Books for Boys ~ Part 1

Hello! to those of you joining me from the Storyformed Podcast. Welcome to Mt. Hope Chronicles!

To my regular readers, check out the Storyformed Podcast. Today I’m talking with Holly and Jaime about Favorite Books for Boys.

For newcomers, book recommendations are sprinkled throughout the blog, but you can find most of them at the following links:

Picture Book Picnic
The Reading Child
and Literary Buffet

I’ve been wanting to share more comprehensive lists, and this seems like a good time to start. Favorites lists are always difficult, though. There are so many books to choose from, and I know I’m leaving many great ones off the list.

Part 2, coming soon, will include non-fiction books and book selections for teen boys.

For now, we’ll start with these family favorites!

Animals

The Great Mouse Detective by Eve Titus [This is a great easy chapter book series for beginning readers.]

Babe: The Gallant Pig by Dick King-Smith [Dick King-Smith wrote a bunch of wonderful easy chapter books for beginning readers, but Babe is my personal favorite.]

Dominic by William Steig [Many readers are familiar with Steig’s picture books (Amos and Boris is a personal favorite), but few people have read his three short chapter books. Dominic is one of my most favorite children’s books, but The Real Thief and Abel’s Island are wonderful as well. Steig’s vocabulary is incredible.]

The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden [This is a delightful story and a favorite from my childhood.]

Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin by Marguerite Henry [This simple chapter book is a historical narrative about the artist Benjamin West’s childhood.]

Freddy the Pig by Walter Brooks [This series about a detective pig is incredibly witty and humorous.]

Humor

Little Pear by Eleanor Frances Lattimore [Follow along with Little Pear’s adventures and capers in this easy chapter book for beginning readers.]

Hank the Cowdog by John R. Erickson [This series is hilarious. The audio books read by the author are worthy listening.]

Half Magic (and others) by Edward Eager [Delightful and witty.]

Homer Price (and Centerburg Tales) by Robert McCloskey [Homer Price is always my first suggestion when someone asks me for book recommendations for boys! Homer is resourceful and always finds himself in the middle of adventures.]

Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson [More vintage schemes and adventures!]

Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat [Laugh-out-loud adventures of a boy and his pet menagerie.]

The Mad Scientists’ Club by Bertrand Brinley [More vintage capers.]

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster [This hilarious book is full of word play humor and a love of words and numbers.]

The Knights’ Tales by Gerald Morris [The four books in this series are perfect for knight-loving boys. Humor and chivalry make a great combination.]

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey [Hilarious stories of the Gilbreth family, but a tear-jerker warning for the ending!]

Realistic and Survival

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare [A thirteen-year-old boy is left to tend his family’s cabin in the wilderness.]

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George [A boy leaves the city and survives alone in the wilderness with a falcon and weasel for company.]

Hatchet (and others) by Gary Paulsen [A thirteen-year-old boy finds himself alone in a wilderness after a plane crash.]

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls [A young boy and his two dogs become a hunting team. Tear-jerker warning!]

Little Britches and series by Ralph Moody [This autobiographical series is a family favorite.]

The Lonesome Gods by Louis L’Amour [Perfect for slightly older readers, this novel is full of adventure and survival—and a love of books.]

I Am David by Anne Holm [A twelve-year-old boy escapes from a labor camp and makes his way alone across Europe. This is one of my childhood favorites.]

The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert DeJong [A young Chinese boy is separated from his family during the Japanese invasion. He must begin a dangerous journey in order to be reunited.]

Fantasy

The Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagan [This fantasy series is a top favorite for all three of my boys.]

The Squire’s Tales series by Gerald Morris [This series is at the top of my own favorites list, and my boys have loved them as well. Hilarious, witty, simple, stirring, and profound. Strong male and female characters. Full of virtue, chivalry, and what it means to be human (along with foils to show the opposite). Parental warning: these are retellings of Arthurian legends, so they contain romantic situations both positive and negative, including several affairs. The author treats the negative relationships appropriately, never explicit and always showing the steep consequences for actions.]

The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson [Another family favorite.]

The Wilderking Trilogy by Jonathan Rogers [The story of King David loosely re-imagined in the swamps of “Corenwald.”]

The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander [A modern classic.]

Outlaws of Time (and others) by N.D. Wilson [I personally love the Western fantasy adventure of Outlaws of Time, but Wilson’s other books are worthy reading as well.]

Watership Down by Richard Adams [Watership Down may be a book about rabbits, but it probably belongs in the realistic survival genre. This is an excellent novel for slightly older readers as it explores the nature of leadership and various societal structures. Adams is a master at world-building. A classic!]

Siblings

The Moffats (series) by Eleanor Estes [Meet Sylvie, Joey, Janey, and Rufus in this classic family adventure.]

The Saturdays (Melendy Quartet) by Elizabeth Enright [Mona, Rush, Randy, and Oliver go for independent adventures in New York City circa 1940s.]

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome [This 1930 gem tells the story of the Walker siblings and their parent-less sailing trip to an uninhabited island.]

“Girl Books” Loved by (My) Boys

Jenny and the Cat Club (series) by Esther Averill [Jenny the darling black cat may be the main character, but her cat club friends are just as personable.]

The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton [Quirky and delightful in every way.]

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin [Chinese folklore-inspired fantasy.]

“Eclipses suns imply.”

Our house is in the path of totality. Our state is preparing for an apocalypse. [grin]

As we’re gearing up for this momentous experience, we’re doing a little light reading (what else?). Levi finished American Eclipse about the 1878 eclipse in the West and said it was wonderful. As soon as I finish this blog post, I’ll be cracking it open beyond the first few pages.

I did happen to glance at the page sandwiched between the preface and the prologue. On that page is an artistic image of a sun and moon and this quote:

Eclipses suns imply. 

-Emily Dickinson

I had to read it multiple times before my brain registered the words, the poetic so out of order in our pedestrian culture.

When her meaning hit my brain, I immediately thought of a C.S. Lewis quote:

“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

It turns out eclipses can cause existential pondering. Check out this astonishing essay, ‘Total Eclipse,’ by Annie Dillard. In it she recounts her experience of the 1979 total eclipse. [The essay link will only be available until August 22, so go read it now!]

The white ring and the saturated darkness made the Earth and the sky look as they must look in the memories of the careless dead. What I saw, what I seemed to be standing in, was all the wrecked light that the memories of the dead could shed upon the living world. We had all died in our boots on the hilltops of Yakima, and were alone in eternity. Empty space stoppered our eyes and mouths; we cared for nothing. We remembered our living days wrong. With great effort we had remembered some sort of circular light in the sky—but only the outline. Oh, and then the orchard trees withered, the ground froze, the glaciers slid down the valleys and overlapped the towns. If there had ever been people on Earth, nobody knew it. The dead had forgotten those they had loved. The dead were parted one from the other and could no longer remember the faces and lands they had loved in the light. They seemed to stand on darkened hilltops, looking down.

And,

The mind wants to live forever, or to learn a very good reason why not. The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness; the mind wants to know all the world, and all eternity, and God. The mind’s sidekick, however, will settle for two eggs over easy.

Her very last paragraph struck me to the bone. Do we turn “at last even from glory itself with a sigh of relief”?

I just want to quote all of Lewis’s essay ‘The Weight of Glory’ here, but I can’t so go read it. (In ‘The Weight of Glory,’ Lewis revists the idea that ‘food hunger implies,’ not that we are guaranteed to have it or enjoy it.)

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the stagering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition [and two eggs over easy] when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Have you read The Great Divorce? It’s a picturesque vision of how terrifying glory can be, and how many turn from glory itself with a sigh of relief.

“Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?”

Will you come?

Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl ~ A Review

 

I am a traveler.

So begins N.D. Wilson’s Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God’s Spoken World.

Wilson unleashes a blizzard of swirling poetic imagery as he invites us to travel through a year with him, season by season, giving us the distinct impression that he is along for the ride as well.

In the preface he states:

For me, this book was an occurrence. It rolled over me. I worked to shape and control it, to pace it, to leash it and teach it to sit and roll over. I did my best. But at times my best was insufficient, and in some places you might notice this thing climbing on the furniture, licking my face, or dragging me down the street.

I enjoyed the ride, though it left me panting and clammy.

For sure.

This romp through philosophy, science, nature, theology, and poetry is not for linear, just the facts, ma’am reader. It’s for the reader who is ready to experience an exhilarating and sometimes queasy joyride on the Tilt-A-Whirl. [Spoiler alert: you’re already riding it.]

Why has every culture “felt the overwhelming pressure of existence itself and the need to explain it”?

What is this place? Why is this place? Who approved it?… Was this cosmic behavior expected? Am I supposed to take it seriously? How can I? I’ve watched goldfish make babies, and ants execute earwigs. I’ve seen a fly deliver live young while having its head eaten by a mantis.

This is not a sober world. Bats really do exist. Caterpillars really turn into butterflies—it’s not just a lie for children. Coal squishes into diamonds. Apple trees turn flowers into apples using sunlight and air.

Nothing is too small or too large to escape Wilson’s notice, and he delights in the absurd.

The tour begins in winter while we are shoveling snow. We are introduced to Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Voltaire, and Kant. On to Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Hume. Wilson is tough on them. He prefers priests.

They know this universe is brimming with magic, with life and riddles and ironies. They know that the world might eat them, and no encyclopedia could stop it.

So we move on to the question What is the world made of?

Illusion? Suffering? Thoughts? The ancient elements—earth, air, fire and water? Quarks and leptons?

What are quarks made of? Can quarks be made of something which is made of something else which is in turn made of yet another thing, ad infinitum? “Infinite regress isn’t possible.” Is the answer, at some point, “nothing”?

That olive [I held in my hand] had mass, it had savor and flavor, texture and temperature, and even a tiny fragment of pit that nicked my gum. It had a measurable amount of potential energy. I am comfortable saying that the olive was no illusion. That the material world exists in all of its toe-stubbing glory. (I see no reason to wander down the long, lonely road of self-sensory doubt. That way avoids no difficulties and only leads to chat rooms, meds, atonal music, and cosmic loathing. It is a slow and painful suicide. And, in my opinion, it’s tacky.)

Then he welcomes us to the world of faith. What is the world made of?

Words. Magic words. Words spoken by the Infinite, words so potent, spoken by One so potent that they have weight and mass and flavor. They are real. They have taken on flesh and dwelt among us. They are us. In the Christian story, the material world came into existence at the point of speech, and that speech was ex nihilo, from nothing. [God] sang a song, composed a poem, began a novel so enormous that even the Russians are dwarfed by its heaped up pages.

We look around us and realize that everything we see, feel, hear, taste, and touch is art that inhabits our story and we are the characters. What will your character do? Think? Say?

Listen to your dialogue. Look at your thoughts. Be horrified. Be grateful that God loves characters and loves characters on journeys, characters honestly striving to grow.

And later:

Living makes dying worth it.

That seems to be a theme with Wilson.

And then spring. Ah, “death and pain, injustice and grief. Evil, the problem of.”

I see a stage, a world where every scene is crafted. Where men act out their lives within a tapestry, where meaning and beauty exist, where right and wrong are more than imagined constructs.There is evil. There is darkness. There is the Winter of tragedy, every life ending, churned back in the soil. But the tragedy leads to Spring. The story does not end in frozen death. The fields are sown in grief. The harvest will be reaped in joy. I see a Master’s painting. I listen to a Master’s prose.

More philosophers. The Discovery Channel. Croesus, Agamemnon, Oedipus, Odysseus. Puddleglum.

Tell us what is, by all means. But without God, you cannot tell us what ought to be.

And quintessential Wilson humor.

The platypus is quite clearly the best currently living creature, but it is not the best of all possible creatures. In addition to its mammalian, egg-laying, duck-billed, web-footed, amphibious life, it also could have had bat wings, sonar, and the ability to fire explosions out of its rear like a bombardier beetle. To speak franky, I feel that a creative opportunity was missed.

But back to pain.

If we live in art, struggling in the boundary between the shadow and the light, unable to see the whole, how can we begin to judge? How can we presume to talk about a better painting, a better novel, when we see only a single line, a single page, and it brings us grief?

Later.

Our art is tiny in comparison to His… He is infinite… and the narratives of this universe, the song of this universe, the epic of this universe, the still-frames of this universe on every level—from quarks to galaxies—reflect His self, His character, His loves, His hates, His mercies, His judgments, His kindnesses, and His wraths.

Wilson explores the difference between cute and beautiful. We try to soften the terrible edges of beauty into a palatable and trivial cuteness. Something comfortable. “Safety scissors for all the saints!”

No safety scissors here.

Wilson continues through summer sandcastles and a fallish hell.

St. Augustine, Aquinas, Kvanvig, C.S Lewis, John Donne, Christ, Louis XV, William Blake, and Oscar Wilde.

He ends with Christ. A return to winter. Christmas.

The Lord came to clean the unclean. He brought the taint of Holiness, and it has been growing ever since. He was born in a barn and slept in a food trough.

Through it all, Wilson keeps his eyes wide open with wonder as he attempts “to find unity cacophany.”

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Even though Notes asks big questions and confronts tough subjects, the book itself is a fairly brisk 200 pages. It’s engaging and never dull. It provides fodder for great discussions with teens, reading partners, or book clubs. It’s on my 15 year old son’s summer reading list, and I’m looking forward to the conversations the book elicits.

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I’ll be reading Death by Living, his follow-up book, this summer.

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N.D. Wilson is best known and loved, however, for his adventurous children’s novels. My boys have read and loved his 100 Cupboards series, Ashtown Burials series, Leepike Ridge, and Boys of Blur (a retelling of Beowulf set in the swamps of Florida—who can resist?).

We all (myself, my husband, and boys) read Outlaws of Time as soon as it was released last year, and the sequel was just released today. I absolutely loved the first book, and I’m glad he finished the sequel so quickly because it ended on a cliff-hanger. I’ll be reviewing them both soon, but my friend Sara at Plumfield and Paideia has great reviews of 100 Cupboards and Outlaws of Time to read in the meantime.

Here’s a teaser trailer for the first Outlaws of Time.

 

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The following interview is a great representation of Wilson’s personality and approach to life and literature.

Between Shadow and Light

I read Kate DiCamillo for the first time this past month.

I started with The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.

This quote by C.S. Lewis from The Four Loves expresses the book’s theme for me:

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Yes. But not to love is a casket.

From Edward Tulane:

[all happy stories must end with love]

“But answer me this: how can a story end happily if there is no love? But. Well. It is late. And you must go to sleep.”

[one of my favorite themes in literature, the idea of being known]

And Edward felt a warm rush of pleasure at being recognized, at being known.

[being named, listening]

Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still.

[sacrifice]

“Two options only,” he said. “And your friend chose option two. He gave you up so that you could be healed. Extraordinary, really.”

[the casket]

He prided himself on not hoping, on not allowing his heart to lift inside of him. He prided himself on keeping his heart silent, immobile, closed tight.

[hope, vulnerability, courage, journey]

“You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next.”

“I am done with being loved,” Edward told her. “I’m done with loving. It’s too painful.”

“Pish,” said the old doll. “Where is your courage?”

“Somewhere else, I guess,” said Edward.

“You disappoint me,” she said. “You disappoint me greatly. If you have no intention of loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless.”

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I ached with a hopeful ache and moved on to The Tale of Despereaux.

From the very beginning, all I could think about was a Rembrandt painting. Darkness, darkness, a touch of light. Darkness, darkness, a touch of light. So masterfully painted.

The April sun, weak but determined, shone through a castle window and from there squeezed itself through a small hole in the wall and placed one golden finger on the little mouse.

[eyes open]

The light was shining onto the ceiling in an oval brilliance, and he was smiling up at the sight…

“The last one,” said the father. “And he’ll be dead soon. He can’t live. Not with his eyes open like that.”

But, reader, he did live.

This is his story.

[light]

Despeareaux’s sister Merlot took him into the castle library, where light came streaming in through tall, high windows and landed on the floor in bright yellow patches.

[story]

“Once upon a time,” he said aloud, relishing the sound. And then, tracing each word with his paw, he read the story of a beautiful princess and the brave knight who serves and honors her.

Despereaux did not know it, but he would need, very soon, to be brave himself.

[music]

“Oh,” he said, “it sounds like heaven. It smells like honey.”

The song was as sweet as light shining through stained-glass windows, as captivating as the story in a book… Despereaux forgot all his fear… He crept closer… until, reader, he was sitting right at the foot of the king.

[chiaroscuro]

… A rat named Chiaroscuro and called Roscuro, a rat born into the filth and darkenss of the dungeon…

Reader, do you know the definition of the word “chiaroscuro”? If you look in the dictionary, you will find that it means the arrangement of light and dark, darkness and light together. Rats do not care for light. Roscuro’s parents were having a bit of fun when they named their son.

[longing]

His rat soul longed inexplicably for it; he began to think that light was the only thing that gave life meaning, and he despaired that there was so little of it to be had.

“I think,” said Roscuro, “that the meaning of life is light.”

[brokenness]

There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again, once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way… Such was the fate of Chiaroscuro. His heart was broken… Speaking of revenge… helped him to put his heart together again. But it was, alas, put together wrong.

[courage]

And the passage was dark, dark, dark.

“I wil tell myself a story,” said Despereaux. “I will make some light. Let’s see. It will begin this way: Once upon a time. Yes. Once upon a time, there was a mouse who was very, very small. Exceptionally small. And there was a beautiful human princess whose name was Pea. And it so happened that this mouse was the one who was selected by fate to serve the princess, to honor her, and to save her from the darkness of a terrible dungeon.”

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Light and Dark
Hope and Despair
Love and Loss

Suffering, longing, regret, abandonment, tragedy.

Song, story, beauty, forgiveness, courage, redemption.

Love, even though it hurts.
Love, even though it’s ridiculous.

Because life isn’t worth living without it.

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I began to think about N.D. Wilson’s Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl.

Could we improve this picture? How can we make it not better but best? Remove the tension and the contrast. Remove the black. All of it. Remove the struggle and the inevitable end.

Leave the white. Only white. And now it is perfect. Perfectly blank.

If we live in art, struggling in the boundary between the shadow and the light, unable to see the whole, how can we begin to judge? How can we presume to talk about a better painting, a better novel, when we see only a single line, a single page, and it brings us grief?

…And so we speak. Each of us wanting our own position a little more comfortable. Each of us wanting to see a little more happiness, a little less contrast, wanting to skip the struggle, throw away the novel and save only the final page, the FINIS. A world of tombstones would have no wars, no hardships, and no complaints. So would a world without births or loves or creeping, crawling, walking, or growing things.

A better artist would have made this world more like the moon, only without the black space behind it, without the contrast of edges. A sprawling, near-infinite moon. Erase the craters.

The painting is blank. The art is numb. Perhaps it is the best of all possible numbness.

And later,

When men act out their lives within a tapestry, where meaning and beauty exist, where right and wrong are more than imagined constructs. There is evil. There is darkness. There is the Winter of tragedy, every life ending, churned back in the soil. But the tragedy leads to Spring. The story does not end in frozen death. The fields are sown in grief. The harvest will be reaped in joy. I see a Master’s painting. I listen to a Master’s prose. When darkness falls on me, when I stand on my corner of the stage and hear my cue, when I know my final scene has come and I must exit, I will go into the ground like corn, waiting for the Son.”

And then,

“Why do we so often ignore the beautiful in exchange for the cute?”

Kate DiCamillo’s writing is not cute, friends. It loves. It hurts. And then it sings with hope.

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As if I needed the message pounded deeper, deeper, CiRCE Institute published this article by Greg Wilbur yesterday:

Chiaroscuro: A Contemplation for Holy Week
The dance of creation is resplendent with the pattern of chiaroscuro and with the musical motif of sorrow transforming into a melody of joy.

Rembrandt. Spring.

Creation. Words, song, bringing light. A cycle of night and day.

Death and resurrection.

I’m listening.

The theme of hopelessness turning into rejoicing, of weeping that lasts for the night before the joy that comes in the morning, forms the basis of fiction and story. If we did not feel the peril and potential loss of the knight as he battles the dragon, we would also not feel the thrill of the victory over what seemed to be hopeless. A hero that nonchalantly and easily dispatched dangers and foes would not stir the imagination, the blood, or our concern. In fact, he comes off looking a bit like a bully. His light does not shine brightly because the darkness is not deep and seemingly impenetrable.

Connect with Nature ~ Book Review

:: Connect with Nature by Anna Carlile

[ETA: I shared this post with friends who took advantage of the low price, and it jumped up quickly. I was hoping it would stay low much longer! It’s still a lovely book, but not quite a steal.]

Friends, this book is gorgeous. And at this moment it is only $3.45 on Amazon. Hardback cover, 240 pages, exquisite photography and dreamy nature-inspired ideas.

The book is divided by season, with activities for all four seasons. The two-page photography spreads throughout the book are graced with lovely quotes.

Connect with Nature is full of instructions for nature projects such as creating a terrarium, starting a veggie patch, making a swing, attracting birds, and making dyes from plants.

Recipes include herbal teas, heirloom tomato and peach salad, blueberry galette, buckwheat crepes with pears and figs, and poppyseed campfire bread with rhubarb compote.

Climb a tree, stack rocks, walk barefoot, go on a picnic, smell the rain.

Learn about moon phases and read the clouds (the pages on various cloud formations are fantastic).

Learn how to bloom branches indoors during the winter and tie knots.

Forage for edible weeds. Dig for clay and make pinch pots.

I wanted to purchase a stack of these books to have handy for gifts, but unfortunately the seller has a limit of 1 book per customer. So I am selfishly keeping this one for my own enjoyment.

American History and Literature Selections [Levi ~ 9th Grade]

Levi is reading American literature for his 9th grade year through Classical Conversations. The CC Challenge 1 Am. Lit. book list is hefty (full texts, not excerpts), but Levi is a strong and willing reader. Because his CC year ends in April, I decided to round out his book list with additional American literature selections to read May through July before he begins British literature in August for Challenge 2. It is my desire to present him with a robust variety of genres, complexity, and topics, even though I can’t fit everything on the list (obviously I tried, but so many books didn’t make the cut!). When compiling the master list, I chose to include a few relevant books he has read in the past couple years (particularly including CC Challenge A and B literature selections).

Levi has discussed the CC Challenge literature in class and has written essays on many of the novels.

[I have a post coming up with Levi’s full course descriptions for 9th grade and the upcoming high school plan.]

I’ve noted Challenge literature selections with asterisks.

*Challenge A (roughly 7th grade)
**Challenge B (roughly 8th grade)
***Challenge 1 (roughly 9th grade)

Children’s Historical Fiction

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (Set in Colonial Connecticut in 1687) ***

Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates (Biographical story; c. 1710-1801) *

Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski (Biographical story set in 1755)

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (Set in Boston before and during the American Revolution, 1776)  ***

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham (Biographical story of Nat Bowditch; 1773-1838) *

A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32 by Joan W. Blos (not a favorite of mine, but I’m including it here because it is a CC Challenge A novel) *

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare (Set in the Maine wilderness) ***

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls (Set in the hills of the Ozarks) **

Little Britches (and series) by Ralph Moody (also listed under memoirs, but a must read for every human—perfect for a family read-aloud) **

[I’ll list many more children’s American historical fiction selections this coming year as Leif studies American history in 6th grade.]

Literature

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Tales by Washington Irving (published in 1820)

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper (published in 1826; set in 1757 during the French and Indian War)

Gold-Bug and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe (published in 1843) ***

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn (1850) ***

Moby Dick by Herman Melville [*graphic novel* not unabridged novel] (1851)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

Little Women, Little Men, and Jo’s Boys by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville (published posthumously in 1924, but he began writing it in 1888; Levi did not care for this one, but I’m including it here since it is a CC Challenge 2 literature selection) ***

Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, The Prince and the Pauper, and Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain (published in the late 1800s; Pudd’nhead Wilson is my personal favorite, especially for late middle school or high school students; only Tom Sawyer on CC Ch 1 list) ***

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (published in 1895; a war novel taking place during the American Civil War) ***

The Call of the Wild by Jack London (published in 1903; set in Yukon, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush) ***

Freckles (and others) by Gene Stratton-Porter (published in 1904)

The Short Novels of John Steinbeck (1902-1968) (The Pearl, for sure; not certain about the others)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943; set in early 1900s in Brooklyn, NY; coming of age story of a young Irish-American girl)

The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway (published 1952) ***

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (published in 1960; a masterful novel and absolutely essential for cultural literacy) ***

The Chosen by Chaim Potok (published in1967; set in 1940s Brooklyn, NY; a coming of age story about a Jewish boy—excellent)

The Lonesome Gods (and others) by Louis L’Amour (published in 1983; set on the California frontier (Mojave and Colorado Deserts) 1800s?)

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (published in 2001; set in small-town Minnesota in the early 1960s with an endearing child narrator with a precocious sister and wise father reminiscent of Scout and Atticus Finch—one of my favorite novels of all time)

Short Stories

“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry ***

[Many other classic short stories were read last year in Challenge B] **

That Distant Land: The Collected Stories (Port William) by Wendell Berry

Poetry

“The Song of Hiawatha” by H.W. Longfellow (1807-1882) ***
“Paul Revere’s Ride” by H.W. Longfellow ***
“The Courtship of Miles Standish” (one of my favorites from high school) by H.W. Longfellow

Selections from American Poets:

• Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
• Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
• Robert Frost (1874-1963)
• Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
• Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
• E. E. Cummings (1894-1962)
• Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
• Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
• Wendell Berry (1934- )
• Mary Oliver (1935- )

Drama

[We’ll also be watching film versions where available.]

Harvey by Mary Chase ***

Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

The Glass Menagerie by Tennesse Williams

Autobiographies/Memoirs/Essays

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1771-1790)

Self-Reliance and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1840s) ***

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) ***

Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau (1854) ***

The Wild Muir (John Muir 1838 - 1914; Scottish-American naturalist)

Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington (1901) ***

Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes by Gilbreth (1948)

Little Britches by Ralph Moody (series published in 1950-1968; the first book begins when his family moves to Colorado in 1906—excellent) **

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson (Des Moines, Iowa; 1950s. I am NOT recommending this book to other students without serious parental guidance, but it is the funniest book I have ever read in my life and it contains so much fascinating information about life in mid-century America.)

Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot (1957; Elisabeth’s husband was killed in 1956 while attempting to make missionary contact with the Auca of eastern Ecuador. She later returned as a missionary to the tribe members who killed her husband.) ***

Born Again by Charles Colson (1976) (Chuck Colson served as Special Counsel to Richard Nixon in 1969-1973; he became a Christian in 1973, just before his prison sentence, and later founded Prison Fellowship.) ***

Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour (1990)

Biography/Non-Fiction

April 1865 (Civil War) by Jay Winik

Mornings on Horseback (Teddy Roosevelt; 1858-1919) by McCullough

The Man Who Talks with the Flowers-The Intimate Life Story of Dr. George Washington Carver (1864-1943) by Glenn Clark

The Orphan: A Story of the Life of Austin Monroe Shaffer (1884-1961) by Helen Shaffer Dunbar (A biography of Levi’s great-great-grandfather (whose father was named Levi), written by Levi’s great-grandmother)

The Boys in the Boat (1936 Olympics) by Daniel James Brown

I'm Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers (1928-2003) by Tim Madigan

Elon Musk and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Young Readers' Edition (1971- ) by Ashlee Vance

Speeches

“The Spirit of Liberty” by Judge Learned Hand (1944) [Levi memorized and presented this speech in his Challenge class.]

“I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963) ***

[Many More American Documents, Essays, and Speeches for American Government] ***

Sermons

“A Model of Christian Charity” by Winthrop (1630) ***

“Essays to Do Good” by Mather (1710) ***

“The Method of Grace” by Whitefield (1700s) ***

Sci-Fi/Futuristic/Fantasy/Dystopian

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (published in 1953; a relevant dystopian novel that everyone should read for cultural literacy)

The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov (published in 1953; a futuristic science-fiction detective novel, recommended by a friend)

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (published in 1959; a military science fiction novel exploring military and societal ethics) ***

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (another novel published in 1959; a realistic apocalyptic novel from the nuclear age, set in the U.S.)

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (published in 1985; another futuristic military science fiction novel—one of my favorite explorations of the nature of leadership)

The Giver by Lois Lowry (published in 1993; a YA utopian/dystopian novel followed by 3 more books in the series)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (the trilogy published 2008-10; YA futuristic dystopian/apocalyptic novels set in the U.S.—excellent for discussing government and qualities of leadership)

 

[I’m choosing to wait on The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, The Jungle by Sinclair, and The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger.]

 

Did I miss any of your favorite selections for American literature (appropriate for a 9th grade student)?

Let me know in the comments!

Food for Thought ~ The Thoughts We Think

:: How Complaining Rewires Your Brain For Negativity by Dr. Travis Bradberry @ The Huffington Post [There is important information in this post for all of us. After a hilarious conversation on Facebook (and on a less serious note), I’ve started having my kids sing their complaints and arguments to me with jazz hands.]

Repeated complaining rewires your brain to make future complaining more likely. Over time, you find it’s easier to be negative than to be positive, regardless of what’s happening around you. Complaining becomes your default behavior, which changes how people perceive you.

And here’s the kicker: complaining damages other areas of your brain as well. Research from Stanford University has shown that complaining shrinks the hippocampus—an area of the brain that’s critical to problem solving and intelligent thought.

And

When you complain, your body releases the stress hormone cortisol.

:: Here's How Marcus Aurelius Got Himself Out Of Bed Every Morning @ Business Insider [This absolutely tickled my funny bone, but it is so profound. Getting myself out of bed in the morning is a struggle, and I think I need to try some his self-talk. Go read the whole thing.]

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?'

— But it's nicer in here ...

So you were born to feel 'nice'? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don't you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you're not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?

:: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett [Luke and I are working on his persuasive essay for this book, two years after Levi and I discussed it. Chapter 27, In the Garden, is my favorite, and the first few pages concern the power of negative and positive thoughts, for Mary, Colin, and Archibald Craven.]

"In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts--just mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live."

“…While the secret garden was coming alive and two children were coming alive with it, there was a man wandering about certain far-away beautiful places in the Norwegian fiords and the valleys and mountains of Switzerland and he was a man who for ten years had kept his mind filled with dark and heart-broken thinking. He had not been courageous; he had never tried to put any other thoughts in the place of the dark ones. He had wandered by blue lakes and thought them; he had lain on maintain-sides with sheets of deep blue gentians blooming all about him and flower breaths filling all the air and he had thought them. A terrible sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been happy and he had let his soul fill itself with blackness and had refused obstinately to allow any rifht of light to pierce through. He had forgotten and deserted his home and his duties.”

Lindsay’s Literary Baby Shower

Do you remember this exquisite wedding (and more wedding pictures and this fun bridal shower)?

Well, my “little sister” Lindsay and her husband, Bob, are expecting a baby in just a few short weeks!

[I took Lindsay’s family pictures back in November, and I’ll post them as soon as my hard drive is recovered!]

My sister Shannon (with friends Jessye, Tinsa, and Domini) knocked it out of the park again with the baby shower decor. It helped to have such a fabulous location.

The literary theme was carried throughout the room. Each guest table was topped with a stack of gorgeous old books.

Lindsay with her daughter, sister-in-law Domini, and mom:

Chalkboards with literary quotes were sprinkled throughout the room. This was my favorite:

Lovely brunch food:

The guest book was a darling picture book version of Anne of Green Gables. Guests signed the inside cover.

This adorable illustration of Anne of Green Gables was custom created by a friend. Lindsay received the original piece of art, and the image was the cover of the invitations.

What happens when Heidi is given the task of planning the baby shower game? The guests are given a literature quiz!

I gave them each a paper with 20 children’s book quotes and 20 children’s book titles, and they had to match them.

Want to give it a try?

QUOTES

1. “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver…”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”__________

2. Kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk.________

3. In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines… ________

4. Better drowned than duffers if not duffers won’t drown. ________

5. “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” _________

6. Second star to the right, and straight on till morning. _________

7. “When I say ‘salutations,’ it’s just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning.” __________

8. We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!  _________

9. It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?” ________

10. The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world.  _________

11. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. _________

12. For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.  __________

13. So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books.  ___________

14. “You were Real to the Boy,” the Fairy said, “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to everyone.” __________

15. “Please, sir. I want some more.” _________

16. “No, Miss Minchin, you are not kind. And this is not a home.” _________

17. “I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I’ve never been able to believe it. I don’t believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.”  ___________

18. And for all I know he is sitting there still, under his favorite cork tree, smelling the flowers just quietly.  ___________

19. A person’s a person, no matter how small. ___________

20. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be. _________

 

TITLES

A. The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf

B. Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

C. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

D. Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

E. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

F. Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

G. Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

H. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

I. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

J. Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss

K. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

L. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

M. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Helen Oxenbury

N. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

O. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

P. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Q. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

R. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

S. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans

T. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Shakespeare Project

I am a glutton for punishment. Or I love setting myself up for failure. But, look at it this way: a year of Shakespeare that fizzles out after three weeks is still three weeks of Shakespeare, right?

I’ve been sucked into two different groups of Facebook friends inspired by A Daily Plan for Reading Shakespeare at First Things. Reading all (yes, all) of Shakespeare in a year, how hard could it be? Added to my Tolkien Project and my Chesterton Project (about which I haven’t yet posted), I really think I’m set. [wry grin]

As of today, I’ve read three more Shakespeare sonnets than I would have without this project. See, successful already!

I found a Complete Works of Shakespeare on my shelf (not the one in the link, but another out of print tome), and I’ll be using it for the sonnets and other poetry and any plays I decide not to buy in a Folger Shakespeare Library edition. I’ve already purchased Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Taming of the Shrew, so I’m set for a couple weeks. I may eventually break down and purchase the Folger edition of Sonnets and Poems.

Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare: The World as Stage will be my biography choice because it is already on my shelf. I’ve read it, but it has been years and I’m due for a re-read.

The Leon Garfield Shakepeare Stories are my top choice for retellings, and I’m still working through both volumes with my boys.

It won’t be all reading. I’d like to watch as many movie versions as possible, as well as attend local productions and even make it down to Ashland for a performance or two.

The sonnets are a challenge for me. This year is mainly an introduction, but I could use a little help. The following Crash Course video was helpful today. I may also use this online site for helpful explanations and commentary.

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Crash Course Literature 304

It may help to read the sonnets with my ears as well as eyes.

A plain English version is always helpful:

 

I’ll definitely be listening to Venus and Adonis while following along in my book.

Would you like to join me this year? Or this month? Or even a week or a day?

Dip your toes in; the water’s fine.

Advent Reading

Every year I add to our Christmas book collection. After all these years, it’s rather extensive. I’ve gathered links to some of my favorites here.

This year, our new Christmas books correspond with my current literary projects. Just this month I revealed my Tolkien project, and Tolkien’s magical Letters from Father Christmas, with reproductions of his delightful illustrations and handwritten letters, is just perfect for me to read aloud to the kids!

I haven’t yet posted about my second ongoing literary project, but you might guess it from the second title. Yes, I am also immersing myself in G.K. Chesterton. This simple Advent and Christmas reader will be perfect for my own studies, and I am deliberating whether to read it aloud to the family. It contains 28 Advent readings and 12 readings for the days of Christmas. Each reading includes a short selection written by Chesterton (a poem or quote from an essay or book), a short bible passage, a prayer, and an “Advent Action.”

Have you added any books to your Christmas collection this season? Share in the comments!

The Tolkien Project

This past spring, CiRCE Institute hosted a literature bracket (“The Great Novel Knockout”). Out of 62 great works of literature, two remained to compete in the championship round.

Which two books stood at the top? The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Two summers ago, my dear friend and Scholé Sisters facilitator, Mindy Pickens, attended the CiRCE Summer Institute. While there, she took advantage of the time with Andrew Kern to ask a big question. “What should my husband read in answer to the question, ‘What is a man?’” Kern’s answer was Tolkien.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings show up on almost every “must read” book list, from classical schools to secular reading lists.

And I hadn’t read them.

I knew I needed to pursue Tolkien as my next reading project, and, unbeknownst to me, Mindy had been thinking the same thing. Our Scholé group was just finishing a year of Flannery (after a year of Hamlet), and we were ready to tackle a new author. (If we’re going for variety, I think we’re set.)

My friend Sara at Plumfield and Paideia suggested I read Bilbo’s Journey and Frodo’s Journey by Joseph Pearce to help me on my own journey of understanding, so I eagerly purchased both books. I already had The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind the Lord of the Rings by Peter Kreeft on my to-read stack.

Mindy is reading On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis, and I may have to join her before my journey is over.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay On Fairy Stories is a must-read. [Link contains the full text.]

I have The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies in the queue. [I think the first Hobbit movie is the only one I’ve watched in its entirety.]

I also took this opportunity to add Letters From Father Christmas by Tolkien to our Christmas book collection. I am looking forward to sharing this one with the kids! I’ll also be re-reading Tolkien’s quirky illustrated tale Mr. Bliss.

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Levi is thrilled that I am finally reading his favorite series. His enthusiasm was so great that he recently re-read them all and spent more time digging into The Silmarillion. I am strongly considering enrolling him in Roman Roads Good Books II: The Lord of the Rings online class led by James Nance from January until May. Maybe he can share some of the discussion with me.

Luke and Leif both read through The Hobbit recently and all of the kids have watched and re-watched the movie. (It is one of Lola’s favorites, surprisingly. She is not a sensitive child, for sure.)

.

Even though I am just now sharing this new literary project here on the blog, I have already finished The Hobbit and Bilbo’s Journey as well as enjoyed two meetings to discuss them with my Scholé Sisters. I’m well on my way! I’ll share more thoughts about those books specifically in another post.

Until the next post, enjoy this short collection of related articles.

:: Joy and Death in Tolkien @ Center for Lit

Perhaps the most beautiful facet of this almost biblically-worded passage is its position within the story of Tolkien’s world; it foreshadows that Men will be born into a world already broken and remade, in which pain and comfort, joy and sorrow, and (most importantly) rebellion and reconciliation have all been introduced. Everywhere in the passage we find descriptive thematic elements set against one another, all pointing to a truth vital to Tolkien’s project: life comes from death.

:: The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-Earth @ First Things

Certainly grace builds on nature, but we need to let nature be nature before we start building. We need to know what natural wisdom, justice, courage, temperance, and friendship are before we can know them as supernatural.

:: The Language and Myth of Tokien @ The Imaginative Conservative

It is not surprising that language should be used in especially complicated ways in Tolkien’s fiction, used not only to present the story but to be an important formative element of its most basic and pervasive mythic pattern. His fascination with language—its nature, its “feel,” its relation to thought, myth, and literature—began early and continued unabated throughout his life.

:: Tolkien Alternatives to the “Benedict Option” @ Crisis Magazine

Like Sam Gamgee, we know we are little things, incapable of moving the gears of the great. We know we are not the world’s saviors, but the companions of the world’s savior. We are, rather, the servants of him who walks a sorrowful road of sacrifice. We remember that it is our master’s job to save the world, our master’s to eradicate evil, to root it out, to burn it in the fires of his Sacred Heart. Because we walk alongside our master, his path is ours, and his death may well be ours as well. But our primary job is to be available to our master, to adopt the same humble attitude of Sam, the servant of him who bore the evil of the world, the little hobbit who “knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden…[that] the one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.”

:: J.R.R. Tolkien biopic Middle Earth will add new depth to Lord of the Rings @ The Verge

Middle Earth is described as following Tolkien’s "early life and love affair with Edith Bratt," as well as his service to the British Army during the First World War. The film, to be written by Angus Fletcher, is reportedly based on years of archival research on Tolkien’s life.

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We’ve been singing The Misty Mountains Cold here at our house for weeks now. I even learned to play it on the tin whistle!

Finishing Up the Flannery O’Connor Literary Project

I am finishing up my Flannery O’Connor literary project.

I read her biography, her book of essays, her prayer journal, and discussed several of her stories with my Scholé Sisters group. I’ve read blog posts and articles and listened to podcasts.

I am so glad I took the time to read her deeply. Her biography and the discussions were absolutely essential for me. I never would have understood (to a small degree) her stories without a nudge in the right direction.

O’Connor’s essays allow the reader fascinating insight into the way she viewed the world, writing as an art, reading as a practice, and her own stories. My copy of Mystery and Manners is heavily underlined and marked with notes in the margins. What a pleasure to have a “conversation” with Flannery.

It’s almost impossible to decide which quotes to share with you here, so I’ll eeny-meeny-miny-mo it.

The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

The Catholic novelist believes that you destroy your freedom by sin; the modern reader believes, I think, that you gain it in that way.

In my stories a reader will find that the devil accomplishes a good deal of groundwork that seems to be necessary before grace is effective.

Redemption is meaningless unless there is a cause for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular believe that there is no such cause.

Our response to life is different if we have been taught only a definition of faith than if we have trembled with Abraham as he held the knife over Isaac.

At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.

Christ didn’t redeem us by a direct intellectual act, but became incarnate in human form…

When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced-labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber.

 

I am embarking on two new literary projects this winter. I’ll share more about them in upcoming posts. Stick around!

Mercy and the Brontës

We read the ‘Who's That Writer?’ section in our vocab book during Symposium. Emily Brontë! That's the author of the poem we've been memorizing! I mentioned that I 'strongly dislike' Wuthering Heights. Levi said, “Hey, that's the book that a character in High House quotes constantly” (and then found the book and quoted the quotes). I mentioned that I much prefer Jane Eyre by Charlotte. But of course, we have a book about that. “We should read more about the Brontës today...”

This was my "keep your eye on the low branches and look for kingfishers" of the day, filled with arguments and frustration.

:: Watching for Kingfishers: Moments of Mercy on the Odyssey of a School Year by Heidi White @ CiRCE

"I thought about school years, and watching for mercy. Anybody can passively wait for goodness, as I was waiting for our vacation to transform itself into a refreshing experience. But watching is different than waiting. Watching is active. It implies concentration. To watch means to pay attention."

This reminds me of the tiny glimpses of mercy in the stories of Flannery O'Connor. Barely perceptible, unless you're watching, unless you're paying attention.

Mary Oliver gives us “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

You cannot be astonished if you are not paying attention.

And if you are astonished, share the wonder.

It’s that simple.

[Clearly we were having trouble keeping a straight face for this serious autumn poem…]

The Call of the Wild ~ Poetic Parallelism

 

I’ve written about parallelism in the past. It’s powerful and poetic (and picturesque). After finishing The Call of the Wild by Jack London, I am compelled to compose a complete post with copious quotes from this conspicuous narrative. [Oh, wait. This is a post about parallelism, not alliteration.]

The Call of the Wild is an excellent introduction to classic literature for older kids. It’s a fairly short and simple story (my copy has 134 pages with a fair amount of white space), but the themes are more complex than most children’s books and the vocabulary is rich and varied. For example, London manages to squeeze two of my favorite words into a short sentence:

“And so it went, the inexorable elimination of the superfluous.”

As I was reading, I noticed that London used parallelism prolifically in this novel. Because parallelism is a prominent skill taught in The Lost Tools of Writing as well as the building block of many literary devices, students should be on the lookout for examples in their own reading.

The Call of the Wild is a literature selection for the Classical Conversations Challenge 1 program, so it is a handy example for Challenge students. Let’s explore a few instances of parallelism in this novel.

Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored, for he was king—king over all the creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller’s place, humans included. [three present participial adjectives]

Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also, in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness—faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain. [anaphora (the repetition of “Manuel/he had one besetting____”)]

Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment’s safety. [emphasis on the 3rd noun with the addition of an article and possessive adjective]

The day had been long and arduous, and he slept soundly and comfortably, though he growled and barked and wrestled with bad dreams. [two adjectives, two adverbs, then emphasis on the third with three verbs]

This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible death. It marked further decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence. [Three clauses (subject, verb, direct object) with anaphora (the repetition of “theft/it marked” at the beginning of each clause)]

Their irritability arose out of their misery, increased with it, doubled upon it, outdistanced it*. The wonderful patience of the trail which comes to men who toil hard and suffer sore, and remain sweet of speech and kindly+, did not come to these to men and the woman. They had no inkling of such a patience. They were stiff and in pain; their muscles ached, their bones ached, their very hearts ached^; and because of this they became sharp of speech, and hard words were first on their lips in the morning and last at night. [*emphasis on third without preposition, +emphasis on third with extra words “of speech and kindly,” ^emphasis on third with “very”]

All things were thawing, bending, snapping. [three present progressive verbs]

And amid all this bursting, rending, throbbing of awakening life, under the blazing sun and through the soft-sighing breezes, like wayfarers to death, staggered the two men, the woman, and the huskies. [three gerunds, three nouns]

With the dogs falling, Mercedes weeping and riding, Hal swearing innocuously, and Charles’s eyes wistfully watering, they staggered into John Thornton’s camp at the mouth of White River. [one gerund, two gerunds, gerund/adverb, adverb/gerund—love the alliteration of “wistfully watering” (and “with,” “weeping,” and “White”)]

Mercedes screamed, cried, laughed, and manifested the chaotic abandonment of hysteria. [four “-ed” verbs, emphasis on the last as it continues with a vivid direct object]

But love that was feverish and burning, that was adoration, that was madness, it had taken John Thornton to arouse. [anaphora (“that was…”), the first clause has a predicate adjective, the second two have predicate nominatives]

And when, released, he sprang to his feet, his mouth laughing, his eyes eloquent, his throat vibrant with unuttered sounds, and in that fashion remained without movement, John Thornton would reverently exclaim, ‘God, you can all but speak!’ [anaphora (“his” repeated each time); so poetic with the adjective following the noun]

He sat by John Thornton’s fire, a broad-breasted dog, white-fanged and long-furred; but behind him were the shades of all manner of dogs, half-wolves and wild wolves, urgent and prompting, tasting the savour of the meat he ate, thirsting for the water he drank, scenting the wind with him, listening with him and telling him the sounds made by the wild life in the forest, dictating his moods, directing his actions, lying down to sleep with him when he lay down, and dreaming with him and beyond him and becoming themselves the stuff of his dreams.

Strangling, suffocating, sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the other, dragging over the jagged bottom, smashing against rocks and snags, they veered in to the bank. [two present participles, two “sometimes____” phrases, two present participles + prepositional phrases]

They went across divides in summer blizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains between the timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland could boast. [past tense verb + two prepositional phrases, past tense verb + three prepositional phrases (last with compound object), past tense verb + two prepositional phrases (last with compound object) (all objects of prepositions in first three phrases have adjectives), but emphasis placed on the last phrase by switching order and starting with prepositional phrase and ending with past tense verb (and compound direct object)—so poetic!]

There is a patience of the wild—dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself—that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade… [three adjectives, emphasis on the third with a simile; three nouns with prepositional phrases repeating “in its”]

…this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food; and it belonged to Buck as he clung to the flank of the herd, retarding its march, irritating the young bulls, worrying the cows with their half-grown calves, and driving the wounded bull mad with helpless rage. [present participles with direct objects, increasing intensity and adding words to each subsequent phrase]

As twilight fell the old bull stood with lowered head, watching his mates—the cows he had known, the calves he had fathered, the bulls he had mastered—as they shambled on at a rapid pace through the fading light. [three nouns with adjectival clauses, with repeated “he had”—very strong grammatical parallelism]

From then on, night and day, Buck never left his prey, never gave it a moment’s rest, never permitted it to browse the leaves of the trees or the shoots of young birch and willow. [three verb phrases with “never” repeated at the beginning of each (anaphora), each subsequent phrase getting longer]

The birds talked of it, the squirrels chattered about it, the very breeze whispered of it. [three clauses, grammatically parallel; interesting switch from “of” to “about” in the second clause, emphasis on third clause with addition of “very,” epistrophe (repetition of the word “it” at the end of the clauses)]

He plunged about in their very midst, tearing, rending, destroying… [three present participles]
Thenceforward he would be unafraid of them except when they bore in their hands their arrows, spears, and clubs. [three nouns]

One wolf, long and lean and gray, advanced cautiously… [three adjectives]

Commonplacing The Quotidian Mysteries

The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" by Kathleen Norris

Recommended by my friends Danielle and Jessye

Read as the ChocLit Guild book selection for August

A slim book at only 88 pages

4 stars

Collecting Quotes

Menial derives from a Latin word meaning “to remain,” or “to dwell in a household.” It is thus a word about connections, about family and household ties.

God is a begetter, not a maker, and poets are makers, not begetters. Maker is what the word poet means at its Greek root, and I am all too acutely aware that what I make, the poems and the personae that fill them, are not creatures in the fullest sense, having life and breath.

And I see both the miracle of manna and incarnation of Jesus Christ as scandals. They suggest that God is intimately concerned with our very bodies and their needs, and I doubt that this is really what we want to hear. Our bodies fail us, they grow old, flabby and feeble, and eventually they lead us to the cross. How tempting it is to disdain what God has created, and to retreat into a comfortable gnosticism.

The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread and doing laundry. My everyday experience of walking confirms the poet Donald Hall’s theory that poetic meter originates in the bodily rhythm of arms and legs in motion.

[W]hat ties these threads of biblical narrative together into a revelation of God’s love is that God has commanded us to refrain from grumbling about the dailiness of life. Instead we are meant to accept it gratefully, as a reality that humbles us even as it gives us cause for praise.

[I]f you’re like me, you take a kind of comfort in being busy. The danger is that we will come to feel too useful, so full of purpose and the necessity of fulfilling obligations that we lose sight of God’s play with creation, and with ourselves.

The poem, like housekeeping itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. In the  poem, by pulling many disparate things together, I tried to replicate the actual work of cleaning, sorting through the leftovers, the odd pieces of a life, in order to make a whole. I sense that striving for wholeness is, increasingly, a countercultural goal, as fragmented people make for better consumers…

I was slow to recognize that combating sloth, being willing to care for oneself and others on a daily basis, is not small part of what constitutes basic human sanity, a faith in the everyday… Benedict’s Rule for monasteries…characterizes sloth as disobedience.

But acedia seeks to hoard against the time when God is no longer present, and we can’t trust the nourishment that other people offer. It rejects the present moment in favor of a vainglorious and imaginary future in which we will do just fine, thank you, at providing for ourselves… In contemplating the “daily bread” that we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer, Simone Weil asserts that God has created us so that the present is all we have.

It is not in romance but in routine that the possibilities for transformation are made manifest. And that requires commitment.

I have come to believe that the true mystics of the quotidian are not those who contemplate holiness in isolation, reaching godlike illumination in serene silence, but those who mange to find God in a life filled with noise, the demands of other people and relentless daily duties that can consume the self.

Our desire is to love God and each other, in stable relationships that, like any good marriage, remain open to surprises and receptive to grace.

 

Connecting

:: Laziness by Any Other Name by Angelina Stanford @ CiRCE [short article]

I read this article just after finishing Quotidian Mysteries, and it was a painful well-aimed arrow.

But laziness, like all sin, is a deceiver, and the first person it deceives is the sinner. Laziness loves to masquerade as work. It’s easy to deceive ourselves and others when we seem so busy and hard working. But, laziness is not inactivity; it’s doing something other than your duty.

:: Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper [book]

I’ve found a contemplation of the word “leisure” to be a fascinating and fruitful endeavor, and it is interesting that the ideas of acedia and sloth are connected to the concept of leisure. So many words have lost their rich meaning in our modern culture [more about that in an upcoming post].

At the zenith of the Middle Ages, on the contrary, it was held that sloth and restlessness, "leisurelessness," the incapacity to enjoy leisure, were all closely connected; sloth was held to be the source of restlessness, and the ultimate cause of "work for work's sake."

 

[I am using Collect, Connect, Create as my process for Lectio Devina, as shared by Jenny Rallens. Often in my blog posts, the photograph at the header (and the blog post in general) is my resulting creation from the Lectio Divina process.]