Dogsong – Gary Paulsen

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

Dogsong-GPaulsen2There are times when I’ve finished a book, that I don’t quite know where to put it. In my head, that is. The book is so different from anything I’ve read, that it seems to be searching for a place to settle in my mental bookshelf, and meanwhile, it seems to hover in space.

Dogsong by Gary Paulsen is one of those books. It might be best defined  as a coming-of-age story where a 14 year old Inuit boy, Russell, restless in his own life, searches to find himself. In so doing he moves in with an elder where he is taught how to hunt, run the dogs and survive. And then he lives it, gradually becoming one with his dogs. This is an oversimplification and doesn’t do justice to the nuances in the story, so let me just say it was a very compelling read.

Perhaps why it hasn’t settled in yet is that it is a vignette of a life so totally different from my own or even what I could imagine an Eskimo tribe’s life in Alaska might be, that there is not a real frame of reference for it in my head. And yet, I could not help but be in the trance with Russell, in the dream, to merge with the spirits of the dogs, as he trekked blindly in the snow for days, never seeing a single soul or a source of food.

I read up on Gary Paulsen the author of Dogsong plus a good bunch of other MG and YA novels he has written. I suspect these have the greatest appeal to boys, but maybe not. Paulsen ran away from home at 14, and his life – he is now around 70 – has been a series of amazing adventures in all kinds of situations and locations. Among his experiences has been living in Alaska where he has run the Iditarod twice. And while I am no fan of the Iditarod because of the suffering of too many of the dogs, Paulsen has truly lived that life in Alaska so as to have written this book from a deeply authentic perspective. I have to truly admire Paulsen for how he has lived his life; he’s humble, adventurous beyond what I could imagine, and just … well … very real.

Reading about him explained a lot about the book in a way; my personal connection with dogs/animals deepened the meaning; my willingness to try “living” in such a different culture helped. Soon Dogsong will find a place and settle in.

Perusing my bookshelves once again led me to one of my many finds at the annual county library sale and to as different a book from Dogsong as I could get – one by Candace Bushnell of  Sex and the City fame. I loved the series, never read the book, but figured how far wrong could I go? We’ll see …

Can Children’s Books Reduce Hate?

/ still a dreamer / 8 Comments

JohnGrishamI got a letter from John Grisham yesterday.

At least that’s what the envelope said. I found it to be an appeal on behalf of a person and an organization that I’ve heard of, but knew little about – Morris Dees, an Alabama lawyer and friend of Grisham’s, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.  It is the mission of Dees and the SPLC to put hate organizations out of business and to teach tolerance.

I read the enclosed piece and was literally horrified at the abuses, savage beatings, murders and more that still go in in this country perpetrated by any number of hate groups upon innocent individuals of some minority status or other. I was beyond horrified; I was deeply saddened. (And mind you, I am not writing this to drum up donations for the Southern Poverty Law Center, but if you want to know what’s going on in this regard, you may want to visit the SPLC web site and find out for yourself – it’s very disturbing.)

What struck me were two things … I hear so many people talking about those in the world who hate and would destroy our country. I wondered, are people aware of how much hatred is alive and well, right here, within our own borders? Do they know that people are still being abducted, beaten, and hung? AND if that weren’t enough, that it’s often being done in the name of the abuser’s God? How have we become a nation with so much hate?

So … as an aspiring children’s book author and illustrator … the second thing I wondered was, what is being read to the young children of those people whose mission in life is to commit violence against people of a color, nationality or religion different than their own? What happened to love? To hope? To tolerance? Compassion? Do these people’s children read the same books as other children do?

Children’s book writers aspire to show a child a world of wonder, fun, sharing, understanding, friendship and caring. Can a mother whose husband goes out to senselessly beat a 16 year old boy into permanent physical and mental damage be reading to her child about caring for others? I am utterly confused and lost.

So I wonder, when a child is raised believing that hate towards others is an acceptable emotion, can a mere book, albeit written from our hearts and souls, have the power to change a young mind?

Where the Wild Things Are

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

Last week in the movies I saw the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are and was all but jumping up and down in my seat – can I wait!!! I came across it again today while online, and for those who have not seen it – I just had to share.

WhereTheWildThingsAreI’m assuming everyone has read this classic children’s book by Maurice Sendak, but if you haven’t seen the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are, check it out here on YouTube. The trailer alone is fabulous. The adaptation from book to movie is by Spike Jonze and from what I read, Sendak is very happy with it and feels Jonze’s interpretation enriches his story. Can’t beat Maurice Sendak’s blessing! The great song in the trailer is “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire and is perfect for the visuals. The movie is due out in October and will appear in iMax theaters as well.

Check out the Where the Wild Things Are Trailer – you’ll definitely have something to look forward to in October!

Freshness Expert

/ still a dreamer

FreshnessExpertwOne of the things that is so endearing about our pets is how they come up with these little quirky behaviors on their own.

One of my cats is the official, self-appointed Freshness Expert (and yes, that is with a capital F and E.) Just ask her.

Whenever I open a new bag of their food and am about to pour it into their little storage tin, Mewsette appears in a flash from anywhere. It’s her job to check the food, sample a few pieces, and assure the rest of us that it’s safe for consumption and, indeed, as fresh as the package dating promises. That done, she leaves the room and returns to whatever she was doing before.

FreshnessExpert2w“My work is done here!” she affirms.

Recently, she discovered that I had something 3-dimensional in my glass of water, although adding ice is hardly something I just started 2 weeks ago. She insisted on getting her little muzzle in there, (so yes, that was the end of that glass of ice water for me), and couldn’t get enough. Now when I give her fresh water after dinner, I add an ice cube to her bowl. Unlike the other two, who’d be playing ice cube hockey all over the kitchen floor in minutes, Mewsette does not want to play with it. She delicately laps the water keeping her tongue on the ice cube as much as possible. Ahhhhhhhh – refreshing!

So she has now expanded her credits to both Freshness Expert AND Ice Cube Connoisseur.

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.