Monica Edinger's Blog, page 111
August 27, 2010
Clay Men
At the Guardian Imogen Russell Williams reflects on the allure of the golem, considers a few titles, and asks for more. Off the top of my head, here are three:
Jonathan Stroud's The Golem's Eye.
David Almond's Clay.
David Wisniewski's Golem.
In the Classroom: Reading Aloud as Community Building
My students won't be in school for a couple more weeks yet, but I'm slowly starting to turn my mind back to the classroom. I'm thinking about how I want to set up the room when I can first get into it on Monday. I'm thinking about changes in curriculum. I'm thinking about the new fourth graders I'll be meeting in a few weeks. And I'm thinking about what I'm going to read aloud on our first day, that magical story that will help connect us all and turn us from a bunch of strangers into a t...
August 25, 2010
Slow Endings
Fans shouldn't be so focused on endings. The Hunger Games series–like most quality books–has been about much more than simply uncovering some central secret. It's been about characters, cliffhangers, and a cautionary message about entertainment and obedience. If all a work has is an M. Night Shyamalan "Sixth Sense"-like twist, then it doesn't have much. That's why people aren't clamoring for "The Seventh Sense."
It's better to enjoy a book as you're reading it, rather than to be focused...
August 22, 2010
Barry Deutsch's Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword
The quaint Hudson River village of Cold Spring, where I just spent a month, is deserted on weekdays and so I couldn't help wondering about the Orthodox Jewish couple, the woman with her hair covered by a scarf and the man in a formal-looking white shirt and black pants, I saw on the otherwise empty Main Street one morning. I got my answer a little bit later when, on a walk along the river, I heard cheerful voices and looked out to see the same pair, waving at me as they paddled about in...
August 21, 2010
Missing Pigs
John Mullan's got his list of Ten of the Best Pigs in Literature. Here are ten more.
1. Wilbur from E. B. White's Charlotte's Web, natch.
2. Babe from Dick King-Smith's Babe.
3. Hen Wen from Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydian
4. Freddy from Walter R. Brooks' Freddy the Pig books
5. Olivia from Ian Falconer's Olivia books.
6, 7, 8. The three pigs in David Wiesner's The Three Pigs
9. The pig baby in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
10.Mercy Watson in Kate DiCamillo's Mercy...
August 20, 2010
In the Classroom: Sigh
The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life. (From this NYT article about 20-somethings)
In a nutshell, my problem with Teach for America. How about recalibrating it so that...
Lost in Translation
Mutti, can you please make Pfannkuchen for dinner? Pretty please?
Of course, Liebling. Would you like them with Zucker for dessert or with ham und Käse for the main course?
Setting a book for English readers in a non-English-speaking environment creates an interesting problem. Many writers solve it along the lines of the exchange I made up above — tossing in some relatively easy-to-figure-out foreign words so readers are aware that the characters are speaking German not English. Here the c...
August 19, 2010
August 18, 2010
Learning about Africa: Anthony Bourdain visits Liberia
I enjoy food critic Anthony Bourdain's television show No Reservations and was eager to see the Liberian episode as it is a country that borders Sierra Leone (where I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer) and so they have a lot in common. I was not surprised that the visit for Bourdain was very disturbing, this is, after all, a very poor country recovering — like its neighbor Sierra Leone — from a brutal prolonged conflict.
Well intentioned as it was meant to be I was most bothered by their...
