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Reading Austen to Avoid Becoming Mrs. Bennett

Hello Friends,

The clueless Mr. Collins
The clueless Mr. Collins

I am currently reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with my soon-to-be 13 year-old daughter.  It is such a joy most of the time, as Austen is such a master at characterization.  I say, most of the time because there are moments when reading her is just painful.  Painful because when she goes on and on about Mr. Collins (the obnoxious protegée of Lady Catherine de Bourg) one finds oneself about to scream with frustration!  Mr. Collins is so completely narcissistic, self-absorbed, socially retarded, and downright selfish, that his lengthy monologues are almost too much to bear.  He is beyond human endurance.

But there is another character who tries human patience almost as much.  Mrs. Bennett.  Mrs. Bennett is nearly as narcissistic, self-absorbed, and socially retarded as Mr. Collins.  Her only saving grace is that she does have 5 daughters who demand her attention.  But Mrs. Bennett is almost worse than Collins in that she humiliates, embarrasses and nearly sabotages the prospects of those 5 daughters in her efforts to find them suitable husbands.  What makes Mrs. Bennett’s behavior sometimes even more painful than Collins’ is that her actions have an uncanny ability to hit close to home. I know that most teenagers (and even adolescents) are sometimes embarrassed by their parents. This is a natural and important part of the separation that must come for healthy independence.  But how often, inadvertently, and maybe even intentionally, do I embarrass my teen/adult children by behavior that simply lacks discretion?  As parents, I think that we can easily mistake a teen’s particular vulnerability as immaturity, and not regard it properly.  By failing to be discreet with our teen’s areas of sensitivity or vulnerability we can easily become like

Mrs. Bennett, forever embarrassing her daughters!
Mrs. Bennett, forever embarrassing her daughters!

Mrs. Bennett.  I know I have failed at times in this area, and Mrs. Bennett teaches me what not to be.

Another area where Mrs. Bennett’s behavior is particularly instructive, is her insatiable need to boast about her daughters looks, prospects, impending engagements, and so forth.  She does this regularly while putting other girls down in comparing their hopes and expectations to her superior daughters.  Austen is a master at exposing what is such a common foible of the mother heart.  As mothers, our tendency is to compare our children to other children. Even if we aren’t so foolish as to

verbalize those feelings in social situations (as the clueless Mrs. Bennett often does), harboring those feelings can become a destructive force. If our children are academically or artistically gifted, then our comparisons lead to pride.  If our children are not academically or physically gifted, then our comparisons can lead to envy.  Not good, either way.

We humans laud beauty, intelligence, athletic ability, education, artistic skill, charm, and graciousness.  We hold persons who have these attributes in high esteem.  We often forget that these qualities and abilities are the fruit of other’s investment, time, and sacrifice.  We often forget that we are all products of those who have loved us, sacrificed for us, driven us to countless orthodontic appointments, paid for violin lessons, attended myriad sporting events and so forth.  The academic is the product of the teaching, skill, and investment of many teachers through every stage of their intellectual development. The successful athlete reflects the tutoring, training, and coaching of many individuals. Failing to nurture a recognition of  this very obvious fact in our children, can create narcissistic, self-absorbed youngsters that believe the world revolves around them.  This can lead to our children thinking much more highly of themselves than they ought to think.

When our children do well, when their successes please us, if they ace the SAT, score a winning goal, or land a leading role, we would do well, unlike the foolish Mrs. Bennett, to reflect upon and remember all those who helped to make that success possible. Cultivating the ability to see that we are who we are, because of what we’ve been given is foundational to having a grateful, humble, and joyful perspective on life.  Reading books like Pride and Prejudice together, affords us opportunities to wrestle with our baser instincts, ponder them with our children, to see ourselves for what we truly are, and to help ourselves and our children grow in favor with God and man.

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Rea’s Back-to-school Literature Soirée

Hello Fellow Book Lovers,

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.–Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

Well, summer’s lease is nearly over, and despite our wish that it could linger just a bit longer, school days will shortly be upon us!  So, to give us all a boost (myself included), I am hosting a “Back to School” Literature Soirée on Saturday, September 8.  I will cover more literary analysis, but this time we will look at how to analyze historical literature within the context of the heroic quest.  This will be a fun adventure as we consider how the heroes and heroines of the eras of exploration, discovery, and colonization provide examples of heroic archetypes fulfilling their own unique destinies.

I will present an overview of the best historical works for children covering the period of the early 1600s up through the Civil War.  The concentration will be early American History, but some world history will naturally be a part of that.  So roughly speaking, here is how the day should go:

9:30-10 am: Arrival and get acquainted with a cup of coffee or tea

10 am-10:30: a brief session will look at current statistics of American student’s knowledge of history and literature as well as the why’s and wherefore’s of the “notebook approach”

10:30-11:30 am: the best children’s literature of Early American Exploration, Discovery, and Colonization

11:30 am-noon: Analyzing historical literature using the elements of the heroic quest (definition and overview), anthropomorphism, the orphaned child literary trope, and others!  (not to worry, I will clearly define all of these before setting you out on your own).

Noon-1:45: Working lunch applying literary analysis to various works of historical literature. This time we will work in pairs to save time

1:45-2 pm: Coffee Break

2:00-3:00 pm: the best Children’s Literature of the American Revolution–the Civil War

3:00-3:30 pm:  Wrap up and feedback on take away

So to recap: Saturday, September 8, 2012

At my home: 1306 Mill Street, San Luis Obispo

Time: 9:30 am–3:30 pm

Cost: $30 (which will include lunch– please email me if you need gluten free or vegetarian)  You can register here.

Finally, this soiree is already half booked with ladies returning from our summer session.  So please register soon, to insure you have a place!

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Summer Literature Soirée

Dear Readers,

Shakespeare and Company in Paris

I am very excited to announce that at the end of this month I’ll be hosting a Summer Literature Soirée here in my home in San Luis Obispo!  The topics I intend to cover will include: best books for summer reading, abridged vs. unabridged classics, literary analysis of children’s books, and I’ll also present a session I gave recently at the Great Homeschool Convention entitled “Homeschooling with Passion and Creativity.”  This is a look at a number of famous individuals whose education was anything but normal, but who were able to thrive because of the ways in which literature and history captured and inspired them. Also, if there is something you’d really like covered please let me know and I’ll see what I can do! I’ll also leave plenty of time for discussion, sharing and getting acquainted!  The cost will be $25 (bring a sack lunch) or $30 if you’d like lunch provided for you.

Since space is limited in my home, I will only be able to accommodate 25 of you, dear friends! So if you’d like to participate, please register here

as soon as possible. So here are the specifics:

Rea’s Summer Literature Soirée

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Place: 1306 Mill Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

Time: 9:30 am–3:30 pm (this will include a working lunch where we’ll have fun with literary and art analysis of children’s books–a favorite of the last seminar!)

Looking forward to seeing you!

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The French Art of Conversation

Dear Readers,

Having spent the last month visiting the remarkable city of Paris, I have returned with a new appreciation for a number of distinctly French things.  Besides the Normandy butter, melt-in-your-mouth croissants, rich dark coffee, organic meats, stunningly fresh and beautiful produce, not to mention the world class art and architecture, I’ve come to appreciate something which has quite taken hold of me, and spurred a great deal of thought and interest.  That is the French art of conversation.

While traversing countless parks, gardens, cafes, restaurants, art galleries, museums, cathedrals, and other public places, I was continually struck by the way in which the French engage with one another through the medium of speech.  Whether observing a work of art, or visiting over an espresso, the French are devoted to conversation. One thing which immediately becomes apparent, is that the French do not consider gazing at one’s iphone or smartphone while conversing the least bit civilized.  You simply don’t see it.  The French parks are filled with people of all ages, of all socioeconomic strata, and of diverse racial heritage.  And while they are conversing, they are looking directly at one another, completely engaged.  Their conversations are animated, apparently interesting to both parties (or multiple parties, as the case may be), and they are polite in their tone, and respectful in that they consider making eye contact essential to meaningful exchange.

In pondering this, I have been struck by how far our American culture has slipped in something so fundamental to a civilized society.  The saturation of PDAs  in American society has done little to improve true communication. If eye contact is fundamental to real exchange, then no wonder we seem to have slipped so far in the last few decades.  What kind of effects will a degeneration in true conversation portend for our future?

In reviewing a classic book I am currently preparing for publication, I came across this statement by Benjamin Franklin from his Autobiography, and it seems to strike at some essential components of meaningful human interaction.  It is to be wondered how much Franklin developed these notions about conversation due to his long tenure in France as America’s ambassador.

Benjamin Franklin 1767
Benjamin Franklin 1767

As the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of these purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure.  For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fixed in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.”

Franklin’s perspective certainly gives one pause if applied to much that is considered “talk” today.  How will our loss in this area affect future diplomacy, family relationships, and the civil discourse necessary to a true “liberal arts” education?  Is there a bright future for reasoned and civil discourse in this country?

In discussing these notions with a close friend who accompanied me to France, we both felt quite convicted by how often we miss the opportunity to make eye contact, to speak kindly and respectfully and to truly listen to the other. We were impressed as we pondered it, by the notion of how powerful eye contact is in affirming a person’s sense of worth and dignity.  Our fully intentional and direct gaze gives the sense of true engagement and interest in the other.  It imparts something quite elemental to the soul,

Americans (yes, us!) conversing excitedly in front of Notre Dame de Paris, despite the cold wind and rain!

something we perhaps can’t completely understand or define, but something critical nonetheless.  That, combined with Franklin’s plea for well-meaning and sensible men to be modest and pleasant in their conversation, are simple but powerful tools available to anyone with their sense of sight and speech intact.  What do you think?  How have these ideas impacted your life?  Does the art of conversation come naturally to you?

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Babar Turns 80!

Our Paris holiday continues, and as the days have been so full, and exacting (I’ve worn through 2 pairs of shoes just walking the incredible stone streets of Paris in 3 1/2 weeks!), I’ve had little time to blog on some remarkable adventures.  I hope to post a few more items this week.  The other day, I discovered that at Musée des Arts Décoratifs (adjacent the Louvre) they were hosting a special exhibit to Babar, in celebration of his 80th birthday!  As this blog is devoted to children’s literature in all its aspects, I thought it were be of interest to share what Katie and I learned on our visit.

What I didn’t know, was that Babar was actually the creation of Cécile de Brunhoff (wife of Jean), a pianist in Paris, who told her two sons a story of a little elephant whose mother is shot by hunters and moves to Paris.  As Jean de Brunhoff was an artist, the boys asked their father to draw pictures of the elephant, and the story was born.  Jean de Brunhoff’s uncles were publishers, and decided to print the books on the characteristic heavy stock paper, and in 1931 the books became an immediate success.

Cecile and Jean de Brunhoff with sons Laurent (left) and Mathieu

Jean de Brunhoff went on to write 6 more Babar books, but sadly, he died quite young, at the age of 37 of tuberculosis.  So it was that his son Laurent, upon becoming an artist himself, decided to continue the marvelous stories of Babar, and he continues to this day.

One of the delightful aspects of the exhibit was seeing the original black and white drafts of the books, with either Jean’s or Laurent’s expert cursive penmanship neatly laid out on large graph paper.  This was followed by the same page in full color with the printer’s markings for layout and so on.  As a publisher, these initial drafts give me great pleasure, I’m not sure why, except that in seeing them, it brings to mind how each book is such an exacting work of attention to detail, careful craft and a bit of whimsy too.  Here are two examples:

Our visit came full circle when we saw two beautiful illustrations that inserted Babar into the very stream of our cultural experience in Paris.  The first was Laurent de Brunhoff’s depiction of Celeste as “Liberty Leading the People” the immortal work of Eugene Delacroix’s masterpiece (La Liberté guidant le peuple) which has so many reverberations of the human pursuit of liberty and justice.  This is the classic “barricade” scene depicted so poignantly in Victor Hugo‘s Les Misérables and the young boy on the right may be the inspiration for the loveable character of Gavroche in the novel.  Having just finished reading this wonderful work with the girls in preparation for our trip makes the painting all the more memorable.  De Brunhoff’s work follows and invites the young child to join in the sentiment of the passion for liberty that is nascent in the heart of young children whether they can conceptualize it or not.  Delacroix’s work was also the inspiration for the Statue of Liberty, the gift of France commemorating the friendship of the two countries in 1886.

And finally, as Katie and I have had the privilege of doing some research on Notre Dame de Paris, the Gothic cathedral at the center of so much of French history and culture, we were delighted to see that Babar also recognized the importance of this icon of French faith and devotion.  Here Babar and his family visit Notre Dame from the vantage  of the Pont de l’Archevêché, which we’ve enjoyed many times on our tramps around this wonderful City of Light!  Hope you enjoy our travels with Babar and all!  À bientôt“!