Have you tried the SLOCA Parent Book Club yet? We will be discussing another book this trimester, and we invite you to join us! Here’s the info about the next book and meeting, courtesy of our high school English teacher and Parent Book Club leader, Paul McCullough:
Our next SLOCA Parent Book Club will gather on Friday, April 15th, 2016, at 7 PM in the SLOCA main offices. We will discuss two short stories, “Araby” and “The Dead,” from James Joyce's collection Dubliners, which also appears on the high school Must Reads List.
The stories from Dubliners can be read profitably either on their own or as a whole. Together they form a panorama of ordinary, turn-of-the-century Irish middle-class life that is at the same time much, much more. Joyce's Dublin is shot through with joy and melancholy, discovery and loss, epiphany and reverie–the stuff of which souls are made. In “Araby,” Joyce comes close to crafting a formally perfect short story in just a few tight pages. “The Dead,” the longest, most meandering story in the collection, takes us into quite different territory altogether as we experience a single, revelatory night in the life of Gabriel Conroy. For my money, the last sentence of “The Dead” is one of the most magical in all of English literature. I look forward to hearing what others take from this brilliant and elusive collection.
Thank you, Paul! On another note, tomorrow is April 1st, which means April Fools Day. Did you know that the earliest recorded reference to April Fools’ Day was in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in 1392?
Below are links to more info about this day that you might find interesting:
- April Fools Day Fast Facts
- The Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time – “as judged by creativity, historical significance, the number of people duped, and notoriety.” These are fun, but feel free to skip to the top ten.
Although we certainly don’t encourage mean or embarrassing pranks, if you like to play innocent April Fools jokes on your kids, click here for a list of ideas. They are mostly harmless. (Or just read them and laugh at the thought of doing them…)
Here’s what Mark Twain had to say about April Fools’ Day:
“This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.”
(Pudd’nhead Wilson, 1894)
Have a good one!
