Children's Book Group Topic: June 2006
The Ocean
I remember my profound shock when someone I met on a trip mentioned that she'd never seen the ocean. She said it so calmly, in the same tone in which she'd mentioned the name of the city she lived in and that her mother had been born in Scotland. To me, it was as if she'd just said that she'd never seen a library, or the sky. Never seen the ocean! And gone on from day to day as if life were livable in the face of such a fact. Well, people can adjust to almost anything. I just can't always understand why they bother.
I know that it was simply dumb luck that I was born so near the sea. (Well, not quite that dumb. The state I live in is possessed of the highest population of any of the 50. If one is going to be an American at all, and apparently I am, odds are hardly against being born here. It would be far more remarkable, really, if I'd been born in, say, Wyoming. And this is not to disrespect, or unduly compliment either, any Wyoming readers. It's just that my city has a higher population than your entire state does. Heck, my city block has a higher population. But I digress.) Still, it seems not merely fortune but practically a virtue. One ought to be near the ocean. It refreshes the senses and humbles any overweening sense of self-importance with its great, beautiful, steady, noisy indifference to humanity. It was the origin of all life and has been steadily lapping at our puny chunks of land long before they were shaped and positioned the way they are now. It shelters the greatest and practically the only undiscovered countries our planet still holds. It can caress you or it can kill you, depending on its mood.
So obviously it offered a great deal of material for our young readers. Before they even began sharing the books they'd read, though, they were offered a learning opportunity from a young woman named Catalina who was working toward a merit badge for girl scouts. She'd arranged a treasure hunt for them based on the Dewey Decimal system, working around ocean-based subject headings.
The Dewey system, as she pointed out, is a very handy thing. It's quite useful and sensible to have books on the same subject clustering together. For instance, ocean books can be found in the 570s, while seashells are listed under 594, fish under 597, ocean mammals in 599, and corals and sea invertebrates hang out in the land of 593.
"Can anyone tell me what an invertebrate is?" she asked the children, and was pleased that several of them could. "So what's an example of an ocean invertebrate?" she went on.
Andrew's hand shot up. "A crab," he said.
Catalina tipped her head to one side, considering. "Would a crab be an invertebrate?" Brows furrowed all around the room. None of us really felt quite certain. There's never a marine biologist handy when you need one.
"A shellfish," Peter suggested, to help us move on with our lives. But James, Andrew's younger brother, was quite taken with the idea of crabs and launched into a prolonged tale of a Fiddler crab he'd once known. Sitting not ten feet away from him, I couldn't make out one word in five of his lecture. I could see from Catalina's face that she wasn't doing any better. She tried to feed him the suggestion that a sea star would be a good example of an invertebrate, and I had to hide a smile. Never having met him before, she couldn't know that he's unswerving of purpose once he's latched on to an idea. Fortunately, his mother is still the boss of him (and from the looks of things, will remain so for some time, if not indefinitely), and brought him round with the civilized and civilizing suggestion that he let someone else speak for a while.
Cataline hastened to take advantage of the ensuing quiet by reading aloud a book or two about the ocean and its inhabitants. She was doing very well holding the crowd's interest, but she is only in her teens and was obviously feeling a bit of stage fright. So between nodding in interested encouragement and pondering how old people her age had seemed to me when I was my son's age and how very young she seemed now that I was my current age, I didn't hear much of the story telling. I did catch the fact that orcas, a.k.a. killer whales, are known as the wolves of the sea because they hunt in packs. Also that the octopus is very shy. I think I would be, too, if I had all those legs to look after. I have a hard enough time facing the world with all this hair.
The children were then invited to go on their treasure hunt out among the children's books, with the help of a first written clue, which would help them find the next clue, and so on. The catch was that the clues all tied into where books on certain subjects would be located according to the Dewey system. For instance, one of the clues was a riddle whose answer was "an aquarium." The children could only figure out where they should look for the next clue by checking their list and seeing that books about aquariums are in the 639s, and then checking that shelf area. As bright as these children are, it wasn't at all intuitive to them what direction they ought to go to find those if they were now standing near, say, the 500s. I remembered, with a grim sense of vindication, all the times I'd tried to give my son a few simple "which number comes first, this one or this one?" exercises, and faced his screeching indignation that I could waste his time with such make-work. After all, when could that kind of thing possibly be useful in real life? Obviously I was just trying to torture him.
After several rounds of bouncing around the library shelves, bumping into one another and causing several elderly patrons to glance up in amusement or alarm, the children found their treasure. I was pleased that it was purely symbolic and not to be kept by the lucky finder, but only held up in a gesture of triumph. The point of a game like this should be to play, not to win (and reduce the "losing" players to tears more often than not in the process). So after we'd all cheered at the finding of the paper-plate fish, the kids took turns carrying him back to the community room, where they were given an ocean-themed word search that had been printed out from a web site all the parents were chagrined not to have known about before -- homeschooling.about.com.
The children had enjoyed all this, but hadn't lost sight of talking about the books they'd read that month. Philip and Andrew, the two oldest of three brothers, went first, having read the same book: Call it Courage, by Armstrong Sperry. (By the way, with a name like that, do you have much choice about becoming a writer? Although come to think of it, he would have done pretty well as, say, the owner of a hardware store, too.) To accompany their talk, Andrew had made a beautiful picture of a painted ship on a painted ocean, and when he pulled a little tab, the boat sailed horizontally across the blue sea. Very effective. Philip spoke in considerable detail about the trials and tribulations of the main character of this novel. At one point, he held up a picture of his own, which showed a boy fighting a wild boar. In the background, a volcano was erupting. "He had a lot to deal with," I said in an understatement, and Philip nodded seriously. Well, Philip does everything seriously.
After the brothers had finished, Ethan and his mom told us about some interesting information they'd gleaned from a book called Under the Sea, which is in the Discoveries series. They'd read the section about ocean mythology, and learned that although we tend to think of mermaids as sweet and beautiful, a lot of their legends portray them as cruel, at least to humans. Maybe they got a little irritable after the umpteenth time getting caught with a bunch of stupid flounder in a fishing net. Ethan also showed us the famous picture of the Loch Ness Monster. The book seemed to take a fairly neutral stance toward Nessie, just saying that some people believe he's real. It would have been nice if they'd mentioned that the photo in question has been revealed as a fake, or for that matter that Loch Ness is incapable of sustaining a creature the size that Nessie's supporters insist he is, let alone the minimum of ten of them it would take to sustain the monster population since the first claims of strange creatures swimming in the deeps of Loch Ness started circulating some 1500 years ago. In fact, the real story behind the Loch Ness Monster or lack thereof is easily as entertaining as the idea of a plesiosaur still floating around some 65 million years after the rest of the pod took off for that great swimming hole in the sky. Interested readers can grab a copy of Robert Todd Carroll's wonderful Skeptic's Dictionary, or check out his web site for a concise but thorough examination of the history of this alleged beastie.
Isobel then came up to present a brief synopsis of the story she'd read, "The Fisherman and His Wife." She had a beautifully illustrated storybook -- The Kingfisher Book of Fairy Tales -- and held up pictures for us to enjoy as she outlined the tale. The book was held at exactly the right height for her youngest sister, Gwyneth, to stand underneath it with a copy of her own book, a paperback she'd picked up off a shelf. Gwyneth is our pet, and we'd all smiled indulgently as she'd periodically handed Catalina board books that might be of assistance in her Dewey Decimal presentation. Now a wave of politely-muffled laughter swept the room as Gwyneth, who is old enough to have a great deal to say but hasn't quite clinched that whole verbal vocabulary thing, held forth in quiet, musing singsong about the book she clutched in one fat hand. Isobel is completely used to this sort of thing, coming as she does from a family of three children, and continued her report with the sort of aplomb I wish I'd been able to muster onstage last week during that violin recital my evil teacher roped me into. As it was, I now had to double over in my seat in order to stifle my mirth and hold onto all bladder control as Gwyneth solemnly turned pages and discussed them.
Things didn't get any easier for me when Isobel finished because her next younger sister, Fiona, then came up to present her story: Stella, the Star of the Sea. Fiona chose to sit in the comfortable chair made available for any child who wishes to occupy it while presenting a report. Gwyneth keenly assessed the situation and came, correctly, to the conclusion that she could just squeeze in next to her sister if she first emptied the chair of all of Catalina's careful notes, which she promptly did, pitching them over the side like so much bilge water. Then Gwyneth went on, as her sister carefully told her story, to discuss yet another book she'd picked up. At this point she was skimming shamelessly off other people's piles of books. Not only did no one mind, but all of us were rooting for our own title to be the one she talked about.
(Gwyneth and her sisters figure prominently in their mother's wonderful comic, Hathor the Cow Goddess, which you can check out on her web site. Astonishingly, that domain name hadn't already been snapped up. I thank the cow goddess and any other deity who may be listening that Heather Cushman-Dowdee, the artist, has finally put together a collection of her comics in book form, so if the power goes out just when I need a Hathor boost I can still get my fix. I mean, I'll have to light a candle or something, but at least there'll be something to look at other than a blank computer screen.)
At this point, James, Philip and Andrew's youngest brother, had to present his title before sleep overtook him. He is quite devastated if he wakes to find book group over and his chance at giving a report past. So he staggered to the front of the room and spoke about two books about sharks -- one illustrated with photographs, the other a gorgeous pop-up book. I had no idea that sharks had no ribs until James told me, and was similarly oblivious to the fact that porpoises will bunch together and aggressively bump sharks in their ribless, vulnerable sides in order to protect their own young. Pretty impressive. Not that I wouldn't do the same for my child, if necessary; I'm just not sure I'd have the presence of mind to think of doing any such thing.
Olivia, my son's good friend, then spoke about the book she'd read. I find the Magic Treehouse story books fairly lame, at least the fiction titles; but the nonfiction companion books are excellent resources, and Olivia had read the one about dolphins and sharks (aptly titled Dolphins and Sharks). She explained how you can tell the difference between dolphins and porpoises. A porpoise's nose is round, and its teeth are flat, whereas a dolphin's nose is pointier and its teeth are sharp.
Matters like telling the difference between a porpoise and a dolphin, or an alligator and a crocodile, make me firmly believe that we have handed over altogether too much authority to scientists. They are now so convinced of the absolute moronity of the civilian world that there must be some kind of contest going on as to who can make us believe the most asinine idea. I mean, come on! They're trying to convince us that porpoises and dolphins are different animals, while Dachshunds and St. Bernards are the same thing! Please! I don't think so! If we would all just shake our heads and give ourselves a good brisk slap in our collective faces, we would realize that it's obvious to even the most casual observer that porpoises and dolphins are the same darned thing, and so are crocodiles and alligators. Shut up. I did not just say that crocodiles are the same as porpoises. I'm just saying that the zoologists can stop snickering in their labs (or wherever it is they do their alleged work), admit that they're brazenly making stuff up at this point, and pick one name for one animal, already. I'm voting for dolphin over porpoise, if anyone cares. The word porpoise has already been used in far too many lame puns. I'll let you know what I think about crocodile vs. alligator as soon as I can decide who should have to change his name, Crocodile Dundee or Al the Alligator Man. I'm thinking Al should be able to keep his moniker, since he's a real guy who lives in southern California and does reptile shows for birthday parties and other special occasions, whereas Crocodile Dundee is, I believe, fictional to some extent and anyway stopped making movies centuries ago. But then where would that leave Lyle, Lyle Crocodile? Like I said, I'll have to think about it and let you know.
We thought we were done, but we had one more book report. Gwyneth stalked to the front of the room, clutching a board book copy of The Carrot Seed (an excellent read, by the way, if you haven't already had the pleasure). We all waited in courteous silence, smiling expectantly. She scowled in that way that only the under-three set can manage, gave each of us a hard stare, and then paced with dignity back to her seat to thunderous applause. The meeting was over.
Next month's topic is rather vague. The library is sponsoring a summer reading program, and the theme is "Paws, Claws, Scales and Tales." The books for next month's reports are supposed to fit under that category. Animals, I guess. Well, maybe not birds. Unless you count their feet as claws. An eagle's would be, certainly. But what about penguins? Oh, I don't know. I have enough to think about with the whole alligator-crocodile controversy. Figure something out and I'll see you when I see you.
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