Archive for January, 2009

Here’s the knitted log cabin blanket I started when I was recuperating from my surgery. The pattern is from Mason Dixon knitting. The yarn felt wonderful to work with and the colors kept me happy. I am sending it to a relative as a late Christmas present. She’s having some tough health problems, too, so I hope it will bring her some comfort. You followers of this blog will know that I also knitted a hat during my recuperation. The two were very different projects. The log cabin blanket involved just plain knitting, knitting, and more knitting. The hat involved knitting in the round, purling, counting stitches, etc. I think I’ll try to keep a log cabin knitting project going most of the time — it’s so simple and keeps my hands busy. Plus, I have lot of little bits of yarn left. My friend, Julie Owen, turned me on to log cabin knitting this summer when she would turn up at the pool with knitting when I turned up with quilting.

Now for the kind of log cabin I am more familiar with — a quilt. My first log cabin project, when I was a teenager, was a Christmas table cloth. It turned out so well that I made a bunch of them. My grandmothers, my godmother, and our family’s best friends all got Christmas table cloths that year. I had never tried a full-sized log cabin quilt until now. I chose yellow, blue, creams, tans, and browns. At first I had it laid out in diagonal lines, but Richard suggested this layout and I love it.

Update: The Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book stickers I ordered arrived today so I went to Lemuria to leave them enough for their signed stock. Here’s a post on A Year of Reading by a teacher who went by her local bookstore and picked up a copy of Wolfsnail.

The cabbage and broccoli seedlings are up — high enough to really see this time. Perhaps you can read the tag; this is a cabbage seedling. It’ll be interesting to watch a head of cabbage emerge from this tiny plant. I have been turning the seedling tray each day to keep them growing relatively straight. They really like to lean toward the sun.
I took this using available (late afternoon) light with my Nikon D70 and the Tamron 90 mm lens. I didn’t use a tripod. (1/160 sec. at f/ 3.5) After capturing this shot of a single seedling, I decided to try to get a good one of a whole line of them.

I used my standard lens this time. (1/40 sec. at f/4.5)

There was more good news today from the American Library Association (ALA): Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator earned a spot on 2009 ALA Notable Children’s Books for Younger Readers. See the whole list here. Several librarians posted responses to the Geisel Honor Book announcement. My friend at Pink Me called Wolfsnail “The little non-fiction book that could (win a Geisel Honor, that is).” You can read the post here. Jennifer at Jean Little Library noted that she hadn’t thought of Wolfsnail as an easy reader, but she recommends it: “It’s difficult to find good read-aloud nonfiction for the younger ages and this was perfect.” Read the whole post here.

I have been planning this post for some time, but several things (scanner down, computer down) conspired to keep it from going up until now. And I’m glad. Earlier today, I learned that Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator had been named a Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book by the American Library Association. The award recognizes authors and illustrators of beginning readers “for their literary and artistic achievements that demonstrate creativity and imagination to engage children in reading.” Here’s the committee’s description of Wolfsnail: “An exciting nonfiction look at the carnivorous wolfsnail trapping and devouring its victim, this science book uses bold block type against a white background to enhance the ease of reading. The magnified, detailed photographs and playful, informative text will amaze and attract readers.”

The above picture shows a young reader, named Jackson S., who read Wolfsnail in the first months after it was published. He sent me my first (and only) fan letter. I will quote from it here, keeping his invented spellings:  “I like your book because the plot helps me learn about woulfsnails in a fun way! Are you going to write any more books? Maybe you could write about spiders or lizards. I would prefer lizards.” He also told me about the wolfsnail he and his older brother found in their yard. “I let go my wolfsnail because I was afraid it was goining to die. It ate about one snail evre two days. I got its food off our brick wall! It staid in its shell about an hour and then it would come out and search for food. We named it wolfy!”

I telephoned my editor, Andy Boyles, when I heard the award news and he suggested one of the reasons I won was the fact that I take children seriously. I do. The chair of the Geisel committee, Joan Atkinson, told me the panel liked the fact that the book had a story arc, that it included some suspense. Though some of the language seemed at first glance a little more advanced than in your typical beginning reader (“toothy tongue”), it was appropriate to the story and well supported by the photographs. The above photograph shows me signing my book for a beginning reader who at age four negotiated “toothy tongue” and the rest of the text just fine. (This photo was taken at the 2008 Children’s Book Festival in Hattiesburg. See previous post.) I am so glad these kids are diving into books like Wolfsnail and discovering the wonderful world of reading and the joys of nature.

Update I visited St. Therese Catholic School in the fall and the librarian wrote a tribute post today. I feel so honored.

I was thrilled to learn this morning via voicemail that Richard and I are being honored by the American Library Association’s 2009 Youth Media Awards committee with the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award — Honor Book. Here’s what is says about the award on the ALA website. I am so excited. I’ll be watching the announcing via web streaming here.

The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year. The winner(s), recognized for their literary and artistic achievements that demonstrate creativity and imagination to engage children in reading, receives a bronze medal. Honor Book authors and illustrators receive certificates, which are presented at the ALA Annual Conference. The award was established in 2004 and first presented in 2006. The award is named for the world-renowned children’s author, Theodor Geisel. “A person’s a person no matter how small,” Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, would say. “Children want the same things we want: to laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted.” Brilliant, playful, and always respectful of children, Dr. Seuss charmed his way into the consciousness of four generations of youngsters and parents. In the process, he helped them to read.

Permit me a proud mama moment. Here’s a picture of my youngest son with his teammates on his elementary school chess team. D is in the middle with the trophy in front of him. He also won a 5th place medal in the individual competition. He and his teammates played five rounds of chess over a 7-hour tournament and turned in great performances. I’ve been taking my sons to this tournament every year for 7 years and this is the first time any of them have been part of the No. 1 team. It was a nice moment. Just to D’s right is his friend R. They’ve been in school together (often in the same classroom) since they were in kindergarten. I looked up a photo of the two of them back in those days.

I reached back into the blog’s history to post my entry into this week’s photo friday challenge. Here’s a link to American Gothic. Let me know what you think about my mother’s photograph from about 35 years ago.

The broccoli seeds are up! We started broccoli and cabbage seeds this weekend. We’ll let them grow in these little slots until it is time to transplant outside — after the risk of frost has passed. No sign of the cabbage seeds yet. I’ve never grown either of these vegetables before so we’re venturing out into new territory. My mom noticed the large pile of seed packets on my kitchen counter and wondered aloud whether we were going to till up the whole back yard. But we’re doing the square foot gardening thing so we only planted eight of our little broccoli seeds and 10 of our cabbage seeds. Ultimately, we hope to transplant two broccoli plants and four cabbage plants. Here’s what our raised beds looked like being built. We’re trusting Mel to know what he’s talking about when he says we can save the rest of the seeds for future years — assuming all goes well and we want to do this again.

My boys decided to make Naan bread and spicy chicken for lunch so I decided to take some pictures. We always spend a lot of time in the kitchen on Sundays (Mondays, too, on long weekends) and today was no exception. G and D made the Naan together, starting mid-morning with the flour, yeast, salt, and water. They stirred that to make a sponge. Some 40 minutes later, they added olive oil and enough flour to make a good dough. It rose until about lunchtime. We preheated the oven and the pizza stone to 500 degrees. As soon as the rolled out dough hit the stone, they switched the oven to hi broil.

You can see how the bread puffs up. The boys have always marveled at the puffing — when they were tiny I had a hard time keeping them from putting their hands into the oven. It was hard to imagine then that this day was coming. G likes to make spicy chicken; he got the recipe from our good friends. I’ve stayed out of it so I don’t know the specifics — except that it involves Tony’s Creole seasoning, a hot pan, and some butter.

Richard and I typically eat something else when the boys have spicy chicken; they often make it because we are eating something they don’t like. In this case, Richard was making a quick omelet with leftovers. He threw in the end of a batch of aloo gobi masala. So, here are G and Richard standing at the stove together. To take these photographs, I used Richard’s Nikon D200. I am trying to get more comfortable with it — which brings me to the other thing I am having to get comfortable with this weekend: I am without my computer. For various reasons, Richard decided we needed to take all the software off of it and re-install windows and then the other software. Various things went wrong and now I am without my machine. Richard loaded my email manager onto his computer so I’ll be using his for the time being.

For years, our mantra to the boys was: “We’re working toward independence.” More recently, it has become: “We’re working to be flexible.” I guess I have to be flexible, too. Other items cooked in our kitchen today: tomato and butternut squash soup, macaroni and cheese, macaroni and tomato sauce, marinara sauce, and chicken pot pie. We’re starting the week with a full fridge.

In this photo for the Photo Friday challenge, Nathan meditates at the edge of a creek. Richard took the photo in the woods of rural Mississippi.