Gratitude: A Story of Books and Friendship

This blog is about children's literature--the reading of it, the teaching of it, the writing of it, and the ways in which it intersects with other aspects of my life, professional and personal. I generally don't get personal here (I have other blogs for that), but today, I am driven to the personal by a staggering gift and my desire to express my gratitude to the dear friend behind the gift.

In January, while living an ocean away from home, I was diagnosed with a serious illness. My good friend Jordan Sonnenblick asked my husband what would help me at this difficult time, and the answer, as always in difficult times, was books, in particular kids' books. Jordan took action. He sent out a clarion call, as he put it, to many of his writer friends, and the response was an entire library of signed books.

A big box of books is always a thoughtful gift, but a big box of signed books, shipped across an ocean is especially welcome. The books themselves will entertain, comfort, invigorate, and inspire me. The time taken by the authors to respond to Jordan's call and to sign their books makes each book more special. And the stack of them--two stacks actually--sits by me now, a wall of words and creativity and warmth, lending strength.

But the story is not so simple, as none of the authors involved would expect it to be. A few short days after assuring Jordan that it would be safe to send this wonderful gift to us abroad, my husband and I made the heartbreaking decision that we needed to return to the US for me to get the best care. We abruptly abandoned friends, family, school, and really, really good food, and in the eight hours of a transatlantic flight found ourselves back in the US.

By this time, I had been told about the box of books, which perhaps passed east over the ocean as we traveled west. I left instructions with friends to receive the package and send it onward to me. There would be a delay, but the books would make there way to my side in good time. The packagage did not arrive. Time passed. Finally, we meet a form in triplicate and our antagonist: a nefarious, mustached bureacrat personifying Spanish Customs.

More forms. E-mails. All in Spanish. Time continues to pass. I have given up hope. I am grateful for the thought, which is what really counts. I tell myself that somewhere the children of Spanish Customs' officers have lucked into a great library of wonderful books. Perhaps good will come of this.

Finally, we get word that the package has been returned to the sender. I laugh. I do not imagine that the books will ever return to the US, but, miracle of miracles, Jordan calls to tell me the box has returned. He sends it onward. A few days later it arrives, intact, brimming with wonderful, wonderful books. Sr. Spanish Customs was defeated, or perhaps he wasn't so bad after all.

And now I sit with two stacks of books at my side, and I offer this post as a gesture of gratitude to Jordan and to all his writer friends for their generosity and for the resilience of their words, which have traveled the world and will guide me through my own journey of healing. Thank you.

More Potter is Good, I think

Like many, I have been following the mysterious Pottermore site with interest. Today, JK Rowling revealed that it will be a site that provides at least 18,000 words of backstory on assorted characters, like McGonagall and the Dursleys, as well as some games and, here's the controversial part, access to e-books.

No one can argue that JKR has not done way more than any individual's (nay, any nation's!) part to boost book sales. Still, like so many in the book business, I am worried about what electronic publishing will do to books and bookstores, especially small independent stores who have to find ways to hold their own against local competition like B&N and against online competitors like Amazon.

I have a Kindle, and I love it, but I admit that I read differently on the Kindle. I'm nearing the end of the fourth George R.R. Martin book. I bought the first one, and then got the second for my Kindle. My husband bought hard copy. I had a hard time reading the book electronically. I needed the maps. I needed to know how many pages were left in the chapter and who came next. Ultimately, I felt less invested in the characters and the narrative on my Kindle, so as soon as my husband finished, I picked up the hard copy with great relief.

I have enjoyed some books on my Kindle--mostly books that don't feel important, that are just fun or informational--and I certainly enjoy having the Kindle and having so many books on hand wherever I am.

And this is where I get back to Harry Potter. I am a die hard HP fan. I love the books. I re-read them. I have multiple copies of each book, some in foreign languages. I even read Book 1 in Spanish to practice when I was learning the language. I have read all 7 books with my older child and am up to book 4 with my younger kids. I teach the HP books to my college students, and once, sometimes twice per year, I make classes of 25-35 students buy select books in the series. In other words, I have done my share of buying these books from booksellers small and large in four countries.

Now, I can hardly wait to have all seven books on my Kindle. I will always have them with me. Always. When I'm waiting at the doctor's office, and I'd really like to re-read the scene when Harry first gets snarky with Umbridge, I can. When I'm on a plane, and I crave the Battle of Hogwarts, it will be right there with me. It will be like a literary security blanket.

And carrying around my HP blanket will keep the books present for me, not that I think anything could make them less present. It will remind me to teach them and to read them with my kids and to buy the real books for other children I know.

I don't think children yet read e-books. Maybe they will some day, but we're not there yet. Adults will continue to buy the hard copy HP books for children they know. Why? Because the books are important. Because you must have the experience of their heft in your hands or the words on the page.

Nothing sends a shiver down the spine like the last phrase of the first chapter of the first book, "The Boy Who Lived." Seeing those words on paper is an experience everyone should have for the first time, and the second, and the third. But once that magic has become a part of you, it's OK to read the words on an e-reader. Their magic simply cannot be lessened. And having those words with me always will be magical indeed.

The Tactile Muse

I am poised at a fork in my writing road: I have plotted a sequel to A Sketch in Time, which will take place mostly during the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and I have planned a massive revision of my first novel, This Powerful Rhyme. The revision will involve getting rid of one of the protagonists and will thus really be a complete rewriting on blank pages rather than a tinkering of pages already written. I feel drawn to both of these projects, and I expect I will tackle both in good time, but for now, I am standing at that fork, trying to decide which way to go.

This decision prompts me to think about what motivates me to write. What is my muse? The answer surprises me a little. As a professor of literature, I would think words would be my muse. Other people's lovely words that brew on the page into a solution that is more than words and more than pages. And it's true that other people's words inspire me and give me strength and direction in my life, but they do not, funnily enough, stir me to write.

What stirs me to write is the mundane feel of things in my hands. This is not a metaphor. I mean the actual feel of things in my hands, which somehow prompts me to tell stories about those things. In stories, I put these things in other people's hands, but the things are real, and there is something in the reality of them, the feel of them that leads me to write.

I've been messing around with sequel ideas since November when I finished my first draft of A Sketch in Time. I've been making notes, thinking through scenarios, problems with the plot, challenges for the characters, etc., but the story didn't click. The story finally clicked the other day when I opened an antique desk imported from Barcelona. I was taking out a picture that I'd stored inside. To open the desk, I had to use a heavy iron key that struggled into place and then made a satisfying clack as it turned and allowed me to open the door. The feel of the key in my hand, the feel of the lock shifting, the feel of the heavy door falling open in my hand. All of those feelings transported me, and, like the lock, I felt the story clack into place. The desk will be in the sequel. It will be important, but it will not be the most important thing to the story. Yet, it may be the most important thing to me, the touchstone, the muse. When the story sticks and won't come out, I can literally turn the key and trigger my tactile muse.

For This Powerful Rhyme, there is a cupboard in a bedroom. It's door used to be stuck shut, and that was the beginning of that story. Now the door opens, but I can shut the cupboard and feel it's small, odd knob between my fingers, and I think I'll remember how it felt when that door wouldn't open and how the story that came out of the fastness of that cupboard presented itself.

So, I've learned tha I write inspired by the tactile muse. But I still don't know which fork to take. Perhaps I should open both doors, the one with its iron key and the other with is small knob and see which door demands a story from me.