the second five

Spare time for reading has been scarce lately, apparently. It's taken me just over two months to read these five.


6. The Parent's Guide to Speech and Language Problems by Debbie Feit
If I'm going to be a good advocate for Garrett and his speech delay, I need to be educated. This book was immensely helpful. It was written by a mother of two children -- both diagnosed with apraxia -- and supported medically by an expert in the field of child development and language disorders. Two important things it taught me were 1) If your gut tells you there's a problem with your child, don't just "wait and see" if that's really the case; and 2) There are more options for help out there than I initially believed. And now I feel better armed to help Garrett.

7. What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained by Robert L. Wolke
I saw this book on the have-read list of a trusted reader friend (thanks, Sarah!). It turns out that kitchen chemistry is fascinating. My favorite sections were on mineral salt vs. sea salt (chemically they are exactly the same, so you can mostly ignore those claims that sea salt is superior; the better taste is derived from the shape of the crystal, not its chemical makeup), how sugar is refined (too complicated to explain here, but trust me: it's fascinating), and how to correctly refrigerate food items (turns out I was doing a lot of stuff wrong). Wolke makes the chemistry surprisingly approachable, which made the book a lot easier to read than I thought it might be. And now many of the questions I've thought of while I'm in the kitchen preparing food for my family have been answered. There is a sequel, which I just might have to pick up one of these days.

8. Toilet Training in Less Than a Day by Nathan H. Azrin and Richard M. Foxx
My mom recommended this book because she had success training her children with this method. She told me, and I believe her after reading it myself, that one day isn't necessarily a realistic expectation, but that by the end of the week it was pretty much a done deal. The book was originally published in 1974 and sometimes came across as a bit dated, but the overall method, which focuses on intense positive reinforcement and motivation, seems to make a lot of sense. Like I mentioned yesterday, the method is not without its flaws, and those must be taken into consideration when applying it to your child's personality. Obviously Garrett's not totally ready for this way of training. I think, though, that once he's a little more comfortable with the potty he'll be ready to try it again. I hope he is, anyway, because the thing about this method that interests me the most is how quickly training can be accomplished. Perhaps not in a day, but definitely less than several months.

9. Poetry in Motion: 100 poems from the subways and buses edited by Molly Peacock, Elise Paschen, and Neil Neches
10. Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast: 120 poems from the subways and buses edited by Elise Paschen & Brett Fletcher Lauer
Displayed in advertising space on the subways and buses here in New York City, and, I learned from the second book, in other big cities around the country, are short poems for riders to read. I've always enjoyed this poetry, and when I learned that there were published collections of the poems used on public transportation, I was naturally interested in picking up a copy. While I didn't particularly love all of the poetry, there was a good handful that I did. The first book highlights poems used only in the New York City MTA system; the second book includes poetry used in NYC as well as other metropolitan areas around the country. There are still a few more days in National Poetry Month, and these collections are an excellent way to celebrate.