06 Tuesday Jan 2015
Posted in Illustrating, Writing for Young Readers
‘What’s the matter?’ asked the little white rabbit.
‘Oh, I’m just thinking,’ replied the little black rabbit.
It was only recently that I was introduced to Garth Williams’ own written-and-illustrated children’s book, The Rabbits’ Wedding. It was love at first sight. Most modern readers, myself included, wouldn’t blink an eye at a black rabbit and a white rabbit tying the knot, but the story actually created quite a stir when it was published in 1958.
19 Friday Dec 2014
Posted in Military Medicine
Throughout most of history, the standard implements for arm and leg prostheses have been hooks and pegs. Thanks to Hollywood, hand hooks and peg legs automatically trigger “pirates” in our mind – Captain Hook, Long John Silver – but these devices are hardly just part of a costume.
While our natural arms and legs are fearfully and wonderfully made, the technology used in modern prosthetics is no less remarkable. Thanks to science and innovation, amputees of today are endowed with much greater capacity than their predecessors. As we will see, they were not so well equipped.
02 Tuesday Dec 2014
Posted in Writing for Young Readers
Hannah memorized “Strictly Germ-Proof” years ago as a little girl, just old enough to pronounce the words. A satirical poem by American writer Arthur Guiterman, it first appeared in The Woman’s Home Companion in 1906. As Guiterman explained, the verses poked fun at the era’s fervor for sanitation, when people “boiled everything but the baby”.
Though Ajax is no germophobe, we still get a rabbit’s kick out of this poem every time.
The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup
Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up;
They looked upon the Creature with a loathing undisguised; —
It wasn’t Disinfected and it wasn’t Sterilized.
They said it was a Microbe and a Hotbed of Disease;
They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees;
They froze it in a freezer that was cold as Banished Hope
And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap.
In sulphurated hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears;
They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears;
They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand
And ‘lected it a member of the Fumigated Band.
There’s not a Micrococcus in the garden where they play;
They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day;
And each imbibes his rations from a Hygienic Cup —
The Bunny and the Baby and the Prophylactic Pup.
~Arthur Guiterman (1871-1943)
14 Friday Nov 2014
Posted in Writing for Young Readers
For pleasure reading, I’m currently hopping my way through that classic rabbits’ tale, Watership Down. Though many critics suggest religious symbolism or draw parallels to Greek mythology, the book is really a children’s story written in novel style. As the author, Richard Adams, explains,