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Ellen Emerson White has written a number of books about Vietnam; the Echo Company series, written under the name Zack Emerson; a book written under EEW, about a nurse in Vietnam who has a tough time adjusting to life back home; and two Dear America books.

The Echo Company Series (as Zack Emerson)

Welcome to Vietnam (1991)
Hill 568 (1991)
'Tis The Season (1991)
Stand Down (1992)

The Plot:

These books introduce Michael Jennings. Michael is a pretty normal 18 year old; college wasn't for him, so he decided to hang out, work at the ski lift. Problem is, it's 1968 -- so he's drafted. And now he's in Vietnam. He doesn't really know why or care why he's fighting. He just wants to do his time and go home. And he knows he should have gone to college, but he didn't see himself as college material, and now he's paying the price, isn't he?

The Good:

God, I love Michael. As with most of EEW's characters, he's funny and a smart aleck. And smarter than he realizes.

Welcome to Vietnam starts almost as bad Vietnam war movie. Micheal goes to Vietnam! It's hot! He lugs a lot of stuff around, people fire at him, he fires back. Some race issues crop up. He bonds with the other guys in Echo Company. And you think, yes, EEW did her research and did it well, but it seems, kind of, I don't know? Clean, despite the dirt and the leeches and the jungle rot. And then, towards the end of the book, BAM.

"The sound of the explosion sent everyone diving to the ground, looking for cover. And at first, when -- stuff -- rained down, Michael wasn't sure what it was. Then, he realized who it was. Who it had been."

Finnegan had been standing next to JD, the dead soldier: "Finnegan, who had been closest to him -- yeah, more ways than one -- didn't seem to be hurt, but he was covered with -- stuff. With what was left of this best friend." Michael takes his canteen, and starts washing off the remains. He fills a body bag, with EEW using very few words but packing quite the punch, especially as Mike and another soldier pretend the bag is heavier than it is. So that no one realizes just how little is left of JD.

It's real. It's death and dying and blood. And EEW doesn't shy away from any of it. And what she has done is take you into the experience; just as Michael (and the reader) has the lull of "ok, this isn't so bad after all, I can make it" BAM.

No. It's not OK. It is that bad.

This is one of the few war novels I have read that respects the soldiers and their experiences; that doesn't play politics about the issue of war. And is brutally honest about the soldier's experiences.

And, yes, they are soldiers. They curse and say f*ck and tell dirty jokes. (Actually, while I was reading this, and seeing it was a Scholastic imprint, I was thinking, damn. Much respect on my part that they didn't remove the f*cks.)

The other three books continue the story of Micheal's first months in Vietnam; his first battle, meeting nurse Lt. Rebecca. Phillips. It ends -- if not happy, then optimistic, because he's met Rebecca and most of his friends are alive. His tour is far from over. But it's right before Tet, and everyone knows that nothing is going to happen during a major holiday, so Michael and Echo Company are on "stand down," enjoying a vacation. And the series ends. Most readers realize what happens after the series... the Tet Offensive. It's like ending the story of a happily married couple as they set sail on the Titanic.

The story gets continued in The Road Home, which is Rebecca's story. Rebecca, the army nurse that Michael met. It starts up after the series ends ... which means hello, Tet Offensive, plays a major role. And you find out what happens to Michael and his buddies. I'll tell you this: Michael doesn't die. But be careful about getting to attached to the others.

The Road Home (1995)

I read The Road Home first, even tho it was written after the first four books and is set after the first four books. That's because the first four books were published under a different name -- Zack Emerson.

So, I read The Road Home without reading the first four books; and The Road Home made perfect sense. It worked wonderfully as a stand alone. While I tracked down the other titles because I'm a bit obsessive compulsive that way, I didn't have to read them to understand the story.

I've said it before, and I'm saying it again: EEW's newest book, Long May She Reign, stands alone. Just like The Road Home stands alone. Another similarity between the two: both are "crossover titles," with appeal for both adult and teen readers.

Since I have proven my obsession with EEW's writing, why, you may ask, did I not read the first four books? Because they were published under the name Zack Emerson and I didn't know about them.

The Road Home
The Plot:

Rebecca Phillips is wrapping up her tour in Vietnam as an army nurse. She's been thru a lot; she's seen a lot. Friends have died; she's seen things ... she's done things ... the scars are physical and mental.

And home... home isn't just getting into an airplane and going back to the house you grew up in. It's going to take a lot to finally be "home."

The Good:

One of my three favorite books by Ellen Emerson White. It also features one of my book boyfriends, Michael Jennings (so many book boyfriends, I'm like the blog equivalent of Bill Henrickson, except with multiple book boyfriends instead of multiple wives). Michael was a soldier Rebecca met in Vietnam. She's trying to make sense of her life (and of Vietnam), and so she decides to visit him. Thing is, he's as scarred and messed up by Vietnam as Rebecca, maybe more so.

Plus, Michael and Rebecca... it had been an odd mix, he's younger, she was an officer. It was a wartime thing, right? Or was it something more....

Why is this a favorite? For some of the same reasons that China Beach is one of my favorite series, ever. By exploring the Vietnam War thru the POV of a female, and of a nurse, there is the horrors of war combined with the healing of medicine; the mixed emotions of saving the lives of soldiers, only to have the soldiers go out, risk their lives again, or to kill. And the details, of triage, of deciding who lives and dies, who gets morphine and who doesn't, who dies alone or dies with lies of "it's going to be OK."

Rebecca goes from naive and hopeful to scared, afraid, bitter.

EEW does a masterful job of showing both that war is hell AND respecting the soldier. Based on when her books were published, EEW is in my age group; yet, when my mother read this book, she was convinced that EEW had to have grown up during the Vietnam era, because EEW captured the times and the conflict so clearly. And then she continues it thru past the "happy ending" of going home... and shows just how hard that adjustment was.

And, of course, there are Rebecca and Michael. A bit of an odd couple; she's older, she was a nurse, he's a few years younger, he never went to college. Yet, they share not just the experience of Vietnam, but also a sense of humor and way of looking at the world. A sense of humor almost lost, but waiting to be rediscovered. The only problem with this book? It ends.

EEW revisited not just the Vietnam War, but the year that Michael is in Vietnam, in her two Dear America books, The Journal of Patrick Seamus Flaherty: United States Marine Corps Khe Sanh, Vietnam, 1968 (2002) and Where Have All the Flowers Gone?: The Diary of Molly Mackenzie Flaherty, 1968 (2002).

For the record: how, you may ask, can the Dear America story tell of the Vietnam war without those things present in the Echo Company / The Road Home books? The f*cks and drugs and prostitutes and violence other things? Because the gimmick is Patrick isn't just writing a diary; he's been told to write it with the knowledge that his youngest sister will read it. So Patrick leaves stuff out.

These two books, written for younger readers, are significant in EEW's work for a couple of reasons.

First, they are one of the few companion Dear America series; Patrick and Molly are siblings, and these books tell about the same year from their two different POVs. Hm, you see; just as EEW did with Life Without Friends and Friends for Life, reviewed earlier this week.

Second, they contain references to the earlier books. I know! Because it turns out that Patrick is friends with a soldier in Echo Company. And this other soldier isn't a big part of either Patrick or Molly's stories, but it does give the reader some information on another one of Michael's friends who made it home.

The friend? Finnegan.

Oh, and Patrick, Molly, and Finnegan are all from Boston.

And remember, in Friends for Life, (which is set in Boston) Susan's boyfriend? Patrick? Patrick's last name is Finnegan.

I don't care what Ellen says in the comments about coincidences, I'm convinced the Finnegans are connected. Also? Just because I love Rebecca & Michael, and because EEW does the Madeleine L'Engle/ Sarah Dessen thing of mentioning people from other books, I know wonder if these two will pop up somewhere.

Links to other Under the Radar Recs will be added after work.

Big A, little a: The Deep by Helen Dunmore

Bildungsroman: The May Bird Trilogy by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Finding Wonderland: The Avion My Uncle Flew by Cyrus Fisher

Not Your Mother's Bookclub: A look at some recently revised classics

Fusenumber 8: Stoneflight by George McHarque

lectitans: Gentle's Holler and Louisiana Song both by Kerry Madden

Chasing Ray: Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen

Interactive Reader: A Plague of Sorcerers by Mary Frances Zambreno

The YA YA YAs: Resurrection Men by TK Welsh

7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Such a Pretty Face: Short Stories About Beauty edited by Ann Angel

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Today, I want to talk about a book that came out last fall. It’s a novel by Susan Taylor Brown called Hugging the Rock. This book is on the ALA and ALSC Notable Books of 2007 list, but it really didn't make the "splash" that it should have in the kidlit world.

But Kelly, you ask, weren’t all your other Under the Radar picks books of poetry? Yes. And so is this one. For those of you unfamiliar with the book, it is a novel in verse. Free verse, that is. Each poem is a scene. Sometimes it describes the actions of the characters, but always it conveys the emotional truth of the MC/narrator, Rachel, even when what Rachel says isn't true.

The first scene/poem in the book sets up the major issue for our character – and for the novel as a whole -- when Rachel's mother leaves. We learn a lot more about Rachel's mother and her particular issues as the book goes on. We learn more about Rachel's father, too, and of course we learn about Rachel. There are magnificent mega-issues here, too, like what is family? and how can we forgive those who hurt us? and we can live through awful grief and not only survive, but thrive. Small wonder that Lee Bennett Hopkins gave the book such a lovely blurb for the back cover.

And Susan does it all with magnificent poems. Here is the first stanza in the book, which I share with you. Not the first poem, the first stanza:

When my mom decides to run away from home
she packs up her car
with all the things that matter most
to her.

The genius of this line is the surprising force and punch of those last two words. And as a reader, you already know that the MC is not getting invited into that car. You know what the problem facing the main character is, as your mind races ahead. How old is this child? Will she recover? How will she recover? And you automatically wonder, "what kind of mother can willingly leave her child?" Also, in just four lines, without knowing anything more, you’ve already chosen to side with the MC, because there is no way you can’t feel sorry for a child whose mother leaves. And you certainly can’t feel sympathy for this sort of mother. Not yet. Not until later, and even then, anger usually outweighs the modicum of sympathy there.

A second stanza much, much later in the book (p. 132, to be exact, but please don't skip to this poem/chapter if you haven't read the book yet) does the same thing. It begins:

The hurt
settles in my heart
like one of those giant rocks you tie to something
when you want it to sink

The use of the rock imagery here not as a source of stability but as a tool of destruction brings new levels of meaning to the book, in part based on its title, and in part based on other connotations to the word "rock" used within the story. For example, Rachel’s mother calls her dad a rock, presumably meaning a steady, stable, stand-up sort of guy. But this poem makes everything warp. Maybe the Rock in the title isn’t Dad. Maybe it’s something else: maybe its an embracing of the truth; maybe it’s acceptance.

Much later, in the midst of a chapter/poem entitled The Worst Thing, Rachel and her dad are in a car, discussing some very serious matters, like the whys and wherefores of her mother's behavior. Rachel is nonverbal here, and shrugs. Dad presses on, and Rachel writes "I shrug louder." Talk about your imagery. It's genius.

Finally, the shortest poem in the book is the chapter/poem entitled Mother's Day, and I can tell you this for true: it very nearly killed me, in a readerly sort of way. Because of its brevity, the page spoke volumes. In saying little, it says so much, and it says it loudly. And what it relates is eloquent and poignant and true. But you may not skip to that page to see what I’m talking about. You must begin at the start and read all the way to there, or you will not understand what it is that I am telling you.

Because it is a novel in verse, it can be read quickly; in fact, that’s one of the touted benefits of books in free verse. But I must warn you that in its speed, it will hit you like a fist you didn’t see coming. And even though you may reach the end of the book more quickly than you might reach the end of a book in prose with the same number of pages, you will still feel the blow long after you put it down.

Hugging the Rock will not take you long to read, but it may take you forever to forget.

If you’re interested in learning more about how this book came to be, check out Susan’s interviews with Cynthia Leitich Smith and Little Willow.

And in related news, Hugging the Rock will be available in paperback in the Spring of 2008. No release date available yet.

Here's a list of the other book selections today:

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy continues to talk about Ellen Emerson White. Today’s books? Friends for Life and Life Without Friends.

Over at Shaken & Stirred, Ms. Bond talks about The Changeover and Catalogue of the Universe, both by Margaret Mahy

Kelly Herrold at Big A, little a has an interview with Helen Dunmore, author of the Ingo series.

Jen Robinson's Book Page discusses another Zilpha Keatley Snyder title, The Treasures of Weatherby.

Little Willow at Bildungsroman talks about Swollen by Melissa Lion.

Finding Wonderland talks about Lucy the Giant by Sherry L. Smith.

Miss Erin discusses Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye and interviews the author Kaza Kingsley.

7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast features Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker.

Betsy at Fuse #8 talks about The Noisy Counting Book by Susan Schade.

Colleen at Chasing Ray Juniper, Gentian and Rosemary by Pamela Dean.

lectitans wonders Who Pppplugged Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf.

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Ellen Emerson White: The Friends Books

Friends for Life (1983)
Life Without Friends (1987)

As I mentioned in my intro for the week, EEW's first book, and the first book of hers I read, was Friends for Life. (And, at press time, not only could I not find an image online, but I could not find my digital camera to take my own photo.)

Friends For Life

The Plot:

Susan, a senior in high school, has just returned to Boston after living in NYC for several years. She thinks this is made of awesome, because finally she'll be back together with her two best friends, Colleen and Patrick. But then Colleen turns up dead of an overdose. And everyone believes it to be true, saying Colleen had changed, you've been in NYC, you don't know.

Susan knows her best friend. She knows it wasn't an overdose. So what's a girl to do? Years before Veronica Mars avenged Lily Kane, Susan went undercover to prove not only that Colleen was murdered -- but also who did it.

The Good:

I had forgotten that EEW's first book was a mystery; so that her later All Emergencies, Ring Super (an adult mystery) wasn't a new genre. (Yes, it's a good book, set in Manhattan, and per the author's website, a sequel is being written.)

Even if mystery isn't your cup of tea, you'll enjoy the pop culture references, one liners, the humor. The real characters. Plus, a good plot as Susan risks everything for her best friend. As you can see from what I'm focusing on here, what I like about EEW is what I like about Meg Cabot and Sarah Dessen.

So, Susan goes about trying to solve the murder of her best friend. And, since no one believes her, it means she goes "undercover," acting as if she got in with the drug crowd in NYC so is looking for that at her new school (which was Colleen's school.) Susan discovers who the local drug dealer is, gets in with that crowd (bad & wild on the inside, preppy looking on the out), and almost gets murdered. Beverly is one of the bad crowd; and the one who tells the teenage drug dealer psycho murderer that Susan isn't the new girl in town, but Colleen's old BFF (because, surprise, Beverly went to the same middle school as Susan & Colleen.)

So it was with great surprise that I picked up Life Without Friends and discovered Beverly's story. Yeah, the girl you hated in the first book!

Life Without Friends

The Plot:

It's still high school, and it's set following the events in Friends for Life. Beverly ended up doing the right thing in the previous book (see, she was actually trying to stop psycho boyfriend, but didn't know how) but that doesn't excuse or erase her dating psycho boy, being involved with the drugs and the wildness. Psycho boy killed people... and Beverly did nothing. When Beverly acted, the result was Susan almost getting killed. The reader is primed to hate Beverly.

Yet.... you don't. Told from Beverly's point of view, Beverly is regretful, sympathetic, and lonely. She is at the same school, and everyone thinks that she's no better than her murdering ex boyfriend, so needless to say she has no friends.

LWF is about Beverly trying to figure out how it all went wrong; why she was seduced by psycho boy and his lifestyle, why she is so alienated from her family, why she made the choices she did. She is "without friends" not just because the entire school hates her, but also because she feels she cannot trust herself to make friends.

It turns out that Beverly is a nice kid. Acts a bit tough, but really isn't. With the same sense of humor as Susan and Colleen; these three should have been friends. But they're not. What with Colleen being dead and Susan almost being killed, and if Beverly had just spoken up about her psycho boyfriend hitting her before any of that, Colleen would be alive.

Beverly figures she doesn't deserve friends. Doesn't deserve happiness.

Her father, realizing that "hey, maybe I wasn't paying enough attention, what with my new wife and new kid and all" is trying hard to fix things. So, he's become very strict (tho, as Beverly notes, it's easy for her to live with his strictness what with the "no friends.") And, she's going to a shrink.

And then, one boring afternoon as she sits reading in Boston Commons, she meets Derek. He's working there, taking care of the grounds; he is not part of Beverly's world of rich kids, private education, Ivy League colleges. Very blue collar. Not her type at all; since her type is psychos who beat her up and the kill people, while Derek is, well, nice. (Derek is, btw, an awesome book boyfriend.)

The Good:

You do not have to read one book to read the other. They are companion books, not a series. Why is this important? Because, technically, EEW's latest book (Long May She Reign) is the 4th in a series. But, as is proven here, EEW writes companion books, meaning, no, you don't have to read the other books to read the new one. And this, her first time doing so, works brilliantly.

I like EEW's nuanced families; again, in books it is almost easy to have the eevill parent (who is evil because they are poor parents, have remarried, have jobs, like make up, etc.) (I originally wrote "YA books" and then realized I've read plenty of adult fiction that has one-note evil parents, with the eevillness based on some pretty shallow foundations.)

What I like here is that Beverly's father is both to blame for things and yet, it is also clear that Beverly is responsible for her own actions. Yes, her father is emotionally distant; he is more invested emotionally in his "new" family. (As an aside, don't you just love people who, rather than working to make things right with their first set of children, instead have a second set and view that as a second chance? Yeah, me neither.) Beverly's mother died (in what may have been a suicide), and her father didn't handle that well, either.

It is stellar of EEW's writing that the distant dad, the pretty young second wife, and the beloved new "I'm doing it right this time" baby brother are all, well, nice. And multi dimensional. In other words, EEW creates flawed characters. Who try. Who fail. Who succeed.

LWF is one of my three favorite EEW books because of Beverly. She has been wounded; she has a lot she has to change about herself and how she interacts with the world; and it would be so very easy for her not to change. Not to keep on going. But she does; and not in some Pollyanna way. Rather, in a smoking her cigarettes, sharing a beer with her stepmom, and saying the F word way. (I have to say, in rereading this book, I was surprised at how frequently Beverly used the F world. And EEW is less squeamish than I in print; yes, Beverly says it. But, frankly, if my exboyfriend beat the crap out of me and then murdered my classmates, I'd be saying f*ck, also. Plus, the hows and whens of Beverly's language changes during the book; she's careful what she says in front of her brother. It's like she's trying to be tough but secretly? She's as nice as the rest of the family. You so want to be her friend. )

One last point: You know how one of the great things about Sarah Dessen is sometimes she refers to characters from one book in another? EEW does it, and just as well. I'm not saying it because of these two books being related... but because some of the characters in these two books get mentioned in other books she wrote. I'm afraid to say more here, because I loved discovering it on my own. But if you twist my arm, I'll reveal all in the comments.


Other Under the Radar Recommendations will be posted this evening.

Shaken & Stirred: The Changeover and Catalogue of the Universe, both by Margaret Mahy

Big A, little a: A interview with Helen Dunmore

Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Treasures of Weatherby by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Bildungsroman: Swollen by Melissa Lion

Finding Wonderland: Lucy the Giant by Sherry L. Smith

Miss Erin: A discussion of Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye and an interview with author Kaza Kingsley

7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker

Fuse Number 8: The Noisy Counting Book by Susan Schade

Chasing Ray: Juniper, Genetian and Rosemary by Pamela Dean

lectitans: Who Pppplugged Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf

Writing and Ruminating: Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown

Semicolon: Christian Fiction

MotherReader: It's Kind of a Funny Story

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A bit of blatant self promotion:

Over at my book/movie/TV blog, A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy, I'm participating in a multiblog extravaganza: Under the Radar Recommendations, in which a number of us lit bloggers write about old and new books and authors who have fallen "under the radar" and who we think deserve attention. It was organized by Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray.

So if you're looking for a book to read, check it out.

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Dear Mr. Rosenwald by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Gregory Christie, is a rare sort of poetry picture book, because it is essentially a picture book novel in verse, if such a thing existed. That is, each two-page spread contains a "chapter" in the story told by Ovella, a poor third grader in a poor community who dreamed of having a new school. Each chapter is a poem in free verse, accompanied by an illustration.

The book is a work of fiction, but the story it tells is true. The illustrations and some of the text convey the truth of the life and experience of African Americans living in the south at the turn of the twentieth century, not long after the Civil War (a period sometimes known as the Jim Crow era). Instead of being given forty acres and a mule (as promised), they were kept impoverished – and in some cases, practically still enslaved – through the practice of share-cropping. The poems also depict the truth about the early schools being in shacks and sheds and churches, without rudimentary supplies such as books and paper for the children who attended.

The first poem in the book is entitled 1921: One-Room School. Following are excerpts from the longer poem:

My teacher, Miss Mays, said,
You can’t judge a school
by the building. When the roof leaks,
she calls us vessels of learning.
When the floor creaks, she says
knowledge is a solid foundation.
Wind whistles through walls,
blowing the sheet that splits the church
into two classrooms. . . .

My school is not much to speak of,
but Mama says I’m lucky
even if class don’t meet during harvest.
Down here, she said, some black children
go to school in shacks, corncribs,
or not at all. Don’t know what I’d do,
if I couldn’t go to school.

The poems also depict the hope that education brings to the poor, and the pride that working people feel in building something that is their own. Also in the poems is a piece of the story of Booker T. Washington, an ex-slave who believed that literacy and education for African Americans was their ticket out of poverty. The title figure in the book – a man never actually seen by Ovella, but central to her story – is the remarkable Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and a trustee on the board of Tuskegee Institute, a black college founded by Mr. Washington. Mr. Rosenwald, who heard what Mr. Washington had to say, put his own money up to help others find their way to a better life. He donated millions of dollars to the schools named after him, and was partially responsible for the building of more than 5,000 schools for blacks. I say "partially" because he insisted that the community fund half of the project, including money from both blacks and whites. At the end of Dear Mr. Rosenwald, Ovella writes a heartfelt letter of thanks to the man who helped make her new school possible. In real life, Mr. Rosenfeld received many letters similar to the one Ms. Weatherford crafted.

Here is an excerpt from the final poem, entitled Dear Mr. Rosenwald, which makes me cry every single time I read it. And I’ve read it more than a handful of times. This image comes from the back of the book:



Carole Boston Weatherford wrote this book in part based on her personal connection to the sort of story Ovella tells. According to her website, her father attended a one-room school in Maryland, and her mother went to a Rosenwald school in North Carolina. Both grew up to become teachers, helping other black children find their way to literacy and, in many cases, higher education.

This book garnered a number of starred reviews, including School Library Journal, Kirkus and Book Sense. It also won a Golden Kite honor from the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) for picture book text. It nevertheless qualifies as an Under the Radar book for the simple reason that too many people haven’t heard about it. In many stores, it was shelved with the poetry books, and that small segment doesn’t get heavily shopped. In others, it was stuffed into a large wall of picture books. It wasn’t featured during African American History Month. And though it contains truth in large measure, it is historical fiction, and is therefore not kept with the books on African American history, Jim Crow, reconstruction, segregation in education or anywhere else where people interested in those subjects might find it.

Dear Mr. Rosenwald is historical fiction, written in poems that are beautiful and moving and true (in the best possible way). I hope you'll all get to read it. And for those of you working in the public schools, see if you can get your hands on this one for Black History Month. Because although Julius Rosenwald wasn't black, the story in this book isn't about him – it's about how poor sharecroppers came together to make a better life for their kids.

If you are interested in reading more about the Rosenwald Schools, you can learn more at The Rosenwald Schools Initiative, an organization interested in the preservation of the Rosenwald Schools that are still standing in some places, and at this North Carolina site, which includes plans for Rosenwald schools and information on their locations.

To learn more about Julius Rosenwald, you might try the Sears archives, or you can seek out the biography by Peter Max Ascoli, Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South.

For an introduction to sharecropping, you might want to look at the text of a sharecropping agreement, posted at PBS.org, and/or check out the program, American Experience: Reconstruction – The Second Civil War.

Here are the other book selections on the Under the Radar tour today:

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy talks about The President's Daughter series by Ellen Emerson White

Kelly Herrold at Big A, little a discusses The Tide Knot by Helen Dunmore

Jen Robinson talks about the Zilpha Keatley Snyder Green Sky trilogy.

Little Willow over at Bildungsroman speaks of Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn, in part one of a three-blog discussion.

The indefatigable Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray has the second part of the discussion about Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn

And all this talk of Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn concludes at lectitans

Finding Wonderland dishes about The House on Hound Hill by Maggie Prince.

Miss Erin is all about Constance Savery’s books, The Reb & Redcoats and Enemy Brothers.

Leila at Bookshelves of Doom chats about Harry Sue by Sue Stauffacher.

Jackie at Interactive Reader Shake Down the Stars by Frances Donnelly

Susan from Chicken Spaghetti has a guest blogger for the day: Pooja Makhijani guest blogs with Romina's Rangoli by Malathi Michelle Iyengar


Finally, Gwenda at Shaken & Stirred talks about the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox.

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Recommendations From Under the Radar: Ellen Emerson White's The President's Daughter series

It wasn't easy picking what books to include this week; there wasn't enough time to do them all, and in all honesty I prefer EEW's books for older readers (the teen and adult stuff.) So I focused on three "sets", as it were; the President's Daughter series, since the most recent volume is being published this year; the Road Home and related books, because it is one of my three favorite EEW books; and Friends for Life / Life Without Friends, because LWF is another one of my three favorite EEW books and because, well, you'll see when you read the post.

The President's Daughter series is made up of four books:

The President’s Daughter (1984)
White House Autumn (1985)
Long Live the Queen (1989)
Long May She Reign (2007)*

Before I go book by book, let me say: Meg Powers (the President's daughter) is funny. In typical, trademark Ellen Emerson White style most of the humor is sarcastic or an observation. It's a connection that is made that the reader gets and laughs in recognition. It's not that the books are funny; it's Meg who is funny. And not in a "I'm a comedian" way; it's very much in the manner of Melinda from Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Tho, actually, I seem to remember Meg's brothers and parents commenting on her being a comedian...

Anyway, as you read the below plot descriptions (presidents, shootings, and kidnappings, oh my!) remember: it's all told thru the point of view of someone who is smart and who uses humor as a coping mechanism. So you'll find yourself laughing out loud.

The President's Daughter

The Plot:

Meg Powers is 16. And she's pretty happy with her life in Massachusetts. Great best friend, good friends, gets along with her family. She's pretty average, fairly typical. OK, so Mom is a Senator, but really? Who cares about that in the real world?

The press may not care about a Senator's daughter. They do care about the daughter of a woman running for President ... especially when she is a serious contender. Meg's mom has not only announced she is running for President... it looks like she's going to win.

The Good:

Meg is a great character; very real, and with a wicked sense of humor. The relationship with her mother is extremely complex; Meg loves her mother. Meg admires her mother. But it is not an easy relationship. Meg's mother has made choices; choices to go into politics, to be a Senator, to run for President. To have children. Her mother's juggling act is not easy, especially when it comes down to what is best for the country versus what is best for her children.

What is also great about Meg's mother is that she is full of shades of gray and insecurities. She is an accomplished woman (hello, President of the United States.) She isn't perfect; and EEW never "fixes" this. A lesser author would have turned the mother into a monster because she doesn't fit the "traditional" role of what a mother "should" be (gasp, Meg's mom doesn't make cookies! Meg's mom isn't Carol Brady perfect! Meg's mom values her career and her children!). A lesser author would have created Quick Fixes with everyone happy in the end.

The issues between Meg and her mother continue to be explored in each book of the series. Rarely have I read such a nuanced, realistic, understanding and forgiving mother/daughter relationship. Don't get me wrong; it's far from perfect and sometimes I want to take Meg's mother and throw her out the window (especially in book 3.) But more on that below.

I'm not giving anything away by saying, Meg's mom wins the election. (The series is called "the President's daughter", not "the -person-who-ran-and-lost-and-is-still-a-Senator's daughter.") (If you think that is funny, then, you will find Meg funny. That was my attempt at Meg humor.)

Another good thing about this book is the look at politics; and, as a quick look at the author's website and blog will show, the author herself enjoys politics and knows what she is talking about. (One of my pet peeves is authors who believe that since they write fiction, the "make it up" rule applies to everything: medicine, law, politics, etc.)

White House Autumn

The Plot:

Meg seems to have finally made a new life for herself in DC; new school, new friends, adjusting to the Press. Then Mom, aka the President, gets shot.

The Good:

Those resentments that were bubbling away in The President's Daughter boil over. Meg and her younger brothers are worried about their mother; but they also have to suffer, because with an assassination attempt, security increases as does the attentions of the press.

These are situations under which Meg has no control; it's a harsh reality of her life, and of anyone's life, that sometimes our choices are narrower than we'd like.

Also good: the bits about the press part, because EEW really gets the pitfalls and problems of the press; the image that is presented by politicians and celebrities, the relationship between the press and those they report on. It's especially interesting to see the impact on those who have not chosen to be in the spotlight -- the "children of".

Long Live the Queen

The Plot:

It's the end of Meg's senior year, and as she walks out of school bullets start flying, her secret service agents are shouting, she's getting pulled into a van. She's been kidnapped. The kidnapper is brutal and sadistic. It's going to take every bit of strength and determination that Meg has to survive.

The Good:

This is the book where things get -- serious. Books 1 and 2 are much more about Meg "reacting" to situations; this, tho, is all about Meg. And Meg proves herself, to the reader, to the kidnappers, to the world, over and over again. (You can even tell from the titles the shift of focus from the books being about a "daughter of" to the books being about Meg; the first two titles are really about Meg's mother, while the last two titles are about Meg herself.) I mentioned yesterday two of my three favorite EEW books; this used to be a top three (until I read Book 4!)
The kidnapping -- it's tough. And Meg's escape from the kidnappers is made of awesome. The book also includes Meg's immediate post-kidnapping healing and attempts to re-connect with family and friends.

Even though Meg does not choose the spotlight, now, for the first time, it's something she has done that gets her into the media. But, of course, all she did was get kidnapped and survive. Survival includes having had teeth ripped out (because it turns out they had tracking chips in them -- look at the date of the book to see how ahead of the curve EEW was with that!); and taking a rock to her hand in an attempt to free herself from handcuffs. (See, she needs to get her hand small enough to slip thru the handcuffs, so she figures if she breaks the bones she can do it.)

EEW does two things that are rather unexpected. First, the President refuses to negotiate. So Meg's life really is at risk. And the thing is; Meg gets why her mother does that. Meg can even respect that. But, it doesn't help; it doesn't help Meg, it doesn't help their relationship. Second, the kidnapper isn't caught; neither is it discovered just who, or what, is beyond the kidnapping. (Aside from making this scary-real, it also stops the book from being dated.)

Despite the drama of this -- and the action -- LLTQ is also very internal, as Meg struggles to survive first her kidnapping, then her escape, and, finally, a return to "normal life."

While LLTQ ends on an upbeat note, what has happened to Meg is just too drastic to be summed up neatly in one book. Hence, the latest book, years in the making: Long May She Reign, which is about Meg's attempts to live a "normal" life by going to college.


Since book 4 is so new that it's not out until October, it hardly qualifies as "under the radar," which is why I'll be reviewing it next week. (And one of the reasons I'm reviewing the earlier books, and EEW in general, is because I do not want LMSR to be "under the Radar.")

One thing to note: LMSR stands on its own. You don't have to read these other three books (and, I proved it by giving it to my mother without letting her know about the other books in the series; and she had no problems following the action.) It is, also, a book that is a crossover title; with as much appeal for those over 18 as for those under 18. (And I keep wanting to say more about LMSR and then cutting it because otherwise this would be the longest post ever and I'd have nothing to say next week!)

As I was wrapping this up, I realized all the things I had not mentioned: like, for example, Preston, who is one of the coolest people in a book. He starts as Mom's press secretary and becomes very close to the family. While there are many crying moments in book 3, one of the best is when Preston tells Meg he taped her favorite TV show for her while she was missing. (I know I have fans reading -- who remembers the show?)

And Meg's brothers! She has two brothers, Stephen and Neal, who are spot on; one moment pests, one moment adorable. (Another eye-filling-up moment is when Meg is thankful that it was she, not one of her brothers, who was kidnapped.)

And, how EEW has her main character age and mature so that the books age; instead of shifting from J to YA, as some series do, this series shifts from YA to adult.

Final note: according to the author's website, the first three books will be reprinted Fall 2008! Yes! So if you cannot get your hands on the books now, make a reminder to yourself to get them next Fall. And in the meanwhile: NO, you don't have to read the first 3 books to read the last. But, having read the last, you'll want to read the first 3.

Other Under the Radar Recommendations:

Big A, little a: The Tide Knot by Helen Dunmore

Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Green Sky trilogy

Bildungsroman: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 1

Chasing Ray: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 2

lectitans: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 3

Finding Wonderland: The House on Hound Hill by Maggie Prince

Miss Erin: The Reb & Redcoats and Enemy Brothers, both by Constance Savery

Bookshelves of Doom: Harry Sue by Sue Stauffacher

Interactive Reader: Shake Down the Stars by Frances Donnelly

Chicken Spaghetti: Pooja Makhijani guest blogs with Romina's Rangoli by Malathi Michelle Iyengar

Writing & Ruminating: Dear Mr. Rosenwald by Carole Weatherford

Shaken & Stirred: Elizabeth Knox and the Dreamhunter Duet

and Semicolon has been visiting some "under the RADAR" titles.

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Things to love about JAZZ A•B•Z• by Wynton Marsalis, illustrated by Paul Rogers, with biographical sketches by Phil Schaap:

1. The overall book design. Candlewick Press excels at this sort of thing, so it shouldn’t be a surprise, but let me give special kudos to book designer Jill von Hartmann on this one. You’ve seen the cover, of course (that’s Wynton on the cover, by the way – I can’t find something that says so definitively, but it sure looks like him, and it’s definitely not someone from inside the book).

When you flip it open, you’ll find end papers made of brown craft paper. Cut to look like the liner sleeve inside the record jacket of an actual vinyl 78 rpm record album. Followed by the title page, which puts all the information about in the center of a jet-black disk that’s nearly 10" in diameter (hence my decision to call it a 78, rather than a 33).

But wait – there’s more. The back cover of the book lists all 26 of the jazz artists who are the subject of the book, in alphabetical order by the letter of their name that they are associated with (more on that in a minute), followed by a single word that starts with the same letter. (E.g., "Louis Armstrong • almighty"). Inside the book, the artists are in the same order, but the table of contents is a teacher’s delight. Because the table of contents runs A through Z, followed by biographical sketches and notes on the poetic forms.

But wait – there’s still more: next to each letter of the alphabet is the name of the jazz musician associated with it, and next to that, the form of poem. Here’s a quick approximation for you:

A &emsp &emsp Louis Armstrong – Accumulative Poem
B &emsp &emsp Count Basie – Blues Poem
C &emsp &emsp John Coltrane – List Poem
D &emsp &emsp Miles Davis – Word Play

See what I mean about usefulness to teachers (or, for that matter, to students of poetry)?

2. The notes from Paul Rogers and Wynton Marsalis. Right after the table of contents is a two-page spread, each page containing a note from the illustrator and author. The illustrator comes first in this one, perhaps because the illustrations themselves came first in this particular project. Rogers explains how he got the idea for the paintings, and Marsalis explains how he got the ideas for the poems. And he makes clear that he’s a huge Yeats fan, something that’s not truly evident as an influence in his own work, but which shows that he’s a thinking man with an ear for language, nevertheless.

3. The spreads. Each poem is at least a two-page spread. The first one is A for Louis Armstrong. Wanna see it? Of course you do – et voilà!



What you’re seeing: Rogers’s artwork on the right, using bold, poster-like construction. Marsalis’s poem on the less, using alliteration like a mad fiend while constructing an accumulative poem that totally nails the idea of Louis Armstrong. I love the last line in particular: "Anybody asks, tell them Armstrong almighty is aglow amidst the angels above."

There are two four-page spreads inside the book. In each case, a fold-out is employed. The first is for the letter I, for "Abdullah Ibn Buhaina" (a.k.a. Art Blakey). On the right, the wonderful poster-like illustration by Rogers. On the left, a three-page fold out. This poem is listed as a Performance Poem, and man, is that correct. In order to perform it, one must establish a four-four beat, snapping on every even beat. And then, one vocalizes percussion noises – the "ting tinky ting" of cymbals. The "ch" of the snare. The "boom!" of the bass drum. A whole page composed of 14 measures of verbalized percussion noises. Okay – there are thirteen measures spelled out, but theres a blank space for one full measure of rest. And then, on the page turn, the poet speaks in the voice of Buhaina, interspersed with percussive iterations and snaps. It is freakin’ genius, and SO much fun to do aloud (as long as you’re willing to commit – I am, of course, willing to go the distance with this poem, but this is not a poem for the shy).

The second four-page spread is for Sidney Bechet. Again, the right hand page is the portrait of Sidney Bechet playing his soprano saxophone. And if you think that last sentence sounded sybillant, well – you should read the poem. It’s a long, screechy hiss of a poem, again on a three-page fold-out. Folks with a lisp should avoid this one. Theriously.

4. The poems. The poems are jazz, rendered into words. Walter Dean Myers wrote about jazz music in his wonderful book, JAZZ, illustrated by Christopher Dean Myers. (At the LA SCBWI conference, Walter Dean Myers said he felt he had to use that particular illustrator because he’d "slept with the kid’s mother." But I digress.) His poems had a jazz vibe to them, but were primarily poems. Marsalis has written jazz itself. Not poems about jazz – jazz, in words, on the page. These poems cry out to be read aloud, and with swagger.

Here’s an excerpt from the end of "X – Bix Beiderbecke" (a ballad):

He exalts in lyric sweetness,
Excites on zesty jumps,
Exhibits exclusive features,
Exudes that umpty-umph!

He travels on extensively,
Exports the jazz solo.
His records are exemplary,
But whiskey lays him low.

Exhausted, he goes home to fix
What tattered soul he has.
His folks reject his life’s love. Bix,
He exits blowing jazz.

That one gives me goosebumps.

5. The artwork. I wish I could show you all the artwork, right here. I can’t, of course, but I know someone who can: Paul Rogers. On one page of his site you can see bits of all the portraits in the book. And on the last page in his sketchbook, you can see three cityscapes that are used to run along the bottom of the pages containing the biographical sketches.


6. The biographical sketches of the musicians. Once you reach the end of the alphabet "the zenith, the alpha, Dizzy", you come to the prose portion of the book, written by noted jazz disc jockey, Phil Schaap, the "Dean of Jazz," who educates listeners and students on WKCR in New York (Columbia University’s station). Schaap has won eight Grammy awards for historical writing, producing, and audio engineering. Schaap is the Curator of Jazz at Lincoln Center. His biographies are brief, and primarily focus on the musical lives of the subjects (rather than on issues of their upbringing, civil rights work (where appropriate) or drug addiction (if applicable)).

7. Notes on the Poetic Forms. The twenty-seven forms are set out alphabetically, rather than in the order they’re employed in the book. So. Helpful. But wait, you say – weren’t there only 26 musicians in the book? The answer is yes, but some of the poems fit more than one category – an acrostic along with a calligram, for instance.

8. Other. First off, this book was a critical success. It got starred reviews from Kirkus, Booklist and School Library Journal. It won 10 awards, listed proudly at the Candlewick website, all of the "notable book" variety. Some might say it is therefore not truly "under the radar." And in a sense, that's right. But in reality, it's all wrong, and here's why: Not all that many people buy all that many poetry collections. And this one is a shining gem for the totality of its package. And although it's a poetry book designed for kids, jazz fans of all age would like it for its images, both graphic and verbal. And I'm guessing that there are many, many teachers and librarians out there who don't know about this book as a resource for music, biography, history, and poetry (including the teaching of poetic forms). And they should.

You can see poems A through C and L at the NPR website, where the artwork and text for Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, John Coltrane, and "Lady Day", Billie Holiday, are given. And you can click on links to hear Wynton Marsalis read "Louis Armstrong". Other readings include "Count Basie," "Lady Day," and "Sara Vaughn."

Here's a list of the other book selections today:

Here's the list of all the Radar Recommendations for today:

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: A discussion of author Ellen Emerson White and why she is "under the radar".

Big A, little a: Ingo by Helen Dunmore.

Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Changeling and The Velvet Room both by Zilpha Keatley Snyder.

At Bildungsroman: Girl in the Box by Ouida Sebestyen.

Finding Wonderland: A Door Near Here by Heather Quarles.

Miss Erin: Girl With a Pen and Princess of Orange, both by Elisabeth Kyle.

Fuse Number 8: The Winged Girl of Knossos by Erick Berry.

Leila at Bookshelves of Doom talks about The Olivia Kidney series by Ellen Potter.

Chicken Spaghetti: The Natural History of Uncas Metcalfe by Betsey Osborne.

The YA YA YAs feature Massive by Julia Bell.

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I've posted before about my love for Ellen Emerson White's writing. So, when Colleen at Chasing Ray came up with the idea for Recommendations From Under The Radar, the first and only author I considered was EEW. EEW began publishing in the mid 1980s, and most of her YA work is (sadly) out of print, and, accordingly, is overlooked. Over the past decade, most of what she has published has been picture books and children's books; but, she returns to books for older readers with a new book coming out in October. So I thought, what better time to explain why I love EEW's books? And, over the next week, I'll be reviewing several of her books, including some of the YA titles I mention below.

EEW's first book, Friends for Life*, was published in 1983. I was 17; and found out about her book from an essay she wrote that appeared in Seventeen. EEW wrote about writing, and why she wrote, and about being published while in college. I was impressed enough by the essay that I tore the article out of the magazine and kept it for years. (I went looking for it in connection with this post, but couldn't find it; even Ebsco doesn't go back to the early 1980s, so I cannot get a copy that way.)

I also paid a visit to the local bookstore. This was the early 1980s. Most teen sections were slim pickings; back then, there was a certain "I hope nobody notices me looking here at books that are much too young for me"ness about teen sections. Especially when one was 17 (or was it before my birthday? Was I still 16?)

So I bought the paperback of Friends for Life. And fell hard for Ellen Emerson White.

Why? The dialogue and the humor. Her characters think and talk like I do; sometimes, they think and talk the way I wish I did. I'm not always that quick or that funny.

Her characters are sometimes sarcastic; they are also honest and vulnerable. Over and over, I believe her characters to be real; fully formed; I would recognize them on the street. They are flawed, they are funny, they are a mix of good and bad. They are complex.

Of course, dialogue and characters alone aren't enough to make a book, and a writer, great.

EEW has great plots, all starting with a wonderful "what if ... " premise.

What if.... your best friend was murdered? But no one believed it?

What if.... your mother ran for President? And won?

What if.... your boyfriend killed someone?

What if... you were a nurse in Vietnam, and when you returned home no-one understood what you had gone thru?

EEW takes these situations, adds action, and believable characters doing believable things.

Dialogue. Real to life characters. Humor. Interesting plots.

EEW is up there with Meg Cabot and Sarah Dessen.

Why, you may be asking yourself, have I not heard of her before?

Let's go back to when she was first published: the early 1980s. The YA/teen book world was not what it is now; both in terms of respect for the authors and the book, and in advertising and marketing. As I recall, most of EEW's early books came out in paperback first, which means that they get pretty beat up which means they are weeded which means it can be hard to find them in the library. And, as I mentioned above, back in the early 1980s teen sections were practically non-existent and were viewed as strictly an under 14 area. These were also the days before the Internet. Before big book tours for teen authors. In addition, EEW was, and is, a private person.

Another reason EEW is still under the radar is she has used different names for different books. Her fabulous Echo Company books,** about a teenager drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam in the late 1960s, were published under the name Zack Emerson. Her picture books are published under Nicholas Edwards.

Plus, EEW suffered from bad timing. Just as the YA/teen book world exploded, EEW's YA titles had gone out of print and she wasn't writing YA anymore. Instead, there were picture books (Santa Paws) and Dear America books (Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady; Kaiulani: The People’s Princess, Hawaii, 1889; The Journal of Patrick Seamus Flaherty: United States Marine Corps Khe Sanh, Vietnam, 1968;** and Where Have All the Flowers Gone?: The Diary of Molly Mackenzie Flaherty, 1968**).

Some of the books I'll be talking about over the next several days are out of print. It is worth it to track them down via Interlibrary Loan or used book stores. Plus, since here latest book, Long May She Reign, is due out in October and involves characters from other series, I am hoping that if her new book does well, we will see these titles being reissued; I am hoping that we will see more EEW books. And I am hoping that finally Ellen Emerson White gets the same type of recognition as Meg Cabot and Sarah Dessen.

* Will be reviewed Thursday.

** Will be reviewed Friday.

Today's Under the Radar Books:

Big A, little a: Ingo by Helen Dunmore

Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Changeling and The Velvet Room both by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Bildungsroman: Girl in the Box by Ouida Sebestyen

Finding Wonderland: A Door Near Here by Heather Quarles

Miss Erin: Girl With a Pen and Princess of Orange, both by Elisabeth Kyle

Fuse Number 8: The Winged Girl of Knossos by Erick Berry

Bookshelves of Doom: The Olivia Kidney series by Ellen Potter

Chicken Spaghetti:The Natural History of Uncas Metcalfe by Betsey Osborne

Writing and Ruminating: Jazz ABC by Wynton Marsalis

The YA YA YAs: Massive by Julia Bell
*******
Image supplied by Little Willow.

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Today’s Under the Radar Book suggestion is the sumptuously lovely Plum by the extraordinary Tony Mitton, illustrated by Mary Grand Pré.

Why do I love this book? Is it the feel of the book in my hand? The glorious illustrations by Mary Grand Pré? The wonderful use of language in the poems and the stories they tell, stories that draw you into another place, so that when you reach the end and look up, you’re startled to find that you’re still in your own home, and not actually in the place you’ve been inhabiting in your mind? Of course it’s all three, but that last bit in particular.

I stand by what I said when I first mentioned this book on my blog back in November of 2005 as part of a post about poetry picture book collections:

Plum is a rich, luscious book of poems by British author Tony Mitton. It's a collection of 20 poems, which is not constrained by any single theme. Some of the poems, such as "Mrs. Bhattacharya's Chapati Zap Machine" and "Elegant Elephant Delicatessan", are quite long story poems spread over a number of pages with many illustrations. Others, like "Shore Music" or "Freak Cat-Flea" are short.

This is one of my very favorite poetry picture books ever. The poems are varied, rich, and complex, but readily grasped by children. Mitton uses a variety of poetic forms and vivid imagery to convey his ideas, whether the whimsical single-sentence poem "Flightpath", the sly temptation of "The Snake and the Apple," or the brooding hidden menace of "Green Man Lane." The wonderful illustrations by Mary Grand Pré, known widely for her cover art and illustrations in the United States' editions of the Harry Potter series, make this book a feast for the eyes.

When I mentioned this book back in April, I quoted a bit from the title poem, "Plum." It begins "Don’t be so glum/plum./Don’t feel beaten./You were made/to be eaten." And it ends with a discussion of the plum’s skin, flesh, and life-bearing pit. The illustration that accompanies it is exquisite, rendered in shades of plum (naturally), gold and green, showing a noble bird (an eagle, perhaps) holding a plum aloft with the tips of its wing-feathers, a nest full of plums beneath its talons, whilst off in the distance, seemingly afloat in a lake, is a plum tree in a circle of light that echoes that around the feather-borne plum. Spectacular. (And, as I thought, a complete hit with children, who also enjoyed the William Carlos Williams plum poem, "This is Just to Say".)

This book has won an award – in 2003, it won a Cuffies Award from Publisher’s Weekly for
Best Book of Poetry. But I truly think more folks out there who are interested in poetry collections need to give this one a look-see.

Here’s the last poem in the American version of Plum, one that I used in many of the classrooms I visited back in April as part of National Poetry Week for Children.

Instructions for Growing Poetry

Shut your eyes.
&emsp Open your mind.
&emsp &emsp Look inside.
&emsp &emsp &emsp What do you find?

Something funny?
&emsp Something sad?
&emsp &emsp Something beautiful,
&emsp &emsp &emsp mysterious, mad?

Open your ears.
&emsp Listen well.
&emsp &emsp A word or phrase
&emsp &emsp &emsp begins to swell?

Catch its rhythm.
&emsp Hold its sound.
&emsp &emsp Gently, slowly
&emsp &emsp &emsp roll it round.

Does it please you?
&emsp Does it tease you?
&emsp &emsp Does it ask
&emsp &emsp &emsp to grow and spread?

Now those little
&emsp words are sprouting
&emsp &emsp poetry
&emsp &emsp &emsp inside your head.

But this review isn’t all, duckies. Not by a long shot. Today, I have a particularly special treat, which will make you lust after this book even more, because you are virtually guaranteed to fall in love with its author, the remarkable – and remarkably talented – Tony Mitton.

Tony Mitton has been writing poetry since he was a teen, but only began focusing on writing for children within the past 20 years, give or take. In a profile written for Jubilee Books UK, Tony said "What I probably most like doing is writing poems and verse. I love tinkering with the words until I've got them just right. I've always loved reading poems and stories, and I usually have several books on the go. I have a great interest in folk and fairy tales and legends."

1. I read that PLUM was your first published collection of poems. Can you talk a bit about whether creating a collection of poems is different from writing a picture book or a story in verse? If so, how?

I need to point out that the original UK Plum was different to the US Plum. The US Plum is a picture book illustrated by Mary Grand-Pré and published by Arthur A. Levine Books NY. The UK Plum was published by Scholastic UK and illustrated by Peter Bailey. The UK version was a solo poetry collection with some monochrome illustrations. It contained 49 poems. For his picture book US version, Arthur Levine chose 20 poems from the UK edition and designed his picture book version for an American audience. So when I answer your questions I’ll refer to the original UK version unless I specify otherwise.

For me, creating a collection of poems is very different from writing a picture book or a story in verse. My original collection Plum was selected from a body of perhaps 150 poems written across a period of about 7 years. My editor David Fickling helped me to choose 50 of those poems to form the collection. At his suggestion, I tweaked one or two pieces and dropped one piece altogether. This gave us a collection of 49 poems which created a fairly generous volume. The collection was also varied in that it contained longer, shorter, lyric, narrative, humorous, serious, traditional, contemporary, free verse, and formal verse poems. It was meant to be a miscellany, a collection of heterogeneous poems. That’s my idea of a true poetry collection. Each poem being a thing in itself, as arrived at by the author simply having evolved each individual poem in its own right, as seemed fitting. Allowing form, content, tone, mood etc to find their own relations with each other.

I have at times played different games with poetry books. Fluff was a book in which every poem was about something one might find in a child’s pocket. So that was a book composed thematically. I even made lists of things to write poems about. So the whole creation was more contrived from the outset. Whereas my UK Plum was chosen out of poems I’d simply felt I wanted to write, as a poet, across a number of years.

Writing a picture book text or a verse story is for me a much more singular exercise. If it’s an original plot line, then I allow form and content to evolve together, and accommodate along the way a fair amount of editorial suggestion (a bit like a scriptwriter collecting and responding to input from a team). If I’m retelling in verse a pre-existing tale or legend, then again it’s really a matter of trying to find a form which does justice to the story, finding a way to get the story effectively told in a verse form. But the work is immediately much more focused and directed than with an individual, gratuitous poem, where a phrase or line may just hover around for a while, suggesting ways forward . . . to where?

For me, the work which seems to have the most integrity (in the sense of being free from outside intervention) is the poem which is written simply because it evolves in the mind of the poet. The poem which asks to be written initially for its own sake. The poem free of any outside interest.

(Huzzah!! Poets everywhere are at this moment standing and applauding, I’m sure – I know I found this particularly inspiring and moving. But I digress . . . back to the interview)

2. Were all of the poems in PLUM intended for the collection, or were some of them pre-existing works? (Note: Asked and answered, but I’m letting the question stand because it got this extra tidbit of information)

In a sense I’ve just answered that question. The UK Plum poems were simply written along the way, along with many others. Then 49 poems got chosen for the book, which didn’t even have a title until we’d chosen the poems. It was a very junior designer who came up with the idea of using the poem "Plum" as the title piece. It was much later that Arthur chose his 20 poems for the US picture book. In some sense I was quite removed from the conception and development of that book, which owes its form and shape to Arthur, to Mary (Grandpré) and maybe to a design and art team at Scholastic NY whom I may never have met.

3. Two of the longer poems in PLUM, "Mrs. Bhattacharya's Chapati-Zap Machine" and "The Elegant Elephant Delicatessen", feel almost as if they could have had their own books. Why did you choose to include them as part of the poetry collection instead of sending them out into the world on their own?

I wrote "Mrs Bhattacharya" initially as an intended picture book text, in my early days of trying to break into this medium of work (a hard nut to crack! and just as hard to go on cracking, I find . . .) "Elephant Delicatessen" probably looks that way because of the sumptuous treatment given it by Mary and the design team. But sometimes I’ve found that poems conceived as potential picture book texts have discovered a niche for themselves as narrative poems in poetry collections. As a writer, one only has limited say in what gets published, where and how. One writes, hopes and deals. Some work makes it through, even then, not always in the form originally intended. One’s integrity as a writer is continually compromised by the publishing world, in the hard-nosed business of making a living.

4. According to your bio, you were born in Tripoli, North Africa, and grew up in Africa, Germany, Hong Kong, and England. How have the various locations of your childhood influenced your poetic or storytelling choices?

I’m not sure they have much. I could be wrong about that. But I think my sources are mainly literary, in that they come through reading rather than through travelling. I like the idea of world story, the idea of stories from a range of cultures and locations. For me stories sometimes prompt poetry or verse writing, suggesting either a lyric poem or a verse retelling. I like the kind of cross-cultural fertilisation that then takes place. It’s stimulating and imaginatively encouraging.

5. Several of the poems in PLUM include bits of English and Irish history and/or mythology, including "Green Man Lane," "The Histon Boulder," and "St. Brigid and the Baker."

In The Tale of Tales, out in 2004, animals tell a variety of stories, including an Anansi tale and a retelling of Rip Van Winkle.



It is everywhere compared to "The Canterbury Tales." (Including the favorable review in the NY Times.) Was there any particular reason you were drawn to these particular topics? Did you do much research to write these poems?

Some of such poems have been prompted by places themselves, actual locations visited. Some are the result of encountering them in books (folktale collections, books of local folklore etc). The work has been gathered more by incidental cultural habit and personal literary tastes than by concerted research. Though in setting out on The Tale of Tales I did write down a lot of possible stories to use and characters to tell them. And I wrote a lot of verse retellings that never made it into the final book. Funny, though: The reviewer, Liz Rosenberg, said she found my verse writing clumsy, though she praised my prose (I think . . .). Maybe my verse doesn’t work in American. But verse is what I do. I’m a poet. What DOES she mean? I have an impeccable metric ear. But I work through the stress beats of mainstream British emphasis, not through syllable counting. Maybe she can’t hear that? It’s slightly disconcerting to be told at 56, after a lifetime of reading and writing verse and poetry, that my verse work is creaky . . .. Ah, well. Takes all sorts, I guess . . .. Does she realise my verse deliberately uses standard colloquial stress most of the time? Maybe I'll never know. (Note from KRF: I am certain that writers and poets everywhere have wondered the same thing about reviewers from time immemorial. And that Americans don’t always hear other American accents correctly, let alone proper British English).

6. In 2006, you put out a collection of selected poems called My Hat and All That with Corgi in the U.K. It includes a number of pieces that you've enjoyed performing for and with children. Are there plans for that to be released in the U.S. as well?



I’d like it to be. But though dfb (David Fickling Books) helped me to select the pieces, it’s outletted by Corgi or Random House (their umbrella company). DFB can publish direct into the US, I believe. But I don’t know if Corgi can. And there might be clashes in US with Arthur Levine as some of the pieces in My Hat come from Plum, whose rights in UK have reverted to me (as it’s out of print now) while the US edition is still alive and kicking so I don’t know the protocols on that kind of thing. Publishing and Rights can be so complicated sometimes. And I just want to write things and see them come out looking and sounding good!

7. In an article by Roger Stevens, you indicated that you have quite a number of poems amassed which could be put together to form a collection similar to PLUM. Is any such collection in the works?

Well, yes. (From KRF: YAY!) David Fickling of dfb has asked me to put together another Plum (i.e., another solo collection of a heterogeneous kind) but there is also a follow-up coming to The Tale of Tales first. Again, it’s a set of narrative verse retellings woven together in a prose setting with pics by the same illustrator. That’s pretty much written now. But I’m keen to get back to working on a real solo collection. I feel my credibility as a poet rather depends on doing that. Solo collections are a bit of an issue in bookworld at present as they tend to attract such modest sales, even if their reputation is strong and/or they manage to scoop a prize or honour.



8. In February of this year, your book Perky Little Penguins became available in the U.K. The book is going to be available in the U.S. this November with the title Playful Little Penguins. Is it typical for U.S. publishers to ask you to change words? Not to psychoanalyze you, but how do you feel about that?

I never like it. But I acknowledge that US publishers may have strong marketing issues around certain things. I always battle to be told what the problem is so I can rewrite myself and offer alternatives of my own devising. That’s my way round it. My verse texts are very tightly written in the original so I want to be closely involved with any changes deemed necessary for the US market or audience. That way I keep the texts as close as possible to my own style as I can. I do realise that there are certain realities like the fact that some rhymes I use don’t rhyme in certain parts of America, due to accent. Or that certain turns of phrase are commonplace in UK but not used in US . Or that certain words have different values in the two places. And so on. But in the end I don’t believe in changing text to accommodate a specific market. I like the idea of texts carrying their idiosyncracies with them where they go, and maybe influencing the language communities they land in. I’m an English writer, with an English voice. I’d like individual books to keep their own cultural identities and be what they are. I love the Americanness of American texts, prose or verse. There are many American writings with distinctive American texture and tone. Ditto English. Leave them alone, let them travel, and let the readers read them and learn the interesting differences and varieties of the language. English is so rich and varied and has travelled and adapted so fascinatingly. From Boston to Bombay and back to Bradford or Brighton.

9. What's next?

The follow-up to The Tale of Tales. A yet unnamed new Plum (I hope).
Giant’s Boots -- a book of action rhymes for the very young.
Party Animals -- maybe not released in the states (a picture book)
Farmer Joe and the Music Show -- from the home of Down by the Cool of the Pool (not out till 2008, I think)


I’m working on a new series for Ant Parker/Kingfisher to follow the series called Amazing Machines (Dazzling Diggers, Flashing Fire Engines, etc.) The new series will focus on animals rather than machines. I hope.



Also out from Tony Mitton in the U.S. as of May this year, All Afloat on Noah’s Boat, a retelling of the Noah’s Ark story in verse.




10. Speed round:

Cheese or chocolate? Both (but not together)
Coffee or tea? Tea, the British way. Strong, with milk, no sugar.
Cats or dogs? Both, so long as they’re not mine.
Favorite color? Rainbow (as it’s so hard to choose) but maybe green?
Favorite snack food? Bananas, cake, chocolate.
Favorite ice cream? Chocolate fudge brownie.
Water or soda? Water (still) (Note for US. readers unfamiliar with the term – he means still water, as opposed to carbonated water)
What's in your CD player/on iTunes right now? Michael McGoldrick / Fused (Celtic pipe music / Irish)
What's the last movie you memorized lines from? The latest Harry Potter movie.... (seriously underrated, those books . . .)

If, like me, you’ve now developed a massive crush on Mr. Mitton, here are some other places you can read him (or read about him) on the web:

Check out Tony’s Author Profile at Scholastic’s Literary Times.

And Poetry International has an article about Tony by Roger Stevens, with links to five of Tony’s poems. "My Hat" is one of the poems in Plum, and is also the title poem for My Hat and All That.

Starting Up a Poem, at Jubilee Books UK.

Tony also participated in a Roundtable of Children’s Poets in 2004.

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Here's the list of all the Radar Recommendations for today:

At Finding Wonderland: The Curved Saber: The Adventure of Khlit the Cossack by Harold Lamb.

Little Willow at Bildungsroman talks about Christopher Golden's Body of Evidence series in a three part series.

Interactive Reader has Christopher Golden's Body of Evidence series as well.

Not Your Mother's Bookclub shares an interview with Robert Sharenow, author of My Mother the Cheerleader.

Kimberly at lectitans will have The Angel of the Opera: Sherlock Meets the Phantom of the Opera by Sam Siciliano, but her post won't be up until afternoon.

Leila at Bookshelves of Doom touts The God Beneath the Sea, Black Jack & Jack Holburn all by Leon Garfield.

Here at Writing and Ruminating: An interview with the extraordinary Tony Mitton and a review of his book, Plum .

Over at The YA YA YAs: I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane Lee Wilson.

Susan at Chicken Spaghetti: The Illustrator's Notebook by Mohieddin Ellabad.

Genius organizer Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray is all about Dorothy of Oz.

And from SemiColon, Sherry is talking about six picture books that should not be missed -- including some out of print titles.

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Under the Radar starts today. What is exciting (for me, and long time readers know it's all about me!) is the mix of "oh, I know that book, that is a great book" and "hey, that sounds new, let me look & see" titles. I'll be wanting to comment on the titles I've read and look up the other titles. Man, just as I got my pile from the library to under 20 titles.

Oh well.

Here are today's posts:

Finding Wonderland: The Curved Saber: The Adventure of Khlit the Cossack by Harold Lamb

Chasing Ray: Dorothy of Oz from Illusive Arts Entertainment (the Dorothy comic you should all be reading!)

Bildungsroman: Christopher Golden's Body of Evidence series

Interactive Reader: Christopher Golden's Body of Evidence series as well

Not Your Mother's Bookclub: An interview with Robert Sharenow, author of My Mother the Cheerleader

lectitans: The Angel of the Opera: Sherlock Meets the Phantom of the Opera by Sam Siciliano

Bookshelves of Doom: The God Beneathe the Sea, Black Jack & Jack Holburn all by Leon Garfield

Writing and Ruminating: An interview with Tony Mitton and a review of his book, Plum

The YA YA YAs: I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane Lee Wilson

Chicken Spaghetti: The Illustrator's Notebook by Mohieddin Ellabad

Image supplied by Little Willow.

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MONDAY

Finding Wonderland: The Curved Saber: The Adventure of Khlit the Cossack by Harold Lamb

Chasing Ray: Dorothy of Oz from Illusive Arts Entertainment (the Dorothy comic you should all be reading!)

Bildungsroman: Christopher Golden's Body of Evidence series (and Little Willow is the creator of the image used during this week)

Interactive Reader: Christopher Golden's Body of Evidence series as well

Not Your Mother's Bookclub: An interview with Robert Sharenow, author of My Mother the Cheerleader

lectitans: The Angel of the Opera: Sherlock Meets the Phantom of the Opera by Sam Siciliano

Bookshelves of Doom: The God Beneathe the Sea, Black Jack & Jack Holburn all by Leon Garfield

Writing and Ruminating: An interview with Tony Mitton and a review of his book, Plum

The YA YA YAs: I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane Lee Wilson

Chicken Spaghetti: The Illustrator's Notebook by Mohieddin Ellabad


TUESDAY

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: A discussion of author Ellen Emerson White and why she is "under the radar"

Big A, little a: Ingo by Helen Dunmore

Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Changeling and The Velvet Room both by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Bildungsroman: Girl in a Box by Ouida Sebestyen

Finding Wonderland: A Door Near Here by Heather Quarles

Miss Erin: Girl With a Pen and Princess of Orange, both by Elisabeth Kyle

Fuse Number 8: The Winged Girl of Knossos by Erick Berry

Bookshelves of Doom: The Olivia Kidney series by Ellen Potter

Chicken Spaghetti: Natural History of Uncas Metcalf by Betsy Osborne

Writing and Ruminating: Jazz ABC by Wynton Marsalis

The YA YA YAs: Massive by Julia Bell


WEDNESDAY

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: The President's Daughter series by Ellen Emerson White

Big A, little a: The Tide Knot by Helen Dunmore

Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Green Sky trilogy

Bildungsroman: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 1

Chasing Ray: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 2

lectitans: Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn: A Discussion Part 3

Finding Wonderland: The House on Hound Hill by Maggie Prince

Miss Erin: The Reb & Redcoats and Enemy Brothers, both by Constance Savery

Bookshelves of Doom: Harry Sue by Sue Stauffacher

Interactive Reader: Shake Down the Stars by Frances Donnelly

Chicken Spaghetti: Pooja Makhijani guest blogs with Romina's Rangoli by Malathi Michelle Iyengar

Writing & Ruminating: Dear Mr. Rosenwald by Carole Weatherford

Shaken & Stirred: Elizabeth Knox and the Dreamhunter Duet


THURSDAY

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: Friends for Life and Life Without Friends both by Ellen Emerson White

Shaken & Stirred: The Changeover and Catalogue of the Universe, both by Margaret Mahy

Big A, little a: A interview with Helen Dunmore

Jen Robinson's Book Page: The Treasures of Weatherby by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Bildungsroman: Swollen by Melissa Lion

Finding Wonderland: Lucy the Giant by Sherry L. Smith

Miss Erin: A discussion of Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye and an interview with author Kaza Kingsley

7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker

Fuse Number 8: The Noisy Counting Book by Susan Schade

Chasing Ray: Juniper, Genetian and Rosemary by Pamela Dean

lectitans: Who Pppplugged Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf

Writing and Ruminating: Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown


FRIDAY

A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: The Vietnam books by Ellen Emerson White

Big A, little a: The Deep by Helen Dunmore

Bildungsroman: The May Bird Trilogy by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Finding Wonderland: The Avion My Uncle Flew by Cyrus Fisher

Not Your Mother's Bookclub: A look at some recently revised classics

Fuse Number 8: Stoneflight by George McHarque

lectitans: Gentle's Holler and Louisiana Song both by Kerry Madden

Chasing Ray: Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen

Interactive Reader: A Plague of Sorcerers by Mary Frances Zambreno

The YA YA YAs: Resurrection Men by TK Welsh

7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Such a Pretty Face: Short Stories About Beauty edited by Ann Angel

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Whew! It was a busy weekend. Saturday evening, we learned that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/) in Pasadena was having their annual open house this weekend. So somewhat spur of the moment, we decided to go. It was pretty interesting although we didn't really get to spend a whole lot of time there as we were planning on going to an art show in the afternoon. Looking through our photos, I'm realizing we don't have any pictures of the rovers! So, the best I can do is the command center and a clean room:












I know the pictures aren't great. Command center was really dark and we were shooting through super thick glass to capture the clean rooms, but it's the best we could do in the circumstances.

The clean rooms were probably the most interesting part to us since it's very much behind-the-scenes sort of thing that you normally wouldn't have a chance to see. Chris (my husband) was in heaven shooting pictures of all the heavy industry on the campus. He works in video-games so having reference photos of all kinds of interesting places is really useful to him. It's always entertaining having to explain to people why he is shooting pictures of fire hydrants and dirty brick walls!

We left JPL around noon and headed down to Beverly Hills for the "Affaire in the Gardens Art Show." I'm intrigued by art shows where the artist actually sells physical art since this is something I've never really done before. I'm so tempted to try this sometime, but then I wince when I think about the over-head involved in such an endeavor. Not only would I have to produce prints and merchandise, but I'd also have to fork out some cash for the display boards and tent. And then if I didn't sell enough... well, that would be disheartening to say the least. I guess it must be profitable for some artists, but certainly not all artists, right? One thing that I do notice when I attend art shows is that there really aren't any children's artists present. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? My work would certainly be unique in an environment sans other children's artists, but that still doesn't mean it would sell. Just something to consider for the future I suppose....

I'll put in a plug for my two favorite displays:

Gabe Leonard - beautiful paintings (http://www.gabeleonard.com)
Vicki Banks - very cool and clever animal sculptures - lots of ravens. She doesn't appear to have a website... Read the rest of this post

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