Friday, June 22, 2001
Back To Texas Roots
Children’s author
signs books in Abilene, Albany
By Canishka Alexander
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Although children’s author Roxie Munro
made herself comfortable during her stop at the Abilene Bookstore
Thursday, nearby Albany is where this New York Yankee feels most
at home — at least when she’s in Texas.
Part of that involves her mom, Margaret
Bissey Munro, a former Albany resident who has returned with her
daughter to the Shackelford County town for a book signing at
The Lynch Line today as well as another performance of the Fort
Griffin Fandangle.
“My mother was the Indian princess
in the very first Fandangle,” Munro said, referring to the
town’s song-filled musical pageant. “I brought her back
to Albany in 1998 or 1999 for their 60th reunion and my mother
was in the Fandangle parade. We had a fun time.”
So much fun that they’re back again
this year.
Certainly, Shackelford County is well represented
in Munro’s latest book, The Inside-Outside Book of Texas,
which she describes as a sort of “first reference book on
Texas for youngsters.” The book seeks to teach youths about
the great rural-urban dichotomy that so colors Texas.
The book is dedicated to her mom.
Among the colorfully illustrated scenes
in Munro’s book is the old Lambshead Ranch cookshack favored
by Albany’s most famous citizen, the late rancher Watt Matthews.
During one of her research trips for the book, Munro spent part
of the day at Lambshead.
“The cookshack is kind of the center
of the ranch,” she said. “That’s where all the
cowboys hang out. Of all the images I saw there, that attracted
me the most.”
Munro, who lives with her husband, children’s
author Bo Zaunders, just two blocks from the Empire State Building
in busy Manhattan, says Albany is something of a rarity in rural
Texas, judging from her research trips across the Lone Star State.
“To tell you the truth, no matter where
I’ve gone, people talk about Albany as a very unique town,”
she said. “So many small towns in West Texas are dead today,
and yet Albany is so lively.”
Munro began writing and illustrating children’s
books in 1985, a pursuit she began at the suggestion of an author
at the New Yorker magazine who’d seen her other artwork.
The fit was comfortable, Munro said, because
she enjoyed children’s books growing up.
“I’ve been an artist since I was
6 years old,” she said. “By the age of 11, I had read
all the books in the library at my small school in Southern Maryland.”
While The Inside-Outside Book of Texas was
selling briskly during her Abilene visit and is expected to do
the same today in Albany, Munro has written similar “inside-outside
books” about New York, Washington D.C., Paris and London.
Yet another inside-outside book is about
libraries.
Of all the places she’s visited in
Texas, Big Bend remains her favorite.
“I really liked that because it was
kind of wild with no people,” she said. “I like the
wide open spaces that make me feel rich and luxurious … and
seeing the skies — as far as the eye can see, the road just
goes.”
Munro may be seeing even more of West Texas.
Among other things, she’s doing illustrations for a book
about chess for children, slated to be released this fall by Bright
Sky Press, a publishing company located right in Albany.
Munro will sign books from 2-5 p.m. today
at The Lynch Line.
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Copyright
©2001, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps.
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