New Clothes?

Mmmm, I really wish I could have this t-shirt. It's from Polarn O. Pyret, a kids clothing shop.

Rising Tide!

Yes! Rising Tide now has a blog!

This is the school I work at, a democratic Sudbury-model school for kids ages 5-18. Yay!

Making Things

I recently picked up two books by Steven Caney at the Library's book sale. Play Book and Toy Book. They're both really amazing, with tons of fun activities and toys for kids do do and make on their own. I really like the recipe for "curds and whey" and the ideas for building toys, like using paper plates to build geodesic domes. 

I also have another book like this, called Things to Do on a Rainy Day. My favorite part of this one are the illustrations in the book itself, which are a unique combination of photos and drawings. I was looking through a book at school yesterday published by Better Homes and Gardens (I think), called Things to Make for Children. It had some great dollhouse and fort plans in it. I love the idea of making all your own toys, or making toys for your children. I don't think I'll be able to go without buying them playmobil though, if only because I want to play with it. No, I'm sure my kids will want plenty of ugly plastic cheap toys, but maybe they'll like some handmade ones too...

Small #11

Small magazine's autumn 2009 issue came out a few days ago. This kids-design web-mag comes out four times a year, and started in Spring 2007. This is their 11th issue already! Some of my favorite spreads are their fashion shoots. There are also great interviews with people doing things in the world of kids design. This issue included an interview with Kristin Brenneman Eno, the founder behind Little Creatures, a film production group that makes films of children's imaginative play, turning it into a story-line. It sounds really interesting, but I get the feeling Eno guides the kids' play more than she would care to admit.

One of my favorite features was on Ana Serrano and her Cartonlandia project. This city was built entirely of cardboard, taking it's inspiration from the slums and favelas of Brazil and other places. There are even little cardboard people!

Each issue small asks an illustrator or artist they feature to contribute a black-and-white coloring book illustration for their small draw project. The illustrations from the first 10 issues of the mag have been collected and printed in a coloring book that small sells on Etsy. You can also download the individual illustrations for free from small. This fall's drawing is by Isabelle Arsenault:

Cool Stuff

I found kidsmodern, an online shop with great stuff designed for kids. Here are some of my favorites:
(Clockwise from top left.)

1. Gloggomobil by Naef Spiele
2. Satchel by Kundschafter
3. Ndebele by Vittorio Locatelli
4. Cap by Babü

Welcome to Earth

I was looking though my copy of Free To Be... You and Me today. It’s a great book published in 1974, filled with poems stories, pictures, and songs. They all have messages about challenging stereotypes and not being sexist, racist, mean, etc. It was meant as a “new kind of children's book”, and though it may sound dumb, it’s actually quite good (at least in my opinion). At the back of the book, there’s an afterword written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I’m sure I’ve seen it before, but this time it caught my eye and I took the time to read it. I’m disappointed that we’ll never get to read Welcome to Earth.

“I’ve often thought there ought to be a manual to hand to little kids, telling them what kind of planet they’re on, why they don’t fall off it, how much time they’ve probably got here, how to avoid poison ivy, and so on. I tried to write one once. It was called Welcome to Earth. But I got stuck on explaining why we don’t fall off the planet. Gravity is just a word. It doesn’t explain anything. If I could get past gravity, I’d tell them how we reproduce, how long we’ve boon here, apparently, and a little bit about evolution. And one thing I would really like to tell them about is cultural relativity. I didn’t learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn’t a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It’s also a source of hope. It means we don’t have to continue this way if we don’t like it.”

Raised In Captivity

I’ve been reading a book by Lucia Hodgson, Raised In Captivity: Why Does America Fail Its Children? I have to return the book to the library tomorrow, and I hadn’t gotten a chance to finish it, so I skimmed through the last of the chapters today. I picked it off the shelf in the library around a month ago, and i’ve been pleasantly surprised by her arguments and viewpoints. I assumed it was going to be one more book railing on how we need to protect our children from violence and TV, but she has decidedly more of a radical tinge:

“I am not suggesting that children should be allowed to ignore the laws that make civilization possible. But I am arguing that children have the same right to self-determination as adults: the same right, for example, to pursue the religion or sexual orientation of their choice. I am arguing that we should raise children to be what they want to be, not what we want them to be, and, therefore, the goal of ideal child rearing should be to provide a safe, nurturing environment with as few restrictions as are necessary to maintain it. I am arguing that children deserve safety and protection whether their behavior pleases the adults around them or not. They deserve to be protected and empowered.”

For much of the book, Hodgson describes how Americans believe that they care about their children, but through examples shows that in fact most parents are acting on their own fears and wishes. Most examples are nationally well-known court cases from the early ’90’s, involving child abuse, child custody, murder, and foster care laws. I wish she had given more detail on these cases. Because they were recent at the time of publication, there was an expectation that the reader would already know the details of the cases and people involved.