…or something like that. Don’t ask me to hand jive as it always ends badly (more like Monty Python’s fish slapping dance).
Through some strange twist of fate, I ended up reading books that seem to mesh quite well together.
www.fromoldbooks.org
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman is just fantastic (for fun, look at this quick study). At first, I thought it would be rather depressing as it deals with what would happen to our world if humans were to suddenly just disappear one morning. It’s not a doomsday scenario or anything like that, however. It just takes the premise that humans are gone in a magic “poof” and then uses science to predict what would likely happen to our houses, cities and industrial areas.
It’s actually quite fascinating stuff! I had also picked up, on a lark, a copy of A Handful of Dust: Photographs of Disappearing America by David Plowden. It is a coffee table-sized book featuring black and white pictures of human places that are crumbling back into the dirt. It pairs nicely with Weisman’s book. Good stuff to ponder while thinking about our impermanence…
I had bold ambitions to read all of the Newbery winners this year, including the honor books. Um…yeah…that didn’t happen…ahem. (Here is someone who is doing a far better job of that).
I managed to read Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray (illustrated by the amazing Robert Lawson), which won the Newbery in 1943. While it lagged in some parts, all in all I rather liked it. Of course, pairing it with Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz (won 2008 Newbery) is inevitable. I think today’s kids would probably like Schlitz’s short, engaging character studies better. I know I did! She really does a great job capturing the essence of the era and personalities.
1 Comment
July 22, 2008 at 1:12 am
Ah, David Plowden. Excellent choice. My all-time favorite photographer (which you should know, because I’ve plugged his books on my blog). Handful of Dust is a good one, though you might enjoy Small Town America, because the narrative about his explorations and the people he meets is so interesting. And the photos are excellent, too. But you can’t go wrong with any Plowden book. If you can find it, the Hand of Man on America is a classic.