Oops

Guess who walks into a library and walks out having paid for a book?  I’ll give you one guess.

Sigh.  The other day I couldn’t help myself and bought a new novel that was on sale.  I’m incorrigible.

The power of series

I’ve fallen into the trap again, that dangerous and alluring trap of the book series.  I blame Holly Black and Kathleen Duey for the recent trip down this tempting path.  I bought the first book in the series of each author to help me prep for the SCBWI Summer Conference, but they’re kind of like Pringles: once you pop you can’t stop.  After reading the first books, I had to then go buy all the rest of the ones in the series.  For Holly Black’s books, I was able to get the whole set, but for Kathleen Duey, I could only get the first two books.  The third book isn’t out for publication and, maddeningly, the second book ends in a cliff-hanger.  Can the next book get published already?  I’m waiting anxiously, here.  Better yet, can I be Kathleen’s critique partner?

Resource Thursdays: Holly Black

I am a huge fan of good surprises.  Often, some of the best surprises are meeting people who make you think about the real or fictional world in a different way.  At the SCBWI conference I was surprised and delighted to meet Holly Black.  Holly, along with Tony DiTerlizzi, is the author of the Spiderwick Chronicles and YA fantasy Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside.  After dinner one night, a few friends and I got a mini lesson from Holly on fantasy plotting.  Though I don’t write fantasy, the things she talked about definitely apply to other types of books and I was super pumped.

Holly also has a ton of great information on her website about writing and research.  It’s really fun to read, so be sure to check it out.  Don’t forget to read her books too!  I finished Tithe:  A Modern Faerie Tale a little while ago and was so hooked I now have the rest of the series on order.  Read.  Enjoy.  Repeat.

I’m a crier

This weekend at the wedding Ian and I shot, I got teary-eyed a few times.  During “Amazing Grace” at the ceremony.  During toasts.  I almost always get teary-eyed at toasts.  What can I say – I guess I’m a crier.  I also get teary-eyed during really good books.  The books that make you feel real emotions – good or bad – are the kind of books that stay with you long after they’ve been read.  I mention this because I saw the ad for the movie version of Time Traveler’s Wife yesterday.  The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger was a delightful book.  I acutally picked it up in the airport on my way home from France a few years ago, and I loved it.  The story is about a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel, and his wife who must deal with his absences.  The end of the book, well, it made me cry.  So now that there’s a movie, I’m curious if it will be any good.  It does star Rachel McAdams, who I like, but it’s still an adaptation.  And the movie version is almost never as good as the real thing.  But if I do see it, it will probably still make me cry.  Maybe the trailer did too.  You’ll never know.

I like when birthdays last all month

Yesterday I got my birthday present from my parents in the mail.  The Harry Potter Box set only without the box.  Hardcover.  Sigh.  Are you jealous?

Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee

To say I’m a fan of Lisa Yee’s writing would be like saying I’m a fan of sugar – I love them both in a big way and can’t get enough.  My local bookstore keeps selling out of Yee’s books, but I managed to track down a copy of Millicent Min, Girl Genius the other day.  I’ve enjoyed Yee’s blog for a while, and I’m happy to say I loved her book as much as I thought I would.

The story follows Millicent Min, a super-smart but socially awkward girl.  At eleven years old she has nearly completed high school, but she doesn’t really have friends.  The summer before her senior year, her mother signs her up to do two dreadful things: tutor Standford Wong and join volleyball.  The results are sometimes disastrous, sometimes painful, and always funny.  This book made me smile all the way through, and Millicent has such a great voice.  Please, please read it.

The best birthday present

From the moment I walked into Children’s Book World in LA, I was in love.  Not just in love with the fantastic selection of children’s books stacked ceiling high and bursting from the shelves.  Not just in love with the mini couches waiting to be sat on, or the sunlight streaming through the windows.  I was also in love with their customer service.

My husband took me to Children’s Book World on a shopping spree as my birthday present.  We had been by the shop on a visit to the nearby Food, however we didn’t have a chance to go inside.  Boy was I missing out.  As soon as I walked through the door, I was greeted with effusive hellos.  I had a look of glee/panic on my face, as the selection is ridiculously overwhelming, and one of the staff members stepped right in to help.

I asked her to point me in the direction of popular middle grade books with quirky female characters, and the staff member was on a roll.  She exuberantly walked me and my husband from book to book telling me what she loved about each title.  We ping-ponged back in forth in this high-energy chase for the perfect books, moving on each time she remembered her next favorite.  She gauged my reactions and tailored the books she recommended.  Then she told me all about the baker over at Food, and how the baker had been coming to Children’s Book World since she was three.  I love when people love what they do, and it just showed in every member of the staff.  All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better experience.  Not only will I have the books to enjoy, I also had a wonderful afternoon.

Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

One thing that I loved about my vacation, besides the eating myself silly, relaxing, etc., is that it was a fantastic time to get in lots of reading.  I picked up Impulse by Ellen Hopkins two days before my vacation, and I was so hooked that I finished the 600+ page book before I left.  Yeah, that’s how I roll.

Written in verse, Impulse is the story of the lives of three teenagers who meet after they each attempt suicide.  Vanessa, Conner, and Tony come together at a psychiatric hospital and change each other’s lives in unexpected ways.  While the story is heavy heavy heavy and deals with serious issues of mental health and emotional struggle, the book is  wonderfully written.  With verse, every word counts, and Hopkins strings them along, beautiful and stark.  The story is told from the perspective of each of the main characters, and the changing point of view keeps the story moving along quickly.  I adored the book and I’m super excited because Hopkins will be at this summer’s SCBWI conference and I’d love to hear more from her.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

I mentioned before that I’m a huge fan of Sherman Alexie’s work, and I was equally as pleased with his YA novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  The story is about high school freshman, Junior, an Indian living on the Spokane reservation.  Born with “water on the brain” Junior doesn’t fit in on the reservation, but when he makes the decision to get a better education at white high school, he’s singled out on the rez as a traitor.  It’s not an easy life for Junior, and he chronicles the problems in his community – poverty, alcoholism, and hopelessness – through his words and also his pictures.  Junior is a cartoonist, and the book is sprinkled with artwork by Ellen Forney that extends and builds his story.  Overall I think this book was told with a lot of honesty and heart, and I can’t wait to read the sequel when it comes out.

Cross-training

The other day I read an interview with author Sherman Alexie, whose novel The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven I had read years ago.  I best knew Alexie as a novelist  (I’m halfway through his YA novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian) but in the interview he said that if he could make a living doing it, he’d be a poet.  I never knew he wrote poems, though I’m excited to read some of his poetry collections, including Face. In addition to being a delightful surprise, Alexie’s statement got me thinking.

I started out writing poetry, and have more recently written longer novels (2 middle grades and a YA).  Like Alexie I feel frustration that poetry doesn’t have a very strong market, but it doesn’t stop me from writing it.  I love how you can get so much impact out of a few words, and the fact that a line break can create a mood in itself.  I think writing different things is a great way of cross-training – like running and weight lifting for the mind.  I think the poet’s eye for detail and word choice can strenghten narrative skills.