C-SPAN is sponsoring another giveway to social studies teachers, including homeschoolers. They are giving away one free Electoral College Map poster to any teacher in the continental US who requests one (at least until supplies run out). I haven't received mine yet, but the previous ones I've gotten have been BIG and printed on thick, high-quality paper. So it should last you through the 2012 elections, which is its intended use.
The map reflects the 2010 census figures, and also includes some Election 2012 dates as well as some historic results. So it should generate a good deal of discussion on its own.
However, C-SPAN has also developed some free lesson plans to accompany the map. On their website, you can download such resources as Electoral College Map Poster Activities, and lesson plans on The Electoral College and the Constitution and Pros/Cons and Alternatives. The lessons include video clips of current political figures debating the issue, which helps makes the topic current.
I plan to do a lot of education around the 2012 elections in the coming year, so this is a great resource for us. I hope it may be helpful to you as well.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
My Story on Steve Jobs
I'm still on the Steve Jobs theme, because I'm afraid our world has just lost one of its creative lights. I've been telling bits of this story to different people all day, so I thought maybe I would just tell it all at once and put it out there for everyone to access.
Also, when I say it is MY story on Steve Jobs, that means that it is my interpretation of his life path. I don't have any particular or personal insight into the man, having never met him--although I did at least get to see him speak at a conference once. Rather, this is my telling of the story of Steve Job's trajectory, filtered through what I know and where I was as I, too, was encountering the new world of computers and networking and digital arts, etc. I do not claim it to be true. But I offer it up as one tale of a man who can teach us a lot through the way he lived, regardless of whether his technologies had ever worked out or not.
His life did not start off especially auspiciously. He was born out of wedlock, and given up for adoption by a middle class couple living in California. Like the other man who most shaped the computer environment through the end of the 20th century, Bill Gates, Jobs dropped out of college; in contrast to Gates, his reasons were largely financial (Gates came from a fairly well-off family). But he kept going to classes unofficially and for no credit (including his famous story of serendipitously attending a calligraphy class that, a decade or so later, helped him understand the need for beautiful computer fonts), and eventually started a computer business in his garage with his high school chum, Steve Wozniak, the computer geek who could bring to life Jobs' vision for a computer that would transform lives of the common people.
Jobs and Wozniak, drawing from experimental concepts from computer innovators of the time, developed a computer that people could use without knowing code, that people could point to things in order to make things happen, that included color, that included nice fonts, and that looked "cool," rather than just utilitarian boxes. The market rewarded their vision, and Apple Computer rocketed to a major player in the computer industry.
However, after the first few years of success, things were hard for the visionary Jobs. He was always dissatisfied with what we had now and was always questing for the next best thing, sure that we could always do better, faster, cooler, and more beautiful. But multi-million publicly-traded corporations are not built on constant reinvention. The young Apple Computer Corporation was not able to deal with its co-founder's insistence on abandoning what they had in order to create what he saw was the great next advance. Eventually, the board brought in a manager from Pepsi-Cola to stabilize the company and built up a traditional corporate structure, and less than a decade after it had started, both Jobs and Wozniak left the company they had founded.
So Jobs moved on and created NeXT Computers, which built the kind of ultimate computers that he had advocated, and had been rejected, at Apple. And sure enough, he created a computer that was a thing of beauty and power. The only problem was, all that fabulous performance ending up costing close to the cost of a cheap car....two, three, maybe ten times the cost of the "personal computer" of that time. So who would buy a computer like that? Mostly, it was Hollywood--digital artists who could see the potential of the way Jobs was heading, and who needed that amount of graphic power (it was always about the graphics and the visual for Jobs) and could easily justify the expense. NeXT became a niche computer, but the niche it filled fit nicely with a man with such visual, marketing, and even storytelling expertise as Jobs.
It was the NeXT/Hollywood connection that supported Job's next big leap. He bought a cast-off unit from George Lucas (another visionary who transformed the movie industry, but either couldn't see or didn't have the time to follow where computer animation would go), and turned it into Pixar Animated Studios, the most commercially and critically successful computer animation studio of modern times. He funded the operation through several lean years until the launch of Toy Story, and then ran the company until finally it was acquired by Disney, making him the largest stockholder of the company (and multi-billionaire), but also, in my opinion, saving the company's soul after years of substandard programming by managers whose decisions were driven by cost, rather than by art.
Before all that, however, back in Apple Land....former PepsiCo leader John Sculley had managed to stabilize the company as requested. It was so stable, however, that it was sinking like a rock. Apple had always been, and to this day continues to be, a bit player in the grand scheme of computer sales. However, it had acquired an ardent fan base in the early days. But bit player, with nothing new or exciting to entice people not to abandon it for the dominant players of IBM and Microsoft and such...well, it wasn't a winning market strategy. Which is not to say that Sculley was unsuccessful. He did a great job of building up the structures and strategies and corporate skeleton that Apple needed to survive in a business environment. But the company realized that they could not survive without an exciting alternative to the IBM/Microsoft/corporate dominate computers. They realized they needed the Jobs magic again.
In the interim, Jobs had also grown up a little, corporate-wise, at least. He had learned that he couldn't always abandon last year's work to pursue this year's possibilities. More importantly, perhaps, he realized that you couldn't necessarily create next year's vision without going through this year's reality.
Whatever, Apple bought out NeXT, Jobs was back in charge, and Apple started going gangbusters again (with an organization that could support the vision). The NeXT software became the new Mac OS X software. They created MacBooks, iMacs, and all the incredible software bundled with their computers for free. Then they branched out to iPod, iPhones, iPads. Jobs' vision about the potential of digital technology outreached computers themselves, and extended to the music industry, the movie industry, and the book industry. Apple was leading the charge to reinvent almost all of the popular media that we use today.
So, then, Steve Jobs' life is a great lesson to teach our middle schoolers, outside of his technology. When he had his big falling out with the company he created, he had enough money to go off and do nothing for the rest of his life but complain about how stupid Apple had been to (to be honest) kick him out. But all our lives would probably have been the poorer for it. Instead, he kept pursuing his vision for using computers to transform the lives, not just of the rich, corporate, or knowledgable, but of everyone. He was brilliant enough to see the potential in Pixar, and humble enough to learn about his own mistakes that enabled him to return to Apple. He could overcome his ego and his competitiveness enough to build a relationship with Microsoft that enabled Macintosh computers to read Microsoft documents (which, again to be honest, probably is what saved Apple from going belly up in the 1990's). In short, I think he learned the thin line between confidence and arrogance, and I think we are all the better for it.
The other lesson we can learn from Steve Jobs is the need for passion, or in the more personal vernacular, love. His graduation address at Stanford has been making the rounds, and I've included it below. In it, he talks about how there is nothing more important than living a life of love. And he is not only talking about relationships; he is referring to finding the love behind how we spend out lives every day. He says that he started each day looking at the mirror and asking himself that if this were his last day on Earth, would he want to spend it doing what he was going to do that day? He responds that if he found himself answering "no" for too many days in a row, then he found a way to change his life.
So there is much to learn from Steve Jobs. He teaches us about sticking to a vision, even when it is a lonely road. He teaches us about going through a public "defeat" and coming through it stronger and wiser. He teaches us about when one door is closed, find a new opening. And he teaches us about, when it comes down to it, it's all about love, even if it seems to be about computers.
Oh, and he just happened to foster the development of the some of the best digital tools of our times. But, like I said, that was a by-product of a life well spent.
Hear his deliver his life philosophy below:
Also, when I say it is MY story on Steve Jobs, that means that it is my interpretation of his life path. I don't have any particular or personal insight into the man, having never met him--although I did at least get to see him speak at a conference once. Rather, this is my telling of the story of Steve Job's trajectory, filtered through what I know and where I was as I, too, was encountering the new world of computers and networking and digital arts, etc. I do not claim it to be true. But I offer it up as one tale of a man who can teach us a lot through the way he lived, regardless of whether his technologies had ever worked out or not.
His life did not start off especially auspiciously. He was born out of wedlock, and given up for adoption by a middle class couple living in California. Like the other man who most shaped the computer environment through the end of the 20th century, Bill Gates, Jobs dropped out of college; in contrast to Gates, his reasons were largely financial (Gates came from a fairly well-off family). But he kept going to classes unofficially and for no credit (including his famous story of serendipitously attending a calligraphy class that, a decade or so later, helped him understand the need for beautiful computer fonts), and eventually started a computer business in his garage with his high school chum, Steve Wozniak, the computer geek who could bring to life Jobs' vision for a computer that would transform lives of the common people.
Jobs and Wozniak, drawing from experimental concepts from computer innovators of the time, developed a computer that people could use without knowing code, that people could point to things in order to make things happen, that included color, that included nice fonts, and that looked "cool," rather than just utilitarian boxes. The market rewarded their vision, and Apple Computer rocketed to a major player in the computer industry.
However, after the first few years of success, things were hard for the visionary Jobs. He was always dissatisfied with what we had now and was always questing for the next best thing, sure that we could always do better, faster, cooler, and more beautiful. But multi-million publicly-traded corporations are not built on constant reinvention. The young Apple Computer Corporation was not able to deal with its co-founder's insistence on abandoning what they had in order to create what he saw was the great next advance. Eventually, the board brought in a manager from Pepsi-Cola to stabilize the company and built up a traditional corporate structure, and less than a decade after it had started, both Jobs and Wozniak left the company they had founded.
So Jobs moved on and created NeXT Computers, which built the kind of ultimate computers that he had advocated, and had been rejected, at Apple. And sure enough, he created a computer that was a thing of beauty and power. The only problem was, all that fabulous performance ending up costing close to the cost of a cheap car....two, three, maybe ten times the cost of the "personal computer" of that time. So who would buy a computer like that? Mostly, it was Hollywood--digital artists who could see the potential of the way Jobs was heading, and who needed that amount of graphic power (it was always about the graphics and the visual for Jobs) and could easily justify the expense. NeXT became a niche computer, but the niche it filled fit nicely with a man with such visual, marketing, and even storytelling expertise as Jobs.
It was the NeXT/Hollywood connection that supported Job's next big leap. He bought a cast-off unit from George Lucas (another visionary who transformed the movie industry, but either couldn't see or didn't have the time to follow where computer animation would go), and turned it into Pixar Animated Studios, the most commercially and critically successful computer animation studio of modern times. He funded the operation through several lean years until the launch of Toy Story, and then ran the company until finally it was acquired by Disney, making him the largest stockholder of the company (and multi-billionaire), but also, in my opinion, saving the company's soul after years of substandard programming by managers whose decisions were driven by cost, rather than by art.
Before all that, however, back in Apple Land....former PepsiCo leader John Sculley had managed to stabilize the company as requested. It was so stable, however, that it was sinking like a rock. Apple had always been, and to this day continues to be, a bit player in the grand scheme of computer sales. However, it had acquired an ardent fan base in the early days. But bit player, with nothing new or exciting to entice people not to abandon it for the dominant players of IBM and Microsoft and such...well, it wasn't a winning market strategy. Which is not to say that Sculley was unsuccessful. He did a great job of building up the structures and strategies and corporate skeleton that Apple needed to survive in a business environment. But the company realized that they could not survive without an exciting alternative to the IBM/Microsoft/corporate dominate computers. They realized they needed the Jobs magic again.
In the interim, Jobs had also grown up a little, corporate-wise, at least. He had learned that he couldn't always abandon last year's work to pursue this year's possibilities. More importantly, perhaps, he realized that you couldn't necessarily create next year's vision without going through this year's reality.
Whatever, Apple bought out NeXT, Jobs was back in charge, and Apple started going gangbusters again (with an organization that could support the vision). The NeXT software became the new Mac OS X software. They created MacBooks, iMacs, and all the incredible software bundled with their computers for free. Then they branched out to iPod, iPhones, iPads. Jobs' vision about the potential of digital technology outreached computers themselves, and extended to the music industry, the movie industry, and the book industry. Apple was leading the charge to reinvent almost all of the popular media that we use today.
So, then, Steve Jobs' life is a great lesson to teach our middle schoolers, outside of his technology. When he had his big falling out with the company he created, he had enough money to go off and do nothing for the rest of his life but complain about how stupid Apple had been to (to be honest) kick him out. But all our lives would probably have been the poorer for it. Instead, he kept pursuing his vision for using computers to transform the lives, not just of the rich, corporate, or knowledgable, but of everyone. He was brilliant enough to see the potential in Pixar, and humble enough to learn about his own mistakes that enabled him to return to Apple. He could overcome his ego and his competitiveness enough to build a relationship with Microsoft that enabled Macintosh computers to read Microsoft documents (which, again to be honest, probably is what saved Apple from going belly up in the 1990's). In short, I think he learned the thin line between confidence and arrogance, and I think we are all the better for it.
The other lesson we can learn from Steve Jobs is the need for passion, or in the more personal vernacular, love. His graduation address at Stanford has been making the rounds, and I've included it below. In it, he talks about how there is nothing more important than living a life of love. And he is not only talking about relationships; he is referring to finding the love behind how we spend out lives every day. He says that he started each day looking at the mirror and asking himself that if this were his last day on Earth, would he want to spend it doing what he was going to do that day? He responds that if he found himself answering "no" for too many days in a row, then he found a way to change his life.
So there is much to learn from Steve Jobs. He teaches us about sticking to a vision, even when it is a lonely road. He teaches us about going through a public "defeat" and coming through it stronger and wiser. He teaches us about when one door is closed, find a new opening. And he teaches us about, when it comes down to it, it's all about love, even if it seems to be about computers.
Oh, and he just happened to foster the development of the some of the best digital tools of our times. But, like I said, that was a by-product of a life well spent.
Hear his deliver his life philosophy below:
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Thank you, Steve Jobs
I was really sorry to hear the news from one my friends today that Steve Jobs had died. The term "visionary" gets thrown around a lot these days, but if there was anyone who deserved that term, it was Jobs. You may not be a dedicated Apple computer user, like our family is. But did you realize that the whole point-at-a-picture-and-click-to-make-your-computer-respond interface that prevails in today's personal computers came from Job's vision? I remember the first time such a way to interact with your computer first showed up, in the long defunct Lisa Computer (from Apple). Lisa didn't last, but it was such a harbinger of the future--a vision, yes, of a computer that could be used by those who hadn't learned computer code, which was the only way to run computer before Apple Computer redefined computers. Windows was merely a copy, a catch-up, to Apple's game-changing software interface. So pretty much all of us who aren't code-crunchers owe a debt to Steve Jobs.
Of course, that wasn't his only gift to us. How many of us own iPods, or other MP3 players that were inspired or influenced by Apple's foray into the digital music business? And, indeed, the iPod technology has arguably changed the entire music business as much as anything since the earliest recording technologies. Eventually, that morphed into the iPhone--where you could stay connected to email and WWW and such using your phone--and then to the iPad, a design for the digital book, plus much more. Again, that entire line was driven by Job's vision for a digital technology that could transform our lives.
Even the youngest among us has been touched by Job's genius. Is there any children's movie makers today who have had such an unbroken line of hits as Pixar, which Jobs bought from George Lucas and turned into an digital movie company that has enjoyed an unparalleled success, both critically and commercially.
There is so much that we could all learn about the leadership path of Jobs over the years, and perhaps I will write something more about that in a later post. But right now, I just want to express my gratitude to the man who had done so much to make computers so easy for us to use. Particularly as a homeschooler, I don't know how I could teach without the easy operation of computer technology that he helped to facilitate.
Of course, that wasn't his only gift to us. How many of us own iPods, or other MP3 players that were inspired or influenced by Apple's foray into the digital music business? And, indeed, the iPod technology has arguably changed the entire music business as much as anything since the earliest recording technologies. Eventually, that morphed into the iPhone--where you could stay connected to email and WWW and such using your phone--and then to the iPad, a design for the digital book, plus much more. Again, that entire line was driven by Job's vision for a digital technology that could transform our lives.
Even the youngest among us has been touched by Job's genius. Is there any children's movie makers today who have had such an unbroken line of hits as Pixar, which Jobs bought from George Lucas and turned into an digital movie company that has enjoyed an unparalleled success, both critically and commercially.
There is so much that we could all learn about the leadership path of Jobs over the years, and perhaps I will write something more about that in a later post. But right now, I just want to express my gratitude to the man who had done so much to make computers so easy for us to use. Particularly as a homeschooler, I don't know how I could teach without the easy operation of computer technology that he helped to facilitate.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Curriculum Resource NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program (with special guest appearance by Eragon's Christopher Paolini)
Good news--the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program website for 2011 is up! You are probably familiar with the NaNoWriMo program--that is, the short-hand description for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, an online effort to encourage thousands of adults to write a 50,000-word novel in the space of a month (and November, one of those only 30 day months at that). It is supposed to be an intense writing experience, which I hope to do one of these years (but I don't think this will be the year).
However, my son would like to do NaNoWriMo this year. Fortunately for him, they have a great website that supports younger writers (who also get to work towards a smaller total word count). The site has countdown clocks and word counters and Internet badges and lots of cool stuff like that to attract students to the project. It also has some things to get them over writer's block, such as a Dare Machine, which "dares" authors to include certain things in their stories or try some fun writing exercises, such as having your characters write a novel about YOU.
But once November starts, much of the program is geared towards encouraging students to actually finish the novels they have begun. One way they do that is to have published authors send emails to the students with bits of advice or pep talk. And guess who will be sending some emails this year? None other than Christopher Paolini, who wrote the first of his famous Eragon series when he was 15 and was homeschooling. Now, with 25 million of his books sold worldwide, he is the hero among young writers, but especially among those who homeschool.
HOWEVER--even if you and your students/children aren't participating, there are still resources to check out. Of particular interest to teachers is their collection of hour-long lesson plans about many aspects of writing, including creating characters, developing conflict, writing good dialogue, choosing a setting that support the characters, and so on. Click here to see the full list of lesson plans available for middle school students.
So whether or not you end up writing a novel in a month, it is a curriculum resource that is worth checking out.
However, my son would like to do NaNoWriMo this year. Fortunately for him, they have a great website that supports younger writers (who also get to work towards a smaller total word count). The site has countdown clocks and word counters and Internet badges and lots of cool stuff like that to attract students to the project. It also has some things to get them over writer's block, such as a Dare Machine, which "dares" authors to include certain things in their stories or try some fun writing exercises, such as having your characters write a novel about YOU.
But once November starts, much of the program is geared towards encouraging students to actually finish the novels they have begun. One way they do that is to have published authors send emails to the students with bits of advice or pep talk. And guess who will be sending some emails this year? None other than Christopher Paolini, who wrote the first of his famous Eragon series when he was 15 and was homeschooling. Now, with 25 million of his books sold worldwide, he is the hero among young writers, but especially among those who homeschool.
HOWEVER--even if you and your students/children aren't participating, there are still resources to check out. Of particular interest to teachers is their collection of hour-long lesson plans about many aspects of writing, including creating characters, developing conflict, writing good dialogue, choosing a setting that support the characters, and so on. Click here to see the full list of lesson plans available for middle school students.
So whether or not you end up writing a novel in a month, it is a curriculum resource that is worth checking out.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Math Trek at the North Carolina Museum of Art
Our Math Trek series has started up again for the new year. This is one of the creative math activities organized by Maria Droujkova of Natural Math. It is a multi-aged program where students of all levels take quests to find and photograph different math concepts. We then share them with each other, whether by discussion, acting them out, or posting them on the web.
This week's Trek took place at the North Carolina Museum of Art, which has so many wonderful things to look at, whether mathematical or not. Maria's colleague, Brad Herring, was there to capture the action on film, so that we could share it with other similar groups around the world so they could have their own Math Treks:
Maria have the students various "quests" to find and photographs, including recording examples of fractions, proportions, and fractals. Then we came together to discuss and recreate some of our favorite mathematical concepts/photographs:
As always, it was a fun and educational outing. Plus, the weather was beautiful this weekend. But to see students discovering math in settings all around them--that was even more beautiful!
This week's Trek took place at the North Carolina Museum of Art, which has so many wonderful things to look at, whether mathematical or not. Maria's colleague, Brad Herring, was there to capture the action on film, so that we could share it with other similar groups around the world so they could have their own Math Treks:
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| Our intrepid leader, Maria Droujkova |
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| Our videographer, Brad Herring |
Maria have the students various "quests" to find and photographs, including recording examples of fractions, proportions, and fractals. Then we came together to discuss and recreate some of our favorite mathematical concepts/photographs:
 |
| Recurring Circles |
 |
| Acting out the proportions of seats in a circular amphitheater |
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| Making a human fractal |
As always, it was a fun and educational outing. Plus, the weather was beautiful this weekend. But to see students discovering math in settings all around them--that was even more beautiful!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Review of the Hunger Games series, with a little Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, and Twilight Thrown In
The popular media item I was most wrong about was The Pirates of the Caribbean movie. When I heard that Disney was going to make a movie based on a ride at one of its theme parks, I thought it was the stupidest idea I had ever heard. Even when I found out that Johnny Depp, whom I love love LOVE, was going to star, still, I was not a believer. But when I actually watched the movie, I thought it was GREAT for the kind of film it was. Fun, fantastic, swashbuckling action, and interesting, larger-than-life characters, most especially the one-of-a-kind Captain Jack Sparrow that Depp created. But it has some interesting meat as well--some valuable lessons amongst all the ghosts and pirates and young lovers and such. It was a perfect summer blockbuster film, and I admit I was completely wrong in my pre-judgements.
But my second most egregious error may be my previous dismissal of The Hunger Game series.
The premise of the book--that is, a bunch of teenagers who have to fight to the death for the amusement of the TV audience--sounded like yet another grim, post-apocalyptic YA novel filled with senseless violence (which to me, a perennially upbeat person my entire life, seems inexplicably popular to today’s teenagers). But I was wrong. Well, it is a grim, post-apocalyptic novel...now that I’ve read the whole series, I’m not convinced it should be classified for Young Adults, unless by that they mean college students. Most of all, however, it is violent--more violent as the books proceed--but the violence is not senseless at all. The violence teaches us a lot. It teaches us about war, and about power, and about coercion. It teaches us about human nature, and how really horrible people can be to one another...but also how wonderful and loving and heroic they can be as well.
Because as it turns out, the fighting between the teenagers is really just the appetizer. The entire series is more of a meditation on totalitarianism, a la Fahrenheit 451 or Nineteen Eighty-Four. However, it incorporates more modern aspects to it, such as the rise of reality television and the latest devices for warfare.
The series also kind of made me think of Harry Potter for grown-ups. Only instead of magical Hogwarts castles where the four houses competed in Quidditch and the House Cup, here we have the dystopic nation of Panen, where the citizens of the 12 Districts that remain of the United States compete simply to survive. And Voldemort, mean dude that he is for children’s literature, really can’t compare with the political leaders in the Hunger Games, who wipe out entire villages, schools, hospitals, or even a whole District, seemingly without a qualm. Because in the Hunger Games, they aren’t just messing around, trying to get rid of an elderly wizard and “the boy who lived.” In the Hunger Games, they are in all-out war.
So the Hunger Games books get high marks for realistically depicting what happens in war. And I think it is a valuable thing for young people to read. Again, I wouldn’t advise it for middle schoolers; that is, I think they could read it, but I don’t think they would GET it. But teenagers, college students, young graduates whose lives have basically been untouched by the multiple “wars” we are in and have been over the past 10-20 years, but where all the pain and suffering and destruction occurs only in foreign countries and among our paid military--this is a great wake-up call to how awful war really is. And one of the greatest questions raised, which runs through all the books, is who your enemy really is. That is not always an easy question to answer in a war.
HOWEVER....there is another side to the books.
War, and political coercion, and when and how to fight back, are definitely major themes of the series. But there is another backbone to the stories, and that (just like Harry Potter) is love. Yes, there is the love triangle, a la Twilight, except about ONE THOUSAND times better, since the characters are interesting and multi-dimensional, and they demonstrate their love through their actions, not sitting around moony-eyed whining about how they can’t live (or not live....well, you know what I mean) without the other, like the dippy lovers in the current soap opera that is Mary Worth..
OK, sorry about that. I just had to get that out of my system.
So there is a love triangle, but the choice is much more realistic (vampire versus werewolf...come on). Do I choose the one who loves me irrationally and unconditionally, even though I don’t think s/he really knows me? Or do I choose the one who knows all about me, particularly my dark side, to which s/he seems to draw me? Actually choosing a partner not just by how s/he makes you feel (ESPECIALLY when you are awash in adolescent hormones), but by the way s/he acts and by the kind of person you are when you are with that person--now THAT is a lesson about love. Again, I’m not sure even teenagers are ready to think that way, but I’m pretty sure middle schoolers aren’t.
And the wonderful thing of the book is that is not the only type of love explored. There is love for family and love for friends and love for team mates and love for colleagues that maybe even should be thought of as enemies. There is love for the earth and love for the animals. There is all kinds of love. And that, again, lifts this series above the many dystopic YA series there are out there.
So in this series, there is war, and there is love. And because it is war, and because it is NOT Harry Potter (as much as I loved that series), if you make it through the end of the series, characters that you love will die. Because that is the reality of war. And you will be shocked, and you will miss them, and you may even cry, but you will go on to finish the book, and continue to appreciate them even after they have disappeared from the text. Because that is the reality of love.
So if you are up to experience all that--I don’t know a better current YA series to read.
PS--If you want to see my responses to the first two books in the series, visit:
Book Review: The Hunger Games
A Concrete Poem on Catching Fire
But my second most egregious error may be my previous dismissal of The Hunger Game series.
The premise of the book--that is, a bunch of teenagers who have to fight to the death for the amusement of the TV audience--sounded like yet another grim, post-apocalyptic YA novel filled with senseless violence (which to me, a perennially upbeat person my entire life, seems inexplicably popular to today’s teenagers). But I was wrong. Well, it is a grim, post-apocalyptic novel...now that I’ve read the whole series, I’m not convinced it should be classified for Young Adults, unless by that they mean college students. Most of all, however, it is violent--more violent as the books proceed--but the violence is not senseless at all. The violence teaches us a lot. It teaches us about war, and about power, and about coercion. It teaches us about human nature, and how really horrible people can be to one another...but also how wonderful and loving and heroic they can be as well.
Because as it turns out, the fighting between the teenagers is really just the appetizer. The entire series is more of a meditation on totalitarianism, a la Fahrenheit 451 or Nineteen Eighty-Four. However, it incorporates more modern aspects to it, such as the rise of reality television and the latest devices for warfare.
The series also kind of made me think of Harry Potter for grown-ups. Only instead of magical Hogwarts castles where the four houses competed in Quidditch and the House Cup, here we have the dystopic nation of Panen, where the citizens of the 12 Districts that remain of the United States compete simply to survive. And Voldemort, mean dude that he is for children’s literature, really can’t compare with the political leaders in the Hunger Games, who wipe out entire villages, schools, hospitals, or even a whole District, seemingly without a qualm. Because in the Hunger Games, they aren’t just messing around, trying to get rid of an elderly wizard and “the boy who lived.” In the Hunger Games, they are in all-out war.
So the Hunger Games books get high marks for realistically depicting what happens in war. And I think it is a valuable thing for young people to read. Again, I wouldn’t advise it for middle schoolers; that is, I think they could read it, but I don’t think they would GET it. But teenagers, college students, young graduates whose lives have basically been untouched by the multiple “wars” we are in and have been over the past 10-20 years, but where all the pain and suffering and destruction occurs only in foreign countries and among our paid military--this is a great wake-up call to how awful war really is. And one of the greatest questions raised, which runs through all the books, is who your enemy really is. That is not always an easy question to answer in a war.
HOWEVER....there is another side to the books.
War, and political coercion, and when and how to fight back, are definitely major themes of the series. But there is another backbone to the stories, and that (just like Harry Potter) is love. Yes, there is the love triangle, a la Twilight, except about ONE THOUSAND times better, since the characters are interesting and multi-dimensional, and they demonstrate their love through their actions, not sitting around moony-eyed whining about how they can’t live (or not live....well, you know what I mean) without the other, like the dippy lovers in the current soap opera that is Mary Worth..
OK, sorry about that. I just had to get that out of my system.
So there is a love triangle, but the choice is much more realistic (vampire versus werewolf...come on). Do I choose the one who loves me irrationally and unconditionally, even though I don’t think s/he really knows me? Or do I choose the one who knows all about me, particularly my dark side, to which s/he seems to draw me? Actually choosing a partner not just by how s/he makes you feel (ESPECIALLY when you are awash in adolescent hormones), but by the way s/he acts and by the kind of person you are when you are with that person--now THAT is a lesson about love. Again, I’m not sure even teenagers are ready to think that way, but I’m pretty sure middle schoolers aren’t.
And the wonderful thing of the book is that is not the only type of love explored. There is love for family and love for friends and love for team mates and love for colleagues that maybe even should be thought of as enemies. There is love for the earth and love for the animals. There is all kinds of love. And that, again, lifts this series above the many dystopic YA series there are out there.
So in this series, there is war, and there is love. And because it is war, and because it is NOT Harry Potter (as much as I loved that series), if you make it through the end of the series, characters that you love will die. Because that is the reality of war. And you will be shocked, and you will miss them, and you may even cry, but you will go on to finish the book, and continue to appreciate them even after they have disappeared from the text. Because that is the reality of love.
So if you are up to experience all that--I don’t know a better current YA series to read.
PS--If you want to see my responses to the first two books in the series, visit:
Book Review: The Hunger Games
A Concrete Poem on Catching Fire
Saturday, October 1, 2011
A New Addition to Final Friday
It was the final Friday last night, which is the occasion of the month Art Loop in Cary, NC, where we live. Final Friday has been enhanced the past few months with the opening of the new Cary Arts Center, which now participates. But last night, we had not only CAC join in, but also an occasional participant and a brand new art gallery that has opened in downtown Cary.
We started at the Arts Center, which was bustling because the theatre was showing Once Upon a Mattress that night as well. But the month's exhibit was also interesting; it consists of high-quality photographs of assorted old family heirlooms, accompanied by a short piece written by a poet about the significance of these antiques to the family of the descendants. It was a great show to discuss with my son and his friend who accompanied us, because it made them consider how many stories there are associated with the things that we value, whether they are utilitarian, sentimental, or actually have monetary worth outside the family.
There is a commercial center along Chatham Street in downtown Cary called Chocolate Smiles after the candy store of the same name located in that plaza. They joined in the fun this month by staying up late and offering food and entertainment. The chocolate store encouraged children to make art from jelly beans:
They served lovely food, including some empanadas and fried plantains from the nearby Cuban restaurant:
and quite a nice blues band that played as we ate and sipped and watched the sun set from the terrace above:
All of the Town of Cary buildings had the same displays as last Final Friday, so we didn't go to those buildings. But we headed down to the heart of downtown Cary, where what did we discover but....
There is a NEW art gallery that has just opened in downtown Cary! Apparently, only three days ago...
The gallery is named Emerge Fine Arts, and it is owned by a digital photography artist, assisted by her father and her Chinese Crested Hairless dog, whose name is Sophie:
The art was rather upscale, but very nice, including some wonderful glass, watercolor, and acrylic pieces:
So good luck to Emerge--we hope it is really successful! It was great to add it to our Final Friday tour.
Of course, we also loved the art in our usual favorite galleries as well--Cary Gallery of Artists, the Russian Gallery, and the more-recently opened Chambers Art. Lots of lovely pieces to see in all sorts of media, and many of the artists are available on that night to talk about their work. So it is a great opportunity to enhance your education about contemporary art.
We started at the Arts Center, which was bustling because the theatre was showing Once Upon a Mattress that night as well. But the month's exhibit was also interesting; it consists of high-quality photographs of assorted old family heirlooms, accompanied by a short piece written by a poet about the significance of these antiques to the family of the descendants. It was a great show to discuss with my son and his friend who accompanied us, because it made them consider how many stories there are associated with the things that we value, whether they are utilitarian, sentimental, or actually have monetary worth outside the family.
There is a commercial center along Chatham Street in downtown Cary called Chocolate Smiles after the candy store of the same name located in that plaza. They joined in the fun this month by staying up late and offering food and entertainment. The chocolate store encouraged children to make art from jelly beans:
They served lovely food, including some empanadas and fried plantains from the nearby Cuban restaurant:
and quite a nice blues band that played as we ate and sipped and watched the sun set from the terrace above:
All of the Town of Cary buildings had the same displays as last Final Friday, so we didn't go to those buildings. But we headed down to the heart of downtown Cary, where what did we discover but....
There is a NEW art gallery that has just opened in downtown Cary! Apparently, only three days ago...
The gallery is named Emerge Fine Arts, and it is owned by a digital photography artist, assisted by her father and her Chinese Crested Hairless dog, whose name is Sophie:
The art was rather upscale, but very nice, including some wonderful glass, watercolor, and acrylic pieces:
So good luck to Emerge--we hope it is really successful! It was great to add it to our Final Friday tour.
Of course, we also loved the art in our usual favorite galleries as well--Cary Gallery of Artists, the Russian Gallery, and the more-recently opened Chambers Art. Lots of lovely pieces to see in all sorts of media, and many of the artists are available on that night to talk about their work. So it is a great opportunity to enhance your education about contemporary art.
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