What We're Reading: Number the Stars

I have my sister Grace to thank for this fantastic read-aloud because she gave it to Delaney for Christmas.  Delaney read it herself first, and then asked me to read it at bedtime.  She then made sure to correct me on every part I misread or that she thought I'd misread (for example, she did not easily accept that "Kirsti" was not really "Kristi").  I first read this 1990 Newberry Award winner when I was about 12.  I know I enjoyed it but didn't remember a whole lot about it all these years later.  I never would have thought to read it with the kids because I mistakenly remembered it as being more of a Young Adult novel.  I soon discovered that Delaney's at the perfect age for this fictional story of a 10-year-old Danish heroine who along with her family, helps smuggle her Jewish best friend and her family to Sweden during World War II.

The story moves quickly and the chapters are very short which is perfect for those nights when bedtime happens a little later than it ought to.  But every chapter ended leaving us wanting more, and many ended with cliffhangers, making it nearly impossible to read just one chapter at bedtime.  Delaney was always disappointed when we had to end for the night, and a lot of times so was I.  We got sucked right in.

The story opens in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1943, as Annemarie and her best friend Ellen are racing home from school with Annemarie's five-year-old little sister trailing along behind.  Then they are ordered to halt by one of the Nazi soldiers patrolling the city, and are interrogated.  We never again see the girls acting like carefree kids.  The presence of the soldiers is becoming ever more oppressive, and the girls and their families are growing more fearful as the first few chapters progress.  They've seen their country taken over, good food and new clothes have become scarce, and the people tiptoe around trying to avoid angering the increasingly edgy German soldiers.  Sometimes Annemarie wonders just how far her family and she herself would go to protect the Jews of their country from the Nazis.  She feels scared when she thinks about that, but then she remembers that she's just an  "ordinary person who would never be called upon for courage."  

One day, word gets out that all the Jews of the city are to be rounded up and taken away.  Annemarie must be brave and help her family as they help Ellen and her family escape.  Annemarie learns quickly about the bravery and sacrifice that ordinary people like herself are capable of.  This is based on the true story of the Danish Resistance and how they smuggled thousands of Jews to safety in Sweden.

Throughout the book, Delaney would sometimes interrupt with questions such as, "Who were the Nazis?"  I tried to explain to her about what happened back then, with Hitler and the Holocaust.  This book is an appropriate introduction to that subject for kids since the focus is on how the good people fought back, and does not go into gory details of Nazi atrocities.

We also talked about what it means to be courageous.  At one point Annemarie said to her uncle who had praised her courage, "But I was so scared!"  And he said that they all were scared, but basically, being courageous means you do what you have to do anyway.  It definitely got Delaney thinking, and she said to me, "Do you think I'm courageous?"  I could have said, "Sure!" but instead I said, "What do you think?"  She just looked thoughtful.  It is hard for anyone to know what kind of courage they'll have when they need it, and when you're a seven-year-old who spends half your life in the back of your mom's SUV, it's pretty tough to imagine being in the scenarios that Annemarie was in.  But I know she's got a big heart for her friends and is developing ideas of good and bad, right from wrong.  I liked having the opportunity to talk about these things with her.  As far as Annie and Timmy go.. they probably just enjoyed extra time to wrestle before bed.  I think Annie was listening maybe some of the time.

Bring on the next great read-aloud!

What We're Reading: A Little Princess

Whenever I talk to my mom about how I read books to the kids, she is impressed by how much they enjoy being read to, and that they will stay still and listen for so long.  I guess I've taken it for granted that she read to me when I was little, and now I read to my own kids.  It's fun!  When I think about it I do realize that this quiet activity we share together really is a special thing, and it's not always easy to make it a priority.  As they get older and life gets more hectic, this may not happen as much.  But for now we do have the time and my kids still like my company (amazing!), so I'll just be grateful for as long as that lasts.  At bedtime, not every night but as long as we have a book and it's not too late, I sit on one of their beds and Annie plays with my hair while we all get lost in a good story.  Delaney always busies herself with something while she listens, and sometimes that something is another book.  But she always asks questions that reveal she's been hanging on every word.  Timmy plays with toys and sometimes makes a nuisance of himself, but he never wants to miss out on story time.

Right now the book is A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  I read this book a long time ago myself.  My 5th grade teacher gave it to me for Christmas.  (I also read A Secret Garden by the same author -- that book was gifted to me by two different relatives in the same year.)  A few weeks ago I happened to see it on a shelf at the library and grab it.  We've been working our way through it off and on, and I've had to renew it once and probably will one more time.  We started off a little slow with it but as we get closer to the end it is harder to stop and I've been reading two or even three of the longwinded chapters at a time until my voice starts to go hoarse.

I had long forgotten how the rest of the story goes beyond the beginning: Little Sara Crewe's father takes her from India to the boarding school in London; she is fabulously wealthy and treated like a princess; then he dies after making a bad investment and leaves her penniless.  Now I get to enjoy the entire rest of the story along them as if it's the first time.  I can't wait to see the ending but I don't want it to be over!

Reading this again as an adult, here are some of my impressions:

The vocabulary is hard.  In the beginning there are several French words and phrases that I felt like an idiot trying to say, that had me wishing I could have spared maybe just one of the five years of Latin I took in junior high and high school, just to learn a little bit of French and how to pronounce things.

As far as the English goes, there are lots of very quaint-sounding descriptions, and words that I don't recognize.  We rely heavily on context to figure out what is what, for example a "brougham."  (It's a carriage.)  Many times Delaney asks me, "What's that?"  and I can only give her my best guess.  When I say "quaint" descriptions, a good example of that is the frequent use of the word "queer" to mean "strange", frequently used to describe Sara who is not like any of the other girls.

One of Sara's friends speaks Cockney English and it's not too hard for me to decipher since I'm reading it and not hearing it, but Delaney usually needs me to say it again in a way she can understand.  I want to see the movie so I can hear Becky talk.

This book might not have made much of an impression on me when I was Sara's age myself, but  I love this strong, courageous little heroine.  When her beloved father loses his fortune and dies, she is left alone and at the mercy of the horrible Miss Minchin.  Angry at being burdened by the child, she takes away every single thing she has and works her to the bone.  Of all the servants, she is the lowest, and endures abuses from all of them who enjoy tormenting the former "prize pupil" of the seminary.  She is sent out into the harsh London winter with holes in her shoes, and she is often made to go hungry.

If any one of these things happened to any ordinary person, it would be enough to drive them to despair and even madness.  But Sara, a keenly intelligent child with a vivid imagination, has always seen herself as a princess -- one who is noble, kind and generous.  And she is determined even more so to be a princess even in the worst of times.  The things that happen to her and the way she reacts to them have me almost in tears as I read.  Would that I could even have an ounce of her fortitude and selflessness in my character!

Right now we're watching Elf until it ends at 8, and we'll read one more chapter afterward -- just one.

Since we're having a quiet Christmas here in SC, and two weeks of no school, I foresee us finishing this book in the next couple of nights and looking for something else to read.  I'm thinking maybe The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe would be a good one for winter.

What we're reading: Ramona books

From the day I first found out I was having a baby girl, I looked forward to passing on my favorite childhood books, and envisioned us reading out loud together like Mom and I did a long time ago (Cheaper by the Dozen -- best front porch reading ever!).  Come to think of it, I would absolutely love to read aloud with my boy too, even though I have always pictured it as a mother-daughter thing with Ramona, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables, Caddie Woodlawn, and all of those classic girl heroines.  But of course, there are plenty of books with boys as the main characters, and no reason why either type of book wouldn't appeal to both sexes.  I enjoyed Hatchet, It's Like This, Cat, and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing when I was little.  I read a LOT as a kid, and it is my pleasure to pass on the love of reading to my kids, although I hope that they are able to find a balance between reading and lots of other things.  I preferred books to people, and really, to anything else from about age 10 on.  That led to a lot of social awkwardness and some difficulty living in the "real world."  From me the kids will maybe get their love of quiet, individual pursuits.  From their dad, I hope they get a healthy enjoyment of things like team sports.  Then they will be well-rounded individuals.

The girls, especially Delaney, love being read to.  It's hard to find time for it on a typical weekday between homework, Delaney's own reading requirement, soccer, and outside playtime which takes precedence now that we're having such beautiful weather.  We usually try to squeeze in a chapter before bed at least a couple times a week.  The last weekend was rainy and we read a lot.  For the past few weeks we've been reading the Ramona series.  We've read Ramona the Pest, Ramona the Brave and Ramona and her Father.  We are slowly working our way through Ramona and her Mother.  We've probably renewed these books at the library the maximum number of times we're allowed.  I try not to own any fiction books because they take up too much space and are a waste of money, especially in the case of brand new books.  But I might have to make an exception for the kids' books that we really enjoy.  I could buy the entire Ramona series from Scholastic right now for $18, and I think I'll do that so we can read them at leisure, and they can re-read them themselves.  I loved having a book collection when I was little, and being able to re-read my favorites.  I'd get something new out of them every time.

As a grownup and a mother revisiting these books, I'm having so much fun.  Beverly Cleary's writing is a little old-fashioned and kind of quaint.  For example, she frequently uses "cross" to mean angry and "quarrel" to mean fight.  The characters wear "car coats" when they go places.  I just checked to see what year the book was written after asking Tim, who was born in 1974, if he remembers car coats from childhood, but he does not.  I expected the copyright year to be 1965 when I looked inside the first pages of Ramona and her Mother, but to my surprise it was 1979, my birth year.  Hmm.  I am not sure where stories take place, but if I had to guess it would be the Pacific Northwest.  In addition to car coats, rain boots are mentioned frequently.  In Ramona the Brave, her mother tells her daughters that she's getting a part-time job to pay for an addition on their house.  The older sister Beatrice "Beezus" responds excitedly, "Oh, Mother, you're going to be liberated!"  I know that the Ramona books were written over a span of five decades.  A quick Google search tells me that the first came out in 1955 and the last in 1999.  I notice that adults are never referred to by their first names.  I have no idea the first names of Mr. and Mrs. Quimby, Ramona's parents.  They are "Mother and Daddy" or Mr. and Mrs. Quimby.  Wikipedia calls them "Bob" and "Dorothy," so I guess it is mentioned somewhere in one of the books.  When Ramona starts kindergarten in Ramona the Pest, she and her friend Howie are on their own walking the few blocks to school after the first few days.  In the 80s, I walked to school with my cousins/brother/friends from first grade on, but nowadays I suspect no little kids are walking without parents, and most are not walking at all.  More's the pity.

I find the characters in these books so lovable, as seen through the eyes of the high-spirited, impulsive and often misunderstood Ramona.  Ramona is always finding herself in some kind of trouble, and her sincerest efforts are always backfiring.  There's the time in Ramona and her Father when she and her recently out-of-work father watch a commercial together that has a cute little girl telling a grownup that her pantyhose is wrinkly like an elephant's ankles or something.  Her dad comments that the kid must have made a fortune doing that commercial, so Ramona gets the bright idea to start acting like a cute kid in a commercial, in the hopes of being discovered, making her own commercial, and making her family rich.  Oh, and in the hopes of being loved and adored by all, which is what she wants more than anything.  So one day at school she tells her teacher that her pantyhose has more wrinkles than an elephant's legs.  Poor Ramona can't understand why that doesn't go over well.  And it's on the same day as the parent-teacher conferences, no less.

Ramona, her responsible and (maddeningly) sensible older sister Beezus, and the Quimby parents are so real.  They experience stress and they say hurtful things to each other in the heat of the moment.  The themes  are not as light and fluffy as the typical fare for kids in younger grades.  When Mr. Quimby gets laid off from work, the family struggles to adjust to the loss of income and having Mrs. Quimby work full-time while he looks for another job.  Ramona and Beezus launch an ultimately successful campaign to get their father to quit smoking.  I squirmed a little as I read those parts out loud because I realized that my kids have never laid eyes on a cigarette or seen anyone smoking.  One evening Ramona and Beezus witness an argument -- a "quarrel" -- between their parents one night that starts with harsh words exchanged over whose job it was to turn on the crock-pot that morning.  That somehow escalates to a ridiculous debate over whose grandmother was a better woman.  Finally, as the girls watch with mounting anxiety, it culminates with Mrs. Quimby smacking her husband on the butt with the pancake turner.  I see myself so much in Mrs. Quimby, especially when she's at the end of her rope after a long hard day, and comes home to see that the dang crock-pot hasn't been turned on and they're all starving.  I told Tim about it and said that I can totally see how that argument started, and how, if he responded a certain way to my cranky remarks, we could wind up yelling at each other about things that have nothing to do with anything.  But while the kids have seen us have disagreements, they've never seen us completely lose our temper at each other.  Besides, when I get to that hungry, cranky state Tim sends me out of the kitchen.  In Mrs. Quimby, I also recognize my own wry humor, the way she gives in to the demands of her kids in an 'I guess, why not?' kind of way, and just tries to maintain her sanity when it seems like there is always something -- especially with a kid like Ramona.  I think all moms can relate.

My girls who do a fairly good job of staying out of trouble for the most part, can recognize the signs that Ramona is headed toward danger, and they kind of kind of cringe as they wonder what's going to happen next.  Ramona wants to squeeze that brand new tube of toothpaste and keep squeezing..  bad idea, Ramona, don't do it.  By the way, this was 7 1/2-year-old Ramona who does this. Why?  Maybe if I had been that kid, I would understand, but I was more of a Beezus myself.  Ramona wants to make a beautiful crown out of burrs to wear on her head ..  I wouldn't if I were you.  On the other hand, I completely understand her frustration at "Susan with the boing-boing curls" who copies off her paper owl and gets accolades from the teacher, leaving Ramona to look like she'd been the copy cat.  I can't stand a copy cat either.  This one event mushroomed into probably the worst of all the disasters of Ramona's first grade year.  It is such a relief to me when she finally tearfully explains the entire thing to her family, and Mrs. Quimby says she actually feels sorry for Susan because she's the one who has no imagination.

We are only about halfway through the Ramona series, and at the rate we're going it will take an entire year to get through them.  There are also a wealth of other Beverly Cleary books to dig into once we're done.  I know there are a few movies out there based on the books, and I glanced at one at the library.  I see one Beezus and Ramona has Selena Gomez as the star.  Interesting.  Would we like it or would it be a big disappointment?