Personal: March 2008 Archive Page

Carolyn, my five-year-old, wept in the middle of "Owly 2: Just a Little Blue."  The Owly books use no words, just icons and facial expressions to tell some very complex stories. Carolyn likes stories about adventure and friendship, and she's a visual learner. Once I helped her interpret the first few speech bubble icons, she was able to "read" the story to me quite easily. Bedtime is always a struggle for her, and I don't think she was really prepared for the emotional intensity of the story. The story ends on a happy note, but the next day she was still distressed enough that she had to tell mommy about the sad parts.

There's no death or betrayal, just a misunderstanding, but the long wordless sequence where Owly seems to give up his hopes communicates disappointment and sadness so clearly that I think my daughter was caught off-guard.  The book is absolutely delightful, but you should know your child -- the artwork really drives the emotion home. 

When I was little, I loved a book about a little red lighthouse that was dwarfed by the construction of a new bridge. I was just thinking about that book recently, and made a mental note to ask my mother what the title was so I could get a copy and read it to my five-year-old. Today I was browsing on the book-sale table at the Latrobe library, when the very book I was looking for jumped out at me:



A few minutes with Google revealed something I never knew... apparently there really was such a little lighthouse that was scheduled for demolition, but when this book was published in the 40s, it proved so popular that the authorities decided to preserve the little lighthouse instead. (Photo by The Insider.)

There's even a Little Red Lighthouse Festival!

I thought maybe two or three students would "friend" me out of pity, but I was rather surprised that within about 24 hours I had 35 confirmed "friends" -- several of those within the first few minutes of registering for the service. Only half of those contacts are from Seton Hill -- the rest are academics I know from the blogosphere and from conferences.

A few are people I knew in my hazy pre-Internet youth, including theater friends from my student-acting days.


When I get back into the office, I'm going to have to set up some e-mail filters, because this is what my in box looks like at the moment. If all my students use their university accounts for Facebook, it's probably no wonder that some of them seem to have trouble finding my e-mails.  (P.S. In the time it took me to put this entry together, I picked up 2 more "friends.")