Today’s a big birthday for Becky – much bigger than you’d think to look at her. And she’s even more beautiful inside than out, the kind of person this world needs ten million more of, the kind of sister I wish everyone had.

And that’s not just her big sister talking. 

With the help of his family, we've written a much-needed biography of author James B. Garfield, who not only wrote Follow My Leader (1957) but spent most of his 102 years serving others in high-impact, long-lasting ways. In fact, he achieved the most after  he became blind at 60! He's a hero worth learning about.

Ten years ago, on a magical spring evening inside our old red barn, we watched beloved kids act out the story of Peter Pan.  The children have now grown up—in fact, the star has just gotten married!—but our memories, and the deeper memories evoked at the time, are ageless. 

We learned an awful lot from Yorkshire veterinarian Dr. Herriot as kids, and thought of him often when we really did NOT feel like doing farm chores.  But after all, if he could get up at two a.m. and drive through the snow to help a sow give birth, we could certainly walk 50 yards through the rain to muck stalls for our own dear horses.

But All Creatures Great and Small  taught us much more than "do what must be done:" Its author also modeled compassion, grace, humility, honesty, and a fantastic sense of humor. 

The other night, while talking to a friend on the phone, I began idly leafing through a big book on my nightstand, a 1929 edition of English Poetry and Prose of the Romantic Movement. I'd bought it at the flea market decades ago, but to be frank, I'd read little of it. It doesn't leap off the shelf calling "pick me, pick me!" like some books do. It's a dark green, imposing 1400-page tome with Bible-thin pages, penciled here and there with faint, studious notes— someone's textbook, too austere to curl up with, though I've reached or it now and then to look something up.  As I flipped through the book, out fell a note, pencil-written in a feminine script.

There's something about pirates' lingo and attire that overrides the fact that they're wicked criminals--at least the pirates in literature! Robert Louis Stevenson clearly knew that, and let his bad guys be as terribly fascinating as we want them to be. Those bad guys, in fact, give us three good points to teach from his masterpiece, Treasure Island.

Ah, the all-important protagonist--the main character in a story, the hero/ine that students are supposed to identify, track, and evaluate. But identifying the protagonist in a story isn't always easy.  In this blog post, we'll help you help your kids figure that out.

The narrative arc is a critical concept for understanding the structure of a  book, whether kids are reading one or writing one. In our experiential workshops, we always begin our "field trip " through a story by explaining the concept of the arc, then proceeding to talk (and pausing to play) our way through its six sections. 

We're often asked how we explain the narrative arc to kids. In this post we'll share that with you, along with explanations and examples of each section of the narrative arc. 

Hearing Mom choke up over The Velveteen Rabbit is one of my first high-impact memories.  She was reading to three or four of us – at least one baby was on her lap –  so I must have been about five years old.  When she stopped mid-sentence, I thought she’d heard something outside.  I closed my eyes and listened through the rain. But as she sniffled and struggled to read some more, I realized my self-controlled mom was about to cry.It was an awful, awesome moment.  Mom crying?  And why?  

Grandma took me to see Hamlet on stage when I was ten. It was my first experience of Shakespeare, and my first awareness that within his work were lines now common knowledge. When the audience tittered at “something is rotten in Denmark,” Grandma whispered “that’s a very famous line people use today to mean something seems suspicious.” When Hamlet began to deliver his famous soliloquy, I could tell by the hushed, reverent demeanor of the crowd that "To be or not to be" and the exquisite phrases that flowed on the dim, still air – "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," "perchance to dream," "The undiscover’d country" – were familiar in a sacred kind of way. Though I had been raised on poetry and biblical fare packed with other lovely phrases and shared meanings, I suddenly knew that I had been missing out.

Deciding how to "do what the characters did" is one of our favorite parts of getting ready for a workshop. If a story’s protagonist tries something unusual, interesting or plot-important that's ALSO classroom safe--e.g. won’t get kids poisoned, shot, drunk, or somehow maimed--it’s an instant go-to.  Sometimes, though, our ideas for activities come up against second thoughts--especially for books that are written from real-life hardship.

One of our favorite such books is Francisco Jiménez’s eye-opening book about migrant life, The Circuit. Here's what we did to respectfully, meaningfully immerse kids in part of his story . . .

This skinny little book of “grown-up” poems has small print and no illustrations, but it was a favorite when we were children. We hope it helps you share powerful points in beautiful ways, as it did for our Mom, and that it nurtures in your children a love of great poems, as it did for the five of us.

I love it when surprises come tumbling out of books. One summer Before Kids, my husband and I were exploring in Bangor, Maine when we wandered into a tiny used bookstore. It was delightfully stuffy with that singular smell of old paper and ink, and the wool-clad little woman behind the heavy corner desk seemed to have been written into place, she fit the scene so well.  As I was prone to do in those days, I found a small volume of poetry that had a nice binding and bought it for a souvenir. I’d no sooner taken it out into the sunshine for a closer look, when a piece of notepaper slipped to the sidewalk. 

History and literature are full of caricatures, aren’t they? The Queen, The Servant Girl, The Cook, The Princess, The Pioneer . . . Each title brings with it a little vignette in our minds, like it or not. We can’t help it! We’ve drawn them from children’s stories, movies, museums, and textbooks, and each of us has created a big scrapbook of impressions we carry around in our heads.

But behind these stereotypes and caricatures are lives. Eating, sweating, breathing, dream-filled and driven lives. Even fictional characters have between-the-lines experiences, don’t they? What do they do when the author’s pen begins to sketch someone else’s scene, or the camera of history turns away? You have to wonder--and that leads to all kinds of wonder-full lessons.

We’ve been talking a lot about influence here at LitWits lately, and the ways we’ve been shaped for life by our favorite books. More specifically, by the characters in those stories who taught us invaluable things about the world and ourselves. Here's a short list of some of our favorite “influencers." 

We recently reread the story of Harriet Tubman for an upcoming workshop, and were left thinking How in the world are we going to honor this astounding woman in fun, hands-on, yet thoughtful and respectful ways?  

In most workshops, we talk through a book's narrative arc, pausing to "do what the characters did, so we can learn what they learned"--but  Harriet Tubman's actions are inimitable. Only in small, symbolic ways can we even try to pay homage to her life and character.  

Here's what we decided to do. 

E.B. White taught us so much in such quiet, simple ways, and not just through his writing.  He lived a soft-spoken, earnest life of integrity, and we deeply admire the man as much as the writer. 

 In this blog post, we share a little E.B. love, and heartily recommend a particular biography that you AND your kids will enjoy. 

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, we'd like to share a meaningful, multilayered project we did for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor.  Sure, the Logans were farmers, and loved butter beans, and were struggling to hang on to their land--those were key considerations in designing this project.  But its main point is that, as Dr. King said, we reap what we sow.  If we sow seeds of power, we can overcome anything, with grace and beauty, even.

Anne of Green Gables has given us extra "scope for imagination" ever since we were kids, and we'll always love her to pieces. But it's her teacher who led us to LitWit great books, and she deserves some love of her own. Here's our "composition on a remarkable person"--the same assignment Miss Stacy gave Anne. 

As you all know, there’s a big fray going on out there about which books should and shouldn’t be taught.  Ugh, we don’t like to get into frays, not at ALL! We’d like to keep quietly doing what we’re doing, sharing the best lessons of old books in hands-on ways that develop empathy and respect.  But with more and more books being pulled from shelves, and more questions coming our way, we want to share our stance.

Ooooooooh who doesn't want one of THOSE!

But if you're one of the millions who've read (or even heard  of) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, you know we're talking about the portal to NARNIA.

It's the most memorable scene in the whole book, along with that of naughty Edmund gobbling down "several pounds" of the White Witch's Turkish Delight--so we had to recreate both those magical, fateful, life-changing experiences for our workshop kids, too.

When I first read this fierce book about a boy and his bear, it grabbed at my heart in big ways. What I loved so deeply about it is that it's really about gentle MEN:  men who know how to teach and love and give with tenderness and true understanding.  It touched me so much that I cried in several places, and not, as expected, about the bear.

Ever heard of Nathaniel Bowditch of colonial Salem?  Neither had we, until a few years ago, but every sailor knows him well!  Nat Bowditch overcame tragedy, servitude, and the absence of schooling to teach himself--and save thousands of lives. That's one reason we read great books: to learn about overlooked heroes and their critical legacies.  Here's our post on Jean Lee Latham's great book, and how you can bring it to life in fun, hands-on ways.

A couple of months ago I was out in the garden, on a break from editing our guide page for The Wind in the Willows, when I looked down and saw that one of that book's stars had just moved in to my yard. There were long crackled lumps in flowerbeds barely one spring and one half-summer old, and some of my primroses didn't look quite so prim.  I tugged gently at a drooping cluster of blooms, and the whole plant came up without roots. 

"Moley, you gotta go," I said grimly.