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It is all about the money, but it is also all about when my son opened up and read his very own copy of Jon Scieszka's Smash! Crash! (The First Book of the Truck Town Series)and wondered aloud why there were not more truck and car books. What do seven year olds know? They know a lot!

Scieszka's new series, Eric Rohmann's A Kitten Tale, The Newbery and Caldecott on Monday and American Idol next Tuesday- It's like Christmas all over!!!

(Those three !!! are for the grammar Nazi and the affect/effect is for is for the spelling troll!)

Happy Mid Winter ALA!


Anonymous Dad

Great article (Patsy Aldana's), Roger. Here's hoping that there's a way to make books with integrity within reasonable financial constraints. The world doesn't need more merchandise.

Yes, seven year olds know a lot, but not about publishing. There are hundreds and hundreds of books about cars and trucks. I buy at least a couple new ones every month for my library.

an anonymous children's librarian

An Anonymous Children's Librarian,
You are right that most seven year olds do not know much about publishing. They do know what books they like. Who are the publishers marketing to? (Is it parents, teachers, librarians or kids?) It is usually the one with the cash or credit card. (Money!)

My son and I had a long discussion about car and truck books on Saturday. I gave him the directive to pull all of the car and truck books from his shelves. We were both amazed at the number of car and truck books he had on his shelves. He has I'm Dirty, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Naughty Bus (We got it in London!), C is for Construction, Tip Tip Dig Dig, If I Built a Car, Sheep in a Jeep, Seymour Simon's Book of Trucks, Cool Cars, Rattletrap Car, Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, Mr. Grumpy's Motor Car, Katy and the Big Snow, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, I Stink, School Bus, Trucks, Duck in a Truck, Seven Tonka Books, Four Transformer Books, Five Disney/Pixar Cars Books, Two Matchbox Car Books, Bubba and Beau Go Night-Night, On the Road with Jeff Gordon, Monster Trucks, Corvettes, Two Cars, Zoom City, Classic Cars, The Berenstain Bears Too Much Car Trip, My Truck is Stuck, Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks from A to Z, and Smash! Crash! This kid has a few car and truck books. I LOVE THAT KID!

I have a great appreciation for librarians. Thank you for what you do each day. You change the world one book and one child at a time!


God bless all who love children's books!!!

Anonymous Dad

Roger,

This is off topic, sorry. I wanted to say that I really liked the review of Candyfloss in the NYT. I'll make an effort to get a copy.

On topic, I have some question. Was Aldana's point that children's publishing used to be a gentle(wo)man's occupation and isn't anymore. That those of us still doing it for love are patsy's in the hands of Rupert Murdoch? That businesses that have been business-like right from the beginning have more safeguards in place to prevent corruption? Is the Newbery more for-sale than it used to be? I think you said before that it was pretty tightly controlled by a small group in the early days.

Go Hugo!

Yeah, good work on the committee!

Anyone else feel crazy jealous of these two Dutch kids?

Ha! YES!!!!

Told about this post by her parents, little Julia displayed her ever-increasing powers of English, harrumphing "they are NOT my grandparents. They are my NEIGHBORS."

We had a young woman give a presentation at a staff meeting about Boston's Hatian community. She spent a few minutes introducing herself and discussing what it's like to be a Haitian-American in Boston. It was a bit disconcerting, however, to hear her make this presentation with a thick Dorchester -- excuse me, Dawchestuh -- accent.

Anyway, there are a lot of kids now growing up speaking English in school and Spanish or other languages at home. It's a challenge for parents to maintain bilingualism -- what's called heritage language proficiency -- and also assure that kids get top notch English skills. I think it would be great for the Horn Book to cover children's books in Spanish, and also any books that are specifically intended for kids who are growing up bilingual.

The Horn Book Guide includes reviews of hardcover Spanish-language books published in the US. We review bilingual books to the best of our ability (meaning, as long as we have a reviewer who can accurately assess the non-English text).

Kitty

Oh, that makes me so crazy! I never understand why I never see anyone else point it out, either. Glad they got on the ball with this one.

Oh my goodness, the second model looks like my son ... For once a brown boy's a hero!

I'm not at home (power's still out due to ice storm) so I can't cite the exact source, but in one of her essays, Ms. LeGuin talks about how publishers hate to have interracial characters on book covers because it supposedly reduces sales. She's had lots of trouble with this in the past. Too bad they haven't figured it out yet!

The second kid has way better hair for a hero.

It's not just fantasy. I have always been outraged by the cover of Chris Crutcher's Whale Talk, which shows a white boy running. The protagonist is, in his own words, "African-American, Japanese-American and what? Northern European-American?" And a swimmer.

Even on the paperback edition, the cover is unchanged.

the artist didn't read the book (maybe had a precis or flap copy from first edition), the art director knew it was an IMPORTANT BOOK but hadn't read it, the editor who was "handling" the reprint had seventeen other projects, Sales and Marketing approved the art - and that's what really matters.

_Whale Talk_ was the book that first made me aware of this issue. I've been seeing more subtle disguising in the last couple of years - instead of showing someone who looks white, they hide the issue by showing just the characters legs. Still pisses me off. And I have never seen any reviewer besides me mention it, which pisses me off even more.

Anon, this is a new book, not a reprint. I'm guessing the art department just went for standard-fantasy-boy-hunk-hero, which defaults to white, until somebody said "wait a minute." The point is that they did change the cover to accurately reflect the book, which is what we want, yes?

I seem to remember Ursula Le Guin complaining about this issue when they made a TV version of the Earthsea books a while back and cast the very white Shawn Ashmore as the male lead.

In addition, am I the only one who thinks this is a really, really cheesy cover irrespective of the ethnic issue? You'd think they'd do better for an author this distinguished. It looks like a comp they threw together in about ten minutes.

So many meetings, so little taste...

Betsy Bird recently pointed out how the character of Sticky Washington was changed from brown to white on the cover of The Mysterious Benedict Society. Whoops.

As for Whale Talk, I always assumed the kid on the cover was supposed to be the mentally retarded character -- the one who wants to wear his older brother's letter jacket, and who is white. Eh, it's a pretty lame cover nonetheless.

I've just finished rereading The Dark is Rising in preperation for the film's release and was struck by the lack of action, something I did not remember from reading it as a child. But one thing that did stick with me from earlier readinsg was the importance of the physical British land to the story and its connection to Will because he himself is "old". It is difficult to imagine how this could work with an American protagonist, even if he is based in England, on the old land itself. In the book, Will takes part in customs--the scene where they go caroling sticks in my mind--that have fallen out of practice since the book's publication, so I can see where some modernisation might be needed. But he is supposed to be different than his peers, and I don't think turning him into "just your regular kid who saves the world" is keeping with the point of the book.

No movie can besmirch the perfection that is Cooper's Dark is Rising. I have spoken.

sez Jeanneb-who-must-be-obeyed!

(and, now after the Lottery post, I feel compelled to point out that I KNOW that joke did not begin on the BBC but rather with H. Rider Haggard!)

The magnificent SHE! Now, why hasn't anyone made a movie of that lately? I believe someone did a long ago -- isn't it time for a new one, what with feminism and all?

You know, I thought I was over my book/movie angst until I heard that NPR piece. Now I'm back to running around town howling "Is nothing sacred anymore?"

Is there some sort of treatment for this condition? I plan to avoid moving pictures until I figure that out.

I understand that they've left the character of The Walker out of the movie altogether. It doesn't sound like there's a great deal of the original book left at all.

I hope y'all had an easy fast.

Good grief, that's certainly a first. Thanks for the shout out.

I've had Ministers, yes, railing at the "tool of Satan" who writes about magical things. (I've even made a ToolBox of Satan tee shirt for my other fantasy writer friends, complete with hex wrench and spirit level among other things.) But a rabbi at Kol Nidre services. . . wait till I tell my writing group mates, Barbara Diamond Goldin and Leslea Newman. Will they be jealous.

Jane

Was it the Tufts Hillel rabbi?
http://www.tuftshillel.org/jl-rab02-truth.html

I can't imagine I was referenced by TWO.

jane

It was Temple Shalom in Newton, Rabbi Eric Gurvis.

Melinda, I et. Not during the service, of course.

Good grief--I was mentioned TWICE in Boston Kol Nidre services. I'd better be careful of lightning after this.

Jane

I reread the internet speech citation, and it was a 2002 Kol Nidre sermon. So not QUITE lightning, but close enough.

--Jane

*imagines Roger scarfing on pork chittlings during service*

Yeah, that would be bad.

Take THAT, Roger. And THAT! And THAT! Now, are you STILL proud of yourself for publishing those nasty articles? Well, take THAT!!

How about sending her a nice thank you note for returning the check and adding, just under your signature, "Matt. 6:1-6"

--m

All right, yes, she sounds as though she might have the letter more than the spirt of the thing. But... eh... does this really warrant a public airing? I feel a little like this post is trying to goad readers into coming out and making fun of the annoying kid in the class, you know?

I can't wait for the Jenna Bush Book! Oh, and she has another- With her Mother- Coming in The Spring! God Bless Harpercollins!
(And the Horn Book,too)

I must agree with anonymous number 3, and wonder, would you have posted this if the subscriber had been Hindu? Buddhist? Muslim? Jewish? Or do those religions warrant more consideration?


SR

This post may be intemperate (like that's never happened before) but my irritation came not from the fact that the subscriber was a Christian (as am I) but from her completely gratuitous mention of that fact. Had we published something that she objected to on religious grounds that would have made sense, but, as it was, she was implying that any Horn Book discussion of scrotums or sexuality or censorship were an attack on her religion, which they aren't. I was also bothered by the arrogance of her assumption of the moral high ground, that a Christian would of course do the right thing in returning the money, as if a Jew or Muslim or Buddhist wouldn't. Similar moral preening on the part of any of the latter would be met by me with the same attitude.

Well, I have been hearing the praises of this publication, and upon the recommendation of my fabulous local librarian, I logged on to check you guys out. She couldn't say enough about the quality of the articles, and the professionalism she appreciated therin.

I must say this blog post came as a bit of a shock.

I guess I will simply read the periodical at the library instead. This blog is a little too personal for me. I guess that is what blogs are, anyway.

Megan Krejci
Egana

Mr. Sutton, I see your point about the moral high ground. Thank you for the clarification. One of the reasons I enjoy this blog is that you are always willing to explain.

But you are wrong about Kathy Griffith. She is never funny.

SR

I go back and forth on KG. Gotta be in the right mood.

I think she was simply admitting that without Christianity, she wouldn't be able to perform the simple acts of basic decency that some of us manage to do without reference to religion. I admire her humility.

Your incessant ridiculing of Christians grows old. Can your satisfy this hunger of yours by publicly badgering someone else for a while? Cat lovers? Left-handed people?

Ah, does RS pick on Christians or not? Can we move on, right now, before we all end up way the hell/heck off to the side of why we're checking out the Horn Book blog?

Next topic, please!

Also, note that the sinistrals get plenty of grief already.

I am a left-handed Christian so please don't make me start with the self-hate! Cats, however . . . but yes, let's move on.

The utter humorlessness of the "religious" folk is what always gets to me. I bet Jesus was a lot more fun to hang with.

Me too! I'll take water into wine any day! Man, I really do love that guy.

A happy ending and another post that could have been filed under the heading "People Are Not Inherently Evil." Although that might have been pushing your luck.

Wow! It worked! Talking about it on the Net worked! Wow! Word power, word power....love it....

Grumble, grumble, I still hate all the big, bright ads that surround her text. Once you scroll away from the blinking offenders at the top, and ignore the junk on the side, you make your way to the bottom and there's a car ad, or something else completely off-topic.

Are you really satisfied with just removing the bouncing VOYA announcement? I'm not that silenced, yet.

Ah, but there is always the lovely RSS feed instead. Then again, it'll still bounce you back if you want the full text...

"If you want the full text"? I hang on every word, Betsy.

But I'll look into the feed. I've never used one before.

Sorry, I can't begrudge SLJ (or any blog or website) its ads. While its true that many blogs are maintained as hobbies, their only cost measured in the blogger's time and internet fees, others, like SLJ, HB, PW, etc. are part of a business, with costs in salaries and production. In a perfect world, blog-readers would be so wowed by the content here that they would either a) pay to read it or b) subscribe to our print publications. This is why you are seeing more and more c), advertising.

It's only a problem when it makes enough readers hostile, and each person's threshold is different. I read Salon far less frequently than I used to, for example, because the pay off for the click-through ad seems less than it used to be, and there's plenty of stuff to read elsewhere. When I first started blogging, I regularly read dozens of others (both out of interest and education) but my time and taste have made me more selective. Advertising in and of itself is no deal-breaker for me, though--just don't make it bounce!

I object to flashing, flash animation, and pop-ups (which I've blocked) as well. There's my threshold. Although today when I went to Fuse #8, nothing flashed, and there were no car or Colgate ads. Hooray.

The whole subject of ad revenue fascinates me, though. I'd like to see some numbers. Doesn't the advertising web site get only a couple of pennies per ad? If so, what level of traffic is required to pay for the production of the site? And how much traffic do you lose when you switch over to ads?

I have no idea, but it seems like only "Askaninja" (who is the worst sell-out on the Internet, according to my son) makes significant money from ads. Everyone else just loses readers. It doesn't seem like it's worth the sacrifice if you're only paying your monthly $9.95 Dreamhost fee with your ad revenue.

One of your readers is sure to set me straight on this topic, and I welcome the education.

You'll have to start taking your digital camera with you more often! Love pictures of things like this!

I had the same experience on my drive to work in (suburban, but still...) Chicago a couple mornings ago. It made me laugh out loud!

Are you kidding me? Porn? Have you SEEN the things readily available in books, the net, the stores aimed at girls? I'll take an AG book or doll over a Bratz doll or a Christina Aguilera cd any day.

The Debbie Reese critique is terrific.

I remember that when that store in Chicago opened, across the street from the flagship 40,000 square foot Borders bookstore, I learned a year later that the Borders store had a $20 million gross sales year, and the American Girls Store had a $25 million gross sales year. Now, Debbie, that's what's TRULY gross about American Girls.

Ahem.

As to the question of the relative pornographic nature of the AG product portfolio, I think I addressed this a few months ago. AG is a commercial proposition from the mind of someone who deeply understood the mechanisms of American Marketing since her dad ran the Leo Burnett Ad Agency. The AG products are sold using these techniques. Vance Packard's classic, The Hidden Persuaders demonstrates how advertising has always utilized sex. Of course the AG marketing materials have sex as their basis. Sex sells. Who exactly plumps hundreds of dollars for those products? Little girls? Of course not: their mothers and grandmothers (and dads and granddads). That is: Grown-ups, who need to be appealed to utilizing the same marketing mechanisms used to move cars, toothpaste, beer, movie tickets, etc.

Book sales remain flat. Bookstore sales dropped 6% last month. I say, heck, why doesn't EVERY publisher start using sexy advertising to push ALL their books. (Runaway Bunny is pretty damn sexy already, actually.)

let me add that Andy and I are using "porn" differently--just as there is food porn, wedding porn, and real estate porn, the American Girls catalog, with its ninety-dollar girls (accessories sold separately) and come-hither-and-buy-buy-buy-me design and lighting, is toy porn.

I took a Visual Anthropology seminar this past few months, studying the history of ethnographic film -- beginning basically with Nanook Of The North, on through Les Maitres Fous, and Dead Birds -- up through Tongues Untied and Reassemblage. Lots of critical theory reading, and anthro analysis with long words and convoluted sentences. There's a fascinating correlation between Ethnographic Film and Pornographic Film: consider how "natives"/"savages" are often naked in ethnographic films (New Guinea tribesman or Amazonian Indians) -- just as in pornographic film, actors' bodies are objectified and presented as "other" than subjectively embodied human being. (One essayist even argues that this objectification of bodies is equivalent to Taxidermy!)

This goes back to the original American Girl question re: Native Americans and in fact all the "categories" of Girls (Hispanic, African American, Pioneer, Immigrant). These book-characters with their simplistically clear ethnic/social categories are being objectified through the simplistic typification of their experience. Similarly, the dolls act to objectify the book-characters' bodies. (Clothed bodies or unclothed bodies -- and by the way, the dolls do Get Naked when they're handled for dressing and undressing.)

Thus, the pornographic content of the American Girls concept is linked to and emerges from its ethnographic content, via the process of objectification.

So -- you can argue that there's a Toy Porn effect. But also there are other porn effects that emerge from the Story-Character identities that go with these particular toys.

If I've contradicted something I wrote in the prior post, well, really, who cares?

Hey Andy---if you've got an electronic copy of the syllabus for that class, I'd love to see it ([email protected]).

Roger---As Jean and I walked down the street, we wondered where the Mirasol doll was. AG fans will recall that Gary Soto's book took a good bit of heat. Jean and I could not stand the thought of entering that space again to look for Mirasol. I looked up the AG website this morning and saw that she was only a special edition/short term "doll of the year" or some such thing.

I read another blog later this morning about AG. Observation from that blogger was that shoppers were affluent whites, and only people of color were sales people. That prompted me to run the reel of my visit in my head, and that's what I saw, too. White women and their daughters buying, dropping one box after another into their baskets; several of the sales people (including the one who told me about the theater productions) were African American.

The juxtaposition of "doll" and "porn" makes me think of those old (yet ever-new) Dare Wright books with Edith and the bears.

The American Girl dolls look a little bit like Edith, don't they? Do you think Edith was an early influence on Pleasant Co?

I never had the dolls when I was little, we couldn't afford them (though I was a fan of the books, and even read through to the historical information in the back). But a friend of mine in third grade had Molly and Samantha, and even though Felicity was my favorite, we'd play. Although, play mainly did consist of dressing them up. And that was all.

At least Barbie has Ken. Put Ken next to Samantha, and I think someone would go through a bit of an inferiority complex.

I agree, though, that the best way to enjoy those dolls is to simply look at their pretty things. Barbie was much more versatile. The top drawer of my dresser was her penthouse suite. It's a pity that little girls have to lose their imaginations to marketing.

And what's even worse about AG--let's not forget that even as they have introduced a doll and story incorporating almost every ethnicity under the sun, and have just come out with yet another caucasian AG doll, ad nauseum, they have yet to come up with an Asian doll and story, as I noted in this post back in Jan:

http://johansennewman.typepad.com/cats_and_jammers_studio/2007/01/get_with_it_ame.html

That is surprising, B. (and happy birthday). I'm guessing they would want to go Japanese rather than Chinese--but maybe they could have a Japanese girl somehow living in San Francisco's Chinatown during the earthquake (thus providing the necessary historical moment) and have her desperately running back into her family's house for her beloved . . . KIMONO.

Last year, Harper's serialized a fun, if over-the-top, novel by J. Robert Lennon about the American Girls phenomenon and the company's founder, Pleasant Rowland.

Of course, the author cautions us that there's no real connection between Pleasant Rowland and his novel's main character, "Happy Masters."

But there are some entertaining coincidences.

A link to a discussion with him:

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16997154&BRD=1395&PAG=461&dept_id=216620&rfi=6

mta

Wow. Taxidermy, indeed.

When my daughter was little, say 8 or 9, she loved her AG Kirsten. Her aunt (jealous of my girlchild) gave it to her. My daughter then saved her pennies to buy TWO more dolls.
I wouldn't pay for them.

When my daughter packed up some of her things during the pre-college preparation days, she looked at these barely-touched dolls and sighed. "How could I have wasted so much money on these?" No comment.

My sister (same sister) recently sold an in-the-box AG doll on e-bay. $300.

I believe my daughter will be doing just the same. At least she will get some of her money back.

OH, Debbie, we went to the AG store once and found it terrifying. Girls and dolls dressed the same---very Stepfordian mothers with their equally Stepfordian daughters. Nary a boy in sight. Piles of money changing hands.

In Nashville, where I live, flying to Chicago for a birthday party at the AG store is quite a common happening. When the kids return, I quiz them about the trip to Chicago. I hear nothing about the Art Institute, Garrett's popcorn, a trip to Wrigley, the elevator ride up a skyscraper...nope, just fly to one of America's most stunning cities, settle into a hotel with a stack of movies on DVD, go to the AG store, swim in the pool, and come home.

Blah.

I'm feeling really lucky at the moment. My 4 year old daughter likes dollies on a small-scale, i.e. Playmobil. We may have a plethora of Playmobil dollies, but at least they all fit into one box when it's time for cleanup. I'm crossing my fingers that she never gloms onto AG. It certainly won't be through me, and I'll exercise my parental right to say NO.

I just saw a hilarious skit on The Big Gay Sketch Show, a cable show. There's a regular character, Fitzwilliam, played in the finest pantomime tradition by a woman as a saucy little boy. Fitzwilliam is kind of an Edith-Ann-meets-Lolita nancyboy. In this episode, he and his magic unicorn Trixie and his father are visiting American Girl Place and he insinuatingly asks the clerk, "Do you have any American Girl . . . accessories?" Why yes we do, replies the clerk and she asks him what he was looking for. Fitzwilliam says, "I should like to buy a vagina, please."

So, don't leave us hanging: Did they stock them? In multiple ethnic varieties?

It's Anonymous Dad Again!!!

When I took my son to Chicago the Only American Girl we saw was Sue (the T-Rex)at the Field Museum!!!
Thank goodness my son is an American Boy- who likes dinosaurs, bugs, and books!!! I did buy him the Skippyjon Jones Stuffed Toy!! It's not really doll!! Ha!!!

This blog keeps me laughing and THINKING!!!

Roger, the story about Fitzwilliam is HILARIOUS. I'd like to see American Girl bring out a transgender doll. All their book titles would work so well:

Meet Fitzwilliam
Fitzwilliam's Surprise
Changes for Fitzwilliam

What I liked about the editorial was how it seemed to be a continuation of a conversation here a few weeks back. I dunno which you wrote first, but it was nifty to notice the tendrils.

I've always been disturbed by how all the accessories make the dolls historically inaccurate, a point tangentially mentioned by the original post. My stepdaughter has a Kit doll, Great Depression, and I cannot believe the amount of "goodies" that she can obtain, being the daughter of an unemployed father. I am told there is some story explanation but it still bothers me. I haven't actually read the books, and while I buy her a ton of books, I stay far, far away from the AG stuff. I agree about the "toy porn", the catalog sort of blows me away.

A little off topic, but funny.
I read Andy's comment so quickly this morning... at first I thought I read "Runway Bunny is pretty damn sexy", instead of "Runaway Bunny".

The editorial is from 1999. It irritated a lot of people and is probably the one editorial I've written that I would like to take back. The context--the editorial page of the HB--was all wrong. It would have been right at home on the blog, though.

I have Native American ancestry (my maternal grandmother), and I don't see the point in being angry that ethnic groups are "left out" or inaccurately or incorrectly portrayed in the American Girls dolls. The company doesn't portray caucasian dolls accurately, doesn't portry their associated historical realities accurately, and it is grotesquely commercialized, a commercialization based on the worst sorts of racial and ethnic stereotypes, and geared furthermore towards the buying capacities of financially comfortable upperclass and upper middleclass families. I don't want to say "white," because undoubtedly some folks with ethnic background are going to be falling into that financial category and are and will be buying those "ethnic" dolls from this company. I would say rather folks with money and heavily endowed with ye good olde American value of crass consumerism. This goes far, far beyond being solely a Native American problem.

WHY would ANY ethnic group feel bad at being left out or marginalized or wrongly portrayed by such a company when the grotesque historical inaccurracies are across the board in all of their products, but most particularly in their "caucasian" products? These dolls don't smell. They are pristine, perfectly clean, and everythign always works out to happy never, neverland. They don't live in worlds where early death, violent death, cruel death really exists. They don't live, in short, in the third world realities that many Native Americans and many early settlers and many depressesion era families, etc., etc, etc. had to live in. THAT'S what is truly obsene about this company and their dolls. It's become a belief system.

To be fair, might I add, neighter have most of you who comment on this blog lived in that kind of reality. Third world reality. I have. And I frankly don't think any of you either could face living in those realities that some of your ancestors did. Frankly, they would stink too much. And you would have too much of American values, white man's values, Eurpoean, western, modern world values in you. You couldn't handle the dirt, the smells, the horrible living conditions, the DISEASES and sufferings that go untreated, the psychological effects of such living conditison, the psychological effects of racism and war on those families. And their children. So. This might be a good opportunity to study your own biases as well, to take time apart, and to reflect on yourselves, too.

If your ethnic group is not portrayed in teh company right now, breathe a sigh of relief at having escaped the atrocity. If your group is portrayed, breathe a sign of relief at being at least in the margins, less obvious! What ethnic group WOULD WANT to be portrayed by a company like this? I have no doubt, does this war in Iraq continue, that they'll come out with some American GI Sally and GI Johnny doll version....

I think, privately, it is "white" or european or Western thinking, whatever you call it, to try to categorize Indian tribal groups anyway, especially when it comes to modern, western products like this or modern western innovations like movies or even museum displays, to say this or that detail is correct or whatever when the real probelm is in the cookie cutter, mass production of a stereotype, of a way of thinking. To pick apart the details of that sort of thing, a company like this, in how accuratelyt they portray this and that with critical thinking is a persepective is "white" is western, is european in the first place! Better to do as many Indian tribes did, rebel against the whole thing, as Roger, basically, is doing. Team up to fight it with other ethnic groups and with caucasians as well who see the problems for their groups equally. It is NOT just a Native American problem! It's a problem for anyone of any ethnic background who thinks intelligently and with real empathy and seriousness on American values of consumerism and racism. Let's get some solidarity here on this, at least. Stop narrowing the focus just to Native Americans only. The problem is far wider than that.

In addition, NO authentic Indian doll that I have ever seen for example has NOT been completely original, completely unique, completely the work of an individual maker. It's totally alien to Native thinking, Native culture the whole idea say of of mass producing Indian tribal dolls in plastic with identical "correct" details of dress and accessories, for each tribe, etc. And Indian children did have and some still do have authentic dolls that are made for them, individually. It's a whole perspective on dolls that is so totally alien to what the Americal Girl dolls company is doing. They shouldn't be trying to represent Indian dolls AT ALL! Period!

Maybe what we ought to be doing in additon to just critizing this company is to actively support and promote individual Indian dollmakers who do create uniuqe dolls and ALL those who strive to work at a craft and make unique objects in this culture. They surely could use the help and support, given how hard it is for all crafts people to survive these days in America.

Yup. The three great values of American culture: Consumerism, racism, and militarism. Alive and well all right. Alive and well....
I won't be able to respond to this as I have a ton of work to do now to try to survive as an individual business person trying to practice some decent IDEALS and values in this American culture...

Ironically, many years ago, my daughter first encountered the American Girl catalog and the phenomenon at the exhibits at ALA!
I had purchased a day pass for her and my husband, and we were surrounded by books- she was thrilled to get the first of the
Time Warp Trio autographed by John Sziescka- THEN she found the AG catalog- which she practically memorized on the plane ride home. At least it did help with math facts- "so, how many glasses of lemonade would I need to sell to buy one of these dolls"?! I can't complain though- history was one of her college majors.
Micki

Do you know the book, Buy Buy Baby by Susan Thomas? It makes a very powerful statement about brand marketing to the very young, including ironic jokes about "character" education. Worth looking at.

Reading the comments on this blog makes me laugh and keeps me thinking, too. Today I'm thinking about why anyone would need to use more than one exclamation point, let alone nineteen.

Wow. I wrote a whole long-winded rant here (i got it out of my system), and it got deleted. ah well.

I will be up front and say that I DESIRED an AG doll when I was a kid (all my friends had several), but was not allowed to have one. I got books instead (and see where it got me?)

I think the most interesting thing I said in the post was:

I recently had the ...er... pleasure (?) of "playing" with an AG doll with an Israeli girl who was visiting my aunt. She is the daughter of a wealthy family friend, and she was the first in her class (she told me with pride) to have an American Girl doll. Then came X and then came Y. She went to the AG store in NY and bought such-and-such... oh, you can imagine the atrocities. As a student in Israel, she had no reference for any of the "historical" aspects of the dolls. And though many can clearly see the pervasive influence America has on Israel (and vice versa), this still feels like cultural imperialism to me. What do you think?

Complaining that AG dolls promote consumerism is like complaining that rain drops promote tsunamis. Okay, so we live in a big consumerist, piggy, hog-up-all-the-resources country. Let's focus on AG first, though. It all starts with little girls, their dolls and their accessories.

Has anyone actually read the books?

I've read 'em. They're perfectly competent formula fiction, beautifully packaged.

Just read through this. Sheesh! I noticed no followup to the comment about Bratz dolls. AG is a product, marketed and promoted as such. It's also a high quality doll that doesn't look like a hooker. If that's porn, bring it on. There is a lower cost doll out there that looks like a girl, not Pamela Anderson, called Only Hearts. They also come with books, though I don't believe the books are as well written. At $15 a doll they are about 3X the cost of a Barbie making them too expensive in the minds of many. Everybody wants a quality product but won't give up the Wal-Mart price. By the way, last year's AG Doll of the Year, named Jess, is a mixed race, home-schooled girl who travels the world. One parent is Asian. Spend 30 minutes actually wandering the aisles of Toys R Us then tell me AG such a terrible thing.

Wow! Cool!

The funny thing is that I would never have thought that a mixed-race/homeschooling/world-travelling identity could be a stereotype! I suppose her parents are NPR-Listening/New-York-Times-reading/Volvo-Driving Liberals.

Andy, that's so five years ago. An NPR listening, NYT reading liberal drives a Prius.

Well for that matter, homeschooling is so five years ago too. Now, we unschool.

"When I took my son to Chicago the Only American Girl we saw was Sue (the T-Rex)at the Field Museum!!!
Thank goodness my son is an American Boy"

Hey now Anon Dad, my GIRL and I also skipped AG and went right for SUE : )
Then we went to the Art Museum to see The Weaver by Rivera. She really wanted to see the bloody Ford Hospital paitning by Kahlo, she's weird like that, but it's not there, this was as close as we could get to Kahlo. In case you can't tell, she wouldn't be caught dead in an AG store. She's 7 BTW.

I was an AG book buyer too when I was younger and completely enticed by the smooth, matte covers and thick paper. I saved up my pennies and quarters to buy them, only to find that I finished reading them in 10 minutes and had no desire to reread them. So I stopped and went to the library instead.

Although children can be sucked in by marketing, they should be able to figure out the value of a dollar and of quality literature on their own. Or maybe they really are just getting dumber.

I wouldn't worry too much--issues of authenticity and stands against Orientalism were relevant when it was only the "other" doing the writing. But the East is starting to talk back now. Even in children's literature which tends to hold to its staples for centuries. And Bollywood has for years alternately vilified and exoticized the West, including that place called Amreeka! So I'd say enjoy the opera and know that the multi-armed gods might be laughing too.

And then there’s the flip side, the retelling of traditionally northern European stories with let’s say low levels of concern about appropriation and authenticity. Red Ridin’ in the ‘Hood, etc. Mein Gott!

Well, I never thought "authenticity" was the genuine concern of most of those who wield that cudgel. I hate to go all Jack Zipes here, but I think it's all about power. Different groups, at different times, use it to get a larger piece of the pie. That can be useful and helpful to the literature as a whole, but it's never as disinterested as the advocates would like it to seem to be.

Yesterday at Smith College the Dalai Lama took a question from the audience: essentially: "What happens if you are accepting toward other religious traditions but they aren't accepting towards you?" He answered that different people needed religions that offer different things. If you need a religion with a Creator God, then you can have that. If your religion proposes Causality (that's Buddhism): then that's the religion for you. He said it was like people who have different illnesses, and need different medicines. Or how when you go to a restaurant, you should be able to have a menu with different foods.

I thought it was a clever response, especially since Mahayana Buddhism has a key doctrine called "Expedient Means" that says the Buddha helps everyone differently and appropriately, according to each person's development and capacities.

That is: the Dalai Lama did what Uma is pointing out: he responded to a question that posited him as "The Other" with a response that brings "The West" neatly under his own umbrella.

With all respect, it was an interesting answer, but I don't know if it was really an answer to the question he was asked.

Tibetan Buddhism -- really, all Buddhism -- has a long tradition of debate. Every technique is employed, including sidestepping the question in order to make the point you wish to make.

It was exactly the kind of response that I meant. A deft sidestep that leaves a verbal silk scarf in the questioner's hand and yet delivers its point effectively. After all, it's only in the Western scheme of things that a question is a sort of rhetorical cup that needs to be filled by an answer.

By the way Uma I sell your marvelous title "Monsoon" at the Eric Carle Museum. It's quite unique in depicting modern Indian life from the perspective of an urban middle class child.

Are you trying to tell me that Tony Snow is a Tibetan Buddhist?

Thanks Andy, that's good to know. I try to do my bit to advance postcolonial views of the subcontinent :-)

I suspect that the Dalai Lama's technical skills at the art of rhetoric are superior to Tony Snow's, and that therefore in a direct face-off the Dalai Lama could more effectively position Tony Snow under a Tibetan Buddhist contextualization than could Tony Snow position the Dalai Lama under a Hegemonic American contextualization.

Ergo: Tony Snow is a Tibetan Buddhist (whether he likes it, or thinks so, or not).

Actually, the Dali Lama answered in a manner much as Jesus would have...expertly slamming the shuttle into the other person's court...requiring he/her to make his/her own responses with his/her own choices and actions...

I grew up with badminton not tennis...

No one has to worry about a book being culturally authentic if it is the real thing in the first place..not the author nor the publisher nor the reader nor the reviewer nor the buyer... The debate and power struggles most notably arise from the suspiciously "smelly" books...although some of them manage to hide the "smell" pretty well...

I'm Mayra, a wolf, modest, proud, and dependable. I was secretly hoping that I'd end up as one of those rare folks who shares his daemon's gender. That was a quiet, lovely detail in the first book.
I have to say, this is much more gratifying than the Sex and the City quiz, which told me I was Miranda, over and over again, no matter how many times I answered the questions the way I thought Carrie would.

I ended up as a Tiger. My goodness! Not what I would have guessed, but I'm quite pleased, as I worried greatly about the daemons throughout Pullman's books. They seemed so vulnerable. Well, my daemon tiger is not vulnerable!

I hate to sound like Charlie Brown getting a rock, but I got a freakin' ocelot as well! With the entire wild kingdom to choose from, I was a bit disappointed to pull the only animal thus far revealed.

Her name is Valthera, which has a bit of appeal, I must admit.

PJB

By the way, they told me that my daemon is modest....I notice that they said the same to Roger and thommy. Are they being a little too generous with modesty?

By the way, further to Thommy's comment, wasn't the same-sex daemon the signifier of being gay? Or am I the only one who came to that conclusion?

PJB

Whoops, I have that awful feeling of being a dimwit stating the obvious. My daemon is a speed-reader that leaps before looking.

PJB

The SATC quiz is at http://quiz.ivillage.com/astrology/tests/sexandthecity.htm

I'm Charlotte--"a mother, a mystery and a poet all in one."

Tiger all the way, baby.

They gave me an ocelot named Alvin, as in Alvin and the Chipmunks. I guess I could have hollered at him the way Dave Seville always did.

Personally, I am convinced that my daemon is a raccoon, too curious for her own good and always into stuff.

Yet another ocelot! Andreas, that's me. Assertive, modest, solitary, inquisitive, and dependable -- and tends to read children's books.

Another ocelot. What's up?
At least there's a variety of names. Mine was Adan.

Have you looked at the daemon pantheon poster (it's buried on the meet-your-daemon page - move your mouse over the changing animals in the glass)? There are 31 varieties of animal possible. I wonder if the preponderance of ocelots is a self-selected function of being a Roger Reader. The same might be said of our collective modesty - it's hard not to be modest when you're surrounded by genius.
And speaking of Genius, am I the only one who feels bad for Theodore, with his corn rows and ugly boots?

I think there must be a publishing/ocelot profile... something like when you cross a bookworm with manic determination or something.

Yup. Ocelot. Andreas. (modest, competitive, assertive, outgoing, spontaneous)

I don't belong to the publishing crowd yet. I've got a crow named Arion. Modest, relaxed, solitary, responsible and proud.

How is one modest and proud at the same time?

Maybe it's like a passive-aggressive proud.

modest, spontaneous, and assertive. Hah! I'm an author of children's books, and a snow leopard.

I've been an ocelot, a wolf, a monkey, a lynx and a tiger. I don't really object to any of these accept the monkey - who wants to be like Mrs Coulter? And still 12 days to go before I settle...

Pyrrheus, the crow. Love having a daemon who can fly. Too bad the name sounds like a medical condition...
Irene

I think you folks got ocelots becauce that was Roger's result and the url appears to have been directly copied and pasted.

I am a solitary, sociable, and modest hare named Thaleron.

LOL, this reminds me of a job I had where we had to take personality tests (Myers Briggs, I believe) and post them on our office doors so we could all "get along better". Animals would have been more fun!

Rose

Rose, the childlit group is also crawling with ocelots. I think it might have something to do with those who are attracted to children's books!

I too got an ocelot early Thursday, but today my first attempt gave me snow leopard daemon who is "solitary, responsible, modest,shy,and fickle." Fickle? I'd rather describe myself as open to changing my mind on things.

Er, Anon, if that was the case we'd all have ocelots named Androne...

My wife, a children's illustrator, also did the quiz (on another computer, I'll add): ocelot.

I think it would be interesting to have someone else who knows us answer the question and see what daemon we get. I said that I wasn't easily distractable, for instance, but I don't know if the editors at Books for Young Readers would agree. And Roger, I don't really get the modesty thing in your profile! I'm a tiger, and the first four adjectives really seemed right, but the fifth? "Outgoing, sociable, competitive, responsible, and shy."

I don't even understand how a person can be both outgoing and shy. But I love my tiger.

When I saw His Dark Materials as a play in London, the actors acted their daemons--it was neat.

As a teen, I was a horrible Anglophile, and after reading the Importance of Being Ernest, I actually took to having cucumber sandwiches with tea.

Do the English still have an affection for Cowboy Americans? I'm not sure, especially after all these years of our Cowboy President.

But American kids have not lost thier affection for affecting English accents. I'd like to think that might help the sales of Aidan Chambers. I don't really hear Cordelia Kenn's voice in accent, and though there are times when a Britishism will throw me, she doesn't sound done up in phoney dialect the way the dialogue in Harry Potter movies often do. What I do hear in Cordelia, which we could hear more of on either side of the pond, is a young woman with a free mind and spirit, and a deep loving passion not only for life, but for the language that shapes it.

But in Disney movies the hero and heroine always have a California surfer accent, while it's the VILLAINS who have those silky British accents.

Where'd that cocoa drinking quote from? I just started listening to The Thirteenth Tale and the cocoa drinking seems a particular quirk of one of the characters as well as a bit of a tweak on the part of the author as to the "typical" British penchant for tea. For example, at one point, the character very purposely pushes aside the tea stuff for her cocoa packages. Feels very intentional. Boy, I wish I hadn't seen this post because I suspect I'm going to now overfocus on that darned cocoa as I move through the book!

Never mind. I reread your post and have my answer. Lousy reading on my part, I know, but that first sentence is a tad...um...(do I dare say this to the editor in chief of a literary journal?.... yes I do...) daunting (comments someone who talks and writes that way all the time:).

The cocoa thing reminds me Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie mysteries, starring a bluestocking philosopher in contemporary Edinburgh, and while Isabel is supposed to be in her mid-forties, the entire characterization makes her very old-ladyish, part of which, I suppose, could be meant to indicate a certain bookishness on her part (like the Thirteenth Tale heroine), but mostly it seems designed to play into our sentimental ideas of what a well-bred Scottish maiden aunt would be like.

Monica--I rewrote the preceding as ONE SENTENCE in your honor! ;-)

The only English folk I've known in real life and in novels also drink or drank....tea....

Cocoa was for the nursery set.

I wish the ideas Europeans have about America were as quaint as cocoa! I saw a doc on the BBC about 10 years ago about how Americans "worship" fast food, as evidenced by the number of fast food restaurants and the Colonel Sanders museum in Sanders' hometown. Weirder still, the author compared the musuem to a shrine.

I've never heard of British adults drinking cocoa, always tea. I attributed Margaret's (the character in The Thirteenth Tale) cocoa drinking as a childlike quality rather than a British one. (Well, she still lives with or next to her parents, it's not such a stretch!)

Rose

I thought Leon had herself refused to let the books be translated into Italian.

I did see on Leon's publisher's site an interview with her in which she said her books were not and would not be published in Italian and she was glad about that because she didn't want to be famous where she lived. (Snort. What's that line about never meeting an author you admire? ;-) But I thought the interview dodged the question of whether such publication was ever a prospect.

Similarly -- I once worked on a reading comprehension program, in collaboration with an Australian publisher. One of their tasks was to write short reading passages for our audience of American elementary school children. Several--not just one or two--of the passages, written by different authors, ended with the characters enjoying a pleasing meal of pancakes. And when not pancakes, pumpkin pie.
-ERG

Oh, the cocoa drove me crazy, and I happen to love cocoa. (And where was she getting milk? Was she just using water? Because that's tacky.) On a similar note, I was struck by the fact that neither reader on the audiobook is actually British - and their accents, to my American ears, sounded awfully fake. I wondered if the same version was tolerated by British listeners?

As my word verification failed, I discovered that there is in fact a different version in the UK - read by Juliet Stevenson.

I just want to mention something people may not know from reading the book lists of a Waldorf curriculum: the kids are being read to, not reading, in the earlier grades. They officially teach reading much later then usual. The eccentric content of the reading lists tells only part of the story: younger children are often unable to pursue independant reading even if they have access to other material.

We tend to view the past with more sentimentality than within its actual context.

I happen to agree, that while books such as these shouldn't be texts, their existence would be interesting as an illustration of past prejudices, as to how society was constructed then, and not how it should be now or that it would be in any way ideal.

What I find ironic is how, in the writings of Charlotte Mason that I have skimmed, she writes that the mother should be in charge of the children's learning, guiding a governess if need be - but fully at the helm of educational decision making with regard to what the children should be learning and why. Ironic, because we're talking about the Victorian era, where ladies were viewed as naturally dim and unsuited for higher education. And so, the thinking seems to have been, let's task those nitwits with teaching the next generation!

How amusing.

I had books like this lying around the house when I was a child-- left over from my mom's and aunts' childhood collections, or picked up haphazardly at garage sales. I got some cultural references and knowledge of history (distorted, yes, but at least I knew the official story and the names involved) from them. I'm glad they were around as background relics, but not actively endorsed in any way.

Books left lying around the house for generations (I grew up in a house originally owned by my grandparents) can offer truly fascinating examples of history, not so much of the world but of one's family. I remember finding an old Honeybunch book in the attic that, given the 1920s publication date, probably belonged to my mother's younger sister. It certainly wasn't a book urged on me by my mother, and all the more intriguing for its being a "found object" from another time.

I was a little startled to see that the Baldwin Project was named after James Baldwin. But then I was thinking of this James Baldwin.

Cheers to the Homeschoolers- Where there is no world outside their kitchen table or kitchen window...

Let's not descend into homeschooler-bashing here. Roger's post was about one web site and his concern about homeschoolers who might be using that site as a primary curriculum source. But I take exception to the comment by anonymous. It's as unfair to stereotype homeschoolers as it is to stereotype any group of people. Homeschoolers are a diverse bunch, with widely varied values and educational styles. Undoubtedly there are homeschoolers who are sheltered from the larger world, but they are in the minority. Most are well-rounded people exposed to both the world of ideas and the world outside their kitchen window.

As for the two styles mentioned, Waldorf is used in private schools as well as by homeschoolers, so it's unfair to use that as a yardstick to judge homeschoolers. And from what I understand of Charlotte Mason, her philosophy was that children should learn from books that are well-written and engaging, not what she called "twaddle." As far as I know, she never said that new books don't qualify. If some homeschoolers choose to interpret it that way, that's their loss, but I believe that the majority don't.

Disclaimer: We're homeschoolers, although we don't use either Waldorf or Charlotte Mason. We read a wide variety of books, both classic and new, and my son is involved in a wide variety of outside activities as well. And yes, he's allowed to read any book he chooses to check out of the library.

I am a veteran homeschooler, and have used Charlotte Mason's methods. We surround ourselves quality literature, partake in nature study, use narration and copywork and all sorts of tips the make learning a natural process. I greatly respect her progressive theories on educating the whole child.

Yet, I agree that just reading these lovely books cannot constitute the whole of an education. We still use traditional texts for math, science, logic, and grammar. We use a Latin tutor and take art/music classes. They are challenged, but their work is not all dull and dry, for our home is filled with living books and active conversation.

This seems to be a successful blend for my children, and is the sort of education I wish I could have had.

Oh my. Where do I start?

The Twins series is not part, never has been part, of the Ambleside Online curriculum. However, we do appreciate Lisa Ripperton's work in making many lost books available online. If you perused Ambleside Online's website half as seriously as you did The Dutch Twins, you would see that we use a wide variety of old and new books. One of our "graduates" has just been awarded a four-year scholarship to the University of Texas at Dallas--not bad for a sheltered, out-of-date kid, no?

"Cheers to the Homeschoolers- Where there is no world outside their kitchen table or kitchen window... " And what's this about, Anonymous? Obviously you don't know too many homeschoolers.

As for Charlotte Mason saying that parents (mothers) should be responsible for the teaching of their children--you have skewed that to some extent. For one thing, she was talking there primarily to upper-class mothers who could be presumed to have had at least some education; she talks to them about Plutarch and English chroniclers in a way that assumes they will know exactly what she means. Also, her organization provided a reading course for mothers, along with correspondence courses for children which were used all over the world. However, one other point which you missed there was that the "teaching" of which she spoke and which she did not wish to leave in the hands of less-qualified servants also referred to training in habits and faith rather than only to academic subjects.

Frankly, I think you're all talking out of your hats.

OK, I've calmed down a bit after wiping off all the tomatoes off my glasses, so I apologize if that last comment sounded snarky. Besides, I think the idiom is "through one's hat" rather than out of it.

But I still don't understand--why are you and your commenters picking on CM, Ambleside Online and homeschoolers in general because we choose to use one book or another? What is your particular interest in this?

Not to worry, Mama Squirrel, we're used to heated debate around here. But I did look at Ambleside Online, mostly at the K-6-equivalent curriculum, and it's really dusty--not the curriculum per se, but the books being used to support it. I have no quarrel with either of the Ambleside or Waldorf methods (and now I really am talking through my hat because aside from a single letter of appreciation I once got from John Holt, my knowledge of the movement is completely from a distance). Both methods have inspiring philosophies and are admirably child-centered. But here's my question: if Rudolf Steiner or Charlotte Mason were developing their methods today, would they be using the same books they recommended generations ago?

My "interest here" is that there is a wealth of literature, classic and contemporary, that children should get the opportunity to read, and the mission of the Horn Book since 1923 has been to "blow the horn for fine books for boys and girls." Much of the literature at the Baldwin Project and Ambleside Online is just old and inoffensive to conservative tastes. I'm not at all bothered that children are reading it, but I do worry that they may be being kept away from books that signal the presence of a wider world.

ladies were viewed as naturally dim and unsuited for higher education.

If you'd really read Charlotte Mason's own writings, you would know that she and most of her contemporaries did not view women as naturally dim and unsuited for higer education, and, in fact she stressed the importance of women keeping up to date on the latest in psychology, health, nutrition, current events, science, and more.

We do use older books in our homeschooling because the writing is more complex and advanced than the short, choppy writing of many more contemporary books. However, we use more modern books, too.

As for racial slurs, I white them out if it's only a word or two, if it's an entire stereotype we discuss the fact that no era has been perfect and without problems that humans have caused and need to overcome. It's really not that hard.

My, what a fine collection of strawmen here. If you'd actually asked some of the people you're looking down your noses at why they were using 'old' books, you might have found your misconceptions corrected, but I realize it is much more comfortable to keep our cherished prejudices rather than correct them.

ladies were viewed as naturally dim and unsuited for higher education.

If you'd really read Charlotte Mason's own writings, you would know that she and her friends did not agree, and in fact stressed the importance of women continuing to read and keep up to date on the latest in a wide variety of fields. If you'd actually read her, you might also have noticed her work with some of the leading female minds of the day, including such characters as Dorothea Beale, Principal of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College, pioneer in women's education, math instructor, suffragette; Anne Clough; Mary Buss, and others.

All older books are not always better than all newer books, and I don't think anybody has said so. However, many older books are better written- the writing structure and vocabulary are often more complex and advanced than many contemporary works. Most of our children could read Pilgrim's Progress on their own at 8, so I don't think contemporary fiction poses much of a challenge for them.

When it comes to racial slurs, I white them out in many cases, discuss them in others. They are a perfect opportunity to point out that the past was just as flawed as the present.

I wonder, are you all the type to censor Huckleberry Finn? After all, it's an older book, which could also be said of the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Dumas, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, and books such as Heidi, The Wind in the Willows, Howard Pyle's Robin Hood, folk and fairy tales, nursery rhymes, Aesop, Pinocchio and too many others to mention.

Talk about not seeing a world outside your window. The world outside *our* window includes a vast and rich literary domain stretching from Beowulf to the present. Keeping children ignorant of this rich past is akin to planting a garden with cut flowers, to borrow a metaphor from David McCullough (another modern author my teens have read).

Headmistress, you're being awfully defensive for someone who hasn't been attacked.

One thing I like about the public library is that white-outing words from the books is against the rules. I'm not clear what point you're trying to make about Huck Finn, but together with the white-out suggestion it reminds me of how this very thing was done to old Huck when an African American educator published an edition with all the niggers changed to blacks. Talk about missing the point! (Twain's, that is, and by the thunkheaded educator, Headmistress, not you.)

You seem to be reacting to a lot of prejudices about homeschooling that have been expressed elsewhere if not here, and you are condemning my post and the follow-up comments without appearing to have read them carefully, indeed, without appearing to notice that the commenters have expressed a range of opinions that have frequently been at respectful odds with each other. (Now there's a display of florid sentence structure that would be entirely at home in any nineteenth-century novel ;-)

What I'm saying, Headmistress, is that we're trying to have a conversation here. We, I hope, are all learning things we didn't know before. Your participation is welcome; your sneering is not.

Roger Sutton said...
"But I did look at Ambleside Online, mostly at the K-6-equivalent curriculum, and it's really dusty--not the curriculum per se, but the books being used to support it. I have no quarrel with either of the Ambleside or Waldorf methods....But here's my question: if Rudolf Steiner or Charlotte Mason were developing their methods today, would they be using the same books they recommended generations ago?"

Okay...first of all, I never imagined that I'd be having a conversation with the editor of the Horn Book. Oh, the fascination of online technology! And since I like my friends to know each other, I'd also like to introduce the Deputy Headmistress, a dear friend of mine whose children (including two now-graduated Amblesiders, one of whom got fantastic SAT scores and is doing very well in college) have been a great inspiration to me. (She also has more books than just about anyone I know.)

Your question about what books Charlotte Mason would use in this century is one we are constantly asking ourselves, and although you feel the curriculum is "dusty," we've been striving since we began to keep a balance of the tried-and-true and the new-and-in-print. Just recently we added some quite-new science and geography books that have become favourites of many Ambleside users, although we've kept the old books as well for those who want to experiment with them.

"My "interest here" is that there is a wealth of literature, classic and contemporary, that children should get the opportunity to read....Much of the literature at the Baldwin Project and Ambleside Online is just old and inoffensive to conservative tastes. I'm not at all bothered that children are reading it, but I do worry that they may be being kept away from books that signal the presence of a wider world."

It's exactly that "wider world" to which we are attempting to introduce our children: a world that stretches back beyond our own generation and into places that many of today's children will not be able to go. I can give many examples of what homeschoolers (parents and children) I know have said about that, but I don't want to monopolize your comments section; some of their comments, out of context, might sound only precious or precocious (like my own little one telling me seriously, "Baldy (Vivaldi) is nice, but I like Mozart better"). If we choose to use Pyle's version of Robin Hood, it's because we think our children (even the ones with learning difficulties) are up to the challenge and because we have found nothing that we like better. On the other hand, we suggest Rosemary Sutcliff's retelling of the Iliad (much newer), and if a contemporary writer offered something that we liked just as much, we'd suggest that. (One of the upper years suggests at least two fairly recent translations of Beowulf.) We don't make frequent changes to the curriculum, but we are always open to new discoveries. The extra-reading lists for Years 6 and 7 suggest many un-dusty books that we felt older children should read (such as The Gammage Cup and Letters from Rifka).

I know that some homeschoolers do choose to use "dusty" books for other reasons than we do at Ambleside. You will notice, for instance, that we do not include Elsie Dinsmore in our list of must-read books; we do not include Tom Swift; and we do not include any of the extremely sentimental Victorian religious fiction that is reprinted by at least one publisher catering to homeschoolers. We also don't recommend hundred-year-old arithmetic books, although a few people have used them with their children. In other words, we are not attempting to use old books because they are old books, but because we do indeed want our children--to quote Charlotte Mason--to put their feet into as wide a room as possible. I don't think that we're as far apart on that point as you might think.

Hey Mama Squirrel, send that kid over here and I'll get the Mozart effect knocked out of him in no time. ;-) (And talk about your precocious little monsters--there's a reason he's Maurice Sendak's favorite composer.) I like Bach better.

But your post is a perfect example of what I mean by people learning from this conversation. I had not even heard of Charlotte Mason before yesterday and I'm glad to have made her acquaintance. And yours.

And the same here.

I know that Beverly Cleary said that a turning point in her life was reading The Dutch Twins. (She knew then she was a reader!) She also had a Mother who read and read to her. Whether your child is Home Schooled or goes to Private or Public Schools they need good books!!! What wonderful books there are today and it's fine to read the old dusty ones-Too!!! Children need to develop a love for reading and if books are promoted the childen will read!!! Just ask Beverly Cleary!!!

Oh, We will be celebrating her Birthday on April 12th!!! I do believe it's National Drop Everything And Read- Day!!!

Happy Birthday Beverly Cleary!!!

Thanks Roger for this BLOG!!!

Wow Anonymouses (since I don't know which mouse you are), have you EVER got it wrong about homeschoolers and homeschooled...and I quote from above "Cheers to the Homeschoolers- Where there is no world outside their kitchen table or kitchen window..." Isn't cut-and-paste a wonderful invention?

Let me tell you, you not-know-it-all,limited, little squeaky stereotypers, that MY homeschooled world was number one not in the kitchen (the hottest place in the house in a country with an already hot climiate, Thailand); nummber two, I don't know of any more ENRICHING experience any child could ever have had than the world I had outside of our house (a whole other culture) because I spent more time in reading and playing outside and reading outside than I ever did inside learning official lessons, and number three, my mother made up her own curriculum and taught as she thought best; number three, she did an excellent job as she had six children all different grade levels more than able to enter public school when we returned to the States; number four, two of us were a grade level AHEAD of our ages because she did such a good job; number five, my parents never forced us to read anything, never stuck their noses into what we chose to read, never censored what we read; and they always left nteresting old and new stuff to read lying around the house for curious children to get into even if it was sometimes Newsweek or National Geographic or Fox's Book of Christian Martyrs or the Golden Bough--or the Bible, uncensored; number six, yes, my parents were religious and yes they were christian missionaries and they did a pretty good job raising us--my Dad in particular is the most unracist person I have ever known; number six, we only had to to school half-days and got the whole rest of the day free outside for group games and group sports and dinking around, and I pity the child in American public schools today from the bottom of my heart, forced to sit in tidy little rows, less and less recess, forced to read what's on somebody's else's curriculum and agenda for educational purposes...stuffed to gills with multimedia stimuli...in school and out...oh, it breaks my heart! Not that I don't equally pity a lot of the homeschooled children as well in equally awful classroom situations.

Lastly, you seem never to have heard of homeschooled folks or folks who never did well in public schools who went into the arts and got famous like Stephen Spielberg, whose mother actively promoted his getting exscused from school so he could goof off with his camera...and that oh, yeah, that young Eragon creator that's been on the bestseller list for ages and ages.....there are plenty more, plenty more...

I was also taught, Anonymouses, by a college professor to always, always, ALWAYS sign my proper name or whatever name I'm using to identify muyself to what I write because it's the HONEST and brave and HONORABLE thing to do...and it's past time you squeakers started using some identifying initials if you're going to play in the sandbox.


P.S. I also did not have glass in the windows of my house as a child...and not a lock on any door anywhere....

You know, Rinda, I was kind of with you until you got to Eragon as evidence for the superiority of homeschooling. ;-)

But smugness about homeschooling, whether to denigrate (as Anonymous did) or brag (as you are kinda doing, Rinda) is really not the point. At least not my point. I'm only interested that kids get intellectual space away from the authorities, whether they be parent-teachers or schoolteachers. I admit to being partisan to the idea that public education allows a child's mind another place (besides home and the values and thoughts prized therein) to roam. At the same time, public or otherwise institutional schooling can be terrible, and a given child in a given situation will get far more intellectual stimulus and freedom by being taught at home. Homeschooling as a way to keep ideas out--that's what I can't support, but you and other posters here offer ample examples of how that ain't necessarily so.

Rinda, uou were very lucky to grow up in that manner, but you seem to take it for granted. Many mothers and fathers would love to homeschool their children, but simply cannot afford to leave work, especially if they are single parents. While my public-schooled children are pitied by many and we’d gladly exchange the sympathy for a large cash donation, no one has offered such a thing yet. :(

The original topic of this post was that the recommended reading books were old. Despite the many posts, no one has offered a reasonable explanation as to why they have not been updated. Last year, I looked into the Ambleside first grade reading list and wondered if the purpose was to isolate rather than educate. Not that anyone I know ( who uses the curriculum) does that—they all supplement with trips to the library, museum, etc. But you must admit, teaching a child from only eighty-year-old books would be an effective way of isolating him/her, especially because many young children believe everything their parents say.

I am not sure if I believe that the complex language in the old books is more educational. I prefer books with intelligent meaningful language and ideas—sometimes the writing is complex, sometimes it isn’t.

Rose

Roger, I agree this has been an instructive conversation. I think perhaps what the deputy headmistress was reacting to was the tone of statements such as:

"I found myself wandering around the place, which is apparently intended primarily as a resource for home-schoolers of a certain ilk, such ilk being those parents who believe anything worth reading was published before their own grandparents were born."

No offense, but I do hear a bit of a sneer in that; at the very least you jumped to conclusions. I think Mama Squirrel did a nice job of clarifying just how broad the range of literature included in the Ambleside curriculum really is. An appreciation for certain specific "old books" does not preclude an appreciation for the best of what is being published today (a truth nicely illustrated, in fact, by a perusal of the blogs of the two ladies mentioned above--blogs which contain many reviews of contemporary literature).

I have yet to find any one collection of literature which impresses me in its entirety. I love to explore the Baldwin Project and have found several gems I was delighted to share with my (yes, homeschooled) children; I also found a number of books there I don't like at all. Same goes for trips to the bookstore and library. If you formed conclusions about me (or my parenting style, or my educational philosophy) based on a single shelf of my library, you'd wind up with quite an incomplete picture. Suppose you picked the entire shelf full of Showcase Presents superhero comics collections? You'd have no idea, just from that, that I'm a Chesterton addict, a raving Tolkein fanatic, nor a huge fan of Kate di Camillo.

My 11 yr old daughter's nightstand stack contains, at this moment (I peeked): Dickens, Jeanne Birdsall, Famous Men of Rome, and the Usborne Dictionary of Math. I believe one of those books did come to us via the Baldwin Project...

I have yet to meet any Ambleside users who "believe anything worth reading was published before their own grandparents were born." The Ambleside users of my acquaintance (and if you explore their blogs, you can see for yourself) believe that what is "worth reading" is good writing, no matter when it was published. Luckily for me, since my own books were published well after Mama Squirrel's grandmother's day!

I can see now how inflammatory that was, and rife with assumptions. I've learned a lot about Ambleside in the past few days.

I am still interested in how so many of the Baldwin books seem to have skipped over generations to gain an audience, books that "were read so widely just a few generations ago" as the Baldwin website says. I'm guessing the out-of-copyrightness (and subsequent internet availability) is attractive, and the perceived "old fashioned" virtues would have appeal to conservative parents. But what did they grow up reading?

I've thought about this discussion a good deal over the past few days, and I may have to blog about it at more length. I do want to make one comment here. I would never suggest that a child read only older books, but it is even more dangerous to suggest some arbitrary "contemporary" cutoff date and imply that children should only read current literature. We have centuries of literature, philosophy, history at our disposal, which has already been sifted by time and thought so that the best (and most relevant) has survived. Not every book written 150 years ago is worth our time or consideration, but by choosing recognized classics, we can be somewhat assured of their quality.

Further, early exposure to older styles of writing, with their deeper vocabulary and more complex sentence structure will open up doors that will remain woefully shut if a child reads nothing more than contemporary literature written within the past fifty years.

I know too many adults who will classify books as "too hard" if the writing is dense, there are more than 500 or 800 pages, or if the language seems the least bit outdated. It takes a tremendous amount of personal discipline to overcome this, and too many adults are hampered because they weren't encouraged to stretch their minds when they were younger, and lot more elastic.

We may be doing children a disservice if we expose them only to older books (although I don't personally know anyone who has done this), but we are doing them an even greater disservice if we leave them unequipped to read the rich heritage of literature that the centuries have left us. The Baldwin Project is making older books available in part because most children would otherwise have no chance to read them. Libraries seem to have little interest in making older books--very worthy older books--available on their limited shelf space.

Ambleside Online is just one of various online Charlotte Mason curricula/schedules (and the Baldwin Project isn't a curriculum, just a free online resource that lists those of its titles that dovetail with AO, as well as Waldorf). Another is the Catholic 4RealLearning, which has its "Read Around the Year Booklist", which starts with this proviso, "I was very hesitant to include a booklist with this book. By their very nature, lists are limited. Fortunately, good literature is limitless. However, we have to begin to choose somewhere. This list is intended to be such a beginning. With the list below, the parent educator can apply the principles outlined in this book. She can begin to craft and to plan a curriculum tailored for her children. The list is designed to offer both structure and freedom." Most of the various Charlotte Mason curricula are (evangelical) Christian or Catholic (unlike Miss Mason herself, who was Anglican) but are easy enough to secularize for those who wish to do so, and various online groups exist, offering members the chance to find or suggest additions and substitutions for a variety of subjects -- such as titles on Canadian history and literature.

Homeschooling of any stripe, whether Charlotte Mason, Montessori, E.D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge series (the "What Your First Grader Needs to Know" books), classical, eclectic, or unschooling, is rarely static, and almost all of the homeschoolers I know, adults and kids alike, are keen book lovers (and buyers and borrowers). That could be the reason there seems considerable overlap between the kidlitosphere -- Melissa Wiley's term, if I remember correctly -- and homeschooling blogs. We're always eager to hear, and share, about the best new titles, from The Penderwicks to Octavian Nothing to the latest from Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long. Quite popular among home educating parents for themselves as a teaching resource this last while seems to be Deconstructing Penguins (2005).

I tend to consider all curricula and schedules, from Ambleside to The Well-Trained Mind (which is what we use primarily), as a framework rather than a mandatory list, and I'd hazard a guess that the majority of home educating parents probably do, too. It's just impossible to expect that one person's (or one group's) list or book or method could contain everything to suit every family (including single working parents) -- we're all so different, with varying beliefs, and kids (even within the same family) with different abilities and interests. One of the benefits of homeschooling is its inherent flexibility. The one thing we probably all do share is a fondness for Yeats's quote, "Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire". I don't know anyone who uses the Baldwin Project's "e-books" exclusively. Or anyone who would use Ian Colvin's 1910 book, South Africa, published the year the Union of South Africa was formed, uncritically. I would think that the usefulness of the book, written by an early 20th century English journalist, lies in its being a unvarnished contemporary (in the original sense, meaning "of the time") English account, that gives a student an unparalleled chance to discuss and understand the role and attitudes of the British in the South African Wars and after. How much easier to understand Botha, Buthelezi, and Mandela, when one has already read Jabavu, Rhodes, and Colvin?

I don't know what others grew up reading, but when I was a child in an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side (still occupied by my parents with wall-to-wall books), my shelves included lots of the "Baldwin books" -- Padraic Colum, Howard Pyle, the whole rainbow of Andrew Lang's fairy books (courtesy of Dover), Hans Christian Andersen, Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children and The Bad Child's Book of Beasts, Thornton W. Burgess's animal stories (more Dover), Frances Hodgson Burnett, Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales and Wonder Book for Girls and Boys, Joseph Jacobs' marvellous Celtic Fairy Tales, George MacDonald's Princess & The Curdie, E. Nesbit, Beatrix Potter, Arthur Ransome, Ernest Thompson Seton, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kate Douglas Wiggin. And shelves and shelves full of other books, bought and borrowed, including Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables, Ant & Bee, E.B. White, Judy Blume, Beni Montresor, all of the Nancy Drew/Paddington Bear/Great Brain series, Roald Dahl, Harriet the Spy and Freaky Friday and their sequels, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Madeleine L'Engle. Yes, and comic books too. Sort of a free-range approach to children's reading, which is as it should be.

As to less than eminent Victorians, just to skim the surface -- Mary Kingsley, the Brontës, Clara Barton, Mary Anning (the subject of a whole crop of children's books, including a couple of very nice picture books), Julia Margaret Cameron, Marianne North, Jennie Churchill, Dinah Craik, Millicent Fawcett, Mrs. Gaskell, George Eliot, Fanny Kemble, E. Nesbit, Christina Rossetti, Ada Lovelace, Frances Trollope, Mary Augusta Ward, and Jane, Lady Franklin, not to mention Strachey's own Florence Nightingale as well as his mother, the suffragist Lady Julia, and Victoria herself, who certainly wouldn't have been amused to find herself in nitwit territory...

Tuesday, the 10th of April, 2007

It occurred to me that I had had to concoct a transcript for my oldest son (now 17)
in order that he might enter the IUPUI (Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis)
SPAN division program this last fall. It's a college courses-for-highschool-students
thing, and he's just about completed his first year of both a composition class and a
beginning Japanese course. Anyway, I'm a homeschooling father of 3 and I became
interested in this exchange by being directed to it on Headmistress' blog. Anyway,
I happened to have all these books listed for my son's "highschool" transcript, and I
figured it might prove illustrative of something. I've kept the transcript groupings I
had in the spread sheet, but I frankly regard "literature" as inclusive of history, philosophy,
and writing about art and music. "Philosophy" was a subject area we began last
year, and "art and music" should be considered "appreciation" in these categories,
and we have used various approaches to them each year. (This year for music we
have watched the 10-DVD set of the Ken Burns "Jazz" documentary, supplemented
by lots of CDs. Hence, no music books read recorded for this year.) In any case,
pretty much everything listed (except for some of the separately listed plays, dialogues,
and essays) is a whole, unabridged book read cover to cover.

Grade 8 Literature:
Othello by William Shakespeare; 1001 Arabian Nights (tr. Richard Burton); The Aeneid by
Vergil (tr. By Allen Mandelbaum); Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

Grade 8 History:
Backbone texts: The Story of Civilization IV: The Age of Faith by Will and Ariel Durant; The Story of
Civilization V: The Renaissance by Will and Ariel Durant; The Story of Civilization VI: The Reformation
by Will and Ariel Durant
Supplementary texts: A History of the Crusades I: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of
Jerusalem by Steven Runciman; A History of the Crusades II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish
East 1100-1187 by Steven Runciman; A History of the Crusades III: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later
Crusades by Stephen Runciman; The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci; Saint Joan by George Bernard
Shaw; St. Joan of Arc by Vita Sackville-West; The Black Death by Philip Ziegler.

Grade 8 Art & Music:
Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish by Martha Zamora; Magritte by Marcel Paquet; Georges Seurat by
Mike Venezia; Georges Seurat by Pierre Courthion; Verdi with a Vengeance by William Berger; The Merry
Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare; The Romance of Tristan by Beroul, Volsunga Saga; The Ring
of the Nibelung by Richard Wagner (tr. by Stuart Robb)

Grade 9 Literature:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky; The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien; The Art of War by
Sun Tzu; Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift; The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler; The Trial by Franz
Kafka; Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens; Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino; The Great Gatsby by
F. Scott Fitzgerald;Plays of Moliere; Fables of La Fontaine (tr.Marianne Moore); Phaedra by Racine;
Paradise Lost by John Milton; Samson Agonistes by John Milton; Lycidas by John Milton;
Areopagitica by John Milton

Grade 9 History:
Backbone texts: The Story of Civilization VII: The Age of Reason by Will and Ariel Durant; The
Story of Civilization VIII: The Age of Louis XlV by Will and Ariel Durant; The Story of Civilization IX: The
Age of Voltaire by Will and Ariel Durant Supplementary texts: The King's Peace; The King's War; A
Coffin for King Charles; The Thirty Years War by C.V. Wedgwood; Glencoe by John Prebble; Culloden
by John Prebble; Frederick the Great: A Military Life by Christopher Duffy

Grade 9 Art &Music:
Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung Graphic Novel by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane; Illustrations for
Wagner's Ring by Arthur Rackham; Wagner without Fear by William Berger; Wagner's Ring: Turning the
Sky Round by M. Owen Lee; Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides, The Suppliant Maidens,
The Persians, Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus; Athena Sings: Wagner and the Greeks by M. Owen Lee

Grade 10 Literature:
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier; Catch 22 by Joseph Heller; The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger;
The Inferno; The Purgatorio; The Paradiso by Dante Alighieri (tr. John Ciardi); What Are the Seven
Wonders of the World? And 60 Other Great Cultural Questions by Peter D'Epiro and Mary Desmond
Pinkowish; The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini; The Metamorphoses by Ovid (tr. Allen Mandelbaum);
La Ciudad de Las Bestias by Isabel Allende (in Spanish)

Grade 10 Philosophy:
Backbone text: A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (beginning through Book
Two, Part I, Chapter iv "St. Augustine's Philosophy and Theology"); Supplementary texts: Lysis,
Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Protagoras, Phaedrus, Symposium, Republic, Theatetus,
Timeaeus by Plato (tr. Benjamin Jowett); Categories, De Interpretatione, Prior Analytics, Posterior
Analytics, Topics, Sophistical Refutations, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric, Poetics by
Aristotle (ed. by Jonathon Barnes, various translators); De Rerum Natura by Lucretius (tr. Anthony Esolen);
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius; City of God by St. Augustine.

Grade 10 History:
Backbone texts: The Story of Civilization X: Rousseau and Revolution by Will and Ariel
Durant; The Story of Civilization XI: The Age of Napoleon by Will and Ariel Durant; The Age of
Revolution: 1789-1848 by Eric Hobsbawm; The Age of Capital: 1848-1875 by Eric Hobsbawm
Supplementary texts: The Seven Years War: A Study in British Combined Strategy by Julian S.
Corbett; The Oxford History of the French Revolution by William Doyle; The Campaigns of
Napoleon, Volume I: The Rise, February 1793-September 1805; The Campaigns of Napoleon,
Volume II: The Zenith, September 1805-September 1812; The Campaigns of Napoleon, Volume III:
The Decline, September 1812-June 1815 by David Chandler

Grade 11 Literature: Selected Essays and Stories by Lucian; El Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges (in Spanish); The
Panda's Thumb by Stephen Jay Gould; The Decipherment of Linear B by ; Dubliners by James Joyce;
El Reino del Dragon de Oro by Isabel Allende (YA in Spanish); Orlando Furioso by Ariosto (tr. by Barbara Reynolds)

Grade 11 Philosophy: Backbone Text: A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell; Supplementary
Texts: The Rule of St. Benedict; Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas

Grade 11 History: The Age of Empire by Eric Hobsbawm; The Age of Extremes by Eric Hobsbawm; The Birth
of the Modern by Paul Johnson; Heaven's Command by James Morris; Pax Britannica by James Morris

The last three works listed in the Grade 11 categories he's still in the middle of reading. And of course,
I'm not listing mathematics and science and language textbooks he's read and completed, or DVDs watched
(all of the avaliable-on-DVD operas of Verdi and Wagner, for example), or CDs listened to, either. Also,
my son reads a lot on his own, mostly science fiction and fantasy novels. I'm not listing his personal
reading, only his assigned reading.

Roger Sutton wrote:
"While I understand that the Baldwin Project necessarily only
collects works that have gone out of copyright, and that we have
much to learn from the past, I sure hope that no parent thinks these
books will constitute an education."

I take exception to this. I've long used a private definition for "education",
and I can think of no better illustration of my preference for my definition
than this point in this discussion. I think "education" is the life of the mind one
may lead in one's leisure time when one is 40 years old. "Education" is
not to be confused with "schooling", which is the provision to the child of
the tools which may implement and ease education later in life (should one
choose education and not sitting passively in front of a television set
for one's leisure time). I grew up on the suburban eastside of Indianapolis.
I graduated a pretty much all-white college-bound high school there in 1978.
I was ranked number one in a graduating class of over 800. I went on to get
an honors degree in physics from Purdue, attend one year of postgraduate
study at Churchill College, Cambridge, and spend five years at Caltech
getting my PhD in theoretical physics.

Here is the point: I will swear that if we count
whole, unabridged books read because they were assigned reading
in grades K-12, I read fewer than 10 books in those 13 years for
school. I learned to read on my mother's lap when I was four
years old, so I was always an avid reader. I'm just differentiating
between those books that I read on my own and the books assigned
for school.

Maybe things have improved a bit in schools nowadays: But I'll
lay money what my son has read for homeschool (and spending
2-3 hours a day of "seatwork", including math and science and
languages) beats the pants off of any curriculum
offered in any public school in the United States. Moreover: delete any
and every 20th-century book I've listed above from my son's curriculum
(which is probably half of what I listed), and I'll *still* bet it beats the pants
off of anything done in any public school.

What I think, Mr. Sutton, is that schooling is not education. I think
also there are wonderful new books that have been written, and
which continue to be written. But, old books have been judged and
filtered by generations of readers. And the good ones have left a web
of recommendations by those readers. And that time-tested nature of
older books is something newer books cannot match. Moreover, older
books are the real multicultural trip. Chinua Achebe and Maya Angelou
and Rigoberta Menchu and Amy Tan all likely share knowledge of the
taste of Coca-Cola. Lucian and St. Augustine wrote and lived before
there was such a thing as Coca-Cola. One can read _Finnegans Wake_
after having read lots of pre-20th century books. One is unlikely to be
able to read it having had the tokenistic smattering of mostly short and modern
books the public schools are likely to provide. And works like
_The Federalist Papers_ or Daniel Webster's "Second Reply to Payne"---absolutely
essential to an active and responsible citizenship in this republic at this moment,
are unlikely to be accessible to children who have not been steeped to eyebrows
in old books, and the higher demands of vocabulary and syntax that old
books make on them.

I think the one point where I disagree with Headmistress is about the white-out.
I can't imagine whiting out anything in any book. She's Christian and I'm atheist,
but there is something sacreligious in the act of whiting out a book that I
shudder to even think about. (To Headmistress: This is a far, far ickier image
for me to have in my brain than the other "icky" one we were
discussing.)

Mike Morris
([email protected])

I always Read Roger, and occasionally, like today, a post so excites me that I have to write almost as much in reply.

Reviewing a book one loves is absolutely the most difficult thing. You need to find the right words for the transcendence of the story that changed your life, made you weep and smile, aroused your senses, and do it in a way that doesn't make your editor think you are addled.

Rarely, I get to sit down with a book I am not reading for review, or for teaching, or because my beloved recommended it to me. It is Just. Reading. I need to do that to remind me that voluptuous pleasure is why I review stuff.

I used to be able to listen to music while I read, or while I wrote. No longer, unless it is the most background of background music, perhaps Paul O'Dette on the lute. But you are the only person I know besides TheInfomancer who listens to Gavin Bryars.

Bruce Brooks is the only other person I knew who listened to Bryars, so now there are three.

I really can't write at all with music in the background, and can be at my most crotchety when someone in the office has some music going at her desk.

isn't this practice doing injustice to the music? treating it like backround noise in a movie?

The music doesn't know if I'm listening or not. It's not like I might hurt its feelings.

Canadian? HAHAHAHAHA. R., you are nothing if not transparent. But it was a great blog entry because it was such a great admittance of you. I love the music and reading part. It's very sweet. You go, not girl.

obviously the question wasn't whether you were hurting the music's little feelings - just that one could infer that you didn't value the music,

Myabe you could ask my stalker, above, how much I value music. Or you could ask my piano, which, unlike my cd player, does silently judge me every time I walk past it.

Roger - I do the SAME thing. Turn on the music, leave the house. Come home to a happy sound...What does your psychologist friend say about this?

Aw, everybody....go get a good book and a soft spot to sprawl...and take a listen to Anonymous 4's latest...although 'tis difficult to tell admist their many which could possibly be most superior...

DON'T know about Anonymous 4? Tcha, tcha, tcha...don't deprive yourself any longer....talk about sensory overload...