a relatively short history in the rest of the world. For thousands of years tribes and empires in Central America produced cocoa and consumed drinks based on it. It was only when the Spanish arrived in those regions that the rest of the world learned about it. Initially, cocoa production stayed in the original production regions, but with the local population decimated by war and imported diseases, slave labor was imported from Africa.

The ‘First Great Chocolate Boom’ occurred at the end of the 19^th and early 20^th century. The industrial revolution turned chocolate from a drink to a solid food full of energy and raised incomes of the poor. As a result, chocolate consumption increased rapidly in Europe and North America.

As the popularity of chocolate grew, production spread across the world to satisfy increasing demand. Interestingly, cocoa only arrived in West Africa in the early 20^th century. But by the 1960s West Africa dominated global cocoa production, and in particular Ghana and Ivory Coast have become the world’s leading cocoa producers and exporters.

Not surprisingly, given the growth in trade of cocoa and consumption of chocolate, governments have intervened in the markets through various types of regulations. The early regulations (in the 16^th–19^th centuries) focused mostly on extracting revenue from cocoa production and trade through, for example, taxes on cocoa trade and the sales of monopoly rights for chocolate production.

More recent regulations have focused mostly on quality and safety. With growing demand for chocolate in the 19^th century, chocolate producers substituted cocoa with cheaper raw materials, going from various starchy products and fats to poisonous ingredients. Scientific inventions of the 18^th and 19^th centuries allowed better testing of the chocolate ingredients.  Public outrage against the use of unhealthy ingredients (now scientifically proven), led to a series of safety regulations on which specific ingredients were not allowed in chocolate – and in countries such as France and Belgium also in a legal definition of ‘chocolate’.

Chocolate consumption has many fascinating aspects. It is bought both for the pleasure of consumption and as a gift. It has been considered a healthy food, a sinful indulgence, an aphrodisiac, and the cause of obesity.

For much of history, chocolate (or cocoa drinks more generally) was praised for its positive effects on health and nutrition (and other benefits for the human body). As people were poor, hungry, and short of energy, chocolate drinks and later chocolate bars became an important additional source of nutrition.

In recent years, chocolate consumption is often associated with negative health issues, such as obesity.  Recent research has shown that its health potential is closely linked to the composition of the final product and, not surprisingly, to the quantity consumed: darker, lower-fat, and lower-sugar varieties, consumed in a balanced diet are more likely to be healthy than the opposite consumption pattern.

In today’s high income societies where hunger is an exception, food is cheap, and obesity is on the rise, systematic overconsumption of chocolate – often associated with impulsive consumption and lack of self-control – is more associated with health problems. New research in behavioral engineering is targeted to help consumers deal with situational influences, and change behavior in a sustainable way, i.e. by ‘nudging’ them to change their consumption behavior and resisting the lure of chocolate.

One of the intriguing aspects of chocolate is its ‘quality’. Different from many other foods (such as cheese or wine) perceived chocolate quality is not related to the location where the raw material is grown or produced, but to the chocolate manufacturing process and location.

Some countries, such as Switzerland and Belgium are associated with prestigious traditions of chocolate manufacturing. However, perceptions do not always fit reality. ‘Belgian chocolates’, such as pralines and truffles, are now world famous but until 1960, Belgium imported more chocolate than it exported. Since then its “Belgian chocolates” have conquered the world – while the world has taken over the Belgian chocolate (companies). Most “Belgian chocolates” are now owned by international holdings – and a sizeable amount is produced outside the country.

Moreover, consumer perceptions of ‘quality’ are strongly influenced by consumer experiences with their local chocolate – this includes the smoothness of Swiss chocolate from long conching, the milkiness of British chocolate, and the preference of American consumers for chocolate that Europeans consider inferior.

In fact, the integration of the UK, Ireland and Denmark into the (precursor of the) European Union, which included France and Belgium in 1973 resulted in a ‘Chocolate War’ which lasted for 30 years. Disputes between the old and the new member states of the definition of “Chocolate” (and its ingredients) made that British chocolate was banned from much of the EU continent for three decades.

Ethical concerns about chocolate have been triggered by the specific structure of the structure of the global cocoa-chocolate value chain. For most of the past century, the value chain was characterized by a South-to-North orientation, with most of the raw material (cocoa beans) produced in developing countries (‘the South’) and most chocolate manufacturing and consumption in the richer countries (‘the North’). Another characteristic is that cocoa production in the South is almost exclusively by smallholders, while cocoa grinding and (first stage) chocolate manufacturing processes are often dominated by very large companies.

The cocoa-chocolate value chain has undergone significant transformations in recent years. First, in the 1960s through the 1980s the cocoa production and marketing in developing countries was strongly state regulated, often dominated by (para-)statal companies and state regulated prices and trade, etc. In recent years there has been substantial liberalizations of these sectors and the market plays a much larger role in price setting and trading, often resulting in new hybrid forms of ‘public-private governance’ of the world’s cocoa farmers.

Second, these new regulatory systems are reinforced by consumer awareness around labour conditions and low incomes in African smallholder production related to structural imbalances in the value chain. Consumer concerns and civil society campaigns around poor socio-economic conditions of producers (such as child labor) have affected companies’ strategies and responses. These involved (a) sustainability initiatives with civil society and governments, (b) certification initiatives including Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and Utz, and (c) various forms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.

The world is currently experiencing a ‘Second Great Chocolate Boom’. Rapidly growing demand is now not coming from ‘the North’, but from rapidly growing developing and emerging countries, including China, India and also Africa. The unprecedented growth of the past decades, the associated urbanization, and the huge size of their economies have turned China and India into major growth markets for chocolate. While consumption is highest in China, and the growth is strong, the country with – by far – the highest growth rates in chocolate consumption is India. In addition, significant African growth of the past 15 years is now also translating into growing chocolate consumption on the continent where most of the cocoa beans are produced.

Headline image: Fresh Cacao from São Tomé & Príncipe, by Everjean. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

The post The economics of chocolate appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

I've been goofing off for a few weeks, enjoying some family time while my oldest were home from college for the holidays.  Now it's time to get back to business.

I tried something new today.  I put my favorite, rhyming Valentine's Day books for story time in a Riffle list that should allow for scrolling.  I'll put my favorite Valentine's Day rhymes and songs below.  Enjoy!



"A Kiss"  (a fingerplay, prop story, felt board, or song)

There's something in my pocket,
Could it be a moose?
Could it be a train with a bell and a caboose?
Could it be a snake or some sticky glue?
Right here in my pocket is a KISS from me to you! (blow kiss)

I have a photo of a moose glued to a popsicle stick, a train whistle, a bell, a plastic, jointed snake, and glue.  I pull them all out at the appropriate times.

Credit: King County Library System

A Valentine fingerplay:

Show children how to put the "heels" of their palms together and then curve fingers around , meeting on top to form a heart. The rhyme goes like this:

"I put my hands together,
this is how I start;
I curve my fingers right around
and I can make a Heart!"

Credit: Everything Preschool

"Skidamarink" or "Skinnamarink"
You can find this favorite online if you don't already know it.

Add a Comment

Little known fact: The Easter Bunny moonlights, filling in for Cupid, to get some extra scratch.

He says, “They don’t call me Dead-Eye Cottontail for nothing!
(Actually, they don’t really call him that, shhhhhh.)

Display Comments Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Valentine's Day is on Friday! Consider doing a read aloud to inspire your students to write poems, comic books, or short stories they can give to a special friend or close family member in lieu of a box of chocolates. Here are five books that will inspire primary, upper elementary, and middle school writers to craft writing that expresses heartfelt emotions.

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Happy Valentine's Day to all my fellow YA & Mysterybook lovers.

In honor of Valentine's day, I am giving away an Ebook or paperback (You choose) of my new YA mystery novel, Unraveled.

Sixteen year old math whiz, Autumn, spends her days reading about serial killers and dreaming of becoming an FBI Profiler. She never dreams her first case will be so personal. Her world is shattered when she comes home from school and discovers her murdered sister’s body on the living room floor. When the initial evidence points to a burglary gone wrong, Autumn challenges the police’s theory because of the personal nature of the crime. Thinking that finding the killer will bring her family back together, she conducts her own investigation using her affinity for math and forensics, but her plan backfires and her obsession with the case further splinters her family.

When her investigation reveals the killer is someone she knows, Autumn offers herself up as bait and sets a dangerous trap to unmask his true nature and to obtain a confession for her sister’s murder

Display Comments Add a Comment

<!--[if gte mso 9]> 0 0 1 358 2042 Overlook Press 17 4 2396 14.0 <![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>

Add a Comment

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love is in the air, and Online Author Visits is celebrating with a contest that gives you the chance to win books not only for yourself, but also for your library! The winner will get to choose 3 books from among works by our incredible pool of authors, which includes Janet Lee Carey, Dia Calhoun, Deb Lund, Martha Brockenbrough, Joan Holub, Suzanne Williams, Lisa L. Owens, Claire Rudolph Murphy, and Trudi Trueit.

In addition, a collection of books will go to a U.S. library selected by the winner. There’s even an ARC (Advanced Reviewer’s Copy) in the mix from author and readergirlz co-founder Dia Calhoun, so don’t miss out!

Read the full report and find the entry form here.

Add a Comment

Add a Comment