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2008! Happy New Year! May your year be one of wonderful discoveries, enough challenges to keep you on your toes, learning new things, success, health, joy and greater connection and communication with friends and loved ones.
My husband and I spent a much needed time together in Warm Springs VA, soaking in the 200 year old Warm Springs. What an experience.
We also visted 3 Hills Inn. Gorgeous and beautifully appointed.
With three kids, time alone without them is a rare occasion.
I've been gone from blogging for so long. What a relief to be back. Our Christmas and New Year's celebrations were a whirlwind of wonder, challenges, good connections with family and friends and ending with a need for a good rest for all.
Here's a New Year's link for you. It's a fascinating view into the process of how James Gurney creates the Dinotopia art.

I remember loving Pippi Longstocking when I was seven or eight years old.  I was a rule-follower, but there was something about Pippi's attitude that absolutely enchanted me.  I loved that she slept with her feet on the pillow.  I loved that she had a monkey for a pet and threw dishes out of a tree.  I loved that she told the teacher exactly what she thought of those math problems with all the apples that came and went so quickly you couldn't keep track of them.

I still love Pippi, and so I was thrilled to see this new translation of Astrid Lindgren's story in a big, beautiful, illustrated package from Penguin.



Pippi's story is the same (happily, no one has gone through to make her more politically correct), and I predict this new translation by Tina Nunnally will be irresistible to young readers.  Lauren Child's illustrations in this oversized hardcover are bright and playful and full of Pippi's spirit.  My six-year-old daughter put a bookmark in this one after breakfast yesterday and said, "I can't read any more right now.  I'm saving the rest."  I understood exactly what she meant. Pippi's stories are worth saving and worth sharing all over again.

As a child, I loved Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. Pippi was super-strong, smart, and independent. She stopped bullies, escaped villains, and did things her own way, with spunk and silliness. She was an inspiring heroine for me. I read the book over and over. But the illustrations never quite seemed to match Pippi’s spunk.

Lauren Child has created some new illustrations for this wonderful book. The illustrations are modern, and anyone who knows or enjoys Child’s work (I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato (Charlie & Lola), I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed (Charlie and Lola)) will recognize her illustrative style. Child’s style doesn’t fit my image of Pippi, either, but it is more modern and slightly more edgy, and it suggests spunk rather than sexualizing girls, which is important for girl readers–heck, for any readers. I’m glad Pippi has had a visual overhaul; hopefully more new readers will be drawn to her.