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MissMelisshttp://www.missmeliss.com

And the smallest one was Madeline

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In an hold house in Paris
that was covered with vines
lived twelve little girls
in two straight lines
— Ludwig Bemelmans

I didn’t actually really like the Madeline books as a child, but a few years ago, searching for inspiration to help design a dragon for a MUSH, a dragon for a small spunky redhead, a dragon from a clutch with a theme of children’s stories, I found Madeline and fell in love.

She’s a little French orphan who gets into the worst possible trouble, and always ends up a heroine, thanks to her intelligence, ingenuity and charm – how could you not love a character like that. More spunky than actually cute, she’s precocious, a trait I’m more than a little bit familiar with, and vivacious – a trait I wish I had more of.

While I don’t generally like picture books, in these books the drawings are worth bending my rule for, because they manage to be almost minimalist, and yet full of detail at the same time.

A study in contrasts, like the main character herself.

(Posted from Denny’s where my peach French toast is getting cold.)

And point, and flex, and point, and…

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From the time I was five to the time I was eleven I took ballet lessons. For the most part, I loved it. Not so much the tulle, as I never got to the pointe shoes and pink tutus stage of dance, but for the music and the lights, and the pink tights. There’s something really charming about little girls in pink tights.

When I was six, Auntie Annette (not an actual relative, but one of those affectionate aunts that families tend to acqire) gifted me with the childrens book / photo essay A Very Young Dancer, about a little girl named Stephanie who was studying at the School for American Ballet. In the book, we follow Stephanie to her regular dance class, and then to the auditions for the annual New York City Ballet production of The Nutcracker, through rehearsals (she’s cast as the ingenue) and performances. The pictures are full pages, in grainy black and white, and yet, even without color they share the magic of music and theatre and willful suspension of disbelief. In those pictures, even though you KNOW that Mother Ginger is a guy in makeup and hoopskirts, and wearing stilts, you totally believe that little dancers live within the skirts.

It was my favorite book for the longest time, and I’m fairly certain I still have it tucked away somewhere, right there with “Dance me a story,” which was how I fell in love with the story of Giselle, and an ancient album that featured Bob “Captain Kangaroo” Keeshan hosting / narrating Peter and the Wolf, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and The Nutcracker (the latter performed as if it was a musical).

Years after I’d put the dancing behind me, I was working props for the Fresno Ballet, and one of my jobs was to help Mother Ginger into her (his) stilts…and it didn’t spoil the magic a bit.

Dance if you feel the least down-hearted
Dance and you’ll feel good once you’ve started
You’ll ho with a hee and a ha, and a yip
And a yep full of pep as you step, step, step!

2:00 – Pledge Break

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As I enter hour seven of Blogathon 2006, I’d like to remind everyone that while blogging every half hour from various locations is kind of fun, there’s also a purpose to this insanity.

I’m doing this to help raise money for First Book, and I need you to sponsor me. Don’t feel like you have to pledge the farm, $5 buys two books. That’s two kids who get hooked on reading, and on the special pride that comes with their OWN books. (As a comparison, $5 is only slightly more than the average venti coffee drink at Starbucks, and a book lasts a lot longer than a cup of froufrou coffee.)

As an added incentive, I’m offering sponsorship gifts. At the end of the blogathon, I’ll be tossing the names of all my sponsors in a hat, and drawing some names. Three people will get copies of one of the books I talk about during this project, two people will get the a book along with a special gift box that goes with the book (details are a surprise), and one person will get the book, the gift box, and a $10 gift certificate to their choice of Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, or Borders.

So, join me in supporting First Book.
Click here, and sponsor me today.

I Never Had Railroad Train Pajamas

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…though I do have some with turquoise scotties that say “woof woof” in purple. I’m all for whimsical nightwear. But Alexander, my favorite Judith Viorst character, did have railroad train pajamas, which he hated, as much as he hated lima beans and kissing on tv. (Me, I like lima beans, and prefer kissing Fuzzy while *watching* tv, but…um…yeah…)

Received as a gift when I was all of five, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is one of my favorite books even today. It was written for children, but it’s not at all childish. I mean, who hasn’t dumped their sweater in the sink or felt like no matter what they do it’s somehow not enough at some point in their lives.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an entry in the style of Alexander…, which is now hidden away in a different database, but my love of the tale remains. There’s something about the rhythm and cadence that makes it as memorable as the story itself.

Some books are just like that.
Even when they’re kiddie-lit.

Tomato

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I was eight or nine when I met Harriet M. Welsch (who knows perfectly well she has no middle name), and her friends Sport and Janie, and her nanny Ole Golly, and I was instantly enraptured. Then there was the scene where she instructed the cook that she wanted a tomato sandwich, turning down offers of many other delicacies in favor of the tangy pulpy fruit.

She was a wise little girl.

Harriet lived in New York, of course, so it’s safe to assume that the tomatos on her famous sandwiches were from New Jersey, which is as it should be. I maintain that you have not truly tasted a proper tomato until you’ve had one nurtured in the rich soil of the Garden State. (If you should happen to pop a cherry-sized bit of tomato-y bliss into your mouth while standing barefoot in said soil, and while you, the earth and the tomato are pleasantly warm from the sun, so much the better.) No tomato compares. Truly.

Whenever there’s food in a novel, or story, I want to experience it. One of my fantasies, in fact, is to open a bookstore cafe where all the menu items are from literature. The mystery room would have gourmet dinners worthy of Nero Wolfe’s approval, but it would also offer proper afternoon teas, hosted by Miss Marple look-alikes (dead bodies optional). The science fiction room would have chocolate chai masquerading as klah, and stews would be cooked over bunsen burners a la the mother in A Wrinkle in Time, but I digress.

Harriet introduced me to tomato sandwiches and got me hooked on writing, as I was already hooked on reading. With Harriet’s inspiration, I started a neighborhood newspaper using my grandfather’s old gun-metal grey manual typewriter and a table-top mimeograph machine, I began keeping notebooks of thoughts and ideas, and I started flirting with journals, though, because I’ve got a strong fickle streak, the latter never lasted.

I’m sitting here now in Barnes and Noble, Cedar Hill, Texas, sipping chai and finishing a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, and toasting Harriet the Spy, and imaginative little girls everywhere.

Continuing the Trend of Hair

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Once upon a time
When your mother was with child
She developed an unusual appetite.
She told your father
That what she wanted
More than anything in the world
Was greens, greens, and nothing but greens
Parsley, peppers, cabbages and celeries
Asparagus and watercress and fiddleferns and lettuce
He said “All right” but it wasn’t quite…”
–from Into the Woods

I’ve always loved the dark history of fairy tales. Rapunzel and her hair, Cinderella and her stepsisters – the Disney-fied versions of these don’t remind you that the wicked queen often ends up dancing in iron-hot shoes while her soul languishes in hell. AS a kid, I found a collection of pre-Disney versions of these tales, in a red leather bound book, in my grandparents’ house. Probably it belonged to my mother or her sisters, but maybe my grandfather had bought it for me. I never knew, I didn’t ask.

A decade later that book would be my inspiration, along with Anne Sextons “Transformations” in claiming, in a literary thesis, that Snow White was really a vampire story.

I still want to write it as a novel.