Do I Like Food or Books More?

A week before we returned to Austin, a friend of mine emailed asking if I'd be interested in taking an open slot in her book club. I went back and forth, wondering if I'd have time to do it, if I'd be interested in the books, etc., but finally decided that yes, I'd commit (she'd made it clear to me that this wasn't a "come when you feel like it, read the book if you want" kind of book club. This was a "read the book, show up on time, be ready to engage in a serious discussion" kind of book club).

I've now been going for four months and it is, no joke, the highlight of my month. I love this book club so much, it's almost ridiculous. The eleven other women are smart and interesting, and our conversations are so rich. The books are (almost) all wonderful and interesting (since I joined, we've read What the Dog Saw, Poems: New and Collected, Mayflower: A Story of Community, Courage, and War, and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan).

I shall not bore you at length with the details, except to tell you that the food at these meetings is beyond fabulous. Two people are assigned food each time we meet and last night, I was one of the food people.

As you can imagine, I did not take this burden lightly. I made Chocolate Carmel Crackers (I know, I know, but seriously, people, they are so good you could die. Bart even texted me TWICE during bookclub to tell me how much he loved the ones I'd left behind for  him). And Banana Bars. And crostini and vegetables with both artichoke dill dip and jalapeno popper dip. And I was only half of the food committee. . .

Needless to say, I don't eat dinner on the nights I go to bookclub.

Mr. Gumpy's Outing by John Burningham

Recently, I was reading the quite excellent A Family of Readers, and it mentioned a book I had not thought of in years: Mr. Gumpy's Outing.

I checked it out from the library (the copy was ancient (this book was first published in 1970) and I tried not to think of the forty years of dirty fingers that had touched it). Reading it to Ella brought me such pleasure that when I saw a hardback copy of it on Borders for $1.31, well, I didn't linger over the "Buy" button very long.

Mr. Gumpy owns a boat and his house is by a river. Naturally, when he goes out on his boat, two children are eager to join him. He agrees, on the condition that they "don't squabble." Soon he has collected a veritable ark of passengers, all who have been instructed not to do various things (my favorite being the pig who is asked not to "muck about").

For a while, all is calm, but then, "the goat kicked, the calf trampled. . . " and, well, you can imagine what happens next. Fortunately, Mr. Gumpy is not the least bit grumpy about the day's adventures and all ends happily.

The art is so folksy and sweet and the text has such a nice rhythm, that it's the perfect book for a very young child.

This is one I'm glad to have on my bookshelf and that I will likely read more than one gazillion times to my children. Now to look for the new-to-me (but still 35 year-old) companion book, Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car.

What I'm Going to Read: Round 17

I know, you probably all thought I forgot. My memory is still sharp and young; my laziness, tragically, is also sharp. Besides, I've been very busy watching Friday Night Lights. Anyway, the winner this month is Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart, suggested by Emily.

It's checked in at my library, so I'll be retrieving it tonight. I might even FINISH it this month. I know you would be shocked. (I continue to plug away at Cutting for Stone which, now that I'm 300 pages in, is picking up. Kayla's raves about it didn't hurt either).

Other fine suggestions:

• Juliet by Anne Fortier (Mom)
• Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins(Shanon and Bart) 
• The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Miri)   
• Two-Part Invention by Madeleine L'Engle (RA) 
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Merry and heidikins)  
• Wish You Well by David Baldacchi (Lisa) 
• I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak (Chrissie) 
• The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (Melissa)
• Austenland by Shannon Hale (Mary) 
• Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth (Crafty Ashley) 
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (Jenn)
• Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (Jenn)
• Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck (LatteLove) 
• Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns (G)
• Precious Bane by Mary Webb (melissa @ 1lbr)
• The Magicians by Lev Grossman (NGS) 
• In the Dark Streets Shineth: A 1941 Christmas Eve Story by David McCullough (Jenny) 
• The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet By Reif Larsen (Saskia)
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Caitlin)
• The Undaunted by Gerald Lund (The well rounded mom)
• Timeline by Michael Crichton (Mrs. Doolittle)
• The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (Braden)
• Countdown by Deborah Wiles (Yankee Girl) 
• Nightshade by Andrea Cremer (ccr in MA) 
• The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (Mia) 
• The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman (ACQ)
• A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson (Carly) 
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Sherry)
• Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (Megan)
• I Was Told There Would be Cake by Sloane Crosley (Kayla) 

Of these, I've read:

• Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth (well, the parts that are relevant to my baby's age. So far I haven't bothered reading about toddler sleeping).
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 
• Nightshade by Andrea Cremer (review here)

Also, welcome a new catagory this month - books on this list that I've started but left unfinished for one reason or another.

• I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak
• Austenland by Shannon Hale
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Thursday Bright Lights

Some things that are bringing me joy today:

All the cookies from the cookie swap I attended last night (I made these cookies):

I followed Jenny's good example and had Breakfast Dessert.

Not to mention the fact that I for sure brought home the best of the white elephant gifts (seriously, this is NOT a white elephant gift. This is just an excellent gift):

Putting it on my counter reminded me how much I am in love with my little IKEA spice jars:

Also, my rockstar mom made me some really cute curtains and bedding for Ella's room. It is really hard to get good pictures of curtains because of the back lighting issue. Carry on.

Time to get some white crib sheets. . . .

And, of course, my baby herself. Bart was, as he so often is, right. Blue IS the snuggliest color.

It's a nice day to be alive. It'll be even nicer when the church Christmas Party on Saturday is over and I will no longer wake up in the middle of the night to stew about that for an hour or so. Not that that isn't good fun or anything.

Out Loud, If You Please: Guest Post by Kathi Appelt

Many of you are probably familiar with Kathi Appelt - her 2008 book, The Underneath, was a Newbery Honor book and a National Book Award Finalist, not to mention garnering rave reviews from all number of review sources (at library conferences, many of the publishers put large star bookmarks in their books for each starred review or honor that book received. When I saw The Underneath at TLA last year, the book could hardly stay closed, it was so full of star bookmarks).

Her newest book, Keeper, has the same lyrical quality as The Underneath and both books seem to me to be ones that are best served by being read aloud. If the words are magical on the page, they're even more so when they're being spoken.

I wrote yesterday about how much I love reading aloud. And it turns out that Kathi shares that same love. Which, after reading her books, doesn't come as much of a surprise to me. 

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I wish that I could say that I had always wanted to write books for kids, but the cold, hard truth is that I never would have thought about it were it not for the arrival of my first son Jacob.

And once he came, was I ever unprepared!!! Being a mom caught me by complete surprise. What was I supposed to do with him? Here I was, an educated woman, but who nevertheless knew very little about raising kids.

I confess that I was never the type to do kid-type activities. Making figures out of Play-Doh? Not me. I squeezed the stuff for therapy.

Hide-and-seek? I hated that game.

All I had left in my bag of tricks so far as entertaining and engaging my little guy was reading. After all, one of the good things about my father was that he read to me when I was very small. I could do that too. At first, since Jacob was born while I was in graduate school, I just read whatever I had to read for school, which at the time meant the Greeks. (I was taking a course in Classical Rhetoric—exciting stuff, I know). And that seemed to be enough until he got to be about five or six months old, and then, well, Aristotle lost his allure.

A quick hop to the bookstore, and our world changed forever. This was back in 1982 and technological changes were sweeping the children’s book industry, allowing for art to be reproduced in ways that it hadn’t before. The array of beautiful books, featuring illustrators like Ruth Heller, Susan Jeffers, David McPhail and the Pinkneys were just landing on shelves, their art simply breathtaking.

I bought a copy of Heller’s Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones, and both Jacob and I fell in love with the rhymes and the illustrations, but mostly . . . and more importantly . . . we fell in love with the activity of reading together.

What I discovered was that if either one of us was tired or fussy, we could pick up a book, sit down together, and reconnect with ourselves and each other in a way that felt completely magical.

When Jacob’s younger brother Cooper arrived two years later, Jake and I were old hands at creating our own “campfire.” Cooper simply joined in. Often, at the end of the day, their father joined us. With the four of us surrounding a book or two or ten, we closed our circle. In fact, I called it “the magic circle” for the sense of safety and enchantment that it offered to our family.

Reading out loud became part of the fabric of our family, and I read on road trips, in airports, at the doctor’s office, wherever. And I also read to the boys until they were well into their teens. It was just what we did together. We graduated from Ruth Heller to Brian Jacques and Gary Paulsen and Lloyd Alexander and Ursula K. LeGuin. We even ventured into J.R.R. Tolkein, followed by T.A. Barron and Philip Pullman. Story was our family glue.

Having experienced this magic, my huge longing is for every child to be read to every day. I have a deep-seated belief that if that were to happen, that if every child were read to every day, by a caring adult, the world as we know would make a shift. It doesn’t even really matter what the books are. The simple act of pulling a child up next to you and reading together sends a significant message of caring.

One of my students at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Tamara Ellis Smith, in her critical thesis, called this act, “The Vibrant Triangle,” in which the three points of the triangle consisted of the child, the adult, and the book, and what makes it vibrant is the reading aloud.

For me, writing a book that calls for oral reading hearkens to my yearning for that vibrant triangle to occur over and over again. And so with all my books, from picture books to my novels for middle graders, I take great care with the three R’s—repetition, resonance, and rhythm—in my prose, reading it out loud to myself over and over again, to make sure that it has that capacity for oral reading, for vibrancy.

It’s important. It matters. There is more at hand than just the story. There’s magic.

Aloud

I come from a family that believes in reading aloud.

My dad's childhood home had a round landing at the top of the stairs from which all the bedrooms opened. My Grannie would sit in the landing and read out loud to her four children, all snuggled in their respective beds in the various bedrooms.

One of my earliest memories is my mom sitting beside me on my twin bed while she read the entire Little House series to me late into the night, Merrick snoozing in the next bed over.

In fact, she read so much to me that year that she lost her voice entirely and never fully regained the phenomenal singing voice she had prior to that (I think it was worth it; I hope she does too).

Later, she read us classics like The Wind in the Willows and Peter Pan. We read The Midnight Fox and Redwall and Charlotte's Web and Mary Poppins (she's not nearly as lovely as Julie Andrews makes her out to be).

We read the first three Harry Potter books all together, but when the fourth one came out and Harry Potter was really becoming a big thing, she told us we should probably each read it ourselves as quickly as we could to avoid having it spoiled for us.

That suggestion got shouted down very quickly. We had to have her read it to us, a chapter or two a night. There was no other option.

We made it through the entire book without anyone telling us how it ended. We'd beg her to read us one more chapter and she'd agree to do so if we'd paint her toenails.

As part of our homeschooling curriculum, she read individually with each of us every day. Even through high school, she and I read classics together, alternating pages back and forth (it wasn't until then that I realized what a different skill reading aloud is from reading silently). We read Treasure Island and Pride and Prejudice and The Time Machine (neither of us liked that one) and A Tale of Two Cities. I have vivid memories of lying on the living room floor coloring the workbook pages from my anatomy book (what a joke of a class that was) while she read Jane Eyre to me. I cried when we finished.

My dad didn't read to us as much as my mom did, but he read aloud to us the books he most treasured from his own childhood. One of my fondest memories of my dad is him reading, just to me, The Phantom Tollbooth, a book I still count as one of my favorites. And Five Children and It and Cheaper by the Dozen.

And Bart's mom was no different, although her reading, from what I understand, mostly took place during breakfast, rather than at bedtime. Bart tells me that when his mom was reading them The Chronicles of Prydain, his friends would ask him each morning to relay what had happened in the book that day (Bart now tells me he has no memory of this, but whatever. . . I'm leaving it in).

Bart and I have done a fair amount of reading aloud together too -  we read The Screwtape Letters together when we were dating, and later The Giver. I read the last two Harry Potters aloud to him, both in a matter of days. When we were both going to school, we listened to a number of books on CD together as we drove (favorites including The Thief Lord, Skulduggery Pleasant, and the Bartimeaus Trilogy (the new book in that series is coming along with us on our Christmas trip - we both think Simon Jones ranks right up there with the famed Jim Dale as a narrator)).

Now it delights me that Ella loves being read to. If I need to plow through those last cranky thirty minutes before bedtime, a stack of books will do the trick almost every time. When we lay on the floor together and I open up a book, she starts kicking her legs and smiling as I turn the pages. She looks carefully at both sides of the page.

And in a few years when we start reading chapter books, well, I can only hope my heart is up to the excitement. I cannot wait. It seems to me that nothing is more magical than a book that has been read aloud to you.

Books I Love: Board Books

Ella likes books (perhaps it's my daily threats to turn her out on the street if she doesn't like books?). She smiles and kicks her feet and looks at both pages very intently. Even when she's particularly grumpy, she'll settle right down and pay attention to a number of books in a row. It should not surprise you that we do quite a lot of reading around these parts.

I've quickly developed favorites and those are the ones I go for again and again when I read to her. And as I was thinking about possibly sharing the ones I like best, Lady Susan suggested that I do so and, well, that was all the encouragement I needed. . .

So, without further ado, a few board books I love. And we can all pretend Ella loves too. It's not like she can tell me I'm wrong.

Piggies is, perhaps, my very favorite board book. It's such an excellent mix of big bright images, and hilarious little details. I like the lap-size version because it makes the hands just about life-size and the piggies easier to see. Although, since I do most reading to Ella lying on the floor, holding the book above us, I live in fear of dropping this heavy thing on her face.

Animals Talk, along with Counting, are new to me. They only have five pages, each with the animal above a single word and a close up pattern on the opposite side. They are bright and colorful and a quick book before a nap. I can elaborate, or I can just read the five words and be done. Really, what more can you ask for? (A million dollars).

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is a total classic, of course, and for good reason. The illustrations are so bright and clean, the rhyme scheme is delightful, and it's a nice length. My brothers loved this book, so much so that, more than a decade later, I can still recite the whole thing from memory. It's a keeper.

I love Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin's book and Click, Clack, 123
is no exception. My library mentor gave me this one and also Click, Clack, ABC, which I like but not quite as much as 123. The drawings are so fun and sweet, with lots of white space, which, I've discovered, is really important to me in a book.

We're Going on a Bear Hunt is a favorite from my childhood. I love Helen Oxenbury's illustrations and the design of the book itself delights me, with the illustrations alternating between black and white and color, full page spreads, and multiple panels on some pages.

Good Night, Gorilla makes me laugh. It has sparse text and rich colors and in board book format, the pages just shine. Funny and sweet, I love this book.

And of COURSE Goodnight Moon is on the list. What kind of mother do you think I am? This book is the epitome of a bedtime story for me. I also love her less well-known The Big Red Barn.

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I have fallen completely in love with Sandra Boynton. The kindergarten teacher at one of my schools gave me Pajama Time! and it's among my very favorites. Bart and I both find ourselves singing the words - it's so ridiculously catchy. It's fun to have a riotously loud book to read to your little baby. I also really enjoy her Moo Baa La La La.

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes is just a few years old, but it has the feel of a classic. I love Helen Oxenbury's bright, clean illustrations and the text of this book is so sweet and beautiful. This is a perfect baby shower book.

Friday Morning

Isn't there just something lovely about Friday? Why yes, yes there is. It's been a speedy, but very nice week. Some things that have made this week nice:

• Last night, when I picked Bart up from work, he asked if I wanted to go to his office's happy hour at the Domain. I quickly agreed and we called some of our lovely neighbors to see if they'd watch Ella. They said yes, but within seconds of hanging up the phone, Bart said, "I'd rather take her with us. I haven't seen her all day." And we did. She was delightful and sat quietly on Bart's lap the entire time, stayed awake in the car home, and fell asleep in her own bed within about five minutes of our return home. I love that baby. And the daddy who likes having his baby around.
• Bart had gone to lunch with his team and I'd had a really large late lunch, so neither of us were very hungry, but when we got home from the happy hour, I needed SOME food, so I made these banana-chocolate chip pancakes with peanut butter syrup. And they were, as they have been so often in the past, delicious. To my not-at-all surprise, Bart regained a bit of his appetite and had some too. Plus, I had the leftovers for breakfast this morning. 
• This weekend, we're going to Main Street Bethlehem which I am really looking forward to, most especially because it's going to be in the seventies, unlike two years ago when we were freezing out there (and by freezing, I mean it was probably fifty degrees and thus our weak Texan bodies could hardly brave the cold).
• Speaking of which, when we went to the Domain last night, Bart's team was all sitting out on the patio. Bart and I were both wearing short-sleeves and our baby had on pajamas with a thin blanket wrapped around her. That is my kind of December.

And now it's less of Friday Morning and more of Friday lunchtime. Which means Bart will be home for lunch soon and we'll be having some excellent tacos. Also, I have dinner in the crockpot which means my house smells divine.

Happy Friday!

One Big Rain: Poems for Rainy Days by Rita Gray and Ryan O'Rourke

Since I'm clearly on a poetry kick here. . .

I love the rain. This is almost certainly due to having grown up in Las Vegas where rain is a very infrequent occurrence. My mom loves the rain too, and at the first sign of it, she's building up the fire and breaking out the hot chocolate.

One Big Rain perfectly captures my love of rain with a whole array of rain related poems, organized by season. Oh, how different the cold rain of winter is from a sunny, soft summer drizzle.

The poems are a nice collection of classics (think Robert Frost) and new pieces. And they range from full page poems to brief little haiku.

And the illustrations are so whimsical and fun. If I didn't desperately want to keep my copy whole and perfect, I'd consider cutting out the pages and framing them. They are that lovely.

I turn to this book any time it rains or any time I wish it would rain (so, approximately three times a week) and every time I fall a little more in love with it.

Plus, I'm discovering how wonderful poetry books are for children because you can read a lot or you can read one whole poem and then pat yourself soundly on the back for being such a terrific mother and giving your child the gift of literacy.

Copy received from publisher

Christmas Decorations

I really would like to decorate for Christmas this year, but I'm running into the dual obstacles of having gotten rid of our Christmas tree and the total lack of places to put Christmas decorations. (Truly, the only surfaces in our apartment that can hold decorations are the kitchen table, the kitchen bar, and the TV table (and tv tables have the unfortunate habit of having their tops covered by, you know, a TV. The nerve)).

Bart was not sad to say goodbye to our Christmas tree (he does not enjoy putting it up or taking it down, although he enjoys having it up - the best Christmas gift I can give him each year is to take the entire thing down myself and have it ready to go back in the garage when he gets home from work. I'll have to think of something new this year. . . ). He did say I could get a small tree and put it on the kitchen table. I plan to take him up on this offer.

And we have a really nice nativity scene from my parents that I'd like to put up, but again. . .where? (Last year, it was on top of our bookshelf, but that bookshelf, along with most of the books it held, stayed behind in Boston). The top of the fridge seems very classy, yes it does.

We also have some excellent stockings that Bart's sister made us the first Christmas we were married (and a Christmas stocking Bart's mom started for him when he was about six or so, and just sent him this past summer), but, surprise! We have no fireplace. Should I nail them to the wall? 

I like to have Christmas decorations up since it makes it feel so much more festive and also, hello, it is my baby's first Christmas and the idea of nothing makes me sad. Because, clearly, she is going to notice and remember if I do nothing.  And also, right now she's too little to grab things, which surely won't be the case next year, so I feel like I ought to take advantage of my last Christmas where I don't have a child trying to break all my heirlooms (by which I mean "things I bought on sale after Christmas a few years ago").

Yes, these are the kind of questions that plague me. My life is clearly very sad.