Samantha Parkington was the first character that I read about in the American Girls book series. She was introduced when I was a little girl. I grew up on this book series and it has been wonderful to see that my daughter loves them just as much as me. She has her own dolls now, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see how well these books help teach about key periods of American history. This is especially important because our family lives in England and we want to stay connected with both of our cultures.
Find out what Chloë noticed about these books, especially the uncomfortable truths about how society treated certain groups of people in 1904. In some ways it’s difficult to see her struggle with the injustice of racism and classism, but at the same time it’s good so see how instinctively she recognizes and rejects these forms of bigotry.
There is a bit of background noise in this episode, which came from Chloë wanting to hold her American Girl dolls while we had our conversation. I never want to prioritize production quality over the enthusiastic participation of my daughter and co-host, so I am sure with this in mind, none of you will mind a few rustling sounds here and there as the dolls are cuddled.
Did you have a Samantha doll or did you read her books? What’s your favorite outfit of hers? What’s your favorite of her adventures?
Also, I wanted to note that our original conversation was much longer. We spent a lot more time discussing issues of race and class than what is presented here. But the conversation was edited down to keep it to the usual show length. I also felt parts of our conversation were very personal, and some moments between parents and children are more special if they are kept private.
Paddington, the beloved creation of author Michael Bond, was recently given a British passport. But . . . how would he have qualified? I speak to my delightful neighbor (ok, let’s spell it neighbour since, after all, I do live in England) Norman, who is a retired immigration judge, about how Paddington might have been able to acquire British citizenship and qualify for a passport. You can see the video version of this part of the show on YouTube:
Thanks for joining in this very silly, very fun conversation, Norman! I really appreciate what a good sport you were and how thoughtfully you researched the topic.
Also in this episode, I reveal big plans for the YouTube channel, both in terms of how to best bring audio and video to you, as well as how I plan to deal with internet nonsense. As always, the happiness and safety of my kids comes first, and for my own part I will respond as little as possible to negativity.
Passing on family traditions is one of the best parts about being a parent. My family celebrated El Día de los Muertos, a tradition I loved as part of growing up in Los Angeles.
Día de los Muertos by Roseanne Greenfield Thong with illustrations by Carles Ballesteros is a much beloved book at my house. My kids often ask to read it even when it’s not near the holiday. But every year on this holiday we read it together before lighting candles and adding personal items to our ofrenda familiar. We tell stories about family members who came before us, keeping their stories and memories alive.
We also eat Pan de Muertos, which is a delicious sweet bread flavored with aniseed and orange. Here’s my recipe. Now, this is just the way I was taught to make it when I was a teenager. I know there are a lot of variations. If your family makes it differently, please share your recipe! And if your Abuelita says that my recipe is wrong . . . she is right. Abuelita is always right. I am wrong. ABUELITA IS RIGHT.
Pan de Muertos
1/2 to 1 tablespoon aniseed
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon yeast
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
zest from two oranges
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
3.5 to 4 cups white flour
Earlier in the day, melt the butter and add the aniseed. Allow it to soak so the aniseed softens and the flavors begin to come out. Combine the sugar, milk, and yeast and set the mixture aside so the yeast can activate.
Into a mixing bowl, grate the zest of two oranges. Add 1/4 cup of fresh orange juice. Mix in the butter and aniseed, then stir in the yeast. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt and two eggs. Mix thoroughly.
Add 3 to 3 1/2 cups flour. Turn out and knead in more flour until you have a smooth, stretchy dough. Cover and let rise until double.
Cut the dough into four equal portions. Set one aside. Shape the remaining portions into 12 buns (or divide into more if you prefer smaller size buns). Use the remaining portion of dough to shape “bones” by rolling the dough into long, thin strips that are cut to size. If you like, you can also shape a “skull” to go above them.
Bake at 350F/180C for about 15 minutes or until they are golden brown. Brush the tops with a mixture of melted salted butter and a chunky sugar like turbinado or demerarra. (These are also nice brushed with a mixture of orange juice and sugar – do what you like!)
Serve warm while telling stories about loved ones.
I loved Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as a kid. Alvin Schwartz’ retellings and Stephen Gammell’s bonechilling drawings kept me hypnotized. The excitement and fun of a good scary story has kept these books popular for generations.
My girls like to make their own videos, and this was originally done as a birthday present for my mom. A few friends deemed it too good to hide from the world, which is an opinion I am inclined to agree with. Please enjoy the following performance of “Expectations and Expectorating,” which will no doubt soon be featured on Masterpiece Theatre. The thing is, in many ways the story they came up with was not that far off the mark. Trade the dinosaurs for a catastrophic evening at a public ball and it’s spot on.
Publisher’s Note: While digging a hole in their back garden, two young girls recently discovered a long lost manuscript written by Jane Austen. Their mother was rather annoyed about the hole, but after realizing the importance of their discovery, allowed them to share what they found with the world. Here is an abridgment of the long lost novel by Jane Austen, which bore the title “Expectations and Expectoration.”
Expectations and Expectorating
A long lost tale by “Jane Austen”
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the bond of sisterly affection can never be breached. Unless a really hot guy turns up in the village.
And such was the circumstance when three sisters – Elizabeth, Annabelle, and Chelsea Tuppence – were sitting in the small breakfast room in the comfortable cottage where they lived with their poor widowed mother.
On a fine spring morning, the eldest daughter Annabelle, noted that a fine young gentleman seemed to be riding past their window.
Annabelle set down the very becoming bonnet she was trimming so that she could catch a glimpse of the visitor. He was smoldering with charm as his horse galloped across the picturesque downs, which conveniently had a phony ruined castle on the most charming of the hilltops. With all the sweetness and impulsiveness over her seventeen years, Annabelle declared, “WHOA! He IS fine!”
“Boys are yucky!” Replied Chelsea, who was quite too young to see why fine young men in blue coats were of any use at all.
The stranger begged admittance to the house and announced himself to be Mr. Ashby, the extremely handsome, wealthy, and unmarried nephew of Lady Bigginsworth, who lived down the road at Persnickety Park.
With a very low bow, Mr. Ashby asked how the ladies did.
“Much better now, thank you,” replied Elizabeth. “Would you like some tea?”
“Indeed,” came Mr. Ashby’s eager reply.
The gentleman was so affable that within just a few moments they were all chatting as if they were old friends. They talked about the most interesting subjects; the state of the roads, which books were tedious yet important, and whether or not it might rain later.
Later that evening, the two sisters unburdened their hearts to one another. Dashing about the room in a state of delighted agitation, Annabelle cried out, “I say, Elizabeth, I believe Mr Ashby is in love with me!”
“Dearest sister,” replied the elder Miss Tuppence, “I do believe you are mistaken.” Or rather, this was the reply she intended to make, but rather the words which escaped her lips were, “No, ME!”
Annabelle, with all the passion that a young, beautiful, and economically idle young woman can muster, gasped with dismay and then reasserted her claim on Mr. Ashby’s affections.
What ensued was a rare breach of sisterly affection which left neighboring farmers in no doubt that several cats must have been debating territorial boundaries.
On hearing the distressing state of affairs between the elder Misses Tuppence, Chelsea dashed up the stairs, flung open the bedroom door, and cried out for her dear sisters to stop such a disgraceful display of unsisterly behavior.
“I found this letter,” Chelsea declared, holding an enormous envelope. Inside was a confession which declared Mr. Ashby to be the basest of scoundrels. Although he lived with the appearance of a gentleman of good character, he intended to roam the countryside and steal from young ladies who might fall prey to his handsomeness and smoldering.
“He writes with a very good hand,” observed Annabelle, and Elizabeth had to own that this was true.
“But surely this must be the result of some strange misapprehension,” Elizabeth said in confusion. “For why would Mr. Ashby leave such a confession for us to find?”
“I picked his pocket,” Chelsea explained. “Mr. Ashby is a scoundrel, and he must never be welcome at Tuppence Cottage again.”
“That’s right!” the ladies heard a manly voice declare from outside. They looked out the window and saw Mr. Ashby standing below in the road. “I don’t love either one of you. I’m just here for your money! Ha ha ha ha ha haaaa!”
And with that, he galloped off down the road, having neglected to collect any of the Tuppence family fortune. But, as Elizabeth observed at a later moment of quiet recollection, Mr. Ashby’s marked traits were those of handsomeness and affability, not cleverness.
Yet Elizabeth was to be denied this satisfying contemplation for some time, as she fainted away alongside Annabelle. When the elder Misses Tuppence awoke some moments later, they began weeping. Chelsea, having been unable to move either of her elder sisters, had seated herself between them.
“Don’t worry, girls,” pronounced the youngest Miss Tuppence, “He’s a loser.”
At that very moment the sisters were alerted by a sound which resembled distant thunder. They looked again outside the window.
“My goodness, what’s that?” Elizabeth asked as she attempted to make out what fresh agitation might be coming down the road.
“It’s a a bunch of dinosaurs,” Chelsea observed.
In this moment the three young ladies put aside any past quarrels and poured into one another’s hearts the balm of sisterly affection.
“Sisters,” declared Annabelle, “Now is the time that we shall stick together more than ever before.”
There then ensured a most inconvenient row in the village of Little Wigglesworth. Elizabeth tore a great slit in her new muslin gown while battling not one but two triceratopses, and Annabelle was obliged to strike a T-Rex in the face with her best fan. Chelsea fared somewhat better, managing to befriend an obliging diplodocus and convince it to bear her about on its back. In the end, using their charm, wit, embroidery skills, and excellent moral principles, the Tuppence sisters were victorious. It must be owned, however, that their dear Mama was obliged to come downstairs to help them, which caused great agitation to her nerves.
And from that day the Tuppence sisters lived happily in their quiet little cottage in Devonshire. They had some small regrets that Mr. Ashby had been devoured by a rabid T-Rex, but found consolation in their tea parties, their musical evenings, and living such upright lives as to deny the
neighbors the satisfaction of gossip.
ANOTHER celebrity has decided to dabble in writing for children. Whooptie-doo. In more exciting news, co-host Chloë has checked out not just one Max Crumbly book from the library to read during the school break but also THREE volumes of the Dork Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell.
Opinion: Another Celebrity Children’s Book
I spotted a literary kerfuffle in the news. Actress Kiera Knightley has written a children’s book. Whooptie-doo. I Love You Just the Same is set to come out in a year, and it tackles a truly groundbreaking topic – the way family dynamics change when a new baby arrives. This shouldn’t really be a story. I don’t mean talking about how families change – that’s always a good premise for a book. I mean that nobody should be impressed that yet another actress told herself, what the heck, how hard can it be to write a book for kids? Though I guess it’s extra tedious that she thought she would illustrate it too.
Nah, this is all old news. The real story here is the amount of backlash Knightley is getting. With the announcement came loud groans of annoyance from actual children’s authors as well as critics, who are fed up with celebrity dabblers being able to get a book deal at the drop of a name while lesser known authors with far better writing skills struggle in the background.
Lots of celebrities, usually actors, have done this over the years. After all, they make a living pretending to be other people, so it’s not surprising that some of them take method acting to an extreme and try to become authors of children’s books. Megan Markle, Keith Richards, and even Madonna have all written children’s books. I will just say that they attempted quite the career pivot. Attempted.
Just a thought: if you aren’t a writer, maybe suppress the hubris that makes you think you can just dive right in and write a children’s book without taking the time to build any skills in writing for kids. Children aren’t stupid. They aren’t defective adults. They are young. They are inexperienced. They are still developing. But if anything, that means they deserve superior books to read to set them on the right course in life. And just because they’re half grown doesn’t mean they can’t recognize a bad story when they see one. Based on my own experience reading to kids, they’ll let you know when a story stinks.
There are famous people like, say, David Walliams, who turn from a career of writing and performing comedy shows for television to one of writing comedy books for children. I don’t consider Walliams’ work to rise to the level of literature. It’s not complex enough for me to analyze or recommend for a class to read as part of school curriculum. And that’s totally fine. He writes funny, trivial, entertaining books for kids. This reflects the funny, trivial, entertaining stuff he wrote for adults in Little Britain, which was his best known writing and acting gig. Not everything should be deep. Sometimes we just want to laugh.
The reason Walliams been able to build a successful career writing for children is that he wasn’t stretching that far beyond what he’d already done as an actor. He knew how to write and perform comedy. He stuck to writing comedy. Pivoting from an audience of adults to one of children wasn’t that big a of a deal for David Walliams because he stayed true to the same silly, fun, over-the-top comedy that he has always done. Had he tried to write serious dark fantasy, I am quite sure his books would not be very successful.
There are other actors who try their hand at writing and do well at it. Richard Armitage recently published his first novel, a mystery thriller for grownups. I haven’t had the chance to read it yet but I’m not surprised by the reviews that say it’s quite good. Armitage is in the middle of a solid career playing serious roles for grownup audiences, and he has used that buttery smooth voice to record the audio versions of dozens and dozens of books written by many different authors. This is someone who has spent a long time reading, thinking about, and performing stories that tend to be serious, complex, and targeted at adults. So he stuck with that when writing a book. And to nobody’s surprise, it worked.
We can contrast that with the . . . I have to say it . . . garbage that has been put out by famous people who regrettably don’t understand where their talents lie. I am an unabashed fangirl of Julie Andrews. This woman is an absolute treasure and every moment of her performing career is a gift to the arts. But her children’s books? They’re . . . well, you’ve probably not heard much about them, and there’s a reason for that.
A lot of famous people don’t even really write their books at all. Publishing houses know they can make a lot of money off of a famous name, and so they hire a real writer to do the actual work. What you end up with is a book that has a celebrity name in bold letters and then a much smaller name underneath. We all know who did the real work here. I don’t think this is a problem when famous people are doing autobiographies. There are many people who have fascinating life stories, but because they aren’t writers they need someone who can help them organize and streamline a huge amount of information, presenting it in the right order and at the right pace.
I’ve read the autobiography of Ozzy Osbourne several times. It’s fantastic and funny and full of stuff that is so crazy it must be true. And it really benefited from the help of co-author Chris Ayres. Osbourne has dyslexia, which makes reading and writing difficult for him. There’s some really touching passages early in the book when you see how much he struggled as a very poor kid in a suburb of Birmingham, unable to do well in school and not getting any help at all for what is a pretty common condition. Ozzy not only needed a skilled writer to help him organize a massive story, but also to help him write the darn words in the first place. But this isn’t the case for most celebrity authors who decide on a whim to write a book, dump the work on a servant, and then expect to be praised.
The worst kind of celebrity writing is when it’s little more than a branding exercise. Emma Thompson, whose work on the screen I have always enjoyed, has lent her name to more than one franchise aimed at consumers who buy stuff for children. She “created” a book series called Felicity Wishes, but the actual amount of writing she has done for it is pretty low. It’s more about selling merch than creating literature, which is fair enough, but as a reader, mom, and advocate for literature, I am unimpressed.
Thompson has also joined in the very successful commercialization of Beatrix Potter’s writing. With almost all of the original books in the public domain, The World of Beatrix Potter has cleverly put out new toys, merchandise, and books based on her original characters. This results in a new set of stuff that is under copyright and can generate profit for decades. I don’t have a problem with that. The stuff they make is really cute and it helps keep Potter’s work in the public mind. The money also supports their headquarters in the Lake District, which provides a wonderful book-based attraction where families can explore a replica of Mr. McGregor’s garden, go to theater performances, and enjoy the beautiful landscapes that inspired Beatrix Potter. The World of Beatrix Potter also supports several very good charities.
So they should keep selling that merch, but parents and teachers should keep in mind that all these new books that say “World of Beatrix Potter” instead of “Beatrix Potter” on the front are just content. They’re totally fine to read to your kids, but they are pretty disposable in terms of their literary quality. I really don’t understand why they would bother paying for a big celebrity like Emma Thompson in the first place. I don’t think a three year old cares that much about her name when wanting you to read The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit for the seventeenth time. In April.
I’d put this same kind of warning on books that say “Inspired by Roald Dahl” or “The World of Eric Carle.” There’s nothing wrong with buying and enjoying these books, which are inspired by an author’s work. But if you are making educational selections for children, please remember that these titles are merch, not literature. They are designed to be consumed and tossed so that another derivative work can be quickly published and sold. They will never be of a high enough quality to be used as part of a classroom lesson. Also, by including these derivative works in curriculum, parents and teachers could accidentally lead children to believe that these second generation products are the work of the real author. That could have a bad effect on how young readers view a great children’s writer.
So unfortunately for Kiera Knightley, book nerds are going to be focusing their ire on her, despite the fact that this problem didn’t start with her. She’s just one more example of someone with no background in writing leveraging her fame and power to indulge her whim to dabble.
I think it’s great that she took up writing. I think everyone should experiment with it. The problem I have is that without her famous name, her novel would never even have been looked at by a publisher. She’ll sell a few copies, and then her book will be added to the shelf labeled “mediocre books by celebrities.”
And while this happens, lots of truly talented writers who have spent time learning the art of writing for children will be ignored. So I think the best way to combat this problem is first, as consumers, we need to hold back before purchasing a book just because there is a famous name on the cover. Find out if it’s actually any good before spending your money. But it would be even better if you looked past a glitzy celebrity and tried to find lesser known writers who have crafted something really impressive. It will mean a lot more if you give them your time and money. I’ll be on the lookout for their books, and I hope that you will be too. In fact, I would love to get your recommendations for books that deserve to be better known. So what’s your favorite children’s title that more people should hear about? Let’s get talking about people who have been hard at work making great things for kids but don’t get a free pass to the top of the publishing world.
A recent article in The Atlantic caught my attention. “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books” by Rose Horowitch shares stories from professors at elite schools who have found that over the last 20 years (the time period in which kids got smartphones . . . hmmm . . .) students’ attention spans have eroded to the point that many of them can’t manage to read an entire novel anymore.
I had some thoughts on this, and my take on whether or not students should be enrolling in liberal arts programs in the first place might surprise you.
Have you read this article? Do you agree or disagree with the anecdotes and opinions shared by the professors? What recommendations would you make to individual teachers and parents about how to help kids practice the skills needed to enjoy and analyze literature?
Here’s a clip from the 150th Episode, in which T.Q., uh, kinda geeks out. Chloë tolerates it . . . mostly. To be fair, there’s a moment later in the show when it’s HER turn to get animated about a question that’s just for her.
We’ve reached 150 Episodes!! We can hardly believe it and are celebrating by answering questions from YOU. Find out what kind of hate mail we’ve been getting, what happens to poor Chloë when Mom starts geeking out about the Silmarillion, which Taylor Swift songs are our favorites, and a lot more!
The format of the show has been evolving over the summer. The audience has really grown and we’ve been experimenting with ways to help us all have more fun reading great books for kids. Going forward, episodes will come out when they are needed and ready rather than every Monday. This means it will be easier to do a short episode about a current event, or take time to work on a show that needs lots of time and research. The audio versions of the show will have extra segments about book news, what we’re reading as a family, and announcements about events and what friends of the show are up to. Segments of the show that work well as YouTube videos will be published to our channel, as people seem to be enjoying those over there. Be sure to subscribe to our channel here:
Howard Shore carefully brought the text of The Lord of the Rings to life in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy, choosing instruments and melodies that the people of Middle-Earth could have created for themselves. No theme shows this better than the one that speaks for the people of Rohan, from the clever selection of a Hardanger Fiddle to the rhythmic elements that evoke the beloved horses of the Rohirrim.
