Poetry Friday -- Sorrow and Joy

After 25 years of business, our favorite local independent (secondhand and antiquarian) bookstore, Acorn Bookshop, is succumbing to the pressures of bookstore chains and Amazon. To give you a sense of the loss that many in the community are feeling, here's a poem (not by me) that George shared on the Acorn Facebook page:

The following poem was written by one of the Acorn family of friends/customers.

NOT AN ACORN FALLETH

Not an acorn falleth, but our God doth know,
Even when e-commerce lays a bookstore low;
Seeds are scattered ‘round the earth, bookstore-ies are set free.
What once was just a mortal nut is now immortal tree.
Far more precious surely than the books that fly
Off the shelves are people who all came in to buy,
Or chat with George or Christine or other Acorn kind
‘Bout every sort of history or author on their mind.
Then off they’d go to browse around; such treasures to behold.
A myst’ry why there’s any left; so many you have sold!
Remember all your book fans as you turn the page;
for memories grow more precious as they come of age.
Though pages now are numbered; dust each off and see,
How many hearts you’ve gladdened; The acorn’s now a tree.

An Acornista

(with apologies to Louisa May Alcott)

Last summer when I did a fairly massive clean-and-purge, I sold a bunch of books to Acorn and so we had a sizable amount of store credit. I was looking forward to working with George and Jack to build my collection of signed editions by U.S. Poets Laureate. When they announced the closing, they didn't have any such editions on their shelves, but I bought four gems I'll be sharing in the next couple of weeks.

 First up, a 1914 first edition of Joyce Kilmer, containing his (yes, HIS!) most famous poem, "Trees."

There aren't many other poems in the book that I particularly care for, except this one:

Lots of folks in this snow-covered coldcoldcold land are looking forward to spring!

The page after this Easter poem contained the biggest surprise in the book: evidence of the previous reader/owner, who marked up a poem with directions for reading it aloud! AND...tucked in at that spot was a magazine clipping with poems by Aline Kilmer, who, come to find out, was Joyce Kilmer's wife!

As I was poking around learning about the Kilmers, I discovered that the University of Delaware has a collection of 50+ letters that Sara Teasdale wrote to the two of them. Fascinating. I'd love to poke through that collection some day!

My students are astonished by my lack of knowledge about current popular culture -- movies, video games, sports, YouTubers, etc. Who has time for all that when you can get lost in literary rabbit holes?!?

Kay has today's Poetry Friday Roundup at A Journey Through the Pages.

Okay, Okay, Franki Won

Franki read the Newbery before it was announced today, so technically, she wins the friendly little non-competition (HA!) upon which this blog was originally based.

Here she is with Beth and Sally, the two other people in our world who read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman before today's announcement.


I am going to claim a win of sorts this year too, because my prediction of the winner came true. I predicted that "the Newbery will be a book that hasn't darkened my door: Jimmy's Stars, Highway Cats, The Graveyard Book, The Porcupine Year, After Tupac and D Foster, Seer of Shadows, or The Trouble Begins at 8." There it is, the third one on my list. As a bonus, I have never seen the Caldecott winner, either! SCORE! (On a side note, I own a copy of the Caldecott Honor book, A River of Words, which is signed by both the author and the illustrator because I've had that one on my short list since last summer!)

But just to show that there are no hard feelings here we all are at Cover to Cover right before we left to go out to dinner:


Bestbookihavenotread, Literate Lives (minus Bill -- did your kid's team win the basketball game?), Cover to Cover, Creative Literacy, A Year of Reading, Authentic Learner x2, local author Amjed Qamar, and A Year of Reading.

Yes, blogging is fun, but it can't beat meeting at the best independent children's bookstore in our state on Newbery announcement day and then filling a huge booth at NorthStar and talking books!

A Day With Lisa Yee and Peepy!

We had a fun afternoon with Lisa Yee on Saturday. We started with a quick tour of her digs at Thurber House. Then we took a rather circuitous trip to one of our favorite places to eat, Northstar Cafe. The one near Cover to Cover Bookstore. To get there, we had to dodge ComFest traffic and the Gay Pride Parade in the Short North.

Over the best veggie burgers ever, we chatted about families (specifically, teenage daughters), books, and blogging. Lisa told us about the work she's doing at Thurber House -- her own reading and writing, as well as the writing classes she's teaching. In breaking news, we learned that Nancy Pearl will be featuring Millicent Min on NPR this morning as one of books in her summer reading for young readers piece.

At Cover to Cover, Lisa met Sally Oddi, the owner, and Peepy met some new friends, as you can see in the picture. Franki was honored to be able to hold Peepy, and check out those for-real bunny ears that Mary Lee is getting. Someone didn't want to be left out of the picture!

Because we couldn't get to North Market on this trip, we do have some unfinished business before Lisa heads back to California -- salty caramel ice cream at Jeni's!

Cover to Cover Books for Young Readers

You've probably guessed that Cover to Cover is our favorite bookstore. They just updated their website with their spring picks and lots of great pictures of the store and various author events. Now you can visit, too!