Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Delta Deep Down (copy)

Jane Rule Burdine, a native of Mississippi and currently living in Taylors, has a muse. This muse is moody though. She can produce breathe-stealing humidity and angry storms one minute and then sing of soft foggy bogs and fluffy kudzu gardens the next. For over 40 years of nurturing this muse, Burdine realizes she can never be tamed; although, the muse has made an effort to sit still for pictures.

The book, Delta Deep Down, is Burdine's portrait of her muse, the Delta. Over 100 photographs covering the early 1970s to present will haunt, delight and mist over readers' eyes. As one opens the cover of the book revealing a rich-brown, freshly plowed earth, they suspect the contents to be forth right. On the last pages appears blue sky with fat white clouds. The interior of the book reveals not just the land in between earth and sky but heaven on earth.

An introduction by Steve Yarbrough stops readers from jumping straight into Burdine's collection. He teases us as he relates stories of a Delta he remembered as a kid growing up in Indianola. From a woman on page 27 that looks like his childhood corrector named Johnnie to a "shack" on page 72 whom the occupant calls home, we follow his story by glimpsing briefly at the pictures on the corresponding pages. Yarbrough brings uniqueness to introducing Burdine's work with this approach.

Following the introduction is a poem titled "Home" by William Alexander Percy. It appeared as the fifth stanza in "In New York" stemming from a bout of homesickness by the poet. The last sentence reads, "And, when the marvelous wide evenings come, Across the molten river one can see, The misty willow-green of Arcady. And then—the summer stars…I will go home."

The first official photograph of the book is perfect to open the collection. The picture was taken from the inside of a building looking out a window without glass or sashes. Through the wide opening we see moist plowed ground, some telephone poles and horse-hair sky. It is a reinforcement of the book itself mirroring the front and back covers talked about in previous paragraphs.

My favorite shots in the collection consist of people. One of them portrays a family either returning from or going to their fishing hole. Older daughter is forging ahead with all the cane poles slung over her shoulder while mother holds granddaughter's pudgy hand and father brings up the rear carrying with what I hope to be a mess of fish. The sky is blue and the gravel is yellow on a perfect Saturday afternoon.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Backyards & Beyond (copy)

As we pray to ease the suffering Haitians are currently experiencing, I took an opportunity yesterday to revisit the hardships Katrina caused by viewing the "Backyards and Beyond" traveling exhibit currently displayed at the Delta State University Museum & Archives building in Cleveland.

During the first days after Katrina struck, many Mississippians in the northern part of the state felt a sense of helplessness as the stories began to trickle up from the coast. Something horrible was happening in our backyard and we were powerless. Those who were on the coast at the time were left to find services and supplies as best they could from attending organizations. Does this sound familiar in the aftermath of Haiti's earthquake?

The exhibit "Backyards and Beyond" is the story of Mississippians who survived Katrina and attempted to clean up before services and supplies were in place. Some of the stories make you cry, some make you turn in disgust, and others will evoke a chuckle. One story had me fighting back tears.

After being rescued from her rooftop, a woman told of the 15 odd dogs that swam to her rescue boat. Other dogs remained on roof tops or swam away once seeing her German Sheppard. The rescue boat dropped them off at the top of a two story building, the bottom floor was filled with water, that remained their shelter until help arrive three days later. It was the thought of the dogs left behind that caused me to unhinge.

I should stop here and explain the layout of the exhibit. Upon entering a short video explains the reason for the exhibit. Apparently artist H. C. Porter could not sit idly by in Washington D.C. while her fellow Mississippians suffered. She boarded a plane the next day for the coast with a mission. She photographed and recorded as many stories as possible while fresh. She jokes that she is not a historian and used a $20 Wal-Mart recorder.

Porter took her material back to the studio and produced 50 pieces of mixed media portraits while listening to the stories. The exhibit contains 20 of those portraits with the individual's story located on the side. On the floor throughout the exhibit are life size photographs of debris as if walking around the bedraggled coast.

What does this have to do with books? The exhibit catalog is excellent with all 50 pieces of artwork and stories. If you cannot make it to the exhibit, check out Backyards & Beyond: Mississippians and Their Stories by H. C. Porter.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Best Picture Books of 2009 (copy)

I love the end of the year with all its best books from 2009 lists. For our childcare classes, I ordered a handful from these lists and am delighted to be the first to read them.

For children with short attention spans, All the World written by Liz Garton Scanlon and illustrated by Caldecott Honor medalist Marla Frazee, is perfect. Frazee wrote and illustrated last year's popular A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, and she portrays the same friendship and camaraderie amongst all us humans in this new picture book. Scanlon words emphasis the message, "Hope and peace and love and trust, All the world is all of us."

Yes, I too had aspirations of becoming a pink-clad, tutu-twirling ballerina. My scrawny, third world belly was a sight, unlike the perfectly poised child ballerinas in Beautiful Ballerina by Newbery Honor winner Marilyn Nelson and photographer Susan Kuklin. Four students from the Dance Theatre of Harlem will stretch, pirouettes and leap into many a small reader's heart. Words are rare, but require an adult to read like this passage, "To the tradition of port de bras and arabesque, of pirouettes, jetés, and pas de deux, you bring a tiny hint of Africanness, juju and beautiful joy danced in your every move."

For little boys Dinotrux, written and illustrated by clever Chris Gall, combines dinosaurs and trucks. The story begins, "Millions of years ago prehistoric Trucks roamed the earth. They were Huge. They were Hungry. But they weren't helpful like they are today. They rumbled, roared, and chomped. And they did NOT get along well with others. They were called DinoTrux!" Gall is a genius!

Looking for a hilarious read-aloud? Duck! Rabbit! written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld will confuse and amuse children. A basic ink shape of a rabbit, or no, duck appears on every page. Wait a minute. What is it? With motion waves drawn under the shape one declares, "There, see? It's flying!" while another says, "Flying? It's hopping!"

Bedtime will be less fight and more quiet with Otis by Loren Long. Otis is a farm tractor who has the run of the farm. When a little baby calf is placed next to him in the barn at night, he becomes a sleep aid with his "soft putt puff puttedy chuff." Unfortunately, Otis is replaced by a loud yellow tractor whose snores shakes the barn and scares the little calf. We need Otis!

Start the year off right by reading to your kids or grandkids with these best-of-the-best reads.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Born to Run (copy)

As a rule I balk at New Year's resolutions, but this year I wrote down 20 promises to be broken at an undetermined future date. Out of the 20, eight of them deal with running, losing weight and becoming healthy. This is a great time to head to the library and look for books on exercise and nutrition. No need in spending money on books I might not use.

Within a library search I found the perfect book, Born to Run:A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall, to inspire me for at least a month. Wait! Don't stop reading! This is less a book on the mechanics of running and more about the joy of running. But, you are thinking, "I don't run and this has nothing for me."

McDougall is a great story teller. He spends chapters exploring the Tarahumara culture, a Native American tribe who prefer to run mountain trails barefoot or wear ankle laced sandals. Dangers lurk at the base of the lawless country of Mexico's Copper Canyons where the tribe lives. Drug lords are unkind to those caught passing through the marijuana fields. To add mystery to the story there is a man called Caballo Blanco (White Horse) who haunts the trails and lives amongst the tribe.

Readers will marvel at the ultra-running that takes place in America. Ultra-running and ultra-racing is a relatively new sport that pits man against nature for lengths passed 26.2 miles or the standard length of a marathon. Like music rappers, runners divide the country between east coast and west coast races of 50 or 100 miles and rarely do racers cross the Mississippi. The exciting Leadville 100 (100 miles) is retold by the author as if reading a horse race in the book Seabiscuit.

The media portrays the book as a manifesto for running barefoot and that is unfair. In many interviews with the author, reporters focus on the pros and cons of running barefoot or with racing flats rather than traditional running shoes. McDougall adds to this misconception by running to the interviews barefoot. The book is much more than the gimmick.

It reminds me of Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle which is renowned as the catalyst for government regulation of the beef industry or as a treatise for vegetarians when in fact it is a study in socialism. There is a brief mention of the beef processing plant and the bloody Illinois River but by no means is the whole book on the evils of beef.

My hope is that people will read Born to Run for its many other attributes rather than write it off as a crazy author's bid for attention.