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Sunday, September 18th, 2005
Our bedtime story tonight was Chapter 4 of Moominpappa at Sea. Here I am remembering what I really liked about this book last time I read it -- other than the beautiful prose -- in this chapter Moominpappa, who has previously (in this book and mostly in the others as well) seemed to me like the least complete of the major characters, alternately a petty tyrant and a bumbling goofus, starts to establish himself as someone I can really identify with.
posted evening of September 18th, 2005: Respond
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Saturday, September 17th, 2005
Our bedtime story tonight was Chapter 3 of Moominpappa at Sea. Here are a couple of nice things. - Moomintroll discovers a glade, which he wants to make his secret hiding-place. Unfortunately it is already inhabited by belligerent red ants. Here is Moomintroll's rationalization of why it's alright for him to seek to evict them:
Naturally, they were living there before he had appeared on the scene. But if one lives in the ground, one just doesn't see anything of what's up above; an ant has no idea of what birds or clouds look like, or for that matter doesn't know anything about the things that are important to a Moomintroll, for instance. [Sylvia interjects here, like his tail is important to him. -- Because in the previous paragraph, the ants had bitten his tail.]There were many kinds of justice. According to one kind, which was a little complicated, perhaps, but absolutely fair, the glade belonged to him and not to the ants. I love this examination of his thinking. It goes directly to the heart of the matter, tersely poetic. There is also a reference of a sort back to the trial of Thingumy and Bob in "Finn Family Moomintroll", in which their defense was that they thought the King's Ruby was the most beautiful thing in the world, whereas the Groke only thought it was the most expensive. And that seemed pretty convincing in that case, more obviously self-serving here. (Speaking of the Groke, she is portrayed again in this book, and with more depth than before, if still as a monster.) - There is a picture of the sea-horse, with whom Moomintroll is going to fall in love, for the first time in the book -- she has been mentioned before but not shown. Sylvia says, "Hey that's not a seahorse! That looks like a galloping horse!" And I think, "Wow, now for the first time I understand why they call seahorses that." Because the illustration combines the curvy seahorse body with the body and legs of a horse and it looks very natural.
- Chapter 4, which we will read tomorrow (or Monday -- tomorrow is Sylvia's birthday party and she may be too tired out afterwards to want to think about Moomins), is called "The North-easter". When Sylvia heard this she pricked up and said Chapter 3 had been called "The West Wind" and that the two chapter titles were similar. I had totally not thought of that at all -- I had forgotten the title of the chapter we were reading. So props to Sylvia for seeing something about the frame of the story.
posted evening of September 17th, 2005: Respond
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Friday, August 19th, 2005
As of tomorrow, Ellen nd Sylvia and I have been a family for 4 years. We adopted Sylvia from the Shanghai Children's Welfare Institute on August 20, 2001. We are celebrating with a day in the city, going to Central Park and to Lincoln Center. (Also it's Ellen's birthday soon, so it's a celebratory time of year for us.)
posted morning of August 19th, 2005: Respond
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Wednesday, July 27th, 2005
Something interesting about seeing the bad movie of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was seeing how closely Sylvia has been paying attention to the plot of the book. We were 3 chapters away from the end, when we saw the movie; and all through the movie Sylvia was pointing out details that were different from the book. (Fortunately the matinee was sparsely attended and she could talk without annoying anybody.) And then when we went back to the book, she spent the last three chapters pointing out things that were different from the movie -- especially the last chapter, where the movie diverges widely -- she got really excited at the notion that it was essentially a different story.
posted evening of July 27th, 2005: Respond
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Thursday, July 14th, 2005
The candy-making date is to be this Saturday afternoon. We will make chocolate fudge and marshmallows, and dip them in chocolate; also brazil nuts and peanut clusters, and a couple of molded chocolate shapes. Meanwhile in the read, last night we had Chapter 13, "The Big Day Arrives". Sylvia was participating in the book as much as I have seen her do, pointing out the different characters in the picture, describing who they were and what their roles in the story were. Update: Also Connie and Julia are going to come over and help, and bring strawberries for dipping.
posted morning of July 14th, 2005: Respond
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Monday, July 11th, 2005
Our reread of The Phantom Tollbooth stalled around Chapter 17, because of the presence of Demons -- ever since about when Milo was in the Forest of Sight, Sylvia has been asking with trepidation, "Are there Demons in this chapter?" most every night, and I would reassure her that there were not any yet. But once we got to Chapter 17, where there are Demons, Sylvia did not want any more. I tried encouraging her a bit to stick it out through the scary part in expectation of a happy ending -- one indeed which she is already acquainted with and had talked about in earlier parts of the book -- but I did not want to lean on her about it. So, we have moved on to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (Yes, we are reading this partially in expectation of the new movie that's coming out -- we watched and enjoyed the Gene Wilder film and are looking forward to the new one.) I'm a little surprised because Sylvia didn't think too much of James and the Giant Peach, which I always thought was pretty similar; I guess the addition of Chocolate makes all the difference. She is crazy about this book. We have decided to try making chocolate candies as a cooking project while we read this book. I have not made candy for several years, but last time I did they came out pretty well. I think the addition of Sylvia's enthusiasm will be helpful. Also tonight she said she wants to bake Challah bread with me, another thing I have not done for a long time. (Maybe ever? I've made egg breads but I don't know if any of them were specifically challah.) So -- looking forward to the kitchen stuff, I'll let you know how it goes.
posted evening of July 11th, 2005: Respond
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Tuesday, May 31st, 2005
A bunch of new images for the READIN Family Album:
posted evening of May 31st, 2005: Respond
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Monday, March 21st, 2005
We have always had board games around and Sylvia has always enjoyed playing them. All of a sudden she has developed a real fascination for them, touched off by learning how to play Monopoly Jr. (which is sort of like real Monopoly, with most of the strategy simplified out.) Every time I have walked in the door in the past week and a half, she has run to meet me and said, "Hi Dad, how was your day, want to play Monockoly?" So we do; and when that is done (we each seem to win about half the time), we play Candyland and Chutes & Ladders.
posted evening of March 21st, 2005: Respond
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Thursday, March 17th, 2005
Our venture into chapter books continues apace -- two nights ago we finished Winnie-the-Pooh, last night we started Just-So Stories.
posted morning of March 17th, 2005: Respond
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Monday, March 14th, 2005
Living with Sylvia (who is busy discovering how to use computers and the internet) means that you will frequently Google around for interactive dinosaur games hoping to find something that will be interesting to you and her both. Today I may have hit the jackpot in the form of the BBC's Dinosaurs page. There are a lot of things to do there of which we have only looked at a few; but the very latest addition to the site is Dinosaur World, which just knocked my socks off. It is a multimedia program that lets you explore your way around an ancient landscape, watching dinosaurs and listening to descriptions of them. The graphics are jaw-droppingly great and the soundtrack is quite well done too. The download (which is free) is 20 M; there is also a "low spec" option which I assume is smaller. The product is still in beta and will crash frequently.
posted evening of March 14th, 2005: Respond
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