Martha Seif Simpson

 

Happy October!      

 

Welcome to issue #43 of The Simpsonian Muse. I am your scribe, Martha Seif Simpson, Author and Children's Librarian. As the header says, this monthly newsletter will feature:

• News – Mine as well as other interesting tidbits
• Views – A few photos from my world travels
• Stuff to Amuse – A mish-mash of activities, crafts, recipes, videos or whatever I am excited about sharing

If you missed the previous newsletters, you can click the button on the left sidebar on my website to catch up or click here. *NOTE: If you are a subscriber to my newsletter and some of the photos don't show up, please go to my website to read it. The server is sometimes finicky.

Thanks for joining me on this adventure. I hope you will find something to inform and entertain you.

 

~ NEWS ~

 

The Association of Jewish Libraries is planning to celebrate Sydney Taylor's 120th birthday, which will be on October 30th. I made a word search puzzle of characters and terms that are mentioned in the All-of-a-Kind Family books. You can find it here: All-of-a-Kind Family Word Search Puzzle.   

 

Earlier this year, I mentioned that I was serving on another book award committee, the Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children's Literature. The committee met this month to discuss the award ceremony and related programs, which will be held at The Dodd Center for Human Rights on the University of Connecticut campus in Storrs, Connecticut, on November 12 and 13.

 

But wait, there's more!

 

Before John and I moved, I donated 130 books to the Congregation Mishkan Israel Library, where I volunteer. While we were busy with moving and away on vacation, the other volunteers catalogued the books and put bookplates inside noting me as the donor – that was a nice surprise! Thanks to all the dedicated volunteers who worked on that project. The next step is to get people to check them out!

 

BOOK SHARE

 

Check this site to find the annotated list of the 2024 Malka Penn winner and honor books. The site also has a link to the past winners.

 

CALENDAR TRIVIA

 

This year, I'm featuring the birth dates of authors and illustrators who create(d) books for kids and teens. Here are some people and a sample of their books.

• October 4 –  Karen Cushman (The Midwife's Apprentice)  
• October 4 –  Robert Lawson (Rabbit Hill) 
• October 4 –  Donald Sobol (Encyclopedia Brown)
• October 5 –  Louise Fitzhugh (Harriet the Spy)
• October 5 – David Shannon  (No, David!)  
• October 8 –  R. L. Stein (Goosebumps series)
• October 9  –  Johanna Hurwitz (A Llama in the Family)
• October 10 – James Marshall (George and Martha)
• October 11 – Russell Freedman (Lincoln: A Photobiography) 
• October 14 – Lois Lensky (Strawberry Girl)
• October 18 – Shel Silverstein (A Light in the Attic)
• October 19 – Ed Emberly (Drummer Hoff) 
• October 19 – Dan Gutman (My Weird School series)
• October 19 – Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass)
• October 20 – Crockett Johnson (Harold and the Purple Crayon)
• October 21 – Ursula K. Le Guin (A Wizard of Earthsea)
• October 23 – Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
• October 26 – Steven Kellogg (Pinkerton)
• October 26 – Eric Rohmann (My Friend Rabbit)
• October 31 – Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia)

Do you know…

• Who won both the Margaret A. Edwards Award and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award?
• Which Newbery winner has a nonfiction award named after him?
• Who won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America?
• Which 2-time Newbery winner was a US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature?
• Who was the first woman to win the Hugo and Nebula Awards for the same book?
• Which author wrote the Johnny Cash hit, "A Boy Named Sue"?
• Which illustrator won a Caldecott Medal and a Caldecott Honor for books written by his wife?
• Which 4 authors won the Newbery Medal? Which two also won a Newbery Honor?
• Which 3 illustrators won the Caldecott Medal? Which two also won a Caldecott Honor?

 

 ~ VIEWS ~

 

I'm going to wrap up our visit to Prague this month. John and I went to all these Old Town locations on our own, before the start of the Gate One tour.

 

Many people consider the Klementinum Library, with its Baroque architecture, to be one of the most beautiful libraries in the world. The entrance to the library was on Krizovnicke Square, just across from the entrance to the Charles Bridge.

Once we passed through the archway, we came to a plaza that led to both the Prague Public Library and the Klementinum Library.

As it turned out, the tour we took didn't actually go into the ancient library. Instead, we walked up a narrow spiral stairway to get to a small hall, where a guide told us about the library and showed as a few old astrological artifacts.

Then we were allowed to look through a window which showed us the dimly-lit library. What a disappointment!

But she did tell us about an online site that has a virtual tour of the library and other parts of the building: Pano 3D Klementinum Library Virtual Tour.

The tour continued up several flights of stairs to the tower, but with my bad knees, I was not about to climb any further up that spiral staircase. So we made our way down and turned into an alley that had several interesting shops and cafes.

 

This store had a lot of nesting dolls, decorated eggs, and other fancy items.

There were so many types of candy here, I couldn't make up my mind about what to buy!

We made our way back to Krizovnicke Square and wandered down another interesting-looking street.

We found ourselves in an area where I noticed a lot of people looking up. So I looked up, too, and discovered we were standing in front of the Astronomical Clock. This was another famous site we had wanted to see. The clock is well documented online, so I listed a few sites for you to check in the Stuff to Amuse section.

Visitors can take a tour of the inside of the clock tower, which again involved climbing up too many stairs. But here is a postcard with a view of Old Town Square, taken from a window inside the tower.

I took some photos of the statue (at the lower center of the postcard) and buildings in the Square. In this one, you can see the back of the Astronomical Clock Tower, with the window from where the postcard photo was probably taken.

The statue looked much bigger close up!

 

We left Old Town Square and continued past more shops and colorful buildings…

…until we came to another alley full of interesting stores, cafes, and museums.

Prague has lots of toy shops, and we stopped to look into several of them. This one was my favorite.

So many puppets!

Here are magnets, keychains, and plates picturing the Astronomical Clock.

As it so happened, the store was right next to my favorite café.

I ordered a cup of the richest hot chocolate I've ever tasted.

The pastries were so amazing, I had a hard time trying to choose! Each one had a name and a description of what it was made of. I finally settled on the chocolate ball with the red spots (in the center of the photo.)

It had dark chocolate on the outside, an inner layer of pistachio cream, and a red raspberry center. I couldn't figure out why this delicious confection was called 'Virus" until I realized that the red spikes on the outside made it look like pictures of the Coronavirus! Anyway, it tasted great.

There were several museums in the area, but we only had time to visit one, the Lumia Light Art Museum.

The museum had lots of interactive light illusions.

But my favorite one was a camera that took my picture and generated a steampunk photo of me.

I really like the way it came out. I wish my hair looked that good in real life!

A few blocks away, was a gigantic toy store called Hamleys.

In addition to two floors packed with all kinds of playthings, including water toys and games that kids could try out before they buy, there was a winding slide in the form of a snake, a Venetian carousel, 10-foot tall statues of superheroes, a mirror maze, an area with video games and other amusements, a café and candy store, a laser game room, and a butterfly garden. Some things were free while others required tickets for admission. The whole store was like an indoor amusement park.

Sliders started on the second floor and exited through the snake's mouth. And since this was Prague, there was a Golem, of course.

Apparently, since January 2024, the store is no longer affiliated with Hamleys, which is a British company. It's now called The Playground.

John and I visited more toy and craft stores, restaurants, and an enormous 5-story mall near our hotel called the Palladium.

Our Gate One tour was ready to take us to other places. Check back next month to read about our next stop.

 

~ STUFF TO AMUSE ~

 

As promised, here are some links to learn more about the Astronomical Clock.

The Astronomical Clock by Prague Go Like a Local.

 

Dana at Prague Behind the Scenes tells you How to Read the Astronomical Clock.

 

This YouTube video shows views of Old Town from inside the tower of the Astronomical clock. I don't know what the people are saying, but it's fun to see the views from up there.

 

Here's the website for the Lumia Light Art Museum.

 

Livingprague.com has updated information about The Playground. From there, you can also find links to information about the Charles Bridge, Old Town Square, the Astronomical Clock, and other places we didn't have time to see.

 

The Palladium is so huge that most of the videos I found about it were walking tours of 20 minutes or more. Here's a short one by Trips for You that gives you an idea of what it looks like. John and I actually ate at the sushi restaurant shown about 25 seconds into the video.  

 

I hope you enjoyed my whirlwind tour of some of Prague's highlights. I'd love to go back again to see New Town and other sites.

That'll do it for this month.

Until next time, remember to enthuse your muse!

 

~ Martha