Winnie-the-Pooh & Piglet at the New York Pubic Library’s Donnell Library Center Central Children’s Room.

I just read on 7-Imp, where there’s a much more in depth and eloquent summary than I can attempt here, that the New York Public Libaries Donnell Branch will be closing in May. This branch houses the Central Children’s Room, home to, among other things, the original Winnie-the-Pooh toys (sans Roo who, being small, must have been lost along the way), Mary Poppin’s umbrella and, during the time of my visit, original N.C Wyeth Robin Hood illustrations. With the closure of the branch the future of the Children’s Room seems uncertain and many are worried it will disappear all together.

The photographs here are from our visit to New York in January of 2006. We were told about the Children’s Room by a New York aquaintence who we had hit up for tips on New York must-sees – especially those that involved art, books or food. We didn’t have a lot of time to spend at the library – it was more of a quick pilgrimage to see the toys so it was an extra bonus to see the Wyeth illustrations. I would have loved to had more time to explore more of the library and to have gone through the collection of reference books. I can only imagine how wonderful it would have been to have access to a library like this when I was little, not only for the books but for the chance to see original, classic illustrations. Here’s to hoping that the Children’s Room reopens in a brand spanking new location (with better lighting) and that for many years to come, kids will have access to literature in this way.

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I love Winnie-the-Pooh – the proper A.A Milne original book versions with the lovely E. H. Shepard illustrations – not what’s become of it now, so it was kind of sad to see this – not a Milne in sight – completely obliterated (at least on Flickr) by the ‘D’ word:

Vancouver is losing one of its largest publishers as the company moves to focus on its distribution business. The strong Canadian dollar has been blamed for the having a negative impact on the Canadian book market. From the cbc.ca website:

In interviews on Monday, Raincoast marketing vice-president Jamie Broadhurst said that, in response, the company dramatically dropped its suggested retail prices by 20 per cent. He described the shuttering of the publishing program as a tough but necessary measure.

Raincoast Books to ditch publishing arm
Tuesday, January 8, 2008

This means a loss of jobs in both Vancouver and Ontario, and a loss of yet another publisher of Canadian books.

Back in November, I was invited to join Lee Edward Födi and James McCann for a taped conversation with Mark Blevis of Just One More Book!! I’m a big fan of JOMB and I’ve written about it a couple of times on the CWILL BC blog so it was really great to meet Mark in person and participate in the podcast even though I’m deathly afraid of being recorded.

The podcast is now up, and it’s a nice slim version of our 2+ hours of conversation. Fortunately, the bit with me stumbling through a response to “what are your inspirations”, a surprisingly difficult thing to sum up with a microphone hovering under one’s chin, didn’t make the cut. Let’s hope it doesn’t make it to the long version on Mark’s own blog either.

Mark must also have a super de-nasalification filter on that little tape recorder of his because I didn’t get that overwhelming urge to crawl under the couch in embarrassment when I listened to the recording the other night. All answering machines should come with such a filter.

The really great part of the podcast experience was getting to have a conversation with peers. Although James, Lee and I are all members of CWILL BC and live in the same city, we don’t often get a chance to take time out to just meet for a conversation. It was a lot of fun learning about each other’s work habits and tools of the trade and I have to say that they have inspired me – I’m now trying to carry my sketchbook with me everywhere. As for Mark, it’s pretty wonderful to see someone so devoted to children’s lit that they create a whole website and podcast around it. And he’s a great interviewer. JOMB contains a wealth of information and is a truly priceless look into the inner workings of the children’s lit world. Full of author, illustrator, editor, publisher, etc interviews as well as book reviews, it’s a must visit for any one who loves to read or create books.

Some photos from the night are here.

(pssst, it’s actually [wake-lin] )