Books For Breakfast

Why Hebrew?

2012-02-05T11:19:00.000-08:00

I've been asked more than a few times, "Why Hebrew? Why not teach your kids Spanish first." When I ask them why Spanish would be preferable as the first second language that a child learns, I receive one of two answers. The first answer is, "It's more practicle. More pragmatic. You live in Texas. You share a border with Mexico. Your children will be better equipped to enter the business world if they have learned Spanish. They will be more marketable." The second answer is simply, "Well, wouldn't Spanish be easier for a young child to learn? With Hebrew you have to learn a whole new alphabet."

As to the first answer, I suppose that is a correct argument. Learning Spanish would be practicle. More pragmatic. And I would choose to teach Spanish as a first second language if my primary goal regarding my childrens' education were entirely pragmatic. But my primary goal is not that my children will find well paying jobs. My primary goal is that my children will be always be eager to learn and have the tools they need to learn anything they so choose. That's why my children learn piano. Not because I hope that that ability will oneday pay the college bill by way of scholarship, but because should they ever choose to compose, they will already know the language. For the same reason, I believe it is important that children should begin studying a language not their own at an early age. Not because I believe it will increase their chances of getting a good job someday. But because once a person has learned one language, it is easier to learn a second, third, and fourth. At this point I must say that I do want my children to learn Spanish. It is a language we will tackle before the kids leave home. We do live in Texas. Our family lives in a neighborhood where many of the people are Spanish speaking immigrants who speak very little English. I believe it is important to be able to converse with your neighbors. So, yes we will learn Spanish. But we have chosen Hebrew as the first second language that we study as a family.

Which leads me to the second question people pose when my daughter reads a Hebrew word on a package or a friend sees the cirriculum sitting out on the table. "Wouldn't Spanish be an easier language for a young child to learn?" My answer to this question includes one of the two reasons why we have chosen Hebrew.

It is precisely because learning Hebrew involves first learning "a whole new alphabet," that we have made such a choice. Let me just say here that before a person can learn any foreign language, they must learn a "whole new alphabet." When I was in high school, I took two years of Spanish, and I struggled. In college, I studied Spanish for two sememsters, and I struggled. The sentence structure and gender were very hard for me to master. I believe my difficulty was due to the fact that I never stopped comparing Spanish to English. I believe that is because from the very beginning, I saw how similar the alphabets were. The Spanish "M" sounded like the English "M." The Spanish "B" sounded like the English "B," and so on. I noted that the "ll" sounded like our Y, and that the "J" sounded like our "H." I was encouraged to do this by the teacher as a way of remembering what each letter said. And I continued in this comparison pattern. The adjetive/noun order was backwards compared to the noun/adjective order of English. And the gender? Well that was completely foreign without any comparison to English, so I was lost on that one.

When I was in college, I studied Russian. I took part in an intensive language program where two years of material was covered in one semester. I took no other classes, but the the course earned me sixteen credit hours. During the first week of that course, we learned the alphabet. We spent one week, solely learning the alphabet. I haven't figured out how many hours would have been spent on the letters had the course been spread into two years, but I know that it would have been substantial. Certainly, more time would have been spent on the letters than was spent on the Spanish alphabet by my high school teacher. Or college professor. And as a result, by the end of that week, I got it. The alphabet, and by relationship, the Russian language, were completely different from English. So completely, in fact, that I could make no comparisons. This time, I just accepted the fact that their nouns have genders. Because Russian is nothing like English. In studying Russian, I excelled, even going on to receive a BA in Russian Studies, but in Spanish I barely passed each class.

So do I believe that it is harder to learn Hebrew than Spanish? Not really. It just has "a whole new alphabet" to learn. As does Spanish. A language is foreign to a person, because it is different. Once a person understands how vast is that difference, it would be acceptable to look at the similarities (Romantic languages, Germanic languages, etc.) but in the beginning, a person must see only difference and accept it as such.

Onto my second reason for studying Hebrew with our children. Our pastor and my Sunday School teacher are fluent in Hebrew and Koine Greek. They often teach from the Hebrew and Greek text, and my understanding of what the Bible says has grown exponentially since I first came under their tutelage. I believe that the original text of the Bible was Divinely inspired, and that every word of the original text is God breathed, and that every word of the original text is infallible. I don't believe that any one translation was Divinely inspired, God breathed, or infallible. Not one. King James. NIV. ESV. ASV. They are all translations. A person may enjoy the language of the KJ because of its richness and beauty, but that does not make it's words infallible. A person may enjoy the more modern language of the NIV because it is easier to understand, but that does not make its words infallible. The only way to find out what the Bible says in the original text, is to either have teachers who can read the original text, or learn how to read the text yourself. Right now, we fall into that first category. But we are studying. Because one day, we may live in an area where we don't have the teaching. I am thirty-five years old, and this is the first church of which I've been a member where the Pastor and some teachers know how to read, and teach, from the Hebrew and Greek text. So if we ever move, the odds of us having such a privilage are low. We learn, and teach our children, so that they may one day teach others.

So that's it, in a fairly large nutshell. Our choice is neither pragmatic (in a worldly sense) or easy. But to hear my six year old daughter beautifully read those ancient Hebrew words,

And God said . . .

that, my friends, is worth every raised eyebrow, every look of disbelief.

Wouldn't you agree?

Vocalise

2012-02-03T06:39:00.000-08:00

I've been a fan of Rachmaninoff since my college days, when I first saw Shine. That being said, I can't believe the first time I heard this was a week ago. Is it just me, or does this sound suspiciously familiar? I believe John Williams had this in mind when he composed the score for Schindler's list.

The Problem of Pain

2012-02-02T16:55:00.000-08:00

I recently read C.S. Lewis' little book The Problem of Pain. As is always the case when I read Lewis, I will find myself disagreeing with his general theory about something, yet swooning over a sentence or description within his theory, my spirit resonating with . . . something that I can't quite pin down.

While I disagree with Lewis on his ideas concerning the origins of human life, original sin, infinitude of hell, and many other elements of Pain, I was so struck with a particular insight of Lewis' that I've been ruminating over it for several days. In his chapter dealing with Heaven, Lewis theorizes on the individuality of souls - why we each have a soul instead of one collective soulhood.

I am considering not how, but why, He (God) makes each soul unique. If He had no use for all these differences, I do not see why He should have created more souls than one. Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you. The mould in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you - the individual reader, John Stubbs or Janet Smith. Blessed and fortunate creature, your eyes shall behold Him and not another's. All that you are, sins apart, is destined, if you will let God have His good way, to utter satisfaction. But God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it - made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand. (Italics are mine)

Have you ever listened to a piece of music, maybe Mozart's Requiem or Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, and felt something that you couldn't put into words, almost as if your soul has left the confines of your physical body and is striving for something, almost as if perfect joy is there almost within your reach

. . . but then you blink or shift your focus momentarily and it's gone?

I read once that Woody Allen said that Mozart's Symphony 41 proved the existence of God. I don't know how to feel about this statement. I don't think that anything man made, made by a created being could prove the existence of the creator. But then again, what is a mathematician but someone who through numbers and patterns, describes the order of creation. And what is a musician, but someone who through numbers and patterns and sound, describes the harmony and symmetry, thus the beauty of creation. I do think that the genius mind is able to see the Divine Touch, even if he doesn't recognize it for what it is, in order and beauty and is then able to interpret it in a way that we are able to catch but a fleeting glimpse of that Divine Touch.

Which brings me to Lewis' statement,

Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions.

That particular swelling, I believe, is the soul's recognition of the Divine Touch. God not only determines absolute good and beauty (which I believe he does), but all good and beauty rest in God alone and derive their inherent goodness and beauty from Him. And when we see or hear absolute beauty, we see (although dimly and faintly) the glory of God.

But one day, we will not see or hear dimly. We will see and hear clearly. And when we do, we will recognize that indeed we have been made for Heaven, as Lewis says.

Made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.

New Blog?

2012-02-02T10:24:00.000-08:00

Hello all. I have been mostly absent at BFB for the last year. Of that I am truly sorry. I have come to the conclusion that at this point in my life, I do not have time for regular posts, lengthy or otherwise, and I certainly don't have time to scan and crop pictures of books.

But what I do have time for, something I do quite a bit on facebook, is link to a youtube video that we're particularly fond of, usually classical, sometimes not. So I've toyed with the idea of starting a new blog that would feature a music video a day, focusing on one composer at a time. I'd spend a month or even two (if the composers body of work was especially large), and would also incorporate folk songs and opera.

My reasons for starting such a blog would be two fold. One is quite selfish. I long for contact. Nothing thrills my like the occassional message or comment from a reader. My second reason is that I am quite new in guiding my children through the big world of classical music, and at first I was quite intimidated at the thought of opening up a world, about which I knew very little, to my children. I still consider myself new to good music, and am by no means on expert. But what I've discovered, I'd love to share.

So what do you think? Is it blog worthy?

Totoro!

2012-01-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

Look what I found on my soon-to-be-four year old son's desk this morning. Not sure what the red figure is, probably an unfinished spiderman. But would you just look at his Totoro? Not bad. Not bad at all.

Hansel and Gretel

2012-01-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

My kids are in love with the Redwall series. How do you like my little Matthias?

Our little guy has had a tough couple of weeks. It all started at a birthday party a few Saturdays ago when he threw up after eating a cupcake. Then nothing for a few days, until he felt kind of icky after eating some pizza. Then about a week and a half ago, on a Sunday morning I began to think something might be seriously wrong. Since that Sunday morning, my little man has had severe stomach pain with just about every nibble of food. The most troubling thing is that this has begun to be a chronic condition. In the last year, he's had at least three periods of a few weeks to a month of similar symptoms.

So now we're going through testing. So far, nothing conclusive. I took him off of gluten, dairy, eggs, high fructose corn syrup, anything with even trace amounts of trans fat, and anything with sugar as the first or second listed ingredient. And his health improved with that first "clean" meal.

That's what we've been up to. Not so much fun, but there have been so many beautiful moments. Nothing like a scare over a loved one's health to make you realize just how much you love that person. And so many moments, I've been storing up in my heart.

Like bed-time reading after bathtime.

Whispered secrets.

Cowboy boots.

His favorite long sleeve green shirt.

And just yesterday, watching them fall in love with this. Their first opera, of sorts. Even my little rock and roll fella (who will only tolerate classical music if it sounds like something from a Star Wars movie) was humming along (wildly off tune) with the music.

So here it is. Hansel and Gretel.

Busy, Busy, Busy

2011-12-30T09:21:00.000-08:00

Guys, I swear that when I cranked Books back up a few months ago, I meant to be faithful. I was ready to come back. Ready for the commitment.

But then I picked up a felting needle and a ball of wool and lost myself. It started out simply enough. I just wanted to make a few little dolls to slip into the kids stockings on Christmas Eve, but in just a few days time, I became obsessed. By Christmas Eve, I was putting the finishing touches on what turned out to be the main event, present-wise. I've wanted for years to shun the toy stores in favor of handicrafts, but I couldn't find a medium I felt comfortable with.

But felting just . . . felt right.

So, I really do have another good excuse for my absence. I hope you won't abandon me altogether. But even if you do, I must say it was worth it. Watching my children playing, and loving, toys I made for them with my own two hands has been pure bliss. And when my daughter sidles up to me and says, "Please, would you make for me a Totoro?" And that I can actually grant her request, well that is reward enough.

Totoro

Woody On The Sailboat and Little Pip Fishing

Gnomies Roasting Marshmallows

Little Bear Crossing The Stream

Forest Mother With Baby (In The Sling) And Daisy

Not Quite Scary Troll

Little Pip Fishing In The Pond

Now that the gifts are unwrapped and I'm not in a mad rush, I will have more time for books and blogging, so I will be checking in here more often. One book in particular I am so eager to share with you, The Brave Cowboy by Joan Walsh Anglund. Perhaps, tomorrow.

And do stay tuned. We have some exciting things in store for you. For one, a new family etsy shop featuring handmade goodies from scarves to toys. Even the kiddies are in on it.

Roses are Red. Are Violets Blue??

2011-11-17T15:08:00.000-08:00

Roses are Red. Are Violets Blue??

By Alice and Martin Provensen

Pippi first learned about color mixing by mixing up play dough, much to my consternation. The yellow dough never stayed yellow for long. It became green and orange in varying values before becoming a mottled purplish gray. Actually all the colors ended up that same purplish gray, not what I would have expected from reading this book, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Although we learn primarily by doing around here - mixing paint and play dough to learn color mixing, as well as jumping down the last four steps to discover that's not so easy on the ankles - I do like a good book to reinforce what one has already learned.

And when it comes to color mixing books, you just don't get much better than this.

I was describing this book to Pippi's art teacher a few days ago, and the best word I could find was quirky. And quirky this book is, from the rose-colored glasses,

to the purple cow,

to the green-eyed cat.

But where the book really gets good, is when it veers away from simply quirky and swerves wildly into bizarre. This recipe for traffic jam sure tickled our funny bones.

Take a red car.

Take a blue car.

Take a yellow car.

Take a big purple car.

Take a little black car.

Add a green bug.

Mix well.

Beat the yellow light, then . . .

OOPS!

Instant BROWN GRAVY!

(Remember that purplish gray play dough? It works for paint to. Pippi wanted to make brown paint so she mixed all the primaries and secondaries together and what was produced definitely looked more gray than brown. Maybe if she had just left out green. After all, that green bug escapes the pile-up.)

Oh, and the question that is posed by the book's title?

The answer is violet.

Our Animal Friends At Maple Hill Farm

2011-11-14T09:57:00.000-08:00

Our Animal Friends At Maple Hill Farm
by Alice and Martin Provensen

This book represents the best 40 cents I've ever spent. I would have spent ten bucks easy on this one, though. Pushing fifteen. It's that good.

That this book started off with a pile of cats made Pippi's day. That the author actually had something interesting to say about these cats made mine. I don't know about you, but we've read our share of animal books, even farm books, around here. And having lived on a ranch (briefly), I'd have to say I don't believe many authors of farm animal books have spent too much time around farm animals. Just a guess.

But I'd be willing to wager that not only do Alice and Martin live on a farm. But they live on this farm. Maple Hill. And that the animals they so lovingly and realistically portray are real, live, breathing, flesh-and-blood animals.

Like these cats.

And these chickens.

Each animal has a distinct personality and a name. And the names, such as Other Hen and Big White Pill are so truthful. Not a Fluffy or Spot in the bunch. Often the names reflect the animals' temperaments. Other times, the names reflect the farmers' notions regarding the animals.

This is Muffin - also called Raga Muffin, Mafia, Beasty, Gorilla, and Fiend. Her friend (not shown here) is Dinah. She is thirteen years old. "Dinah has nicknames too. Hers are: Dine, Diner, Nosy Parker, and Little Sister."

Not only do I love the names, but the candor with which the authors portray the animals is delightful. Anyone who has spent any time at all around sheep knows that they are not sweet, white, fluffy animals. They are stupid, often temperamental, and always filthy. And the Provensen's have thus portrayed them.

"Almost all sheep's wool is supposed to be white. Most of the time their wool is gray and full of thistles and burrs and straw and mud and dirt and flowers."

Then there are the geese.

Practically perfect in every way. They eat weeds and grass. They have keen ears, like horses, and make good watchdogs. Because they are so noisy. Not even the fox wants to tangle with these guys. But there is one very big problem, one exception to perfection.

GEESE have bad tempers.

They are greedy.

They are grabby.

They are grouchy.

The lead henchman is named Evil Murdoch. See what I mean about the names?

And don't even get me started on the goats, perhaps the most predictably unpredictable of all farm animals. I had my hair nibbled down to the scalp by a frisky goat once, so I've got no love for them.

Incidentally, I've always found it very, very funny that people children and goat children are both called kids. I can't imagine grocery shopping with goat kids in tow being too much more difficult than shopping with people kids.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book deals with the death of beloved farm animals. The authors' candor extend even to this delicate subject and they handle it masterfully. Instead of being "a book about death" Animals is simply a book about farm animals, completely honest in respect to every aspect of the animals lives. And as anyone who has spent time on a farm well knows, death is an ever present companion.

The best books are always truthful. Wouldn't you agree?

I Got Distracted

2011-11-12T08:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, my husband took the kids out for a few hours so I could spend some time working on my etsy store and blog. I brewed a fresh pot of good coffee, cued up my Ray Playlist (Charles and Lamontagne), and sat down at the computer. I pulled five or six books from the box by my desk, opened the scanner, and laid the book flat. And while the cover scanned in, I clicked around etsy a bit. Then I got a bit distracted by all the sweet felted critters and dolls for sale. I decided that they didn't look too hard to make, so I pulled out my wool and needles and pricked away for the next hour and a half. Book still waiting in the scanner, completely forgotten.

When my man returned with the kids, I still hadn't done a thing with the blog. And by the way I had planned to scan in some sweet images from a fast favorite newbie. I promise I'll get to that soon. But when they returned, I had this to offer for my time.

Pippi named her Evangelina, and Tommy begged for a boy doll wearing red cowboy boots named James. So I'm sorry, but no books today either. I'll be busy pricking my fingers again. Unless I get distracted by something else. Maybe I'll pull out my mom's knitting needles and yarn and tinker around with that.

The Funny Little Woman

2011-11-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

The Funny Little Woman
Retold by Arlene Mosel
Pictures by Blair Lent

My son and I went to a bookstore today while Pippi was at her art class. And let me tell you, we came home with quite a haul. Not in quantity. We didn't find that many keepers, this being a familiar bookstore that we visit (ransack) frequently. But the keepers we did find. Oh my.

But you'll just have to wait for the next post or two to get a peak at our small stack (which incidentally contains a swoon worthy Garth Williams tidbit), because today The Funny Little Woman rises to the top of the stack. If I passed over this one in favor some newbies, well that just wouldn't be doing the right thing by my little man.

This funny tale is his current favorite, so enamored is he that we laugh through the book at least four times daily.

Long ago, in Old Japan, there lived a funny little
woman who liked to laugh, "Tee-he-he-he," and who
liked to make dumplings out of rice.

I know this book so well I didn't even need to turn to the first page to know how the story begins. And I wish that I could figure out how to put a sound recording on here, a recording of me reading the book. Because you have to get that laugh just right. And believe me, I've had lots of practice.

So the story goes that the funny little woman was making a batch of rice dumplings when . . .
horror of horrors, one leetle dumpling fell from the table, rolled from her house, down through a crack, and into a subterranean shadowland. Inhabited by stone statues of the gods

and the oni,

who take the funny little woman (who's still laughing) to their underground hideout and force her to cook rice with a magic paddle. This is my son's favorite two page spread. "It looks all green and slimy," he says. "Like snot."

Well, the lady laughs her way through a few more pages, paddling pots full of rice, until she decides she's had enough. So she tucks the paddle into her belt, boosts an oni cruiser and rows toward daylight.

My son's other favorite page. "They got fat!" he chuckles every time. They got fat by sucking up all the water in the river, grounding the funny little woman. This part reminds me a little of The Five Chinese Brothers by Clair Hutchet Bishop. And just like the brother who can't hold the water forever, the oni "throw up" all the water (my sons words again) and the lady laughs all the way back home.

Where she gets rich making rice dumplings using her (stolen) magic paddle. And lives happily ever after.

The end.

Learning Japanese

2011-11-08T12:33:00.000-08:00

My baby's growing up, isn't she? When we first began homeschooling (6 years ago), if someone had come from the not so distant future to show me a picture of my girl learning from a computer thingy, I would have been surprised. I know I would have. I have had a gadget aversion since the days of watching my brother sit dull eyed in front of a television screen, Nintendo control in one hand sandwich in the other. I've watched entertaining devices eat up so many hours. I was determined to keep it out of our home of burgeoning learners.

But it started with the Kindle. Well technically, I guess it started with the computer. Blogs. Etsy. Facebook.

But I still didn't own a "gadget." No smartphone. No iPod. Certainly no iPad. Not that I was proud of my gadgetless existence. I just didn't want them. I had my books.

But my husband knows me way better than I know myself, apparently. He surprised me with an ipad for my birthday. And this thing that I didn't even know I wanted, would have resisted if he had asked my opinion, has so enriched our homeschooling adventure that I would never willingly go back. To life without the gadgets that is.

That girl in the picture? That's my six year old baby. Learning how to read Japanese. From a gadget.

She has completely mastered Hirigana and is ready for Katakana. She read her first Japanese word in a picture book. Just picked it out from the background. (A lovely book illustrated by Allen Say, for those of you interested in that sort of thing. Find it here.)

And as far as she's concerned, she's just playing around. We haven't incorporated Japanese into our formal academic training. I just downloaded an application. (Or app. I still don't like to refer to "my apps").

All it cost was a whopping $3.99.

Granted we had to buy the iPad first. But can you imagine the possibilities? I can. I've downloaded a similar application for learning the Russian alphabet, and an application for Hebrew flashcards. And so much more.

If you own a gadget, I'd love to hear about any educational "apps" you love.

Poised

2011-11-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

So, I guess you might wonder what I've been up to these past months. What could be so important that I would abandon my readers, leave them with a handful of garden pics and then . . . nothing.

I'll tell you what.

I fell in love.

Shocked?

I certainly was. I spent so much of my life hoping this would happen, wondering why it happened to others, but never to me. Wondering if it would ever become more than rote. More than duty. Wondering if I would ever just stand in . . . wonder.

And when I had pretty much given up, consigned myself to a life of paying lip service to this love, I prayed. A feeble prayer of questionable grammar, but a prayer in faith.

And you know what?

God answered.

Guess I shouldn't have been so surprised.

I am 35 years old, the daughter of a southern baptist minister, the granddaughter of a southern baptist minister. I knew the books of the Bible before I could count to 100. I could recite the 23rd Psalm before I could read. The Bible was ever present in our home.

But I had never read it. Nothing more than a passage here, a verse there, dogging my way through devotionals, topical studies. The occassional short book. And when I would tackle some of the weightier books like John or Romans, I couldn't make heads nor tails of it.

I knew that the trick to understanding the parts was to read the whole. It's impossible to understand a few lines of a letter read out of context. But the whole? That's a pretty big book. And not nearly as fun as Dickens or Alcott.

But I tried. Quite a few times, I tried. But when the stories ran out, somewhere along Deuteronomy, I gave up.

But guess what?

I'm two chapters away from finishing Malachi. Now, I don't profess to understand even a tenth of everything I've read. In no way do I believe this is the end of a journey, or even the middle. This is only the beginning.

But for the first time, I'm beginning to understand the scope, beginning to understand what the Bible is all about. And it's not about me, I can tell you that right now. It's not about how I can be a better person, live a better life, live righteously by my own works. Because when I compare my best, most pious attempts at righteousness to the law, which is the revealed character of the Almighty God, my best is but filthy rags. I finally get that. And on an unspoken, unspeakable level, I always thought Paul was just doing the whole "awe shucks, little 'ol me" song and dance.

But now, I get it. The law is perfect, as is God.

I am not.

And all I can do is stand in awe.

So please forgive my long silence. Instead of talking, for once I was listening. Reading and reflecting. Falling in love.

And I now stand poised on the edge of something truly amazing.

Because the most important thing I've learned from my time in the word, is that everything in scripture - from Aleph to Tav - everything points to Christ.

And I'm just a few short pages away from those most ancient of words, the revealed character of God,

becoming flesh.

Anyone Still Listening?

2011-11-02T06:16:00.000-07:00

Um ...Hello? Anyone there?

I couldn't think of an appropriate greeting after such a long absence, so hello will have to do.

So much has happened since our last chat. For one thing, those tomato plants produced enough to feed friends and neighbors as well as ourselves. We even managed to freeze some batches of red sauce. After the toms were done we ripped them out and planted okra.

We all blame the okra.

For my mother's broken arm, that is. Let's just say, I don't think she's going to be too eager to help out in the garden anymore. Can't say I blame her. But of all the different ways a person could find to bust a limb, picking okra does make the best story.

There is so much more to tell, so many books to show you.

But alas, that will have to wait another day or two. We are all down with some lovely nastiness. Fever. Headache. Cough.

I just wanted to pop in here and give y'all a hello and a promise of more to come.

My long bloggy break has come to an end.

Stay tuned.

April Showers

2011-04-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

Dill flower

That we've been sweating through a drought here in Texas is common knowledge to anyone around these parts. I am so thankful for modern times and it's comforts such as water hoses, sprinklers, and ever flowing clean water. Without such conveniences there would be no May flowers, tomatoes, peppers, melons, cukes, beans, and the like.

So thanks to easy irrigation, I bring you our April garden update. Yes, I know this is primarily a book blog, but I love gardening as well. Truthfully, I am not the master gardener. That's my dad. Before we moved in with my parents, I did all the gardening. And the plants did well enough. But my dad? Plants don't just do well under his care. They bend to his will.

Check this out.

Just two tomato plants. And yes that is the street in the background. We have a producing vegetable garden in the front yard. We are those neighbors. Problem is, our pollinators have yet to show up. We've had a honey bee or two, and a sparse wasp population and hardly a single butterfly. Despite the bee balm,

cosmos,

Susans,

and yarrow.

I've taken to hand pollinating the flowers with a small paint brush, trying to encourage a little love among the blossoms, with a handful of fruit to show for my labors.

We have twenty-seven tomato plants with eleven different varieties. So far, the Brandywine has been the most sluggish producer, with only two fruits between the two plants. That's an improvement over last year. We tried four Brandywines. Not even one set fruit.

Isn't this lovely? That's a single droplet of water cupped by a sugar snap pea leaf that caught my eye one morning after watering. Due to a late and hard (for our area) freeze, we lost all our winter peas and had to replant in February. So we're just now getting the first of the harvest, here in late April. A few more weeks and it'll be too late for the poor guys. Within a few days, I'll be planting cow peas beside our winter pea plants.

We also have some late cabbage and broccoli. The broccoli is so close to bolting, so we've been eating immature heads. Gotta say, the flavor is interesting, sort of garlicky. Tastes nice raw with tuna, capers, and lemon.

Our cukes and squash are coming along nicely.

I tell you what, the squash sauteed with onion and oregano and sweet cream butter over cornbread and topped with a fried egg is our new favorite breakfast. And lunch. And dinner.

Of the fruit, the strawberries have been most disappointing. Maybe the plants that survive will surprise us next year, but whatever dies, dies. We're not replacing them. The blueberry plants, although small seem to be doing well, with the exception of one. It's dying for lack of something. Not sure what. Next year I hope to buy about five more blueberry bushes.

And the blackberry vines have all but taken over the south side of our yard. Let's just say Blue Bell Vanilla Bean will be a staple come July when the cobblers are hot and bubbly.

The watermelons, cantaloupes, and green beans are having a hard time getting started on account of those squirrely varmints that keep digging up our seed.

They have no interest in the okra seeds or seedlings, but the morning after we plant beans and melons, dig holes are all that remain. We've replanted so many times I've lost count. This seems to be working though. My dad planted, then spread wire mesh over the beds. We've finally got seedlings.

To put all of this into perspective, I'll leave you with a few wide shots of the beds.

See that point of red? That's a strawberry. The only strawberry plants that are thriving are leftovers from last year, now growing under a wild tangle of blackberry bramble with thorns as long as my pinkie nail.

This is our main backyard bed, the one not overrun with blackberries.

Here's our front yard bed. In this bed, we have two mandarin trees. Want to hear something funny? Last year, I planted this bed full of mammoth sunflowers, zinnias, bee balm, and cosmos. The mandarins we're all but hidden. This year, my dad said he didn't want to plant anything that would overwhelm the mandarins. Guess who planted the bed this year? Yeppers. My dad. Bet you can't pick out what's mandarin and what's . . . well, everything else he planted.

And guess what, folks? As I type these final words, raindrops are spattering the windows. Not much, but who knows? Maybe we'll have an April shower after all.

Nary A Book

2011-04-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

You know that line from my last post? There are some days when we read nary a book. I should have known that if I made nice plans to blog about our reading life for a week, something would happen. Kind of like when I finally throw out that old bottle of Gatorade and put the Tylenol and Motrin back in the cabinet, the kids will get sick the next day.

Long story short, we have read just a handful of books in the last two days.

Our AC unit has been threatening to walk out on strike for about a year, and we've been scraping money, trying to save enough to have the whole thing redone. Then in steps my Uncle. I'll not use his name here because I'm not sure how he'd feel about that. Let's just call him Uncle.

So in steps Uncle. He's an AC repair man by day, and a hospital orderly at night. He raises pigeons, doves, and rabbits in the backyard, and can call just about any bird with a whistle. He cooks the best gumbo and bakes a carrot cake that would humble Paula Deen. I don't think he ever sleeps.

Uncle gets wind of the fact that we're without cool air several days out of each month, and he loads up his tools and drives two hours one way to get us fixed up.

For the last two days, Uncle and my husband have been hard at work, hacking holes in the walls, crawling around in the attic, and soldering new parts to old parts. And now we have cool air. Blissful. And we've had Uncle all to ourselves. You must understand that at family reunions, Uncle's company is in high demand amongst the little ones. He works a special sort of magic with the kids, the likes of which I've never seen. For two days, he's had my three year old son drilling, pounding, measuring, trash bagging, and hauling tools up and down the stairs. And Tommy has loved every minute of it.

So I'm sorry I don't have much bookish news for you today. Maybe tomorrow we'll try this again. But although we've hardly cracked open a book, I wouldn't change a thing about how we've spent our time. Except that maybe I would have cuffed Uncle to the patio table until he consented to a round or two of Chickenfoot, and hotdogs alfresco.

But alas, late afternoon, Uncle drove his big white truck off our front lawn and left a trail of tears in his wake. That is until Tommy remembered the package of Fig Newtons on the counter. He and Pippi are now in the backyard under the oak tree in the box that once held our new coil, sharing the last of those figgie cookies. My own Fats Watson and Christina Katerina. If you don't get that reference, you must, must, must get this book, posthaste, pick up a box that fits a few kids, and a bag of newtons.

So there you have it. And look at me, guys! I managed to sneak in a bit of bookishness after all.

Our Day In Books: April 27, 2011

2011-04-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

For the next week or so, I'm going to attempt to post each day what we are reading. Both kids are going through an intense hunger for read aloud time so we're logging quite a few hours on the couch. But a word of warning. Don't think every day is spent in such blissful bookishness. Many days, I'm surprised to realize nary a book was opened. Usually those are the days we spend almost completely out of doors.

So, here's the lineup for this late April Wednesday.

Dr. Seuss's ABC
Amelia Bedila by Peggy Parish
Thank You, Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parrish
Red Tag Comes Back by Fred Phleger, pictures by Arnold Lobel
A Fish Out of Water by Helen Palmer, illustrated by P.D. Eastman
Choo Choo The Runaway Engine by Virginia Lee Burton
Spinky Sulks by William Steig
Brave Irene by William Steig
Doctor DeSoto by William Steig
Thy Friend Obediah by Brinton Turkle
Obediah The Bold by Brinton Turkle
Pippi Longstocking - the chapter in which Pippi plays tag with a policeman and the chapter in which Pippi goes to school
Surprise! Surprise! by Abbie Louise Green, Pictures by Janet Smalley
Kenji and the Lost Kite by Anne Martin
Waiting For William by Marjorie Flack
Pelle's New Coat by Elsa Beskow
What's In Fox's Sack by Paul Galdone

And I finished reading C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters today. Humbling stuff.

And Tommy spent about thirty minutes thumbing through a Star Wars sticker book, removing the stickers and applying them to our floor. I learned the hard way that if you leave those suckers too long, they don't come up so easy.

And Pippi spent some time on the pillows in one of the book nooks looking through who knows what while I drifted on the couch. Pages turning while the fan circles overhead make pretty good white noise for an afternoon power nap.

Sorry about the absence of links and pictures but it's 9:30 and I'm tuckered. Good night.

From The Messy Desk

2011-04-19T14:02:00.000-07:00

Some shots of Pippi's workspace. I'm not allowed to come to near when I'm in a cleaning mood. I must admit, the clutter messes with my brain. I like order. I like neat spaces. But Pippi produces some of her best work in the midst of her mess.

Not too different from this, the workspace of our favorite new illustrator. Don't you just love that monkey hanging from the lamp? Makes me wonder who gifted it. Must be somebody pretty special indeed for a person to hang on to such a thing. We have a much more obnoxious laughing monkey my mom picked up at the hospital giftshop when my dad was in for surgery. I don't have the heart to ask my mom to make it disappear, but really it drives me up the wall. So poor monkey lives behind the computer hard drive, under the desk among the dust bunnies and forgotten cat toys.

But anywhoo. I digress.

You must, must, must click over to get a peek at how Phillip C. Stead created the art for his new book, Jonathan and the Big Blue Boat, to be released this summer. Pull your budding artist into your lap for this one. The process will fascinate and inspire. I promise.

Andrew Henry's Meadow

2011-04-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Andrew Henry's Meadow
Written and Illustrated by Doris Burn

My grandmother called yesterday. If you will remember, my Grammy sort of commissioned me to write the book I'm supposed to be working on. She asked if I had anything new to send to her. I will always stand as a child before my grandmother, pining to please. All I could do was hang my head as I explained that, no there is nothing new. Ouch.

So I should be working on that now. The kids are up early, snuggled on the couch watching Garfield. And I have the itch to write . . . something. But I am so hopelessly stuck on a point, and I can't seem to get around it. So here I am. Again. With a book to share with you.

I found this at my favorite book haunt. Although I was a bit dismayed to find that the hardcovers (at a thrift store mind you) had jumped from fifty cents to two dollars. Rather than buying a neat little stack of books, I walked out with only one. This one. Sitting in my car, tapping my tacky flip-flopped foot against the floor board, I opened to the first page.

And I knew Andrew Henry was worth my whole pocket of spare change. The illustrations immediately brought Robert Lawson to mind (Ferdinand, Wee Gillis). But Doris Burn is no mere copycat. Her art and her stories are distinctly her own.

Meet Andrew Henry Thatcher,

an inventor, but unfortunately for him, still a child. The middle child to be exact, neither small like his two brother tots, nor mature like his older sisters. And Andrew Henry's talent is wholly unappreciated. His mother is not amused when he constructs a helicopter and suspends it above the kitchen.

Neither are his brothers fond of the complex contraption Andrew rigs in the boys' bedroom.

My Pippi couldn't understand this. What little boy (or girl) wouldn't idolize a sibling able to wrest common objects into such marvelous curiosities. I tend to agree with her. That is the part of me that fondly remembers childhood agrees with her. My adult sensibilities would probably be offended if someone where to slap together an eagle's nest in my living room.

Which is Andrew Henry's problem. In the grown up notion of what is proper, and neat, and orderly, there is no room for the budding inventor. So he gathers his tools and leaves in search of a place of his own.

When he arrives at the meadow, he builds a home of "clay and rocks and poles" with a roof "made of fir boughs."

Solitude is short lived, for soon Alice Burdock emerges from the deep woods carrying her bird things.

She also is misunderstood. Andrew Henry builds for her an airy haven.

Soon to join Andrew and Alice are George Turner, Joe Polasky, Jane O'Malley, Margot Laport, Sarah Lerner, Don Peterson, and Stanley Hayes. Andrew Henry fashions for each of them an abode to accommodate each of their obsessions.

Can the children of Andrew Henry's meadow hack it without the parents? Well now, it wouldn't be a proper Books For Breakfast review if I told, now would it?

Stay tuned. I hope to bring to you in the next few days, The Summerfolk, also by Doris Burn. I'll also highlight a bit of her delightfully off beat biography.

Until then, try to overlook the Lego cities and mountains of drawings, and the playdough ogre family. At least it's not a helicopter in the kitchen.

In The Garden

2011-03-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

We've taken a break from official looks like the real thing lessons. Meaning, lessons done at the table with arithmetic, penmanship, and phonetic readings included. Substance the world out there values. Because quite frankly, lessons haven't been much of a joy for anyone around here in what seems like ages. Now before you take up your indignant outcry, But school isn't about what is joyful or fun, I must ask you why should it not be so? I've learned from experience, where there is joy, there is an abundance of learning.

So for the time being, at least the spring, no at the table lessons. None. At. All. Not even if Pippi begs it of me.

And you know what? That gust of fresh air whistling through our home isn't just a result of opening all of the doors and windows, creating a wind tunnel of sorts. Although that physical breeze has been nice. But that's not it. Not the reason why I'm stepping lighter, smiling wider. Nope. That breeze is joy. It's back.

Although formal lessons only occupied less than an hour of each of our mornings, that one hour seemed to me to be lost time, somehow. Because the hour that I pegged for lessons, right after breakfast and before chores, once upon a time (like six months ago) was prime read aloud time. One of the kids would bring a book to the table mid-meal, and two or three books later, we'd be on the couch reading through the mountain of books on the couch left over from the night before. We haven't had many mornings like that since Pippi's formal academic training began. Now folks, that's a cryin' shame.

So today? Pippi started with a rip roaring tantrum which landed her in her room until you can come out without a pout. She inched her way out of her room and onto the landing, laying on her back and kicking the wall. Before ten minutes had lapsed, the sound of her reading aloud traveled up the stairs. I found her with a stack of Henry and Mudge books, working her way through an old favorite Sparkle Days.

That stack of books followed us outside. I read some. Pippi read some. Tommy poured over the pictures. Then Pippi hauled her stack of art stuff outside where she took up drawing.

Here are some samples of her renderings of Henry and his big dog Mudge. Check out the tail wagging action.

Then the books were abandoned in search of ladybugs, a search which took us through the strawberry patch,

then through the tomato plots.

Pippi has discovered that ladybugs come in different colors with different spot patterns, a novelty which held her fascination for over an hour. We hunted and found ten bugs of four varieties, two on the underside of a fig leaf.

and a scattering among the fennel, a favorite noshing spot for those little guys and gals.

Then they helped me plant this new bed with okra and green bean seeds, a bed which will later this summer host our sweet potato crop. That tree on the right is our brand new grapefruit tree.

The kids ate first lunch (pb&j's) outside, while my husband cooked second lunch, bean and cheese quesadillas. The kids ate theirs with ketchup. We ate ours with peach habanero salsa. Yum!

Then for the next two hours I blew my honking nose and rubbed my itching eyes.

Oh, yes. I do love springtime in the garden.

Hold Please

2011-03-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

Yep. It's been awhile. I probably should post a taking a break notice here at BFB, but that would seem so final. But I guess I am sort of taking a break for many reasons. One of which is time. Our youngest is going through a lot of growth at the moment. Not just phyiscal growth, but his little personhood is growing. He's becoming more aware of his world. And that translates into fear and uncertainty. We spend a lot of time snuggling. He just seems to need a little extra something from me. You understand, right?

And I'm rethinking what I want to do with this space. I vascilate between a reflection of our little life and just the book facts. Sometimes I like that little bit of distance between us and the world. It's easy to keep that barrier in place when I make it all about the books. I can hide safely behind the book reviews, so that you can't see my messy self.

But the thing about living behind a barrier is that it gets awfully lonely. I miss sharing. There have been so many times I've wanted to jump on here and share about something we're doing, something distinctly unbookish, and I feel as though I've painted myself into a corner, leading my readers to always expect chatty book talk. So I hold back.

And the final reason for my absense of late. My book. Oh, that load of responsibility that sits quietly on my desktop. Did you know it's been three months since I've visited Helen, Wyndell, and Bernard? Quite unforgivable, actually. Blogging about books other people have written is so easy compared to this business of creating something out of nothing.

So, while I'm not taking an offical break, I also won't be posting a book a day, or even every other day. And when I post, it may have nothing to do with a book. Because the books, although we love them, are only a small part of our lives.

Here's a sampling of what we've been up to.

Planting strawberry plants - seventy-two to be exact. Planting fruit trees - lemon and grapefruit. Grain grinding. How cool is that? Drawing. Writing. Talking - my three year old has discovered the power of adjectives. Swinging. Climbing. Jumping. Mud-puddling. Chocolate-chip pancake making. Ladybug hunting.

Connecting.

How's that for a putting-you-on-hold message?

The Clever Wife

2011-03-05T14:22:00.000-08:00

The Clever Wife
from the collection Three Gay Tales From Grimm
translated and illustrated by Wanda Gag

Oh, how I love Wanda Gag. I didn't always. Before the kids were born, during my stint as a the wise children's bookseller - who had incidentally spent very little time reading aloud to children - I found her work to be a bit dull. Frumpy. I would call her art quaint, worthy of a tight smile, before passing her over in favor of something flashy and glossy.

But as a mother who has spent thousands of hours reading to my kids, I've altered my opinion. Wanda Gag is pure gold. She's not just one of those authors/illustrators kids are supposed to love. The kids actually do love her. Genuinely. We first became acquainted with Gag's work, as I'm sure you did as well, through that funny, old tale Millions of Cats. We have gone through two copies. Pippi developed her counting chops on those kitties.

Then about a week ago, we were in a new-to-me bookstore, Twice Told Tales (what a smorgasbord of oldies!) I came across this little lovely. Before I found her name at the bottom, I recognized her art and became supremely excited.

A few nights ago, I pulled the book from a stack and sat down with Pippi and began to read the first story, The Clever Wife. For those of you who have not heard this particular Grimm tale, here's a brief synopsis.

Before Amelia Bedelia, before even the Peterkin family, there was Kotti, a rather dim wit. Poor Friedel, her husband. All he'd like is some grilled meat for his supper after a day of work in the fields.

But the meat is raw, Friedel! wails young Kotti. You must cook it, explains Friedel. Just sprinkle it with salt and pepper, put it in a pan with some butter, then lay it in among the coal, and soon it will be roasted fine and brown.

What does Kotti do? Well, she salts it, peppers it. Drops it in the pan. Then nestles the pan down among the cabbages scratching her head the whole time. Having heard of the Irish dish, colecannon, a potato and cabbage chowder, I picked up on the humor pretty quickly. Cole. Coal.

Pippi's at that age where she likes making jokes based on dual word meanings, so once she understood that cole was a sort of cabbage she was all kinds of tickled. Especially when the dog comes along and eats up the meet, and Kotti cries,

A bad business! Now Friedel won't have anything to eat. But it's not my fault, that's certain - I did just as he said.

When Kotti relates to Friedel what has happened, Friedel chides her softly. Oh Kotti, Kotti. Kotti's response, repeated throughout the story, sounds so much like a pouting child-wife that a wheedling whine came so naturally in the reading.

Yes, Friedel, that I didn't know. You should have told me not to do those things.

Then the peddlers come. Friedel has hidden his gold away beneath the manger, forbidding his wife to touch the "yellow chips." The peddlers display their wares, crockery bowls and pots and juts of red, yellow, brown and green and blue. Kotti wants to help the poor guys along, so she offers the "yellow chips" in exchange. But quick to obey her husband, Kotti says

Just go into the barn and dig around under the cow's manger. There in a crock you'll find the yellow things. As for me, I'm not allowed to go near them.

Surprise, surprise - the peddlers turn out to be thieves. They leave the lot of the crockery and make off with the gold. The kitchen being well stocked with all manner of cups and pots and jugs, Kotti knocks the bottoms out of all the pretty pots and such and sticks them on the fence posts all around the house.

Friedel is not amused. At Kotti's suggestion, they pack up a supply of food and set off after the thieves hoping to retrieve their gold.

I'll leave the rest for you to discover. You must lay hands on a copy of these humorous tales. If for no other reason than to watch your kids anticipate, with lots of giggles, Kotti's plaintive whine,

Yes, Friedel, that I didn't know. You should have told me so before.

Pure gold.

Watch Out For The Chicken Feet In Your Soup

2011-03-03T17:20:00.000-08:00

Watch Out For The Chicken Feet In Your Soup
story and pictures by Tomie dePaola

I love finding new-to-me titles by beloved authors. I almost didn't see this little book, just a mite of a book really, crammed betwixt two larger than necessary picture books. But I'm so glad it caught my eye. I threw it in my basket without bothering to flip through. Tomie dePaola can do no wrong.

Don't you just love the title? I was laughing before even reading the first page. And from there, it just gets better and better. Here's the very first page. The one that precedes even the title page.

Turn the page.

Meet Joey's grandma,

an eccentric Italian woman who begs to be read loudly. With much italiano gusto. You know those books that you slip into your purse to bring with you to the pedi's office or to read to your kids while standing in the check out line at the grocery store? Well, this book isn't one of them. Not unless you've got a thick skin and don't mind the what a nutso looks. Try reading this one in a nice little suburbanite momma sort of voice. Go ahead. I dare you. It can't be done.

So, Joey introduces Eugene to his grandma. Who uses their coats to cover the bread dough "so it rise nice," and cooks for them a fifty-seven course meal (exaggeration mine, couldn't help myself) much to the embarrassment of Joey. And perhaps my favorite part of the book, oft repeated throughout, Eugene's response to being called Eugeney.

And then, once the soup is served, the chicken foot makes its appearance.

Which tickled Pippi, Tommy, and I in all sorts of ways. This is funny dePaola at his best.

Arrivederci!

The Moon Jumpers

2011-03-02T11:57:00.000-08:00

The Moon Jumpers
by Janice May Udry
pictures by Maurice Sendak

We've had this one for awhile. There are certain illustrators that I will buy no matter what - Sendak, Lobel, Cooney, and Turkel to name a few. So when I saw this in a book sale I bought it, stuck it on the shelf and promptly forgot about it. I came across it again a few months ago while organizing, and looked at it. Sendak or not, I was not particularly impressed by the cover. Something about that thick stripe of magenta across the top. Or maybe the boring block letters. Whatever the reason, I laid it aside on my discard pile without once opening the book. That stack laid buried beneath my shoes at the bottom of my closet until a week or so ago.

Tommy was playing in my closet - a forbidden activity because that's where we usually hide gifts - and he came out with Moon Jumpers. "Read this," he said.

He crawled onto my bed and settled in. I opened the book.

Oh. My.

Isn't this lovely? That black cat looks back at the reader, almost beckoning.

Follow me.

So I did.

Moon Jumpers is a very simple story told by Janice May Udry, a story about four children slipping outside one night while the parents pour over a book at the table. I can almost feel the dewy grass beneath my feet. Can't you?

Sendak's paintings aren't the only treasures hidden between the covers. Udry's prose are stunning as well.

Down in the sandbox the pail and the shovel
are left by the castle door.
The goldfish play with the moonfish deep in the lily pool.
Those old frogs begin to croak. And the fireflies
come from the woods. The giant moth zooms by
looking for the moonflowers.

The children dance, barefoot.

Tommy begs for this book over and over and over. It's not hard to understand why. The expression on the book boy's face speaks of exquisite joy. The joy of being outside. At night. In the country. With the moon looming overhead, and the night breeze kissing his bare legs. I want to be in the book. And I'm an adult with dishes to wash as soon as the kids are tucked into bed. How much more magical must this seem to a child?

Merry Merry FIBruary

2011-02-27T18:28:00.000-08:00

Merry Merry FIBruary
written by Doris Orgel
illustrations by Arnold Lobel

As March blows the door closed on February, I thought it appropriate to show off my new favorite find. At a buck seventy-five, Merry Merry FIBruary is a book full of crazy. And it had Pippi and I in stitches all the way through to the skinny yellow pencil at the end.

Although Lobel illustrated FIBruary for its author, Doris Orgel, there is so much of Lobel in this book. The armchair which sprouts a rosebush (Mouse Soup) would have fit neatly within the pages of FIBruary, which makes me think that Orgel could have lived happily ever after inside Lobel's brain, watching his clever images in early infancy as a sort of moving picture show. Crazy talk, maybe. You be the judge.

Merry Merry FIBruary is that one magical month of the year when everything is turned on its ear, with each of the thirty days (FIBruary includes a bit of fibbing about the numbers) represented by a truly nutty scenario. The animals at the zoo are made to wear "shoes and socks and pants and dresses - You and me, though, we go bare." And Uncle Harry "found no reason why he should spend his whole life as a grown-up - and grew back down to babyhood."

The book even includes a mock calender for each of the four weeks.

So without further ado, here is a sampling of the happenings of the merry merry month of FIBruary.

Day First.

And one of our favorites, a day when "Giants shrink and midgets grow. Take Fee-Fi-Fo and Tiny Tom, though which is which I do not know."

And here's Billy Frink, who "grew petunias in his bathtub and took showers in his sink."

And Pippi's ultimate fantasy, the dentist turned patient, with the girl holding the drill.

And the hands down giggle winner. Gotta give you the verbatim words for this one.

And here it is. The skinny yellow pencil at the end. Nothing remarkable about its yellow pencil-ness. But without it, my previous reference makes no sense.

Have a merry merry last day of FIBruary!

The Man Who Lost His Head

2011-02-26T13:40:00.000-08:00

The Man Who Lost His Head
by Claire Hutchet Bishop
illustrated by Robert McCloskey

Just when you think you know someone, really cozy up and get comfortable in a barefoot in their house sort of way, you discover a new facet that knocks your socks off . . . of your um . . . your bare feet. Well, that didn't work out so well.

But, you know what I mean, right? Married to your spouse for five years, and discover one day that he has to, has to put his left sock on before the right. Or that your best friend since nursery school, hillbilly girl that she is, secretly loves to sing along with Karen Carpenter.

This was the sort of experience I had when opening this book and reading it to the kids for the first time.

Robert McCloskey. You know the guy, right? Blueberries For Sal. That sweet duck family, for Pete's sake. Burt Dow. All nursery familiars. All safe. Beautiful stories.

Then there's this guy.

The Man, as he is known throughout the story, wakes up one morning to find that he has somehow lost his head. Literally.

And no matter how much thought he gives the matter - thought from a headless character - he can not come up with a reasonable explanation that would account for his missing noggin.

Now, his hands remembered something soft and silky.
That was his pig.
And his feet remembered a long tiring walk.
That was the way to the fair.

So the Man resolves to retrace his steps. But first he must freshen up a bit.

Man, this just gets stranger and stranger. Then he decides he can't possibly go out in public as a headless fellow, so to the garden patch he goes to fashion a head from a pumpkin. Which is a total failure. So a parsnip would be a better fit, he believes.

Nah, that's not working so well either. So he carves a stump into a wooden head, and sets off on his peculiar quest.

And just when you think things can't get any stranger, the Man meets the Boy,

who offers to help the Man find his head.

And from there the story swerves off the road, straight into Bizarre.

But for all it's wonkiness, the book is truly great. The story is as fresh and unpredictable as no doubt it was at it's birth in 1942. And the wordplay and rich vocabulary alone are worth the price of the book.

So, I'll leave you with this little diddy.

BouliboulibouliboulibouliBANG!

Six Month Art Update: Pippi, Age 5yrs, 4 months

2011-02-24T11:52:00.000-08:00

Pippi spends about three hours a day at her desk, drawing and writing. And as you can imagine, we are drowning in papers. I try to tidy her space every now and then, but she thrives when she can see everything, spread out all around her. So pull everything back out, she does. And I have been forbidden to walk away from her desk with a stack of papers because she knows, knows in her bones, that I'm cleaning.

So in an effort to stop the avalanche, I've finally convinced her to let me scan her art, all of her art, onto a flash drive, so that we can throw many of the physical copies away. Not all. I do keep a sampling of her work in a folder. But now one can breath near her desk without sending a stream of papers to the floor.

And as part of our new paper purge plan, about every six months, I will feature here at Books For Breakfast, the best of the best. Until she's old enough to have her own blog, like in a year or so. Then she can scan and post to her little heart's content.

I'll be her first follower.

Most of Pippi's art features people. But every once in a while, she experiments with drawing objects and will amass a stack twenty pages high of chairs. Or tables. Or cooking pots. Or bicycles.

More of her experiments with objects. This time, obviously her fascination was with musical instruments. I sure do like that green banjo.

My husband also likes to draw and his work is of the cartoonish sort, having been an avid comic book reader in his youth. And Pippi loves to draw with her daddy. Much of her style comes from watching him.

This she did one day while I was painting a set of "fish" stones for a fishing game for the kids.

This is my favorite from the stack. I love the precision of the girl's feet and the beginning of Pippi's concept of perspective.

I love the chef's hat and the cooking ladle and the dark hair hanging down her back.

I guess you can tell by looking at this picture that we read a lot of vintage books. I don't think a goose would be smoking a pipe in a modern picture book.

Inspired by a month's worth of reading Jabberwocky every single morning during the breakfast meal. I think that poem will be forever linked in my memory to apple spice oatmeal.

This she drew shortly after we brought our kitty home from the animal clinic. Pippi loved visiting the kennel. And the animal in the top left hand corner? Why, Curious George of course.

Pippi and Tommy - the book characters, not my kids - painting the walls.

Robin Hood and Little John (Disney). I love Little John's bush tail and that quiver full of arrows. Pippi spends a lot of time drawing people as they would look viewed from behind.

Did I already say I had a favorite? Ok, so this my second favorite. My kids are mad about Scooby Doo, and Pippi's drawings inspired by that crime fighting cheesball team fills a folder of its own. This one makes me smile. That hamburger cracks me up.

Sylvester, The Mouse with the Musical Ear

2011-02-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

Sylvester, The Mouse with the Musical Ear
by Adelaide Holl
illustrated by N.M. Bodecker
out of print, available here

I picked this up at my favorite book store last night and read it to my sick little boy this morning. And since I'm pretty busy today, wiping noses, playing with cars and trains, and trying to keep Tommy from flying Superman style off of the furniture, I'll keep this brief, mostly pictures with a quick synopsis.

Meet Sylvester.

Sylvester, a brown country mouse, lives in a grassy meadow and spends his days listeing to the lovely sounds all about him.

But his peaceful conservatory is soon invaded by sprawling suburbia, television antennas marching into the horizon. Sylvester becomes just another city mouse, mired in a grimy world bereft of beauty.

But then chance brings him by a music store, and his days are once again filled with music, although of a different sort. He makes his home in the hollow of a guitar, sleeping by day, making music by night.

One night, the store owner hears the guitar, playing on its own, or so it seems, Sylvester secreted in the shadows.

Word of the magical guitar travels far and wide, and one day Tex, a dusty cowboy hears of the guitar and travels a long, long way to find it.

He buys the enchanted instrument and before long, Tex, the guitar, and sleeping Sylvester leave the city behind. When night falls, Tex settles among the prairie grass, gazing at the stars.

Sylvester awakens to the lost but not forgotten sounds of the country side, and joins in with his plinking on the guitar. Tex and Sylvester travel far and wide together, but no matter where their travels take them, they always have their music.

Snippets: House At Pooh Corner

2011-02-22T13:17:00.000-08:00

Pippi and I finished reading Winnie-the-Pooh last week, and last night we delved into The House At Pooh Corner. In our schedule of weekly readings, this book is in the rotation for Wednesday night, but so eager was Pippi to begin that we settled in for Chapter I: In Which A House Is Built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore.

Have you read Pooh? If you haven't, you must. Milne was a master of language. He was, in my opinion, the master of language in children's literature, and it is a shame that his books have been marketed as baby books. By the time most children are old enough to understand and love the stories, they are mired in easy readers such as Junie B. Jones, and because the children are reading on their own, the parents stop reading to their children. Often encouraging the kids to finish reading just one more page, but never picking up Pooh or the Princess and the Goblin to feed that all consuming beast, the child's imagination. And as a result, it is my fear that the majority of people born in the past few generations never discovered in childhood that Winnie the Pooh is so much more than a Disney movie and collection of cheap board books.

Or worse, a set of gift books - containing the complete stories - resting atop a nursery dresser in a Pooh themed crib room. Never to be opened, doomed to be thrifted or gifted when the nursery is redone for the growing child.

Feast your mind on this, the first paragraph from The House At Pooh Corner.

One day when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something, so he went round to Piglet's house to see what Piglet was doing. It was still snowing as he stumped over the white forest track, and he expected to find Piglet warming his toes in front of his fire, but to his surprise he saw that the door was open, and the more he looked inside the more Piglet wasn't there.

All that to say, Piglet was out. Milne's books abound with such clever phrases and new ways of stating the ordinary. For a child to grow up without such a feast, to me is unthinkable.

So, what about you? What one book, or author, stands out as the definitive childhood offering? That one book that you would read to a child who had never been read to?

Think about it.

And, please do share.

Mop Top

2011-02-21T10:49:00.000-08:00

Mop Top
by Don Freeman
In print and available here

Yesterday Tommy was playing on the floor with his Imaginext Pirate Cave and narrating a story to himself. I caught snatches of his play, simply adorable and entirely his own brand. Then I heard him say, "Batman climbs up the chinaberry tree."

I love when my kids surprise me with their vocabulary. I remember when Pippi was two and a half she used the word jaunty in proper context. From a book we'd read, of course.

So I asked, "Tommy, how do you know about the chinaberry tree?"

Pippi, always the girl with the answers, said without even a thinking pause, "It's from Mop Top." Which of course prompted an impromptu story time.

Although Mop Top is not my absolute favorite Don Freeman title, not even in the top three, I do love this sweet book. Probably because it reminds me so much of Tommy, who loves to wear his cowboy boots and hates having his hair cut.

Meet Moppy,

a shaggy redhead who lives for playtime and loves to swing from branch to branch in his very own chinaberry tree. (An uncanny memory my girl has.) One day his mother calls him down from his tree and gives him some money and sends him off to see Mister Barberoli, the local barber, so that he will look nice and neat for his birthday party.

Don Freeman had a great ear for words. I just love reading this page aloud.

"Here's some money, sonny," his mother said. "'I've just called Mister Barberoli, and he says he'll be ready for you at four o'clock sharp. It's a little after half-past three now, so let's see you hippity-hop to the barbershop all by yourself."

So Moppy pockets the money and beats it to the end of the street and turns the corner before he realizes what his mother has sent him to do. Get a hair cut. He grumbles all the way to the town square where he meets with a frilly woolly puppy outside the candy store.

"What a silly-looking pup you are! said Moppy as he bent down and tried to find the pup's eyes. "You're the one who needs a haircut, not me!"

Not long after, Moppy shuffles by Mr. Lawson mowing his lawn, who sports a handkerchief tucked into his back pocket and a tobaccy pipe hanging from his mouth.

"That lawn is what needs a haircut, not me!" said Moppy.

Then Moppy clippety-clops by a man lopping branches off a "low, droopy tree."

"You could do with a few snips of these snippers, skipper!"

At last Moppy makes it to the barber shop, but in one last ditch attempt to save his mane, he darts into the grocery store next door, where he hides behind a mop and broom display.

See that woman there in the background? Well she's looking for a mop. A nice sturdy one, with which to mop her kitchen floor. And you can imagine what happens next.

Well at least I hope you can, because I'm not telling.

You'll just have to hippity-hop to your favorite local book shop to find out.

Fish Head

2011-02-19T13:49:00.000-08:00

Fish Head
written by Jean Fritz
illustrated by Marc Simont
Out of print, but available here

Meet Fish Head, also known as Long-Tailed Liver Loving Thief, also known as Public Nuisance and Dirty Wharf Cat.

And yes, that is a nasty, stringy fish head hanging from his mouth. Hence, the moniker. Poor ol' alley cat. With nowhere to lay his head, no one to scratch his back, or feed him kibble, Fish Head lives by his wits, which often leads to thievery and ratting. But he doesn't know he's poor. He's a proud cat.

He does just what he likes to do,
just when he likes to,
and just how he likes to do it.
He is that kind of cat.

My poor girl, cat lover and bundle of raw emotions, had a hard time with the beginning of this book. Most of her favorite cat stories feature well fed house kitties. Or cats of a fantastic sort, who act and think as people, sporting red scarves and dancing Irish jigs. Even The Outside Cat seems a bit clean, sanitized even. But not Fish Head. The desperate sort of scrapping life of an alley cat is the fare in this salty tale by Jean Fritz, an author most well known for her biographies of early American historical figures.

As the story goes,

One drizzly Saturday night Fish Head was doing what he liked most of all to do. He was chasing a rat. A fat grandfather rat who knew the waterfront as well as Fish Head did.

In the back alleys they started. They raced through the shadows, flung themselves around corners, and skidded through doorways. Up fire escapes and over roof tops. Tail streaming and ears flattened, Fish Head was only two tail lengths behind when they reached the Waterfront Market.

The chase takes them into the Waterfront Market with it's shelves of molasses and treacle, where Fish Head finds Grandfather Rat resting atop a barrel.

But rest long, Rat does not. With Fish Head close at his heals, Rat skitters down, races across shelves and over bins, with Fish Head in hot pursuit. What a mess they make of the market! And in the end, Grandfather Rat makes his getaway, slipping away into the salty night.

And Fish Head finds himself

on a boat.

He was still there when the funny chug-chugging started but he was too tired to notice.
Slap, slap, slap.
Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh.
Putt-putt-putt. The boat was moving!

Thus begins Fish Head's life at sea. After a rollicking, ankle-swiping cat fight, Fish Head is accepted on board by the likes of Carrots and Kegs, two sailors on the vessel. And once Fish Head gets his sea legs, he becomes as comfy at sea as a peg-leg pirate, spending his days catching flying fish and lolling on deck in the sun.

Ah, the life! But after a while, Fish Head grows restless, homesick for the waterfront on Clambake Island. After watching the crew go ashore on island after island, Fish Head begins to wonder if he'll ever again chase rats through the wharf.

Until one day, there in the distance . . . an island.

Clambake Island.

Home.

But after his maiden sea voyage, how will Fish Head cope with life as a once again homeless landlubber?

Little Red Riding Hood

2011-02-17T16:45:00.000-08:00

Little Red Riding Hood
Retold and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman
In print and available here

"Please, Grandmother, why do you have such big, sharp teeth?"
"Those are to eat you up with, my dear!"

Words such a part of our literary culture, that everyone knows the reference, or at least everyone of a certain age. But can you remember the delicious fear, the creeping thrill spider walking up your spine upon the first dry rasping of those words?

Just a few days ago, I read the story of the red hooded lass to my three year old Tommy for the first time. And by the time the wolf leapt at poor Red, Tommy was hiding behind my back, peeping over my shoulder, eyes wide as milk saucers.

And because nursery tales and their darker kin, fairy tales, become such an indelible part of a child's garden of ideas, I believe that such books should be chosen with special care. How many of you can remember the first time you felt Red's plight? Saw the Horse's bloody head hanging over the gate in Goose Girl? Cringed at the heartless words of Hansel and Gretel's stepmother?

I can remember very few picture books from my childhood, but I do remember finding an illustrated edition of The Goose Girl. Her long loose locks, white blonde like cornsilk, spilling over a white handkerchief, the red bloom of blood spreading outward, with the girl's white horse filling the background. So much white in that picture. The effect was chilling. But most fairy tales are a blank in my mind. I know the stories, the words, but there are very few images.

Fairy tales are some of the most exhausted stories. Exhausted by retellers and illustrators. It's like those old songs that every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to cover. Flipping through the Fairy Tale collection at book stores, I'm almost nauseated by the cheap, glittery renderings by Publishers, or Editors with no named illustrators.

Then there is the humorous collection, illustrated and retold by the likes of James Marshall. The tales become silly and frivolous, lacking all of the dark bite of the originals. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with these retellings. But I think they should be reserved for an older set of children - those who have already been introduced to, and grown to love, renderings faithful to the originals.

But so many parents - and educators - choose the sanitized or silly stories, so as not to frighten the child. Why not just wait until the child is old enough to be delighted by that delicious fear?

What about you?

What is your favorite fairy tale? And is there a particular picture book that haunts you from that long ago nursery reading?

Please, do tell.

Mr. Tod's Trap

2011-02-15T14:42:00.000-08:00

Mr. Tod's Trap by Malcom Carrick
Out of print - used copies available here

Whew! Have we been busy. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just life. I've been tweeking our schedule and blogging time lost its cozy morning nitch. We've been reading bunches, though. Probably more so than before with our revamped schedule.

Today I did something a bit different when I found a spare twenty minutes with nothing to do. Except smell the burning beans on the stove. Oops. Forgot about dinner. Be back in a few.

(five minutes later)

Were was I? Busy, busy, busy . . . schedule tweeking . . . reading bunches. Ah, yes. There we have it. Something different.

Today I asked Pippi if she would like to pick a book for me to write about. I was almost certain that she would pick Zabajaba Jungle, a smart picture book by William Steig that Pippi is mad about. But Zabajaba will have to wait for another day. Because Pippi picked Mr. Tod's Trap, a book I found yesterday in a tiny bookstore across the street from the Y, where we go every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.

I'm a sucker for vintage I CAN READ books. I very rarely find an old one that fails to charm me. And judging from a quick flip through of the pages, Mr. Tod would be no different.

Charming, isn't it. So I snagged it. It wasn't until that evening when I settled in to read it to the kiddos that I began to wonder whether or not I'd wasted two bucks. The jury's still out on that one. It is an odd little book.

Mr. Tod is a hunter, and a rather lousy one at that. He tries hard, opting to use cunning and trickery rather than brawn, the wily weasel's weapon of choice. But he always comes home empty handed. Not a single rabbit for the soup pot, while the weasel brings home the spoils of Mr. Tod's crafty ideas.

First, Mr. Tod crouches beneath the bridge, waiting for the bunnies to race over his head, where he will be waiting. "Because rabbits don't like to swim," Tod explains to Weasel.

Well, poor Mr. Todd waits and waits. While Weasel bags every one of those twitch-whiskers (my homage to Muncha!Muncha!Muncha!)

Next, Mr. Tod stays up all night and day, making "traps."

Which turn out to be toys. For the rabbits to play with. Until they become exhausted, making them easy prey for sneaky Mr. Tod. Problem is, when the rabbits fall asleep curled up with the toys, Mr. Tod can't do it. They remind him so much of his children. So he leaves them and goes home. While Weasel reaps Mr. Tod's harvest.

But to hold off starvation, Mr. Tod tries one final time to trick the rabbits. He builds a trojan bunny.

And once he and his family push it to the rabbit field, Mr. Tod has his wife secure the latch once he is safely inside. The rabbits find the giant bunny and push it into their secret home. Problem is, the hatch does not open from the inside. So he watches through a peephole while Weasel makes his raid on bunny town.

Mr. Tod is tuckered out.

And his children are starving while his wife begs the occasional rabbit off of Weasel. So what does Mrs. Tod do? She takes off her apron. Turns it over to Mr. Tod. And sets off to the fields to hunt. Mr. Tod discovers that he makes an excellent Mr. Mom. And Mrs. Tod does a bang up job bringing home the bunny bacon.

And all is well.

So why do I feel a bit ambivalent about Mr. Tod's Trap?

This book, although charmingly illustrated, is obviously about something, namely the badness of chauvinism. Mr. Tod makes frequent asides about "Women's work" and "Men's work." And although I think it is fine for women to make money (or hunt) and for men to wash dishes and give baths, I don't like books with agendas. Or at least, I don't like books in which the agenda sings louder than the story. I don't like it when the moral is spelled out, enunciated s-l-o-w-l-y as if children are idiots incapable of picking up subtle nuances.

And for me, Mr. Tod leans a bit too heavily on the women's liberation theme.

But the illustrations are charming. And the play between Tod and Weasel is hysterical. I just get a bit nauseated when I see yet another poor, dumb husband being rescued by his smart, resourceful wife.

But that's just me.

Tim To The Rescue

2011-02-09T14:05:00.000-08:00

Can you believe this beauty was pulled from the library? I love this book, as I love all the Tim books. I bought a few reprints for Christmas, with clean, crisp pages and stiff, new dust jackets. Beautiful books, really, they are. But there's something about the old books. The originals, with sepia tinged pages, finger smears, and history.

This copy, as I've mentioned is a library withdrawal. Because it still has it's pocket pasted in, and the catalogue card, I had the pleasure of explaining to Pippi how libraries functioned in the olden days. "Was that when people drove wagons and cooked on fire boxes?" she asked. Cute kid.

So, Tim. We originally bought the Tim books for Tommy, but Pippi is the one who requests them over and over. They are more to her liking, I must admit. No burps, farts, or food pepper these stories so Tommy's not much interested. My boy, my boy.

In Tim to the Rescue, we find our young hero staring moon faced out the window

longing for adventure on the high seas. He bids his parents adieu and finds his great friend Captain McFee, the old sea captain. He and the captain leave the landlubbers behind and board the S.S. Fidelity of 3000 Tons.

The first person Tim meets on board is Ginger, a tall red haired boy with a chip on his shoulder and a curled up fist.

"Soon the ship sets sail, and Tim and Ginger lean on the rail and watch as they move slowly down the wide river to the open sea."

After awhile, Ginger, a "lazy and mischievous boy" goes to the Third Mate's cabin with a message. The Third Mate is a "very bald and rather vain" man, and his cabin is filled with bottles of "different coloured hair growers."

Remember that bit about Ginger being a bit mischievous?

Guess he just couldn't help himself.

And of course, this is the result. Captain McFee is not pleased. Everywhere Ginger goes, roars of "Get that boy's hair cut," meet his ears. Seaman Bloggs, the ships barber, wears his fingers to the bones trying to keep up with the red mop. And eventually, Ginger succumbs to shame, hiding in a life boat.

Then, things go from bad to worse. The sky grows dark and an "oily swell" puts the ships crew in danger.

The crew is ordered below deck, an order that Tim disobeys, willing to sacrifice his life to save that of a surely vagabond.

Does Tim rescue Ginger? Do ship and crew hold together through the storm?

In keeping with my signature cliffhanger style, I won't spill my secrets. But I will tell you that the words spoken by Captain McFee upon hearing of Tim's bravery, brought tears to my eyes.

Chain Reader: Part 2

2011-02-08T16:41:00.000-08:00

Those of you with me since the beginning of Books For Breakfast may remember Chain Reader, a post on how I've become a person who habitually reads multiple books at once, and how I've benefited from my new habit. My former self gobbled books whole, moving on to the next before I'd digested the meal. Now I read slowly. On purpose. Pausing to ponder. Stopping to think.

How wonderful to marvel at a clever turn of phrase, such as this one, from Middlemarch by George Elliot:

Celia's face had the shadow of a pouting expression in it, the full presence of the pout being kept back by an habitual awe of Dorothea and principle: two associated facts which might show a mysterious electricity if you touched them incautiously.

Or this, from Tozer's Pursuit of God, a book that I've been reading for three months without getting past the third chapter. Not because of disinterest. But because it takes that long for the words to deeply penetrate. And affect change.

With the veil removed by the rending of Jesus' flesh, with nothing on God's side to prevent us from entering (the Holy of Holies), why do we tarry without? . . . What but the presence of a veil in our hearts? a veil not taken away as the first veil was, but which remains there still shutting out the light and hiding the face of God from us. It is the veil of our fleshly fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated. It is the close-woven veil of the self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been secretly ashamed, and which for these reasons we have never brought to the judgment of the cross . . . So I am bold to name the threads out of which this inner veil is woven. It is woven of the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit. They are not something we do, they are something we are, and therein lies both their subtlety and their power. . . self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them.

. . . that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free.

Words such as these beg attention. Contemplation. How much do we miss when we speed through? Consume but not absorb?

I've been reading in this manner for about a year now. And about six months ago, I began to think, why not open up such experiences to Pippi? Up until then, we would read one chapter length book at a time. Some to which she was receptive - such as Betsy-Tacy - some not so much. Lots of wiggling and hand stands going on.

But when I began to pace our readings, I noticed a change.

But before the change, I'll first explain our schedule.

We typically read about ten books at a time. One chapter a day in most cases. Sometimes she begs, and I relent, and we will read two or three chapters in a sitting. But I try to hold her to just one. Nothing like an unquenched thirst to bring her back to the cup.

So here's our reading schedule. I read aloud from two long books a day, one in the morning while she works on handwriting, and one at night before bed. Rest assured, though, we read plenty of picture books throughout the day.

Sunday - Because we have church, this day is an exception. We don't do lessons on Sunday morning, so we have only one read aloud, Leading Little Ones to God by Marian M. Schoolland.

Monday morning, I read from The Japanese Twins, part of a series written in the early twentieth century by Lucy Fitch Perkins. With detailed descriptions of food, dress, customs, and the land paired with challenging vocabulary and syntax, packed into a story about five year old twins, I can not imagine a better way to introduce children to other countries. And for our night reading, we have been reading from The Adventures of Grandfather Frog by Thornton Burgess. Our adventure with Grandfather Frog came to an end last night, with a new adventure with Jeremy Muskrat waiting in the wings.

Tuesday morning, I have begun reading from Stories of American Life and Adventure by Edward Eggleston, a challenging primer in American history. Evenings, we read from TWIG by Elizabeth Orton Jones.

Wednesday morning, we work on memory work for the scripture memorization program at our church. Evenings, we read from the Beatrix Potter stories. These, she is also beginning to read to herself.

Thursday morning, I read from her choice of books, usually Pippi Longstocking. Evenings I read a chapter from Winnie the Pooh. This is a favorite. Pippi and Tommy also listen to the audio recording of the Pooh books at night while they wait for sleep.

Friday morning, I read a chapter from Among the Night People, part of a natural science series written by Clara Dillingham Pierson. Evenings, I read aloud from the Rageddy Andy stories.

Saturday morning, I read from Stories from Grandma's Attic by Arleta Richardson. Evenings, I read from Elmer and the Dragon.

Now for the change.

At the beginning of our chain reading expirement, Pippi seemed a bit puzzled. Monday night, I read from one book. Tuesday night, another. And so on. At first, she was less than enthusiastic. But after a month's worth of reading, she'd memorized the schedule and began to eagerly look forward to each installment. Now that we are coming to the end of many of our books - after six months of living with the characters, drawing them, acting out chapters - Pippi acts as if she is bidding farewell to beloved friends. Pippi was moved to tears when I closed the book for the last time on Grandfather Frog.

And the manner in which I read the books has changed too. I have learned to stop keeping one eye on the page number. I've learned to stop looking at the shelves of books, wondering when we can get to the next one, and the next one, and the next one . . . Learned to stop thinking of chapter books as notches in my belt. Because I know we will be spending a loooooong time with Pooh, Elmer, Andy, and the Twins, I settle in. And take my time.

And because I'm in no rush, I patiently (that is a key word) reread difficult to understand passages at Pippi's request. And because we are taking this time, this slow, unhurried time, the subtlest nuances do not escape her comprehension. She notices more. Understands more.

And that folks, is what it's all about. Forget AR points. Forget number of pages read.

Throw away that belt with the notches.

It is meaningless.

What matters, what truly matters in this stuff of books, is a child's experience with the book.

Don't tell me how many pages you read. I want to know, did something nameless awaken within you?

Because if not, you've wasted your time.

Seasons

2011-02-03T19:00:00.000-08:00

I had planned a fantastic post for today. I found a delightful book at the bookstore earlier this week and I was all set to share it with you. A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson and illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa - a book that I came across years ago while working at Katy Budget Books and didn't buy, but has since eluded me - finally fell into my hands. And guys, I was primed. Then, while reading through my blogroll today, I came upon this. And do, please click over. Because only there can you read the post I wanted to write.

So, needless to say, I will not be writing about Gyo Fujikawa's book. To do so would be redundant.

So, I'll settle for John Burningham, tonight. This was in the stack of books I read to the kiddos earlier, after baths and during popcorn. I scooped up a bunch of snow themed books for bedtime reading, because here in the Houston metro area, we are expecting snow. Squeal!

So, while my babes are watching Lady and the Tramp and waiting for the white stuff, I give you Seasons. Enjoy!

The Blueberry Pie Elf

2011-01-31T17:20:00.000-08:00

The Blueberry Pie Elf
Written by Jane Thayer
Illustrated by Seymour Fleishman

I can not say enough good things about Purple House Press. Apparently, I can't stop buying their books either. Not one book out of the ten or so we have purchased has been less than enchanting. These books are not merely good - even by my high standards. You know that feeling you get when you bite into that first summer spoonful of Haagen-Dazs rasberry dark chocolate ice cream? These books are way better. And I love dark chocolate.

Almost as much as I love blueberry pie. And books about blueberry pie. I must add a warning here. Do not read this book at bedtime. Not even if the kids beg. I made that mistake. Nine o'clock. I'm dead tired, sit down to read to the kids, open this one up. Not even three pages into it and both of the kids are begging for food. Can't say I blame them. The whole book made my mouth water. After the kids ate their apples and I put them to bed, in the absense of pie, I shoveled down a stale donut.

On with the show.

Meet Elmer.

There was once an elf, named Elmer,
who lived in a house with some people.
No one knew that he lived in the house,
because no one can see an elf,
and no one can hear an elf,
and no one can feel an elf.

One day, Elmer helped the people gather berries. Then - unseen, unfelt, unheard - "Elmer helped roll out the crust. He watched as the berries, all covered with sugar, were tucked inside."

And pardon me for quoting half the book, but the text is just as juicy as the pictures.

When the delicious smell
of the baking blueberry pie
stole out from the oven,
the little elf sniffed.
He wanted that blueberry pie so much
that he almost got his nose caught
in the oven door.

After the pie was done and the family had their fill, Elmer ate himself into a stupor, falling asleep in his favorite teacup.

The next day, Elmer went to the refrigerator for another round with the blueberry pie. But, alas, the pie was no more. Though he knew it was in vain, he pleaded with the people. Shouted at the top of his elfin voice. But to no avail. So he tried working tirelessly for the people. Making the beds. Washing the dishes. Sweeping the floors.

At last, Elmer had the people's attention. But there was still the problem of communication. How can an elf who is unseen, unfelt, and unheard convey his deepest desire.

Then, one day, the family pulled out baking pans, flour, and sugar.

And apples.

Then it was pumpkin pie. Then red cherry pie. Though not what he wanted, Elmer decided to give it a try. Elmer climbed inside the pan, his elfin feet slipping into the warm red syrup. He tasted it. Sour, sour, sour, Elmer thought. Disappointed, Elmer climbed out of the pan, and forgetting to wipe his feet "all red with cherry juice," Elmer walked "with his slippery, sloppy" feet across the white table cloth, leaving a trail of elfin red footprints all around the pie.

This gave Elmer an idea. A brilliant idea. He climbed into the pan and "waded around in the cherry juice until his feet were dripping."

And then he . . .

No spoilers here, dear reader. Follow the link to find out how Elmer's story ends.

Purple House Press

Incidentally, I am in no way affiliated with PHP. I'm not even a blip on their radar. But if anyone affiliated with that house of genius happens to read this, I would be willing to work for books.

Mr. Pine's Purple House

2011-01-27T05:03:00.000-08:00

I'll put my growing stack of doll books aside for the moment - believe me, I've got more - and feature Tommy's current favorite. This arrived in the mail two days ago - along with yet another sweet dolly book - from Purple House Press.

Mr. Pine's Purple House was written and illustrated by Leonard Kessler and published in 1965 as an Easy Reader. It's been touted as a book about non-conformity blah, blah, blah. But you know what? It's a story. A very funny story, at that. Why do we feel compelled to make stories mean something greater, be about something higher?

Let's all talk about this book now class.

A story is a story is a story. Read it and laugh, weep, rage. Whatever.

Grown-ups, you listening? Just read the book and get out of the way.

Rant over.

Anyway. The book. Sorry about that, guys.

Meet Mr. Pine.

Charming chap, isn't he?

And here's his house. Third door from the left. I think. Looks kind of like the door on the right. And the door on the left. And every door on every house on Pine Street. Therein lies Mr. Pine's problem. He'd like to be able to tell which house is his.

Maybe if he plants a pine tree right out front, he thinks.

Pine tree.
Pine's house.
See?
That's me!

So he does. Just like this.

Ahhhhhh. Looks pretty nice. And different. Problem is, Mr. Gold likes it too. And Mrs. Green. And Mrs. Brown. What scene greets Mr. Pine's bespectacled eyes when he looks out his window the next morning? You got it. Pine trees up and down Pine Street.

Mr. Pine is a bit miffed. So, he plants a bush. Just like this.

Mr. Pine is pleased as punch. As is Gold, Green, and Brown. Drastic means call for drastic measures. I wouldn't want a purple house. Would you? That's what Mr. Pine is banking on when he drives down to Color Corner Paints for nine gallons.

Much to the paint man's chagrin, Mr. Pine buys his purple paint and gets to work. Despite a few mishaps and missteps . . .

. . . when he is finished, the house looks just as Mr. Pine expected. Purple, purple, purple.

Wonder what happens next? Purple houses up and down Pine Street, perhaps? My lips are sealed.

Purple House Press. Look it up, buy the book.

Biscuit, Buttons & Pickles

2011-01-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

The cover alone did it for me. An elderly Mary Poppins with a sweet moppet by her side. What could be more enticing. Then I opened the book and became acquainted with Violet Pickles, cute as a button on my Great Aunt Mimi's sweater.

But wait! Are her hands . . . stitched?

Why, I do believe they are! Leapin' Lizards and Bust My Buttons! It's yet another doll book. Because little girls - and little girls at heart - can never have too many.

Ivy Cottage is the first book in the Biscuit, Buttons & Pickles series, written and illustrated by E.J. Taylor. And sadly, the books have been allowed to go out of print. Grrrrrr. . .

In this, the first book, we are cordially introduced to Miss Biscuit, a kindly old gal who is gainfully employed as a nanny. Her dearest friend in the whole wide world is Violet Pickles, a rag doll who can "write and talk and has very definite ideas about how most things should be done."

And all is well in Violet's world, until one day when she and Miss Biscuit are having tea on the porch, Miss Biscuit decides to retire. They will move to the country, she tells Violet, and live in a cottage.

Poor Violet is a bit discomposed, I do believe.

But Miss Biscuit is not one to change her mind once it is set, so pack they must. With her, Violet takes "a small suitcase, her teddy bear, and a picnic hamper, which contained her favorite books, a paint set, a feather pillow, her blue blanket and a silk ribbon." All their belongs, Miss Biscuit balances precariously atop her bicycle and into the country they go.

But calamity befalls the duo and they are stranded at nightfall, with no mode of transportation save their four feet. So they set off through the dark, spooky wood, until at last they arrive at the spot where Miss Biscuit swears the old cottage should stand. But nought except the trees can they see under the moonlit sky.

And as it is now raining, they decide to spend the night beneath the umbrella.

In the morning Mr. Bickerstaff arrives in his rattly claptrap to help the two get settled in the cottage. A cottage which they can't find.

Until Violet pushes through a great wall of ivy and discovers . . .

How My Kids Play

2011-01-22T14:12:00.000-08:00

I wrote here about how my kids love of mixing toys sets off my OCD tendencies. I was picking up toys a few days ago, putting sets back together and such, when I happened on this happy scene. I called Pippi over to explain the action.

The kitten with the pink Polly Pocket skirt on her head? Well, a party hat, of course. It's kitty Mocha's birthday, and all her friends are invited. Lilly, Chester, and Wilson (from the Lily books by Kevin Henkes. Please tell me you've read those.) And Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny are also in attendance. And the fish/rocks? Well silly, that's dinner. Astrid (not in the picture) took her catapult out to the river and knocked the fish dead on the head, and fried them up for the birthday feast.

Then after frying up the fish, Astrid got in her fire truck and drove down to the toy store to buy Mocha's gifts. These are her gifts scattered about Mocha's playroom. And yes, they all live at the local fire station.

And my Tommy? He's happy as long as he gets to "bang them all dead."

And for those of you curious about the wooden character toys, read this.

The Outside Cat

2011-01-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

We sold our house today. Signed papers. Done. For those of you unfamiliar with our unique living situation, here it is in a nutshell.

Turns out the title company was a block away from a tidy little book shop. So after we did the deed, we jogged on over to the store. And for the first time ever, I browsed for books without a budget. Whatever I wanted went into my basket.

I'm almost giddy.

I'll be blogging about my new stash in the weeks to come, but for now I'll share this bit of sweetness.

The Outside Cat
Written by Jane Thayer
Illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky

I blog about books I experience with the kids. I don't usually jump on here and blather about a book I've not yet read aloud, but today I'll make an exception. Tommy's sleeping and Pippi's off in a corner with her Calico Critters, so no one is available for some book time. And I just can't wait to give you a peek.

Samuel was an outside cat.
He was an outside cat
because he never was allowed inside.
The people in the house were good to Samuel.
They put bits of meat and sometimes
a saucer of milk in the yard for him.

So begins The Outside Cat, a lovely offering by Jane Thayer, author of The Popcorn Dragon and The Blueberry Pie Elf, and Feodor Rojankovsky, illustrator of Over in the Meadow and Frog Went A-Courtin'.

Told through the voice of Samuel, a stray who has attached himself to a benevolent family who feeds him but never lets him inside, The Other Cat reminds me a bit of that other lovely book by Jane Thayer, The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy, in that the story reveals what life for an unwanted animal might be like.

On cold winter days,
when even Samuel's fur coat
could not keep him warm,
he could see the inside cat
sitting snugly at a window looking out.

Samuel spends his days watching the inside cat, a little white ball of fluff who sits in the window, and pondering over the problem of how an outside cat might become an inside cat. He tries to slip inside behind the postman. But is promptly put out. He trys to squeeze in with the delivered laundry. But receives a gentle nudge from a red pump.

Then one day, a red van stops in front of the house. Two men get out, ring the bell, and enter the house. Leaving the door open.

Samuel enters. He hides beneath a chair lest he be given the boot. But the chair is whisked away. He scampers under a table. Which too is lifted and carried off. Even the bed, his final refuge, is taken. Leaving nowhere to hide.

And at last, Samuel has become an inside cat. And wants nothing more than to again be out. Finally someone opens the door and Samuel streaks across the porch and hides under a bush. And watches new tables, new chairs, new beds, lamps, rugs, and fans being carried into the empty house.

Finally, the van drives away. And promptly, a new car arrives. With a new family. Who walk into the house. And close the door.

A new family. Without an inside cat. I wonder, will Samuel finally find a place before the fireplace? A friendly hand to scratch his back? A warm patch of sunlight in which to nap?

I'll never tell.

The Kitten Who Thought He Was A Mouse

2011-01-20T13:10:00.000-08:00

The Kitten Who Thought He Was A Mouse
By Miriam Norton
Illustrated by Garth Williams

Pippi loves all things cats. And this sweet book, illustrated by Garth Williams, is as cute as cat books get. If the name Garth Williams sounds familiar, open up your copy of Stuart Little or a Little House book and take a peek at the illustrations. Yep, one and the same.

So the story goes, a kitten is abandoned, and found by the Miggses, a family of mice.

The mouse children, Lester and his two sisters, persuade Mother and Father Miggs to take in the homeless kitten and bring him up as a mouse. Mother and Father consent, and they name the kitten Mickey Miggs.

"After his eyes opened, he began to grow up just as mice do, eating all kinds of seeds and bugs and drinking from puddles and sleeping in a cozy pile of brother and sister mice."

And Father and Mother Miggs teach him the ways of mice, what to eat, where to sleep, and what to avoid. Namely Hazel, the house cat, and mousetraps.

All goes according to the Miggses plan. Mickey grows up as a mouse. He squeaks as well as any mouseling, only singing as a cat now and then to distract Hazel so that the mice can raid the pantry. Then, one day, Mickey meets the house children, Peggy and Paul. They coax Mickey out of the mouse hole with a saucer of milk, a strange substance previously unknown to Mickey.

But, to the dismay of the Miggs family, Mickey discovers he likes - no loves - milk. Paul and Peggy leave milk for Mickey each morning, and over time, Mickey becomes comfortable around the children. Until one day, he catches sight of himself in a mirror. And sees . . . a cat.

Follow the link to read a complete bibliography of Garth Williams books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Williams

Books in Pictures

2011-01-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

Our kitty, Marie, browsing the book baskets.

Pippi lounging in the book nook sounding out words.

What's on our coffee table now.

Different view of the coffee table.

Big Susan

2011-01-18T09:49:00.000-08:00

Big Susan, written by Elizabeth Orton Jones and originally published in 1947, is hands down my favorite chapter book length read aloud pick for little girls. It is beyond me why more people don't know about this book. I didn't until about six months ago. And after reading Big Susan, I'm wondering what other gems were overlooked in my childhood.

Big Susan is about a collection of doll house people who belong to a girl whom they call Big Susan. But unlike many doll house stories, these dolls are not alive in the sense that they can move or speak anytime they wish. They are sentinent. They think and feal. But sadness does not tug the corners of their mouths downward. Nor does levity brighten their faces.

Only when they are in Big Susan's hands can they experience movement. Only through Susan's mouth can they speak.

But there is one exception.

On Christmas Eve, a bit of nursery magic is enacted and they come alive. They can move and speak of their own volition.

And every year on Christmas Eve, they awake to find their home decked with all the yuletide charm of the season.

But one year, their magical hour arrives and no tree, nor gifts, nor feast await them. At first they are dejected. Where can Big Susan be, they wonder. She's forgotten us, they believe.

But they decide that instead of bemoaning their supposed abandonment, they will prepare a surprise for their beloved Susan.

In the ensuing hustle and bustle about the house, they discover a true gift. A new porcelain babe asleep in the cook's bed above the kitchen. This babe, they decide, is a gift greater than a tree with trimmings and red foil wrapped gifts. Finding no crib, they place the babe, whom they have named Little Susan, in the childrens' bed and cover her with their little white quilt, "rather a stiff little quilt, the kind that sometimes comes in a big box of chocolate candy."

Why does Big Susan not appear on Christmas? Why is there no tree, or gifts? What is the surprise that the dolls prepare for their patroness?

Why, to find that out, you must read the story.

And incidentally, Big Susan was republished in 2002 by a small publishing house called Purple House Press, a press devoted to bringing back into print "forgotten" classics of children's literature. You really must click over and peruse their inventory. Each book is a delight. We've purchased several and not a one has disappointed.

Girl Climbing Out of an Envelope

2011-01-17T08:18:00.000-08:00

This is part of a story Pippi is working on. In this story, Alice wants to visit her best friend, Ola, who lives in Massachusetts. But they don't have money to buy an airplane - which costs fifty-seven dollars - so Alice's sister Mocha turns her into paper, then puts her into an envelope to mail her to Ola. This is Alice, climbing out of the envelope.

I thought it was rather clever.

Wolves

2011-01-16T12:56:00.000-08:00

A few posts back, I wrote about a favorite thrift store find, Little Brown Bear by Elizabeth Upham. Pippi casually asked if a wolf had shredded the cover. As I mentioned, that was a reference to another book, Wolves by Emily Gravett. Wolves, a current favorite with Pippi, is a book that I often find her with in a lighted corner, thumbing through the pages. With spare text, Pippi can with very little help read Wolves on her own from start to finish. But although the text is spare, the illustrations simple, the book is deceptively clever. The ending, like the wolf, snuck up on me.

But I'll back up and begin with the first page.

The book begins with Rabbit taking out a book, entitled Wolves, from the West Bucks Public Burrowing Library. Rabbit, eager to begin reading, sticks his nose in the book and sets off.

So absorbed in his reading, he does not notice when a wolf steps right off the page.

And begins to follow him through town.

It is not until he stands squarely in front of the wolf's snarl that Rabbit realizes he has a problem.

I'm afraid Rabbit, and the book, meet with a bad end. Actually, the author includes a page for squeamish readers, assuring that no rabbits were eaten in the making of the book. Ms. Gravett also provides an alternate ending in which the wolf and Rabbit share a jam sandwich and all is bliss.

I held my breath on the first reading of this. I hadn't screened it first and I was prepared for the burst of emotion, the tears, the wailing, when it became apparent that the hapless bunny had been eaten. I paused for a moment before turning past the clawed book page, and read the bit about the jam sandwich.

And you know what my little stinker said?

I liked the first ending better.

Really?

Yeah! It was way funnier!

We have to read Wolves two or three times a day. And she never lets me read the alternate ending. For her, the book ends when Rabbit dies.

Go figure.

$21.64

2011-01-15T13:48:00.000-08:00

That's how much I paid today for this bag full of gems, many vintage, many out-of-print.

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
The Small World of Binky Braverman by Rosemary Wells, illustrated by Richard Egielski (love this guy)
The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judit Kerr (been looking for this one for about a year)
Too Many Animals (original title: A Flood of Creatures) by Dahlov Ipcar
Stranger's Bread by Nancy Willard, illustrated by David McPhail
Two Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems
Company's Coming by Arthur Yorinks, illustrated by David Small
Christmas in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Ilon Wikland
Chicken Forgets by Miska Miles, illustrated by Jim Arnosky
The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken
Little Chief by Syd Hoff
Who Took the Farmer's Hat? by Joan L. Nodset, illustrated by Fritz Siebel
Someday by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by Arnold Lobel
Morris and Boris at the Circus by B. Wiseman
Pet of the Met by Lydia and Don Freeman
Fly High Fly Low by Don Freeman
Fish Head by Jean Fritz, illustrated by Marc Simont
Letting Swift River Go by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Barbara Cooney (my favorite illustrator)
Where's Wallace? by Hilary Knight
Cecily G. and the 9 Monkeys by H.A. Rey
The Chicken Book by Garth Williams
Apt. 3 by Ezra Jack Keats
The Trip by Ezra Jack Keats
Pet Show! by Ezra Jack Keats
The Surprise Party by Pat Hutchins
Nicolas, where have you been? by Leo Lionni
A Very Special House by Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Maurice Sendak
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, illustrated by John Schoenherr
The Kitten Who Thought He Was a Mouse by Mirian Norton, illustrated by Garth Williams
Rabbit Finds A Way by Judy Delton, illustrated by Joe Lasker
The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by Wendell Minor
Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco

I read this great quote at Semicolon yesterday, and when I woke up this morning, I felt in my bones that we had to go to my favorite book store. So I packed up my two goats (ever go to the store with two children?) and went shopping. So glad I did. Did I score, or what?

“Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world.”~Virginia Wolfe in her essay, “Street Haunting”

Maggie and the Pirate

2011-01-14T18:55:00.000-08:00

You'll remember a few days ago I begged, pleaded, that you, my dear readers would shoot me a few pirate titles for my sea lovin' boy. And I was met with . . . complete silence. But that's okay. Because it forced me to do my own homework. And as a result I now bring you this strange tale of Maggie, a girl who lives in a bus and her pet cricket, Niki.

The kids and I have read many of Ezra Jack Keats books. A Letter For Amy and The Snowy Day being our unanimous favorites. Imagine my delight upon stumbling across this, on our own shelves. I love browsing at home. I really do. So Maggie. What's there to say about Maggie that the picture doesn't tell? I love her curly red hair and bare feet. And the fact that she lives on a bus, swings over the river in a tire swing, and explores the banks on a raft. Well, I think I want to be her.

But then there's this fellow.

Watching Maggie as she hangs Niki's cage from a tree beside the bus and beats it down the path to meet Paco and Katie.

When Maggie returns from town, loaded down with groceries for her Ma, she finds Niki and cage gone. Instead there is a note.

Maggie sets off, in the moonlight, to find Niki. But nowhere is a pirate to be found. And all around her, the chirping of crickets stirs her on.

I hate to include spoilers, even for picture books. But spoil, I must. The cricket dies. Maggie discovers the pirate, a lonely boy, in his tree house hideout, built above a marsh. There is a scuffle, and the tree house collapses, sending Maggie, the pirate, and Niki still in her cage, into the water below. Niki drowns.

Maggie, Paco, and Katie bury Niki and sing sad songs.

Then, the pirate appears with the wooden cage. And inside is a new cricket.

Ultimately, this book is about asking for, and receiving forgiveness. Not so much about pirates. But oddly enough, my rowdy, belly fart loving boy can't get enough of this quiet, thoughtful book.

And neither can I.

The Big Red Apple

2011-01-13T07:28:00.000-08:00

My kids, both of them, for part of their speech development have gone through a time of narrating, or speaking as if they were reading from a book - ie. "I want to watch my space ranger movie, said the little boy." This, I believe, comes from all the books we read. Tommy phrases his requests, questions, and statements as if they were spoken by a character in a story.

A few weeks ago Tommy stomped up to me, shook his finger in the air and growled, monotone, "I want a big, red, juicy apple. Said the robot." So I washed one, pulled off the stem, handed it to him and he went on his way.

It wasn't until I pulled this book out to read to the kids that I realized where the big, red apple bit came from.

The Big Red Apple, although barely held together at the spine, is in almost as good condition now as it was when I bought it before Pippi's birth. Amazing really, when you consider how brittle are the pages. And how much action this book has seen through the years in our home. It's one of those books that the kids request every day, sometimes twice daily, for a week or so, then it gets put up on a shelf and they forget about it for months at a time. But then, one day, it is rediscovered. And it's like no time has passed at all.

The book is simple. A boy laying on a rug with a picture book. His grandfather drowsing over the newspaper. Grandpa says, "I wish I had a big red apple! I could show you how to roast it, Bobby." Bobby runs outside, races through the leaves blanketing the ground. But stops short at an apple tree. Stripped bare. Bobby sets off to find out just what happened to all the apples. He asks a kitten he finds in the pumpkin patch. A friendly puppy. A gray squirrel in the wood. But none of his animal friends can help him.

Finally, Bobby asks Farmer Tom, who is on his knees pulling turnips.

Farmer Tom takes Bobby into the barn. Which is full to bursting with the fall harvest. He explains to Bobby that the first frost is upon them. And that they must pick the apples before the temperature drops.

This is my favorite fall story. My favorite story that explains the seasons, and how they influence growing things. Maybe because I can remember sitting on my grandmother's lap, still hear her voice as she read me this book, still remember picking pears off her trees before the first frost could claim them. Or maybe the book is really that good. Can stand on it's own without all my sentimental notions.

I'll never know.

But I digress. I do that quite a bit, don't I?

So, Farmer Tom lets Bobby take his pick of the apples. Let's him wander from barrel to barrel. Bobby soon discovers there are more than big red apples stored in the barn. He spies "piles of golden pumpkins, heaps of green and yellow squashes, turnips, and Indian corn."

I would have loved to have been a farmer's child. To walk into a barn and find heaps of produce stored away for the winter. We have a garden. A good sized urban garden. But definitely not a farm. I've never produced enough to store. But sometimes I like to pretend I'm a farmer, putting away food for the winter. At heart, I've never grown up. I buy produce when it's on sale. Pounds of apples, bananas, and grapes. Plums. Peaches. Berries. Then I dehydrate and cook. Until I have shelves full of apple and banana chips. Raisins. Jams. Applesauce. Applebutter.

So, Bobby picks his apple, a big red one, and races back home to Grandfather. Who ties it to a string and hangs it over the fire, to roast. Sweet drops of apple juice sizzling on the logs.

What could be better than this?

The Ugly Book

2011-01-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

I love when I stumble across worn, tattered books at thrift stores. More often than not I've been delighted at what lies between the covers. Miss Suzy, one of our most treasured books, I picked up for a quarter at a book sale. A withdrawn library book, Spartenburg Library stamped on the end papers, wouldn't look like much to the untrained eye. Which is why it was probably in the sale bin. But the story. Oh, my.

Suzy sings like no other book.

I recently came across this old thing at a thrift store. Pippi asked if the cover had been clawed by a wolf, alluding to a book we'd recently read, Wolves by Emily Gravett. On the last page, the book that a rabbit had been reading all through the story, lies torn to shreds. And indeed, our thrift book did look as if it had been ripped by very sharp claws. But experience has taught me that you never judge a book by it's cover.

Usually, but not always, the uglier the cover, the more beautiful are the pages. Little Brown Bear did not disappoint me. Take a look at the first page that caught my eye. Old world illustrations have always enchanted me. Taper candles. Drop-seat footies. Attic bedrooms. Root cellars. And Pippi is so much like me. She once noticed a little girl in an Eloise Wilkin book wearing white drop-seat pajamas. A year later, Pippi had amassed a generous collection of books in which a character was clad in similar fashion. You should see her, sporting her own pair of drop-seat footies, name stitched across the seat. She looks as if she's stepped out of one of her own books.

And taper candles. I found an old-fashioned holder, such as the one Little Brown Bear is holding, and a box of beeswax candles at a thrift store, and Pippi immediately claimed it as her own. It rests on the shelf beside her bed, and she would like nothing more than for me to allow her to carry it down the stairs - lighted - to her room each night, blowing it out moments before slipping beneath the coverlet. So this book was an instant favorite with Pippi. With Tommy as well.

Little Brown Bear, a character created by Elizabeth Upham and illustrated by Marjorie Hartwell in the 1940's, is a collection of ten stories about Little Brown Bear, his family, and friends.

The first story moralizes a bit too much for my taste. I'm not fond of cautionary tales and Little Brown Bear Loses His Clothes sounds very much like the if you don't behave and put your clothes away properly, this may too happen to you sort of story. Which is ridiculous. Because the wind will never whip into my childrens' room, steal their clothes away, and hang them on a tree branch outside. I doubt my kids will ever be influenced by this story to put their clothes away lest the wind snatch them up.

But the other stories are charming. I especially like Little Brown Bear is Afraid of the Dark. Little Brown Bear asks his dear night time friend, Yellow Moon, if he is afraid of the dark. Yellow Moon beckons Bear to the window, eager to show him the wonders that belong to the night.

Wise Old Owl hooting from the butternut tree.

To whit, to who! to whit, to whee!
The darkness is my time to see,"

Green Frog croaking in the pond. Old Black Cricket singing outside his window. And Yellow Moon himself
bathing his room in soft light.

In Little Brown Bear's Surprise Party, Little Brown Bear is faced with a dilemma. The story opens with his jaunty song as he runs about the kitchen. And by the way, don't you just love books where the characters are forever making up little songs and rhymes?

Cups and saucers, spoons, and plates!
Today I'll buy my roller skates!

he sings while helping his mother set the table for breakfast. The day is Mother Bear's birthday, a fact which I imagine rolls around like spare change inside Bear's head as he empties his bank and pockets the coins. "There are just enough to buy my roller skates," he says to himself.

Down the walk and through the gate
Twill be great fun to roller-skate!

On his way to the store, Little Brown Bear stops and sits down on a flat stone to think. He remembers his mother's birthday. He must choose. By a gift for his mother? Or buy his roller skates. With money that is rightfully his.

What choice he makes, I'm sure you can guess. It's that sort of book.

Are you now not enchanted with sweet Little Brown Bear?

If so, I'm afraid I've got a bit of bad news for you. The Little Brown Bear stories have sadly gone out of print. But I managed to locate a few moderately priced copies here and there at various independent book collecting sites. I've added a few links. But because inventory changes with each book catalogued, each book sold, I've not linked directly to the book, but to the site.

Happy hunting!

http://www.abebooks.com/
http://www.alibris.com/
http://www.powells.com/

Norman the Doorman: The Post I Meant To Write

2011-01-10T13:43:00.000-08:00

You know how when you sit down to write a piece, think you know exactly what you want to write, but then your writing takes on a life of its own, and wanders off into the woods? That's what happened yesterday with Norman. What I set out to write, and what appeared before me fully formed an hour and a half later, were so different from one another that I feel I must write the post I meant to write.

I'm not exactly regretting the Norman of yesterday. Issues I struggle with as a writer and a mother exploded when I read the interview with Ron Freeman, son of Don Freeman, author of Corduroy and many other excellent books. I found it ironic that a man who could write such intuitive books that would speak to so many children and parents, a man who had his thumb on the pulse of the child's heart, could so alienate his own son. And that he wrote Norman, a book about the worthiness of the smallest creature, yet his own son felt so inadequate standing in the shadow of his father. This really struck a nerve with me.

But I promise, after today, Norman the Doorman will for us be just . . . a book. A very good one at that. But just a book, nonetheless.

What I meant to write, set out to write, was actually something quite positive. About how we can encourage our children in their many talents. And although they are small in size, small in experience, what they produce is worthy. Just like Norman, tagging along behind the important artists, with his simple, delicate wire sculpture, our children can surprise us with the scope of their work. If we listen. If we watch. If we take their work seriously.

Pippi loves to write and draw. But most of her writing is done in her head, her vocabulary and word crafting being far ahead of her spelling. Most of her stories consist of a stack of wrinkled pictures and an hours worth of talking over her drawings. By the time she's finished a story, she's forgotten most of the detail, the juicy words that make her stories so magical.

So what I'd like to do, if I am able to do it unobtrusively, is one afternoon while she is working at her desk, I will sit down at mine and open up a new document in Blurb. For those of you unfamiliar with Blurb, it is a publish--your-own company, software include, that is available at no cost. You don't pay a cent until you order a copy. A professionally bound copy.

So while she is drawing, creating her story, I will be typing into Blurb, word for word, what she says. Then when she's done, I will scan her pictures into the document to match the text. Then, voila! She has her first published work. That she can give as gifts. Take down off of the shelf and read.

Her own work.

Which is every bit as important as my own.

It's never too late for that smug artist to turn around and lift the small one up.

Norman the Doorman

2011-01-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

I've wanted to write a post about this book for a good while but was not sure what approach I should take. Sometimes, I just review the book, as I did for Beware of the Frog. A straight shot. Not much meandering around, blabbing about my kids. But because I use my blog as a way to record, not just the books we love, but the way we interact with books, I usually do not choose the straight shot. I meander.

And meander I must with Norman, because this book speaks to me so much as an author and a parent.

I don't know about you, but I feel like I spend way too much time here at this desk, a pile of books beside me on the floor, while the kids are vying for my attention. As a writer, unpublished but nonetheless, a writer, I struggle with living here, in the non-print world. Even when I'm not writing, I'm usually thinking, mulling over a story or crafting a blog post. While reading a book with the kids, an idea will nudge aside room in my brain, spinning itself into being. So that before the book is closed, I'm mentally absent from the moment.

And this makes me uneasy.

While thinking about writing this post, I was browsing the archives of a favorite blog, Vintage Books My Kids Love, and stumped my toe hard on this, a four part interview with Don Freeman's son, Ron. Reading his words, about how his father was consumed by his art and writing, and how Ron lived life into his fifties adrift in his father's shadow, I was finally able to put into words the ideas that began to form, the day I first read Norman to our kids.

Meet Norman.

In front of a small, well-hidden hole around in back of the Majestic Museum of Art there once stood a mouse named Norman.

Norman was a doorman, and he greeted all the art-loving creatures who came to see the treasures which were kept in the basement of the museum.

So begins Norman the Doorman. Norman spends his days tripping the mouse traps, staying out of sight of the upstairs guard, and introducing his fellow mice to great works of art. And at night he retires to his bachelor pad - an armored knight's helmet, where he

exchanges his blue jacket with shiny brass buttons for an artists smock and black beret.

One night, Norman begins to make something from the wires he has salvaged from the sprung mouse traps, working through a day and night until he is satisfied with his creation,

which looks,

"for all the world
like a mouse
on a trapeze."

The next day, Norman happens upon a sign, announcing a sculpture contest, open to all artists, with prizes awarded for each medium. Norman returns to the helmet wraps up his sculpture, and pushes it up the steps of the museum. He leaves his small creation beside the other entries, and returns to his job as doorman.

On about the third time through reading Norman, there was one page in particular that spoke to me so loudly that I almost couldn't go on with the reading.

Notice Norman, struggling along behind the human artist? I can almost feel his trepidation, his timidity as he scurries across the floor, wondering if the humans will accept his offering.

Now look at the human's face. If not haughty, it's at least self-absorbed. Self important. All of the hyphenated self words that come to mind, could rightly be applied to him.

That's me, guys.

Too often I've been here, clicking away at the keys. My time. And Pippi appears at my sleeve, picture in hand wanting to show me her creation. Her story. And I stare straight ahead. Never taking my eyes off the screen. So afraid that if I look away, really listen to her, I will lose my thought. So I sometimes patiently, often not, explain to her that this is my writing time. Ask her to wait.

Now, please don't misunderstand me. I do believe that every parent needs some time in which to think. Read. Create. Do nothing. To expect your children to occupy themselves for a time while you mentally check out is not wrong. It is necessary. Especially if you are with them all the time.

But what I'm far too often guilty of is not later picking up her drawing or story. Not inviting her to the couch to her show off her creation. Not seeing. Not listening.

Read what Ron, Don Freeman's son had to say at the beginning of the interview.

He never played with me; he was rarely at home. If I was ever with him, it was because he “dragged” me to his work, to his artist friends, or to the theatre in New York, which he loved. (I use the word “dragged” as the introverted boy Roy experienced it. Of course he did not “drag” me literally!) Because I only knew him with other people and they all called him “Don”, I also called him “Don,” never “Dad”. When other children would say to me, “Gee, it must be great to have a dad like that!” I thought to myself “What ‘dad’? He spends more time with other children than he does with me!”

I tried to imagine what my children would say were they to be interviewed after my death. Would it be,

"My mother encouraged me in every endeavor. Listened to my stories. Looked at each of my drawings noting the merits of each. She was my first patient and constructive critic. And she was the first person to find worth in my work."

Or might it be,

"She sure could write a good story. And she was a pretty good cook too. Don't remember her really playing with us much. If she wasn't folding clothes or sweeping the floor, she was working away at the computer. When she'd read a book, she'd do all the voices. Could tell a story better than most. But I don't remember just sitting and talking with her too much."

I pray that one day, with the grace of God, my Pippi and Tommy, can look at my life and know, by my words and actions, that they and their father were first in my heart. First in priority. Not the books. Not my writing. Not publication. Not worldly validation.

But them.

It's Not a Stick

2011-01-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

The kids and I read Not a Box and it's sequel Not a Stick about a year ago. They were both pretty good. I didn't feel compelled to run out and buy them full price, but they were good. If I saw them on the used book shelf, I'd definitely snag them.

But on with the show. I must get breakfast started and here I sit at the computer again. Believe it or not, this post is not about a book. The books definitely sparked the idea for this post when I was browsing through photos of the kids, but really this post is all about my kids. About how creative they are. About how creative kids in general can be when they are allowed to explore and play with things "inappropriately."

I know people who try to keep all toy sets together. All the time. Never shall the triceratops from the dinosaur puzzle be stuck in the ficus tree in the living room. Yes I know, he's prowling in the jungle, about to pounce on pour unsuspecting Benjamin Bunny from the wooden toy basket. But you see, that puzzle piece might get lost. And I'd just have to throw the whole thing away. Agggghhh! And pray, tell me, why are there markers and crayons stuck in the play dough. A birthday cake? I see. And play dough covering your trucks? Oh, it's a blanket. Yes that makes sense.

My kids love to mix their toys. Strewing pieces from this set and that one all over the house while participating in various expeditions, hunts, safaris, etc. And I know about those anal parents who try to just keep it all together, contained, because I am one. And I try very, very hard to hide it. Just bite my tongue, let them play, and try not to fuss too much later when I want them to just help clean it all up already.

And another pet peeve is bringing indoor toys outside. My visiting friends probably marvel at my careless manner when the kids drag polly pockets, dinosaur sets, blankets, dolls outside and I barely bat an eye, smile and say calmly, "Sure, that's fine. Just put it back when your finished with it." If only my friends could hear the stomach acids stewing around, churning, churning, churning. See the nails digging into my palms. Taste the salty tang of blood because I've bit down a smidgen too hard on my tongue.

I try so hard to just let these things go. I don't consider myself materialistic. Not in the traditional womanly sense. I don't care a heap about my clothes. I spend no more than a buck on any one piece (thrift store dollar sales.) And makeup? I recently replaced the mascara tube that I bought for my wedding day, eight years ago. And cars. Furniture. My hair. Fingernails. The last - and only time - I had a manicure was for the senior prom. A lady named Charlene with big hair gave me french tips, while her twin sister Darlene - with even bigger hair - sat popping her gum and chatting. True story.

But I digress. All that to say, I don't care about the things women are supposed to care about. But the toys. And books. I have to just keep my mouth shut. Try not to scold too severely when Tommy rips up his dinosaur pop-up book. And you know what? He's had a blast with that book. Still does, even though his brontosaurus has lost his neck, and the T-Rex is missing a leg and several teeth.

So, that brings me to the whole book tie-in. Not a Stick is about a child who is holding . . . well, a stick. But he insists it's not a stick. It's a sword. A baton. A paintbrush. You get the picture.

We were outside one day, and Pippi and Tommy had of course dragged just about every toy they own outdoors. Toys strewn from one end of the yard to another. Cleanup was gonna be fun.

Then Tommy walked up to me, held up this stick with his Luke Skywalker figure sitting astried. "It's a spaceship!" He said. He spent a good while zooming Luke around the yard. When he abandoned the stick, moved on to something else, probably peeing in the dirt, Pippi came along, picked up the stick, looked at it for awhile then ran into the house. She returned a minute later with the bag of rubber bands from the craft box.

Oh no, not more stuff, I groaned inwardly. "What are the rubber bands for?" I asked. "To make a slingshot," she answered. "So I can shoot a squirrel."

The stick had a fork at one end, really the perfect sort of stick for a slingshot. I helped her secure the bands, she filled her pocket with stones, and set off hunting those furry tailed rodents. Didn't work. She decided we need a giant rubber band, which illuminates her amazing problem solving skills. Bad mommy still hasn't remembered to go buy those giant rubber bands, but you know what? It just might work. I think a giant rubber band would actually work.

All this to say, the next time your kids are driving you crazy, dragging clothes, blankets, sticks, acorns, rocks, etc. all over the house and yard. Think of me. And bite your tongue.

Because in your child's mind, It's not a stick. It's a spaceship. It's not a puzzle piece. It's a dinosaur. It's not a box. It's a car. And those ties, drug out of your husbands closet? Well, seat belts, of course. The world becomes their play yard. Their toy box. And isn't childhood, toddlerhood, such a young age to so severely limit them.

Those puzzle pieces are only to be played with with the puzzle.

Just my humble opinion, but when we limit them so - not just in there play but also in their work (ie - That's not the way you work that problem. You do it this way.), I believe we raise adults who can not be creative. Think outside the box.

A box is a box.

A stick is a stick.

Nothing else.

Beware of the Frog

2011-01-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

If I were to begin work tomorrow as a professional storyteller, I would choose this book as my first tale. William Bee's Beware of the Frog, a bizarre reworking of the Princess and the Frog story, is one of the funniest books I've read in a good long while.

At the beginning of the book we meet Mrs. Collywobble, "a sweet little old lady" who "lives in a little house on the edge of a big, dark, scary wood." And to protect her from the frightful monsters who lurk in the dark, she keeps a pet frog. Who sits on her doorstep. And smiles. And nuzzles her offered hand.

Sweet little guy.

Until, that is, from out of the wood shambles Greedy Goblin, hobbling along with his cart full of stolen loot.

Nickerty-noo, nickerty-noo,
if I get a chance,
I'll steal from you . . .

When Greedy Goblin ignores the sign on the fence Beware Of The Frog, I'm afraid he comes to a bad end.

As does the Smelly Troll (Welly-welly)
and the Giant Hungry Ogre (Dum-de-dum, dum-de-dummy).

Until we reach the end of the book, and Mrs. Collywobbles, in a fit of thankfulness, bestows upon her frog his one request.

A kiss.

What happens next is a kicker, worth the price of the book.

You'll have to read it to find out.

GOBBLE
GOBBLE
GOBBLE

Sick Day For Amos McGee

2011-01-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

I can't remember which book blog I was perusing when I first happened upon Amos. I wish I could. I'd link back to it, give that book maven deserved kudos. And thank her for introducing us to a book that made my kids cry.

Thanks for that. Thank you very much.

I love the library. Hate having to return the books though. Especially if there's an Amos or Holly in the to-be-returned stack as there was today. We've renewed Amos twice, the limit at our local library. And when we were stuffing our book bag full of returns, Pippi shouted, "Oh, no! Not Amos. Please not Amos!"
And then she turned on the waterworks.

I hate turning in books they love. Makes me feel a bit ogre-ish. By the by, Pippi had this great idea - it really was genius on her part - to turn the books in at the check-out desk, ask the librarian to hold Amos and Holly and a few others, pay our smallish fine, then check out again our reserved stack. And we did. No more tears, thankfully.

On our first reading of Amos, I was a tad let down. This book has been hyped so much - Caldecott buzz included - so that I was expecting . . . well I don't know what I was expecting, but surely not such a simple story.

But after the third or fourth time through, I began to see it's charm. The illustrations are beautiful. Understated and muted. What few colors Mrs. Erin E. Stead chose to lay over pencil line drawings are perfect. Not a stray mark or gratuitous splash of color mars the pages.

And the story is charming. Amos McGee, a kindly, old man, who incidentally still sleeps with a teddy, wakes each morning and goes to his job at the zoo. He makes his rounds each day, visiting his animal friends. He plays chess with a thoughtful elephant. Runs races with the tortoise. Sits with a shy penguin. Lends his handkerchief to the rhinoceros. Reads to a skittish owl. Then when Amos gets sick, his friends take the bus, and visit him at his home.

And delightful are the surprises hidden in plain sight throughout the book. A mouse and bird, who the kids and I believe to be conspiring with one another. A wandering red balloon (think Goodnight Gorilla). A rabbit reading a paper on the bus.

This book satisfies on so many levels.

We may just have to make a trip to our favorite bookstore for this one. Unless the librarians don't mind us turning it in. Checking it out. Turning it in. Checking it out . . .

Here's a peek at the other books that made the I'll just die if I have to turn them in stack.

The Quiltmakers Gift by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken - this one is a bit heavy on the moralizing, but Pippi likes it and the quilt patterns are lovely
The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter and Giselle Potter - Gotta say my piece. I hate story or picture books that try to teach vocabulary, by highlighting big words which point the reader to a glossary, a la Artsy Fartsy. It's just so contrived and phony. I don't like books that push morals or values either. Please just write solid books, with varied syntax and juicy words in context, and let the book speak to the child. And although this book does highlight words and includes a glossary, I like it. It is an inventive picture-bio about Selig, a collector of words, who becomes Wordsworth. Give it a try. I'm not exactly plugging it. I'm not completely sold on it. But it is worth a try.
Natalie & Naughtily by Vincent X. Kirsch - Not by a Brit, but I can't read this without slipping into a British accent. I just can't help myself. Don't exactly know why. About two girls, Natalie and Naughtily Nopps who live on the top floor of a large department store. Reminds me a bit of Eloise. Pippi adores it.
First Snow by Emily Arnold McCully - read my comments about Snow here.
Adele & Simon by Barbara McClintock - I'm tired. Feel like wrapping up this post. This book is a good one. Deserves more of a write up, but as I mentioned before, I'm done.
Posy by Linda Newbery and Catherine Rayner - Sweet little cat book.

That's all folks.

Thwack!

2011-01-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

In early December we spent a weekend at a lodge in the woods a short hike away from the lake with my mother's rather large extended family. It was an amazing two days, spent bear hunting with sticks and imagination, staying up crazy late, and playing cut throat chicken foot. On the last day, my uncle pulled out his bows and let all the kids take turns shooting at a target.

Pippi waited patiently while all her boy cousins had their turns. All missed, the arrows shooting off into the woods.

Up stepped Pippi. My uncle spent some time with her, teaching her how to hold the bow, how to pull back, how to let it go.

Then, she let it fly.

Thwack!

My little girl hit the deer target in the rump on her first shot.

My daddy, a hunter by nature, was pickled tink. He went out and bought her a bow and arrow, set up a hay target in the backyard and is giving her bow hunting lessons. My mother is teaching Pippi how to knit and how to play the piano. And my father will soon begin teaching Tommy how to build, using a hand saw, hammer, and nails.

And they continually teach me, with few words, leading by example, how to be a quieter, gentler wife, how to mother with the right mix of sternness and tenderness, how to work diligently without grumbling, and how to play.

On this, the day before our house is to be inspected, clearing the way for a potential buyer, I have no misgivings, no regrets about how we have chosen to live our lives. We are an uncommon family in uncommon times. We choose to live together - grandparents, parents, and children - under one roof. And although our choice grew out of financial difficulty, we are getting so much we didn't bargain for. For how long we will live this way, I do not know. But for now, I am content. And so thankful for God's blessings beyond measure.

Maybe Something Is Stuck Inside

2010-12-30T14:45:00.000-08:00

About six months ago, the music minister at our church gave me a saxophone. He wasn't even sure if it worked, but I was welcome to it, he said. I played the flute in high school and messed around on my brother's sax. All woodwind instruments have similar fingerings, making it possible to pick up an instrument you've never before played and squeak out a recognizable melody.

So I took home the instrument, put it together, blew with all my might, and . . .

Nothing.

Nothing but puffy cheeks and a light head.

The kids were crowded around me, expecting me to do something more than click the keys and blow. So I looked up a YouTube tutorial, followed the directions carefully, and tried it again.

This time I managed a loud honk, scaring the kids.

I put it away. Didn't touch it again.

The day after Christmas, my brother and his fiance came to visit. After visiting with them for awhile, I said, "Guess what I've got downstairs?"

"What?" my brother asked a bit nervously.

"A saxophone," I said.

He and his fiance exchanged a look. A charged look.

Turns out he deeply regrets pawning his saxophone shortly after high school. And they've looked for a new one - or more accurately, a used one - but found nothing within their budget.

"I'm not sure it works," I said, not wanting him to get his hopes up, explaining what had happened when I'd given it a try.

He put it together, clicked the keys a bit, checked the pads, making sure nothing was missing. Then he blew. With all his might.

Nothing.

He started talking about repair costs, significantly less than purchasing a new or used one, all the while, fiddling with the mouthpiece, reed, and bell.

Pippi looked at it and said, "Maybe something is stuck inside."

"Oh, I don't think so, Pippi," I said. Surely it couldn't be that simple.

"Maybe. Could be," my brother said. "I got something stuck in my sax once and it sounded . . . ." He took off the neck. Asked for a flashlight.

"It sounded sort of like it did just now," he continued, shining the light down the neck.

"There's something in there." He looked up at me, grinning, excited.

We used tweezers. A dowel rod. Whatever it was wasn't budging. Then I went and got this strange long wiry scrubber sort of thing that my mom had put in my stocking. "It's to clean your tea pot," she'd said. I laid it aside and forgot about it until we went hunting for something long and skinny and just the right width to shove down the neck.

It worked.

Out popped . . .

another mouthpiece, clanging down into the bell.

After my brother stopped laughing, and grinning (because it's very hard to hold your mouth just so when your mouth is spread wide in a goofy grin), he blew.

And out came the most beautiful, mellow sound.

Perfect.

I'm so glad my mom gave me that odd little scratcher brush.

I'm so glad I produced no more than a squawk the day that I tried and tried. Because if I had, I would have practiced. And practiced. Until it started to sound good. And it would have been much harder to just give it away.

And I'm so glad that my brother is the sort of person who really listens to kids. Really listens.

Because sometimes I forget how good my kids are at problem solving. That most of what they say is valid, and worthy of my complete attention. But being with my kids all the time, hearing them talk so much, I'm guilty of sometimes . . . tuning them out. Disregarding what they have to say before they even speak.

But not my brother. He has infinite patience.

When Pippi was two and a half and Tommy was a babe in the sling, my brother visited. And I remember them sitting together at her desk. Sharpening pencils. For an hour. He didn't squirm. Didn't glance at the clock. Get up for water. Go to the bathroom. Nothing to indicate that he wasn't completely captivated by their task. That hour that he spent at the pencil sharpener with her was important. There was worth in what she was doing at that moment. Not once did he say, "Well, maybe this should be the last pencil," or "Let's do something else." He just sat there with her, patient, attentive.

I'm so glad I was able to give my brother just the right gift for Christmas. Because he gave me a gift of great value.

He reminded me of how important it is to really listen to my kids.

Because had it been me, I would not have asked for a flashlight, wouldn't have looked down the neck.

I would have brought it to the sage repair man.

And paid a whopping Benjamin or two.

For him to tell me that indeed,

"Something is stuck inside."

What I Bought Today For About Twenty Bucks

2010-12-28T12:35:00.000-08:00

What We're Reading Now

2010-12-28T09:31:00.000-08:00

Stories From Grandma's Attic by Arleta Richardson - I picked this one up for a quarter at a local thrift shop. I remember shelving books from this series during my working days at the bookstore. I didn't pay them a bit of attention. In those days, I was moved by flashy covers, hints of danger, pathos, and just the right touch of sexual intrigue. And yes I'm talking about children's/YA novels.

So, I shelved the books, wondering at their popularity. I frequently received requests for them. They didn't spend much time on the shelf beforing leaving the store in a happy mother's hand.

Boring fuddy-duddy stuff.

Or so I thought.

Pippi and I have been reading this one off and on for a few months. I love that each chapter is a seperate story, perfect for filling that random ten minute period of time when Tommy is playing with his action figures and Pippi is crafting. We can put it away for weeks, then pick it up again when the mood strikes. The book is a collection of stories told to the author, Arleta Richardson, by her grandmother. For children who are interested in how people lived "long ago," this book is a gem.

Big Susan by Susan Orton Jones - I included this one in my list of top ten Christmas books, without reading the first chapter. I bought this for Pippi for Christmas after seeing it on the CM Yahoo Year 0.5 list of suggested reading for five and six year olds. I looked through the pages, read samplings of the writing, and decided this was a new favorite Christmas book. We have now read through the first four chapters and I have not been disappointed. And neither has Pippi. We both love this little book.

Big Susan is about a collection of miniature dolls who live in a doll house belonging to a girl named Susan. Susan is a faithful and devoted care taker, tucking her dolls into their beds and bidding them goodnight smelling sweetly of toothpaste. But then six weeks pass by without a visit from Susan. Not even a goodnight. The dolls are worried, and on one magical Christmas Eve, the dolls decide to give Susan a Christmas gift.

My Cup Overflows

2010-12-26T12:30:00.000-08:00

I posted here about the book I've begun writing, a story about a stuffed rabbit named Sarah Beth that my Grammy made decades ago for one of her children.

Christmas Eve, after the children went to bed, my husband and I set out the the gifts, including dear Sarah Beth, not wrapping her, but sitting her on top of one of the larger gifts, nestled against the tree.

Christmas morning, minutes after the kids stumbled upstairs, Pippi, Sarah Beth, and I sat on the couch, while I explained a bit of the history of the rabbit, letting her know I was writing a story of her life.

Earlier today, Pippi came to me, holding Sarah Beth, and asked me to read what I'd written.

So I did. All of it. Pippi didn't wiggle once. No head stands on the couch. No fidgeting. No yawning. Nothing that would indicate boredom. Once she said, "I love this story," her eyes a bit moisty. My mom sat on my right, my dad on Pippi's left, while my husband entertained Tommy downstairs. Everything about that thirty minutes or so was . . . I can't even think of a good word to describe how that felt.

Pippi never met my Granddad, her great grandfather. But now she knows he was the minister of Pine Burr Baptist Church, liked to chew on paper, and couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. She never met her great uncle, who died when I was not much older than our Pip, but she now knows he loved music and was unusually talented, even as a child. She now knows that my Grammy loves buttermilk, and that she washed clothes by hand, hung them out to dry, and pressed them with a flat iron.

And she knows the chorus of He Lives, one of my favorite hymns as a child.

And when I finished reading, Pippi said, "I have a Winnie-the-Pooh doll, for the Pooh stories, and Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls for their stories. And now I have a Sarah Beth doll for the Sarah Beth stories."

Whether or not the world ever finds merit in my humble scratchings, to know that my daughter puts me up there with Milne and Gruelle, is . . .

My heart is full.

Here is another sample from the stories.

Two months later, Helen ties her apron, now a bit tight, around her waist. She is now expecting their second child, and finds that her clothes have begun to feel a bit snug.

The day before, she'd dug her two maternity frocks from the cedar chest, knocking aside a slim brown package in the process. She retrieved the package, sat down on the edge of the bed, and untied the twine. She folded back the butcher paper and pink tissue paper, then lifted the soft blue cotton print and nuzzled it to her cheek. "Some day, Sarah Beth," she whispered, before rewrapping the clothes and returning them to the chest.

Now she irons the yellow dress while Barnard plays with the white sackcloth bag full of clothes pins. He works at trying to squeeze hard enough to make the closed ends pop open as he's seen his mother do time and again.

"You'll get an awful surprise the first time you manage to open one," Helen says. Barnard looks at her and smiles, goes back to his work. He holds Gus' floppy ear in one hand, the clothes pin in the other, and tries to force the ear between the closed ends.

Helen sets the iron aside and whips the dress off the ironing board. The cotton smells hot and starchy, like a hot, crispy jacket potato. A good smell.

She hangs the dress in the window, and sunlight illuminates the yellow dress, filling the room with soft buttery light. She takes up the blue dress, smooths it flat on the board and spritzes it with starch water. When the flat iron touches the moistened cloth, it sizzles, sending up a cloud of steam.

Once the blue maternity dress is fully pressed, she unties her apron, slips off her slim brown dress, then lowers the warm cotton frock down over her head, slipping her arms into the armholes. She adjusts the billowy cloth over her burgeoning waist, then ties her apron back around her middle.

"Come along Barnard," she says, taking Barnard in hand.

I hope your Christmas was filled with joy. Unspeakable joy.

Ours was.

As a year filled with money worries, cancer, tension, and uncertainty draws to a close, I can truly say

Our cup overflows.

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things: Part 2

2010-12-17T13:59:00.000-08:00

This one's all about the music

We love music. Usually a bad mood or temper fit in the making can be soothed with a healthy dose of the Beach Boys (for Tommy) or Mozart (for Pippi.) As a side note, we have one of those musical toddler toys, a red plastic violin/guitar. You push the neck in to make it a violin, pull it out to change it into a guitar. Pippi has learned how to play by ear on the piano Ode To Joy by Beethoven after listening obsessively to Ode on the violin setting. Tommy is my rock 'n roll guy. Loves Beach Boys. Elvis. Sam Cooke. And when we listen to classical, the softer stuff that Pippi loves tends to put him to sleep. But when something rousing and loud - such as Jupiter composed by Gustav Holst blares forth, he sits up and takes notice. His favorite symphonic music is from the Star Wars movies, music I believe to be greater and bigger than the movies.

Thinking about this post, I wasn't sure how to share our musical interests. Upload videos from our YouTube favorites? Embed playlists? Well and good, but that would be so impersonal. So, what better way than to just tell what we've been singing in the shower and whistling around the house. And I'll throw some of those links and playlists in at the end for those of you who would like to take a listen.

Pippi is all about the Christmas music right now. I love this time of the year for many reasons, but I gotta admit, the music takes center stage. I could do without the gifts if I had too. We don't go all out, buying big expensive items. We give mostly books and handmade gifts. And the food? I'm not much of a turkey kind of gal. I'm happy with a big pot of deer chili and a homemade pecan pie for dessert. And since I live in the south, snow is a special winter treat, not a regular occurrence. Many Christmas' can I remember putting on cut off denim shorts, tank tops, and flip flops and going out to ride my bike. Cold weather isn't a given.

But the music.

Now I know that we can not know for certain the exact date of Christ's birth. But does a mother not celebrate her adopted child's birth because she does not know the exact date? No, she picks a date, bakes a cake and imagines that blessed day when her child entered the world. In just the same way, we close our eyes every year, and imagine what that night must have been like. To be a dusty, tired shepherd out under the stars. And the heavens open up and a chorus of angels fills the atmosphere, proclaiming the birth of our Lord and Savior.

With song.

Now while my taste in Christmas music tends to run more towards the sacred, Pippi and Tommy are all about the Santa stuff. Can't blame them. I was too. In fact, the first song Tommy sang was Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, after hearing Pippi sing it over and over and over for an entire day.

But not all of the music is Christmas. One of Pippi's favorites, a song she usually hums while she draws is Gabriel Faure's Pavane Opus Number 6. I played second chair flute in high school, then pawned my instrument on a whim in college. I recently collected together enough cash to purchase a new one, and the first song I tackled was Pavane, already a favorite in our home.

We also have a favorite conductor. If you have not had the distinct pleasure of watching Leonard Bernstein conduct, you must watch this, then hop on over to YouTube and look him up. He is beautiful to watch. Once while watching one of those Bugs Bunny cartoons where Bugs is conducting a symphony (Franz Von Suppe's Morning, Noon, and Night) up to his usual antics - wandering cuffs, waggling tail, exagerated facial features, eyebrows popping clean off his face, Pippi casually asked me if Bernstein learned how to conduct by watching Bugs Bunny.

So sit back and enjoy this, my personal Bernstein favorite. And tell me if his style doesn't look a bit . . . Bugsy.

Running out of time now. Kids are begging to come back upstairs and play so gotta type fast. I think I will just start slapping on our playlists now without much fanfare.

But first, listen to this. I love Elgar. I love the cello. And I adore Jacqueline Du Pre.

Last winter, the coldest winter our parts have seen in at least a decade, we were stuck in the house most of the time. Accustomed to running around outside much of the year, my kiddos were going a bit stir crazy. This playlist, usually our after dinner fare, brightened up our dark days and kept our happy hormones from dipping too low.

This is my go to list when I have that rare afternoon of writing in a quiet house, a pot of hot joe all to myself . Needless to say, this playlist doesn't get played much. Such a shame.

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things: Part 1

2010-12-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

Some of our favorite books

Turtle Time by Sandol Stoddard illustrated by Lynn Munsinger - this is on loan from Silvia, who also designed my new banner. In fact, she designed my older one as well. Thank you! Incidentally, I'm linking to Amazon for this one instead of my favorite local bookstore (see sidebar), because it appears this gem is out of print.

A Pocketful of Cricket by Rebecca Caudill illustrated by Evaline Ness - While the previous book gives a child a good idea of what it might mean to keep a wild creature in captivity, Cricket, although a lovely read, is not such a good choice if your child wants to make a pet of every living thing. After a week of reading Cricket, Pippi caught a katydid and brought it home where it died a few days later. Not sure why. But we love this book.

When You Were Small by Sara O'Leary illustrated by Julie Morstad

Every night at bedtime Henry and his father have a chat.

It always begins the same way.

"Dad," says Henry. "Tell me about when I was small."

And Henry's dad fills his head full of fanciful "when you were smalls" such as walking a pet ant on a leash through a forest of dandelions, sleeping in a house shoe with a teabag for a pillow. Love this one, maybe a bit more than the kids.

First Snow by Emily Arnold McCully

We had to read this three times in a row (at Tommy's request). With few words and whimsical pictures, this book really sings. A mouse family heads up the mountain for a day of ice skating and sledding. And sweet little Bitty, dusted with snow, charmed each of us with every telling. And I love watching the shadows grow longer as the book unfolds. One of my favorite "snow" books. Right up there with Snow Day by Komako Sakai and Snow by Uri Shulevitz. And Snowflake Bentley. And The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. And White Snow, Bright Snow by Alvin Tresselt.

Holly by Ruth Brown - This is a charmer. Even if you don't have a sleek black kitten with green eyes - which we do - you will fall in love with sweet Holly, who likes to swing on the lace curtains just as much as our crazy kitty, Marie.

Our sweet Marie.

Part 2 of My Favorite Things will be all about the music. Stay tuned!

Christmas Books

2010-12-04T17:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know I've said I won't be blogging much and here I am posting twice in one day. But I've had a request. Someone asked me if I would share my list of favorite Christmas books, so this is for Amy.

1. The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman and illustrated by Roberto Innocenti

2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens illustrated by Arthur Rackham

3. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams illustrated by William Nicholson

4. Big Susan by Elizabeth Orton Jones

5. The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden illustrated by Barbara Cooney

6. The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown illustrated by Barbara Cooney

7. Mr. Willoby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry

8. Silent Night - illustrated by Susan Jeffers

9. Little House in the Big Woods - by Laura Ingalls Wilder - not strictly a Christmas book, but has the loveliest chapter about a simple, beautiful Christmas day

10. Gospel of Luke chapters 1 and 2

The World's Ugliest Trellis

2010-12-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

We needed a trellis. Badly. The blackberry vines have all but taken over two beds, two trellises. We needed another one. How else would we get a good yield of sugar snap peas, which is hands down our households favorite vegetable.

Problem. No funds. At about eighty bucks a roll, hardware cloth is not cheap. Neither is rebar. Yes I could construct something out of cheap materials that would buckle under the weight of a good yield.

But did I mention that we love sugar snaps?

So what did I do? I found scraps of hardware cloth and cheap garden borders - tacked to the fence, buried in a very messy garage - and pieced them together with twine. Then I hunted through our wood pile. I found two tall, sturdy branches from the pruning of our oak tree, and a peach tree we'd uprooted earlier in the year but saved thinking we could "do something" with it. And we did.

It's ugly.

But it didn't cost a cent.