Author: Loree Burns

Well, that took a little while, didn’t it? I spent the last week (and then some) wrestling the bee book into finer shape. It is now back on my editor’s desk; here’s hoping she loves it!

Because the housework that has built up around here this last week is truly revolting, I have decided to do something much more fun with my lunch hour. Instead of sorting laundry I am going to tell you about my new favorite book:

CHICKEN CHEEKS
Written by Michael Ian Black
Illustrated by Kevin Hawkes
Simon & Schuster, 2009

To me, CHICKEN CHEEKS is a perfect picture book. The words are interesting and, at times, inspired. The art is lovely and runs riot off the page. But neither text nor art is completely unforgettable … until they are joined. Only when Michael Ian Black’s fiendishly funny forty-two words are paired with Kevin Henkes’s zany picture story do you lose yourself in CHICKEN CHEEKS. I think this book is a masterpiece. And I think kids will love it. LOVE. IT.

Check it out and tell me if you agree.

(By the way, I’m intentionally withholding plot information. This is the sort of book you should experience blind, so to speak.)

Okay, I’m off to start the laundry…

Although my copy of Suzanne Collins’ HUNGER GAMES did arrive today …

A PLAGUE OF FROGS
By William Sounder
(Hyperion, 2000)

Category: Nonfiction for Grownups

A PLAGUE OF FROGS is the sort of nonfiction I like to write, and so it makes sense that I enjoyed reading it. I found myself analyzing the author’s storytelling choices throughout, carefully noting the mix of dramatic narrative and necessary scientific details; readability can be a tough balance to strike in a book like this, and I thought Mr. Sounder did a fine job of it.

The story—a look at the amphibian deformities crisis of the 1990s—has deep parallels to the honey bee decline story I share in THE HIVE DETECTIVES, due out next year. A scientist quoted in the book describes frogs as victims of a ‘convergence of environmental misfortune’, and the same could be said of honey bees. Let me just say here—and from personal experience—that when you are crafting a scientific thriller based on actual events, a ‘convergence of environmental misfortunes’ is not necessarily the most satisfying ending. Let’s face it: if you open a book with a mystery, your readers expect you to close with a solution to that mystery. Closing with a hazy “it could be lots of things” can be a tough, tough sell.

That said, we are talking about scientific mysteries here. Sometimes scientists manage to identify a single solution to a biological problem, but more often they uncover a slew of additional problems that need investigation. Such is the nature of science. By keeping his focus on the complexity of our environment and on the absolute wrongness of frogs with no hind legs—or with six hind legs or with hind legs that are so muddled they cannot function as legs—William Sounder created a wholly satisfying read. His book didn’t tell me the exact cause of the frog plague, but it did leave me thinking hard about our environment and how I fit into it.

CHAINS
By Laurie Halse Anderson
Simon & Schuster, 2008

Category: Middle grade historical fiction

When I am older and my kids are grown and I think back on my parenting, I will surely cherish memories of our time reading together. At the very fore of these memories will be the winter vacation when we sat together and read CHAINS. We finished the book days ago, and still the four of us are talking about Isabel and Mistress Lockton and the twin cruelties of slavery and war.

Some might argue this book is too intense for a family read-aloud, particularly for families with younger children. They might be right. The kids were introduced to a dangerous and terrible time in our nation’s history, and they did witness atrocities of injustice. But … they experienced these things with me, in our living room, snuggled up together on the couch. They were safe and warm and free to contemplate the darker sides of humanity with Mom at their side. If they are going to experience these things—and I believe they must in order to be sure that we, as a society, don’t repeat the mistakes of our past—then I’d rather have them experience them with me in the living room than alone in the world outside our front door.

CHAINS may not be the perfect read-aloud for every family, but it was the perfect one for us. Thank you, Laurie Halse Anderson, for giving us this unforgettable story to share.

WOODSWOMAN
By Anne LaBastille
Dutton, 1976

Category: Nonfiction for Grownups

I’ve not read Elizabeth Gilbert’s runaway bestseller, EAT, PRAY, LOVE, but so many of the people around me have (even the pastor at my UU church preached about the book) that I feel I got the gist of it. And with all due respect to Ms. Gilbert and her Search for Everything, I’ve decided that if I find myself disillusioned with the world, or at a place in my life when there is time for extended self-reflection, I’m not going to travel the globe to do it. No, I’m going to find myself a lonely cabin in the woods and conduct my Search among rocks and trees that have spent their entire lives, like me, here in New England.

Knowing this, you’ll understand my fascination with the book WOODSWOMAN. After a heartbreaking divorce, author Anne LaBastille bought a parcel of land in the Adirondack wilderness, built herself a small cabin, and lived there alone for ten years. What she learns—both the practical things and the spiritual things—are utterly fascinating; reading her story opened my eyes to the reality of my cabin-in-the-woods dream. Namely, that I might not be up for it.

No matter. Sometimes living vicariously is enough for me. And because LaBastille stayed in her cabin long after the book closed, there are three additional Woodswoman books for me to read and ponder … from the safety and comfort of my decidedly un-rustic home.

How about you? If you had the time to ‘find yourself’, would you look in the woods (à la Anne LaBastille), around the globe (à la Elizabeth Gilbert), or somewhere else entirely?