Allow Me to Introduce Howard Pyle (and a new blog category while I’m at it)

Back in my early/ier years, I read me a fair bit of Howard Pyle. I liked him. He knew how to make his historical fiction resonate (with me), and when he spun fantasy, he was always able to create scenes that absolutely demanded N.C. Wyeth illustrations. He did his own illustrations, and I liked them, but Wyeth would have been better. Which is no knock to Pyle. He was (after all) directly responsible for training Wyeth’s narrative and illustrative sensibilities, so it makes sense that the boyhood me always wanted to see Wyeth incarnate Pyle’s words.

But I’ve wandered. Back to the point. I liked Pyle. He was a friend. So when Random House asked me to write the introduction for Pyle’s collection of short fantasies (Twilight Land) which they are bringing back into print, I was excited. So excited that I said “sure” and actually wrote the introduction. The book will be out in 2010, and copies will be added to the libraries of my offspring.

Which brings me to my final point for the evening. My eldest (freshly 7) is now rooting through my old shelves. When he finished Dandelion Fire (his first “fat” book), my wife and I took him out to our local (and fabulous) French restaurant (West of Paris) as a sort of congratulations. (He insisted on eating “juicy and chewy” snails for the first time.) Anyhow, when we got home, he wanted to start another book. So he went upstairs to a bookshelf where some of my old boyhood treasures are stored, and I immediately began playing librarian. He picked out a novel about Davy Crockett (a gift to him from his grandmother–not one of mine), finished today, and went back to the shelf. I went with him. He picked out a pirate story, and this time it was one of mine–a first edition from the fifties (with pristine jacket). Some might be irritated with me, but I didn’t hesitate to hand it to him. Books are (after all) for reading, and the librarians of the Duke Humphrey’s collection in Oxford did let me fiddle around (unchaperoned) with a first printing of Spenser’s Faerie Queene. (I had to research you, um, see–this important children’s series I was writing.) How much of a hypocrite would I be if I stressed about the value of a book published when my dad was a kid?

Reel it in Wilson, find the point. Okay. So my son is (excitedly) reading the book, and I am (excitedly) realizing that I have a ton of great recommends for him. And not just for now, at this age, but through the next decade plus. And not just for him, but for my other still-less-readerly children who currently prefer listening to reading. Basically, it’s going to be fun. I get to read all my old books again, but through a completely new set of eyes and the worldview of a 7 year-old. I have a lot of book reviewing to do. And now, finally, we arrive at the point.  .  .

I am going to create a new blog category called Books From My Past. Expect plugs and reviews. Expect things from my distant boyhood, but know that anything could happen.