Pocket Poetry Movement

Thursday, April 29, 2010 is
POEM in your POCKET Day.

If you have trouble thinking of one, click on this LINK and print one out. I clicked on CHALK and got Shel Silverstein's poem, Where The Sidewalk Ends, always a crowd-pleaser.

I clicked on FROG and got one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems, I'm Nobody! Who are You?

Here's a link to a frog poem of my own, Foggy Boggy Froggy. Enjoy and remember to share a poem!

Hang On, Paradigm Shifting

Photo from: NYDailyNews.com

The apple ipad is going to change everything about the way we read and the way we read to our kids. Yes, there will be new products down the line, but this is the first one. This is the breakthrough, and soon we will be using it to read favorite stories to children at bedtime. This is what kids are going to have on their laps in the back of the family van on long trips. This is what we've been waiting for.

Within a few years, we will no longer see small children lugging backpacks almost as big as they are to school and back home. Instead of buying new textbooks, schools will download them and keep them current by downloading updates. It is going to change how we teach everything, including reading. Young readers will be able to listen to the words read fluently as their eyes follow the text. Science and math texts will have full-color graphics that move and give students 3-dimensional images. Teachers will be able to upload assignments and students will be able to download presentations they missed when they were absent. We're on the cusp of a whole new world.

And, no, I don't have mine yet. I'm waiting for the 3G model, but it's a must have, and I will have it.

*Paradigm shift: A complete change in thinking, belief systems, or a scientific breakthrough that allows the creation of a new condition or new way of doing something previously thought impossible or unacceptable

Grave Mistress

Sometimes the best books are the ones we stumble upon. Yesterday I stumbled upon Ariana Franklin's Grave Goods in a bookstore. I enjoy historical murder mysteries and this one, like the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters, is set in Medieval England. What really caught my interest was that it was set in Glastonbury, long thought to be Avalon of the King Arthur legend and site of his burial. I carried the book with me into a restaurant and while waiting to be served, opened it up and read the first chapter. "This is a good one," I told my husband.

Later that evening, I sat at my computer watching the Twitter feed roll by, but kept getting pulled back into A.D. 1176 England and the story of Adelia, a young woman trained as a doctor in Salermo, Italy. I finally immersed myself in the story, and didn't stop reading until I turned the last page at 2 a.m.

This being the third book of the series, I had missed much of the setup that had led to Amelia living in England and occasionally being called into service as a coroner by King Henry II, he who made a martyr and saint of Thomas Becket, but also brought common law to England. Enough of the prior history was woven into the story that I had no trouble getting up to speed. It's a fascinating period of history, but the author manages to include the history in the story without the history becoming the story.

In this story, Adelia, who is fleeing her home of four years to avoid being tried for witchcraft, is sent to investigate the unearthing of a casket in Glastonbury, which may or may not contain the remains of King Arthur and Guinevere. In the course of her investigation, she uncovers a twenty-year-old murder, searches for lost friends, and possibly discovers many truths about King Arthur.

I found Adelia to be very likable, more knowledgeable about science and anatomy than Cadfael, who would have loved her, and less rigid than Sister Fidelma, whom I also love, but is a lawyer, and therefore pontificates a lot. Adelia has to be careful, since most would view her medical activities as heretical, but she's feisty, independent and determined, and King Henry II, whom she would prefer to avoid, has learned that she is also a valuable agent, who can be counted on to unravel any mystery and tell him the truth of it, even if it's a truth, he'd rather not hear.

I couldn't put this one down, so I'll be going back to read the first two books in the series: Mistress of the Art of Death and The Serpent's Tale, and look forward to the next one A Murderous Procession, which just went on sale April 1.

Click on the title to this post to visit the author's website.