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Titanic Artifact Exhibit

We traveled back in time this afternoon, stepping off an elevator in downtown Montreal into a recreation of the R.M.S. Titanic.

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition opened in November on the fifth floor of the Eaton Centre.  When you purchase your ticket, you’re handed a boarding pass with the name and background of an actual passenger from the ship’s log.  I was a 19-year-old newlywed traveling first class from England to Washington, DC after my honeymoon, during which I had acquired a new dog (true story!).  It was a fascinating way to experience the artifact exhibit, especially for the kids, because they could walk through the displays and say, "Oh! That’s where I would have slept."  E and I were both first class passengers and would have had staterooms like this…

The exhibit includes a depiction of the night sky in the North Atlantic on the night of April 14, 1912, as well as a very small iceberg model — made of real ice so you can get a sense of just how cold it must have been in the water.

The exhibit ends with a listing of passengers and their fates.  We found the names on our boarding passes on the list of survivors,  but it was chilling to see the long, long list of names — particularly those of third class passengers — who didn’t make it.

I didn’t do this on purpose, but one of my photographs, with my camera propped on a glass display case, left some ghostly images amid the list of passenger names.

I love this picture because it captures what I love most about museums and special historical exhibits like this one — they are ghost stories of the finest order.  Seeing pictures of the real men, women, and children who spent their last days on the Titanic, seeing their engagement rings and suit coats and eyeglasses, makes it almost possible to hear them whispering their stories one more time.

NEED by Carrie Jones


NEED by Carrie Jones is one of those books that sneaks up on you.  It starts off firmly grounded in the real world, with teens so real you can almost smell them sweating after cross-country practice, a setting so vivid you can feel the winter wind blow, and the very real teen drama that defines every high school in America.  But this isn’t just any town; it’s a town with a high concentration of pixies – magical beings with terrible, evil needs.  By the time you realize the danger the main character, Zara, is in, you’ve already accepted this book as real, which makes the scary parts even scarier.

After the death of Zara’s father, her mother sends her to live in snowy Maine, where she’s thrown off balance by icy roads and people who aren’t what they appear to be. But even worse than the blustery snow is the mysterious man who shows up.  He’s been following her everywhere, he leaves a trail of gold dust behind him, and Zara’s convinced he’s connected to the disappearance of some missing boys in town.  When Zara discovers that the mystery man is a pixie, she’s forced to fight her fears and question some of her own ideas about nonviolence.

I love Zara. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Carrie Jones created her in response to some of the issues I have with TWILIGHT’s Bella.  While I read TWILIGHT, loved the exciting plot, and completely understand the appeal to teen girls, I always wonder how they view Bella, who isn’t as strong a heroine as I like to see in books for girls.  Zara, by contrast, is a girl with ideals and gumption.  She has her own sizzling love interest in NEED, but it’s on her terms.  She’s a heroine I can feel good about introducing to my 7th grade girls. NEED is a great book for paranormal romance fans – and a fantastic “next book” for kids looking for something to read after TWILIGHT. 


Kate’s Holiday Book Review Note:  I hope you’re shopping with independent bookstores for the holidays!  After all of my holiday season book reviews, I’ll be posting a short note on how each title might fit into your gift list.

Need by Carrie Jones

Note:  This title has a December 23 release date from Bloomsbury.  If that’s cutting it too close, you might want to pre-order it as a holiday gift and just leave a little note with a picture of the cover under the tree. It’s that good.  Or just pick up a gift certificate for your favorite indie and wrap it up with a copy of this review!

Suggested ages:  12+

Buy it for kids who loved:  Twilight, Wicked Lovely, Lament, other paranormal romance novels.  They’ll love this one, too!

Editor-in-Training

My seven-year-old daughter had been waiting and waiting and WAITING to read the draft of my second MARTY MCGUIRE chapter book, so a few weeks ago, I printed it out for her.  She settled in next to the fireplace with the big folder of papers, and I started making dinner. Pretty soon, she appeared in the kitchen.

"Do you have a pen I can use?"

"For what?" I asked her.

"I just want to make some notes on here for you, okay?"

I gave her the pen…and the next day got back a manuscript that looked like this.

And the best part?   When I asked her what the E was for, she said, "You know, so you know those corrections are from me and not the person at Scholastic."  

I don’t save all the printed drafts of my books. But this is one I’ll be holding onto for a long, long time.

The Hunger Games

I already posted a book review today, but our phone just rang.  It was my mom, home from Thanksgiving dinner at our house, calling to discuss the book that my 12-year-old son and I convinced her to read while she was here. 

"How’d you like it?"  I asked her.

"It was awful," she said.  "Wonderful but just awful. Put the boy on the phone. I need to talk to him about the end."

So Nana and J proceeded to discuss Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games – an amazing dystopian adventure of reality-TV turned nightmare.  Before they had their book chat, Nana had to go upstairs so Papa wouldn’t hear.  She didn’t want to spoil it; he’s reading it next.  That, my friends, is a book that transcends ages.  In fact, when I was at Flying Pig Bookstore this week, The Hunger Games was displayed with a sign listing it as Josie & Elizabeth’s favorite fantasy of 2008.  (And if you know Josie and Elizabeth, you know that they know their stuff.) 

You can check out some of the many glowing reviews on Suzanne’s website — or just trust me.  You must read this book.  When you’re done, share it with a reluctant reader, who will love it, too.

Kate’s Holiday Book Review Note:  I hope you’re shopping with independent bookstores for the holidays!  After all of my holiday season book reviews, I’ll be posting a short note on how each title might fit into your gift list.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Suggested ages:  12+

Buy it for kids who love:  adventure stories, books set in the future, fantasy, and fast-paced action.  My mom is right — The Hunger Games is disturbing, so it’s not a good choice for very sensitive kids who don’t like to read books that are sad or dark.  This is my top pick for reluctant readers this holiday season, though, and it’s one that readers of many genres will stay up late to finish.

What I Saw and How I Lied

When the National Book Award finalists for young people’s literature were announced a few weeks ago, there were only two titles on the list that I hadn’t already read and loved — and one of them walked away with the medal.  While the turkey was cooking  yesterday, I dug into Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied, and I found myself nodding, understanding why the NBA Committee loved it so much.

That deliciously dangerous-feeling cover image lives up to its promise when 15-year-old Evelyn Spooner, on a trip to Palm Beach with her mother and step-father, meets Peter, a handsome young soldier who served with her step-father in World War II.  He is eight years older.  He is beautiful.  Absolutely beautiful and absolutely charming.  Evelyn is a typical young teen, poised on the edge of the diving board, so ready to be more glamorous that she can taste it, and she falls for Peter in a big way.  Anyone who has experienced first love knows the feeling that Blundell captures so beautifully in this novel — that rush of momentum like a train barreling down a track, no matter what stands in the way.  What I Saw and How I Lied is written in first person, but even as readers begin to sense trouble, Evie is blissfully oblivious to the train wreck taking shape around her until it transforms the story from a post-war romance to a gut-wrenching mystery and courtroom drama.

Even though this novel is set in the 1940s and plunged me into that world completely, its main character seemed to transcend time, and I really think today’s young readers will to relate to Evie Spooner in a big way.  What I Saw and How I Lied feels like the best kind of classic — one that will speak to young readers, especially girls, no matter when they’re facing the challenges of growing up.


Kate’s Holiday Book Review Note:  I hope you’re shopping with independent bookstores for the holidays!  After all of my holiday season book reviews, I’ll be posting a short note on how each title might fit into your gift list.

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

Suggested ages:  12+

Buy it for kids who loved:  Twilight.   Honestly, if you know a kid who only wants to read about vampires, this might be the perfect book to expand her horizons a bit.  It’s masterfully written but still has that intense sense of romance and danger that draws so many kids to Stephenie Meyer’s series.  Peter is every bit as beautiful as Edward, too…only without the fangs.

Thankful

For apple pie, but mostly because my mom is here to make it.

For family and turkey and after-dinner plans — a traditional Thanksgiving basketball game with the neighbors and then this…

     

I hope your Thanksgiving is warm and wonderful, too!

Learning to Love November

Being a writer means learning how to wait.  There have been some wonderfully honest and thoughtful LJ posts lately about the real story of what happens after a first book deal, and the truth is, there’s a lot of waiting around.  But really?  There’s waiting before that, too — waiting for critiques, waiting to hear about query letters, waiting for contracts.   There’s waiting after that first book deal…and after the second…and the third.  Being a writer means having a lot of in-between times.

At the moment, while I wait for THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z to be released next fall, I’m also waiting to see the cover of that book, waiting to find out who will illustrate OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW and MARTY MCGUIRE, FROG PRINCESS, and waiting for word on two picture book submissions.  I am excited about all of these things;  I am feeling zen-like and patient about none of them.

The very best thing for me to do when I’m tempted to check my email for the fourth time in an hour is to go outside.  Why?  Because nature can handles "in-between" with more beauty and grace than I can ever muster on my own.

November has never been my favorite month.  Where I live, it’s overshadowed by the brilliant leaves of October and the snowy magic of December.  But you don’t hear the trees whining about that.  They reminded me today to take a break from the waiting and appreciate the "right now."

Welcome, baby worms!

So I was just poking around the bin of red worms we keep in the basement to eat kitchen scraps, and this scene is way too tiny to photograph, but…

Imagine an apple peel, about an inch wide and two inches long and curling at the edges.  If you look very, very carefully at the flesh that remains, you can see tiny white squiggles, maybe 1/16th of an inch long and so thin they’re almost transparent.  They are wiggling, and every every once in a while, one stands up and waves its tail.  Or maybe its head. It’s difficult to tell.

Red worms actually reproduce fairly quickly, so this isn’t the first time my little guys/girls (they’re hermaphrodites) have had babies.  But it’s the first time I’ve seen them so soon after they’ve emerged from a cocoon, and they were just so new and tiny…oh heck, I’ll admit it….I almost teared up a little.

(Note to blog readers who are just thinking "Ew!" right  now. I still love you, just as I still love my husband, who looked somewhat horrified when I ran upstairs to show him my wormy apple peel while he was having his coffee.)

Congratulations, NBA Winners!

 Judy Blundell just won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for What I Saw and How I Lied!

Huge congratulations to Judy and Scholastic editor David Levithan, as well as amazing NBA finalists Laurie Halse Anderson (I’m reading CHAINS with my 7th graders right after Thanksgiving!), Kathi Appelt (THE UNDERNEATH), E. Lockhart (THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDAU BANKS) and Tim Tharp (THE SPECTACULAR NOW).  Huzzah!!

Writers at the Post Office

Is it just me, or is there something very final about handing over a package to the person behind the counter at the Post Office?  I’d forgotten how nerve-wracking it can be…how I have to fight the urge to snatch back any package that’s full of my words.  The last time I was mailing manuscripts was more than a year ago, during my agent search.  Since then, everything from submissions to revisions to line edits have been emailed as attachments.  And somehow, pressing "send" is easier for me than  handing over a big pile of papers and leaving a building empty-handed.  But copy edits happen on paper.  Mine looked like this…

There were, if I recall, four or five pages without any marks. Yay, me!

You learn a lot about yourself during the copy edit stage.  I have an uncanny ability to mess up words like shoe box and crab apple, both of which I’ve written correctly in this blog. The manuscript was another story.  Sometimes, in my brilliance, I’d write the word two different ways on the same page, to be sure of getting it right once.

This one puzzled me.  Somewhere, I missed the memo that there’s no longer a comma before the word "too" when it’s used at the end of a short sentence.  For example:  I’m befuddled too.  No comma.

Anyway…in case the lady at the Post Office happens to read this, I’m sorry I kept trying to tug that package back out of your hands. I let it go eventually.  Sometimes, though, it’s hard to say goodbye.