Last April 15 was the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and Nathaniel's class learned about it at school. I'm not sure what it was about the Titanic or its story that caught his fancy, but he became instantly obsessed. It was practically all he talked about. He brought home library books about it. We found a movie about it on Netflix. (No, it was not the Leonardo DiCaprio version, it was a documentary originally filmed for IMAX narrated by Leonard Nimoy. That didn't stop him from asking his bus driver to borrow her copy of the other version, though.) Any time he had a question about it that I couldn't answer, we got on the internet and found the answer. And as annoying as it was sometimes (well, a lot of the time), it was cool to see him so engaged in something positive. And we both learned a lot. For example, did you know that the Radio Act of 1912 was passed in response to the sinking of the Titanic and made it U.S. federal law that all ships had to have a radio operator on duty at all times? When the Titanic was in trouble, the radio operator sent out distress signals. They were picked up by a ship called the Carpathia, which came as quickly as it could but it was too far away and arrived too late to save the majority of the people on board. There was a ship that was much closer--the Californian--but its radio operator had gone to bed for the night and there was no one to pick up the signals. Had there been someone manning the radio, many more people would have survived. (See how much smarter I am because of my son's obsession? :) ) But anyway, the talk of our house for a good six weeks was that "unsinkable" wonder. And it wasn't just our house. Anywhere Nathaniel went, people heard about the Titanic having four smokestacks and how Captain Edward Smith wanted to go down with his ship. So when Grandma T. was out rummage-sale-ing and saw a chapter book about kids traveling back in time to try to save the Titanic, it was a no-brainer, right? Which brings us back to last night. It was time to choose another book, and since Nathaniel is older than Sophia and has a longer attention span (this reading time really is geared toward him), I gave him the choice.
And he chose another Little House book instead of the one about the Titanic.
Whoa.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's awesome. I love the Little House books and I was hoping that he'd get interested in a different time in history, which it seems like he is starting to. But when we were smack in the middle of the Titanic phase, I thought I'd be throwing a party when it was over. I was sick and tired of hearing about those four smokestacks and about how the "Titanic" that Nathaniel was going to build, called the Buttanic (his spelling), was also going to have four smokestacks and hold anywhere from six hundred to one million people (the number changed every day). But now I'm kinda sad. Not sad, really... more nostalgic, I guess. That stupid sunken ship was such a big part of our lives that I'd think about it even when Nathaniel wasn't around. I have a picture saved on my computer of an iceberg, showing the part that's under the water (much more than what's above the water, btw) that I came across somewhere and kept meaning to show Nathaniel because I knew he'd like it. But oh well. We'll probably read that book together eventually, maybe after the Little House books are done, and if we don't, it's ok. I'm happy that he is getting interested in other things, but it's just one more reminder that time is moving forward and kids are getting bigger all the time and things don't always stay the same.
Maybe I'll just read the new Titanic book on my own.
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This is a collage Nathaniel made when his class was learning about fabric at school. The top green flowery rectangle is the Titanic (note the four smokestacks), and it's hitting an iceberg (the white thing on the right). The brown thing underneath it is the Titanic on the bottom of the ocean. (The IMAX movie on Netflix was a documentary about finding the Titanic on the bottom of the Atlantic.) Below that is a fish (dark green) hitting a tiny iceberg (hard to see, it's that green and white stripey thing to the fish's left).
Here's the picture of the iceberg. Cool, huh? It's a neat poster in general. I think someone might have posted it on Facebook.
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