Craft Time

My favorite thing about interning with a publishing house: I do crafts and then write about it, and that counts as WORK. The American Girls Handy Book - Book Cover.

Ferdinand & Fairies

There is an older man who calls our office every few weeks with the same query: why does Godine publish a classic children’s book, The Story of Ferdinand, in a Latin translation, Ferdinandus Taurus? Several weeks into our internship, the other interns had warned me to expect his calls. He calls often and has for months, apparently, always asking the same question about Ferdinand, and the general speculation is that he suffers from dementia. They said Ferdinand Guy seems rather grouchy and the conversation typically ends with him becoming disgruntled and hanging up. Maybe I only get him when he’s in high spirits, but he’s been pleasant. He starts by asking my name, then exclaiming at its beauty and saying, “That means sweet-one and honey-like, you know. It’s typically a name reserved for fairies.” Whether this is fact or just a positive result of his dementia, I don’t know. Then he asks his question about our sole Latin title, sometimes pausing to mumble under his breath about that being un-American. I explain that it’s an educational tool for students learning Latin, at which point he brightens up directly and politely exclaims, “Well! That makes much more sense. I’m so glad you could help me understand that. Really.” Typically, he then rambles about growing up during WWII and the uproar that Ferdinand the pacifist bull caused in America at the time. But today, he went the direction of other children’s literature that touched him, first recommending the anthology Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from a Children’s Book (His favorite contribution is by Jay Leno.).

“Have you ever heard of… Well, I’m going to ask you about this children’s book that I read as a child that no one can find for me. I can’t remember the title but it was about a baby bat who got lost out of his cave and mice raised him. Which, of course, is pretty weird. The mice teased him for the two strange humps he had growing on his back, but then a cat came and, see, the bat snatched up all the mice and got them to safety. So even though he was different, he saved them, see. And I just can’t find it anywhere, but the images are just so…so stuck in my head. I can see them. I wish I had it. I keep asking reference librarians, but no one can help me.”

After a flash of pity for the librarians who assist him (or, more than likely, the same librarian who helps him repeatedly, listening to the bat’s heroics over and over), I wished I could find this book for him. A Google search was fruitless (Google tried to convince me I was searching for a cat who grew up with mice), and I don’t know how to contact him anyway. Who knows how many eons ago the book was published or what the title might be, but it obviously impacted him in a memorable way. Who knows how far his memory has receded, how much he remembers of his life. But Ferdinand the peaceful bull and the bat who saved his tormentors, they are constant. In his old age, they are the figures who remain vivid and real.

Ferdinand Guy then concluded today’s conversation by narrating the story of how he once told an inappropriate joke about Adam and Eve to a group he had just met at a bar...who turned out to be missionaries. He concluded, “I did always have a knack for shoving my foot in my mouth.”

He then thanked me for talking to an old man like him, and hung up.

Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, & Nazis

Recently, Josh and I watched The Reader (Oh the glories of Netflix), for which Kate Winslet won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2008. While I’m not sure she deserved the Oscar (Let’s face it: The Academy was still embarrassed for overlooking her performance in The Titanic. Idiots. Kate was the only redeeming aspect of that pathetically sappy movie.), I very much enjoyed the film. The first half of the movie is basically just Kate and David Kross naked, either sleeping together or reading aloud together. But in the latter half, it was refreshing to watch a film that portrayed an employee of the Nazi regime as complex - maybe evil, or maybe just naïve. But it was the reading together thing that caught our attention. We are both avid readers, but have never read out loud to each other or even read the same book simultaneously and discussed, like an uber-exclusive book club. Josh reads his books (i.e. theology, Asian history, the occasional Graham Greene novel) and I read mine (i.e. Russian lit, indie fiction, Harry Potter). Sure, there are recommendations made while riding the T, opinions offered at the dinner table. But overall, reading is a pretty autonomous activity in this relationship. However, The Reader got us to thinking (and not just about the ethics of Nazi camp guards who couldn’t get a job anywhere else). So this weekend, we started reading aloud to each other from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. We should probably be a tad humiliated that a) we’re reading such a short book and b) neither of us had read this classic before. But oh well. It’s been a fun read, despite already knowing the gist of the plot – so much so, in fact, that we read aloud three chapters this weekend while suffering sore throats. We’ll pick a longer book next time.

Book Highlight - String Too Short to Be Saved

My latest Godine book review: String Too Short to Be Saved

Disclaimer: this book wasn't really my taste. It was a very charming book, filled with reminisces about the author's family and old-fashioned farm life, and it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling about my own family. But, I didn't learn anything (except how to hay a field and use a yoke to carry two huge pails of blueberries single-handedly), nor did it challenge my thinking. So, it was a pleasant read, but not a literary masterpiece. If you choose to read it, I'd recommend shelving it for a gloomy day. Then, if you read it next to the fireplace, you'll be warm inside and out. *insert cliche giggle here*

Book Highlight - Cheyenne Madonna

Here's yet another of my pieces from the David R. Godine, Publisher blog, featuring Cheyenne Madonna by Eddie Chuculate, a Native American author. I raved about this book for weeks and had the opportunity to interview the author (who is brilliant, by the way). Here it is, along with my short review of the book: Eddie Chuculate Interview