ReRun: A Mathematician's Lament

Originally posted 3/08

"A musician wakes from a terrible nightmare....
Since musicians are known to set down their ideas in the form of sheet music, these curious black dots and lines must constitute the 'language of music.' It is imperative that students become fluent in this language if they are to attain any degree of musical competence; indeed, it would be ludicrous to expect a child to sing a song or play an instrument without having thorough grounding in music notation and theory. Playing and listening to music, let alone composing an original piece, are considered very advanced topics and are generally put off until college, and more often graduate school."

From the introductory paragraphs of this article:
"A Mathematician's Lament," by Paul Lockhart.

If you love mathematics, read this article. If you have hated mathematics since you stepped foot in your kindergarten classroom, read it. If you were dumbfounded by division, befuddled by algebra and confused by geometry, read it. If you're teaching a young person (or people) mathematics, or if you have a child who is or will be learning mathematics, read it.

Actually, if you're teaching a young person anything, read this article because it's got a lot to say about teaching. And about math. And about learning.

Read it right now. Really.

Go ahead. I'll wait for you.

Who knew that I could be blown away by an article about teaching, about learning mathematics? For real. I'm not exaggerating for effect. I nodded my head. I laughed. I scribbled all over the paper. I said "Yes!" and "Exactly" right out loud a couple times. I read the article during a fine young gent's gymnastics class, and I'm sure the people nearby were a little leery of the crazy lady muttering to herself as she read.

I was inspired to be a better teacher. By a math article. Go figure.

I was always a bit of a math-o-phobe myself. Until I got to college and stopped attending my math classes. Instead I read the textbook, muddled through on my own....and loved it. Statistics, trigonometry, the other math classes I took that I can't remember the names of. Suddenly I got it, I understood math, all by myself. I turned in all of my homework, but I only attended class when I didn't understand the assigned lesson. It usually took ten minutes to figure out what I'd missed, then I'd work on my English papers until the end of class because I thought it would be rude to get up and leave while all of the other students sat and listened politely and quietly. (A side note: Handing back a midterm test my trigonometry instructor pointedly remarked that three people scored above 90%, and he was happy to report that the two people who scored above 95% actually came to class regularly. He looked right at me while he said it, to where I was hiding away behind the tall guy in the back of the classroom. I got a 93.) My point is that I found math classes excruciating. But I found out that I kind of liked doing math.

Back to the article, the analogy with which Lockhart begins. Can you imagine teaching music this way? Not allowing children to sing or play music, an activity that comes to most of us as naturally as breathing or speaking, without learning the theory and notations first?

Or painting? (Another analogy used by Lockhart.) Having to learn color theory and perspective before you pick up a paintbrush?

Science? Memorizing the scientific method and the periodic table before you can look through a microscope or mix baking soda and vinegar?

Yet we rarely explore mathematics playfully with our children as an art, as an experience, as a way to play with the ways the world works. Mathematics is a part of our daily lives: Cooking, drawing, jumping, building. Children naturally count things, measure things, create meaningful patterns in their play. And we don't take advantage of it because we don't know to recognize and point out the mathematics in our daily world, because the way we were taught didn't give us a grounding in playful mathematics and exploring math ideas. (The way I was taught, at least...and though I can't speak for the general "we," I suspect that many of you had similar educational experiences.)

Lockhart points out that mathematics is a discipline, as much of an art as music or painting, and in our culture we've reduced the teaching of math to math facts and how-to without addressing the theory, the why, the art behind the drills and the formulas. He writes:

"There is no question that if the world had to be divided into the 'poetic dreamers' and the 'rational thinkers' most people would place mathematicians into the latter category.
Nevertheless, the fact is that there is nothing as dreamy and poetic, nothing as radical, subversive, and psychedelic, as mathematics. It is every bit as mind blowing as cosmology or physics (mathematicians conceived of black holes long before astronomers found any), and allows more freedom of expression then poetry, art, or music (which depend heavily on the properties of the physical universe)." (p. 3)

And later ("Exactly!" I said as I scribbled notes on the paper, drew a big red star in the margin, repeat as I re-read it today):

"By concentrating on what, and leaving out why, mathematics is reduced to an empty shell. The art is not in the "truth" but in the explanation, the argument. It is the argument itself which gives the truth its context, and determines what is really being said and meant. Mathematics is the art of explanation. If you deny students the opportunity to engage in this activity--to pose their own problems, make their own conjectures and discoveries, to be wrong, to be creatively frustrated, to have an inspiration, to cobble together their own explanations and proofs-- you deny them mathematics itself." (p. 5)

Lockhart is passionate about mathematics, and he's passionate about teaching mathematics. He's not just sounding an alarm, a call for change. He's not blaming teachers or students or parents. He's asking us all to look at mathematics differently, to see its beauty and complexity, and to find ways to help our children experience math without killing their natural passion for learning. He writes about how to teach mathematics as an art...and how not to. How to engage students. How to help them make sense of it all for themselves and how to inspire a meaningful relationship with mathematics. How to create a sense of discovery.

And that's what teaching is all about. No matter what the subject.
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Books to Inspire Playful Mathematics

Buy them for your children. Check them out from the library. Leave them laying around without saying a word. Read them yourselves. Pick a day or two to do math puzzles instead of workbooks. Play the games. Tell the jokes. Work out the riddles.

It's fun. I promise.

Math for Smarty Pants (Brown Paper School Book) by Marilyn Burns.

I Hate Mathematics! (Brown Paper School Books) by Linda Allison, Marilyn Burns, and David Weitzman.

The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Rotraut Susanne Berner, and Michael Henry Heim.

Family Math for Young Children: Comparing (Equals Series) by Grace Coates, Jean Kerr Stenmark, and Brian Gothberg

Family Math (Equals Series) by Jean Kerr Stanmark, Virginia Thompson, and Ruth Cossey

Family Math : The Middle School Years, Algebraic Reasoning and Number Sense by Karen Mayfield-Ingram and Virginia Thompson.

Math By All Means series (Various authors).

Math Wizardry for Kids by Margaret Kenda, Phyllis S. Williams, and Tim Robinson

Janice VanCleave's Geometry for Every Kid: Easy Activities that Make Learning Geometry Fun by Janice VanCleave

Janice VanCleave's Math for Every Kid: Easy Activities that Make Learning Math Fun by Janice VanCleave
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More Fun Math (and links and book recommendations) at Poohsticks here: Math

Go figure! The Fascinating World of Mathematics: "Links to math games, activity ideas, puzzles, articles, learning and teaching aids, freebies, math in daily life, 'unschooling math,' overcoming math anxiety, and much more..."

What We're Reading

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Barabara Kingsolver.

The story of one family's attempt to eat locally. I haven't gotten much further in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle since the day I used it as a teeny tiny pillow for my back yard nap in the sun. It's been sitting Under Things. You know that's an actual place, right? Under Things. It's near its sister city Behind Things, on the way to On The Floor. It has been recently recovered from Out of Sight, Out of Mind, the province in which Under Things and so forth are located. Actually, it was under my Rainbow Resource catalog, and I re-found Animal, Vegetable once I finally placed my curriculum order. My dear friend B passed this book my way once she'd finished, and the first couple chapters have been engaging and fun to read. I can't wait to finish. But first I've got to finish my other books in progress.

The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, Wendell Berry.
The Art of the Commonplace is taking some time to read. Partly because I keep losing it. Mostly because Berry's essays are rich and thought-provoking, beautifully written. Trying to read the entire book at once would be like trying to eat an entire cheesecake in one sitting. Once I finish reading an essay, or even a part of one, I need time to process what I've read before beginning the next. Berry focuses on the importance of community and advocates a return to a more organic agrarian-based model for society. Read a Wendell Berry essay online: "The Pleasure of Eating"

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story, Diane Ackerman.
A true story of a Polish family, a zookeeper and his wife, who saved the lives of Polish Jews during WWII by hiding them at the Warsaw zoo. It's a remarkable story about remarkable and brave people.





Tea Time for the Traditionally Built: A No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel, Alexander McCall Smith.
I'm a fan of Mma Ramotswe and her old Botswana ways. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels are charming and delightful. I recommend them to many friends looking for a good book for leisurely reading. I've been enjoying the series on television, as the books have been turned into an HBO series. Botswana is beautiful, and unlike most television series these days, the HBO version of McCall's books are good clean fun.


Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers.
Four-year-old gent has asked me to teach him to read, so I'm digging the Bob books out of the basement and reading of the adventures of Mat and Sam once more. Predictable plot, flat characters. But who could ever tire of "Mat sat on Sam. Sam sat on Mat."???? I already know how the story ends, but the giggles never get old.

The Twenty-One Balloons, William Pene du Bois.
"It's good," says fine young gent, 8. He should write book reviews. Heck, maybe I'll start reviewing books like that. Good. Bad. Okay. Heh. It would be easier than trying to find something to say. I've never read The Twenty-One Balloons, so I can't say if it's Good, Bad or Okay. But fine young gent seems to like it.

Island of the Giant Pokemon (Pokemon Chapter Book #2), Tracey West.
As great literature goes, eh. But six-year-old gent's first chapter book was a Pokemon book from the library. He's reading and enjoying, and I'm sure I read plenty of fluff when I was a kid too.




Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5), J. K. Rowling.
Fine young gent, 8, finished The Goblet of Fire and watched the movie. As per our agreement, I am now reading number 5. Why, oh why did I agree to this? The last time I read a Potter book out loud, I swore I'd never do so again. Not because I don't enjoy the stories, but they're so long. And the gents insist I do voices, which is a challenge both because my British accents stink and because there are so darn many characters that it's hard to come up with a distinctive voice for each. Oh, the sacrifices we make for our children! Ah, it's not that bad. I'm a Potter fan, and one of the benefits of reading the books out loud is that I get to experience the story with my gents.

Serving Up the Harvest: Celebrating the Goodness of Fresh Vegetables, Andrea Chesman.
And a gardening/cooking book, my Mother's Day present to myself. A seasonal cookbook based on the produce available throughout the year, Serving Up the Harvest will come in handy this summer when we get our CSA box, and when we harvest our own veg from the garden. Who knew reading vegetable recipes would make me hungry and impatient to get into the kitchen? I've got plans for the spinach in the garden already! Yum.

Read this book: Hot, Flat and Crowded

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America, Thomas L. Friedman.

"What kind of America would you like to see--an America that is addicted to oil and thereby fueling the worst autocracies in the world, or a green America that is building scalable alternatives to crude oil and thereby freeing ourselves from the grip of countries who have drawn a bull's-eye on our back and whose values we oppose?

What kind of America would you like to see--and America that is steadily outsourcing more and more blue-collar, labor-intensive manufacturing jobs to China, or a green America that is building more knowledge-intensive green-collar technology jobs...which are more difficult to outsource and will have to be the industry of the future, as fossil-fuel energy supplies dwindle and world population grows?

...a green America where the U. S. goverment imposes steadily higher efficiency standards, forcing a constant flow of new thinking around materials, power systems, and energy software making us the most energy-productive country in the world?

...a green America where inventing a source of abundant, clean, reliable, cheap electrons, which could enable the whole planet to grow in a way that doesn't destroy its remaining natural habitats, becomes the goal of this generation...

...a green America that is seen as the country most committed--by example--to preserving our environment and the species that inhabit it, earning the world's respect?"
(from Chapter One, "Where Birds Don't Fly," p. 23-24)

Everyone should read this book.

Make no mistake, it's hardly a light feel-good read. It's depressing and challenging. But whether you agree with Friedman wholeheartedly or not, he's right about one thing: We are rapidly outgrowing our available resources. Something has to change, and now, or humanity's ability to survive on this planet will be compromised. And our country has a choice: America can lead the way or we can get left in the dust.

Sun Bread

Sun Bread, Elisa Kleven.

Sun Bread is a lovely story about a baker who tempts the sun back to her cold and dreary village by baking a delicious warm loaf of bread shaped like the sun. It's a charming story, and Kleven's illustrations make the book a delight to read. A sun bread recipe is included at the end of the book, making story time transition naturally and delightfully into the kitchen, especially on a dreary winter day.

Every once in a while, the fine young gents just fall in love with a book. Elisa Kleven is one of our favorite author-illustrators, ever since we chanced upon The Lion and the Little Red Bird. As a matter of fact, I was looking for The Lion and the Little Red Bird as a fun accompaniment to our color studies. It wasn't on the library shelf, nor was another Poohsticks favorite, The Paper Princess. (Poohsticks review of both The Lion and the Little Red Bird and The Paper Princess here.) But Sun Bread was on the shelf, so I checked it out instead. The fine young gents have been reading and re-reading it ever since.

Today I found Sun Bread at Robert's Bookshop, so I bought it. The gents were delighted when I walked in the door with an armful of books, and even more delighted to find a special favorite to keep on our shelves.

Read more about Elisa Kleven, her picture books, and her art at her lovely website: www.elisakleven.com. There's even a link to a delicious recipe for sun bread!

Tuesday Ten: What We're Reading

I'm Reading:

Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The Complete Guide to Organic Gardening, Steve Solomon.

It's garden season. Last week I got out and started digging up my garden boxes. It's time to plant peas, and soon I'll be planting spinach and potatoes. Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades is my new garden bible because it's written specifically for this wet temperate region. In other vegetable news, I called the Food for Lane County Youth Farm to sign up for a CSA box again this year. I can't wait!

Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States (Studies in Mathematical Thinking and Learning.), Liping Ma.

"Mathematical knowledge is based on both convention and logic. However, convention...serves as a shelter for those who don't have a conceptual understanding of a mathematical procedure." (p. 31) Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics was mentioned on a homeschool message board, and it's not available at our library, so I bought it. So far it's fascinating. This book is worth a separate post of its own. I hope to get to that soon.

A Collection of Math Lessons, Grades 1-3 (Math Solutions Series), Marilyn Burns and Bonnie Tank.

A Collection of Math Lessons showed up while I was looking on Amazon.com for the Liping Ma book, and this book is available from the library. It's got hands-on activties designed to stimulate mathematical creativity and problem-solving. The fine young gents and I have done the first math lesson, math necklaces, and it was great fun all around. Also worthy of a separate post.

Read-Alouds:

Mary Poppins, P. L. Travers.

I finished Mary Poppins last night. We were all a little sad. The fine young gents were charmed by the Banks children and their magical adventures with Mary. Second-grade gent's favorite chapter was the visit to the zoo, kindergarten gent still asks questions about Michael's bad day, and preschool gent wants me to re-read the visit to Uncle Wigg who went rolling and bobbing about the ceiling. As for me, well, I found myself delightedly exclaiming as I started each new chapter, "Oh, this is one of my favorite chapters in any book, ever!"

The Magic Pocket: Selected Poems, Michio Mado, Anno Mitsumasa, and Empress Michiko.

The Magic Pocket is lovely Japanese poems translated into English. The orginal Japanese is printed on the facing page. The elder lovely lady is teaching her brothers Japanese, so I keep my eye out for library books that they might enjoy. She's been reading some of these lovely poems in English to the fine young gents, and in Japanese to herself, delighted that she can read them in their orginal versions.

The fine young gents are reading:

Wag a Tail, Lois Ehlert.
Lois Ehlert is a favorite of the fine young gents. Our youngest gent has had this on the shelf by his bed for a couple weeks now, and he's fascinated by the dogs and their adventures.



Planting a Rainbow, Lois Ehlert.
Gardening and colors. A perfect companion to our soon-to-be-spring studies. The illustrations, of a garden planted in a rainbow of flowers, are bold and simple, beautiful and accurate.

Is It Red? Is It Yellow? Is It Blue?, Tana Hoban.
There are no words in this book, just color circles at the bottom of each page of the brightly colored photos of a city. I checked this out from the library to go with our color studies, and the fine young gents keep pulling it off the shelf and poring over the pictures. It's bright, colorful and engaging, perfect for all ages.

Divide and Ride (MathStart 3), Stuart J. Murphy and George Ulrich.

These MathStart books are a fun way to introduce and reinforce math concepts. One of the gents chose this book at the library, and it's been floating around the house ever since. With no prompting from me, I might add. They've got fine math minds and they think it's fun. I still scratch my head about that one. How is it that my children love math? Actually, I don't scratch my head, I think I know why. But that's another post too.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J. K. Rowling.

Second-grade gent has decided he's ready to tackle number four. He read the second and third books in the Harry Potter series last year, then decided to take a break because they were getting scary and longer. Two weeks ago, he mentioned that he might like to read The Goblet of Fire, so I made him a deal: Not only will he get to watch the movie after he reads the book, I'll read the fifth book as a read-aloud once he's finished the fourth. Last week we had a Potter-a-thon and watched the first three movies, and yesterday he started Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He's already captivated.

Science and Art: Color

Last week, we started our color study with an art project as basic as you can get: Think of something brightly colored. Choose colors from the crayon box and draw it. We have two beautiful drawings of rainbows and a paper with circles and L-E-V-I written all over hanging on the fridge.

We read about wavelengths of light in The Visual Encyclopedia of Science (DK).
Explanations of light and color online:
Visible light waves at the NASA website for kids
How Are Rainbows Formed? at Science Kids
Lightwaves and Color at The Physics Classroom (for older children or for adults)

Next, a color wheel study. Kid Zone Science has some nice material, including The Color Wheel, a colorful explanation of primary and secondary colors and a color wheel worksheet.

Today's study, a simple science study of color: Coffee filter colors

You need a coffee filter, markers, an eyedropper and water. A paper plate, thick paper towel, or baking sheet is nice too, as it keeps the inks from bleeding onto your work surface. Color large dots or thick lines of single colors on your coffee filter. Drop water on the ink dots with the eyedropper. It's fun to watch the colors wick across the filter, so take some time to observe. Set aside the filter to dry. Once it's dry, observe what's happened to the colors, especially at the edges. We discovered that our colored inks separated into different colors. We used Crayola markers and they worked dandy. The best color markers for the experiment: Brown, which separated into orange-pink-purple-blue, and green, which spread into a vivid blue edged with the faintest line of yellow.

The fine young gents recorded the results in their science notebooks using this form. It's a great all-purpose science form for young students. Students to make a prediction, observe, and come to a conclusion based on the observation, which, when you think about it, is the nuts and bolts of a science experiment.

A color study lends itself to a blending of art and science, and since we had all of the materials on the table we ended with coffee filter butterflies. Color with marker on a coffee filter. Use lots of bright colors! Drop water droplets onto the colors with the eyedropper and set aside the coffee filter to dry. Once the coffee filter is dry, scrunch the filter into a decorated doll clothespin. Add pipe cleaner antennae or tie a ribbon around the top to hang your butterfly.


Next week's art studies:
Color mixing and the Color Wheel from Enchanted Learning
Actual color mixing, and creating color wheels based upon these lesson plans: Color Wheel and Twelve Color Wheel

Upcoming science experiments and notebook entries:
Catch a Rainbow (also from Kid Zone Science)
Spinning Color Wheels from Crayola
A drawing of light wavelengths copied from our science encyclopedia
Bird in a Cage at Exploratorium's Science Snacks
The Science of Light at the Annenberg/CB Math and Science Project Teacher's Lab
Create a rainbow with the prism we've got stashed around here somewhere, and maybe with the hose too if we get a day that's sunny and warm enough.

Reading:
Color, Ruth Heller (This is a great explanation of color in printing and as a general color study. Fantastic!)
Mouse Paint, Ellen Stoll Walsh (Lovely intro to color mixing for younger readers.)
White Rabbit's Color Book, Alan Baker (Another wonderful color mixing book for younger kids.)
Color Me Science (Experiment With Science), New Book of Popular Science. (On request from the library.)

Books, books, books...

Got this from Sara at The Learning Umbrella:

“Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here.” Some of the list seems to come from the BBC’s Big Read list of 100 favorite books in Britain, although not completely and not in entirely the same order.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read.
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X +
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X +

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X +
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X +
6 The Bible – X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
Running total: 10

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X +
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare – not complete, so *
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X +
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks X
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger X
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot X
Running total: 18

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X +
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens X
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy *
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky *
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X +
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X +
Running total: 25

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen X +
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X +
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X +
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres X
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X +
Running total: 35

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving X
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins X
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan X
Running total: 44

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons *
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth X
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon X
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
Running total: 52

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov X (ugh, is there a symbol for "hated it"?)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt X
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie *
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X
Running total: 59

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X +
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce X
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath X
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome X +
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray X
80 Possession - AS Byatt X
Running total: 67

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker X
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro X
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert X
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn X
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Running total: 75

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X +
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole X
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X +
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo *

Total: 86

So many good books!

A late Wordless Wednesday

What We're Reading

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan.

I started The Omnivore's Dilemma an embarrassingly long time ago. I think it was on my list of books to read in 2007. But I bogged down in the beginning section when Pollan discussed corn. I lost the book (several times). I let it sit on my bedside table forever. At swim lessons or choir or gymnastics, I talked instead of reading. My fault. I got sidetracked by school and summer and children and other books. Sometimes you just have to be ready for a book. I picked it up a couple weeks ago and couldn't put it down. Pollan has a lot to say about our food systems, where our food comes from, how it gets to us, and why and how we need to change the way we eat. My favorite part: Mushrooms. They're fascinating organisms.

This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, Daniel Levitin.

This is Your Brain on Music (which I first mentioned in this post) took me forever to finish. Partly because I was reading it mostly at the pool, gymnastics and at the girls' choir practice, partly because there's so much to absorb that I read it in small chunks, and partly because, in all seriousness, I'd get distracted by the songs in my head while I was reading. I'd find myself humming a tune mentioned in the text over and over, thinking about the words of the song rather than the words on the page. Absolute pitch, music and emotion, earworms, attributes of music and how the brain perceives them, possible reasons human beings may have developed musical capabilities. It's a fascinating book.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl.

I pulled this off the shelf because I liked the title. I opened it because I liked the cover. I bought it, not because of the synopsis on the back (boo-ooring, I thought) but because I read the first page and thought it was funny.

I was riveted. It's a big book and I am usually too busy to drop life and just read, but I read Calamity Physics in three days. Intelligent, dark, original, funny at times, heartbreaking at others. Special Topics in Calamity Physics is part coming of age, part mystery, part conspiracy, part something else entirely. The story, in other hands....in other words?...could have degenerated into a melodramatic teen tragedy, but instead it became something else entirely. I found myself thumbing back to previous events as new revelations came to light, a sure sign of a good read. It's a bit wordy at times, but even the wordy bits are worth reading for the writing. A few of my favorite things: The way Pessl (through her protagonist, Blue) describes people, Blue's brilliant and eccentric father, and the unfolding mystery.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

A birthday buy. My Irie sis gave me a gift certificate for books(!) for my birthday. What an amazing story, all the more incredible because it's true. In a nutshell, a mountain climber, Greg Mortenson, lost his way after an arduous climb, wanders into the wrong village, sees the village children attending school out of doors (no building) and scratching their math problems in the dirt (no books, paper, pencils) and promises to build them a school. I'm assuming from the book's pictures that the promised school, and many others, have been built, but where I'm reading right now, even the first school is in doubt.

I'm sure most of the English-reading world has read Three Cups of Tea already, by the way. I'm usually a little behind on these things. When I see the book to read, you know, the one that's stacked all over the bookstore with glowing handwritten recommendations and "Bestseller!!" signs, I usually walk on by. Not out of some perverse "I don't follow the crowd" mentality, just because I know it will probably be around for a while until I finally buy it. Or forget about it. Either way.

Green Housekeeping, Ellen Sandbeck.

Hooray for birthdays! This is the on-deck book, next to be read as soon as I finish or (more likely) lose the book I'm reading right now.





Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1), Stephenie Meyer.

I'm not reading Twilight myself. The eldest of the lovely ladies is reading through the Twilight series. I've been tempted by all the buzz and by the movie, but after I went through a mercifully brief Anne Rice vampire phase, I shy away from all things vampire.



And the fine young gents are reading....


Where Are You Going? To See My Friend!, Eric Carle and Kazuo Iwamura.

English books are read front to back; Japanese books are read from back to front. In this charming story, the two meet in the middle, the English half written and illustrated by Eric Carle, the same story in Japanese written and illustrated by Kazuo Iwamura. The fine young gents have been studying Japanese under the guidance of their eldest sister, with the result that many of the young folk in our house (and our lovely next door neighbor girl, who sits in on the Wednesday Poohsticks Japanese class) are slightly obsessed with all things Japan. On of the sure signs that a library book is a hit is finding it all over the house. This one is going in Santa's book basket.

A Hole Is to Dig, Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

A Hole is to Dig has been a Poohsticks favorite for years. The top pick of the youngest gent, who is sleeping with the book as I type, so that I can't type out any of the charming definitions of holes and hugs and toes and the many other small things that fill childhood.


The Essential Calvin And Hobbes, Bill Watterson. (And the Indispensible and the Authoritative and the Lazy Sunday and Attack of the Deranged Killer Mutant Monster Homicidal Jungle Weirdos Go Boink...)

The reading fine young gents are going through a Calvin and Hobbes phase. Middle gent keeps starting stories that begin with, "Mom, Calvin just..." and I find myself holding my breath in case he's actually telling me a story about his older brother. Usually, to my relief, the shenanigans he's relating involve a stuffed tiger or a sled, neither of which we own.

Dial-a-Ghost, Eva Ibbotson.

Second-grade gent's reading book. I haven't read this one, though I've read and enjoyed other Ibbotson stories. The back coverreads (in a nutshell) something about wicked relatives trying to hire scary ghosts to frighten their young cousin (nephew?) to death in order to get his inheritance. There's a mix-up at the ghost agency and a friendly ghost family is assigned instead, and they try to help the poor young man. "It's good," says fine young gent. When pressed, "It's funny. I like the story." This kid should write book reviews, eh?

Oh well. He's reading and enjoying it.


Froggy Goes to the Doctor, Jonathan London.

I have a confession. I hate reading the Froggy books. They're cute and walk Froggy through many of the challenges of life like a doctor's visit or learning to swim. The gents think they're hysterically funny and kindergarten gent is willing to read it to me instead of the other way around. My review, then? They love it. They're willing to read it. It makes them laugh, which makes me laugh, so I love Froggy. Just don't ask me to read him.