IN THE TIME OF MISSION AND MIGHT

Yesterday, I went down to A & E Gallery here in New Iberia, Louisiana, to a reception and book signing for Margaret Simon of New Iberia, whose Sunshine, a notable middle-grade fiction book published by Border Press, just appeared on the market. (See the review of Sunshine on my blog, A Word's Worth).

However, when I walked over to the payment counter, I discovered more treasure from New Iberia’s growing body of artists/writers: In the Time of Mission and Might, the newest member of Paul Schexnayder’s children’s trilogy about Legacy Acorns. If I had found a beautifully illustrated children’s book like this one when my mother dropped me off to spend the day at the old Claitor’s Bookstore in Baton Rouge, Louisiana so many eons ago, I’d have been ecstatic, for to live within the imagination of Paul Schexnayder is to occupy enchanted space. 

The vibrant acrylic paintings, accompanied by his fanciful tale about animals, birds, and vegetation indigenous to Louisiana, had to be read aloud at my breakfast table. It is children’s fictionalization and visualization at its finest. Whimsical and dreamlike figures interplay throughout the story, and the informational, as well as playful text takes readers into a fantastical realm.

The illustrations alone in In The Time of Mission and Might will transport young readers into an adventuresome place where Lilla Cornflake (I love Schexnayder’s namings), a care-taking doe, makes a startling discovery when she unlocks the front door of the Live Oak Museum. Legacy Acorns that were produced by only one Live Oak tree in nine coastal states had become museum pieces, and they’ve been stolen from their glass case within the museum. Professor Morton Sterling Flynn, an eminent archaeologist, is brought in to investigate and solve the case, but, of course, he encounters a formidable obstacle. I’ll only hint at one of any reader’s worst nightmares: critters that slither and hiss! 

As Schexnayder does in the two former books of his trilogy, the problem of stolen treasure is resolved in a just and charitable conclusion within the walls of the Joy and Wonder Orphanage sans Schexnayder conveying overpowering moralism, but he communicates the kind of ethic Johnny Gruelle once showed in his children’s stories about the iconic Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy (shades of a former era). Schexnayder concludes with his legacy statement that reflects his compassion and vision: “The heart of home lives inside of you all; may you plant this in a safe place to produce a legacy worthy of your own dreams.”

Paul Schexnayder is an artist, author/illustrator, and art teacher. He is also a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and has illustrated over half a dozen children’s books. He’s known throughout Acadiana as an Ambassador for the Arts and sponsors readings, signings, and cheerful support for writers and artists throughout the South.

Another banner book, Paul! C’est Magnifique!

ABOUT BOOKS

Today marks the birthday of my great-granddaughters, Kate and Lillian, and tomorrow I'll travel to Baton Rouge to celebrate the occasion with them. This morning, in a telephone conversation with my daughter Stephanie, before I thought about what I was saying, I commented apologetically, "I'm just giving them books."

My mother probably turned over in her grave when I made this remark since she believed that books were the most valued possessions in any home. During WWII, she regarded them as more precious than rationed food.

In the introduction to my now out-of-print book, Their Adventurous Will, a volume about Louisiana women, I wrote that she read aloud to us every night and related how that nightly reading contributed to my development as a writer: "When I was three years old, she'd seat me, cross-legged in the middle of our small kitchen, and open for me giant editions of Mother Goose, A Child’s Garden of Verse, and Marigold Garden…She read aloud the entire series of Uncle Wiggly in the Cabbage Patch, The Little Colonel, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Greek Legends, Black Beauty and Grimm's Fairy Tales, even after all the children in our family had learned to read…"

In that same introduction, I wrote about another family member, my Godmother Dora, who built a library of books that would challenge my own 2,000-and-more book collection. "Books by mystics, theologians, poets, and Christian apologists crowded the bookshelves in her home," I wrote. "A visitor might be engaged in intent conversation with her, and she'd suddenly scurry away on her tiny feet, select a book from a shelf nearby and begin reading some lengthy passage. On the flyleaf of a small, yellow-gold volume entitled The Fruits of the Spirit by Evelyn Underhill, which Dora gave me in 1963, she inscribed in her elegant but often-illegible handwriting: "For Diane, for whom we wish the fruits of the spirit above all else…"

Lillian and Kate with Christmas toys, 2018

Dora was a stern critic of literature and had she lived to read my books, she would've referred me to those disciplined writers who put in their 10,000 hours before calling themselves poets. However, a friend recently told me that her band leader in high school often admonished, "practice won't make you a great musician if you practice wrong." 

Recently I loaned a copy of Their Adventurous Will to a friend and when she returned the book, I found a message on a sticky note within telling me that as she read the introduction about my mother, she journeyed back to her own childhood and the times her Mama had read to the family long after they could read themselves. "It was a special bonding time," she added.

Just yesterday, when I visited a funeral home to pay respects to an old friend, her daughter told me that in her mother's demise, she often requested that "someone read aloud to her." Her daughter would protest that there were mostly children's books available in the house. "I don't care," her mother had said. "Just read to me!" And the implication was that, like my mother, she probably enjoyed children's books as much as any contemporary novel or tome.

When Sister Elizabeth came down to New Iberia from the Convent of St. Mary in Sewanee, Tennessee last year, she did a "walk through" of my home and gave us her candid appraisal. "I always go into a home and find myself thinking about what their major interests are," she said. (Now there are many crosses scattered about and I'm a deacon, but she didn't list them as a major interest). 

Instead, she commented, "Books and art…you really value them." She was spot on. So now I'm wondering why I apologized about giving my great-grandchildren "just books," and this blog is an apology for making such a foolish remark.

As Piglet (in Winnie the Pooh) said to Eeyore: "Many happy returns of the day" to precious Kate and Lillian. May you always have an abundance of beloved stories of adventure, friendship, and fun in your home.

THE LANGUAGE OF BLESSING

“May you have a blessed Christmas” is the phrase of the season, a kind of benediction that is pronounced on those whom we want to touch and embrace, perhaps even to heal, by wishing them well. Christmas is the time to bless one another, to change the atmosphere of doom and gloom that surround us on every side in this postmodern world.

A few Christmases ago, a friend gave me a copy of a book of blessings, To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donahue, a writer who lived in Ireland and who frequently traveled to the U.S. to give lectures and trainings. O’Donohue used Celtic spiritual traditions to construct his poetic blessings, explaining that the word “blessing” evokes in us a sense of warmth and protection, that in a blessing the “human heart pleads with the Divine heart.” He believed that regardless of our differences in religion, politics, and language, there is no heart without this divine reference.

When I was a child, my mother gave me the blessings of good books, objects that comforted and transfigured my life, inspired me to become a writer. In the preface to my book about Louisiana women, Their Adventurous Will, I speak of her gift of books to me:

“…My mother loved words and books. When I was three years old, she would seat me, cross-legged in the middle of a small kitchen and open for me giant editions of Mother Goose, A Child’s Garden of Verse, and Marigold Garden, laughing at friends who often dropped in to proclaim that I was backward because I did not talk and only sat quietly, absorbing the book characters she knew I would remember for a lifetime. She read aloud the entire series of Uncle Wiggly in the Cabbage Patch, The Little Colonel, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Greek Legends, Black Beauty and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, even after all of the children in our family had learned to read.

“Every month for years, my mother would take one of the three children in our family to Claitor’s Bookstore in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to choose two books for our nightly reading session. She was the first family member to open the books, touching the pictures with credulous delight. My mother began to fly in the heavens long before Mary Poppins opened her umbrella to make her wonderful flights…”

I remembered those wonderful children’s books as I re-read John O’Donohue’s book this morning, thinking how meet his words are that describe blessing as a “direct address, driven by immediacy and care” – the qualities that drove my mother to share books she knew would always be my good friends. When I opened To Bless the Space Between Us, I blessed my mother as I pondered how we can dissuade negativity by simple blessings, by acknowledging that we have been blessed with inestimable gifts – children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, friends, warmth and shelter, good food, love, discoveries, small accomplishments, the ability to animate our ideas, and, of course, books that remind us how words can illuminate and transform our lives.

May you have a blessed Christmas!