[blindkid] NBP-Announce: Kids: Hailstones and Halibut Bones
Barbara Hammel
poetlori8 at msn.com
Thu Mar 11 01:55:13 UTC 2010
You didn't ask me because 7 is green and 9 is orange. The first nine
letters of the alphabet are the same colors as the first nine numbers. But
I'm diverting from what the topic is.
I like the book. It inspired me to write my own poems about what colors
sound and taste and feel like.
Barbara
A Congress that will always do its work in the dark must have something to
hide. The people have spoken, yet they do not listen.
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Heather" <craney07 at rochester.rr.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 7:11 PM
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blindkid] NBP-Announce: Kids: Hailstones and Halibut Bones
> This book annoys the heck out of me. I have many friends that are
> senesthetes, and they outright hate this book, because, although the poems
> are creative and nice, from a literary stand-point, they are very
> stereotypical. The author mostly fills the poems with things that are the
> colors she is describing, with the occational sensory addition of sound,
> or texture or taste or scent, rarely more than two of these in each poem.
> I vaguely disliked the book, but, not having especially strong synesthetic
> tendencies, perhaps four or five on a scale of one to ten, with ten being
> those who see numbers as spacific colors, or who taste letters or feel
> textures with sounds, and one being the average joe shmoe. But, when I
> heard some of my friends who are more like eights or nines complaining, I
> challenged them to do better. They generated ideas and I generated the
> literary text and we both got nice fat As for our respective parts in a
> joint English and Psychology assignment, but we have never had any success
> in publishing. I am glad that it is being produced, as it is a nice
> little book, but it is very limited and everyone who knows anything about
> blindness, clings to it as a gold standard, and I don't think it deserves
> the gold, perhaps the bronze. For example, even when sound is employed
> for blue, it is the wind over water, and water is sterotypically blue, and
> the wind associated with the sky which is sterotipically blue follows the
> pattern. I asked three synesthetic friends what color the sound of the
> wind is, and they all said the same thing, with out hearing one another's
> answers, lavinder said two and lilac said the third. One thing that
> research has uncovered is that although there is variation amung
> synesthetes, there are commanalities, that would seem to support the idea
> that synesthetism is not a mental or psychological disorder, but a tru,
> hightened perception. I repeted my method for the purposes of the book we
> wrote, for five different questions, and got similar answers. All three
> said that 9 is green and 7 is red or redish-orange. All three agreed that
> spearamint smells parawinckle or light blue, that milk chocolate tastes
> yellow, that the texture of glossy magazine pages is either forest or
> kelly green, etc. Most of the other things we put in the book were true
> of all thre or at least two of the three synesthetes that I worked with.
> No group wants to see it's members discouraged, mislead or ignored, and
> that is what these three felt was being done, by not using less normative
> and blatent examples for the colors. If an average child, especially one
> who is stifled, black and white thinking, and not at all synesthetic was
> asked to name something that smelled green, they would probably say grass
> or mint, because those things are green, not because they really
> understand the concept, and to fit in, and with the reenforcement of the
> sterotypical book, a truly gifted synesthetic child might repress their
> answer of, bananas smell green or leather smells green, because they don't
> want to be "Wrong" for naming something that is not actually green in
> color, and that no one else named. I think the author played it
> waaaaaaaaay too safe and this from a free thinker and writer is very
> upseting. I just wanted to put this out there, because one of the best
> things you can do for a totally blind child who has never seen colors, to
> help them experience what colors are like, is to ask an actual synesthete
> to explain to your child, using all five senses and multiple examples from
> each. I've got to go and find my favorite description of yellow that a
> synesthetic friend wrote up for me to give a totally blind friend, since
> it is my favorite color. I used to be able to see colors, BTW. Ok, just
> sharing.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tony Grima (by way of David Andrews<dandrews at visi.com>)"
> <agrima at nbp.org>
> To: <david.andrews at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 5:29 AM
> Subject: [blindkid] NBP-Announce: Kids: Hailstones and Halibut Bones
>
>
>> March 2010 Book Club Selection
>> Hailstones and Halibut Bones
>> by Mary O'Neill
>> Print/braille edition, $9.95
>> In contracted braille.
>> Ages 8-13
>>
>> "I was surprised and flattered then, and continue to be, by the large
>> audience - including the blind - who still write to me."
>> - Author Mary O'Neill
>>
>> "Hailstones and Halibut Bones" is a unique book about colors that can be
>> heard, touched, and smelled. Originally published in 1961, it has become
>> a classic, at twice the length of most children's books.
>>
>> O'Neill explores 12 different colors in 12 poems. Each series of poems
>> relates to a color, "What Is Green," "What Is Gold... Red... Blue," and
>> so forth.
>>
>> Blue is a heron, a sapphire ring,
>> You can smell blue in many a thing:
>> Gentian and larkspur, Forget-me-nots, too.
>> And if you listen, you can hear blue
>> In wind over water....
>>
>> "After more than twenty-five years, the poems, like colors, still sing.
>> Kudos to Doubleday for letting Hailstones continue to live."
>> - School Library Journal
>>
>> To order or read more about this book online, visit
>> http://www.nbp.org/ic/nbp/BC1003-HAILSTONE.html
>>
>>
>>
>> ******
>> To order any books, send payment to:
>> NBP, 88 St. Stephen Street, Boston, MA 02115-4302
>>
>>
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>
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