'Til Midnight

In an effort not to completely waste my time with my Olympics obsession this last two weeks, I cleaned out file folders as I watched. I made an encouraging discovery in my rejections file. In an uneven but steady progression, the letters have improved with time – from form copies to personal letters, from generic check lists to specific suggestions, from leaving me wondering it the submission was read to referencing specific quotes or concepts in the manuscript.

With a slight diversion, let me answer your curiosity. You were wondering why writers would save rejection letters, weren’t you? One friend has taped hers together accordion fashion and pulls them up to her height when she does school visits to encourage persistence in young students. The most creative use I ever heard for them is the writer who used them for his office wallpaper. That’s too depressing for me, so I stash them in the file folder. And why do I keep them? I don’t know. I keep acceptance letters as well, but they are honored with a place in the folder with the manuscript they helped to sell.

Watching an interview with Meghan Duggan, member of the US women’s hockey team as I worked, I got caught up in her answer to the interviewer about handling loss and disappointment. She said, “My coach says you sit on it ‘til midnight, and then get up and get back to work the next day.”

I had no idea how quickly I would need her advice on rebounding. Friday, I got a “pass” from an agent I had queried. My first reaction, to twist Shakespeare a bit, “A rejection by any other name would smell as bad.” But then I looked again and saw the agent’s apology for the delay in responding because “I’ve been keeping this project in my mind,” and a suggestion that I query one of her colleagues. Could this be like coming in just off the podium?

Meghan Duggan and her team were in the Gold Medal match and won the Silver Medal when they lost to Canada. Not bad at all, but still disappointing. I’m thinking she probably took her coach’s advice, and I think I will, too.  

The Olympics is over. Midnight is past. Excuse me while I get back to work.

Hattiesburg Winter

Hattiesburg Winter –
•    A couple of days in December
•    A week or so in January
•    A fortnight in February
•    A day or so in March

But this year –
•    Fireplace weather for Thanksgiving
•    Back of the closet searches for heavy coats and gloves
•    School closures for an inch of sleet and ice – no beautiful snow
•    Unrelenting miserable gray skies, drizzle, wind
•    December, January, February
•    On and on and on

Until
•    Out the window
•    Through the gray mist
•    Against the dead browns
•    A tiny spot of yellow
•    Could it be?
•    In the midst of the drab
•    One droopy daffodil

Slight, but welcome, suggestion of spring

Glitter and Glue

Kelly Corrigan’s memoir Glitter and Glue connects the dots of the mother/daughter relationship from the viewpoint of one who was first a daughter and then a mother. Readers who have been either will find much in common. Readers who have been both will find themselves switching between the two roles.

As Kelly begins reading My Antonia, a novel which will season the story in her memoir, she talks about books becoming more about what the reader brings to the book than about what the author meant for it to say. I found the idea fit as I made my own connections of being both a daughter with a mother and a mother with a daughter.

My first connection came via Kelly’s world-traveling adventure with her college roommate since I have a granddaughter traveling Europe and now South America following her graduation from college. That connection was fleeting since I would never have the courage for a journey with so many uncertainties.

My second connection, much stronger and lingering throughout the book, is the quote from which the title is taken. When she was a teenager, her mother told her, “Your father’s the glitter, but I’m the glue.” Neither her mother nor mine was the kind to be best friends with her daughter. Instead, as that glue, they formed the safe haven that comes with consistent standards of behavior and an unchanging presence. Her father filled a role that recalled a statement I made when my own father died, “I’ve lost the president of my fan club.”

Her reference to “the voice I hear in my head for the rest of my life,” conjured up times I have heard from friends or said myself, “I opened my mouth and heard my mother’s voice coming out.” Like Kelly, some of those were words I had sworn I would never repeat.  

As I read the book, I connected as both mother and daughter. Still, I wavered back and forth with ways they were not at all like my relationship with either my mother or my daughter. The final blow came when she quoted her mom to her children, “Life’s not fair,” words my children have threatened to put on my tombstone.

This is a book for mothers, daughters, and perhaps for curious men who would like to understand that special relationship.

W W II Love Story

Valentine’s Day would be a waste without a good love story, and one of my favorites comes from World War II. Six decades after it happened, Yvonne Pope’s eyes shone every time I heard her tell it. Her husband Moran could entertain with his own version – and with a matching twinkle in his eye.

Small town Newton, Mississippi girls’ wedding expectations included a white dress extending into a long train before a bank of flowers and candelabra with lifelong friends standing up for the couple as bridesmaids and ushers. World War II brought on adjustments. Moran learned he would be shipped out to the South Pacific upon completion of his officer training at Colombia University in New York City. Yvonne left her original wedding plans behind and boarded a train. They were married in Manhattan’s Riverside Church – #38 of 54 Navy couples on the same afternoon. They would be separated for most of the next two years.

After the war, she and Moran settled in Hattiesburg, MS where they raised their son and daughter. He served as mayor and practiced law. She served as gracious hostess. Both were active in community and church activities.

Yvonne’s story was fed by the abundant love songs of the era, and she passed along her love for the music to her daughter. Yvonne played the piano while Melinda sang along. The passion was contagious.

In recent years, as Yvonne’s health failed, Melinda made what she describes as a homemade recording for her mother, picking their favorites to share. After Yvonne’s death, with encouragement and support from her husband Rob, the other member of her own love story, Melinda produced a professional album of those songs, dedicated to her parents. I listen as I write, “Gibraltar may crumble – Our love is here to stay,” and picture Yvonne and Moran, both storytellers, recounting their versions of the story. While their young love makes for an exciting story, the better part is that the end of it was nowhere in sight with Yvonne’s death sixty eight years later.

If you like the music of the era sung as it was meant to be sung or maybe have a love story of your own to remember, you might look for https://www.facebook.com/MelindaDeRockerMusic.

The Inconvenient Indian

Rejection of a suggestion that Indians were like slaves sums up the feeling of The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King. “That’s not accurate. We were more like . . . furniture.” He takes the reader on a trip through history as he chronicles the Indian experience in both Canada and the United States. He characterizes the attitude of the two nations, “as though both countries had stopped off at the mall and bought us on clearance.” His twists of irony keep the book interesting while his research keeps it accurate. It is a good read told from the viewpoint of one who has had that inconvenient experience.

I use the term “Indian” for this review as he did in the book. He did say one reader told him if he was going to use that term, he should call everybody else “cowboys.” He labels three kinds of Indians to tell the story – Dead Indians, Live Indians, and Legal Indians.

Dead Indians are the stereotypes in war bonnets, beaded shirts, and moccasins carrying feathered lances and tomahawks. They’re found in movies, football teams, Calumet baking soda, and Big Chief tablets. Yearbooks from my husband’s high school and my junior college feature them prominently. Old US coins in my husband’s collection bear their image. King’s portrayal suggests that both countries are fascinated with these Indians.

He characterizes perceptions of Live Indians as invisible, unruly, and disappointing. When they dance at powwows, North Americans see Dead Indians come to life. By contrast, in their own minds, they do the dances to remind themselves of where they came from and their relationship to the earth.

Legal Indians are those with enough native blood to be eligible to enroll in a recognized tribe. The Live Indians and Legal Indians are the inconvenient ones. Both Canada and the United States have a lively history of moving them from place to place [remember the furniture analogy?] while they make and break treaties with them. Thomas King gives a lively, sarcastic, and thorough view of this history from both sides of the border.

At one point, he says he looks for the funny bit in the historical record, the ironic slant, the chuckle, something to make a dull subject interesting. I’d say he succeeded. His “Indians” and “Cowboys” are not divided neatly into good guys and bad guys, nor does he offer easy solutions to the inconvenience fed by years of bad history. I found the book both enjoyable and thought-provoking and recommend it to those looking for a thoughtful view of history and/or justice.

Saving the Story

Before I gave the crazy quilt to a friend, I needed to check it for stories. Mama’s stepmother pieced quilts. We called her “Grandma” because she was the only grandmother we ever knew. Mama saved all her scraps from sewing for four girls for the quilts. We enjoyed finding remnants of favorite dresses and recalling the stories of places where they had been in Grandma's finished quilt tops. Usually, she and her friends finished them at a gossipy quilting bee.

Cleaning out my closets this week, I found the last quilt top she had done. Mama had inherited it from her and put it on a shelf – unquilted. I had done the same when it was passed down to me. Knowing I was never going to do anything with it and certain that my children wouldn’t either, I offered it to my quilter friend. I was pleased that she wanted it though her own quilts are creative works of art instead of crazy combinations of patchwork.

I spread the quilt on the bed to see if there was a story worth saving before I let it go. Indeed, there was.

My sisters and I felt well-dressed while we were growing up. Mama made up for what we lacked in money with an eye for design and skill with a generic sewing machine. My finest outfit one year was a white pique gathered skirt with a yellow pique sleeveless jacket blouse sporting fine imitation pearl buttons. Naturally, there were matching yellow ribbons for the ends of my pigtails.

Returning from some dress up occasion with special friends, my sisters and I didn’t take the time to do our usual change into “old clothes.” Instead, the group of us headed straight to the barbed wire fence to cross into the pasture to play. Granddaughters of a dairy farmer, we knew not to stretch the barbed wire by going through or under. We climbed the fence post and jumped over.

As I made my leap, I found myself suspended in space listening to the ominous ripping sound of my skirt. It had hung on the barbed wire as I came down leaving me dangling in midair. By the time I collected myself, the waistband was destroyed with the skirt hanging here and there to its bits and pieces. I sensed trouble with Mama ahead.

Mama let me off the hook with a few – okay, more than a few – words about remembering to change into “old clothes” next time and then set about fixing the problem. She found a new remnant on sale at the fabric store of white pique with bright red and blue teardrop shapes. After she did a bit of repair to rips in the skirt, she made a new waistband and jacket blouse from the print. Naturally, there were double ribbons of red and blue for the pigtails. Truthfully, the second version was prettier than the first.

Story saved. Story shared. I hope Martha enjoys finishing the quilt.

The Mary Poppins Controversy

I heard the swirling controversy before I ever made it to see Saving Mr. Banks. Purists bemoaned the glorified version of Walt Disney himself and the tears of joy that P. L. Travers weeps as she watches the premier of the Mary Poppins movie based on her book. They correctly point out that he did not originally invite her to the premier. She was badgering Disney to take out the animated penguins even at that late point and was not happy with his treatment of her books. Her tears were not for joy!

Some of those who had read and loved her books sympathized with her stance. The Mary Poppins of the books was no “spoonful of sugar” kind of nanny. On the other hand, another critic pointed out that she had no aversion to taking the money that came from the production.

I had failed to read the books as I grew up even though I wore the “bookworm” title proudly. I’m guessing they were missing in the limited supply on our bookmobile, sparse collection in our small rural schools, and even more limited collection – if there was one at all – in the rural churches I attended.

I had enjoyed the free-wheeling Mary Poppins and her friend Burt in the Disney movie with my children. The lighthearted music had its place in my home and my classroom. I found nothing better to cure the wiggles in kindergarteners than moving to the music of “Step in Time” – great fun for the teacher as well as the students!

Before I saw the movie, I found a copy of Mary Poppins to read. She was quite different from the Julie Andrews version though she did come in on the wind with her parrot head umbrella.

Off I went with a friend to see Saving Mr. Banks. It may be just my perception, but it seemed the screenwriters modeled P. L. Travers after her own version of Mary Poppins. I left the movie with more questions than answers about how much of it to believe. I’ve enjoyed pursuing the trail to find which parts were true.

The hullabaloo could lead to the question of who comes out on top? I would say we do. The original Mary Poppins books are very fine tales. The Mary Poppins movie is delightful. Although I haven’t seen it, I’ve heard that the play that follows the book more closely is quite good. Saving Mr. Banks is good enough that my friend who went with me was seeing it for the second time. So just enjoy all four versions, the discussion of the controversy, and some really fascination research if you look into the life of the author herself.

I thought you might also enjoy the picture, borrowed with permission from a mutual friend’s Facebook page, of my good friend Ellen Ruffin in her role as the first Mary Poppins at Disneyworld. She liked the books and both movies as well. I think she should know.

Inventory Time - A Year of Books

In the country store owned by several generations of Butlers, January was inventory time – count those cans of vegetables, spools of thread, bags of fertilizer, and boxes of nails. I decided to follow the idea and do a count of my reading for 2013. I recorded 82 books which doesn’t count the picture books I read standing in the library or with a grandson on my lap, but it will get close enough for this purpose.

The prompt for this inventory, part of the “Not Much ‘Rithmatic” of this blog, was not the country store, although I’ve chosen the traditional end of January time. Rather, it was a Facebook discussion among my book people friends about the insufficiency of multi-cultural literature in the children’s and young adult markets. It was started with a quote by Jason Low of Lee and Low, citing statistics that showed only 13% of children’s books contain ethnic diversity with hardly any change in the last ten years. My curiosity led me to check my reading this year to see where my own percentages stood. For my purposes, I counted only the books where the main character belonged to a group that Horn Book Magazine calls “non-white.”

Don’t try to make these statistics come up to 82 because some books didn’t fit neatly into a category, the ethnicity of the main character wasn’t always obvious, and I couldn’t quite figure how to count instructional or inspirational tomes. I will base my percentages on the 82 since that is my total. Thirty six (43.9%) were adult books; thirty (37%) were young adult; and five (6%) were middle grade. Forty-six (56%) were fiction and seventeen (29.7%) were non-fiction. Nineteen (23.2%), mostly in the young adult or middle grade books, had a protagonist from a culture other than my own plain vanilla.

I can hear you asking, “And your point is?” I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just that I felt certain during the discussion that I was reading a higher percentage than Jason Low’s statistic. Maybe that’s because I am at the enviable stage of life of being able to choose my books with the only requirement being that it looks like a good read.

With that in mind, my percentage is almost twice that reported in the article that started the discussion. Why? (1) To return to the ice cream analogy – I am very fond of vanilla, but I would hate to lose the variety of orange sherbet, butter pecan, or tin roof sundae.  (2) I like good well-written books and all of these were. (3) I also like figuratively peeking across the fence and seeing my neighbors experience joy, sorrow, courage, disappointment – the same emotions I experience – even when their traditions are different from mine.

Well, that’s quite enough ‘rithmetic for a while. I’ll get back to readin’ and ritin’.   

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy

Sardines and superglue – hardly what you might think of to ward off the wicked Snow Queen and the power of evil, but that’s just what you find in Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee. I read an advance reading copy of the book to be released January 28, 2014.

Before her death, Ophelia’s writer mother told her, “Fairy tales are for beginners.” In an ironic twist, her words set the stage for the book in which she does not appear. Being dead precludes her appearance, but not her voice. She often whispers in Ophelia’s ear as she provides guidance and encouragement in Ophelia’s fairytale adventure enhanced with evil, intrigue, and magic. The reader who is paying attention will quickly figure out this is exactly the kind of story her mother chose to write – the beginner fairy tale embellished with illusion, enchantment, and danger.

Ophelia must get past her own scientific mind to take in the other-worldly situation where the Snow Queen has kept The Marvelous Boy imprisoned for three hundred and three years. The reader joins her as she suspends disbelief. She needs to save not only the boy but her father, sister Alice, and the community that will gather at the remarkable clock that chimes only once every three hundred years. Ophelia’s task impels her to find the magic sword and the One Other before it sounds.

The book is a quirky mix of fairytale, fantasy, and hero’s journey. A middle grader finishing an afternoon of romping in the snow will find this a good read in front of the fire with a cup of hot chocolate.

“But what about the sardines and superglue?” you ask. Just read the book. I think you’ll love it when you find them. Oh, and there’s a Biscuit Man as well, but he serves an entirely different purpose.

It's Time

The cover for this year’s Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival brochure brings to mind the old song “Sentimental Journey” and its line “I got my bag and got my reservation.” Luckily, I live right here in Hattiesburg and won’t need the bag. I did make my reservation.

While I was signing in, I noted that the deadline for early reservation is February 3 and thought I would put out an alert for my loyal readers who may need to think about another line in the song – “spent each dime I could afford.” Early is cheaper with even more dimes saved if you can support a claim of being over 60 or a retired librarian.

While the festival will be overrun with librarians, the only real requirement to attend is to be a lover of books for the younger set. Author presentations, storytelling, interesting breakout sessions, and autographing are nonstop for three days.  This year’s authors include Christopher Paul Curtis who receives the medallion for his body of work, the team of David Small and Sarah Stewart, Kathi Appelt as the de Grummond lecturer, M. T. Anderson, and Leda Schubert. Just Google the names and look at the list of awards they have won to get a picture of what awaits those who attend.

A bonus for the last few years has been the movement of the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer/New Illustrator Awards to the festival. It’s been fun to watch how many of these “new” writers and illustrators have gone on to fulfill the promise of their awards and become stars in the world of children’s books. We get to meet them early in their careers and get books signed before they are “rich and famous.”

One more line from the song fits many of us as we return year after year on “a sentimental journey home” to hang out with old friends. Yet even first timers are never strangers. Those who love children’s books are automatically bonded.

After February 3, the price goes up. If you’re watching those dimes, be forewarned. The website where you can sign in is www.usm.edu/childrens-book-festival. See you there!

Barriers

If you have been with me from the beginning, you may recognize this blog as a rewrite of a previous one. Since Martin Luther King Jr. Day coincides with my regular blogging day, it seems fitting to revisit my first consciousness of the inequities of the segregated world in which I grew up. I looked like the picture I’ve posted when it occurred.

Mama believed in rules. She had lots, and she found them in many places. There were house rules, school rules, rules in the Bible, traffic rules . . . I thought Mama believed in all rules until one day when I was eight years old.

Mama, my sisters, and I were boarding a Trailways bus to return home after a visit with my grandfather. I noticed some strange panels hanging down on either side, dividing the front section of the bus from the back. I asked her what they were for.

I don’t remember her words, but I distinctly remember my two reactions. The first was that I might prefer to sit in the back rather than the front. At eight years old, I was smart enough to know that a rule that prevented one group of people from sitting in the front also prevented me from sitting in the back.

The second reaction was even more startling. Somehow I knew, even as she explained it, that Mama did not believe in the rule. The great rule-maker, rule-teacher, rule-follower thought this rule was wrong. I never forgot.

When Mama was old, I asked her one day if she remember this incident that made an indelible impression in my mind. She didn’t, but she asked me what she had told me. I told her I didn’t remember her words. I just remembered knowing she did not believe in the rule. She said, “I’m glad.”

In that reaction during my formational years, I believe she encouraged a lifelong antipathy to physical and symbolic barriers between people and an understanding that barriers get in the way of those on both sides of the obstruction. I am grateful.

Snowy Day Month

Of course, it is! I am not mixed up about days and months. Ezra Jack Keats Foundation has proclaimed this as Snowy Day Month, and who should know better? What month could outshine January for celebrating The Snowy Day? And in what month do we need it more?

Blue background bulletin boards with chalk snowflakes and snow banks went up in my classrooms shortly after Christmas. The dreariness of winter seemed to call for it. Never mind that few of my kindergarten children in San Antonio or my second graders in Fort Polk, Louisiana had ever seen snow. Only those who had moved in from northern places could tell stories of playing in the white stuff. But sight unseen, they were just as intrigued as my second graders in Germany who eagerly awaited waking up to a fresh coat of white powder.

In January, out came The Snowy Day, and for a little bit, the children became Peter. They felt the plop of snow that landed on his head. They thrilled to a ride on their seats down the snow-covered hill. They made pretend snow angels on the floor and trailed their sticks to make patterns in the sandbox. Most shook their heads in wisdom, knowing what would happen when Peter carefully tucked the snowball into his pocket to save in his warm house.

Thankfully, the Keats Foundation has done more than make a proclamation. If you have a child close by or can find one to borrow for a while, wonderful activities have been posted on their website at http://www.ezra-jack-keats.org/celebrating-the-snowy-day. Trust me, it will not matter if the child has never experienced snow. Until somebody shuts their imaginations down, children know about elves, trolls, magic fairy dust, ogres, sleigh bells on rooftops, wizards, and snow-covered hillsides.  And if you hang around them a little while, you may catch a glimpse of these wonders for yourself. 

Perfect

Did she or did she not? This is the first question for the reader to ponder in the Perfect book by English author Rachel Joyce. Perfect is not an adjective, but the name of the novel – like “Who” is on first in the Abbot and Costello routine.

Actually, this is the second question which arises from the first one which was, “Did they really add two seconds of time to the clock in 1972 in the middle of the day?” It just seems like the first since everything that follows hinges on the answer to “Did she or did she not?” which in its own way hinges on the first question about the two seconds. If you think this paragraph is convoluted, you need to read the book.

Maybe Byron’s mother did and maybe she did not hit a little girl on a red bicycle in that two second time addition. Of course that leads to all sorts of other questions, all of them with a feeling of eeriness. To give just a few samples:
•    What secret does Diana, Byron’s mother, hide on Digby Road?
•    Will the Perfect Plan, concocted by Byron’s friend James clear up the hit-and-run problem or make it infinitely worse?
•    Who is Jim, obviously afflicted with OCD, and why does he keep turning up in odd chapters?
•    Then it gets really complicated with whether or not Beverley is using her daughter Jeanie, who may or may not be injured, to pull social and economic blackmail, and whether Bryon’s father who shows up periodically on weekends will notice the money being taken out of the family pot.
•    Could two seconds of time, even if added in the middle of the day, turn so many lives upside down?

As usual, I did not read other comments or check the author website until I had finished reading the book and doing my review in order to form my own opinion. I did want to know more about the author and checked her website at http://www.racheljoycebooks.com. In her letter about this book she also talks about its many questions. Her take is quite interesting and not too far from mine.
 
Weirdness, and I mean this in the best possible way, lasts all the way to the last period in this book. If you enjoy readjusting your viewpoint all the way through a book, I would say this one is – well – “perfect.”

A Garnish of Joy

The conference leader asked us to take a couple of minutes and respond to the prompt “A Garnish of Joy.” My train of thought started with the winter burst of green nandina and its red berries against the bleak charcoal of empty trees in my back yard and traveled quickly to the gray days of life sometimes eased by bursts of joy.

It took me to the late Monday night phone call in Germany on January 11, 1982. My brother-in-law asked to speak to “Allen” – a name used only by family. I watched my husband’s face as he talked and knew there was bad news. He hung up the phone and said, “Your daddy died at noon today of a heart attack.”

The next morning I met my principal at school on a snow day when only the staff were working to plan for my absence. Doing what he could to help, he moved my favorite substitute, who knew my class and routines, from another assignment to cover my class until I got back. He offered sympathy and wisdom in the observation that death is a part of life. This was the closest death had ventured to me.

Early the next morning, we traveled through snowbound streets to get to an airplane to carry me home. Travel delays made me concerned about catching my flight from Atlanta on to Jackson. As we came though the customs checkpoint, passengers were filled with questions about meeting flights. The German lady in front of me couldn’t get the airport personnel to understand her question. With my limited German, I became translator, asking about her flight. When I found out it was due to leave immediately, I could tell her “snell,” and she knew to hurry.
My personal cloud grew darker when I got to my connecting flight to find the snowstorm across the South had shut down any flights west from Atlanta. I’ll skip the details and go straight to getting home on Thursday after dark – to Mama’s house where the pipes were frozen and neighbors were bringing in water in large containers.

Those dark days were garnished with joy as people called or came to remember Daddy. They might begin with the last joke he had told them or one they were saving to tell him the next time they saw him and finish with the impact he had on their lives. Sometimes the order was reversed, but they never failed to include both items.

Not long after my return to Germany, I got another garnish of joy. My sister Gwyn had developed her Christmas pictures with this one of Daddy in a typical pose. She thought he was watching Mama open the Christmas present we had sent them.

Thirty-two years later, a day seldom goes by without a garnish of joy in some memory of Daddy’s wisdom or his sense of humor.

Being Sloane Jacobs

“Timeliness, timeliness, timeliness” may be as important for author Lauren Morrill’s book release as “location, location, location” is for a real estate agent. Being Sloane Jacobs might be described as Olympic skating meets The Parent Trap. It comes out tomorrow just as people are finishing up thoughts of football and moving into thinking of the upcoming Olympic Games. I read an advance reading copy furnished through Net Galley.

Sloane Emily Jacobs accidentally meets Sloane Devon Jacobs as they head to different kinds of skating camps, each trying to escape problems at home as they hone their competitive skating skills. Sloane Emily is fighting her way back into the ice skating world after being sidelined for three years, and Sloane Devon is atoning for anger issues that have placed her in jeopardy of losing her spot on her hockey team. A good word from the camp will help restore her place when she gets home. Both are absorbed in the personal family baggage they bring along with their luggage to their camps. An accidental meeting brings a decision to exchange places for the greener pasture that lures them from the other side.

One soon forgets The Parent Trap image as their lives play out with believable complications including a couple of teenage boys who may lead them astray – or not. The tension switches among making the standard in the new skating sport without being discovered, their relationships with the boys, and unsettling communications from home.

The book is an enjoyable weekend read for a girl who needs a rest from heavy studying after mid-term exams or for a skating fan of any age. I have two concerns about the book. The first is how well one can suspend disbelief that each girl can reach the standard of competence expected of a competitor in the short time she is at ice skating or hockey camp. The other is whether today’s young adult reader will understand several references to skaters from the past. The Tonya Harding incident happened long before they were born, and even Kristy Yamaguchi was unfamiliar to my sixteen-year-old granddaughter when I checked.

I find these problems minor and came away feeling that Lauren Morrill had told a good story that would appeal to female readers who are coming of age and would perhaps entice them to take a second look at the true depth of green in pastures that lure from the other side of the fence.

Uncross those fingers!

Wisdom came with an unusual visual image from Matt de la Pena speaking to the writers and illustrators at the WIK 13 Southern Breeze SCBWI conference. “You can’t type well with your fingers crossed.”

You might want to ask why anyone would try that in the first place, but he addressed a common, but not very productive, attitude among writers awaiting word on a submission. Having worked hard on writing and polishing until they have a deeply loved work, they send it out to agents and/or publishers. The temptation is to sit and wait for an answer with fingers tightly crossed. Just to show how futile this is, my replies have taken a few days, a few weeks, a few months, and occasionally a year or so!

His advice urged those attending to uncross their fingers and get started on the next work. That most beloved piece may or may not find a home with a publisher. In fact, stories abound of writers who sold their second or fourth or ninth piece before they could get anyone’s attention for the first one. Crossed fingers won’t change the process. Uncrossed fingers, typing away, may produce another work that will find a home – and perhaps even open a door for the first.

In my case, I adapted the image a bit since I love a long legal pad of college-ruled paper and a cup of very sharp pencils for the first draft. I tried out writing with crossed fingers, and I can tell you with authority that makes it hard to grip a pencil, much less write. And I’m thinking if that hoped for phone call comes from the editor/agent, even answering the phone will be easier with uncrossed fingers.  

I’ve enjoyed the takeaway of his image as applied to the writing process, but I think in this new year, it could also be applied to other areas of life. Wishes and dreams have value when they cause us to work for and reach beyond the ordinary. Few materialize because we sit around with our fingers crossed.

I Lied

I admit I lied, but it wasn’t my fault. Ellen Ruffin made me do it. I said in public on Facebook and elsewhere a number of times that I wasn’t going to read Kathi Appelt’s book The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp until she comes to the Fay B. Kaigler Book Festival next year. My plan was to buy the book and get it signed at their book signing.

Then Ellen picked it for our de Grummond Book Group to read and discuss. What was I to do? My choices were limited.
•    I could skip a meeting. TOO painful.
•    I could go to the meeting without reading the book which would mean I couldn’t enter into the conversation. WAY too painful.
•    I could go back on my word, buy the book now, and read it. Only painful to the degree that my conscience bothered me. NOT painful at all.

Kathi Appelt gives reason, thought, and courage to the true blue scout raccoon brothers Bingo and J’miah, and life to the legendary Sugar Man who rules the swamp and loves sugar cane. The human boy, Chap Brayburn, knows how to sing the canebrake lullaby and cook sugar pies worth a trip out into the swamp if people only knew they were there. Trouble comes double. Wicked feral hogs head toward the swamp and developers plot to take the land. The reader, to whom the author speaks in a Jane Eyre manner, hangs onto her seat with the hogs getting nearer and nearer as the raccoons rush to find the Sugar Man, and all the time it looks like Chap will lose his Paradise Pies Café to the developers.

One would think the neat wrap-up at the end would let this reader relax, but there are two other questions. Now that I have my book in hand and will not be buying it at the book store, will there be an opportunity to get it signed on the sly? I’m holding Ellen responsible for working this out.

The other question comes from following mock Newbery Award lists where librarians and other children’s book people try to guess who’s winning this year. The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp keeps turning up on those lists. I’m hanging onto my seat and crossing my fingers for this one. I’ll be sitting near my computer for news when the American Library Association makes its choices on January 27, 2014.

I will add that this is not the first time Ellen has conned me into something. So far, all her enticements have been fun. The next time she leads me into temptation, I’ll just go ahead and yield.

Ten Books

One of the latest fads making the rounds of Facebook are lists of ten books that touched the reader and left an indelible impression. Like one of my friends, I couldn’t do it without thought as the instructions said. I had to think about it.  I also needed to do a bit of commentary so I’m including it in this blog rather than just making a list. Needless to say, I have far more than ten, but these represent books that have remained with me long after the reading is over and sometimes bring me back to read again.

1. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
    This is my personal favorite book of all time, but I add to my own pleasure the wonderful memories of sharing it with eighth graders as a read aloud.

2. Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott
    I lost track of how many times I read this, my favorite book as I grew up. The family, like mine, had four girls. However, the personalities were out of order. In my family, I am the oldest, but I was Jo, joyfully scribbling away.

3. Part of Me by Kimberly Willis Holt
    This is another book where I became the character. This lifetime story of Rose has so many things from mine – wonderful rural people, the bookmobile, and Rose’s love of words and story.

4. Jacob, Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
    I’ve read and loved most, if not all, of Katherine Paterson’s books, but this one is my favorite with its redemption of the daughter who has assumed the unfavorite role.

5. All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
    Herein lies another family of four girls to whom I could relate – surprising since I grew up in rural North Mississippi, daughter of a Baptist pastor, and this is a turn-of-the-century New York Jewish family. Ella and I both had mothers who believed daughters were for dusting furniture!

6. The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle
    This book introduced me to the work of the author, of whom I have become a fan. To be able to tell a wonderful historical story in poetry is an amazing thing.     

7. A Bus of Our Own by Freddi Williams Evans
    Based on a true story from her own family, Freddi weaves a “lemonade from lemons” picture book of African Americans figuring out a way for their children to have a school bus in pre-Civil Rights Mississippi.

8. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
    This one is just for the fun it brings – still.

9.  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
    This book also has sharing connections, first with my daughter when it was her sixth grade school assignment, and then with my junior high students as a read aloud. What good conversations it has triggered!

10. The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
    I loved The Snowy Day first with my own children and with my kindergarten and second grade students. In more recent days, its importance to the world of children’s literature has been magnified as I have had the pleasure of researching the man and his books at the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection.

I know, I’ve omitted a lot of wonderful books, but I’ll stick with this list and let you tell me what you think I left out.

The Flawed Manger Scene

You may notice something familiar if you have followed my blog for a while. You might label this a rerun or a repost, but I’m calling it a ritual in keeping with other things we do yearly at Christmas. It may not rank up there with A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life, but every year as I put up our manger scene, I am reminded. I post this favorite memory with hope that you will also enjoy the reminder.

    Joseph has lost his staff.  The moss on the manger roof is splotchy.  The donkey has no ears and the cow only one of her horns.  Since the nativity scene came from Sears and was inexpensive in the first place, why don’t we just replace it?
    The answer is, “Too many memories.”  Our children were small when we got it.  They stood and gazed at the Baby Jesus, often rearranging the animals or the Magi.  As they grew older, they found a prominent place to display it each Christmas.  They loved setting it up and remembering in Texas, Germany, Louisiana – wherever the Army designated as home.
    One memorable Christmas, we lived in Germany atop a hill overlooking a snow-covered village centered by the church steeple.  Right after Thanksgiving, we decorated our Christmas tree. The children chose the wide ledge in front of the picture window for the nativity. Since our German neighbors waited to trim their trees until Christmas Eve, we invited the community kindergarten children to come up to see our tree and have cookies and punch.  
    Their faces lit as they “Oohed,” in wonder at the Christmas tree.  They examined each ornament, but soon they moved to the window and our Sears manger scene – a poor match in my mind for the beautifully hand-carved nativity scenes found in their Christkindlmarkts. They drew us into their awe as they sat quietly on the floor around the crèche watching as though they waited for the baby to cry.  
    We have new crèches, nicer and in better shape including one from Bethlehem.  Still, this defective one always takes the place of honor.  Maybe it is appropriate after all. For didn’t the Christ Child come into humble surroundings for that which was imperfect - to heal the brokenhearted, to bind the wounds of the injured, to bring sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those who are captive?   

Finding Out About Santa Claus

My first year of school brought new knowledge every day. My accomplishments loomed large in my own mind as I learned to put together what I saw and heard to form new conclusions.

On Christmas morning, my two sisters and I bounced out of bed and headed for the Christmas tree. It stood in the middle of the living room adorned with red and green construction paper chains and sweet gum balls wrapped in tin foil we had peeled from chewing gum wrappers. We saved the wrappers all year and competed to peel the tin foil off from the backing in one piece without a tear.

Daddy taught fifth and sixth grade and served as principal of the six-grade, three-teacher elementary school in addition to being pastor of the village church. The extra income made for a more abundant Christmas than usual. In addition to our personal gifts, there was a chalkboard on an easel for the three of us to share. One side was solid black. The other was marked off in a grid with tiny numbers for each square across the top and left side. On this side was a chalk picture of Santa Claus. Dangling below was a little book.

After we had begun to play with our gifts, I returned to the chalkboard. I looked at the little book which had pictures with gridlines. By following the pattern numbers, I could draw the pictures on the chalkboard.

As I turned a page, I was startled to see the same picture of Santa that was on the board. My first grade logic kicked in. “If Santa was so smart, why did he need a pattern to draw his own picture? And, if he didn’t do it, who did?”

I saw Mama watching me. I said, “You drew this picture, didn’t you? There’s not really a Santa Claus, is there?” After extracting a promise not to tell the other girls, Mama confirmed my suspicions. Since they were four and two years old, she thought they needed to believe a bit longer.

Rather than being disappointed, I was proud – proud to have figured it out myself, and proud to be old enough to share a secret my sisters were too young to know.