Happy Birthday, Maud

Thank you, Maud, for writing.

Writing amidst the pain.

Creating beauty where there was none, and giving it away.

Many, many thanks.

November Reading Log

Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Headlong, by Kathe Koja

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley*

I Will Be Cleopatra, by Zoe Caldwell

Antony and Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare*

KJ Bible: 1 Cor. - Philemon*

Masterpiece, by Elise Broach

Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Paper Towns, by John Green

Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb, by Kirsten Miller

Cosmic, by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Busman's Honeymoon, by Dorothy Sayers

*Indicates a book I resolved to read this year

Happy Birthday!

Many happy returns to three of my very favorite authors: C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, and L.M. Alcott. November 29th is a day to celebrate!

How are you indebted to these writers? What characters, quotes, memories have they given you?

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I'd have to say:

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Jack, thank you for your essays, for your diggings into theology. Thank you for Narnia, for writing in the tradition of Nesbit but adding so much more with the character of Aslan.

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"But Laurence can't really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that's what he is doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before." -C.S. Lewis

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Madeleine, thank you for changing my teenage life with your writing. The Austins, the Murrays, your families are forever knit into my heart. Thank you for your lectures on writing, on serving the gift. You continue to inspire me. Always.

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Louisa, thank you for the March sisters. At last I can honestly say that I forgive you for making Jo marry the Professor instead of Laurie. It has taken many, many years, but you were wise beyond my twelve-year-old understanding. God bless.

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Spend an hour honoring these amazing people today by dipping into one of their books. Chances are, you won't be able to put it down, no matter how many times you've read it.

Longstockings on Writing

Scrumptious post. The comments, too.

"With my first novel, I wanted the story to unfold as organically as possible, and the world to be as fully-developed as possible. I had a cast of thousands, with subplots and back-stories for pretty much every character."

My Jonah Bottle is the same way; I've been working on it since I was 18. But I can already feel that the Dutch fairy tale on my back burner will be written so differently. It has stewed.

"...I wonder also how much the change in my writing style was due to a change in my goals. With the first book, I was writing a book I wanted to read, and when I started I really didn't know anything about how it was going to go. With this new one, I have a story I want to tell, but I don't need to read the book because myself I already know how it turns out. Maybe that makes it easier to cut to the chase?"

I love this question: "How have the circumstances of your life changed what you write: not just processes and habits, but "topics and perspective and I-don't-know-what.""

Give Thanks!

Tuesday Trivia

Here's the first of what I hope to make a weekly feature at Never Jam Today--children's literature trivia. I've purloined a hefty list from Trivia Pursuit: Book Lover's Edition.

We're rather short on prizes, but you'll walk away with a glow in your heart, right? Job well done and all that?

So: three questions every Tuesday. How well do you know your books?*
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What question does a baby bird ask of a dog, a cow and a steam shovel, in P.D. Eastman’s classic?
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What bashful redhead befriends Betsy Ray, in Maud Hart Lovelace’s beloved series?
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What famed Manhattan museum do Claudia and Jamie make their home-away-from-home in The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?
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*Googling strickly prohibited.

Brave New World

Quotes from the book.

I read a lot of futuristic/dystopian fiction this year (1984, The Hunger Games, Little Brother, The Host, The Lathe of Heaven, The Adoration of Jenna Fox) but Brave New World was amazing.

"... the sultry darkness into which the students now followed him was visible and crimson, like the darkness of closed eyes on a summer's afternoon."

"He pointed upwards. Like chickens drinking, the students lifted their eyes toward the distant ceiling."

"[These ideas are repeated] till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too--all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides--made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions!"

"It's not enough for the phrases to be good; what you make with them ought to be good, too."

"Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly--they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced."

Added 11.29

"It was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes--make them lose their faith in happiness as the Soverign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere; that the purpose of life was not the maintenence of well-being, but some intensification and refining of conscienceness, some enlargment of knowledge."

"Why don't you let them see Othello instead?" "I've told you; it's old. Besides, they couldn't understand it." ... "Well then," he said, after a pause, "something new that's like Othello, and that they could understand." "That's what we've all been wanting to write," said Helmholtz, breaking a long silence.

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensation for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamor of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."

"Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness."

"He was a philosopher, if you know what that was." "A man who dreams of fewer things than there are in heaven and earth," said the Savage promptly.

"...civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic."

"What you need," the Savage went on, "is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here."

NBA Winner (Young Adult Literature)

Did you guess right? What I Saw and How I Lied?

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I had no idea. I didn't think it would be Frankie; The Underneath was good but perhaps a bit too young? And Chains was good but the first of a series.

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Ah, well, the Newberys are just around the corner. And the Cybils after that.

Random Book-Related Facts Meme

I'm not sure why the rules don't mention that this is a book-related meme, but here are my seven random book-related facts:

1. Growing up, my best friend's family allowed books at the dinner table. Mine did not. This irritated me.

2. In my nearly 22-year lifetime, I have watched two films that were better than the book they were based on: The Princess Diaries and The Princess Bride. Moral: read the book.

3. In my novel The Jonah Bottle, I have so many inside jokes that I can't keep track of them. For example, the children's aunt's name is Hildegarde, inspired by the opening lines of Nesbit's Story of the Treasure Seekers:

"There are some things I must tell before I begin to tell about the treasure-seeking, because I have read books myself, and I know how beastly it is when a story begins, "Alas!" said Hildegarde with a deep sigh, "we must look our last on this ancestral home"--and then some one else says something--and you don't know for pages and pages where the home is, or who Hildegarde is, or anything about it."

4. Places I keep my books: behind clothes in my wardrobe, on a shelf above my closet, on a shelf inside my closet, on my desk, under my bed, on a shelf above my windows. That's just my bedroom.

5. I read myself to sleep every night.

6. I've worked as a children's librarian since I was seventeen. It was kind of obvious by then.

7. Because I spend most of my time with fictional characters, the seven friends I'm tagging don't have blogs. One of them doesn't even have a surname. However, you can still visit them.

I tag:

Valancy Stirling
Jo March
Mary Lennox
Lucy Pevensie
Harriet Vane
Vicky Austin
Annika

Thanks to Sally.

Kidz Book Buzz Blog Tour: This is the Feast (Pilgrim Game)

Perhaps three days of looking at the cover of This is the Feast has caused you to wonder what the heck those kids are doing dancing around a bunch of corn stalks.

The best answer I could find came from Family Fun.

When the Pilgrims arrived in the New World, they were amazed by all the deer roaming freely around them--because in England the noblemen owned the land and all the deer on it. In this version of duck, duck, goose, the object is to capture the deer. Several players of all ages stand in a circle holding hands. The first person who is "It" (or who is the deer) laces through the circle, ducking under the hands of various players, and finally taps a player (the hunter). The hunter then breaks from the circle and follows the deer, imitating its movements precisely. If the hunter catches the deer, the deer goes into the middle of the circle. But if the hunter doesn't follow the deer's movements exactly (or doesn't catch the deer before it has gone around the circle once), he has to stand in the center of the circle. The game continues until there are too many people standing in the center to be encircled by the remaining players.

Get bundled up this afternoon and take your kids outside to play!

Kidz Book Buzz Blog Tour: This is the Feast (Recipe)

One of the illustrations in This is the Feast shows a woman in the kitchen, chiseling away at a hunk of something white. It took me awhile (okay, I had to ask my mom), but I finally identified the object as a salt block.

Don't take your Morton for granted.

In memory of the hours that pilgrim women spent in front of the fire, why not try your hand at a lovely mince pie? It may sound gross, but around here, we love love the taste of sweet meat in a pastry. Here's the recipe, 1600's-style.

Boil a tender, nice piece of beef -- any piece that is clear from sinews and gristle; boil it till it is perfectly tender. When it is cold, chop it very fine, and be very careful to get out every particle of bone and gristle. The suet is sweeter and better to boil half an hour or more in the liquor the beef has been boiled in; but few people do this.

Pare, core, and chop the apples fine. If you use raisins, stone them. If you use currants, wash and dry them at the fire.

Two pounds of beef, after it is chopped;
three quarters of a pound of suet;
one pound and a quarter of sugar;
three pounds of apples;
two pounds of currants, or raisins.

Put in a gill of brandy; lemon-brandy is better, if you have any prepared. Make it quite moist with new cider. I should not think a quart would be too much; the more moist the better, if it does not spill out into the oven.

A very little pepper.

If you use corn meat, or tongue, for pies, it should be well soaked, and boiled very tender. If you use fresh beef, salt is necessary in the seasoning.

One ounce of cinnamon, one ounce of cloves.

Two nutmegs add to the pleasantness of the flavor; and a bit of sweet butter, put upon the top of each pie, makes them rich, but these are not necessary.

Baked three quarters of an hour. If your apples are rather sweet, grate in a whole lemon.

Note: If your head is spinning, try this recipe. It has measurements.

Kidz Book Buzz Blog Tour: This is the Feast (Review)

According to Ben Franklin, there are two things in life you can be sure of: death and taxes.
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For librarians, these three also remain: counting books, alphabet books, and holiday books.

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Whether they’re franchise—Arthur’s Thanksgiving, Max’s ABC—or independent, you can almost always count on a combination of run-of-the-mill text and tolerable illustrations, or tolerable text and run-of-the-mill illustrations.

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So, does the world really need another Thanksgiving story?

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In cases like This is the Feast, where the book thrives visually and textually, the answer is yes.

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This is the Feast is written in traditional Jack-House style. A great sofa read, the age range is wide; my listeners were 3, 7 and 10. Detailed illustrations interested the older ones, and they all enjoyed the steady cadence of the verse.

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This is the Mayflower, sturdy and strong.

Her sails skim the skies as she journeys along.

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Unlike many pointless Thanksgiving books that urge thankfulness but never mention who we’re supposed to be thankful to, This is the Feast revolves around the line, “Thanks be to God … our strength and our guide … for the lives he has spared … for this bountiful land … who doth us provide.” This refrain is never forced. It’s quite powerful, in fact, as little eyes see the pilgrims suffer and struggle to survive, and then hear, amid those images, the words Thanks be to God.

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A perplexing, essential concept.

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This is Thanksgiving, a time to remember

The friendships and freedoms we all share together.

Kidz Book Buzz Blog Tour: This is the Feast

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It's time to whip up pumpkin pie, put another log on the fire, and pop down to the library to subject-wipe their pilgrim books. Don't miss This is the Feast.

Or perhaps you're the Barnes and Noble type, on the prowl for the perfect Thanksgiving gift. Don't miss This is the Feast.

Perhaps the mere word of Noel De Vries isn't enough to convince you. You want proof. Well, This is the Feast is the November selection for the Kidz Book Buzz blog tour, which means I'll spend the next two days presenting the evidence.

And so will some other people:

the 160acrewoods

A Mom Speaks

All About Children’s Books

Becky’s Book Reviews

Cafe of Dreams

Dolce Bellezza

Homeschool Buzz

KidzBookBuzz.com

Looking Glass Reviews

Maggie Reads

Maw Books Blog

Never Jam Today

Our Big Earth

Quiverfull Family

Reading is My Superpower

SmallWorld Reads

I'm up at Novel Journey today

Check out my brilliant, totally legend interview with Melina Marchetta.

Seriously, do not miss this one.

Scoop of the e-e-evening: Paper Towns

Librarians may have greeted An Abundance of Katherines with loud hosannas, but I closed the book without any desire to revisit John Green. Partly the guy humor/language—there’s a girl in Paper Towns who’s subjected to a typical crack and responds with “Not. Appropriate.” My reaction entirely. But the hundred-odd references to balls aside, Green gives readers something more this time around.

When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night--dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge--he follows her. Margo's always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she's always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q . . . until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they're for Q.

Paper Towns turned me on to Whitman, for one thing, a poet I’ve always shrugged off. I now know you don’t ignore the man who writes that grass is “the beautiful uncut hair of graves.” Just don’t. However, for those who definitely didn’t buy John Green to read poetry, he balances the verse:

“Great.” Ben rolled his eyes. “Poetry.”

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.

“Poetry is just so emo,” he said. “Oh, the pain. The pain. It always rains. In my soul.”

The themes in Paper Towns are ideas that have been running through my head lately. I underlined several bits:

“It’s so hard for anyone to show us how we look, and so hard for us to show anyone how we feel.”

“Just saying: stop thinking Ben should be you, and he needs to stop thinking you should be him, and y’all just chill the hell out.”

“A Margo for each of us—and each more mirror than window.”

“…he was something that happened to me, you know? But before he was this minor figure in the drama of my life, he was—you know, the central figure in the drama of his own life.”

Plus, Green knows how to deliver a laugh.

“Forever is composed of nows,” she says. I have nothing to say to that; I am just chewing through it when Margo says, “Emily Dickinson. Like I said, I’m doing a lot of reading.” I think the future deserves our faith. But it is hard to argue with Emily Dickinson.

So I’m a little impressed with Paper Towns. I am still chewing through it. And apparently, there's going to be a movie. By the same people who made Juno. Um, I'm going?

PW Best Books of the Year: Children's Fiction

Chains*
Laurie Halse Anderson

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 2: The Kingdom on the Waves
M.T. Anderson

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
Jeanne Birdsall

Masterpiece*
Elise Broach

Graceling
Kristin Cashore

The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins

Little Brother
Cory Doctorow

Bog Child
Siobhan Dowd

Dark Dude
Oscar Hijuelos

Tender Morsels*
Margo Lanagan

Savvy
Ingrid Law

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
E. Lockhart

Sunrise over Fallujah
Walter Dean Myers

Nation
Terry Pratchett


What do you think? Fairly comprehensive? Shockingly lacking?

My addition would be Trouble, by Gary Schmidt. And Jellicoe Road, by Melina Marchetta. And ... oh, just go here and see my year-end favorites, as of October.

*On my bedside table

In Case You Ever Need to Bribe Me

This stuff is
Un.
Be.
Liev.
Able.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Scoop of the e-e-evening: Cosmic

While everyone else in my state was glued to the television or stampeding Grant Park, I spent election night reading Cosmic.

Don't get me wrong. I'm far from politically insouciant. But "what is decreed must be," and if there's one author who can free you from a world of care, it's Boyce.

Liam is too big for his boots, his football strip, and his school blazer. But being super-sized height-wise has its advantages: he's the only eleven-year-old to ever ride the G-force defying Cosmic rollercoaster or be offered the chance to drive a Porsche. Long-legged Liam makes a giant leap for boy-kind by competing with a group of adults for the chance to go into space. Is Liam the best boy for the job? Sometimes being big isn't all about being a grown-up.

The story put me in the mood of Roald Dahl. Most people would say that his Charlie books are classics, never to be one-upped, but I think Boyce has done just that. Cosmic delights in your willing suspension of disbelief--it's crammed with delicious wryness, suchthebest cast, gorgeous dialogue!! and bucket after bucket of deep-belly laughter.

Reading Boyce doesn't just effect your brain--it shows up on your face. My mom walked by as I sat reading. She laughed and shook her head. "It's so funny to watch you read that book."

Liam adores thrill rides, and I think they provide the perfect analogy for Cosmic: you wait and wait in queue, listening to everyone talk about how amazing the ride is, not completely convinced it can be that brilliant but willing to give it a go. So they finally pull back the tape, and you buckle yourself in, and the next minute, there's only one thought left in your head: THIS IS TOTALLY COSMIC!

Feeling Blue

I came across this tonight.

I knew depression was a life-long battle with Maud--you can't read her journals without crying.

But Kate's revelation completely devastates me.

If I was Catholic, I could at least take comfort in praying for her soul.

Réquiem æternam dona ei,Dómine.
Et lux perpétua lúceat ei.

Requiéscat in pace.
Amen.
Anima ejus, et ánimæ ómnium fidélium defunctórum, per misericórdiam Dei requiéscant in pace.
Amen.

She’s Done it Again

From poem 1545:

Had but the Tale a warbling Teller—
All the Boys would come—

Those lines … writers, take heed!