Author: Loree Burns

THE LEMONADE WAR
By Jacqueline Davies
Houghton Mifflin, 2007

Category: Middle Grade Fiction

I spent last weekend at Rising River, a writing retreat founded by author Jacqueline Davies. It was an incredible three days of creativity, camaraderie, and celebration. If you are a writer looking for a working retreat that puts an emphasis on the needs of the individual writer, Rising River might be the place for you. (If, however, you are a writer on a diet, don’t go. Or at least plan to leave the diet at home. The food at Rising River is stupendous and you will be unable to resist second helpings, fresh-baked cookies at all hours, and fruit crisps with hand-whipped topping. Sigh. I miss it already.)

In addition to finishing the first draft of my new novel (HOORAY!), I came away from the retreat with a list of books to read. One of the most exciting on the list is THE LEMONADE WAR, a middle-grade novel written by Jacqueline Davies herself. Check out this teaser:

“One brother. One sister. One bet. Winner takes all.”

And this trailer (click the link):

THE LEMONADE WAR trailer

How can you not want to read this book? Jackie gave me this overview of the storyline:

“During the five days before school starts a brother and sister get into an argument about who can sell the most lemonade. As each day passes, the competition gets tougher—and nastier—until the bet becomes an all-out, no-holds-barred war. How low will they go, and will this war ever end?”

I, for one, intend to find out.

THE LEMONADE WAR will be available on April 23, 2007. Check it out!

THE BOY WHO DREW BIRDS, A Story of John James Audubon
By Jacqueline Davies
Illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Category: Picture book biography

I am off to write for the weekend! I will soon be checked into a room of my own at an inn full of writers with my laptop, my favorite work-in-progress, and my most comfortable winter-weather-snuggle-in-to-work clothes. I’ve packed tea for the mornings, a bottle of champagne for a special evening (my writing partners and I are celebrating book releases this year), and some books to read for inspiration. I cannot think of a better way to spend three January days in New England.

What does all this have to do with THE BOY WHO DREW BIRDS? Well, the Rising River Retreat is run by the book’s author, Jacqueline Davies. I’m bringing my copy for her to sign, and I couldn’t help but re-read it before I tucked it into my suitcase.

THE BOY WHO DREW BIRDS is not a birth-to-death telling of Audubon’s life, but a glimpse at one special and formative year. During that year, young John James is intent on solving a centuries-old mystery: where do small birds spend the winter. The answers posed by scientists of the day ranged from outrageous (one scientist actually believed the birds flew to the moon!) to curious (another suggested small birds hibernated underwater for the winter). John James suspected small birds migrated, just as larger birds were known to do, and he took to observing and drawing the small birds nesting near his home in an attempt to better understand them. As the time for migration neared, John James had a marvelous idea, an idea that would help him partly solve the mystery of bird migration and which would lead, eventually, to a revolutionary technique for monitoring the movement of birds.

More about the retreat, and the author of THE BOY WHO DREW BIRDS, next week …

HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS
by Thomas Rockwell
Illustrated by Emily McCully
Dell, 1973

Category: Elementary/Middle-grade fiction

A boy named Billy makes a bet with his friend Alan that he will EAT fifteen worms in fifteen days for fifty bucks. With this hysterical premise, Thomas Rockwell (son of Norman, by the way) creates a story that screams to be read out loud. I love books that bridge the age and gender gaps in our house … girls, boys, kids and adults were giggling, giggling, giggling.

Have any of you seen the new movie adaptation? I’d love to hear what you thought. The kids are keen to see it, but I am not sure. The book is soooooo good.

IMMERSED IN VERSE, An Informative, Slightly Irreverent & Totally Tremendous Guide to Living the Poet’s Life
By Allan Wolf
Illustrated by Tuesday Mourning
Lark Books, 2006

Category: Middle grade nonfiction

IMMERSED IN VERSE was the surprise find of my weeks as a Cybils judge. I never expected to find a book on writing poetry among the MG/YA nominees. And when Allan Wolf’s book appeared on my doorstep, I didn’t expect to love it. It’s about poetry, after all, and poetry scares me. (I’m not sure where this fear comes from, but I suspect my compulsive, neat, rational and literal personality is part of the problem. Poetry is hardly ever all of these things, at least not at the same time.)

Anyway, I’m cured. That is, I am not (so) scared of poetry anymore. And it is all because I read Allan Wolf’s book. With an enthusiasm that is hard to resist, Wolf’s book arms writers-to-be with important ideas (“Don’t write about love. Write about holding hands. Don’t write about hate. Write about the bullies who walk the halls at school.”) and tools (“Metaphors Be with You”) of the poetry trade.

The highest accolade I can give IMMERSED IN VERSE is this: I wrote a poem while reading it. Crazy, but true. The poem is about Monty, our temporary beta fish and no, I will not post it here. But writing it was fun and woke up some long-slumbering cells in my literary brain. I think there might be a few more poems up there. Who knew?

KRINGLE
By Tony Abbott
Scholastic Press, 2006

Category: Middle grade fiction

Epic fantasy is not really my thing. My boys, however, cannot live without it. Okay, perhaps I am being overly dramatic. The boys could live without epic fantasy. They just wouldn’t read as much. And they would spend a lot of time sighing and wondering what to do with themselves. Anyway, we came home from the library in early December with KRINGLE, the story of Santa Claus as told by Tony Abbott … in all its epic and fantastical glory.

In Tony Abbott’s version of the story, Santa is known as Kringle. He grows up parentless in a world inhabited by elves and goblins. It was fascinating, really, to watch the author weave the traditional myths of our modern Santa Claus into his story. And while I am still not a fan of epic fantasy, I have nothing but respect for the care and imagination with which Mr. Abbott created this one.

NEW ENGLAND YEAR
By Muriel Follett
Stephen Daye Press, 1940
Yankee Publishing, 1988

Category: Adult Nonfiction (memoir)

I’m still working through this book, and I like it so much that I simply have to add to my initial entry about it. Muriel Follet’s view of life on a 1930s New England farm has been invaluable to my understanding of the time and place I have set my new novel. But I have found a deeper wisdom in the pages of NEW ENGLAND YEAR, and its application transcends my writing.

Here is an excerpt from Ms. Follett’s May 12 entry:

“Even though I enjoy doing many things, I would like most of all to have more time to write. But somehow I have a hunch that in order to do any job well, my close human relationships must first be right, and that if I neglect my children and my family at this stage of the game, we would all be poorer in the long run. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe they would be just as well off without me. But I cannot make myself believe that. I have tried it for short intervals and it has never worked out well. The youngsters need someone to whom they may go at any time, anywhere, to discuss their problems. Sometimes, I am not much help and I make mistakes, but I try, and I listen.”

As a woman raised on the principle that I could have it all: a healthy marriage, a growing family, and a fulfilling career (so long as I worked hard enough), I am well aware of the joys and sorrows of the working soccer mom. I was surprised, however, that a woman like Muriel Follett struggled with essentially the same issues. This is a woman who grew or raised almost every morsel her family ate. This is a woman who sewed most of the clothes she and her family wore. This is a woman who, by necessity, put her writing last in line behind her husband and her children and her farm. Still, she fretted and she worried. Is there a mother in the world who doesn’t struggle to find time for herself and her passions amidst the endless pull of parental and wifely duties? Is there a mother anywhere who doesn’t worry that she is not doing enough, that every moment devoted to herself—her passions, her job, her calling—is a moment of selfishness for which her children will pay? I doubt it. Do women of every historical age worry about these same issues? Will my great-great-granddaughters worry, too? Probably.

I like to think that if Muriel and I had lived in the same decade, we would have been great friends. We would have found time—perhaps a stolen hour after the noon meal had been prepared, served, and cleaned up, with our washing piles on the porch railing and the electric iron (a new-fangled and welcome gadget in Muriel’s day) plugged into the porch light—to talk about parenting and writing. We would talk and iron and spend long moments laughing over the kids romping in her massive garden. Maybe we would have found a way to encourage one another’s writing. Maybe we would have convinced each other that raising healthy children was plenty. Maybe we would have told one another that we were each doing the best we could … and that it was enough.

WHY I WAKE EARLY
By Mary Oliver
Beacon Press, 2004

Category: Poetry for adults

I am finally catching up to the rest of the kidlithosphere (the community of online admirers and reviewers of children’s books). Friday, in this otherworld, is poetry day. Who knew?

It just so happens, however, that I got a book of poetry for Christmas. And although I haven’t finished it yet (Poetry forces my reading to slow down, I linger and dwell in a way that I am never able to with prose), I can happily recommend it to budding poets and poetry enthusiasts everywhere. In fact, I recommend it to folks who don’t enjoy poetry, or who are a little afraid of it (this description fits me sometimes), or to anyone who admires wildlife and the natural world.

The title poem, WHY I WAKE EARLY, has become a morning ritual for me. It is an homage to the sun, a resolution to begin each day, with the sun’s help, “in happiness, in kindness”. These mornings—these cold and dark January mornings when I am up, alone, and working by lamplight—require a drop more imagination than most. But I aspire to begin in happiness and in kindness nonetheless.

NEW ENGLAND YEAR
By Muriel Follett
Stephen Daye Press, 1940
Yankee Publishing, 1988

Category: Adult Nonfiction (Memoir)

The writing project that most challenges me at the moment is a middle-grade historical novel. This is my first attempt at such a beast, and, truth be told, it is more than challenging. It is terrifying! My rational self recognizes this terror as a good sign; if I didn’t think the work was good, I’d feel nothing but frustration. But the truth is I like this book a great deal. I believe it has a lot of potential.

I also believe it is far from finished. Sigh.

To keep myself focused and to help me stay immersed in the time period I am writing about, I have cleared my bedside table of all the books I planned to read this month. In their stead I have stacked books published between 1920 and 1940, and the pile includes NEW ENGLAND YEAR, by Muriel Follett.

Muriel and Rob Follett raised their two children on a working farm in southeastern Vermont in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1938, Muriel kept a diary of daily life on the farm and someone, bless his or her soul, saw fit to publish it in book form. NEW ENGLAND YEAR is filled with the sorts of details that will help me to set my book in a time and place that was gone before I was born. But NEW ENGLAND YEAR is more than just a research tool; it is a fascinating look at the ways our living (and loving and working and playing and parenting) have changed in the past seventy years. Follett’s delicate narrative is addictive and her experiences a convincing testimonial for country life.

STONE FOX
By John Reynolds Gardiner
HarperTrophy, 1980

Category: Middle-grade Fiction

This little book shocked me. It was recommended by our children’s librarian, who knows emotional books get to me, and who knows that a book with racing sled dogs on the cover would get to my boys. We read the book in two sittings and I’m still thinking about it three days later.

Little Willy is ten and lives alone with his grandfather on their potato farm. One morning he wakes late to find Grandfather still in bed. Grandfather’s eyes are open, but he is unresponsive. Little Willy runs for Doc Smith, who examines Grandfather and offers this cryptic diagnosis:

“There is nothing wrong with him.”
“You mean he’s not sick?”
“Medically, he’s as healthy as an ox. Could live to be a hundred if he wanted to.”
“I don’t understand,” little Willy said.
Doc Smith took a deep breath. And then she began, “It happens when a person gives up. Gives up on life. For whatever reason. Starts up here in the mind first; then it spreads to the body. It’s a real sickness, all right. And there’s no cure excpet in the person’s own mind. I’m sorry, child, but it appears that your grandfather just doesn’t want to live anymore.”

So Little Willy takes it upon himself to bring back Grandfather’s will to live. I thought I knew how this one was going to end. In fact, I was rather smug about how see-through the plot was. But the author slipped in a doozy of an ending that left me wondering whether I loved the book or hated it. I mean, if a book is technically flawed (and I think this one has several logistic holes) but the story pulls you in and keeps you turning the pages, if certain aspects of the plot bother you, but the story as a whole leaves you, at the last, in tears … well, then, can you criticize it? I think not.

If you’ve read STONE FOX, I’d love to hear what you thought.