Thursday, November 12, 2009

Movie toys

Who needs Happy Meal toys? We saw Wall-E this week and the kids came up with these little dudes the next day. Wall-E stands on two toilet paper rolls. He opens up so you can put trash inside him. The back is an orange crate. Eva is made out of paper and an old lemonade mix container. She has a flashlight arm "for blasting." I can't find the cockroach -- I think he's lost somewhere in my daughter's bed -- but he's made out of a film canister. I'll post him when I find him.


Tuesday, November 10, 2009

5 minute moomin

Okay, these actually took more than 5 minutes to make, but they didn't take TOO long so I figured I'd share. Introducing the sock Moomins, as visualized by my own Moomin fans.



The inspiration:
These past few weeks, Washington's embassies have been host to the Kids Euro Festival. This is the second year they've held it. Last year we were too out of it to notice. This year we noticed late and by the time we did, we were too ensconced in soccer games to make it to most of the free (yes! free!) performances. BUT we made it to one, at the Finnish embassy, featuring "a musical landscape" inspired by Tove Jansson's Moomintroll Books. I loved these books as a kid, and when I read them to my kids last year, they loved them, too. There is something a little other worldly about them (duh: they're about MOOMINS), and magical, and sweet, and strange.

The Moomins look a little like hippos, except smaller. (Their ears are actually a little rounder than these, but my kids thought triangles would work best so that's what they cut out.) At the Finnish Embassy, the Moomins weren't small. They were mascot size. (Which sort of makes sense because in Finland, the Moomins seem to be as prevalent as Mickey Mouse. There's even a Moomin World.) In the U.S., the Moomins are ambassadors.

The event featured Snufkin, Moomintroll, Little My, and Sniff, dancing and singing. Snufkin, of course, was the host. He played a saw. And the whole performance was a little magical. And strange. It kind of reminded me of the first time I saw The Teletubbies (which means I did think once or twice: What were they smoking? But in a sweet, affectionate way.) The event was definitely geared for the preschool age, though the books are for older kids. Still, the other-worldliness of it made it tolerable for my guys, as did the freebies: Ginger cookies shaped like Moomintroll and Snufkin! Slap bracelets! Little pins in the shape of Moomintroll! The space was great, the architecture of the building was very cool, and what's not to love about a Finnish guy in a green hat playing a saw?

Went home from the event and immediately my kids wanted to make Moomins out of socks (while my husband wanted to book us on the next plane to Finland.) Buoyed by our recent success with Sock Hedwig, we put together our Sock Moomins fairly quickly, though I'm calling what we came up with a prototype because they can definitely be improved (i.e. next time we need to use NEW socks instead of socks that are a little brown at the heal! Next time we should go with black felt and white felt for the eyes instead of a magic marker.) But once again, we're all about immediate gratification here. An hour or so later we had two Moomins, which have been a hit, even if Moominmama did have to borrow Polly Pocket's purse.

Oh, and I just found a picture I loaded from last winter, when we made Moomins out of Sculpey. They're a bit battered here -- the ears being the most breakable. We built them a little house out of a yogurt container. And blueberry pancakes on plates. Hours of entertainment!


And we're definitely putting the festival on our calendar for next year. I was especially interested in some of the Romanian magic acts, but there were too many time conflicts. I think with better planning we can get more out of it.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Working Theories

Lots on my mind after attending Kidlitcon 09 this weekend in Crystal City. While that all gels into what may become a blog post, I just wanted to invoke, for a moment, my lunch, purchased from perhaps the most generic deli ever built. I have two new food-related theories and they are as follows.
1. If it doesn't smell like salami, it's not a real deli.
2. If you visit a bagel shop that has a New York reference in the title (Manhattan Bagels, Brooklyn Bagels, Borough Bagels, etc.) and the bagel shop is NOT IN NEW YORK, chances are they're protesting way too much. Simply put: Your bagel is going to suck.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Five-minute Hedwig


My kids are all about immediate gratification. So when my son put on his Harry Potter robe last week in preparation for Halloween, he asked, right away, for a Hedwig.
"I didn't buy a Hedwig," I told him.
"Could we make one?"
"Sure," I said. "But it would take a while."
"We could make one now," he said. "We could use one of Daddy's socks, put some stuffing in it, then I could use marker for eyes, you could sew felt on for wings."
He paused.
"And talons."
I had all of the stuff he mentioned. He had the pattern in his head, so we tried it. In FIVE MINUTES we had Hedwig.
Not perfect, perhaps, and I may make a fluffier owl for Halloween (I'm not an expert sewer, but I'm competitive enough to want my kid to have more than a sock on his shoulder, especially if my friend Vicki goes trick-or-treating with us this year.) On the other hand, he's happy with it. And we have another use for mismatched socks.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Five Minute Phone Call and Another Use for Play-Doh


You know those friends you want to talk to, but you put off talking to because you know the conversation will be long and you just don't have time for long because it's late and you have to make dinner and your kids are screaming and even if they weren't screaming your brain is mush? A few years ago my husband instituted The Five Minute Phone Call. This is where you call a friend but you keep it short and just say: "AAACK. I can't believe the #&#& sox are out of the playoffs!" (him) or "So did you watch Glee?" (me). We don't do it nearly enough, but it's a fine way to make you feel like you're in real touch -- beyond a superficial Facebook update or a group e-mail, I mean.

I've been thinking that I should approach my blog the same way. Instead of not posting because I haven't formulated what I want to say in thoughtful, polished prose, I should just go for the five-minute post. So here's a stab at that, because I wanted to offer a bit of parenting advice, just in case you have to take your kids to a nursing home to see a relative. It's one of the best bits of parenting advice I figured out on my own, so, as the clock ticks, here's the grand advice:

Bring Play-Doh. Seriously.

I've always loved Play-Doh. When I was a kid I played with it and, okay, maybe tasted it once or twice. As an adult I kept it on my desk at work as a de-stresser. And over the past few years, I've packed it with me when I've had to make nursing home visits. It's great because it gives the kids something to do and it could even give the ailing adult something to do. But the main reason I bring it is because it's great for blocking the SMELLS that go along with nursing homes. Especially if you have a kid with a sensitive nose. Which I do. (Note that this works for parents as well as kids.) I usually go armed with three of those small, purse-sized containers. Okay, that's it. End of advice. End of post. Viva la Play Doh!

That is all.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

links and rain

So the rain this week hasn't let me do my very minor act of guerilla publicity, but I have tried to follow Darcy Pattison's lead and do the things she suggested on her site, which cannot be cancelled due to bad weather.

Day 1 was word of mouth day. Tell a friend about a book, Darcy said. I decided to tell my friend L about Sara Lewis Holmes' book Operation Yes. The book is about a class of military kids, always on the move with their families, and their very special teacher in Room 208. I'd mentioned it to L back before it was even called "Operation Yes." But I hadn't followed up because L and her kids had moved to Ohio with her military husband. I vowed to track her down, spent the morning looking for her email, didn't find it, and took my kids to their first day of school. And in the lobby I saw... L! She had just moved back to Virginia. So I told her about Sara's book in person. And later, when I got her new e-mail address, I sent her the link to Sara's website and blog.

Day 2 was Write a Review Day. The idea was to write for Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, etc. I am normally not a fan of those reviews, in part because everyone seems to give reviews written by Joe and Jane Public the same weight they give reviews from magazines and blogs. Which goes back to my feelings about newspapers, and how people now feel like they can provide their own news better than reporters. Which goes back to my feelings about how people comment, rudely about newspaper articles, because they are allowed to be anonymous. Which goes back to my seething feelings about a certain representative from South Carolina, who feels he is entitled to make an already low bar for civility even lower by disrespecting both the president and his own office and chamber... Okay. I'm digressing seriously here. My original misgivings actually sort of underline the reason for writing a good review of a friend's book on a public site. So for that assignment I signed up for Barnes and Noble and now appear as MadgeVA. (Madge being a nickname given to me by my friend Tom Angleberger, aka Sam Riddleburger, who I hope one day will blog about how he picked his pen name. I reviewed my friend Moira's book, "Penny and the Punctuation Bee," which my kids adore. And, it goes without saying, so do I!

Day 3 is to link to a good book, to help it appear in searches and whatnot, and for this, I'm moving to an adult book, by my friend Jim Mathews. I wrote about this book in my holiday letter last year, but I haven't blogged about it. Now I'm here to tell you that this book is an amazing piece of war literature, given in bite-sized stories. It wraps tension and emotion with humor, the same way you might wrap a scallop with a piece of bacon. It's magical and real at the same time, and was the winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction.

We'll see what day 4 has in store!

I also wanted to make a quick note about an e-mail I received today from the state of Virginia, saying that the state's artist fellowships, usually given to help artists (and writers!) do their thing, have been cancelled for the year, due to budget cuts. I'd hoped to apply, as I am still in need of a new furnace. Anyway, it's another reason for those of us who aren't completely strapped to go out and support our friends by buying some books.

Monday, September 7, 2009

School's In

Back after a summer off from blogging and what better way to get back into it than by following Darcy Pattison's brilliant suggestion of performing Random Acts of Publicity. This is where you help friends who have written books (or even people you don't know but whose books you like) and find ways to promote them. Er, randomly. Darcy has a more official setup/plan of action, but as I've been plum out of it, I'm just going to be true to her idea and try various random acts this week. I'll likely focus on people whose books I haven't highlighted on these pages. Bits. Whatever.

School officially starts today, but I'm already thinking about break, so I want to start by welcoming a new book about Thanksgiving. My favorite way to welcome books, as you know, is with a little song.

The book is by Jacqueline Jules, the driving force behind my critique group. I've lost count of how many things she's published since I joined four years ago, but I'm pretty sure it's at least 10 (not counting poems).


Duck for Turkey Day is Jackie's latest. It's about Tuyet, a young girl who's embarrassed to tell her classmates that her Vietnamese American family won't be eating turkey for Thanksgiving. But when she finally admits what she really ate (Hint/Spoiler: It's in the title) she finds that everyone's traditions are a little different. But they're a little bit the same, too.

You can't release a Thanksgiving book ON THANKSGIVING, of course. That would be bad marketing, especially when the stores have been hocking their Halloween Merch since, what, July? So it seems entirely reasonable this is a September release.

Anyway: To the music!

We'll start with Cousin Emmy playing Turkey in the Straw... on her cheeks.

Since Tuyet's family is from Vietnam (where I tried all kinds of crazy things when I visited in '95, but sadly, no duck) I thought I'd link to one of the most touristy things I did during my visit, which was to attend a performance of Hanoi's traditional Vietnamese Water Puppets. I didn't take any video when I was there, but this person did.

And what is Thanksgiving without Thank You by Led Zeppelin? Sadly I couldn't find any live footage on youtube, so there's just the music...

I'm sending you on a bit of a duck chase for this last one. The song's called "Ducks in the Pond" by the late Henry Reed, an old-time fiddler from Giles County, Va. I wanted to highlight Reed's work, too, so I figured I'd send you to this collection at the Library of Congress. Click on the link to "sound recordings" and then go under "D" for duck!

I've planned a minor guerilla action for another book for Tuesday. Stay tuned.