post book fair

When the five-minute call – ‘We’re closing the book fair for today!’ – comes, I normally go into overdrive. Quickly I empty my red fabric book bag (a long-term favourite for this occasion: it can be draped across to free BOTH hands for browsing) and scan the loot: what to keep, what to discard? This year time has run out and I have to trust my selection without a second look.

Filled with a wonderful sense of pleasure and joy I drive home and park the book bag for the evening. I believe that books need natural light for inspection and true appreciation, particularly picture books. So not until the next day, Saturday, after housework and other chores completed, the moment of reveal has arrived. I empty the book bag’s rewards on a clean kitchen bench and make three piles of books: one for work, one for myself, one for my husband Wiel. First things first. I lightly clean each cover and sides with a damp cloth (and additional antiseptic wipe in Covid-times) to remove stains, dirty fingers and dust.  

I marvel over the picture books and comics I scored for work. I make a point of reading each book first before it lands in the waiting room, to ensure that it is in a reasonable condition and has appropriate content. Jordan Watson’s How to Dad, Vol. 2 is so typical Kiwi: a father illustrating in pictures and words what parenting is really all about, or not. Hilarious! Next I smile over some cute picture books and move to the Christmas themed books. I love providing our waiting room (not before December though) with a variety of Christmassy books for big and small. I have a weakness for old fashioned style pictures and Christopher discovers a secret and The night before Christmas (a Golden Book) make me glow inside and starry-eyed.

Wiel’s books end up in the bookcase without further ado. It’s not that I am not interested, and they too get a clean-over, but let’s get to the really good stuff!

That’s my pile, you see! The few novels I bought are placed in full view in the bookcase in the living room. I read almost everything I purchase or receive (although it can take weeks, months or years) but you, as an avid reader, know that your mood has a big say in dictating what kind of story or genre you need at a given point in time.

I lovingly stroke the picture books (nobody is watching). I’ll read them later, in daylight, when the time is right. And that’s right now! I laugh with Daniel Kirk’s story of Sam, the Library mouse (impossible to resist such title) and the cute books Sam produces for library visitors. And then, the gentle drawings by Tomie dePaola in Four stories for four seasons. I recognised his name from Quiet, a wonderful picture book about mindfulness he produced in 2018.

The rest of the books are patiently waiting their turn. Each time I’ll pick one up and settle down for reading, I’ll be smiling. I am in the best place one can be.

book fair fever

Each year in the July winter school holidays, the Whakatane Salvation Army organises a gigantic book fair, one of their major fundraisers. Three days of secondhand book heaven, spread over Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning in the second week of the holidays, visited often more than once by thousands of people, families and children.

In 1991 the first book fair, the brainchild of Jim Kennedy, took place in the Salvation Army church. He took the idea home when visiting the Wellington Salvation Army at the time. Originally a summer event, the book fair was not particularly popular because everyone was outside having summer fun (as Kiwis do) and not interested in buying/reading books. The event was shifted to the winter school holidays, quickly outgrew the church space and found a new home in an old supermarket building across the road. Jim’s wife Cath opened this year’s fair with a 30th birthday cake in honour of her husband who died in 2010.  

It is Friday and I can hardly contain my excitement while patiently working through the day with my clients. I shoot out the door as soon as I finish work. It’s 4pm, only one and a half hour left until the lights dim over the books today. But boy, what an end-of-the week highlight!

As I enter the vast space and see hundreds of rows of books, neatly organised per topic (novels, history, New Zealand, children, cooking, gardening, sport, religion, humour, art, magazines, foreign languages) I smile and pause. It happens each year, that feeling of never going to get through all of this! Unable to revisit the book fair the next day, I ever so briefly consider conjuring a strategic plan, but with temptation lurking everywhere, that idea is abandoned quickly.

Firstly, a visit to the rare books, then scooting to the tables with fiction and browsing almost everything, scanning constantly, and hoping to find that amazing book, title or topic. I always bring home a book or author that I am unfamiliar with, to broaden my reading experience. This year the lucky (young adult) book is Fairieground Wish, by (author names without capitals on the cover, perhaps that appealed!) beth bracken & kay fraser. It resembles a graphic novel but in hard cover book format. Looks different!

Next I visit the New Zealand books, quickly walk past the cooking and gardening books, loiter around the biographies and gems of now unwanted gift books. Occasionally I recognise a book I donated back after my pre book fair routine: weeding my personal library (so painful), the stock for our community little library, the waiting room reads at work and a neighbour’s discarded books.

The final and favourite section is the children’s corner. I am on the lookout for picture books that will fit nicely in my private collection (I have a weak spot for picture books since I studied children’s literature many years ago) or are worthy for our waiting room bookcase (a space shared by many families and pregnant women). Another woman is rummaging through each box systematically, I follow suit. When a volunteer announces they’re closing in ten minutes, our rummaging becomes more frantic. The five minute call comes, we continue until we have to scoop up our finds, pay (plus an extra donation for this organisation) and leave with a book bag heavy and full. It is not finished. The book fair post routine is kicking in soon!   

books, on your marks!

Hopefully your days of creasing the top corner of a page as a reminder of where you’ve left your book before nodding off or being pulled away for something less fun are over. I admit, I still impart dog ears (or in Dutch ezelsoortjes – donkeys’ ears) on my house & garden magazines, occasionally only, not so much to remember where I left, but to remember something that caught my attention: a renovation project, a website, an interior design idea. For ‘proper’ books I use bookmarks – bladwijzers or boekenleggers in Dutch.

Wikipedia explains:    

‘A bookmark is a thin marking tool, commonly made of cardleather, or fabric, used to keep track of a reader’s progress in a book and allow the reader to easily return to where the previous reading session ended. Alternate materials for bookmarks are papermetals like silver and brass, silkwoodcord (sewing), and plastic. Some books may have one or more bookmarks made of woven ribbon sewn into the binding. Other bookmarks incorporate a page-flap that enables them to be clipped on a page.’

What is missing in Wikipedia’s blurb is that not all bookmarks are made for all books. In fact, I take great care in selecting a bookmark; it needs to be ‘just right’ with the book I am reading. It’s not hard science, it’s more a gut feeling. What bookmark fits the genre of this book, the content of that book, the book cover? Or do I sense a nexus between the book’s story and a particular bookmark? The happy heart book marker with the red checkered ribbon does not belong between the pages of a crime story. The paperclip with the crocheted flower is a trusted travel companion for paperbacks. Made by the mother of Jo, our friend in Anchorage, Alaska, it’s the perfect lightweight, unobtrusive and impossible to lose bookmark while underway.

From my BFF
The Dutch collection

From Alaska and Japan

Bookmarks easily find a place in the suitcase of other travellers. Over the years I have been delighted by bookmarks brought back from Singapore, The Netherlands, Japan and overseas museums. In an exquisite paper shop in Japan I bought beautifully folded kimono paper bookmarks. Recalling that I gave my library colleagues one, it makes me wonder where I left mine… Did I leave it in a book? Did I really not finish a book???

I cannot recall buying a bookmark in the last twenty years or so, most bookmarks have been a gift. My bookmark box is a treasure and memory cove.

The New Zealand collection

I love the metal clips with Māori designs; beautiful, different, functional. I gaze at the everchanging picture of the huskies. I reminisce while using bookmarks from my BFF.

Huskies in 2D

The latest edition was a birthday gift from her to me. Much thought has gone into this purchase: this metal bookmark is sturdy, it has a magnifying glass that I can use to explore my stamp collection (another tiny side hobby of mine) or to read small print when the light is not bright. It has a different ruler on each side and doesn’t its Victorian-like pattern look gorgeous?

Let the reading begin.

    

featherston booktown

We had it all planned. Time off work. Accommodation. Dogs booked in the kennels. Neighbours on mail collection duty. Our hearts full of anticipation and excitement and hungry for books and more. Because we were heading to the Featherston Booktown Festival! Then the borders closed, the world stopped its usual turning. Early May 2020 New Zealand was still in lockdown with slightly less restrictions at level 3, but gatherings were out of the question. The festival was cancelled…

In a previous blog I relayed our recent visit to some of Featherston’s bookshops, a month or so before the upcoming festival. In a way it offered some consolation for missing the big event last year.

The festival’s programme oozes fabulous, confrontational and inspiring conversations and events. If you’re short of ideas for this weekend (7-9 May) and fancy a drive to the stunning Wairarapa autumn scenery, do not hesitate, just go. You may need to beg a friend or relative for a bed as accommodation is probably booked out, but hey, a small sacrifice for this wondrous festival of authors, illustrators, readers, books, stories, book sellers, book shops and the ever supportive Featherston community.

Not able to attend? Allow the programme to inspire or pique your interest on booktown.nz.

I PROMISE I’LL ATTEND THE NEXT EDITION!

The Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival adds new Chapters for 2021

bookshops forever

It surely has not escaped your attention that the almighty bookshop still exists. Their existence was presumed doomed when e-books loomed in every corner of the internet. But for those (like me) who firmly believe in the magic of holding a book, turning real pages and being mesmerized by a cover, the bookshop (and the library obviously) would always be the preferred portal to other worlds.

What is truly amazing is the increase in independent bookshops in most notably smaller New Zealand towns, as if the pandemic thrusted people in finally plunging into the deep unknown but oh so exciting dark and murky waters of pursuing dreams.

Point in case is Chicken & Frog in Featherston, opened about 8 months ago by Joanna Ludbrook, a retired school librarian.

We visited just a couple of days ago, because Featherston, New Zealand’s own booktown, was on my to-do list. We didn’t manage to visit all of Featherston’s bookshops (a simple reason to revisit), in fact we only got to number one, two and three out of seven. We enjoyed time browsing and lounging with a hot chocolate in Loco Coffee and Books (second hand) and loved inspecting every corner of The Featherston Ferret (second hand).

And number three was Chicken & Frog, housed in previous medical rooms now transformed into themed spaces, cozy spots and reading nooks. The bookshop is filled with such an inspiring collection of children’s books including a wide range of non-fiction books because that is Joanna’s passion.

collage-chicken-frog.png

Greytown, only a stone’s throw away from Featherston, has not had an independent bookshop in decades until Mrs Blackwell’s Village Bookshop opened its doors a few months ago. The old Greytown Library building has been put to excellent use with book covers demanding to be picked up for a closer look and fine stationary to drool over (I’m like Pavlov’s dog when I see or smell stationary).

Looking into the topic of independent booksellers in NZ, I came across so many wonderful bookstores, each making their mark in a unique way and surviving. Does anyone have a list that I can share?

When you visit a new place, check out their local library and if you manage to restrain yourself to buying only one book in the local bookshop you’re a legend.

the curious case of the capitals

No doubt you have felt frustrated or mystified about particular spelling or grammatical rules in your mother tongue. Spelling, grammar and pronunciation rules are so absorbed in our daily use of language that the basic why’s are no longer conscious or questioned, unless you are a six-year-old new entrant skilled at firing curly, uncensored questions at the teacher about those why’s.

When you learn a second, third or fourth language, the idiosyncrasies of the new language generate a healthy number of why’s because you’re comparing the rules of the new language with what you know.

My grievance

I’ve always had a gripe about the use of Capital Letters in English titles, long before typing capitals was regarded as screaming in emails or text/sms. (Someone surely has written about the why’s of email or text etiquette.)

The Capitalisation of Titles Rule is as follows (quoted from the website of the University of Sussex):

In the title or name of a book, a play, a poem, a film, a magazine, a newspaper or a piece of music, a capital letter is used for the first word and for every significant word (that is, a little word like theofand or in is not capitalized unless it is the first word):

I was terrified by The Silence of the Lambs.

The Round Tower was written by Catherine Cookson.

Bach’s most famous organ piece is the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

I don’t usually like Cher, but I do enjoy The Shoop Shoop Song.

Important note: The policy just described is the one most widely used in the English-speaking world. There is, however, a second policy, preferred by many people. In this second policy, we capitalize only the first word of a title and any words which intrinsically require capitals for independent reasons. Using the second policy, my examples would look like this:

I was terrified by The silence of the lambs.

The round tower was written by Catherine Cookson.

Bach’s most famous organ piece is the Toccata and fugue in D minor.

I don’t usually like Cher, but I do enjoy The shoop shoop song.

You may use whichever policy you prefer, so long as you are consistent about it.

Did you notice that the why remains elusive? Perhaps it is a characteristic of spelling rules: they just are. This particular capitalisation rule is not a thing in the Dutch language.

It so annoys me; why need words, beyond the first word, be capitalised in a title? It strikes me as unnecessary, harsh and pompous. Some examples:

From a local real estate flyer:

Time for Your First Home!

From the Kawerau Library (my place of work!) website:

New Titles at the Library.

From a Google search about capitalisation rules:

Capitalization Rules – A Quick Guide

Capitalize My Title

8 Capitalization Rules for English Grammar

And I am not forgetting the APA referencing guidelines, guidelines I need to adhere to when writing academic papers or  when editing journal articles for Systeemtheoretisch Bulletin. In Dutch however, even in APA style, only the first word of the title of a book, article or other source is capitalised. I’m quite happy about that.

When The Capitals Have Arrived my frustration gauge shoots up ever so slightly. Quite the motivator for NOT using capital letters in the titles of my blogs.

What is your grumble about language rules?

secret santa

Unless it is a free for all kind of Christmas gathering and silly, funny or outright weird Secret Santa gifts are expected, finding the perfect Secret Santa gift takes up copious space in my mind if I know who the recipient is. Matching the recipient with a present unfolds in a personal competition with myself.

I too love being surprised by clever Secret Santa’s. The secret gift shines with extra glitter when it is handmade, home baked or thoughtfully selected with you, the recipient, in mind. That’s exactly what happened to me a little while ago.

At the Christmas breakfast with my library colleagues, my Secret Santa had wrapped a cute tiny gingerbread house tin containing a Lego challenge (my kind of toy) with the following note: “Dear Veerle, Secret Santa’s elves failed in their Xmas delivery so IOU 1 present. Luckily, Santa found this for you to enjoy today…” I thoroughly enjoyed building several colourful birds with only 32 Lego bricks.

Some time later Secret Santa reveals herself when she pops in the library and hands me a present, apologetic about the delay. But do I mind receiving gifts after their due date? Absolutely not!

Secret Santa’s Christmas card reveals a stunning folding-out paper cut of the Notre Dame in Paris (and in Vietnam I learnt). A fantastic start to being surprised I’d say. Then comes the rectangle present, its weight a bit of a mystery. Definitely not a book or socks. As I carefully remove the wrapping paper, a whitish box with a lovely swirly design appears. A jigsaw puzzle! How did Santa know I have been looking for a different kind of puzzle for a while?

I comment on the difficulty of the puzzle: so many white to piece together… Eagerly I open the box and see inside some card on top of a purple bag containing the puzzle pieces. At first glance I notice that these pieces don’t look white at all. In fact their colours do not fit the picture on the box.

The final clue is the folded card on top of the pieces. My jaw drops when I open it fully – a most stunning, detailed picture of some of my favourite things: books, a library, a reading chair, a waterlily pond.

Has your Secret Santa, like mine, given you such a thoughtful gift?  

P.S. Interested in finding out why I am so fond of waterlilies – thanks to Belgian Queen Fabiola’s stories for children she wrote in 1961? Drop me a comment.

ambassadors for reading

I am reposting this message:

After a tough 2020, Children’s Laureates from around the world have united with a special message about the power of books and reading. 

The International Children’s Laureates believe every child has the right to be a reader. Across the globe, we have continued to write and draw stories that inspire children. Reading is a journey everyone can embark on because books have no borders. 

We are ready to #ReadAroundTheWorld in 2021. Join us!

wordless picture books

Images are powerful, so powerful that people take them for truth, disregarding context or critical approach. But there are powerful images of a different kind.

After spending a day in the company of literature enthusiasts (teachers, librarians, researchers) who had fascinating and thought provoking things to say (with words!) about nothing but wordless picture books, I need to share their magic.

Wordless picture books have settled firmly in my universe of interests. Perhaps it started when I studied Children’s Literature and discovered my fondness for the picture book. The better ones offer a wonderful story and illustrations that enhance the story, by for instance alluding to an underlying story, adding quirky details or deepening the reading experience altogether. Pictures that open, deepen and layer a story = art.

When you open a wordless picture book, the pace of reading slows. Every re-reading is a discovery of more and new meanings, details come into focus, humour is suddenly obvious. My collection of wordless picture books I was rather proud of turned out to be rather pathetic (in numbers) against the thirty or so books the first presenter whisked us through. And so many more followed on that day. Why not showcasing a few of my treasured wordless picture books!

Slightly biased, I start with Belgian illustrator Leo Timmers who is pretty adept at the genre. His latest, Monkey on the Run/Aap op straat (isn’t the Dutch title snappier than the English one?), was ‘translated’ by Gecko Press in New Zealand. https://geckopress.com/about/gecko-story/ They specialise in discovering, then negotiating and finally translating and publishing quality children’s books originally published in other languages. When possible, I request my Flemish book buyers (aka family) to purchase the original (even when it is wordless) and send it across the world. It is worth the exorbitant cost of freight.

Konijnentango by author Daan Remmerts de Vries and illustrators Ingrid and Dieter Schubert is a very clever picture book with a surprising twist at each end of the book.

Stephen Michael King illustrated Leaf. A story about growth. His drawings ooze tenderness and warmth. I love his work.

Time to re-read Clown/Het clowntje by Quentin Blake. I have forgotten the story.  
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