Way-back art

When I was in second grade, every now and then our teacher would select a story for publication. She would discuss with the author where the page breaks should be, then send the story off to a friend, who typed the story on onion paper. Then the author was allowed to *skip* a classroom assignment to do the coloring for each book page. Then the book was sent off again to be bound. The author provided the fabric for the book cover. When it was finished, the author had the option to have the book placed in the school library.

My book was called "My Trip to Marsasip." It started out being to Mars, but that seemed too... ordinary, compared to a fanciful unknown planet.


Here is my book cover. All of the patchwork is factory printed.


Here is the Date Due pocket. It was written in 1975. Many of the reader instances were me or my brother.


Here we see me and Koldy near the end of the book. He has wheels instead of feet and changes his colors and patterns constantly. Not only is that visually interesting, but it tosses continuity out the window. Important stuff to a nine-year-old.


This is towards the beginning of the story, packing in my bedroom.


This is my actual bedroom in 1975. Remember, America's bicentennial was approaching and I fully embraced the red, white, and blue theme.



Going around the room clockwise, there are my bracket shelves of knickknacks, the star-spangled bedspread, the USA curtains. My mom was a straight-line seamstress with her turquoise Viking sewing machine, but she did make these curtains.



Nice big area rug, forty-eight star American flag from my grandmother, antique school desk (my great-grandfather ran an antique shop), Dressy Bessy doll, Waffle Quilt stuffed dogs, fish mobile made from a punch-out fold-together cardstock kit-book.



My antique dresser and vanity set. I still use the dresser. The drawers are quite deep. The vanity is in my parents' basement. It became my computer desk in junior high, holding my TRS-80 Model I, Level 2, with cassette "drive." I still have those lamps, too.


The doll crib was an antique from the shop. The pegboard hold my orange AM radio, some glued-felt-on-masonite art of mine, and two embroidered samplers from my grandma.

Unshelved - Pimp My Bookcart 2007

One of the online comics I read is Unshelved. It takes place in a library.

In 2006, they had a series of comics about pimping (or gussying up) a bookcart instead of a car (a la the TV show Pimp My Ride).

It inspired a contest last year and the results are now in for 2007.

And also check out their Sunday Book Club. Good stuff.

I've been tagged

La Maitresse tagged me to join in the latest book meme. This one seems simple - say 15 things about books. Here goes...

1. I like books. Lots of books.

2. I prefer non-fiction to fiction because there is so much stuff to learn about. But I liked the short stories in Good Housekeeping magazine.

3. My favorite book is The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Raskin wrote cool books. My dad once overheard my sixth grade teacher speaking to another teacher about me. Teacher said, "I have two students reading Ellen Raskin books right now, but only Heidi is weird enough to appreciate it." She didn't know that the man standing there was my dad. We took pride in her comment.

4. My next favorite book is How to Become King by Jan Terlouw. It is a Dutch book, translated to English. It is out of print and used copies cost around $40. I see know it is similar to the labors of Hercules.

5. The first word I could read was FREE. It was on a sign we passed often while traveling through downtown. "FREE car wash with tank of gasoline." My dad said that if the only other word I learned to read was Restroom, then I would do okay.

6. In college, I took a photography class the same quarter that I took Intro to Children's Literature (Kiddie Lit). I also took Russian History and Differential Equations that term. I was able to combine Photography and Kiddie Lit by photographing how to bind a small book (Step-by-step assignment) and then gluing the photos into the blank book and writing the explanation (write a book assignment).

7. I also wrote one Russian class paper on American Kiddie Lit concerning Russia over the years, the idea being that how children perceived Russia/the USSR would be determined by what they read as much as what they heard from adults around them.

8. Pre-homework for the class was to read the huge, real (non-textbook) Nicholas and Alexandria by Robert K. Massie, which I read all during our college band bus tour to NYC.

9. I never read Goodnight Moon until I was a mom.

10. Since both of my kids now have a library card of their own, we can check out a total of 180 books combined at any one time. CHG's card is his own.

11. In second grade, if the teacher liked your story, she would have it typed onto sheets of onion paper and you were allowed to illustrate the pages and then she had a book made. Kids could have the book put into the school library. It was returned to me when I went up to seventh grade. A few kids other than me had also checked it out. It was called "My Trip to Marsasip." (MAR-suh-sip) It was going to be My Trip to Mars, then My Trip to the Sun, but I changed it. The planets surface kept changing colors. It was a feature, not a bug, so I didn't have to remember what to draw from page to page. (See photos below.)

12. My answer to many situations are to go read a book. Got engaged? Go to the library, get some books. Expecting a baby? Go to the library, read some books. All those research papers rubbed off on me. And juvenile non-fiction is the best. Lots of pictures, clear text, basic examples. If you want to know about the Civil War or Origami or John Muir, go to kid nonfiction.

13. My dad has nearly every National Geographic Magazine ever published, starting with his dad's collection. I don't know what we will do with it when he no longer needs it. I think all of it is now available on CD-ROM. But I had a great time writing about John Muir in sixth grade and have a cite in my bibliography from a 1888 magazine.

14. I wanted to write that bio paper on Jacques Cousteau, but we couldn't find any books about him. In 1979? How weird was that? My teacher said that one article in TV Guide wasn't enough and I switched to John Muir.

15. I am currently reading The Decorated Journal by Gwen Diehr.

I'll tag Todd & Sage. I don't know if Sage does memes. I know she likes books.



Cover. A fabric from home that articulated the terrain of Marsasip.


My bedroom really did have 10" wide red/white/blue stripes on one wall.


Black oranges just sounded cool.


These were not all from just me and my brother.