Author: still a dreamer

The Book That Disappoints

/ still a dreamer

It happens to all of us, right? We’ve selected a book that seems as if it will be really good, and it’s just a disappointment.

I loved the title of this book; I liked the premise of the story; and it got some great reviews. I also liked the jacket art. But what happened? I know what happened. The author failed to make the characters truly come alive for me. (Obviously not so for some of the reviewers.) Pearl Tull was filled with rage at being left by her husband, but although it was described, the elaboration of it and the emotions of her children in response were thin. If a mother is flying into tantrums and calling her children scum and nailing them against the wall when she is so incensed, shouldn’t I feel it?  I didn’t.

The author follows each child’s life, but again, somehow, I felt a distance from all the characters. Sometimes the writing was good, but I just wasn’t engaged. I liked Ezra the most – he seemed the most real to me, but at the end of the book, when the children and their families were gathered after the mother’s funeral, and the father who abandoned them shows up, it’s the oldest son who becomes the focus. Not Ezra, the son who was so devoted to the mother, or the daughter at all.

I kept on reading in the dutiful way we sometimes do – either sure it’s going to get better anytime soon, or because it’s just not that bad to stop entirely. But disappointing.  Have you found any books lately that left you feeling the same?

I’ve picked up one of my favorite authors – Alice Hoffman – as a balm to my disappointment, and am looking forward to her usual good writing. I’m ready for the book I can’t put down.

Fabulous Farmstand Food

/ still a dreamer

For those of us living in or near agricultural counties, New Jersey is a cornucopia of gorgeous fresh produce, pouring in during a long growing season. It’s absolute heaven.

And it’s a shame that so many people think of New Jersey – the Garden State – as a series of networked, ugly highways thorned by uglier power plants and factories. While a small portion of eastern New Jersey may look like that, so many more parts of the state are lush, green and abundant. In Hunterdon County, small farms and farmers’ markets abound, all offering an assortment of delicious fresh produce from early spring through November.

The other day I went berry and peach picking with a friend and her 3 kids at Phillips Farms in Holland Township.

The blackberries were outstanding, but I had really gone for some white peaches and Jersey tomatoes. I suppose many states lay claim to having the best tomatoes, but I’m still sticking with New Jersey.

Same for Jersey corn! Phillips Farm also had a great assortment of flowers – sunflowers plus many other kinds in bouquets, and some plants and herbs at $5 apiece.

Now if you can imagine, we have all this for months on end. Inside there was corn picked just that morning, gorgeous string beans, zucchini, kale, radishes, onions, cucumbers and more.

This same friend had come back from a trip to Colorado – a somewhat isolated city, (as they called it – a suburb to New Jerseyans), where the food was … well … pretty poor, as she described it. And then I realized how enormously fortunate we are to be sitting right next to our food sources for so much of the year. I sure am grateful!

In the area? Visit one of the many fabulous local farms/farmstands or farmers’ markets in New Jersey – they’re all over the state. And if in western Hunterdon, visit Phillips Farms on Church Road in Holland Township!

A Writing Tip or Two

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

That’s one thing you can find plenty of online and in books … writing tips. But every now and then we stumble across some especially useful ones – or perhaps ones that particularly resonate with where we are at the moment.

Awhile back I found some I really liked when Kathy Temean, RA of NJ SCBWI, posted on her blog 20 Tips for Writers which Jane Yolen gave at the end of the SCBWI Winter Conference in NYC. Some very basic, some common sense, all good advice and a great post from Kathy.

I also found some tips  in a short, but very useful article as I was thumbing through my 2009 CWIM (Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market). Entitled 6 Reasons to Stop Writing (and One Reason You Shouldn’t) by Donna Gephart, each section addresses the various reasons why we all, from time to time, feel like giving up – we’re not good enough, there’s never enough time, fear of failure, etc. And of course, she tells us why they really should be ignored! At that exact moment – almost as if I knew that help was in that 2009 edition – I really needed to hear some of what she wrote. She also includes some amazing rejection stories, including Anne Frank’s Diary of A Young Girl, rejected 15 times to finally be accepted by Doubleday. Over 30 million copies are in print.

I couldn’t find this online for a link, so you’ll have to check the 2009 CWIM, but take heart – there are lots of wonderful tips out there to pull us along when our feet are dragging!

A Wind in the Door – Madeleine L’Engle

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

A permanent fixture in my children’s book bookcase is the classic, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. For whatever reason, I recently plucked the sequel to this book, A Wind in the Door, from among the many YA, MG and adult books that I snared from the county’s annual library book sale, awaiting to be read. And once again, a moment of synchronicity.

To me, L’Engle, who passed away in 2007, is a metaphysical teacher. Some see her writing as having a Christian bent; I, however, find it much broader. Her use of the fantastic to engage readers in the greatest battle of all time  – good vs. evil – is spectacular. Two children, Meg Murray, our heroine, and her friend Calvin O’Keefe are called to join the battle, beginning so innocently as Meg’s ailing younger brother, Charles Wallace, announcing that there is a dragon in the twins’ vegetable garden.

Proginoskes, however, with his many wings, each inhabited by many more eyes, is not a dragon, but a cherubim. “I suppose you think I ought to be a golden-haired baby-face with no body and two useless little wings?” says he.

Throughout this novel, the reader is asked to question what is and what is not real, to consider the powers we have, among them the ability to communicate with one another without words, and to understand the ultimate power of love. Love changes everything is L’Engle’s message. Indeed, it can save one small child and the entire universe. But there’s a fight to be had for it. One needs to trust in oneself and in the good of others, even though they’ve lost track of it themselves, to not judge by appearances, to believe that animals can be teachers and guides, and to be willing to travel in galactic space as well as the inner space of mitochondria.

And L’Engle does all this in a completely magical yet utterly believable way.

As soon as I finished A Wind in the Door, I knew I would go right back in and read it again. Then a re-visit of A Wrinkle in Time. Then I believe, I will order the other 3 books in her “time” series.

For more information about Madeline L’Engle, who has written so much more than these few mentioned books, visit her web site. Or to understand her in a nutshell, read her acceptance speech of the Newbery Award she received for A Wrinkle in Time.

Feline Floor Ballet

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

Some say it’s a lost art … floor ballet. Not true. But its practitioners – unfortunately for its admirers – tend to work in isolation rather than coming together in troupes, such as in formal ballet as we know it.

I am proud to say that I have one of those practitioners right here in my very own home, pictured performing the famed masterpiece, “Danse du Soleil.” Claude wasn’t always this talented. He spent much of his young dance career in awkward leaps, caricaturistic posturing, and mad dashes. It has only been in the last few years that he has been practicing and devoting himself to floor ballet. At first it seemed like he was mastering the art of relaxation.

I was wrong. Dance is his life. It seems, as he has matured, that floor ballet has become his everything. While it’s true that he has brought the art to sofa and bed, it is the floor ballet which is his heart and soul. The sun is his greatest inspiration, but he happily jetés on the floor under so many circumstances, he has simply become an inspiration.

Although the attached photographs are lacking in detail due to the brilliant sunlight, you can see the progression of movement, the grace, the utter joy. I am so proud to have a dancer in the family.

And here I thought I had nothing to write about today.