The Boy on the Bridge

I finished Natalie Standiford's newest YA novel just in time for the party!

And what a terrific book launch it was. So much fun at McNally Jackson Books on a Sunday evening that I forgot to take pictures.
But there was cake and Bingo. A really big crowd.
Natalie read rexcerpts from her high school diary. Hair, clothing, friendships were revealed...
Proving once again that all writers notice important details at an early age, right?



I'm a big fan of her previous books, especially HOW TO SAY GOODBYE IN ROBOT. Which I blogged about here.

Natalie bases her new novel, a romance with a hint of mystery, on her own experiences as a U.S. college student, studying in Leningrad in the early 1980s.

Check out these pictures!
http://www.nataliestandiford.com/the_boy_on_the_bridge_119061.htm

Those specific details Natalie's so great at kept me turning pages, wondering how the heroine would resolve her dilemma. I was completely captivated by THE BOY ON THE BRIDGE.

How's this for a quick character reveal:
"Binky Binkowsky, the yellow-haired girl with the moon boots..."

or this, for a perfectly-painted picture:
"Alyosha lived on the outskirts of the city, the second-to-last metro stop on the Red Line. He led her past an empty supermarket, down a winding path lined with piles of grey snow like Styrofoam..."

Don't you feel like you're right there? I predict teen readers will adore this book. 



Related posts: Baltimore

My review of another of Natalie's books, in which I reveal I'm a family friend.
And here's a photo I took on a recent visit to friends and family back in Baltimore. Kind of says a lot about my former hometown. I know Natalie would approve.
(And besides, I don't have any pictures taken at the Book Party. Or of Leningrad. For that, and to buy the book, check that link up there to Natalie's website, please.)

(Thanks to our publisher, Scholastic Press, for the review copy.)

One More School: My day in pictures...

And what a fun day it was!

If Baltimore felt like coming home, Roland Park Country School felt like a friendly neighbor.

 

Having been the Lower School librarian just down the road a piece for quite a few years, side by side with my friend Barrie, now director of the RPCS Lower School, I was right at home.

I think they scheduled the fire drill just for me.

We had those with alarming frequency in a school where I once worked. All false, thankfully.
(All kind of fun except on freezing days and the one time it went off during Grandparents Day...)

The girls were so enthusiastic about my book. Third and fourth graders before lunch.

Fifth graders later. They were in the middle of a Civil Rights study and knew so much. Great questions!

Big discussion over the two different cover images on the book jacket. Many had purchased GLORY BE through their Scholastic Book Club. Others had the original.

 We took a vote. Silhouette vs. photo image? Results split down the middle. 

I asked if they knew what a silhouette was. Hands shot up. Of course they knew! 

This project is on the hall bulletin board, right outside the library.

Fantastic librarian. Smart kids. Old and new friends. 

And the librarian took this last shot of me and my "biggest fan." 

She loved the book! What a great day.

Thank you, Roland Park Country, Beverly and Barrie, and all those enthusiastic readers.

Screen Free?

Did you know it's National Turn Off Your TV Week, also known as Screen Free Week?

If you were a student at Roland Park Country School in Baltimore, where I just spent a delightful day, you would know.

This greeted me in the library:

Look at these neat bookmarks the students were eagerly scooping up.

 (Open, turn page, skim, pause, READ!)

More to come from that great school visit, my last in Maryland for a while, at least.

Anybody else celebrating? Turning off the TV, at least for a little while?
What are you reading this week?

Here's some of my list:
On the Road to Mr. Mineo's (an ARC from the publisher)
eagerly awaiting: Double Dog Dare (I just won a copy on Smack Dab in the Middle- yay!)

Leftover from my plane ride:  The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters
on my Kindle. A very strange yet oddly addictive novel set in Nebraska which I bought at a Kindle deal ages ago and can't seem to finish or stop reading. (Does that make sense?)

Another Homecoming!

Truly, is there anything better than returning to one of the places you love most to be surrounded by Book Love? We lived in Baltimore for ten great years. I still think of it right up there with Mississippi as "home."

Yesterday a whole bunch of my friends showed up to listen to me carry on about my book and eat some really great Southern food. I signed many books, and we reminisced.

It helped that one of the hostesses had just returned from Memphis. She brought Elvis and propped him in front of my Junk Poker box, which has a very strong Elvis connection. And check out the name of the honey, nestled close to Elvis. (Okay, not THAT kind of honey. It was a party for a kids' book, for Pete's sake...)

The table.
My Mississippi transplant friend served as food consultant. We posed behind the fabulous table. We are blurry, yes, but the table was gorgeous.

Someone I hadn't seen since we worked together at Bryn Mawr School brought pink tulips. How could she have guessed the thing I miss most in Florida is spring flowers? Beautiful!

On my bedside table? Lilies of the Valley.
A French May Day tradition. (☜☜Click to read all about it!)

La Fête du Muguet (Lily of the Valley Day)

Good luck for the entire year!

Here we are. Great friends for a very long time.

(The flowers on the mantle?  Magnifique! Sorry we are hiding them...)

My bags are packed!

Heading north for a few days. Three schools, two in Maryland, one in Virginia. 

Plus lots of fun friends and family along the way.

Yes, my Junk Poker box is secure in its waterproof bag...

And I'm never without my GLORY BE wristlet!

HERE'S the website, should you need one of these adorables. Every time I hold mine up in the midst of writers, they want one.

(Mine's looking a little well-loved these days...)

Be back soon!

Possibly related posts:

Going Home Again- Baltimore. 

Wristlet, a thing I love!

More Tales from the Standby Lane: Baltimore/ Washington

A trip to Washington and my old stomping grounds of Baltimore turned out to be a terrific way to spend the last weekend in April. Lunch plus a moment to share my upcoming book's story with old friends and colleagues (Thanks, Julie!), two museum opportunities, family suppers, and spring flowers.

Here's what a sunny Saturday at Hillwood Gardens, the home of Marjorie Merriweather Post, looked like.

Here is my all-time favorite line spoken all weekend:

One young teen to her younger sister, strolling down the azaleas paths:
"Just wait till you're in 7th grade next year- Shakespeare Rocks!

Now how often do you hear a kid say Shakespeare Rocks? Do you think she knew we'd just celebrated his birthday?

For those of you who aren't familiar with the lingo of my former hometown, Baltimore, Maryland, "Hon" is a term of endearment spoken in certain parts of the city. There's a whole culture around the word. You can read more about this on a previous post, here.

So the bumper sticker seen on Roland Avenue near Eddie's did not surprise me. But it did delight me, especially on a day that the whole world hoped peace wasn't far away.

This trip via the Standby Lane was a good one, even with a bit of a wait at the airport-- Newish manuscript to revise. Kindle book to read. All good.

Although I often seem to pick the most challenging days to travel on an airline pass, Monday's return trip was surprisingly anxiety free.
Southwest, like Shakespeare, rocks.

Kathryn Stockett

This week I had the privilege and the fun of hearing the author of The Help speak to a very bright, enthusiastic audience in Baltimore. The fundraiser celebrated The Caroline Center's 15 years of "Transforming the Lives of Women Through Education." This is an amazing organization that helps under-skilled and under-educated women prepare for the workplace.

Held at the College of Notre Dame (a women's college in Baltimore), the event was packed, the auditorium full, upstairs and down. In fact, Kathryn Stockett said it was possibly the largest crowd she'd yet addressed on her widespread tour. Looking out at the mostly female, sold-out audience, in her very Southern, surprisingly soft voice, she said "Please be gentle," and we all laughed.

I'm going to skip over how terrifically she reads from her fascinating, funny, intriguing, best-selling novel. She's just that good. (Click here if you're interesting in very insightful comments from good readers discussing the book.) I'm also going to leave out many of the things she said about the movie directed by her childhood friend Tate Taylor. There was just never anybody other than her friend under consideration to direct and write the screenplay. She spoke with great enthusiasm in answer to questions about the movie.

Well, maybe just one brief story (This week they were in Jackson "at a drugstore where we used to go all the time," she told us, but most of the scenes are filming in Greenwood because it looks a lot like Jackson did in 1963.)

Her story about her friend Tate involved stealing his dad's car and driving to New Orleans, at age 14. For those of us who grew up in Mississippi, this isn't exactly startling news. We could drive at age 15 and get a learner's permit at 14. Many took off to New Orleans, just for the excitement of it. We certainly sneaked out of our houses in the middle of the night and drove our parents cars around the neighborhood. But I digress...

The reason she told the story was to illustrate their theory that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission. And that she was a wild hellion, "hell on wheels" in fact, with a co-conspirator to whom she's fiercely devoted. She told how she and Tate dreamed up awful things (at this point there was a huge clap of thunder outside the auditorium and the skies opened up). She thinks perhaps that was how she was able to conceive of the Pie Scene...

Here are some of the audience questions, with answers. The questioners were articulate, mostly not asking the "how do you get your ideas" type I often hear at writing conferences and workshops. I really liked that about the evening.

One disclaimer: I am, of course, paraphrasing. I didn't record anything. These are just my notes. Please do not quote these answers as if they are the exact words of Kathryn Stockett. On a few occasions, I'll put quotation marks around something that was pretty much an exact quote.

Q: What was the reaction to the book from your friends and family?

A: After over 60 rejections from agents, my mother was so happy. Most family members have been supportive. (Here she hesitated but gave no clarification.)

To a follow-up question about why all the rejections, she explained that her "story was not there yet."

Q: How did she research the African American characters' stories and voices of the time?

A: She wishes she'd done more. She used the Jackson phone book to get a sense of what the culture was. She doesn't like to do research. She likes to listen.

(My own note: Stockett was not alive in 1963. She admits to not having interviewed many/ any African American women who lived during these times.)

Q: Why was the Naked Man in the book? Was that a symbol of anything?

A: (laughingly answered!) She's now putting one in every book she writes because the publisher told her it didn't belong in the story...
(real answer) Because she didn't just want the story to be just about race. She wanted to show how there's not that much that separates us.

When she grew up in Jackson, she was completely unaware that there was a race problem. She grew up in the "white bubble" parents created around her and her friends. She never saw her beloved maid's house, never went to the Black side of town. Surprisingly to me, she knew nothing of her maid's personal life.

"I am so proud that so much has changed, that people are talking about race," Stockett said. She's glad her book has opened up the topic for discussion, even though it has always been taboo.

The last question/ comment came from an African American woman near the front. She admitted that she hadn't yet read the book but that she's looking forward to it. She herself is a nanny to a young white boy, and she described the amazing love they have between them. How she drops him off at school and has even been mistaken for his mother by his young classmates and even by a substitute teacher. ("My how the times have changed," I heard a woman behind me say.) The speaker then told of growing up in Baltimore, of attending one of the first high schools to integrate in the 1960s. (Here I'm paraphrasing.) "We all got along just fine, black and white. And then Roots came along and everybody wanted to be Kunta Kinte." A funny, articulate lady, she told Kathryn Stockett she'd be happy to go with her to the awards ceremonies! Then she told us how she was a graduate of the Caroline Center and proud to speak a little about growing up Black in the 60s in the South. (My own note here: if anybody ever tries to say that Baltimore isn't the South, they have no clue. I lived there. I love the place! It's very Southern.)

Yes, my how the times have changed.

What a fitting ending for a wonderful evening.

Going Home Again

If you can just figure out exactly where Home is, you can definitely go home, despite what Thomas Wolfe famously said. And one of my favorite places to call home is the city of Baltimore. Baltimore seems to me a kind of Norm's Cheers Bar, where everybody knows your name. That is, everybody who ever knew it in the first place. An Old Friends kind of place. So I got to go back to my home turf recently to visit Bryn Mawr School, one of the most exciting, energizing, fun libraries and schools I've worked in (and there have been a few, let me tell you). The building was designed by Marcel Breuer in 1972, before I arrived. As you might expect, it was a wide open, sunny place, free of walls. But all that open space, though difficult to teach quietly in, had the end result of everybody getting along pretty well. A truly challenging and exciting place for a librarian. I loved it. Now the space has been rethought, in a very good way. And I got to go "home" again to see the school and the many old friends who reconvened there.

While in Baltimore, I also ate numerous Berger Cookies, one of my favorite foods.




If I ever were to write about that Charm City, this church in Hampden would for sure be a player...See that sign? Church times listed with a greeting: Peace be with you, Hon.


Photos courtesy of K.S. Marino


A fun trip down memory lane, with old friends. And lots of ideas percolating.
Thanks, Hons!