When Charlotte’s web said SOME PIG, Wilbur had tried hard to look like some pig. When Charlotte’s web said TERRIFIC, Wilbur had tried to look terrific. And now that the web said RADIANT, he did everything possible to make himself glow.
                                               from Charlotte’s Web
                                                written by E. B. White
                                          illustrated by Garth Williams
                                                  Harper & Row, 1952

    I spent my childhood and adolescence as a five on a ten-scale. I did not stand out. I was not outstanding. I liked it like that, a little bit invisible. I was a steady B student, except for math, but that’s a different story. I didn’t enter contests, so I didn’t win any prizes, and that was okay. It was intentional.
    Being “the best” was not on my list of goals. I didn’t have a list, anyway. I learned about bell-curves, the 80-20 rule, and law of averages. I predictably fell in the middle of it all. 
    Please don’t feel sad. I worked at being unnoticed.
    The irony of all of this is I have always wanted to be famous. Not Famous, just a little bit, like in my own circle of friends. But I wouldn’t have minded the capital F Famous, if it should come my way. And there’s the rub. I lived in the tension of wanting something that I thought was unattainable.
    We’re in the midst of Award Season. Grammies, Oscars, Super Bowl Champions, and the Newbery, Caldecott, and the rest of the American Library Association’s picks for the best children’s literature of 2022, to be awarded Oh! right now. It’s 9:00 Monday morning in Northeast Ohio. I’m about to tune in.
    And now, here's a complete list of the winners posted by School Library Journal. I have to admit that I’ve only read one of the winning titles, Wildoak by C. C. Harrington and one that I expected to win didn’t. Wildoak took the middle grade Schneider Family Book Award prize for an outstanding work that deals with a disability. Maggie’s stutter makes school really hard for her. She’s sent to live with her grandfather where she spends time in the woods of Wildoak. She discovers a snow leopard in trouble, the woods at the brink of extinction because of “progress,” and her voice by speaking up for them both, dispite her stutter. The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill was a finalist for the 2022 National Book Awards for Young People's Literature, but didn’t take home an ALA award. I really loved the book until the ending. It felt a little forced.
    While we wait to find out how the rest of “the best,” Grammies, Oscars, and Super Bowl LVII play out, I wonder, what makes someone the best, a champion? 
    Most lists that identify traits of champions or what qualities you need to be a champion are sports related. No surprise there, but really?
    The following traits are common to many lists and we can use them to identify those same qualities in ourselves and those we care about. 
1    Attitude is everything. “If you think you can or you think you can’t,
           you’re right” is a quote from Henry Ford who stated it in a
           1947 speech.
2    Confidence brings to mind the phrase, “Fake it till you make it.”
3    Courage, not be confused with bravery, is acknowledging fear    
           and doing the right thing (whatever it is) anyway, like the “good
           trouble” John Lewis(1940-2020) encouraged us to make.
4    Discipline to stick with a schedule, to check off items on a do-
            list, to say “yes” and mean it or to say “no” for good reasons
            are marks of a champion, too. 
5    Concentration is difficult in our multitudes-of-distractions
            society. Champions must wear blinders to stay focused.
6     Intelligence is different than wisdom. Gathering, storing, and
            applying facts are some facets of intelligence. Wisdom
            implies the ability to act morally, ethically, and intuitively. A
            champion needs both of these. 
7    Relentlessness is summed up best by the aphorism: If at first
            you don’t succeed, try, try, again.
8    Integrity, honesty, and truthfulness are all sides of the same coin.
            (Wait! What? a 3-sided coin?)  
9    Compassion and empathy embody the golden rule based the
            Mosaic law: “Whatever is hurtful to you, do not do to any
            other person.” (I include animals and plants, too.)
10    Champions are gracious. They win, but they don’t gloat about it.
11     Champions dream BIG.
    That’s it. We all have all of these qualities in different measure. The trick is to hold them all at once and use them to make a better society. The best champions are champions for a cause. They’re ambitious. 
    For me, the opposite of ambition is contentment. I’m mostly happy with my lot in life. I enjoy spending time with my cat and my grandchildren and my husband, not necessarily in that order! I dream, but at 70 (I’m still trying to understand the reality of that big number) I’m more realistic than I was when I was young, more willing to live each day as it comes. 
    So while I’m not driven by the fire of ambition, I appreciate the comfort of contentment. I’m still not outstanding, really. I still don’t really want to stand out. But I do try to be the best Me I can be. 
    For me, kindness says it all. 
                               -—be curious! (and true to yourself)
This morning I will finish reading Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri. It’s a YA memoir noting the experiences and memories of a young refugee from Iran to Oklahoma. The author won many awards including the 2021 Michael L. Prinz award for Young Adult Literature. Recommended for YA readers and us “grownies,” too.  

Daddy sings blues.
Mama sings sweet.
While that snoozy, woozy baby
Sleeps deep, deep, deep. 
Oh, yeah!
                                                     from Jazz Baby
                                            written by Lisa Wheeler
                                  illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
                                                Clarion Books, 2007
    
    I used to think I didn’t like jazz. Then I stopped listening so hard and surprise! it became a kind of experience. Turns out that instinctively, I did the exact, right thing. Jazz is free-form, improvisational. By paying such close attention, I was trying to confine it to a form.
    My grandmother, Mom’s mom, had an ear for music. She told me once that she could sing along to any song, even one she hadn’t heard before because she could anticipate where the next note will fall or what kind of chord moves a melody along and how the rhythm keeps it all together. 
    But, as I found out, we’ll feel frustrated if we try to use those active-listening skills when we’re surrounded by jazz. We aren’t able to anticipate where the artist is moving the music. Actually, when scientists at Johns Hopkins used fMRI technology to study creativity and spontaneity, they found that jazz musicians, when they improvise, turn off the areas in their brains linked to self-censoring and inhibition, and turn on those that let self-expression flow. 
    So they may be just as surprised by the music they create as the rest of us are when we listen. 
    But how about the rest of us? A term unique to music therapy is the iso effect. Coined in the 1950s and simply put, a client listens to music that matches their mood. They are gradually introduced to music that helps them shift to a different mood.
    Students at Tufts University developed a chart that identifies different characteristics of musical pieces. You can find it here. It is a rubric that defines music on two axes, from happy to sad on the horizontal (stress) axis and calm to energetic on the vertical (energy) axis. Playlists can be developed that move up or down each scale.
    Many components determine a song’s place on this scale called Thayer’s Mood Model. Tempo, volume, pitch, timbre (qualities of sound that let us differentiate the same pitch when played on a flute or say a piano), harmonies (whether simple or complex) and rhythmic qualities (regular, syncopated, improvised among others). These components working together influence our moods.
    While jazz is comprised of many different forms including ragtime, blues, swing, and the newer electric, experimental pieces, when I think of jazz, I think of Ella Fitzgerald’s scat, or Thelonius Monk’s piano, or even Kenny Gee’s sax. 
    Jazz’s complexity is based on the way an artist builds chords then strings notes based on those chords into a melody line that floats above. That’s the innovative factor. That’s the part, when a musician is improvising, that transports us (and them) into a realm where we are receptive, “tuned in.” 
    When I was young, I learned to be an active listener. I’d anticipate where the melody was going and how it would get there. I looked for patterns in the rhythms. I studied Music Theory.  
    But none of that prepared me for jazz. Jazz is improvisational. Jazz builds its own rhythms. Jazz sings its own melodies. In Mysterious Thelonius, a picture book by Chris Raschka, he said of Monk: “He played not one wrong note, not one. His piano had none, not one.” 
    Thelonius Monk is the second most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. He influenced Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis. 
    Depending on who you ask (or which Google hit you click on) you’ll discover that jazz isn’t just one thing. It’s music, of course, but since its invention in New Orleans at the beginning of the twentieth century, Jazz has evolved, like everything alive is bound to do. 
    Jazz, America’s gift to the world.
                 -—be curious! (and take time to relax…with music)

My Book of the Week:
Clint Smith’s How the Word is Passed (Little, Brown and Company; 2021) is a memoir, a travelogue, and a well-researched history documenting one journalist’s impressions as he travels to several historic sites. Looking through his Black lens, Mr. Smith uses his expertise to expose the horrors of slavery and relates his own feelings as well as those of his fellow visitors. Museum curators and his own grandfather’s recollections round out this powerful narrative. 
Highly recommended.     

    “Well, the tulips and daffodils should blossom while I’m away,” said Poppa. “And the vines should begin to climb the wall.” He kissed her on each cheek. “Don’t fret, Theodora. When you see the garden, you’ll know just what to do.”
                                         from The Imaginary Garden
                                          written by Andrew Larsen
                                       illustrated by Irene Luxbacher
                                                 Kids Can Press, 2009

    I talk to my plants. I also talk to my cat, but she sometimes answers me. My plants do too, but it takes a little work on my part to know what they are telling me. Most of the time, I’m pretty sure it’s about being thirsty or drowning. 
    I’ve long heard that talking to your houseplants is good for them. Since we are in a symbiotic relationship regarding air-quality, they benefit from my exhale as much as I do from my inhale (their oxygen-laden transpiration). And close-up, I notice a brown leaf that was kinda yellow the day before or the little creepy-crawly that doesn’t belong. I notice the dryness or saturated soil condition or a new leaf-bud or (if I’m really lucky) a flower bud.
    Turns out, there’s a whole science of plant psychology! Who even knew? Typically, a plant psychologist is called in when a plant (or crop) is ailing. They will examine environmental factors such as soil composition and condition and whether or not an insect invasion is present. They will check humidity levels, the heat source, and amount of available light. Once the physical factors are addressed, behavioral actions can be discussed. These tend to be nebulous.             
    Actually, most of the articles I read on plant psychology dealt with the psychological benefits plants provide to their care-takers, us. We gain a sense of purpose, relief from daily stressors, and a stronger connection to our physical world.
    Scientists who study neuroscience and botany are concerned with the detection and analysis of electrical signals in plants. Many have noted even though plants don’t have “brains” like people or even most animals, (Did you know that jellyfish, sea-stars, clams, and some other underwater animals don’t even have a brain?) plants send electrical signals from leaves to roots and back again by using specialized cells called bundle-sheath cells. The electrical impulses are sent along these cells just like the nervous system of an animal. 
    All biological cells are electrical and even though plants don't have nerves, a plant’s cells are capable of generating electrical impulses called action potentials. It is this process that lets a Venus Flytrap catch its prey. Sensitive plants (Mimosa pudica) also respond to touch by quickly closing their leaves and drooping. They close up when shaken and when exposed to a breeze. Sensitive plants are subject experiments to test their reactions since they are fairly easy to note. 
    Monica Gagliano led one of the most famous studies in “plant neurobiology” in 2014. She wanted to discover if plants have memory. Here’s the description from the Discover Magazine blog (Aug 28, 2019).  Gagliano’s team found that if you drop a potted Mimosa repeatedly, it will eventually stop folding its leaves. But if you switch to a different disturbance — a vigorous shake — the plant will fold its leaves again. But drop the same plant again a month later, and still nothing happens. No folding. The team concluded that the plant is smart enough to not only know the difference between a drop and a shake, but it’s also capable of learning that being dropped isn’t a threat worthy of folding up. They also took their claim a step further. The team claimed all of this is evidence that the plant can remember well into the future.
    In 2016, Gagliano and her team experimented on pea plants trying to prove a Pavlovian response by timing a gust of wind from a fan with a plant’s movement toward a light source. She and her team claimed the plants made the connection between the gust and the light. They could learn and remember just like animals.
    But when other scientists tried to replicate the experiments, they were unsuccessful.
    Gagliano was undaunted. She’s now exploring the philosophy and moral implications of the sentience of plants. Can they anticipate future actions by remembering past actions? Do they have emotions? Can plants feel pain and pleasure?
    Plants and animals all use electricity to transmit information. But plants don’t have neurons, so neurobiology, while the name sounds pretty intriguing, is really a misnomer. According to Gagliano, that doesn’t mean plants are not intelligent, or can’t learn or remember, or apply what they learn to future events, it’s just that plants and animals are different. They learn differently, they interact differently.
    She calls her new field Plant Cognitive Ecology. She’s not saying that plants have consciousness, only if they do, what does it look like and what does that mean?
    Good questions for me to ponder as I keep to my weekly watering schedule that always comes with a healthy dose of encouraging conversation.

Here’s a fascinating read: Peter Wohlleben. The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World. Greystone Books, 2016.
                   -—be curious! (and err on the side of kindness 
                                  to plants and people-italics added)
                                        Robert Donohough, Director
             Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County
                                                            1979 - 1989

    “Why, O why did I ever leave my hobbit-hole!” said poor Mr. Baggins …
                    from The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
                          written and illustrated by J.R.R Tolkien
                                  George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1937

    “Why do you like to read?” someone asked me a while ago. I’m still thinking about my many-faceted answer. I read for entertainment. But I also read for information. I read because it’s a good way to protect my brain cells as I keep getting older. I read for relaxation. I read to validate my beliefs and to discover other peoples’ opinions.
    In 2014, Keith Quesenberry a researcher at John Hopkins University, found that “[p]eople are attracted to stories because we’re social creatures and we relate to other people.” Our bodies produce oxytocin when someone is kind to us. It encourages us to cooperate with others by enhancing our sense of empathy, our ability to experience others’ emotions. 
    Scientists measured the amount of oxytocin in blood samples of their subjects before and after showing them a James Bond movie. And, it turns out, stories we read or watch have the same effect as those we experience through face-to-face encounters in real life. The most effective story is one where the protagonist overcomes an obstacle or many obstacles to triumph in a satisfying ending. Joseph Campbell called this format “The Hero’s Journey.” It’s the basis for
the Biblical account of the trek from Egypt to the Promised Land, the Joads' journey from Oklahoma's Dust Bowl to California dreaming in The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), Dorothy's desire to return home in The Wizard of Oz, (L. Frank Baum) and Bilbo's adventures in The Hobbit (J. R. R. Tolkien). 
    After last week’s post about beginnings, I decided to re-read J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Actually, my car’s name is Bilbo Baggins. He is like me. We journey away from home reluctantly. We like other people, mostly. We believe in magic, mostly. We are optimistic, mostly. We always enjoy a good meal.
    And we love to read. That’s Bilbo, the hobbit, not the car.
    In his story, Bilbo, again the hobbit, not the car, is talked into going on an adventure to recapture stolen treasure that dragons and goblins took from Bilbo’s new dwarf friends. He reluctantly and surprisingly decides to join the dwarves and the journey begins. 
    Good stories are made of many intertwining elements. Many schools of thought define these elements in pretty similar ways. School Library's recent blog, “Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog,” lists Character, Plot, Information (which includes clarity, organization, and accuracy), Theme, Setting, and Style or Voice.
    All these pieces work together, Lisa Cron tells us, in her book Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel. Even if we are not planning to write a story, experiencing stories “allow[s] us to step out of the present and envision the future…Stories let us vicariously try out difficult situations we haven’t yet experienced to see what it would really feel like, and what we’d need to learn in order to survive.”
    When we identify with the characters in a story or the people in a piece of well-written non-fiction, the oxytocin’s empathetic-component combines with dopamine and serotonin to allow us to actually feel what the characters feel and anticipate their actions and reactions. According to Lisa Cron again, “It is emotion, rather than logic, that telegraphs meaning…straight from the protagonist to us.”
    According to Jonathan Gottschall, a Distinguished Fellow in the English Department at Washington & Jefferson College, the purpose of stories is to teach us about life. Our storytelling minds work to make sense of our experiences. As humans, we constantly look for meaning and purpose in our experiences. If meaning and purpose are missing, we will create an explanation whether it’s a lie, a conspiracy theory, or a wishful, but inaccurate, memory. It’s the job of a story to teach us about life.
    As young children, the line that defines what is real and what is “made up” is fuzzy. We learn about how the real world works by say, knocking a spoon off our highchair tray. That action teaches us many things. The spoon always falls down, never up. We see how one person’s actions influence another’s behavior when our big sister or mom or babysitter picks up the spoon and hands it back or tosses it into the sink. We learn how patient our care-giver is. Can we drop a spoon three times or thirty before we elicit an angry reaction? 
    We learn our mothers care about us when we change back from Wild Things into children and our supper is still hot. We learn how powerful our imagination is when we can draw ourselves in and out of adventures with just a purple crayon. We learn about the comfort and security of routine as we fall asleep to goodnight noises everywhere.
    Dorothy Gale teaches us there’s no place like home every time we come to the end of her journey. We learn the depth of sisterly love when Katniss Everdeen steps into the spot drawn for Primrose.
    Charlotte teaches us to trust the future as much as she does as we watch her spiderlings hurl themselves purposely into the unknown.

Maurice Sendak. Where the Wild Things Are
Crockett Johnson. Harold and the Purple Crayon
Margaret Wise Brown. Goodnight Moon
L. Frank Baum. The Wizard of Oz
Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games
E. B. White. Charlotte’s Web
                            -—be curious! (and read with intention)

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
                      from The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
                            written and illustrated by J.R.R Tolkien
                                    George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1937

The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold, wet day.
                                           from The Cat in the Hat
                               written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss
                                                Random House, 1957

On Thursday, when Imogene woke up, she found she had grown antlers.
                                            from Imogene’s Antlers
                            written and illustrated by David Small
     Crown Publishers/Dragonfly Books/Random House, 1985

In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf.
                              from The Very Hungry Caterpillar
                            written and illustrated by Eric Carle
                                     Philomel Books/Penguin, 1987

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
                from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
                                           written by J. K. Rowling
                                    illustrated by Mary GrandPré
                   Scholastic Inc./Arthur A. Levine Books, 1997

First, let me get something straight: this is a journal, not a diary.
         from Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley's Journal
                          written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney
                                              Amulet Books, 2007

    It’s another list. This time some of my favorite opening lines.
    I chose these because they all lead their readers to ask, “Then what?” We need to continue reading to find out. The characters, just like us, move around in their environments, talk to people in their made-up or real worlds, learn facts and philosophy, and make decisions. 
    In all my examples, except The Very Hungry Caterpillar, the main character, like all of us, is not really starting fresh. We turn the calendar to a new week or month or year but the things that happen today still depend on what we did or didn’t do before. Yesterday still exists, if only as a memory.
    Fresh starts and do-overs imply something new. But knowing how important it is to draw on our memories, maybe it’s not even possible to start fresh, to start over on a clean slate. Maybe we don’t even want to. Maybe the tabula rosa theory only applies to infants (and caterpillars).
    John Locke argued in his 1689 “Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” that people are born without knowledge of the world. As we grow up, we learn through our senses and our experiences, but even he acknowledges these are fallible. 
    According to Locke, our minds cannot create new ideas. We can only combine ideas through experiences to come up with different ways of thinking. These different ways of thinking can draw on ideas that are complex and unique, but all ideas are learned through our senses and our experiences.
    Jack Maden, in an article for the on-line journal PhilosophyBreak, suggests we try out Locke’s philosophy. Try to think of a new color, or sound, or taste. Locke says it’s impossible. Ideas are based on our experiences. Our creativity comes from combining those ideas in unique ways. Some genius at the Coca-Cola company 50 years ago thought of mixing lemon and lime in one drink. We can imagine how it tastes because we have experienced lemon and lime. Sprite is sold in over 190 countries and is the third best-selling soft drink brand worldwide. 
    And Dr. Seuss gave us a Cat in a Hat.
    When he posited that we learn from our experiences, Locke was creating the definition for empiricism: knowledge comes from experience. We learn what is real by analyzing our experiences. Nothing should called true or real unless it can be ratified by our experience.
    This seems like common sense now, but in Locke’s time it was a departure from the accepted way people believed the world worked. Before Locke, Rationalists such as René Descartes (1596-1650) thought that experience could not be trusted to define truth. People experience the world differently. Descartes explained how the world worked through deductive truths that could be proved, like mathematics and laws of science.
    So, whether we are in the Rationalist camp and prove existence by believing ourselves to be thinking beings or in the Empiricist camp and grow our knowledge through our varied experiences, we as moderns can learn from both camps.
    Current brain science has shown that we learn through listening to and reading stories. Our brains are primed for them. When we read a great book and get lost in the story, we identify with the characters and experience what they experience. This can and does either change or reinforce our own perspectives.
    We want to know how the main character (real or imagined) makes decisions and deduces the consequences that inevitably develop because of those decisions.      
    This is for sure: Whether we’re contemplating yesterday, when love was such an easy game to play, or betting our bottom dollars that the sun will come out tomorrow, time keeps moving in only one direction. Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. (Nothing does anymore. You have to look it all up online.) We each learn our own Truths and our own truths by combining trial and error with observation. 
    As we march ahead bravely where some of us have been before and some of us have not, we’re bound to make mistakes by acting (or not acting), speaking when silence was called for, or be misunderstood or misunderstand someone else. 
    In this new calendar year, I’ll try hard to pay attention to all those mistakes and missteps, mine and my favorite main characters’. They’ll serve me better as learning experiences than as regrets.
    Fresh starts? I’m sure I’ll have my share of those, too. Just not on a clean slate.
    Here’s to a Happy New Year to all!   
                            -—be curious (and embrace tomorrow)
FB: Here’s a thought for today commonly attributed to Walt Whitman: "Keep you face turned to the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you."