[yummy review] Sunday Pancakes by Maya Tatsukawa

~ jama ~ 6 Comments

Raise your paws if you love pancakes. Now twitch your whiskers if you especially like eating them on Sundays. I thought so. 🙂

Just hearing the word “pancake” makes me happy. No wonder: they’re a universally beloved comfort food, a direct line to childhood memories of lazy Sunday morning family breakfasts. Pancakes drenched in maple syrup with pats of butter melting down the sides — yes, please!

Love when there’s another illustration under the book jacket!

Now, reading about pancakes is almost as good as eating them, so I was quite excited when I heard about Sunday Pancakes by Maya Tatsukawa (Dial BFYR, 2022). But. I. absolutely. was. not. prepared for the hug-myself adorableness of this darling book.

So, Cat’s all set to make pancakes but doesn’t have any eggs or milk. What to do? Call friends to see if they have some. Luckily Rabbit has eggs and Moonbear has milk. They’re hungry for pancakes too!

Rabbit zips over to Cat’s house on his scooter, singing as he goes. “Pancakes Flapjacks Hotcakes.” He’s a little hyper and clumsy, so when he hop-trips in the front door some of the food items fly out of his basket. Blueberries, carrots, eggs on the floor – well, not all the eggs (phew!).

Next, Moonbear arrives with a carton of milk and a jar of homemade – “HOOAANNHEY!” (That’s what “honey” sounds like when you’re tripping over a carrot.) 😀

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star polisher or mustache twirler: what would I choose?

~ jama ~ 41 Comments

Brian Doyle’s prose poem got me thinking and sparked some interesting flights of fancy.

Carol Schwartz (What If There Were No Sea Otters?, 2010).
IF YOU COULD DO ANYTHING ELSE, WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
by Brian Doyle

Given another interest, or absorption, in life, asks a student
In the high school, what is it you would choose? And don't
Think about it -- just blurt out whatever leaps to your mouth.
Otter observer! I say, and perhaps half the students laugh,
But the others look puzzled. Bear expert! Bassoon maestro!
Cartoonist! Trumpeter in a ska band playing the early stuff!
Professional badger herder! The guy who brings radio back
As the coolest media ever! Editor of a magazine about jays!
He who banishes despair with a touch of his left forefinger!
He who miraculously hears yes again every afternoon when
He sends his request to be married through the holy ether to
One woman in particular! And there I pause, just as startled
As the kids at what has jumped out, and then, unforgettably,
A few kids start to applaud, and then a few more. Afterward
One shy girl says to me I sure hope I meet a boy who thinks
Like that about the woman he thinks about, and I said I hope
So too and he thinks about you, and we shook hands and she
Slipped away, and the next kid says to me, sir, really, otters?

~ from How the Light Gets In: And Other Epiphanies (Orbis, 2019).
“The Orchestra at the Opera” by Edgar Degas (1870)

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nine cool things on a tuesday

~ jama ~ 12 Comments

1. Hello, October! How about some of Janet Hill’s Halloweeny oil paintings?

Janet is based in Ontario, Canada, and has been painting since her senior year of high school. Her work is elegant and nostalgic with charming touches of whimsy. 

Her many interests include tornadoes, haunted houses, quicksand, pirates, witches, lady villains (preferably ones that wear monocles), doll houses, dogs and cats, fashion and interior design (1920-1979), Laurel Canyon, historic hotels, ESP, sea monsters, vintage cars, Old Hollywood, the Manson family, Wes Anderson movies, and understanding why her husband owns over thirty books about Bob Dylan.

To purchase any of these prints, visit Janet’s Official Website. While you’re there, browse all her other wonderful offerings. In addition to prints, she sells cards, puzzles, games, stationery, and her latest book, Lucy Crisp and the Vanishing House (for ages 12+). More goodness at her Instagram and Etsy Shop.

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[review + giveaway] Spine Poems by Annette Dauphin Simon

~ jama ~ 70 Comments

Annette Dauphin Simon first discovered the delights of found verse about a decade ago while working as a bookseller for an independent bookshop in Florida. 

Titles by Vivian Gornick/Nina Laden and Kelsey Garrity-Riley
Unfinished Business
You Are a Beautiful Beginning

One rainy Sunday afternoon, during a lull following a rush of customers, she and a colleague looked at the stacks of books lying in disarray around the store. After laughing at the random arrangement of titles resulting from genres mingling together, they came up with their own game of “rearrangements.”

Titles by Billy Collins/Adam Rex.
The Trouble With Poetry
Nothing Rhymes with Orange

Science fiction + business. History + mystery. A book from here with a book from there. Creating these collages from other people’s words was so much fun. Since some of their new constructions appeared poem-like, they called them “found verses,” not knowing at the time that it’s a recognized form of writing dating back to the 1920s.

Titles by Jenny Offill and Barry Blitt/Julia Sarcone-Roach/Dana Alison Levy/Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri.
While You Were Napping
The Bear Ate Your Sandwich
It Wasn't Me
Dragons Love Tacos

Well, Annette was hooked. She shared new verses with her colleagues on a regular basis and documented her spine poetry with her camera. She shared her poems on social media and even turned some of them into greeting cards. 

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Brita Granström: a small fleeting moment, the wide blue sea

~ jama ~ 11 Comments
“Tea for Two” by Brita Granström

I had to catch my breath the first time I saw Brita Granström’s, “Tea for Two”: the soft light at the window framed by gauzy blue curtains, the expectant posture of the woman looking outside, the gorgeous blue tea set. Love how she captured the ethereal beauty of a fleeting moment in time.

Brita in her studio.

Living and working between the UK and her native Sweden, Brita is a fine arts painter as well as an award winning children’s book illustrator (most notably in collaboration with her husband Mick Manning).

No surprise – I’m totally enamored of her interiors, which depict people engaged in domestic tasks – arranging flowers, cutting rhubarb, rolling out pastry dough, cutting apples, relaxing with a crossword puzzle. Her “soft focus” approach gives her pictures a dreamy, haunting quality that pulls us into her visual narratives. We are witnessing ‘life as it happens.’

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