Archive for April, 2010

The Sorely Trying Day by Russell and Lillian Hoban

Who hasn’t come home, at the end of a long, hard day, to a house riddled in chaos? Animals in flight, children hiding, household items rearranged by brute force? In this affectionate and humorous tale, every member of the family, including the pets, is somehow responsible for some part of the days unrest. They each relay their own version of the how the events transpired, working to release their blame. The story eventually comes full circle so that the children learn a lesson of accountability. Written and illustrated by the much accomplished husband and wife team of Russell and Lillian Hoban, whose collection of work includes A Birthday for Frances, A Bargain for Frances, Bread and Jam for Frances, and Silly Tilly’s Thanksgiving the story comes to life again for a new generation of parents and children after being out of print for over 40 years.

Available at New York Review Children’s Collection

The Bear That Wasn’t by Frank Tashlin

“Hey, you get back to work,” the man said. “I’m the Foreman and I’ll report you for not working.” The Bear said, “I don’t work here. I’m a Bear.” The Foreman laughed very loud. “That’s a fine excuse for a man to keep from doing any work. Saying he’s a Bear.” The Bear said, “But I am a Bear.” And so the story begins and follows the Bear as he tries to prove to a long list of corporate bosses that he is in fact, a bear. One by one they assert that he is instead “a silly man who needs to shave and wears a fur coat.” The Bear toils his year away working for the industry, but does indeed prevail in the end in being true to himself and all of his “bearness.” Written in 1946 it is an old tale that continues to resontate.

Available at New York Review Children’s Collection

The Mousewife by Rumer Godden

“Rumer Godden’s The Mousewife, first illustrated in 1951 and reissued by The New York Review Children’s Collection, is a gentle fable of liberation that the prolific British novelist and biographer, who died in 1998, wrote after escaping a loveless first marriage…Disarmingly illustrated by William Pene du Bois, this little book makes a case for empathy and daring: Why creep when you can fly?” –O, The Oprah Magazine
This beautiful story is a tale of an unexpected friendship and following a heart’s desire.

Available at New York Review Children’s Collection

When it’s cold, raining or otherwise unpleasant out, it’s a very, very long afternoon with the kids shut inside. But Lyra’s “Wax-o-Glas” window crayons can make that tedious afternoon pass faster.

Go ahead, color on the windows! Draw birds in the sky, puffy cloud shapes, maybe even make the whole sunny outdoor landscape you wish was waiting outside that window. Once your masterpiece is complete, the color comes off the windows with just a little soap and water. Give the kids a basin, cover the floors with a towel, maybe even pull out your car window squeegee, and hey, cleaning the windows becomes its own good, clean fun.

Lyra crayons are made in Germany of high-quality materials so that its color is always lustrous and true.

Lyra window crayons, $10

Even parents who shell out for organic cotton rompers and unbleached diapers usually fall down in the dress-up department. Yes, when a plastic pirate sword or sparkly cape your kid clamors for costs $7 at Target, it’s tough to say no–unless you realize that gorgeous, eco- and labor-friendly versions of the same items are online. The extra money is worth the lowered guilt. And the Earth, and the people on it will thank you for playing green.

Fairy Finery should be on your bookmark list for pretend play. Costumes and accessories are made in the U.S. by an ethical company that uses quality materials. Particularly choice: Fairy Finery’s soft toy sword, a cushy version of the plastic staple of pirate, knight, and “bad guy” games. Let the kids whack each other all they like with these soft swords, which have gorgeous, comfortable handles and natural wool blend felt over a sponge interior.

A Toy Garden is another bookmark to hold onto, with an inspiring collection of fairy costumes, princess hats and dresses, and capes, including this gorgeous dragon cape. Like all of Toy Garden’s wares, this cape is sewn by manufacturers certified by the Fair Trade Federation, and shipped in recycled packaging. The work-at-home mom who runs A Toy Garden even admits to dumpster diving to get packing materials. Many of Toy Garden’s goods are bought directly from the artisans who make them. This one is made in Sri Lanka, but you can be assured that it was made by workers making a fair wage and working fair hours.

Nova Naturals has a selection of stuff from the usual suspects (Sarah’s Silks, who makes a very popular line of princess wear and play silks), as well as more unusual accoutrement. Like this hand-crocheted “chain mail” hood, constructed of cotton yarn by artisans in Nepal. It’s soft and cozy yet looks fierce and warlike. That same kid you got the soft sword for will be over the moon.

Since your single days, when your paycheck barely covered your basic living expenses, you’ve bought every season’s “It” bag(s). Now you’ve got a museum of It bags past, sitting in their protective pouches taking up valuable closet real estate that could otherwise house more practical items, such as your mounds of baby paraphernalia.

Forget eBay and your local, upscale thrift shops. Try the Power of a Purse. It’s a charity campaign to collect new and gently-used purses for mothers in need. Power of a Purse is run by Mothers & More, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting women - both SAHMs and WOHMs - as they navigate through the transitions into and through motherhood. The group hopes to collect 10,000 bags this Mother’s Day and raise awareness of women suffering extreme economic hardship. In 2008, there were 15 million women living in poverty in the U.S. The poverty rate for female-headed households with kids is 37.2% compared with 7.5% of families headed by a married couple.

To find a local Mothers & More chapter near you and information on how to donate and where to drop off bags, visit mothersandmore.org. The campaign runs through the end of May. There’s an especially big push for bag donations in NYC (with a drop-off at Moon Soup), home of more purse-ophiles than anywhere else in the country. Members of that chapter will even come pick-up your collection.

A very Sex and the City charity.

April is National Financial Literacy Month, and boy could we use one. (We could probably do with a financial literacy year.) From Wall Street to Main Street, we seem to have perfected the practice of spending money we don’t have. Think massive credit card debt, the subprime mortgage mess and ensuing global fallout. Talk about your teachable moments.

Erika Miller is a correspondent with PBS’s Nightly Business Report, an Emmy-Award winning program and, by some measures, the most-watched business show in the country. Miller’s also the mother of two young boys and has a Certificate in Financial Planning. She talks to us about giving kids an allowance and raising children so they have a clue (hopefully more) when it comes to managing money.

Emerging Money - An allowance is a great way to teach children practical money management strategies. It forces Junior to balance several competing desires, which is what adults do all the time (pay mortgage vs. buy a new pair of killer shoes vs. save money for retirement).

Allocation:
Divide-and-Conquer Strategy - Apportion the allowance into thirds. Get three piggy banks or one that has different compartments. A third of the allowance can be spent, a third saved and a third set aside for charity. Translation: a portion is for immediate use, a portion for a long-term spending goal and a portion for a charity of your child’s choice. The saving part of this equation gets kids accustomed to delayed gratification. (A topic in which many of us could use a refresher course.)

Not Too Big
to Fail - What your child buys with his “long-term” money is his choice. It may break your heart to see your DC purchase something wasteful, but it’s a learning experience. Better to make mistakes now as a child.

Rational Exuberance -Miller says every once in a while you should sit down with your child to count the allowance money and figure out how much the piggy bank stash has grown. She says this helps keep up the enthusiasm and makes kids aware that the money isn’t just going into a dark void.

Seed Money - Miller advocates starting kids on an allowance when they’re five, when they can begin to understand some of the decisions and consequences regarding spending and saving. How much? One common guideline is $1 per year. Like a number of other experts, Miller doesn’t believe an allowance should be tied to chores because chores are a family responsibility, not an optional way to earn money.

Home B-School - Financial literacy is generally not a top priority in our schools. In most cases, kids learn financial skills from their parents. So you need to take an active role in enlightening your brood about money.

Show-and-Tell - Modeling good behavior is one of the best ways to teach budgeting skills. Miller says when she’s shopping with her kids, she’ll explain her thinking. (”I like these shoes, but they’re really expensive. So, I’m going to wait until they’re on sale and then come back.”) She’ll also bring her sons to the garage sales she frequents so they can learn price negotiating skills.

Options - Miller wants to instill a certain financial savviness in her kids. That means comparison shopping with them for toys on Amazon and eBay in order to teach them how to get the most bang for their buck.

Now when it comes to managing money, your kids won’t be, well, subprime.

Follow Erika Miller’s NBR blog at pbs.org.

Siblings. We grew up with them for better and for worse: playing, teasing, fighting, sharing, bonding, learning, competing, and loving. But now you’re all grown up and things are different, lives are separate, and things might start to get extremely complicated in the face of an aging and dying parent.

“Francine Russo has written a stunning book about one of the most complex but ignored times of human transition—the sibling relationships when parents are in decline and then die. Taking over often becomes a sibling struggle—and therein lies the core of Francine Russo’s uplifting book.” –Pauline Boss, Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota and author of Ambiguous Loss

They’re Your Parents Too! How Siblings Can Survive Their Parents’ Aging Without Driving Each Other Crazy offers advice on a range of topics including:

• Who will make major medical decisions, manage finances, and enforce end-of-life choices if your parents cannot? And how will this be decided and carried out?
• How will you negotiate caregiving issues and deal with unequal contributions or power struggles?
• How can inheritance and the division of property, assets, and personal effects be handled to minimize hurt feelings and resentment?
• How will you cope with the natural reemergence of unresolved childhood rivalries, hurts, and needs?
• How can caring for your parents be an enriching experience rather than a thankless chore?
• Most important, how can you ensure the best care for your parents while lessening conflict, guilt, anger, and angst?

Available at Amazon.com

For fans of homeschooling, the movement known as “unschooling” is just a slightly looser rendition of that philosophy, with education dictated by a child’s interests rather than by a grade-by-grade curriculum. Field trips instead of books, museums instead of tests, that sort of thing. But that wasn’t the picture Good Morning America presented Monday with its look at “extreme unschooling” and the families who practice it:

When asked how their children learn things like math, [homeschooling mother Yablonski] said, “If they need formal algebra understanding, then they will, they’ll find that information.”

Asked by “Good Morning America” about how they could parent without any rules, Phil Biegler said, “We find that we don’t need a whole lot of rules.”

“They might watch television,” Yablonski said. “They might play games on the computers.”

“They might read,” her husband added.

Most children will always choose television over reading every time, but Yablonski said that “the key there is that you’ve got to trust your kids to … find their own interests.”

She isn’t worried that her daughter stays up all night, because “she’s getting everything done that she wants to get done.”

Why, those entitled little brats! And those lazy, lazy parents. Right? GMA’s parenting expert huffed and puffed:

“This to me is putting way too much power in the hands of the kids, something that we know kids can often find anxiety-producing, and it’s also sending a message that they’re the center of the universe, which I do not think is healthy for children,” she said.

But do most unschooling proponents let their kids stay up all night playing video games? Because the majority of the standard literature on the movement seems to come from the kind of indefatigable parents who organize regular homeschool meetups, eat organic, take their kids on nature walks, and make sure their kids have suitable library material. The kind of parents who, in fact, are willing to take on the entire job of educating their kids.

What do you think? Are unschoolers doing their kids a disservice? Or freeing them from a childhood spent in bondage to lectures and textbooks?

Boys don’t come off badly in Matilda, the 1996 adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel about a telekinetic girl, but this is a true girls-in-power fantasy that’s guaranteed to resonate particularly well with little chicks. The story concerns one Matilda Wormwood (Mara Wilson), a six-year-old who’s so smart she’s read every children’s book in the library and started on the adult’s section. But she comes from a family of terrible idiots (Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman), who don’t appreciate either her obvious smarts, or her secret power: when she’s angry, she can move things with her mind.

That proves to be a useful talent when she begins attending a school run by the terrifying Mrs. Trunchbull, a butch martinet who may be too scary for sensitive kids (get ready to fast-forward!). Trunchbull uses violence and tortures like sessions in the Chokey, a creepy closet, to intimidate the kids into behaving. Luckily, Matilda has her beautiful and loving teacher, Mrs. Honey, on her side, and by the film’s end, Mrs. Honey and Matilda have found a way to arrange their lives, together, among much more satisfying lines.

As Matilda, Mara Wilson is quirky and much less saccharine than other child actors, and DeVito and Perlman are a hoot as her parents. The obstacles Matilda faces are dark, indeed; and her triumph over them is nothing short of delicious. This one’s a winner for kids aged four and up, but stick around in case the Mrs. Trunchbull scenes send yours diving under the couch.

Matilda is available on DVD, VHS, and on Netflix Watch Instantly.

Red is the new black this recession. Not candy apple, ruby rose or watermelon. Just plain red, as in “in the red.” But the white-hot online retailer Gilt Groupe wouldn’t know much about that. With its virtual sample sales of Christian Louboutin, Derek Lam and other high-end labels (up to 70% off retail), the company’s site has become the must-visit destination for established and budding fashionistas alike. Now Gilt is bumping it up with its first maternity sale.

Gilt Children’s is hosting a Great Expectations Sale with Belly Dance Maternity on April 27th. Mark your calendar. Program your iPhone/iPad/BlackBerry. The sale will include items from NOM, Michael Stars, Noppies and Serfontaine. Jennifer Strom Simonte, the president of Belly Dance, will be a guest curator for the sale. She’ll blog on gilt.com about the “Five Essential Tips to Dress Your Bump in Style” in the days leading up to the 27th.

Gilt, founded in 2007, now has 2 million members. Membership is by invitation. Consider this link yours: www.gilt.com/urbanbaby. Qualifying Gilt members will also receive 15% off their next purchase at bellydancematernity.com within seven days of shopping Gilt’s Great Expectations sale. The sale begins at noon EST next Tuesday, 4/27. As Giltophiles know, it lasts only 36 hours.

Get gilt-ridden.

Overbearing, nagging, controlling. These are all words we’ve come to associate with the stereotype of a Jewish mother (as well as today’s helicopter parents). But are they accurate?

Jill Zarin says it all depends on how you look at it. The Real Housewives of New York City star notes, “It’s sort of like the show … People see the same scene and walk away with a totally different impression of it,” a point she repeats throughout our interview in reference to this season’s big Jill-Bethenny drama.

Zarin is the gold standard for reality TV show casting; she’s full of personality, quick on her feet and not afraid to speak her mind. Now she’s sharing little pearls of wisdom, along with her mom, Gloria Kamen, and sis, Lisa Wexler, in the book Secrets of a Jewish Mother: Real Advice, Real Stories, Real Love. (Just in time for Mother’s Day!) Their prescription for successful parenting (friendships, dating, etc.) has a universal quality to it, so it’s not only for Jewish moms. Asked what the most important piece of advice parents can impart to their kids, Zarin answers, “I say this to my daughter a lot - We make plans and God laughs. As hard as we try, it’s not in our hands.” One of her key parenting techniques? Sitting on the bed. “No matter what’s going on in your child’s life, if you sit on their bed long enough, you’ll hear it all.”

As for the fate of Jill’s relationship with Bethenny? Zarin says, “I hope we make up. It’s never too late for me. My door is always open.”

That would definitely be worth a “mazel tov.”

Available at amazon.com.