Stuff

Frost, Randy and Gail Steketee. Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things. New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2010.

I will admit that I have watched partial episodes of the TV show Hoarders.  I'm not sure quite what it is about hoarding that fascinates me so, but it is interesting to learn about people who feel compelled to save every newspaper or piece of junk mail or who compulsively purchase clothing or other items until their homes are a maze of tiny trails through tons of trash.  I guess I've always wondered what makes these people collect like that and why it is so difficult for them to stop or to allow anyone to help them clean out and organize their stuff.

Frost and Steketee paint a clear picture of hoarding and delve into the minds of hoarders, all without shaming the hoarders, poking fun at them, or making them seem subnormal.  Hoarding is a serious problem for many more people than any of us has probably considered, and many hoarders truly do need professional assistance to rid themselves of the hoarding habit.  I found thing book to be enlightening and entertaining, as well as a good motivator for cleaning out my own stuff.

While the World Watched

McKinstry, Carolyn Maull. While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2011.

I was quite intrigued by this book.  As an English teacher, I used to teach Mildred Taylor's book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry to my seventh grade students.  It took the better part of a week to orient them to the context and setting of that story.  During that orientation time, I  brought in as many outside sources as possible.  My students needed to understand the dark and frightening world that was the South after the Civil War.  They had not grown up with this sort of racism or violence.  In a way, I was glad that I had to teach them these things.

If I still had a classroom, I would definitely incorporate this memoir into my lessons.  McKinstry does an excellent job of making the world seem real as she describes her childhood during the time of the civil rights movement.  It was fascinating to read about this part of history from a first-person perspective instead of from a few paragraphs in a history book.  McKinstry's faith also plays a bit role in her story, and it would be great to show my students what it means to live a life of faith in the midst of difficulties.  This book is definitely worth reading, and for those in education, this is worth putting on your classroom shelf.

Why Boys Fail

Whitmire, Richard. Why Boys Fail: Saving Them from an Educational System that's Leaving Them Behind. New York: AMACOM, 2010.

School has become more complicated than it used to be.  High-stakes testing and the No Child Left Behind Act have led schools to introduce more tests and more class time spent preparing for tests.  In order to get kids ready for all these tests, kindergarten has become K4, then K3, and in some places there are even K2 programs.  And they seem to be necessary; how else will a child be ready to read in first grade?

And yet with all this testing and accountability, with the plethora of programs, we still see kids failing.  And the majority of them are boys. Whitmire posits that this is due to an increasingly verbal classroom.  Even math class, historically a haven for boys, has focused more on word problems and less on calculations.  Add to this the plethora of young adult novels with female protagonists or softer themes and you have a recipe for failure.  Many, many boys are failing, regardless of race, regardless of socioeconomic status.

Whitmire suggests that we look again at the way we run our classrooms and that we make the necessary changes so that boys can learn in the way they learn best.  Boys need the critical literacy and writing skills that they are missing when they "tune out" a lesson that seems boring to them.  And it's our job to ensure that they receive these skills. 

I found this book to be a fascinating read.  Many of the things I did in my classroom echoed what Whitmire suggested, but he had more suggestions that I would have wanted to try.  Because he's right.  By fifth grade, many boys are turned off to reading and to school and would rather be outside with a soccer ball or at home with a game controller.  If you are an educator or a parent, this book is a must-read.

Papertoy Monsters

Castleforte, Brian. Papertoy Monsters: 50 Cool Papertoys You Can Make Yourself. New York: Workman Publishing, 2010.

I found this book at one of my favorite bookstores in San Francisco, and I carried around in the store with me for the better part of an hour while I contemplated purchasing it.  The book contains fifty different paper monsters, each ready to be created with the addition of glue and a little bit of time. The monsters are pre-printed on the paper and perforated, and there are directions for each monster's folding and gluing.  I have only made one of the monsters so far, but I found the directions to be clear and easy to follow.  This is a great gift idea for the kid or kid-at-heart in your life.

Trickster's Choice

Pierce, Tamara. Trickster's Choice. New York: Random House, 2003.

Aly is the daughter of the famed Lady Knight, but rather than practicing to be a lady herself, Aly wants to be a spy.  She sneaks away from home one night in an attempt to prove to her parents that she will be safe on her own, but she is captured by pirates and sold as a slave. Enter the trickster god, who promises Aly her freedom if she can keep the children of the family she serves alive for one year.  Aly accepts this challenge, but it is proving more difficult than expected to keep it.

I have read several of Tamara Pierce's stories of the Lady Knight and her adventures, but this was the first time I'd encountered a book about the second generation. Unlike many sequels, this book is worth the time spent reading.  It was a great "vacation day" read for me.