I’m just going to pause in my Italian journey here to mention an amazing collection of photos I stumbled upon at the Colorado Historical Society/Denver Public Library. It seems the 10th Mountain Division trained in both Colorado and on Washington’s Mount Rainier in preparation for expeditions into the mountains of Italy. Their endeavors were extensively photographed and are now largely available online. 

I’m taking the liberty of posting one of the most haunting photos I’ve seen of a place much mentioned in my dad’s diary (nearby targets, mostly), but still unseen by me. Lake Garda will have to be another real-time adventure, but for now, I’m exploring it as it was some 60 years ago online. You can too. 

Check out the collection of 10th Mountain Division photos at: 

http://history.denverlibrary.org/images/index.html

WWII image from the 10th Mountain Division

Copyright © 1995-2007 Denver Public Library, Colorado Historical Society, and Denver Art Museum

For those of you who are David Macaulay fans (The Way Things Work, Cathedral, Pyramid, Black & White, The Way WE Work) there is a must-see exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum right now. It runs through June 14, 2009 and it’s fantastic. Set up to show the progression of Macaulay’s work from “envelope sketches” to finished work, the exhibit is so great I’m going back to see it again—and this time not on a “free night.”

The only thing I missed in the show was a glimpse at the final-final version of the various sets of work—in book form.  Next time, I’m tempted to bring my own copies of the books into the gallery for comparison. But trust me, authors and illustrators and curious minds of all sorts will love this intimate view of Macaulay’s studio process. Just don’t do what I (as a notorious museum geek) always seem to do and make the security guards nervous by getting so into it you inch too close to the irreplaceable  art. 

The Tacoma Art Museum, like all the museums in the downtown Tacoma “museum triangle,” is open for free every Third Thursday evening. But if you want a more immersive and exclusive experience, go see the show on a weekday afternoon when the galleries are a bit more quiet. It’s worth the cash. 

Lastly, if you want to meet David Macaulay, come on down to the “Big Draw” Community Festival on April 19, 2009. For twice the fun, you can also check out the “With Our Hands” Folk Art Festival at the Washington State History Museum just two blocks away that same day.

Forgive me peeps for I have sinned, it’s been way too long since my last post. But, hey, life’s been busy, and who am I to bore you with the details? What I will share is my latest author interview recently posted on the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts/Whidbey Writer’s Workshop student website. The story is called “Meet the Watsons: An Interview With Author-Illustrator Richard Jesse Watson.” Check it out at http://whidbeystudents.com/childrensyoung-adult/.

Watson’s studio is like a total “whatsthatthing?” tour. So cool!

I’m delighted to announce that the premiere issue of COLUMBIAKids is live and thriving at http://columbia.washingtonhistory.org/kids. It’s an awesome new online magazine for Pacific Northwest kids (about 4-14 years) who love stories AND for kids around the world who want to know more about the Northwest.

COLUMBIAKids is scheduled to come out twice per year, with one general issue (as you’ll find posted) and one theme issue per year. A publication of the Washington State Historical Society, it’s funded through grants and sponsorships so you won’t find a lick of advertising competing with the stories on the page. 

COLUMBIAKids is mainly nonfiction, but includes one historical fiction piece per issue. Here are some of the great stories you’ll find in the Fall 2008 issse:

One Day in History (historical fiction): “Capture at Penn Cove” 

Notorious NWesterners: Grub for Giants (about logging camp cooks)

What is That?: Pigs at the Market (about Rachel, the Pike Place piggy bank)

Making History: Washington’s Goodwill Ambassador (about artist Dale Chihuly’s installation in Jerusalem)

NW Legends: How Salmon Finds His Way Home (an original legend about the salmon’s sense of smell)

Collections Conundrum: Unraveling the Mystery of the WSHS Mummy (by yours truly)

Try This: The Union Railroad’s “Hurry Up! Apple Cake”

Homework Helper: Washington’s State Symbols

NW Book Swap: Reviews of books by Pacific Northwest authors written by KIDS

Lastly, you’ll find some secret “doorways” into “Amazing Places” and “Word Play,” but I’ll leave you the thrill of exploring and finding them on your own.

COLUMBIAKids has been called as “the coolest new kids’ zine on the web.” We agree and hope you do too.

Check out “about COLUMBIAKids” to download the latest writers and illustrators guidelines.

Arrivals and Inventions: A Two-Book Review

By Stephanie Lile

The Arrival by Shaun Tan. Published in the United States by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic, Inc., 2007. Copyright 2006.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Published by Scholastic Press, New York. Copyright 2007.

There is a land somewhere far away from each of us where the language is unknown, the symbols unidentifiable, and the social structures unseen. And yet we must go there. For reasons that lurk larger than life, that threaten our very existence, we must go. We must travel to another place, and make our way in unfamiliar territory. Still, memories linger, and merge with new experiences. Do we despair at the differences, or do we celebrate survival? Whether going to a new place or learning a new thing, we are all in some small way, at risk of becoming The Arrival.

Shaun Tan, in his extraordinary work The Arrival, explores what it is like to arrive in a new place not knowing the language or the geography or the people. His is a story of a man who must leave his wife and daughter to go find work in another country. Through pictures and gestures, the man finds a room to rent, a job to work, and food to eat. All is strange and confusing, but he learns to survive and make friends. Through it all, a lone family picture and an origami crane symbolize memory and hope for a happier future. Tan does all this without placing a single word on the page.

In The Arrival, pictures tell the entire story. But these are not just any pictures. They are both universal and exclusive to every reader. Rendered with an unparalleled imagination and emotion, Tan’s story in pictures touches the soul of anyone who has ever felt out place anywhere. It reveals the complexity of the immigration story with detail and insight pulled from actual stories and references of migrants to Western Australia, Britain, and the United States. From the frustration and discrimination of being tagged as an immigrant, to the joys of being befriended by an unexpected pet, to the compassion expressed through the sharing of arrival stories, Tan gives us a personal glimpse of what it takes to survive in a new place. Faces of sixty immigrants line the endpapers like a high school annual—each black and white pencil drawing alluding to another life story, another story of Arrival.

This moving work, published in the United States by Arthur A. Levine Books, begs the question, “Why no Caldecott for this one?” This year, in 2008, the Caldecott Medal for illustration went to Brian Selznick’s clever and intriguing book The Invention of Hugo Cabret. While “Hugo” is without question a compelling work of art and story, highly deserving of its honor, The Arrival stops any Caldecott follower in his or her tracks. Like Hugo, its pictures speak as loud (actually louder) than the words, and the images are rendered with a similar technique and style. But the catch of the coveted Caldecott is that it “shall be awarded to the artist of the most distinguished American Picture Book for Children published in the United States during the preceding year. The award shall go to the artist, who must be a citizen or resident of the United States, whether or not he be the author of the text.” The Arrival fails these criteria on two counts. Shaun Tan is not American and the book was not originally published in America. It was first published in Australia by Lothian Books in 2006.

Testament to Levine’s eye for signing international books with groundbreaking impact, The Arrival is stunningly produced. Harkening back to turn-of-the-century leather bound photo albums, even the pages possess a gritty texture and faux crackled edges to suggest the original documents that provided much of its inspiration.

Production for Hugo was groundbreaking, too. Echoing the old wide-angle to tight shot movie imagery, the book’s hefty 530 page count stunned booksellers and buyers. But its message, innovation in production, and early film inspiration moved readers beyond those hurdles as quickly as a 30-second film trailer makes a person want to sit through a three-and-a-half-hour movie. Unraveling the mystery of a broken automatron and a young, orphaned Hugo Cabret, this story weaves a magical tale of life’s desires and disappointments as seen through the eyes of Hugo. After the death of his father and uncle, he secretly takes over the maintenance of the clocks in Paris’s grand train station. The story evolves from what he sees and hears while secreted away inside the station’s walls.

In comparing these two books, one significant difference is the speed at which you find yourself reading. I found myself wanting to read Hugo film-flicker fast and The Arrival sightseer slow. Yet interestingly, while these two books vary noticeably in dimension, production, and pace, their messages are largely the same. Theirs is a message of invention—and reinvention—of our selves. And yet the bigger question both stories pose is, “How will you do it—how will you get there?”

If we follow Tan’s and Selznick’s lead, we invent and reinvent ourselves by unlocking the stories captured in life’s pictures. Their works make it seem deceptively simple.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

This review first appeared on the Whidbey Writer’s Workshop student site at www.whidbeystudents.com.

Have you ever wondered what the inside of an ancient Egyptian tomb looks like? If so, you need you check out the Thebian Mapping Project web site at http://www.thebanmappingproject.com.

Thebes is the ancient name for modern-day Luxor (Al Uqsur in local and Google terms) which sits on the east bank of the Nile River far south of Cairo. Nearby sprawl the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. The Thebian Mapping Project web site lets you journey there not only through the lens of scholarly expertise, but with views and maps of the various tombs that give you a sense of the place no other web site has mastered. 

In the “About” section of the web site, you’ll find a brief introduction and explanation of the project as it was conceived by Dr. Kent Weeks and his artist wife Susan Weeks. “Since its inception in 1978, the Theban Mapping Project (TMP, now based at the American University in Cairo) has been working to prepare a comprehensive archaeological database of Thebes. With its thousands of tombs and temples, Thebes is one of the world’s most important archaeological zones.”

Their work opens our eyes not only to the wonders of these ancient tombs, but to the importance of working in league with governments and institutions to preserve them–and antiquities of all sorts. Exploring ancient funerary practices and religious centers can also help us open our minds and hearts to different ways of interacting with the world and the people and objects in it. 

The Thebian Mapping Project is a journey you won’t forget.

I’ve just finished watching a great video of a program held at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles featuring the historical fiction writers Steven Saylor and Steven Pressfield. Titled “Writing Historical Fiction: The Ancient World in Modern Literature,” the program was moderated by journalist Patt Morrison. In the introduction, Morrison makes a great observation about the role of objects (and museum collections in general) in today’s world.

“Objects are a way of channeling the past,” Morrison says.

They also often serve as markers in history. Saylor makes reference to the invention of the stirrup, which didn’t exist in ancient Greece and Rome, and how he’d made the mistake of including it in an early novel. He took the reference out of the second printing, but nonetheless makes a point about knowing what objects are key to the time period and place you are writing about. Since the stirrup revolutionized horsemanship and warfare, it’s a pretty pivotal object (possibly even a topic for another post–I did write about it as part of my undergrad thesis). The other point that Saylor and Pressfield make throughout the program is how important it has been for them to read the ancient sources–and how their research varies dramatically depending on the time period about which they are writing. 

All in all, it’s a lively and enlightening 84 minutes. If you don’t have the time to watch, you can also download the audio file and listen to it while you’re enroute to Rome (or work).

Check it out at: 

http://www.getty.edu/museum/programs/historical_fiction_panel.html

And if you want to check out the Getty collection of antiquities and other art, go to www.getty.edu in the Museum/Explore Art section. It’s a fantastic online collection (although you won’t find any stirrups).