Deborah Kops

Reading Guardian of Ga’Hoole by Kathryn Lasky, Owls by Deborah Kops is a useful book to understand owls’ life.

Some curiosities:
- ‘An owl can tell the height that a sound is coming from as well as its direction. This ability is partly a result of the unusual placement of its ears - one ear is higher than the other.’ (p. 13)

- ‘A great horned owl living in the North may store its uneaten prey in the snow during winter. Later, it can thaw out its frozen dinner by sitting on it.’ (p. 17)

- ‘Owls are not nest builders ... Some times, a hawk and an owl occupy a nest in alternate years.’ (p. 19)… (altro)

1992, high school gym class baseball. The teacher divided the class by sex then had the girls play on a muddy, disused soccer practice field with aluminum bats and rubber balls while he coached the boys up on the baseball practice field with real equipment. Two girls and I complained to the principal, who suggested that maybe the gym teacher was just "trying to keep the girls safe." Next class, girls were given the option to play with the boys, which wasn't what we wanted...we wanted to use the good equipment and the good field like the boys did, or at least trade off. One friend and I did go play with the boys on principle, even though it was incredibly embarrassing. It would have been so much better if the rest of the girls had gone with us, and I never got why they didn't. This biography of Alice Paul helps me understand a little of how some of those girls might have been thinking.

Not that I'm remotely like Alice Paul except in the sense that I'm argumentative and difficult to get along with, but I can relate to her frustration a little bit, I think.… (altro)

Last time we baked molasses cookies at home, I began telling my 4yo about the molasses flood in Boston. She wanted to know more, so we got this book out while we were waiting for the more age-appropriate picture book Molasses Flood by Blair Lent. Mainly we looked at the photographs and I skimmed parts of the text, but it seems like an excellent book for anyone interested in this bizarre and tragic event in Boston's history.

Commemorative plaque on Commercial Street in Boston:
Boston Molasses Flood
On January 15, 1919, a molasses tank at 529 Commercial Street exploded under pressure, killing 21 people. A 40-foot wave of molasses buckled the elevated railroad tracks, crushed buildings, and inundated the neighborhood. Structural defects in the tank combined with unseasonably warm temperatures contributed to the disaster.… (altro)