Australian author Mem Fox illustrates the effects of the little “l” law in the parent and child relationship in a children’s book entitled Harriet, You’ll Drive Me Wild. With short sentences illustrated by Marla Frazee in pencil and transparent ink, Fox tells the story of young Harriet…
Read MoreWe live in a performance culture. The push to succeed begins in the cradle and dogs us to the grave. Many parents feel this deeply. A recent article I read recounts a sandbox conversation between two moms…
Read MoreWhen my kiddos were between the ages of 2 and 11 and the basket beside our fireplace burgeoned with library books, a good friend from church set me a task: How can a homeschool mom with a bundle of children (and all the work that comes along with them) go about teaching the classics, especially if she didn’t get a great books education herself?…
Read MoreThe school year at CenterForLit has taken flight, which means that the hustle and bustle involved in administrating the start of our Online Academy has largely receded, to be replaced by one of the most rewarding parts of my job: getting to know my students. And let me tell you, these kids are wonderful...
Read MoreAt 12-years-old, the release of Pixar’s original Incredibles hit me right between the eyes. Young enough for cartoons, yet old enough to understand some deeper implications of the story, I imagine I was at the center of their target audience…
Read MoreI’m often asked, “What does my high schooler need to read before college?,” as though there were one or two novels out of the hundreds and hundreds of spectacular works in the Western tradition without which any primary educational journey would be void of meaning. I don’t mean to ridicule the impulse to choose wisely what we offer our students. We clearly should. But I do sense an undercurrent of misunderstanding about the educational project in questions like these…
Read MoreMy last blog post on The Hovel is dated April 17, 2017 – over one year ago. There are plenty of reasons and justifications for my silence: I’ve been busy working on more pressing projects, Ian and I moved across the country again, we bought our first house, etc., etc. If I’m honest, though, there’s one sad underlying cause for my lack of productivity that trumps all the other excuses: I have become Hamlet…
Read MorePicture this: a young child, just beginning to develop his own taste, personality, and interests, takes up an art and begins to pursue it with all the intensity and excitement of youth. Along the way, however, he feels rejected and oppressed by his family, who vocally oppose his dreams of a grand future in which his art becomes his sole focus. “Wealth and fame might look alluring now,” they say, “but getting rich as an artist isn’t as easy as it looks, and the lifestyle holds far less actual happiness than you assume!” You know the rest, right?…
Read MoreI’m currently in the middle of a unit in some of my literature classes where we are reading and discussing fairy tales. Reading and talking about fairy tales is quite possibly my very favorite thing to do ever. I might be only a tiny little bit hyperbolic about that. Just a smidge. I could honestly do nothing but teach fairy tales all year, every year, and be perfectly happy. We kicked off our unit with “Cinderella.” The girls in my classes were thrilled when I announced the title. The boys, on the other hand, groaned. “Just you wait,” I said. “You only think you’ve heard ‘Cinderella.’”…
Read More“The resonant voice rose and the words seemed to be all around them so that Meg felt that she could almost reach out and touch them: ‘Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, ye who go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof. Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift their voice; let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto the Lord!’” So reads Madeleine L’Engle’s timeless classic, A Wrinkle in Time, a work of science fiction for juvenile readers...
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