The Sensible Nonsense Project

peterwknox: millionsmillions: Rest in peace E. L. Konigsburg,...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:26:41 -0400

millionsmillions:

Rest in peace E. L. Konigsburg, author of one of the greatest children’s books of all time. (Hyperbole? Oh, go get lost in the Met’s fountain.)

I read this more than any children’s book, over and over.

Oh, E. L. Konigsburg. We’ll miss you.

Hey girl, I love The Giving Tree so much, I tattooed it on my...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:03:00 -0400

Hey girl,

I love The Giving Tree so much, I tattooed it on my arm. Wanna give it a reread together sometime?

Photo

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:00:43 -0400

It’s International Children’s Book Day! We at The...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:55:41 -0400

It’s International Children’s Book Day! We at The Sensible Nonsense Project celebrated by curling up with some old friends and a classic or two. How about you?

Oh my goodness are we doing favorite children's books from when we were children today? Because I am SO THERE!

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:57:25 -0400

Oh my goodness are we doing favorite children's books from when we were children today? Because I am SO THERE! :

librarianpirate:

Oh my goodness are we doing favorite children’s books from when we were children today? Because I am SO THERE!

Every Single Babysitter’s club book as soon as it was available

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede

No Flying in the House by Betty Brock

Catherine, called Birdy by Cushman

The Princess and the Goblin by MacDonald

Anne of Green Gables by Montgomery

Philip Hall Likes Me, I Reckon Maybe by Greene

Every darn Ramona book that Beverly Cleary would allow me

From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler by Konigsburg

Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind by Staples

The People of Pineapple Place by Lindbergh

James and the Giant Peach and Matilda by Dahl

The Doll in the Garden by Hahn

Johnie Tremain!

Well, if this isn’t the most excellent question. We here at The Sensible Nonsense Project ALWAYS want to hear your answers!

bookpickings: The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit Sylvia Plath Sylvia...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:43:08 -0400

bookpickings:

The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath’s little-known and lovely vintage children’s book, a charming cautionary tale about the perils of self-consciousness, with wonderful illustrations.

"When I was eleven, I didn’t know I was gay; I only knew that I felt different from other people,..."

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:57:00 -0400

“When I was eleven, I didn’t know I was gay; I only knew that I felt different from other people, even from my own family. I was beginning to try to put together the puzzle pieces: I knew I liked boys, the clothes they wore, and the things they did, but I knew I didn’t want to marry one… I had to go underground.

Enter Harriet M. Welsch, who became my role model and savior. I read Harriet the Spy soon after it came out (and I now bless the school librarian who put it on the library shelves for me to find). I was absolutely shocked by it at the time. Shocked that Harriet could defy her parents and her friends and still survive. Shocked that she loved and missed Ole Golly so much that she threw a shoe at her father to express her anger. Shocked that an adult author could know so well what really went on in the minds of children.

But the thing that shocked me the most about Harriet was her cross-dressing. It’s an aspect of the novel that girls today would miss entirely (thank goodness!), but in 1965 Harriet’s spy clothes struck me as revolutionary. Back then, girls in blue jeans and hooded sweatshirts were uncommon, though not unheard of. But Harriet’s high-top sneakers were solely boys’ wear…

I’ve read elsewhere of women my age who were inspired to keep notebooks and start their own spy routes, eat tomato sandwiches, and leave anonymous notes after reading Harriet the Spy and The Long Secret. At eleven I didn’t particularly like tomatoes, didn’t have the patience to write, and already had a spy route, so I wasn’t inspired to start any of those things. What Harriet did inspire me to do was to experiment with cross-dressing. I used whatever money I earned doing odd jobs to buy boys’ clothes on the sly and then went into other neighborhoods to play at passing as a boy. When an old man in a grocery store called me “Sonny,” I knew I had passed the test. It was remarkably easy to do, and it was as deliciously thrilling as sneaking into Agatha K. Plumber’s dumbwaiter.”

- “On Spies and Purple Socks and Such”

Check out this essay at The Horn Book, in which author Kathleen T. Horning suggests that, as a queer kid in the ’60s, reading Harriet the Spy saved her life — or, at least, made it a bit more comfortable.

Best Opening Lines in Children's Literature?

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:29:22 -0400

cheshirelibrary:

“Once upon a time…” is not the only way to begin a children’s book. So hard to pick just 5 when there are dozens that could go on this list, but here are some opening lines that make us want to read these stories all over again!

“In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.”

“Kidnapping children is never a good idea; all the same, sometimes it has to be done.”

“The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day.”

” ‘Where’s Papa going with that axe?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”

“Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

nypl: We’re speechless… and also curious whether we would ever...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:26:10 -0400

nypl:

We’re speechless… and also curious whether we would ever be able to eat any of these cakes, let along cut into one of them. But, we want one anyway.

Of course, we also think that you should read the book while you eat its cake doppelganger, so why not visit NYPL’s online catalog and pick one up today!

bookgasms:

30 Gorgeous & Delicious Literary Cakes

Admittedly, these are not all children’s books — but check out that fabulous bottom row!

melodykramer: Spring Break 2013: Philadelphia Libraries. Your...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 13:09:02 -0400

melodykramer:

Spring Break 2013: Philadelphia Libraries.

Your humble Sensible Nonsense Project blogger has been asking readers to share their favorite books with the young people in their lives, but remember — you don’t have to buy them! Use your local library. They exist, and they’re amazing!

aaknopf: Got a young Hiaasen fan on your hands, or looking to...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:25:07 -0400

aaknopf:

Got a young Hiaasen fan on your hands, or looking to get into Carl’s excellent work for younger readers? The lovely folks at Random House Kids have set us up with 5 brand spanking new copies of Carl Hiaasen’s latest book for younger readers, Chomp (which, by the way, is out in paperback today!) and one copy of his 2010 bestseller, Scat. And we’re just gonna give ‘em away.

Email us at aaknopf@randomhouse.com by noon tomorrow for a chance to win one of these beauties for yourself!

“I’m in the milk and the milk’s in me…” Making Meaningfully...

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:26:00 -0500

“I’m in the milk and the milk’s in me…”
Making Meaningfully Doughy Memories with Maurice Sendak

It was certainly more than my dream, at a mere 5 years, to live In The Night Kitchen. It was a definitive goal.

I knew it would be precarious, I knew there could be technical difficulties, but I knew it was possible. I had black hair like Mickey. He was an up-start, able to escape three chefs who wanted to cook him. He was a hero, understanding that cake was one of the best breakfasts. He was a clever and crowing with a profound pride in his nudity. He was just as I strove to be, and it only made sense that at night, I could, conceivably, venture into a night kitchen of my own.

I had elaborate plans drawn up, in secret from my parents. Surely they most of all — who read it to me every night for years — must have known I was hatching grandiose plans. I tried to squirrel them away in my dresser drawers and on the underside of my pet snake’s glass cage. I was pretty sure nobody knew, save my stuffed purple stegosaurus Bernice, the one real boy in whom I felt I could confide anything. A night owl from the very outset of my nocturnal career, I recall lying there in my bed, tense and ready to spring — waiting and waiting for the racket of my parent’s movements below to dissolve and for all to be still. There would go my clothes — and there would go I.

I love thinking back on how this book opened up a world for me, one not quite real but not quite pretend either. Now, I particularly relish the play of the rhymes as they tumble across the nightscape of images, letting this book careen into a song that I don’t recall, but that I must have heard loudly as a youngling experiencing a read-aloud. When read with vigor, with a quickness that lets the rhymes come out of the woodwork and stand side by side, there is an amazing momentum that does not come through when reading with emphasis placed on each turn of the page. I find that reading this book very quickly and with exaggerated tone, a special frequency is attained that ears fastened to young brains can’t help but take in seriously — which always contrasts with the fantastic nudity and visions of flight in this book. Like a throng of absurd moths to a flame radiating a very serious light — pre-school children that I now teach and to whom I read this book, who still know that the nighttime is inexplicable and who take witching hours oh so seriously, can’t get enough of this masterpiece by Uncle Maurice. Images, rhymes, rhythm, and text all interact on these pages, so that entering the world of In the night kitchen let’s children believe that they can become what Mickey is. This book convinced child-me to know that I could, and that knowing was the powerful part.

Many night attempts were first foiled by the sounds of my parents’ movements just around the corner from the bottom of the stairs. I’d freeze, having fallen just halfway out of my pajamas, pants-less, on the landing or in the room with the couches no one was supposed to touch. But I studied diligently from my bed, nestled wide-awake with Bernice. It seemed only logical that just around those corners, as soon as my mother and father turned in, that something must be ready to happen. I could hear it I listened so close. Eggbeaters were dancing with spatulas, and without me! It was more than my child mind could bear.

One or two late nights, I made it. I know I made it, but really I just think I did. Completely naked, I’m in a big tin soup pot with a ladle in my right hand, riding along on the counter’s edge, the dishwasher murmuring sweetly and fridge hissing sharply and me crowing and crowing at the nighttime.

Memories of childhood are a lot like In The Night Kitchen, with a rhythm that makes for moments of crystalline clarity, yet with doughy sections not quite yet finished cooking in between. Sprawled out on the countertop I’d sleep with a smile — a mere skirt of crumbs keeping me warm. My parents gasping, then (and this is the doughy part) smiling sweetly and crowing just a bit on their own as they carry me back up to bed.

Then, of course, cake for breakfast.

—Jacob Kerner is a teacher, adventurer, tree climber, creator of arts and poems, urban gardener, typewriter enthusiast, and has had poems published in Apiary Magazine, The Blotter, and Adagio Verse Quarterly. Check out many a visual of his work at: deepcutsofbrotherlylove.tumblr.com

In honor of Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss’...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:02:06 -0500

In honor of Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss’ birthday, friend of The Sensible Nonsense Project Jason Crane shared with us his mash-up of Green Eggs and Ham and Thelonius Monk’s “Blue Monk.” Fantastic.

Enjoy!

Unfortunately, The Sensible Nonsense Project is not based in...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:30:58 -0500

Unfortunately, The Sensible Nonsense Project is not based in California—but we couldn’t resist sharing this fabulous Read Across America poster from the California Teachers Association!

Happy Read Across America Day! This NEA-sponsored celebration is...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:19:20 -0500

Happy Read Across America Day!

This NEA-sponsored celebration is held in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday. Tomorrow, he would have been 109 — but there are events in his honor all across the country today.

Check the Read Across America website for information on story hours and book swaps near you. Plus, take the Reader’s Oath!

How are you celebrating?

Back in 2010, Apartment Therapy asked a bunch of bloggers and...

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:53:00 -0500

Back in 2010, Apartment Therapy asked a bunch of bloggers and designers about their favorite children’s books, in celebration of Learning At Home Month. Here’s one of The Sensible Nonsense Project’s favorites — click through to check ‘em all out!

My favorite children’s book and why I love it: When I was eight years old I asked for and received the Chronicles of Narnia box set on Christmas morning. I devoured those seven books from start to finish and repeated the ritual six more times by the age of twelve.

We had very little money growing up and as such family vacations were few and far between. My world consisted entirely of a perfectly nice Midwestern neighborhood, a church with lots of do’s and don’ts and a school with a library. The latter allowed me to ‘travel’ and no other books transported me further than Narnia. Tragically orphaned children, secret passageways, warring kingdoms and well-dressed animals with English accents - what could be more exotic? For me, they were the height of imaginative escapism and even now as a ‘big kid’ the books continue to influence my aesthetic sensibilities in funny little ways. And for those who might wonder, no, I do not collect unicorn figurines or hold backyard Renaissance Fairs…anymore.

—Robert Mahar of Mahar Craft

Sorry, not related to this site -- where did The Word Unheard go? I miss you!

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:21:01 -0500

Hi there, anon — I can’t respond to you without an email address or a Tumblr account! Please send an email to thesensiblenonsenseproject@gmail.com.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (and others) My...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:30:45 -0500

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (and others)

My friend recently told me that because knitting is now cool, you don’t know that you’re really old until you start quilting. I think it’s interesting that now, as a quilter, I’m here today to talk to you about how I’m not too old to read children’s books. I guess you can be both.

I read a lot of books as a child, and I think that they’ve all shaped me in some way. Some of those ways have been more profound than others.

It’s true that I left the Nonprofit Leadership program at Penn, and I think part of the reason I left that program is what I learned from children’s books—that you should do what will make you happy. I learned that sometimes, quitting is the right thing to do, and moving on to the next thing is best. I think part of how I learned this was from a book called Max Makes a Million, which is about a dog who dreams of moving to Paris to be a poet. He leaves his family behind, but he does it, and he’s happy for it.

From two other books—Frederick and Swimmy by Leo Lionni—I learned that everybody has something to contribute. We just have to be sometimes creative to find it.

Swimmy is a very small fish, but he teaches all of the other fish to band together into a giant fish to scare off the predators.

Frederick is a mouse who is trying to collect things for the winter. Everybody else is collecting food, like they should, and they’re very irritated because Frederick seems to be doing nothing. But he is collecting colors, and words, and the warmth of the sun. And when they all run out of food, he delivers these things, and they’re all thrilled to experience something other than the cold gray of the winter.

And finally, maybe less profoundly, there was a book called Bill and Pete, which was about a hippo and his best friend (and also his toothbrush), who was a bird. Which is a common relationship, I think. But this probably started me on the path to my insatiable love of interspecies best friends, which I think is a magical thing. And maybe not important to how I live my life, but it brings a lot of joy to it.

The other thing that I read a lot of were Jewish children’s books, which most people tell me aren’t real when I tell them about my children’s books. But the main lesson that I gleaned from them was that rabbis are geniuses, and will solve all of your problems. They can resolve family discord; they can help you help an evil ghost move on; and they can get rid of witches by tricking them into melting themselves. I don’t spend a lot of time with rabbis these days, but if there is an invasion of witches, they are the first people I will call.

Eventually, though, I came across The Little Prince, which is what I mainly want to talk about. I’m not sure if I really learned much from this as a child. I think part of what I want to say is that you’re never too old to read children’s books, and you’re never too old to learn from them. So while I may not have read it as a child, I definitely took in its messages. And I’m not 100% whether I learned everything from the book, or whether it resonated with me because it’s how I already felt.

The main thing that I want to say about The Little Prince is that it taught me that, in fact, not rabbis, but possibly a fox, and children were the smartest people in the world.

There are three quotes that I want to talk a little about. The first one is probably the one that people know the best, and that’s: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” I think it’s a message that a lot of people have taken away from that book: you need to look beyond things. And I think children are really good at doing that. They have wild imaginations; they can see what’s not there.

The next quote is: “You become responsible forever for what you have tamed.” This quote is probably one that summarizes my worldview. It has explained to me why we need to take care of each other, the planet, and animals. Because anything that we have made our own, we’ve made work for us, we need to take care of. For those of you who haven’t read it: the little prince is traveling through space, and he has a rose at home that he’s trying to take care of. The fox tells him that he must take care of his rose because he has tamed it.

It’s part of why I work in animal rescue, which is probably the main focus of my life these days. I have many foster dogs and live in a zoo, but it’s worth it. I think it’s important.

Finally, I think this one sort of sums up the reason that we’re all here: “Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.”

When my niece was a baby, I used to often think and wonder if she thought I was an idiot for always asking her what animals said and what colors things were. I thought that maybe she sat there thinking, “Come on, lady. I have told you that a hundred times.” And she probably did, because she is a very smart little girl. But we keep doing it.

In all seriousness, even though that might be giving kids a little too much credit, I think it’s really important to remember what they can teach us. Children’s books are one of those things that bring us back to that. They show us, simply, the important messages that children know—whether they learn them from the books or bring them to the books. They know them, and we forget them.

I think it’s important to always go back to these books and see what we can find from them.

Which is why I was interested in being a part of this project. Because unlike our host, I did go and get that misguided children’s book tattoo. I am committed to them.

—Chava Spivak-Birndorf works as a lawyer at the Disability Rights Network, working mainly on issues related to transition-aged youth with disabilities. She foster dogs and volunteers with a dog rescue group. She is currently learning to use a sewing machine, starting with quilting.

Chava originally read this story at The Sensible Nonsense Project’s live show at the Kelly Writers House on February 6, 2013. You can find video and audio from that event here.

emm-in-sem: Everyone had a favorite book as a kid – you know,...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:15:43 -0500

emm-in-sem:

Everyone had a favorite book as a kid – you know, that tattered old thing you carried from room to room and made you parents read out loud to you over and over again, the one that you quoted until you were, um, a little too old to be doing so. We know our lives were shaped in part by the literature we loved as children, so inspired by this recent list of books every child should read, we got to thinking about what your favorite kids book back then might say about you now that you’re all grown up.

…

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

No matter what, you’re always the only one at the office at 9am on the dot. Then you annoy everyone all day with all your clever puns.

…That was a little too accurate for comfort.

Double extra awesome points for accurately predicting justasklionheart’s life:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Your wanderlust is pretty serious this time of year.

- Emily Temple, Flavorwire, ”What Your Favorite Kids Book Then Says About You Now”

The Pickle Car I was thinking about how to preface this story,...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:04:00 -0500

The Pickle Car

I was thinking about how to preface this story, and luckily my dad came through for me. I’m going to be talking about a story that my mother told me when I was a child, called “The Pickle Car.” My dad said, “Cool! The first rule of the Pickle Car Club is not to talk about Pickle Cars,” smiley face.

I think the best thing about technology is the way our parents kind of bumble with it. Sorry, Dad.

When I was very young, my mother told me the story of The Pickle Car. Now, don’t feel weird if you haven’t heard of the Pickle Car; it’d be bizarre if you had, considering my mother completely made it up.

But I assure you: the Pickle Car was the real deal. If I was bored, or upset, or just tired, my mother—who is English—would begin the familiar tale.

I’ll condense the salient details. The Pickle Car has no driver. The Pickle Car is a sentient being, able to think and do things and talk. In my mind, I imagine the Pickle Car as a person-sized Kosher dill, but you’re more than welcome to imagine it as a gherkin, or a half-sour, or a sour, or whatever you want. It’s up to you.

The plot of my mother’s Pickle Car stories follow a familiar pattern. In the beginning, the Pickle Car was yet a car, but just a lowly, average everyday human-sized pickle. The pickle began to want more. The pickle had dreams. This pickle wanted to be a car.

In many ways, my mother had crafted—unconsciously or consciously—a very American story. The pickle had, well, whatever the pickle equivalent is of the American Dream. It wanted to be something else, something it wasn’t. The general trajectory of these stories, however, was usually more of a mix of American idealism and British realism. This combination manifested in the formula of each episode.

Most of the adventures my mother cooked up involved the pickle trying to gather the parts to become said automobile: a wheel, a gear shift, headlights, and whatever else is in a car or engine, too, I guess. The pickle had a stick shift, being European. In exchange for the required part, the pickle completed a series of quests such as going on some adventure, doing some task, whatever.

The American aspect of these stories was that the pickle always succeeded. The British aspect was that the success was short-lived.

By the end of the story, after a quick drive as the Pickle Car, the poor pickle would have inevitably gotten himself into a—pickle—and lost all the parts he had laboriously acquired.

Stephen Fry describes American humor as “a down-on-his-luck fellow hilariously achieving his dreams,” with British humor involving “the gradual dark downfall of some accomplished figure.” The stories of my mother were both.

By my mother’s own admission, these stories were about fairly boring stuff. Usually the plot involved the Pickle Car doing little things like testing headlights after going on an adventure of some kind. Sure, car maintenance is a valuable skill, but not exactly a thrilling one, except for the fact that, by all accounts, I found it thrilling. Such was my love for the Pickle Car.

As a kid, I loved pickled things. And when I say “love,” I am not mincing words. The more pickled something was, the better. I have the distinct memory of chowing down on some sweet butter pickle slices and vanilla ice cream at a young age, causing my father’s friend who was at the table with me to jokingly ask me if I was pregnant. I did not get the joke, thus prompting a combination of my youth, Jewish neuroses, and naïveté to quickly kick in, sending me into a quiet, suppressed panic that I could, in fact, be pregnant.

Spoiler alert: I was not.

But here’s the kicker to the whole Pickle Car storyline: After enough time had passed that my mother had run out of vehicle maintenance storylines, the pickle started to solve crimes. He became Sherlock Holmes, but a pickle. I remember episodes of the Pickle Car actually beating criminals up. The details were never really elaborated on. After all, how does a Pickle Car beat up someone? Do they run them over? Do they have little pickle arms to punch them with?

Such incongruities are the charming byproduct of oral storytelling. In J. D. Salinger’s The Laughing Man, there is a character called The Chief, who tells stories to a schoolbus full of kids where the character of said stories frequently traverses “the Paris-Chinese border.” When not hindered by a particularly skeptical audience, or one able to retrace written sentences, wonderfully bizarre idiosyncrasies pop up: the stories we wish we could tell if we were completely unhindered. It is nearly impossible to edit a made-up, oral story, so you work with what you’ve said.

My youthful self was happy to overlook the major Pickle Car plotholes, such as the fact that a pickle could talk and move before it was a car. (Obviously, once it’s a car, it can move.) But the most glaring plothole was that the people the Pickle Car met never just ate him. I know I certainly would have at least tried.

Before my mother began each story, she sang the Pickle Car theme song, which was essentially the Batman tune with the “na-na-na-na-na-na” replaced by “pickle pickle pickle,” and “Batman” replaced by “Pickle Car.” It was pretty cool.

The Pickle Car stories were unique in that I engendered their creation. It was not a book that I could read, and now might re-read with an older perspective. I can’t synthesize it through literary theory, even if it lent itself to such analysis. Pickle Car is part of my childhood, and it will stay there.

My mom and I have forgotten mostly all of it, all of the details and tidbits. I’ve aged, and just as I have grown farther and farther from the child I was and will never be again, so, too, does little Pickle Car fade away with my younger self.

The Pickle Car did teach me some things, though, such as, A) do not commit crime; B) you can be a car if you want to be (I don’t know if that’s true); C) Pickle Car rules (definitely true); but most importantly D) sometimes the stories not written in books are the ones you cherish the most.

My family is full of storytellers, and I rarely heard the same story twice. My father, equally, if not more than my mother, would tell intricate tales off the top of his head of haunted houses and crimefighters that would span many nights, some taking weeks to reach their conclusion. His de facto character was The Thinking Machine, another crime solver whose superpower was—and I’m not kidding—his brain. Sometimes my sister and I requested a familiar character (example: Scooby Doo) in a new, never-before-heard plot. My parents would oblige. The result was Scooby-Doo and the Case of the Missing…Barbie Doll, or whatever, complete with Scooby-Doo voice effects.

In truth, I really don’t know how much the Pickle Car taught me about who I am and the life I live today. I don’t even know how to drive. There’s nothing particularly deep in the content of the Pickle Car stories that cemented my personality, nothing as pointedly influential as The Phantom Tollbooth or Paddington Bear. But the very fact that Pickle Car existed, that my mom created stories from nothing just because I liked pickles—well, that gave me a pure joy, and it teaches me volumes.

If ritual is the strongest form of memory, then the ritual of telling oral stories is memory squared. It is the memory of sharing memories and narrative and histories, and it is a warm memory, at that.

—Isaac Kaplan is a college sophomore from New York majoring in Art History. When not writing about the stories of his childhood, he’s usually writing about contemporary art for the Penn publication Filament or anywhere that will put his prose in print. Besides art, he also enjoys hockey and socks, probably the most salient facts about him.

Isaac originally read this story at The Sensible Nonsense Project’s live show at the Kelly Writers House on February 6, 2013. You can find video and audio from that event here.

Image by Lisa Orgler of The Lunch Box Project; used with permission.