When I was in the fourth grade my family left our Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago for the suburbs. While I have very mixed feelings about that decision made by my parents, I know they wanted a safer life for their daughters. When we got to the ‘burbs, I did what I always do: I set out to make friends. When I did that and brought them home to meet my older, cooler sister who was actually too shy to go out and make friends on her own, they ended up liking my sister better than they liked me so OH, WELL, THAT WAS A STUPID PLAN. All it did was make me retreat to my books. We had a red wagon and I put my baby sister into it and pulled her up a hill (no, really, this isn’t one of those I-walked-two-miles-to-school-both-ways-uphill stories) about 6 blocks to the library. I’m sure it was a way to keep us busy and active out of the house, but I liked it all the same.

The library was actually a house that was converted into a library. The played movies on a projector and screen during the summer months and they had all the Nancy Drew books I could want to read. There was a section of the library that had music albums you could check out and I wore the hell out of Maurice Sendak’s Really Rosie and the musical Annie. I can clearly remember singing the words to those songs as I traveled back and forth to the library in the summer months. This was a daily trip since I could read a book a day and I made good use of the library that summer.

Not long ago I received a copy of Thomas Chatterton Williams’ book Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture. I figured from the press release information that I would like this book, but I didn’t realize how much until I was a mere chapter into it. Williams has, in my opinion, a unique existence and experience in that his father was not only present and active in his life, he even got out of his son’s way to allow him to make all the mistakes he wanted. When you read this book you can put yourself in his shoes. His tone and way of writing, his wording, and his extensive vocabulary already make him attractive to read, but listening to him tell how much he struggled with embracing hip-hop fully into his being is what captured me the most. Especially once he went in search of his own knowledge and did The College Thing where you start to think for yourself and break away from all that you know. I remember doing The College Thing and reading the book Lies My Teacher Told Me and feeling like I had a whole lot more education to acquire.

The book cover.

One point that he makes which sticks with me is how Blacks are inundated with hip-hop music. How they emulate and truly try to become that which they listen to repeatedly but how non-Blacks have permission to listen to it with a sense of irony. A sense of “I can listen to this and dress like them now, but sooner or later I have to give this up and get back to my own White world. This can’t go on forever.” It’s almost as if there is a social agenda to pursue anti-intellectualism within Black culture and that is driven through music. When I think about music and the hip-hop that I like, it’s not what the mainstream listens to via radio. In fact, the hip-hop that I know and love is not the anti-women, money-grabbing, ho-slapping, gang-banging type of hip-hop. It is the socially-conscious, make-a-difference, do-something-with-your-life, wake-up-and-smell-the-conspiracy type of hip-hop. And if I even mentioned artists here it would fall on deaf ears. “Who is that she’s talking about?” and “I’m not familiar with those artists.” I sincerely hope, however, that that doesn’t sound pretentious. My experience is that when I tell most people who I’m listening to musically they look confused as if I made it all up.

The author.

Growing up, my friends were Nancy Drew and Annie and Really Rosie. But they were also EPMD and Public Enemy and Tupac (and I’m not slamming these particular artists – in fact, some of their lyrics were lost on me until much later in life). My feet were in two worlds. I sang those same lyrics, blindly I might add, that Williams sang before that consciousness took ahold of him in the form of 15,000 books. So I can empathize fully with him on that front. Like Williams, I feel saved from the ignorance of poverty and the thinking that keeps people there. And I hope so much that others can break free from it if only they were lucky enough to have a father like he did. His dad kept pursuing knowledge along with his son and unfailingly waits it out with patience and enough books to keep him reading and full of accomplishment. He writes fondly of his father and captures who he is as a man and a parent. Williams truly makes his father come to life narratively speaking. On a personal level, he makes me want to know him as a mentor.

I can’t think of a single person who wouldn’t enjoy reading Losing My Cool, but if you were ever sucked into the belief that you could find success and happiness by following the tenets systematically detailed in mainstream hip-hop, then this book is for you.

You can read other book reviews of this at the TLC Book Tours website where other bloggers have written their own critiques of Thomas Chatterton Williams’ book.

Some days are definitely better than others in my line of work, but who isn’t that true for among the working? On my last post Angie asked me a question that I’ve been pondering ever since I read it:

How do you renew yourself?

I responded in the comments but after I did it I realized that it wasn’t a really good answer. Then, the next day at work I actually identified one of the things I get to do and that comes out of no where. It happens more often than I notice but it was having the presence of mind while thinking about renewal that made it especially sweet for me.

It’s amazing that I don’t have the legs of a soccer player with the trekking around our large, spread-out school building. There are stairs. Lots of stairs. And, once, while trying to see if a student could get from the gym to a class on the other side of the building within the 5 minute passing period, I realized that it could not be done. So, if I’m needed then it will take at the very least 5 minutes and 10 seconds to get from one side of that place to the other. That’s not including the wearing of heels, either.

So, in walking around a school building I will encounter many things. Students skipping class, kids on their way to the bathroom, pairs of students working together in the hallway outside their classroom. Each time, as I pass by, I ask, “Hey! Whatcha workin’ on?” because I want to be sure they’re WORKING on something. Usually, I say it loud enough for their teachers to hear us conversing so they don’t get in trouble for talking in the hallway. The answers are varied: “I’m taking a test (or quiz) because I was absent” or “We’re catching up on things everyone has has done because we were absent” or “I didn’t do my homework and the teacher’s making me finish it right now” and even “We have a project to do together.”

When I happened upon three girls huddled in a circle of desks I asked my usual question. One of them frowned and said, “We have to read these chapters we missed from yesterday” and another joined in with “Ugh. I hate this book” and then the third one chimed in, “Me, too!” Only because they were so honest did I stop my purposeful walk down the hallway to see if I could get them to explain why they didn’t like it. They were reading Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” which is a staple in freshman literature in our curriculum.

In what seemed like a matter of minutes we were embroiled in a passionate discussion about how slow the beginning of the book is with it’s historical foundation. “If you can get past that part ok then you’ll be fine, but it’s really important to understanding this town they live in.” I asked them to tell me what they liked about the characters (Scout’s feisty attitude, they said, and also how she beats up boys) and then I told them how much I loved chapter 18. That was the first time they broke eye contact and conversation with me to furiously find that chapter in their own individual books. I learned that they hadn’t read it yet and that they didn’t think much of the character Mrs. Dubose. It was about this time in our conversation that one of them asked, “How do you know this stuff?” Of course, students don’t understand that I’ve been a teacher, that I’ve come from a background of being an instructor in the classroom. They must think that principals are magically born and that upon leaving school I just declared myself an administrator. Someday I will tell them that because I found a unicorn in my backyard it granted me three wishes and one of them was this job, but this was not the day.

As I was getting along my merry way (for yes, there was a task at hand, but at this point in time I had actually forgotten where I was headed – surely it was going to include more stairs) I saw their teacher peek out of the room to see what all this discussion was so I offered an explanation. “Hi. I was just seeing what these ladies were up to and they filled me in about the book you’re reading with them.” Their teacher smiled at me and said, “Oh. Ok. I was just checking on them.” Then I looked back at these girls and said, “You’ll tell me about when you’ve read chapter 18, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure.”

“Ok.”

As I rounded the corner I overheard them talking about how they were going to race to get to chapter 18 and who would get there first. And just like that, I’m renewed again.

While I am still loving to read real books and not textbooks it must be said here and now: what have y’all been reading that’s worthwhile these last two years? I know, I know. You’ve already told me. You’ve already said what you like, but now I’d have to go back in the archives and read comments just to try to remember and I can’t.

Harper Collins has been sending me books on a pretty regular basis lately. Yesterday I got Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook called “Deceptively Delicious” and read it thoroughly. That’s good for me as I normally just look at the pictures. The premise is that she has some picky eaters in her family and purees fruits and vegetables in everyday recipes to ensure they get proper nutrition. Good on her. I just use sarcasm and hold my children’s noses while I force it down their throats as I straddle them on the kitchen floor. Maybe her way is better.

Truthfully, I don’t have picky eaters, they just all get stuck in a rut of what they like and eat it until they can no longer stand the sight of it. Currently, I’m waiting for them to tire of ramen noodles, but that one is holding out pretty well. Not too long ago Mason came into the kitchen demanding to know what I was cooking. It wasn’t anything homemade, it was a box mix of falafel and I bought Tahini sauce to go with it. He’s been falafeling it ever since.

Other than that, my only trick for getting my children to eat fruits is to actually cut them up and leave them on the counter. If I arrange it on a plate, they are more likely to pick it up and eat it.

You can pre-order the book here, but only if you plan on ceasing that practice of putting your kids in a headlock to get them to eat carrots.

Sometimes I enjoy the slow life afforded to me as I watch through my lens what other people are doing. I’m a people watcher. Guilty. Since it’s not ever me that’s going along sluggishly, I blissfully watch others in the slow motion of life, and that’s a good thing because it reminds me to be a little more downtempo. This past week I’ve been doing that but there is a huge amount of guilt that comes with it.

Shouldn’t I be doing something?

Who gets to be this decadent?

Something that I love to do is go to the Farmer’s Market and take pictures. Like this one, which is my such a slow-moving shot that he almost seemed to pose for me.

Then there are all the vibrant colors and luscious fruits and vegetables that I savor them through my camera before buying them, taking them home, and pretending like I had grown them myself. Of course, I can’t grow anything and it has nothing to do with the fact that there are over 30 trees in the backyard that provide too much shade. It’s that I simply don’t know how (the when of planting, the tending, the everything) but someday when this frenzied life has slowed a bit I might take it up.

These are the things I would grow.

And, of course, this:

If I keep taking pictures of them maybe I’ll actually do that someday.

The only thing currently stopping me is the fact that I’m taking this really interesting children’s literature class that I need for the Reading degree. How is it possible that I have an English Lit. degree and never took children’s literature? I suppose it’s because I was a snobby undergrad who thought I’d be a professor of lit-tra-chure and only needed to study Keats and Joyce. This class, however, has afforded me another luxury: buying children’s books.

Since I promised a reading list and am still working on it (it’s like another project. Jeebus. What was I thinking? I am gonna publish that bad boy once it’s finished) I thought I’d offer the titles of the books I’m reading for the class. All of them are fabulous, fun, touching and I would recommend you take a lazy weekend morning and spend it at the bookstore reading the following:

Not A Box by Antoinette Portis. Especially if you have a very young child who likes to play with cardboard boxes. We all did it, but this book is cute and gives rise to imagination.

Koala Lou by Mem Fox. Fox is quite the trailblazer in children’s book and these are adorably illustrated.

Flotsam by David Wiesner. This is the current winner of the Caldecott Medal and received the New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book Award. It’s a wordless picture book that is phenomenal. Truly a good one for the coffee table.

Since I already love Patricia Polacco (Chicken Sunday was one of Mallory’s favorites as a child and I just read Pink and Say for a read-aloud in a history classroom last year – not recommended for a first time reading. I broke down and cried. It was that powerful.) I’ve picked up My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother. Mason thinks I got it because of his red hair. Alas, I did not but Morgan sure appreciated the title.

When I was doing an internship last year a kindergarten boy and his class were walking down the hallway and he stopped me, “Are you Patricia Polacco?” he asked. I smiled because I knew who she was and I don’t think I look like her at all. “No,” I said. I was genuinely disappointed that I was NOT Polacco. “Oh.” The next day they were taking their bathroom break and he stopped me again, “Hey! Are you Patricia Polacco?” I couldn’t resist and God will forgive me for this: “Yes, I am. Do you have one of my books in your classroom?” He got really excited and whispered, “We have Chicken Sunday!” Later that afternoon I went to his classroom and let him sit on my lap while I, the author, read to him from my book.

That’s a forgivable sin, right?

The Last Dragon by Silvana De Mari. I chose this one since it won the Mildred Batchelder award which is given out to a book originally published in another language (Italian) and then translated to English. I haven’t started it yet, but it looks fantastic.

Quest For The Tree Kangaroo by Sy Montgomery won the Orbis Pictus award for nonfiction for children. Every science teacher needs this in the classroom.

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford. This is a Caldecott Honor book and a winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for Non-Violent Social Change. If you read this aloud to a child you must be on the dramatic side. Must.

Finally, I’m reading The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. I bought it last school year because, and only because, I read somewhere that it was a newly challenged book that people wanted to ban because of the word “scrotum” on the first page. First, it pertains to a dog and second, for crying out loud… I just don’t put up with book banning. It was awarded the Newberry Medal as well, so if you don’t take my Question Authority! attitude, at least listen to the ALA.

Tomorrow I’m off for California and business and pleasure and beaches and diary readings and taking lots of pictures. Read all that stuff while I’m gone and tell me what you think, ok? And visit your local Farmer’s Market. Eating a fresh peach while reading a book is as close to heaven as you might get.

Mark Twain nee Samuel Clemens is a genius.

Of all the things to ban a book for, this one is mostly challenged because, as it states here, of the N-word. They even say the phrase “N-word” in the document, which makes me want to claim that word once again because I’m not one to be afraid of words.

They don’t like it because they say “nigger”. There. I said it. After I said it, I wrote it.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is still required reading in most high schools despite the fact that it continues to be challenged. To my knowledge, no one has ever successfully banned it in my district and I have yet to hear about a fight breaking out in Senior Lit. because someone’s senses were so offended by reading about Jim and Huck floating down the Mississippi.

Earlier this week I mentioned the fact that Scout, the narrator from To Kill a Mockingbird, is my favorite character who epitomizes simplicity and complexity all in one. The only reason she is a notch above Huck is because of their vast differences in the realm of experience. He is much more experienced than she because of his jaded, painful past in dealing with an alcoholic father. However, his difficult past doesn’t make him morally relative. Perhaps, then, he is to be lauded for making some good choices despite having a difficult childhood.

Maybe with the exception of the sacrifices Jean Valjean gives in to in Les Miserables, I believe Huck to be the most propitiatory character in fictional history. He has been told from his earliest learnings that helping a slave is a sin in the eyes of God and that the punishment for such a deed warrants an eternity in hell. Even while he wrestles with this fate and wavers between turning Jim in and allowing him his newfound freedom, Huck makes the only decision he feels he can: he decides to save Jim’s life.

When he does this and makes his decision verbal with the line, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” it is the most significant choice he, as a young boy, can make.

It is this decision that makes me love Huck. Makes me see what his heart is truly made of. And it gives me hope that he will be ok in life if he can choose hell over allowing a human being to live in bondage on this earth.

How About You?

What are your favorite banned books? What authors are on your Must Read list that have left a mark on you as a reader? I’ve rambled on for nearly a week about this and want to hear what books I need to add to my list.

Thanks for letting me share.