open book

Storytime

For some odd reason, people occasionally ask me about children's books. What would be good for their children to read? I know, I wrote a few books for teens, and I'm an avid reader, but that doesn't mean I'm an expert. But since you asked...the beginning of another new feature!

My mother was, for a time, a children's librarian, and took a great deal of interest in what I read - picked books out for me for a long time, as a matter of fact, so I have followed her lead and done the same for my own children. One of my favorite parts of the day is, in fact, stories before nap and bed. Reading new library books to them gets me as psyched as they are.

For the next few posts on this I'm not going to go over the classics that we all know and love, but over more recent picture books and authors for young children. It's not exhuastive or learned, just the fruit of what's been grabbed off the shelves on our (at least) twice-weekly trips to the library.

And,uh..Meggan? Feel free...

I'm just writing about these as they come to me, in no particular order of preference.

The Stella books by Mary-Louise Gay: Stella, Queen of the Snow, Stella, Star of the Sea, and several others.

All involve a little girl named Stella and her younger brother Sam. Stella is in the lead, and has an answer for every one of Sam's incessant questions. They are, naturally, the answers that a very imaginative yet ill-informed 7-year old would give. The drawings are whimsical, the dialogue amusing, and Joseph adores these books.

Anything by Shirley Hughes. Her drawings of Alfie and Shirley Rose, et al are realistic and warm: lumpy, wrinkly children living in crowded, comfortable houses doing ordinary things. The prose is sometimes tedious for the grown-up to read, being rather meticulous and thorough regarding Alfie's every move - but, again, my main critic on such things - Joseph - remains rapt through  the whole thing, so perhaps yours will be too.

As I said, this is just a start and represents nothing but what we're currently reading from the library!

Last MDB article..

I think.

From Ebert, via my son David.

I believe the character Maggie is such a fighter that she could learn to deal with her disability and enjoy her life. But here is the important point: She doesn't believe that. Yes, it is true, as critics have charged, that she receives inadequate counseling. That the care in her hospital is not good, and the security is laughable. But the screenplay by Paul Haggis and Eastwood's direction make that clear -- they know it, too. It is not movie criticism to say Maggie needed better counseling. We might as well say Hamlet needed a psychiatrist.

The great places

Weigel on Fr. Rutler and his parish

Then, six days after 9/11, a man with no small plans came to Our Saviour’s as pastor: Father George Rutler – convert from Anglicanism, graduate of Dartmouth, the Pontifical Gregorian University, and Rome’s Angelicum, EWTN personality, and one of the wittiest correspondents in the universal Church. What had been a parish of midtown daytime transients and weekend dowagers quickly began to attract flocks of twenty- and thirty-year olds. Children were once a rare sight at Our Saviour’s in the past; last year, fifty-two baptisms and almost fifty weddings were celebrated there. The parish had never produced priestly vocations; it now has more seminarians than any other in the archdiocese. Substantial funds were raised to cover overdue structural renovations and the parish, long beset by deficit budgeting, was put into the black.

"Mom, it was like being at a Slipknot concert"

...my oldest son's description of a recent experience at Mass, seated behind some very rambunctious little children.

Thereby providing a concise and ultimately satisfying summation of what I wanted to do as a parent:

1) provide core values (He's going to Mass! He's observant. He's amusing.)

2) give them the confidence to do their own thing (Slipknot. Double bleh. But he likes Hank Williams, too. So all is not lost....)

(Oh, by the way, I took your advice. He really like A Confederacy of Dunces! Now he's reading The Power and the Glory, and likes that very much, and I also sent him Atticus by Ron Hansen, which someone recommended and struck me as a great young-man-novel. Many thanks.)

Heart of the Matter

Scorcese apparently developing the Greene novel for  film.

Wasn't he supposed to be developing Endo's Silence, or was that someone else?

And what's happened to the de-religionized Brideshead Revisited that was in production? Anyone know anything?

Update: Wow, that last point raised hackles quickly! As I said, I don't know what's happened, but here's a older item on the BR adaptation (scroll down)

Great minds

In my news-surfing over the weekend, I ran across an article that seemed promising - about Cardinal Arinze in Dallas. I read it, and went, "Huh?" It told me nothing - about why the Cardinal was in Dallas, what he said, and the interview was pure boilerplate.

At Get Religion, Terry Mattingly notes the same article

In other words, I am just as interested -- more, actually -- about what the cardinal had to say about Texans going to confession and receiving Communion than I am in the state of Kerry's pilgrimage. Perhaps the same is true of readers in Texas. I am just as interested in what the cardinal came to Dallas to say as I am in what he did not come to Dallas to say. Does that make sense?

It was either one of the worst written or most severely edited articles I've run across. Edited into nothingness...

Also at Get Religion Jeremy Lott ably reviews James Carroll's review of John Cornwell's book about John Paull II.

Got it?

Trackbacks

In case you're wondering, I've disabled the trackback thing on new posts..it's being slammed with gross spam, and I haven't figured out how to "block" a trackback.

Before you get too much into it..

discussing liturgical music down there, go back to Mere Comments and check out this post, gathering all of their posts on "Attractive Worship", which helps us see that this isn't just a Catholic issue. The assumptions (about the purpose of worship) are different, but the questions and the complaints are very similar.

Speaking of liturgical music

Great site here: the St. Cecilia Schola, dedicated to helping parishes incorporate chant into worship.

They're having a workshop down in Auburn, Alabama on February 19.

Breathtaking

Help Wanted...or else

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Read the whole damned thing.