[blindkid] NBP-Announce: Kids: Hailstones and Halibut Bones

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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