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Author and Illustrator Blogs
- Sarah N.: The language sounds delightful. I love getting to explore the interesting phrases of the past. That’s...
- Constance: I like the John Stilgoe quote! I took a course with him in college, and it was the kind of lecture that...
- Sally Thomas: We Tennessee natives are good at channeling unlikely voices . . . I can’t decide how scary that...
- Sue: I wish that *I* had a “certain exquisite reticence of the flesh!” Sounds good. Sue
- Jen Lynch: Being both a Lovelace fanatic and a Vassar girl I have read the queer little Queed. It is essentially the...
- Sara: I think I’m going to have to download Queed—after I read Carney (which I never have). When the...
- Melissa Wiley: Yes, it seems it was a quirk of my template. The post was set to be a sticky & I didn’t...
- Lauren: It’s been like that since you wrote that post. Love your blog
Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.
(Excerpt from
this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
—Victor Hugo
“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of
Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?
(from a post called
Way Leads on to Way)
Six Things to Include in Your Child's Day:
meaningful work
imaginative play
good books
beauty (art, music, nature)
ideas to ponder and discuss
prayer
Whence It Came
My 7yo uses Scratch and has started using Alice. I’d recommend both of those.
Posted on November 17th, 2009 at 12:35 amMy Husband agrees that Alice and Scratch are both good. Lynda, he says, is best for older kids working on a Mac.
Posted on November 17th, 2009 at 6:23 amYeah, I was going to second the recommendations for Alice and Scratch. We used Scratch in an intro class at Harvard. I’ve heard that Alice is particularly appealing to girls (not just because of the name) because of the storytelling aspect of it.
Posted on November 17th, 2009 at 9:40 amCharlotte, thanks for the Lynda info…it’s my 14yo who is interested in learning, and we are a Mac family, so that’s good to know. We are checking out Scratch & Alice too. Thanks, everyone!
Posted on November 17th, 2009 at 2:32 pmMy oldest (10) is currently taking a co-op class in Alice and loving it. It does seem to fit well with her love of making up stories. It is an easy learning curve — the kids seem to go right to creating things.
The more experienced kids are doing Python — seems like Alice might be a better first step.
She is doing a Java class as well, which is more what I think of when I think of programming. She is supposed to learn how to create a Tetris-like game by the end of the week!
Posted on November 18th, 2009 at 9:53 pmMy oldest (10) is currently taking a co-op class in Alice and loving it. It does seem to fit well with her love of making up stories. It is an easy learning curve — the kids seem to go right to creating things.
The more experienced kids are doing Python — seems like Alice might be a better first step.
She is doing a Java class as well, which is more what I think of when I think of programming. She is supposed to learn how to create a Tetris-like game by the end of the week!
Posted on November 18th, 2009 at 9:53 pm