Books We Love Blog Fest (and Hundred-Up Give-Away)

In honor of Valentine's Day, Rebecca Kiel, on Writing and Living, has created a blogfest that should shoot an arrow straight to the heart of the writer--and the reader--in us: The Books We Love Blogfest. Thanks, Rebecca, for the opportunity to showcase favorite books, although there are so many books on a reader's list that it's hard to choose! But  here are three top contenders...



Middle-Grade: Missing May, by Cynthia Rylant (1993 Newbery Award Winner). Summer is an orphan, shifted around from family member to family member until elderly couple May and Ob choose to take her home. From there it is a story of unconditional love, loss, grief, and hope as healing begins. Oh, and beautiful whirligigs. Touching, tear-filled, beautifully written. A keeper of a story.

Picture Book: Bear Snores On, by Karma Wilson. One of my favorites to read aloud to the little ones. Bear sleeps through the party in his very own lair, until a pepper flake in the stew causes him to WAKE UP. But when "Bear gnarls, and he snarls...roars and rumbles...jumps and stomps...growls and grumbles" it's because he's upset that he missed the party! Never fear, his friends come to the rescue and the party goes on...all through the night. I love the rhythm, the suspense, the surprises--all done so well in rhyme. This story sings.

YA: Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly. This story has stayed with me at several levels--historical fiction, which I love. Setting in 18th-century Paris, and the French Revolution, which I found fascinating. The adept handling of the contemporary character's story with that of the historical--how the two stories are woven together. The intrigue, mystery, adventure. The beautiful writing.




         

These are only a few of the many books I have enjoyed. And, speaking of enjoying, check out the other participants in the Books We Love Blogfest, and read about their favorites!

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Oh, and one more thing! I'm happy to announce the winners of my 100-Up Give-Away contest, having reached 100 followers. Drum-roll, please.....

Winner of The Cardturner, by Louis Sachar is... 

CO, Thoughts of a Young Aspiring Writer.

Winner of Savvy, by Ingrid Law is...

Peggy Harkins.

Winner of The Tension of Opposites, by Kristina McBride is...

Lauren F. Boyd, My Path to Publication

Congratulations, and thanks for participating! I'll be contacting you by e-mail to get your mailing addresses, and the books will soon be in the mail.

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Detour

Establishing goals is all right if you don't let them deprive you of interesting detours. --Doug Larson

Confession time. I didn't make my goal. You might remember the challenging stack of books I brought home from the library recently. Well, the results are in. 11 books = 7 read, 4 renewed. But it's okay. I took a bit of a detour when I added Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer to the pile.

I have no regrets, though. Otherwise, I may not have slowed down enough to catch some really memorable writing.

For example, in Chapter Two, Words, Prose says, "All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another." Here, in Avi's Poppy, the word "syrupy" makes all the difference: "Only thin ribbons of light seeped down through the green and milky air, air syrupy with the scent of pine, huckleberry, and juniper." It wouldn't be the same if "thick" had been substituted instead.

In Chapter Three, Sentences: "Read your work aloud...Chances are the sentence you can hardly pronounce without stumbling is a sentence that needs to be reworked to make it smoother." How about this from the prologue to Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting: "The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning." The cadence of this sentence, when read aloud, is delightful.

Chapter Four, Paragraphs: "In general...the paragraph could be understood as a sort of literary respiration... Inhale at the beginning of the paragraph, exhale at the end." Breathe this, from Alan Armstrong's Raleigh's Page: "The crossing was rough. It rained and sleeted on the Channel, the wind shrieking and snarling in the rigging like spirits. The ship creaked and groaned like she was dying. The trip was all staggering up steep hills of frothing waves and falling down the other side, only to begin the same again as waves dashed and slobbered them. They made nothing forwarad; it was all side to side."

Chapter Eight, Details: "If we want to write something memorable, we might want to pay attention to how and what we remember. The details are what stick with us." See if the following, from Karen Cushman's Alchemy and Meggy Swann, sticks with you like it did me: "The smiling and nodding Master Grimm was stuffed into a doublet so tight that Meggy thought his belly might burst forth and fire buttons like cannon-shot across the room."

I'm not finished with Prose's book yet. I still have Narration, Character, Dialogue, and Gesture to study. But that works out just about right. Four additional categories. Four more books. The detour's been worth it.

What words, sentences, paragraphs, or details have jumped out at you in your reading lately?

Characters and Story

As a child, I had dolls, my own little rocking chair--and books. And I loved my books. I'm told I thought I could "read" at two years old--except that, as I parroted the story, I held the book...upside down.

Later I'd happily skip off to school with a bit of money Mom gave me for the Scholastic book fair. And my grandmother contributed by way of a membership in a children's book-of-the-month club--some of which I still have. In the early teen years, friend Kathy and I frequented the town library and toted numerous books back and forth.

Some of my favorites when I was little? The Secret Garden, Heidi, Little Women. As I got older I loved Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, Catherine Marshall's Christy, and a title from my grandmother's shelf, The Edge of Time, by Loula Grace Erdman.

As I begin the journey into my next book, I'm anxious to get to know my main character. Who is she? What does she need/want? What conflicts will rise up to block her way? What's her story? I have a couple of ideas, but not enough yet.

And so I'm revisiting some of my favorite books and reacquainting myself with "old friends," seeking the threads as to why their stories have endured. I continue to read new titles, and explore their threads--to glean and grow and go forward.

What about you--who are some of your childhood book "friends," and why?

I've always sort of believed that these people inside me--these characters--know who they are and what they're about and what happens, and they need me to help get it down on paper because they don't type. --Anne Lamott