Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 59

American Born Chinese

In the spirit of posting something whenever you read it (shoutout to rachelmanija ), here's something about American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang. I bought it at the Eric Carle Museum after visiting the exhibition on graphic novels.

I really like the art style, which is simple but expressive. The story is a braided narrative, with the central story being that of Jin, a Chinese American in a town/school with very few Asian Americans. Weaving under and over that story is a Christian-inflected...

Ashlin & Olivia

Seeing skygiants 's excellent review of Aster Glenn Gray's Ashlin & Olivia reminded me that **I** want to post a review too.

Aster Glenn Gray, you will recall, wrote Briarley, the retelling of Beauty and the Beast in which it's the father who stays with the Beast, not Beauty--in a World War II setting.

This story is nothing like that one. I say that up front because if you go in expecting another retelling or all the m/m feels, you will be disappointed. BUT if you remember how much you appreciat...

Memorial Day

We went to my dad's house this weekend, and today we watched the town's Memorial Day parade. The guy in the blue chair was wearing a cap that said "World War II" on it--he's a veteran of that war. As various people in various uniforms marched by, some would stop and salute him.

He was born in 1922. He was telling the people sitting near him all sorts of stories from his time in service (I didn't hear those, but my dad did).



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weekend beauty

Every year I try to get to lilacland when the lilacs are in bloom. It's private property, but the owner, an artist, opens it up each year at this time for people to wander through, admiring the flowers in shades of light and deep purple, white, and pink. There are also dogwoods and (though not yet in bloom) wisteria.





This year there were tables and chairs set out, so you could sit and commune with the lilacs in the company of friends...



Or on your own



I'm doing a unit on philosophy with my stude...

extras from the Eric Carle Museum

In the room next to the Out of the Box exhibit was an exhibit on the golden anniversary of William Steig's picturebook Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, which really does have lovely illustrations. One thing that caught my eye, though, was in the middle of the room, a sort of random plot generator you could play with:

Write what it is like to live with ... a backpack ... that is very lonely


Write what it is like to live with ... a mall ... that is very lonely


Write what it is like to live with ......

out of the box

On a drizzly Sunday, Wakanomori and I went to the Eric Carle Museum to see "Out of the Box," a truly excellent exhibit on the contemporary graphic novel... or I should say, the contemporary US graphic novel for young people. (The topic is big, and the exhibit can be forgiven for not tackling graphic novels the world over, but I always wish that limitations were acknowledged a bit more directly up front--but I apologize for beginning with a grumble, because I really did enjoy it.)

The Museum: R...

a visit to Hawley Bog

a_soft_world came to visit, and she and I and the healing angel made a trip to the Hawley Bog , a place A Soft World had visited as a child.

It was drizzly and misty, full of birdsong and a strange, distant, vibrating noise that may have been someone trying, at regular intervals, to start an engine and failing, or that may have been the bog itself, shifting and thumping, somehow. When you get out into the bog proper, signs direct you to walk no more than two to a section of boardwalk, so as not...

Come to me, river

The land is very low down on Aqua Vitae road, where they have the ancient narrow fields. Give the Connecticut River a chance, and it will flood them, and the road will close, as it has the past week. I went and took pictures, and nudged by a friend, I wrote a poem.

road closed





come to me, river
come
you have covered the fields
wrapped yourself around standing trees
crept up this old road
come closer
here I stand, like a tree
wrap around me
press your body against mine
let us be heart to heart, cheek to...

spoken word

We'd looked at "quiet" poetry earlier--the sort you read to yourself in books--and so I brought in some recordings of poetry being performed for my students to react to and think about.

I played them Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner's "Tell Them," and felt a warm glow as they reacted visibly to her lines about Styrofoam cups and dusty rubber slippers, and my favorite line, about the children flinging like rubber bands across the street. And then when I asked them which lines stuck with them, they had so m...

la piragua de Guillermo Cubillos

I've been listening to a two-CD collection of some of Colombia's most famous cumbias, and the one that's my current favorite is "La Piragua," the tragic story of the sinking of an ambitiously large piragua (pirogue--like a long canoe) on its maiden voyage. This cumbia, written by Jose Barros, has been sung by bunches of different singers in bunches of different styles, but this is the version I heard, so it has pride of place in my heart. But for instance, there's this much more romantic vers...