Book Connections

One of the many attributes of books are their function as routes of connection. Connection between distant partners in a one way conversation; connections across time; connections into imagined realities.



A minor aspect of this connectedness between readers through the medium of a book is the detritus of reading that attaches itself to a book. If you are an avid frequenter of used-book bookstores, as I am, you will know what I mean. Aside from the thrill of finding a book you had heard of but never seen, of finding a new author whom you are willing to try out when it only costs three or four dollars as opposed to twenty, of finding some magnum opus on some narrowly focused topic which appeals to you, there is also the occasional shiver of connection when there is some visible mark of the prior reader.



Sometimes this mark is an irritant. Fine books which someone has dog eared, or worse yet, highlighted or underscored are a particular disappointment. 'How could they?' Then there are the signs you come across that prompt you to try and imagine some vanished scene. This piece of buttered toast, these cracker crumbs, this splash of spaghetti sauce - just what were the circumstances that immortalized them in these pages?



More intriguingly are the signs and evidence of the prior owner as a person. Certainly if they have signed their name on the inside cover. Sometimes there is even a telephone number or address indicating that the book was so valued that they wanted it returned if they became separated from it. Occasionally the book is sufficiently old that the telephone number is simply a town name and a four digit number. Imagine what the environment was for this book when your phone number was only four digits.



Perhaps my first exposure to the thrill of connecting through books occurred when I was ten or twelve and in the first thralls of what was to turn into a lifelong fascination with Egyptology. We were in London for a few days, an interlude on the way from somewhere to somewhere. I spent the morning and early afternoon in the Egyptian galleries of the British Museum. Coming out of those wonderful hallways of imperial collecting, I crossed over the street to the line of bookstores that then faced the Museum, each specialising in some aspect of history. Making my way down the line, I came to one that focused on archaeology. Entering the doorway, the magical door, I came into a wonderful bookstore of floor to ceiling bookshelves, a bustling elderly lady behind the counter, the smell of musty old books and furniture wax, and the feeling that the people who were in there were the people that were meant to be there. The distant but real affiliation one feels for fellow bibliophiles.



At that time, I had a particular fascination for a British egyptologist, Sir William Flinders Petrie, who had conducted digs in Egypt and the Middle East from the 1880's through the 1930's. Asking at the counter whether they had any of his works, which I did not see on the shelves, the elderly gentlemen who appeared to run the store with his wife, said he thought he had some in the back. He disappeared for five or ten minutes and came back with four or five volumes of Petrie's works. What a find and in nice condition as well. From the 1890s, they positively emanated an aurora of ambassadorship for their era. I fortunately could just afford them and happily made my way back to our flat.



It was only there that I discovered that two of these books had been owned by E.A. Wallis Budge, a fellow Egyptologist and contemporary of Petrie. Budge had not only signed the books but there were occasional marginalia scattered throughout where he either agreed with or disputed some observation of Petrie's. I felt like I had suddenly come into possession of a truly magical thing, this book that had been held and handled and marked by another Egyptologist whom I had read of and admired. It felt as if I were casting myself back in time and reading through his eyes.



I am not sure I have, since that time, come across anything quite so evocative, but there have been plenty of minor items. Yellow faded newspaper reviews tucked into the back of the book where clearly someone has been taken by a review of a book, cut it out, and made their way to a bookstore to buy the book. Sometimes it is as small as some torn pieces of paper with little notes wedged in at some important passage; important to that long ago and often long passed reader. Occasionally there is money used as a bookmark - a twenty dollar bill is the highest denomination I have yet come across - Thank you long ago prior reader!



All of this is brought to mind by a book I have just finished. I have been sampling mystery writers from the early and mid twentieth century, particular authors that are gifted with capturing the essence and feel for a particular place and time. Raymond Chandler was a real pleasure but also Ross Macdonald, Rex Stout and others. I have also been enjoying Sjowall (Sweden), van de Wetering (Netherlands), and Mankell (Sweden again). And then there is Georges Simenon and his Maigret. Apart from rendering Paris of the 1930's - 1960's, there is the pleasure that Simenon was so prolific. As long as you enjoy the Maigret stories, there is always another new one to find - more than a hundred novels and short stories.



I picked up a copy of Simenon's Maigret and the Killer at Book Nook. It sat in a stack for a while till I recently pulled it out and began reading. As I did so a slender book mark fluttered to the floor. A Common Reader book mark. The book is not inscribed so I know not who the former owner was. But we apparently did have a point of connection beyond Maigret and the Killer.



A Common Reader was a wonderful little book catalogue company back in the 1980s through the early 2000s, run by Jim Mustich. Their catalogue was always a pleasure to read, independent of whether there were books you might wish to order. It was truly a reader's community of kindred spirits. The catalogue was of such quality that I know of many readers who saved them as they might a book. This was not just another piece of junk mail. They focused on the little known treasures and on customer service. For seven years, when my career took me overseas to Australia and the UK, A Common Reader was a link back to the US reading community and they heroically shipped large numbers of books to me in out of the way places. Like so many others, A Common Reader fell victim to the commercial tundra-like conditions that is the modern book business. They went out of business in 2006, leaving a mournful reading community with fond memories.



And bookmarks. We share that one additional connection, whoever had Maigret and the Killer before me. We both like Simenon and his Maigret books and apparently we were both Common Readers.

Leo and Diane Dillon

Lionel (Leo) John Dillon born March 2, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York

Diane Claire Dillon (nee Sorber) born March 13, 1933 in Glendale, California



The Dillons are a husband and wife team of illustrators who have carved out a distinctive niche for themselves over some fortyfive years. Born on opposite coasts of the US, they nevertheless ended up meeting in art school, marrying and then, later fusing their respective artistic talents to yield, as they term it, "a third artist". Remarkably, this third artist is surprisingly versatile, not only working in several different media but also dramatically changing the style of illustration to the needs of each particular story. There is not a unique "Dillon" style to which you can point. Rather, there are a series of distinctive books that are a product of the artistic mutualism of the Dillons themselves, fused with the narrative and circumstances of each particular story.



There is some parallel between the respective childhoods of these two artists. Both loved drawing and painting as children and pursued these interests throughout their childhoods. Leo Dillon was born to Trinidadian emigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York. His father owned a small trucking business and his mother was a dressmaker. Leo Dillon showed alot of artistic talent as a child and was encouraged in this by both his parents. Attending the High School of Industrial Design in New York City, Leo Dillon received training for a career in commercial art. On graduating he enlisted in the US Navy for three years in order to qualify for the GI Bill which would help pay for his college education. Upon completing his stint with the Navy, Dillon enrolled in the Parsons School of Design.



Diane Dillon also evinced much artistic talent and interest as a child. Her father was an inventor and schoolteacher. While he provided some artistic coaching to her, in general there was little encouragement to pursue art with any seriousness. Dillon received her first formal instruction in art in 1951, while attending the Los Angeles City College. Unfortunately, she contracted tuberculosis and had to withdraw from school for a year while she recovered in a sanitarium. Upon her release, she enrolled in Skidmore College in New York where she studied for a couple of years. Having exhausted Skidmore's available instruction in art, Dillon then transferred to the Parsons School of Design.



Now that they were both located in the same school, Leo and Diane quickly came to each other's attention in an early competitive contest of talents. Each saw abilities in the other's work to which they aspired. As they relate:

Diane Dillon on seeing a new work "It was realistic - the subtle shadows of the pins in the cloth and the way the folds were done gave it an extraordinary three-dimensional quality. I was immediately overcome by two feelings: 'I'm in over my head,' and 'Here's a challenge I must meet.' The painting was Leo's , and to this day, his work sets a standard for me."



Leo Dillon: "One day I noticed a painting hanging on the wall at a student exhibition. It was a painting of a chair - an Eames chair - and I knew it had to be by a new student because nobody in our class at the time could paint like that. . . . This artist knew perspective, which is one of the most difficult things a beginner has to learn. . . . This artist was a whole lot better than I. I figured I'd better find out who he was. He was Diane."

Competition and respect soon led to love. They wed in 1957 and had a son, who also became an artist and now works in jewelry design.



Following their studies at Pratt, Leo Dillon worked as an art director for a publisher and Diane Dillon initially had a job in advertising before becoming a homemaker. Leo brought his work projects home which led to design discussions with Diane and then to further forms of collaboration. Eventually they formed a studio, Studio 2 through which they undertook freelance work for a number of years from the late 50's through the 1960's. It was in this period that the "third artist" came into being. This "third artist" was the creator of work arising from two pairs of collaborative hands with no clear demarcations between who contributed what in the creative process. By the 1960's the Dillons had become known for their text book illustrations, book jacket designs , album covers and prints.



Along the way, they began illustrating books. The first, Hakon of Rogen's Saga by Erik C. Haugaard, came out in 1962. However, it was not till 1975, with publication of Verna Aardena's Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: A West African Tale, which they illustrated, that the Dillons really broke into the main-stream. Until then, children's books were one among many lines of work that they did. With the success of Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: A West African Tale, winner of the 1976 Caldecott Medal, they were able to begin focusing on what they most enjoyed doing - illustrating children's books.



The Dillons describe illustrating children's books in their autobiographical entry in The Fifth Book of Children's Authors & Illustrators:

We believe in magic. To sit down with a blank piece of paper and see scenes and characters take form . . . it is magic. There's a voice inside guiding, saying "no, that's not right . . .change that line . . . add a bit here . . . take away there . . . ."



Children accept these things. As adults we lose the faith. The best things come when we let go and accept the guidance from that voice. Maybe that's why we love children's books . . . knowing that they (the children) will understand the zany logic and eagerly accept the impossible.



We came to children's books after many years of adult book jackets, album covers, and advertising art, and found a freedom we didn't know before. When doing a book or record cover, everything must be summed up in a single picture. In a children's book there are pages and pages to build an idea - to add nuances and visual comments.



There are many levels of recognition and understanding. A book can be read again and again with new discoveries: expressions and details that were missed the first time will be discovered the second or third or fourth time.



It has been a form of magic in working together as one artist, and we created a third artist. What takes form on paper is a surprise to both of us and something neither of us would have come up with individually.

The following year, in 1976, the Dillons followed up this success by illustrating Margaret Musgrove's Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions, and again winning the Caldecott Medal. They were the first illustrators to ever win the Caldecott medal in sequential years.



Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears is a folk tale from West Africa while Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions is a collection of traditions highlighting the variety among the many African peoples and their different cultures by focusing on how they live, what they eat, how they dress, etc. Ashanti to Zulu is a merciful antidote to the all-too-frequent approach that treats Africa as some sort of monolithic and homogenous entity when its history and present glory is its sheer variety.



Several hallmarks are evident in these two books. The Dillons invest a lot of time and effort in researching the details of the story which they are to illustrate. Verisimilitude is important to them and is, in part, what makes their illustrations so intriguing and engaging to children. There is a lot to see and much to be learned. A second attribute is the Dillons' effort to match the style of their illustration to the setting and circumstances of the story. Consequently, in these two books, the illustration style is heavy with solid colors, almost in the fashion of woodblocks or batik, characteristic of West Africa. A third attribute is their belief that, while remaining true to the author's text, the illustrator should also complement that text in some fashion, adding yet further to the reading experience. For example, in Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears, a little red bird shows up early in the illustrations as the story moves from scene to scene. At the end of the story, the little red bird is seen flying off. The red bird is not in the text. It is pure creation on the part of the illustrators. It certainly does not detract from the story, but for small children it is an element of visual consistency tying the ebb and flow of the tale together, something they can expect and look for as each page is turned.



Not necessarily apparent in these first two books, but striking over the body of their work, is the versatility of the Dillons. In these two books, you have a visual sense of West Africa. Later, when they illustrated Katherine Paterson's The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks, they adopted a style in the tradition of Japanese and Chinese illustrations. This stylistic versatility is perhaps best exhibited in their 1998 work, To Everything There is a Season, in which the verses from Ecclesiastes are illustrated in the styles of different peoples from around the world and across the ages. Each verse is illustrated in a particular style: Ancient Egyptian, Inuit, Medieval German, Ancient Central American, etc. It is a stunning accomplishment.



Across their career, the Dillons have gravitated towards a number of genres. A large body of their work is oriented towards folktales and legends from many lands The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks, Between Heaven and Earth, etc.) but particularly from Africa (Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears, Who's in Rabbit's House?, etc.). Poetry (Honey, I Love, To Every Thing There Is a Season), the arts (Aida, Rap a Tap Tap, and Jazz on a Saturday Night), retellings of traditional folktales in an African-American tradition (The Girl Who Spun Gold, Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales) as well as stories of the African American experience (Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom, The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales, and The Hundred Penny Box ) are all well represented themes.



Through their work, the Dillons have continued to explore the use of different media, different materials and different styles. A few weeks ago we did a Featured Author essay on Jane Yolen and commented that one of the challenges in recommending her work is that she is so talented in adopting different fashions of storytelling and styles of writing, that there is really no single Jane Yolen style. With most authors, once you have read a book or two of theirs, you know whether you will like their others. With Yolen, you can't anticipate that, simply because of her virtuosity. The same is true of the Dillons. Their work is uniformly of high quality but very variable in style. You will find traditional styles (such as woodblocks), styles using all sorts of modern techniques, simple illustrations, realistic illustrations, and everything in between. You might like one style more than another but you can recognize that whatever style it is in, it is done well.



For African-American parents wishing their children to see African-American protagonists in a positive light, the Dillons' work is a rich seam to mine. Correspondingly, others that might wish their children to see African American themes dealt with in a positive fashion without the polemical overlays that are too common otherwise, will find solace in the Dillons work. In other words, these are stories well told and well illustrated that only happen to be related to the African American experience.



It is worth noting something unusual about the work of the Dillons. At Through the Magic Door, when evaluating books, we go beyond our own judgment and always look at four other viewpoints 1) how often do librarians recommend the book (a measure of popularity), 2) how many awards has the book won, 3) how frequently is the book cited (positively) in children's literature academia, and 4) how often is the book cited by knowledgeable readers. Most books show up in one category or another, some crossover between a couple of categories. The more common circumstance, though, is that if a book is popular, it often is not critically acclaimed. If it is appreciated by the reading community, it won't show up in the popularity lists or the prize lists.



The Dillons are unusual in that a number of their books show up across the board. They are recommended by librarians, are award winners, are recognized in academia and are appreciated by enthusiastic readers. Among their books falling into this select group of universally appreciated books are Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears, The People Could Fly, The Hundred Penny Box, and Ashanti to Zulu. Let us know which of their books you enjoy most.





Picture Books

	Why Mosquitoes Buzz in Peoples Ears by Verna Aardema and illustrated by Diane and Leo Dillon Recommended
	Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions by Margaret Musgrove and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Recommended
	Switch on the Night by Ray Bradbury and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Recommended
	To Every Thing There Is a Season illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Recommended
	The Hundred-penny Box by Sharon Bell Mathis and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Who's in Rabbit's House? by Verna Aardema and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Honey, I Love, and Other Love Poems by Eloise Greenfield and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Aida by Leontyne Price and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks by Katherine Paterson and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	The Girl Who Spun Gold by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Two Little Trains by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Dream by Susan V. Bosak and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Where Have You Been? by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Mansa Musa by Khephra Burns and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Jazz on a Saturday Night written and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Rap a Tap Tap written and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Earth Mother by Ellen Jackson and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested

Independent Reader

	20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Recommended
	The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Many Thousand Gone by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Her Stories by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested
	Between Heaven and Earth by Norman Howard and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Suggested

Adult

Mommy Mantras by Bethany E. Casarjian and Diane Dillon Possible

Leo and Diane Dillons' Bibliography


Hakon of Rogen's Saga written by Erik C. Haugaard and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1963

A Slave's Tale written by Erik C. Haugaard and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1965

African Kingdoms written by Basil Davidson and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1966

Claymore and Kilt: Tales of Scottish Kings and Castles written by Sorche Nic Leodhas and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1967

Shamrock and Spear: Tales and Legends from Ireland written by F. M. Pilkington and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1968

The Rider and His Horse written by Erik C. Haugaard and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1968

Dark Venture written by Audrey W. Beyer and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1968

Why Heimdall Blew His Horn: Tale of the Norse Gods written by Frederick Laing and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1969

The Ring in the Prairie: A Shawnee Legend written by John Bierhorst and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1970

Gassire's Lute: A West African Epic written by Alta Jablow and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1971

The Search written by Alma Murray and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1971

The Untold Tale written by Erik C. Haugaard and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1971

Behind the Back of the Mountain: Black Folktales from Southern Africa written by Verna Aardema and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1973

Burning Star written by Eth Clifford and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1974

Songs and Stories from Uganda written by W. Moses Serwadda and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1974

The Third Gift written by Jan Carew and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1974

Whirlwind Is a Ghost Dancing written by Natalie Belting and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1974

Song of the Boat written by Lorenz Graham and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1975

Dangerous Visions written by Harlan Ellison and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1975

The Hundred Penny Box written by Sharon Bell Mathis and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1975

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: A West African Tale written by Verna Aardema and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1975

Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions written by Margaret W. Musgrove and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1976

Who's in Rabbit's House?: A Masai Tale written by Verna Aardema and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1977

Honey, I Love: And Other Love Poems written by Eloise Greenfield and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1978

Tales from Scandinavia written by Frederick Laing and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1979

Two Pairs of Shoes written by P. L. Travers and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1980

Children of the Sun written by J. Carew and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1980

Listen Children: An Anthology of Black Literature written by Dorothy S. Strickland and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1982

Brother to the Wind written by Mildred Pitts Walter and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1985

The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales written by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1985

All in a Day written by Mitsumasa Anno and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1986

Once upon a Time: Celebrating the Magic of Children's Books in Honor of the Twentieth Anniversary of Reading Is Fundamental written by RIF and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1986

The Porcelain Cat written by Michael P. Hearn and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1987

The Color Wizard: Level 1 written by Barbara A. Brenner and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1989

Moses' Ark: Stories from the Bible written by Alice Bach and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1989

Aida: A Picture Book for All Ages written by Leontyne Price and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1990

The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks written by Katherine Paterson and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1990

Miriam's Well: Stories about Women in the Bible written by Alice Bach and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1991

The Race of the Golden Apples written by Claire Martin and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1991

Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch written by Nancy Willard and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1991

Northern Lullaby written by Nancy White Carlstrom and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1992

The Sorcerer's Apprentice written by Nancy Willard and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1993

Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom written by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1993

Switch on the Night written by Ray Bradbury and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1993

What Am I?: Looking through Shapes at Apples and Grapes written by N.N. Charles and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1994

Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales written by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1995

On the Wings of Peace: Writers and Illustrators Speak out for Peace in Memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki written by Various and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1995

The Girl Who Dreamed Only Geese and Other Tales of the Far North written by Howard Norman and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1997

To Every Thing There Is a Season: Verses from Ecclesiastes written by Anonymous and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 1998

The Girl Who Spun Gold written by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2000

Two Little Trains written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2001

Dream written by Susan Bosak and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2004

Where Have You Been? written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2004

Mansa Musa written by Khephra Burns and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2001

Mommy Mantras written by Bethany E. Casarjian and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2006

Jazz on a Saturday Night written by Leo Dillon and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2007

Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose written by Leo & Diane Dillon and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2007

Rap a Tap Tap written by Leo & Diane Dillon and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2002

Between Heaven and Earth written by Norman Howard and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2004

Earth Mother written by Ellen Jackson and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2005

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea written by Jules Verne and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon 2000

The power of literature

From Esme Raji Codell's Educating Esme. Codell relates her experiences as a first year fifth grade teacher in a new Chicago inner city school. One anecdote pertains to Estes, our featured author on May 8th, 2008.

After lunch each day I read aloud to them. We push the desks out of the way, pull down the shades, and turn off all the lights, except for an antique Victorian desk lamp I have. It is a very cozy time.



I was reading them The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes, about a Polish immigrant girl who is so poor that she wears the same dress to school every day but insists that she has a hundred dresses lined up in her closet. The girls tease her mercilessly until she moves away. Her antagonists discover that she really did have a hundred dresses . . . a hundred beautiful drawings of dresses. Oh, God, it took everything not to cry when I closed the book! I especially like that the story is told from the teaser's point of view.



Well, everything was quiet at the end, but then Ashworth asked if he could whisper something in my ear. He whispered, "I have to tell the class something," and discretly showed me that he was missing half of a finger. It was a very macabre moment but I didn't flinch.



I faced him toward the class and put my hands on his shoulders. He was trembling terribly. "Ashworth has something personal to share with you. I hope you will keep in mind The Hundred Dresses when he tells you."



"I . . . I only have nine and a half fingers," he choked. "Please don't tease me about it." He held up his hands.



The class hummed, impressed, then was silent as Ashworth shifted on his feet. Finally, Billy called out, "I'll kick the ass of anyone who makes fun of you!"



"Yeah, me too!" said Kirk.



"Yeah, Ash! You just tell us if anyone from another class messes with you, we'll beat their ass up and down!"



Yeah, yeah, yeah! The class became united in the spirit of ass-kicking. Ashworth sighed and smiled at me. The power of literature!

Force but no motion

I am enjoying a book by Esme Raji Codell, Educating Esme, an account of her first year as a teacher. A wonderfully enthusiastic teacher, she has a stubborn and plain-spoken streak that comes across in her writing. Speaking of her attempts to make classroom teaching exciting and memorable, she comments on those who are more concerned to conform to the accepted and who speak out against innovations.

"But certain people just think it's their job to freak out. As long as they're freaking out, they feel busy, like they must be doing work. Getting upset is force, but no motion. Unless we are moving the children forward, we aren't doing work."

If you wait long enough

The pieces come together.



Some thirty or more years ago, I read in a book of sea stories, or perhaps a book about the naval war in World War II, a paragraph account about a ship's steward from China who held the record for the longest survival at sea following a sinking, more than a hundred days. My recollection was that this occurred in the Pacific. For some unknown reason, this glancing reference fascinated me then, and has stuck with me over the years. I think it was just the idea of being adrift for nearly a third or half a year, an immensity of time for a ten or fifteen year old as I would have then been, when I read of it. I remember wondering, as I often do when reading of disaster or survival stories, what later became of the survivor.



Well, good things come to those who wait. I picked up a copy of Captain James E. Wise, Jr.'s Sole Survivors of the Sea from the Eagle Eye Bookstore. Published in 1994, it is a collection 2-10 page accounts of sinkings in which, as one would suspect from the title, there is a sole survivor. And there, in Chapter Two, is the account of Poon Lim and his survival for 133 days adrift as the sole survivor of the S.S. Benlomond. My recollection of the story proved to be pretty accurate with the exception that the sinking actually took place in mid-Atlantic 750 miles east of the Amazon River.



The Benlomond was torpedoed on November 23, 1942 by the U-172 and sank quickly. Lim with the rest of the crew abandoned ship and was left drifting in the water till he managed to locate one of the ship's large rafts. Climbing aboard, he found himself alone but with some basic provisions. With careful husbanding of these supplies and recurrent efforts at fishing and collecting rain water, Lim survived 133 days alone and adrift across the South Atlantic before being rescued by a fisherman ten miles off the Brazilian coast.



Lim was feted, studied and honored for his unique feat of survival. He received the US Merchant Marine Combat Bar with One Star as well as being invested by King George VI with the British Empire Medal. Poon Lim eventually settled in the USA, became a US citizen, and worked with the United States Line as Chief Steward until retiring in 1983.



While there have now been longer durations of survival at sea (177 days is the current record), Poon Lim still remains, sixty five years after the event, the holder of the record for duration of solo survival at sea with 133 days alone on a raft in a wide open and little travelled ocean.

Ancient Greece

Historians and polemicists sometimes argue about just how consequential and distinctively unique the Ancient Greeks were. There are those who take the position that all peoples and cultures are equally valuable and who get particularly exercised by the implied hierarchy that some cultures are more successful than others. While all individual persons may be morally equal in value, I think that it is reasonably clear that different peoples and cultures are more or less consequential. Just like successful people in life, it is fair to argue whether their success is solely or largely due to their own efforts or solely or substantially due to luck; that is being in the right place at the right time. What is difficult to argue about is that, for whatever reason, the Ancient Greeks were astoundingly consequential. And consequential in many fields.



In referring to Ancient Greece, we are usually discussing the period from 1100 BC (The Greek Dark Ages), through the era of Classical Greece (5th and 4th centuries BC), through the conquests of Alexander the Great (3rd century BC) and up to the time of the Roman invasion in 146 BC. Even though Greece as a collection of independent polities ended at this point, the nature and influence of Greek culture, as expressed in Hellenism, was just beginning to really gather steam and pushed through the Hellenistic period into the Byzantine period and into the Renaissance and modern era.



I think one of the things which makes the Ancient Greeks stand out so is not just the depth of their achievements but their astounding breadth. Were we to only have the Odyssey and the Iliad, we would hold the Ancient Greeks in deep respect. Someone has said that all of Western Literature is a footnote and elaboration on these two works.



But that is not all that we have from the Greeks. We have the product of what might have been the most significant two centuries in the history of mankind's intellect: the 5th through 3rd centuries BC when figures such as Pericles, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Herodotus, Archimedes, Plato, Pythagoras, Thucydides and others strode a small corner of the Earth and whose shadows still fall upon us today, twenty-five centuries later. What is additionally sobering is the density of these bright lights. Athens, epicenter of much Greek cultural effervescence was probably a city of not much more than a quarter of million. The extended Greek population on the mainland and in the islands and colonies probably did not exceed much more than a couple of million.



So where else did the Greeks excel? They either founded or gave structure to virtually all our main streams of knowledge: Political theory, Art of War, Mathematics, Philosophy, Literature and Theater, Art, History as a field of study, Architecture, Astronomy, etc. It is hard to find a field in which they were not among the first. And their real knack seems to have been to systematize and make practical the results of deeply conceptual and abstract thinking. Others peoples and cultures also made major scientific and academic discoveries (though not as prolifically or in as concentrated a period of time). But as often as not, these discoveries did not get translated into real world applications or were not sustained over time. As an example, I came across an account a couple of years ago indicating that the Ancient Chinese had mastered the art of making steel somewhere back in the first or second centuries AD but that the technique never spread and died out after a century or two. Likewise, the Aztecs invented the wheel - we know because we have extant surviving wheeled toys for children. However, they never, as far as we can tell, used it for transportation or engineering purposes. The Greeks generated new ways of thinking about things, applied them to a real world and achieved new insights and applications that were then not only used by themselves but by their neighbors and cultures far afield and distant down the years.



They were a curious people, a trait with which we can relate. Their drive to systemize knowledge was a function of their desire to know and understand their world. Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon were all moved to explore their world, not only territorially, but also historically. They were the fathers of history as a means of comprehending not only the past but using that past to anticipate the future. And like much of the writing of the Greeks, it remains strangely accessible despite being written in a different language, culture and age.

These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feuds.
- Herodotus's opening lines to the Histories, explaining what and why he is recording this history.

There are so many great quotes and lines among the rich treasures of Greek writings. I love Herodotus, an inveterate purveyor of tales, gossip and sometimes downright slander, "I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it."



Similarly, Thucydides explained his motivation in his opening paragraph:

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its grounds. The preparations of both the combatants were in every department in the last state of perfection; and he could see the rest of the Hellenic race taking sides in the quarrel; those who delayed doing so at once having it in contemplation. Indeed this was the greatest movement yet known in history, not only of the Hellenes, but of a large part of the barbarian world- I had almost said of mankind. For though the events of remote antiquity, and even those that more immediately preceded the war, could not from lapse of time be clearly ascertained, yet the evidences which an inquiry carried as far back as was practicable leads me to trust, all point to the conclusion that there was nothing on as great a scale, either in war or in other matters.

As much as we know about the Ancient Greeks, we also know that there are large swaths of knowledge which they had that have disappeared into the dust of history. There are books by some of the great thinkers and philosophers which we know existed (see Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose) but which, tantalizingly have not survived. Every now and then something, such as the Antikythera Mechanism (http://blog.moonshadowecommerce.com/WEBLOG-NAME/Thing-Finder/2008/07/blind_trails.html), will turn up which tells us that the Ancient Greeks were even more knowledgeable and sophisticated than we thought they were.



They had a knack for putting incredibly complex ideas into easily understood concepts. Take as an example the conditionality of life. Herodotus, of course, that collector of tales near and far, relates the story of Croesus and Solon. We are still wrestling with understanding the degree to which our fortune is under our direct control versus the degree to which we are all subject to the whims of random fortune. Michael Macrone relates this in his It's Greek to Me! (out of print) as does Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Fooled By Randomness. Taleb recounts the story of Croesus and Solon as related through Herodotus.

Croesus, King of Lydia, was considered the richest man of his time. To this day Romance languages use the expression "rich as Croesus" to describe a person of excessive wealth. He was said to be visited by Solon, the Greek legislator known for his dignity, reserve, upright morals, humility, frugality, wisdom, intelligence, and courage. Solon did not display the smallest surprise at the wealth and splendor surrounding his host, nor the tiniest admiration for their owner. Croesus was so irked by the manifest lack of impression on the part of his illustrious visitor that he attempted to extract from him some acknowledgement. He asked him if he had known a happier man than him. Solon cited the life of a man who led a noble existence and died while in battle. Prodded for more, he gave similar examples of heroic but terminated lives, until Croesus, irate, asked him point-blank if he was not to be considered the happiest man of all. Solon answered: "The observation of the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments, or to admire a man's happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change. For the uncertain future has yet to come, with all variety of future; and him only to whom the divinity has [guaranteed] continued happiness until the end we may call happy." . . .



Yet the story of Croesus has another twist. Having lost a battle to the redoubtable Persian king Cyrus, he was about to be burned alive when he called Solon's name and shouted (something like) "Solon, you were right" {again this is legend}. Cyrus asked about the nature of such unusual invocations, and he told him about Solon's warning. This impressed Cyrus so much that he decided to spare Croesus' life, as he reflected on the possibilities as far as his own fate was concerned. People were thoughtful at that time.

Hence the famous line - Call no man happy until he dies!



This is another area in which the Ancient Greeks are kept close to us - in daily language. We are perhaps aware of it when we use words that are clearly of Greek origin such as democracy, epicurean, laconic, olympian, cynic, hedonist, meander, etc. Less aware we might be that some of our common adages, concepts, sayings, and idioms reach back those thousands of years: a wolf in sheep's clothing, the golden mean, the sword of Damocles, rich as Croesus, cutting the Gordian knot, a Trojan horse, don't count your chickens, the siren song, caught between Scylla and Charybdis, the Hippocratic oath, the Muses, if you want peace prepare for war, speak well of the dead, man is the measure of all things, the philosopher king, the unexamined life is not worth living, nothing in excess, Deus ex Machina.



Look around day to day, listen to the words and phrases we use - the Greeks are still among us, perhaps laughing at our unexamined lives.



How to introduce our children to these living dead who stalk our every footstep? Well of course, to start with, there are Aesop's fables, the various versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the Greek myths and legends as a critical foundation, not only for understanding the Ancient Greeks, but to some extent, understanding ourselves today. You can find a more complete listing in some of booklists, but we have included selections in this booklist as well.



We have also included stories about some of the events of the period, the battles, the inventions, the invasions, the heroes, the villains, etc. There are also, particularly at the Young Adult level, retellings of some of the ancient stories in either a more contemporary structure or even, in a couple of cases with some fantasy elements to give the familiar story a new twist. We hope that your children will gain both a comprehension of the impact of the Ancient Greeks as well as an interest to know more about these amazing people.



There are a couple of poems that bear reflecting upon in considering what we think of the Ancient Greeks and just what we can really know about them. One is the provocatively emotional Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats and the other is The Gloomy Academic by Louis MacNeice. Both evocative of these ancient peoples, and of how close and yet how distant we are from them.





Picture Books

	Aesop's Fables by Aesop and illustrated by Michael Hague Recommended
	Aesop's Fables by Aesop and illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger Recommended
	King Midas and the Golden Touch by Charlotte Craft and illustrated by Kinuko Craft Recommended
	The Classic Treasury of Aesop's Fables by Aesop and illustrated by Don Daily Suggested
	Aesops Fables by Aesop and illustrated by Charles Santore Suggested

Independent Reader

	The Children's Homer by Padraic Colum amd illustrated by Willy Pogany Highly Recommended
	Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths by Ingri D'Aulaire & Edgar Parin D'Aulaire Highly Recommended
	The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan Highly Recommended
	Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff and illustrated by Alan Lee Highly Recommended
	The Wanderings Of Odysseus by Rosemary Sutcliff and illustrated by Alan Lee Highly Recommended
	Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch and illustrated by Sabra Moore and Richard P. Martin Recommended
	The Golden Fleece by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Willy Pogany Recommended
	Cupid and Psyche by M. Charlotte Craft and illustrated by Kinuko Craft Recommended
	The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton Recommended
	The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton Recommended
	Mythology by Edith Hamilton Recommended
	Perseus by Geraldine McCaughrean Recommended
	Theseus by Geraldine McCaughrean Recommended
	Favorite Greek Myths by Mary Pope Osborne and illustrated by Troy Howell Recommended
	The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan Recommended
	The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan Recommended
	The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan Recommended
	The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan Recommended
	Goddess of Yesterday by Caroline B. Cooney Suggested
	The Fire Thief by Terry Deary Suggested
	Greek Gods and Heroes by Robert Graves Suggested
	The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes Suggested
	Odysseus by Geraldine McCaughrean Suggested
	The Odyssey by Homer and Geraldine McCaughrean and illustrated by Victor G. Ambrus Suggested
	The One-eyed Giant by Mary Pope Osborne Suggested
	The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner Suggested
	Men and Gods by Rex Warner and illustrated by Edward Gorey Suggested

Young Adult

	Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae by Steven Pressfield Highly Recommended
	The Landmark Thucydides edited by Robert B. Strassler Highly Recommended
	The Landmark Herodotus edited by Robert B. Strassler Highly Recommended
	The Sand-Reckoner by Gillian Bradshaw Recommended
	Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea by Thomas Cahill Recommended
	The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan Recommended
	The Isle of Stone by Nicholas Nicastro Recommended
	The Afghan Campaign by Steven Pressfield Recommended
	Last of the Amazons by Steven Pressfield Recommended
	Tides of War by Steven Pressfield Recommended
	The Virtues Of War by Steven Pressfield Recommended
	Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault Recommended
	The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault Recommended
	The Praise Singer by Mary Renault Recommended
	The Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault Recommended
	Ilium by Dan Simmons Recommended
	Archimedes and the Door to Science by Jeanne Bendick Suggested
	Achilles by Elizabeth Cook Suggested
	The Ten Thousand by Michael Curtis Ford Suggested
	Troy by David Gemmell Recommended