An ambitious American history Book Club is forming. Lloyd Miller, who is the founder of the club, sent me this information. If you are interested, read this post and get in touch with Lloyd. It looks like there are going to be two meetings — one in Park Slope and one in Ditmas Park.

I see that he wants to have kids at these events, which is an interesting idea. I wonder how that will work out in practice. Certainly older kids is a great idea.

Also, there will be a musical side of things. A sing-a-long. Lloyd is a member of the Deedle Deedle Dees, so it makes sense that music will be an important component.

Can’t wait to hear how it turns out.

A lot of people responded and so it looks
like we’re going to have two meetings sometime in mid or late January,
one in Park Slope and one in Ditmas Park. I’m going to let everyone
know about both meetings for this first month, then after that just the
one for your neighborhood. That way, if you have friends in the other
neighborhood who would like to come, you can let them know. Also, if
you’re unable to attend the meeting closest to you, maybe you can get
on the Q and visit the other group.

The January book is The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
by Jonathan Alter. As I mentioned in my original posts to the Yahoo
groups, our meetings won’t feature traditional book club discussions.
Instead, we’re going to be singing songs from the FDR era, writing new
songs, and creating visual art, poems, and other projects that we can
use to teach kids and other adults about the book.

I’ll be drawing heavily from a second book to help us with the musical side of things: Roosevelt’s Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs on FDR
by Guido Van Rijn. This book has a companion CD full of amazing songs
written for and about FDR — apparently more songs were written about
him than any other president. We’ll also sing more famous tunes from
the era ("Happy Days," etc) but my focus is going to be on more
overlooked music of the time. If you’re a musician, I’ll be posting
chords and, if possible, rough transcriptions of songs that I’d like to
sing at our meeting on my blog, www.teachddd.blogspot.com.
I’m also going to put updates about our book club there and links to
more music and things to read. This blog is a slowly-building resource
for teachers and parents, a digital musical American history textbook.
I write lots of songs with my band about American history that I bring
into schools and I also write songs with school kids in their social
studies classes and kids and grown-ups in other settings. This blog is
where I’m starting to gather everything into one central place.

Some important questions:

When is the best time for you to meet? Please be specific (e.g., "Tuesdays after 8pm") and give two or three options in order of preference.

Should we have kids at our meeting? If yes, how can we make it work? Ideally,
I’d like this to be a family event that your kids can attend with you,
but obviously if your kids are young like mine (3 years and 10 months)
it would probably be useful to have two adults so that one can be
chasing the kid(s) while the other sings, plays, and makes stuff. Let
me know what you think. We could also do a grown-up meeting at night
and then have a family daytime meeting where we play and sing the songs
we’ve already learned and show off what we’ve made.

Do you play an instrument? If so, which one? Do you read music? Can you read a simple chart? It’s fine if
the answer to all of these questions is no. I just want to figure out the best way to include everyone in our singalong.

Are
you an artist? (the answer is yes) A poet? An HTML code goddess? What
kind of art would you like to use to teach others about the book? I’ll
be supplying the musical materials we need, I need you guys to bring
other stuff you’d like to use, be it watercolors and paper, recyclable
materials for a sculpture, theater games, etc etc etc.

You can always write me at this address or thedeedledeedledees@yahoo.com if you have questions for me.