You may have noticed that I’ve been slowing down with the posts lately. That’s because the boy doesn’t like to nap. Correction: The boy doesn’t like to nap unless he’s being held lovingly by a parent person. Mama needs hands free for bloggin’, kid.
What to do when I need a break? I’m not ready to park him in front of baby TV (OK, except for the occasional Koi Pond on the iPad). But what else can entertain a baby for twenty minutes at a time? Say hello to Lamaze® Octotunes. This little octopus has been through three kids in my family – my niece, Olive, and now Ozzie – and the effect on babies is uncanny. It’s like a pre-Elmo Elmo. The kids just instinctively know they like it.
If I plunk Ozzie down next to his octopus, he’ll just stare and smile and grab and babble for a longer stretch of time than he does anything else that doesn’t require two grown-up arms.
Sure, you can squeeze the legs and make some music, but that’s not really how it gets played with around here, unless Olive comes by to make some noise for Ozzie. All it really needs to do is sit there. For this, I’m grateful.
Bonus? It smells like vanilla. Even after about 9 years.
When Mitali Perkins spoke at the Children’s Author Breakfast at BookExpo, she talked about how books can be both windows and mirrors: windows in the sense that they let you look in on other people’s lives and cultures, and mirrors in the sense that you can see yourself reflected in the characters. This is a wonderful approach to writing, especially when writing for young readers.
Mitali’s latest book is Bamboo People, a simultaneously tragic and uplifting tale set in modern-day Burma. Half the book is told from the perspective of Chiko, a scholarly Burmese boy that gets forced into military service. The other half is told from the persective of Tu Reh, a Karenni refugee living with his family on the Thai border. Chiko’s experience is shaped by the fact that his father, a doctor, is imprisoned for resisting the government. Tu Reh’s experience is colored by his thirst for vengeance after Burmese soldiers burned his home. The story of Bamboo People is how these two boys came to meet, and what happens once they do.
Sounds heavy, right? And yet I couldn’t put this book down. Not only did I learn a lot about a part of the world that I’ll admit I never give any thought to, but I found the characters to be so fully painted I couldn’t help but project myself into their world – a great window into Burma. Mitali Perkins’ writing is totally accessible, and kids will find themselves learning not just about the world, but about the human spirit and the choices that we have the power to make. They may even see a bit of themselves mirrored in these characters half a world away.
If I remember correctly, the marketing of the movie Despicable Me has been going on for the past eight years. The first trailer I remember seeing for it was of an obnoxious American family visiting the pyramids, and I thought, “Well, that looks terrible.”
The next one I saw featured Gru trying to break into the lair of his nemesis, Vector. And then one with a freeze ray and a coffee shop. Still didn’t quite pique my interest.
Then these yellow guys started popping up, and Olive grew determined to see it. I grew worried. It usually doesn’t bode well for the movie’s quality when it’s marketed so many different ways.
Finally I caved when I saw a trailer featuring three very cute little girls. And, in fact, these little girls are a big part of why I ended up really liking the movie. Despicable Me follows the classic story arc of cute little urchins softening the heart of a grouchy, unlikely father figure. The orphans are from mean Miss Hattie’s Home for Girls, and they’re each totally likable without falling into orphan caricature. (Huh, and all three of them are girls. Are you listening, Pixar?) The scenes with Gru and the girls are heartwarming and entertaining, and the little yellow minions are quite cute, too. The only character that I wasn’t sold on was the nemesis, Vector. Many of his jokes fell flat, though there was lots of good heat-seeking missile action and good villain inventions.
I’ve read that the early success of Despicable Me has taken Hollywood by surprise, and they’re now scrambling to put together a sequel. Somehow I find that totally obnoxious, that they only bank on the surefire hits.
And, in my personal war on 3D, we had quite a time trying to see this movie over the weekend. When the A train totally thwarted our attempt to get down to Battery Park City, my new tried and true theater for forgoing the 3D glasses, we hopped a cab to Union Square where, unfortunately, all of the non-3D shows were sold out. All of our other usually haunts only had 3D. We ended up seeing the movie in the ancient Coliseum theater on 181st Street.
“Mommy, what are all of those black lines on the movie?”
“Uhm, I think they’re scratches on the movie, sweetie.”
Lately I’ve been thinking about the amazing proliferation of kids’ music. Making a kids’ album is the new writing a kids’ book, apparently. Sometimes I listen to music and it seems pretty clear that the artists are trying to play to the kid audience because they couldn’t hack it in the adult world. The music might be fine, catchy even, but it lacks true kid appeal. Then I listen to bands like Recess Monkey who clearly delight in appealing to kids on their own level, with sing-along melodies and resonant lyrics.
The Not-Its fall squarely into the latter category. With their second CD, Time Out to Rock, The Not-Its have cemented their kid-appeal and created an album even more rockingly addictive than their debut, We Are the Not-Its. Olive and I were both excited when we received this one, and I’ve had the songs in my head for days (but, you know, in a good way).
If you head over to The Not-Its’ website, you can listen to some of the tracks, including my favorite, “Accidentally”, which is like a modern spin on 60’s girl group pop. I’m also a fan of “Welcome to Our School”. Every time I listen to it I think about Olive starting Kindergarten in a couple months, finding friends among her new classmates. There’s also “Say It Loudly”, which I hope Olive will find instructive as she tries to work out playground disputes on her own.
Olive listens to a CD each night before bed, so I’m grateful whenever the song order supports kids winding down. The CD ends with “Hollow Tree”, a song so soft and lovely I teared up listening to it (though the baby hormones may still be a factor…).
And, not for nothing, but I love the cover design of this one, with some of the best typography design I’ve seen in a while. Time Out to Rock will be available on July 20th.
Thanks to Russell, I’ve found my newest app addiction: Angry Birds. Apparently, some green pigs have stolen some birds’ eggs, and guess what? The birds are angry and coming with a vengeance.
This game is like having Boom Blox for the iPhone, with a similar “throwing things at things” dynamic. You’re trying to destroy the pigs in each round, reaching them through their fortresses of ice, wood, and stone. You launch a series of birds at the structures, trying to bring them down and crush those pigs.
The dynamics change from round to round as you’re presented harder structural challenges and birds with different abilities. Just as you feel bored with the basic bird, suddenly there’s a bird that can split into three birds. When you’re thinking you could use a more high-powered bird, viola! One appears. And yes, there will be explosions.
Not sense Peggle have I found an app so fun for the whole family. For those hard rounds, have fun passing the phone back and forth to see who can conquer it first.
All of this is yours for $0.99. What’s a slick beauty like this doing in the dollar store, you ask? Don’t question it. Just buy it.
I recently attended a panel presented by Women in Children’s Media, The Youngest Viewers: Infants and Television. The panel consisted of TV creators and researchers:
Sarah Roseberry, working on dissertation in developmental psychology at Temple University and researching issues of early language acquisition with Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek.
This panel wasn’t really set up to be a debate on babies and television, as there wasn’t any strong anti-TV voice. Obviously, the two creators of baby TV are for it. More interestingly, the two researchers were looking at media usage more from the angle of how it can help, not hurt, baby development. Sarah’s research is about using media for language learning, particularly verbs. I had no idea that verbs were so difficult for kids to learn, but it makes sense. We do so much labeling of things for babies, that we leave out the actions. And yes, I’m now verb-obsessed with Ozzie. Deborah also looks at the use of high-quality media as a learning tool starting at 6 months of age, with positive results.
When Olive was born, Baby Einstein and its knock-offs had fully saturated the marketplace. Toy Fair was all Baby! Baby! Baby! that year, and parents on my listserv were making constant exchanges of second-hand make-your-baby-smarter DVDs. I watched a Baby Einstein DVD before Olive was born to see what all the fuss was about. I wanted to rip my eyes out of my head. The production value was poor, and the images brain-numbing. There clearly wasn’t anything more to it than “Look, baby! Shiny!” much like jangling a set of keys. (Of course, we now know that Disney was forced to pay up for this parent hoax.)
The researchers pointed out that many different things can be put on TV and hold a baby’s interest, but all engagement is not equal. As Deborah put it, “Babies will attend to pretty images, but they won’t be learning from it.” The problem with Baby Einstein is that all of the images are out of human context and it’s chocked-full of cuts. Babies respond most positively to human images, and they don’t understand cuts. On eebee’s adventures, they’re always conscious to show the full puppet or person – you can’t cut to a close up of hands and have a baby understand it.
Both eebee’s and Sesame Beginnings also show parent interactions with babies, relying on a co-viewing audience. The thought is that parents should be watching with their babies, and that they parents can learn how to interact with their babies from the modeling happening in the show. Stephen said that parents reported changing their behavior after watching eebee’s, something that wouldn’t likely happen from watching Baby Einstein.
It seems important to continue to demonize Baby Einstein to contrast it against “higher quality” media being made for babies. I’ll admit that when I saw clips of eebee’s and Sesame Beginnings, both looked very cute. I even cooed over baby Elmo, and I’m far from being an Elmo fan despite his crack-like effect on children. I’m still not in a rush to park Ozzie in front of the TV (though clearly the iPad is not an issue for me…) With Olive, I tried to follow the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guideline suggesting no TV until age 2. I caved at around 18 months, though, when a pilot of a little show called Yo Gabba Gabba was circulating around town. I believed in co-viewing with my kid, and here was a show I wanted to co-view.
The panel said that only 6% of parents know about the AAP guidelines on television use, and those parents that do are often frustrated by them. They’re damned if they let their kids watch TV, and damned (by marketing messages) if they don’t. And what about those who just want to grab a shower and could care less about co-viewing? A fabulous books that probes the AAP guideline as well as some of the research around the affects of screen time on children is Lisa Guernsey’s Into the Minds of Babes.
A huge problem with the research done on television and young children is that most of it is hugely flawed, yet all of it has the ability to produce attention-grabbing headlines. Very often, the research merely shows correlation without proving causation. Other factors are not taken into account. Deborah gave the example with studies “showing” that TV causes ADHD, when there is a correlation of high TV usage in kids with ADHD. Does it really cause ADHD, or do these kids watch more TV because when doing so they will sit still and give their parents a break? Just this week a study from Iowa State University is getting headlines showing that video games decrease attention spans, but it didn’t rule out other factors in the home. (This article pokes some good holes.)
Now that I’ve totally digressed, I’d say the bottom line is always to do what feels right to you and your kids. If you read all research with a careful eye, and listen to marketing messages with healthy does of skepticism, you’ll be just fine. And, by all means, grab a shower without beating yourself up about it. And Ozzie can watch TV when he’s ready for Yo Gabba Gabba.
I think the world doesn’t need another review talking about how good Toy Story is. Let’s face it, saying anything bad about a Pixar movie is tantamount to not liking the Beatles. And Pixar, I’M STILL MAD AT YOU!
What, did you think I’d stop being mad with that awesome introductory sequence with explosions and a flying pig spaceship?
Or sweet little Bonnie?
Or making me sob (twice)?
Or Buzz in Spanish?
Or Ken’s wardrobe?
Or dinosaurs that text message?
Or giving Barbie the smartest, funniest lines in the movie?
We’ve read a number of chapter books to Olive, but thanks to the recommendation of a friend I picked up a copy of The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Never before has a book been in such high demand. We finished it tonight, but Olive spent the last week asking for us to read it all throughout the day – while she’s eating breakfast, while she’s getting dressed, while she’s observing her ants, and yes, at bedtime.
I’ve always been a sucker for the movie, down to the ruby red slippers. As a kid, when it made the annual network appearance I would always try so hard to stay awake through the whole thing. The friend who recommended it said the book is WAY better than the movie, something I didn’t think was possible. But sure enough, it is better. You start the book thinking it’s not, but then, once you’ve gotten over some major differences (silver slippers?!) you realize that it is indeed way better.
One of the major differences is the absence of the Wicked Witch of the West as a pervasive threat. Sure, she’s a part of the book, but not the overarching nemesis that she is in the movie. Instead, the journey to Oz is met with a wide array of amazing creatures. Some are animals, like mice, tigers, a stork, and Kalidahs, beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers. Others are people: the munchkins, of course, but also the Winkies in the west, the Quadlings to the south, and the crazy Hammer-Heads, armless people that can shoot their heads off their bodies. The book is so much more about the perils of the various legs of the journey rather than the simplified good/evil story of the film. It engaged our whole family and sparked many a conversation about the book even when we weren’t reading it.
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by L. Frank Baum. Never before has a book been in such high demand. We finished it tonight, but Olive spent the last week asking for us to read it all throughout the day – while she’s eating breakfast, while she’s getting dressed, while she’s 
