Beauty Full Heumann

 If it has been a while since you cried because something was so beautiful, this book should go right to the top of your reading list. Beginning with the indignities of childhood being sorted out with her neighbor friends and continuing with all the struggles that became opportunities to change the world, this book calls your heart out. I wondered if I would have Judy’s strength to make a life for herself in a cold world that didn’t want her. I wonder if I would have seen, remembered, and shared the beauty of so many little moments that added up to real change. 

Everyone should read this book in order to grow in empathy, but I would like to especially recommend it to those who have grown world-weary. It truly lifted my spirits.

Emily Dickinson

 

I have been waiting for a chance to watch the Emily Dickinson movie.She is one of my favorite poets and a comfort whenever I am feeling blocked. She was so amazingly productive and yet unsuccessful. It always made me sad. The movie explores her melancholy, but also her own unique resilience. They often rely on her poetry to carry you through scenes putting forth a few old favorites, but more often poems that don’t make the middle school reading list. If you seek to understand the struggles of women and the beauty she made of them than I cannot exhort you enough to hasten to your movie source of choice and check out A Quiet Passion. 

 This is a Zinglish Muffin. It is an experience unto itself. I have long loved English Muffins, but this goes so far beyond fork-split Thomas muffins. The nooks and crannies are small but mighty, making a small amount of butter more than adequate to elevate a circle of bread. The crumb is toothy. You haven’t had anything like it. 

Get yours at Zingerman’s Coffee Cafe.

To You Tube or Not to You Tube

 

I’ve been working on children’s curriculum for nearly a decade. I really enjoy discovering and crafting adventures for small minds. As I work through the current iteration I’m thinking it is time to publish, but how to publish? Homeschool curriculum publishers tend to be religious and conservative. While I don’t find my work outside of that realm I refuse to stay in the safe and simple world that is usually all children are presented with in such circles. I want to draw kids out and present them with opportunities to think for themselves. For this reason I’m going to pursue a secular publisher at least initially. The thing is there aren’t many secular homeschooling organizations period, so I’m worried I’ll run through my possibilities quickly without success. I think my curriculum could be amazing as an after-school club in traditional schools, but I don’t know of anyone publishing a niche item like that. Further research may solve my problems, but at the moment I think I might have to go find my audience myself.

Hence the thought of presenting my curriculum on You Tube within the Book Tube community. Most of the Book Tubes focus on adults, so that’s a concern. I am writing an adult version of my program that would seem similar enough to what Book Tube offers to fit in, but different enough to develop my own little corner. Once I have adults hooked I can start opening doors for children. It is an exciting yet daunting idea. I have always been a teacher, but the idea of teaching on film and for adults is different.

The only answer is to do more research on all of it, but one way or another this work will take flight.