Off Holiday

Officially I won't be back up and running with regular blog posts until Monday. I should have decompressed and acclimatized enough by then to talk about books again. But one can't take a trip abroad and not come back and make a few comments.











First, IcelandAir: Worst. Airline. Ever. No matter how many times their "convenient" mid-way layovers in Reykjavik come up as the cheapest way to European destinations, resist the urge at all costs. What's not to like? After being told of a two-hour weather-related flight delay we were promised our connecting flight would wait for us at the other end.

It did not.

In fact, it was leaving the ground as ours was taxiing to the gate. Other joys: clueless guest services (they didn't even know about their own customer's rights policy, despite a posted sign), uncomfortable planes (no, really, worse than normal), weird Icelandic food in flight (meatballs made of fish? salmon carrot salad?), disorganized boarding procedures (herded into holding areas, no controlled board procedures), and the only flight (of 5) that departed and landed on time was our re-routed flight from Sweden (!) on a different airline.

That said, Paris was as beautiful as always, despite my shaky nighttime-without-a-tripod photography.


















For some odd reason my first shot was of a scooter.



















My last shot was also, though it was in Amsterdam.












Versailles is opulent.











This was the summer home away from the palace? No wonder the people revolted. I wonder what would happen if the excesses of our government were as visibly tangible. Oh yes, the traditional garden shot from Versailles.












And the Louvre, where you can take pictures of people taking pictures of artwork they can buy postcards of in the museum store.












Including strange self portraits in a room full of ancient Assyrian carved-stone gates reflected in a giant arced mirror.









Trust me, despite my pictures the Louvre was as crowded as the evacuation of Beijing.



And there were doorways




















And doorways



















And then a train to Amsterdam where arty nighttime shots were attempted (lack of focus deliberate)












And it was a big gay pride weekend, with parade flotillas along the canals












The commuter parking lots looked like this, explaining why European cities are so quiet. And require less road work.












Of course, with such quaint small streets...












They need smaller vehicles.












You can't ignore the flower market









(yes, 40 roses for about $10.25 USD)

But these are what the tulips look like right now












Unless you want fake wooden ones.











Naturally there was much that can't be properly photographed. The food, the cafe sits, the sudden insights while drifting off to sleep about the organic differences between American and European literature and how much those writers we consider literary follow that European model, browsing bookstores, coffeeshops, red light districts, art in museums where you cannot take pictures. Things like that.

Though I had hoped to make some kidlit discoveries abroad I was thwarted by such things as sightseeing and otherwise relaxing. I did manage to pick up a few books, with a couple of things noteworthy for future blog posts. But the most prominent picture book I saw in every bookstore in Paris and Amsterdam?




















I guess they haven't gotten around to translating Flotsom yet. Library Lion was a close second for availability. And the two most available YA titles: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series and John Green's An Abundance of Katherines.

All in all, a much-deserved and very relaxing time bridging a very intense time and a pending hectic time. I'm going to get some more sleep and work on my flickr account, get a littler more reading done and be back next week with some real content.

On Holiday

And a proper one at that. Call it a belated honeymoon (when did we get married?), a little adult time, or a celebration of someone taking (and passing we trust!) the Bar Exam, my sweetie and I are headed off on a major two-city tour of Europe.

Which means that I'll be dark here until sometime around August 12th. I'm hoping to just chill for a couple weeks and come back refreshed and ready to hunker down with some writing. I'm also hoping to come back with one or two discoveries of my own. Okay, maybe a picture book or two, and the Dutch equivalent of Dick and Jane.

And speaking of Jane, I hope to finally get to my review of The Plain Janes when I'm back home. Short version: I think I like it. But there's another book in queue I most decidedly did not like and I just can't decide whether it's worth the time to even think about. Maybe something by Garth Nix? We'll see.

Catch up with y'all in the dog days!

Pictures From Our Vacation

by Lynne Rae Perkins
Greenwillow/ HarperCollins 2007

We were going to our family farm. No one lived at the farm anymore, but our grandparents were spending the summer there and we were going to visit them...

It's a two day trip to the family farm and just before they leave mom gives her children instant cameras and a blank notebook to record their vacation. The first shot is an accident, a picture of feet taken while trying to figure out how the camera works.

Heading out of town our narrator, the girl, imagines what their motel will be like that first night, followed by vivid plans for her own dream-style motel. Her dream motel includes a pool, an azure oasis in the heartland. She is naturally disappointed when they arrive at the motel and find the pool has no water in it at all. A photo documents this disappointment.

At the farm they settle in and dig out an old badminton set with warped rackets. They aren't long into the game when they are chased inside by the rain. A photo of a warped racket is taken.

The rain lasts for days on end, forcing games of cards and drawing, silent reading and building towers from playing cards. No pictures are taken.

When the weather clears they take a day trip to a nearby lake. They get lost along the way (trying to find one of dad's childhood shortcuts) and then stop at a large Native American earthwork, a snake mound along the river. A picture is taken next to the mound that looks like nothing more than a grassy knoll in the photo.

They reach the lake finally, just as it starts to rain again. No photo.

They attend a memorial service for a great aunt who was something of a free-spirited adventurer in her day. Afterward many people gather at the old farm house, distant cousins and friends, where they feast and play and spend the night together. "I didn't take any pictures that day," the girl says.

Finally it's time to return home. She takes out her notebook and looks at the pictures. "These don't remind me that much of our vacation," she says. Her father suggests that putting a person in the photos makes them more interesting, gives something to focus on. But mom gets it right when she opines that perhaps they were having too much fun to take better pictures.

As picture books go, it's a wordy one, not the kind a lap-sitter would sit still for. No, this belongs to that special class of picture book that has fallen somewhat out of favor, the long-form picture book intended for older independent readers. This kind of picture book was what I was weened on in the days before beginning readers was a market and snack series filled the gap between Syd Hoff and Dr. Seuss and the books of Roald Dahl and Jerome Beatty.

Long-form isn't just about more words than what most current picture books contain, but also in pacing, in the leisurely feel of the story getting around to its points. The long-form picture book isn't just a story, it's an illustrated short story, and like its grown-up versions it is about a specific moment of discovery told with a certain amount of economy.

Words and pictures work together to tell two different stories of the same events. Perkins is careful in making sure to alternate between scenes of broad overviews and smaller moments, sometimes illustrating ideas only barely hinted at in the texts (like memories) or not even mentioned in the text at all (the quiet activities during the rain). The insets of the photos the kids take are exactly the sort of snapshots kids would take when their brains are telling them to record a moment for posterity but haven't the experience to know how to capture those moments. It's no surprise that their notebooks are filled with images that don't even hint at the vacation's activities, a gentle lesson in living life as opposed to recording it obsessively.

There are some scrap-bookers out there who might benefit from this message.

Perkins gouache illustrations catch the bright colors of summer, the saturation of our memories of summers past, shimmering luminescent pieces of frozen time. I'm still not quite sure what reader this book is best for, but for the right reader this is a gem.