A Wrinkle in Time and Nicholas

This week I'm reviewing for Claire Helen- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle and for Simon, Nicholas by Rene Goscinny.

A Wrinkle in Time

http://www.amazon.com/Wrinkle-Time-Madeleine-LEngles-Quintet/dp/0312367546/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1

Here's the Amazon blurb-

It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.
"Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."
A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusual book. A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.

A Wrinkle in Time is the winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal.

Fountas and Pinnell level- V

Lexile level- 740L

I am reviewing this because I thought this would be too hard, theme-wise, for Claire Helen, but it was not. If the kid can handle pretty standard adventure plotlines with a little bit of emotion (Harry Potter, Narnia), this will be a walk in the park. I would say by the time a child can understand the book well enough to have it read to them, they can probably read it on their own. I wouldn't let Claire Helen read it until she understood exponents- just how big things can be, and how small- so that the distances between galaxies and bits about black holes and points would have some meaning. At that point the vocabulary and narrative structure is not really hard.

I have a hard time relating to people who do not feel this book is special, even if they did not like it. Meg is a quintessential identity seeking smart girl discovering that adults are just people too. Charles Wallace's takeover by It(the giant, evil, pulsating brain) is so convincing you can almost see it. All three witches are archetypal. It is supposedly a story about a young girl in search of her father, who has been lost to the great evil It. "It" robs us of our free will by lulling us with the rhythm of his/It's thoughts. She is aided by three supernatural beings who can travel through tesseracts- wrinkles in time. She visits a paradise and the bowels of evil, nearly losing her innocent young brother along the way. Really it is about a girl being introduced to the mystery of the universe and all our tiny places in it. It's wonderful. 5 stars. Thumbs and big toes up. Claire Helen read it in under a day, bouncing from foot to foot to tell us what had just happened whenever she came up from her reading reverie.

Way back in the 80's, I thought that It and the way it used technology to take over the denizens of Camazotz was incredibly creepy. However, also creepily, this is completely not scary to the youth of today. Not too dark at all, but certainly more depth than early grade series.

Nicholas

http://www.amazon.com/Nicholas-Ren%C3%A9-Goscinny/dp/0714845299/ref=pd_sim_b_6

Here's the Amazon blurb:

Nicholas is the first of five books that bring to life the day to day adventures of a young school boy - amusing, endearing and always in trouble. An only child, Nicholas, appears older at school than he does as home and his touchingly naive reaction to situations, cut through the preconceptions of adults and result in a formidable sequence of escapades. This first book in the series contains a collection of nineteen individual stories where, in spite of trying to be good, Nicholas and his friends always seem to end up in some kind of mischief. Whether in the school room, at home, or in the playground, their exuberance often takes over and the results are calamitous – at least for their teachers and parents. Whether confusing the photographer hired to take the class picture, dealing with having to wear glasses for the first time, or trying desperately to help the teacher when the school inspector pays a visit, Nicholas always manages to make matters worse. Nicholas was awarded the 2006 Batchelder Honor Award, which recognizes outstanding children's books published in a foreign language and translated into English. Nicholas was also recognized by The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) as a 2006 Notable Children's Book.

Fountas and Pinnell- no idea.

Lexile level- 1070L

Why is this book not more popular?? This book is fabulous almost as much for what it is as the actual book. A positive, clever boy character not going to war, written by the author of the Asterix comics, illustrated by the New Yorker cartoonist Jean-Jacque Sempe. It's 19 stories about things that happen to any child anywhere- Class Picture Day, soccer games, school inspection- but with Nicholas around seem to happen with a bit more chaos and fun. Nicholas is always cheerful and tries very hard, even in the face of annoying schoolmates and difficult grown-ups. I like it very much, as does Simon. It's the tone that really draws you in- Nicholas seems to clever to be so naive, but you charming you believe he is. Simon has read all 5, and rereads parts frequently.

Someday I will post less than candy coated, fawning reviews, but not tonight. Best, happiest foot forward.

Message in a bottle

Hi there!

It has been a long time. This weekend I am going to go pick up supplies for the third incarnation of the egg hunt pictured below. That picture looks more like Penny now than Claire, and Penny will probably wear that same dress to the hunt.

Here is Penny feeding the penguins at the zoo today:

Those are some well fed penguins.

She only likes her hair done in ways which copy particular American Girl dolls. Here we have "Molly." I probably don't need to tell you that our oldest child had no idea what an American Girl dolls was at this age. She also likes zombies, and told me the other day, thinks one of the popular zombie jobs is to paint the sky every night, to make it that "annoying blue" color it is when there are no clouds.

She is definitely our weirdest child, and we have a lot of weird to choose from.

I don't know why I dropped off blogging. Lots of reasons. I lost the camera cord to upload pictures. I got busy with lawyering work. Other stuff. I fell into reading only economic nonfiction and 19th century Slavic literature and immediately became depressed (kid-ding! Who doesn't love Notes from the Underground on a Saturday night?).

I probably wouldn't have picked it back up again, but I think if you have a thing you talk too much about something for polite society you should just get a blog. This is why new mothers and devoted fans of Twilight everywhere need to have them. Right now my thing is children's literature. I got asked 3 times last week where I get all those book recommendations, I don't think so much complimentarily as...bemused. The way you look at an old great aunt who always manages to return the subject to the happenings of her feline companions..

I often (and loudly) accuse Mat of being a hoarder. I believe he has a FULL collection of junior high school science notebooks circa 1988 somewhere in our basement, whereas I had to be bodily stopped from throwing away a 100 year old teacup collection that was irritating me by being on a shelf I might have preferred empty. It's not so much that I hate clutter. A house with teetering stacks of books and coats a bit asunder feels flexible and rich, where priorities are straight and adventurous plans are hatched. That is a place where people come and go to exciting enough things that they don't have time to perseverate over right angles and rug placement. But I hate having to care for things- it makes me feel owned by objects, instead of the other way round. So I like to get rid of them whenever I can. Take that, old pair of shoes. I'm onto you, outdated iPod. Sayonara, old flower pots for plants we will never have in our house. Enjoy your new home at Goodwill. They can categorize you and dust you off and recharge whatever needs recharging. I am going to go read my children a book.

If he wants to mutter something about pots and kettles, though, Mat can just point at the children's bookshelves. I don't think it's an exaggeration to guess that our house contains a thousand children's books. Maybe more? Maybe more. Bookshelves and bookshelves of picture books and chapter books, and then rows of chapter books on top of the bookshelves. "I just go to the library, lady," you are thinking. I do! The big two bring home 10 a week from their school library. We bring home books from our large urban library by the shopping bag full on a regular basis.

But still I want more. We can't possibly not have Phantom Tollbooth within reach; what boy can survive all of childhood without the first three Hardy Boys at least? Someday when they stop being heathens the children will finally appreciate Nesbit, and I will hand them House of Arden with only the merest hint of a smirk.

I have a lot of opinions about kids' books, I am saying.

It's not completely clear to me why. I did not read a lot of children's books when I was an actual child. Around 7 I discovered Agatha Christie and Stephen King, and apparently I felt the time had come to set aside childish things never having read Mary Poppins. Because Needful Things is surely where life's meaning will be revealed? But now that I have kids I read a lot of it, and I think a lot about what they will like and what I want them to read while I still have a little influence.

Anyway, now that the kids are off and running with reading, I find that I don't have time or energy to preread everything they are going to read. If Mat wants to get into those Star Wars novels Simon devours he is welcome to, but I'm not gonna. They are both better readers than they are emotionally mature, which narrows the field. So I scour the internet and our library for reviews, levelled books by topic, if-you-like-this-try-this's, and though there is a lot of help out there, there could be more. I keep wishing there were lists out there for kids with closer to their tastes, at close to both their reading and maturity level. But there are not, so I am going to try adding something to the great collective.

I think my goal will be to review at least a book a week for each of them (and who knows, when Penny starts reading more than Elephant and Piggie, maybe one for her). I like the Fountas and Pinnell guides, so I'll post that too, whenever I can, but it's not always available. So I'll add the Lexile number, which I think kind of stinks, generally, but are better than nothing.

Here are the captains of our little ship:

Claire Helen, the oldest.

Claire Helen likes- strong female characters, fantasy elements (especially time travel), mysteries, good dialogue. Dislikes- battles, scatalogically funny, too many descriptions (especially of "olden time life"), things I suggest too often. Emotional tension scares her; death- even the serial killer in Egypt Game!- does not. Her favorite books are Harriet the Spy (Fitzhugh) and The Secret of Platform 13 (Ibbotson). She also still adores the Ivy and Bean series by Annie Barrows, which she read in kindergarten, and I wish I could find something like it at her level now.

Simon, (always in) the middle.

Simon likes- boy leads (but not exclusively), funny, anything funny, will tolerate fantasy if it is clever enough (or Star Wars), action. Likes to read a lot about what the main character is thinking. Nothing scares him. Nothing. I think I need 3 favorite books- Homer Price (McCloskey), Nicholas (Goscinny), and the How to Train Your Dragon Series (Cowell).

I'm going to leave this post separately as an introduction, and make the next post the first reviews.

Claire Helen got the golden egg at the egg hunt I put on a few weeks ago! It's traditional. At least if you are putting on an egg hunt for 200 kids on 2 days notice with only a Bartell's drugstore at your disposal.

She was quite pleased.

Hands off the egg, mother.

Just posting this one because Penny looks so Penny, and it's usually so hard to get pictures of babies where they really look like themselves.

Easter!

I'm going to go downstairs and see if I can get any of the Claire Helen photos to upload(there are some really good ones from my professional organizations' easter egg hunt), because she is right at the age where they tally unfairnesses endlessly, and we all know having your mother not post as many pictures of you on a blog one time is incontrovertible proof that YOU NEVER LOVED ME AS MUCH AS THE OTHER TWO.

English is needlessly hard

Simon has started contracting the phrase "I am not" as "I amn't." E.g., "I amn't going to bed right now." "I amn't a goofy kid." When I start to correct him I become tripped up by the fact that what he's doing is just applying rules of grammar in a completely logical way, even though we're used to putting the contraction someplace else in the sentence. He'll figure it out. I amn't too worried about it.

- M