Support Your Local Authors

Well, now that I've had a bit of eggnog my holiday grumpiness is (almost) gone and I'm really excited because I just found the perfect gift for one of my favorite neighbors. It's The Christmas Dragon, written by Mary Ryan and illustrated by Susan Collette - a couple of talented and very nice Northeast Ohio residents. It's a chapter book for ages 7 - 10.

The Christmas Dragon came out too late for Amazon to pick it up in time for the holidays, but Mary is nice enough to handle sales until the giant e-store can. To snag a copy, contact dragonseedpress@aol.com, or catch Mary at a signing in Cleveland in the next couple of weeks. She'll be at The Learned Owl in Hudson, at Fireside in Chagrin Falls, and B&N in Mentor. The times and dates are listed at GoCityKids - and while you're there, you can search for other local author events or just use my keystrokes here.

Cheers!

Censorship Sucks, I Hate Shopping, and ...

Happy Thanksgiving. But seriously, I do hate shopping.

Regardless, I was thrilled to find this site, where book-lovers can buy buttons and stickers and even t-shirts that proclaim, "I read banned books."

Because a genuine ho-ho-happy holidays spirit never catches up with me until my Christmas shopping is done, I tend to rush through stores, online and off, before Halloween. This year, I'm behind schedule, and taking a different tack - one that, I hope, results in giving more gifts "made in the USA" than made in China. It ain't easy, but fortunately, I've found many books that are printed in the USA. Ditto for Post-it notes, and a lot of specialty paper items. Go figure. Or go write.

My favorite gift items this year are show tickets. I suspect the US exports more "entertainment" than anything else, so I feel like I'm supporting the home team with my purchases of DVDs, movie theater passes, and tickets to local and regional theater productions. Plus, it's nice to get out with the family to be entertained.

Heaven knows I could entertain myself for years with all the books on my shelves and at the library, but let's face it, once the kids hit a certain age, we just don't do a lot of reading to each other. Sigh.

Speaking of books for the read-to-me set, though, those certainly make great gifts. To make bookish gifts extra-special, I've enjoyed picking ones penned by local authors and getting autographed copies. Ohio authors you might be lucky to catch at area bookstores:

LeeAnn Blankenship, author of Mr. Tuggle's Troubles (Boyd's Mill Press, 2005)
Jeanine Garsee, author of Before, After, and Somebody in Between (Bloomsbury, 2007)
Annette Sheldon, author of Big Sister Now (Magination Press, 2006)
Joan Arbogast, author of Buildings in Disguise (Boyd's Mill Press, 2004)

If you've got favorite local authors, speak up!

Teen Lit Ain't So Bad

"Don't judge a book by its cover" may be my pick for the "old sayings that aren't worth a damn" hall of fame. Two examples I'd cite are 'old' titles Seventeenth Summer and Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, both sporting new covers that are fresh enough to pique the interest of today's tweens and teens. Of course, it's the story between the covers that holds their interest.

Lest I sound like I'm pining for the good old days (what? of the 1970s? please!) I have to ballyhoo a few teen titles I've enjoyed immensely this year.

Andrew Clements' Things Not Seen, Jerry Spinelli's The Library Card and Stargirl are on the list. Cynthia Lord's debut, Rules, is probably going to secure my favorite-book-of-the-year award. (That means it earns a permanent spot on my bookshelf. Not a spot with a lot of elbow room, I assure you, but a longtime resting spot, just the same.)

I've recently finished Joseph Bruchac's Darby Creek title The Way. I picked it up thinking it aimed at reluctant readers (judging by its cover, I'll admit) and I was right. Darby Creek, located in Central Ohio, is a press that focuses on books for reluctant readers, and The Way is a 2007 release that conforms to the style deemed appropriate: short (155 pages), with an action-packed plot and a likable, young narrator. In this case, the narrator is 15-year-old Cody LeBeau, who's been picked on in plenty of schools as his family has moved. Just as his family is falling apart, an uncle he didn't know he had appears to stay for awhile, and teach Cody some important techniques, and even more important philosophies, of martial arts. Cody uses them well - up to and including thwarting a planned act of terrible violence at his school.

It is a good story and it does keep up a nice, gotta-turn-to-the-next-page-pace, but - and I hate to cast stones at an author who has more than 100 books to his credit! - I felt Bruchac got way too didactic in several sections, particularly in the second half of the book. At those points, I didn't hear Cody's voice, I heard the author giving advice. Regardless, I'll keep it in mind for a few boys I know...

What do you like in Middle Grade or YA this year?

More Like Animal Dreams, Please

Barbara Kingsolver knows how to write. She describes people, places, things, and feelings in such a way - in only a few words - that they get under your skin, and you understand all you need to know about them. The language she uses isn't lengthy or flowery; it's overwhelmingly beautiful in its simple perfection.

While many writers can say a lot in a few words, what sets Kingsolver apart is how expertly she uses those few words to tell a story; even her descriptions move the action forward. Consider the expedient, but unrushed unfolding of Animal Dreams:

about the place, Grace, AZ: [p. 40]

people here spent their childhoods tearing through the homes of their future in-laws

about the shy doctor, the boyfriend left behind: [p. 41]

He could face new flesh wounds each day at work, but he avoided actual people.

about going home: [p.69]

My father, the only real candidate for center of my universe, was content to sail his private sea and leave me on my own. I still held that against him. I hadn't thought before about how self-sufficiency could turn on your in old age or sickness. The captain was going down with his ship. It became possible for me to go back to Grace.

The main character and narrator of Animal Dreams is Codi, a self-described educated vagabond. Codi returns to her childhood home to check on her father, who may or may not be dying. I'm afraid to review the plot further, for fear I'd make the book sound like "just" another can't-go-home-again story, and that would be ridiculous.

In fact, for the most part, Animal Dreams is about going home, and within its pages, Kingsolver (once again) proves that a good storyteller can make even the oldest stories worth hearing again.

Barbara Kingsolver, beyond the Bible

Poisonwood Bible may be Barbara Kingsolver's best selling title, but fortunately it's not the only book she's given us. I'm soaking up Animal Dreams now. At about a third of the way into one of her books, I try to slow down, to a slow-motion crawl. Her books are that good to me - her characters so dear, and the stories so real that even though I know they're just ink on paper, I also know the end (of the book) is coming and I'll be a bit depressed when I'm done with it (and them).

Sigh.

In this case, of course, once I've closed Animal Dreams I'll have plenty of other reading to do. I picked up Team of Rivals at the library, again.

Sigh.

Do You Wonder about Boys?

I wonder about boys. I've wondered about them about them just about as long as I can remember, as a matter of fact - and then I had one.

My son's nearly four now, and I'll admit up front, his gender absolutely is NOT the root of all of my parenting puzzlements.

In spite of the fact I just finished reading Michael Gurians's The Wonder of Boys, I'm no expert now. But I am a little um, do I dare say, wiser?

Like Gurian's The Wonder of Girls, Boys is written in easy-to-digest terms while the book presents plenty of data.

One of the reasons I like the book (and Gurian's style in general) is that Boys does NOT go down the "men-are-from-Mars" road. Instead, the author has skillfully selected a few choice phrases that are in the general vernacular while neither talking down to or over the heads of the "typical" reader. Smart guy, that Gurian.

Speaking of smart, Gurian spends practically no time discussing IQ test or how-to-handle-gifted-children, and does not head into any lengthy discussions of "lost" boys.

That said, I especially enjoyed Gurian's coverage of "The Way Boys Feel: Feelings and the Brain," where he describes eight common ways boys process their feelings and emotion. Yes, one of them is "going into the cave." Several of them seem quite closely related, I'll admit - the action-release method and the physical-expression method, for example - still, I nit pick.

As in The Wonder of Girls, Gurian again addresses most of his information to mothers. (Sorry, dads.) There is, I'm glad to report, no talk of the "artful" mother in Boys.

Overall, I'm glad I read the book, and I may pick it up to re-read in the future. While I do NOT feel the book is a handbook or reference to keep on my own shelf, Gurian's obvious knowledge and presentation style are a nice combination, and too rare, in my opinion, in the overcrowded parenting/pop psychology market.

Two thumbs up.

Why I Love Newspaper Book Sections

I've heard a lot about the eventual death of newspapers, enough to think the doom sayers will prove right. But not soon, I hope - I love newspapers. (Yes, the paper kind.) For a lot of reasons.

When I finished Laurie Notaro's there's a (slight) chance i might be going to hell,* I realized another reason why I love newspapers: it's the book reviews! I've never been steered wrong by one.

Generally, I read the reviews in the Plain Dealer, and the one on slight chance a few months ago was spot on. The reviewer said the book was sorta funny, sorta wacky, but not the year's best title, even by smarter-than-average chick lit standards. She was right. She also said the title's main character, Maye Roberts, was good company through all 302 pages - and she was right about that, too.

Maye Roberts happily accompanies her university-professor hubby when he moves from overheated Phoenix to lush and lovely Spaulding, Washington, only to find out it is possible for a town to be too green, and organic jelly donuts may in fact cause brain damage.

Maye, who is no wall flower, has a heck of a time finding a friend in town. Apparently, she's not old enough, vegan enough or hippie enough, and she has a tragicomic knack for turning little white lies into full-blown scenes worthy of the (Spaulding) nightly news.

The surefire way to make friends in Spaulding, Maye learns, is to enter the Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant. So she does.

The Miami Herald's review said Notaro "may be the funniest writer in this solar system," and while I seriously doubt it (and I think Herald guest columnist Dave Barry might disagree, too) she IS funny.

Sure, I could quibble about the too-neatly-wrapped-up-ending (no, she doesn't win the pageant) or the grammatical mishaps here and there (please, nobody look for mine!) but the fact is Maye proved fabulous company on a four-hour car trip. And for creating her, I believe Notaro earns a spot in reader's heaven.

*Powell's has it for $9.50 compared to Amazon's $11.16