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A Tale for Easter

By Tasha Tudor

Softly tinted trademark drawings, enhanced by a dreamlike quality, are the hallmarks of this classic 1941 Tasha Tudor tale of a young girl’s run up to Easter.

Ms. Tudor, known for her pastels celebrating the joys of her rural childhood, beginning with her 1938 Pumpkin Moonshine, with its family-centered celebrations, and the winning of two Caldecott Honor book designations for Mother Goose  in 1945 and 1 is One in 1956, continues here, with family-centered freshness in A Tale for Easter.

Ms. Tudor spent her life as an artist celebrating the wildlife, landscape and traditions of her own childhood.

And through her ninety some books, she has shared it with generations of readers that perhaps, by osmosis, long to soak in a  simpler time and place that this artist captures with both sweetness and an unashamed sentiment.

In A Tale for Easter, amid a pastoral setting, young readers may peek at a tousle-haired young lady’s gently soothing interactions with nearby chickens that are given a special request for the day before Easter:

              On Saturday, you go and ask

              the chickens to lay you

              plenty of Easter eggs.

And there are hints of traditions that are part of the preparation for Easter that signals its nearness:

              It is only when Good Friday

              comes, and you have hot cross

              buns for tea, that you know for

              certain Easter will be the day after 

              tomorrow.

There is a childlike happiness and quiet calm in this young lady’s unfettered and innocent view of the burgeoning new life that surrounds author, Tasha Tudor’s look here at spring, and the holy day ahead.  

My very favorite part is the dreamlike sequence in which the young girl has the “loveliest of dreams,” with a wee fawn conveying her lightly on a springtime journey, taking in looks at leaping lambs, restful rabbits, gamboling ducks, and a host of tinted yellow, spring blossoming flowers.

If this was indeed what Tasha Tudor’s rural New Hampshire childhood was like in 1941, perhaps we need to allow our own children an imaginative picture book look back to a simpler time when the arrival of spring, its celebrations of new life abounding in nature, and the family traditions surrounding the observing of holy days, may be looked at again with the fresh eyes of a new generation of readers.

It’s a classic Easter read not to be missed.

The Springs of Joy

Tasha Tudor

As we close out April here at The Snuggery and, as it happens, National Poetry Month, I couldn’t let them slip past without highlighting a perfect salute to both, with an absolutely terrific classic picture book for celebrating the passing of spring, and its dual role as the harbinger of the summer to come.

It’s called “The Springs of Joy” by the renowned illustrator and author of iconic picture books, the redoubtable Tasha Tudor.

As I love to troll bookstores and scan picture book shelves, I recently asked a salesperson there, if they had any Tasha Tudor titles. The quizzical look I received, more than convinced me I was going to get a “No” to my question. And it also assured me of one other thing. And that is the importance of bringing these important classic authors of picture books forward to parents and readers of successive generations of readers to whom they may not be known.

Do classic paintings lose their relevance in the world of art because they were painted hundreds of years ago? I believe thousands of students in “The History of Art” classes in colleges are still studying and appreciating them. Why are our art museums filled with visitors that wonder and stare at their preserved beauty long after these painters’ demise?

So it is with these picture book classics. They are art on a very special and unique level, and their level of potential influence to beginning young readers, is immense.

Tasha Tudor, Caldecott Honor Book winner for “1 is One” has written prolifically during her years spent in, and writing of, her beloved New England countryside. And here, she continues that theme in the voice of writers as diverse as Mother Goose, Joseph Conrad, Edgar Allan Poe, John Donne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Shakespeare.

This may all seem a bit heady as I write of it, but trust me, when you juxtapose the art of Tasha Tudor with truisms from Emerson, such as “Life is short, but there is always time for courtesy,” it presents an opportunity for exposure to a triple play of art, great writers and the teachable moments for discussion with your young reader.

How about this simple quote that resonates all too clearly in a troubled world where children are fearful far too often?  “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy,” taken from Robert Louis Stevenson.

And there are pages of these gems filled with simple, yet sumptuous art, that refers by quote and picture, to the world of a child.

As Ms. Tudor states in her Foreword, “Joy and peace are a state of mind, easy for some to come by, difficult for others. This book pictures a few of the things that have brought, and still do bring, intense joy to me.

I’m for that any day of the week!

There is a wealth of wisdom in “The Springs of Joy,” and plenty to share what you rediscover with your young reader, or even gift to a child you may know.

This quote from George Bernard Shaw will probably resonate with the Greatest Generation of current great grandparents that may like reading this to their great grands. These people faced the Great Depression and World War II with the grit established from quotes like these:

           “People are always blaming their

           circumstances for what they are.

           I don’t believe in circumstances.

           The people who get on in this world

           are the people who get up and look

           for the circumstances they want, and

           if they can’t find them, make them.”

 

In a world where renewable resilience in our young is a harder value to find and model, this quote seems very timely and full of hope for challenging times that may perhaps come to them, during their young lives.

Please be a child again with a young reader, and rediscover where joy and hope may often be found – in a classic picture book!

Pumpkin Moonshine

By Tasha Tudor

Recently, I went to our local costume/party shop in town to find it decked out for Halloween. The owner has even been known to create a pretty authentic looking in-house haunted house, a time or two. Pretty creepy, I must admit. Outside you will find a VERY angry looking clown with green teeth and inside you’ll see ghouls,trolls, bats and other baying-at-the-moon types. Many are sound and voice activated and echoed through the shop as I trekked up and down the aisles looking for the ghost of Halloween Past. It was nowhere to be found. Instead I found costumes of gruesome gargoyles and the like. What I was looking for was a kinder, gentler Halloween of cute witches, hobos and fairies. No dice. But wait, I DID find it in a picture book I remembered, called “Pumpkin Moonshine” by Tasha Tudor.

If you’ve not discovered this iconic picture book author OR if she has fallen off your young reader picture book radar, this is a perfect book to introduce her or reintroduce her to your youngest of readers.

It’s opening dedication is titled “A wee story for a very sweet wee person” and that’s just what it is. But just in case you’re thinking – dullsville – I say, oh nay nay! Tasha Tudor in her art and narrative has captured holidays and family life celebrated as special moments filled with traditions and sentiment. BUT, there is usually excitement afoot as there is here in “Pumpkin Moonshine.”

Did you know that “Pumpkin Moonshine” is an alternative name for a jack o’ lantern? Meet Sylvie Ann visiting her grandmother in Connecticut on Halloween. Setting out for the cornfield with her small dog Wiggy in tow, they “ puff like steam engines” up the hill on their search for the perfect pumpkin.

If you have young ones that are on a “perfect pumpkin” quest you know it is sometimes quite a quest. And quests usually are time consuming, but a labor of love. And so it is with Sylvie Ann and Wiggy. They find a pumpkin so big it must be rolled “just the way you roll big snowballs in wintertime.” Hey, I’ve done that! But I’ve never rolled it DOWN the hill where the momentum of a BIG pumpkin can let him get away from you – and so it does with Sylvie Ann!

Kids will be laughing as goats, hens and geese scatter in the wake of the runaway pumpkin moonshine that “tore into the barnyard at a truly dreadful speed”, with Wiggy and Sylvie Ann in hot pursuit. Mr. Hemmelskamp ( love the name) is the one that is upended in the path of the galloping gourd – and lands on his face!

With apologies to all, grandpa and Sylvie Ann commence lopping the top off the pumpkin, scooping it out and making “eyes and a nose and a big grinning mouth with horrid teeth.”

Pumpkin moonshine sits on the front gate post on Halloween as night falls and grandpa and Sylvie Ann hide in the bushes “to watch how terrified the passers by would be..”

For me, the best part of the book is the full cycle of nature that Tasha Tudor weaves into her tale as Sylvie Ann saves the seeds and plants them in the spring. As the seeds grow and cover the earth with vines, NEW pumpkin moonshines will fill the field to be made into future grinning jacks and pumpkin pies!

We’re selling “pumpkin moonshines” at our farm and I think I will put a sign up announcing this alternative naming of the pumpkin! It’s great to have a picture book with both great art and narrative AND a lesson in it for kids that the carved up jack o’ lanterns they shape this Halloween, have within them, the seeds for a NEW crop the following year.

Tasha Tudor has fashioned stories with great respect for families, traditions that bind them together and the renewability of nature.

Why not introduce your young ones to this sweet teller of tales named Tasha Tudor this Halloween, and her wonderful “Pumpkin Moonshine”; an essential classic for any picture book reader this time of year. Happy Halloween!

• Oh, you lucky bugs.  Do you know what today is?  Today is the first day of Kidlitcon and for those of you still interested in joining (and who wouldn’t be?) you have a last minute chance to be a part of the fun.  Always assuming you’re in the Austin area, of course, but I bet that LOTS of you are located in that general vicinity.  As you’ll recall, last year Kidlitcon was held in New York City and we did very well indeed with the vast hoards of people.  This year it’s a slightly smaller affair, but no less fascinating and fun.  Full details can be found here but don’t worry if you’ve missed the opening ceremonies.  The bulk of the action is on Saturday anyway, so you’ve still time to join.  So go!  Shoo!  Why waste your time here?

• I don’t know about you but typically I go through blog reading binges.  I ignore my favorites for long periods of time and then I consume weeks’ worth of material in a single sitting.  I did this recently with the beloved Crooked House.  First, I enjoyed the fact that she highlighted the book How to Do Nothing With Nobody All Alone By Yourself (notable, if nothing else, for the Lemony Snicket quote which reads, “Every great book reminds us that we are all alone in the world. At least this one provides us with the means to entertain ourselves while we’re here.”)  The second post that caught my eye was a transcribed selection from The Mermaid of Brooklyn which I perhaps enjoyed too much.  Too too much.

• Now some graphic novel news.  There are two horns worth tooting today.  First, there is the fact that I’m on ALSC’s Quicklists Consulting Committee and we recently came up with a newly revised Graphic Novels Reading List, broken down not just by age levels but by whether or not they’re black and white or color.  In related news, kudos to the folks at Good Comics for Kids as well as Snow Wildsmith and Scott Robins for their A Parent’s Guide to the Best Kids’ Comics: Choosing Titles Your Children Will Love.  The SLJ blog and the useful book were both mentioned on the most recent episode of the popular NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour.  The episode Making Toddlers Into Nerds is a bit of a misnomer and they do a lamentable job of mentioning any children’s literature that isn’t either 50 years old or part of a huge series, but at least they get the graphic novels piece right.

• Questions I never thought to ask until Marjorie Ingall made me: Why do chickens play an outsized role in Jewish children’s picture books?  The answer may surprise you.  Or, at the very least, you’ll be impressed with the amount of thought Marjorie has put into this subject.

• This is a good one.  Always at the forefront of the diversity issues, Lee and Low recently put on their blog the post Literary Agents Discuss the Diversity Gap in Publishing.  The agents in question are Adriana Domínguez, Karen Grencik, Abigail Samoun, and Lori Nowicki. Much of what they’re saying echoes things we’ve heard from editors over the past few years.  Check it out.

• I received this message recently and figured you’d want to know about it.  Ahem.

I just wanted to let you know that ABFFE’s 2013 holiday auction will take place on eBay from November 26 through December 2^nd.  Please let your colleagues and friends know that this is the best place to buy holiday gifts! More than 50 leading artists and illustrators contributed to last year’s auction and we are hoping for even more art this year.  Once the auction is live, you will be able to access it from a link on www.abffe.org.

• Me stuff.  Recently I was lucky enough to serve on the New York Times Best Illustrated judging committee for this year’s books.  If you haven’t seen the results I came up with alongside Brian Selznick and Steve Heller you have two choices.  You could look at the fancy dancy NY Times slideshow of the winners here OR you could go on over to 100 Scope Notes and check out Travis Jonker’s truly lovely round-up with book jackets and everything here.

• Just as I collect children’s literary statues from around the States (I’m STILL updating that post, people, so don’t worry if your favorites haven’t made it yet) I also like to keep tabs on museums of famous children’s authors and illustrators.  You have your Eric Carle Museum, your Edward Gorey Museum, and apparently you also have a Tasha Tudor Museum.  Or, at least, you will when it finds a new host.

You may or may not have heard about the SpotLit list, created by Scholastic Book Group with the help of scholars, teachers, librarians, and other specialists in the field.  Well, two awesome infographics have been created to show off some of the facts behind it.  I like them partly because they’re infographics and partly because in the group picture it looks like I’m snuggling up to Harry Potter while Hedwig swoops down mere moments before removing my cranium.  This list discusses what the committee looked like and this list discusses what the books on the list consist of.

• When a new library branch reopens in my city I don’t always report on the fact, but this recent article about the reopened Coney Island Branch is the exception to the rule.  The place looks precisely how you’d want a Coney Island branch to look.  Granted there aren’t any half naked mermaids or rides in the library, but those photographs on the walls are worth the price of admission alone.

• Jon Klassen’s right.  Interviews with the great illustrator Arnold Lobel are few and far between.  When you can find one, you post it.  And that’s just what he did.  Thank you, Jon.

• Turns out, there are LOTS of children’s literature conspiracy theories out there that I never even knew about.  A hat tip then to Listverse for rounding them up for us.  Clearly the Dodgson is my favorite.  Thanks to AL Direct for the link.

• I’m always keen to get a handle on the newest studies that discuss how kids handle technology.  Now the “Zero to Eight Children’s Media Use in America 2013” study has been released and Children’s Technology Review discusses the results in full.  Big time thanks to Mary Ann Scheuer from Great Kid Books for the link!

• Hat tip to Travis Jonker.  Without him I would have never known that there are TWO children’s literature podcasts out there that had escaped my attention.  I need to upgrade the old sidebar on this blog, do I not?

• And in the world of grants n’ such:

Greetings! There’s still time to apply for the ALSC Candlewick Press Light the Way grant. The deadline is December 1, 2013. This is a great funding opportunity if you have a project or program related to library service to children in special populations. The application is at this link: http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/profawards/candlewicklighttheway

• Daily Image:

Today’s image may be classified as Best Fan Art Ever, or something along those lines.  How many of you are familiar with Helen Frost’s lovely middle grade Diamond Willow?  Well, it came out in 2008 or so but its fans continue to find it.  Case in point, this young woman who, with her Chinook pet dog, reenacted the cover.  Compare and contrast:

Original:

Fan Made:

Utterly adorable.  Many thanks to Helen for sharing this with me

I am of the school that likes to read while eating. (Is that even a "school"? And of what — reading?) No, needs to read while eating. I know this is both very bad manners and apparently bad for the waistline, too: I have read that the dieter should eat without distraction, so as to [...]

When the big ones were little, we got the Child’s Garden of Songs CD (like every other Charlotte Masonish homeschooler in the country), and oh how those small girls of mine adored it. For years it was their most frequently requested music, especially at bedtime–especially in summer. We got the beloved Tasha Tudor-illustrated picture-book-sized edition of Child’s Garden of Verses, too, of course: another CM requisite. My girls liked the book well enough, but it was the CD they cherished, and it’s the CD they still recall with affection, and hum around the house from time to time. Those lovely Celtic-flavored melodies got into my blood, too; that’s the kind of music I love best; it stirs my heart, gives me the shivers.

Now and then I’ll realize suddenly that there are these books and songs that meant the world to us ten, twelve years ago (Amazon informs me I purchased the Tasha Tudor book on April 14, 2000—six years to the day before Rilla was born; gosh, even before Beanie was born; and now I’m a little whelmed by the thought that in some respects, Amazon has a better record of my family history than I do)—important to us years ago, I was saying, but my younger trio don’t know them at all. It happened with Miss Rumphius (heresy!) and it happened with Child’s Garden of Songs.

I realized this a week or two ago and tracked down the CD, and we’ve listened to it every couple of days since. Rilla and Wonderboy are as enchanted by its melodies as their big sisters were. Huck remains somewhat indifferent, but then there aren’t any songs about trucks, are there?

The large book with the Tasha Tudor illustrations has failed to jump out from any of the shelves on which I’d expect it to be residing. All I found was the little Dover paperback edition, print only, no pictures; but Rilla doesn’t care. She sprawled on my bed today, frantically hunting each of the poems during the opening measures of its corresponding song on the CD—pause, Mommy, I can’t find it! oh here it is—and then calmly, almost serenely, singing along, kicking her feet, looking up to identify various instruments in the musical arrangement. Guitar, piano, violin, a fluty thing, those little round things you wear on your fingers, more violin, maracas. It was supposed to be my quiet reading time but I gave up on my book and watched her instead. It was a fancy dress day; she likes her sash tied in a fastidious bow, but she scorns anything that binds or tames her hair. The ragged locks fell over her face as she peered down at the book. Amazon says I purchased the Garden of Songs CD on July 19, 2002. Jane was seven that June. You know, last week.

The other book Rilla wanted today—wanted fiercely, rejecting my offer of the next Brambly Hedge story—was hist whist, the li

(from May 2008)

Cay has all the details.

Tasha Tudor, a highly regarded children's book illustrator for 70 years, died at the age of 92 last Wednesday. Tudor had an amazing life and endured things that one today couldn't even imagine. She reared her four children in a home without electricity or running water until her youngest turned 5. At 15, she used money she had made teaching nursery school to buy her first cow. She also lived a mysterious life. Frequently, she said that she was the reincarnation of a sea captain's wife who lived from 1800 to 1840 or 1842, and that it was this earlier life she was replicating by living in the past.

It was her husband who encouraged Tudor to put together a folio of pictures and seek publishers. She, just like many others, was repeatedly turned down before her first published book, Pumpkin Moonshine (1938), was accepted by Oxford University Press.

Two of Tudor's books were named Caldecott Honor Books: Mother Goose and 1 Is One

Other books by Tasha Tudor:
Corgiville Fair (Tudor's favorite of her books)

The Secret Garden (HarperClassics)

The Night Before Christmas




Read a full article at The International Herald Tribune.

August 28, 1915 – June 18, 2008
Tudor's lifestyle came from "nostalgia for a day and time that was more peaceful and slow," she said in 1991. When she went to town, her children "were very careful to walk a good 10 or 12 feet behind me so that they wouldn't be associated with . . . a rather different-looking woman."

More about Tasha Tudor's life and work here. A list of her titles can be seen here.

Thanks to Fuse #8.

Yesterday, the family of Tasha Tudor announced:

It is with great sadness that we must tell you Tasha Tudor, 92, passed away in her Vermont home on June 18, 2008 surrounded by family and friends. We have created an online memorial website and invite all who loved Tasha to share their feelings and memories in the Memory Book section. Memorial Website