Summertime Gazpacho

Gazpacho is one of those wonderful soups that have a little bit of a lot of vegetables. After such a long silence this blog will have a little bit of a lot.

So, first into the stew:

Beth Krommes

at ALA--along with the treasure of time with long time friends--I was happily surprised to run into Beth Krommes, Caldecott winner in 2009 for The House in the Night (written by Susan Marie Swanson). Before she was an official "winner" she winningly illustrated The Lamp, the Ice, and the Boat Called Fish.  It was a treat to see  her because I had just re-read our book, after a few years away from it. I was glad to to able to tell her in person how much I still love the illustrations. She captures so well the warmth of family in a physically cold place.

St. Paul summer garden

Then a couple of cups of Hamline University's Low Residency MFA, where I was just a visitor for a couple of days--but enough time to eat raspberries in  Phyllis Root's garden; hear Franny Billingsley's wonderful lecture, in which she said, "Voice is tied to plot. If your character wants something, it will bleed onto the page as voice;"  hear Marsha Qualey follow that up with, "Power + Belonging= Identity." She went on to say that  "power" and "belonging" features that we give our characters can also be the features that are changed or disrupted and so move our plots along.  And of course there was time with students.

A good trip, in spite of the little traffic ticket that arrived in our mail a couple of days ago.

Spice it up with the fun of meeting with a bunch of kids at reading camp--audience. They were lively, interested readers who had spent four days talking about and thinking about Snowflake Bentley--even come up with pages of questions.

 And thinking about maybe doing writing and/or drawing themselves. We talked a lot about where writers get ideas--and how they often have to write it wrong before they write it right.

I left that group inspired by the resilience of children, the generosity of adults who read with them, and the power of books to connect us all.

The word from owls

The crows in this part of Madison (where I am with the "grands") were making a ruckus this morning, which often means one thing--great horned owls, specifically the pair that have made a home in a willow tree in Sarah's back yard. So I went out searching and watched one fly over my head and land in the tree, sit right next to its mate. Were they staring at me as I stared at them?  Even from my distant perspective on the ground they are huge, Powerful,  birds--from another sphere in this world. I wanted to ask, "What news? What news are you bringing? Let's have it." 

In the meantime, I have this quote from Walker Evans, by way of Phyllis Root:

“Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”

I had an eavesdropping experience yesterday,  reading The Animal Family  by Randall Jarrell. I was actually fulfilling an assignment from Marsha Qualey for our work revising the Required Reading List at Hamline. We wanted to be sure this book from the 60s still deserved a place on the list.

My vote is yes! First, the epigraph, "Say what you like, but such things do happen--not often, but they do happen." What a wonderful invitation to magic!

Jarrell takes his time putting this family of hunter, mermaid, bear, lynx, and boy together. And that might be a problem for readers looking for action.  But there's an atmosphere to the book that builds, through tone, through taking one's time, through detail--the mermaid's burbling language, the lynx's careful washing of the Hunter and the Mermaid, who says of the freshly-polished hunter, "If I hadn't lived with  you so long, I don't know whether I'd recognize you. He's got you so you just gleam." The family is a world unto itself. Jarrell has built this world. They are all each other needs. There's no getting and spending, no longing for more. It's a kind of Eden. When I was done, that world colored mine, shaded it with wanting to slow down, look more closely, stare.

 Stare. Let's, and report back. The crows are at it again. Must go.

Good inuksuit

In the last post I mentioned going to the AASL in Minneapolis. Sharron McElmeel , Jeni Reeves, Carol Gorman and I spoke on how to foster curiosity in young readers and how librarians can become an important part of the collaborative process with teachers in helping students to become better readers.

Our session had a good audience. We saw some long-time friends, including Toni Buzzeo, shown here with Sharron (Sharron on the left, Toni on the right).Toni was at the AASL speaking on a topic similar to ours--how librarians can become visible and essential collaborators in their schools. We know they are essential, but we are the choir. We-writers and readers--want school boards, parents, community people to realize that excellent schools, even just good schools, require trained librarians.

I also had a chance to spend some time with Phyllis Root, which is always a treat. Phyllis and her daughter Ellen have recently built this inuksuit, a trail marker like the ones built by Alaskan natives to mark the way. Rocks were what they had to build with and what they used.

Every writer needs to run into an inuksuit once in a while. Wandering is good. We find what we didn't even know we were looking for by wandering. But once in a while it's good to see an inuksuit that reminds us that we are on the path, a path.


Seeing friends, spending time talking about shared writing problems, seeing librarians talking about shared purpose-good inuksuit.