On Family Reading: Why Does the Cat Look Guilty?

By Julie Douglas, Family Program Specialist

Insight can be found in the most unusual places. The other day I was manning a registration booth for a READ from the START program in a Head Start center. A handsome young man sauntered up and looked at the display of books spread out on my table. After a moment of serious consideration, he picked up a book, dragged a chair up next to me and announced, "You need to read this to me." With the confidence that only a four-year-old seems to possess, he settled into his chair and fixed his big brown eyes on the book cover.

Well, what could I do?

We dug into the story. We giggled at a potato-headed character together and tried to guess what might be hiding under each flap in the pop-up book. We had a very serious discussion about why the cat was always looking so guilty in each picture. The world around us fell away and we were discussing, well…literature. This was no great work of fiction, no Caldecott winner. It was Bob the Builder, if you must know. Poor Bob had misplaced his hammer and it was going to take my friend and me eight board book pages to help him find it. If someone had asked my opinion of this book before my little friend and I had explored it, I probably would have sniffed and snootily labeled it: So-so. Bright pictures and indestructible. It would do in a pinch if you were looking for something quick to read to a child.

This is where insight came in. I believe that what my new friend meant when he declared, "You need to read this to me" was that I was in need of what Oprah refers to as an "Ah-ha moment." (I don't believe in coincidences, you know. There was absolutely a reason this little guy and I crossed paths that day.)

I thought about our encounter the rest of the day and smiled each time I recalled our laughter and genuine joy as we shared a book. I marveled at this young child's logic about where Bob might have lost his hammer. And, SPOILER ALERT… by the time we had finally found Bob's hammer in his lunch box, I felt like I had made a new friend.

Ah-ha! He was right. I did need to read that book TO him. My "ah-ha" revelation, if you'll pardon my pun, hit me over the head like a hammer. What occurred to me was this; a book is tool. Some tools are beautiful and finely crafted, ergonomically designed and stylish. But sometimes, you just need a hammer. Any hammer. Yep, even that rusty one on the tool bench will do. Books are like that. Sometimes the real power of a book is not only in the carefully chosen words or the fanciful illustrations. Sometimes the real beauty of a book is in the sharing. When my four-year old pal and I shared the book, we cobbled together an experience that was rich with language and laughter.

This month, instead of recommending a list of books, here is a list of tips for sharing a book (any book!) with children.

1. Approach a book as if it is a big adventure (It is!! Who knows where it will take you?) Run your hand over the cover and ponder, "What could this be about?" Even the way you handle a book communicates a great deal to a child about how you feel about reading.

2. Read the title. Help the child understand that a title is really a clue. It gives the reader a hint about what is coming. Ask the child what she thinks the book might be about just by looking at the cover and title.

3. Read the author/illustrator's names. Remind the child that REAL people worked very hard to create this book. Does your child know this author through other books?

4. Read the dedication page. The author and illustrator often dedicate the book to someone. Again, this helps the child understand that the creators of this book are real people, just like him.

5. Now the adventure begins. Because, in all likelihood, you are not going to read this book just once, you can use several approaches to reading. Let the child be your guide here. Sometimes a child enjoys just listening to the story, soaking it all in. But more often, the child wants to be a part of the reading process. Take time to talk about the illustrations. They often tell a story. Ask the child what she sees on the page and what the characters are doing. Predict what might happen next in the story.

6. Don't be afraid to ham it up! Try out some character voices. Make sound effects. Change the inflection of your voice to create a mood. Your job as reader is to bring the words on the page to life.

7. Reading does not have to be a sedentary activity. Look for action words in the story and move. For example, in the book MOUSE COUNT, the little mice escape by rocking a jar "this way and that way." It's fun to rock side to side while reading this part.

8. Why did that happen? How did he do that? What will happen next? Try to answer your child's question with a question. Instead of giving an answer, give her an opportunity to think and express her thoughts.

9. Share books that you love with your child. Your enthusiasm will be contagious.

10. Read books that your child loves. Over and over. And over. Hearing a story many times is an important step in a child’s journey towards comprehension and listening skills. Find ways to keep it fresh when reading a book for the 10th or 100th time.

Happy reading!

(txt) Long Sentences in Novels About Dictators-Michael Bouman

July 4th is a day to celebrate the break of the American nation from monarchy; the beginning of an "empire of Liberty." By coincidence, my reading time lately was an immersion in Latin American fiction. My June 25 blog has a piece about the device of the run-on sentence in two excellent books. Most of us were schooled to banish run-on sentences from our narratives, I can't write one without a feeling of extreme transgression, so instead I like to extend sentences sometimes as if surfing a long, beautiful wave, a thing I have never done, but one can always imagine the daring and musculature others were blessed with.

Long Sentences

(audio) Reflections on Guerilla Season by Pat Hughes

Reflections on Guerilla Season
by Michael Bouman

Two months ago I met Eric Langhorst, a history blogger in Liberty. Eric teaches 8th grade history, and he weaves his students' work into his blogs. He was sitting in on a workshop I was conducting at the Clay County Museum, where his students had created new labels for the objects. I thought this museum was very lucky to have someone of Eric's talent on the board. You can view his blog at http://speakingofhistory.blogspot.com

Eric told me about assigning a Civil War novel titled Guerilla Season to his class. It's written by a woman named Pat Hughes, who lives in Philadelphia and works for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Using the internet, Eric arranged for Pat Hughes to engage the 8th grade students in the study of her story. Eric told me that an 8th grade class somewhere in California got wind of his class's assignment and began an internet "correspondence" with his class about Guerilla Season. USA Today ran a story on this project last November:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2006-11-14-blogs-education_x.htm

The day after I met Eric, I ordered Guerilla Season and assigned it to myself. My book report follows:


April 9, 2007

Guerilla Season by Pat Hughes is about the friendship of two 15-year-old boys who live in a dangerous time and place. Matt and his friend Jesse are almost old enough to become fighters in the Civil War. The story is also about the way that love blossoms between Matt and Jesse's sister, Susie. And it is about the adults who are neighbors on three farms somewhere near Liberty, Missouri in 1863. And it is about missing your father.

I was absorbed by this story all the way. I have been a brother, a friend, and a parent; and I have been fifteen. I remember moments of my fifteenth year as if they happened yesterday. I also remember what it was like to find the balance of rules and freedom when my own son was fifteen. I brought all of that experience to this wonderfully-told story of Matt Howard's coming-of-age.

Guerilla Season is about identity. Matt thinks he is Southern because his late father came from Kentucky. He thinks his mother is Nothern because she came from Pennsylvania. His mother, however, has insisted on their family's neutrality. Their nearest neighbor sides with the Union. Further up the road, Jesse's family is "Secesh."

In that time and place, boys of 15 are old enough to slaughter animals, to manage farms, and to be hunted as possible combatants. Suspicion and fear color everyday life. Night riders may be Federals disguised as Quantrill's men, or they may be the raiders themselves. If they demand to know which side you're on, what do you say?

I admired the way Pat Hughes differentiates the children, teens, and adults. I sense her complete life experience has been poured into these characters. The teens are portrayed as people with life-and-death choices and responsibilities. The character development of Matt's mother is especially poignant, and it rings so true! She must discover how to lead her family as if there will be no safe choices and no second chances.

For Matt, the sense of devotion to his father's heritage looms over him like Destiny. He wonders if the family's neutrality is a betrayal of his father's memory. He wonders what loyalties are due the neighbors, regardless of their politics. He wonders what risks are the dues of true friendship.

These are not juvenile matters. In this book we see the anguish of our Civil War brought home to one small neighborhood on the prairie. More than once, Matt is in a position to bring a terrible fate on his family or the family of his friend. He must find his way to the justice of each situation and each relationship as Fate closes in on them all.

I thought of Plato's Republic as I read this story, so after I finished Guerilla Season, I reached for the translation by Richard Sterling and William Scott. After the quick page-turning of Guerilla Season, Plato required a strolling pace. If you try to hurry through a scene of Plato, you can easily miss the flow of an idea or the nuances of humor.

Anyway, The Republic begins as a friendly, sociable conversation about what makes life worthwhile, and almost instantly, Socrates asks what people mean when they talk about "justice." And one of the men says that he believes a just man is one who benefits friends and injures enemies.

Plato puts this notion of justice at the beginning of his book because it represents a commonplace notion that he thinks is dead wrong. This same commonplace notion of justice is the starting point, also, for Matt Howard's conversations with Jesse. Both Matt and Jesse are just months away from turning sixteen. The looming question in Matt's life is, "will I honor my father by farming or fighting?" Jesse already knows what he will do. He will wear the guerilla shirt his mother is sewing for him and he will ride with Quantrill. Matt must search for his own answer. At each station of his harrowing journey, Matt must acknowledge and follow the prompting of his heart. Events force him to come of age ahead of time.

I use the term follow his heart with some reservation. A contemporary word might be center. Matt has to listen to and trust the guidance from his center. Another image, from The Republic as well as from the biblical heritage, is light. There is a source of "light" that is not of our making, but which is ours to own and see by.

Jesse is a bible-reading lad, more so than Matt. Jesse suggests readings that he hopes will help Matt see the present difficulties in the proper light. Matt has a religious crisis when he attends a church service at a Union church and hears the Battle Hymn of the Republic. One of his choices is made right there: he will have to tell his mother that he will never again set foot in a church that condemns the heritage of his father.

This is probably the smallest of Matt's realizations of what he must do with himself. In this neighborhood of farms, the lives of family and neighbors hang under a terrible sword. Matt's age makes him especially vulnerable. During his journey through peril, Matt finds and follows his light. He moves toward an idea of justice that belongs at the end of The Republic. Guerilla Season, after all, is a book about moral complexity.

The final scenes of the book include a farewell, lit by campfire, inside a cave. I am not sure that Pat Hughes had Plato's cave in mind when she placed Matt and Jesse in there. I certainly didn't make that connection until just now. Isn't it funny, the way books seem to communicate across centuries and cultures?

Guerilla Season closes on the prairie at the break of dawn. One friend speeds away on a horse, waving good-bye as the other walks home in the other direction. I had to imagine which one of the friends was moving toward light, and which one moving away.