The First Signs of Christmas

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

December begins and my house is seeing the first signs of Christmas. Take a look – see it?

Not my desktop – that Christmas mug over on the right. See? Yeah, that’s it.

Each year in my house as the Christmas season begins there are two small items that lead the way … my red Christmas mugs from Germany, (bought so many years ago when I lived in the city that I can’t even remember where I got them),  and my wonderful dollar store Christmas plates. They’re the first hints that soon the holiday placemats will sit under meals, festive touches will soon start appearing all over the house and that soon … there will be lights and pine  boughs gracing the front porch.

I think a little tradition is good nowadays. How about you? Do you have something special at your house that whispers about the magic of Christmas or the holidays?

Patricia Reilly Giff – Pictures of Hollis Woods and Lily’s Crossing

/ still a dreamer

Here are two books for middle grade readers by the same author, Patricia Reilly Giff, and both winners of the Newbery Honor Award. I think, in addition to their both being very strong pieces of work, they demonstrate how an author has grown in even a few years.

I first read Pictures of Hollis Woods a few months ago as part of a list I’d made to learn more about writing for middle grade by reading Newbery winners. This book is the strongest, most memorable, and deeply touching of any I have read to date. Hollis is an artistic 12 year old girl who was abandoned at birth, and who has been in several different foster homes ever since, ultimately running away from them all. In the present, she is placed with Josie, a retired art teacher and artist who is slowly losing her memory. Hollis develops a real fondness for Josie, and does her best to not let the foster system know that Josie is becoming incapable of caring for her.

Interspersed with chapters of the present, are chapters describing pictures that Hollis has drawn of a situation in the past, where a foster home wanted to adopt her … a home where she was truly happy. However, something terrible happened and she ran again. Giff has artfully balanced Hollis’ present day circumstances with the pictures she’s drawn telling the story of what happened in the home where she wanted to stay. The two juxtapose until they are woven together into the present. The two story lines become one, building to a great climax. I am amazed at how skillfully Giff has done this. I am deeply touched by Hollis’ character; she is so sympathetic, that it never matters a moment that she “is trouble” or can be flip or fresh. I only cared to see what had happened at that special home and how it would turn out. Talk about a book I couldn’t put down! What a wonderful story and group of characters, and what an inspiration, I would imagine, for Giff’s middle grade readers.

I just finished reading Lily’s Crossing, written 5 years earlier. It’s a very different story, and without the alternating of present with past. Again, the story takes place in Queens, (which, having lived in NYC for quite some time, I always enjoy), in 1944 at the time of the Normandy Invasion. Lily’s Crossing brings with it a much deeper glimpse into a period in time than Hollis Woods, and for that I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, and it may not be fair to compare, Lily’s character, while very likable, isn’t as deeply sympathetic for me as that of Hollis.

Lily is cared for by her father, Poppy, and Gram, his mother. Her mother passed away when she was much younger. When school is out they go to Gram’s house in the Rockaways, where Lily meets Albert, a refugee from Hungary. He has escaped the Nazis, but lost his parents and left behind a sister, from whom he was separated, in France. As Lily and Gram prepare to go to Rockaway, Poppy is called into the service and ships out to France to fight the war. Lily is a funny, somewhat flawed but appealing character, who happens to tell lies quite often, one to her new friend Albert that later endangers his life. But for me, the dramatic tension could have been so much stronger. Still, the characters were all well drawn, the 1944 backdrop always of interest, and the ending very satisfying.

What was missing? I think I was spoiled by the strength of Pictures of Hollis Woods! These stories were written 5 years apart, and really are both ones to read. But it also showed me the growth of an insightful author who clearly cares about her characters and their growth over the course of a novel. I like it when I really care about a character and what happens to her. Patricia Reilly Giff earned those Newbery awards for a very good reason.

NJ SCBWI First Page Session

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

In our, (and I speak for all my fellow aspiring children’s book writers), desire to be published, or to expand our horizons in terms of who we know or wish to meet, there are plenty of things we can do. One of the best is joining the SCBWI. I belong to the NJ SCBWI, which is a phenomenal chapter.

The NJ Chapter, headed up by Kathy Temean, Regional Advisor, has more exciting events on an ongoing basis than any chapter I’m aware of. This weekend, there is an Illustrator’s Intensive, a Picture Book Intensive and a Novel Writer’s Intensive, all conducted by luminaries in their field, E.B. Lewis, Sudipta Bardhan,  and Agent Scott Triemel. However, I’m writing about one of the smaller of the SCBWI events, a First Page Session.

I attended one of these in Princeton, our Chapter’s usual hosting location, this past Wednesday. We were 22 attendees with two editors – Shauna Fay from G.P. Putnam and Lindsay Winget from Atheneum. For those of you not familiar with First Page Sessions, you submit your manuscript anonymously and properly formatted to fill one page, indicating only your title and genre. Each first page is read aloud and the editors spend their time critiquing it.

While this is not as in-depth as a one-on-one critique received at a mentoring workshop or other event, the input by two editors/agents on just one page can provide great information as to whether your story has a good hook, a good title, appropriate language for the targeted audience, good rhyme scheme, an original theme and so on. Ms. Fay and Winget did a great job of enlightening us to the strengths and weaknesses of our submissions. (One of them even got a little choked up when mine was read, and I am so flattered!) Most definitely worth the very modest price  – for SCBWI members – of only $25. For an additional $25, for members only, you can stay for a delicious dinner and sit and chat with the editors. Another advantage for all attendees is that you may submit a MS to these editors for a limited time period and they will look at your submission as a priority vs. being sent to the bottom of the slush pile.

The humble First Page Session is not only a means of getting a lot of information about your work-in-progress, but also a connection with two editors/agents .. and, if a member, a really good dinner for what today is a pittance. Not an SCBWI member? Check out the NJ SCBWI page for upcoming events and other goings-on – if it looks good to you, click on the kite link up top and join the SCBWI!

Just an Old Folkie at Heart

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

FolkGuitarSometimes in the middle of the work, sometimes in the middle of the stress and nonsense, something just keeps shining through. And for me, that is music. Does music do it for you, too?

I love many forms of music, and certainly have several favorites, but what always feels as comfortable as a pair of old shoes, a cozy easy chair, is acoustic folk. No doubt growing up in the 60’s and 70’s in the whole folk scene has a lot to do with it, but what could be better while working to suddenly hear Jesse Colin Young, Bob Dylan, James Taylor? The sweet voices of Sarah McLaughlin, Lucinda Williams, Bonnie Raitt? Acoustic guitar music and folk span decades – it just never gets tired.

And the best of all … it comes streaming through my computer in iTunes. How wonderful is it to have access to hundreds and hundreds of radio stations playing whatever music you feel like hearing on any particular day? Just the best. Thank you, Apple! (and yes, I am on a Mac.) The folk stations that serve up the best, if you folkies out there are reading and are unaware of this gem on your computer, are Radioio Acoustic Cafe, Folk Alley, Grassy Hill Radio and GotRadio-Folk Lore.

Sometimes it’s the seemingly small joys in life that become the rich tapestry backdrops to the rest of our lives … when is there not music?