Book of prayers aims to inspire
Mom, daughter just need readers
By ASHLEY KINDERGAN THE GAZETTE
Anne Sandall, 66, longs for the days when books were works of art. She values the feel of thick, smooth paper, of words written in curling script and of subtle illustrations. In fact, the Colorado Springs woman got to thinking that many things she holds dear — making beautiful books, reading bedtime stories and praying as a family — have fallen by the wayside. “Children go to bed with a TV program as the last thing they see. I think we’re not better for that,” Sandall said. To that end, Sandall and her daughter, 41-year-old Diane Sandall, have spent at least $30,000 to create their own publishing company and produce a high-end, cloth-bound book of children’s prayers called “Small Graces.” Children who read the book, they hope, will
come away artistically and spiritually inspired. For the idea to work, though, people have to start buying the $24.95 book. Since printing 3,300 Englishguage volumes in April, the Sandalls have sold about 110 copies. Getting “Small Graces” onto bookstore shelves has been difficult. Anne has mostly given up on distributors, saying they told her they work only with authors connected to known publishers or established independent publishers. Smaller distributors who expressed interest wanted too high a percentage of her profits. So Anne Sandall, who owns and runs a charter plane company called Anndall Air Charters with her husband, has been pitching the book to one bookstore at a time, with varied success. Her only hits so far are Borders bookstore at 2120 Southgate Road, Covered Treasures Bookstore in Monument and online bookseller Alibris.com, an online book dealer. Barnes & Noble is reviewing the book, and Sandall is negotiating with Amazon.com. Anne Sandall has given away more books than she has sold. The Sandalls raised money to print, bind and ship 3,300 Swahili-language paperbacks to the Tanzanian parish of Bishop Alpha Mohamed, whom Anne met when he visited Colorado Springs in 2004. She also has donated about 100 copies of the Englishguage hardcovers to churches, hoping they will order more. Most haven’t. “I would like to make money off it, I would like it to be profitable,” Anne said. But if it isn’t, she said, “I’m willing to commit this energy and time and dollars to make it a positive experience for people.” Anne Sandall began writing prayers for the book and culling others in 2003. She got permission to use the ones she didn’t write and e-mailed them to her daughter, who lives in Eugene, Ore. Diane Sandall sketched illustrations on paper. Once perfected, she used carbon paper to transfer the images to a piece of linoleum attached to a wooden block. She then cut a relief into the linoleum slab and used a press to make a print called a linocut. As in medieval holy books, the illustrations complement and interpret the written word. On every right-hand page, a few prayers sit inside a green arch reminiscent of the pointed-arch windows in Gothic churches. Vines, flowers and Celtic knot designs snake up the sides of the arch, while a finely detailed illustration of an image or idea in the prayer runs across the base. Diane remembers vividly how her grandfather’s workgnarled hands looked against the pages of the books they read together. That memory, she says, gives her faith that a challenging, engaging book can make a difference to a child. “Children are looking at so many different things when you’re reading (to) them. They’re not just passively soaking in things,” she said. “I think it does encourage that kind of quiet, but active, creativity and searching.” CONTACT THE WRITER: 476-4893 or akindergan@gazette.com
SIGNING c Anne Sandall will sign copies of “Small Graces” from 1 to 3 p.m. Aug. 6 at Borders, 2120 Southgate Road. The book also is available at Covered Treasures Bookstore, 105 2nd St. in Monument. Order the book online at www.alibris. com by typing in the author’s name and book title.
CAROL LAWRENCE, THE GAZETTE - Anne Sandall and her daughter, Diane, started their own publishing company to publish “Small Graces.” It features prayers that Anne Sandall wrote and gathered from other sources and linocut illustrations by Diane Sandall. Getting the book onto bookstore shelves has been challenging.
