Books of 2014 - July

As I worked on this post, I noticed that I desperately needed to read some non-Jodi Picoult books. My boyfriend's been making fun of me, which is a let-down because now I can't tease him for being a John Green groupie.

This is a long post. Don't say I didn't warn you. ;)

Books of 2014 - June

I only have two books to report on this month. Sorry readers.

I ran out of gas! I--I had a flat tire! I didn't have enough money for cab fare! My tux didn't come back from the cleaners! An old friend came in from out of town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!!!*

Actually, this month I've been crocheting a blanket and spent a lot of time tending my mother's garden while she and my dad celebrated a major anniversary.

In addition, I've been preparing for the arrival of my nephew. I have been taking the American Red Cross babysitting course (with such sage advice as following the parents' instructions regarding TV/internet time and acceptable snacks**) and will take a First Aid/CPR class. One of the more interesting tips was how to determine if a toy is too small for children under 3: see if it fits through a toilet paper roll. If it does, it's a choking hazard.

Moving on to the books I read:

Books of 2014 - May

Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis by Helen Bynum
Life Animated by Ron Suskind
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

It's a shorter list than April, so I will give you my thoughts on all 3 books after the jump.

Books of 2014 - update

It has been a year since my last post. Much has happened in my personal life, some of it very joyous, some of it exciting/terrifying, and some of it very sad.

For now things are going quite well. I have a wonderful volunteer job at a local cat shelter, and I have successfully turned my childhood room into a grownup room.

Also, I have been reading a ton of books, thanks to my new Kindle.

January:
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach (started 1/5)
The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum by Temple Grandin (1/28)

February:
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (2/5)
Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick (2/15)

March:
The Borderline Personality Disorder Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Living with BPD by Alexander L. Chapman (3/2)
Dracula by Bram Stoker (3/6)
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (started around 3/15?)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (started around 3/22)

April:
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (4/3)
You Can Date Boys When You're Forty: Dave Barry on Parenting and Other Topics He Knows Very Little About by... shoot, I forgot the author (4/3) 

Updated to add (on 4/21/14):
"If Your Baby Must Travel in Wartime" by United States Department of Labor - Children's Bureau (1944)
The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage Describing Modern Manners and Customs of Courtship and Marriage, and giving Full Details regarding the Wedding Ceremony and Arrangments by G. R. M. Devereux (published 1903) - this was a riot and deserves its own blog post
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel  Hawthorne - I liked this way more as an adult than as a high schooler
Big Trouble by Dave Barry - I've reread this a lot but it's always a treat

My Thoughts on the LeapFrog Tag

One of the kids I was coloring with today had a well stocked backpack full of picture books and games. Good for him, I thought, well-prepared for waiting rooms and errands. It turned out his books were specially made by LeapFrog, a company specializing in high-tech learning devices for preschool-elementary school-age kids. They came with a stylus reading instrument called Tag, which reads special LeapFrog books aloud (you can store 5 books on the Tag at a time). It can pause, stop, and re-read individual words.

It sounded pretty cool, and the kid showed me his Tag-compatible book "T. Rex's Mighty Roar." After two pages, he went back to watching TV. I told his mother that I hadn't seen anything like the Tag before. She gushed about how wonderful it was and asked me if I had any kids. No, I said, but it felt touching to be taken for a possible fellow mother.

Certainly there were clear advantages to this Tag thing. Its ability to sound out individual words could help a child struggling with new words, without compromising a busy parent's schedule. On the other hand, the limit on the number of books that can be stored on Tag at a time does not allow much flexibility. Not that the Tag-friendly library is very large; LeapFrog has "over 20" books and games for the Tag according to the website, and each book costs 14 dollars (as opposed to 7 to 12 dollars for a coventional children's book). The Tag system costs 50 dollars. Seems a little overpriced.

Part of my ambivalence about the concept may be based on the truth that education technology in my generation was limited to PBS, simple computer games (like Oregon Trail), and books on tap. As a result the LeapFrog products seem like light years ahead in terms of complexity and their target audience (preschool-grade 2 children). It will be interesting to see where these types of learning tools by the time I have kids (around 5 years from now).

On Reading Les Misérables

Summers ago, probably just before my junior year of high school, my brother gave me the 3-volume set of Les Misérables he received on his graduation from a French-English bilingual school. The same night, I opened the first volume, excited about the possibility of reading a full-length novel in another language. However, 5 years of middle school and high school French, in which we spoke simple textbook European French with American accents, did not prepare me for 19th-century sentences made up of several long clauses and the corresponding vocabulary. 

It was somewhat like going from a wading pool to the deep end of an Olympic pool. Within the first few pages, I could tell there was some sort of genealogical history of a Monsignor, and that there were parallels between the Monsignor's charity and the stories of Jesus reaching out to the lepers, the tax collectors and other social outcasts in the Gospels.

After reaching about page 10, I closed the book, telling myself I'd go back to it later. I opened it from time to time during junior and senior year, but never read more than a few pages. Then, last summer, I finally returned to it, with the intention of brushing up on my reading skills before taking French 104 in the fall. By the end of the summer, I made it about halfway through the first volume with some understanding of what was going on and the major characters.

It could have been great if I had managed to finish that first volume by the end of the year, since the thought of one day finishing the whole novel in French seems like a sweet reward for seven secondary school years and a college semester of studying French. For now, taking it in small steps is just fine.