Books, Goats

From the Editor

Hello, Slowpokes. Today marks one month of this newsletter. Thanks for subscribing! I’m having fun writing it. I hope you’re having fun reading it.

Slowpoke Recommends

I’m always buying books. Honestly, I buy them more than I actually read them, but that’s a sad tale for another day. In the meantime, I’d love to tell you about some recent, inspiring acquisitions.

Fantasy Sketches by Maurice Sendak

Somehow, on a trip to Monograph Bookwerks with a bunch of kid’s book authors and illustrators, I managed to be the one to snag this. It features tiny sequential ink drawings by Sendak reminiscent of the illustration in A Hole is To Dig and I’ll Be You and You Be Me by Ruth Krauss, but drawn in his own time and to music. It’s a window into a weird corner of Sendak’s soul. Also, it seems to include the initial stream-of-consciousness fantasy that eventually became Where the Wild Things Are.

The drawings were made in the 1950s and the book was published in 1970 with an introduction by Sendak in which he says of them:

They touch all the obsessions and ideas that eventually bore fruit in what I consider my best and most personal work.

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The Collected Plays 2010-2015: Portland Preschoolers

Also for fans of A Hole is to Dig and I’ll Be You and You Be Me. And for fans of the natural poetry of kids and the adults (like Ruth Krauss) who recognize it and know how to repackage it for other adults as the art it is. This book of plays by preschoolers was compiled by Andrew Barton, a former preschool teacher, and letterpress-printed by his small press, Two Plum Press.

The Winner by Kjell Ringi

My friend Moe brought this book over to my house a couple of weeks ago because she thought I’d like it. She was right! I’d never heard of Kjell Ringi before but promptly tracked down this book and two others: The Parade and The Stranger. They’re cleverly designed, distinctly 1960s picture books that tell fable-like stories with great illustrations and little or no words. I’d never seen The Winner before, but Du Iz Tak? still somehow owes a debt to it.

Does anyone know these books? Moe’s copy came from the Warrenton public library (that’s in Oregon, near Astoria and across the river from Washington state) and, curiously, though I ordered them from 3 different booksellers across the US, two of mine also had stamps from public libraries in Washington.

Time is a Flower by Julie Morstad

Oh Julie Morstad! This is one of my favorite recent picture books. Julie is a superb illustrator and I think she’s at her best when she’s writing her own books. Also recommended by Slowpoke: Today and How To.

Home & Garden

When you are a kid fantasizing about a life surrounded by a menagerie of animals à la Pippi Longstocking or Dr. Doolittle, you never ask yourself how you will balance their care with your full time illustration career, the upkeep of the farm you will inevitably live on, and the parenting of your own children.

The owners of these cute goats are moving to Texas and had to rehome them so I took them in. But they are colossal - that white one weighs 300 pounds - and they were bullying my little pygmy goats. And one of them was also trying to bully me. After a week of experimenting with various housing situations for everyone, monitoring their interactions and moving them around to different pastures, mending fences and losing sleep, I made the difficult decision to send them back to their owners. Alas. But I feel like Pippi would’ve done the same. She loves a menagerie but she doesn’t suffer bullies.

The lesson I learned this week was: don’t take in every animal who needs a home. However, I think I may be getting another llama. Stay tuned!

In other news, a skunk sprayed under our house and it’s awful. My whole house smells like skunk. My whole family smells like skunk. I keep lighting incense, as though it masks the smell. (It doesn't.)

Pray for us,
Carson