A Mom's Year

Creating a comfortable life one moment at a time

Peter and the Wolf Puppet Theater

{via Design Mom}

I have been enamored of the creative talents of Sarah Jane for quite some time. If I could draw, I’d want to draw just like her. And now she’s earned my eternal admiration for creating this beautiful Peter and the Wolf Puppet Theater. I’m so excited to download the PDFs here—for $5.50!—and let the kids go crazy.

Are you familiar with the story of Peter and the Wolf? Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev wrote the musical symphony in 1936 to introduce children to classical music. Prokofiev used a special musical technique called leitmotif to create his characters. A leitmotif is a melody associated with a person or, in this case, an animal. So in this symphony, each character is represented by a specific instrument in the orchestra, as well as a melodic theme. Peter is playful strings, the duck is a foolish oboe, and the wolf is a menacing French horn. When I was little, I loved trying to figure out which instruments were which characters.

The recording I listened to as a child was by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Young People’s Concert series. My mother gave my children this recording in CD form several years ago. I was happy to know it’s still around, and now the CD will come in handy with our new puppet theater. Is there a recording that you prefer? I’ve heard the one narrated by Basil Rathbone is pretty wonderful, too. Sharon Stone even has one, I believe.

I hope Sarah Jane keeps these coming! What stories would you like to see?

90-Second Newbery Contest

“A Wrinkle In Time” In 90 Seconds from James Kennedy on Vimeo.

When author James Kennedy heard that the Today Show had canceled the traditional appearance of Newbery and Caldecott Award winners in favor of reality show star Snooki (ouch!), he decided to do something positive to promote children’s literature.

With librarian Betsy Bird and the New York Public Library, Kennedy is sponsoring a video contest called “90-Second Newbery.” The contest challenges book lovers to create a video that compresses a Newbery award-winning book (or Honor book) into 90 seconds or less.

As Kennedy says, “It turns out that any book, no matter how worthy and somber, becomes pleasingly ludicrous when compressed into 90 seconds.” To get us started, Kennedy posted a video of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1963 Newbery winner, A Wrinkle in Time. I love the tessering-explanation part.

Game on! Lexie checked out the list of winners and is leaning toward Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. You can find more information about the contest here. The winning video will be shown at a special 90-Second Newbery Film Festival at the New York Public Library in the fall of 2011. Good luck!

Birds and Bees Knitted Headbands

Oh my goodness. How adorable are these little headbands? My list of knitting projects is getting longer by the minute. But who could resist these? Not I, that’s for sure.

Wouldn’t they be amazing for Easter? Find the patterns at Never Not Knitting here.

Music + Typography

{seen on Design Mom}

If this doesn’t sum up what’s gotten Tim and me through nearly 16 years of marriage, I don’t know what does.

These posters were created by a London designer named Mico, who started the series because, as he puts it, “I like music and typography. So I combined them on this project because I had nothing better to do.” Oh, to be young with too much time on one’s hands.

So every week at Music Philosophy, Mico sorts through song quotes sent by fans and selects one or two to work his interpretive magic on. You can purchase posters at his Etsy shop here. Mico says that the posters look great as iPhone desktop wallpaper, too.

Lily and I have colds, so we’re lying low today. She wants me to snuggle on the sofa with her to watch A Cinderella Story. Sounds good to me.