Are the Classics Wasted on the Young?

My ambitious sixth grader is reading Moby Dick, the unabridged. He wasn’t sure he understood it, though, so I offered to read with him. After all, it’s been on my guilt list for a couple decades. Guilt list: books you assume I must have read while majoring in English. Guilt tome: the actual nine-page single-spaced list my first university assumed I would have read between birth and senior English exam. (For the younger crowd, that exam has been discontinued. Getting a B was called acing it. And my thesis defense is now your thesis presentation as well, but I digress.)

So recently, after viewing reclaimed treasures from the sunken pirate ship, the Whydah (Whid-duh), we were in a wonderfully nautical frame of mind as we settled in for the challenge, mom, boy, and a whale of a book. At least it had to beat Gray’s Anatomy–the famous anatomy textbook, not the show–and every detail of the hooks in our spinal columns, which fascinated this boy when he was four.

We began with the most famous opening in English literature. “Loomings”? Each chapter has a title? Who knew?

And how come no one mentioned that Melville is funny??

His vocabulary has me teaching Latin roots as we go along, and his dry observations would be lost on a kid, but with a bit of translation, we’re both laughing.

So many books are lost on the young. Generations of ninth graders read To Kill a Mockingbird. I loved it (as the future English major, I was an exception in my class), but rereading it, it’s even richer. I have to say I’m glad I read plenty of classics “too young,” because they helped make me who I am. But I don’t think I’ll check them off my list and assume

It’s delicious to read a classic with a child and bridge the gaps between childhood experiences and the world of the book, but I’ll bet my son will reread this in about thirty years, and tell me he read it way too young.

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011. All rights reserved. WritersResort.com

Random Unexpected Blog of Awesomeness

Pokemon Rayquaza Sky Judgment

Younger son’s blog idea: “It’s time for your random blog of the month.” I didn’t know I had such a thing. He explained, “Oh, you just write about Pokemon cards or how to train a puppy or any totally whacked out blog that has nothing to do with anything you’re trying to tell them. It’s just a totally crazy, random, unexpected blog of awesomeness.”

Well, since I write about writing, anything I write connects to writing, right? It works for your topic as well. Synchronicity and your meaning-making mind machine will connect the most random ideas for creative clarity and pure poetry. So try that. Be random. Ask anybody for a random topic and marvel at what shows up.

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Text © Gwyn Nichols and Young Son, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Image Pokemon.com

Square Inch Journaling

Photo © James Steidl, iStockphoto® #6137758

One of my favorite baby gifts was an undated one-year calendar with stickers for baby milestones: first bath, first tooth, first word. When my second baby arrived, I realized that one year had been way too short. In the succeeding years, I had cherished those cute quotes of the day–every day–but could I remember them? Could I find those buried in my general journals? Did I remember to write them down in the first place?

That’s why child #2 got more photos and more records. I kept posting a calendar over the changing table where I was guaranteed to remember. I kept that up for three years. After that age, I switched to interviewing the said child and taking dictation. It was part of our bedtime routine to ask, “BTAT?” Best Thing About Today.

You don’t need a baby to try my “square-inch journaling.” Talk about learning to be concise. It’s one way to focus on what’s most important. If you want more space, try a photo-illustrated weekly agenda.

You don’t have to write volumes to preserve significant memories for yourself and your loved ones. Who knows what a treasure a simple calendar can become?

There was a 19th century midwife in Maine who wrote only a few lines a day on pages she carried in her pocket. She crossed the river to deliver a baby. She received produce as payment. She sewed. She bartered. Historians knew about Martha Ballard’s diary but overlooked it: too scanty, too domestic, too feminine.

Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich saw its value. In those deceptively brief remarks, Martha described such significant cultural events as participating in an autopsy, testifying in a rape case, and delivering her own grandchild– recording her own son as the unwed father. Laurel researched the background and corroborating details, taking clues from this simple diary to create a rich historical ethnography in A Midwife’s Tale. She changed the way we look at journals, especially at women’s records. The book won a Pulitzer and Dr. Ulrich won a teaching post at Harvard.

You can also write something beautiful and significant, one inch at a time.

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Photo © James Steidl, iStockphoto® #6137758