Golden Boy
(click to enlarge)
I shared this on Facebook earlier today, but for my friends who aren’t there (I’m looking at you, Penny), here’s a photo of Huck taken at the Good Vibrations Unschooling Convention last weekend. The photographer is a fellow named Mike Hedge, and he captured all the merriment of the conference in a wonderful series of pictures. He has kindly allowed us to share the photos. This one, I think, is particularly swoony. But perhaps I’m biased?
Other tidbits:
• Dinosaur feathers! Oh my!
• I have returned to Connie Willis’s Blackout, after having set it aside—through happenstance—for several months. Am about a quarter of the way through, and I know it’s imperative to have All Clear at the ready the moment I finish. I adore Willis’s writing. After I reread The Doomsday Book last year I decided it just might be in my top ten—top twenty, at least. But I’ve had to admit to myself that I’m struggling with Blackout. So many characters! All those shifting points of view! Just when I think I’ve got a handle on everyone, along comes someone new. Will my brain be thus taxed the whole way through?
• I’m delighted to find so many people share my fascination with the Quest for the Perfect Vacuum Cleaner!
• I shared this elsewhere, but not here I think: my GeekMom piece about this week’s big homeschooling news: Welcome to the Internet, Growing Without Schooling!
• Did I tell you that Scott got to interview Otis Redding’s wife and daughter for an AARP piece? How cool is that!
sarah says:
We loved seeing the dinosaur feathers! So awesome. When she was little, Lily had a theory that some dinosaurs may have used camoflage techniques. A couple of years later, scientists started saying the same thing. Feathers may have aided this I guess. (But what do I know, I can’t even spell camouflage … camoflague … argh.)
Good luck with Blackout. Personally, I felt my efforts at reading the books were only made worthwhile once I got about halfway through All Clear. Then it started to knit together more strongly and I appreciated what had been happening. But frankly, there was no good reason for it to have been so complicated. I think she risked a really good story with the unnecessary confusions.
But the end of All Clear – oh my. I will always treasure it. Definitely in my top five.
Huck looks like a real life Cupid.
On September 16, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Penny says:
lol Soon my friend, soon. I regret leaving G+. Might I please have another invite?
On September 17, 2011 at 4:53 am
Penny says:
Oh – and very cool about the Scott interview!
I am so thrilled about GWS. Teach Your Own was the first homeschool book I stumbled across. I consider that amazing good fortune. Completely changed my life, and the lives of my daughters. I only wish I had stopped there – – –
Off to look at dino feathers….
On September 17, 2011 at 4:57 am
Melissa Wiley says:
Sarah—thanks for the encouragement—I will persevere with Blackout. 🙂
Penny—GWS was groundshaking for me. Seeing all those families working out a new path, all those kids learning outside school. My own definition of ‘unschooling’ is more in line with Holt’s (as shaped by those many families creating a meaning for the word as they went).
G+ invite has been sent. Yay! Anyone else?
On September 17, 2011 at 5:39 am
Emily D. says:
Oh, Huck is so adorable. He just makes me want to cuddle him. 🙂
On September 17, 2011 at 5:51 am
MelanieB says:
Oh do persevere with Blackout. It is totally worth it. But I do think because of all the complications and the way she interweaves so many characters’ stories– and all the names and the shifting times and the repetitiveness– it is best read all in one go so that you don’t have lots of interruptions and lose the thread of the narrative. It’s one of those books I think that is meant to be saved for a rainy weeks when you can curl up with a book for hours at a time. I think I read it when I was pregnant with Anthony and so didn’t have energy to do more than sit and read and gestate. I had a real Connie Willis kick then and evidently attention for a bunch of long books in a row– unlike this summer when I’ve hardly been able to finish a book. A real low tide sort of time. I’m thinking if you’re in high tide and out and about doing and going then it’s going to be much harder to keep everything straight because you’re only dipping in for short paddles every now and then instead of long dives. Wow that metaphor got really mixed, but I think you know what I mean. I mean Connie Willis is TOTALLY WORTH IT and this is one of her best; but perhaps you might need to hold it for later to really appreciate the book.
On September 17, 2011 at 11:35 am
Ellie says:
Personally, I think with both Black Out and All Clear the thing to do is read through both back to back and then right away start over again. I love her books, but I also think this duo got a bit forced over time with the shifting points of view. Near the end of All Clear, as much as I loved the books and the characters, I was irked by a few … Um … Devises. Which were distracting from the story. For me. Do keep on with it! And then when you’re finished I can explain what the heck I’m referring to! 🙂
Huck looks utterly delicious, as usual. **siiiiiiggggghhhhh**
{{hugs}}
On September 17, 2011 at 12:51 pm
tanita says:
I took a quick whip through those photographs – the guy is quite talented. But what really struck me was how open, absorbed, and joyous all the children look. No stressed little faces, just children in whatever stage, doing their thing. They must have had a ball.
On September 18, 2011 at 12:33 am
sharkbytes says:
Great pic- he’s so concentrated on figuring out whatever it is he’s figuring out!
On September 19, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Jeanne says:
Huck’s mass of golden curls is so much like those of my little boys. Who are 23, 21, and 13. And they do NOT wear their hair like that any more.
Hold on tight!
On September 19, 2011 at 7:17 pm