When my father, Odysseus, and his men sailed off to the Trojan War, they were confident their gods favored a quick victory. Instead, the siege of Troy lasted ten years. After Troy fell, the survivors made their way home to Sparta, Mycenae, Pylos, and elsewhere in the ancient Peloponnese. Neither my father nor any of his troops arrived home with the rest. We waited for years as the news grew worse. Odysseus was dead, we were told,or imprisoned, or, worst yet, he had married another woman and abandoned my mother Penelope, my brother Telemachus, and me.


If he is alive somewhere, his thoughts may wander to Penelope and Telemachus, but he won’t be thinking of me. I am the daughter he doesn’t know exists. Odysseus went off to the Trojan War when his son, Telemachus, was barely old enough to walk. His wife, Penelope, was a teenage bride, and is now a young wife, mother, and queen who has to try to rule Ithaca without him.


I was born seven months after he left. I am a hero’s daughter and a princess of his realm, but I have lived my entire life without a father. I’m nineteen now, and still waiting.


All over the world, and throughout history children grow up as I have. This website will focus on the children of those men and women who have gone off to fight America's wars, and provide information and resources for all who care about military families and want to help.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Read Me a Story

Be There Bedtime Stories is a website designed to connect far-flung families over the experience of reading.  Much like the creators of United Through Reading, my favorite philanthropy, Alison Sansome, the woman behind Be There Bedtime Stories, understands the deep bonds that develop in families by reading to each other.   Her site isn’t just for military families, but for anyone on their own initiative who wants to use it.  She is offering the first ten military families who e-mail programs@bluestarfam.org the chance to use this service free.
“I was inspired to build the site because of my frustration being so far from my nieces - unable to be a part of their development and unable to be recognized when I would visit once a year,” Sansome explains. 
The program uses webcam recording.  There are approximately 100 titles in her online bookstore.  All you have to do is read the story in front of a webcam, and the Be There Bedtime Stories website creates a video recording as you read, then places it directly on each page of the e-book, and your story is instantly accessible to watch by unlimited people, unlimited times. It requires no coordination across time zones and will be archived for use in the future.
“The coolest result from our testing was to discover how much kids want to read back,” Sansome says. “So even if soldiers are unable to access a webcam and read a story while deployed, kids can show off their reading and storytelling skills by creating a story recording for their parents or grandparents to watch them grow--no matter how far apart.”
Learn more by watching storytellers on the website: www.betherebedtimestories.com 
Posted by About AART at 6:41 AM

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