Awesome Young Adult Books/Favorite Authors/How to encourage reading

Jason Reynolds shares wise advice about kids and books

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 2 Comments
Puppy wants to know why we stopped.

You know someone has said something amazing when you have to stop walking the puppy, make the puppy sit, and jot down a quote in your notes app. That happened to me this morning while I listened to the TED Radio Hour podcast featuring Jason Reynolds talking about “The Antidote to Hopelessness.” This man LOVES kids, and he has some pretty profound things to say about them.

Wait, do you know who Jason Reynolds is? He’s just been appointed the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature for the THIRD time in a row. He’s the author of many award winning books for kids and young adults, including All American Boys, (which I LOVED) Ghost, and Long Way Down (a story told in verse about a ten minute elevator ride, which I also LOVED).

He is a 6’3″ black man, sporting dreadlocks, who visits children in schools not just to get them excited about reading but to assure them he understands them, he hears them, he sees them. He also has an awesome voice – literally and figuratively. Let me share some of the awesome things he says with that voice.

Reynolds started writing books at a young age. He self-published some books in his teens, and after college, he took off for New York to break into the publishing world. But it wasn’t until his late 20s, with the publication of When I Was the Greatest in 2014 and then All American Boys in 2015, that Reynolds’ work got noticed.

During the TED Radio Hour interview with host Manuosh Zomorodi , Reynolds talked about how kids handle the challenges of life. He said they move on not because, like adults, they have responsibilities like paying the bills or taking care of family. They move on because they appreciate life and humor. “They are always willing to make a joke,” he said, noting that was an important lesson for the rest of us. “I love jokes, I love laughing. Kids always make time for laughing, and we adults should do the same.” Reynolds said he can’t be “childish”, but he strives to be “childlike”.

Sage advice.

One of my favorite quotes from the podcast, the one that I had to write down, was,

We should sprint toward compassion and crawl toward judgement.”

Jason Reynolds, on the TED Radio Hour

The podcast also shared a clip of Reynolds talking to kids during a school visit, and he said,

Excellence is a habit, not something you turn on and turn off. You will either be excellent or you won’t. Remember that.”

Jason Reynolds

I’m thankful and happy Jason Reynolds is using his amazing voice to connect with kids of all kinds and get them excited about reading. I’m also glad he’s sharing his wisdom with the rest of us. We need more voices like his. Learn more about Jason Reynolds at his website. There is also a video of a conversation with him featured during this week’s National Book Festival sponsored by the Library of Congress.

Have you read any of Jason Reynolds’ books or heard him speak? What did you think?

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

How to encourage reading

Reading nook ideas for the busy bibliophile

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 0 Comment

Image source

Looking for book nook ideas? Enjoy this guest post from Claire Silverberg with some clever tips! ~WN

If there is one thing we’ve learned recently, it’s that having a separate space for work and leisure can really make the difference in our time off. It can be hard to find time for reading in our busy lives, but having a dedicated reading space can help. Here are some quick ways to create your very own reading nook so that you always have the perfect spot to settle into a story.

Make it a Family Affair

Do you already have the perfect reading nook spot in mind but find yourself often interrupted by the kids when trying to relax? Here’s a fun way to keep them busy, so you can finally get lost in that novel! Consider using a reading chart for your little ones. It’ll persuade them to make some quiet time for reading and also helps keep them motivated!

You can download this weekly reading chart here!

Ideas for a Small Space

The most daunting part about creating a reading nook is thinking about where you can find space in your home. This is going to be different for everyone! If you have an empty corner in your bedroom or living room, all you need is a cozy chair and a lamp to get your reading marathon started. 

Finding yourself in dire need of inspiration? Window seats (or adding a bench to a bare window) are a great start! Consider a part-time nook by stacking some books next to your couch or even making some space in your closet for blankets and pillows. String lights can really up your game here and create the perfect ambiance.

Another option, if you’ve already got some fellow readers in your household, is to decorate the space like a fictional place in a favorite book! Is everyone a fan of Harry Potter or The Hobbit? Check out this fantasy-inspired reading nook idea and more from Angi.com: 

Hopefully these tips inspired you to create your literary safe haven? Until next time, happy reading!

Awesome Young Adult Books/Book reviews/Recommended kid lit

Why you must read All the Bright Places

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 3 Comments
Book review All the Bright Places

Theodore Finch constantly contemplates ways to die. Yet, after he finds Violet Markey perched on the edge on the bell tower of his high school, he spends the next several months encouraging her to live. Will Finch convince Violet that life is worth living? More importantly, will he convince himself?

All the Bright Places is an older YA contemporary that won the Goodreads Choice Award in 2015. However, as we are still in the throes of the pandemic, and still reckoning with an increased awareness of mental health needs, All the Bright Places is an important read for our time. It explores depression and anxiety in compassionate yet real terms. If you are feeling depressed, you might want to hold off on this book. However, if you know someone who might struggle with depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder, I consider it a must read.

The Premise

Theodore Finch’s classmates call him a freak. He’s prone to outbursts of anger and disappearing for long stretches of time. Finch is tired of everyone thinking he’s weird. He’s also tired of the strange forgetfulness and fatigue that sometimes overtakes him. He’s pretty much given up on life, until he meets Violet Markey.

Violet used to hang out with the popular kids and date the most coveted boy at school. She also used to have an older sister. But ever since a deadly car accident that took her sister away, Violet hasn’t felt normal, and she’s not sure she ever will.

After Finch stops Violet from throwing herself off the school bell tower, he won’t leave her alone. He seeks her out on Facebook and chooses her for his partner for a geography class project. Together, they embark on “wonderings” around the state of Indiana, looking for the remarkable in the every day. And slowly, but surely, Finch works his way into Violet’s life. But how long can he stay there?

What I liked

All the Bright Places thoughtfully explores depression, anxiety, the social challenges of high school, and first love. It’s characters are complicated and believable, and I came to adore Finch and his very strange ways. Bright Places does a good job of portraying depression both from the point of view of one struggling with this mental health challenge as well as someone trying to help. I’ve experienced mild depression, and I developed a greater understanding of more severe symptoms. The book also does a good job of depicting different levels of anxiety and depression. Violet’s symptoms are situational or reactive; Finch’s are chemical and much more serious.

What I didn’t like

At first, I didn’t like Finch. I found him a little strange and off putting. I think Jennifer Niven, the author of All the Bright Places, wanted it that way. As I got to know Finch, I gained greater appreciation for him, and I think that’s one of the powerful themes of the book – the value of making time to truly know the people around us, whether they are in our classes or in our own families.

Recommendation

If you are interested in reading/ learning more about depression and anxiety, I highly recommend this book. Warning: the Goodreads blurb for All the Bright Places describes it as heart-wrenching and compares it to The Fault in Our Stars. With good reason.

Have you read All the Bright Places? What did you think? Can you recommend other good books that explore mental health issues? I can also suggest Mosquitoland and Turtles All the Way Down.

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Who I Am

Get hope and inspiration at Immersive Van Gogh

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 4 Comments

I’ve kept a positive mindset during most of the pandemic. However, with the recent news from Afghanistan, the rise in COVID cases, and the sobering warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, discouragement had started to cloud my thoughts. So much bad news at once left me feeling overwhelmed and helpless.

Thank goodness I made the time to travel to Charlotte, N.C. to indulge in the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit! The colors, music, and imagination lifted my soul when I really needed it. And I got to take the trip with my daughter who was home from college. Another definite bonus. 🙂

Set in creativity

Just the location of the exhibit made me smile. It’s the perfect example of innovation turning old into exciting. Immersive Van Gogh is set in the Ford Building at historic CAMP North End in Charlotte, a 76 acre adaptive reuse project. The Ford Company built Model T and A cars there in the 1920s. Then, during World War II, the Army built massive warehouses in the area for uniform distribution and typewriter repairs. During The Cold War, the site returned to an industrial focus: missile production. (CAMP stands for Charlotte Area Missile Plant).

Today, the site houses everything from restaurants to art dealers to a motorcycle parts plant. I loved seeing warehouses transformed into fun, creative spaces to gather and explore. Bistro lights hung from metal rafters, and brightly painted sunflowers decorated the speed bumps. Our lunch was delicious too: yummy grain bowls from Bleu Barn. CAMP North End exuded positive vibes and inspiration.

Animating Van Gogh’s art

The walk inside the Ford Building to the exhibit featured giant sunflower sculptures and a wall of car tires painted yellow and decorated with silk sunflowers. What a clever way to blend industry and art!

Note the hubcap in the middle of this sunflower!
A clever combination of the building history (car manufacturing) with the art exhibit.

The exhibit, or performance, took place in a giant room with socially distanced seating. (Benches and chairs for two were spaced out and outlined with circles on the floor.) Before the show started, variations of “Starry Night” covered the display screens. The show opened with humming music and Van Gogh’s sketches of cicadas flying across the walls. Several of Van Gogh’s paintings were featured during the show, set to music and disassembled and reassembled to highlight different aspects. For example, for “The Potato Eaters”, the scene opened showing only a single light. Then the table beneath it. Then, one by one, the faces of a family emerged.

The social distancing circles were projected on the floor.

My daughter and I agreed Immersive Van Gogh did a great job of combining different art forms- music, digital animation, light- to bring Van Gogh’s paintings to life. It is a good option for someone who needs a little more motion and sound to appreciate art (um, like the males in our family.)

I must admit, Van Gogh is one of my favorite artists, so I’m biased. I’ve followed his work to The National Gallery of Art in D.C. and have several Vincent prints hanging in my house. But I really enjoyed the displays of bright colors and flowers and loved how the creators made something new out of something old. My favorite part? The giant Van Gogh quotes painted on the walls near the exhibit.

Something good to remember…

Even if you aren’t a huge Vincent fan, check out Immersive Van Gogh for some much needed positive inspiration.

Have you seen Immersive Van Gogh? What else is inspiring you these days?

Thanks for getting artistic with me!

Improving vocabulary

Why do we call the US a “First World” country?

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 1 Comment

During a summer evening discussion on the porch, my family pondered the status of vaccinations around the world. The term “First World Countries” came up, which prompted all of us to wonder, why do we call some countries “First World” and others “Third World”? And what about the “Second World” countries?

The “three worlds” model of geopolitics

Back in the 1950s, during the Cold War, French demographer Alfred Sauvy described the world in terms of three factions. In the article “Three Worlds, One Planet” which appeared in L’Observateur, Sauvy described “First World Countries” as the United States and its allies in The Cold War. That included most of Western Europe, Japan, and Australia. Second world countries were the Soviet Union, its Eastern European satellites, and other communist nations. Third World countries were those not allied with either side, including most of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Those countries also frequently were former colonies of Europe and were poor.

As time went on, The Cold War alliances were forgotten, and “First World Countries” described wealthy, developed countries. The term “Third World Countries” characterized poor, developing nations. We don’t hear anyone talk about “Second World Countries” any more because the term died with the Soviet Union.

Problems with labeling countries

Since the terms “First World” and “Third World” started during The Cold War, many academics dismiss them as outdated. People studying or writing about poor nations use “developing countries” or “low and middle income countries” more often.

Some people like the “developing” descriptor. It suggests opportunity and potential for improvement. Others criticize the term for the underlying message of hierarchy. “Developed countries” suggests superiority, even though many “developed countries” have serious social issues, including pockets of severe poverty.

The World Health Organization categories countries based on statistics about Gross Domestic Product. This system classifies countries as low, middle, or high income. However, this label is problematic because its hard to get accurate data from all countries.

I found an interesting alternative to the 1-2-3 classification: Majority World. This term reminds us that the West is but a small fraction of the globe. I was shocked to learn that about 80% of the world lives on less than $10 a day. Yikes. I live in the global minority indeed.

Once again, we have an example of why labels fall short in describing the complexity of a situation or group of people. The articles I read suggested if you are talking about a country or group of countries, just use their names to describe them. Sounds like good advice to me, for lots of situations.

If you’d like to learn more about the three worlds model, check out these articles:

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Words and Technology

What you should know about haptics

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 0 Comment

We are watching entirely too much TV these days. It’s summer! We should be outside. But by 8:30 on most nights, I’m toast. I try to encourage game and puzzle nights, even “let’s read together on the porch” nights, but frequently my son and husband opt for TV. Their latest find, a show on Apple TV called Mythic Quest. It’s about the creative team behind a video game called Mythic Quest and the struggle to keep it popular. It’s basically The Office, except the characters are selling a game, not paper. In a recent episode, the engineer character mentioned haptics.

Haptics? My ears perked up. When I got my new iPhone SE 2020, I had to choose a “Home Button Haptic”. I really couldn’t tell a difference between the three options, but went with #3. I’ve also noticed my iPhone vibrates or pops when certain things happen, like I hold down on a picture or successfully upload a check for mobile deposits. That, my Word Nerd friends, is haptics.

Etymology

Haptic comes from the Greek haptesthai, meaning “to touch”. It entered English in the late 19th century as a medical synonym for “tactile.” According to Merriam-Webster, in the 20th Century it gained popularity as a psychological term to describe people whose perception depended primarily on touch rather than sight. Currently, Merriam-Webster defines haptic as:

  1. relating to or based on the sense of touch

2, characterized by a predilection for the sense of touch

Even better info on haptics

This article on Ultraleap, a website about making digital worlds more human, gives even better information about haptic feedback, or haptics for short. It explains that haptics is a method of giving feedback or communicating more so than a specific technology.

Many digital / tech devices communicate with us primarily through sound and video. Haptic feedback provides information and interaction via touch. Different types of vibrations, usually felt by our hands, are the most predominant type of haptics used today. Consumers experience them with smart phones, game controllers, and even their cars. (My steering wheel vibrates when my car detects I’ve moved out of my lane.)

I guess it’s good that devices are incorporating other methods of communication besides visual and audio stimuli. However, this sentence in the article made me a little nervous:

Not only can you touch a computer or other device, but the computer can touch you back.

Robert Blenkinsopp, Ultraleap

So, now that you know what haptics are, or maybe you already did, can you share other examples of haptic feedback? Also, are there any other tech terms you’re curious about?

Here’s another article explaining more about haptics: Haptic Touch vs. 3D Touch: What’s the Difference?

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!