Lost and Searching

I feel lost. All the books I checked out have been read. All the things I still want to read have not arrived for me yet. I do not feel like rereading some past favorite, yet I keep searching for something on my shelves that will captivate me. What do other readers do when this happens?

In My House

In my house...a library. In the library...bookshelves. On one bookshelf...a wooden box. Inside the wooden box...a heart-shaped bracelet. On the heart-shaped bracelet...the name Lucille. In the name Lucille...the memories of a beloved grandmother.

After reading Marianne Dubuc's picture book In Front of My House, my mind has been composing shorter versions like the one above in a form similar to the book's text. Each prepositional phrase begins with the object that ended the last one. Once inside the house, the reader is transported under the bed, into a book of fairy tales, through some tales, into outer space, inside a whale's belly, to a zoo, and eventually back to that house on a little hill.

I love the simple illustrations! I love the way the text flows from some random and some sensible things to others. I love thinking about things in my own world and how I can bring them in a circular fashion as Ms. Dubuc does in her book. I look forward to sharing it with kids...and encouraging them to write something like she did.

Have You Read? #19

I live less than a mile from Snail Lake, located on Snail Lake Boulevard. Neither appear to be snail-shaped. In the past the boys have found rather odorous snails on Snail Lake beach, and I insisted the snails stay in their lakeside home instead of ours. Still, I never pondered snails much, except to consider their slow progress and to know I did not want to eat them.

When Joyce recommended Elisabeth Tova Bailey's The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, I reserved it not because I felt particularly interested, but because we generally like to read similar things. It has captivated me for the past two days, so much so that I read-walked with it around Snail Lake this morning. I mentally marked pages and passages I wanted to recall and record when I got home (pages 57, 61, 101) and even stopped to read aloud the passage on page 57 (about the author's imaginings of what humans would be like if our arms possessed the same scent-detection skills as a snail's tentacles do) to my friend Sheri and her walking partner.

The author contracted a rare disease, eventually diagnosed as autoimmune dysautonomia and later mitochondrial disease, that left her unable to stand, sit, or care for herself in any meaningful way. While she convalesces, a friend brings her a snail and a wild violet, both transplanted to a pot that rests on a chest by her bed. Her observations of the snail's habits and preferences led her to read volumes about snails. The two are merged in this wonderfully written narrative that spans a year of her twenty-year illness. Facts abound. I found myself reading and re-reading so my brain could absorb the incredible things she discovered and uncovered about snails.

I must keep it a few days before returning it to the library.

Taking a Book Break

In the Alphabet Forest yesterday, I kept my camera with me in case I needed to capture a moment in literacy. Not surprising, it was out of its case most of the day! I lost count of the children and parents taking a book break under the shady trees. Debra would glimpse a child and whisper to me, "Look at that lovely child in the __ shirt. Did you get that one?" I did. Amid the general crowd noise, the music of the afternoon parade, and the spinning of the alphabet wheel, readers were quietly engrossed in books. Magical. It affirmed all the reasons we have worked so hard to bring the Alphabet Forest to life at the State Fair.

On another note...one family (all wearing yellow shirts to keep themselves together and visible to one another) spent about TWO HOURS in the Alphabet Forest. The grandma, moms, and daughters took great photos with the large alphabet letters, they read books, they made mini-banners, they wrote letters to someone else at Debra Frasier's author table, they bought books and had them signed, and they won blue ribbons for completing the vocabulary game card. Both moms asked to write comments on the Alphabet Forest's guest clipboard.

In Its Place

The letters swayed in the breeze. The red-roofed cabin was festooned with red strips and yellow dots (imagine painted theatre lights). The fence was anchored on the street corner. And at 9:00 a.m. today the Alphabet Forest opened for the second year to Minnesota State Fair visitors.

The perfectly sunny day yielded lots of eager word-seekers who brought completed game cards and received blue ribbons! Illustrator Mike Wohnoutka was featured as the Minnesota Homegrown Author, and his coloring and lettering activities delighted the young folks who gathered around the table. It was a FAIR DAY, as some guests spelled out in the photo area!

Mercy Watson to the CTC

When Kate DiCamillo published Mercy Watson to the Rescue in 2005, I could hardly wait to share the book with children - and adults. I read it aloud to fifth graders (some of whom tried not to laugh, even though I knew they wanted to do so) and first graders (who all laughed uproariously). My mom bought a set. My dad read them. My aunt, a fan of pigs (and now porcine wonders), loves her copies. So, even though the books are considered early readers, they have age-wide appeal.

Today I will be spending time with Mercy, a pig who loves hot-buttered toast even more than I do, as I prepare activities and a discussion for 60 or so children. The Children's Theatre Company is starting a great thing in their 2011-12 season: Read & Play Book Clubs. Each of the season's plays is based on a book, and at one special performance of each, playgoers will get a copy of the book. They are invited to stay after the show to participate in the book club, and I feel fortunate to be the person who gets to talk with them.

What is not to love about a pig who invites trouble at every opportunity yet is considered a darling and dear by her doting parents?

Take-a-Book-Break

At this year's Alphabet Forest, guests are invited to take a break from the hubbub of the fair and enjoy a book. A sturdy shelf has been repainted with The Fabulous Fair Alphabet red stripes and yellow dots to hold the books written and illustrated by the 12 Minnesota authors and illustrators who will meet guests each of 12 days of the fair (one per day).

As we worked on covering books and labeling them, conversations kept returning to whether guests would misinterpret the name for the shelf in the shady area and literally take a book from the shelf - and leave with it. Debra Frasier decided each should have a message to encourage guests to keep the books in the Alphabet Forest: Borrow! Read! Return to Shelf! Holding a colorful book in one's hand and seeing that book's creator through the trees might make it tempting to take the book. We are hoping thousands of readers visit the Take-a-Book-Break shelf in the coming days and allow others to repeat the process.