Celebrating Halloween

Putting out a few traditional decorations and keeping the bowl of candy corn filled for a couple of preschoolers constitutes my biggest Halloween challenge these days. The Halloween clown who has reigned over the fireplace display for many years now was a handcrafted gift from a second grader’s creative mother.

It wasn’t always this easy. There were the years when three kids came up with “who I will be” ideas and gave me lots of instructions and minimal help in creation of their costumes.

That challenge paled when compared to getting myself and my kindergarten classroom ready to celebrate. The bulletin board always sported a black poster board witch, pot, and moveable spoon. Halloween words spewed upward in the steam from the pot – “witch,” “ghost,” “scarecrow,” “pumpkin,” “boo,” “trick or treat,” “skeleton.” We carved a pumpkin, made a pie, and toasted the seeds. Of course, we read “Little Orphan Annie” by James Whitcomb Riley and “Someone” by Walter de la Mare.

One year, time to culminate our celebration arrived on Halloween Day. I sent the Butler kids off on their bus, loaded the car with Halloween party supplies, and headed out to my kindergarten class. The car stopped and refused to restart before I got off the Army base. A man passing by saw me looking helpless and stopped to offer assistance. He listened to my explanation of what happened, looked under the hood, and said, “I think it’s just flooded.”

A couple minutes’ wait proved him right, and I drove on to school. The office staff listened to my tale that left me on time instead of early, as was my habit. Then one of them asked, “What did the man say about your outfit?” It was the first time I’d thought about it.

I looked down at my bright orange pants suit liberally sprinkled with ghosts, witches, black cats, and spiders that I had sewn on it. The man had not commented. He hadn’t even blinked an eye. Abnormal becomes normal on Halloween.

Honestly, I’m just as glad that my Halloween celebration has less stress these days. I do plan to recall some special Halloween memories, read those poems again, add “The Raven,” and perhaps indulge a bit in the candy corn.

Happy Halloween!

Election Choices

The knock on the front door itself was an omen. That door’s two purposes are to hold a wreath and to provide another way out of the house in case the side and back doors are engulfed in flames. Delivery people with any power of observation and friends come to the side door. The note my husband stuck up on the front door that says, “No – Parcels/Entry; USE CARPORT DOOR,” should have been another clue to our visitor. But that is a digression.

The man introduced himself, explained that he was running for election to the school board, and asked if I had a few minutes. I didn’t really, but I harkened back to a lesson learned as an adolescent (to be explained later) and let him talk. His spiel consisted mainly of how he was going to take the school district in hand and micromanage the school administrators and get those school teachers working. I took his card and promised to consider what he said.

My long-ago overheard lesson from my mother kicked in quickly. To be honest, I often learned lessons from her while I eavesdropped at the same time I was rejecting the ones she was trying to teach me. Isn’t that what adolescents do?

On that day, Mama explained to her companion that she would not be voting for the incumbent John Doe for sheriff. This was momentous, in itself, since she seldom shared in public who she was voting for. I perked up to see where the conversation would go. Her companion quickly responded, “Oh, you need to quit listening to what people say about him. He is a good guy.”

Mama said, “I’m not listening to what others say. I’m listening to what he said himself.” She had heard him tell a story about someone who upset him and how he would never go back to that house again if he was called. Mama thought the sheriff was the sheriff of all people.

As I promised, I considered what the school board candidate told me. He wants to represent one of the best school districts in the state of Mississippi by any measure of statistics and by the number of people with school age children who deliberately find a home here. I know many of the teachers, and the only way they could work any harder would be to add some hours to the day. They creatively engage their students and make learning fun.

I checked the back of his card. His credentials did not list one item that had anything to do with education, but several that qualified him to micromanage. After the careful consideration that I had promised, I wrote “NO” in capital letters with a marker and put it on the bulletin board.

It seems there are other elections this year. I’m listening primarily to what the candidates say themselves.

The Bayou Bogeyman Presents Hoodoo and Voodoo

The Bayou Bogeyman Presents Hoodoo and Voodoo, timely for Halloween, began in a challenge to members of the Louisiana/Mississippi Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators to write a scary story. I passed since I don’t write scary, but nine of my writer friends loved the challenge and went to work. Seven of them are pictured here as they looked before they delved into the story writing. Pelican published this group of short stories with an overarching story line of campers out to top each other with scary stories to be judged by their leader, Mr. Braud, or is he the Bayou Bogeyman? 

Questions the stories raise will give you an idea of why the timing is perfect for reading on Halloween.

• Can Alphatheda outwit Vistoire, the Voodoo Queen, in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1?
• What possible harm can come from a game loaded into an Xbox, unless of course, the game is Traveling Pierre’s Backwater Carnival?
• Do spirits from the Girod Street Cemetery really haunt the Superdome after the lights go out or is the BONG BONG BONG of the crazy bell lady imaginary?
• Should the smell of sauerkraut and stale cigar smoke hovering over a magic index card arouse suspicion?
• Can a zombie girl find a place with the “in” crowd in junior high?
• Exactly how much trouble can caged animals freed from midnight to one on All Hallows Eve cause for daredevil kids?
• Really? Can there be a miracle cure for the loup-garou and the ‘amster-garou?
• As Flint, Mikey, and D’Wayne set out through the marsh to pull their own prank, is something following them?
• Can Bryce rid himself of the face that keeps calling “back” in the window of his painting before he enters it in the art contest?
• What sorcery is needed to outwit a doll in the wall who trades places with Grace’s little brother?
• What terror lies in the blind spot of a trucker?
• Will the song “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” last long enough to prevent spell-inducing sleep from the evil ones?
• Is there hope for those conned into following the devil, who prefers to be called Satan, into his lair?

Of course, there’s also the question of who will win the contest, but that turns out to be a different issue entirely. Just to be sure you know what you are getting into, the writers’ promotional card warns, “Sleep with one eye open.” Looking at a couple of them after their writing, it seems like good advice.

Definition of a Successful Week

I’ve been seriously submitting manuscripts to magazine and book publishers for close to twenty years. I think I’ve hit upon what I should count as a successful week as a writer, and it’s not the number of acceptance letters. Many reasons pop up to explain why these haven’t been in the mailbox so that’s a poor criteria.

Rejection often falls into routine editorial reasons:

• We received almost 500 submissions.
• The issue is full.
• One editor receives 3000 stories per year, accepting 12 which means 1 in 250 odds even with a good piece of writing. (So do I really think I can win this lottery?)

Other things are beyond the writer’s control:

• Timing – The editor of Family Circle wrote an encouraging rejection letter saying how much she enjoyed my submission about my mother’s Alzheimer’s Disease, but she had just bought a similar one. (The encouragement led me to send it out again, and it was published later in Cup of Comfort for Families Touched by Alzheimer’s.)
• Tastes of editors – not that different from food. Think of all the fruitcake jokes. One rejection said, “We just didn’t love it enough.” Finding the right editor is a little like finding that person (like me) who can’t wait for fruitcake.
• Trends – They come. They go. Think of the norm of taking two years from the time a book is bought until it hits the shelves. By the time you spot a fad and write to it, the fad fades before your book can get to market.

One rejection that I got before I began to be really earnest about sending out my work, added a note that they would be glad to see something else I wrote. All I saw was the rejection. With a little more experience behind me, I’m kicking myself for not heeding that invitation. Invitations like that aren’t given out lightly. 

I’m encouraged not to feel like a failure by hearing stories of multiple rejections before acceptance and the ones they continue to receive for so many authors who are now well-known! My current model is Kate DiCamillo, who has multiple award-winning books and will be the recipient of USM’s medallion for her body of work at next year’s book festival. She claims more than four hundred!

So, what do I use to measure a successful week? I do like those acceptances, but I have limited control over them. Instead, I look at my wastebasket. I can control how hard I work. A successful week is one that ends with a wastebasket filled with rewrites and do-overs.  

Small Great Things

If you’re looking for a light fluffy read that will not engage your mind, skip Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult – or anything else she has written for that matter. I’ve read Picoult books often and knew that both my mind and emotions would be engaged when I received this book in an ARC. I just didn’t know what the issue would be. 

I quickly found myself in the heads of her three principal narrators – Turk, the skinhead father who has a demand placed in his new baby’s folder that no African American attend him; Ruth, the experienced African American nurse who disregards the order when she is the only one present when the child goes into distress; and Kennedy, the public defender who takes Ruth’s case when the baby dies and she is charged with murder.

She sets up her premise in the first sentence, “The miracle happened on West Seventy-Fourth Street, in the home where Mama worked.” She continues that theme and foreshadows the story line at the end of the first chapter, “. . . where all the differences in schooling and money and skin color evaporated like mirages in the desert. Where everyone was equal, and it was one woman, helping another. That miracle, I’ve spent thirty-nine years waiting to see again.” 

I’d finished about three-fourths of the book when Jodi Picoult appeared on CBS This Morning. She said the idea had come from a real situation, and she had expanded it into a novel. The title came from a phrase attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” She answered my speculation about how she had so much empathy and understanding for each of her characters in an explanation of how much research time she’d spent with people who were her narrator’s equivalents.

She said each of these narrators has to examine their beliefs about power, privilege, and race. Readers may find themselves doing the same thing in this novel that keeps them on edge and turning pages. This newest of Picoult’s books, released on October 11, lives up to the expectations and best-selling status of her previous novels. I highly recommend it unless you’re looking for something fluffy. 

Titled Children

Unless you’ve been hiding out in a cave or been in solitary confinement somewhere, you’ve seen the cute pictures of Prince George in his short pants and knee socks. Even his sister Princess Charlotte has not upstaged him, and he remains my favorite.

I’ll confess that I’ve been as bad as the next one about following British royalty beginning when The Little Princesses was serialized in The Ladies’ Home Journal. That account, by their nanny Crawfie, was cut short when one of the princesses changed her title to “Queen Elizabeth.” Her story, now available in book form, caused a never to be healed rift with the royal family though it was far from scandalous.

These two views of gentle exemplary standards for royalty sandwich a lot of years of shame, unhappy marriages, and intrigue. There’s been more soap opera than role model in the intervening generation. I’ve read those stories, too, still fascinated by people with a title, but I have not enjoyed them as much as reading about two sisters growing up in a castle where one would someday be the queen.

I’m back to liking the stories of an apparently happy family and the photographs of beautiful titled children. So why am I especially fond of the pictures of Prince George? He brings memories of another cute little boy who spent his early years in France and Belgium wearing short pants and knee socks. His only title was “Army Brat,” but he wore it proudly and well.

A Child of Books

After a recent birthday, with a head of white hair and a longstanding membership in AARP, there are those who might assume that I am aging. I have proof to the contrary. Among the gifts for my recent birthday, I got a small pumpkin, a balloon, and a picture book. I’m contending that the pumpkin and balloon, selected and given by two preschool grandsons, indicate they think I’m one of them.

The picture book was presaged with a hint from my daughter that my present would “have my name all over it.” I could tell she was right when I opened the package to find a picture book with the title A Child of Books.

The card that came with it said:

For: A child of books to enjoy and then share with little ones who are also becoming child(ren) of books

From: A child of books.

Further proof that the book was meant for me came when I read the first lines, “I am a child of books. I come from a world of stories.” The storyline by Oliver Jeffers took me back to the time when my now-librarian daughter learned to love books that took her to other worlds when she was a preschooler. Clever illustrations by Sam Winston have a background of forty different children’s stories and lullabies. Even the endpapers are multitudes of titles and authors of classics in literature.

The book did indeed have my name on it. I was a child of books thanks to a mother who read to me. I raised that daughter as a child of books and am glad to have the opportunity to encourage those two grandsons (the “little ones” on her card who are her nephews) to become children of books. A Child of Books is a wonderful book for any adult child of books to share with kids in their lives with the hope that they will also become children of books.

As for my age, you can believe the gray hair and the AARP membership or you can believe the birthday gifts. I’m going with the pumpkin and the picture book.

The Makings of a Good Day

Now, I am well aware that what makes for a good day for me might not match what makes for a good day for someone else. Mine began with an editor a week or so ago who sent back a manuscript that did not say, “Thank you for letting us see your writing. Now, please send it somewhere else. Oh, yes, and good luck!” I’ve had those – or pretty close.

Several things made me happy with this return. This editor had actually read the whole manuscript. We writer types usually consider ourselves lucky if they read ten pages before “Thanks, but no, thanks” kicks in. I could tell she read it all because her critique covered every story line in the book. Did I mention she also had some really nice things to say about my writing – and research? After she made her points about the areas that brought her up short, she said she would be glad to read and respond to it again. (She clarified that she did not promise to publish, just to read and respond again.) Still. That was one good day!

Now this is not a new manuscript. The picture shows the box of drafts from rewrites over a number of years. When the box got full, I just began stacking drafts on top. I knew the letter called for yet another run. Thank goodness, I actually like the people I’ve put into this book and am glad to spend some time with them again.

The next good day came today after her words have rattled around in my head for this week. I sat down and highlighted references to one of the characters she thought I should address. As I drew my blue highlighter across the name every time it occurred, my mind began adding the details and seeing possibilities of where this could go. By extension, I can see how the other characters, done in their own colors, can get their due when I have finished with this one – all except one. But by the time I finish what I know, I’m sure that one will come around, too.

So what makes a good day? Examining my examples, it seems to be work. The return from the editor had suggestions that will require a strong look and much rewriting. The ideas that have come today as I highlighted? More of the same. Like I said, what makes a good day for me might not match what makes for a good day for someone else.

I’ve heard that some people like a day at the beach. Please don’t make me do something that boring, unless of course, you throw in a couple of little boys who want to make sand castles and frog houses.

The Nightingale

A book loving friend told me I had to read The Nightingale.

“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.” These first lines in the novel by Kristen Hannah establish a theme for a gripping novel set in France during World War II as one of two sisters with her son looks back in time.  Episodically, she makes an appearance reminiscing from 1995 in Oregon, leaving the reader unsure which sister is speaking until near the end of the book.

Starting with the death of their mother, leaving them in the hands of their father scared by World War I to the point that he can’t or won’t cope with two daughters who need him, the two girls grow up shunted from one place to the other. The oldest, Vianne copes by making what peace she can with the system until she falls in love, gets pregnant, and marries Antoine. Isabelle copes by testing the system and escaping from authority over and over during her adolescence.

World War II circumstances will change all three of them and bring each of them to danger and hard decisions. Switching between the two sisters as protagonists, the author leaves the reader wanting her to rescue the one before transferring to the other. Vianne, with choices that are too hard to make and unsure of what is right, reaches a faith crisis. The Mother Superior assures her, “You’re not alone, and you’re not the one in charge.”

Vianne, Isabelle, and their father find a way to make their own difference in the injustices of the war and in the process find their way back to each other. The book kept me engaged from beginning to end and had me going back to read the last chapter one more time to see how the wrap-up fulfills the promise of the opening theme.

My friend was right. This was a book I had to read, and now as your friend, I’m telling you, “You have to read The Nightingale.”

Fifth Anniversary

For five years, I’ve been writing this blog twice a week with one exception for a trip to England with my sister, talking a lot about reading and suggesting some good books, and doing very little arithmetic – just as I promised. I looked it up to see what was proper for celebrating a fifth anniversary. The list said wood is traditional and silverware is modern. Now, I’m not sure which planet these list makers are coming from. It seems to me that modern young people are much less concerned with silverware than those of earlier generations often preferring paper plates and plastic forks, but who am I to argue?

We’ll just move on to how I’d like to celebrate. I don’t need any new stuff to add to the clutter already in my house so I will just address the usefulness of the silver or wood I already own to the process that has produced my writing.

I did get some silverware when I married and used it on occasion in the early days. Do you know that stuff needs a lot of polishing? As years rolled along, both the polishing and the use faded in popularity in the Butler household, resulting in the mess you see here. Every time I get energetic and polish it, I make a soon-broken resolution not to let it get in this condition again. The only effect it ever has on my writing is taking time away. I think it will not be part of this celebration.  

Wood, on the other hand, gives daily service with an added layer of sentiment. The double desk, built by Al, graced the room shared by two sons as they were growing up. The lap desk was a gift from my oldest son who has a degree in journalism and gives me encouragement to continue putting words on paper. The table sat in the kitchen in front of the wood stove of the family home where my mother and her five siblings grew up. My sister and I spent a hot summer day sweating while we took off layers of paint and gook to find the beautiful wood underneath.

So on this fifth anniversary, I think I’ll celebrate by taking turns working at the three wood writing places with thankfulness for the family connections they bring and for the readers who have encouraged me to continue writing.

The Light Fantastic

The first two sentences set the tone for the book in The Light Fantastic by Sarah Combs. “I was born on April 19, 1995, at 10:07 in the morning eastern daylight time. Minutes before, one time zone to the west, a man named Timothy McVeigh was busy sending a bomb through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. . .” On senior skip day as the first narrator, April recalls all the tragedies that have occurred during her birth month, including the Boston Marathon bombing five days before. The tension begins here and tightens as it goes forward with breathers only for recalling earlier and better times and giving clues about relationships among the players.

Pay close attention to both the narrators that often seem unrelated from across the country and the times in different time zones as the story is told from multiple teen and adult viewpoints. There is a plot headed by a Mastermind to be carried out by the Assassins. The threads of the story resemble a basket of leftover yarn that has been invaded by a kitten and become intriguing as the reader tries to follow each thread from the beginning to the end. 

I also reviewed Sarah Combs book Breakfast Served Anytime when it came out. In that review, I wrote that she captured well the joys and sorrows of coming-of-age. That is still true with this book as long as the reader is content with more stress and sorrow than joy. This is a book for someone who enjoys the tension of a psychological thriller.

Banned Books Week

I make my way most months to New Orleans for an SCBWI meeting where I spend my time looking at a sign in the front of the room like this facsimile I have reproduced. Since next week, September 5 – October 1, is Banned Books Week, it seems like a fitting thing to consider censorship blindness. Some of the frequently challenged and banned books make my head swim. Let me give a few instances.

There are those I read aloud to my students – Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou; and The Giver by Lois Lowry.

My daughter began her career as a fifth grade teacher with Maniac McGee by Jerry Spinelli as her first read-aloud book.

Coming soon is a movie of a favorite, The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson. Gilly uses some non-Sunday school language in a powerful foster child story. The book would be less without that language. Come to think of it, Katherine gets herself in trouble with the book police fairly often. Jacob, Have I Loved, probably my favorite Paterson book though I love them all, has come under their microscope more than once. Katherine, missionary’s child and preacher’s wife, what could she be thinking?

There are classics like Gone with the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird and best sellers like The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini that have been called into question.

With some degree of regularity, I read from the Holy Bible – are the book police serious? Of course, the Bible does have quite a bit violence, harsh words, and sexuality.

It seems to me the books most often threatened are the ones that make us think and see. Hear me carefully, I’m not saying we don’t need to make judgments as to what we read. In our book discussion group last week, we got off topic – not unusual – and drifted into book recommendations. A grandmother in the group listened to get book ideas for her grandchildren. As we discussed one book recommended for her granddaughter’s age, she said, “My granddaughter would be terrified. The book would not be for her.” The difference? She was making a decision for a child she knew, not in any way suggesting the book should be banned from the library or school for those who would enjoy such a book. Reading reviews and discovering if a book suits your taste or is appropriate for those in your care is quite legitimate.

I recommend celebrating Banned Books Week – choose a book from this blog or google “banned books” to find several lists. Live dangerously and read one. You don’t really want to be blind.

A Monster Calls

The question arose as I read A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness as to whether the book or the story behind the book was the more interesting. I’ll start with the story behind the book.

Siobhan Dowd had begun her fifth novel when she died prematurely at 47 with cancer. Their common editor asked Patrick Ness to take the idea and write his own novel. According to Patrick in his author’s note, “She had the characters, a premise, and a beginning. What she didn't have, unfortunately, was time.” I’ve read a few books that were finished posthumously by somebody close to the author. I’ve not found them to measure up. This book is different. Patrick began with her idea and wrote his own book. The honoring of what happened to Siobhan is not lost on the reader.

The chilling monster of the book haunts Conor, but not the monster he’s expecting from his regular nightmare that he’s had ever since his mother started treatment. This monster is from the ancient yew tree and shows up at seven minutes past midnight. It wants the truth while Conor clings to his relationship with his fragile mother, faces a dismissive father, and struggles with a stern grandmother.

Our de Grummond Book Group read this for our July selection. Lively discussion ensued on which parts of the story were real and which were Conor’s imagination. There was no disagreement about how much we enjoyed the book that ranged from gripping to funny to moving. We could understand why it is sometimes even more appealing to adults who have dealt with loss than to its intended children’s audience. It certainly deserved the Carnegie Medal won in 2012 by the author and the Kate Greenaway Medal for the hauntingly beautiful illustrations by Jim Kay as the year's best children's book published in the UK.

The movie will be out in time for Christmas which leaves me drawn to it and terrified that the filmmakers will destroy the story as they often do. However, I’ve checked out the trailer, and they must have channeled my imagination in the casting of Lewis MacDougall in the starring role. As we say in the South, he’s the “spittin’ image” of the picture I have in my mind. The rest of the cast, with Sigourney Weaver as the grandmother, isn’t bad either. Read the book for sure. I’ll let you know about the movie.

Hummingbird Harangue

Okay, you hummers, listen up! You waste too much time chasing each other off the feeders. Two feeders hang at this house – the red one in the front and the multi-colored one in the back. Each has four feeding stations. Count them and do the math – a total of eight. I’ve never seen more than three of you at a time at either feeder. There is room for everybody.

Neither do you have to sit on the alert when you are the only one at the feeder. All the time you have your head up watching for an invader is time that could be spent enjoying the flavorful sugar water I have prepared for your feeders.

Which brings me to another point, have you ever known the feeders to run out of the tasty treat? I have plenty of sugar and plenty of water. Before your stock is exhausted, I have always refilled your supply.

Not that I see it often, but you would enjoy your meals much better if you would do as these last two hummingbirds have done when they’ve taken a place across from each other, sipping nectar to their hearts’ content. If I’m not mistaken, one of them said, “Mmm, good!” and the other answered, “You, betcha!”

If you could only reason as humans do and take a lesson on the joy that comes from sharing what you have with your neighbor instead of fearfully hoarding your possessions, keeping them for yourself.

Wait, did I just miss something in this last paragraph?

Teacher

I will admit to an ulterior motive when I requested an ARC of Teacher by Michael Copperman. The memoir from a young man with Teach for America (TFA) brought back memories of the program. I was lead teacher for ten to twelve second grade classes with as many as three of these young people assigned to teach on my hall.

Some came open and willing to learn from the experienced well-trained teachers in our school who wanted them to succeed in their classrooms. Others had attitudes that I attributed to TFA that they were coming to an area where the educators themselves were inadequate. In the multi-cultural school where I taught, the need came from a shortage in the number, not capability, of trained teachers. Classroom discipline, another major issue, seemed to come from a TFA philosophy that if the teaching is interesting, problems will not happen. 

Idealistic Michael Copperman left Stanford University for the Mississippi Delta and taught two years with the TFA program. His very honest account rang true to what I knew of TFA with the additional problem of the extreme poverty in the delta.

Political emphasis on teaching the test complicated his high ideals. Classroom management raised its head early for Mike with the “Teach well, and you’ll succeed,” philosophy from TFA crossing with the philosophy of the assistant principal’s paddle. A better answer than either of these came with the card-behavior system he borrowed from an experienced teacher – a system we used effectively in our second grade classes.

His second year began with a more realistic preparation for the challenge of classroom discipline and a focus on his students as individuals. For instance, he built on the beginning by a TFA colleague to engage one student with Boxcar Children books and the child’s determination to read them. He also came to realize one of his problems was that the world tells delta kids that this is all there is, a hard-to-fight attitude.  

After he moved away into another job, still teaching students from challenging backgrounds, he confronted a speaker who disparaged the long term effects of the TFA program on young college graduates. He said the speaker “had no idea just how affecting the TFA experience was, that he couldn’t imagine what it was like to be in America’s troubled schools, to be responsible for children with so much promise and so little opportunity.” 

Michael Copperman gives an honest and well-written account of his own experience with Teach for America. He pictures a program with high ideals that would be even more effective with practical guidance replacing some of the inspirational speeches. I would concur.  

Barbed Wire Sunday Anniversary

I’m almost a month late for an exact anniversary, but I didn’t want to skip this one. On August 12, 1961, on what has been nicknamed “barbed wire Sunday,” the barbed wire Berlin Wall went up almost overnight, soon to be reinforced with an additional solid concrete wall. Strangely, it would change our lives as well. People in Al’s age range who had been passed over for the draft were revisited with the increased need for soldiers, and he got an invitation from Uncle Sam. In his case, the Army put a square peg in a square hole, and he stayed for a career.

Twenty years later we visited the wall with our children and were able to cross over into East Berlin on a military bus with Al in uniform. I described it in our 1981 Christmas letter.

We made our last – and by unanimous vote – most meaningful trip of our European tour in late spring to East and West Berlin. Pages and books could not describe the impact of leaving West Germany with its beauty, industry, and purposefulness and crossing into the East. Words cannot adequately relate what we saw and felt, but some that come to mind are – dilapidation, watchfulness, gloom, oppression, and heartlessness. We could tell the difference in the railroad tracks at night as we crossed the border from the modern, smooth-running ones in the West to a “Ka-bump, Ka-bump” across the East until we arrived in West Berlin. The Wall Museum, devoted to methods and means of escape, and the sight of the wall itself left a tremendous impact on all of us. Over and over again, I kept thinking that 50 years ago, these people were a part of the beautiful Germany that we had lived in for three years and come to love. I could go on, but the bottom line is that not one of us will ever again take our freedom so lightly.

Less than ten years later when the wall came down, a young German friend, who knew our link to it, came bringing me pieces of concrete with graffiti. Her father, who lived near the wall, had sent her a box of shards to share with those who would treasure them. They came from Berliner Mauer, Grenz ibergang, Berlin-Wedding, Chausseesbrase as best I can decipher her handwriting (English identification – Berlin Wall, checkpoint, district, boulevard).

Robert Frost said, “Something there is that doesn't love a wall,” and goes on to caution, “Before I built a wall I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offence.” 

A Long Pitch Home

Natalie Dias Lorenzi knows how to write a first line that pulls a reader into a book. A Long Pitch Home begins, “They took my father three days ago, a week before my tenth birthday.” The statement forms the impetus and background for her story of Balil who gets a visa to come to the United States with his immediate family, except for his father.

Adjustments begin as they leave the airport with his uncle sitting behind the steering wheel on the left side of the car and his mother “sitting next to him, where the steering wheel should be.” His observation of other things that are different include a wide road with four neat lanes but no donkeys pulling carts, no buses with fringe hanging from the bumpers, and no people riding on the tops or hanging out the doors and windows.

The book is laced with pertinent humor. “I smell masala and am glad we are eating something normal. I have heard Americans eat hot dogs, but I do not want to try those. We don’t eat dog meat in Pakistan.” Bilal describes his arrival at the gym, “Anyone can see I’m different from the other kids at baseball camp. I’m the only one with a black eye.”

Bilal’s copes with being separated from his father by Skyping with him occasionally and remaining hopeful that he will be granted a visa soon. He learns a new brand of English that is different from what he learned in Pakistan and focuses on learning to play baseball instead of cricket. His friendship with his rival for the pitching job causes problems with the other players. Jordan is an outcast because she is a girl and team members discourage him from having anything to do with her, but they share more than baseball. She is missing her father who has been deployed to Afghanistan.

 The author’s background as a librarian in a school with a majority population of immigrants and years of teaching English as a Second Language in Japan, Italy, and the US bring empathy for this young Muslim Pakistani immigrant who adapts to life in a new country while holding onto traditions that are important to his family and culture. One of my favorite scenes was his attempt to eat customary American foods for Thanksgiving dinner and seeing those traditions through the eyes of someone who is eating them for the first time.

A Long Pitch Home, available on September 6, is an excellent choice for middle schoolers who look for diversity in the characters in their books or for anyone who loves a really good story. If you like both of those and are not in middle school, go ahead and read it. You have my permission.

It's a First

Having grandchildren is not new. Our ten began accumulating in 1994 – three within six weeks of each other – twin granddaughters when our son married their mother and a grandson born shortly after. They have all lived far away, primarily in Arizona, Texas, and Maryland while we have been here in Mississippi.

All has not been lost because of distance. I have good memories of biennial Christmas events when we have rotated among the family locations for the celebration. Three boy cousins, one from each family, dubbed themselves the “three twins” after getting matching Baylor t-shirts from one of the dads, a title that has stuck. On these occasions, we’ve learned to watch a couple of the girl cousins to be sure they leave some of my homemade chocolate covered cherries for the rest of the family. Conversely, another cousin treats us to her own homemade toffee.

Good times have included grandparent-grandchild trips to north Louisiana, West Virginia, and Flagstaff and Sedona, Arizona. We’ve enjoyed thank you notes that are not only polite but clever. I’ve had more art lessons from an artist grandson and a photographer granddaughter than I ever did in school. Sometimes the older ones even like my posts on Facebook. They’ve also become accustomed to what they will get from me, expressed by one ten-year-old grandson as he opened his birthday present, “I think it’s a book.”

It’s been good, but one thing has been missing. I’ve never had grandchildren living in the same location. I must confess to a bit of envy for people with grandchildren in the same town, handy for running by for a few minutes.

Missing no longer, on August 18, three grandsons arrived to call Hattiesburg home. One headed to Tulane the next week, but two hours away, it’s an easy trip for a long weekend. The other two? One mentioned liking a sandbox the first day he was here. The next morning Grandpa had his tools out building one. The other issues me an invitation, “You wanna play toys with me?” Oh, yes!

Now, I promise not to turn this blog into nothing more than a grandchild report or overwhelm you with how cute and smart they are. On the other hand, if you should insist . . . 

Wedding Bell Blues

Ruth Moose’s book, Wedding Bell Blues, contains every Southern cliché known to man, well maybe except this one. It begins with crazy Reba calling Miss Beth on a cell phone because God is dead, and she has killed him. This was the same God that Reba had been talking about marrying for a month. The community has indulged her, even egged her on with her preparations while speculating over whether the huge diamond she sports is real or came from a Cracker Jack box.   

After Reba confesses and is taken to jail, Beth is kept busy trying to solve the mystery, locate her neighbor’s missing white rabbit named Robert Redford, and figure out how serious Scott is about his relationship with her. Did I mention she is restoring the Dixie Dew Bed and Breakfast and helping out with Littleboro’s First Annual Green Bean Festival? (I told you this was a Southern story.)

With people getting sick, another death, another wedding, and quirky characters running in and out, the book is more madcap than whodunit although the mystery does get solved in the end. This is a light read with the Southern eccentricities more prominent than the mystery. This is the second in the Beth McKenzie mysteries written by Ruth Moose. If you are looking for a scholarly read, you will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you need a little diversion, you can find it here. 

Olympic Highlights

Everybody seems to be doing highlights of the Olympic Games now that they are over so I thought I’d give my version. I won’t mention swimmers since I’m guessing you’ve seen enough of those. I have some words that stand out to me. Except for the last, I’ll do alphabetical order.

Appreciation

They swept much of the metal for the medal stands. Then, with obvious love for each other, the ladies’ gymnastics team paid tribute to their coach Marta Karoli as they named themselves “The Final Five” in honor of their being her last Olympic team before her retirement.

Diversity

Again the American ladies’ gymnastics team was a cross section of both ethnicity and religion, and Ibtihaj Muhammad won a bronze medal in fencing wearing a hijab.

Patriotism

Brazilian celebrations when they won had to make you happy for the home country, especially for the overboard excitement when they won silver and bronze in men’s gymnastics.

Persistence

Multitudes of stories fit this word, but I think of tiny Fiji winning a medal in rugby, the number of foster kids’ stories, and the refugee group that may not have won a medal but attained a goal by overcoming circumstances to be there.

Philosophy

17-year-old Sydney McLaughlin, who lost in the finals said “This is the end of my season, not the end of my career” and then turned to her task of reading two required books before she goes back to high school. I’m waiting to see what she does in Tokyo.

Sportsmanship

USA’s Abbey D’Agostino and New Zealand’s Nikki Hamblin got mixed up in a tumble that threw them in the 5,000-meter heat. Abbey helped Nikki up and encouraged her to finish the race. Soon it became apparent that Abbey was injured and couldn’t finish. Nikki then encouraged her to run together to the end, which they finished dead last. They have been awarded the Pierre de Coubertin Medal for sportsmanship, previously awarded only 17 times in Olympic history. They also gained a friendship.

Success

I loved the people who understood that “on the platform” is a great accomplishment even if the medal isn’t gold.

Pride

My favorite highlight was Tori Bowie who swamped the pages of the Hattiesburg American because she had spent her college days at the University of Southern Mississippi. She starred on the front page of either the headline news or sports page for days, sometimes both. In addition, she featured prominently in the Facebook posts from the university’s Cook Library where she worked as a student aide to help finance her college career. One of those foster children raised by a grandmother, she is from Sand Hill, Mississippi, a town every bit as big as it sounds. We Mississippians are proud that she won all three colors in medals. Of even more importance, she seems to be a genuinely nice person as well.