What Is A Young Adult?

I just recently became aware of the NPR list of Best Young Adult Fiction.  I came across this list because of a small controversy resulting from a book they excluded:  Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.  The controversy isn’t about Ender’s Game specifically, but about why it was excluded balanced against what made the list.

While I’m definitely a fan of Ender’s Game, and the saga this book begins, this post isn’t about arguing why Ender’s Game should or should not be on a list of acceptable YA novels.  Instead, it seems one of two things is happening at NPR:  1) giving NPR the benefit of the doubt, they’ve confused what it seems should be the obvious difference between a young adult and a child, or 2) NPR has an agenda and has excluded Ender’s Game based on either a bias against the book (unrelated to the discussion about age-appropriateness) or the author.  While the latter is possible, the more important issue is about how we as parents decide to put appropriate material in front of our kids: books, movies, etc.

NPR says they excluded Ender’s Game (as well as at least one other book) from the final list because “while Ender himself is young, the book’s violence isn’t appropriate for young readers.”  Even so, they still included other books like Lord of the Flies and Dune on the final list, both of which contain stunning depictions of violence.  This exposes two problems.  NPR acknowledges the first: “no reader’s poll will ever be truly objective.”  If for no other reason, a panel of judges can’t and won’t ever apply a rigid standard to a body of diverse literary works, each of which is unique.  The best we’ll ever get is an organized mess.  The second problem revolves around what they asked for: recommendations for a list of the Best Young Adult Fiction.

When I see “young adult” I take the words at face value and acknowledge the phrase very obviously includes the word adult.  While 13 seems to be a generally agreed upon age for differentiating child from young adult, there isn’t a clear line.  Why? To state the obvious again: like every adult in the world, every child is an individual with a complex set of reasons why they are who they are.  At a specific age, some kids excel at certain things while others don’t.  Some fear things that others don’t.  They each deal with all the aspects of life presented to them differently and this is true for violence.  My problem with what NPR has done trying to compile a YA list of books is that they showed us they don’t have the ability to differentiate between children who aren’t yet young adults, and those who are.

I suggest there’s really only one body, one committee, one panel of judges that can form such a list of movies, literature, songs and other wonderful manifestations of art: each child’s parents.  For each child, the panel of judges is as large as the parents responsible for that little person.  (NPR: the number tends to be one or two, unless you include extended family.)  Mom and Dad, are you familiar with what your kids are reading?  Have you read the material yourself?  Hopefully, to the best of your ability, the answer is “yes” to both questions.  No one knows your child better than you do, or no one should.  Other parents, friends, teachers: they’re all an incredible part of the cultural cloud that we and our kids operate in and draw support from, but your child is your child, not theirs.  With all due respect to those who advocate the position that “it takes a village” what that village contributes is and should always be limited.  My wife and I had our son.  He is the human product of our love for each other.  Sorry village, but you weren’t there; the door was locked and the blinds were drawn, on purpose.  And now our son first and foremost is our responsibility to raise.  Village, and NPR, you are the supporting cast.

Are lists like the one NPR created valuable?  They sure are, but often, they end up being only interesting.  Regardless of who creates a list like this, I hope parents don’t use it as a suitable substitute for exercising their own judgment.  I remember several of the books on the NPR list.  There are many I’ve never read and some I’ve never heard of.  In the end, my wife and I will focus our son on the books we know are proven based on our own reading, then on the recommendations of people we know and trust.  For unknown books, we’ll probably read them first, at least until we know our son is old enough to make determinations on his own about the value of what he can take away from any piece of literature.  We’re also aware this is constant work since that list will change constantly, with his age and experience.

So what is a young adult?  Well, I suspect it’s similar to art: I can’t give you a rigid answer but you’ll know it when you see it.  NPR, I think you bit off more than you could ever chew and I’m not sure your list really matters.  It’s too long and you can’t lock down what you meant when you said “young adult.”  I know my own son though and will continuously put good books in his hands as a child, into his young adult years once he’s there, and even when he’s indisputably an adult.  And yes, he’ll definitely read Ender’s Game when he’s old enough, probably when he’s a “young adult.”

This parenting stuff is hard, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world!

You can find my review of the original four Ender's Saga books (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind) under my profile on Goodreads.  

It’s great to be a dad!

Here are links to the original article and NPR posts that caught my attention:

1. http://www.enderwiggin.net/2012/07/24/npr-calls-enders-game-too-violent-young-readers/
2. http://www.npr.org/2012/07/24/157072526/best-ever-teen-novels-vote-for-your-favorites
3. http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/07/24/157311055/best-ya-fiction-poll-you-asked-we-answer
4. http://www.npr.org/2012/07/24/157111862/young-adult-fiction-finalists

The Great Ice Cube Incident

Just last week my son put an ice cube down the back of my pants.  He worked incredibly hard to ensure he could sneak up on me and had my wife help him by distracting me during the prank.  It was awesome!

I love my son’s sense of humor even though right now it isn’t much different than any other five year old boy.  But this was the first time I can remember that he stepped away from funny sounding words and bathroom humor and crafted a plan to actually do something he decided was funny.  What made it even cooler was that he’s never seen Stephanie or I put ice down anyone’s pants.  He either heard other kids talking about this at school, saw it on TV, or he connected the dots himself and thought it would be funny to put something cold where it doesn’t usually belong.  After asking him about it, it seems it’s the latter, and that makes me happy.

While I was busy, he went over to the freezer and grabbed a cube...

Then he walked up behind me with all the boldness of a veteran ice cuber...

And committed the act.

With a 43 year difference in our ages, I hope I never squelch his developing sense of humor and continue to enjoy watching my son’s young and strong mind figure out what’s funny to him, and what he hopes is funny to others around him.  I’m sure there’ll be goofs and miscalculations along the way, but I think they’ll be worth it based on the great ice cube incident.  I'm so proud of my little man.  Oh, did I mention my wife was involved in this?  It's okay; I’m all smiles!

It’s great to be a dad!

Hiking & Fitness

Recently a friend of ours and I took our sons on a hike.  Paul and I have hiked before, but most of those “adventures” involved fairly short distances, or longer trips with the support of a jogging stroller in case he got tired.  This was his first real hike that included climbing in some nearby hills.  With water and snacks loaded in my backpack, we set off to Red Rock Canyon to hike the Lost Creek Trail.

I may not be the model of fitness but as I tell my son, I do my best to stay healthy so I can play with him and earn the milk money.  I also want him to grow up seeing fitness as an integrated part of life: not overkill, not a fad or trend, just a regular part of living.  I’ve been a hiker and jogger most of my adult life and used to take Paul with me in a jogging stroller.  That continued until he grew bored with it.  

I think the day will come soon when he might be interested in jogging, but for now, when the weather permits, we’ll hike.  Some of the hikes we’ve already taken are “adventures” following local trails through public parks.  This hike was through an unimproved area: uneven and dissimilar surfaces, hills, bugs, sticks, cacti, etc.  Every turn presented something visually and physically new.  We even found a stream shrouded within an area with some reasonably substantial brush.  He loved it!

As a father I can only hope that my son grows up willing to exercise himself in a manner that links a genuine desire for a lifestyle of physical fitness to a love of exploring and enjoying the outdoors.

It’s great to be a dad!

The Circus!

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus came to town and last weekend we took Paul to experience his first real circus.  He loved it, and honestly I did too.

I can’t say where my childhood memories of the circus come from.  I can’t remember if my parents ever took me to one, but I think they did.  If not an actual circus, they must have taken me to a carnival or something similar.  Regardless, what I remembered wasn’t pleasant.  I didn’t like it at all: the sights, the smells, everything about it, and I was fairly reluctant to take my son to “enjoy” the same thing.

This was different: it was very well done and it was fun!  The theme was dragons, which added a little something unique to the usual things found at the circus.  The usuals were there though, acrobats, lions and tigers (but no bears), elephants, trick dogs and cats, many motorcycles driving around inside a small, spherical steel cage, but everything had the mystery of dragons running through it, drawing from various cultures from around the globe.  Very cool.

Before the show the actors/athletes were on the floor, rings assembled, rehearsing various aspects of the main performance and we were allowed onto to floor to see them up close, meet the actors, and even have them sign our program.  This was a nice touch.  Paul even ended up getting picked to participate in one of the rings!

We made our way to our seats, the show began and everything about it was fantastic.  Multiple acts, multiple rings, and a build up to the emergence of a very well done, full sized dragon at the end.  My only criticism is over the length of the show.  Even with an intermission, it was long.  The performance began at 11:30 a.m. and didn’t end until almost 2:00 p.m.  Paul started getting fidgety about the time time intermission came, and even with the break, he was a little restless for the rest of the show.  That said, we got what we paid for and didn’t feel short changed at all.  There is no way anyone can see this show and complain about the quality or quantity of the experience.

Would I go again?  Absolutely yes, and so would my son.  Well done, Ringling Brothers!

It’s great to be a dad!

Some Favorite iOS Apps for Kids

I haven’t conducted a survey or assessment of the significant mass of iOS apps out there for our kids, but there are a few that have passed muster and find a home on my iOS devices: most on my iPad and a few on my iPhone.  I’ll talk about them and tell you why I’ve liked them.  More importantly, these are the ones that are not just “parent approved” but also approved by my son.  I lump all of these into one of two categories:  educational and games.  In several cases, the games also have some developmental or educational value.  Here we go:

Educational:

abc PocketPhonics + First Words (by Apps in My Pocket).  This is a great little app that teaches letter recognition, writing and sounds.  It also progresses toward reading, writing and speaking first words.  Kids learn by seeing and hearing, then the app guides them through writing the same letters they see and hear.

Osmos for iPad (by Hemisphere Games).  Technically a game.  If your child likes this, they’ll also learn a little physics as they play.  The game is visually stunning and the music is soothing.

The Elements (by Element Collection).  This is a high-end periodic table of the elements.  Your kids will love its interactive nature and the superior photos that accompany each element.  Everything else will be over their heads, but I’m pretty sure they’ll fall in love with with the table and set the stage for the future when they actually learn about the elements.

Star Walk for iPad (by Vito Technology)  An interactive astronomy guide.  This app is amazing.  Making use of your mobile device’s location awareness and accelerometer, you simply point the device at the sky and it shows you in real time what you’re looking at.  It also shows you stellar objects you can’t see with the naked eye.  The database includes stars, planets, constellations, and many of the satellites in Earth’s orbit, to include the International Space Station.  You can even see what’s below the horizon so you know what’s coming into view soon.  Want to know more?  Just touch the object you’re interested in and additional information appears.  My son loves this app and we spend quite a bit of time with it when we’re outside at night.

Super Why! (by PBS Kids)

Games:

Gears (by Crescent Moon Games).  Use your finger to guide a ball through a series levels of spinning gears.  Fun to look at and challenging enough to hold attention.

Star Wars Pit Droids (by LucasArts).  I downloaded this because my son wanted “a Star Wars game.”  Frankly it looked too hard for a five year old, but I grabbed it anyway.  Based on the pit droids from Star Wars: Episode 1, the object is to place directional guides to direct the droids around obstacles and into a hatch.  The levels run from a single stream of droids and a single destination up through multiple streams of different colored droids needing to negotiate around obstacles and each other to their own similarly colored hatches.  While he struggles with several of the levels, I was surprised how quickly he learned how to win.

Angry Birds (by Chillingo).  There are four versions of this game out there; get them all.  They’re addictive and will also teach your child a little about physics when it comes to aiming the various birds.  They’ll also learn how different birds have different effects depending on what they strike.  Be ready to regularly lose control of your mobile device.

Cut the Rope (by Chillingo).  A “little cutie guy” as my son says, and a piece of candy.  It’s simple:  cut the rope suspending a piece of candy so that it drops into the cutie guy’s mouth.  Throw in some bubbles and a few spiders to frustrate your good intent and you have hours of fun. 

Flight Control (by Firemint Pty).  Levels range from simple to complex.  The goal is to land a variety of aircraft on their appropriate runways or helipads.  As levels progress, the sky gets pretty full.  Different aircraft fly at different speeds.  Direct their flight paths with your finger and don’t let them collide.  Simple, right?

Labyrinth 2 (by Illusion Labs).  Another game with a simple underlying concept:  Move a little metal ball through a maze to a target and avoid falling in holes, and the unwanted effects of fans and magnets along the way.  Add in buttons you need to trigger to open pathways, and things get challenging quickly.  Played on an iPad, your child holds it flat like a table and tilts it to roll the ball.  Great for hand-eye coordination!

Tilt to Live (by One Man Left).  Speaking of games that require tilting to maneuver, this simple game with simple graphics has you maneuvering a ship shaped like a pointer.  Objects come in from the sides and your child will have to move around to keep from letting them touch your ship.  As time and levels progress, it gets harder.  Another great game that entertains and teaches hand-eye coordination.

Feed Me Oil (by Chillingo).  In this one, oil comes out of a spigot and needs to end up in a reservoir.  The player has to place spinning paddle wheels in the right places to make it happen without spilling too much along the way.

Plants vs. Zombies (by PopCap).  Teaches a little person a little strategy.  Cartoon zombies try to make it across the screen to the player’s house.  A variety of plant obstacles are available for placement along the paths to the house to frustrate and eliminate the zombies.  As levels advance, the player ends up not only with a variety of plants but also a variety of zombies, including dancing zombies!

Tiny Wings (by Andreas Illiger).  Harder than it looks: a tiny bird with tiny wings moves across hilly terrain, picking up flowers and suns along the way.  Meanwhile the sun is setting and the game ends once the sun goes below the horizon.  The goal is to pick up enough flowers and suns to speed the bird along.  But there’s more!  The player has to use the hills to launch our little bird friend into the air.  This is done by touching the screen at the right time.  Touching the screen pulls the bird down and needs to be timed with the downward slopes on the hills, then released to let the bird race up the hills and fly.  An awesome hand-eye coordination game!

Cannon Cat (by Loqheart).  A cat saving birds trapped in little bubbles.  That’s right, saving, not eating!  The player launches the cat from cannon to cannon to fly across the trapped birds.  When timed right, the bubbles burst and the birds are free.  To show their thanks they usually rally around the cat when he sits in a cannon.  Sometimes the cannons move and sometimes they change where they’re pointed.  The player has to pay attention and time when to launch the cat.  Each level is finite and ends with the cat soaring through a portal.  Feedback is gentle if all the birds aren’t freed and the player gets another chance to try again.  When there’s success, the next level is available (similar to Angry Birds).

Give some (or all of these) a try and if you’ve found other educational or game apps for your young one, feel free to post them here in the comments.

It’s great to be a dad!

Movie Review: John Carter of Mars

I recently saw John Carter of Mars and I'm glad I didn't listen to the critical reviews.  It's much better than I would have thought if I only based on those write-ups.  Here's my rundown including the pros and cons for the movie: 

The Good and a Little Bad:

At 132 minutes, the movie is a little long and compared to most action/adventure & SciFi, the pacing is slow.  I'm OK with that though, given the source material.  They did a very good job of setting the story up for anyone who hasn't read the first book ("A Princess of Mars"), or the entire John Carter series.  (Interestingly, it's the final book in the 11 volume set that's titled "John Carter of Mars".)  I asked my wife when we were on our way home what she would have cut out of the movie if she had to make it a 90-110 minutes.  She said she really couldn't think of what to cut out.  I can't either.

We saw it in glorious 2D (yep, skipped out on the extra cost for 3D) and the effects were fantastic.  The viewer definitely gets what the studio paid for in terms of quality CGI.  I can only assume the 3D version of the film is equally good for those who are 3D fans. 

Taylor Kitsch did fine as John Carter.  Seems most of the negative reviews about him are unwarranted.  I'm not familiar with all the baggage that many reviewers seem to attribute to him and suspect it clouded their view.  I don't really know who the guy is and thought he was believable (and for me, unknown) enough not to distract from the story.  I went in cautiously about whether or not Lynn Collins could be Dejah Thoris.  She did great.  Again, completely believable.  (Honestly, based on her description as written by ERB, there isn't an actress alive who could probably play her based on the required beauty.  Lynn rocked the part.)

The movie had the Disney touch in that there were little glimpses of humor sprinkled throughout and violence was very rarely graphic.  The battle scenes were a blast and not over the top.  Most violent scenes happened off camera but in a manner that you knew exactly what was happening.  The most graphic scene was when John Carter defeats a second Great White Ape in an arena.  I won't spoil the scene though by saying what happens.

The ships were cool and made me want to see more and know more about how they work.

We rolled the dice since the babysitter fell through and took our son.  Normally we don't let him see things that are PG or PG-13 unless we've seen them first.  No surprise: he was bored with parts of the movie, loved the battle scenes and the scenes when John Carter jumps around.  On the way out he told me there were a few scary parts, but he was never scared, and he was bouncing around like a boy who just saw a man who could leap like a superhero.  He loved the calot (the "dog") in the movie.  My dog is now paying the price as my son won't stop trying to get her to follow him around, lick him, etc.  And best of all, driving home he told my wife and I, "I want to live on Mars so I can marry Dejah Thoris."  (That's my boy!)

The Ugly:

So what went wrong?  Several things that contributed to the John Carter the box office flop.  First, Disney completely messed this up and is now paying the price (literally).  All the advertisements, with the exception of a few that came late in the game, make this movie look more like a science fiction victorian drama rather than an action/adventure.  From what I saw, it seemed once they began highlighting the movie as an action/adventure story, chatter seemed to move a bit toward the positive, but it seemed to be too late.  Oddly, very late in the game, Disney decided to release the first 10 minutes of the movie in an apparent attempt to generate interest.  Regardless of why they actually did it, it looked desperate, and it made things worse.  The first 10 minutes of the movie reinforce the perception that the movie was a victorian drama first, and only had elements of action or adventure woven into the story.  I think Disney corporately didn’t appreciate the story, and their marketing department had no idea how to present it to the paying public.

For all the reasons many of us like Disney, they were the wrong studio to make this movie.  The original story is violent, depicting a world at war.  Probably because of the time is was written, I think fits in the young adult bucket by today’s standards.  That said, Burroughs left the most graphic violence to the reader’s imagination, as well as the most passionate of love scenes.  But the story is very violent, and it’s fairly dark, making the heroic and passionate scenes seem so much brighter and hopeful.

My last thought about what went wrong has to do with social commentary.  One thing that always seems to be present in great science fiction stories is commentary about things in society that aren’t being openly discussed.  Within the space opera slice of the genre, just consider the amazingly strong statements made through the original Star Trek series and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.  The collective John Carter story captured in the Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs is replete with commentary about lots tough issues: honor, where to place loyalty, patriotism and identity, and perhaps most significantly: race and racial relations.  For the most part, all this was absent or only hinted at.  Not to be overly critical though, there’s only so much depth a studio can establish in a single film, but this element was key to what Burroughs did as he told John Carter’s story.

RECOMMENDATION:  I definitely recommend this movie to SciFi fans.  If you have the spare cash, it's a great flick to see on a theater-sized screen, but not a movie I'd put in the "must see in a theater" category.  Do the 2D or 3D thing based on personal preference.  Just keep in mind, if you're not an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan, you probably won't like the movie.  If you're not familiar with the original story but are intrigued by what you’ve seen and heard, understand that you're walking into a reasonably well done 2012 movie version of a story written in 1917.  Still gun-shy about seeing it in a theater?   Don’t worry about it and wait to rent it when it comes to DVD and BlueRay.

As for the original series of books, they’re collectively in my top five and helped establish and shape my love for the science fiction genre.  I have the whole set, published by Del Rey and each is somewhere between 150-250 pages.  They're quick and entertaining reads.  Even if the movie isn't for you, the paperbacks are inexpensive.  Grab 'em and  enjoy an amazing story and a piece of classic SciFi! 

It’s great to be a dad!

Movie Review: Act of Valor

A week ago my wife and I went to see the movie Act of Valor.

“An unprecedented blend of real-life heroism and original filmmaking, Act of Valor stars a group of active-duty U.S. Navy SEALs in a film like no other in Hollywood’s history.  A fictionalized account of real life Navy SEAL operations, Act of Valor features a gripping story that takes audiences on an adrenaline-fueled, edge-of-their-seat journey.” (From the official website.)

Enthusiasts outside the military hoping to see secret tactics revealed by the film will be disappointed.  The film reinforces professional and competent tactics many have already seen, or imagined, only this time with the support of real SEALs themselves rather than actors.  Refreshingly, in Act of Valor we get to see real warriors doing their jobs in a realistic way, without falling victim to an overblown, uninformed and overactive Hollywood imagination.  Even so, it’s still an action story that’s well put together.  Plot holes?  Sure.  Accelerated timelines?  Yes.  But what you end up seeing is a story rooted in the real-world, accelerated to allow us to experience it in a short 110 minutes.

So it’s clear up front: I liked the movie.  While not a documentary, the movie unfolds without a political bias or agenda.  It’s about SEALs doing the work they do, regardless of who sits in the Commander in Chief’s seat.  This is refreshing.  As a military officer I serve at the pleasure of the President and am bound by my oath to follow his lawful orders, regardless of political party.  Interestingly, the oath our U.S. military professionals take is an oath swearing to support and defend the Constitution, not any specific personality or political party.  This is quietly communicated well.

Act of Valor is rated R for strong language and violence.  While not excessively graphic, the rating is definitely warranted.  If my son was older, I would have taken him back to see it.  It’s definitely a movie I’ll add to my library at home due to the positive messages of honor, sacrifice and manhood it communicates.  We’ll watch it together when the day comes.  Here are the themes that resonated with me and I intend to reinforce with my son:

• Service before self and serving something bigger than yourself
• Sacrifice
• Strength and humility vs. arrogance
• Family: actual (e.g. husbands, wives, kids) and extended (in this case, military)
• Living bravely and dealing with fear

The movie uses a story to honor our troops.  Will it serve as a recruiting device?  Sure, but it’s clear this isn’t the primary reason the movie was made.  What the film does well is cause the audience to identify with real warriors, individuals who we get to know and get to watch do things that are difficult and demanding.  These aren’t just a few military men and their families we read or hear about in the news.  The impact is visceral.

Finally, before I saw the film several friends told me when they went to see it, the audience applauded at the end.  I know why.  Interestingly, when my wife and I saw it, the response was dramatically different: absolute silence.  It verged on reverence and was almost overwhelming.  The movie ended and people quietly and respectfully stood and left the theater.  I was stunned in the best of ways.

Visit the official site for more info (http://actofvalor.com/official/) or better yet, go see the film.  I think you’ll enjoy it, and if you have older kids, take them too.

It’s great to be a dad!