In November, the earth is growing quiet. It is making
its bed, a winter bed for flowers and small creatures.
The bed is white and silent, and much life can hide
beneath its blankets.
…Excerpt from In November, a children’s picture book by Cynthia Rylantand Jill Kastner
This charming book — filled with beautiful illustrations — would make a wonderful Thanksgiving gift for a 4-6-year-old. Find it at Amazon.com.
WRITER WAITING
by Shel Silverstein
Oh this shiny new computer–
There just isn’t nothin’ cuter.
It knows everything the world ever knew.
And with this great computer
I don’t need no writin’ tutor,
‘Cause there ain’t a single thing that it can’t do.
It can sort and it can spell,
It can punctuate as well.
It can find and file and underline and type.
It can edit and select,
It can copy and correct,
So I’ll have a whole book written by tonight
(Just as soon as it can think of what to write).
###
“Writer Waiting” appears in Falling Up, poems and drawings by Shel Silverstein (HarperCollins, 1996), available at Amazon.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Chicago native Shel Silverstein (1930-1999) was a poet, songwriter, singer, cartoonist, screenwriter, and author. Other notable books include The Giving Tree (1964), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974), and the song “A Boy Named Sue,” made famous by Johnny Cash.
GOODNIGHT MOON
text of children’s picture book
by Margaret Wise Brown
In the great green room
there was a telephone
and a red balloon
and a picture of
the cow jumping over the moon.
There were three little bears
sitting on chairs
and two little kittens
and a pair of mittens
and a little toyhouse
and a young mouse
and a comb and a brush
and a bowl full of mush
and a quiet old lady
who was whispering “hush.”
Good night room
Goodnight moon
Goodnight cow
jumping over the moon
Goodnight light
and the red balloon
Goodnight bears
Goodnight chairs
Goodnight kittens
and goodnight mittens
Goodnight clocks
and goodnight socks
Goodnight little house
and goodnight mouse.
Goodnight comb
and goodnight brush
Goodnight nobody
Goodnight mush
and goodnight to the old lady
whispering “hush.”
Goodnight stars
Goodnight air
Goodnight noises everywhere.
©Harper Collins Publishing, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Find Goodnight Moon at Amazon.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Margaret Wise Brown (1910-1953) wrote hundreds of books and stories during her life, but she is best known for Goodnight Moon (1947) and Runaway Bunny (1942). Following her graduation with a B.A. in English in 1932, Brown worked as a teacher and also studied art. While working at the Bank Street Experimental School in New York City, she started writing books for children. Her first was When the Wind Blew, published in 1937 by Harper & Brothers.
ABOUT GOODNIGHT MOON: Originally published by Harper& Brothers in 1947, Goodnight Moon slowly became a bestseller. Annual sales grew from about 1,500 copies in 1953 to 20,000 in 1970 — and by 1990, the total number of copies sold was more than 4 million. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named the book one of its “Teachers’ Top 100 Books for Children.” It was one of the “Top 100 Picture Books” of all time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal. (Read more at Wikipedia.org.)
EDITOR’S NOTE: A Wall St. Journal article from Sept. 8, 2000 stated that Margaret Wise Brown‘s heir received $5 million in royalties from the time of the author’s death in 1953 to 2000. Let’s see…Goodnight Moon is composed of just 130 words — earning the heir almost $40,000 per word. (And that was 13 years ago….) The Wall St. Journal article (“Runaway Money” by Joshua Prager) details what became of all that money.
WRITER WAITING
by Shel Silverstein
Oh this shiny new computer–
There just isn’t nothin’ cuter.
It knows everything the world ever knew.
And with this great computer
I don’t need no writin’ tutor,
‘Cause there ain’t a single thing that it can’t do.
It can sort and it can spell,
It can punctuate as well.
It can find and file and underline and type.
It can edit and select,
It can copy and correct,
So I’ll have a whole book written by tonight
(Just as soon as it can think of what to write).
###
“Writer Waiting” appears in Falling Up, poems and drawings by Shel Silverstein (HarperCollins, 1996), available at Amazon.com. (And I recommend that everyone have a personal copy of this delightful book.)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Chicago native Shel Silverstein (1930-1999) was a poet, songwriter, singer, cartoonist, screenwriter, and author. Other notable books include The Giving Tree (1964), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974), and the song “A Boy Named Sue,” made famous by Johnny Cash.
In November, the earth is growing quiet. It is making
its bed, a winter bed for flowers and small creatures.
The bed is white and silent, and much life can hide
beneath its blankets.
Excerpt from In November, a children’s picture book by Cynthia Rylant and Jill Kastner
This charming book — filled with beautiful illustrations — would make a wonderful Thanksgiving gift for a 4-6-year-old. Find it at Amazon.com.
Some years back, I wrote a children’s novel that featured a girl named Anna, a dog named Otto, and lots of wordplay — as evidenced by the main characters’ names, spelled the same backward and forward. In the book, Anna, an amnesiac, sets out with Otto to learn her identity — and along the way meets a range of unusual characters and encounters a variety of wacky situations.
For a time, I shopped Anna & Otto to publishers in New York and received positive response (but no offers). One editor compared the novel’s emphasis on language to the wordplay found in The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster — a book (shame on me) that I had never read.
That day, I visited my local Border’s (RIP) and purchased a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth, a novel first published in 1961. I went home and read the book in one giant gulp — a huge smile on my face the whole time.
Excerpt from The Phantom Tollbooth: “In this box are all the words I know…Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is to use them well and in the right places.”
The book’s jacket copy advises, “Readers of all ages will find much wit and wisdom in Norton Juster’s beguiling, offbeat fantasy about a boy named Milo…[who] meets some of the most logically illogical characters ever met on this side or that side of reality, including King Azaz the Unabridged, unhappy ruler of Dictionopolis.”
The New York Times gave The Phantom Tollbooth a rave, noting: “Most books advertised for ‘readers of all ages’ fail to keep their promise. But Norton Juster’s amazing fantasy has something wonderful for anybody old enough to relish the allegorical wisdom of Alice in Wonderland and the pointed whimsy of The Wizard of Oz.”
Now whenever I see a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth in one of my used-book haunts, I snap it up — and pass it on to someone I know would love this marvel of a book. (I’ll admit that I don’t often find The Phantom Tollbooth at thrift stores — people hang onto their copies of this brilliant novel.) Highly recommended! A Must Read!
Illustration: The cover illustration is by Jules Feiffer, whose witty, spot-on drawings fill the 256-page book (Knopf hardcover edition). At left is Feiffer’s drawing of the Terrible Trivium, “…demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit.”
Silver Birch Press 