A couple of adventurers venture to Lewes!

Dear Reader -  I got a call a year or so ago from a gentleman who's stopped into the shop and was smitten by it. He followed up to let me know this and to also let me know about his card line: The Adventures of Mirabelle.

The man was Michael Muller, former owner of Details gallery in Reho. A few Christmases back, Michael received a gift: Mirabelle. Mirabelle is a little Boston Terrier who has changed the course of Michael's life - utterly:

Six years later, Michael and Mirabelle's card line is all over the country and they have published three children's board books with Workman Publishing. The books came out this fall and Mirabelle has been touring ever since to do promotions and signings.

We're smitten with both Michael and Mirabelle. Michael is among the nicest of human beings you'd ever wanna meet, and Mirabelle is a canine who's ready for adventure - always. Our favorite Mirabelle cards are the ones that feature her in Lewes, like this one at the farmers market:

Or this one over at the Zwaanendael Museum:

Or this one where she "skitches" a ride on the Ferry:

Boston people, dog people, Lewes people, good-humored people - it doesn't matter, they all love Mirabelle. So it's no surprise that people have been loving her new board books, too:

They're adorable - perfect for the preschool and early reader sets. And what child wouldn't be charmed to have their book(s) signed by a dog?!

Mirabelle will be over in Reho on Saturday morning from 10:00 to Noon at Proud Bookstore, near Arena's. After some lunch and a nap, she'll be here in Lewes from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.:

So stop by and say hello, shake Mirabelle's paw, and consider a special gift for a child or Boston-lover in your life!

Cheers!  - Jen

P.S. I'm thinking that Mirabelle's the kind of girl who'd dig some funk, a la George Clinton and Parliament - "Why must I feel like that, must I chase the cat? Nothin' but the dog in me . . . ":

P.S.S. And don't forget that we're happy to have a book or two signed for you if you can't make it on Saturday!  - J

Children's Book Signings for the Holidays!

Dear Reader -  While the rest of us can all get more than a little swept up in the holiday spirit, the kids're the ones who really sit at the center of our Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations. There's really nothing like the joy that special traditions and, of course, gifts can evoke in the wee ones.

That's why we're so delighted here at biblion to host two children's book signings over the next two weekends.

This coming Saturday, December 1, Lewes author and illustrator Caryl Ekirch Williams will be at the shop from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. to sign her imaginative book The Words:

Caryl is a retired educator (who still teaches in her retirement at the Lifelong Learning Center here in town), and that's evident in her book. The Words encourages children to play and engage with language, getting them to think about the power that they hold in their own hands.

In the end, though, the illustrations are the stars of the book. Each word has its own personality, and they "speak up" as the story progresses. Caryl studied fine art at Skidmore, and it's clear that she's a gifted artist:

So come on down and say hi to her between home tour stops, after grabbing a bowl of yummy soup at St. Peter's, or before you line up for the parade!

Next Saturday, December 8, Mirabelle will be here in all her canine glory, along with her friend Michael (a.k.a. Mr. Muller of Details fame):

While biblion guests know Mirabelle from her adventuresome cards (including her exploits in Lewes), she's coming to sign her three new, darling board books, featuring adventures with Mr. Muller, a bouncy red ball, a butterfly, and a healthy walk:

They're starting the day over at Proud Bookstore in Rehoboth, and then they'll make their way to Lewes to be with us from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

I'll write a little more about them next week, but I wanted you to get a chance to put her on your agenda.

Can't wait to see you here!  - Jen

P.S. Jingle Bell dogs, of course:

Guess who's joining us for Friday evening cocktails?

Dear Reader -  I've been in a bit of a Miss C's-away-at-her-dad's-for-a-couple-weeks-and-I-miss-her-all-the-more-'cause-it's-much-too-close-to-when-she's-gonna-be-away-for-a-long-long-time funk.

Luckily, little biblion has been hoppin', so that has kept my fully occupied (my poor home is so neglected, though, that one of the dust bunnies in the living room actually grew to such maturity that it up and asked me when I was going to attend to it!).

But, there're just too many fun things going on over on Second Street. Tomorrow night, Friday, August 3, we're welcoming one of our most popular local authors, James Schneider, for a little book signing from 5-7:

Jamie's mystery, based in Lewes and Reho of the 60s, In the Shadow of Silver Lake, was a huge hit last summer:

We had several guests come back and comment on how much they enjoyed this fun, beach read of a book. And Jamie was surprised and delighted when he received notice in the mail of the unsolicited, independent publishing awards that it'd won (hence his title of "award winning" in the flier that he produced)!

This year he's done another suspense novel with some local flavor, legal intrigue, and romance tossed in the mix:

Come and join us for a little glass of something, meet Jamie, maybe hear about his charity, and have him personalize a copy of his book(s) for you! What a happy way to start a Friday evening!

Cheers!  - Jen

The Glamorous Life of an Independent Bookseller (or My Adventure with Captain Underpants)

Dear Reader -  You know you got something special goin' on when you say to your dog and cat, "I'll be right back, ladies! I have to go on a mission for Captain Underpants . . ."

Spot and Nellie were riveted at the prospect.

Rewind a tick, I was on the phone with Linda (who was filling in on Wednesday evening for Zac [who's away at an economics conference {you know, I really gotta do a posting on our little biblion family - we have some really-super-cool-not-your-garden-variety-cliched-hipster-snob-bookstore-employees who work with us}]) about an electrical matter when a crisis arose in the shop: a kid who'd been in earlier in the day and had seen two Captain Underpants books was back, only to find them gone - and, you guessed it, some other kid was probably curled up reading them that very moment. He was bummed - and who would be? Captain Underpants is singularly awesome.

I thought I might have more up in the sorting room, so hung up with Linda (who was gonna go search biblion's stacks, just in case), made my aforementioned declaration (I really am in danger of becoming the crazy pet lady when Miss C goes off to school, talking to the pets like that - and she's only been gone a week this time around!), left Nellie and Spot, and headed up to pile through the boxes of kids' books. Sure enough, I came up with two. First I found the classic, Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants:

And then I found a bit of an outlier - a rare find, so to speak, in the Underpants world, The Captain Underpants Extra-Crunchy Book o' Fun:

And who doesn't want their books o' fun to be extra-crunchy?

I called Linda back. Predictably, she'd had no luck. I told her of mine, but then I confessed my next obstacle: I'd changed from socially-acceptable clothing and was now wearing the most ratty PJs that a respectable crazy pet lady would wear - some Capri bottoms with dubious elastic in the waist and a crew shirt donated to me by my friend Emory. I knew that time was critical (a boy can only wait so long for Captain Underpants), so I scooped up Nellie, walked outta my house onto the streets of Lewes as if nothing was amiss, and drove my ratty-a__ self a couple blocks over to the shop - tossing the books out to Linda as we did our drive by.

Man, it was a here-I-come-to-save-the-day moment if ever there was one - one that deserves a little Andy Kaufman in its wake:

Socially-acceptably, if not glamorously, dressed  - Jenny

All a'twitter

Dear Reader -  When I created a facebook account for little biblion, I created a Twitter account, too. Now, I had no earthly clue what the heck I'd do with said account. So there it's been sitting, gathering a few kind "followers," who've had nothing to follow!

But then an idea dawned: We get fun books in from time to time, and I can use Twitter to let the virtual universe know about them. So here I am in the wake of my first Twitter posting (sorry, I just can't bring myself to call it a "tweet"), feeling all a'twitter myself:

(Dear Reader, it's worth noting that I posted for the first time a day or so ago - and I started this blog then, too, but I ran into problems with the illustrative pictures that I took on my darn iPhone . . . oh, and we had a little kitty cat incident that I'll tell you about later. Ah well!)

The books that I wrote my 140 characters about yesterday were from the estate of our friend, Frank Sanna. Frank was the kindest of souls. He fought in WWII and was one of the many who made good use of the GI Bill upon his return. He learned to sew - expertly. And as the years progressed, Frank constantly found ways to use his extraordinary skill to serve and to give back to others.

Beyond his family and the love of his life, Donald, Frank's great love was movies. And when Donald brought Frank's books in, he told me how Frank and his friends would pour over their reference books for hours, comparing notes and sharing stories about the films that they loved. It's been a joy to watch others get a kick out of his books, too.

Thank you, Frank - thank you, Donald. Tweetlee-deet to you!  - Jenny

P.S. And can you find what film this tune's been in?

P.S.S. If you wanna see the books we're posting about we're @BiblionBooks (or at least I think that's how we're supposed to say it!).

Silly Jenny! Children's books are for kids!

Dear Reader -  Yesterday saw a striking number of adults - young and old'uns alike - buying children's books at biblion.

Now, part of the attraction, I'm sure, is that Miss C intentionally prices our kids' books very accessibly, making sure that when a kid comes in, he or she can walk out with a book without their mom or dad having to think twice about it. And we've seen that scenario play out time and time again. We've also had our own fair share of grandmothers and teachers who've stopped in and cherry-picked our stacks. But yesterday had a different air to it, as many of these folks were just buying the kid's books for themselves.

And I can relate.

You see, dear Reader, I adore children's books. I love the depth of story-telling that one can find - storytelling that so transcends the trite, syrupy fare that so many adults produce for kids, thinking that's all they're up for. And I love the art.

It was my mother who first taught me about the power of children's stories for all ages.

As I mentioned in my Grandma Moses post, theater and the arts were at the center of Mom's life in little Augusta, Kansas (I'll tell you all about mom and her family some other day - there's some juicy bits there that it'd be more fun to linger over when we're not in the midst of talkin' 'bout kids' books). And one of the things that Mom did on a regular basis was readings.

Mom had a spectacular reading voice. Something magic just seemed to happen whenever she read aloud.

And one of the sometimes traditions at the little Methodist church where we settled for most of my growing up years was for Mom to read The Littlest Angel as the sermon on the Sunday before Christmas:

Now the original building that housed the August United Methodist Church was this big (to my little eye), square-ish brick thing down on the corner of 6th and School. Its shape was relevant, 'cause the sanctuary mirrored it as well, and the two-storey seating was arranged in a horse-shoe shape. We always sat upstairs on the southwest side, which turned out to be a perfect vantage point for me to entertain myself with people-watching for the hour or so that we sat in services each week.

This is all germain 'cause I remember the first time I ever watched my Mom read this story and how the faces of my neighbors - all of them, young and old alike - responded to the tale. I remember seeing folks start to choke up when Mom got to the part where the littlest angel adds his own, simple gift to pile of splendid offerings for baby Jesus:

And then how some folks'd just up and cry when the humble gift became the star.

I saw first hand how the books that I thought were for just me and my kind held power and wonder for  grown-ups, too.

Years later, in 1989, my mom and dad visited one fall when I lived in New Canaan, Connecticut - we did the obligatory leaf peeping, and we made our way into New York for a day of sight-seeing and shopping. One of our finds that day was a just-published English translation of of Ophelia's Shadow Theatre by Michael Ende (some of you may remember him as the author of The Neverending Story):

Mom and I were initially attracted by Friedrich Hechelmann's stunning illustrations:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But when we pulled it out after dinner at home and Mom set to reading it out loud, Ende's gorgeously-written, tender story left us both verklemmt. It was one of those wonderful, emotionally-connected moments that has stayed with me for life. And every time I pick up the story to read it for my own child or for the kids who escape to the graveyard with me to read during the sermons in the summer at our little church, I feel her there with us.

Some years after that night, I went to find a copy of Ophelia for a friend and learned that the book was out of print. It had never occurred to me that something so wonderful would ever not be printed. But, alas, that is the fate of many books. And I came to find out, once  the Internet became a tool for locating titles, that procuring another was possible but would run me considerably more than my little $14.95 volume.

In fact, as I've been researching biblion's books, I've found that out-of-print children's books in particular tend to be valued disproportionally high. And I think there are two reasons for this. First, it's really hard to find children's books in good condition. They simply often get loved to death. And second, the emotional connections that people experience with children's stories - whether due to the emotional impact of the stories themselves or those with whom they've shared them - serve as powerful ties.

So while all of these adults were enjoying our children's books, it was a fun coincidence that I'd been busying myself with children's books the last couple of days as well, culling out the collectible ones from the boxes that Sue (Queen o' Goo Gone) had de-stickered for me. And, man, did I find some doozies.

I'm afraid that I've gone on here for quite long enough without launching into a series of lengthy expositions of my finds, but let me just give you a little taste. Here on this first day of Spring, let's take a quick peek at Kit Williams' book without a title, where the four seasons engage in a surreal battle amidst their changes, while Ambrose the beekeeper unwittingly participates:

 

Here, mid-story, Ambrose wakes to Summer:

"A thin shaft of sunlight stood absolutely still as it pierced the silent dimness of a cottage bedroom.

"As the earth revolved, the cottage moved and so too the bedroom until the thin white beam lit up the edge of a wooden bed. Slowly, imperceptibly, the world rotated and inch by inch the many contours of the counterpane were illuminated. Tiny specks of dust sparkled in the sunbeam as it gently penetrated the dreams of the sleeping man. Ambrose woke up, yawned and stretched, then, swinging his legs out of bed, he sat up and slipped his feet into a pair of worn carpet slippers. He slowly crossed the room, half knelt on a chair and opened the curtains.

 " The first day of Summer flooded into the room all ablaze with glorious colour and heavy with the scent of countless blooms. Ripples of birdsong broke the silence and Ambrose, filling his lungs with the eager breath of the morning, all but burst with excitement. He flung on his clothes and clattered down the stairs."

As must I, dear Reader. Blissfully content as a seller of out-of-print books  - Jenny

Miss C on _The Hunger Games_

Dear Reader -  Miss C (who has hereby expressed her displeasure at being known in this way in Blogland, despite the fact that I call her Miss C_____ in corporeal life every single day [she told me on the way to school the other day that she'd prefer to be known as "Steak" - though she's chosen a single, non-meat-related image to be her signature here]) has decided that she's going to contribute some thoughts about books from time to time. Enjoy!  - Jen

Hey! I’m ‘Miss C’ (my mother chose it without my consent  : ( ) and from now on I will be writing reviews of books in the preteen-young adult area. For my first review, I will be writing about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

This book could be described as dystopian, drama, action, romance, fantasyish, sci-fi, and probably a lot of other things, but personally I think it’s one of the most amazing fantasy-like books that I have ever read. It all starts with Katniss, living in her minuscule house in the coal-black district of 12 in Panem, the future of America.

If you have been born in the poor District 12, then you most likely won’t get out by the time you die, but Katniss breaks free when she takes her younger sister's place in a “game” organized by the government, where one boy and one girl from twelve to eighteen from each district (Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12) are thrown into an arena where they have to fight for their lives. Last one standing wins.

Once Katniss enters the capitol (the center of Panem, where all the rich people live), she is thrown into a whirlwind of political strife, heavily muscled teens with swords and spears, and a love interest, since apparently every teen book needs some complication involving love.

This story is good for both boys and girls, and can be introduced at any age, really, though I suggest not before the age of nine, but it also depends on what you, or you child, or your grandchild, like in a book. I guess this wasn’t really a review; but a person can’t really review a book and tell someone about it, unless that someone is themselves, because everyone has different tastes in books, so it would be hard for a book to appeal to every single person, so that’s my take on it.

The song that girl sings below is a song that Katniss sings to a friend of hers while said friend is dying from a spear in the stomach. It’s not really sung by Katniss, though, because Katniss isn’t real, and they haven’t made a movie…yet.

Happy birthday, John

Dear Reader -  It's been an absolutely lovely week. I was open on Monday, Thursday, and part of Friday (before I headed up to Dover for the Diocese of Delaware's 226the convention). These winter weekdays are gentle and quiet, allowing me a nice chunk of time to research the pricing on some of my out of print books.

You see, while I've kept all of the stuff that I've known is rare tucked away off site for future pricing and shelving, I went ahead and put everything else up on the shelves, simply marking the yet-to-be-priced books with a yellow dot on the spine:

I've made my way through most all of the fiction and biography, and am about to turn my attention to politics and history.

So as I neared the end of the fiction shelves, I came across two unassuming, un-dustjacketed volumes of John Steinbeck. One Grapes of Wrath and one East of Eden. As a girl growing up in a windy, sometimes dusty tiny town in Kansas, with a father whose lungs were visibly scarred by his days as a boy in the dust bowl, I gravitated to Steinbeck's work. Looking back, I'm not sure that I always "got" it all as a girl, but something about it resonated, and I loved it - particularly East of Eden:

Besides reading, one of my other favorite things to do on Saturday afternoons as a girl was to curl up in my daddy's big, brown vinyl recliner and watch the classic movies that the local networks would run in the middle of the day. And I'll never, ever forget discovering Elia Kazan's genius and his gems of movies, like "East of Eden" itself. Kazan brought the work to life in such compelling and evocative ways, with Dean's help (man-alive, this is what I love most about Kazan - how he again and again took little-known talent, like Dean, and gave them their break-out roles - his work is a treasure):

Anyhow, I hadn't thought much of these two Steinbeck volumes - as I said, they were pretty darn unassuming. Some first editions are clearly marked and often even stated as such. But many are not, particularly those that are less contemporary. And first printings are often even harder to reliably identify. Both of these books merely had the standard copyright year info behind the title page, so I figured that they could have been from any number of printings or editions:

But when I started to do a little more rooting around on some book sites about identifying first editions of these two books in particular, I found some helpful information. The first 3000 volumes of East of Eden that'd been printed included an error by a proofreader, who thought that the word "bight" was used by mistake and who replaced it with "bite."

I picked up my volume and carefully turned the pages, making my way to 281. And there is was on line 38: "bite":

I felt this profound sense of gratitude that somehow the universe had rescued this book - one of just 1500 first printed for the general public - from the oblivion of some forgotten, anonymous stack. And with John's birthday coming up tomorrow, it feels fitting that it should be discovered so happily close to this occasion, ready to be treasured again. The Grapes of Wrath, also a first edition, does not appear to be a first printing, but I have more research to do to confirm that for sure.

I've told several of my friends that my books feel like puppies to me - they each find me and then I hold and love them for awhile 'till their true owners show up to take them home. It's a joy every single time to see which books find which owners. I don't know if I'll be able to part with John, but if he's meant to live with someone else, I figure it'll be clear when the time comes.

In the meantime, I'm getting "East of Eden" again from Netflix. I haven't brought Mr. Kazan home for Miss C, yet, but I think it's time. I couldn't get the scenes that I wanted to upload from YouTube onto Blogger, so here are some links for you. Here's the seminal birthday scene (pure Dean genius), and here's a gorgeous follow-up, showing Kazan's genius mixed with Dean's.

Happy birthday, John.  - Jenny

P.S. And here's some Latin tunage worthy of John's Salinas roots, thanks to the inspiration of my buddy Todd:

P.S.S. Steinbeck's dedication to his editor, Pascal "Pat" Covici is tender and moving, particularly to my little editor's heart:

Love that the manuscript made its way into that hand-carved box.

Christmas Gift Redux: Grandma Moses, Otto Kallir, and my mom

Dear Reader -  A couple months back I tripped across the newly-minted Milford Public Library on one of my little buying adventures. I was looking for a ladies room, they were looking mighty clean, and so I stopped in.

Imagine my delight when the greeter in the lobby had a little sign announcing that their book sale was beginning the next Monday. Of course, I made my way back, having a blast filling bag after bag of great books - so many, in fact, that the ladies who ran the show began to get curious. They took splendid care of me - watching over my amassing books, oooing and ahhing over my finds, and finally helping me get them all out to my car. The woman who helped me cart the books finally got up the nerve to ask what I was up to, so I told her about biblion. She was tickled as all getout, and quickly told me their sale schedule for the year.

The next sale was on December 1. It offered many of their nicer books, which were priced accordingly. In fact, many were priced such that it made no sense for me to buy them (there's no way that I could sell them at any sort of margin that'd let me pay the rent). One of them was this volume on Grandma Moses by Otto Kallir:

For those of you who've been paying attention, you'll recognize that it's sitting on the carpet in my office, and you'll be wondering, "But, Jen, if this book was too pricey, what's it doin' coming home with you?"

This book, dear Reader, is my Christmas present to me. I overpaid for it - as is the case with many Christmas presents - but I didn't think twice (or even one and a half times) before snatching it up from the Milford ladies.

You see, I have a thing for Grandma Moses that comes by way of my mother, Judy:

 

Judy had a knack for seeing people for who they are and for celebrating the best in them - in both grand and subtle ways. Take Mary and Dalene, for instance (here they all are playing dress-up one Christmas):

Mary and Dalene were the unique and intelligent sort of women who did not fit neatly into the box of feminine expectations in my little hometown in Kansas (Mary, in fact, weathered a horribly bigoted incident near the end of her time there that near-nigh did her in - but she, with her indomitable nature and sense of humor, prevailed). My mother, of course, loved them fully - gently turning her back to the people who eschewed them and gaining deep friendships in return that enriched her 'till the end of her days.

Judy also had a particularly keen ability to see children as people, too - appreciating the full "peopleness" of each one. Her ability here was evidenced in her community work, having lead the town's children's theater and having started the arts council with a special attention for children's offerings (she had volumes of photo albums with pictures of her plays and such - volumes which I'd love to see again [alas, see previous post re. well-meaning sister-in-law]). She was loved by my friends, as she turned the warmth of this ability on them, too - and, blessedly, she was not one of those parents who inexplicably withheld this attention from her own kids.

So it was, that one Christmas when I was a girl, I received this paperback volume from my mom:

It's a much smaller, abridged version of my Milford find, and it evidences the years of living in my parents' smoking household and my hours of perusal, but I still keep it in a special spot on my bookshelf.

Why? Two reasons. When mom gave it to me she said that she'd sought it out because the detail in my drawings (I was a prolific illustrator at that time) reminded her of Moses'. That was cool, but that wasn't what really touched me. I was so moved that I'd been noticed - that I'd been seen (not always easy with the kind of attention that my brothers required). Something about my mother's gift made me feel that she knew and valued me.

To my little hands, the 9"x11" book seemed vast - seemed special. I knew I'd received something that had meaning and worth.

But little did I know at the time what worth and depth there was to the book. When I started to wend my way through Kallir's full volume, I was amazed.

The plates were stunning:

The photographs enlightening:

And her story so lovingly assembled, down to the gilt tables of contents for each of the book's four sections:

 At the end there was even a catalog of her every work:

With that kind of love and attention, I just knew that there had to be a story behind the author, Otto Kallir:

And, thanks to the wonders of Google, I found out that I was right.

Kallir was an Austrian who fled the Nazis and made his way to New York City in the late 30s. He quickly became a leading figure in the New York and American art scenes, founding Galerie St. Etienne on 57th Street and becoming key to the recovery of looted art from World War II. You can read an essay about him from their 55th anniversary. (You can also read about the sale that he was obliged to make to Hitler [from which he did not profit] back in the day here on the Looted Art website.)

St. Etienne was where Grandma Moses' work first gained national and international exposure, via the exhibition "What a Farmwife Painted" in 1940, and they went on to become her exclusive representatives. You can read more about their relationship in Otto's daughter Jane's essay from the Moses anniversary exhibition early this year.

The second reason why I've so treasured the Grandma Moses volume is something that Moses, Kallir, and my mother have in common: rebirth and reinvention. Moses and Kallir both had remarkable transformations - his rather phoenix-like, having had to abandon a successful career in Europe at the age of 45 and start over from scratch in America - her's more like a butterfly, having lived in a very different state of being for most of her days, only to be revealed in a startling new twilight.

Even as a girl, I latched on to this aspect of her story - of the fact that it's never too late for something extraordinary to manifest in our lives. And as I watched my mother navigate the challenges of her life with grace and joy - forever seeming to be able to make something beautiful out of it all, no matter what - I, too, believed that it was possible for my life to eventually amount to something positive, even if it didn't seem grand or important or relevant at the time. All it takes, I realized, is to just be fully myself (which I've since realized isn't always as easy as it sounds).

So my bookshelf has a new occupant this year, and my heart has a renewed appreciation for life's ultimate goodness and possibility - quite fitting as Miss C and I are set to embark on the next leg of our new adventure as the new year chimes in. Blessings to you and yours as you watch the clock tick down to 2011!  - Jen

P.S. If you love a great story, you'll love this charming NY Times one about Jane Kallir's second marriage to her first husband.