Fish in the Basement Aquarium of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, MA

On My Blog

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

• The post is called Hermit Crab – see an inspiring, beautiful watercolor by Carol Feldman.
• I am happy to see Batya participating in Ruby Tuesday – be sure to visit her photos with red, too!
• A Texan visits the Dachau Concentration Camp. (hat tip: Louis La Vache)
• Ilana-Davita posted a recipe for chicken with red peppers, which I made on Friday. I grilled it and then baked it a bit in the oven right before Shabbat. Tasty, though I think next time I should add more garlic.
• A disturbing post on Jews Leaving Sweden – talks about Malmo, which I read about in Caldwell’s book (see below).
• A discussion about modesty (tzniut or tznius) on Rachel’s blog.

Book Bits

Books I’m reading: I read most of the stories in The Jew of Home Depot and Other Stories by Max Apple. I would like to write a post on the story called “Stabbing an Elephant.” Can anyone guess what the story about stabbing an elephant is about? Hint: which Jewish holiday?

I started reading My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq by Ariel Sabar, a birthday present from a dear friend (thank you). It is a captivating book; Ariel Sabar tells his story and the story of his father with great flourish and engaging description.

I finished Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West by Christopher Caldwell – I highly recommend it, though the topic is a disturbing one.

One of my favorite childhood books is Mrs. Piggle Wiggle’s Magic by Betty MacDonald. A chapter in the book is called I-Thought-You-Saiders-Cure. For example, Mrs. Anderson may have said “Hand me that ruler,” but Darsie hears “Bananas are cooler.” Mrs. Burbank says the arithmetic book “is on the table in the hall,” but Lindsay hears it’s “in the stable in a stall.” A mother tells her children to look at the fog rise, and they thought she was talking about the dog’s eyes.

Last week I made two mini faux pas where I rushed through reading online. In one case I misread a tweet on Twitter; in another I misread an email note. On Twitter I caught the misreading right away, and I tried to explain it to the other person, but I’m afraid the humor got lost (He wrote, I have time to write because my daughter is back in school, and I read, I have a hard time writing because my daughter learned to read in school). Hard to explain in 140 characters that at first I misread his tweet in a humorously wrong way. In the email the other person wrote Why should I comment. I read What should I comment. Two different lines! Note to self: slow down. Years ago I misread an email where I thought the person wrote “some idiot” and she had written “some idiot like me.” I should have waited to respond to that one!

Have you ever misread something and had it come back to haunt you?

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Haiti’s devastation due to the earthquake has been so much in the news. When one reads of the earthquake, it is hard not to feel sad and helpless. Sometimes reading about one person, even when the person dies tragically, can provide connection to the terrible news. Sometimes the one person might be a helper, who is doing some rescuing (Baila has information about donating to support the Israeli relief team in Haiti). Then after a while, you just can’t take more of the news, and you want to look at a beautiful flower of spring (Michelle has some information in her left column about donations that might help Haiti as well).

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Thanks to Jack for including my post Protect Children from Abuse in the latest Haveil Havalim, the blog carnival of the Jewish blogosphere.

Mary, the host of Ruby Tuesday, gave us a prompt last week: red books. I had fun photographing books that I own (and one from the library) with a red cover.

So you don’t have to squint to see the book titles, here they are (have you read any of these?):

• The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
• Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh
• Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
• The Stories of John Cheever, John Cheever
• How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household, Blu Greenberg
• Improvisation for the Theater, Viola Spolin
• Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling
• James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl

For more posts with a little or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:

A Companion Post to the Dragon Photos Below

From The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis:

…Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons. That is why he was so puzzled at the surface on which he was lying.

So you should read some dragon books. In case you end up in dragon’s lair, like Eustace did.

Some Current Illustrators for You to Enjoy

Carin Berger

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Michelle Kondrich

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Gabi Campanario

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Timothy Banks

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Lotta Nieminen

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Favorite Illustrators of Some of My Friends

Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff (Babar)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (The Little Prince)
Darryl K Sweet -born in 1934 in Highland Park, New Jersey
Hillary Knight (Eloise)
Maurice Sendak
John Tenniel (Alice in Wonderland)
Theodor Seuss Geisel
Arthur Szyk
Ian Falconer (Olivia the Pig)
John Bauer
E. H. Shepard (Winnie the Pooh)
John R. Neill (Royal Illustrator of Oz)

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For my own personal favorite, I’ll pick:
Brett Helquist, who illustrated Lemony Snickets’ A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Are any of these your favorite(s)? Any other illustrators you would like to mention?