Good Reads

Hope Was Here – Joan Bauer

/ still a dreamer

 

YA novel - Hope Was Here

Hope certainly was here in this Newbery Award winning YA novel. Hope is 16 and raised by her single aunt, Addie. Hope’s mother, Deena, felt the best thing she could do for her baby was to have her raised by Addie, her sister. Named Tulip at birth, Hope decides to legally change her name at 12, often wondering if she can live up to her new name.
Addie and Hope have moved several times across the U.S., Addie following needed jobs as a short order cook in diners, and Hope, a young but experienced waitress, repeatedly having to leave the friends she’s made. Hope longs to one day know her father who she wants to believe is trying to find her, while Deena occasionally shows up in her life.
The story begins with Addie and Hope arriving in Mulhoney, a Wisconsin dairy town, to run the diner for the owner who has been stricken with leukemia. Hope Was Here is about hope for so many things, not just in Hope’s own life, but in the lives of those around her … in a man hoping to go into remission who runs for office to defeat a corrupt system; in the hope that good will prevail in this small town; that the undercurrent of love that streams through so many of the characters will prove, not only that love can prevail, but that hope is worth holding on to. Much of the story’s action takes place in and around the diner, where the customers and dishes Addie whips up serve as a colorful backdrop.
Life changing experiences abound for every character in Hope Was Here, in a can’t-put-down tale, that not only manages to beautifully explore relationships, but amazingly, also weaves in politics and the difference that teenagers can make in influencing their and others’ lives. The food served up by Addie in the diner may have you wanting to find something in your fridge, but Hope’s story will have you sitting, smiling, and definitely believing in the value of hope.

Juggling Books

/ still a dreamer

BooksStackedWhy such a while for Weil? No doubt there are just hordes of you out there suspecting I’m the slowest reader ever.

Just kidding – I don’t think there are hordes of you out there. But there are times when it seems that we are in one book forever. Or maybe we really are. In this case, from the time I started Spontaneous Healing, I was sick 2+ weeks. I believe that’s one of the reasons I plucked him from my “to read” stack. What better to read, when we feel like crap, than a book that gives us support to get up and feel better? 

I am a firm believer in the body’s innate drive towards self-healing, so this was a perfect choice to read. I went to a little bit of it every night during a time when I dragged myself out of bed, journaled a wee bit, put in a good day’s work, and crawled away from my computer to sit in front of the telly a bit, then dragged myself to bed. Hello, Dr. Weil! He’s been great and informative company, and renewed my faith in my body’s ability to heal, as well as how I need to better focus on doing the right things to stay well.

Then came … the Hunterdon County Library’s Annual Book Sale. Thank goodness I had a time limit there! Brought home a bunch of new books, but restrained myself and read only one – Indigo – as I had plenty of work and some writing to do. Then came the realization that Angels and Demons would be opening May 15 – OK, let’s pluck that off the shelf and give that another read before I see the movie. So I’m up past my bedtime – I’ll live.

And then … the book I knew I needed to read again – one of my favorites, The Artist’s Way. This is such a wonderful book and I’ll give author Julia Cameron the credit for my daily journaling/morning pages. This is a book that encourages and helps strengthen creativity in a unique, spiritual way. And that’s why I say I need to read this. I feel some deeper period of inspiration coming on, and who better than Julia to accompany me?

But what about children’s books? Ahhhhh – in this period, I have also read – many, many times already – one of the most wonderful children’s books I’ve ever read. The story, the illustrations, the subtle sub-text … I am deeply moved each time I open it. It is giving me the inspiration to return to an aspect of my artwork where I was struggling. I’ll get to that soon; it deserves so much more than a passing mention.

Andrew Weil, don’t give up on me; I shall return. I just have a couple more Illuminati murders to try and prevent, and then it will be all about the healing.

Alice Hoffman’s Indigo

/ still a dreamer

indigo-alicehoffmanAlthough I’ve said this before, I like Alice Hoffman. I like what she writes about – essentially, magic – and how she writes about it.

Indigo, like Green Angel, is ultimately a story about healing. Written for middle grade readers, Indigo is also a story about friendship, devotion, and love of all kinds. As with Green Angel, my only complaint is that the story is over too soon. More like a novella or short story than a novel,  (how it’s promoted), it’s 84 pages in paperback.

Back to the magic – one of the main characters, Martha Glimmer, is more an ordinary girl, but who was touched by a certain magic in her mother. Her mother has recently passed away, leaving Martha feeling unsure, adrift and missing the spark in her life that was her mom. The two other main characters, Trevor and Eli McGill, nicknamed Trout and Eel for fine webbing between their fingers and toes, long to see the ocean. All three, stuck in a dry, dusty town which has all but banished water due to destructive floods in the past, yearn for something beyond what they know.

Fiercely devoted friends in search of dreams, they set out on a journey. Magic is revealed in more ways than one as Martha, Trout and Eel discover their truths, reclaim their pasts and find richer futures. It’s a lot to accomplish in 84 pages, and I love how Alice Hoffman does it. For a fast but rewarding read, Indigo is a great way to go.

p.s. I feel like I’m cheating on Andrew Weil, the book I’m currently reading, but I hit the Hunterdon County Library’s big annual book sale this past Sunday, made out like a bandit, and couldn’t resist this fast read.

Writing A Synopsis

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

backporchIf you think I am going to be personally giving you tips here on writing  a synopsis, well, hate to disappoint. But I am going to provide a couple links to a site with a particular article that I found quite enlightening.

To date, the stories I have submitted to editors and agents at the NJ SCBWI conferences and workshops have been picture books, as I wish to, (ideally anyway), both write and illustrate. However, one of my PB stories was looked at by an editor awhile back and her comment was that there was too much backstory for a PB, and she felt I would do much better with it as a chapter book. This, of course, sent me into researching what chapter books were all about, reading a bunch, and re-working this particular story. Chapter books also have lots of illustration opportunity, so this is still a good thing.

I am submitting this for the June Conference at NJ SCBWI. If you’re anywhere in the area and able to attend, do go and learn more about this wonderful opportunity to meet editors and agents, and learn a bundle about this field. I am very pleased to be meeting with an editor that had critiqued this story at a first-page session last year, and had some good things to say. Now I shall find out if I’ve gotten 15 pages of it right. 

What needs to accompany these 15 pages is a synopsis, something I’ve not had to be concerned about with a picture book. So after asking fellow writers, reading up on the subject and searching the web for the best way to write a synopsis, I came across a two part article on the blog of Rachelle Gardner, a literary agent for Wordserve Literary. The article is written by one of her clients, Gordon Carroll, who does something no one else has done — he shows us how to write a synopsis on a story we all know, Bambi. Excellent idea.

Carroll’s using a well-known tale in developing the stages of the synopsis has made it so much easier to approach this new challenge. I’m actually now looking forward to it!  Here are Writing A Synopsis, Part 1 and Writing A Synopsis, Part 2.  Hope it may be of help to you.

As for that photo? Where I hope I’ll be doing some of my writing tomorrow … on my back porch!

The Book Thief

/ still a dreamer

thebookthiefHere are two things that are connected – I couldn’t fall asleep last night. I finished reading The Book Thief.  A book that keeps me up at night after I’m done reading, can often be said to be a good book. Or maybe a disturbing book. Or maybe a haunting book. I think it’s safe to say that The Book Thief is easily all three.

I bought this book in a local bookshop in Clinton in December while shopping for Christmas gifts. I’d wandered over to the YA section and was looking for something interesting. I’d already found a few things for others, a couple for me, and was talking with one of their very knowledgeable staff. He recommended The Book Thief to me, saying it was one of the most incredible books he’d read in a long time, and gave me some background. I bought it.

And there it sat. And sat. And sat. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to read a book set in Germany at the time of the rise of Hitler, no matter how well recommended. I started the book in March, just finished last night.

This is a difficult book to read. Zusak is a phenomenal writer; he has a brilliant way with words that you practically have to read to believe. His idea to have Death be the narrator, sometimes writing in first person and sometimes in third was an extraordinary, if not startling, concept. But it was slow reading. I wondered if it was because I was usually reading it at night; were the realities of the economy weighing on my mind, and so on. But in the end, I believe it is simply the subject matter. This was a horrific and shameful chapter in the history of humankind, and you cannot read The Book Thief without your heart being broken a hundred times. Or at least I couldn’t.

The story really does pick up in the last third of the book where the characters’ lives are all moving into more intense situations seeking some hopeful, but never hoped for, resolution. Each character, including Death, is extremely well drawn. Liesel, Rudy, Rosa, Hans, Max, Ilsa Hermann … are, if nothing else, real people in real relationships. But it seemed for me that it took a long time reading before they had become characters that I truly cared about, and I’m not sure why. It may be that the weight of Hitler’s Germany, woven well into the story line, drew me away from feeling more. Or perhaps I was afraid to feel more for them, knowing that Death was always nearby, ready to reach in and carry their souls away. And as he says, it was a very busy time for him.

So while a story dealing with pain and persecution, it is, however, still a story about love, friendship, loyalty, forgiveness, triumph over adversity, hope, and compassion. Markus Zusak is an amazing writer, and he has woven his story and characters together well, even if there is tremendous loss throughout the book. I do recommend The Book Thief … but to whoever reads it, be prepared for being drawn in to the tragic misfortunes of others in a frightening period of history, even while it is oftentimes no more than a backdrop to everyday lives and commonplace circumstances.

What I’m wondering as I write … not even 12 hours from finishing this book … is do I want to pick it up and read it again. And I’m not sure what to make of that.