Monday, January 27, 2014

Musing on the Caldecotts and my favorites...


This Morning the ALA, the American Library Association announced the  winners and honors for 2013's best work in Juvenile  Literature. Amongst other awards the Newberry for the best writing went to Kate DiCamillo, who has to also get the award for getting the announcement up on her website the fastest...

FLORA & ULYSSES


and  the Caldecott, for the best of Illustration of a picture book went to Brian Floca's...

 LOCOMOTIVE

It's a big deal, this year with a live feed Monday morning, which I watched on my laptop, in my PJ's, in bed at 6:30 my time, while trying to keep up with the #alayma or #ala14yma on my tablet... yeah it is a bit much for someone with dsylexia.

For the Caldecott, I was rooting for David Wiesner's MR. WUFFLES...


An absolute hilarious depiction of tiny aliens invading our planet and becoming play things for a bored cat! The near wordless picture book did get a Caldecott Honor Silver award this year.

I have taken workshops from Wiesner, twice at the SCBWI LA Conference and this last August he treated us to the process of making MR. WUFFLES , from the pretty "loopy" spark of an idea that started with mini plastic soldiers in a sand box and then evolved to the hilarious first steps of the aliens on our plant and well, Mr. Wuffles, who is based of his cat. Wiesner following the poor cat around with a "kitty cam" on a stick! Go HERE for more delightful info on an ingenious book!

Wiesner is such a delight to learn from, for him everything goes back to craft and excellence,  and it is so nice to hear, amongst the ever present push of platforms, social media and well "hyping" up your book. Wiesner's books need no hyping up, proven by  his 2007 Caldecott wining book...

FLOTSAM
a gorgeously illustrated picture book with panels visually telling the story of a boy's discovery of a magical old camera on the beach and where it transports him to. 

Wiesner has actually won the Caldecott three times, also in 2002 for...

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS

and in 1992 for...
TUESDAY

I couldn't get my hands on a copy of MR. WUFFLES at the last conference, but did pick up another one of Wiesner's great books....

ART & MAX

and he was gracious enough to write a little note to my art students in it...


Well, I actually asked him to write "Miss Julia is right, draw all the time" but he corrected me and wrote correct.

I'm planning on using the picture book to teach an art unit this spring. The antics of Arthur and the hard to handle Max, who won't slow down. Wiesner's book of two lizards with the back drop of the Southwest experimenting with splashy painting  like Jackson Pollock and dots like George Seurat will be a wonderful connection for my Native American and rural ranch kids who live very far way from high cultural.

I'm exicited now for the 2014 Society of Childern's Book Writer and Illustrator Conference in August to see who will be coming... probably not Wiesner this year but who knows, maybe Brian Floca or Aaron Becker, who also won a Caldecott Honor for ....

JOURNEY
another gorgeously illustrated picture book. Maybe lush and detailed is coming back in?

The third Caldecott Honor goes to Molly Idle, yeah A girl!!! for...

FLORA AND THE FLAMINGO

So apparently Flora was a popular baby book name, for writers a few years ago!

All the news, so very exciting, as was cheering along with everybody else live this year. To read all about it go to NPR's coverage on their blog HERE

Oh and one more shot out for Holly Black's DOLL BONES, a Newberry Honor this year,  which I have not read, but have chatted with Black when she was at SCBWI LA a couple of years ago, so big Congrats! but have to say Eliza Wheeler's illustration is my favorite of all the book covers up for awards...


Is there an award for the best illustrated book cover?... there should be!





Friday, January 17, 2014

A Moment...


A moment, from my week, loving my kindergartners "mixed media, mixed animals"
To see more bloggers "moments" go to SouleMamma

Monday, January 13, 2014

Above Salt Lake...



I can't take credit for this amazing picture, taken above Salt Lake. My daughter took it at the top of one of Park City's ski runs, or I should say snowboard runs.
After two days humoring me and going along for the ride around Salt Lake City, see here, we headed up into the Wasatch Mountains, and in about forty minutes were in Park City...



Where much of the 2002 Winter Olympics took place and where in a few weeks the slopes and streets would be filled with actors and "beautiful people" for the Sundance Film Festival.
But a week ago, they were filled with my beautiful people, daughter #1 brushing up on her snow board "toe side" skills, whatever that means....


And Daughter #2 doing some Nordic and X Country skiing with her dad....


 After dropping everyone off on the mountain, I intended to "get some work done" for the afternoon, but ended up going back to the hotel and taking a nap, Holiday planning is exhausting for the mom. But after a few hours , everyone was ready for a break...



and  we warmed up at Atticus Coffee and Books.... 


Which has the coolest painted floor.

It was rather a long time before one daughter, I won't say which, admitted she had just realized the coffee shop was inspired by Atticus from TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD, this after I pointed out the dozen cut out black birds hanging from the ceiling and the Boo Radley peanut brittle and yes, both girls have read the book in school.... and seen the movie.

 Oh my, think the brain just gets shut off for the Christmas break.

Everyone warmed up,  some went back to the hotel for another nap, not saying who and some went back to the slopes, now lit up against the coming dusk...




And then a little while later, we met up again and drove back to Main Street, this time surrounded by colored lights against the snow... 


                                    where we found food and drink at the Wasatch Brew Pub.


And then came Sunday and it was time to go home, so we drove back down the mountain, but timed it just right to hit Salt Lake City's  IN- N -OUT. Yup, they have one, the Salt Lake Basin must be only's a days drive from America's best burger and fries distribution centers. There are only three choices for burger combinations and fries, that is it on the menu, but yum....

Even though it was a little weird to have IN-N-OUT in the snow. Places we usually get it- Arizona, Nevada or California where you can spot the burger joint by the towering crossed palm trees....I don't think palm trees would grow in Salt Lake.

Monday, January 06, 2014

A Gentile Weekend in Salt Lake...


Usually to ring in the New Year we go south into New Mexico and Indian Country...


 but this year we celebrated the coming of 2014 at home and then the next day drove north into Utah and Mormon Country.
Meandering  up through the familiar scenery around Moab...

 we finally reached 1-70 and took it west and then at Green River followed the railroad and old Highway 6 up north again past Price where we took a detour around the old town of Helper....





and I was amazed that such a little town had so many old hotels. Situated at the mouth of Price Canyon since the early 1880's, Helper is a railroad/ mining town named for the "helper" engines that were needed to get the coal trains over the steep grade leading up to Soldier Summit. I guess many railroad worker and miner needed a place to stay, but also wonder if Helper, situated a little bit more than half the way from Salt Lake City and the outlaying setttlements such as Moab, Monticello, Bluff and Blanding, catered also to the Mormon traveler on their way to the Salt Lake Temple.
Continuing our journey,over Soldier Summit and past the wind turbine farm below on the other side, we popped out at Spanish Forks, where we headed north between the Wasatch Mountains to the west...


and the Great Salt Lake and Flats to the East to downtown Salt Lake City...


Now you are probably wondering why "Gentiles" would want to spend a weekend in Salt Lake City, where up to a few years ago was so vastly Mormon it was hard to find coffee or tea in any form, let a lone a good micro brewery and everything, except Temple Square was shut down tight on Sundays, yes it is open all day Sunday.
I remember passing through, when the girls were little, Jon being highly motivated to find his morning coffee. We drove around and around  trying to find any place that had some caffeine and finally found a "Gentile" Auto Garage mechanic who shared his hot pot from behind the counter. Another time in the heat of the summer, I ordered ice tea off the fresh new menu and was told that the tea was actually coming, as in the whole set up of serving tea was coming but not there yet.
Guess what, things have changed, thanks hugely to the 2002 Winter Olympics that brought this city and the ski resorts above it to world wide attention and as of  the 2010 census, Salt Lake is over 50% Gentile.
And now there is some pretty cool revitalization downtown, complete with a tram...


The Gateway Mall, built up around the old Union Pacific Train Yard and just a  few blocks  from Temple Square hosts some fantastic shopping, nice hotels, a great Mega-Plex movie theater and a Starbucks in the Clock Tower.
But since its establishment in 1847, when Brigham Young, the LDS colonizer and second president, upon seeing the Great Salt Lake basin, declared"This is the place", Salt Lake City was intended to be the capitol of a new nation, Zion...


A stark contrast to another old capitol, where streets in Santa Fe, made a Spanish Capitol in 1610, are barely wide enough for two burro carts to pass...


Salt Lake City was from the beginning a planned community, with extra wide streets...


and "awe" inspiring monuments like the Eagle Gate, which you pass under on your way down from the Capitol Building on State Street, where if you turn onto  S Tempe you go past Brigham Young's grand residence, the Bee Hive House, which was being de-decorated while we were there, the holidays finally over...


and past the old Utah Hotel, now known as the Joseph Smith Memorial Building...


grand enough to be built in Washington D.C.

But in downtown Salt Lake the grandest of them all, is Temple Square. 
Mormon or not, anyone interested in architecture and the history of how "the West was won", has to be impressed by the tenacity that it took to build the Temple...


and the Assembly Hall, built in 1880 with the left over stone from constructing the Temple...




Another beautiful fascade, around the corner from Temple Square on Main St.  is the old  ZCMI building....



Created in 1866, the Zion Cooperative Mercantile Institution's  purpose was to either protect the Mormons from the price gouging of the Gentile merchants around them, or to drive out the competition that had come to make the Salt Lake basin their home as well. Which way it was is up to interpretation, but the original store still stands, an amazing example of Victorian architecture and has now been taken over by Macy's. 
And the Mormon church is not out of the mercantile business, investing millions if not billions in a downtown revitalization where across the street from the old ZCMI,  the new crowning jewel is the City Creek Center, upscale shopping complete with fountains and  a constructed creek...
.

But don't be fooled by Salt Lake's squeeky clean appearence, it still is a big city, with all the big city stuff, including almost getting my purse, cell phone and tablet ripped from my hands at the Gateway Mall, a  man, complete with hoodie over his head and dark glasses, who abruptly changed course right near my shoulder, when at the bottom of an escalator, a mall security guard just happened to walk by. The reason I was carrying my purse, loose in my hand is because running back to the car alone, well with a kid in tow,  I was also carrying  my husband's very valuable work laptop, as in the family's source of income, secure in a backpack, I usually do carry my purse diagonal across me and zipped. 
Well I spied the man, switched my purse to the other hand and then became a "Mamma" Bear and glared at him until he crossed over to the other side of the street. 
But the thing I have learned about Salt Lake and the Four Corners, is where the "rubber band" is too tightly wound one direction, eventually, the extreme opposite comes to exist as well. Parts of Salt Lake City have a "hipster" and alternative vibe to them, none more than the Sugar House neighborhood, where on 15th and 15th there is an Eisenstein Bagel, Starbucks, contemporary gallery, a cool bookstore with  a very contemporary and liberal clientele and surrounding the intersection, a neighborhood of renovated Arts and Craft style bungalows...




and an inordinate number of double entry "duplexes" or what we like to call "polygamy houses"...


  for such a neighborhood built in the 1920's and 30's. Seen throughout the Mormon communities in the Four Corners, double entry houses or duplexes were a convenient layout for those following "the Principle" set forth by Joseph Smith and practiced until the church began excommunicating  members for having more then one wife in the beginning of the 20th century. 

For many things in Salt Lake, I am too liberal and to the left, for some other "new" ideas I am too conservative, but again that is what brings me again and again back to Utah. A  place much like Jerusalem, The Salt Lake temple is aligned to the Holy City which was an inspiration to the founders the New Zion and like the Holy City, Salt Lake has always been and will always be city in conflict of culture and beliefs, in a place as inhospitable as the Holy Land.