Last month, Rudi and I made it up to Cleveland Park to catch a rather unusual solo art exhibition for D.C.

Who, you ask? Monet? Judy Chicago? Thomas Kinkade?

Nope!

Eric Carle, of The Very Hungry Caterpillar fame.

This summer the Stanford in Washington Art Gallery brought the work of one of America’s most recognized children’s picture book artists to the District for all to enjoy.

It’s a small gallery — roughly the size of a two-floor townhouse, so it can only house two dozen pieces or so. Part of the downstairs was set up with Carle’s books in kindergarten-style cubbies set at ground level to encourage young readers to enjoy them.

There was a looped video running upstairs with an interview with the artist, who showed how he takes a piece from start to finish. He paints and colors on tissue paper to start and then cuts them into small pieces before rearranging and pasting them onto his canvas. He accents the work with crayons.

The great thing about seeing Carle’s work up close is that you really get a chance to see the detail. I’d urge you to click on some of the smaller images (particularly the cricket up above) to get a better look.

This is what you see in a book:

But when you see the originals, you really notice certain details, like the rhinoceros’ toenails:

I was glad we were able to make it up to see the exhibit. If you live in New England, Carle and his wife run a picture book museum in Amherst that looks like it could be a really fun day trip.

I was wholly inspired after seeing this exhibit. I hope you enjoyed it too!

City dwellers know that one of the perks of urban living is the freebie sidewalk find. A lot of what you pass by is junk, but sometimes you come across real gems. For instance, I inherited my breadmaker after it didn’t sell at a tag sale and was left on the curb.

People move with frequency in the city, and inevitably there are things that just won’t fit into the moving van or that you decide you can live without. And dragging them to the sidewalk is a whole lot easier than taking them out to the Goodwill in the surburbs.

Sometimes what they leave behind are books. Yes, books.

Book piles in a city, reflect its character. Usually what you find abandoned on the sidewalk in D.C. are policy wonk books. Want to know how Jimmy Carter dealt with Thailand in 1977? You’re probably in luck; you’ll find such a tome on many a sidewalk around town.

But I am a book nut and have to check, regardless of how many times I’ve been disappointed in what people think I might want to pick up.

However, Sunday my luck changed. As we wandered to Adams Morgan Day, we took a far less direct route than we normally would have. The fates must have guided our feet because a row of books suddenly materialized in front of us.

Rudi and I glanced down — and realized we’d hit a jackpot.

The person who’d discarded their books?

A knitter.

We found so many books we had to run them back home before resuming our trip:

[Confidential to Sarah: Want the bottom book? I picked it up with you in mind…]

I’m making progress on the two readalongs I’m already signed up for, so thought I might add a third one for the summer.

Molly at My Cozy Book Nook is hosting a Summer Vacation Reading Challenge:

I love to travel, but with the economy the way it is, a get-away summer vacation is not in the budget this year. However, books are very affordable (and libraries add new meaning to the phrase “price is no object”). I anticipate taking many ‘literary’ vacations over the course of the next few months, and I hope you can join me as well.

… You may read any literary genre that you enjoy – provided it allows you to “travel” to a different locale that you would like to visit.

I will be participating in the Beach Bum category, which asks me to read three books by Labor Day.

I’m not sure about which books I’ll pick, but I’m hopeful that Shannon Hale’s adult novel, Austenland, will be amongst them. Other potential locales include a Midwestern dairy farm, a fancy Parisian apartment building, an Ottawa community of Scots, and outer space (DON’T PANIC!).

I like today’s Unshelved.

From this week’s Booking Through Thursday challenge:

“So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!’ “

I own lots of unread books. Long before I had a stash of yarn, I owned a stash of books, acquired as gifts, souvenirs, and library book sales. After moving to D.C., my job periodically required me to attend the American Library Association’s annual conference, where they give away books — for free. So each time I went, I’d come home with a suitcase full of novels and other books.

So for ease of writing tonight (and for future post fodder), I decided to consult only one shelf tonight. In the reading nook, the following books remain unread*:

The top shelf, which, admittedly, is a bit light on books compared to those below gave me false hope. Only two books hadn’t been read:

• The Scotch by John Kenneth Galbraith
• The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald

The second shelf down, which houses a large portion of my knitting book collection also didn’t look too bad, although only the last item has anything to do with knitting:

• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• Into the Wild: Warriors 1 by Erin Hunter
• The Last Dragon by Silvana de Mari
• Subject to Debate by Katha Pollitt
• A Woman’s Education by Jil Ker Conway
• Thinking Out Loud by Anna Quindlen
• No Idle Hands by Anne Macdonald

Third shelf down and we start to see the results of randomly shoving books onto the shelf in a frenzy of cleaning. This shelf is supposed to hold poetry, but now seems to equally hold fiction:

• The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
• Reading like a Writer by Francine Prose
• The Open Door by Steven Gilbar
• The 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
• Rules by Cynthia Lord
• The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
• Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (I’ve read a couple of the sequels, but not the original.)
• The Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine
• Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women

Bottom shelf. This is supposed to hold literature compilations, as well as books from college. It seemingly also holds piles of fiction I couldn’t fit elsewhere:

• Forgiveness by Jean Brashear (I entered a contest to win yarn on the author’s website and she sent me inscribed copies of four of her books)
• Mercy by Jean Brashear
• Coming Home by Jean Brashear
• Live Is Lovelier by Jean Brashear
• The Illustrated Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
• The Bilingual Edge by Kendall King and Alison Mackey (Ummm… I have no idea why I picked this one up at the last ALA conference I went to…)
• Foundling by D.M. Cornish
• Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
• Zlata’s Diary by Zlata Filipovic (I started this one but it was depressing and I abandoned it in favor of less warlike reading.)
• The Name of This Book Is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch
• Claiming Georgia Tate by Gigi Amateau
• The Whole Sky Full of Stars by René Saldaña, Jr.
• The Book of Time by Guillaume Prévost
• The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty
• Making Money by Terry Pratchett (Can I tell you? I looked at the title of the book and thought, “Why in the world did I get a book on that?!?”)

Admit it: aren’t you glad I only tackled one shelf?

Any recommendation for books in the shelves that should shift toward the top of the to be read pile?

* Some of these books mentioned above were gifts from friends that I have yet to read. Please don’t feel that your present was unappreciated. I’m just savoring our connection for even longer than usual.

Rick Riordan, Kate DiCamillo, and Shannon Hale all on one day. Oh, and some other folks…

Rudi has Moxie Fruvous going through his head right now…