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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: the sound of music, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 3 of 3
1. When Julie Andrews Came to Tea

Earlier this week, Julie Andrews--yes, that Julie Andrews--paid a visit to the Amazon Books team (see photo below) and left everyone who met her giddy for the rest of the day.  I'm not even being overly dramatic, Andrews' really does have that effect on people--even just going from the car to the Books floor in our building, everyone recognizes her and she leaves people staring, whispering, and smiling in her wake.

Touring for her latest children's book, The Very Fairy Princess: Here Comes the Flower Girl, and on the heels of her first Princess Week festivities, Andrews found time to join us for a cup of tea and was as funny, interesting, and gracious as I suspected she would be.  We talked about Broadway shows and children's books, and Andrews' shared stories about playing a practical joke with her friend Carol Burnett and her recent appearance on Steven Colbert. 

I think it's safe to say that many small children listened to The Very Fairy Princess: Here Comes the Flower Girl at bedtime this week, and I defnitely heard a lot of humming (or flat out singing) from The Sound of Music around the office.  If Julie Andrews comes to your town for her next book tour, go see her, she's fabulous.

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2. When Mike Kissed Emma

When Mike Kissed Emma by Christine Marciniak. Climbing Rose Press. 2009. Personal copy.

The Plot: Emma's life is perfect. Boyfriend? Yep, she has the perfect boyfriend, Trevor. Best friend? Lauren, BFF since preschool. Family? Ok, sometimes big bro Jake can tease a bit too much and little sis Sara needs a bit of confidence, but these three like each other and hang out together. School play? Yep. OK, well, she hasn't actually gotten the role of Leisl in The Sound of Music yet -- but she's confident she'll be playing Leisl to Trevor's Rolf.

What could ruin her perfect life? Getting the lead role of Maria. Which her BFF wanted. So Lauren is mad at her. And Trevor got the role of Rolf -- opposite Sara. Somehow, Sara is mad about that. And tattooed Biker Mike got the role of Captain von Trapp, because it turns out he can sing and act (not too mention some amazing blue eyes.) She's hanging out with him, reading lines, and no one is happy with that. What's a girl to do?

The Good: As I explained on the release date for When Mike Kissed Emma, I have been friends with the author for a very long time. Not only that; but I've read all drafts of the story. To be totally honest? There is no way I can give this book an impartial review, both because of my friendship with Chris and because I know this book, I've seen it grow, like a neice or nephew. I love this book -- but I think it's only fair for you to know that connection. Wow, that is one big disclaimer / notice!

So what did I like? Other than reading the book and seeing familiar passages and noticing new things from the last time I read it? Here are the top five things I like about When Mike Kissed Emma:

1. Emma's voice. When Mike Kissed Emma is told in first person, from Emma's point of view. She starts confident -- and then realizes that what she thought was true isn't. She has to readjust how she sees things; but even with realizing that some things aren't what they seem to be, she still has confidence in herself.

2. Dialogue. Whether it's Emma talking with her friends, arguing with her siblings, turning to her mother for help, or flirting with Mike (even though she would deny that it was flirting!) the dialogue is both true to life and funny.

3. The use of the play in telling the story. On the one hand, it's about a high school play and the drama that goes on around it. It could be almost any play; and any play with a romance for Mike and Emma to play against each other and fall in love. Marciniak makes use of this particular play, The Sound of Music: the dialogue, dance scenes, songs, all are not only woven into the story but also illustrate and illuminate points along the way.

4. The cover. Covers are so important; they can make or break a book. Oh, a talented librarian or bookseller can sell the greatest book with the worst cover, but only if they have a chance to booktalk it. A cover, basically, has to booktalk a book without words. I like that it isn't a photograph; some photographs on books are too bright, too photoshoppy. Instead, we have a boy and a girl, kissing, slightly off center stage. It fits the title of the book; it's inviting; you want to pick up the book.

5. The readers as well as the characters learn a thing or two. I wouldn't be surprised if the readers come to a conclusion or two before Emma, Mike, & company. But that's good; you don't want to spoon feed it all to the reader. A book shouldn't tell them something is wrong, or right; the reader should be able to figure it out themselves.

© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

4 Comments on When Mike Kissed Emma, last added: 10/8/2009
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3. High School Musicals

I'd moved around a lot by the time I reached eighth grade and that year, once again a new person in a school about to graduate clans of kids who'd known each other forever, I tried out for the school play, The Sound of Music. I won the role of Elsa based on my alto rendition of "No Way to Stop It" and the fact that my brother, sister, and I had grown up singing that soundtrack along with countless others (Windjammer, The Music Man, Peter Pan). I thus stood in line to kiss the guy who many (it seemed) considered highly kissable.

There was one small problem: I was ice skating at the time, competitively. There weren't enough hours in the day. "You'll have to choose," my mother told me, and I went with skating, but sometimes now I wonder what sort of first YA novel I'd have written if I had gone with the school musical instead.

I've loved school productions ever since—the stunning enthusiasm of the performers, the risks they take, the unfolding and uprising set designs, the costumes, that final moment when the entire cast swaggers out onto the stage for a last, congregating bow. One of my favorite final memories of my mother is of the night I took her and my father to the high school's rendition of The Music Man—of watching the look on her face as those 76 trombones swept down the aisle. The songs brought it all back—the house in Delaware, the room with the wall-length mural, the couch upon which my brother stood to conduct my sister and me. That night my mother, so often in pain, was happy.

This past week I took my father to the middle school production of Peter Pan (the same school where I might have been Elsa, only the building is new), where my friend's daughter was starring as the boy who won't grow up (and oh, can Alison Mosier-Mills sing), while Captain Hook was a perfectly roused-up menace, and Wendy was soulful and sweet, and Tinker Bell was a dazzling zipper of green light. Then yesterday we took our friends to the high school's Kiss Me, Kate, where Michael Browne, a snappily fantastic kid with whom my husband and I had traveled to Juarez, took on the starring role of Fred Graham. Michael might have been a gymnast but he fell in love with theater. He wanted to act, so he learned to sing. And does he ever entertain us.

I am left today in awe of young people who can imbibe those roles and stand up there fearless and give us everything they've got.

Don't stop.

14 Comments on High School Musicals, last added: 3/2/2009
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