Voice Lessons

by Ed Spicer

I called.

Voice mail mutes

thoughts and

allows you to listen to the lingering

silence of inadequate ideas

trapped in self doubt

and worthlessness.

Maybe the static clicks

and thrum of background noise

will serve as metaphor and infuse

meaning in a silence

exponentially longer than

mere seconds

ago.

HANG UP!

I should hang up

but I haven’t spoken —

except now the silence

feels like words,

like a judgement and

I know I will never be in the

smart group because

I’m still on the phone,

still silent,

feeling stupid.

And now I do hang up

and wonder how to frame

this phone call

“I called. I left a message.”

?

“I called. Something is wrong with my phone.”

?

“I called. Had to rush to get my dog outside before I could leave a message.”

?

“I called. I don’t know why.”

?

Haply I think on thee

and realize my call

doesn’t matter

and is already forgotten.

If I ask you about it,

you will not even know

what I am talking about.

I called.

I called!

I will call again.

Who knows?

Voice Lessons was originally published in Spicy Reads on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Growing up in the fifties meant that when you wanted to play, you knocked on a door. “Can Pat come out and play?” Even in Southern California, a place in which you can live next door to someone you will never meet, we did have something vaguely like a community. “Come on in, Eddie. Would you like some Kool-Aid? Pat went to the store for me. He should be back in about twenty minutes. How are you?” This exchange wasn’t unique, even if it was not typical — Pat was usually home and often answered the door. Every single day children knocked on doors and went outside to play. Often you did not even need to knock on doors because everyone was already outside playing. You simply joined in.

Today a large number of children do NOT knock on doors and do not play outside. Playdates are arranged. Any interaction with other children happens at the daycare center almost exclusively, usually inside around a television. Homes are places of solitude. You do not often see children playing on the street. Video games, smartphones and other devices have created an illusion of community that really is misleading at best and possibly extinct. No one knocks on our door anymore asking us to play and I miss that so much I could cry.

I guess I am so out of practice asking for friends to “play” that I’ve simply stopped asking much. And being the extrovert that I am, this is exceedingly painful. Combine this with very low self esteem, some mental health OCD/anxiety issues, and I tend to feel (regularly) that the best is behind me. I don’t believe I am alone in this thought spiral (and I am not even going to mention the difficult holiday times brought to me by my seasonal affective disorder).

I have been thinking a lot about ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) therapy that is often successful with folks like me. I used to get trapped in LENGTHY THOUGHT SPIRALS when, for whatever reason, this person and that falls out of my life. “You should expect that! You are not as important as your swelled head thinks. Do you blame them? Better and more important people will ALWAYS take your place. No one will ever really like you for long. For a smart boy, you sure are stupid!…” ad infinitum. When I am able to step away and think about this spiral, my brain tells me how destructive this is.

So what I have been trying to do is to celebrate people and not mourn for individuals. To some extent, my illness tries to tell me that what I am doing is telling friends that I no longer give a shit about them. What my improving mental health responds with is: “People’s lives are complicated and an extrovert like you should celebrate ALL the people who make living interesting and fun. Savor those moments with special friends BECAUSE they are finite. Trust yourself to be interesting enough to keep meeting and loving people. And for god’s sake, stop turning friendships into a competition or a math equation.”

I’d like to scream: “FREE AT LAST,” but this is a war with many battles EVERYDAY. That tape that tells you how worthless you are does not go away because you are nice or kind or smart or mad or anything. It is a part of you. I am trying to love that part of myself. I am trying to recognize that this illness actually helps me empathize with others. It often forces me to recognize and correct errors BEFORE I make them, at the same time that it may also paralyze me into thinking that nothing I will do will ever be good enough.

Progress to an outsider (i.e. EVERYONE else) may not seem significant. And these issues are much more complicated than I could ever adequately explain. However I know that I am making progress when:

• I can write about it
• I can write poems (see below)
• I can sleep at night (mixed success)
• I drink enough water and eat well (despite pictures on Facebook this isn’t always true)
• I can stop listening to a song before it ends
• I don’t have to win 5 games of hearts in a row before doing something I should
• I can stop thinking about why I don’t see [insert name here] anymore and replace it with anticipating a new event
• I can list five good reasons why living TODAY is good and have a plan for tomorrow

There are more bullet points I could add to this …

If I have written well, this blog post will communicate the fact that good mental health is not easy, not simply a matter of “taking charge” or “thinking good thoughts.” Often it is recognizing when you are in a spiral and either accepting it or distracting it (by breathing, by drinking water, by putting on music, by reading, …). I used to think that friends were a part of the equation (and I am NOT consistent because they may well be), but I am making more progress by accepting that friends need to work on their own lives, while I work on mine.

Don’t get me wrong: PLEASE KNOCK ON MY DOOR SOMEDAY AND ASK ME IF I CAN COME OUT AND PLAY. I will love you forever.

In the meantime here is a poem (AND GOD DO I LOVE POETRY) that does a better job of being me than this blog does:

I Am A National Park
by Ed Spicer

If I were a National Park most friends would
never see me
or just once or twice
glad to have me

there

with my waterfalls
and wildlife
rainbow colors
unique geological formations…

My rotten egg stench
quaint and quirky — 
perfectly acceptable
as it bubbles up or erupts,
my crumbling cliffs
savored and watched over prayerfully — 
everyone wishing me well…

But you would not be
my park ranger
or even the host at the lodge dining hall
or the weekly garbage collector…

Maybe I am Meijer Gardens instead — 
with the butterflies that bring annual visits
and we would linger over giant spiders
and a bronze horse that looks like driftwood
in awe of shriveled bonsai oak trees
and children and culture and art…

You remember me fondly in the winter
and speak of visiting in the summer
even though the heat and humidity
keep you air-conditioned…

Plans would be made for concerts
and you love the music that
eventually
you listen to on your phone
imagining you are sitting
in a lawn chair on a grassy slope
smelling the flowers and the scent of
hundreds of joyful dancers
who love Meijer Gardens…

Maybe I am a church instead
and you sit bored
each week
pretending to be raised
or saved,
but if you were heaven
we would never meet.

So I will be that National Park
Meijer Gardens
church
and maybe even a museum or two
to showcase a few ancient relics
of which I am proud.

I consider being a grocery store
or a gas station
and wonder what it would be like to be a school.

I dream of being a party.

I’m A National Park was originally published in Spicy Reads on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

New Found Glory

I own hundreds of CDs. Maybe you do too, maybe even more? But the CDs I am talking about are specifically Christmas CDs. Mahalia Jackson, Blind Boys of Alabama, Barbara Streisand, Nat King Cole (and marvelous daughter, Natalie), Burl Ives, Motown, Kathleen Battle, Bing, Frank and so many others fill my ears each season from Friday after Thanksgiving until the TWELVETH (12th!) day of Christmas in January. And now Spotify has added thousands more to the potential list.

I am a white, married guy in his sixties. I grew up in a lower middle class racist white neighborhood. The culture that white people don’t think of as culture because they do not view themselves as privileged (a sure marker of privilege) included listening to many of the CDs I own (and love) and we certainly have a special place in our hearts for White Christmas. We remarked on how much improved race relations were shortly after hearing a Black person sing this song. We liked Ray Coniff, Mitch Miller, Andy Williams, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Boston Pops, and the like. We listened to Ella and Ertha and James and Joe in shopping malls and at parties, but not at home.

And on Christmas Day, perhaps the most segregated day of the year, we gleaned spiritual inspiration from Handel’s Messiah, while gazing at our chicken boy Jesus nativity displays, complete with their host of white supporting actors. I suppose a few families had the token Black wiseman. Christmas Day is a day that will not likely get folks in my neighborhood, back in the day, thinking about, maybe, the single Black person they may have known.

But this blog post is not specifically about race relations at Christmas time. I’ve included this background information to clarify that my culture may, at its best, tolerate exploration of others, including their music, but it does not signify that exploration as anything to be valued. And over the years, much of the Christmas music I truly enjoy is directly related to this constant repetition. Once a song moves past the years of boredom and indifference, we begin to hear things in the song that speak of more than simple lyrics. It becomes iconic, a cultural marker, regardless of the objective merits of the music. Not just music. Scrooge McDuck is NOT one of our great literary movie characters and yet he is, for many, the definition of Christmas. [For the record, I am NOT a fan of ANY version of A Christmas Carol and if I never see that movie or play, including any of the spinoffs, or read the Dickens’ book again, I will not be sorry].

So imagine my surprise, two years ago, when I discovered New Found Glory on a brand new Christmas CD. Well, the surprise is NOT finding them on a CD — I have over 200 Christmas CDs, but in discovering that their song, Nothing For Christmas, may well be my favorite Christmas song ever! They are a white, male, pop punk group from Florida and let me just say that back in the day simply using the word “punk” would be an automatic disqualification, regardless of any adjectives in front of it. And for me, even more difficult is the word “pop.” That word has a wide range of meanings, none of which do much for me. But “pop” as in music is especially difficult. Ever been traveling in a new area and trying to find music on the car radio to listen to? My car flashes a very brief two-line description of stations. When “Pop” shows up, I cannot hit the “Scan” button fast enough. And here is a white male pop punk group touching my Grinch-like heart with a Christmas song that makes me cry (and I love my mother’s tear ducts that I inherited).

If you know me, you know that Christmas is a difficult time for me. My family lived through bricks through windows, gun shots, police called over to our house, humiliation over totally inadequate gifts, forced smiles over gifts that you actually hate, horrible food, family fights, and being told regularly, “for a smart boy, you sure are stupid” by your drunken father (who is actually your step-father because your biological father deserted you when you were three and did not make an appearance of any kind until Christmas when you were 9 or 10 and then announced he would not ever come back because you were not sufficiently grateful for the slide rule that you did not know how to use and the truly horrid blue grandpa sweater — but I digress). During the holidays, anxiety and depression are more than casual acquaintances. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I cannot tell you how many people tell me things like, “You are in charge of how you feel. You choose how you feel.” or “Think happy thoughts and eventually you will be happy.” AND. MANY. MORE! Please do not be one of these people. “Oh really? All these years and all I had to do was think happy thoughts? Damn! I wasted my life.”

I have an improving way of dealing with this mental illness, which is writing about it. Sharing it and staying busy thinking about it. But writing is a way for me to managing the stomach acid. When you are me, you UNDERSTAND much of your privilege, which often exacerbates the problem. The internal tape plays, “Why are you whining to your friends about your trivial little problems. For a smart boy, you sure are stupid. Others have it so much worse. You have a wife you love. A nice house. Two great children. Family that you love. You have enough money. You had a great career. You have a lot of people who say kind things about you. And here you are a privileged whiny white dude who should just shut the hell up. For a smart boy, you sure are stupid.”

“Christmas is coming, so don’t buy me nothing. (Christmas is coming)

I got what I wanted, I got what I needed. (Don’t buy me nothing)

And Christmas is coming, so don’t buy me anything.

I got what I wanted, I got what I needed, it’s you, it’s you, it’s you, it’s you.

Christmas is coming so don’t buy me nothing.”

But staying silent has you thinking about how you have lived long enough and wondering why it isn’t over now. And that is not healthy. So I write and I live and I find New Found Glory all around:

I got what I needed. It’s you and you and you and you and you. Please VISIT or call or email. And if you want my Christmas In Mordor playlist (rated R), please comment. I’d also love comments about your “new found glories.” #newfoundglories

New Found Glories was originally published in Spicy Reads on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Friends

by Ed Spicer

To make a friend

you must first create magic

or an apple seed

wave your warm golden wand

over the dark formless void

and gaze into your tears

spilled onto the face in this deep

and keep weeping until

the cows come home

one afternoon in your next reincarnation

by an ancient apple tree

find a wise woman

and avoid the persnickety fault-finding man

hiding in the naked field

of the shapely tree

eat with her and share

her impure look

infected with the poison of concupiscence

ring your finger around

a lock of her hair and climb

into a better story

together

even as you argue over

ownership of

pain and separation while making

apple pies together

for the church booth at the county fair

with the giant chicken

that came before the egg

to make a friend

you must first create magic

or apple pie or cider or

be saucy enough

to believe

in infinite possibilities…

Making a Friend was originally published in Spicy Reads on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is the second blog post with the mission of rescuing posts from the earlier iteration of Spicyreads. This one features my 13-year-old daughter (and I believe this picture is pretty close to that time period — Ella is now 28). I love that Fat Kid Rules the World is in this post — a debut and before it went on to win a Printz Honor! I still STILL point to Brook’s masterly setting in Lucas as an example for students who wish to write. Runaway Girl was, at the time, my introduction to Louise Bourgeois; I have read MUCH MORE about this amazing artist since then — if you haven’t read this book, CORRECT THAT. Same for the Printz winning, First Part Last by genius Angela Johnson (in fact, read Toning the Sweep too, one of my favorites not in this review). I am still one who believes that the Bartimaeus books are BETTER than Harry Potter (and it is interesting that this review welcomes the fifth book of HP). Joyce Maynard’s The Ususal Rules feels especially relevant NOW! And finally, God Went to Beauty School is STILL a gem (but with a new title and cover — see below) and now comes with Marla Frazee’s delightful artwork. This short book can be finished quickly and then you will go back and linger, linger, linger — still adore this one!

P.S. Note the excellent titles listed at the very end. There are some great books listed! And, as stated in my other retro post, I have not edited my reviews. Enjoy!

___________________________________________________________________

“My thirteen-year-old daughter, Penni, ambled cautiously to the door of the Best Books For Young Adults meeting room in Toronto this summer. She was convinced that two of the committee members would certainly come to blows. During the meeting, just before lunch, these two people were practically down each other’s throat passionately arguing that, yes, a book should be included on this year’s list, or no, the book does not belong. Neither member minced any words and both were very clear articulating reasons to support their vote. We could see veins in their necks; hear raw emotion in their voices. So when the two reached the door, Penni was braced for conflict. She was not disappointed, but she was shocked: The two argued about where they were going to eat lunch together as they walked out arm in arm, smiling.

In this spirit of heated, communal reading I invite disagreement, wild-eyed cheering, and passionate enthusiasm over another summer of great YA books for students of all ages. My election to the Printz Committee means that this will be the last time for a couple of years that I can second guess the committee and boldly predict winners of the best young adult book of the year. So please do argue. Please do disagree. We can even do lunch!

Of the many books I’ve read this summer, these eight books still have me talking. Watch for them this January, when the Young Adult Library Services Association announces the 2004 award winning books. In alphabetical order by author, the winners are:

Brooks, Kevin. Lucas, Scholastic, 2003, $16.95, (0–439–45698–3).

“Stories aren’t facts, Cait, they’re not details. Stories are feelings.” And so begins the allegorical journey into the life of Caitlin McCann as measured by Lucas. A story, as the cover tells us, filled with love and hate. Set among the mudflats on the small island of Hale whose access to the mainland is controlled by the tides, Brooks uses his setting to force attention to the tides of human behavior; the pull and counter pull of love and hate. Lucas sees color auras of people and places. He shows up waiting when characters need to see him. Dogs don’t bark at him. The island residents merely want to kill him. “People don’t like it when they don’t know what you are. They don’t like things that don’t fit. It frightens them. They’d rather have a monster they know than a mystery they don’t. In a place like this, the fear takes hold and spreads. It feeds on itself.” (167). We find ourselves sucked into this story bit by bit until all 423 pages seem not nearly long enough! Brooks weaves a nice blend of mood, whether describing the delicate bone-handled knife carving of Deef the dog or the encounter with evil Jamie and the same bone-handled knife. While this story is entitled Lucas, it is about Caitlin. It demonstrates how one intelligent young girl filters, sifts, and sorts the various truths of her life and grows. Teens will find PLENTY to discuss with this one, not the least of which is whether violence can solve problems.

Going, K.L. Fat Kid Rules the World, Putnam, 2003, $17.99, (0–399–23990–1).

What a thrill it is to read an author’s first novel and find yourself covered with goose bumps! One of the quotes on the back cover states that you haven’t read this one before. Believe me, you haven’t. The 296-pound sweating fat kid in tan pants doesn’t commit suicide. The book does not end with Troy happily on a diet. On the second to the last page Troy says, “I’m the poster boy for obese drummers.” (182). The book begins and ends with the 296-pound fat kid knowing that his very presence directs our vision. What will give you the goose bumps are the sights and sounds while witnessing this performance. The beat of this book is that Troy is fat. He does want to commit suicide. Troy plans to jump into the path of a subway train. Skinny Curt MacCrae, homeless punk rock guitar virtuoso thinks Troy is laughing at him just before Troy plans to jump — and an unlikely relationship begins. Curt gets it into his head that Troy will be his drummer for a new band he is forming. The only problem is that high-school-junior-Troy last played the drums in the eighth grade and he is a sweating 296-pound fat kid in tan pants. I’ll bang the drum on the bandwagon for this book!

Greenberg, Jan & Jordan, Sandra. Runaway Girl: The Artist Louise Bourgeois, Abrams, 2003, $19.95, (0–8109–4237–2).

“It takes a kind of fearlessness in your art making to cut your parents up into little pieces and put them down the drain. It is in a world of fantasy. But then you wake up, you are afraid of what you’ve done. But then comes the reparation and exorcism. All my work is that. I start with these incredible murderous scenes. But I won’t leave the studio until I’ve done something to exorcise the murder I’ve committed. Then I feel fine. “ (17). This book is an Abrams book. That translates into a beautifully bound, extremely well illustrated, high quality piece of art in its own right. I knew virtually nothing about Bourgeois before picking up this book; now I want to visit Bourgeois exhibits, collect Bourgeois replicas, and encourage people to read this superb book! Greenberg and Jordan include an introduction for looking at a piece of sculpture, a guide to galleries displaying Bourgeois’ art, glossary of terms, bibliography, and endnotes. Bourgeois was born in Paris. Runaway Girl reveals Bourgeois’s secret family life. It follows her through Paris until the time she meets, marries, and moves to New York City with her art historian husband. Bourgeois created and kept hundreds of pieces of art that ran counter to the prevailing, male dominated view of art at the time. While Bourgeois’ art is said to be “feminist,” her art really tells the personal story of who she is. Bourgeois states that she is reluctant to explain anything she created. She believes her art should speak for itself. Runaway Girl depicts a poignant personal story that has much broader implications for society as a whole. The authors should be commended for their three dimensional look at a fascinating artist. Those readers in the Grand Rapids area may want to travel to Meijer Gardens to see for themselves one extra large example of Louise Bourgeois’ work. One of her huge spiders, Maman, crawls around the garden. Read this book before you go see it!

Johnson, Angela. First Part Last, Simon & Schuster, 2003, $15.95 (0–689–84922–2).

It is an exceptionally rare book that travels through the straw vote and the final vote for Best Books for Young Adults without a single no vote. First Part Last is the only book to do that so far this year — with good reason. Bobby is a typical teenage boy, with the typical teenage boy interests: sex and girls topping the list. Like many urban tales, this one includes a young girl getting pregnant. When Nia gives Bobby the news of their pregnancy, Bobby is celebrating his sweet sixteenth birthday. Nia’s news changes Bobby’s life, but in a surprising, unique way. Fear not! Bobby does not stop being a knuckleheaded, impulsive teenager who does dumb things. Like many teenage boys, however, Bobby takes responsibility for his actions. Johnson has written a story about a young, Black man who becomes a single parent despite a society, a community, two families, and several friends that tell him he cannot. Told in then and now flashbacks, we see Bobby agonize with his decision to do what is right for his child. We see him struggle, make mistakes, and live past them, despite the fact that Johnson does not romanticize fatherhood and the hard work caring for babies. First Part Last is perhaps the only book featuring a young, black single father. This book should be ordered by every high school in the country; teachers and librarians should promote it every chance they get. This book also has the advantage of one of the very best covers to ever grace a young adult book.

Maynard, Joyce. The Usual Rules, St. Martin’s Press, 2003, $24.95 (0–312–24261–1).

Wendy wakes up one morning and visualizes the clothing that she will wear to her eighth grade class. She consulted with her mother Janet about her outfit yesterday but of course, mothers, as a rule will not be able to help teenage daughters with important things like looks. Her six-year-old brother Louie jumps into bed with her and cuddles until they both head downstairs to the smell of fresh French toast that stepfather Josh has made. Mom goes to work, Wendy goes to school, and Josh and Louie stay home. The day is September 11 and Mom is killed just a few short hours later in her office on the 84th floor of one of the twin towers. Without being maudlin, Maynard creates a family so real, a grief so real that readers virtually smell the French toast cooking, the towers burning. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Wendy untangles the broken shards of rules and convention. Her biological father, who deserted the family years ago, arrives to “save” Wendy and whisks her away to California. Even in California, however, the usual rules just don’t seem to have meaning anymore. Wendy thrashes about, sometimes gracefully, sometimes destructively, in her attempt to create a way to live with excruciating pain. The lack of quotation marks and the wandering back and forth in time add to the meaning without being too difficult to decipher. While Maynard, perhaps, creates more tragic stories to float in front of Wendy than reason dictates, the sensual feast, the lyrical writing, and the ambitious nature of the story more than make up for any shortcomings. “Some people might have gotten fed up with a person like Peter Pan. He was so irresponsible, but Wendy was patient. She loved him for the good parts and forgave the rest.” (4). Just imagine that someone asked you to write a novel that conveyed the sense of loss rendered by 9/11 and I think you too will find yourself loving those good parts so much that you forgive the rest. You will need Kleenex for this fine, fine book!

Rowling, JK. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Year 5), Scholastic, 2003, (0–439–56761–0 reinforced library binding).

Harry Potter is not eligible for the Printz award — a book must be able to stand on its own without need of previous volumes. A case can be made, however, suggesting that the events of the previous four books permeate our culture to the extent that anyone could pick this book up and enjoy it even without reading any of the other books. Perhaps some readers are wondering, “Why draw any more attention to Harry Potter?” The answer to this question can be answered in part with the following question. What other almost 900 page book attracts students who have better things to do than read? The rest of the answer stems from the fine creative writing, especially the way Rowling has aged Harry. This new, edgier, angrier Harry is all too believable by this reader (who lives in a house with four teens). Rowling also does an exquisite job of keeping the reader in doubt about foregone conclusions. The relationship between Harry and Professor Snape is not a surprise and, miraculously, yet again it is a surprise. There are a bevy of new beasts, great new characters, and surprising twists in the existing relationships (Harry’s Dad, Percy, and even Neville). Fans will not be disappointed. Teachers and librarians will smile as student after student plugs through all 870 pages!

Rylant, Cynthia. God Went to Beauty School, HarperCollins, 2003, $14.99 (0–06–009433–8). [Note: the new edition has a new title: God Got a Dog]

We go from the 870 page Harry Potter book to this mere wisp of a book. Weighing in at a mere 56 pages that are filled with acres of white space, the 23 poems in this book easily hold their own against any of the other heavy weight titles reviewed. God opens up a beauty store called “Nails by Jim,” God buys couches at Pottery Barn, He writes fan mail to country music singers, and He even wrote a book (“no not that one”) to a boy who later became an author. Rylant includes subtle Biblical references that ask readers to envision a God who knows what it means to be human and rejoices along with humanity. While some are sure to see sacrilege, I find this book to be totally irreverent without being at all disrespectful. Indeed if the reaction of the various clergy to whom I have been given this book is any indication, expect Churches to be among the best customers of this probing, poetic, delightful book. This book is a natural for a performing arts group. It is certain to provoke enthusiastic, wild-eyed discussion. Warning! Do not approach without a sense of humor!

Stroud, John. Amulet of Samarkand Bartimaeus Trilogy Book One, Simon & Schuster, 2003, $17.95, (0–7868–1859-X).

Note: This book is the only one reviewed from an advanced reader copy. A new fantasy series that rivals Harry Potter (and it will make an awesome movie too) is The Bartimaeus Trilogy. Bartimaeus is a djinni, not the one imprisoned in a lamp, but every bit as powerful, at least in his own mind. “I am Bartimaeus! I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N’gorso the Mighty, and the Serpent of Silver Plumes! I have rebuilt the walls of Uruk, Karnak, and Prague. I have spoken with Solomon. I have run with the buffalo fathers of the plains. I have watched over Old Zimbabwe till the stones fell and the jackals fed on its people. I recognize no master. So I charge you in your turn, boy. Who are you to summon me?” (7–8). Bartimaeus has an attitude. He works on several levels, sees on all seven of the essential plains. Humans can only see on one. To help the pathetic human reader Bartimaeus uses footnotes to give a taste of his multi-leveled world. Unfortunately for Bartimaeus a dumb, young magician has learned his name and summoned him. So far, Nathaniel has made no mistakes to exploit. Nathaniel has ordered Bartimaeus to steal the amulet of Samarkand. The magician Simon Lovelace has humiliated Nathaniel. Stealing the amulet is Nathaniel’s attempt at revenge. The only problems are that Simon Lovelace commands vastly greater powers, Bartimaeus will not willingly cooperate, and Nathaniel is not even a magician. Nathaniel is only an apprentice whose master thinks he is far too young and dumb to deal with a djinn. When Bartimaeus does steal the amulet, Nathaniel’s problems have only begun!

Other great 2003 books to watch, include:

• Alt Ed by Catherine Atkins

• Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case by Chris Crowe

• King of the Mild Frontier by Chris Crutcher

• Friction by ER Frank

• Target by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson

• Buddha Boy by Kathe Koja

• The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler

• Acceleration by Graham McNamee

• Bottled Up by Jaye Murray

• 33 Snowfish by Adam Rapp”

Retro Reviews (more from 2003) was originally published in Spicy Reads on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For those of you who remember my old Spicyreads website (iWeb — oh, Apple, you are so stupid for getting rid of this web-making program), you may recall the clumsy word-document reviews that I had linked. I miss those reviews! Consequently, you will see a rash of posts in which I resurrect these reviews. I will not edit the review itself, but I have added a note about one or two titles, including Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan. Although I liked it quite a lot, I still wish I could go back to this review and really gush about a book that I now consider to be a classic!

These reviews are from 2003 and I think all of these books are still really good. Oh, Walter, you left us too soon. I own a copy of the Beast and I am so happy to see this review (NAACP Image award winner). The Martha Brooks title, the Polly Horvath masterpiece, Jennifer Donnelly’s Printz honor book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Gail Giles very creepy book, Billy Merrell’s first book (he now has a new one, Vanilla, which is well worth buying), Francesca Lia Block, Herbie Brennan, Garth Nix, and Jennifer Holm are in this review with books that are ALL still available and still worth reading. Enjoy!

The most difficult task in doing reviews, aside from formatting the titles, is deciding which books to include. “Why don’t you just tell about some of the books you read in the order that you read them without skipping any?” asks a friend, as I puzzled over what to include in this review. My friend continued, “You know that some of the books you don’t include in your top group will win awards. Some of these will be someone’s very favorite books.”

I can’t completely follow this suggestion because there are some books that I throw across the room in disgust, unable to finish; I don’t review books that I don’t finish. In some ways, my friend’s advice makes sense because any book that I finish has redeeming qualities by my criteria. As much as possible, here is a sampling of books I’ve completed recently. After the book price, is my initial, gut level quality ranking that is always subject to change. A book that receives a “10” (and there are two) is a must read, a book that I expect to win (even more) awards! Enjoy!

Merrell, Billy. (2003). Talking in the Dark. New York: Scholastic/Push. 136 pp. ISBN 0–439–49036–7 (Paperback); $6.99 (6)

Billy Merrell is a serious poet just out of high school. The winner of the first PUSH Writing Internship, Billy has produced a fine set of poems telling his story. Billy wants to fit in a “good world/ that is welcoming but was full enough without him.” You see, Billy is gay and he often realized “I was lonely, without actually being alone.” Readers view life through Billy’s eyes: your family is falling apart. Your parents’ marriage is dissolving. You live in a world that prefers silence to truth but you feel compelled to speak. The phrasing is well-crafted. The line breaks, thoughtful. Billy knows how to tell a story — an important one. Students and poets will appreciate the craft and the honesty of this talented poet.

Brennan, Herbie. (2003). Faerie Wars. New York: Bloomsbury. 370 pp. ISBN 1–58234–810–3 (Hardcover); $17.95 (6)

Teen reading surveys consistently demonstrate teen’s loyalty to fantasy. Faerie Wars will not disappoint them. Harry Atherton rescues a “butterfly” from a cat. This simple act launches us into parallel worlds. Purple Empires are under attack. The forces of Hael are loosed. Evil must be repelled. Harry and the “butterfly,” Pyrgus Malvae, a faerie Prince, team together with cranky Mr. Fogarty to protect both worlds. Plenty of actions, plenty of characters, tons of detail cater to the serious fantasy fan craving complexity. The action keeps us up late at night turning the pages; it may even allow us to forgive a missing plot edit. Teens who have read this say it is first rate.

Holm, Jennifer L. (2003). The Creek. New York: HarperCollins. 232 pp. ISBN 0–06–000133-X (Hardcover); $15.99 (6) [edited to add this book is back in print as an ebook, which should make teen horror fans very happy — ebook cover shown]

Need a creepy book for that middle school or ninth grade student? Want the book to be a cut or two above Goosebumps? Check out The Creek. Caleb is back from reform school and he is not at all reformed. He is still bug snake scary, ready to pick up where he left off before reform school. When a young child is killed, Caleb is the prime suspect. Penny knows, however, that Caleb is innocent. There isn’t much she can do to convince others, unfortunately, because she has killed Caleb.

Myers, Walter Dean. (2003). The Beast. New York: Scholatic. 170 pp. ISBN 0–439–36841–3 (Hardcover); $16.95 (6)

Myers returns once again to his beloved Harlem for the setting of The Beast. Anthony “Spoon” Witherspoon sees the hurt of Harlem, the drugs, the poverty, the gangs. He longs for the education that will set him free. For Spoon, this freedom comes in the form of a scholarship to a Connecticut prep school, in a much wealthier white neighborhood. But Spoon also sees the dreams and the love and the humanity of Harlem. This is the place where his friends, family, and, most importantly, Gabi — poet and love of his live — live. When Spoon leaves for Connecticut, his relationship with Harlem and Gabi shift. Both are torn. In a few short months, Gabi begins to experiment with Heroin, the Beast. Leaving Gabi for his new life, for the education he has always dreamed of, is the easiest choice. It may also be Spoon’s best choice. In this struggle between community and loyalty and self-respect, Myers asks us to consider whether Spoon has more than one beast to fight.

Donnelly, Jennifer. (2003). A Northern Light. Orlando: Harcourt. 389 pp. ISBN 0–15–216705–6 (Hardcover); $17.00 (9)

Mattie Gorkey has faith in words. In 1906 dreams of women writers often perish at the altar of housework, back-breaking farm chores, and babies. Still Mattie dreams and collects her words, stringing them together like precious pearls. When handsome Royal Loomis begins to shower her with attention, Mattie struggles with a brand new vocabulary: duty, expectation, obligation, tradition, and their cousins. Life proves to be a most difficult word for Mattie, with its random shading of love and racism, work and pleasure, desire and gender, joy and death. The way Donnelly marries literacy with living makes this book a prime cut above most new books this year. Don’t miss it, although it will not appeal to readers who care little for luscious language steeped in the history of an actual murder more than 100 years ago.

Brooks, Martha. (2003). True Confessions of a Heartless Girl. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Melanie Kroupa Books. 181 pp. ISBN 0–374–37806–1 (Hardcover); $16.00 (10)

Here’s a gem! Noreen’s none too nice. She steals her boyfriend’s truck and his money and takes off without much thought except for her own narrow, selfish needs. She lands in Pembina Lake and proceeds to wreak havoc in this small, prairie town. Dogs are not safe. Cabins burn. Trouble follows. And it doesn’t seem to matter whether Noreen’s motives are good or bad for trouble to follow her. Why should she even bother? The town people, Lynda Bradley, Dolores Harper, and Del Armstrong, don’t have much to offer. Lynda owns a ramshackle café well past its prime that serves as a metaphor of her own life. Dolores doesn’t have the energy anymore to be that meddler for Jesus. And Del is still haunted by the ghost of his drowned brother. Call it chemistry or fate or luck, but this unlikely medley of souls bumbles its way into a relationship that works, a relationship that may even transplant some heart back into Noreen. This book has already won Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award; it is sure to walk away with more awards this year. This one is a MUST READ.

Giles, Gail. (2003). Dead Girls Don’t Write Letters. Brookfield, CT: Roaring Brook Press. 144 pp. ISBN 0–7613–1727–9 (Hardcover); $15.95 (6)

Dead girls don’t write letters and they usually don’t show up on your doorstep. Giles is making a name for her self with her psychological terror novels (Shattering Glass was published last year to critical acclaim). Sunny’s mother sleeps from one pill to the next. Her father swims around the booze bottles. Her parents still grieve over the apartment fire that consumed Jazz, their favorite daughter, and Sunny’s older sister. Sunny, however, is somewhat relieved to have this sneaky, torturing bully out of her life. When she receives a letter from Jazz announcing that she was working out of state when the fire destroyed her apartment, Sunny is conflicted. And when a person resembling her dead sister shows up at her door claiming to be Jazz, conflict grows exponentially because this Jazz seems so much nicer than her sister. The ending is problematic but the journey is riveting. (Teens recently selected this as one of the year’s best books, as reported on the YALSA list serve).

Nix, Garth. (2003). The Keys to the Kingdom, №1: Mister Monday. New York: Scholastic. 361 pp. ISBN 0–439–55123–4 (Paperback); $5.99 (7)

Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen may be the fantasy series I appreciate most. How can you not love books that feature sword wielding middle school librarians? So it was with a sense of fear that I picked up Mister Monday, fear that Nix would not deliver with this series. Not to worry! Arthur, who suffers from deadly allergy attacks, is forced to participate in a run at his horrible new school. Just before he passes out, two outlandish beings hand him a key. Is it a dream? When he wakes, he still clutches the key and bizarre things begin to happen. Worlds pop up in places where they should not be. Dog faced men flutter about his window. Best (or worst) of all, Arthur discovers he is the lawful heir of this key, whose powers he doesn’t yet understand, and Mr. Monday is willing to kill to get this key back. This book is perfect for both younger and older students.

Haddon, Mark. (2003). The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: A Novel. New York: Doubleday. 240 pp. ISBN 0–385–50945–6 (Hardcover); $22.95 (10)

In Great Britain this book was published as a young adult book and an adult book. It has two different covers. In the U.S. this book was only published as an adult book. I mention this bit of trivia because the oversight by its U.S. publisher could cost the book a Printz medal, which requires that a foreign book have an American version published in the same year of eligibility. The Printz committee may decide that the “American version” must be a designated YA version. I am hoping that the Printz committee overlooks the American publisher’s oversight and awards this book the Printz medal. This is the finest book I’ve read this year. The format is innovative and it adds to the message. It also has the distinction of making math sound like a life saving endeavor (complete with proofs!). Call this book a Sherlock Holmes meets Asperger’s syndrome. Christopher Boone is 15 and autistic. He can’t eat food that touches on his plate and he loves prime numbers. Christopher hates metaphors and loves similes. He sees a dead dog in his neighbor’s yard. It has been stabbed with a garden fork. Christopher decides to emulate Sherlock Holmes and solve the mystery of dead poodle Wellington. His search is hilarious, maddening, poignant, and always riveting. Readers will scream in the train station. The voice in this book is as close to perfect as the transition from the spoken to the written format will allow. The characterization of Christopher’s dad and mom are so human, we swear we know them. If you don’t read any other book this year, pick up this one! A MUST READ BOOK!

Peck, Richard. (2003). The River Between Us. New York: Dial Books. 164 pp. ISBN 0–8037–2735–6 $16.99 (8)

It’s 1916 when Howard Hutchings hops into his father’s model T for a visit to his father’s family, “on the other side of the Mississippi River down low in Illinois.” (p. 6). “Even at the age of fifteen I knew but little about who he was and where he’d come from. And so I knew but little about myself.” (p. 6). When Howard and his dad arrive in Grand Tower, Illinois and meet the Pruitts, the Novel shifts narrators from 15-year-old Howard to 15-year-old Tilly Pruit, his grandmother, as she relates her experiences during the Civil War. Her story begins as a steamboat whistles into Grand Tower depositing two women, Delphine and Calinda, who stroll around town flaunting money the Pruitt family only dream of earning. Who are these mysterious women? Are they mistress and slave? The Pruitt family agrees to rent them rooms as the Civil War grips and divides the town. Delphine and Calinda become the focal point of the community. As their murky history slowly comes to light, the women become embroiled in a fractious debate, the same debate that frames the Civil War. Peck’s take on the Civil War, with its close look at the effect it had on women, will make this book popular in history classes studying this period. The double time-slip format is a seldom encountered literary device that’s also worth discussing.

Horvath, Polly. (2003). The Canning Season. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 196 pp. ISBN 0–374–39956–5 (Hardcover); $16.00 (8)

This year’s National Book Award winner is the strangest book of the year. Ratchet has something growing on her back that she is not to show anyone. Her mother, Henriette, works at the Hunt Club waiting tables. She dreams of becoming a member one day. “Don’t hold your spoon like that, Ratchet! The Hunt Club! The Hunt Club!…Thank God for the Hunt Club!” And then Henriette sends Ratchet to stay with her elderly twin aunts, Tilly and Penpen, with orders not to show “that thing.” Tilly and Penpen preserve all sorts of fruit, especially blueberries. And of course we have bears to contend with too. Confused? Don’t worry, sense is not of primary importance in this wacky, dark, and disturbing book that nevertheless has a fabulous sense of family.

Levithan, David. (2003). Boy Meets Boy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 185 pp. ISBN 0–375–82400–6 (Hardcover); $15.95 (8) [This one has grown on me since that review and I now think of this as a book for all time, a classic. Definitely worth reading again!]

There is an old adage that a book featuring gay characters must kill them off — the more dramatically the better. Gay characters are victimized and troubled and disowned. Levithan, however, dares to have a popular character, dares to give this character accepting parents, dares to allow him to fall in love without causing communities to go into shock or riots to start. While the comments on Paul’s report card will cause teachers to do a double take (“Oh, I get it, this book is a fantasy”), the voice will delight. Paul accepts his life warts and all and he tries to make it better. Many of the issues, especially those concerning Tony’s family, will generate constructive conversation. Unfortunately the cover will discourage some teens from even considering this well written book. Too bad! Infinite Darlene is worth meeting.

Block, Francesca Lia. (2003). Wasteland. New York: HarperCollins. 150 pp. ISBN 0–06–028644-X (Hardcover); $15.99 (7)

I confess! I’m a Blockhead. Weetzie Bat is a book I return to like mashed potatoes. I can read Block’s description of a kiss and see it with brand new eyes over and over again. Wasteland has some of this marvelous language with a much darker plot that overshadows it. Marina and Lex, brothers and sisters, fall into an incestuous relationship. Or do they? Woven through this book are fragments of T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland, including one rather long quoted segment. The narration shifts back and forth between Lex’s journals and Marina’s third person account (but not obviously). The narration shift will be difficult for many readers, to say nothing of the Eliot references. When Lex says, “You are Spring in your jeans, in the laughing leaves. I think pearls melted over your bones” (p. 2), readers will understand why Block commands such respect; they may also wonder why Block felt she needed to turn over so much of her story to Eliot and inference. Block’s simple, direct language, as always, makes this book well worth reading.

Retro Reviews (2003) was originally published in Spicy Reads on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Love Post

by Ed Spicer

This is a love post —

one that deconstructs

deconstructionists.

This is a love post

that does not speak of love

because this love does not

include

all the hate and violence,

the mental illness, depression, sadness,

the blindness…

This is a love post —

one searching for a voice

or at least acceptance

from the bored

who feel comfortable not singing.

This is a love post —

one too privileged to dance or

fear for its safety,

one held together by

caution tape

over hearts threatening to leak

certain catch phrases

“You gave me your wonder,

your change is measured back in …”

This is a love post —

post love (please enter comments below).

Love Post: A Digital Poem Seeking Answers was originally published in Spicy Reads on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On Facebook and in an earlier blog, I wrote about my racist father changing some of his racist behavior when we adopted our Korean son. The catalyst for this change was his everyday visits to a Korean market in Hawaii, down the street from his senior housing complex. I think back to my elementary school days, I cannot think of one single person of color I knew. When our family became friends with a Black family in Kalamazoo many years later, my own privileged behavior became much easier to notice. It also made the racism in our area much easier to see. When our white Church named its softball team the Black Sheep, we saw the faces of this Black family we had grown to love registering yet another so called funny, harmless joke. I refused to accept or wear the shirt and stopped playing because I felt like a traitor to our friends. Our neighborhood even had a cross burning in the front yard of one of Allegan’s few Black families a few years later. While I am not suggesting a link between a softball team name and an overt racist gesture, I do believe that an environment that cannot even consider the possibility of offending young Black children with a nickname makes other, more overt behaviors, much more likely.

Mahatma Gandhi once said that he tells religious people that God is truth and that they are happy with this answer. He said that he tells atheists that truth is God and that they are happy with this answer too. It is an answer that allows Gandhi to be Gandhi and recognize that not everyone sees the world in the same way as he does. Gandhi also said, when asked whether he were Hindu, that he was. He then added that he is also Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jew. We love what we know. If our God commands us to love everyone, we must be atheist, be Hindu, be Christian, be Muslim, be Buddhist, be Jewish, etc. When I was young, most of my neighbors were terrified of and hated Black Panthers. They had never met a Panther, never had been over to visit a Black family, never shared a meal. It is much harder to hate the person you know and perhaps this idea is part of what guided Gandhi’s response to the question of whether or not he was Hindu.

Today we have a government talking about a Muslim ban and attempting to build a wall to keep people from Mexico out. In my area many of the white local government and business leaders speak openly of the single-minded threat posed to Christians by an alleged monolithic Muslim religion, intent on killing all in this country who are not Muslim. Despite the fact that this small group of white Christian folk rarely agree on much of anything, somehow they are convinced that the entire Muslim population thinks they should all die. They write letters to the local paper repeating this nonsense, speak of this at Rotary functions, and are convinced that it is true despite the fact that it defies common sense. They have not visited any local Mosques. They do not have religious Muslim friends. Hate crimes against Mosques and Temples and immigrants, refugees, foreigners, however, have escalated alarmingly and I believe it is ignorance that drives this hate.

My own sense of morality and ethics requires that I do something. What I know are books. I believe that books change lives, that books provide a chance to learn empathy. We try to raise our adopted Korean son and our daughter to care about others. We work hard to raise them with lots of exposure to many ideas and many different cultures. We want them to be kind and to be fair.

So when I pick up Yo Soy Muslim by Mark Gonzales and illustrated by Mehrdokht Amini, my children are on my mind. As a retired first grade teacher, all of the six and seven-year-old students are also rambling through my memories. The cover makes me smile! The father is looking with nothing but love at his daughter. She is looking at the world with wide, beautiful brown eyes. Her carefully braided hair, fine clothing, and healthy appearance let the reader know she is well taken care of and well loved. This book begins with a daughter climbing a tall tree. Her smile touches the sky. She stays in the tree until after dark and learns to count the stars like dreams. This opening with Amini’s gorgeous art is perfection. I love that the daughter is DOING something. Her father supports her, but she is in that tree at night alone and she is learning! The poetic language makes me weep for joy! This father wants his daughter to remember her heritage and to ask questions. And yet the father knows that the world will ask back — but not about your smile and not about your dreams and nothing about the wonders of your cultural heritage that has given so much to our planet. The father has his daughter announce: “Yo soy Muslim. I am from Allah, angels, and a place almost as old as time. I speak Spanish, Arabic, and dreams.” The father reminds her that she is an ancestor in training and that her people’s prayers were filling the world long before borders.

I wish that I had written something as beautiful for my children. I respond to this book first as a father. The love on the father’s face is the same love that I want to see on my own. This father probably thinks his daughter is beautiful (because she is), but what we see is that he has his daughter doing things in this world and learning about her heritage. This is more important. She is active and not passive and I just adore that about this book. The fact that this trilingual young woman (I am counting Dreams as its own language) expects and is expected to do great things is a message of hope for all daughters in this world.

Yo Soy Muslim is a book that comes to us during a time when we desperately need a counterbalancing perspective in this country. It is a book that will be a mirror to many that do not often get to hold such an object in the children’s literature world. It will be a window into a world that far too many white children never get to see. The language and the art are so lovely that everyone with a heart will cherish this book. Please buy several copies of this one and give them as gifts. Buy some for your local first grade classrooms and libraries! Most of all, buy one for yourself and begin counting your own dreams. This book deserves stars of its own!

Yo Soy Muslim by Mark Gonzales and Mehrdokht Amini was originally published in Spicy Reads on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Back To School Again: Retired Edition

My friend Sue was speaking to me of a young writer she knows. She says he is a very smart young man who does not like to write. “He had to write, so he wrote the alphabet and I did not know what to say or do.” Sue wanted to know what I would do with a student who does not like to write.

Why should anyone write? Writing is not easy. Over and over we see examples of our words or the words of friends or the words of community leaders, etc. coming back to haunt the speaker of those words. Considering all the ways in which our speech can be twisted is hard enough. Knowing that there will be other ways — ones we have not envisioned — that will cause confusion and worse, does nothing to make this task more enjoyable. Most of us will not publish that best seller. Most of us will not write that pulitzer prize winning poem. Most of us will not see our play performed on stage. Most of us will never publish a single word. When teachers ask us to write, when teachers ask us to revise, when teachers ask us for alternative ways to frame the same thought, we know they are doing their job and we still think they are crazy.

When we think of our six-year-old thinkers and consider the task from this perspective, we need to keep the following in mind:

• Writing to them is often synonymous with writing they see in a book
• Writing is typed or printed and well beyond the ability of their growing fine motor ability
• When a student sees a book, that student is not necessarily aware of all the revisions or that the first draft may even have been penned with sloppier writing than he or she employs.
• Writing is spelled correctly and runs straight across the page, with all the spacing between words and lines done perfectly.
• Writing often has pictures way better than anything the students can produce.
• Writing comes bound, often with dust jackets and perfect covers.
• Writing often has words in it that the students cannot even read yet. Sometimes, even when the students are told the difficult words, they still do not know what they mean.

Writing is impossibly difficult. Often when this “impossibly difficult” writing is discussed, parents, teachers, and other adults will criticize it for a wide variety of reasons. (“So even if I do manage to figure out how to make the letters and spell the words and write them down, I still may be screwed! Why bother?!)

The other day, I chanced across a blog from a teacher (Stacey Shubitz: https://twowritingteachers.org/2017/08/25/what-do-you-do-with-negative-feedback/ ) who was attending a writing institute. I do not know Stacey but I got sucked into her blog because she was writing about Lucy Calkins (always worth listening to) who was repeating a story from Jack Gantos about what Gantos thinks is hard about writing from the perspective of many students. Shubitz was struck by the claim (from Gantos) that the hard part is the belief that many children do not believe they have a life worth writing about. Combine this, says Shubitz, with the fact that it is the teacher’s job to tell students about their writing (and to assign a grade) and it is a wonder that anyone would choose to work with young writers. Poorly given feedback can be the death of a young author, a crime that I am guilty of even though I ended my career in love with working with young writers.

So, back to the young man who wrote the alphabet during his writing time and how I would handle this smart young man who says that he hates writing. The first thing I would do is believe him. Not only would I believe him, I would not try to talk him out of it. Writing is hard! You are six-years-old, you are still struggling with how to form letters (let alone spell words). You may come from a family in which your opinion is not ever solicited, to say nothing of respected. It is likely that you are asked to be seen and not heard. You may have friends that have more things and more money and a lot more privileges. They may go out of their way to make you feel embarrassed by your clothes, by your lunches or snacks from home, by your house, by your family’s car (or lack), by your lack of cool new technology, by the Church you attend (or don’t attend), by your size, weight, race, gender, culture, health, and nine billion other factors of which you may or may not have any control whatsoever. You have never written before. What can you write about that will not have you feeling like a failure? You can barely even manipulate the pencil anyway. You cannot possibly do this without feeling like a colossal failure. When a student tells you that they hate writing, they usually have very good reasons for saying this. When teachers try to tell them of all the benefits that will come from writing — to give that teacher pep talk: “If you want a good job, you will need to be able to write. Yada yada yada” the students are convinced that you do not understand them, which only makes progress more difficult.

After telling this student that I don’t blame him for hating to write, I would tell him that writing is incredibly difficult. If you are reading this blog and have reached this point and are excited over the prospect of receiving some magic words that will make it very easy to work with reluctant writers, you may as well stop reading. I don’t have those words. I know students. I do not know how to write a “teaching writing” manual. The actual response to this young man is completely dependent upon knowing this student. I do know that I have had the best responses with students when I tell them the truth: “It is okay to hate writing, but I do have to teach writing. You will have to write. What can I do to make this subject go faster for you and be easier for you?” When I can show the student that I understand some of the reasons for not liking to write, when I can demonstrate that the most valuable thing we will do as writers is to make mistakes (and that those mistakes will be badges of honor instead of reasons to humiliate), the willingness to write is improved.

I told Sue that the first thing I would do with this young man who wrote the alphabet is to thank him for writing (very sincerely). I would have him read it aloud to me. Later I might even read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to him (I have a ton of boys who love the way we read this book together). I would ask him why he chose the alphabet to write and I would listen very closely to his answer because his answer is going to dictate how I respond. Sue suggested that he likely would have given some flippant, “You said we had to write. This is writing. I did what you asked.” I would have agreed with him and had a conversation that could have resulted in my asking, “What were you daydreaming about while you were writing the alphabet?” Or, “Why did you pick the alphabet to write?” And in his answer to these questions, I would have asked him for a few sentences to explain something that is important to him. I would be looking for a small step. “Draw or write what you were daydreaming about while you were writing the alphabet. That is so cool that you can write and daydream at the same time!”

That task of building confidence in our own lives to the point that we understand our opinions are important goes right along with being honest about how hard it is to form letters, how hard it is to spell words correctly. I know that for most writing programs to be successful, the classroom value system has to be geared more toward doing what is hard than in getting things correct. If you want students to struggle with writing or math or science or reading or anything FOR FUN! AT HOME, WHEN THEY DON’T HAVE TO!, you have to build students who enjoy fixing mistakes and students who enjoy doing hard work. It takes time! It is hard work!

I cannot teach you to be me. I think you will be much more successful anyway being yourself. My goal with this blog post is to focus the discussion on understanding that teachers spend a lot of time understanding the concept of differentiated learning, which is a complicated way of saying that you are not me and I am not you. Students are different. So are teachers. If teachers remember that students are different, they may stop trying to teach curriculum and start trying to make a difference with their students.

Step one is to listen carefully to the people with whom you are working and to believe them and to respect them, especially when they trust you enough to admit they hate school.

Back To School Again: Retired Edition was originally published in Spicy Reads on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As my friends get ready for a new school year and as I get ready for company and a party, I post here something that achieved a fair amount of Facebook traction in 2015, but with PICTURES! I think the words are worth repeating. Please forgive this shortcut (but it allows me to post a new blog entry when I really do not have time for one):

Some of the things I will be thinking about heading into this last year:

Remind both the young women and young men that if they only learn one thing in first grade, I will do my damnedest to make sure they learn to be kind. I would rather be around kind people than smart people. I am hoping for both, but if I have to choose, I choose kindness. It is not the kind of things we do or say that make us wise; wisdom comes from saying and doing kind things. There is NOTHING in my classroom more important than this.

Remember to NOT tell the young women in my class that they are beautiful (of course they are!). Focus instead on how much they know, how smart they are, and how much smarter they will come to be. Remember to show lots of examples of active, determined, smart women! Leave the cute, precious, adorable, gorgeous, beautiful comments to the family, where they belong. (And, OF COURSE, they are beautiful!)

Remind the young men that the part of their brains that controls manipulating pens and pencils is still growing. Challenge them to see whether they will be able to master these fine motor skills before the end of the year. Remind them that they are in control of liking or not liking what we do in school. Remember that no one has to like reading or school or math or anything AND THAT IS OKAY, but since we have to be in school, remember to ask them for suggestions about what I can do to make it easier. Remind them that they are beautiful, from time to time.

Remember to stress that if students discover that they are always getting things correct, that we have a problem. Remind them that they need to complain about always getting things right so that I can give them harder work. It is by struggling with problems that we get smarter, not by easily spewing out correct answers. Make the status symbol in the class be about trying hard things and not perfect papers.

Introduce students to our big, wide world! Remember that many students have never been outside of Allegan County much. I have had students that have never even seen lake Michigan. Our wide world includes the richness of geography AND culture. Remember that we fear what we do not know. It is very easy to unite people around fear, enemies, and hatred. First grade, however, is about doing what is hard and not what is easy.

Stress that we learn most efficiently when we want to test ourselves. All of our best learning will be because we decided that we wanted to be smarter. By definition, that means we do not wait for a teacher to teach something. We get on the horse ourselves and when we fall off, AND WE WILL FALL OFF, we get back on again and again and again!

It took more than one hundred thousand people to put a person on the moon. Remind students to look at each other, look around the school, look at the people in our neighborhoods, and see lots of teachers. We learn best when we work together.

Remember to love this class like it is your very last… (try not to cry too much)

First Day Advice From A Retired Teacher was originally published in Spicy Reads on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.