Happy Summer to All!

A HUGE thanks to all the teachers and librarians who've invited me in to share GLORY BE this year.

As you eat ice cream, race in your Field Games, plan your summer reading, I'm remembering what fun it was to hear your questions, your suggestions, your brilliant ideas for sequels.

Here are a few of my own memories from my final spring school visits. Thanks for having me!

A morning with the fifth graders at Kent Place School, Summit NJ, where I was a librarian for ten years. 

I shared my inspiration, Ruby Bridge's speech to faculty and students there. And I signed a lot of books!

 

While in New Jersey, I also visited the awesome After School Book Group at the Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Jackson Township. What great kids! 

Here's the table. Decorated for the occasion. 

 They presented me with my own little Junk Poker box! Filled with all sorts of treasures, including a piece of "Elvis's wallpaper" that's very close to the real thing. Those kids are careful readers. Wow.

 A closeup of the table. 
(He plays Robbie in the book trailer, below!)

Here they all are!

 My last school visit was with the terrific readers at the Nightingale Bamford School in New York. I didn't get a lot of pictures, but I couldn't resist this. She was in a big crowd of adorable finger puppets. Kind of reminded me of Glory in her bathing suit!

 As I was leaving, I received a handful of great thank you notes. I love this one. I wonder if she was channeling Elvis.

And now for the crowning glory (no pun intended). The kids at Christa McAuliffe, all on their own, created this book trailer for Glory Be. Thank you, thank you very much!

 
GLORY BE BOOK TRAILER

Kids and teachers- Click on over to fellow Florida writer  Donna Gephart's blog and scroll all the way through to the end for her excellent suggestions of Things to Do This Summer!

And check out the BANK STREET BEST BOOKS of 2013. Some perfect selections, by age and genre, for summer and winter reading!

World's Largest Book Club?

I admit. I'm intrigued.

I know a little about traditional Book Clubs. I edited a monthly magazine column, reading dozens of submissions about mostly women's book groups. I've been in at least two of my own. I mostly like talking with other readers about books we've all read. So maybe I'll hustle on down to my local bookstore and get this one to twitter about.

It's just one step away from the whole One City One Book concept. It might just work.
Click here for a good piece from the Christian Science Monitor's book editor about the undertaking.

A few words from the article:

Gaiman told The Guardian that he's "half-pleased and half-not," because "American Gods" is "a divisive book" and "some people love it, some sort of like it, and some people hate it." Gaiman figures he'll end up spending some time on Twitter himself, "sending helpful or apologetic tweets to people who are stuck, offended, or very, very confused."

(Gaiman may be half right. This morning's comments range from, "Chapter 9...it's just too good to stop at 6. :)" to "well, no book is for everyone :)" ).

Something about discussing a book via twitter has my book antennae going. Is it a good thing, a fun thing, a gimmick?

The Help: All You Wanted to Know

Having grown up in mostly the same time/same place--or pretty close to it-- as the characters in the runaway best seller THE HELP, I'm continually asked what I think of the novel. Now that more and more Book Groups are discussing the book, I'm asked even more. When the movie is out, I'm sure I'll take up my role as explainer of the truth of the times. This was a role I accepted when I left the South and moved to Massachusetts in the late 60s, when the Civil Rights Movement was at its most divisive. Back then, I continually defended and sometimes even trashed my home state. Then when I finally figured that everybody's home state had its own set of problems, I let go of some of my negative energy and went with the flow. But now with the publication of The Help (which I truly enjoyed on many levels), I'm back to answering questions. So if you've found this blog post on a search and are looking for answers, you've come to the right place.

In a recent chat session with some Mississippi women, past and present residents that I know and love, we all had strong and slightly different takes on the book. I'll share a few here. These are not necessarily my own opinions, FYI:

The character Hilly was totally false to me. I never knew any debutante, high school sorority sister, or Junior League member in Mississippi who would be so concerned with Blacks using a different bathroom that they would act as Hilly did. Her actions just did not fit the typical Southern women I have known. I think it ruined the book for me because I thought there had to be a better, more realistic way to create the needed tension. I HAVE known mean people who have created trouble for others for no apparent reason other than meanness, so that was realistic to me. But Hilly working for Black people to go to separate bathrooms in the homes where they worked, and some of her other actions, didn't ring true to me. If anything, the girls I knew who would have been activists would have been pro integration!
Now, wouldn't it be interesting if someone interviewed the author and SHE knew some Southern woman who was obsessed as Hilly was------

(Another friend spoke up:)
I agree with you about Hilly. I just wanted to slap her!!

(We focused a lot on Hilly:)
Hilly seems way too much. I'd forgotten the way she campaigned about the toilets. I can't imagine anyone doing that.

(And another:)
I liked the maids a whole lot better than I liked those tacky White People..
I think there were probably people of our grandmother and mother's generation who acted like Hilly, rather than anybody I knew, our age or Hilly's age. But you have to remember that older generation was raised by parents who remembered, vividly, slavery and the Civil War, if only via stories their own grandparents told. Times did change for us all, didn't they.

(Still more:)
I felt that the story was good and told from a different "slant."
However, the characters were stereotypical and the story told almost as another gratuitous Mississippi bashing. By doing so, she trivialized the message. If it has made us look deeper at our past history and relationships, then it has served a purpose. It was good entertainment, but Stockett was in over her head. Rather than a "chick book" for book clubs, it could have been an outstanding piece of literature. The sad thing is that people from other parts of the country will read this book as a documentary instead of fiction. Poor Mississippi. The state is like that proverbial blade of grass that gets mowed down every time it sticks its head up.

(And this from another:)
I will say, I am glad that I read the book. I won't say that I thought it was as glorious, wise and poignant as those who critiqued the book on its dust jacket.I feel that perhaps most of Stockett's characters were over-stated.... the good ones were TOO good, the bad ones were TOO
bad...I could have used more subtlety...I personally find it hard to believe that a female, (even though formally educated) in the deep south in 1962 could have been that aware. Hindsight and knowledge and history and facts and research have been necessary for most of us to become aware of that unique time.. We were so protected.

(In conclusion:)
One of the interesting parts of the book for me is the way it's produced a cultural dialog about our racial past in the South. It was a very compelling book to me, a gutsy book. Those first person voices are very powerful.

Yes, a cultural dialog for sure, even among old friends.

And these comments, from a Book Group discussion a friend in Baltimore (made up of a few Southerners and a few who aren't) related to me:
Most of the group enjoyed the book on some level. Some thought it was merely entertaining, some thought it was enlightening. The greatest difference of opinion seemed to be regarding how the characters were depicted. Generally, most thought that the black women were well developed and interesting characters, although some felt that in real life, they would have been too afraid to speak up as they did in the book. Many thought the white women seemed unrealistic and stereotypical and more shallow and uniformed than college graduates would have been.. I thought this was interesting, given the fact that the book was written by a white woman, who should have had a better understanding of other white women than the black women she so beautifully portrayed.

Most of the group applauded the author's portrayal of the relationships between the black women and the white children they raised and how these relationships can be affected by outside forces. They were more critical of the depiction of the relationships between Skeeter and her friends and Skeeter and her mother, feeling that they were less believable.

Those of us who listened to it liked it even better -- the audiobook is very well done. I played a few excerpts for the group so that others could hear the different voices.

Here are two reviews that might help Book Groups' discussions. Be sure to read the comments at the end of the California Literary Review!

MS Magazine Review
California Literary Review (review by an African American reviewer)

And lastly, click here for Kathryn Stockett, in her own words.

Reading With Goodreads and Facebook

Today's New York Times, and not even in the Book Review section, has Motoko Rich writing about "The Book Club With Just One Member." On many levels this headline caught my eye. And how could I not read an essay that begins with a quote from the new Newbery winner, Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me. Miranda, the 11-year-old main character, has a favorite book which is entertwined throughout Stead's novel. She's read A Wrinkle in Time over and over, even feels it's her very own book, hers alone. "The truth is that I hate to think about other people reading my book.. It's like watching someone go through the box of private stuff that I keep under my bed."

Rich's essay ponders those of us who feel that possessiveness about the books we read and the ones who share their reading tastes via Book Clubs, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads. She makes a lot of thoughtful points, quotes from other of my favorite writers, even brings David Foster Wallace's books into the mix (along with Katherine Paterson and Lois Lowry).

One conclusion seems to be that there are books whose understanding is helped along by communal reading. Those challenging books (Wallace), the ones you never honestly got through in college (Ulysses). "Some books particularly lend themselves to collective reading--" she says, "partly, of course, because everybody is reading them."



I like the image on the New York Times' page. Reminds me of sitting in a tree reading Nancy Drew. Come to think of it, I can't remember ever wanting to discuss Nancy's latest escapade with too many kids. But I guess I outgrew that. Two-plus Book Clubs later, I've now pretty much stopped the communal discussions over a nice glass of chardonnay, but I do like hearing what others are reading and sensing the excitement. In fact, Rich acknowledges one obvious point- the more people talk about a book, the better it sells. "Some of the biggest sellers of recent years--Eat, Pray, Love...The Kite Runner...The Help-- were propelled by word of mouth."

OK, back later. After I update my Goodreads page.
;)



Related posts: Katherine Paterson

Lois Lowry

Book Clubs

For a long time I edited a column about book groups for Skirt! Magazine. Made some great cyberfriends and learned a lot about how to have fun with reading, chatting and eating, all at the same time. I also discovered how many variations there were, from a party of two who met in various NYC bars to talk about books they loved, to a large group of women who travel together, and everything in between.

I was actually in two different groups for a long time, and a third that fell apart pretty quickly. Now, even though I'm no longer in a book group, I follow my friends' picks and am always intrigued with what they are reading. Here's an NPR columnist's recommendation of Books for Book Groups, 2009. Check out the comments also, for additional books and a dissent or two.

I visited my friend Anne's group last week, for their discussion of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. If ever a book had the greatest, though most easily forgettable name, this is it. The book chatting at this group, open to the public, sponsored by the American Pen Women was lively. (And I love the Safety Harbor Library where they met. Is that a gigantic banyan tree right outside? I was late and it was too dark to see well!)

A quick non-scientific study turned up these repeat book group choices, including the Potato Pie Book, from my buddies in Book Groups.

Out Stealing Horses

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Book Thief

Olive Kitteridge

The Help

So, what's your group reading these days?

Related post: Skirt! Book Groups

Skirt Under the Covers

OK. Don't let that title alarm you.
I'm just sharing that some of the Skirt! Magazine book groups I edit are now available online. Click here and here to read a couple. My friend Barbara, who has not only written about her couples group for the magazine but has led me to her cousin Beth's group, her mother-in-law Peg's group and niece Anne's group, found the links.

I'm always looking for new book clubs to feature in my Under the Covers column. Skirt's a lot of fun to read and write for, so send them my way! Contributors receive a small check and your name in print.

It was only after writing this post that I discovered how timely it is. Who knew- October is National Reading Group Month. Whew. Almost missed that one. Happy Reading to all!