Mary Jo Tate

You may have tangible wealth untold: Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be– I had a Mother who read to me. from “The Reading Mother” by Strickland Gillilan Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!

Researchers who studied statistics from 27 nations confirmed what book lovers have long known: a home library gives children an educational advantage. “Growing up in a home with 500 books would propel a child 3.2 years further in education, on average, than would growing up in a similar home with few or no books.”

Here’s an interesting debate in the New York Times, triggered by a school that gave away most of its books to create a digitized library. Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (to be published in June…and I want to read it!) says: “We may not want to … Read more

Great thoughts from Steve Leveen (of Levenger) on why we should write in our books. I find it nearly impossible to read without a pencil in hand. I underline, star, or bracket important passages, write captions or keywords at the tops of pages, argue with the author in the margin, create my own index in … Read more

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Check out these great ideas from Steve Leveen, founder of Levenger (the ultimate catalog for booklovers): http://tinyurl.com/ddf6g6 What do you plan to read this year?

Tricia asked me to share the “interesting writing assignments” I mentioned in my earlier post about the literature class I taught in conjunction with Gileskirk Modernity. Here are a few examples: * Poet Laureate Robert Southey wrote to Charlotte Brontë in 1837 that “literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought … Read more

Someone left a comment asking for the title of my book about F. Scott Fitzgerald. The original version was published in 1998 as F. Scott Fitzgerald A to Z and the revised and expanded edition was published this year as Critical Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Thanks for asking! Mary Jo Tate

Last year I taught a 9th-12th-grade literature class for our homeschool co-op. The selections were based primarily on the literature assignments in George Grant’s Gileskirk curriculum for Modernity, but I made a few changes. In the first semester, I added Jane Eyre because I thought it would be a disgrace to graduate from high school without … Read more

Note: This is a slightly expanded version of my letter to the editor in response to a 4/29/07 article by the superintendent of a nearby public school district in north Mississippi. In “School districts not unlike farming operations,” Steve Coker asserts: “Schools are complicated, sophisticated learning centers these days, a far cry from the old … Read more