Chicken Spaghetti

A Velvety Cloak of Words

"When Laurel was a child, in this room and in this bed where she lay now, she closed her eyes like this and the rhythmic, nighttime sounds of the two beloved reading voices came rising in turn up the stairs every night to reach her. She could hardly fall asleep, she tried to keep awake, for pleasure. She cared for her own books, but she cared more for theirs, which meant their voices. In the lateness of the night, their two voices reading to each other where she could hear them, never letting a silence divide or interrupt them, combined into one unceasing voice and wrapped her around as she listened, as still as if she were asleep. She was sent to sleep under a velvety cloak of words, richly patterned and stitched with gold, straight out of a fairy tale, while they went reading on into her dreams."

from The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty (Random House, 1972)

Bears, Jo, Teen Boys, Old Age, Henry Moore

A few items of interest for some coffee-break clicking this afternoon:

Over at NPR, Daniel Pinkwater recommended A Visitor for Bear on Saturday's "Weekend Edition" program, and he and host Scott Simon read the picture book aloud. (I reviewed the book here.)

Also, NPR arts correspondent Lynn Neary considered "Jo March, Everyone's Favorite Little Woman," on "Morning Edition" today.

Say welcome to a new blog in town: Guys Lit Wire, book reviews and literary news for teenage boys.

My reading recommendation (for grown-ups) today: A Place Called Canterbury, by Dudley Clendinen. Lovely nonfiction about a retirement home in Tampa, where Clendinen's mother lived for nine years. A heartfelt, generous, and sometimes quite funny look at "the new old age" in our country.

"Moore in America," sculptures of Henry Moore in an outdoor setting, has landed at the New York Botanical Garden (through November 2nd). A New York Times slide show is here. It looks so cool; I can't wait to go! For children (aged 9 and up), the NYBG gift shop touts (and sells) the biography Henry Moore, by Sally O'Reilly (from the series Artists in Their Time, Franklin Watts/Scholastic, 2003). Plus, there's Hands On! Creative Projects. ("The 12 innovative projects within this book encourage people of all ages to create their own imaginative works using Henry Moore’s methods and a variety of tools and materials.)

Graphic Novel Ideas

Here's an interesting article in the Star-Telegram about using graphic novels in the classroom; one Fort Worth teacher told journalist Sue Corbett that the genre "hooks my really strong readers and my struggling readers... They're just wild about them." If you've wondered about the genre, this is a good introduction.

Corbett's piece also mentions Toon Books, Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman's new line of comics for beginning readers. I haven't seen the books yet, but the word on the street is great. Also noteworthy, but not mentioned in the Star-Telegram article, are Innovative Kids' Phonics Comics, which fly off the shelves at our neighborhood school's library. Updated to add: Wait, wait! Perhaps I spoke too soon about the "great"ness of the Toon books; over at The Excelsior File, David E. wrote, "As comic books for emerging readers, these are fine. The problem I have is that they don't aspire to be anything more than comic book material, and to that end I find it hard to understand how they can justify their packaging and price." Read more from the always intelligent Mr. E. here.

Recently A Year of Reading, a blog written by two elementary-school teachers, devoted a week to discussing graphic novels. Begin with this post and keep reading for a good exploration of the subject.

Book Links, a publication of the American Library Association, offers a handy bibliography of graphic novels for younger kids.

Your Own Summer Reading List?

So, what's on your summer list? My mother tells me that schools are already out in my Southern hometown, and that got me to thinking about the subject.

When third-grade is done, Junior wants to start a collection of books by Patricia Polacco and hopes to read a new graphic novel in a favorite series, Sardine from Outer Space #5: My Cousin Manga and Other Stories. His school encourages everyone to read during vacation, but does not specify which books.

Maybe I'll pick up T.H. White's Once and Future King, which I avoided the summer it appeared on the tenth-grade reading list. Should I write a book report and email it in late...very, very, very late? Right now I'm into Selected Stories by Alice Munro. When I finished Jhumpa Lahiri's latest collection, Unaccustomed Earth, I knew I had to read something just as good or better next, so I turned to a master short-story writer. I'm not disappointed at all. In her review of The Progress of Love for the New York Times, Joyce Carol Oates wrote, "Like her similarly gifted contemporaries Peter Taylor, William Trevor, Edna O'Brien and some few others, the Canadian short-story writer Alice Munro writes stories that have the density—moral, emotional, sometimes historical—of other writers' novels." Amen to that.

The Selected Stories will keep me busy for a while, but what after that? My blogging pal Tanita S. Davis's young-adult novel, A La Carte, coming from Knopf in June, is definitely a must-read for me. Other suggestions are welcome. And I'm curious to hear what's on your summer list.

Poetry Friday: "Teaching Them a Thing or Two"

For Poetry Friday, it's my pleasure to share a poem by my friend Sherry Keller. This one comes from her chapbook "Drawn to Water." The poem's copyright belongs to Sherry, who generously granted permission to reprint it here. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced without permission.

Teaching Them a Thing or Two

by Sherry Keller

Miss Fannie was my second cousin
though much older—in her fifties.
I was fourteen.
She pounded that piano as if she were trying
to kill it.
Tinny chords in a
mesmerizing miasma of
Roooock of Aaaaages.
Sleep inducing chinking chords so
slow molasses caught up to it.
I jittered.
I tapped.
I wanted it to move.
Church was boring enough
without Miss Fannie's arthritis-wracked fingers
sort of finding the notes in the
slowest progression of one note after the other possible.
It seemed like days,
then church was out.

My piano lessons progressed.
Week after week.
And then a miracle happened.
Miss Fannie was up north
to see her daughter.
Would I play for church today?
Yea!
Here I go.
I won't be slow.
Rkuv Ages
Cleftformeeeeee
at a steady clip.
I was bent
on keeping the beat.
They're straining,
they're sounding surprised.
I am determined not
to give in.
I finished
a whole measure ahead.
Whew.

Sherry Keller lives in Asheville, NC, with her husband of 41 years, Tom. She has two grown children, Eric and Robyn, and an adorable 6-year-old granddaughter, Lily. She helps run the Constant Reader group on GoodReads. Many of her photographs are online here.

I thought of the teenage pianist in "Teaching Them a Thing or Two" as I read Note by Note: A Celebration of the Piano Lesson, by Tricia Tunstall, a longtime piano teacher. Last week Roger Sutton, editor-in-chief at The Horn Book, recommended this book (for grown-ups) at his blog, Read Roger, and readers chimed in with memories of lessons. Publishers Weekly said of Note by Note, "... for those tempted to dismiss this slim volume because they've never had a music lesson or read a score, this too short memoir offers a rare glimpse into a fascinating world." Note by Note has me thinking of piano lessons again after many, many years.

See Becky's Book Reviews for links to other Poetry Friday blog posts. (I'm posting early, but the roundup ought to be available by Friday morning.)

Children's Literature Programs, PEN World Voices Festival

Book lovers in New York right now have a chance to see and hear many authors from around the world at PEN's World Voices festival. Among the participants are Ian McEwan, Michael Ondaatje, Janet Malcolm, Bernhard Schlink, Umberto Eco, Salman Rushdie, and Mario Vargas Llosa. For a complete schedule, see the PEN web site; you'll find blog reports there as well. Also, the MetaxuCafé literary site is covering many of the events.

The following are programs that involve authors who write for children.

• Sharon G. Flake, Jutta Richter, Pam Muñoz Ryan, and Peter Sís talk about "the public and private lives of children." Elizabeth Levy moderates. (Scholastic Auditorium, 556 Broadway. Thursday, May 1, at 6. Free. No reservations necessary.)

• Pam Muñoz Ryan and Senegalese author Fatou Diome on the role of storytelling in "growing up a writer." (French Institute/Alliance Française, 22 E. 60th St. Saturday, May 3, at 5. For tickets, call 212/307-4100.)

One roundtable (for adults) I'd like to hear (but won't get a chance to) is "Books That Changed My Life," with Annie Proulx, Philippe Grimbert, Yousef Al-Mohaimeed, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and Catherine Millet. (New York Public Library, Fifth Ave. at 42nd St. Sunday, May 4, at 4. For tickets, call 212/868-4444.)

PEN American Center, the festival's sponsor, is "an association of writers working to advance literature, defend free expression, and foster international literary fellowship."

Literataure-Inspired Playing

In the "From Spider-Man to Smack-Down" chapter of her new book, Taking Back Childhood, Nancy Carlsson-Paige writes about a kindergarten teacher whose students "were consumed with Star Wars play" (the kind of whacking-with-light-sabers stuff that many of us know well). At story time the teacher started reading The Wizard of Oz to the class because she felt like it addressed some of "same themes of power and security" as the Star Wars movies. She also supplied the dramatic play area of her classroom with Wizard of Oz props: red shoes, a witch hat, and so on. (Aside: Dorothy's ruby slippers from the movie version are actually silver in the book, but who needs a fact-checker in the dress-up corner?)

[The teacher] said that the children gradually became immersed in the story of The Wizard of Oz—acting it out with elaborations, drawing it, making their own props—and their more rigid Star Wars play gradually dropped away.

A professor of early childhood education and conflict resolution, the author goes on to say the following, relevant to all of us who think about children's literature a lot:

Many children's books touch on themes of mastery, power, and security but contain no graphic violence, and reading these, especially over and over, can inspire play about mastery and power that comes closer to meeting children's real psychological needs.

I really liked that story of a teacher who knew how to channel her students' interests in a more creative direction. I liked the book, too; I found it informative rather than dire, despite its subtitle, "Helping Your Kids Thrive in a Fast-Paced, Media-Saturated, Violence-Filled World."

Kids' play fascinates me. In my house, a Lego alien now lives in a vegetable-steamer spaceship. ("Mom, if you cook anything in here, will you please take him out?") The alien seems to be involved in a lot of inter-planetary battles. A couple of days ago, though, a younger friend of my son's dropped by, and she and Junior pretended to be butterflies, wafting around the yard for a few minutes.

Updated to add: Nancy Carlsson-Paige is also the mother of actor Matt Damon. Whaddya know. I missed that somehow. Here is a recent profile of Carlsson-Paige from the Boston Globe.

Southern Bookstore Blog

Lemuria Books, my favorite bookstore, now has a blog, and I didn't even know about it until recently. Yay—blog roll update time. If you're ever in Jackson, Mississippi, you absolutely must stop by the store. Driving down I-55 from Memphis to New Orleans? It's right on your way. Travelling from Dallas to Atlanta on I-20? It's just a quick little detour north.

Some years ago when Eudora Welty was still alive, I saw her shopping at the store. The blog features an update on her home in Jackson's Belhaven neighborhood, which you can now tour by appointment. (I know I've mentioned that before. I think I keep talking about it to remind myself to schedule a tour for my next visit to Jackson.)

When I was at Lemuria last week, a couple of the booksellers told me about Poor Man's Provence: Finding Myself in Cajun Louisiana, by Rheta Grimsley Johnson (NewSouth Books 2008). Here is how the publisher describes the book:

For over a decade, syndicated columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson has been spending several months a year in Southwest Louisiana, deep in the heart of Cajun Country. Unlike many other writers who have parachuted into the swampy paradise for a few days or weeks, Rheta fell in love with the place, bought a second home and set in planting doomed azaleas and deep roots. She has found an assortment of beautiful people in a homely little town called Henderson, right on the edge of the Atchafalaya Swamp.

Right now on the blog, Lemuria recommends a children's book, The Fish Who Cried Wolf, by Julia Donaldson. Sarah Dessen's young adult novel Just Listen also gets a shout out.

Poetry Friday: "Monosyllable"

There we were in the sunny South, spring-breaking for most of the week. That's why posting was so light around these parts. We had a great time, and Junior and I covered my parents' neighborhood on bicycles. My Southern accent returned, and I heard myself saying, "Good mornin'!" to people I didn't even know.

Anyway, since today is Poetry Friday, I'm going to send y'all back to the Poetry Foundation for one more poem by Josephine Jacobsen. This one is "Monosyllable." I wanted to mention it last week, but that post was long enough. Click here to read "Monosyllable."

Our schedule is nutty until school resumes on Monday, at which point I'll rest from our vacation.

You'll find the roundup of all the Poetry Friday posts at The Well-Read Child.

Poetry Friday: Josephine Jacobsen

After coming across a couple of poems by Josephine Jacobsen in The Oxford Book of American Poetry, I've wanted to read more. Here is the beginning of "The Birthday Party," which is also online at the Poetry Foundation.

"The Birthday Party"

The sounds are the sea, breaking out of sight,
and down the green slope the children’s voices
that celebrate the fact of being eight.

One too few chairs are for desperate forces:
when the music hushes, the children drop
into their arms, except for one caught by choices.

Read the rest here.

Musical chairs was a staple of birthday parties of my childhood; I haven't seen it around lately, though. The game was both exciting and dreadful. Dreadful, because it taps into children's fears of being left out. Exciting, because of the possibility of winning, of course, and in musical chairs, you inevitably sat on someone else, to great hilarity. Jacobsen even uses the term "scary fun" to describe the action. The poem moves on from the  game, and focuses on the sea, contrasting its constant rhythms with the children's one brief moment, "the fact of being eight." Jacobsen writes,

Onto the pitted sand comes highwater mark.
Waves older than eight begin a retreat;
they will come, the children gone, the slope dark.

Even though it's about a celebration, Jacobsen's poem is bittersweet, and definitely told from a grown-up's point of view, not a child's. I know the perfect image to go with it: a photograph by Tina Barney of a children's party at the beach. When I first saw the large-format picture, it took me a while to realize that the camera's focus was not on the kids, but on the adults behind them, cocktails in hand—and one step closer to the sea, now that I think about it.

Around the children's literature blogs, you'll find more poetry talk today. The roundup of posts is over at a wrung sponge.