Books by Mary Azarian
A Gardener's Alphabet
by Mary Azarian
Revealing the variety of life underground, the bright comfort of a greenhouse on a winter’s day, or the anticipation of starting seeds indoors in early spring, this striking alphabet book celebrates the simple joys of gardening. Without neglecting the frustrations—the nibbling critters and the toil—or wry, humorous moments spent in the garden. Mary Azarian’s spare words and lovely woodcuts capture the essence of turning a bare plot of ground into fragrant flowers and lush vegetables and trees. Her depictions of insects, manure, and compost piles are as delightful as her fountains, pumpkins, and Queen Anne’s lace. Whether we are young or old, our gardens both exhaust and renew us. They are our source of magic and wonder and perhaps our best way to live closer to the land and to the rhythm of the seasons.
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A Farmer's Alphabet
by Mary Azarian
An alphabet book for families that lovingly celebrates traditional rural New England life, all the way from A to Z. “No matter where children live – on a farm, in the suburbs or the city – they will love this handsome book.”―Smithsonian Magazine
Before she became a renowned children’s book illustrator and printmaker, Mary Azarian was a teacher in one of Vermont’s last one-room schoolhouses. In the late 1970s, the state board of education commissioned her to create “a farmer’s alphabet” to provide balance in the classroom and provide rural children with reflections of their own lives. Those woodcuts, in bold, red-and-black, became this book, A Farmer’s Alphabet.
In rustic images that evoke the sights and sounds of daily life on a farm―with its chores, animals, and gardens: A is for Apple, being picked fresh from a tree. D is for Dog, asleep in a cozy armchair. J is for the Jump kids make into a hay mound. N is for Neighbor to chat with across a picket fence. Z is for Zinnia flowers and, of course, F is for Farm.
This oversized book, perfect for sharing, represents a side of life rarely seen in children’s books―a realistic view of a working farm as it provides an alphabetical view for children of country life.
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Christmas At Eagle Pond
Donald Hall draws on his own childhood memories and gives himself the thing he most wanted but didn't get as a boy: a Christmas at Eagle Pond.
It’s the Christmas season of 1940, and twelve-year-old Donnie takes the train to visit his grandparents' place in rural New Hampshire. Once there, he quickly settles into the farm’s routines. In the barn, Gramp milks the cows and entertains his grandson by speaking rhymed pieces, while Donnie’s eyes are drawn to an empty stall that houses a graceful, cobwebby sleigh. Now Model A's speed over the wintry roads, which must be plowed, and the beautiful sleigh has become obsolete. When the church pageant is over, the gifts are exchanged, and the remains of the Christmas feast put away, the air becomes heavy with fine snowflakes—the kind that fall at the start of a big storm—and everyone wonders, how will Donnie get back to his parents on time?
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Christmas At Eagle Pond
A beautiful New England Christmas story in the tradition of Dylan Thomas' remembrance, A Child's Christmas in Wales.
In December of 1940, twelve-year-old Donnie Hall gets on a train from his comfortable Connecticut home to fulfill a dream: to spend Christmas with his grandparents on their farm on Eagle Pond in south central New Hampshire.
Once there, he settles into the routines he knows well from his summer visits: helping Gramps milk the cows, gathering eggs from the henhouse, chopping wood for the Glenwood in the kitchen. But some things had changed.
Winter milk was now picked up not by sleighs drawn by work horses on snow-packed roads, but by gasoline powered trucks. The fancy old red sleigh that had served the family so well was languishing, abandoned in a stall in the barn, and, not far from it, Old Riley, the loyal horse that had pulled that sleigh, and much else, for a quarter century. Donnie arrives on a Sunday and is due to leave on Thursday. But Wednesday night, the nor'easter blows in and the farm is buried in two feet of snow. The road is unplowed; the car is useless. Will Donnie make it to the station in time to catch the train back to Boston?
All this never happened. Donald Hall never did spend a childhood Christmas at Eagle Pond. But he knew all the stories from his mother and his grandparents and, now in his eighties, and having lived in that same house of his grandparents since 1975, he is in the perfect position to give himself "the thing I most wanted, a childhood Christmas at Eagle Pond."
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