The Scarlet Stockings by Charlotte Kandel

The Scarlet Stockings--the Enchanted Riddle by Charlotte Kandel (Dutton Children's Books, 2007, ages 9-12)

Daphne has grown up in the Orphanage of St. Jude, in 1920s London. It's a fairly friendly orphanage, as far as these things go, but still a difficult place to keep alive a dream of one day being a ballet dancer. In her thirteenth year, she receives a mysterious parcel that gives her fresh hope--a book called How to Teach Yourself Ballet, a pair of magical scarlet stockings, and a mysterious riddle. Following the riddle takes her to a new family, who welcomes her with love, the chance to help out at their greengrocers stall and the fun of performing on the streets with other children. But this isn't enough for the ambitious Daphne, and, spurning her London friends and family, she pursues her ambitions to the Ballet Splendide, in Paris, where she will be tested by the magic of the scarlet stockings (shades of Anderson's fairy tale about the Red Shoes).

It's a good story, briskly told. There's a very Noel Streatfeild-ish** feel to the first part of the book--ambitious London child, struggling to find a way to dance--that I found very appealing, being an enthusiastic N.S. fan. As the plot takes Daphne away from the London family, it focuses more on her ambition, in which she is aided by the magic of the stockings. Caught up in her desire to reach the top, she gradually becomes a much less sympathetic, and more isolated, character (and my interest in her waned).

Finally she pays a steep price for reaching great heights in the ballet world,* and learns that fame is not all that is worthwhile. The action takes Daphne quickly from one setting to another; I would have appreciated a slower journey, with more time to get to know the supporting cast (or, to put it another way, I liked the sub-plots of orphan being adopted by loving family and children putting on shows so much that I wanted more of them!).

This book should be enjoyed greatly by girls who love stories about ballet and orphans, with a twist of magic. And the pink cover should add to its appeal to this audience....

*in case anyone is worried, Daphne does not, like Anderson's heroine, have to ask a woodcutter to chop her feet off. She is able to dance again.

** Noel Streatfeild is the author of Ballet Shoes, Theater Shoes, etc. The book of hers I was most reminded of, however, is Thursday's Child, about a Victorian orphan who ends up an actress.

(I received my copy of this book from the publisher)

Two snow poems by Robert Graves

It has been snowing today here in Rhode Island. The part of me that has to bring in firewood and drive places is dubious about the whole thing, but the gardener part is happy to see the bare soil covered, so as to better grow things next spring. (As, I think, Laura said to Almanzo, or vice versa, in The First Four Years, "Snow is poor man's fertilizer").

Here are two beautiful snow poems, by Robert Graves (early to mid 20th century, English, author of I, Claudius but primarily a poet in his own mind).

Like Snow

She, then, like snow in a dark night,
Fell secretly. And the world waked
With dazzling of the drowsy eye,
So that some muttered 'Too much light',
And drew the curtains close.
Like snow, warmer than fingers feared,
And to soil friendly;
Holding the histories of the night
In yet unmelted tracks.


She Tells Her Love

She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And put out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.

Poetry Friday is at Big A little a today!

Top 50 UK children's books

"Narnia Triumphs Over Potter" is the headline in an article in today's Telegraph (UK), that offers yet another list of the top 50 children's books (at least, I feel that I have read many such UK lists in the past year...maybe it's just me). In this case, the books were chosen by parents, so many of the top books are older--Enid Blyton's Famous Five series is in third place, for instance. I devoured these when I was young, and was very angry indeed at my mother for leaving our complete set behind in the Bahamas when we moved back to the states when I was 11--like many parents, she never liked Blyton, which perhaps added spice to my reading experience. The fairytales of Hans Christian Anderson are in 22nd place, much higher than where I would have put them. Any collection that includes a story about insects crawling over the frozen-open eyeballs of a little girl (The Girl Who Stepped on a Loaf) is not one that I crack open regularly to share with my children.

It was very interesting, however, to learn that since its publication in 1960, The Very Hungry Caterpillarar has sold about 1 copy a minute.

Book shelves like you've never seen them...

At the moment, I have enough room for my books. But someday my boys are (selfishly) going to want to keep their own things in their closets, so perhaps it will come to this:

Yes, this is a functional staircase. There are more pictures here. I wouldn't want to keep my better books in it, but I do have a lot of science fiction and paperback children's books that would be suitable...

What fictional boarding school would you like to go to?

There's an interesting little article in the Guardian today, that asks the question--"What fictional school would you like to go to?" I'm an inveterate reader of English girls' boarding school books, despite the fact that I would utterly loathe the vast majority of the schools-- so much organization of one's time, so little chance to creep off alone with a book, so many long organized walks, cold baths, and compulsory games. There's one book, in fact, (Lucy Brown's School Days, by Dorothy Vicary, 1951), whose plot revolves on the rehabilitation of Lucy from a book reading, chocolate-eating introvert to a star athlete and all round team player. Horrors. Even the fact that many of these fictional boarding schools have great settings, such as Mallory Towers (Enid Blyton), a castle-like structure on the coast of Cornwall, I'm not convinced it would be worth it.

One school that breaks from the pattern is Josephine Elder's Farm School, which she wrote about in three books: Exile for Annis (1938), The Cherry Tree Perch (1939), and Strangers at the Farm School (1940). This is a rather utopian school, where you get to pick the direction of your own studies, all the while learning practical skills and helping to look after the farm. And the students are so busy actually doing their own projects at their own pace, and doing communal work, that they are never organized for Walks. So this is my pick for fictional school.*

Copies of the Farm School books are fairly common and inexpensive, but sadly most of these are the Children's Press Editions. Children's Press books are often, but not always, horribly abridged. I've never read the non-Children's Press editions of these myself, but it's my understanding that Exile for Annis survived pretty much intact, but the later two got damaged.

Sort of straying off the topic of fictional schools, I'd just like to say that The Best Girls School Story Ever is Evelyn Finds Herself, also by Josephine Elder. Which really deserves a post to itself one of these days.

*Hogwarts, fun though it is to read about, would be very frustrating to attend. Not just because of titanic struggles against evil and that sort of thing, but because of the inconveniences of the stairways and passwords and all, and the lack of a decent education. (And thinking about reading at school, does any student ever read any fiction for fun?)

Jellaby

Jellaby by Kean Soo (Hyperion, 2008) --a graphic novel about a girl, a boy, and a purple monster

Portia is an only child, whose father has vanished. She’s bored and lonely, unhappy at school, with no friends, troubled by nightmares and the mystery of her lost father. Then, out in the dark woods one night, she meets Jellaby, a lost and hungry alien/monster (?), sitting scarred and alone, clutching his tail (Jellaby is just the sweetest little old thing, in a voiceless, paw-twisting way). Soon a classmate, Jason, finds himself involved in Portia’s plan to try to find Jellaby’s home, and Jason, Portia, and Jellaby are off on a train ride to the Halloween Fair in the big city (Toronto).

And here, in the midst of disaster, with the mysteries of Jellaby’s origins and the fate of Portia’s father totally unresolved, the reader is told to wait for the next volume. Wah! We were riveted to the page! Totally engrossed! The three heroes had just jumped off a moving train! How will they get to Toronto now? Who is that scary bird beak man? Who, for that matter, is Jellaby? The cover doesn’t say a word about this being book one. Humph.

Jellaby is no Barney, and this book is more than a fun story about friendship. There are dark aspects to the plot, most notably the nightmarish bird beak man who might have information about Portia’s father (seriously scary—Portia first meets him shackled to a bench at the police station where her mother is filing the missing person report). Even though she has a mother who clearly loves her, Portia is an unhappy loner. Jason is home in an empty house with no parental care, and the victim of bullies at school. A lot of the poignancy is conveyed in the drawings—a page of Portia pictures in the back of the dark car, getting smaller and smaller as she asks, “Mommy, where’s my Daddy?”, and a whole series of pictures showing Jason eating his cup of ramen noodles, alone. These darker aspects seem aimed at an older audience than the 7-8 year old audience who would be drawn to the making friends with the monster plot.

But in short, this is a great book to give to a second or third grader, girl or boy, who is learning to read, and it is a great book for older kids to read too. And while we wait for the next book, there are some Jellaby shorts up Fuse #8, and at The Secret of the Wednesday Haul

Winner of the Waterstones Book Prize

The Waterstones Book Prize is a very prestigious award given by the British book seller Waterstones to a debut writer for children. This year's winner was just announced: Ways to Live Forever, by Sally Nicholls. You can read more here. I'm almost in tears reading the publisher's synopsis:

Ways to Live Forever is a scrapbook of lists, stories, pictures, questions and facts put together by 11-year-old Sam. He's a boy who collects facts and loves looking things up on the Internet. He's curious about ghosts and UFOs - and also death. Sam has terminal leukaemia. He is going to die. And dying is a fact of life.-it's about an 11 year old boy who is dying of leukemia.

Oh well. Death books are popular with the young, so this one will go on my shopping list for the library when it comes out over here.

Poetry Friday--Valentine's Day ish: Jenny Kissed Me

An old chestnut, but very sweet:

"Jenny Kissed Me"

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.

--Leight Hunt, 1784-1859

I've always been fond of this poem (except for the "into" in the fourth line- just "in" sounds so much better to me). Apparently the Jenny in question was Carlyle's wife, but I have always imagined her a little girl...


The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Hip Writer Mama's place today!

We have Cybilian Winners!

The winners of the 2007 Cybils Awards have been announced! Yeah Winners! And many thanks to the brains and beauty behind it all -- Anne Levy and Kelly Harold, our organizers.

In as much as I was a member of the YA nominating committee (oh happy days of having piles of books around the house waiting to be read; the cupboards are bare at present) I was of course very keen to see who they were going to chose. My money was on Sherman Alexie, but no. It was Boy Toy, by Barry Lyga.

I almost wasn't able to read this book. I thought about quitting several times. The plot--a 12 year old boy seduced by his teacher, and his road to recovery--was almost too much for me. In large part this was because the boy himself did not realize for a considerable part of the book the extent to which he had been abused. He refuses to testify against the teacher in court, for instance, because he doesn't see her as the horrible abuser that she is. I kept imagining my own boys, in a few years, reading this, and not realizing how awful it was that this boy was in love (which is how he thought about it at first) with this beautiful teacher, the stuff of adolescent dreams, and that she was taking him places no 12 year old should be going. As one reads on, it becomes clear that this is a Bad Bad thing, and so I, as a reader, started feeling a bit better, but still. This is not a book for 12 year olds. Or their parents.

But for older teens, yes, it is a very good book indeed.

Fairy Tales meet Science

Here's great article in a recent edition of Live Science on the science behind the fantistic. It seem like the perfect way to get the non-fiction loving type kid to read fairy tales. And I could also imagine this line of thought inspiring science fair projects for those who prefere fairy tales...

Here's an excerpt:

In the story, Ariel loses her voice because of a curse. However, a less
skilled sorceress could use a different method to silence a singing
mermaid. Scientists have figured out a way to bend sound waves around an
object and, can even prevent the escape of all sounds created inside a given
area (important for keeping a transformed, singing mermaid from being heard). In
the story, Ariel loses her voice because of a curse. However, a less skilled
sorceress could use a different method to silence a singing
mermaid. Scientists have figured out a way to bend sound waves around an
object and, can even prevent the escape of all sounds created inside a given
area (important for keeping a transformed, singing mermaid from being heard).

Chris Gorski, Live Science Feburary 11, 2008

Great stuff for those who love Mythbusters! I want more!

reluctant readers, again....

Everyday my seven year old must read for 10 minutes. The school says so. Some days it is not easy, and lord knows I don't want to force him to read at knifepoint. So here, for what it's worth, is a tip, which I think is rather a nice one, and which I've never heard anyone else mention it: on nights when I think it might be a struggle, I communicate only in written notes. One can still be sarcastic through facial expressions. And it gets him to read. (Here is the math I use, although I personally was always much better at reading: 3 short notes = 1 minute of reading, so after 30 notes we can stop).

This can also be made into a game--anyone remember the wonderful treasure hunt in Spiderweb for Two, by Elizabeth Enright, where written clue led to written clue over the course of the year? Notes about treasure always get read, and there can be as many clues as you want, ranging from the simple "look under your beg" to the dangerous "look in your closet" (he keeps his rock collection on the floor of it).

Over at Reading Rockets there's a request for suggestions on books to read aloud to two girls who have achieved Reading-ness, and don't particularly have any interest in being read to. I can't think of any books in particular, but I do have a thought. Reading out loud doesn’t have to happen on a sofa--we used to be read to while we colored, painted, sewed...although none of use ever did complicated models meant for much older children, like Petrova did in Ballet Shoes when they were all being read to. So maybe if the new book to be read aloud was begun with a new quite activity, it would give it impetus... (and if the girls in question haven't read Ballet Shoes, maybe that would be a good one....)

Which One Did You Like Best?

Tomorrow, bearing unforseen catastrophe, the results of the Cybils will be announced! But in the meantime, you can head over to the site to vote for your favoirtes (here). Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree, by Lauren Tarshis, is currently leading the Middle Grade catagory, which pleases me greatly.

Interview with Sara Zarr

Today I have the great pleasure of hosting Sara Zarr (author of last year's Story of a Girl and this year's Sweethearts). Sweethearts is a very moving story about the love between two neglected children, Jennifer and Cameron, who are separated and then meet again in high school (my review is here).

Me: You write about the characters in Sweethearts with great compassion--it was clear you cared about them. Was it hard to write them into miserable circumstances? I'm thinking not so much about the more "traditional" abusiveness of Cameron's situation, but the neglect that Jennifer experienced. Her mother is a decent person, who loved her, but obviously for the purposes of your plot you couldn't make her realize what her daughter was going through. But were you tempted, in your own mind at least?

Sara: It's always hard to put characters you love through pain, but I have to say I was never tempted to do it differently. I have a lot of compassion for Jennifer's mom, too, who is caught up in this cycle of poverty and doing what she thinks is best and the necessity to get out of it as soon as possible. In doing what she truly thinks is best for Jennifer, she doesn't realize how much her daughter needs her. I think a lot of parents who sort of live on the edge of poverty have to make that choice and there's no good answer. The physical and practical needs are more immediate than the emotional ones. Your life becomes about paying the rent and figuring out how to get out of that cycle.

Me: And related to my first question, when you write, do you feel that there is an inevitability about all the events that even you can't escape (which is the feeling that Story of a Girl, in particular, gave me) or do your characters surprise you and go off on paths you hadn't anticipated?

Sara: A lot of stuff happens in revision. Characters might do or say things that weren't part of my original plan, but ultimately those things to seem to end up serving that original, inevitable path. Which is interesting to think about, because in theory the author has the power to do anything she wants, while in reality I think you're right---sometimes even the author can't authentically alter the story's destiny.

Me: After Cameron disappears, Jennifer reinvents herself as Jenna, an attractive, popular high school student, very different from her plump, sad, childhood self. Did it help the writing process to have a character with two different names and identities, or did it add a confusing schizophrenia to it all? Is she Jenna or Jennifer or both to you?

Sara: I never had trouble separating (or joining) them in my own mind. To me, she's Jennifer, grown up, calling herself Jenna and having a different outside appearance but dealing with the same fears about herself and the world around her that were ingrained early on. She's Jennifer who has transformed her outward self, and now the inside self is catching up.

Me: Reading your book made me want to eat cookies. Like Jennifer, I found great comfort in childhood by curling up with a good book and lots and lots of cookies (although I didn't actually require comfort in the same way that Jennifer did--I just really liked books and cookies). The only reason I didn't eat cookies with your book is that I make a point of not keeping cookies in the house. Not that they would actually be in the house for long, but still. Was this a habit of yours as well, and do you have a favorite childhood cookie?

Sara: Jennifer's eating issues come straight from me. I ate for company and comfort and entertainment as a kid, and continued that habit well into adulthood, into a full-blown compulsive eating disorder. It was only when I had made some sort of peace with that and learned ways to manage it that I could write about it. So I don't keep cookies in the house very often, either! I do like a good homemade chocolate chip cookie now, but back in the day you could give me a package of Oreos or Nutter Butters and I'd be in cookie heaven. Or Fig Newtons. Or Lorna Doones. Or...sorry, what were we talking about?

Me: You and I were both teenagers in the 1980s, which is a longer time ago every year. I just had my first online chatting experience a few weeks ago, and goodness knows I have no clue about the trappings of today's popular culture (although I didn't back then either). Have you made an effort to study Modern Teenagers? Did you have to practice on line chatting and so forth, so as to get it right in the book, or have you kept up with the technology?

Sara: Oh, I've kept up with technology. I was chatting online back in the CompuServe era when you paid for Internet by the minute! I'm kind of a computer geek, and a gadget geek, with a not quite healthy attachment to my laptop.

Me: Story of a Girl was your 4th book, the first one to be published. What has happened with books 1, 2, and 3? Will we ever see them?

Sara: They are far, far away in drawers and on disks. I don't think we ever need to see them. In retrospect, they were "practice novels." Of course, at the time I didn't think so and would have been offended if anyone suggested that!

Me: Do you think you're going to stick with realistic teen fiction, which you are obviously good at, or are you tempted by other genres, or even by happier stories rather than sad (but hopeful) ones?

Sara: Realistic fiction is definitely my thing. I have nothing against happier stories, but whenever I try to write one something angsty and tragic happens so maybe it's not in my genes. I'm interested in writing for all kinds and all ages of audiences, though, and hope to try a lot of different things over the next thirty years.

Me: And finally, here you are on this blog tour, being asked innumerable questions. If it were me, I would have been preparing mental answers to possible questions weeks in advance. Is there any question that you've been hoping would be asked, but hasn't been yet?

Sara: I don't have enough perspective on the book yet to think up possible questions. Maybe in a couple of years I'll think of something I wish you'd asked, and I'll get in touch!

Me: Thanks very much Sara! I enjoyed Sweethearts (in a sad and anxious kind of way, of course, which is what the subject matter called for) very much, and I'm looking forward to your next book-- I hope it cooperates!

Here are other stops that Sara has made on her tour (if I've missed anyone, let me know!)

Largehearted Boy (playlist for Sweethearts)
Oncewritten
Kate Messner's Book Blog
Shelf Elf
The Well-Read Child
Big A little a
Interactive Reader
Becky's Book Reviews a

Once I Ate a Pie- puppy poems for Poetry Friday

Once I Ate a Pie--13 Dogs Tell All, by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest, illustrated by Kay Schneider (2006, Joanna Cotler Books)

If you have a picture book age child, say 3-7, who loves dogs and is learning to read, this is the book for you. Even kids like mine, who aren't crazy about dogs, loved the sweet puppies, the "Good" Dogs, the "Bad" Dogs (like the pie eater), and the sleepy older dogs featured in this book. Each of the 13 dogs featured has its own picture and its own poem. The pictures are enough to melt the non-doggiest heart. The poems are little vignettes of the dogs' behaviour, rellying on typeface, font, and layout rather than rhyme and rhythm to set them apart from prose. Without being able to do these things in blooger, it's hard to convey the full charm of these poem-lets, but here's an example:

Wupsi

My name is Wupsi, but they call me “cute.”
“Who’s cute?” they ask, smiling.
I cover my eyes with my paws and pretend to sleep.
“Who’s cute?” they call again.
I run to them. I can’t help it.
I am cute.

And he is, as is this book! Which makes it a good one, I think, for people interested in poetry for the uncertain reader.

(When googling for a picture, I found that Mother Reader had also reviewed this book for Poetry Friday, way back when in August of 2006. She thought it was awfully cute too).

This week's Poetry Friday Roundup is at AmoXcalli!

Marshmallow Fun

I am about to head home, where a treat awaits me (ha ha). I am going to help my son make a model of the leaning tower of Pisa using 100 marshmallows, in honor of the hundredth day of school. Wish me luck.

Books I Read In January

For the first time in my life, I successfully kept a list of a month’s worth of books read (not counting picture books, books I read to the children, or comfort books I was re-reading). Here's the list, in all its glory. I wish I had the time to write properly about many of these books—if anyone is curious about any of them, let me know!

At the beginning of January, I was still frantically trying to read books for the Cybils, so this lot were read (quickly, but carefully and lovingly) in about four days. They are all worthy books, well worth reading.

Bloom, Elizabeth Scott
Tamar, Mal Peet
Finch Goes Wild, Janet Gingold (here’s my review)
Cassandra’s Sister, Veronica Bennett
Total Constant Order, Crissa-Jean Chappell
Before, After, and Somebody In Between, Jeannine Garsee

Next I moved on to a few Christmas present books:

First Term at Ash Grove, Mabel Esther Allen (1988. I’m a sucker for English Girls Going to School stories)
Operation Sea Bird, Monica Edwards (first published 1957. This is one of a long series of books about 4 kids running around with boats and horses in the south of England. They are being republished by Girls Gone By Press)
Spring Comes to Nettleford, Malcolm Saville (1954. More English kids, this time camping out while trying to keep egg thieves from robbing the nest of some Peregrine Falcons)
What I Am, Meg Rosoff (2007; here’s my review)

Then came the pleasure (denied to me during my Cybils reading, but I’m not complaining—it was totally worth it) of going to libraries and getting things that caught my fancy (with the exception of Homefront (2006) , these are all 2007 books).

Homefront, Doris Gwaltney (this takes place in rural Virginia, just as WW II is getting going. Our young heroine’s life is disrupted when her English cousin and aunt come to life with them for the duration. Isn’t it an unappealing cover?).
Into the Wild, Sarah Beth Durst (what fun!)
A War of Gifts: An Ender Story, Orson Scott Card (that Mr. Card sure is smart. But (getting political here) how can someone so smart admire our president so very much?)
A Crooked Kind of Perfect (an excellent read. I’m glad she got a piano in the end)
Rider and Ralynx, by Sharon Shinn (a good fantasy, but lacking in the numinous, if you know what I mean)
Second Fiddle: Or How to Tell a Blackbird from a Sausage by Siobhan Parkinson (an Irish middle grade book, with a great spunky heroine).
Repossessed, A.M. Jenkins (a Cybils shortlist title in Sci Fi, with good reason)
Someone named Eva, Joan M. Wolf (I kept getting distracted by thoughts of how I would have coped had I been Eva—would I really have forgeten my own language?)

And from its publisher, I got an ARC of
Sweethearts, Sara Zarr (see my review here; I’ll also be putting up my interview with Sara on the 11th)

And some random books that I’ve been meaning to read for a while:

Gloria, Ballerina (whose author totally escapes me and which I will try to remember to find once I go home again. This is a not bad story about a girl in 1950s NY city who wants to do ballet but is thwarted.)
Tomboys at the Abbey, by Elsie Oxenham (one of a long, early to mid 20th century, series about English girls, folk dancing, an old Abbey, and female bonding)

Learning to read with Douglas Florian

It was a slightly sticky week reading-wise for my 7 year old son--he just didn't want to read any of the chapter books I offered him. So I turned to poetry, specifically the animal poems of Douglas Florian, with the happy result that he read.

Poems are more friendly to read than the densely filled pages of chapter books--less intimidating visually, and once you've read a poem, you have clearly accomplished something. Florian's poems in particular, I think, are great for the reluctant reader. They are funny. They are informative. They have a fairly straightforward vocabulary. And I like his whimsically varied illustrations.

Here are a few poems that struck my fancy:

The Cheetah (from bow wow meow meow it's rhyming cats and dogs, 2003, Harcourt)

The cheetah is fleet.
The cheetah is fast.
Its four furry feet
Have already passed.

The Dachshund (also from bow wow meow meow)

Short up front
And short behind
But so long in-between.
The fleas all ride
Upon my side
In my s t r e t c h limousine.

The Diamondback Rattlesnake (from lizards, frogs, and polliwogs, 2001, Harcourt)

Fork in front,
Rattle behind.
The lump in the middle?
Don't pay any mind.

Scales up high,
Scales down low.
The lump in the middle?
You don't want to know.

Diamonds above,
Diamonds below.
The lump in the middle?
A rabbit too slow.

All three of these are pretty easy, quick, and funny to read--great confidence boosters.

My son also decided to bring home from the library Shel Silverstein's Falling Up --apparently the boy who is the Alpha Reader in my son's class has been reading it (having finished Eragon Harry Potter Cornelia Funke etc). Silverstein's poems, thought, aren't as uniformly easy readerish as Florian's; likewise Jack Prelutsky.

Any recommendations for other poets or books we could look for that still unfluent reader who likes science might be able to read easily?

And as a total aside, Shel Silverstein has a new edition of an old out of print book coming out this March-- Don't Bump the Glump which looks rather interesting.

The Poetry Friday round up is at Karen Edmisten's place today!

What I Was, by Meg Rosoff

This Christmas I asked my European dwelling sister to give me a copy of Meg Rosoff's latest book, What I Was (this is the British cover). I didn't want to wait for it to come out here in the states (although it is now available, so perhaps I should have been more judicious in my selection, but my other sister was already getting a copy of Forever Rose, by Hilary McKay which I actually was looking forward to even more). Rosoff's first book for teenagers, How I Live Now, had interested me but not compelled me, but I truly enjoyed Just In Case. So I began What I Was in a hopeful spirit.

The story is simple--Hilary, a 16 year old boy, begins life at his third boarding school, having been kicked out of two others. It is a depressing place with depressing people in it, including our narrator, who is not particurlaly cheeful about his situation (with reason). But he finds an escape while exploring the Suffolk coast where his school is situatuated--a cottage on an island, whose young resident, Finn, is resourceful, independent, and totally enigmatic. They strike up a friendship, based mainly on Hilary's fascination with Finn--an almost obsessive desire to be inside the self-relient mystery that is Finn's life. But it is impossible to keep secrets in a boarding school, and (this is Meg Rosoff after all) things fall apart tragically and spectacularly, atlhough they end up getting back together again, more or less.

Unlike her other books, however, things don't really start Happening till near the end. I got impatient with Hilary, and wasn't as interested in Finn as he was. The buildup in pace came a bit too late for me to care all that much. So all in all, a bit disappointing. But the fault could be mine- this was one of those books that made me wonder if I was Trying hard enough to be an engaged and critically appreciative reader. Because I think there is a lot to appreciate here, in Rosoff's use of language and setting. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

The American edition is published by Viking Adult, but I think it is comfortably a YA book -- teenaged narrator, nothing graphic in an Adultish way (although that dosen't apply to many YA books), and a plot concerned with self-knowledge, friendship, and growing up.

Class of 2008 Contest

Last year I enjoyed dropping in on the Class of 2007 -- first time authors of middle grade and YA books, banding together in promotional solidarity. It was a pleasure reading many of their fine books during my stint as a Cybils YA nominator (and it is also a pleasure to see gaps in my library's YA collection, where the review copies I donated are being checked out nicely).*

Now there is a Class of 2008, and they are currently hosting a Virtual Scavenger Hunt. With great prizes -- three of their own books!

*I have heard that in England authors get royalties every time their books are checked out from a public library. If true, it would be an incentive for authors to make lots of friends and have large families....on the other hand, if you don't know anyone with a library card, but keep checking your own book out, it defeats the purpose of having written it in the first place.

H.D. for Poetry Friday

I have been fond of imagist poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961) ever since I ended up at the same college (Bryn Mawr) as she did, was very taken by her picture, and decided on reading some of her poems that our minds worked much the same way (in the way that one does, when one is young and at college. I am now pretty sure our minds don't, although I still like her poetry).

What I did not know, until today, wandering around on line hoping to be inspired for Poetry Friday, is that H.D. also wrote children's stories, before committing herself to poetry. Two of them are available on line, here. I think she made the right choice. Here's one of my favorite poems:

Sheltered Garden, from Sea Garden (1916)

I have had enough.
I gasp for breath.

Every way ends, every road,
every foot-path leads at last
to the hill-crest --
then you retrace your steps,
or find the same slope on the other side,
precipitate.

I have had enough --
border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies,
herbs, sweet-cress.

O for some sharp swish of a branch --
there is no scent of resin
in this place,
no taste of bark, of coarse weeds,
aromatic, astringent--
only border on border of scented pinks.

Have you seen fruit under cover
that wanted light --
pears wadded in cloth,
protected from the frost,
melons, almost ripe,
smothered in straw?

Why not let the pears cling
to the empty branch?
All your coaxing will only make
a bitter fruit --
let them cling, ripen of themselves,
test their own worth,
nipped, shrivelled by the frost,
to fall at last but fair
with a russet coat.

Or the melon --
let it bleach yellow
in the winter light,
even tart to the taste --
it is better to taste of frost --
the exquisite frost --
than of wadding and of dead grass.

For this beauty,
beauty without strength,
chokes out life.
I want wind to break,
scatter these pink-stalks,
snap off their spiced heads,
fling them about with dead leaves --
spread the paths with twigs,
limbs broken off,
trail great pine branches,
hurled from some far wood
right across the melon-patch,
break pear and quince --
leave half-trees, torn, twisted
but showing the fight was valiant.

O to blot out this garden
to forget, to find a new beauty
in some terrible
wind-tortured place.

- H.D.

Poetry Friday is at Mentor Texts today!

P.S. The internet is truly amazing. I did not know that H.D. stared in a movie with Paul Robeson in 1930 (courtesy of Wikipedia)