Fairy Tales, Part 1

Puss in Boots
The uni­ver­sal appeal of fairy tales is doc­u­ment­ed by the sim­i­lar­i­ties of sto­ries across coun­tries, cul­tures and cen­turies. The “Cin­derel­la” sto­ry alone is over 1000 years old with over 1000 vari­ents. What makes an indi­vid­ual pic­ture book ver­sion of a fairy tale unique? The illus­tra­tions. Jane Yolen (2004) states, “Many of the pic­ture-book retellings of folk­tales are more about the art than the sto­ry” (p.
more

Making Something Out of Nothing

Thank You, Omu!
Jack­ie: We are in cold, cold win­ter. Too cold to read seed cat­a­logs – spring just seems too far away to imag­ine frag­ile green. We are con­fined to cab­in. What to do but think of repur­pos­ing, mak­ing some­thing out of noth­ing, or next to nothing? Stone Soup by Mar­cia Brown has always been one of my favorite some­thing-out-of-noth­ing (or at least some­thing out of stones) sto­ries.… more

Tonight is the Night …

Candice Ransom
… when dead leaves fly like witch­es on switch­es across the sky …  In the cen­ter of our Wegman’s is all the stuff that is not food. Of course, I head there first. Brows­ing tea tow­els and sun­flower coast­ers is my reward from hav­ing to shop in the too-big gro­cery store.  Recent­ly I found a plate among the Hal­loween décor.… more

In Memoriam

2015 saw the pass­ing of sev­er­al authors and illus­tra­tors of Eng­lish-lan­guage chil­dren’s books. We share this in their hon­or and to say “thank-you” once again.… more