The Paper Dart
An ode to creativity and distraction

What My Kids Are Reading: The Paper Flower Tree

The summer before sixth grade, I was still pretty hopeful that my letter to Hogwarts was coming in the mail. I knew that my older brother probably wasn’t a wizard, or he would’ve been able to “magic” himself out of all the trouble he got into. My little brother might have been a wizard, but only because he had glasses, and a neighborhood kid had once told him he looked like Harry Potter. If anyone in the family really deserved to be a witch—really had the potential for magic—it was me.

When the first day of sixth grade arrived and I had not, in fact, received a visit from Hagrid, or an owl from Dumbledore, I wouldn’t say I was crushed. In my heart of hearts, I knew that none of it was real. In fact, at that point in time, I had already met J.K. Rowling herself (and yes, I am no longer the fan of hers I once was), and I knew for a fact that she was a mere mortal like myself. I knew that she had created the fantasy land where lonely, forgotten children were suddenly transported into a world of adventure, danger, and heroism, out of the depths of her very human, albeit extraordinary, imagination, and that I was going to have to continue to muddle through muggle school for another 7 years.

Yet in spite of this fact, I had still held on to a shred of hope—even up to that last look back at our mailbox as I hopped in the car. I refused to stop believing because even when we know that something is fake, or a fantasy, or a figment of your own, or someone else’s imagination, the idea of it can still liven up our lives a little bit, and infuse whimsy, wonder and magic into the sometimes mundane business of the everyday.

As I grew up, I didn’t always allow myself to suspend disbelief in this way. By the time I reached high school, I still loved to escape into books, but I also started learning how to mask my sensitivity and insecurity with sarcasm and cynicism. By the time I was an adult, I had practiced myself into a pretty negative outlook on life—always more certain that the worst would happen, than hopeful for the best.

Becoming a parent made me reflect on a lot of things, the most significant of which was my own perspective on the world, and the way I express that to others—both intentionally, and not. When I think of the character traits I want to gift my daughter, cynicism and negativity definitely don’t make list. Instead, I would love to show her that even grown-ups can be happy, hopeful, dreamers, who still believe that their wildest dreams are possible. I would love for my daughter to hold on to her sense of wonder and imagination, and to always see the world as a magical place, even when it tries to prove itself otherwise.  

The Paper Flower Tree by Jacqueline Ayer is a story about a girl named Miss Moon who refuses to see the world through anything other than rose-colored glasses. When a travelling caravan of artists, magicians and musicians comes to town, Miss Moon is enthralled by one old man’s “paper flower tree.” The old man offers to sell her a paper flower, but she can’t afford it, so he ends up gifting her one of the smallest flowers—one with a “seed” (or bead) inside that he tells her she can plant. “Plant it,” he says. “and perhaps it will grow. I make no promises. Perhaps it will grow. Perhaps it will not.”

Miss Moon plants the flower and waits all year for it to grow. Her friends and neighbors tell her she is wasting her time—that she was swindled and lied to. But Miss Moon can’t forget how beautiful the paper flower tree was, and she continues to believe. Eventually, the old man returns with his caravan of travelling entertainers, and Miss Moon confronts him about her tree (or lack thereof).

The old man repeats what he had told her before, and Miss Moon heads off, seemingly undeterred, to enjoy the festivities. In the morning, lo and behold, a paper flower tree has grown in her backyard. When Miss Moon’s neighbors once again attempt to convince her that she’s been tricked, Miss Moon continues to ignore them. “The didn’t think her tree was real. She knew it was. She was as happy as a little girl could be.”

Honestly, this book (written for children, of course) blew my mind. So many of us (myself included) ARE those cynical neighbors. When people share their wildest hopes and dreams, and we find them too wild, or weird, or unrealistic, we cut them down, tell them it’s impossible, and perhaps even laugh and their “ignorance” of the way the world really works.

While I may be “right” in taking such a position, reading this book made me wonder: what’s the point in refusing to believe?

Why dwell on the fact that people sometimes want to trick and manipulate us? Or the reality that life tends to be composed of more moments of suffering than sunshine? Or the truth that magic, most likely isn’t real, and we’ll be stuck adhering to the oh-so limiting laws of nature for the rest of our tragically short lives? NO POINT AT ALL, that’s what.

In this story, Miss Moon refuses to give in to the negativity of those around her, or to stop believing in the possibility of magic. The travelling salesman, no doubt, sees this most enviable quality in her, and the strength of her belief inspires him to play into it—to make it “real” for her.

When my daughter was almost three years old, we saw Santa at the mall. She gleefully sat on his lap, asked for an Elsa doll, and told him that yes, Rudolf was her favorite reindeer. When we left, I held her hand, and asked if she enjoyed meeting Santa.

“Yes,” she said, somewhat matter-of-factly, “but he’s just pretend.”

Needless to say, I was shocked. When I reflected on it later, I remembered that we had visited Disneyland about a month prior to meeting Santa, and had spent the day talking about how the “scarier” characters (like Chewbacca and the Queen of Hearts) were “just pretend,” so her application of that truth to the Santa scenario wasn’t too surprising. But it definitely crushed me a little. I remember not really knowing what to say, and definitely not wanting to lie, so I told her the truth: yes, Santa was pretend.

But I also told her that, sometimes, we like to pretend that pretend things are real, because it makes life a little more fun, and exciting and magical. She nodded, and seemed to understand, and asked if I was going to buy her the Elsa doll for Christmas.

This year, Margot seems to be pretty excited for Santa to come. And, if she had any inkling that the woman who played Elsa at her birthday party wasn’t the real Elsa, she never let on. I’m not sure if she remembers our experience at the mall, or if she’s just becoming less literal in her middle-toddlerhood, but either way, I’m happy about it.

Whether we know in our hearts that the magic is real or not doesn’t really matter. It’s when we allow ourselves to believe—even when it’s crazy, or stupid, or a little bit weird—that we can create a more magical world for ourselves, and start really living again, in the possibility-filled reality so many of us left behind in childhood.

So, in short, keep dreaming, and imagining, and stop worrying about what your neighbors think. You’ll be the one with a paper flower tree in the end.

The Book: Click to Purchase

What My Kids Are Reading: The Moon Keeper

Over the past week or so, I haven’t been feeling my best. I had stopped reading the news, or watching TV, or looking at anything other than books and my real-life friends’ accounts on social media. The internet had begun to feel like a toxic place, and I knew I needed a break in order to protect my heart, and my physical well-being. But, with the election quickly approaching, and social unrest continuing to simmer in my own community, and around the country, I felt like it was time to re-engage.

And guess what? It was worse than I thought it would be. But this time, instead of feeling scared, and sad, and anxious (all of which I had been feeling earlier in the summer), I got mad. Really mad.

I feel like anger, especially in women, is often viewed as a very undesirable emotion. It’s something we all feel, but no one really wants to talk about or acknowledge. It feels messy, and sometimes inappropriate: as if it’s a feeling we should have all outgrown in childhood.

So last week, I didn’t really share with anyone just how angry I was. Or, for that matter, what I was angry about.

But the thing about anger, for me at least, is that it tends to fester when left unexpressed. My husband has the enviable ability to notice his feelings (even those of anger), quietly process them, and then let them go. (Is he human? I’m still not sure.) But for me, the letting go part usually only happens after I allow myself to put words to my feelings.

In the first draft of this post, I laid all of my feelings bare. And then I went back and deleted them.

While I have been mad about a lot of things that are legitimately maddening, worrisome, and hurtful, they are also all things that are in no way under my control. As much as I would like to, I can not change many of the problems we are continuing to experience across the country, and within my own community. But even though I know I can’t control them, I still have trouble letting them go, and I have found myself allowing all of these uncontrollable triggers and the anger they elicit in me take up WAY too much room in my mind, and in my heart. Room that should be filed with love for my children and gratitude that I get to be home with them every day during this wildly uncertain time.

Last weekend, my brother-in-law and his soon-to-be wife came to visit, and left us with a few new children’s books, which I’m sure they realized would be a gift for Margot, but also a gift for me.

One of those books is called “The Moon Keeper” by Zosienka, which is absolutely lovely and conveys a message that is so incredibly timely for me, and possibly for some of you as well.

The book is about a bear (at least, I think he’s a bear?), named Emile, who has been assigned the job of “moon keeper” by the council of night creatures.

He takes his job very seriously, and diligently watches the moon from his perch on a tree branch every night. One night, Emile is alarmed to notice that the moon appears to be shrinking. He calls on many of his friends for advice, but none of them seem to know how to help. Eventually, a bird comes along and listens to Emile’s concerns. In response, the bird flies away, and then back again, and tells Emile, simply, “Things come and go—you’ll see.”

Things come and go. They do. Always. In September of 2020, it feels like “things” are sticking around longer than any of us would like, but, eventually, they will go. Politicians will leave office, and new ones will take their place (likely providing us with a new set of things to be mad about). People will continue to come together against hate and ignorance, and, I truly believe, my faith in humanity, and my neighbors, will be restored. People will hear the stories teachers have to tell this year, and maybe our society will begin to take a long hard look at the ways in which educators are treated and regarded, and the impact that treatment has on the education and moral development of our kids. The pandemic will end, and maybe it will come back again, but it will always ebb and flow. And I think now, finally, I am beginning to understand that my anger will do the same as well.

I am allowed to feel mad, just like I am allowed to feel joyful, or sad, or overwhelmed, or confused. But I can’t let my anger linger, in a state as perpetually full as Emile wants his new moon to be. While I won’t compromise my beliefs, or what I know is right, there are many things I have to let go of. I have to let my feelings wane, while also being prepared for when they resurface again, as they surly will.

So, on this lovely Sunday night during this beautiful season of waning summer and waxing fall, I hope you all take a moment to remember that whatever your struggle is right now, it will eventually, and probably slowly, become less and less. And even though a new problem will inevitably arise, each journey through the cycle helps make us strong enough to weather the next. Sending strength to anyone who needs it, and hugs to all. And, most importantly, happy reading!

The Book: Click To Purchase

What My Kids Are Reading: Home is a Window

When I think of home, I think of summer. I think of humid afternoons in the backyard, and a wild chorus of locusts. I think of thunderstorms over Lake Michigan, and neighborhood kids playing kick-the-can in the alley behind my parent’s house. I think of lazy mornings at the beach, and tennis matches with friends, and driving down Lakeshore at night with the windows down. 

I lived in the same house for my entire childhood. From one to eighteen, I spent every summer catching fireflies on the same porch, trading hellos with the same neighbors, and riding my bike around the same block. I have also held on to a lot of my friends from back home. Some of my friends from high school, were also my friends in elementary school, and even in preschool. Knowing someone for that long makes them family, and even if you don’t talk for months, or even years, you’ll still always really know them.

This summer will be the first summer in my life that I won’t be going back to my parent’s house, and to my hometown. It will be the first summer that I don’t get to check back in with those high school friends, and the first summer that I won’t take an evening walk to the beach with my parents and siblings. 

I know that this isn’t exactly a tragedy, especially considering what so many other people are going through right now, but it feels like an important turning point in my life, and a moment for reflection, on what it really means to be “home.” 

Home is a Window by Stephanie Parsley Ledyard is the story of a little girl who has to say goodbye to her beloved family home, and discover a new one; one that holds a lot of possibility, but even more uncertainty. The book reads like a poem, and implies the journey more than describing it outright. (Which, I think, is a lovely way to introduce young children to a more complex mode of storytelling.) The illustrations are lovely, and allow the reader to really feel the attachment the young girl has to both her old home, and tiny pieces of her new one. 

Every time I read this story, I can’t help replacing all of the details of the girl’s home with details from my own. Her sleepy and stoic dog is, of course, my beloved childhood Springer Spaniel, who was a pillar of comfort for me during so many of my own life transitions. Her dinner table, is the table in my living room, set for Thanksgiving, bursting with food, and occupied by three grandparents who are no longer with us.  The closet the girl hides in is the coat closet in my parent’s hallway, that contained a “secret” door to an even better (albeit somewhat spooky) hiding place. Her first home, the one that “feels the same each day,” is my first home: the one that still feels the same to me, when I return to it every year as an adult. 

When the girl from the story moves, just as I left for college, and then for California, almost everything changes. It’s scary, and it’s exciting, and it’s very very uncertain. But the girl’s family, and her dog, and her brother (who she honestly doesn’t seem that interested in) are still there, and even though the window frames at her new home aren’t the same, the images of love and comfort that they reveal certainly are.

So, as I sit here on the couch in my home in California, while my parents, who drove for THIRTY HOURS to be here with us for a few weeks this summer chase my kids around the living room, I try to remember that I may be looking at this summer through a different window, but what I’m looking at hasn’t really changed that much at all.

Home is a Window & Other Books About Home (Click to Purchase):

Life Doesn’t Frighten Me At All and the Challenges of Teaching in the Covid Age.

Life Doesn’t Frighten Me is a poetic picture book, written by the late, great Maya Angelou, and illustrated by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The poem is childish in that it follows a simple rhyme scheme, and makes references to classroom bullies and Mother Goose, but there are also some pretty serious, grown-up themes embedded in this story, and I have always thought of it as a picture book that is interesting for kids, and informative for adults. 

Throughout the book, the protagonist, presumably a young girl, and maybe even a young Angelou, talks about all the things that don’t frighten her, such as dragons, dogs, and mean boys. Her list is punctuated by explanations of the bold ways in which she fights back against fear, as well as the constant refrain, “Life doesn’t frighten me at all.”

If you’re an English teacher, or even just a regular human being, you probably know that when a person, or a character, repeats something over and over again, it’s usually because they are trying to convince themselves that it is true. I, myself, have been told (by friends, family, therapists, etc.) that we all have the power to manifest our own reality, and become who we want to be, merely by believing that we already are.

I have talked to a lot of people about this topic because I am, and have always been, a pretty high-strung person by nature. As my students would say, I have “no chill.” So, over the past few weeks, as I and millions of families, teachers and students have waited on the decisions of governors and school districts concerning when and how to reopen schools, I have found myself mimicking the strategy put forth by the protagonist of this story. When I start to worry about what the various realities of teaching online, teaching in person, or doing both may look like, I remind myself: 

Try to teach kids from afar 

They’re turning off their avatar

Life doesn’t frighten me at all 

No masks around, don’t seem to care

Virus flying through the air

Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Turns out I’m not a poet, but hopefully you can discern my point: Basically, I’m afraid of all of the options. 

I have spent the last 10 years teaching middle school, and have only recently really found my groove. I have finally figured out how to manage a classroom in a firm, but loving way. How to build up a repertoire of games and activities that allow kids to get out of their seats, run around the room, and also learn something. How to police group projects, and how to allow kids to be creative, but also productive. I have learned how to talk to pre-teens, and let them know that I actually do care, despite what they have been trained to believe. 

I have also created some BOMB curriculum, all of which requires me, and the students, to work together in a coordinated, and well-timed, academic “dance” of sorts. I have learned how to be goofy enough to get kids to pay attention, but not so goofy that they don’t respect me. 

None of these strategies work very well via Zoom. And that, in itself, is pretty depressing.  

But, on the other hand, I am also kind of afraid of Covid-19. While I, myself, am not high-risk, I know an ER doctor who has had to intubate more than one previously-healthy Covid patient in his/her 30s (and I trust this guy, because we have a lot of the same DNA), so it’s not impossible that it the disease could be hard on me, or my family. I also have a ton of co-workers who are high risk, some of whom would be exposed to thousands of students every day should we go back to school in person. I worry about at-risk kids, parents, grandparents, siblings, bus drivers, lunch ladies, custodians, school nurses, etc. I worry about the conflicts that will inevitably arise when kids and/or parents refuse to wear masks on campus, or when teachers have to discipline teens for violating the social distancing rules that have already caused them undeniable stress, and possibly even emotional trauma, over the past several months.   

I think most teachers would agree with me when I say that I would do anything to have a normal, in-person, on-campus school year next year. Except sacrifice the health and safety of my family, and community. 

So, while we wait to find out more, I’ll just be sitting over here, wearing my mask, building up my courage for whatever may come to pass, and reminding myself that “life doesn’t frighten me at all,” even if, in every possible scenario, it really does. 

And lastly, let’s be good neighbors and take care of each other by wearing a mask when we’re out and about. You can find some cute ones at Old Navy, A Little Lady Shop (I love these ones because the ear strap is super comfy), Tuckernuck, and even Jack’s Surfboards. Out of Print also has some bookish face masks coming soon!

The Book (Click to Purchase):

7 Years of Marriage & The House in the Cerulean Sea

This past week, my husband and I celebrated our SEVENTH wedding anniversary. We didn’t do much (its hard to find a babysitter during a pandemic), but it still felt pretty momentous.

Dan and I were the first of our friends to get married. Our wedding was in July of 2013, and we were a mere 25 years old. We got married in Chicago, and my mom was my wedding planner. I can honestly say that it was the best day of my life, largely thanks to my parents, and the college and high-school friends in attendance who hadn’t yet learned the difference between a frat party and a wedding reception.

When we decided to get married, I remember thinking that it was a big step, but also being sure that it was the right one. I knew I had found a really good guy who loved me despite my weirdness (I haven’t always been an “easy” partner, but he never bats an eye). I also knew that there was a lot my then fiance and I didn’t know about how to make a marriage work, the challenges of living thousands of miles from our families, what it means to navigate grown-up careers, and the stress kids would bring into our lives. I knew that we would definitely face some of the hardest times of our lives together, and that we would hopefully grow together in the process.

I also knew that uncertainty is inevitable, and that making no choice, would have been way worse than making what could possibly end up being the wrong one. So we jumped.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune is about a man named Linus who never jumps. He thrives on living comfortably, and refusing to take risks. As a result, he is very, very lonely, but refuses to admit it–even to himself.

Linus works for The Department in Charge of Magical Youth, and is a good employee, as most hard-working people with no semblance of a social life are. As a result of his diligence, impartiality, and lack of confidants, he is chosen by Extremely Upper Management to work a top secret, and very important, assignment.

Linus is sent to an orphanage for magical youth, in order to determine whether the living conditions are “adequate.” When he arrives, he finds himself confronted with some pretty terrifying “children,” but also discovers that his assignment might actually have more to do with the orphanage director, than the children themselves.

Klune is a masterful world-builder, and succeeded in truly transporting me to a very believable Marsyas Island. The characters were strange, but also delightfully witty and relatable. (Any author who can get me to connect with the child of Satan really knows what he’s doing.) I fell in love with the kids right alongside Linus, and really enjoyed how his character development required a little suspension of disbelief, but not as much as I would have thought for such a fantastical book.

But the best part of the book is the love story that lit a roaring fire in Linus’s cavernously empty heart. Going into this book, I knew that it was a queer love story, and I honestly wasn’t sure if I would connect or relate to it as I would a more hetero-normative plot line. But boy, was I wrong.

The most amazing thing about my own marriage is how much it has changed both my husband and myself. Neither of us are the people we were seven years ago, and I could not be more grateful for that fact. My husband has taught me how to have compassion for myself, and helped me overcome the habits that were holding me back. I have taught him how embrace the discomfort of his feelings, and how to clean a toilet.

In the book, Linus learns that there are things in life worth fighting for, and he teaches his partner how important it is, both for yourself, and those who look up to you, to be truly and authentically yourself.

Like our love story, Linus’s is one of struggle, faith, and compromise. Linus spent a good chunk of his life struggling to work up the nerve to to even believe in anything worth reaching for. But once he finally did, it was pretty great.

People often say that “marriage isn’t easy,” and I’m not sure that’s true. When I think of the past seven years, I can think of a lot of things that were hard, but, at the end of the day, if you take those things away, our bond, and the way we feel about each other, is the easiest thing I have. And at the end of The House in the Cerulean Sea, Linus also realizes that life would be a lot easier (and crazier, and sillier, and more fun) if he just let the rest of it go, and allowed himself to fall in love.

The Book (Click to Purchase):

Where to next?