I can vividly recall the night I first read Crockett Johnson’s celebrated children’s book Harold and the Purple Crayon to my three-year-old son, Max.  I spotted it buried in a pile of books on his shelf, a jumble of mostly hand-me-downs from Max’s brother and sister.  Beneath the cheery primary colors of works like Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Sandra Boynton’s Hippos Go Berserk! and Margaret Wise Brown’s classic Goodnight Moon, there it was, distinguished by its more subtle pallet, a monochromatic scene of magenta, purple and deep, dark scarlet on its cover.  If you haven’t had the good fortune to read it, Johnson’s book tells the story of Harold, a boy who is always alone with his crayon.  When Harold doesn’t use his crayon to draw, the pages of his book are nothing but stark whiteness.  When Harold deploys his mighty crayon, however, he draws a world in which he embarks on a hero’s journey that eventually leads him home.  Harold and the Purple Crayon belongs to a pantheon of books that exhort children to follow their imaginations.  In this, Harold is brother to Alice, Dorothy, Lucy Pevensie in “The Chronicles of Narnia,” Max, who goes “Where the Wild Things Are,” (and whose author, Maurice Sendak, was a protégé of Johnson) and a long, long list of others.   Ross Ellenhorn  https://lithub.com/on-harold-of-the-purple-crayon-and-the-value-of-an-imaginative-journey/   

There was nothing evil in bad taste, unless you tried to pass yourself off as a connoisseur.  Come Sunday, a novel by Bradford Morrow   

Lexington Market is a historic market in Downtown Baltimore, Maryland.  The market is now housed in a 60,000-square-foot market shed building completed in 2022 that is home to 50 merchants and kiosks.  The market has occupied many market buildings over its 200+ year history, most recently in its "East Market" building at Paca and Lexington Streets that was built following a major fire in 1949 that destroyed the shed building built in 1871.  Following the completion of its new market building, the East Market building was decommissioned and slated for future development.  Lexington Market is located near the Baltimore Light Rail and Baltimore Metro Subway stops of the same name.  It is about six blocks from Oriole Park at Camden Yards.  Lexington Market is one of the longest-running public markets in the nation, having been around since 1782.  The market continues to stand in its original site.  The land for this historical market was donated by General John Eager Howard, famous colonial Revolutionary War commander of Maryland Line regiment of Continental Army from his estate "Belvedere" (also known as "Howard's Woods) west and north of Baltimore Town.  The market originally operated without sheds and stalls.  Farmers would load up their horse drawn wagons with ham, butter, eggs and produce.  Farmers would travel from Towson and Reisterstown to sell their goods at the market, while watermen would bring their catches from the Chesapeake Bay and converge on Lexington Market's property to sell their goods starting before dawn.  Before being called Lexington Market it was known as Western Precincts Market.  The Market is owned by the City of Baltimore and managed by the nonprofit Baltimore Public Markets Corporation.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexington_Market 

November 24, 2015 at Lexington Market in Baltimore  These days, there seems to always be at least two or three 25-pound freshly roasted turkeys on the Krause's counter somewhere, waiting their turn to be sliced for sandwiches or turned into an even more substantial dinner meal.  He says the Thanksgiving turkey sandwich (turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce) is popular, but suggests the regular roasted-turkey sandwich on rye or kaiser roll is the best thing on the menu.  But he's learned that everyone has his or her own opinion on the matter.  "Some customers like turkey breast, some like the drumstick, some like dark, some like white," he says.  "By now, we know who likes what."  Whatever magic Hwang works, retired Baltimore counselor Bobbi Hucek was happy with the results.  She was picking up six full turkey dinners to go to bring to her church for the priests.  The previous week, she'd bought four dinners to bring to the beach with her family.  She's been coming to Krause's for 20 years.  "I always came down to Lexington Market for the crab cake, and then I discovered this," she says.  "I think people love the turkey as much as the crab cake--they're shocked by the moistness of the turkey.  Michael Y. Park  photography by John Falls  https://www.bonappetit.com/people/out-of-the-kitchen/article/krauses-lite-fare-lexington-market   

We’ve come to the end of another bountiful literary year, and for all of us review rabbits here at Book Marks, that can mean only one thing:  basic math, and lots of it.  Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be calculating and revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2022, in the categories of (deep breath):  Fiction.  https://bookmarks.reviews/the-best-reviewed-books-of-2022-fiction/   See also Non-Fiction  https://bookmarks.reviews/category/non-fiction/ 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2603  December 9, 2022