Book review: The Neverending Story

I finished reading aloud The Neverending Story (Michael Ende) to the girls last night.

It is a complicated, multi-layered, thought-provoking book, which also manages the double-task of being an un-put-down-ably exciting story.  I completely and utterly recommend it to everyone.  It definitely deserves to be on the list of the world's great novels.

If you have watched the movie, but not read the book, then don't be mislead -- the movie is less than half the book, and completely misses the heart and soul of the book.

Giving this sort of open-ended praise for the book, as above, is easy.  What is more challenging is trying to review the specifics of the book.  Saying too much will definitely spoil it for those who haven't read it.  Each idea and aspect of the book builds on previous twists, which really shouldn't be revealed until you have read it.

So, what can I say?

The story is centrally about a boy, Bastian Balthazar Bux, who has an unhappy life.  His mother died, and his father is grieving and distant.  He is fat and awkward, and gets teased by his peers.  While getting chased by bullies he stumbles into a bookshop where, after talking with the owner for a while, he steals an interesting-looking book.  He is late for school and wags class, hiding in the school attic to read the book he stole.

The book Bastian reads is The Neverending Story, an adventure story about a strong, heroic boy, around his own age, who is trying to save his world from destruction.  And thus we, as readers, start to read a book within a book.

And I had better stop there with the retelling.  Any more than that will spoil the amazing twists and turns that happen next.

Except to say that Michael Ende's father was one of Germany's first Surrealist painters.  And that is worth mentioning.  I encourage you to read up on Andre Breton, the founder of Surrealism, and Dada, one of the big influences on Surrealism.  Understanding the reasoning behind these artistic movements will give even more depth to this book.

Alongside reading this book to Mulan and Miya, I have been wanting to recognise that if Mulan were going to school she would have started intermediate school this year.  Amongst other things, I have been trying to think of ways for Mulan to start writing responses to set questions, rather than simply free writing as she typically does.

So, for this book, my first set writing task for Mulan was to get her to write a creative "what happens next" piece.  This was at a point in the book, about halfway, where it was particularly open-ended (I won't say where or what, as it would spoil things if you haven't read it).  Mulan wrote a few pages, very fluently continuing the story as she saw it (Mulan's continuation was very different from the actual story).

This morning, I explained to Mulan that I would now like her to write more of an essay-style piece, reviewing the book and perhaps comparing her story with the actual book.  Mulan looked a bit worried/shocked at the thought of doing this, so she might need some encouragement/nagging.  But I know she has lots of opinions on this, as she was often talking about it as we were reading together.  It will just be a matter of getting her to order her ideas in her head and get them onto paper.  We'll see what happens.

Swimming

Mulan and Miya have been learning swimming for 30 minutes a week, for the past three years at Swim Lovers' Swim School.

It has been working well for them -- they are both swimming smoothly and they love their time in the water.

But other than that, most weeks we don't get around to slipping on the togs and going for a swim.  Crazy really, with beaches and pools so close to us.

So, we decided to change that.

Yesterday, we biked to the Takapuna Pool and Leisure Centre, our local public pool.  It's free for kids 16 and under, and I pay just $1 per time as a spectator.

The girls were in the pool for about an hour.  For the first 20 or 30 minutes they did laps, then they played the rest of the time.

Mulan swam 20 lengths (667 metres), while Miya swam 12 lengths (400 metres).  They both did a mix of all four strokes (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly), while Mulan also did some underwater swimming.

It worked out really well, and we'll try to get there again at least once or twice a week.

Congratulations Mulan

Today, Mulan finished her US 7th Grade maths at Khan Academy.

She is now starting 8th Grade.

(Mulan finished 6th Grade 10 months ago.)

Book review: Consider Phlebas

The best thing about Iain M. Banks' book Consider Phlebas is the creative and vivid descriptions of people being killed and maimed.

Or should that be the worst thing?

At any rate, Consider Phlebas is about 500 pages of set scene after set scene of characters being creatively violent with each other.  It wasn't a pleasant read.

I'd requested the book from my local library, based on a good review at a website I like, and I finished reading it yesterday.  I can't even remember which website the review was at, but if I remember rightly, the review praised the supposedly realistic portrayal of complex social and political interactions.

Personally, I don't think it was that well done.

Basically, the book is a science fiction story, set in a futuristic galaxy with faster-than-light travel and aliens.  There is a war between two opposing civilisations.  The "Culture" can be read as a liberal Western society with advanced artificial intelligence and more than enough wealth for all.  But, weirdly, they cannot satisfy their desire to be needed except by evangelising and spreading their culture to outsiders (have they never heard of raising children -- that would more than satisfy their need to be needed!).  Their opponents are the Idirans -- hierarchical, religious fundamentalists who fight to subjugate all inferior species.

And that was it, as far as I could see.  Nothing there was complex, or subtle, or insightful.  As far as I could see it was just a quick war scenario setup that allowed Banks to write imaginative violence.  If you like reading violence, then knock yourself out with 500 pages of fun.  If not, then there is not much else of value in Consider Phlebas.

Book review: David Walliams books

The girls and I have discovered David Walliams.

Or, to be more accurate, we have discovered his books for kids.  I had known of him for a while as a sometimes-funny (and sometimes not-funny) British TV comedian.

Hearing more and more about how good Walliams' books are, I requested The Boy in the Dress from the local library (choosing it for no other reason than Wikipedia said it was his first book, published in 2008).  We picked it up last week, and I quickly flicked through it to make sure it was okay.  Mulan got hold of it, and on the same day, within an hour or two, had finished it.  It was passed on to Miya, who likewise finished it a few days later.  It was then passed back to me, and I finally got to read it last night.

In the meantime, I requested Walliams' other 11 books from the library.  I picked four of them up on Thursday -- Mulan has read them all and Miya has read two.  The other seven books are slowly dribbling in.  I'll pick up another four on Tuesday when the library reopens after Easter.

So, what do we think of Walliams' books?

Obviously, they are light and quick and fun to read.  They are not too challenging, and we can zoom through them pretty fast.  The main character in The Boy in the Dress is 12 (which is often an indicator of the suggested age of the reader), but the writing style is so simple that Miya had no problem reading it.  There are also plenty of illustrations dotting the pages throughout the books, which make them far more appealing for Miya to read.

Style-wise, lots of reviewers immediately make the comparison with Roald Dahl, and that is very obvious to see.  The slightly edgy humour is definitely there -- sometimes black, sometimes gross, but definitely appealing to kids.  The illustrator of Walliams' first two books is Quentin Blake, who also illustrated Dahl's books, strengthening the Dahl-feel even more.  And, much like most of Dahl's stories, the main character (at least in The Boy in the Dress) had a somewhat sad life, but was lifted out of sadness in an extraordinary way.

What really puts Walliams' The Boy in the Dress on my must-read book list is that it is a sweet morality tale that is uplifting, but not overly moralising.  Walliams clearly wanted to use his first children's book as a teaching opportunity, to help change perceptions, reduce prejudice, and lessen bullying and intolerance.  In case it isn't obvious by the book's title, to help ease up a bit with society's sometimes overly strict gender roles and gender stereotyping.  To say that it is okay for a guy to slip on a dress on occasion, when he feels like it, and to like sparkly clothes.  And absolutely good on Walliams; I agree 100% with the book's morality.  But Walliams didn't overdo it with the moralising -- there is no sickening sweetness or pedestal-preaching.  He has managed to get that delicate writing balance that turns a story idea into a great book.

Yeah, the story is simplistic.  Yeah, the solution to the Big Problem near the end is a little too convenient and unbelievable.  Yeah, those who want to resist the idea of easing up on gender roles might try to psychoanalyse the Boy's relationship with his mother.  But I think all that doesn't matter.

My impression from one book is that Walliams' books would be most ideal for tweens who might not otherwise be big readers.  The writing is possibly a little on the easy side for Mulan, though it is nice for her to read some less challenging books sometimes.  And the themes might sometimes be a little too mature for Miya (not the dress-wearing, but some of the other almost-teen stuff).

Science education

Little kids are fascinated by science. And most people who graduate from secondary education are science haters. We've obviously done something wrong.

So says Philip Kitcher, here.  He continues:

Instead of lumbering throughout years and years of school of memorisation of all sorts of amino acids, we should let the people who know by the age of 14 that they are not going to go into science to have a completely different kind of scientific education. 

One that brings home to them things about how scientific breakthroughs have occurred, the fascination of scientific discovery, we should get them to understand how evidence is assembled, how scientific creativity works, and make them literate, to read scientific articles written for the public in ways that they can carry forward throughout their lives.

As Mulan and Miya get older, I am beginning to wonder more and more about how to approach their science education.  I think it makes sense to focus more on the general scientific literacy aspect of it -- the history of science, scientific methodology, science culture, etc.  A bit more storytelling, and a bit more open problem solving, perhaps.

Kitcher says he is writing a book on this issue at the moment.  It should be interesting.  I'll look for it when it comes out.

(I also agree with a lot of what Kitcher says elsewhere in the above-linked interview.  In particular, I think he is spot on in his assessment of Richard Dawkins.  Also, I have just ordered from the library Kitcher's book on climate change, which is mentioned in the interview.)

Athletics

Our athletics season is over.  We had our final competition last Wednesday, and there'll be nothing happening until things start up again in October.

As I've said before, Mulan, Miya and I all join and compete at Takapuna Athletics Club, with clubnights on Wednesdays and events coaching on Mondays.  (Sadly, we can't convince Mama to join, too!)  We don't try the interclub competitions on Saturdays as it clashes with music lessons.

Miya:

At Grade 7, Miya started lots of new events this season, doing some longer runs as well as three new field events.  She has loved this -- by midway through Grade 6 she'd had enough of the games-based activities and was ready for more serious events.

Miya has done especially well in the field events this year.  She has worked hard on her throws, attending the Monday coaching sessions each week for both shot put and discus.  This time last year, she didn't have a clue about throwing; now, Miya is getting very smooth and fluent in her movements and the implements are flying out pretty far.  At the end-of-season club champs she got firsts in both discus and shot put.

Miya's long jump has been more frustrating, and with only small gains.  I get the impression that the long jump event organisers don't have the same sort of crowd control that the throws organisers have, and things sometimes seem quite chaotic there.  (I try to help out with Mulan and Miya's events where possible, but unfortunately Miya's long jump is just when I am doing my events.)  One problem has been that the kids stand on the runup track, meaning that Miya cannot start her runup at the place she would like to, instead having to start further forward.  Another problem is that sometimes it is unclear whose turn it is to jump.  A couple of times this season Miya has been in tears with frustration.  Sadly, my best advice has been to suggest that Miya doesn't try so much in this event, and just wait for future years when the older age-groups self-organise a bit more.  At the club champs, Miya got second in the long jump.

In the running events (both sprints and longer distances), Miya has made good, steady improvements in her times.  She typically places around the middle in her age group, and it was an achievement for her to get into the finals at the club champs in all the track events except the 60 m.

Mulan:

At Grade 10, Mulan also started a couple of new events this season.

Unfortunately, since the beginning of term this year, Mulan wasn't able to attend the Monday events coaching sessions, as it clashed with ballet classes.  But before that she was getting some good throws coaching advice and she has continued to make good improvements.  This season she learn to do the glide in shot put, and her PB (personal best) is now only 5 cm less then my PB!

At the club champs, Mulan got first in the long jump, as well as seconds in high jump, discus and shot put.

Mulan's track events results are similar to Miya's, in that she places around the middle in her age group.  She has also made good, steady improvements over the season, and she also did well to get into the club champs finals for all track events.

Me:

The old man is still hobbling around the track each week, competing in most events.

Actually, I have done well this year.  The aches, pains, and injuries have all been manageable, and winter weight training in the gym has given me a bit more strength.

I broke the Takapuna Club record for veteran men in the triple jump, getting 10.59 m.  I also got PBs in both the discus and shot put.