Book Review: The Mozart Season

The Mozart Season Virginia Euwer Wolff
"For every season..." takes on new meaning to 12 year old Allegra Shapiro when she is given the opportunity as the youngest player to compete in a violin competition.

While Allegra practices, she tries to "draw near to Mozart" or find her own voice for the music.

Woven around the music, Allegra meets and interacts with various people: a man seeking his missing music, a family friend who grieves the loss of a child, other musicians, and past family members. From the comfort of her stable family, she confronts many new life lessons. Her father asks at one point, "Is everything a matter of life and death?" For people we love, it just may be.

As Allegra works hard to master her piece and prepare for the fierce competition, she grows and matures as she carefully views and seeks to understand her world. At times she feels there is too much to try to understand, that the world is too big, and ultimately she determines what is truly important and what to focus on. A marvelous coming-of-age story.

Allegra enjoys family and friends who genuinely care for one another. She experiences stability even as she meets broken people; she learns empathy. A refreshing story with love spread between family, friends and teachers. Beautifully written, with multiple layers. A book to re-read and enjoy. Wonderful for middle school on up.

Three Educational Helps

Yesterday, I uncovered three interesting resources referenced in Inc. magazine homeschoolers and other students could enjoy.

For the elementary through middle school crowd (though adults would certainly enjoy many of the projects, too!), visit www.howtoons.com, “The world’s greatest DIY [do-it-yourself] comic website” featuring “tools of mass construction.” Humorous cartoons encourage kids to make all kinds of things—from ice cream to zoetropes, bird feeders to safety goggles—from things you can find around your house (paper plates, soda bottles, paper, pens, etc.). Created by Saul Griffith, an out-of-the-box thinking entrepreneur (for example, he built a super high-flying kite to create enough energy to power five homes), Howtoons is meant to raise up students who look at their world creatively and learn to innovate. I found many of the projects both doable and interesting.

For high schoolers, check out www.INeedAPencil.com, a free online SAT preparation site. Students sign on and choose from more than 60 practice lessons in math, reading, and writing. Be aware, the author includes pop-culture and sports references to enliven the material. According to the Inc. magazine blurb, users achieved "an average improvement of 202 points on their SAT scores." When I signed up, the system recommended a possible college for me to attend. I chose "no thanks" as a reply and moved directly to the SAT questions.

For the college set, see www.CollegeFitness.com. According to Inc., this free social networking site includes "workout videos, diet planners, a weight-loss tracker" and more. Since I'm not part of the college crowd, I did not sign up for access to this site. But, if you're hoping to avoid—or, if you're too late, to drop—the "Freshman 15," you could find help here.

Enjoy!

Book Review: Dear Zoo

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell is a darling lift-the-flap board book for small children. It keeps them engaged day after day.

After writing the zoo for a pet, the narrator sadly finds that the zoo has missed the mark with animals it deems appropriate. Transportation packaging hides each animal and the child must lift flaps to discover them.

It is a fun way to teach your child different animals, their sounds, or in the case of the camel, it's personality "spit, spit", while giving them the opportunity to be active with their little hands.

Cute illustrations, comfortable size for small fingers, and different angles on the flaps make the layout and design of this book easy-to-use. I highly recommend it for children from 7-24 months.

Why Read? Part 2

Books help us understand our world.

The other evening we watched a movie about the first college all-black basketball team and the prejudices the team members faced from both the community and other players. One poignant scene shows their hotel room trashed, with red paint smeared on the walls, floors, and their ripped and torn clothing.

After the film, our son-in-law asked (with skepticism in his voice) if that type of thing really happened.

Our daughter jumped in and stated emphatically that not only that but much worse. And, she drew her understanding of the world in the 1950's from powerful stories we had read together back when she was homeschooled. In Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, we "lived with" a family that experienced prejudice first hand. We experienced the gut-wrenching injustice of hate-filled prejudice and walked in the shoes of others.

Our daughter asked her hubby if he had studied race relations in school. At first he said, "No," but then said, "Oh yeah, we read about it in a textbook." Although he had read about the fact that racial evil and tension occurred, it made no impression on him within his person. It struck me: He could have benefited from reading powerful stories to truly understand and grasp that reality.

So. Why read good books to and with your children? Because it can produce compassion and understanding in their hearts.

Up A Road Slowly: Book Review

People often ask me for additional books to read. While I love reading, I find writing reviews more challenging. (In fact, while in grade school, I sometimes took an incomplete in book report assignments--not because I hadn't read the book (I always had!) but because I could figure out how to write an interesting review.)

But, I desire to encourage people to read great books. I hope to post a book review each Wednesday. I plan to only review books I would give a four- or five-star rating.

Up A Road Slowly by Irene Hunt

This heartwarming book is for women: young, old and in-between. A coming of age story about a young girl who is sent to live with her spinster aunt, the book covers a decade of time, and follows the interweaving of lives as seen through Julie's eyes.

The story pulls you in to think, to remember, to smile or agonize (in a good way) if you are young and still looking for all Julie finds. If you read it when you are young, you can empathize with Julie's emotions, her pains, feelings of injustice, uncertainty and longing. If you read it (again) when you are older, your own memories of the same times will be brought to mind.

At one point Julie tells her uncle, "But nothing's ever happened to me. ... How can a person who has lived as quiet a life as I have find anything to write about?" This powerful idea comes through the book beautifully; it covers "just" life. It may be quiet, but there are the joys and pains that we all experience.

Irene Hunt has a wonderful way with words; the story flows out, and reflects how we live.

None of the characters are perfect. They are real, which is why it is so easy to place yourself in their midst. It deals with many of the trials that we experience when we grow up, deals with them well, and realistically. I have read this book multiple times, and look forward to reading it again and again.

Why Read Books? Part 1 -- Books are renewable entertainment.

While I can list on one hand movies I've watched more than one time, I am unable to count the number of books I have read more than once. As a child I re-read the Narnia series twice a year for many years. Each time I gleaned new insight, re-met old friends, and reveled in a familiar story line.

My daughter, another book lover, expressed it well, I think:

It's like visiting old friends, people whose lives I've gotten to look in on. You check to make sure their happiness is truly as good as you remember.

Also, with all the garbage out there, it is great to know those few good lines from the book--something about the beauty of the written word that draws you back. I remember loving this one part . . . Oh! Getting there again is fabulous!

Some stories are just so fun it's good to laugh at the jokes again. It makes me happy just to read the humor. (I'm thinking, for humor, about the Gerald Morris books. For some reason they are so droll I just laugh again and again. “Good morrow, Knight.” “Oh. Is it morrow already? I wasn't done with yesterd” [sic].

Others just move me so much that I love having that passion stirred again, like, “The happy quote on the note she wrote said, ‘I am Dickory Dock’ (from The Tattooed Potato). I would read that whole book to get to that line, because it makes me tear up every time.

Sometimes for my "romance" books, I just need a little reminder of what it feels like to find "home" with someone, like Kit's dream about sailing with Nat in The Witch of Blackbird Pond, or how to build the room every day even if an actual structure never gets built--like in Golden.

Personally, I define a good book as, "a book I want to read more than once."

I find great pleasure in re-reading a familiar story. It serves as "comfort food" for the soul. I don't have to wonder about the ending, I get to re-enjoy favorite scenes, and the story feels as comfortable as a well-worn pair of jeans.

So, take a break and re-read a story you remember with fondness. A good book satisfies. Twice. At least.

Apple Cider--A Warm Winter Treat!

Need something warm as you cuddle up with your favorites books? Try this recipe for hot apple cider!

Ingredients:
6 cups apple cider, 1/4 cup real maple syrup, 2 cinnamon sticks, 6 whole cloves, 6 whole allspice berries, 1 orange peel, cut into strips, 1 lemon peel, cut into strips

Directions
1. Pour the apple cider and maple syrup into a large stainless steel saucepan.

2. Place the cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice berries, orange peel and lemon peel in the center of a washed square of cheesecloth; fold up the sides of the cheesecloth to enclose the bundle, then tie it up with a length of kitchen string. Drop the spice bundle into the cider mixture.

3. Place the saucepan over moderate heat for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the cider is very hot but not boiling.

4. Remove the cider from the heat. Discard the spice bundle. Ladle the cider into big cups or mugs. Add a fresh cinnamon stick to each serving if desired.