March 27, 2013
Oh, the poets.
Oh, the poets. I know you half-hate readers like me. Hate by half only because I’m not totally terrible. I keep buying your books, and sometimes I even read them, but not always. I start to read and get distracted by bigger books, by books that don’t require so much attention. And when I do read and it comes time to talk about the books, I never know what to say (mostly because the gate-keepers of poetry conversation are seriously terrifying and I can never tell if they’re joking or not). And poets, I don’t always understand what you’re trying to say. And now I’m doing the very worst thing of all, which is examining my growing stack of poetry books and determining that April would be a fine time to read them. But in my defense, it’s not just because April is Poetry Month. I promise. It just so happens that most of these books have happened to come into my life at this point in time (I was summoned twice by Book City today by a call that a poetry book I’d 0rdered had come in), and I really need to get through my to-be-reads before the baby is born. So I will be reading poetry in April–forgive me please the cliche. The books before me look really fantastic though and I can’t wait to share them with you.
See also my list: Poetry Books I’ve Read This Year
March 27, 2013
The Stop by Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis
Oh, there is nothing quite like the The Stop’s Farmers’ Market. To get there, we have to trudge up the hill above Davenport Road, which is no small feat pushing a stroller, but the journey is worth it. In the winter, to arrive inside the big hall at Wychwood Barns, full to bursting with people touring around the tables heaped with fresh produce, delicious breads and cheeses, and other wonderful things. In the summer, the market spills outside into the grounds surrounding the Barns, and you’ve got to set a budget or else you’ll go mad–cherries, pickles on sticks, cinnamon buns, sushi, honey, cookies. We don’t want to snack too much because we’re planning on having our lunch at the Market Cafe, and then after lunch, the kids play on the splash pad while we wait, hoping the artisanal cheese doesn’t melt in the bottom of the stroller. Such concerns such a luxury and these Saturday mornings a highlight of family life in the city.
That’s not the half of it though, as demonstrated by the stories told in the new book The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a Community and Inspired a Movement by Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis. We thought we knew what The Stop was all about–I bought their cookbook a few years ago, and used it so thoroughly that it no longer has bindings (and I continue to use it still- oh, the fish tacos, the beef stew, that strawberry bread!!). We visit the market a few times a year when we’re hungry and in need of a trek. And this Christmas, we divided our annual food-bank donation in two and gave half the money to The Stop instead. But for all our enthusiasm, it turns out we didn’t know The Stop at all.
It turns out that the hub of The Stop is not the Green Barn, where the farmers’ market takes place each week, where Jamie Oliver paid a visit not too long ago. The real heart of The Stop, instead, lies a few kilometres west down Davenport Road at their main office, which was a small food bank when Nick Saul became executive director in 1998. It didn’t take long for Saul in this role to become disillusioned with the food bank system, which, he tells us, is a relatively recent invention. Food banks came about in the 1980s as a temporary solution to community hunger, but they stayed around as government programs for dealing with these problems were being reduced at the very same time. And now it seems as though we’ve always had them, food banks, systems we support by dumping store-brand Kraft Dinner in grocery store bins every once in a while before heading home to feast on artisanal cheese and organic kale.
The Stop is written by Saul and his wife, award-winning writer Andrea Curtis, but told in Saul’s voice as he outlines his decade and a half with the organization. The problems with the food bank, he realized quickly, were manifold: it was a stop-gap measure; users picked up their hampers and left feeling diminished; the contents of the hampers weren’t anything that anyone would choose to eat, and did nothing to contribute to a healthy diet. There were other things going on at The Stop though that were having a more positive impact, such as their Healthy Beginnings Program, which taught food and nutrition skills to pregnant low-income women. Other initiatives came about–a community garden, cooking classes, drop-in meals. Around all these, a real sense of community began to form. Users came to The Stop and began to find it empowering, to find places where they could contribute to their communities and get involved.
Change is hard though, and Saul outlines how difficult it was to shift the centre’s focus away from the traditional food bank’s. First, because The Stop’s volunteers felt good about what they were doing and didn’t appreciate their efforts being criticized. The general consensus was that anyone using a foodbank hamper didn’t have the right to turn their nose up at anything, wilted lettuce, fetid peppers, and all. But Saul was convinced there had be a better way, and slowly, step-by-step, his organization began to blaze that trail. The community garden, he admits, is never going to feed the world, and there are many people who use The Stop whose problems are so complex that those problems are never going to be fully resolved, but many lives have been changed by the place (including those of the babies in their Healthy Beginnings program, all of whom were born at a healthy birth weight last year) and a community has found its spirit.
With The Stop’s Green Barn, Saul writes, “we can have a role tapping into the largely middle-class enthusiasm about food we’re seeing and connecting the dots between the poor and everyone else.” Because the poor, he explains, are largely excluded from the foodie revolution of the last few years. While I’m snacking on my organic kale chips, rising food costs are putting healthy food further and further out of reach of people who could benefit from it as much as I do. Saul checks Michael Pollan’s “vote with your fork” philosophy, and points out that for all the good of the movement, it leaves lower-income people as disenfranchised as they’ve ever been.
Nick Saul left The Stop in July 2012 to become president and CEO of Community Food Centres Canada, which aims to bring The Stop’s movement and innovations to communities across Canada, and after reading the book, I am confident in this new organization’s success and so excited by the work they’re doing. These aren’t political issues, Saul tells us, but instead these are issues of morality. The Stop is a fantastic story well told, compelling to read, and it will inspire readers to reconsider their relationships with both the food they eat and the people they live amidst.
March 26, 2013
Where does a month go when it's gone?
We were very happy to hear the word “benign” today when we visited the doctor for results of my biopsy. I have to see him again before my baby is born, and then once life settles down post-baby, decisions will be made about whether or not I’ll require surgery to take care of my lump for once and for all, but in the meantime, we’re relieved. It’s been just over a month since I found the lump, and what a crazy time it’s been. The last two weeks have thankfully been free of much worry, and to be honest, the news today was a bit of an anticlimax because it was what the doctor has set me up to expect. But I also find myself able to listen to There Must Be An Angel without bursting into tears for the first time in ages, so something essential must have shifted. (What is it with my propensity to listen to ad-nauseum to songs that make me cry? I imagine that this is something that men don’t do. Or women who aren’t ridiculous, for that matter.)
Today’s other piece of good news came today at the midwives where it was determined that Baby is (probably) head-down. I’m only 32 weeks so this could change at any time, but it’s significant for me because Harriet was transverse from 31 weeks and I’ve been paranoid that history might repeat itself, no matter that there was no physical reason that it would. I really don’t want to have another c-section, and we’ve become extremely keen about natural birthing (so yes, I’m back reading Ina May Gaskin again, after four years of making fun of her, and Harriet has been reading up on placentas and crowning). I am so fortunate to have many friends who have had successful home birth/natural birth experiences, and I’ve been steeping myself in their stories for inspiration and confidence in my own abilities to do similar things.
And it’s really not so far away. Terrifying. The last month has got away from us entirely, and now we must shift back to Baby, to all the things we have to do before Baby arrives. It’s a far more fun preoccupation than thyroid lumps, but overwhelming all the same.
March 25, 2013
Harriet Street.
Many thanks to Matilda Magtree for sending me this wonderful photo. I will show it to Harriet tomorrow and she’ll be delighted because she is able to read every word found within it, and because it also includes her favourite word in the entire universe (which is Harriet, of course).
March 24, 2013
In the Tree House by Andrew Larsen and Dusan Petricic
Oh, there is nothing else quite like a tree house. We like to imagine that we live in one, what with the giant trees that cover our house in shade and maple keys, and the squirrels always on the run past our door. But when I was a child, I dreamed of a tree house, a place up a ladder to call my own. I don’t know if it was because I was a girl that all fantasies came with visions of curtains at the windows, but I wanted a tree house regardless, a cool place for summer nights high above my suburban backyard.
With everything my parents did right (which was most things), we still do so delight in tormenting them over holiday dinners with recollections of where they failed us and the story topper-most of all of these is the saga of the playhouse plans. For Christmas 1988, we received a set of blueprints for a playhouse that was never ever built. (My dad also backed his car over my bike on more than one occasion, but that’s a story for another day.) In the months that followed that Christmas, we moved to a new city and our nation’s economy fell into recession, two factors that probably played a role in the playhouse’s failure to come into existence. I don’t know what ever happened to those blueprints, but their memory lives on in infamy as a symbol of childhood disappointment, of the hideout we never had. We made do with the basement crawlspace instead, until we grew too tall and started hitting our heads.
And so I was amused to encounter fervid tree house planning in Andrew Larsen’s latest picture book In the Tree House, and even to encounter tree house planning disappointment. A small boy moves to a new house with a big backyard and gets to planning: “I planned tree houses that could turn into flying ships at the flick of a switch./ I planned tree houses with secret slides for quick getaways./ I planned one tree house that had two levels, one for me and one for my brother.” He and his brother put their plans together and show them to their dad who tells them, “When I was a kid, I wanted a tree house more than anything else in the world.” He’d made plans, just like his sons do, but his never came to fruition. And oh, I know exactly how that feels. I’d never seen my own story so expressed in literature before.
Dad gets to work though and builds a tree house with his boys, a fantastic secret space with a view of the entire neighourhood. You can’t see the stars because the city is too bright, but you can see the city, and the city is enough.
But the next summer in the tree house, everything is different. The boy’s brother is far too interested in hanging out with his friends to partake in tree house things. “So now I’m the king of the castle,” the boy explains. “I can do whatever I want up here.” I point to the illustration of the boy, his chin resting on his hand, his mournful expression. “Do you think he likes being king?” I ask Harriet. “No,” she answers. “He’s lonely.”
When one night a blackout casts the city into darkness though, everything is different though if only for a little while. The neighbours emerge from their houses and urgently seek community assistance in the consumption of melting ice cream. They share candles and flashlights, observed by the boy up in his tree house whose brother has come to join him. For one magical evening, the neighbourhood is alive, and the boy realizes that his brother is fundamentally the same person he always was, that some elements of their relationship will stay the same no matter what else is changed, but also that nothing lasts forever. Childhood magic is as fleeting as a summer night, moments to be savoured while they’re here.
Because the lights come on again, but the story ends with one of Dusan Petricic’s fantastic illustrations, the two boys silhouetted up in the tree together, watching the whole world twinkling below them.
March 21, 2013
Good Things
A few weeks ago, when everything seemed really terrible, I discovered that Kawartha Dairy Ice Cream was sold by the tub at Bloor Superfresh, and I think that this ice cream has been what’s gotten me through most of March. We’ve tried a few flavours, but nothing has outranked Death by Chocolate. We’re totally addicted, though we’re trying to wean Harriet off the habit. Yesterday we told her dessert was a mango, and we saved our ice cream until after she’d gone to bed.
Before I went for my biopsy last week, I had a conversation with a friend who told me that she always rewards herself after unpleasant medical procedures with the reward of being able to eat whatever she wants. This was in an email, and how I laughed and laughed as I read that. “I’m 7 months pregnant and awaiting a biopsy,” I replied. “I eat what I want all the time.” We’re actually on two tubs a week, which is a little excessive, but what can you do? My other craving is for quinoa and asparagus salad, so I think it all balances out.
The wonderful thing about our Kawartha Dairy habit is that it leads to the most delightful shopping excusions. On Sunday, the only items on our shopping list were ice cream and a bouquet of pussy-willows, which is not a terrible way to live a life.
Another good thing is my good fortune to have a sister who can put together a care-package like nobody’s business. Unfortunately, the local squirrels concur. A big box arrived two weeks ago packed with our favourite kind of tea, a variety of creams, soaps and bathy things, chocolate, and stickers for Harriet. It occurred to me then how much things can really matter when more important matters are up in the air–you’re in a bad place, but then you can eat chocolate and have a luxurious hot bath (while reading an Isabel Huggan book, naturally) which doesn’t transport you away from that bad place, but it also doesn’t make the loveliness any less lovely either.
The package, however, with its many scents had proved too much for the squirrels to resist, so they go to it first. When I finally received it, the squirrels had eaten a hole in the side and it was a sorry sight, that brown paper package tied up with…tape. But thankfully the squirrels had left the contents unscathed. I’m not what they were looking for if the reality of the package came up short, but I’m glad it did. Such lovely scented things have never been better enjoyed.
Oh, and other good things have included the moms at Harriet’s playschool who make up one of the nicest communities I’ve ever been a part of. I remember being apprehensive about the school’s cooperative nature back before we started. Surely, I figured, I’m friends already with everybody ever worth being friends with? But the other parents were so welcoming, and lovely, and I’ve so appreciated their support these last few weeks when my mind has been dwelling in less than fun places. These women have expressed concern, offered generously to help us out, and have been there for me to talk to (and cry to, on one particularly difficult day). Their goodness has made all the difference in the world.
And there are also wonderful books to read (I am reading this one now and it’s amazing); our new bed that is so comfortable, I spend the day counting down until I can get back in it; brunch guests who bring enormous boxes from Clafouti; good things in the post; reading Ramona the Pest at bedtime; hot baths; one of those playschool Moms who gave me a big bag of maternity clothes that aren’t ugly; our fantastic midwives; that I’ve got really good parents; friends who call/write/email; crocuses up across the street; that whole week we went without winter boots; strangers who email to tell me everything will be okay; when our fetus dances to I Got You by Split Enz; and that the strangers were very likely right.
Everything is probably going to be okay, and even if it isn’t, isn’t it more than a little okay already?
March 21, 2013
Roost by Ali Bryan
The first thing you need to know about this book whose blurb promises “laugh out loud funny” is that I really did. The first time it happened, I was in the bathtub (where I am often found these days), where the acoustics amplified my hysterics in a fashion most disturbing for the rest of my household. The triggering line was, “I even tried to remind her that you borrowed her pants.”
The second thing is that once I’d finished reading this book, I wasn’t done with it yet. It’s a light and funny read, not necessarily what you’d imagine might resonate, but then I found I kept bringing it up in conversation. “That happened in Roost!” I’d exclaim. My kid would do something funny and I’d shake my head: “Just like Roost!” I’d say.
And the third thing was that when my husband finished reading Fahrenheit 451 the other day and didn’t know what to read next, I put Roost into his hands, that book I kept talking about. He started laughing out loud way earlier on than I did, and I’m enjoying that he’s enjoying it so much.
It’s a hard (and rare) balance to strike, a book that is as funny as it is smart, and I find this can be particularly the case with books by and about women, partly because critics tend to judge the concerns of womanhood as insubstantial anyway and also because writers do have a tendency to bring forth humour at the expense of their female protagonist’s strength and intelligence–see “And the trouble(?) with comic heroines”.
But Ali Byran gets it right in Roost, her first novel, the story of of Claudia who would have failed as a domestic goddess, if she’d ever thought about being a contender. She works full time, is the single mom of two kids whose irrepressible spirits are exhausting to behold, and has the example of her brother’s perfect family to compare her own to whenever she’s required to feel inadequate, which is often.
The dynamics shift though when Claudia’s mother suddenly dies, and the hapless Claudia is left to pick up the pieces of her extended family by sole virtue of being the daughter. Her father as a widow is faring disastrously, her brother is consumed by his wife’s own problems (post-partum depression, for which he has zero understanding or sensitivity), and things around her own home are as chaotic as ever. Moreover, her ex-partner is beginning to resist being at Claudia’s beck and call, and she sees that her reliance upon him for support is going to have to change.
Roost is funny for its frank portrayal of domestic life, in the tradition of Erma Bombeck or Jonathan Franzen in The Corrections. Claudia’s kids are wonderfully realized and irritatingly present in true toddler fashion, nonsensical, so weird, sticky and lovable. But this novel is more than that: Claudia herself is fantastically real as well, and fittingly, “mother” is only one dimension of her identity. Bryan is in command of her material, sometimes unbelievably–I loved when Claudia on a business trip ends up with someone else’s suitcase, ends up wearing the clothes inside out of desperation, except they’re maternity clothes. This all could been gone terribly wrong, been much more silly than meaningful, but Bryan makes it work, and the scene where Claudia and the suitcase owner finally connect, the ever-awesome Claudia stepping up with emergency lactation consulting, was incredibly moving (and funny, of course).
What I love best about this novel is that nobody ever changes. There is no great revelations. Claudia’s brother is still the jerk he was when the novel began, there is no fix for her father’s heartache, and even Claudia begins to see that her ex is moving away into a life of his own. But all the same, it’s okay, or it’s going to be. This is not a How the Failed Housewife Learned to Get Along With the Vacuum kind of tale, but instead it’s about how Claudia learns to draw on her reserves, that herself exactly as she is has the capacity to roll with the punches better than anyone else. When life is messy, bumpy and hard, it’s because that’s what life is, and not because you’re doing it wrong.
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.
