Archive | August 2004

More Picture Book Authors

Aug30

These picture book authors and illustrators were born on this date:
Laurent de Brunhoff: He is the son of Jean de Brunhoff, creator of the books about Babar the elephant. Actually, though, it was Laurent’s mother who first created the story of the little elephant who leaves home to visit the city. Laurent’s father, Jean, died in 1937 when Laurent, the oldest of his three sons, was only twelve years old. Laurent grew up to become an artist and to continue the Babar saga in over thirty more books.
Virginia Lee Burton: (b.1909, d.1968) Virginia Burton is the author of Mike Mulligan and His Steamshovel and The Little House, both classic picture books.

I literally draw my books first and write the texts after – sort of “cart before the horse.” I pin the sketched pages in sequence on the walls of my studio so I can see the book as a whole. Then I make a rough dummy and then the final drawings and, when I can put it off no longer, I type out the text and paste it in the dummy. Whenever I can, I substitute picture for word.

My first thought is: how could one have a decent plot doing a book this way? However, her books definitely tell a good story. Burton won the Caldecott Award in 1954 for her book The Little House.
Donald Crews: My favorite books by this author/illustrator are Harbor, Parade, and Truck. His illustrations are bright, simple and visually appealing. Not much subtlety here, not a whole lot of story, but the books are lots of fun for the two and three year old crowd.

Books written by these three authors can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Tasha Tudor

Aug28

Last but not least, author and illustrator Tasha Tudor celebrates her birthday today. She is 89 years old.  According to her family website, Tasha Tudor is still in excellent health: “She continues to lead an independent and active life which encompasses copious artwork, gardening and greenhouse care, pets, family and friends.” If you’re not familiar with Tasha Tudor’s illustrations, all her children wear what my children choose to call “homeschool clothes,” old-fashioned clothing from the 1800’s. (We don’t really know any homeschoolers who wear these kinds of dresses, but we do know some who would like to if they could find them readily available.) Anyway, Tasha Tudor is a wonderful writer and illustrator, and she’s created a life that sounds as if it came out of storybook. She lives on a farm in rural Vermont. To read more about Tasha Tudor’s life and work, read The Private World of Tasha Tudor by Richard Brown. My favorite book by Tasha herself is A Time to Keep: The Tasha Tudor Book of Holidays.

Tasha’s books can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Allen Say

Aug28

Say is a Japanese-American author who was also born on this date. He was born in Yokohama, Japan and came to the U.S. just after WWII with his father. His father enrolled him in a military school in California, and Say hated the school and the United States. He was expelled from military school after a year enabling him to explore California on his own. He began to write and illustrate children’s books while doing advertising photography for a living. His book The Bicycle Man is set in Japan immediately after World War II. In the story, two American soldiers visit a Japanese schoolyard and show the children tricks on a bicycle. Maybe this book would be a good one to distribute among American servicemen in Iraq. Then again, maybe the situations are not that analogous. The Iraquis seem to be more dangerous. Could two American servicemen visit an Iraqui school without guns (the book specifically says, “They had no guns.”) and hope to be welcomed? Would they even be allowed to do so by the U.S. and Iraqi authorities? I don’t know.
Say also won a Caldecott Award for his book Grandfather’s Journey about his own grandfather’s coming to the United States.

Allen Say’s books can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Phyllis Krasilovsky

Aug28

Krasilovsky is the author of several children’s picture books, but I am only familiar with our all-time favorite, The Man Who Didn’t Wash His Dishes. Read this one for a humorous answer to the kid question: “But why do we have to wash the dishes?” These titles by the same author sound interesting also.

The Man Who Cooked for Himself: “A man who lives at the edge of the woods discovers that he need not rely on the store for a supply of good things to eat.”
The Man Who Tried to Save Time: “A man drastically reorganizes his daily routines to save time, only to come to a startling realization.”
The Woman Who Saved Things: “A woman who prides herself on her extensive junk collection finds that there is no room in her home for her grandchildren to sleep.”
The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fix Things: ‘A lazy man takes shortcuts when repairing his aging house. He pastes a broken plate back together with flour and water, wraps band-aids around a chair rung, pounds a nail with his shoe, and spreads chewing gum over a crack in the sidewalk.”
It sounds as if Krasilovsky likes to write about the pitfalls of housekeeping in a humorous vein. SInce I live the pitfalls of housekeeping in a humorous vein, I might have to get some of her other books.

He was so very, very tired after carrying everything back and putting it away that he decided that from then on he would always wash his dishes just as soon as he had finished his supper. —The Man Who Didn’t Wash His Dishes

Ms. Krasilovsky’s books can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Roger Duvoisin

Aug28

I have a plethora of authors with birthdays today to present for your reading pleasure. First, we have Roger Antoine Duvoisin, born in 1904 in Geneva, Switzerland. He attended art and music schools in Switzerland and France and eventually emigrated to the United States. Duvoisin wrote and illustrated over forty books for children, and he illustrated more than 140. He won the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in White Snow, Bright Snow by Alvin Tresselt. Roger Duvoisin created at least two delightful characters that I know of: Petunia the silly goose and Veronica the conspicuous hippopotamus. When she travels to the city, Veronica is “gloriously conspicuous.” However, after getting way too much attention from everyone including the police, “Veronica . . .was tired of being conspicuous. One can be too conspicuous.” Conspicuous is such a fun word to introduce to little children.

Mr. Duvoisin’s books can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Homeschooled: Uneven Results

Aug27

The Bennett sisters (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen) were homeschooled, mostly by themselves. So if you want to raaise an Elizabeth Bennett, homeschool. On the other hand, if you don’t want a Lydia Bennett, you’d best pay more attention to the children’s education than Mr. and Mrs. Bennett did.

Either/Or

Aug24

I got this “either/or” from Thinklings. Since it’s the “literary edition,” I just had to play.

Hardback or Paperback Unless I have to pack it in my purse.
Highlight or Underline, But I never have a high lighter handy, so I usually just lose the quote.
Lewis or Tolkien That’s a really, really hard choice. Unfair.
E.B. White or A.A. Milne Pooh rocks.
T.S. Eliot or e.e. cummings Mostly because my friend Julia taught me to appreciate Eliot a long time ago.
Stephen King or Dean Koontz Neither.
Barnes & Noble or Borders No Borders nearby.
Waldenbooks or B. Dalton
Fantasy or Science Fiction
Horror or Suspense
Bookmark or Dogear
Large Print or Fine Print I’m getting old, but my $1.00 glasses from Dollar Tree are changing my life.
Hemingway or Faulkner
Fitzgerald or Steinbeck
Homer or Plato Give me the story every time.
Geoffrey Chaucer or Edmund Spenser
Pen or Pencil Or a very sharp pencil.
Looseleaf or Notepad
Alphabetize: By Author or By Title
Shelve: By Genre/Subject or All Books Together
Dustjacket: Leave it On or Take it Off
Novella or Epic
John Grisham or Scott Turrow
J.K. Rowling or Lemony Snicket Neither.
John Irving or John Updike Neither.
Salman Rushdie or Don Delillo Neither.
Fiction or Non-fiction
Historical Biography or Historical Romance
Reading Pace: A Few Pages per Sitting or Finish at Least a Chapter When they let me . . .
Short Story or Creative Non-fiction Essay
Blah Blah Blah or Yada Yada Yada I told you, I’m old.
“It was a dark and stormy night…” or “Once upon a time…”
Books: Buy or Borrow Until I can afford to buy.
Book Reviews or Word of Mouth

College or not?

Aug24

10 Bad Reasons to Go to College and 10 Good Reasons to Go to College.

Ten Bad Reasons to Go to College
1. I’m going to college to have FUN!!
2. I’m going to college to figure out what to do with my life.
3. I’m going to college to find a husband or wife.
4. I’m going to college to get out of my house.
5. I’m going to college to find myself.
6. My parents saved all this money for my college education, so I guess I”ll have to spend it.
7. I just graduated from high school, and college is the next step.
8. I don’t have anything else to do for the next four years.
9. All the really rich people go to college first before they get really rich.
10. I don’t wanna grow up–I’m a Toys R Us kid.

Ten Good Reasons to Go to College
1. I’ve saved up or earned or been given enough money to pay the tuition myself.
2. I want to learn something that I can learn best at a college.
3. I want to earn a credential that I can only earn at a college or university.
4. I want to learn a marketable skill in order to support a family someday.
5. I know what God wants me to do , and I need a college education to get there.
6. I don’t have responsibilities for a spouse or children, and I can afford to spend the next four years learning something that is important to me.
7. My parents and I are in agreement that college would be a good educational setting for me.
8. I want to get a broad liberal arts education now while I have the time and the opportunity.
9. I have the Biblical foundation and the right relationship with Christ to be able to filter all the teaching I receive through a Christian worldview.
10. I believe that God is leading me to go to college.

New Hobby

Aug23

I have a new hobby, and it only costs $2.00 a week. (Yes, I know that $2.00 a week means $104.00 a year.) My new hobby is . . .
iTunes. I plan to buy exactly two songs per week and enjoy lots of nostalgic moments. So far, I’ve bought the following songs:

Simon and Garfunkle: Scarborough Fair
Simon and Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water
Eagles: Desperado
Roberta Flack: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
From Lord of the Rings: Into the West
Artist Unknown: Eres Tu

I just found the words to Eres Tu. Anyone else remember this ballad from the late 70’s, I would guess?

ERES TU
(Juan Carlos Calderon)

Como una promesa eres tu, eres tu,
Como una manana de verano.
Como una sonrisa eres tu, eres tu.
Asi, asi eres tu.

Como una esperanza eres tu, eres tu,
Como lluvia fresca en mis manos
Como fuerte brisa eres tu, eres tu
Asi, asi eres tu

Eres tu como el agua de mi fuente.
Eres tu el fuego de mi hogar.
Algo asi eres tu.
Algo asi como el fuego de mi hoguera,
Algo asi eres tu , en mi vida algo asi eres tu.

Como mi poema eres tu, eres tu,
Como una guitarra en la noche,
Como mi horizonte eres tu, eres tu.
Asi, asi eres tu.

Eres tu como el agua de mi fuente
Eres tu el fuego de mi hogar.
Algo asi eres tu.
Algo asi como el fuego de mi hoguera
Algo asi eres tu, en mi vida algo asi eres tu.
Algo asi eres tu,
Algo asi como el agua de mi fuente.
Al asi eres tu, como el fuego de mi hogar.

Yes, I do have an incurable nostalgic and romantic streak. And don’t insult my eclectic taste in music. I plan to have Computer Guru Son turn my cassette tape of Keith Green into computer files next and load that into the iTunes, too–right next to Simon and Garfunkel and Pachelbel’s Canon.

Join Me in Glad Adoration #2

Aug22

Does anyone else remember singing this song as a child? I think my mother taught it to me.

In the temple, in the temple,
Stood a happy boy one day,
And the doctors wondered greatly
At the words they heard Him say.

Refrain:
It was Jesus!
It was Jesus!
Standing in the temple there.
And the light of heav’n was shining
In His face so pure and fair.

2.)It was Jesus who was teaching,
And they listened to His word,
As He told them of His mission
From the great and mighty Lord.
|| Refrain ||

3.)Let us ever then be eager
To sit down at Jesus’ feet.
To be learning from our Saviour,
And His lessons to repeat.
|| Refrain ||

FLORA KIRKLAND, 1921
Howard E. Smith

This week we read the story of the young man Jesus talking with the elders and teachers in the Temple for several days while his parents searched for him. I should teach my children this song. I pray that we will all learn of Jesus in the temple on this Lord’s Day.