CLOUD KEY & Milne Essay on Cupboards

Which Way?
2012 Linnea Heaney

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about children's literature: illuminating children’s books

 

authors: author Q&A 

essays: Linnea’s notes 

for early literacy: informing literacy activities

illustrators: illustrator Q&A

LIN little corners: children’s activity ideas 

Linnea's reading corner: on Linnea’s publications 

on art: art and literature 

on poetry: poetry focus

on writing: about writing, the writing life 

reading corner: book titles to look up 

story map: on crafting a manuscript

words: words to contemplate



Guest essay from A.A. Milne (in public domain):

http://essays.quotidiana.org/milne/cupboard/

Linnea's Website

https://www.linneaheaney.com/

Linnea's Illuminated Notes

https://linneaheaney.blogspot.com/

Linnea's Illustrated Stories

https://writerlinnea.blogspot.com/

Melville's Bookcase

This past spring I walked into the Rosenbach Museum & Library for the first time. The Rosenbach houses many works of literature, including illustrator-author Maurice Sendak’s papers. Others attending a workshop were arriving at the same time and I wandered through the crowd to an impressive bookcase. When the workshop began, it was announced that Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) had died earlier that week. Since I had been on the road, I hadn’t heard the news. The rest of the day took on a feeling of serendipity as I walked through the Sendak exhibit and talked to a curator about the books in the museum’s library.

Later in the day, I learned that the bookcase in the entry had been Herman Melville’s bookcase and a favorite of Maurice Sendak. I stood by the bookcase, just feet from Maurice Sendak’s only mural, and studied the old volumes.

 

Today I was reminded of the book, Dear Genius, and looked up the letter from Ursula Nordstrom to Sendak in 1961. Apparently Sendak had mentioned that he felt Melville had “a lot of furniture” in his books, meaning facts. And, at the time, Sendak felt that his world was “furniture-less.” Nordstrom, the great editor, replied in a prophetic and supportive way.
 

August 21, 1961

To Maurice Sendak 

. . . I loved your long letter and hope it clarified some things for you to write it. Sure, Tolstoy and Melville have a lot of furniture in their books . . .
 

You wrote “my world is furniture-less. It is all feeling” . . . You also wrote “Knowledge is the driving force that puts creative passion to work”—a true statement, and also very well put. But it would include self knowledge for some as well as knowledge of facts for others . . . 
 

You wrote "It would be wonderful to want to believe in God. The aimlessness of living is too insane." That is the creative artist—a penalty of the creative artist—wanting to make order out of chaos. The rest of us plain people just accept disorder (if we even recognize it) and get a bang out of our five beautiful senses, if we're lucky. Well, not making any sense but will send this anyhow . . . . 

From Ursula Nordstrom
 

I remember standing in front of Melville’s bookcase again and again that day last spring. Sendak spent a lifetime finding lost, abandoned furniture to place in the rooms of his illustrations. Self-knowledge and making order out of chaos seems to me to have been the passionate story revealed through his art. He made the world more understandable and orderly, sometimes for children, sometimes for adults. Melville’s bookcase is at home among Sendak’s stories and illustrations.

 

Letter excerpt (page 145) from:

DEAR GENIUS: THE LETTERS OF URSULA NORDSTROM collected and edited by Leonard S. Marcus (HarperCollins, 1998).

Selected books:

NUTSHELL LIBRARY, story and pictures by Maurice Sendak (Harper & Row, 1962). 

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, story and pictures by Maurice Sendak (Harper & Row, 1963). 

IN THE NIGHT KITCHEN, story and pictures by Maurice Sendak (Harper & Row, 1970). 

OUTSIDE OVER THERE, story and pictures by Maurice Sendak (Harper & Row, 1981). 

BRUNDIBAR, retold by Tony Kushner, pictures by Maurice Sendak (Hyperion, 2003). 

HIGGLETY PIGGLETY POP! OR THERE MUST BE MORE TO LIFE, story and pictures by Maurice Sendak (Harper & Row, 1967). 

THE SIGN ON ROSIE’S DOOR, story and pictures by Maurice Sendak (Harper & Row, 1960).

LITTLE CORNER ACTIVITY:

1.    Read The Sign on Rosie’s Door.

2.    Find markers or crayons and construction paper plus string and tape.

3.    Help children make a sign for a door at home using words and/or drawings.

4.    Assist children in making a group sign for a school door.

5.    Encourage dress-up and putting together a musical show.

6.    Invite an audience to enter the door with the sign to see the musical show.

 

Teddy Bear Stories

On a November day in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear in Mississippi. A cartoon about the incident appeared in The Washington Post. Brooklyn, New York shop owners made a handmade bear and put it in their storefront window with the sign: “Teddy’s bear.” And, as they say, history was made.

Bear Books:

FAMOUS BEARS & FRIENDS, WRITTEN AND COLLECTED by Janet Wyman Coleman (Dutton, 2002).

WINNIE-THE-POOH (80^th Anniversary Ed.) by A. A. Milne, pictures by Ernest Shepard (Dutton, 2006).

CORDUROY, story and pictures by Don Freeman (Viking Press, 1968).

A BEAR CALLED PADDINGTON (50^th Anniversary Ed.), story and pictures by Michael Bond (Houghton Mifflin, 2008).

BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE? by Bill Martin Jr., pictures by Eric Carle (Henry Holt, 1967).

OLD BEAR, story and pictures by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow, 2008).

THE TEDDY BEAR, story and pictures by David McPhail (Henry Holt, 2002).

WHAT ABOUT BEAR?, story and pictures by Suzanne Bloom (Boyds Mills press, 2010).

HUMPHREY’S BEAR by Jan Wahl, pictures by William Joyce (Henry Holt, 1987).

JESSE BEAR, WHAT WILL YOU WEAR? by Nancy White Carlstrom, pictures by Bruce Degen (Aladdin, 1996).

JAMBERRY, story and pictures by Bruce Degen (HarperCollins, 1983).

THE TEDDY BEARS’ PICNIC by Jimmy Kennedy, pictures by Alexandra Day (Green Tiger Press, 1983).

Educator Corner:

THE WILDERNESS WARRIOR: THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE CRUSADE FOR AMERICA by Douglas Brinkley (HarperCollins, 2009).

LITTLE CORNER ACTIVITY:

1. Read Teddy Bears’ Picnic.
2. Learn to sing “Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”
3. Assist children in planning a “teddy bears picnic day” and hold an elaborate or simple picnic day.
4. Children can make teddy bear masks to wear to the picnic.
5. A huge, newsprint-size map to the picnic area can be drawn by everyone on the floor.
6. Select games to play and gather needed balls or other equipment.
7. Children can make small sandwiches and cupcakes.
8. Each child can bring a favorite teddy bear and/or stuffed animal to school for the day and/or to the outdoor picnic site.
9. Children can serve sandwiches and pour drinks to share with their teddy bears.
10. Sing “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” while having a teddy bear parade around the picnic grounds.
11. Illustrate the teddy bears picnic day in artwork.
12. All can have a teddy bear nap time.

Summer Curriculum

Children’s literature and, especially, picture/story books expand a teacher’s curriculum and a parent and child’s world. Books, and the teachers and parents using the books, are a tremendous influence in the lives of children. Stories are the backbone of culture and in today’s times, present the most compelling way of anchoring children and families in society. Summer is a great time to visit the library and be role models for children in reading books. It is also a great time to make new family memories.

Picture book stories can spring from an author’s own memories, fictional stories woven together with pictures that connect with young children. Family Pictures can be used to show a parent a way to talk about family history. The book is excellent for teachers working with young children and with families in family literacy settings and efforts. Literacy activities for the child in a classroom setting and for the whole family in the home setting can expand into a whole summer curriculum. All the World presents another view of our place in the world for children and families to share. Liz Scanlon’s book is a Caldecott (Randolph Caldecott Medal) Honor Book.

FAMILY PICTURES CUADROS DE FAMILIA, story and pictures by Carmen Lomas Garza (Children’s Book Press, 1990).

ALL THE WORLD by Liz Garton Scanlon, pictures by Marla Frazee (Beach Lane Books, 2009).

In learning about nonfiction stories, children’s books are strong in focusing on the less well-known, intriguing facts of history and the stories that make people and events come alive. For example, if one wants to learn more about the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, two recent books come to mind. The first book was written by Buzz Aldrin, one of the astronauts on the initial moon-landing flight. The Brian Floca’s book, Moonshot, is a Sibert Medal (Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award) Honor Book.

REACHING FOR THE MOON by Buzz Aldrin, pictures by Wendell Minor (HarperCollins, 2005).

MOONSHOT: THE FLIGHT OF APOLLO 11, story and pictures by Brian Floca (Atheneum Books, 2009).

Fictional middle grade and young adult books often use a real setting or a period in history to create a story around.  The Gary Schmidt’s book is a Newbery (John Newbery Medal) Honor Book. The following two books represent only a couple of small windows of a huge library of wonderful books.

LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY by Gary D. Schmidt (Yearling, 2004).

ESPERANZA RISING by Pam Muñoz Ryan (Scholastic, 2002).

Books show the way for teachers and parents to ask open-ended questions for discussions about characters and conflicts in the stories.

LITTLE CORNER ACTIVITY:

1.    Ask children and family members to draw pictures about their family memories, events and world.

2.    Create scrapbooks with family photographs, drawings, and written versions of family stories.

3.    Share the creations at home and in classrooms.

4.    How do the stories read relate to our lives today?

Poetry Notes

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41

YOUNG PEOPLE’S POETRY WEEK

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5625

A good basic reference for teachers and poets:

THE TEACHERS & WRITERS: HANDBOOK OF POETIC FORMS, edited by Ron Padgett (Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 2cd ed. 2000).

LITTLE CORNER ACTIVITY:

1.    Look into your own backyard or nearby park. What do you see?

2.    Put pencil to paper and write or draw the things that you saw without stopping.

3.    Try to arrange a few words and feelings into short lines.

4.    Think about fitting the ideas into a fun poetry form—an alphabet poem or a list poem. A haiku is short. A prose poem is longer. A couplet is just two lines that usually rhyme.

Here is my couplet poem:

In my garden, lives a green anole. He turns brown

when I chase him into the primroses that grow all ‘round.

Will I write another two lines? What else do I want to say?

5.    So keep writing—the secret to finding success is to never give up. If you write and read, you will be a better writer and reader.

Poetry books for reading aloud:

YOU COME TOO: FAVORITE POEMS FOR YOUNG READERS by Robert Frost (Henry Holt, 1959).

A FAMILY OF POEMS: MY FAVORITE POETRY FOR CHILDREN, edited by Caroline Kennedy (Hyperion, 2005).

SHARING THE SEASONS: A BOOK OF POEMS, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010).

More books for poetry study:

A POETRY HANDBOOK by Mary Oliver (Harcourt Brace, 1994).

RULES FOR THE DANCE by Mary Oliver (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).

A POET’S GUIDE TO POETRY by Mary Kinzie (University of Chicago Press, 1999).