Myself and My World: A Biography of William Faulkner

On a week when Joyce Carol Oates was quoted as saying, “If Mississippians read, Faulkner would be banned,” it just so happened that this Mississippian was in the midst of an excellent biography of William Faulkner, Myself and the World: A Biography of William Faulkner by Robert W. Hamblin. It seemed the perfect foil for her statement.

Hamblin himself notes that excellent biographies of Faulkner have been written by academics for academics. His intended audience, the general reading public including younger readers, brought him to write an interesting and readable volume. Chronologically, he follows Faulkner from his birth in New Albany, Mississippi to his death with his wish fulfilled of leaving work that would live long after him.

Contrasts abound in Faulkner’s life. Critical acclaim in the world at large was followed by antipathy in his native Mississippi. His brilliant writing periods intersperse with times when he fell prey to alcoholism.  Family ties include devotion to his mother and taking an orphaned niece into the family but having multiple extramarital affairs.

Hamblin says if the book causes the readers to want to read (or reread) Faulkner’s novels and stories, it will have served its purpose. I will admit that I found myself wanting to do just that as I read the account of where he was in life as each manuscript was finished. Starting with the Snopes trilogy, I plan to read with the biography at hand to match the time in his life to the book he was writing. I recommend the biography even to those who aren’t all that interested in Faulkner’s work.

Even before I begin the Snopes books, I just downloaded The White Rose of Memphis, his grandfather Falkner’s claim to fame, intriguingly mentioned in Hamblin’s introduction.

So, Joyce Carol, there are those of us in Mississippi who read quite a bit. Sometimes we used to read your books.

Playboy Magazine and The Snowy Day

People who know me well may be surprised that Hugh Hefner’s death triggered thoughts for a blog. Then again, there have been other strange topics covered here from time to time. The second surprise may come in pairing Playboy magazine with The Snowy Day. Hang with me, and I’ll connect the dots.

When he answered the phone, Ezra Jack Keats expected the first words he heard, “Long distance from Chicago.” He’d had a problem with Playboy magazine’s paycheck sent for an illustration he had done for them. They’d overpaid him. Scrupulously honest, he’d called the magazine and talked to a secretary who knew nothing about it but promised to check and get back with him.

But this wasn’t that phone call! A different voice said, “Mr. Keats? This is Ruth Gagliardo from the American Library Association. Are you sitting down? I have wonderful news for you. Your book The Snowy Day has won the Caldecott Award.” She sounded excited.

Still a novice in the children’s book world, Keats had no idea what a Caldecott Award was. He thanked her for the award and figured he’d ask around later and find out what he’d won.

“Would you like to make a statement?” she asked.

How should he respond? “Well, I’m certainly happy for the little boy in the book.”

“Oh, my. How touching! I’ll always remember what you said . . . Your Snowy Day, we all believe, will be a landmark in children’s books.” Mrs. Gagliardo asked him to keep the award a secret until after the press released the story. Keats promised and surreptitiously questioned friends who said the Caldecott was the highest award given for picture books.

If you’re still curious about the Playboy issue, Keats got a another long distance call from Chicago, the Playboy secretary saying the editors decided his art was worth more than the original agreement – no mistake and he could keep the money.

I can’t guarantee that the picture in my photo is the one under discussion since he did several for Playboy, but the magazine date makes it possible. Herbert Gold’s description in the piece of fiction “Happy Hipster” says, “He had a long creased horsy face, intelligent, and with large square teeth, a long lazy body with lots of lean on it.” Seems to me Keats captured the fellow pretty well, and one might actually read the magazine for the story and enjoy the art.

As for Mrs. Gagliardo’s prediction that The Snowy Day would become a landmark, here we are more than fifty years later buying Snowy Day stamps at the post office!

Maya Lin

Fittingly, Susan Goldman Rubin titles the chapters of her book Maya Lin with artful substances from nature since the natural world informs Maya's architectural art.

            Chapter 1 – Clay describes Maya’s early years in a home of Chinese ancestry with a father who is a ceramicist and a mother who is a poet. Given the chance to do her own modeling with the clay, hearing poetic words, and being surrounded by natural beauty sets a stage early for what she will become.

            Chapter 2 – Granite tells the story of her unexpected win by a college student over 1,421 entries to design the Vietnam Memorial. Who would have thought her simple symbolic design would require so much strength on her part to keep that design as she had envisioned or that she would get only a B + for the class?

            Chapter 3 – Water gave her a vision of using the biblical quote from the Martin Luther King address on the Civil Rights Memorial “Until Justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream” with water flowing over the quote.

            Chapter 4 – Earth took her back to childhood playing with her brother over hills behind their house. She created “Wave Field,” “Flutter,” and “Storm King Wave Field” from that memory experience.

            Chapter 5 – Glass kept an old barn in one sculpture and created a skylighted Noah’s ark with another, both with abundant glass to give a feeling of being outdoors in nature.

            Chapter 6 – Celadon green from her Chinese heritage was Maya’s choice for the basic color of the Museum of Chinese in America.

            Chapter 7 – Dunes and Driftwood became replacements for parking lots as she paid tribute to the paths of Lewis and Clark and the parallel path of the Native Americans to the ocean. She achieved her goal of showing what had been lost and what could be saved.

            Chapter 8 – Wood has her only design for a family home. Most of the time, Maya will not do this kind of work. However, she did not abandon her outdoor approach since the house has a tree growing up through the deck and an abundance of windows.

The final chapter sets her philosophy of giving back and thinking about what is missing as society takes over the natural world.

With many beautiful photographs, abundant research, and a gift for story-telling, Susan Goldman Rubin shows Maya, the human being, along with her artistic achievement and her love of nature.  I recommend this fascinating biography of the work of the accomplished architect which is also a Junior Library Guild selection if you would like additional verification.

Ear Worms

Okay, they’re not really worms – just the name for that song that goes around and around and around in your head – at least until you get another song to take its place.

Six years old, I walked a quarter mile down the country road to school. Playing in my head, I heard, “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down . . .”

Grade school summers found me building a playhouse under a spreading apple tree. Amusement came with the lyrics, “It rained all night the day I left. The weather it was dry. . . Susannah, don’t you cry.”

In junior high, I watched recess athletes from the sidelines wishing I was home with a book. Passing time in my head, I heard, “Oh, do you remember Sweet Betsy from Pike who crossed the wide prairie with her brother Ike . . . ” (Turns out it was her lover Ike, but it had been cleaned up for junior high consumption.)

A high school nerd, I eschewed Elvis and his hound dog, preferring the Glee Club number Mrs. Doxey taught. The bittersweet mood playing in my head matched my own, “In the still of the night, as I gaze from my window. . . ”

A ninety-mile-a-day commute as I finished my last two years of college at Ole Miss brought “On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again . . . ” Technically, I wasn’t that excited, but what do you do when song lyrics accompany the hum of tires?

In adulthood, the ear worms have usually lingered after choir practice, following the seasons of Christmas, Lent, Easter, and ordinary time. “Lord, listen to your children praying, Lord send your spirit . . . ”

Is this phenomenon heredity or contagious? I watch my five-year-old grandson color his picture at the counter and carefully write B-E-N-J-A-M-I-N on the bottom, humming all the while. “There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo . . . ”

I think I’ll wait until he’s a bit older to tell him he has an ear worm.

Full Curl

The promise of a mystery set in Banff National Park overcame my hesitancy of reading a book by an unknown debut author. We had visited both Banff and the counterpart United States Rockies in recent years. I relished a vicarious return and took a chance that the new Canadian author from a Canadian publisher would be a good storyteller. Consequently, I clicked “request” on the offer from Net Galley to read Full Curl by Dave Butler (no relation).

The intrigue lasts from beginning to end as park warden Jenny Willson (yes, with two “l’s”) almost catches the poachers who are hunting wildlife in Banff National Park only to miss them. The ante rises for her and the perpetrators as murder and drug dealing incorporate into the crime mix. Then there are the bureaucrats who are reluctant to join the chase because they don’t take a woman warden too seriously. Obviously, they don’t know Jenny Willson well.  

Dave Butler portrays the park skillfully and beautifully in the narrative without calling attention to his descriptions but giving the reader a sense of being present in the park. No doubt this ability comes from his internalizing the area during his day job as a forester and biologist near the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia.

Caution for the debut author was completely unnecessary. In fact, I was pleased to see the notation on the cover, in the front, and in the back of the book “a Jenny Willson mystery, Book 1.” Since my pleasure reading genre is a good mystery, I think I’ll be seeing Jenny Willson – with two “l’s” – again.

Trying Not to Butt In

I couldn’t help but overhear as I straightened up during my volunteer time in the children’s book area at the Oak Grove Public Library’s big sale yesterday. The mother said to her son, who was happily browsing the books, something to the effect that he needed to stop looking at the ones with pictures and find some that had a lot of words to read.

Oh, my! Oh, my! I could scarcely restrain myself. Such sacrilege – and in Children’s Picture Book Month! But, as Mama would say, “She didn’t know me from Adam’s house cat and hadn’t asked my advice.”

You haven’t asked either, but you are reading my blog so here goes. One is never too old for picture books! I’m very grateful that I still get them sometimes for Christmas, Mother’s Day, or my birthday.

My difficulty is choosing which to read as I honor Picture Book Month:

• Do I read Jerry Pinckney’s beautifully illustrated Aesop’s fable The Lion and The Mouse, which technically can’t be read since it only has a few animal sounds for words.
• Do I read The Nutcracker, illustrated by Susan Jeffers – one of my favorites, that I got for my birthday (along with tickets to see local production)?
• Do I read Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day since I still get those now and then?
• Maybe I’ll take time to peruse A Child of Books from another birthday that has far more intricate things to see than any kid has the knowledge or attention span to appreciate.
• And let’s not forget that Thanksgiving is coming which calls for Pat Zietlow Miller’s Sharing the Bread: An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving Story.

The list could go on. Fortunately, November has thirty days, and who knows, I may cheat and read some in December or even July.

I wish I had thought faster this morning. I would love to have reminded the mother, who had the best of intentions, that before her son had teeth she only let him eat soft foods like mashed potatoes. But when he became capable of chowing down on steak, she didn’t take the wonderful buttery mashed potatoes away - just encouraged him to enjoy them together.

Dilemma

Words hovered in my head waiting to go on paper. I’d even been encouraged to put them together and send them. I began eagerly, but then the butterflies beckoned.

Last week, a swarm of Gulf Fritillaries enticed me to frolic with them, perhaps in gratitude. Their early stages advanced from the dot of a yellow egg laid on a leaf, through a series of ever larger bundles of black spikes, to obese orange caterpillars as they stripped my Passion Flower vines to nothing by stems. (Not to worry, the vines rise from the dead as surely as a Phoenix, and they are already putting on new leaves.) Joining the Fritillaries were Monarchs, Painted Ladies, ordinary Sulphurs, grand Spicebush Swallowtails, and scores of little brown butterflies with various markings to whom I have not been introduced. On this cool crisp October morning they seemed to call, “Come outside to play.”

A quote from Robert Herrick of long ago (1591-1674) came to mind as he advised the young virgins to “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” for the “same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.” Last week’s first cool crisp October morning foreshadowed the coming of winter when butterflies would be migrating if not dying. The days for playing in the yard among the smiling butterflies grew as short as those of the rosebuds.

Still the manuscript waited. It would not write itself. Torn between the few butterfly days and the need to write words, I did what I had to do. I took turns and combined the two. While I worked in the yard outside amongst the flying friends, I thought about the next part of the story. When I came inside to write the next part of the story, I watched the butterflies out my window. I’m guessing it’s what my role model, Eudora Welty, would have done. 

I wrote this blog last week on the day of my temptation, and I’m glad I followed my urge to the yard. A cold front blew in over the weekend, and those butterflies took themselves to a warmer playground. The manuscript is still a work in progress. 

Salt to the Sea

“Guilt is a hunter.

          My conscience mocked me, picking fights like a petulant child.

          It’s all your fault, the voice whispered.”

So begins Salt to the Sea in the voice of Joana, yet another gripping historical fiction novel by Rita Sepetys that draws on her own family’s history. As she did in Between Shades of Gray, Rita draws on her Lithuanian family history to revisit the real happening of the worst maritime disaster in history. Nine thousand passengers, most of them refugees, drowned when the German ocean liner Wilhelm Gustloff sank in 1945. Her father’s cousin missed the disaster only because she was unable to board on that fateful day. That cousin suggested that Rita write the book. Others told her it was forgotten history and not worth bothering.

I’m glad Rita ignored the negative voices. Three main characters, Joana, Emelia, and Florien tell their stories of trying to make the ship that will take them to safety ahead of the Soviet advance with a fourth Nazi naval soldier named Alfred telling his own unreliable story as he tries to obtain status with the German regime. The story switches among each of their voices. In the first chapter of each, they find a different hunter. For Florein, fate is the hunter, for Emilie, it is shame, and for Alfred, if is fear. Backstories and secrets; setting; and well-drawn secondary characters, including a shoemaker who can deduce people’s story by their shoes, add to the tension even before the ship goes down. Tough decisions that weigh personal safety against the needs of the group proliferate, with the reader drawn into a desire to help make the choices.

I’m not alone in my praise for this book since it also won the 2017 CILIP Carnegie Medal, given in honor of Andrew Carnegie, for an outstanding children’s book; the 2017 Mid-South Division Crystal Kite Award and the 2017 Golden Kite Award for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the last two being the only awards judged by peers in the field.

I’m left with one puzzle, how soon can I expect another Rita Sepetys book?

Lessons from Preschool Soccer

Robert Fulgham has nothing on me. You may remember that he learned all he really needed to know in kindergarten and wrote a book about it. I learned a slew of life lessons on one fine Saturday morning watching preschoolers play soccer and am now writing a blog about it.

Tatum Park in Hattiesburg is a sea of soccer fields on Saturdays so locating where our two preschool grandsons were playing took the modern intervention of cellphones, but that’s beside the point. I had planned to give cheers and moral support, but unexpectedly ended up with a few surprises and great ideas.

(1) It was not uncommon for the young players to make a goal for the opposing team. Applause followed nonetheless.

(2) When one grandchild accidentally kicked the soccer ball into his teammate’s face, he cried longer than his injured friend – truly sorry that the other child was hurt. 

(3) Bystanders and parents, including the injured child’s parents, kept repeating, “It’s okay. It was an accident.” Blame was not assessed.

(4) The injured child, without prompting by an adult, brought peace to the kicker as he gave a hug to show both love and forgiveness.

(5) At the end of the other grandson’s game, I asked my son who won, and he said, “I don’t know.” Neither did any of the children who were busy giving high fives and running under the tunnel formed by their parents.

(6) The tunnels turned out to be so much fun that the temptation to run through one on a brother’s field was accepted and even encouraged.

Lessons carved out over the course of the morning were to take joy in scoring one for an opponent, to truly care when you cause someone to hurt, to extend forgiveness freely and spontaneously, and to find joy in the game and celebrate no matter who won or even if it’s your home field.

I have my doubts that these lessons will remain unblemished for a lifetime, but if they could stay and spread – picture what a world that would be!

Speaking Our Truth

The nonfiction book Speaking Our Truth by Monique Gray Smith takes an in-depth look at the residential school system in Canada, but its interest spreads to the United States since similar schools and problems occurred here. Interest in this book extends to anyone concerned with fair treatment of Indigenous people wherever they occur. The author, with Cree, Lakota, and Scottish heritage, infuses her account with personal passion.

Her book cites the report “The Survivors Speak: A Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada” as background and looks to bring action to the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In the initial chapter, she gives the names used to describe these first people – Indian, Native, First Nation, Aboriginal, and Indigenous – explaining that she will use the one that was the norm of the time as she tells the story beginning with Indian for the 1800s and coming to Indigenous for the present day.

Scattered throughout the book are personal accounts of those she calls Survivors who lived through experiences in the residential schools, sometimes with one generation repeating the last. Separated from parents and unable to practice their culture or speak their own language, indigenous children also suffered abuse, deprivation, and hunger in the schools. Frequently, discipline patterns learned at the school were passed along to children of these Survivors. The reader is left wondering who thought this would be a good idea.

Balancing the negative picture comes the efforts now being made to bring reconciliation and hope with projects such as Orange Shirt Day, the Blanket Exercise, and Project of the Heart. Discussion questions leading to empathy thread through the narrative. Back matter includes opportunities for further study in Online Resources, Reading List, Glossary, List of Residential Schools, and an Index.

As a coincidence, the next book I read and will not be discussing or recommending had a girl “whooping like an Indian on the warpath.” I would have been offended by the negative stereotype, but coming immediately after Speaking Our Truth, the phrase touched a newly exposed nerve.

In a second coincidence, I need to get this posted quickly so I can leave for the Native American Mounds Tour in and around Natchez with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Maybe I’ll find another accurate and empathetic story today.

The Case of the Missing Painting

Did I detect a touch of accusation in my principal’s voice? A few weeks into the new school year, Mrs. Morgan came down to my room, “Virginia, do you know what happened to Andy’s painting in the teacher’s lounge? I've looked everywhere. You were my last hope.” My concern matched hers. We agreed to keep a lookout, but one day led to another and the school year wore on.

Andy Woods, our quiet introverted art teacher for the first few years that I taught second grade at South Polk Elementary School, challenged those who were artistically talented while encouraging the ones with no more talent than I have. I think of her when October comes.

Andy left us the first time to have surgery for breast cancer. She downplayed her concern, talking to only a few of us with whom she had become close. I bemoaned my inability to teach art to my students while she was out. She knew I could put all my artistic ability in a thimble and still have room for my finger. Smiling, she said, “You can. Just tell them to use all their space and realize that nothing is just one color.”

When Andy came back to inspire our creative and noncreative students, we rejoiced and settled comfortably – until the cancer returned aggressively a couple of years later to the other breast. The group of friends mourned with her, unwilling to accept the diagnosis that she would not return and treatment would be palliative.

After Andy died, Mrs. Morgan asked me to do a eulogy at faculty meeting. Using Andy’s words, I said she had filled all her space and had painted her world with a myriad of colors. Mrs. Morgan placed her favorites, Andy’s clown paintings, around her office. Andy’s husband gave us a mixed media painting for the teacher’s lounge that visualized sitting on the patio in the fall with the morning paper and a cup of coffee. We enjoyed it, and then it went missing – for a while.

Late one afternoon toward the end of the school year, when almost everyone had gone home, Mrs. Morgan returned to my room, beckoning me to come with her. In the teacher’s lounge, she pulled something from behind the soft drink machine – Andy’s painting! The painters had taken it down the summer before and stuck it behind the machine rather than replacing it on the wall. “Take it with you,” she said. “You are the last one working here that was close to Andy, and I have the clowns.”

Truthfully, it doesn’t have to be October for me to think of Andy. The painting hangs where I see it when I eat or drink coffee. But in Breast Cancer Month especially, it makes me hope for the day when we will be rid of this terrible disease for Andy and for people like her who fill all their space with color and beauty. 

Lightning Men

In his novel set in 1950s Atlanta, Thomas Mullen borrows his title Lightning Men from Nazi Germany. In the prologue, Jeremiah, newly released from prison is told one of three things happen when a Negro is released from jail: (1) his family or friends pick him up, (2) the prison takes him by bus to the train where his people meet him. or (3) they give him about seventy-five cents and let the prisoner walk. By the time the prologue is finished, crime has begun and the writing has seized the reader. 

The body of the novel has the police department chasing drugs and alcohol and solving murders while keeping a line drawn between the white and black officers with both groups wondering who among them are the corrupt. There’s a group of Columbians with the Nazi-style lightning bolt on their sleeves which now reappears on street signs. The policemen’s personal stories weave in and out and color their own hand at justice, giving hard choices between family and the law.

As tensions escalate over black families moving into “white” neighborhoods, Mullen draws a parallel: “‘Lightning men,’ the doughboys had called the SS troopers. But they were all lightning men. Not just the Columbians but the Klansmen, too, and the neighborhood association that had offered to buy Hannah’s house as if that were a legitimate, regular ol’ business arrangement shorn of threats.”

Such a tangle of multiple stories keep the reader on edge pondering if any satisfying ending can come of all this – and yet it does with an ending that left me shaking my head and saying, “I didn’t see that coming.”

They're Here!

Waiting patiently doesn’t happen to be one of my virtues. Early this year, I was alerted that I would get an invitation from the United States Postal Service to the first day of issue ceremony for forever stamps honoring The Snowy Day. This picture book by Ezra Jack Keats became a pioneer in diversity when Ezra chose a clipping from Life Magazine of a little black boy that he had saved for twenty years for his model of a child having fun in the snow.

I heard on good authority that in the planning discussion for the event, someone suggested it would be convenient and easy to send out RSVP invitations by email. You might rightly guess how that went over with the post office. USPS assured the group that the postal service would mail cards properly in envelopes. I concur with their decision for quite another reason. Email may be efficient, but a Snowy Day card makes a much cuter keepsake than an email printout!

I’ve really enjoyed the irony of stamps created to honor Ezra’s artwork in light of one of his childhood escapades. Already an artist, he drew some exotic stamps and carefully cut perforated edges around them with his sister’s manicure scissors. He traded his bogus creations to the most serious stamp collector in his neighborhood for some of his rarest stamps. All went well until his friend took Ezra’s handiwork into good daylight and realized he had been duped. Ezra holed up in his tenement apartment home while the friend rained down curses on him and his entire family. In the interest of his own longevity, Ezra gave the rare stamps back.  

When my invitation finally came last month, I stopped at the Hattiesburg post office to see if these stamps would be available on the October 4 issue date. The postal clerks were busy and not sure what special stamps were in the back. If you remember what I said about my lack of patience, you can probably guess what came next. I came home and preordered my stamps!

Miguel's Brave Knight

Even though I’m a big fan of both Margarita Engel and Raul Colon, I had my doubts that a biography of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra would attract young readers. Why would they care about the man credited with writing the first modern novel?

In their book Miguel’s Brave Knight, Margarita uses word snippets like “If Only,” “Disaster,” or “Hoping” to title each free verse poem that tells Miguel’s story. Her fictionalized biography of a daydreamer whose gambling father keeps the family courting financial disaster doesn’t require a knowledge of Don Quixote to be interesting.  Storytellers and teachers become the quiet heroes in Miguel’s life.

The cover illustration tips off the beauty that will be found inside. Raul Colon’s paintings help tell the story and create shadows of Margarita’s titles. My favorite painting illustrates the poem titled “Comfort.” A pensive dog sits beside the daydreaming boy while his imagination pictured above shows a brave knight on his steed against a starry night – a foreshadowing of the novel Cervantes will one day write.

In words and pictures, Margarita and Raul portray a time when people feared imagination enough to burn books and a boy who already knew that imagination could be saved by a brave knight. Both writer and illustrator add information at the end giving interesting personal experiences with the work of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. There is also a short note about the historical setting and another about the life of Cervantes.

No longer a doubter, I see this book as one that a young reader will return to many times to read the words and savor the art, just like this older reader who wrote the review.

Sixth Anniversary

Six years! As the calendar turns from September to October, I add an anniversary to this blog. When I started, I followed advice and had several entries written ahead – just in case. I’ve tried with some success to continue that practice so I don’t wake up on blogging morning without something to say. (Some would doubt that I ever wake up with nothing to say, but I’m not going there for this blog.)

I had no idea how well I could stick to my plan of blogging twice a week. Turns out, I’ve been pretty consistent. One skip came during a trip to England with my sister when I had no Internet access. Another blog was late in the day rather than early morning this year because we were making a tour of the national parks, and sometimes lacked Internet access.

This has been an interesting process. Readers that I see regularly may start conversations where the blog left off. Sometimes I’ve been surprised as I began an anecdote with an acquaintance who says, “Oh, I know that already. I read it on your blog.” One of my favorites came when someone began to introduce me to a friend of my sister’s and he said, “Oh, I know who you are. You’re ‘Readin’, Ritin’, But Not Much ‘Rithmetic.”

Over the six years, a fairly consistent pattern has developed with approximately half the entries being some kind of commentary on life and half book reviews. Some might classify as both. The life commentary tends to get the most immediate reaction with the book reviews getting more hits in perpetuity. As I promised in an early blog, I only review books I can recommend.

Since I’ve proved to myself I can keep a twice a week schedule and enjoy it at least most of the time, I’m all set to start year seven.

The sixth anniversary celebration calls for candy or iron in the traditional column or wood in the modern column. Al’s already built everything we can use in wood, and I can think of nothing I need in iron – certainly not if you are thinking of the iron that presses out wrinkles and makes sharp creases in pants. I guess I’ll have to settle for candy. So let’s light the candles and eat the dark chocolate!

Heidi

Heads around the room nodded as Florence Minor began her talk at the 2017 Kaigler Book Festival by noting Heidi as a favorite childhood book. One of those heads was mine. When Florence mentioned the grandfather’s melted cheese, the audience appeared to be made up of bobbleheads.

I had a very special tenth birthday. Except for a new dress and a generic cake for the family, Mama didn’t make too much of birthdays. However, a decade seemed important to her, and the dress she designed and made came from carefully chosen store-bought fabric rather than the normal feed sacks the dairy farmers in Daddy’s congregation saved for her. The main part of the bodice and skirt was a forest green and pink plaid. The pink yoke that had a tab on the left side coming down matched a pink border on the bottom with a tab coming up. Three pink pearly buttons anchored both tabs. She even went all out on the cake making my favorite white butter creme icing and decorating it with turquoise, my favorite color at the time.

Adding to this best childhood birthday, Aunt Ruth gave me Heidi for a birthday present. Reading in the McGee household was as common as eating and breathing, but owning books all by yourself – not so much. Books came from the school library or the bookmobile and were often loaned back and forth among friends. Any we actually owned would list on the cover page “The McGee Girls” or “Virginia Ann, Beth, and Gwen” and eventually “Ruth.” This book was mine, mine, mine! My sisters had to get my permission if they wanted to read Heidi.

Florence’s talk gave me a hankering to revisit Heidi, Clara, the grandfather, and Peter (also a hankering for melted cheese, but that is another issue). My special book, of course, is long gone, but Amazon had a first-rate translation for an excellent price (free), and I downloaded it for a special treat on the plane as we traveled out west. I found much the same. Heidi still wins the hearts of all those around her, Peter lets his jealousy get the best of him, Clara learns to walk, and grandfather is reconciled to the community around him. The only difference is that when I was ten, the Alps existed only in my imagination. Now I have been there and could place Heidi in a real place that I can see.

Thanks, Florence, for sending me back to an old favorite. 

Zenobia the First

Following up on Friday’s blog – my great aunt was not the original Zenobia, just the first I ever knew. Originally from Greek, Zenobia means “life of Zeus.” Septimia Zenobia was a third century queen of the Palmyrene Empire. Who knows where Aunt Nobie’s North Mississippi parents got her name!

As I reached my teenage years, Zenobia seemed to fit her more than the mundane family name of “Nobie.” Papaw’s elegant sister came down to visit from Memphis where she had a real job. His other sisters – housewives who raided hen’s nests, milked cows, and canned vegetables – paled in comparison. As you can see, the elegance of her working days in the first picture lingered to her 95^th birthday in the second.

My admiration moved to a relationship with her the summer I spent two weeks as companion to my 87-year-old grandmother who lived with her. Aunt Nobie worked all day before talking far into the night as we shared her bedroom with twin beds. Two years later, after Gram’s death, she talked Mama into letting me come up for a weeklong event for sixteen-year-olds at her church. Becoming a BFF as late-night talking continued, she had little idea of the seeds she planted in those conversations.

Revisiting days before she had to go to work when her husband died, she told of having her house full of girls working on projects and memorizing scripture in her church volunteer work while she forgot the supper in the stove. She mentioned the patience of Uncle Charles when he opened the door to smell his supper burning. Her joy instilled a goal to volunteer the same way when I became an adult. (I did, and never burned the dinner as I recall, but Al was also patient with the mess of teenage girls he sometimes found in our house.)

She griped about my mother who lacked a compulsion to answer her letters. Aunt Nobie had taken it upon herself to keep the scattered family informed. If any of them wrote letters, they sent them to her, knowing she would pass news along to the kinfolks. She typed lengthy letters with carbon copies in her typewriter and mailed them out, assuming they would be greeted with pleasure (they were) and answered (not so much). On the few occasions when she wrote one by hand, Daddy would hand it to Mama. “We heard from Aunt Nobie. You can read it and tell me what she said.” Her handwriting looked like it came from that Palmyrene Empire. Again, I thought letter-writing could keep a family informed. While other communication methods work quicker these days, I became the principal letter-writer of my generation with similar luck in getting answers.

Besides her conversations, there was the jewelry. Remember the exotic aunt with a real job? She had a chest of costume jewelry that she allowed me to plunder. If I admired a particular piece, she would say, “You know, I’m kind of tired of that one. Why don’t you take it?” Most of these are long gone, but I still have one necklace in various shades of pink that has been restrung several times. I wear it but resemble the rural sisters more than the elegant one with a real job.

So now you know, in case you were curious, why I had to read a book called Elizabeth and Zenobia.

Elizabeth and Zenobia

The name Zenobia popped out at me from the offerings of advance reading copies. Aunt Nobie (short for Zenobia) was a favorite relative when I was growing up – more about her in the next blog. I had seen chats about Elizabeth and Zenobia by Jessica Miller from book people, but it was the name that caused me to push “Request” on Net Galley’s website.  

A line from the first page of this middle grade novel let me know I was in for a treat, “I have always paid attention to words and the way they fill my ears. There are words I could hear over and over again, like seashell. And there are other words, like custard, that make my stomach flip.” Elizabeth’s affinity for words and her long list of things she found fearful matched mine. However, the only experience I’ve had with imaginary friends came when I had to supply treats for my oldest son’s buddies (four as I remember).

Which brings us to Zenobia’s disclaimers. She can’t be an imaginary friend simply because someone as dull as Elizabeth would be incapable of dreaming her up. She also is not a ghost but a Spirit Presence. As Elizabeth and her father move back to his morbid childhood home, Zenobia’s antics promise to keep nervous Elizabeth in trouble, but maybe they will also answer questions about why the East Wing is forbidden territory, what happened to an aunt Elizabeth did not know existed, and why her father is so distant.

Normally preferring reality to the supernatural in books, I found myself caught up in the story and scrolling rapidly down the pages as I read on my computer. The writer for The Horn Book for Sept/Oct 2017 had the same reaction, and the magazine gave it a starred review. This is a book for anyone able to suspend disbelief in Spirit Presences, anyone who loves a good story, and especially anyone who has once loved a very real imaginary friend.  

Without giving anything away, note was taken near the end of the book that Zenobia was a rather uncommon name. You’ll find my take on that in next Monday’s blog.

Butler B & B

Good advice – never try to give instruction to a hummingbird. As Mama always said, “You might as well save your breath to cool your broth.”

However, I would like to ignore my own recommendation and give some tips to these creatures who must have seen a sign in the skyway – “Good eats at the Butler B & B.” Al and I have tried to count those at the feeder outside my office window. We did well until they got past seven, and then it became iffy. How many were in the crepe myrtle waiting a turn? Did we count the one hovering on the left before he moved to the right? Oops, there come two more who were out of sight. And another who just flew in from the lantana. Anyway, there are at least a dozen – we think.

Here are the helpful hints I’d like to give them.

(1) You are doing a better job at waiting for a turn than some hummingbirds I’ve seen. Still, when you decide to chase each other away, neither of you is getting something to eat.

(2) You could also have a little pity and share with that Gulf Fritillary Butterfly who tries to sneak in for a sip.

(3) There is a second feeder on the back patio frequented by one or two hummingbirds. You would get a turn there much sooner.

(4) Watch where you’re going. Flying into the wall full speed ahead could get you a concussion. And the next time you get your bill hung in the window screen, you might not get out so quickly.

(5) Relax and enjoy your all-day-dinner. There’s more sugar water where that came from.

(6) If you would hold still and say “cheese,” I could get a better picture for my blog.

Obviously, these distractions are not helping my efforts at getting some serious writing done, especially that cute little one with his back to me shaking his tail and whirling his feathers. But in spite of the disruption of my attention and the birds’ unwillingness to heed my words of wisdom, I would add a line if I could to that sign in the hummingbird skyway, “Open 24/7. All are welcome.” 

Her Right Foot

Shoe size 879? Really? Dave Eggers, writer, and Shawn Harris, illustrator, set an amusing tone to the facts they weave into their words and pictures in Her Right Foot. The book scheduled by Chronicle Books for spring 2018 moved up in the schedule to September 19, 2017 because of the timeliness of this look at the Statue of Liberty, particularly her right foot.

The book, which I read in an advance reading copy from Net Galley, takes turns being inspirational, informational, and humorous. In addition to her shoe size, an example of the humor that laces the book together shows up in the drawing of the men who first assembled the statue in France. They sprawl out on the spikes of her crown as they ponder the absurdity of taking it apart again.

Eggers and Harris give scientific information on the process of oxidation in words and pictures as the statue changes from its original brown to the blue-green patina of today. In a historical tidbit, they tell that Thomas Edison suggested a giant record player inside the statue so it could speak. That was too strange to pursue.

Inspiration comes in pictures and text as they show the welcome given to visitors and immigrants to the United States as the statue waits in the harbor. Even more striking were her broken chains symbolizing freedom from bondage.

Now you may be asking why the emphasis on the right foot. Since I learned a lesson the hard way long ago about giving away the spoiler, I’ll let you find that out for yourself. Eggers and Harris have taken an unusual look at the statue and turned out a book that will make you rush right out and buy one to read to a child. If you don’t have a child in your life, go ahead. You have my permission to buy it for yourself. You won’t be sorry.