An article in the New York Timessuggests that sales of picture books for children are slumping because today’s overeager parents push their children to read chapter books instead.
Perhaps. But I’m in agreement with many of the article’s commenters, who say that picture books have simply gotten too expensive, especially given the current state of the economy. Many say they prefer to buy picture books at garage sales or check them out at the public library.
A commenter who’s a librarian notes that she checked the circulation stats of her library’s picture books and discovered a 10% increase in check-out rates over the past year. That would seem to indicate that the commenters are on the right track and perhaps the writer of the article was blowing the issue out of proportion.
That said, you can go in any bookstore and see all sorts of books that are quite beautiful, but whose plot lines are lame, if they have plots at all. My kids’ favorite books usually had strong plots, ones that they anticipated every time we read aloud together.
What do you think? Are parents pushing their kids into chapter books, or is it just that picture books cost too much?
The next time you buy a picture book for your small children, or for a young relative or a friend, would you consider buying Where’s Chimpy?
It’s the story of a little girl named Misty who can’t find her favorite toy, a stuffed monkey. It’s bedtime but she can’t go to sleep without him. So she and her dad retrace her steps and find an assortment of other treasures she misplaced that day before they finally find Chimpy.
I know this doesn’t sound like an unusually spectacular book, but here’s the thing: Misty has Down syndrome. She’s the main character of the story, and she’s in every photo in the book.
So little children who read this book (or have it read to them) will hopefully see Misty as a little girl, not someone with a disability. You know how little ones like to have books read to them over and over? Maybe after reading Where’s Chimpy? enough times, young children won’t think twice about Misty being any different from them.
And maybe, as they get older, instead of staring at other children with Down syndrome, they’ll smile at them, or maybe not even notice anything different about them. That would be cool….and a nice change.
BTW, we have a well-used paperback copy of Where’s Chimpy?, but I also have my own hardcover copy of this book because I like it so much.
Heard about all the great free and bargain-priced eBooks available on Amazon Kindle, but don’t have a Kindle? No worries: you can download Kindle for your PC for free. Here are step-by-step instructions (illustrated for us non-techies!) that will have you collecting eBooks in no time.
I can’t help it: I’m a date geek. I have all sorts of dates parked in my head of things that have happened in my life, both big things and little things. And sometimes I make mention of these things on the appropriate days. (My family thinks I’m nuts.)
The next change I made really drove up my productivity. It all started a few months ago when I saw a job ad for an editor in the corporate office of a well-known business, an office that just happens to be 10 minutes from here. I had all the requirements, including a journalism degree, but the job only paid $10-12 an hour. I debated about the job, but not for long because it was quickly snapped up. (Shows how bad the economy is!) But I got to thinking about it and realized that if I devoted regular hours to my writing, I could earn more than that and wouldn’t have to leave home or buy new clothes.
So I began having regular business hours for my writing. Each weekday I’m holed up in the office (doors closed) writing from 1-5 pm, with a brief break at 3 for a cup of tea. (While I’m in here, my husband is with our son, who cannot be left unattended.) During these hours, I do not check email. In fact, I don’t go online at all unless I’m fact-checking something. I don’t do any business-related work either. Nor do I run down to the basement and start a load of wash, or quickly make something and throw it in the oven for dinner. All I do is think and write and think some more and write some more.
And it’s working! It’s amazing how much writing I’m getting done during these 20 hours per week. It hasn’t been easy, though. After the thrill wore off, there were several times when I faced an enormous temptation to just jump online to surf for a few minutes’ break, but I didn’t give in.
Then that passed, and I found it was real work to just stay with one topic for four hours. My attention span had disintegrated to the point that four hours on one subject was torture. I remember being in college and getting a precious “stacks pass,” which meant I could roam about the stacks of the enormous U of I library, reading anything I wanted. I spent hours there, sometimes having to be kicked out because they were closing. I sure had an attention span back then, reading books straight through. Now I couldn’t even concentrate on one project for four measly hours.
But I kept at it, and I’m slowly getting over that hurdle. Now the four hours passes in no time (most days, anyway), and it’s much easier to stay on track. I’m finishing up a book about preparing our kids for the new economy, as well as a Bible study I designed for my daughter when she was a young teen. I’m working on one book four days a week, and the other one day a week. We hope to have both of them out this year. But I don’t think either of them would be in the works if I hadn’t started having office hours.
Here’s a question for the veteran homeschool moms who pop by this blog now and then: Have you had trouble concentrating too? Or is it just me?
I used to think that once the kids were grown I’d be the queen of productivity, cranking out quilts and books left and right once I didn’t have little people who needed me 24/7. But I was wrong.
I’m behind on everything. Our two kids at home still need me, though not the way they once did. Having to move twice in two years also messed with my concentration. For a while I spent more time on realtor websites (first trying to sell our house, then trying to find somewhere to go) than working on my own. I’m still homeschooling one child, and people still need to eat, so I don’t have as much free time as I thought I would.
Ultimately, though, the problem is me. I think all the years of living with kids every day (i.e. constant interruptions to my train of thought) left me so scattered and easily distracted that I could no longer concentrate.
To make matters worse, I started hanging out on the Internet, which allowed me to look up anything I was curious about….ever. Once I learned about tabs, I soon found myself opening tabs, even while I was reading something else, whenever an idea occurred to me. I learned a lot, but I also trained my brain to skip from thought to thought like a hummingbird visiting flowers. I think the Internet made my attention span shorter.
It became clear to me that I’d have to make some changes if I was going to be more productive. Having spent almost my entire adult life homeschooling, I do have some information to share with other homeschooling parents, and I’d like to get it out there before I forget it! I’d have to find some ways to become more productive before it was too late.
The first thing I did was to give up the Internet on Sundays. While I had not worked on Sundays because of it being the day of rest, I still surfed, read and wrote email, and basically goofed off. But I decided that I spent enough time online during the week, so I gave it up cold turkey on Sundays. I’m happy to report that not only have I survived the shock of this, but I now do other things on Sunday, things I used to do, like taking a nap, reading for fun, hanging with the family and watching old movies.
The last day of 2009…..wow, where did the year go?
When 2009 began, I had no idea that we’d be living where we are right now. We knew we’d probably be moving in August, but didn’t know where. And right up until the week we moved, nothing was definite. In my youth, I wouldn’t have been able to take such uncertainty. But God’s grace does what we can’t do.
How about you? Was it a good year for you? Or are you eagerly awaiting 2010, hoping things will improve?
I look forward to 2010. We have some big plans for Cardamom Publishers, starting with a great sale (stay tuned) to celebrate the beginning of a new year. God willing, we’ll also publish a few new titles for homeschoolers in 2010 (again, stay tuned!) And of course we’ll keep plugging away at homeschooling our youngest son (yes, both Mom and Dad are homeschooling now!)
In the meantime, I want to share with you a lovely storyabout a self-described “ordinary girl” who has lived 102 years, so far. I especially appreciate how she begins each day:
“Each day I get up in the morning and say Lord, tell me what you want me to do and whatever comes to me, I do.”
An amazing story of a Christian woman, and in the Chicago Tribune, of all places. Enjoy!
Just had to share this cool new book with you! I’ve been sewing since I was a kid, so I don’t need a basic how-to-sew book. But the projects in this book, as easy as can be, are also so cute that I just couldn’t resist.
The book is called Pat Sloan’s I Can’t Believe I’m Sewing! It’s designed for people who’ve always wanted to learn to sew, but don’t know where to start. Unlike many sewing how-to books, this one includes ideas for finding a good used sewing machine, and inexpensive sources of fabric beyond what you can find at the store. Perfect for people trying to save some money, and aren’t we all these days?
The projects are easy and useful; the author features great new fabrics for an up-to-the-minute look. The table runner project is quick, easy, and a great way to highlight a few favorite fabrics. The scarf project is adorable, and the shower curtain is amazingly easy but will definitely perk up your bathroom.
As far as I’m concerned, no sewing book is complete without at least one quilt in it. This book has a couple of quilt patterns (very easy ones) plus pillows and pillowcases, so you can coordinate fabrics and make a matching set. Great simple gift ideas!
This book would also work well as the basis for a homeschool sewing course. My dd18 already knows how to sew, but couldn’t help picking up this book when she saw it on the table. She loved the projects in it!
Our recent move put me way behind on responding to comments at this blog and making comments at yours.
Now that we’re back on an even keel again around here, I’d love to say that I’ll do a better job of keeping up with the blogosphere. However, I need to buckle down and finish a couple of books I’ve written.
So, while I’ll still peek in on you when I can, I’ve got to stop commenting and answering comments for a while. Know that I’m still thinking of you as I chain myself to this keyboard and get some actual work done.
I hope to keep posting here once a week or so, but working on the books will come first. God willing, my newsletterwill still come out each month.
Missing you already,
Barb
PS Prayer requests automatically rise to the top of the list, so if you express that need at your blog, know that I’m praying for you
Last week I wrote about indoctrination in the public schools. Here’s another example, but one from the past: a man shares a vivid exampleof how the public school personnel of 40 years ago “coerced me into sharing private family information — that my father smoked — in order to serve the agenda of the state.”
Were any of your children so eager to enter the world that they couldn’t wait until you made it to the hospital?
My cousin Candice (a homeschool mom, btw) has four daughters. Her youngest, Ania, arrived while Candice and her husband were en route to the hospital. Ania was born in their car on the side of the highway while cars raced by in the next lane.
Candice and her husband are journalists who documented their big event with photos and Candice’s recent post in the Boston Globe, “Do’s and Don’ts of a Highway Birth.” And Ania is now a healthy two-year-old.
I call this photo “Optimism.” You see, I haven’t made a quilt in a few years, but a friend of mine just became a grandma, and I want to make a baby quilt for her adorable new granddaughter.
So I picked out the fabrics one week, pre-washed and pressed them the next, and was supposed to start sewing this week.
Ahem. Here they are, still awaiting the rotary cutter.
I’m hoping to start sewing very soon. The fact that we’re moving 4-6 weeks from now looms large in my brain. I need to start packing. But I really want to make this quilt! So we’ll see…..
Picking out the fabric was something of an experience, btw. I wanted to buy new fabric because I figured the fabrics from my stash probably look too dated for a modern baby quilt. Most of them are 10-20 years old, and I even have some stuff from the 70s. All of my stash is good fabric, tightly woven with colors that are still beautiful. Most likely, all of my fabric stash was made here in the USA.
Several years ago, I read that most of the fabric sold here in the USA these days is made overseas. Like so many other things, fabric can be produced more cheaply in other countries, so why not? That explains why it took so long for me to find the fabrics I need for this baby quilt. I learned first-hand that cheaply produced fabric is most definitely cheap. I had to reject many fabrics that were not woven tightly, or not printed very well. Even so, a couple of the fabrics I chose because I needed them color-wise are not as high-quality as I would have wished.
Today I learned that there’s a wonderful solution to this problem. One of my favorite quilt supply catalogs, Connecting Threads, has announced that ALL of the fabric they sellnow is woven and printed in the USA from cotton grown in the USA. How cool is that? And the price is still $5.96 a yard….how do they do it? They say they cut out the middleman, and I’m glad they do. Wish I’d known this before I went shopping for baby quilt fabric. I have a feeling that the fabric they’re selling is better quality than the imported stuff.
“First Lady Michelle Obama took a second swipe at David Letterman on Wednesday, calling the CBS “Late Show” host’s jokes about one of her daughters “disgusting” and “sexually perverted.”
In an e-mailed statement, Obama said: “Laughter incited by sexually perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 12-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/N.Y. entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands – that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone’s daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.”
Riffing on Obama’s trip to New York last weekend, Letterman joked Monday night that during the seventh inning of the Yankees game “her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”
Letterman followed up on the line Tuesday night, joking that “the toughest part of her visit was keeping [former New York Gov.] Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.”
“I doubt he’d ever dare make such comments about anyone else’s daughter,” the first lady added in her statement.
She responded to another Letterman line during a radio interview Tuesday, calling him “pathetic” for joking that she made a stop during her trip and “bought makeup at Bloomingdale’s to update her ’slutty flight attendant look.’”
What do you think? Awful, isn’t it? What’s wrong with a man who publicly makes sexual references about the young daughter of a public figure? He should be fired.
Surprisingly, this hasn’t gotten much media coverage. You’d think it would. But maybe it’s because of who it happened to.
You see, David Letterman did do this on network television the past two nights, but not to Michelle Obama. He did itto Sarah Palin.
My dd18 first showed me this video a while back. It was my introduction to Improv Everywhere, a group dedicated to spontaneous public performances and pranks. Check out their sitefor more of their hijinks.
This clever concept now has its imitators, not surprisingly. Here’s a very nicely done public performance in Belgium (you’ll especially enjoy this if you’re a fan of “The Sound of Music”):
