Blog Archives

Mystery Snails

11/28/2014

    With four new mystery snails (aka apple snails) in my tank, I am a happy person. I love to walk past the tank and catch these graceful creatures creeping, gliding, and munching algae. Watching their delicate antennae test the waters is definitely a great meditation. If I'm lucky, I might get to see one detach itself from a plastic plant and launch into the stratosphere, drifting casually down to the pebble-strewn surface.
    I might regret this excess later, but I indulged a whim and bought a golden snail (we're calling him Sun, Sunshine, or sometimes Helio--the family can't agree), a black snail (Shadow), a blue snail (he looks green to us, so we're calling him Jade), and a white snail (named Ivory).
    We're not ready for a dog. These one-footed aquatic wonders will keep us entertained for a while. Of course, having a fish tank isn't all roses. Did I mention that ours leaked on Thanksgiving day and dumped a quart of water all over the table, floor, and school papers while we were away? It wasn't a fun clean-up job at 8 p.m. on a holiday. Luckily, all our snail residents were okay.

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We Met Illustrator Jim LaMarche

11/8/2014

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This morning my youngest daughter and I set out for Kepler's Books to meet the illustrator of two of our all-time favorite books, The Rain Babies and The Elves and the Shoemaker. Lucky us! Jim LaMarche came to our local bookstore with some of his original sketches and illustrations for his latest published children's picture book, Winter Is Coming (written by Tony Johnston). In a combination of colored pencil, watercolors, and acrylic paints, the illustrations are rich, gorgeously detailed, and filled with varying qualities of light. They feature Jim's signature character faces--thoughtful and angelic.

My 6 year old was quite the talkative art critic today. When Jim pulled out his sketch book and began whipping up the wonderful rabbit you see accompanying this post, she confidently told him that a rabbit's ears are not that long. Luckily, Jim had infinite patience with his young audience members. He suggested the possibility that this might be a jack rabbit, which solved the issue diplomatically. Bless him, he even let the kids add grass and leaves to his rabbit sketch! My daughter added the two leaves on the bottom right, one of which she specified as being a "ginko" leaf.

I had seen Jim LaMarche once before, at a benefit event for a local preschool--before I owned any of his books. So I knew this was going to be good. It was even more meaningful this time, attending as an aspiring author. I came away from this experience with a much deeper appreciation for the layers of depth and detail that an excellent illustrator adds to a story.

For instance, in Winter Is Coming, a girl observes the seasonal changes in nature and in the lives of foraging animals from her tree house vantage point, where she sits and draws in her sketch book. However, the text never mentions the gender of the character, or a tree house, or a sketch book! Those elements were all included as part of Jim's artistic license. As winter approaches, the little girl is shown wearing warmer layers of clothing. Again, this detail comes from the artist's bag of tricks. What a treat it was to hear about the illustrator's process, from a top-noch professional like Jim LaMarche.

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A Slice of Heaven

11/4/2014

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Last week, I made an angel food cake from scratch. A slice of that cake is a little slice of heaven. When asking for seconds, my 1st grader says she'd like to have "another piece of cloud." I've been wanting to bake this cake for a long, long time. Not because I'm a particular fan of angel food (I'm a dark chocolate fan), but because of a story my mom has always told me, since I was small.

When my mom was a girl, her family's traditional birthday treat was angel food cake. Her mother always baked it from scratch, of course (this was the 1930s, so there was no boxed option)--using a dozen egg whites. What a production. With a cake like that, how could you feel anything but special on your birthday? I wanted to step into my grandmother's shoes for a moment, and experience the "from scratch" magic for myself. Baking this cake would be like settling into my mother's childhood for the afternoon.

I'm not keen on the modern, boxed variety of angel food. That's the kind my mom made, by the way. To me it has a faint metallic taste with undertones of chemical additives. I'm happy to report that a home-made, "from scratch" cake is delightful. The meringue batter is like ambrosia from the gods. In fact, my kids and I attacked the spatulas while the cake was in the oven, and I was heard to say, "I could eat a whole boatload of this batter." And flipping that cake pan upside down onto a wine bottle to cool really brought back childhood memories. Note the pink tint to my cake. Food coloring...only two drops. My little girls were delighted with the fluffy pinkness of the finished product. And it reminded me of the cake from the Seven Silly Eaters--"so high, and light and smooth as silk"..."it's pink from all my lemonade, I think!" Like Mrs. Peters, this cake made me really happy!

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