Story and Song Girl

This is Lucia's dolly named Pepper, accompanied by a pet unicorn:



This is Lucia's drawing of Pepper:


Today, Lucia asked me to tell her a story about Pepper. I replied that it was Lucia's turn to tell a story. With some prompting,* Lucia told me this story:

Once upon a time there were two little girls named Salt and Pepper, and they lived with their mommy and daddy in a house off in the distance. And they went to the store, and they saw Dan Zanes. And they had a railing, and they went up on the roof, and they climbed back down. She got Superman in her hand. Pepper has a dress and Pepper has a magic diamond shaped buckle. They came over the bridge and there was a troll under the bridge.

Could a parent be prouder? I think not. If that weren't enough, I received my new storytelling step-stool** today, and Lucia promptly claimed it, then asked for her little guitar. We jammed for awhile to "Buffalo Gals" and then I made up a song about Superman and Batman:

Key of C (in the style of the Dead Kennedys):

We're goin' to a tea-party
We're goin' to a tea-party
We're goin' to a tea-party
With Superman and Batman.

Superman's gonna pour the tea,
Batman's gonna bake the scones,
Green Lantern's gonna to cut the cake,
And I'm gonna eat it all.

We're goin' to a tea-party... etc.



Oy! I'm kvelling.

*Prompting=Me saying, "Yeah!" after every phrase.

**The step-stool is an heirloom made from an old chest of drawers. Note in the photo that Lucia's own step-stool is near her little table in the back, yet she was indignant when I suggested as much.

Fly Through My Window

Bluebird, bluebird, fly through my window
Bluebird, bluebird, fly through my window
Bluebird, bluebird, fly through my window
Oh, Johnny, I'm tired.

You'd be tired, too, if you cut out 30 felt birds. Tomorrow, the grownups will sing with the toddlers as each child brings a bird to up to the flannel board.* While I'm generally not a fan of using flannel boards or cutting out lots of little felt or paper animals** (yeah, I'm one of those curmudgeonly children's librarians), I can forsee using the birds for a number of other songs. I'd list them, but there are a lot. Just for starters, you can find good bird songs off of Elizabeth Mitchell's new album, You Are My Little Bird, including a longer version of the aforementioned "Fly Through My Window." I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have other animals for other songs, but as long as I'm in a small storytime room and not a large auditorium, I like to share my finger-puppets. I'll bet a lot of my city kids have seen cow puppets long before they've seen cows in pastures. This is as close as I've come to a porcupine. (Porcupines are soft and fluffy, right?)


*If there's no flannel board, the children are welcome to stick the birds to my sleeves.

**I taught myself origami just so I would have a craft to teach that didn't involve scissors, glue, glitter or googly-eyes.

"Minaret" at the Local Sightings Film Festival

The husband of a good friend of mine has his first film, "Minaret," featured in the Northwest Film Forum’s 9th Annual Local Sightings Film Festival. Matthew Cibelli's 11 minute film is about a woman, an old man, and a "grim promise." It's filmed on location in Portland, Oregon. "Minaret" has already played at two other film festivals, and it's one of eight short films up for an award. I've seen "Minaret" on the small screen (i.e. computer laptop), and it looks good. As if that weren't enough, it sounds good, too. It sounds like a real movie.



"Minaret" is screening on Wednesday Oct. 11, 2006, at 9:30pm. The film is part of the ‘Collected Stories’ shorts grouping. If you're local, come see "Minaret" on the big screen. Because Seattle is such a low-key city compared to Hollywood, tiaras and designer gowns are strictly optional. As someone once wrote in a guide-book, dressing up in Seattle means wearing the clean pair of khakis.

The Dancing Shepherdess and the Faerie Queen

Here is a photo of me taken in 1978. I am wearing my shepherdess costume sans crook and kerchief:

The shepherdess costume was great for impromptu dance performances. Sometimes I gave my parents warning ahead of time, but most of the time, everyone had 10 minutes at the most to assemble for the show. Someone found music for me to dance to, and I made up the steps as I danced. I never made any money from these dances (I blame my publicist), but I did develop a knack for performing in front of other people without succumbing to stage-fright. Perhaps that's why I thought my destiny lay in acting. Acting turned out not to be my vocation (though I did have fun with the high school plays), and I tossed aside my early plans to become a ballet dancer after reading Off Balance: The Real World of Ballet, by Suzanne Gordon. Had I been what the dancer Martha Graham referred to as "doom eager" to become an actor or dancer, I would have devoted myself to the performance arts. I probably wouldn't have become a reader, though, or had time to play. It doesn't sound like a life I would have enjoyed.

Even though I never dressed up as a faerie queen* for Halloween, I still got to pretend I was a queen 364 days a year. I made crowns out of aluminum foil, cardboard, and sparkly buttons. The irridescent green and blue skirt I wore for my three-minute performance in Aesop's The Peacock and the Crane** also served as the main attraction of my Freya costume two years later. While school life was dreary and difficult, my play-time was rich and full of imagination.

I've decided that I had a good childhood.

*I was too haughty to be a mere princess.
**I have no recollection of my crane co-star calling me a "dunghill cock," at least onstage.

Eat Your Dessert and Have Your Songs Too...

Next Thursday, I have a toddler storytime and a preschool storytime scheduled at a library just outside of the Seattle city limits. As far as preparation goes, this gig would be just like any other except that I will play the guitar. I plan to play one song for each storytime, though I will have some backup songs prepared. I'm a little nervous, because I'm still having problems with my D chord fingering. The way I play a D chord, I use my middle, ring and pinky fingers. There's not a whole lot of strength in the ring finger, but I'm attached to this fingering because it makes transitions to other chords much, much easier for me. Some of the songs that I am considering for performance are:

Bluebird Through My Window (with changes of colors and appropriate felt props): 2 chords
Join in the Game
(a.k.a. "Let Everyone Clap Hands Like Me"): 2 chords
I Had a Rooster: 3 chords
Tingalayo: 3 chords
Fooba Wooba John: 4 chords

I'd like to play songs that are familiar but not overdone. My Triumvirate of Mediocrity of songs is comprised of (1) "Old MacDonald," (2)"Eensy Weensy Spider," and (3)"The Wheels on the Bus." To be fair, I'm a fan of the spider and bus songs. However, it's a bit daunting when that's all anyone wants to sing. When someone requests all of those songs in one sitting, it's as if I showed up to make that person tiramisu from scratch, and all s/he wants is instant pudding out of a box. I'm not knocking instant pudding. Instant pudding is better than no pudding at all. Still, there's so much more to experience with tiramisu. And songs.

Um... may I have both, please?

Th' Yardarm o' th' Night

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! I'm not much for talking like a pirate (though Stephen Colbert can, and does). However, from time to time, I've been known to attempt to sing like a pirate. Here, then, is a nautical rendition of Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun:

I come homeport in th' mornin' light
Me mother says when ye gonna live yer life starboard
Oh mother dear we`re nay th' fortunate ones
An' lasses they want t' be havin' fun
Oh lasses jus' want t' be havin' fun

Th' phone rings on th' yardarm o' th' night
Me father yells what ye gonna do wi' yer life
Oh daddy dear ye know ye`re still number one
But lasses they want t' be havin' fun
Oh lasses jus' want t' be havin' -

That`s all they really want
Some fun
When th' workin' tide be done
Lasses - they want t' be havin' fun
Oh lasses jus' want t' be havin' fun

Some boys take a beautiful girl
An' hide th' lass' away from th' rest o' th' world
I want t' be th' one t' keel haul in th' sun
Oh lasses they want t' be havin' fun
Oh lasses jus' want t' be havin'

That`s all they really want
Some fun
When th' workin' tide be done
Lasses - they want t' be havin' fun
Oh lasses jus' want t' be havin' fun,
They want t' be havin' fun,
They want t' be havin' fun....

Apologies Accepted (or not)

I read with interest and self-recognition the account of a writer who convinced other people to spam an editor's blog in the hopes of getting published. You can't read the original post anymore, but you can read the comments on literary agent Miss Snark's blog, plus Miss Snark's advice on apologizing:


Here's the thing. You can recover.
This isn't death.

We all screw up.
All of us, every day.

It's what you do after you realize the great idea you had wasn't so great. The email sent in the heat of the moment was overwrought. What sounded funny to you wasn't heard with the same ears. You just screwed up for whatever human reason.

Pick yourself up.
Apologize.
Sincerely.

Some years ago, when I decided to grace my favorite writers with fan letters, I wrote to Kathryn Lasky. I didn't expect a response, but I got one. It was a form letter that began with "Dear Kids!" I was indignant, and I wrote a snotty letter in reply. I hadn't expected her to read the letter I'd sent, and let loose with comparisons to other authors I thought handled fan mail much more professionally. Ms. Lasky wrote back to me, and took me to task. I was humiliated. I wrote her a letter of apology with a self-addressed stamped envelope, asking her just to let me know that she got my letter. She handwrote back, "I got it. Now, dry your eyes and go off to library school to become a wonderful children's librarian."

Anyway, thanks, Kathryn Lasky, for showing compassion. For years, I avoided your books because I was so embarrassed about what I did. It's about time I start reading them again.

Word Verifier On Again

Sorry, guys. I got 9 spam messages today. I know some of you get turned off by word verifier, and don't want to comment as a result. The fact of the matter is the majority of my comments these days come from Anonymous telling me, "Well done!" or "Good design!" For some reason, my self-esteem hasn't soared to new heights (or whatever cliche you prefer).

LIBRARIANS: the COPS version

I've not yet gotten tired of videos featuring librarians as tough-talking enforcers of the peace. This skit is brought to you by the folks from Almost Live (the origin of Bill Nye the Science Guy):

LIBRARIANS

Astronauts Receive What Parents Crave

Headline: Astronauts Allowed Extra Hour of Sleep

Bede asked, "Where can we sign up to become astronauts?"

ALA Midwinter Conference 2007

Ever since I left New York, I have been looking forward to the 2007 American Library Association Midwinter Conference. I was never much of a conference goer in general, and the last time I went to ALA was in my last semester of library school. In January 2007, the conference will be in Seattle, Washington. I won't have to travel anywhere further than a short bus or car ride Downtown. I'm hoping to see friends and colleagues with whom I've lost touch, as well as fellow bloggers who happen to be traveling librarian types. I'm not an ALA member, but I'm planning on registering early. I've not decided for sure yet, but since I am currently unafilliated with a library system (yeah, I substitute, but I'm not considered a staff member), I may have "Saints and Spinners" on my badge.

[Note to potential stalkers reading this post: Back off. Now. And forever.]

The rest of you have an open invitation to hang out, eat cupcakes and gush about Stephen Colbert. Whatever else floats your boat in our drizzly little city is fine, too.

I'll bet you didn't know I had my own celebrity READ poster. Then again, neither does ALA!

Girl in the Apple Dress

There are many versions of the song "There's a Brown Girl in the Ring." My favorite version was sung by a performer whose name I can't remember, but whom I heard at the Yorkville branch of The New York Public Library. My second favorite version can be found on Taj Mahal's folk-blues album for children, Shake Sugaree. It's a circle game song from the Caribbean, and it's quite catchy:

There's a brown girl in the ring
Tra la la la la
There’s a brown girl in the ring
Tra la la la la la
There’s a brown girl in the ring
Tra la la la la
She likes sugar
and I like plum.

Lucia picked up on the song when she was still singing "Tra ya ya ya ya," and the subject of "the girl in the apple dress" came up repeatedly as one of her verses. I told her that I would make her an apple dress when we found the right fabric. And so, here it is:



Lucia now wants a pink fluffy dress for her fairy princess costume. If I can follow the basic theme of the apple dress, I've got a shot. "Why not just buy an inexpensive princess costume?" you might ask. "They're in abundance." Well, yeah, but they don't keep people warm enough in the PNW in late October. It's enough of an affront already to have to wear a coat and boots with a princess costume.* I'm going to be on the lookout for fancy pink flannel.

*Not that I would know. Unlike the lucky dogs who got to be Princess Leia, Wonder Woman, or Audrey Hepburn, I had to dress up in a more practical manner. Over various years, I was a shepherdess, a witch, and Freya (the Norse Goddess of Spring and Love). You know, the usual. In all fairness, I was able to wear my shepherdess costume for several years afterward. It was both warm and decorative enough for impromptu dance recitals.

Verify my post (to the beat of "Justify My Love")

Hey guys, I got five spam messages yesterday through my blog. That's three more than the ones from the day befored. If I am going to keep word verifier off, then make it worth my while, Spinners!

Actually, I take that back. Some of you, being the smarty-pants that you are, will bombard me with one word comments and laugh maniacally at my dismay. O, cruel, cruel Spinners.

Tell me the name of your favorite fairy tale, plus something about the fairy tale that grabs you. Maybe we can get into a knock-down fight over the merits of "Hans my Hedgehog" versus "The Seven Ravens," and hotly contest who's more wicked: Snow-White's stepmother or Bluebeard.

Dwarf Planet? Pluton? Lumpy Thing in Outer Space?

At three years of age, Lucia is already asking the hard questions of life. Bede reports:

Planets

Day of the Bat

A bat is born,
Naked and blind and pale
His mother makes a pocket of her tail
And catches him. He clings
to her long fur
By his thumbs and toes and teeth.
And then the mother dances through the night
Doubling and looping,
Soaring, somersaulting-
Her baby hangs on
underneath.
All night, in happiness,
She hunts and flies.
Her high sharp cries
Like shining needlepoints of sound
Go out into the night and
echoing back,
Tell her what they have touched.
She hears how far it is,
how big it is,
which way it's going:
She lives by hearing.
--from The Bat Poet, by Randall Jarrell, illustrated by Maurice Sendak

In college, my children's literature professor told me, "Of course you like The Bat Poet. That's a book usually only children's librarians like." The basic premise is this: a little brown bat discovers that daylight reveals a completely different, totally fascinating world. He tries to get his fellow bats to stay awake with him, but they refuse. As the bat continues to "stay up" during the day, he meets an assortment of creatures, including a chipmunk who's a great listener, and a self-absorbed mockingbird who claims to have the corner-market on the correct forms of poetry.

While the story intrigued me, it was Sendak's illustrations that catapaulted me into my fascination with bats. I like their looks, the elegant silhouettes of the different wing-spans, the way their wings are actually their hands. At one point in time, I could fill your head with all sorts of facts about bats, where they showed up in folklore, as well as their prevalence in popular culture. You could get me fuming by dismissing bats as "rabid animals that fly into your hair." Hey, there are more people bitten by rabid cats, dogs, squirrels and raccoons. Everyone thinks they're cute.

I bring this subject up now because a new non-fiction children's book about bats was published a few months ago, and I want to read it. It's called Little Lost Bat, by Sandra Markle, illustrated by Alan Marks. If you get to it before I do, let me know what you think.

By the way, in China, bats are representative of happiness and good fortune. You've probably seen some version of the five bats (Longevity, Wealth, Health, Love and a Natural Death at a Ripe Age:



I still collect folktales about bats. One of my favorite ones comes from Cote d'Ivoire. To be continued...

On Notice Board

I was seduced by the sway of Fusenumber8's "On Notice" board, and finally had to create my own. If you, too, need your own version of Stephen Colbert's On Notice board generator, then click away.

Word Verifier Off

I turned Word Verifier off two days ago. Fellow bloggers were getting frustrated with it, and I didn't want to alienate the loyal commenters of S & S. If I didn't care about the thoughts of others, I wouldn't have comments enabled at all. And yes, of course I care about what other people think. I know it's not hip to admit that. Sue me! Get in line.

Yesterday, I didn't get any spam (except for one message I suspect came from a certain jokester), but this morning, I found three new spam messages waiting for me. All of my blog comments get forwarded to my in-box in order that I don't miss messages posted on earlier blog entries. I can deal with three spam messages a day (this is not an invitation to comment on my blog, spammers), but if it gets ridiculous in the way it was before I activated Word Verifier, I'm turning WV back on.

I acknowledge that this is a grouchy post. For the past two weeks, I've felt anything but gleeful. I've had a sore-throat that's not strep, but some wretched little virus that's made talking difficult and singing impossible. If you were to shine a flashlight inside my throat (and for some reason, no one wants to do this), you would see some fascinatingly disgusting-looking sores. You might even be compelled to read Oh, Yuck: The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty, by Joy Masoff. This book is a perennial favorite for summer reading school visits:



There! I knew somehow I could end this post on a cheery note. The codeine is finally kicking in.

Like, totally

Defective Yeti has written an essay in praise of the use of the word like:

Really, "like" is more than just a word -- it is practically a auxiliary verb that puts the entire statement into a new tense. Call it the "Past Approximate." If someone tells you they once ate fourteen eggs in one sitting, you recognize that is a boast; if someone says they ate, like, fourteen eggs, you know instinctively that the number was probably closer to five.
-- from "I Like Like"

Story Trousers

I've finally finished sewing the two pairs of trousers for the 2006 Boyer Children's Clinic auction. Here they are:




Maisy at the Fair goes with the green and white striped trousers because it's one of the few Maisy books that has the matching trousers on the cover. There was also a Maisy pirate book that tempted me, but I wanted to keep costs down.

Speaking of costs... now I have to figure out the fair market prices on the trouser-and-book sets. These items will be on display at the silent auction component of the gala, and their fair market prices won't necessarily match the top bids. The trousers are simple but sturdy, with reinforced seams and extra room in the hips to accomodate "fluffy" diapers.

Lavender's Blue guitar chords in G

No rights reserved! This is a folk-song. Copy, paste, play. The D7 is my particular flourish, but you can have that, too.

Lavender’s Blue

3/4 time

G D C G
Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green
C G D D7
When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen.
G D C G
Who told you so, dilly dilly, who told you so?
C G D7 G
‘Twas my own heart, dilly dilly, that told me so.





G D C G
Call on your friends, dilly dilly, set them to work
C G D D7
Some to the plow, dilly dilly, some to the fork
G D C G
Some to the hay, dilly dilly, some to cut corn,
C G D7 G
While you and I, dilly dilly, keep ourselves warm.





G D C G
Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green
C G D D7
When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen.
G D C G
Who told you so, dilly dilly, who told you so?
C G D7 G
‘Twas my own heart, dilly dilly, that told me so.

Lull

This blog may be quiet for the next few days. I start guitar lessons again this week, Lucia starts preschool next week, and I want to do some research into what it would take to launch Mitzi. I'm not yet confident enough that I can use the guitar in storytimes, but I'm going to do it anyway when I go to my next library gig. I'll be doing both toddler and preschool storytimes at the end of the month. Right now, I'm just taking enough substutute hours to remind people that I still exist, but I've avoided accepting work at the grown-up information desks (with the exception of one beloved library branch with a large international community, and you know who you are). If the work doesn't involve interacting with children on a regular basis, I'm just not interested.

Speaking of children, my own offspring is jealous of the guitar. It used to be that when I practised chords, Lucia would climb up on the couch behind me and hang on my neck, often slinging a leg over my shoulder in the process. She would examine the mole on my neck and say with incredulousness, "It does't hurt!" I had a lot of weight on my shoulders while I practiced, but at least I could still play. Now, Lucia mutes the strings, attempts to push away the guitar, and wails, "Hold you! Hold you like a baby!"

Yes, preschool is starting next week.

I've got a book about a crew of mermaid vampire pirates I'd like you to read...

Here's a recent article I read about children's book publishing, courtesy of Fusenumber8:

Weddings, Funerals, and Everywhere In Between, by Diane Roback

The occupational hazards to working in children's publishing are legion. As I read through the stories about people with book ideas approaching publishers in bathroom stalls and at funerals, I remembered one relatively benign but still cringeworthy episode that started out so well: my manuscript was one of 15 selected to undergo scrutiny by an editor at Candlewick Press. We had 15 minutes to talk about the manuscript. At minute 12, I blurted out the premise of a novel I was working on. The editor nodded and said something vaguely encouraging, but I inwardly kicked myself. For what was I hoping? That, like the late, great Ursula Nordstrom, she'd say, "Oh, wonderful! You write that book and I'll read it?" Dream on. (Anyway, now you know one of my embarrassing secrets, which, like my other embarrasing secrets, usually make no one cringe but myself.)

Speaking of Ursula Nordstrom, it's worth reading Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, edited by Leonard Marcus. Nordstrom was the now-legendary children's book editor of Harper & Row (Harper and Collins). Chances are that some of your favorite children's books made it into your hands thanks to Nordstrom. If you're not inclined to read Dear Genius, at least check out this book review: Confessions of a Former Child, by Rebecca Pepper Sinkler.

Mitzi

I've started a blog for my storytelling gigs to have in place for the time when I am ready to be more than semi-professional. I say "semi" professional because I've gotten paid for storytelling gigs, I've trained as a storyteller in a public library setting, but for tax purposes, I'm still listed as a Home-Maker. That title smarts, because for all the lip-service paid to parenting, the title is still a euphemism for "non-wage earner."

I'm scared to market myself. I've had to come to terms with my childhood and teenage ambitions of greatness. I always assumed that I'd be a famous and successful writer, and that if I worked at the writing long and hard enough, the expected accolades would follow. High school writing classes were harsh wake-up calls, and my grades plummeted to C's. I had a hard time with criticism.

Now, I think I'm a pretty good writer, a pretty good storyteller, and I want to become even better over the years. Still, I don't have the drive to put my writing and storytelling above everything else. There are a lot of people my age and younger who are way more gifted than I am, and I'm fine with that. I really am. Most days. Some days I want to be the best at something that other people desire to do well, but it's fleeting. Most days, I want to be good enough.

What I really want is tell stories, sing songs and be a presence in the community. I want to be in demand for local library and school programs without being in competition with other storytellers and performers in the area. I want to put "Storyteller" in the spots on forms where it says to list my profession, and I don't want to cringe when I do it. I am scared that I don't have what it takes to market myself.

I'll do what I have always done, which is fake the confidence until it becomes real.
That brings me to my new blog, Mitzi. She drives the bus:

Mitzi Drives the Bus*
"Stories and songs for the long road ahead"

Link updated to reflect my storytelling website.