February 2012
This month may be a record for fewest new books read—four, and two of them picture-books! Besides my ongoing study of Charlotte Mason’s Home Education and Susan Maucaulay’s For the Children’s Sake, and reading The Silver Branch to the boys, my reading habits have been as languid as this young lady with her picture-book. Still, this month boasts a few sound titles, as well as some beautiful music. Here are my brief reviews.
Books Read This Month
These are books that I read entirely for the first time this month.
Asters, bluebonnets, and columbines—American wildflowers bloom in this introduction to the English alphabet. Self-taught artist Diana Pomeroy used intricately-carved and appliquéd potato prints to create this colorful bouquet. For the most difficult letters, Pomeroy resorts to Latin names—Urtica diocia, Xerophyllum tenax, and Zigadenus fremontii. The letter “K” is represented by knapweed, in which the “k” is silent. The endnotes contain multiple references to mythology and superstition. This book earns two and a half stars.
This marvelous little book had Biggest Brother and I excitedly discussing inflation, depression, and recession. Maynard very clearly discusses these economic problems from the perspective of the Austrian and Monetarist theories. Information is placed in a historical context, and communicated in the interesting form of letters from an economist to his young nephew. We are hoping to read the sequel Whatever Happened to Justice?, which explains how the legal system effects the economy.
This picture-book introduces young children to an artist so famous we know him by his first name. Michelangelo di Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarroti Simoni was a skilled sculptor and painter living during the great Italian Renaissance. Stanley tells of the many struggles and triumphs of his long life—from his boyhood among the stonecutters, to his rising fame within the Medici family, to his world-renowned work for the popes. The illustrations feature Stanley’s colorful scenes with images of Michelangelo’s own paintings and sculptures superimposed—an innovation sometimes effective and other times awkward.
Michelangelo’s artwork features much nudity. (Michelangelo was so annoyed when censors suggested his painting of The Last Judgement belonged in a public house, that he painted the chief critic—naked—in hell. The censors won and “an artist was hired to cover the ‘shameful’ parts with little draperies.”) One illustration shows Michelangelo cutting an incision across a corpse’s chest for a dissection. Michelangelo had a wife “who is too much for me,” and developed “deep and loving friendships” with a noble widow, and with a “handsome young nobleman” to whom he wrote “ardent poems.” (That page can be easily skipped.)
Vaughan Williams. Michael Hurd. ✩✩✩✩
As you might have guessed from the recent rash of posts on Ralph Vaughan Williams, he is one of my favorite composers. Somehow, when I checked out “all” the library had on RVW, I missed this book in a children’s series on The Great Composers. Next Sister borrowed this one, and I from her. “Is it interesting?” she wanted to know. Anything about Vaughan Williams interests me! If you are doing a composer study, the short chapters which thoughtfully explore his life and music would be wonderful reading for middle-school students, or a resource for teaching younger students. There are stories—funny and poignant—that I had not found in other books and essays (though the book is not primarily anecdotal). The text is accompanied by numerous photographs and transcriptions of Vaughan Williams’s compositions.
Music
This month’s discoveries in music recordings.
One evening we heard on the classical radio a beautiful series of Baroque passacaglias played with very modern sensibility. I listened to the sample tracks on iTunes (over and over); and Biggest Brother bought his favorite for himself (“Passacaglia celtica”), and my favorite (“Passacaglia Andaluz I,” ) for me. Someday, when we get to that place on our long wish-list, we will have the entire album. Incidentally, we weren’t surprised to find that Lislevand was once a lutenist with Hespèrion XX. (Biggest Brother and I are huge fans of Jordi Savall. His daughter Arianna sings and plays the double-harp in this album.)
I wouldn’t say it is the most in the world (Bedtime Beats takes that title, in my mind), but these two CDs feature some very beautiful and serene (but not boring) music—Boccherini, Beethoven, Offenbach, Pachelbel, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov, and many other of the great names in classical music. I borrowed this from the library for Bach’s “Sleeper’s Awake.” It has been a favorite of mine since hearing it at a concert years ago.
Where are you, wise virgins?
Arise!—the bridegroom cometh.
Stand up and take your lamps!
Hallelujah!
Make yourselves ready for the wedding.
You must go to meet him!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012