Whether you’re trying to stave off the bah-humbugs or maximize your charitable contributions before the end of the fiscal year, here are some ideas for giving back: http://bit.ly/2R9UmuK
Something I haven’t seen anyone talk about yet is why Ed throws first Lucius off the ship and then Stede’s books. It’s not simply rage or wanting to get rid of things that remind him of Stede, it’s about his feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy because of his lack of literacy.
First, when the British almost execute Stede, Lucius’ ability to read and write saves Stede’s life when Ed’s plan has failed, as his appeal to the Act of Grace for Stede is not accepted. Then, when they’re supposed to sign the text of the Act of Grace, his illiteracy becomes highly visible, impossible not to notice, as he signs an x as his signature. It’s a small but heartbreaking moment because it’s an extremely significant thing in a world where some are literate and some are not.
Being able to read and write gives you an enormous advantage in terms of power over people who cannot read. He might be the most clever, resourceful, skilled pirate in the seas, but in the moment reading and writing come into play, he’s suddenly extremely vulnerable. He’s surrounded by men who hold enormous power over him in virtue of the mere difference in their levels of literacy, regardless of every other difference in abilities they might have.
Ed is going through something that shakes his identity - giving up his identity as a pirate, even his beard which is so symbolical of his identity as Blackbeard - and that feelings of vulnerability and helplessness hit a nerve. In the moment Stede doesn’t show up, and Ed thinks he’s been stood up, he’s bound to feel inadequate. Why did Stede stand him up? Because Ed is not worthy of him, after all. Because Stede is a literate, cultured gentleman and Ed is nothing. He might carry around a piece of fancy fabric, but that’s just something stolen from someone else.
At first he tries to hang on, having his lyrics written down (which, again, sheds light on the difference between him and Lucius), trying to act as a cultured gentleman of sorts, but that’s unsustainable in the long run, because he doesn’t actually think he can be that person. He’s actually drowning in feelings of inadequacy and helplessness, and does what he did as a child when overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy and helplessness: becomes the Kraken.
In conclusion, something I really wish to see in season 2 of the show is for Ed to be taught how to read. Stede could do it, continuing on the trend of the two of them teaching each other things, or - an option I very much like - possibly Lucius, which would help Ed and Lucius get closer again after the, um, accident - and also considering that, in my opinion, Ed’s action is pretty much directly connected to Lucius’ literacy.
After all, what is the cutlery lesson but foreshadowing for actually more relavant and useful teachings in how to belong to Stede’s world? Silly manners don’t matter, but, pardon the reference, reading is fundamental. There will always be an imbalance of power between the two of them if Ed remains illiterate, and only filling that gap can make Ed feel like he’s not inadequate.
Are you beginning to learn Korean? Then you need to learn Hangul! It’s the ingenious Korean alphabet system. Click on the lessons below to get started and learn how to master a new script.
[Alphabet PDF] All the Consonants and Vowels. [Characters PDF] How to form characters, Ws, and Shs. [Advanced PDF] Batchims, Linking Sounds and English.
Old English Psalms Edited and translated by Patrick P. O’Neill Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 42 The Latin psalms figured prominently in the lives of the Anglo-Saxons, whether sung in the Divine Office by clerics, studied as a textbook for language learning by students, or recited in private devotion by lay people. They were also translated into Old English, first in prose and later in verse.…
You can laugh but this is exactly how you teach babies to talk!!!
By responding to their babbles with full sentences and engaging them in “conversations” like this, you teach them that the sounds they make have meaning and that they can use them to communicate with the people around them!
This inspires babies to try even harder to make the sounds that will produce certain responses, i.e. get them what they want, whether it’s milk or a snack or attention!!
I don’t know if this dad knows that he’s using some of the best-proven methods for enhancing infant language development or if he’s just loving interacting with his kid. A+ daddying either way. Also, the look on the dad’s face when he looks at his baby. My ovaries hurt. So. Much. Love.
Confirmed that Chris Evan’s really did re-tweet this, too. Had a peek at his Twitter while I was at it. What a gorgeous SJW, that man.
What bookstores and the literary life contribute to … life
A stack of new books illuminates the wonder of printed books — writing them, buying them, reading them
by Michael Dirda
Marius Kociejowski opens his enthralling memoir, “A Factotum in the Book Trade,” by observing that bookstores have begun to follow record stores into nonexistence. “With every shop that closes so, too, goes still more of the serendipity that feeds the human spirit.” While there may be “infinitely more choice” in buying from online dealers, “to be spoiled for choice extinguishes desire.” As he says, “I want dirt; I want chaos; I want, above all, mystery. I want to be able to step into a place and have the sense that there I’ll find a book, as yet unknown to me, which to some degree will change my life.”
An accomplished poet and beguiling essayist (try “The Pebble Chance”), Kociejowski has also enjoyed a long-standing career with various London antiquarian bookshops, starting with the once-venerable firm of Bertram Rota. Though a self-described “factotum” — which my dictionary defines as “an employee who does all kinds of work” — he nonetheless specialized in cataloguing modern first editions, once even handling books from James Joyce’s library. Over the years, Kociejowski came to be friends with poet and translator Christopher Middleton, travel writer Bruce Chatwin, “arguably the greatest prose stylist of his generation,” and the Spanish novelist Javier Marías, who as the reigning monarch of the joke Kingdom of Redonda, appointed him poet laureate in English of that tiny uninhabited island.
While authors can be colorful, book dealers are often notably cranky and eccentric. One conducting business in fashionable Cecil Court put up a sign that read, “Do not mistake courtesy on my part as an invitation to stay all day.” An independent book scout known only as Mr. Howlett invariably “wore an old, battered, greasy brown trilby all the year round, an aged raincoat in summer and a threadbare overcoat (two sizes too large) in winter.” What’s more, “he carried his ‘stock’ in a series of cardboard boxes,” these last secured with sisal twine until they fell apart.
Boxes of books are a reminder of a lifelong, sometimes turbulent love for the written word
by Jake Marmer
I am not unpacking my library. No, I’m not. I pace around the living room of our newly rented apartment, which isn’t even so new anymore, but it still doesn’t feel like home. In Russian, we say: “Why are you standing there like an impoverished relative?” In Yiddish it’s something about standing around like a golem. I say both of those admonitions to myself, almost out loud, but all of our new things here—couch, bookcases, built-in shelves, fake fireplace—continue to feel foreign to me, and even our old things, the very few we could bring here with us, feel out of context. My doumbek drum functions as a miniature coffee table with a tall stack of magazines and books, and a cup of coffee tilting ominously.
I have moved a lot in my life, too much, and in the chaos that every move entails, in the churning and trashing of possessions, in the reckoning with everything unfinished and forgotten that inevitably rises to the surface, it is the unpacking of books that always served as a kind of a ritual act, an alignment of physical and mental: I’d look at them and feel that I finally landed, that I’m back in the familiar. Even in my parents’ home across the ocean, where I visit a few times a decade—a home where I did not grow up but where they moved shortly after I immigrated in my teens, a home that provokes an oddly sidewise-pointing nostalgia—I feel more grounded as I look at the familiar shelves, the books I grew up reading.
This time around, though, our books are not making me feel content or at home, and that’s why there are still 15 or so hefty boxes stacked atop of each other. There are the Russian books I’ve brought during overseas visits throughout the years, which I never put out on the shelves because out of the four members of my immediate family, I’m the only one who can read these books, and it seems wrong to take up space like that—it’s like sprawling my least comprehensible self across all over the house. In the same box, among other things, there are innumerable volumes of Turgenev from my grandmother’s home, my only physical possession I inherited from her, aside from the pink-gold wedding band, which she gave me the very last time we saw each other, and which I now wear on my pinky when it isn’t too hot outside and it can fit without cutting off my circulation. She had very thin fingers. There is a two-volume memoir of Viktor Shklovsky, which I’ve been wanting to reread since before our move, because this year I am obsessed, as he was, with skaz, a kind of oral storytelling with a book’s binding for a tongue. But Shkolvsky is deep inside a heavy box, and I have not opened it in years, since before our second child was born.
An online survey of the Ukrainian book market undertaken by Anastasiia Zagorui on behalf of Ukrainian trade publication Chytomo was conducted from March 26 to April 8. Eighty-one publishers participated in the survey, which examines how the publishing community has adapted to wartime conditions; of those, 10% said they were forced to stop their operations, including 4mamas Publishing House, Abrykos, Booksha, DIPA, Mamino, Oleksandr Savchuk, Osnova Publishing Group, and Smoloskyp. Others, such as Blym-Blym, Ïzhak, and Klio, have been severely compromised. The majority of publishers, 51%, continue to publish but have altered their operating models, taking such measures as reducing their working hours. Thirty-nine percent of publishers had not changed their models when the survey was taken.
In one comment, the team of Creative Women Publishing said that, despite the war, they are back on track with all their projects. “Despite the fact that the publishing house’s employees are geographically dispersed—some have stayed in Ukraine and others are abroad—everyone keeps in touch,” Creative Women reported.
Learn More about COLLTS PreK Curriculum from the American Institutes for Research
Learn More about COLLTS PreK Curriculum from the American Institutes for Research
Lee & Low Books is the exclusive publisher of the American Institutes for Research preschool curriculum, Cultivating Oral Language and Literacy Talents in Students (COLLTS). Today we’re sharing frequently asked questions about the curriculum. Is COLLTS only for dual language learners? No! The Center for English Learners at the American Institutes for Research designed the COLLTS PreK curriculum…
Live Webinar with Jennifer Serravallo: Diversity in Books for Independent and Instructional Reading and Writing in Kindergarten and First Grade
Live Webinar with Jennifer Serravallo: Diversity in Books for Independent and Instructional Reading and Writing in Kindergarten and First Grade
As schools prepare for a critical academic year like no other, educators are looking to engage with students in essential literacy skills while providing high-quality literature that students can relate to, enjoy and learn from. Join Jennifer Serravallo, renowned literacy consultant, expert, and New York Times bestselling author, and Adjoa Burrowes, educator, artist, and award-winning Lee & Low…
Parents and Caregivers: Use This Tool to Build a More Diverse Home Book Collection
Parents and Caregivers: Use This Tool to Build a More Diverse Home Book Collection
We are so excited to announce that we have adapted our beloved Classroom Library Questionnaire into a tool for families and caregivers! Our newly launched Home Library Questionnaire is now available for free to download. The Home Library Questionnaire will help you:
Reflect on your home library Broaden the types of books you read with your children Diversify your child’s independent reading and…
Diverse Texts Aren’t Just for Elementary School: Building Inclusive Curricula for Middle and High School
Diverse Texts Aren’t Just for Elementary School: Building Inclusive Curricula for Middle and High School
In this guest post, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and Stephen Chiger, co-authors of Love and Literacy: A Practical Guide for Grades 5-12 to Finding the Magic in Literature, share different ways that high school educators can approach text selection and build inclusive curricula. Here’s a thought experiment: Consider the two high school book lists below. Which one would you prefer for a child you…
Upcoming Webinar: Best Practices for English Learners in PreK
Upcoming Webinar: Best Practices for English Learners in PreK
Join our upcoming webinar “Best Practices for English Learners in PreK” on Thursday, June 3rd at 3:00 PM ET. In this conversation with two experts from the American Institutes of Research (AIR), we will explore best practices for English Learners in PreK as well as a preview of the new curriculum, COLLTS, from The Center for English Learners at AIR. Our expert panelists are Dr. Patricia…
Introducing COLLTS, a New PreK Dual Language Curriculum from the American Institutes for Research
Introducing COLLTS, a New PreK Dual Language Curriculum from the American Institutes for Research
The Center for English Learners at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) released its newest curriculum for Preschool learners! Cultivating Oral Language and Literacy Talents in Students (COLLTS) is an early childhood curriculum available exclusively from Bebop Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books. Through the use of interactive reading with outstanding children’s literature and nonfiction,…
“Public libraries are such important, lovely places!” Yes but do you GO there. Do you STUDY there. Do you meet friends and get coffee there. Do you borrow the FREE, ZERO SUBSCRIPTION, ZERO TRACKING books, audiobooks, ebooks, and films. Have you checked out their events and schemes. Do you sign up for the low cost courses in ASL or knitting or programming or writing your CV that they probably run. Do you know they probably have myriad of schemes to help low income families. Do you hire their low cost rooms if you need them. Have you joined their social groups. Do you use the FREE COMPUTERS. Do you even know what your library is trying to offer you. Listen, the library shouldn’t just exist for you as a nice idea. That’s why more libraries shut every year
If this post persuades even one person to get a free library account and use it, my time on this hellsite will not have been spent in vain
my hot take is that if you want to write a book, you need to read books
you know what i’m reblogging this with my own tags because they’re important
[Tags above: “#Twitter would crucify me #not that this site is tremendously better at times #but sometimes it is #anyway. you can engage with creative media for inspiration so much #for characters for plot for arcs for ideas #but you also— 100%— need to read actual books #whole ass published books #because if you want to write a BOOK #you need to know what the craft is #not just the story and the inspiration #but the legit writing craft of language and storytelling with the written word #and try as you might: nothing will compare to that #no film or tv series or anything else will give you the same insight on How to WRite as reading a book will #audio books count too!! they are still books; just audible ones #but you just— guys you just gotta read #you can’t neglect it as an essential for your own writing #sap spill”. End caption.]
Haveyoumet Monster? Might we introduce you to him in this delightful stop-motion animation clip, animated by the team behind Wallace and Gromit and narrated by Michael Palin.
Monster—created by Ellen Blance and Ann Cook, with illustrations by Quentin Blake—taught many young people how to read in the 70s and 80s. He was so good at it that he even got his own animated television show—well, a pilot—that was created in 1983.
Those were simpler times, but we’re bringing Monster back in a new treasury called Meet Monster: The First Big Monster Book(May), which collects his first six adventures. Blance and Cook pioneered a new way of allowing early readers to be confident in their skills, by basing the Monster stories on stories children themselves suggested, and by beginning with a simple vocabulary that is gradually built up and broadened. And from our own recent experiences watching children interact with the stories, it’s a system that teaches, even as it brings joy.
AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books Longlists
AAASandSubaru are pleased to announce the longlist for the 2019 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize. The prize, sponsored by Subaru, has been celebrating outstanding science writing and illustration for all age groups since 2005. Awards are presented in five categories: Children’s Science Picture Book, Middle Grades Science Book, Young Adult Science Book, and Hands-On Science Book. Beyond honoring these books with an award, AAAS and Subaru partner to bring them into the community. Through the #SubaruLovesLearning initiative, the finalists and winning books are donated to schools all over the country. Additionally, we creates free K-12 teaching materials based on the books. AAAS believe that, through good science books, this generation, and the next, will have a better understanding and appreciation of science.
Longlist for 2019 Children’s Science Picture Book Award
She Found Fossils, by Maria Eugenia Leone Gold and Abagael Rosemary West. Illustrations by Amy J. Gardiner. CreateSpace, 2017. [Also available in Spanish.]
Our midweek #motivation is definitely our HSE graduates. We celebrated their achievements a few weeks ago and we’re so proud of our 2019 class. #librarylife #librariesofinstagram #hse #diploma #graduation #classof2019 #highschoolequivalency #adulteducation #adultliteracy #literacy #education https://www.instagram.com/p/BzvmrHcnD-3/?igshid=16bupw0qrcb1c
