By
Cynthia Leitich Smithfor
CynsationsHarry Mazer: Obituary from Legacy.com. Peek: "...died on April 7, 2016, 71 years after he leapt out of a B-17 bomber that had been shot down over Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, during the last mission of World War II.
"Harry was one of the few survivors of the crew, a story he loved to tell and re-created in a fictionalized form in his young adult novel,
The Last Mission. He received a Purple Heart and an Air Medal with four bronze oak leaf clusters for his service."
Cynsational NotesHarry was married to fellow children's book author
Norma Fox Mazer for 69 years, until her 2009 death at age 78.
One
of my favorite writers and illustrators, Michelle Edwards, was kind
enough to invite me to join the My Writing Process Blog Tour. Michelle has
written and illustrated numerous books for children, including the National Jewish Book Award
winner, Chicken Man. If you enjoy knitting, you might like to pick up her book on knitting for adults, A
Knitter's Home Companion, an illustrated collection
Norma Fox Mazer (1931 - 2009) was my teacher and friend, and I remember her irrepressible enthusiasm as she helped me sort through the tangled mess of manuscript pages that I’d share with her every month as part of the student-teacher pact that we’d agreed to when I was her student at Vermont College. She was a writer, after all, who thought nothing of rewriting passages multiple times and often
I don't know if anyone's heard about this yet, but I just read on Elizabeth Bluemle's Shelftalker blog that children's and young adult author, Norma Fox Mazer has passed away. You can read Elizabeth's tribute here.
I know Ms. Mazer will be sorely missed in children's litearture. I remember her as one of the first YA authors I read as a pre-teen, around the age of 11 or 12, I guess. She was an amazing author, to say the least. Among my favorite titles by her were (and I know this is going back aways): The solid gold kid, Taking Terri Mueller, and When she was good.
Today, I review two books with similar content.
The Missing Girl Norma Fox Mazer
There are five Herbert sisters and their family is having definite economic problems. There is also a man who watches them. He starts off creepy and gets creepier. You know right away that he will kidnap one and it will be bad.
The chapters are short and the characters well-drawn--chapters tend to focus on just one character and then switch for the next chapter, but this one just didn't grab me. I think because it was pretty obvious from chapter 1 what was going to happen. (A guy on a corner obsessively watching young girls? What do you think is going to happen? The big mystery is which sister will he eventually take.) but all this other stuff happens in between. There are almost three different books happening at once and it gets jumbled. By the time one sister goes missing, I was wrapped up in this other plot (one sister getting "loaned out" to save costs) and it just got dropped.
Yes, life is what happens when other things were going on but... there were so many "main" characters and so much going on, that I never really connected to any of the characters or the "main" story.
Living Dead Girl Elizabeth Scott
Alice wasn't always her name. When she was ten, she wandered off from a school field trip and Ray took her. She is now sixteen and too old, too tall, and no longer a small child. Ray wants her to find her replacement before he kills her.
Scott's take on the same subject is drastically more chilling, told in Alice's voice, focusing solely on her story. In addition to the horrific sexual abuse it's the psychological abuse that leaves the reader the most shaken. I picked this up and just started reading, really just planning on glancing through it, and didn't put it down until I was done.
When this first came out and was getting more coverage, many people were hesitant about giving it to readers, due to the horror and "graphicness" of it. I have to say I disagree. Yes, there are parts of this book that disgusted me. But the language isn't graphic. You need a certain worldly knowledge in order to know what, exactly, Scott is talking about. It's also the type of thing that horrifies adults, parents especially, much more than it will horrify teen readers. I'd say that this book is for high school readers, but I would have loved this when I was in junior high. There is a part of me that wants to give it to people who are probably not ready for it and scream "See! This is what happens when you wander off! This is what happens when you talk to strangers! Be safe!!!!" But, don't worry, I won't.
Thanks, Bruce, for this memory. Norma would be proud that her gifts are still being passed on, writer to writer.
That was a fine tribute to Norma, Bruce. I, too, enjoyed hearing her insights and the guidance she gave to us aspiring writers, during a VC residency at which I was assigned to her workshop.<br /><br />Your own reflections on the need for honesty in writing are also thought provoking.
Hi Bruce---I have to smile as I remember Norma through your words. Her honesty was one of the qualities I appreciated about her most. Thanks for sharing.