Some Snippets from Your Favorite Poems

In my by book, Raj the Bookstore Tiger, Raj is saved from certain doldrums by the reading of a snippet of the poem by William Blake.  In a contest held at Kids Buzz and on my own mailing list, I asked readers to send me snippets from their favorite poems.  I share some of them with you here:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
--Emily Dickinson

I know why the caged bird sings:  because it know it was born to FLY!!  --Maya Angelou

Will there really be a “Morning”?
Is there such a thing as “Day”?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like Water lilies?
Has it feathers like a Bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Oh which I have never heard?

Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Man from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called “Morning” lies!
-Emily Dickinson Will There Really be a “Morning”?

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."  --Robert Frost


The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor.  --Alfred Noyes

Sent by Betty Henne:
"To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee.
and revery.
The revery alone will do
if bees are fee.   --Emily Dickinson

Sent by Tanya Dynda:
"Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"  --William Blake

Sent by Cindy Murphy:
"Whose child is this?" I asked again
As the door opened and someone came in
"Mine," said the teacher with the same tender smile
"Mine, to keep just for a little while
To teach him how to be gentle and kind
To train and direct his dear little mind
To help him live by every rule
And get the best he can from school"  --Author Unknown

Sent by Barbara Winter:
"Anyone or anything
That does not bring you alive
Is too small for you.  --David Whyte

My own favorite....or one of them:

"I will arise and go now, for always, night and day,
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore,
While I stand on the roadway or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core."  --W.B. Yeats



Illustration above by Paige Keiser from Raj the Bookstore Tiger.

Authors' Visit in Aspen

Thanks to all the parents, staff, and students of Aspen Elementary School for a great visit on St. Patrick's Day. 

What a lot of GREEN!

And what better way to honor dear St. Patrick than to gather the children together and share some stories.  Having grown up in Scotland, and being the daughter of an Irishman, I - kathleenpelley  have always been blessed with an innate love of story.  As well as reading my latest picture book, Raj the Bookstore Tiger, I also shared my story, The Giant King, which is set in Scotland.

And to finish it off....a tea party in grand style for the fourth grade Young Ladies, hosted by a wonderful group of mothers!

Windsor Colorado Chapter of CCIRA

Susan, President of the Windsor Chapter of  CCIRA with librarian from Grandview Elementary School in Windsor, holding up my latest book, Raj, the Bookstore Tiger!

I gave my presentation on Nurturing a Passion for Stories to a group of teachers.  Look at the banner behind them - my favorite Aesop quote, "No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted."  And I like to add, No act of writing, however small, is ever wasted!

Mumbai, India

I just returned from a trip to India, to visit my daughter who is working there in Mumbai.  Quite an experience!  And it wasn't my first time in this land of jungle and jasmine - I went there when I was a student at university and spent 3 months in Bombay (as it was called then) during the monsoon months.

My daughter posing with a family who desperately wanted to have her in their family photo!

What had changed?  Well, there are shopping malls now and cell phones, more people, more pollution, more foreigners, more traffic, more litter, and more dust and dirt, but...the people are still so sweet, gentle, polite, and have a far deeper understanding of community than any of us here in the west.... On a five hour train ride to Aurangabad, (the site of ancient caves of Ajanta and Ellora), the seating section next to us, which consisted of two sets of three seats facing each other, separated by a table, soon filled up with a group of strangers, but by the end of the journey, there they were swapping stories, laughing, sharing their samosa snacks that had been bought from one of the many vendors who came on the train at each station, and by the end of the journey, they were even taking photos of one other.  Meanwhile the young couple opposite my daughter and me, were passing around their 10 month baby girl - all the other passengers took great delight in playing peek-a-boo with her and singing itsy bitsy spider, and then after she fell asleep, the father just laid a thin mat on the table in front of us and there she was tucked up fast asleep for the remainder of the journey. Such a delight to see all those people simply enjoying the gift of being together on a journey!
And of course, what I remembered from all those years ago, and what still delighted me this time, was... the Indian head wobble - everyone knows it now from all those movies and especially from that T.V. show, Outsourced.  It's a very subtle movement of the head - sort of circular - a bit of a bobble mixed with a wobble.  It looks easy to do, but believe me, it takes practice.  But once perfected, it makes a wonderful addition to one's repertoire of responses to life.  So nuanced, so fluid, so....conducive to pondering and mulling and musing.  It can mean anything from yes or no, maybe, perhaps, let me see, I don't know, I'll think about it, not sure, if you say so, depends, yes, but I might change my mind later, okay, no, but I don't want to hurt your feelings, so I will just wobble my head like this until you get the message.......and that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Wouldn't it be nice, I think, to adopt such a reflective gesture here?  It would give us all what we yearn for.....TIME to think!

I also got to visit a couple of schools while I was there, and of course it was fun to share my latest book, Raj the Bookstore Tiger with the children, especially as it has such a nice tie-in to India, but more on that later...
( Below - my husband and I at the Daulatabad Fort, near  Ellora Caves)

An Interview with, RAJ the Bookstore Tiger

After I had written my latest book, Raj the Bookstore Tiger, I thought it might be fun to do an interview with my main character - he's quite the ca…..I mean tiger!

An Interview with,  RAJ the Bookstore Tiger

Where were you born?

A few miles down the road from Book Jungle (that's the name of Felicity's bookstore).  Felicity brought me home when I was just a little kit…er, I mean cub.

How many different types of tigers are there?

Usually, people will tell you that there are only five kinds of tigers that still exist today.  They come from different parts of Asia: Siberia, Mongolia, China, Indonesia, and India. But of course, they are forgetting about - the Bookstore Tiger, so that really means there are six kinds of tigers.

What about Snowball, isn't he a white tiger?

Yes, once in a while an orange Bengal tiger can have a white cub, but it is ever so rare, and really these white tigers can have a hard time living in the wild of the jungle, because they are so easy to spot.  Good job for Snowball that he only lives in a Book Jungle and not a wild Jungle!

How is the bookstore tiger different from other tigers?

Most tigers weigh around 500 pounds or more and are about 7 - 11 feet in length, so obviously, we bookstore tigers are a bit smaller than that.  Also most tigers are skilled swimmers, while we bookstore tigers never so much as dabble a paw in the water.  But other than that, we are very similar.  We have retractable claws that we use to climb up high and to wound our prey.  We have rough, raspy tongues that help us scrape meat from bones and keep our coats clean and fresh.  We all have excellent night vision, long whiskers to feel our way in the dark, and tails that not only help us to balance, but also tell one anther how we are feeling.  We are rather solitary creatures (we don't like crowds) and we are nocturnal (we are most active at night rather than during the day), and none of us likes getting our faces wet.

What about your stripes?  Why do tigers have stripes?

Oh yes, I almost forgot - all of us have stripes.  Just like the human fingerprint, the pattern, size, and color are different from tiger to tiger.  But whatever the size or color, these stripes help us hide when we are hunting.  You see, we can't run as fast as some other animals, and so we have to rely on the element of surprise to catch our prey: we stalk up ever so quietly, and then we pounce at just the right moment.  Most of the customers in the store never see or hear me coming.  They get quite a scare when I leap up behind them, but of course, I am only teasing, I would never harm a customer, never!  Felicity would be most irate.

Do you prefer living in a bookstore to living in the jungle?

Well, between you and me, I've never actually lived in the jungle, but I do know a bit about it from hearing Sanjiv Patel and from all those stories Felicity reads to me.  So, I think I would have to say that I prefer the bookstore - I don't think I'd like the swampy, sweaty feel of the jungle, nor all those trumpeting elephants and squawking parrots.  Mind you, some of the toddlers who come in here try to pet me with horrid sticky fingers, and they can kick up quite a ruckus when they've missed a nap.  Maybe it's fair to say that there are pros and cons to both - that's life, isn't it?

What about your name - does it have a special meaning?

Yes, Raj is the Hindu (that is a language from India) word for King or Prince, so not only am I a tiger, but I come from royal blood.

Have you ever been to India?

No, but I feel as if I have, because Felicity reads me so many stories from there - you know, all the Rudyard Kipling ones, like Jungle Book, and the Just So Stories.

Talking of stories, can you tell us some of your favorites?

That's hard because I have so many.  I adore fairy tales of all kinds, because they are always about the impossible becoming possible - you know, the ugly toad turning into a handsome prince or the pumpkin becoming a coach.  And, as you can imagine, I am particularly fond of any kind of cat story - be it lions or tigers or even little kitty cats - we're all from the same family after all.  Lion and Mouse by Aesop is wonderful, and so is Androcles and the Lion, and How the Manx cat lost its tail.  For Halloween, the older kiddies enjoy a very scary Scottish story called, The Witches and Singing Mice" by Jenny Nimmo.

What about poems - can you tell us some of your favorite poems?

Naturally, Mr. Blake's poem "Tyger Tyger  burning bright is an inspiration for me.  Other poems I enjoy - again they usually have a cat or tiger theme, are:
The Terrible Tiger by Jack Prelutsky and Pangur Ban - it's an Irish poem about how a little cat inspires his monk to write.

Why do you like poetry so much?

Great poems make you feel so much more alive - full of life and love and wonder - and most of all, they make me want to be a better TIGER, what can be better than that!

What does Felicity do in her spare time?

Oh she keeps very busy.  She likes to read a lot, and I am her best listener.  She also writes some stories of her own, and she reads them to me first.  She dabbles a bit at painting, and so I help her choose her colors and even try mixing them together - l do love to hear the names of the colors - they're so poetic -ochre, papaya whip, seafoam, goldenrod, chartreuse, and indigo.  Felicity likes to knit too, and so I have to help her keep all her yarn organized and sometimes that gets us both in a bit of a tangle. When she plays the piano, I jump up onto the keys and keep her in tune - really, I don't know what she'd do without a ca….I mean a tiger like me to help her.

How do you keep so fit and trim?

Being a bookstore tiger is hard work - it's not just about sunbasking and welcoming the  customers, you know.  We are constantly on the alert for danger, so we practice pouncing and leaping and stalking and swatting and climbing.  Really, a tiger's work is never done!

Do you travel much?

All over the world!  That's the best part about living in the bookstore.  Every day I get to hear stories from far off lands and long ago places.  It's like having your very own magic carpet that whisks you away at the turn of a page.

One last question, Raj -do the children at the bookstore have a favorite book?

I don't want to be boastful, but I do have to say that the one they clamor for time and time again is….RAJ, the Bookstore Tiger!