Really bad book of the week: Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares

So, I tutor an adorable girl from Bangladesh. Every Thursday I walk over to her school to listen to her read whatever book she happens to have at her desk. Today, the book was Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares. Now, last week we spent half of our session wrestling with the library system at her school, trying to find a book that she would enjoy reading. I’d found that most of the books she’d been reading were too difficult for her and were about things she didn’t know about or care about. She reads enough of that kind of stuff in class every day, so I thought for our tutoring sessions it would be good for her to read something she was actually interested in and understood. We found a book about a girl whose father was from India. We started to read it last week. Anyway, when she came out of her classroom today she had the book we’d found last week, but she also had the book about Ben Franklin. She said her language arts teacher told her to read it. Anyway, the first half of the book is about Ben Franklin’s inventions, and that part was fine. Kind of boring, but fine. But the second half was about Franklin’s inventions of “magic squares.” You see, he found that if drew nine squares in a box (like a tic-tac-toe board), and put the numerals one through nine in a certain order (although they never explained how he discovered the order), then each row, column, and diagonal would equal 15. Amazing. But they never explained what was magical about this fact, what it meant about math, or why anybody should care.
I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t understand math.

Let me know in the comments: Can you explain what magic squares are? Do you have any suggestions for books that girls learning English as a second (or third) language might enjoy and relate to?

The Bread of Affliction

It's Passover, which means that I'm not supposed to be eating bread of any sort. Not even crackers! This is supposed to remind me of the exodus from Egpyt, when the Jews (who were slaves in Egypt) had to hurry to leave before the Pharaoh changed his mind. They didn't have time to let their bread rise, so they had to cook it in its unleavened state. The matzo we eat at Passover is supposed to remind us of this unleavened bread our ancestors ate. The problem for me is that matzo is basically a big ol' cracker, and you know how I feel about crackers. I love them.

The Best Moments in Reading

The best moments in reading are when you come across something — a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things — which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.
—Hector, a general studies teacher, in The History Boys

I went to see The History Boys at the Studio Theatre last night. Central to the play is the question of why we study literature. This is a cerebral question, but reading itself can be visceral. Through most of the play I was thinking, rather than feeling, but when Hector talked about the feeling that a hand has come out and taken yours, I felt a thrill, a physical reaction as if the author of the play, Alan Bennet, had reached his hand out and touched me.

You've Got to Read This

Cress Delahanty, by Jessamyn West. I have a friend who works at a magazine, and sometimes she gives me review copies of books that publishers send her. She handed me this book and said "we never review fiction, but it seems like something you might like." Most of the books she gives me are new, but this book was first published in 1945 and had been out of print for a while, until The Feminist Press at the City University of New York republished it in 2006. Most of the books she passes along to me are barely readable, but this one was enchanting. It takes place in rural California in the 1940s. The protaganist is a teenage girl named Cress. The book is written in 16 sections--you could call them chapters, if you want to think of the book as a novel, or you could call them short stories, if you want to read the sections as seperate pieces. When I started reading I kept wondering how something so good could be so unknown. I had never heard of Jessamyn West until the day I picked up the book, and I started to doubt myself. Maybe it wasn't really that good? Maybe I was missing some serious flaw in the writing? That sounds silly, but I couldn't understand why this book wasn't being taught in literature classes across the country. It should be at least a minor classic. Read it and let me know what you think! If you know me, you can borrow my copy.

Wasa Crispbread

The first time I tasted Wasa crispbread I thought it tasted like cardboard--dry and flavorless. I still think it tastes a bit like cardboard, but I've grown to appreciate it. It only has 35 calories and 45 mg of sodium, and if you put a bit of cashew butter on it, you have a healthy snack that tastes pretty good. It's like the dictionary--not flashy, but sometimes just what you need.

Goldfish Crackers

I got a hot tip from a new acquaintance--whole wheat Goldfish crackers. He said that they were the worst crackers he'd ever tasted. I was intrigued, of course, so I bought a bag. Now, I won't lie to you, dear reader. They aren't the worst crackers I've ever tasted. They don't taste like cheddar (they are supposed to be cheddar flavor), but then, the regular cheddar-flavored Goldfish don't taste like cheddar either. They do have a bitter aftertaste. But, my sources indicate that I ate half the bag. So how bad could they be? I would compare these tiny crackers to the Oz books written by Ruth Plumly Thompson. Counterfeit, but still worth consuming.

I've been so busy eating crackers and reading books that I forgot to post here about my two favorite activities.

One of the many books I read in the last month was Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale. It's a reinterpretation of a little-known fairy tale, Maid Maleen. It's categorized as a young adult book, but I thought the rich detail and and elegant style of writing would appeal to many adults as well. The book starts when the narrator, Dashti, (a maid), and Lady Saren are locked up in a tower for seven years because Lady Saren refused to marry the suitor her father has chosen for her. From there, the story spins out into a fantasy that is still grounded in excellent characterization and interesting culture. I kept thinking about this book for weeks after I read it, which is always a good sign. The only aspect of this book that bothered me was a sort of disconnect between the fantasy aspects and the realistic setting. The story takes place in medieval Mongolia, but obviously much of the details are fantastical (the villian of the story is a shape-shifter who takes on the appearance of a wolf, Dashti heals wounds by singing, etc). On the other hand, some of the details are true to what I know about Mongolia--Dashti's most precious possession is a yak. For some reason it bothered me to see real animal like a yak in this fantasy world.

Does this kind of disconnect ever bother you?

What kind of cracker goes with this book? I recommend a digestive (a type of english tea biscuit) and a glass of yak's milk.