What I'm Reading (and Teaching) Today!

I promised myself that I'd blog at least a quick reaction to everything that I'm reading. This is my project for myself, and now that I'm back to work, I am realizing that it may turn out to be a bigger project than I'd at first anticipated. But here's a quick run down:

1. Reread the introductory stuff and the first chapter of The Hobbit this morning before class. I've read it many, many times. And I never tire of it. But the good thing is this. I was really reading it with an eye to the themes that I want to cover in my class (it's a class specifically on young adult fantasy fiction, and we are reading The Hobbit as our first selection. I'm looking at it as foundational to the genre). There was quite a lot that I wanted to say about medievalism, cultural identity, and gender. And the really great thing is that my students on their own seemed to pick up on all the things that I really wanted them to notice. We talked about runes, Tolkien's work as a philologist, how it all serves to "medievalize" the novel; I guess I can use the term "medievalize." We talked about social class, food, clothing, and other cultural markers. We talked about the clear lack of females in the work. But my students, wonderful, brilliant students, acted like this was clear, and they were engaged with the material. I guess what I mean is that it's all turning out the way one would hope.

2. I read some secondary stuff by Perry Nodelman about picture books--probably not very interesting for me to rehash here, but useful in preparing for teaching. Then, both in and out of class, I "read" several board books. And there's really more going on in most of them than people realize. I also read two different Alice in Wonderland pop-up books. So what could be more fun than that?

3. I think I've given up on We Were the Mulvaneys. Joyce Carol Oates, I'm sorry, but I don't know if I want to deal with it. I have, however, read maybe 250 pages, so I hate to give up now. I'm just not all that into it.

4. Am intermittently reading P.G. Wodehouse. Nice break from "serious" reading.

5. Most importantly to me, I'm reading C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces. I know that I keep telling all of you this. But it's a book that I think everyone should read. It's such an amazing, moving novel. And I'll say more about it in a later post--it deserves its own post. But (and I mean this quite literally) aside from the Bible, this is the single book that has changed my life the most. And it seems important somehow, for a number of reasons, that I revisit it now.

So there's my quick update, not really that I think anyone cares, but this was all what I needed to write.