Book Review: The Creative Family

The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections

by Amanda Blake Soule

Rating: **1/2


Synopsis:

Amanda Blake Soule never considered herself creative. That is, until she was pregnant with her first child, and she got bit by the knitting bug. Suddenly, she found herself consumed with the passion to create. After her son was born, her creative desire was fueled by the natural creativity she observed in her child - the inherent creativity found in all children. Soule found that her own creativity and the creativity of her children fed into each other. She asserts:

Being creative (in whatever capacity) is important: important to me, because I feel myself to be a more complete person when my creativity is expressed; important to my children, who witness adults growing, sharing, and learning creatively; and important to my family, who grow and connect by creating together.

Soule began sharing her family's creative spirit on her blog, SouleMama, where she posts photos of her family and their projects, particularly sewing and knitting.

In The Creative Family, she continues to share ideas and projects from her own family in four categories: gathering (provide good quality materials in an accessible and inspiring location), playing (encourage opportunities for imaginative play and set aside times to be creative), living (find inspiration in nature and family rituals), and connecting (creatively celebrate family traditions and holidays).

These four sections are peppered with projects to stretch your family's creativity, including making a child's pants out of the sleeves of an old adult's shirt; teaching your child simple embroidery, sewing, and knitting; building homes for fairies; and sewing birthday crowns and garlands.

My Opinion

We drove the 1200 miles to Kentucky and back again this week, and I zoomed through this book on the long car ride. When I finished, my opinion of it was a casual shrug. It was okay. It wasn't the best parenting/education type of book I'd ever read, few of Soule's ideas were original or inspiring, and I had some criticisms. But overall, it was an okay book.

Then I visited her blog, and my opinion dropped down another half a star. The photos on her blog are gorgeous. Where were those photos in the book! And her sewing and crafting ideas on the blog are original and inspiring. Where are those ideas in the book?

I can only guess that she wrote the book before her photography improved and that she was targeting it at a beginner audience. Also, when she wrote the book, she had three children under five years old - meaning she was actually fairly inexperienced at creative living and parenting.

That last factor is probably the main reason I wasn't thrilled with this book - although I don't exercise my own creativity as much as I could, my children are already very creative. They are amazingly talented artists, they have a band called The Banders and have written some of their own songs, and they are developing a series of comic books starring their imaginary heroes Crack-a-Man and Gogog.

I don't need someone to tell me how to encourage imagination in a five-year-old. What I would like (and what I was hoping to get from this book) is someone who can show me how to preserve their natural creativity as they grow older.

Having said that, Soule did provide a few ideas that have stuck with me:

• Soule comes from the school of parenting that prefers natural, homemade toys to the plastic, electronic kind most children play with nowadays. However, her reason surprised me. Besides the common belief that simple toys encourage more imaginative play, Soule believes that providing your children with toys made from natural materials is another way to encourage a connection to the earth. She encourages letting your children play with wooden toys, fabric toys (or just fabric, yarn, and string), and "found" items such as rocks, shells, acorns, and pinecones. She also encourages using natural materials (like wool and cotton as opposed to polyester) in your children's art and sewing for the same reason.
  

• I enjoyed some of Soule's ideas for developing a child's love of nature by bringing nature into the home. We've long had a rule in our family - "no rocks or sticks in the house!" But Soule encourages her children to bring rocks and sticks into the house and even sets aside a table for them to display their rocks and shells and leaves. She also puts a "seasons tree" on the table - an empty branch from which they hang various ornaments depending on the season.

• Another intriguing idea from this book is the concept of craftivism, or activism in social justice or environmentalism through crafting. For example, sewing blankets or knitting caps for children in need. I'm not a crafty enough person to want to be a craftivist, but it's an interesting idea.

• Finally, I think this book is worth picking up just for the resources section. Besides providing a great list of other books about crafting and creating with children, she also includes a list of websites where you can find natural art supplies and materials.

As a final note, if you're really looking for ideas for creative projects to do with your kids, I think the best resources on that subject are any of the books by MaryAnn F. Kohl. My favorites are Preschool Art and Making Make Believe.

Up next on my reading list...Common Wealth by Jeffrey Sachs.

Send Me Your Seasonal Recipes

I'll be doing another post with seasonal recipes this week, so if you have any awesome recipes, email them to me at consciousshopperblog at gmail dot com. Or post them on your personal blog and email me the link.

To find out what's in season in your area, you can google "produce availability" and the name of your state, or choose your state on PickYourOwn.org. The latter has to be the worst designed and yet most valuable website I've seen. Anything you want to know about pick-your-own farms and preserving foods can be found there.

If you live in North Carolina, you will likely see the following fruits and vegetables at the farmer's market this month: green beans, butter beans, blackberries, blueberries, cabbage, cantaloupe, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, grapes, leafy greens, okra, peaches, peppers, potatoes, raspberries, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, and watermelon.

First Post at the Green Phone Booth

Check out my post from yesterday at The Green Phone Booth:

Green Superhero Origins: The Conscious Shopper

I tell the story of why I decided to green my life and some of the challenges I've had in doing it. Regular readers of The Conscious Shopper are already familiar with the story, but it's still worth reading because of the super awesome illustrations by my First Son. Here's a taste:

My Response to Fake Plastic Fish: What Is Plastic Good For?

I have a dirty little secret to tell you...My dad works for the plastics industry. He's an accountant at a plastic bottle plant for a large plastics company.

Here's another little secret...I worked at that plant for a year when I was in college. Yes, I have made many, many, many plastic bottles.

So when I read about (and even write about) the problems with plastic, I really weigh the pros and cons of the issue. My dad's job is involved. And because of that, I think I end up being a little less extreme than some so-called anti-plastic bloggers.

To be honest, I think extremity in any form hurts a cause more than helps it. And that's why I've been intrigued to read Fake Plastic Fish's back and forth discussion with a plastics industry insider. Both of them have presented their arguments rationally and without finger-pointing, and surprisingly, they believe many of the same things. This kind of discussion gets me excited because I think it's through this kind of finding-a-common-ground dialogue that real progress can be made.

In her post yesterday, Fake Plastic Fish posed several questions about plastic. Here are my answers:

What do you see as the major problems with plastic?

Wastefulness. Somehow, we've decided that plastic, more than any other non-biodegradable material, is disposable. So we use endless numbers of plastic bags, plastic cups, plastic bottles, plastic cutlery, plastic packaging, etc. Why on earth would we think that something primarily made of a nonrenewable resource that does not biodegrade could be called disposable!

Disposal. I doubt I'd see plastic as such a problem if I hadn't seen all those pictures of dead birds and turtles with plastic-filled stomachs. And after reading Cradle to Cradle, I've come to the conclusion that all plastic should be fully recycled, and if it can't be, it shouldn't be made.

Health. This is a minor reason for me - as I've mentioned before, I tend to tune out when people start taking about how something is bad for my health. Everything is bad for our health. But when it concerns my children, I adopt a "better safe than sorry" attitude.

What uses for plastic (if any) are necessary and beneficial to society?

There are so many beneficial uses for plastic. Health and safety are probably the main ones for me. But honestly, I can't see how they could make most of the items we use everyday without plastic.

Would you like to see a world without any plastic at all? What would that look like?

I don't think it's necessary to have a world without any plastic at all. What we need are better designed products, better produced plastics, and a better recycling system. We also need to eliminate the idea of plastics as disposable. No more one-time-use plastics! And if plastics are used as packaging, they should be compostable or biodegradable (and there should be systems set up so they can be composted).

Do you trust the plastics industry to tell you the truth about their products? Why or why not?

No. I don't trust any industry to tell me the truth. They're in business to make money, and if telling the truth will hurt their bottom line, they're not going to tell the truth. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll lie (though many industries do). But there might be some truth-stretching and some truth-hiding.

Do you trust the American Chemistry Council to tell you the truth?

I don't know anything about the American Chemistry Council, so I can't answer this question.

What questions would you ask a plastics professional if you could?

What steps are you taking to solve the problems with plastic?
What will it take for the plastics industry to decide to change?

What role do you think the plastics industry should play in solving the environmental problems associated with plastic?

I would love if the plastics industry played a major role in solving the plastic problem, but only if they're going to do it for the right reasons and in the right ways. If the plastics industry is going to get involved, I want to see real solutions. Like plastics that don't leach harmful chemicals into our foods. Like plastics that are fully recyclable in a cradle to cradle life cycle, or plastics that are truly compostable or biodegradable.

Beyond the plastics industry, I'd like to see other businesses making smarter decisions. Like designing good products that last and can be recycled when their lives are over. Like truly weighing the environmental effects of different materials and choosing the best material, not just the cheapest. Like minimizing or eliminating plastic packaging. Like more opportunities to buy food and personal care products in bulk.

What else would you like to share?

Plastic is just one aspect of our overall waste problem, and I am convinced that the most important thing we can do to combat waste is consume less. Buy less, use less, reuse, and repair. And then recycle.


Photo by Shazari


Related Posts

• Save Money and Plastic with Bulk Bins
• Plastics You Might Not Have Known Could Be Recycled
• Plastics Primer, Part 1: The Problems with Plastic
  

I Need...A New Laptop

I'm dreaming about getting a new laptop, but since I've decided to stick it out with our seven-year-old desktop for at least a few months, this is a post with more questions than answers. The environmental impact of our endlessly upgrading technology is a topic I'm just beginning to take a peek at, and the more I learn, the more overwhelmed I feel as a consumer.

Here are just a few problems with laptops:

Short Lifetime

While researching this post, I stumbled upon this "eco-claim" from the XO Laptop by One Laptop Per Child: "The laptop lifetime is 5 years or 2.5 times longer than a typical laptop."

That means that the typical lifetime of a laptop is only two years!

I can attest to that statistic from experience. My defunct laptop was an Asus Eee PC, and I loved that it was compact and highly portable, but it died after a year and a half. Before that, I had a Dell that lasted for a year before becoming a permanent dust-collector in my closet. My husband, a software engineer, says he's never had a laptop last longer than three years.

An average lifetime of only two years seems utterly ridiculous for a product that can carry such a high price tag. Especially considering all of the toxic substances it can contain...

Harmful Substances

Laptops contain a number of harmful substances, including the following:

• lead
  
• mercury
• cadmium
• PVC
• brominated flame retardants
  

Not to mention that laptops contain valuable metals such as copper and gold.

Disposal

With all the hazardous substances that laptops may be harboring, tossing dead laptops into a landfill seems like an obvious no-no. But recycling a laptop may not be much better.

Much of the e-waste in this country is sent to developing nations with lower environmental standards, such as China and India. There, poor workers dismantle computers, laptops, cell phones, and other types of electronic waste without proper equipment or protection, exposing themselves, the land, and the water to highly toxic substances.


My Perfect Laptop

In my dreams, laptops would be designed without all those harmful materials. They would be easily disassembled so the valuable materials they are made of can be recycled. They would be easy to repair and would boast a long lifespan. They would be energy efficient. And it would be awesome if they could come in minimal (but recyclable) packaging.

Turns out, I'm not the only person who has dreamed up that type of laptop. The Green Electronics Council has developed a program called EPEAT that assesses laptops and computers according to their environmental impact and assigns them either a Gold, Silver, or Bronze rating. Consumers can use these ratings to find eco-friendly computers that fit their needs.

However, after browsing through their database, it seems like the laptops that have earned a Gold rating are also the ones that are most expensive. My Asus Eee, for instance, only received a Silver rating, but it also only costs $400. It makes me cringe to think of spending $1500-$2000 on a laptop that will die after two years, Gold rating or not.


Repair or Buy New?

The other option is repairing. I now have two laptops that could be repaired instead of buying a new one, but with each one, the cost to repair feels prohibitive compared to the cost of a new, better product. Most of the time, repairing seems like the perfect environmental choice, but if it means I'll be stuck with an inferior product when I could have upgraded to something better for almost the same price, I have trouble feeling happy about choosing repair over new.

This is a case where my inner tightwad and my inner environmentalist are at war. Luckily, I still have my old desktop to keep me satisfied for a few months while I decide what to do.


What do you think is the best option?


Photo by manbeastextraordinaire


Related Posts:

• Quick Post on Recycling
• Plastics You Might Not Have Known Could Be Recycled
• Clean, Green, and Fair for Everyone

Putting on My Cape and Heading Over to the Green Phone Booth

I'm super excited to announce that I've been invited to blog with the superheroes over at The Green Phone Booth. This is one of my favorite blogs written by some of the first bloggers I started reading when I discovered blogging, so I am soooo excited to join them.

The Green Phone Booth is a collaborative blog written by some fabulous women who are working toward making the planet a little cooler, cleaner, and healthier. It's also a community where we can all support each other in our efforts to become green superheroes.

I'll be posting over there every Wednesday, and sometimes on Sunday. I'll still be blogging around here, but it might be a little bit less frequently. But don't worry - there are tons of great reads over at the Green Phone Booth, and if you're not already reading it, you should head over there right now!

Hope to see you all in the Green Phone Booth!

Noteworthy Green: Illegal Rain-catching, LEED-washing, Natural Bug Spray, and More...

Check out this headline from the New York Times: It's Now Legal to Catch a Raindrop in Colorado. This is crazy!

Heather at the Simple-Green-Frugal Co-op shows off her beautiful handmade pouches for the "envelope system" of paying in cash. Make some for me, Heather?

Compostwoman at the Simple-Green-Frugal Co-op provides a list of ways to get crafty with nature and kids.

Grist outs some buildings that claim to be LEED certified as "LEED-washing."

Grist provides some examples of how screwing up the environment has been bad for the economy.

Living Green Below Your Means and Fake Plastic Fish both take a look at umbrellas.

Living Green Below Your Means suggests some less-toxic bug repellants.