The Library

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The Library Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is always out. Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with us. We look forward to hearing from you, about you and the books you are enjoying (or not). Let the book talk begin here!

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My poor brother, at age about 14 or 15, had to memorize  Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud" with all those daffodils.  And his bratty kid sister was merciless every time our mother made him recite it.

When I was a child someone gave me a collection of James Whitcomb Riley's poems.  I loved "The Raggedy Man" and "Little Orphant Annie."

"The goblins'll get you if you don't watch out."

[PatH]

When my children were young, I eagerly read their books especially the ones that were new to me, and as they got older they were reading more interesting books--even better.  I tend to reread books I've liked, and that includes children's books, so I've definitely read or reread a lot as an adult.  And I've read a lot of children's and YA books since my children were grown.

The books in Barb's article, an interesting collection: it starts with Emil and the Detectives.   I don't know what that's like in English, but I had to suffer through it in high school German, and wasn't a bit sorry when we didn't get all the way through.  But Madeleine L'Engle is well worth reading as an adult, and I've done so. The Narnia books also bear rereading, though I get tired of his imperialism.  I read LeGuin's Earthsea as an adult, and it's good.  Susan Cooper's 5 book The Dark is Rising series is excellent, the present day fight between good and evil, in a setting of Welsh and English myth, fantasy, folklore, and Arthurian legend.

I have a lot of issues with Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass and the following 2 books, but in Barb's article Pullman says Arthur Ransome is worth rereading, and that hits home.  Ransome wrote books about English children between the wars, mostly about sailing, starting with Swallows and Amazons, and I loved them as a child; they gave me a lasting love of sailing.  I have reread them as an adult, with pleasure.  The strong point is the sailing; otherwise, don't read them except for nostalgia.

Not mentioned in the article: Lloyd Alexander's 5 book Prydain series, hugely based on the Mabinogian, and John Christopher's Tripod trilogy.  And of course, Harry Potter.

[MaryPage]

I am pretty much on the same page you are, Pat.

As an adult, I have read Lois Lowry, Cynthia Voight, Philip Pullman, J.K. Rowling and M. L'Engle with great pleasure, the point being to see what my granddaughters and great grandchildren were devouring.  I attempted, but never liked, LeGuin and Cooper, among others.  I am not at all familiar with the last two you mention.

But OH!  I read Arthur Ransome as a child, and adored the series and saw myself vividly as an Amazon sailing the waters in the Lake District!  YES!

Something else dear to my heart are the childrens books illustrators from days gone by.  Who could possibly forget Arthur Rackham or E.H.. Shepherd?

[Steph]

I do laugh. I read to my children from the day they were born, but when my older son was about 4,, he started going.."Is it a true story??" and if I said no, then he would say, find a true story, please..
As you might guess, he is an engineer.. and still loves true stories much much more.

[bellamarie]

With my in home daycare I guess you could say I have a library of children's books.  We have story time every day and one of their favorite series is David , by David Shannon.  Oh, do we ever get the biggest laughs at that precocious little boy.  My grandson Zak, could read every David book by the age of 2 yrs. old.  His parents were quite surprised when they came over and saw him take out the books, lay them in the floor, and read them aloud. Another favorite is the Fancy Nancy books by Jennifer O'Connor.  She has quite the French style of fancy.  I bought my granddaughter Hayden, a Fancy Nancy doll, made her a Fancy Nancy blanket, and bought her the series of books for her birthday.  Oh was she excited to open those gifts.

Since my oldest granddaughter is now a sophomore in college, she always lends me her books she finishes reading.  She did this all through her four years at St. Ursula Academy High School as well.  I was a bit surprised when she gave me the book Go Ask Alice author Anonymous.  That book seemed a bit inappropriate for young Catholic girls to read, but I imagine there was a reason their teacher felt the need for them to read it.  Another strange one was The Shack by  William P. Young.  It could not keep my interest, and I gave up reading it.

My favorite children's series books I read as a child was Pipi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren.  Oh how I loved her silliness.  I lived in a rural area growing up, with little to no books in our home, and no transportation to go to a library, so I am unfamiliar with many of the children's authors.  I think not having access to books, is what brought out the creative writer in me, I would write poems, stories and plays and then my siblings and I would act them out.  Imagine Little Women and that was us. I of course was Jo March, and my only brother was our Laurie Laurence, I could get him to do almost anything.  I have five sisters and two female orphaned cousins my parents raised, so needless to say we had a cast of characters.  I own the movie and book of Little Women, and the Ashton Drake entire doll collection. Needless to say, that story is an all time favorite of mine.

Steph, that is cute your son wanting true stories.  The past few years I have noticed I want non fiction more than fiction.

[maryz]

I think it was somebody in here who recommend the documentary DVD Hey, Boo!, about Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird.  We've just finished it - and it is delightful.  Well worth watching.

[salan]

When I was fresh out of college, I taught school in a small community that was 99% Mexican-American.  It was a very poor community and I taught 4th & 5th grade combined.  English was a second language for most of the students.  The school was given a government grant to form a library for elementary students.  The superintendent asked me to give him a list of books to order.  I spent the entire summer immersed in children's books.  I renewed old favorites and discovered many new favorites.  It was a glorious summer!  I was not paid for my summer work; but was rewarded beyond my expectations by the look on the children's faces as the books came in.  They couldn't believe that they could actually check out the books and take them home to read!  I'm sure it made life long readers out of children that would never have had that opportunity without those books.  Looking back, that was probably one of the greatest accomplishments in my life.  My mother instilled my love of reading in me, and I was able to pass that love along to others.
Sally

[Steph]

My granddaughter seems to have picked up the reading gene, we are carrying on the reading tradition. My grandson has it, but just now, it is down a notch after the tech stuff. I suspect he will come back. I think he uses the tech stuff to retreat from the world. He is not fond of the world just now.

[MaryPage]

Mary, I am so glad you liked HEY, BOO.  I passed on my love of it, and hoped someone else would feel the joy.

My only aggravation was in trying so hard, with my bad ears, mind you, to understand what her sister Alice was saying.  I think they said Alice was something like 99 at the time of the filming of her speaking about Nelle, and she lived to age 103.  You could tell she was sharp as a tack, but the combination of the squeaky, trembley old voice with the extreme southern accent plus my being so deaf, well, while I was partially thrilled to actually see and hear her, it was a downer to not feel sure of what I had heard.

[bellamarie]

My 10 yr old granddaughter was spending the day with me yesterday due to her school being closed, and I was asking her about her likes in books.  She said her favorite book is Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner.  What was absolutely adorable she was telling me how they were reading it in class, and she some other students were crying at the sad parts.  The teacher said in the future they need to read the book at home because they just kept thinking of the sad parts and would begin crying all over again.  She informed me her favorite series of children's books is, Rainbow Magic Princess Fairies by Daisy Meadows.  I had never heard of any of these books or authors.

[Steph]

They all sound new to me as well. My granddaughter at 19 is knee d eep in required reading and fussing about no time for the stuff she likes. I tell her, that this too will pass.

[Frybabe]

The Rainbow Magic Books are very popular at my library. The books started publication in 2003 and continue to this day with over 150 so far. Here is the website which ihcludes games and activities for the children. http://www.rainbowmagiconline.com/uk/

[Steph]

Back to normal for central Florida. It was 80 yesterday and is supposed to do it again today.. There is a possibility of a short cold snap later in the week and then I suspect our substitute for winter is done.

[BarbStAubrey]

Haha Steph I bet something like this could be created for Florida - it is making the rounds here in Austin as we laugh at ourselves.

[Jonathan]

Haha. Above the line. The Great White North. We're buried in the snow. We're in our usual state of hibernation. See you in the spring. Can't even imagine 80.

[Tomereader1]

We have temps in the 20s with sleet on the ground and highways.  More freezing temps for tonight, another cold front coming in by Wednesday perhaps with snow.  We were too lucky for so long with 70s and 80s, now we get to claim a "snow day" even without real snow.  Schools closed, some businesses.  People having  hard times getting up the fly-over roadways, or getting up top and stalling out.

[MaryPage]

Re our interest in LATIN, I have a true, funny-scary story to share.  And I assure you, you can Google it for more information.
A young Vermont student found an old coin with a motto in Latin on it and was fascinated and investigated and found that most states have such mottos, but Vermont lacks one.  So she proposed one through her representative.  When the news got out, phone lines to radio stations and TV channels lit up, as did on line blogs and social media.  The gist was that callers feel this is an ENGLISH speaking nation, and those d**n Latins should go back to Mexico and speak their Latin.  One intrepid radio announcer pointed out that not only does almost every other state have an official motto in Latin, but so do colleges, universities and our armed services, including the Marines.  "Oh,yeah," yelled the caller, "I dare ya to tell that to the Marines!"
OMG!

[Frybabe]

I cannot help the feeling that as we spend more and more on education, the less people know. Education indeed. Now we have the proposal to make community college free for students. My relatively recent experience going back to CC just solidified my suspicion that much of what is taught there now is stuff they used to get in HS. Most of my classes ended up being a review for me because I had already learned them in HS. My question to one of my teachers was, "Don't they teach this in high school anymore?" His simple answer? NO!

[Steph]

OHHHH MaryPage,, truly funny and true as well. I love latin, but I can see people getting up in arms.. I realized recently that although I am very liberal in most ways, because I live in Florida and am so very tired of being greeted in Spanish in some stores, etc, I am not a immigration advocate. I want them to stay home and change their own country.. Leaving does not improve Mexico.. Staying , voting and working for change just might.

[ginny]

My goodness. I found a website which shows some of the reaction.  Apparently the level of ignorance in America is unprecedented.

Thank you MaryPage, that is news as of  February 1 this year and will make a nice Latin in the News topic.

Or maybe Ignorance in the News, take your pick.

[bellamarie]

MaryPage, That is funny.  Latin?  Should we keep Latin?  Well, I am struggling with the fact they are doing away with cursive writing, and taking History classes away, and teaching Social Studies in place of it. 

I fear Latin is something the next generation will look at as foreign (no pun intended.)  If you can't text, tweet or snapchat it, it is a useless commodity in this day and age.

Steph, that is an excellent point you made.  How can a country become better for all their people, if the solution is to leave it, and do nothing to improve it. 

My daughter lives in Florida and I was talking with her on the phone last night.  She said she went to get her hair done, and the girl was Mexican and could not speak English.  My daughter said I kept telling her, "Don't cut too much off."  The girl just kept cutting, and did not understand a word my daughter was saying.  My friend was in Orlando on a vacation with her kids at Disney, her son has CF.  He had an attack and needed medical treatment and she took him to the nearby ER.  No one spoke English.  Thank goodness she is a registered nurse and after hours of trying to communicate with them, they were able to give him an antibiotic to help.  She said it was the most frustrating time in her life.  She said, you would have thought she was outside the U.S.  I listened to her and imagined how frightening it would be to be in her situation.  

Language gaps, have got to be my number one pet peeve.  We MUST be able to communicate to survive.

[MaryPage]

I'm afraid I would say "ignorance," Ginny.

And I stand convinced that without my 4 years of High School Latin lessons, I would not have the command of the English language which I own, nor would I have been able to pick up other Romance languages as easily.

Even back in the dark ages when I took Latin, I believe we were told there were no longer any Latin speaking peoples on this planet.

However, who knew?  Apparently today all Latin Americans are credited with fluency in that ancient tongue!

[Frybabe]

What!? Taking away history classes??   Who is doing this?

I have to agree with George Santayana who said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".  Or the variant I remember, "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it".

[BarbStAubrey]

They took away Civic Classes years ago and Sandra Day O'Connor has developed a short 10 week Civic program that she is trying to get into the schools - no wonder we have folks who see no value in voting or do not understanding how damaging gerrymandering is or how we were plagued with gerrymandering at the turn of the twentieth century and when it was made illegal our nation surged ahead - I look at my 6th grade McGuffey Reader and nearly cry but certainly shake my head to realize we do not even teach in High School the spelling words that children in the 6th grade were expected to know and spell.

I do have to give kudos though for the sciences that have stepped up including health - when I was a kid I remember receiving free tubes of toothpaste and brushes as well as stinky lifebuoy soap to bring home to encourage families to brush their teeth and take a bath more than just once every other week. And so where communicating, the past and how to bring about a functioning Democracy is going by the wayside our health has improved and our understanding of science and how the earth functions has improved with TV and the Internet teaching us more about the world than newspapers ever did. We loose some and gain some. Wish we could gain with out the losses.

[Frybabe]

I was pretty miffed about that too, Barb.  Not only did we once upon a time have Pennsylvania Civics (required to graduate), but we had American Government. Do they even teach that any more in high school? And now I get survey questions asking if I think Community Service should be required as part of the school curriculum.

We have had a spate of gerrymandering in PA recently (at least around here). Another discussion I saw recently is whether or not to go to a statewide controlled school system rather than by school districts.

Oh, health classes. Lucky us, we were one of the first (experimental?) classes in high school to have a co-ed health class. Needless to say it left a lot to be desired compared with the Jr. High, one sex only class I had.

Another thing that fell by the wayside was requiring a foreign language as a pre-requisite to college. Now we are back to needing a foreign language for many businesses.

One more thing. I think a lot of nonsense or non-essential classes have crept in at the expense of concentrating on making sure the students have the basics and good foundation classes to go on to college. The colleges must offer a lot of remedial and basic high school classes (no credit towards graduation) to get the students up to college level. Our local community college takes these seriously, as they do regular classes because they want their students' credits to be taken seriously by the four year colleges.

[bellamarie]

Here are just a couple of articles on History no longer being taught in grades K-5.  I agree with this quote:

"Eliminating history from the elementary curriculum is irresponsible and, ultimately, unnecessary."

http://teachinghistory.org/issues-and-research/roundtable-response/25323

William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/02/24/388443955/the-great-u-s-history-battle

Barb, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Science is shrinking as well.  The emphasis is on math and reading. It's all about these standardized tests.  They are becoming very controversial.

http://talkaboutthesouth.com/uncategorized/102/?fb_action_ids=829587647099393&fb_action_types=og.likes

"History along with science was hit by assemblies, testing, and everything else to preserve math and reading times. The results are becoming clear."   Kurt Leichtle is professor of history and chair of the History and Philosophy Department at the University of Wisconsin—River Falls.

http://teachinghistory.org/issues-and-research/roundtable-response/25323

[Frybabe]

Thanks Bellamarie. I was busy amending my previous post while you posted.

[jane]

Oklahoma legislaturers are trying to ban AP History


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/18/oklahoma-ap-us-history_n_6702710.html

The Bizarre War Against AP History

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-unflattering-history-lesson/2015/02/19/3be9cb0c-b878-11e4-a200-c008a01a6692_story.html

[ginny]

I agree with MaryPage that it's amazing how many words we get from Latin (and Greek).



A lot of people don't realize that more than 63  percent of all words used in English whether tweeted or texted or written here actually come from  Latin and Greek.  I thought it would be interesting to take somebody's post at random and see how many are being used here today.  And since Bellamarie asked the question should we keep Latin, I thought it might be interesting to find out how many words which come from those languages you're using, yourself in every day speech. I hope you don't mind.


Here's a short sample, Bellamarie's words in bold:

Science (Origin of SCIENCE: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin scientia, from scient-, sciens having knowledge, from present participle of scire to know)

is shrinking as well.  The emphasis

 (late 16th century: via Latin from Greek, originally ‘appearance, show,’ later denoting a figure of speech in which more is implied than is said (the original sense in English), from emphainein ‘exhibit,’ from em- ‘in, within’ + phainein ‘to show.’ )

 is on math

 (late 14c. as singular noun, replaced by early 17c. by mathematics, from Latin mathematica (plural), from Greek mathematike tekhne "mathematical science)

 and reading. It's all about these standardized

 (. So called because the flag was fixed to a pole or spear and stuck in the ground to stand upright. The more common theory [OED, etc.] calls this folk-etymology and connects the Old French word to estendre "to stretch out," from Latin extendere (see extend)

  tests.

 (late Middle English (denoting a cupel used to treat gold or silver alloys or ore): via Old French from Latin testu, testum ‘earthen pot,’ variant of testa ‘jug, shell.’ Compare with test2. The verb dates from the early 17th century.)


 They are becoming very controversial.

( late 16th century: from late Latin controversialis, from controversia).

So if we remove the non essential foreign words and their derivatives  from her  post (or that tiny section of it which I took at random) we have left:

 is shrinking as well.  The  is on  and reading. It's all about these   They are becoming very


We use a lot more Latin and Greek in our daily lives than we realize. It's kind of difficult (Latin word) to talk without them.

Some of us drive cars with Latin names, like Audi, or Fit or Corolla, or  Volvo, Maxima,  Focus, Altima, Fiat, and on and on and on...our states have Latin mottoes, our coinage has Latin on it, our dollar bills have Latin on them, if there is anything we want to look impressive we do it in Latin, like diplomas or naming buildings;  even the Super Bowl uses Roman numerals.

Let's not get rid of it just yet.  

[bellamarie]

Ginny,  Kudos to you!!!   I love your experiment.  My question was rhetorical, but I think you have proven without Latin, our vocabulary would not consist of an intelligible conversation.

[ginny]

I'd love to do that one! It's absolutely chock full of Latin and Greek derivatives!

hahaha Thank you. I actually find it fascinating to take a newspaper and do an entire sentence and see what happens. It's amazing.

[CallieOK]

Jane,  our Oklahoma legislator who wants to introduce the no-AP History Bill is now saying, "No-no-no-no -  eliminating the course isn't what he meant at all.  He "just" meant the content shouldn't put so much emphasis on the negative side of history. So he is going to rewrite the bill.     We shall see <she said skeptically   >

[MaryPage]

What horrifies me is that there are too, too proud men out there who want to eliminate any and all unfavorable details of our history, of U.S. History, from the records.

They want no one to know about the Mountain Meadow Massacre of 1857.  Not a word about our own troops firing on our World War I veterans assembled in Washington, D.C. to ask for promised bonuses.  Not a line about the 900+ Jews on the St. Louis fleeing Nazi Germany and begging entry here in 1939;  they had to go back and die in concentration camps.  Above all, they do not want our children to know about the still existing KKK and the thousands of lynchings and cross burning they carried out in the name of their strange Christianity and Jesus Christ!

No negative word should ever be spoken about any choices we, as a nation, have made or any bad things that we have caused to be done, done officially, or which have occurred within our borders.  It is crazy, but this is a mind set some of our most blathering representatives are insisting upon IN THE NAME OF PATRIOTISM.  Drives me crazy.  I mean, a thing is a thing is a thing, and, as one or two of you have just said, we NEED to learn from our mistakes!

Scheesch!

The one of my five daughters who teaches First Grade and I were speaking 10 years ago about how awful it is that kids don't learn Geography any more.  So I wrote a First, Second and Third grade Geography curriculum.  She has been teaching the First Grade Geography for years now, and there are 5 first grades in her school.  The other teachers are interested, but scared they cannot fit it into their schedules.  So, get this:  all the parents ask to get their kids in Becky's class AND Becky's classes, despite the additional curriculum added to their days, constantly score higher in all testing than do the other First Grades!  So there!

And both the kids and the parents love it!  LOVE it!  Becky works a lot of it into the math, art and reading, too.  For instance, they make parasols in art class as part of their study of Thailand.  They bring in show & tell stuff about the countries they are studying.  I have sent her over 400 reading books about the various countries.  They are eating it all up AND feeling ever so clever and asking for more, always more.  Becky does NOT give them grades or tests for the Geography itself, but she does grade them on the math, art and reading, etc.  She also gives informal tests from time to time just to see how it is working.  These are oral tests for the whole class, and they join in avidly.  And they get it!  They get concepts they don't even realize they are getting.  Becky always asks if they can tell her an important difference between Switzerland and Japan, a difference she has never, ever mentioned to them previously.  Hands go up, and when she points to one child to explain, they always answer:  Switzerland has no water around it and Japan is islands completely surrounded by water.  Then that child gets the pointer and the right to go up and show the rest of the class where those two countries are on Becky's huge world map.

A good teacher makes all the difference.  Please don't let our legislatures alter history in our history textbooks!  I shudder!

[CallieOK]

MaryPage,  Hooray for Becky - and for you!  As for your last sentences:  Amen and Amen!

[BarbStAubrey]

I'm back on the weather again - this from Mountain Home Texas just on the other side of Fredericksburg - hahaha only in Texas

[Steph]

I love geography, but honestly the number of people who are not even able to know what a state is, is amazing. Actually an old trick of mine to sleep is to try and name all of the states. Fun.. for sure . We need both bad and good in history, but truth is, I never got the bad until college where the history teacher was at least honest.
I loved latin, it made sense to me.

[bellamarie]

Seems some want to re-write History to teach, or indoctrinate our young children's minds to think like them.  History is just that, what happened can not be erased just because you stop teaching it, or delete it from textbooks.  Good, bad and the ugly......it is our history, and it should continue to follow us in our schools by teaching it. 

I watch Jesse Waters go to very prestigious colleges, where parents are spending thousands of dollars to have their young adults educated, and these college students can't recognize pictures of the Vice President of the U.S.  They thought Ebola, and ISIS were a new app for their iphone, and let's not even mention the fact they could not tell you where Syria was.  But...they could tell you where Panama City is, because it's the hot spot for spring break.  Ughhh...I fear America is truly dumbing down.   

[Steph]

Yes Traveling with my granddaughter last year made me realize the holes in her education.. But then I live in central Florida, where most of the tourist think that Disney is in downtown Orlando.

[marjifay]

Frybabe posted that in her area they are discussing whether to go to a state system of schools.  In my opinion, this would be a good idea.  I can't understand why there should be some school districts in poorer areas where they don't have enough money to pay for textbooks and other needed items while wealthier districts which have a large amount of property tax money have enough money to pay for computers for students.  It seems to me that tax money should be divided equally amoung all the districts.

[BarbStAubrey]

The other side of that is there is a difference in children's life experiences and expectation for type of employment if you are in a large city or in the countryside - those differences are catered to by having individual school districts who not only control the building but the curriculum, cultural activities and after school activities available using school facilities.

Because of a greater population of children in cities it is the rural areas that loose out and often they are the ones who need the kind of activities seldom even available to city children and on a similar note where city kids may not have ready access to the great outdoors, rural kids do not have good museums or musicians visiting from the local symphony orchestras and for either to have those exposures takes money, planning, and all day excursions.  

Currently City students and Rural students may not have these swapped experiences however, having an intimate knowledge or alternative experience with these differences is only an add-on to enrich their life rather than an integral part of learning, test taking or expectation for future employment which would be common to all students if they were state school boards and state administrators running each school, rather than individual school districts held accountable to state standards as they are now.