The Challenge Begins July 2, 2008

“…in third grade. My art teacher, Mr. B., failed me on an art project. I could not draw a perfectly symmetrical flower vase. “If you can’t draw a perfectly symmetrical flower vase,” Mr. B. said, “you’ll never learn to draw.” Discouraged, I gave up drawing for the next ten years.” This quotation, taken from the Groundwood Books website reminds me very much of the story of the Little Prince. Personally, I never would have guessed that anyone could have anything bad to say about Marie-Louise Gay’s artistic abilities since that is the part of her books that I like best! I would love to have pictures of the forest in Stella Fairy of the Forest to put on the wall close to my desk.

How do you become invisible? You think of invisible things, like wind or music. What do fairies look like? They’re tiny and beautiful and they fly very fast. Do butterflies eat butter? Yellow ones do. These are just some of the wisdoms that Stella imparts on her little brother Sam as they spend an afternoon in the fields and forest looking for fairies and building a fort out of ferns to protect them from the giant who is watering his rocks. Marie-Louise has perfectly captured the relationship between an older sister and younger brother in this and in her other Stella and Sam books. Stella loves to teach Sam about the world around them, Sam is always bursting with questions, and often with insights of his own (blue butterflies must eat pieces of sky).

I’m afraid I don’t know anything about illustration techniques but to me the illustrations look like they are done with ink, watercolours and maybe even some tissue paper. In any case, the beautiful illustrations are slightly ethereal and they lend a sort of dreamlike quality to the story. When I read this story I get the sensation of a really hot, breezy and sunny summer day spent outdoors exploring.

I would recommend this or any of Marie-Louise Gay’s other books to grownups and children alike.

The List June 16, 2008

Since I’m very busy procrastinating and not working on the take-home midterm exam that is due tomorrow at 11:55pm, I thought I’d come up with a list of the books I would like to read for the second Canadian Book Challenge. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it through the first challenge because I started so late and had too much school reading to do. My theme for the first challenge was Canadian Children’s Literature and since I now have many sad children’s books calling to me from the shelf I’m going to stick with that theme for the second challenge.

Here’s the list:

• Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson
• Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel
• A Perfect Gentle Knight by Kit Pearson
• The Secret World of Og by Pierre Berton
• The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier
• Stella Fairy of the Forest by Marie Louise Gay
• Some of the Kinder Planets by Tim Wynne-Jones
• Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang by Mordecai Richler
• Owls in the Family by Farley Mowatt
• The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch
• An Earthly Knight by Janet McNaughton
• The Singing Stone by O.R. Melling
• Death Over Montreal by Geoffrey Bilson

Okay, so some of them may be crossing over into Young Adult fiction instead of staying in the Children’s fiction genre, but I think that they’ll all prove to be fantastic reads.

Bowing Out June 12, 2008

Sadly, I’m going to have to bow out of the Canadian Book Challenge this year. I am so swamped with reading for my two summer courses that I just can’t seem to find the time to do any extra reading for myself. I will definitely be back to participate in the next Canadian Book Challenge, and I think I’ll stick to the same theme of children’s books, although I won’t cheat! The books I have already read for this year’s challenge don’t count..I’ll have to read more.

Although I’m kind of bummed about not having time for the challenge this year I’m really enjoying all the reading I am doing. I am taking Fiction of the Fantastic, a third year university course where we are exploring elements of the fantastic in books like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Harry Potter, The Shining, The Castle of Otranto, and numerous others. I am also taking Genre Fiction and Readers’ Advisory, which will count towards my Library Technician’s diploma. In this course we are exploring a few different genres (western, romance, science fiction, historical fiction, crime/mystery, horror, suspence, and fantasy) and instead of following a set reading list we are making up our own reading lists and choosing our own books from the different genres to complete the assignments. Both courses are a lot of fun and incredibly interesting but the amount of reading I am doing right now is unbelievable. Good thing I like to read!

Of course, just to make sure I’m not bored, on top of my summer courses I am planning and running two different summer camps this year. The first is a month-long literacy program for kids from an inner-city school. The focus is media literacy and I am in charge of the “camp” activities such as games and visual arts while the three teachers I am working with are in charge of the classroom part of the camp. The second is a two-week residential French camp that I run with my best friend. This year I am in charge of the CIT program as well as being the program director for the entire camp. Wow! Just rereading all of that is freaking me out. I had better get to work.

Back to the Challenge April 30, 2008

It’s been a while but I’m back to the challenge! I have the tiniest reprieve between my fall/winter courses and my summer courses in which I’ve had the time to do a bit of reading. One of the books I read was Jeffrey and Sloth by Kari-Lynn Winters and illustrated by Ben Hodson. I went to the bookstore to buy this book and when I was standing in line a little boy behind me said “I know that book! It was part of Blue Spruce!” so I asked him if he liked it and he said yes but that he voted for a different one. I think the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading program is a great idea because it allows kids like that little boy at the bookstore to choose the books that they think deserve awards instead of having grownups do the choosing for them.

This book really spoke to me because although I’ve always wanted to write and I have a bit of a creative streak, sitting down with a blank page/computer screen to write something has always been a huge challenge for me. The task seems so enormous that I can’t get started and end up distracting myself with other things.

Jeffrey’s character is a believable and realistic one and his conversations with a sloth, who wants to do nothing but nap in a comfy chair with a puffy pillow and a perfect blanket, are filled with humour and references to the Canadian landscape. The group of girls in my after school program were giggling at the ordeals Jeffrey puts poor sloth through. This really is a cute new addition to Canadian children’s literature.

Glad to be home December 31, 2007

I’m sooooo glad to be home! My husband and I spent a week at his parents’ house for Christmas and believe it or not, this is the first year in my entire life that I haven’t gone home at Christmas. While I was at the in-laws’ in the States I spent my time reading my first book for the Canadian Book Challenge. I think it’s absolutely amazing that I still love L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables just as much now as I did as a little girl. I think it’s the nostalgic quality that gets me, but I can’t really put my finger on it. I was a bit surprised at the racism and classism (is that a word?) at the very beginning of the book but the rest of the story completely eclipses those elements in the end. Montgomery’s description of the nature surrounding Green Gables reminds me of my own farm upbringing and all of the time I used to spend exploring the ravine behind my house. I think the most striking thing about the story though, is that now that I know about ADHD I think that Anne has it! I realize that a character in a book can’t have a neuro-chemical disorder unless the author says so but Anne’s dreaminess, imagination, and multiple scrapes are exactly how I was as a child! Maybe that’s why she’s so loveable…because she is so flawed. In any case it’s a good thing that Montgomery wrote several Anne books because I just want to keep reading about Anne. Whether or not I have time to do that with five English courses on the go is another matter altogether!

Baby Steps December 13, 2007

I’m supposed to be working on two essays and an assignment. What am I doing? I’m looking up knitting patterns and researching Canadian children’s literature. I’m finished my exams for the term and now I have all kinds of time on my hands before I have to run my after-school program. One thing I’ve learned about managing my ADHD is that I have to have structure. The busier I am, the more likely I am to get things done. I suppose it’s because when I have all kinds of time open I end up saying “oh well, I can just do it later or tomorrow, or whenever…I’ve got lots of time!”. When I’m super-busy and I know that I only have a one hour block of time in which to do a reading or work on a piece of writing then I get it done because there is no room for procrastination. That’s not to say that I never procrastinate when I’m busy, in fact I do it quite frequently, but when I’m on the ball I can organize my time better when I’m busy. I need to be more careful about giving myself deadlines and not to let my professors give me “open” due dates when I get an extension on an assignment because I just drag it out forever. I should be on vacation from school at this point and instead I’ve got all these papers hanging over my head. One of the papers I need to write is only three pages long and I have done way too much research already. I’ve psyched myself out on writing it way too many times now because I can’t seem to focus my thoughts into just three pages! I will write it today. That is what I will do today. Baby steps right?

Canadian Book Challenge December 8, 2007

Well, so far my blog seems to be about challenges. I’ve stumbled across a blogger who is hosting a Canadian Book Challenge. Participants are trying to read 13 Canadian books (books by Canadians and/or about Canadians) before next Canada Day. Since I’m crazy about Canadian Children’s Literature I decided to take the challenge and focus on children’s literature. I have to admit that the first book I will be reading is a bit of a cheat since I have to read it for the first day back at my children’s literature class after the holidays and I’m sure I read it at least five times as a kid but hopefully that won’t count against me! When I’ve done my reading (which I plan to do over the holidays while visiting my in-laws in Michigan) I will post about my reading.

Walk December 2, 2007

I miss hiking! I know the theme is walk but to me, hiking is just walking on a larger scale so it counts. I grew up on a farm on the Niagara Escarpment so I spent quite a few weekends as a child traipsing around in the ravine behind my house or hiking on the Bruce Trail with my dad. To catch the school bus we had to walk 1/4 mile to the end of our driveway. I even went for walks along one of the sideroads close to my house.

Since then I’ve moved to Toronto and my walking generally consists of walking back and forth between work, school, home, stores and the subway station. My husband and I used to go hiking on the weekends on the trails here in Toronto (yes, there are many ravines full of trails here believe it or not) or on trails outside of the city but recently we haven’t done any hiking at all.

I suppose it stems from being too busy. I’m running the after school care program and lifeguarding at a school while pursuing my English degree full-time so I spend an awful lot of time away from home and an awful lot of time sitting on my butt reading English literature instead of walking. Because I’m not working full-time, my husband has had to start working a few extra jobs on the side in order to support us (which I love him for…a lot) and so neither of us has much time to go walking or hiking.

Sometimes we go for a walk around our neighbourhood, which is really nice. We did that yesterday morning and it was so cold that our legs were numb but it was fantastic anyways.

What would you attempt if you knew you would not fail? December 1, 2007

This was the very first challenge on the Sunday Scribblings blog and it also happens to be the one that inspired me to begin. If I knew I would not fail I would write. Yes, I know, I write all the time as a student but I’m talking about really writing, as in authorship.

Ever since I was a little girl I have harboured a secret desire to be an author. I have piles of old notebooks and pieces of paper filled with characters that I created, floor plans (because how am I supposed to write a great story about a bunch of girls if I don’t know what their bedrooms look like?!), and the beginnings of novels, usually about twelve-year-old girls. I also have journals going back to grade five or so. Nothing ever got finished though, and I’ve found that over the years my writing really tapered off.

I got scared. Teachers in elementary and secondary school started putting negative comments like “Rebecca doesn’t apply herself”, “bright but lazy” and “I know you are capable of so much more” on my report cards. I started getting this paralyzing fear of failing in my schoolwork and the solution was to just not hand anything in at all rather than risk handing something in and receiving a less than stellar mark. (Yes, I am aware that this is not logical, and I have been working hard to get over this!)

As it turns out, the comments on the report card and the inability to finish things (or even get started in some cases) stems from the fact that I have ADHD. In the past few months I have started treatment and I am beginning to face things that have seemed impossibly scary in the past. One of these things is writing. So here I am. Writing. I will attempt to keep writing, even if it’s only to complete the Sunday Scribbling challenge each week.

Welcome to my humble abode December 1, 2007

A great big hello to the blogosphere! I am taking the rather large leap into the blogging world with a fairly unfocused blog where I’ll write about all kinds of things near and dear to my heart. I can’t guarantee I’ll write often or regularly (although those are the goals!) and I can’t guarantee my writing will be good or even interesting but I guess if you’re not interested you can just stop reading right?

So what inspired me to start a blog? Well, I’m not sure how I stumbled across the blog in the first place, but I came across a blog called Sunday Scribblings , which challenges its readers to write about a theme posted every week and then post it on their own blogs and link to the Sunday Scribblings blog. I’d like to try that challenge and so I had to have a blog, and while I’m here I might as well write about some other stuff too!