Children’s Book Illustrator Bagram Ibatoulline

February 21, 2013August 23, 2015 / still a dreamer

While purchasing novels at ridiculously low prices at book sales is great, books featuring the work of outstanding illustrators simply must be bought new and treasured. In this category, I cannot say enough good things about Bagram Ibatoulline. He has become one of my favorite illustrators over the last few years.

In Crow Call by Lois Lowry, a Newbery Medal winner, Ibatoulline brings to life both the characters and the autumn quiet of the woods and fields of rural Pennsylvania. Liz is the shy daughter reconnecting with her father who’s been gone a long time to war. They slowly re-establish their relationship with “Daddy” taking Liz out for a very special breakfast and then a trip to the woods where she calls the crows to wake up and come to her. Daddy has brought his gun to hunt, but easily sees where Liz’ heart is. The story itself is touching, but the illustrations are magnificent.

The feel of the woods and the trees, the capturing of the crows in flight, and the beauty in facial expression and body language of Liz and Daddy are just superb. Ibatoulline was born in Russia and is the illustrator of many acclaimed books, two of which will welcome Crow Call to my bookshelves, Scarecrow’s Dance and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Toulane. His illustration graces picture and middle grade books of all kinds from fairy tales to history to wonderful stories by some of our best modern day authors and poets.

If you are a fan of brilliant children’s book illustration, Bagram Ibatoulline will certainly inspire and delight you.

In the Moment

February 1, 2013 / still a dreamer / 6 Comments

At 4:30 this morning I was jarred into awakening by the sound of my currently empty garbage can hurtling across my back porch to points South. (It was placed there as the least likely spot to be pushed around by winds gusting to 50 mph. Clearly, the wind knew better than I.)

And at that pre-dawn hour, when many unwelcome thoughts clamber into our consciousness, a score of them crowded my mind. They all had to do with the future and with things that in all likelihood would never come to pass. But such is the mindset when we are catapulted into wakefulness from a sound sleep.

Some time later, curled up on the couch with my coffee and happily-fed, drowsy cats, I opened up to read from The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo. In language far more poetic than my own, he described the ancient human challenge of staying in the miracle that is and not falling into the black hole of what is not. He provided a simple breathing exercise to let go of all the imagined outcomes that are not yet real. In other words, be in the moment. Perfect.

So this evening, just about 12 hours after my abrupt morning awakening, I was working at my desk. The wind continued to wrestle with the trees and I looked out the window to see the magnificent sky pictured above. At first, I thought to continue my work. Then I realized that that sky was the miracle of now, exactly what I had been reading about and reflecting upon. I chose that moment.

A Moment of Peace

December 12, 2012December 12, 2012 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours…. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

~Henry David Thoreau

A Sense of Wonder

December 7, 2012 / still a dreamer / 2 Comments

Some might also call this a sense of awe. Today, as I’m sure you’re aware, one of the most commonly used word to describe what someone really likes is awesome. I use it myself. But nowadays everything is awesome. When everything is awesome, then really, nothing is awesome.

But semantics aside, how wonderful is it to find that sense of awe, of true wonder, much like a child. It’s a gift. I stumbled across it just the other morning. I was sitting by the front windows journaling and I happened to look up to see a flutter of chickadees and a male cardinal hopping about the porch railing and in and out of an adjacent yew. The chickadees were puffed up to keep warm and quite busy with whatever they were doing.

Without moving, I just watched them, yes, in awe, of their singular beauty. I became aware that I was smiling and just sending that reverential feeling to them. And then they stopped, cardinal included, and looked directly at me. I don’t know quite what a bird can perceive through glass, but I have no doubt that it was my energy that spoke to them. And for brief moments we all seemed as one, just being, time suspended. Now that … was truly awesome. Then time and motion resumed, them hopping, me watching.

I believe we have far too few moments like this in our lives. We are too busy, too fractured, too distracted, but the moments are there, waiting. Ask any child. And all it takes is being still, stopping and looking. Really looking.

Waiting for Sandy

October 28, 2012 / still a dreamer / 6 Comments

I looked out the window into the thick darkness, the only illumination a blue sensor light by my neighbor’s pond below. A thick cloud cover obscured even the idea of a star. I knelt on the Lane cedar chest that was my Mom’s hope chest, now vintage, I suppose, and was soon joined by my two cats. They purred amiably seeing as little in the dark as I did, but happy to join my watch. It was 4:30 a.m.

It’s never my intention to be up at this hour and it only happens on two occasions. One, Claude goes to down to the kitchen and begins caterwauling for whatever his reasons are, (and it’s never lack of food or water.) Or, two, I have something on my mind. This time it was the latter; I was contemplating the arrival of Sandy, the variously named hurricane, nor`easter, tropical storm that is working its way up the East coast, and the implications it may have on our lives.

10′ surges already pound the southern shore of my state, and landfall, wind speeds, rainfall are being ever more accurately predicted. It becomes apparent that we can choose to fill ourselves with the minutiae of every changing twist and turn of the storm or gather the information we need and return to our lives. Clearly, the latter offers a more calming result.

I was reading Mark Nepo this morning. I opened the book to where I’d last left off, and his daily reflection was perfect for today. He wrote, ” It can’t be helped. We return through different questions to the same central issue: How do we live fully? How do we live in such a way that the wonder of feeling outfuels the pain of breaking?”

Perhaps waiting for a storm, living through a storm, is exactly a return to that question. Shall we live the next few days in enjoyment, in fulfilling whatever tasks we have planned despite the rage of a storm or curl inward in fear and anxiety of what may be? Shall we try and believe in our strengths or succumb to unnecessary defeat? Shall we search for the wonder or break?

Twelve hours after the 4:30 a.m. vigil, there is one unavoidable conclusion: whatever Sandy brings, she brings. We’ve gotten everything in place that we can, and now we wait, knowing we can do no more. Is there still wonder in life? Yes … in every moment. The challenge, to hold on and believe.