But fuck. It's so much more exhausting and less interesting than a doctorate, a good job and the ability to take vacation without being trailed by 5 year olds. One of whom refuses to stop being on himself.
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
I'm not going to get into a battle about what's more exhausting living for two people who aren't me, but that's drawing glittery hearts around my sister's life right now that really aren't there.
Oo Kat I totally support the having a party for your 40th. I was going to, and then my MiL got diagnosed with cancer, which kinda put the kibosh on my plans. So then I was going to have a 42nd birthday party, and that just fizzled out. Now I have to wait until I'm 50.
Oh, who do I have to bribe so I can have a Night Circus -themed birthday party?
Sometimes, when I'm trying to drift off to sleep, I amuse myself by making up tents for the circus.
psssst, Jilli, I think you should try to ribebay atKay
You are what you read? [link]
You are what you read? [link]
I'm a vampire who runs away with a circus? Rock on!
The 7th grade English teacher at my school is looking for inspiration. They read To Kill A Mockingbird for the last few years, but that is moving up to 8th grade in the future. She needs to find a novel (or possibly two if significantly shorter than TKAM) that, in her words, has the "hold on to your heart factor" but also some "literary heft". As we are an all-girls school, having an admirable female protagonist or POV character is definitely a plus, but not a requirement.
Our girls are pretty much all reading at or above - in many cases well above - reading level for 7th graders. I thought about Jacqueline Woodson, but most of her books seem to be in the "Grades 4-7" zone, which would probably be dismissed as too young.
Suggestions?
Suggestions?
I don't know, but I will note that Emmett has complained that his reading list this year has been relentlessly depressing as each ethnic group in turn has been crushed by tragic social injustice. Which made me think that yes, there is a tendency for schools to teach books of a certain brand of Realism which can be a drag, especially if you're not a particularly angsty kid and don't need your dark adolescent feelings validated. (He's currently reading Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.)
Maybe One Hundred Years of Solitude? Can't beat that for literary heft, and it's not the usual social realism and it's also a very enjoyable reading experience. And it's not that dense or difficult to parse.
I think that might be a little too hefty. Not at a vocabulary or parsing level, necessarily, but at a sophistication level. TKAM can be read at a variety of levels, I know, but at it's core it's a pretty simple story and easy to get invested in, which is what grabs the girls. I don't think many of them (still essentially children) are quite ready for Marquez.