Ellen Booraem's Blog, page 10
March 5, 2011
Dr. Seuss in Our Little Town
March 2 is Dr. Seuss's birthday, in case you didn't know, and the National Education Association chose it years ago as the date for Read Across America, when community members visit schools to read aloud. In Brooklin, as in many other schools, it's also Pajama Day. (I sleep in a T-shirt--TMI alert--and don't own pajamas, so I contented myself with wearing a bathrobe over my clothes.)
As you will see in the photo below, music teacher Mike Schrader also is pajama-challenged. He solved the problem by wearing a plastic bag on his head. He and the second grade led the school in singing "Dr. Seuss, We Love You," to a devilish tune that stayed in my head all day and drove me NUTS. (IMPORTANT SANITY TIP: When that happens, go here.)
After the reading and the singing, a special guest appeared: none other than The Cat in the Hat, played by school staffer Cookie Mangels. She was the right choice for the job, never having met a kid or a dance move she doesn't love.
And then there was the cake, donated by Tradewinds Marketplace in Blue Hill. It was 8:30 a.m. so, wisely, no one cut into it. The kids would have it for dessert at lunchtime.
After the festivities, I went home and had a truly horrible writing day. Fortunately, true to the spirit of OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO, I then had a great day Thursday. Then a nothing day Friday and not much of a day today. So tomorrow will rock!
In other news: I signed up to do Skype author visits. I probably will die of fright the first time I do one. Very cool idea, though, especially for those of us who live miles from nowhere.
The knitting report: I seem to have hurt my arm skiing. I finally fell, in spectacular fashion, and had to thrash around in the snow for a while before I managed to stand up. Not sure when my right arm took a hit, but I decided I probably couldn't type AND knit. So, in a spirit of self-sacrifice and WANTING TO GET THIS FRIGGIN' DRAFT OVER AND DONE WITH, I've stopped knitting for a few days.
The writing report: Not even 50 pages left to go on this deeply ugly first draft of CONNOR'S BANSHEE, and suddenly a minor character from mid-story has returned and wormed his way into my heart. He has absolutely no function at this point in the story. He might be the "darling" referenced in the old saw, "kill your darlings." Or not. One way or another, this'll be blood-curdling.
March 1, 2011
March Book Review Club
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@Barrie Summy
March! Spring! Well, except for the two feet of snow/slush on the ground. (I just typed "snot" by mistake. Not sure that's far wrong.) Anyway, still woodstove weather, and what could be a better companion than an illustrated encyclopedia--short bites, suitable for a frost-bitten brain. And pictures!
Don't forget to click the icon above, which will whisk you away to more book reviews. Think spring!
Abbey Lubbers, Banshees & Boggarts: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Fairies
By Katharine Briggs
Illustrated by Yvonne Gilbert
Pantheon Books, New York, 1979
Katharine Briggs took her fairies seriously. She was a folklore scholar, with several Oxford degrees, and did not think fairy tales were strictly the province of children. The tales she liked were those handed down over generations by people who believed in them, as opposed to the ones "made up as a pretty fancy."
This book is a popularized, illustrated version of Briggs's AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FAIRIES, with more tales and fewer scholarly treatises. I guess it was intended for kids. Born in 1898, Briggs was 81 when it was published (she died a year later), and her foreword sometimes brushes against that patronizing tone writers used to adopt when addressing children. "I hope you will enjoy the book," the introduction concludes, "and perhaps become a folklorist, collect stories for yourself, and tell them to other people." (My second grade teacher talked like that.)
Once she moves into the body of the book, however, Briggs is all business and forgets she is supposed to be writing for the kiddies. Describing the horrible Peg Powler, who dragged children into the River Tees, she comments: "If Peg Powler was not invented by careful mothers you may be sure that they made her sound as terrifying as they could, for the Tees was a dangerous river."
Youthful readers have to be sturdy of psyche. Her tale of the Each Uisge, the Scottish water horse, ends with the livers of seven little girls washing up on the shore.
Briggs wrote scads of books, among them THE PERSONNEL OF FAIRYLAND and the four-volume DICTIONARY OF BRITISH FOLKTALES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. She's supremely comfortable with her material. She doesn't attempt linguistic fireworks—who needs to, when children's livers are washing ashore?—but she writes with an endearing, understated wryness. She tells the story, for example, of a young man who, when dancing with a Scandinavian elf-woman, notices that she is blessed with a tail. "But he did not betray her. He said, 'Pretty maid, you are losing your garter.' His tact was rewarded by good luck all his life."
Other elven women, we learn, "were beautiful from the front, but they were hollow behind, like a rotten tree. Because of this they never turned around in their dances."
Fun fact: Why are fairies allergic to iron? Because they're from the Stone Age. Duh.
The book is presented as a mini-encyclopedia, with entries alphabetized and cross-referenced. It's intended for browsing, though—no table of contents and no index. Yvonne Gilbert's illustrations are funny, lovely, or harrowing, depending on need. If I'd read this as a child I would have flipped quickly past the color plate of the Nuckelavee, a centaur-like Orkney sea-monster that is the stuff of nightmare.
I flip quickly past it now, come to think of it.
Winners and Bloggers
A librarian, of course.
And so it was that I descended earlier today on Friend Memorial Public Library, Brooklin, Maine, carrying a failed knitting project and nine slips of paper with names on them. And sure enough, Library Director Stephanie Atwater was ready and willing.
We put the slips of paper into the FKP. Stephanie went to work.
And the winner of signed copies of SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS and THE UNNAMEABLES is ... Anamaria! (Email me your address, Anamaria, and I'll ship them right out.)
In other news: SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS is having its own private party over at RT Book Reviews. I burbled out a guest post -- which has yet another book give-away detailed at the bottom -- and on top of that there's a lovely review.
Also Library Media Connection recommended SMALL PERSONS as "a fun, magical read."
The knitting report: Rob wore the socks I knitted out in public Saturday night, and they did not unravel. They didn't even itch, he said, although I don't think I can take credit for that. Despite my burning desire to knit myself another Portuguese fisherman's sweater, the task of finding the 20-year-old pattern (in the wasteland of abandoned craft projects that is our attic) was beyond me. So I'm knitting myself a pair of cotton socks, which was the original goal anyway. I started last night. The air was blue with cuss words. And yet I persevere.
I have to read Dr. Seuss's OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO to the Brooklin Elementary School tomorrow, which is all about perseverence. Maybe I'll talk about knitting. Or...maybe not.
February 25, 2011
Just to Look At
Well, I have several things to show you that for the moment are Just to Look At but soon will be To Read. In other words: BOOK COVERS, BABY, all of them announced this week or shortly before.
I am doing this today because I need something great to look at because it's snowing and it just turned to rain and sleet and at some point I will have to shovel 5 to 8 inches of wet concrete off the deck and after all that it might not even be skiable so I'll be relegated to the Evil Snowshoes That Dump Me Headfirst. Otherwise, the weather's fine, thanks, wish you were here.
First, here's the latest edition of Barrie Summy's "I So Don't..." series of teen novels (Barrie was a fellow 2k8er with her debut novel, I SO DON'T DO MYSTERIES.) This one comes out May 10.
Winner of the creep-tastic prize is the brand new cover for Gretchen McNeil's POSSESS, her debut novel. Gretchen is a fellow Enchanted Inkpot blogger, and also sings in a circus so she's well worth knowing. POSSESS, which is about a girl who can banish demons, comes out in August.
Elizabeth C. Bunce, another 2k8er AND another Inkie, is publishing her third book, for which I try not to hate her. LIAR'S MOON, Elizabeth's second fantasy about a pickpocket named Digger, comes out in November.
And Elliot's back! That would be Jennifer Nielsen's Elliot Penster, goblin fighter--now up against pixies. Jennifer's also an Inkie. This book comes out in May.
Well, I feel better. How about you?
February 23, 2011
Brandon. And stuff.
The town of Brooklin, population 900, turned out in droves Saturday for a public supper to benefit Brandon Higgins, a teenager with an inoperable brain tumor. (That's him at right, working in the Brooklin Youth Garden last summer.) At roughly $10 admission, the supper made around $6,000, or so they announced as things were winding down. I'm not saying all the 600 were from Brooklin, but still...pretty impressive. (A yard sale and auction swelled the proceeds to around $8,000, last I heard.)I love my little town. Even when it's covered with slush, as it will be a few weeks from now.
Brandon, by the way, just got back from California , having spent a long weekend out there with his family attending the NBA All Star game and attendant festivities. Yay, Make A Wish Foundation.
For more info, here's a story about him in The Ellsworth American.
That's how it goes sometimes: It never fails--just when you're writing with hands tied behind your back and a mouthful of dental appliances, A Fuse #8 Production goes and devotes a whole post to your measley little book. Did me the world of good. Betsy Bird is a goddess--or a librarian, which is essentially the same thing.
On the other hand, today I wrote a scene involving a large bowl of poisonous spiders. Could have used a dental appliance or two for that one. Euugh.
In other business: The Bangor Daily News reviewed SMALL PERSONS! Right here. And The Ellsworth American, on top of all its other lovely coverage, also posted a lovely review on its web site. I do love newspapers.
The knitting report: Mid-foot, nearing the toe. I have yarn for a pair of cotton socks, but I'm feeling slightly tempted by a cotton sweater. God help me. Rob, however, has grown deaf to swearing and has stopped asking, "What? What? What's wrong?" when I get wound up. So he'll probably survive a sweater nicely.
Don't forget there's a contest on. I didn't set a deadline, did I? Let's call it a week.
February 21, 2011
A Contest!
Mellie in SMALL PERSONS is obsessed with art history, which enables her to tiptoe close to creativity while keeping her imagination firmly under control. (She collects art trivia and likes to catalog it.)
Medford in THE UNNAMEABLES is obsessed with wood-carving--in a good way, but his obsession also is dangerous for him.
So what's your passion? Music? Manga? Horses? Antique bottle caps? Ant farms? Tell us about it in the comments--what you're passionate about and why. (Keep it clean, obviously!) One random commentor wins signed copies of SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS and the new paperback of THE UNNAMEABLES.
The knitting report: I am knitting my fourth sock, and I've had to rip out the heel twice. I seem to be getting worse at it rather than better. (How, I ask you , did I end up with FIVE extra stitches?) Poor Rob has to sit there and listen to me swear. This pair is supposed to be for him, and he's been tactfully trying to say that he isn't THAT short of socks. Too bad. He's getting these if it kills me.
February 18, 2011
I Wanna Be a Paperback Writer
THE UNNAMEABLES comes out in paperback March 21. I am now the proud possessor of a whole box of them. I feel a contest coming on.
In case you want a closer view:
The cover was designed by Regina Roff, and those who've read the book will know just by looking at it that she did, too. And very carefully. Thank you, Regina! I'm also grateful to Julia Richardson, editorial director for paperbacks at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for shepherding Medford and friends into their new home.
Bloggy goodness: Nice reviews for SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS at Educating Alice , Charlotte's Library and Flamingnet, where young adult books are reviewed by actual young adults. Thanks, all!
February 15, 2011
Valentines Forever
Rob and I observed our thirty-second Valentine's Day yesterday. Which made me think about how careful we should be about setting precedents.
On our first Valentine's Day in 1980, Rob gave me a teddy bear, for a variety of slushy sentimental reasons that will remain forever locked in our secret past. This was such a hit that he started giving me a stuffed animal every Valentine's Day, every year striving to find something new and different.
I now have thirty-one stuffed animals. (One, a bear named Fred, was sacrificed to a lonely new puppy, who grew old and went to meet his fathers a decade ago at least.) Number thirty-one is a walrus whose name has turned out to be Tuskany. "It's getting harder and harder to find new ones," Rob groused. And it's true...I have two moose, a mallard duck, a pig, a cow, and, last year, a porcupine. They all live together on a couch in our bedroom,which now serves no other function except when I toss my clothes on top of the animals, which I often do.
If this goes on, by the time we shuffle off the coil we'll have more stuffed animals than the toy store. Certainly we'll have more stuffed animals than brains. Poor Rob will be reduced to giving me a stuffed slug and/or mollusk.
And yet, we can't stop. I think we both feel that things have been going along just fine for the past three decades, and we fiddle with tradition at our peril.
I do keep trying to shake things up. At Christmas, I threatened to carry him off to Mexico to visit our friend Larry, but in the end I, too, gave in to the promise of snow and Merry Gentlemen and having the neighbors in for turkey.
Next year, maybe we'll make it to Mexico. But I suspect, twenty years from now, we'll be trying to find a spot for that fifty-second stuffed animal.
February 7, 2011
This and That and The Other Thing
The dog Callie hates this winter. Tough finding a place to answer The Call when you're up to your butt in snow. She ends up befouling the footpath, which is against her principles. (She's a very good dog.)
That: SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS got a lovely review in The Horn Book ... or will, when the March/April issue comes out. It says, in part: Readers will pull for Mellie to prevail—not only in her efforts to help the Parvi but also in her maturing relationships with herself (as she "grows into her grandeur"), her family, her new friend Timmo, and her peers.
On the blogosphere, Francesca Amandolia used the words "marvelously inventive" at YoungAdultBooksCentral , which Durindana and Co. appreciate deeply. Cori at the Phoenix Book Company calls Mellie "a great central character," and vancie917 at Not Another Book Blog says the book is "fantastic" and "everytime you think it can't get weirder, it does." (That's pretty much what I was striving for, so I'm swelling with pride. And my friend Alice's cupcakes, but that's another story.)
In general, not a bad haul, and very much appreciated.
The Other Thing: Rob and I went to the Stonington Opera House yesterday with our friends Alice and John (hence the cupcakes) to see "Dying City," Christopher Shinn's Pulitzer-finalist psychological about a troubled Iraq-war widow and her husband's equally troubled twin brother. The acting was wonderful and the play thought-provoking. We should all be flattered that the Opera House thinks we're up to this sort of thing in February... actually, I found it suited my mood. Yay Opera House!
February 1, 2011
February Book Review Club
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book review blogs
@Barrie Summy
Monster snowstorm happening here--hope I get this posted before the power goes out. (If the formattings a bit wonky, Blogger seems to be having issues today. Or maybe it's me.) Anyway, time to huddle by the fire and be thankful for indoor plumbing. Don't forget to click the link for great reviews--one of which is of SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS with a fun interview by Sarah Laurence!
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
By Bill Bryson
Doubleday, 2010
ISBN:978-0-7679-1938-8
Bill Bryson is the enemy of silent reading. I defy anyone to get through more than five pages of AT HOME: A SHORT HISTORY OF PRIVATE LIFE without feeling compelled to read some paragraph aloud to whoever else is in the room. For example:
∙ Country churches in England look like they're sinking, but really the graveyards are rising. A typical churchyard has accumulated some twenty thousand corpses, one buried on top of another.
∙ When Thomas Edison first wired a section of Manhattan in 1881-82, "horses behaved skittishly in the vicinity until it was realized that leaking electricity was making their horseshoes tingle."
∙ "Originally, the joists in English terraced houses ran from side to side and sat on the partition walls between houses. This essentially created a linear run of joists along a block, heightening the risk of fires spreading from house to house. So from the Georgian period, joists were run front to back in houses, turning the partition walls into firebreaks." Because the joists had to rest on interior walls, this determined the layout and uses of rooms in urban households for generations to come.
∙ In the 1700s, British colonial law and the realities of markets and transportation meant that Americans had to order manufactured goods from England even if the raw materials came from here. In 1757, George Washington's order included snuff, sponge toothbrushes, salt, raisins, almonds, mahogany chairs, tables, Cheshire cheese, marble, papier-mache, wallpaper, cider, candles, twenty loaves of sugar, and 250 panes of glass.
Bryson is the author of A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING, among many other books. He has a questing mind and must live for research, judging by the twenty pages of bibliography. Best of all, he has a puckish sense of humor and loves to tell straight-faced tales of eccentric aristocrats, misguided inventors, and eight hundred Thames daytrippers drowning in raw sewage in 1878.
The book's organizing principle is a tour of Bryson's home in England, a former rectory built in 1851, stopping at various points for a discussion of issues related to drawing room, scullery, or fuse box. The topics addressed in each chapter are wide-ranging: The chapter on the bedroom covers bedding types and syphilis, but also the evolution of medical care and attitudes toward death.
Every time I interrupted my Dear One with some new gem from the bowels of history, I found myself exclaiming: "Whatever made him decide to look THAT up?" The answer, I guess, is that the guy loves both to read and to entertain. His books do not give the impression of being planned, somehow—reading this one is not like listening to a well-reasoned discourse with a sweeping conclusion at the end. This is visiting your favorite sweater-clad scholar for afternoon tea, getting yourself invited to drinks and dinner, and staggering home delightedly at midnight.
Did you know the Aztecs made salt by evaporating their own urine?
A word of remembrance: Novelist Diana Norman, who also wrote as Ariana Franklin, died January 27. She wrote the MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH series of historical novels set in the time of Henry II—they were my entry in this review club a while back. They are marvelous, and I'm desolated that there won't be any more. I plan to get my hands on the ones she wrote under her own name and suggest you do the same. RIP, Ms. Norman.
