Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Stripes on the beach

November was a red-letter month in that I saw the publication of two books.  Two!  And one of them is a real book.

The real book is called La iglesia latinoamericana: su vida y su mission (The Latin American Church: Her Life and Mission). I coordinated the three person editorial team (with Alberto Roldán and Chuck Van Engen) of this book of essays from 11 Latin American scholars. It’s published by Certeza, a Protestant publishing house in Buenos Aires.  It’s been a long and arduous process, but I’m pleased with the result.  The book is academic and in Spanish; if these are not barriers, please look it over!  (I may blog later on some of the essays, including my own.)

The other book, which is even more “real” (in the velveteen rabbit sense) is published through Bapa Creations Unlimited.  You’ve probably not heard of it. It’s my very own (and very unofficial) publishing house.  “Bapa” was Alandra’s word for Grandma a few years back. I publish these books around Christmas time, usually in runs of three (one goes to Rwanda, one to Springfield, and one stays home with me).

This latest creation couldn’t be farther from the volume published by Certeza. Rather than academic in level, its destined readership is a three-year-old autistic boy named Peter. The English is pretty straight forward.

One of Peter’s fixations is stripes. He sees them everywhere. A few weeks back when Hal and I were at the coast, I took a walk one day and, like Peter, I saw stripes everywhere. So I took out my camera, and a new book was born.  Following are various scenes from Stripes on the Beach.
 I went to the beach
and what did I find?
Stripes, stripes, stripes
of every kind.
Wavy stripes in the sand
Ocean stripes
(otherwise known as waves)
swimming to the shore
Sea grass stripes
Shadow stripes
Drift wood stripes
Sky stripes
(otherwise known as clouds)
moving in the wind
Sea shell stripes
Long legged shadow stripes
Bird legs stripes
Wooden bridge stripes
Fuzzy hat stripes
Crooked tree trunk stripes
Stripes in the grass
Stripes in a fence
Venetian blind stripes
And last of all, here am I!
I've pudding on my face
and stripes on my clothes
and it's just about time to close
this book.
Bye bye, stripes! Bye bye, beach!

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations on the academic book and then bless you on the stripe book. It's precious! Mesmerizing. Thank you for sharing it. Love, Mary

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