Children of Bookworms Get...Books!

Happy First Day of Fall!

I've been spending a lot of time doing Fall Cleaning because we are getting ready to do some remodeling.  I'm getting a home library!!!!

Wish it could look like this...

Haha!  Just kidding.  This is the Los Angeles Central Library Children's Literature Room.  You can ready my past post about my visit there by clicking here.

Below are a couple of photos I found on Pinterest.  I'd be really happy to style my home office/library after either of them! First, a very chic look...

This next one would be nice because my house is Cape Cod style...

Anyway, back to Fall Cleaning.  It's been exhausting going through and trying to organize all the mementos I've kept over the years! Birthday cards, Christmas cards, family letters...

And of course, I'm trying to sort through books.  I sent off four grocery bags of old paperbacks already.  

I. Have. So. Many. Books.

Many of them were in our sunroom - not a great place to store books. And now they're getting all packed up.  

Some are getting sent off to my kids, who have inherited (and will continue to inherit) their childhood favorites.

The children's books I'm keeping (as much for me as for my grandchildren who visit), and our grown-up books, are going into bins and boxes.  I've packed up six long bins and five boxes so far!!!

They'll be unpacked and put back onto shelves, once the library is finished. I can hardly wait! Any tips??

In the meantime, I'm bringing autumn inside, since there's not much evidence of it outside, here in Southern California!

It's Finally Fall, and Our Owl is Back!

Our neighborhood owl is back!  A couple of nights ago I heard him:  the "hoo-hoo-HOO" of a Great Horned Owl, in one of the big trees just outside our window. Somehow, he knows it's fall...

(Illustration by Valerie Greeley)

Just like the owls, we are all thankful for cooler mornings and evenings here in Orange County!  We don't get freezing temperatures or huge amounts of fall color, but I love the deeper slant of the sun, and the still-warm breezes that scatter the fallen, dry sycamore leaves across our brick patio in the autumn.

That must be a cue for the Great Horned Owls to start looking for a mate - their breeding time is from October through December here in SoCal.  Below is a photo my son took at sunrise early one spring morning a couple of years ago, of two of them after nesting season was over.

Today I have to share an adorable children's book about owls! (you can also go here for my past post featuring other owl book recommendations.)

The book is Owl Babies, written by Martin Waddell and beautifully illustrated by Patrick Benson.  It's a story about waiting and reassurance...
And it is my grandson Peter's current favorite library book (my daughter told me he's checked it out three times!)  Last week I found a cute board book edition that came with a little stuffed owl, which I mailed off to Peter - he was quite ecstatic.

Toddlers and preschoolers can really relate to this simple story because, like most young children, the baby owls - "Sarah", "Percy", and "Bill" - miss their Mommy. Especially Bill, the youngest, whose only line (my grandson's favorite to chime in on) is: "I want my Mommy!"

The story starts as the worried owls wake up one night, in their little owl habitat (which the author describes perfectly), to find that their Owl Mother is gone.  They do lots of wondering and thinking - "all owls think a lot" - and waiting.  It's dark and things are moving all around them.  They have to be brave and stick together, and finally, just as they closed their eyes and began wishing... sure enough, "SHE CAME!"

Watch the charming animated version of the book below to find out what Bill's one line of input changes to at the end of the story...and Happy Fall, dear readers!

ARE YOU READY FOR FALL?

"Autumn has caught us in our summer wear." 
- Philip Larkin, British poet (1922-1986)

Here in sunny Southern California, there are not yet many signs of the coming fall, but I have seen a growing number of black crows, getting ready for the pecans to fall from my backyard neighbor's huge tree.  And of course, Halloween merchandise is showing up everywhere.

Cover illustration for by Randolph Caldecott's Sing a Song for Sixpence (1880) - public domain.

This Saturday, September 22, marks the First Day of Autumn.  I noticed this shocking fact when I opened my pocket datebook yesterday, with the approaching equinox staring me in the face (equinox comes from the Latin words for "equal night." The fall and spring equinoxes are the only days of the year in which the Sun crosses the celestial equator.)

When our kids were growing up, we liked to celebrate fall and fun on Halloween, without too much fright.  I've heard many families express the same desire, so I'm constantly on the look-out for fun versus frightening Halloween ideas for my blog (click HERE to see some of my past pumpkin posts).  This year, I'm really liking black birds, versus bats (stay tuned for a fun party idea coming up in October!)

Birds on a wire? Find these cute paper clips HERE.
(Comes with 8 blackbird clips on a 36" cord)

Here's a cute product I recently came across...a teacher used it on a bulletin board with fun photos, literary quotes, and fall poetry.

Reminds me of the well-known English nursery rhyme, Sing A Song Of Sixpence:

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.

My book recommendation for today?  A "haunting" quirky fable about crows and a snake:
The Crows of Pearblossom, by Aldous Huxley (yes, the author of Brave New World wrote a children's book)...how two silly crows - with the help of a wise owl - solve the problem of a hungry snake devouring their eggs is a tale of cleverness triumphing over greed.

Born in England and educated at Balliol College, Huxley relocated to Southern California with his family in 1937.  He wrote The Crows of Pearblossom for his niece, Olivia, in 1944 as a Christmas gift.  In 1967 it was published in a small-format edition (now out of print), illustrated by Barbara Cooney.

I ordered the new 2011 edition because I couldn't resist Sophie Blackall's wonderful illustrations!  Read a great overview/history of this picture book, HERE, and the NYTimes review "Aldous Huxley's Brave New Storybook", HERE.