The kids and I have been reading a book called
Shackleton's Stowaway by Victoria McKernan. It's actually aimed at Grades 5-9, but we are all enjoying it very much. It's a fictionalized but very well-researched account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's doomed expedition to Antarctica in 1914-1916, told from the point-of-view of Perce Blackborow, a young man who stowed away on the Endurance and ended up losing toes to frostbite. The men's tremendous courage and camaraderie and Shackleton's compassionate leadership are so inspiring. I remember reading in another book about the Endurance that the worse things got, the more of an effort the men made to be courteous and kind, because those human decencies were all they had left to keep them from going crazy.
When I can, I've been reading a book called Opa Nobody by Sonya Huber, a writer I saw speak at the AWP conference in Chicago about a month ago. She was on a wonderful panel about writing as parents and the ethical dilemmas of using our children as subjects.
Opa Nobody documents Huber's attempt to understand and re-create her anti-Nazi activist grandfather while also trying to understand her own strong pull toward activism. It's been a very absorbing and thought-provoking read. I'd post a photo of that book's cover, too, but for some reason I'm having technical difficulties with that, so I'll just give you a link to her website: www.sonyahuber.com
3 comments:
My older son read the Shackleton book when he was younger, and he loved it. As I recall, he was inspired to draw his own plan of the Endurance after he read the book. It was a favorite of his.
And thank you for linking me with the other mother writers. I'm honored.
No problem. Glad to have you here.
I thought of your son tonight, drawing the Endurance. My son (who's 6) was pushing a plastic boat in the tub, pretending it was the Endurance and the soap bubbles were ice.
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