Category Archives: Reading

Two Recommended Picture Books

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First, A Splendid Friend, Indeed by Suzanne Bloom.

As a mother who likes to read and write and think (the beleaguered polar bear’s interrupted activities), this book is wonderful means of conveying both my frustration at being interrupted and the value still attached to my relationship with the interrupter.

I found it a couple years ago, but it was just this year that I saw its perfectness for our house and bought it for Elisha’s 3rd birthday.  The goose is oblivious to the polar bear’s expressions of frustration, but my girls have noticed them and we are able to talk about things like polite interrupting and interpreting body language.

Second is the potentially-disturbing Heckedy Peg by Audrey Wood.

This was the answer for my (mentioned) desire for a wicked-witch story.

Hansel and Gretel will eventually be one, but I want to wait on that, being very careful about the stories I introduce to my children (and their timing).

For any newbies (or for a refresher) here is the progression I’m trying to use when teaching my children about evil:

  • Saint George and the Dragon: Evil exists and brave people must fight it.
  • Heckety Peg: Evil exists in human form, and can effect children
    • disobedience makes us more vulnerable
  • Hansel and Gretel: Evil exists in human form and sometimes children must deal with it.

This last step is something I’m waiting another two or three years for.  In the meantime, Heckedy Peg emphasizes some good things.

  • Hard work is both necessary, natural (rare in any children’s books) and rewarded
  • Disobedience is dangerous
  • Mother protects her children– both with warnings and action
    • In the end the rescue is effected by how well the mother knows the individualities of her brood (of seven!)
  • Mother won’t give up fighting for her children

For this stage the power and action of the mother is the most important. Most picture books and stories emphasize the autonomy and discoveries of the child(ren), but in this case the goal is not to put the onus on the child to do the saving.

It is utterly appropriate for children to depend on their mother for saving, and that natural expectation is fulfilled, reinforcing the security of the children snuggled in and listening.

Thinking in these terms now I see this is what I saw in Wiley and the Hairy Man, which I would place between Heckedy Peg and H&G in my progression: Wiley has to deal with the Hairy Man himself, but he also has the advice of his far-sighted mother to guide him and herself to (later) protect him.

No clever conclusion here, just the observation that these two books have been very useful beyond simply entertaining my kids.  It’s books like these that I love to discover.

Round Two Tomorrow

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So the silence is not deceptive I will say it: I have not been writing or reading.

I have been tending to real life: Primarily, learning a new way of cooking and eating, secondarily managing my household and planning for school come fall.

I have started a few books, but not continued them because that instinct to stay only with what will delight me (also known as what I wish to be like) has made it easy to let them go uncompleted.  I do have a queue now, waiting for my attention, for various reasons (though any of these could be thrown aside for reasons as fickle the most recent).

In The Ill-Formed Mute I encountered what I’ve only heard of to this point: a fantasy assuming an adult audience, and stretching that audience for all their brains and patience are worth.

The story was all about setting (which, for my just-get-to-the-story self required discipline to stick with as long as I did), and set-up.  I could see the purpose of all of it, but it was far too distracting to actually get lost in the story.  I’d start to lose myself, then the author would use a $25 word that reminded me I was reading.

She did have deliciously original similes though, and some original ideas that the flap-copy somewhat ruined the suspense of (such is life for us long-story tellers).

Anyway, tomorrow Jay’s giving me the day to write again– splitting the kids’ day with a family friend. I’ve done one scene since last time when I got through a quarter of the novel in the *Whole. Day.*

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The Seer and the Sword– book review

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New book review up.

Now I’ve loved two of this lady’s 3 novels, so I ought to read the third, but its premise (a priestess-in-training at a polytheistic temple) sort of creeps me a bit.  Not in a horror movie way, but in a The Lightning Thief way.

I have no doubt it will be well done, but I’m not sure I want to spend time with it.  Become invested in a world with an orange sky (as I used to say about the Anne MacCaffery books, where sex was as necessary and significant as drinking water.  Yeah.  I couldn’t finish the book).

Just got my second book in The Darkest Age today, and the opening scene is troubling enough I don’t know if I’ll review it or not.  So far I’m still planning on finishing the book, though.

“O Love That Will Not Let Me Go…”

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There is a song I’ve always loved called “Rise up O Men of God.”  Any readers here familiar with this?

Rise up O men of God

Have done with lesser things.

Give heart and soul and mind and strength

To serve the King of Kings.

I hear it in my head song by a men’s chorus, and nearly gives me goosebumps.

Actually, there is a line that always makes me shiver (even just sitting here thinking of it), and because of that reaction I’ve always wanted to find a moment I could write with that same emotional intensity.

And tonight I finished a book that did what I want to do (Impossible.  Definitely a 16+ book).  It’s in the last two lines of the following verse.

Rise up O men of God

The Church for you doth wait.

Her strength unequal to the task

Rise up and make her great.

In so many stories what moves me is not the triumphant victory, the hero conquering against all odds.  It is the moment the hero/ine realizes he or she is inadequate alone, and then doesn’t have to do it alone.

While I was writing my second or third Lindorm draft, I came across a blog that was quoting from the book Pain and Pretending.  This summed so well for me the other half of my heart, and you can see now (if you couldn’t before) why relationship and respect are such major elements of what I value in any story.

…I don’t think the deepest hunger of the human heart is to have love for one’s self. Rather, it is to be loved. My goal is not to sit in a room or on a hillside and tell myself how much I love myself. My goal is to mean something to the people who mean the most to me. My hunger is to have somebody big and powerful and important in my life say, “I love you,” and then I will have the confidence that I am loved.

The not-being-alone, the being helped is that confidence.  I think that may be why I hang so continually on the word provision. I make lists of things sometimes (I need to do it more often), that show how perfectly God is helping me.  Or I marvel at the precisely suited way He allows me to help someone else.

And my heart *rankles* at the imposed story lines that would refuse that to anyone, or pretend commitment isn’t an essential part of security and happiness.

(I’ll name names if you don’t know what I’m referring to and actually care.)

God makes Himself known to any who have eyes to see, and I love seeing the reflection of his love in stories of selflessness and (even) stubbornness.

O Love that will not let me go…

Just. Start.

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I’ve figured something out.

I’m actually scared of starting new books.  In fact, I am amazed when I look back over all the books I’ve already read this year— because it is so hard for me to sit down and start something.

I will not tell you how many books I have *bought* this year.

And no matter what you might say, I think there’s actually a reason I’m scared.  Not quite complementary, but real:  Reading a new book requires surrender.

I am surrendering my time, my mind and frequently my emotions to a person I have never met, and someone whose motives and world-view are (so far) unknown to me.

Just now I am amazed by how hard it is to pick up the sequel of a book I actually enjoyed (I have unread books of at least three authors I’ve liked, and I still haven’t been able to surrender to finishing any of them. )  I’m leaning more toward starting another series, just to check it out, rather than continue investing in a story world.

I wonder if I’m really just afraid it won’t be as good as what I’ve had before and I will feel like I’ve been foolish and wasted my time.

I’m still working on words for the difference between owning a book, and merely picking it up from the library.  There are books I’ve been able to hold my breath and dive into only (I think) because they’ve been sitting on my shelf long enough to become somewhat familiar.  Sometimes from appearance, sometimes from a half-dozen pick-up-and-flips (I am a total spoiler-seeker; I think it’s connected to my suspicious nature when dealing with strangers).

~

In some crazy way this seems to make them less-threatening, and when I take the plunge I feel more secure.

All these are books I didn’t even crack within a month of buying, but all are books I am very glad to have read.

As I look back over my shelves I am reminded why I picked each of these books, and another reason for my hesitation becomes clear: I want to give them more than I have right now to give.

I expect twists on old tales to make me think, and I want to have enough brain to give them, and just now I wonder if that is possible.  But that question will never go away, so the end is where I began: just. start.

If God can use leprosy, he can use even a book I don’t like or don’t understand to advance my education.  I do my best to avoid them, of course, but he can redeem the uncomfortable too.

He’s just that good.

Laughing at Myself

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I used to be embarrassed when my writing pleased me (toe-curling, laugh-out-loud delight seems rather presumptuous– sort of like describing your children’s wonderfulness).

“Isn’t it amazing,” my mom gushed last summer, “We have only beautiful and brilliant people in this family.”

My dad placidly observed, “I’m sure the warthog says the same thing.”

Today I fixed something in Linnea’s Journey, re-read it and laughed aloud, clapping my hands.  At once I cringed, even in the privacy of my writing nook.  Then I remembered something my one editor-encounter left me with: “Your writing should move you.  If it doesn’t excite or entertain you who are this close, how can you expect it to move anyone else?”

So I enjoyed the feeling.

Here’s something from my story that made me laugh (possibly in an inside-joke way), though not the passage I described above– that was a chunk that makes no sense out of context.  This one has at least a chance.

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Thoughts While Waiting on Critiques

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A couple times during college I asked different friends, “What’s wrong with me?”

On some level I think I wanted to be sure I was “working on” the stuff that actually bugged people, but at my core I know I wanted to hear, “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

I never heard that.

Instead I got a very cautious, respectful, (in one case delighted) listing of all my known flaws.  They hurt to have so plainly enumerated, but I was thankful at least not to hear anything new.

This is how I feel about sending off my manuscript with directions to tell me everything that was wrong.  I was contemplating how differently (more critically) people are reading this than the average book off the shelf, when my SIL nailed the reason.

“You *asked* them to notice what’s wrong.  When I’m asked that I’m going to be reading differently.”

So, in a last-minute effort to salvage my feelings, I do want to announce that I forgot to put on critique directions that I am *also* interested in anything nice you want to say about what you read.

I want the story to be as good as it can be, so yes, I want to hear ideas about improving; but I’d greatly enjoy hearing indications it was more enjoyable than painful to read, and knowing any particular moments that were favorites or helped form a positive impression of the work.

There.  I hope that’s not interpreted as groveling for compliments.

A Wrinkle in Time book review

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I put it up on the Teen Lit Review site.

Let’s just say I’m glad I bought it used.

I wasn’t massively disturbed by it this time (as I was as child), but overall it seemed to me a very experimental book, and not one that was very useful to me.

Yes, I’m that mercenary now. If a story doesn’t sweep me off my feet or model amazing *something* I’m on to the next pretty quick.  More thoughts on the book are on my 2009 books page if you’re curious about that sort of thing.