Art, Dancing, & micro memoirs

Happy 2018!  December was another great month for reading.  Here are my favorites!

Silent Days, Silent Dreams by Allen Say

Another beautifully illustrated book by Say. I am enormously impressed by the amount of research Say put into this book so that he could draw and paint like James Castle did with the same limited materials. The story of Castle's life starts out sad. No one can understand Castle, who was born deaf and autistic, and the neglect he endured is appalling. But once he finds a way to draw his happiness, he never stops, and after many years, his art gains recognition and praise. Say has written a very interesting biography, one that can easily stand alone without illustrations, but it is elevated and brought to life by Say's incredible art. My favorite illustration, which is on page 14, is a very raw and chilling drawing of Castle’s frustration. I also loved reading about how Say's wife helped him create this book. If you want to find out how, you must read the Author's Note. You won’t be sorry!

The Blue Hour by Isabelle Simler

The illustrations are gorgeous and many of the lines are both simple and descriptive. For example, I love the line "A blue fox slips through the arctic cold." Occasionally, Simler gets a little carried away with the big words - vulturine guineafowl comes to mind. The illustrations are absolutely magnetic though, and they pop right off the page. If I were reading this with a young audience I might omit a few of the bigger words because this book is just too beautiful not to share with everyone. 

Clap Your Hands by Lorinda Bryan Cauley

The very first time I read this book, I couldn't help but act it out. The excited kids and smartly-dressed animals look so affectionate and ready to share the fun they are having. I've read it many times since then, and each time I noticed something different. The kangaroo mama is wearing a kerchief, the bear is wearing a straw bowler, the mole/squirrel/rat has custom-made pants for their mole/squirrel/rat caboose. This is one of those special books that both ensnares its audience's attention and encourages movement and play.

Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly

Fennelly is hilarious, concise, and brazenly candid. These uniquely-shaped chunks of poetry are beautifully written. For the most part, Fennelly is straight to the point in a singsong, rambling kind of way, very conversational-like. But she also cleverly sneaks some flourishes in. These sparsely-sprinkled flourishes hit like a punch. The best example, I believe, is the poem Small Fry, where her friend's grandpa "held [a fry] out to [her], a tiny sword, cold as if pulled from the heart of a stone." Small Fry is only one of many poems that resonated with me. I loved her Married Love poems for their hilarity, sly romanticism, and perverseness. Another favorite of mine, Small Talk at Evanston General, was quite direct in its intimacy and pain. I felt like the scalpel was slicing through me when I read, "He untied her gown with one hand and slipped the black Sharpie from his pocket with the other, clamped it between his teeth to remove the cap, then drew dashes on my mother's naked chest, indicating where his scalpel would go." I also appreciated the structure of the poems; some read like micro essays, others more like aphorisms.