Gallimaufry Friday

Gallimaufry Friday is a new feature at the Cath in the Hat. As word buffs probably know, gallimaufry, which originally referred to stew, means a motley assortment, and that's what I'll be offering at the end of each week, a collection of odds and ends that made me purr.

What the Dickens! Tuesday, February 7th, was Charles Dickens's 200th birthday. You can join in the celebration by visiting the British Museum's site for original source material concerning one of the greatest novelists of all time. If you feel up to the challenge, you can also take this quiz from the Guardian, but beware, to do well you really have to know your Dickens.

For Dr. Seuss fans (of which I am one), take a gander at this collection of some of his advertisements. I'm especially partial to his rendering of hell. Doesn't Satan look a bit like the Grinch?

Garth William's illustrations for Charlotte's Web can't be separated from the text, at least not for me. Here are some of his original sketches. The image of Fern cradling Wilbur has been my favorite ever since I first read that amazing book as a child. Naturally I wanted my own little pig. I think it's the reason I so love pugs. They remind me of piglets.

Janice Voss, a space shuttle astronaut and scientist, died on Monday at the age of 55. Among her many accomplishments, she was one of only six women to venture into space five times. As I was reading her obit in the New York Times, I learned that what inspired her career in science was Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, which she first read as a six-year-old. What a fitting tribute to this remarkable book, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.




I'll end with a bit of fun. My sister was visiting last weekend and she turned me on to "What's Your Blues Name?" Mine is Sticky Fingers Thomkins. What's yours?

Frances is Fifty!

Frances the badger made her first appearance 50 years ago in Bedtime for Frances. Russell Hoban, the book's author, got the idea from the daughter of his next-door neighbors, who was always finding inventive ways to put off bedtime. But it was illustrator Garth Williams who determined that Frances would be portrayed as a badger. Today it's hard to imagine her being anything else! Frances went on to star in five more stories (all illustrated by the late Lillian Hoban, the author's then wife): A Bargain for Frances, A Baby Sister for Frances, Best Friends for Frances, A Birthday for Frances, and Bread and Jam for Frances.


To honor this publishing milestone, HarperCollins is issuing Frances 50th Anniversary Collection, a boxed set of paperback I Can Read! editions of Bread and Jam for Frances, Best Friends for Frances, and A Bargain for Frances. Read more about this Anniversary Collection at Publishers Weekly.   

My favorite of the Frances books has always been Bread and Jam for Frances. A picky eater, Frances prefers bread and jam above all other foods. This changes when her mother starts giving her bread and jam for every meal. Frances soon tires of her sticky treat and has a meltdown when she's not served spaghetti and meatballs with the rest of her family. 


I was not a picky eater as a child (in fact anything but), however I did have a similar experience as a teenager when for some reason I became fixated on hamburgers. I demanded them so often that my grandmother bought five pounds of ground meat from the butcher and fed me hamburgers for dinner every night. Guess what? it worked. By the time the meat was gone so was my desire for hamburgers. Like Frances, I learned that you can have too much of a good thing.