Suspenseful nights for the Petkov kids

The kids are now 12 and 10 and I’m delighted I still get to read to them at night. Each of them likes to be read in their own rooms and beds and they have different tastes in books. Right now I’m reading Sherlock Holmes for Julian and for Maya When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin (who by the way has a remarkable way of turning he real life turmoil dealing with cancer taking her loved ones into children’s books based on Chinese folklore, fortune, luck and optimism for life).

Both books contain a lot of suspense and the kids are quite delighted and annoyed when I stop a story for the night right at the most exciting part. They both want to write letters to the authors (I won’t tell Julian that the letter to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle won’t get far) to protest all of the gratuitous suspense.

I’ll give you a flavour of it, as it happened a couple of time the last couple of days.

Julian was initially quite bored by the Sherlock books, but I persevered and he’s gotten hooked on the mystery of the cases that Mr. Holmes gets to solve. We’ve been reading the Adventure of the Red-Headed League. It started off with a red headed man that was visiting Holmes and Watson to describe his bizarre experience. For a few pages the man describes how he owns a pawn shop and then was encouraged by a recently hired apprentice to answer an advert that was looking for red-headed men.

So the first night I stopped there and Julian protested that it’s not fair that I stop reading because the story makes no sense. Why would anyone have an advert only for people of red hair. He hadn’t met any people in England, men in particular that had red hair. I agreed with him and said we’ll find out the next day.

Then I went to Maya’s room and read from her book about a Chinese girl named Pinmei whose grandmother Anmah was a famous storyteller at the foot of a mystical mountain that emperors used to visit to talk to the Mountain Spirits and gain credibility and courage in their role as rulers of China. But there was a new emperor that somehow had a bad experience on the mountain and was quite upset. Then one night the emperor came charging the village with his troops. Anmah sensed trouble so she hid her grand daughter in an old container for food. The emperor came and took Anmah prisoner. Before he left he said “Set fire to the house!”.

Then I told Maya that I would continue again the next night. She was furious! “But Dad, how can you just say Pinmei is hiding in a container in the house and then the emperor sets fire to the house and then you stop for the night. Are you trying to traumatize your children?”. I told her that I’m not trying to traumatize them but that wasn’t it fun to have the story to look forward to hearing more about the next day? She didn’t agree.

So tonight we resumed with Sherlock and Julian listened as the red headed man told of how he answered the advert for the Red-Headed League. He said that a rich red headed man had left a fortune to be used to support other red headed men in London. All they had to do was sit in an office for 4 hours a day copying from the Encyclopedia Brittanica. They were never allowed to leave the office but that they would get a large amount of money for this simple task. So the man took up the job, particularly since he had red hair and was one of the few in London to do so, and spend each day for a few weeks copying off the Encyclopedia and earning his money. Then one day the office was closed with a sign saying the Red Headed League was dissolved and all evidence of the people involved was gone. Sherlock Homes and his friend Watson laughed at the prank that had been pulled on the red headed man but promised to solve the case. Sherlock then asked for silence to think about the clues and come to a conclusion. He sat in his chair thinking and smoking and then after about an hour was ready to tell Watson the conclusion that he had reached.

Then I kissed Julian good night and said we’d pick up the rest of the story the next night. He threw off his covers and said. “DAD, COME ON YOU CAN’T DO THAT! HOW CAN YOU JUST STOP THERE! IT’S NOT FAIR!”. I agreed and told him to enjoy the suspense. It was a sign of a good story.

Then I went to Maya’s room to read her story. Maya had been listening to Julian’s story and was amused that Julian was so disturbed by the suspense. I started reading her story and it was a very weird chapter about a creature like a turtle that was being plunged under water like a prisoner. That was it. The chapter ended.

Maya and I both looked cross-eyed at each other. What the huh was that about?

But it was too late to read more to figure out what that was about so I promised that I’d pick up the next night and that the suspense would be lifted for us both.

As I kissed her on the forehead I said. “Well Maya, a good story has to have some suspense to excite and lure the reader. It can also have some bizarre unexplainable bits but not for too long. They have to resolve for the reader soon or they might put the book in the trash and say “That was crap!”.

So what conclusion did Holmes come to and why did this secret society pull a prank on the red headed man? Why did the emperor imprison Pinmei’s grandmother and burn her house down? More importantly what is up with that weird turtle chapter?

I really can’t tell you because we don’t yet know. But there you go, a little taste of the night time suspense for the Petkov kids.

Amsterdam:

A lot has happened since I last blogged. I guess I am getting a little too used to placing things on Facebook. But it's not the same as writing a short story, so here goes another one you would never read in entirety if I had posted it on Facebook.

The last few months we've been living and working in Amsterdam and commuting back and forth to Newcastle; well at least I have, with Amanda and the kids joining me for three of the weeks.

Amsterdam is amazing and I always knew that it had a split personality with its wonderful canals, bikes, food and the other stuff that Amanda and I call Disneyland for adults. What I never realized is how important this city was for individual liberty and liberal thinking that was crucial for the way that the United States developed.

The book is written by an American ex-pat who discovered for himself how his adopted city had such a tremendous influence on his native country, the US of A. It's disappointing how the word 'liberal' has such a politicized connotation these days, given that it was and is everything that defines places like the United States. It's all about freedom and liberty, something I think every American strives for.

Anyhow, I never would have known the history of this remarkable city were it not for Claartje Levelt who hosted us for a lunch at her house in Leiden one beautiful Saturday in April and her husband gave us the book called Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City. As we enjoyed Dutch melted butter over white asparagus and eggs (as well as some amazing bagels from a recipe that a Dutch businessman had borrowed from New York) we also learned a bit about the country we were living in, albeit temporarily.

We're back now in Newcastle after our adventures in Amsterdam, which are pictorially pretty well documented on Facebook. Maya loved Amsterdam so much that she wants me to read her this book at night to help her fall asleep. Mind you the book is not for kids and I have to skip the seedy parts of history (war, bloodshed etc.). Plus there are many words that even I would have to look up in the dictionary.

Tonight we finished reading chapter two which is called "The Water Problem". It details much of the history of the city around the 1500s when the Dutch people created a city out of a large body of water. There was also the Miracle of Amsterdam which is an amusing story of how religion came to the city because of a miracle (no spoilers here), followed by the transformative trade in herrings, then by a war between Protestants and Catholics speckled with a little bit of the Spanish Inquisition.

The point of all of this is that after the chapter finished, Maya who I wasn't sure was following any of this protested, not because of the complex words or ideas about Amsterdam's rich history, but because of something else that really annoyed her about the chapter. She said "Dad, can I write Russell Shorto a letter and tell him that the chapter on The Water Problem had nothing to do with Water!?!". She was annoyed that Russell had taken 30 pages to, according to her, sidestep the water topic of the chapter to go on wild tangents about a Communion biscuit that wouldn't burn in the fire, how tasty herrings were and how mean people were over religion (Protestant or Catholic).

I kissed her on the forehead and said, "Yes of course Maya. We can write Russell." Funny how caught up I had gotten with the back to back stories that a 10 year old had to remind me that the author of the book had lost track of what he intended to tell us about.

Alrighty then. We're well on our way in this fascinating and somewhat unfocused book, which gives us a new perspective on the city we lived in with every page that we read. It is also striking how revolutionary ideas and evolution in our thinking often coincide with major upheavals, fighting and war. And we've only just got to chapter 3!