Pedro Páramo

El Arbolito, by Josephine Sacabo

Surreal and beautifully written, this is one of the strangest and most fascinating stories I’ve read. It took a while to realize that almost everyone in Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo, was dead. The dead talk to each other and to the living, constantly. Three different narrators and storylines interweave. You float in and out of reality and surreality as you read, and I found that if I simply gave myself over to the book and the language, and allowed the experience to happen, reading this book was beautiful, lyrical, amazing!

The photograph above, by Josephine Sacabo, was part of a series of photographs inspired by Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo. Her collection, called “The Unreachable World of Susana San Juan: Homage to Juan Rulfo,” is beautiful and haunting, and, for me, adds another dimension to my experience of the book.

I read this book for J.T.’s November Novella Challenge!

Discovering Marc Chagall

I knew very little about Marc Chagall, although I could recognize his paintings by their very distinctive style, until my last visit to the library where I was happy to find the little book, Marc Chagall, Painter of Dreams, by Natalie S. Bober (a favorite author of mine).  He lived quite a life, this painter of dreams. He was born in Russia in 1887, and knew at a very young age that he wanted to be an artist.  He left his beloved homeland as a young adult to study and paint in St. Petersburg and then in Paris, returning to his village, Vitebsk, to marry the love of his life, Bella.

He was a deeply spiritual and religious man. From the Norton Art Museum web site:

He was raised as a Hassidic Jew, a sect which lays emphasis on dreams, holidays and joy. Chagall’s often joyous and humorous paintings frequently feature elements of Vitebsk’s skyline, folk rituals, occupations, pastimes, music and art. In combining classic Hassidic and folkloristic motifs with twentieth-century innovations, Chagall had the power of appealing to all people.

He lived a full life, which was both joyous and also full of hardship and tragedy. Many of his great paintings were lost or destroyed during World War II, but he continued creating art, in his later years expanding into beautiful painted ceramics, gorgeous stained glass, and brilliant set and costume design. He lived to be 97 years old.

Chagall’s paintings and other works are full of color, especially the color blue. His stained glass is particularly beautiful, and Bober stated that he used “stained glass to express his religious belief that light and color come from within.”  When Chagall was asked why the color blue was so prominent in his work, he answered, “Why blue? Because I am blue, just as Rembrandt was brown.”

This is another book I have read and thoroughly enjoyed for Sarah’s Art History Reading Challenge.

Natalie Bober

Natalie S. Bober has written some of my favorite biographies. My Mom and I both love her biographies of Abigail Adams and of Thomas Jefferson. At the library recently, I found her biography, Marc Chagall, Painter of Dreams, and as I read it, I looked up photographs of the works mentioned in the book. What a lovely way to get to know this great artist!

Natalie Bober on writing biographies:

Great people inspire others to find the greatness within themselves. It is for this reason that I write biographies. There is an urgent need today for role models relevant to the teenage reader. By sharing fine examples of heroes and heroines they might wish to emulate, biographers can provide for those young readers uncertain of their place in society a beacon of light, an anchor in a rough sea. They can dramatize for them the possibilities for human choice, and help them to better understand their own lives. Young people must be helped to recognize that people the world over are basically the same. Indeed, the greatness of our subjects is brought home to our readers when they feel them to be more human — more like themselves. Regardless of time or place, people’s needs, desires, and emotions are alike. We must help our readers to see the universals implicit in all lives: that all great people were once young, with the same fears, doubts, and concerns that young people have today. They achieved. But they achieved by faith in themselves, persistence, and hard work.

A New Challenge

 

photo from marcandangel.com

2009 has been my year for reading challenges. There were just so many that sounded fun and interesting, so at one point I decided to just go for it and sign up for each one that called to me. Amazingly, I have managed to complete many of them, and am close to finishing others. And there are still a few that have been calling to me, so I’ve actually signed up for a couple more to complete before the end of the year.

The newest challenge that has called to me is JT Oldfield’s (Bibliofreak) November Novella Challenge. It’s a great idea, and I already have a good collection of novellas sitting on my shelf, so despite the fact that I have report cards to do, parent conferences to manage, and Thanksgiving coming up, I’m going to participate! I figure my reading will keep me sane!

For this challenge, there are 4 levels of participation:

Level I: Read one (just one!) novella by November 30, 2009

Level II: Read four novellas (one each week, mayhaps?) by November 30, 2009

Level III: Read eight novellas (two a week?) by November 30, 2009

Level IV: AKA, the As Many As You Freakin’ Can level: Read as many novellas as you freakin’ can by November 30, 2009

I’m signing up for Level I, but I’m hoping to read more. Here’s a list of the ones I found on my shelf:

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, by Carson McCullers

Pedro Paramo, by Juan Rulfo

My Mortal Enemy, by Willa Cather

Lesley Castle, by Jane Austen

Night, by Elie Wiesel

Excellent Women, by Barbara Pym

 

THANKS for hosting, JT!

 

The Crime at Black Dudley

Honestly?… I chose this book by it’s cover. This nice-looking cover caught my eye in the bookstore, and when I pulled it off the shelf to look at it more closely, I loved the feel of the book. So I bought it and thoroughly enjoyed holding it the entire time I was reading it.

The Crime at Black Dudley was a pleasurable read all the way around because it turned out to be a fun mystery complete with an English country manor, murder in the dark, secret passageways, a completely evil bad guy, and lots of mystery fun. It was a fun introduction to Margery Allingham’s mystery series, and an equally fun introduction to her character/detective Albert Campion.

The company that published this wonderful-feeling book is Felony & Mayhem Press. Next time you are in the bookstore, see if you can find one of their books, and treat yourself to the pleasure of holding it and leafing through the pages. I know I’m not the only person that appreciates the feel of a well-bound book!

This book is my final read for Carl V’s R.I.P.4 challenge. As always, it was a wonderful challenge experience.  My only regret is that I had such a busy beginning to my school year that I didn’t have time to read as much as I wanted to … but I look forward to next year’s Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge!  Thanks again for hosting another great challenge, Carl!

Books completed for this challenge:

1. Summer of the Big Bachi, by Naomi Hirahara
2. The Crime at Black Dudley, by Margery Allingham

Matilda Bone

This fall, just a few days before school was to begin, a young friend was hired on at a neighboring school as a brand new 6th grade teacher.  My heart went out to her, knowing what challenges she would meet this year, how much she would have to learn in a very short time, and how many books and materials she would need to help teach the complex curriculum of that grade level.  So I gave her my 6th grade class library, which had been in storage boxes (11 of them) since I left the 6th grade so suddenly three years ago. She is using them well, and I’m happy because I wouldn’t been able to part with those books to anyone less worthy, to paraphrase Donald Sutherland playing Mr. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice.

Even though I love teaching second grade now, I often find myself missing favorite units and favorite books from my 6th grade years.  Matilda Bone, by Karen Cushman, was a book that many of my students read during and after our Middle Ages unit, and it was one book I kept instead of giving away because I had read Cushman’s other historical novels — The Midwife’s Apprentice, and Catherine, Called Birdy — but hadn’t read Matilda Bone yet.

And I particularly enjoyed this story of a 14-year old orphan girl, who had been cared for at the manor after her father’s death, and educated by the priest, Father Leufradus. She could read and write in Latin, something very unusual for the time, but she knew more about religion than about life, and more about saints than people. When she was sent to help the local bonesetter, Red Peg, her true education and growing up began.

From Scholastic:

Newbery medalist Karen Cushman assembles a cast of unforgettable characters in a fascinating and pungent setting: the medical quarter of a medieval English village. To Blood and Bone Alley, home of leech, barber-surgeon, and apothecary, comes Matilda, raised by a priest to be pious and learned, and now destined to assist Red Peg the Bonesetter. To Matilda’s dismay, her work will not involve Latin or writing, but lighting the fire, going to market, mixing plasters and poultices, and helping Peg treat patients. Matilda is appalled by the worldliness of her new surroundings and yearns for the days at the manor when all she did was study and pray. Lonely and misunderstood, she seems destined for a fate as tragic as that of any of the sharp-tongued saints she turns to for advice.

I loved that the people surrounding Matilda in this story treated her with such patience and kindness as she learned to be less pious and judgmental.  I was also very interested in the medical aspect of the book — Cushman did a tremendous amount of research in preparation for writing it.   It was an enjoyable read, and I’m glad I finally read it.

Other terrific reads about Medieval times from my old 6th grade library:

Crispin and the Cross of Lead, by Avi

The Ramsey Scallop, by Frances Temple

A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, by E. L. Konigsburg

The Squire’s Tale, by Gerald Morris

Autumn Memories

Photo by David Jolley

Fond Autumn memories:  Sunday morning walks with my Dad and my brothers, and Fall afternoon drives “around the loop.“

Photo by my dad