Author Archives: forstegrupp

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About forstegrupp

Currently I am an English teacher at an independent school outside of Philadelphia. To arrive at this way point, I spent many years in graduate school researching, reading, learning, and studying and finally earned a doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard University. I specialized in medieval orality and literacy. My private interests include baking, knitting, spinning, and gardening.

Spring Bulbs — future combinations

Posted on March 15, 2019 by forstegrupp

Winter wolf’s bane is blooming in patches of yellow in the front and back of the house. Winter wolf’s bane is also called winter aconite but that is not nearly so evocative a name. Actually, the full Latin name is … Continue reading →

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Hansel and Gretel in a Concentration Camp

Posted on February 11, 2019 by forstegrupp

Jane Yolen has written the novel Mapping the Bones about Jewish children surviving the terrors of occupied Poland and a concentration camp and she uses the structural framework of the fairy tale of “Hansel and Gretel.” In both stories, the … Continue reading →

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Snow day or delay?

Posted on February 10, 2019 by forstegrupp

Here is a rendering of what the street looks like out of our window. We only have a light dusting but if this continues all night….

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Calculations in Knitting

Posted on February 10, 2019 by forstegrupp

In December, I was madly knitting a scarf to give to an old friend of my husband’s family at Christmas. This person took care of my husband and his four younger sisters for several years. She came over from a … Continue reading →

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Snowdrops blooming – a sign of a special person’s birthday

Posted on February 10, 2019 by forstegrupp

Stepping out of the house to walk the dogs last week, I saw the first snowdrops blooming. Whenever I see them, I always think of my German father-in-law. My mother-in-law once said that the snowdrops always bloom on his birthday. … Continue reading →

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It’s for your own good

Posted on February 7, 2019 by forstegrupp

As a parent of grown-up children, things happen to them in the adult world that happen to lots of folks. But because these things happen to your own children, these things bother you still more. Or me anyway. I just … Continue reading →

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Bird’s Eye View of History

Posted on February 6, 2019 by forstegrupp

Yuval Noah Harari wrote his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in 2015. The book provides an expansive overview of 202,000 years human pre-history and history in under 450 pages (including index). His most provocative tenet is that the … Continue reading →

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A book uniting two passions: fairy tales and knitting

Posted on January 30, 2019 by forstegrupp

Yesterday on the new non-fiction shelf of our local public library, I found a book with a pebbled blue cover and gold gilded lettering and design. It was clearly a knitting book as you can see from the front cover … Continue reading →

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Sometimes you forgot you already read a particular book

Posted on January 28, 2019 by forstegrupp

Leigh Bardugo‘s book The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic (2017) contains her six modern fairy tales with twists on old storylines to shake up the staid perspectives and assumptions of traditional fairy tales. I read this book on … Continue reading →

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Things Break

Posted on January 28, 2019 by forstegrupp

Today I reached for a small ceramic bowl. It was a perfect size. Just right for holding in the palm. It was painted a robin’s egg blue. It looked like a round bird with a little beak and brown eyes … Continue reading →

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