What I've Read and Liked Lately: Murderbots, Social Workers, Goblins, Ancillaries, and Claire

My July TBR stack might be a little overlarge, oops.

 Most of my recent favorite books have been part of a series, and I love nothing better. My favorite way to read is to find a super-long and complete series of books that I can dive into for the foreseeable future (see: Master and Commander).

My second-favorite way to read is smack-middle in an ongoing super-long series of books, re-reading the entire run every time a new book comes out, because otherwise, what if I miss a reference or an inside joke or I don't completely remember every minor character's backstory?

See: Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone.

I love living in the Outlander world, although I'm a little picky about whom I associate with there. I skim the Lord John Grey, Willie, and Roger and Brianna stuff so hard that I sometimes have to go back and re-read them when I realize that I've actually missed a plot point. Like, all I'm truly interested in is following Jamie and Claire around as they live their lives. I don't even care if anything exciting happens to them--I'd happily read 900 pages of them puttering around their homestead day after day after day.

And... that might be what I did here? I loved this book, couldn't put it down, even dutifully ran my eyes over the doings of my less-preferred characters--I even finally got interested in Brianna and Roger!--but later, when a friend asked me what it was about, I was all, "Uh... Claire gets a beehive, and she does doctor stuff. Jamie's doing something political, I think? Their house sounds awesome." I didn't notice the absence of plot, and I didn't miss it, not when there were too many other things to be preoccupied with, like what will Claire make for dinner, and does the floor need sweeping, and what's the gossip with the neighbors, and what's going on in the garden. It's a very cozy book, and one I could happily pick up anytime, at any page, and read again.

Alas that the Montague Siblings books will remain a trilogy, not a forever-long, unwieldy series. But the Goblin got his own book!

I haven't loved any of the other two books in this trilogy as much as I love The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, but I do love continuing the ride. I love how the author can write so realistically about young people while incorporating fantastical, magical elements and high adventure. It makes living in that fantastical, magical world feel absolutely real, because if you're going to have madcap adventures with a gang of adventurers, then yes, realistically at least one of you absolutely has terrible anxiety.

Discovering a brand new-to-me series and getting to start it from the beginning is just as exciting as reading a new installment of an already beloved series. Will handed me the first book of the Murderbot series--

--and I related to Murderbot SO HARD.

Murderbot is all, "I'd rather ride in the cargo hold and watch TV than sit with you humans and connect emotionally. Also, I am putting forth absolute minimum effort at my job."

Same, Murderbot. Same.

The book gives off a lot of Bucky Barnes fanfic vibes, which is not a bad thing. The story of how a person who's not treated like a person claims and then negotiates autonomy is compelling, and invites conversation about what it even means to be autonomous, or have personhood.

Even better if you get to explore space and fight a lot!

So, what I just said could also be the plot of this other book series that Will gave me and that I absolutely love, but I promise that they're very different! The Ancillary series plays a lot more with gender and language, making it clear how artificial and arbitrary each is, and even halfway through the third book I'm still guessing about what "biological" sex some of the main characters are:

But all this philosophical stuff is also in there with some excellent sci-fi, all "this is how the spaceships think" and "this is how the space station works" and "here's a really sophisticated gun that the entire plot hinges on." AND there's world-building, with a colonizer race with a fleshed-out worldview and religion, and colony races also with fleshed-out worldviews and religions, and other sentient creatures that give hints of the same but are also beyond the scope of our characters' ability to comprehend.

Just, there's a lot going on. Read these if you like books where there's a lot going on.

Not to be outdone by her sister, Syd recommended T.J. Klune to me, specifically The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door:

I connected with both of these books probably more than the kids did, because the protagonists of each are middle-aged, bumbling fools, which is what I feel like most of the time. I like the fantasy elements and world-building of The House in the Cerulean Sea better, and the way that the main character develops over the course of the book is so sweet and wholesome, AND the literal son of Satan is one of the most wholesome characters--okay, I just requested it from the library again, along with all of TJ Klune's other books.

I need to get back in the habit of pairing my escapist fiction with some non-fiction reads, because I think my brain might be starting to deteriorate. Does that start to happen when you're 46, or do you think I got an undiagnosed case of COVID sometime and now I have brain fog?

Okay, off to work a crossword puzzle and then read some non-fiction!

My Flowers Bring All the Bees to My Yard

 

Y'all, this might be my least incompetent gardening year yet!

I mean, not because I'm increasing in skill or anything, but more because every year I'm figuring out even more plants that can thrive in my garden in spite of me.

May brings flowers to my homestead lilac, which does not like me to do anything but clear the honeysuckle vines off it every spring:

This lilac is one of the oldest growing things on our property that was intentionally planted (see also: persimmon trees), and every now and then it inspires me to take a break from doing anything productive to instead deep dive into figuring out how to figure out the history of this property. I'm currently working my way through scans of a tiny, gossipy little local newspaper circa 1908 to see if I can find mention of the place or its owners, and annoying everyone around me by reading baffling tidbits:

If you can find a gossipy little newspaper over a hundred years old from your area, I highly recommend it. It is surprisingly engrossing to read about some guy's watermelon harvest, or the ladies' picnic, or the big snake somebody found, or the buggy accident in which all lives were lost.

The deck plants are staying classy, as always, with the addition of the toilet that used to be in the kids' bathroom:

But the real champions of the garden are the perennials that I ignore.

Look at my milkweed!

This is Asclepias syriaca, or common milkweed, the last remnant of Will's old butterfly garden. It's so aggressive that it pops up even in my raised flower beds, and I just plant around it because I'm a pushover for anything nice that wants to live here. The milkweed blooms in June, and the bees LOVE it:

June also brings flowers to the comfrey, and they are also beloved by the bees:

In July, the oregano flowers--

--and so does the lavender:

Late August will bring flowers to our perennial sunflower, and by September I'll have monarch babies to tend to. My plan is to try to bring this year's babies in as eggs--last year, I brought them in as teeny cats, and didn't know until they all died in their pupal stage that every single one had been parasitized by tachinid flies. It was a monumental tragedy, and one that I'd prefer to never repeat again.

Every summer I think about how, during our first summer in this house, the kids and I did a unit study on bees. As part of that, we wanted to find bees and try to identify them, and... couldn't. There were no bees that we could find on our property, no bees for the entire summer. Our property then was all mown lawn, invasive multiflora rose, evergreen shrubs, and invasive rose of Sharon--nothing that a bee would exactly want to visit. Will's the one who brought the bees the next year with her butterfly garden, and since then, even if I can't get a veggie to grow, at least I always have plenty of flowers for the bees.

Maybe next year I should drop the veggies altogether and just go full-on Monarch Waystation. 

Teenager-Friendly Wholesome Family Activities: Hunt a Killer

Do y'all have any weird, low-impact parenting things that you nevertheless feel a ton of constant guilt about?

Mine is the fact that I don't really like playing games.

Like, I played games with the kids all the time when they were little, and did the whole Family Game Night thing semi-regularly. Late night games are part of our New Year's Eve tradition, etc. But in those cases, playing the game is mostly about playing the game WITH THE KIDS, or, you know, AS A FAMILY. I wouldn't necessarily choose to play any given game if it wasn't a #wholesomefamilyactivity. 

I mean, I'd rather be reading?

So we don't really play games unless I feel like it's one of those super special #wholesomefamilyactivity moments, and I constantly feel guilty about this. 

Will and Matt are pretty amiable about games and like to play them, but Syd has, I think, a similar game mindset. 

And yet, she found a game that we're obsessed with.

Syd and I are both into true crime shows--although to be honest the Intro to Serial Killers class that Syd is currently taking at the local community college might have broken us of this. It's... a lot of graphic details. Like, a LOT. And there's, like, a huge list of paraphilias whose definitions Syd was tested on and so now I can't get them out of my head.

Did you know that there's a whole thing involving somebody wanting somebody else to... you know what? You're probably better of not knowing.

ANYWAY, because we both like true crime shows (although maybe not as much now as we used to...), Syd gave me this Hunt a Killer game for Mother's Day. 

It was already the perfect Mother's Day gift, because it was an activity that we could do together. Syd is particularly good at the Mother's Day version of #wholesomefamilyactivity. 

But even better? The game is SO GOOD!

You play the role of a baby detective trying to solve their first crime. You're given the set up and circumstances and all the evidence, although some evidence is locked or password-protected and some evidence isn't evident that it's evidence and some evidence is unclear because the suspects used ciphers or other ways to conceal it. And some isn't even evidence, but stuff that might be evidence. 

So you're given all that, and then you just... solve the crime! In this particular game, Syd and I had to figure out if a beloved bar owner's death was murder or an accident, and if it was murder, who did it? How and why?

Syd and I made a whole evening out of it. We bought ourselves snacks and drinks and set up at the big family room table, and exiled Matt and Will elsewhere so that they didn't get any spoilers that would ruin the fun when they want to try the game.

We'd kind of thought that the game would only take an hour or so, because it's apparently one of the easiest in the entire Hunt a Killer collection, but, ummm... I think it took us nearly four hours to solve? And the whole time we were completely absorbed, absentmindedly eating Goldfish crackers (these giant Cheddar Jalapeno ones are the best) and figuring out clues and having stunning revelations and arguing over alibis and trying out different substitution ciphers and having an absolute ball.

Ooh, and there were awesome surprises! At one point I figured that just for a laugh I would Do a Thing and Syd was all, "OMG don't Do That Thing! Surely it's not a real thing, just a game thing, or if it is a real thing it's a different real thing and it will be so embarrassing!" But then, I Did the Thing and it WAS a real thing AND it was a game thing and Syd and I were shocked and delighted and I screamed out loud because I'm excitable and we're still talking about it. 

We LOVED it. It was SO FUN. 

The only downside to the game is that there's zero replay value because, you know, we solved the crime! But if you consider it a #wholesomefamilyactivity rather than a product, the spendiness is easier to bear, in the same way that I happily spend more on theater or concert tickets. And at some point Syd and I will successfully convince Matt and Will to play it (and then secretly time them so we can decide whether or not they're better detectives than us, but only tell them that we timed them if we win, of course), so that's double the value, and then if I get really lucky, maybe somebody on Craigslist has a different Hunt a Killer game and would be willing to trade. 

Or, I don't know... y'all got any mysteries that I can solve? I prefer mysteries with lots of interesting clues, a few ciphers, and zero paraphilias or horrifyingly traumatic details of graphic murders. My birthday is in August!

A Very Girl Scout Graduation

 

From that Christmas morning almost ten years ago to this day of her Bridging and Girl Scout graduation, this kid has loved everything about being a Girl Scout. 

As we've journeyed down this Girl Scout path together, I've celebrated her milestones--

--felt pride in her accomplishments--

--watched her become ever more confident and comfortable with herself--

--and continued, always, to celebrate every milestone--

--through this latest, which saw her Bridge, in the eyes of Girl Scouts, from a girl to an adult:

We had a fun family gathering in the backyard for our Girl Scout troop's Bridging and Graduation celebration. The kids created their own Scouts' Own Bridging ceremony, and all the adults (and the dog) had to do was watch and applaud:

Each kid stepped up on the makeshift bridge and spoke some words about her time at her current level. Some kids talked about their accomplishments, some about their favorite badges, some about their favorite memories. Then each kid stepped down on the other side and greeted her sister Scouts with the Girl Scout Handshake. Afterwards, the troop recited the Girl Scout Promise and ended with the Friendship Circle, and as sweetly and simply as that, Will's final Bridging concluded.

And then we had a party! 

Kid-led often means being led in strange directions, and that's how somehow or other, we ended up having a Make Your Own Fishbowl Punch bar at our celebration. The troop budget could not afford the glow-in-the-dark ice cubes that the kids wanted because they are REALLY expensive, but everything else was just as planned--a selection of Nerds and/or berries for gravel, plenty of ice, a combination of Sprite or ginger ale plus blue Minute Maid or Hawaiian Punch, and Swedish fish and gummy worms on top. Add a paper straw, and you have perfection!

Before sunset, I taught the kids how to make a basic rolled beeswax candle. It's a bit of a jump start on our upcoming retired Folk Arts IPP meeting, but the kids needed to have candles in hand for our final evening activity, and what better candle than a candle that you've made yourself?

I also made each of the kids a special drawstring bag to hold their candle, on account of we're going to infuse these candles with meaning and only light them on the fanciest of occasions:

Is there anything that decade-old stash felt cannot do?!?

The labels are fabric sheets that are printable on an inkjet printer, also part of my stash for who knows how long. I LOATHE my inkjet printer, but I have to admit that the specialty papers available for it are the best. The ribbon is a silk ribbon that I bought once upon a time, but couldn't use for the project I'd had in mind for it because of those unfinished edges. I don't even know when I dyed it, but I'm sure it was some leftover dye bath or other that I popped it into, and I love the color.

There should be a word for the particular thrill of making a lovely present entirely from stuff one already owns. It's free AND it declutters your house!

Matt impulse-bought sparklers for all the kids while out and about running some pre-party errands. I don't think it would have ever occurred to me to buy a billion sparklers for the troop, but OMG a billion sparklers was just exactly what these kids needed. 

From now on, sparklers are probably going to need to be present at every evening Girl Scout meeting. They were THAT fun. 

When it was dark enough, Matt set up the projector and we screened the slideshow that the kids and I created from photos spanning all the years of our troop. OMG these big kids used to be so small! Did I know that at the time, that those small kids would grow up? I definitely didn't, or I would have cherished them even harder than I think I already did.

After our slideshow, Girl Scouts and guests gathered in a circle for an Eternal Flame ceremony in honor of our two graduating Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts had their own handmade candles, and I passed my stash candles around to the guests. I asked each person, when their candle was lit, to share something with our graduating Girl Scouts. I suggested that they could tell their favorite memory of that Girl Scout, congratulate them, talk about something they liked about them, or offer hopes for their futures. I had expected it to be fairly short and sweet, with a lot of "Congratulations, Willow!", etc.

But you guys. Every person, even with an impromptu speaking role thrust upon them, was so thoughtful, and so sincere. I loved that for my graduating Girl Scouts, watching them receive these loving words from friends and family. I loved the chance to see my own wonderful girl through the eyes of people important to us, to hear what they love about her, their favorite memories of her, and how they feel about her. I loved that she got to hear that from them. 

The past few weeks, as Will and I have been trying to work out a suitable way to mark her high school graduation, I've been coming back a lot to something that I wrote back in 2014, when Matt, the kids, and I took a weekend trip to Arkansas to attend my baby cousin's high school graduation. It was the kids' first graduation ceremony, and they had a lot of questions. At some point during that long ceremony, the kids and I spun a tale of what their own high school graduations might look like:

"Sitting in the stands for three FREAKING HOURS for this graduation, the kids and I did some discussing of what their high school graduations might look like. We're thinking backyard party, perhaps we'll grill, some of the people who've loved them and guided them through their school years can give speeches, and they can give a speech, too."

I forgot about that for years--forgot about it for most of this year, too, to be honest. And then when we were trying to figure out what we might do to honor Will's graduation--a party? A ceremony? A cake? A speech? A cap and gown? A diploma?--none of it really felt like it fit. 

But on this night, we had a backyard party. We didn't grill, exactly, but we did roast marshmallows over the bonfire.

Some of the people who've loved Will and guided her through her school years gave speeches, and Will gave a speech, too. 

We did it, my friends. We graduated.

Homeschool High School Civics: In Which "Attend a Protest Together" is Checked Off My Parenting Bucket List

Vaxxed and boosted? It's time to protest!

Remember that time that I happened upon an abortion rights march happening downtown and I got so excited that I literally hopped out of the car right then and joined them in my sweaty gym clothes?

Since then, I've been keeping my eye out for ways to volunteer, and other protests that I can join--with a little more advanced notice this time, ideally!

And by "advanced notice," I suppose that I meant 3 hours, because that's the approximate amount of time ahead of this particular protest that I announced to my homeschool that "Hey, there's an abortion rights rally at the courthouse this afternoon. Anyone wanna go with me?"

One kid did, and that's how our afternoon turned into a place-based, experiential, project-oriented homeschool civics lesson!

The lesson consisted of the following parts:

1. Research the history of protest signage, and examples of current signage related to Black Lives Matter, gun control, and abortion rights.
2. Create original protest signage, featuring an original, sincere message, while listening to my favorite Angry Feminist playlist on Spotify.
3. Attend a protest and collect observations about the experience. Discuss both the personal experience and the social-historical context of the event. 
4. Afterwards (because you didn't have time before!), read the full text of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Discuss.

I was a little nervous about Part 3 because, you know, you want to bring your kid to a rally, not a riot, but fortunately, our town is a liberal haven in the middle of our red state where we actually have very little state/national representation of our actual desires because our precinct has been so gerrymandered, so attending an abortion rights march here is a pretty safe bet.

There were absolutely a few sketchy incidents that happened. During one of them, the local university's newspaper literally quoted my kid and I snarking about how much gas a particular truck must have been wasting as it continually circled the courthouse and shouted at us through some kind of speaker system--they spelled our names correctly and everything, and got me word-for-word holding up a protest sign about abortion rights while fervently exclaiming, "And gas is so expensive right now!" Another online news source later published a photo of that truck's driver leaning out of his truck and spitting on a protestor, which... gross. But, you know, there's my kid and I, using our platform to grouse about the price of gasoline!

The price of gasoline is an absolute scam, though.

Mostly, though, the rally and march were lovely. Everyone was super nice and supportive, an awesome woman gave out adorable little hanger SWAPS that we pinned on our shirts, and the weather was gorgeous, giving me an excuse to run through some Handmaid's Tale dialogue with my kid:

"We've been sent good weather."

"Which I receive with joy."

OT, but I've been watching The Handmaid's Tale in 30-minute increments during my cardio at the gym five days a week, and while I'm currently at the beginning of Season 4 and still riveted (so no spoilers, please!), it's a LOT less fun now that it's turned into a documentary. Two nights ago, I had an actual Handmaid's Tale-themed nightmare. Now I kind of want to DIY some Handmaid cosplay to wear to my next march, though.

The kid and I also had a ton of fun holding up our signs to the street--

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--and every supportive honk was a shot of endorphin. It was SUPER fun. And dang, an event like this would have meant everything to me when I was my kid's age.

 Might as well go home, then, and make myself mad with Part 4: Read the full text of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. 

Okay, here are screenshots of the quotes that make me the maddest:

Originalist interpretations of the Constitution make me SO mad, especially with an issue related to sex/gender or race. Yeah, no shit that the right to autonomy over one's reproductive choices wasn't mentioned in the Constitution! The Constitution was written by men! The only rights "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" are the rights of the white male landowner, and every time the Supreme Court decides to dial down its decisions to that sole perspective, it's actually just dialing it down to the perspective of a rich cisgender white man. 

It's the same thing here:

If women weren't writing the Constitution, they sure as hell weren't writing the laws, either. They sure as hell weren't voting for or against anything, either. 

Oh, and that 1879 law they quote up there? Yeah, the last witch trial in the United States took place in 1878. You cannot use historic laws to determine what was just or desired in regards to a group of people not given agency or suffrage. Like, gee, there weren't laws back then that addressed a woman's body autonomy? That took into account a woman's potential desire not to carry a pregnancy? Wow, that's some real revelatory news you're breaking there.

And notice that the 1879 law that's quoted doesn't refer to the woman as an actor in the scenario, or the decisions that she might make for her own body, because it doesn't imagine her as someone with agency. If you want to figure out some kind of historical precedent, you'd have to figure out how actual women felt about their pregnancies, what choices they'd wanted to make, what choices they did make in secret, or just between themselves and their peers. And you can't figure that out, because it's not codified, it's not written down, and even at the time how many people would have known about it, on account of it wasn't that many people's business?

Justification using historical laws just doesn't make sense when women didn't have political agency at the time that the laws were written.

Somehow, although the Supreme Court completely ignored that fact while writing the justification, they decided that it's a great reason why returning the decision-making to the states is a super idea right now:

As a matter of fact, I do NOT find that noteworthy, and I think it's a patronizing statement to make, as if the Supreme Court doesn't know perfectly well how extremely many districts are gerrymandered. It's a running joke in my town that "our" Representative, Trey Hollingsworth, never has to step foot here, much less--gasp!--campaign here, or address any of our needs, or take into account any of our requests, because our district is gerrymandered to such an extent that no matter how poorly he does in our city, the rest of the district will carry him. Our Representative was more often a Democrat once upon a time, but the 2010 redistricting transferred enough reliably Republican areas over, and Republicans have won ever since.

Republicans don't usually even bother running in our tiny little State Representative district; instead, they used the latest redistricting to further isolate us, and peel off some Republican areas from the edges to add to other districts to make them more reliably Republican. So sure, we've got a Democrat, but there's only 29 of them in the entire House, and next week the 71 Republicans in that House are going to vote to outlaw abortion in Indiana.

So yeah, good luck voting! 

Let's not let that be the result of today's Civics lesson, though, at least not for the kid. The kid needs to walk away from her first protest feeling empowered, not defeated. She needs to focus on the energy of her fellow protestors, not the nastiness of those trying to disrupt us. She needs to feel like her voice is heard and her opinions are valued, even though she's losing some of her precious human rights.

Instead, then, let's let the kid's Civics lesson be a little piece of dog Latin also from the Handmaid's Tale:

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, Friends!

Cooking with Teenagers: Whole Fruit Strawberry Lemonade

 

This whole fruit strawberry lemonade has too much sweetener to be health food, but I declare that the whole fruit makes up for it, and it's so delightful and refreshing and yum--WAY better than powdered lemonade mix!

The kids and I have been making this strawberry lemonade together since they were small and I found the recipe online. I used to make the recipe as-written, including leaving the lemons unpeeled. We prefer to wing it now, so the lemonade is a little different every time. It's better to wing it, anyway, because lemons are always different sizes and strawberries are always sweeter or less sweet than the last time, so the amount of sugar required is always going to be different. And I don't usually buy organic, so I do prefer to peel the lemons. Anyway, putting lemon peels down the garbage disposal makes the kitchen smell awesome!

The one fancy piece of equipment that you might need is one of those super-powerful blenders. I bought a refurbished Vitamix a billion years ago (or at least a decade ago, which is the exact same thing), and it's still the best thing in my kitchen. The only thing I've ever had to do for it is replace the pitcher after I, myself, dropped the lid plug into the blender while it was running and cracked the pitcher and tomato soup flew EVERYWHERE.

So I don't know if you exactly *need* the world's best blender to make this recipe, but I've only ever used the world's best blender to make it, so your mileage may vary, as the kids say.

This recipe that the kids and I use makes one completely full blender pitcher of lemonade.

You'll need:

• 2-4 fresh lemons, depending on their size. 
• around a quart of fresh strawberries, tops removed. Sometimes I'll cap these fresh, put them in a quart-sized plastic baggie in the freezer, and pull them out to use frozen.
• sugar to taste. If I'm in charge of the sugar, I'll use more like .5-.75 cup. If a kid is in charge, they inevitably dump in a full cup of sugar without even tasting the lemonade first.
• water.

The goal is to fill the blender pitcher maybe halfway full with fruit, at least half of that lemons. Peel the lemons, but otherwise just toss the whole fruit into the blender:

Strawberries, as well, should be capped, but otherwise just throw them in.

Next, add water to just below the maximum fill line of the blender.

If I'm making the lemonade, I'll blend it, then taste it, then add sugar and blend again until I like the taste. The kids don't even bother--they dump in a full cup of sugar along with the fruit.

Blend the lemonade on high to pulverize the fruit:

There are also lemon seeds in there that you'll be pulverizing, which is why you might need a high-power blender. Even on the days when we've not done such a thorough job and we've been left with a seed bit or two in our drinks, though, I've never heard the kids protest, and they can be picky about fruit.

Blending the drink at such a high speed makes it a little foamy. You can skim that off or politely ignore it:

Pour the lemonade into a Mason jar filled with ice, add a glass straw, and enjoy your summer day!

I keep meaning to try this recipe with fruits other than strawberries--I think cherries or blackberries would be absolutely delicious--but strawberries are so bountiful right now that I've never gotten around to it. We do have a bit of a watermelon problem going on at the moment, though--why is it that every time I buy a watermelon, the kids eat themselves sick on it as soon as it's cut, and then I essentially have to force-feed them the rest of it before it goes bad? And then a week later they're asking for watermelon again? 

So maybe my next experiment will be to make Whole Fruit Strawberry Watermelon Lemonade? I wonder if it would taste good with boba?

Homeschool Art History: Frida Kahlo and Political Art

 

Art history isn't something that has its own curriculum on the kids' homeschool high school transcripts. Instead, at least so far, it's something that we've done as unit studies, and then I've incorporated those studies into whatever syllabus best fits it. For Will, all of her high school art studies, both hands-on and history/appreciation activities, are included as a 1-credit Fine Arts class on her transcript, and the syllabus includes details of each activity and resources used, written after the fact based on what was actually accomplished.

Syd will have numerous Fine Arts classes on her high school transcript, and it's my hope that one of them will, indeed, be Art History, although for that to be a credit that stands on its own we'll have to conduct a more thorough, extensive study at some point.

Until then, we study the art that interests the kids, as it catches their interest. And recently, that was Frida Kahlo, inspired by the Mexico study that was, itself, inspired by our Girl Scout troop's Spring Break cruise.

As we often do when we start a completely new unit of study, we started our Frida Kahlo unit with a selection of picture books. You know that expression--"Explain it to me like I'm five?" Picture books are meant to offer digestible explanations in an appealing manner, often exploring a topic through a unique lens meant to engage and inspire.

Both of these books were excellent introductions to the basics of Kahlo's life and works:

• Portrait of an Artist: Frida Kahlo
• Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl in the World

I've been trying to relearn some of my Spanish this year, so the kids also let me read to them from this awesome book:

• Frida Kahlo y Sus Animalitos

So many animal names to look up and learn! Clearly, my college Spanish classes focused on the wrong things...

Part of the work for this study was creating activities to teach younger Girl Scouts about Frida Kahlo for our Girl Scout troop's World Thinking Day kit, so the kids chose their favorite Frida Kahlo paintings, and I used Google Image searches to find and download high-quality jpegs of them and printed them two to a page on cardstock. I try to remember to do this with all the images we study, whether they're paintings, photos, sculpture, or whatever. They come in endlessly handy for comparison and review, they make your Timeline game even bigger and better, and it's awesome how often they come in handy to build context in a different study. 

And because every good Girl Scout activity includes a craft, the kids of COURSE had to test out these Frida Kahlo paper dolls:

Beyond the picture books and paper dolls, the kids and I LOVED this American Experience documentary on Frida Kahlo:

It's a surprisingly exciting ride, with shocking moments, plot twists, stunning revelations, and a strong female lead! And it answers the question of Was Frida Kahlo The Most Epic Person To Ever Have Lived? with a resounding...

OMG yes. Hard yes. All. The. Yes.

Once we were all devoted Frida Kahlo fangirls, I wanted the kids to have some practice analyzing her art. We'd also been talking separately about different methods of political protest, from flipping off the people who harass visitors to our local Planned Parenthood to participating in a march to support abortion rights, etc., so it seemed like a good chance to use Frida Kahlo as an example of how gender affects political speech, the kinds of political issues relevant to gender issues, and how personal speech can conflate with political speech to empower both.

We did a similar study of political speech in racial justice a couple of years ago, so this unit also builds upon that one.

For this study, we focused more overtly on the definition of political art, and examples of the main types of political art:

I borrowed heavily from the PBS LearningMedia lesson on The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo for this, including borrowing the second page of this student handout for the kids to use to organize their work. 

For their culminating project in this study, I assigned the kids each a selection of Kahlo pieces, and other pieces like Shepard Fairey's Obama graphic, Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, a mural that's locally infamous for including a KKK cross burning, and that lost Diego Rivera mural, and asked the kids to thoughtfully categorize each piece as personal or a specific type of political, justifying their conclusions with evidence. I wouldn't necessarily say that I agreed with all of their categorizations, but they did back up their claims with evidence!

If we'd wanted to carry this study further, the kids could have used that worksheet as the basis for any number of essays, or they could have created their own personal-as-political self portraits or political art of any category. We might do some political art, anyway, as the kids have expressed interest in coming with me to the next Bans Off Our Bodies Block Party, and obviously they can't go without excellent protest signs!

I was happy, though, for the kids to simply accomplish my main learning objectives for them: 1) to fall in love with Frida Kahlo, and 2) to widen their understanding of how we, particularly as women, can express ourselves politically in this patriarchal culture. 

Ooh, how awesome would a Frida Kahlo-themed protest sign be?!?