On Fairy Wings

The girls of the Kids' Reading Clubhouse recently read Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg. It's a beautifully illustrated and enchantingly written book with lots of adventure and some fairy dust mixed in.

If you're familiar the the Tinkerbell movies and all of that, you'll remember that each fairy has to find her talent. The girls had to do the same thing. In my midst, I had a Music Fairy, an Art Fairy, and my favorite, a Friend Fairy. "Is being a good friend a talent?" she asked.

After that we made our own fairies out of old-fashioned clothespins with plastic cup wings, yarn for hair, and fabric scraps for clothes.

Each one was completely unique, just like each of the fairies who showed up for book club that day.

For My Mom

My mom is a reader.

She always has a book by her chair.

She's always sharing her book recommendations with me either over the phone or via text.
(Sometimes via text, she also recommends that I write another blog entry soon, ahem.)

When we get together, we show each other the books we're reading and talk about what we'll be reading next.

We always discuss what our book clubs are up to.

Sometimes we drift off into a conversation about a book, and if you were to overhear, you'd swear we were talking about something real.

It's been like this for as long as I could remember.

I am many things because of my mom, and a reader (and a blogger) are two of them.

Here's to that!
I love you, Mom.

Puzzles

While Brian and the kids are downstairs working on a giant floor puzzle, I am upstairs working on a bit of a puzzle of my own. 

Here I am surrounded by some of the pieces.

I've got two marked up manuscripts.
I've got emails.
I've got binders.
I've got meeting notes.
I've got phone conversation notes.
I've got multiple documents with "thoughts for revision."
I've got hundreds of ideas swirling around in my head...
and I've got to put them all together.

Revision.

A bit of a puzzle? 

Yes, indeed. 

Too bad you can't see the girl behind the camera, pulling her hair out, trying to put it all together. 

Bright Young Things in a Dark Speakeasy

What could be more perfect than meeting in a modern day "speakeasy" (the front is a pie shop) to discuss The Great Gatsby?

Only going to said speakeasy dressed as bright young things and drinking pisco punch with a marvelous group of literary ladies.

Our book club really is the bee's knees.

                                                                         See! We really discussed the book too. 

And when the night came to an end, we left that place in style...

...each one of us a Zelda or a Daisy Buchanan until the stroke of midnight, when we returned to our homes and turned back into unassuming, bookish moms. 

Cheers, Darlings.

Kids' Reading Clubhouse--Ruby Lu

This month the Kids' Reading Clubhouse read Ruby Lu: Empress of Everything by Lenore Look.

It's a smart, fun, and well-written book for girls. In this story, there are lots of laughs, problems to solve, and new things to learn. (The author also has a series for boys that is all of the above, plus some.)

We talked about words like immigration on Friday, and discussed what it would be like if your cousin from another country came to live with you. We talked about what it would be like to be deaf and also how friends can solve some of their own problems by apologizing to each other.

Then we got busy with our activities of the day. Each girl got to try her hand at origami. We made Fortune Cookies.

Remember these?

Then we got some practice eating edamame and pot stickers (by far the most popular snack so far) with chop sticks. 

Finally, the girls got to memorize how to say something in sign language using a pictorial sign language chart and demonstrate it for the group. By the end, they all knew how to say "I love you" and "Thank you" in sign language. Always handy to know!

Dragons Love Tacos

This book found its way into our library bag a few weeks ago. 

I was skeptical. 

I sort of started to like it when I noticed all of the tacos on the endsheets. That's pretty funny. 

Then we read the first line:

"Hey kid, did you know that dragons love tacos?"

Then we learned that they love tacos and parties, but not spicy taco toppings. Definitely not spicy salsa. What they love most of all are taco parties, which are parties with lots of tacos. 

"Hey dragon, are you excited for the big taco party?"

By the end, we were in love and already flipping back to the beginning to read it again. Suddenly, the tacos on the endsheets were even funnier than they were the first time we noticed them.

After reading it 1,000 times, we couldn't even pull it out of the bag without cracking up. It's just funny. Deadpan funny. Majorly fun to read out loud. And so silly that you have to laugh every single time. It's one of those books that kids memorize after a few reads and then walk around the house reciting. 

I could never have guessed that this silly book would become one of our favorites. But it's true. We love Dragons Love Tacos. 

Kids' Reading Clubhouse--The Quilt Walk

This month, we read The Quilt Walk by Sandra Dallas.

Isn't this a gorgeous cover

It was a bit slower than the other books we've read--kind of like the long walk Emmy Blue and her family took from Illinois to Colorado. It wasn't magical like Pippi Longstocking or thrilling like The Spiderwick Chronicles. But still, it was good. We laughed a bit, gasped some, and we learned a lot.

When the girls and I met, we focused on the stories quilts tell.

Each girl made a log cabin quilt square.

And we put them all together to make a paper quilt. 

Then we looked at a quilt that a friend made for our family.

And each girl wrote about what she thought the bear was doing. We made up our own stories.

We ate dried apple pie for snack and named the two things (and only two) that we would bring along if we had to walk from Illinois to Colorado back in 1863. Tough choice. My favorite answer was from a little girl who said, "I'd bring my blanket and a huge stack of books." I told her she could only bring one book if she brought her blanket. "Well, hmm," she said. "That's impossible."

2013 Book Club Line-up

Yesterday was our book club's annual tea and planning meeting. This year we met at Oak and Berries Tea Room in The Denver Museum of Dolls and Miniatures, which was so quirky and non-hip, that it was pretty cool. It was actually really lovely, and I highly recommend it. Between tea and tiny sandwiches, we each offered our book suggestion for the year and nabbed a month to host.

Here's the line-up...


February
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

March
Left to Tell by Immaculée Ilibagiza

April
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore

May
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

June
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

SKIPPING JULY--HAVE FUN WITH THE BEACH READS

August
End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

September
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

October
Little Princes by Conor Grennan

November
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

December
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Cheers!

Best Reads of 2012

Here are the top 5 books I read this year--the ones that I couldn't put down, couldn't stop thinking about, wanted to carry with me all the time, the ones I bought after having read them just so I can see them on my shelf and pull them out from time to time...the ones that changed my life for a brief and beautiful little bit.

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

This book is a triumph in character development, dialogue, and plot. It manages to be hilariously funny and bitterly sad all at the same time. There is one major flaw at the end...but I can overlook it only because the whole thing adds up to a wonderful read. Gary D. Schmidt is a master of his craft.

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer



Everything is Illuminated tore me to shreds and put me back together again. The characters, especially Alex (!!) are fascinating and transformative.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer



Now I am a huge Jonathan Safran Foer fan. This book is the best kind of sad because it's so well written and there are lots of hilarious parts too. Even when you're crying, you're laughing. I thought it was an excellent book. Excellent. The main character is incredible.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt



I got lost in this book. It's a reverse murder mystery. From page one you know who died and who did it, yet for over 500 pages, the author keeps you reading, rapt, as you slowly discover the how and the why and the aftermath.

Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King by William Joyce 



True adventure! Excellent storytelling! I read it to my daughter and she gives it 5 stars. She was gasping, hiding her head, laughing, and begging for more the whole time. The vocabulary is rich and beautiful as well.

Happy Reading in 2013!

Merry Reading

Yesterday, when the girls came home from school, we "turned the fire on" and snuggled up to read.

These are some of our favorites that have become traditional reads in our home.

Brian and I both grew up with this book. Now we share it with our kids.

It really is "splendiferous!"

So funny and so very Olivia. My oldest daughter just figured out this year that it's the dog who eats the cookies ;).

And this one, ah this one. We pass this book around the room each Christmas Eve, so everyone has a chance to read aloud. The cut-outs are amazing. This one is a treasure to behold.

When the glow of the Christmas tree lights illuminate our house, and all is cozy and bright, we turn to books more than ever.

Merry Reading!

Kids' Reading Clubhouse--Pippi Longstocking

The Kids' Reading Clubhouse met this week at the bookstore. We had read Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren.

The girls were so excited to start talking about the book that I had to forget about my general talk about reading that I usually open with. The hands were flying in the air so fast and furiously that I could barely keep up.

One of the things we did was draw a picture of Pippi in a scene from the book. Here are a couple of my favorites.

I also let them take turns acting like Pippi. The only rule was that they could not spill their hot chocolate no matter what Pippi would have done in the same situation.

One thing is for sure, Pippi still appeals to little girls today.

And EVERYONE agreed that they would LOVE to be friends with Pippi.

They also agreed that she would be expelled from school if she was in their class. 

Here's our meeting in a nutshell below. Insert tons of laughter and utter goofiness throughout for a taste of what the real meeting was like.

Kids Reading Clubhouse #7

Pippi Longstocking

Talk about the Story

• Did you like the book?
• What was your favorite part?
• What makes Pippi special?
• Do you think you’d like to be friends with Pippi? What would be some good things about having her as a friend?
• What would it be like to go to school with Pippi? What would your teachers do if Pippi were in your class.
• Talk about Sweden                          

Centers:

• Snack and Game
1. Gingerbread cookies and hot chocolate.
2. Take turns acting like Pippi.
• Draw a picture of Pippi based on the description of her in the book. Make sure you draw her in a scene from the book
• Become a Thing-Finder
1. Hunt for things in the store
2. Name the thing you found and as a group invent as many creative uses for your thing as you can.

Give Stars

Present Quilt Walk

Bring:  12 different “things”—tin can, spool of thread, clothes pin, bottle cap, etc., lined paper, drawing paper, markers and crayons

Gingerbread cookies, hot chocolate

A First

This is a little celebration. 

Wooo-hooo!

I finished the first draft of my first novel! 

This is what 86,000 words printed on double-sided paper looks like

Finishing it didn't feel at all like I thought it would though. It's probably because the editor in me knows that I'm not really finished--that there is a lot of work left to do. 

For starters, I need to read it, send it out to a trusted group of readers, revise it, send it to my agent, and then start that process all over again. 

But first...

I'm going to take a deep breath and celebrate just a little bit. 

Yay! 

Little by Little

Every single night, with very few exceptions, for the last three years, I have worked on writing my first novel.

I never write A LOT in one sitting. I only write a little. 

But I write a little A LOT.

Now, I am only a few pages away from being finished. And those final few pages seem like a whole helluva LOT. Let me tell you!

But tonight, after everyone in the house is asleep, the sound of my fingers clicking away on the keys of my computer will fill our quiet house. And little by little, I'll get there. I hope. 

And then I'll start revising...

Very Fragile--Please Touch

There's a short stack of really old books, prettily arranged on the table in the living room at my parents' house. It's been there as long as I can remember.

They are old, family heirloom books, most with sweet inscriptions written on the title pages dating back to 1926. They are very fragile. But they are not just for decoration. They are for opening and reading and in the case of Miss Sniff, touching.

Miss Sniff, the fuzzy cat, is really fuzzy. She's been touched by so many fingers over the years that her black velvety furr is pretty matted and worn. But she's still the fanciest cat on the block.

Originally published in 1945. 

My all-time favorite is Mother Earth's Children. 

Someone (my mother) took the touching a little too far and actually wrote on the book. Not good. But the thought of my mom as a naughty little girl, adding doodles of her own to this book makes me smile.

Each vegetable and fruit has its own little verse.

This was my grandmother's favorite. She marked it so we would never forget. 

Then there's Winkle, Twinkle and Lollypop. 

Winkle, Twinkle, and Lollypop are three triplets who get to meet Mr. Sun and Mrs. Night, and Mr. Wind, too. 

The girls and I sat down together this morning and read these books aloud to each other--just like my grandmother and my great aunt did 80 some years ago, and my mother and grandmother after that, and my mom and me even later.

They get more and more fragile over the years, but continue to touch our lives. 

Turkey Round-up

I love holidays and traditions. And Thanksgiving is at the very top of my list as far as both are concerned.

Right along with pulling the Thanksgiving decorations (yes, we decorate for Thanksgiving) out of the bin and pulling my great-grandmother's stuffing recipe out of the recipe box, comes pulling every Thanksgiving book we can find out of the library.

Here are a few we've read this season.

We are choking from laughing so hard at this one.  Not everyone loves Junie B., but we really do. 

A perennial favorite. You get to go back in time to Plymouth, just like we do every year on our annual trip to Plimouth Plantation. We're reading the non-fiction companion book this year as well.

An eye-roller for sure, but lots of fun, as usual.

This book allows you to put yourself in Pilgrim shoes. 

There are many, many more, but these are the main books we've read this year.

I am so thankful for the time we spend reading together.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Coffee with Carmela

Yesterday, I met with Carmela, one of my favorite authors, at one of my favorite coffee shops.

It was a great morning.

Carmela and I have been an author/editor team for over ten years now. And in that timeframe, these are some of the books we've worked together to create.

And now we're working on another one together.
Something completely different.
Wait for it...you just might be blown away...