Alida Allison 2010

Here are my 2010 quotes (actually, Russ' quotes). I'm also sending a pic of my school where I and about 30 students scattered the yellow sheets.

Tom liked to fool around. He fooled around with sticks and stones and crumpled paper, with mewses and passages and dustbins, with bent nails and broken glass and holes in fences.
He fooled around with mud, and stomped and squelched and slithered through it.
He fooled around on high things that shook and wobbled and teetered.
He fooled around with dropping things from bridges into rivers and fishing them out.
He fooled around with barrels in alleys.
When Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong asked him what he was doing, Tom said he was fooling around.
‘It looks very much like playing to me,’ said Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong. ‘Too much playing is not good, and you play too much. You had better stop it and do something useful.’
‘All right,’ Tom said.
But he did not stop. He did a little fooling around with two or three cigar bands and a paper clip.

From How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen,
Whitbread Award, 1974, Illus. Quentin Blake

The squidgerino squelcher was put together by the wizard Bembel Rudzuk. Bembel Rudzuk made up three jars of monster powder, then he added twelve buckets of water and Splosh! There was the squidgerino squelcher. It slobbered and it moaned, it left a loathsome track behind.
Everyone was terrified, everyone ran off and left the princess all unguarded.
The squidgerino squelcher chased her up a tower then it crept around to the bottom of the tower slobbering and moaning.
The princess looked at the mess the squidgerino squelcher was making and she became rather cross. ‘Where’d this monster come from?’ she said. ‘And who’s going to clean up after it?’

From The Flight of Bembel Rudzuk,
1982, Illus. Colin McNaughton

Alida Allison 2009

Here are my quotes for Russ' big day--

From the short story The Ghost Horse of Genghis Khan:

Genghis Khan, said John's mind. The mind was much older than the boy, it was as ancient as the stars, it remembered all sorts of things that John had never known. It was curious about everything and it was playful, it was obsessed with names and the sounds of words: Khwarizm, Khurastan, Karakorum; Gengis Khan, Genghis, Genghis, Genghis, it said, Genghis galloping, galloping. The thudding of unshod hooves is in the name; the bending of the bow is in the name, the bow of horn and sinew and lacquer. The rider twisting in the saddle draws the bowstring back and looses the arrow, the hiss of the hungry arrow cleaving time and darkness, cleaving forgetfulness so that the galloping of the ghost horse of Genghis Khan is fresh and strong in me.

(as published in The Russell Hoban Omnibus, p763)

The house was certainly grand enough for her, or indeed for anyone. The very cornices and carven brackets bespoke a residence of dignity and style, and the dolls never set foot outside it. They had no need to; everything the could possibly want was there, from the covered platters and silver chafing dishes on the side board to the ebony grand piano among the potted ferns in the conservatory… The house had rooms for every purpose, all opulently furnished and appropriately occupied: There were a piano-teacher doll and a young lady pupil doll in the conservatory, a nursemaid doll for the children dolls in the nursery, and a cook and butler doll in the kitchen. Interminable-weekend-guest dolls lay in the guest room beds, sporting dolls played billiards in the billiard room, and a scholar doll never ceased perusal of the book he held, although he kept in touch with the world by the hand that rested on the globe that stood beside him. There was even an astronomer doll in the lookout observatory, who tirelessly aimed his little telescope at one of the automatic fire sprinklers in the ceiling of the shop. In the dining room, beneath a glittering chandelier, a party of lady and gentleman dolls sat perpetually around a table. Whatever the cook and butler might hope to serve them, they had never taken anything but tea, and that from empty cups, while plaster cakes and pastry, defying time, stood by the silver teapot on the white damask cloth.

from The Mouse and His Child

Alida Allison 2005

HAPPY 80th birthday, RUSSELL HOBAN

Feb. 4, 2005


Quotes from two of his many books:

Sometimes I am astonished that there should be buildings built and institutions maintained to string out the brevity of human life over successive generations; trees don't do that, they just hold on to the darkness and accept the light night after night and day after day without pretensions to permanence.

from The Bat Tattoo, London: Bloomsbury, 2002, p. 60

~ ~ ~ ~

The almost-full moon rises and looks down on the banks and ditches of the hill-fort, the labial configurations at either end meant to baffle invaders or possibly honour the white goddess. Despite the paling of the sky the stars are clearly visible, brighter than in London. Burning and flickering, they send their light down from before the age of dinosaurs, the Babylonian exile, the fall of Rome, the sack of Jerusalem.

from Her Name Was Lola, London: Bloomsbury, 2003, p. 91

Here are the photos of strategic yellow paper placements. Only one needs a bit of explanation - Feb. 4 we had a big Children's Theater Festival on my campus at which children's books were being sold. You can see some Frances titles--I had great fun slipping yellow paper into the books as a surprise for those wise enough to buy Hoban books. The other sites are on campus, too.

Best, alida

Alida Allison 2003

What's below
Is what goes
All around
My campus--

Feb. 4, 2003

Happy Birthday, Russell Hoban!

Quotes from Russell Hoban's Children's Books

La Corona was the name of the beautiful lady in the picture on the inside of the cigar box lid. She wore a scarlet robe and a golden crown. Beyond her was a calm blue bay on which a paddle-wheel steamer floated. A locomotive trailed a faint plume of smoke across the pink and distant plain past shadowy palms and pyramids. Far off in the printed sky sailed a balloon.

But the lady never looked at any of those things. She sat among wheels and anvils, sheaves of wheat, hammers, toppled pedestals and garden urns, and she pointed to a globe that stood beside her while she looked steadfastly out past the left-hand side of the picture.

Inside the cigar box lived a tin frog, a seashell, a yellow cloth tape measure, and a magnifying glass. The tin frog was bright green and yellow, with two perfectly round eyes that were like yellow-and-black bullseyes. He had cost five shillings when new and hopped when wound up. He had fallen in love with La Corona, and he was wound up all the time because of it. He kept trying to hop into the picture with her, but he only bumped his nose against it and fell back into the box.

"I love you," he told her. But she said nothing, didn't even look at him.

"For heaven's sake!" said the tin frog. "Look at me, won't you? What do you expect to see out there beyond the left-hand side of the picture?"

"Perhaps a handsome prince," said La Corona.

"Maybe I'm a handsome prince," said the tin frog. "You know, an enchanted one."

"Not likely," said La Corona. "You're not even a very handsome frog."

from La Corona and the Tin Frog (1979)

The wind was howling, the sea was wild, and the night was black when the storm flung the sea-thing child up on the beach. In the morning the sky was fresh and clean, the beach was littered with seaweed, and there he lay--a little black heap of scales and feathers, all alone. All alone he was, and behind him the ocean roared and shook its fist. He lay there, howling not very loud, Ow, ow, ow! Ai-ee!" while the foam washed over him and went hissing away. He was too little to swim very well and he hadn't learned to fly yet. He was nothing but a little draggled heap of fright.
After a while, when the tide went out and the day grew warm, he crawled up on the beach, leaving a wide and messy track behind him in the smooth sand. He crawled up among the big old seaweed-bearded rocks by a tide-pool, and he went to sleep, cheeping softly to himself.

from The Sea-Thing Child (1972)