Wednesday, February 28, 2018

The end is always the beginning


It's the end of Kindness Month and Black History Month (check out this link for our youth poet laureate) yet those two celebrations should continue on everyday. You know what else should continue? Kids going to school everyday in a safe environment. Sometimes it is THE ONE place where children do feel safe and increasingly we keep making it scarier.  Practicing for a tornado drill is very different from actually participating in a dangerous intruder drill. It's not remotely fun to talk about a dangerous intruders with lower elementary students (or any student).

The idea that we can't get an assault weapon ban done in this country is really, truly beyond crazy to me. It is a mental health issue as well; I do understand that yet the two go together. Ban assault weapons (not hunting rifles or hand guns, mind you) and make mental health care part of routine wellness care. Both of these items would show that we care for our citizens. We don't want people to be target practice; we want people to feel well in their heads and hearts.

I'm unbelievably proud of the Stoneman Douglas students who've rallied, resisted, and shared their thoughts. I'm happy that Stoneman Douglas students were also able to head back to class today so as to get back to the routine of going to school. This personal account made me cry.  It's disgusting that they will forever have the memory of friends dying near them and the sound of rapid gun fire in their hallways. According to the NYT after Sandy Hook, 400 people have been shot in more than 200 school shootings. That's a terrible statistics for America, for our young people, teachers, administration and parents. People should be even more fired up than they are. I do appreciate Dick's Sporting Goods stepping up and making a change; it could be more but it's a start.

And don't even get me started on the ludicrous idea of giving teachers guns. I'm working with students all day long. They are in and out of the library, my office, the back work room and in this safe and loving environment there is NO room for a weapon to be sitting ready for the next shooter to come strolling in to our space. I think the same for every classroom and office in our building and in every building across the country. Ain't no place for weapons. Now those that represent us; find another way to make schools safe again.  We should be focusing on kindness and learning, thinking, and creating.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

The Nix by Nathan Hill

I really am ready for spring! I need the snow and ice to melt and the temperature to rise. I want to see green shoots peeking out of the rough ground. I know here we still have a long way to go. 


Reading is one of the ways we get through the long winter and during the month of February I've spent a lot of quality time with one book-The Nix.  Just me and 732 pages of writing from Nathan Hill. It's a good thing I liked it. It's long with lots of characters and a variety of twists and turns. There is A lot going on in this novel. 

Most of the plot lines center around Samuel, a professor at a small midwestern school.  His mother abandoned him as a boy and now as an adult she's suddenly in the news for throwing rocks at a presidential candidate.  Samuel would rather just ignore it except for the book publisher who knows there's an interesting story there.  We travel back in time to see his mother, Faye, as she leaves her small Iowa home with her disgruntled parents behind as she embarks on a new stage of her life in Chicago. 

In between we meet a cast of characters from Samuel's and Faye's early life and travel as far away as Norway.  We meet gaming friends and learn about this complex world of Elfscape as we watch Samuel deal with a humorous yet cheating college student who has an unusual grasp of how the world should work. So much going on yet I was never confused. Everyone's lives are multilayered and every story, every offshoot matters in this tale. 

It reminded me of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara because of its length and detailed writing. Here's a sample of detail from The Nix:
So that day he felt like he needed to cry. He told his mother he was going to his room to read, which was not unusual. He spent most of his time alone in his room, reading the Choose your own adventure books he bought from the bookmobile at school. He liked how the books looked on the shelf, all together like that, homogenous, with their white-and-red spines and titles like Lost on the Amazon, Journey to Stonehenge, Planet of the Dragons. He liked the books forking paths, and when he came to a particularly difficult decision, he would hold the page with his thumb and read ahead, verifying that it was an acceptable choice.  The books had a clarity and a symmetry to them that he found mostly absent in the real world. (83-84)
I've already added it to my shopping list for upcoming birthdays and holidays. This is Nathan Hill's first published novel and he seems like a bit of character himself. I listened to this interview to learn more. Give it a try; any good novel is worth the time you put into it and this one is a huge success for Mr. Hill.



Thursday, February 8, 2018

Happy February!


We are in the middle of some crazy weather here in Iowa.  School is already canceled for tomorrow. I'm excited to sleep in a little bit extra but tomorrow night we have to road trip to Des Moines so fingers crossed the weather will be calm. NO major blizzards. 


Luckily with all this freezing weather I have an excellent book to read; The Nix by Nathan Hill. It's our book club pick of the month and I'm the host for February. I'm fascinated by Faye, Samuel's mother, as she's portrayed as a hippie/radical who questions the politics and policies in the 60's and still. There is also a small Iowa connection.

Other than reading we've been putting together puzzles at our lovely Grandma Bruch heirloom table. My husband's brother and his wife came for a long weekend recently and we put together a cool puzzle of record albums from Uncommon Goods. This inspired us and Groovy Teen said we should always have a puzzle going at this table. We never eat there anymore so it is now deemed the puzzle room. Now we have a puzzle of old baseball cards in the works.


While our family was here I made a recipe I'd made years ago, a sweet potato chili, which we had with loaves of fresh bread. I do love cooking for people and chili hit the spot for how cold it was that weekend.  I've also been binge watching Stranger Things; it's a little creepy for me at times but Groovy Teen (who's watched it all several times) holds my hand at critical moments. I'm also finally caught up on This is Us; always a cry fest for me!  The fire was just too much. We've also had a great time playing Spot it! and Listography. We lead crazy fun lives.

Stay warm out there, wherever you are.