August 12th, 2007 by Charles Lamb
People sometimes ask “Who did Adam's sons marry?– Often a minister replies, “Ha, ha, that's a good one!– as he shakes their hand and ushers them out the door. I think some clergy are a little afraid to shock people by telling them what they know about that story. Would you be shocked if I say that the story of Adam and Eve is not historical, but it is true? It is myth, not fact.
But understand a myth is a non historical story that teaches an absolute truth. If you read the story carefully, there are more problems that who the first children married. After Cain killed his brother Abel, he was expelled from the community. Cain said that if he was a fugitive, whoever met him might kill him. But God said he would protect him.
Who was out there to kill him? Good question if the story was “true.–
But if you realize that this ancient story, handed down over campfires for generations before it was written down, was meant to convey profound truths. People before the scientific era didn't think as we do, wanting everything measured, tested, proven. They could enjoy a story without our questions. Maybe that's better. At least it is the way to read these Biblical stories.
The word “Adam– in Hebrew means “man.– Adam's story is the story of you and me. We depart from God's way for us and that brings' destruction and dismay. Our children give in to jealousy and violence, and these impulses lead to disaster, broken relationships, heartbreak. Isn't that true? We know it is.
By the way, the fact that God protects a murderer from death may be an early comment against capital punishment.
Meditate on the stories in the first chapters of Genesis. Let them speak to you. They are full of truth we need to hear. And if we do that, the question of who Adam's sons married becomes irrelevant. There wasn't an Adam: there is just you.
July 25th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
At 11:50pm, last Friday night, I strolled into my local bookstore to buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the latest and last book in J.K. Rowling’s brilliant series of fantasy novels. My experience was shorter than most; in neighboring towns there was a wait exceeding an hour long, with bookstore events that started early in the afternoon.
While the crowd was primarily in the mid-teens to adult range, most had been hooked on reading by this series as children, staring with the first book in 1997. During a time in a child’s life when reading = homework and is often considered as “cool” as chess club, they began to beg their parents to wait for hours in a line in order to start reading a book at the earliest moment possible. It has been, in a word, “magical.”
Of course, these books are intended for older children and young adults (especially the latest ones), but you don’t want to wait for your child to reach double digits in age before getting them “book-hooked.” And we want the values and morals of those books to mirror our own. Even if you don’t have kids of your own, as progressives, we want the next generation to be intelligent, articulate, and tolerant children. We want a generation in which every child wants and has a book in their hands.
Make Progress:
To take some action this Wednesday is simple, really. It’s simple as A, B, C, D, one, two, three, four….
Buy (or Borrow) & Read:
We’ve compiled a brief list of books (sixteen to be exact) we’d recommend reading to your future progressives. If you’re interested in picking up a copy of any of these tomes for your very own, we recommend going through a small, privately-owned Western New York business, The Book Corner. These guys make finding odd or out-print-books look like making instant pudding. (Mmm… pudding.) Of course, you can always hunt down most of these titles through your local library or library system (we did).
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I Live on a Farm by Stasia Ward Kehoe
Kehoe’s book uses photos instead of illustrations, and teaches children about items and actions unique to farm, such as storage silos, bales of hay, barns, tractors, harvesting, and irrigating. The book also has a discreet anti-pesticide message. We believe this book will help kids who live on farms have more pride about where they live, and will help suburban and city kids better understand life in rural America. Empathy is the most progressive of emotions.
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Spiders by Ann Heinrichs
Spiders is a children’s science book that discusses the benefits of spiders (which are referred to as “nature’s friends”) to both the environment and humans. With Heinrichs’ book, kids can learn key science terms, scientific history, cultural myths, and facts about reproduction. The text also addresses the common fear of spiders: “Spiders are afraid of you. To a spider, you look like a giant.” To further ease fears, Spiders emphasizes that very few arachnids are dangerous to humans. Kids also encouraged to be in awe of both spiders’ silk and webs. We’ll take appropriate awe over fear any day.
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At Daddy’s on Saturdays by Linda Walvoord Girard
This 32-page picture-book helps kids understand the true causes of divorce (read: it’s not the child’s fault). Little readers also learn that both parents, despite separation, still love their children, that sadness is an understandable reaction, and that a child can feel at home with both their mother and father. We highly recommend At Daddy’s on Saturday’s, as well as the other books by Girard, who’s not afraid to tackle emotionally charged topics like AIDS, adoption, and sexual abuse.
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Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport
This beautifully designed book won Best Illustrated Children’s Book of 2001 from the New York Times Book Review, and deserved it. The book shares the biography of Dr. King along side breathtaking drawings and pithy, inspiring quotations drawn from Dr. King. The heart of the book is that courage, love, learning, and human rights shall win the day. Rappaport doesn’t gloss over Dr. King’s death, and she reminds kids that good work and good words on earth live on after you do. Both are, in fact, a way to make progress.
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Conservation by Richard Gates
While seeming somewhat dated (it was published in 1988), Gate’s book is desperately relevant today. Fantastic photographs grace each page depicting, first, the way forests and the great plains used to be, then the way humans damaged the land, and therefore the animals, to suit their needs and desires. Toward the end, the book takes a turn as it describes the need to save nature, “guarding what we have, and not wasting it” which children can do in “[their] own backyard[s].” As a kind of conclusion, Gates depicts jobs in conservation and explains practical ways to protect animals and plants: “They are important in more ways than we know.” We think this is the kind of children’s book that would help remind adults of our moral obligation to the earth.
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Every Day is Earth Day by Kathy Ross
While Every Day is Earth Day shares a world-view with Conversation, it focuses its energy on the annual Earth Day (April 22) and its purposes. The bulk of Ross’s book describes and depicts activities kids can do to help promote a healthy earth. Our favorites include: a seedling necklace (which encourages kids to plant flowers); a wind sock (which shows kids that they can make crafts by recycling other materials); and a bird’s nest supply box (which is an empty milk carton filled with little things like dryer lint, hair, and bits of string).
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Jackson Pollock by Mike Venezia
This is one in a series of books about artists which also includes folks like Mary Cassatt, Salvator Dali, Georgia O’Keefe, and the requisite Pablo Picasso. Jackson Pollock includes both a biography with cartoon illustrations and photos of his work before he began action-paintings and of the more famous drip-paintings, too. The book doesn’t back away from lessons in art history, and explains abstract expressionism in ways kids can comprehend. Venezia ends up showing the power of imagination because it can lead one to success, and encourages kids to go to museums: “It’s a good idea to see Jackson Pollock’s paintings in person. The special feeling you get of being in an explosion of color and energy has a lot to do with their large size.” We’re willing to wager the other books in this series carry similarly progressive lessons and suggestions.
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Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss
In this 1940 children’s book, an elephant battles through rain, snow, taunting, hunters, and sea-sickness in order to hatch a bird’s egg. While the plot can be reduced to a sentence, the variety of morals cannot. Geisel teaches: the problems can grow with laziness; good parenting involves carrying for your young; helping others is virtuous; one should be faithful to promises; there are creative solutions to unusual problems; animals are not designed for the amusement of humans; and when you dedicate yourself to creating something, part of you enters into it. It’s simple story mixed with its litany of responsible morals, making this one of our faves.
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The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
This Seuss book is told mainly in the past tense, and tells the story of a beautiful environment destroyed by greed, big business, and an apathy toward those warning about the destruction of the sky, the water, the land, the plants, and the animals. The crux of the problem is the clear cutting of “Truffula Trees” into extinction. In the end, the person responsible for the destruction gives one last seed to Truffula Trees to a child, and it’s up to him to solve the problem and protect the environment. While this book is a condemnation of big business gone out of control and a proponent of conservationism, the story also teaches children that they can be heroes.
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Owen and Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship by Isabella Hathoff, Craig Hathoff, and Paula Kahumba
This children’s book tells a true story with photographs of the actual characters. The plot goes a little something like this: a baby hippopotamus, Owen, is abandoned in the wild, saved by fishermen, placed in an animal sanctuary with other animals, and befriends a tortoise, Mzee, who teaches Owen how to eat. We learn that science can’t totally explain their relationship, which includes eating, swimming, drinking, sleeping together, as well as demonstrations of affection. Kids end up learning about hippos, tortoises, African countries, and on a larger level, they learn that odd friendships are okay, and that even if two people appear different on the outside they can still get along.
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The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss
This story, one of Geisel’s last, tells the story of Zooks and Yooks, two groups of people who live on opposite sides of an enormous wall, and who despise one another because one eats bread and butter with the butter up and the other with the butter-side down. The two sides fight over the wall with very basic weapons like slingshots, but this quickly escalates, with each side developing larger and wilder weaponry. Eventually the weapons grow so powerful that the two sides don’t actually attack and rather threaten the other side with attack. Both sides end up developing a tiny yet incredibly power bomb, and the citizens are forced into bomb shelters. The book closes unresolved, with both sides threatening to drop this destruction on the other. While clearly a book about the Cold War, this book also teaches children that hatred (which can be ridiculous in its origins) and violence lead to more intense levels of hatred and violence. The moral seems to be, in a word, peace.
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Pet Show by Ezra Jack Keats
Archie, an African-American boy, is the protagonist of this book, in which a pet show occurs in an urban neighborhood where kids can show off their pets. Archie can’t find his cat, and hustles around trying to find his pet so that it can be judged. In the end, Archie brings a glass jar and says that he has brought a pet germ. He wins a blue ribbon for quietest pet. For our money this book teaches two things: first, that creativity and imagination can be used for problem-solving; and second, that a black child can (and should) be the focus of a story that does not overtly deal with race.
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Adoption is for Always by Linda Walvoord Girard
Adoption strikes us one of the ultimate progressive acts. The story in Girard’s picture-book explains adoption and birthmothers and birthfathers alongside realistic black and white illustrations. Because the main character goes through a series of emotions while coming to understand her adoption (loneliness, self-doubt, anger, sadness, and fear), Girard helps adopted children by validating their feelings and at the same time comforting them. For adopted children, this seems like a must-read.
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Peter’s Chair by Ezra Jack Keats
This Keats’ book, like his Pet Show, has an African-American little boy as the main character. Peter is the brother to a new baby sister in the house, and he notices that all his old things are being converted to fit his sibling. So Peter takes his old chair away, and thinks about running away from home with his pet dachshund. After realizing that he doesn’t fit in the old chair any more, Peter sits in a “grown up chair” and agrees to help his father paint the old chair for his sister. This book, while subtly battling against racism, teaches children about growing up and caring for one’s siblings despite initially resenting the attention the new child gets.
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Haiku: the mood of the earth by Ann Atword
Before we describe anything else, we need to point out that the photos in this collection of poetry are absolutely gorgeous, and for that reason alone we urge you to check it out for your kids. Haiku is a good form of poetry to teach children because each piece is brief, encourages attention to syllables (when written in the English-language tradition of 5-7-5), and gets kids to pay closer attention to details and the natural world. Teaching conservation, it seems to us, is aided by teaching children to appreciate the environment, something haiku is, essentially, designed to do.
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Seven Brave Women by Betsy Hewne
For our money, the opening of Seven Brave Women sets a fantastic tone: “In the old days, history books marking time by the wars that men fought, but there are other ways to tell time.” The book tells the story of seven generations of women in one little girl’s family. Each lived through a different war, but didn’t fight (“My mother does not believe that wars should be fought at all.” ). The women make art, care for the sick, write books, and care for animals, amongst other positive acts. Hewne’s book ends with the little girl who narrates explaining that she will make her own history like her ancestors did, because “there are a million ways to be brave.” Besides providing positive role models for girls, the book also promotes peace over violence, and bravery outside the bounds of wars.
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You might also check out Dora Goes to School, All Families Are Special, and Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon.
Find & Tell:
If you’d like a method for discovering additional famous and not-so-famous progressive easy-readers, you can ask librarians online 24/7. Allow us to point you to Read This Now, a service provided by the public libraries in Ohio. To increase the odds you get a like-minded librarian assisting you online, we recommend entering the zip codes for either Columbus (43210) or Cleveland (44101), two of the more progressive cities in the Buckeye State.
When you find other suggestions, we’d dig hearing them — just contact us and we’ll pass them along to our readers. Also, you can start a List or a Guide of recommended children’s books on Amazon.com. Here’s the thing, just label it “Great Children’s Books” or something like that. There’s no need to label them as progressive. They’re just great books, so call them that.
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Recycle:
There are kids out there who don’t own books. While they might have access to a library, some, because of a lack of transportation, might not be able to make it to a library. Even if kids in poverty can get to a library, there’s something special about owning books. There’s sense of pride and confidence that comes with owning a book, and there’s a treasuring, a lasting memory. I still remember the first book I could read: The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. And I remember my favorite picture book as a kid: The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone. Besides, all children deserve a chance to feed their minds, both for their sakes as well as the culture’s.
There are some very easy (maybe obvious to some) ways to donate used children’s books: hospitals, your local Salvation Army or Goodwill, poor school districts, libraries, and shelters.
For whatever reason, if you’re interested in other options, here are five organizations through which you can pass along the gift of language to kids truly in need of your kindness:
Gently Used Books:
Brand-Spanking New Books:
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Give:
We recently learned about therapy dogs being used by elementary school children as a way to improve their reading skills. The children read aloud to the dog, and often feel more comfortable doing this because the dog sits calmly nearby, apparently listening, and giving no criticisms.
So there’s three things you could do:
- Learn more about therapy dogs here and here.
- Contact Therapy Dogs International (here’s their homepage) and see if your dog could qualify for the reading program.
- Donate a small amount of money to this fantastic organization.
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June 18th, 2007 by Melissa Brannen
The extra room in my apartment is filled with box upon box of books I haven’t unpacked yet, simply because I have no place to put them. My daughter’s toy box contains a mix of dolls, toys, and books. They’re piled on top of the book case, on the floor, and next to my bed. My dresser, bedside table, and their respective drawers are all filled with books. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry — all genres are welcome and included.
My love of reading, and the written word in general, began when I was young. First grade, to be exact. I spent much of the school year at home, sick. I missed 40 days of school due to illness, then was forced to take half-days when I returned. Because of the numerous doctors appointments I had, we developed a routine, my mother and I. We would go to the pediatrician, then to The Book Corner in Niagara Falls, where I was allowed to pick out 2-3 books I wanted. I would invariable have begun reading one of them in car by the time we arrived home. I still remember the way I felt every time we entered The Book Corner. My mind would race and begin to fill with ideas of what I wanted to read, what I would choose. The whole store seemed filled with wonder, with possibilities.
Luckily, whether by nature or nurture, my daughter has inherited my love of books. Everyday she is excited to tell me what book they read at school, and not a night goes by without the request for a story — or six. Her current favorites include: Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann, There’s a Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone, and Curious George by H.A. Rey. And thanks to birthday, Christmas, Easter and “just because– presents from her grandparents and great-grandparents, her collection of books is rapidly approaching the size of mine. The time we spend together, cuddling and reading her books is magical; I’ll almost be sorry when she can read them herself. I’ll miss the way her eyes light up when we’re reading, and she starts the next line before we turn the page, and the giggling that ensues when we read something silly.
I can’t imagine my life or home without books. Yet, all over this beautiful world, our nation included, there are homes where books are in short supply or simply non-existent. I will never forget the look on my daughter’s face when she first learned this — it happened when we were in Wegmans this past weekend, doing our grocery shopping.
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Continue reading ‘Monday Morning Motherhood: Surrounded by Words’
June 14th, 2007 by Matt
On a previous Wednesday (see “A Book Does a Body Good”), we highlighted some simple ways you can help your own children and other children read, and read progressive stuff to boot. And as we put it then: plenty of children don't own any books, and many others don't even have access to books outside of school. And as progressives, we owe it to children, all children, to let them have as close to the same youth as we'd want for our own. We owe them this because we want to protect innocence. And we owe them this because want a caring, intelligent, articulate, and creative generation to come. We want a better world, so we want a world with more books.
In that vein, we give you The Literacy Site, a website that offers a rare opportunity: use your mouse to click one digital button and help raise funds to provide books to kids in poverty. This is achieved through advertising on the site (not unlike GoodSearch.com, which we touted this past Wednesday).
They put their motives behind their mission this way:
61 percent of low-income families have no books for children in their homes. Over 80 percent of childcare centers serving low-income children lack age-appropriate books and other print materials. By providing children from low-income families with books that they can take home and keep, together we target the only variable that correlates significantly with reading scores: the number of books in the home.
So, all you’ve got to do is click this sentence to be taken to The Literacy Site. Once you’re there, just click the button that reads “Fund Books For Kids.” There. That’s it. And the beauty part is that you can take this 7-second action every single day.
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Editor’s Note: We’ve researched this a great deal, and just so you know, the aforementioned website is totally legit. Check for yourself by clicking here or here.
June 13th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
The first years of my memory are of Niagara Falls. We lived on Orchard Parkway in a tiny second-floor house apartment. And as I grew up in the surrounding area, I learned to think of my hometown as the honeymoon and suicide capital of the world.
I grew up with daredevils risking life, limb, and the lives and limbs of their rescuers, by plummeting in various contraptions over the Horseshoe Falls. I saw news reports of poor fools who fell and drown to their deaths on kayaks and jet-skis as they tried to conquer the cataracts. I watched national television coverage of the lawsuits connected to Love Canal, a neighborhood that was the site of one of the worst toxic-waste-dumping scandals in American history.
My first job, as a bakery assistant, was in Niagara Falls at the headquarters of Di Camillo Bakery, a family business still thriving in this city. And I watched as department stores and jewelry stores and restaurants evaporated from Main Street, turning the road into an assortment of seedy bars, adult novelty stores, and boarded up buildings, each empty as the pockets of the homeless wandering the city. And I watched as the factories closed their doors, and added good, hard-working souls to the unemployment lines– ¦.
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Make Progress:
But I also grew up next to a place where people teem to see one the natural wonders of the world. And I grew up in an area where my relatives worked the bluest-collar of jobs, but managed to put lasagna on the table (we're good Italian-Americans, after all). And I grew up where my grandfather landed after traveling the Atlantic to move to America, the same city where my father was raised and remained, the same city where my sister got married. And I grew up next to one of the marvels of electrical science, the Niagara Power Project.
And so I believe in this place. And I love this place. And it's time we all helped this treasure of not just New York, but of America, and not just of America, but of the world. We're ready, if you are, to make progress in Niagara Falls.
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Editor’s Note: Below you’ll find photos of some of our favorite locations in the city of Niagara Falls.
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The Little Italy neighborhood and business district.
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The genius that is the Niagara Power Project. To learn more about it, click here.
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Di Camillo Bakery, where they make the best Italian bread you’ll ever eat.
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The Niagara River in autumn (if it wasn’t obvious from, you know, the leaves).
June 13th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Buy:
For 80 years, The Book Corner has called Niagara Falls home. Since it's inception in 1927, the store has moved twice, but has remained in the Falls. It's the largest independent bookstore in Niagara Falls (and all of Western New York for that matter), and at 10,000 square feet it's one of the biggest privately-owned bookstores where we've ever dropped a dollar. I've been in more bookstores than I can count, and I've never seen anything quite like this. The store has a googolplex of used books for sale (I once snagged a first-edition of Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas at a price far under its “value– ), and they feature one of the most complete collections of books about Niagara Falls that you'll ever see.
Now, unless you live in Western New York, this Wednesday we're not going to recommend you hop on an airbus to Buffalo just to check this place out. Though, if you're a book-lover like me and happen to be in the area, it's worth more than a look-see.
But here's the deal (or the “dealio,– if you prefer): The Book Corner is one of the few businesses surviving on Main Street in Niagara Falls, and Main Street in Niagara Falls is to roads as Bob Hope is to comedians: it's dead. Okay, that's hyperbole. It's dying. No, that's not right either. It's working toward a serious reincarnation, and The Book Corner is a ray of hope.
So, what we're asking you to do is plain as paper and quite simple: please order your books from The Book Corner. Find them however you want online — Amazon, Powells, Barnes and Noble, Borders — but place your order through The Book Corner. They'll even gift-wrap the book or books for nothing, nada, zilch — in other words, for free, my peeps. If you want, you can also order books they have in stock through AbeBooks and get free shipping.
And if you're trying to find an out-of-print book or a book whose title is fuzzy, turn to Pete and Jeff Morrow. Skilled as librarians, they'll find your tome of choice. I've placed several orders through the shop for poetry books that were either out-of-print or printed by an obscure press, and they've dug and hunted and found me what I was after.
But don't just take our word for it, you can read some reviews by clicking here or here. Or you can take the New York Times’ word for it – “ they describe The Book Corner as “a beacon of light in the pall of the blight.– And lest we forget, you can take a tour of this fantastic store by playing the video below. So much to read, so little time– ¦
Since it’s Sunday, I thought I’d write my first spirituality related post, sort of. Typically I’m pretty much against the big-wigs of the book-selling industry. As we mentioned a few Wednesdays ago, we do our damnedest to support 
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