Strollerderby : novels

Learning to Read through Video Games

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:30:00 GMT

Increasingly, books for children and young adults are being released with related video games. Since 97 percent of children ages 12 to 17 play computer and video games, this seems like a surefire to draw at least some reluctant readers into books. But when libraries host gaming tournaments and elementary schools incorporate video games into English lessons, you have to wonder, “Is this still reading?”

A large number of writers, publicists, and educators believe it is—and that, in the age of digital media, computer skills may be more important than proficiency with print media.

PJ Haarsma is a former advertising consultant who now designs online games about his science fiction novels for preteens. He argues that pairing video games with young adult literature “brings the book into their world, as opposed to going the other way around.”

But, as I pointed out in my tribute to Roald Dahl, the mark of a good book is precisely the ability to get lost in it, to live inside a world of which one has no experiential knowledge. This is particularly important for children, who largely learn empathy, respect for the imagination, and the value of introspection through reading. When one is being tested about a book’s plot in order to advance in a video game, the quiet, self-forgetful pleasure of being lost in a good book gets obliterated completely. Children learn that the only character who matters is the one holding the controller.

Photo: New York Times

Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week: Where's Waldo?

Brett Singer — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

When I saw the titles of books that had been banned I was pretty shocked to see "Where's Waldo?" on the list. I could not imagine how a book of pictures featuring a guy who appears to derive great enjoyment from hiding in crowded places would offend anyone.

Silly daddy! There's always something.

In this case, the problem is a Waldo wardrobe malfunction.

In the original 1987 edition of "Where's Waldo?", this following image appears:

As you can see, the woman has removed her bikini top, presumably to enable a more even tan. A small male person, perhaps a child, is dumping water on the woman's back, causing her to leap up in surprise and show her "girls" to a rather happy looking gentleman who appears to have some brown substance smeared on his chest (I'm color-blind, so apologies if that color isn't brown). If you look really really really closely, and are more than a little bit uptight, you might even say that there is a nipple showing.

The image was altered for a 1997 "special edition:"

As you can see, the painted jezebel has covered up. Now children everywhere are safe.

But I think the new image doesn't go far enough! As some folks point out over on snopes.com, the top left corner of this scene clearly shows two men in a compromising position – not only that, but one of the men is African-American! And in the bottom right corner, the elderly woman is obviously touching the man in his private area behind the screen he is holding up. Plus, there's some guy in medieval armor being buried in sand, and we all know what that means…

End of sarcasm.

The funny thing about this one is that the woman in question is actually showing some boobage. If not for the protests, I imagine very few people would have noticed the nefarious nipple. Not that it matters; I highly doubt any child has been scarred by the Where's Waldo? books. Bored, maybe. But not scarred.

Images: Waldo Wiki, Amazon

More from Banned Books Week here at Babble:

Banned Books Week: R.L. Stine's Goosebumps

Banned Books Week: Shel Silverstein

Banned Books Week: Kama Sutra for Kids

Banned Books Week: Little Women

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Banned Books Week: Sarah Palin

Banned Books Week: "And Tango Makes Three"

Banned Books Week: Judy Blume and 'Forever'

Jen Chaney — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:58:00 GMT

Many Generation Xers, especially us girls, spent a good chunk of our childhoods/early adolescences with Judy Blume. The author of such preteen classics as "Blubber" and "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" dared to write about subjects -- puberty, bullying, teen sexuality -- that most people only whispered about, if they ever addressed them at all.

It's just that kind of daring, of course, that usually gets an author in literary hot water, which is why Ms. Blume ranks at No. 2 on the American Library Association's list of top 10 most frequently challenged authors from 1990 to 2004. Blume can claim five titles on the list of 2007's most frequently challenged books ("challenged" signifying that some person or group filed a formal request to restrict access to the material), a pretty astonishing feat since all of them were published more than three decades ago.

Her most well-known offender, and the book that ranks at No. 13, is "Forever," a young-adult novel that takes a very candid look at two teenagers negotiating a romantic and sexual relationship. It's not difficult to understand why some might question its appropriateness, considering that Katherine, the female protagonist, goes on the pill and has "relations" with her boyfriend. The explicitness of the sexuality -- and, in some people's minds, the implicit suggestion that it's okay for teens to do it -- is why "Forever" seems to have a permanent place in the Banned Books Hall of Fame.

I read "Forever" when I was probably 10 or 11. Honestly, a lot of the details flew thousands of feet over my head. I remember understanding that the subject matter was racy, enough so that I made sure neither of my parents were around each time I cracked it open. My other key memory of that book is Ralph -- the nickname that Katherine's boyfriend, Michael, gave to his penis. I am not sure if I was more surprised to learn that a boy might actually nickname his willy, or that he would choose a name like Ralph. Even then, I thought something like Thor might be a better choice.

As fuzzy as my memory of "Forever" is, I do know this: Reading that book did not scar me, nor did it make me want to go out and get laid as soon as I reached my teen years. If anything, the fact that Katherine and Michael's relationship does not last "forever" may have taught me how important it is to be careful in matters of love, romance and sex. I say may but really, I don't recall. I remember Ralph, but not much else.

And that leads me to an important point about Banned Books Week: As parents, we all feel justifiable concern about the books our children read. But in many cases, kids tend to forget some of the things they have read, or at least not dwell on the details as much as moms and dads do. What may sound like a terribly salacious double entendre to us, for example, may glide right on by our kids without them even noticing.That's why banning books, or any material, is such a dicey proposition. What's offensive is very, very subjective, even within the same household, let alone from family to family.

In case you're wondering, the other Blume tomes that showed up on last year's most frequently challenged books were: "Blubber" (no. 36), "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret" (no. 82), "Then Again Maybe I Won't" (no. 93) and "Tiger Eyes" (no. 94). I read every one of them as a kid and, while some may have concerns about the language or sexual content they contain, not one of them deserves to be banned.

Not surprisingly, Judy Blume has become a vocal opponent of censorship over the years. As she writes on her Web site: "It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers."

Blume's books may make that "challenged" list every year. But none of them has ever successfully been banned. I think it's safe to say her novels will indeed be around "forever."

More from Banned Books Week here at Babble:

Banned Books Week: R.L. Stine's Goosebumps

Banned Books Week: Shel Silverstein

Banned Books Week: Kama Sutra for Kids

Banned Books Week: Little Women

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Banned Books Week: Sarah Palin

Banned Books Week: "And Tango Makes Three"

Doris Lessing is cranky, old, fun

Brett Singer — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Sometimes it's nice to point out an article, or in this case a couple of articles, that feature smart women. Especially smart, accomplished women who speak their minds and don't care what anyone thinks.

Doris Lessing, a recent Nobel Prize winning writer, definitely fits the bill. How many people win a Nobel Prize and then say, "If I may be catty, Sweden doesn't have anything else."

Or this gem: "I hear girls saying, 'Oh I'm not going to bring a child into this wicked world,' which means they are going to be pregnant next week."

Both of those quotes are from a recent Time magazine interview she did (link via Gawker). There was also a piece in the Sunday New York Times Magazine where she talked about some other topics, mostly her latest work, "Alfred & Emily". The book is described as two novellas: one where she tells her mother's actual life story, then writes another one in which her mother is depicted "as she should have been if she had not been messed up by World War I." Something about that idea fascinated me. Sort of a "here's her life, and here's what should have happened had she been born into a better situation."

The new book will probably be her last, because, at 88 years young, she has "run out of energy completely." In the Time article she offers some advice to us younger scribes: "Don't assume you'll have it forever. Use it while you've got it, because it'll go; it's sliding away like water down a plug hole."

Now, she also said this about current conditions of Zimbabwe, where she grew up many years ago when it was known as Southern Rhodesia: "It's ruined. Under the whites it was an extremely efficient country. It could grow absolutely anything. We had railways and post offices and roads and water that worked. You can't just put that back overnight." The Gawker commenters rightly slam her for that, although its possible that there is more to what she said, since Zimbabwe is currently a bit of a mess, what with some countries claiming that Mugabe's Presidency is illegitimate. She was also, according to Gawker, "barred from South African and Rhodesia for denouncing apartheid." I'm not trying to excuse what she said, but I don't think it's in the same league as Imus' "Nappy Headed Ho's" riff.

I freely admit that I've never read a Doris Lessing novel, so I have no idea if she's "worthy" of a Nobel Prize or not. But I always appreciate it when someone says what's on her mind, especially someone who has lived a long time and accomplished a great deal. We get to hear plenty of old men talking, both wise and not-so-wise. So let's give the ladies a shot too.

image: nytimes

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NaNoWriMo for Young Writers: Your Kid Can Write a Novel This Month!

Karen Murphy — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:53:00 GMT

Last year I joined the madness that is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Don't let the title fool you: NaNoWriMo is a global event these days, with about 100,000 writers of all ages joining the insanity across the globe this month. The idea? Write a 50,000 word novel. In 30 days. Now. And even better, your kid can join in too, in NaNo's Young Writers program. Here's how it works (and it's totally not too late to start):

Kids sign up and choose a do-able but challenging word count goal (we adults are stuck with 50,000 words but anyone claiming to be 12 or under can lower the bar considerably), then write the hell out of the month of November. The idea is to expand the creative process by just pumping out words by the truckload. I wrote a crappy-but-cathartic novel myself last year, and it was wonderful.

It was so wonderful that I'm doing it again this year, and I talked my son Nathaniel, 11, into joining me. We chose a much-lower word count goal for him, 15,000 (which is still 500 words a day, mind you, and a fair bit for him, though I regularly pump out 500 words of tripe and you people read it!), and he's crafting some secret project that Im not allowed to read. I love it.

It's not too late. Go ahead, you know you want to.

Strollerderby : novels

Learning to Read through Video Games

Banned Books Week: Where's Waldo?

Banned Books Week: R.L. Stine's Goosebumps

Banned Books Week: Judy Blume and 'Forever'

Banned Books Week: R.L. Stine's Goosebumps

Doris Lessing is cranky, old, fun

Readin', writin' and Dianetics?

More stuff YUPPIE parents like

Savage stands by his stupid words

Every Parent Owns Cranky Pants

10 Ways You're a Great Parent

NaNoWriMo for Young Writers: Your Kid Can Write a Novel This Month!