The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
— Ps. 90:10

It’s a hard world for little things. — The Night of the Hunter

Some people like to talk about how subversive children’s books are. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do see a lot of harsh reality in them–even in picture books. We’re all laughing and having a good time, but don’t kid yourself. …

Take for example, Mini Grey’s terrific new book, Ginger Bear.

For the past week, I’ve been forcing all my colleagues to read it. And while I’ve seen one reviewer who enjoyed its “barkingmad originality,” I‘ve yet to see anyone praise its gritty realism and dark humor—let me be the first.

Through a series of fortunate events, Ginger Bear, a cookie, escapes being eaten. When he wakes up in the night after all the humans are asleep, he creates an entire circus of cookie friends who gleefully engage in some very risky behavior. (Carpe noctem?) Enter: Bongo the dog (who loves cookies, but not in a way that is necessarily good for cookies) and it’s cookie carnage all over the kitchen floor. Ginger Bear escapes and finds a way he can live happily, and safely, ever after. Whew!

I love the way this story and its wild illustrations make you laugh and force you to confront the harsh truth we all must learn, “a cookie’s life is usually short and sweet.” The message is just as in-your-face as any of the old versions of the Three Little Pigs, but avoids being mean or bitter. There’s good with the bad. There’s joy. There’s hope. Life is short and sweet. And a clever cookie can live a long and happy life.

Too scary for storytime? I don’t think so. We start kids out with tales of cookie mortality like the Gingerbread Man, and before you know it, the dog dies, and Charlotte the spider and Bambi’s mother, and then it’s the grandfather and the girl who’s your best friend. It’s a hard world for little things, right from the start. And while I’m not advocating a steady stream of tear-jerkers (I’m pretty much done done with the dead dog books)—and I’m definitely a fan of zaniness like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Whales on Stilts— would you really want to come to King Lear without first knowing what can happen to a cookie in a harsh world?

They’re putting out the Christmas things at my local Stuff-Mart, and I confess this makes me cranky. Not just because the Back-to-School items are barely on the clearance aisle, and no one has even thought about their Halloween costumes yet (tho’ I suppose I do know what’s on the menu for Thanksgiving), but because now I am pitted against my fellow consumers in a battle I had hoped to delay.

It’s a true fact—as they say—that there is only a certain quantity of stock that will be set out for Christmas. “Shop early for best selection!” Cheery words if we’re all feeling the holiday spirit, but in September?! In September the only spirit that can possibly motivate serious Christmas shopping is fear and greed:  somebody else will get the good stuff for cheap if I don’t get busy.

I’ve always hated being put in this sort of relationship unnecessarily. We’re all getting along quite nicely, thank you, when someone decides to turn it into a competition. Like the cook for the pizza buffet who, after 45 minutes, when it’s clear that no one in the dining room is interested in the dried-out spinach and pineapple pizza puts out a single pepperoni pie. Everyone rushes to the buffet—but how many pieces should you take? Should you let the little kids go first? And who is this cook who has turned my lunch hour into a moral dilemma?

I understand “creating demand.” I’ve lived through Power Rangers and Pokemon, and I’m not opposed to profit or the desire to sell everything you have out on the floor. Just don’t expect me to cut people off at the knees in response to some faux desperation you’re forcing on me for your economic convenience. I only do that for that last Red Ranger on Christmas Eve.

If you haven’t seen parkour, or its cousin free running, then you really ought to get yourself on over to YouTube and take a look.  Or check out the opening to “Casino Royale” for some x-treme parkour (firearms and international intrigue are a movie extra). 

For me, watching an accomplished parkour athlete feels like riding a roller coaster—my internal organs are in freefall, my body wants to launch itself over the nearest railing.  I can only imagine that actually moving this way must be like flying.   And after seeing a few of these videos, I find the urban landscape starts to look a little different.  I’m thinking:  over, under, through.  What used to look like an obstacle becomes a jumping off point.  Things I never noticed now command attention.  (Do skaters’ moms see the world in terms of ramps and rails?   Certainly, when my children were toddlers every sharp corner in the world suddenly appeared to be painted caution yellow.)

Learning feels like parkour to me.  Someone shows you something new and imagination lets you see the world in a different way.  Let go of your fear, give it a try, stick with it, and you may get to fly.   And whether I’m trying to understand a human activity or trying to do it myself, it often starts with an imaginative shift.  Mastery, if it comes, comes much later.  But even if I never get beyond the novice stage, I’m grateful for the chance to try out those lenses.

One more thing:  Kerry Folan had an interesting article in the Washington Post about training sessions at a parkour gym.  Here’s the final paragraph:

After class, no one seems quite ready to leave: Several people linger to rehydrate and rehash the day’s exploits; others continue to mess around on the equipment. Toorock encourages this: “Fun and community are so much more connected to successful training than you could imagine,” he says. “That’s why our program works. I tell people to forget exercise and go play.”

Fun, community, play—the stuff that keeps you going, keeps you engaged, keeps you creative while you sweat.  No matter what hurdle you’re trying to jump.

My daughter likes to try on shoes.  Especially the ones with 3- to 4-inch heels that she calls “Cram-your-foot-into-the-toe-Barbie-would-approve” shoes.  A Wallabee wearer myself, I’ve done my parental duty and had the Bunion and Hammer Toe Talk, but I try not to be a fanatic.    

So the other day we were in the Target when she spotted some slinky boots with the requisite heels, and then some red shoes with peekaboo toes, and some cork wedges with rainbow straps and we had to stop to try them on.  I waited while she walked off (with only a slight wobble) to look for a mirror and take in the full effect. 

When she returned, my daughter told me about the nice woman with two small boys who’d watched as she checked out the shoes and remarked,  “They’re cute, but you’ll fall.”   

My daughter laughed and the woman continued, “It’s ok.  I try them on all the time.”  

“My mother would never let me get these,” my middleschooler said, and the other mother replied, “It’s okay.  I do it too.  It’s okay to dream.”

My long-haired beagle-spaniel has entered into that time of year that we call The Big Shed.  Every summer he grows what must be an entirely new coat, and for a brief while his fur becomes as soft and dense as an otter’s.  Then the old coat falls out and I begin to follow him  around with a comb.  The first year I witnessed this process it was startling.  Now I know that I have to be diligent–even annoying–during The Big Shed, or dog hair will become so much more than a mere condiment.

My dog tries to be tolerant, but he hates to be messed with.  For the next few months he will regard me with suspicion:  Is she hiding a comb?  Is she going to pick at my fur again?  Finally, The Big Shed will move from his haunches to his back to his ruff and be over.  And then we will be free to be ourselves again.

Sometimes I think people have forgotten what it means to converse.  Okay, not everyone has forgotten, but enough folks for me to take notice. 

We all know that “debate” has largely gone down the tubes.  All you get at a debate these days is one person stating a position followed by another person stating his or her position.  It doesn’t really matter if they agree or disagree–how would they know?–their minds will never touch.  No one ever changes his position, not even in the audience, because there is no fruitful examination of the merits of the ideas expressed.   

But if we take these same ideas and put them in the context of a conversation or discussion, then in theory, the speakers’ behavior should change.  It’s a different game.  If good debate is about refutation and persuasion, then good conversation, it seems to me, should be about the refining of our understandings and solutions.  Conversations should be the place where we work things out to our mutual benefit—the forum where we clarify our understanding.   And while the process can be rough and tumble (“Are you guys fighting?” “No, we’re having a discussion.”), the shared committment to moving ahead makes it worth the effort to continue.

The “Choose Your Own Adventure” format has made its way into young adult chick lit with the “Choose Your Boyfriend” books.  As they say on the cover, “If you’ve ever wondered ‘What if…?’ when it comes to boys and dating, Date Him or Dump Him?  is a fun, interactive series that lets you navigate the ups and down of the dating scene.”

My daughter read one of these the other day.  Her review:  “It’s sort of like a first-person shooter with boys.”  (Ah, the metaphorical stockpile of youth!)

A local business advertises laser hair removal with “all procedures performed by licensed nurses and aestheticians.”  Every time I hear the ad I find myself wondering, do licensed aestheticians actually take courses in aesthetics?  How much do you have to know about beauty and truth to get a license?   Is this the skill philosophy majors fall back on if their philosophy shop fails?  And how do you get on the certifying Board?  I did find a web page for The University of Aesthetics (“an educational oasis”), but I’m curious, do aesthetic standards vary from state to state or is there some sort of federal regulation?  

There are lots of questions that need to be answered before submitting to laser hair removal.  Caveat emptor. 

This was so good I had to share.  Scroll down to Soren Johnson’s “Life is Short” piece in The Washington Post.

There’s something to be said for the experience of a waiting room with only three magazines.

Becoming an independent reader in a small town meant more than just reading on my own. My public library was tiny, and I learned early on that if I was going to satisfy my bookish habits, I needed to find some other sources. So I was always on the lookout.

The school library–also tiny–was home to some great books that I read repeatedly: In second grade, Whitey and the Wild Horse by Glen Rounds and Peggy Parish’s Key to the Treasure were special pleasures, and I devoured those “Childhood of Famous Americans” books with the orange covers. (I know they’re out of favor these days–considered “too-much-fiction-and-not-enough-fact,” but I learned about all sorts of folks outside the elementary school curriculum from that series.)

On the weekends, my search continued. In addition to the usual Bible tales, the shelf in my Sunday school classroom had an old Grimm’s Fairy Tales with tiny color emblems–not really illustrations but more like mementos of the stories. “Iron Henry” ended with a picture of a bright red heart wrapped in iron bands. The original version of “Snow White” was here too: the one where the wicked queen is forced to dance herself to death in red-hot iron shoes. These stories struck me as strange and otherworldly–not unlike some of the Bible stories that way. And while they could be a bit difficult to get through, they were so intriguing that I wouldn’t give up.

Sometimes my neighborhood yielded unexpected treasures. When I found that my next-door neighbor’s grown sons had left behind several shelves of Hardy Boys mysteries, I was set for months.

But without a doubt, the collection that most formed (and fed) my early reading was my parents’ bookshelf. How many times did I find myself going to their books thinking, “Surely there must be something interesting here that I haven’t read!” So I poured over a book of color plates from the Louvre, and I read the captions in National Geographics.

Along with the books for grownups, my mother, who had been an education school instructor, had a full set of Scott, Foresman readers through grade 8—including Dick, Jane and Sally, along with many folktales. I loved the short stories and the brightly colored, expressive pictures, unusual in an age when cost and printing technology meant so many children’s books only had line drawings with one- or two-color wash.

And finally, if the day was long and I had exhausted my own bookshelf, there was my mother’s Arbuthnot Anthology. Her anthologies were the first place I encountered Norse mythology—so much more exciting than the Greeks and Romans! No real pictures and lots of work to read the Arbuthnot, but I knew there would always be something new within that teal cover.

As I think back, I wonder if the limited choices in my early library experiences fueled a habit of curiosity. In the absence of a wide selection, I was forced to keep digging. And left to myself with only a few playmates in the neighborhood, I uncovered some unexpected treasures–like Loki and Iron Henry–that I might never have known if there’d been a Borders next door.

So what did you read?