Barbara Graham Coming to Kepler's

Join us at Kepler's this Sunday, May 3, 2009 at 2:00 p.m. for a reading and discussion with not one, but three wonderful authors: Barbara Graham, editor of "Eye of My Heart," Susan Griffin and Bharati Mukherjee.

Here is in Barbara's words how the book was born:

Until my granddaughter, Isabelle Eva, was born in 2006, I had no clue just how complicated—and full of wonder—the role of grandmother could be. But when I turned to the place I always turn to for wisdom—books—I couldn’t find anything literary that addressed my alternately joyful, perplexing, painful, amusing—but always profound—new status. And so Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother was born.

For me, stepping into the shoes of a grandmother was sobering and thrilling, scary yet comforting. Although the coming of Isabelle Eva secured the continuity of some fragment of the ancestral essence I carry from my own Russian-Polish-German-Jewish stew—sparking in me an unexpected but palpable sense of relief—I was also acutely aware that her arrival moved me up a notch in the life cycle.

We asked Barbara to share her favorite children's titles, the ones she must share with her granddaughter, Isabelle Eva, the eye of her heart and the inspiration for the book. Barbara wrote us back:

I'm happy to provide a list of children's books. Books, of course, are at the very top of my list of things to share with my granddaughter, Isabelle Eva. I have been buying her books since before her arrival on the planet. I love reading to her. And she, at 2 1/2 is especially eager to "read" to me. When I last saw her in January--she lives with her parents in Italy--she pretty much had "Hop On Pop" by Dr. Seuss down cold.

Other favorites of Isabelle's:

"How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World" by Marjorie Priceman. This is especially apt since she just moved to Italy from Paris and has traveled to more countries in Europe than I have. Her French is quite good, her Italian is coming along nicely--and her English is superb.

"Madeleine" by Ludwig Bemelmans. Perfect for all little girls, as it was for me. For Isabelle, it works in both English and French. And A.A. Milne's classic "When We Were Very Young" is ideal for toddlers.




One book I've just discovered that I can't wait to read to Isabelle is the 2006 Caldecott winner, "The Hello Goodbye Window"--about a little girl and her grandparents--by Norton Juster, with illustrations by Chris Raschka.

Other classics I love that I'm stockpiling for a later date are "Bread and Jam for Frances" by Rusell and Lillian Hoban; "Stuart Little" and, it goes without saying, but I'm saying, "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White.

Barbara Graham is an essayist, author, playwright, and editor. Her essays and articles have appeared in many magazines—including O, the Oprah Magazine, where she has been a contributing writer, Glamour, National Geographic Traveler, Redbook, Tricycle, Time, Vogue, and Utne Reader—and have been collected in many anthologies.

Molly McCall: One Baby, One Bookcase, and a Whole Lot of Books

My daughter is six months old. She tugs at her toes, slurps on her toys, and, occasionally, positions herself in such a way that she suddenly and majestically flips from her tummy to her back. She’s rarely patient enough to sit through the reading of a book. But I’m ready nonetheless.

Over the years, I’ve acquired children’s picture books that amuse or inspire me. None were purchased with any thought of a child of my own. I just loved them. Books like Maira Kalman’s sly and exuberant “Ooh-la-la Max in Love,” Istvan Banyai’s wordless “Zoom,” William Steig’s squiggly and true “Grownups Get to Do All the Driving,” or the pitch-perfect “Owen” by Kevin Henkes have long nestled alongside my other books. They are well written, beautifully illustrated, full-hearted, and funny. Something in each of them got me.

Once I found out I was pregnant, however, everything changed. This was a collection -- and it was missing so many of the books I loved as a child: “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish,” “Make Way for Ducklings,” “Pat the Bunny.”

These books formed the foundation of my love of reading. Returning to them in my burgeoning state, I felt that same flush of pleasure over the familiar curve of the images, the playful slap of the words. Soon, I found myself pawing through new and used bookshops, happily rediscovering long forgotten friends like “Babies” by Gyo Fujikawa and “Katy and the Big Snow” by Virginia Lee Burton. My shelf of children’s books began to grow as fast as my tummy.

In the meantime, friends and family, many of them ex-booksellers, pitched in. Korje, a buyer at Books Inc. (and a former Keplerite), gave me a huge, luscious stack of children’s books. Andrea (also a Kepler’s alum) turned me on to the delightful, smudgy stories of a little French doggie named Lisa.

In a magnificent surprise move, members of the Kepler’s fiction book group put together a basket of children’s books for me. Many of them picked books they loved as kids or volumes they encountered and adored as adults. Through them, I met such new titles as "Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale" and “Little Pea.” Children’s authors Kevin and SuAnn Kiser gave me a copy of one of their own books, “The Birthday Thing.”

So here we are, at six months and already the three-shelf case in my daughter’s room is crammed. Maybe it’s early for all this, but what better way for a book-loving mother to welcome her little reader into the world? When my daughter’s ready to look up from her toes and focus on the page, I’ll be there, book in hand.