The House At Riverton - (Downton Abbey Withdrawal, Anyone?)

We consume TV seasons in our household much like Cookie Monster does cookies.  (Full season?  Me want! Nom. Nom. Nom.)  Needless to say, Season 4 of Downton Abbey was finished within a week or so of it arriving in our mailbox.  The episodes paraded by before my Downton Abbey fix was satisfied.  Luckily, I had something waiting on my bookshelf to ease the withdrawal symptoms: The House At Riverton by Kate Morton.

The novel is split into four parts.  Narrated by Grace Bradley, a 98-year-old archaeologist who lived many of her years in service at Riverton House, working for the Hartford family.  Told through a series of flashbacks, realizing she is nearing the end of her own life, Grace slowly reveals and untangles years of family secrets, including what really happened the night of a mysterious suicide on the family estate.

If you need more Downtown Abbey, here's your ticket. 

I Read Canada Reads

I spent much of my Christmas holidays reading.  That is to say, I read when I wasn't crocheting or watching Netflix or both.  Basically, I hibernated for two weeks.  And it was amazing.  And I miss it already.

Digging into the Canada Reads books has become my winter mission.  I started with Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues.

This is a fascinating story that dropped me into a world I didn't know existed and had never even considered: the Jazz scene in Germany during the Nazi regime.  It's a complicated emotional portrayal of guilt and regret from a character who was ultimately powerless, but who spends his life blaming himself for what he should have done.

As well-crafted (and well-researched) a novel as it may be, the only thing Canadian about this book is its author.  Also, it already won the Giller Prize in 2011 and was a finalist for the GGs and the Man Booker.  I kind of feel like this book has already received its public accolades.  So while it's a great book, it's not the underdog I'm hoping to cheer for in this year's Canada Reads competition.

Shelagh Rogers did a great interview with Esi Edugyan for her radio show, "The Next Chapter" and it provided some great aural distraction while I did several loads of laundry one day.

After Half-Blood Blues, I decided to tackle The Orenda.  I've never read anything by Joseph Boyden, but I feel like his books follow me around.  I find them on tables in bookstores with signage like, "The Best Novels You've Never Read."  The Orenda has also received a lot of press coverage, so I decided to give it a go.

I was glad I warmed up with Half-Blood Blues: compared to Edugyan's novel, The Orenda is a brick.  This novel is narrated by three characters: a Jesuit priest, a Huron warrior, and a young aboriginal woman taken from another village who becomes the warrior's 'adopted' daughter.  It was difficult to ease into--kind of like a fast-paced conversation that began without you--but once the narrators' stories began to intertwine, it was difficult to set the book down.  (Bonus: You can build some good muscles with this one!  It's large, available only in heavy hardcover, and hard to quit!)

A review from Quill and Quire comments on The Orenda's "blockbuster feel," adding, "The Orenda will be this year's Book of Negros, I think."  We could definitely do worse for entertaining, Canadian historical fiction!

Entertaining as it may be, it's definitely not fluff.  One impactful episode in the novel occurs when the priest loses the wampum that the warrior was to present to another tribe as part of a peace negotiation.  He bemoans: 

• "I have lost my people's story, my gift to the ones who are our enemy, in the hope of changing that course." (p. 108)

This implies that Canadian history played out the way it did because the stories of certain peoples were lost or dismissed.  (Yikes.  This entry is starting to sound like a high school essay.)

Where Boyden's novel differs from many of the aboriginal themed/flavoured/inspired novels that I have read (and they are a genre of personal interest...I have read many!) is that the picture he paints of aboriginal history is much more brutal and complicated than the peaceful, idealistic scene that is typical.  I will be very interested to hear the commentary that accompanies this novel in the Canada Reads debates.  I'm hoping this book makes it to the final rounds because I know it will generate great discussion.

I guess I should stop here.  More Canada Reads comments to come.

#bookaday 10: Reflecting on Choices and Change

For me, books are frequently tied to geography.  If it happens to be a novel where the author takes great pains to describe the setting, then there's that geography, yes.  But today I'm thinking more about where I'm reading than the places I'm reading about.  For example, I still vividly remember reading Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water while rolling through Alberta's rocky mountains in a Greyhound bus 10 years ago.  I remember taking the train from Ottawa to Kingston with Margaret Atwood's Alias, Grace.  The Lonely Polygamist kept me company through the mountains and deserts of Utah.

On the last few days of our recent trip to Germany, we spent some time in the beautiful countryside of Batten-Wurtemburg and I carried around Ron Berger's An Ethic of Excellence to enjoy in bits and pieces during our explorations.  An Ethic of Excellence is about as close to required reading as I'm gonna get this summer: I joined a Big Ideas committee at school and my principal bought us each a copy of this book to read over the holidays.

Normally when I read books for professional development, I have to be pretty intentional about pausing to reflect.  I pull out a notebook or a pack of sticky-notes as a reminder to slow down and think critically about what I'm reading.  However, when you're hiking through the peace and quiet of a park in the Black Forest on a Monday afternoon, there's nothing forced about it.  The internal dialogue just sort of...begins.

An Ethic of Excellence was on my mind as we pulled into the parking lot at the base of Wasserfälle Allerheiligen (All Saints Waterfalls).  Perhaps I was looking for something to distract myself from the oodles of staircases ahead.  Most likely it was a combination of that and the fact that, despite its slim size and conversational tone, An Ethic of Excellence is dense with intensity and inspiration--more tightly packed than my carry-on luggage.

Wasserfälle Allerheiligen: Stairs, stairs, and more stairs.

Berger's book is a manifesto: he urges educators to make some significant changes in how they approach, value, and think about learning tasks and assessment in the classroom.  He writes passionately about the advantages of taking an integrative, project-based approach to learning.  He calls for a shift in school culture and a transformation of teacher and student roles.  As I started the climb, I started to think about change in my profession and to consider our choices in how we respond to it.

We do have choices when it comes to responding to change.  I found them quite analogous to the choices I got to make that day.

1.  We can choose to ignore change and let others do the exploring.  We can choose to wait at the point of departure, while others embark on the journey and wait for them to bring us news of their discoveries.

2.  We can choose to forge ahead blindly.  We can put our heads down and thoughtlessly follow the trail laid out for us, putting one foot in front of the other without looking up until we reach the destination.  Granted, choosing this approach means there's no time for rest, no time to pause and check the map.  We might reach the top, but we might be so tired when we get there that we'll miss the point of the journey.

3.  We can head off the trail, impulsively blazing a path that is completely our own.  Don't get me wrong, there is a time and a place for trailblazing, but there's a certain amount of wilderness know-how required before this is truly a wise move.  Most likely, if we move in this way, there's a good chance we might get lost, confused, discouraged and there's also a pretty good chance we're going solo--no one is going with us, and no one is going to follow.

4. We can choose to savour the journey, pausing to rest, reflect, and take in the scenery as we pass by  We can linger and notice the details, take photographs to preserve memories of our favourite parts, check in with the map to determine our progress, listen to the sounds around us, take it all in.

We can take time to leave trail markers for those who will take this climb after us, small signs of encouragement along the way.

This was not a climb up Everest.  This was just a significantly steep climb, straight up, on a hot July afternoon.  Every opportunity for change is not a drastic one.  "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," but so does a journey of one mile.

How will you choose to travel?

More Canadiana in Germany (#bookaday 9)

Reading makes you nicer.  In case you were looking for another great reason to savour a quality piece of fiction this summer, there it is.  You can read this Time editorial if you want to know the details.  The editorial also covers "carnal versus spiritual reading."  (And yes, typically reading a novel would fall into the latter category.)  We are becoming a society that does too much reading for information's sake and not enough reading for enjoyment's sake.  As a Primary teacher and lover of fiction, this freaks me right out.  Like the environmental citizen who drives a Prius or buys only organic just to do his/her part, I decided to up my ratio of spiritual to carnal reading this summer, just to do what I can to counteract the depletion of love for literature in our society.

I just had to figure out a way to work the carnal vs. spiritual thing into a post about Linden MacIntyre's The Bishop's Man, the latest novel to entertain my brain.  The book is about a Canadian Catholic priest who specializes in keeping the notorious "sins of the Fathers" out of the spotlight.  (Ah? You see the spiritual vs. carnal connection now?)  This novel won the 2009 Giller Prize. And yes, it's CBC's Linden MacIntyre who co-hosts the fifth estate.  So basically you're looking at a low-risk investment here if you're after a good read.  Guaranteed return on your time, folks.

What I thoroughly enjoyed about MacIntyre's writing was his ability to capture thought patterns.  He brings the reader in, out and through narrator Father McAskill's layers of memories and creates a collage of detail that allows the reader to understand McAskill's past and present as one complicated, organic whole.

The language is beautiful as well.  MacIntyre is able to call attention to words through protagonist Father MacAskill's love of of them.  The story is anchored in Canadian geography and explores themes of family, community and masked identity.

I stood in the hotel room bathroom to finish this one.  (It was late.  My husband needed sleep and I needed light to get through the last few chapters.)  It's that good.  Five out of five stars for this spiritual read.

Novel Thoughts (#bookaday 8)

When I read novels, I start a running narration in my head and suddenly life gets a lot more interesting.  The narration tends to adopt the style of whoever I happen to be reading at the moment.  Right now, it's Lisa Moore.  She has, as my husband observed, glancing over the pages as I took a moment to rest my eyes and return to reality on the airplane, a tendency towards long sentences that can themselves constitute a paragraph.

Lately, I've been feeling guilty about reading novels and trust me, it has nothing to do with their contents.  Well, not exactly.  I feel like I'm being too indulgent with my time, when there's much more I could be doing or learning.  I'm not sure where this idea came from, because it's absolute nonsense.  The world of book lovers continually shares the benefits of reading novels via social media.  I've been hoarding these bits of information in an attempt to quell my guilt.  Like a recent article about how reading novels makes us better thinkers--more accepting of ambiguity and less likely to make snap decisions.

But, back to Lisa Moore and Alligator.  I read February this past February (fitting, no?) since it was nominated for Canada Reads 2013...and I discovered another Canadian author to add to my list of True Patriot Loves.  No surprise, Moore's novel won the competition.  When I found her book Alligator amidst the hoard of novels at the Elora Book Sale, I snapped it up with excitement (and maybe a bit of reptilian instinct) and I've actually been putting off reading it until summer vacation, the way some people save a bottle of wine to open at just the right moment.

This novel explores the sometimes dull, sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes beautiful agony of the "you're-all-I-have" relationships that tether us to time, place and circumstance.  In the same storytelling style as February, Moore's narration is delivered through several characters, their story threads interwoven and intersecting even if they are oblivious to it.  This novel is less about plot and more about character and will have you contemplating relationships and how it's possible both to stay and run away, to both grieve the loss of those existing right in front of you and be ever in the presence of the dead.

(Was that vague enough for you?  ;)  Long live the novel.  Let ambiguity reign.)

bookaday 7: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

So there's been a bit of a gap in my #bookaday attempt, but yesterday was my first official day of summer holidays, so let's consider my earlier blog entries to be appetizers before the summer feast!

Yesterday was an All About Me day.  Between naps and shopping, I pulled a book off the shelf and got to reading.  My first selection of summer?  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

This is an underdog story about an aboriginal teen from the Spokane reserve who makes the decision to attend school off the reserve and struggles with his identity as he straddles two worlds.  Written with humour and stark honesty, I think this book would be a hit with any teenager.  I caught a tiny bit of a CBC radio program while driving around the other day and this book was being used as a class text (high school? university?  I'm not sure).  I think this book would be a great addition to a course syllabus, or great for a young adult book club.  (It's a National Book Award winner, so clearly I'm not the only one who thinks it's amazing!)

Four out of five stars for this one.  Beautiful language and creative illustrations.  (I'm holding back one star because the sports glory stories--this time it's basketball--are always a little bit corny for me.)

#bookaday 6: Memoirs of a Goldfish

I've slacked for a few days.  Report cards, and then a weekend mini-cation, and then report cards got in the way.  This #bookaday is actually from yesterday.  I read Memoirs of a Goldfish by Devin Scillian aloud to my Grade 1 class before we began writing our own memoirs on our year together.

My students thought it was HILARIOUS.  (And I have to say, about half the jokes went right over their heads!)  They especially loved the last page ("Ew!  They're dating!").

A solid 4-star book.  A quick google search shows that there are plenty of ideas out there for how to use this one in the classroom!

#bookaday 5: Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping

I love Mélanie Watt.  So does every Grade One student I know.  I've just updated myself on Scaredy Squirrel's latest adventure, Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping and now I've got some great ideas for using this text to review many text forms we covered this school year --from maps to charts to labelled diagrams to procedural texts!

Leaving this one out on my dining room table to lesson plan for next week!  FIVE out of FIVE *S*T*A*R*s!

#bookaday 4: Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School

A few books came from amazon today!  In the package was Marshall Armstrong Is New To Our School by David Mackintosh.  Gorgeous artwork and a quirky main character--seems what I look for in a novel is pretty much the same as what I look for in a picture book!

I'll be pulling this one out early next school year to talk about building friendships and finding out that we have things in common with people who may seem very different than us.

#bookaday Day 3: The Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas

Who doesn't love a good fractured fairy tale?  I just read this one aloud to my husband (my prince) in the kitchen (our favourite place in our palace)!

This takes the Princess and The Pea and gives it a bit of girl power.  Best lines....
"But I'm not a real princess."  
"You'll be an UNREAL princess!"

Four out of five...only 'cause there's room for a little more girl power. ;)

A crafty choice for #bookaday 2

I've chosen a book to browse for today's #bookaday selection. It's called Essential Crochet and it's a volume of 30 crochet patterns with some tips and techniques mixed in. I bought it for $1.00 at a book sale and I already got my money's worth: inside the front cover, someone has oh-so-helpfully written, "very interesting and unique." I love other people's marginalia...that's at least half the entertainment of a second-hand book!

I found a great pattern in here for a scarf with a zillion non-functional buttons. It seems to use crochet scraps: can't wait to try it!

My #bookaday Summer Reading Achievements List

1.  Coyote's New Suit by Thomas King
2.  Essential Crochet by Erika Knight
3.  The Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas by Tony Wilson + Sue deGennaro
4.  Marshall Armstrong Is New To Our School by David Mackintosh
5.  Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping by Mélanie Watt
6.  Memoirs of A Goldfish by Devin Scillian
7.  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
8.  Alligator by Lisa Moore
9.  The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre
10.An Ethic Of Excellence by Ron Berger

Bring On #bookaday: Coyote's New Suit

Here goes!  I'm participating in this year's #bookaday challenge from Nerdy Book Club.  Technically, I wasn't planning to start until summer vacation...or at least not until report cards are finished...but...books are a weakness!  So, here I go!  My first selection for the summer is Coyote's New Suit by Thomas King.  I figured it would be good to start with something Canadian and that KidLit would definitely be the way to go until summer vacation gets here and I find more reading hours in my day. :)

This is an aboriginal trickster tale.  Makes me nostaglic for my English Lit days at Ottawa U.  Coyote and Raven feature prominently, of course.  At Raven's suggestion, Coyote runs around taking other animals' fur suits when they take them off for a swim.  The message of the book is that just because you want something doesn't mean you need it.  While I think that older children might get the message, I think younger children would simply enjoy this book because it talks about animals pouting about in their underwear and dressing up in human clothes.  The story is also a bit long for my typical Primary audience, but might be enjoyed by the Junior crowd.  King definitely writes in storytelling style.

I'm giving my first #bookaday pick a 3 out of 5.

Sneak Peak

March break is here and the couch potato portion of the weekend has begun. Here's a glimpse of what I'm working on this weekend.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Six years ago, I informed the professor leading my American Literature seminar course on writing influenced by Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre that I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings should be on the syllabus the next time he taught the course.  I have no idea why I told him that: I hadn't read the book and didn't know much about it beyond the title.  Six years later, I finally decided to read it.  Now I definitely think this book should be considered for the syllabus.

Maya Angelou is perhaps best known as a poet.  While this is not officially a work of poetry, what makes this memoir, er, memorable is the language laid out to describe and interpret each scene of her childhood and teenage years.  While its subject matter is not entirely uplifting (if you're going to read it, be prepared for descriptions of racism, child abuse, poverty), its tone is.  Angelou infuses her stories with realism and hope, which is probably what makes this a popular choice for high school reading lists.

On a side note....

It's funny what makes you decide to read a certain book at a certain time.  This book made the cut this week because it fit in my purse and I need something to read on a train trip to Toronto.  The trip passed in a flash, as I was completely wrapped up in the story shortly after rolling out of the station.  Next on my reading list is a phonebook-sized tome that not even my largest purse can hold.  Guess I'll be staying close to home for the next couple of days. ;)

Lives Of Girls and Women Audio Book

I spent the first four hours of my weekend road trip alone in the car, but in good company: at the last minute, I doubled back into the house and grabbed the audio book version of Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women.  I had originally purchased this with the thought that I could listen to it while I crocheted something, but it turns out audio books are great for long drives, too.

I really enjoy reading Alice Munro, in case my blog posts on Too Much Happiness, Runaway and Dance of the Happy Shades didn't make that clear already.  I count Lives of Girls and Women among my top 10 favourite all-time books, but it had been years since I actually read it, so the audio book was a bit of a treat from memory lane.  I enjoy this book so much because it falls squarely into the category of outsider fiction, which is my default setting when it comes to choosing fiction.  Give me a realistic story of a lovable misfit and I'm pretty much guaranteed to give it four stars.  What gives this particular work a place on my top 10 list, however, is the extra layer that Munro's poetry adds.  This is great gifting material, but I think the giver should read it first, of course!

Where Great Teaching Begins

Subtitle: Planning for Student Thinking and Learning
Author: Anne R. Reeves

For those non-teacher types, this is not a book recommendation for you.  Sorry.  Save yourself a few moments of reading and move on. ;)

This book was one of the ASCD Select Membership selections for the 2011-2012 year.  This means it arrived in my mail box at some point over the school year and it travelled from the table at the front door, to the hallway table, to my desk, to the upstairs bookshelf, to the office bookshelf...and no matter where it rested, I was in a state of unrest--or guilt, more accurately--for not finding time for professional reading.

Now, summer's here!  (Cue Alice Cooper....).  I've got a stack of books to read and the motivation to get through them.  I made this my BookADay selection for today and--seven pages of handwritten notes later--I'm glad I did.

It's worth noting that the first half of the book is all about defining/creating/designing learning objectives.  Essentially, Reeves argues that a good learning objective is half the battle when it comes to planning.  The other overarching message of the book is making sure that student thinking and learning is the focus of our planning.

Assessment should be based on the learning objectives.  We need to stop thinking about lesson plans as lesson plans and start thinking of them as plans for student learning.

I would recommend this resource to any beginning teacher.  (Five years into my profession, I'm still counting myself as a beginner!)  I've compiled my notes into a Google Doc, so that I can access this info when/where I want it (and anyone who follows that link can, too).

The Element by Sir Ken Robinson

Purchased: Elora Book Sale ($2.00)
Started: June 13, 2012
Finished: not yet. :)  100 pages to go.

Subtitled: "How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything"

Recommended For: new grads, people seeking new direction in their careers, educators

My introduction to Ken Robinson came through Youtube videos, such as this (amazing) mind-mapped video on "Changing Education Paradigms"  and this TED talk, asking, "Do Schools Kill Creativity?"

If you're familiar with these videos (and others), then much of the first 30+ pages of The Element is going to read like a repeat of information you've heard before.  If you're looking for an inpsirational gift, however--for yourself or someone else--this will likely do the trick.

Robinson subdivides "the element" (that place/space/state of mind where passion lives and comes alive) into four features/conditions:
1. Aptitude (I get it)
2. Passion (I love it)
3. Attitude (I want it)
4. Opportunity (Where is it?)

Educators will appreciate this book because it focuses on all kinds of "smart."  Robinson encourages readers to ask not "How intelligent are you?" but "How are you intelligent?"

Creative types will enjoy Robinson's descriptions of "the zone" and the importance of "finding your tribe."

Too Much Happiness By Alice Munro

More from the author who writes about the "dull, simple, amazing and unfathomable -- deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum."

If I had to sum up this book in just two words, I would choose "bleak" and "addictive."  Nobody writes a story like Munro, and while this isn't my favourite short story collection by her, a book by Alice Munro is a guaranteed good read.  I was surprised to read several with male protagonists in this collection.

The Observer has a few in-depth articles on Munro, including a 2009 review of this book.

Purchased at: Booksmarts, K-W's own version of The Book Vault.
Started: Friday, May 25
Finished: Monday, June 11

Sign Language Fun In the Early Childhood Classroom

Okay, I'm caving and starting the #BookADay challenge early.  Today I'm reading Sign Language Fun In The Early Childhood Classroom.  I picked this one up for a dollar at the Elora book sale.  Looks like I got a good deal.  In addition to sign language, this book has a lot of great ideas for teaching vocabulary--from feelings to weather to "likes."  Why not include a little sign language?  It's a valuable skill and I'm thinking it could help some of those kinesthetic learners. I'm going to bookmark this one as a reference for September!