Why We Still Need Books

This is a portion of an older post I wrote when I was still working as a school librarian. I may not work as one now, but I think a piece of my heart is still there among the stacks and I think what I have to say is still relevant. It kills me to witness what's been happening to school librarians and their budgets. No matter what they say, volunteers are not trained to manage a library nor do they read book reviews or know all the technology involved. Anyhow, the foundation of a good library is still books, especially when it comes to children. If we want to nurture a literate nation, we cannot slash school library budgets or the professionals involved in running them .

I've always maintained that there's a picture book for every person and every occasion and that's one of the reasons why we need good book budgets. I recently bought an old copy of The Blind Men and the Elephant which I read to my first graders. They got it! Maybe Laura Bush should read it to her husband. Mem Fox wrote a great little story called Feathers and Fools which every soldier and general embroiled in a long, ongoing war should be required to read. And I really think every urban planner and developer needs to study Virginia Lee Burton's book, The Little House or Jeanne Baker's wordless book, Window. When I have a painfully shy student, I often pull out Rosemary Well's book, Shy Charles. And Patricia Polacco's Thank You, Mr. Falkner or Lauren Mill's story, The Rag Coat, are two wonderful books that gently show children the emotional impact of bullying. Living in a diverse society in this day and age, children enter school with more baggage than ever and we need books that will address the broad range of their backgrounds, experiences and problems as well books that still make them laugh. Picture books cut to the chase and get their points across more succinctly than just about every other form of writing .

A lot of school administrators are of the opinion that with the internet and databases so readily available, we really don't need as many books as in years past. What they don't know is that we need books more desperately than ever. Like human beings, books have spines. They have stories to tell. When we open them, they speak to us from the depths of the author's heart and soul. One of the hallmarks of a great civilization is a strong storytelling tradition. Stories give us heroes to emulate, problems to consider, lessons to ponder. Books represent lives, both real and imagined. The internet is fun but, like a slide show, the images flit past us rapidly -- so rapidly that we don't really have time to absorb them. A good story slows down time and gives the reader a chance to absorb the meaning, to soak up the poetry of the language. So, I ask, why not more books?

Two For Tuesday

Two things that have been bothering me recently.

1. Lately I've noticed a trend among school administrators to keep new teachers for 3 years and THEN deny them tenure. Shabby, very shabby. The unions seem to be letting it happen, which doesn't say much for them. Years ago one district out here on the Island had a reputation for pulling this stunt. Anybody who was any good avoided them. Being denied tenure is always a blow to an aspiring teacher's self-confidence but there is no excuse to bring down the ax after 3 years. It's a tacky way of keeping salaries down, not to mention that it's also demoralizing. People accuse teachers of being overpaid but I challenge anybody to stand in front of a group of kids and try to educate them while keeping them entertained and engaged.

2. I usually try to keep politics out of this blog because it would be like opening the floodgates. I do want to say this, however. The Republicans can say what they want about the Democrats but when Bill Clinton left office after his tenure, this country was in great shape. We didn't have a national debt or any wars waging overseas, people had jobs and protecting the environment was something almost everybody agreed was important to the survival of this planet. Despite the problem with his zipper, Clinton was an excellent president. It took George W. Bush 2 terms to undo almost everything. Even I didn't think it was possible. What a fine mess they've gotten us into.

And that's all folks. Now I'm off to paint.

The Poetry of Art

I've taken drawing and painting on and off for about 10 years now. And I love it. Like writing, art requires patience, hard work and perseverance to succeed. Many people give up after a class or two but I have stuck with it. Now that I'm attending art classes full time, I'm improving at a much faster rate.

Robert, my art instructor (and an accomplished artist) is always encouraging us to seek out the poetry in our artwork. At first I wasn't sure what he meant. Art doesn't rhyme and offers no room for word play. It took me many years, but about three years ago I finally began to understand what he was saying. Poetry is so much more than rhyme and word play.

Bringing poetry to the visual arts has to do with finding beauty in the ordinary and intensifying it through color, soft edges and harmonious set ups. Like a poem, a painting has rhythm, grace and tries to strike an emotional chord with the viewer. It should help you see something in a fresh way, in a way you'd never considered. In short, it should take your breath away or make you gasp in admiration. Years ago my husband went to the New York World's Fair with his parents. There on exhibit was the Pieta. He said he'd never thought much of sculpture before - then he saw Michelangelo's masterpiece. He said it was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen, that the figures seemed so lifelike and full of grace that he fully expected them to move any second. In short, it was not just a sculpture, it was a work of poetry.

The subject needn't be as lofty or idealized as the Madonna. It can be as humble as a pair of work boots, a city rooftop, a clay pot and some onions, a bowl of plums. Chardin proved this to us over and over again in his art. So did Van Gogh, Cezanne and many other masters. In the hands of a true poet or artist, the humblest things are endowed with beauty and elegance, grace and rhythm.

Friday Five

It's been too long since I last posted anything. Poor old neglected blog. Anyhow,in an attempt to get back to blogging, here's my Friday Five.

1. I dusted off my paint box and palette and have waded back into oil painting. There's something seductive about color and after doing nothing but drawing for the past year or two, I miss it. Of course it helps if you can draw, too. In fact, if you want a great painting, you must be able to draw otherwise the whole thing is a failure. When I get some pictures of some recent work, I'll post them.

2. I attended the New Jersey SCBWI conference a few weeks ago where I met up with some fellow members of The Poets' Garage. I'd met Gail once before but never Diana or Laura. All of them are talented poets and writers. Laura recently landed a top notch agent and we're all wildly jealous of her. It was a well-organized, wonderful conference and I plan to go next year too. In the photo is, seated l to r., Laura Sassi, Gayle Krause, and standing l to r, me and Diana Murray.


3. Dennis finished revamping our kitchen cabinets. Gone are those orangey oak cabinets that I never liked. Instead we now have beautiful white maple cabinets. They are stunning! Next we have to order a new counter top and put in a new back splash. When everything is finished, I'll post a picture.

4. My sister finally found a job (with a little help) working in a hospital. Her husband of 20 years had left her and then she lost her job and was living on unemployment. Her unemployment benefits were about to run out and soon she'd be without health insurance, too. She was in panic mode, imagining herself living in her car, cold and hungry. The job came through for her just in the nick of time for her - and it includes a wonderful benefits package. Yay!

5. We went to New Orleans for a week - a place we'd never visited before. What a colorful city! I loved the French style architecture, the wonderful spicy cuisine and great jazz but, oh, the heat! I could never live in a city where the average summer temperature is in the 90s, not to mention the fact that it would be nearly impossible to run or ride a bike. Great place to visit, though.

The Dead - Billy Collins Animated Poetry

Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets. Here's an animation of his poem, "The Dead".

Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night

April is National Poetry Month. In celebration, I'll be posting videos of some of my favorites from both children's literature and adult literature.

A Sense of Place

The sun is out, but the cold March wind is blowing - rattling the windows and sending ripples down the canal that threads its way through our back yard then out to the bay. Who ever thought I'd wind up near the ocean, so far from the industrial reaches of Detroit? But this is where I live and eventually this place will probably find its way into a picture book manuscript, a short story or a novel. Setting is often one of the most overlooked elements of the writing process - especially among novice writers - yet it's so important.

Why so important? Setting grounds us and helps us to better understand the main character's motivation and actions. A well developed setting lends a story authenticity (especially an historical novel or a fantasy) and often mirrors the theme while developing the mood.

A few years back I attended the Writers Workshop at Chautauqua. One of the workshops I sat in on concerned setting. The setting is almost like another character, said the speaker. You must give the reader a sense of place and make it palpable. She was right of course. Who can forget Beverly Cleary's Klickitat Street home of some of my favorite characters from children's literature - Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins and Ribsy? Klickitat Street was much like the suburban block I grew up on. In Elizabeth Bunce's YA novel, A Curse Dark As Gold, the old mill has an ominous presence that sends shivers down the reader's spine. It seems to live and breathe as it keeps a surreptitious eye on the characters. More importantly, it plays a critical role in the plot. When I read Catherine Murdock's The Dairy Queen, I could smell those cow piles, see the stacks of hay and the muddy fields stretching in every direction around the farm. Palpable? Yes. In fact, every good book I can think of has a well developed setting that finds its way inside the reader's imagination.

When writing a fantasy, it's even more important to pay attention to setting. After all, the author is crafting a unique world. Think of Harry Potter without Hogwarts, The Hobbit without Middle Earth or Winnie the Pooh without the Hundred Acre Wood. They just wouldn't be the same. When I taught the elements of fiction to my students, I often had them take a famous novel and create a map of the setting showing where all the characters lived and where critical scenes took place. It was a great exercise for them and made them think about nearly all the elements of fiction - the characters, the plot, the climax, the resolution etc.

The fantasy I'm revising has a woods in it drawn heavily from the woods I cut through on my way to school. There I paused to pick pussy willows for my teacher, to watch a fox or a skunk scurry through the underbrush or to pretend I was Little Red Riding Hood with a wolf trailing after me. Those woods are gone now - cleared away years ago to make way for a housing development - but in my novel and in some of the picture books I write, the woods spring back in all their leafy greenness.