Pick of the Week: Lola Plants a Garden

Given the season, I've been on the look-out for books about planting and being outdoors.  I stumbled across Lola Plants a Garden on the Mighty Girl website.  In this beautifully illustrated book, Lola reads the poem "Mary Mary Quite Contrary" and decides that she wants to grow her own garden.  With the help of her mother, she learns about plants, picks out the seeds, plants her garden, waits for her garden to grow, and then invites her friends over to enjoy the fruits of her labors.  A perfect book for inspiring young ones to plant their own gardens.

I am also always on the look-out for books that feature characters of color, especially when the topic of the book has nothing to do with the race of the character.  The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is often cited as a particular example of this. The more my children can see people who don't look like them doing exactly the same things they enjoy doing, the better.

Lola is adorable and I was very happy to learn today that she has a series of books including:

• Lola at the Library
• Lola Loves Stories
• Lola Reads to Leo

We'll be checking those out very soon!

Helping Empower My Daughters: Red Knit Cap Girl!

Given my strong feminist ideals, it may shock many people to know that I do not discourage my two-year-old daughters from their interest in dolls and princesses.  I make an effort to have other options available to them - and they love legos and puzzles, running around outside and all kinds of art - but I'm more fine than I thought I would be with having them choose to wear pink and purple and get excited over dressing and taking care of their baby dolls.  For any parent who is worried about their children in this area, I highly recommend Peggy Orenstein's book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter in which the author explores everything from the Disney Princesses to Toddlers and Tiaras in an effort to find out how much these messages are damaging our daughters, and how much, perhaps, our girls actually need them to grow into the empowered free-thinkers we all want them to become.  

My general belief is that no matter what, my girls are going to be exposed to media images of women and girls that aren't quite what I wish they would be.  And there are going to be aspects of these characters that my girls find fun or intriguing or dangerous or exciting.  All of that is part of growing up and experimenting.  But, to counter-balance all these models of behavior, I try to be a good role model and I know they are surrounded by so many inspiring women - from their grandmothers to their teachers to so many of my friends.  I am also
always on the look out for books and other media that feature empowering female characters - ones who go on adventures, save themselves, build, create, treat other girls well, and do more than simply wait around for Prince Charming.  To this end, I have relied heavily on the website A Mighty Girl, which bills itself as "The world's largest collection of books, toys and movies for smart, confident, and courageous girls."  I have found endless suggestions for books on this site - not just for my girls, but also for my son -as I see nothing wrong with also presenting him with books featuring strong independent and creative girls.  I also cull through countless reviews and other blogs and websites looking for the latest recommendations in children's literature on this front (and others).

Recently, we came across a girl character who definitely fits the strong independent bill.  Her name is Red Knit Cap Girl.  Some may argue that the fact that she is named after a piece of her clothing is already objectifying and disappointing.  Believe me, I had that thought.  But, I'm putting it to the side because I am enjoying her adventures and love the stories and how they are illustrated.  She has really appealed to my kids and I'm going with it.

Red Knit Cap Girl is the creation of Brooklyn artist Naoko Stoop.  She was introduced in 2012 in the eponymous Red Knit Cap Girl, in which our heroine lives in the forest with her woodland friends and embarks on a journey to talk to the moon.  The next year, she appeared in Red Knit Cap Girl to the Rescue in which she and her rabbit friend save a polar bear cub that has lost his way from the North Pole.  And most recently, in 2014, she appeared in Red Knit Cap Girl and the Reading Tree in which she and her animal friends find a hollowed out tree to hide and share their treasures.  I loved the line from a review which described Red Knit Cap Girl as someone who "celebrates friendship, bravery, and the importance of home."  These books teach wonderful lessons, but they also inspire active play.  Watching my girls "fly" around the house helping rescue their animals or go on journeys to the moon is definitely better than watching them wait around to be saved.

I'm happy we live in a time where encouraging our girls to be strong and independent is recognized as so important - there are resources everywhere for us to draw upon.  And yet...we still find ourselves wondering where the female Lego characters are or wondering why the "girl" version of toys always has to be pink.  I wonder why even in Frozen where the story line is supposed to be more about female friendship and empowerment, the newly independent Elsa is so risque (it reminds me of the Jessica Rabbit line, "I'm not bad.  I'm just drawn that way.").  But for every time I shake my head, there is a time when I smile because there is someone out there thinking differently.  Just one of these people is a childhood friend of mine, Dana Goldstein, who has recently combined her art talent and her frustration at the media and started Spirited Sparkle -" clothing for children that is both empowering and fabulous."  My Alice loves her Dragon Princess shirt and we're looking forward to the release of new designs very soon!  

Disconcerting images and messages are all around us.  We can and should only protect against so much.  But, I see no problem with making the empowering ones equally, if not more, available to all the kids in our lives.

People I Should Have Learned About When I Was a Kid: Maya Lin

The Artist of the Month at my kids' pre-school is Maya Lin.  I am embarrassed to say that until I read in their newsletter that they were studying her, I had no idea who Maya Lin was.  Having since read up a bunch on her, I find my ignorance appalling - I'm not sure if it's a function of the fact that many schools do not teach modern artists (unless you take specific art classes which I never did), or if this is simply another example of minority artists not receiving the recognition in the canon that they deserve.

For those who don't know (and my hope is that I am the one in the minority here), Maya Lin is a Chinese-American architect, sculptor, and landscape artist.  When she was only twenty-one years old, she won the public design contest for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.  I remember traveling to D.C. as a high-school student and being brought to tears by the sight and overwhelming significance of the monument.  It is, to me, such a powerful embodiment of those who lost their lives in service to our country.  I wish I had known more at the time about the person who designed it.

Following the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Lin designed the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, and was on the selection jury of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition.  In 2009, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama.  More of her work can be seen on her website.

Once I learned more about Ms. Lin, I went in search of resources to share with the kids.  I could not find any children's books solely about her, but did discover that a book I should have read a long time ago but haven't, President Obama's Of Thee I Sing, features a chapter about her (and 12 other inspiring Americans).  In addition to reading this book to the kids, we also did our standard coloring sheets while we discussed her work - and I tried to impress on my kids just how amazing it was that she achieved so much at such a young age, and in the face of significant prejudice against her because of her Asian heritage.

I also found this Maya Lin inspired art project online.  It is a little ambitious for us, given the ages of my kids, but it did inspire me to just have the kids break out the play-dough and start creating.

I'm definitely late to the party when it comes to learning about and appreciating the brilliance of this incredible woman, but truly better late than never.

Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren

Ben and I recently finished reading Pippi Longstocking.  He enjoyed meeting this zany character, and I enjoyed re-living my love for this strong independent troublemaker.  Like most children's book heroes, Pippi doesn't have any parents - her mother died when she was a baby and her father has been lost at sea.  But, instead of being left in the care of evil aunts and uncles or shipped of to a wizarding school, Pippi just lives with her horse and her monkey and bankrolls her adventures using using gold coins from a treasure chest given to her by her father's ship crew.

For the most part, Pippi is a somewhat normal child - or what you would assume a child would be like if left to their own devices at such a young age.  She doesn't go to school, she eats pancakes for dinner, and she doesn't have any social graces.  But, the one super power that Pippi possesses is incredible physical strength.  This ability is never explained, but it does keep her from being taken advantage of by thieves and other n'er do wells.

The original Pippi Longstocking was published in 1945 in Sweden.  I don't know what other books were like back then, but this book is very different from what is commonly written now - namely that the story doesn't really teach any morals.  The whole basis is that there is this wild child who lives next door to two ostensibly properly raised siblings, Tommy and Annika.  They take breaks from their normal lives to have fun and go crazy, and then go home for supper.  No one learns any lessons, they just have fun.

Following the original book, Lindgren published two additional full-length books about Pippi: Pippi Goes Aboard and Pippi in the South Seas.  The are numerous other Pippi picture books, chapter excerpts, and of course a number of movies and animated shows to help you get your Pippi fix.  I highly recommend her for good-old fashioned fun.

Musician of the Month: Billie Holiday

The Musician of the Month at the kids' school for October is Billie Holiday - the American jazz singer, songwriter, and actress.  I am not a huge jazz fan, but I am definitely a fan of any strong amazing woman who overcomes brutal adversity to become one of the most iconic figures in our history.  So, this has been a great opportunity for me to learn, along with my kids, about Lady Day, her music, and her legacy.

Billie Holiday lived a tough life of abuse and addiction, and perhaps for that reason, there don't seem to be a lot of children's books out there about her.  But we did find one called Mister and Lady Day: Billie Holiday and the Dog Who Loved Her which tells the story of her career alongside her best dog friend, Mister.  My son was very excited to have the opportunity to share this book with the rest of his class.

For children who are a little older and able to understand and discuss the more difficult issues of The Great Migration, I recommend God Bless the Child.  The lyrics from a Holiday song of the same title make up the text of the book.

The rest of our efforts to get to know Billie Holiday, of course, consist of listening to her music.  YouTube is always great for that.  We played this in the background this evening while working on our Billie Holiday coloring sheet.  We also found some wonderful old footage of Holiday on stage, but after reading the above children's book, my girls just kept asking to see her dog!

For the adult set, you can also watch a BBC documentary about her incredibly accomplished (but also painfully tragic) life: The Billie Holiday Story and listen to more from her in this NPR piece about her ability to convey emotion through her singing.

Our Latest Favorite: The Most Magnificent Thing!

Whenever I go to the library, I let my kids pick out a few books of their own, and then I rummage through the childrens' shelves and bring home a stack to try out.  We then go through each one a home - some stories just don't make sense (and make me think, why don't I get it together and write a children's book?!?), others are fun and we read a couple times, and then once in awhile we hit on a book that one of the kids just takes to right away - and that book becomes the favorite, carried around from room to room, and taken to bed because they just can't bear to let go of it for a minute.  For the past couple weeks, Alice has been in love with The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires.

In The Most Magnificent Thing, a little girl (accompanied by her adorable dog) is determined to build the MOST magnificent thing.  She has all the plans in her head and knows exactly what she is going to build.  She runs around town collecting everything she needs, and then she builds it.  But it's not quite magnificent.  So she builds it again.  And again.  And again.  Until she gets so frustrated that she gives up.  Then her dog takes her for a walk, and the time away gives her a fresh perspective on her creations, and she is able to see that while each one is not quite what she wanted, each one has a great useful part or idea that she can use toward the next really truly magnificent thing she builds.  I love this book for the lessons about creativity, perseverance, and big ideas.  I also love the detailed language about all the tinkering and building that the little girl does.

Alice, of course, loves the expressions of the dog, and the wagon filled with junk that the girl carts around everywhere.  But, I think she is slowly starting to get the idea of tinkering and building and that "things" can be put together and made into creations.  It's been fun to watch her mind working as she "reads" the book to herself (she won't let me read the story to her anymore) and explains what the girls is doing and how she is trying again and again.  It is a wonderfully empowering story with inspiring illustrations.

Along the same lines of girls who build, we have also been enjoying the ubiquitous Rosie Revere, Engineer and Violet the Pilot.