Summer Reading List

Memorial Day is the unofficial beginning of summer. The hot summer days are perfect for putting your feet up and soaking in some great stories. This is a list of books I think would make some great summer reads. Some are old, some are new. Some I’ve read, some I plan to read. Hope you find a great read. If you find a great book not shared on this list, please post it in the comments. I am always hungry for recommendations.

Middle Grade

Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning, by Danette Haworth. If I ever heard a book mentioned more often in my critique group, this is the one. I’d love to spend some time enjoying fish fries and brain freezes with Violet Raines while she learns about growing up and peer pressure.

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, by Tom Angleberger – This book was universally liked by my critique group book club and all three of my kids. You don’t have to be a Star Wars geek to enjoy it.

The Schwa Was Here, by Neal Shusterman – If you think you are overlooked, the teachers don’t even notice the Schwa, until Antsy discovers him and does some experiments to see just how invisible this kid is. I was in a child/parent book club and read this book twice. It was still fun the second time around. Kids love it.

Destiny, Rewritten, by Kathryn Fitzmaurice – A little girl named after Emily Dickinson who doesn’t like poetry is destined to be a poet. The premise of this book is enough to draw me in. I read the author’s debut, “The Year the Swallows Came Early” and was charmed by her storytelling. Can’t wait to read her newest novel.

Young Adult

Cinder, by Marissa Meyer – Cinder is a cyborg. This isn’t my style of read, but its popularity makes it interesting enough to check it out. The last time I wanted to see what the fuss was about, I read the Hunger Games. Fun fact: this book was written during National Novel Writing Month.

The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater – This is another case of checking out what the buzz is all about. I hear great things about this author.

Private Peaceful, by Michael Morpurgo – This is a period novel about WWI and a boy on the front lines. I chose this because my teen stayed home from a party to read this book. He likes to read, but he usually likes to socialize more. This one has to be good.

Elsewhere, by Gabrielle Zevin – Elsewhere is where 15 year old Liz Hall ends up after she dies. Here, she will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn 16, not 14 again. Now that she is dead, she is forced to live a live she doesn’t want with a grandmother she just met.

Adult Fiction

The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach - If you haven’t read it yet, this would be a great summer read. What is better in summer than a story about baseball? It has resonance to “A Prayer for Owen Meany” in some scenarios, others are more modern. Oh, and it is set at a fictitious college in Wisconsin. That makes it special. 

Room, by Emma Donoghue - This is an old one, but I decided to add it in case someone hasn’t read it yet. It is written from the point of view of a child born to a woman being held captive in an 11x11 room. I read this book ages ago, but it lingers in my mind constantly, especially with high profile media cases about women in captivity.

Bared to You, by Sylvia Day – If you loved Fifty Shades of Grey last summer, this one is said to be a great beginning to a series like that. Hmmm, I seem to have something HOT on my mind this summer.

Nanny Returns, by Emma McLaughlin – Remember the buzz of The Nanny Diaries? She is back!

The Paris Wife, Paula McLain – Get away to Paris in the roaring 20s in this tale of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. 

Writers & How They Never Give Up

I don’t know many other professions as swollen with dashed hopes and rejection as that of a writer. Even those who seem to make it may only be a flash in the pan. The rest of us struggle to get published, then have sales, then sell another book, and on and on.

Yet writers, they don’t give up. Success stories are often after years of despair. Overnight success brought on by decades of hard work. Stephen King recounts the story of his wife fishing the “Carrie” manuscript out of his trash in his bible for writers, “On Writing.” In the face of failure, writers press on.

To be fair, many press on for more failure and despair. The advent of electronic publishing houses and more accessible self publishing options make publication more possible than ever, but success is measured on a writer’s own barometer. A writer may feel successful just getting work out there, but others may measure their success in other, unforeseen ways. Published authors can despair over sales, reviews, or wring their hands about selling a second book. The barometer of success constantly changes.

Many never see any success at all. They query with no bites or hold back in fear of failure. Yet, a few brave souls continue to write the stories gelling in their heads, in spite of the impossible odds. They write multiple books that take up space in their heads and on their hard drives, hoping one day those stories will be embraced by loving readers. It is no small thing to write a book. Some estimate it takes 6 to 18 months to polish a novel. In my experience, it often takes years. That is a long time to work on a project that could have no reward.

But writers do it, and they keep doing it, and I am glad they do. All that work, and self examination, and experimentation, and failure, and criticism and thinking all the time about the story and how to make it better add to the lesson on the craft of storytelling. The perseverance to not only complete a manuscript, but make it sing is a mighty effort. We all like to believe that hard work will lead to achieving a goal, a success. It may, it may not, or it may lead the writer to adjust the barometer. 

Never give up. 

Book Review: The Knife and the Butterfly

This book was recommended to me by my critique partner, as inspiration and comparison to my super secret work in progress.

Skewed to a younger reader, “The Knife and the Butterfly,” written by Ashley Hope Perez, is a story about a tough young boy named Azael in some sort of detention hold after a gang fight. He is ordered to watch a girl named Lexi sit in a room, sometimes talking to counselors, sometimes just sitting there. Throughout the book, he is trying to figure out why he is watching her, and where he is. People come and go, with adults being mostly mysterious, except for the dependable guy who brings the food and Lexi’s notebook.

Gritty, mysterious and surprising, this is a great story that can be sometimes hard to read. It ends in a way that made me want to read it again from the beginning. I can’t tell you why, because that would ruin it for you. 

Spring is Here, Somewhere

It has rained nearly every day for a week. Not only is it rainy, but it is as cold as possible for April, with highs in the 40s. My dearest wish is to put away my winter coat, hat and mittens. That isn’t happening.

While it might not look like spring outside, it is going strong inside. Last fall, I was certified as a master gardener. They gave us seeds as a graduation present. I know enough that seeds don’t last forever (really, they don’t, I had some for 10 years or more because I never thought about that). So, I decided to plant the seeds I got as a present, dragging my reluctant family to the Garden Expo to buy some plats to accommodate all these seeds. The seedlings are coming along and turning into flowers. There were some bumps along the way with cats eating my sprouts, knocking over the plats, cold and gray days and no grow lights. I may not try this again without grow lights. They look fairly cheap to make, and I would recommend them to anyone trying to grow from seed. Marigolds are pretty easy, but aren’t exactly thriving with just a sometimes sunny window.

Yesterday, I was separating garlic cloves to make lunch and noticed green on one of the cloves. Since I am in this growing phase, I dug my decorative tulips that had expired out of their pot and planted the sprouting garlic clove. It has grown an inch, maybe two since I planted it yesterday. I think it grew half of that while I was writing this post. This store bought garlic clove is going nuts. I have never heard of anyone growing garlic in a pot, so I might be breaking ground here.

I haven’t seen a single tulip growing in its natural environment this year. The snow barely melted and April refuses to warm up. But I have some stuff growing inside. If I am stuck here for the next 10 days because of more rain and 40 degree weather, I may as well have some green to keep me company.

It’s spring in here! 

Confidence

Common advice tells us that confidence can make a difference in how people perceive you and contribute to success in all areas of our lives. Dress for success!

It is good advice. We should all take it, even the writers among us.

Confidence can be fleeting when your life is filled with rejection, published reviews and constant self doubt. I used to keep a file folder of rejection letters. At first, I kept all of them. In those days, queries were sent by snail mail with a SASE (self addressed stamped envelope). Weeks or months later, I would find a 9x12 envelope in my mailbox with my handwriting on it. Usually it was a form letter rejection attached to my manuscript.

When the personal letters of rejection started coming, it could make my day. My husband would stand next to me, perplexed as to why I was so excited about getting rejected. You don’t understand, I said. He still doesn’t.

A high point of these rejections was one I received on a picture book submission. It was a personal rejection, in the form of a handwritten note scribbled on letterhead. Even more exciting, there were pencil marks all over the manuscript itself. Someone at this big 6 publishing house took the time to work on my manuscript. I was over the moon!

I stopped saving those rejections. Queries shifted to email, which don’t have the same signature impact as a personalized note penned by an editor. I am pretty sure I saved my acceptance letter from Solstice Publishing in my email box, which doesn’t have the same nostalgic feel as a file drawer of yellowing paper.

Writers face a lot of obstacles in our careers, and we are constantly seeking validation. It has to be one of the professions most mired in self doubt. This problem doesn’t end with publication. Then we worry if people will like the book, if it will sell enough, if the next book will be any good, or if that one will sell. 

Back in the day, I gained confidence when an editor gave my work thought enough to write a personalized note. These days, I gain my confidence from my readers. They are my most important critics now. For all those who shared reviews and ratings on Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere, thank you. It is fuel for the writer’s soul. 

How You Spend Your Days Is How You Spend Your Life

Like most people I know, I work for money. The work/life balance blurs when I get greedy.

Last week, I was offered a big freelance writing job with an incentive. The job became bigger after I agreed to do it. Days blurred together with me fixed at the computer, working on this increasingly big project with a very tight deadline.

I do regular work for this company, and I enjoy it very much, but I do it in much smaller doses. At first, the increased intensity was inspiring, even refreshing. The first day or two, I had a few hundred words left at the end of the night to add to my novel in progress. My income potential was rising. I had underestimated myself.

But things were sliding. My house was a mess. I wasn’t spending time with my kids or husband. I wasn’t reading outside of research reports and statistics. I wasn’t seeing my friends. By day three and four, I had a headache by noon and it was getting harder to get through it.

I talked to other people who took crazy jobs for extra money. One friend was turning in a project that day, trying to beat a snowstorm to get it off her hands so she never had to think about it again. The project paid for her daughter’s dance lessons, but she wasn’t sure it was worth the hassle.  Another told me about a job delivering phone books. She thought she could do it after work to make some extra money for Christmas. It turned into a kerfluffle that may have ended up costing her more than she made from the job because of childcare costs and gasoline to haul around heavy phone books.

By day six, the work had grown again and it looked like internal editing would make it a nailbiter to hit deadline. On that day, I woke up with a headache. While the end was in sight, I had to get through the day, and the day after that, and they both looked dismal.

A saying I probably read on Facebook popped into my head: How you spend your days is you spend your life. If this was true, I wasn’t too happy with how I was spending my life. I was living for the days on the other side of this project, but the days I was living were miserable.

I did my best for this project, and fulfilled my promise. Like my friend delivering her side project in a snowstorm, I questioned if it was worth it.  Dance lessons, or in my case, piano lessons, do need to be paid for, but I don’t have to earn the money in seven days. 

Book Review: The One and Only Ivan

"The One and Only Ivan," by Katherine Applegate is the winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal, and it deserves it. This book is charming, heartbreaking and courageous as Ivan, the mighty Silverback gorilla speaks from his domain in the Big Top Mall and Video Arcade.

Except it isn’t a domain, it is a cage, and a small and dirty one at that.

Short sentences in short chapters, because gorillas don’t waste words like humans do, tell a rich story on friendship, family and home. The one and only Ivan does the impossible, in more ways than one. First, he fulfilled a promise from inside a cage. Second, he hooked my kids from the first page. They couldn’t stop reading until the story was done.

You won’t be able to either. This is a book to buy, because you will be proud to have it on your shelves.