How to use this Page

It occurred to me that I could use the voice-record feature on my phone to dictate a quote directly into Evernote. Then, later, when I’m back at my laptop, I can clean up the typos (voice recording always generates some gems) and paste the quote into my Tumblr, which, as I mentioned the other day, I’ve decided to try out as my commonplace book.

I’m still using my tumblr to collect other articles as well, but I’m using a tag to collect all the book quotes I want to hold on to. So far, I’m enjoying the process: the format encourages me to add my own thoughts below a quote, if I wish, but there’s no pressure.

Bee avatar from Lesley Austin of Wisteria & Sunshine

Ryan Holiday on How And Why To Keep A “Commonplace Book”:

A commonplace book is a central resource or depository for ideas, quotes, anecdotes, observations and information you come across during your life and didactic pursuits. The purpose of the book is to record and organize these gems for later use in your life, in your business, in your writing, speaking or whatever it is that you do.

Some of the greatest men and women in history have kept these books. Marcus Aurelius kept one–which more or less became the Meditations. Petrarch kept one. Montaigne, who invented the essay, kept a handwritten compilation of sayings, maxims and quotations from literature and history that he felt were important. His earliest essays were little more than compilations of these thoughts. Thomas Jefferson kept one. Napoleon kept one. HL Mencken, who did so much for the English language, as his biographer put it, “methodically filled notebooks with incidents, recording straps of dialog and slang” and favorite bits from newspaper columns he liked. Bill Gates keeps one.

Not only did all these famous and great individuals do it. But so have common people throughout history. Our true understanding of the Civil War, for example, is a result of the spread of cheap diaries and notebooks that soldiers could record their thoughts in. Art of Manliness recently did an amazing post about the history of pocket notebooks. Some people have gone as far as to claim that Pinterest is a modern iteration of the commonplace book.

Fun to hear thoughts on this topic from someone outside homeschooling circles. Apart from a few quiet book bloggers, nearly everyone I know who is familiar with or interested in commonplace books is a homeschooler.

I’ve tried many interations of the practice over the years. (This recent Onion piece made me laugh, because I relate all too well to the feeling that just the right notebook and just the right pen will make, this time, all the difference—only re quote-keeping rather than creative writing.)

It’s always the copying out by hand that gets me. I bookmark quotes all over the place (via Diigo, Tumblr, or Evernote, depending on whether I want to share them, if indeed I want to share them at all). And I highlight the dickens out of the things I read on Kindle. But as methods go mine are pretty scattered—and, except for the Kindle highlights, only cover my internet reading. I’ve no single place to go to pore over passages that have struck me in, you know, books made of paper.

Mental Multivitamin has made a consistent practice out of commonplace-book-style blog posts for some ten years, recording quotes that struck her in the books she has read. Would that I had followed her example. The paper-loving side of me craves a handwritten version, but realistically I know myself (and my achy wrists) well enough to know that I would wind up with that dogeared stack of waiting books Ryan mentions in his post—the very thing he cautions you to avoid. Typing is always going to work better than writing, for me.

I wonder if I would keep up with a Commonplace Tumblr? Typing or pasting book quotes into that platform? Same principle, easier on the wrists. It would certainly be a steadier use of my tumblr than the haphazard link-collecting I do there. (My original vision for my tumblr back in 2009—good grief, has it really been that long?—was to collect links to all the reading I do online, or all significant reading, at least: a companion to my reading log. That didn’t pan out over the long haul.)

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I began this post a couple of days ago and have since decided to give it a try. I’ve hit the reset button on my tumblr (figuratively) and am going to try to copy out book quotes into once or twice a month. It’s an experiment; I may lose steam after a while, but we’ll see.

(I could do it here instead, but when I post things here I feel more pressure—entirely self-imposed—to add my own commentary. Over there I don’t seem to mind tossing a quote onto the page and letting it speak for itself. Then, if I have more to say—as indeed turned out to be the case with the article above—I can bring it over here and expand upon it.)

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While finishing up this post just now, I was amused to find “commonplace book” among my categories. I probably made a similar resolution years ago. Didn’t take, obviously.

Those of you familiar with the Jackson 5 song I’ve referenced in my title are probably now throwing virtual rotten fruit in my general direction.  Still, I can’t say it isn’t accurate.  This weekend I am pleased to be a speaker at the SCBWI Indiana conference in Zionsville, IN.  I haven’t been back in Indiana since my last college reunion in 2010.  It’ll be good for me to fill the lungs with some pure uncut Midwestern air once more.  A gal need to fill up before heading back into the NYC fray.  While you read this I may be zooming up into the clouds above, so enjoy some ephemera in my absence.

• Sure.  On the one hand Spain’s reading net, highlighted by Boing Boing this week, looks AMAZING.  But while it may work well for Spanish children, you just know that our kids would be leaping and jumping all over that thing within seconds.  Plus, there appears to be a gigantic hole in it that’s just asking for trouble.  Or maybe that’s how you get in.  That would make sense.

• Views From the Tesseract has reached its 100th post and as a result Stephanie came up with What Stories Have Taught Me in 100 Small Lessons.  It’s nice without being sentimental.  Plus, if you’re in the market for good quotes from children’s books, this here’s the place to go for your one stop shopping!

• AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!  Thanks to Marci for the link.

• My l’il sis is at it again.  This time she came up with a way to create comic book shoes.  I cannot help but think that this might be possible with old Advanced Readers Copies.  Or YA craft programs.  Yeah.  I think you can tell that the next time I go to the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet I’m recruiting Kate to help me with my outfit.  She made one shoe superheroes and one supervillains.

For the record, she also did a post on how to make a hollow book.  If you read it, just remember that the world is FULL of extra Harry Potter 7s.  One or two less isn’t gonna hurt anything.

• And while we’re feeling crafty, Delightful Children’s Books has come up with such a good idea: a Bookish Advent Calendar.  Genius!  I may have to steal this idea myself.  If I do, though, I’d better get cracking.  Start placing holds now.  December is practically nigh!

• On the more serious side of things, Marjorie Ingall writes great posts no matter where she is, but it’s her titles that consistently blow me away.  At the blog Modern Loss (a site for “navigating your life after a death”) Marjorie wrote 5 Kids Books That Go There: The best of the ‘talking to kids about death’ genre (drumroll, please).  It’s a strong five.  I’m trying to think what I might add.  This year’s Missing Mommy by Rebecca Cobb, maybe.  That book ripped my heart from my chest and danced a tarantella on the remains.

• *sigh*  Well, if nothing else, this clarifies for me who exactly “McKenna” is and why folks keep asking me to buy her books.  And Saige, for that matter.  Alexandra Petri writes a rather amusing piece on what has happened to American Girl.

I’m far less upset about the fact that they’re turning What Does the Fox Say? into a picture book.  For one thing, I’m weirdly thrilled that the Norwegian YouTube hit sensation has a Norwegian illustrator.  And one that clearly has a sense of humor.  Hey!  Whatever it takes to get some new names from overseas into the American market.  At the very least, I want to see it (though I’m fairly certain it is NOT the first picture book to be based on a YouTube sensation).  Thanks to Playing By the Book and Matt for the info.

• Daily Image:

Today, I show something I may have shown before.  It’s lithographs of famous books where the text from the story makes up the image itself.  Here are some examples:

A Christmas Carol

Alice in Wonderland

A Little Princess

Thanks to Marci for the link!

“Some things—conjurers, ventriloquists, pantomimes—she enjoyed vicariously, by watching the children’s enjoyment; but fireworks for her had a direct and magical appeal. Their attraction was more complex than that of any other form of art. They had pattern and sequence, colour and sound, brilliance and mobility; they had suspense, surprise, and a faint hint of danger; above all, they had the supreme quality of transience, which puts the keenest edge on beauty and makes it touch some spring in the heart which more enduring excellences cannot reach.”

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“It was quite irrelevant, really a lament by Nashe in time of pestilence, nothing to do with fireworks at all. But she knew that it was just what she had needed to round off the scene for her and to make its memory enduring. Words were the only to net catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion.”

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“Clem caught her eye across the table. It seemed to her sometimes that the most important thing about marriage was not a home or children or a remedy against sin, but simply there being always an eye to catch.”

—from Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struthers

It may seem to some like lazy thinking, but appropriating sayings, quotes, and proverbs can be quite handy in distilling complex subjects into something more immediate.  At the Harold Washington Chicago Public Library are a few quotes above the checkout:

Books are meat and medicine
and flame and flight and flower,
steel, stitch, and cloud and clout
and drumbeats on the air.

- Gwendolyn Brooks

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

- Groucho Marx

Books and reading are very personal subjects for most of us, and I was interested to find more famous opinions about our chosen profession…

It would appear that Maya Angelou would approve of a customizable kids book that peaks a child’s interest in books:

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.”

Comedian Mitch Hedberg seemed to think that we may be too specialized:

“Every book is a children’s book if the kid can read!”

It was Confucius, however, who was the most complimentary of our endeavors:

“The book salesman should be honored because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most.”

What a wiseguy…

Most of our book quotes were identified by readers in the comments. Only three stumped everyone, I think! I’ll save those for last.

“Reshpeckabiggle!”

Beth correctly recognized that as one of good old Puddleglum’s besotted mutterings during his brief unfortunate lapse in The Silver Chair. Scott does the best Puddleglum voice: sounds a bit like the narrator from Our Town. Ayup. Puddleglum is trying to defend his honor as a respectable marshwiggle. Nothing is ever “respectable” around here: it’s always reshpeckabiggle. (I’ve often thought it would make a perfect blog name.)

“George Washington’s hogs, on the other hand, were a genteel and amiable sort.”

The Activities Coordinator knows her David Small! Small is one of our favorite picture book authors & illustrators, and I think of all his books George Washington’s Cows is the best.

“Ohhhh, Betsy’s ten tomorrow
and then all of us are ten!
We will all be ten tomorrow,
we will all be ladies then.”

Lots of Betsy-Tacy fans in the comments! Kudos to Gail and KimN for pegging this as the song that Betsy, Tacy, and Tib sing in Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill.

“She went boneless.”

One more example of Mo Willems’s genius: this perfect description of toddler behavior from Knuffle Bunny, as Anne and Mamacrow recognized.

“Call in Mr. Pye!”

We used to quote this one all the time, but it had fallen out of regular use until recently. Kate and Sarah nailed it as a line from Ginger Pye. The Pye kids’ father is a “famous bird man,” and whenever anyone in the government has a bird-related question out goes the cry to “Call in Mr. Pye!” When my big girls were little and Scott was a work-at-home freelancer, we echoed the cry anytime we needed to summon Scott from his basement office for heroic tasks like Opening Jars or Dealing With Horrible Insects.

The three quotes no one recognized are from three of our favorite picture books!

“When the bear arrived, of course, there weren’t enough macaroons to go around.”

I’ve quoted this one here before. It’s from James in the House of Aunt Prudence by Timothy Bush, a book of immense story and few words. What words there are, are choice.

I think I’ll save the other two books for posts of their own—not to be a tease, but just because my hands-free time for typing has run out for the day.