{"id":1881,"date":"2010-02-02T00:01:58","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T06:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1881"},"modified":"2010-02-02T00:16:07","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T06:16:07","slug":"what-it-means-to-be-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1881","title":{"rendered":"What It Means to Be Real"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“The bad Rabbit would like some carrot. <\/p>\n

He doesn’t say ‘Please.’ He takes it!”<\/em><\/p>\n

— From Beatrix Potter’s<\/strong><\/a> The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, 1906<\/center><\/font><\/p>\n

You can file this post away in the I Was Remiss to Not Tell You About This in ’09 category. But sometimes late is better than never. <\/p>\n

In October of last year, Roaring Brook released the great Anita Silvey’s<\/strong><\/a> Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book: Life Lessons from Notable People from All Walks of Life<\/a><\/em><\/strong>. In this book, Silvey shares the results of having posed the following question to well-known Americans in a wide range of fields (authors and illustrators, actors, scientists, reading experts, critics, editors, teachers, athletes, politicians, financiers, and much more): What children’s book left a lasting impact on you — and why?<\/em> Silvey divides the book into six separate sections, based on common themes in her subjects’ responses (some also taken from statements already in print and interviews): Inspiration, Understanding, Principles & Precepts, Vocation, Motivation, and Storytelling. <\/p>\n

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It’s a handsome book, a well-designed tribute to the power reading—and, specifically, children’s literature–has to transform lives. Many of the essays are quite moving, and each is accompanied by background material, provided by Silvey, on the highlighted book, as well as an excerpt from the book. You can easily find a copy at the nearest library or bookstore and take it all in; those who love to read books about<\/em> books won’t be disappointed. I’m not really here to give a review. Those close readers of 7-Imp know I rather burnt myself out on simply providing reviews of new titles; I’d rather give you a peek inside the book or not show up here at all. What I want to share instead today, therefore, are a few of my favorite excerpts. <\/p>\n

Not surprisingly to me, those favorites came from the “Storytelling” category. Here are but three bits and pieces from the lengthy book. Enjoy. <\/p>\n

Author Ken Follett<\/a><\/strong>:<\/font> \"Image“<\/em>The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit<\/strong><\/a> by Beatrix Potter<\/strong><\/a> is the shortest thriller ever written. In just 141 words it presents suspense, crime, gunplay, and retributive justice. I read it to my children when there were small, and now I read it to my grandchildren. It still teaches me how to write.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Novelist and poet Sherman Alexie<\/strong><\/a><\/a>:<\/font> “When I was growing up—a registered member of the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene tribes—<\/em>The Snowy Day<\/strong><\/a> by Ezra Jack Keats<\/strong><\/a> was pretty much the only children’s book that featured a protagonist with dark skin. I vividly remember the first day I pulled that book off the shelf. It was the first time I looked at a book and saw a brown, black, beige character—a character who resembled me physically and spiritually, in all his gorgeous loneliness and splendid isolation… <\/em>The Snowy Day transformed me from someone who read regularly into a true book hound. I really think the age at which you find the book with which you truly identify determines the rest of your reading life…Reading centers on finding yourself in a book…”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Author\/illustrator Mordicai Gerstein<\/strong><\/a>:<\/font> “When I was seven—every few weeks after a movie or a lunch out—I went with my parents to the old Pickwick Book Shop on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. While Mom and Dad browsed for Thomas Mann and the latest Hemingway, I went directly to a shelf where I had discovered a book that fascinated me. I spent my entire time there studying its hilarious pictures, strange rhymed stories, and exotic vocabulary… Finally, after what seemed to me years…I joyfully brought home my very own copy of Hilaire Belloc’s<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts and <\/em>Cautionary Tales for Children in one volume. <\/em><\/p>\n

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{Ed. Note: Remember when Mini Grey visited recently<\/strong><\/a> and showed us her contemporary picture book adaptation of Belloc’s “Jim, Who ran away from his Nurse, and was eaten by a Lion”? (That has been released in the UK, but she stopped by 7-Imp to give us an exclusive American sneak peek.) Here’s the original illustration.}<\/center><\/p>\n

The book was funny…in a sneaky way. It pretended to be a book of deadpan Victorian moral fables but was really something else—a book that made fun of the very thing it appeared to be. It conspired with me, the child, to undermine adult pomposity, rules, and authority. The marvelous drawings by B.T.B. were not afraid to be grotesque… Belloc, and later Lewis Carroll, P.L. Travers, and others introduced me to the deliciously subversive realm of parody and satire. They showed me a way one could respond to the world, and maybe change it, by making fun of it.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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What about you? What children’s book impacted your life — and why? What I Learned from what I recall as my first book-obsession is revealed in this post’s title, and it comes from Margery Williams’<\/strong><\/a> The Velveteen Rabbit<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, published in 1922. I don’t remember being read to and wasn’t<\/em> read to on a regular basis, according to my mother (though I have one cherished, old photo of my late brother reading to me when we were wee), but someone gave me that book (illustrated by William Nicholson<\/strong><\/a>)—I don’t remember who—and I read it so much as a child that I can still recite the first page from memory. I was fascinated by the fairy flower, horrified at how the rabbit was dismissed after the scarlet fever struck, and always rather stunned to see him leaping in joy at the end. The Skin Horse, all grace and wisdom: I wanted him to be my own friend. I also still remember to this day the description of how Nana, always in a hurry, cleaned the nursery and how cruel she seemed. It struck me as a child (though not on a conscious level) how much these few sentences told me about her character, and it’s always stayed with me — so much so that I swear I think of it every time I’m picking up my girls’ toys: <\/p>\n

“There was a person called Nana who ruled the nursery. Sometimes she took no notice of the playthings lying about, and sometimes, for no reason whatever, she went swooping about like a great wind and hustled them away in cupboards. She called this ‘tidying up,’ and the playthings all hated it, especially the tin ones.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The way she dragged the rabbit out by one ear that first night, in all her haste: “Here…take your old Bunny!” Oh, the horror! <\/p>\n

What children’s book changed the way you<\/font> see the world? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The bad Rabbit would like some carrot. He doesn’t say ‘Please.’ He takes it!” — From Beatrix Potter’s The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit, 1906 You can file this post away in the I Was Remiss to Not Tell You About This in ’09 category. But sometimes late is better than never. In October […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}