The Noodle, as stated in an earlier post, is studying the First Fleet this term at school. They are taking a social history approach, and researching conditions that children lived in in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Approximately.
One of the ways in which they are doing this is by watching excerpts from Oliver! The Noodle has been quite harrowed by the terribleness of childhood in Oliver! Despite all the singing. They have also been read a bit of one of my all-time favourite books, Midnight is a Place by Joan Aiken. The husband has now acquired a copy and the Noodle has dived on in. I reckon other books on the reading list for him on the home front are going to be Harding's Luck and The House of Arden by E Nesbit and A Country Child by Alison Uttley. If he gets that far. I know that they are both about late 19th century and early 20th century childhood, but I don't want him thinking it's all pick pocketing and gruel. Just lots of it.
Finally, I feel like my years dedicated to children's literature are proving useful to another human being.
And hopefully next week I am meeting up with some people who run a books for foster children program here in the ACT to see if I can help them at all. It's probably not a great time, what with the full-time work, part-time study and trying to be a decent parent commitments, but I feel a bit sick of not doing anything that isn't just for me and my immediates. Fingers crossed that there is something I can do to help.
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3 comments:
Teaching kids social history? Wow! How creative.
Fabulous that they're teaching kids social history. And not just because it's an obsession of mine.
Probably best not to tell the Noodle how softened Oliver! is compared to the book.
Yes, I think we can avoid the harsher reality for a year or two.
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