The Return To School...

 ...for ME!  I'm going to be taking a course at university for the fall semester and boy, I had forgotten how much I detested signing up for things until I spent about 6 hours trying to finish my enrollment.  Six. Hours.  And I am applying as a citizen, in a language I know, for a course I can complete with confidence, AND I have applied for higher education before.  Imagine, I told my sister today, if I was a new Canadian?  Or this was my very first time attending university, in my late 30s?  Imagine if I couldn't speak English very well or navigate the websites?  What a crippling system it is for the disadvantaged.

First, the student number.  Then registration for a student account.  Then registration for another section of the student account that lets me add courses.  Then downloading an app and installing it and then activating it (which required TWO devices, btw, in case you don't have two devices or are trying to do this in, say, a library or a friend's house), and then registering for the program itself.  Then finding a phone number and calling it (long distance, in case you are doing this on a public phone) and after waiting on hold for 53 minutes (in case you are trying to do this on your lunch break at the burger place) getting hung up on, calling back and waiting for 38 minutes until someone answers.  Articulating yourself clearly (in case you struggle with that.  Oh, and there was no visible TTY option, so I guess if you are deaf you're out of luck) Then printing off a form (in case you don't have a printer), understanding what the form says, or what any of this stuff says (in case English isn't your first language), scanning it (in case you don't have a scanner) and on and on.  This is without even discussing the financial aspect of higher education, or the discernment necessary to choose a program, or the self-confidence, the home life, the suppot network and so forth.

Bootstraps, y'all.

Some less serious, but still valid, reasons I homeschool.

 In an online group a woman recently asked why homeschoolers bother to homeschool anyway.  It's more work, isn't it?  It's time intensive and expensive and your kids don't go away so you're very stressed, yes?

Goodness, with that definition no wonder so few people are embracing it.

I fumed thought about this for a while and decided that despite my really wanting it to be so...no one magically knows the thoughts inside my head.  I actually have to communicate them.  I tell my children this all the time.  "No one knows what you're thinking!  Say something!"  Anyway, without further ado, here are some excellent reasons that I homeschool.

1)  I'm lazy.  Okay, not really but sorta.  Listen, I do not know how all you school parents do it.  Every year I hear about the lists sent out of classroom supplies you're supposed to send with your kid, the back to school shopping, the mandatory haircuts, the SHOES, people.  They have different shoes for inside the school!  What insanity is this?  More shoes?  They wear shoes to school then they change into OTHER SHOES??  Do you know how long it takes my children to find shoes???  And then nine months of packing food, checking backpacks for papers, dealing with homework, fielding emails from the school, getting the kids UP and FED and CLOTHED and outside in the blessed-dark-before-the-dawn for a BUS.  And then they come HOME again all upset about something or angry at Becky because Becky used to be their friend and now she called them a poopy head at recess and you're just like Janet, give mummy a break I am trying to make SUPPER.  And as if that isn't enough now you get to spend the whole night doing homework or mandatory reading or checking off book logs or something.  Baking for a bake sale.  Volunteering to do something or other with the PTA.  Ugh.  Or driving!  All the driving about!  The child forgets their mittens, the calls from the office "Oh, Mrs. Smith, Bobby doesn't have a lunch today."  Are you kidding me??  He left the house with a lunch!!  Where is his lunch???  Where is your coat, child?  Why did you leave it at school?  What is this fresh hell, here?  A class-wide Valentine's party and you must bring cards for everyone in the class!!  GAH.

2)  I'm really cheap.  I know the party line is that public school is free and homeschool is not free so you should use the perfectly good public school system but my experience has been Really Not Like That.  Sure, I spend money on school stuff, but man, I don't think it's anything like the public school parents do!  Every day you need food your kids will eat, that is acceptable to the school; I give my kids whatever.  Make a smoothie, kids.  Have a peanut butter sandwich.  Honestly, our whole house is covered in a microscopic layer of peanut butter, most likely.   Your kids need to be in clean, socially acceptable clothing, appropriate for the weather.  Not like my kids, who can sit around in a bathing suit in February if they wanted to.  A bathing suit, a top hat, and aviator glasses.  Under the kitchen table.  Your kids need all these supplies, they cannot, apparently, practice their cursive on the backs of scrap paper with the free pen the dentist gave us.  Every extra thing your child does seems to cost more money!  Gotta give a deposit on the instrument, buy the special tshirt, pay for the field trip, fill up the cafeteria card for those forgotten lunches, give extra pocket money for the overnight excursion, the obligatory purchase of school play tickets and fundraisers!  The fundraisers ALONE.  I do not want to sell cookie dough or pizza coupons or candies to anyone!  See reason #1 above!

3) I have things to DO!  I don't know where this idea came from that homeschooling means you are stuck in your house.  Honestly, the one month my eldest was in kindergarten was by far the worst month for staying at home.  I couldn't go anywhere!  I had to pick up a child at, like, 2:30 in the afternoon!  I was constantly checking my watch and got nothing done and was a stress filled wreck.  My children are home and you know what we do all day?  WHATEVER WE NEED TO.  We want to go wander around a museum for 6 hours, we can.  We want to sleep in until 10am, we do.  I need sour cream for supper and I forgot until the last minute?  We just...go to the store!  Whenever!  Doesn't matter!  I go to the dentist at noon, I visit the eye doctor at 2pm, we serve supper at 5, or maybe 6, or whatever.  Maybe it's a really good night for star gazing so we just don't bother going to bed until 11.  Doesn't really matter.  Are you not feeling well, child?  Well, fortunately I don't have to deal with an auto-call answering machine and attendance because, doesn't matter!

4) I don't like people.  No, okay, that's not entirely true.  I sort of like people sometimes, on my own terms.  I do not like being forced into a relationship with people.  I don't want to go to parent/teacher interviews and have someone tell me about my own child.  I don't want to meet teachers.  I'm sure they are very nice people, but I don't wanna.  I don't WANT to talk to Mildred, the woman who is doing the set design for the grade eleven production of Fiddler On The Roof, and who wants to borrow my sewing machine.  I already talk to so. many. people. all day, every day, and I just don't have any more spoons to give people.  No, I don't want to go to another meeting.  My life is meetings and paperwork.  No, I don't want to chaperone anyone anywhere, and I don't want to obsess about whether teacher Jones should get a mug for Christmas when really, the poor woman does WANT a MUG.

Review - Family Sabbatical

This is the second book by Carol Ryrie Brink about the fictional Ridgeway family.  Brink is best known for her novel Caddie Woodlawn, but unlike Caddie, the Ridgeways live in Midwest City, in America, sometime in the middle of the 20th century.  Mrs. Ridgeway is a mystery author, Mr. Ridgeway is a Professor of history at the local college, and the three Ridgeway children are spunky, interesting and very individual.  Family Sabbatical is very loosely arranged around the eldest daughter's diary, kept during a family year abroad in France, and focuses primarily on the storyline for the children.

In style, this novel reminded me of series such as The Moffats by Eleanor Estes or the Melendy Quartet by Elizabeth Enright, and is going to appeal most to readers who enjoy the family stories of gentle adventure, mystery, and sibling love.  

Some thoughts...

Family Sabbatical is not written as a Christian book, but it is very much a Christianity-filled book.  The family does not attend church, but they purchase and set up a Nativity scene under their Christmas tree, tell the Christmas story, visit Notre-Dame and talk about the altars and beauty of the place, and a small Catholic school-friend of theirs gets confirmed and goes shopping for a confirmation dress.  They also act in very Christian ways towards each other, their neighbours and friends, and animals.  That being said, the children mischieviously teach the innocent French governess phrases such as 'shut up', which she uses with delight and complete ignorance at inappropriate times.  If you're familiar with how religion is addressed North American mid-century children's literature then this is just like that.  Besides the occasional slang, the only possibly questionable content is that the myth of Santa Claus is revealed towards the end of the book, so if that is part of your family culture you will have a few sentences of editing to do.

All in all, we really loved it and it retained its appeal for a more modern audience very well.

Review - The Light Princess

George MacDonald was always on my list of authors I should read someday.  To begin with, he was a big influence on some of the great Christian fiction authors of the 20th century - men like Tolkien, Lewis, and L'engle for example.  He's highly regarded by many people whose opinions I respect, and he also seems to be a favourite of so many current fantasy authors for children.  With all of that going for him I still hadn't managed to press 'buy' on any of his stories, until I saw this beautiful edition from the Rabbit Room Press:

I read this book as a bedtime story for the 8yo and 6yo, and I have So. Many. Things. to say about it.  First, let's talk about the publisher and the book itself.

The Rabbit Room is a online Christian arts community headed up by singer/songwriter/author Andrew Peterson.  Amongst other ministries, they publish, republish, and distribute books that fall into their vision of building and supporting a positive creative Christian space.  This is one of the books they've republished with their press - Rabbit Room Press.  This reprint is beautifully done, an absolute legacy-library type book.  The paper quality is thick and luxurious, it has copious woodblock illustrations that are quite well done, and the hardcover is slightly padded.  My own preference would have been for a leather binding (or leather-like) over the board because I find the slightly puffy covering distracting, but it is a minor issue.  It's a beautiful deep blue and the title and decorations you see in the picture are deep embossing.

I find that beautiful books usually end up being a luxury I have trouble justifying, but in this case the cost was pretty comparable with a hardcover children's book, and I really think this is much better quality than most hardcovers.

Now, the story.

The Light Princess is a fairy tale written in the traditional style of Andrew Lang, which is to say that it is not a Disney story.  It is one of those tales that could be enjoyed by the adult reader as much as the children listening because it is full of little hidden puns, deeper meanings, and funny bits that only an adult would find funny.  For example, the king at the beginning is annoyed with his queen because 'all the other queens' he knows have children, and they have none.  "I feel ill-used", he complains, which will make every woman laugh right there.  

The story is easy to follow - a princess is born to the royal couple, and cursed to have no 'gravity' in life.  Not only does this means she cannot be serious no matter how hard she tries, but she also floats into the air.  This makes for some wonderful and silly scenes in the story, such as when she is 17 and leaps across the lawn to kiss her father on the cheek and ends up veering off to the side and kissing a page boy instead, and simultaneously attempting to push herself back and smacking him in the face with a large toad she had been carrying in the hopes that it would weigh her down.

In fact, the whole thing is delightful.  I loved the story, I thought it was hilarious and superbly written and stunningly bound and illustrated...there's just one problem.  I hate to even say this, because I don't believe it SHOULD be a problem, and in fact for many people it probably won't be, but...I have to say it.

The language is very archaic and challenging to follow.  Here's an excerpt:

"The consultation consisted chiefly in propounding and supporting, for the thousandth time, each his favourite theories,  For the condition of the princess afforded delightful scope for the discussion of every question arising from the division of thought..."

You can, perhaps, see what I mean.  The story makes sense, certainly, and for the adult reader there probably would be no issues at all, but for a small child who might otherwise find the tale beautiful and funny, the language may very well stand in the way of real comprehension.  Should you allow this to stop your reading of the story?  I don't think so, no.  But it is worth pointing out.

The Light Princess!  Amazing!  Fantastic!  Wonderful!

Some things the children have been occupying themselves with that aren't electronics.

The 8yo has been obsessed for weeks now with this book.  Each page contains instructions on something to do to it (scribble with wild abandon, take the book into the shower, tie it to a string and take it for a walk...) and after getting over the initial reluctance to 'destroy' a book, we have fully embraced the creative process!

In fact, the 8yo loved it so much I ended up picking up a newer edition for the 10yo - the new one is in colour.  Very similar types of instructions.

And here's another book by the same author that the 10yo has also been working through.  You're supposed to collect items from your walks that match the requirements on the pages.  For some reason this one hasn't appealed as much to the wild and crazy in my children.  It's still getting done, though.

The 6yo, meanwhile, is obsessed with learning how to sew.  This kit came into our house to further that desire and Mama is now the proud owner of a felt cat.  Hand sewn by her very favourite littlest person, of course.

Corn husk dolls, games that involve one person holding the hose while on the deck while the other people stand underneath and pretend it is raining, visiting the nearby creek where there are hundreds of tiny baby frogs, hatching out a monarch chrysalis, capturing a froglet and making a habitat for it, feeding it a cricket, and then letting it go the next day, helping to make gooseberry jam...

The 10yo is obsessed with The Mad Scientist's Club.  This is the complete collection, available through Purple House Press. 

Painting little wooden boxes, making origami yodas, learning how to crochet and making long crochet chains to leave all over the house, making bouquets of flowers for the vase in the bathroom, collecting seeds and planting them in pots...

 This odd, vintage racing game from France that the children are obsessed with playing right now.  

Filling a surprise care package for Grandma with candy and pictures, counting the money in their piggybanks and buying bubblegum with it, swimming in the lake, making a rock collection, practicing cartwheels, fishing off the bridge...

Reading my vintage Stephen Cosgrove collection, helping me finish an elaborate paint-by-numbers, lots of walks with the dog, picking raspberries, mowing the lawn, watering the garden, checkers and Chinese checkers and chess, making lemonade, walking to get ice cream...

There.  Doesn't that sound like a nice mid-summer?

A Whole Bunch Of Things I'm Currently A Little Obsessed With Thinking About Endlessly. As One Does.

Is it true that British children's books are better than American children's books?  Isn't that sentence itself such a huge class indicator?  As if those were your options - British/American.  Imaginative/Moralistic.  Gah.  That article frustrated me.  Golly, I wonder what's better - Peruvian fairy tales or Maori fairy tales.  Let's see if the Atlantic will print that.

I don't need to take this class - but I want to.  AND IT'S THREE POUNDS!!

Here is another class I don't need to take!  But oh...oh I do want to take this class.

Here are some things I do not need to buy...

One of these slow-stitching kits from Wattle and Loop.

Or this tapestry pillow kit.  Which is adorable and would go very well in my livingroom.

I don't need to buy any of these pots for houseplants...

I also do not need to follow this tutorial and attempt to make anything I own look like antique mercury glass.

I don't need this wool blanket.

I do not need everything from this pottery store.  Especially not the little clay stakes for garden herbs.  I def. should not buy those.

I do not need to buy new jigsaw puzzles showing pages from The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.  Sob.  I don't.

Reading Notes, July 2020

I got onto a fantasy book kick this month, as you'll see.

Patricia McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy.  I love how much Christian symbolism is in this series, and how many difficult questions can be approached using a fantastical worldview.  Arguably, fantasy is a prime opportunity for exploring topics and ideas that are difficult to place in our current reality.

Morgan is The Prince of Hed - a small, rural island of no particular importance.  He was born with three unexplained stars on his forehead, and a skill for answering riddles.  Who is he, really?  Is he just the ruler, or something more?  Why won't The High One, a semi-mythical being who controls the fates of the world, tell him why his parents died?  Or even talk to him?  What do the stars of his face mean and how had someone a thousand years ago known he would have them?  Morgan's quest for the truth has a lot of twists, but the overall themes of the fight for truth and whether our destiny is preordained for us are beautiful.

Another series!  C.J. Cherryh's Morgaine Cycle is another of those fantasy series just filled with Christian symbolism.  

I love the themes in these books - Can sin be 'worked off', the weight of sin on a soul, who, or what, is evil, and so forth.

Nhi Vanye i Chya is the bastard son of the ruler of the Nhi Clan, and he kills one half brother and disfigures another after years and years of torture at their hands, and in return he is outcast, ilin, forced to become the indentured servant to the first lord, liyo, who gives him food and a hearth.  Unfortunately for Vanye, this turns out to be Morgaine, an ancient witch doomed to travel between worlds via a series of 'gates', closing them as she goes, in order to prevent evil from seeping into the world.

Let's keep going with the symbolism, shall we?  This one is Margaret Mahy's Carnegie Medal winning YA novel.  I read this book decades ago, and could not remember the name of it.  Then a FB group of fellow bibliophiles came up with this title for me, and they were correct!  I read it in a night!  

Laura's younger brother is attacked by a demon and is slowly dying, and Laura must save him.  Wrapped up in this sacrifice are many, many little healings throughout the book.  The male protagonist, Sorensen, forgiving his birth mother for her abandonment.  Laura forgiving her father for his leaving the family and marrying again, and then forgiving her mother for seeking solace in a new romance.  Sometimes the greatest sacrifice is letting go of our right to be offended and hurt.

Diane Duane's first book in her Wizard series (I think she's up to #10 now!)  I cannot tell you how much I love this series for tweens/teens and up.  Duane's characters remind me very much of L'Engle's style of writing - in fact if the character of Meg was a wizard, she would be Nita.  Absolutely.  There's a sort of science/fantasy/growing up theme running through these deeply symbolic books.

In this much less well known book of L'engle's, we have two short fictional stories based on the author's imagining of what went on in Egypt when the Holy Family lived there waiting for Herod's death.  In one of the stories, the Christ Child befriends a camel and a thieving boy at the same time, and in the second he matches wits with the Sphinx herself, who is ancient and hungry for human flesh.  Both are wonderfully evocative of the gospels.

It's not a decent reading month without some non-fiction, and I read a few good ones this month!

Some very good points for writers in this book.  I think more established writers might already know a lot of what the authors mention, but that's to be expected since the book is subtitled "How to Build a Life as a Christian Writer".  It was a pretty quick read.

Another book by the same author, and this one is her most recent title.  Also a fairly quick read, and it resonated with me, of course, seeing as Stiller and I find ourselves in similar situations as the spouses of ministers.  Here's my Goodreads review.

Now, lest you think all I do is read books you can really sink your teeth into, let me help dispel that myth!  Kyra sent me the first three books in the Harry Dresden files, and it takes about a day to finish one of these!  

These are the first three in the Dresden Files series, which must be up to 16 at least.  Wizardly crime fighting in the gritty Chicago streets, written in that film noir detective style.  Entertaining, not thought-provoking at all, and if you are wondering if you'll be offended...you will be.  I mean, you'll laugh, but you will also probably be offended.  They aren't nearly so creepy as they look.  They're like...did you ever read the Callahan's books by Spider Robinson?

A pre-read for school, which I've decided is not what we need.  But Doyle writes so realistically about Ottawa that I feel I'm there, and this hard-working, mystery-solving, environmentalist Indigenous protagonist is busting open stereotypes left, right and centre.  I'm sure it would be perfect for someone, even it that isn't us.

Still continuing slowly and steadily in this one.  Written in email format, hilarious, nonfiction, a couple travelling to all of the national parks in the United States.  What's not to love?

My first Lord Peter Whimsy mystery, if you can believe it.  It is very much Wooster and Jeeves meets Agatha Christie.  So far, I like it!