A pretty doll is like a melodeeeee

 

Here she is, for someone's doll collection! We got her mailed on the way out of town. I used enough bubble wrap to float a boat. Tonight we are in Ironwood, MI at the western edge of the Michigan's Upper Peninsula. There don't seem to be as many signs for Pasties and Dried Whitefish as I remembered. Tonight in the motel there was Chicken with Wild Rice Soup in a hotpot in the lobby. We just needed a little snack and there it was. Hit the spot.

                                                                               October 16, 2013

Dear Maurice Sendak in Heaven,

      Perhaps I never told you how much I liked Chicken Soup with Rice! Indeed, I loved all the Nutshell Library! I used the stories many times for Children's Storytime when I was the librarian of the Gilroy Library. Recently I got my own personal copy, not as small as the one I first loved, but very cute nonetheless. 

      The first time I worked in a library, I was a Library Assistant (while I went to Library School at Western Reserve) at the Arlington Branch Library (Cleveland Public Library.) This was in 1962 and 1963. Arlington Branch was near the Hough District in Cleveland. The neighborhood had recently changed from Jewish to Black. We had only one Jewish customer left, a semi-demented lady named Jeanette, who came in almost every day, but the book stock was completely unsuited to the clientele. There was, for instance, a large selection of Westerns gathering dust.
Children used to lean on the back of my desk chair and ask to touch my (long, straight) hair. My boss, Joyce Johnson, was a young black woman who grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. She was the Children's Librarian for the branch. One day she came back from the meeting where all the children's librarians examined and ordered new books. She recounted how most of them were unwilling to order this new book Where the Wild Things Are that was violent and scary and could upset children. "I ordered two copies!" she said. Children are going to love it! She was very pleased when it won the Caldecott Medal for illustrated children's books that year. I just looked it up and it has sold about 20 million copies since then. It is much easier to look up things now, than when I was looking them up for people in the library.

       Just wanted you to know I love your stories and your pictures. Most of us do! Say hello to an archangel or something for me.

                                    With Love and Respect,
                                                                               June

That's the memory thread for tonight, now I am going to test the motel shower. 

And sleep very well. You do, too!