The Most Famous Book Club In Brooklyn

I changed my mind about September's book. Although I love The Great Bridge by David McCullough (and I highly recommend that you read it if you haven't) I've done a lot of Brooklyn Bridge-themed stuff recently and wanted to do something different.

The new book club selection for September is The Most Famous Man in America: A Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate. Beecher, as you'll soon find out, was indeed the most famous man in America in the years just before the Civil War and, in the opinion of many, the "only reason to go to Brooklyn" before the Brooklyn Bridge was built. Every week, one ferry after another would carry a full load of passengers across the East River to hear Beecher the preacher. Whitman was a fan. So was Lincoln.

This is a book club for the whole family so the heavy Beecher tome won't be our only selection. This month -- and every month -- there will be a picture book as well as a chapter book on our reading list so that everyone can join in our explorations.

September's picture book will be Toy Boat written by Randall de Sève and illustrated by Loren Long. In celebration of the crowds who took to the water to visit Beecher's famous church (still going strong today: http://www.plymouthchurch.org/) all of littlest explorers will take imaginary rides on ferry boats, sail boats, motor boats, and other sea-worthy vessels via one of my daughter's favorite books.

Our chapter book (for elementary-aged kids) will be The Notorious Izzy Fink by Don Brown. The docks, boats, and alleys of 1890s New York are the setting for this rowdy tale of a half-Irish, half-Russian Jewish kid growing up on the Lower East Side


Our meetings, as I started to explain in my last post, will not be small-group discussions in private homes. They will instead happen at my regular weekly singalongs and classes for kids. Huh? Yes, it's true it will be nearly impossible to have any sort of coherent discussion of the book in these wild settings and that's exactly the way I want it. Rather than talk about the book, we will sing about it in songs from the era of Beecher, original songs about the Civil War and important people and events from his time, and lots of great songs about boats and rivers and the sea. And at the end of the month, I'll host a concert / singalong / variety show themed to our books -- the first of these will happen October 4th at the Moxie Spot in Brooklyn Heights during the annual Atlantic Antic (www.themoxiespot.com).

Lesson plans, activity sheets, art projects, and other stuff related to each month's books will be available here.

September 2009 Schedule (more to come)
Tuesdays : Singalong at the Moxie Spot, 11am (starting September 15th)
Thursdays: Deedle!Deedle!Dee! a music & movement class for kids 6 months - 4 years at the Brooklyn Learning Center, 147 Lincoln Place, Park Slope, Brooklyn, 10 and 11am (free trial classes September 17th, 8-week session begins Sept. 24th)

Start reading!
Lloyd

The Return of the Book Club

This fall the American history book will return in a more potent form. Last spring, as I tried to schedule a meeting for the second book, I discovered again what I've known for quite some time: parents are the most difficult people to schedule in the world. So I'm not even going to try to. Instead...

My free weekly singalongs in Brooklyn will also be book club meetings. Each month of singalongs will be themed to a book and an era. All adults who come to my singalongs with kids will be invited to read the month's book. And for the kids, there will be companion picture and chapter books.

If people want to set up a grown-ups-only meeting separate from the singalong, that's fine. For now, though, we'll just be a group of people reading and singing together. Join us if you can.

In addition, once a month I'm going to host a special weekend singalong and concert at the Moxie Spot (and possibly other locations) featuring me and some special guests singing songs related to our month of reading. The first one will be the afternoon of Sunday, October 4th, as part of the annual Atlantic Antic.

I'm still deciding on the September book, but I think it might be The Great Bridge, David McCullough's perfect book about the Brooklyn Bridge. This way, our first month can be a celebration of the bridge and Brooklyn itself. We'll also read The Thoreau You Don't Know by Robert Sullivan (see the Blogs to Bother With list to the right) sometime this fall -- this is one of the books that we didn't get to in the spring due to the aforementioned scheduling problems.

See you in September,
Lloyd

FDR songs + next book club meeting

A few weeks ago, we finally had our first meeting of our new American history book club for Jonathan Alter's The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. Appropriately enough, we had it at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, one of our favorite local historical sites (see Deedle Deedle Dee-Endorsed Historical Resources to the right).

I decided to make the first meeting a public event after encountering endless difficulty in scheduling everyone who responded to my posts on local listserves. New York parents, like all parents, are super busy so scheduling something like this is going to be a challenge. But we'll keep trying, of course.

As it was open to the public, I created an event in which everyone -- readers of the book and not -- could participate. Basically it was a singalong of songs from the FDR era. I referred to the book in order to give context to certain songs, but really the songs were the meat of the meeting. Four families came, all with kids, so we turned it into sort of an FDR dance party. The kids shook shakers, banged on drums, and marched around the room; I gave some brief background lectures; it rocked. Here's our set list complete with keys if you'd like to re-create our party:


This Land is Your Land G
I Ain't Got No Home C
Tell Me Why You like Roosevelt 197 G
Red Cross Blues Blues in G
The Scottsboro Boys G Em Am D7 GGGG GD7G
Happy Days Are Here Again C
Roosevelt Blues Bb F7 Bb Cm F7 Bb
You Are My Sunshine D
I Could Write a Book C
Wildwood Flower G (capo 7) or D (capo 2)
Party Girl G

The songs that are unfamiliar are probably:

a) taken from Guido Van Rijn's incredible compilation of gospel and blues from the FDR era: Roosevelt's Blues. It's a CD and an accompanying book -- Google it and order it as soon as you can. Or visit us in Brooklyn and there's a good chance you'll hear the album playing while I cook dinner...

b) written by me -- "Party Girl" is song about Eleanor Roosevelt and her friend Lorena Hickock that will appear on the new Deedle Deedle Dees album that comes out in June. I won't say anything more about it except that I can't wait for you to hear the final recorded version.


Next book:
Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
by Martha A. Sandweiss http://www.amazon.com/Passing-Strange-Gilded-Deception-Across/dp/1594202001

Next meeting: Early April most likely

The Truth About New Jersey

We're entering the rough draft phase of our composition process in Montclair, New Jersey, where I'm going once a week to write songs about great stories from the state's history with fourth-graders.

Clara Barton, one of these great stories, is at left.

The songs will be presented in a big show in less than a month at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University. Tentatively titled "The Truth About New Jersey," our presentation of the songs will feature all four Deedle Deedle Dees and an entire fourth-grade class. These are amazing kids -- they'll be singing, rapping, playing guitar, keyboard, violin, viola, drums, and other instruments, dancing, acting.

Everyone must come to this show. And, if you write us right away, you might have a chance to contribute to our songwriting process. Here's what we have so far (these are all working titles that I've given the songs):

Annie Shoot Your Gun (about Annie Oakley)
Molly Pitcher Was the One
Clara Barton on a Christmas Night
Queen Latifah is the Queen
Les Paul + Hip Hop
Patience Lovell Wright
Thomas Edison, more inventions than we can possibly mention
NJ Presidents (Wilson + Cleveland)
Battle of Trenton
Cornelia Hancock was a nur-urse...

Some questions for you:

Who have we missed? Obviously the show can't cover the entire history of New Jersey, but we're willing to consider innovators, revolutionaries, first-timers, and other interesting barrier-breakers who you think should have a place in our little musical celebration of the state.

How do you feel about Wilson? To be honest, it's hard for me to get past all the segregation stuff. I know that's just one aspect of a very important and complicated figure but it's all I can think about as I read about the Fourteen Points and all that other textbook Wilson stuff, searching for something to help the kids with their song. If only I had never read Howard Zinn...

Songs in progress, song possibilities:
should I continue to try to write these songs I'm trying to write?
Communipaw -- Washington Irving's mythological stronghold of Dutch culture, today Jersey City. Definitely a song to be written.
NJ Underground Railroad Instructions -- There were a few main routes through the state. I think an instructional song accompanied by a driver's ed-style filmstrip of current Jersey roadways that lie along the old escape routes is in order.


Thanks for reading my notes. Hope to see you at the show:
The Deedle Deedle Dees + fourth-graders from Montclair Co-Op
Feb. 22nd
2pm
Alexander Kasser Theater
Montclair State University
Montclair, NJ

driving: The university is at One Normal Avenue. But if you enter "1 Normal Ave" into Google Maps it will take you to the middle of a nearby reservoir (seriously, I tried it). Use Google to get to Normal Ave in Montclair then use a real map.

public transport: PATH takes you steps from the theater. Awesome.

FDR songs

Anyone have favorite songs from the FDR era? Send them to me. Preferably inappropriate or surprising tunes.

Apparently more songs were written about FDR than any president. Check out this NPR piece: http://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/features/2001/010421.fdr.html

This book and its accompanying album also look pretty amazing: http://www.amazon.com/Roosevelt%C2%92s-Blues-African-American-Gospel-American/dp/0878059385
I'm officially adding it as supplementary reading for the first meeting of our American history book club.

So to summarize, buy or check out the following books immediately:
The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope by Jonathan Alter
Roosevelt's Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs on FDR by Guido van Rijn (make sure to get the accompanying CD)

As I choose some favorite songs, I'll start posting chords and, if possible and legal, sheet music so that everyone who's planning to attend one of our in-person meetings in Brooklyn with an instrument can start practicing.

I remain
your obt svt,
Lloyd (Ulysses S. Dee)

First Book Club Meeting

You might have noticed that I changed the date of our first American history book club meeting in my last post. I realized that mid-December was pretty soon to ask everyone to have a big book read, especially with all the holidays.

Our meeting is now set for mid-January. It looks like there will be at least one in-person meeting, possibly two. A lot of folks on parent yahoo groups in Ditmas Park and Park Slope have expressed interest so I might have a meeting in both neighborhoods. If you'd like to be part of one of these neighborhood groups, e-mail me at thedeedledeedledees@yahoo.com. We will also have an online discussion option for non-Brooklyners -- ideas on how to do this? IM? Twitter? Skype?

Our first book is The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope by Jonathan Alter so I'd like everyone to start looking for songs, images, and other interesting creative works from the FDR era. Our meeting, as I've already mentioned to some of our prospective members, will not feature a typical book club discussion. Rather, it will be a singalong of songs that people in FDR's day might have sung + a workshop during which we'll create new songs, visual works, and other materials that we can use to teach kids and other adults about what we've read. Instruments of all types, visual arts materials, and food and drink will all be welcome and encouraged.

I remain
your obt svt,
Lloyd (Ulysses S. Dee)

American History Book Club for Parents

So, I'm finally starting the American history book club I've planned for a while. You should join. We'll read a new book every month and discuss online and -- if possible -- in person. If it happens that we have a few book club members in Brooklyn, for example, I'd definitely like to plan a meeting at somewhere convenient for all of us. Somewhere the kids can play while we talk about the book.

The first book, for the month of January, is The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope by Jonathan Alter. Yes, this is one of the books on FDR that Obama has been reading. When I read about this book in the New York Times yesterday, I decided to bump my original choice, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmstead and America in the 19th Century by Witold Rybczynski. I just thought it would be fun -- for once in a my life -- to read something topical and current (see p.s. below). We might read the book about Olmstead during a future month.

Questions? Suggestions on how to conduct our online discussions or where to meet for our possible in-person discussion. Please let me know.

Our meeting (s) will happen mid-January.

Lloyd (Ulysses S. Dee)

p.s. My "topical and current" comment above is not meant to imply that Olmstead is in any way not topical or current. In fact, his works of art are essential parts of my daily life and regularly keep me from falling into despair. For much of my adult life, though, I've tended to avoid current events and the latest news updates in favor of tales from the distant and not-so-distant past so reading a book that I read about in the newspaper is a very novel experience for me.