Reality Check I

We have a responsibility to the victims of crime and violence. It is a responsibility to think not only of our own convenience but of the tragedy of sudden death. It is a responsibility to put away childish things--to make the possession and use of firearms a matter undertaken only by serious people who will use them with the restraint and maturity that their dangerous nature deserves--and demands. For too long, we have dealt with these deadly weapons as if they were harmless toys. Yet their very presence, the ease of their acquisition, and the familiarity of their appearance have led to thousands of deaths each year--and to countless other crimes of violence as well... It is past time that we wipe this stain of violence from our land.

Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Congressional Record, Proceedings and Debates of the 89th Congress, First Session, January 1965. Forty-four years ago this month, on June 6, 1968, Sen. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles following his California Democratic Presidential Primary win over Eugene McCarthy, the so-called "peace" candidate who sided with the National Rifle Association in several votes against gun control.

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Reality Check II

(Thanks to Gaby Sappington of the Make-A-Wish Foundation in New York for this invaluable contribution)

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Cartoon Of The Month

‘Father Noah’s Ark,’ a Walt Disney Silly Symphony released April 8, 1933. Featuring Noah, Ham, Japheth, Shem and their respective wives, as well as a cavalcade of animals. The ‘building the ark’ music is an adaptation of Beethoven's Contradanse in C Major, WoO 14 No. 1. Directed by Wilfred Jackson.

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Interview Of The Month

 

NARDWUAR THE HUMAN SERVIETTE interviews WILLIS EARL BEAL upon the latter’s arrival in Vancouver, British Columbia. We can’t even begin to do justice to this in print. See it to believe it. And check out more of the formerly homeless soul singer Willis Earl Beal at his website. Herein he explains how he was once ‘clicked’—as opposed to booed—offstage; how he designed a Batman costume because he wanted to join the Army and be ‘a crime fighting vigilante’; how he was changed by discovering Tom Waits’s music while shopping in a fetish store; and befriending a transvestite trucker who appeared with him on The X Factor.

FYI: Mr. Beal says if you write him he will ‘make you a drawing’ (Willis Earl Beal, P.O. Box 471881, Chicago, IL 60647) or if you call him he will sing you a song (773-295-2135).

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A Border Crossings Special Report

Fambul Tok

What is Fambul Tok? First, and most important, it’s an organization that describes itself as ‘a face-to-face community-owned program bringing together perpetrators and victims of the violence in Sierra Leone’s eleven-year civil war through ceremonies rooted in the local traditions of war-torn villages.’ It has done that, and more. The war is over, and former combatants are now working together as ‘peace parents’ to insure future generations of Sierra Leone a peaceful, prosperous country of opportunity. This most amazing transition has been almost completely overlooked by the mainstream media in this country, but for a team of filmmakers led by producer/executive producer LIBBY HOFFMAN and producer/director SARA TERRY, whose documentary titled Fambul Tok (Krio for ‘Family Talk’) offers a bird’s-eye look at change in the making in the once-war-torn country that has seen no less than 11 years of civil war come to an end ‘through ceremonies rooted in local traditions of war-torn villages,’ according to the Fambul Tok website. The other element in this remarkable transition to peace has been the Portland, Maine-based organization founded by Ms. Hoffman, Catalyst for Peace, a private foundation that identifies and supports community-based peacebuilding work around the world. To that end, and to support Fambul Tok’s efforts, Catalyst for Peace has assembled a roster of artists from conflict zones on a benefit album, Wan Fambul/One Family, appraised in our review as ‘a high-energy, urgent call for forgiveness and deep dialogue from edgy DJs and soulful singer-songwriters, from hard-hitting reggae outfits to transnational pop explorers.’

This month, in a BORDER CROSSINGS special report, and with the cooperation of Ms. Hoffman and Ms. Terry, we offer a comprehensive look at one of the world’s most inspiring stories. This multi-tiered report includes:

*From Ex-Combatants to Peace Parents by Libby Hoffman—from the president of Catalyst for Peace , producer of Fambul Tok [the documentary], and a co-founder of the Fambul Tok program, a report on the screening of Fambul Tok in Waterloo, just outside Freetown, Sierra Leone, for a group of some 60 ex-combatants, and the productive dialogue that ensued among people who were once bitter enemies and have now embraced reconciliation and rebuilding as ‘peace parents.’
*How We Tell Stories Is Critical by Sara Terry—The director of Fambul Tok  raises a critical distinction between the viral phenomenon that is Kony 2012 and the boots-on-the-ground work of Fambul Tok, the organization and the movie: I think the West has done more than enough “talking” for Africa, judging Africa by Western standards of crime and punishment that have little to do with local traditions of justice through reconciliation. And for me, that includes the Kony 2012 campaign, particularly because it advocates what most Ugandans do NOT want: military intervention by the US, and a trial at the International Criminal Court for Kony. Fambul Tok, she adds, shows the truth of what many African human rights activists argue, namely that the West would do well do listen to Africans, who have a lot to say about the role that local traditions and culture can and should play in resolving post-conflict dilemmas.

*Civil Society Platform Engages Waterloo Community on Non-Violence by Solomon Yarjog—The Civil Society Platform on non-violence, which consists of Fambul Tok, the Campaign for Good Governance and the Sierra Leone Youth Empowerment Organisation, has showcased what many people described as a step in the right direction towards tolerance and a violent-free pre- and post-2012 elections in Sierra Leone. A report from the front by the Communications Director for the Fambul Tok program in Sierra Leone.

*Family Album: True Reconciliation Begins—a review of the Wan Fambul/One Family benefit album

*The Wan Fambul/One Family Artist Roster—profiles of the dozen socially conscious artists who have lent their voices and their spirit to the Fambul Tok campaign, including: ABJEEZ, BAJAH + THE DRY EYE CREW, BHI BHIMAN, DENGUE FEVER, ECCODECK, IDAN RAICHEL, KING BRITT, MASHROU’ LEILA, THE SIERRA LEONE REFUGEE ALL STARS, SABA SABA, VIEUX FARKA TOURÉ, VUSI MAHLASELA.

*The Fambul Tok Who’s Who—Profiles of the men and women who made Fambul Tok a reality

*Fambul Tok In Print and On the Screen—Reviews of and links to order the Fambul Tok companion book and DVD.

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Video File: Remembering Doc Watson

Farewell To An American Institution--When Arthel Lane “Doc” Watson crossed over on May 29, at age 89, it was like a gut-punch to anyone who loves roots music at its most authentic. In words and with video, we honor one of the great gentlemen of American music and the gifts he left us.

 

DONOVAN, QUITE RIGHTLY
by Billy Altman
In re-visiting his music on Epic/Legacy’s The Essential Donovan, one thing that does stand out is that, freed from the cultural trappings of the times from which they originally emerged, Donovan's songs really do hold up better than one might perhaps expect. ‘Sunshine Superman,’ ‘Season of the Witch,’ ‘Lalena’: These are pretty sturdy classics, and, along with aforementioned evergreens like ‘Catch the Wind' and ‘Mellow Yellow,’ reveal an eclecticism that goes a long way to understanding Donovan's immense commercial popularity during the last half of the Swinging Sixties.

CLASSICAL PERSPECTIVES
REQUIEM FOR A PINK MOON: AN ELIZABETHAN TRIBUTE TO NICK DRAKE
Joel Frederiksen and Ensemble Phoenix Munich
Joel Frederiksen and Ensemble Phoenix Munich go for the heart of Nick Drake's classic Pink Moon. Reimagining its dark, delicate, deeply introspective folk-flavored songs on Baroque instruments and contrasting them with works by Elizabethan composers, Frederiksen fashions a moment both timeless and mesmerizing.

A WOODY GUTHRIE CENTENNIAL MOMENT
‘Woody Was The Original Alternative Musician’
BILLY BRAGG on Woody Guthrie, the Mermaid Avenue albums, and his current tour celebrating the Woody Guthrie Centenary

A CHARLES DICKENS BICENTENNIAL MOMENT
Charles Dickens and Music
By James T. Lightwood
Chapter IV of author James T. Lightwood’s 1912 study of the use of music and musical instruments in Charles Dickens’s body of work. This chapter in particular deals with the various appearances of bells in Dickens’s novels and stories--the very same bells the author claims ‘maddened’ Dickens but also inspired some of his most memorable scenes. Also note that this may well be the only Dickens piece ever published with illustrations in the form of embedded videos of THE WILLOWS (‘Church Bells May Ring’) and the DEL-VIKINGS (‘Whispering Bells’).

NEWS & NOTES: JUDY GARLAND @90

Born June 10, 1922, JUDY GARLAND would have been 90 this month. The legendary entertainer who lived life in a whirlwind and died at age 47 on June 22, 1969, was essentially ‘on’ from the time she was two and made her first public appearance singing ‘Jingle Bells.’ Of course, she was ‘on’ a lot more than the stage as her life progressed and eventually collapsed. Nearly penniless in the early ‘60s, she was urged by her agent, Irving “Swifty” Lazar (a bit of a legend himself in the publishing world), to commit her life story to tape for a planned ghostwritten autobiography intended to generate some cash flow. Never published, the Garland ‘autobiography’ has become the stuff of legend as well. Recently the tapes, or some of them, surfaced, and our 90th birthday tribute to Judy features portions of the meaty transcripts of those recordings—Garland on Garland, as it were--with all the anger, bitterness and backbiting unabridged. However self serving this, it does help explain why the performer Judy Garland, in all her neediness and fragility, was so riveting on screen and on stage. The magnitude of energy and emotion she expended during the course of a song or in developing a character was as breathtaking as it was unsettling in its rawness, much as it is on the tapes. Herein we hear Judy Garland both scared and strong; as a doting mother and a vengeful ex-wife; as a self-deprecating “legend” but also a bit delusional in a Norma Desmond kind of way about her future. Still, the art endures, and so we offer a video retrospective as well of memorable Garland moments on film and on record.

PLEASURES OF MUSIC
Handel
By Samuel Butler
To the iconoclastic Victorian author Samuel Butler (author of the Utopian satire Erewhon and the semi-autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh), George Frederic Handel fulfilled the ideal of the good man and great artist. Handelian chords are quoted in Erewhon, Butler took composition lessons from Handel’s biographer, William Rockstro (1823-1895), and he fashioned the words and music of Handel-like cantatas that combine pastiche and parody. He is here to praise the master, superior, he asserts, to both Bach and Beethoven.

The Gospel Set

*‘THOSE SONGS GONNA LINGER IN SOMEBODY'S HEART FOREVER’
A new one-hour documentary film by ROBERT CLEM, The Jefferson County Sound: Alabama's Black Gospel Quartets (One State Films, Stone Ridge, NY, 2012), is a tribute to and an affectionate preservation of black gospel a cappella quartet music as it developed and evolved in Jefferson County, Alabama, the birthplace and capital of black quartet a cappella gospel singing ensuing from a boom in the coal and steel industries led to a massive migration of African-American workers to Jefferson County. Clem’s film not only explores the transformative early history of Jefferson County’s towering black quartets (including the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Birmingham Sunlights, the Four Eagles, the Delta Aires [above] and others), but finds some of those very same singers and groups still spreading the good news more than 60 years later.

*FROM FLORIDA TO FELLOWSHIP: PASTOR CHARLES JENKINS' 'AWESOME' JOURNEY
By Bob Marovich
Chicago's Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church has been fertile ground for gospel music since Rev. Dr. Clay Evans founded the church more than sixty years ago. Pastor CHARLES JENKINS, the Rev. Dr. Evans’s successor, has a soul stirring hit single on his hands in the appropriately titled ‘Awesome,’ and this month he and the Fellowship choir await the release of their first album, The Best of Both Worlds. In this interview Pastor Jenkins discusses the heavy responsibility of stepping into the Rev. Dr. Evans’s shoes and advancing the church’s gospel music-rooted ministry, bringing ‘old schoolers’ and ‘new schoolers’ together to spread the good news.

*BOB MAROVICH’S GOSPEL PICKS

LE’ANDRIA JOHNSON, The Evolution Of Le’andria Johnson--Given her life story, Le’Andria Johnson has much to share with others, and Evolution is something of a series of mini-life lessons with an urban contemporary soundtrack. The musical backdrop changes slightly from selection to selection, but what does not change is Le’Andria’s vocal urgency.

JAVON INMAN, Heart Of A Worshiper--Heart of a Worshiper stands on the quality of the singers and musicians, Inman’s strong but delicate tenor, lush arrangements, and the willingness of the choir to experiment.

 

JASON NELSON, Shifting The Atmosphere--Well produced and well constructed, Shifting the Atmosphere is the aural equivalent of a peaceful day of prayer, reflection, and affirmations with a praise break at intermission.

 

ANGELA SPIVEY, He Keeps His Promise--He Keeps His Promise finds “The Princess of Gospel” in fine form, a wooden-church gospel shouter with the lung capacity of giants such as Pastor Shirley Caesar, Evelyn Turrentine-Agee, and Lemmie Battles. The songs on the CD are variously traditional and contemporary gospel, and almost uniformly about encouragement, hope, and deliverance.

CHENETA JONES, Transformed--Cheneta Jones of St. Louis may be the lead background singer for Tye Tribbett, but on her new, much-anticipated Transformed, she demonstrates her ability to deliver songs all by her lonesome.

 

THE NEW CONVERTED VOICES, A New Beginning--The New Converted Voices’ latest CD, A New Beginning, delivers the goods that quartet enthusiasts want to hear from their heroes: no-nonsense Christian lyrics, impassioned traditional singing, tight harmony, and one or two good ol’ drive-tempo songs with backbeats and extended vamps.

NECIE B., Runaway Love--Love is in the title and love is in the air for Necie B. on her new CD. One might say, in fact, that the album is a collection of (mostly) love songs not sung to a human man but to the Lord.

 

THE MEMPHIS HARMONIZERS, Keep Running On--Keep Running On prospers on the strength of quartet basics: Bible-based testimony, common sense pointers on living, and old-time religion wrapped in meat-and-potatoes masculinity that has more testosterone than most other popular and folk music today. Then there’s that funky blend of B3, bass and drums that somehow sounds tangier coming from Memphis than anywhere else in the world.

HERE COMES SUMMER: OUR 3rd ANNUAL RETRO SUMMER CELEBRATION
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer with us in another retro summer special. This year we reprise two popular features from last year’s summer issue, and add some new ones to the archive.

*IN TRIM: BRUCE BROWN’S ENDLESS EPIC
The Story of the Filmmaker and the Film that Changed the Surfing World
By Paul Holmes
Made for around $50,000 and single-handedly produced, directed, filmed, edited and narrated by BRUCE BROWN, THE ENDLESS SUMMER is far and away the most successful surf movie of al time, and still the model for most surf flicks to this day. Its creator, Brown, was little known outside the limited confines of the surfing subculture, which in 1966, the year of the film’s release, was familiar to most Americans through the distorted lens of Beach Party movies and a surf music craze that had been on the wane since the British Invasion of 1964. As PAUL HOLMES writes: “Wholesome, charming, corny at times, but with what film critic Leonard Maltin describes as a ‘diverting, tongue-in-cheek narration,’ the film’s premise--a quest for the holy grail of a perfect wave--gave surfers some noble dignity at a time when they were often stereotyped as derelicts, ne’er do wells or delinquents. But the stars of The Endless Summer, Robert August and Mike Hynson, came across as clean-cut, fun-loving athletes and surfing itself as a grand, healthy, respectable sport with unexpected global appeal.” Brown and his crew literally followed Hynson and August around the world, chasing the sun and the summer as it crossed the planet, as the pair tested out some spots--such as Hawaii--famous for big waves, and others--such as Acra, Ghana--where surfing was completely unknown to the natives. With a spirited, plaintive soundtrack by The Sandals, the feel of The Endless Summer is as idyllic as its protagonists’ journey is romantic--a near-perfect mating of existential ambition depicted on screen and spiritual/metaphysical striving expressed in music. Holmes captures the whole epic saga in this definitive piece first published in the now-defunct Longboard surfing magazine in 2005.
Note: This story, originally published in our June 2010 issue, will open in pdf format.

AND THEN THERE WAS SURF MUSIC
By Paul Johnson, The Belairs
In 1961 Paul Johnson was the guitarist in an instrumental rock band from California called The Belairs. Along with Dick Dale, the quintet pioneered a new style of music that surfers themselves dubbed ‘surf music’ for the way in which its sounds evoked the rolling and crashing of the waves, and the ethereal, metaphysical experience of riding those waves. But where, when and how did it start, this ‘surf’ music? Who better to answer the question than one of the artists who helped craft the form, namely PAUL JOHNSON himself. Far from being a relic, Johnson remains quite active and in the forefront of a very-much-alive surf music subculture as a member of The Surfaris (‘Wipe Out’), his own band The Duo-tones, the Hepcats, and as a writer, whose script for a documentary about surf music is now in production. In this exclusive piece for TheBluegrassSpecial.com, Johnson offers us a ground-zero perspective on the music around which a social community coalesced. No less an authority on surf music than Dan Forte, who in his guise at recording/performing artist Teisco del Rey has done laudable work demonstrating the continued vitality of surf music, hails Johnson, “more than any other artist,” for having “succeeded in bringing surf music into the present without sacrificing its past.” We welcome Paul Johnson to our pages, and are throwing in a cool bio of him that is also available on his website (www.pjmoto.com), plus an audio clip of The Belairs’ groundbreaking, Johnson-penned hit, “Mr. Moto.”
NOTE: THIS STORY, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN OUR JUNE 2010 ISSUE, WILL OPEN IN A SEPARATE WINDOW WHEN YOU CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE. YOU WILL NOT BE DIRECTED AWAY FROM THIS SITE. WHEN FINISHED READING, CLOSE THE WINDOW AND RESUME YOUR JOURNEY THROUGH THIS MONTH’S ISSUE.

*‘I THINK WE GOT ONE, DAD’
How Eddie Cochran Crafted A Seasonal Classic in ‘Summertime Blues’
By David McGee
The making of one of the first summertime perennials, as recounted by EDDIE COCHRAN’s co-writer and partner JERRY CAPEHART, with additional reminiscences of the recording session by legendary engineer LARRY LEVINE.

*A MOST HAPPY FELLA INDEED
By David McGee
His seasonal classic ‘Here Comes Summer’ made the 22-year-old JERRY KELLER a one-hit wonder. Now nearing 75, he has everything he ever wanted, including a satisfied mind and an impressive resume of achievements as a songwriter and jingles singer. His life has been as happy as his only hit. The inside story, as told in an exclusive interview with the artist.

*‘SAY GOODBYE TO DULL SCHOOL DAYS’
In ‘Summertime Summertime’ THE JAMIES kissed off the classroom with impunity and wrote their name into the ledger of seasonal classics. The making of a summer classic from 1958.

*SURF IN VERSE
Wherein real surfers with a literary bent contemplate the greater existential meaning (and the relentless passing of time) in rhyming verse. With contributions by BRIAN KNOWLES, KARISSA, and ANDY HARNEY, and a soundtrack including Mr. Acker Bilk’s ‘Stranger on the Shore,’ Jack Nitzsche’s ‘The Lonely Surfer,’ and the Aqua Velvets’ ‘Bravado.’

*SURFING AND SHARKS
‘So these four guys--two of them brothers--were sitting out there. They were sitting out in the lineup talking and waiting for a wave when out of nowhere a huge shark surfaced right outside of them and charged toward their group. The shark was supposedly like a fourteen- or fifteen-footer, either a tiger shark or a bull shark--I can't really remember.’ Don’t reveal the ending to your friends! (Photo above by Kurt Jones)

*THE FIRST RECORDED INSTANCE OF SURFING, EVER
It's commonly thought that the first Western account of surfing comes from Lieutenant James King, who assumed command of the HMS Discovery, after Captain James Cook was killed by Hawaiians in 1779 (Cook had tried to kidnap their chief to force them to return a ship's boat they'd stolen). But King’s account was merely the first record of Hawaiian surfing. Ten years previously, when Cook's expedition reached Tahiti, the naturalist JOSEPH BANKS went native, shed his clothes, and frolicked with the lissome Tahitian lasses. He wrote coyly of this in his journals. He also recorded a very strange and wonderful sport that absolutely astonished him.

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Reviews

FOGGY MOUNTAIN SPECIAL: A TRIBUTE TO EARL SCRUGGS, Various Artists--In the planning stages since 2009, this tribute to Earl Scruggs may have been a long time being born but, coming in the wake of the banjo titan’s death this past March, it could only have been more timely had it seen the light of day when Earl was still with us. Be that as it may, the dozen cuts here by a true all-star collection of pickers from across generational lines attests to a number of enduring and endearing qualities about Earl Scruggs.

BOBBY OSBORNE & THE ROCKY TOP X-PRESS, New Bluegrass & Old Heartaches-- Either way you cut it—new bluegrass or old heartaches—this long player finds the legendary Bobby and his laudable band in fine form. An emotional roller coaster of an album, it’s well worth the ride.

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Beyond The Blue

SHARON LEWIS & TEXAS FIRE, The Real Deal--You don’t want to cross Fort Worth native Sharon Lewis. A mainstay on the Chicago blues scene since the early ‘90s, she has made some kind of statement on The Real Deal, a title worthy of the artist and vice versa. In her husky, gritty, sassy, church-trained voice, Ms. Lewis is in some kind of mood here.

THE NIGHTHAWKS, Damn Good Time--Ever reliable on record and on stage, Washington, D.C. blues stalwarts the Nighthawks are heading into their 40th year with not merely another solid album but better than they ever was. Newest member Mark Stutso joined the band in 2010, stabilizing a lineup that includes founding member Mark Wenner, the harmonica man nonpareil, and veterans of a near-decade’s standing, guitarist Paul Bell and bassist Johnny Castle. This seasoned quartet wastes no time reminding us that the Nighthawks have always been more than a blues band.

TORONZO CANNON, Leaving Mood—Like his labelmate Sharon Lewis, Toronzo Cannon sees the bigger, dysfunctional picture of personal relationships and takes dead aim at them on this, his Delmark label debut.

 

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Christine Santelli’s Video Of The Month

From her 100 videos in 100 days project, Christine Santelli performs ‘I’ve Tried.’ Christine’snew solo acoustic album, Dragonfly, is available at www.christinesantelli.com, and will soon be offered at CD Baby and various online music sites. See our review in the March 2011 issue. For those in or visiting New York City, the PATH Café at 131 Christopher Street features Ms. Santelli hosting and performing an opening set at its Singer-Songwriter night every Wednesday from 7 p.m.-9 p.m. Check her out live--seeing is believing.

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Meaningful Matters

NEWS & NOTES: A TRIBUTE TO RAY BRADBURY
The gentle, wise man who was RAY BRADBURY left this mortal coil at age 91 on June 5. Lauded by the New York Times as ‘the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream,’ Bradbury leaves behind enduring fiction—The Martian Chronicles, the harrowing Fahrenheit 451, the poignant, autobiographical Dandelion Wine, and dozens of important short stories—and a reputation for unyielding integrity, persistence in pursuit of excellent prose, blunt assessments of society’s downward intellectual drift, and for having a robust, self-deprecating sense of humor. We honor this American literary giant by letting him speak to, on the page and in embedded videos, the big themes of his life and art.

AWAY OUT THERE
A Mysterious Nebula, Captured Glowing Bright
The staff at Space.com reports that a telescope in Hawaii has captured a spectacular new view on a distant nebula, revealing a glowing swirl of gas that is at the center of an unsolved mystery surrounding the nebula's birth. For decades, astronomers assumed that Sharpless 2-71 (Sh2-71 for short, above) formed from the death throes of an obvious bright star near the planetary nebula's center, which is prominent in the new photo. But now some researchers aren't so sure.

THE BLOGGING FARMER
Millions Against Monsanto—And Counting
In California, grass roots volunteers delivered almost a million petitions signed by registered voters seeking to restore our fundamental right to know what's in our food. How significant is this? Writes Mother Jones’s Tom Philpott: ‘That would send a shockwave through the food industry--one that could ultimately be felt on the industrial-scale US farms that have been devoting their land to GMO crops for years, and the companies that profit from selling them patented seeds and matching herbicides. The reason isn't just that California represents an imposing chunk of the US food market. It's also that a food-labeling law that starts in California is unlikely to stay in California.

NATURE’S TEMPLE
Variant Music by Richard Yost
Thoughts on the intersection between love of nature and love of music--how the former prepares one for the latter, and vice versa.

SEVEN IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST
By Jules
Jill McElmurry's Tale of Two Books Before Breakfast
I'm sitting down at the breakfast table this morning with author/illustrator JILL McELMURRY. Rather, I'm handing the 7-Imp mic over to her. And I'm happy to be doing so; I've enjoyed many of her picture books and her expressive, detailed gouache artwork over the years. She has illustrated nearly twenty books in her career. This month, she sees the release of two new picture book titles--on the same day, actually. She both wrote and illustrated Mario Makes a Move; the other, Pirate Princess, was written by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen and is an anti-princess (well, anti-traditional princess) tale of a young member of the royal family who "couldn't face [a] life wed to some prince" and wants to be a pirate instead.

Talking Animals

By Duncan Strauss

When a new children's book touches off an international controversy--leaders of a few industries were steamed, some major media entities engaged in finger-wagging, bloggers were banging out charged up posts for and against--well, this constitutes more than a ripple in the kid-lit world. That's plain ol' big news in any world. The book in question is Vegan Is Love: Having Heart and Taking Action, a colorfully illustrated collection of bite-size blurbs—again, for child readers--about such topics as circuses, eating animals, pollution, animal testing and including a frank explanation of what happens to animals in USDA slaughterhouses. Hence the controversy surrounding author-illustrator RUBY ROTH (inset), who in this month’s Talking Animals interview describes Vegan Is Love as ‘a kids’ book of simple ideas. But at its core it’s really about democracy, supply and demand and engaging ourselves in the public realm.’