Avetts in October #21: A Sock Without a Boot

 

“And Tiller? Without you, I’m just a sock without a boot” – Sairy from Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech

Sharon Creech is one of my very favorite children’s authors. Her books are full of endearing characters and heartwarming stories. Just like The Avett Brothers’ Songs.

Sairy’s words to her husband, Tiller, remind me of these lyrics from I Wish I Was.

 

I’m not a song

I am not a sweater

I’m not a fire

I am something better

I’m a man in love writing you a letter

Will you take it

Will you keep it

Will you read it

Believe it

I love you

I’m sorry

 

I love watching the thought process as the song is put together. As a poet I can so relate to this.

 

All is Well

Nota Bene is a Latin phrase meaning “note well”. I first learned this when I was teaching sixth graders using a wonderful vocabulary program. Later, when reading a lovely book by Sharon Creech titled Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, I came across the expression “Tutto va bene” which means “all is well”.

Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on all that is well. I know I’ve read several articles lately about how all we were taught in school about the first Thanksgiving and pilgrims and Columbus and a lot of other things were skewed. That may well be. And there is a lot, a whole lot, wrong in our world today. But, that should have no bearing on our being thankful. Please know that I am talking to myself here as much as to anyone else. I am thankful that God has not abandoned me to my self-centered moanings.

 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. Psalm 95:2

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; Philippians 4:6

Say Yes to Life

Madeleine L’Engle, an author of books for children as well as books for adults, once said, “A children’s book must be … a book that says yes to life.” I think this is a profound statement.

I’ve been working off and on for quite a while on a book. It is aimed at middle-grade readers and I want it to be a book that impacts for good.

I was dismayed last year  while I was browsing the covers of some books that had been put out on display for middle schoolers. Now, I don’t mean we have to stay away from every hard subject of life, but one book there was definitely not one that this age group of young teens should be reading. And it wasn’t just the topic, suicide, but it was other things I found as I flipped through the pages; things I don’t even want to write here.

I see no reason kids need to have gutter language and sexual innuendo paraded and applauded. They get enough of that on TV and in the locker room and behind the teacher’s back. Why can’t novels be something uplifting and something to produce better thoughts?

Here are some of my favorite books for middle-grade students:

• The Watson’s Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
• Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
• Loser by Jerry Spinelli
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Okay for Now by Gary D.Schmidt
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
• Gone From These Woods by Donny Bailey Seagraves
• I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Treviño

What are your thoughts on reading material for middle school?