Author: Loree Burns

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Our Old Stone Church

The lovely Cindy Lord suggested her LiveJournal readers post photos this week of the places they call home. I find this idea irresistable, and spent some time today wandering around the place I live looking for nothing in particular. As often happens when one commits to something like this, something unexpected and whimsical, the things I found felt spectacular. I’ll share them with you this week …

This is my town’s most famous landmark, the Old Stone Church. It was abandoned, begrudgingly, when the valley in which it sits was deemed the perfect site for a drinking reservoir. The Wachusett Reservoir was completed in 1905, and the Old Stone Church has stood beside it ever since, a proud reminder of the homes, farms, and livelihoods that were given up so that the residents of Massachusetts would have enough to drink.

 

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International Coastal Cleanup 2008


© 2005 Loree Griffin Burns

On September 20, 2008, beach guardians and environmentally motivated men, women, and children around the world will gather to pick up trash on their favorite shore. In the spirit of citizen science and ocean advocacy, they will also count each and every item of trash they find. That’s right, each ketchup packet, bottle cap, plastic fork, paper napkin, and cigarette butt will be recorded, and the tallied results will be published in a massive marine debris report.

Last year, 378,000 people from more than seventy countries participated in the International Coastal Cleanup … and they cleared more than six million pounds of trash from their local beaches. In Massachusetts, 1,998 people participated in ICC/COASTSWEEP and collected 18,957 pounds of trash. And right here in my own community, 92 of my friends and neighbors gathered to clear Indian Lake of 656 pounds of debris.

Astounding, yes? So much trash. And so many motivated humans doing something about it.

If you are inspired to get involved, visit the International Coastal Cleanup website, where you will find everything you need to know.

If you’d like a little motivation, the complete 2007 ICC report can be read online here.

Massachusetts residents can check out our local Coastsweep website for information on local ICC cleanup events, and Massachusetts students in grades 4-12 can also participate in a statewide poster contest.

More soon, but in the meanwhile do spread the word!

 

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In Search of the Perfect Sting

Yesterday Ellen and I took a field trip to the home of beekeeper Mary Duane. We were collecting images for the bee book and I stumbled into what seemed to be great luck…

We were hoping to capture “the perfect sting” image: a honey bee with stinger inserted in human skin and sting gland and entrails readily visible. You will recall we attempted this image once before, using my forearm for the “human skin” bit. But that bee, in her death throes*, fell out of the frame. Our shot is good, but not perfect.

Yesterday we tried again. And this time … here is where the great luck comes in … Ellen offered to take the hit. (Is she not the best ever?) Ellen is sensitive to hornet stings and has not yet been stung by a honey bee, but she was determined to just get the whole sting thing over with. “I’ve got my Epi-pen,” she said. “Let’s do it.”**

And we did. Mary caught us a bee with her tweezers. Ellen rolled up her sleeve. I held Ellen’s camera at the ready. Bee abdomen was pressed to human arm. Bee stung. Human winced. Writer (emphasis here on writer) snapped photos.

The good news is that Ellen hardly reacted to the sting at all. And, technically, I got the shot. It’s just that the shot is, well, not anywhere at all near in focus. Sigh.

Guess who got to be “human skin” the second time?

* After stinging, when the bee attempts to flee the scene, her sting gland and guts are ripped from her body. She dies from these wounds, which is why honey bees can only sting once.

** Please note we are not crazy. Every bee expert we have spoken to has assured us that it is highly unlikely for a person who is sensitive to wasp and/or hornet venom to also be sensitive to honey bee venom.

*** Okay. Maybe we are crazy.

 

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Odd Boy Out

ODD BOY OUT
By Don Brown
Houghton Mifflin, 2004

Category: Picture Book Biography

I was in search of a little picture book biography inspiration this week, and ODD BOY OUT delivered.

In his brief portrayal of Albert Einstein’s life—from “too fat” babyhood to “famous” adulthood—Don Brown shares the iffy and spiffy bits of young Einstein’s life: the childhood tantrums, the dull-witted response to Greek and Latin, the isolation, the mathematical genius, and the astounding insights that changed our world forever.

All this in 1178 words and 22 images.

Inspiration, indeed.

 

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Honeybee

HONEYBEE
By Naomi Shihab Nye
Greenwillow Books, 2008

Category: Poetry

How could I not pick up this book? A little honeybee buzz, a little reviewer buzz (Richie Partington’s review), a little cover buzz (a la Chris Raschka); not even my fear of poetry could keep me from reading HONEYBEE.

I was surprised to find in it a collection of poems and paragraphs that are as much about the curious way we humans live as they are about honeybees:

There is a poem about unacceptable contradictions, as in

“George W. Bush believes
In a ‘culture of life’.

This is very interesting to those
Who have recently died
Because of his decisions.”

And there is a poem about the joy and guilt that is motherhood, as in

“Take your laundry baskets, your first-aid kit,
But don’t take my failings, okay? Forget the times
I snapped, or had no patience, okay?”

The piece I can’t shake is the one called “We Are The People”.

“I know people who, the minute they get into their homes, tell you where they are going next.”

Nye goes on to tell of the evening she decided to slow down, take in a sunset from her front porch. A neighbor, out walking the dog, stopped to ask if she was locked out of the house.

“So ask yourself, you swirling tornado of a human being, in a world of disoriented honeybees, do you want to look locked out the minute you sit down?”

No. I most definitely do not.

 

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Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Revisited

Back in January I read and raved about GOOD MASTERS! SWEET LADIES! At the time I longed to hear the monologues and dialogues read by live actors, and yesterday—lucky me!—I did. Recorded Books has released an unabridged performance by Christina Moore and a full cast …and it is stupendous.

In other news … summer begins at 11:25am. Hooray!

(For those who might be wondering, the book is not exactly done. But it is in good shape. Hooray!)

 

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Girls and Books

School lets out tomorrow, and I have a half a book to write before that final bell. But I had to take a moment to share this:

Cute, eh?

Three nifty six-year-olds, three great books, and three literary mamas (me, Kate Messner, and Linda Urban. Make that four great books; not pictured is Tanya Lee Stone‘s new picture book biography, ELIZABETH LEADS THE WAY, which inspired the entire gathering. Read more at Kate’s blog.

Hooray for girls and books!

 

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Sippican School

Yesterday I closed out the 2007-2008 school year with a visit to Marion, Massachusetts. It was rainy and dreary outside, but inside the Sippican School I spent a bright and busy day speaking with fourth, fifth and sixth graders about reading, writing, and TRACKING TRASH.

I was impressed with the inquisitive Sippican students and their obvious passion for the environment. Every grade had questions for me, some of them very tough to answer. A few students moved beyond outrage at plastic pollution in the ocean and began brainstorming—right there in the classroom—solutions to these problems. And their ideas, with research and refinement, could someday make a difference.

The Sippican fifth graders were particularly excited to share with me their recent project: an initiative to promote the use of re-useable canvas bags over disposable plastic ones. I saw for myself the results of their research (visual displays of the information gleaned from a community-wide survey on plastic, paper, and canvas bag usage) and the fruits of their labor (students set up a plastic bag recycling station which has been filling regularly).

You can read more about Marion’s efforts to go plastic bag-free in this Southcoast News article. And you can follow their progress on the MySpace page of parent coordinator, Terri Lerman. Of course, if you happen to live near Marion, you can attend tonight’s Band Blast event and pick up some re-useable canvas bags of your own.

Thank you, Sippican students, teachers, and parents. It was a pleasure to be part of your community for a day … and I wish you the very best of luck with your Plastic Bag Free Marion initiative!

 

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Quiet About Clementine

Oh, I’ve been a bad blogger lately. But I am really, really, really trying to finish up a draft of the bee book before school lets out. And school lets out NEXT WEEK.

The kids and I just finished CLEMENTINE’S LETTER (Hyperion, 2008), written by Sara Pennypacker and illustrated by Marla Frazee, and I want to sing its praises. Alas, the bees, man. The bees.

So, for a proper review, read this one at Jen Robinson’s Book Page. Jen rocks. And she never lets her blog go all quiet.