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General Toronto Public Library Pilgrimage of 100 Branches TPL Talks and Programs

Library Blog Talk This Thursday at Taylor Memorial Library!

I’m tickled pink to be part of this April’s Keep Toronto Reading Festival. My contribution to the literary celebration will be an illustrated talk about the very blog you are reading now, Breakfast in Scarborough.

The presentation will describe my pilgrimage to all 98 Toronto Public Library branches and what I saw and experienced along the way. I’ll provide some background information about the origins of the blog, present selected pictures, and then create an interactive post with the audience on the spot.

My hope for this talk is that it will encourage TPL library patrons to venture beyond their home branches and discover the beautiful diversity that the entire system has to offer.

On a more personal level, I also aspire to be an example of what can happen when you ignore the inner critic who says things like, “Get a life, nerd! Nobody will read this obscure blog!” If I had listened to that voice, I would never have had the pleasure of proving it wrong.

Breakfast in Scarborough has now enjoyed over 17,000 views, and I have been interviewed by The Toronto Star and appeared on Matt Galloway’s CBC Metro Morning radio program. Hooray for nerdy projects! May they prosper all over the land!

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General Toronto Public Library Pilgrimage of 100 Branches TPL Talks and Programs

Frescoes, Carpets, and Languid Ladies Found at Book Ends South!

Yesterday I found these three treasures at Book Ends South, the second-hand bookstore at the Toronto Reference Library. The volunteers who took my seven dollars teased me about having expensive taste because two of the books I chose were three dollars instead of one!

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Artwork General

“Desolate Yet All Undaunted” (Poe) Collage

Desolate Yet All Undaunted, Catherine Raine, 2012

The raven is curious about the eclipse but not overly concerned. He stands his ground without fear.

Desolate Yet All Undaunted, Catherine Raine, 2012

I’m sending this raven piece to an art magazine that is calling for submissions on the theme of Edgar Allen Poe. (The title comes from Poe’s 1845 poem, “The Raven”). Wish me and the raven luck!

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Artwork General

Matryoshka Doll on a Stagecoach Ride

This Russian doll is on a wild stagecoach ride to an unnamed destination!

Matryoshka Doll on a Stagecoach Ride, Catherine Raine, 2012

Collage materials include colored paper, stickers, and a postcard.

Matryoshka Doll on a Stagecoach Ride, Catherine Raine, 2012Matryoshka Doll on a Stagecoach Ride, Catherine Raine, 2012

Matryoshka Doll on a Stagecoach Ride, Catherine Raine, 2012

Matryoshka Doll on a Stagecoach Ride, Catherine Raine, 2012

There she goes!

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General TPL Talks and Programs

Welcome Back TPL!

Today I’m feeling grateful for the end of two weeks of labour disruption at the Toronto Public Library. I hadn’t realized how much I count on the libraries’ well-being for my own peace of mind. During these two weeks, I felt a vague sense of unease, distressed by the darkened and empty branches. I’ve learned that for this nerd, libraries are one of my existential substructures!

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General TPL Talks and Programs

Toronto Public Library’s 2012 One Book Community Read: Girls Fall Down (2008)

I finished reading Maggie Helwig’s Girls Fall Down almost a week ago, and I still find myself thinking about it. Girls Fall Down is a frighteningly plausible story about contagious fear and urban breakdown, but it’s also a beautifully complicated love story about two isolated souls, Alex and Susie-Paul, connecting and re-connecting with each other.

Helwig’s omniscient yet empathic vision of Toronto really impressed me, the way she brought to life an impersonal municipal geography by close observation of hundreds of personal details. Here’s an example: “The boy with the box of evil sat in the cafeteria of his high school, the box on the table beside him, eating a hamburger and feeling unusually cheerful. He . . . didn’t know that a security guard had phoned in an alert while he was on the (subway) train, though it would have made him happy to know this” (p. 26).

For me, the most moving part of the book was when Susie-Paul finds her twin brother Derek living in a tent under a massive bridge. Derek has schizophrenia, has stopped taking his medication, and is starving. However, these facts do not convey the whole truth about Derek, so Helwig directs our attention to the man’s “raw courage . . . . His hard-won choice to continue living, when so many possibilities to stop are offered at every hand, the cars on the highway, the trains on the tracks, an end to the daily loss. None of this represents Derek’s soul, scraped bloody, howling, fighting always to hang on, a solitary superhuman ordeal, unacknowledged by the world, unrewarded” (pp. 149-150).

When I see Derek through the author’s compassionate lens, I become a witness to his courage and his suffering. For this reason alone, I highly recommend Girls Fall Down. The book is also an engrossing read, all the more pleasurable for readers familiar with Toronto’s streets, and the Zephyr Antique Laid paper makes turning the pages a tactile as well as visual delight.

Thank you for picking a winner, Toronto Public Library!

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Artwork General

Petunia, the Curious Cloth Creature

Petunia is a souvenir of my recent vacation to Nova Scotia, for I finished her embellishments while relaxing in a hotel. To make a cloth creature like Petunia, you’ll need a sock, a rubber band, a sash, some beads, miniature crochet flowers, and thread.

Petunia may seem rude when she sticks out her blue tongue, but she’s more playful than disrespectful.

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Artwork General

Dancing Bird-Woman Collage

Dancing Bird Woman, Catherine Raine, 2012

Dancing Bird Woman is here to remind me to dance, be fiery, and enjoy wearing flares!

Dancing Bird Woman, Catherine Raine, 2012

Dancing Bird Woman, Catherine Raine, 2012

To close the post, here is a bookmark that Dancing Bird Woman might like to pick up with her beak:

Coins and Flowers Bookmark, Catherine Raine, 2012

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Artwork General

Yogic Flying on a Crazy Quilt

I’ve never tried yogic flying, but this is what I imagine it could be like with the assistance of a crazy quilt:

Yogic Flying on a Crazy Quilt, Catherine Raine, 2012

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Artwork General

Michelle’s Doily Frogs and Some Bookmarks, Too!

Michelle’s Doily Frogs, Catherine Raine 2012

I have a friend who likes frogs, so I thought she might enjoy a collage that featured her favorite amphibians gussied up with doilies. The frogs pulled off the look with dignity.

And to round out the post, here are some bookmarks I collaged recently!

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Artwork General Poems and Prose Poems

Shine Shine Shine! Grandmother Raine’s Gift

My grandmother Mary Raine (1911-2008), a practical woman from a small Missouri town, would have classed the practice of guided visualization as “a little different.” Nevertheless, Grandma was present in the meditation room of an Ontario spa last spring when a mindfulness coach asked me to close my eyes and descend deep into the earth, deep within deep, down to the cave of the grandmothers.

Shine, Catherine Raine, 2012

Drawn by the firelight and the chance to see Grandma Raine again, I went into the cave. Grandma gave me a heavy object wrapped in a gray cloth. Resting inside the cloth was a stained glass ornament that once dangled from a curtain rod above her apartment’s east window. When it caught the bright Missouri sunlight, it released streams of green, lavender, red, and blue. I used to love looking at those ribbons of light, and when my niece Emma saw them as a baby, she loved them too.

I took the gift reverently and gave thanks for its rainbow message, the loving command to let myself shine. It called for translucence and generation, allowing light to both pass through me and radiate from within. It called from a cave as deep as the grandmother’s mythical one, but just as real and powerful.

The gift was a verb. Shine. Be the stained glass. Transform clear light into personal pigment. Manifest the light into words, art, kindnesses, movement, and love. Don’t be opaque. Be clearly colorful, openly bright, unabashedly shiny, embody the light.

The visionary gift and its invocation have arrived at the perfect time to fight grief shadows that shroud, inhibit, and dim. Grandmother Raine’s heirloom bathes mind, body, and soul in its light and invites the living to surrender to radiance. It bids us to shine, shine, shine, and shine.

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General TPL Talks and Programs

Black History Month Event at Queen and Saulter Branch with Rita Cox!

In my travels throughout the Toronto Public Library branches, I have admired the Rita Cox Black and Caribbean Heritage Collections at York Woods, Malvern, Maria Shchuka, and Parkdale. This morning I had the good fortune to observe the legendary Ms. Cox tell stories to a large group of children at Queen and Saulter Library.

She began her program at 10 o’clock with an interactive rhyme, explaining the call and response structure. It went something like this:

Rita Cox: Did you milk my cow?

Children: Yes, ma’am.

Rita Cox: Will you tell me how?

Children: Yes, ma’am. (Children make milking motions and sounds of milk swishing into a pail).

Rita Cox: Did you milk her good?

Children: Yes, ma’am.

Rita Cox: What did you feed her?

Children: Corn and hay.

Rita Cox: Did my cow die? (Very sorrowful voice).

Children: Yes ma’am.

Rita Cox: How did she die?

Children: Aaaaack. Aaaack.

Rita Cox Did the buzzards come to pick her bones?

Children: (sadly) Yes, ma’am.

(end)

The next two stories were equally interactive but had cheerier endings. One was about a funny little man who lived in a funny little house and spent his day playing hide and seek with a neighbour. When the funny little man looked up and looked down, Ms. Cox raised her arms and lowered them, encouraging the audience to mimic her movements. The other short story featured hand signs and gestures to illustrate important objects for baby: a ball, a hammer (!), soldiers, and a cradle.

Three entertaining longer stories rounded out the hour-long event. My favourite one was a Carribean version of Little Red Riding Hood in which a little girl foils the dangerous Gunny Wolf by singing him to sleep as she picks flowers. Her tune contains the words “coom-qua-keen-wah,” which are designed to induce lupine drowsiness.

When the Gunny Wolf wakes up, he chases the girl, making the noise “unk-cah-cha” with his giant paws as he runs after her. (Rita Cox sang the girl’s flower-picking song gently but slapped her thighs with fierce wolf-claw hands when she imitated the running animal).

At the end of the story, the girl returns home safely and the Gunny Wolf complains that there’s nobody to sing him to sleep. When Cox asked the kids if they would like to sing him to sleep, there was a chorus of “Yes!” However, one dissenting child shouted, “No!”

It was very warm in the large program room on the second floor, and after half an hour of listening to the storyteller’s wonderful voice, many of the kids had shifted from sitting on their jackets to reclining on them.

Responsive to the audience, Cox realized that like the song-drowsy Gunny Wolf, the children were getting sleepy, so everyone took a break for water, stretching, and a spirited round of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” The classic kinetic song was followed by another energizing chant:

Rita Cox: (spreading arms wide) I have a large and funny hat and glasses on my nose. (Here, she curled her fingers into circles in front of her eyes). I have a long and furry beard that reaches down to my toes. (Mimes length of beard and then touches her toes).

I was sorry to miss the last ten minutes of the program due to a work commitment, but it was a privilege to have observed a gifted educator in action as she enriched our morning with stories. Thank you Rita Cox and Queen and Saulter Library! I doff my large and funny hat to you in gratitude!

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Artwork General

Bookmarks, Collage, a Shadow Box, and Textile Creature

Jagged Peaks, Catherine Raine, 2012

“Triangle Nest” Shadowbox, Catherine Raine 2012

“Triangle Nest” Shadowbox, Catherine Raine 2012 (Back of Box)

“Fire Sprite” Textile Creature, Catherine Raine, 2011

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Artwork General

December Bookmarks!

I gave away some more collaged bookmarks this week. Here they are! (Materials include stickers, handmade paper, regular paper, and paint pens).

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Artwork General

Bookmark and Blue Steps Collage

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General Toronto Public Library Pilgrimage of 100 Branches

One-of-a-Kind Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy at Lillian H. Smith Library

The Merril Collection sprang to life in 1970 when Judith Merril, a writer and activist, donated all of her science fiction books and magazines to the Toronto Public Library. Formerly called the Spaced Out Library (1970-1991), the Merril Collection now holds more than 73,000 items and “is the foremost North American public assemblage of Speculative, SF and Fantasy Fiction” (Sol Rising, January 2011, p. 16).

Judith Merril (1923-1997)

After I climbed the stairs to the third floor of Lillian H. Smith Library to visit the Merril Collection, I admired the way the shape of the room hugged the curve of the library’s central atrium.

A few minutes later, I was warmly greeted by Lorna Toolis, Head of the Collection. I’m very grateful to Ms. Toolis, who took me under her knowledgeable wing as she walked me through row upon row of reference stacks that are home to an astonishing diversity of materials.

To accommodate such a robust archive, the library installed compact shelves which can be manually moved closer together so that aisles between rows of shelving disappear at will. At one point during my visit, another librarian called out a warning that she was about to turn one of the silver wheels to move a shelving unit. (Providentially, no Collection Heads or library bloggers were squashed in this potential Temple of Biblio-Doom).

Standing clear of the moving shelves, Lorna revealed the open secrets of an amazing collection. Her enthusiasm was contagious as she explained that she’d loved science fiction ever since grade 3, when she discovered a stack of books in her grandmother’s attic. A personal collector of science fiction since age fourteen, Lorna’s justifiable pride in the Merril’s scholarly legacy was tangible.

I felt privileged to tour this special place. Along the way, I saw critical works on Batman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, graphic novels, fanzines, anthologies, comic collections, rare magazines, games, artwork in map drawers, and material about UFO’s. There was even a shelf devoted to alien linguistics, a phrase I’d never heard before.

Little Nemo in Slumberland by Windsor McCay

One aspect of what made visiting the Merril stacks so special was the presence of so many fragile materials that might have disintegrated long ago if it weren’t for the constant temperature of 21 degrees and protective book covers that have prolonged their shelf-life. Lorna explained that most early science fiction books and magazines were printed on cheap paper and designed to be enjoyed and discarded.

Part of the ephemeral world of popular culture in the first half of the 20th century, science fiction publishing wasn’t about leather-bound volumes, gilt pages, and other establishment frills. It didn’t put on literary airs or flounce about the canon with its semi-colons in the air. Instead, science fiction offered sensational art (in both senses of sensational) on the covers and wild times with robots, stolen bodies, flying saucers with eyeballs on the chassis, and an early feminist heroine, the Golden Amazon.

The Central Intelligence by John Russell Fearn (starring the Golden Amazon character) in The Star Complete Novel for Saturday, August 22, 1953

With so much difficult-to-find material, this unique collection is a magnet for international scholars as well as more local researchers, including writers like Margaret Atwood, professors, artists, illustrators, and students from high school or colleges such as OCAD. Lorna told me that there are patrons who come in to the facility just to read a rare copy of a book that would otherwise fall apart if it were in general circulation.

Near the end of the stacks tour, Lorna led me to a cart loaded with treasures protected by white book folders that fastened with circles of velcro. She carefully unwrapped more than a dozen of them and then ferried these selected materials to the public reading area so I could take photographs of them.

I was interested in everything Lorna showed me, but the artwork on the magazines made the biggest impression, especially this rare Amazing Stories edition (Volume 1, #1, April 1926).

The covers of these editions of The Shadow also blew me away. When Lorna asked me which ones I wanted to photograph, I felt compelled to reply, “All of them!”

As I was introduced to titles like Flying Saucer Rock and Roll and Dictatorship of the Dove, I gained a new appreciation for the unbridled creativity displayed by the genres of the Merril Collection.

In addition, I loved how the Merril’s 19th century material enriched my understanding of literary history. For example, May Agnes Fleming’s The Baronet’s Bride “is retained as an example of early gothic melodrama, without fantasy elements, to assist researchers in the development of gothic fiction. . . . It was serialized in Saturday Night, beginning on 3 October 1868 and ran for thirteen weeks before being published in book form as The Baronet’s Bride or A Woman’s Vengeance” (e-mail from Lorna Toolis, 11/17/11).

Vampire researchers also have plenty of material in the Merril Collection to animate them, including the first serialized vampire story in North America (1875) and a first edition of Dracula (1897) in its plasma-curdling yellow cover.

Moving on to 20th century materials, I was charmed by this Armed Services edition copy of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror, specially designed to fit in a soldier’s knapsack and provide mental escape from the real-life horrors unfolding around him.

Finally, bringing images of horror, speculation, and fantasy to our doors in the 21st century, reading materials such as Sci Fi and Realms of Fantasy (among many others) are available in the reading area.

Near the end of my tour, I signed the most imaginative guest book I’ve ever seen, which was hand-crafted by Toronto artist Robert Wu and donated by The Friends of the Merril Collection.

For me, Wu’s art represents the lunar mystery of imagination, something which the Merril Collection celebrates and preserves. Previously, I had not been partial to most science fiction, speculation and fantasy, but this persuasive collection changed my mind!

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General TPL Talks and Programs

Personal Holocaust Testimony of Denise Hans at North York Central Library

Last week I listened to the personal testimony of Holocaust survivor Denise Hans at North York Central Library. A very large group of teenagers and adults filled the library auditorium, creating an audience five times the size of the Holocaust Education Week programs I’ve attended at Deer Park, Mount Pleasant, and High Park.

The speaker explained that she started giving these talks four years ago. “I do it to pay homage to my mother. Without her, I wouldn’t be here with you today.”

I’m grateful to Ms. Hans for modeling the courage it takes to share an excruciating personal account with strangers: “In 1942, after (Denise’s) father, aunt, and uncle were taken from her home and murdered, her mother sought places to hide her six children and two nieces” (31st Holocaust Education Week program booklet, p. 26). This stark summary cannot fully capture the experience of listening to Denise’s testimony in person. Her animated voice, the range of expressions on her kind face, and the vivid description of her childhood memories made her narrative of survival come alive in my mind.

The fourth of six children, Ms. Hans was born in Paris in 1938. To this day, she remembers the colourful visors her mother used to sew on the brims of hats. She remembers her father’s delivery tricycle with its large box in the front (into which he’d put a couple of his children on Sundays and take them on an exciting ride around Paris). She remembers her regret over teasing her six year-old brother for having to wear the yellow star of David when she was too young to wear one. And she still remembers the first cries of her baby sister, Monique (who was born at home because Jews were barred from the hospital), even though Denise was only three and a half at the time.

The speaker also recalled the grit and bravery her mother displayed after her father was taken to a holding camp. She managed to get a pass for her husband to visit home by setting her crying baby on a Gestapo officer’s desk, saying, “If you can’t let my husband out to support his family, then you take care of the baby.” The officer’s face became redder and redder as the baby’s howls set off a chain reaction of crying among her older siblings. “You can’t imagine what a huge noise and hullabaloo we made!” said Denise. The officer quickly wrote the pass and sent them on their way.

When Denise’s father returned home, the children had to pretend he was a family friend. It was hard to remember not to call him affectionate names and address him as Monsieur instead. By this time, Denise’s aunt, uncle, and two cousins were living in the house, too. They planned to use the secret entrance to the attic and hide there in case they heard a knock at the door that wasn’t the family’s special knock. However, when the dreaded home invasion came in 1942, there was no time to hide four adults and eight children. A Nazi took all the adults except Denise’s mother away to the police station. They were never seen again.

Denise’s voice shook when she said, “I was only four years old when my father was taken. Do you know that I can still remember every line on the Nazi’s face, but I can’t picture my father’s face?” And the sadness she felt for her mother, who lost multiple beloved family members in a single day, suffused the speaker’s voice as well.

After the murder of Denise’s father, aunt, and uncle, her mother was the sole comforter and provider for eight children. She was only in her early 30’s. At night, the four youngest children were very frightened, so they crawled into bed with their surviving parent, each one claiming a maternal limb to hug all night long. Denise said, “The right leg was mine. I remember pressing my cheek against it for warmth. Everybody was so busy during the day that there was no time for hugs and kisses for the children.”

Soon, Denise’s mother realized that she needed to find a hiding place for all the youngsters in her care, and the first of three locations she secured was at a farm house in the country. The farmer’s wife wasn’t kind to the eight children that she hid, and she cut off Monique’s beautiful blond curls because she falsely assumed she had lice. Worst of all, she didn’t give the children enough food. Denise’s mother realized that her children were starving after she arranged to have her youngest child visit her briefly in Paris. She gave the little girl some hot chocolate and cookies, and when a few crumbs fell to the floor, the child got down on her hands and knees and licked up the crumbs.

A new hiding place at a second farm was found, this time with a more congenial family. However, the children had to be split up, and another sorrow for Denise was the daily task of scratching the legs of the new family’s teenage daughter, who suffered from a skin disease. “It was a disgusting job, I tell you.”

A Sisters of Zion convent was the last war-time shelter Denise’s mother found for her children. By this time, the Nazis were not able to meet their quotas of Jews to fill the death camps because they had already rounded up so many. (One shocking historical fact that I learned from Ms. Hans was that the Vichy government made a deal with the Nazis that they would allow them to take the Jews of the unoccupied Free Zone of France in exchange for not bombing the monuments of Paris).

For safety, Denise’s mother requested that the children be baptized. The Sisters took all six girls, and the boys were sent to an equivalent Catholic institution. “The Sisters were strict, but I enjoyed my time in the convent. I loved the pageantry of the masses, and I enjoyed Christmas and Easter.”

In 1948, “les trois petites” (the three youngest girls, including Denise) were finally re-united with their mother. The older five children had returned earlier because it would have been difficult to support all eight right at the end of the war. “One day, the Sisters summoned us and said that we were going home because we had a new father. A new father? We were really surprised, but in those days children didn’t ask questions.”

Determined to remove Christian symbols from his home and his step-children’s possession, Denise’s new parent tore up the “beautiful cards of Jesus that the Sisters gave me,” in an understandable reaction that nevertheless was a big “culture shock” for the ten-year old Denise, who had spent a good portion of her childhood in a convent. “We couldn’t complain, though. We were alive and his children weren’t.” She shared her feelings of regret that she not only lost her father but her mother as well during the war: “I was separated from my mother for six years. I’m still sad about this loss today.” As Denise Hans’ testimony drew to a close, I could hear crying in the audience for the child who had suffered so much grief, deprivation, and terror.

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General TPL Talks and Programs

Andy Réti’s Personal Holocaust Testimony: The Triumph of Love

“We are here to learn about the Holocaust and make sure it never happens again,” said Andy Réti to our group of thirty in the program room of High Park Library. Most of the audience were Grade 7 and 8 students plus a smattering of adults.

Born in 1942 on a hospital floor in Budapest, Hungary, Mr. Réti was only two years old when the Nazis forced his family and neighbours from their homes at gunpoint on October 16, 1944. Then they were marched to an empty racetrack, where they spent two days sitting on the cold ground. At one point on the terrifying march, a blanket was thrown on the ground and everybody in the roundup was ordered to put their valuables on it. Andy’s mother Ibolya was determined to protect her wedding ring from these armed thieves, so she quickly hid it in the baby’s diaper. (One of the grade eight students in attendance gave a cheer when she heard this, a heartfelt sound of admiration for the mother’s quick-thinking act of defiance).

After two days, the captives at the racetrack were elated when their captors told them they could return home. Momentary happiness turned to terror, however, when the Nazis opened machine-gun fire on the fleeing crowd. The young Mr. Réti, his mother, and paternal grandmother escaped the attack, only to endure a second roundup the same month (October, 1944).

This time, the Jews of the city were forced to move into what became the Budapest Ghetto. Mr. Réti described how his family had to share an apartment building (capacity, 600) with three thousand people. He lived in a two-room apartment with twenty five others, including five children like himself. His first conscious memory of the Holocaust was the cold sensation of his friend Kati’s feet as they slept head to foot at the bottom of the bed. Andy and Kati’s mother were in the bed, too, and Andy’s grandmother slept on the floor. There were no toys to entertain the children, only stories which were read over and over again.

In December of 1944, the Budapest Ghetto was completely shut off to the world: “Nobody came out except the dead.” Already extremely scarce, food became next to non-existent in the Ghetto. Réti’s grandmother hardly ate at all, saving what little she had for her grandson and daughter-in-law. “By this time, we were hungry all the time. When you’re that hungry, you can’t think about anything else but food.”

Starvation formed the background for Andy’s second conscious Holocaust memory, which was eating a roll of brown bread after the Russians liberated the Ghetto on January 18th, 1945. In later years, his mother wrote a poem about this incident, describing her tears as she begged a Russian soldier for some food for her child.

Mr. Réti never knew his father Zolti, who was conscripted into a Hungarian military labour battalion at the beginning of the war. Initially, it was reported that he died of typhus, but his son never believed this, for Zolti was a tall man and incredibly fit, a strapping swimming instructor. It wasn’t until decades after the war that Andy found out the truth: his father was murdered for having “the audacity to be a Jew.” A relative of Andy’s dad had tried to persuade Zolti to escape the labour battalion, but he didn’t want to risk it for fear of making his beloved wife a widow and his baby boy fatherless. More than six decades after the outrageous crime perpetrated against his father, Andy praised him as a “a martyr for love.”

The triumph of love over evil was Mr. Andy Réti’s central message. He titled his talk “The Ring of Love” and shared with us the profound words of a friend: “Every Holocaust survivor’s story is a love story. It’s a story that celebrates love of life, love of family, and love of freedom.”

Hatred or bitterness never overwhelmed Andy’s testimony, only love and the imperative to be “an upstander instead of a bystander. When you see something wrong, speak up! The Nazis were the biggest bullies in history. How differently would things have turned out if more people had stood up to them?”

Andy Réti’s testimony at High Park Library more than fulfilled the purpose of the 31st Annual Holocaust Education Week, for we gained personal understanding and appreciation of the loving resilience of Andy’s family in the face of brutality. Like the student who said, “Yes!” when she heard the story of the wedding ring hidden in a diaper, I wanted to cheer for Andy, a dynamic individual who Rides (a motorcycle) to Remember and teaches future generations to say, “Never again!”

Never this cruelty, never this monstrous disrespect for life, love, and freedom.

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General Photography

Generous Reception and Bio-Wall at Centennial College Library and Academic Building

Although I arrived near the end of a 2011 reception in honour of Centennial College’s New Library and Academic Building (Progress Campus), neither the food nor the punch were entirely depleted.

A catering student urged remaining guests and random students in the Commons to finish off the food: “Come on everybody — grab a napkin and eat up these sandwiches!” He made large crowd-gathering motions with his arms and added, “I don’t want to see any of this food in the trash.” At least a dozen students rushed to his aid, carting off double handfuls of pastry and sandwiches to their tables.

Responding to the summons, I downed a lemon tart as I took in the busy scene of multiple study groups gathered in the open courtyard. Two floors above, glass-walled rooms devoted to communal study could be seen in the library: illuminated cross-sections of learning in action.

Much as I enjoyed the bustle of library activity and the sleek new building, the main attraction was this living wall. When I first saw it, I wanted to sit at its roots.

The wild elegance of an indoor vertical garden is a delight in itself, but this gorgeous bio-wall is more than a decorative feature. According to an explanatory leaflet, the wall-plants grow “in a synthetic rooting media . . . . Contaminated room air is drawn through the root zone of the plants, which acts as a biological filter, where pollutants are broken down by microbes into water and carbon dioxide.”

I celebrate this generous wall that gives back to its community, quietly transforming toxins into fresh air while students tap at their keyboards. May the new bio-wall inspire calm and learning with its hopeful green presence.

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General Toronto Public Library Pilgrimage of 100 Branches

The Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books: Scholarly Treasure on Lillian H. Smith’s Fourth Floor

In 1949, an enthusiastic British librarian named Edgar Osborne gave the Toronto Public Library 2,000 British children’s books from his personal collection. Sixty-two years later, The Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books has grown from 2,000 items to over 80,000! Two additional collections, Lillian H. Smith and Canadiana, have augmented Osborne’s initial gift, adding extraordinary depth and breadth to the entire holding.

Inspired by a 1934 visit to the Boys and Girls House, Osborne and his wife Mabel were “deeply impressed by the work and reputation of Lillian H. Smith,” the Children’s Librarian responsible for “the first library exclusively devoted to children in the British Empire” (A Century of Service: Toronto Public Library 1883-1983, pages 59 and 30).

Edgar Osborne (1890-1978)

Nowadays, The Osborne Collection is used and appreciated by writers, illustrators, book historians, social historians, archivists, bloggers, teachers, librarians, graduate students, secondary school students, and younger children. In addition, tourists from as far away as Scotland and Japan have visited the Collection.

J. K. Rowling’s flowing scrawl appears in the archive’s visitor book above a lively sketch of a tall witch hat. The signature of the Empress Michiko is also in the book: three elegant characters written vertically in the exact centre of the page. However, you do not have to be the creator of Harry Potter’s empire or an actual empress to enjoy the Osborne Collection. “Mr. Osborne could have easily given his collection to a university, but he chose to make it accessible the public,” said Dr. Leslie McGrath, who serves as the Head of the Osborne Collection.

Dr. McGrath asked me what I’d like to see when I visited the fourth floor last Friday afternoon, joining the ranks of thousands of ordinary Torontonians who have benefited from Osborne’s generosity and foresight. Responding to interest in volumes I’d loved as a child, Leslie unfurled two golden velvet cloths and set the table with original editions of Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden among others.

Providing a unique material link to the past, the Osborne Collection made it possible for me to hold the same volume of Anne of Green Gables that unknown readers had held in their hands four generations ago.

It was thrilling to see these volumes surface from previous centuries and rest on a table in the Collection’s research room, and the treasures in Leslie’s cart kept pouring out. They included original letters from L.M. Montgomery to Anne’s fans, a 600-year-old volume of Aesop’s fables (its animal-skin pages still crackling), a tiny Bible and Koran, a woodcut for creating book illustrations, a Mesopotamian cuneiform clay tablet, and 18th and early 19th Century hornbooks. The latter consisted of framed squares of text “laminated” with a slice of sheep’s horn, and they served as hand-held tools for learning the alphabet, phonics, and important prayers. One of the hornbooks in the Osborne Collection had a small cross in the upper left-hand corner, a reminder to cross one’s self before the act of reading (like saying grace before a meal or proclaiming Bismallah — in the name of God).

The Pop-Up Secret Garden

Paper Doll of Colin

Leslie also showed me an 1840 board game called Paths of Life. Created by one J. H. Cotterell, the edifying game takes players on a Pilgrim’s Progress-like journey through life’s moral ups and downs. The illustrated map of the Path shows that it’s a steep fall from Manly Hill to Contrition Vale (but not as challenging as scaling Mount Recovery from the Bottomless Pit).

Depending on which number a player receives after twirling a dreidel-like game piece, he or she can visit Careless County (of Trouble District) or rest beside a Cheering Spring in Discreet County. For me, the Sites of Unrighteousness were the most entertaining: Cursing Corner, Revel Gully, Shame Pitch, Horror Bog, Indulgent Slope, Don’t Care Gap, Remorse Hedge, and No Friend Shed.

Enchanted by the literary riches that Leslie carted to the study area, I was also delighted by the exhibit “Peter Pan, Pirates, Mermaids and Fairies” in the reception room. Filling the many display cases were penny dreadfuls, Victorian and Edwardian book covers, pop-up books, antique trading cards, and gorgeous illustrations from olden and modern times. There was even a knitted mermaid and a ship in a bottle!

To ensure that this priceless archive has enough funding to continue inspiring scholars of the future, The Friends of the Osborne and Lillian H. Smith Collections raises money by selling items such as these cards that depict An Anciente Mappe of Fairyland and Edwardian bookshelves.

In an increasingly digital world in which text is consumed from screens, it imperative to nourish the vision of two extraordinary twentieth-century librarians: Lillian H. Smith and Edgar Osborne. We can do this by joining the Friends of the Osborne and Lillian H. Smith Collections or just dropping by the fourth floor for a visit!