Toni Morrison: What Color Would You Paint Your Walls?

Photo by John Morgan

That Yael Naim video reminded me of a piece of a Toni Morrison interview that I heard over ten years ago. I came across it on some audiobook series that I can't remember for the life of me, so if this rings a bell and you know where it came from, I'd love to hear from you.

I remembered putting this clip on a mix tape for my friend Amy and liking it so much that I made a copy for myself (ah, remember mix tapes?). So this morning I dug through all my cassettes and actually found it! I figure it must have been around either the 1988 or 1992 election because later in the Q&A, they talk about Beloved, which was published in 1987. Here's the question from an audience member and Toni Morrison's answer, transcribed to the best of my ability:

Question: Times are becoming more and more depressing, um, especially with this election coming up. Do you have…what do you do to, like, maintain hope? (laughter from crowd)

Toni Morrison: Well, I’ll tell you something. You’re right. It’s very dangerous, it’s extremely depressing, and it’s really not funny. On the other hand, you really have to…it’s like you know a few years ago when there was such a build up of nuclear weapons and it was just getting like everybody was armed to the teeth and it was, like, awful…one realized that they had, somebody had imagined that. And it lived. So the problem then seemed to be to unimagine it. Unimagine it. What would it be like if it didn’t exist? What would it be like? In all of its details. In every way. What would it be like if you had it like you wanted it? What would it be?

Can you really imagine living in a world without nuclear weapons? It’s very difficult to do. What would you do differently? Where would you live? How would your life change? Or without all sorts of things. Well, that has got to be imagined in order to prevent the paralysis. Because if we’re paralyzed because it’s unworkable, unthinkable, non-political, we won’t move. That’s one thing.

The second thing is, there are things to do. There are not…if we think in huge numbers about how to save the continent, we’re already whipped. But if you think in terms of one…you know, small things. Six people. One person. One room. One backyard. Not the beach. The highway. You know, “What are you doin?”

And then it works. And you know that you have imagined a world in which you can live. It may be small, as small as your room, but you have imagined it. And then you are in control. That’s not hope, that’s real work. And that’s what’s important.

It doesn’t matter about those other little people. They’ll all sort of come and go, all these little junky people. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that people realize how valuable life is and simply exercise the one thing that human beings have, which is the ability to imagine what it would be like if you had it the way it was supposed to be.

Then what would you do? What color would you paint your walls? And then paint ‘em.

Grab Bag Friday: Linda Urban's Bada-Bings

This week, I came across a recipe for some deeelicious chocolate cookies with a zing. In Linda Urban's smart and funny middle-grade novel, A Crooked Kind of Perfect, 10 year old Zoe's dad has a penchant for mail-order Living Room University courses. One of his courses is in cookie making.

So it may come as no surprise that on Ms. Urban's website, you can find a recipe for Bada-Bings...fudgy, chocolate cookies with dried cherries (or cranberries) to give just the perfect balance of sweet with a tang. Yum!

Kevin and I have been loving these cookies. And they're so rich, that I'm actually perfectly satisfied after one or two. Which is unheard of. Gingersnaps, for instance...I could easily eat the whole pan in one sitting. :)

(We halved the recipe and it still made two cookie sheets full.)

I suggest picking up A Crooked Kind of Perfect, whipping up a batch of Bada-Bings, and having yourself a *lovely* weekend!

As for the book, here's the jacket-flap sum-up:

Ten-year-old Zoe Elias has perfect piano dreams. She can practically feel the keys under her flying fingers; she can hear the audience's applause. All she needs is a baby grand so she can start her lessons, and then she'll be well on her way to Carnegie Hall.

But when Dad ventures to the music store and ends up with a wheezy organ instead of a piano, Zoe's dreams hit a sour note. Learning the organ versions of old TV theme songs just isn't the same as mastering Beethoven on the piano. And the organ isn't the only part of Zoe's life that's off-kilter, what with Mom constantly at work, Dad afraid to leave the house, and that odd boy, Wheeler Diggs, following her home from school every day.

Yet when Zoe enters the annual Perform-O-Rama organ competition, she finds that life is full of surprises—and that perfection may be even better when it's just a little off center.

Cinco de Mayo: Octavio Paz on Crickets and Stars

In celebration of Cinco de Mayo, here are some characteristically thoughtful, lovely words and a poem from Mexican poet Octavio Paz. I thought they resonated nicely with Rachel Carson's "sense of wonder" that I like to talk so much about.

This was part of Octavio Paz's Nobel Prize banquet speech in 1990. You can read the whole speech, and his entire Nobel lecture (in Spanish or English) on the Nobel Prize website.

"In the countryside one night, years ago, as I contemplated the stars in the cloudless sky, I heard the metallic sound of the elytra of a cricket. There was a strange correspondence between the reverberation of the firmament at night and the music of the tiny insect. I wrote these lines:

The sky's big.
Up there, worlds scatter.
Persistent,
unfazed by so much night,
a cricket: brace and bit.

Stars, hills, clouds, trees, birds, crickets, men: each has its world, each is a world, and yet all of these worlds correspond. We can only defend life if we experience a revival of this feeling of solidarity with nature. It is not impossible: fraternity is a word that belongs to the traditions of Liberalism and Socialism, of science and religion."

Peter Sis: The Wall (Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain)

I first came across Peter Sis and his intricate, detailed drawings when I was in college. I just happened (thankfully) across Starry Messenger one day while browsing the children's section, and I was instantly hooked. His work is all at once breathtaking and thought-provoking and complicated and unaffected. Each time I read a Peter Sis book, I immediately want to go back to the beginning and read it all over again so I can appreciate all the details I missed the first time around.

So it's no surprise that I was swept away by his newest book, The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. I can't believe almost a year has gone by since this book came out and I just got it yesterday!

The Wall is the story of Peter Sis' childhood and young adulthood in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. Throughout the book, we see the life he lived through his eyes: the book is spattered with entries from his childhood journals, actual family photos, and even his own childhood drawings of tanks and planes and patriotism. But it is art and music that dominate his world, though both can be very dangerous. He paints in secret in his room and joins a rock band (but fails to grow his hair long--the ultimate act of defiance).

I've read some reviews that criticize the book for being too one-sided, too western eurocentric, too America-saves-the-day. Sis himself mentions in an interview that some colleagues in Prauge are disgusted by the book (I'd be interested to read some of *those* reviews). But this is his life as he remembers it from a child's point of view. Of course things are always more complicated than they appear on the surface. To me, this book is more a testament to art and music and the desire to create and be free.

And it is an interesting discussion. I lived in Budapest for six months in 1997, and many of the Hungarian students my age were disgusted with the new capitalism and were nostalgic for the days of Communism, when there were no red light districts, no homeless, no Burger King. They refused to learn English in school, preferring Russian. Their parents, however, were shocked. I saw one parent telling her son how he couldn't begin to understand the constant fear and anxiety she had lived under. That went over as well as the "I walked 10 miles in a blizzard to school every day" kind of speech you'd get from your grandfather.

In his afterword, Peter Sis (who came to the US in the 80s on a short term work visa and stayed) explains it this way:

Now when my American family goes to visit my Czech family in the colorful city of Prague, it is hard to convince them it was ever a dark place full of fear, suspicion, and lies. I find it difficult to explain my childhood; it's hard to put it into words, and since I have always drawn everything, I have tried to draw my life--before America--for them. Any resemblance to the story in this book is intentional.

The Wall is an absolutely fascinating book, and though it is picture book size, I would actually recommend it for adults, especially jr. high and high school students. The graphic-novel, personal narrative style is an interesting way to engage the subject of the Cold War and should incite lots of discussion.

On Peter Sis' website, there is a Teacher's Guide (.pdf) for anyone hoping to use the book in class.

You can also find an interesting audio interview with Peter Sis on the site (click Audio Reading).

Here is the New York Times review with a small piece of one of my favorite images from the book--of Czechoslovakians painting and repainting a wall.

Here is the Fuse #8 review (I almost always turn to Fuse #8 *before* the New York Times :)

Here is an interesting YouTube mashup of images from the book and actual video footage from communist Czechoslovakia.

Poem of the Day: Learning to Speak by Liz Rosenberg

As part of the Poetry Month celebrations over at Academy of American Poets, you can sign up to get a poem a day (selected from new books published this spring). I have to say, I'm not a big fan of the pill-box image for the Poem-A-Day page...I don't like to encourage the poetry-as-medicine (it's *good* for you!) metaphor, but that's a discussion for another day. :)

Pill-box aside, I enjoyed yesterday's poem by Liz Rosenberg. Also, check out 30 Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month.

Learning to Speak
by Liz Rosenberg

She was the quietest thing I'd ever seen.
It was so restful, being in her company
For hours, neither of us uttering a word.
I'd read the paper, look up, and she would smile,
Her lips half-pursed, just tucked up at the ends
As if holding a blithe secret.
When I fed her, she'd silently nod and smile,
Like immigrants you see
In train stations or in the movies,
She'd take the bowl from my hands
And nod again and smile again
And neither of us would say a word
From sunup to sunset.
When son and husband came home,
Both talking at once, both talking
With their mouths full,
My daughter and I could only look at them
With our dark quiet eyes.
Siddown, she says now.
I sit down
Without argument.

Today Is Operation Teen Book Drop

Today is Support Teen Literature Day and Operation Teen Book Drop.

Are you dropping a book?

I've got Lois Lowry's tear-jerker, A Summer to Die (*man*, what a great book!) all bookplated up and ready to go.

Now I just have to decide if I'm going to drop it on a table at our local movie theater/cafe, ice cream shop, library, skate park, or the DVD rental store. Hmmm, what do you think?

(I'm leaning toward the ice cream shop because, hey, as long as I'm there...)

National Library Week & Maine Student Book Awards

Did you know that it's National Library Week? Yup, April 13-19 has been set aside as a time to appreciate all that your local library has to offer. And that's a wonderful thing.

How to celebrate Library Week? Here are some ideas:

• Look for special events at your library (ours is having *cake* on Friday!)
• Thank your librarians for all that they do...bring cookies, flowers, send a note, or just walk in with a smile
• Donate books, music, or movies to your library (cash works, too!)
• Flop down in the Children's Corner and read a book you haven't read in years
• Check out a dizzying array of mystery novels
  
• Pick one thing you've always wanted to know (Are blue butterflies really going extinct? How do I get a coffee stain out of a teacup? Where exactly is Kazakhstan on a map?) and go find out...Guess what? Your reference librarian can help!
  
• Participate in Operation Teen Book Drop on the 17th

AND...one very exciting library-related announcement. Each year, the 4th-8th graders of Maine vote for their favorite book and this year's winner is our very own Cynthia Lord for her Newbery Honor Book, Rules! This is the first time that a Maine author has won the Maine Student Book Award! How should you celebrate this one? By reading the book of course! Here's my review of Rules. And here's the full Maine Student Book Awards list.

Here's a sweet message from Julie Andrews, the honorary chair of National Library Week:

Readergirlz: Operation TBD

April 17th is Support Teen Literature Day, and the folks over at readergirlz have found a pretty spectacular way to celebrate. Together with the Young Adult Library Services Association, readergirlz has organized a massive book drop to hospitals all over the country, and there's something simple you can do to help.

Justina Chen Headly, author and co-founder of readergirlz, explains the idea like this:

“While touring my local children’s hospital to research my novel, Girl Overboard, I couldn’t help noticing that teen patients didn’t seem to have the comfort objects that the little ones did. As an author, I knew that YA books—books with exceptional characters and fabulous stories—could provide teen patients with some of the escape and inspiration they needed.”

So this April 17th, as part of readergirlz' Operation Teen Book Drop, 20 publishers will donate over 10,000 Young Adult books to pediatric hospitals.

Get Involved!
readergirlz is inviting everyone to participate in the book drop! Here's what you can do:

1. Pick a Young Adult book you'd like to donate.
2. Download the Operation TBD bookplate and paste it inside the book, telling the recipient to read and enjoy.
3. On April 17th, drop the book in any public place (coffee shop, school, park...)
4. Join the after-party! Here's the official invite:

We invite all readergirlz and authors to join our online two-hour book party hosted at the readergirlz MySpace group forum, on April 17th (Support Teen Literature Day), from 6-8pm Pacific/9-11pm Eastern. The chat will be in a thread titled "TBD Post Op Party." The readergirlz divas will be giving away books and prizes, and chatting with teens and authors from around the world. We've invited so many authors and girlz you just never know who you might end up chatting with!

For more information about readergirlz, check out their manifesta.

Christopher Paul Curtis at Powells

I came across a treasure trove of author interviews over at Powells.com, including a great interview from 2000 with Christopher Paul Curtis, author of the recent Newbery Honor Book, Elijah of Buxton. In the interview, Mr. Curtis talks about how he began writing, factory work, his early work, his favorite authors, and his fear of becoming a country music fan.

Just a *small* sampling of other Powell's interviews I'm looking forward to perusing:

• Marilynne Robinson
• Barbara Kingsolver
• Richard Ford
• Nick Hornby
• Bill Bryson
• Sherman Alexie

August Kleinzahler: Land's End

This morning, early spring sunshine filled up our whole kitchen. Though we are in snow-covered Maine, and nowhere near heat or eucalyptus trees, it reminded me of the opening poem from August Kleinzahler's collection, Red Sauce, Whiskey, and Snow:


Land's End
by August Kleinzahler

This air,
you say, feels as if it hasn't touched land
for a thousand miles,

as surf sound washes through scrub
and eucalyptus,
whether ocean or wind in the trees

or both: the park's big windmill
turning overhead
while joggers circle the ball field

only a few yards off
this path secreted in growth and mist,
the feel of a long narrow theater set

about it here on the park's western edge
just in from the highway
then the moody swells of the Pacific.

The way the chill goes out of us
and the sweat comes up
as we drive back into the heat

and how I need to take you
to all the special places, or show
you where the fog rolls down

and breaks apart in these hills or where
that gorgeous little piano bridge
comes halfway through the song,

because when what has become dormant,
meager or hardened
passes through the electric

of you, the fugitive scattered pieces
are called back to their nature--
light pouring through muslin

in a strange, bare room.

Jane Yolen: Not One Damsel in Distress

I was recently browsing our library to see which Jane Yolen books I haven't read yet (and belive me, there are plenty...just glance at this list). Whether it is a picture book, young adult, or adult novel, I can always count on Jane Yolen for a good yarn, a tale with some adventure and a nice solid plot. Her retellings of traditional stories (her picture book about Tam Lin, or adult retelling of Briar Rose, for instance) are especially interesting to me. So I was thoroughly pleased to come across Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls.

The folktales Jane Yolen chooses to retell in Not One Damsel feature*lots* of heroes. Knights, pirates, wizards, dragon-slayers, Native American warriors. And each and every one of these heroes are girls. Bright, wise, brave, adventurous girls who overcome obstacles with their wit, brawn, magic, and love.

In the introduction, "Open Letter to My Daughters and Granddaughters," Yolen writes:

This book is for you because the stories were there not only in folk traditions and in folklore waiting to be discovered, but in history, as well. For, once upon a real time, there were actual young women who, sometimes in full disguise--and sometimes no disguise at all--went off to do battle....

And in the last words of the book, she writes:

But this book is for you because it is important to know that anyone can be a hero if they have to be. Even girls.
Especially girls.
Especially you.

This is a great book to have on hand for girls (and boys) of all ages. A bit of fair warning, though. This is no book for the faint-hearted. There are real battles with real blood and guts and truly scary moments. Like the folktales people used to tell before we polished and prettied them up (does anyone remember the ending to the real Little Mermaid any more?) This book isn't always pretty. But it's brave and strong and exciting, which is sometimes better.

Abigail Thomas: Safekeeping, Some True Stories from a Life

My sister recently recommended Abigail Thomas' Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life as good airplane reading. When I first glanced through it, I admit, I groaned. The chapters are extremely short, the story jumps around with no chronological order, the viewpoint changes from third person to first person to second person with no warning. I thought, oh great, another too-cool-for-school, experimental memoir that's trying to be deep. Thanks, Anna.

Then I started reading.

Safekeeping is actually a very lovely, well-crafted book about marriage, love, life, and mostly, memory. It is the story of a middle-aged woman who is trying to piece together her memories, trying to sort through and reconcile her life after the loss of a close friend who was "once upon a time" her husband.

The short, out-of-order chapters work because that is how memories come to us. In short, uncontrollable bursts. A displaced memory of a smashed dish, a loose fragment of a conversation, the cramped feeling of an old apartment.

The switch in viewpoint works surprisingly well. Instead of coming off as unbearably post-modern or uber-artistic, it serves as a simple, concrete tool. A woman trying to get a 360 degree view of her life. We see her as a young woman as *she* remembers herself. Then we see her as she imagines an objective observer might see her. Then her sister comes in and says, no that's not how it went at all...don't you remember?

And that's the thing. We don't remember. Not exactly. Abigail Thomas writes on her website:

I’ve written nothing but non-fiction for years now in spite of my poor memory. I can remember moments, and scenes, but not what happened when or what came after...But if I could remember everything in its proper sequence, there’s a lot of life that’s interesting to live but not so interesting to write about, let alone read. And frankly, I’m bored by chronology. I don’t even believe in chronology. Time is too weird. It contracts, then it shoots forward (or back), it dawdles, stops still, and then suddenly we’re twenty years down the road. Whole decades evaporate. For me connecting the dots is not as absorbing as the dots themselves. I’m more interested in why certain memories stand out. Why these and not others?

It's a great question, and one that I've been thinking about ever since I read Safekeeping. Writer Anne Lamott said this about the book, and I don't think I could sum it up better:

[Safekeeping is] not so much memoir as a stained-glass window of scenes garnered from a life. This is an unforgettable portrait of a grown-up woman who has learned to rejoice in being herself. Reading it, we feel the crazy beauty of life.

Lois Lowry: Gossamer

This weekend I had a lot of mundane chores to take care of, so for a treat, I downloaded the audiobook of Lois Lowry's new(ish) book, Gossamer. For almost a year now, every time I've gone to the library, I've looked for Gossamer. Every single time, it's been checked out. This is a good thing.

Fuse #8 wrote about Gossamer when it first came out, and she had this to say about Ms. Lowry (to which I'd like to add an emphatic my feelings exactly):

Lois Lowry is my comfort blanket. When you pick up a Lois Lowry book (and it really doesn't matter if it was Anastasia Krupnik or the book I will discuss with you now) you are blessed with the knowledge that this book will fufill the following requirements: It will be good. It will be interesting. It will be wholly original...Her books are perfectly thought out little worlds.

I don't dare say too much about Gossamer for fear of spoiling the quiet feeling of awe and wonder as it unfolds. Besides, there are already a lot of good, detailed reviews out there. But this is a lovely, delicate story about our most ethereal possessions: our dreams. How our lives not only inform what we dream, but what we dream can shape our lives.

The story itself follows the "dream-keepers" as they bestow dreams on a boy, his foster parent, and his mother. It's a beautiful mix of fantasy and realism, of soft, gossamer touches and rough edges.

The publisher pegs this book for ages 9-12, but I also think that younger children (6-8) would really enjoy and connect with it as a read-aloud (with a reassuring parent to help through the boy's troubled past). And if you've ever been a fan of Lois Lowry's work, you'll enjoy it no matter what your age. :)

Here's a short interview with Lois Lowry about the book at Kidsreads.com.

And here's a terrific interview at Writer Unboxed about writing, photography, and the importance of human connections. Plus, answers to lots of questions from "an enthusiastic 6th grade reading class."

Women of the Harlem Renaissance

Browsing at Poets.org, I came across an interesting article by Anthony Walton titled Double Bind: Three Women of the Harlem Renaissance. When I think of poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, I almost always think of Langston Hughes or Countee Cullen. But this article brings our attention to three women poets of the Harlem Renaissance: Jessie Redmon Fauset, Gwendolyn Bennett, and Georgia Douglas Johnson.

In the decades following World War I, the double bind that Walton writes about (the fact that these poets were both black and female) made it almost impossible for them to gain "success" in their writing careers. Walton writes that the women poets of the Harlem Renaissance have,

in the history that has been written since, been relegated to the precincts of specialists in African American literature. Yet, in the face of what must have been corrosive psychic costs, in terms of the circumscription of their true ambitions and selves, the achievements of Fauset, Bennett, Johnson, the other women poets of the Harlem Renaissance stand among the most heroic in the twentieth century American poetry.

These women paved the way for great poets I've written about recently like Lucille Clifton and Elizabeth Alexander. Here are some poems from those women of the Harlem Renaissance:

Dead Fires
by Jessie Redmon Fauset

If this is peace, this dead and leaden thing,
Then better far the hateful fret, the sting.
Better the wound forever seeking balm
Than this gray calm!

Is this pain's surcease? Better far the ache,
The long-drawn dreary day, the night's white wake,
Better the choking sigh, the sobbing breath
Than passion's death!


Quatrains
by Gwendolyn Bennett

1
Brushes and paints are all I have
To speak the music in my soul—
While silently there laughs at me
A copper jar beside a pale green bowl.

2
How strange that grass should sing—
Grass is so still a thing ...
And strange the swift surprise of snow
So soft it falls and slow.


Black Woman
by Georgia Douglas Johnson

Don’t knock at the door, little child,
I cannot let you in,
You know not what a world this is
Of cruelty and sin.
Wait in the still eternity
Until I come to you,
The world is cruel, cruel, child,
I cannot let you in!

Don’t knock at my heart, little one,
I cannot bear the pain
Of turning deaf-ear to your call
Time and time again!
You do not know the monster men
Inhabiting the earth,
Be still, be still, my precious child,
I must not give you birth!

Here are some links to biographies and additional information:
Gwendolyn Bennett
Georgia Douglas Johnson
Jessie Redmon Fauset

Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color: Elizabeth Alexander & Marilyn Nelson

I picked up Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color on the recommendation of Elaine over at Wild Rose Reader (Elaine has some *very* extensive and cool Black History Month book lists piling up over there). This one caught my eye because it was co-authored by the poet Elizabeth Alexander, who I've mentioned very briefly here. Ms. Alexander is a rigorous, well-respected poet in every right, and her 2005 book, American Sublime, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

So I know this makes three children's book reviews in a row, but hey, it's a theme month, so we might as well have a theme-within-a-theme, right?

Miss Crandall's School is based on the true story of Prudence Crandall who, in the early 1830's, opened a private finishing school for young ladies ages 8-18 in Canterbury, CT. The school was quite popular and well attended until Ms. Crandall admitted an African American student who had hopes of becoming a teacher.

When the town responded by pulling all their children out of the school and waging massive protests, Ms. Crandall did something unusual. She put an ad in an Abolitionist newspaper advertising her new school for "Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color." Students came from all over New England to receive an education that was not available for young black girls at the time. For many, it was the first time they had left home, and the opportunity seemed enormous.

The town, however, lashed back in unspeakably horrible ways. Beyond passing a "Black Law" prohibiting the education of African American children in the state, the townspeople also refused to sell food to Ms. Crandall and her students, they poisoned the well water, they left dead animals on the doorstep. Ms. Crandall, a true heroine, kept the school going as long as she could, teaching her girls reading, writing, and arithmetic until, in 1834 a mob attacked the school and set it on fire. At this point, Ms. Crandall decided that she could not ensure the safety of the young girls in her care and closed the school down. Two years later, Connecticut's Black Law was repealed, and 50 years after that, the state awarded Ms. Crandall a small teacher's pension as an acknowledgment and token of reparations for the crimes committed against the school.

In Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color, poets Elizabeth Alexander & Marilyn Nelson explore this story from different angles and different points of view. They don't try to tell the whole story in a typical linear fashion. Rather, the book is divided into 6 parts made up of 4 sonnets each, illustrated in a lovely, dreamlike fashion by Floyd Cooper. The poems give us a glimpse of what might have been going on in the minds of the students, of what the small details of their lives might have been like, what their fears and hopes may have been. In one poem, where a mother and father are sending their daughter off to the school, the second stanza begins:

Does "good-bye" mean we hope or mean we weep?

Here is one of the more striking poems from the series that blends that mix of hope and fear so well:

We (by Elizabeth Alexander)

Colored are new to these townsfolk, who say
we have come to take white husbands, but we
are young girls who do not think of such things.
They see us horned, tailed, befeathered, with
enormous bottoms and jaws that snap, red-
devil eyes that could hex a man and make him
leave home. Though the state has said no to slavery,
we know how it happens with colored girls
and white men, their red-devil eyes and tentacles.
Our mothers have taught us remarkably
to blot out these fears, black them out, and flood
our minds with light and God's great face.
We think about that which we cannot see:
something opening wide and bright, a key.

You can learn about the Prudence Crandall Museum here.

Ashley Bryan: Let it Shine

Last week, I wrote about the winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, but have you seen the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner, Let it Shine?

Let it Shine is an illustrated collection of three popular spirituals: "This Little Light of Mine," "Oh When the Saints Go Marching In," and "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands." Each page is filled with rollicking, brightly colored construction paper cutouts that truly make the lyrics shine.

I've been using Ashely Bryan's illustrated song collections for years, and I'm so glad to see this new, gorgeous collection get some attention. Not that Mr. Bryan is any stranger to the Coretta Scott King Award. This is his third book to win the award, and five other Bryan books have won the Coretta Scott King Honor Award (which is basically runner-up).

Bryan has been illustrating poetry, African folk tales, spirituals and more since the early 1970's, and he is a great advocate for preserving traditional storytelling and song. I found this great Ashley Bryan quote in a 1998 Washington Post article:

"Be strongly rooted in who you are – your people and what they have had to offer, then reach out and draw upon the gifts of other peoples of the world."

Here are my two very favorite Ashley Bryan books:

All Night, All Day: A Child's First Book of African American Spirituals (This is where I first learned the song Great Big Stars, which is now one of my favorite songs of all time.)

What a Morning: The Christmas Story in Black Spirituals (This is where I learned Mary Had a Baby.)

Apparently, Ashley Bryan lives on an island off the coast of Maine, and this article about his storytelling performances makes me want to be sure to keep my eye out for any readings he might do in the area. "I don't just read the words, I try to roll them up to Heaven," Bryan says.

Here are some great reviews of Let it Shine:
Fuse #8
Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Christopher Paul Curtis: Elijah of Buxton

It's going to be hard for me to write about this book without resorting to blatant gushing, but I'll do my best. Elijah of Buxton is one of those books that kept popping up on all the lists this year. When it won both the Newbery Honor and the Coretta Scott King Award, I thought I'd better pick it up and give it a shot.

Now I had read Christopher Paul Curtis' Bud, Not Buddy when it won the Newbery Medal in 2000, and I liked it quite a bit, but I have to admit I wasn't completely blown away. I didn't rush out and recommend it to everyone I knew. Elijah of Buxton is another story.

The book is set in the mid 1860's in Buxton, Canada--one of the early Black settlements of escaped slaves from the United States. Elijah, the book's fictional hero, is the first free-born child in the settlement.

In some ways, it's a basic coming of age story. Elijah is what his mother calls a "fra-gile" child, and he is trying very hard to learn how to become more grown-up. In other ways, it's an amazing glimpse into what life on one of these settlements could have been like. There is a poignant juxtaposition between the young children in the settlement who've known nothing but freedom, and the adults, who have each risked everything to be free and carry heavy wounds and scars that the children can't begin to comprehend.

Mostly what I loved about this book, besides the beautiful writing and engaging story, is that it is ultimately a story about community. It is about how people can come together to try to make the world a better place, not just for themselves, but for one another. When Elijah, who goes to school and can read and write, is asked to read a letter to Mrs. Holton, informing her that her husband has been whipped to death by a slave owner, the women of the settlement go with him:

Mostly I think I didn't bawl 'cause once Ma and them women bunched up 'round Mrs. Holton with their watching, waiting eyes and hands, it felt like a whole slew of soldiers was ringing that parlour with swords drawed and waren't no sorrow so powerful it could bust through.

I'll warn you, I bawled. I cried straight through the entire last three chapters. But it's not just sadness that makes you cry, it's the redemption and grace and joy mixed up in the sadness that is so affecting. This is a beautiful story and I know it won all the "literature for young people" awards, but I would recommend it to adults as well. A good story's a good story, after all.

You can visit the real Buxton Museum website here.

You can read about Christopher Paul Curtis' R.E.A.D Program and Kenya School Project here.

The Brookeshelf: The Potter Project

I was awfully excited to see that The Brookeshelf, one of the wittiest and most enjoyable kidlit blogs out there, has started a brand new series: The Potter Project.

As a child, Brooke received a Beatrix Potter book every year until she had the entire collection:

"As for reading them, I found them enjoyable but cryptic. I was definitely entranced by the books’ charms — anthropormorphic animals in cute little outfits! — but puzzled by others. A world where pigs trotted off to sell themselves at the market? Where mice sewed buttonholes with 'cherry twist' (which I was certain was some sort of Twizzler)? And what the heck was a 'patty pan' or a 'pinny'?"

With the Potter Project, she intends to do "a fresh re-reading of all 23 Beatrix Potter books, with the keen hope that the contrast between the child and adult perspective will prove, if not interesting or enlightening, at least bloggable."

There is not a doubt in my mind that this will be lots of fun and well worth the read. So far, here is what you've missed:

The Potter Project Intro

The Tale of Peter Rabbit, or Stay Away From the Man Who Ate Your Father

Video Sunday: Potter a'Plenty (Including the Charlie Brown "book report" song)

Julie Morgenstern: Organizing from the Inside Out

After the holidays are over and the new year comes around, I almost always get the organizing bug. I start to think of all the projects I want to do over the new year and have this urge to reevaluate and find ways to be more efficient, more organized, more productive. For those of you who have similar tendencies, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

A few years back, a friend gave me Julie Morgenstern's Organizing from the Inside Out, and it really changed the way I think about organizing. Here are two very simple but brilliant concepts from the book that really stuck with me:

1. Work with your habits, not against them. Habits are really really hard to break. If you tend to leave your dirty clothes in a heap by the bed, for instance (and no, I'm not pointing any fingers here!), putting a hamper in the laundry room or in the bathroom is not going to help. You are probably still going to leave the clothes in a heap by the bed and at some point scoop them up and take them to the hamper.

Instead, Julie Morgenstern suggests that you work *with* your habit and put the hamper right there at the foot of the bed or very close by. If your jewelry piles up on top of your dresser, put some hooks and/or a little box right there. If you try to create an organizing system that goes against your normal habits, it won't work, and it will be endlessly frustrating.

2. Create Activity Zones. I love this one. The idea is that every room should be organized like a kindergarten classroom with "zones" for each activity. The first step is to figure out what you *do* in your space. I'll use my office as an example. Here are my activities:

• Read
• Create (music, writing, etc.)
• Teach lessons
• Pay bills
• Work on curriculum for Songwriting for Kids
  
• Work on music promotion, online & offline, booking gigs, etc.

It used to be that everything was all mixed in together (my desk had song fragments, bills, enrollment forms, and books on it) and each time I walked in my office, I was overwhelmed by so many things to do. So I Julie Morgenstern-ed my office. I now have:

• A corner with all the books on my reading list, a futon, and a reading lamp.
• My desk is completely devoted to song and story ideas, works in progress, and books on songwriting.
• A corner with the piano, guitar, and shelves that are filled with all my lesson books.
• The left side of my closet has shelving with all my Songwriting for Kids supplies, enrollment forms, and curriculum.
• The right side has slots for bills, contracts, CDs, all my equipment for shows, and other financials and paperwork.

The best thing about this new setup is that I can close the door (or rather, the curtain) on all the bills, music business, and other paperwork and financial materials. So when I am *not* working on those things, I don't even have to see them. Just the piano, guitar, books, and writing materials.

It's a *much* better place to create!

Ring Out, Wild Bells: Lord Alfred Tennyson

Photo by Karen

Tennyson wrote this poem in 1850 as part of a larger work called In Memoriam. It is a call for release and renewal. Tennyson calls us to let go of old griefs, mistakes, grudges, and wars, and embrace (wildly, and with abandon!) new light, love, joy, and peace. I'm ready for some changes...how about you? Let's go ring some bells!

Ring Out, Wild Bells
by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.