Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow

Valentine cookies from the Edelweiss, February, 2006

We were very sorry to read in this morning's paper that our local bakery, the Edelweiss, has closed. The baker, Dietrich Paul, who owned the place together with his wife, died. He had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease last year.

When we moved to Northeast Baltimore we loved the way the neighborhood felt kind of old. There were shops that sharpened scissors and repaired vacuum cleaners. "What's next?" we joked, as we traveled the main drag, "a place that fixes VCR's?". There are numerous medical pharmacies and dialysis centers, too. And a real Italian deli that makes its own mozzarella and a German deli that makes its own schnitzel. We totally monopolized the City Paper's Best of Baltimore (note the Kevin Sherry illustration - he of I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean) this year.

The bakery felt like it had been there forever, and looked like it could have been in a mill town in Pennsylvania - homemade curtains, Bible verses, and decorative plates on the wall. We had an enormous cookout as a housewarming party, and I called the bakery to see if we could buy hamburger and hotdog buns from them. Mr. Paul said they didn't make them as a rule, but he could bake a few dozen for me, sure, no big deal. They were great - how often do you get compliments on the buns?

It felt both thrifty and indulgent to buy bread there, and an apple fritter the size (and texture, I'm guessing) of Stephen Hawking's brain, and a few cookies. I never managed to break a twenty at that place, even when I treated the kids to lunch.

Every Thursday afternoon a posse of truly ancient German-speaking people would show up for the sauerbraten special (pretty damn good sauerbraten) and stay to sing songs that I'd always suspect could be translated to, "We are the Germans, we're so great, all the rest of you will be our slaves sooner or later," but they were so damn merry about it, pausing to gasp out laughter or take a hit off the oxygen tank.

It turns out that Dietrich and his wife were no young pups themselves. According to the Sun article, when they bought the bakery 9 years ago, Mrs. Paul was 70... and I don't think that he was any younger than she. Pretty hard-core, to start a new business at an age when everyone else is settling down to watch a couple decades of "Murder, She Wrote".

But he was something of a hard-core guy, especially considering that he smelled like vanilla extract. I was buying a pound of cookies one day. He piled a double handful onto the scale, and as he pulled his hands away, the scale read one pound exactly. I said something banal like, "Looks like you have the touch." He gave me a speculative look for a second, as if deciding whether or not he should tell me the story, then he shrugged a little and said, "When I was in the merchant marine, we were in a bad storm on the North Sea," and I mean, right there, you know, you could finish that sentence any way you wanted to - you are one balls-ass baker, in my book. Turns out his scale went overboard in the storm and he had to guesstimate everything he cooked for the next 4 months, so he's been good at eyeballing weights ever since.

And you know, I can tell a man's inseam at ten paces because I used to sell menswear... but that's just not the same.

We're going to miss getting the kids' birthday cakes from Edelweiss. I'm going to miss those insane apple fritters. It was a real treat to be greeted by Miss Nancy, Mrs. Genevieve, and the good-natured, reserved Mr. Paul, and our neighborhood is poorer without him and without his bakery.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie - review

Who won the National Book Award for young people's literature this year? Sherman Alexie did. Yeah, you know it. Sherman Alexie: basketball enthusiast, unabashed heterosexual, thoughtful interview subject, full-time Indian.

I've had The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian in my stack since mid-summer - it's one of the few ARC's I've gotten my hands on. But I didn't read it because I've read everything the man's ever written and would recommend any of his books to older teenagers, so I figured that the book he wrote that was intended for teenagers would be solidly great and I could recommend it sight unseen.

I really shouldn't do that, but there just isn't time, you know? I read the ones I'm not sure about first.

So now my man has won the National Book Award, and I finished Halting State by Charles Stross last night (oh my god the jargon!) so I picked up Big Sherm's Big Winnah Book. Read it, cried, laughed, cried, finished it, went to bed happy.

You have got to hand it to Sherman Alexie - he writes books that just motor right along. This book, told in the first person, in no way neglects the main character's feelings and growth, and yet the pace never ever drags.

Who do I recommend this book for? Hm. There is death in this book, and not incidental death, not cartoon violence death. Junior, our protagonist, gets his heart broken by family members and friends, and faces ostracization, poverty, and racism. Through Junior, we hear Sherman Alexie speaking loud and clear about girls, alcohol, economic injustice, and reservation life. It's an emotionally raw book, no question. My copy says 14 and up, and I might agree there. I might not buy it for my son's K-8 library, but I will recommend it to high school students and teachers.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a painfully honest, clear-eyed, yet entertaining account of overcoming obstacles and learning to live with an identity both problematic and precious.

Probably just because of the cussing

And maybe also the smoking out back by the Dumpster. Via Fuse #8.

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex - Review

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

Finished this book last night. Turned back to the beginning and started reading it again. Now, people say that they do that, but this is possibly the first time I have ever actually done that.

Started writing this review. Looked up other reviews. The review in the New York Times uses all the same quotes I would have, and makes most of the same points. So, errr, you can read that review, and I will sum up:

• Best book I have read since The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Has a surprising amount in common with The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Except: not (yet) annointed by Oprah, less likely to star Viggo Mortensen when they make a movie out of it
• Also no cannibalism. Wait, I take that back.
• I can't wait for someone to make a movie out of it, but it better be somebody cool
• I want to read it out loud
• My Boov voice will be irresistable
• Should get the Newbery

All adults and all children will enjoy this book, and I really don't say that about many books. It put me in mind somewhat of old Sesame Street - both types of aliens could really have come out of the Creature Shop, and Frank Oz could do the voices; plus there are some cute references that adults are more likely to get than children.

The book will not convince me to keep our cats though, if they keep peeing on the laundry.

Clearly SOMEBODY's plot, anyway

Cryoelectron tomography of a magnetotactic bacterium: a three-dimensional reconstruction of the interior of a Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense cell. The cell membrane is blue, the magnetosome crystal red, and the surrounding vesicle yellow. The image makes it clear that both the membrane vesicle and the "mature" magnetosomes are strung like pearls on a chain along a filamentous structure (green), which is similar to a cytoskeleton. From the article "Bacteria Which Sense the Earth's Magnetic Field" Image copyright: Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry

Sometimes science sounds just like Dungeons and Dragons, doesn't it?

So the question of the day is: Can literature corrupt?

That may sound like a pretty big question for my extremely small and flippant blog, and don't worry, I ain't gon' get all smart on you or anything, it's just that a couple things have come up in the last couple days, and I wanted to think about them.

Our Aimee got the following email about the forthcoming movie The Golden Compass from her relatives sur le bayou, and then from the room mother of her daughter's first grade class:

"We need to get the word out about this movie - it is coming out in December - an atheist produced it, it is marketed for children and in the end they kill God.
Send this to everyone you know.
The Golden Compass is a big film, due for release on Dec. 7, targeting children. It has an atheistic theme that destroys God in the end of the film with the intent to 'kill God in the minds of children'."

Apparently The Catholic League has called for a boycott. Not that boycotting movies appears to be within their purview - the stated mission of The Catholic League is

"to safeguard both the religious freedom rights and the free speech rights of Catholics whenever and wherever they are threatened."

Whatever. How about if I don't touch that.

Just this weekend I had recommended the movie, and the books that it is based on, to my friends in NYC, who, as it happens, are Catholic, and, as it happens, had decided not to read the books or take their kids to see the movie, on the grounds that the trilogy (called His Dark Materials) is anti-Church. I didn't know about the boycott. I don't even think of His Dark Materials as having anything to do with Catholicism. I just think it's an astonishing adventure story with a lot of metaphysics thrown in. I don't generally recommend it to anyone under about 13 because the concepts are really quite mature. I know some grownups I wouldn't recommend it to, let's just say.

So I was a bit surprised that they'd already heard about the movie and had decided against it, but then, I often discover that I am quite oblivious.

In my opinion, if you participate in decisions about what your child reads, I am all for it. Hell, you participate in any facet of your child's life, that's great. Too many parents don't. And my friends have been at this parenting thing a lot longer than I have. So when I meet parents who don't let their kids read Harry Potter, or Philip Pullman, or Captain Underpants, I usually don't press the point. I don't always get it, but that's ok.

I pushed it a little with my friends this weekend because His Dark Materials is, as I say, an astonishing adventure, and because, as I say, it doesn't strike me as anti-Church. If you've read these books, now is the point where you call me an idiot. The books are patently anti-Church. All the bad guys are working for The Church. And, yes, in fact, God dies.

However, the world of His Dark Materials is not our world. It's like saying that the movie Aliens is anti-corporation. It is. But it's not like Ridley Scott is pointing a finger at, say, PepsiCo. Or even Microsoft. (And god knows there are novels that do just that.) It's a different world, and it's a different Church.

I also find that having a character named God, who dies, is kind of an interesting thing to try out in an alternate-universe novel, and further, I think that Christians and atheists alike can have interesting conversations about it.

There are important differences between Philip Pullman's God and the God that my friends and their kids have a relationship with. First of all, Pullman's God is in a book. Secondly, he's a guy, an old guy - a mortal guy. Thirdly, he's not very important. Say what you will about God in our world... I don't even believe in Him, and even in my life - that God is important.

So, the God in the books is definitely Philip Pullman's God. Pullman is certainly an atheist. So'm I. But there are so many Gods. I think everyone who believes in God - or a god - probably believes in someone different.

And none of this really answers my question: Can literature corrupt?

Are Aimee's relatives right? Can watching The Golden Compass 'kill God in the minds of children'?

I personally think that no fancy movie with Nicole Kidman is going to change an individual's mind about anything except perhaps the advisability of trying cosmetic injections.

Books, though, are a more personal experience, and I think get inside your head more. Can reading The Golden Compass kill God in the mind of a child?

Depends on the child. Depends on the family. Or... wait. You know what? Fuck this hedging. No. No kid is going to read this book and move from a position of full faith to thinking that God is Dead. It's not a newspaper, it's fiction. There are talking animals in it - no child is going to read this book and then turn around and start talking to squirrels.

On the other hand:

Aimee says that these are the relatives who believe that the war in Iraq is God's punishment for the legalization of abortion. Maybe, if you live in a world where such things are possible, maybe in that world animals could talk. Maybe a child could read Harry Potter and become a devil worshipper. If you believe in magic, anything could happen.

And... our Token Boy Librarian, upon reading my earlier post about the company that is offering to freeze the stem cells in your menstrual blood to use in possible future customized medical treatments, said,

"see, and here my first thought was 'well, that's clearly a vampire plot'.
I think I need to take a break from the graphic novels."

Ok, so... I could be wrong. (And weirdly, that's exactly the kind of thing my friend in NYC would say, and in exactly the same words.)

I didn't write this to pressure my friends, who read this blog, to bring His Dark Materials into their house (in fact, you put it that way, and it really sounds menacing - like the Pure Evil in the toaster oven in Time Bandits). I respect immensely their engagement in the intellectual and moral life of their kids. Besides, their kids are too young for those books, which I forgot. Plus, it's entirely possible that they might take offense at the way Philip Pullman slags his fictional Church in the books. I myself get pretty cheesed-off when certain authors consistently treat their fictional females with disdain, so I don't read those authors.

However, I maintain my position that when a kid comes from a family in which morals and behavior are presented consistently, explained, and discussed, that kid can evaluate non-familial inputs (such as current events, the behavior of other kids, TV characters, and books) with a critical mind.

If it's taste, it's one thing. If it's fear, then you've already lost.

And as for the title of this post... here's my theory:

Don't be a Boov about it

The dishwasher needs unloading, and loading again, possibly twice.

There is unfolded laundry on the coffee table.

I am behind on what I do for the Big Man's school.

I am a little behind on the freelance thing I do for the library.

I need to start on the freelance thing I do for the museum.

Haven't fine-tuned the presentation I'm doing for the 3rd graders tomorrow on Internet safety. I have to tone down the child molestation angle and replace it with, er, I don't know what. Suggestions?

Haven't taken a shower yet.

Neglecting Mr. Four criminally. Well, no. Don't take that literally. I hate fielding mean commenters who threaten to send the authorities.


But I went to NYC this weekend and went to the perfume store, and Moss (holy crap), and Ricky's, where, I was right, they had Special Effects hair dye in Cupcake Pink, and then I went up to Madison Ave. and bought really nice long yellow gloves and even scored a fat discount, and ated some oysters for dinner all by myself in a restaurant while I read my awesome awesome amazing book, and spent the night with great friends who I don't get to see often enough, and went to the old museum and breathed in the same old dust and smells and bought an umbrella, which I needed, and a drum, which Big Man needed, and stopped in at Maxilla & Mandible and decided what I would get the kids for xmas, and bracketed the whole thing by riding up and back with The Talented Cousin Rachel, who rocks and who is always fun to talk to.

Plus this weekend was the triumphant return of the All Mighty Senators, who despite some initial soundboard weirdness, which might have tripped up a less professional band and caused tension, played with the energy of teenagers and the virtuosity of 40-something rock and rollers, which, yikes, they are.

As are we all.

PS: That picture up there is me, very happy, consuming a mountain of sushi on my birthday about a week ago. Molly took it. The next day our friend Thomas observed that there really is such a thing as too much sushi. I disagree. If the amount of sushi we ate that night was not too much - and it wasn't - then no, there is no such thing as "too much sushi".

Robert's Snow Illustrator profile - Mary Haverfield

"Snow Tasting" by Mary Haverfield

What is inspiring?

Well, I'll tell you that communicating with all these illustrators has been inspiring. I've been participating in 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast's effort to publicize and drive traffic to Robert's Snow, the Internet auction of original works of art donated by children's book illustrators to benefit the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The women I've communicated with (and in my case, it's all been women) have not had all that much in common besides talent and generosity. They always wanted to be illustrators, or they went into illustration after something else went kaflooey. They use a computer, they use watercolors. They're just starting out, they've been at it for decades. They're from Texas, New England, Virginia.

But something that comes up time after time is space to work in: finding it, appropriating it, building it, defending it. Julie Fortenberry camps out in her bedroom. Linda Graves has a big studio by a pond. And Mary Haverfield, who painted the blissed-out snowflake up above, waxes rhapsodic about the space she and her husband just built to accommodate both of their creative careers. Listen to this:

We have been working toward our current living situation for 6 years, and we just moved in this week. My husband is a food and still life photographer for advertising, www.pathaverfield.com. We own the building that houses his studio and a plot of land next door, in a warehouse district of Dallas. The area is rapidly changing, and a few photographers and artists have renovated some of the buildings into loft style homes and studios.

We built a new loft style building behind Pat's studio. My new studio and the garage are on the first floor, and our living space is upstairs. From the 2nd and third floors we have the most amazing views of the city, and my studio is the best I have ever had. Big enough for my illustration work and also the large acrylic paintings I like to do.

Oh, man. That sounds so cool.

After hearing firsthand about some of these struggles to carve out space to work, I enlisted the kids to help me re-fit the playroom/guestroom with a tiny desk and a lamp so that Big Man can do his homework without Mr. Four bugging the crap out of him. There's a CD player and a window, the only window in the house that doesn't have a radiator or a toilet in front of it. Bob and I took one look at the new setup and now we're just jealous as hell - we do our work on the dining room table. If we're lucky.

So today I carried my laptop up to the playroom. Now I can type while I look out at the rain and the willow in the back yard. Beats the heck out of looking at the mess in the dining room.


copyright Mary Haverfield

Paging through Mary Haverfield's books, especially Mocha the Real Doctor, I got the sense that Mary is inspired by what's outside her window as well. The book's about a cat, Mocha, who is drawn with great personality yet always looks like a real cat; however, the natural settings that Mocha sings about to his patients are the masterpieces. Bluebonnets, ferns, buttercups and mesquite trees put the Texas landscape square at the center of the sweet story.

I love to draw and paint plants and flowers. I use a lot of reference material and I have gardened a lot over the years. In the case of Mocha the author mentioned so many plants in the text and I enjoyed working all of them into the illustrations.

It's kind of funny that Mary has just moved to the warehouse district - the first book that she wrote as well as illustrated is Harriet, the Homeless Raccoon, the story of a raccoon who makes herself at home first in a family's attic and then in their backyard studio. It's an adorable book, and the raccoon lore and fact pages at the end are welcome, but I have a suspicion that the event wasn't so cute at the time. My neighbors have squirrels in the eaves and it's driven them completely mental. I might be tempted to move downtown too!

It feels like the our best illustrators are always inspired by what they see every day. Every time I open a book illustrated by my friend Pat O'Brien (Captain Raptor, Gigantic!, Megatooth), I see his own face atop the body of a medieval knight, an astronaut, Fletcher Christian. He uses himself or his brothers as models for most of his male characters. (Gets a professional model for most of the females though... his wife is like, "Hey!") Pets, children, houses, and plenty of family members stand in for everyday characters and even famous figures: when Mary illustrated Mister Bones: Dinosaur Hunter, a Ready-to-Read biography of Barnum Brown...

...my husband posed for me for Mr. Bones. He has been Jack in the Beanstalk, and the Giant in that story, a character in Pinnochio, and many other characters over the years. As have countless neighbors and friends. My son did his share of "modeling" for me as well.

That would be kind of awesome, to open a book and see yourself as The Giant. Pat's wife at least got to be Anne Bonney before she got too busy to stand around his studio and pose.

Another thing I've noticed about these illustrators is that they're never satisfied with what they can already do. They want to learn more about computers, they want to learn Photoshop, or oil painting. They read books and take classes about their computers. When I asked Mary about her favorite medium to work in, she said:

Watercolor and colored pencils. I love the lightness and expressiveness of watercolor. I do sometimes long to be working in a more forgiving medium, like acrylics. I'm really trying to learn Photoshop now, to speed things up and help with mistakes and corrections.

Also, Mary's not the first illustrator I've surveyed to say that she listens to spoken word as well as music when she's working. Books on tape, podcasts, and NPR - it all reinforces my impression that children's book illustrators don't necessarily work in splendid isolation, but rather in the world, participating, observing, soaking it all up... not to mention, answering emails with the speed of a Blackberry-totin' cubicle jockey. Don't you love that in a person?

It's been my privilege to have been afforded a peep into these women's lives. The fact that it's come about as a result of their creativity and generosity just adds to my admiration. I'd buy any of their snowflakes in a heartbeat, and order their books for my library as well.

As I stare out the only window in the house not blocked by a toilet or a radiator, at a crescent moon in the night sky over Baltimore, I wonder if it's going to snow before the end of the year. I'm also wishing for a big new live/work loft downtown, but, you know, that's kind of a given.

Call me Deacon Blue

Got this in the mail yesterday.



Pretty lady. Naked, softly lit, hair slightly mussed - hm, what's she sellin'?

I guarantee you, unless you had heard of "C'elle" before, you would never in a million years guess what "The C'elle Service... Your Monthly Miracle ^SM" entails.



Open up the little folded packet. Oh look! Free holiday gift! Another dewy, tousled, naked lady! Mmm, I want skin like HERS - sign me up!

Tiny print: "Collecting and preserving your menstrual stem cells now can pay big dividends toward protecting your future health later."

My what?

Inside:

"EVERY MONTH HOLDS A MIRACLE"

"Miracle" is an interesting word to use. In the context of classy silver borders and white sans-serif type, "miracle" calls to mind Clinique-type miracles - fine lines that evaporate upon contact with the miracle cream; breathtaking skin tone achieved through the miracle of sea-bed mud. But when you're talking gynie stuff, "miracle" almost always refers to .. baby.

"The capabilities of a woman's body have always been considered miraculous, and now there is even more reason for us to marvel at how we are made."

How does that not imply parthenogenesis? That's when an egg "activates" itself and begins to form an embryo, which does happen in humans, but not frequently and never productively. An egg, though, not miscellaneous stem cells.

"During a woman's monthly menstrual cycle, blah blah, foo foo... Our menstrual stem cells may potentially provide customized medical treatments and therapies in the future."

Note the use of "may" Also, "potentially". Let's go to the FAQ's:

"Are there any published studies about C'elle cells and their uses?
Since the discovery of the C’elle menstrual stem cell, Cryo-Cell has made major advances in the study of this unique stem cell and in the commercialization of processes associated with its procurement, processing, isolation and cryopreservation. For example, Cryo-Cell collaborated with Dr. Amit N. Patel, Director of Cardiac Stem Cell Therapies at the McGowan Institute, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, along with other independent research laboratories, to study these menstrual stem cells, which have demonstrated the capability in vitro to differentiate into neural, cardiac, bone, cartilage, and adipose cells, and possibly other cell types. Dr. Patel’s preliminary findings were presented on October 21, 2007 at TCT 2007, the annual scientific symposia of Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics, in a seminar entitled “Novel Cell Sources for Myocyte Repair and Replacement”. There are also numerous published studies discussing stem cells with many of the same properties of C'elle cells, although these referenced stem cells are often not nearly as prolific, easy to differentiate, harvest or as non-controversial, as the C’elle menstrual stem cell."

No, you don't have to read all that. It says, "not really."

And some other people say, "this is bullshit."

And I say that they're treading very close to implying something that is not remotely possible in today's political climate - self-cloning. They've got a serious The Island vibe going on with all that gray, although come to think of it, if you looked like Scarlett Johansson you might do well to look into self-cloning. Better than teaming up with a Ryan Philippe or a Billy Crudup to do your breeding.

In other menstruation news, there's a program at Procter & Gamble that's trying to fix the gender gap in Africa by building bathrooms and distributing maxi-pads and tampons to schoolgirls. Apparently, girls without access to good period protection stay home from school when they get their period. Bet that's something you never thought of.




And, as seen on Copyranter, if you get your period in France, there is the implication of actual blood, even in ads in glossy magazines.

Finally, I've said it before but I think it needs to be said whenever we're discussing people who make money off of "your monthly miracle," especially when they try to sell it back to us as glorious and empowering.

Fuck you.

New picture books, early November 2007

There have been grumbles about me doing this.

Juliet grumbles that she'd rather just come into the library and have me hand her books. To Juliet I say: You are a lazy cow but I love you anyway. You have my permission to skip this entry and all future entries like this one.

Jaime grumbles that she's not interested in picture books at all. To Jaime I say: You are a cranky childless freak but I love you anyway. Have fun in VIETNAM, a fascinating exotic place that I can't even think of visiting until my children have both developed the ability to get from the dairy aisle to the checkout without getting lost and making me think that one or both of them have been kidnapped. Sigh. You also have my permission to skip this entry and all future entries like this one.


The incredible book-eating boy by Oliver Jeffers.
Everybody get this book. The art, done in paint and pencil on old book pages, is sophisticated and naive at the same time - hipster-friendly, yet warm and funny, with many visual jokes; the story is simple and terrific. Buy it, give it away, buy another one. The art is too detailed for story times, but for all other uses, superb.

A kiss goodbye by Audrey Penn illustrated by Barbara L. Gibson.
Yuck. Chester the raccoon has to move because the men are going to come and cut down his family's tree. He doesn't want to, his mother talks him into it, he meets a pretty girl raccoon at the new place. Any book that includes the phrase "a tiny tear rolled down his cheek" has a lot to make up for, and this one doesn't.

Living Color by my man Steve Jenkins.
I don't know Steve Jenkins, but I have a friend named Steve Jenkins, who is a great guy, so I always feel like I know Steve Jenkins and he's my bud. This book, like all of his books, is gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous, done in paper collage; and super-informative, a book that any kid could spend hours poring over.

Leaves by David Ezra Stein.
Also I have an imagined kinship with David Ezra Stein. I grew up with a David Stein, a misunderstood genius who played the cello - and I have a close family member named Ezra. So, again, I'm going to be prejudiced toward this book. BUT. Oh, this is a winner by anyone's lights. It's a young bear and his relationship with the seasons, specifically, with the leaves. The bear is inked so expressively, you can feel yourself stretch when he stretches. And there are 9 or 10 pages of the tree under which the bear is hibernating, during which we see the seasons change. That almost always works for me.


The Witch's Child by Arthur Yorinks, illustrated by Jos. A. Smith.
Just in time for Halloween... oh, what's that you say? Halloween was last week? Huh. Tell that to the people who process new books in my library system, will you? This morning we got numerous new books on monsters, a haunted house pop-up, and this really wonderful spooky witch story. This artist is terrific - that witch is terrifying looking, but cool too, with her striped tights and Balenciaga-esque high heels, and when she can't make her straw doll come to life, you can even feel sad for her. Wonderful new version of this old story.

Big Bug Surprise by Julia Gran
Another winner! Prunella is a bug aficionado - she collects insects and knows a lot about them. But other people aren't that interested. Until bees swarm her classroom and she knows just what to do. Would be terrific for the facts alone (did you know that bees can't see white? I didn't), but the energetic, stylized illustrations more than hold their own.



Why war is never a good idea by Alice Walker, illustrations by Stefano Vitale.
You know, you wonder about some books. Anyone who thinks war is (ever) a good idea is not going to crack this book, and everyone who agrees that war is never a good idea basically doesn't need to. On the other hand, Lady Alice does come up with some new perspectives: "Picture frogs beside a pond holding their annual pre-rainy-season convention. They do not see War, huge tires of a camouflaged vehicle about to squash them flat." You could see this as a read-aloud to older elementary school children. The concepts and language are quite vivid and could provoke good discussion.

Ruthie and the (not so) teeny tiny lie by Laura Rankin.
A little girl tells a lie and then feels terrible about it and tells the truth. If this ever ever happened in real life, this would be a fine book, but in my experience, it does not.

Ridin' Dinos with Buck Bronco as told to George McClements.
Cute, cute cute! Lively collage and colored pencil art illustrates this dinosaur fact book with a fanciful premise. A fun read-aloud, especially if you bust out yer funny cowpoke voice.

Small Sister by Jessica Meserve.
Two sisters, Small and Big, and how unfair it can be when you are Small. The very clear language serves the simple story well, and contrasts with the extremely rich, pictorial art. Lovely.



Millie waits for the mail by Alexander Steffensmeier.
Europeans again! What IS it about Europeans? European illustrations always seem to deliver 35-50% more visual information than the illustrations for English-language books: is it because their same-language market is proportionately smaller? Millie - a COW - waits for the mail in order to SCARE the mail carrier. This is a pretty funny premise in the first place, but Herr Steffensmeier fills each page with so many sunbathing chickens, incongruous miniature elephants, etc, that the story is almost secondary, no matter how satisfyingly it is plotted and resolved.

The Lemonade Club by Patricia Polacco
Get out your hankies. This is the true story of Patricia Polacco's daughter Traci, her best friend, Marilyn, who won a battle with leukemia as a child, and their teacher, who survived breast cancer. It's a real roller-coaster: kid gets leukemia and undergoes chemo. When she comes back to school she is very self-conscious about her bald head, but she finds that all the kids in class shaved their heads too! Awww! Then we discover that the beloved teacher has breast cancer! Oh no! Cut to 5 years later and the whole class is in church.

"The music was playing softly. It was one of Miss Wichelman's favorite hymns. The flowers were so beautiful. Everyone there was thinking about Miss Wichelman."

And then you turn the page and there's Miss Wichelman coming down the aisle in a wedding gown - it's not her funeral, it's her wedding! Hooray! Oh my god, but I'm emotionally spent.

I've said it before and I'm saying it again... SPINE LABEL. DIFFICULT THEMES. If I picked this up at random I would have been completely blindsided.

Enough for now.

Poetry Friday - Denis Johnson

I am reading Denis Johnson's book of short stories entitled Jesus' Son.

There are a few things I need to get off my chest about this:

When I see this author's first name spelled like this, without the second "n", I think "penis". And I don't think I'm the only one who does.

I am reading this book on my friend Lance's endorsement. I will bet you that Lance hasn't read anything less serious than Raymond Carver since he was in 8th grade. I've been suggesting books for his 8 year old daughter and I have a feeling that he takes something like Bailey School Kids off the shelf and regards it laying in his hand with a kind of fascinated horror.

I recently had to look up the use of the apostrophe after "s." Plural nouns ending in "s" get an apostrophe only, while proper nouns ending in "s" (like James) get an apostrophe-s. Our Mr. Jesus is the only exception. I suppose it's because He's at one with the infinite.

I was reading this book while I was waiting to get the excess pink dye rinsed out of my hair last week, and the shampoo girl got positively evangelical when she saw it. Half my age, and totally reading what I read when I was twenty. I recommended Nick Cave's novel to her.

Mr. Johnson's got a collection of poetry entitled The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly, which is also the title of a work of art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It was made in a garage by a janitor out of tinfoil and cardboard.

Reading this poem, which was performed at the Dia Center's Readings in Contemporary Poetry series, you just have to wonder: just how much of this clear-eyed falling-down inebriated maudlin sentimentality, this filthy bullshit moonshine that is offered up to us by Don DeLillo and Tom Waits and Bukowski and Frank Miller and Leonard Cohen - how much of it can the world weigh up under?

Just a little more?

'Cause I'll read it.


OUR SADNESS

There’s a sadness about looking back when you get to the end:
a sadness that waits at the end of the street,
a cigaret that glows with the glow of sadness
and a cop in a yellow raincoat who says It’s late,
it’s late, it’s sadness.

And it’s a sadness what they’ve done to the women I loved:
they turned Julie into her own mother, and Ruthe--
and Ruthe I understand has been turned
into a sadness...

And when it comes time
for all of humanity to witness what it’s done
and every television is trained on the first people to see God and
they say
Houston,
we have ignition,
they won’t have ignition.

They’ll have a music of wet streets
and lonely bars where piano notes
follow themselves into a forest of pity and are lost.
They’ll have sadness.
They’ll have
sadness, sadness, sadness.

© 1999 Denis Johnson

Poetry Friday is hosted today at a wrung sponge.