My Library: Children's Books Written and Illustrated by Women

Victoria Ford Smith's delightful blog re. children's books written and illustrated by women prompted me to visit my library where I have quite a stack of such books, many of them the favorites I gleaned from my sister's collection when she retired from teaching 1st grade.

It's no surprise that I saved Nancy Smiler Levinson's Clara and the Bookwagon. Harper & Row, 1988. Illustrations by Carolyn Croll. This book tells the story of the "country's first traveling bookwagon" which Mary Lemist Titcomb, head of the public library in Hagerstown, MD, designed in 1905. Joshua Thomas, the library janitor, drove Miss Titcomb and hundreds of books through 500 square miles of back country roads. A small bit of history with themes of reading and literacy are to be expected but this little gem also dances about the child as part of the rural labor force. "Books are for rich people... Farm people like us do not have time to read."

Another book about books, reading, writing, and libraries that found a spot on my library's shelf was Katie Cleminson's, Otto The Book Bear. New York: Disney Hyperion Books, 2011. When no one is looking Otto leaves his book's pages to go exploring but one day his book is moved and he is left behind--a very small bear all alone in a very big world. "And just when he thought he couldn't walk any farther, when he felt cold and tired, Otto saw a place full of light and hope. He went inside and found...rows and rows of books!" What reader has not known the joy of a library where we find as Otto did "book creatures just like him?" Award-winning Katie Cleminson's other books include:  Magic Box; Cuddle Up, Goodnight, Box of Tricks, Wake Up. I love this book!

The Midnight Farm is the first children's book published by Reeve Lindbergh in 1987 and illustrated with the heartbreakingly beautiful paintings of Susan Jeffers. The First Puffin Pied Piper Printing (1995) graces my shelves. "Here is the dark when the day is done, Here is the dark with no moon or sun, Here is the dark when the lights are out, Here is the heart of the dark." You can take a look at this book via Amazon. Both Lindbergh and Jeffers have many other books. Jeffers, in particular, is worth exploring. Written for a child who was afraid of the dark, this book makes me feel happy and cozy and safe.


 I have the 1993 edition of Monique Felix's The Colors which has been reissued.  The delightful Mouse Books are books without words "designed to excite a child's imagination, develop verbal skills, and foster an interest in reading. Each beautifully illustrated book allows a child to create a story while learning an important skill."  A sad little mouse gnaws through the page of a book and discovers a box of paints. What a joy! to sit and listen to the story a 4-7 year old tells as they turn page after page of beautiful illustrations. There is an entire series of Mouse Books and Monique Felix has illustrated a number of other books written by others; those have words although not always as much imagination.

Not every library has a whole shelf dedicated to books about rabbits. Yes, rabbits--from Beatrix Potter classics to tacky Easter basket books. I suppose it started when we had house rabbits as pets. I've never met a kid, especially a boy who could resist this book, although several of the girls have found it "creepy" or have wanted to color the pictures. I bought Miriam Schlein's Snake Fights, Rabbit Fights, & More. A Book about Animal Fighting. New York: Crown Publishing, Inc., 1979 with its beautiful and accurate illustrations by Sue Thompson because I couldn't resist the spot-on drawings of cottontails, so like the sweet Christopher that David found drowning in a ditch in Leon County, TX, and I bottle fed. We intended to release him into the wild but with  misaligned  teeth he would not have survived. So we kept him and he was very smart and very brave and oh-so-destructive. I could write a book...


 

 Mary Batten writes excellent nature books for children and her Baby Wolf is one of the best! Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1998, the illustrations by Jo Ellen McAllister Stammen are better than any photos or documentary. It's a lovely true story about family and growing up and being part of a community and surviving and ecology. I love the honesty of the moose hunt where the wolves kill and eat. This is a "science reader" and children who read such books cannot help but love science and care deeply about the environment. Don't miss the chance to take a look at the first few pages with this link to Amazon. Stammen's illustrations are great nature art full of atmosphere and movement.

And now for something completely different. Susan Meddaugh's Cinderella's Rat. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. The prolific Meddaugh offers a retelling of the classic fairy tale from the rat/coachman's point of view. "I was born a rat. I expected to be a rat all my days. But life is full of surprises." This delightful book is also full of surprises.

Not enough women writers and illustrators receive awards but When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Diane Goode, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1982, is a Caldecott Honor Book. Rylant authored  Newbery Medal-winning Missing May, the Newbery Honor Book A Fine White Dust, and two Caldecott Honor-winning picture books: Relatives Came and When I Was Young in the Mountains. "When I was young in the mountains, we went to church in the schoolhouse on Sundays, and sometimes walked with the congregation through the cow pasture to the dark swimming hole, for baptisms. My cousin Peter was laid back into the water, and his white shirt stuck to him, and my Grandmother cried." It is rare to find a book, a children's book, that mentions baptism especially "believer's baptism by immersion" as practiced both by the Baptist Church in which I grew up and by the Church of Christ (Stone-Campbell movement) in which I have spent my adult life. Those pages always warm my heart a bit.  Diane Goode's illustration evoke the mist of memory with warmth and whimsy. One of my favorite books. This book is like listening to your grandmother tell stories.  If you click the titles you can enjoy the preview at Amazon.  

It is tragic that this beautiful book by George Ella Lyon with illustrations by Vera Rosenberry is out of print. Together was first published in 1989. The paperback 1994 edition (New York: Orchard Paperbacks) is a delight to have on my shelves.  Rosenberry's watercolor illustrations bring this poem to life joyfully, exuberantly, radiantly. The book is about two girls--one black, one white--who together share childhood play and imaginative adventure. The girls are a delight as they engage in physical activity of the sort that is all too often limited to the "dangerous" play of boys. It is, of course, a beautiful book about friendship  and child agency and imagination but it is so much more. The repeated refrain, "Let's put our heads together and dream the same dream," evokes the speech of Dr. Martin Luther King and offers readers of all ages joyful hope that soars like the girls on the back of birds in the final illustration.

"You bring the cheese and I'll fetch the mouse."

 The author's website is well worth a visit. This book should be back in print!

Quotation: Books

"Better economize in the purchasing of furniture or carpets than scrimp in buying good books or papers.
"Our sitting-rooms need never be empty of guests or our libraries of society if the company of good books is admitted to them."
p. 354
Benham, Georgene Corry: Polite Life or What is Right in Etiquette and The Social Arts.  Illustrated. Copyright 1895 by Robt. O. Law.
A book in my collection written for "the ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of America."

The 1891 edition is available in digital text: from Google books.

http://books.google.com/books?id=GSYMAAAAIAAJ&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq=Benham+georgene+corry&source=bl&ots=UCbaC66bhZ&sig=YmpT3JGmrTf5dmz4rwUEE4JYYhM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uNhfUojMNaKo2wW4-oC4Dw&ved=0CCkQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=Benham%20georgene%20corry&f=false

Mrs. Georgene Corry Benham
from the frontis with signature
 

What I'm Reading...

This month has been yet another slow reading month.  There have been busy distractions but I think a need for new glasses may be the root of the problem. 

DMP and I have also been making full use of our NetFlix Subscription which means 2 movies of week, which means 2 fewer evenings for reading.  Movies:  Paint Your Wagon, Chronicles of Narnia:  Prince Caspian, The High and the Mighty, High Noon, The Sun Also Rises, Rio Bravo, The Philadelphia Story, Master & Commander.

I have done a couple of "quick and dirty" medical literature reviews:

• macular degeneration for a private client
• Vitamin D
• is there an assoication between urinary tract problems/sugery and myasthenia gravis?

I've skimmed, clipped, filed, and recycled a 2 1/2 foot stack of periodicals.

I've begun transcribing my recipes.

I've been entering books into the church library catalog.

A couple of ideas have grabbed my attention in my lectionary reading and I'm starting to explore these biblical ideas, mostly in Hebrew Scripture:

• staff, the meaning of Aaron's staff in Numbers and it's implications in other passages
• robe, Elijah/Elisha is the source of my current curiosity but it is a recurrent motif

What I'm reading (I include picture links to Amazon where you can browse the book):

Brueggemann, Walter: The Prophetic Imagination. 2nd edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.  There is hardly a page on which I didn't highlight something.  An extraordinary book!  "The riddle and insight of biblical faith is the awareness that only anguish leads to life, only grieving leads to joy, and only embraced endings permit new beginnings."  p. 56  There is commentary on Psalm 137 p. 62.  "Speech about hope cannt be explanatory and scientifically argumentative; rather it must be lyrical..."  p. 65 "I believe that, rightly embraced, no more subversive or phrophetic idiom can be uttered than the practice of doxology, which sets before us the reality of God, of God right at the center of a scene from which we presumed he had fled." p. 66  "...exile is first of all where our speech has been silenced and God's speech has been banished." p. 69  "Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism." p. 88  "That tradition of radical criticism is about the self-giving emptiness of Jesus...  The emptying is not related to self-negating meditation, for it is a thoroughly political image concerned with the willing surrender of power..." p. 98  "Without the cross, prophetic imagination will likely be as strident and as destructive as that which it criticizes.... Prophetic criticism aims to creat an alternative consciousness with its own rhetoric and field of perception....  This kind of prophetic criticism does not lightly offer alternatives, does not mouth reassurances, and does not provide redemptive social policy.  It knows that only those who mourn can be comforted, and so it first asks about how to mourn seriously and faithfully..." p. 99  "...all functions of the church can and should be prophetic voices that serve to criticize the dominant culture while energizing the faithful....  Thus, the essential question for the church is whether or not its prophetic voice has been co-opted into the culture of the day." p. 125

Peterson, Eugene H.:  A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.  Discipleship in an Instant Society.  2nd edition.  Downers Grover IL:  Intervarsity Press, 2000.  I'm fairly certain I at least scanned the first edition, 1980.  A devotional reading of the Psalms of Ascent, Psalms 120-134.

Fiction: 
Schweizer, Mark:  The Organist Wore Pumps, a liturgical mystery.  SJMP Books, 2010.  Funny!  "It's tradition... when society started, women were not thought of as 'literary'... That's true.  Well, if you don't count Emily Dickinson, Christina Rosetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Dorothy Parker, or the Bronte sisters."  See previous posts for more detailed descriptions of these books (Organist is the 8th in the series) which DMP and I both find hilarious.  I include the Amazon links for those who may want to browse but we buy our mysteries at Murder by the Book in Houston. link: Murder by the Book
This is a real bookstore with staff who knows their books and get to know their readers.  I love the $1 shelf at the back where I find treasure.  Unlike DMP, I don't read mysteries, except for the couple of authors who make me laugh.


Poetry:
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett: Sonnets from the Portuguese and other love poems. Illustrated by Adolf Hallman. Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1954. My friend, Konny, gave me this book and I've greatly enjoyed reading these poems.   The illustrations are particularly lovely in this gift book edition.  Adolf Hallman, 1893-1968, is a Swedish illustrator; his drawings for this book have the sparse look and muted colors of much Scandinavian art.  I usually look for vintage books like this one at estate sales and used book stores. When I must have it now I use  IOBA   or biblio.com  or abebooks.com or alibris.com   or, yes, Amazon.  When a book is in the public domain (as most books first published prior to 1923 are), it's a good time to read it digitally and this is my favorite starting point:  onlinebooks at U Penn and read EBB now at the poetry foundation.  "We walked beside the sea, After a day which perished silently, Of its own glory..."  "I thank all who have loved me in their hearts, With thanks and love from mine.  Deep thanks to all...  Love that endures, from Life that disappears."

Blog Poll.... I don't usually ask for opinions but...

Sometime ago I removed the followers list from my blog because it is rather public and searchable and a number of my followers appeared to me to be blogging private matters that they might not wish to have so broadly shared.  I just did it; I didn't ask.   For similar reasons, I seldom mention names in my blog.  I use initials so that mutal friends and family usually know of whom I'm writing but the more public readers will be left guessing.  I'm assuming everyone knows that DMP is my husband, David, since that information is rather public but DMP doesn't preview and approve my blogs and he's not on facebook, so I offer the same courtesy to him that I do to others.  Frankly, I enjoy playing at the old literary tradition of Lord A... and Lady L... of ....shire.
I don't usually ask for opinons.  I'm quite decisive and I've found that if I ask for an opinion and then do something else then those I asked may be disappointed or even offended.   It only gives people an excuse to offer comments that I don't care to hear.  But I do have a dilemma regarding my blog and would appreciate some input from its readers, even those who are anonymous to me.

 I am posting a poll on the left sidebar but before you vote let me share a few thoughts: 

• Because of the book reviews in my blog, I'm under a bit of pressure--I'm receiving personal emails from the book vendors I often use for out-of-print materials in addition to the usual stuff from Amazon,  AdSense, and Google--to "monetize" my blog.  I've bought from some of these vendors so often and for such a long time that some of them feel like friends so it's hard to ignore their pleas.  I rather think that the referral fees that I'd receive are too small to be anything except a bother at tax time and using my blog as a way to make money is of no interest to me.
• Because I think of my blog primarily as a part of my academic pursuits, I have rejected overtures to monetize thinking that they might create the appearance of a conflict of interest.  It has been my policy to provide links in my blog text to free and public sources whenever possible.  My intention is to maintain that policy.
• I also have a "Miss Mannersish" concern that seeming to solicit sales from my friends is just tacky.
• But I can also make a case that a link to a vendor where I decide what appears on the link might be a convenience rather than an imposition for my readers.  The Amazon carousel, filled with only those items that I have read and personally recommend,  might be helpful since it's often possible to sample a book before buying.  I really enjoy having a bookstore at my fingertips. 
• A few of my favorite websites and blogs provide portals which I "click through" and I have felt grateful rather than offended.  Since I have not thought it tacky in others perhaps I'm  being a bit "missyish" or "snobbish" in regard to my own behavior--a flaw which has been mentioned to me more than once.

So let me know what you think by taking the poll or offering comment if you prefer.  Thank you and please don't take offense when I make the decision.  As I have told several of my blogger friends:  "It's your blog; do with it what you will."

What I'm Reading...

Fiction:

Barrie, James M.: What Every Woman Knows. (1906) Project Gutenberg. Kindle. We watched Finding Neverland (Netflix) and the movie prompted me to review Barrie's life and browse a couple of his books. (It's a good movie but it does play fast & loose with the facts.) I don't remember having read this particular play before. Clever, fun and I think it would stage rather well.

Potter, Beatrix: The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter. Project Gutenberg. Kindle. We watched Miss Potter (Netflix) and so I'm reading bedtime stories.

Richmond, Grace S.: Red Pepper Burns.
Richmond, Grace S.: Mrs. Red Pepper. (1913)
Richmond, Grace S.: Red Pepper's Patients. (1919) Project Gutenberg. Kindle. I read these books as a child and have read them at least once more as an adult. The stories are about a doctor in the early 20th Century. What stricks me about these books on this reading is the frequent mention of drug addiction. These writers are part of the "living clean" movement: fresh air, exercise, don't drink.

Palmer, William J.: The Detective and Mr. Dickens. A Secret Victorian Journal Attributed to Wilkie Collins, Dicovered and Edited by... New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. The author is/was English prof at Purdue. He writes a compelling story set in the dark underbelly of London at night . The sinful pleasures of male Victorian life are the primary plot device. Every woman in this book is a prostitute or a pander or a victim. As one would expect given the sub-title, several scenes are quite graphic and push into pornography. In real life (as opposed to his life in this novel) Collins had arthritis and a laudanum/opium addiction. Needed to see Dr. Red Pepper Burns.

Bedside Book:

Peterson, Eugene H.: Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A conversation in spiritual theology. Kindle. I continue my slow exploration, reading and re-reading, of issues of salvation and the relationship between Exodus and Mark.

SEASONS:

Whitaker, Evelyn: Laddie. We are exploring the 19th Century woman novelist as theologian.

Naming the Blog: Read Lead

I have been blog-lurking for some time and have decided that now is the time to provide a blog where others can lurk. I've decided on a literary blog in part to answer the requests I get from friends and family for lists of books I am reading and have read.

For the present, this blog mirrors the one hosted by my own domain evelynwhitakerlibrary.org and after some experience I'll decide if it has enough data transfer capability to continue there. Does anyone reading care to offer an opinion?

Naming the blog was easier than expected.
I love word play. As a young child following my mother's finger in the hymnal, I discovered homonyms--"faithful loving serivice, too, to Him belongs." And I already knew that 2 was spelled "two."

I have always been fascinated by the verb "to read" which is spelled the same but pronounced differently for present and past tenses and the reader determines the tense in part by context. And, of course, the presence tense rhymes with "lead" although it past tense of "lead" is unpredictably "led" more like "breed" and "bred." Oh! English where similar words follow an entirely different set of rules. {English is both the richest language and one of the most difficult.}

I have long known and often stated that I have lived not only through my own experiences but through the experiences of others in the books I've read. So naming the blog in a couple of couplets:

the life I lead
is the life I read;
the life I led
is the life I read.

For additional reading lists, book notes, Hopkins and Psalms bibliographies, and more than you ever wanted to know about a certain late Victorian author who published anonymously, VISIT:

http://www.evelynwhitakerlibrary.org/blog_the_life_i_read/