Nicholas Kristof has an interesting column on the gender gap in verbal skills. Boys may still be ahead when it comes to math skills, but girls are well ahead of their male counterparts in verbal skills. Kristof writes:

Many theories have been proposed. Some people think that boys are hard-wired so that they learn more slowly, perhaps because they evolved to fight off wolves more than to raise their hands in classrooms. But that doesn’t explain why boys have been sinking in recent decades.

I’m not persuaded that gathering helped girls evolve to raise their hands in the classroom. And I wonder if the lag has something to do with the fact that, just as girls can wear skirts and pants, they also can read both the Nancy Drew series and the Hardy Boys. As a student once told me, his reading of The Secret Garden was constantly interrupted by astonished adults, who told him that the book was really for girls. He ended up reading it under the covers, with the help of a flashlight. There are, of course, many other signals sent to boys about books and reading. Rather than “nurturing boys with explosions” and coaxing them into reading books with ghosts, boxers, wrestlers, and bombers, maybe it’s time to change those signals. Still, some great recommendations on guysread.com and happy to see that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm made it onto the list, even if their book is listed as Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28kristof.html?sudsredirect=true

Pieter Brueghel, Children’s Games (1560)

David Elkind, a child psychologist at Tufts, writes about how schools around the country are hiring “recess coaches” to supervise children on the playground. He worries that a decline in “unstructured imagination time,” along with a rise in time spent with electronic media are producing more bullying on the playground.

What happens to children when they are on the playground, unsupervised? Pieter Brueghel’s answer suggests that children’s games are often violent and sadistic and that you need adults present to keep children from harm. I’m not convinced that you need the playground for “unstructured imagination time,” and the really great moments of children at play that I’ve observed have been indoors. As Friedrich Froebel pointed out, however, children do need fresh air and a chance to move around. Having an adult present makes complete sense, although I’m skeptical about professionalizing the role and creating “recess coaches.” How do you train a recess coach? I’d like to see them read Johan Huizinga’s wonderful study Homo ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/opinion/27elkind.html

The LA Times has an update on the Warner Brothers movie based on Little Red Riding Hood. Evidently there is a new version of the script from the production company owned by Leonardo DiCaprio, and Amanda Seyfried is being considered for the lead. Courting “Twilight” fans, the film will give a dark Gothic twist to the story first put into print by Charles Perrault. In that version, the girl never makes it out of the belly of the wolf. I’m curious to see how David Johnson, who also wrote the screenplay for Orphan, will adapt the story, especially since there is not much to go on in the Grimms’ version, which is quite short. But this is our cultural story about innocence and seduction, and the brevity of the folktale did not stop Angela Carter from creating a Gothic romance about a girl, a wolf, and an encounter in the woods.

Steven Zeitchick, the LA Times reporter, tells us, tongue in cheek: The biggest thing working against the Warner Bros. movie may be that that it doesn’t derive from Stephenie Meyer’s global bestsellers but from the work of a couple of German academics circa the early 19th century. But when it comes to finding the next “Twilight,” these may be mere details.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2010/02/twilight-catherine-hardwicke-kristen-stewart-amanda-seyfried.html

And here’s a review of The Path, a new video game based on the story of Little Red Riding Hood, with six girls who have to navigate the woods. Thanks to Eugene Kim for the alert.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/5928-Review-The-Path

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland has many scenes of jaw-dropping beauty, and my favorite was an homage to Maxfield Parrish’s Daybreak, a painting that changes color depending on the time of day at which you see it.

I found it fascinating that Burton’s adventurous Alice becomes a Joan of Arc figure and a dragon slayer, who flees marriage to set sail on the high seas.

Larry Rohter quotes the screenwriter in a film review for the NYT:

Linda Woolverton . . . said that when she began her script, she “did a lot of research on Victorian mores, on how young girls were supposed to behave, and then did exactly the opposite.” As she put it, “I was thinking more in terms of an action-adventure film with a female protagonist” than a Victorian maiden.

“I do feel it’s really important to depict strong-willed, empowered women,” she added, “because women and girls need role models, which is what art and characters are. Girls who are empowered have an opportunity to make their own choices, difficult choices, and set out on their own road.”

Perhaps someone can weigh in one the ending and the trading post in China?