My girl wants to read all the time . . .

Molly, 18 months, wants me to read to her ALL the time. While I'm encouraged by her enthusiasm, I find it difficult to get anything done and, frankly, reading Lamaze's One, Two, Buckle My Shoe sixty times a day can be a bit much.



Sandra Boynton appears in countless reading sessions, the favourite now being Blue Hat, Green Hat. Again, reading any book thirty times can test the nerves but once I realized the intended concept being imparted, I developed an inner dialogue (a "happy place", if you will) that allowed me to keep reading.

Molly's selections sometimes surprise me as much as the fact that she actually seems to find the books she's looking for among the bookshelf unit that she shares with her sister.

They fall into two categories: books filled with objects at which she will point and label when requested and which she enjoys having narrated, as well; books with a small story or repetitive theme.

This morning -- this early morning -- began with a sweet request for the following:


She has been "self-training" for a couple of months by which I mean that I have not introduced the idea of toilet training and yet she has become impatient, no longer tolerating unchanged diapers. She even lets me know what's, er, on its way. It all started with putting things away, undressing herself, and, then, taking off her diaper. The next thing we knew, she was telling us that she needed her diaper changing and what was in it. It isn't something I've discouraged but, admittedly, I'm not yet sure where to go. It seems Molly may be pushing me in the direction she wants, anyway.

But it's good. It's a good thing. It's as good a thing as Molly using both signed and spoken language at the same time. Molly signs as a way of reducing her frustration in wanting to do more than she is developmentally capable of, such as expressing complex thoughts. (I started teaching her 'baby sign' but soon afterward switched to English Sign Language in order to give her a language that she could take beyond toddlerhood.)


Hitting was one of the difficulties we had when Molly first started trying to speak more (along with pinching, biting, kicking and throwing). Once I began teaching her English Sign Language, the assaults on me stopped! Not only has it had the intended effect, it has also increased her spoken language and she will often sign and speak at the same time as if she were bilingual (which I think she may be becoming). She loves this book.

Honestly, I've never bought into the lines of toys geared towards producing prodigies and Lamaze isn't even my favourite brand. (I actually love Melissa & Doug.) I did buy her Bright Baby's First Words and Colors because of the colours in the images and the design of the books.

This, too, when it's within reach, is requested countless times throughout the day. (I find it helpful for Devyn, too, who loves to learn to spell new words.)



In fact, Roger Priddy's books really are useful in so many ways when you realize that children of all ages love to learn if you, yourself, are enthusiastic about the process. I can barely abide the be-a-perfect-parent and my-child-is-a-sponge pressures of parenting and, generally, I would have considered these to be products of this tension-filled parenting era. But, really, they're helpful and appreciated by my children. Over and over and over . . .

As for me and my reading, it's a slow and jagged experience as I seize moments here and there. Maybe if I read on the spinning bicycle at the gym . . .

The Big Promise of Little Lights

On cold nights or after busy days, I can't resist reading in the dark by book-light and it's especially irresistible during a thunderstorm.

Tonight, I shut off the light in the girls' room and curled up with Devyn in her bunk bed. I had my favourite book-light -- yes, I have a collection -- and we read two chapters of Enchanted: A Dream Come True.

I actually don't mind the 'princess phase' that seems to have taken hold of many five-year-old girls. I think it's cute and probably necessary and I think every girl deserves to feel like a princess. Everyday, Devyn dons her princess gown (complete with its own music) and shoes and behaves like a princess.

And I'm reminded of A Little Princess:

Her trick of pretending things was the joy of her life. She never spoke of it to girls she was not fond of. Her new "pretend" about being a princess was very near to her heart, and she was shy and sensitive about it. She had meant it to be rather a secret, and here was Lavinia deriding it before nearly all the school. She felt the blood rush up into her face and tingle in her ears. She only just saved herself. If you were a princess, you did not fly into rages. Her hand dropped, and she stood quite still a moment. When she spoke it was in a quiet, steady voice; she held her head up, and everybody listened to her.

"Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one." (Frances H. Burnett)

Unlike Sara, Devyn doesn't have to defend herself: her peers like princesses and playing dress-up and they will just as easily change into Spider-man costumes, girls and boys alike.

(I'm not as comfortable with her collecting-dead-bugs phase as specimens for study but I'm glad she's going through it. I'm trying to overcome my squeamishness.)

But I've digressed.

All this is to say that I'm hoping that I've bestowed a gift upon my little girl. We've read every night since she arrived but tonight it was as if I had admitted her to a secret club or shown her something little-known-but-spectacular about the universe.

I hope that the promise of being able to curl up in the dark with a little light and a fascinating book stays with Devyn for the rest of her life. And, yes, I hope she continues to feel like a princess, too.

Reading Status

I finally finished Girls of Riyadh: A Novel (Rajaa Alsanea) after two weeks. I've chosen my bedtime book: Suddenly Supernatural: School Spirit (Elizabeth Cody Kimmel). There are so many roads to turn down right now as far as the next primary book to read: Pakistani Bride (Bapsi Sidhwa), Brick Lane (Monica Ali), Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee (Meera Syal) . . . The list is so long. I haven't forgotten about Uwem Akpan or Jhumpa Lahiri. Ack! Where next?

Kabul Beauty School (Random House, April 2007)

As often happens, I find a brilliant passage in an article that describes something far more effectively than I. In this case, the following from the New York Times captures both the co-author, Deborah Rodriquez, and the bottom-line effect of Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind The Veil:

The book, released April 10 [2007] by Random House, is a story of a
flame-haired, cigarette-smoking, multiply-divorced Michigan hairdresser who travels to Afghanistan, falls in love with the country, and returns later to set up a beauty school.

The story provides a greater appreciation of the cultural mores (and sometimes laws) governing male-female relationships in Afghanistan and it is this kind of ethnographic detail of both fiction and nonfiction that I generally crave.

Initially, I wanted to say that the account is kind of thin. The author could have done more to flesh out relationships, maybe focus more indepthly on the follow-up of the individual lives that she affected.

And I asked myself: What was Deborah Rodriguez's original intention in writing this book? Clearly, she wants to let the world know about the organization responsible for getting the beauty school-cum-salon off the ground.

She probably wants people to know her own difficulties in getting and keeping funding for the school which included starting a salon of her own. (In this way, she trained would-be professional beauticians, generated revenue and sourced additional teachers as the project grew.)

I like to think that she wants to convey the magnitude of the accomplishment: Empowering women with skills to run their own salons and generate income for themselves or for their families seems no small feat in a country in which women are discouraged from doing such things.

Considering the general public reaction to the book, my own observations seem inconsequential. The narrative, at times, is jagged and I wonder what, if anything, I might be missing. But I like the dialogue and the sometimes creative means by which the author overcomes language barriers.

I think she fails in some important respects. The personal stories -- when mentioned -- are not detailed enough for me. I still want to know what happened -- what really happened -- to Topekai, Baseera, Roshanna, Laila and Hama. I am still curious about Shaz.

But there are bigger problems and I may have been too optimistic in thinking that she and others might have started social reform in Afghanistan from which future generations will benefit.

According to the NPR in June 2007, the details already shared in the narrative cause controversy and anger:

the subjects of her book say Rodriguez and her newfound fame have put theirlives in danger . . .

About the subject women, the article continues:

At least one of the girls from the school has made an escape plan. One, who is called "Topekai" in the book, says her husband, who read the book, is moving their family to Pakistan.

The others — whose husbands are unaware of the
book — say they don't know what to do.

The woman called "Baseera" in Rodriguez's book says it may not matter. She is convinced someone will kill her.

This is serious and saddening: Cross-cultural value systems colliding, sociopolitical fears casting shadows over well-intentioned efforts.

And there is yet more controversy. According to quoted subjects in the New York Times (April 2007), there are questions about consistency and accuracy and perhaps enough changes to actual details that place the very nature of the narrative in question.

Frankly, like the project itself, the book initially seemed to be the start of something and, hopefully, the promise of something more. Now, I am not so certain. Did I even read a memoir?

Shades of Truth: An Account of a Kabul School Is Challenged (Abby Ellin, NYT, April 29, 2007)

Subjects of 'Kabul Beauty School' Face New Risks
(Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR, June 1, 2007)

PostSecret

PostSecret.com is popular; its message is powerful: If secrecy alienates, then vulnerability unites.

It also attracts humans in hordes, including me.

In fact, I may have to eat my own words. I once publicly decried the rise of reality-based television as marking the end of collective reason that would have us wandering around like incoherent halfwits while civilization around us slowly declined.

Now, I see that it is the hope of glimpsing the unedited that is so compelling to an audience whether that glimpse be in a staged photograph, a carefully written celebrity interview or a tightly produced reality show. At least, that is true for me. So, when I first read a blurb about PostSecret in a magazine, I was interested.

After downloading the site, I wanted more -- much more -- so, I immediately bought the first two books: PostSecret and My Secret. At first, I was embarrassed by my interest in the lives of other people, even as I asked the clerk at my local bookstore for the copies. Then, it hit me: having secrets makes us uncomfortable because it reminds us that we're human; having access to other people's secrets makes us comfortable because it reminds us that they're human, too.

I think it is this uncensored honesty of the project's content that I found particularly moving. It also helped me with my writing. Winburn, in my weekly course readings, suggests searching for "emotional truth" in producing narrative and this now makes sense to me. The more the author gives of himself, the more willing the reader is to contribute, or to commit, to the text because he sees himself in the story.

The project also raises questions about relationships: reader and author, reader and text, author and text. Who authored this work? Certainly, the nameless public contributed the content, but did Frank Warren edit in even the slightest way? Was there purpose behind the order in which the postcards appeared? For example, was he trying to, or, did he subconsciously, elicit different emotional reactions?

My immediate impression was that there was no intention behind the sequence of secrets. The only way in which he could have removed himself from the work would have been to lay out the book without first having read the cards and, in the introduction to the book, he suggests that he did, in fact, read the secrets.

At any rate, Frank Warren seems to have achieved a significant goal of mine: He has produced a narrative that has dictated its own compositional form to the degree that this is actually possible.

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All the books in the series are available on the website for purchase.