Funny Girls & Dynamic Divas

Toronto’s women’s advocacy agency, Sistering is having its annual fundraiser on June 14, 2012, and these evenings always guarantee a good laugh for a great cause.

Sistering is a women’s agency serving homeless, marginalized and low-income women in Toronto. Their programs and services help women gain greater control over their life circumstances. Their advocacy focuses on changing the social conditions that put women at risk. And their service philosophy is to ensure that women’s dignity is not eroded by poverty and homelessness.

All proceeds from the show go directly back to Sistering and supporting the community of homeless, underhoused and socially isolated women who attend the drop-in programs and use the Sistering services each day.

This year’s headliners include the wildly popular and talented:  Sandra Shamas, Elvira Kurt, Liberty Silver, Jane Bunnett and many more!

 

TD Children’s Book Week

This is the TD Children’s Book Week, and twenty-nine English-speaking authors, illustrators and storytellers will visit schools, libraries, bookstores and community centres in every province and territory across the country.  The theme for this year is Read a Book, Share a Story. 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of Lillian H. Smith becoming the first trained children’s librarian in the British Empire, and the Book Week theme highlights the important role that librarians play in sharing books and creating lifelong readers.

The library in the poster for this year’s book week is the Lillian H. Smith branch of the Toronto Public Library, the branch I am proud to frequent.  See the griffin on the right?  He’s the very one I think of when I tell the story of my eldest son’s name.

I have to admit, when I heard the theme for this year’s events, I was a bit puzzled.  I rather take it for granted that children’s books are, by definition, for sharing.  Isn’t that the best part of the whole reading aloud part of the day?  Snuggling up and sharing a story.  But when I looked closer, I discovered that the books that the organizers want us to share with our children are books about libraries and books about children telling stories.  Books about books!  What could be more perfect?!

So, pop in to your local library, check out the Book Week site, and see what’s happening, story-wise, in your neighbourhood this week.

Get Outside!

Great Britain’s National Trust has come up with a list of 50 things to do before you are 11 3/4.  They include skipping stones, climbing trees, observing rock pools, calling owls, and sliding in the mud.

The list makes a great activity to print up, read together and check off.  Then, when you have the list of things still to complete, head outdoors and have some old school fun.

Here is the complete list.

image credit

1. Climb a tree

2. Roll down a really big hill

3. Camp out in the wild

4. Build a den

5. Skim a stone

6. Run around in the rain

7. Fly a kite

8. Catch a fish with a net

9. Eat an apple straight from a tree

10. Play conkers

11. Throw some snow

12. Hunt for treasure on the beach

13. Make a mud pie

14. Dam a stream

15. Go sledging

16. Bury someone in the sand

17. Set up a snail race

18. Balance on a fallen tree

19. Swing on a rope swing

20. Make a mud slide

21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild

22. Take a look inside a tree

23. Visit an island

24. Feel like you’re flying in the wind

25. Make a grass trumpet

26. Hunt for fossils and bones

27. Watch the sun wake up

28. Climb a huge hill

29. Get behind a waterfall

30. Feed a bird from your hand

31. Hunt for bugs

32. Find some frogspawn

33. Catch a butterfly in a net

34. Track wild animals

35. Discover what’s in a pond

36. Call an owl

37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool

38. Bring up a butterfly

39. Catch a crab

40. Go on a nature walk at night

41. Plant it, grow it, eat it

42. Go wild swimming

43. Go rafting

44. Light a fire without matches

45. Find your way with a map and compass

46. Try bouldering

47. Cook on a campfire

48. Try abseiling

49. Find a geocache

50. Canoe down a river

The Neverending Story

March Break on Stage!

On Saturday, we went to see The Neverending Story at the Young People’s Theatre in Toronto.  Based on a novel by Michael Ende, and adapted for the stage by David Craig, the play is about a boy and a book and how the characters in the book need the boy to help save them from the Nothing.  The Nothing is a nihilistic force that threatens to destroy all of the stories in Fantastica, where the book is set, but really, it’s the threat of a world without imagination, a world in which children are forbidden to dream, where they are told that stories do not matter.

So far, so up my alley.  The star of the show, I have to say, is the mechanical aspect: costumes and scenery.  There are curtains on stage that are characters in their own right, and the costumes were a delight to behold.  The layers and texture and energy of the costumes added so much to the performances.

The part of the (real world) boy Bastian is played by Natasha Greenblat, and she stole my heart and the show.  Bastian has recently lost his mother, his father’s grief debilitates him, and Bastian is bullied at school to such an extent that he hides in the school attic.  I felt that the other actors hammed it up a bit much, as if thinking that an audience full of children needed that element of attention-grabbing exaggeration.  She, on the other hand, played her part to perfection, never condescending to her young audience.  The message of the play is that books need readers to keep them alive, and that they, in turn, will enrich readers’ lives, and I found that she delivered this message with wonderful grace.

The best part of seeing a performance at the Young People’s Theatre is that there is a Q&A period after the performance.  Children can ask the actors about any aspect of the play and its production.  One child asked, “Is the play real?” and the actor who answered her did so with such respect.  He pointed out that they were actors and the play was a story but that it was a story about real things like grief and bullying and the importance of the imagination.  He told the audience that imagination and the escape that books offer can be the best way to deny bullies power over us.  I think it’s wonderful to have an actor explain that clearly, simply, and with as much passion as he did.

Tickets are a very reasonable $10-$20, about the cost of a movie, and the theatre is such a wonderful part of the arts available to children in the city.  Special show times are on for March Break.

Tales of a Reluctant Hockey Mom

“Hockey mom.”  There are two words I never thought I’d use to describe myself.  I’m not at all a fan of the professional sport, though I do get very caught up in my kids’ games when I’m there to watch.  Truth be told, I don’t feel fully entitled to the moniker, since I am the parental unit who is usually on the home front while my husband is at the rink.  Dragging a three-year-old boy along to hockey games is no one’s idea of fun, and I’m not so keen that I want to arrange babysitting to allow my two hockey players to have both parents rinkside.  So I’m a proud mother of two hockey players who is very often in the background. 

Our house was minus two for the February Family Day long weekend: G and Ted were in Montreal for G’s hockey tournament.  There are so many things I once would have resented about the time that hockey takes out of our schedules, the dent it makes in our time as a family of five all in one place at one time. 

But, while our little family of five was not together all weekend, G had as spectators for one game his grandfather, who drove five hours to see him, his great aunt, two of my cousins and their families.  My father is one of twelve children.  We have a sprawling family, and that was four separate branches of the family tree out to watch one kid play hockey and gather for a meal and a chin-wag.  I was profoundly humbled that they took time out of their weekends to gather at the rink.  Call it “Aren’t We Blessed to Have Such a Wonderful Extended Family?” Day.  That G’s team won gold was also news to warm his distant mother’s heart.

As it happened, we five were together for Family Day Monday, but it was a very quiet sort of a day.  I wanted textbook Quality Family Time, but I was too tired for orchestrating a perfect memory, and so we drifted into our day, hanging out in pajamas all morning, reading, playing tag at the park, making bread, cooking wholesome soup and unwholesome nachos, playing Lego, and catching up somewhat reluctantly on homework.  G worked out how long it would take him to get all of his homework done and then wilted.  The crash after the high of a fun-filled weekend.  But then he found the solution to a difficult math problem in a fraction of the time he thought it would take and rejoiced, saying, “That felt as good as winning gold!”

And that’s where all of these pieces fall into place for me.  G has had to work really, really hard on this select team.  Goals, which come fast and furious for him on his school and house league teams, elude him in this group of stronger players.  A few days ago, G said to his dad, “I love being on the Select team. Winning is so much more fun when it’s hard.”  He is not the star of the team, but he is a fully committed member who works his heart out.

The rewards of being a somewhat reluctant hockey mom are plentiful: seeing him recognize the value of hard-won victory, seeing that spring in his step as he drags his hockey bag along to the next game, seeing him feel part of something bigger than himself.  That, surely, is something to celebrate on Family Day.

I’m Raising the Kids’ Allowance

I’ve decided to raise the kids’ allowance.  And to take them to the toy store to let their Lego freak flag fly. 

Here’s why: I just bought stickers for myself while I was out shopping for others.  I am 30 years too old to be buying stickers.

Now, I had an allowance when I was a kid, but in some places I lived, like Saudi and Haiti, I had nothing to spend it on.  I collected stickers and treated them more carefully than gold. I did not stick stickers.  I saved them.  I.  Still.  Have.  Them. 

I want the boys to get impulse spending out of their systems now, before university, say, so that they will spend their money on sensible things like warm socks and scented candles for their dorm rooms.

Seussical!

Last weekend, we took the little ones and their cousin (6, 6, and 3) to see Seussical at the Young People’s Theatre in Toronto.  The musical brings to life (at least) three Dr. Seuss favourites: Horton Hears a Who, Horton Hatches the Egg, and Oh! The Thinks You Can Think!  The Cat in the Hat narrates.

For the most part, the mixing of story lines from various books worked.  The spine of the story is Horton’s protection of the Whos, and his hatching of the egg for the feckless Mayzie works fairly seamlessly with that plot.  A chorus of bird girls is marvelous, and their costumes were pure genius: forties glamour, with just a hint of feather.  Gertrude McFuzz, who harbours a secret love for Horton the Elephant, wants to look more like the glam bird girls and laments her one, lonely tail feather.  Her wish for more and more elaborate plumage is beautifully realized on stage with hidden layers of costume, but it ends with predictably disastrous results.  The resolution of that love story plot ends on the satisfying note that just being yourself is always best. And of course, throughout is Horton’s wonderfully catchy refrain, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”  (Horton’s costume was a little less than successful.  He had no trunk, but an oven mitt to represent it, and ear muffs for elephant ears.  The older kids grasped it, but my littlest, who is well versed with Dr. Seuss, kept asking where the elephant was.)

The production was a hit with the six-year-olds, but my three-year-old also kept asking when the movie was going to start.  (Note to self, make sure to clarify that a play is a play no matter how many times you ask.)  He loved, loved, loved the pesky Wickersham brothers, though, so the monkeys saved the play.

I am a big fan of Dr. Seuss, so this play was a treat for me, too.  I do think that a familiarity with the stories is useful before seeing the play, especially because there are a number of plots to follow.  If you are looking for a musical treat, this one’s a winner.  It is at the mainstage of the Young People’s Theatre until December 30.

New Reads for Fall

This Sunday, September 25, is Word on the Street in Toronto.  A city block and Queen’s Park are closed off and given over to tents and booths of bookish fun.  Tomorrow, I will write about some of the Canadian books for children being published this fall. 

And these are some of the (non-Canadian) titles the kids and I will looking out for. 

Maurice Sendak’s newest picture book, Bumble-Ardy, looks like it’s teeming with visual stimulation.  This is Sendak at his most riotous, and his characters, too.  Bumble-Ardy is a pig who throws himself a birthday party, and things quickly get out of hand.  But the book steals my heart with a detail: in one illustration, a guest at the birthday party carries a placard that reads, “We Read Banned Books.”  Go, Pig!

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is getting an enormous amount of hype, but I trust this excitement and am looking forward to an exciting read.  My husband pointed out the other day that there is a notable amount of fantasy literature appearing in the books I read to the big boys.  This is quite true, and all of it has been, well, fantastic.  I’m hoping that this book will help us maintain our giddy approach to book time.

An author with a great track record in this house is Brian Selznik, whose The Adventures of Hugo Cabret is now adapted for the screen by Martin Scorcese.  It is a book you want to pore over for hours, its illustrations in deceptively simple pencil.  Selznick has a new book out this fall, Wonderstruck (reviewed here at Educating Alice), and it looks like it will be as visually rich and imaginatively stirring as Hugo.  Lots to look forward to!

Adieu Harry Potter

We are all avid fans of the movie and the book versions of Harry Potter around here, so when the opportunity to see the final movie at my husband’s company event came up, we were front and centre.  We wore costumes.  We ate banana cream puff golden snitches.  

This is Rowan all set to watch the movie in 3-D.

Adieu, Harry Potter.  It’s been a fun ride.

What lazy days of summer?

I long for those lazy days of summer.  Reading books under a tree, strolling for ice cream, meeting friends for patio dinners.  Those are the summer days of yesteryear.  My days of summer are not anything but.  It’s been three weeks of summer and we’ve:

-       Planted cucumbers and tomatoes, a planter of begonias and a bed of gerbras

-       Had four cottage weekends complete with boating at the crack of dawn, fireworks late into the evening and a baby who refuses to sleep in his temporary crib

-       Attended (the kids, not me- I can only wish) a week of day camp

-       Visited two libraries, Santa’s Village, numerous parks/playgrounds and friends, farmer’s markets, and story tellers

-       Made waves in swimming pools and splash pads

-       Effectively wasted enough water with the sprinkler and hose-play to remedy the African drought

-       Seen Cars 2, the movie (read about THAT experience here)

-        Had two very nasty poo-explosions courtesy of the baby (who must have been feeling left out of all of the activity) which resulted in MAJOR clean-up and emergency baths all around

-       Had one lamp smashed to smithereens

-       Made one trip to the ER for a staple to the head, my son’s, not mine (can you imagine!?!)

-       Tried three neighbourhood restaurants for lunches (what was I thinking?)

-       Applied Benedryl to a swollen ankle rendered useless thanks to a Muskoka mosquito (*Mr. Mosquito, next time please aim for the lips.)

It’s important to note that while most things on that list sound summery and like a lot of fun, you must imagine doing each with three boys who must have been circus carnies in their previous lives.  Gong!

Of course, playing Activities Director has added to my already heaping amount of daily responsibilities (and laundry).

Boredom, if you are looking for someone to assault this summer, please, please pick me.

photo credits: www.timstvshowcase.com and www.sharetv.org