Winged Migration – A Spectacular Visual Treat

August 18, 2009August 18, 2009 / still a dreamer / 2 Comments

WingedMigration-flamingos This movie, released in 2003, is one of the most spectacular I have seen. There is almost no narration, there are occasional notes on the bottom of the screen indicating the type of bird and the location and distance it flies during migration, and the most incredible music created just for the film. Not to mention breathtaking landscapes from one end of the world to the other. What is even more extraordinary, is how the birds were filmed – the view is most often from the bird’s perspective. For bird/wild bird lovers or just nature lovers, this is one to see. Available on Netflix.

Be sure to see the Special Features and you’ll be amazed at the 4 year chronicle it took to make this film and how the birds were filmed this way. I smiled in wonder all through the movie and again just watching the trailer. For a sneak peek, check out the trailer.

The Character Who Never Grew

August 14, 2009August 14, 2009 / still a dreamer

TradingUp-C.Bushnell It was my idea that when you read a novel, you should feel something for the character, identify with her in some way, and as you go through the course of the book, cheer her on through adversity, feeing her pain, and then rejoice in her overcoming challenges. But what if the character just never grows?

What if the character is defined at the get-go as a self-centered, manipulating, feckless social climber who proceeds to orchestrate one scenario after another, using whoever serves her purpose at the moment to get what she wants? What if, despite her repeated falls from societal grace, her redemption is always through luck, the guilt or kindness or another, kinder character, or her own delusions? I know – why did I read this book?

I purchased Trading Up at the library’s annual sale because it was written by Candace Bushnell, author of Sex and the City. I was hoping for some of the fun and good spirited friendships of the TV series. I was wrong. Amazingly, Janey Wilcox, the main character, works her way through this entire novel without managing to elicit any sympathy. And even though, about 3/4 of the way through the book, we learn about why Janey may have developed this penchant for using others and sleeping with any man she thought could further her goals, it didn’t make you care about her one iota more. Even at the very end, her breathlessly described new and bright-with-possibilities future in Hollywood is merely the result of chance coupled with Janey’s own delusional idea that she deserves what she wants — just because.

I kept reading — always the optimist — certain that there was a moment of truth coming – that something would happen in Janey’s life and she would hark back to the more innocent soul she once was and become more feeling, if nothing else. Never happens. So while Trading Up does provide an interesting spotlight on the lives of the very rich and famous in NY and the Hamptons, I’m otherwise left empty in the face of a character who, throughout an entire novel, never evolves. So very odd.

It also gives me a lot of respect for Darren Star who created and executive produced the TV series Sex and the City from Bushnell’s series of essays. He created friendships that were real and characters who grew over the seasons, and he enticed viewers who, despite learning odd things like the value of Manolo Blahnik shoes, grew along with them. That was the book I’d been hoping to read.

Honored to Receive the Honest Scrap Award

August 10, 2009September 16, 2019 / still a dreamer / 2 Comments

honestscrapaward I recently found I was chosen for an award by a fellow blogger, The Battered Trunk.

I readily found what I, as a new recipient, needed to do, but was unsure exactly what the award was about. A little online delving, and I found the following definition of the Honest Scrap Award on Buddhist Minister Rev. Danny Fisher’s, site. He says the following:

This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant. This award is about bloggers who post from their heart, who oftentimes put their heart on display as they write from the depths of their soul.

Wow! A special thanks for the award, then, Marstead!

And the instructions for the award are as follows –

THE HONEST SCRAP AWARD:

1. The Honest Scrap award must be shared!
2. First, the recipient must reveal 10 true things about themselves in their blog that no one else knows.
3. Second, the recipient must pass along this prestigious award to 10 more bloggers.
4. Third, those 10 bloggers must be notified they have been given this award.
5. Those 10 bloggers should link back to the blog that awarded them the Honest Scrap award.

OK – first the 10 things –

1. I was pretty much sewing all my own clothes starting at the age of 11.
2. In high school, I was accepted to all the top NYC/Phila Fashion Design Schools until I had that duh! moment and realized that I would be snuffed out like a bug under a stiletto heel. What was I thinking?! And I went back and re-applied to art school. Whew! That was close!
3. I don’t think there’s a creature on the planet that I wouldn’t find fascinating given the proper introduction (or distance, depending on the animal) I’m remembering an all-too-close encounter with a baldface hornet a few years ago.)
4. I miss the ocean.
5. I thought Howdy-Doody was an incredible waste of time and never ‘got’ the Three Stooges.
6. Notwithstanding the health implications, I could happily live on homemade bread and sweets, the best array of cheeses, and really good coffee.
7. I easily embarrass myself doing mental math in front of people (thank you nuns with flash cards starting in first grade.)
8. I always believed in angels.
9. After seeing the movie On the Beach as a child, I really believed the world could end. Like then.
10.I remember the flute passage in Seven Beauties playing in the courtroom while the proceedings went without sound being one of the most lovely pieces ever, but am not sure I could watch the movie again right now to listen to it.

OK – the blogs – let me say first, I have very little time to check out others’ blogs, and barely enough to keep my own freshened up regularly. I am not a big blogger, and honestly don’t know a lot of blogs to even list. However, that said, here are 4 that I visit regularly or periodically that I will say put their heart on display, and yes, two are dog rescues. I may add more later – this is what comes to mind right now.

Diary of A Children’s Book Writer

Writing for Kids While Raising Them

BAD RAP’s Blog

French Bulldog Rescue Network’s Blog

And thank you again Marstead of Battered Trunk for noting me for this award.

Alice Hoffman – Local Girls

July 19, 2009 / still a dreamer

LocalGirls-AliceHoffman One of the things I love about reading Alice Hoffman is that I never know quite what to expect with the exception of one thing – I will be deeply moved by her story. I find Hoffman’s writing brilliant in her ability to take us so penetratingly into her characters, characters who are not heroes, but neighbors we see every day yet whose lives we barely know. Local Girls takes us into the midst of a family who struggles with pain and loss, and whose characters cling to the idea of surviving it, or in some cases, succumb.

The local girls are Gretel Samuelson and her best friend Jill, who lives around the corner. They are teenagers no different than our own or those who live next door, struggling to find where they fit, and in their case, how to manage life in the face of parents who are stricken with cancer, are mentally ill, or who have abandoned them. We watch, with Gretel, her mother Francine’s sinking into depression after the father walks out and at the same time faces the return of her cancer. We watch Jill’s mother, a minor character, being given shock therapy for her own depression until she appears as vapor, using one of Hoffman’s desecriptions.

Gretel does her best to stand by her mother, but her own confusion, typical for her age then compounded by the pain in her family, causes her to fall in love with a boy who is terribly wrong for her. At the same time, Gretel’s brother Jason slips from an A+ student accepted to Harvard to a slow descent into drugs, unable to deal with the pain in any other way. Margot, Francine’s cousin, lives nearby and is an integral part of keeping the family on track in whatever way she can. Despite her own sadness at being left by her husband as well, she always believes in love. And then there’s Freida, Gretel’s grandmother, a strong figure, who strikes a deal with God to ler her daughter live and be taken herself.

Alice Hoffman is a writer who can pull this all off with humor, a striking depth of feeling, and an infusion of optimisn that is uniquely hers. Local Girls is the story of people you know, replete with pain, the fight to survive, and larger-than-life portions of the grit of everyday living …. plus the touch of magic that is ever-present in all our lives if we are just open to it. I could not put this book down – for me, the mark of a great read. If you have known someone devastated by loss and fear who has plodded forward in spite of it, believing/not believing in a better day ahead; if you have been close to someone battling addiction, and their drive to numb the intensity of their pain; if you have watched women rise from the ashes and try one more time, then I suspect you’d like Local Girls.

I do find this story as much or more about Gretel’s family than the friendship of Gretel and Jill, yet ultimately it is their story we follow as circumstances take them in directions neither girl would have quite expected, yet may have secretly longed for.

And last but not least, Hoffman’s use of language is no less than exquisite. It is what brings a tale of everyday people in a simple suburban town to such rich and rewarding heights making Local Girls quite the amazing read.

Welcome to Writing for Middle Grade!

July 11, 2009May 24, 2010 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

GirlReading What happens when one of the picture books you’ve been working on evolves into a chapter book due to too much back-story? Then it’s recommended to be a middle grade novel because it’s getting too scary for a chapter book reader? One of the first things is to start reading more in that genre, so for me, it’s Welcome to Middle Grade!

I figured one of the best places to begin is with the Newbery winners, so I went to the ALA site. I also found another site which gives brief summaries of the Newbery winners (all genres) from 2000 to present and makes middle grade novels easier to identify. It also happens that the feature article of the Children’s Writer Newsletter this month is “Walking the Tightrope of Peril in Middle-Grade Fiction.” Jackpot! That’s a good read, plus they list many MG novels within the article which I’ll look into soon. And then I’ve gotten a few recommendations from my writing group, sooooooooo ….

The titles I’ve selected to start with, which have particular appeal to me, are these (in no particular order plus some have been moved down to the bottom list as time passes)