Rude Cakes, by Rowboat Watkins

 A young cake with ZERO manners spends the first half of the book ignoring its parents, pushing other baked goods out of the way, and generally being in no way shape or form sweet. Then it is taken from its bed by a cyclops who thinks it's a hat. Cyclopses ae extremely polite, and have difficulty even hearing the cake when it says rude things. The cake will have to learn to speak politely, or it might remain a hat forever!

I loved this book for its silliness. I was checking out Amazon reviews, and some reviewers found it too "weird," but one person's weirdness is another person's silliness, sooo... I guess it sort of depends on your point of view. Some of the reviewers thought it was inappropriate for toddlers. I don't know either way on that one. The kids I was reading this to were a small class of second graders, over the summer (I worked summer school), and it was perfect for that particular group of kids. 

The African Doctor

 At first glance, this movie seemed to be about whether or not a rural French village will accept a (French-educated) African doctor and his family. And that's almost true. It's definitely a subplot. But the real question is whether a (French-educated) African doctor, who does not want to go home to his native country and become part of the corrupt and exploitative system at play there, can convince his wife to stick it out in a cold, unwelcoming, backwards French village where he has talked himself into a job.

In a movie like Remember the Titans, which is about whether or not Whites can accept Blacks, emphasis is placed on how normal the Black characters are, how they are just like their White counterparts, in order to show how utterly ridiculous the White characters are to even consider rejecting them. Not so in The French Doctor. Dad just wants to integrate, to the point of forbidding the speaking of anything but French at home*; Mom just wants to go home, which ends up in a life-altering phone bill; but when aunties and uncles and cousins from Belgium show up, partying in their very African, very non-French way, all of Dad's carefully constructed "we're just like you" facade begins to break down. 

This is what I love about this movie. It has the confidence to let the relatives be weird. It's a fish out of water story, but with the fish being Black and the non-water, as it were, being White. And the stakes are integrity and marriage, and I don't know of any higher stakes than that.

One more thing that might help you understand this movie a little better upon first viewing than I did: the narrator, the now-grown son, is in real life a stand-up comedian. The African Doctor is based on a book he wrote about his childhood. I think I might have missed a few jokes the first time, because I'm so darn used to integration narratives being deadly serious. Maybe we could use a few more funny ones, to let us see how ridiculous we all are sometimes.

*To be clear, they all speak perfectly good French to start with, but like most Africans, they have at least one African language they can call upon as well. Dad isn't trying to improve their French; he's just forbidding Lingala for the sake of forbidding Lingala.

The Schmutzy Family, by Madelyn Rosenburg

 After I read it to two neeflings, plotted to read it to two more, and put it on my own to-buy list, I decided that it was probably time to review this book.

The Schmutzy family (from a Yiddish word meaning "dirty") has no concern at all about getting their clothing, house, and selves dirty five and a half days a week. Mom says nothing about most of the messes and even helps stop up the sink when it's time to start a frog habitat. On Friday around midmorning, however, she calls a halt to all that and they clean up for Shabbat. Utterly charming, delightful, and most of all AMAZING at helping kids learn that keeping a few rules doesn't have to make you boring or mean. Reading it even helped me be a little more cheerful about my own Saturday-afternoon cleanup efforts.

El Deafo, by Cece Bell

 

I learned about this book because I went to an author event set up by my public library-- and I got to see and hear Cece Bell speak. She was/is amazing! She ended up losing 90% of her hearing when she was a toddler, and El Deafo describes a fictionalized version of her life from that time until she was in late elementary school. I mean, the characters are rabbits. Clearly it's fictionalized. But I feel like it offers an emotionally safe way for younger persons to consider what it might really be like to be deaf, mostly because the reader gets so caught up in Cece's world that it becomes easy to identify with her. On top of that, she mentioned* how she hopes it will help kids who feel... different... like their lives could turn out OK. I'm not a kid, and I still feel like it left me with this message.

*I'm paraphrasing what I remember from an event several years ago. Please don't be mad at me, Cece Bell, (if you see this) if I got your words wrong! (But do please email me, because I want to get it right.)

Gamayun Tales, by Alexander Utkin

 Graphic novels "based on traditional Russian folklore." Exciting, fast-paced, not too gory or overtly sexual for my extremely tame tastes. Has bad guys, but none that are so bad that they automatically deserve to die just from their category. If you find folk tales satisfying, you will find these satisfying. I only checked out the first three in the series (The King of the Birds, The Water Spirit, and Tyna of the Lake) but plan on getting more as soon as there is room on my library card :). These are also going on my to-buy list.

The Flying Witch

 Jane Yolen, legend of storytelling for extremely good reason, did not disappoint as she added to the already-established genre of Baba Yaga tales. I loved that the little heroine was clever, and I loved that her dad literally saved her with his turnip truck. It's a picture book. It's a quick read. And it's going on my to-buy list.

Joanne B. Freeman's Yale Free Online American Revolution Course

One of my VERY favorite new listening experiences in the past month has been the discovery of Joanne Freeman. I spend a fair amount of time longing to BE Joanne Freeman at this point, while steadfastly reminding myself of the Oscar Wilde quote that one of the speakers used at my college graduation: "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken," and yes, that includes the estimable Ms. Freeman. Darn it.

Why is she so awesome? I could just tell you that she's funny, smart, enthusiastic and cheerful, and I would not be lying. But instead I'm going to quote my best Joanne Freeman story about herself. Actually, it's the only story I've ever heard her tell about herself, and she does not tell it in the online lecture course-- she told it at another online event. (I have yet to be disappointed with any of these, BTW.) So, when she was fourteen, it was the bicentennial of the United States, and she being the geeky teenager she was, was reading through the biographies of the founding fathers. But when she got to Alexander Hamilton's biography, she found it unsatisfying, so she asked for a recommendation from her public librarian. The public librarian pointed her to the 27-volume set of Alexander Hamilton's collected correspondence, and she proceeded to read it through the way I read scriptures: once you finish one read, you have to go back for another immediately.

You will perhaps see why it was not surprising that she ended up with a PhD in history, teaching at one of the oldest/best institutions in the country. I think that my favorite part of her really is her delight. She always seems to be genuinely happy to be talking to students, or audiences; she loves to answer questions; she chortles when she brings in a great story or especially wonderful primary source document. I'm not quite sure if it's because of a) genetics, b) gratitude that she got to study and now teach something she genuinely loves, c) the fact that her subject area is a time of history when people REALLY thought things might not work out, and then they pretty much did for the next 200 years, or d) upbringing-- but whatever it is, I find her extreme cheer to be one of the most cheering things I have encountered in a long time.