About Those Biscuits

Al found himself in charge of the family country store when his father died during his senior year in high school and became the recipient of considerable advice from the old men who whittled on the front porch. A new opportunity arose for their wisdom when they heard we were getting married.

Well aware of my youth, they quizzed him, “Does she even know how to make biscuits?”

Al was incensed. How dumb did they think he was that he would marry a girl who couldn’t make biscuits! He assured them that he had sampled, and I could indeed make very fine biscuits. I don’t think he had much idea that he was caring for his future grandchildren when he checked out my bread-making skills.

Biscuits have become my badge of honor with grandchildren. As a toddler, Sam would down three or four for breakfast, hardly touch lunch, and forgo supper altogether. A few years later, his cousin Jack was overheard telling a friend that his grandma made the best biscuits. As teenagers, Sam and his older brother Hayden had a biscuit-eating contest that about made them both sick. If we arrive for an extended visit in the afternoon, breakfast for supper is often on the menu since nobody wants to wait until morning for biscuits. Now, I’m sure there are more important claims to fame than good biscuits, but I’ll take it since this has made me famous with the right people in my life.

And if you should decide to check out the grandchildren's judgment, just give me about thirty minutes notice. I’ll stick some biscuits in the oven and put on a pot of coffee. 

The Case for Creative Nonfiction

Steve Sheinkin began his presentation at the Fay B. Kaigler book festival by apologizing for having once written textbooks. Now he says he’s writing the stuff those editors wouldn’t let him put into textbooks – not dry enough, I suppose. Personally, I forgave him instantly. You see, I had read Bomb. The book is listed for middle grade, but let’s not let them have all the fun.

The book is part of a rising genre in both adult and children’s books called creative nonfiction. The genre follows the tricky road of having to be as authentic as those textbooks (or maybe more so) while reading like a good novel or short story. Bomb is part suspense, part history, part intrigue, and all fascinating. Steve tells the story of the making of the atomic bomb with much conspiracy and suspense as he pits the Americans and Germans in a race to develop the bomb with the Russian spies out to steal their secrets.

I had also read The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, and Treachery before the festival. He told us that everybody is scared of Benedict Arnold. Perhaps the complexity of his character portrayed in Steve’s book is more threatening than the traitor of the textbooks, but the hero gone bad makes for a fascinating book.

I’ve waited since April to write and post this blog because there are two of his books that I purchased for a birthday present for my rising senior grandson – Lincoln’s Grave Robbers and The Port Chicago 50. I didn’t want Sam to know in case he read my blog. Sam has had writing tendencies since his elementary days when he used to make me proud saying, “I’m a writer like Grandma.” He writes now for his award-winning high school newspaper and may or may not continue this into a career.

No career pressure from his grandmother, but all the same, I included a note in Sam’s present about reading like a writer. Writers read for pleasure like the rest of the world. They also read to improve their craft, examining how good writers engage their readers. I hope he sees Steve’s ability to stay completely true to the facts while writing a story that keeps readers up at night turning pages. Who knows? Maybe one day Sam will write his own past midnight page-turners or collect a few of those award stickers that pepper the front of Steve’s books.

And my loyal readers can find the rest of Steve’s books at www.stevesheinkin.com to pick out which one they’d like to read next. 

Gateway to the West

What are friends for? You might ask Martha Ginn. For about fourteen years in an easy friendship, we’ve shared the ups and downs of our separate passions. She’s a fiber artist extraordinaire who sometimes writes about quilting and other aspects of her craft. Writing is my obsession with a bit of needlework on the side for relaxation. Each of us understands the other enough to provide congratulations or commiseration as needed, picking up conversations when we meet where we left off the last time.

On this particular day, she and I were bus seatmates on a field trip to the World War II Museum in New Orleans. I pulled out my counted cross stitch to finish a complicated piece that had been in the works off and on for several years. I’d bought the pattern to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis on a trip with my husband, intending to complete it to go in his area where he works and plays on his computer. There was no rush, but now I was nearly through.

Martha jumped on what I was doing with questions. “Did you see the call for art about bridges for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly? Why don’t you send this in to be juried for the exhibit?”

I could think of any number of ways this was all wrong. (1) I hadn’t seen the call for bridges. (2) Even if I had seen anything with the word “art” in the call, I would have skipped right past it. I have long contended that I could take all my ability and all my knowledge about art, put it in a thimble, and still have room for my finger. (3) Then this arch is called the “Gateway to the West.” Would that qualify as a bridge?

At this point, Martha demonstrated that friends are for shoving you out of your comfort zone (AKA fence). She claimed the piece was too pretty not to be seen. She followed up when she got home by sending more insistence and the link to the call for bridges art. I could hardly refuse to try.

When I got word that my cross stitch had been accepted for the exhibit, I held her responsibility over her head and told her she had to help. She knew far more that I about prepping art for a show. She came through, spending an afternoon helping me mount it to their specifications.

What a surreal experience to find my cross stitch at the assembly art exhibit, the only fabric art among the paintings and photographs. The official label read, “Gateway to the West; Virginia McGee Butler; Counted Cross Stitch 2015.”

So, if you have a friend shoving you outside your comfort zone, let me recommend that you yield without resistance. The panorama is actually quite nice outside the fence.

Fun Fathers

Sam, the teapotTeenaged Sam had a solution when his toddler brother got cranky at the dinner table. “Dad,” he said, “do the teapot.” I wondered then, but never asked, if he was speaking from having seen “the teapot” change his little brother’s attitude or if he remembered the days when he was the teapot for his Ben, the teapotfather’s song.

I also can’t tell who gets the most pleasure from the games that have continued with adjustments for the age and stage of life – the father or the sons. Now, Sam and his dad enjoy one-on-one basketball on a pleasant Saturday afternoon. The newest little brother, toddles the yard yelling, “Hit! Hit! Hit!” as he swings a plastic bat at a plastic ball. With a little fatherly help, he sometimes makes contact. As they say, “A good time is had by all.” I’m thinking the sole purpose of father and sons is having fun. I’m hesitant about taking away from the Owen, the hitterjoy by mentioning the long term results of fathers who play with their kids.

However, in the May/June issue of The Saturday Evening Post, an article called “The Daddy Factor” by Paul Raeborn addresses the importance of dads who have fun with their kids. They quote studies that credit the fun factor for many positives including language development, warm relationships, ability to read reactions in social situations, and increased intelligence. That article may give permission and acclaim to dads who would like to justify that they are not wasting time as they amuse themselves along with their kids.

I picked up on that lesson many years ago not long after I entered teenage. My three sisters and I had friends with finer, more expensive recreational paraphernalia at home, yet the group always congregated at our house. I noticed and tried to figure out why. The only difference I saw was that Daddy was out with us, tossing a cheap undersized basketball through a makeshift hoop. We knew where he drew lines in the sand for our behavior, but having already established that, he got out and have a good time with us. I doubt that he was considering any of the benefits noted by the magazine article. He just had fun along with us.  

So as we approach Father’s Day, let me salute dads who have fun playing with their kids. They don’t even have to know how much good it is doing them.

Seeds of Freedom

Author Hester Bass and illustrator E. B. Lewis, team up again for a nonfiction picture book after considerable acclaim for The Secret World of Walter Anderson. Seeds of Freedom portrays the peaceful integration of Huntsville, Alabama.

It begins in January 1962 with a clear empathetic depiction of segregation for young children who thankfully know about it only from hearsay if at all. Hester juxtaposes “just the way it is” with her “seeds of freedom.” Showing peaceful methods of change encouraged by both the white and black leaders, Hester does not sugarcoat the difficulties nor imply a happily ever after ending, and she does not omit the politicians who add to the unrest rather than help when they come to Huntsville. She is clear that the economics of a community dependent on the federal space program and the “Blue Jean Sunday” bring financial pressure to find a better way for blacks and whites to live together.  She includes a “reverse integration” of white students into a black private school in Huntsville the same week the public school is integrated.

Seeds of Freedom rings true, especially for those who had similar experiences during this era. Integration was difficult without being brutal in many Southern communities. The author’s note at the end gives much that can be used by a parent or teacher in discussion with the child reader both from the aspect of how things were and hope for how things can be better in the future. A careful wordsmith paired with an insightful illustrator, the Bass and Lewis team brings the era and its people to life. I highly recommend the book for its ability to make history live for young children by seeing those who experienced it.

As Hester signed in the book I bought for my grandsons – “To Peace and Freedom.”

Home Vase

Where are you from? – Someone grasps for an item to start a conversation. My answer gets tricky.

Home was wherever Mama installed what we called her “wedding present vase.” With a country preacher for a father, home turned up in many places.

The vase wasn’t that pretty and had no monetary value. Mama remembered who gave it to her but in case she forgot, the vase held the cards and notes from her wedding presents all squished in together. From time to time, Mama took them out, read the notes and names, and told stories of the people behind them. We didn’t pay much attention. The people were before our time.

I’m not sure when I began associating the placement of the vase with being home. It graced a variety of houses in rural Northeast Mississippi. When our youthful Daddy was pastor of “the mill church,” properly known as West End Baptist Church in West Point, it stood on the mantle in our half of a rambling house with tall ceilings.

In Hardy Station, it sat in an old six room house the congregation had moved behind the church, both on top of the hill that had been cut right through the middle for the railroad track. The house was close to the church for the convenience of the pastor. It was even more handy for the children who rode the school bus to church and bought candy in the little store at the foot of the hill with their Sunday school money. They brought the candy to our house to share with three preschool preacher’s daughters already dressed for church. Mama often emerged from finishing her own preparations to find three sweetly sticky girls in need of redressing, but that is a digression.

The next stop, where we gained a fourth and final sister, was a white dog trot house at Black Zion in Pontotoc County, a temporary dwelling before the church built a six room parsonage complete with indoor plumbing! The vase signaled home in both houses.

Calhoun County gave the greatest challenge to the home vase when we lived in half of a duplex, the other half inhabited by two elderly spinsters. They probably were no happier with the antics of four active girls than we were with their restrictions. The vase found its place on the dresser in a cavernous room shared by the sisters. And so it went.

My best answer to where I’m from is “Put your finger down on a map anywhere in northeast Mississippi, and I have lived somewhere near there.”

When Mama broke up housekeeping, my sisters and I recalled memories and divided up things of no value except sentimental. I was glad no one else had a hankering for Mama’s wedding present vase.

Now, it anchors the spot on the corner of my mantle, the squished up notes replaced with dried grasses. When I sit in my favorite chair to read, write, sew, or watch TV, I look up and know that I am home.

The Truth According to Us

Having enjoyed reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society as much as I loved the title, I lost no time responding to the offer from Net Galley for an advance reading copy of Annie Barrows’s new book The Truth According to Us. This is the first solo adult book for Annie who co-wrote the first book with her aunt. Children’s book lovers will recognize her name from her books in the Ivy and Bean series.
The first line from the voice of twelve-year-old Willa promised a read much like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society in a different historical setting. “In 1938, the year I was twelve, my hometown of Macedonia, West Virginia, celebrated its sesquicentennial, a word I thought had to do with fruit for the longest time.”

As the community gets ready for that celebration, a newcomer with a New Deal job as part of the Federal Writers’ Project comes to town. Layla’s senator father has cut off her allowance, and she has come to earn her living by writing the town’s history for the celebration. With this setup, Layla gets a room with the Romeyn family, once prominent and now fallen from grace. She pieces together their versions of the truth bit by bit and interviews locals who give different versions of times gone by.

Wondering what really happened when the factory burned down, why Willa’s father Felix keeps floating in and out of her life, and the secrets that her aunt Jottie hides beneath her stoic exterior keep the reader turning pages and wanting to warn Layla of the mistake her rose-colored glasses have made about Felix’s true character. Well portrayed minor characters entertain as they move the story along.  
The only forewarning I would give is to be aware that the narrator switches often, sometimes in the middle of a chapter. I found this distracting, particularly until I knew to watch for changes in the speaker, but the engaging story is worth this minor flaw. This book goes on sale June 9, and if you haven’t read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, you might want to purchase them together.

Getting What You Ask For

You would think as many times as I’ve heard, “Be careful what you wish/ask for,” that I’d be cautious. When we began house hunting in Hattiesburg, we sent lists to the real estate agent who would eventually become our good friend. High on Al’s list was “close to a hardware store.” My priority said, “a feel of living in the country.”

“Ha!” we thought, “Let’s see a real estate agent pull that one off.” Well, she did. Al may travel five minutes to Lowe’s several times a day, needing another piece of lumber, special sized nails, or a different color paint. He has what he wanted, and all is well.

So have I – most of the time. Between our backyard and the next street is a mass of Mississippi woods in a gully that would seem to prevent it from ever being developed for houses. However, my feel of living in the country means sharing strawberries, figs, blueberries, and other edibles with birds, squirrels, and rabbits. A new twist turned up recently. Ice cream cone shaped holes began to crop up in the pine straw mulch around my flower beds.

“Squirrels,” Al said.

“Squirrel holes aren’t that shape,” I argued.

Every time I mentioned the holes, Al’s response was the same. “Squirrels.”

I rolled my eyes and let it go, until this week when I heard him yell, “Virginia Ann, bring the camera!”

There you have it. Four armadillos with cone-shaped noses digging merrily in my pine straw mulch with not a care in the world that I was documenting their invasion.  This also puts a lie to the rumor that they are deterred by pine straw.

He said, “You may be able to get a blog out of this.” Which I have done, but I’m thinking more in terms of a picture book.

Once upon a time there were four little armadillos. (I know there are usually three, but Beatrix Potter gave Peter three siblings, and I have four in my picture. So there.) Their names were Alice, Allen, Alberta, and Aloysius. (Must have that alliteration and you may note that any can be shortened to “Al.” And yes, I know the science of four identical armadillos born from a single egg means we won’t have two boys and two girls, but this is my story and I’m sticking with it.) Their mother sent them out to forage for food.

Now I don’t have the entire plot worked out, but I’m sure Alberta is the gutsy problem maker who stands up to pose for her portrait. And I think by the time we get to happily ever after she will have spent time in my flower bed leaving behind a glass slipper, or has that already been done?

Wedding Weeds

Long before DIY became a popular acronym, my mother was a do-it-yourselfer, partly from economic necessity and partly from natural inclination. The weeds, ahem, wildflowers abloom in my flower garden bring a timely reminder of one of her best creations. My wedding was back in the day of pulling the wooden candle holders and tall wicker baskets from the church closet for decoration. Most people got a florist to do the flowers that went inside the baskets – not Mama.

Mama bought a few white lilies, carnations, and other standard flowers from the florist and then enlisted my childhood friend, soon to be my sister-in-law, to head out into the Mississippi fields on a scavenger hunt for Queen Anne’s lace. Her finished arrangement of purchased flowers into those delicate wildflower sprays they found would have held their own in any floral arrangement competition.

Mama was not alone in the DIY of my wedding. Daddy performed the ceremony which left Papaw, the only grandparent I ever knew, to give me away. My sister and Al’s brother served as maid of honor and best man. I, myself a DIY, made my wedding dress from lace that evoked the delicate pattern of the wildflower.

The wedding fifty seven years ago today – on a very hot June 1 Sunday afternoon – when we were very young, was the beginning of a DIY kind of family as Al has built or repaired much of what we’ve needed using wood and tools, and I’ve taken care of needle and thread requirements.

Outside as well as in, we divide the labor. He mows. I weed relentlessly and take care of the flowers. The time of year has come when Queen Anne’s Lace blooms randomly in my flower beds. I’m not saying it was the foundation for our marriage, but all the same, when this weed, er wildflower, pops up in my garden, I bid it  - and the memories it evokes - welcome.

El Deafo

For the first time, this year’s Newbery Committee of the American Library Association chose a graphic novel for one of its honor titles. El Deafo by Cece Bell, based on her own experience – her title from the nickname she gave herself as she was growing up. For those who are afraid that graphic novels water down literature, let me ease your anxiety with answers to some questions about this book.

•   Easy to read? Yes, took me about an hour for 233 pages and back matter
•    Comic book style? Yes, fun and appealing to middle schoolers and any adults who haven’t lost their sense of humor
•    Cartoons necessary? Definitely, pictures carry the story line as much as the narrative, similar to a good picture book
•    Cartoonish subject matter? No, a very realistic progression of the ambivalent feelings and coping mechanisms as Cece progresses through school, based on the author’s real story after she is left “severely to profoundly” deaf by meningitis when she was four years old
•    Light-hearted? Absolutely, sometimes in spite of and sometimes because of its subject matter, especially when Cece’s “Superpowers” enable her to hear what the teacher is saying and doing in any part of the school building
•    Empathy-inducing? From the minute the reader realizes that four-year-old Cece cannot hear, through the cruel tricks of some students, and the mistakes of others who sincerely try to help and only make things worse, all the way to her experiencing true friendship

The adults of the de Grummond Book Group enjoyed a lively discussion after choosing El Deafo for their last read. [Join them at the University of Southern Mississippi in Cook Library on the second floor in the exhibit room on the third Thursday of every month at 11:30 if you like to read and discuss children’s and young adult books.]

The book should be read by those who are hearing impaired and want to find a book character who understands them and reflects their world and by those who care or need to care about any person with hearing challenges because much of Cece’s story applies at any age to misguided attempts to be helpful.

In the back matter, Cece Bell addresses the range of hearing impairment and the different ways of coping without judging any of them right or wrong. She concludes the author’s note with, “Our differences are our superpowers,” – not a bad message whether you hear well or not.

Mysteries Solved

For the multitude of readers (all right, it was just one) who wanted me to post the end of the Mother’s Day mysteries, here you go. “In the previous episode,” as they say, a package of “Dutch bulbs” arrived four days early with a happy Mother’s Day greeting, but no signature, creating the mysteries of what kind of bulbs came and from which one of the children.

The daffodils turned out to be a profusion of delicate yellow buttercups and did, indeed, come from the AZ son who first claimed them. They had popped up by Mother's Day and were beginning to bloom.

On Mother’s Day, the TX daughter sent an email that read, “You didn't get a card yesterday in the mail because all the cards were stupid . . . and I checked several places. You will be getting a different kind of card in the mail but I'm just not sure when as it relies on another entity. You'll like it though.” This was an added and unexpected mystery since she normally is right on time. I did understand the card dilemma. We skip over the cards with the sweetness of maple syrup as well as the x-rated ones and look for funny ones that recall family jokes. Clean funny cards are becoming quite scarce.

The following Wednesday, after Mother’s Day, I got another Jackson and Perkins delivery just like the first with a card that said, “From MARK AND KELLY and a bunch of kids.” (That would be five.) MD little brother – now 6’3” – followed in the footsteps of AZ big brother – now 5’9” – as he did in their younger days. That didn’t turn out quite like MD son planned since he paid extra for Saturday delivery to back up his claim for having sent them and to assure that I had matching pots for either side of the fireplace. You can see the first daffodils are ahead and the second ones trying to catch up, much like younger brothers do with older brothers.

The TX daughter’s mystery card came late in the week from The University of Southern Mississippi Foundation. It said, “We are pleased to share that a donation was made in honor of Virginia McGee Butler on Mother’s Day on Thursday, May 07, 2015 by Anna Lane  . . . to the de Grummond Children’s Literature  Collection Endowment at the University of Southern Mississippi Foundation.” I think that makes her on time, as she usually is, since the delay was for USM’s paperwork. And she was right. I did like it.

Do I lobby for normal Mother’s Day celebrations with on time conventional gifts? Nah – too predictable, over too soon.

Besides, somebody might ask, “Who raised these crazy people?”

Got Caught - Too Late

Sarcasm sometimes reigns in the comment, “Oh, he just wanted to get caught.” And there is the two-year-old who can’t stay hidden long enough to be found in hide-and-seek, or the second grader who commits a blatant minor infraction so he will be kept in for recess out of the Mississippi heat. Or there is me, trying very hard for notice in this “Get Caught Reading Month.” Getting caught sometimes has its perks. The “too late” part? Not so much.

I must admit to an ulterior motive as I worked on this post. I found out about this special month from the Eerdman’s Books for Young Readers blog with their book people getting caught reading some interesting books. My motive is their offer for those who post about this celebration on social media to enter into a drawing for eight (8!) books. Mister H, Just for Today, Red, Roger Is Reading a Book, Edgar Wants to Be Alone, Animal Supermarket, The Yes, and The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch.

All eight books appeared to be good reads and would look fine on my bookshelf after I finished reading. A couple in particular intrigued me. The copy of The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch signed by both author and illustrator, which I’m reading in the picture, will remain with me only until it becomes a gift for a couple of red-headed brothers. That surely calls for a copy of my own to replace it. Then there is the intriguing resemblance on the cover of Roger Is Reading a Book to Roger Sutton, editor in chief of The Horn Book Magazine. Hmmmm.

The “Too Late” part comes with a moral for this story which I found as I looked for the website to include for my blog readers. Not paying close enough attention to the instructions can be the end of hope for contest winners as well as writers. You can see the instructions (and my mistake) yourself by clicking on the picture of the stack of books, along with some of the “caught reading” pictures, at www.eerdlings.com.

Since this is the month for being caught reading, my assumption that it ran to the end of the month would have been better served by reading all the information carefully – like the one that says the contest closes at midnight on May 20. Why do I feel a bit like a hare who took a little snooze unaware that a tortoise was passing him by?

Crystal Kite Award

Only on a special occasion do I blog about the same book twice, and seldom am I later than early morning doing my post. This is a special occasion, and I had to wait for the press release before I could tell! I first blogged about Hurricane Boy by Laura Roach Dragon on March 10, 2014 when it had its debut.

Now it has won the Crystal Kite Award. These awards come from members of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (the longest name of any organization to which I belong and lovingly called SCBWI for short). Normally, one award is given in each of fifteen regions, but in this case, there will be two since there was a tie in the final vote from Mid-South Region.

Books published in 2014 by a list of recognized children’s and young adult publishers are eligible. Voting is done by members of the organization so the award is given by one’s peers, much like the Oscars. Authors are prohibited from active campaigning although they are allowed to remind their friends to vote. Anything resembling spamming disqualifies the author and book. Since the Mid-South region covers Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the original list was long. (I know – Kansas and Missouri in the Mid-South? All I can say is, I did not make the divisions. But it’s no worse than football’s new configuration of the Southeast Conference.)

What does Laura get for this? A big round of applause and several hugs at the announcement during our local meeting last Saturday when we were sworn to secrecy, an engraved Crystal Kite Award (some hinted that it had only been handled with white gloves to prevent any tarnishing of its beauty), and a silver sticker for her winning book.

And why am I blogging about this book a second time? Not because her autograph in my copy ends with “ . . . I couldn’t have done it without you.” I wouldn’t want to seem proud. Okay, so I am proud, but I’m also giving you a heads up on an award winning book in time for you to read it on the tenth anniversary of Katrina on August 29 – the storm that started the story in Laura’s head.

Gone, but Not Forgotten

My first knowledge of today’s birthday boy came when my father returned from preaching at a country church “in view of a call” as they used to say. In his description of the prospective church, he returned several times to the young man who played the piano. The church called and Daddy accepted, but it would be a few months before the family moved so I could finish my last year of high school without a change. On successive trips, Daddy’s reports often returned to the young piano player, also a senior in high school. One weekend, a family visit to the new church brought us to Mr. Butler’s country store where he introduced us to “his baby boy” – the piano player. Mr. Butler died unexpectedly that spring before we made the move.

Daddy always got edgy at this point when he heard me tell this story. He said I made it sound like an arranged marriage. It wasn’t. I had a mind of my own that Daddy had always encouraged me to use. I could hear Allen’s piano and see his dark wavy hair. The red and white Buick hardtop convertible he drove didn’t hurt anything either.

While Daddy never objected in principle to my good taste, he did become worried about the speed at which I took a liking to his musician. He made a statement in my hearing to someone else – obviously for my benefit – that none of his girls had better think about marriage before they were eighteen. Little did he know he was giving permission for the plan Allen and I had already hatched that would allow me to finish junior college before the wedding.

When I stuck my hand under his nose to show the engagement ring not long before that sophomore Christmas and said, “Daddy, I’m eighteen,” he replied, “Yes, you are.”

The dark wavy hair and the Buick are long gone but not forgotten, and the piano fingers aren’t quite as quick and sure when they tickle the ivories these days. But we’ve had more adventures than either of us would ever have expected, many because of the “Greetings” sent by Uncle Sam on another birthday. (Really, how can a draft notice be timed for your birthday!) And three children, their spouses, and ten grandchildren have added many more.

His piano-playing fingers have taken a liking to baking cakes himself so I’ve skipped that and made a reasonable facsimile of his mother’s chocolate pie for the occasion. Happy birthday, Allen! And, thanks, Daddy, for pointing him out, though I probably would have found him all by myself.

The Sound of Glass

The prologue of the advance reading copy of The Sound of Glass by Karen White (release date – May 12) sets Edith in Beaufort, South Carolina – July 1955, “An unholy terror rippling through the sticky night air alerted Edith Heyward that something wasn’t right.” She pictures her hand-made blue and green glass wind chimes shivering like a hanged man from a noose.

Chapter 1 sets Merritt in Beaufort South Carolina – May 2014, “Fires can be stopped in three different ways: exhausting the fuel source, taking away the source, or starving the fire of oxygen.” Merritt knows her fire-fighter husband Cal’s death, as he walked into the burning building, was no accident.  

So begins a Southern tale told in alternating chapters between the two women. Inexplicably, Merritt inherits her husband’s family home two years after his death. Her stepmother, too close to her own age, and her ten-year-old stepbrother show up on her doorstep before she can dispose of the house. Edith’s story and Merritt’s weave toward each other to the background music of the chimes.

Getting rid of the chimes becomes an early goal, a concrete thing Merritt can do while she unearths the mystery surrounding the unexpected inheritance and figures out what she is going to do with the other legacy of the stepmother and half brother. The reader knows quickly there will be more to this than the couple of days she mentally allots them until they can find a place, just as she (he) senses that the chimes are staying.

For those who like “beach reads,” this would qualify. I’d recommend instead a tall pitcher of iced tea and a porch swing with a full afternoon ahead to enjoy meeting the well drawn characters that will have you thinking of them even after the last page is finished.

Merry Mother's Day Mysteries

The mysteries began with a delivery for me from Jackson and Perkins by UPS shortly after noon on Wednesday. My husband brought in the box and waited with curiosity. “Mother’s Day,” I said. He raised his eyebrows. Typically, our children are pushing the deadline or a day late for holidays, not four days early.

Inside the package was a utilitarian pot inside a decorative one with moss covering the dirt and clumps of chartreuse poking out the top. Pulling out the paperwork, I found instructions for taking care of the plants identified as “Dutch bulbs” and a slip that said, “A Special Message for You: Happy Mother’s Day!” No signature.

The Mother’s Day greeting left me with three choices – AZ Son, TX Daughter, or MD Son. All three have been known to sometimes, but not always, send flowers for special occasions. Figuring it out, I seemed to recall that AZ son had an account with Jackson and Perkins and had used them before, but early is not a word I use often to describe him. In fact, until he married a wife, I could usually depend on a Mother’s Day card sometime before the first of June. The TX daughter was more likely to send flowers for an unusual occasion or in the form of a gift card to a garden center for plants to go in the yard for the gardening passion we share. The MD son more often sends cut flowers, but varies his choices enough that it could have been him.

In the second mystery, “Dutch bulbs” and “Mississippi trees” are equally definitive. We’ve been to Holland when it was in full bloom, and the bulbs could be tulips, daffodils, or any number of their relatives.

I quickly sent the family group an email that substitutes for the conversations around the dining table now that the kids have scattered across the US. I sought a solution to my two mysteries. They used the “reply all” to answer.

TX daughter responded, “Count me out. Maybe they’re Pennsylvania Dutch?”

MD son said, “They’re from us. We, uh, may have lost our receipt but, yep, they’re from us!”

AZ son retaliated, “No they’re not. And they will be daffodils eventually.”

By Thursday morning, the little clumps raised their heads and stretched upwards into stems. This morning they’ve grown taller and turned green with promise of the solution to what kind of daffodils will bloom.

As Mother’s Day approaches, I wish for each of my blog reading mothers, and those who have stood in place of mothers, a merry Mother’s Day and maybe even a bit of mystery to go with it.

Book Dilemma

Torn with book decisions involving too many books and too little time, I often get help with my choices from the American Library Association lists. ALA does not resolve all dilemmas. More than once, I have personally liked an honor book better than the winner for the Newbery or Caldecott Awards.

This year I had read Brown Girl Dreaming (honor book) by Jacqueline Woodson before the Newbery awards and could not imagine how another book could come in ahead of it. I have just finished The Crossover (Newbery winner) by Kwame Alexander and am still in a quandary about “best” that leaves me grateful that I was not on the committee. I would still be debating with myself while the other members restlessly urged me to make a choice. (Just for the record, I do not qualify so you need not worry that I will ever be making this decision.) Evidently, ALA committees share my love for both books. The Coretta Scott King Award Committee made Brown Girl Dreaming the winner with The Crossover receiving an honor award.

What I found in both books:
•    Beautiful easily read verse
•    An engaging story
•    A family laced with tension, conflict, and love

What I found in Brown Girl Dreaming:
•    A literary style
•    A memoir that feels like fiction

What I found in The Crossover:
•    A basketball writing style (really – the poetry often bounces and sometimes slam dunks)
•    A novel that feels like reality

So, which is better? It probably depends on whether the reader is a classic bookworm or a sports fan. In any case, I’m leaving this decision alone while I read the third book in the Newbery triumvirate, El Deafo by Cece Bell, a memoir in graphic novel style. Very different from the other two, I’ll let you know if it lives up to its Newbery companions.

Mind Change

On this date many years ago, my parents slipped off and got married. Not quite as exotic as it sounds. Everybody knew Berton and Virginia were engaged. They were twenty-six and almost twenty-five, respectively. Daddy’s parents were dead. Mama didn’t want her mother, who was in poor health, to struggle with a formal wedding. They did ask my grandfather if he’d like to go into town with them, but he declined the invitation.

They were married in their pastor’s living room with his wife as their witness. Returning to Papaw’s farm, they were met by Mama’s eight-year-old sister who figured out what they had done and ran to tell Papaw, “You’ve got a new son-in-law and a preacher, too!”

Papaw’s response was, “If I’d known that was what you were going to do, I’d have gone with you.”

It was the end of a courtship that got off to a rocky start. Several years before, Daddy visited his cousins in the little community of Sturgis, Mississippi and accompanied them to church on Sunday morning. He told his cousins over lunch that he’d met the woman he was going to marry. Mama told her family she’d met the ugliest boy she’d ever seen.

Some of their differences might prove that opposites do indeed attract. He came from a family for whom a “dysfunctional” definition was kind. She came from a nuclear and extended family that might be more in your business than you wanted but coalesced around each other at the end of the day. He grew up in a small town with home on the top floor over his father’s bottom floor barber shop. She grew up on the family farm, homesteaded several generations before. He thought a nickel in your pocket was for spending. She wouldn’t part with a frivolous dime until all necessary, useful, and altruistic needs were filled. But they shared a commitment to his ministry in rural Mississippi churches; a love for people in general and four daughters, their spouses, and offspring in particular; and a love for telling stories – including the one of their dissimilar impressions at their first meeting.

The marriage would last until his death almost forty-five years later. She smoothed some of his rough edges with social graces, and he taught her to see the funny side of whatever life handed them. On this day some seventy-eight years later, I am equally glad that she changed her mind after her initial impression and that he never did.

Book Quartet

I filled a big bag with books and my credit card with charges during the recent Kaigler Book Festival – twice! Grandchildren’s birthdays are taken care of for a while. I’ll share my finds of books good enough for grandparents and grandchildren from time to time via this blog in case some of you are looking.

I’ll start with the quartet for the youngest set. At two and a half and one and a half, they’re not old enough to read my blog and spoil the surprise. [The older ones may not read my blog, but let’s just say it’s possible. I’ll blog about those books and why they were chosen when their birthdays come.]

These four of the Ezra Jack Keats Award Winners made it into one of those bags.

The two on the left will go in the stash to wait since they feature children who are a bit older. How do I keep up with this? There’s a list in the stash.

• ·         Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin by Chieri UeGaki, illustrated by Qin Leng (EJK New Writer Honor Award): Children will enjoy the relationships as Hana practices for her first recital with older brothers who tease and memories of a grandfather far away in Japan encouraging her beginning music. Both grandparents and grandchildren will enjoy the twist at the end that makes it right.
• ·         Edda written and illustrated by Adam Auerbach (EJK Honor Book): Edda, from the magical land of the Valkyries, must make adjustments when she starts to school in the land of Earth. Vaguely familiar problems will strike home to kindergarten or first grade earthlings. This is a read together book for those first days of school.

I may not be able to hold out for the two on the right until a small-for-his-age grandson has his next birthday. In both, the little people win the day!

• ·         Shh! I Have a Plan written and illustrated by Chris Haughton (EJK Award Winner): Four friends start out shushing the smallest one’s greetings to an exquisite bird. They have a plan, quickly understood by preschoolers watching the nets as one try after the other to catch the bird is thwarted. Both the adult and small readers will get a laugh from the little one’s triumph – probably more than once as the story is read again and again.
• ·         Little Elliot, Big City, written and illustrated by Mike Curato (EJK Honor Book): The irony of an elephant too small to reach things will not be lost on people short enough to empathize with him. The pictures and story work together in a delightful way to show what happens when Elliot is able to befriend someone even smaller than himself and how they work together – making it a perfect book for a little guy.

To paraphrase a title, Shh! I have a secret. Don’t tell my grandchildren what they’re getting for their birthdays. I wouldn’t want them to guess that I had bought them books.

Listening

I didn’t hear the call, but I may not have been listening. I think my husband heard it soon after he heard the insistent invitation from Uncle Sam to join the Army. Al carried the thought with him during a whole career that one day he would come home. Home for him had an address with “MS” before the zip code. Whatever the cause, as we neared retirement, the call to return home to Mississippi brought urgency in his conversations. I didn’t hear it.

I remembered his coaxing yesterday as I drove through the streets of Hattiesburg and out the rural Lamar County road to the library. This Mississippi world seemed to be a veritable canopy of every conceivable shade of green banked against a deep blue sky with puffy white clouds. I headed home, knowing my back yard had the same spread of oak, sweet gum, pine, hickory nut, and more, interspersed with privet hedge filling the neighborhood with a sweet aroma – and let me not forget the magnolia bursting into bloom out front. Place is important to writers, and I couldn’t imagine another I’d rather call mine.

I’ve wondered in these fourteen years since we returned to our home state why he heard that call, and I didn’t. I’ve come up with a couple of theories. Perhaps it was because his roots were deeper than mine from having lived his first twenty-four years in the same house. My address, like his, had always ended with “MS” before the zip code, but I’d lived in at least fifteen houses in various locations in the northeast corner of the state. My roots were shallow.

The other reason may have been that I have loved each place we lived. Looking back, each seems to have been the right place at the right time for our stage of life and the ages of our children. Six states and three countries outside the US have been home for the time designated by the Army. I worried little about which two letters came before the zip code or if there was an APO address instead.

But yesterday, it occurred to me to be grateful that Al made me listen until I heard the call and its chorus “Hattiesburg . . . Hattiesburg . . . Hattiesburg.” My shallow roots have taken hold in this Mississippi clay and burrowed deep. My hearing has also improved. I can hear my porch swing’s invitation to come with my book and savor the green and the sweet aroma. This time I need no coaxing to answer.