Schoolhouse Rock

Growing up on mindless hours of Saturday morning cartoons, I never knew how much fun parts of speech could be. But, lo and behold, I still have the songs of Schoolhouse Rock stuck in my head as living proof that even the most mundane English lessons can be entertaining. With songs like Conjunction Junction and Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here, who can deny the simple, infectious tunes and superhero animation of Schoolhouse Rock? With each song, I would know just what a part of speech was used for and why it was important. I could be armed with the idea that as our bodies grow bigger, our minds grow stronger Ñ cause knowledge is power! Better still, Schoolhouse Rock made it cool to learn things like how a bill becomes law or how electricity works. The songs from ABC are now available on video and CD, and ready for the next generation. Long live Schoolhouse Rock!

Sudoku Puzzles

ItÕs the puzzle craze thatÕs sweeping America and has my wife and mom hooked like Halloween candy addicts. Newspapers carry them in the puzzle section, and bookstores now devote entire tables to Sudoku junkies where there are all kinds of books for beginners on up to black belts. Sudoku is like a crossword puzzle with numbers. YouÕre given a series of 81 boxes (arranged in a 9 box by 9 box square). Some of the boxes have numbers ranging from 1 to 9 already marked in them. Depending on the difficulty level of the puzzle, many of the boxes may be left empty. Your goal, should you choose to devote endless hours and number-crunching brain cells, is to make sure every box has a number ranging from 1 to 9 in it. But wait, thereÕs more! Every 9-box row (vertical and horizontal) must have a complete sequence of the numbers 1 through 9 with no number left out and no number repeating. Plus, each of the subsets of boxes (of which there are nine) must have the numbers 1 through 9 with none left out and none repeating. ItÕs just the kind of brain teasing that some folks crave. My wife is now at the black belt level, a skill that requires ninja-like concentration and the logic of a rocket scientist. Seek the realm of Sudoku if you dare.

The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser

The percentage of people who regularly read poetry is pretty low, so itÕs a fair guess that the percentage of those who read how-to books on writing and appreciating poetry must be infinitesimal. Why promote such a book to the general public? For one thing, the whole point of such a manual is to make poetry more accessible, more inviting, more illuminating. Poetry is not something people enjoy because too often poets package their words with snooty titles, esoteric references and puzzling phrases. Ted Kooser, current U.S. Poet Laureate and reigning Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, tries to remedy this situation by offering sound advice and easy-to-follow examples of well-crafted poems in a book that reminds us what poetry should be: an experience that helps us to see the world in a new way. Debunking the rules about poetry while honoring the true intentions of the art form, Kooser offers some inspiring gems that would be helpful to any writer or reader, regardless of their genre interests.

By Michael Beadle