Searching for Shona and children's books about the Evacuation

The painting of the ruined Victorian house in last week's Middle Grade Gallery is from Searching for Shona, by Margaret J. Anderson (Knopf, 1978), a recently rediscovered childhood favorite.  After Marjorie and Shona trade places on the train platform in Edinbugh, Marjorie is evacuated to Canonbie.  She and another orphan, Anna Ray, are billeted with the Miss Campbells, middle-aged identical twins who own a dress shop.  Marjorie and Anna find the house in the painting, empty (although not yet in ruins) save for a cozy playroom in the turret.  Clairmont House becomes a refuge for them until the army requisitions it to house soldiers, and by the end of the war, the house is as the artist depicted it in the painting.

How is the painting connected to Shona?  I don't want to give it away--if a middle grade novel about two girls, one from a privileged background (Marjorie) and another with only one clue about her family (Shona), trading places during the evacuation appeals to you (don't forget the abandoned house and the identical twin sisters, either), you really should try to find a copy of Searching For Shona.  I will say that Shona's father, like John Piper (whose work I featured in the original post), turns out to have been a war artist.  But there's more to the story than that, and it's all very satisfying.

Unfortunately, I didn't get many (any) other recommendations of children's books about the evacuation.  Anna Hebner noted that in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950), the four Pevensie children are evacuated from London to the Professor's country house (Lewis himself took in evacuees at his house in Oxford).  A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones (1987) also begins with the main character's evacuation from London, although she only makes it as far the train station (this one's out of print, and Charlotte doesn't like it anyway).

As for realistic fiction, The Children's War (a blog dedicated to books written for children and young adults about WWII) has a review of In Spite of All Terror by Hester Burton (1968), and I'm looking for a copy of that one now.

But the books about the evacuation I most want to read are (perhaps not surprisingly) by Noel Streatfeild.  The first is Saplings (1945), a novel for adults about the devastating effects of the war on a middle-class family with four children.  It's available in a gorgeous Persephone Books edition (have you heard of Persephone Books?) and sounds very depressing. The second is When the Siren Wailed (1974), a children's book written at considerably more remove from the war itself, and in which three working-class children are evacuated from London.  The original edition was illustrated by Margery Gill and thankfully, it ends happily.

[See the comments for more suggestions.]

The Nine-Ton Cat and giveaway winner

Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's giveaway for How the Sphinx Got to the Museum by Jessie Hartland (Blue Apple Books, 2010).  In that post, I asked commenters for their best behind-the-scenes-at-the-museum questions (such as this one from Janelle's daughter, who asks, "Why can't I touch that?").

Some of those questions--about curatorial work, exhibition design, conservation and more--are answered in The Nine Ton Cat:  Behind the Scenes at an Art Museum by Peggy Thomson with Barbara Moore; edited by Carol Leon (Houghton Mifflin, in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1997).  Now out-of-print (and maybe slightly out-of-date as well), The Nine-Ton Cat is a book for older readers (9-12 and up), who might be inspired to consider a museum-related career.  It's loosely organized around a day at the National Gallery, beginning at 6am with a guard patrolling the halls and ending at 6m with a planning meeting for this very book.

In between, The Nine-Ton Cat takes you into the "private spaces" of the museum:  the design studio, conservation lab, library, and greenhouse (yes, the National Gallery has its own greenhouses on site) for a close look at the work that goes on there.  Detailed text, with lots of quotes from unnamed Gallery staff, and photographs contribute to the behind-the scenes appeal.

I would love to see an updated edition of The Nine-Ton Cat, perhaps in a larger, more clearly organized format (it's easy to lose your place, in much the same way that it's easy to get lost at the Gallery).  In the meantime, congratulations to Christine Mingus, winner of How the Sphinx Got to the Museum!  I think her elementary school students will love it.

[One of my favorite anecdotes from The Nine-Ton Cat:  The head of the horticultural staff wishes that Rubens Peale (in a portrait painted by his brother Rembrandt, 1801) would water his geranium! It does look a little wilted, doesn't it?]

Arcimboldo and The Tale of Despereaux

I skipped lunch the other day to watch the exhibition film for Arcimboldo, 1526-1593: Nature and Fantasy, currently on view at the National Gallery, which references the character of Boldo in the animated feature The Tale of Despereaux.  That's Boldo in the image above, a character composed entirely of fruits and vegetables, pots and pans--distinctly resembling the composite heads painted by his namesake, the Renaissance artist Arcimboldo.

Unfortunately, I couldn't remember a character named Boldo in Kate DiCamillo's Newbery Award-winning novel The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread (illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering with no apparent debt to Arcimboldo; Scholastic, 2003) and was forced to reread it.  In vain, as it turns out: Boldo (a sort of soup genie) was created for the movie version of the book (which I also watched this weekend). The animation, by London-based Framestore, employs a palette and lighting drawn from the Dutch Masters; and the movie also spotlights two portraits, one of the deceased Queen and another of Princess Pea.  Altogether I prefer the movie.  You can watch a video podcast (of the exhibition film, that is! It's narrated by Isabella Rossellini) here, or better yet, at the National Gallery til January 9, 2011.

[Here's Arcimboldo's Vertumnus (c. 1591, on loan from Skokloster Castle in Sweden) for comparison to Boldo.  Note especially the apple cheeks!]

Bones by Steve Jenkins: Not just for Halloween!

Children's book author and illustrator Steve Jenkins sets the standard for cut paper collage illustration in every one of his books (What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?, made in collaboration with Robin Page, won a Caldecott Honor in 2004).  His newest nonfiction book is Bones: Skeletons and How They Work (Scholastic, 2010).  You might think that bones, being mostly white, would be less interesting visually than the range of fins, fur, and feathers rendered in the rest of Jenkins's books about the animal kingdom (I might have, anyway); on the contrary, Bones is Jenkins at his best.

The bones themselves, cut from a limited palette of mottled creams and grays, glow against the solid background colors, but the best part is the arrangement of bones on the page, to inviting, eye-opening, often humorous effect (the gatefolded human skeleton waving at you is just one example).  Jenkins's background in graphic design really shows here.  Witty headings and compact text plus a More About Bones section at the back round out the book.

Bonus:  Add up the number of bones in the human body as you read; you should end up with Jenkins's total (which would be...?).

[Nonfiction Monday is at Mother Reader today.  Thanks, Pam!]

Middle Grade Gallery 8

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a painting that functions as a birth token, a small object kept as an identifying record of an abandoned or orphaned infant.  During the evacuation of children from Edinbugh in the early days of WWII, shy, wealthy Marjorie, on her way to relatives in Canada, trades places with the orphaned Shona and is evacuated to the Scottish countryside (from the LoC summary).  Marjorie discovers the painting in Shona's suitcase:

Taking up the whole bottom of the case was a painting in a wooden frame.  Marjorie was puzzled that Shona, who had so few possessions, would bring a painting along with her.  She lifted it out of the suitcase and carried it over directly under the light so she could see it better.  It showed a Victorian house, rather ornate and turreted, standing in the middle of an overgrown garden.  The windows were blank and empty and, in the forground, iron gates hung open, bent and rusted.  The big stone gateposts leaned at drunken angles and a decorative stone ball had fallen from the top of one.  It lay among the weeds, chipped and shadowed so that it looked like a skull.

[Me again.]  The description is from a childhood favorite (note the British orphans, practically a prerequisite).  After years of searching, I recently located a secondhand copy and upon rereading, was as surprised by the painting as Marjorie was; I had forgotten all about it until she opened the suitcase.  The image accompanying this post, a painting of a ruined Victorian house, Lansdown, Bath 1942, is by British war artist John Piper, who had been commissioned to record bomb damage in and around London at that time.

Does any of this sound familiar--plot, painting, Piper?  Even if you don't recognize this middle grade novel, please leave a comment if you can recommend any others having to do with the evacuation.  I'll reveal, review, and round up the recommendations next week.  Thanks!

[Revealed here.]

Physik

The portrait of Queen Etheldredda, known as the Awful, and her Aie-Aie featured in last week's Middle Grade Gallery is from Septimus Heap, Book Three: Physik by Angie Sage (Katherine Tegen Books, 2007).  When Silas Heap breaks the 500-year old Seal on the attic, the ghosts of the Queen and her pet step out of the portrait and proceed to wreak havoc.  Queen Etheldredda has a plan to give herself eternal life that sends Septimus back in time to serve the Queen's son Marcellus Pye, Alchemist and Physician; and the Aie-Aie spreads Sicknesse throughout the palace.

As for the portrait, we learn that the Queen was Entranced into it by none other than Marcellus, and eventually they're both (Queen and portrait; Aie-Aie, too) consumed by a Fyre.  I suppose this was necessary, but I hate to think of her official portrait being lost.  There was nothing magical about it, after all.

The books in the Septimus Heap series are the sort of fantasy novels that are pure pleasure for younger middle grade readers especially.  They're almost overstuffed with characters and creatures and spells of all sorts.  We listened to the first one, Magyk, which is beautifully read (for 12 hours!) by Allan Corduner, thus avoiding the capitalized, bolded, and magykally-spelled words in the printed text.  The chapter headings in the books themselves are nicely illustrated by Mark Zug, though; here is his rendering of Queen Etheldredda's portrait (scanned from the paperback).  Elizabethan, wouldn't you agree?

Lauren Child, Charlie and Lola in Slightly Invisible

For fans of Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola:  The Guardian profiles Lauren as part of their "A life in..." series ("Lauren Child: A life in books," 10/04/2010), accompanied by a gallery of images from Slightly Invisible, her new Charlie and Lola book.  I like all of Lauren Child's work, but I'm partial to Charlie and Lola because they remind me of my own kids, who when they were small would insist that I substitute their names when reading aloud.

I especially like Child's portrayal of Charlie and Lola's sibling relationship.  Charlie in particular is consistently patient with and protective of Lola, both qualities I try to encourage in my own son.  So I wasn't sure what to think when I read that Slightly Invisible, the first new Charlie and Lola book since 2003 (not counting all those spin-offs from the BBC series), was inspired by a boy who asked, "Have you ever thought about writing a book where Charlie actually gets annoyed with Lola?"  No!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to Slightly Invisible (and my son will probably love it).  This image is from the beginning of the book: there's poor Charlie, caught between Marvin's eyerolling and Lola's plaintive look.  The whole scene is instantly recognizable.

Slightly Invisible won't be available in the US til May 2011, but I plan to pick up a copy when we're in London later this year (happy birthday to me!).   A traveling exhibition of Green Drops and Moonsquirters: The Utterly Imaginative World of Lauren Child will be at the Discover Children's Story Centre while we're there, too.

Middle Grade Gallery 7

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a portrait of a queen from a fairly recent fantasy novel (the third in a series of five, so far) that borrows from our familiarity with another, English queen: 

It is a skillful painting of a Castle Queen, from times long past.  He can tell that it is old because she is wearing the true crown, the one that was lost many centuries ago.  The queen has a sharp pointy nose and wears her hair coiled around her ears like a pair of earmuffs.  Clinging to her skirts is an Aie-Aie--a horrible little creature with a ratty face, sharp claws and a long snake's tail.  Its round, red eyes stare out at Silas as though it would like to bite him with its one long, needle-sharp tooth.  The Queen too looks out from the painting, but she wears a lofty, disapproving expression.  Her head is held high, supported by a starched ruff under her chin and her piercing eyes are reflected in the light of Silas's candle and seem to follow them everywhere.

[Me again.]  Does this passage remind you of Elizabeth I, too?  I looked at a lot of portraits of Elizabeth before settling on one to illustrate this post:  the Ermine Portrait, attributed to William Segar (formerly, to Nicholas Hilliard), 1585; and on display at Hatfield House, one of Elizabeth's childhood residences.  The "lofty, disapproving expression," along with other details of the queen's appearance described in the passage, is common to most of Elizabeth's portraits, but the Ermine is as close as they come to an Aie-Aie.

[Hint:  The Queen in the novel is named Etheldredda.  Please leave a comment if you recognized her, too.]

Masterpiece

The drawing of the lady and the lion featured in last week's Middle Grade Gallery is from Masterpiece by Elise Broach (Henry Holt, 2008; this is the cover of the paperback edition, SquareFish, 2010).  It's a invented work of art by a real artist, Albrecht Dürer. I chose Dürer's Stag Beetle to accompany the original post because in the book, a beetle named Marvin is indirectly called on to copy the Dürer drawing in question. It represents Fortitude, one of the four cardinal virtues; the others (Prudence, Temperance, and Justice) have all been stolen, and the museum's plan to recover them involves a forgery, a theft, and an eleven-year-old boy named James.

Masterpiece is very much in the tradition of E.L. Konigsberg's From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which might explain why I love it.  That book won the Newbery in 1967; and while Masterpiece didn't get any Newbery honors, it did win the E.B. White Read Aloud Award for Older Readers in 2009.

It's also illustrated, in pen-and-ink of course, by one of my favorites, Kelly Murphy (see the Beastologist books, among others).  This image, scanned from my hardcover copy of Masterpiece, shows James and his father looking at Dürer's drawing in a gallery at the Met.  Hanging next to it, in a more ornate frame, is Bellini's drawing of Fortitude, a real work of art on loan from the Getty.  And if you look closely, you can even see Marvin perched on James's shoulder.

Dave the Potter

I'm looking forward to Dave the Potter by Laban Carrick Hill; illustrated by Bryan Collier (Little, Brown, 2010), and reviewed in today's Shelf Awareness (9/15/2010).  Dave was a 19th-century potter and poet from South Carolina, where he was enslaved for most of his life.  He inscribed some of his pottery with two-line poems, practical ("put every bit all between / surely this jar will hold 14," indicating that the jar would hold 14 gallons) as well as personal ("I wonder where is all my relation / friendship to all--and, every nation").  In any case, reading and writing, even signing his name (which he also did, in beautiful script, "Dave") was forbidden to slaves, making Dave the Potter's work even more powerful and rare.

Hill's text, fittingly, is also a poem about making a pot, crafted of short, strong lines; Bryan Collier's earth-toned watercolor and collage illustrations provide the larger context (the pairing is described in Brown's review as "a glorious collaboration").  The back matter is thorough and includes some of Dave's poems (I quoted my favorites from them) as well as photographs of his work.  You can even peek inside Dave the Potter using BookBrowse.

Grownups like me who want to know more about Dave should try Carolina Clay: The Life and Legend of Slave Potter Dave by Leonard Todd (Norton, 2008).  Todd is a descendant of one of Dave's owners; he began his research after finding out about his family's connection to Dave in this New York Times article ("In a slave's pottery, a saga of courage and beauty," 1/30/2000).  Finally, local folk can see an alkaline-glazed stoneware jar made by Dave the Potter in 1862, on display in the Civil War collection at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

How the Sphinx Got to the Museum, review and giveaway

Most of us only get to see Ancient Egyptian artifacts in museums far from Egypt--like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, which has one of the finest collections of Egyptian art outside of Cairo.  And while there are lots of books for kids about Ancient Egypt, this book answers the question that at least one kid on every school tour is likely to ask:  How the Sphinx Got to the Museum by Jessie Hartland (Blue Apple Books, 2010).

Hartland uses the school tour to frame the story of the Sphinx of Hateshepsut's journey over 3,000 years (and 5,000 miles), from the quarry at Aswan where the granite was obtained all the way to the galleries of the Met.  The cumulative story format--think The House that Jack Built--introduces some of the people and professions involved in her journey; on the museum side, those include archaeologists, art movers, curators, conservators, even the registrar, who uses "red oil paint and a teeny, tiny brush" to paint the the official number (31.3.166) on the Sphinx.

These vignettes are fascinating (trust me, kids ask about this sort of thing all the time).  Hartland varies the repetitive parts of the text just enough to keep things interesting; the use of a variety of fonts also helps here.  The ink-and-watercolor illustrations themselves are worth the price of admission, though:  colorful, detailed but not busy, expressive and entertaining (keep an eye on the Sphinx's face throughout).  Hartland worked closely with the staff at the Met, and the book has an authentic museum feel.  N.b., the docent is wearing sensible shoes.

I have an extra copy of How the Sphinx Got to the Museum to give away!  If you'd like to be entered in a random drawing (and you do; it's a gorgeous book), please leave a comment by midnight Monday, September 13.   Bonus entry if you comment with a behind-the-scenes-at-the-museum question you'd like to see answered in picture book form.

[Review copy from Blue Apple Books via Media Masters Publicity.  Thank you!]

Middle Grade Gallery 6

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, one of a fictional series of four miniatures, as it might have been drawn by Albrecht Dürer. The drawing is first copied, then stolen (and later, recovered) from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in this middle grade novel, one of my favorites of 2009.

The drawing was a tiny framed miniature of a gowned woman kneeling, with her arms around an animal. A lion. She had waves of hair that cascaded down her back, and the lion's mane flowed in similar waves over its massive shoulders.

The drawing above obviously isn't a lion; it's Dürer's Stag Beetle, 1505 (Getty), and it's also a big hint.  Have you figured it out yet?

Emily's Quest

The portrait of Elisabeth Bas featured in August's Middle Grade Gallery hangs by the fireplace in the Disappointed House, as furnished by Emily Starr and Dean Priest during their ill-fated engagement in Emily's Quest by L.M. Montgomery.  This is the third and final book in the Emily series, which isn't nearly as beloved as Montgomery's Anne series (or so I am forced to conclude, since no one guessed.  Members of the Emily Starr Fan Club, please leave a comment).

I didn't love Emily either, but I still like to reread the chapter of Emily's Quest dedicated to making over the Disappointed House (it's Chapter 9), inside and out.  Montgomery describes everything, from the wallpaper in the living-room ("shadowy grey with snowy pine branches over it") to Emily's great-grandmother's wedding china (willow-ware) to the brass chessy-cat door knocker on the front porch door.  And of course, the pictures:  Lady Giovanna, Mona Lisa...and Elisabeth Bas.

Spoiler alert:  Emily breaks off her engagement to Dean when she realizes that she still loves Teddy, and the Disappointed House is boarded up again.  But years later, Dean gives the deed to the house and all it contains to Emily as a wedding gift.  I can't imagine Emily and Teddy actually living there among Dean's things, but it's always been my House of Dreams.

Does anyone else remember the Disappointed House? Or, for that matter, Anne's House of Dreams (perhaps my favorite of the Anne books)?  Which would you prefer?

Ninth Ward

Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes (Little, Brown, 2010) is dedicated to "all the children who experienced Hurricane Katrina and the levees breaking in New Orleans." Five years ago today.

The book itself is a coming-of-age story, with realistic and fantastical elements in equal measure.  Twelve-year-old narrator Lanesha and her Mama Ya-Ya can see ghosts, including the ghost of Lanesha's mother, who died birthing her.  And Mama Ya-Ya can see the future.  That future, of course, includes the hurricane and its aftermath--events that will test Lanesha and over which she must find a way to triumph.

Rhodes gives Lanesha a lovely voice, and for the first several chapters (the calm before the storm), all is well in the Ninth Ward.  Lanesha is a bright girl who loves words and wants to be an engineer.  She has a close, loving relationship with Mama Ya-Ya; a supportive teacher at her new middle school; a strong community of neighbors and shopkeepers and even, for the first time, friends her own age (Ginia and TaShon).  I loved this part of the book and wanted it to go on, for Lanesha's sake, even though I knew full well the storm was coming.

When it does, Lanesha must cope with the realization that Mama Ya-Ya, already old, is losing strength as rapidly as the storm is gaining it.  Now Lanesha has to rely on her own fortitude (one of her vocabulary words, meaning "strength to endure") to get herself and TaShon through the storm.

A note about the ghosts:  Mama Ya-Ya, and especially Lanesha, see ghosts throughout the book.  The ghosts are usually in the background, and I almost took their presence for granted (this is New Orleans, after all).  Ninth Ward just doesn't feel like a ghost story or a fantasy novel.  Maybe it's magical realism?

[See the author's website for resources related to Ninth Ward.]

Hansel and Gretel, costume design by Zwerger and Stemple

The costume and set design for the Amherst Ballet's Hansel and Gretel is faithful to Lisbeth Zwerger's watercolor illustrations of the Grimm tale, "right down to the shingles on the witch’s house [and] the patterns hand-printed on the dancers’ skirts" (Shop Talk, 8/25/2010).   If you know me at all, you'll know that I love this project.  Premiering at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

For the grownups, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant (Delacorte, 2010), reviewed in the Washington Post (8/23/10).  There's a lot to recommend this novel to adult readers of children's books, especially ones that have something to do with the Grimms (and there are an awful lot of them, readers and Grimm books alike):  the heroine, 10-year-old-Pia (and her only friend, StinkStefan), the setting, a small town in Germany; and the local folklore and traditions that inform the whole story.  PW describes it as a "charming horror novel" (4/12/2010).  I try to stay away from horror novels of any sort, but just look at that gorgeous yellow cover.

Middle Grade Gallery 5

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a real painting, not a fictional one.  Actually, it's a reprint of a real painting, but close enough.  It's quite throughly described here:

"I'm going to hang old Elizabeth Bas by the fireplace," said Dean.  "'Engraving from a portrait by Rembrandt.' Isn't she a delightful old woman, Star, in her white cap and tremendous white ruff collar?  And did you ever see such a shrewd, humorous, complacent, slightly contemptuous old face?"

"I don't think I should want to have an argument with Elizabeth," reflected [xxx].  "One feels that she is keeping her halds folded under compulsion and might box your ears if you disagreed with her."

"She has been dust for over a century," said Dean dreamily.  "Yet here she is living on this cheap reprint of Rembrandt's canvas.  You are expecting her to speak to you.  And I feel, as you do, that she wouldn't put up with any nonsense."

"But likely she has a sweetmeat stored away in some pocket of her gown for you.  That fine, rosy, wholesome old woman.  She ruled the family--not a doubt of it.  Her husband did as she told him--but never knew it."

"Had she a husband?" said Dean doubtfully.  "There's no wedding-ring on her finger."

"Then she must have been a most delightful old maid," averred [xxx].

[Me again.]  I couldn't resist quoting this passage at length; Dean and "Star" have so thoroughly imagined old Elisabeth Bas.  The image above is of the original painting, now believed to be by Ferdinand Bol (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).

Based on this portrait, do you think her personality is as they have described it?  Would you hang this portrait (or any portrait) at your house?  If you know who did (and in what novel, not necessarily middle grade but that's when I first read it), please leave a comment.  And thanks for visiting the Middle Grade Gallery!  I appreciate your patronage.

Ballet for Martha

Sometimes art is made by one artist, working alone, but sometimes it is the result of artists working together--collaborating--to forge something new.

At this point, I'm just adding my voice to the chorus of praise (including five starred reviews) for Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan's latest collaboration, the picture book Ballet for Martha:  Making Appalachian Spring (illustrated by Brian Floca; Roaring Brook, 2010).  Actually, authors Greenberg and Jordan (Action Jackson, 2002; Christo and Jean-Claude: Through the Gates and Beyond, 2008) also collaborated with Floca and editor Neal Porter (not to mention book designer Jennifer Browne) to an unusual degree in the making of this book; see Booklist's Story Behind the Story (June, 2010) for their process.

Back to the book itself, which is about the collaboration of choreographer Martha Graham, composer Aaron Copland, and artist Isamu Noguchi in the making of Appalachian Spring (link is to a filmed version from 1959; the first performance was on October 30, 1944 at the Library of Congress).  Somehow Ballet for Martha beautifully conveys a Graham-like sense of movement, music, and spaciousness; all qualities that would seem to resist the book form.  It's in the spareness of the text, and the line of the illustrations.  And--a point that has not yet been made, I don't think--it's a book about ballet that's not pink.  No tutu required.

I did wonder who had designed the costumes (Martha Graham herself); an original cast member was able to describe the colors to Floca.  I should note that in the final image, of an imagined performance, the Bride is wearing a pink dress!  It must have been impossible to resist.  The back matter ("Curtain Call") includes brief biographies of Graham, Copland, and Noguchi, each accompanied by a photograph of the artist dating to the 1940s; as well as extensive source notes and bibliography.

Ballet for Martha is a masterpiece--both of them.  Don't miss it!

The Saturdays

The French painting of the girl on the garden wall featured in last week's Middle Grade Gallery comes from The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright (first published in 1941; Square Fish, 2008).  The Saturdays is the first, and my favorite, of the books in The Melendy Quartet.  There are four Melendy children, too (guess who is my favorite of them?), and in this book they decide to pool their allowances so each can have an Independent Saturday Afternoon Adventure.

On her Saturday, Randy visits an art gallery where French paintings are being shown for the benefit of war relief.  That's where she finds the painting of The Princess, and its model, who turns out to be old family friend Mrs. Oliphant.  The story behind the painting is long and best told as Mrs. Oliphant told it to Randy, over vanilla ice cream and petit fours.  Suffice it to say that at one point Mrs. Oliphant is kidnapped by gypsies (I agree with Charlotte that this is a bit much).

Elizabeth Enright's own pen-and-ink drawings illustrate all four of the Melendy books.  Here's one from The Saturdays of Randy in front of the painting in question (I scanned this image from my childhood copy).  I'm still wondering whether Enright saw a similar exhibition in New York City and based her description on a real painting, or whether she made up exhibition, painting, or both.  At any rate, we know what it looks like.  Congratulations to Charlotte for recognizing it right away!

Urban Animals

No,  not pigeons, rats, or raccoons.  Urban Animals by Isabel Hill (Star Bright Books, 2009) is about animals in architecture, and it works as an introduction to architectural terms (like keystone, column, and bracket), as well as an I Spy book that might inspire you and your kids to look for the animals in your own built environment (or in a nearby city; author and photographer Isabel Hill found all of these animals in New York).

I like the design details of Urban Animals itself:  Colorful cartoon animals correspond to the mostly monochrome architectural ones, and coordinating accents (photo corners on the detail shots, the hand-printed font used for architectural terms) brighten things up.  The rhyming text (it's all in couplets) is relatively utilitarian.  Here's a typical double-page spread:

There's also an Architectural Glossary at the back of the book, helpfully keyed to a line drawing of a city block; and a list of "Animal Habitats" that gives the NYC street address (as well as the architects and construction dates) of the buildings featured in the book.

It's interesting to think about why a particular animal might have been incorporated into a building's design:  the cow on the Sheffield Farms Milk Plant makes sense, and so does my favorite, the squirrel on the Kings County Savings Bank, but what about the alligator on Liberty Tower?

[Local folks, check out the National Building Museum's Calendar of Events for animal sightings in Washington, DC.  I'll let you know if we spot any more!]