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"My son listed you as his favorite author in his 'school years' journal. Thank you for inspiring him with your talent." Laura, a mother from New York |
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Posts Tagged ‘Chester the Crab’
Reading comix boosts vocabulary
Written on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 [permanent link]Here’s a cute and personal take on the many studies that have shown comix boost the vocabulary and reading comprehension skills of young readers. (You know, like reading just about ANYTHING boosts vocabulary and reading comprehension skills!) This blog on NPR’s website falls apart at the end, as the writer strays from the vocabulary theme and gets into a bunch of obscure comic book themes that, well, OK, I GET, but they aren’t important to his main point.
PS – Interesting to me that he is almost exactly my age. I still remain devoted to Sesame Street and the teaching power of simple and bold ideas. Like comix!
Tags: Bentley Boyd, Chester the Crab, comic books, educational comics, literacy, reluctant readers, vocabulary
Posted in literacy | No Comments »
Battle of Bentonville, NC
Written on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 [permanent link]
My son Truman and I watch Confederates after the battle.
In March 2010 my sons and I did our first overnight Civil War reenactment. The first big battle of this year had gorgeous weather and a good location, so it drew thousands of reenactors from as far away as Maine and Florida, and I got a good feel for some of the history I’ll be drawing soon for the 150th anniversary of the war.
Samuel and Truman and I have camped for years with the Boy Scouts. For the Civil War reenacting, it was fun to be in a campsite with no Coleman stoves — cooking over an open fire the way I did when I was a teenager in Boy Scouts back in the distant 1980s. There were so many campfires that by Saturday night the NC woods were thick with blue smoke — I had to go out onto an open field to clear my eyes. Now THAT’S getting a feel for history!
At Civil War events I portray a freelance cartoonist who draws battlefield scenes for the New York papers and magazines — not too big a stretch for me! The Battle of Bentonville was so big that it had a great diversity of reenactors. I mixed in with many women and children in period clothing, and near the sutlers row was a mobile blacksmith! I was fascinated to see him work out of this cart. That must have been a vital skill to bring along with an army, which would have needed frequent repairs to equipment.
The Battle of Bentonville lasted three days in March 1865, just a few weeks before Lee’s surrender to Grant in Virginia. Bentonville was the Confederate attempt to stop Gen. William T. Sherman from getting to Grant to help surround Lee — and the Confederates succeeded, but by the end of the three days Sherman still had about 90,000 men on the field and the Confederates had only about 20,000. Everyone knew the end of the war was near. Sherman was criticized for not attacking harder on the third day of fighting, to completely smash the army opposing him, but Sherman didn’t want further bloodshed.
The Civil War tactic of lining men up shoulder-to-shoulder and blasting away from just a few hundred feet was butchery. The reenactment gave me a good feel for that — and it’s hard for me to watch it even when the men are shooting just gunpowder without projectiles.
Tags: Bentley Boyd, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, Civil War, graphic novel, history
Posted in Author's Purpose, Civil War, Historical Travel | No Comments »
Spiders and Crabs!
Written on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 [permanent link]
Usually I am the Weirdest Thing of The Day when I visit a school — but that was not the case this week at Boonsboro Elementary on the west side of Lynchburg, VA!!!
When I swept in to the office of Boonsboro for a presentation of my “Author’s Silly Purpose” talk, there was a mom steering a Mexican red-kneed tarantula around the shoulders of her son’s first grade teacher!!! Of course I wanted my turn with this lovely female named “Cruella . . . ”
I actually had to make my silly faces for the photos in complete silence because the beautiful Cruella would jump at any sudden motion or sound. I laughed once while she climbed on me, and she didn’t like that boisterousness! She was really lovely — calm and quiet and slow-moving (despite the office folks’ jokes about her going for my jugular vein).
Cruella’s knees weren’t red, as her name implies; they were a peachy kind of orange. Her kind are among the most popular tarantulas available in the pet trade, due to their impressive size, coloring, and peacefulness. Wikipedia tells me they are a slower growing species; it is not uncommon to have females live 25 years or more. (The mom had one plastic container for Cruella and another one full of crickets for her to eat.)
After my fun with the tarantula, it was back to work. I spoke to a cafeteria full of third-, fourth- and fifth-graders at Boonsboro. They liked the crab hat.
One fellow liked the crab hat so much that after the assembly ended he ran to his classroom, grabbed this crab hat and came back to show me!!! I’m glad he was brave and silly enough to share a photo and a fist bump with me — that’s the kind of inspiration I hope to leave at each school I visit.
Tags: Author's Purpose, Bentley Boyd, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, elementary, Lynchburg, tarantula, Virginia
Posted in Author's Purpose | No Comments »
