Sun, Moon, Star, Witch-- dolls for play and storytelling

I listed a few new dolls in the shop last week. I created a Sun, Moon, and Star set inspired by the Grimms' story of The Seven Ravens. I made this set a part of the NaturalKids Team's fairy tale challenge.

Sun, Moon, Star doll set - front

Sun, Moon, Star set - back

It doesn't seem that long ago that I made two little witches inspired by the children's books I read as a child. This year, I decided to make a red witch: 

Little red witch with a pine broom

Over the next weeks, I will be working on winter and December festival themed dolls, both for the shop and for custom orders. My output is less than it has been in previous times, in part because I have more responsibilities that take me out of the house and away from my workspace. Still, I enjoy making the dolls, and hope that you enjoy looking at them, too.

Bigger than a Bread Box: a book plug, a divorce story

Laurel Snyder’s forthcoming book, Bigger than a Bread Box, is a story with a theme of divorce. In her blog post, "What we talk about when we talk about divorce", Snyder writes,

Grownups control the way divorce gets discussed.  But kids experience it too.  Grownups really need to believe, when splitting up, that “divorce is for the best” or that “we’ll all come through it okay” because “kids are so resilient.”  Their need to believe these things affects the way they talk about divorce… and the way they remember it too.

In the blog post, Snyder requested a story about other peoples’ experiences of divorce. I thought about this for awhile. I wondered if I could tell my own story without infringing upon my parents’ privacy. The author Anne Lamott said, "Write as if your parents were dead." I can't do that. They are alive, and my imagination is not so flexible as to pretend otherwise.

My parents separated when I was 15 and divorced when I was 19. Although I felt the reverberations of the separation strongly, my two younger brothers, born 5 and 7 years after me, were the true “children of divorce.”

My father was also a child of divorced parents. I had three sets of grandparents, and I was the only child for five years. I felt lucky to have a wealth of family members. My aunts and uncles were in their teens, my six grandparents had time to spend with me, and I absorbed their attention.  Still, I was a “lonely-only,” and I welcomed the arrivals of my brothers. 

In the 1980s, many of my classmates had divorced parents, and I remember one friend telling me with ominous importance, “It’ll probably happen to your parents too.” I thought she was probably wrong, but I wondered and watched.

In the summer of 1987, my parents called me into the master bedroom to tell me in private that they planned to get a divorce. They asked me to keep the news quiet until they told my brothers. I could tell my boyfriend, but no one else. I think my parents wanted us all to have one last family vacation together. 

From my 15 year old viewpoint, the difficulties my parents faced were nothing compared to my sense of injustice and outrage. I resented keeping the secret from my brothers, and wished my parents would just hurry up and get on with it. As Snyder wrote, “Grownups control the way divorce gets discussed.  But kids experience it too.” 

Over twenty years later, my parents now live in different parts of the country. They have celebrated the birth of a granddaughter and mourned the loss of a son. While I don’t live as close to them as they did to my grandparents, they have a good relationship with my daughter independently of each other.

This is not the whole story. It's not even an accurate representation of what happened and how I felt. However, I can look back on the time of my parents' separation and divorce with more compassion and understanding than when I stood before them and received their news on a summer day in 1987. I can believe that they did the best they could with the resources they had. What more can any of us do than that?

2011 KidLitCon

In 2004, a year before I started this blog, I read The Hollow Kingdom, by Clare B. Dunkle. Soon after, I sent Dunkle an email in appreciation of the book. Dunkle replied, and we shared a correspondence for a time. My daughter was not yet one year old, I was exhausted all the time, and I relied heavily upon email correspondence for grownup conversation that didn't have to do with parenting. At one point, Dunkle mentioned her book-reviewer friend Sondy Ecklund (at the time, both were living in Germany), and said that she thought we'd enjoy getting to know each other. I can't remember who wrote first, but Sondy and I started what would be a years-long correspondence.

Last weekend, Sondy and I met for the first time at the 2011 KidLitCon children's and teen literature blogging conference, held here in Seattle, Washington. It was good to meet Sondy and talk in person. In addition to book-reviewing, writing, and being a librarian, Sondy is a self-described "math nut" (see her post on her prime factorization sweater).When I asked for advice on bringing math into the home, she recommended board games, and Monopoly Jr. in particular, as it encourage multiplication. I've not yet played it, but I ordered a copy of the board game for Lucia's benefit. Sony blogs and reviews at Sonderbooks. "Sonder" is a German prefix that means "special," which is an apt description for the lively, passionate Sondy Ecklund.

At KidLitCon 2011, I got to talk with a number of bloggers, including Sarah Stevenson, co-author of the blog Finding Wonderland,, Els Kushner, who currently blogs for Tor, Pam Coughlan of MotherReader, Anne Levy of the Cybils Awards, Holly Cupala, Shiraz Cupala,, and Lee Wind. I finally got to meet Martha Brockenbrough (who also writes SPOGG). I'd been a fan of her writing for years. but only recently realized that we were also neighbors. It was a pleasure to meet "science-journalist by day/kidlit blogger by night" Lisa Song of Reads for Keeps. I ended up talking with co-conference organizer Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray for just a few minutes (about bacon jam, of all things), but there were a number of people with whom I wished I could have gotten to know better. There's only so much time, and the day was filled with a variety of sessions. I stayed up late after the Friday meet-and-greet, but on Saturday, ended up leaving soon after the dinner was done.

The session highlights of the day for me were Scott Westerfeld's keynote, which was a presentation on the history of illustration in chapter-books, and the final panel on diversity in YA/Teen literature. I finally started reading Westerfeld's books this year, and have enjoyed in particular the alternative World War I steampunk historical fiction books in the Leviathan trilogy, particularly because of Keith Thompson's illustrations.

The link to the 2011 KidLitCon roundup is here. 

Natural Kids Team folk tale guest post

I've written a new post for the Natural Kids Team blog, called Life Lessons in Folk Tales. I featured three folk tale picture books by storyteller Margaret Read MacDonald, plus crafty offerings by my fellow artisans. As I worked on the post, I asked my teammates if anyone would be interested in making a gecko to go along with MacDonald's Go to Sleep, Gecko! and Little Elfs Toyshop delivered:

Green gecko by Little Elfs Toyshop

St. Ninian's Day Ginger Muffins

I'm fascinated by legends of the saints in a similar vein to the Greek and Norse myths of the gods and goddesses. (I'm a fan-girl of both Athena and Hera, and had I been Paris presented with the golden apple, I would have had to employ stalling tactics.) The saints I like best are the obscure and apocryphal ones. Take St. Ninian, for example. He's a 4th or 5th century saint who was supposed to have been a missionary among the Pictish people of Scotland. Not much is known about him, but there are a lot of churches dedicated to him.

St. Ninian came to my attention today when a friend on Facebook announced he was making ginger muffins to commemorate the feast day.

"What do ginger muffins have to do with St. Ninian?" you might ask. It's a fair question. I am in favor of scrutiny and the scientific method, but when it comes to ginger muffins, I get a little distracted. My answer is that I have no idea, but I'm shameless enough to use the feast-day as a catalyst for the creation of ginger muffins.

You can the muffins today to celebrate being alive, or make them in the future to celebrate being alive another day. If you don't like ginger, you may like these muffins. Then again, you might be pleasantly surprised. For example, I generally don't care for eggplant outside of its baba ganouj disguise, but there is one restaurant in Seattle that makes grilled eggplant taste so good that I order it every time I'm there.

My friend modified the recipe from Evelyn Birge Vitz's A Continual Feast (about the original recipe, he wrote, "The results [were] penitential in nature --- dry and unappetizing") and I modified it further. Here's what I came up with:

Ginger Muffins

Whisk together:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons dried ginger

In another bowl, whisk together:

3/4 cup milk (nondairy okay)
1/2 cup butter (ditto)
1/3 cup molasses
1/3 cup unrefined sugar
Optional: 2 teaspoons of ginger juice (because I had it on hand)

Mix wet with dry, and then stir in 1/2 cup chopped candied ginger. I used the kind that wasn't covered in sugar.

Pour into greased muffin tins and bake approx 20 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. I got 10 muffins out of this recipe, but I think I could stretch it to 12 next time.