Grab-A-Line Monday on Tuesday, and some catching up

I scheduled yesterday's entry a few days earlier, fully intending to add my quote before it got posted. But I forgot. So here is the quote, again from Olive Kitteridge (I highly recommend this book, BTW):

...had figured something out too late, and that must be the way of life, to get something figured out when it was too late.

The Piano Player, from Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout

Now to some other business. First, Cybils 2009 is up and running. The panelists are in place and nominations are open. Last year's Cybils introduced me to some books I would otherwise have not read and I look forward to this year's nominees.

You can post this handy dandy button on your blog to help publicize it.


Here's another event worth publicizing: the Genre Wars! It's a writing contest run by the fab three at The Literary Lab. If you have some short stories in your drawers, or if you've never written a short story before, you may consider using this as a starting point. Who knows, you may find out hat you were born to write short stories.

And of course, handy dandy button.



Another event, this one to take place in November. Yes, of course you knew about NaNoWritMo. I haven't ever taken the plunge but the people I know who've done it once keep doing it again. So maybe the act of churning out a novel in a month is worthwhile, or at least addictive.

The ALA reminds us to celebrate the freedom of reading during Banned Books Week. I reckon I should celebrate it every day, but I appreciate the focused efforts to raise awareness. Words that float around in head as I look at the lists of banned books: fear, disbelief, prejudice, responsibility, and of course, freedom.

Grab-A-Line Monday

Here are the quotes from last week's Grab-A-Line Monday:

MG Higgins offered this: (and it's in gold because that's the color of the pen she used to jot this down specifically for this post.)

From When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead:

"Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop feeling mean."

Tanita Davis introduced me to a new sleuth from Georgette Heyer's They Found Him Dead. So this was longer than one line: but who cares? Great quotes, people, that's what I want!

"Well, I wanted to know. Besides, you're wasting your time, anyway. I told you the gat wasn't here, only you wouldn't listen. I looked for it myself, ages ago, because I thought probably the murderer would be pretty likely to hide it amongst the bushes. Well, he didn't, and I don't think it's in the bushes on the other side of the drive either. I haven't actually combed them, but I've got a theory about it. I'll tell you what it is, if you like."

Turns out Georgette Heyer is a fav author of Nandini, who shared this from Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh.

"The vision of a tall-masted ship, at sail on the ocean, came to Deeti on an otherwise ordinary day, but she knew instantly that the apparition was a sign of destiny, for she had never seen such a vessel before, not even in a dream: how could she have, living as she did in northern Bihar, four hundred miles from the coast?"

Davin Malasarn said he's reading Olive Kitteridge, the book I took my quote from, and I am waiting to hear what he has to say after he finishes.

It seems appropriate to end with another colorful quote, contributed by Coco, this time from Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote

'Certain shades of limelight wreck a girl's complexion.'

So, what caught you this week? (Color references optional.)

I'm Ba-ack

It's been a good experience, taking the unplugged week. Thanks, BJ!

With all that extra time, I made crepes and muffins with the kids, cooked meals from scratch, tidied up the pantry so opening the door no longer causes boxes to fall on my head, dealt with some family issues, finished reading two books and started two new ones (The Sea and Breathe My Name, recommendations I got from my evil ploy.) And wrote, of course. I revised four scenes and wrote two new ones for my novel-in-progress.


*pat self on back*


All that goal-achieving, so good for the ego, so good for the soul, so good for the taste buds, but I find that I miss the interaction with my fellow bloggers. I miss being part of a vibrant community. Yes, I miss YOU.

So now I'm back and ready to jump into the next controversy or empathize with my fellow writers experiencing the woes of revision and rejections.

*Pushes up sleeves, rubs hands in anticipation*

And oh, don't forget tomorrow's Grab-A-Line Monday!

Unplugged

Unplugged week sounds like a great idea.

See you next week.

Grab-A-Line Monday

For this second post in Grab-A-Line Monday, I am offering this:

She remembered what hope was, and this was it. That inner churning that moves you forward, plows you through life the way the boats below plowed the shiny water, the way the plane was plowing forward to a place new, and where she was needed.

Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout

In case you missed last week's inaugural post, here are the quotes contributed by my wonderful cyber-pals:

"The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him, "Wild thing,"

Maurice Sendak

"I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Ch. 3

There was another silence, while Marjorie considered whether or not convincing her mother was worth the trouble. People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Having decided this, Marjorie said good night.

- Bernice Bobs Her Hair, F. Scott Fitzgerald

[Hey Tanita: just so you know, I went out and bought a short stories collection just to get to Bernice.]

Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge.
Proverbs 23:12

"There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name."

First line of Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

But with this February sun, see, the light's absolutely pure and makes the colors of the sky and the tree limbs and the bricks on these suburban houses so clean that just looking at them is like inhaling purified air.

The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp

"I wish it need not have happened in my time, "says Frodo.

"So do I," says Gandalf. "And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with that time that is given to us."

J.R.R. Tolkien


What caught you this week?

A Trio of Middle Grade Novels Part III

When You Read Me
by Rebecca Stead

Warning: if you haven't read the book, you should skip the section between the red lines.

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!
(Consider yourselves warned)

____________________________________________________________________

When I described my time travel experience on my dentist's chair, I asked casually whether any of you would like to chime in and tell me what you thought of this book. I had no takers , so I'll start the conversation, and hopefully I can provoke some reaction from those of you who have read it. (MG? You said you've read it...)

Throughout the book, Miranda wonders about cryptic notes and missing shoes. I kept trying to figure how the mysteries could be solved within the physical rules that govern our world--I thought the strong presence of A Wrinkle in Time was merely a motif--and kept coming up empty. When I found out that time travel was involved, I suddenly understood all the foreshadowing and clues, if you can call them that. Normally I'd feel cheated or annoyed when I find out a book sets out on a premise that it violates, but I didn't with this one. Thrown off, and disconcerted for a few minutes, yes, but then I went right back to reading.

Any of you had that feeling reading this book?

Now that the question is off my chest, I will move on on to other elements of the book.

Oh, one more thing: no, the resident 8-year old hasn't read it yet because she's still impressionable with a boundless imagination, and I worry the the time-travel issue may be disturbing, not in a scary-monster type of way, but in a "if that is possible, then whoa, what I know about my world can be all false and now I don't know what is real and what is not" kind of way. For older kids, the idea behind this book will be very cool and may open their eyes for all sorts of outlandish possibilities, but this mom to this particular MG reader is asking her child to wait. So sorry, folks, no professional opinions here!

__________________________________________________

No more spoiler beyond this point.

12-year old Miranda's best friend, Sal, doesn't want to spend time with her anymore, and she blames it on the punch Sal received from a boy on the street one day. More weird things happen: notes that don't make sense appear in her jacket and backpack; shoes and keys disappear. Bewildered and scared and sad, Miranda continues on with her life, helping her mom prepare for a TV quiz, getting an unpaid job at the sandwich place, and finding new friends.

A collection of unusual events and people: a poster on hiccups, a dentist office connected to the school, a new boy who talks about mind-bending stuff like time travel, a laughing man who kicks the air and yells at the street corner, two dollar bills, and a girl who peels off the cheese from her pizza come together in this quirky story.

Quirkiness can be great, or it can be grating. This one is the former. Maybe it's not just the quirkiness, but the underlying compassion of the book that makes me feel warm and tender and hopeful. The characters may have flaws or have made mistakes or seem reprehensible in some way, but the author paints each one with a quiet respect that helps readers see their own prejudices.

8-year old hasn't read it, but her mom really likes it.

A Trio of Middle Grade Novles Part II

Solving Zoe
by Barbara Dee

"Mom, you have GOT to read this!" My daughter punches the air with the book for emphasis. "Barbara Dee is SUCH a good writer." What would I give to be eight and feel like I can tell when someone is SUCH a good writer...sigh.

This book deals with issues familiar to many middle graders: a sense of belonging, friendship, fitting in. Zoe feels unremarkable in her surroundings, being related to a star-performer sister and a math-genius brother and attending a progressive school for the gifted. She is not bothered by her own ordinary existence until her world is rocked by two people's actions: her best friend's apparent desire to leave their cozy little circle and the appearance of a boy who scribbles and acts weird.

The interactions Zoe has with the best-friend-becoming-difficult-to-understand and the difficult-to-understand-boy-becoming-a-friend leaves her confused and sad and annoyed at different times. A new after-school job tending lizards, an unexpected two-weeks suspension from school, and lots of thinking later, Zoe comes to terms with what the inevitability happenings of life: that people change, that people will seem strange until you get a glimpse of what else shapes their lives, that people will misunderstand you, and that sometimes you need someone else to point out the truth about yourself.

As a writer, I am also impressed by how the essence of the book is contained in the opening chapter, without any sense of events or writing being forced to achieve this. I read the beginning chapter twice just to absorb how she does it.

The eight-year old is right. Barbara Dee is a good, and I'll add, very, very good writer.

A Trio of Middle Grade Novels Part 1

Recently I read three middle grade novels that are quite different, in terms of targeted audience--Umbrella Summer is directed toward the younger end of the spectrum, Solving Zoe right in the middle, and When you Reach Me can be just as easily classified as early YA--and writing styles. But all of them are well-written, and each tackles issues that middle graders face with sensitivity.

Umbrella Summer
by Lisa Graf

Ten year old Annie lost her older brother to a highly uncommon disease. She responds by taking extra, extra precautions in her daily life and educating herself about diseases and everyday dangers. Her father is distracted and seems to have forgotten the rituals he used to share with Annie. Her mother is exasperated by Annie's insistence on looking at her world through her fearful, though not pessimistic, lenses. Lisa Graf does a nice job of showing us Annie's frame of mind right from the beginning, the way she carefully considers her helmet-wearing and bandaids and possible diseases that are lurking.

The best thing about this book is that despite it being about Annie's fear, this is still a sunny book. The reader doesn't feel weighed down with her worries, instead, the feeling evoked is one of gentle understanding.

Since the targeted audience is the younger middle-grade reader, which can be as young as a fluent reader of 6, the author includes many details of Annie's worries and the way she awaits the dangers that lurks everywhere. Older readers will get Annie's attitude with fewer details. For my personal taste, I wish the mother would show more of a renewed understanding of her daughter's predicament. She is almost always trying to change Annie's thinking and actions without much explanation or a show of understanding. If I were a young reader, I might get exasperated as she is toward Annie.

Annie is a character you will root for. She takes things in stride, she does what she needs to do to make up for her mistakes, she is forgiving and filled with hope.

Tomorrow: Solving Zoe by Barbara Dee