October 20, 2013
Animal Stories (including woolves!) at the Gardiner Museum
We went to the Gardiner Museum today to see the Animal Stories exhibit.
“Elephants, leopards, dogs, squirrels and dragons… From exotic creatures, household pets, urban wildlife to mythical beasts, animals have been an active part of human experience, an inexhaustible trigger of the imagination. Animal Stories presents the many tales of our encounters with the animal world, shedding light on how our social, symbolic, affectionate, scientific and utilitarian relationships with animals have been visualized through ceramics from the 17th century to our day.”
Fantastic events are scheduled as part of the exhibit, and today we were happy to catch the first of the Kids Can Press Reading Series, today with the lovely Kyo Maclear reading Virginia Wolf (with the assistance of her entire family). Afterwards, the kids got to make their own Virginia Wolf ears (which alternate as a big blue bow, depending on one’s mood).
Three readings are left in the series: Wallace Edwards on November 10, Eugenie Fernandes on December 8, and Nicholas Oldford on December 15. (And we got free passes for the museum through the Sun Life Museum and Arts Pass at the Toronto Public Library. Such a great deal!)
October 11, 2013
On Alice Munro, Short Stories, and Gossip
Alice Munro display at Book City in the Annex
Alice Munro’s Nobel Prize win was the perfect answer to the David Gilmour tomfoolery of a few weeks back. Such a wonderful affirmation of a brilliant career, and of short stories, a form which is dear to my heart. My favourite Alice Munro book is Who Do You Think You Are?, though I read her best-of a few years ago, and discovered that her terrain is deeper and richer than I’d previously suspected. I am fortunate to have so much of her work left to explore.
If the Munro win gets you on a short story kick, may I suggest you check out Shaena Lambert’s Oh, My Darling and Rebecca Lee’s Bobcat, which are two of the best books I’ve read this year. And also The Journey Prize Stories, which I purchased this morning, inspired by short story fever, and a rather fetching window display.
In further news, 49thShelf got a shout-out from Lainey Gossip today. So that was a little exciting!!
October 2, 2013
I’m going to be Wild again.
I am so excited to be returning to the Wild Writers Literary Festival in Waterloo this year, delivering a presentation called “Making the Most of Your Blog: A Guide for Readers and Writers”. I promise that my session will be useful, fun and illuminating, even. I am also excited that the famous gourmet boxed lunch will be making an appearance. And most of all, I’m thrilled by the company I will be keeping at this festival. Also on the bill: Catherine Bush, Karen Connelly, Nancy Jo Cullen, Elisabeth di Mariaffi, Miranda Hill, Helen Humphreys, Susan Olding, etc. etc. (Check it out: the lineup is fantastic). And I hope to see you too!
September 15, 2013
We met Sheree Fitch. And that’s the least of it…
They didn’t have Sheree Fitch when I was a little girl. But when Harriet was very small, someone gave us a copy of her board book Kisses Kisses Baby-O, and we loved it, its rhyme and rhythm, its simplicity and lovingness. Not long after, I learned that Sheree Fitch had written a novel for adults, called Kiss the Joy as It Flies; I read it for a few days in darkest January, and I remember how it lit up my life.
I think we got Peek a Little Boo sometime after that, which fast became a favourite. Harriet loved the baby faces, we loved the song, and we changed the words so they said her name (“Amazing Harriet, how do you do? Happy Harriet, huggle-wuggle you!”) to hold her attention extra-fast.
Around this time, Mabel Murple was being re-issued, which was immediately beloved and resulted in Harriet’s favourite colour being purple for some time (and the purple house on Brunswick Avenue is called “Mabel Murple’s house” still). We read this book regularly, as recently as last night, and also spend a lot of time talking about it and speculating about its extraneous story (like the shadow of Mabel’s mother which is visible on one page as Mabel gets in purple trouble).
We got Sleeping Dragons All Around, and while Harriet went through a period where she found it “too scary”, that was only temporary. She loves all things dragonish these days, and so the book is a favourite (and I would like to hang a plaque on my wall that says, “We dance in the kitchen! We don’t do the dishes”). Was Monkeys in My Kitchen next? I think so. We love that one too.
I had become online friends with Sheree by this point. (I interviewed her in 2010, and had also read her beautiful collection of poetry for adults, In this house are many women.) We were the lucky recipients of Night Sky Wheel Ride, which arrived in the post on Harriet’s third birthday. I remember literally dropping everything and sitting down to read it with her on our front step, and being amazed by it. “Can you hear the mermaids murmur/beluga whales sing/ feel the whirling stir/ of every little humming phosphorescent thing?” That line blows my mind every time I read it, which is often. Recently, we got If I Had A Million Onions, which is wonderful.
I am laying this all out to illustrate how Sheree Fitch has been a huge part of our family for Harriet’s entire life, which hasn’t been a long life (yet) but still an entire one (so far) which is not insignificant. In fact, Sheree Fitch is one of the things I kept in my pocket as we knew that Iris was coming, one of the parental things we’d have about immediately this time and which would make this babyhood oh so much better that it would be in a Fitchless world.
I am laying this all out because today something extraordinary happened: we met Sheree Fitch! We went to the Eden Mills Festival, which was lacking in sun but otherwise really lovely, and rain very nearly held off too. I managed to catch Saleema Nawaz reading after I had my lunch, but otherwise spent the afternoon in the kids’ area, partly because crying babies are better tolerated there, and also because the readers were wonderful–Aubrey Davis was a particular highlight.
But then. Sheree Fitch. Dressed in purple (naturally). Who actually stole my crying baby and calmed her down while the rest of our family listened to readings. Sheree Fitch. In real life!! It was like meeting a rock star. Oh, I was so thrilled, but this was only the beginning.
I took Iris back while Sheree took the stage to read Mabel Murple. And somehow, Harriet was standing beside her. Sheree began to read, and Harriet read along with her, the whole book memorized, finishing sentences, particularly emphatic upon her favourites: “I’m a purple person and I roar away my troubles!” “Skateboard scallywag, Mabel Murple’s on the loose (and they skedaddled)” And that purple teddy bear named Snickerknickerbox, who snored.
It was amazing. And not just because Harriet is someone I am particularly fond of, and because I am one half of the two people who have read her Mabel Murple 3000 times, but because it was wonderful to see, how Sheree’s joy is contagious, the generosity of her spirit, how her books performed aloud are more amazing than I ever expected (and my expectations were pretty high). Because a book can get so far into a little kid’s head, and because books are so incredible, and how wonderful are these days when we get to celebrate them together.
Because we met Sheree Fitch. And also because Harriet had her Eden Mills debut, which we certainly weren’t expecting. As I watched it all unfold, it was completely clear that this was one of the greatest things I would ever witness in my long, long joyful life.
August 26, 2013
Have Milk Will Travel: EVENT!
I am excited to be part of an event on Friday September 13 to launch the anthology about breastfeeding Have Milk Will Travel, along with editor Rachel Epp Buller, Carrie Snyder, and Sarah Campbell, all of whom have work published in the book. I am not published in the book, but I am really looking forward to reading it. I will be doing a short presentation entitled “When Love Isn’t a Let-Down After All”, and you should probably know that yesterday I breastfed on a subway platform, and last week while walking to the pandas at the zoo. Shedding all inhibitions has been an incredibly liberating experience, and I am impressing myself with my dexterity.
July 15, 2013
The Wild Rumpus
I learned about Story Mobs on Friday, and knew immediately what we’d be up to the next day. What an adventure: “where great kids’ books meet flash mobs with a dash of Mardi Gras thrown in.” Our family met up with many others in a small park behind Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday afternoon with our maracas on hand, along with wolf ears and a copy of Where the Wild Things Are. Now, we have a newborn in the family and we’re quite crap at organization (wolf ears created 10 minutes before we left the house), so our preparations paled in comparison to those of others who were exquisitely attired and were carrying amazing props. We took part in a rehearsal of the story’s reading, and then made a parade with all the other wild things to the pool in front of City Hall where we drew attention with strange costumes, samba drums, and the general oddness of our presence. The story began, featured readers projecting their voices across the square and the rest of us participating with responses. My favourite part is when we got to shout: “Oh, please don’t go. We’ll eat you up! We love you so.” Though the wild rumpus itself was nothing to be scoffed at as we danced like wild things around Nathan Phillips Square with a bunch of similarly-minded strangers in the sunshine. (The Ai Weiwei sculptures in the pool added nicely to the effect, I think.) And then Max sailed back in and out of weeks to his very own room where his supper was waiting. It was still hot, which deserved a cheer, we thought, and then we scattered, and the event was over as though it had never begun, except for in the minds of those of us who were there.
Another Story Mob is scheduled for two weeks from now with Jillian Jiggs being performed. Thanks to Bunch Family for bringing this fabulous event to my attention!
July 2, 2013
Incredible Journeys
We were thrilled to visit the Incredible Journeys exhibit at the Lillian H. Smith Library’s Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books. We all loved the pop-up books featuring trains, boats and planes, and the displays featuring storybook characters travelling in balloons, airships, by train, bicycle, public transit, and also “journeys of the mind”. It was exciting to see so many books we recognized–Curious George, Canadian Railway Trilogy, and more*, and also to see so many beautiful old illustrated books for the first time. But the particular highlight was an actual map of the Island of Sodor and several first-edition books from The Railway Series (which was a precursor to Thomas the Tank Engine).
The exhibit is on until September.
*I would delineate exactly which ones, except that I haven’t slept more than 2.5 hrs in a row in a month and therefore my short-term memory has been obliterated. I remember being very impressed though. Really!
June 2, 2013
Reading Barbara Pym on her Centenary
I have nearly all of Barbara Pym’s novels on my shelf, the bulk of which I obtained when a contents sale was held at a house around the corner and I pretty much cleaned out the library. And this is how it is with Barbara Pym novels–it usually takes death for a reader to finally part with them. Though they also turn up at used book sales from time to time (probably after a death as well), which is how I first encountered Excellent Women, perhaps Pym’s best-known novel. I’d heard of Pym from Susan Hill’s Howards End is on the Landing, Maureen Corrigan’s Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading and also from this wonderful piece on the CBC on the Barbara Pym Society, which I joined shortly after becoming a Pym convert. It was Excellent Women that fast turned me into one too, and no wonder, I discovered, over the past few days as I read the book again.
It’s wonderful. I could see how encountering Pym first through some of her other novels might be a less delightful experience, one not truly appreciated until one understands the nature of the Pymmian universe. But Excellent Women, as subtle and small as her other books, is so absolutely funny, its goodness immediately graspable. As ever, the delicious gap because what is written on the page and the reader’s apprehension of the true situation. It’s the story of Mildred Lathbury, spinster daughter of a clergyman whose life changes with the arrival of new neighbours Rocky and Helena Napier, plus a clergyman’s widow who steals the heart of the vicar whom everyone had assumed that Mildred was in love with.
And the lines: “A little grey woman… brewing coffee in the ruins.” The austerity of 1950s’ England is not at the novel’s forefront, but instead a shadow in the background with references to bombed-out buildings, ration books, and bad food. But ordinary life goes on anyway, church services conducted in the half of the church that was not destroyed in the war, which gives the congregation a heightened intimacy.
And the vicar with his plaintive call: “May I come up? I can hear the attractive rattle of tea things. I hope I’m not too late.” Oh, so much tea. “Perhaps there can be too much making cups of tea, I thought, as I watched Miss Statham filling the heavy teapot. We had all had our supper, or were supposed to have had it, and were met together to discuss the arrangements for the Christmas bazaar. Did we really need a cup of tea? I even said as much to Miss Statham and she looked at me with a hurt, almost angry look. ‘Do we need tea?’ she echoed. ‘But Miss Lathbury…’ She sounded puzzled and distressed and I began to realize that my question had struck at something deep and fundamental. It was the kind of question that starts a landslide in the mind.”
There are so many landslides in this tidy book, whose whole world is turned inside out by its final page. Most aren’t the landslides you’d notice and it doesn’t end with a wedding (though a further glimpse of these characters in another Pym novel reveals that one will come about eventually!!!), but more with a change in consciousness, the main character’s heightened awareness of her place in the world. And it’s a funny little world too, quintessentially English, rattling tea things and all. How I adore it, absolutely.
This past week, I also reread A Glass of Blessings, which is more subtle and infused with a touch of melancholy in spite of its delights. So many musings on a furniture storage facility–such a curious book. A bored and idle married woman fancies herself the object of another man’s affections, though he turns out to be gay (which is as expressly stated as you’d imagine for a book published in 1958). Pym is truly the master of the unrequited love narrative.
I do look forward to much Pym rereading this summer. I’ve read most of her books in a pleasurable blur, and welcome the opportunity to think deeper about them. I also look forward to baking a victoria sponge cake this afternoon in celebration of her centenary. It’s either bake a cake or have a baby, and the latter doesn’t appear to be happening yet.
May 1, 2013
Picture Book Happenings
On Sunday, we had the pleasure of attending the launch for Andrew Larsen’s latest book In the Tree House (which you might recall that I adored). I do feel sorry for literary types who don’t know what they’re missing in picture book launches. The reading is never boring, they skip the Q&A (yay!) and snacks are always excellent–at this one, we got yellow star cookies, rice crispie squares and delicious lemonade. We saw lots of friends there, and had a wonderful afternoon. It was wonderful to celebrate with Andrew, who is a truly fantastic person. If you don’t know his work yet, I’d encourage you to check out any of his books. You will be enchanted.
I also have a new picture book review online at Quill & Quire for In Lucia’s Neighbourhood by Pat Shewchuk and Marek Colek. While it’s not a perfect book, it’s a remarkable one, and an essential addition to the library of any urban picture book lover.
There is much to love about In Lucia’s Neighborhood, the picture book by Pat Shewchuk and Marek Colek that grew out of the duo’s celebrated animated short film Montrose Avenue. Opening with an epigraph from Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities (“The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself”), the story goes on to show how the urban theorist’s sidewalk ballet is enacted every day on one street in Toronto’s Little Portugal neighbourhood. (Read the rest here)
April 24, 2013
Malarky Triumphs!
Oooh, what a night! I’ve been a devotee of Anakana Schofield’s Malarky since I first read it just over a year ago now, and so it was fantastic to be in the crowd tonight as Our Woman, the book and its author finally got the credit they’ve long-deserved. So pleased that Malarky was tonight awarded the 2013 Amazon First Novel Award. Sometimes it all works out all right. And sometimes you also end up with the most mind-blowing assortment of desserts in your lap, on a plate even, ready to eat. They were as good as they looked.
