Had I not had a third child, I might have missed the pleasure that is Mo WIllems’ Knuffle Bunny. I won’t even divulge the plot, nor the charming exclamations uttered by Trixie; I will say that the description of a young child’s meltdown—Trixie went boneless—remains, to this day oh so many years later, a shared favorite catchphrase between my husband and myself.
Our fourth child brought with her—by dint, really of her parents being unable to help themselves, because in terms of volume, our board book library and early picture book collection was in perfect working order—the Pigeon oeuvre. There is something completely winning about that demanding Pigeon (to be fair, Elephant and Piggie are pretty great and so is Edwina the dinosaur). I personally love the fact that I can follow the Pigeon’s tweets on Twitter so much I have already mentioned doing so on my bloggity-blog before.
But the Pigeon, there’s so much left open to interpretation, that sense that you kind of know the Pigeon and the Pigeon’s Duckling sidekick. I haven’t studied the Pigeon or figured it into curriculum. It is the stuff of curricula, though: school bus safety, kindergarten classrooms (and apparently, although I could not find the link, teen mums learning to say no to their rugrats in Australia). There was a week or so period this year when Remy, my first grader, was coming home with many drawings of the Pigeon (and they were most excellent, indeed). So, beyond being the stuff of parental amusement and kids’ adoration and teachers’ approval and teen mums’ backbones, so, too is the Pigeon quite cartoonish and thus it’s no surprise that Mo Willems is presenting a really big show at Northampton’s Academy of Music Theatre this Sunday, a Cartoonapalooza. The event, a benefit to raise some money to spruce up the Children’s Room at Forbes Library, should be rocking good fun.
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Ah, but Sundays in May and June are never simple, far as I can tell. I mean if you were connected to a Mount Holyoke 2010 graduate, you’d be otherwise occupied on Sunday with its commencement and your graduate’s attendant celebrations. It seemed there could be no more exciting speaker in the Valley this commencement season than at Smith, where Dr. Rachel Maddow received an honorary degree, complete with ephemera created for the event filling downtown and buzz, even from the esteemed Valley summer resident John Hodgman (link to him has her speech and a summary of our town’s nutty little Bill Dwight and Jaz Tupelo adventures in radio). Gail Collins may not be quite so buzz-worthy as Dr. Maddow, but heck, some other year, it’d be like Hillary running for President, pretty darn cool.
Now, if you’re not in the Western part of Massachusetts where both those events—Cartoonapalooza, face it, that’s fun to say—or Mount Holyoke commencement—I am also partial to the word, commencement—and you happened to be in Boston, you might decide a great way to spend Sunday afternoon is helping Brain Child Magazine celebrate its tenth anniversary.
If you don’t know Brain Child, regardless of where you live and whether you can come hear a panel of authors talk about what it is to write about motherhood not in a how-to or parenting magazine-style way but by taking a step back from the lunch packing or potty training or what have you and putting one’s self into the equation, you should check out this wonderful gem. As a contributor (and fan from the very beginning), I’ll claim a momentary lease to bragging rights: Utne Reader agrees that Brain Child is a gem. From the start, what I most liked about Brain Child is the way the publication—and its founders Jennifer Niesslein and Stephanie Wilkinson—honors the person piece of the motherhood endeavor, the thoughtful, literate and literary opportunity that is tucked in there.
Every time I write something for Brain Child or find a friend’s work there (as often happens!) I feel part of a sisterhood that I don’t often feel as a writer with a seemingly disparate range of interests. This is one spot where much of what I care about comes together.
Was it lost in my mini-love letter to Brain Child that I’m one of the speakers? Maybe it was, but I am!
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Brain Child’s editors aren’t familiar with my lovely town. They do know that for years I’ve rolled contributors’ fees toward subscriptions, most successfully for Northampton’s Forbes Library, where it’s one of the most popular periodicals on the shelves (a true fact I make sure to share with them, because it’s nice to know your work is appreciated). I guess you could rightly say Big Sunday, small world.
