Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Coming to terms with book murder.



I would like to say that no books were harmed in the making of this blog post, but that wouldn't be quite true. To defend myself, I can say that no bright young spry books were harmed. Let's just say an old book had a surgical procedure to make it young again.


I have always been drawn to printed words, even before I knew how to read them. One of my earliest memories is sitting in church, looking at the bulletin filled with hymns and psalms, verses and dense paragraphs. To me, the words were just blocks. I knew they held meaning, but I didn't know how to decipher it. My mother had given me a pencil and I drew lines between the maze of words. My goal was to start at the top of the paper end draw a line downward until I hit a word, then trace along the top of the word until I got to the space at the end, then drop down to the next line and repeat the process. If I got to the bottom of the paper before reaching the side of the page, then I won! It was very exciting. This was my usual Sunday morning activity and it kept me quiet week after week.
One day when I was either nearly or newly five, while my mother was reading a story to me, I told her that she was doing it wrong. "Mommy, I don't like the way you read, and I don't like how you always get the voices wrong."

"Well," she told me, "if you don't like my reading, then maybe you should read it yourself."

I wanted to, but I didn't know how. So I asked her to show me. She explained, "You look at the word and you sound out the letters, like this. The 'M' says mmm, the "O' says ah and then another 'M'. M-m-m-o-m-m." I clearly remember the epiphany I had at that point. It was all so easy! Why hadn't anyone told me that before? I could have stopped listening to my mom's annoying character voices long ago. Here I had thought that reading was about memorizing some difficult magic code, but it wasn't. It was just putting the letters together the way they sounded. (I am fully aware that for a lot of kiddos, reading does not come this easy. But for me, one day I couldn't read and then suddenly I could. I remember the whole print world coming into focus, my reading light-switch flipped on in a single conversation.) 

The next week in church, I looked at the bulletin and sounded out words. There was a list with a tidy stack of 'the's making their way down the left side of the paper. There were short words that I could sound out and long ones that I couldn't. I used my pencil to divide the long words into chunks and then those words came clear too.

Maybe it is the early association with reading and church. Maybe it is just the intense way I have always loved books. Or the stories I remember reading about the Gutenberg Press. But for whatever reason, I have always balked at the thought of altered book art. My children, their friends, and even the kids at school know me for saying, "Books are our friends. We treat them with respect." Artist trading cards made from loose pages, and small gifts wrapped in print seem at once sacred and sacrilegious.

But then a couple of weeks ago, a large Atlas appeared in the "Getting Rid Of It Pile". (We have a designated spot for the kids to put things that they no longer want. I go through it every few weeks and pass things on to friends who can use the items, or give them to Goodwill.) Unfortunately, the book was so heavy that the binding had cracked and failed with use. There was no one I could imagine that would use the book, and even Goodwill was likely to toss it. For all intents and purposes, the poor book was dead. Then I thought of all the cool homemade envelopes I've seen.

I took an envelope out of my stationery box and carefully pulled it apart at the seams. Then I used the open envelope as a template to trace onto a page torn from the map book. I cut along the lines, folded in the same places as on the original envelope, and glued the paper together. Lovely! It made me happy to see the dead book coming back to life in a new form.

I still love books, (of course!) but I'm starting to see that they can be altered and still be respected. Now I am on a roll, scooping up the languishing books that have been shedding pages around the house.We have a Calvin and Hobbes book that was losing leaves left and right, so I cut out one relevant strip and glued it to the front of a blank card. An old Prima Guide for Phantom Hourglass has been falling apart, so I used some pages to cover a box I was sending out to a Zelda fan. I've had to keep reminding myself that these were not made on a Gutenberg Press. The books I am using are not one in a million.  My son joined me in the envelope process and produced one cute, somewhat wonky envelope. That envelope he made? The smile he gave me? Those were one in a million.



11 comments:

  1. I was wondering when you were going to post again! These are great. So easy to do and so much more meaningful than crummy old white envelopes. I used to have this problem with revering books, too. And I still do when they're new and beautiful. But, like with silver, if they're just going to sit somewhere not getting used, what's the point? And when they get used they get abused and it's time to give them new life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Ali! I've been rather busy with my college coursework--almost done though!

    ReplyDelete
  3. These are gorgeous!! I'm totally going to make them next week!

    Sarah

    http://www.iwishforcourage.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. lovely! Thanks for sharing these. I imagine one could also make some neat smaller envelopes with old national geographic pages.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love this envelope idea! I am going to go try it right now, thanks for posting this!
    P.S. Found this through craftgawker!

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Sarah and Kat--Thanks for your comments! I'm sure you'll be happy with how easy they are to make.

    @Marlis--The National Geographic magazines are a great idea. I see them at the library book sale all the time. I've also seen envelopes that people have made from old calendars...there are lots of papers out there that we can find ways to reuse.

    ReplyDelete
  7. i love these! it never really appeared to me that you can make envelopes by tracing around a shop bought one!
    these are gorgeous, a good way to use up and old magazines or books you are done with! i could even use my bank statement or even glue receipts onto an a-4 piece of paper to cut into an envelope! hanks again for the idea!

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Hannah--Now you're thinking! Those could be really interesting and wonderful envelopes. This is probably totally obvious so please don't be offended, but I just have to say it. Please, please be careful not to include any personal information on your envelopes. (If you use a bank statement, maybe make sure your account number is part of the section that gets cut off.) I'd love to see pictures of your finished product. Happy crafting!

    ReplyDelete
  9. they're really cute!can u use these to send mail?!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hey your blog is great. Haven't stopped by for ages. Glad I did. :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. These envelopes are so fabulous! You certainly did have a great idea of creating envelopes from these maps because the end result is simply perfect. Thank you for this post. Those who are looking for fresh ideas for their used items as well as shredding Houston paper strips will be delighted with your post as well. This will surely encourage others to recycle materials and come up with not just useful but creative things as well.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...