Writing

Alice Hoffman – Local Girls

/ still a dreamer

LocalGirls-AliceHoffmanOne 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!

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

GirlReadingWhat 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)

  • The Underneath – Kathi Appelt
  • Savvy – Ingrid Law
  • The Graveyard Book– Neil Gaiman
  • Star Girl and Eggs – Jerry Spinelli
  • Crispin – Cross of Lead – Avi
  • Holes – Louis Sacher (saw the movie, never read the book)
  • Higher Power of Lucky – Susan Patron
  • Invention of Hugo Cabret – Brian Selznick

That should keep me busy! Do you have any really great MG suggestions?

MG books that I’ve read recently, enjoyed, and recommend are:

Local library – here I come!

Outfoxing Your Reluctant Artist – 2

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

Kerry Blue ProfileStalled? Change your venue!

I prefer the word stalled to blocked, because sooner or later we always get going, and blocked is so …. well, final. One of the things I have found to work when I am feeling stalled is so simple it sounds like the obvious – do what you’re doing someplace else. If you normally draw in your studio, but the space now seems as arid as the desert, take your sketchpad and your materials someplace else. Try the kitchen table, the back porch, the patio, the park, a favorite restaurant or someplace further away.

If it’s writing, and you, as many of us do, write at the computer, but it’s staring back at you with all the blank stare it can muster, shut it off. Grab a notebook and your old-fashioned pen or pencil and go elsewhere. If in the house isn’t far away enough, go further, maybe even for a drive or a subway ride to some other part of town. Sit in a gallery or the library; go eat someplace with fabu food. Hang out with your friend’s dog or cat. You get the idea.

When we have associated our art with a particular location, that very same location can seem the antipathy of inspiration when we have something really BIG to do or are looking at a looming deadline or want to get back to something we started a while ago. Perhaps you haven’t spent time in your creative space recently. So jump start your project somewhere else and you may just find your self rolling along in no time. Works for me; hopefully, for you, too.

How Many Story Elements Are Too Many?

/ still a dreamer / 8 Comments

How many sub-plots are too many? When are there too many POV’s? Too many characters?

HangmansDaughterExample  – A suspense/mystery novel I just finished by an author new to me, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter by Sharyn McCrumb, brought these questions up – and had me thinking about their relevance in children’s books.  Particularly as we write stories of greater length, they are important points to consider, but they can be equally important in picture books.

In novels, I enjoy those which utilize more than one POV. What comes to mind is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, an excellent book. Each chapter is written, on an unevenly rotating basis, from one of the family member’s POV as they all try and come to grips with the harrowing situation to which their husband and father has brought them.  Each writer’s POV is unique, yet always moves the overall story forward, while masterfully intertwining the relationships of each family member.

In contrast, while it is a good read in many ways, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter has too many characters to keep track of and too many sub-plots going on, one of which seems irrelevant to the overall story. The POV remained omniscient throughout and was clear, but I found myself wondering why certain characters and their seemingly separate story were included.

These same points need to be considered when writing children’s books. I notice in my own writing, I tend towards more than one POV. This is fine if a) done well and b) if it’s suitable for the reader of  that particular story. I’ve been reworking one of my picture books, in which, while I find two POV’s working for me, they will not work for the age child who reads a picture book. 4-7 year olds are not yet that sophisticated in their comprehension skills and will be confused.

Keeping our chosen genre(s) and their audiences in mind is critical to a story’s success. We can observe in anything we read what is working and what is not, especially the books we absolutely love, and how that applies in our own writing. Does the story have more than one POV? Should it? Are there too many characters for our intended audience to remember? If there is a sub-plot, is it so relevant that the reader will find it totally compelling? Or might it become confusing?

I think what we all strive for is writing the book that our reader cannot put down. And to that end, everything we read can enlighten our own writing.

Chapter Books and The Magic Tree House Series

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

MPOsborne-ChristmasCamelotWChapter books are the next step as a child grows beyond picture books. Whereas picture books are largely illustration, chapter books are largely prose, but which still include illustration, generally in black and white. Written for the age 7-10 crowd, they feature short chapters so the book can easily be put down and picked up again by the young reader. Chapter books include a fairly good amount of dialogue, short sentences, and vocabulary that is targeted for the reader who is growing in his reading skills.

Among the chapter books and series that have stood the test of time are the Cam Jansen Mysteries by David Adler; Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park; the Arthur Chapter Books by Steven Krensky; The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne, and quite a few more. A comprehensive list of current, popular chapter books has been compiled by the Salt Lake City Library Services, last updated April 2009.

MPOsborne-Haunted2I’ve currently been reading a series within The Magic Tree House Series subtitled A Merlin Mission. These books are excellent examples for writers of what is being sought in a good chapter book, but Mary Pope Osborne has added in this selection a special richness by introducing a famous myth. In The Magic Tree House Series, our main characters are brother and sister Jack and Annie of Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. They find a tree house in the woods filled with books, and that by pointing to a picture in a book, they can go there. In time they find the tree house belongs to Morgan Le Fay of Camelot, home to King Arthur.

In the Merlin Mission series, each adventure has Jack and Annie traveling back to Camelot to help King Arthur resolve a mystery or solve a problem. The first of this series is Christmas in Camelot, followed by Haunted Castle on Hallow’s Eve and Summer of the Sea Serpent.  What Mary Pope Osborne has brought to this series is an introduction of the myth of King MPOsborne-SummerSeaSerpent2Arthur and the Round Table for children ages 7-10, filled with the symbolism of cloaks, cauldrons, magical beings and more. She has provided detailed references in the back of the book for the elements she’s introduced.

With great black and white illustrations, these stories are perfect for the aspiring reader, but also for those of us who seek to learn what a good chapter book is all about. Osborne’s great dialogue and plot keep the mysteries moving along at a brisk pace, and enlightened this writer as to what also makes a chapter book timeless.