Pax

Sara Pennypacker prefaces her middle grade novel Pax with a quote that foreshadows the vagueness of her setting, “Just because it isn’t happening here doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.” The setting is war and could be anytime, anyplace. Into this setting, comes the mutual love of the boy Peter and his pet fox Pax.

Trouble comes when Peter’s father, his only living parent, enlists in the military. He lets Peter know there will be no place for the fox out in the country where he takes him to live with his grandfather. He drops the fox off by the side of the road. There’s a sense of the father getting rid of both to go to war.

Peter strikes out the next morning from his grandfather’s house planning to retrace the three hundred miles to find his fox. As if this did not seem impossible enough, he breaks his foot shortly into the journey. The hermit Vola, suffering herself from post-traumatic stress syndrome, helps him cope, shares some helpful philosophy, and teaches him to navigate with crutches before she makes a connection with a bus driver who will help him cover much of the mileage back.

In the meantime, Pax, who has never had to forage for himself in the wild, is taken in and instructed by a family of wild foxes. The story switches back and forth between Peter and Pax with the war an ever-present obstacle for both of them. She calls the humans, who turn on each other, the “war-sick.” Tension builds for both the boy and the fox as she leaves Peter and Pax alternately at the end of a chapter to switch to the other with the reader apprehensive that no satisfying ending is possible.

Pax will keep one from drifting off to sleep and will linger in one’s mind after the final page is finished. It is an excellent book for reading and discussing between middle graders and their parents or grandparents or in a classroom, particularly for the effects of war on children, animals, and nature. Perhaps one of the discussion questions could be whether that satisfying ending ever comes.

Revision as Solace

I love finding a quote which makes me wish I had said that. From Poets and Writers, Nov./Dec. 2016 issue, Paul Hertneky, author of Rust Belt Boy, said, “Revision became my solace, my drug of choice, the only activity that could make me feel better.”

I can’t remember when I first discovered that the struggle was getting the first draft down, and the fun began with rewriting. I had never thought to equate revision with solace or a drug of choice, but I know well the satisfaction of becoming wrapped up in whittling a writing until less becomes more.

My first major work with an editor came with a letter that was neither an acceptance nor a rejection. The letter from Highlights for Children recounted an editorial meeting that produced a list of nine questions or issues for the article I had submitted. At the end, the editor apologized for the two long pages of notes but invited me to work on it and submit it again if I liked. I answered the questions, which were easy, and put on my revision hat. After a bit more back and forth with the editor as we improved the piece, it was accepted and published.

My most recent response from a submission came from an editor who had read my whole manuscript and listed about four elements in the middle grade novel that needed attention with suggestions about why they didn’t work for her. Her critique made sense. Back I went to a place and people I had come to love when I first wrote the book. I found not only solace, but excitement as I tweaked and supplemented the areas she found lacking. With no promises from the editor for anything other than another read, I found the joy of revision satisfying as I added depth to the characters and elements that filled holes in the story line.

So, when does revision come to an end? Like sopping up the dab of gravy in the corner of a plate with last bit of biscuit, the end comes for me when all I can think to do is switch “the” to “a” and back again.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that my submission will go to a wise editor with fresh eyes who sees something I’ve missed. In that case, bring on the drug of revision.  

A Poem for Peter

Whether you are expecting snow or not, whether you are a child or not, a good book for beginning the new year is Andrea Pinkney’s A Poem for Peter. The poem honors the little brown boy who symbolizes every child who plays in the snow in The Snowy Day and pays homage to its author.

The first lines set the tone:

Brown-sugar boy in a blanket of white.

Bright as the day you came onto the page.

From the hand of the man who saw you for you.

In poetic form, the story is told of Peter who waited in a series of four photographs for twenty years in Keats’s studio before becoming the protagonist of The Snowy Day. Woven into the story is Keats’s own struggle with anti-Semitism:

To help himself get a job,

Jacob (Jack) Ezra Katz

rearranged his name.

Shortened that name,

Twisted its rhythm.

Helped it roll off the tongue.

Then Andrea Pinkney adds a touching point that subtly connects Peter and his creator as people who have felt bigotry and intolerance.

Yes, yes – Ezra Jack Keats.

Had a nice ring to it – for some.

The mood of the poetic book, if not its form, takes me back to English poets who wrote odes to people and things they wanted to venerate. Two threads wind through the story honoring the boy Peter and the author Keats, creating a picture of the “story behind the story” of The Snowy Day. In addition, illustrators Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher weave the illustrations of The Snowy Day into this story seamlessly in a way that will satisfy the most avid Keats fan.

My recommendation is to read The Snowy Day followed by A Poem for Peter, but feel free to change the order. Just don’t miss either one.

Calendars Old and New

On the cusp of a new year, anticipation arises in the opening of new calendars with blank spaces to be filled. I keep two kinds. One is the appointment calendar on the bulletin board where I put any additional activities beyond routines. I already know, for instance, that I will go to choir practice and to church on Sunday so there’s no need to clutter the small space with those. The second calendar sits on the desk beside my computer. I record my reading and writing activities after the fact. It keeps me reminded that I need to be consistent with both. Blank spaces prick my conscience and put me back to work.

If you’ve been around this blog for a while, you know I consider resolutions too fragile to make. However, like the mythical god Janus, I enjoy looking backward and forward on both sets of calendars as the year turns. Looking back at the appointment calendar includes the boredom of dental and other appointments with thankfulness that they were all routine, book events with other book lovers, writing conferences, a few trips, teaching and learning in classes at USM’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, routine and special activities at University Baptist Church, and family time. If I ignore the contentious election, which does not appear on the calendar, 2016 looks good in the rearview. The forward look may be even better as I anticipate “boy sitting” dates on the new calendar to add to more of same activities I enjoyed last year since two preschool grandsons now live in Hattiesburg.

The second 2016 calendar is full, showing I’ve stayed on task with my reading and writing. Some of the writing will be in print and some is awaiting word. Whether or not the acceptances come, the calendar filled with writing activities and the seventy-five books I’ve read bring satisfaction in knowing I’ve done what I could.

I am aware of the possibility for both joys and sorrows in the coming year. I’ve had both in every year that I can remember, but I still favor watching the half-full section of the glass. I hope each of you has a good view as you look back at the old and forward to the new and that your glasses will be at least half full.

The Whole Town's Talking

If I am the Reading Fair judge, one of the ways to undermine your chance of winning is to answer the question of the author’s purpose with “to entertain.” I’ve seen it often enough that it gets no points for originality. However, there are times when that is the total purpose of a book and the total desire of the reader. That purpose and desire merged this holiday season as I read Fannie Flagg’s latest The Whole Town’s Talking. Elmwood Springs, MO serves as the star of the book with the Still Meadow Cemetery as the co-star.

Mysteries in the story are gentle ones. For instance, the first is one that mail-order bride Katrina keeps from her prospective husband Lordor. It turns out to be nothing more than the glasses she needs to wear in order to see, a defect that in no way lessens his admiration of her great beauty. Beginning with this couple in the early settling days of Elmwood Springs in 1889, the timeline stretches through its history and the generations that populate the small community for the next century.

Other mysteries include what happens once people begin turning up in the cemetery and an even stranger one when they begin to disappear from there, and a cemetery resident who keeps anticipating that the next arrival will bring news that his murderer has been found and convicted. However, I wouldn’t want to spoil the story so I will leave these solutions for you to discover on your own.

Typical of Flagg’s writing is the scene when Ida points her celery stick at her banker husband, insisting that he give the local hairdresser a loan for a shop so she can move her business from her back porch. “Herbert knew he would have to give Tot the loan, or he would never hear the end of it. Whenever Ida pointed celery at him, she meant business.”

The book will not increase your intellect, intensify your understanding of the world’s problems, nor inspire you to tackle injustice. It will give you a relaxing holiday afternoon in front of the fire with your cup of hot chocolate, unless you are in South Mississippi. In that case, you will want to be in your shorts in the porch swing. Sometimes being entertained fills a need.

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 nativities, 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?          

Pigloo

Never underestimate what you can learn from a children’s book such as Pigloo by Anne Marie Pace, even if the learning is tongue-in-cheek. Pigloo, the Explorer, teaches how an explorer behaves and a couple of life lessons as well in a preschooler’s snow story.

The explorer must get together transportation (sled), proper clothing (hat, gloves, mittens), and stores (what explorers call their snacks in the backpack). He must read the map and learn the signs of the North Pole so he will know when he has arrived (a red-and-white striped pole and maybe a polar bear). He must consider the best route (so he will be back for lunch).

Life lessons include being patient (waiting for the snow), being brave (the trip to the North Pole is long and fraught with danger), minding his manners (taking his hat off at the table), and dealing with disappointment (no penguins at the North Pole, only at the South). He must also deal with a know-it-all older sister.

The book appeals to children who love the snow (even if they are not likely to get any like these two Mississippi boys) and whose imaginations are still intact (as theirs are). They will recognize the warm advice from the parents and even the bossy sister who comes through for Pigloo in the end.  

I Won!

To celebrate the 75^th birthday of Curious George, University Libraries at Southern Miss and the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection issued a challenge called Go, George, Go. Since the H. A. and Margaret Rey literary estate is housed in the collection, it seemed appropriate for them to host the event. Participants were challenged to walk or run 75 miles in an eight-week period. Prizes were offered.

Never a runner, but a consistent walker all my life, I began as a child with my father. His visual handicap prevented his driving, so he spared Mama trips as his driver and walked anywhere he was going within a reasonable (or to some an unreasonable) distance. He set a pretty good clip, and I felt honored that he would let me, but not my sisters, go with him. I could keep up with him. To be honest, that ability might have been because I was the oldest, and I never saw any burning desire on their parts to join him anyway. Continuing the habit as an adult, I will walk a considerable distance rather than drive around looking for a parking place.  Loving Curious George and his companion with the yellow hat, I joined up. Seventy-five miles in eight weeks? Piece of cake!

On November 12, my daughter-in-law and two youngest grandsons joined me at the culminating big party for George at the Hattiesburg Zoo where the prizes were handed out. The group of participants logged in 19,000 miles. An award went to the one with the most miles (489.91) – not me. A second prize went to the one who participated from the farthest distance (Reno, NV – 188 miles) – again not me. The third prize went to the one with the most experience (a euphemism for the oldest participant). My two grandsons were thrilled that Grandma won a prize! I clocked in at a respectable 112 miles.

The only downside was when the three-year-old discovered that the banana on my prize wasn’t real. 

Victoria the Queen

A trip to England with my sister and her church choir in 2013 that majored on things relating to Queen Victoria and her Albert left me wanting “the rest of the story.” Real life, even for royalty, contains more complications than the tour guides presented. Consequently, I jumped at the offer by Net Galley of an advanced reading copy of Victoria the Queen by Julia Baird.

The book has the ring of authenticity from the beginning as it examines research beyond Victoria’s extensive diaries that had been laundered by her daughter to keep the family in the light she wanted the world to see. The author’s extensive bibliography documents her efforts to fill in the missing pieces.

Victoria was an unlikely candidate for queen, not only because she lived in an era with an emphasis on male rulers, but because she was fifth in line to the throne when she was born. Yet she became queen in her teens, fell in love and married Albert, and bore nine children.

Her life was often a contradiction with her love of power and strong opinions with the ministers of England juxtaposed against her leaving the word “obey” in her marriage ceremony and her deferment to Albert’s leadership. Equally complicated was her love of her children, her dominance of them, and her obvious partiality among them. Those children would cause her pain and embarrassment, and she would ultimately return the favor. The tour guides accurately portrayed the length and depth of her mourning for Albert after his death but without the interesting details of the book about public reactions and how she was eventually able to go on.

The biography pictures Victoria as a flawed, complicated person with a flawed, complicated relationship with Albert and with the people of England. At 752 pages, it is not a quick read, but it is a good one and well worth the time.

More Than Enough

If the stockings were all –

Ma and Pa

            The parents, then grandparents, and now great-grandparents 

            Of great-grandchildren they never knew       

            Names my husband, the first son-in-law, called my parents

            After four daughters, Daddy’s wait for a son over

Al and VA

            The parents and now grandparents

            Only a few days ago, it seems,

            A young couple starting out

Murray and Steph with Lauren, Brittany, and Jack

            The oldest son and his family

            Desert dwellers in Arizona

            Two flown from the nest

            And one with a driver’s license 

Anna and Mark II with Marissa and Jeremy

            The daughter and her family

            A forever family by adoption

            On the cusp of an empty nest

            Texans with an eye on Oregon 

Mark I and Kelly with Hayden, Hannah, Sam, Ben, and Owen

            The youngest son and his family

            Home now in Hattiesburg where

            College kids return

            And little boys play 

If this were all

            My tree and my heart would be full.

Yet I add memories in ornaments   

            Places we’ve lived, especially Germany

            Trips we’ve taken, including the fifty states

            School children I taught

            One career set in school and writing

            Another in the military and post office

            Extended family and friends

More than enough in Christmas treasures –

My tree, like my heart, overflows.

The Door That Led to Where

The Door That Led to Where by Sally Gardner is not your average time travel novel.

Beginning in the present day, AJ fails a major exam boding a poor future for him. Set in England with unfamiliar terms for the exams, I immediately wondered if the book would be a difficult read for an American student. Test names may be different but anxiety surrounding them and results of failure carry a familiar feeling. Other English terms are easily understood from context and add a layer of atmosphere to the novel.

AJ and his friends Slim and Leon share something in common – their broken families. His mother describes AJ as a “waste of space” and gives him an envelope with a request that he come in for a job interview. She and his stepfather will not have him lollygagging around. Things take a turn when AJ gets the job, seemingly helped by a strange conversation revealing his exceptional knowledge of the works of Charles Dickens.

On the job, he finds a key mysteriously labelled with his date of birth. Ultimately, this leads to the door that will take him back in time to 1830. He moves back and forth between the two time periods looking to solve mysteries in both. Slim and Leon join him in the era of Dickens where all three must make some decisions. Which is the time period where they belong? Will they choose differently or will they remain together?

The mysteries, time travel that moves back and forth between the two eras, and personal relationships make for an interesting read especially for Anglophiles and Dickens fans. I qualify as both, but the novel will also satisfy those looking for a good read.

Season's Greetings?

I avoid arguments in this blog much like I avoid that “Rithmetic’” in its title – not an easy thing during this election season. However, I have an issue that I feel I must address. I ask that you follow me to the end before you decide to abandon the blog and cancel the friendship.

Yet another disparaging post about the “political correctness” of the greeting “Happy Holidays” brought this on. Let me make it clear that I love Christmas. My tree goes up the Saturday after Thanksgiving and comes down while I watch New Year’s bowl games. I carol and sing in the Christmas choir presentation, watch all the old Christmas movies, and take in celebrations with any family members I can round up. You’ll see my annual blog on a favorite Christmas on December 23. I post it every year on my blogging date closest to Christmas.

However, I am rich in friends who celebrate different holidays. I look forward to following these friends’ family celebration pictures on Facebook each year. I googled other winter holidays and found six in the National Geographic Kids site and another seven in a different site. It seems we love holidays for the winter solstice and try to brighten up this dreary time of year with light as a recurring theme.

My Baptist roots run deep, beginning in infancy and continuing to this day as you can see by how often my Facebook tags come from the University Baptist Church site. But I am a Roger Williams kind of Baptist. In case you missed that day in history class (there was probably only one), he established the colony of Rhode Island with the new and dangerous idea that church and state should be separate and that all people should be allowed to worship as they feel led or not at all.

All this to say my wishing of “Happy Holidays” has nothing to do with being politically correct. It has more to do with a command from the one that Charles Dickens called the Founder of the Feast. One of the most lasting and memorable statements Jesus made in the Sermon on the Mount was, “Just as you want people to treat you, treat them the same way.” The same idea, in slightly different words, can be found in many religions.

An example of this behavior on my Christmas tree came from a Muslim friend. She went home to Palestine to visit her family and brought me a gift – a set of Christmas ornaments, beautifully carved from olive wood. Friendship, not political correctness, motivated her to bring something that would enhance my Christmas that she did not celebrate.

I’ll return your “Merry Christmas!” if that is your greeting to me since I hope we both have one. But I may start with “Happy Holidays.” I like its efficiency since it reaches all varieties of winter celebrations and all the time through New Year’s – and on through Mardi Gras in South Mississippi and Louisiana.  

Now if you decide to abandon the blog and cancel the friendship, you may, but I hope whatever you are celebrating is joyful all the same. 

Before Morning

Not only am I making sure November does not end without my taking note of picture book month, I am invoking my oldest child personality and telling you how to read my newest treasure in this genre.

Having fallen in love with the author/illustrator team of Joyce Sidman and Beth Krommes in Swirl by Swirl, I didn’t even need to see the great reviews to know I had to have their newest book, Before Morning. I bought it for myself, but as you can see, I’m willing to share.

The illustrations by themselves tell a story. The poem, that Joyce calls an invocation in her author’s note, also has meaning when taken alone. I can only think to describe what happens to the combination in terms of a Reese’s peanut butter cup. The peanut butter layer is tasty, the chocolate layer is luscious, but the combination is exquisite.  That’s where my advice comes in.

I recommend a first read of the illustrations with close attention to the longing of the child for the mom to stay home. (The child could be boy or girl by the way the paintings are done. I took it to be a girl because I relate to that, but I think a boy reader might do the opposite.) The painting of the girl hiding the pilot’s hat and the opened Amelia Earhart biography gives a clue about her mother’s job and why she might be leaving as night falls. Follow the visual clues for emotions of the characters from the beginning to the end. The second time through add the story invocation. Exquisite!

Feel free to do as my sisters often did and ignore my suggestion, but you can see that I tried it out with stellar results.

It’s no wonder that Before Morning made the Kirkus List of Best Picture Books of 2016. It made mine, too. The cover lists Joyce Sidman as a former Newbery Honor winner and Beth Krommes as a former Caldecott medalist. I’m predicting that Before Morning will join their other books on awards shelves as the 2016 honors begin to come in.

About That Dressing

If you’re from the South, we can agree right off the bat that stuffing is out, dressing is in – not the location, the rightness component. I realize that technically, the reverse is true – dressing is cooked outside the bird and stuffing is cooked inside. We can also agree that cornbread forms the base of the concoction. After that, it’s pretty much every cook to his/her own devices.

How moist it should be and what gets added to the mix can vary from cook to cook. My mother believed in cornbread replete with the Holy Trinity (onion, green peppers, and celery), though she used that term only in another context, not in cooking. When I married, I discovered sage since my mother-in-law used a tad of onion and a generous supply of sage. Somehow with the same cornbread base, it also had a finer texture than my mother’s. I happily stuffed myself on either or both for a number of Thanksgivings.

When it came my turn to cook the dressing, I combined the best of each and added some poultry seasoning. Since we are fond of dressing, I have not limited my production to the holidays. Many a winter meal has been comfort food with chicken and dressing which may be even tastier than the turkey. Since winter is a very short season in South Mississippi, that still leaves a good-sized break between the times for making dressing. With no exact recipe, every Thanksgiving as I make the first round for the season, I fret over the proportions and whether I will remember just how much of the sage and poultry seasoning becomes too much of a good thing.

I knew all was well this year when a daughter-in-law held up a fork loaded equally with cranberry sauce and dressing and pronounced it the epitome of what Thanksgiving dinner was all about.

I hope this Thanksgiving found you with a long list for thankfulness and enough dressing (or stuffing if you prefer) to relish yourself into a nap-inducing coma on Thanksgiving Day with plenty of leftovers for later.  

The Wolf Keepers

“A few feet away, the wolf stared at Lizzie with pale silver eyes, ears pricking forward in sharp triangles.” So begins Elsie Broach’s middle grade novel The Wolf Keepers.

Quickly, the ethical issue of keeping animals in cages as opposed to releasing them to the wild arises with valid arguments for each woven into the warp of the novel. The weft weave carries interesting information about the animals, like the long necks of the giraffe making it hard for them to throw up. Against this background, the zookeeper’s daughter Lizzie soon meets Tyler who has run away from his foster parents and has been hiding with the elephants.

Together they keep Tyler hidden and search for answers to several mysteries. Why are the wolves getting sick and dying? Where is John Muir’s cabin in the woods in Tenaya Canyon? Lizzie ponders an additional mystery. What is the story of Tyler’s original family and why has he run away from his foster parents? After what seems to be a rash action that leaves them lost in Yosemite, they must also answer the mystery of how to survive and get back to the zoo.

The mysteries keep the reader in suspense while liberally seasoning the story with both the history and rationale behind John Muir’s love of nature. His quotes are written in pertinent places as Lizzie keeps her summer journal assignment. She reads to Tyler, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.” Tyler, having experienced hunger, is quite sure that people need bread more than beauty.

In the end, Lizzie and Tyler along with the reader, must decide if it is right to do a terrible thing for a good reason. The author does not tie up solutions to all the issues but leaves room for great discussions considering all sides of the problems of rescuing wild animals, displaying them in an educational manner that raises awareness in the public, and recognizing the need for animals to be free in their own environment.

Elsie Broach closes with an informative author’s note giving background on the real history she has included and noting which parts are fictional. I highly recommend the book for middle schoolers and for people concerned for wildlife.

Gemstone in the Debris?

Do you think you would you come nearer finding a jewel in a pile of debris or discovering something encouraging in the recent election process?

I might have joined you in choosing the first except for a first-person account from a friend who had just returned from standing in line to vote on November 8. She said the young African American woman ahead of her handed her voter registration card to the election clerk. The clerk examined the big book of voters, but couldn’t find her name.

The clerk looked up as she finished her search to see tears rolling down the young woman’s cheeks. “Oh, honey, don’t you worry. You’re going to get to vote.” (In Mississippi, “Honey” doesn’t necessarily mean that you are acquainted with the person to whom you are speaking, just that you hear her concern and feel her pain.)

Evidently, the voter’s registration had been too late to get her name in the big book. The clerk took her back into another room to verify her registration.

I listened to the story and was filled with wonder at how things have changed. Before the nineteenth amendment (the Susan B. Anthony Amendment) was passed in August 1920, the voter would not have been allowed to cast a ballot because she was a woman.

While the right for African American males to vote was ratified in February 1870, the reality of that privilege, especially in the South, would take much longer – even far beyond the nineteenth amendment. On Election Day 2016, poll taxes and requirements for interpreting complicated passages in the constitution to the satisfaction of a circuit clerk existed only in the history of this voter’s ancestors. Instead, the Mississippi election worker’s immediate reaction to her tears was, “Now, honey, don’t you worry. You’re going to get to vote.”

One small light in the long dark tunnel of a contentious election – better than finding a gem in the rubble. 

The Bone Sparrow

Subhi, born in the Australian detention center, doesn’t know any other life. I read The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon in an ARC furnished by Net Galley before its release on November 1. Engrossed in this tale set in the detention center, I tried to think how to convey the way the author personalized this lost cause. She helped me out as I read an interview with her after I finished reading. Mother of three children under ten, she said she looked at how her children see an issue, "Kids don't see numbers and statistics, they see the human side of the story."

People who were not born in the system, whom he calls “oldies,” ask Subhi to draw things he has not seen. He begs them to tell the stories so he can see what they remember. “I need these stories. Everyone else in here has memories to hold on to. . . I need their stories. I need them to make my memories.” Other stories come from Jimmie who makes her way secretly from the outside into the camp with her mother’s notebooks that she can’t read. They bond and become friends as he reads her mother’s stories to her.

Subhi waits for the arrival of his Ba, whom he has never seen, while his Maa lies mostly unresponsive on the bed. His older bossy sister Queeny, surreptitiously takes pictures for some reason unknown to Subhi, although the reader will know she has found a way to get them to the outside with hope that someone will intervene for them. As bad as life is in the center, a greater fear is being sent to another country where they are not wanted, where even its own people die of starvation and disease.

The mood of the story and Subhi’s method of coping is captured in one of the many crises that pop up, “I pretend that someday everything will be different. Just not today, is all.”

While no reason is given for Subhi and his family to be in the detention center, the story puts a human face on those who exist in such conditions whether because of a natural disaster or some type of ethnic purging. It’s a book well worth reading and discussing with a middle schooler if you have one.

A Hero Is . . .

Since I am married to a 24-year Army veteran, it seems right to acknowledge this day set aside to honor those who have chosen to defend our country.

The issue of what constitutes a military hero in recent days has made me do some thinking about its definition. A peculiar word has kept popping into my mind as I have considered the question – waiting.

 In a letter written while he was in basic training, my husband said the motto of the Army was “Hurry up and wait.” Ironically, waiting may have been his most significant contribution during his career.

During the withdrawal of American troops from South Viet Nam, soldiers were held there until their assignments were finished. Since he dealt with classified materials which would be among the last things to go, we knew he would be able to leave only after the documents were shipped. Finally, he called to tell me his papers were gone, and he would begin waiting his turn in the plane rotation the next day.

But the next day’s evening news reported that all troop withdrawals from South Viet Nam were halted until the last group of POWs had been airlifted from North Viet Nam. Fear that the agreement for their release would not be honored led to a decision to keep a last group of soldiers in South Viet Nam – 17 days doing nothing but waiting – but serving as a guarantee that all the POWs would come home.

Waiting envelops military families.  Waiting for the next assignment. Waiting for quarters. Waiting for a parent to come home from an overseas assignment. Waiting to hear that a spouse under fire is safe. And sometimes the ultimate – waiting for a body to come home for burial.

I’ve known countless service members and their families. I’ve taught their children, who were often the waiters. I’ve never known one who wanted the title of hero. They were just doing their jobs. Many family members are like me and would tell you the military lifestyle gave far more than it took away.

Still, if we want to name a hero, it will certainly include those who gave their lives and those who endured POW camps. I would add those who lived with the knowledge that death was always a possibility. And to paraphrase a quote from John Milton, I would contend, “Heroes are also those who stand and wait.”

On this day and every day, may God bless our veterans and their families who wait for them and support them.

Sharing the Bread

Mama never worried a lot about whether she was reading beyond our comprehension level. I’m sure I had not started to school when I first heard, “The best laid scheme o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.”

She didn’t mess up the joy of poetry with a lot of explanation, but I saw Robert Burns picture of the wee mouse’s house that he turned up with his plow. Over the years, I have noted the lesson of life plans often gone astray – including last Thanksgiving.

The plan was to have my sisters, a brother-in-law, a niece, and a great-nephew for Thanksgiving dinner. Using Charlie, the great-nephew who was in kindergarten as my excuse, I borrowed Pat Zietlow Miller’s picture book Sharing the Bread from our church library. (I am guilty, as you may have guessed, of being the one who suggested that they purchase it.) Plan A was to read the book before the Thanksgiving grace.

But the plan “gang aft agley.” Charlie’s grandfather’s illness prevented that branch of the family from coming. I’d always envisioned Burn’s mousie setting out to find a new “wee bit housie.” I assumed that, like me, the mouse had a Plan B.

None of my remaining Thanksgiving guests had been called children for a number of years, but you never get too old for a picture book, so I didn’t completely abandon the idea. I read the wonderful story of the multigenerational family preparing their Thanksgiving meal and then gave thanks for those who gathered to share our bread. I liked Plan B so much (and assume it was okay with my guests since nobody complained) that I plan to make it my new Thanksgiving tradition with or without small children.

I’m posting this early enough in November to give you time to borrow or buy a copy for your own celebration. It goes nicely before the Thanksgiving grace, and kids of all ages will enjoy it.

The Hired Girl

I was first drawn to read Laura Amy Schlitz's The Hired Girl by controversy over one line in a diary entry dated July the fifth, 1911. “ ‘No, ma'am,’ I said. I was as taken aback as if she'd asked me if I was an Indian. It seemed to me – I mean, it doesn't now, but it did then – as though Jewish people were like Indians: people from long ago; people in books. I know there are Indians out West, but they're civilized now, and wear ordinary clothes. In the same way, I guess I knew there were still Jews, but I never expected to meet any.”

Then we selected it for our de Grummond Book Group which meets at Cook Library on the USM campus at 11:30 on the third Thursday of every month – and to which you are invited if you are in the neighborhood, whether or not you have read the selection. I’ll return later to the controversy which focused on the protagonist’s comment about Indians.

The story begins in the summer of 1911 with Joan Skraggs, orphaned by her mother and ill-treated by her father, making an escape to a better world. In that world, she works as a hired girl for a wealthy Jewish family for the momentous salary of $6 a week. Joan passes herself off as Janet to avoid discovery by her family. Her diary tells a story reminiscent of her own heroine, Jane Eyre.  

The details of time and place wrap a quest for Janet to discover who she is as she searches in her own spiritual ties to her mother’s Catholicism and in the books that Mr. Rosenbach encourages her to read. Relationships with each of the Rosenbach’s and their lifelong maid enrich the story and help Janet along her journey out of the naivety and prejudice that began her journey.

As for the controversy, it could have been sanitized out, but the book would have lost the authenticity of what a young girl from a rural area would have felt at the time. Even more importantly, it would have lost the way she began to change as she learned to know and appreciate people different from herself. By July sixteenth, 1911, she writes, “But even Thomashefsky the cat likes to be told how handsome he is – you can tell by the way he purrs and flexes his paws – and I sometimes wonder if every living thing doesn’t need kind words as much as sunshine and water.”

The satisfying ending to this novel with many twists and turns includes the establishment of a school still in existence. Should your curiosity make you want to go there as it did me, you can find it at www.parkschool.net .