Fairies and their bottles

When I was a child, youngish, but not so young that I didn't know what I was doing, little fairy martins used to build their lovely mud bottle nests under the old bridge near my grandmother's home. My cousin Vee and I used to ride our bikes - old bone shakers with no chain guards so you had to wrap your bell-bottoms around your leg and secure them with lacky bands or else risk coming a cropper half way down the great big hill on the way to the bridge when the denim got stuck in the chain - and take pot shots at the nests.

We'd gather stones and then line up several yards away and just let fly. You'd get one point for hitting a bottle; two for putting a hole in it and five for completely dislodging it from the bridge leaving just a muddy ring to show where it had been.

Oh the shame!!!!!

Now I don't remember ever hitting a nest with birds still in it, but I wouldn't put it past us. I can certainly remember the little birds swooping and wheeling in flight above our heads while we were there, so it is quite likely, in fact.

Last week these giddy little birds started building their magnificent bottle nests above the door of the Catholic church across the road. Jemimah and I have been watching their colony grow with great delight. They way these little birds construct their neat homes out of pellets of mud is just marvellous to witness and it pleases me that Jemimah is so protective of the martins and their homes. There is no likelihood of a repeat performance of my wanton vandalism in this generation, at least.

I wish I could show you a photo of the martins themselves, but they are such busy little things that they are impossible to catch on film. I can show you the fairy bottles though.

Aren't they clever?

How could I be so foolish as to damage the likes of these?

What on earth was I thinking of?

Rolling in the Deep

From my friend, Melisa's, facebook page. Beautiful.

Baring my soul

People share books they love. They want to spread to friends and family the goodness that they felt when reading the book or the ideas they found in the pages. In sharing a loved book, a reader is trying to share the same excitement, pleasure, chills and thrills of reading that they themselves experienced. Why else share? Sharing a love of books and of one particular book is a good thing. But it is also a tricky maneuver, for both sides. The giver of the book is not exactly ripping open her soul for a free look, but when she hands over the book with the comment that it is one of her favorites, such an admission is very close to the baring of the soul. We are what we love to read, and when we admit to loving a book, we admit that they book represents some aspect of ourselves truly, whether it is that we are suckers for romance or pining for adventure or secretly fascinated by crime.

On the other side of the offered book is the taker. If she is at all a sensitive being, she knows that the soul of the offering friend has been laid wide-open and that she, the taker, had better not spit on her friend’s soul...

Nina Sankovich Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

When I was a fresh faced and eager 18-year-old living away from home in student digs, I had a saying on my wall that read like this:

I do not show you who I am, because if I show you who I am and you do not like me, then that's all that I have.

I don't remember now why I found that so profound. I don't know who I was afraid of revealing myself to either - surely not everybody?

I do think, though, that this is what Nina Sankovich is saying in this quote from her recent book, above - that some things define us in special ways, and if they are taken away or otherwise scorned then it makes us feel that we have been slighted as people. We are what we read. There are books on my shelves that have helped define me as a person in some way or another, and they say something about who I am and what I feel and what I believe. If I recommend one of these books to you, then I will be baring my soul just a little bit. What if you don't like it? What if you don't like me?

Because if I show you who I am and you do not like me then that's all that I have.

Normally I am not afraid of sharing books with friends. My friends know that I read voraciously, and they often come to me asking for recommendations. I am also not afraid of sharing books on my blog. If you don't like a book that I recommend then probably another reader will. There are a few books, though, that I recommend only rarely, and Nina's words in the quotation above explain why.

Recently I've been involved in a project putting together lists of folksongs. Like books, this is a subject dear to my heart, and even more so than books, in the lines of many of those songs are captured memories of my life, my childhood, my family. These words contain people, places and events that are unlocked when I listen to them sung, and even when I listen to the music that accompanies them.

When one of my colleagues would say that they didn't like a song I had suggested then I found myself feeling personally affronted. How dare they not like that song? My Dad used to sing me The Northern Lights! That song there is my Grandmother's song - don't you dare say Danny Boy's no good! That one was the song that The Celtic City Sons always played - you can't take out Ride On! No, you can't remove The Volga Boat Song - I sang that one in Primary School. It was Mr Montgomery's class, and he was my favourite teacher!! Don't you know that he had long hippy hair and drove a red 550 Spyder and we called him Sir? You can't remove that song!

Oh, what I pain I was being.

For me, being aware of these feelings was the main part of dealing with the problem solved. Once I realised what was happening I was able to remove myself a little from the decision making process and allow myself - and the rest of the team - to move on to other more important things. I'll suggest songs, they can accept or reject them as they like.

Within reason. There are some songs that are just not negotiable. Those songs are good!! Nothing that you say to the contrary will make me change my mind!!

You hear me?



Here's Paul Robeson singing The Volga Boat Song. He's good. It's good.

No, you can't not like this song. If you do, you'll kindly keep your inappropriate thoughts to yourself.

You had better not spit on my soul.

Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all

I hadn't heard of the English folksong, Widdecombe Fair before I bought the book. Which is surprising, because apparently it is one of the best known English folk songs, and I know an awful lot of songs.

Anyhow, the song is about a man. Tom Pearse.

This is Tom.

And here are the friends who ask to borrow Tom's old grey mare: Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke, old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

Anyhow, the men borrow the mare to go to Widdecombe Fair, and off they all ride.

The Grey Mare was never heard of again.

Have a listen to Burl Ives singing the song.



Here's a radio play.



And here's info on the real Widecombe Fair.

Look out for the book - it's a ripper. I defy you not to get the song stuck in your head once you've heard it a few times as well. It is easy to see why it is one of England's most favouritest folk songs.

Christine Price tells us in the book that Uncle Tom Cobbleigh was a real person, living and dying two hundred years ago not far from Widecombe-on-the-moor in Devonshire. In those days, apparently, the fair was a big thing, happening, as it is now, in September each year.

Many had to travel to Widecombe over the moor - wild and lonely country, the haunt of goblins, ghosts and fairies. Even today, strange things can happen on the moor, especially on stormy nights, as anyone can tell from the story of WIDDECOMBE FAIR!

On Dance and the Arts

I don't necessarily like Graeme Murphy's radical reworking of traditional ballets. Sometimes I do, just not always. His Tivoli, for example didn't do it for me. Neither did Swan Lake. Nutcracker, on the other hand was pretty good. It all depends, I guess, on whether he leaves in the bits I expect to see. If they're not there, I get grumpy.

No matter what you think of Murphy's work though, there is no denying that they are always spectacular productions. The scenery, the choreography and the sheer artistry of the dancers is always in a class above other productions.

On Saturday we went to see The Australian Ballet dancing his production of Romeo and Juliet. It was with a little trepidation - would we like it? Would Jemimah?

Well the answer was Yes - but with reservations.

Certainly Murphy's interpretation of this ballet was marvellous for its entertainment value. The translation of the traditional marketplace scene into an Indian Bazaar provided the most wonderful opportunities for colour and movement that highlighted both the dance and the story as well as working well with Prokofiev's sublime score. Somewhat more strange was the need to New-Age the ballet by the inclusion of Japanese temples, a bed of skulls in the dessert instead of the traditional crypt and the strangely blended Buddhist/Hari Krishna hybrid monks. I was saddened by the overt signs of Australia's post-Christianisation, and the replacement of Franciscan Friar Laurence with an Eastern Holy man failed to resonate with us at all.



We resubscribed to new season of The Australian Ballet a couple of weeks ago. Unlike past years it was not a straightforward decision. A year's subscription for a family - even with only one child - is a significant financial investment, and we needed to consider carefully whether we were wise to invest this money in something that many people consider classist, frivolous and unnecessary when we are still living in a flood ravaged home with little furniture, our possessions packed in boxes, and borrowed beds.

The inclusion of the Visual and Performing arts as part of our children's education has often come under scrutiny. Is a study of literature, dance, music, opera, painting and theatre as important as our acquisition of skills like reading, writing, science and mathematics?

Certainly the arts have, since primitive times, occupied an important part in the lives of man. Jubal was making musical instruments - the harp and the flute - back in Genesis 4, and throughout the ages men have recognised the pleasure that the arts can introduce into our lives. The arts are a mirror into the hearts of man, and our appreciation of the arts and culture is one of the characteristics of being human, making us different from animals. As I watch Graeme Murphy's Romeo and Juliet, I view a profound expression of his understanding of human existence and of his religious commitment, and I gain an appreciation of Australia's new values and beliefs - beliefs very different from my own.

It is not only the secular communities, though, that recognise the importance of the artistic expression. Throughout history Christians have produced a wealth of art, both liturgical and non-liturgical. The singing, music, dance, the beautiful vestments and the fine decoration of the temple, are all hugely visible in the Old Testament. A study of the arts of man provides us with some of the clearest manifestations of human religious beliefs throughout the ages. We see clear evidence of their values, beliefs, and the importance they place on them.

These then, are some of the reasons that we include the arts in our children's education.

I would like to say that Jemimah's father and I considered all these things when we weighed up whether or not to renew our subscription to The Australian Ballet's 50th Anniversary Season. I'm afraid, though, that the most important factors of all in our decision were the fact that we love the ballet. We love getting dressed up and eating out. We love the music, the dance, the spectacle. We love the memories. The ballet is one of the things that we do as a family, and we all enjoy it very, very much indeed. I'm so glad we're going again next year.

Darby and Joan

Eugenio Zampighi Darby and Joan

Jemimah is off to Junior Camp with Church this week leaving her father and me at home as Darby and Joan. It's rather a strange feeling having nobody to worry about but ourselves.

When I was young my uncle and aunt had a little model of Darby and Joan. It was a weather-glass hygrometer, and whenever Darby was out of his little house, rain was approaching whereas when Joan appeared, sunshiny days were imminent. It used to worry me that when Joan was out, Darby was in and when Darby was out, Joan was in and they were never both at home nor abroad at the same time. I did not feel that that was the recipe for a happy marriage at all...which is what the Darby and Joan figures were supposed to signify.

Anyhow, Jemimah's Daddy and I will make perfect proverbial Darby and Joans this week - a happily married couple content to lead a quiet shared life together.

There are many lovely Darby and Joan poems. One of my favourites is this song by J L Molloy:

Darby and Joan

Darby dear, we are old and gray,
Fifty years since our wedding day,
Shadow and sun for ev'ry one
As the years roll on:
Darby dear, when the world went wry,
Hard and sorrowful then was I.
Ah! lad, how you cheer'd me then.
"Things will be better, sweet wife, again!"

Chorus
Always the same, Darby my own,
Always the same to your old wife Joan,
Always the same to your old wife Joan.

Darby dear, but my heart was wild
When we buried our baby child,
Until you whispered "Heav'n knows best!"
And my heart found rest;
Darby dear, 'twas your loving hand
Showed me the way to the better land;
Ah! lad, as you kissed each tear,
Life grew better and heav'n more near:

Hand in hand when our life was May,
Hand in hand when our hair is gray,
Shadow and sun for ev'ry one
As the years roll on;
Hand in hand when the long night-tide
Gently covers us side by side:
Ah! lad, though we know not when,
Love will be with us forever then:

You'll find the sheet music here.

I shall enjoy some quiet time with my husband this week. It is all too easy to neglect your partner when there are small people around - particularly when you're homeschooling. You run the danger of living parallel lives - same objective, similar paths, but rarely intersecting for quality time together.

All too soon Jemimah will be grown and gone. I am going to take advantage of the time this week to ensure that when she does the man with whom I will continue to share my home and my life is not a stranger but my dearly loved best friend.

Now. What should we do first?!!

Listen with me...

...to this beautiful music from the movie Totoro. It's by Joe Hisaishi.



So, so peaceful with a cup of chamomile tea.

A Panoramic Method of Geography

The panoramic method...(of geography)... unrolls the landscape of the world, region by region, before the eyes of the scholar with in every region its own conditions of climate, its productions, its people, their industries and their history. This way of teaching the most delightful of all subjects has the effect of giving to a map of a country or region the brilliancy of colour and the wealth of detail which a panorama might afford, together with a sense of proportion and a knowledge of general principles.

Charlotte Mason Towards A Philosophy Of Education p228

You all know, I guess, that geography is one of our very favouritest subjects.

Our Australianised geography study this final term of AO4 is the Mighty Murray River. We're reading a couple of wonderful living books: Colin Thiele's River Murray Mary and Leila Pirani's Old Man River, both of which I have plans to tell you about in detail shortly; and mapping things on our river map as we go. We've already made a visit to Swan Hill, and Echuca is on the agenda.

We've also been doing a bit of work on the first Murray River residents - the Aboriginal People. Poppy's mother in the marvellous Our Australian Girl series is from the Bangerang People near Echuca, and we've been reading our way through her story as each book appears. (Not to self: must post on these as well.)

Today we watched this lovely Aboriginal Dreamtime story, Thukeri, from the Ngarrindjeri people who live in the lower River Murray area of South Australia.



It's starting to sound a little bit like a unit study, right? The kind of study that Miss Mason denigrates so strongly in Volume One, right?

Or are we?

Right, I mean?

Does Miss Mason really disapprove of integratory methods like this, or is this exactly what she's talking about as the Panoramic Method of Geography above?

Miss Mason talks a lot about her geography methods in Volume Six. She describes how her students learn first about their own region and country before moving onto next to their continent of Europe and later on to the rest of the world.

She writes that the youngest children..."are engaged with the counties of England, county by county, for so diverse are the counties in aspect, history and occupations, that only so can children acquire such a knowledge of England as will prove a key to the geography of every part of the world, whether in the way of comparison or contrast."

This is what we're trying to do with our River study. The Murray River is the biggest river in Australia. It is also one of the longest in the world. It forms the natural boundary between our State of Victoria and New South Wales. It has been the home of the Aborigines since before history was recorded, and was explored by many of our first explorers. Paddle steamers carried wool, wheat, and other goods up and down its length. It's a dream region for a geography study. It also happens to be local.

Jemimah dips a toe in 'New South Wales'

I love it when geography comes together like this. The book spines we're reading all term are the glue. They bring it all together. The other stuff though - the visits to the region; the free read novels and the videos are what makes The Mighty Murray more than a name. They're the things that make this study of local geography "a key to the geography of every part of the world, whether in the way of comparison or contrast."

If we could visit very geographical region we wanted to study, then we probably wouldn't need books at all. If not, then this panoramic method does a pretty fantastic job of unfolding a 'panorama' of the region in our mind's eye.

Once again, Miss Mason hits the nail right on the head. She always does, doesn't she?

If we read her right.

Being a 'Shorter Catechism Girl'

Jemimah's up to Question 85 in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. 22 left to go. What a phenomenal achievement!

She first started memorising Scripture when she was two years old. True. We started the catechism when she turned four. Kids of that age have absolutely phenomenal memories, and while they don't understand what they're learning, at least they're doing the ground work for later on. I know this isn't particularly Charlotte Mason in its pedagogological approach, but when it comes to hiding God's word in our hearts, I believe the earlier we begin the better.

Now that we have so many past questions to revise each week, Jemimah's progress on new questions is getting slower. It's still steady though. We revise five past questions each day, and if we get stuck on a particular answer we revise it over the next day - and the next - until it goes back into the memory where is belongs. We always have a new question on the go. At first I just read the question and answer aloud. When she feels she can, Jemimah inserts the words she know until she can say the whole lot. Once a question is learned we practise it every second day for a while before it is added to the 'learned question' rotation.

It requires constant effort to commit the entire Shorter Catechism to memory. I tried as a kid, but I only got part of the way through. Even now, learning them along side Jemimah, her recall of them is far, far better than mine. I don't think there are even very many tricks - excepting hard work and commitment. She does have the Westminster Confession Flashcard App on her iPod touch, which we use occasionally to vary the lesson, but mostly we just practise, practise, practise.

Sometimes I wonder whether all the hard work and concomitant angst is worth it, but when I do, I like to read the little piece by Princeton's Professor Benjamin Warfield called Is the Shorter Catechism Worthwhile?, which is found in the back of our catechism book. It's all inspirational reading, but this little story is worth quoting in full:

What is ‘the indelible mark of the Shorter Catechism’? We have the following bit of personal experience from a general officer of the United States army. He was in a great western city at a time of intense excitement and violent rioting. The streets were over-run daily by a dangerous crowd. One day he observed approaching him a man of singularly combined calmness and firmness of mien, whose very demeanor inspired confidence. So impressed was he with his bearing amid the surrounding uproar that when he had passed he turned to look back at him, only to find that the stranger had done the same. On observing his turning the stranger at once came back to him, and touching his chest with his forefinger, demanded without preface: ‘What is the chief end of man?’ On receiving the countersign, ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever’ — ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘I knew you were a Shorter Catechism boy by your looks!’ ‘Why, that was just what I was thinking of you,’ was the rejoinder.

It is worth while to be a Shorter Catechism boy. They grow to be men. And better than that, they are exceedingly apt to grow to be men of God. So apt, that we cannot afford to have them miss the chance of it. ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.’

One day Jemimah will grow to be a woman. My greatest hope is that she will grow up to be a woman of God. If learning the catechism helps her to achieve this then all the angst and hard work will all have been worthwhile.

Happy Saturday

Hello. What are you doing this fine sunny spring Saturday? We've been doing lots of nothing. Isn't that the bestest sort of Saturday?

Here's some of what we've been up to:

• Listening to this CD of songs and music from Bonnie Prince Charlie's campaign to Prestonpans in 1745. We're all big Scottish folk-musicophiles around here. We've also been learning a bit about the Prestonpans Tapestry from here. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see it?
• Planning a bit of a holiday over Christmas/New Year.
• Hanging out at the playground in the glorious spring sunshine.
• Painting the clay bowls we made last weekend (pictures coming).
• Doing a little bit of clothes shopping now that the new season is here. What did I wear last year?!!
• Grabbing up a couple of good books from Readings Bargain Book Table - this little book, The Tale of the Unknown Island by Nobel-laureate novelist, José Saramago, and this bigger one, The Literature of Australia. I also bought a copy of Eve Garnett's The Family from One End Street for Jemimah. I loved this book as a child.
  I was unable to keep my nose out of a conversation that did not concern me at Readings too, when I overheard the seller recommending Captain Underpants to a ten year old boy who had just read all of Roald Dahl and Andy Griffiths. Surely there is something better than Captain Underpants?? They left with a copy of Finn Family Moomintroll - a significant improvement over underpants.
• Tonight we have reservations at Kumo Izakaya. I've high expectations, especially after perusing their online menu.

Days like this are just the best, aren't they?

Oh yes, I also did a few loads of washing and drying and ironing, but we won't mention that, I don't reckon.

What are you up to?

Going for a walk

I guess ours is not the only homeschool to suffer total hissy-fit-melt-down. Today is was over George Washington's World. If England won the war, how could they become a huge Empire on the very nextest page? Why would Spain care about a rock? (That was Gibraltar.). Why did the Royalists want to live in French speaking Quebec? Who cares anyhow?

There's not much I know of that can prevent an episode like this becoming a huge loud battle of wills between strong willed mummy and her even more strong willed progeny except getting out.

Fast.

Which is what we did.

We turned right. Without speaking to each other. By the first intersection we were holding hands. By the horses we were talking. Tersely, but definitely communicating. By the llamas we were narrating the story. True.

Or were they alpacas? The long necked ones. Ah yes, Llama-long-necks.

By the time the mamma magpie started swooping us we were shrieking with laughter. Then with fear. We ran along past the Driver Ed Centre where we recovered our breath.

Then we turned for home. She narrated George. Excellent. And correct. And It Couldn't Just Happen. Again. Much better. And Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink. They were all great narrations.

By the time we reached home we were ready for maths.

Crisis averted.

Sorry there are no photos. In a melt-down situation there is no time to grab the camera.

Shame really - that maggie was kyoot. Now it is, anyhow.

Jemimah's pretty kyoot again now as well...

Remembering to remember

...Every evening they would all sing one round. Mr. Boast's tenor would begin, "Three blind mice," and go on while Mrs. Boast's alto began, "Three blind mice," then as she went on Pa's bass would join in, "Three blind mice," and then Laura's soprano, and Ma's contralto, and Mary and Carrie. When Mr. Boast reached the end of the song he began it again without stopping, and they all followed, each behind the other, going round and round with words and music.

"Three blind mice! Three blind mice!
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
She cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever hear such a tale in your life,
Of three blind mice?"

They kept on singing till someone laughed and then the song ended ragged and breathless and laughing...

Laura Ingalls Wilder By the Shores of Silver Lake

By the Shores of Silver Lake is Jemimah's current read aloud selection (the one she reads aloud to me so I know which words she pronounces incorrectly and so that we can work on her read-out-loud skills.). We've read one of Laura's books each year of AO, and like many others before us, they're amongst our favourites.

We love it when Laura includes Pa's old songs, and we love to sing along with those we know. Already in last Friday's chapter we'd sung along to Billy Boy and Campdown Races when we came to that old nursery favourite, Three Blind Mice. Well, I was almost gob-smacked to discover that Jemimah couldn't remember the words!! Of Three Blind Mice!! What a failure of my position of Hander-Down-of-Traditions I've been.

Of course once I'd sung it through once, she did recall the words after all, and we spent much of this past weekend singing Three Blind Mice as a round with Daddy with almost as much hilarity as the Ingalls clan, but I have been reminded anew of the need to keep practicing those things we want our kids to remember to adulthood so they can teach them to the next generation. That includes nursery rhymes, songs, poems, Scripture verses, catechism questions and lots, lots more.

The list of nursery songs I compiled yesterday for the Deputy Headmistress contained twenty of the most important nursery songs for children (in my opinion). How many do your kids know by heart? How many will they be able to croon to their littlies in the middle of the night? (I always sang Shuttie eyesy-eyesy-eyesy-eyesy-eyes, Give Mummy a Big Surprise to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know it when I was singing to Jemimah in situations like that, but I digress.) I'm going to test Jemimah today by singing them through. I think she'll know them all, but then again she couldn't remember Three Blind Mice, so I may be wrong.

Incidentally, she does remember the version of Three Blind Mice that goes like this:

A trio of sightless rodents, a trio of sightless rodents;
Observe how they perambulate, observe how they perambulate;
They all pursued the agriculturist's spouse,
Who severed their caudal appendages with a culinary implement;
Have you previously observed such a phenomenon in your existence
As a trio of sightless rodents?

She knows this one as well. Do you?

Propel, propel, propel your craft,
Placidly down the liquid solution.
Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically;
Existence is but an illusion.

Every time I meant to type Three Blind Mice in this post in this post it came out Three Bling Mice. Does that say anything about me - other than that I am mummy to a glitz-obsessed tween, that is?

20 Top Early Childhood Songs

The Deputy Headmistress is asking for your list of the most important 20 songs of early childhood. Here's mine:

1. Mary Had a Little Lamb
2. London Bridge
3. Jack and Jill
4. Ring a Ring o' Roses
5. Three Blind Mice
6. Humpty Dumpty
7. Hickory Dickory Dock
8. Baa Baa Black Sheep
9. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
10. Little Bo Peep
11. Old McDonald had a Farm
12. Sing a Song of Sixpence
13. Jesus Loves Me
14. Polly Put the Kettle On
15. Row Row Row your Boat
16. I'm a Little Teapot
17. Miss Polly Had a Dolly
18. The Farmer in the Dell
19. Incy Wincy Spider
20. Here we Go Round the Mulberry Bush

There are lots and lots once you get started. What would you add? Don't forget the rules - if you add one, you have to delete one as well!!

Wordless Wednesday

...coz sometimes words are superfluous.

Matilda's Reading List

"Can I help you, Matilda?" she asked.

"I'm wondering what to read next, Matilda said. "I've finished all the children's books."

"You mean you've looked at the pictures?"
"Yes, but I've read the books as well."

Mrs Phelps looked down at Matilda from her great height and Matilda looked right back up at her.

"I thought some were very poor," Matilda said, "but others were lovely. I liked The Secret Garden best of all. It was full of mystery. The mystery of the room behind the closed door and the mystery of the garden behind the big wall."

Mrs Phelps was stunned. "Exactly how old are you Matilda?" she asked.

"Four years and three months," Matilda said.

Mrs Phelps was more stunned than ever, but she had the sense not to show it. "What sort of book would you like to read next?" she asked.

Matilda said, "I would like a really good one that grown-ups read. A famous one. I don't know any names."...

..."Try this," she said at last. "It's very famous and very good. If it's too long for you, just let me know and I'll find something shorter and a bit easier."

"Great Expectations," Matilda read, "by Charles Dickens. I'd love to try it."...

...Within a week, Matilda had finished Great Expectations which in that edition contained four hundred and eleven pages. "I loved it," she said to Mrs Phelps. "Has Mr Dickens written any others?"

"A great number," said the astounded Mrs Phelps. "Shall I chose you another?"

Jemimah is reading Matilda by Roald Dahl. I know lots of parents don't approve, but I do - I think Roald's books are just fantabulous fun. The BFG is Jemimah's and my favourite - mainly for the splendiferous neologisms that come from the giant's mouth, but Matilda's up there as well for its sheer pleasurable naughtiness!!

In honour of Rould Dahl's birthday - which would have been today - I thought we might have a bit of a look at Matilda's Reading List. Which ones have you read? I've read the predictable ones (the orange ones). What about you? Are you, like me, upstaged by a four-year-old, albeit a precocious and fictitious one?

Over the next six months, under Mrs Phelps's watchful and compassionate eye, Matilda read the following books:

Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Gone to Earth by Mary Webb
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
The Invisible Man by H G Wells
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Good Companions by J B Priestly
Brighton Rock by Graham Green
Animal Farm by George Orwell

Wanna play?

By the way, if you haven't read The BFG out loud to your kids, you really must - it is such fun! You should probably read Matilda as well.

Happy Birthday, Mr Dahl.

Maxetom

Fe from The Genial Hearth asked recently about Starfall in French. Oh, how marvellous that would be!!

While I am not aware of a resource that teaches kids to read French anywhere near as comprehensively as Starfall, I am really quite exceedingly fond of Maxetom.com, and so it is quite possible that some of you might be as well.

It's a website written in French for French 1st Graders, and is full of educational games to teach reading, telling time, foreign languages and maths and lots of other things besides. Jemimah and I found the reading section the best, but the time bit is useful as well. We also liked learning how to write some of the lovely French cursive script.

If you go to http://www.maxetom.com/ and click on the Apprendre à lire button you'll be taken to a page of exercises arranged by letter sound. Each sound has a number of activities, and as each is successfully completed you win a star. The directions are written in French only, so I would help Jemimah with the instructions before she began each exercise. They're useful for vocabulary and pronunciation, but mostly they're great as a break from serious French study.

It mightn't be Starfall, but Maxetom is pretty fun as well. Zip on over and have a bit of a play!!

The Little Grammar People

I am aware that this is the post where I sort of thumb my nose at you. It's sort of a na-na-na-na-na I'm better than you-ou taunt. It's not meant to be though.

I want to tell you about Nuri Mass's The Little Grammar People, and yet when there is only one copy available on Abebooks, and it is priced at $375.00, I am equally aware that most of you are not going to be able to use my recommendation even if you wanted to.

I tell you though, because in my humble opinion this is absolutely totally the best book for introducing grammar to children and if you spend enough time haunting second-hand book stores then you just might get lucky as I did. My copy, shown below, is not in the best of conditions, and it cost $30.00, so it wasn't cheap, but a new grammar text book can cost this much, and won't be nearly as good. Keep an eye out.

In a very similar vein to M L Nesbitt's Grammar-Land, The Little Grammar People is the parts of speech explained in a story. The Foreword says it better than I can:

Here is something entirely new in juvenile literature, a strikingly original play book that, while telling a charming fairy story, gives small children a grasp of English grammar that would take years of dull lessons to teach.

The story tells of the adventures of Linda and Barry among the quaint little people who lie at the roots of our language. Among the fairy folk there are Sir Pronoun, obliging stand-in for busy little Miss Noun; critical Madam Adjective of infinitely changing moods; Master Verb, for ever being hauled over the coals in the Grammar court on the charge of irregularity; small boy Preposition, enlisting Miss Noun's help in the forming of adverbial and adjectival phrases when Lady Adverb and Madam Adjective are too busy or too lazy to appear in person; Wee Baby Conjunction, King Speech's favourite little handmaiden, who holds his hand and guides him smoothly over all the rocky places. The climax comes when Linda and Barry find themselves in the palace of King Speech and his exquisite Queen Poetry and are told by the gracious king of the life of "lifeless" things.

THe delicacy and imagination that distinguished Nuri Mass's Australian Wild Flower Fairies makes The Little Grammar People a book for all children who have fairies in their hearts; and teachers will find it invaluable in helping young pupils to understand and respect their own language. Celeste Mass's illustrations, individual and finely drawn, are the book's perfect accompaniment.

The Little Grammar People is intended for a younger audience than is Grammar-Land, and it is proving perfect for Jemimah with two terms of Simply Grammar under her belt.

We use the book very simply, reading a chapter covering one of the parts of speech each week. After Jemimah narrates she tries to think of examples of each of the different types she's been learning about, for example personal, demonstrative, relative and interrogative pronouns or common, proper, collective and abstract nouns. Before each week's lesson we review the one before. So far I have been delighted with what we've covered, and what has been retained. I think we have learned more in the first four weeks of this term than in the previous two terms added together.

We will finish this book by the end of the year. Next year we will continue on working at a sedate pace through our Simply Grammar text and possibly zip through Grammar-Land in third term for a bit of a refreshing break.

If you are able to find a copy of this book, I really do think you will love it. If you can't though, Grammar-Land is pretty good as well. And at less than $10.00 a copy it is way more affordable.

Personally, I think the bookseller selling The Little Grammar People on Abe is off on his own journey to Fairy Land if he thinks anyone is going to pay $375.00 for a book. Maybe he might meet up with Miss Noun while he's there? One of the visitors to the Grammar Kingdom is a school friend of Barry's named Phil. His desire is 'a silly goose'. Don't say I said so, but I think maybe the bookseller's might be as well!!

Is that a fish in your ear?

Imagine you're at our home for dinner. I'm really excited to have you, and a little anxious that you might not like my cooking and that you won't have a pleasant experience visiting me.

You've just taken the first spoonful of what I am very much hoping you will find a delicious Spicy Coconut and Lentil Soup when your eyes open wide and you start waving your hands quickly in front of your mouth.

Oh dear, I think - have I burnt you? Or perhaps I've added too many chillis? I don't know yet.

Just then you gasp one word: Hot!

But you haven't helped me in my confusion at all. Is the soup too hot in temperature or too hot in spiciness? I don't know which you mean - I don't understand you - because in English we use the same word to describe soup of a temperature that is capable of burning and soup that is full of pungent spices that produce a tingling burning sensation when swallowed.

In Indonesia, when hostesses serve spicy soup to guests all the time, this problem wouldn't arise. If my carefully prepared soup had been too spicy you'd have gasped: Pedas! If it had been too warm you'd have choked out Panas! I would have known instantly whether to offer you a bowl of yoghurt or a glass of water.

This new book by David Bellos may not use this very example, but I'll hazard a guess that he does cite the widespread misconception that the eskimos have hundreds of words for snow.



I find this kind of discussion about language fascinating. Are there really Australian Aborigines that don't have words for left and right? How did I not know that? How dreadfully inconvenient.

How you translate between one language and another is what this book is all about.

In our home we use the words panas and pedas instead of hot when we eat as a matter of course. We use neba neba and umame as well - both Japanese words for which we have failed to find a suitable English translation. Mucilaginous and meaty don't go nearly where these words go.

If you were translating this post into say Spanish then, how would you explain what I meant in this last paragraph? How many words for hot does Spanish have? Do they have a word for umame?

When you read a book like Heidi or Pinocchio, the quality of the book will be determined almost solely on the quality of the translation. Likewise Don Quixote or a Murukame novel. How can you translate a Japanese Matsuo Bashō 松尾 芭蕉 haiku? Do you worry about the number of syllables or the imagery? Can you ever achieve both, or is Basho really just 'lost in translation'?

This page translates Bashō's famous Frog Haiku 31 different ways. Does any one of them go anywhere near the original?

I purchased Bello's Is that a Fish in your Ear today to read on my Kindle. It has heaps of potential, and the free chapters on Amazon have me excited about what the book will discuss. I'll let you know what I think.

Do your family use words from other languages to get around a deficit in English? What are they? Do share. I just love this kinda stuff.

Indigenous Literacy Day

Indigenous Literacy Day was yesterday. And I missed it. Oops, sorry.

This video about The Indigenous Literacy Foundation is still really worth watching though.

The statistic that only 15% of 12 year old indigenous Australians living in remote NT communities can read to an acceptable standard is frankly horrifying...

We need all of our young Australians to be literate. We really do.

Kensuke's Kingdom

A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.

C.S. Lewis

I don't know about you, but I get really jump-up-and-down-excited when I discover a modern book that fits the criteria of 'living' - a book with excellent imaginative writing, original ideas, inspiring thoughts and an exciting plot.

I love it when I find a book that is loved by both Jemimah and her parents in equal measure. To find a book that is appropriate for her reading level is a bonus; as is a book with wonderful illustration and good sized print. If the book is somewhat related to Japan, it just gives it so many brownie points that we would seriously consider jumping out of our socks. Seriously.

Jemimah and I have been feeling bored. Probably me more than her, I'll admit, but when I get bored then it is super easy to pass that ennui onto her. Our problem is that we've ended up with a whole heap of historical fiction free-reads all together at the end of the year. All of them are really good books, but I'm afraid we've had enough of the American War of Independence to last us...well until the end of term, I'd say.

Enough, already!!!!!!!!!

Of course, this type of boredom is easy to cure - just add in a few modern books into the mix. Instant cure-all, we've found. But what to read?

In a case like ours, the book had to be modern. And it needed to be living. It needed to be a gripping story about something - anything - except history. Or war. Or log huts. Or Boston.

Ah, isn't it great that living books are still being written?

Enter Michael Morpungo's Kensuke's Kingdom. How can you fail to get excited by a book as good looking as this one? Especially when this how it starts:

I disappeared on the night before my twelfth birthday. July 28 1988. Only now can I at last tell the whole extraordinary story, the true story. Kensuke made me promise that I would say nothing, nothing at all, until at least ten years had passed. It was almost the last thing he said to me. I promised, and because of that I have had to live out a lie. I could let sleeping lies sleep on, but more than ten years have passed now. I have done school, done college, and had time to think. I owe it to my family and to my friends, all of whom I have deceived for so long, to tell the truth about my long disappearance, about how I lived to come back from the dead.

But there is another reason for speaking out now, a far, far better reason. Kensuke was a great man, a good man, and he was my friend. I want the world to know him as I knew him.

Michael's mum and dad work at the local brickworks. Until the letter, that is. The letter that tells them that they both used to work at the local brickworks. That kind of letter.

Anyhow, so what do you do when you both discover that you both used to work and now you don't? You buy a boat, don't you? Of course you do. A Peggy Sue. And then you learn to sail her, and then you sail off around the world. That's what I'd do if I received a letter like that. Truly. It's what Michael's parents do too.

And then one night, the night before Michael's 12th birthday, he falls overboard.

Along with his dog.

Stella Artois.

And his soccer ball.

As you do.

The terrors came fast, one upon another. The lights of the Peggy Sue went away into the dark of the night, leaving me alone in the ocean, alone with the certainty that they were already too far away, that my cries for help could not possibly be heard. I thought then of the sharks cruising the black water beneath me - scenting me, already searching me out, homing in on me - and I knew there could be no hope. I would be eaten alive. Either that or I would drown slowly. Nothing could save me.

Only something does save Michael, because when he awakens, he's all alone on a tropical island. Or is he? Because somebody's bringing him breakfast every morning. And fresh water for Stella Artois too.

Kensuke's Kingdom is a magical novel. It is exciting and enthralling and peaceful and polite and adventurous. It it teaches you about friendship, and trust, and loyalty. I absolutely recommend it to you and your kids.

Best of all, there is not even a whiff of Benjamin Franklin.

Hokusai 葛飾 北斎 gets a mention though.

The Jeanne Blog

I've come to the realisation that I'm never going to be a successful blogger. I'm never going to be terribly huge on Twitter or Facebook or Blogfrog or any other form of social media either. The reasons are myriad, not least being the fact that I'm just not a good enough writer to make my living at it.

The other main reason, though is that I fail to follow the rules for making your blog/social media presence huge. Firstly I don't follow the 'Rubbish in; rubbish out' rule - I fail to write only meaningful content on my blog. There is a huge amount of Jeanne twaddle here. It's part of what makes me me, this twaddle. Does anybody out there in cyberspace really want to know that Midnight Oil is playing on the telly while I'm writing? Really? Probably not.

The second reason follows on from the first - I fail dismally in choosing my blog's focus. I started out being a homeschooling blog, but homeschooling is not the sole focus of my life. I am madly obsessed with travel, and sometimes my blog sorta transforms itself into a travel log. Recently I had the crochet bug and my blog assumed a vague handicraft fuzziness. I gained some crafty followers around that time, but I probably lost a few homeschoolers, as they wondered idly what had come over me.

Sometimes I become consumed with my garden and I talk about roses and garden design and what's growing in our Kitchen Garden. I take photos of gardenias and the musk parrots in the gum trees. Later in the year when it gets too hot I forget the garden and gravitate inside to the aircon. I start to talk about my passion for cooking. I post pictures of Bruscetta with Homegrown Tomatoes and Basil drizzled with Balsamic and Olive Oil.

Always I am consumed by books. I try to blend my passion for Australian children's books with my homeschooling to salve my guilt that I haven't talked about homeschooling recently, and that's what I am supposed to be - a homeschooling blog. (Right?) My book collection is huge, and it gives me a fantastic amount of pleasure, but like my blogging, I fail to be able to confine my reading enough to transform myself into a book blog. I read a huge amount, but I rarely review my books. Which reader is going to be interested in a children's classic today and a mystery thriller tomorrow and the latest cookery or gardening tome the day after? And yet that's how my reading goes. I have no focus and no plan.

My latest passion is Japanese literature. I have an abiding passion for Japan. I love the country, the aesthetic, the food, the manga. I have read many, many Japanese design and philosophy books, and yet my introduction to its literature is recent. I read my first novel, Murukami's Wild Sheep Chase only last year. From that I've gone on to read six Murukami novels and the works of many other Japanese novelists, mainly under the tutelage of In Spring it is the Dawn, a blogger who is strong enough to confine her blogging to literature in general and Japanese literature in the main. I try not to wax too effusive about Japanese literature because I am not a book blog, and you're probably not interested in what my latest pash is, and yet I can't deny my interest all together and occasionally my enjoyment of a particular novel bubbles over into my posts. Probably a few more followers 'unfollow' me, thinking that I've lost my way. I probably have.

Sometimes I get frustrated that my followers fail to get any higher than 160. Sometimes the number is one or two higher; sometimes one or two lower. I wish I could become a really successful blog to justify the time I take in writing it. But when I stop to think about the fact that my blog is not about anything in particular, but all about me, Jeanne, then I am pretty grateful. I think it is really amazing that 100 or 150 or 200 and occasionally more people tune in every day to read what I have to say about nothing in particular. In fact that is overwhelming.

The thing that makes a great blog - a firm focus - is exactly the opposite of what makes me an interesting person. I am a multifaceted person of many, many varied interests and lots of general knowledge.

I love God, my husband, my daughter, Charlotte Mason homeschooling, travel, gardening, the arts, Reformed Christianity, cooking and dining, Asian travel, knitting and crocheting, children's books, Australian culture, Japanese aesthetics, South East Asian textiles, blogging, huggling by the fire, and now Japanese literature.

My blog is about all of these.

My blog is about me. It is the Jeanne Blog.

The fact that I have any followers at all is really the most amazing thing. Wow.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for following.

I'm so glad I have you as my friends.

(Which facet of Jeanne keeps you coming back? Do tell. I'd be interested to know.)

Beds are Burning

This song's on the telly right now. It's still pretty good, I reckon.

Agree?