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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

Email: icasocot(at)gmail.com

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Saturday, December 06, 2025

entry arrow7:00 PM | Reading to Children



To get back on track, I accepted this invitation from Virginia Stack and her Valencia Book Mobile brigade to read my picture book The Great Little Hunter, to a bunch of youngsters, aged 7-10, in Bong-ao, Valencia last Saturday. I had the time of my life! The children were initially shy but they were also curious and interested, and I really do think this is the best age range to get kids to start and love reading, the way I was when I was their age and encountered Henny Penny. This is the thing about Dumaguete becoming a UNESCO City of Literature: it is curious to have this designation now in an age when literacy among children is falling away fast. How can we have a City of Literature when nobody reads anymore? That's a question we are grappling with, and this literacy program is part of our solution. Thank you Tata and your Indefatigable team of teachers and volunteers for making this commitment work!

Here's a video of me reading:


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Tuesday, August 13, 2019

entry arrow4:52 PM | The Griefs of Childhood



Rarely do you find a film that mines fantastically the nuances of childhood. Carla Simón's Estiu 1993 [Summer 1993] (2017) does it with naturalistic flair: it follows an orphan in Barcelona whose parents have died of AIDS as she moves to her uncle's family in the Catalan countrysides. There, she negotiates, in her inchoate ways, many things that can easily break us adults: grief, displacement, subtle prejudices, jealousy, alienation -- all in the nebulous language of one who has no clear conception of the world and its cruelties. A huge part of the film's strengths is its characters: the story is peopled with gentle characters -- especially the adoptive family who embodies grace and love. The film presents tension now and then, but always with the knowledge that we are following good people. The film takes its time and follows almost religiously the day-to-day rituals of childhood, and it is not for those without patience -- but when one chooses to be fully in Frida's world, the rewards are infinite. It will break and make your heart full in equal measure.



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Saturday, June 25, 2016

entry arrow7:33 AM | What Kids Say

It is interesting to hear kids of varying ages explain things we think are beyond their ken, because they can surprise us with their unanchored insights, and they can tell us a lot about how we come to shape our perspectives on things. So here's a bunch of videos where kids confront gay reality...

In Kimmel, they are asked about same-sex marriage...



In this Kids React video, a bunch of kids are shown viral videos about gay couples in various proposals for marriage...



In this Team Angelica short, a bunch of kids from same-sex families reveal what life is like in their kind of families...



And you can tell, from the first video, that that one kid who is openly anti-gay, when asks why he feels being gay is bad, is approaching what is truthful when he is: "I don't know." Where do you think he gets the idea of gayness being bad? From the adults around him. And the same goes for the kids who thinks there is nothing wrong with being gay: their perspectives are shaped by the people around them. To love or to hate, it's a contagious thing.

To choose love, it's the kindest and most courageous thing.


#PrideMonth2016

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