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Today, we welcome Linda as Celebrate Reading Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: By day, Linda's an uptight and proper Ivory Tower type, churning out numbers about folks suffering from physical and psychiatric disorders. At night, she morphs into lovable mom and wife, plays with her two children, hangs with the hubby. Until darkness falls and the house stills. Then, she writes. Newly addicted to writing, she just really finished her first novel and is currently noodling with #2 and #3. Her micro-fiction was recently published in Six Sentences: Volume 1 and she blogs at LEFTBRAINWRITE on the intersection of the mind and writing.

In that place the wind prevailed. There was always sound. The throat of the canyon was hoarse with wind. It heaved through pines…

Even now, these spare opening sentences sear my memory. The paperback is tattered, sun-faded, bound with a thick rubber band, the top right corners sepia-stained and rounded from flipping. Short cross-hatches march across the inside front cover, one line for each of the 84 times I've read this book, most of those readings more than 30 years ago.

It was 1973, the beginning of forced desegregation. I was eleven and miserable. It didn't help I was awkward, shy, and, with my nose always in some book, too smart for my own good. And fat. No one likes fat now, and then was no different. Glasses clinched the deal. There was plenty of reading time traveling in the rattle-trap school bus that carted me to the sixth grade center on the lesser side of Raleigh. Mrs. Soul, my first black teacher, had a small but diverse in-room library. There, I stumbled on this small masterpiece, what became a compass for navigating that tumultuous year.

The story is simplistic, though the telling is not: affluent families ship their adolescent boys to toughen up at an Arizona dude ranch ('Send us a boy – we'll send you a cowboy!'). Our six heroes arrive, packing their neuroses: John Cotton, the savior-like leader; Lawrence Teft III, skinny, tall, with a criminal penchant for locks; Gerald Goodenow, sensitive bead artist; Stephen Lally, older borderline psychotic brother to Billy, thumb sucker and pillow-hugger; and Sammy Shecker, who eats away his problems.

At Box Canyon Camp for Boys, Darwinian practices sort each camper into his rightful tribe. Ill-equipped to succeed, the six boys settle at the totem's bottom, the tribe known as the Bedwetters. Days, they endure the scornful jeers of their campmates; at night, they burrow deep in sleeping bags, transistor radios pulsing through the dark. Then, one day they witness the brutal thinning of free-ranging buffalo. Traumatized, the Bedwetters rally. Toting rifle and taxidermied bison head, they steal from camp in a hot-wired truck on a quest to save the majestic beasts.

The story remains timeless. Beautifully-written, told in flashback using quirky prose, the story has taught me much about structure and character, description and word choice, inspiring me to be more audacious in my own work:

O twayne me a twim,
where the ffubalo gym,
where the rede and the telopen zoom;
where nebber is nat,
a conframitous rat-tat-tat…

Beyond the gorgeous writing, I resonated with these misfits – how could I not? It is a 'yes' book of the highest order, the quintessential anti anti-hero story. Because my peers deemed me 'weird' and marked me for hell because I didn't go to church – a dangerous proposition in the Bible Belt – I definitely related to rebellion. Thanks to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and The New Testament, though, I was also an avowed pacifist and the boundaries seemed blurred between taking a stand and taking a fall. So, philosophy in place, the bus bullies on the bus continued to steal my lunch money, break my glasses, taunt me to tears – and I let them.

Until the last day of school. Maybe it was the heat; I believe it was the vision of John Cotton driving the truck over the cliff, fist raised in triumph as the freed buffalo charged across the plain. The bus approached my stop, and something snapped. As Todd B, my fiercest tormentor, rose to give me a parting 'happy summer' smack in the face, I turned to him and calmly drove my knee into the space between his legs.

I was free.

Just like the buffalo. And the Bedwetters.

(Thank you, Moonrat, for your geniosity in running this Celebrate Reading book-a-thon and allowing me to pontificate on one of my beloved books. And thanks to all the wonderful writers who've shared their favorites; each post's a perfect, delicious, sin-free treat).

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Today, we welcome Josephine Damian as our Celebrate Reading Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Josephine Damian is published in lurid noir and hard-boiled short fiction. Her WIP, A STUDY IN FEAR, is a psychological suspense thriller. She's also a grad student writing a thesis on the neuro-biological basis of psychopathy and in December 2008 she'll earn a master's in Criminal Forensics Studies: Behavioral Analysis.

First, thank you Moonrat, my huckleberry friend, for letting me sit in today and guest blog. I hope you’re making progress on that writing project.

I was first published at the age of thirteen. By the time I got to high school I was not only spending my allowance on bestsellers, but reading them with an eye to learn exactly what elements make a book a commercial success. In 1977, when a novel by an obscure Australian author, Colleen McCullough, leapt to the top of the bestseller lists, I had to buy it.



Reading The Thorn Birds as a teenager taught me an important, early lesson as a writer: force your main character into making a complex and difficult choice - a choice with huge and dire consequences whichever way they chose. Besides creating high drama and inner conflict, this allows the reader to become more engaged with the character because the reader puts him or herself in the same position and asks: What would I do if I were forced to make such a choice?

This book opens with such a choice. Older, wealthy widow and ranch owner, Mary Carson, the original “cougar,” lusts after her young and handsome local priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart. His poise, intellect and charm are clearly wasted in this rural Aussie outback setting. Sensing not just his weakness when it comes to matters of the flesh, but his incredible ambition to escape from the confines of his exile in an obscure post, Mary decides to give the priest a choice: one that will damn him to hell.

Mary’s brother Paddy, his wife and many children are the lawful heirs to Mary’s ranch and considerable fortune. Her first will rightly bequeaths everything to them. Aware that her days on earth are numbered, Mary decides to have a second will drawn up, one that invalidates her first. In this second will, she bequeaths the bulk of her estate to the Catholic Church, but under the control of Father Ralph, thus giving him the clout to demand a seat of power in the Vatican – his life’s ambition. Mary doesn’t completely cut out her brother and his family in this second will, it provides a modest income for them as caretakers of the ranch (Mary knew Ralph’s choice might have been easier if Paddy and his family were to be left destitute and homeless).

On the night Mary dies, this second will is delivered to Father Ralph along with a taunting letter from his diabolical benefactor: He can do the right thing and tear up this second will and let the first will stand. By transferring Mary’s estate to her brother and his family, Father Ralph will seal his own fate - a wasted life lived in desolate, small-town exile. In other words: his own idea of hell on earth. Complicating Ralph’s choice is his genuine fondness for Paddy Cleary’s family, especially his young daughter, Meggie. Or the priest can produce this second, valid will and claim Mary’s fortune for himself and his church: basically steal Mary’s fortune away from her true heirs. A sin if ever there was one.

Whichever choice he makes, he’s damned. Remember, he’s not the villain. He’s at heart a decent, loving, yet flawed and complex character – ambition is his greatest strength as well as his greatest weakness. The choice he makes does not come easy.

In a character–defining moment, Ralph produces the second will and ensures his future at the Vatican, thus damning the rightful heirs, the Cleary clan, to a modest, working-class life. But what price does Father Ralph pay for his choice to pursue his ambition? What conflicts, what consequences for all the players ensue as a result of this choice? At the end, when Ralph looks back, did he do the right thing? Was it worth it?

Wanting to find out is what kept a teenaged aspiring author, along and millions of others turning the pages, and helped put this novel at the top of the bestseller lists.

At the end of 2007, thirty years after reading The Thorn Birds, I looked back at all the book I’d read that year and picked what I thought was the best of the bunch. You can read that post here.

In this book, the character is also faced with a dire choice. Yet, unlike Father Ralph, this book’s main character waits until the end of the novel to make her choice; the conflict stems from her weighing one awful option over the other. In the end, for better or worse, she makes her decision.

Either option: a choice made early followed by the consequences, or spending a novel weighing the consequences of making this choice or that choice makes for compelling story telling.

So, writers, in your books have you forced your character to make a damned-if-they-do-damned-if-they-don’t choice? Have you made your character chose between the rock and the hard place?

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Today, we welcome Jaye Wells as our Celebrate Reading Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Jaye Wells is a stubborn Aries with a penchant for tomfoolery and a love of all things arcane and weird. Her debut novel, Red-Headed Stepchild, is slated for an April 2009 release from Orbit US & UK. Also, her short story, “Red Life,” will appear in Weirdly II, an anthology from Wild Child Publishing which will be published on June 24. Some people call her work urban fantasy. She calls it Crypt Lit.

Thanks to Moonrat for inviting me to join in on this celebration of old friends. The only problem with it is: How does one choose a favorite out of hundreds?

I sat down and tried to remember every book I’ve ever read. Good luck, right? What happened instead is nostalgic walk through the influential books of my life. The “Choose Your Own Adventure” books and Chronicles of Narnia of my elementary days. The romance novels I discovered at my aunt’s house at the age of 13. My love affair with the vampire Lestat in high school and college. The time I came to terms with the idea it was okay to love Dorothea Benton Frank and Bret Easton Ellis equally. Then there was the book that introduced me to urban fantasy, Kim Harrison’s Dead Witch Walking.

These memories are as real and cherished as those of my childhood pals and college confidantes. How could I choose?

But I kept coming back to one book.

High school reading does one of two things to people. It either cements their love of the written word or turns them off books for life. Thankfully, I fell into the former group.

As a side note, I have to admit one stumble. Like Moonrat, I was person chosen in my junior year to tackle The Sound and the Fury. Let’s just say the term “stream of consciousness” still makes me break out in hives.

But I did love a lot of the books I was assigned. Animal Farm, which I read totally innocent of the political parable—that all came later in class discussion. To me it was a heartbreaking story about the death of a horse. A Tale of Two Cities still remains a favorite, as does The Odyssey and everything Mark Twain.

But a man by the name of Ray Bradbury wrote the book that haunted me, challenged me, and inspired me.

When my teacher assigned Fahrenheit 451, I was skeptical. Science fiction? Dystopian themes? No thanks. But I soon changed my tune to “yes, please.”

Looking back, I suppose it’s not surprising that a book featuring a hero who hoards books and risks his life for them would appeal to a future author. Bradbury has sworn up and down this book isn’t about censorship, but to me—back then and today—that’s exactly what it’s about. But it’s also about rebellion. And heroism. And hope.

Before Hannibal Lector’s silent lambs, Bradbury introduced us to another Clarisse. She was an outcast, a rebel, and she changed the course of one man’s life by asking questions no one else dared. Is it any surprise this book appealed to my rebellious teenaged soul?

But Clarisse isn’t the focus of the book. She’s merely one catalyst for Guy Montag’s transformation from book burner to fugitive to vagabond. And I’m not afraid to admit that I developed a crush on him. Or perhaps, in hindsight, it wasn’t really a crush, but a passion for what he represented.

But the book isn’t all about heroism. Bradbury paints a grim future as a backdrop for Montag’s transformation. An old woman martyring herself before men with flamethrowers can destroy her books. Mechanical dogs chasing down a man for the hungry eyes of sheep masquerading as people. The roar of unmanned jets as they wipe out entire cities. Without a doubt, this is a cautionary tale, and a powerful one, at that.

Overall, I suppose Fahrenheit 451 isn’t exactly what one would call a “happy story.” But, in the end, it is a hopeful one.

Or am I the only one who’s fantasized about life as a highly literate vagabond who roams the countryside sharing stories?

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Today, we welcome Written Wyrdd as our Celebrate Reading Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Written Wyrdd has had a varied career and now considers her real job to be writing, although it doesn't pay the bills. It is the color of her parachute, however. Cats, friends and family, reading and writing are pretty much the entire agenda these days.


“Science fiction is the literature of ideas.” Pamela Sargent

Moonrat has honored me by asking me to write an article for her blog about a favorite book and explain what it did for me. I took that to mean what book impacted me the most, which is a difficult thing to quantify generally, all books having their own unique contribution to my inner landscape. So, instead of combing my hazy memory of a few thousand reads over forty-some years, I decided that the most impact (otherwise known as mental scarring to you well-balanced souls out there) was from the book which set my feet upon the speculative fiction path.

I was in grade school when I discovered my passion for science fiction and fantasy. I remember it was a Saturday, and the day was sunny with a light wind, the temperature in the low 70s. And I was going to spend my weekly allowance on a book I’d seen the night before in the grocery store book rack and just had to have: Moon of Three Rings, by Andre Norton, for exactly one dollar, with tax. I’d never seen anything like that cover, a strange woman in an exotic costume and some strange beastie at her feet; and the back matter enthralled me with talk of intergalactic traders and sorcery.

The plot is this: A galactic trade ship lands on a planet called Yiktor, one of the crew (Krip Vorlund) winds up in a muddle, and, to save his life, a sorceress named Maelen places his mind into the body of a beast which is part of her circus act. The rest of the story is about preventing the takeover of the planet Yiktor and trying to get a replacement body for Krip to inhabit, then get him back home to his ship.

By today’s standard’s the book is simplistic YA and not even true science fiction due to the fantasy elements; but it riveted me then. Simply put, Moon of Three Rings opened my eyes and imagination to possibilities. Children do tend to develop their imaginations by extrapolating upon what they’ve been exposed to; and until I read Moon of Three Rings, I hadn’t read anything that exposed me to the concept of outer space, magic or off-Earth settings besides the occasional Disney movie or cartoon. My world expanded: Nothing was impossible, and anything was possible because of this genre.

Yes, ladies and gents, from that moment I was enthralled with fantasy and science fiction, and snapped up every Andre Norton book I could find at the local library as well as Herbert, Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov, Bullfinch, Homer, Ovid, and many another pulp or classical author. If it had elements of fantasy, it was something I’d read.

The big question, though, is why. Why did this book—this genre—grab me so? What made and still makes it attractive? What need does speculative fiction fill? Well, I wasn’t a particularly happy child. I had a loving parent, got good grades and did what was expected of me, but I had some problems. My parents were divorced, we moved a lot, and I had difficulty making friends because I was insecure, painfully shy and was one of those hypersensitive kids that are terrified of new situations. Not a great combination, and no surprise that I preferred living in books.

I’m sure I wasn’t alone in this. No child grows up without feeling some pangs. But to the painfully shy and introverted grade-schooler me, reading speculative fiction became my salvation, my brand of escapism to a place where I fit in. Speculative fiction allowed me to see myself as someone more capable, more bold and brave, more exciting—simply more of whatever I happened to want or need at the moment. I could try on adventure roles like other pre-teens try on clothing. I already lived in my imagination, but now, instead of the really bad horse stories I’d create and write badly, I started plotting out stories of me as a powerful female spy in a future galactic federation, or as a spaceship captain, or as a mage. I pretended I lived on worlds with any number of strange and alien beings, where miraculous technologies functioned or where magic ruled.

Science fiction and fantasy empower the imagination. The magic of What If and the potential in the asking of open-ended questions is what makes speculative fiction great. It’s utterly malleable, subject only to the skill of the writer and her imagination to make it live and breathe.

Reading Moon of Three Rings brought me that joy of discovery, and it was because of this single book that I eventually began to write seriously. The rest might not be history, but writing really has formed the larger frame of my life. I’ve been writing ever since. (And yes, my first serious story really was a Mary Sue with me as a galactic spy with super powers. I still plan to write that some day.)

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Today, we welcome Merry Monteleone as our Celebrate Reading Month Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Merry Monteleone recently completed her first middle grade novel. She lives in the Chicagoland area where she is raising three children, four if you count the husband type person, and one lovely dog.

A Roundabout Review of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for Moonie

Where to begin? First, I was so reticent to post a review of the book that’s most impacted me that I did my own little version, instead paying homage to my favorite author, to avoid an actual decision. But, as Moonie asked, and I’ve gotten more than a little from being part of her ratty pack, I found that I had to play.

The thing is, I can’t tell you that this is my favorite book or even the one that’s had the most impact. I think the answer to those questions lies in your state of mind at the time. It would be like picking a favorite taste or smell, or child if you’ve got ‘em... great literature, passable literature, hell, even swill occasionally has its moments – it speaks to you at the right time, in the right terms, with the most profound message... or maybe it just makes you laugh. Yes, I’m still trying to get out of it.

I originally thought, “It’s got to be Shakespeare” – Shakespeare’s particularly special to me, because it was so impressive, only the intellectual elite should be able to master it... the first time we read Shakespeare it was Romeo and Juliet in my Eighth grade year, and I got it... I liked it... how the hell did that happen? It’s the first time I realized how easy words came to me, how much I savored the varied meanings and history behind phrases – it’s also the first I realized that I was a word geek... so are you, own the weirdness... wear it like a badge.

But it couldn’t be Shakespeare because it’s not the same as fiction. It’s meant to be savored on stage, in company, with others. It’s best dissected en masse, rehashed and revisited in classroom settings, and watched on screen or in person. But it’s not as enjoyable as a solitary pursuit – at least not for me...

Then another book came to mind. One I read about fifteen or sixteen years ago, called Salt Creek. I don’t even remember the author’s name now and I couldn’t find it by googling, and I tried. It was just a little paperback I picked up somewhere and read on my breaks when I was waiting tables, and I don’t think I even liked it that much... the fact that I don’t particularly remember should say it’s not the one with the most impact... but then, it had some of the best, most quotable lines, it just tickled me... there was a scene where the character was in his father’s office. His father was a professor, and the character was waiting there alone, getting ready to tell his dad that his girlfriend was pregnant and they were getting married. Profound scene, but the only thing I remember about it is the character (whose name even escapes me) opened his father’s desk drawer and saw a moon pie sitting there and said, “The professor is wise. The professor eats moon pies. Moon pies make you wise.”

I don’t know what it is about the twisted logic that extreme young angsty stress will give you, but I quoted that line forever – no one knew what the hell I was talking about, but I swear if there was a café press back then, I’d have had a tee shirt that said, “Moon pies make you wise”. Fifteen years later, I remember the line – Impact.

Okay, on to the pick. My mood today says, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. You’re going to love this: I first heard the title watching Bugs Bunny – don’t ever say cartoons don’t teach you anything. In my sophomore year of high school, I ran across an old battered copy in the school library and checked it out. I can remember looking at the title on the spine and thinking, “Oh, yeah, Bugs Bunny...” – Own your weirdness, I say!

Anyway, I stood there in the isle of our tiny, cramped little library and opened up to the first page. This is what I read:

Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn’t fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer.

Eureka! Holy hell, there’s another word geek and she wrote a book just for me! I took it home and devoured it. Francie Nolan and her little spot on the fire escape, with her nose in a book or dragging rags and rubage down to the junkie. Her whole family just entranced me and the wide sweeping drama of her life unfolded for me, foreign yet familiar, poignant and full of sorrow... with hope.

I took this book out of our library no less than three times that year before deciding I needed my own copy. One I could dog ear (yes, I’m terrible that way with my own books). One I could underline my favorite lines in or highlight or write notes in the margin... So I ordered a hardcover copy all my own from Waldenbooks and I paid for it with my lunch money, which usually went for such essentials as cigarettes and the big cookies in the lunchroom.

I’ve read it, probably three or four times since buying it, though not in a long time now. It was sitting up on my good bookshelf, with my leather bounds and classics. Surprisingly enough, when I took it down to gather the quote for you all I realized something odd about my copy. I never did highlight a passage or bend a page – I think I had too much reverence for the whole to pick just one line....

It’s a good book, a fantastic story, and one I would recommend anytime to anyone. But I still can’t pick one that’s most impacted or is my very favorite... the idea almost seems like blasphemy to all the others, or maybe it’s just too final. Like making a decision as to my most favorite means closing the door and allowing that I’ll never hope to read a new work as profoundly moving to my senses.

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Today we welcome Jessica Faust as our Celebrate Reading Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: After more than five years as an editor with both Berkley and Macmillan Jessica decided she wanted to be the one making all the decisions and started BookEnds, a literary agency focusing primarily on adult fiction and nonfiction. In addition to representing a number of fabulous authors, Jessica also maintains the BookEnds blog where she does her best to unravel the mysteries of publishing.

When I was asked to write about one book, one book that has meant something to me, it took me a few hours to actually reply as to whether or not I would do it. Could I actually come up with one book that has impacted my life enough to talk about it in a blog post?

Well I agreed to the blog before having the book. And I thought really hard about it. I thought of all the books I’ve read in my life, those I read as a child and those I’ve read as a publishing professional and there are so many that stick out in my mind as being wonderfully amazing books. In the end though, I think it’s the books I read as a child that have had the most impact. It was those books that really shaped my love of reading and allowed me to fall in love with the written word. What’s interesting is that while I read primarily commercial books now, the books I read and loved most as a child were classics—Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables and The Little Princess (I think Cindy Pon already did a terrific job of talking about this book).

And then it came to me. And it should have been so easy. It was the book that has been sitting beside my bed for the last thirty years. It has traveled with me from my childhood bedroom to the college dorm, numerous Brooklyn apartments and now my home in New Jersey and with each move this book has remained in the coveted spot beside my bed. Even though I haven’t opened it in years, it sits there, waiting to soothe me and warm my heart when I need it.

It’s an obscure book so for many of you I’m sure this will be the first introduction to Tatterhood and Other Tales by Elizabeth Johnston Phelps. The book was given to me by a close family friend and includes her personalized inscription in the cover. When she gave it to me I knew she was hoping to inspire me with it’s feminist teachings, but I doubt she had any idea what an impact it would have.

Tatterhood is a collection of folk tales from around the world all featuring heroines (to quote Amazon), “of extraordinary courage, wit and achievement.” What I so obviously loved about this book was that it featured women. I loved my female role models. They were Jo from Little Women, Sara Crewe from The Little Princess, Betsy from the Besty, Tacy, Tib books, and of course Laura Ingalls. Ironically all of these women were writers. More importantly to me though was the fact that all of these fictional woman were strong willed, had a voice in the world and none were blonde (said partially tongue in cheek). Tatterhood was a collection of these stories. Tatterhood took all of the beloved fairy tales we grew up on and turned them on their ears. The women were always the heroes, saving the men with their strength, their wisdom and never their beauty. They had so much more to rely on and showed me, and still show me today, how wonderful it is to be a woman.

What I also love about this book is that it opened the world for me. One of my favorites was a Japanese story. I got to see not only women as heroes, but also different cultures and traditions.

I can’t say enough about Tatterhood and what a great and fun read it is. For anyone with a daughter, niece, or granddaughter I highly recommend it and for anyone who loves fairy tales. Pick up this amazing story collection.

Thanks Moonrat for this great opportunity!

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Today, we welcome Jill Myles as Celebrate Reading Month Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Jill Myles was a mythology nerd as a child and never quite grew out of it. As a result, she writes funny paranormal fiction for Pocket Books and has two books coming out in 2009. Sex Starved is the tale of a nerd-turned-succubus, and is not quite as lurid as it sounds (sorry!). As for Jill herself, she spends her days writing content for a payroll software, avoiding small talk, and writing like a mad writing thing. She lives in Texas with two cats that steal the blankets, and a husband that does the same.

When Moonrat asked me to participate in this, I had no idea what book I'd write about.

There's the books from my childhood that I adored: D'Aulaires' Norse Myths with the gods and monsters that Bulfinch's never quite covered and the lurid, amazing pictures that stuck in my mind for decades. Or maybe Where the Red Fern Grows. I don't remember why I adored this book so much as a child, only that it made me bawl like a baby after even the 50th reading. Or Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey, the first SF Grrl book. Or Clan of the Cave Bear, the series that started me on my love for all things romance.

But the book that inspired me to write was an entirely different sort of book than what I normally read, and I thought I'd talk about it here. This was a book that took some of the classic rules of a story and ignored them. This was a book that took beautiful, literary language and melded it with a classic love story and made the entire thing readable. When I finished reading it, I felt numb. It had absolutely blown my mind and I wanted to write something just like it. This is the book, that if I only had to take one with me on a desert island and read for the next twenty years, I would take this one.

The book is Into the Wilderness, by Sara Donati.

At first glance, I admit, it sounds a bit cheesy. Donati breaks a few of the rules of 'taste' in fiction by borrowing some of her characters from Last of the Mohicans. The movie, not the book. I know. I thought the same thing. Not only that, but there's a chapter that's an entire tongue-in-cheek homage to Diana Gabaldon and her series. Beyond that, the book is a massive doorstopper at 876 pages of very small type. It's enough to make a reader run away.

But I bought a copy anyhow, in a fit of boredom. And devoured the entire book.

I thought the characters in this were masterfully done. From the very first line of the novel, I knew what I was in for:

Elizabeth Middleton, twenty-nine years old and unmarried, overly educated and excessively rational, knowing right from wrong and fancy from fact, woke in a nest of marten and fox pelts to the sight of an eagle circling overhead, and saw at once that it could not be far to Paradise.

The story is that of Elizabeth Middleton. She's come from a rather staid upbringing in England to the wild of the New York territory in 1792. She arrives in the town of Paradise, where her father is a judge, with the intention to set up school. However, her father has decided that she should marry the local doctor and big-time land owner. Elizabeth wants nothing to do with him, and instead finds herself fascinated by the Mahicans that live on the mountain and Nathaniel Bonner, the son of Hawkeye (from the literary classic). While some of the characters are borrowed from that other story, Donati doesn't beat you over the head with it and you soon forget that she 'borrowed' because the characters are so alive on the page.

The main character, Elizabeth, has a wonderful voice. She's serene without being boring, competent without being obnoxious, and knows her own mind despite everyone's attempts to tell her otherwise. She's a spinster and she's not ashamed of it, she misquotes the Bible to suit her own purposes, and she railroads her father into getting her own way. It's through Elizabeth's eyes that we experience the adventure, and Donati's choice in narrator is perfect, as the pragmatic (and sometimes amusing) outsider learns about the town from watching the actions of others.

The setting, to me, was as much of a character as any of the main protagonists. Paradise, the town that the story is set in, is meticulously detailed down to each cabin and its occupants. It sits on the edge of the great wilderness itself, and from the wildlife to the snow on the mountains, I sincerely felt as I read that I had been transported to frontier America.

I wanted to point out the language in the book, the lyrical way that Donati chooses her phrases. That was one of the big things that drew me to this story and sucked me in so hard. Yet when I flip through it, I find sentences that are beautifully written, but wouldn't do the story justice out of context. So I can't quote more here, but I'd encourage everyone to read a chapter or two and see for themselves.

I could get into a big long spiel as to why I loved this book, but when I closed it for the first time, I truly felt dumbstruck. Writers are constantly told to write a short novel. We are told not to mess around in other people's universes or we'll piss off the readers. Yet Donati does both, and she did both so well that it made me want to weep with envy. It was when I read this book that I thought that maybe following all the rules was not necessarily the right way to do things.

And it made me realize that one didn't have to follow them rigidly in order to write a compelling novel.

So I don't have a massive, mind-blowing moment of realization to share with the group or a book epiphany. Just a novel that rocked me to the core when I was reading it, and when I closed it, I wanted more. Better yet, I wanted to write something just like it. I didn't, mind you, but when people ask me what inspired me to write, I point at my copy of this novel (which is now held together with duct-tape from multiple reads). It's not the perfect novel for everyone, of course.

But it's pretty darn perfect to me.

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Today, we welcome Gemellen as our Celebrate Reading Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Gemellen is a struggling (with her self-esteem) writer type who lives in Chicago & works in arts administration. She enjoys long walks on the beach, but only in winter.

I loathe the “what’s your favorite book?” question. Even with (& probably because of) the ‘ole dusty MFA, I feel like such a dumb reader. I don’t believe I can speak intelligently about literature. Much like, even though I’ve been playing the piano since I was four, I could never, ever teach anyone how to do it.

I’ve got friends who catalog favorite books in various ways – special bookshelves, excel spreadsheets, journals written in only the finest inks. And then there’s me, perpetually trying to figure out my “process.” Which is to say: I always want to read with a highlighter & journal beside me, so as to capture that which steals my breath. But then I start reading several books at once – different topics & genres. And so, do I combine my thoughts into the one journal or do I make two? Or ten? And if I write in this particularly gorgeous leather bound book I found at Barnes & Noble, will I utterly destroy it with my fine point Sharpie? Grr. Give up. Focus on shiny objects. Distractions, you know, life. Oh, how I want to read deeper & wider.

Hobbies: pacing & lamenting.

So I’m searching around the apartment for some literary thing that changed my life. But here’s the deal: things change my life all the time. Oh my god, that psychological biography of Vincent van Gogh (Stranger on the Earth) totally changed my life. And back when I was sleeping on a friend’s futon during Boston’s blizzard of 1994, Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast utterly altered my dreams. Once I read the entirety of Jane Eyre out loud & in a British accent (I’m from Arkansas, by the way). And several years after college, when it was my turn to choose in book club, it was Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham. (People dropped out of the club after this.)

Seems to me that where you are in life dictates how a book makes you feel, & even more so, helps you live. But what’s that one book? So as I was perusing the shelves in our third floor Chicago apartment, all dusty & crammed & a little out of order, I kept going back to something I’m a little embarrassed by: The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, edited by J.D. McClatchy, c. 1990.

Oh how I wanted to pick Auden’s Letters from Iceland. James Baldwin’s Another Country. Kevin Brockmeier’s Things That Fall From The Sky. I would seem cool! Right? Wholly hip & well-read. But then I wanted to focus on a certain book that truly, madly, deeply changed my life. And, Dear Reader, it’s this yellow contemporary anthology of poetry. Forget that in grad school we were told to read much deeper than anthologies – full manuscripts by poets were the true overture to their work. Anthologies are just the Hondas of literature, right? But Hondas hug the road well. They’re reliable. Get good gas mileage.

The story goes that I was wandering around an Arkansas mall, biding my time before a movie started, when I stepped into a Brentano’s Bookstore. It was 1991 & I had taken a leave of absence from college – all confused about life & its direction. I was bored with the magazine section, & didn’t have the patience for fiction on that day. So poetry, maybe. Back then, chain bookstores were known for having really limited poetry sections with only the most known names: Robert Frost or T.S. Eliot or Maya Angelou. (Unfortunately, this is still kind of true – I mean ten copies of Billy Collins’ and/or Mary Oliver’s latest works? Wait. Sorry. Soapbox.) Anyway, there was this anthology that caught my eye so I flipped through & stopped. I flipped again & stopped. I stopped & started. Which is to say: to give a sudden, involuntary jerk, jump, or twitch, as from a shock of surprise.

Who was this Theodore Roethke?

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
(“The Waking”)

This Elizabeth Bishop?

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
(“One Art”)

This Sylvia Plath?


Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
(“Lady Lazarus”)

And there began my trajectory away from music school & toward creative writing school. This is the book that went with me everywhere. The book that made me cry on the afternoon it was lost (& later found). The book from which I quoted in long letters to friends (pre-internet, you know). “Dear So-&-So who has no interest in poetry, can you even believe this Mark Strand?”

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
(“Eating Poetry”)

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Today, we welcome Editorial Anonymous as our Celebrate Reading Month Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Editorial Anonymous is a children's book editor who blogs about the publishing industry and takes questions from readers. Turn-ons include long walks in bookstores, quiet evenings at home with good lighting, and really childish senses of humor.

It’s easy to see this set of three stories as being as much for adults as for children, and I know many adults who love it dearly. If you’re unfamiliar with these stories, each starts with a ‘bad day’ part (a child trapped in interminable math lessons; flattened by cousins; held down for a doctor’s shot, etc etc) which is then followed by a ‘Bunny Planet’ part, where we see “the day that should have been” (time with mom in the garden and the kitchen, cooking tomato soup; time with dad in a cozy lighthouse while the storm is safe outside; time with oneself in a protected glade).

The ‘Bunny Planet’ parts are a chance for adults and children alike to reflect on the small things that build happiness. They are the comfort and the charm of these books.

But I’d like to talk about how meaningful the ‘bad day’ parts are.

Children don’t get to choose how they spend most of their days; the trips they take; the food they eat; the people they live with. The things that go wrong in these stories are, I think, apt to be trivialized by many adults, because many adults have forgotten what it’s like to have very few choices.

Do you remember how much better every single one of your days became when you got to decide what to do with them? Most adults don’t. Most adults think the jobs they go to are roughly equivalent to school, because it is something they have to do, and they have to deal with bullies and jerks, too—and hey! they have to work eight hours, whereas their kids only have to be in school for 6 or 7, and there’s recess! and, like, no commute!

There are a bunch of reasons why an adult’s workday is not equivalent, and quite a bit better than a kids’ school day, though, and good writers for children will remember these things.

1. I don’t care how many bullies and jerks you have to deal with—you know how. You know how to respond to them, or how to ignore them. Kids don’t. The rough side of social experience can and does make children wretched, sometimes on a daily basis.

2. I don’t care how traffic- or flasher-filled your commute is, if you don’t think a school bus is worse, try imagining getting on the same uncomfortable subway car every day, but it’s not full of strangers. It’s full of people who know you and generally have mixed feelings about you. Some of them are hostile towards you, and the rest have limited social skills—including your friends, and you.

3. I don’t care that you have to have a job, and can’t get out of that. There is an enormous hit to your morale that you are not taking because it’s still up to you whether you have to go to this job or not. Kids get no say at all in which school they go to, whether they get to (or have to) change schools, whether they take a sick day or vacation if they’re feeling burnt out.

Powerlessness is hard, and demoralizing. Kids know this. Most of them manage to be pretty darn cheerful anyway, because powerlessness is all they’ve ever known. But don’t be dismissive of it. It is exactly this aspect of children’s lives that makes small problems feel like calamities, and that attracts children to stories that feature orphans and magical powers and heck, even choose-your-own-adventure.

Everyone faces forces in life that they cannot control. But many adults forget just how many choices they get to make every day. If you’re writing for children, you don’t get to forget this: most kids’ favorite thing to imagine is steering their own lives.

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Today, we welcome Stuart Neville as our Celebrate Reading Month Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Stuart Neville has been a musician, a composer, a teacher, a salesman, a film extra, a baker and a hand double for a well known Irish comedian, but is currently a partner in a successful multimedia design business in the wilds of Northern Ireland. THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST is his first novel.

America was never innocent. Thus begins James Ellroy's foreword to AMERICAN TABLOID, and just shy of six hundred pages later, he'll have you convinced.

AMERICAN TABLOID, the first book of the American Underworld Trilogy, is the story of three men who orbit John F. Kennedy's rise to power, his thousand days of presidency, and his ultimate assassination. These bad, bad men are satellites to a world of collusion, conspiracy and corruption. Kemper Boyd, G-man and scion of a once-wealthy dynasty, is driven by vanity and avarice, hoping to shine in Jack and Bobby Kennedy's reflected glory. Ward Littell, Boyd's fellow FBI agent, is a weak man willing to sell his soul to prove otherwise. Pete Bondurant is a man-mountain, a vicious thug in the employ of Howard Hughes and Jimmy Hoffa, looking for the big money, and happy to spill blood to get it.

All three are drawn like driftwood in a whirlpool to the epicentre of JFK's presidential campaign. They rally support from the CIA, the Mob, and Cuban exiles by aligning them all against a common enemy: Fidel Castro, the communist leader who seized power just miles from Miami; the treacherous heel who shafted the Outfit by nationalising their Havana casinos; the ruthless dictator who tortured and executed his Cuban countrymen. They're all convinced Bad-Back Jack is the man to take The Beard down. And when he doesn't deliver, all roads lead to Dallas.

In AMERICAN TABLOID, James Ellroy shifts his diamond-sharp gaze away from post-World War II Los Angeles, and broadens his canvas to cover the entire United States and beyond. It's the hard-as-nails bravura of THE BLACK DAHLIA, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL and WHITE JAZZ exploded to sully five years of American history. With an almost tangible glee, Ellroy drags the Kennedy clan through the mud, especially its patriarch, Joseph P. Along the way we meet a mind-boggling cast of historical figures: J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Jimmy Hoffa, Jack Ruby, Santo Trafficante, Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello and more. Even Ava Gardner, Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe make appearances. The sheer scale of this story is awe-inspiring, and it's a Herculean feat of plotting and character development.

Like spy novelist John le Carré, keeping up with Ellroy's twists and turns is akin to listening to bebop jazz; if you try to follow every melody, chord and beat, you'll find yourself dizzy and disoriented. Instead, you must step back and take in the greater arcs, like finding the three-dimensional image in a Magic Eye picture by looking through it. But complexity is not the greatest challenge in reading James Ellroy; the biggest obstacle is your willingness to follow the author's dark paths.

I first read AMERICAN TABLOID about six or seven years ago while I was in the process of deciding Ellroy was my favourite author. This is the book that sealed the deal. More than that, it's the book that made me realise the depths a skilled writer can plumb while holding on to our empathy for his less-than-noble characters. Note the choice of word, there: empathy, not sympathy. Ellroy can bring you to the darkest reaches of the soul, force you to stare unblinking at the cruel perversions human beings are capable of, and send you away with those images seared on your mind - and he has the skill and courage to make you glad of the journey. That's the key thing I took away from AMERICAN TABLOID: an author's courage can take you places you never wanted to be, with people you never wanted to meet, and in the process teach you something about the nature of mankind.

Here's just one example of that courage in action: In a world whose morals are repugnant to us, most authors will have the protagonist stand apart from the mire. If racism, homophobia and misogyny were the order of the day, the protagonist will somehow be more enlightened than his fellow man. Not with Ellroy. For the most part, his three protagonists are every bit as bigoted and hate-filled as those around them. The self-proclaimed Demon Dog of Crime Fiction has no use for political correctness. His characters' world-views are as tainted as the money the fictionalised Kennedy dynasty was built on. In a novel where our heroes commit murder, peddle heroin, and plot the assassination of the leader of the free world, why should we expect them to be above such base prejudices? When you open an Ellroy novel, you make a pact with the devil to see how low a character can sink. If you haven't the stomach to go all the way, you'd better just close the book and put it back on the shelf.

It was this utter fearlessness that most impacted me and my writing. The greatest thing I've gained from Ellroy is the will to take my characters farther and deeper into the dark places than I, or the reader, might be comfortable with. When I'm tempted to tone a scene down, throw some artificial sympathetic trait on a character, or generally chicken out, it's AMERICAN TABLOID I remember.

In Ellroy's America, everyone has blood under their nails, from the lowest of street thugs, to the highest office in the land. That bleak and cynical outlook is carried through AMERICAN TABLOID's sequel, THE COLD SIX THOUSAND, and one can only imagine where he'll take us when BLOOD'S A ROVER, the trilogy's conclusion, emerges hot and bloody from its seven-year gestation. Since AMERICAN TABLOID's publication in 1995, we have seen world-changing events leading to the deposing of foreign dictators, the USA's good name muddied in the process, and the machinations of the super-rich in guiding foreign policy. Even as a new wunderkind seems set to charm his way into the White House like Kennedy almost half a century before him, one can't help but picture the cogs and wheels turning beneath the surface, and the faceless, nameless players moving through the shadows. James Ellroy's corrupt vision seems more prescient with every passing day.

In a strange and, for me, wonderful twist of fate, I now share James Ellroy's literary agent. Nat Sobel has been Ellroy's primary editor for more than twenty-five years. Nat very kindly agreed to answer a few questions about AMERICAN TABLOID.

Q - I was tempted to call AMERICAN TABLOID Ellroy's masterpiece, but browsing various articles and reviews it seems almost every one of his books is a masterpiece to someone. How do you see AMERICAN TABLOID's place in Ellroy's body of work?

A - I thought that AMERICAN TABLOID was the continuation of Ellroy’s style that had originated with LA CONFIDENTIAL, except that he was moving to a much broader picture of America, and away from LA cops and crime. James envisioned this as a trilogy, from the start, and knew that he wanted to portray the underside of this country in the 60’s and 70's. Unlike his previous quartet, the real villain will die at the end of the third volume. These books and the contemplated trilogy to come are Ellroy’s real masterpieces.

Q - AMERICAN TABLOID is a fairly lengthy book, but it's even bigger in terms of scope and ambition. From an editorial point of view, what were the particular challenges of tackling a novel of this scale?

A - James had always thought out each book long in advance (he told me the plot, scene-by-scene of the novel he is completing, three years ago) and starts each book with a detailed outline. The outline for TABLOID was 300 pages long. The current novel-in-progress has an outline over 400 pages long. Once we have edited the outline, the work proceeds pretty quickly.

Q - This book is famous for taking Ellroy's use of real historical figures to a new extreme, and few come out of it unscathed. Were there any legal ramifications?

A - The book and all subsequent novels are vetted by Random House’s attorneys. The real people mentioned, in many cases, are no longer among the living.

Many thanks to Nat for taking the time share this insight into one of my favourite novels, and to Moonrat for allowing me to share my love of this book.

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Today, we welcome Ello as our Celebrate Reading Month Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Ello was a practicing corporate and entertainment law attorney for over 15 years until she finally left it all behind to write and teach at a local university. Teaching is going all right but she's still working on the writing part!

When I was young, I wanted to be the Count of Monte Cristo. That was my dream. Not the being falsely accused, imprisoned in a terrible dungeon, digging a tunnel with a spoon and being throw into the ocean with a big weight tied to your feet. Noooo thank you. I'd like to skip that part and go straight to the fabulously filthy rich part where I come back as invented nobility buying large mansions and spending money like a monkey in a poo flinging contest. Oh yes, and the revenge part is pretty nice too. Manipulating society, finance and the law so masterfully to discredit, ruin and kill your enemies. Man I love this book. Oh yeah, there is redemption in there too. The Count actually learns to forgive………. but only after all his enemies have been destroyed. And the sheer brilliance of the book lies in how the revenge is carried out. The Count doesn't go and just kill his enemies, he finds out their flaws and weaknesses and causes their downfall.

How can you not love a book like this? Some people mistakenly believe that this is a children's adventure book. But this is no simple child's story. It is an adult tale filled with adult themes. The reason that this is one of the highest selling books of all time is because it is filled with adventure, passion, violence, love and justice as well as intrigue, betrayal, theft, adultery, presumed infanticide, torture, suicide, poisoning, and murder. It has a huge cast of characters and yet you have no problem following everyone because of how well the plot interweaves with all the characters. There is only one other book that I love as much as The Count of Monte Cristo and that is To Kill a Mockingbird. But Moonie threatened me with bodily harm if I spoke of more than one love so I shall stick with the Count.

So when did I come in contact with the Count and what has he meant to me? Here's where I get long winded so bear with me. When I was younger, my parents owned a series of restaurants and stores and I worked in every single one of them from the age of 10. Waiting tables, washing pots and pans, even cooking. If there was a job that needed being done, I was doing it. Not that my parents didn't have a staff. They did. But I was always part of the staff. It was hard work, and for a kid that had to go to school and come back home and fit in homework and studying during the slow periods before the dinner rush, life was hard. With me always working, there was not a lot of time to run around and play with my friends. An hour here and there was about all I ever saw of friends during the school week. So I lived for the days I'd walk over to the library and fill a shopping cart full of books that I knew I could read at night when the restaurant or store finally closed. Reading was my escape. I lived for books that would take me away from my daily life. I needed a way to forget how tired I was everyday. Books with adventure that swept me away helped me live through these hard times.

I also looked forward to the days when the babysitter couldn't come and take care of my little sister who is 8 years younger than me. Those were the rare afternoons I could stay at home, playing with her and watching TV. When I had to work at the restaurant, we'd come home too late for me to watch TV. But the afternoons were filled with great shows and the 4:30 afternoon movie on ABC. One particular afternoon, I saw an old movie of The Man in the Iron Mask. It was so good that the very next time I went to the library, I went looking for it. Instead, I found the Count. Reading it, I remember feeling a roller coaster ride of emotions. Happiness for the young Dantes, anger and shock at his betrayal, sad and depressed for his suffering, spiteful glee as his revenge took fruit and sympathy at his remorse. I raced through the book, desperately eager to find out what happened and when I finished I felt a terrible sadness to know that I could never again read this book with virgin eyes.

This is the book that made me want to be a writer. It is quite possibly the most amazing tale ever written by a masterful storyteller. As I work on an action sequence or I delve into the ramifications of a character's actions, my mind flits back to the Count and hope only that I can write a book half as wonderful as this one. And so I end my homage to the Count and Dumas and hope that if anyone out there has not yet read the Count, I have convinced you to give it a try.

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Today, we welcome Cindy Pon as Celebrate Reading Month Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: after over four years of staying at home with her sweet pea and munchkin, cindy pon finds herself suddenly employed again as an author and artist. her debut novel, spirit bound, will be published in 2009 by greenwillow / harpercollins. major themes in the young adult fantasy include a girl's expected place in society, filial piety, food and unrequited love. cindy's favorite color is red and her only childhood pet was a salt and pepper miniature schnauzer named cupcake. she got cupcake on her 10th birthday after seeing a love boat episode featuring a lot of dogs (those wacky love boat shows!) and harassing her father for one. cindy still dreams of cupcake to this day.

first off, thank you to miss moonrat, for inviting me to guest blog about an influential book in my life. it's a difficult question, but after a few moments of thought, i knew it would be between two books: island of the blue dolphins by scott o'dell or a little princess by frances hodgson burnett.

i chose the latter because i think it is less well known--especially since most who read frances hodgson burnett probably read the secret garden.

i have this theory that books that we read as a child often resonate well into adulthood. perhaps because we read with an open and uncluttered mind. or because every experience is so new, and so are the stories that take us to places of wonder. i'm not one to reread books. but my childhood favorites have been read and reread, well into my thirties. i've scanned in the cover of my beloved copy of a little
princess, with its creased binding and yellowed pages smelling of must. it's a 10th printing from 1981 priced at $1.75. on the first page is a definition written for me in my older sister's neat handwriting: london--capital of england--the biggest city.

as an esl student (english as a second language), i remember using the book to improve my vocabulary. going through the pages (upon a second or fifth read) with my sister's giant dictionary as companion. any unknown words were not a deterrant in savoring this wonderful tale, however. and i look forward to reading the story again to sweet pea and munchkin.

sara crewe is a polite and precocious child. we first meet her driving through the damp streets of london with her father, captain crewe, a man of means. her mother had died, we learn, when sara was born. she is brought to a posh boarding school headed by miss minchin, a mean, hard-hearted woman whose kindness directly correlates with the wealth of her clients. she fawns over sara, promising captain crewe she will
have the best of care at her school.

when sara is introduced to her classmates, we see those who are jealous of her status. sara proves to be a kind-hearted and thoughtful girl, befriending the unpopular students at the school as well as the cleaning girl.

everything changes when her father dies in india, leaving sara destitute, having invested all his money into the diamond mines. miss minchin shows her true self and without a word of kindness, moves sarah from her luxurious suite to a barren attic upstairs, keeping her as a servant.

burnett does such a wonderful job in creating a courageous, compassionate young heroine. we cheer her on through the dark times after her father's death, even as she struggles but never gives in to meanness--she is "a little princess" despite her poverty. when an ailing gentleman moves in next door to the school, her life is changed forever once more.

i know it's hard to convince adults to read a middle grade book--but if you have young children, i recommend it highly. burnett has skillfully woven a delightful and moving tale that will always be a classic. i have no doubt that a little princess is one of the reasons i am a writer today.

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Today, we welcome Stephanie Blake as our Celebrate Reading Month Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Stephanie Blake writes middle grade novels for children, but she once worked as a cub reporter, a bridal gown model, a radio DJ, a data entry clerk, a fry cook, an office manager and a technical writer (but, not all at the same time). She has a BA in English and is a member of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Stephanie likes sour gummy worms, dark chocolate and Starbucks lattes. When she’s not in front of her computer, which is nearly always, she can be found in the backyard with her husband and three boys in Parker, Colorado. If she wasn’t a writer, she’d be a country singer.

I grew up with Judy Blume. I mean, I grew up with her books. See, my parents never talked to me about the important stuff a growing girl should know. Embarrassing stuff like periods, B.O., leg-shaving, what boys think about, what to do about bullies, how best friendships can work, etc.

Fast forward through an awkward adolescence and the terrifying twenties! Yikes! I’m almost finished with the thrilling thirties and three boys call me “Mom!” I didn’t realize it when they were little, but boys need to know the same stuff as girls—and then some. Things like the relationship between B.O. and soap, embarrassing bodily functions, what happens when your body is out of control, painful crushes, understanding anger, how to be a good friend, etc.

And lots of those things are hard to talk about with a boy. Believe me. My teen rolls his eyes a lot lately. I don’t always want to have “the talk” with my sons. There are some things they shouldn’t hear about from their mother. Gross!

So, a couple years ago, when my son was about fourteen, I searched for realistic novels for him to read. Books that explored topics like the ones Judy Blume wrote about. I came to the conclusion that there was not enough realistic fiction for middle grade boys.

Then, I read a book that changed my mind.

The book was FIREGIRL by Tony Abbott. It’s got feelings, crushes, friendship, cool cars, comic books, superpowers, and all the stuff boys like to read about. But there is a bonus: it’s also honest and compelling. It also explores the feelings of kids who are forced to deal with something foreign: A girl whose life has changed forever because she was disfigured in an accident. You’ll need a tissue when you read it.

Here’s the synopsis for FIREGIRL.

When Jessica Feeney arrives, everyone is fascinated with her appearance. The scars are angry. Everyone is scared of her. Certainly no one wants to touch her. See Jessica is a burn victim and a temporary student in his Catholic school. Tom and his classmates don’t know what to do with her. Against all odds, Tom bonds with Jessica and it leaves an impact on his life that he never forgets.

FIREGIRL is more than a book about a friendship between unlikely people. It explores the real stuff that boys deal with when they are on the verge of puberty. Reading it makes you want to be a kinder person in general. And every boy should read it.

FIREGIRL won a 2007 Golden Kite Award, and I had the privilege of meeting and talking with Mr. Abbott at that SCBWI conference. His chapter book series, The Secrets of Droon, was already a well-known commodity at our house. I told Mr. Abbott that FIREGIRL was the book that helped me discover my talent with middle grade subjects, and he encouraged me to follow my dream of becoming a published author. So I am. And my fondest dream is that he blurbs my first book someday!

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Dad, if you're reading this--

I almost chose RIFLES FOR WATIE myself. I even bought a copy to reread before I blogged about it. I was going to write about how my dad read it to me when I was a kid and how vividly I still remember it (for example, exactly how much cornbread your Confederate salary will buy you!). I was going to blog about how everything both my parents read to me as a kid (and it was a LOT and not always age appropriate, as you'll have to admit--the first time you read me THE HOBBIT I was 4, and kept falling asleep during the scene when they float down the river inside the barrels; I think you had to read that chapter 3 times, at least) was responsible for a life I have made for myself in books and book publishing. I chose not to blog about RIFLES, in the end, because I didn't have time to reread it before my post and thought I would miss important points.

When I asked you to write a guest blog post for me, I would never have guessed you were going to pick this book, and when I read your first draft I got very sappy and cried a little bit. (One of my blog readers was present at the time--she'll vouch.)

Love,

Your oldest rat

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Today, we welcome Dadrat for our Celebrate Reading Month Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Dadrat is a rennaissance man who can smoke a buffalo, steam a rug, fix your electrical miswiring, memorize 10-digit numbers, ferment Kool-Aid to get brain-numbing psuedo Vodka, dance the Troika clockwise AND counterclockwise, change his own car's oil, stew a chicken in chickpeas and curry powder, and reprogram over the phone your home wireless certification and access codes from three states away while ordering a coffee at a Barnes & Noble Starbucks. He cannot, however, speak French, knit a sweater, or survive a week without a flavored latte from Starbucks. At least, not to the best of my knowledge.

A book that influenced my life.

Growing up with two school teachers as parents, I had no choice but to read from a young age. It was really not difficult, since we had so many books around the home and I enjoyed reading. We had all the great books, classics, mysteries, Norwegian Folk Tales, children classics including the Arabian Nights, King Arthur, Hardy Boy, Nancy Drew, & Tom Swift. We even had about 10 Oz books. But mostly we had science fiction, and that is what I read.

My parents were members of the Science Fiction book club starting around 1952. By the early 1960’s we sure had a lot of science fiction books. I think more than our local library. And believe it or not, I had read most of them by the time I was in the 6th grade. Many of them several times. I tend to read books I like multiple times. What does that say about me? We had all the classic authors of the genre; Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C. Clark, L., Ursula K. Le Guin, Andre Norton, Robert Silverberg, E. E. “Doc” Smith, Jack Vance, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Roger Zelazny.

I think that these books gave me the wonder of space, and science. It was a time when medicine, science and engineering could solve all the world’s problems. We were racing to the moon. Nuclear Power was going to provide unlimited power for almost no cost. We were hearing about new discoveries everyday. It was before the Vietnam War, before hippies, and the Beatles had just arrived in America. The country was optimistic. We were going to the moon, and I was going to become a pilot and go to Mars.

However, all this being said, the book that changed everything had nothing to do with any of the above. I had to do a book report for school. My 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Carruth, would not let me report on any book that I had read, or for that matter was interested in reading. My last many book reports were all science fiction books, and it was time to read something else. She had a list of “proper” books that were allowed for my book report. No science fiction, no stories of Oz, not a Tarzan story of Edgar Rice Burroughs. No stories of grand adventure in space. Not even a book by the great Isaac Asimov was acceptable.

So I went over to the book shelf, and looked over her collection of books. She had a very respectable number, but I had already read most of them. The rest looked boring. Well, except for one. It was about the Civil War, but what self respecting 6th grader wanted to read about history. Well I didn’t. She offered to let me select a book from the library, assuming that it was an acceptable book. She still didn’t like that I was reading so much science fiction. I needed to broaden my horizons. What was wrong with science fiction anyway!?

Well, this was getting to be too much work. So I took the novel about the Civil War, thinking that I would read quickly and then I could get on to more important reads.


Well, the book was very interesting, and about a part of our history I knew very little about. It was about a Kansas farm boy named Jeff, who decides to join the army after their family is bushwhacked. He wanted to hold the Union together and clean up the border trouble in Kansas. And so the grand adventure starts.

The book had everything. There was conflict, determination, kindness, hardship, loss, happiness, even love.

Almost the entire story takes place in the Indian country of Oklahoma. Both the Union and Rebel armies could not seem to hold on to anything. So many people had their homes and shops burned, their live stock and grain taken for food, and their belongings plundered, by both sides.

And the soldiers were always hungry and tired. Nobody came out of the war better off than where they had started, unless the war was somewhere else.

First Jeff is in the infantry. Then he moves to the cavalry since they needed to be more mobile. And finally he becomes a scout. Please note that a scout is just another word for spy. And when you are scouting, you are out of uniform, with no identification or information that would let anybody know you belong to a specific side.

But the book had a twist. Part way through the story, Jeff is captured by the Rebels during one of his scouting missions. The armies were shooting captured scouts, so thinking fast, Jeff claimed that he wanted to join the rebels. Sort of like, better Red than Dead, but I guess it is better gray than dead. Well they signed him up.

Now he was on the other side. He lived beside them, ate with them, fought with them, all the time trying to figure out how he could get back to his own troop. Over time, he slowly realized that he liked these men and their easy going attitudes, and he learned that they had grievances as great as his own. Who was right in this war?

Well the story ends with a discovery, meeting Lucy again, and a chase, and … Who is Lucy? Well you have to read the book to find out.

The book is “Rifles for Watie” by Harold Keith. Some of the language is dated, but it is very well written, the story is great, and the history is accurate. The author even interviewed twenty-two Civil War veterans living in Oklahoma and Arkansas for the background material, or so it says on the back cover.

As for me, after reading this book, I had to buy it, and read it again. I almost stopped reading science fiction for a couple of years, and started reading about history. I read about the Civil War, the Indian Wars, and the Revolutionary War. I read about all the great generals, Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander, and Saladin. I read about the great civilizations, the Romans, Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians. And I read about the great explorers, Magellan, Francis Drake, and the Vikings.

I read history, and I read historical fiction.

Well until I discovered the “Lord or the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien, but that is another story.

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Today, we welcome Momrat as our featured Guest Blogger for Celebrate Reading Month.

About the Guest Blogger: Momrat is a long-time elementary school teacher and a competitive tagsaler. She enjoys long walks on the beach and things her docter has told her absolutely not to eat, particularly ruffled potato chips. She lives in the middle of the woods with her very useful engineer husband, two smelly dogs, and a monster that lurks in the basement.

Before I start talking about TRINITY by Leon Uris and why it was important to me, I should warn you that I read it a long time ago--it must be almost thirty years ago now, because I was on the plane to see your father [Dadrat] in California. I don't actually remember what happens in it. You know how I'm terrible with details like that. I remember that I really loved it, though. I read all his books. I remember that they take place in Ireland, and that it was a real page-turner. That said, I feel it's ok to talk about this book as being one of the most important I've read, and here's why.

I never considered myself a reader. In fact, I considered myself an anti-reader, from the time I was a kid. Whenever a teacher assigned me something to read, I deliberately resisted it, did what I could to get away with not reading it, or made sure I hated it. I never thought that English was my best subject, and honestly I thought I hated reading in general.

When I first met your father [Dadrat] he was always carefully trying to trick me into realizing I liked to read for pleasure. He'd always feed me lines like "Oh, try this one, it will appeal to you for such-and-such specific reason," and he made sure everything he showed me was short, accessible, and as un-scary as possible. I would roll my eyes and then give it a try for his sake, but I still never thought of myself as a reader. I had the impression still that the "serious" readers were the ones who took on the giant tomes, who enjoyed lugging around fat books, who were able to keep track of complex stories with huge words and many plot lines. I didn't think I was destined to be one of those people.

Then one day I was, as I mentioned, stuck on a long plane ride out to California. Not being a reader, I hadn't brought anything to read. But I did get bored--it's a long flight--and I happened to look in the pouch in front of me. There was a sample copy of TRINITY that someone had stuck in there. I'm not sure if it was handed out by the flight attendents or if someone before me had left it there, but it was one of the promotional editions that only contained the first couple hundred pages. And I thought, what the heck. I didn't have anything else to do. I would probably hate it--I'd seen the full version of the book and knew it was one of those huge tomes that only the "serious" readers would dare approach--but it wasn't like I had anything to lose but a couple hours of my time, which I was going to lose anyway.

You know what? I read that thing cover to cover. I could not stop turning those pages. And then when I got off the plane, I went to a bookstore and bought the whole thing.

Even though I don't remember the details of the plots of his books, Leon Uris helped me realize something about myself. He helped me realize that I was a good enough reader to make it through just about anything. I know it sounds silly now in retrospect, but I had grown up thinking I wasn't the kind of person who would ever be a reader, you know, I guess you might say an intellectual. Leon Uris made it clear to me that that distinction was in my mind, and that I actually could be--and was--a serious reader.

Now, as you know, I read all the time. I read to you every night before you went to bed for years. I read to myself every night before bed, and I read all kinds of books of all kinds of lengths. One of my recent favorites, JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL by Susannah Clarke, is a real humdinger of a tome. And you made me read SOUND & THE FURY, which you blogged about yesterday, and I enjoyed that too. Reading books I loved with my kids at school is my favorite part of my job. I love seeing the looks on their faces as they get caught up in the story I'm reading to them, and seeing what it looks like when they realize they are readers, too. But reading Uris was my breakthrough. He helped me have confidence in myself as a reader.

(this post was dictated but not read; MR/mr)

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I've posted my pick, and alas, true to form, my post turned out to have a word count issue. Sigh. Guest bloggers should not feel the need to follow in my footsteps.

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I have a slight advantage over most people when it comes to looking back over the course of my life to pick one important book and being sure I haven't forgotten to think about any. This is because I'm a huge dork and, after being inspired by an All Things Considered soundbyte in 1999, have been logging every single thing I read--title, author, date, brief comments--into a blue spiral-bound notebook. To make my decision about which book was most important to me, all I would have had to do was flip through.

But in the end, I chose a book that isn't in my notebook because I finished reading it on March 26th, 1999, less than a month before I started keeping the notebook (yes, I remember the date I finished reading it--that should be an argument for its lasting resonance if anything is).

What have I chosen, already?! you're asking. Well, I've committed a sin. I've chosen a very book that every single snobby tall-nosed self-conscious masturbatory pseudo-intellectual tells older men at cocktail parties--particularly their aging bosses who need to be "impressed"--that they loved. I've chosen a book that no one in their right mind actually enjoys reading, but is so effin' pleased with themselves for getting through that they tell everyone they loved it and that it changed their life. And after awhile they begin to think they actually liked it. I might as well have chosen something by James Joyce.

Alas. I have picked THE SOUND AND THE FURY, by William Faulkner. Tragedy of tragedies. I cringe whenever people tell me at a bar, a party, or a job interview that they "love" Faulkner. Pompous cerebral assholes. I know when they say that that they are EXACTLY LIKE ME!--intellectual poseurs. But I can solidly say after a couple hours of flipping through the Book Book that it honestly takes the prize. Here's why--and hopefully not for the reasons you're expecting.

I didn't ever intend to read the book, originally, but it was foisted upon me by the English teacher who changed my life. For the purposes of this blog, let's call her Mrs. Miller. I was in tenth grade at a large rural public school as socially far away from New York City as you can imagine and I was very, very tightly wound about getting into college. Mrs. Miller was in her late seventies at the time, a recovering book editor who had ended up in her second career trapped in a leaking suburban hell and convincing neurotic tenth-graders that they had something to live for besides the SATs. She was--and is--a living legend.

Rumors and horror stories had been passed along down from graduated tenth grader to tenth grader for as many years as anyone could remember. There were often two tests a week, but there was always at least one, on vocabulary and grammar every Friday. And it was hell. Seriously, you can't imagine these tests. The first day of class was a test, in fact, which everyone always failed. My year, it was on Herman Melville's BILLY BUDD, and when the girl next to me got a 76 Mrs. Miller looked positively thwarted. On parent-teacher open house day, she would arrive, every year without hiccup, with a scarlet A pinned to her dress. This was a little cerebral for some of the parents, but most at that point knew we'd suffered through three grueling tests on THE SCARLET LETTER by early October and basically had the book memorized in hopes that we'd avoid the fourth. During our class when we were discussing Hawthorne's use of pathetic fallacy (that is, the literary device that employs weather and other natural indicators to reflect the timbre of the story) a junior named Diego, who had suffered the whole Miller regime and somehow left in one piece, weaseled into our classroom and wrote on the blackboard behind her:

PATHETIC: your grade
FALLACY: thinking you'll ever understand this stuff

We laughed, in our pain.

Another famous Millerism was the spring "Thesis." Everyone spent the entire spring semester working on one piece of American literature and came up with one original thesis on that book, on which they wrote one 20-age paper. No more than 25% of the parenthetical documentation could be taken from the primary source, and no more than 10% from any single secondary source--and yes, she counted. She also spent three weeks following up all of our citations to make sure we hadn't cut any corners. Part of our grade was determined by the index cards on which we were supposed to take our notes--we each turned in at least the required minimum 400 close citations, all color-coded and alphabet catagorized. This was how I learned to index, incidentally.

Even after four pretty darn diligent years at a notoriously intense college, I can still Girl Scout Promise you that this was the single most rigorous piece of academic work I ever did.

In late February, we were to choose our title. We were given a list of acceptable American novels. Deviation from the list was acceptable (with strong argument) but not encouraged. We were to write up 200-word proposals about why we should be allowed to read a particular book on the list. The list was a thinly veiled waterfall from least snooty and erudite to most, and we all saw through that one quickly. We were about to be striated. The last three titles on the list were, in order, AS I LAY DYING, LIGHT IN AUGUST, and THE SOUND & THE FURY.

My arch nemesis, whom for the sake of this blog we shall call Rick O'Malley, the staight A mathlete who printed his vocab homework on cloud-patterned stationary (keep in mind, this was back in the age when most of us didn't even have computers in our houses, never mind printers), went straight for the nuggets with LIGHT IN AUGUST. I saw the knock-down he took about "what would be more appropriate" before he was reassigned A FAREWELL TO ARMS. Oh, SNAP!! My momma didn't raise no fool. I meekly pitched my proposal for THE HOUSE OF MIRTH.

No, nope. That wasn't gonna fly. "Too easy," said Miller. "No laziness from you."

"No laziness," I choked out.

"I think what you WANT to do is THE SOUND AND THE FURY. Isn't that what you want?"

That's right, Rick O'Malley. Straight to the bottom of the list.

The actual reading of the book itself isn't really important. In fact--we're being honest here, and also, I'm anonymous, so you can't even run off and report me to Rick--I didn't get most of the book at all. After reading it twice, cover to cover, and reading more than 30 literary theses on the book, I know all the issues back and forth and inside out. And I LOVE them. But it wouldn't be 100% honest to say that I really enjoyed reading them at the time.

So why was this the book that changed my life? Well, most immediately, because I won Mrs. Miller's respect by doing it. She set me a task, and I rose to it. She annointed me as one of her chosen, wrote my recommendations, grilled me in grammar (she's the reason, for example, that the production manager at my company stopped the production meeting a couple of weeks ago to ask me if I had any idea what the difference between "toward" and "towards" was, and then, after I gave her a 30-second historical usage synopsis, said, "Somehow I just had a feeling you'd know the answer"). She clucked her tongue in disappointment when I confessed I wasn't majoring in English (although she had been a history major herself--"don't repeat my mistakes!" she cried), but then hugged me with relief when it all turned out ok and I veered back toward editorial, the track, I see now, she wanted me on from the beginning.

But is it fair or happy to confess that the book you love most dearly you love because of what it says to someone else about you?

I have yet another confession (but you know how I am with confessions)--I really DO love Faulkner. But it took me years and years to understand how and why. When I finally prised myself away from my "break down every single goshdarn word and understand it!!" approach and let myself sink into impressionistic absorbtion--and yes, that does include plowing through stretched of pages at a time without really taking in what's going on on occasion--I find that I get enough of it to fall in love with the book despite what I've missed.

But I love his language, and I love what he has to say. I'm certifiably obsessed with his ideas about fictional retelling, although this didn't sink in until I read ABSALOM, ABSALOM! in college, and I have to say that book was even more opaque to me the first time through than TS&TF was. I planned my entire ambitious (and now wisely burned and buried) first novel around what Faulkner taught me about relative truths. But there we go with the overly cerebral again.

So I guess the short story is I love Faulkner mostly because I love what being able to say I've read him means to people at the other end of the conversation, and I hate myself because that's the guiltiest and stupidest reason to love an author. But more deeply and more darkly, I secretly actually do love Faulkner, despite what saying I love him makes people think about me.

I've run my stint as a pseudo-intellectual (funny, I originally typed that as "untellectual") and I got tired and fed up with myself. I don't think I'm a stupid girl, and I'm confident enough in that belief that I'm now comfortable admitting that no, I didn't get the whole novel the first time through. In fact, I still don't get all of it. Yes, the specter of incest throughout haunts me and I still can't decide if I think it actually happened or not, and yes, my solution for reconciling this basic plot misunderstanding is pushing it out of my mind and thinking about some other book. This after ten years.

But you know what? I'm ok with that now. I don't need to fight to be the expert anymore. The impressionism is just fine with me.

So I raise my glass (he was an alcoholic, after all) to Faulkner, who changed my mind and my relationships. Trite as it may be, for Celebrate Reading Month I've got to celebrate you.

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By Kirsty OUP-UK

While Rebecca has been quizzing the publishing world of New York, I have been hounding people a little closer to home: the staff of OUP here in Oxford. Here is what we’ve been reading on this side of the Pond in 2007…

Kate Farquhar-Thomson, Head of Publicity
Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees by Richard Deakin. As an outdoors girl this journey through the woods and forests of both this country and abroad evokes a sense of being at one with nature in all its grandeur. I loved the book and could read it over and over each time discovering something new. (more…)

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