Hooked on the Book

Sometimes when I finish a book I become a little obsessed with it. That's what's happened to me and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. As I type, I'm listening to an archived radio interview with Zusak from 2006, and he is reading an excerpt from the book. I have goosebumps.

Yesterday, I looked up the Geneva Conventions and laws governing civilian targets during war; next I found a hamlet named Olching (but not Molching) on the Amper river, outside of Munich, near Dachau. I learned that 22 civilians were killed there in a stray Allied bombing near the end of the World War II. On another website, I saw postcards of the town-- images that span the 20th century. So that's what it looked like, I thought. Or did it? Zusack's description is never very literal.

Last night, I paused the television show we were watching right in the middle. "I want to talk about The Book Thief," I said, and so we did: About how the reader comes to love the characters not in spite of their flaws, but because of them. About how although you know you will lose them by the end of the novel, you love them anyway. About how this book addresses the questions of why German citizens did not do more to oppose Hitler and the Nazi party-- in this way, it stands out against other WWII literature, especially for kids.

But what haunts me most about The Book Thief, even as humans haunt Death within its pages, is the figurative language. The colors, the smells, the words, the narrator himself-- from the first page I was a vagabond aboard an express train, dusty and sweet. There was no stopping until we got to the end of the line.

Sometimes, Focus Eludes Me

I think the convention of nicknaming something by taking the first couple of letters of each part of its proper name-- think SoHo-- is wicked cool. It was definitely part of the appeal of NaNoWriMo for me.

Right now, we're listening to the audiobook version of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This wonderful work of non-fiction tells a really good story and also raises a lot of important ethical questions about poverty, race, and medical research.  The famous immortal cells that were cultured without the title character's knowledge or permission are known world-wide as HeLa. As compelling as the book is, as we listen, my vagabond brain starts nicknaming all of her family members, too-- amused most by one of her sons, LaLa, and her youngest daughter, DeLa. I nickname myself, too, TraShe, but I am dissatisfied because it sounds like nothing more than a slurred rendition of my first name, so I think of my friends, MaBro, LeMc, and ElSmi, and my colleagues, LaBa, MeCo, KiMi, and AlPa.

Next, I wonder if we should refer to my school as ThoJeMiScho... You have to admit-- it does have a certain Zen ring to it.

It's a Lifestyle Choice

Vagabond sparks fly through the gathering dark, brilliant yellow on deep violet, and I know the coals will be hot enough to cook on in 20 minutes. Everything else is ready; this is my chance to steal some time to write. Today, I have been thinking about hobos. I had a conversation with friends last night about the resurgence in popularity that this term has enjoyed over the last few years. It is the name of choice among middle schoolers for anyone who appears to be living on the streets.

I remember when I first heard a student use the word five or six years ago. It made all the other kids laugh as if he had said something naughty, and it caught me by surprise, probably because I hadn't heard it since I was in middle school myself. Then, "hobo" was a choice Halloween get-up, requiring not much more than a pair of torn pants, one of your dad's old jackets, and a burnt cork rubbed liberally around your face.  If you wanted to go all out, you could tuck a pillow in your over-sized shirt and smash a battered hat on you head, but those were totally optional. And what of that bandanna on a stick? It was widely agreed that the hobo bag, while a nice touch, made it much harder to carry your trick-or-treat bag, (and after all, we were there for the candy) so most of those were left at home.

No doubt I scolded that child back then, probably more because of the way his peers reacted than anything else, but the term also seemed inappropriate to me. Over the years, its shock value has declined, and it's use is not much of an issue anymore, other than the fact that it's what kids usually say when referring to vagrants, and sadly, I'm pretty sure it's the people and not the name that they laugh at, but that's another blog post.

Last night, my friends and I decided that hobo was too romantic a word to describe the situation of the folks around here who are homeless and on the street, and so not entirely accurate. Turns out that we were right. In the limited research I did today, I found that "hobo" refers specifically to people who choose to travel, usually by rail, and then look for work where ever they might land. There are rules for being a hobo, and they even have an annual convention, I kid you not. Hobos do not appreciate being confused with tramps (who travel but do not work) or bums (who neither travel nor work), and unlike most of the people my students refer to, hobos are not necessarily down on their luck.

I think there's a lesson there.

Ah, Springtime

All my life I've preferred cool weather; there must be something in my temperament that makes it so. Therefore, the change of seasons from winter to spring, while welcome to so many others, makes me a little uneasy. At the other end of the year, when the days turn cooler, I like to bundle up in flannel and fleece, but the opposite is not so. Clothes that were so familiar when last the weather was warm enough to wear them seem a little scanty and fit a bit awkwardly, and the unaccustomed sight of my bare legs startles. Who let them out? I wonder. Summer is on her way, and what exactly is there to look forward to? Long days of eggish sun and unrelenting heat, where cool breezes are nothing more than vagabonds waiting to hop the next jet stream north leaving us to fan ourselves, sweating in our swampy southern clime.

Exercise, Discipline, Affection

It may come as no surprise that over here at Walking the Dog, we're big fans of the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan. Every segment of his show is a ballet in three acts, and most of his precepts have application beyond the troubled dogs he rehabilitates and the owners he trains. My favorite is his advice about personal energy-- he encourages a calm assertive attitude in any who hope to be the pack leader. As hesitant as I am to compare children to dogs, in my experience, this notion translates directly to the classroom where a balanced teacher creates a balanced class.

Any who are familiar with his show know that Cesar's primary mantra for producing a good dog is exercise, discipline, affection. I've found the same to be true when it comes to taming my writing skills: daily exercise strengthens fluency, words on the page provide an opportunity to apply the craft of our discipline, and the affection? Well, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, when I'm all done for the day, I may hate writing, but I love having written.

Good for You, Richard

Disney movies have been a hot topic of conversation for us over the last couple of days. My niece is fond of Cinderella and the rest of the princesses, my nephew, on the other hand, is not a fan of any of the animated features: at four and a half, he knows enough about plot conventions to be sure something bad is going to happen, and worrying about it makes him too anxious to enjoy the movie. He's afraid to be afraid.

You have to admit he's got a point. Those old Disney movies scared the crap out of me, especially Maleficent, the witch who turns into a dragon in Sleeping Beauty and Cruella DeVille in 101 Dalmations. The relatively more recent ones have some pretty tough scenes as well, think Mufasa's death in The Lion King or Ursula's final attack in The Little Mermaid, and continuing in that tradition, the newest Disney film, The Princess and the Frog, has scary voodoo and includes the death of a lovable character.

Strong stuff for a little kid, and how cool that my nephew knows he's not ready for it.

What Man Hath Wrought

I'm not a big fan of the zoo. I know the arguments both for and against keeping animals in captivity, and I come down on the side of the individual animals who are being kept, usually to their detriment, always against their will. They just don't seem happy to me.

Even so, there is something undeniable about a child's pure delight at encountering animals at close range, which is actually the most convincing argument in favor of zoos for me. And so it is generally only in a child's company that I ever find myself at a zoo or any other captive animal exhibit. Such was the case today, when we spent the overcast afternoon at the Chattahoochee Nature Center with my two-year-old niece and my four-year-old nephew. There we we were able to see all sorts of animals, mostly in large enclosures or behind glass.

The facility itself is state of the art, as green as green can be, and it was with a clear conscience that we made our way through their exhibits, viewing possums, owls, hawks, turtles, snakes, beavers, vultures, and even bald eagles. My niece and nephew were thrilled at the "wild animals" but it wasn't long before we wondered where all these critters had come from.

Home again, I checked out their website and the detailed biographies of all the residents of the nature center. It turned out to be an ugly litany of man v. wild: cars, guns, poison, power lines, and pets-- these were the events that led up to their captivity, which was also their rescue.

My head is spinning.