I Am The Earth

Earth Day     By Jane Yolen

I am the Earth and the Earth is me

Each blade of grass

Each honey tree

Each bit of mud

And stick

 

And stone

Is blood and muscle, skin and bone.

 

 

And just as I

Need every bit

Of me to make

My body fit,

 

So Earth needs 

Soil

Water

 

And tree

And things that grow here

Naturally

 

I am the Earth and the Earth is me.

 

 

 

Recycling Jane

Jane Austen wrote six novels that have captivated the world for 200 years.

They are:

EMMA



NORTHANGER ABBEY

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
 

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

MANSFIELD PARK



PERSUASION

 

These books have been made into plays, shown as movies and TV productions and had many spin-offs and look-a-like books written as well. Here are a few that are available at Chespeake Public Library. (Click on the links to learn about them.)

 

Suspense and Sensibility by Bebris, Carrie

 

The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by James, Syrie

 

Jane and the Barque of Frailty by Barron, Stephanie

 

Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride by Halstead, Helen

 

Letters from Pemberley by Dawkins, Jane

 

Pemberley Manor by Nelson, Kathryn

 

Possibilities by Smith, Debra White

 

Enthusiasm by Shulman, Polly

 

By A Lady: Being the Adventures of an enlightened American in Jane Austen’s England by Elyot, Amanda

 

Vanity and Vexation by Fenton, Kate

 

The Jane Austen Book Club by Fowler, Karen Joy

 

The Exploits and Adventures of Miss Althea Darcy by Elizabeth Aston

 

Some of the above authors have created book series, not just stand-alone novels using Jane Austen's works as a springboard for their imagination. In addition to the above books,

 

Carrie Bebris has written:

Pride and Prescience

North by Northanger

The Matters at Mansfield

The Intrigue at Highbury

The Deception at Lyme

 

Stephanie Barron has written:

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

Jane and the Man of the Cloth

Jane and the Wandering Eye

Jane and the Genius of the Place

Jane and the Stillroom Maid

Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

Jane and His Lordship's Legacy

Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

Jane and the Canterbury Tale    

 

Debra White-Smith has written:

First Impressions
Reason and Romance
Central Park
Northpointe Chalet
Emma

Some authors try to "finish" her uncompleted works. (Pfff!)
Jane Austen's Charlotte: Her Fragment of a Lost Novel Completed by Barrett, Julia
 

Some"Janite" authors have become the darlings of various Jane Austen Book Clubs.

See Kathryn Nelson's Interview here.

The one book we don't have is this: ( SOMEBODY, QUICK PUT IN A REQUEST !!! )



Do I need another craft book?

Take a look at Pemberly Digital's "Welcome to Sandition" - a YouTube Series that is attempting to finish Austen's last unpublished work. Click on link below.  It's pretty cool!

Bringing Jane Austen to YouTube

 

Here is a link about some movies that have been made from her novels.
I'm sure there are more.

 

Have you seen these movies?

 

 

My favorite Austen novel is Pride and Prejudice. .

 

 

The two most recent film versions of it are both great!

SERIOUSLY though, how could you not choose the Colin Firth version?

Remember the famous scene where Colin Firth, as Mr. Darcy, wades into the water in his white silk shirt?  See what those crazy Brits have done to memorialize it.

Mr. Darcy Rises Again

  

 

August 16th is the opening for the movie "Austenland" based on the book by Shannon Hale and produced by Stephenie Myers, the author of the Twilight series. 

I enjoyed reading this book (and it's sequel) awhile back, and have been waiting for the movie to come out! The story is about a unmarried woman with an unhealthy obsession with Jane Austin's works. She is unhappy with her own life and hopes to find her own Mr. Darcy by traveling to a resort which caters to Austen lovers Regency-style. See the trailer below.

 

  

I don't know of any other author whose books have been so widely "recycled".  It must be because the stories are so well-loved that people can't bear to think that there are only six. 

 

If you'd like to read more about Jane Austen herself or about the times she lived in check out these books below at any Chesapeake Public Library.

Jane Austen: Real and Imagined Worlds by MacDonagh, Oliver
 
A Walk With Jane Austen by Smith, Lori

Jane Austen and the Province of Womanhood by Sulloway, Alison G.

Romance, Language, and Education in Jane Austen’s Novels by White, Laura Mooneyham

Tea With Jane Austen by Wilson, Kim

Jane and Her Gentlemen by Hawkridge, Audrey

 





There is nothing she can't do!

There is no product she can't sell.

There is no genre that defines her fans.

 



I am hooked forever on Jane Austen !



Deja-Vu Recycling

I've noticed that everything is beginning to look the same.  The whole world seems to be growing increasingly generic.  Is there no originality left?  Or is it that items which are at first unique, are copied over and and over until they become commonplace?

 

Or....is it me?

I'm all for recycling items to prevent waste, but some things can only be repeated so many times before they become insipid.  I work at a library, so of course one of the first things I noticed was book covers.  Pick a theme - any theme- and I'll show you a jillion copies of the same thing.

Take the original book cover for Twilight by Stephenie Meyers for instance:

 

The popularity of this series has spawned endless copy-cats. This theme is used to sell new books as well as revamping (pun intended) the look of older classics.

 

It's even used to sell products and services.

 

 

But, wait a minute...did this theme really originate with Twilight?

 

 

Pick another book cover theme...

 

BUTTERFLIES

 Girls in Beautiful Dresses

 EYES!!!

Doesn't matter what book cover you choose, there are a thousand others that look virtually the same.

 

 

Everything is similar.  Look at these new cars. 

Can you tell the BMW from the Honda from the Mercedes from the Subaru?

 

Hard to do, isn't it?  Now look at the cars from the 50's below.

 

You may not know which is which, but you can tell a Ford from a Maserati from a Chevy from a Lincoln from a Cadillac.

We weren't so bland back then.

We eat the same things too - and at the same places.

 

The Five Major Food Groups seem to be Burgers, Chicken, Sandwiches, Donuts and Pizza.

 

Where do we go to eat them?

Burgers:  Burger King, McDonalds, Hardees, Wendys

Chicken:  KFC, Chick-Fil-A, Bojangles, Popeyes, Churchs

Sandwiches:  Arbys, Subway, Blimpie, Quiznos, Jersey Mikes, 5 Guy   

Donuts:  Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme

Pizza:  Dominoes, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns

 

Someone comes up with a sucessful business model and it is copied endlessly.

 Our neighborhoods all look the same.

Notice how much the site map looks like a computer circuit board?

 

We work in the same places, doing the same things.

We wear the same clothes.

 

 

 

 

 

 I want to be around individuals

who are not afraid to be themselves.

Who live an independent life.

Who can provide for themselves.

Who take pride in their abilities.

Who can express themselves creatively.

Whatever else you are, you are unique.

Don't blend in.

 

BOOKS AVAILABLE AT CHESAPEAKE PUBLIC LIBRARIES - Click Links Below

Green Equilbrium: The Vital Balance of Humans and Nature by Wills, Christopher

Tree of Life: The Incredible Biodiversity of Life on Earth by Strauss, Rochelle

Front Cover: Great Book Jackets and Cover Design by Powers Alan
 

Hottest Muscle Cars by Woods, Bob

The Visual dictionary of Cars by Dorling Kindersley

Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants by Nyerges, Christopher

    

Dangerous Garden: The Quest for Plants to Change our Lives by Stuart, David C

 

Design and Landscape for People: New Approaches to Renewal by Cumberlidge, Clare

 

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Duany, Andres

 

Living Large: From SUV's to Double D's, Why Going Bigger isn't Going Better by Wexler, Sarah Z.

 

Unbuilding: Salvaging the Architectural Treasures of Unwanted Houses by Falk, Robert H.

                      

Junk Jewelry: 25 Extraordinary designs to Create from Ordinary Objects by Elershaw, Jane

 

Sewing with Fabulous Vintage Fabrics by Franklin, Arden 

 



 

 

 

 

The Garden of Earthly Delights

When I was young, we lived in Texas next door to my Mammaw.  She had a pasture behind her house with cows and a chicken coop in her back yard.  On the other side of us was our neighbors big "truck garden".  They raised vegetables to sell.  My sister and I played with the little boy who lived there and we would cut through the rows of tall corn going back and forth between our houses. It was a wonderful, comforting childhood.

When my father's job transferred us to the desert of Utah, where he worked at a lab that made rocket fuel for NASA, I thought we’d left all that behind.  But, I was wrong.

In Utah’s tightly cloistered community of ranchers, there was no housing available for the influx of "outsiders" that invaded their turf, so we had to live in a trailer court for awhile - where my Mother planted rows and rows of tall zinnias in our dirt "yard".   It's still my favorite flower!

Farmers there grew crops of hay and sugar beets. Ranchers raised cows and sheep and the mountainsides were covered with fruit orchards.  In the summer, girls earned spending money by picking cherries while boys baled hay. 

Later, when we got our own place, my Mother would escape into her vegetable garden as soon as she got off work and supper was done.  We didn't bother her when she was out there plucking weeds and hoeing. When it became too dark to see, she would come in bringing a couple of tomatoes or some squash. 

On Saturdays, we rode our bikes along the dirt road to the cemetery armed with a paper grocery bag to fill with wild asparagus that grew along the sides of the irrigation ditches. When we came home, my Mother would steam it and serve it with a squeeze from a lemon. 

In those days everyone could connect their food to the land.  Our eggs were delivered in big cardboard canisters by Mr. Bott and our milk came from a local Dairy. Fresh vegetables could be bought from Leona Yagi. We canned peaches from Nielson’s Fruit Stand. Old Mrs. Bisek paid the neighborhood kids 25 cents a pail for dandelions that she turned into wine – which she would later give as gifts to our parents at Christmas.  Summer in a jar! 

Everyone rented a meat locker in town. It worked like this: Families would purchase a cow or pig  (sometimes sheep) from a farmer and it would be butchered for you. They’d cut it up any way you wanted- chops, roasts or ground up.  Then you stored the meat in your locker along with any deer or ducks you’d shot during season, or any fish you’d caught. Once a week Dad would go to the meat locker and pick up whatever Mother had written out on a list for cooking. We all knew where our food came from. 

Our Mother worked and so we ate store-bought bread, but the majority of our Mormon neighbor ladies baked their own.  In the summer, we used to hang around Bartley Hansen’s house on baking day so we could watch his mother slide pans of fresh bread out of the oven. The smell was heavenly! She would cut up a hot loaf, smear it with butter and use it to chase the kids outside. I envied him at school as he bit into his homemade sandwiches while I “suffered” through a purchased “hot lunch”.

Decades later, when my husband and I bought our place here in Virginia, we planted a garden every year.  It was so much fun to watch the plants come up and see our daughter toddling about with her little bare feet and straw hat “helping” us.  It was another Eden.

Once, while I was busy fixing supper, I sent my 4 year old outside with a basket and instructions to pick 2 cucumbers and some cherry tomatoes.  When some time had passed and she hadn’t returned, I went out to the garden to see what had happened.  I found her leaning against the garden bench chewing a tremendous mouthful of cherry tomatoes.  In her basket was one lone cucumber with several bites taken out of it corncob-style.  Somewhere along the way she had forgotten her purpose was to gather and simply began to eat.

I could never get enough peas together to make a pot because she at them raw.  Same way with the strawberries! But, who could blame her? One year we planted a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins, another year a row of cotton, and the next a patch of peanuts just to see it. We grew old favorites like tomatoes and squash and discovered new ones like kale and peppers.  I planted Zinnias for color and Sweet Basil for smell.  We fostered huge stripped caterpillars on the parsley and provided soft ground for turtles to lay eggs.  Birds loved our Sunflowers.

I’m hoping that all these beautiful memories of gardens and people and community (though my own memories and not yours) will entice you into wanting to be a part of something similar with Central Library’s Bookworm Garden project.

You may recall our big planting day at Central last October with volunteers from the Master Gardeners as well as other individuals? 

We got the shrubs in, planted some vegetables and herbs on the back patio and were able to have some gardening programs for the children.  Since then we’ve had some mulch and woodchips delivered, and we have a group of Boy Scouts coming in to work on some building projects with us.  We also have some Book Garden signposts being made by a volunteer.

What we need is for interested groups to come in and “adopt” a portion of the garden to claim as their own – planting and maintaining vegetables, herbs and flowers. From this we hope to develop relationships that will allow us to sponsor some garden-related programs and activities for patrons.

Surely, there are many talented people out there who love nature and are interested in bees, butterflies and birds as well as plants and flowers – and who wouldn’t mind sharing their expertise!  If you have any thoughts along those lines, please don’t hesitate to call (757) 410-7121 or email adyer@infopeake.org

Thanks!