Today is author Kate DiCamillo's birthday (Happy Birthday!). Although her more recent books - The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, The Tale of Despereaux, the Mercy Watson series, and the forthcoming The Magician's Elephant - don't offer much proof of it, she is a Florida writer.
Born in the north, Kate experienced poor health as a child. Her doctor recommended the time-honored cure of moving to Florida, and she came to Clermont with her mother and brother. Her first novel, Because of Winn-Dixie, is set in North Florida, although I've pondered whether the setting is integral to the plot. I think the story could be set elsewhere in the South just as easily. On her website, however, DiCamillo writes that the story arose at least in part from her homesickness for Florida during a cold Minnesota winter. Nor is her second book, The Tiger Rising, particularly dependent on its Florida setting for meaning. It does, however, incorporate the timeless Florida theme of new beginnings and second chances.
Showing posts with label children's literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children's literature. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sunday, September 09, 2007
More Books
Some more books about Florida or related in some fashion to Florida:
The Black Stallion Challenged, by Walter Farley. A children's horse racing story, set at Hialeah Park.
Cassadaga: The South's Oldest Spiritualist Community, edited by John J. Guthrie Jr., Phillip Charles Lucas, and Gary Monroe. A look at the history, people, beliefs, and architecture of a east central Florida community.
Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making the Magic Real, by The Imagineers. Does knowing how something was created take away from the experience, or increase the appreciation for what was accomplished?
American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, by Ted Steinberg. Read a review of the book from the Christian Science Monitor.
The Black Stallion Challenged, by Walter Farley. A children's horse racing story, set at Hialeah Park.
Cassadaga: The South's Oldest Spiritualist Community, edited by John J. Guthrie Jr., Phillip Charles Lucas, and Gary Monroe. A look at the history, people, beliefs, and architecture of a east central Florida community.
Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making the Magic Real, by The Imagineers. Does knowing how something was created take away from the experience, or increase the appreciation for what was accomplished?
American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, by Ted Steinberg. Read a review of the book from the Christian Science Monitor.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Freddy Goes to Florida
,I was scanning a list of recommended children's books the other day when the title Freddy Goes to Florida caught my eye (how could it not catch my attention?!). The cover shows farms animals staring at alligators. So of course, I had to read it.
First published in the late 1920s and originally titled To and Again, Freddy Goes to Florida was the first of 26 children's books Walter R. Brooks wrote about the animals living on Mr. Bean's farm in upstate New York. Brooks was himself a New Yorker, and had worked in advertising before embarking on a career in writing and publishing. Aside from his Freddy the Pig books, Brooks is best remembered for writing a short story that inspired the Mr. Ed TV series.
Basically, the plot of Freddy Goes to Florida is this: the animals on Mr. Bean's farm do not want to spend another winter in cold, drafty barns. So they decide to go to Florida for the winter. Along the way, they meet people and animals and have adventures. In the Springtime, they return to their farm reinvigorated.
But how does Brooks portray Florida? The journey is as important a part of the story as is the animals' stay in Florida. They don't arrive at their destination until halfway through the book, in Chapter 11:
They sniffed the air delightedly.
"Mmmmmmm!" said Mrs. Wiggins. "Isn't that good? It's better than clover. I wonder what it is."
"I know," said Jack. "I've smelt it at weddings. See all those little green trees down ther? They're orange-trees, and that smell is orange-blossoms."
"Look! Look!" squealed Freddy. "There's a palm-tree!"
"It's Florida!" shouted Jinx.
And all the animals shouted together: "Florida!"
The animals dance and celebrate reaching Florida. Freddy makes up a poem:
In Florida, in Florida,
Where the orange-blossom blows,
Where the alligator sings so sweet.
And the sweet-potato grows;
Oh, that is the place where I would be,
And that is where I am ---
In Florida, in Florida,
As happy as a clam.
And then they head off to the beach, where they stay for a month:
"Every day at four o'clock they went in for a dip in the surf, and then they would lie round on the sand and talk until supper-time. It was a very lazy and pleasant life that they lived in Florida."
Eventually, they decide they should see more of the state, so they head off to Palm Beach, Miami, and the Everglades. In the Big Cypress Swamp, they encounter a hungry group of alligators. Mrs. Wiggins (who is a cow) tries to scare them off:
"Keep away, now!" she said. "We won't stand any nonsense!"
But the alligators only laughed, and one of them said: "Oho! You won't eh? Well what did you come into our country for, then?"
They alligators take the animals to Grandfather Alligator, who remembers the when the Spanish explorers visited Florida. He wants to eat them as well, despite being scolded by Jinx the Cat:
"What do you suppose all the animals up north are going to think of you when they hear about it? Eating up visitors who come to make you a friendly call! A nice opinion they'll get of Florida!"
Eventually, the farm animals escape the alligators, and continue their vacation until spring arrives and it is time to go home to Mr. Bean.
The image of Florida correlates with the popular tourist images of the 1920s, when the book was written. Florida as a wild, somewhat foreign place to rest and play before returning to your actual life.
(This book is most appropriate for third or fourth grade, and would appeal to children who like stories with talking animals. Even though the story was written 80 years ago, there are no obscure references to old machines or technologies that kids today would not understand. The edition I read was published by Overbrook Books in 1998, and is 197 pages with black and white line drawings by Kurt Wiese).
First published in the late 1920s and originally titled To and Again, Freddy Goes to Florida was the first of 26 children's books Walter R. Brooks wrote about the animals living on Mr. Bean's farm in upstate New York. Brooks was himself a New Yorker, and had worked in advertising before embarking on a career in writing and publishing. Aside from his Freddy the Pig books, Brooks is best remembered for writing a short story that inspired the Mr. Ed TV series.
Basically, the plot of Freddy Goes to Florida is this: the animals on Mr. Bean's farm do not want to spend another winter in cold, drafty barns. So they decide to go to Florida for the winter. Along the way, they meet people and animals and have adventures. In the Springtime, they return to their farm reinvigorated.
But how does Brooks portray Florida? The journey is as important a part of the story as is the animals' stay in Florida. They don't arrive at their destination until halfway through the book, in Chapter 11:
They sniffed the air delightedly.
"Mmmmmmm!" said Mrs. Wiggins. "Isn't that good? It's better than clover. I wonder what it is."
"I know," said Jack. "I've smelt it at weddings. See all those little green trees down ther? They're orange-trees, and that smell is orange-blossoms."
"Look! Look!" squealed Freddy. "There's a palm-tree!"
"It's Florida!" shouted Jinx.
And all the animals shouted together: "Florida!"
The animals dance and celebrate reaching Florida. Freddy makes up a poem:
In Florida, in Florida,
Where the orange-blossom blows,
Where the alligator sings so sweet.
And the sweet-potato grows;
Oh, that is the place where I would be,
And that is where I am ---
In Florida, in Florida,
As happy as a clam.
And then they head off to the beach, where they stay for a month:
"Every day at four o'clock they went in for a dip in the surf, and then they would lie round on the sand and talk until supper-time. It was a very lazy and pleasant life that they lived in Florida."
Eventually, they decide they should see more of the state, so they head off to Palm Beach, Miami, and the Everglades. In the Big Cypress Swamp, they encounter a hungry group of alligators. Mrs. Wiggins (who is a cow) tries to scare them off:
"Keep away, now!" she said. "We won't stand any nonsense!"
But the alligators only laughed, and one of them said: "Oho! You won't eh? Well what did you come into our country for, then?"
They alligators take the animals to Grandfather Alligator, who remembers the when the Spanish explorers visited Florida. He wants to eat them as well, despite being scolded by Jinx the Cat:
"What do you suppose all the animals up north are going to think of you when they hear about it? Eating up visitors who come to make you a friendly call! A nice opinion they'll get of Florida!"
Eventually, the farm animals escape the alligators, and continue their vacation until spring arrives and it is time to go home to Mr. Bean.
The image of Florida correlates with the popular tourist images of the 1920s, when the book was written. Florida as a wild, somewhat foreign place to rest and play before returning to your actual life.
(This book is most appropriate for third or fourth grade, and would appeal to children who like stories with talking animals. Even though the story was written 80 years ago, there are no obscure references to old machines or technologies that kids today would not understand. The edition I read was published by Overbrook Books in 1998, and is 197 pages with black and white line drawings by Kurt Wiese).
Thursday, March 01, 2007
The First Florida Book Awards
The winners of the first Florida Book Awards, for books published in 2006, were announced this morning. These awards are the cooperative effort of a dozen or more Florida cultural, humanities, arts, educational, and literary organizations who intend to make it an annual event. There are seven categories, and the basic rules are that the authors must be full-time Florida residents, except in the non-fiction category where the book must be about Florida. And the gold medal winners are:
General Fiction: Whiteman, by Tony D'Souza
Young Adult Literature: The Real Question, by Adrian Fogelin
Children's Literature: The Somebodies, by N.E. Bode (Julianna Baggott)
Nonfiction: The Swamp, by Michael Grunwald
Poetry: My Psychic, by James Kimbrell
Popular Fiction: Escape Clause, by James O. Born
Spanish Language: La Isla De Los Amores Infinitos, by Daina Chaviano
Complete list of winners
General Fiction: Whiteman, by Tony D'Souza
Young Adult Literature: The Real Question, by Adrian Fogelin
Children's Literature: The Somebodies, by N.E. Bode (Julianna Baggott)
Nonfiction: The Swamp, by Michael Grunwald
Poetry: My Psychic, by James Kimbrell
Popular Fiction: Escape Clause, by James O. Born
Spanish Language: La Isla De Los Amores Infinitos, by Daina Chaviano
Complete list of winners
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
I just finished reading Strawberry Girl, by Lois Lenski. It's a children's book, about pine woods Florida settlers at the turn of the century. The title character is Birdie Boyer, a girl who helps her family grow and sell strawberries. The Boyers live in the Roddenberrys' old house -- the Roddenberrys left Florida after the 1895-1896 freezes nearly killed all their orange trees. The Boyers are hard-working farmers who grow strawberries for northern markets. They nourish the soil, feed their livestock, and fence their land. Their children go to school and church. Providing contrast are the Slaters. Their cattle tromple the Boyer's strawberry patch, their children beat up the teacher, and in a drunken rage Mr. Slater shoots the heads off all their chickens. It's hard to say which family is more likeable.
Lenski wrote Strawberry Girl in 1945, several years after Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' The Yearling won the Pulitzer Prize. There are similarities between the two --- Cracker culture, battles between hard-working and lazy neighbors, farmers struggling against the elements... The Yearling is better, but Strawberry Girl is not bad. It was good enough to win Lenski a Newberry Medal in 1946. Strawberry Girl was the first in Lenski's regional series of children's books, each set in a different locale (for example, an Iowa corn farm and a West Virginia mining town).
Lenski packs a lot of information and morality into 150 pages, and I suspect this is a book that parents and teachers wish that children would want to read, rather than a book kids will sit down with on a summer day. However, the Central Florida Memory program has a nice 4th grade unit available online.
Lenski wrote Strawberry Girl in 1945, several years after Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' The Yearling won the Pulitzer Prize. There are similarities between the two --- Cracker culture, battles between hard-working and lazy neighbors, farmers struggling against the elements... The Yearling is better, but Strawberry Girl is not bad. It was good enough to win Lenski a Newberry Medal in 1946. Strawberry Girl was the first in Lenski's regional series of children's books, each set in a different locale (for example, an Iowa corn farm and a West Virginia mining town).
Lenski packs a lot of information and morality into 150 pages, and I suspect this is a book that parents and teachers wish that children would want to read, rather than a book kids will sit down with on a summer day. However, the Central Florida Memory program has a nice 4th grade unit available online.
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