Storytime
with Rachel Anna DeVona
I hold children’s books in high esteem. They house some of my favorite memories. From before we could walk and talk, our parents had been reading to us, my brothers and I. Family favorites like Burton and Dudley, Two Bad Ants, White Dynamite and Curly Kidd, My Rotten Red Headed Older Brother, Firemouse, Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear, Wild Wild Sunflower Child Anna, or any Bill Peet book, to this day fill me with wonderment and entertainment while giving me a sensation of home, comfort, and love.
As we each reached elementary school, part of our morning routine, along with breakfast, chores, packing our lunch bags, and in my case, brushing and braiding my 2.5 foot long hair, was sitting in Mom's lap as she read to us from chapter books. Over the years as we waited for the bus we heard all about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family as they moved west through America, from their little house in the big woods, to the dugout house in the plains. We journeyed through the wardrobe as we traveled to Narnia and back, then all the way to The Last Battle. We read Beverly Clearly favorites, laughing along with the escapades of Ramona Quimby, Ralph S. Mouse, Henry Huggins and Ribsy. We heard the ancient and original fairy tale renditions of Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, as well as other beautiful hardcover editions from the Illustrated Junior Library.
When my older brother was six, soon to turn seven, I was born, so I had the benefit of hearing stories read from him as I grew up! And then I was eight when our youngest brother was born, so he enjoyed a houseful of accumulated stories and books! There are cassettes of us reading our favorite books we taped, as we anxiously anticipated a new sibling, bursting with excitement to share with them our favorite books! The idea being that the baby would want to hear our voices at all hours of the day, maybe when we're gone at school and couldn't actually hear us, that this tape and these stories would bring comfort.
If you browse our family bookcases, you'll find inscriptions inside the covers. Children’s books with love notes from my Dad to my Mom, before they ever even had kids! Books wishing us happy birthday or a merry Christmas from grandparents, aunts and uncles. Books with our handprints drawn inside, nesting in each other, signed and dated. Books with our names scrawled in them as we learned to write, sporting the occasional backwards letter. Looking back, these inscriptions stamp each books with another layer of story to tell, marking the time and place with the handwritten ink from my family’s hands.
I remember the first ever real chapter book I bought myself from a Barnes in Noble in second grade (Chasing Redbird). I remember as I advanced as a reader, still wanting to go to the children's section in our elementary school and local library, because, well, I like the illustrations and I wanted to revisit some old favorites! I remember listening to Harry Nilsson's The Point and illustrating it as the story was told and sung on giant rolls of kraft paper with my dad. I remember listening to my little brother retell stories he had been read, cute, backwards, and sleepy. I remember storytime at the public library, being four years old and trying to understand that all these books are free and I can take them home! I remember my dad home from the hospital and being worried at six years old, but we snuggled right in and he read me a story to calm me down and return us to normalcy. I remember the lyrics to Reading Rainbow with LeVar Burton! I remember Jim doing the voices spot on as he re-read aloud his favorite childhood series to Joe. I remember everyone taking their turn at making up bedtime stories for Joe. I remember my grandparents reading me a story they read to mom as a girl. I remember flipping through an animal encyclopedia and each choosing a side to draw in our own sketchbooks with Jim. I remember being in middle school and going downstairs with some other classmates to read to the kindergarteners, where Joe was a student. I remember dad coming home from a meeting at Barnes and Noble and when he came in to say good night he gave me my first Harry Potter book (which was the third one, Prisoner of Azkaban!) just as JK Rowling was taking off when I was in third grade. I remember other kids saying, "Well of course you like reading, your dad is the librarian, you have to read!" Sigh, no kids, I like to read because it's fun and awesome and there are so many stories out there. I like reading because I am so lucky to be a part of this family. Where reading, storytelling, imagination, creation, drawing, thinking, playing and making are all connected and a part of life! Dad being a librarian is just a perk of this life! I am certain, even if he wasn’t a librarian, that our habits of reading for the joy of it would be the same.
This is all just a long winded attempt, to simply say, reading is awesome. Children's books are wonderful windows, influential and memorable. I have been lucky enough to meet an author who wanted me to illustrate her story, and now that book is done and ready and it's very exciting! The book is “Arlo’s Garden,” and if you read it, you’ll meet Arlo, an elderly racehorse. He finds himself in a new home with some delicious life changes ahead of him! How the world knew to bring the author, Lisa L. Lynn, and myself together, I’ll never know, but I’ll be forever grateful. Our meeting has rekindled the horse girl in me, reminding me to play, run, have joy, and yes, let loose the occasional nicker! The eight year old girl that still resides within me is so proud of what I’ve made, and she thinks you should read the story, and look at the illustrations. I’ve illustrated a children’s book, and it’s been an amazing turn of the page on my career path. I feel like I can create art, keep aflame that childlike wonder, have a foot in the literary and educational world, while still being my own boss. It’s also scary and difficult, but life is about learning!
Support a local artist and a local author, just a couple of grown up horse girls, and buy our book:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/arlosgarden
Visit us at our Book Release Party at The Yards on Saturday, November 30th from 10 AM till 2 PM. Both myself, Rachel, and the author, Lisa, will be there to sign and sell books, talk horse stories, have a read-aloud and play host on Small Business Saturday. All thirteen original illustrations will be hanging on the gallery walls.