"Comfort Food" Movies

I've been thinking a lot about comfort food this week as I begin to make some of my favorite fall recipes. Suddenly we're cooking and baking with lots of orange, from pumpkin to sweet potatoes! Autumn is a time for squash soups, for thick, warm breads, for butter and cinnamon and apples.

Yesterday the sweet girl and I had a poetry tea party (I guess we could call these "poet-teas"?) the first of many, I hope. We'd baked our traditional pumpkin-butterscotch cookies the day before, and had some of those along with tea in thin white cups (she wanted peppermint with good dollops of milk from the little pumpkin-shaped cream pitcher, and I had decaf British Blend, my current favorite) all on an autumn-patterned cloth. We read fall-like poetry and just other poems that struck our fancy: Robert Louis Stevenson, David McCord, Christina Rossetti, William Blake.

I've been feeling extra tired this week. So last night, with D. having another late night at work and the sweet girl in bed, I crashed on the couch in front of one of my favorite "comfort food movies" -- The Sound of Music.

You know what I mean by comfort food movies -- the kind of movies that are so deliciously familiar that you feel like you're eating your mom's mashed potatoes or your favorite homemade mac and cheese. It's nourishing but not surprising to your palette -- you know just how it's going to taste, and it always feels great going down. You know it was made with love. You know other people love it too. Not twists or turns in the story recipe, which you know by heart, so it sometimes makes you sleepy (and you can probably quote from it in your sleep too). That kind of comfort food movie.

The Sound of Music is one of my favorite such movies. Besides the story, acting and singing (all of which I love) I love the feelings it evokes for me. I always remember the wonderful evening, oh so many years ago, when the film first burst onto my consciousness. I went with my dad and older sister to see it on a big screen at the Byrd Theater in Richmond. The Byrd was a majestic movie house from a bygone age of film-going, and it forever ruined me for utilitarian multiplexes. It had ornate decorations and red velvet seating, a "mighty wurlitzer" organ, and a lobby with a shimmering chandelier. I still recall how stunned I felt when we stepped back into that lobby at intermission (yes, a real intermission with an orchestral interlude). Remember what happens right before the intermission? Maria has just packed her bag so she can run away to the abbey, away from the dashing retired naval captain whose love she'd never sought but whose love she nevertheless finds herself longing for, and as she leaves she casts one last yearning look around the huge entrance-hall to the von Trapp family mansion. You know, the one with the shimmering chandelier. When we stepped out of the film world and into the lobby of the Byrd, I am pretty certain I just stood there and gawked. I was sure somehow the movie world had extended into my real nine-year-old life and I was just plain dazzled.

So every time I watch The Sound of Music, that memory watches with me. But so many other memories come along for the ride too. After seeing it on the big screen, I watched it for many years in its choppily edited version on network television. I still know all the places where the t.v. version made cuts, because I still find myself startled when the actors and actresses move into those bits of speech or song, as though they snuck them in as extras when I wasn't looking. After all these years, it still feels like bonus material.

And of course, I know the songs by heart. My sister and I used to sing along with the record album...yes, I did say album...and I know Julie Andrews' inflections and phrasings so well I tend to note the places where she pauses for breath. I also know all the places where she soars on the high notes, so I can adjust the volume on the remote control accordingly (since we're spread out on one floor, late-night movies tend to keep other people in the house awake, like tired seven year olds who should be sleeping, so I'm careful with volume).

Did I mention that Christopher Plummer was my first "movie crush"? I still melt into a puddle over the love scene in the gazebo, even though I've long since read and heard the things Andrews and Plummer have said about the hilariousness of that shot, their unprofessional bout of giggles, and how Robert Wise basically gave in and shot it in semi-darkness in an attempt to calm things down. He liked the silhouette so well he decided to keep it.

And I'm amazed that I still find things to notice in the movie that I've never really noticed before, like the shot that pans upward at the wedding, focusing in on the beautiful church altar, then swings to the bell-towers as we note the passing of time, then seems to hover in mid-air as we find our focus on a nazi flag and a square full of goose-stepping soldiers. I got shivers last night seeing that, noting how quickly and powerfully our attention was moved from the altar to the flag, and how that seemed to symbolize, in just a few seconds, exactly how Germany had swallowed up Austria. Only of course, not swallowed it up entirely, as we see in subsequent scenes of quiet courage.

What a great movie. What a great week for comfort food.

Multitude Monday (Counting One Thousand Gifts)

The weekend provided some good time to rest and catch-up on things here at home. The weather was beautiful too, even though it got a tad chillier again. At least not as cold as the week before! I think our leaves are at their peak...

I'm trying to be better at counting my blessings, and am trying to remember to share some of them each Monday (or at least some Mondays!) on my blog. This is an ongoing project; I got the idea from the Gratitude Community at Holy Experience. So far it's been a good exercise, helping to keep me more conscious of the many people and things I have to be grateful for.

Today I'm feeling especially grateful for:

5. Time spent in the little gazebo park yesterday with the sweet girl. There are several lovely trees there, truly at the peak of their colors (I'll try to post some photos later on). While she piled leaves high and played, first alone and then with some thoughtful older kids from the neighborhood (kids we'd never met before) I had the chance to just sit nearby and rest and write some snippets of poetry.

6. Old movies. Sometimes there's just nothing better than popping in an old movie and snuggling down under a fleece blanket to watch it. Last night I watched most of the first half of The Sound of Music, and it brought back such lovely memories from my childhood, especially the time I saw it on the big screen with my Dad and sister.

7. Good sermons. I am feeling so thankful for the quality of preaching in our church right now. Our pastor has been preaching a particularly rich sermon series on 2nd Corinthians, and I almost always leave with so much to ponder. Yesterday was especially thought-provoking, all about authentic discipleship; lots there for the Lord to work deeper into my heart.

8. Far-away friends who continue to love us and partner with us in ministry. So, so thankful for these folks.

9. A husband who prays for me, learns and grows with me, encourages me, and makes me laugh. I wish I could remember what we got the giggles about late last night, when we were both feeling extra silly and tired. I'm sure it will come back to me sometime!

10. Beautiful music. This week, especially Bach, and especially the Well-Tempered Clavier. I've been listening to a wonderful 2-CD set from our public library, with the songs played by a pianist named Vladimir Feltsman. I love that the sweet girl is really responding to Bach too. She's been asking for him by name...that is, when she isn't asking for doo-wop (which has recently become one of her favorite types of music...yes, another library CD getting a lot of play!).

Lovely Links

Two blessings to my weekend...too lovely not to share.

One is this wonderful blog post by Karen Edmisten. I'm very thankful she "dipped into her archives" to re-post "When They're Older..." a reflection on parenting and "living in the moment" that moved me to tears (even while I grinned wryly at how much I saw myself and our family in it). Every once in a while, I read something that's so moving, so right, so much something I need to hear at this precise moment that I think, "Well, Lord, that was for me, wasn't it?" Of course I know it's not *just* for me! Which is just one reason I decided to share it.

The other is a beautiful ballad that my friend Erin posted on YouTube. It's called Lucy's Lament, and is inspired, as so many of Erin's creations are, by her love for a particular story or character, in this case Lucy Pevensie of Narnia. Erin is a marvelous poet. In fact, I first got to know her (and I'm so thankful I did) after she posted this poem a few years ago on Epinions. I found it so moving that I wrote her an email about it, and the rest, as they say, is history. A handful of years, much correspondence, a couple of re-reading blogs, and two real-life visits later, she and I are still friends -- and I still love this poem. I'm so glad she has now set it to music.

It Turns Out She's Tib

The sweet girl and I have both had a difficult week, individually and together. This isn't a place I've designated for whining (I save that for my precious & patient husband, or my journal, and sometimes my prayers -- I'm SO thankful God is patient and really wants to hear what's on my heart!) so I'll just say that it's been a week full of learnings for us both. And a week to try my patience on.

In the midst of the hard stuff, some of which is just mundane, tiring stuff, one bright spot has been our daily read-aloud time. For S. is absolutely loving -- nay, adoring -- the first Betsy-Tacy books. We read the first three around the time she was five, and she seemed to enjoy them then, but I guess it was a bit early. She claimed not to remember them very well. But judging from her delighted response now, she is definitely ready for them!

We zipped through Betsy-Tacy and moved right on in to Betsy-Tacy and Tib. "Could we ready just ONE more chapter please?" has been the week's mantra. And yes, I'm a sucker, especially when it comes to reading books I love so much. Despite not getting nearly enough done this week on a number of writing, teaching and household projects, I find myself saying "sure! yes! you bet!" and we read another chapter.

The most eye-opening thing for me has been to see her response to Tib. I've always related most to Betsy (the imaginative story-teller) and in some respects to Tacy (I was just about that desperately shy in my very earliest years) but the sweet girl, with her strongly literal streak, really "gets" Tib. When Betsy plans something outrageous and Tib looks admiring but politely skeptical...well, let's just say the sweet girl understands that look. After all, jumping off things really ISN'T flying, though it sure is fun to do it, and OK, Betsy, we'll humor you and call it flying. And hey, by the way, mixing everything you can find in the kitchen in one big pan really ISN'T cooking, and probably is going to taste pretty bad. But OK, Betsy, we know it will be fun if we do it together, especially if you make up a song about it.

It makes me chuckle to see how much my daughter relates to Tib, and it also gives me insight into some of the ways in which she and I relate to one another. I guess good story-telling does that: holds up mirrors for us, mirrors we can look into and see reflections of ourselves and others, or at least reflections that remind us of different parts of who we are. And yes, it's true, there really ISN'T a palace inside the mirror, and beautiful Aunt Dolly really lives in Milwaukee anyway, not a palace. But OK, Betsy, we'll all get mirrors and pretend we're walking on the ceiling because it sure is fun to imagine. Especially when we can do it together.

Poem

I just found out that a very dear man passed away last night. He turned 98 years old yesterday, and he is one of my sister's closest friends (more like family than friend). He was active and vibrant until almost the end. I had the privilege of getting to know him and his beautiful wife many years ago.

Thinking about him today, and about precious friendships and how quickly life passes, even when we're given a longer-than-usual allotment of years. I found myself trying to remember a certain poem about autumn and loss, but I couldn't recall precisely what it was. So I wrote this instead. It's still a rough draft, but from the heart.

******

A poem is on the tip of my tongue.
A friend has died, and it is October,
the season of loss and deepening cold,
rich orange and red, old brown, bright gold.
A poem is on the tip of my tongue,
but images hover, words escape me.
I can’t even recall if it was one I wrote
or one I discovered late one night
in a pool of yellow lamplight
when I couldn’t sleep
because poetry beckoned.
It called to me then, it calls to me still,
a small gem, a careful bit of art,
a tiny but defiant act of will,
a bit of beauty in the midst of grief,
planted in a book, or loose in sheaf.
What did it say? I’m no pretender.
A poem is on the tip of my tongue,
a friend has died, and I can’t remember
what the poem once said.
I only sense that the words were right,
important, precious, the ones
needed now in this time of grief.
The words drifting past like
a red and orange leaf.
Strange how close they seem,
wind-blown, and with a purpose.

~EMP 10/18/09

Take Two of These and Call Me in the Morning

"Betsy-Tacy and ginger-ale. That sounds like a really good idea."

I think those were the sweet girl's exact words to me earlier today, and I heartily concurred. She sipped bubbly gingery soda and I read the first three chapters of the first Betsy-Tacy book. We decided to go back to the beginning, since she doesn't remember the first couple of books very well. Oh, how I love those opening chapters of B-T! "You needn't call names!" The little glass pitcher with the gold rim. The gift of a friend. Tacy's mother's unfrosted cake. The supper bench. Betsy's first story. Floating away on pink feather clouds.

We had a bit of a "lost day" today. I was up incredibly late working on an editing project so was exhausted from the moment the alarm went off. Then the sweet girl felt sick at breakfast and seems to have been battling a stomach bug or some sort of virus all day (no fever, but not appetite or energy either). I spent an hour plus in a dental chair this afternoon, having a tooth rebuilt by my amazing dentist (but nevertheless returning home with a splitting headache). D. had to work all day (still there) except for the hour or so he was home while I was at the dentist.

Did I mention it's in the 30s outside and pouring rain? In mid-October? So we gave in and turned on the heat. The apartment has been sooooo cold, but we were trying to hold out turning on the heat till November because we know how awful our heating bills will be this winter. I wasn't expecting snow showers in the forecast this early in October though. (I laughed and told D. that you know you're tired when you almost fall asleep while the dentist is drilling and rebuilding your tooth...but hey, it was cozy and warm in that office!)

S. and I cuddled late this afternoon and read each other books. Well, I tried to read, through a still-numb mouth, and she actually did read. She read aloud to me, some of her old picture book favorites (Old Bear, We're Going on a Leaf Hunt, Everywhere Babies) and I dozed, curled up in my bathrobe, and tried to pretend I hadn't been sleeping when she would stop to ask "Mommy, are you asleep?" Fortunately I know Old Bear by heart, so I could instantly cotton on to wherever we were in the plot.

So...just a weird, bleary day in many ways...but a good one in many ways too. And hopefully we'll all get to bed early tonight and wake up refreshed in the morning.

An Attitude of Gratitude

When I was a little girl, one of my favorite hymns was Count Your Blessings. You may remember it:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Count your blessings,
name them one by one, Count your blessings,
see what God hath done! Count your blessings,
name them one by one,
Count your many blessings see what God has done.

One reason I loved it so much was because my big sister Martha used to sing it with me, and she always made the chorus so much fun. When she got to the second "name them one by one" she would slow down dramatically and then add "two, three, four," as a melodic aside. Although this isn't a song I hear sung much in churches nowadays, I still sometimes sing it and I always add my sister's creative flourish.

I've been thinking for a while of joining the "Gratitude Community" over at the blog Holy Experience. It's a wonderful blog (which should have long ago made it into the sidebar of my favorites) written by Ann Voskamp, the author of the geography/earth science text I'm using with the sweet girl in our grammar 2 year. She's encouraging people to cultivate gratitude, and her "Gratitude Community" is a place where people join in by choosing to consciously list things they're grateful for, either in a private journal and/or via blogs. The idea as I see it is not to fixate on the counting itself or the number (though she suggests members strive to eventually list 1000 things they're grateful for) but to let the exercise itself nourish one's inner attitude of praise and thanksgiving.

I often find myself journaling about the things I'm most thankful for, but in these busy and way-too-full days, I think I need the added encouragement of walking beside others who are doing it regularly. I want it to become a habit. So I'll be trying to cultivate more times of thanksgiving in my prayers and private journaling, and on Mondays, I will try to share some of those things I'm thankful for here.

So here's the first handful of things I'm thankful for:

1. Our church is out of the basement. After years of worshiping in our temporary space downstairs, our small church family moved to our newly-renovated-but-still-in-process sanctuary late this summer. On Saturday, our bishop/archbishop came to bless the space, and to install our interim pastor as our rector. It was a joyous celebration with the space filled to the brim with friends old and new. I just kept thinking "how beautiful is the body of Christ."

2. The sweet girl played drums at the offertory. Yes, my precious seven year old, once such a shy toddler she burst into tears and ran away from a ballet recital, played drums with several of her musical classmates at the worship service. (Our music minister has been teaching world drums at a weekly class.) She was the youngest one playing, and she did great, which blessed her parents' hearts on all kinds of levels. Perhaps the deepest level was the song they played ("Nothing But the Blood of Jesus," long a favorite) and realizing she was actually part of the worship team. A close second was how many members of the congregation came up and said something encouraging to her or to us later. This is the community she's spent her whole life in, was baptized in, spoke some of her first words in on a miraculous Easter Sunday in 2005. Some of these folks have prayed for her since before she was born.

3. The annual family tradition of going to Ohio for an October craft & music festival. We went on Sunday (after the late evening at worship on Saturday) and it was just a gorgeous autumn day. We watched the clog dancers (the sweet girl's favorite), wandered around looking at beautiful handcrafted arts, sat under yellowing trees and listened to our favorite bluegrass band (we hear them every year)...and I ate sweet potato fries.

4. My mom and sister Mary's recent trip to Asheville. They got to go together to the annual play about the life of Thomas Wolfe. My paternal grandparents (long passed on) are characters in the play, and M & M said it was so amazing to see them depicted on stage. They got to have dinner with the playwright, producer and the actor playing our grandfather. I'm thankful for people who care about writing (and acting) good stories that honor the lives of real people. I'm thankful my mom and sister had this precious time together.

"How to Talk to Children About Art": A Book I'm "Reading At"

I've been realizing that I tend to categorize books I'm reading into two major categories: books I read, and books I "read at."

"Read at" is a funny expression, I suppose (does it come from my southern roots?) but it seems to capture what I mean by the way I read certain books. Although many books have narratives that inspire me to read from cover to cover, others are books that I only dip into periodically, or read for a spell and then go back to later.

Some of my "read at" books would best be classified as reference books, while others are longer books that I find myself taking breaks from but going back to. For me, those are most often history books. History tends to hum, like a giant refrigerator, in the background of whatever else I'm reading. I have favorite periods of history I go back to especially often.

"Read at" books sometimes get a bit shortchanged: they can't always be added to a neat little list of "books read this month" or even "books read this season" (like my quarterly reading round-ups). Sometimes I "read at" a book for a long enough period of time that I do eventually finish it, but even then, I find reviewing it more challenging.

So every once in a while, I plan to do a post where I talk about some of the books I'm "reading at" -- the ones humming in the background while I'm busy reading other things.

One such "at" book for me right now is How to Talk to Children About Art by Francoise Barbe-Gall. I found this book by accident when I was looking for another book about art for children: it was one of those eye-grabbers in our county library system. I placed it on hold and then forgot about it until it came in.

But it's a terrific little book. Just the right size to tuck into a bag and take to a museum, if you're so inclined, and it would be very useful there. In addition to a large section of discussions of actual paintings, under the heading "How to Look at a Picture," the book also contains two other sections. One is called "A Good Start" and offers practical guidance on how to help a child develop an interest in paintings, ways to get the most out of museum trips with children, and what kinds of paintings are best to show children, depending on their ages.

The ages the author addresses are 5-7, 8-10, and 11-13 year olds. The book doesn't tackle the topic of art with adolescents, but my guess is, if your child is good and hooked on art by the time he or she is a teenager, then further exploration will unfold naturally. Because it only goes up through 13, the ages don't quite equate to the "trivium" stages of learning, but the suggestions for each of the age groups did seem to roughly correspond to learning styles and methods most classical homeschoolers will be familiar with from their understanding of the grammar/logic/rhetoric phases. In other words, the focus of learning moves from concrete to more analytical.

Th middle section, entitled "It's OK Not to Know," includes questions and answers about museums, art and art history. I've learned a lot myself from perusing this part.

The final section offers 30 paintings (produced here in small color reproductions) with more questions and answers, sort of discussion starters/prompts, if you will, about each of the paintings. The author has colored coded the pages so you know which Q&As will help you most when talking with children in the aforementioned age groups.

The organization reminds me of a field guide! But instead of color codes for bird plumage, there are color codes for kids. So the "red" sections provide prompts where the goals are straightforward: "identity what you see in the painting...identify the various elements of a painting" (not always easy even for adults, the author says). Then the "yellow" section provides "slightly more searching questions" to help understand the painting, questions that "require some thought and additional time". Finally, the "blue" section helps you find ways to "consider the painting in relation to the outside world" which includes thoughts about the painter and the work's historical importance.

Some of the practical advice in this book seems so obvious, but I found myself thinking about it a lot when we went to the Carnegie Museum of Art this past Sunday (it was a free day!) with our seven year old. I remembered the author's suggestion that I get down on her eye-level and see what she was seeing (and that's eye-opening!) and also the suggestion that I let her tell me what she liked in a particular room full of art (rather than dragging her over to the things I consider most noteworthy) and then spend time looking at it and talking about it together. We also took the sweet girl's "I'm tired" and "my feet hurt" a lot more to heart, and cut the wandering-through-gallery part of the afternoon a little shorter than we might have normally. I agree that it's much better to have her leave with good memories of really looking at a few things than to drag her around till the whole family's exhausted in some effort to cram in more than she's really ready to see.

I've not read all the notes on all the paintings yet (that's part of what makes this book a "read at") but every time I pick it up, I enjoy it more and learn something else new. I like it so much, I'm considering adding it to our permanent library.

100 Species Challege #9: Jewelweed

I'm so far behind on posting pictures/notes for our 100 Species Challenge that I'd blush except for the fact that I'm enjoying crawling along at turtle-pace. The pace seems to fit the way I find myself looking at the world these days: longer, more slowly, with real attention. At the rate I'm going, I may finish this project in time for my 50th birthday (that gives me about 8 1/2 more years...)

And I'm going to have to fudge this entry a bit because I don't have an original picture of the plant. I promise you that I did see it, back in September when we picked wildflowers at a nearby park.

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, and though I dutifully picked a small, fragile jewelweed (or to be honest, had Dana pick it, as he was wearing long pants and sneakers and could traipse into the undergrowth to get it for me) it had faded completely by the time we got home. I guess there's a reason these flowers are sometimes called "Spotted Touch-Me-Nots" (Impatiens capensis).

But you can see a lovely close-up photo here. It reminds me of a cross between a miniature tiger lily and an elongated violet.

I found this picture -- and the identification of the flower -- at the terrific website mywildflowers.com. It specifically tracks wildflowers in my region (western PA) and I love the search engine, where you can look things up by color, leaf or petal shape, month sighted, region, common name, scientific name, and many other ways (sometimes in combination). I found the jewelweed's orange color and delicate spots quite striking, so this was easy: I entered orange for color and September for month sighted, and was able to ID the flower in a matter of seconds. I hope other areas of the country have websites like this one!

Miss Summer and Mr. Autumn

This past week it turned downright chilly. After a mild and warm-sometimes-hot September, the move into October seemed to prod our little part of the world into settling down to some seriously cooler weather.

It's been overcast here for a few days (a reminder of the gray winter to come) and sometimes quite rainy and windy. The sweet girl's had some congestion and a croupy cough. We've had to go digging for sweaters and I'm discovering just how few pants and long-sleeved shirts she has that actually fit...she seems to have lots of things she's either just grown out of or hasn't yet grown into!

Yesterday we were walking briskly down the sidewalk and feeling buffeted by a chill wind. S. leaned into it, pretending the wind was even stronger than it was -- "look, I'm in a hurricane!" she exclaimed, flailing with her arms as though swimming. We remembered how hot it was just a week or so ago, and suddenly she chuckled. "Mommy, summer and autumn are neighbors."

Next door neighbors, we agreed.

And ever since then, I can't get images out of my head: Miss Summer is tall, slender, dressed in a bright green and yellow sundress and sandals, her toenails painted bright colors, while Mr. Autumn is a bit older, wearing jeans and a rumpled orange sweater and smoking a musky pipe. I think they do sometimes sit on each other's porches, sipping sweet tea and exchanging quips about the weather. Miss Summer collects seashells; Mr. Autumn collects leaves. They both love those blue sky days filled with puffs and streaks of white clouds.

High School is Just "Heaven to Betsy"!

That's the name of my review of Maud Hart Lovelace's Heaven to Betsy, which I posted at Epinions the other day in honor of the Harper Betsy-Tacy reissues.

I had a lovely time re-reading and then reviewing HTB. And of course, I found myself wanting to keep going, so I'm now re-reading Betsy in Spite of Herself. Hopefully a review forthcoming in October!

I also got my copy of the reissue of Heaven to Betsy/Betsy in Spite of Herself (they've been bound as one volume) for giveaway! That's right, it's Betsy-Tacy convert week. I found a book-loving family at our church that had never heard of the series. They have two girls, somewhere around the ages of 10 and 12, and I passed the book on to them along with a letter telling them about my own lifelong love of the series.

All the folks participating in the B-T Convert Week have been assigned a society. I'm a Zetamathian, just like Betsy. Go Zets! Though darn, I hear that cute new boy Joe Willard is a Philo...

All this Lovelace reading has me in a very Betsy-Tacy frame of mind, so I've also spent time this week revisiting a B-T writing project I started last year. I'm tentatively calling it "The Betsy-Tacy Guide to Americana." More on this soon, if I'm able to continue working on it.

For Your Listening Pleasure

We've been enjoying two audio books around our house these past few weeks.

The first is the James Herriot Treasury for Children, as read by Jim Dale of Harry Potter audio book fame. The James Herriot treasury is truly beloved by our family...we read it at least annually, and I tend to bring it out in the autumn.

I was delighted to find this delightful audio version at the library, and the sweet girl enjoyed it at rest time for two weeks running. Dale does a very fine job of reading Herriot's tender Yorkshire tales about cows, sheep, horses, dogs and cats. And isn't it fitting that a man with the last name of Dale would read stories that made the Yorkshire dales so beloved to so many readers?

The other audio book is one that my husband and I have been enjoying during our occasional lunchtimes together. It's The Book of Three, the first book in Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. I just finished reading the whole five-book series a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed them so much I told D. that I hoped I could read them aloud to him (a common practice around here). But the more I contemplated reading them aloud, the more I wished that I could hear someone else pronounce some of the Welsh names first!

So I went looking for an audio version of the first book in the series, and now that we've started, I wonder if we won't just keeping going this way. That's because I'm completely in love with narrator James Langton's interpretation of these characters. I confess I'm not always a huge audio book fan, often because I think the reader doesn't do the work justice (or read it the way I've been hearing it in my head, or the way I would read it aloud...I love to read aloud!) but Langton's narration is amazing. He's created incredibly distinctive voices for each of the characters, most of which feel "just right." I'm especially impressed with his reading of Eilonwy (and yes, I can say her name correctly now!) and of Fflewddur Fflam, the courageous and funny bard with the truth-telling harp.

Listening to The Book of Three after finishing the whole series has also been a pleasure because I'm realizing anew what an excellent job Alexander did of setting up so many of the important events and moments in the series right here at the start. So much of The High King, the fifth and final book, rings more powerfully when you go full-circle back to the beginning. I'm also realizing anew just how funny the books are. Langton's reading makes the humorous parts, even the small and subtle ones, shine through. I highly recommend this audio version, but I hope that you can find it at the library as it appears to be out of print. (I just noted that the only copy available on Amazon is selling for over $100!)

Blogging Betsy-Tacy

In honor of the reissues of the last six books in the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace (Heaven to Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy Was a Junior, Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World and Betsy's Wedding are being reissued this month as Harper Perennial Classics) a number of writers will be posting on their blogs about the Betsy-Tacy books for the next couple of weeks. The tour is already in progress: today's stop is at Here in the Bonny Glen, where one of my favorite bloggers, Melissa Wiley, weighs in with delightful ruminations on Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, the third book in the series.


Big Hill is also one of my favorite books in the series. I reviewed it at Epinions back in 2006, under the title "Hills Were Higher Then." As I wrote in that review:

The older I get, and the more times I read these delightful stories, the more impressed I grow with their narrative artistry. Having recently re-visited these first three books, and knowing so well all that's still to come in the final seven, I'm especially moved by the way Lovelace used the landscape of Deep Valley's hills to portray both the concrete, physical community the girls grew up in, and the symbolic, more poetic image of the "wide world" that surrounded them. In each book, the girls find a way of pushing the boundaries of those hills a little further: from longing to climb the big hill near their homes, to actually doing it, to finally climbing all the way over it (in this installment) and finding a completely different community of people on the other side. Though this is the only book to reference the hills in its title, Lovelace will continue throughout the series to push at the notion of how the ever expanding boundaries of the world shape Betsy -- how the hills that surround her hometown confer familiarity and comfort and yet how they beckon her to step out, confident and curious, into a much wider space.

I just finished my umpteenth re-read of Heaven to Betsy (the first of the high school books) and plan to post a review at Epinions in the coming week, which I'll link here. I also want to do a post about how I first came to love the books, and the long journey to find and read them all!

I was delighted to hear about the blog tour. Although I'm not officially part of it, I hope at least some Betsy-Tacy fans will meander off the main drag and find my little path here, as I plan to post more about these beloved books in the coming couple of weeks. They've been such a huge part of my life for so many years -- what joy to be able to talk about them with other people who love them too!

Astronomy Picture of the Day

A friend recently told me about the Astronomy Picture of the Day website, and it's become one of my favorite online stops. The photos are usually fascinating and beautiful, sometimes taken of planets, stars, nebulas and galaxies but sometimes taken of things in the nightsky as seen over lands and seas here on earth. As much as I love the mysterious space photos (definitely the sweet girl's favorites) I'm partial to the ones taken from the surface of our own beloved planet.

Yesterday's photo, of gorgeous green auroras over the Northwest Territories in Canada, just about took my breath away. Something about the juxtaposition of the green lights in the blue skies, and that bright round white moon shining over the water, just filled my jar of beauty to overflowing. The heavens are telling the glory of God!

You can see yesterday's photo here.

The Inner Life of Atticus Finch

Last night I finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It's not the first time I've read it, but it had been a few years.

What amazes me about some books is their ability to pull you back in so completely, even if you've read them before. That happened to me this time around: though I remembered much of the story, I felt absolutely compelled to keep going. I literally couldn't put it down for about three hours (and three straight hours of reading is unfortunately not something I can often allow myself these days, unless I have the excuse of not feeling well, which I had last evening).

I was also unprepared for how incredibly moving I would find the ending still. You would think that, minus the "surprise" element, the impact would lessen. Not so. The near perfect-pitch of the writing in those final pages grabbed me all over again. I chuckled over barefooted Scout in her "ham" costume, falling asleep and then running onto the stage late, to the consternation of the school-teacher who had poured so much heartfelt sincerity into the Maycomb County pageant. And then as soon as we left the comfort of the school carnival, I felt my heart clutch with fear as Jem and Scout walked home on that dark, shadowy Halloween night, stalked by the shuffling footsteps of...well, they don't know who (though the reader has a pretty good idea, which only ups the fright). I felt myself almost faint with relief when their unlikely rescuer appeared. And I dissolved into tears, lots and lots of tears, as I always do whenever I get to those two precious, whispered words "Hey, Boo," spoken later by Scout, in the warm lamplight of Jem's room.

Truly this is a brilliant novel. Just brilliant. I think I finally had a glimpse of understanding last night, as I closed its pages again, as to why Harper never wrote another one. If you could write one book this powerful, this beautiful, this profound, would you feel a strong need to write another one? Maybe. I don't know.

Part of its brilliance, I'm coming to see, is the way it counterbalances the two major story-elements: the children's obsession with their reclusive neighbor Boo Radley, and Atticus' defense of Tom Robinson, wrongfully accused of heinous crimes. How those stories weave together, through Scout's eyes and in Scout's voice, is just amazing story-telling.

And then there's Atticus. Oh, how I love Atticus Finch. I've been realizing lately how often my favorite fictional characters are like Atticus: the ones where still waters run very, very deep. The ones we get to know only obliquely, through someone else's eyes, thus primarily through their actions. We feel like we know Atticus through and through when this story is over, having seen him through the respectful and loving eyes of his daughter (herself a grown woman looking back and telling the story of her childhood, which adds another layer of complexity) and we really do know almost everything important, or at least important to the tale. We know him for his courtesy to everyone, his firm but open and easy discipline of his children, his respect for their housekeeper/nurse Calpurnia. We know him for what he doesn't do, as well as what he does: he doesn't ever carry a gun, even when it would seem expedient, but as it turns out and we discover on the day a mad dog wanders into the neighborhood, he's one of the best shots in the county. The fact that this is news to his wondering children also speaks volumes.

There's so much about Atticus we'd love to know, but never find out. What does he think about in the evenings as he reads that newspaper, or reads books in his office? How much grief does he feel over his departed wife? Does he doubt his own wisdom in raising his children? (We get hints that he does.) Does he fear for his life more than he lets on, when so many people are angry at him for defending Tom? Why has he chosen to distance himself (but only so much) from his distinguished family? Where did he get his integrity, his honesty, his desire to be the same person in one place that he is in another? Who instilled in him those exquisite, authentic manners, and the vision to see other people the way he sees them? What are his prayers like? His favorite portions of the Bible? The novels he goes back to time and time again?

I love asking the questions. I love that Harper Lee has given us a character so richly layered, so real, that I feel like there must be answers somewhere, even if only in stories and books that never got written.

New Books From Some Favorite Writers

At bedtime the other evening we read Mr. Putter & Tabby Spill the Beans, a new reader from the winning team of author Cynthia Rylant and illustrator Arthur Howard. Thank you to Erin, who put me on to the fact that there was a new one out this fall! Of course we loved it. My favorite part of any Mr. P & T is the almost-surefire moment when the adventure reaches its sweet but often hysterically funny heights, and the sweet girl dissolves into chortles or gives a shout of appreciative laughter. This book did not fail us!

While I'm on the subject of new books from favorite writers, I thought I'd mention a few more I'm looking forward to this autumn.

Children's poet laureate Mary Ann Hoberman, one of my favorite poets for children OR adults, has just come out with her debut novel, Strawberry Hill. It's so bizarre to use the word "debut" in connection with Hoberman, who has been publishing amazing poetry for over fifty years. I'm inspired to see her trying her hand at a new genre. As an added bit of excitement, it's illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin, an illustrator whose work I especially love. Halperin illustrated the "Cobble Street Cousins" books, and also the wonderful picture book Homeplace, a library staple we've checked out numerous times over the years.

I just started Strawberry Hill and am already taken by its lovely simplicity. It's the story of a little girl growing up in Connecticut during the Great Depression, and is apparently based on Hoberman's own childhood.

Newbery winner Kate DiCamillo has an intriguing looking new book out (just released this week) called The Magician's Elephant. It sounds like a fascinating fable; since it's by DiCamillo, you know it will be well told.

Sarah Beth Durst, author of Into the Wild and Out of the Wild, has a new YA fantasy arriving in October. It's simply called Ice, and the cover is certainly compelling. I wasn't too sure about my ultimate verdict on Out of the Wild, but the polar bear on that cover really makes me want to pick this one up and give this author another try.

Hunting around to see what some of my favorite children's authors were up to, I discovered that we missed the release of new Alfie book by Shirley Hughes in 2008. It's called Alfie and the Big Boys, and I've already put a request through with our library! While on the subject of Hughes, here's a a fascinating interview with her done just this past spring for the Guardian. There's a wonderful photograph of her too.

And of course, no posting about fall releases would be complete without a big Betsy Ray shout out ("Yoo-hoo! Betsy!") regarding the reissues of the Betsy high school books by Maud Hart Lovelace. I posted about this earlier this year but am getting really excited as the time draws near. I'm one of the Betsy-Tacy fanatics who will be receiving a free copy of the first two books (bound as one) Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself, on the stipulation that I will share it with someone who doesn't know the series. (They're calling this Betsy-Tacy Convert week...I first heard about it via Facebook, where I'm part of the B-T fan group.) I've already decided to pass it on to two sisters at our church, ages about 9 and 12, who have never read the books. Their mom is delighted...and she's never read them either, so I may actually make three Lovelace converts all at once.

I'm also readying my review of Heaven to Betsy for Epinions, hoping to post it on or very near the release date at the end of the month. I reviewed the first four books in the series a couple of years ago, but for some reason held off on doing the older Betsy books. Now I'm glad I did!

Sparrow Conversation

I've still not gotten used to the newly paved sidewalk that's replaced the grass that used to be across the road from us. I'm pretty sure the local wildlife hasn't gotten used to it either.

In fact, just the other morning, I was looking out the window and noticed two small, brown birds sitting on a building ledge overlooking that concrete slab of a sidewalk. They were nodding their heads in sideways fashion, looking very wise (as little birds tend to do) and apparently deep in conversation. It didn't take much imagination to figure out what they were saying. I strained my ears and caught just a little of it.

Sparrow 1: Wasn't there grass here? Just a couple days ago? I swear there was grass.

Sparrow 2: (a trifle more anxious personality) Well, I thought so. But I do tend to lose my bearings a bit in the city.

Sparrow 1: (snorting a bit derisively) Not I. I was raised in a nest just down the road in the churchyard and I know this place like the back of my wing. There's the sycamore trees, there are those scrubby pine trees, and there are those grape vines by the fence they've stuck vicious barbed wire all over. Yep, yep, yep. I'm sure. I tell you, the GRASS WAS RIGHT THERE. Green as can be.

Sparrow 2: (timidly) It's not green now. Just that awful gray-white. Looks like dirty snow in the middle of August, doesn't it?

Sparrow 1: It's September.

Sparrow 2: ALREADY?

Sparrow 1: Haven't you noticed the school buses? And the orange glow to the moon? And how chilly your feathers feel in the morning?

Sparrow 2: Now that you mention it...

Sparrow 1: What I want to know is where they think we'll go for eats now. I mean, this was the best all you could eat buffet place within blocks. I just faint with hunger thinking of those sweet, juicy little earthworms below-ground, trying to push their heads up through the dark, moist earth, only to bonk their wormy little heads on a big ol' patch of concrete.

Sparrow 2: (tenderly) Almost makes you feel sorry for the poor dears, doesn't it?

Sparrow 1: In a way. I mean, if you think you lose YOUR bearings, think how they must feel. They're probably digging new tunnels like crazy trying to locate the nearest exit.

Sparrow 2: (with a half-cheep, half-sympathetic cluck) And think of the poor little seeds! I was quite looking forward to seeing the new dandelions and clover push their heads up through the soil next spring.

Sparrow 1: You and the rabbits!

(Both sparrows look for a moment at the concrete sidewalk where the lovely green grass used to be. Sparrow 2 sighs.)

Sparrow 1: Kind of makes you want to migrate early, doesn't it?

Those Unexpected Answers

One of the things I love most about teaching is the unexpected answer you sometimes get to a question.

This morning the sweet girl and I were talking about the earth: how big it is, how many people live on it, its shape, what it's made of, who made it.

When we got to the "who made it," she answered "God." And I asked: "And how did God make the earth?"

The answer I was expecting was some variation on "He created it" or "He spoke words" or "He made it out of nothing" (all things we've talked about before).

What she said, after a thoughtful pause was: "Special. And just for us."

Good answer!

Literary Influences

I've been thinking a lot about literary influences lately. Partly this stems from all the reading I've been doing, especially in the fantasy genre, where more and more I see things bubbling in the giant "cauldron of story" that J.R.R. Tolkien talked about. Sometimes it's difficult to know just who put what in the pot first, or when and how an author added his or her own special ingredients or gave it a unique stir.

I find it fascinating to wonder how certain stories grew, especially when elements jump out as being so similar in tone or atmosphere to another (often earlier) work. Did the author borrow directly? Did the author perhaps read that other work once at a crucial place in their own formation and development as a person or writer? Did they read it over and over and perhaps soak the story in so deeply that they no longer know where that story finishes and their own starts?

Or are the similarities "coincidental" or unconscious? Could it be that author A has never read author B, but they both share a love of author C (or even art or music or poetry D) and that influence has permeated their work in similar ways, giving their very different stories a similar flavor or scent?

Or is it that there really are only so many stories that can be told in this world, despite the huge variety of people who live them and tell them? Could it be that our shared humanity runs so deep that our memories/experiences are more kin than we usually acknowledge?

And how much does shared genre shape an author's choice? If a writer knows that he or she is plowing familiar territory in a certain kind work, do they perhaps choose to draw (or find themselves drawing naturally) on certain images, character types, symbols, and even narrative rhythms?

I find this whole topic fascinating, but I also find myself welcoming the opportunity to widen the discussion of literary influence beyond mere echoes and similarities of content and style. I recently finished a book that does just that: Diana Pavlac Glyer's The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community.

Although it's not just about Lewis, Glyer's book has joined what I'm coming to think of as my canon of personal favorite books about C.S. Lewis. It's a painstaking and highly readable work of scholarship. More than the meticulous research that went into it, however, and the many new facts I learned about some of my favorite authors, I enjoyed it for its fresh approach to the topic of the Inklings. Glyer asks readers to consider the question of literary influence in much broader perspective than we usually consider it (the context I laid out in the earlier part of this post). She looks at the way community fosters influence, assessing mutual influence by looking not just at similar writing style or writing interest, but by looking at the ways writers in community affect one another as "resonators, opponents/critics, editors, collaborators, and referents." She then proceeds to look at the interaction of the Inklings in light of those categories.

The book gave me much to think about as a reader and a writer, and as someone who appreciates the writing friends and community I have (and longs for more). What role do our writing friends, our resonators, play in our creativity? A far larger role than we might guess, I think.

All of which leads me back to the thoughts that fascinate me about the "echoes" I hear in certain stories. We may never know what lies behind a certain turn of phrase, a choice of image, a decision about a character. But we can be sure that such writerly choices are not made in isolation, even if a writer thinks they're working completely "on their own." There's really no such thing as "on you're own" when you join in the long conversation of creativity that flows down through the ages. When you step up to the pot to create your "own" recipe, you never really start from scratch.

School Tomorrow

The sweet girl is in bed, and the first day of school muffins* are in the oven. The living room and dining room (our main school spaces) have been cleaned. The white board has been scrubbed, a lovely blank space awaiting the three-pack of new white board pens I've been saving up for just this occasion (the sweet girl loves to draw on the white board, so we go through those faster than you'd believe!).

Yes, first day of school tomorrow!

And we're so excited. Our third year of schooling together -- well, our third official year. We've been learning/teaching since the day she was born.

I am such a creature of habit and routine. Rituals are important to me at a deep heart level. I considered writing about that, but then I came across this blog post at Holy Experience that said it all better than I could. I resonated with this post at deep heart levels, and I joyed to the fact that the writer quotes from one of my favorite G.K. Chesterton passages of all time, a passage I fell in love with about twenty years ago when I first came across it in college.

Happy ceremony; happy firsts and repeated firsts. Happy start of the school year to all.

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*A virtual gold star to anyone who can guess how our first day of school muffin tradition started. Clue: it came from literary inspiration.