Pieces of Us

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother- Book Review

    Of all the books I have read over the past year Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother suprised me the most.  I began the book with the distinct feeling that I was going to abhor Amy Chua and be repulsed by her Draconian methods of child rearing.  Instead I was surprised to find that I liked her very much and although I do things very differently in parenting my children, her method is more of a paradigm shift from my own versus  the wrong to my right.

    Chinese Mothers are harsh, they are strict and thier expectations are severe and high reaching. I agree with Ms. Chua in the regard that Western parents coddle their children and spend far too much time on the smothering concept of self esteem. Chinese mothers do not give a whit about self esteem and feel that their children owe them everything. However, I think the constant berating and demands that Ms. Chua put on her daughters- while leading them to great success- damaged a relationship that could have been somethine beautiful. 

    While reading about the methods she used to  get her girls to practice piano for long hours a day, I jokingly demanded that Gabby get to the piano and not stop until she had perfected her latest piece.  I put on my best stern face and pointed demandingly at the piano and made her sit there.  She giggled at me and played.  She loves the piano and while she won't be playing at Carnegie Hall next year in eighth grade the way Sophia Chua did, she is enjoying the learning process. 

    As I said, I liked Amy Chua because although I felt that she put relentless demands on her children, she really did want them to succeed and not be lazy like so many western counterparts are. I can respect that. On the other hand, I think children need a childhood and I'll go one step further and say that they deserve one.  I would not make a good Chinese Mother.  I like my free spirited self to much for the rigid discipline required to reach such astronomical heights at a young age.  While the idea of prodigious children is appealing, if as adults they can look back and say that their childhood was happy, harmonious and educational then I have done my job.

Why I love the Goodwill.

    After our history discussion lunch at the tea house, Maddy, Gabby and I went to the Goodwill for some book shopping.  I bought all of these books for the grand total of $14.23!

    I learned something today though, something I never thought about when I shop for books at the goodwill. Get someone to ring you up who knows what they are doing!  The girl that rang us up gave me a total of $30.78.  I knew that wasn't right and so did she.  Immediately she looked back and saw that she had charged me $9.99 for a book instead of the .99 it actually cost.  The manager came over and we had to wait a long time for her to find a form and then re-ring the whole thing.  I was patient and I repeatedly told them I wasn't in a hurry. I am so glad that I did! The manager was much more informed on the color coded tags and many of the books I had purchased were. 49 not .99.  So while I was prepared to spend $20.77 I actually owed $6 less. 

    Our classics library is becoming very well stocked for a marginal price. I love that!  I also found a copy of The Hiding Place which I have been wanting to re-read for ages and also wanted to share with my girls. Double bonus!

What's Off the Shelf?

   Today I had the privilege to observe 4 of my kids flopped around every surface of the floor reading books.  4 out of 6 of our children are readers, stay tuned though because the last two are hot on their heels. Jillian and Caleb are doing reading lessons together not because I think she needs to begin them but because she wants to.  She hangs out and offers her input which amazingly enough is usually correct.  Today she cracked me up when I was doing some flashcards with them.  The letter was P and the picture on the card was a Parrot. I asked her what it was and she said, "P...Pppppp...PeaHawk."  I don't know what a PeaHawk is but hey...it starts with p!

    So what were the kids reading today?  Ginny has her nose in Betsy-Tacy and Tib. The BEtsy-Tacy books are delightful, fun and positive books.  Maddy, who just worked her way through the entire Lord of the Rings saga in 10 days is now deep into Much Ado About Nothing  after having seen a magnificent performance by the St. Genesius Players.  AJ is reading Otis Spofford a book by one of my favorite childhood authors Beverly Cleary.  Gabby is almost finished with The Witch of Blackbird Pond.  This is a required book for school but that does not mean it is boring!  It's very romantic and exciting.

 

    I have spent a lot of time this year researching books that I want my kids to read, choosing them with care.  The same goes for myself. Because of that we have ended up reading some excellent books. I frequent the goodwill at least once a month hoping to build our library of classics and good literature on the cheap.  Plus I like to have more than one copy of some books and to update worn copies of favorites (*cough* Chronicles of Narnia *cough*)

    I recently read a book called How to Grow A Reader.  In this book were descriptions and author bios for 1800 carefully selected books.  My list of books to-read grew larger.  I was so excited today when I went to the Goodwill and found some of the books I had been wanting to read.  Such as Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb and The Dark is Rising series.

 

This year I have purchased:

Jacob Have I Loved, Atlas Shrugged, The Horse and His Boy, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Magic World, The BFG, The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar, Shiloh, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The Grey King, The Dark is Rising, Kinghts of the Round Table, Tom Sawyer, A Tale of Two Cities, Tales from Shakespeare, The Silver Chair, The Starlight Barking, Sherlock Holmes, Onion John, The Silent Boy, Anne of the Island, Hans Brinker, Dear America, Gilgamesh, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Heart of Darkness, Sophocles-Theban Plays, The Tempest, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Moby Dick, My Brother Sam is Dead, I Heard the Owl Call My Name, The Cay, Across the Great Divide, White Fang, Tortilla Flat, Grapes of Wrath, The Treasure Seekers.

All for about $20 total. I do love a good bargain!

Books, Books, Books

    I have met 20% of my reading goal for the year, I think I am right on track.  This year I am focusing on the classics and notable literature. It's been very enjoyable so far. I am also working through some non-fiction that I have been wanting to read.  Reviews are on Goodreads.

goodreads

    It's no secret that I love to read and I often have four or five books going all at the same time.  For years I would lose track of the several books I was reading or forget books that had been recommended to me. 

    Enter goodreads.com.  This has been a great resource for me.  Not only can I add books that I want to read I can also keep track of books I have already read so that I can remember to recommend them to people.  I can track what page I am on in the books I am presently reading and I can add my friends who are also on goodreads so that they may comment on my books or share books that they love as well. 

    I love this website and that is why I am sharing it here on Pieces Of Us. Feel free to add me as your 'friend' should you start an account there.  Accounts are free, what have you got to lose?  

    One last thing that I love about goodreads is that there is an app for my phone.  If I happen to be out and about and a friend mentions a great book I should read, I can go straight to my goodreads app and add it to my 'to-read' list.  It's such a great resource.

My own Summer Reading Program

    I've been bogged down with mommybrain. That should not come as a shock. But all of these years in Mommyland have not afforded me very much time for my own personal growth and education.  I have always been a self taught type of individual but even the self-taught need to have the time to teach themselves.

    The busyness of motherhood often culminates at the end of the day with the desire to do nothing but veg in front of some inane t.v. show and I admit I succumb to exactly that on far too many occasions. It has started to eat at my brain and I can feel it. I love to read and I love to write.  It is my outlet.  I have not given in to this outlet near enough in the past 10+ years and I am not about to say that I regret putting that part of myself aside for awhile. I think for the most part I used my time wisely but I know there has been a significant amount of time that could have been put to better use.  

    And with that begins my summer reading program. Which essentially does not end at the beginning of Fall but will rather extend as long as it needs to for me to make my way through my vast list of Great Books. I want to rejoin the Great Conversation.  I have missed it. I do enjoy an easy read.  There is nothing wrong with a junk food novel - as I like to call them.  But a steady diet of junk food only leads to deterioration. Better to save the junk food for a treat and exist on a steady diet of the good stuff. So I give up the majority of my wasteful nightly t.v. time and trade it for deeper thinking. Tasting, chewing and digesting the great books. 

    What began all of this? What possessed me to want to toss my remote and pack my James Patterson novels into a box? The answer is I simply read an old favorite.  Pride and Prejudice. The richness of the language with whole and complete sentences.  Complex characters!  Meat! It was like a welcome meal of meat and potatoes and I remembered what I was missing.  So I begin with the Great Novels.  Or rather a select few of the great novels.  I will move on to biography, history, philosophy and poetry. It will be a journey but one I truly look forward to. I've already begun with Pride and Prejudice. I will post my list here if anyone wants to take on my challenge and read from it as well. It's big, but I've got the rest of my life to complete it.

* denotes books I have read in the past but plan to re-read.

The Novels

Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen

Don Quixote- Miguel de Cervantes*

Pilgrim's Progress- Paul Bunyan*

Gulliver's Travels- Jonathan Swift*

Oliver Twist- Charles Dickens

Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte

Uncle Tom's Cabin- Harriet Beecher Stowe*

Madame Bovary- Gustave Flaubert

Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy*

Les Miserables- Victor Hugo*

The Portrait of a Lady- Henry James

Heart of Darkness- Joseph Conrad

The House of Mirth- Edith Wharton

The Trial- Franz Kafka

The Stranger- Albert Camus

1984- George Orwell*

One Hundred Years of Solitude- Gabriel Garcia Marquez*

If on a winter's night a traveler- Italo Calvino

Song of Solomon- Toni Morrison

White Noise- Don Delillo

Possession- A.S. Byatt

The Biographies

The Confessions- Augustine

The Book of Margery Kempe- Margery Kempe

The Life of St. Teresa of Avila- Herself

Meditations- Rene Descartes

The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration- Mary Rowlandson

Confessions- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin- Himself

Walden- Henry David Thoreau*

The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass- Himself

Up From Slavery- Booker T. Washington*

Ecce Homo- Friedrich Nietzsche

Mein Kampf- Adolf Hitler

The Story of My Experiments with  Truth- Gandhi

Surprised by Joy- C.S. Lewis

Malcom X- Himself

Born Again- Charles Colson

All Rivers Run to the Sea- Elie Wiesel

The Histories

The Histories- Herodotus

The Peloponnesian War- Thucydides

The Republic-Plato*

Lives- Plutarch

The City of God- Augustine

The Prince- Machiavelli

Utopia- Sir Thomas More

The True End of Civil Government-John Locke

The History of England- David Hume*

Common Sense- Thomas Paine

A Vindication of the Rights of Women- Mary Wollstonecraft

The Communist Manifesto- Karl Marx

The Souls of Black Folk- W.E.B. Du Bois

Queen Victoria- Lytton Strachey

The Road to Wigan Pier- George Orwell

The Great Crash- John Kenneth Galbraith

The Longest Day- Cornelius Ryan

The Feminine Mystique- Betty Friedan*

A Distant Mirror- Barbara Tuchman

All the President's Men- Woodward and Bernstein

Battle Cry of Freedom- James McPherson

A Midwife's Tale- Laurel Ulrich

The Dramas

Agamemnon- Aeschylus*

Oedipus the King- Sophocles*

Medea- Euripides

Poetics- Aristotle*

Dr. Faustus- Christopher Marlowe*

Richard III- Shakepeare*

A Midsummer Night's Dream- Shakespeare*

Hamlet- Shakespeare*

Tartuffe- Moliere

She Stoops to Conquer- Oliver Goldsmith

A Doll's House- Henrik Ibsen*

The Importance of Being Earnest- Oscar Wilde

The Cherry Orchard- Anton Chekhov*

Saint Joan- George Bernard Shaw

Our Town- Thornton Wilder*

Long Day's Journey Into Night- Eugene O'Neill*

A Streetcar named Desire- Tennessee Williams*

Death of a Salesman- Arthur Miller*

Waiting for Godot- Samuel Beckett

A Man for All Seasons- Robert Bolt

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead- Tom Stoppard*

Equus-Peter Shaffer

The Poems

The Epic of Gilgamesh*

The Iliad- Homer*

The Odyssey- Homer*

Greek Lyricists

Beowulf*

Inferno- Dante

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight*

The Canterbury Tales- Chaucer*

Sonnets- Shakespeare*

Poems- John Donne

Psalms-The Bible*

Paradise Lost- Milton

Songs of Innocence and Experience- William Blake

Poems- Wordsworth*

Poems- Keats

Poems- Longfellow*

Poems- Tennyson*

Leaves of Grass- Whitman*

Poems- Dickinson*

Poems- Hopkins

Poems- Yeats

Poems- Frost*

Poems- Ezra Pound

Poems- T.S. Eliot*

Poems- Langston Hughes

Poems- Larkin

Poems- Ginsberg*

Poems- Plath*

Poems- Jane Kenyon

NookBook

    

 

     This year for my birthday Mike got me a Nook.  I wasn't entirely sure how I would feel about giving up physical books for e-books.  I love the look of a stack of books on the bedside table and the musty smell of paper. I did know that the lure of taking an entire library of books with me everywhere I go was completely appealing. It turns out that I love having an e-reader. The screen looks exactly like a page and I love having instant access to new books. Dangerous though that may be.  I do however miss the smell and the stack of books by the bed. Not enough to shelve the nook.  I take it everywhere with me and enjoy the instant access to reading.

    Another surprising perk is how great it is for dyslexic kids or those who struggle with reading. I can download a book for AJ and make the font extra large putting only a paragraph or two on the page.  Not only is it easier for him to track but he gets motivation from getting done with a page quickly.

    So I give the nook two thumbs up!

Book List is Updated

On my books page.  22 books so far this year.  It's been a great reading year and we aren't even halfway through. 

FOUND!

    Long time readers of this blog may remember this post    from nearly 6 years ago. Over the past years I never stopped looking for this book.  I would wander over to the children's book section at whichever library we happened to be at and run my fingers over the spines hoping for a spark of recognition.  But it never came.

     Last week Maddy and I were at our tiny local library- as we often are- looking for interesting things to read. I stumbled upon an adaptation of A Midsummer's Night's Dream and pulled it out from the shelf.  I felt a little flurry in my belly.

"MADDY!  I think I found the book!!!!"

I screamed and then quickly quieted down when I remembered where we were.  I flipped through the pages and while the style seemed familiar, the pictures were not and I was certain that it had not been a Shakepearean adaptation nor did it all take place in a forest.

I shelved the book.

    I wandered over to the computer and typed in the author's name Wendy Froud. Instantly two titles popped up.  One being the book I had just seen and the other, I immediately knew it was the one.

The Faeries of Spring Cottage

    I haven't read through it yet to see if it was as enjoyable as I remembered or if in fact it has just become legendary in my mind and will never live up to the status built up in my head all these years.  Maddy read it and enjoyed it very much. The moral of the story is never give up. You never know when what you are looking for might just fall into your lap.

YTD- 15

    That would be 15 books read this year so far.  Not including little books read to kids of course. I am on a good roll with reading.  Last year I read so few books and watched far too much television. This year my plan is to severely limit television and read a lot and so far I am accomplishing that with ease.

    I just finished a young adult fantasy novel called 100 cupboards by N.D. Wilson.  When I finished it I realized it is a series with the second book just out and the third book on it's way. I put in my request at the library and cannot wait to get it!  In the meantime I am finishing up The Looking Glass Wars which is another great fantasy series, a sort of twisted take on Alice in Wonderland. Seeing Redd is the second book and I will get my hands on that one when Madeline is finished with it.

    Til the next update!  Off to stick my nose in a book.