Bedtime stories a problem for many parents

From the UK's The Guardian, a sad but true story: bedtime stories a problem for many parents.
My mother-in-law is a professor of literacy and remarked that many children's picture books are actually too "wordy". Picture books and read-aloud need to keep it simple to attract parents as well as kids. I understand the necessity of children hearing as many different words as possible their first year of life, but keeping them simple with beautiful illustrations is the way to keep both parents and children happy.

Book lust

Hmmm...lust seems an inappropriate feeling to have for these beautiful libraries (for the most part theological libraries!), but they are so lovely and exquisite I can't help myself.

Its National Book Festival time again

8 days, 2 hours, 12 minutes...er, make that 11 minutes...until the 2007 National Book Festival is here! I have conned Jeff into taking me and Griffin this year; it falls on my birthday weekend and since we get what we want on our birthday weekends...

This year we are meeting his parents on the way down to D.C. and then staying outside of the city somewhere in Fairfax County, VA (i'm sure I have the details written down somewhere...) and taking the Metro on Saturday morning. I can't wait; over 70 authors in one place, on one day! Mercer Mayer, Rosemary Wells, Jodi Picoult, Stephen White, Ken Burns, Joyce Carol Oates -- a bibliophile's dream. Make that 8 days, 2 hours, 7 minutes...

Swann

Swann, by Carol Shields, was a difficult novel to start (and not the least of which was my difficulty concentrating on a novel while also taking care of my six month old son!). The novel is about the mysterious Mary Swann, a Manitoba housewife who is murdered before the story even begins. Swann is a poet and her works are "discovered" by a feminist scholar, Sarah Maloney, who is manipulative and ambitious, plus much too in love with herself. The irony of Sarah, of course, is her much-too-much attention to her looks and ultimate marriage to Stephen. The novel is about a symposium devoted to scholarship of this unknown poet. The story is narrated by four different characters who are influenced and affected by Mary Swann and her legacy. The aforementioned Sarah Maloney discovered the poet when visiting a remote cabin and on the run from a lover. The second narrator, Morton Jimroy, is an esteemed literary biographer writing about Swann's life, but reduced to stealing a fountain pen from the poet's daughter when interviewing her for his book. The third narrator is spinster librarian (what a cliche!) Rose Hindmarch who supposedly knew the poet best, but actually knows nothing at all. And, finally, narrator four is Frederic Cruzzi, erstwhile newspaper editor and poetry publisher who meets Mary Swann on the day she is murdered and has a secret of his own about her poems.

At the same time each of these characters are narrating the story of their relationship with Mary Swann, pieces of Swann's life are mysteriously disappearing, as if traces of Mary herself are gone. The novel is ambitious and the last section is a humorous send-up of academic symposia, but the whole of the novel tries to convey the nature of Mary's loss -- her murder as well as the loss of any legacy she left behind. It succeeds at conveying the bumbling nature of the four people who supposedly "knew" her the best and the irony of what they did not know.