White, Black and Read

White, Black and Read ('read' pronounced 'red', that is).  The CAS-Friday challenge was to use those colors...white, black and red but to use a book as inspiration.  That got me thinking about a lot of books I've read in my life...some huge favorites for me like The Agony and the Ecstasy which is a fictional autobiographical account of the Renaissance artist, Michelangelo.  Another book I love is the very regionally popular book Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell...I also love The Red Tent, The Lovely Bones, The Clan of the Cave Bear, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Silence of the Lambs, and so many others including the presently popular The Help. I also am loving Good Night, Moon and about any Thomas the Train book! :)

So when I decided to participate in the CAS-Friday challenge I started thinking about different books I've read over the years and a book that popped in my head  was one I read many years ago as a teenager: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

Has anyone else read that book or seen the movie made about it starring Cliff Robertson (he won an Academy Award for best actor) called "Charly"?  I think that book actually had a pretty profound affect on me and was somewhat instrumental in my choosing to study speech therapy and work with developmentally disabled folks.

Basically Flowers for Algernon is about a young man (Charly) who has an IQ in the high 60s (developmentally disabled) who is chosen to participate in a research study to see if his intelligence can be increased.  The procedure was first done on Algernon, a laboratory rat, who showed significantly increased intelligence. Charly also became really intelligent...falls in love, yada, yada, yada.  But Algernon's intelligence starts reversing and well, you can guess what happens.  I won't spoil the story in case someone wants to read it (it's not a big book) but there is some significance to the "flowers" in the title.

Wow...what a trip down memory lane that was.  Yep, I got out of graduate school as a speech therapist and my first job was working in a state hospital with folks who were multiply handicapped...mostly non ambulatory, non verbal...a very tough job but also very rewarding.  I did work in that field for many years...I think my interest in helping mentally and physically challenge people stemmed somewhat from the impact that book had on me.

So...where does my card come in? Well, it's just a simple card...with a flower for Algernon (or actually probably for my cousin to whom I need to send a thank you card!).
I haven't thought of this book in years....it really literally just popped into my head tonight when I was thinking about what book I wanted to use as my inspiration....wow....

I made it with DCWV papers from the Stripes, Plaids and Dots stack (LOVE that hounds tooth paper!).  I used the Spellbinders Carnation die for the flower, some crepe paper bunched up like a ruffle, a Papetrey ink sentiment, a Stampin' Up word punch, and a Papertrey Ink edger die.

Well, CAS-Friday...thanks for the walk down memory lane!

Oh and this was also entered in the Play Date Cafe PDCC97 challenge which was to use black, white and a splash of red!