About as Close to The Emerald City as You Can Get: Hotel del Coronado!

We just returned from an idyllic family vacation at the Hotel del Coronado near San Diego, California. The weather was sublime.

The stunning Hotel del Coronado - The Emerald City?

And guess who else loved this place -- L. Frank Baum, who first visited the turn-of-the century seaside resort with his family in 1904.  He wrote at least three of his Oz books while staying at "The Del"...

Although L. Frank Baum hailed from the Midwest, he preferred to winter in the warm and welcoming sunshine of the picturesque community of Coronado, California, just across the bay from San Diego. 

Doesn't the Emerald City look familiar?

Some people think the author based his design of the bejeweled Emerald City on the Hotel del Coronado; but Baum had already written the first book which included the fictitious Emerald City (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in1900), before ever visiting the hotel in 1904.

L. Frank Baum had storytime with children on the lawn at the
Hotel del Coronado. (photo 1904, source]

Still, you can see why Baum found the hotel so entrancing. With its whimsical design, vibrant red roofs, magical spires, and one-of-a-kind setting, the "Hotel Del" is as close to Emerald City as you'll ever get!  

And Baum is credited with designing the stunning chandeliers in the "Crown Room" of the hotel - don't you think they're fit for the Cowardly Lion? [From Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920's by Kevin Starr, source]

Chandeliers in the Crown Room, of the Hotel del Coronado,
designed by Baum [source]

L. Frank Baum - who suffered from a weak heart - usually resided at the hotel for months at a time; in later years he would sometimes rent a house nearby.  During his years in Coronado, Baum wrote the third, fourth, and fifth books of the Oz series: Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz (1908); The Road to Oz (1909); and The Emerald City (1910).

The house L. Frank Baum's would sometimes rent on Star Park Circle,
 just around the corner from the Hotel Del Coronado. [source]

Something else to see in Coronado: The children's area of the Coronado Public Library is home to nine beautiful glass panels (a permanent exhibit, by Brenda Smith) displaying Oz culture and featuring many of Baum's characters. 

Wizard of Oz Glass panels, Coronado Public Library [source]

Detail: Dorothy and the Munchkins [source] 

Baum moved to Hollywood in 1910, where he spent the last nine years of his life at his home, "Ozcot" (he was one of the community's earliest residents).  

He passed away in 1919, but his memory and his legacy in California cultural history live on. 

I hope you can "follow the yellow brick road" someday to Coronado Island, and the Hotel Del! You won't be disappointed.

• Source info: "The Hotel del Coronado and L. Frank Baum"; and "How Frank Baum Became the Wizard of Coronado".
• Scanned color illustrations of the first edition OZ books can be seen here.

October for Anne Shirley...

From Anne of Green Gables
by Lucy Maud Montgomery

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Excerpt from Chapter XVI: "Diana is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results"

October was a beautiful month at Green Gables, when the birches in the hollow turned as golden as sunshine and the maples behind the orchard were royal crimson and the wild cherry trees along the lane put on the loveliest shades of dark red and bronzy green, while the fields sunned themselves in aftermaths.

Anne reveled in the world of color about her.

"Oh, Marilla," she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs. "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it? Look at these maple branches. Don't they give you a thrill--several thrills? I'm going to decorate my room with them."

"Messy things," said Marilla, whose aesthetic sense was not noticeably developed. "You clutter up your room entirely too much with out-of-doors stuff, Anne. Bedrooms were made to sleep in."

"Oh, and dream in too, Marilla. And you know one can dream so much better in a room where there are pretty things. I'm going to put these boughs in the old blue jug and set them on my table."

My October view: It's not Green Gables, but it's Home.

The d'Aulaires: Artists and Historians

Edgar Parin was born in Switzerland on September 30, 1898. He took his mother's name, d'Aulaire, when he became an artist.

Edgar and Ingri d'Aulaire

Edgar met Ingri Mortenson at art school in Munich in 1921. The couple married in Norway, then moved to Paris. As Bohemian artists, they often talked about emigrating to America. “The enormous continent with all its possibilities and grandeur caught our imagination,” Edgar later recalled. They immigrated to New York in 1929.

The couple collaborated on their first children's book, The Magic Rug, at the suggestion of a New York city librarian in 1931. Next came three books - the first of which is Ola - steeped in the Scandinavian folktales of Ingri’s childhood in Norway.

What a cute book!!!  source

Next they shifted their attention to books featuring American heroes such as Pocohantas, Benjamin Franklin and Buffalo Bill, before turning to the realm of mythology.

The husband and wife team eventually produced over 20 picture books for children. The D'Aulaires established the picture book biography as a valued staple of library collections. They worked as a team on both the art and text throughout their joint career.

here - from Beautiful Feet Books

Originally, the d'Aulaires used stone lithography for their illustrations. A single four-color illustration required four slabs of Bavarian limestone (one for each color), with each stone weighing up to two hundred pounds! The technique gave their illustrations a wealth of authentic detail and vibrancy. 

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In the early 1960s, when this process became too expensive, the d’Aulaires switched to acetate sheets which closely mimicked the texture of lithographic stone. (Many of the old stones are now housed in the University of Minnesota's Kerlan Collection.)

The d’Aulaires' career spanned nearly five decades. They were working on a new book when Ingri died in 1980 at the age of seventy-five. Edgar continued working until he died in 1985 at the age of eighty-six.

Abraham Lincoln received a Caldecott Medal in 1940 and the d'Aulaires received the Catholic Library Association's Regina Medal for "distinguished contribution to children's literature." The D'Aulaire's Trolls was a New York Times outstanding book of 1971.

[sources: New York Review Books and The Children's Literature Network.]

Have you seen their picture books for young children?  Book of Animals, Too Big, and The Two Cars - here, for ages 2-5.

Or their folklore collection? Norse Myths, Trolls, The Terrible Troll Bird - here, for ages 5-12.

here, for ages 5-12

The Gift of Harper Lee's Mockingbird

Atticus said to Jem one day, "I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird."

Published July 11, 1960

That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. 

"Your father’s right," she said. "Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” 

An introduction to Harper Lee...

Harper Lee - photo source

She is an American writer, famous for her novel To Kill A Mockingbird, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. 

To Kill A Mockingbird became an international bestseller and was adapted for the screen in 1962.   

Scout (Mary Badham) and Harper Lee on set - source

Don't you think Mary Badham (the young actress who played Scout in the movie) looks like a little Harper Lee?  Like Lee, Badham grew up in Alabama amid racial tension and segregation.

Lee was 34 when the book was published, and it has remained her only novel. 

Descended from Robert E. Lee, the Southern Civil War general, Nelle Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama on April 28, 1926. 

Lee's father was a former newspaper editor and proprietor, who had served as a state senator and practiced law in Monroeville.

Lee developed an interest in English Literature in high school, and then went to an all girls college in Montgomery, where she was eventually accepted into law school.

But after her first year in the law program, Lee began expressing to her family that writing - not law - was her true calling. She went to Oxford University in England that summer as an exchange student. 

Returning to her law studies that fall, Lee dropped out after the first semester. She soon moved to New York City to follow her dreams to become a writer. [more here]

"Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books."

-Harper Lee, in a letter written to Oprah in 2006

In 2007, Harper Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush.

White House photo by Eric Draper - source

To Kill a Mockingbird has influenced the character of our country for the better. It's been a gift to the entire world. As a model of good writing and humane sensibility, this book will be read and studied forever. 

- President George W. Bush about Harper Lee's work.

The Shop Around the Corner: What was the "Storybook Lady" Reading?

You've Got Mail is one of those cozy movies my daughter and I can watch again and again!  How about you?

For us, the setting (a children's bookshop in New York City) and the music (Nora Ephron's movies always have brilliant soundtracks of oldies and forgotten treasures), play as much of a starring role as the actors.  

And who better to make you feel good than Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks?

When watching the movie, I'd never taken the time to figure out which book Meg Ryan's character, Kathleen Kelly, is reading as the "Storybook Lady".  But this time I quickly paused the dvd to see the book's cover...

And saw the word B-O-Y.  And I listened carefully to the passage she was reading aloud to the children...

I must tell you, therefore, that it was I and I alone who had the idea for the great and daring Mouse Plot. We all have our moments of brilliance and glory, and this was mine.

“Why don't we,” I said, “slip it into one of Mrs. Pratchett’s jars of sweets? Then when she puts her dirty hand in to grab a handful, she'll grab a stinky dead mouse instead.”

The other four stared at me in wonder. Then, as the sheer genius of the plot began to sink in, they all started grinning. They slapped me on the back. They cheered me and danced around the classroom.

“We'll do it today!” they cried. “We’ll do it on the way home! You had the idea, so you can be the one to put the mouse in the jar.”

Boy by Roald Dahl

The passage that we see Kathleen Kelly reading during her book shop's story time to the group of kids is from Boy: Tales of Childhood, an autobiographical children's novel written by Roald Dahl.

Kathleen Kelly's bookstore in the film was based largely on Manhattan's  Books of Wonder.  Meg Ryan worked the counter at Books of Wonder for a day as part of her preparation. Decorative props from the film can still be seen at the store.

The children's book store scenes in the film were actually filmed at Maya Schaper's Cheese and Antique Shop on 103 West 69th Street (which has since closed - life imitating art?). 

Did you know that You've Got Mail (1998) is based on a classic movie starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan?  The title?  The Shop Around the Corner (1940), of course! (Another film we watch again and again!)

Jame's Stewart's Alfred Kralik and Margaret Sullavan's Klara Novak.

[Source, and more fun You've Got Mail movie trivia here.]

It's Official: Fall is Here!

Yesterday marked the first day of fall: the Autumn Equinox.  

Here in Southern California, that means stores are stocking pumpkin candy corn, and we finally have temperatures below 85 degrees. (But we might get an "Indian Summer" in October).


Oh, how I've been waiting for this!  I LOVE FALL!  Why?  If you check out my Pumpkin/Turkey/Fall Time Board on Pinterest, you'll see why:

Stories like Pumpkin Moonshine, by Tasha Tudor -

Now It's Fall, by Lois Lenski -

Peter in Blueberry Land, (and many more books) by Elsa Beskow -

Trader Joe's Pumpkin Spice Rooibos Herbal Tea...

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Recipes - like homemade Pumpkin Coffee Creamer

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and Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting:

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Greek Yogurt Pumpkin Spice Bars:

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Also - Baked Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal, and Double Chocolate Pumpkin Cake with Pumpkin Spice Buttercream Frosting

Look at these Mums! ($13 from Costco!)

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DIY Pumpkin Bird Feeder via Martha Stewart:

(Non Scary) Halloween fun...If you've followed my blog for very long, you know I like to find ideas that are family friendly and book themed for Halloween -- like a "Storybook Pumpkin Patch", "Literary Themed Parties for 'tweens and Teens",  "Book or Treat", and "Literary Pumpkins".

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Watch for this year's Halloween ideas - coming soon!

It's All About Hobbits!

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
Greg and Tim Hildebrandt made their careers painting Tolkien’s world.
   [source]

FOUR FUN FACTS For "Hobbit Day" and "Tolkien Week", in honor of the author...

1) Publication Date: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit was published in England on September 21, 1937.  That first edition sold out by December of that year because of such glowing reviews!

2) Did you know Tolkien could draw?
...when J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, he was already an accomplished amateur artist, and drew illustrations for his book while it was still in manuscript. See all his illustrations here.

How Tolkien envisioned the Shire [source]

3) The cover that Tolkien hated...
The 1942 edition of The Hobbit for Foyles book club, directed at British children. 

Tolkien is said to have remarked, "Surely the paper wasted on that hideous dust-cover could have been better used." (Believe it or not, that's meant to be Bilbo Baggins in the suit.) 
[source, Tolkien Library - here]

[source] 

4)  Happy Hobbit Day!!  September 22 marks Bilbo and Frodo's mutual birthday, the date of the "Long Awaited Party", and was designated by the American Tolkien Society in 1978 as "Hobbit Day". 

To celebrate, check out "A Visual History of Bilbo Baggins" from Buzzfeed.  And don't forget to have a Second Breakfast!