Books on Books

A book is an idea. It is also an object. You can feel its weight, smell the ink and paper. The pages rustle as you turn them.

When I think of books that have delighted, scared, comforted or bored me I can see and feel the physical books in my memory. I now read many e-books because it is easy to get and store them. But I wonder if the ideas will linger as long without being anchored to physical objects.

Isabelle Arsenault from Velocity of Being

Right now I am reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean. It tells the story of the LA Library fire. It is the story of millions of pounds of books, of one specific library and of  libraries in general. Her prose is exhilarating  and surprising, enriched with odd morsels of information.

Violeta Lopiz – Velocity of Being

I am about to read The Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, edited by Maria Popova and Claudia Zoe Bedrick.

Here is their description of the book:

And here is a link to Popova’s announcement of the book in her newsletter Brainpickings.

I am happy to be there in The Velocity of Being along with so many people I admire. Here is my illustration painted in response to a letter by Sarah Lewis.

I look forward to reading, seeing and touching the book.

Vladimir Radunsky- The Velocity of Being

I have a favorite cookbook that is falling apart from use. The binding is shot. The pages are battered, spattered and lumpy. My husband found a brand new copy of the book at Goodwill, so I gave mine to a friend. But I missed it! The wrinkled and oil-spotted pages told a history of my life in the kitchen. I traded back for my old book.

Beatrice Alemagne – The Velocity of Being

Well-loved and oft-read books have memories that stick to them. Despite the konvenience of Kindle I still like holding books in my hands. The content comes through all the senses.

Lara Hawthorne – the Velocity of Being

Gratitude from A to Z

Last night, while waiting for the feast to begin, a friend told me about a solution one family found for the discomfort of reciting what they were thankful for at the Thanksgiving dinner table each year — they began a tradition of going round the table giving gratitudes in alphabetical order, A to Z.

This sounded like such a good idea to me that I am going to begin it here, and I invite you to add gratitudes as well, beginning with the next letter in the alphabet from the one before. Let’s see if we can make it all the way to Z…

I am grateful for Adaptability, Avocados, and All of you who take the time to read our posts.

Will you Be next?…

Here’s to Fall and Feasting

Abundance by Julie Paschkis

One fall day many years ago, when the wind was gusting and leaves, golden and red, cartwheeled across the street, I suddenly felt inspired to write an ode to the season. I was thinking of the kind of fulsome, simple poem that my father sometimes read to us. (When he wasn’t baffling us with things like The Love Song of  J. Alfred Prufrock.)  I went home and wrote The Harvest in Our Hearts and it’s been part of my family’s Thanksgiving tradition ever since.

I’d like to share it with you along with a new painting that Julie Paschkis generously gave me permission to use. It’s a piece for a two-person show at the Seattle Art Museum’s café, TASTE, in May. Keep your eyes open for it!

Thanks to my fellow bloggers Julie Paschkis, Julie Larios, Margaret Chodos-Irvine and Laura Kvasnosky, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all who read our blog. You are all part of the harvest in my own heart.

The Harvest in Our Hearts

by Bonny Becker

It was the dawn of winter
and the table was set for feasting.
The silver was polished, the fire ablaze.
The turkey at last done with roasting.

We had just then raised a glass to toast
the harvest and the day,
when there came a knock at the door,
and a stranger blew in and seated himself saying,
“Room for one more?”

He wasn’t the kind to argue with. He was wide and tall and brawny.
His robes were worked in the richest threads
of brown and red and tawny.
His head was wreathed with an herbal crown;
He smelled of smoke and cold, and it seemed when he sat
that leaves fell down in a whirl of red and gold.

“Who are you?”  I dared to ask, but he merely smiled
and demanded a glass of his own.

He surveyed our board and seemed to judge, weighing its merit,
assessing the richness of each dish, the quality of the claret.
Beneath his gaze it was odd to note our table grew more rich.
The silver gleamed more deep; the candles burned more bright.
Our fire stood more securely against the winter night.

He nodded. This god approved.

“Be warm, eat well, be gay.
Each season has its moment;
Each moment slips away.”

Thus saying, he, too, began to fade like smoke in the autumn wind,
but his words still lingered as we raised our glasses again.

“Here’s to friends and harvest
 to winter days and rain.
Here’s to those who are with us
and to those we’ll not see again.
Here’s to fall and feasting,
to good wine and good cheer.
Here’s to the harvest in our hearts
in the winter of the year.”

Sixty-Six Years of the Best

For the last sixty-six years, the New York Times Book Review editors have been announcing their choice of the 10 Best Illustrated Books of the year. I encourage you to follow this link to the 2018 list:

If you love picture books, if you share the ones you love with your friends and colleagues, and if you are a student of the history of illustration, then the NYTimes’ Best Illustrated lists 1952-2018 include almost all your favorite illustrators – just look at some of the many:

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Maurice Sendak, Alice and Martin Provensen, Marie Hall Ets, Ludwig Bemelmans, Roger Duvoisin, Walter Lorraine, H.A. Rey, Laurent de Brunhoff, Leo Lionni, Edward Sorel, Bruno Munari, Ed Emberley, Edward Ardizzone, Ben Shahn, Tomi Ungerer, Arnold and Anita, Lobel, Edward Gorey, Brian Wildsmith, Alexander Calder, Jacob Lawrence, Remy Charlip, Mitsumasa Anno, Edward Koren, James Marshall, John Burningham, Rosemary Wells, Petra Mathers, Lane Smith, Peter Sis, Leo and Diane Dillon, William Joyce, Maira Kalman, David Shannon, Jerry Pinkney, David Wisniewski, Ted Lewin, Chris Raschka, David Diaz, Richard Eglieski, Gennady Spirin, Douglas Florian, Kevin Henkes, Kadir Nelson, Jon Klassen, Susan Marie Swanson, Ian Falconer…AND (sound of trumpets please) our own Julie Paschkis!!

Night Garden: Poems from the World of Dreams (written by Janet Wong, illustrated by Julie Paschkis) named to the NY Times/NY Public Library Best Illustrated  Books in 2000. 

In the comments area below, I hope you’ll share your reactions to this year’s list (as well as to individual books on it, and/or books you think should have been named to it.)

You can see a more complete list here [this link has been corrected from a previously incorrect link] of  books named to the Best list between 1952 to 2016: https://www.librarything.com/bookaward/New+York+Times+Best+Illustrated+Children%27s+Book

For the 2016 list, go to https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/books/review/best-illustrated-books-of-2016.html

For the 2017 list, follow this link: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/books/review/best-illustrated-childrens-2017.html

And don’t miss the wonderful look at the 2018 illustrators’ studios, processes, and thoughts about their books here: https://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2018/11/02/books/childrens-illustrators-studios.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Runaway Reading

The first box arrived Thursday. Inside were seven picture books. I’ve been told to expect about 175 more before the January 15 deadline, from which my fellow judges and I will select the 2019 winners of the Margaret Wise Brown Prize, and an honor award.

I’ve never judged a picture book contest before, but by virtue of having won the Margaret Wise Brown honor this year with Little Wolf’s First Howling, I was asked to help choose next year’s winners.

My fellow judges are Elaine Magliaro, who authored this year’s prize winner, Things to Do, and E.B. Lewis, a five-time Coretta Scott King award-winning illustrator of 70-plus books for children. Over the next months we will read and note our responses to the submitted books and figure out how to work with each other as we wend our way to a decision.

The 2018 Margaret Wise Brown Prize winner by fellow judge, Elaine Magliaro

 

Books illustrated by fellow judge, E. B. Lewis

Presented annually by Hollins University in Roanoke, VA, the Margaret Wise Brown Prize recognizes the author of the best text for a picture book published during the previous year. The award is a tribute to one of Hollins’ best-known alumnae and one of America’s most beloved children’s authors. Winners are given a $1,000 cash prize, which comes from an endowed fund created by James Rockefeller, Brown’s fiancé at the time of her death. It makes sense that the award is for text, since Margaret herself was the author of all those wonderful classics, not the illustrator.

This focus on text contrasts with the ALA’s Caldecott which is “awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published by an American publisher in the United States in English during the preceding year.” (from ALA site, emphasis mine)

I will have as hard a time considering text without illustrations as I would considering illustrations without text. I think these two ways of telling must work together to serve the story in a picture book. It will be interesting to see how my thinking about this progresses. In fact, I am eager for the education this experience will offer.

I look forward to reading the 2018 crop of picture books — and to sharing my favorites with friends and family.