Tales of Uncle Remus

Most of the time I don't enjoy these stories because, a) they weren't a part of my childhood and, 2) Brer Rabbit just strikes me as downright ornery and mean-spirited. I did like Julius Lester's tellings, and the way he slipped in some modernity (the difference between courtin' then and courtin' now, etc.). Then I thought I'd read a few of the Joel Chandler Harris stories by way of comparison. Just a few. Hmm, I looked at the dialect - maybe one. You wind up reading three or more, though, because he broke up stories like the tar baby one, I reckon to fit a newspaper column. [I actually have a childhood connection with JCH. One of his cousins lived on our street. She'd married a New York stockbroker named Brady. She was a very elegant lady, he was a very quiet gentleman with a very dry wit, and their son Petey (an adult in college when I knew them) a cheerful character who teased me about the plural of "moose." Catherine Brady would want her coffee served very, very hot but then wouldn't actually drink it until it was almost cold. We teased her husband because he seemed so sober and upright. I once took him a sponge sandwich which he had the good grace to try to eat because he could see how crushed I was that he was suspicious of it.]
Something that sort of surprised me was that both Lester and Harris use humorous conflict with their audience. In Lester's case, he is having a dialog with the reader, anticipating objections a child would throw out at him. Harris has Uncle Remus and the boy quibble back and forth. "I thought you said ..." Nebber mind! Oh, the dialect was very hard for me, and I had quickly gotten used to it in Porgy. I wracked my brain to figure out what "bleeds to" was supposed to mean. (I guess it's "pleased to," but seems to carry more connotations that pleasure, like, say, necessity.) Lester's Very Nearly Standard English version was a breeze. The stories were well told and the digressions amusing. I still think Brer Rabbit is unnecessarily mean, but then, I don't have the background where that makes sense. I had to be told what a "nee-grow" was when I was five, just in case I had come across one in kindergarten. Italians were about as exotic as my acquaintances got until we moved to Ohio when I was eight. I knew of Joel Chandler Harris and Uncle Remus only by name and because of Catherine Brady. While I could probably sing "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Da," I had no idea where it came from. My favorite Brer Rabbit story, which is not in this Lester collection, is the one with Brer Possum and the snake under the rock. I told this story at Leath Correctional and everyone in the room could recite the moral with me: Brer Possum, Don't trouble trouble till trouble troubles you!

Update

Please note that I'm sending all further blogs about Second Life to another blogspace. You can find that one under my profile here. Y'all didn't give a (tinker's) dam anyway.
Also, Bob has added a new video. You can click on it at the left where I have a quasi-permanent link to his channel or you can click on the title to this. It's awesome.

SPLASH Luncheon in Columbia

I drove all the way to Columbia listening to Tim Dorsey's Atomic Lobster. Them audiobooks sure make the driving go faster. I barely remember the trip at all except that there seemed to be a lot of cars in my way. Audiobook + cruise control = Little Old Lady from Pasadena. Gracious goodness, there was a parking place right in front of the State Library in the shade! Sure, I had to fill the meter with quarters, but it was right in front and in the shade!!!! For some reason it would not take the maximum amount of quarters and I figured I'd have to hop out towards the end of lunch or during a break and refeed. In the end, I didn't need to. It didn't last quite as long as I thought (or else I got more for my money than I expected) and when I returned to the car, I had two minutes left. I was tempted to sit there for it. Ha ha! Love getting my money's worth!

The program started with a sharing of ideaaaa of programmmm (to be fair, our speaker barely had time to cover her material in the amount of time given). Someone had done a Dora the Explorer themed program and had dressed up like her. Hmmm, sounds like a job for Bren. I was asked by my neighbor if there wasn't a copyright on that character that would be a problem and I opined that as it was PBS, they were probably more lenient than, say, Disney, who will hunt you down and squeeze the life out of you for painting Mickey on the wall of your daycare. Anyway, this program had dancing and exercise as a part of it. The kids were excited as all hell to see Dora. She hadn't realized the popularity of the character. Yes, well, Arthur was just about swamped when he was at our library.

The speaker at the luncheon was Oralia Garza de Cortés who had many recommendations for children's books in Spanish (quite a few of which we have already). She gave us the history of Día de los niños, which started during tenure of the most progressive of the Mexican presidents ... in 1924. I suppose Woodrow Wilson wasn't available to prevent it.

Garza shared with us things she has learned in her experiences with bi-lingual educations. Oh, sorry. We aren't allowed to use that term anymore because it's politically charged. Ahem, her experiences in Early English Learning. That's better. She went to school herself at a time when Spanish was forbidden in school. Hmm, I wonder how that worked in Spanish class. Studies Have Shown (I love that!) that language abilities transfer from one language to another. It is perfectly fine to use your native language in speaking to your young children because they will acquire language abilities along with the specific language. She regrets that the Every Child Ready to Read program does not translate to Spanish. She thinks ALA and PLA should work on that. That's not to say that the materials such as posters have not been translated into Spanish, but the practices used in storytimes are not adapted to the Spanish language and good books to use that are in Spanish or English/Spanish aren't listed.
A quick review of the ECRR practices in my head along with what little I know about Early Spanish Learning yields the following examples. In Spanish, you don't really separate consonants from vowels. Words are broken down by syllables: di -fí -cil. Rhymes in Spanish aren't quite the same as in English. You rhyme the vowel sounds, not the combination of vowel and consonant. Vida and encima rhyme. Besides, Spanish is just sooo much easier and more organized than English. There are actual spelling rules that are in force all the time. The letter "I" will always be pronounced the same way, like our long E. Spanish is almost understandable with 50% of the consonants missing: ¿’Omo e’tá u’té? Whereas in English, we can throw out most of the vowels: Djeet? Whadjeet? I had a German teacher who waved her hand airily and said that all you had to do was substitute some slightly different vowels to go from German to English and back. It doesn't quite work that easily, but every now and then I see what she meant. The point I'm making is that you're listening for different things in these languages. Translating ECRR into Spanish would require a whole separate system. Maybe they can just swipe something from Spanish education.
Garza adds that is it not just the home language that needs to be taken into account, but the cultural background and she directed us to the NAEYC statement which goes pretty much as follows:

The acquisition of language is essential to children’s cognitive
and social development. Regardless of what language
children speak, they still develop and learn. Educators recognize
that linguistically and culturally diverse children come to early
childhood programs with previously acquired knowledge and
learning based upon the language used in their home. For
young children, the language of the home is the language they
have used since birth, the language they use to make and
establish meaningful communicative relationships, and the
language they use to begin to construct their knowledge and test
their learning. The home language is tied to children’s culture,
and culture and language communicate traditions, values, and
attitudes (Chang 1993). Parents should be encouraged to use
and develop children’s home language; early childhood educators
should respect children’s linguistic and cultural backgrounds
and their diverse learning styles. In so doing, adults will enhance
children’s learning and development.
...
Each child’s way of learning a new language should be
viewed as acceptable, logical, and part of the ongoing
development and learning of any new language.
Responding to Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Recommendations for Effective Early Childhood Education A position statement of the National Association for the Education of Young Children Adopted November 1995

Or something like that.

She suggested that we provide brochures on the Rights of Immigrants (because they do have them, no really) as well as information on financial literacy. The Bank of America no longer requires a driver's license to open an account. Something like that would be helpful for guests in our country to know.

She provided lists of books for "noches de cuentos" (evening storytimes), suggested "ferias del libros" (book fairs) and pointed out that a parent literacy workshop has to be café con cuentos and that the café part is essential. None of this filthy iced tea. (Hough!)

Interesting point: Because she knows Yuyi Morales, author of Just a Minute! that we used recently in our puppet show for Día de los niños, she was able to ask her where the idea for Grandma Beetle came from. I mean, why Beetle? Apparently, in Xalapa, where Morales is from, there is this large, dark beetle she wanted to commemorate. Silly me, I thought she was a ladybug and when I tried to translate the story a couple of years ago, I called her Mariquita.
And I'll end with a quote from Gabriela Mistral (not the one about "Cuando una espina me hiere ..." that I usually go on about) she shared with us:
"Many things can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are formed, his mind developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is Today."

Notable books:
Family Pictures by Carmen Lomas Garza
Nochecita by Yuyi Morales
From Here to There by Margery Buyler
Cri Cri by Francisco Gabilondo Soler
The Pot that Juan Built by Nancy Andrews-Goebel

The Lovely Teen

Pat Feehan came to do a program for our Staff Education Day on Services to Teens. Love Pat! She alluded to a book by Margaret E. Edwards, The Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts. Teens are terrible, aren't they? Actually, I don't see enough of them in my dept. to say so. Having taught teenagers, though, I know they can be stroppy, but I understand that they are just trying to develop their own personalities separate from their parents. They want instant gratification, they make terrible judgment calls (that part of their brain won't be fully developed until after their early 20s), they react immediately and irrationally to an external stimulus ... but who doesn't?

More from Pat channeling Margaret E. Edwards:
Teens by age groups:
Ages 11-13, the "me bubble"
These teens are increasingly concerned about their appearance. Anyone remember those Villager clothes from the 60s? Bass Weejuns? (Note: Met Catherine Bass back when she retired to Hilton Head - nice lady.) They seek independence from the family, but they're too young to drive a car. Will need parking places for bikes, scooters, and skateboards ... plus signage forbidding use of same in the parking lot. They display rebellious or defiant behavior - which they're just trying on for size. In 25 years they'll be doing the exact same thing as their parents. The importance of friends increases, the use of same as a support system and for literature recommendations. So don't think they'll take the word of a 50+er on what makes a good book. Their ego dominates their view of all issues (like, whose doesn't?).
We need to exercise our empathy - remembering ourselves as teens. ... AGGGHHH!

Ages 14 - 16, Middle-Aged Teens
By this time they start to become slightly less self-absorbed. They'll have a driver's license and maybe even a job. They'll want to make decisions on their own (but, again, they don't have that crucial part of the brain fully developed so they'll think joining the armed forces or having a dozen children would be a good idea). They experiment with their self-image. Time for safety-pins poked through every part of the body and lots and lots of black so they'll look "different" from everyone else. They will take risks and see out "adventure." In the old days, they probably were just becoming sexually aware, but this seems to happen earlier and earlier these days (unlike the pre-industrial era - ha!). They are developing their sense of values/morality and are at their most malleable. Mwah-ha-haaaaaa! I remember the lovely manipulating job I did on my students at that age. If nothing else, they left my class with an ability to place "Set" (reg. tm.) and a suspicion that there is a conspiracy against the theory that there was one original language. Gawd, I love kids!

Ages 17 - 18
These kids allegedly view the world idealistically and become involved in the world outside of school or home. Time to make those picket signs and join the college students at the sit-in! Can't be left out! Their relationships stabilize. They see adults as equals (HA!). They seek to firmly establish their independence.

So, now we have to keep up with pop culture (just when I'd hoped I put that behind me) so we'll know what they'll be interested in. And the books they are interested in are the ones most likely to be challenged: violence, sex, drugs. Wow! All the stuff I generally try to avoid in my reading.
But they like boundaries. Otherwise there's nothing to push against. You can't rebel if there is nothing to rebel against.

Ideas for a Teen Area:
First of all, call it Teen because they hate Young Adult.
What does your area look like when you walk in? Is there a display of topical teen subjects (sex, drugs, STDs) so they don't have to embarrass themselves asking about it. "I'm, uhhh, doing a paper, yeah- that's it- on ... Gonorrhea ... and I need a book on the symptoms."
Programs: Ask them what they want. Set up a Teen Advisory Board (we used to have one, but I think the members grew out of it). Are you interested in [insert topic here]? Let's develop a program on it! (To help narrow it down.)
Have a game/internet treasure hunt with prizes.
Teen pick books for reading clubs and pick the films for movie nights.
Bring in speakers on colleges/careers/internships ... but let the teens decide, yadda-yaddah.

Pat teases us with PIE: Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation
Planning takes a long time. How does it fit in with your mission statement? What are your goals and objectives?
Implementation: don't just talk about it! Get off your butt! Start with manageable pieces.
Evaluation: It may take two years to get people in. Lots of times you won't make your goals. Don't give up. What's working? What isn't? Are you really doing what kids want? Keep slogging away. And remember that your community changes over time. What worked the past three years probably won't work the fourth.

The Golden Age of Teen Literature
There's a lot of cross-over from adult to teen and back. I know a lot of adults reading teen fiction because they love it. I love Terry Pratchett's Tiffany books. They don't seem much different from his adult Discworld stories, except they operate from a young girl's point of view. His series for boys, though ... phew! A bit basic! Or maybe they're aimed at even younger kids. Dunno. Anyway ... these books are frequently challenged because they contain truths teens can relate to. But adults find them too depressing or feel that the adults in these stories don't have enough authority. The identification of the reader with the protagonist is key.
Keep lists of teen series at the desk (like the Gregor the Overlander stories). Check good authors' websites for more goodies.
Tips on Booktalking:
Read everything about the author in reviews and the blurbs. Find a plot point or a unifying theme (what Pat calls a Hot Wire) to link with other books.

I've already started with my reading, some of which is reviewed in previous blogs.

All of this will become more important in the new library where there will finally be room for separate teen activities and materials. Right now they are crammed into the adult reading area, jerrymandering around Genealogy.