There is a “battle of the books”, where Clover may read some amount of these by April or so. It was difficult for us to obtain this list (folks like to share documents in ways that are mysterious), so here are the books:
We began with Bunnicula and it was well received though Clover had doubts at the beginning. She expressed interest in reading subsequent Bunnicula books as well. The next book we will read is Sideways Stories from Wayside School.
Just found out all the Battle of the Books aspects will be held on Zoom so we will not participate, other than reading.
Yeah, we don’t have a reliable enough connection to do video chat where we live, so that’s difficulty zero for us, it just prohibits all live video activities.
However, beyond that, we also want to avoid Zoom, the specific video service.
And beyond that, the format is a quiz, where questions are asked about aspects of random books from the list, and kids on the video conference are supposed to yell out their answers… uh, no thanks. I believe hell is personal, and looks roughly like how that video conference would play out!
I know lack of video access is tough for different reasons for everyone.
Some folks rely on video to keep in touch with groups of people that bring deep meaning to them. I encourage this kind of video use.
Other folks don’t know how to pivot (not their fault!) during a pandemic, and now everything is a Zoom call and it makes no sense to me.
OMG, I just had a real thought response to what I wrote, and here it is: I thought, “Well, maybe I just so far ahead of everyone; I’ve been working remotely for all time.”
And maybe that’s it! Because I also had a video chat phase. And it was meh. Not because of the tech, it was fine; any amount of video chatting is very cool. It was because talking to people face to face isn’t my mode of operation. I work on complex problems, and bond with people deeply one on one. That’s me.
But it means that folks like me, who have a lot to offer in feedback and serendipitous interaction, are excluded from this sudden shift into Zoom-land. Either because one is resourceless or eccentric (check and check), we’ve defined a new digital definition of “hermit”.
Also, what happened to having kids read books they wanted, and letting them befriend children’s librarians, whose entire job seems to be split between instilling a lifelong love of reading and recommending the best books… (this started as a question and ran into praise for a librarian sub-type, or typical maiki-sentence)? Everything’s a battle these days. This book’s a battle! That Zoom’s a battle! Let’s all battle six feet apart!
I used to get cool book marks for reading books. I loved those, but hey, I’m a digital hermit, don’t listen to me.
