A Word Virtuoso: Excitement practically made my fingers tremble as I leafed through Erica Jong's first poetry book, Fruits and Vegetables, in the public library in the early 80s. As I remember, the poetry section was pretty slim back then. What a discovery her book turned out to be for me. I was blown away. As a young poet (by young, I mean career-wise, as I was in my late thirties and married … [Read more...]
Unlikable Female Characters to Love
Women who refuse to play nice: Jamie Canaves, author of the list 100 Must-Read Books with Unlikable Women, writes that she loves unlikable female characters in novels: "They refuse to be boxed into the idea of what girls, women, mothers, sisters, and girlfriends should be. They refuse to smile through their problems, to not be a burden, to make the right decisions, to play nice. They are human. … [Read more...]
Every Least Sparrow: Special Needs Parenting
A Parent's Expectations: Looking back, Carolyn Walker writes that it was good that she and her husband didn’t know what to expect when their daughter Jennifer was diagnosed with Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome shortly after her first birthday. They believed she would be “delayed,” and they nurtured her as such. Soon, it became apparent that she would be far from "normal." In Every Least Sparrow, … [Read more...]
Fun with math. Really.
Playing Foxland! I have to share this amazing math game my granddaughter made for school called "Foxland." We had so much fun playing the other day. Actually, I was quite pleased to discover that I remembered how to use a multiplication table. My skills are a little rusty. The game pieces are little foxes! The game moves really fast. You pick a card and solve the math problem (such as 5 x … [Read more...]
American Girl Sensibility
Birthday fun: For my granddaughter's ninth birthday, my daughter and I took her to the American Girl Doll store in Chicago. I had been unaware of the evolution of this iconic doll since my daughter had Molly in the 80s. The Atlantic lamented in 2013, after Mattel purchased the company, that the dolls and their stories have been more or less sanitized, and a "lost sensibility about … [Read more...]
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