Mother Goose Education

Hey, diddle diddle, Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall down at the station early in the morning hoping three bags full of wool from the baa, baa black sheep would break his fall. Give yourself a gold star if you get the references to five of the most humorous beginnings of an education.

Take it from a longtime second grade teacher (fourteen years), by the time kids reached my class there was no difference between those who had solved the mystery called reading when they were four and those who had waited until they were six. There was an immense difference in those who had shared the pleasure of nursery rhymes with special adults or older siblings and those who had not.

That bit of philosophy came back to the forefront of my mind in the reception this past Saturday afternoon for Rosemary Wells in Hattiesburg’s own Oddfellows Gallery. Rosemary’s work includes a multitude of books featuring Yoko, Max and Ruby, and other characters, but I was drawn to and bought the Mother Goose books she illustrated.

Original paintings of her illustrations lined the walls of the gallery, hung just right for close examination with a code by the side of each piece of art listing the book and page number where it could be found. My friend and I joined a host of Hattiesburg residents of all ages poring over each picture to see if we could detect the medium used, find a bit of collage, or note how she used a line or two with her pen to give a character an attitude.

My friend suddenly stopped at a painting to explain how the picture looked just like her memories of living in Spain for many years. “They hung their laundry just like that above the rooftop,” she said, and then she added, “Wait, does that box say ‘Jabon’?” Quickly, she looked at the code, “p. 101, Here Comes Mother Goose.” I flipped open my book, and we read at the bottom, “El Jabon, La Luna, and La Camise.” The facing page had a line, “There I met a Spanish lady, washing her clothes at night.”

The exhibit will remain at Oddfellows Gallery through the end of February and is worth a visit if you are in driving distance. Be sure to look for the authentic Spanish lady and her laundry if you come.

And if you can’t come, My Very First Mother Goose and Here Comes Mother Goose are available where good children’s books are sold. If not in stock, your friendly independent book store will be more than happy to order them for you. These simplest versions of standard and non-standard nursery rhymes will give your youngest preschoolers a delightful start on a good education.

Brown Girl Dreaming

Since I said I’d let you know if I predicted the Newbery correctly, I will just say that if this were an official betting arena, I would have won twice in the “place” category as Jacqueline Woodson carried home both Newbery and Sibert honor titles and once in the “win” with her Coretta Scott King Award. This is my take on Brown Girl Dreaming, written before the awards:

I’ve mentioned before that I liked Jacqueline Woodson’s metaphor of books as windows and mirrors where readers can find those both like and different from themselves. I read her Brown Girl Dreaming shortly after she won the National Book Award and saw another element in the metaphor. Sometimes the light strikes a window in such a way that one can see not only what lies outside but a reflection of oneself.

I grew up in a very different world from Jackie’s so I expected this book to be a window. But I saw a reflection of myself in her sister Dell and a couple of my sisters in Jackie. The poem titled “Tomboy” could have been a picture of me as Dell who never “learned to sprint . . .  become the fastest girl on Madison Street . . . or kick the can because she reads and reads and reads.” Like Jackie, my sister Beth would have loved all of those and earned the nickname “Tomboy.”      

When my sisters looked for me, I might not have been under the kitchen table like Dell, but I would have had a book and could have tuned out all their noise as I turned another page.      

Because Ruth was nine years younger, I could tell Jackie that Dell enjoyed holding her hand to teach her to write her name. I savored my favorite line in the book, “When my sister reads to me, I wait for the moment when the story moves faster – toward the happy ending I know is coming,” remembering that same anticipation in Ruth’s face as I read to her or told her stories.

Brown Girl Dreaming is a beautiful view out the window with the light shining just right to reflect some cherished memories. It makes me think that even as we read looking out the window, we may find as much alike as we find different.

Which leaves me with just one problem. I’ll have to add The Crossover by Kwame Alexander to my reading list to see if the committee really made the right decision in placing it first. It might be noted that I have sometimes disagreed with the illustrious Newbery Committee.

Who Won?

Sunday night – February 1

I write with the Super Bowl in the background, paying slight attention to what has turned out to be a good game. Though I’m a football nut, my teams bit the dust several games back and my enthusiasm has waned. Instead, a much more important contest looms tomorrow morning shortly after this blog is posted.

The American Library Association announces about twenty awards for children and young adult books at 8 AM on February 2, stealing the show even from the groundhog. These awards will put shiny stickers on books that many children will use for clues as they seek a good read when they go to the library. The awards will also keep these books in print and open opportunities for the authors to make school visits and presentations about their work.

I’ve been attending the meeting vicariously for the last few days through friends who are there posting pictures on Facebook of book people they’ve met and the snow they have seen. My computer is set to catch the live-streaming from snowbound Chicago.

To be prepared, I’ve reviewed my reading inventory for 2014. I recorded 74 books which leaves out a few that I forgot to list and a number of picture books I read to grandchildren or while standing at the library stacks making choices. They break down to 68% fiction, 26 % nonfiction; 61% with a white protagonist and 31% from a diverse population; 50% adult, 12% young adult, and 30% middle grade. I realize none of these add up to 100%, but some defy classification. Is this inventory important? Probably only to me!

In this mix, I have a few whose names I expect to be called for one of those ALA awards. I’m listening to see if those fine librarians agree with any of my choices. One of my choices is already scheduled for my Friday blog. I’ll let you know if I get it right.

Two Warnings

My discovery of a new magazine, Creative Nonfiction, brought an intriguing quote on the first page, “When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.” – Czeslaw Milosz

The first warning of the issue, by implication, is that the writer may tell family secrets. The article that accompanies the quote, “What’s the Story?” by editor Lee Gutkind, sets the stage for an issue devoted to “Lost Truths and Family Legends.” The red flag for the family members becomes the danger of unattractive or vicious portrayals by the writer or stories told that they prefer to keep hidden. Of course, this would return a red flag to the writer if those family members decide to come after her.

The second warning belongs to the reader. When reading a “true” story or memoir, the reader needs to keep in mind that the telling is from the writer’s perspective. One of my friends says if each of her three sons described her to you independently, you would think they were talking about three different people. They each look at her through a different set of glasses. No matter how carefully a writer tries to stick to the facts, personal narratives will be colored by the glass through which she is looking.

So, what is the reader to do? I suggest first if you like true stories told through the writer’s eyes, get a subscription to the magazine. I found the stories covered a gamut of emotions and all were well written and entertaining.

Second, have a little fun and indulge in some speculation as you read stories involving a writer’s family, thinking about how those characters might have told it differently. There is always another side to the story!

In case you are wondering, so far, none of my relatives have come after me. My sister Beth might be the most likely candidate since I may have mentioned that she was a pest when we were growing up. Editor Gulkind suggests a different way for the relatives to get back at the writer. They could always write their own stories. Just be forewarned in case Beth decides to do this. If she should imply that I was bossy, there’s not a word of truth in it.

Endless

One book seems to always call for another. I had scarcely finished posting my September 1st blog about Rory’s Promise by Michaela MacColl when my October issue of The Writer came in the mail. (I could wonder why magazines always come the month before their date, but that would be off topic.) This issue had an interview with Christina Baker Kline about her book Orphan Train, also set in the turn of the century phenomenon of relocating New York City orphans on trains heading west.

I watch NCIS and have learned from Leroy Jethro Gibbs that there is no such thing as coincidence. Clearly, this was a call to find Kline’s book. Thankfully, it was in paperback at the bookstore at 30% off.

The books have some differences. Rory’s Promise is listed as middle grade and Orphan Train as adult, a distinction I found insignificant. I enjoyed both, and middle grade has been in my rearview window for quite a while. At least by junior high, bookworms like me at that age, would enjoy Orphan Train.

The train of Rory's Promise drops off one set of orphans in the Midwest and continues on to the wild West for the final destination of its protagonist. Orphan Train has two narratives running parallel, the Irish orphan who begins her story on the train and completes it on the Midwest stop and a present day troubled Penobscot teen who navigates the foster care system. Each of these stories is better than the other.

Besides the orphan train, the books have a couple of things in common. Both are well-researched and tell the story true. Both are the kind of reads that had me holding the book in one hand while stirring the pot on the stove with the other. I recommend reading them back to back to see what different stories two writers can wrest from the same setting.  

As for me, I see that Christine Baker Kline has four more novels already out. So I’m adjusting my original premise. In this case, one book leads to another which leads to four more. Cheapskate that I am, I think I’ll look for them first at the library.

Three Sips of Beauty

For more than twenty years, The Back Door Coffeehouse of University Baptist Church has held a monthly forum for writers and musicians on the first Friday night of each month with only an occasional skip. The artists are local, national, amateur, professional, sometimes thought provoking, often funny, and almost never boring. I often get an idea from one of the performers that goes into my “blog ideas” folder. This particular one has been waiting a while.

Sara Beth Geoghegan, one of my favorites, has made several appearances interspersing her music with stories that bring both tears and laughter. As I started to write this blog, I put on her CD, Tired of Singing Sad Songs, which includes sad songs in spite of its title. The album has a song whose story resonated with me. “Three Sips of Beauty” honors her aunt’s twelve years of sobriety. According to the story she tells with it, her aunt believes people need three sips of beauty each day. The laugh came when she said four would put you into the M&Ms.

I liked the idea of finding three bits of beauty in each day, though I have not been consistent with looking. The idea comes back to me especially when we are in the midst of these dreary gray days of winter. Of course, the easiest place to see beauty is outdoors so I went looking.

Easy to spot are the nandina with their cheerful red berries and burgundy foliage. And who would not notice the ornamental kale with its curly white leaves nestled inside the dark green? Looking up at the stark leafless tree, I was surprised by beauty in the filigree against the gray sky. Truth to tell, I could have found more than three, but the Christmas weight is not off, and I don’t need to get into the M&Ms.

May you find your three sips of beauty today, including a surprise or two. And if you get more than three, go ahead, have some M&Ms.

The Same Sky

Like two trains traveling toward each other at erratic speeds over unknown rails, with diversions onto sidetracks, the stories of Carla in Tegucigalpa and Alice in Texas move toward each other. The reader of The Same Sky by Amanda Eyre Ward may wonder from time to time if the two stories will ever come together. The closest I’ll come to a spoiler is an assurance that this becomes one story, not two.

The book opens with Carla left with her grandmother and her twin brothers when her mother goes to America. Soon, one of the brothers goes into a car trunk to be smuggled into the United States. The author leaves the reader, along with Carla, wondering what happens after the car pulls away. Switching to Alice in the next chapter, as she will do throughout the book, she establishes compassion for a woman trying to figure out whether to cancel the adoption celebration when the birth mother changes her mind and takes back the baby she has held only briefly.

Carla’s story includes taking care of the remaining brother who eases his hunger pain by sniffing glue. Knowing what this will do to his mind, she remains helpless to do anything about it. Her relationship with Humberto adds a bit of romance to temper this anxiety and the responsibility that comes when her grandmother dies. The overarching question is whether to stay with the danger in Honduras or face the danger of using the coyotes who will take her money in exchange for a promise to get her across the border to America.

Alice’s story is filled with typical family pressures and interactions, an attempt to be a mentor to a teenager on the edge, and lots of Texas barbecue. She needs to find out who she is and how she really relates to her husband.

This is a book that puts a human face on the statistics of immigration. It won’t solve the problem or even suggest solutions. It will give a vivid picture of what it would be like to be one of the children caught in that dilemma. 

Place

Our pastor’s sermon centered on the importance of place. As often happens, my mind trailed off. Fortunately, it can multitask so I heard what he said (really, I did) while I followed a mental rabbit to a dogtrot house in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi.

My grandfather and our family referred to his small farm in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi as “The Place,” capitals heard even in the pronunciation. Papaw’s place was his section of the land that had originally belonged to his father and his grandfather before him. The homestead deed to William Hannah, signed by President Buchanan, lists the date as “the first day of October in the year of OUR LORD one thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine and of the Independence of the United States eighty fourth.” (They liked capital letters back in those days.) My picture of both the house and the deed are copies of the originals.

Papaw, the only grandparent I knew, began and ended his days belonging to this land at least as much as it belonged to him. Seldom did he travel farther than twenty-five miles from home. Dairy cows and “The Place” bound him to a daily routine.

His house, built when his oldest child – my mother – was a preschooler, used a fireplace and a wood stove in the kitchen for heat. He cut and stockpiled wood during lax times with his crops, anticipating winter days and nights when he rose from his rocker to add a log or stoke the fire. When grandchildren came, he raked the logs back to expose hot coals, shelled an ear of popcorn into his wire basket, and popped corn with a delicious smoky taste.

My sense of place goes back here. As the daughter of a Baptist preacher and wife of an Army husband, I’ve lived in 32 houses. My roots in a place have to go back a couple of generations.

The Hannah family sold The Place a few years ago with great sadness to the three generations following my grandfather. It was the only practical thing to do. None of us were ever going back there to live. Unlike Papaw, we wouldn’t have found joy in confinement to the schedules and routines of a farm.

I inherited the wire popcorn popper. For the first time, I live in a house where I plan to stay, and it has a fireplace! Unfortunately, I don’t grow popcorn, and the basket of the popper no longer works properly. Still, as I leave my nest on the couch to add another log or stoke the fire in my fireplace, I remember and know my pastor was  right. In my mind, I travel back to my roots with Papaw and relish the sense of Place. 

Life after Life

Sometimes, no, make that always, a problem with making friends with another avid reader is that your already lengthy reading stack gets taller and taller. Let me illustrate. Friend Ellen Ruffin called to see if I would like to go with her to the Louisiana Book Festival. Now, who could turn down that kind of invitation? She particularly wanted to hear Jill McCorkle, a favorite author to her but a new one to me.

Jill entertained us with her conservative mother’s dilemma of whether to tell her friends that her daughter wrote books because of some of her characters’ language and situations. Then she began to tell about the book idea that had lingered in her head for twenty-one years, coming to the forefront when her father was dying. She read excerpts from Life after Life, this novel based in a hospice situation told from the points of view of the case worker Joanna, the patients, a friend, and one twelve-year-old. A couple of quotes from the book will illustrate why I needed to add it to my stack.

“Sometimes your only chance to beat out a prejudice is to outlive it.”

“Everyone has a weakness and how humans can live with devoting time to rubbing salt in and on another, she will never know.”

Contrary to what you might think, the book is not a downer, though it is filled with death. I think that may be because it reflects something Jill said in her speech, “At the end, we are our memories and the memories we leave behind us in other people.” The memories of the patients and the entries in Joanna’s journal brought empathy rather than pity with those who were facing death and their caregivers. She demonstrated the richness that was left in the lives of these people even as their bodies began to fail.

The book brought a new fan for Jill McCorkle and another set of books to add to my stack – and this is just the stack I need to get to soon. I think I’ll add Tending to Virginia first since the name seems to resonate.

And should you decide to make friends with an avid reader, don’t say I didn’t warn you about the consequences.

Fortune Cookie

My fortune cookie at the Southern Breeze SCBWI conference read: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Thomas Edison”

I’ve been thinking of just a few examples of great opportunities and the overalls they represent.

College Graduation
•    Boring lectures
•    Cheerfully waiting tables for grumpy people, hoping to increase tips to pay the tuition
•    Deadlines for papers
•    Late night studying

Book Award
•    Endless rewrites
•    Multiple rejection letters
•    Hours and hours with only the company of a chair, pen or pencil, paper, and computer
•    All of the above – without any assurance the book will get published, much less win an award

Musician
•    Tedious runs of scales
•    Hours and hours of practice
•    Repetitive work on trouble spots
•    Skipping fun with friends to practice and take lessons
•    Nerves before performances
•    Embarrassing lapses of memory at recitals

Military Service
•    Basic training accompanied by gnats in Southern heat
•    Following orders that may or may not seem logical
•    Living with danger
•    Separations from family
•    Living wherever Uncle Sam assigns
•    Knowing not to put roots too deeply in any one place

Athlete
•    Daily workouts through heat and cold
•    Single-minded attention to one’s sport
•    Following rules for diet, exercise, and sleep
•    Losing, but coming back to play again

Teacher
•    Years of unending training
•    Grading mountains of papers
•    Lesson plans, following whatever system is current this year
•    Keeping a steady course as theoretical pendulums swing back and forth
•    Caring for the group, but also for each student as an individual

The beginning of a new year seems like a good time to take note of Edison’s quote. Done well, each of these and many more goals follow hard work with satisfaction and fulfillment. In 2015, I hope you’ll join me in donning our overalls to make the most of our opportunities.

The Way to Stay in Destiny

The promise of a good first line in a book stirs hope and just a bit of anxiety lest one should be disappointed. The Way to Stay in Destiny by Augusta Scattergood begins, “The crazy lady in seat 2B hasn’t stopped singing ‘You Are My Sunshine’ since the glare hit the windshield three hours ago.”

Theo and his Uncle Raymond – make that reluctant Uncle Raymond – arrive in Destiny, Florida, the “Town Time Forgot” with a knapsack, a tool box, an old army duffle, and loads of family baggage between them. Theo takes a liking to one segment of the town immediately – Miss Sister’s piano – and knows he wants to stay in Destiny. It takes longer for him to sift through the family dynamics and find out what’s eating his uncle who showed up to whisk him away as his aging grandparents sell the family farm. He knows little about the uncle except that he’s a Vietnam veteran who claims to have had a much better job and life in Alaska before he becomes saddled with an orphaned nephew.

His relationship with Anabel as they work on their history project together provides relief from the uneasy relationship with his uncle. Anabel’s creative ways to circumvent her mother’s ambitions for her to become a graceful dancer in Miss Sister’s dance classes and their common love of baseball and its history weave together in a complementary story line.  As this part of the story nears its climax, Theo gives one of my favorite quotes from the book, “Nobody in the history of the universe ever learned one single fact worth knowing on the last day of school.”

Promise fulfilled! I enjoyed the advance reading copy for this book that goes on sale tomorrow [January 6]. The book is a good middle school read and would be especially appropriate for boys who are both musicians and sports fanatics. [Those boys do exist. Two grew up in my house!]

For the New Year

Long a subscriber to Word-A-Day, I’m borrowing a quote from them for this blog to begin the new year. “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if it were possible, speak a few reasonable words. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)”

I’m not one to make resolutions since I know how fragile they are and how quickly I will break them. I do like to take time as the years make a cycle to look back and look forward. In the rearview mirror, 2014 was not unlike many of its brothers. It was a year with death of people I loved, a year of constant motion with interesting things to do, and a year of sharing good times with good friends and family, both virtually with modern technology and person to person.

Looking forward to 2015, I see a calendar filling already. Being too busy sometimes interferes with the little song, the good poem, the fine picture, and the words that need to be spoken – or written in my case. I think I’ll make a copy of the quote and put it above my computer as a reminder to take time daily for those things that feed my spirit.

The year ahead is an unrevealed promise. It will surely hold both good and bad, joy and sorrow – much of it beyond our control. My wish for each of my readers is that in the midst of it all, you will have days with little songs, good poems, fine pictures, and both spoken and written words that touch your heart and smooth your way.

Six Eggs and a Pot

When four Butler “boys” who had been adults for some time stopped just short of fisticuffs over the last bit of boiled custard, I knew I needed to learn to make it. My newly acquired mother-in-law evidently made the world’s best version of this North Mississippi answer to eggnog every Christmas. She served it in small glasses that had been premiums in boxes of oatmeal. They were “boiled custard glasses” used only for the annual Christmas treat.

When I asked for the recipe, she removed a large pot from the drawer and said, “You start with this pot and put in six eggs.” That was the last exact number that she told me. All other measures were “about this much.” She concluded with, “and you fill it to this point on the pot with milk.” It took me a while to figure out how much was “about this much” sugar and vanilla.

Eventually, I worked it out, and I had my own favorite pot. For proof, the next generation of Butler brothers came close to fisticuffs as they went into accounting procedures for who had how many glasses on which day. When the day came that Mrs. Butler had to give up housekeeping, her children divided her treasures. We got the boiled custard glasses, of sentimental value only, but still treasure to us. Now I could serve in proper style.

Of course, that generation of Butlers grew up and went on to establish homes where they wanted to serve boiled custard at Christmas. When asked for the recipe, without thinking, I reached into the cabinet and removed a large pot. “You start with this pot and put in six eggs.” Realizing that I was repeating a pattern, I took the time to measure and now have a typed copy on a card for anyone who needs the recipe. While it has numbers and measurements for those who require them, my copy has a penciled note “milk to fill the popcorn pan.”

“Popcorn pan?” you ask – that’s another story for another day.

Stories of My Life

I have had a Katherine Paterson quote on my bulletin board for a number of years. “As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.” The truth of the quote comes alive in her book, Stories of My Life, where it is repeated. The book is not an autobiography but a series of essays giving episodes taken from her unusual life.

It’s a good read on its own merit, but especially for fans of her books. Woven into her stories are clues to the inspiration for some of her gazillion books. Newbery winner Kate DiCamillo, in her introduction, says the book is Katherine’s valentine to her parents, to her children, to her life, to stories, to us. I found familiarity as she recounted the people and places she had moved from her life into her books.

Among her many awards are two Newbery Medals, a National Book Award, both National Book and Newbery Honor books, and the Medallion for her body of work at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Children’s Book Festival. The book brought to life a human being behind all the awards with common life joys and sorrows along with a few extra associated with fame. She tells of attending dinners where she is the honoree. After congratulations by the attendees sitting on either side for whatever award she was receiving, they sometimes turned to their dinner companions for conversation and never said another word to her all night. She returned home to whine to her husband, “Why can’t they just treat me like a human being?”

I found we have a few things in common. We both hold a special affection for Jacob Have I Loved which holds the honor of being my favorite of her books, and I’ve loved every one I’ve read, which includes most of them. Terror at amusement park rides caused both of us to hide our faces when our children insisted on riding and to feel hatred at every stomach-turning minute when we were cajoled into riding the “easy” roller coaster. We are tied for the number of times we rode – exactly one. We each have had a husband who always wanted to do things for us – whether we wanted him to or not. And if you’ve been reading this blog for long, you’ll know that the people who take my time are the ones who give me something to say.

The Flawed Manger Scene

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” and “Aahed,” 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?

Sample Cake

I noticed some of my mother-in-law’s idiosyncrasies even before I married the youngest of her four sons. Her rigid Friday schedule included cleaning house and baking the cake for Sunday dinner. That’s not to say there was not dessert the rest of the week. There was always dessert, but the cake for Sunday dinner, eaten right after church services, had to be special.

Remember that I said this cake was for Sunday dinner. That meant not a slice was cut before Sunday noon. My introduction to this ritual came on a Friday night when the date with my future husband included going to their house to watch some TV show we liked that has slipped my memory – wasn’t Lawrence Welk because that was on Saturday. Her cake sat in the middle of the dining room table in all its chocolate glory. It would not be cut even for a prospective daughter-in-law. I found this intriguing since any cake at my home of origin would have been cut, and maybe gone, shortly after the sun went down on the day that it was baked.  

However, all was not lost. She came in not too long after we settled in to see the show bearing portions of her “sample cake.” She had a tiny pan and had lifted enough batter before baking the cake to make a sample. Other differences from my home of origin were immediately apparent. The cake, light and moist, was topped with a cooked chocolate frosting – far beyond the mix of confectioner’s sugar, butter, and cocoa in the icing of my experience. She redeemed herself even before I got a piece of the real cake – after it was cut on Sunday, of course.

About fifteen years into our marriage, that son began to bake cakes on occasion. In retirement, he has turned cake baking into a true avocation, collecting and trying out recipes to the delight of his family, friends, and the church potluck crowd. This week he’s baked a carrot cake, a hummingbird cake, and an Italian cream cake for Christmas gifts for our surrounding neighbors. Thankfully, he has not “forgotten his raising.” He, too, has a tiny pan and lifted enough to make a sample for me to test.

The cake, light and moist, was topped with cream cheese icing. I’m glad that apple did not fall far from its tree.

We Should Hang Out Sometime

Hang with me here as I fulfill my promise to continue my theme of books serving as mirrors and windows with a review of one with a window to an unusual kind of diversity. Josh Sundquist in his memoir, We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly A True Story, sets up a window into a life with choices: (1) wearing a prosthesis, (2) using crutches, or (3) hopping on one leg – and that’s just his major diversity. He’s survived cancer as a nine-year-old and been home-schooled until he enters high school.

The setup belies the humor that starts immediately as his twenty-five-year-old self begins a scientific look backward into why he has never been able to get a girl friend. His differences quickly become background to a socially awkward boy with the title’s pickup line, “We should hang out sometime.” His scientific approach to why none of his efforts with girls worked out (unless you count the twenty-three hours that Sarah was his girl friend in eighth grade) takes each of his female prospects through a background story and a hypothesis. His adult self tracks down the women and interviews them to check the accuracy of that hypothesis. He completes his pseudoscientific aura with funny charts and diagrams.

The humor strikes early. “Both my parents are wire-frame skinny, my mom because she’s a raw vegan, and my dad because he’s married to one.”  It comes often, “A lot of people want their first kiss to be special. I just wanted mine to be in this lifetime.”

The book is an obvious choice for boys from 7th grade up who can see a mirror of hopeful awkwardness toward girls. It’s also a nice window for girls and adults who look at teenage boys and ask, “What in the world are they thinking?” His diversity of a leg lost to cancer plays its part now and then but is not central to who Josh was – just an adolescent boy who really wants a girl friend. Maybe the book will provide hope that this awkward stage will not last forever as Josh has gone on to become a Paralympian, a motivational speaker, and a best-selling author. I’ll not spoil the ending by letting you know if he ever gets a girl friend.

Mirrors and Windows

I’m borrowing the metaphor of windows and mirrors from National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson and wishing I could borrow her eloquence along with it. I concur with her belief that children (and perhaps adults) should find each in their books as they see people who are both like and different from themselves. I join my small voice in a growing choir of children’s book people calling for diversity in their books. By definition, diversity includes ethnicity, gender, religion, mental and physical challenges, and no doubt others that don’t come to my mind at the moment.

Growing up a vanilla person in a world of vanilla books, my first memory of a book that gave me a peek out the window was All-of-a-Kind Family. The five Jewish sisters of the book grew up in New York City’s east side at the turn of the century. We four daughters of a Baptist preacher grew up in rural North Mississippi. Stepping through the book’s window, I experienced a different world eating Mama’s hamantaschen and gefilte fish, going down to Papa’s shop in the basement, and celebrating Purim and Passover.

Yet even as I enjoyed these new experiences and exotic food, I glimpsed things I could also see in the mirror. We four McGee sisters figured out what long-lasting items to buy in the candy counter with our small change. We hated the dusting chore that Mama assigned, and we looked forward to celebrating our own religious holidays of Easter and Christmas. Naturally, I felt a close kinship with Ella as the oldest in a group of close knit sisters who created their own entertainment and overcame small differences of opinion from time to time.

Love for this book has led to other things. I began to look purposefully for other books that gave me a peek out the window – books that were “scarce as hen’s teeth” at that time – to use a Southern expression. I read All-of-a-Kind Family aloud every one of the fourteen years that I taught second grade with hardly a Jewish child in sight. My students loved the view out that window as much as I did. And I believe the book began a love that I am carrying now to the third generation as I give books to my grandchildren with both windows and mirrors.

My voice in this diversity chorus may be small and sometimes a bit off-key, but each voice counts. I hope you, too, will join this choir in celebrating the variety in the human race as you buy and share books that have both windows and mirrors.

[Sneak preview: Monday’s blog will review a new book on an unusual kind of diversity.]

Nobody's Secret

In time for Emily Dickinson’s 184th birthday on December 10, let me recommend a good book for your celebration. Michaela MacColl created an imaginative mystery set in the life of fifteen-year-old Emily before she became the recluse poet that many of us have loved. The title, Nobody’s Secret, comes from the famous “I’m Nobody” poem. I met Michaela at a Highlights Foundation workshop in August. The twinkle in her eye gives a hint of the fun to come in her book.

A mysterious stranger turns up on the Dickinson land to introduce the story. His uncanny knowledge of her and her family intrigues Emily. When he turns up dead in the family pond, the intrigue turns to a mixture of guilt and determination to solve the mystery of who killed him and why. She enlists the help of younger sister Vinnie and the chase is on.

Michaela cleverly entices her readers to suspend disbelief that the reclusive poet could have been a determined teenaged detective, defying many of the restrictions put on young women of the day. Carefully researched and true to the time period, she weaves an intriguing story filled with family secrets, romance, and danger. Adding zest to her story are the quotes at the beginning of each chapter from Emily’s poems that foreshadow upcoming happenings.

Author’s notes satisfy the reader’s curiosity about which parts of the story are facts and which are purely figments of Michaela’s imagination.

This book is listed as young adult, and I like young adults as well or better than the next one, but surely we don’t want to let them have all the fun. If you like Emily Dickinson, mysteries, or both, go ahead. Treat yourself to a good read.

The Attraction of Opposites

A younger friend gave some good advice in our discussion about how opposites attract as we discussed the issue of whether the glass is half-full or half-empty. She and her husband have opposite positions in this view from us in that her husband takes the half-full option while she takes the half-empty one. In wisdom, she said that kept them from going overboard in either direction. I’m going to make an effort to keep that in mind when Al fails to see all the good stuff in that half-full glass.

This season brings another issue on which we are opposites. The first Christmas with an empty nest and nobody returning to share it, I was shocked to hear Al ask, “So, nobody is going to be here this year so we don’t need to put up a tree, do we?”

“What do you mean? I’m going to be here.” According to my philosophy, the day after Thanksgiving was made for cooking gumbo with the remains of the turkey, watching football, and putting up Christmas decorations. I scatter them throughout the house, often finding a forgotten relic of the season in some corner as I get ready for Easter.

Al muttered and grumbled, a cross between the Grinch and Scrooge. The boxes came out of storage, the tree went up, the outside lights were strung, and the yard ornaments properly placed. The next time we were alone for Christmas, he grudgingly said, “I guess you’re gonna want all that Christmas stuff out.”  

This year, he brought up the subject himself. “I think Tiny Tim needs a little more wood to sit on than I put out last year.”

There appears to be hope even for the Grinch, Scrooge, and Al. After all, “in Who-ville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day!” – and at the Christmas celebration, the Grinch himself carved the roast-beast!

As for Scrooge when his heart was turned, it was said that he “knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed that knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, [and as Al and I would echo] God bless us, Every One!”