March 19, 2013
Going Postal with Picture Books
(This post is cross-posted over at Bunch!)
It’s a widely known fact that I am a postal enthusiast, that the delivery of the mail is the focal point of my day, and that I am eternally delighted by books in the post. But just as much am I thrilled when the post turns up in books–I loved Kyo Maclear’s The Letter Opener, and also epistolary books like 84 Charing Cross Road and the Burleigh Cross Postbox Theft. And I love encountering all things postal in kids’ books as well, in particular because it helps inspire postal enthusiasm in my daughter (who has had a pen pal since she was 2, of course). Here is a list of a few of our favourites that we’ve encountered lately.
The Jolly Postman by Allan and Janet Ahlberg: I know, I know, you’ve read this one already, but any book by the Ahlbergs never gets old. It’s the perfect union of all the things I love: postal themes, bookishness, fairy tales and nursery rhymes, and amazingly well-produced books with meticulous attention to detail. Follow the Jolly Postman on his round as he drinks cup after cup of tea, and provides intimate glimpses into the lives of familiar characters we only thought we knew.
Hail to Mail by Samuel Marshak and Vladimir Radunsky: The mailman delivers a certified letter for Mr. John Peck of Schenectady, only to discover that he’s just left town. The postal-system is ever-reliable, however, and its workers are determined to track John Peck on his round-the-world trip in an effort to get the letter into his hands. The story ends right back where it began, Marshak’s verse and Radunsky’s stylized illustrations making for a remarkable journey.
I Miss You Every Day by Simms Taback: Taback is a Caldecott-winner and his talent shines through in this picture book, which was inspired by the Woody Guthrie song “Mail Myself to You.” In Taback’s story, a little girl imagines mailing herself to a far-away friend. The illustrations are whimsical and attractive to children, and I particularly love the gallery of imaginary stamps on the book’s back cover.
Bunny Mail by Rosemary Wells: I really am fascinated by the weirdness of Rosemary Wells’ books–there is more to Max and Ruby than simple bunny-cuteness. In Bunny Mail, Ruby sends invitations to a 4th of July picnic while Max writes to Santa (via Grandma) expressing desire for red motorcycle. Except that Max can’t write, so Max’s letters are mostly composed of tire track, but no matter–Grandma figures it out. And little hands will enjoy lifting the flaps to “read” what Max and Ruby’s letters say.
Dear Tabby by Carolyn Crimi, illustrated by David Roberts: Oh, it’s a familiar trope, the alley-cat turned advice columnist. We loved this book about a scrappy cat who receives letters from all manner of pets–embarrassingly-pampered felines, talkative birds, dissatisfied hamsters, and lonely skunks. With her no-nonsense approach, Tabby D. Cat sets these creatures straight, though the book’s ending reveals that Tabby’s taking care of herself as well. Points also to this book for involving something called “The Dingaling Sisters’ Travelling Circus”.
Where Do You Look? by Nell Jocelyn and Marthe Jocelyn: While not strictly a postal book, I was thrilled to find a bit of mail in this brand new offering by the remarkable Jocelyn team with their amazing collage illustrations. “Where do you look for a letter?” the text asks against a fantastic airmail envelope background. “In the mailbox?” (with an image of a child posting said envelope in a red mailbox), “Or on the page?” (with the alphabet spilled across a two-page spread in haphazard fashion). Like all the best books, Where Do You Look? challenges any ideas of the world being a simple place (or language being simple to comprehend) and adds texture to the way its reader sees the world.
The Stamp Collector by Jennifer Lanthier and Francois Thisdale: This book only came out last Fall, but has already won a ton of acclaim in Canada and in the US. It’s the story of two boys growing up in China whose paths cross in an unlikely fashion. One discovers a postage stamp on a scrap of paper, and becomes conscious of a world beyond his own. The other becomes a writer whose ideas challenge the government and lead to him becoming a political prisoner. While in prison, the writer is sent letters through the PEN Writers In Prison Program, which are intercepted by prison guards. One of these guards is the stamp-collecting boy, now grown, who takes notice of these letter arriving from all over the world and establishes a relationship with their recipient. It’s a dark story, but one that’s leavened by Thisdale’s beautiful illustrations, the suggestion of a hopeful ending, and the fact that proceeds from the book’s sales are being donated to PEN Canada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP_d2hBE8vg
March 17, 2013
Pickle Me This Golden Giveaway! The New Baby (Vintage!)
So all this Golden-mania started about a month ago when I discovered that my favourite book from childhood had been published in an earlier edition. I ordered a copy of the 1948 edition of The New Baby by Ruth and Harold Shane, and Eloise Wilkin (though it turned out to be a 1955 reprint, but close enough), but before it arrived, I received another copy from my Aunt in British Columbia who was quite excited that I was going on about a book that she’d had sitting on her shelf for years. So in the end, we’re left with two copies of The New Baby, and I’d love to give our extra one away to a Pickle Me This reader.
We’ll be keeping my Aunt’s book, with its inscription in my grandmother’s handwriting (and also because it has more pages/illustrations than the other copy, and features the bizarrrely hovering baby at the end). But the other book is still pretty good, featuring haggard, mumpish Aunt Pat with her chicken legs, the seemingly unpregnant Mommy who is due to deliver in days but must have fastened her girdle tight, and Daddy with his ever-present pipe. It’s a weird book, but kids don’t really seem to notice, or at least mine doesn’t. If there is a new baby coming into your lives soon, this book might serve your family well, and even if there isn’t.
If you’d like to be entered in a draw to win our extra copy, just leave a comment on this post before the end of Friday March 22. Canadian addresses only please. We’ll pick a winner and I’ll pop it in the post next weekend. Because really, there is nothing better than books in the post, is there?
Update: Congratulations to Carrie, whose name was chosen by Harriet in a draw, fittingly picked out of a book bag from the Obsborne Collection of Children’s Books.
March 17, 2013
Golden Legacy by Leonard Marcus
I loved Leonard Marcus’ Golden Legacy as much as I imagined that I would. It traces the history of Golden Books and shows the changes and innovations in children’s publishing over the 20th century, and how much of a break Golden Books truly were from tradition. They were books about children’s lives in the here and now, and the world around them, which brought about the scorn of librarians who felt that children’s stories should have their roots in fairy tales and archetypal stories. Though it’s also easy to see why the librarians found it hard to be invested in Golden Books: Golden was a printer before it was a publisher, and while the quality of many of its books is hard to deny, the company’s bottom-line was always mass production and keeping costs low. Further, their writers and artists weren’t well-compensated, and their licensing agreements with Disney and the like didn’t necessarily make for great literature.
Marcus’s Golden history is extensive, and interesting, though I’ll admit I didn’t read it with a great attention to detail and the corporate history of Golden was a bit hard to follow. But I kept turning the pages because his profiles and biographies of Golden artists and writers were fascinating, and because every other page brought back a memory from my childhood, an image from a familiar book that I’d forgotten ever encountering. Golden Legacy is a pleasure to leaf through, a trip down memory lane, even if, like me, your Golden years weren’t even the most golden of Golden.
Do you remember running your finger along the train on the back of a Golden Book, encountering each character so familiar from stories read over and over again? On my daughter’s bookshelf are Golden Books that belonged to my mother when she was a little girl, and they don’t seem dated, even through the daddies are all smoking pipes and pot-bellied stoves are warming rooms. Harriet received I Can Fly as a gift from our friend Erin when she was very small, a brand new Golden Books whose words and illustrations are so vibrant that I never realized the book had been created by Ruth Krauss and Mary Blair more than sixty years ago. And we’ve read Scuffy the Tugboat over and over again, but then who hasn’t?
Like the last time I read a book by Leonard Marcus, reading this one has served to expand my literary universe. Suddenly there is a whole host of books and authors to seek out for the first time, as well as a long list to revisit. And Golden Legacy itself with be a book I’ll be revisiting over and over again.
March 16, 2013
March Break Delights
This week was our first March Break, which turned out to be legendarily good thanks to Stuart taking the week off too. It’s funny how spending a week with my child and another adult is a vastly superior prospect to just kid and me. We had a very wonderful time and were careful to never travel too far from home. We took care too to spend a lot of time hanging around doing nothing, which isn’t to say that we didn’t get up to some excellent adventures. We are also very pleased to have achieved our goal of going out for lunch every single day.
Sunday was our trip to the Maple Sugar Bush, which was sweet and sunshiney. Monday we decided to go crazy and visit the library (it’s true! I know we sound reckless and wild, but it’s just the way we are) which was fun because Stuart doesn’t usually get to come on our weekly visits. And then we had lunch at Caplansky’s Deli, because all the experts say that pregnant women should ingest giant mountains of smoked meat.
On Tuesday, we had lunch at the new Montreal-style bagel place in Kensington Market, which is so so delicious, and then we walked to the Allan Gardens Conservatory to see palm trees and cacti and other green things. Wednesday morning was devoted to having holes poked in my neck, but things got better afterwards. We had lunch at Fanny Chadwicks (our favourite local joint) and then spent the afternoon on the couch watching Pete’s Dragon.
On Thursday, we visited the Textile Museum of Canada (with our free MAP pass) to see the Marimekko Exhibit, whose designs are right up my alley. (I got a Marimekko scarf!). And then we had lunch at St. Lawrence Market, pure deliciousness. We also visited the Market Gallery and picked up a print of I is for Island Ferry to hang on our wall. And then Harriet had a meltdown because we wouldn’t buy her a painting of horses, and cried on the streetcar all the way home (which everyone else found absolutely charming). Later that afternoon, Harriet cheered up and we all visited the midwives, and were thrilled to hear our baby’s heartbeat and to have it confirmed that Baby is growing well.
And then there was Friday. We had a reservation for 3 for tea at the Windsor Arms Hotel. Afternoon tea is my favourite thing in the world, but we haven’t taken Harriet since my birthday 2 years ago when she kind of ruined it for everyone. But she’s bigger now, and more importantly, our March Break had been excellent training in dining out. And she was an absolute star. Staff looked a bit dubious when we confirmed that Harriet would be having her own tea, that we wouldn’t have her “nibble off our plates” as they advised. And we’re glad we didn’t, because then we wouldn’t have been able to eat anything. Harriet had her own pot of apple-mango tea, discovered that she LOVED tiny sandwiches (and even cucumbers), and was an absolutely delightful afternoon tea companion, consenting to have tiny cakes cut into three so we could all have a taste of each. The scones were wonderful, I was so so proud of Harriet, and we all three had a very good time. I think we might keep this kid around
March 14, 2013
Fake books and orange books
I am a little too excited about my latest blog post at 49th Shelf, which is a list of Fictitious Can-Lit: The Books that Never Were. I’ve made a list of fictitious books mentioned in several Canadian novels, cribbed book descriptions, and Stuart created book covers to accompany each one. Check out the post, and see how many of these books-in-books you’re familiar with.
I’m also very excited about the Orange Prize longlist. I rarely read books based upon such nominations but I am also happy to have my own tastes confirmed when the books I’ve read already turn up on these lists. And with the Orange Prize, which is of course Orange no longer, but alas, my own tastes are confirmed more than with any other award. I haven’t read Kate Atkinson’s new one yet (I have pre-ordered it from my local, and waiting for the release day. New Kate Atkinson is an event, you see…), but am glad to see it there. And I have read Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour, Emily Perkins’ The Forrests, and Zadie Smith’s NW, and they were among my top reads of 2012. Though I’m rooting for The Forrests in particular, because it’s a book that deserves so much more attention.
March 13, 2013
Good things take place.
I’m now reading Elizabeth Hay’s A Student of Weather, because it’s been sitting on my shelf for ages and because it’s mentioned in Isabel Huggan’s Belonging (and is blurbed by Huggan herself–I will read anything with Isabel Huggan’s name on it). I was leafing through it and was excited to see it contains a quotation from Jane Gardam’s Crusoe’s Daughter, everything seeming so circular because I read Gardam’s A Long Way From Verona on the weekend.
I am not sure what it says about my intelligence (or, on the contrary, I know exactly what it says…) that Jane Gardam’s novels which are supposedly for young readers are those with which I’ve most appreciated. I’ve liked all her books, but they are all so strange. Or maybe what I mean is that Gardam throws her reader into the deep-end and one has no choice but to swim, swim, swim, and sometimes with all that frantic motion it is hard to really appreciate one’s surroundings. But I didn’t have to tread water as much with Bilgewater and A Long Way from Verona. These books also make it a bit easier to see what Gardam gets up to, and understand the other books–so much is withheld, truths aren’t necessarily so, narrators are unreliable.
Anyway, I loved A Long Way from Verona, though mostly for non-literary reasons. A few days ago, it occurred to me that there was an enormous chance that everything was going to be all right in terms of my health, and I’ve been feeling much better since then. And the end of the novel just underlined everything I’d been thinking, and hoping for (plus there is a postbox on the front cover of my copy). The last line is, “But like at the Novelty Machine, I just felt filled with love, knowing that good things take place.”
Indeed.
I was surprised to have a good night’s sleep last night, but I’m so glad I did, because the procedure was really not worth losing sleep for. I liked the surgeon who was really nice, and Stuart held my hand while he performed the biopsy (which apparently was totally disgusting, and I am sorry I didn’t get to see it. I always miss it when they pull things out of my body, and must rely on my husband for full reports). I do not have to wait for results, which is so good as it means we can enjoy the rest of our March Break week. I have an appointment to go back in two weeks to discuss results with the doctor, who told me that he thought the lump seemed pretty innocent. And I imagine that surgeons don’t say such things lightly. Sooner or later, and somehow, it seems that everything is going to be okay.
March 12, 2013
A Message for Vickie from Reality Bites, with information she’ll already have been made aware of if she’s had children of her own.
Dear Vickie,
When I was fourteen, I wanted to be you. I wanted your bangs, your vintage clothing, your string of sexual partners, and friendship with Winona Ryder. I wanted every one of my words to be so laced with irony, to be that cool. You made me want to smoke.
But what I longed for most was your talent for disdain. “My mother,” you told your friend, Winona, while she was filming that documentary about you and your rumpled slacker peers, “goes to the bathroom with the door open.” And I knew exactly what you were talking about. It wasn’t even about doors and mothers and bathrooms, though these certainly stood for something concrete and disgusting, but instead, it was about an entire way of life, the kind of person neither you nor I ever wanted to be.
Vickie, I thought about this again years later, a few weeks before I turned thirty, which is a good half decade older than you’ve ever been. It was three days after the birth of my first child, born by caesarean-section due to her stubborn insistence upon lying sideways across my uterus. She was perfect, my daughter, pink and swaddled in a Perspex box, and I was already going to the bathroom with the door open. And oh, Vickie, that’s not even the half of it.
That I was going to the bathroom at all was a significant milestone, open door notwithstanding. It meant not only had they taken my catheter out (and yes, Vickie, motherhood is really this transcendental), but I’d walked the eleven steps to the bathroom by myself, even though my abdomen had been sliced in two just 36 hours before. I felt like a superwoman, until it came time to pull up my underwear; Vickie, I just couldn’t do it. To bend over so far in this strange new world had become anatomically impossible.
This was, of course, the official moment when the magic died. I had to call for my husband, who’d been gazing dreamily at our sleeping daughter, and summon him to my aid. He would come in to discover me sitting on the toilet, crying with embarrassment and pain. I needed him to pull up my underwear, which was not only a beige mesh hospital-issued pair, but had a diaper-sized sanitary napkin cradled in its crotch, soaked with the kind of blood that only comes post-partum. Dear Vickie, it’s like no period you’ve seen.
There was no mystery between us after that. How could there have been? And in the months that followed, when I got into the habit of going to the bathroom with the door open because if the door was closed, my daughter cried, I thought of you again Vickie, how I’d let us both down, but also of how much I hadn’t known about life and love when I was fourteen years, and you neither, even though you’d been so much older.
See, it was you, Vickie, all along. How you broke your mother, then resented the damage. Turns out it’s not marriage and habit that are passion-killers after all, but instead it’s children. And it turns out also, which is such a revelation, that your mother doesn’t care what you think.
Love, Kerry
March 10, 2013
Sweet Jesus by Christine Pountney
The first time I read the plot summary for Sweet Jesus by Christine Pountney, I was terrified. 
Two adult sisters and their adoptive brother long-estranged, each with a dizzyingly elaborate back-story, all decide to jump in a truck in the run-up to the 2012 US Presidential Election and go look for America. I was sure it was a novel that couldn’t possibly work, but then great reviews started coming in, and there were readers who couldn’t stop talking about it. I was further intrigued by the Miriam Toews’ blurb, because Toews knows something about literary road trips. I’d also read Pountney’s previous novel, and I’d been interested in her unlikeable protagonist, and I wondered what kind of a novel this one would be whose approach was so much broader.
The novel begins with strength, in Chicago with Zeus Ortega, a professional clown whose lover is dying. As a young boy, Zeus had been adopted by the Crowe family, whose oldest daughter Connie had retained her Christian faith but she finds it tested when her husband reveals that he has gambled away all their money. Connie is in Victoria, and on the opposite coast, her younger sister Hannah (who will be familiar to readers from both Pountney’s previous novels) is visiting Newfoundland with her partner Norm, learning to hold a gun and shoot and moose, delighting in the ease of her feelings for Norm, except that she’s longing to have a baby and he doesn’t want to.
The novel’s three sections read like completely separate books, and while each section stands on its own, with deeply realized characters whose depth and complexity are compelling, I was doubtful that the stories could come together to form a seamless whole. And in a way, I was right, because while the stories do come together, there is a certain artificiality to the plotting, and depth and complexity goes by the wayside–I wanted to see these people immersed in their own worlds rather than uprooted from them. Pountney has a lot to say about sibling relationships, but the connections between Connie, Zeus and Hannah are so much more superficial than the characters’ connections to others in their lives.
By the time the siblings all meet up, however, the plot is running on the momentum of rolling wheels and open roads, and the reader will want to follow where they’re going. The destination is a mega-church in Wichita, Kansas, where Connie hopes to have her faith confirmed, where Hannah hopes to reconcile her lack of faith with her history (and perhaps make sense of her feelings for Norm), and where Zeus is hoping they won’t have to pause to long as he is en-route to New Mexico to be reunited with his birth parents. Nothing there unfolds as anyone imagined, and not one of the characters will be moving on from Kansas in quite the direction they’d planned.
Sweet Jesus is enormously ambitious in its reach, mostly successful, and packed with solid writing and more questions than answers–about faith, family, and the ties that bind us. Though the novel wobbles in parts, there is steadiness at its heart, and most importantly it leaves me enormously intrigued about what Pountney is going to get up to next.
