7/31/11

10 Ways to Use Your Words to Spread Love and Peace


This time of year is known on the Jewish calendar as the Nine Days, which culminate in the saddest day of the year, Tisha B'Av. This fast day is the anniversary of many tragic events in Jewish history, the most important three being the evil report given by 10 out of 12 scouts sent into the land of Israel by Moshe; the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians; and the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans.

Two out of three of these events are blamed by the rabbis on the use of words to harm others. By improving our speech, avoiding gossip and hurtful language, we can help bring the Moshiach and his reign of peace. If we build people with our words instead of destroying them with our words, we are adding bricks to the Third Temple.

In this digital age, we use words all the time. As a writer, I'm practically obsessed with them. But the more you use words, the more you must be careful with them. It is truly shocking how often we find people online misusing their words. People insult, use profanity, spread xenophobia and hatred with aplomb. People spread hurtful and offensive comments based on hearsay, rumor, or untruths and act like they're doing a public service.

The amazing thing is that a level-headed comment that respectfully disagrees is more influential, and a kind word or compliment makes people want to hear more of what you have to say. The more you use your words for good, the more blessing G-d gives them. If more people used their words to spread love and peace in the world, the world would be that much of a happier place to be.


Here are some positive ways you can use your words:

1) Apologize in a more meaningful and detailed way than a simple "I'm sorry," to someone you harmed.

2) Write an affectionate letter to a spouse, parent, child, teacher or friend.

3) Thank someone you haven't seen in years for something they did to help you a long time ago.

4) Write a positive review of a book or product.

5) Write a recommendation for a person to get work.

6) Write a letter complementing a company on the fine qualities of their product, or...

7) on the excellent service you received from an employee.

8) If you feel you must disagree with someone, make the comment respectful. For example:
"With all due respect, I must disagree with the idea that..."
"I'm not sure that the evidence supports your comment..."
"You make an interesting point. Can you defend it with some evidence?"
"I'm impressed by your..., but think your statement that...requires more thought."
"While I think that...is a wonderful..., I have to respectfully disagree with their notion that..."
NEVER insult a person, even if you must attack their ideas. (And, frankly, you usually don't really need to do that, you're just itching to.)

9) Leave a note in your spouse's or kid's lunchbox with a funny joke or mentioning something you look forward doing with them when they return home.

10) Write a (true or not) story or poem that reflects gratitude to G-d or to a person for the blessings they have brought into your life.


7/26/11

The Stuff You Find When Cleaning Your Kid's Room

Looking to make storytime more interactive with your kids? I was reshelving books in my kids' room today, and came across this book:

Fox's Best Trick Ever

This "We Both Read" book is one of a series put out by Treasure Bay. What sets these charming books apart is that the books are meant for young readers to share with an adult. Each pair of facing pages contains a page on the left with adult-level words, and a page on the right with leveled vocabulary perfect for the child to read. The parent/teacher and child work together to tell the story, building it jointly. It really enhances the bonding element of bedtime reading, and that coupled with the ease of reading the "kids" page often motivates the reluctant reader.

(You can take turns reading a more traditional text--I find the strategy highly effective with my newest reader at home--but these books make it EASY.)

There are fiction and non-fiction titles in the "We Both Read" series, many multicultural selections, and levels K-3. For more information, follow the link below.

http://www.webothread.com/server/TreasureBay/website/main/scripts/default.asp

7/24/11

Around the World...in books!

This week, the Family Camp that I organize is following the theme "Around the World." Here are a few books I recently borrowed from the library that definitely fit right in.

The Hatseller And The Monkeys

Baba Wague Diakite's The Hatseller and the Monkeys retells the folktale most Americans recognize from Caps for Sale. In this Malian version, we are given a wonderful glimpse into African village life, as well as a moral for the wacky tale. Ages 2-7.

Kampung Boy
The Far East is where the graphic novel first became most popular, and in Southeast Asia, one of the most popular authors of this format is Lat. Lat portrays his boyhood in a small village in Malaysia, circa 1950 in Kampung Boy. I adored both the humor and the loving nostagia Lat imbues the book with. Ages 7 through adult.

The Little Prince Graphic Novel
Many people grew up reading The Little Prince. Joann Sfar recently recreated Saint-Exupery's French classic in the graphic novel format. The experiences reading the two are very different--why not read both and compare?
Age 9 and up.

7/22/11

Jewish Picture Book Aims to Protect our Children from Harm

http://matzav.com/how-do-we-protect-our-children

Safety is--for obvious reasons--a high priority in our community right now. A friend recommended the book described in the link above. The article suggests that it introduces strategies to children so they can avoid being harmed by adults around them, yet approaches the subject in a way that is appropriate in our community.

In the comments section of the article, it makes clear that this book focuses on interactions with malicious strangers. Statistically, most children who are harmed (lo aleinu) are harmed by people they know. The next printing of the book will have this topic added.

Yoni Ploni… Never Talks to Strangers can be acquired directly from the author by dialing 347 393 3670.

The book has endorsements that have led me to place the link here, but I have not read the book myself yet. If you have and have any feedback to share, please feel free to add a comment below.

7/20/11

Censorship or careful parenting?

Should children read depictions of negative experiences that are real, or realistic?

What if the violence, sexuality, or other controversial material is inserted into the work only for artistic effect or for shock value?

Should teens read only wholesome material?

Should access to books with controversial material be permitted to teens? Should parents be warned about the contents of such books on the book jacket and reviews? Should access be blocked entirely? Should teens have free reign over their reading material?


Lately, there have been some interesting articles appearing that consider these questions. Many authors, as well as political pundits and community activists, have jumped in with their own takes and have even clashed in the pages of newspapers and online. Here are just a couple articles highlighting the conflicting viewpoints:


http://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2011/06/false-censorship-claims-exposed-by-wsj.html blog by David Frum



I cannot justify offering books with gratuitous sex, violence, drug usage, or immoral behavior to children at all. By gratuitous, I mean it's just there to titillate or provide escapist fantasy. The Sally Lockheart book series by Phillip Pullman contains both drug use (glorified as a way to heighten intelligence) and teenage pregancy, with no socially redeeming counterpoint added to them. I would never want my children to read this book series, but the covers don't caution about the content, and they are generally shelved in the children's department, not even in the teen or YA departments!

Even books with legitimate reasons for their PG-13 or R-rated content can prove troublesome. For some children, as Sherman Alexie points out, it is cathartic to hear about a main character's troubling life experience. The child has shared a similar experience in real life and can adopt methods of coping, receive encouragement, etc., through reading the book.

On the other hand, a naive child can be harmed by such books, or provided with information they are not developmentally ready to handle. Reading books with certain moral stances could undermine the religious beliefs a parent is trying to communicate to their child without even giving them a chance to explain the alternate viewpoint.

Case in point:

Many schools use Julie of the Wolves as a literature selection in classes as low as grade four. This is a wonderful book...for much older children. It contains a scene of attempted rape. As far as such things go, it is presented in a totally non-titillating way and is a realistic depiction of the (unfortunate) experience of some orphans. However, most parents don't know this about the book, and most children are unprepared for such frank topics at the age of nine. It's not that people shouldn't read this book, but not at a young age and not without adult supervision.

Some libraries try to alleviate the situation. In Beverly Hills, a child's library card can be linked to the parents', so the parents always can know what their kids are checking out. Other library districts shelve books carefully, guiding the young child away from "older" material.

Underlying this whole issue is the need to develop a trusting relationship with your kids, so that they know they can approach you with the questions they have about literature selections. But sometimes this isn't enough.Personally, I'd like there to be strict shelving standards, warnings posted on the covers and reviews of books, and the like. However, banning books altogether goes a little far. Where do you draw the line?

7/14/11

HaModia is now offering a FREE digital edition!

Many of us want to keep up with news, but only if we can do so without inviting inappropriate reading material into our homes. To those who want daily "kosher" news, directly to their computer or mobile device, there's a new option:

HaModia has just announced a free digital, daily edition of their newspaper. To sign up, send an email to digital@hamodia.com.

7/10/11

Free Hebrew books for Jewish kids!

There's a new project patterned on the PJ Library, that focuses on bringing Hebrew language materials into homes. Targeting the children and grandchildren of ex-patriot Israelis, in particular, philanthropists here in L.A. want to send kids books in Hebrew to cultivate skills in our special language. See this week's Aish.com article here for a full explanation.


If you have children 3-5 years of age and would like to receive books in Hebrew throughout the school year, register at the link that follows. https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dG5DTEhoa29GQWFsNzhOaUxQZTFJaWc6MQ#gid=0

7/5/11

Good clean reads

A friend asked me about good clean books (obviously, other than those from reliable Jewish publishers) to share with her preteen and teenage kids during the summer. Here are just a few great books for the (Jewish) kid, all pre-approved by moi. However, you should ALWAYS skim books before letting your kid read them. Even if they are "kosher," they might not be at the right reading level, for example.

(And you do have to take the following into account:

I allow my kids to read books by non-Jews and about non-Jewish subjects--which some frum moms might disapprove of--and I do allow my kids to read about somewhat controversial topics, as long as they are developmentally appropriate. I'm also a big fan of all those treife animals some people shun--I just don't eat them.

However, I ditch books with strong language, completely "un-tznua" romantic situations, excessive violence, flagrant racism or xenophobia, or that promote avodah zara, movies or television.

...And, yes, that includes Disney!)

These books are for kids 8 and up:

The Hobbit (Tolkein)
The Courage of Sarah Noble (Dalgliesh)
The Stories Julian Tells (Cameron)
Binky series of graphic books (Ashley Spires)
Hereville: How Mirka Gets her Sword (Deutsch)
The Rabbi's Girls (Hurwitz)
Baseball Fever (Hurwitz)
The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela (Shulevitz)
Fat Men from Space (Pinkwater)
Fat Men from Space
Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally) (Lisa Yee)
all Henry Huggins books (Cleary)
Ramona, Ramona the Pest, Beezus and Ramona, Ramona the Brave, Ramona and her Mother, Ramona and her Father (Cleary)
Sarah, Plain and Tall (MacLachlan)
Little House in the Big Woods and Farmer Boy (Wilder)
There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom (Sachar)
Sadako and the Paper Cranes (Coerr)
The Princess Tales, Volume I (Levine)
A Single Shard (Park)
The Thief Lord (Funke)


And these are for age 12 and up:

Dealing with Dragons (Wrede)
Searching for Dragons (Wrede)
Tripods trilogy (John Christopher)
The Pool of Fire
Homecoming (Voight)
The Eye, the Ear and the Arm (Farmer)
The Giver (Lowry)
The Cay (Taylor)
Treasure Island (Stevenson)
all the Little House books not listed above
Island of the Blue Dolphins (O'Dell)
Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt)
Un-Lun-Dun (Mieville)
Bud, Not Buddy (Curtis)


For age 15 and up:

Sorcery and Cecilia (Wrede and Stevemer)
Rabbi Harvey vs. the Wisdom Kid (Scheinkin)
Rabbi Harvey vs. the Wisdom Kid: A Graphic Novel of Dueling Jewish Folktales in the Wild West
The Blue Sword (McKinley)
The Graveyard Book (Gaiman)
Dealing with Dragons (Wrede)
Catherine, Called Birdy (Cushman)
The Folk Keeper (Billingsley)
The Martian Chronicles (Bradbury)
I Robot (Asimov)
1001 Arabian Nights
When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection (Norman R. Yetman, ed.)
A Wizard of Earthsea (Le Guin)
Things Not Seen (Clements)


P.S. There are many other wonderful books out there...please share your "kosher" reading recommendations for the 8+ crowd in a comment below! Also, don't assume other books by the same authors as the above are okay. In many cases, they are most definitely NOT.

7/4/11

Wanna be a punctuation vigilante? I'll bring the Sharpies!

ES&L.png
You know how there's always a book that you mean to read, but you never seem to get around to it? Or you always forget the title when you're actually at the library and in a position to borrow it? Well, several years ago, I heard Lynne Truss on NPR's Fresh Air discussing her then-new book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Ever since then, I've intended to read the book, but somehow never did until last week.

If there ever was a perfect candidate to read this book, it's me. I am what Ms. Truss calls, "a stickler." When I find a typo in a book, I take a pencil to it. (Oh, how delightful it is when I discover in a library book that a fellow stickler has already repaired the error ahead of me!) If I pass a shop with an error in its sign, it takes all my self-discipline not to run home for a Sharpie and start to copyedit in permanent ink. And don't even ask about menus. (Though I usually cut the restaurant slack if it's run by non-native speakers of English. I'm sure they punctuate English better than I can punctuate Farsi or Chinese.)

I've gotten slightly better in recent years, probably because I no longer have the energy after chasing toddlers all day and cooking three dinners for six people (don't ask). As soon as I get all my kids off to school and out of diapers (hopefully, not in that order), I'll probably get that itchy stickler finger again.

When I explained the topic of the book to my darling husband, he smiled knowingly. "Yes, that's the perfect book for you."

What's amazing about Eats, Shoots and Leaves is that it's fun to read. Even non-sticklers will appreciate Truss's explanation of the vagaries of English punctuation and the pleasures in getting it just so. Some of the best moments are when Truss laughs at her own stickler tendencies, which is good, because otherwise, the stickler is in damage of going off the deep end entirely.

I also felt a surge of pleasure in being American, as Americans punctuate a little more consistently than the English.

I highly recommend this book for all writers, teachers, and sticklers. Well, unless you got around to reading the book before me.