More than a year and a half ago — which now seems in the distant past — we had an order requested for bookplates for a wonderful and loving project: a book area for children at the Child Study of Center of Yale School of Medicine, in honor of the beloved Director of Finance and Administration there, Karen Muth, who was losing her long battle with cancer. Karen was able to help choose the design she wanted before she passed. As her friend Jean Herzog, who placed the order, wrote, “books will be chosen by the faculty and staff for children and families who are dealing with childhood cancer. Karen dealt with her own cancer for more than eight years and was very touched that her friends and family chose to remember her this way.”
Jean wrote to me recently to let me know that Karen’s Korner was finally opened, on May 6, 2022, after some delays due to the pandemic. This wonderful book haven includes rocking chairs and a bookshelf with a variety of children’s books, each with a bookplate dedicated to Karen Muth. You can read more about it at their website.
I was touched that Jean shared this with me. These are the bookplate orders that give so much meaning to what we do. Bookplates in memory of a loved one are treasured tributes.
The traditional use of bookplates, begun in the 15th century, is to identify the owner of a book. Bookplates, also known as ex libris, are usually decorative, with artwork that is meaningful to the book owner. Often they show the family coat of arms or some particular area of interest to the owner. Many well-known figures have used bookplates and many well-known artists have created them over the years, but they are available for anyone to use.
iven in memory of a favorite teacher or librarian.
addition would be bookplates! When I contacted Katie, it turned out she had just looked at Bookplate Ink’s bookplates on Etsy! Since the shower was for my future granddaughter, I created a new bookplate for the shower.
Bookplate Ink has printed bookplates for customers’ baby showers, but I had never been to a book shower. I was very impressed with the way Katie put the shower together and thought it would be fun and helpful to share her ideas.
of beverages, including Pinkalicious spa water and Bear’s sangria, both based on children’s books. For coffee, Katie had white mugs on which fun literary messages had been printed with a Sharpie marker.
atie had a desk set up with a wonderful, creative guest book. The pages were removable to allow guests to write a message to the parents, decorate with a variety of stickers, and slip the paper into a plastic sleeve in the book. I put the bookplates here to allow the guests to fill them out before putting them with the books they brought. It would be easier to send baby shower bookplates to your guests along with the invitations, but we didn’t have a chance to coordinate this.
As we approached the cathedral, I was taken by the garden and Peace Fountain at the side. The Peace Fountain, a magnificent work itself, is surrounded by sculptures created by students at the school. I was astonished by the skill and effort put into these creations and spent quite a while looking at them.
My husband strolled down the lane at the side of the cathedral and came back to report seeing two peacocks wandering about. These peacocks, one of which was white, were friendly and fearless. They seemed quite used to being around people and, at least while we were there, seemed to enjoy showing off. According to an article in the 
