{"id":326281,"date":"2025-12-01T15:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T15:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/magic-in-the-mist-the-childrens-bookroom\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T15:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T15:36:08","slug":"magic-in-the-mist-the-childrens-bookroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=326281","title":{"rendered":"Magic in the Mist \u2013 The Children’s Bookroom"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s been a tiring late summer and beginning of autumn on many fronts and for many people, to put it periphrastically and platitudinously. Or to adopt my friend\u2019s blunter framing: \u201cSeptember is supposed to be for new beginnings but everyone is burnt out.\u201d As a Jew, facing Rosh Hashanah, that resonates, and as an autumn-and-Halloween-loving soul longing for October, expecting September to be the build up to that best of months, I still agree. Something should be new<\/em> and fresh about the year as we go back to school and back to cooler temperatures and back to routines\u2026 <\/p>\n

Back. It\u2019s funny, isn\u2019t it, how going back<\/em> and expecting something new<\/em> come together in September? And every near year, especially at Rosh Hashanah but I think also in the Gregorian calendar (let\u2019s think of the Janus in January), we look back and forward at the same time. Think of these sayings: \u201cEverything old is new again,\u201d \u201cPlus \u00e7a change, plus c\u2019est la m\u00eame chose.\u201d Which is all a long way around what I want to say which is: <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s read an old book. One of the things I love about Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen over at Looking at Picture Books<\/a><\/em> is that they look at the old books and analyze just what\u2019s at work in them. (Though I often have a few extra notes, because\u2013 I\u2019m me. You can have two of the best creators in contemporary kids\u2019 lit diving deeply into a picture book and I\u2019m still going to think they haven\u2019t gone far enough.) <\/p>\n

The platitudinous, tame idea of a retrospective, of looking back as well as forward at a new year, is that it\u2019s good to understand our past, our foundations, for where we will go in future. In short: what can we learn so we can do<\/em> something with it? This may, possibly, be a decent approach if the goal is to understand something about, say, why we stopped exercising one week into January. It\u2019s not useful in trying to understand book creation, the allure of art, or the creative heart of humanity\u2013 and maybe part of why we\u2019re all so burned out. (Spoiler alert: we\u2019ve lost track of the beauty of humanity in the world, as well as humanity\u2019s craving for beauty.) <\/p>\n

Which brings us to Magic in the Mist<\/em> by Margaret Mary Kimmel and Trina Schart Hyman.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The first thing to understand about this book is that it tells you pretty much nothing. The book has barely more plot than Freight Train<\/em>, one of the most perfect stories out there. I\u2019m not sure of how to define the time frame, plot, or characters. The setting is pretty clear\u2013 it\u2019s a leaky hut beside a bog in Wales, usually in the mist. Generally speaking, when someone says, \u201c[Book X] would never be published today!\u201d I think, \u201cHow on earth do you know that?<\/em>\u201d I never agree with them. But with this one, I\u2019m fairly confident it wouldn\u2019t find a publisher; it\u2019s very quiet, very grey, and relies entirely on atmosphere, evoked by Trina Schart Hyman entirely through dark lines without colour. Picture books today by and large are lean in text, rich in colour, personality, and activity. Most want a plot and characters. This, by contrast, is rich in lines of text and art, and lean in pretty much everything else. <\/p>\n

It is also utterly and completely perfect. (Also: out of print. Published in 1975 by Margaret K. McElderry. You\u2019re on your own for this one\u2013 I recommend biblio.com or alibris.com, or your local library.)<\/p>\n

Thomas, who lives in this leaky house beside the bog, is studying to be a wizard. Why? And does he have a teacher? Family? What is his motivation and where did he come from? Idle questions, all! Also, he doesn\u2019t seem to be very good at it. His magic is weak and he can\u2019t even light a fire. But a toad does hang out with Thomas, and Thomas calls him Jeremy. Jeremy is good company, and hums, and once his humming seems to do something a bit magic, and Thomas goes out and finds a tiny dragon and brings the dragon home with him and feeds him. The dragon helps him light a fire in the grate, then leaves quietly in the night. And Jeremy and Thomas hum together sometimes after that. Sometimes his spells work. That\u2019s about it. <\/p>\n

I refuse to make my summary prettier or tidier; it would be to prettify and tidy up a book which has very, very little to do with that line of story. Instead, every single element of the power of this book comes from evocation: the text evokes images which are echoed and amplified but not fully realized by Trina Schart Hyman\u2019s lovely lines; the two echo together in the mind\u2019s eye until something forms there; the something in the mind stirs up thoughts of \u201cdidn\u2019t I once hear or read\u2013\u201d and maybe a small melody, like a toad humming, unfolds in some of the lesser used bends in your memory. <\/p>\n

Why look back? Because a book like this has value in itself<\/em>. If you try to learn a lesson from it to build on it in your own book\u2013 you\u2019re going to fail. It\u2019s the sort of thing you read and re-read and it will, absolutely, do you good, but it\u2019s not a magic pill and it\u2019s not a lesson-book. It simply enhances you to read it and think about it. And it\u2019s beautiful, pleasant in its deeply unsettling oddity. <\/p>\n

What you can learn is that we\u2019ve always made beautiful things, and sometimes the current drive to make things fit into a diagram of some kind doesn\u2019t result in beautiful things. But we, we poor humans, need beauty to survive with any kind of humanity. Beauty isn\u2019t in resolution or usefulness or happy endings; it\u2019s in itself, and in a book well-made of its own unsettlingly odd kind. <\/p>\n

So, this September, this new year\u2013 as you look back and plan forward\u2013 think about being a bit useless sometimes, and go to a museum, read a beautiful book, throw your smartphone in the trash and, after a moment\u2019s reflection, follow up with your other smart devices, and utterly neglect your email. Go to the ballet to see fellow humans give their bodies to beautiful lines onstage, and go to the opera to hear humans give their voices to the most soaring heights. At the symphony, you\u2019ll hear the clear lines of melody coming together in harmony. (Make sure you\u2019ve already<\/em> trashed your phone, because that way no phones will go off during the performances.) <\/p>\n

And remember that once upon a time, two women made a small book that was simply unfolding a glimpse of a boy striving to be a wizard, though he wasn\u2019t very good at it, but one day when his toad hummed, they met a baby dragon for a little bit. And that glimpse\u2013 was it. In lines of text and art, none perfectly clear, but inscrutably perfect.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a tiring late summer and beginning of autumn on many fronts and for many people, to put it periphrastically and platitudinously. Or to adopt my friend\u2019s blunter framing: \u201cSeptember is supposed to be for new beginnings but everyone is burnt out.\u201d As a Jew, facing Rosh Hashanah, that resonates, and as an autumn-and-Halloween-loving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":326282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[103601,352,840,9479],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-326281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bookroom","tag-childrens","tag-magic","tag-mist"],"yoast_head":"\nMagic in the Mist \u2013 The Children's Bookroom - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=326281\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Magic in the Mist \u2013 The Children's Bookroom - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s been a tiring late summer and beginning of autumn on many fronts and for many people, to put it periphrastically and platitudinously. 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