Book Sale Business

I've started to branch out from the biannual Friends Book Sales at Arlington Central Library--this morning I went all the way to Falls Church (a distance of two and a half miles) to check out the American Association of University Women book sale and came home with a small stack of children's books and a couple of hardcovers for my husband and son, too.

I followed my usual book sale protocol, which is to head straight for the middle grade paperbacks. In this case, there wasn't a lot of pre-sorting--all the children's books were mixed up in boxes, fiction, nonfiction, YA, picture books, everything. The pricing scheme wasn't what I was used to, either: all paperbacks (children's and adult) were $2, hardcovers $3. Fortunately, "thin paperbacks" were only a dollar, which is still twice what one pays at the Friends sales. Also fortunately, the cashier agreed with me on the thinness of my paperbacks. One of my hardcovers  (Folk Toys Around the World and How to Make Them by Joan Joseph, 1972) was thin enough to qualify for a discount, too.

One thing I noticed about my new (old) books is the presence and quality of the interior art: black and white line drawings, mostly, by Erik Blegvad (who died earlier this year), N.M. Bodecker, Alan Cober, Margery Gill. Gill's illustrations are among my favorites, and I'm particularly pleased to have picked up a copy of Dawn of Fear by Susan Cooper because of them (here Gill was informed by her own childhood memories of WWII). But I'm reading A Candle in Her Room by Ruth M. Arthur (also illustrated by Gill) first.

National Book Festival

Who's going to the National Book Festival this weekend? We've gone almost every year since we moved back to the Washington, DC area in 2002. This year is extra-special, though: my friend Madelyn Rosenberg's middle grade novel Canary in the Coal Mine (Holiday House, 2013) was chosen to represent the state of West Virginia as one the Library of Congress's 52 Great Reads. I think that could be Bitty (the canary in question) at the upper right of Suzy Lee's gorgeous festival poster, actually! Madelyn (not Bitty) will be at the Pavilion of the States on Saturday and would love it if you stopped by to say hello. Oh, there will be lots of other authors (and illustrators) at the Festival, too. We're hoping to hear Kevin Henkes on Saturday, or else Grace Lin on Sunday. Maybe both!

Library party at our house next month--save the date!

The March issue of Family Fun hasn't been in our house for 24 hours and we've already picked a date and time (a Wednesday afternoon in March) for our library-themed party, complete with book-pocket invitations and in-house library cards for all the guests.  The party was designed to celebrate Read Across America Day on March 2, but I hope to be celebrating the Arlington Public Library's brand-new catalog and account system myself.  The library is transitioning to the new system this week, which means the catalog is offline and my holds (all those shiny new books waiting to be reviewed!) are temporarily...on hold.  While the staff is working hard, I need a suitably old-school distraction.  Ssh, it's party time!

The Nine-Ton Cat and giveaway winner

Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's giveaway for How the Sphinx Got to the Museum by Jessie Hartland (Blue Apple Books, 2010).  In that post, I asked commenters for their best behind-the-scenes-at-the-museum questions (such as this one from Janelle's daughter, who asks, "Why can't I touch that?").

Some of those questions--about curatorial work, exhibition design, conservation and more--are answered in The Nine Ton Cat:  Behind the Scenes at an Art Museum by Peggy Thomson with Barbara Moore; edited by Carol Leon (Houghton Mifflin, in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1997).  Now out-of-print (and maybe slightly out-of-date as well), The Nine-Ton Cat is a book for older readers (9-12 and up), who might be inspired to consider a museum-related career.  It's loosely organized around a day at the National Gallery, beginning at 6am with a guard patrolling the halls and ending at 6m with a planning meeting for this very book.

In between, The Nine-Ton Cat takes you into the "private spaces" of the museum:  the design studio, conservation lab, library, and greenhouse (yes, the National Gallery has its own greenhouses on site) for a close look at the work that goes on there.  Detailed text, with lots of quotes from unnamed Gallery staff, and photographs contribute to the behind-the scenes appeal.

I would love to see an updated edition of The Nine-Ton Cat, perhaps in a larger, more clearly organized format (it's easy to lose your place, in much the same way that it's easy to get lost at the Gallery).  In the meantime, congratulations to Christine Mingus, winner of How the Sphinx Got to the Museum!  I think her elementary school students will love it.

[One of my favorite anecdotes from The Nine-Ton Cat:  The head of the horticultural staff wishes that Rubens Peale (in a portrait painted by his brother Rembrandt, 1801) would water his geranium! It does look a little wilted, doesn't it?]

Arcimboldo and The Tale of Despereaux

I skipped lunch the other day to watch the exhibition film for Arcimboldo, 1526-1593: Nature and Fantasy, currently on view at the National Gallery, which references the character of Boldo in the animated feature The Tale of Despereaux.  That's Boldo in the image above, a character composed entirely of fruits and vegetables, pots and pans--distinctly resembling the composite heads painted by his namesake, the Renaissance artist Arcimboldo.

Unfortunately, I couldn't remember a character named Boldo in Kate DiCamillo's Newbery Award-winning novel The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread (illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering with no apparent debt to Arcimboldo; Scholastic, 2003) and was forced to reread it.  In vain, as it turns out: Boldo (a sort of soup genie) was created for the movie version of the book (which I also watched this weekend). The animation, by London-based Framestore, employs a palette and lighting drawn from the Dutch Masters; and the movie also spotlights two portraits, one of the deceased Queen and another of Princess Pea.  Altogether I prefer the movie.  You can watch a video podcast (of the exhibition film, that is! It's narrated by Isabella Rossellini) here, or better yet, at the National Gallery til January 9, 2011.

[Here's Arcimboldo's Vertumnus (c. 1591, on loan from Skokloster Castle in Sweden) for comparison to Boldo.  Note especially the apple cheeks!]

Urban Animals

No,  not pigeons, rats, or raccoons.  Urban Animals by Isabel Hill (Star Bright Books, 2009) is about animals in architecture, and it works as an introduction to architectural terms (like keystone, column, and bracket), as well as an I Spy book that might inspire you and your kids to look for the animals in your own built environment (or in a nearby city; author and photographer Isabel Hill found all of these animals in New York).

I like the design details of Urban Animals itself:  Colorful cartoon animals correspond to the mostly monochrome architectural ones, and coordinating accents (photo corners on the detail shots, the hand-printed font used for architectural terms) brighten things up.  The rhyming text (it's all in couplets) is relatively utilitarian.  Here's a typical double-page spread:

There's also an Architectural Glossary at the back of the book, helpfully keyed to a line drawing of a city block; and a list of "Animal Habitats" that gives the NYC street address (as well as the architects and construction dates) of the buildings featured in the book.

It's interesting to think about why a particular animal might have been incorporated into a building's design:  the cow on the Sheffield Farms Milk Plant makes sense, and so does my favorite, the squirrel on the Kings County Savings Bank, but what about the alligator on Liberty Tower?

[Local folks, check out the National Building Museum's Calendar of Events for animal sightings in Washington, DC.  I'll let you know if we spot any more!]

Registered!

I'll be attending the ALSC Preconference "Drawn to Delight:  How Picture Books Work (and Play) Today" this June at the Corcoran.  I'm not a children's librarian, but I do work with children and art in museums using the Visual Thinking Strategies that inform Megan Lambert's Whole Book Approach to picture books.  If you're wondering what VTS and WBA are all about, I highly recommend (another acronym) SLJ's two-part series on "Art in Theory and Practice" by Wendy Lukehart (1/1 and 2/1/2010).  For more information about the preconference, see below:
 
"Drawn to Delight: How Picture Books Work (and Play) Today"
Friday, June 25 from 8:00 a.m. - 6:30 p.m., Washington, D.C.

Learn to better utilize picture books in your library's programming by seeing these books through the eyes of the people who create them!  Art directors, museum educators, and award-winning illustrators will take you through the creative and collaborative journey of picture book development during this inspirational Preconference at the Corcoran Galley of Art in Washington, D.C.  Studio demonstrations, hands-on opportunities and original art door prizes are just a few of the elements that await participants.
 
Why the ALSC Preconference?

• Provides you with a one of a kind look into the world of picture books--you won't find a more in-depth, day-long workshop on the subject anywhere else!
• Learn from more than 15 top authors and illustrators including three Caldecott medal winners, two Caldecott honor winners and one Belpré medal winner.
• Transfer the knowledge gained back to your library to provide better experiences for young patrons and families reading picture books.
• Hands-on opportunities during artist-lead small group studio sessions taking place throughout the gallery.
• Unbeatable ALSC member rate of $195 for the entire day; this includes: preconference registration, continental breakfast, lunch, evening reception, admission to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and a chance to win original art work by the illustrators.
• If you're not attending the ALA Annual Conference that's not a problem!  You do NOT need to register for conference to attend the preconference.

Register here! 
Tickets: Advance: ALA Member $249; ALSC Member $195; Retired Member $180; Student Member $180; Non-Member $280.  Onsite cost is $325 for all.
Event Code: ALS1

[Me again.]  I hope to see you there!  Along with Jerry Pinkney, Brian Selznick, David Small, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, Kadir Nelson, Yuyi Morales, and Timothy Basil Ering.  But if you can't make it, not to worry:  I'll write about it here, too.

The Secret of Kells

I may not have seen any of the movies nominated for Best Picture (despite there being ten of them this year), but I have seen one of the five nominees for Best Animated Feature:  The Secret of Kells.  Apparently, I'm one of the few people in the US (outside of the Academy) who has; it doesn't open here until March 6.  But the National Gallery of Art showed it last fall as part of their Film Program for Children and Teens, and the kids and I (not surprisingly) loved it.  According to Variety, "[The Secret of Kells] may be the perfect film for children whose parents are art historians specializing in pre-Renaissance periods."  Close enough!  

Before the screening, the museum educator in charge of the film program asked the kids in the audience to pay attention to the use of color in the movie.  I wish I could remember her exact words (she may have mentioned specific colors and emotions, or not), but her question was short and simple and helped focus the kids' attention, especially when things got a little slow or, conversely, a little scary.  There's an art, I'm learning, to asking just the right question.  What's yours?

Operation Yes

Congratulations to Sara Lewis Holmes, whose middle grade novel Operation Yes (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine) is one of Booklist's Top Ten Arts Books for Youth.  For local folk, Sara will be talking about and signing copies of Operation Yes at Hooray For Books! in Old Town Alexandria from 1-3 tomorrow (that's Sunday, November 8).

And from Booklist's list (November 1, 2009):  Miss Loupe, a new teacher at a school on a North Carolina military base, wins over her sixth-grade class with improv theater techniques in this heartfelt story about the power of theatrical collaboration and creativity to inspire and heal.

So should you read this book?  Yes!

Half Magic at the library sale

I had to return some books before the library opened on Sunday morning and (I swear I didn't plan this) got there just in time for the big Friends of the Library book sale.  I managed to limit myself to a handful of middle grade paperbacks and a hardcover copy of Anno's Journey by Mitsumasa Anno, but I really shouldn't have:  apparently everything is half price on the last day of the book sale.  Do you think that was good news (I only spent half as much as I thought I would) or bad (I could have bought twice as much as I did)?  Me, too.

I did pick up a copy of Edward Eager's Half Magic to read with the kids, although sadly not the glorious 50th anniversary edition (Harcourt, 2004) shown here.  I'm beginning to think I picked up the magic charm in the book (it grants you half of whatever you wish for) somewhere along the way, too.

Hobbit houses

Leo's dad is reading him The Hobbit; both of them are enjoying it immensely.  There is something special about reading a favorite childbood book with your own child.  I'm not a Tolkien fan myself (I'll be reading the Narnia books to the kids, thank you), but I'll make an exception for The Hobbit:  I would love to live in a hobbit house.  This one, built to house someone's collection of Tolkien manuscripts and artifacts, is my favorite.  Check out the interior shots of the round door, the "butterfly" window, the fireplace, and the library.

While googling "hobbit house" I turned up a reference to a hobbit house practically in our own background.  The kids and I went looking for it at the Winkler Botanical Preserve in Alexandria, VA this morning.  I had never even heard of the place, but I'm so glad we stumbled on it.  There was a network of wooded trails; a stream, waterfalls, and a lake; a Craftsman-style building called the Catherine Lodge; and a mysterious series of book-boxes at strategic points along the trail, each inscribed with a single letter.  Our real-life adventure seems to have criss-crossed with someone else's!  What could be going on at the Winkler Botanical Preserve?

Oh, we also found an abandoned hobbit house, just Milly's size (she went in).  It was nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Menotti's The Unicorn and two other creatures

The kids and I saw the Bowen McCauley Dance performance of Gian Carlo Menotti's "The Unicorn, The Gorgon and the Manticore" this afternoon. Some of the dancers, notably the Mystery Man and the Unicorn, visited Milly's preschool a few weeks ago, and she insisted that we buy tickets to the performance. It was fantastic! I wasn't familiar with the libretto (the only Menotti I know is "Amahl and the Night Visitors"), but it's a fable about art and envy that, on at least some levels, children can understand. And they loved the animals.

Afterwards, Lucy Bowen McCauley, the artistic director, invited the children in the audience to come onstage, and she and the dancers taught them the characteristic movements of each animal and how they corresponded to the music. Nothing against the Gorgon and the Manticore, but the Unicorn was Milly's favorite. Highly recommended for young dancers.

[Aside: Milly is interested in unicorns, and I've been looking for books about them to share with her, with limited success. Can you recommend any unicorn books for younger readers and listeners? Team Unicorn people, I'm looking at you.]

The Book Thing of Baltimore

Mr. X and I were in Baltimore this weekend (the Walters, romance) and checked out The Book Thing, where all the books are free.  Really!  There's no suggested donation, no limit on the number of books you can take (well, not a binding limit; it's 150,000), nothing but books.  Most of them are categorized and shelved--all but the children's books, which are piled haphazardly in a dozen or so bins.  Twice while we were there someone wheeled over a shopping cart full of children's books and flung more into the bins.  The selection in that department wasn't great, but I managed to come home with about 20 books, including a copy of what is probably my favorite Frances book (and that's saying a lot, because I love them all):  A Bargain for Frances by Russell and Lillian Hoban.  For (ahem) Milly.  Other highlights included a lovely hardcover edition of The Bronze Bow for Leo and a handful of L.M. Montgomery paperbacks for me.  I was quite pleased.  Free books!

Greetings from Martha at the National Book Festival

You would be forgiven if you wandered into the National Book Festival and wondered, "Where are the books?" Leo asked me that the first time we went, and I think it's a valid question. There are authors, tents, people (more than 120,000 this year), and lines (sometimes very long lines, like the line through security to get into the children's tent while Laura and Jenna Bush were reading), but not very many actual books. I think there may have been some for sale near the Capitol (where the book signings happen), but other than that: no.

The kids had a great time at the Let's Read America Pavilion, though. They got their picture taken with Martha of Martha Speaks! (the PBS KIDS program) and listened to author and illustrator Susan Meddaugh talk about the real Martha, and about how she got the idea for the Martha books (from her son, who was in second grade at the time). Meddaugh also read (an actual book!) Perfectly Martha. We love the Martha books (Martha Blah Blah is my favorite), so Meddaugh's session was a highlight of the festival. As was the performance from the cast of the all-new Electric Company. Hey you guuuys!

I admit: I think it's a little problematic that PBS KIDS promotes its television programs so heavily at an event that's all about reading. Granted, PBS KIDS Raising Readers does a lot to help children improve the skills they need to learn to read. And other PBS KIDS programs are based on children's books, too. Maybe it's just me. My kids (who don't even watch TV) didn't seem to mind: they were more than happy to meet Clifford the Big Red Dog (online at Scholastic and PBS KIDS). The line for him was pretty long, too!

Tomorrow

We'll be at the National Book Festival tomorrow.  Rain or shine!  I hope it shines, though.

G is for Goat

I got an email from Milly's preschool teacher this morning alerting me to the plight of neighborhood goats Carne (a Nigerian Dwarf) and Leche (a French Alpine).  It seems that the county considers them livestock and their owners to be in violation of local zoning ordinances; find out more at www.SaveOurGoats.com.  To be fair, we do live in Arlington, VA; just outside of Washington, DC; but my primary concern is that if the county allows it, the kids will want a pet goat, too.  Or two.

We're going to visit the goats on Saturday morning (the owners are hosting a goat-petting party).  In the meantime, we're reading Patricia Polacco's alphabet book G is for Goat (Philomel, 2003).  It has bouncy rhymes and bright illustrations, and it passes the Q test ("P is for push, when goats just won't go.  Q is for quit, when goats just say no").  Polacco's goats (they're in a lot of her books, come to think of it) are Nubians; read more about them in Oh, Look! (Philomel, 2004), the sequel to G is for Goat.  Are there any other good goat books?

Nonfiction Monday: Frogs!

Milly's preschool class is learning all about the rain forest.  A few weeks ago they went on a field trip to the National Geographic Museum at Explorers Hall in Washington, DC to see Frogs! A Chorus of Colors.  The field trip itself was an expedition to rival any of National Geographic's, but the exhibit was worth it.  There were live frogs from around the world (our favorites were the tiny jewel-like poison dart frogs) in terrarium habitats right at the kids' eye level.  We also saw this exhibit of frog photography by Mark W. Moffett (the images were blown up so that in many cases the frogs were bigger than the kids, which was fun).  If you're not local, you can check out Moffett's excellent Face to Face with Frogs  (National Geographic Children's Books, 2008), part of NGS's Face to Face series of kids' nonfiction.  If you are local, the frogs are here til May 11.  After reading the book, Leo wants to see them, too.  Ribbit!

[We also like Red-Eyed Tree Frog by Joy Cowley; photographs by Nic Bishop (Scholastic, 1999).  This one tells a day-in-the-life of a tree frog story with short, simple text (one or two sentences per page) and amazing close-up photos. Perfect for preschoolers.]

Saint George and the Dragon [updated!]

We attended "An Elizabethan Festival" given by the Washington Revels ("Celebrating tradition through music, dance and drama") this morning.  If you like this sort of thing, you'll love the Revels.  Leo and Milly were enraptured.  Their favorite part was the mummers' play of Saint George and the Dragon; so we read this classic edition, retold by Margaret Hodges and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (Little, Brown; 1984), when we got home.  Hodges's text, adapted from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, is lovely but a little wordy (can you blame her?).  Hyman's illustrations, however, are magnificent.  This book won the Caldecott in 1985.

I'm still looking for a picture book about Saint George and the Dragon that captures the comic feel of the mummers' play, though.  Any suggestions?

[Updated to add:  Many thanks to Debbie of the Washington Revels, who commented with a link (scroll down) to Saint George and the Dragon:  A Mummer's Play by Revels founder John Langstaff with woodcuts by David Gentleman (Atheneum, 1973; OOP but available at the Revels Store).  It includes the script with music, instructions for performing the sword dance (look out, Milly!), stage directions and costume suggestions.  In short, exactly what I was looking for.  Thanks again!]

Seasons of Light

Leo's second-grade class saw a performance of Seasons of Light at the Smithsonian's Discovery Theater this morning (I saw it with them).  The program is about the history and customs of winter holidays (mostly religious holidays) celebrated around the world, and emphasizes how all of the holidays have to do with light: light from the sun, the stars, candles and oil lamps.  The learning guide for Seasons of Light contains information on the winter solstice and on all of the holidays presented in the program.

At home, we read The Shortest Day:  Celebrating the Winter Solstice by Wendy Pfeffer (illustrated by Jesse Reisch; Dutton, 2003).  This book explains, in language even Milly can understand, how and why the days grow shorter as winter approaches, what the winter solstice is, and how that day (and night) has been marked and celebrated by different cultures (Egyptian, Chinese, Incan, and European) throughout history.  The emphasis here is on the scientific, not the religious.  The activity suggestions for the shortest day sometimes span the days and weeks surrounding it, such as making a winter sunrise/sunset chart (we did this last year, looking in the newspaper for the times) and measuring shadows.  My favorite suggestion:  have a winter solstice party!  Or two:  one for you, with yellow-frosted sun cupcakes and candles, and one for the birds.

Look for these collections of stories to read around the time of winter solstice (I'm still looking for them myself, actually!):

• The Return of the Light:  Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice by Carolyn McVickar Edwards (Second edition; Marlow and Co., 2005).  For grownups.
• Fireside Stories:  Tales for a Winter's Eve by Caitlin Matthews; illustrated by Helen Cann (Barefoot Books, 2007).  We would love a copy of this book; unfortunately, our library doesn't hold it yet.  Barefoot's themed collections are very nice, and this one looks perfect for cozy read-alouds.