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I am indebted to Jenny Schwartzberg for bringing to my attention the fact that the BBC’s extensive archives are offering up recordings of some of the great British Novelists of the past.  These are both television and radio programs and they are intoxicating.  You can hear the very voice of Virginia Woolf herself.  And on the children’s side of things, there are folks like T.H. White, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Penelope Lively.  You could get lost in there.  Thank you for bringing it to my attention, Jenny.

• New Blog Alert: And it’s a doozy too.  If you missed the fact that the magnificent Philip Nel started a blog called Nine Kinds of Pie recently, then now is the time to know.  Mr. Nel is that nice young man who teaches as a Professor of English at Kansas State University and also writes books like The Annotated Cat in the Hat and, my personal favorite, Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature (that one was done with co-writer Julia L. Mickenberg, of course).  He updates his blog with frightening regularity as well.  Of course, it’s the summer.  The school year is only just now picking up.  Still, anything he cares to write is well worth your time to read.  Plus he wins an award for Best New Blog Title in our field.

• All right.  Let me see what I can do with this.  Ahem.  So Beatrix Potter was friends with Anne Carroll Moore.  Anne Carroll Moore was a famous children’s librarian who worked at the main branch of NYPL.  I am a children’s librarian who works in the main branch of NYPL.  I have seen the picture Potter gave to Ms. Moore as a gift.  Ipso facto, I’m going to weigh in on the whole Emma Thompson writing a new Peter Rabbit story news item.  I feel entirely ripped in half too.  On the one hand, I love Emma.  I honestly adore her.  I think she’s a modern marvel.  I want to be her best friend and to just listen to her talk for hours on end.  On the other hand, this marks a very bad precedent: The celebrity picture book sequel to a classic work.  No.  No no, this will not do.  We can’t have Justin Bieber writing conclusive storylines to Stuart Little or Courtney Love putting the last touch on an official return to Wonderland.  Nope.  I love you Emma, but this cannot stand.  I’m sure you’re a perfectly fine writer, but you’re making it look too enticing to the others. Thanks to @PWKidsBookshelf for the link.

• I envy not the good people charged by ALSC to regularly determine the official Great Websites for Kids as promoted by the librarians.  I’m just grateful they exist and that they’re willing to add some new additions.  Had I the power, I’d place these on my library’s children’s website pronto, if not sooner.  A magnificent resource.

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  7 Comments on Fusenews: I mean, a fear of tent worms isn’t all THAT ridiculous, right?, last added: 8/21/2010
  Display Comments
  Philip Nel said, on 8/21/2010 5:49:00 AM
  

  Thanks for the plug on the blog! Speaking of: am planning a brief post on Seuss’s advertising work later today.

  Jennifer in GA said, on 8/21/2010 7:04:00 AM
  

  I think Emma Thompson is one of the few celebrity-type people who could actually pull off writing a sequel to a classic book. She’s more of a writer-turned-actor than actor-who-wants-to-dabble-in-writing. She got her start as a comedy writer. I know it’s not the be-all and end-all, but she did win an Oscar for writing the screenplay adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, and she’s also adapted the Nanny McPhee screenplays. Even though she hasn’t published and works of fiction, I think her writing background is strong enough to do the job and do it well. Personally, I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt until she proves otherwise.

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 8/21/2010 7:10:00 AM
  

  Oh, I don’t deny that she may end up doing a stand-up job of it. I just worry that it sets a bad example for other celebrities. They’ll eye Emma’s work, forget the whole she’s-also-a-real-writer element, and try doing the same thing themselves. *shudder*

  rams said, on 8/21/2010 8:24:00 AM
  

  That Viewmaster Alice looks like The Lonely Doll Goes Anti-Grav.

  mhg said, on 8/21/2010 8:29:00 AM
  

  Emma Thompson already has work that sets her salary in the millions. She was “asked” to do this. Meanwhile, the usual meme for authors is that we do not make money at our profession (heard it again right there in your seminar this month BB). Publishers are telling authors to have low expectations while the jobs go to people who are not in the business and already have jobs. WTH?????? Let’s stop the poverty meme to authors and get some reality, folks.

  Tricia said, on 8/21/2010 11:25:00 AM
  

  The voice of Virginia Woolf! I don’t get the feeling she’d have enjoyed making podcasts.

  lisainberlin said, on 8/21/2010 4:37:00 PM
  

  http://www.heimel-dias.de/marchen/

  The viewmaster picture reminded me tiny boxes I found at the fleamarket here with slide rolls. Held up to the light, I realized they were fairy tales! They were popular in East Germany. The artwork on the ones featured on the website above is worth a check-out. Just click on the name of the fairy tale (sorry, the site is just in German). Weiter means continue. Have fun!

  Add a Comment

BBC reported yesterday that actress Emma Thompson has signed a deal with publishers Frederick Warne to write a new Peter Rabbit book. Frederick Warne reportedly asked Thompson to write the book for the 110th anniversary of author Beatrix Potter‘s original Peter Rabbit story.

Now, I’ve got to say, I’ve got mixed feelings about this news. On the one hand, I’ve got the highest respect for Emma Thompson. I think she’s a great actress and just really cool.

But, even though she has written screenplays for the latest Nanny McPhee movie, Nanny McPhee Returns, and Sense & Sensibility, writing screenplays is very different from writing books, much less a children’s book.

But No. 2, why did Frederick Warne ask Ms. Thompson instead of one of the many, many, many wonderful children’s authors around? Because she’s a great writer or because she’s a celebrity? Somehow I think it’s the latter, and to me, that’s not the right reason to give someone a job.

And but No. 3, do we really need a new Peter Rabbit book? Beatrix Potter’s originals are so wonderful, and it’s fantastic that they have been preserved as well as they have and are still being enjoyed by new generations. What will a new book mean to the already-loved books?

Now, I’m not saying that Emma Thompson won’t do a great job, and that the new book won’t be fantastic and really loved by all Peter Rabbit fans, but, I don’t know, this announcement just makes me go “hmmm.”

How do you feel about a new Peter Rabbit book and the hiring of Emma Thompson?

Write On!

photo from www.peterrabbit.com

Over holiday break, I finally watched the movie Miss Potter, starring Renee Zellweger as Beatrix Potter. It was a sensational movie, and I watched it with awe and amazement. Mostly because it was fascinating to see how Beatrix Potter created her books and fought for her books and didn’t even know how much money she had made from her books! If you are a writer of children’s books, I highly recommend watching this movie (especially if you’re an author/illustrator).

Your children may have a treasury of Beatrix Potter books on their bedroom shelves. These are popular gifts to give when children are born or at their first birthdays. Some of the other volumes besides Peter Rabbit (1902) are:
#The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903)
# The Tailor of Gloucester (1903)
# The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904)
# The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904)
# The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (1905)
# The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan (1905)
# The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher (1906)
and many, many, many more!

Why do people still love the cautionary tale of Peter and his siblings: Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, over 100 years after Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated it? In my opinion, her drawings are wonderful, timeless, and bring her characters to life. Everyone can relate to really wanting to do something naughty like Peter, and sometimes not being able to resist an adventure even when your parents warn you not to do it. Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail provide the “good” example, which children often find themselves also following–thank goodness for their parents. Let’s face it: Peter Rabbit is fun. Beatrix Potter is a wonderful illustrator and storyteller. Those kinds of things are just not going to die.

Parents and teachers have been using Peter and his friends Jeremy Fisher, Benjamin Bunny, and Squirrel Nutkin to discuss right and wrong actions, childhood dilemmas, story elements, and illustration techniques for a century. Let’s hope that this trend continues for another century, at least, Beatrix sticks around! Make sure to check out this great website, The World of Beatrix Potter for more information with a special section for parents and teachers.

BTW, there’s still time to win a copy of Ellen Jensen Abbott’s book, Watersmeet, by leaving a comment on Tuesday or Wednesday’s post until 8:00 p.m. CST.

Last weekend, during my trip to London, I got inspired by a wonderful exhibition of Beatrix Potter's work at the Victoria & Albert Museum. I got to see all the original illustrations from the book "The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies." They also had several sketches from the book, including her original book dummy! Isn't that amazing?

Borders’ Educator Appreciation Week Offers 30% Discount
Through October 7th, current and retired educators can save 30% on in-store purchases for personal or classroom use when they bring proof of educator status.

Don’t read that! The secret lives of book banners
In celebration of Banned Books Week (September 26 through October 3), the Chicago Tribune’s Julia Keller shares her first encounter with banned books.

A rainy National Book Festival whets readers’ appetites
In case you missed last weekend’s National Book Festival, the L.A. Times provides a great recap of the Washington, DC event, which boasted record-breaking attendence.

Kids Paying More Attention to Nonfiction
“Nonfiction is gaining more popularity with younger readers, according to the Children’s Choices Booklist-an annual list in which students read, critique, and vote for their favorite books.”

To help boys, school creates the poster men for reading
A Philadelphia school created the “Real Men Read” campaign to locally address a national concern – boys falling behind academically, particularly in literacy – which is achieving impressive results.

Anderson University to dedicate space for rare children’s books
Anderson University’s rare books collection contains approximately 6,000 books—many of which are first editions—by authors such as A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh), Beatrix Potter (The Tale of Peter Rabbit), and Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are).

When I was a little girl growing up on the island of Cyprus, I had a record that I listened to over and over again. It was a recording of Vivien Leigh reading some of Beatrix Potter's most well known stories. Soon Mrs. Tiggywinkle, Hunca Munca, Peter Rabbit, and Mrs. Tittlemouse were old friends of mine.

Today is Beatrix Potter's 143rd birthday!!

I'm a huge fan and sucker for anything Beatrix related -- books, china and pottery, apparel, figurines, stuffed animals, stickers, stationery, you name it. I'm so obsessed that I even named our dining room after one of my fave BP books. While other normal people decorate their dining rooms with sophisticated window treatments and/or floral centerpieces, ours boasts "Roly Poly Pudding" in blue and green stand up letters. 

I can't help it, really. Just seeing those three words makes me deeply happy. They're adorable, delicious, so very British. And if any of our dinner guests misbehave, we can always roll them up in a pudding (mmwwwaahahahahaha)!
      

The Roly-Poly Pudding was the original name for this tale, first published in 1908. It's all about the time Tom Kitten finds himself confronted under the attic floorboards by two very large rats, Samuel Whiskers and his wife, Anna Maria. They decide to butter him up and roll him in dough to make a delicious pudding. Roly poly, roly poly! The character of Samuel was based on Beatrix's own fancy rat, Sammy, whom she describes as "the intelligent pink-eyed representative of a persecuted (but irrepressible) race and affectionate little friend, and most accomplished thief." Irrepressible indeed, as he somehow got the book renamed in 1926. Typical rat.


Cornelius (licking his chops) convinces Kitty to re-enact the famous rolling scene.

Have you ever eaten a roly-poly pudding? It's commonly known as Jam Roly-Poly, a simple dessert consisting of jam spread over dough, which is rolled up and baked. Celebrate Miss Potter's birthday by making your own Jam Roly-Poly (recipe here). 

         
           photo by Chico68.

For the full effect, drown it in warm custard.

photo by Sandy49.

The animated version of The Tale of Samuel Whiskers can be found in three parts on YouTube (adorable, adorable). I've embedded the best part, where Tom gets rolled in the dough. If you prefer to watch it from the beginning, click here.


Happy Birthday, Beatrix!


Mosaic by lillipops.

Uh-oh.

Kitty gets the last roll!

♥ Other Beatrix Potter posts on this blog:

"Tea with Miss Potter" (recipe for Blueberry Muffins)
"Fierce Bad Rabbit's Carrot Raisin Salad"
"Of Bonnets and Bunnies, Carrots and Cakes" (includes recipe for Carrot Cake).

                                      ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Warning: The following post contains photos of unbearably adorable rabbits capable of blatant emotional manipulation.


Emma, Madeline, Nancy Jane, Nettie, Eloise, and Sylvia don their bonnets and bows for Easter tea.

Well, it's happening again.

My ears are growing, and my nose is twitching. That can only mean one thing.

It's carrot time!

photo mosaic from mkasahara's photostream

Wait a minute. Wait a minute! Don't you mean rabbit time?

photo by S. Das

Time for all of us soft, cute, furry bunnies to melt hearts everywhere?

photo by Madeleine

I don't know about you, but here in New Hampshire it's not even spring yet.

photo by Madeleine

Carrots? Did someone say carrots?

photo by faisalee

Bleckk! I'd rather have cake.

photo by jpockele

Here's one with marzipan veggies and everything.

photo by Cake Doctor

Oh, this one looks nice.

photo by atnaturesmercy

I know! Let's make our own Easter cake. Miss Potter will help us.

First, we'll go to her garden:

WE HAVE A LITTLE GARDEN


Garden at Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm, Near Sawrey, England
photo by gobucks2

We have a little garden,
A garden of our own,
And every day we water there
The seeds that we have sown.

We love our little garden,
And tend it with such care,
You will not find a faded leaf
Or blighted blossom there.

I'm sure carrots are growing there. Oh, who's that?

THE LITTLE BLACK RABBIT


photo by Martin Sweeney

Now who is this knocking
at Cottontail's door?
Tap tappit! Tap tappit!
She's heard it before?

And when she peeps out
there is nobody there,
but a present of carrots
put down on the stair.

Hark! I hear it again!
Tap, tap, tappit! Tap
tappit!
Why -- I really believe it's a
little black rabbit!

Be a bunny this year, and bake a cake for those you love. Here's my favorite Easter cake recipe. We like to serve ours on Peter Rabbit plates, and don't mind getting frosting on our whiskers!

14 CARROT CAKE
(serves a bunch of bunnies)


Beat together:

2 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups oil
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

Sift together:

2 cups flour
1-2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1-1/2 tsp. baking soda

Combine egg mixture with flour mixture.

Then, combine:

2 cups grated carrots
1 (8-1/2 oz.) can drained pineapple
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Add this to the batter.

Place a paper towel on the bottom of a  9" x 13" pan.

Add batter, then bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Cook until slightly pulled away from the pan. Cool completely before frosting.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

1 1b. powdered sugar
8 T soft butter
8 oz. cream cheese
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

*Alternately, you can bake this in two 8 or 9" round cake pans.

NOTES:

This cake is almost foolproof, unless you overbake it. Otherwise, it's moist, moist, moist.

It's so delicious that hundreds of rabbits (or people dressed as rabbits), may follow you everywhere, twitching their noses and begging for more.

                       

Have a Hippity Hoppity Easter! I'll see you next week!

To read my post, "Tea with Miss Potter," click here.

*Poems are from Beatrix Potter's Nursery Rhyme Book (F. Warne & Co., 1984).
 

A mouse inspired by the book illustrated by Beatrix Potter, "The Tailor of Gloucester". In the story, the mice make clothes out of the tailor's tiny scraps, and in the end save the day for the tailor!
Candace Illustration

When I first started reading about Beatrix Potter, I was fascinated by her illustrated letters: the start of her career as a storyteller and illustrator. So here's my homage to Ms. Potter: my interpretation of her now very famous letter to Noel about a little rabbit named Peter. :-)

They had all decided that they would host a wonderful Tea Party in honor of the woman who gave them human like qualities.
"Here's to our heroine Beatrix Potter. She changed how the humans viewed us and gave us dignity and clothing."

Challenge: Beatrix Potter

I've been reigning in the "cute factor" for a while now but I figured it would be nice to cut loose. This week's challenge is to illustrate Beatrix Potter's tales!

Here's her books at Project Gutenberg. The challenge is to illustrate a scene from her books in your own style. Have fun!

 

         from THE TAILOR OF GLOUCESTER by Beatrix Potter
         (Frederick Warne & Co., Inc., 1903)

"Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality."
      
        ~  Beatrix Potter (July 28, 1866 - December 22, 1943) 

**BONUS RECIPE in honor of Miss Potter's birthday:

FIERCE BAD RABBIT'S CARROT-RAISIN SALAD
(serves 4)



2 carrots
2 apples
1 rib of celery
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup mayonnaise, sour cream, or yogurt
1/4 cup chopped nuts, optional
lettuce leaves

Wash the carrots and scrape with a vegetable peeler. Place a metal grater on a piece of wax paper and grate the carrots, using the large ice-cream-cone-shaped openings of the grater. Put the grated carrots in the mixing bowl.

Wash the apples, but do not peel them. Cut them in half and then in quarters. Cut out the core, and cut the apples into small pieces.

Wash the celery and chop it. Add the celery, apples, and raisins to the carrots. Sprinkle with salt and lemon juice. Stir in mayonnaise, sour cream, or yogurt.

Serve the salad on lettuce leaves and sprinkle with nuts if you like them.

~adapted from Peter Rabbit's Natural Foods Cookbook by Arnold Dobrin (Frederick Warne & Co., 1977).

"They made little rafts out of twigs, and they paddled away over the water to Owl Island to gather nuts." - The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter

"I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a dose of it to Peter! One tablespoon to be taken at bedtime." - from "Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter

This illustration was done in watercolors and charcoal. Anyone know if a charcoal pencil--or something similar to charcoal--that's waterproof? I prefer to outline my images first, but that's not possible with regular charcoal.

I don't know if any of you out there have seen Miss Potter, starring Rene Zellweger, but it's a charming film and romantic to boot. I thought for sure most of it was fiction, but after doing a little research--it happened to be VERY close to the real life of Beatrix Potter. Very very inspiring.

We watched the movie"Miss Potter" last night. It's about Beatrix Potter, who was best known for her children's books, which featured animal characters such as Peter Rabbit. I did some research on the real Beatrix Potter afterwards to distinguish which parts of the movie were factual and which were fiction, which I find myself doing alot with these Hollywood movies that seem to dress things up

Well, a belated Happy 4th of July to all those celebrating. Hope everyone had a relaxing day off. We lazed about the house, watched neighborhood fireworks from our balcony, and finished the evening off watching "Miss Potter" which I very much enjoyed. As a children's illustrator, I'm somewhat mortified to admit that I think I've only read one or two of Beatrix Potter's books, although I adore the illustrations. We have a book that's a collection of a few stories, but I think I'd like to get the entire collection in the small format in which they were originally printed. I think I'll add it to my Amazon wishlist...

Still no new art to show - hope to be back with some soon. So I'll post some pictures of this past weekend's hike. The beginning of the trail in Solstice Canyon (Malibu) was paved and followed a spring-fed stream. The scenery was nice, but kind of ho-hum - nothing we hadn't seen before. After a while we came upon the ruins of the Roberts' house and things started getting interesting. The house was just about completely gone, but patios and portions of walls and a ridiculous number of fireplaces dotted the landscape:












Just beyond the ruins, and upstream, the creek consists of a series of multi-level rock-pools and small waterfalls decorated with maidenhair fern. We decided to boulder-hop our way upstream to see what we could see.












After a long walk along the creek took a couple different side trails both of which traveled up out of the canyon and along the mountainsides into dryer terrain and sweeping views of the land and ocean.












We traveled back down into the canyon, boulder-hopped a portion of the stream that we hadn't seen yet and then, exhausted, took the next opportunity we had to get back onto a level trail to head back to the car. I'd love to go back after some rainfall - some people we ran into said the water level of the stream used to be significantly higher in the past and that there used to be really great swimming holes all along the creek. There's also supposed to be a 150' waterfall at the end of a different trail - maybe we'll come back some day for that one!

April is a busy month for us, we have four birthdays to celebrate now (including mine) and of course Easter. For my birthday Bradley took me to Montreal for a lovely long weekend staying at the same B&B as we did before. The weather was gorgeous this time, so we had a great time walking around and I had some handmade coupons from Bradley for both a ribbon spree (see above) and a button spree (see below).
Another one of my other Bradley presents that I loved was the blue floral fabric I used to whip up this large messenger bag before going away. I used some dark brownish khaki twill for the exterior and used pale blue twill to line the inside, and the floral for the outer flap, and to line the pockets and strap. This bag turned out to be exactly what I needed, light enough to carry around all day but big enough to stuff full of extra things on the way home. The fabric is Denyse Schmidt's "flea market fancy" and comes in a variety of colours.
Other than crafts shopping we also did some geo caching (Bradley's current passion) and ended up hiking around on some nice trails on the mountain. We also saw a very inspiring show at the Beaux Arts museum, about Disney and the artists that inspired Disney. I had the thrill of seeing some of Beatrix Potter's artwork in person, including a sample illustration for Alice in Wonderland that she made to send to publishers. Why on earth she wasn't commissioned to illustrate more books before publishing her own is beyond me.

The other highlight of our trip was finally meeting my extra-talented fellow illustrator, Susan Mitchell. I'm planning to post more birthday and Susan goodies in my next post!

And finally, before leaving I was commissioned to illustrate a book for Scholastic, and so that's been keeping me busy since then. It's a wonderful story (with a lovable dog in it) and it's been a real treat to work on it. Of course I'll be sharing the artwork for that in the next little while.

http://wiredforbooks.org/kids.htm

Here's a website that highlights 3,000 museums, galleries and heritage sites of the UK. It is the 24Hour Museum. They are highlighting100 years of Beatrix Potter's work at this time, as well as lots of other info and sites.