Hopscotch through the Book

"If, while hopping through the court in either direction, the player steps on a line, misses a square, or loses balance, the turn ends. Players begin their turns where they last left off. The first player to complete one course for every numbered square on the court wins the game."  The rules of hopscotch are complicated - it is an ancient game played all over the world.    Today's Hopscotch is interesting. There are many sites that are retrieved with the term hopscotch.  At the site HopscotchCanada.com one can find children's activities nearby. - there are lots of STEM Camps - there is a continuing connection to mathematics and thinking skills. And continuing on this theme - this site: "Hopscotch is the only activity I can think of where she uses both her left and right brain." —SAYEED (PARENT) "I am THRILLED that there is a safe, interesting, engaging place for children to learn to code. This app really allows his creativity to shine, and his five year old little sister has become so interested in the app, and doesn't even know what coding is. THANK YOU, and keep up the good work!"  — Mom, C. to 10 year old son These recommendations are not from children with chalk on the sidewalk out front of their homes.  This is an app for iPads and iPhones for children ages 7 - 13 to make their own software and then use it (generally as games).  All of this is at gethopscotch.com  The intriguing connection of this complex game and mathematics achieved prominence in Hopscotch, a novel by Argentine writer Julio Cortazar, written in 1963. In it, "Oliveira is a wandering soul, a man obsessed with memory because the only thing that keeps him going is the question of whether or not any path he could have chosen would have led him to the same place.  The book is split into 56 regular chapters and 99 “expendable” ones. Readers may read straight through the regular chapters (ignoring the expendable ones) or follow numbers left at the end of each chapter telling the reader which one to read next (eventually taking her through all but one of the chapters). A reading of the book in that way would lead the reader thus: Chapter 73 – 1 – 2 – 116 – 3 – 84 – 4 – 71 – 5 – 81 – 74 – 6 – 7- 8, and so on." "Throughout its 500+ pages, Cortazar’s work is full of typographical, linguistic, and conceptual experiments that add to the book’s appeal while avoiding the tinge of gimmickry. Take, for instance, chapter 34, written entirely in the following manner:" "In September of 1880, a few months after the demise of my And the things she reads, a clumsy novel, in a cheap edition father, I decided to give up my business activities, transferring besides, but you wonder how she can get interested in things them to another house in Jerez whose standing was as solvent like this." You can read more about the novel at quarterlyconversation.com HERE.  Here's a common sight in Niagara - shrub Wisteria.  This one is on our street.