Storybook Bible Challenge!

Dan Cruver (seen above reading to his family from a favorite book) has started a challenge on his blog--how many photos can he collect of parents reading The Jesus Storybook Bible to their children? Can you help? He already has quite a few there, it'd be fun to get some more! If you want to join in the fun click here for his email address and to send along the photo... alternatively send to me and I can forward to him and post them here, too!

30 million cups of tea

Just heard about a campaign afoot to make a triangle of Manhattan forever England... Little Britain in The Big Apple campaign.

Richard Branson, Mike Myers, Paul Smith are all backing it. They're hoping it'll be in Greenwich village, where Tea & Sympathy is (opened by Nick Perry 17 years ago--they've served over 30m cups of tea!) and A Salt & Battery (a fish and chip shop next door). Close to Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Soho House, Manhattan outpost of the London club.

I'm all for it. It's essential to have a place in NYC to get the perfect cup of tea (aside from your own kitchen). As we Brits well know, a nice cup of tea is the solution to all sorts of important things--a good deal more than you might imagine.

If you want to see a funny "party political broadcast" spoof--plus ensure you always have a nice cup of tea waiting for you in the Big Apple click here.

diasies, God, children

[painting by ellie, age 8]

Here's one of my favorite passages of all time, by the great Gilbert Keith (so that's what those letters stood for) Chesterton:

"The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again," and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun, and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore."--G K Chesteron Orthodoxy.

testing books on children

The snow storm didn't stop us. We had loads of fun in Cold Spring NY last Saturday, reading Handbag Friends and How To Be A Baby and laughing and singing. And here we are reading HOW TO BE A BABY and laughing fondly at all the things babies can't do, poor things. (Like, for instance, when you're a baby you don't carry a back pack. You go in one. And you don't read books. You eat them. Stuff like that.) (Thank you Merritt Books and thank you children.)

Reading to children is a great (the only?) way to test a children's book. And here's one really cool thing I learned from a favorite publisher of mine (David Fickling):

I was testing out HANDBAG FRIENDS on some children in its very earliest stage (pencil sketches in a paper dummy) and I came to a bit where the children were asking me loads of questions. Like, "What is a Swamp-A-Stomp?" and "Where is the Murky Space Weed?" and "What do you mean Baglodytes?". So much so that I could hardly turn the page. Later, I reported back to David, "Oh dear I think I should write more in there because they're asking lots of questions." And then he said, no, you want them asking questions. It's when they aren't asking questions you need to worry because then they're not engaged. And you know the definition of a boring book, don't you? A book that does the work of the reader for them.

Isn't that great?

Hmm. Come of think of it, that could apply to more than just books...

British accents and plummyness

yes it's all true.

having a british accent in the US is very handy. you can get away with all manner of foolishness and still appear to know what you're talking about.

which is why I decided to keep mine.

(shouldn't really be giving away the secret but to read more: click here.)

How To Be A Baby in the NY Post!

Great review of HOW TO BE A BABY in the New York Post.

(What fabulous taste that newspaper has.)

ANOTHER NEW PINKLISH WORD?

LONDON--This just in. Sam the Tiger (left) has been hot on the trail of yet another Pinklish word. (Previous discovery, Jan 31, 2007 post)

PONKCORN
(pronounced: pong*'korn)
noun
1) popcorn you are enjoying inside a movie that's all pinkly and lovely

(as in: "We had ponkcorn inside Charlotte's web")

There is, however, some controversy surrounding this latest discovery and serious questions as to whether its etymological origins are indeed Pinklish. Why would it not be called "pinkcorn" for heavens sake? some Pinklish scholars are asking. (Like the notorious Professor of Pinklish--Suley Lloyd-Heap of Pinksford University in Pinkly-cum-Sparkly in the heart of the Pinkswolds).

But for Sam the Tiger there can be no doubt. Ponkcorn is indeed part of the Pinklish language. How does he know? Because first it sounds much more tasty and noisy, and second, it can be yellow or any color and still be Ponkcorn and doesn't have to be just pink. Is he against Pink popcorn, then? No. Far from it. It's just a matter of accuracy. "Basically," says Sam. "Pink Ponkcorn is what that would be."

It's not easy being a baby

Think about it. You have everyone picking you up all the time, and telling you stuff you can't understand, and stopping you from doing anything you want to do, and feeding you stuff you don't even know what it is. And if you try and say something, they stuff a plug in your mouth.

Sometimes on a day like that, there's only one thing for it: screech and bellow and cry and wail and scream your head off. Which is what Annabel is doing here.

Her big brothers and sister are reading to her from THE manual on baby behavior. Which is very helpful of them. I think from this picture, though, she knows very well how to be a baby (and is rather good at it) and doesn't need anyone to tell her.

But seriously Annabel is very lucky. After all, she has Andrew, Daniel, Sarah, and Thomas (all four of them star in HOW TO BE A BABY--strangely enough, also on a pink sofa.) And the quadruplets are very lucky because they have baby Annabel.

But no prizes for guessing who has who wound around their little finger... (clue: she's the littlest one with dark hair)

(BTW: if you're anywhere near Cold Spring, NY, this Saturday, stop by Merritt Books where I'll be reading and signing HOW TO BE A BABY and HANDBAG FRIENDS at 11am-1pm)