Please Vote for Me

Posted on October 28, 2008 at 8:00 am

There is no better way to make elections real to kids than this award-winning documentary about the first-ever election in a third-grade classroom in China. In Please Vote for Me , the children are completely unfamiliar with even the concept of a genuine election and their parents and teachers don’t know much more. The office at stake is class monitor and the campaigns are as cutthroat, heart-felt, and heart-breaking as any election anywhere. Though its subtitles make it unsuitable for the youngest children, it is an outstanding introduction to the benefits and costs of democracy and a great way to start a conversation about what we look for in the people who deserve our votes.

Baby Book Series: Clean-Up Time, Bye-Bye Time

Posted on October 22, 2008 at 8:00 am

There are zillions of books to teach children the alphabet, colors, and numbers, but this lovely new series of board books from Free Spirit Publishing helps toddlers learn important skills like listening, going to sleep, saying good-bye, and cleaning up.

Author Elizabeth Verdick and illustrator Marieka Heinlen have created reassuring texts that give children confidence and reinforcement. And each book has tips for parents and care-givers to help preschoolers put what they have learned into practice. The design is inviting, with friendly vintage fabrics used as backrounds and simply-drawn but appealing and diverse characters children will identify with. Veridick says, “During the toddler years, daily routines and transitions are big challenges, and every little success matters. The books are meant to take children and parents through familiar routines in a gentle, positive way.”

Talking to Children about Poverty

Posted on October 15, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Families may find that their children have picked up some of the concerns about the economy from the news or overheard adult conversations. They will need to be reassured that even if their families have suffered some financial setbacks, they have all of the love and courage they need to keep them safe. And they will also need to be reassured that there is something they can do to help those who are less fortunate.
This summer’s American Girls movie, Kit Kittredge, is a very good way to begin a conversation with children about the current economic problems and their consequences. I particularly appreciate the way that it makes clear that the homeless characters are less fortunate but no less filled with dignity, decency, and humanity. The range of responses to poverty depicted in the film gives families a lot to talk about. So does the way that even the poorest find ways to help others in need.
Slate has a superb discussion of children’s books that discuss poverty by Erica S. Perl. From classics like Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, Little House on the Prairie, and Ramona and Her Father to more recent books like Spuds, these stories give families a chance to talk about difficult issues with that all-important distance because it is happening to other people at other times.
And Perl includes that most irrepressibly sunny survivor of hard times, Annie , who reminds us that even the most hard-knock life will be sunnier “Tomorrow.”

McCain and Obama for Children

Posted on October 15, 2008 at 8:00 am

There are very fine illustrated biographies of both candidates for children, a good way to begin a conversation about how we select our leaders and the importance of being able to disagree in a respectful and honorable manner.

Home Movie Day

Posted on October 13, 2008 at 8:00 am

Home Movie Day is October 18, and everyone from Martin Scorsese to John Waters is urging all of us to participate. super 8jpg
The Center for Home Movies collects, preserves, provides access to, and promotes understanding of home movies and amateur motion pictures.
For my parents’ 25th anniversary, I organized all of our family’s home movies, going back to the 1930’s. For their 50th, my sister had them put on DVD for each of us. No matter how well we know those images, there are always surprises (and not just how young and beautiful everyone was). Footage of our communities and the places we visited remind us of how much has changed.
Contrary to all of the jokes about how endlessly boring other people’s home movies are, there is an extraordinary poignancy and even art in many of them. Long before the days of YouTube and “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” people were recording their families and occasions and archives of these films are beginning to be available online. One of the acknowledged greats of home movies is Robbins Barstow. His 30-minute film of his family’s trip to Disneyland in 1956, one year after it opened, is an engaging artifact of an era and an almost-impossibly functional family. Twenty years earlier, Barstow and his brothers made a home movie version called “Tarzan and the Rocky Gorge” that is reminiscient of the marvelous “Son of Rambow” its verve and imagination. Barstow’s recollection of the making of that film and its sequel 38 years later is a delight. ” Watching these visual records of little pieces of our lives served as a real bonding instrument,” Barstow says. Home movie day should inspire everyone to get out their movies and watch them together to remind everyone in the family about where you’ve been and those you love.