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Rudyard Kipling's Birthday

Joseph Rudyard Kipling
(30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)

An English author and poet, Kipling was born in Bombay, British India (now Mumbai). He is best known for his works of fiction The Jungle Book (1894) (a collection of stories which includes Rikki-Tikki-Tavi), Kim (1901) (a tale of adventure), many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888); and his poems, including Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), and If— (1910). He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works speak to a versatile and luminous narrative gift.

Kipling was one of the most popular writers in English, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The author Henry James said of him: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient.] Among other honours, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, all of which he declined.

Mercer Mayer's Birthday

Mercer Mayer
December 30, 1943 -

Mercer Mayer was born on December 30, 1943 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Mayer attended elementary school in Camden, Arkansas, but due to the fact that his father was in the United States Navy, the family moved often. This did not stop him from filling his free time with fun activities like snake- and lizard-hunting and reading books. After temporarily settling in communities all over the country, the Mayers finally settled in Honolulu, Hawaii, where Mayer graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School.

Upon graduating from high school in 1961, Mayer attended the Honolulu Academy of Arts. At that time, Mayer and his mother were commissioned to decorate the Kahala Hilton Hotel with collage wall panels. He also supplemented his income by being a political cartoonist for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Honolulu.

Mayer attended the Honolulu Academy of Arts for about a year. It was at this time that Mayer decided he wanted to be a children's book illustrator. "I always liked to draw, and one day I decided I had nothing to lose, so I made a lot of sketches and began to peddle them." [2] His professors discouraged this career choice because they did not believe that he would be able to make a living at it.

Day Before New Year's Eve

Visit last year's "New Year's Eve in Times Square" by Aquamarine

IF....
Rudyard Kipling
1910

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Great information on today’s holidays, Billie.

I really enjoyed re-visiting Aqua’s New Year’s Eve thread.

Aqua .... Your thread was lovely.

Thanks for the Holidays, Billie. I went and checked out last year’s New Years Eve and got a bunch of good laughs. I am going back and look some more as soon as I can. I saw the beautiful green dress you made me....wow! I also have the red one too now. I remember how much fun we had last year!