As Mary Holland points out in her magisterial Naturally Curious (https://naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com/), November is a month of increasing “quiescence,” as many plants and trees become dormant, and some animals get ready for hibernation or at least prolonged periods of sleep. Conversely, many animals are busy getting ready for Winter, migrating to warmer climes with more food, or adapting to colder weather my stockpiling food, and/or switching to other food sources. The Full Beaver Moon is November 15th as the busy beaver prepares their double level lodge for winter, and stocks up on the buds and twigs of their favorite young trees. All animals rely on both evolutionary adaptations and changing behavior to adapt to the harsher conditions of late Fall and Winter
November 20th marks the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Child by the United Nations (https://archive.crin.org/en/library/legal-database/un-declaration-rights-child-1959.html). This document continues to provide a foundation for understanding humanity’s responsibility to its children. November is a great month to familiarize yourself with the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and to recommit to the three Ps of the United Nations 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child: Provision of basic necessities: food, shelter, health care; Protection from harm and exploitation; and providing the the necessary educational, political and experiential structures and opportunities to make possible every child’s full Participation in society.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child
Thanksgiving gives us opportunities to celebrate food, family and intercultural, inclusive forms of community, and also learn about the strange history of Thanksgiving in national mythmaking and revisionist history. As is clear in the subsequent iterations of “Thanksgiving” going through Washington, Lincoln, Grant, and children’s picture books, the story of an “original” Thanksgiving where Pilgrims and Wampanaogs celebrated a shared harvest, covers up a much more complex and violent history of settler colonialism, nationalism, racism, and indigenous “survivance.” ( https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/us/thanksgiving-myths-fact-check.html). November is Native American Heritage month and it is wise to explore Native American culture and history with your children ( in developmentally appropriate ways) whatever your ethnic, cultural, or racial background is.
November 5th is a presidential election day and Donald Trump ended up winning the presidency.”American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever written about it“ James Baldwin. We as educators have to take the long view, the educational view, the Haudenosaunee ( people of the longhouse) seven generations view, and lean into the fundamental problems that bedevil American democracy and national identity.
November is a good month help children tune in to how animals and plants adapt to changing circumstance in their environment. By thinking about how animals and plants exist and thrive through difficult circumstances we can learn how to better adapt to life on earth and restore some balance to a world out of tilt. Halfway between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice, the beginning of November is a month of transition, and by the end, plants, animals and people are getting ready for Winter.
November 1st
The Gaelic festival of Samhain, about halfway between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice, marks the end of the Fall Harvest and the beginning of the “darker half” of the year, or winter
Seminole resistance to the federal governments “Indian Removal”policy begins in 1836
Monarch butterflies start arriving in Mexico after their migration
https://menunkatuck.org/tracking-the-monarchs-journey
Hillary Knight, illustrator of the Eloise books, whose main protagonist is the mischievous, irrepressible, wild and joyful, 6 year old girl Eloise, who lives with her nanny, since her mother ( and father ) is nowhere to be found, b. 1926
World Vegan Day
Edward Said, Palestinian/American cultural theorist and social critic, who analyses the insidious effects of “orientalism,” and the “othering of the other,” b. 1935
November 2nd
Two grandmothers, two priests, and a nun vandalize nuclear weapons stockpile in Tacoma WA, in 2009
Wood Ducks eat a large amount of food (acorns), and digest it later when they are safe from predators
Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, a Vermont based writes lovingly about the farm, the woods, animals and community, including the “Summer of Stanley”, and other books geared for older children, b. 1956
Ronald Reagan signs a bill to create Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday, in 1982
African Free School, for the children of slaves and free people of color, was founded in New York, in 1787
https://www.nyhistory.org/web/africanfreeschool/history/index.html
November 3rd
Jannell Cannon writes inviting books like Stellaluna, about animals that people and children are often afraid of, b. 1957
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/77491-stellaluna-celebrates-25-years-of-flight.html
Red-Tailed Hawks migrating
Salvador Allende becomes president of Chile, raising the minimum wage and increasing access to healthcare and education, 1970
Protestors from the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan occupy the offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for six days in 1972
The Caribbean island of Dominica gains independence from Britain in 1978
The Japanese science fiction’ horror film Godzilla released and became an instant hit, in 1954
November 4th
North American Otter mothers teach babies how to swim by pushing them under the water and then pushing them up so they can breathe, all the while ensuring that they come to no ultimate harm
Nicaragua holds its first democratic elections in more than 50 years in 1984
Barack Obama, was the first African American to be elected president, in 2008
November 5th
Raccoons are fattening up on acorns, hickory nuts, beechnuts, and yellow jacket larvae so that fat makes up 50% of their wet as they head into winter
Isabel Rosado, educator , social worker, and member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, and Puerto Rican independence activist
Radical, Marxist art critic John Berger, born in England, 1926
November 6th
Daylight Savings Time ends at 2:00 AM
Red-backed Salamanders migrate downward into the earth to get ready for winter
November 7th
The Port Royal Experiment initiated where the Union Army liberated formerly enslaved people on a series of islands of the coast of South Carolina. White inhabitants fled and Black people along with white allies began to rebuild institutions like schools along more egalitarian lines. Once Lincoln was assassinated, the newly elected president Andrew Johnson was determined to to return the land to previous white owners but thousands of Black landowners continued to farm the land, 1861
Elijah Lovejoy, radical abolitionist and journalist, after having had his printing presses destroyed several times, was killed by a racist mob in Alton, Illinois, 1837
November 8th
Massive labor strike where over 30,000 factory and dock workers went on strike in New Orleans, in 1892
German physicist, Wilhelm Rontgen discovered x-rays, a type of electromagnetic radiation while working on cathode rays and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901
Dorothy Day, social activist, anarchist, journalist, co-founded the Catholic Worker, and advocated an economic theory of “distributes” that represented a third way between capitalism and socialism, b. 1897
November 9th
Beavers busy making improvements on their lodges and making winter food caches
Pat Cummings writes great children’s books featuring African American children dealing with universal human problems, including Momma Needs Me and Our Children Can Soar, b. 1951
Lois Ehlert, author of Leaf man, Eating a Rainbow and Nuts for You, b. 1939
Kay Thompson, author of the Eloise stories, featuring the independent, rule breaking, mischievous, irrepressible 6 year old, Eloise, b. 1908
Violent anti-Jewish demonstrations, generally know as Pogramnacht, begin in Germany and Austria in 1938
The Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
Benjamin Banneker, African-American polymath and inventor, best known for building a clock entirely out of wood and an astronomical almanac that allowed him to successfully forecast solar and lunar eclipses, b. 1731
November 10th
Mudpuppies, New England’s only totally aquatic salamander, begins to breed
Neil Gaiman, towering figure in fantasy writing, increasingly focuses on young adults as a primary audience (https://www.mousecircus.com/videos), b. 1960
Ken Saro-Wiwa and the “Ogoni 9” were executed by the Nigerian military for protesting against Shell Oil company ( among other oil companies) and the devastation of their homeland by drilling and oil extraction practices, 1995
Sesame Street, the long running, transformative children’s program debuts in 1969
The US Patent Office granted Mary Wilson a patent for windshield wipers in 1903
November 11
First American compulsory education law passed in Massachusetts, in 1647
Veteran’s Day
Armistice Day and the end of World War 1, with over 17,000,000 casualties, 1918
Fyodor Dostoevsky, one of the greatest Russian novelists of all time, author of Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Devils, Notes of An Underground Man, The Idiot, b. 1821
Jimi Hendrix, rock guitar wizard, b. 1942
November 12th
Catbird nests, hidden deep in shrubbery during the summer, are now visible because of the fallen leaves
Diwali Hindu Festival of Lights
November 13th
Jez Alborough, the writer of delight books for very young children such as Hug, Yes, Play, and Tall, b. 1959
Robert Louis Stevenson, writer of Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and A Child’s Garden of Verses, b. 1850
Mrs. White, of the Indiana Textbook Commission called for a ban of the book Robin Hood and his Merry Men because it promoted communism. In turn students at Indiana University started the “Green Feather Movement” to protest censorship. 1953
Scandalous nude musical “Hair” opens up in New York City
New Moon ( moon is directly in between the sun and the earth)
November 14th
Astrid Lingrin, beloved author of the Pippi Longstocking stories and social activist, explored many social taboos and her books, “like all children, ask philosophically fundamental questions,” b. 1907
William Steig, author of Dr. De Soto, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, The Amazing Bone, and Amos and Boris, is said to “explore the reality that adults don’t want children to know about”, b. 1907
Moby Dick, Herman Melville’s great novel about America, the Atlantic Ocean, and the meaning of life, was released in 1851.
American feminist and journalist Nellie Bly begins her quest to circle the globe in 80 days, in 1889
November 15th
The World Recycles Day
Nancy Tafuri, award winning author and illustrator of “exquisitely detailed depictions of farm animals and cuddly forest animals” in such books as Have You Seen My Duckling , I Love You Little One, and Will You Be My Friend, b. 1946
German Jews denied of all citizenship rights in 1935
League of Nations created in response to the first World War, meets for the first time and is entrusted by its members with maintaining peace throughout the world, b. 1920
November 16th
Jean Fritz, author of American history books and biographies for children, won the Children’s Legacy Literature Award, and would not put dialogue into her character’s mouths unless she was convinced they had actually said it, b. 1915
Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist, cultural critic, explored the cultural contours of neo and post colonialism in Africa, pan Africanism, identity and community, b. 1930
Mikhail Bahktin, cultural critic, literary theorist, philosopher of polyphony, the dialogical imagination, heteroglossia, and the carnival, b. 1895
Mississippi River flows backward because of an earthquake, 1811
November 17th
Peak of the Leonid Meteor shower
Velvet Revolution begins. A week after the fall of the Berlin Wall student demonstrations, mass strikes and non-violent protests ended communist rule in Czechoslovakia and paved the way for the first democratic elections in the country in 41 years, in 1989
Construction on Suez Canal connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, connecting Europe to Asia by water without having to go all the way around Africa, 1869
November 18th
Photography pioneer, Louis Daguerre, recognized for for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography, b. 1789
Late November is a great time to look for abandoned bird’s nests since the leaves have fallen from the deciduous trees
November 19th
Canada Geese during and after migration, switch from a summer diet of mainly grasses and sedges to one of berries and agriculture grains
Abe Lincoln gives his Gettysburg address that sought to give meaning to all the lives lost in the Civil War by committing to the “unfinished work “ of “a new birth of freedom” so “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” in 1863
November 20th
Japanese Barberry fruiting providing food for turkeys, mockingbirds and waxwings
Alcatraz Island occupied by 78 Native Americans in 1969
Declaration of the Universal Rights of the Child by the United Nations, also celebrated as International Children’s Day
Modern traffic light with three colors patent awarded to Garret Morgan in 1923
November 21st
Elizabeth George Speare, author of the children’s historical novel, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, among several other great books for tweeners and teenagers, b. 1908
Voltaire, writer, polemicist, satirist, advocate of reason, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the separation of church and state, b. 1694
World Fisheries Day highlighting the importance of healthy ocean ecosystems and to ensure sustainable stocks of the world’s fisheries
The cartoon canary Tweety Bird makes its debut in A Tale of Two Kitties in a Warner Brother’s, Merry Melodies cartoon in 1941
Bloody Sunday, a key event event in the Irish War of Independence, when Irish revolutionaries led by Michael Collins killed 14 people to escalate its conflict with the British government, occurred in 1920. The Anglo-Irish peace treaty was signed almost a year later but unfortunately led to Ireland being partitioned into two countries.
First free flight of a manned balloon, in France, in 1783
Rene Magritte, surrealistic painter, b. 1898
November 22nd
Carpenter ants chew out large galleries in dead and living trees and go into state called diapause which is a state of slowed metabolism
First televised interracial kiss airs on the Star Trek episode “‘Plato’s Stepchildren” in 1968
Toy Story, produced by Pixar, the world’s first feature length, computer animated film, released in 1995
John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States, assassinated, 1963
November 23rd
Jacques Mayol, also known as the Dolphin Man, was the first person to dive 100 meters in the sea without a breathing apparatus in 1976
Radical Mexican muralist, Jose Orozco who painted huge murals such as The Epic of American Civilization ( housed at Dartmouth), and Call to Revolution and Table of Universal Brotherhood at the New School, b. 1883
November 24th
Ruth Sanderson, illustrator of over 80 books for children, known for her sumptuous, romantic, drawings of nature, fairies, princes and princesses, magical creatures and objects, and otherworldly places
https://www.illustrationhistory.org/images/uploads/Ruth_Sanderson_Family_guide_SinglePages6x.pdf) b. 1951
Thanksgiving
Black Beauty, the classic story of the life of a horse called Black Beauty and written by Anna Sewall, was published in 1877
Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, that put forth the theory of evolution and described the process of natural selection, published in 1859
Baruch Spinoza, philosopher of monism in which “God” is identified as an infinite Nature of which we are all a part, b. 1632
November 25th
The “Storm of the Century,” dumped nearly sixty inches of snow in the Appalachian area, caused widespread property damage, and is thought to have killed about 150 people, hits the eastern US in 1950
Woodpeckers slough off slabs of bark looking for wood-boring beetle larvae
Marc Brown, children’s author of the much loved “Arthur” books about a kindergarten kid/mouse who is figuring out his place in the world, b. 1946
P.D. Eastman, protege of Theodor Geisel, famous for Are You My Mother, Go Dog, Go, and The Best Nest, b. 1907
November 26th
American Indian Movement (AIM) occupies Plymouth Rock (Mayflower 11) in 1970
Charles Schultz, American cartoonist, creator of Charlie Brown and the whole Peanuts gang, ( https://schulzmuseum.org/ ) b.1922
November 27th
Kevin Henkes, writer and illustrator of beautiful books for young children like When Spring Comes, Kitten’s First Full Moon, Chrysantheum, Sun, Flower, Lion, among many, many others, b. 1960
World’s first living liver transplant conducted between Teresa Smith, the mother, and Alyssa Smith, her daughter, under the supervision of a team of surgeons at the University of Chicago Medical Center, occurred in 1989
Full Beaver Moon
November 28th
Ed Young, born in China before he moved to the US, an extraordinary writer and illustrator of children’s books such as Lon Po Po, The Emperor and the Kite, Wabi Sabi, and The Eight Matters of the Heart, b. 1931
The Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association was founded with a dual mission to organize mutual aid for its members and to pass federal pension legislation that would compensate every formerly enslaved person, in 1898
Friedrich Engels, German radical economic theorist, literary partner of Marx, b. 1820
Male Great Horned Owls begin to set up territory by hooting and males and females begin to court each other by loudly calling to each other
William Blake, English Romantic poet, radical social critic, mystic and explorer of innocence and experience, b. 1757
November 29th
International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
State run compulsory education instituted in England in 1870
Louisa May Alcott, abolitionist, feminist, author of Little Women and many gothic thrillers for adults, and a contemporary of Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau, b. 1832
Madeleine L’Engle, fantasy and science fiction writer for young adults, author of the incomparable A Wrinkle in Time, b. 1918
C.S. Lewis, Anglican lay theologian, friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, best known for his Chronicles of Narnia that narrates the adventures of various children and their roles in the unfolding of the history of Narnia, b. 1898
International Jaguar Day
Atari releases Pong, one of the first arcade games to hit the market, in 1972
Amos Bronson Alcott was an American utopianism, teacher, reformer, who pioneered new ways of interacting with young students including focusing on a conversational style, avoiding traditional forms of physical punishment, and saw his work as perfecting the human spirit
November 30th
Mark Twain, towering figure in American letters and humor, author of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, b. 1835
Jonathan Swift, Irish satirist, social critic, writer of Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal for the preventing the Children of the Poor from being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for making them Beneficial to the Publick , b. 1667
Red squirrel grows a thick winter coat and ear tufts, develops a red stripe on its back in preparation for winter
Magnus Carlsen, chess grandmaster, world champion, and one of the world’s greatest chess players of all time, 1990
