Category Archives: Books
Maya and the Book of Everything at the Chapel Hill Library in North Carolina
Yesterday, I received a wonderful email from my daughter Shannon, who lives in North Carolina. She had put in a request for the Chapel Hill Library to carry my YA fantasy novel, Maya and the Book of Everything. And, by gum, they have! So now Maya and the Book of Everything is in a library in North Carolina.
Requesting that a library carry a book is a wonderful way to promote writers and to help spread the word about their books. (Some of you have also done this for Maya, and I thank you very much.)
Readers, if your library has Maya and the Book of Everything, be sure to let me know. After all, even though there is plenty of adventure and fantasy in my book, there are also some serious issues: the importance of libraries for spreading knowledge and the notion that facts do matter.
Perhaps in today’s world, that last notion seems a little quaint, but it is my belief that facts have always mattered and always will.
Threads of Realism at Hartland Public Library
Yesterday, Clif and I went to the Hartland Public Library, where I gave my presentation Threads of Realism in Fantasy: Maya, Maine, and the Franco-American Connection. My friend Beth Clark is a member of the Friends of the Library, and she recommended me and my presentation. Thank you, Beth!
Hartland Library is a very sweet, welcoming place, filled with books, DVDS, and computers. I was reminded, yet again, how lucky Maine is to have such a wealth of libraries in communities great and small across the state. Hartland has a population of approximately 1,700, and the library is a real gem, a center to the town.
Being new at giving presentations, I am always a little nervous at the start. But at the Hartland Library, those who came were so warm and appreciative that I was soon put at ease. When I had finished and we were chatting over refreshments, Beth made a comment that was music to my ears, as the saying goes. Beth told me that she enjoyed my presentation so much that she would like to hear it again and to let her know if I do another one within an hour’s radius of Hartland.
Oh, thanks, Beth! I’ll be sure to let you know.
Maya and the Book of Everything at the Hartland Public Library
On Thursday, May 11 I’ll be going to the Hartland Public Library to give my presentation Threads of Realism in Fantasy: Maya, Maine, and the Franco-American Connection. It starts at 6 p.m., and I’m so looking forward to going to this library. After all, the Hartland Library is featured in Maya and the Book of Everything. So in a way, I’ll be going to one of my sources.
Please come if you can!
Tea with a Young Reader
Yesterday morning, I got an email from my friend Cheryl, who lives up the road from us. Her granddaughter Iris is visiting, and they had had a conversation about my YA fantasy novel Maya and the Book of Everything. Cheryl had gotten Iris the book for Christmas, and Iris really enjoyed the novel. Cheryl wondered if she and Iris could come for a visit.
Yes, yes, and yes! As it turned out, Sam—Iris’s dad and Cheryl’s son—came, too, and what a delightful time Clif and I had talking with the three of them, book lovers all. We chatted a bit about Maya and the Book of Everything. Cheryl wondered where my ideas came from. I couldn’t give her much help on that one. Somehow, the ideas just come. Iris hoped that Andy and Maya would eventually wind up together. (I gave her the answer, but you, dear readers, will have to wait and read Library Lost to discover Andy’s and Maya’s fate.) Sam wondered how long it took me to write the book. My answer: About a year, but there was a lot of editing and tinkering with the story after that.
Then the conversation turned to other books. Iris told me what she was reading, and as I knew I wouldn’t remember—oh, the aging memory!—I jotted them down. When I’m through with the current batch I’ve borrowed from the library, I’ll request Iris’s recommendations through interlibrary loan. The list includes the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan and the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale.
When asked what I was reading, I replied, “The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly.” This slice-of-life novel centers on a young girl—the Calpurnia of the title—who lives in Texas in the late 1800s. She’s a budding naturalist at a time when young women aren’t supposed to be interested in such things. But Calpurnia has an ally in her grandfather, an amateur naturalist who teaches her how to look, draw, record, measure, and do research. Calpurnia is a spunky, satisfying heroine, but the pace of the novel is deliberate, and I was wondering how young readers would like it.
Today, I found out. It seems that Iris has also read Calpurnia Tate. She liked it very much, and this caused me to have an epiphany, of sorts. That is, young people who love books are patient readers, and it’s a mistake to think they need an explosion a minute to keep them interested. It’s not that plot and narrative flow aren’t important, but well-developed characters are what keep young people interested in a story. If a novel’s pace is leisurely, then that’s perfectly fine as long as the characters are interesting.
So, all in all a terrific day. Tea with a wonderful, bright family and insight into the patience young people bring to reading books.
You might even call it a finest kind of day.
An Interview with Jeanne Birdsall, Author of the Penderwicks Series
In two weeks time, I have finished all four books in the Penderwicks series, a sort of modern-day Little Women, which follows the lives of four sisters—Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty (Elizabeth). I am not ashamed to admit that I binged on them, and I even stayed up until 3:00 a.m. to finish the last one—The Penderwicks in Spring.
I also have a confession to make: I really took a dislike to one of the sisters. It started in the first book and intensified by the fourth book, where she inflicts great pain on one of her sisters. In fact, I disliked this character so much that after I finished reading The Penderwicks in Spring, I thought of her for most of the day.
On the one hand I couldn’t help thinking, “What the heck! This character isn’t even real. Why are you brooding about her so much?”
On the other hand, only a very good writer can make you dislike (or love) a character in a novel, to make that character so real and intense that she gets under your skin.
Hats off to Jeanne Birdsall. I am eagerly awaiting the fifth and last book of the series.
Below is an interview with Jeanne Birdsall. (I came across this on a blog I follow, Letters from a Hill Farm.) I always love to hear authors talk about their books and the writing process.
April Fools? Au Contraire!
Here was the view from our front porch this morning.
Mother Nature’s quite the trickster, isn’t she? Now, if this had come in, say, February or even mid-March, no problem. But in April? Sigh.
All right. In the spirit of my blog friends who celebrate Three Things Thursday, where they share three things they are grateful for, I’m going to celebrate Six for Saturday.
- We only got four or so inches of snow rather than the twelve predicted. This is something to be wildly grateful for because this April 1 snow is wet and very heavy. There’s a good chance that twelve inches would have knocked the power out in many central Maine homes, including ours.
- It’s pretty. The snow clinging to the trees makes our yard and road look like a winter wonderland. Even if it is technically spring and April 1 to boot. But wait. Here I am, sliding into ungratefulness. How easy is the slide.
- We are warm and snug in our home, and Clif and I will be making bean soup this afternoon in preparation for friends who are coming over tomorrow.
- The mud and grit outside are temporarily covered, which means we don’t track in much when we go in and out of the house.
- We have four more seasons to go of the television series The Walking Dead, my newest obsession.
- My blog friends from Fernwood Nursery sent me a book—many thanks!—and this will be the perfect afternoon to read it.
Despite the snow, there is much to be grateful for.
By a Strange Coincidence…from N.D. Wilson to Jeanne Birdsall
I could write about how this has been the Marchiest March we Mainers have had to endure in quite a while. Lots of snow, plenty of mud—and we’re just starting with the melting—and joy of joys, another storm on the way with wet, heavy snow forecasted. I could share this quotation I found on Facebook: “Maine. They call it ‘Vacationland’ because it sounds better than ‘Six Months of Suffering-Land.'”
But no, I’m not going to brood about the weather. Instead, I’m going to turn my attention to a much happier topic—books—and how I coincidentally came upon two authors who write children’s books and how those authors turned out to be connected, even though they write very different stories.
About a month ago, my husband Clif introduced me to the middle-reader fantasy 100 Cupboards by N. D. Wilson. It’s set in Kansas, just like another famous children’s fantasy, and the protagonist, Henry York, discovers magical cupboards (portals) in the attic room he’s staying in while visiting his aunt, uncle, and cousins. Overprotected and somewhat neglected, Henry finds warmth, solace, and generosity with his aunt and uncle. Much of the book focuses on the everyday domestic life in a small town, with large dollops of barbecues and baseball. But through a magical cupboard Henry eventually goes, where he encounters strange mystical lands, an evil witch, and a mystery that takes him right back to Kansas.
I liked 100 Cupboards so much that I immediately read the sequel, Dandelion Fire, which dispenses with the domesticity and hurtles Henry headlong into the fight between good and evil, the concern of most good fantasy novels. There’s a third book in the series—Chestnut King—which I definitely plan to read.
A week or so ago, on a blog I follow—Letters from a Hill Farm—I came across a book recommendation, The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall. A day or two later, I found The Penderwicks at a bookstore, The Book Review, which I recently visited for the first time. (I’ve written about the book and the bookstore a couple of posts ago.) I loved The Penderwicks so much that I borrowed the next three in the series from our library, and I’m whipping through those books the way I would a box of chocolates.
Now as far as writers go, N. D. Wilson and Jeanne Birdsall couldn’t be more different, even though they write for the same age group. As I indicated earlier, Wilson’s books are classic fantasies. Family is important—as it turns out, very important—but so is the larger story of the battle between good and evil. With her Penderwicks series, Birdsall focuses exclusively on the family, with its gentle ups and downs and the relationships of the various characters. Death brings a thread of sadness into these stories of four sisters and their father, but these are quiet books compared with Wilson’s fantasies. You might even call the Penderwicks series the Miss Read books of children’s literature. (However, Little Women was Birdsall’s inspiration.)
Here’s where the weird coincidence part kicks in. I like to read author websites, where I can find out a little bit more about writers and their books. I was reading Jeanne Birdsall’s author website, and I came across an event that featured both Birdsall and her friend (her wording) N.D. Wilson, where they would discuss Narnia. Unfortunately, the event took place last year in Chicago, and as I have no portals (or a Book of Everything) to take me back in time and across the country, this qualifies as a missed event.
Still, what a strange coincidence to come upon that nugget of information. Two months ago, I had never heard of either N.D. Wilson or Jeanne Birdsall. Now, not only am I fan of both writers, but I discover they are friends.
Thinking about books, authors, and neat coincidences sure beats brooding about snow.
Threads of Realism in Fantasy: The Great Library
As regular readers of this blog know, I have put together a slide show—Threads of Realism in Fantasy—to go with my YA novel, Maya and the Book of Everything. (I recently gave my first presentation at the University of Maine at Orono.)The gist of the presentation is this: Even though my book is a fantasy that takes its heroine, Maya, across the universe, there are elements of realism to ground the novel. The story is partially set in central Maine, and I weave my Franco-American heritage into the book.
Central to Maya and the Book of Everything is a place called the Great Library. It is home to the sentient Book of Everything, which can travel through time and space. Both the Book of Everything and the Great Library definitely fall into one of my favorite categories—fantasy, fairy tales, and folderol. But even here I used realism when I imagined what the Great Library would look like.
Because I love fairy tales so much, I immediately thought of a castle in envisioning the Great Library, and I ended up picking out two castles—one for the locale and one for the actual look. Both castles are from France. I didn’t set out to choose castles from France, but somehow I did. It must have been my Franco-American roots urging me forward.
The first castle I thought of was Mont St. Michel, which certainly looks like it comes straight from a fairy tale. I love how remote it looks and how the castle is surrounded by water when the tide is in. Mont St. Michel also happens to be in Normandy, where some of my ancestors are from.
Here is another view of Mont St. Michel.
So that was the locale I wanted.
But for the actual look of the Great Library, I wanted something more compact, something that looked a little less Gothic, a little less like a cathedral.
For this I chose the Chateau de Chaumont, which is in France’s Loire Valley.
One of the things I especially like about fantasy is that you can mix and match various aspects of realism if you want and still have a magical story. Maine, my Franco-American heritage, and two castles from France all come together in Maya and the Book of Everything.
Lucky Sunday
Yesterday was a beautiful sunny Sunday, just perfect for an outing to celebrate the fact that I, along with millions of other people, still have affordable health insurance that provides good coverage.
And where did Clif and I go? Why to Lucky Garden in Hallowell, of course. I was feeling extraordinarily lucky. And grateful.
Lucky’s was full of people, and the atmosphere was lively, even festive. Perhaps I wasn’t the only one who was relieved by the turn of events on Friday? At any rate, the food on the buffet was hot and fresh, and Clif and I had very tasty meals.
When we came out, we stood on the deck and took pictures of the Kennebec River. The ice chunks are gone. Surely spring can’t be far away?
After that, it was on to Falmouth, just outside Freeport (home of L.L. Bean) to check out the Goodwill. We had heard that it was an extra special Goodwill because it is an affluent part of Maine. Well, maybe we just hit it on an off day, but the Falmouth Goodwill is no better than Augusta’s Goodwill.
However, all was not lost. Next to Goodwill is The Book Review, one of those special bookstores that makes you want to come back again and again. As soon as we entered, I was smitten. First of all, there is that lovely smell of books. Second, there are dark wooden shelves. Third, the many comfortable chairs tucked here and there. And, finally, and most important, the books themselves, a wonderful selection that would appeal to a wide variety of readers.
I headed right toward the children’s section. While I do read novels written for adults, it seems to me that I really do prefer middle reader and young adult books. Clif and I discussed this on the way home.
“The storylines are cleaner, more direct,” he said. “Middle reader and YA books often have a clarity that’s lacking in adult books.”
Clif is right. As a reader, I place great value on clarity of writing and clean storylines. Or maybe it’s just a case of arrested development. Whatever the reason, I know I’m not alone. Many adults, especially women, like middle reader and young adult novels, and my own Maya and the Book of Everything is developing quite a following among adults.
Naturally, I bought some books at The Book Review.
Last night, I read The Penderwicks, a middle reader book, in one greedy gulp. It’s a gentle, almost old-fashioned story of four sisters and the misadventures they have on their summer vacation in the Berkshires. There are dark threads woven in—the mother has died of cancer, and Rosalind, the eldest, reflects on how she doesn’t have time or energy to nurture plants when she is so busy nurturing her sisters. (I’m paraphrasing. Jeanne Birdsall phrases it much more eloquently.) The ending is satisfying—happy, even—but realistic, too. The children don’t get everything they want.
There are several more books in the series, and I intend to read every one of them.
And when I’m back in the Falmouth area, I will definitely go to The Book Review.
Notes From the Hinterland 