Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers

The movie Saving Mr. Banks sparked my interest in Mary Poppins. Despite the fact that the book and the movie is very famous, I haven't read or watch much or either. Of course, I can sing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and Chim Chim Cheree, but that's about it.

So I was curious to find out, why is Mary Poppins so loved by children?

And as an experiment, I decided to read this with my little brother, to see if the magic still holds.

And well, I know why I like Mary Poppins. She's so different from the characters in most books. She's not the kind, grandmotherly sort that excuses wrongs and saves kids, neither is she the evil godmother type. Instead, she's Mary Poppins. She's magical, known to all sorts of fantastic creatures, and has the most interesting relatives. She's also vain, strict, and very insistent that she's a proper lady. She's a proper conundrum, and I can see why kids are fascinated by her.

The book itself is a series of short stories, without any overarching plot. That means that while it's easy to just read one-a-day, there's not much motivation to finish the whole book at one go. To finish the whole story, yes, but not the whole book.

When I was reading a story to my brother, he'd be paying attention, but when the story was over, his attention would wander of. Quite different from when I read Roald Dahl to him, and he never stops asking for more.

I wish I'd read Mary Poppins when I was a kid. I have no doubt that my imagination would have been all the more richer for it. But, she's still in print, and it's not too late for me to hunt down the rest of her books and read them.

Born Reading by Jason Boog

When I read the introduction, I thought this was going to be a stuffy book. I'm not sure why, since it talks about how he used his reading journey with his daughter, but I suppose the style of writing and the repeated use of the term "interactive reading" scared me a little. But, when I actually started reading this book, I was surprised by how easy to read it was.

Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm reading this book when I'm neither a parent nor expecting (I'm not even married or attached!), it's because:

a. I have a little brother who's 10 years younger than me, and I was hoping I could learn something that I can use while reading with him when I'm back in Singapore and
b. I want to teach more kids English, and I do think that if I prepare myself, the students will come.

Does Born Reading give me any useful information? I think so.

This book basically promotes something called Interactive Reading, which basically, is reading to your child while asking questions. I do this with my bro, so yay!

But for me, the real value of the book lies in its exploration on how to mix traditional print book with ebooks or apps. While a lot of the app recommendations are targetted for babies and toddlers (I only found a few websites my brother can use in the last chapter), there is a compelling story of how to raise up a reader in this technology age.

I really enjoyed reading Jason Boog's story of how he turned an app into a full-on experience (you can do related activities too), and his very thorough recommendations on which apps to use, and for what. He also has something called a Reading Kit that may interest parents.

Overall, I really like this book. There's a lot of sound advice, and I think it manages to tread the middle-line between an electronic-device ban and using an iPad as a babysitter.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Goodreads in exchange for a free and honest review.

The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett

To be honest, I requested this book because my little cousin is autistic, and more recently, my brother has been diagnosed with autism too. I didn't expect this book to be so engaging, and more than that, encouraging. (And I googled him, this story is true)

The Spark follows Kristine's journey to stop her son Jake's autism from taking him away. And her method is unconventional - stop therapy and let him do what he likes. This not only let him come out of his shell, but helped him develop academically. He's apparently working on a completely original theory that will put him in line for a Nobel Prize.

Here's a video of Jake himself; give it a look!

But if you ask me, the real hero is his mom. She didn't just blindly trust what the experts tell her, she went with what she thought was best with her son. Instead of focusing on what he couldn't do, she focused on what he could. And that has made all the difference (credit goes to Robert Frost for crafting such a beautiful sentence).

And she didn't just stop at her son - she went on to help as many other autistic children as possible. Apart from organising a free class for autistic children, she also tried her best to build a place where they could feel like they belong. To me, she's a role model for Christian charity.

To me, reading this book reminded me to just let my brother be. Of course, we have to make sure he has basic manners, but other than that, we should let him develop his talents as far as possible. He's no genius like Jake, but he's definitely talented in things like math, science and even art. What am I saying, he's good at English too! (He used the world "compromise" correctly at age 5). Ok, big-sister-bragging will stop now.

I recommend this book to everyone. Whether you need something encouraging, or just something engrossing to read, I think you'll like this book a lot. And if you have an autistic child/sibling/relative, you may find this book to be more important than you first thought.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

Long Reads #15

It's not just because it's NaNo now, but I've been saving articles on reading. Because reading about reading is awesome~ (Admit it, that sentence made you smile). So this week, I read:

Reading in a Whole New Way by Kevin Kelly- A look at how the rise in e-readers change our reading habits. Personally, I prefer paper, but when you can't get the books that way, you'll change to a screen. I do think, however, that it has affected my reading habits. I'm actually reading more than one book at a time now (it did take a year or so to happen though, so it helps).

Your E-Book is Reading You by Alexandra Alter - It's kind of scary, how companies will take your data and analyse it. Part of the fun for me, is finding a book you didn't think you'd like. I doubt an algorithm could do that. It almost makes me reconsider getting a kindle. Almost. I'm waiting till it starts selling to see the reviews, so I have quite some time to think about it.

Bound for Posterity by Joseph Connolly - Ok, the Folio Society is my latest craze. I'm really a sucker for pretty books. Pretty physical books. I just wish I have the money to buy it. And a way to buy it. This article though, kind of satisfies my curiosity of the Society by giving a really interesting look at it, from the kind of members to the employees.

How Not To Write a Novel: A Step by Step Guide to Failure by Anita Sethi- This is not an essay, but it's a very hilarious list of things you shouldn't do if you want to finish writing a novel. Highly recommended, especially since NaNo is ending.

The Library of Utopia by Nicholas Carr- Is it possible to have the ultimate library online? This article sums up the controversy and provides what I think is a balanced look at both sides - Google and those against Google.

What have you been reading?

Looking for Contributors to the December issue of An Excuse For Company!

Hey friends,

If you remember, last month, I debuted the book-ish e-magazine An Excuse For Company! I hope you downloaded it and enjoyed reading it!

Now, I'm looking for contributors for the December issue. It's Christmas-themed, but you don't have to submit only Christmas related posts. You can submit any of your blog posts/book reviews/book news that you want to share with everyone. Even photos are welcome (as a cover photo)!

Submitting is really easy. Just leave me the link to your blog post and an bio in the comments by the end of this week (16/11/2012) and I'll include your post in the next issue. Please note that I won't accept LGBT or erotica book reviews/news.

^_^

The Witches by Roald Dahl

Today, I finished reading another book with my brother. Or to be very accurate, I finished reading another book to my brother - The Witches by Roald Dahl. I've realised that quite unlike me, my brother has no interest in the world of Enid Blyton (then again, I haven't tried to Famous Five series, just her short stories); instead, he likes Roald Dahl, perhaps because his world is darker and more exciting. So, here's the story of the time I read The Witches to my brother.
At first, it was really tough getting him to listen to The Witches. I have a feeling it's because of the television, although he pretended it was because he was afraid. But after we reached the chapter where you learn to spot a witch, he became much more interested.

And for the next few weeks, kept checking everybody to "make sure their not a witch". I kept showing him my toes :D

After this, things started going well. There were quite a few occasions where he would turn off the television and go "Two words. The. Witches." And of course, I was so happy whenever that occurred. It's getting very hard to get my brother away from the television and I don't know how to to that remotely from Japan.

Ok, so now I'm going to pause and digress a little bit. Did you know that chapter titles are very useful? Because I can't read more than a few chapters at one go (at one point, we had time for one chapter a day), telling him the next chapter titles is an easy way to get him interested. Asking him things like what happened in "Mr and Mrs Jenkins meet Bruno" can really get him speculating on what happens. Plus, whenever he was bored with the book, telling him the next chapter and closing the book sparks some anticipation, which means he didn't lose that much interest.

Today was the last day. I'm actually really glad because I wanted to finish one more book with him before I leave. When I finished the book, I asked him what he thought and he said he loved it and that it was scary in a good way ^^

I really should introduce a few more titles to him before I leave. That way, he has books that he'll want to read. Now, I should either get him to read by himself or find some kind person to read to him(:

Btw, Quentin Blake is a genius. My brother and I love his illustrations and one way of keeping his attention on the page is to tell him "the next page has pictures."

How to Read Slowly by James W. Sire

One book my friends have always kept from my were the "how to read faster" books. Their reasoning was simple: Eustacia reads so fast now -> reads those books -> =.= But I'm pretty sure that they'll approve of this How to Read Slowly book.

The book isn't a method teaching book, it's actually telling you to slow down and smell the roses, so to speak. It's like a literature class condensed into one book (another similar book is How to Read Literature like a professor). However, this book covers fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

Most of what the book said was already familiar to me. This was kinda sad, because I was looking forward to learning how to read non-fiction. I realised that thanks to ToK, which is essentially a course in deconstructionism, I know how to read an article and dissect it (i.e. what is the knowledge claim? How does it know?), although the part about identifying worldviews was quite new. I'm used to classifying the worldviews as "Christian" "non-Christian" and according to the various religions. I haven't actually thought of using "nihilism" "existentialism" (although I have heard of "naturalism"), mostly because I'm not sure what it's about. But I should really go read up more(:

The literature section (fiction and poetry), was quite interesting. I liked the poetry section mainly because it summarises what I've been struggling to master while studying poetry (the irony is, when doing an unseen commentary, I almost always pick the poem). But what was most interesting was chapter 5: Cityscape, a larger context. Here, the importance of knowing the literary, historical and cultural background is emphasised, something I do agree with as a method of interpreting literature. I really do love the word "intertextuality", even though I've never been able to use it yet :/

All in all, I think this is a good book if you're trying to find out how to appreciate reading more. But just so you know, the author is a Christian and naturally, references Christianity and the Christian world-view a lot.

Finding Fiona by Emily Ward

Finding Fiona is one of the books I won from the librarything.com member's giveaway. But with actual books that are unread with me, it's really hard to finish an ebook. But still, I figured I had to make an effort with the ever-growing backlist, and so, I managed to finish Finding Fiona by Emily Ward.

Fiona is an amnesiac. She was found injured by Hannah and has been looked after by her. But soon, it's revealed that she may or may not be a replica and she has to find out the truth, while hiding from the Alarias (the bad guys in the novel).

Replication, is apparently different from cloning. Replication is when you replicate an entire organism at that point in time while cloning involves birth and the growth process. That is about all that I understood. Mostly because there was a considerable time lag between when I got the book and when I read it, I spent the first one third of the novella or around there, trying to figure out what was going on.

But apart from a greater sense of narrative in the story, the novella is actually quite good (If you're wondering, I'm using the word novella because according to amazon.com, it's a novella). I quite liked Fiona, the protagonist, and although the book felt really stationary (in the sense that nothing much was happening), I liked the resolution and what not.

The only complaint I have is that it has perhaps too many characters. I remember Fiona, Hannah, Troy and James. And I'm not even sure if James is integral to the plot. In fact, there was another character that I thought was important that wasn't given enough attention. As well as some miscellaneous characters that I didn't really see the point of. While it's ok to have many characters in a long long novel (like Lord of The Rings), I think it's hard to fit so many characters into a short novel. They end up (to me anyway), feeling like ghosts, insubstantial.

But since this book is relatively short. You could always recommend it to someone looking for a short sci-fi read.

On an unrelated note: my sister has finally finished her first ebook on the iPad. It's Pretty Little Liars.

Reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with my Brother

Quentin Blake's a fantastic
illustrator. I (and my brother)
love his drawings!

I think, it's harder for my brother to like reading, especially when he has so many alternatives: Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, iPad etc. That's why, I tried to read him Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Road Dahl in the last few weeks.

Although I did try something similar before, it wasn't very successful. Perhaps it's because Enid Blyton is more suited to girls, or maybe the pace of the stories are too 'slow'. I may like her books, especiall those that involve animals (like the Children of Willow Tree Farm), although interestingly, whenever I pictured living on a farm, I never did think about what the toilets would be like. Anyway, the bottom line is: my brother is not going to be a fan of Enid Blyton, at least, not until he can appreciate stories with a slower pace.

Roald Dahl, on the other hand, is exactly suited. The stories are so fantastical, they basically grab a child's attention. Although the books are much longer compared to Enid Blyton (it took my mom and I taking turns to finish Charlie and the Chocolate factory), my brother also likes them more.

At first, I had to make him sit down for one chapter a day before he ran off. But once we got to the part about the Golden Tickets, something in my chocolate-loving brother's mind woke up and he requested another chapter, and another. Our record is seven chapters in one day (remember, I have to read it, so it's tiring for me).

When he learnt that a movie was available, I was afraid that he wasn't going to want to read the book. To my surprise, he read the book and watched the movie. Right now, his hobby is to go around singing "Augustus Gloop, Augustus Gloop" to various people. And of course, he made my day when he told my mom that he preferred the book to the movie(:

Right now, we are trying to read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and it's encouraging to see that he is starting to pick up books and flipping through them. That's how he learnt that there's a book called Charlie and the White House (although I have to explain it wasn't finished and so, not published). I think even though he's just flipping how, it might lead to him starting to read the book (he's reading sentences then stopping).

All in all, I'm happy that I decided to read him Roald Dahl. It's probably one of the few "classics" that can hold a little boy's attention (sorry Mark Twain, I tried reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to my brother. He didn't even last one paragraph, while he can last one short story for Enid Blyton).

My First Success!

There was a breakthrough yesterday. My sister set a new record by finishing the book I got for her in a week (exactly a week). I'm so pleased, since she only started reading for fun about last year.

The book in question is The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, she's a good writer. If you have any friends/relatives that prefer reading chick-lit, you can recommend this to them. I think that this is actually better than most romance novels, since it's clean.

In the words of my sister, this book is "sweet" and "clean", which is a rarity in the romance novel sector. I don't know if you've noticed, but I tend to avoid romance novels because of all the >.< scenes. Perhaps this is a reason why some people are too disgusted to read? At least for my friends. So, if you have any Christian friends, or friends who want a nice clean story, but don't want anything difficult? Debbie Macomber is a good choice if you don't feel like recommending a YA novel (E.g. Anything by Sarah Dessen).

On a side note, there is a series of new apps called Booktracks. I don't recall if I've actually written about it, oh wait, I'm pretty sure I did. But anyway, I found an article on TechCrunch which basically disproves of the whole idea. And I thought I was the only person that wasn't jumping for joy at the thought of Booktracks.

I have shown the app to a few of my friends, but after the initial "Ooh" and "Ahhs", they just lose interest and move on to Sushi Chop (or its equivalent). Perhaps it's just me, but I wouldn't recommend getting this if you want people to read. Or if you like reading a lot (like me), since I'm not suited for this app. In fact, I've deleted all the ones I've downloaded, and to my amazement, I feel no regret or sadness. Perhaps the apps are too short, (I mean the length of the books), but it just doesn't seem to have enough omph to dazzle me. Right now, I'm more excited about sites like smashwords.com and manybooks.net, which let me download books free and legally(:

WeRead

I've got a small respite from the onslaught of exam stress recently, and as usual, I went around trying to get people to read. It's actually a very serious disease that can cost a lot.

For example, my second sister told me she was finishing our stock of Sarah Dessen (pretty much the only writer she reads) and she needed more, in her words, 'chic-lit'. That was on Saturday. On Sunday, I went to Littered With Books, and due to my lack of finances, rumaged through the sale pile. I spent my last $10 (ok, actually $9 and I still had about $7 left) on The Shop At Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber, which I reviewed here. If I know my sister as well as I think, and I hope I do, then she'll love this book. It's hard for me to find a good and light romance story, with no disgusting sex scenes (seriously, I don't need to know what they're doing all the time. Or read about it). More often then not, I have to head to the YA section, which is getting over-run with Vampire/Werewolf stories -yawn-

But if you do know any stories which seem to fit the bill, please leave a comment below.

Another family member in my 'crusade' for more people to read (which I'll now call WeRead for convenience), is my little brother. He has slight ADHD, so the books I read like Enid Blyton and Road Dahl may not be suited for him. In fact, the only Road Dahl book he has ever read is The Magic Finger, which we read aloud together. In fact, he prefers reading out loud at this stage, so hopefully, I'll muster up the stamina to start reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to him soon (he loves sweets, so this should be a fit)

Likewise, if you have a book that will get kids to read, please please please tell me via comment. Or you know, if you know my email, you can just email me. Hmm... Does blogger publish emails on the blog profile? -notetoself: go and check-

Yes, so now, I'm going to try to make a difference by turning my collection of books into a library of sorts. I've always been recommending and lending books before, but now, I think I'm going to chronicle it, hopefully finding a method to this madness (do you realise I have no methodology, no catalog of books whatsoever?). And I've already 'started' in a way. Since I'm known as a bookworm, my older cousin asked me earlier today if I would recommend him some books and readily agreed to come over to look over the books when I asked.

I'm really excited about this. I don't know a lot about the future, like whether I'll go to Japan next year to study, go somewhere else entirely or stay in Singapore. But I really hope that throughout it, I'll manage to get books and the love of reading out to others.