It’s a very sad day today in Libraryland. Beloved author/illustrator Maurice Sendak passed away at the age of 82. I met him when I was about 9 years old. My mother and I waited for hours in the rain at a book signing event in New Haven. When [...]]]>

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Maurice Sendak

It’s a very sad day today in Libraryland. Beloved author/illustrator Maurice Sendak passed away at the age of 82. I met him when I was about 9 years old. My mother and I waited for hours in the rain at a book signing event in New Haven. When it was finally my turn, he took my well-worn copy of Where the Wild Things Are and scraped off the ice cream and candy drippings that were embedded in the cover. Then he drew a picture of a wild thing for me with the note “Becky-Boo!”

Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Print.

Morel, Alex. Survive. New York, NY: Penguin (Razorbill), 2012. Print. ISBN 9781595145109

Extra Yarn is the story of a girl named Annabelle who [...]]]>

A (yarn) yarn

Barnett, Mac, and J Klassen. Extra Yarn. New York: Balzer + Bray, 2012. Print.

So far, this is my favorite picture book of the year because it makes me laugh. (The humor is a little off-kilter, which makes it even more fun.)

Extra Yarn is the story of a girl named Annabelle who brings some light into her cold, gloomy town by knitting everyone colorful sweaters. She even knits one for Little Louis! (There is no explanation as to why she would have left poor Louis out, except that he appears to be a half-size man with a full-size beard. Is he the village idiot?) She wants to knit a sweater for Mr. Crabtree who “never wore sweaters or even long pants” and is pictured wearing boxer shorts and a wife beater shirt. He declines her offer, so she makes him a hat instead. (Is he the village exhibitionist?)

One day an evil archduke sails into town on a mission to steal Annabelle’s yarn. He declares: “Little girl, I curse you with my family’s curse! You will never be happy again!” (For some reason, this cracks me up.)

Good wins out over evil, and in the end “it turned out that she was.” On the last page we see Annabelle perched comfortably on a yarn-covered tree branch accompanied by a few sweater-clad dogs and cats. This is her happy ending. (No handsome prince needed–just a couple of pets for good company.)

Posted by Rebecca Hickman at 11:31 PM

Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven are my all-time favorite bands, of course, but I also really like Blues Traveler. John Popper [...]]]>

New Haven Rock City

Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven are my all-time favorite bands, of course, but I also really like Blues Traveler. John Popper is one of the best harmonica players in the whole world. He’s a Connecticut boy, too.

Back in 1991 my friend Barbara Shepard (from The Fabulous Who Who’s) and I were in a short film with him. It was called Mr. Personality and it was about a talk show host’s nightmare. I promised the director Tom E. Brown that I’d never post Mr. Personality online. (However, Tom is very proud of his film Das Clown which also starred Popper and was screened at Sundance.) John Popper played one of the talk show guests on Mr. Personality. Barb and I sang the show’s theme song “Simon Says” which was originally recorded by the 1910 Fruitgum Factory. We had some pretty slick dance moves, too.

Barbara Shepard started The Fabulous Who Who’s back in 1989, and they are still going strong. Barb is an amazing singer, songwriter, guitar player, and she’s also the funniest woman in New Haven. I sang back-up vocals with the Who Who’s for a couple of years while I was going to grad school. The wildly talented Kriss Santala was/is also a Who Who. She also performs as a solo artist. In 2007 she released her own album Lost Souls Road which is absolutely beautiful. Visit www.independisc.com/krisssantala.htm and listen to “One Good Thing.”

My old friend Scott McDonald from Jellyshirts recently posted this newspaper ad from the beloved old New Haven venue, The Moon. If you look closely, you can see that The Fabulous Who Who’s (and Scott’s band Jellyshirts) are on the same page as Reverend Horton Heat, Smashing Pumpkins, and Miracle Legion. Somebody told me that Nirvana is listed, too, but I can’t find it. Can you?

Scott and I used to work at Cutler Records with Robin Andreoli, Dean Falcone and Al Lotto. Al now has his own record store called Exile On Main Street. It’s the coolest place–he even sells 45’s! Celebrate Record Store Day a month early and shop at Al’s store online: exileonmain.com. You will really like his website . . . and his store.

ps. Robin was a deejay for the University of New Haven radio station. It was (is?) the coolest station. It’s where townie kids like me learned about Madness, The English Beat, and The Specials long before there was any MTV.

pps. Kevin Day is another Connecticut musician I knew back in the good old days. (Actually, I knew his brother, but I’m sure we must have bumped into each other at some point.) Kevin Day is in the AWESOME band Gigglejuice. Gigglejuice are so great that they’ve even opened for Cracker! Check them out:

http://www.gigglejuice.com/buycdhere.html

ppps. It was an old boyfriend and lifelong friend who first introduced me to Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven. We met when I waited on him at the record store.

pppps. As you probably guessed, the title of this post was inspired by

Klosterman, Chuck. Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota.
New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.

Back in the early 70’s, there weren’t many childcare options in my quaint New England town. Since my mother was a working single mom, I had to spend hours every day at a wretched place called The Happy Child Nursery School.

The owner was a morbidly obese, smelly [...]]]> Early Childhood Education: Growing Up

Back in the early 70’s, there weren’t many childcare options in my quaint New England town. Since my mother was a working single mom, I had to spend hours every day at a wretched place called The Happy Child Nursery School.

The owner was a morbidly obese, smelly woman who wore muumuus every day, even in the middle of winter. (She was so fat that she probably never felt the cold.) Miss Muumuu lived in a decrepit colonial house which probably hadn’t been painted since the turn of the 19th century. In addition to the nursery school, the house also featured a museum of antique dolls. We weren’t allowed to touch the dolls, but we didn’t want to anyway. The dolls were downright creepy. Many of the dolls were kid-size with metal braces holding them in posed play positions as if they were frozen for life in an eternal game of TV tag. Miss Muumuu also had two male boarders who lived in the upstairs of the house. One man had a twitch and walked with a limp. We called him Skippy.*

There were some happy moments at the Happy Child Nursery School. During playtime we’d go outside, roll over a log, and play with worms. Another highlight was nap time when Miss Muumuu would watch hours of television while the happy children rested on soiled army cots listening to Phil Donahue interview male hookers, Siamese twins, and other assorted human oddities. Consequently, the first sex question I asked my mother wasn’t “where do babies come from?” It was “what’s the difference between a transvestite and a transsexual?“ (They didn’t use the politically correct term transgendered back in the early 70’s.)**

Thankfully, daycare standards and early childhood education have improved drastically. (Believe it or not, Miss Muumuu held an advanced degree in Child Development from an ivy league college.) It’s a bit unrealistic, but The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under the age of 2 experience no screen time (screen time includes computer, video, iPad, and TV screens), and that parents limit older children’s screen time as well. This is because it takes away from real-life creative play and social interaction.

Personally, I think a little screen time, maybe 20 minutes of a Sesame Street video (not a lurid talk show) before dinner is okay because it gives harried parents a much needed break. Some television shows really are educational. Thanks to Schoolhouse Rock, I can recite the Preamble of the Constitution. And not all screens are bad. For example, iPads and smart phones can help nonverbal children communicate and are being used as teaching tools for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Although it’s a little didactic, I got a kick out of the book Todd’s TV by James Proimos. It’s about a boy whose parents are too busy to pay attention to him, so he starts spending time with his TV instead. When the parents get jealous of the TV, they do what they should have done a long time ago. They turn it off.

Proimos, James. Todd’s Tv. New York: Katherine Tegen Books, 2010. Print.

*I also had a school bus driver with a limp. We called him Hoppy. (Gosh, I hope I’m not the one who came up with these nicknames.) My stop was the last on his route so I’d sing to him after the other kids got off the bus. At the time I knew all the words to all the songs in Fiddler on the Roof. He really liked Matchmaker, Matchmaker.

**Speaking of transgender issues, She’s Not There is one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. It was written by Colby College professor, Jennifer Finney Boylan, who started her life as James Finney Boylan. I had the pleasure of sitting next to her at an ALA publishers breakfast event. I started chatting with her and asked where she worked. She said Colby College, and I said, “isn’t that where Jennifer Finney Boylan works? Wait–oh my gosh! You ARE Jennifer Finney Boylan! I love you. I feel like I already know you!” She said “well, you do know an awful lot about me.” We were instant conference buddies and I introduced her to all my favorite librarian and writer friends.

Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote another really great memoir entitled I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted. It describes her life growing up in a haunted house. What I really like about the book is that the ghosts aren’t really a big deal. They just happen to be there. Watch this video tour of Jennifer’s childhood home: jenniferboylan.net. It reminds me of Miss Muumuu’s place.

Boylan, Jennifer F. I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted. New York: Broadway Books, 2008. Print.

You don’t have to be a history buff to get lost in this incredible story about the life of Olympic track star and World War II Veteran, Louis Zamperini. The History Channel bores me to death, but I was fascinated by this book and finished it in two long sittings. “Zamperini’s [...]]]>

Unbroken

You don’t have to be a history buff to get lost in this incredible story about the life of Olympic track star and World War II Veteran, Louis Zamperini. The History Channel bores me to death, but I was fascinated by this book and finished it in two long sittings.

“Zamperini’s story — and Hillenbrand’s unforgettable new book — deserve pride of place alongside the best works of literature that chart the complications and the hard-won triumphs of so-called ordinary Americans and their extraordinary time.” –Maureen Corrigan, NPR.

And speaking of record covers . . . have you seen [...]]]>

Record Covers

Here’s a great gift for your favorite Crumb . . . it’s the latest anthology of record cover artwork by cartoonist R. Crumb!

Crumb, R. R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection.
New York, N.Y: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc, 2011. Print.

And speaking of record covers . . . have you seen Alfra Martini’s reproductions of iconic album covers? The series is called The Kitten Covers. Take a look!

Simon, Paul, and Art Garfunkel. Bridge Over Troubled Water.
New York: Columbia, 1970. Sound recording.

U2.War. New York: Island, 1991. Sound recording.

Clash: London Calling. 1979. Sound recording.

Beatles. Let it Be. London: Apple, 1970. Sound recording.

Morrison, Van. Moondance. Burbank, Calif: Warner Bros, 1970. Sound recording.

Posted by Rebecca Hickman at 7:16 AM