<p>A bit of poetry I think of every fall. My mother loved this one (I bet she had to memorize it in school):</p>
<p>The goldenrod is yellow,
The corn is turning brown,
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.</p>
<p>From “September” by Helen Hunt Jackson.</p>
<p>Thanks mommusic. Equally applicable to Oct. here!</p>
<p>Has anyone read RAMONA by Helen Hunt Jackson? It was a favorite of mine when I was a teenager, but I could not get either kid to read it, although I purchased shiny, new paperback.</p>
<p>It is a very early discussion of racial tolerance and a wonderful love story for us all perennial teen-aged girls.</p>
<p>When book appears (later this month) I will post text of my poem.</p>
<p>mythmom—LOL “although I purchased shiny, new paperback”…</p>
<p>Both Ds were voracious (sp?) readers, which game through the genes—we’re a reading family. I have a ceramic plaque that says, “A house without books is like a room without windows.” My husband and I have kept lots of our favorites over the years…I tried to get my kids to read some of the ones that I treasured the most in middle school and high school (yep, still had some of them), and when they saw the yellowed pages, I got "THE LOOK (although they thought it was really cool to see my maiden name written on the inside over). They finally got over that, and on any given vacation, you can find our family stopping at a used book store (or at the book exchange at the seaside resort!!). I guess there IS a difference between “used” and “antique”!!!</p>
<p>Yearning</p>
<p>there had to be a snowy place,
that works its vast, entire face
into dawn and daylight.</p>
<p>A place
where thoughts are lost
as trees against the treeline. </p>
<p>-Kolbein Falkeid
(Norwegian, 1933- )</p>
<p>Well, I have to accept the excuse that book dust makes her allergic (my son’s excuse is "I don’t I have time, I have to practice the violin.) D is a voracious reader, but she haunts new book stores. She has work study job, but babysits as well (easy, Barnard has babysitting service) just to support her book habit.</p>
<p>Still, I can’t get her to read most of my favorites, at least not the ones not in the “canon” (American Studies Major.)</p>
<p>I have all my books going back to 17 and some much older than that and some from my mother’s girlhood: Little Women, Bobbsey Twins, Honeybunch.</p>
<p>Both kids purchased a complete set of hard cover Harry Potter to pass on to their children. I wonder if they’ll be too dusty and yellow? LOL.</p>
<p>ADad: That’s very lovely. Thanks.</p>
<p>I think we all need berets.</p>
<p>ADad…loved that one. In fact, I could vividly remember being in that place–one of those moments frozen in time on a long-ago cross-country skiing outing-- Thanks!</p>
<p>SBmom—as long as we don’t have to smoke French (or any other) cigarettes, too. I suppose we have to start wearing all black on the poetry nights (and days) here in SA…</p>
<p>Youngest son had to learn any Robert Frost poem by heart. He chose “Mending Wall,” and remembers it a year later–we were all out walking on paths in the woods and the kids spontaneously started reciting “The Road Not Taken,” then he did Mending Wall. Nice.</p>
<p>mythmom–Ramona was one of my favorites growing up, and it was my mother who introduced me to it. Re-reading it, I discovered it might be a too little sentimental and a product of its time for my teens, but I still loved it.</p>
<p>I still have Five Little Peppers and my original Little Women and Little Men, but only my daughter would read them. The boys…eh. </p>
<p>When I was really young I read all my aunt’s Bobbsey Twins and Campfire Girls books. They were from the early 30s!</p>
<p>You have to keep me and my kids away from used bookstores. We are out of shelf space.</p>
<p>OOoo! This is so much fun! I love reading poetry and I would love to learn more about it. If I start a Poetry Corner thread–will you all post into it?</p>
<p>Great idea, cheers!</p>
<p>I was the only one who read my Aunt’s turn of the century copies of the Little Colonel books. (I think they must have belonged to her Mom.) <a href=“http://www.littlecolonel.com/Books/[/url]”>http://www.littlecolonel.com/Books/</a> Interesting set of books - I liked the Mary Ware ones best which shared many attributes with Rose in Bloom and Louisa May Alcott’s ideas about doing good in the world.</p>
<p>My older son wrote about the same Wilfred Owen anti-war poem every year in English - “Dulce et Decorum est”.<a href=“http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/warpoems.htm[/url]”>http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/warpoems.htm</a> :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Any thoughts on the casting in my last post? I can’t put it in a poem, sorry.</p>
<p>Sarahsmom–if the Chinese girls were “clearly” not as qualified, why would you give them the lead? </p>
<p>My son was in “The King and I” one summer (as one of the many children.) The director certainly did not cast any of the Asian kids as the King or the Prince just because of their looks. You cast the best actor, singer, or dancer you have for what you need. Stage makeup and costuming takes care of the rest. (And the audience’s suspension of disbelief, in some cases.)</p>
<p>Personal experience would lead me to cast the Chinese girls. It is very painful for Asian kids to see white kids all made up with the Asian eyes. Like seeing someone in blackface. Would you cast Raisin in the Sun with a white girl in blackface?</p>
<p>If you are going to cast a white girl then don’t let her play it as Chinese.</p>
<p>I understand why you made the decision. I am just giving you the feedback you asked for from the experiences I have with my Chinese-American colleagues.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feed back. I cast the most qualified child.I felt that if I cast one of the Asian girls simply because she was Asian, that the rest of the cast would have felt that it was unfair. I didn’t want to create a dynamic that would not otherwise be there.<br>
As to the makeup… My D is white and played “Kim” in Miss Saigon last year. The teacher spoke to the Asian kids in the cast before making a decision about it. The Asian kids said that they were totally fine with it. I’ll have to think about it. I always assumed that they would eye makeup.
I don’t think that I would even attempt Raison with a white cast. Somehow this was not the same to me.</p>
<p>alu–how could the white girl not play Mulan as Chinese? Are you asking the director to change the entire story? I don’t think she could even get license to do that, assuming she wanted to.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s comparable to Raisin in the Sun. I didn’t mean full camo makeup. Just the eyes need to be suggestive. </p>
<p>Similar to Madame Butterfly in the Puccini opera…non-Asian singers play Butterfly all the time. </p>
<p>Re-reading this, I think the difference is musical or opera vs. a play. It is conventional (and the audience is accustomed to this) to use the best singer/dancer, with looks being secondary. Different from a stage play.</p>
<p>The poor teaching of “The Road Not Taken” is one of my few obsessions as a teacher.</p>
<p>Casting of westerners in Asian parts == I think the eye make=up may be an old fashioned approach. I would look at color blind casting, like Kenneth Branagh’s. A newer approach takes no notice of ethnicity at all. Just a thought.</p>
<p>I think if you have an educational goal in the program in which you are casting, that you have even more justification to cast it…either way.</p>
<p>Are you trying to give as many roles as possible to encourage and develop interest in theater? If so, it’s okay if the Chinese girl is NOT the greatest actress, she’ll still benefit from the experience of having a great part. It might not be as good a play, but you’re not on Broadway either.</p>
<p>Same logic: because you’re trying to educate and not break box-office records and score great NYTimes Reviews here, or win awards for authenticity fgrom a dramaturg…then you can also justify giving your best Caucasian actress the lead. </p>
<p>Race-blind casting works well if the story isn’t driven by a race theme. </p>
<p>I ran into this in a strange way in our previous h.s. A black girl was denied a role as a villager in Fiddler on the Roof, because the director thought it wouldn’t look authentic in a European village. We thought, “how pretentious, she’s in a little rural high school, there’s one play each year, and the whole play’s going to suck eggs anyway, why not let the student have the experience of being onstage?” We helped the girl talk it out with the Human Rights Commission, too. The director took so much heat for her decision that in the next play, she made it up to the AA girl by making her the lead in Guys and Dolls. As the salvation army lady, she engaged in the first interracial stage kiss that school district had ever seen. District is in equal thirds: African American, Latino, and Caucasian.</p>
<p>YOu might find that if you cast an Asian girl this time, you’ll increase the participation of Asian students in future auditions, which would be valuable certainly.</p>