Ann Patchett had me at Bel Canto. She did not disappoint with her her latest offering State of Wonder. I can not explain my fascination with this gifted writer other than to say that I will read anything she writes.
Reading Journal – Hourglass by Myra McEntire
August 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Less a review, and more a collection of thoughts on each book I read, here begins my Reading Journal, starting with the last book I finished:
Once upon a time I was in a bible study with a sassy blond named Myra McEntire. Turns out we had more in common than a love of Harry Potter and the book of Numbers. She’s a fellow storyteller, and when I heard that her debut young adult novel, Hourglass, released in June, I made sure to add it to my reading list.
Little known fact about me: I love a good YA novel. I whipped through Hourglass on Sunday afternoon. Her fictional world of time travel and teenage romance is so different from the Jazz Era New York City that I’m writing and I found my brain rested and ready to work again after I finished.
Thanks, Myra.
What I’m Reading to My (Younger) Children
June 2, 2011 By 4 Comments
It is no secret that books are a big deal in my home. And since I believe that a passion for reading is caught and not taught, I jumped at the chance to review BLACKOUT by John Rocco. My intent was to read this to my younger boys (ages 4 and 2) but I hadn’t gotten through the first page when my older boys (ages 8 and 6) climbed onto the couch and read with us. It became an instant family favorite.
One hot summer night in the city, all the power goes out. The TV shuts off and a boy wails, “Mommm!” His sister can no longer use the phone, Mom can’t work on her computer, and Dad can’t finish cooking dinner. What’s a family to do? When they go up to the roof to escape the heat, they find the lights–in stars that can be seen for a change–and so many neighbors it’s like a block party in the sky! On the street below, people are having just as much fun–talking, rollerblading, and eating ice cream before it melts. The boy and his family enjoy being not so busy for once. They even have time to play a board game together. When the electricity is restored, everything can go back to normal . . . but not everyone likes normal. The boy switches off the lights, and out comes the board game again.
Using a combination of panels and full bleed illustrations that move from color to black-and-white and back to color, John Rocco shows that if we are willing to put our cares aside for a while, there is party potential in a summer blackout.
John Rocco is the creator of numerous books for children. Wolf! Wolf! garnered several awards including Borders Original Voices Award for best picture book. His second book, Moonpowder, was part of the Original Art Show at the Society of Illustrators, and artwork from the book was selected for a special nationwide traveling exhibition. Fu Finds the Way, his third book, is about a boy who finds courage in a pot of tea. He also illustrates all the covers for Rick Riordan’s bestselling YA series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Blackout is his latest release.
This book is wise and charming and full of wonder. And, in all honesty, the timing could not have been better for us to read it since we’ve instituted a mini “blackout” of our own this summer – our boys are saying goodbye to electronic entertainment for the next two months. Instead of movies and endless rounds of Wii, their days will be filled with books and sprinklers and watermelon seed spitting contents. As a wise friend once told me, we only get eighteen summers with our kids. How better to fill than with stories and memories?
Care to join us for a summer without screens? As John Rocco’s lovely book proves, sometimes a BLACKOUT is the best thing that can happen to a family.
Google Alerts, Lucy Pevensie, And What It Means For Writers
April 3, 2011 By 5 Comments
Lucy reading the Magicians book
Several weeks ago I finished reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to my children for the first time. There is a scene in the novel (it didn’t make the film) where Lucy stumbles across a spell in the Magician’s book that lets you know what your friends think about you. My children found it very sad and I’ve pondered it a great deal since:
And all in a hurry, for fear her mind would change, she said the words (nothing will induce me to tell you what they were)…And all at once she saw the very last thing she expected – a picture of a third-class carrige in a train, with two schoolgirls sitting in it. She knew them at once. They were Margorie Preston and Anne Featherstone. Only now it was much more than a picture. It was alive…Then gradually (like when the radio is coming on) she could hear what they were saying.
“Shall I see anything of you this term?” said Anne, “or are you still going to be all taken up with Lucy Pevensie?”
“Don’t know what you mean by taken up,” said Marjorie.
“Oh yes, you do,” said Anne. “You were crazy about her last term.”
“No, I wasn’t,” said Margorie. “I’ve got more sense than that. Not a bad little kid in her way. But I was getting pretty tired of her before the term ended.”
“Well, you jolly well won’t have the chance any other term!” shouted Lucy. “Two-faced little beast.” But the sound of her own voice at once reminded her that she was talking to a picture and that the real Marjorie was far away in another world. “Well,” said Lucy to herself, “I did think better of her than that…I wonder, are all friends the same? There are lots of other pictures. No. I won’t look at any more. I won’t, I won’t,” – and with a great effort she turned over the page, but not before a large, angry tear had splashed on it.
Later Aslan finds Lucy in the library…
“Child,” he said, “I think you have been eavesdropping.”
“Eavesdropping?”
“You listened to what your two schoolfellows were saying about you.”
“Oh that?” I never thought that was eavesdropping, Aslan. Wasn’t it by magic?”
“Spying on people by magic is the same as spying on them in any other way. And you have misjudged your friend. She is weak, but she loves you. She was afraid of the older girl and said what she does not mean.”
“I don’t think I’d ever be able to forget what I heard her say.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Oh dear,” said Lucy. “Have I spoiled everything? Do you mean we would have gone on being friends if it hadn’t been for this – and really great friends – all our lives perhaps – and now we never shall?”
“Child,” said Aslan, “did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?”
Something about the knowledge granted by the Magician’s spell reminds me very much of Google Alerts. Shortly before my novel released, my publisher encouraged me to set up a Google Alert so I’d know when anyone was talking about me or my book online. The theory, I believe, is that when I received an alert, I could engage that person and build a relationship. But in reality, for me, it felt a bit like showing up at someone’s house unannounced. It was a nerve racking experience. I canceled it after six months.
Though I don’t care to know when my name crops up in a cyber-discussion, I don’t think Google Alerts are all bad. A number of friends have made great professional connections as a result. But I do think it’s one of those services that comes with a price. And the ultimate question, I think, is whether or not it’s good for us to have that kind of knowledge?
Here You Are
March 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment
It happened, in that random stumbling-over-an-idea way that things seem to happen when you’ve got your nose down, busy with life. My friend Bonnie posted a link to Roger Rosenblatt’s new book on writing, Unless It Moves the Human Heart, on her Facebook page. I clicked, read the summary, and purchased. Three chapters in I feel the way I did in Mrs. Wilson’s Creative Writing class my Sophomore year in high school. Given permission. Understood. And somehow validated that I’m not, in fact, certifiably insane for choosing this career.
Rosenblatt is the acclaimed, best-selling author of Making Toast, and the Professor of English and Writing at Stony Brook University. His essays have won two George Polk Awards, the Peabody, and the Emmy. Add to that his six Off-Broadway plays and fourteen books, and I’m convinced that he knows his stuff.
Given the four ankle-biters that run around our house in their Scooby-Doo underwear, this is the closest I’m going to get to an MFA program for a while. So I’ve been going slow, absorbing the book a few pages at a time. After reading the following excerpt this morning, I am convinced that this is the best sort of impulse purchase. Here he discusses his role as teacher:
“The stories they discover in themselves will not depend on their adventures or lack of them, but on more hidden things, like the fear of loud noises and their capacities for viciousness and betrayal and yearnings for nobility and feelings about justice – all the generally human things that define us. They may not make their self-discoveries during the time they work with me, but it is my business to spot the revelatory moments in their writing, and to pause and say, “Here you are.” When I find something essential in their work, I am helping them get a glimpse of themselves. and when they learn to spot these things on their own, they will string the moments together sentence after sentence, and will begin to feel the shaky exhilaration of being a writer.”
“Here you are.” That’s what every writer longs to hear.
Running or Asleep
March 27, 2011 By 2 Comments
Sleepy Head
Where, you ask, have I been since January? What sort of decent writer lets her blog gather dust? Though tempted to hang my head in shame, or make excuses, I will instead refer to the above picture. This is my three-year-old. He was nick-named “Tater” by a high-ranking naval officer (long story). The moniker stuck.
Here’s the deal with Tater. He has two speeds: running or asleep. As do his three brothers. Which means I do as well. On or off. Hot or cold. Blogging or not. Such is the life of a mother of all boys. And not a bad life at that.
Collections
January 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Collections: Mine And Theirs
It is compatible, really: a house filled with books and boys. Perhaps not clean. But filled with life. And literature. And crumbs.
My favorite things are on display. Why not theirs?
Where Stories Come From
My Word
January 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
It seems to be going around, this question. It’s drifted through conversations and crowded rooms and online communities.
“What is your word for 2011?”
One week into this new year my word has settled into me. It’s taken root and spread across my thoughts.
In truth it’s been chasing me around the page for months. A year perhaps. And I laugh to think that I didn’t recognize it at first. It’s obvious now. I’ve been reading this book. And I wrote this essay.
This word you see…I’m trying to live one. And write a new one.
STORY.
Outsider Art
January 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Outsider Art: a term coined by French artist Jean Dubuffet (art brut) to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture.
Confession: I’ve never attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Or Columbia University.
Yet I am a student of words, and more importantly, story. Whether that makes me an Outsider is debatable (especially considering the original application of Dubuffet’s term being for the mentally ill, with specific reference to the visual arts) but I certainly skirt the edges of “official” culture.
This urge to create is woven into the helix of my DNA. It’s as much a part of me as the freckles and brown eyes. Be it official or not.
