"They all let go after a while"

Wall Arch in Arches National Park, Utah collapsed "sometime late Monday or early Tuesday." Paul Henderson, the park's chief of interpretation, said "They all let go after a while."

Long ago I started to learn about this idea in a book titled Wiki of Walpi (©1954). I checked, and it's unavailable from Amazon.com, but you can find copies of it from antique book dealers, like the one I linked. I still have my copy (pictured) from when I read it as a little girl. Its pages are fragile from age, but I started taking care of it rather early in life, so there's no major damage; all the pages are there, including the breathtaking illustrations. I don't know what attracted me to this book when I was little. I remember reading it when its words and long sentences were still challenging. I must have been six or so. It doesn't have snappy Dr. Seuss rhythms. It has a lot of words on each page, and many pages without pictures. In all, today's child wouldn't look twice at it, but I remember loving it and identifying with young Davo. It was my first experience with these marvelous expressions, "she shook her head East and West" and "he shook his head North and South." I distinctly remember not understanding the meaning of that at all, then puzzling it out when I was older.

It was the Utah arches story that made me remember the book and pull it from my shelf of most treasured, fantastical, beloved books. In the book, Davo is a pale-skinned boy, "bahana," among dark-skinned people, Navajo. Therefore, when he was born, his mother shook "her head East and West." He suffers because he can't play under the hot, Arizona sun (at Walpi) like the other children. He learns to live in the cooler times of the day, "the shadows," when the sun can't burn his skin. On a trip with his father, he meets a medicine man who offers him a salve for his skin that allows him to play in the sun. At first the old man won't tell him where to find the leaves he uses to make the medicine, but changes his mind so that the knowledge won't die with him.

"Where is this place?" Davo asked.
"There where the earth is a rainbow of color. There where the sky is a bridge of stone."
"Where the earth is a rainbow of color...and where the sky is a bridge of stone," Davo repeated the words in such a way that he would remember them for all time.

When Davo runs out of the medicine, he returns to the village for more, but the man has died. Davo refuses, though, to live again in shadows and resolves to find the magic leaves himself in the place the old man told him about. While traveling with his father's flocks of sheep, he eventually does.

He looked up to the sky. There a sight made his heart leap. High above him a bridge of stone arched toward the sky! Across the arch the setting sun splashed crimson, gold and purple!

"The leaves! I found them under an arch of stone streaked with sunset colors," Davo cried breathlessly. "Father, it was like a rainbow bridge."

The story ends with Davo as a hero, because not only do the magic leaves make a good salve for his skin, he mixes them in a tea to cure a sickness that threatens the Navajo. After Davo saves the pueblo, "all of the people were shaking their heads North and South."

Of course, the collapse of Wall Arch might have suggested this book to me, but it was Paul Henderson's words, "They all let go after a while," that really made me think of Wiki of Walpi, especially the old medicine man, who died. Yes, people actually died in children's books way back when, not often, but it happened. Like I said, I read this book when I was just a tot, and I imagine it was one of my first images of death. I'm glad, too. There isn't any hullabaloo about death. Davo only discovers the old man is gone because "where Masi's hogan had stood, there was nothing but a mound of earth--a mound of earth with a few timbers on top." The people tell Davo, "He has gone to mix his magic medicine in the Land Beyond the Sunset."

If someone could arrange that my death is observed that way, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Prince Bertram the Bad

I love children's books and own way too many. They are currently taking up most of the closet space below the stairs, but a few of the most cherished sit in my studio where I can fawn over them. One of these is Prince Bertram the Bad by Arnold Lobel. Its copyright is 1963 and my older sister's name and an old address and phone number are written on the inside cover, so I assume it was hers first. The back cover was lost at some point, but I repaired it with a stiff piece of cardboard, which was 'decorated' and signed by the child who 'loved' the book after I did. The book, however, remains in my hands, and I treaure it.

Most people are familiar with Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, also copyright 1963, but fewer have heard of Prince Bertram, although the stories and illustrations share many similarities. Both these authors are also the illustrators, and the styles are remarkably similar, right down to their muted color palettes. Both books are about naughty, little boys who experience a magical transformation and return to their families reformed and happy. In Max's case, he dreams that he sails to an island of scary creatures. In Bertram's case, a witch turns him into a dragon.

Sendak's story is really an illustrated poem, and his language is rhythmic, simple and forceful. I can attest, from vast experience, that it is a delight to read out loud. Lines like this never sound dull to the ear, and the tongue rolls over them with pleasure no matter how many times one recites it in a night or that month or that year, "And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws...." Pure joy.

Lobel's story reads more like a fireside tale with clever details and wonderful adventures. Bertram's naughty antics are really very cute. For example, "The royal cook would not speak to Prince Bertram. He had thrown four spiders into the chicken noodle soup." After being turned into a dragon, he's miserable in the castle so Bertram runs away, and the result is reminiscent of Max's encounter with wild beasts, "There was a big forest near the castle, where many lions and porcupines and other beasts lived. The animals growled and roared at him, and they ate all of his gingersnaps."

Sendak's book, Where the Wild Things Are, enjoys current popularity, and you can find it in bookstores, but I've never seen Lobel's book ,which is equally delightful, in a Barnes & Noble. I have a couple ideas why the difference in popularity, but I'm only guessing. Truly, Lobel's story has greater depth; Prince Bertram does a good deed, which redeems him, but Max just gets lonely and wakes up. Also, Lobel's illustrations have more variety and are as clever as hell. Prince Bertram as a dragon is adorable. Anyway, if you have young children and don't own Where the Wild Things Are, you're a schmuck, but if you want to really be cool, you'll buy Prince Bertram the Bad and read that out loud, as well. Your kids will remember and love you forever.

[I started this blog, thinking I was going to toss up a Winnie the Pooh quote today--Pooh is one of my dearest characters--and look where I ended up!]