Small Places, Close to Home

It's hard in today's Britain to remember that human rights are not privileges. Where and when we are born is accidental and human rights seek to even out the inequalities between those of us who are lucky enough to be born into wealth, and those of us who are not. It's easy to lose sight that human rights are not privileges in today's Britain, when the poor are on the end of the message that their situation is down to the fact that they just don't work hard enough. It's the narrative that this man wants us to believe:

In his own words, 'never underestimate the determination of a quiet man'. Indeed, it's the quiet ones that you want to watch; he's doing quite the job of creating poverty whicle telling people it's their own fault. What a man. 

Singalong of the Week

Our Emily loves a good singalong, so it's fortunate for her that she has access to so many right here at home! She goes through phases of loving one in particular before she steamrollers onto the next, so I thought it would be nice to share with you all what she's loving right now.

This week has seen a good few turns of The Magic Train Ride. It's a standard feature of Barefoot Singalongs that they are REALLY CATCHY. My other half just asked me if I'd been having a sneaky dram in the bedroom as I came downstairs singing about monkeys and outer space! You can judge for yourself, and thank me later....

You might notice that all the train stations have numbers - Emily insists that she gets to announce each one which is very sweet, and it's a nice way of practising number recognition without labouring over it. She loves spotting all the little details in the pictures and I often have to pause while she describes what's going on. There's been a good deal of sisterly bonding over it with her big sister as they take the train from room to room, always a welcome sight!

You can find the book on my Barefoot Page here x

Wilbur's Book of First Words

I'm always on the look out for books that will engage Abigail (who is 6 and not that fond of books), so I was quite pleased when I found Wilbur's Book of First Words in Emily's man-sized pile of books that she wanted to bring home from the library today.
Wilbur, if you've not met him before belongs to Winnie the Witch, a bit of a hapless witch who lives in a black house. Abigail likes her because she like silly things and that's a very good description of what Winnie gets up to. Silly. Emily quite likes her too, even though the books are a bit long for her, which I guess is why this was in 'the pile' at the library. There are a whole series of Wilbur books but I stuck with the first words as our taking home one as it's one of those books that you can file under 'two birds with one stone'. Emily take it can quite happily on face value with its silly pictures and opposites to look out for; Abigail can use it as a simple independent reader which features characters that she is familiar with. I do find it difficult to engage her with independent reading because her comprehension is far above her reading level. This book gives her the satisfaction of being able to read a Winnie book all by herself; even though it's not a 'whole story' as such, it is definitely more engaging than just a list of words. We all know that a happy reader is one that will read more, so I'm quite sure we'll be working our way through this series. I'm also hoping Emily will use her pester power to get Abigail to read it to her. There's something special about seeing the two of them snuggled up sharing a book.

Mind Your Beeswax.

This week we've been learning all about the bee. There's a lot of interest in bees at the moment because the planet needs them and they're disappearing. Even the man who works in the honey aisle in Tesco was telling us that in China they were fertilising flowers by hand as there weren't enough bees. So, Project Bee was launched.

First up we had  bit of reading time with  The Beeman. It's the story of a boy whose grandfather keeps bees, earning him the name 'The Beeman'. There's lots of reasons to love this book: it features grandparents; it could feature a white family, but it doesn't; it has a nice cumulative narrative like 'This is the Train to Glasgow' (or This is the House that Jack Built). It has beautiful illustrations and is packed with information about bees; it even has the recipe for grandma's muffins for you to try at home. There are many directions you could take with this book but we're sticking with the bees for now!

Abigail was interested in the life cycle of the bee and the different roles that bees have in the hive. There are also notes on beekeeping and bee behaviour which we'll go back to later. I had a look on Ted Ed for videos about bees and picked out this one, which explains why bees use hexagons in their honeycombs.

We finished off for the day by having honey sandwiches (of course), but there's so much more to explore on this subject. Colony collapse disorder, building a bee bath and baking those muffins are all on our to-do list!

Tip For Reading With Kids #2142

OK, so this is a bit outlandish...... have a book store in your living room!

Welcome to Seussville!

I can't quite believe it myself, but I've managed to get this far without a post on anything from the Dr (Seuss, not Who)! No Green Eggs and Ham, no Lorax, No Red Fish or Blue Fish. I find it hard to believe myself, but there you go; sometimes we neglect the things we love the most. Sorry about that.

If I'm honest, I really have to wrack my brains to think of childhood memories of anything other than a vague meeting with The Cat in the Hat, and perhaps with a Fox in Socks but it's all very vague. No, I'm an adult convert, straight down to the marvellous work that is Green Eggs and Ham.  Here's a picture of it.

Abigail was bought a copy of this by a friend of mine on a fairly frantic trip to Waterstone's when she was about two and a half. I thought it might be a bit long for her age but no, she took to it with delight and it was read over and over for many, many months. Quick plot run down: the pesky little Sam-I-Am pesters a rather grumpy grumpy thing in a hat to eat some green eggs and ham until he capitulates and decides he likes them. It was particularly effective in getting Abigail to try new foods, and we still say it to the girls now - You do not like them. So you say. Try them! Try them! And you may. Try them and you may, I say. I prefer some of the other lines, but I don't have the facilities for eating with various mammals or up trees, so that's the line I stick with. 

It wasn't until a good deal later that I found out that the book itself was written because of a bet between the author and his publisher, that Dr. Seuss couldn't create a book with only 50 words. Well, I'm sure you realise that he did. I'm very grateful for it, because it blows the idea out of the water that using simple vocabulary has to be in any kind of functional and boring manner. Reading should be FUN, and with this, it is.

We've since purchased a LOT of Dr. Seuss books because they deserve to be on our bookshelves, and I think he's a little neglected here in the UK, Grinches that we are!  If I haven't convinced you, then have a read of this review on Read It Daddy, it always makes me smile.

A Metaphorical Lesson.

Abigail has recently discovered Ted Ed and has been working her way through lots of sciency lessons. She now knows the best way to get ketchup to pour from a bottle, why chillies make your mouth feel like it's on fire, and how a computer works.

This week we've moved on to a lesson on metaphors.



What do you think? Some of it was a little beyond Abigail's ability, but the visuals really helped her take some new concepts on board. At 6, she's still very literal (the answer to my recent 'play your cards right' was a forlorn 'but I don't HAVE any cards') so this as nicely placed to introduce the idea of 'saying what is not true to describe what is true'.

There is space to Dig Deeper on the Ted Ed site, but I wanted to link in with a book that we already had in the house: Elephant Dance.

Elephant Dance is the story of Ravi, who is listening to some of his Grandfather's stories from India, using lots of metaphorical description. Ice cream mountains, tiger suns, and curtains of rain; the descriptions are all big and exotic, perfect to capture little minds. There are also pages of facts about life in India to come back to, but today we were concerned with all the metaphors dripping off the pages. I've tasked Abigail to to describe her world, using her new-found skills of metaphor. She's working om it now, and I'm quite sure it will come back marvellously illustrated.

You might also like The Barefoot Book of Classic Poetry, which is packed full of the finest poetry which takes you on a journey from birth to death, and lots in between. If you give describing your world in metaphors a go, I'd love to hear what you came up with.

How We Kept Reading in the Holidays

Since she first brought a book home from school, I started to do what I *promised* myself I wouldn't do and started worrying about Abigail's reading. She just didn't want to do it and at times would fight me tooth and bone rather than look at a book. Trips to the library stopped, bedtime stories stopped and the only saving grace was that she would listen to the CDs that come with our Barefoot Books. Lucky her that I'm a Barefoot Ambassador then!

So this summer I have decided to really stop with all the trying and have a more relaxed three prong plan. I like things that come in threes. My first idea was just to read books aloud whether anyone was listening or not. Emily is usually pretty quick to come listen, and Abigail has been snuggling in too (she sometimes has a listen when she thinks I'm not looking too). Over this year reading has lost it's fun, so that's the first thing we need to get back. 

The second prong in my fork (I know, I need better metaphors) is heading down to the library to get us booked into the summer reading scheme that Libraries NI is running. It fell a little flat for us last year when the library closed for most of the summer, but we did get a shiny new library out of it for this summer which means there are lovely new sofas to relax on and choose your books.This year's theme is the Mythical Maze, and you just call into your local library to join.

              

Lastly, we're using Abigail's love of all things gaming to make reading fun. I heard about a website called Reading Eggs from people in the HE community, we logged on and we are all loving it (even Emily, who is only 3). It's a game based reading tool which so far has been enjoyed by both girls. Abigail already had good mouse skills, but Emily has picked it up really easily. Some games as too fast for her, but she is only 3 and it's helping her patience and persistance too. What has really impressed me has been the range of reading materials. We've spent the last 2 years with the same books coming home over and over but Reading Eggs has plenty of variety, including fact books, which interest Abigail the most. Some of the books have fairly long sentences built out of simple words, which is great because A's comprehension is far above her reading level and they hold her interest much better. If it interests you, they have a free two-week trial so you can see if iy works for you.

The results? It's early days, but I can see a change already. Abigail is actually starting to see a value to being able to read and has decided it's something she WANTS to be able to do. And now that she wants to learn, well... I'm not sure there will be any stopping her. 

Children’s books: a picture of happy holiday reading

A few ideas for summer reading, including Oliver Jeffers and Marie Louise Fitzpatrick x

Children’s books: a picture of happy holiday reading

Dear Zoo

A while back, I went through our book collection and recycled some books which were past their best (read: falling to bits). This included our copy of Dear Zoo, by Rod Campbell. I was a bit sad about this as I'd shared it many, many times with the girls (causing the falling to bits!) but they'd not asked for it for a long time so it had gone unnoticed. Emily graduated from nursery this week and she was given a Bookstart pack as part of her leaving pack and she was delighted to find a copy of Dear Zoo in it. Here she is, getting her memory book.

 After Abigail was collected from school, we had a group snuggle and read it together. Turns out Emily would have kept the snake, not sure how I feel about that one! It's really hard to get Abigail to sit down with a book (her reading homework has been a difficult experience to say the least) so it warmed my heart to see her actually take pleasure in reading a book for a change. This morning she picked up a book and asked me to read it to her, the first time she's done this in probaby six months. And for that, I'm eternally grateful. Thank you, Rod Campbell!

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Truth?

I read a headline today asking (or was it telling?) me that fairy tales are ‘too Grimm for Children’. Speaking as a mother of two little girls who are more than happy to mix My Little Pony with zombies in their playtimes, I don’t think so. Personally, I’m more worried about the many, many portrayals of little girls as helpless victims that need rescued from danger because they’ve been taught by years, no generations now, of indoctrination that tell them that they need to rely on a handsome Prince to solve their woes. The D word. You know what I’m talking about.
The problem with Fairy Tales is not that they are ‘too gruesome’, it’s that they have been written down. Folk tales were originally an oral tradition, passed on down the generations and undoubtedly changed over time. Until the likes of Charles Perrault or the Grimms wrote them down, any previously told versions would just be lost.  Keep in mind that these stories had to be passed on orally and therefore had to be memorable; it’s why we have repetition and refrains, it’s why stories have to have a thrill.  Remember that boring story? Though not. I’m pretty sure that 15th Century grannies tutted as they heard their daughters passing on tales that no doubt reflected some passing 15th century fad instead of what they had been told. Art reflects the fears of society, and as the fears of society changed, so does art. While we now have a written record of folk tales from the late 17th Century until now is great as a snapshot into the past, it’s a double edged sword. We feel uncomfortable at the blood and guts. We feel uncomfortable seeing it written down. We feel uncomfortable with the past. Yet we don’t feel uncomfortable seeing the way that women are treated in 20th Century renditions of these tales on screen to us. We don’t see that these modern versions are just addressing the fears of the time, and that one of these fears is the little girls that are watching these sugar laden fantasies that want to keep them ‘in their place’. For a long time, we quite liked it. You’ve only got to look around a toystore to see that since feminism started as a growing movement toys have become increasingly gender stereotyped, to the point that last Christmas the onslaught of pink in a toy store made me feel physically sick and gave me a headache. And we should be feeling uncomfortable with it. Thank goodness we now have campaigns like Pink Stinks and Let Toys be Toys pushing the issue.
My question to you is not ‘are fairytales too Grimm’, but ‘what is it that we are scared of?’. Are strong, independent women really our current fear? Or is it just a hangover from last century? Look deep in yourself and realise that we still want our children to be healthy and safe from the darker side of society, and not the other way around.

I started out this morning to write a review of Lari Don’s Little Red Riding Hood, but it somewhat morphed into something else. I wasn't sure which of my blogs it belonged on either, so it's on both. 

Why Does Everything Happen to Me?

Winston is a dog who thinks he's hard done by and that nothing is fair. Abigail quite often feels hard done by and that nothing is fair, so it was quite nice to introduce them to each other. Winston is having a hard day because he has a thorn in his paw, and needs to get to the vet. As he walks along, his friends try to distract him with some doggy activities like digging holes and raking in bins, but Winston's paw is getting worse and worse and he lays it on thicker and thicker with each dog that he meets. Abigail, however, has spotted something. As Winston totters along in his self-absorbed world, his friends are being stung by bees or carted off in the rubbish truck. He's just a bit too worried about his paw to even notice their plights, never mind help them. There's a lesson in there, about there always someone being worse off than you, especially if you happen to be friends with Winston.

Maybe he's a jinx...

Lola's Modern Classic

Charlie and Lola have a very special space on the Evie's Books bookshelf. Over the years I've found myself captivated by the two children, first from the TV series and then from the books. Whenever there is a Charlie and Lola book in the house, it's always top of the reading pile for both girls.

I have a particular fondness for Charlie. Yes, Lola is cute and funny and charming but Charlie is a really great big brother. I love that he has so much compassion for his sister, and that he finds gentle solutions to problems, even if he gets quite cross at first. I will not ever Never eat a Tomato is Charlie's solution to getting Lola to eat her dinner; faced with a long list of foods that Lola won't eat, he comes up with the trick of making the food exotic and tempting. Mash is cloud fluff, peas are green drops and carrots are orange twiglets from Jupiter. It's siblings without (a lot of) rivalry; it's fantastic to have a role model of an older sibling for Abigail who really struggles with being the big sister. Maybe she should adopt the mantra, 'what would Charlie do'!

Both girls are captivated by Charlie and Lola books, and especially love finding the little treats that Lauren Child hides in her illustrations. There are always squeals of delight when the see the pea with Lola's eyes, and they have great fun counting through the list of food that Lola won't eat. Abigail would like every one to please note that Lola will eat cucumbers, because cucumbers ROCK.

I'm always fascinated by the way that the words are laid out in a Lauren Child book. The words come in different sizes, some words are in bold, some are not. Sometimes the words wind round the pictures instead of sitting by themselves in a block in a corner or at the bottom of the page. I spend a great deal of time over-analysing what this could mean. I won't go on about it for hours, but I will say this: anything that makes language vibrant and alive for both adults and children is a good thing. For a child like Abigail who just is not keen on reading, seeing her follow the words around the page and engage with them in a way she never does with school reading books is a pure joy.

Long live Charlie and Lola.

The Playground Bully

This year has been kind of tough. I've lost my job, my dad has terminal cancer, I've had two car crashes which have left me having anxiety attacks and now the girl's dad is showing signs that point towards being bipolar. The kind of stuff that X-Factor Journeys are made of. I've tried to hide it, but it's been tough.

Then someone else threw their lot in the mix: the playground bully. It started with excuses, always doing something else that put a stop to playdates. Not coming to birthday parties without explanation. It moved up a gear to Facebook blocking and then being totally ignored on the first day of school, looked through as if you weren't even there. With no explanation. Top it all off with a sprinkling of social exclusion, and there you have it, bullying complete.

Mum's are great, aren't they?

Difficult Conversations

It was the first day back as a P2 for Abigail this week. When I picked her up on the first day we had a chat about things went. Fine, said Abigail. I did some playing and Grace Long's mummy died; not the sort of thing I was expecting. Once we'd established this was real (there was a note) and not a misunderstanding, the questions came.

When are you going to die, mummy?

What happens when you die, mummy?

I don't want you to die. I'm scared of dying....

Difficult questions. But important ones. We had a talk through what had happened and headed home for some quiet time. Abigail headed straight for the book case and pulled out a couple of books she wanted to read: The Heart in the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers, and the Gift by Carol Ann Duffy. I have to admit to feeling a little relief that we had books that did help understand the more difficult things in life.

The Heart and the Bottle, if you've never come across it, is the tale of a girl who spends time with her Grandpa, learning and asking impossible questions. Then one day, his chair is empty. In order to protect her heart the girl takes it out and puts it in a bottle. Her heart is safe, but she loses all her joy in life and grows up missing a part of herself. One day she meets a small girl on the beach who helps her break her heart out of the bottle and help her deal with her grief and bring back her curiosity about the world. Abigail was able to take her own meaning and comfort from the illustrations and there was plenty for us to talk about and try to make sense of together.

The Gift is a book that before this week, I had read once and not really understood. In fact, I was quite shocked by the way mortality was approached and wasn't sure if I would ever read it again. But this time I found a new meaning it. At some point we all have to face our own mortality, and it's usually the death of a grandparent that a child experiences first. What Carol Ann Duffy does so cleverly here is to introduce death as part of the fulfilment of life; death is not something to be seen in isolation and feared, rather to be embraced as part of the circle of life. Death is never easy, but it doesn't have to be hidden. 

A Little Update

Well, it's been a bit quiet around here post wise, so I'd like to say thankyou to everyone who has taken the time to visit the blog. Life has been up in the air here for a while, with my dad's illness, unemployment and setting up a new business. I did think that redundancy would give me LOADS more time for blogging, but as it turns out I seem to find myself cleaning and folding clothes a lot of the time...
The good news for me is that I can now take a breath as my business is now up and running, and my dad is feeling well enough to read a lot of books (I pray it stays that way). The bad news for the blog is that I'm reading a lot of books that I sell at the moment. I don't think it's right that I review books that I sell so that's why it's been so quiet.

PS if you click on the link and wonder 'where's evie?' I should come clean that she's the girl, and I'm the mummy!

Duck, Duck, Goose.

 I had to take a flying visit to the library yesterday morning; our books were due back, I had some errands to run and Abigail had a party in the afternoon. Under pressure from the lunch time closing time, and the speed I needed to get my errands, I decided to fly solo. This was not the sort of trip suitable for two under-fives!I stopped off in the library first so I had at least a little time to browse and decided on two stable favourites, Oscar the Cat and Oliver Jeffers. Unusually, I picked up the board book of Mr Jeffer's 'Lost and Found' (mostly the library has hard or paperback copies) and trotted off to finish my list of things-to-do.
When I got home, I dropped the books on a chair in the living room and went to unpack my shopping bags. Emily grabbed Lost and Found - she recognised the artwork - and took it over for her daddy to read. I pottered about a bit more, then noticed Emily was playing with the book. She had some of her Hello Kitty figures, and was acting the story out. Apart from being incredibly cute, it got me thinking about the format of the book. The thick card pages were giving her a leap pad into another world of imagination, almost as if she was playing with a real set. She often sits and flicks through books by herself, but this was the first time I'd seen her use one as a whole new world. Who knew there was so much in a format?

Hagwitch

This review is a little out-of-the-normal for me, as it's of a chapter book and not a picture book. Orion Press asked me if I would review this for them, and being keen to support Irish authors, I took them up on the offer. Hagwitch is a novel for older children by the Irish author Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick - she has also written some picture books which look good - watch this space for more reviews.

Hagwitch is a novel which is split between two eras. Lally is the daughter of a puppeteer living on a barge in modern day London, while Flea is a playwright's apprentice in 16th Century London. The style reminded me of Daphne du Maurier, with a little touch of Angela Carter added in to keep the style contemporary without losing it's magical Gothic atmosphere. I was impressed by the mature tone set by Fitzpatrick (I may just be getting old, but I had to stop listening to Radio One because I just felt it was really patronising and made me cringe). I also didn't feel like I was reading a book that had to stop and explain itself any more than a good adult's book would, or that it was dumbed down in any way. It may have been a long time ago that I was young, but I certainly remember strongly disliking several books which just struck me as hollow and talking down to me.

Lally has grown up without her mother. She, rather unusually, calls her dad Eoin, and is quite happy to take on two of the other travelling performers in the floating puppet-show as her mother-figures. It's as if she has been fostered into this theatrical family; she does ask about her birth mother, but does not dwell on her loss or feel like a victim because of it. The only company that she is in want of is someone her own age.

With the company of a boy her own age, Gilles, who comes to live on the Beetle from Paris with his mother, comes the unravelling of Lally's world. Lally's world is antiquated and isolated. The French duo introduce her to Ipads and Facebook. For the first time she admits to herself that she is just too scared to ask about her mother. She runs away and questions her relationship to Eoin; she realises that needs to experience more than just the comfort of her life on The Beetle.

The story of Flea is interspersed with Lally's story, telling of his time with the theatre and his parallel experience with a block of Hawthorne. The Hawthorne adds the supernatural element to the story. In the 16th century, it's sprite controls Flea's master, while in the present day it controls Eoin. Both men are spurred into a flurry of destructive creativity; both men are lucky enough  to have young wards who are able to see what is happening and care enough take drastic steps to save them. There's a good balance of tension and the story really picks up pace towards the end with the dark goings on surrounding what turns out to be the same cursed tree.

I ended the story with a real sense of belonging, what it is to be part of a small community with a sense of family. Both Lally and Flea are separated for a time from their families but don't lose the bond they have forged. Their respective stories show that is ok to care, that it's normal for families to fight and that it's normal to get through it. And all nicely told without being sentimental about it.

Silence Will Fall

I don't think a picture book has left me pondering what it all means hours after I've sat down and read it to the girls. I read Ben Morley's The Silence Seeker to them this morning. They are off playing now, and I'm still trying to make sense of it; I guess that might be the point. Take some stereotypes, challenge them, then leave a big open ending for you to fill.
The Silence Seeker is the story of Joe, who asks his mum about the Asylum Seekers who have moved in next door. He doesn't quite understand and thinks the boy next door  is a 'Silence Seeker', and wants to help. The reasons for the family seeking asylum are only revealed to us through Joe's mum: 'he has come from far away, looking for peace and quiet'. No attempt to give Joe an understanding of war, or oppressive regimes, or any other reason a family may seek asylum; but I guess it's just a true reflection of how we sugar coat everything for our kids.
Joe takes his neighbour for a walk, trying to find a nice quiet spot for him. Every quiet space Joe can think of is filled with people. Some just having fun, some being antisocial, as well as some homeless people. This city is loud and scary. On a deeper level, it exposes a bit of the darker side of our society and made me think about how we are so quick to judge others, and how hypocritical we can be about ourselves as the perfect society about to be over-run. Fear can work both ways. Joe is upset to find that his neighbours have spirited away in the night. Have they been driven out, or rehoused? Have they been deported? We never find out. It's up to us to draw our own conclusions, to hold a mirror up to ourselves and see what thoughts might be staring back at us.
I'm leaving the first stereotype in the book to last. This book is a story of a black boy and a white boy, who on the cover are sitting together on the steps outside their building. There's a lot of jumping to conclusions in our everyday lives about where people are from. How often do trolls post 'send them home' when they see a black or Asian person accused of something, with only an assumption of someone's origin from their skin colour. Can you be British and black? Are white people ever oppressed? The best thing about picture books is they can make you look at yourself without saying a word. 

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