Mimi Power and Magnifico: an author's blog

February 24, 2013 As any visitor to those hallowed halls can attest, lining the walls of the Capitol building in Washington D.C. are portraits and sculptures depicting the history of America. Lincoln is there. So is Washington--George, that is, not Booker T. For in fact there is "nary a black face in all of those pretty pictures," says the narrator of  Heart And Soul: The Story of America and African Americans . Kadir Nelson's paintings for Heart and Soul , with their quiet, proud dignity, go as far as any author-illustrator can to right this wrong in a book. Each one of Nelson's powerful pictures is worthy of its own wall in the Capitol's rotunda gallery. As the voice of Heart and Soul , a nameless "Everywoman" recants some of the worst, and finest moments in the history of African Americans. She recalls their early days as slaves, through their service in the Civil War and two World Wars, alongside their long-enduring struggle for freedom an...

February 4, 2013 "No matter how tired I am, I can always read," says Mary Anne Schwalbe to her son while waiting for an appointment with her oncologist in The End of Your Life Book Club. " But maybe that's because of raising three children while working full-time. I think I got used to being tired all the time. If I'd waited until I was well-rested to read. I never would have read anything." "The Club" of two life-long readers--mother Mary Anne and son Will Schwalbe--meets in the waiting room at Memorial Sloan-Kettering's outpatient care centre. In the two years of life remaining to Mary Anne (after her persistent jaundice, weight loss and fatigue were finally diagnosed as symptoms of pancreatic cancer) she and her son, a professional editor and author, discover new writers and rediscover favourite stories, reading "promiscuously" books both great and small. It would be enough if The End were a personal, and finely hone...

February 16, 2013 "That's one of the things books can do. They help us talk. But they also give us something to talk about when we don't want to talk about ourselves."--Will Schwalbe in The End of Your Life Book Club

February 2, 2013 At a recent visit to  The Lyceum in Vancouver, one of the Book Bandits asked me, "Is Waby's Bunny Jim real?" Which is a very good question. Especially when it comes to stuffy rabbits of the "Velveteen" variety. Sorting out what's real, and what only happened in my imagination is some of the best fun of sharing Mimi . Well, to start, Bunny Jim was clearly real enough to another Bandit, Harnoor, who drew the picture above, and just like Marc Mongeau, made him come to life. But truth be told, Bunny Jim (who's name is  play on the Sunny Jim peanut butter we had in our house growing up) is "Teddy", a fine brown bear stuffy, who was waiting in Waby's crib for her to be born, and has only ever accidentally (and briefly, thank heavens!) been parted from her in the eight years since. Thank you, Harnoor, for the wonderful drawing (above). Looks pretty real to me! :-)