Artist Series at Rock & Sling

Thank you to Rock & Sling for the opportunity to share one of the books that is inspiring me right now. I haven't read The Wide-Awake Princess to my kids in years, but it is still speaking to me. Now more than ever. You can read the whole blog post here.



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On My Mind

I have been thinking about the power of transforming something, and the power of re-telling a story.

I have been thinking about this, and making more flowers.

I have been thinking about the heart—the meaning—of a poem, hidden in a cluster of words at the heart of the larger poem. (Poet Helen Frost was one of six authors and illustrators Middle and I got to hear speak at the Children’s Literature Festival at Truman State University Friday. I am still floating a little bit.)

I have been thinking about how mixed in with the rain that fell outside the dining room window yesterday were tiny white petals from our flowering pear tree. And mixed in with the raindrops clinging to branches out the back kitchen window were tiny green leaf buds.

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Thankful, 2014: In-between

Earlier this week when three of our alarms went off at once, the sound for a moment was visible. Before I opened my eyes I saw glass shattering, the pieces glittering as they scattered. As I got up the image lingered. I wish I could have held it longer. Oldest sets two alarms for morning—5:55 and 6:00 a.m.—and when the first went off that morning I took this lovely comfort in the fact that we all had five more minutes before facing the day. I remember nothing else about those five minutes—the next thing I knew was that vision of sound as shards of glass, spraying out into the dark. I suppose I had fallen asleep just enough to dream.

This is one of the luxuries of life, I think: waking up and realizing you still have time left to sleep. The extra rest is a gift. But that chance to lie still in a place between two worlds—between waking and sleeping—that is also a gift. I love that kind of edge-place, and the way it breaks in on reality.

Maybe my love of those in-between places is a throwback to the myths and fairy tales I loved so much as a girl. They resonated deeply and caught my imagination. They filled me with wonder, and a part of me always believed they could be true. Maybe I was supposed to grow up and put aside all fantasy. But no. The thing I’ve learned, getting older, is that most of the time this world is stranger and richer than we expect it to be. Not that I don't have a grip on reality, and not that that reality isn't full of pain and frustration, sometimes.   But dreams break in on alarm clocks breaking in on sleep. Those things that we think of as larger than life or outside reality—the myths and fairy tales and flights of fancy—they are braided all through life. And the wonder—it is there in the corners and edges and small hidden places, and it is more true than I could have hoped.

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So—July was a whole lot of traveling.

Now we’re home. A good part of this week has been spent puzzling out a schedule for the school year—for my teaching, for the kids’ school and activities, for everything else. I’m wondering how safe it is to drink lots of coffee while doing this. I was so excited to pay for the kids’ swim club on time, on top of all the Figuring Things Out! I did yesterday morning that I accidentally put the car into drive instead of reverse at the aquatic center and nearly drove down a big grassy hill. 

This time of year is a second January—looking forward, looking back. Last month’s travels are still fresh. The school year ahead is all theory, the outlines of it neatly arranging themselves on a grid. Things will not look this tidy in the thick of it, but that’s where the art lies, right? This is a thought I will try to hold on to.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Llonio the Gatherer from Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain. I read the books to Oldest and Middle years ago, and Llonio has stayed close—with his approach to life, his skill at using what came to him, the beauty of his outlook: “Trust your luck, Taran Wanderer. But don’t forget to put out your nets!” Because I keep running into this: What You Have and What You Don’t Have are two very important and special things. Yes, both can be harsh, painful, devastating. But you can also make magic, when you start playing with the two. This, too, is something to hold on to.

In the spirit of Llonio, I want to share some of my gatherings from this summer—some of the quieter, magical things that presented themselves along with what was planned:

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What I've Been Up To

(Besides taking pictures)

Teaching:

I find teaching a difficult thing to write about, but I daily feel my brain churning away at the mystery of it all. I start to feel a little lost when I take too long a break from it, and I feel consumed by it by the middle of each semester. I dream of having a secretary to handle the details—scheduling, snacks, fundraising. But the actual teaching part—being part of and witness to so many lives, so many struggles, so much growth—I am all at once thankful and stretched and puzzled and energized and drained. The Violin Project, especially, is intense—7 kids and several wonderful volunteers and I—we have spent many hours together. The time and work are turning into something special. (Much of our year together is in pictures on our Facebook page.)

Last week my students performed with our community string orchestra. Everybody worked hard, prepared well, played beautifully. 

Non-blog writing:

A couple of projects that have needed more than I’ve been able to give. It was good to give them more of my time, even though they are not yet finished. The bit of momentum behind them is encouraging.

On the blog:

There are a number of new titles on my Music Resources: Picture Books, Etc. page. There are so many good books out there. Let me know what I've missed!

Oh—and making stuff:

These are slow-moving projects but I refuse to give them up completely. At the very least they are good for the soul.

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Medley: 9/29/13

 

(1)

From What Charlie Heard: the Story of the American Composer Charles Ives, by Mordicai Gerstein, Frances Foster Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002:

 

Charlie grew older and became ill. He had to stop writing music. He and Harmony lived in the country. He had hundreds of pieces of music that had never been performed, all on paper, all silent. Charlie continued to send his music out into the world. But few people had anything encouraging to say.

 

“If only they would open their ears,” he said to Harmony, “they might open their hearts.”

 

 

(2)

Watching the face of one of The Violin Project students while I read this book to them Friday afternoon: I wish I could share with you the concern and intensity with which he listened.

 

 

(3)

An artist, El Anatsui, his shimmering work made from tossed-out bottle caps, and how those who assemble and install his work play a part in his art: (www.npr.org)

 

“’Every one of us has an artist in us,’ he says. ‘Really, some may be asleep and some are fully awake, you know. So I think I have a kind of commitment to waking up some people in whom it is asleep. Teaching—my work is still teaching.’”

 

 

 

(4)

“Season of Rain,” Josh Garrels

 

 

(5)

It rained this weekend. We were glad.

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Crawl Inside

Last night, cleaning up in the kitchen, I caught the tail end of Bruckner 8. I didn’t know about Bruckner until college, but the first time I read through his 7^th Symphony I knew I had been waiting to hear and play this music all my life. It is music I wish I could crawl inside of, especially those big, glorious endings.

I wanted to share it with you—this ending I heard at the end of a long day, after casting about with  a prayer that amounted to show me something beautiful. Remind me.

The music was beautiful. I got to crawl inside it just a little bit, and then I finished loading the dishwasher and  got on YouTube. And I found this version. The coda (ending) starts at 4:00, and the piece ends about 2 ½ minutes later, and there’s a moment when the music stops, before the conductor lowers his baton—watch his face. Do you see it? Something of a crumbling, a moment suspended between two worlds, and  finally release—it is done. He was deep inside that music. I have felt what I saw on his face, although not as often as I'd like. Making art doesn’t always work like that, not in my experience, at least. There are too many things that can get in the way. But sometimes it does work that way and you find yourself deep inside, and that is a wonderful, soul-feeding moment.

I’m thinking now of a favorite passage in Winnie-the-Pooh when Pooh gets stuck half-in, half-out of Rabbit’s hole. Christopher Robin tells him they will have to wait until he gets thinner for his friends to pull him out:

     “I’m afraid no meals,” said Christopher Robin, “because of getting thin quicker. But we will read to you.” 

      Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn’t because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said:

     “Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?”

I figure I can look at art as an escape, or a distraction, or even just background, but I know better. I think in reality it is more like water or air—sustaining, life-giving, essential. A reminder. A place to crawl inside of. Whether we are Wedged Bears in Great Tightness or not.

Next time you find something beautiful, show somebody else. And maybe tell me about it, too.

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Hide/Grow/Reach Out: New-to-Me Books

Oh, this one in the picture has a lot of energy. All three of my kids are pretty intense, but this one’s energy is usually a lot more outwardly-directed than the others’. When she’s reading a book, though, it absorbs her fully. There’s something extra-delightful about that. It wasn’t too long ago that I wondered if she would ever sit down for a story. She is so busy, so physical. But no—when she reads, the book takes all that energy and draws it wholly into itself. This fits her personality, but I didn’t expect it.

I have been conscious, myself, of how I hide myself in books (or in making music, or creating things,) especially during hard or stressful times. Sometimes these things are escape, sometimes solace (not the same thing, those two.) But they are also places to grow. There is nothing like hearing someone else’s story to find encouragement and discover you are not alone. To seek wisdom and gain perspective. When it’s time to come back out of a book and engage your life, you have the opportunity to bring something new with you—hope, understanding, peace, strength, mercy—something. And with that something you have a new way to reach out.

How beautiful is that?

We must keep sharing this with the children around us.

To that end, I am (finally) adding to my Music Resources: Picture Books, Etc. page. The new additions are below. And if you haven’t visited this page yet, please do. I know there are books I’ve missed, so if there’s something that should be there that you don’t see, let me know in the comments!

Leave Your Sleep: A Collection of Classic Children’s Poetry, by Natalie Merchant, illustrated by Barbara McClintock, Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, 2012

I adore books like this—fabulous words, beautiful illustrations, and a full-length CD—in my mind that pretty much covers everything you could want. This collection was inspired by the poems, stories, and songs Natalie Merchant shared with her daughter in the first six years of her life. This is a wealth of good literature, and good art, and good music.

For the Love of Music: The Remarkable Story of Maria Anna Mozart, by Elizabeth Rusch, paintings by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher, Tricycle Press, 2011

Maria Anna Mozart (Nannerl) was as much a child prodigy as her younger brother Wolfgang Amadeus. The two traveled and performed together all over Europe for several years. But when Wolfgang and his father left on a second trip, Maria was left behind. From that point, the siblings’ lives took different courses. Written in small segments following the form of a piano sonata, this book details Maria’s life, showing how music permeated her life, even though her opportunities as a woman were much different than her brother’s.

The Other Mozart: The Life of the Famous Chevalier de Saint-George, by Hugh Brewster, illustrated by Eric Velasquez, Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2007

Born in the West Indies in 1745 to a slave mother and wealthy plantation-owner father, Joseph de Bologne-Saint-George was raised and educated like a gentleman. When Joseph was eight his father sold his plantation and moved to Paris, bringing Joseph and his mother, now both no longer slaves, with him. He also re-named his son, giving him the title Chevalier, which was equivalent to a knight. Joseph was bright, talented, strong, and handsome, and he made a name for himself in France as a brilliant fencer, an accomplished musician, composer, and conductor, and later in life as the first black colonel in the French army. He was famous and accomplished and admired, but he also had to navigate a world in which his opportunities were quite limited by the color of his skin. His fascinating story is told in the context of the world of his time, with brief interludes telling about Paris, Haydn, Mozart, Marie Antoinette, and the French Revolution scattered through the book.

Little Stevie Wonder, by Quincy Troupe, illustrated by Lisa Cohen, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005

The story of Stevie Wonder’s life, told in energetic, poetic language and vibrant illustrations. Accompanied by a CD with two of his songs, “Fingertips,” and “Uptight (Everything’s Alright.” This is as much a tribute to the man and his work as it is a biography.

Woody Guthrie: Poet of the People, by Bonnie Christensen, Alfred A Knopf, 2001

Woody Guthrie had a hard, poor life from the start, but when he traveled from Oklahoma to California in search of a better life during the Depression and found only more hardship, and saw the plight of other migrant workers like him, he made it his mission to become their voice. He spent his life traveling across America, talking to migrant field workers, miners, and factory workers, turning their stories and their struggles into songs, as well as championing the rights of workers and the importance of unions. 

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Wordless 2013, Day 7

 

 

 

 

 

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'Tis the Season

Forgive me if you are tired of this music. I am not. Many Decembers of my childhood meant a chance to see “The Nutcracker,” and if I was lucky, “Hansel and Gretel,” as well. So far in my adult life I’ve had the chance to play in the pit for each of them only once, and I loved every moment. Maybe if I’d played them more I would be bored with them, but maybe not. Like grilled cheese sandwiches and butterscotch malts, I suspect some things are just good forever. In my world, at least.

This still slays me.

As does this.

(I checked.)

Duke Ellington’s version of the Nutcracker Suite was new to me (fun vintage promotional video here), but I enjoyed that immensely, as well. And look—an accompanying picture book with CD:

More Nutcracker resources here and here.



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Serendipity

Oldest found this little guy at an art fair yesterday. I was barely paying attention when he asked if he could see how much it cost—we had been walking around long enough that Middle, whose Tylenol was wearing off, was starting to feel sick again, and Youngest was beginning to crumble under the realization that the world was even more full of things-she-couldn’t-have than she’d realized. So when he came back and told me it was $2, I was simply glad he could afford it.

The lady who sold it to him, though, left her booth to tell me about the transaction. “I can tell you’re busy,” (I think Middle was by this time sitting in the street, and Youngest was climbing me like a tree) “but I want you to know about the deal your son made. These whistles are $15 dollars each, but this one’s whistle is broken. This one just needs a good home.” She seemed genuinely touched that Oldest wanted it anyway, and used his own money to buy it. I was, too. But then again, what’s a whistle when you’ve clearly got so many stories to tell? I like this guy better, knowing he’s flawed.

At that same art fair, Middle found, among a cluster of handmade glass beads hanging on loops of ribbon, one with a price tag marked “free.” “Mom, what does this mean?” The woman working the booth assured us that it meant it was free, and while she was untangling it from the other beads she told Middle that the artist had hidden one free bead on each rack at her booth, and all the rest had already been found.

It was a good day for rare things. I started my day with friends who like to wake up early on Saturday mornings to run through the woods, and we were treated to a lovely pink sunrise, and fog over the water so thick it felt like we were at the edge of the world. At the end of the day, I got near the end of our current read-aloud (Ronia, the Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren) and realized how much I was going to miss it when we were done, because of how full it is with wildness and sweetness and love.

Do these things speak to you? I remember one fall that I felt so lonely I didn’t notice the leaves changing color until it was almost too late, and I decided I didn’t ever want to miss that again. There have been harder times since then (and better times, too) but I try now, not to forget to see.

And sometimes those things just come, unasked for, and remind me not to stop trying.



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People-Watching

It’s always been a favorite activity—listening to and watching the people around me. There is much to be learned, in a gleaning sort of way. And I’ve learned through the years that I’m not limited to the people immediately around me—listening to people’s stories through books and interviews—that counts, too. It has gotten to be a favorite form of education.

Some recent choice bits of people-watching:

Picture book biographies: Why would anybody ever think that you could graduate from picture books to some “higher form” of literature? The really good ones combine art and language, and sometimes music, too, to tell about the lives of amazing people. With the same rich-in-content-spare-in-words elegance as a poem. I’ve loved reading these to my kids recently:

Louie! by Will Hillenbrand, Philomel Books, 2009 (Loosely-based on the life of Ludwig Bemelmans, creator of Madeline.)






What To Do About Alice?: How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove her Father Teddy Crazy! by Barbara Kerley, illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham, Scholastic Press, 2008





Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade, by Melissa Sweet, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011







Also:

The “In Practice” series on NPR.org:  Not geared towards kids, but an adult interested in the creative process can gain much insight listening to musicians talk about their practice space, how they work, and how they interact with their art.

Talk to me—what sorts of people-watching have you done recently?


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To Share:

• I love happening upon books like this at the library: Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children About Their Art(Philomel Books, proceeds benefit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.) This is a treasure. Amazing artwork accompanies words of encouragement and wisdom woven into the personal experiences of these artists—I would suggest that this book isn’t just for children, and that you don’t even need to be an aspiring artist to gain a ton from reading it.



• This blog post by Justine Musk about minimalism and creativity in a consumer culture spoke to me on a bunch of different levels.

• I heard the end of Brahms’ German Requiem on NPR recently, and realized I didn’t appreciate it nearly enough when I played it way-back-when. Because—well, just listen to it and tell me what you think.



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Words to Love

"I wish I could take this morning and put it in my pocket and keep it forever."

from Toot & Puddle: Let it Snow, by Holly Hobbie, Little, Brown and Company, 2007



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Gifts to Share

Recently a friend shared the name of an unspeakably beautiful piece of music with me, and today I want to share it with you: “Spiegel im Spiegel,” by Arvo Pärt.

Earlier this week, another friend shared her heart on the fourth anniversary of the passing of her 9 week old son.

And earlier this fall another friend, whom I have secretly adopted as a mentor (well, I guess it's not a secret anymore) shared the story behind the picture book as her new story about friendship and loss and love came out. (Making a Friend, by Alison McGhee, illustrated by Marc Rosenthal, S & S/Atheneum, 2011)

Tonight I get to rehearse for my Christmas Eve job, looking forward to a night when friends and families and strangers will gather together in a church, out of the cold and darkness, to sing and worship and pray.


These are things I love: light in the darkness, feeling warmth when surrounded by cold, the sharing of light and life and hope. The sharing of gifts.


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Trust the Work/Love the Work

I’ve been meaning for a while to write about the SCBWI conference I attended earlier this month. To be honest, though, I'm still processing.

The conference was wonderful. Exciting. Inspiring.

Overwhelming. I seem to be using that word a lot these days.

I’m thankful for the manuscript critique I got, and I feel like I have some concrete ideas about what needs work and how to proceed. Even though (I admit) I was hoping I didn’t have so much work left to do.

I’m thankful to get to hear and meet keynote speakers who were full of insight, and encouragement, and wisdom. They made me want to do and be better.

I’m thankful to have gotten to spend a day with people who are writing and illustrating and creating for children, and, by extension, their families. It is amazing to think of the kind of love and energy and work that goes into a book.

I drove home literally buzzing with ideas and plans, faces and conversations. I got home to my family and received the best round of bear-hugs ever. Pretty much immediately after that, though, a question smacked me between the eyes: When, exactly, are you going to do all this? Because I’m willing to do the work, but I don’t know how it’s going to be anything but impossibly slow. And done in stolen moments—while laundry is piling up, and dinner needs to be made, and people I love need me.

I’ve been giving myself pep talks: No. You will NOT collapse into a quivering heap of despair. I keep telling myself to trust the work and know that it will produce something.

While I haven’t yet collapsed, I’ll admit that things have been up and down since then. They are the usual kinds of ups and downs, swinging from loving how I get to spend my days to frustration with a schedule that seems to constantly demand. How do I clear the time and space to do this work? Do I have the right to even try?

Trust the work.


Every week I send families home from violin lessons with assignments about what to work on and how to do it. I don't tell them how to make that work in their busy lives. I offer suggestions, sometimes, but ultimately it is for them to figure out. My best advice is, “Do some work every day if you can, and work out from there.” I encourage them to trust the work.


I feel like I can do that because I’ve experienced the results of that kind of work, myself. I remember how hard it was to chart my own progress on violin. Most of it was slow, over the course of months and years. But looking back I could see: every etude book, every exercise, all the metronome work and the hours spent on scales, did in fact increase my technique, give me more tools to communicate and express myself. Keeping at it really does make a difference.

By Wednesday, I felt like a wreck. I was convinced everything was suffering: It seemed like either the house was in chaos because I took some time to write, or else I was so busy taking care of everybody and every thing that there was no room for writing. I was caught in a spiral of frustration.

In the middle of all that, I sat down to read Youngest a book. And oh, I love it when a book speaks right into your life. In Crossing the New Bridge, by Emily Arnold McCully (Putnam Juvenile, 1994) the old bridge into town collapses. The mayor and townspeople call on the Jubilatti family to build a replacement, and the mayor believes all his problems are solved. His plans for a triumphal march across the new bridge are crushed, however, when an old woman reminds him of the town’s tradition: the first person to cross the new bridge must be the happiest person in town. If anybody else crosses first, they will all be cursed. The mayor searches all over, looking for the happiest person, but everybody he encounters, although each seems like s/he should be happy, has a complaint. It finally becomes clear that the happiest people in town are the Jubilattis, themselves, because they love their work and do it well.

Love the work.


I know this well, but I forget more often than I’d like to admit. I looked around me again on Wednesday, and saw Oldest, still glowing from a 95 on his math test. He really is learning how to work, and he’s seeing results. Middle was in my office writing with gusto. She recently googled ‘writing prompts for 4th graders’ and is in love with the list she found. She wants to write every day. Youngest was down in the basement, completely absorbed in painting. She has announced to the family that she is an artist.


There are plenty of things my kids have to do every day that they dislike, but there is also work they do--maybe work they were born to do--that they know how to lose themselves in. This has to be one of the great joys in life. How can I not join them? Doesn’t everyone say it’s all in the journey?

Maybe I haven’t fully found my voice yet. That’s a painful thing to admit. Trusting that there is a voice to find, and having joy in the process—these are both fuel and comfort. Seeing my children looking for their own voices, helping them, watching them discover ways to develop them—these things spur me on. We are indeed fellow travelers.

Sometimes I am able to step back from a day I thought I didn’t know how to live and see that it is chugging along just fine, anyway. How good to get the chance to jump back in and join it mid-swing, trusting and loving the work.

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Details

Mole Music, written and illustrated by David McPhail, Henry Holt and Company, 1999

I’m guessing that many of you are familiar with this book, but in case you aren’t, it is a wonderful, sweet story about a mole who realizes something is missing from his life and decides to learn to play violin. At first he is unable to make a single pleasant sound on the instrument. He keeps at it, and after a week he can play a note. He keeps practicing, and learns to play another note, and eventually a simple piece. After many years of practicing, he is an accomplished musician, dreaming of music while he digs tunnels during the day and dreaming of changing the world with his music while he plays his violin alone underground at night. The thing he doesn’t realize, but which the illustrations make clear, is that the people above ground can hear him, and his music has a profound impact on the world around him.

I love how the words and illustrations work together in this book. The text provides Mole’s perspective, only, while the pictures reveal the deeper story. I love, too, the little details you might not catch the first or second time through—things that reward you for looking a little more carefully. The music, for instance. The snippets of music floating up through the oak tree that connects Mole’s burrow with the world above him are not just random notes sprinkled over a staff. They are quotes from real pieces, and they add their own dimension to the story.

The first “simple song” Mole learns to play? “Simple Gifts.” His next piece is “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Later on, when he has gotten really good and dreams of playing for an audience, the illustrations contain excerpts from the 4th movement of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1. The music that inspires soldiers to lay down their arms is the opening from the 1st movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (“The Pastoral”)—a movement Beethoven inscribed with the title, “Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the country.” And while the soldiers embrace in brotherly love, Mole is playing the"Ode to Joy" theme from the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. ("Your magic reunites/What custom strictly divided./All men become brothers,/Where your gentle wing rests.") Finally, at the end of the book Mole plays everybody to sleep with Brahms’ Lullaby before he goes to sleep, himself.

Knowing these pieces and how they fit with the text and illustrations is not necessary for understanding the book, but I love what they add to it, and that David McPhail carried his art to that detail. And that’s what I love about a good picture book—it is a piece of art in a simple, accessible, relatively inexpensive form.

From Madeleine L’Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life, compiled by Carole F. Chase:

“Why do you write for children?” My immediate response to this question is, “I don’t.” Of course I don’t. I don’t suppose most children’s writers do…

If it’s not good enough for adults, it’s not good enough for children. If a book that is going to be marketed for children does not interest me, a grownup, then I am dishonoring the children for whom the book is intended, and I am dishonoring books.

Excess

Just a sampling

Our family gets a little excessive when it comes to the library. Librarians tend to know us by name. I’m terrible at keeping track of when things are due, but I’ve learned to think of my constant fines for overdue books as charitable giving—it helps with the guilt. And as much as I try to keep things under control when we walk into a library, we always check out more books than we can comfortably carry, and overestimate what we can read in a week. I admit it, I indulge my children at the library.

I do have a few guidelines:

1. We are not buying these books. Middle, when she was two, used to follow me through the children’s section, grabbing books and saying, “Can we buy this one? Can we buy this one? Mommy, let’s buy this one!” I really felt that for the sake of her future financial security she would need to learn early that we do not spend money in the same irresponsible, decadent manner that we use a library card.

2. A library card is not a credit card. See above. Youngest is under the impression right now that her brand new library card is a credit card, and while this is an understandable mistake, I’m afraid it’s one that needs to be cleared up quickly.

3. If we are at the library for the second time in one week and there are already 40 or 50 books at home waiting to be read, we’re not bringing home another 40 or 50. Period.

4. Just like I limit how much junk food my kids eat, I limit junk books, too. Movie and television series merchandise masquerading as picture books make me nuts. Considering how much amazing stuff is out there, I’m afraid I’m pretty intolerant of books that don’t even bother to list the author and/or illustrator on the front cover.

This book excess is important. It is vital. It is an enormous factor in my kids’ education, not to mention my own. It’s hard to even quantify the things my kids pick up, just because of our frequent library visits. Our local library’s summer reading program started up this week, and the first big event was a visit from storyteller Bobby Norfolk. He had a whole roomful of kids and adults completely captivated, and besides doing some awesome storytelling, he put in a plug for his favorite section of the library: Call No. 398.2 (fairy tales and folklore). Later that evening, as I was starting in on a new story from our current read-aloud, Youngest just about flew out of bed. “Wait! Wait! IS THAT A FAIRY TALE?” When I told her it was, she laid back in bed happily. “Oh, good! Because Bobby Norfolk says they’re THE BEST!!” I couldn’t have asked for better support.

On Raising Dreamers

Mommy, how can I keep my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds? I wrote those words in high school, as part of an assignment to write a group of poems about my body. It was a wonderful, challenging assignment, but when I got to my feet, all I could think about was the tension I felt between imagination and practicality.

My parents understood. They teased me a little about being a dreamer, but it was something they cultivated. At the same time, though, they carried a big burden for teaching me things like responsibility, practicality, and looking where I was going. My mother likes to tell the story of when I was three and discovered my first ladybug—how I watched it endlessly, examining it, exclaiming over it, completely absorbed in this tiny detail. She also likes to tell about when I was four and in the hospital because of an asthma attack—how when the doctor asked me if I was having trouble breathing I answered, between gasps for air, “No.” Some things I notice well, other things—one of which is apparently breathing—can completely escape me.

How do you raise a dreamer? Here I am, raising three of them, and I don’t entirely know. A lot of what I’m doing here with this blog is trying to figure that out. I’m not sure any of us in this family were entirely made for practicality, but there are survival issues, aren’t there? I remember watching Oldest put on his socks when he was five or six. The task was made especially challenging by the fact that he was busy hitting all the notes to “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen” at the same time. (The version he was familiar with, by the way, was a bit less scary than the one in the link, but the singing wasn't nearly as amazing.) Which of those two skills do you think I end up focusing on when we’re trying to get out the door to get someplace on time? I struggle with patience, quite often right at the points where dreaminess and practicality meet. It seems like I most often fall short at the point where I should be the most understanding.

I recently finished reading The Dreamer, by Pam Muñoz Ryan, illustrated by Peter Sís. I connected with it both as a dreamer and as a parent. It is a beautifully-written, fictionalized account of Pablo Neruda’s childhood. His childhood name is Neftalí Reyes, and he is a quiet, fragile boy full of dreams and entranced with words. He collects words on slips of paper in his dresser drawer. He collects objects, too: pinecones, stones, shells. He has a gift for writing, but stutters when he tries to speak. And he has a father who wants to drive all the dreaminess out of him so he can be strong, and become a doctor or successful businessman. With the nurturing of his stepmother, his uncle, and a librarian in a small seaside town, however, he finds his strength within his dreams, and the ground is laid for his future work.

Stories with parents like Neftalí’s father distress me, partly because he is so harsh in dealing with his artistic son, and partly because I recognize the fear that drives his harshness. Do I dare admit how many mistakes I’ve made, myself, that were driven by fear? How often I can swing from feeling like everything’s going beautifully to being sure that I’m not good enough, my kids aren’t good enough, that we are all, in fact, headed for disaster due to the fact that we are all of us too busy pondering life, or singing, or thinking poetic thoughts to put on our socks quickly enough to get someplace on time?

Author Pam Muñoz Ryan poses the question, in the middle of the chapter titled, “Forest,” “Which is sharper? The hatchet that cuts down dreams? Or the scythe that clears a path for another?” Neftalí’s brother Rodolfo wants to be a singer, but their father stands in opposition to this dream, as well. Rodolfo eventually bends to his father’s will, but Neftalí grows stronger—partly in opposition to his father and partly because he cannot seem to deny who he is. As the reader, my heart was with Neftalí all the way, but the father touched me, too, strengthening my resolve about the kind of parent I aspire to be. I was glad for this book. It was truly beautiful, even as (or maybe because) it brought to the surface some all-too-familiar struggles.