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When Paul Auster wrote City of Glass or Evelyn Waugh started work on Men at Arms, did they know it was the beginning of that long haul that makes a trilogy? 

 

Patrick Neate certainly didn’t when he wrote his first novel Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko: I remember so well reading it when it first came to Penguin in 1999, and thinking what a fantastic young talent, and how we must, must buy his book.  All of Patrick’s themes that would recur throughout the trilogy which also includes Twelve Bar Blues, and now Jerusalem, are there in that book – the funny well-timed satire, the controlled fury and political astuteness of a British novelist writing about colonialism and its aftermath; the themes of culture, myth and music; oh, and the great jokes about farting…but the endearing thing, re-reading that book now, is that they are clearly written by a younger writer than the one writing Jerusalem.

Since that first book, we have published Patrick in paperback and hardback and trade paperback. He has always been fun to work with – and it was odd to discover quite far into our editorial relationship that there’s also another bond: we both read Social Anthropology at the same university in the same faculty, albeit years apart.  Sometimes he and I have had long bouts of editorial fighting, sometimes not.  He’s written two other novels outside the trilogy in between books 1 & 2; he’s won the Whitbread Novel Award for Twelve Bar Blues; he’s built a house in Zimbabwe; he got married; he reviews film; he started and still runs the best evening writers’ event anywhere (the totally brilliant Bookslam); and now he’s even having a baby…

So I feel a sense of aging melancholy now that this trilogy is done. It’s been thrilling to watch how his writing has changed; and hasn’t at all – all three of those books are inimitably Patrick, and also inimitably

Guy Delisle, traveller, animator, comic book artist, and author of the graphic novel, Burma Chronicles - is now blogging from Jerusalem where his wife is stationed with Doctors Without Borders.

Beautiful sketches and fun comics. I suspect a book will come out of this…

via Drawn & Quarterly

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH: THE CRISIS OF GLOBAL WARMING
Adapted for a New Generation
Viking (Penguin Group)
2007

The text is accessible. The photographs are vivid. The charts and graphs are compelling. Al Gore clearly spells out the crisis, but he begins and ends the book by saying that it is not hopeless. In the beginning he says, "I like the fact that in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is made up of two characters...The first one means 'danger.' But the second one means 'opportunity.' " In the end he points out, "Another big problem with global warming is that an astonishing number of people go straight from denial to despair, without pausing at the step in between. Yes, there's a crisis...but we can do something about it."

So what are YOU going to do? Switch to fluorescent bulbs? Turn down the thermostat? Turn off your computer rather than just putting it to sleep? Buy a Prius? Take shorter, cooler showers? Check here if you need ideas. There's a pdf poster of 10 things we can all do.

Just today, I got an invitation from Gather.com via American Public Media to join the "Go Green On Gather Contest" for Earth Day 2007.

This Earth Day, April 22, make a commitment to live today without compromising tomorrow. Living a sustainable life is easier than you might think—take one step at a time, incorporating eco-friendly lifestyle changes that will make our planet healthier for future generations. It’s never too soon to start!

livejournal.com/little_world (with thanks to neatorama.com)

And that link--now with a forum-- to a home for a large Frodo: bendshire.com/ (with thanks to Fuse #8)

Earth Day is Sunday, April 22nd, so I thought I would post a small list of environmental picture books.
This list is by no means complete.
Do you have a favorite environmental picture book? Tell us about it in the comments area!

BIG MAMA MAKES THE WORLD by Phyllis Root
When Big Momma makes the world, she doesn't mess around. With a baby on her hip and laundry piling up, she demands light and dark, earth and sky, creepers and crawlers, and lots of folks to trade stories with on the front porch.

THE LORAX by Dr. Seuss.
My favorite Dr. Seuss book.
I love how the colors of the illustrations become dim and brooding as the situation gets more serious.

THE EARTH AND I by Frank Asch.
A boy thinks about the many ways he and the planet benefit and enjoy each other.

MISS RUMPHIUS by Barbara Cooney.
To make the world a more beutiful place, Miss Rumphius begins by sowing flowers all over the countryside.

THE SALAMANDER ROOM by Ann Mazer.
A young boy finds an orange salamander and gradually imagines his room into a perfect home for it.

THE GIFT OF THE TREE by Alvin Tresselt.
An oak tree lives and dies in the forest, providing food, shelter, and safety for the animals and life all around.

WELCOME TO THE GREEN HOUSE by Jane Yolen.
A tropical rain forest brims with bright colors and sounds as hummingbirds and ocelots, fig trees and orchids grow and thrive.

PLANTZILLA by Jerdine Nolen.
Third-grader Mortimer Henryson has successfully petitioned his parents and his science teacher, Mr. Lester, to allow him to bring the class plant, Plantcilia (nicknamed "Plantzilla" by the students), home over summer vacation.

Author: Janet S. Wong
Illustrator: David Roberts
Published: 2007 Candlewick Press
ISBN: 0763623806 Amazon.ca Amazon.com

Crawling with cockroaches, crankiness and whole lot of creativity, this imaginative story of community recycling makes saving the earth a cheeky adventure.

For information about MagazineLiteracy.org’s KinderHarvest magazine recycling initiative, click here.

Podcasts mentioned:

• Has Anyone Seen Winnie and Jean?
• Podcast of Dread

Today is officially Earth Day and many people also celebrate Arbor Day sometime during the month of April. And although there is an abundance of nature poetry for children available, I think it would be appropriate to focus on TREES, in particular. Living on the prairie in Texas, I’m a big fan of trees, since we don’t have many. I was a tree climber as a kid and a tree planter as an adult. And there are many poems about trees to share with young people beginning with Joyce Kilmer’s classic, “Trees” which begins “I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree.”

In fact, once I started looking, I found that many of my favorite poems were about trees, from David McCord’s “Every Time I Climb a Tree” to “Arbol de Limon/ Lemon Tree” by Jennifer Clement and translated by Consuelo de Aerenlund, presented in both English and Spanish (in Naomi Nye's anthology). Here’s a poem by Karla Kuskin that is also a fine example of “concrete” or “shape” poetry in which the words of the poem also suggest the shape of the poem’s subject.

If you stood with your feet in the earth
Up to your ankles in grass
And your arms had leaves running over them
And every once in awhile one of your leafy fingers
Was nudged by a bird flying past,
If the skin that covers you from top to tip
Wasn’t skin at all, but bark
And you never moved your feet from their place
In the earth
But stood rooted in one spot come
Rain
Wind
Snow
Sleet
Thaw
Spring
Summer
Winter
Fall
Blight
Bug
Day
Dark
Then you would be me:
A tree.

Kuskin, Karla. 1972. Any Me I Want to Be. Harper & Row.

For more “tree” poems, look for these anthologies:
Brenner, Barbara. 1994. The Earth is Painted Green: A Garden of Poems about Our Planet. Scholastic.
Bruchac. Joseph. 1995. The Earth Under Sky Bear's Feet: Native American Poems of the Land. Philomel Books.
Fisher, Aileen. 2003. Sing of the Earth and Sky: Poems about Our Planet and the Wonders Beyond. Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
George, Kristine O’Connell. 1998. Old Elm Speaks: Tree Poems. Clarion Books.
Greenfield, Eloise. 1988. Under the Sunday Tree. Harper & Row.
Gunning, Monica. 1998. Under the Breadfruit Tree: Island Poems. Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.
Jones, Hettie, comp. 1971. The Tree Stands Shining: Poetry of the North American Indian. Dial Books.
Kuskin, Karla. 1980. Dogs and Dragons, Trees and Dreams: A Collection of Poems. HarperCollins.
Kuskin, Karla. 1975. Near the Window Tree. Harper.
Levy, Constance. 1994. A Tree Place and Other Poems. McElderry.
Lindbergh, Reeve. 1990. Johnny Appleseed. Joy Street Books.
McCord, David. 1999. Every Time I Climb a Tree. Little Brown.
Nye, Naomi Shihab, comp. 1995. The Tree is Older than You Are: A Bilingual Gathering of Poems and Stories from Mexico with Paintings by Mexican Artists. Simon & Schuster.
Singer, Marilyn. 2002. Footprints on the Roof: Poems About the Earth. Knopf.
Yolen, Jane. 2000. Color Me a Rhyme: Nature Poems for Young People. Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press.

And of course this begs for a poet-tree display! Create a paper tree trunk and branches and encourage children to choose their favorite poems to display on large green paper leaves hanging from the branches.

Picture credit: www.phong.com

The frogs are singing loudly now from the ditches, dugouts, and sloughs, the ducks -- especially the goldeneyes -- are pairing up, the grass is greening, gophers are running about, hawks swoop around overhead, and the prairie crocuses are up. I missed Poetry Friday again -- too many visitors here and places to be there. We had our mandated semi-annual home school facilitator visit (who last time

Chris Smith and Aurélia Fronty, author and illustrator respectively, tell the story of the city that is the spiritual home to the world's three largest religions. The Jews call the city Yerushalaym, the Arabs call it Al-Quds, and the English - Jerusalem. It is a story of love and generosity handed down through the centuries as a folk tale as a reminder to all that a city and its inhabitants can live in peace with one another.