For me, memories of reading are about connection: curled in my father’s lap, listening to stories from The Fairy Tale Book by Marie Ponsot, or my mother at my bedside reading classics like The Secret Garden and Little Women. I even felt connected to Louisa May Alcott because we regularly drove past her house in Concord, Massachusetts.
And so, books and friendship are intertwined for me, too. Every Saturday, after finishing my chores and claiming my allowance, I walked down the street to my very first friend’s house, then together, Laura and I continued on our journey. We passed the housing development and woods with the neighborhood tree houses, the swamp with cattails and pussy willows, the railroad tracks, then the busy intersection with Crystal Pond on one side and Miss Faye’s Country Day School on the other. Older houses gave way to small businesses, and at last we saw the flag. We had arrived at the library!
We returned last week’s selections and made our choices for the coming week. Juggling new stacks of books, we each dug into our pockets for our dimes, then crossed the street to the IGA, our second—secret—destination. We took as much time scanning the many flavors of Lifesavers as we had among the shelves of books. Then at last, with the week’s allowance spent, Laura and I began our sweet walk home.
When I was ten, my parents split, and my mother, brothers, and I moved 3000 miles away to California. Though I was sad and lonely, I began to flourish in my new school. My East Coast school had been on double-sessions, overcrowded, with eight sections of each level. My Palo Alto school had only two classes per grade. It was small enough that the friendly principal could greet every student by name. The best part of each day was after lunch recess, when we lay our heads on our desks and the teacher read aloud to us. With these new stories a new friendship grew.
When our teacher read Harriet the Spy, my classmate Leslie and I wanted to be Harriet, so we started our own detective agency. After murmuring the secret password and flashing ID cards with our fingerprints, height, weight, hair and eye color, we lifted the trap door in her bedroom closet, shone flashlights into the dark cavity below, then climbed down a ladder to our underground headquarters. Between meetings we dressed in disguises and rode bikes around the neighborhood, whipping out secret notebooks to record our observations in words and pictures, just like Harriet. And when our teacher read My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, Leslie and I wanted to “live off the land” like Sam Gribley, so we camped out in the empty lot behind her house for a week and even dug a fire pit, using pine needles for kindling. We acted out the stories we’d heard, expanding them in our play. This brought books to life.
Both of these titles were also illustrated by their authors, and, so inspired, I dreamed of becoming an author and illustrator, too. Leslie and I began writing and illustrating our own stories together, rushing home from school most days to do this. We also made trips to the Palo Alto Children’s Library, the oldest free-standing, city-owned children’s library in the U.S., which featured its own “secret garden” where we shared many more stories. Leslie grew up to become an editor and writer. For both of us our childhood play became our work.
These themes of creative collaboration and the merging of work and play are what drew me to learn more about Charles and Ray Eames, the mid-century design duo best known for their furniture design. Their legacy is so much more than famous chairs! They also did photography and designed architecture, graphics, textiles, fashion, films, exhibitions, and even toys. They played. They tried things in multiple ways, believing that “real learning comes from primary experiences.” They simply followed their curiosity wherever it led, as far as it could take them. Charles said, “The most important thing is that you love what you are doing, and the second, that you are not afraid of where your next idea will lead.” Like Ray, Leslie and I created paper dolls, we drew fashion designs, and we made our own clothes. Like Charles, we designed architecture, drawing elaborate floorplans of our dream houses. Curious minds spark creativity—in oneself, and in one another.
Though I wrote, illustrated, and designed Serious Fun!: Work & Play with Charles & Ray Eames, I was never on my own. My editor had a vision and offered fresh perspectives, challenges, and sustenance throughout the development process. I leaned on my talented critique group for feedback. A group of five, we have been meeting for years, developing strong trust and respect. When I am stuck, my group offers possible directions forward, affirmations when I’m pleased, and hope when I’m discouraged. As Ray said, “We worked very hard at that—enjoying ourselves. We didn’t let anything interfere with what we were doing—our hard work. That in itself was a great pleasure.” For each of us, our work is our play, and our play is our work. Now, with this book I’ve created, I hope to spark the same threads of connection for my readers too: between friends and family, between play and work, connection between one idea and the next. That’s the legacy I hope to leave behind me.
Christy Hale plays at work. She has fun exploring and seeing where her ideas take her.
Books she has written and illustrated include Reaching Across the Sky: A Celebration of Bridges, Serious Fun!: Work & Play with Charles & Ray Eames, Copycat: Nature-Inspired Design Around the World, Out the Door, Todos Iguales: Un Corrido de Lemon Grove/All Equal: A Ballad of Lemon Grove, Water Land: Land and Water Forms Around the World, Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building, and The East-West House: Noguchi’s Childhood in Japan.
She lives with her husband in Palo Alto, California. You can find her online at ChristyHale.com.