June 2021 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge: The Great Outdoors

June's monthly reading motif was "The Great Outdoors," which required reading "a book featuring a garden, nature, country, or harvest setting or plot. I belong to a Facebook group for children's books (partly because I have a kid, and partly because I just enjoy children's books), and they had recently been talking about The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I realized it had been so long since I'd read it that I didn't really remember it all that well. Thus, when I saw this prompt, I decided it would fit the bill perfectly. (Yes, I read two middle grade books in a row.) I remember really enjoying it when I was a child, and I still enjoyed it, though the book, having been written in 1911, definitely shows its age in some ways.

This book is all about magic, and not the Harry Potter kind. It's about the magic of being a child and discovering the way things grow and how the natural world works. It's about how caring for something and someone other than yourself can make you grow in ways you didn't expect. Mary Lennox, the main character, through caring for a garden, spending time outdoors, and learning to care about two other children around her age, grows from a sickly little child into a healthy young lady. The book definitely insinuates that it is the running around outdoors and the English countryside air that brings about this change, but I would argue that learning to care for things other than herself are part of that change as well. Obviously, that's an emotional and temperamental change, but I firmly believe that emotional and temperamental changes can affect us physically as well. At any rate, it really is delightful to watch the children in the book learn to love one another and the magic of the garden and remember what it was like to see magic in all sorts of things. For anyone who has ever been into gardening, they will also recognize the excitement the chilren felt of watching the garden awaken from its winter sleep. That is definitely one of my favorite parts of spring - going out and seeing which little bulbs are going to sprout first and which perennial plants are sticking up some new leaf stalks.

Now I guess I'll touch on the whole concept of "cancel culture" here for a minute or two. There are definitely books, movies, music, and television that contain themes we consider unacceptable today, most obviously, and possibly significantly, overtly racist terms and viewpoints. The Secret Garden does indeed have some of that content in it. Here's the thing, though: the fact that these ideas are in these various types of media does not mean that we need to erase these things from history. There is valuable stuff in them; otherwise, they wouldn't have become classics in the first place. Even beyond the stories that made certain books classics, though, the themes that don't fit with our current thinking provide opportunities for discussion with one another and our children.

Most of the terms used to describe darker skinned people (generally referring to people from the Indian subcontinent, where Mary was born) in The Secret Garden are not really acceptable nowadays, but if/when I let Junior Mate read the book, we can (and hopefully will) have discussions about why that thinking is out of date and unacceptable now. The answer to these issues is not to erase them or pretend they don't (and never have) exist. The answer is to have conversations with your children about how and why some of these ideas were acceptable in whatever time the media is set and why we don't think the same way now. We give our kids a chance to make the world better by letting them understand the mistakes of our past, as well as the good parts of our past. I mean, running around outside and loving nature are definitely worthwhile things, that many of us may have lost in our currently tech-heavy society. Parenting, and being a good human, honestly, requires work. It's easy to just get rid of things that don't work with our current values, but it's more enriching and valuable to examine them and figure out their place.

Anyway, I think this book is a worthwhile read, and if you are concerned about some of the classist and racist expressions in it, give it a read yourself and decide if you feel comfortable letting your child read it. You can always have the discussions about why we don't think the same way anymore, and you can also have delightful discussions about which flowers pop up first in the spring and the joys of watching the earth come alive year after year.

(This is my copy of the book from when I was a child!)
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May 2021 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge: Magnificent Middle Grade

May's motif was "Magnificent Middle Grade," which is defined as "a book that is marketed toward ages 8-14." I'm not gonna lie - I really enjoy reading young adult and children's literature, so this was not a problem for me at all. I know that Louis Sachar has been on some reading lists for schools and is sort of considered classic for the newer generation (i.e. I'm pretty sure I've seen this on summer reading lists for kids these days), so I decided to go with one of his award winning books, Holes. I actually saw the stage adapatation of this book years ago at the university in my hometown, and they did a really good job with it. Thus, I knew the basic plot, but stage/film adaptations can never put in the detail that you find in the books. Also, it had been long enough since I'd seen the play that I didn't really remember it all that well.

All in all, I think the book is well constructed. It tells a story in an interesting way, using some flashbacks to previous eras. There's an interesting mystery and survival skills and redemption and all kinds of good stuff. It also pretty strongly suggests that hating or treating people poorly based on something they can't really control (e.g. skin color) is stupid and wrong. I mean, I think this is an extremely important thing for kids to learn, especially as middle grades are when they really start to absorb the culture around them (outside of their home). This book does a good job touching on the subject in an interesting and somewhat relatable way. I think the book deserves the Newbery medal it received, and it's worth a read, even if you're not middle grade aged. There is some mild abuse in the book, but nothing too graphic. It's enough that I would be cautious about letting someone younger than, say 10?, read it. It's possible 8-9 year olds would do okay with it, too, but I would call it an individual decision based on the sensitivity and maturity of the kid.

So I'm going to say something that sounds kind of silly here, but it actually made me happy. Stanley, the main character, is a fat kid. I love this because it's so hard to find fiction where a fat person is actually the protagonist, and even harder to find fiction where the fatness is not the main thing about who that person is. I mean, there is definitely mention of his size and its impact on him, but it is not what defines him in the book. I love this, and I love it for kids who may read it and see themselves in it, and see that they don't have to be defined by their size. I mean, maybe this newer generation of kids has already figured that out, but it took me years, and I still struggle with feeling judged and defined by my weight.

I also like that Sachar has several middle grade books all set in different parts of the South (US). I spent a large portion of my childhood in the South, and I have to say - there was a dearth of children's books set there to which I could relate. I mean, so much children's literature was set in a place with snow in the winters and Northern culture, which was great to read and learn about, but there was so little to read that reflected my own experience. Sometimes, I just wanted to read about a character who had never experienced a snowy winter and had to say, "Yes, ma'am," to her adults. It's nice to see a little more variety in setting for children's books now. Also, even though I now live in a different area of the country, there's still a bit of nostalgia for the place where I grew up, which is a nice itch to scratch with books every once in a while. (My December challenge book for 2020 actually scratched that itch, too.)

So there it is. Do you have any favorite middle grade books?

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Captain's Log Stardate May 2016: 12 Book Reading Challenge - Book you've already read at least once

I originally intended to save this category for the end of the year because I was planning to read the first in a series. I knew that I would want to read the whole series again after reading it and wanted to be done with the challenge in order to do that. However, after getting behind in April and May, I decided to go ahead and do this category for May to help catch up. I knew it would be a quick and fun read. My book for this category is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling (picture links to Amazon sale page).

I didn't get into the Harry Potter series until right before the fifth book was released, so this one had been out for a while before I read it. I was also in college when the first book was published, so I can't say that I was raised with HP. However, I really enjoyed the series and had a couple of quite close friends with whom I debated the possibilities for the coming books and talked about theories. During a time in my life when I was pretty depressed and lonely, the online HP community gave me some friends and a place to escape through fanfic and discussion with others. In short, it's been an important series in my life but not entirely life-shaping.

I enjoyed rereading the first book, not only because the books are fun but also because it was a nice change from the academic book I had read just prior. I actually think most of the movies are pretty good and accurate representations of the books, but I love reading the books. They have so many little details that just can't be explained or really represented in the visual form. It still amazes me how Rowling was able to come up with such an elaborate and detailed imaginary world. I don't know if I once had that type of imagination and had it squashed out of me by (my own) perfectionism and schooling or if I'm just not that creative. However, she definitely creates a world that you can enter with your whole mind, and even heart, and grow to love. There are also some great lessons about good and evil throughout the series that are good for both children and adults. I think that's one of the reasons I still love reading children's/young adult novels. Often, the themes therein are ones that adults need to remember or relearn as well. This particular book reminds us that appearances can sometimes deceive, to give people the benefit of the doubt, and that sometimes, supporting your friends is more important than being right.