Hubbub and Blurt: Questions, Questions by Marcus Pfister

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Questions, Questions by Marcus Pfister

In an age when infinite answers are available in an instant, maybe the questions we ask are what matter most. "There's so much that I want to know," writes Pfister, and in 13 short couplets he shows readers how questioning is a genuinely creative act—a way of being fully engaged in the world. His verses are by turns fanciful ("Do apple seeds dream happily/ of growing up to be a tree?"), scientifically minded ("What turns the leaves from green to brown/ and sends them floating gently down?"), and even faith-based ("Who teaches butterflies to fly,/ splashing their colors through the sky?"). Pfister has created images as pithy as they are poignant, boldly graphic and dramatically cropped against white backgrounds. A blue-headed songbird is reminiscent of Asian watercolor; a storm cloud looks like it's been fashioned from salt dough; falling leaves seem cut from pieces of thickly tufted carpet. Although each was created using the same painted paper method (explained on the final page), the results are as varied as the questions. Ages 3–up.

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Reading and Me

When I read, I experience in poet Jane Hirshfield’s words, “a clarification and magnification of being”. Hirshfield is speaking specifically of poetry here, “its word-woven and musical invocation”. The treasure - the ability and freedom to read – and its result – knowledge, insight, wisdom, understanding, empathy, compassion - is lifeblood of human civilizations. The exploration of words (those squiggly shape pictures on the pages) – broken down into those letters in a row then a space then some more letters in a row, each having a sound and a way – knowable! – to become the sentence, the paragraph, the verse, the poem, the story, the novel, the treatise, the manifesto, the sacred statement, the myth – this exploration of words, how to read them and what they mean – this is reading. If you cannot read, the list of loss goes on forever. The works of these authors: Aardema. Alcott. Avi. Babbitt. Bemelmans. Carle. Cooney. Coville. Dahl. Dorros, DePaola. Ehlert. Galdone. Hamilton. Henkes. Keats. Kimmel. Lester. Lobel. Lowry. MacLachlan. McKissack. O’Dell. Peck. Peet. Pinkney. Polacco. Rylant. Seuss. Silverstein. Spinelli. Travers. Ungar. Van Allsburg. Wells. Wilder. Young. Zieffert. Language is a living thing – these stories are mirrors of our lives and doors into other families and cultures.

I worked for many years at the Reference Desk in the Children’s Room of the Public Library. The first key to that room is an adult who will bring a child and choose books to look at and read aloud. The second key to that room is consistent regular persistent introduction to the wealth lined up on each shelf. The third key is the habit of use – a willingness, a commitment, to go weekly, to bring a big rolling box, to read and reread and reread the books at home. Ask the librarian questions, look for answers in the books. The questions may not be “homework related” –- the questions may be “What’s a good book about taking a bath? Try The Tub People by Pam Conrad. “My child thinks she will never be able to figure some things out.” How about Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Krauss? “We are planting a garden.” How about Allison’s Zinnia by Anita Lobel?

During my year with Minnesota Reading Corps I helped children with reading skills. I held open the door. I held open the passages. I focused on the vowels and helped turn squiggly picture shapes into words made of letters. Mystery to meaning. We walked through these doors. This is blending, this is segmenting. In blending students connect sounds together, in segmenting they separate words into sounds. The reading path begins with awareness of the page content. Reading is decoding. The words are made of sounds! The sentences are made of words! There are syllables and segments! There are rhymes! We can blend, we can combine separate sounds into meaningful words! We can take this words apart and make different words! This is segmenting, this is blending, this is reading! This has meaning. We work to achieve comprehension by constructing meaning from the written text. This word means something you can know. This vocabulary makes meaning. This story is for YOU. You make this story mean something. This is the world that reading opens and enriches. There are fierce thunderstorms here and nannies who arrive by umbrella. There are Enormous Crocodiles, Muffins for Moose, Snowy Days, Giant Peaches and Millions of Cats. There is a Bear Hunt and An Old Lady Who Swallows a Fly. There is a Velveteen Rabbit and a Garden of Verses. There is a place where there are Wild Things. This is the world that is lost to a child who cannot read.

Today in the USA most children learn to read at school. Few bring homemade lunches anymore and most bring complications that arise from our culture’s technological fixations and media fascinations. Nevertheless, schools and teachers are diligently striving to teach these children to read. Some take to it, others do not. Some have help from home, many do not. Some speak languages other than English and cannot read in either language. Some will learn to read. Some will not. Others will require a faithful consistent daily reading tutor. Be that person another student, an Associate Educator, a teacher, a parent, an encourager – we all had helpers. Here at Loring Library we have books. And I am here to open doors and read aloud and answer questions and point the way and listen and learn. Welcome to Loring Library.