 |
Cambridge author Lois Lowry based her picture book, “Crow Call,’’ on her childhood. (Bagram Ibatoulline) |
Shelf Life
Potter props
The Harry Potter series of books has come to a close but fascination with the young wizard is still flying high.
Beginning today, the Museum of Science is hosting an exhibition of more than 200 costumes and props from the films, including Harry’s wand and glasses, displayed in settings inspired by the Harry Potter movies. Warner Bros. and the marketing agency that created the exhibition clearly have an instinct for making money. Just how much science is involved remains to be seen.
A father-daughter story
Lois Lowry, a Cambridge resident known for her young-adult novels, draws on her own girlhood for her first picture book, “Crow Call’’ (Scholastic), illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. It is based on an outing with her father in 1945 after he returned from war.“Crow Call’’ is a tender tale of a girl going off on a hunting trip with her father. She savors their time together in the car and at a café where he treats her to two slices of cherry pie. She’s not sure she wants to go hunting, and her father intuits this. He puts her in charge of the crow call, but he never lifts his gun to shoot. It’s enough just to be with his daughter in the woods.
On writing
The most poignant essays in “Mentors, Muses & Monsters’’ (Free Press) explore the occasionally harsh, sometimes heavenly relationship between writing professor and student.Jay Cantor loved being a student in Bernard Malamud’s class at Harvard College in the 1960s. Yet Cantor was stung when Malamud declined to write a blurb for Cantor’s first novel - the older writer said that too many other requests would follow. They stayed in touch and years later Malamud had Cantor write a sentence for one of his stories. Cantor, now director of creative writing at Tufts University, knew his teacher’s style so well that it was easy for him to add words that meshed with the rest.
Cantor will join Elizabeth Benedict, editor of the new collection, and fellow contributors Christopher Castellani, Julia Glass, Margot Livesey, and Jim Shepard for a discussion in Cambridge on Nov. 13. Details at www.harvard.com.
PEN in hand
PEN New England’s annual showcase for up-and-coming writers, taking place at 7 p.m. tomorrow, has been a long time coming this year. The Discovery Evening, in which three established writers introduce three emerging writers, was cancelled in March due to bad weather.Suzanne Strempek Shea, winner of the 2000 New England Book Award for Fiction, will introduce her former student, Elisabeth Wilkins, whose novel in progress is about an atheist navigating the afterlife. Poet Bob Bullock and essayist Jon Irwin also will read from their works at Lesley’s University Hall, 1815 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. A reception will follow.
Coming out
■“Becoming American Jews: Temple Israel of Boston,” by Meaghan Dwyer-Ryan, Susan L. Porter, and Lisa Fagin Davis (Brandeis University)■“The Body in the Sleigh,’’ by Katherine Hall Page (Morrow)
■“In Search of My Homeland: A Memoir of a Chinese Labor Camp,’’ by Er Tai Gao (Ecco)
Pick of the week
Rich Chasse of the Kennebunk Book Port in Kennebunkport, Maine, recommends “The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession’’ by Allison Hoover Bartlett (Riverhead): “Bartlett has written an excellent account of an obsessed collector who steals books and a self-styled biblio-detective. Full of good information, it is a riveting story, to boot.’’Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com. 
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
