Happy Halloween!

We’re heading into town — kids in costume, of course — after lunch for music lessons and errands (it seems I have several parcels, with any luck Cybils-related, to collect). And once all the music lessons are done, we’re meeting friends for a quick non-sugary supper before the kids head out for trick or [...]

Our big squash-o-lantern

On Saturday we had an autumn/early Halloween squash carving party with some friends.
The guest of honor was the 570-pound squash we picked up earlier in the month at the pumpkin festival; here it is getting loaded in our truck for the trip home,

The squash spent most of the month in our shop, and on Saturday [...]

Canadian independent booksellers respond to strong dollar

Just announced, from Audrey’s Books, Edmonton’s longstanding (50 years) independent bookseller, via The Edmonton Journal [emphases mine]:
The strength of the Canadian dollar and the complaints of customers have convinced Audrey’s Books of Edmonton to cut prices, even if that means selling at a loss.
Co-owner Sharon Budnarchuk said Monday the store is now selling books at [...]

Good deals — and not-so-good deals — for Canadians

Want to celebrate the rise of the up-up-and-away Canadian dollar, currently worth $1.05 US? Here’s some information gleaned recently.
To kick things off, here’s a good deal for just about everyone, as long as you don’t already have a subscription to Smithsonian Magazine: the magazine is offering a special introductory rate –
United States: 12 issues [...]

Poetry Friday: Halloween is Coming edition

This poem is sadly appropriate because the woods and fields are most certainly wintry this October morning, covered with more than just a dusting a snow and it is still snowing; even sadder, my children are delightedly pulling on snow pants to go out and shovel as I type. Temperatures are supposed to rise a [...]

10 ways to get you to read a book…

from the BBC Magazine website, which has an article on the top 10 “factors that could influence the next sales behemoth”. Few of which will gladden the heart of the professional critic — no doubt as it should be, according to Sir Howard Davies — especially:
Factor #1, “Word of Mouth”: “Who do we [...]

Revisiting the chicken nugget theory

Living in my little hole on the prairie, I completely missed the brewing brouhaha over sneaky/deceptive kiddie food books.
But I still hold to the “chicken nugget theory” of kids’ food (not to mention children’s books, or any other kind of twaddle), which Jennifer Steinhauer wrote about last year in her Sunday NY Times article “Generation [...]

The arrival of Joy and Thunder

My first glimpse of the newly named Thunder (the kids named him on the way home; blame Mary O’Hara), in the trailer

Joy (we’ve decided to abbreviate her triple-barreled registration name) and Thunder get a first look at their new home; Thunder follows his mother very closely, and doesn’t need a lead just yet,

Our original horse, [...]

The perils of the rural auction sale

Yesterday morning around 10, Tom and the kids left me at home washing windows to attend a farm sale an hour or so away. Tom had his eye on a smaller tractor, one we could use for rototilling around the shelterbelt trees, that was listed in the auction flyer last week.
Well, when they [...]

Rhymes with star

“I’d rather drop dead in my tracks one day than end up in a wheelchair in some nursing home watching interminable replays of The King and I,” she said before hooting with laughter.
From Deborah Kerr’s New York Times obituary today, quoting a 1986 Chicago Tribune interview.
Sic Transit Gloria Candy.

Paddle your own canoe

Shooting the Rapids, oil on canvas, 1879, by
Frances Anne Hopkins
We were doing farm chores and driving around in truck the other week with the radio set to CBC, as usual, when I caught a bit of music and Shelagh Roger’s comment that it was based on the Caldecott Honor book by Holling Clancy Holling — [...]

Poetry Friday: something in October

A Vagabond Songby Bliss Carman (1861-1929)
There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood –Touch of manner, hint of mood;And my heart is like a rhyme,With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cryOf bugles going by.And my lonely spirit [...]

Figuring out if Cybils-nominated titles are child-friendly

Over at the Cybils blog, Cybils co-founder Kelly Herold wrote a post earlier this week, “Who Put the Kid in Kid-friendly?“:

When [Cybils co-founder] Anne and I led a panel session on the Cybils at the 1st Annual Kidlitosphere Conference this [past] weekend in Chicago, one theme in particular kept popping up during discussions: How do [...]

What October on the prairies looks like

if you’re eight-and-a-half or almost seven and your mother won’t sign you up for hockey in town (because it’s thoroughly family unfriendly, with two practices and one game — far away and with lots of driving — each and every week) and it’s not yet cold enough (thank goodness) for the pond behind the house [...]

Poetry Friday: Columbus Day edition

I realized the other day that while Columbus Day was observed earlier this week, today is the actual date. So here are the first three poems, including the introductory “Apology”, from A Book of Americans by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benét, first published in 1933.
Apologyby Rosemary (1898?-1962) and Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943)
We couldn’t put [...]

Following up on David McCullough

I ran out of time yesterday, and wanted to add this list of suggested readings to go with my post yesterday about David McCullough’s new 1776: The Illustrated Edition, the illustrated and abridged edition of Mr. McCullough’s original 1776.
All of the children’s books listed below are narrative histories and overviews of the period, rather than [...]

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving

Because our harvest is over, we’ve been enjoying a beautiful, relaxing Thanksgiving weekend.
On Saturday, we went to the big pumpkin festival and weigh-off in the province. The kids got to see one of the biggest pumpkins (this isn’t the grand prize winner, which weighed over 1,100 pounds)

and while my back was turned (buying a [...]

“Education truly begins at home”

A couple of months ago my father told me about the advance copy he had recently received of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough’s new illustrated edition of 1776, which he’s saving for us and described as “an enormous book stuffed with removable facsimiles of various documents”.
So I was interested to read The Wall Street Journal’s [...]

Film Club interview

from The Canadian Press. Here’s an excerpt (emphases mine):
What [the book] details is a father’s struggle to connect with a beloved son who is totally disinterested in homework and who, at six-foot-four, is a man-sized adolescent frequently skipping out of high school to wander about the big city at will.
“All we ever talked about [...]

Poetry Friday II: When leaves depart

Autumnby Roy Campbell (1901-1957)
I love to see, when leaves depart,The clear anatomy arrive,Winter, the paragon of art,That kills all forms of life and feelingSave what is pure and will survive.
Already now the clanging chainsOf geese are harnessed to the moon:Stripped are the great sun-clouding planes:And the dark pines, their own revealing,Let in the needles of [...]