📍provisions from nowhere: #22
mischief in dreamland and a potentially genius gift idea
I took the whole dang week off work to really submerge in the Thanksgiving flavor, and I’m here to report that I just ate an XXL slice of pecan pie with a splash of half-and-half poured right on top (recommend). I hope this Sunday finds you in a similar sensibility.
Joy blaaast (🖋 edition)
Nova had the holiday week off school, and I took her to see Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak at the Denver Art Museum. She loved the mid-exhibit reading room especially, where we stopped mid-rumpus to read In the Night Kitchen, the perfectly strange dream-sequence story that has always been my favorite Sendak title.
Published in 1970, it was banned in subsequent years1 due to Mickey, our spunky main dude, appearing naked in a few scenes (as is customary in any good dream sequence …!). I love it for the way it evokes a milky-way’d version of the Brooklyn skyline, the backdrop of Sendak’s childhood. It feels at once other-worldly and familiar.
Sendak’s work is full of humor, mischief, beauty, and dream-verging-on-nightmare. His characters often seem to be “trying to escape reality and enter the dreamland of the night,” as an NPR obituary for him said. "Children surviving childhood,” he once told an interviewer, “is my obsessive theme.”
A good survival tonic for adulthood, I think, too.
Reads, for our tiny innocent hearts
Inspired by Maurice, this edition’s reads are a handful of my favorite illustrated children’s books. My full list is obvi much longer, but I’m sharing a few lesser-known gems in hopes that they conjure a desire to reach back into your own memory for the strange book that imprinted its magic on you early. I also think an illustrated book (bonus points for vintage) would make a dreamy little holiday gift for anyone, no matter what age, if you’re in the market.
The Bed Book by Sylvia Plath (1976): For the Plath devotee / anyone who wishes they could adventure whilst reclining in bed
Grandfather Twilight by Barbara Berger (1984): For the moon-obsessed (spoiler: this book is the perfect moon origin story)
Harvey Potter’s Balloon Farm by Jerdine Nolen (1994): For the person who needs a nudge of inspiration to finally start their weird little side hustle
My Teacher’s Secret Life by Stephen Krensky (1996): For those of us who know for sure that teachers live at school
In the Half Room by Carson Ellis (2020): For appreciators of moonlight coming in through the window
Please (begging you) to reply or drop me a comment with your favorite illustrated children’s book(s), so I can immediately read them to Nova and to Bo and think of you.
A poem share PSA
No poem this week, just a reminder to read your favorite book under the covers as soon as possible.
Stay warm, read books, eat pie!
❄️, Becca
pie
The Doll People! Obsessed with this series as a child; its illustration style is still a dominant aesthetic in my imagination.