On Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 at 7:45 a.m. the eyes and ears of many in the world of children’s literature will be on Dallas. That’s where and when the Association for Library Service to Children (a division of the American Library Association) will announce the winner of the 2012 Randolph Caldecott Award. The award, named in honor of nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott, is awarded annually “to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.”

Figuring out what makes “the most distinguished” illustrated book for kids is an arduous task performed by a 15 person committee of librarians selected by the ALA and intentionally diverse. For the generally subdued subset of humanity that children’s librarians constitute, there can apparently be very heated exchanges during the process and snarky controversy after the fact.  I’m not wild about every selection. I guess it’s a case of “beauty is in the eye of the book-holder.”

As an artist and a writer, I love picture books. Some women like jewelry. I would rather have new beautiful picture books.

As a mom I love them, too, and made good use of them when my kids were young back in the ‘hood (Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, that is). We had a nightly routine of huddling together and reading one picture book and one scripture story, generally from a children’s scripture version. Once, when we read a kid-friendly version of the story of David and Bathsheba, my daughter interrupted and said, “I guess it’s like Mr. Rogers says: The very same people who are good sometimes are the very same people who are bad sometimes.”

Some of our family’s favorite picture books  include:

Brave Irene and Pete’s a Pizza by William Stieg

Mr. & Mrs. God in Creation’s Kitchen by Nancy Wood, illustrated by T. B. Ering

When the Relatives Came by C. Rylant, illustrated by S. Gammell

And, a more recent one, Pocketful of Posies by Salley Mavor

I’m eager to see what the 2012 Caldecott judges pick. Some of the books getting a lot of 2012 Caldecott buzz are:

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

Blackout by John Rocco

Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell

I Want My Hat Back by J. Klassen

Brother Sun, Sister Moon by Katherine Paterson

Heart and Soul by Kadir Nelson

Press Here by Herve Tullet

Blue Chicken by Deborah Freedman

I guess I’ll just be nibbling my nails until Monday morning.

In the meantime, distract me from my Caldecott angst. What are your predictions for the Caldecott? Do you have strong opinions about any of the ones mentioned above? What are some of your favorite picture books – even if they’re not award winners?  What about books that your kids love but you don’t? How would you define “most distinguished American picture book”? How do you incorporate reading into your children’s lives?

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I am not my right breast.

Uh, okay. I thought in response. I’ll take your word for it.

I was browsing the “For Sale” books at my local library, and that first line was the title, stretched out along the peeling spine of a hardcover. I continued looking over the assorted bundles, sniggering at the Mills & Boon titles (“Sheik For Hire!” and “Baby In The Boardroom!”) and rescuing the dejected pile of knitting magazines from tumbling lemming style off the table – all the while with a chunk of my brain chewing on the original title.

What if I AM my right breast? What would that mean? I like my bosom buddies, so that’s kind of a compliment. What if I’m not my right breast? What would I be best summarised as; my left bicep? My odd little toes? Why them? Why not? That is a clever title for a breast cancer survivor book though… If I was going to write a book about something I know what would I call it? “Can I Please Have a Tazer? A Guide to Surviving Divorce”? Maybe “7000 Reasons to Eat Dessert/First”? Then I realised I was running late (libraries ambush me all the time) and I had to shove the whole discussion into the impossible, universe-deep drawer labelled “Inspiration” and go buy carrots and toilet paper. And that right there is what frustrates and delights me about inspiration – you never know when you’re going to dodge a falling piano, or get smacked upside the head with an insistent alien tentacle.

Or if you have a huge, perfect (or even fair-to-middling but fascinating snippet of an) idea, are you going to remember the idea, or remember where you put the reminder or prompt (Pinterest is what I’m using at the moment for my online ideas). Of all those I know who write, they don’t schedule in time to get ideas. Sure, many of them carve out allotted time to write, but as for dancing at precisely 6:15am with their muse… The muse is a little commitment-phobic shall we say.

Then, if it’s not the absence of ideas, there’s being petrified that I can’t do the idea justice. That maybe I could do something worthwhile with it, but I’d need to work out the plot, then characters and maybe flesh out some conversation and I just don’t have seventeen hours right now!  I know several people who signed up for NaNoWriMo, or who are blogging every day for November. I like the idea of just letting the words foam and froth, dribble and dry out onto the page or screen – just to be writing something and not overthinking it to oblivion.

So let’s try something – take a phrase out of this post, or one of the prompts below, (or something from one of the comments!) and give me a chunk of words. Nothing huge – it can be a bit of a conversation, or the next two sentences in the action. It could be something totally unrelated, but inspired from what you read. The prompt or phrase can be the first, middle or last bit of your comment, or not included at all. Just don’t think about it – let the words tumble out. And feel free to add something that inspired you lately.

1. So, I licked the kitchen floor.
2. The sound of a soft-drink can opening.
3. A glob of slobber the size of a Volkswagon landed
4. My shadow scares me.
5. The sun shouted Alleluia
6. Truth or dare, my rules.
7. Hey, wanna start a fight?

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And it’s in that spirit, and in the spirit of gratitude, that I want to sing praises of my own, so to speak, to my God today. My prayers are too often full of petitions and pleas while being scarce on thankfulness and praise. What better time to give thanks than Thanksgiving week?

But first, a few thoughts on gratitude. On Sunday, after hearing Brother Boye sing in sacrament meeting, we talked in Young Women about how gratitude helps us cultivate meekness and offset pride. I taught my Beehive class that the commandment to be grateful, like all other commandments, is given by a loving Heavenly Father for our benefit: gratitude blesses us—it reminds us there’s a greater power beyond ourselves; it makes us happier, helps us better handle our trials, and counteracts selfishness and bitterness. And then that night I listened to Stephanie Nielson speak in a stake youth fireside about gratitude during adversity (two brushes with fame in one day!) and as I listened to her give heartfelt and loving thanks to the Lord for sustaining and blessing her through her trials, heard her express her gratitude for being able to perform simple tasks like making her kids’ school lunches (a chore I often bemoan) and buttoning up her daughter’s coat, I knew I needed a serious gratitude check.

So here’s what I feel grateful for right now as I write this post: the sound of my daughter playing Christmas songs on the piano, which fills me with a tender mixture of nostalgia and comfort; my dog snoozing next to me on the couch, her legs twitching as she chases a bird in her sleep; the sky aflame with pink and orange as the sun slips below the horizon. I’m grateful for the turkey thawing in my fridge, and the prospect of family gathering to eat good food on Thursday. I’m grateful for my laptop. I’m grateful for scriptures, for the Conference issue of the Ensign, which I’ve been reading over the last couple of weeks and which has soothed me and nourished my soul. Most of all, however, I’m grateful today for the tender, compassionate reminders I received last week that God is mindful of me and, more importantly to me right now, my children. I am grateful that He knows my heart, my fears and concerns, and my longings, and that He hears me when I cry out to Him in my extremity. I know that all good things come from Him and that He is the source of my joy and salvation.

I echo the words of my missionary son, who wrote the following in his email last week after struggling with a difficult companion for the past month and a half: “I’m learning [so much] about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It’s changed me. I don’t know if I’ll be recognizable when this is all over, because He is changing me so much. And I never deserved it, never deserved any of this, but it’s a gift He freely gives us. I cannot express with words how much I feel the Savior’s love, even and especially in this most difficult part of my mission.”

Only the Lord knows what those words meant to me. With deep love and reverence I add my voice to David’s in the eighteenth Psalm: “I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust….I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised…for who is God save the Lord? Or who is a rock save our God?…The Lord liveth; and blessed be my rock…Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord…and sing praises unto thy name.”

And like Alex Boye, I want to lift my voice in song and praise and declare, “How Great Thou Art.”

What are you feeling grateful for this week? How do you teach your children about gratitude? And have any sacrament meeting musical numbers stirred your soul lately?

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A week ago I took my kids over to BYU campus for a short while to kill some time while my wife was at the doctor. Even though we have lived in Utah Country for as long as we’ve been married, we rarely make it over to BYU campus anymore.  Our kids know some parts of campus better than others.

Last week I took them to the Joseph Smith Building. We have a special connection to the Joseph Smith Building, and I wanted my kids to experience it.

The construction of the Joseph Smith Building was completed in 1991. At that time, my family lived across the street from brother Franz Johansen, who had been a BYU professor of fine art. He was a wonderful neighbor, and a very talented artist.

Many members of the church have seen Brother Johansen’s work without knowing his name.  He created the  large relief sculpture on the outside of the Church History Museum on West Temple in Salt Lake City. The doors of the Seattle and Washington D.C. Temples are his work. His sculptures have been seen in the Museum of Art Garden at BYU.  And he created the bas relief stone panels for the Harold B. Lee Library.

I remember one time when the bishopric of our ward had him give a presentation to all of the young men about art. We all went down to campus where he showed us a slide show of all kinds of artwork, and discussed why artists study anatomy. But that’s a different story.

Brother Johansen shared his talent with our family. I remember visiting the studio in his home on various occasions where he would tell us about what he was working on. Sometimes he would invite members of my family to model for him.

Which brings us back to the Joseph Smith Building. On the north-facing exterior of the Joseph Smith Building there is another of Brother Johansen’s works. And immortalized in that relief sculpture is my sister, who modeled for Brother Johansen when he was creating it.

We stopped outside of the Joseph Smith Building last week. “Why are we here?!” whined my second daughter, who was tired of walking in the hot August sun. “I want to show you something,” I explained. “Come look at this.”

I pointed to the relief artwork on the building. “That’s your aunt Becca,” I told them. We talked about Brother Johansen and how my sister had been the model. I snapped the picture included above, and we headed back to the car.

Innumerable people pass by the Joseph Smith Building. Most hardly notice. But I always stop to look.  It looks like my sister, preserved in carbonite like Han Solo from Star Wars, and hung on the wall.

You can read more about Brother Franz Johansen and look at a few of his works of art at the website of the Springville Art Museum.

It talks about displaying sacred art or viewing sacred art as a form of worship. I’m sure we all grok creating sacred art as a form of worship, but the piece goes beyond that in an interesting way. Historically Western art grew up in the cathedrals. But in the 19th century the art religion made widespread the idea that high art was itself a holy thing. So by displaying paintings and statuettes and other forms usually associated with high art, we’re closing the circle. A painting of Christ says “I consider Christ to be sacred.” More prosaically, displaying art is worship the same way that scripture study or testimony-sharing is worship.

Also interesting in the piece was the news that the Church is making an effort to digitize and distribute copies of various artworks for display.

Note: the piece is illustrated with what may be the cheesiest, most kitschy LDS painting of the age.

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

The Church History Museum has sponsored juried art competitions and exhibitions every three years since 1987 for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Pre-registration is now open for the Ninth International Art Competition: Make Known His Wonderful Works.

At the same link, you can also see the artwork from past art competitions.

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