Confessions of a Book Dad - Guest Post

Note to readers:  This is OBVIOUSLY a guest post, since I'm not a dad :)  But it is exactly how I feel about my girls and reading too.  I was lucky enough to connect with David Simon through the Summer Author Promo Blitz.  This is my second year participating, and I love the authors I've connected with so far!!  His new book is called Trapped in Lunch Lady Land, and it's a great choice for middle grade readers (and funny too!).  Without further ado, here is David's great post:

 

I’m a book dad.

 

I was a book kid and a book teen, on a first name basis with my local librarian, my nose always buried in one crumbling, broken-spined paperback or another. I know many intelligent, successful adults who put away books when they reached adulthood and never looked back. Not me. I kept right on reading, and became a book guy. When it turned out the woman I fell in love with and married was also a reader, it came as no real surprise.

 

When our son was born, reading to him seemed as natural as feeding and changing him, and just as integral to his proper care. Pat the Bunny, Goodnight Moon and The Very Hungry Caterpillar were early favorites. You just can’t go wrong with the classics. Eric was a young reader, also not much of a surprise. He devoured Magic Treehouse and Boxcar Children books, inhaled Goosebumps and Hardy Boys. We took turns reading the first Harry Potter book to him, a chapter each night, completely enthralled. My wife and I made a pact not to read ahead. I admit here, for the first time, that I sometimes cheated. Eric read the second Potter book by himself, and the die was cast. He was a book kid.

 

My daughter Hannah, born two years after Eric, not so much. She loved being read to, but the reading bug never really bit her. In a house filled to overflowing with books, she often had trouble finding something that interested her. She was, and is, smart and creative, a wonderful writer and musician, but finding a book that demanded her attention was challenging. When it did happen, she read and reread them obsessively. Harry Potter did the trick, as did Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging and its sequels, and the Mates, Dates books. Hunger Games had our entire family reading, in shifts. (By the time Mockingjay came along, we gave up and bought multiple copies for the house.) The same thing happened with The Fault In Our Stars.

 

Our second daughter, McKenna, is also a reader. She’s 14 now. Her friends and her pass around books like they are sacred objects, from the aforementioned Fault In Our Stars to Divergent and The Mortal Instruments books. They write fan fic, and talk about their favorite characters as if they were real. In a way, the best way, I guess they are.

 

As a book dad, I love recommending favorites to my kids. Sometimes it’s easy. Eric is 21 now, and we have virtually the same taste in fiction. We buy each other books all the time, and it’s always something we want to read as well. Recent choices include The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey, Lev Grossman’s Magician trilogy and Jo Walton’s Among Others. We have two main points of disagreement. One is e-readers, which I have accepted as a necessary, and convenient, evil, but which he refuses to truck with. I sometimes purchase something on my Kindle I know he desperately wants to read, just to entice him, but so far he’s resisted. The other concerns the subject of rereading, which I rarely do. Too many novels I haven’t yet read, is my position. Eric has reread Ender’s Game and His Dark Materials so many times that he’s had to buy new copies.

 

Recommending books to my daughters is much more hit and miss. McKenna may be a reader, but at least at the moment, her friend’s picks carry more weight than mine, and she likes what she likes. She currently favors, quote, “Dystopian series with a love interest.” Luckily for her, there are plenty of those floating around. I did score with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs and The Coldest Girl In Coldtown by Holly Black. Hannah is the toughest nut to crack, but when I recommend something she likes, it’s uniquely satisfying. Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina and Lynda Barry’s Cruddy are dark, challenging novels that I love, and that Hannah connected with. I’m hoping to get her to try Geek Love next.

 

For the record, all three kids have read Trapped In Lunch Lady Land. Without threats, even.

 

I’m a lot of things, like most people. A husband and father, a graphic designer and illustrator, a published author, a soccer sideline cheerleader. And proudly, a book dad.

 

David Simon has a new book out, Trapped in Lunch Lady Land.  Check it out of your nearest library, or it is available at bookstores near you!!

 

The Dyerville Tales

I have been waiting to share this book with you for a long time.  I read it almost three months ago - I was lucky enough to win a copy in a Walden Pond Press giveaway (side note: Walden Pond Press is a super-cool publisher with lots of other great books too!).  But I don't like to blog about books that I love until you are able to read them too - it doesn't feel fair to tempt you like that!  So now The Dyerville Tales has been out for a few weeks, and I'm ready to talk about it!

You might recognize the author's name from Juniper Berry, which I loved, here in this post.  I was surprised at how much I loved Juniper Berry and again at how much I loved The Dyerville Tales.  Both of Kozlowsky's books have a mood in common - one of building uncertainty and fear.  They also both look at the mysteries of the adult world with a steely, clear-eyed gaze.  Very few adults escape these books whole.  The building tension, combined with the look at how adults compromise themselves, is one of the things I love best about Kozlowsky.  But his books can also keep me up at night, worrying about what might happen next.

The Dyerville Tales begins with Vince Elgin.  He lives in an orphanage, because his mother died in a house fire when he was ten years old.  Vince believes that his father escaped the fire, somehow, and is still alive.  He believes this because while Vince's mother died in the hospital room next to his, after getting Vince and herself out of the house.  Vince knows that "the authorities never discovered a single trace of him in the ashes of their home.  No bones, no teeth, not even the gold ring Vince had been promised.  And for Vince, this changed everything.  This was where he found his hope." (p. 11)

Vince isn't sure exactly why there was a fire, nor is he really sure about the events leading up to the fire.  He remembers how scared his parents were the night before but has lots of questions about what actually happened.  But the younger children in the orphanage love to hear most of the tale of Vince's arrival at the orphanage, and so he retells it (and relives it) over and over again.  It is full of magic to the other children, because it has parents in it, parents who care about Vince's safety, who want to protect him from the evil that surrounds them.

When Vince goes to the orphanage, after his mother's death and his father's disappearance it's because the only relative he has left is his grandfather.  His grandfather was believed to be crazy and was living in a nursing home.  When this story begins, it is with a package that arrives from Dyerville, the town where his grandfather lived, addressed to Vince.  In the package, a letter informs Vince that his grandfather has passed away, and that the funeral will be in a week.  Enclosed in the package is a book - a collection of tales his grandfather told in his nursing home, much as Vince has told stories in the orphanage.  Vince knows he must get to the funeral.  After all, it is his father's father.  And if Vince has any chance of seeing his own father again, it will be there, at the funeral.

The director of the orphanage tells Vince that there is no possible way he can go to the funeral - the orphanage doesn't have the money or the resources to get him to Dyerville, which is a long way from the town where the orphanage is located.  Vince is determined, though.  He escapes from the orphanage with the help of a friend, Anthony.  "Vince heard the commotion but told himself not to look back.  He had to concentrate on climbing.  He thought of what would be waiting for him at the end of this journey.  In Dyerville he would find his father.  A new life would be waiting; all he had to do was make it to the other side of the gate.  Suddenly it didn't seem so impossible." (p. 52)  And he makes it.  It's just one little step in what could be a very long journey.  But as he clears the fence around the orphanage, "somewhere deep within his mind there was now a spark glowing.  It was small, but it wanted to grow." (p. 53) I don't want to ruin the suspense of the well-plotted story.  You just need to pick it up.

But here's what I will talk about.  This book isn't just about stories and telling them (although clearly that is a major focus, considering what I've already told you about Vince and his grandfather).  It feels just like a fairy tale set in real life.  After all, there are not one but two epic journeys written about here.  Each time Vince opens his grandfather's book, there is a picture that helps add to the drama of Vincent's journey.  Both stories have fairy tale elements in them - things that are almost too incredible to be true.  And yet they are.  There are also some elements of reality that are fairy tale scary, too.  Here is one of those moments: "Her breath was colder than the wind.  With her lips touching his skin, and in a childish voice, she began to sing: 'Oh, I have the moon in me.  And everything beyond.  I am a black hole, you see.  And I'll eat me some vagabond.'" (p. 144)  Just writing that quote totally out of context made the hair on my arms stand up!

There are, of course, lots of parallels between both journeys -both Vince and his grandfather are 12 when their journeys start.  When the director of the orphanage brings Vince the package, she asks Vince "' You were named after him.  Am I right?'  Vince nodded.  'My parents said I looked just like him too.  Almost identical.  I don't know.  I didn't see it.'" (p. 24)  Both boys are on their own, trying to solve a mystery of their own lives.  And of course, when the book begins, they are both stranded in places (the orphanage or the nursing home) without any family connection.  There are so many magical things that happen in this book to tie the two together, over and over.

I was truly spellbound by this book, as you should be by any true fairy tale.  It has adventure, magic and leaves you questioning  Please pick it up - you'll dive right in.

The Dyerville Tales.  M.P. Kozlowsky.  Walden Pond Press, 2014.

I won this ARC in a giveaway, without expectation of a review.

2013 Summer Author Promo Blitz!

Hi everyone!  Just a quick note to let you all know that I am part of the 2013 Summer Author Promo Blitz, and I am really excited to let Nikki Loftin take over my blog later this week (July 12th).  She is also going to do a giveaway - something I've never done on my blog before - so get ready to win some prizes! I can't wait for her post and giveaway.  It should be fun.

I will hopefully do a review of Nikki's book, The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy in the next few days as well.  It looks spooky and, well, sinister, doesn't it??

And here is Nikki's website, with more information about her upcoming book, Nightingale's Nest, which has some great blurbs from terrific authors - it doesn't come out until 2014, which makes me a little sad - I can't wait to read that one too.  If Anne Ursu likes it, count me in!

If you'd like to participate more fully in the 2013 Summer Author Promo Blitz, there  is a list of blogs and participating authors here.  There will be a Twitter party on July 19th at 7pm with the hashtag #2013SummerAuthorBlitz.  There will also be a Facebook party going on all month at https://www.facebook.com/events/1393136437566649/.  It should all be a lot of fun!  See you on the 12th to learn more about Nikki Loftin!

Hold Fast

I wish I could remember who mentioned Hold Fast first.  I read a lot of blogs that mention children's literature, and I apologize for the fact that I can't remember who it was.  But they mentioned that the book was about homelessness and that it was written by Blue Balliett.  I read both Chasing Vermeer and The Wright 3 when they came out, but I hadn't read anything since then.  I thought this book sounded like it was something I wanted to try.  So I put it on hold, and then finally picked it up at the library.

The reason it appealed to me especially was because of its subject matter.  My cubicle at the MT Office of Public Instruction is quite close to our State Coordinator for Homeless, Neglected and Delinquent Education's desk.  I've heard her advocate for homeless children over and over again.  And I was hoping this book would make this situation real for children all over, while also being something children who are currently homeless would also be able to relate to.  I think Balliett scored on both points.

The book begins with the Pearl family.  There is Dash (Dashel) - the father, Sum (Summer) - the mother, and Early and Jubilation.  Early is in fifth grade, and Jubilation (who is mostly called Jubie) is still at home with Sum at four years old.  The Pearls' life is not easy - there is only one income, and that isn't very much.  Dash works at the Chicago Public Library as a Library Page.  Balliett says "The Pearl family rents the biggest apartment they can afford.  It is one room." (p. 8)  There isn't much there, but what is there is crucial to their growth and survival - words and books.  Dash often says to his children "'Words are free and plentiful'" (p. 6).  They use their library to its fullest extent - checking out books upon books and absorbing them.  They are learners.

But money is scarce, and when Dash is asked to do a side job, for which he's paid in cash, he agrees.  It's book-related, but has an air of mystery about it.  And then, one day, on his way home from work, Dash disappears off the street.  All that's left is his bicycle, a notebook, and a bag of groceries.  What could have happened to Dash?  Is he even still alive?

While Sum and Early are trying to find out what happened to Dash, they are visited by people claiming to be the police.  The "police" break down their door and rip apart all of the Pearl family's belongings.  Oddly, the "police" take all of the family's books, except one that got pushed under the coffee table.  It's rescued by Early - it is a book her father saved for her, Langston Hughes' The First Book of Rhythms.  At this point, the family doesn't feel safe in their home any longer (and the apartment is totally destroyed).  A neighbor tells Sum "' You and the babies shouldn't be where they can find you again.  No place near.  You best get you to a city shelter..." (p. 60).  The family has nowhere else to go, and any money they had was taken by the criminals.

I don't want to give away the plot's twists and turns because they are intricate and well-done, just like all of Balliett's books.  What interested me about this book were its two main themes - homelessness and books/reading/words/libraries.

The family's time in the shelter is difficult, for sure.  When they first arrive, they are placed in a large room of bunkbeds, called a cluster, crammed with families.  Balliett is compassionate in her descriptions, but realistic too.  The rules are laid out in a matter of fact way by the director" "Know where your kids are at all times, and never leave the shelter without them... You can use the shelter phone to make fifteen minutes of calls anytime between nine A.M. and four P.M....patience and politeness go a long way.  Everyone's call is important." (p. 82-3).  There is no privacy, but there are shelter residents who hold fast to their kindness and generosity, even in bad situations.

The shelter tests the Pearl family's strength.  Already frazzled beyond the breaking point and worried about Dash, Sum is trying to make calls - both to notify people of their whereabouts and also to try and find some job to sustain them.  But even after Sum waits in the endless phone line, she quite often has to leave messages, and there is no way for anyone to call her back.  The family is required to eat meals at specific times, and if they miss a meal, there is nothing else to eat, so the Pearl family also has to shuffle errands around their meal times.  It is constantly noisy, even at night.  Sum is beginning to shut down, and stop functioning.

Early and Jubie are the ones who "hold fast" - to their belief in finding Dash, and to their belief that they will get out of this shelter.  As Sum begins to give in to her depression, the Pearl children, particularly Early, encourage Sum to hold fast and keep fighting.  "Hold fast" comes from a Hughes poem in The First Book of Rhythms.  The words of that poem inspire Early to dream: "Dig down, fly high, remember where you want to go, and one day you'll get there: Roots + Wings + Dreams = Home!" (p. 42-3).  She, like many children, is resilient enough to take this experience and use it to propel her forward, instead of collapsing under its weight.

Of course, as a former librarian, I love any book that incorporates books and reading into its pages.  But this one does so much more than that.  It is instilled in almost every word of this book, and Balliett does that with such love and tenderness.  Reading is what saves this family over and over again.  Balliett writes about their relationship with words and books so beautifully.  "Dashel Pearl offered words to his kids from the day they were born.  A man who loved language almost as much as color or taste or air, he explained to his daughter, Early, that words are everywhere and for everyone." (p.6)  "This was a family of important words and their important histories." (p. 15)  This family has little besides words, but to them, words are all that matter.

This book is sad, joyous, scary and thoughtful.  It is chock full of energy, compassion, misery and struggle.  But most importantly, it is full of reading, learning, and the love of words all wrapped up in a mystery.  Don't miss it.

Hold Fast.  Blue Balliett.  Scholastic Press, 2013.

borrowed from Lewis & Clark Library

The One and Only May Amelia

As you can imagine, I have a pretty large collection of children's literature.  I tend to collect books and authors I really love and hold onto them.  But three years ago, my family began a pattern of moving once a year, and I had to start giving away books "to better homes".  But I held onto the book Our Only May Amelia.  But as time went on, the story became more hazy, and I became less sure of its value in my collection.  When the sequel, The Trouble with May Amelia, came out last year, I decided to reread the first one as well, in order to decide if it should stay or go.  After reading both books together, I am keeping the first one in my collection.  I will look at both of these books as an ongoing story and as historical fiction.

Our Only May Amelia was published in 1999, and won a Newbery Honor for that year.  The action takes place in 1899, on the Nasel River, in the state of Washington.  It is written from May Amelia Jackson's perspective, and she is a spark plug.  She introduces her brother Wilbert on the very first page, giving an indication of her personality as much as his.  He is her "favorite brother which is something indeed since I have so many brothers, more than any girl should have." (p.1). She has seven brothers.  May Amelia is the youngest, but has never been looked at as the baby of the family.  She is twelve years old, but does just as much farm work as her older brothers.  But she is also always in trouble - she doesn't always think before she acts, she is curious and wants to explore.  Her father declares "We're living in wilderness, May Amelia , and you girl have got a Nose for Trouble.". (p. 134).  May Amelia talks back when she believes she is right, and like the rest of the Jackson family, she is stubborn.

Life in 1899 rural Washington state isn't easy.  You have to be tough and creative to survive.  Each member of the family is cognizant of the need to survive financially.  The boys, all in their teens, find work when and where they can, including at the logging camp upriver.  But they are also part of a immigrant Finn community, and they are highly involved with also helping the entire community survive.  May Amelia's mother is heavily, uncomfortably pregnant, but besides caring for her own family, she delivers all the community's
 babies.  When an aunt cannot afford to take her son with the rest of her family as they move looking for work, Kaarlo is adopted into the Jackson family.  He is counted as one of the brothers.

While their life has moments of fun and hilarity, their strength is really shown through their enduring struggle to survive.  It can be unrelenting, but this family shoulders their burden and continues forward.  They value education and send the younger children to school, but if they are needed at home, there is no protest.  And Holm shows all of life on the Nasel River, the good and the truly terrible.  One of the most excruciating episodes has to do with Grandmother Patience.  Grandmother Patience has moved in with the Jackson family, and she is cruel, crotchety and outspoken.  She does not approve of May Amelia and the way she has been raised.  One terrifying episode happens with Grandmother Patience sends May Amelia back repeatedly for the correct cup of tea. 

 "She [Grandmother Patience] bangs the floor with her cane. But I've had all I can take.
There isn't any more honey you Greedy Old Witch! I shout.
She stands up to her full height and shakes her cane at me.  She is big, bigger than I thought and she is full of fury.  Her mouth is twisted in an evil snarl.
How dare you defy me, you little brat, she says.  Go and make me a Cup of Tea." (p. 104)
This woman is truly a villain.  Yet May Amelia finds ways to stay true to herself.  There is an awful consequence to the incident I quoted above, but that isn't the worst of Grandmother Patience's behavior.  And it isn't the worst of what May Amelia will face in this book.  But like the rest of her family, May Amelia knows that life must go on and move forward.  And she does as well.

There is an author's note at the end of this novel describing where Holm got the idea for this novel.  It came from the journal of her grandaunt, Alice Amelia Holm.  Jennifer Holm did a lot of research to supplement family stories, and it is written so beautifully that the research doesn't show.  The chapters are illustrated with photographs (some of which are from the author's own collection).  The sepia tones of the pages and the historical photographs add to the authenticity of this novel.

The Trouble with May Amelia was published in 2011, and it is billed as the sequel to Our Only May Amelia.  However, when I got around to reading it, I read it first, without rereading Our Only May Amelia and it does stand very well on its own.  The action in this novel takes place about six months after the last novel has concluded.  While Holm spends some time re-introducing the Jackson family and their life on the Nasel River, it doesn't feel awkward or forced.  Grandmother Patience, who caused so much strife in the first novel, has died, and in one last stroke of cruelty has left her money to one of May Amelia's uncles, even though her family cared for Grandmother Patience selflessly.  Money is still an issue, and in this book it is a real focus.  Holm also writes about the issues surrounding immigration in this era.  A man comes to meet with May Amelia's father, to talk with him about investing in making Nasel a real town with more business, a developed port and increased financial gain for those people willing to become stakeholders.  Her father only speaks Finn, and asks May Amelia to do all the translating for him, both verbally and translating the documents he must sign.  May Amelia sees this as a pivotal moment in their relationship - that her father finally sees her as truly ready to contribute to her family.  So after May Amelia translates everything, her father decides to take a risk and mortgage the family farm to invest.  Others in the community who also do not speak English fluently base their decisions to invest on the Jacksons' risk.  This is a close-knit community.  It is fairly isolated, and even the children who go to school will not speak English.  They rely on each other and go out of the community very infrequently.  And family members continue to immigrate from Finland, making this group even more prone to rely on each other.

Unfortunately the insularity of this community comes back to haunt them in the end.  It ends up that the man who has convinced the town to invest is a con man.  Families up and down the river blame their unimaginable loss on the Jackson family's decision.  And in an unforgivable turn of events, May Amelia's father blames the con on her.  He believes she should have understood better, should have translated more clearly.  The family is powerless in the face of his anger and helpless when confronted with his stubborn refusal to see reality.  He is stunningly cruel to his only daughter.

Much like the events of the first novel, these events show quite a bit about this family's resiliency, their spirit and strength.  This novel is based on events from Holm's great-grandfather's life, and sadly, these events are true.  Holm writes about this with compassion and a historian's eye for details of the family's despair.  And yet from the truly terrible springs hope and innovation.  This family creates a new venture that will bring prosperity.
I did say earlier that these novels could be read alone.  The events of the second book are affected by the events of the first, but Holm gives the broad strokes of the Jackson family history in a very natural way in the second book.  But when you read these books together, you begin to see a more complete story.  In Our Only May Amelia, Holm focuses primarily on family events.  She does introduce some neighbors and community members, the book examines each of the family members closely.  Readers get to know each one of them - their personalities, their stubbornness, and how May Amelia feels about each one of them.  In the second book, Holm is looking at this family within their community.  As I mentioned, she looks at the immigrant community and how they operate as a unit.  Readers still spend time within the family, but they get to know more of the neighbors, the hope a potential new town brings to Nasel, and the devastation left when this hope disappears.

One of the things I believe works best about this pair of novels is the way Holm crafts her historical fiction.  She creates May Amelia as a lively character, one who is easily relatable to readers and is full of spunk.  She is very much a girl of 1899, but she bucks against tradition and expectations.  There is a family secret that May Amelia isn't privy to at first, although she can sense something isn't being said.  When her brothers finally come out with the secret, the explanation is "You're a girl, May, he says.  We didn't want to scare you.
Nothing scares me, I say. " (Trouble, p. 75)  In her overalls, she is constantly being called a boy and indignantly correcting people: "I ain't no boy!" (Trouble, p. 49).  Yet Holm also fills these novels full of the information that gives readers a feeling of the time period.  Some of the events take place in and around a logging camp, a dangerous place for all of them.  But the money is good, and all of May Amelia's brothers long to work in the camp.  There are also scenes in the fish cannery in nearby Astoria that highlight both the terrible status of immigrants and the workforce in such grueling, low-paying jobs.

I could go on and talk about work in these novels, or education, but you get the idea.  These novels are rich in family and period detail, but their episodic nature and May Amelia's strong, sympathetic character will keep readers enthralled.  One of the other things that I noticed throughout both books was Holm's beautiful, original way of describing things.  She describes objects using easily digested language that brings pictures to the reader's mind.  From Our Only May Amelia, she writes "the Nasel is as calm and smooth as the inside of a clam's shell." (p. 24).  And in The Trouble with May Amelia, Holm describes May Amelia's mother's interaction with a younger cousin: "Mamma spends hours braiding and brushing Helmi's hair until it gleams like fresh milk." (p. 81).  She brings these ideas to life by using pictures that transcend the historical time period, making them appropriate both to May Amelia and the reader.

These books are compelling, whether read together or separately.  I recommend you find them and acquaint yourself with May Amelia.  She's a keeper.

Our Only May Amelia.  Jennifer L. Holm.  HarperCollins, 1999.
The Trouble with May Amelia.  Jennifer L. Holm, illustrated by Adam Gustavson, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2011.

both borrowed from Lewis and Clark Library