The Learning Umbrella

Good friends, my readers, who peruse this book,

Be not offended, whilst on it you look;

Denude yourselves of all deprav’d affection,

For it contains no badness nor infection;

‘Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth

Of any value, but in point of mirth;

Thinking therefor how sorrow might your mind

Consume, I could no apter subject find;

One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span;

Because to laugh is proper to the man.

This wonderful beginning to Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel gave me great hope for the book.  It is listed as a “Great Book”, it’s been on my Lifetime Reading List for a long time, and “Gargantua” is a great title.  But I was disappointed in what I found between the covers of this book.  To laugh may be proper for man, but I just don’t find “bu*gho**s”, “members”, and a great deal of “s**t” to be terribly amusing.  The subjects of the book are giants - Gargantua is the father of Pantagruel.  The books sharply (and scatalogically) criticize the political and religious institutions of the day, but any real point I might get from the works is obscured by the sheer mass of words and crudity that I would have to wade through to figure it out.  I hereby grant myself permission to STOP READING THIS BOOK.  And I’m still going to check it off my list because I: 1) read >50 pages of it, 2) read two articles about the work, 3) looked for (but did not find) a study guide or annotation, and 4) explained clearly why I don’t want to read anymore.  Those were always my mom’s rules when I wanted to quit reading a book she’d assigned me.

And then I gratefully turned to something I actually do find funny, Making Money by Terry Pratchett.

Stand out kids books from last week:

Hercules: The Twelve Labors is a graphic novel.  Let me confess - I don’t like graphic novels.  This is terribly uncool of me, and DH has tried his best to cure me of this hopeless snobbery.  But nothing helps, and I still do not like graphic novels.  I’m trying not to pass this attitude on, so I’ve recently added some graphic novels to our book lists.  I’m not much impressed by this one, but it did tell the story of the 12 Labors, with plenty of gory pictures.  The real review comes from the fact that I have not observed Carbon incorporating this story into his play - if it was good we’d have a bunch of Hercules play going on, and that’s not happening.  So, I think the novel is a disappointment for us.

My Wishes for You by Adele Geras and Cliff Wright.  As a parent, we wish so many things for our children.  This lovely, short picture book expresses that feeling.

Lightship by Brian Floca.  Once, there used to be lightships in places where they could not build lighthouses.  I’d never heard of these ships before, and this interesting book showed the steady and dedicated life that the sailors lived to keep these lights floating just where they were supposed to be.

Under the Table by Marisabina Russo.  Small children like to find special spaces all their own, and under tables can be the perfect space if you are small enough.  A great  book for little ones who like to crawl into their own special space.

 Soft House by Jane Yolen is another book about creating special spaces for small children.  In this story, a brother and sister build a giant blanket fort inside on a rainy day.  The book inspired hours of that exact activity here, so I count that as a very successful book.

Hypatia has recently been hooked on books, and this is pulling some of those great, simple board books into our reading pile.  This week she loves Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood because it shows a child being like lots of different animals, and it calls for reading with vocal dynamics - loud, soft, wild, tame, etc.