Beginning of the End...

I made a list at the beginning of the summer of all the books I thought I'd get to with my son before he graduates. Too many books for one last year of homeschooling and he has a long reading life ahead of him, so I winnowed the list down to a manageable number. Recently I've been organizing the titles into somewhat logical groupings. My plan is to have us do all the grouped books together, but we can do the groups in what ever order feels right.

I've got the Southern grouping, featuring civil rights, integration and race relations:
Huck Finn
To Kill a Mockingbird
Flannery O'Connor short stories
Invisible Man.

I've never read Flannery O'Connor nor Invisible Man, so am looking forward to reading them myself. Mike expressed an interest in re-reading Huck Finn as he had read it when he was 10, I think, and was disappointed that it wasn't more like Tom Sawyer.

Then there's the Shakespeare fest:
Bill Bryson's Shakespeare book
Macbeth along with Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters to liven things up
Midsummer's Night Dream along with another Terry Pratchett book
The recent BBC Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart

Mike has been exposed to Shakespeare since he was a wee lad, either attending Old Globe plays, acting in kid versions, or reading them in class. I'm not entirely sure what Terry Pratchett will bring to the study, but everything is better with a bit of Discworld thrown in!

Back to American Lit, we've got some early American authors to explore:
Moby Dick (which we should be starting this week)
Nathaniel Hawthorne short stories
Edgar Allen Poe short stories

Moby Dick we are reading just because it seemed like a terrific summer project. It is already August and we haven't started, so clearly we weren't that enthusiastic about the idea...

I'm going to inflict more poetry on the lad. I have yet to pick out which poems, but I am going to make sure he writes an academic paper on a poem, just to stretch his writing muscles.

I've got a couple of chemistry titles for him, too. If these were available at Audible.com I'm sure he would have read them already:

Uncle Tungsten
The Disappearing Spoon

Because Mike enjoys fantasy, sci-fi, and a good parody, I thought I should introduce him to gothic literature by way of:

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.

I can't bring myself to assign something by one of the Bronte sisters -- I myself have never been able to get through Wuthering Heights.

I may add other titles to the final short group:

Animal Farm
Fahrenheit 451

Or I may decide, due to homeschool guilt, that he needs to read Steinbeck or Dickens before he graduates and assign Grapes of Wrath, or Great Expectations.

I've got my list of related Teaching Company lectures to go with most of these titles, and have happily spent many hours reviewing SparkNotes before deciding on a title. I just love the planning part of homeschooling. I'm going to be lost next summer when I no longer have to plan, no longer will have an excuse for searching the library catalog and Amazon for hours on end in order find the perfect works to assign my kids.

Wordless Wednesday (a day late)

Scenes from Comic-Con 2010



Trolley station signs in Klingon










Boba Fett and a storm trooper kicking back





















Shrek getting a touch-up from Fiona

Comic-Con 2010

Comic-Con, the annual pop culture extravaganza in San Diego, has one more day to go, but I think I’ve had my fill for the year. My nightstand and wallet can’t quite take anymore book purchases! Comic-Con has nearly been taken over by the Hollywood marketing machine such that comic book artists, writers and retailers are an after thought, shoved into the far corners of the exhibit hall. But interestingly enough, book publishers such as Penguin and Del Rey have a fairly strong presence and bring in many well known genre writers for signings and panels.

I sat in on 4 of these discussion panels, and was as always entertained and wowed by how interesting and intelligent these authors are. Well read, as you would hope, and articulate, as you would also hope, and full of interesting opinions and a passion for their favorite genres.

This was the third time I’ve seen Christopher Paolini at Comic-Con, and once again he was delightful. The topic for his panel was “The Hero in Epic Fantasy”, and the question came up about the trope of the protagonist being a “chosen one” or having a “destiny to fulfill”. The first author to address this, Patrick Rothfuss, enthusiastically proclaimed he detested it, that it was a weak and hackneyed plot device, just a bunch of crock perpetuated by weak writers. Christopher Paolini was sitting next to this guy, and said, “Well, as someone who has invested most of my life now to writing a series about a boy with a destiny, I have to disagree with you,” and then he went on to very eloquently defend the trope. I wish I had taken notes on what he said, but I was really impressed by him, by his bringing up examples from literary history to discussing how and when the trope works.

I did buy Patrick Rothfuss’s book, The Name of the Wind, as he was a riot on the panel and I myself am rather sick of chosen ones in every fantasy book I read. Got him to sign my copy, too!

I was also very taken with China Mieville who was a special guest of Comic-Con. His recent book, Kraken was reviewed in the New York Times Saturday. What I love about him is between his intimidating looks (shaved head, lots of piercings in one ear) and his educational and political background you’d expect his books to be dark, brooding and full of heavy political themes. In reality he is a regular geek who simply lets his active imagination flow onto the page. He was very funny, humble, thrilled he can make a living as an author, and clearly intelligent. I’m really looking forward to Kraken and exploring his other titles.

The one author I wanted to meet but just didn’t get to was Naomi Novik, who writes the Temeraire books. I did get to see her on a panel of authors who mix genres. They talked quite a bit about the challenge of pitching their ideas, of publishers and booksellers categorizing their books. I would have loved for them to talk more about how they research and plan these mixes of genres, but they ran out of time.

I waited in line for a signing with some other fans of scifi and fantasy, and we talked about not having books for authors to sign as we use e-books and audiobooks. We were joking about autographable skins for iPods and iPads and Kindles. As we talked we shared favorite authors, and one woman recommended I try Lynn Flewelling, so I picked up The Bone Doll’s Twin.

I also wound up with free copies of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones and China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station. I now have quite a stack of books to get to between these new titles and the books already queued up at home such as the rest of the Temeraire books, all the Discworld books my son wants me to read.

When I wasn't in panels or waiting for an autograph, I was busy taking photos of people in costume. I'll post some of those in the next few days.

52 Books in 52 weeks: A review!!

Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks

by Ethan Gilsdorf

I started out really enjoying this book. Ethan Gilsdorf’s personal story of being an awkward and unhappy teen who found refuge in weekly games of D&D was honest and resonated with me even though I’ve never played D&D. I liked that with each chapter he explored all the various permutations of fantasy fandom from Tolkein society meetings to D&D gamers to on-line MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, to the people who are building a castle in France using only Medieval materials and methods. It was an honest and affectionate, if sheepishly uncomfortable look at all of these groups of people and activities.

And yet it wasn’t as satisfying a book as it could have been. He never got past his own deep embarrassment of his geeky D&D playing past. He swung between being a star-struck fan-boy of the Lord of the Rings movies and being incredulous of adults who spend weekends deeply involved in role playing games. His chapter on on-line RPGs like World of Warcraft sounded the stereotypical alarms of adults who give up on real life in favor of their on-line avatar. He ultimately couldn’t settle on whether the book was about his own unresolved issues or about the burgeoning fantasy and gaming industries.

I think the book would be best for people who know little to nothing about all these different fantasy worlds but have children, siblings or friends who are happily immersed. It explains different games, and groups, and profiles normal and well adapted people who love their spending their weekends deep in fantasy mode.

Wordless Wednesdays: Summertime

writing...

It is the silliest thing.

I write and write all kinds of creative and passionate posts on the WTM homeschool forum, but when I try to put some of those posts into a short essay for my blog, I can't do it. I've got at least 4 carefully crafted introductions that lead to no where, and in the meantime this blog stagnates.

Very silly. I clearly have opinions and things to say, but I'm not saying them.

Stay tuned.....

End of the school year

It is a mixed bag of a home school year, I think.

The good:

• my World History and Literature survey course, if I do say so myself.
• all the terrific books he read, the discussions we had and the papers he wrote
• my son's taking responsibility for his own education

The bad:

• all the terrific books we didn't get to
• my not pushing enough here at the end of the school year

I'm reaching the end of my homeschool career as my ds will be taking some of his courses through the community college next year. He wants to be challenged and pushed, just not by me!! And that is ok, because I'd rather be a mom than a homeschool task master, I've decided. A huge part of our mother/son relationship centers around books -- fiction, science, great and silly books. We love to share books with each other and discuss them. I'm thrilled for the chance to be left with only being responsible for literature as it is what we do best.

One more year, possibly two, but my homeschooling days are waning.