For this last installment of The Best of the Blog (next week I will start writing new posts again), I was torn between one that had a large number of visitors the first time around, and one that I wrote when the blog was young and not many people saw it. Then I thought, “Why not both?”
• Scrabbling for Success: 10 Helpful Hints for the Querying Process
Filed under Critical Thinking, Gifted, Miscellaneous, Reading, Uncategorized, Writing
Here’s another installment of Best of the Blog. I’ll be back on June sixth with something new. See you then…
Considering Asynchronous Development in Book Selection
Filed under Critical Thinking, Gifted, Miscellaneous, Reading, Writing
Ironically, after I rhapsodized about my Christmastime search for the perfect book, my younger son wasn’t as wild about Ribsy as I had hoped. At first.
When I’d found it at the bookstore, I was dismayed that the cover had been updated, but had no idea that it would impact my son. The dynamic black and white image of Ribsy on a yellow ground was replaced at some point by a generic short hair, and had I been wandering the bookstore aimlessly, I would not even have picked it up. Why, I wondered, would they replace the original Ribsy: large, lanky, and shedding exactly the sort of personality that would end up riding away in the wrong car?
Ribsy is not the only victim. Most of Beverly Cleary’s book covers have been updated, as have Elizabeth Enright’s, Edward Eager’s, Madeleine L’Engle’s and many others. Sometimes, the illustrators don’t even seem acquainted with the characters they’re trying to portray. It is easy to imagine an art director saying, “Hey, we need a scruffy dog on the cover. Go with red or blue — yellow’s been done.”
Even when the new covers aren’t bad, it would be a stretch to say they are an improvement. Consider All of a Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor,
Marguerite Henry’s Brighty of the Grand Canyon,
or Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
I am a firm believer in, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If the original cover attracted readers in the first place, why mess with success?
Interestingly, even when covers are changed, inside illustrations frequently remain the same, such as Jean Merrill’s The Toothpaste Millionaire, 
and Elizabeth Enright’s The Saturdays.
One wonders about the point of having an updated cover, especially when it is labeled, “With pictures by the original illustrator.”
Thankfully, not all old titles have lost their looks. The recently reprinted Happy Hollisters 
books have maintained their original covers and illustrations, and the classic Nancy Drew series (although updated from the 1940s) has remained unchanged for decades.
On some level, even the publishers must think that newer doesn’t necessarily mean better. For the 100th anniversary edition of Anne of Green Gables, Putnam went with the original cover,
as did Harcourt for the 50th anniversary of Edward Eager’s Half Magic.
Yearling seems to have realized that The Wolves of Willoughby Chase got it right the first time,
and Goodnight Moon‘s original cover (1947) is still going strong.
The whole concept of updating could ultimately prove to be a slippery slope. Until the recent Twain tom-foolery, no one had considered changing the text, but now, who knows?
Perhaps soon, other old favorites will have not only language, but plot points updated to jibe with the newest generation of readers. Meg Murray might start to “disrespect” Mrs. Whatsit, whilst Charles Wallace sits staring at his gaming system instead of a giant pulsing brain.
After several attempts to get my son to read Ribsy, it occurred to me that perhaps he was trying to tell a book by its cover. “Let me show you what Ribsy really looks like,” I said as I went online to show him the original. “Do you want to read it now?”
“Yes! He looks like a fun pup.” He ran to his room to get it, then shouted down the stairs, “Why didn’t you buy me THAT book?”
Filed under Critical Thinking, Miscellaneous, Reading, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized
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Life has finally eased up enough for me to write a review of So Shelly (Delacorte Press), the highly anticipated and recently released novel by Ty Roth: young-adult author, high school literature teacher and all-around good guy.
Other than the book-jacket tease about two friends swiping a drowned teen’s ashes to spread as she would have wished, and that the personas of the three main characters are based on Romantic poets Byron, Keats, Shelley and his wife Mary, I had no idea what to expect. The mention of freedom fighters and the phrase “lurid but literary,” were intriguing tidbits from the Kirkus review, but when I opened the book, I was a blank slate.
The first thing that struck me was how funny the novel is. The story is a serious one, but the way that the narrator phrases things left me rotfl. Quickly absorbed in the compelling story-line, I didn’t want to put it down while I was reading and found myself dwelling on it at odd moments after I’d finished — my favorite kind of book.
The vocabulary is enjoyably advanced, with no glaringly absent adverbs or “dumbing down” for teen readers, and I was pleased in four cases to expand my own command of the language. (It must be confessed that I’m still wondering what a “stinky pinky” is, but am pretty sure that I don’t really want to know.)
So Shelly is not for the callow, with topics such as incest (involuntary and otherwise), teen pregnancy, abortion, sexual abuse and graphic violence (not necessarily in that order). Although frequently cringe-worthy, none of it is gratuitous in nature. Some reviewers have recommended the book for ages fourteen and up, but Ty himself has said that sixteen and older is the intended readership, and I wouldn’t disagree.
Ty has mentioned a few times on his blog and in interviews that future titles might be set in the same Lake Erie locale, with a focus on minor characters from So Shelly. If so, the one I hope to see more of is Tammy Jo Hogg, the overweight but pretty girl with the good PR skills who was used and abused by Gordon. (Well, really, who wasn’t?) I want her to grow up, become successful and then leave Gordon with the broken heart.
My only concern with the novel is what seemed to be a somewhat casual view of suicide. At the time of our interview, Ty was confident that modern teens are sophisticated enough to deal with the content of the book, and that to think otherwise is an insult to the reader. I hope he’s right. Other than that, great book.
Layinda’s Blog Rating: ¶¶¶¶¶ (But only because I’m saving the 5¶ for Jim and Jack. 😉 )
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Note: Although I am acquainted with Mr. Roth, this is an unsolicited review, and I paid for my own copy of So Shelly. Actually, two copies. Unwilling to sully my signed-by-the-author first edition, I also purchased the Kindle version.
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Filed under Book Reviews, Miscellaneous, Reading, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized, Writing
Here’s an Oldies but Goodies for early readers and pre-readers who love to be read to. Click on the titles (and/or cover photos) to be whisked away to various descriptions and reviews, but also try your local library, poke through used book stores and check out the Reader Resources column (to the right). Some of the really old titles can also be found on the Kindle and at Gutenberg.org.
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Many Moons
by James Thurber
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Make Way for Ducklings
by Robert McCloskey
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The Monkey in the Rocket
by: Jean Bethell
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The Story of Babar: The Little Elephant
by Jean De Brunhoff
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Picco the Sad Italian Pony
by Louis Slobodkin
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What’s He Been Up to Now?
by Eugene A. Fern
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Children of Many Lands: 8 Lands in all, their traditions, customs, and way of life.
by Dana Bruce and Elizabeth F. McCrady
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Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?
By: Dr. Seuss
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Filed under Book Reviews, Miscellaneous, Reading, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized
Ever notice anything funny about a lot of literary icons?
Dickens
Twain
Fitzgerald
Steinbeck
Millay
Cooper
Dodgson (aka Carroll)
Shelley
Thoreau
Shakespeare
Whitman
Just saying.
Filed under Miscellaneous, Reading, Uncategorized, Writing
Ty Roth’s debut YA novel, So Shelly, hit the shelves on Tuesday. I haven’t gotten a chance to read more than the first pages of my (pre-ordered) copy from Amazon, but if the buzz online is any indication, it will be worth the wait.
Last Easter, I had the good fortune to notice a local newspaper article about Ty’s then-recent publishing deal, and invited him to do an interview for my blog. He graciously accepted, and the result was my most-popular-to-date post, Great Guy, Great Book, Great Advice (parts 1 and 2). 
Recently, Ty sent me an invitation to Friday night’s launch party for So Shelly, which I graciously accepted. (Well, graciously might be an overstatement, as it was “regrets only,” but I was really excited to be invited.)
Anyway, about the party:
First of all, never ask your eighty-year-old father for directions. The event began at seven, but I didn’t get there until about 8:10 because I got caught in a maze of darkened and somewhat bluesy side streets that Dad had forgotten to mention during the litany of underpasses and McDonalds he’d said would mark my way. After a less than informative call to him on my dying cell phone, I finally stopped at a restaurant where a kindly waitress pointed me in the right direction.
I arrived not long after Ty finished up a great speech that had lasted for about forty minutes. (This according to my husband, who had come straight from work and was waiting for me in the yacht club’s foyer the whole time.)
As I deposited my coat in the coat room, I noticed that the place was packed, the main room darkened, with dramatic music washing over the crowd in waves. In response to my raised eyebrows, my husband (let’s call him Tim) helpfully informed me that there was some form of entertainment going on.
Ty was standing just inside the doorway, but was engrossed in whatever the attraction was, so we squeezed as unobtrusively as we could into the room behind him to find a good spot to check out the action.
“Would you like some wine or something?” Tim had apparently also had time to scope out the place during his wait, knowing the exact location of both bar and buffet. I nodded and peered between the heads of the people in front of me to see what was going on.
A spotlight shone on an artist who was furiously rendering a large colored-chalk interpretation of So Shelly’s cover. Gypsum dust swirled like lake mist in the beam of light as the artist added depth and shadow to rocks and created a lighthouse out of thin air. The guests oohed and aahed as the scene morphed into a view of Shelly’s silhouette on the pier, and then special effect lighting flashed a beacon of impending doom. It really was impressive. Different gels changed the palette from light to dark, and the mood went from intense to lighthearted as images of Ty in earlier years were superimposed over it. The performance ended to hearty applause a few moments later.
Once the lights were up, people swarmed the bar and Tim pointed out a table with nearly depleted stacks of So Shelly. My copy from Amazon was safely in my purse, but I snagged two of the complimentary bookmarks before the man in charge put everything away.
After cruising the buffet, our plates loaded with assorted appetizers including teriyaki chicken kabobs, Swedish meatballs, raw veggies and dip, we found a side room with a few open tables and sat down to stuff our faces. At each of our places was a CD tied with a black ribbon, a So Shelly mix tape.
I’m not sure if the songs are significant in the book, or if the music was inspirational while Ty wrote, but the list is a good one, including classics by REM and Journey as well as more contemporary tunes by Better Than Ezra and 30 Seconds to Mars. At the event itself, there was a two piece band (that somehow sounded at times like a four piece band), and I wondered if some of their playlist might be the same. I added the disks to my purse — one for posterity, the other to listen to in the car.
As Tim enjoyed a second helping of chicken, I scouted the dessert tables and saw two cakes being served, one chocolate and one vanilla, both with white frosting. Charmed to see that each had a sugar image of the So Shelly cover on top, which had been moved away from the area being cut, I had an errant desire to roll one up and stick it into my purse along with the CDs, but maturely chose to take a photo of it, instead.
Nearby was a table overflowing with fresh fruit that surrounded a large bowl of creamy white dip, which was delicious. 
Two trips were sufficient to ease my sweet tooth, and then, camera in hand, I took a few more snaps of the festivities, including a long view of Ty signing books and a shot of the chalk drawing and it’s artist, which became part of a silent auction benefitting Sandusky Artisans.
It occurred to me that my husband might be getting pretty bored sitting alone at our table, but when I returned to it, I found him engrossed in So Shelly (which is quite an endorsement, because Tim NEVER reads fiction).
A crowd of well-wishers surrounded Ty all evening, but I eventually decided to brave the line and ended up having a very pleasant conversation with a man who informed me he that he had been Ty’s principal. When I inquired if he meant when Ty was a student, or as a teacher, he replied that in a way, it was both. He’d been the principal of the school Ty attended as a youth, and then had gone on to become superintendent of the system that hired Ty out of college.
Finally, it was my turn, and Ty was just as friendly and genuine as I remembered. Signing my book, he confided that he’s not wild about that part of the job, but it can’t be because he doesn’t know what to say – mine was perfect.
Filed under Interviews, Miscellaneous, Reading, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized, Writing
I read a good book over the holidays, Pope Joan, by Donna Woolfolk Cross. My book group read it a few years ago, but I was busy at the time and only read the first few pages. I could tell it would be interesting, and always intended to get back to it, but it’s rather thick and I never seemed to have enough spare time to do it justice. This year, when winter vacation arrived, I made a point of getting it from the library.
Now, I’m not one of those writers who complains that they can no longer read a book without critiquing it. In fact, even when I pick up a book with that intent, I am so easily sucked into a story that I forget to notice anything at all unless something is poorly phrased, or there’s a typo. This time, though, after about 250 pages, I became aware of how tiny the type was. Knowing that most books these days, even historical fiction, don’t exceed 125,000 words, I started to wonder when it had been published, and stopped reading long enough to find out. 1996. I then realized why I was enjoying it so much: it had been written before the kill the adverbs/show vs. tell revolution.
Devoid of all signs of the current wisdom on how to write, there was description, and there were adverbs, adjectives and gerunds. There were words other than “said” used as dialogue tags, and it was a behemoth, over 400 pages long, even set in eight-point-type. The point of view moved like quicksilver between the characters, and there was telling mixed with showing. There was even… a cliché.
Many writers have come to think that describing a location or what characters look like robs the reader of the joy of imagining it for themselves, but I disagree. As a former graphic artist, I have a seriously visual imagination. Filling in the blanks doesn’t squelch that, it only serves as a framework for me to build upon. The mention that a character’s eyebrows are bushy doesn’t lock me into a specific image. There are a hundred ways to picture bushy brows, but if I don’t know they are bushy in the first place, I have lost my connection to the author’s vision.
There is an animated children’s show called Caillou, that depicts the action in vignettes floating on whitespace. The viewer doesn’t imagine what might be there instead, there is just nothing. I find it disconcerting, and am more distracted by how the detail stops than I would be if the artists had just added background to the picture.
When an author uses description and flushes out the nuances with adverbs and dialogue tags, it gives their story dimension, adding depth to the world that readers build in their minds. The reader becomes a part of the action, rather than seeing it as frames in a cartoon.
Many recent books do a good job following the restrictions of the current trends and offer a clean and entertaining read, but if given the choice as a reader, I’ll take the old way. Give me adverbs, give me description, give me telling. I want to be in the same room that the characters are, to see the same people they’re looking at. Tell me a great story that I can replay 1000 times in my mind. If I want minimalism, I’ll read a map.
Filed under Critical Thinking, Miscellaneous, Reading, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized, Writing
Yesterday was the first anniversary of Layinda’s Blog. (Just for the record, I would have come up with a snappier title, but I didn’t realize when creating it that the title is the one thing in the format that can’t be changed later.) (Unless there’s something I don’t know about, which is entirely possible.)
I have nothing but good things to say about writing a blog, and can highly recommend it. Over the course of this year, I have figured out how to insert images, how to link to other sites, and how to use “keywords” effectively. I started out posting Monday through Friday, but when real life intervened, I realized that I wrote better posts if I did them as inspired, rather than on demand. I also think that writing on a regular basis has helped me to become a better and more efficient writer. In short, I’ve grown.
Thanks to EVERYONE who has visited, and special thanks to those who have left comments. If there are any particular topics anyone would like me to address in the coming year, or if there are any things I already do that you’d like to see more of, feel free to mention that in today’s comments, and I will do my best.
At the end of 2010, WordPress sent out each blog’s statistics for the year, and I thought I’d share a few of mine (below). I suspect that they give all the new blogs a “wow” rating, but I never look a gift horse in the mouth. (Hmmm, just thought of a new idea for a post…)
Thanks again, everybody, for making Layinda’s Blog such a pleasure to produce. I couldn’t have done it without you. 🙂
Here are the stats:
Happy New Year from WordPress.com! To kick off the year, we’d like to share with you data on how your blog has been doing. Here’s a high level summary of your overall blog health:
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Wow |
Blog-Health-o-Meter™
We think you did great!
In 2010, you wrote 133 new posts, not bad for the first year! You uploaded 7pictures, taking up a total of 7mb.
Your busiest day of the year was June 1st with76 views. The most popular post that day wasGreat Guy, Great Book, Great Advice: Part 1.
The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com,facebook.com, blogger.com,jemifraser.blogspot.com, andcatwoods.wordpress.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly forsmiling hurts, books for young advanced readers, blogs for parents of advanced readers, age appropriate book lists, and ty roth author.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010. You can see all of the year’s most-viewed posts and pages in your Site Stats.
Great Guy, Great Book, Great Advice: Part 1April 2010
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Young Advanced Readers: An Age Appropriate Book List for Puzzled ParentsApril 2010
1 comment
About
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Ghost from the Past: Elements of the Modern NovelMay 2010
4 comments
Filed under Critical Thinking, Miscellaneous, Reading, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized, Writing
When I was in fifth grade, I loved Nancy Drew. She was the classic upper-middle-grade-girl heroine: high-school-aged, pretty and smart, with deductive powers that rivaled Sherlock Holmes. The fact that she had not one, but two, best friends, a handsome college-age boyfriend, and drove her own car didn’t hurt, either. I wanted to be Nancy Drew when I got older.
Needless to say, that didn’t come to pass. What did come to pass was that my beloved grandmother saw an ad for a subscription to the Nancy Drew Book Club and signed me up to receive two lavender colored double-volume hardbacks of classic Nancy Drew stories, once a month. I was in heaven, ensconced in the backseat with George Fayne and Bess Marvin as Nancy navigated mystery after mystery in her blue convertible. Although I eventually wised-up to the formulaic style and started to wish that Ned Nickerson would at least hold Nancy’s hand, I enjoyed the series well into middle school.
In seventh grade, whether because the special printing abruptly ended its run, or the company decided that twelve- to thirteen-year-old girls would no longer be interested in G-rated fare, the books were unexpectedly replaced with single volumes by an author I’d never even heard of, Betty Cavanna.
After working my way through the five stages of grief, I eyed the first installment with suspicion. A nice looking hardback, it had a montage of blue-green and pink images that included a prim looking Asian teenager, Jenny Kimura. Feeling slightly disloyal, I opened it up and started to read.
Wow! I had never read a book like that before. This teenaged girl was much more complex than Nancy or her friends, with internal thoughts and an active interest in boys. She was emotional, and had problems just like any other teenager. Jenny’s mother was Japanese, but her father wasn’t, and her maternal grandparents had never accepted the marriage. Jenny didn’t even know them, but for some reason, they invited her to spend the summer there. It was my first taste of YA.
When the next book arrived, I shamelessly devoured it. Then came Mystery of the Emerald Buddha, Mystery on Safari, Ruffles and Drums, Spice Island Mystery, and others. I followed teen protagonists to Brazil, Africa, Thailand, New York City, and Revolutionary War era Concord. Their boyfriends held hands with them — and kissed them, too — as the girls considered career choices, resolved interpersonal issues, and came to mature decisions that usually involved self-denial of some sort. All of the books involved romance, but they were really about coming-of-age moments and seeing past the world’s prejudices to find what truly matters.
Occasionally, I thought it odd that Grandma was sponsoring these (innocently) romantic adventure stories, but it wasn’t until the books stopped coming that I found out she just hadn’t noticed the switch when paying the bills. Born in the days of the Gibson Girl, she told me that she didn’t think the new books were appropriate for someone my age to read.
Fortunately, they didn’t mind at the library…
These days, the Nancy Drew series is still in print, but Betty Cavanna’s books are only obtainable through other sellers on Amazon, and most are former library copies (which means you won’t be finding them there, either). But, if you know a middle-school girl who finds the current YA fodder a little too intense, it’s worth the search.
* My apologies to subscribers – I accidentally hit the “publish” button rather than the “save draft” button (an irrevocable action) before I was finished writing this post. What you received in your email notification was that version, not the final seen here. 😦
Filed under Book Reviews, Miscellaneous, Reading, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized
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