To Read & To Write

Natalie Babbitt’s classic story, “Tuck Everlasting”, published in 1975, is a magical, powerful novella about a ten-year old girl named Winnie. She longs for something that is much more than her own bourgeois family, her own boring front yard, and her own lonesome self (whose only real friend at the beginning of the story is a frog). The day she decides to run away grants all her wishes. She spends a couple days living with an odd, mysterious, and gentle family – the Tucks - who tell her a big, unbelievable secret – a secret so important that it depends on their lives… Besides a fantastic, perfectly-crafted plot, Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting” has some of the most beautiful literary prose ever written. The dead heat of August, the stifling feeling of loneliness, the exuberance of love, the passing of time and its effect on the atmosphere, and, quite unique to this book – the idea of a lost rural place with lots and lots forest and sudden otherworldly and unexpected clearings, clearings ...

I'll never tire of this story. Trina Schart Hyman's illustrations are beautiful, using rich, dark hues of deep browns, deep maroons, deep greens and grays that contrast nicely with brighter blues and reds. The colors bleed together and fill the pages with warmth, creating full borders for the text of the story itself. Paul Heins' translation is straight-forward yet elegant and magical, making a perfect bedtime read for little ones or for fairy-tale lovers of any age. The cottage, castle, woodland and its animals will remind readers of a place that never gets old, that special place that hasn't disappeared from our imaginations for centuries.

I read this, electronically, in full on a whim today. I haven't read this since some time in grade school and never saw the film (nor do I wish to). I am *so glad* I read it again. While there is plenty to discuss about this Newbery-Award winning children's book (first published in 1993) - now considered, rightfully, a classic - what I learned from the Lois Lowry's "The Giver" is this: that some people don't want to feel pain. Maybe some people refuse feel pain. Especially the pain of others. That pain, most importantly, includes that strong pull of sympathy and empathy that we, in shared humanity, bear for others to order *share* the burden; in order to help and in order to heal. While empathy and sympathy are subjective, especially when two or more people have gone through similar life experiences (such as going through war, or heartbreak, a divorce, et al), we must strive and we must reach towards understanding those different kinds of pain that we may...

An elegantly illustrated and elegantly written book about a young boy who lives by the sea and whose grandfather has just passed away. In honor of his grandpa, he builds a tiny ship on the beach and sails away, across the ocean and into the stars. With soothing and calming colors, the finely detailed illustrations prompt looking carefully and naming both objects of technology as well as those found in nature. I love that this book focuses on the idea of discovery yet draws upon ancient folklore and myth to light the way of the child's (and adult's) imagination.

This is a lovely book full of bright, happy colors. Featuring fun rhyming words about nature and animals, "Be Still, Life" wonderfully captures a sunny, warm day, just when all the bugs, people, and creatures come out of hiding. The illustrations are a delightful sort of chaos, just like life, and may help children find inner peace and calm in what may seem like a busy mess of movement and energy. Slow down and point out the things you *can* see, hear, touch, feel, smell... and one by one they will come to you and silence your worry and anxiety, asking you to look within. "Be Still, Life" is a story for children (and adults) about being present in the world, being aware of what surrounds you, and embracing each moment of our special lives. A perfect book for spring and early summer.

Newbery Award winning classic children’s story, “A Wrinkle In Time” (1962), by Madeleine L’Engle, is a delightful science fiction and fantasy tale incorporating very real scientific concepts such as a *tesseract* (geometry: the generalization of a cube to four dimensions). To *tesser* means to travel beyond the rules of time and space, which is exactly what Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, her father, a friend named Calvin, and three old women (Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which), do to save one another from being incorporated into a dark planet far from home called Camazotz.  “A Wrinkle In Time” is not quite *hard* sci-fi (concerned by actual scientific accuracy), nor is it necessarily dystopian, although it steers close to both. L’Engle sprinkles a good amount of fantasy elements (such as Charles Wallace’s powers of intelligence and the angelic-like qualities of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which), offering a brilliant escape from the mundane into a world both fright...

“The Girl Who Drank The Moon” by Kelly Barnhill (2016), winner of the Newbery Medal, is one of the best books I’ve read this year. Although “The Girl Who Drank The Moon” is geared towards kids in about fifth grade, I, at thirty, loved reading this book and was fully engaged with the story, racing towards the end to find out the fate of the characters within the book. Barnhill mixes bits of alchemy, folklore, politics, romance, psychology, adventure, and horror in her fairy-tale, which is all wonderfully expected. But, as New York Times reviewer Diana Wagman has put it, “Many books we read when we’re young want to teach us lessons about life. True, the things we learn in them can stay with us forever. But lessons can be so dull. Luckily, Kelly Barnhill’s wonderful fourth novel, ‘The Girl Who Drank The Moon,’ educates about oppression, blind allegiance and challenging the status quo while immersing the reader in an exhilarating story full of magical creatures and derring-do.” The gir...

Sometimes a good object lesson made in story form can be better than something overly dramatic and dripping with sentimentality. The Light Between Oceans is a perfect object lesson about the blurred lines between the usually stark contrast of right and wrong. Morality, no matter how much some might like to convince themselves of it, is never easy. London based, Australian author M.L. Stedman writes her powerful first story, The Light Between Oceans, conveying this complexity in all its perfect dimensions. Tom Sherbourne, well-respected World War I veteran, is emotionally and spiritually wounded after his return from action, especially by the fact that he survived while many of his comrades were brutally killed. The question of why *he* was the one that was allowed to live nags at him daily. Damaged also from a broken home, Sherbourne puts the entirety of his mind and soul into his work. He is detailed and exhaustive in the work he does, and soon he is known as one of the best light...