A Valentine from Tomie, 1967

Tomie de Paola's work seems to sneak up on me, and Things to Make and Do for Valentine's Day was no exception.


The 48-page (Scholastic, for Franklin Watts) paperback speaks directly to the pre-K to early-elementary set. de Paola leads with a two-page comic explaining how we celebrate Valentine's Day, then proceeds to pack the book with simple projects and easy-to-follow directions for making cards, desserts, and gifts, a couple of games to play, and even a card trick to perform at a Valentine's Day party. It's simply perfect - which is no surprise.

I know Tomie's work well enough to expect it to be sweet, concise, and full of fun. So what surprised me? The slim how-to-have-fun-on-Valentine's Day manual remains perfectly relevant in spite of the fact it was published in 1967.

It's also available at the ridiculous bargain price of about a buck at Half.com, which means you can pick it up and deliver a lovely surprise to your favorite little Valentine, mom, or preschool teacher. They'll love ya for it!


Learn more about the author: www.tomie.com

Brett Borrows Well

In Regina Brett's God Never Blinks, The Plain Dealer columnist borrows heavily, unapologetically, and wisely from her friends, the Bible, and real and imaginary icons (including the very-human George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life).

She's a journalist,* so she cites her sources and uses the material well. So God Never Blinks isn't the most original material and doesn't contain The Answer to Life's Problems; it is a worthwhile book. The 50  essays between its covers comprise an easy-to-read, get-going (in the right direction) or get-going-again guide that is ideal for folks who've hit one of life's speed bumps or who are wending their way through one of its "little detours."

What I'd like to see next from Brett: more, with the spotlight on her reporting/storytelling skills. Her best columns in The Plain Dealer feature both. Meanwhile, no need to wait for the next book; pick up her first and enjoy... your life a little more.

  * And two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist! 
In addition to writing a PD column and hosting a weekly radio show, Brett posts to her blog regularly. You can read it at www.reginabrett.com 

Dear Kindle, I Love My Paper

I didn't want and didn't get a Kindle for Christmas. My former mother-in-law wasn't so lucky.

She didn't want one, but she got one.

My ex-hubby, who gave her Amazon's wonder product, is still laughing. He thinks it's all about age and says he's enjoyed "watching her struggle" to master the third-generation electronic reader. I defended the woman, as I always will a fellow reader and book lover. Notice how that's no longer redundant. (Before I continue, said ex-MIL is no luddite. If she wants to read an LCD screen, she'll manage.)

And that distinction - that you can love to read and have no affinity for the printed word - may save newspapers, the (possibly-in-need-of-a-new-name) publishing industry, and life as we (who cut our teeth on board books) know it.

My daughter, and too many of her Facebook peers, professes to "hate" reading. I hope that's a miscommunication, that they really loathe the form - OMG! my mother reads books - and not the function. That is, the reading.

Once again, I'm a tweener. While I'm tech-savvy enough to conduct my own Facebook research, thank you, my life-long love of books won't easily translate to the pixelated page. Paper feels good. Smells. Not always good, but it's a smell. It's real. Ink can smudge. In short, reading hints at being alive. It's really, really, really personal. Sure you can make notes in the margin of a Kindle. But you can't dog-ear the pages. And what about the bookmark, like a steady hand guiding me through the rough passages, patiently holding my place while I'm away?

I'm realistic enough to accept/smart enough to be thrilled by digital accessibility. Libraries are jumping on Kindle (and competitors) as well they should.

But reading the Sunday paper at the breakfast table, its form changing as it follows me throughout the day, is a joy I won't abandon anytime soon. I don't need batteries or a protective case for The Plain Dealer. In fact, those as-yet-unread sections I carry can protect me from a sudden shower, dirty dog, or unwanted conversation. As opposed to Kindle, which at that cute toddler stage only invites chitchat.

Yesterday, I lingered over coffee while marveling at the optimism of building a $33 million aquarium downtown, read Terry Pluto's wonderful column on Jesus's messed-up family in the car, and toted the Arts Section (with its book reviews!!) to the evening's soccer game. Sure, I could have taken Kindle along. But the paper is so much...softer. Sweeter. Pulpier.

But pulp free progress marches on. Perhaps some of us will acquiesce and turn to the shiny reader as early as this month. Thanks to the International Consumer Electronics Show, which starts Thursday, the price is sure to drop on Kindles and all electronic readers (as well as the uber-cool iPad).

Til then - at least - the books are piling up on my nightstand. Which is exactly how I like it. Thank you, dear friends and fellow readers, for not giving me a Kindle. Just yet.

Please support libraries and your local booksellers in 2011.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bee Happy

Recently I was subjected to Bee Movie again (my 7-year-old had the remote) and it reminded me of several very interesting articles about bees. The most recent describes the insect's apparent affinity for mathematical word problems. From that article, (in Discover, here: http://tinyurl.com/38vvbgf) you can buzz right over to '20 Things You Didn't Know about Bees,' also from Discover. (Here:  http://tinyurl.com/23sscy)


In both cases, you can bee sure the reading has a point. (Ouch!)

Hyperlocal Media: the good, the bad, and the huh?

Hyperlocal media is a cool new phrase. But it's not new, and I'm not convinced it's all that cool.

Every employer, neighborhood association, or PTA that ever had an internal newsletter - or an employee-centric intranet - has a handle on hyperlocal media.

Enter Patch.com, a newish product from AOL. Patch claims to be something new in journalism; it aims to be a complete online news source for one zip code at a time.

I'll give Patch this: its editors are qualified journalists, and the ones I've read can write, well.

That said, a 'complete' news source needs more than one contributing editor; it needs more than one perspective on what constitutes news and where and how to gather and disseminate it. News should be, by definition, worth reading. Even when you're covering "news" in a single zip code, every dog lost/cat found isn't newsworthy. Of course, many Patch sites have several contributors. Unfortunately, most of them are sending in press releases about rummage sales and library story hours.

Your local Patch may be worth reading, don't get me wrong. And for the record, I love dogs and libraries. (Full disclosure: Cats are OK. I don't do rummage sales.)

But didn't societies create newspapers to see a little further than their own backyards? I may not think I need to know today's Euro or Yen valuation, it would behoove me to think about it occasionally. But I sure love reading my local paper to find out what's happening in neighboring school districts, nearby cities, the state capital - I could expand, but you get the point.

Hyperlocal media surely has a place on the great, big, WorldWideWeb. But even hyperlocal news deserves unbiased, professional treatment. Patch doesn't appear to offer that, but it's still young...we won't know how it will 'grow up' for several years.

SportsInk.com is a site with a similar idea (and some important differences) that's grown quickly in Northeast Ohio. SportsInk covers high school sports in the greater Akron/Canton (OH) area. In that way it's hyperlocal.  It's also all but off the hook when it comes to many of those balanced-reporting type questions. It's not just journalism; it's sports journalism.

So what? How good or bad Hyperlocal Media is allowed to get is largely up to you, the readers. Are you  tuning in to hyperlocal sources? Will you continue? Speak up. (Folks in the business call that UGC. You can call it whatever you want - I call it posting a comment, and yours are most appreciated.)

~~~~What are you reading?~~~~~

Juggling books

I learned how to juggle while I was going through my divorce. I mean that literally; I attended a one-day workshop on juggling.

I am not so adept at juggling books, literally or figuratively. In spite of that, I'm too impatient to wait until I finish one book before I start another. At the moment, I'm somewhere between the covers of:

Your Negro Tour Guide by Kathy Y. Wilson
Just Listen by Mark Goulston
Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan
Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi
The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart --> this one is off to a very nice start

What about you? What RU reading?

This Game Has Gone On Long Enough

Reading Terry Pluto's feature on Bernie Kosar, I thought, a dedicated journalist could use this to show how a narrative piece can tell an engaging story without crossing the line into PR. But not me, not today. What struck me was that Kosar, at age 46, has trouble standing up and sometimes struggles to find the words he needs to express himself. 

According to Pluto, Kosar (who played his last professional game in 1996)  "has dealt with the aftermath of concussions suffered while playing. There are some headaches, some brief memory loss, some occasional involuntary twitching." Kosar says, "I struggle sometimes to say exactly what I want when I'm tired." 

Folks, that's called brain damage. The Alabama High School Athletic Association defines concussion as "a type of traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by a blow or jolt to the head that can range from mild to severe and can disrupt the way the brain normally works."

Look, I know virtually all sports are contact sports. Serious injuries happen on every kind of court and field everyday.  But football is special. Football players experience more brain injuries than athletes in any other sport (according to The American Journal of Sports Medicine). 

The phrase "crush your opponent" was made for football.  

If you want to foster violent behavior, encourage boys and young men to learn that might is right and bigger and meaner is better, by all means, get thyself to the nearest football field and cheer on the home team.

I love sports, but football isn't very sporting, really. 


How many middle-aged men with seriously beat-up bodies and overly-thumped heads do we need to see before we evolve away from smash-mouth football?

Are you proud to say bashing heads is our American pastime? I'm not. I suggest we return the word 'football' to the Brits (and the rest of the world) and until we can come up with something a little more sportsmanlike, play their game. Who knows? Once our brains (and our bodies) are taking less abuse, we might figure out how to make entertaining commercials year round, rather than just during the Superbowl.

-------

Additional reading on concussions in sports

Concussion in High School Sports, CDC, May 25, 2010

http://www.cdc.gov/concussion/headsup/high_school.html

The Impact of Concussions on High School Athletes, Committee on Education & Labor, May 20, 2010 

http://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/2010/05/the-impact-of-concussions-on-h.shtml

Study: Kids Competing Too Soon After Concussions (and second impact syndrome can be fatal) 

Time Magazine, January 2009

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1873131,00.html