Author: Loree Burns

HENRY HIKES TO FITCHBURG
By D.B. Johnson
Houghton Mifflin, 2000

Category: Picture book
Awards: Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, 2000

There is so much goodness wrapped up in my copy of HENRY HIKES TO FITCHBURG.

Firstly, it is a marvelous book. Daniel Pinkwater called it, “A masterpiece … the finest illustrations I’ve seen in years and years”. I agree on both counts.

Equally important to me is the fact that our copy of HENRY HIKES TO FITCHBURG was a gift from dear friends. Sam and Ben were two years old when it arrived in the mail (I just peeked in on them, sleeping in the wee hours, and they are so long and lanky that I can hardly believe they were once two year-olds) and we were living within walking distance of Fitchburg. Our friends Hans, Carolyn and Jordan wrote inside the book: “May you enjoy many hikes!”

About a year later, D. B. Johnson visited our local library. I brought the boys, then three, and they loved watching D.B. draw Henry on his big, white artpad. Ben was particularly mesmerized … and he has not stopped drawing since. D. B. wrote in the book, just over the first inscription: “Enjoy the blackberries!”

On Saturday the boys and I got to meet D.B. Johnson again at the Fish Tales, Tugs & Sails festival in New London, Connecticut. This time I was a published author, too, and appeared alongside D. B. and his wife, author Linda Michelin. D.B. and Linda were kind and encouraging. They came to my presentation, smiled all the way through, and then bought a copy of my book. In a stunning example of above and beyond, these two generous people returned to the author tent late in the day, at the time allotted for D.B.’s presentation, to tell me they had read and enjoyed the first two chapters of TRACKING TRASH.

And so you will surely understand how I feel about my beautiful copy of HENRY HIKES TO FITCHBURG. This book has grown layers of meaning over the years; when I hold it I want to sing about friendship and creativity and kindnesses. I don’t, of course (I cannot sing a whit!), but I think about all of these things before I open the cover and read:

“One summer day, Henry and his friend decided to go to Fitchburg to see the country.”

Oh, the journey!

 

NIGHT
Written by Elie Wiesel
Read by Jeffrey Rosenblatt
Audio Bookshelf, 2000

Category: Memoir for Young Adults and Adults

I listened to NIGHT while driving from Massachusetts to Delaware this past Sunday. I’ve been meaning to read it for ages, especially since I noticed, recently, that I have been reading a lot of Holocost-themed books. And now that I have heard it read out loud, I have to agree with this jacket quote: “undoubtably the single most powerful literary relic of the holocaust.”

There isn’t much that truly scares me. Oh, I have my fears, of course. The thought of harm visiting my children leaves me choking on my own breath; I worry about the health and well-being of my sister, my friends, and my extended family; I am anxious about global warming and the state of our planet; I do not dig traveling alone. Most days I calm these fears by focusing on the awesome complexity of life on Earth, the diversity of form and function, the incredible breadth of experience we humans are privy to, all that I know which is good and right in the world. As I was driving, though, and listening to NIGHT, my one true fear came into sharp focus: a world without Humanity.

That is a world I couldn’t bear.

That is the world Elie Wiesel survived.

I highly recommend you read his story.

 

A CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT
By Linda Urban
Harcourt, September 2007

Category: Middle-grade fiction

I must admit at the outset that it is hard for me to separate the fabulous-ness of this book from the fabulous-ness of its author…

I sat in on a workshop that Linda Urban gave at the 2006 New England SCBWI Conference, Creating Great Bookstore Events, and was struck with her sincerity, her straightforward manner, and her sense of humor. A year later, at the 2007 Conference, I spent an evening eating and talking shop with Linda (and several equally fabulous local writers). Sincere. Straightforward. Funny. My first impressions of Linda were borne out.

And now that I have read Linda’s debut novel for young readers (Thank you Cynthia Lord!), I am not at all surprised to report that it is also sincere, straightforward, and very funny.

Zoe Elias is a little girl with big dreams … piano-prodigy-playing-Carnegie-Hall-in-a-diamond-tiara dreams. And she is pretty sure that the only things holding her back are her wheezebag organ (so NOT a piano), her agoraphobic Dad, and her workaholic Mom. I loved the snappy format and the clever way the chapter titles and text worked together*. I loved how recurring elements crept up on me and, well, punched me in the stomach**. I loved how the book made me look at the perfectly crooked parts of my life and smile***.

Hooray for you, Linda!

* Reluctant readers will love this, too.
** Writing teachers will love this, too.
*** Who won’t love this?

 

THE LANGUAGE OF GOD, A SCIENTIST PRESENTS EVIDENCE FOR BELIEF
by Francis S. Collins
Free Press, 2006

Category: Adult Non-fiction

Francis Collins heads the Human Genome Project, a government-supported research program charged with sequencing the entire human genome. (This incredible feat was accomplished–with help from many national and international contributors–in 2003.) His book has been in my TO READ pile since its publication, but I have passed it over time and again. Why? Well, because this is a book I wanted to dwell on. This is a book I wanted to read slowly and carefully and with my full attention. This is a book I wanted to think about.

And here I am. Vacationing. Dwelling. Thinking. It’s bliss…