Five Favorites: Children's Picture Books

There are two necessary ingredients to a good picture book: a good story, and good pictures. Notice I said story. When I used to babysit, some of the kids had these gosh-awful books about "This is a fireman. He wears a red hat. This is a policeman. He wears a blue hat." Kill me now. These books aren't like that, because they have actual stories paired with gorgeous pictures.

1. Agatha's Feather Bed: Not Just Another Wild Goose Story

This was one of my favorites when I little. Don't you love the cover? And the story is great too, about how the naked geese come shivering to Agatha's window to get their feathers back from her bed.

2. Something Nasty in the Cabbages

(By the way, don't do an image search on this one. Some of the images... well, you can guess). This is a retelling of the classic French tale of Chantecler the cockerel, and it is hilarious. The writer has a great ear for language.

3. Crysanthemum

All I have to do is show some pictures, and you will buy this for your children:

It's about a little mouse named Crysanthemum who wishes she had a more normal name like Rose or Daisy. No one could pronounce my (very common) name - everyone thinks it is Carolyn, and I can't convince them otherwise. So I thought this story was the bee's knees. 

Eh, whatever, just 3. It's one of those weeks, and I feel like cheating. 

You Might Be from Georgia When....

... One of the first things you learned in kindergarten was "red on yella, kill a fella, red on black, venom lack." We used to chant this in unison, and I'm pretty sure it was on a test.

I mentioned this to one of my co-workers (he's from Maine and thinks beaches have rocks), and he was baffled. "Red what?" he asked. I wanted to prove that only a Yankee from Maine wouldn't know this rhyme, so I asked my co-workers from North Carolina. They were equally confused.

Apparently, this is only a thing if you grow up surrounded by swamps and woods infested with cuddly creatures like coral snakes, cottonmouths, rattlers and gaters.

For those of you from climates friendlier to human life, here is a visual:

Now all you need to do is learn how to blow gnats off your face and you're good to go.

Seven Quick Takes: Seven Weird Changes Recently

1

Daylight Savings Time

The date when daylight savings time ends and the endless night of doom begins used to be in October. And then one day the candy companies said hey guys, if we push that date back to November then the kiddies can stay outside longer during Halloween. I can't believe they didn't think of this earlier, but I can believe that their lobbyists were able to push it through. 

2

Cell phones got big again

Remember how the phones were bricks in the 90s? (I didn't even know they existed back then). And then they turned into flip phones and that's what all the cool kids had? And then they just got super tiny and you could fit them in your pocket or purse, no problem? I mean, I like my iPhone too, but I miss being able to drop my phone on concrete without it shattering, or popping it in my jeans pocket. 

3

The Laugh Track Finally Died - or at least lessened

Growing up, I loved Brit comedies. You know the kind: they aired on PBS about two decades after they came out. Faulty Towers, Are You Being Served?, As Time Goes By, Mr. Bean, Keeping Up Appearances.... Great shows all. But I was watching an episode of Keeping Up Appearances on youtube, and I was so annoyed by the laugh track. I mean, it was every other sentence! This didn't use to bother me at all, because I didn't know any better.  Some shows still have a laugh track, but the use has greatly dimenished. And thank God you no longer have that "ooooh" that would happen whenever sex came up. 

4

Movie Blockbusters Require an Antidepressent 

My husband is a huge fan of Independence Day, with all the "We will not go quietly into the night!" and other goodies, like Will Smith before he was in everything. We were watching it recently (he said he was getting withdrawals) and I thought huh, this would never be a summer blockbuster today. Some directors (cough Christopher Nolan cough) think that doom and gloom, with a side of blood and guts, is the only way to go. So even the new Super Man used a gun. WTF? 

5

Everything Nerdy is Cool 

I think Harry Potter was the tipping point. I mean, books about wizards at a British boarding school - nothing can be nerdier than that. And it was the biggest success in children's publishing history. The other game changer was Spider Man, and that was for one main reason. It came out in fall of 2001, and it was set in NYC.

But dungeons and dragons will never be cool.

6

And Facebook Became Uncool

It is popular, hugely so, but it is no longer cool. It was cool when it was just us college students. Now it's about as cool as a family reunion, but with more drama.

7

"Health Food" at MacDonalds

And Wendy's, etc. My favorite is Wendy's actually, because they have those awesome salads with dried cranberries. People pick on the fast food places for this, but I think it's great. When I had wheat allergies in high school I would have loved to be able to eat something at a fast food joint. 

Religious Climate in Washington DC: Living in Rome

Bird's Eye View of the National Cathedral

When my husband and I moved to DC a year and a half ago, we were astounded by the people. They were so young, so beautiful, so thin, so wealthy. Coming from Georgia this was a shock.  I don't mean to say people in Georgia are ugly, but the obesity rate is much higher, and so is the poverty rate, since these things go together. DC is the center of today's Roman empire, and just like the old one it looks so good on the surface, but there are many hurting people underneath the glimmer. 


1. Where I Live: Northern Virginia, otherwise known as NOVA. They really should just make a state called "metro DC" though, because southern Maryland and NOVA have more to do with each other than with the rest of their respective states. So for statistical reasons I'll use DC/ Maryland data. 

2. Church Attendance: here is a map that shows data for Maryland and DC concerning religious affiliation. You will notice that the largest category is Catholic, closely followed by unaffiliated. I would hazard a guess that if Baltimore were removed from the polling, that unaffiliated would far and away surpass Catholicism as the highest affiliation. There is a high percentage of historically Black Protestant churches in DC, and there are a fair number of evangelical and mainline churches, but nothing like what you would see in "The Bible Belt." I was unable to find stats strictly on Washington DC church attendance as opposed to affiliation, but it's always a much smaller number. 

3. How appropriate would it be if a person were to acknowledge in casual conversation that he or she is a believing Christian: I live in two worlds - the world of the Episcopal seminary where my husband attends, together with my parish community, vs the work-a-day world. In the church world, of course it would be no-biggie. I have had a fellow parishioner suddenly hold my hand after a service and tell me that she needed to pray for me, and I have had intense spiritual discussions with other wonderful people there as well. But the secular world of DC is another story. DC is so fraught with political strife that everyone has an unspoken agreement of don't ask/don't tell when it comes to religion and politics. It's understandable - after all, you wouldn't want people to come to blows on the metro. But there is a sterility to relationships here because everyone is so guarded. The only exception to this is the homeless - they are happy to talk about God with you. 

4. What belief system do the politicians in your area claim to practice: honey, it's DC. They say whatever they think their constituents back home want to hear.

5. How common would it be to see a family with more than three children: it depends on what neighborhood you're in. In the wealthier neighborhoods yes, this would be shocking. It's expensive to have more than 2 kids if you want to live in the pricier zip codes and attend the right schools; heck, this area is pricy no matter where you live. But when you get into the immigrant communities, large (and openly religious) families are the norm. Generally they are observant Muslim though. 

The altar at my parish, St. Paul K Street

6. What was the dominant belief system in your area 50 years ago? What is it now: The most common religion in this area 50 years ago was Christianity, especially Episcopalian protestantism - think "WASPS." The effects of this are still in the area: there are tons of Episcopal churches and schools, including boarding schools and the seminary where my husband attends. And of course the National Cathedral is in DC. I would say though that the influence of this denomination is far less than it used to be because there's much more "competition" for lack of a better term. This is such an international community, especially near where we live in NOVA. Sometimes I'm the only English speaker in the grocery store line, and it is very common to see women wearing hijab. 




Unfortunately, the gods of materialism and professional success rule supreme. When you meet someone, the first question is "what do you do?" i.e. what is your job. In an economy where unemployment is high, the emotional effects of this are almost as devastating as the physical ones. It is hard to maintain a healthy sense of self if you are not rich, if you can't wear the latest fashions or go to hip clubs on U Street or live in a cool neighborhood. Materialism is an American problem, but it is intensified to a giddy degree in the nation's capitol. Those who are poor are shunted to the side, ignored, and despised, even by the people who would claim to be socially conscious. 

7. Do the people where you live seem happy with their lives: I would say yes and no. It looks like the wealthy professionals in Chevy Chase and Arlington with their 1.8 kids and Whole Foods memberships are happy because they have it all. But I watch the professionals on the metro and in the city and at the Safeway, and there is a sense of discontent. 

Right before I got married, I worked for 6 months in a pediatric office in the poorest, most rural country in Georgia. And when I got married and moved to NOVA, I worked at an orthodontist office in Arlington before I found my current job at a DC law firm. The difference was unbelievable and, at first glance, the Arlington families were so much healthier. But that was the surface: underneath was a constant hurry, a fear of mediocrity, a need for their child to have the best of everything that will never satisfy. 

And then there are the poor, the homeless: they have nothing but what they can carry or push in a cart. But I have been blessed by the homeless - actually blessed, as in more than one homeless man has "pronounced" an impromptu blessing on me after a single conversation. They tell me that God is good; they tell me that God will fill my heart with peace. So nothing is as it seems around here. 

Seven Quick Takes : Fictional Characters I Relate To

1. Dorrie from Finding Nemo

After I had my concussion in the spring (otherwise known as "when shit hit the fan"), my memory, what little I had, just up and died for several months. I had a list by the door of things I needed to take with me (keys, wallet, cell phone, metro card, etc), and a list on my bedroom wall of things I needed to do before bed (brush teeth, pick out the next day's clothes, turn on the dishwasher, etc). It was really that bad. "Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming" was all I could do - my poor husband is a saint y'all! I was so scatterbrained that I would forget what you told me in seconds; I couldn't remember the office phone number or address; one day, I remember trying to remember how a stapler works. Dorrie is my inspiration for how to keep your spirits up when your sanity is gone.

2. Jill in The Silver Chair

I would love to say that I relate to Lucy, but I'm much more like Jill. I'm OK with that - Jill is brave, strong, and takes no prisoners. But she's also got a lot to learn in The Silver Chair about selflessness, discipline, and faith. As do I. When she says that she would give anything for a hot bath, I say "yes sister you got that right!" Even if it does lead to evil giants.... And my first experiences of God were similar to hers too; can't You turn Your back God, so that I can drink from the well of grace without Your untamed nature to deal with?  And the signs. This is kind of how my prayer life goes - I know I should pray every night, but really, zoning out to Netflix is so much more appealing....

3. Hermione in Harry Potter

Not as clever or smart, but just as obnoxious. Hermione comes a long way in the series, and she is positively amazing in the last two books - I only hope I can be that brave someday. But all of her know-it-all statements, especially the "Have you still not read Hogwarts, a History?" Oh my, that was so me in high school. Who am I kidding, that's me now, every time I see a billboard with poor grammar. 

4. Beth in The Long Secret

I love, love, love this book. Harriet M. Welch takes a back seat to "mousy" little shy Beth Ellen in the sequel to Harriet the Spy. Beth Ellen learns how to be her own person in spite of her terrible socialite mother who just wants her to become a rich leach going to spas in Europe. I can relate to the terrible anger inside her that is never unleashed, and the piercing thoughts she has but never expresses. Beth is the hero for all shy, cautious introverts. The ending will have you cheering.

5. Margalo in the Bad Girls series

This is a delightful, wickedly funny series of books about two best friends growing up the late 90s (when I did) who don't fit in (which I didn't either). It starts when they're in fifth grade and carries them through the turbulent middle school years. Mikey is the stereotypical tom-boy amongst the preppy and girly-girls - she plays soccer with the boys (and gets the school to start a girls' team); she butts heads with the junior high principal; she is blunt to a fault. Margalo looks like a good girl, but looks are deceiving. She is poor and wears clothes from second-hand stores, which means she is shunned by other girls, but she is actually a fashion-queen who doesn't follow the trend and does her own thing. She has better people skills than Mikey, and uses them to their mutual advantage.

 She does things that I never would have dared to do though; in the first book she puts a dead squirrel in an enemy's desk as pay-back. The principal demands to know why she did this, and her reply is "Well, opposums are too large to fit into the desk, and I couldn't find any raccoons." Priceless. I can especially relate to her poverty; it is very rare to read about realistic poverty in modern children's lit that isn't over the top. I remember having to bring a sack lunch too when all the cool kids bought theirs at the cafeteria, and eating whatever was on sale regardless of what it was. These books are picture-perfect in telling what it's like to be in middle school and not fitting in.

6.Susie from Black Eyed Susan

This is a lesser-known children's book about an isolated prairie family in the Dakota territory. The mother is severely depressed, primarily due to isolation and loneliness and homesickness. I connect with Susie's attempts to "cheer up" her mother, to encourage her to see beauty in the prairie surroundings. 

We didn't live in the prairie (obviously), but we were living as a white family in the ghetto, similarly isolated by our differences. I had an easier time than my parents did, because that was what I knew. I had never lived in a house without 6 kinds of roaches and mice in the kitchen and no dishwasher. I was used to getting rocked to sleep by the sounds of sirens, trains, gun shots, and rap. 

But my mom was used to quiet, middle-class neighborhoods, and she was depressed and lonely in our neighborhood. I remember trying to get my mom to see the beauty around us - the azalea bushes, the dogwood trees, the Spanish moss dripping from live oaks. Likewise, Susan tries to show her mother the beauty of a sunset in the tree-less prairie. Reading this was heart-breaking but also cathartic. 

7. Francie from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

More than any other character in any book or movie, I feel like Francie. When I first read the book in high school, I kept laughing and crying and nodding, saying "this is my life!" In many ways it actually wasn't - my father wasn't an alcoholic; we lived in the South, not Brooklyn; we lived in a little house, not a tenement; I never went hungry as a child. But I remember so many things as Francie remembers them: the sitting on the porch (her "stoop") and watching the neighbors; her passion for writing; the creative meals due to lack of money; the loneliness of being better educated that the neighbors; her difficulties with English teachers; her fierce love and defense of her roots. Her mother read a page from Shakespeare and from the King James Bible (though they were Catholic) to better educate the children. Hilariously, Francie picks up the language, in a Brooklyn accent. Oh boy, I so remember using "big words" in the ghetto and reading library books on the front porch while crime and drugs were just next door. Most of all I was bound to her by the "drunken" state that beauty imposed on her. The first time she sees tulips, she is light-headed, awe-struck, dizzy - she has to sit down. I have had this same experience with beauty and music so many times, and I have never seen it described so accurately. 

Francie moved from Brooklyn at 16, and I moved from the old neighborhood (she called it that too) at 15. I was in tears in the last scene, when Francie watches a little girl reading under a tree on the roof just she used to. "Goodbye Francie" she says. I remember standing at the chain-length fence in the back yard, watching the children playing in the alley, promising them silently that I would come back - maybe not to that place, but to that type of place. One day they will call me on it.

About those bad days....

I'm having a "bad day" by my standards. I hit a curb got a flat tire on my way to work (and by flat I mean will probably have to be replaced entirely), and the spare is also on the flat side. For perspective, this happened in downtown DC during rush hour, so not the most fun time I've had in awhile. A homeless man "helped" me - he offered his services while I was getting the jack on, and boy do I wish I'd said no, because he knew less than I did. I was able to get to a parking garage afterwards (I'd been in a metered spot and had run out of time), although it took ten years to find my debit card while the guy stood there patiently.

I got back to work in a huff, frustrated at the wasted morning, wondering why I don't carry a pair of sneakers in the car while I'm driving in pumps (and wearing a knee-length dress), calling myself all kinds of names. And then it hit me.

These people have problems:

Pray for Syria. Pray for peace. Pray for us idiot Americans to realize just how good we have it.

Seven Quick Takes: Taboo Stuff I Love

1. Snoop Dogg

Let's start this off with a bang shall we? (And oh, by the way, every single one of these takes is offensive in some way/ multiple ways. You have been warned). I always heard that Snoop Dogg was no talent. The naysayers are wrong. Yes, he's offensive in every single way - violence, sex, misogyny, etc. But he has got such a smooth flow, much better than Dr. Dre's. Everyone knows Gin and Juice, but Take it Back to '85 is much more fun: Make sure you're wearing headphones.  His best music was made when still producing music with Warren G (beautiful jazzy voice) and the rest of Death Row records. Yes, rap is music. Deal with it.

2. Eminem

I don't like his raps ironically. No, I sincerely like the early songs like The Real Slim Shady. Ask anybody in their mid-late twenties, and unless they're lying, they like it too. They'll bluff and beat around the bush and try to be all ironic, but don't be fooled. If it were to come on the radio and they were alone in the car, they'd start rapping it too, badly, with hand motions. Here are the lyrics, and they're clever.

3. Albert "Bert" "The Machine" Kreischer

My husband and I are big fans of stand up, and Albert Kreischer is possibly our favorite for live shows. He has a great stage presence and is able to improv like a pro - the sign of real stand up. While we were at a show in Baltimore in the summer, a group of rather trashy ladies were heckling, whooping, just being plain obnoxious, but he dealt with it with pizazz without becoming too crazy or having to throw them out. He started the show by throwing off his shirt and pouring whiskey all over himself; it was fantastic. What can I say, I like low-brow entertainment. (My moonshine making ancestors would be so proud.) His most famous sketch (which is actually fairly clean) concerns his escapades as a college study abroad student in 1990s Russia, and how he got mixed up with the Russian mafia. NOTE: I just listened to it again, and no, it is not clean. Not even a little bit.

4. Dave Chappelle 

Some people think he's racist. They are patently wrong. He is clever, and he is signifyin'.  I really wish I'd been here to see his show in D.C., his hometown. There are so many good clips of his that it was really hard to pick, but here are some of my favorites.

5. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

And with that, I just lost whatever audience I once had. Full speed ahead! If you don't know what I'm talking about, you really should be familiar with the pop culture reference Time Warp. "It's just a turn to the left...." Actually, I have no right to list this at all, since I've never been to a live showing and am therefore still a virgin. But I have such good memories of watching this on a tiny TV with my college friends and dancing the time warp. This is seriously the most offensive thing on this list though: it has the song "Sweet Transvestite" and ends in an orgy. It's also very clever though - a great riff on the 1950s drive in sci-fi movies.

6. Eddy Izzard

Speaking of transvestites (I don't get to use that phrase much...). Eddy Izzard is a cross-dressing British stand-up comedian with a great delivery and hilarious jokes. This is my favorite version of the American vs. British culture pieces.

7. South Park 

This show is popular for a reason: it's the best satire on the market. And what's even better is that it bucks the trend of riffing only on conservatives: primarily it destroys liberal sacred cows. In that attribute, it's virtually alone amongst TV shows. This was the only show with the nerve to say that Americans love Walmart because of greed, not that Walmart was some monster by virtue of existence. They even had the audacity to attack the hypocrisy of obese anti-smoking advocates, which is unthinkable today. They can show subtle balance though too: the brilliant post 2008-election episode called "About Last Night" (which was in fact produced that night) hit the nail on the head regarding fans of both parties. As for the actual candidates, well, I won't give it away.

Y'all, they even mocked Muhammad in the brilliant two-part saga Cartoon Wars (which the creators discuss here). It's like they have a death wish or something. Comedy Central refused to allow them to include an image of Muhammad just standing there, and the episode ends with a supposed creation of terrorists mocking America, Jesus, and the flag with feces.  The irony is golden: look what we're allowed to put about America and Christianity. Seriously, nobody talks this way; how do they get away with it?