Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Afghanistan for kids

Posted on Written by

I’m one of the parent volunteers helping out with the 6th grade book club, which is part of Project Cornerstone, a YMCA-driven project in Santa Clara County not only to promote reading but to promote stories about values and questions kids might have. Project Cornerstone is really cool, and in middle school they create book clubs that offer lots of young adult novels with nary a vampire in sight.

This month’s book is The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis. None of the kids has had a chance to read the book yet, so today we had a discussion of some of the background of the book, which concerns a young girl in Afghanistan who pretends to be a boy in order to support her family. Since we didn’t know anything about the book, we did some fun stuff, like marking off a 10-foot by 10-foot square in the middle of the carpeting to show the size of the place the protagonist lives in, and we discussed the subject matter.

This is what I learned:

  • Some kids hadn’t heard of Afghanistan.
  • None of them knew where it was, although Sophia came closest with “near India.”
  • Some kids had heard the word “Taliban.” They didn’t know what it meant, though.
  • A few knew there had been a war there recently. Even fewer knew that the US had been involved.
  • A couple knew that the predominant religion there was Islam.
  • Almost none of them knew anything about the conditions for women there.
  • Almost all of them tried the hummus I made, and several tried the dried fruits that another mom brought.

We had a discussion about the title. None of the kids knew what the word “breadwinner” meant. We discussed why bread was slang for money, and why bread is so important. (I’m guessing not many of these kids have had to recite “Give us this day our daily bread” too often.)

I have no idea how atypical I was as a child (okay, okay: I was very atypical), but I watched the Evening News with Walter Cronkite every  night with my dad. I didn’t always understand what “Vietnam” or “energy crisis” or “M2” meant, but I had some exposure to the news. A lot of these kids — from very well-informed, very successful families — are not getting this. I only point this out not to rag on these kids (they’re in 6th grade, after all) but to point out that it’s never too early to start talking to your kids about world events. Or to use big words like “breadwinner” with them. They were really, really interested! They want to know this stuff!

I have high hopes for book discussion next time.

My Writing To Do List for 2012

Posted on Written by

I decided to make a list of the writing projects I have on deck for this year.

  • Finish my rewrite of my first ever novel.
  • Write the second novel in that series.
  • Finish the Macbeth novel. Especially before Rob kills me. Because frankly that would suck.
  • Finish the superhero novel.
  • Finish that one project I’m working on under a pseudonym that already has many fans! Which is totally cool.
  • Send out one play to at least five contests.
  • Do this with at least three plays.
  • Write several more 10-minute plays.
  • Write a one-act play.
  • Write a full-length play.
  • Send these out.
  • Work on a list of possible ideas for a screenplay.

You know, for someone who complains she doesn’t have enough ideas, I certainly do have plenty of projects to work on.

And seeing it laid out like that reinforces my desire to have serious writing time!

City of Thieves: the review

Posted on Written by

City of Thieves, by David Benioff, takes the old saw, “Daddy (or, in this case, Grandpa), what did you do during the War?” and runs with it. The book opens with the author asking his grandparents, retired Russians living in Florida, what happened during World War II, a time they’ve never been willing to talk about. This time, however, they talk a lot — and Benioff gets an entire novel out of it.

Now, I haven’t Googled to see how “true” this novel actually is. Who the hell cares? It’s a rousing, cinematic ride (by a noted screenwriter) through the horrors and craziness of the Siege of Leningrad in 1941. The narrator, Lev (Benioff’s grandfather), is caught by the Soviet police after looting the body of a German paratrooper (while looking for food, because there’s none to be had anywhere in the city) and released only under one condition: he and another prisoner, a young soldier named Kolya) are charged with doing the impossible. They have to find a dozen eggs. If they don’t, they go to prison — and the conditions in Leningrad have deteriorated so far that the authorities had  stopped even feeding the prisoners, because there’s no food. It is the ultimate damned-if-they-do situation.

It’s a crazy story, with story points and narrative details reminding us that not only does war suck, total war really sucks, and WOW did the Russians have it bad during the war. City of Thieves takes you through Leningrad during wintertime, when you have to fight death, disease, starvation, cannibals, snipers, and the invading German army. You will not be bored reading this book.