MamaStories

I am thinking of participating in Barb-Harmony Art Mom’s weekly “Outdoor Hour” challenges, which follows Anna Botsford Comstock’s book Handbook of Nature Study. Gotta get hold of the book first, though. I’m waiting to get it through the inter-library loan.

This, by the way, is why they call him the Red-Bellied Woodpecker (click on image to see larger):

Tomorrow at the library I’m picking up A Seed is Sleepy by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long, as well as Sharon’s Depletion and Abundance. That’ll  make for a good mix.

At the library book and cake sale last weekend I picked up some great books, among them some books by Wendell Berry, Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder (old edition) and some great gardening books for $1 a piece!

Too many books to read! But I read one here and another one there, and the ten other ones in the middle, and if all goes well they all mix together wonderfully in my mind, like good watercolors. In the end I can’t quote from any or even remember which message or interesting bit of information came from whom, but it’s cool. I’m done with “learning as information”. I’m into lived learning now.

(Choo-Chee the Fox by Galina Kolev, used with kind permission)

At the new house we’ll be seeing lots of foxes. I’m looking for a good book about them. It could be a fairytale or a picture story or a more scientific book (not too advanced). As long as it doesn’t reinforce the old stereotype of the wily fox who gets outwitted and has to go without food for another day.

Any suggestions?

Amie gets it! She was talking about something and suddenly said:

- Mama, more begins with M.

I had always found it strange that she could rhyme so naturally - she picked it up in one day, months ago - but that she couldn’t isolate the first letter, or sound, of a spoken word, until now and after a lot of practice. Rhyming seems to me a more complex task, especially the way we play the “rhyming game” (I say: “cat rhymes with…” and she needs to sift through her vocabulary looking for a word that rhymes with cat). I guess I was wrong.

Now that she is so interested in writing, we’ve been working on it, of course. It is a part of our day now, to analyze the words we say into sounds. But today she isolated the sound spontaneously, without help or recourse to her memory.

And in the evening, this scene:

In the background, our lovely, newly-acquired roommate but old yet ever young friend Laura, reading The Magic Schoolbus while Amie tears through her favorite Kiss the Cow.

Oh, I feel so right at home!

Over the weekend we visited Walden Pond. As I had hoped, it was frozen over. The Ranger told me the ice measured only 4 inches, and that it wasn’t safe to walk on - it being a very deep pond (102 feet). Nonetheless, there were quite a few people on the ice. We just braved the first couple of yards near the beach. Like the Ranger said: nothing had happened yet, but you could be the first to fall through. No thanks!

As we approached we asked Amie where all the water had gone! She knew from reading Stella, Queen of the Snow.

- Frozen!

We walked on it, tested the hardness, and made tracks in the snow. Listened to the frogs sleeping underneath the ice. She was all for walking across to the other side, and it took some persuading to get her off again.

We also spotted deer tracks in the snow, and compared their to those of our tracks, explaining the difference by how our feet and shoes are shaped differently.

Lastly we visited the mock-up of Thoreau’s house and shook the bronze statue’s hand (very cold). Amie asked again, as she usually does when we visit Walden Pond:

- But where did Henry go?

- We don’t know. He’s dead. We don’t know where we go when we die.

I think Thoreau might have appreciated that answer.

We are big fans over here of Rosemary Wells. We adore the Mother Goose book she did with Iona Opie, but our absolute favorites are the Voyage to the Bunny Planet books. There are three of them, but we only own The Island Light (about Felix) and Moss Pillows (about Robert). I stumbled upon them at a garage sale. The other one, First Tomatoes, I haven’t been able to find.

Amie was at first fascinated with Felix being held down for a shot and having to drink medicine that tastes of gasoline. Now she is more interested in the bunnies’ real problems: Felix being sick in front of the whole art class and his parents forgetting to kiss him goodnight, bespectacled Robert’s need to be alone in a house full of rowdy cousins, arguing adults and noisy television. She totally understands that they “need a visit to the Bunny Planet”. She has even started speaking of going there herself (”When I was a baby and I was sad, Janet came and took me to the Bunny Planet” - Janet BTW is the Queen of the Bunny Planet).

DH was not so keen on the stories: child bunnies under stress escaping to imaginary worlds that wholly cater to their fantasies! But I like the quirkiness. I even say they actually demonstrate great compassion and understanding. And I love-love-love the illustrations.

Today Amie made a double-sided drawing and dictated a letter to Rosemary Wells requesting that she write more Bunny Planet books. We’re putting it in the mailbox tomorrow.

Robert

Felix and Janet, the Queen of the Bunny Planet

As you can see, the tadpoles are back again, exclusively. Those bodies were only a blip. And for the most part the mouths are back inside the faces. But look at the ears now!

The first O on the last page is the Bunny Planet. Then it says “Felix” and “Janet” - she is so into “writing” now!

Rosemary has her own website with activities, coloring pages and bunny money.

I came home from the library’s decommissioned books sale with three books (75 c each):

I know: why should they give these away? And they are in really good shape too. In any case,

“There’s a theme here,” said DH.

Mm, maybe there is.

My favorite is Phyllis Root’s Kiss the Cow (illustrated by Will Hillenbrand). Amie loves it too: we read it at least three times a day. The cow is so lovingly drawn, in words as well as song and in paint and ink. This is, I think, the best book ever. If you’re so inclined, you know.

When we read books we make sure to explore the entire book: author and illustrator, of course, publishing house, whether it was published recently or a long time ago, and dedications and information about the creators.

In Kiss the Cow there is a dedication of Root’s to her aunt and uncle, who had thirteen children. We count all the kids on the pages - sometimes there’s thirteen, sometimes more (especially when they’re hungry and screaming)! On the back flap both author and illustrator confess to wanting to kiss a cow - for research!

Thank you Brookline Library!

Watching this video of Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on education and creativity at TED - hilarious, insightful, engaging and (ringing) so true - and reacquainting myself with Danny Gregory’s website and books on drawing, I realized there was a gap in my approach to art and creativity with Amie.

When she draws or paints and asks me to draw something too, I always respectfully decline for several reasons. I don’t want to influence her lines with my perception of things, I don’t want to impose my sense of realism on her, and in the end I like to have a drawing that is wholly hers.

But then how will she see a drawing being made?

Ah!

So I’ve instated another book: the story/drawing/scrap book. It is a sturdy receptacle of stories told and pictures drawn by Amie, spontaneously or when asked. And every other day, I sit down, right there next to her or nearby (”what’re you doin’ Mama?”) and draw something in it.

I copy something from her favorite picture book of the moment, or I draw an object in the room or something imaginary. When she asks, I explain to her what I’m drawing, and let her watch me make lines and add color. If she wants to contribute to the drawing, she is welcome to.

This is a typical page: a note of what she said that day about the names Stella and Elisabeth, and then my copy of Marie-Louise Gay’s Stella. Amie draw some of Stella’s hair.

Stella by Mama and Amie (hair) (Tombow felt pens):

Amie was so inspired, she wanted to draw Stella too, “on my own page by myself”.

How neat to have those two interpretations of Stella next to one another!

Here’s the page we did today:

Can you see how it is a collective effort? She chose the images I should copy, did some of the coloring in, and in the frame in the bottom right corner drew her own Pooh Eating Honey.

I interfere in only two ways: (1) I stop her from blotting everything out with black and (2) I ask her to not push my arm, pen or the book while I’m drawing.

Not content with an article on D.B. Johnson’s wonderful Henry series, I published another article today, on Suite101.com, about five more children’s books about Henry David Thoreau:

1. The Trouble with Henry, written by Deborah O’Neal and Angela Westengard and illustrated by S.D. Schindler (Candlewick Press, 2005).
2. Henry David’s House, words by Thoreau (gleaned from his books by editor Steven Schnur) and illustrated by Robert Fiore (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2007).
3. Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau’s Flute, written by Julie Dunlap and Marybeth Lorbiecki and illustrated by Mary Azarian (Dial, 2002, no longer in print).
4. Into the Deep Forest: With Henry David Thoreau, written by Jim Murphy and illustrated by Kate Kiesler (Clarion Books, 1995, out of print).
5.  A Mind with Wings: The Story of Henry David Thoreau waswritten and illustrated by Gerald & Loretta Hausman (Trumpeter, 2006).

Read it here!

Amie and Baba at the Park 

Yesterday morning was blustery and a little cloudy, but sunny and quite balmy. The three of us went to the Larz Anderson Park, where Amie ran and ran, up and down the hill, in a field of leaves and dandelions, hemmed in by trees changed to all kinds of colors.

Was she tired afterwards! 

On our way home we drove past a huge yard sale for a neighborhood school’s extended day program. It was very child-oriented, with heaps of children’s clothes, piles of books, and boxes and boxes of toys. Amie was very happy to delay her nap for an hour.

We bought mainly books, and small plastic bags stuffed with Schleich animals, and two Groovy Girls dolls. Don’t ask me which ones: they’re hard to identify without their clothes on! When we pointed them out to her, Amie piped: “O!” Sold. We also bought a $100 bike trailer for $30! Now I have to get a bike too, and we’re off on adventure at no cost to the earth!

One of the books I found was Donald Hall’s Ox-Cart Man. I came home and read it cover to cover. The book’s subject matter fits exactly the other books we’ve been reading, about nature and the turning of the seasons, the joy and worth of manual labor, and family life. I’ve always been a fan of Hall’s brand of “American poetry”. And the illustrations by Barbara Cooney are gorgeous in the “American folk” approach…

To offset the “American” aspect, I also got Laurent de Brunhoff’s Babar Learns to Cook. I love how Babar, the King of the Elephants, does all these domestic things. And how the elephant kids are up to all kinds of mischief all the time. {UPDATE: We now actually read the Babar book and I have to put this straight: Babar doesn’t cook at all! His wife, Celeste does… Sigh.}

Last but not least, while I had eyes only for the books, DH scored this set of handpainted porcelains cups (4), saucers (8), coffeepot (1) and milk pitcher (1). We’re not thrifters - don’t have the time, the money, the room - but when it comes to delicate porcelain cups and saucers… and then it was a pity to break up the set, which only cost us $8!

Amie and Baba at Walden Pond (click on My Flickr to the right for more)

• The Pond

All three of us went to Walden Pond today (Amie no longer calls it “Walrus Pond”). It was 83 degrees F, that’s 28 degrees C! We had not expected it, so we were rather overdressed (long pants).

The pondwater was warm enough for Amie, who has been suffering from a cold, to go in whole. This time we did take care to take her shoes off first thing - but we were too late with the shirt. Her diaper swelled up like a balloon half her weight, but she was unperturbed. She floated and splashed and drank the pondwater (we asked her not to, but what can you do?).

We collected stones and leaves and dirt.

Walden Pond in summer can get very crowded, but as you can see from the photo, today was fine, surprisingly for such a hot Saturday on a long weekend. There were mostly families with children, many of them as unprepared for a swim as we were but goin’ in anyway. It felt rather neighborly.

• Then we met Henry

On our way back to the parking lot we visited the replica of Henry David Thoreau’s house. When we arrived the door was open but Amie wouldn’t go in. The bed, with its messed-up brown blanket, scared her a bit. She said:

“I want to see Henry!”

A young couple who were also looking in through the doorway laughed and the girl pointed at her boyfriend, saying:

“There’s Henry!”

The young man took up the role with ease and gave us a tour of his house: the three chairs, the fireplace, the table and the bed.

Amie stared.

And she stared. Was it because he didn’t at all look like the bear in D.B. Johnson’s books? Or did she stare so because she has a sense of Thoreau’s stature, or of the fact that he’s the past and, actually, quite dead…

Who knows what goes on in that little head of hers. More than we give her credit for, I’m sure!

Henry David Thoreau

(July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)