UR TEXT

To say that this book saved me is an understatement.  I’m not getting schmaltzy on you, but yes, like other parents way back then, when the Encyclopedia Britannica was the flavor of the year, many parents bought a set.  Mine did.  But when some other guy pressed our doorbell years later, and my father and mother sat at the kitchen table listening to his spiel about how THIS new book set was better, they wrote a check, and weeks later, a 12-set box arrived.  

I read every book in that set, but MAKE AND DO stayed with me until this very day.  

I guess I was pretty lucky.  My parents were project-oriented doers. And my school projects were never a burden but a chance to do, and there wasn’t much intellectual discussion. It started with a car ride up to the ONLY craft store in Hopkins, Minnesota, at the time: a five-story Victorian Home owned by a family who lived in the back.   

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how young I was when I got busy working every project in MAKE AND DO, including cooking recipes like potato salad with hard-boiled eggs.  And I was lucky in this regard because everyone in the family ate my finished project with little complaint. 

From home, I simply rang my mother, who had long since partnered with another woman to start a business, and read her the instructions, including the grocery list, and this was her reply, every time:

“Ride your bike up, or walk to Red Owl and get what you need, and I will pay the bill on the way home.”

Once I mastered those recipes, I asked for a copy of The Joy of Cooking.  I rang up my mother and asked if I could make Baked Alaska, and she never hesitated: “Sure.”

There is always a lot more to this and every story, but my point is that I read somewhere that teaching children how to cook for themselves increases their chances of survival by 300%.

I’d like to add to that list: art projects, self-care, self-love, reading, singing, music, poetry, fiction books, movies, motivated English and Literature teachers, geeky band teachers…it’s what children need to survive. Give it to them.