Monica Edinger's Blog, page 13

Total Eclipses of the Sun in Movies

Love the NPR piece, “In Movies,  A Solar Eclipse Means Change is Coming,” full of familiar and unfamiliar examples. Of the familiar, my favorite is the opening number from Little Shop of Horrors and of the unfamiliar, George Méliès’ 1907  “The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and the Moon” which you can see below. If you just want to see the eclipse itself go to 3:01. It is wild and pretty salacious too! (You may know Méliès from his “Trip to the Moon,” featured in Brian Selznick’s Hugo Cabret....

Learning About Africa: Sierra Leone, Mudslides, and Absent Media

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It is the rainy season in Sierra Leone. The country being close to the equator, these rains are intense and this year it has been worse than usual. Early on the morning of August 14th especially heavy rains caused dense flooding and then mudslides that killed hundreds and left hundreds more homeless in and around Freetown.

As soon as I heard of this I looked at my paper of record, The New York Times, and could find nothing when I searched. After a few hours there was a brief AP article. Whil...

Jews, Antisemitism, and White Privilege Today

Recently I attended a superb workshop at the National Museum of African American History and Culture called “Let’s Talk: Teaching Race in the Classroom.” At one point we were asked to join one of two affinity groups: POC and White. As I was heading to the room for the White group, the leader said loudly something along the lines of: “And Jews are not POCs. Judaism is a religion not a race.” This made me very uncomfortable because, while I identify as Jewish due to my ancestry, I have never ha...

Learning and Sharing: The National Museum of African American History and Culture

After Charlottesville

Learn More and Share More

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As part of a year-long consideration of people coming to America, I teach a unit focused on the Transatlantic Slave Trade to my 4th graders. My colleagues (who, over the years, have been white, black, Asian, and bi-racial) and I (white) are always grappling with how best to approach it as our classes become more diverse, as current events become more urgent, as we learn more. This year, I was fortunate in being able to twice visit the National...

John Steptoe’s Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters

I was eager to listen to Fuse 8 n’ Kate’s podcast of this week featuring a book I know well, John Steptoes’ Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters. This is a book that, I find, is often tossed in a Cinderella unit without much thought, I have often challenged some of the teaching that happens because of that. While it isn’t a book that should be pigeonholed into any one category — e.g. Cinderella tale, folktale, about Zimbabwe, etc — that is what I have seen happen. In my teaching I’ve used to use it a...

Rumer Godden’s Miss Happiness and Miss Flower

What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?

When I was 8 years old, I received the book “Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.” It came at a good time in my life. The book is about a girl who received two Japanese dolls. In the book, when she was asked by a gruff bookstore owner, Young lady, can you read? She thinks, That’s one thing I can do well. That line really resonated with me because I felt the same way.

That is Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in the New York Times feature, “By...

Coming Soon: Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris’s Her Right Foot

Illustrated by Shawn Harris
Chronicle Books
On Sale September 19, 2017

Kinderguides Update

Do you remember my screed last year about those horrid Kinderguides?  I couldn’t believe they could get away with the concept — reworking classics like Breakfast at Tiffany’s and On the Road for teeny tots. Well, I’m relieved to see they can’t (at least not in US — see more about the international situation below). From Picture Books Based on Famous Novels Violate Copyright, a Judge Rules:

Last week, a judge in Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled that several KinderGuides books infringe...

E. B. White’s Beloved Farm

Every spring, Mary would arrive to open the house and ready the gardens for planting. For many years, in mid-June, a teacher from a school 90 miles away would bring her class to visit. “They sit on hay bales in the barn,” Mary says, “and we play the recording of Mr. White reading Charlotte’s Web. They swing on the same rope swing that they knew Fern had; they sit on the milking stool where Fern had sat. I wanted them to grow up remembering this day. I hoped one day they’d want to find Mr. Whi...

You Know Those Crazy Product Reviews on Amazon?

My book, Africa is My Home, got one.  (Figure I won’t complain as it is five stars, even if it is mistaken — I think? — for a knife.)

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