Ahhh, Spring where are you?

Aaaah, spring, where are you? It is March 16th and my garden is filled with 8 foot high snow banks. The streets are hidden under many layers of pressed snow; dark brown, dirty white, dull mud gray, pebbled, and crackling with rot - like we see the earth in archaeological digs. Spring seems very far away.

I was reading Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market and Other Poems" again last night and came upon the same poem I wrote about last year. 

The impatient hope for changes in weather often leads me back to Rossetti. 

Portrait of Christina Rossetti 1830-1894 byDante Charles Gabriel Rossetti  

 "The First Spring Day"

"I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,

If wintery birds are dreaming of a mate,

If frozen snow drops feel as yet the sun

And crocus fires are kindling one by one:

Sing, robin, sing;
I am sore in doubt concerning spring."

"Spring"

Arthur Herbert Buckland, 1896

"Spring"
Walter Crane 1844-45

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I wonder if the springtide of this year

Will bring another Spring both lost and dear;

If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,

Or if the world alone will bud and sing:    

Sing, hope, to me;

Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.

"The Soul of the Rose" 

John William Waterhouse, 1908

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The sap will surely quicken soon or late,

The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;

So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,

Or in this world, or in the world to come:    

Sing, voice of Spring,

Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.


 
"Love's Messenger"
Marie Spartelli Stillman 1844-1927 

"Bird's Nest" William Henry Hunt  1855-1860

 

 

Writers' Quotes on Writing for Younger Readers

Painter: Isabel Guerra

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“I believe that good questions are more important than answers, and the best children’s books ask questions, and make the readers ask questions. And every new question is going to disturb someone’s universe.”Madeleine L’Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time and many others.

 

 

 

 “We must meet children as equals in that area of our nature where we are their equals. . . . The child as reader is neither to be patronized nor idolized: we talk to him as man to man.”

"Anyone who can write a children’s story without a moral had better do so, that is, if he is going to write children’s stories at all. The only moral that is of any value is that which arises inevitably from the whole cast of the author’s mind."
C. S. Lewis: Author of "The Chronicles of Narnia" among others

 

 

 "Sure, it's simple, writing for kids . . .
Just as simple as bringing them up."   

Ursula K. LeGuin Author of the "Earthsea" fantasy series and others

 

 

 “It does not seem to me that I have the right to foist a story on people, most of whom are children who should be learning all the time, unless I am learning from it too.” Diana Wynne Jones: Author of "Howl's Moving Castle" among others.

 

 

“As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.”

Katherine Paterson: Author of "Bridge to Terabithia" and others.

 

 

“There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book.” Philip Pullman: Author of "The Northern Lights" (The Golden Compass in the USA) among others
 

"The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out..." Howard Pyle: Author and Illustrator, "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood" among others. 

 

 

 

 

                                 

Easter Eggs

Happy Easter Everyone!

Photo and egg designs by Margaret Buffie

Photo and egg designs by Margaret Buffie

Photo and egg designs by Margaret Buffie

Photo and egg designs by Margaret Buffie

Photo and egg designs by Margaret Buffie