Custom Art for Charlotte

"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

The first line of Charlotte's Web by E.B. White.  Only the first line, and I was hooked.  I read ravenously.  I read and read and read until I was finished, barely coming up for air.  And I sobbed at the end like I lost  one of my own family members.

Charlotte's Web was a Christmas gift from my parents in 1981.  I was 7.  I still have that same copy...the one that sent me on this journey.  I look at it often, with my dad's handwriting on the inside cover:

That book and its characters sent me on a trajectory that, at the risk of sounding overly-dramatic, turned me into the person I am today.  It is the reason I love reading.  It is the reason I became a teacher.  It is the reason I named my daughter Charlotte.

The writing is magical, yes.  But I also love Garth Williams's illustrations.  They are truly iconic.

I wanted to pay homage to Charlotte's Web in my own Charlotte's room somehow.  I'm creating a little reading area for her, so I thought some art work in that area would be perfect.  Here's what I came up with.

This is one of my favorite illustrations from Charlotte's Web.  It's the first message Charlotte weaves in her web to save her friend Wilbur, and the one I decided to recreate for my Charlotte:

And here's my illustration:

I used the original illustration for inspiration, and used a thin black marker on plain white paper.  I bought a plain white frame from Target with a mat already in it, and trimmed my paper down to fit:

Then I thought it needed just a little color, so I trimmed some scrapbook paper and added it to the mat:

And here's what the finished product looks like.  

My hope is that this book will eventually send Charlotte on her own journey, as it did for me.  She loves to "read" already, so I think we're off to a strong start.  My dad is gently nudging her along, as he wisely did for me many years ago.  Here's her own copy of Charlotte's Web, the one that was waiting for her under the Christmas tree on her first Christmas.  It's a little newer than mine, and a little cleaner, but it includes the same handwriting on the inside cover as mine:

I hope all of you have the joy of knowing a book that changed your life, as this one did mine.  :)

SCORE!!

I have a thing for books.  I have a thing for vintage.  So you can understand why Friday felt like Christmas for me!

My school library was going to discard a bunch of books that the students hadn't checked out *in years* to make room for some new ones.  The librarian put them in our faculty room to see if anyone wanted them.  Imagine my delight when I spotted these beauties:

I understand why kids haven't checked these out in years. I really do.  Because they are used to shiny.  Modern.  Glossy.  They judge books by their covers.  But so do I.  And to me, these covers are BEEE - YOU- TEE - FUL.  My colleagues had a good laugh at me because I was literally squealing with glee.

This one is my favorite:

Yes, it's a little dirty.  Nothing a little Magic Eraser can't handle.  Isn't it the cutest?

I love this one, too.  I think I may frame it and hang it in Nathan's room.

I think this one may be the perfect bedtime story.  And it's by Charlotte Zolotow, one of my all-time-favorite children's authors:

Modern-day illustrations in children's books are works of art, truly.  But there is something so sweet and charming about these:

The best part, of course, is instilling my love of reading in my children.  It's just a bonus that they also have my great taste in books. :)

Greening

So I've been reading a couple of books. I've been holding off on reading them for a while, mainly because I was a little afraid of what I was going to discover (and also because Gavin has been waking up at 5am, so I'm too tired to read!). The books are: Growing Up Green and Healthy Child, Healthy World. The problem here is this: When I read books like this, I feel like everything I'm doing is wrong, and I feel that I need to immediately change things. I'm a bit of an alarmist that way. I definitely had to be in the right mindset to read these, and just kept reminding myself that I am already pretty eco-conscious, and that I might be able to make more changes if they seem to be in the best interest of my family.

Michael and I have always recycled, but we really began to make some significant changes when we saw how many disposable diapers we were going through on a daily basis. Since I just couldn't bring myself to cloth-diaper (and those chlorine-free diapers are freakin' expensive, times two!), we decided we had to look for other ways to reduce our environmental footprint. (For those of you who know us personally, you know that this was more my idea than Michael's, but he usually gives in, if he knows what's good for him!) We started buying some organic food, and milk that's free of growth hormones. We virtually stopped buying bottled water and now use a Brita filtration system. We also make an effort to use only green cleaning supplies--nothing with ammonia, chlorine bleach, phosphates, or other chemicals. We use green dishwashing liquid, and I promise, as soon as my giant bottle of Gain is empty, we are also going to use something green for washing our clothes. Thankfully, this is getting less expensive to do. Clorox now makes a green all-purpose cleanser called Green Works that I saw for under $3 at Walmart, and you can use it to clean almost anything. I had some difficulty finding something to clean my wood floors (but I know that Swiffer Wet-Jet stuff has to be toxic...it stinks like crazy). Turns out that Simple Green, a cleanser that I've been using on my countertops for years now, works wonders.

That's the easy part, recognizing that there's chemicals in cleansers. The harder part about this information is realizing that there are chemicals in virtually everything we eat, drink, breathe, and put on our bodies. I realize that people with healthy immune systems can usually detoxify all of the stuff they come in contact with. And I also realize that there are very few studies that link disease with, say, shampoo. (But my friend Karen reminds me that just a few decades ago there were no studies linking smoking with cancer. That's when I think about the whole "better safe than sorry" motto.)

I also can't ignore that autism, behavior disorders, and the like are on the rise. As a teacher, I deal with them every day. I just read a study that said that the spike in these types of disorders cannot be attributed to overdiagnosis: the increase is too sharp. It must be attributed to an environmental trigger, or triggers. I feel like if I can minimize my children's exposure to all of these toxins, the healthier they will be in the long run.

So I'm going to try to buy a bit more organic food, despite the price. (These books have a list of the "dirty dozen"--twelve fruits and vegetables that have the highest concentration of pesticides.) I'll probably start looking at natural washes, lotions, and cosmetics. When the babies move to toddler beds, I'll probably buy organic sheets. See? Small changes. And not necessarily immediate ones. I'm getting there.

This post went in an entirely different direction than I intended it to, but I would definitely recommend these books if you have children or are thinking about having them. I'd love to hear what you think!