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By:
Tonia Allen Gould,
on 10/27/2014
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Tonia Allen Gould's Blog
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On Saturday, a box arrived at my door, and I remembered that an old friend from back home in Indiana had recently asked me for my address. The package was fairly large and I pondered perfunctorily what could be inside; the box felt as light as air in my hands.
Curiously, I tore off the tape and peered inside. On top of a pile of various and vibrant shades of autumn leaves rested a note that read:
Tonia,
I read a post of yours about missing the fall leaves of the Midwest & I thought I could help with that! I hope these bring a smile to your face and you’ll enjoy them for a little while!
Love & Miss Ya!
Regina
One lone tear rolled down my cheek. I was surprised by how overcome I was with raw emotion. The gift was more thoughtful and meaningful than anything ever given me by a friend. It was a gift so powerful that it left me forever touched, because it was so simple. Regina knew I was a bit homesick for the Midwest and sent me a piece of HOME – vivid, reminiscent hues from my youth – all packaged up nicely and left waiting for me on my doorstep by the mailman on an average, sunny day in California.
Where Autumn never comes.
Regina’s gift is a reminder that giving isn’t about spending or going through the motions; giving is about getting personal and evoking feeling from the recipient as a result of the kindness of the gesture. If the gift is heartfelt, it will surely be richly treasured, in a way much like I felt about my wonderful, crisp pile of leaves.
As for me and my colorful treasures, I will discover fun ways to use them this fall. And, when autumn first turns to winter, I will seal them back up in Regina’s box and use them again for another reason in a different Autumn season.
By: Kenneth Kit Lamug,
on 9/4/2013
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RabbleBoy
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Children’s Bookwatch: July 2013
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Diane C. Donovan, Editor
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI 53575
The Picturebook Shelf
A Box Story
Kenneth Kit Lamug, author/illustrator
RabbleBox LLC
9780615581477, $9.13,
www.RabbleBoy.com“A Box Story” is a quirky, maverick- flavored fable about imagination and creativity that will appeal to all ages. Enhanced with pencil and pixel cardboard-colored illustrations, “A Box Story” presents a fresh take on the many things that can be a box, or that a box can be. The spare, gaunt illustrations perfectly express and complement the pithy prose. It all leads to a single question:
“What’s inside your box?” A lifetime of answers could suffice.
By: Brimful Curiosities,
on 12/8/2011
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If I were to write up a list of my very favorite Christmas picture books, Trinka Hakes Noble's Apple Tree Christmas would appear near the top. I found her picture book quite by accident at the library last week while searching for books with a "holiday" sticker, though I'm beginning to think that it was rather not by circumstance but by providence.
As each year passes I desire more and more for my family to escape the commercialism surrounding Christmas and focus on family, traditions and meaningful gifts including the true gift of Christmas, Jesus. While Apple Tree Christmas is not a religious book, it is a work of historical fiction that harkens back to simpler times, modest gifts from the heart and family togetherness.
Apple Tree Christmas
by Trinka Hakes Noble. Dial Books for Young Readers (October 1984); ISBN 0803701020; 32 pages
Book Source: Copy from our public library
Noble's story is set in the late 1800's. The Ansterburgs, a close-knit family, reside in one side of an old barn and live a simple, rural life. They cherish their beloved apple tree -- the tree provides a bountiful crop of apples every fall, and the family uses the apples to make applesauce, cider, apple butter and Christmas tree decorations. The tree also serves a special play space for the two Ansterburg kids, Katrina and Josie.
"Now that all the apples were picked, Katrina and Josie could climb the tree as much as they wanted. The snowy weather didn't stop them. Every day after school they would play in its branches.
On one side Papa had pulled a thick vine down low enough to make a swing for Josie.
The other side of the tree belonged to Katrina. One limb made the perfect drawing board."
Unfortunately, a blizzard comes in with a vengeance and a terrible ice storm knocks down the apple tree. The whole family feels awful about losing the tree. Katrina especially morns the loss of her favorite tree and her drawing perch. Christmas day arrives, but to Katrina "it just didn't feel like Christmas." However, her parents have a surprise in store. The apple tree, though in different form, continues to spread warmth and joy in a new way.
The lovely watercolor paintings in Noble's book provide children with a glimpse into a rural 1880s life, and this emotion-filled family story is similar to those found in Laura Ingalls Wilder's much-loved books. The story also provides a great example of how to craft thoughtful, handmade gifts with determined resourcefulness and shows how to make
5 Minutes for Books is holding a Fall Festival of Children’s Books this week and we are joining in the celebration by listing our favorite picture book this month. We live in the Midwest and both my kindergartener and toddler enjoyed reading this beautifully illustrated ABC picture book by Arthur Geisert.
Country Road ABC: An Illustrated Journey Through America's Farmland
by Arthur Geisert; Houghton Mifflin (May 2010); ISBN 9780547194691; 64 pages; Copy from our local library
This isn't your ordinary farm book. It also isn't your average ABC book. It is so much more. County Road ABC captures a way of life - the life of farmers living in a small farming community, or more specifically, the life along Iowa County Road Y31. Like in his other books, Geisert creates the illustrations using a copper-plate etching process combined with watercolors and acrylics and the resulting pictures are extraordinarily detailed. Starting with A is for ammonia fertilizer and ending with Z is for z-brace, the letters of the alphabet help describe various aspects of country life. The text is rather sparse, but the illustrations ... Wow! They are amazing.
I've lived most of my life in and near small farming communities. The landscapes portrayed in the book, particularly the panorama picture that continues on the bottom edge page after page, accurately represent many of the country roads that I've traveled on. The book even depicts the seasons starting with the spring thaw and circling through summer, fall and the snowy, cold winter. The reader really does get a sense of what it is like living in a rural area. There's farm animals, a country church and graveyard, an abandoned one-room schoolhouse, a village parade, tractors in the fields, and even images of the volunteer fire department - this is the small town, rural Midwest captured in a book. My son's favorite part of the book is the page with the line of cars following a combine. That's not surprising, given the number of combines we've noted in the fields lately. My daughter commented on the page with the one room school and wanted to know more about the outhouses, one with the sun/star and the other with the moon. We had to look up more about outhouses online after reading the book.
Even though my kids do not live on a farm, they live near farmers and farming communities. I want them to understand the country life because it is in their blood. Their grandparents and great-grandparents grew up on farms. We still visit my grandparents' farm and drive on many country roads to get there. It's a way of life worth understanding and we enjoyed reading about it and experiencing it through the pictures in this book, and learning our ABCs along the way.
Lee Fiora is a modest girl from the Midwest, blessed by luck and hours of effort, who has won a place and a scholarship to the Ault school, a prestigious Northeastern boarding school. Vineyard Vines, Ralph Lauren and J. Crew labels are everywhere to be seen, while the school demands more academically than Lee has ever experienced. Awed and apprehensive, Lee begins her Ault career, unsure of her place in this affluent, preppy world. As the weeks and months continue, Lee becomes progressively more alienated, feeling friendless and very much an outsider. She is not privy to East Coast slang, the favorite brands; her hair is not long and sleek, her body not completely soft and slender. The novel follows Lee for her four years at Ault, during which time she becomes hardly more integrated. She spends the overwhelming majority of her high school years feeling self-conscious and rather miserable, because she feels that any thought, expression or action outside of the norm will alienate her further and cause others to think badly of her.
I liken this feeling of being scrutinized to the concept of the “panopticon,” in the book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks. A panopticon is a circular jail, arranged around a central well so that the prisoners could be watched at all times. Because of the constant assumption that they were being watched, the prisoners behaved and little watching ever really had to occur. In Prep, and in The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks, the boarding school atmosphere makes for a sort of panopticon—an environment in which everyone feels as though they are always being watched, and behave accordingly. For Frankie, in Disreputable History, the panopticon serves to fascinate her and spark a rebellion within her. In Prep, the panopticon makes Lee miserable, for she feels as though her every move must be calculated to follow what the popular students are doing, and she spends more time desperately trying to fit in than she does nearly anything else. Life with a desperate and masochistic motivation such as this is not a happy one; Lee is constantly miserable and ends up allowing herself to be used sexually by a popular boy, for after wanting so long to be wanted, she grasps at the first possibility. Lee acts for almost the sole motivation of wanting not necessarily to be accepted –for being different is never desirable—but included.
Prep was written by Curtis Sittenfeld, sort of as a memoir. Sittenfeld attended a very prestigious boarding school as a teenager, and changed the name and a few key facts in the book, in order to somewhat protect its identity. Knowing this as I read was a little sad, for Curtis, alias Lee, has such an awful time in the text.
Prep is the bittersweet story of a girl who enters into a lavish world that seems ideal to her, but quickly learns that the pressure to be the unattainable elite is suffocating, and she finds herself barely gasping for breath over the four years of her life there. The really sad thing was that by the end of the novel, Lee does not seem to have really learned anything. She has not decided to be true to herself, or not care what others think of her. Perhaps this is more realistic, but it is still rather melancholy.
Prep is basically a depressing read. And though the insights on life at such an institution as Ault were interesting and well-explored, often the book lagged in Lee’s despair and alienation.
If you write middle grade or YA, then you should know all you can about Arthur Levine and Wendy Lamb.
[Full disclosure: I really liked reading this about Mr. Levine: “A self-professed “friendship junkie,” Levine places a high value on his relationships with authors and illustrators. “There is a certain special intimacy you have when you’re working with authors on something that is so meaningful to them,” he says.” That's the kind of relationship I prefer to have with my editors. And as for Ms. Lamb? Everyone I know named Wendy is wonderful, including a certain agent….]
Now it’s your turn for disclosure. Are either of these people your editor?
Very pretty ornaments! I haven't heard of the book, but it sounds like a nice one.
Thanks for the post about Apple Tree Christmas...that is a book I will definitely check into!
The star ornaments are great - good idea about the template/star drawing. Love the results.
Oh, that sounds like a book that I would enjoy (even just for myself)! I love your twig star. Simple, yet beautiful. And the quote by Bob Hope at the end of your post is wonderful.
The star is beautiful - I love things made from sticks. Gorgeous.
And the book sounds great too!
Thank you for joining Kids Get Crafty!
Maggy
This book sounds lovely. We lost most of one of our favorite trees in the surprise snowstorm we got this past October, so my kids would definitely identify with that part of the story.
The star twig ornaments look lovely! I think glue dots would stick the twigs together without having to worry about hot glue, if you can find some of those...
This is so pretty! What a wonderful ornaments!
This is so pretty! What a wonderful ornaments!
This sounds like a great book. I love your go along craft, very special.