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.

_______________________

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

“The Power of Your Past”

My birthday present from Berrett-Koehler

The week of my birthday, I won a book! (The Berrett-Kohler newsletter I’ve recommended to you has a challenge, and I entered.) And because I was in transition, stepping from one year into my next, and even from one job toward another, I chose John P. Schuster’s The Power of Your Past. I’m still enjoying it, savoring its reflective exercises.

While many are preaching at us to live only in the present, John warns against amnesia. He agrees that we should live in today, but not without learning from yesterday and claiming its gifts. He says, “It is about gathering important insights, and the wisdom that comes before informed action.” He advocates that we not misuse the past, either romanticizing/ minimizing the past, nor getting stuck in victimization, but instead, that we reflect on our past experiences and mine them to refine our identity, remember our dreams, and clarify our choices.

John outlines a process to “Recall, Reclaim, and Recast” the past. He recognizes that not all minds work alike, so he offers graphic organizers for several approaches. He has us identify the settings of our lives and consider the places where we did get stuck (what he calls compressions) and where we found encouragement or achievement (his evocations). That alone is a great start toward understanding where we have healthy relationships with our pasts and where there’s more treasure to be found.

And another gift for me: the book is well-edited and well-designed. Too often I get distracted by my own editing brain. So far, I’ve found only two suggestions. (1) I would left justify epigrams, instead of right. (2) I’d simplify some of John’s compound, complex questions. For example, here’s the first question: “How well do I integrate the gifts of my body, my mind, my will, my feelings, my sense of play, my enthusiasm for learning, in a way that helps me to be a well-balanced person?” (Say what?) So I wrote out the question, realized the point was whether I’m well balanced, and felt relief that I wouldn’t need a week to answer it.

This book is the perfect length–just enough examples for memories to bubble up, accompanied by simple processes to inspire reflection and insightful writing. It’s warm, wise, and welcoming.

Don’t skip the footnotes. I always read them–academic editor training is forever present–and I like to read notes all at once, after I’m well into a book. John’s footnotes are the perfect blend of citations, additional readings, and conversation.

The Power of Your Past made a fabulous birthday gift. And yes, I’m already beginning the new job, the new editing projects, and one of my favorite years so far.

Thanks, B-K!

_______________________

Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011

Rhyme Time

Children’s book editors conventionally whine about rhyme. It’s so hard to write tight in rhythm and rhyme, they’d rather not brave it. Then they have children of their own, and discover how much fun great rhyming can be. And any elementary school teacher could tell you how important rhyme is for reading readiness.

Editor Allyn Johnston said, “My feelings about rhyming picture books really did change after our son was born. I used to be a complete pill about how much I disliked them, and then my husband and I spent endless hours reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Dr. Seuss books and The Seven Silly Eaters and Time for Bed and Hattie and the Fox (and other young Mem Fox books), and I saw how much fun it was to laugh and cuddle and repeat goofy stanzas with Eamon–and I became a convert. We still have rhymes we say to each other in silly moments from those early years. So now I feel that when rhyme is great, there’s nothing like it to engage very young children with books. (Mem’s adult book Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to our Children will Change Their Lives Forever includes lots of great info on this topic.)” (More with Barb Odanaka’s SkateboardMom.com interview.)

So there are times to rhyme. The summer between high school and college, I hadn’t received an acceptance from my university’s honor’s program so I could register for classes. To nag politely and humorously, I inquired about it in several stanzas of verse. And as soon as I mailed it, I about died. What a stupid freshman thing to do. Now they’d change their minds and reject me for sure.

The reply must have been sent by return mail. It was an apology, acceptance, and welcome, all in verse, saying that even if I hadn’t already deserved a place in the program, my verse would have won the appeal. Better yet, when I arrived on campus, I was interviewed by the author of that reply, the president of the honors students and a handsome, single, senior guy majoring in economics. If I hadn’t felt so young by comparison, I’d have had a crush.

I do side with the editors who cringe when the rhythm or rhyme is forced and overthrows all sense. It’s usually a hard-won skill to do it well, but anyone can play with it. So try rhyme sometime. There are plenty of rhyming dictionaries to aid and abet you, but I love Mathew Healy’s simple and elegant rhyme sublime tool at WriteRhymes.com:

___________________________________

Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011. All Rights Reserved.