Category: Blog

AN AMERICAN PLAGUE, The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793
By Jim Murphy
Clarion, 2003

Last week on the 11 o’clock news I saw footage of planes flying over parts of Massachusetts spraying for mosquitoes. I couldn’t help but wince at the sight. I am one of those people who hates the thought of my neighborhood being blanketed with airborne pesticides. Even if they are designed to have minimal impact on “non-target species”, even if they are a synthetic derivative of a compound normally found in garden plants, even if their dissemination will decrease adult mosquito populations and, therefore, decrease the risk of certain diseases. I still worry … about my kids, about the deer and the wild turkeys that roam in the woods behind my house, and most of all about the damned mosquitoes that survive the spraying and go on to spawn a new generation of perhaps- more-spray-resistant young mosquitoes. Reading AN AMERICAN PLAGUE did nothing to dampen these concerns.

As the subtitle claims, this book is terrifying. With a dexterous use of firsthand accounts, Murphy brings readers the sights, sounds and smells of Philadelphia in August of 1793, when a yellow fever epidemic gripped the city. Talk about history coming alive! Philadelphia’s sons and daughters leaped from the pages … some as heroes, others as cowards, some as survivors, others as victims … each compelling and urgent. This is riveting non-fiction and it is no wonder at all that the cover of this book sports so much silver and gold (a Newbery Honor medal, the National Book Award finalist medallion, and a Sibert medal!). Bravo, Jim Murphy.

This startling quote is taken from the last chapter:

“… despite years of research, there is still no cure for yellow fever. While modern medicines can lessen the impact the disease has on the human body, once a person has yellow fever, he or she will have to endure most of the horrible symptoms that Philadelphia’s people suffered in 1793.”

I won’t even describe the horrible symptoms to you. You will just have to get Jim Murphy’s book and read all about it yourself. Be forewarned, though … when you have finished the book you will start to worry about mosquitoes, the diseases they carry, and how little control we actually have over these bloodthirsty buggers. When this happens I invite you to come back here and worry with me. Believe it or not, it is mosquito week here. Stay tuned …

NUMBER THE STARS
By Lois Lowry
Houghton Mifflin, 1989

Okay, folks, it is library book sale week. That means everyone in my house is hoarding petty cash and dreaming of spectacular bargain book finds. (Will they have the long-sought after CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS AND THE PERILOUS PLOT OF PROFESSOR POOPYPANTS? Will we luck out and find that illustrated, hardcover edition of THE HOBBIT? Oh, remember the year we found that practically new, lap-sized edition of CHARLOTTE’S WEB?) It also means we are trying to finish reading the spectacular stack of bargain books we bought last year. And I submit to you now that any stack of books containing a copy of Lois Lowry’s NUMBER THE STARS—bargain bought or otherwise—is, indeed, spectacular.

I listened to this book on tape two years ago and bought my tattered copy shortly afterward, at last year’s library book sale. I was anxious to read it to my kids, but my boys were hesitant. They are into judging books by covers; covers that feature a girl, as this one does, are not cool. But NUMBER THE STARS is set during the German occupation of Denmark during World War II. This has a certain appeal for eight year-old boys and they agreed to give it a try. They were hooked from the moment early in Chapter 1 when a German soldier stepped onto a Danish sidewalk and shouted “Halte!” at ten year-old Annemarie Johansen and her friend Ellen Rosen, who were racing each other home from school.

“Annemarie stared up. There were two of them. That meant two helmets, two sets of cold eyes glaring at her, and four tall shiny boots planted firmly on the sidewalk, blocking her path to home. And it meant two rifles, gripped in the hands of the soldiers.”

The looks on my sons’ faces at this moment were the same looks I imagine Annemarie and Ellen must have worn. I saw fear and shock and a sprinkle of carefully concealed outrage. I was left, yet again, in awe of the power of the written word. Although I tried hard to read the book with an eye toward craft (Lowry is a master and I am but a student), I was swept up in the story. More than once I cried. And my sweet, innocent boys were caught up in a history they can barely understand. For days after we finished the book there were questions, difficult ones, about German soldiers and Danish Jews and the Resistance and friendship and risk. They were tough conversations and I am sure my answers fed their shock and fear. How could an honest conversation about such topics do anything else? But as we talked, shock and fear were overshadowed by outrage, and for this I am grateful.

Thank you, Lois Lowry, for giving the world such a beautiful and important book.

Best,
Loree

THE POET AND THE DONKEY
By May Sarton
Norton, 1996

“Everything had gone stale for Andy, and the prospect of living another twenty or thirty years without a Muse and in this loathsome condition chilled him to the bone.” May Sarton, THE POET AND THE DONKEY

Andy, poor dear, is a poet in the dark throes of a dry spell. Hard as he tries, the poems just won’t come. In a surprisingly creative attempt to recover his Muse, he borrows a donkey. That’s right, a donkey. The truly astonishing thing is that the presence of ornery, lonesome and arthritic Whiffenpoof somehow brings Andy the clarity he needs. THE POET AND THE DONKEY is a quiet book, a simple book. It is somehow heartbreaking and joyful, ordinary and extra-ordinary at the same time.

As a writer, the premise of this story was compelling to me. Don’t we all live in fear of writer’s block? I do. And so I was disheartened to realize as I read Andy’s story that I had, perhaps, set myself up for a fall. You see, just this very week I got rid of Harold.

We inherited Harold and his good friend George, African clawed aquatic frogs, from neighbors over a year ago. The neighbors were moving out of the country and the frogs needed a good home; we took them in. George died straightaway and for no reason we could discern. To learn a little about Harold’s kind, and to perhaps get some tips on how to keep him alive, we borrowed a book on frog care from the library. That is how I discovered that African clawed aquatic frogs can live for thirty years. THIRTY YEARS! I also discovered that African clawed aquatic frogs require a good deal of maintenance. I was suddenly motivated to find a new home for Harold. I have enough to take care of around here! I simply cannot put frog tank maintenance on the list of things I must attend to before I write!

And so we found Harold a good home with the Reptile Rainforest Shows. (Yes, Harold will educate and inform children around Massachusetts for the next thirty years. Surely a better life than I could have offered him here.) And now that he is gone THE POET AND THE DONKEY ends up on my desk. I have never suffered writer’s block in the way Andy does in this book. But I have had stale times, days when the words just felt wrong. If and when those times come again, there will be no donkey, no frogs, and definitely no dogs (are you reading this, children of mine?) to set me straight. I will have no choice but to keep writing, day after day, page after drivel-drenched page. Eventually the words will come out right again. Won’t they?

Best,
Loree

LOOKING FOR ALASKA
By John Green
Dutton, 2005

Okay. So, you wouldn’t know it by looking at my blog entries for the last month, but I have been reading a lot this summer. I now have an extensive backlist of books I want to blog about. But somehow summertime and blogging haven’t mixed well for me. Too much entertaining and visiting and gardening and playing in the yard and playing on the water and playing on the tennis court and, well, you get the idea. I’ve been busy having fun. It is high time, however, that I got back to work.

One of my recent favorites is John Green’s young adult novel LOOKING FOR ALASKA. I won’t spend much time with a formal review, because my good friend Eric Luper has already posted a super review. I will tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed this story. The mysterious chapter headings drew me in from the opening line and the odd characters appealed to me. Mostly, though, I was swept up in one teenaged boy’s search for a Great Perhaps.

Miles Halter, the protagonist of LOOKING FOR ALASKA, is intrigued by last words. Some of his favorites were uttered by a dying Fracois Rabelais’: “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.” The words inspired Miles to leave behind his less-than-ideal life in a traditional Floridian high school and enroll instead at a boarding school in Alabama … where he hoped to find a Great Perhaps. The words inspire me, too. Aren’t we all, particularly us writer types, in search of a Great Perhaps? Perhaps I can write this story in a way that will fully express the humor and sadness I am longing to share. Perhaps what I have to say will be important to someone else. Perhaps I can tell a story that will capture the imagination of a child. Perhaps I can convey awe, ignite passion, connect with someone–or many someones–through the words I put down on paper. For me, it is definitely a Great Perhaps that keeps my alarm clock set for the wee hours, keeps me pecking away at the keyboard, keeps me striving to place my manuscripts.

Goodbye summer. I am off, once again, to seek a Great Perhaps …

Best,
Loree

A WEDDING IN DECEMBER
By Anita Shreve
Little, Brown and Company, 2005

Near the end of my trip I spent a few hours shopping in Windsor. We had visited Windsor Castle early in our stay, and so I was used to the sight of a royal stronghold, complete with turrets and archery windows, in the midst of a bustling tourist center. On this afternoon, though, I was not sightseeing; I was gathering English gifts to bring home. I bought some nice tea (despite the unbelieving stares I had gotten from waitstaff when I asked for it after dinner, English teas DO come in a decaffeinated form … apparently all of it is exported with tourists like me), a few London T-shirts and a Beefeater rubber duck. I saved a visit to the local bookstore for last.

Title-gazing was fascinating. So many of the titles I recognized graced cover art I had never seen before. I had a chat with the bookseller about this and she agreed it was strange. The British cover of HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE was perfect, why did the Americans need a second cover? I, of course, preferred the American cover. A perfect example, I suppose, of the divide between British and American sensibilities.

Anyway, since I had read all my vacation books and because there was a sale on (the price was good if you didn’t do the British pounds to US dollars conversion), I bought myself a copy of Anita Shreve’s A WEDDING IN DECEMBER. It was entertaining in that tragic way I enjoy sometimes and the plot was intriguing (high school friends, reunited twenty-six years after their graduation, are forced to revisit the death of a classmate). Most importantly, the book was set in the perfect place for my return journey: Massachusetts (otherwise known as home).

Best,
Loree

EMMA
By Jane Austen

I threw EMMA into my carry-on bag as an after-thought. Wouldn’t there be some good number of quiet moments during vacation—perhaps at night after the kids had fallen into their beds exhausted—for me to read a classic English novel? My collection of Austen novels includes EMMA, PERSUASION, PRIDE & PREJUDICE, and SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. They are arranged alphabetically on the shelf (The CDs around here are arranged this way, too, I am afraid!) and so EMMA came with me to England.

As it turned out, I fell into my own bed each night, exhausted, soon after the kids … and so I slept through any quiet moments there might have been. Instead I read EMMA in stolen moments during the day when the kids were playing football in the garden. (It is not soccer over there … and as far as I could tell the term backyard doesn’t exist. And so they played football in the garden.) I also read a fair bit on the day when my husband took the kids on a hike and I stayed behind to do laundry and pack us up for Paris. And there was the three hour train ride from London to Paris. I was glad to have EMMA with me.

That I was able to lose myself in Emma’s story speaks to Jane Austen’s great talent as a novelist, I think. As a heroine, Emma is a challenge. She is rich and a bit snobbish about it. She is young and thinks her position in society and her station in life have prepared her to meddle in the affairs of others. Somehow, though, I found Emma compelling. To be truthful, I found her naïve pride a bit familiar. Who among is not ashamed of at least some of the ideals and sentiments of their youth? And although I am quite sure that I would not have survived the strict societal rules of seventeenth century England, I was able to suspend my twentieth-century sensibilities and believe that such a thing as propriety and connections were important to a successful marriage. And so I was able to read and enjoy Emma’s story. (Unlike, by the way, several amazon.com readers, who trashed this book online.)

I left my copy of EMMA in England, on the bedside table of another Emma. This one is the teenaged daughter of my English friends, whose room my husband and I usurped for the duration of our English vacation. The modern Emma was a gracious host and a patient playmate to our kids. She has not a snobbish bone in her body and, though young, seems to me level-headed enough to avoid any of the mistakes Jane Austen’s Emma fell prey to. I look forward to hearing what she thinks of EMMA.

Best,
Loree

THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET
By Helene Hanff
Avon Books, 1973

Ahhhh!

That is the sound of me, relaxed and content, after a whirlwind vacation. Since I last wrote I have traveled across the Atlantic to visit old friends in London … and then across the English Channel to make new friends in Paris. Unlike my usual summer vacations, most of which involve coastal beaches and lakeshores in America, this one left me little time to read. But I did manage a few titles …

As I mentioned in my last entry, I saved THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET especially for this trip. As I had hoped it would, the book inspired me to observe London and Londoners more closely. This is no easy feat in a city of more than seven million people … even for me, who normally takes great pleasure in people-watching/eaves-dropping. There are simply too many people, too much movement; the senses are overloaded and one can hardly think, let alone notice. I don’t think I would have managed to observe much at all without Hanff’s encouragement.

The author also helped me to laugh at a few of the small frustrations of a trip to Europe … like fighting “a losing battle with the damnedest shower you ever saw.” Her June 1971 experience was remarkably similar to my own of July 2006 in a London hotel room:

“The shower stall is a four-foot cubicle and it has only one spigot, nonadjustable, trained on the back corner. You turn the spigot on and the water’s cold. You keep turning, and by the time the water’s hot enough for a shower you’ve got the spigot turned to full blast. Then you climb in, crouch in the back corner and drown. Dropped the soap once and there went fifteen dollars’ worth of hairdresser down the drain, my shower cap was lifted clear off my head by the torrent. Turned the spigot off and stepped thankfully out – into four feet of water. It took me fifteen minutes to mop the floor using a bathmat and two bath towels, sop-it-up, wring-it-out, sop-wring, sop-wring. Glad I shut the bathroom door or the suitcase would have been washed away.”

Hanff’s wry sense of humor and keen analysis of both people and place made THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET a great vacation read.

Best,
Loree

THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET
By Helene Hanff
Avon Books, 1973

My dear friend Jane strikes again.

I told her I adored 84, CHARING CROSS ROAD and she handed me … the sequel! THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET is the story of Helene’s long-awaited first visit to England. The opening pages gave me the willies (good ones) and it has taken all my strength to put the book aside so that I can pack it—unread—for my trip to England this summer.

Jane also shared the good news that 84, CHARING CROSS ROAD was made into a movie. Anne Bancroft plays Helene Hanff and Anthony Hopkins plays Frank Doel. It was available at the library on VHS. Lucky me … I still own a VCR!

Best,
Loree

HOOT
By Carl Hiaasen
Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2002

Okay, well, there is a reason that you shouldn’t read books intended for middle-schoolers to your elementary-aged children … even if they beg, and even if the book is a Newbery Honor book and you really want to read it yourself, even if the book was made into a movie that is playing now. I read HOOT to my kids this week and they learned some things I was just as happy having them in the dark about–like the verb moon. As in “It may be funny to you, boys, but your grandmother will NOT appreciate being mooned.” Live and learn.

HOOT is the story of Roy Eberhardt, a middle-school kid recently relocated from the Midwest to Florida. In the midst of some dealings with the class bully, Roy meets a couple of misfits who are intent upon saving a community of burrowing owls. The owls’ habitat will be destroyed if plans for a new pancake house in town are brought to fruition. I loved the environmental theme and the discussions it sparked. I could overlook the bullying for the same reason … the kids were ready to talk about it. But for some reason I didn’t connect well with the characters in the story. In fact, it was the owls I cared most about; it was because of them that I invested in Roy and his friends. Perhaps this is what Carl Hiaasen intended?

Anyway, if you are planning to read HOOT aloud to younger kids, be aware that there are some language issues and that the bullying can get pretty harsh. And be prepared for the “moon” scene … and all the insanity it will inspire!

Best,
Loree

84, CHARING CROSS ROAD
By Helene Hanff
Grossman, 1970
Penguin Books, 1990

I will be in London for two weeks this summer, and my good friend Jane gave me a copy of this book to get me in the mood. Jane is the best book-giver on the planet.

84, CHARING CROSS ROAD is a book of letters written over a twenty year period between Helene Hanff, an American writer and bibliophile, and Frank Doel, an English bookseller. The book contains no commentary or notes of any kind, just the letters. The story of Helene and Frank’s relationship, which was built mostly upon a shared passion for old English books, unfolds at its own pace, defies logic and geography and even time. I read this in a single sitting (too hot to move in the Northeast today, much less do laundry) and wept at the end.

The book brought to mind another book of letters I have read and loved … a book I recommend to all the children’s book writers I know. Ursula Nordstrom, the legendary editor at Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls, was a dedicated letter writer and Marcus J. Pfister has edited and published a large volume of her correspondence. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Margaret Wise Brown, and Maurice Sendak are just a few of the authors Ms. Nordstrom mentored; reading her encouragement and criticism and devotion to some of the great names in children’s literature is a must. (The book is called DEAR GENIUS, a salutation Nordstrom liked to use when writing to her authors. Can you stand it?!)

Not surprisingly, I have been itching to write a letter all day. Not an email, not a note, not even a blog entry … a true letter, written longhand in my out-of-practice scrawl, stamped, and mailed via the good old US Postal Service. (When was the last time you wrote one of these letters? When was the last time one appeared in your mailbox?) Imagine a mailbox with no bills and no rejections, just letters …

Best,
Loree