It’s my mother’s birthday! With this little Irish ditty (and a bonus joke – heehee), wishing her and you a very happy St. Patrick’s Day! Leprechaun, Leprechaun Leprechaun, leprechaun, fly across the sea And fetch an emerald shamrock for you and me Do not bring a nettle or a thistle for a joke, But bring […]
As St. Patrick’s Day is comin’ round, it seems like a good time to cozy up with your kid and a good Irish tale. Here’s one from a favorite author. Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie DePaola Jamie O’Rourke was lazy. He especially didn’t like digging potatoes. So his wife Eileen was left […]
It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon and I’ve been catching up with my twenty-something daughters about their weekend exploits. This weekend the color green features heavily in the conversations – not the least of which is the dye that has turned our Chicago River a bright, almost fluorescent green. In addition, the beer is flowing freely […]
LOL. One of my favorite text lines. It’s right on point in so many different situations. Sometimes it underlines a hilarious joke. Sometimes it goes along with SMH (shaking my head). Other times it takes the edge off a more serious and sobering thought. Sometimes it’s just the right way to express self-deprecation (as in: […]
Over the decades, I have been an on-again, off-again viewer of Saturday Night Live. But I have set the record over the last two months for tuning in. And I am not alone. Some 10 million people are chuckling right along with me. What, then, does humor actually do for us? Humor Helps People Cope […]
The weather has been CRAZY this winter. Last week it was nearly 75 degrees and sunny for six days – warm enough for t-shirts and long outdoor strolls. Reality check: This is Chicago. I can’t remember the last time it snowed. Does this sound like February??? Well, last night, after a nearly totally dry winter….it […]
It’s awards season. Onward with the reviews! The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill This year’s Newbery award winner is a magical novel for middle-schoolers. There is a witch in the forest. And the people in the town are familiar with her, are terrified of her. She wants to take the children away. […]
Today’s blog entry has been a hard one to write. Tomorrow is President’s Day, an in-your-face reminder of the turmoil roiling our country, in large part having to do with our new President. Some people will celebrate the change they hope this new person in the White House will bring. Others will march in protest […]
We are full into Black History Month. For four weeks, kids all across the country are reading about, talking about, writing about our country’s black ancestral history. Stories of contemporary bright lights such as Beyonce, Te-Nehisi Coates, and Barack Obama give way to stories of Ella Fitzgerald, Frederick Douglass, and Romare Bearden — men and […]
Today I recommend a book for Black History month. This is not the story of someone famous but a story of black history nonetheless. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson Woodson won the Newbery Award for this poetic memoir of her life growing up as an African-American child in the 1960s and 70s. Through her […]