You won't see quality book reviews like this in the New York Times!
So this Saturday, I took a little field trip to a book launch party for blogger Mitali Perkins' latest book, Rickshaw Girl. Perkins has written several books for teenage girls, and I toyed with getting one of them for my own reading pleasure, but eventually I decided to buy Rickshaw Girl and see if I couldn't try my luck with it for LG. It's a book aimed at a younger audience: the story of a ten-year-old girl in contemporary rural Bangladesh who is desperate to find some way to help her father make money, despite traditional prohibitions on women and girls engaging in commercial activity.
OK, clearly the target audience here is NOT meant to be semi-literate, basketball-obsessed five-year-old boys, but after our successes with Laura Ingalls Wilder, I have resolved to expose LG to as wide a range of books as I possibly can while his idea of gender-appropriateness is still somewhat plastic. But. As I've discovered over and over again in the past five years, just because I think that a book would make a good read for him doesn't mean that he'll agree with me.
So. I bought the book as kind of a gamble. The protagonist of Rickshaw Girl is a talented folk artist, and, between the art theme and the striking illustrations by Jamie Hogan, I thought I might just have a chance of hooking LG. But I knew that it's all in the framing. When I got home that afternoon, and LG jumped all over me demanding to know if I'd gotten him something, I shook my head regretfully while I pulled out the book. "No, I just got this," I said. LG asked if it had pictures, nodded briefly when told that it was about a girl who was a good artist, and promptly returned to his basketball game. I wasn't discouraged. I left the book on the couch for awhile, in his line of sight. When the kids went out to run errands with teh Fun Daddy, I read Rickshaw Girl through myself, and found it to be a good, strong story with compelling characters and a light touch that both respects the cultural distance between the reader and the story, and manages to bridge it. Then I placed the book casually on the bookshelf filled with LG-enticing young readers.
Sunday arrived, and with it LG's fever. By mid-day his temperature had gone up to 103 degrees (F), and we were agreed that we needed to get some Tylenol in him. This is an even more impossible task than getting medication in Baby Blue. LG has a debilitating phobia about taking medication. It is completely irrational and has nothing to do with the flavor or delivery device of the medicine in question. He is, quite simply, scared out of his mind at the prospect of taking medication. At one point in the proceedings, I held him to try to calm him; under his pajama shirt I could feel his heart racing like a hunted mouse careening across the floor. We can't reason with that level of anxiety. To make it all that much more, ahem, chahwenging, he also has an exquisitely sensitive gag reflex. When he was finally persuaded to bring the grape liquid Tylenol to his lips, he did not even tip the cup enough to come in contact with the medicine before he gagged, and threw up. All over the couch. Fun for all!
We cleaned up and regrouped, this time far away from any upholstered furniture. As a result of tearful negotiations between LG and Mr. Blue, he was presented with a sippy cup containing one dose of children's Tylenol mixed with water. He sat there weeping, bringing the sippy cup to his lips, gagging slightly, and lowering it again, untouched, for several minutes while we attempted to cheer him into swallowing it.
"LG!" I finally said. "You've got to stop thinking about it and just do it!"
"I can't stop thinking about it," he moaned.
"How about if I read you a book while you're drinking it? Then you won't think about it." He nodded his head shakily. "OK," I said. "What do you want to read? Do you want to read more of Stuart Little" -- we'd gotten about half-way through Stuart Little a couple of weeks ago before abandoning it -- "or do you want to try the new book I got yesterday?"
"The new book," LG said, wiping away his tears. That right there should make you go out and buy the book, right? More appealing than Stuart Little!
So. We sat down at the table, LG with his sippy cup of watery Tylenol, and me with the copy of Rickshaw Girl. I began reading aloud, and he began sipping delicately from the cup, gagging only very slightly each time. (An aside: Let me tell you, I was happy that I had attended the book launching party, because there's no pronunciation guide to the Bangla words used in the text, and it was only by dint of remembering how the author herself had pronounced them that I was able to stumble along. And yes, Mitali, if you're reading this -- I DID pronounce "Bangladesh" with the dental d. Though I think I outright massacred roshogollah...)
Four chapters later, LG had drunk his entire dose of Tylenol, and there was much rejoicing all around. In another six hours, we repeated the procedure again -- LG with his sippy cup of watery Tylenol, me with Rickshaw Girl. You might think that things would go easier the second time around, what with all the self-confidence LG had built up from successfully doing it the first time. Of course, you'd be wrong. There were still tears, and gagging. But five absorbing chapters later, LG had once again drunk his entire dose of Tylenol.
Finally it was bedtime, and time for a last dose of Tylenol. This time we were cocky -- we let LG sit on the couch (on a towel, at least!) with his sippy cup while I read aloud from Rickshaw Girl. We read the tenth, eleventh, and twelvth chapters while LG took the barest sips from the cup. By the time we got to the thirteenth and final chapter, the cup still contained half the Tylenol dose. I reminded LG to keep drinking; he gagged slightly, and I hurriedly went on reading.
Alas! Friends, we finished the book before LG had finished the Tylenol. And as soon as the compelling power of Rickshaw Girl had drawn to a close, LG looked down at his cup, gagged mightily, and threw up again all over the couch.
The final verdict: Rickshaw Girl is a great read both for its target audience (7-10) and for slightly younger children. And if it had only been ten pages longer, I would have done a lot less laundry last night!
OK, clearly the target audience here is NOT meant to be semi-literate, basketball-obsessed five-year-old boys, but after our successes with Laura Ingalls Wilder, I have resolved to expose LG to as wide a range of books as I possibly can while his idea of gender-appropriateness is still somewhat plastic. But. As I've discovered over and over again in the past five years, just because I think that a book would make a good read for him doesn't mean that he'll agree with me.
So. I bought the book as kind of a gamble. The protagonist of Rickshaw Girl is a talented folk artist, and, between the art theme and the striking illustrations by Jamie Hogan, I thought I might just have a chance of hooking LG. But I knew that it's all in the framing. When I got home that afternoon, and LG jumped all over me demanding to know if I'd gotten him something, I shook my head regretfully while I pulled out the book. "No, I just got this," I said. LG asked if it had pictures, nodded briefly when told that it was about a girl who was a good artist, and promptly returned to his basketball game. I wasn't discouraged. I left the book on the couch for awhile, in his line of sight. When the kids went out to run errands with teh Fun Daddy, I read Rickshaw Girl through myself, and found it to be a good, strong story with compelling characters and a light touch that both respects the cultural distance between the reader and the story, and manages to bridge it. Then I placed the book casually on the bookshelf filled with LG-enticing young readers.
Sunday arrived, and with it LG's fever. By mid-day his temperature had gone up to 103 degrees (F), and we were agreed that we needed to get some Tylenol in him. This is an even more impossible task than getting medication in Baby Blue. LG has a debilitating phobia about taking medication. It is completely irrational and has nothing to do with the flavor or delivery device of the medicine in question. He is, quite simply, scared out of his mind at the prospect of taking medication. At one point in the proceedings, I held him to try to calm him; under his pajama shirt I could feel his heart racing like a hunted mouse careening across the floor. We can't reason with that level of anxiety. To make it all that much more, ahem, chahwenging, he also has an exquisitely sensitive gag reflex. When he was finally persuaded to bring the grape liquid Tylenol to his lips, he did not even tip the cup enough to come in contact with the medicine before he gagged, and threw up. All over the couch. Fun for all!
We cleaned up and regrouped, this time far away from any upholstered furniture. As a result of tearful negotiations between LG and Mr. Blue, he was presented with a sippy cup containing one dose of children's Tylenol mixed with water. He sat there weeping, bringing the sippy cup to his lips, gagging slightly, and lowering it again, untouched, for several minutes while we attempted to cheer him into swallowing it.
"LG!" I finally said. "You've got to stop thinking about it and just do it!"
"I can't stop thinking about it," he moaned.
"How about if I read you a book while you're drinking it? Then you won't think about it." He nodded his head shakily. "OK," I said. "What do you want to read? Do you want to read more of Stuart Little" -- we'd gotten about half-way through Stuart Little a couple of weeks ago before abandoning it -- "or do you want to try the new book I got yesterday?"
"The new book," LG said, wiping away his tears. That right there should make you go out and buy the book, right? More appealing than Stuart Little!
So. We sat down at the table, LG with his sippy cup of watery Tylenol, and me with the copy of Rickshaw Girl. I began reading aloud, and he began sipping delicately from the cup, gagging only very slightly each time. (An aside: Let me tell you, I was happy that I had attended the book launching party, because there's no pronunciation guide to the Bangla words used in the text, and it was only by dint of remembering how the author herself had pronounced them that I was able to stumble along. And yes, Mitali, if you're reading this -- I DID pronounce "Bangladesh" with the dental d. Though I think I outright massacred roshogollah...)
Four chapters later, LG had drunk his entire dose of Tylenol, and there was much rejoicing all around. In another six hours, we repeated the procedure again -- LG with his sippy cup of watery Tylenol, me with Rickshaw Girl. You might think that things would go easier the second time around, what with all the self-confidence LG had built up from successfully doing it the first time. Of course, you'd be wrong. There were still tears, and gagging. But five absorbing chapters later, LG had once again drunk his entire dose of Tylenol.
Finally it was bedtime, and time for a last dose of Tylenol. This time we were cocky -- we let LG sit on the couch (on a towel, at least!) with his sippy cup while I read aloud from Rickshaw Girl. We read the tenth, eleventh, and twelvth chapters while LG took the barest sips from the cup. By the time we got to the thirteenth and final chapter, the cup still contained half the Tylenol dose. I reminded LG to keep drinking; he gagged slightly, and I hurriedly went on reading.
Alas! Friends, we finished the book before LG had finished the Tylenol. And as soon as the compelling power of Rickshaw Girl had drawn to a close, LG looked down at his cup, gagged mightily, and threw up again all over the couch.
The final verdict: Rickshaw Girl is a great read both for its target audience (7-10) and for slightly younger children. And if it had only been ten pages longer, I would have done a lot less laundry last night!
Labels: Book reviews, My mad parenting skillz, Ruined by reading
posted by Phantom Scribbler at 10:55 AM 
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