What I’ve Been Reading–The Best Christmas Book Ever
Every year the Christmas books come out for display. Every year I re-read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.
Really, there’s nothing like it. The understated humor, the clear-eyed child narrator who sees very flaw of the adult world with precision and affection, the marvelous transgressive awfulness of the Herdmans (“the worst kids in the history of the world”), and most of all, the dead-on depiction of the Christmas pageant as it goes in every church, every year, world without end.
There was the usual big mess all over the place–baby angels getting poked in the eye by other baby angels’ wings and grumpy shepherds stumbling over their bathrobes. The spotlight swooped back and forth and up and down till it made you sick at your stomach to look at it, and, as usual, whoever was playing the piano pitched “Away in a Manger” so high we could hardly hear it, let along sing it. My father says “Away in a Manger” always starts out sound like a closetful of mice.
I even find some strange enjoyment in the fact that (like the Grinch) the Herdmans are content in their own awfulness. Clearly this family is in dire straits–overworked single mother, no father, little money–but they don’t seem to care. Nobody seems to care–not their teachers or social workers or any adults in the community. But the kids, seen through another kid’s eyes, are fine, and it’s because they are so powerful. They do what they want, say what they want, and get what they want–no matter what, no matter how.
Yet the Herdmans are not one-dimensional either–they care for each other, they care for the baby Jesus, and they’re ready to fight to see right done. Even if they do shove pussy willow buds down people’s ears and smoke cigars in the ladies’ room at church.
Long live the Herdmans!
Read MoreFirst Moments
A little green bee-eater in Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary, India. Tiny and vivid and swift–a perfect metaphor for a writer’s first fleeting idea for a new story.
I was talking with my writers’ group yesterday about that moment when an idea starts to form in your head. You’re thrilled yet anxious–what if you get distracted and it vanishes? What if what seems wonderful and glowing and yes! at this moment turns out to be absurd or embarrassing or just plain stupid a little later on, in the cold light of reason?
One of my friends quoted C. S. Lewis, saying that this moment is like birdwatching–you see something precious and beautiful and rare alight near you, but you know you can’t grab at it or you’ll lose it. So you sit, quietly, patiently, and then another image comes to join the first, and another, and you have it–the story. The start.
Another said it wasn’t images that she saw, but a mood she sensed–lightthearted and zany, sad but tough, tender and funny. This makes sense because I’ve yet to see her write two stories that are similar. Each one has a unique emotional hue.
For me, it’s a character–actually, it’s a sense of a character’s journey, like a glimmering thread. I can get this person from HERE to THERE. I’m not sure how or what will happen along the way, but I can glimpse the path we’re going to travel on.
Read MoreFingers Crossed
The choice of an artist really creates a picture book–it doesn’t truly exist until art and words come together. The lovely and talented Erin Robinson is considering illustrating one of my picture book manuscripts at the moment. With her it would be a dreamy, rich, poetic, evocative, emotional book. Keep your fingers crossed, everyone–I really want to see the book that would result from her art and my words!
Thankful For…
Readers.
Readers who take a chance with a new book they might just like.
Readers who cling to dogeared favorites with covers worn shabby and soft.
Readers who cry when a favorite characters dies.
Readers who cry when the dog dies. (That’s me.)
Readers who can’t wait for the next book in the sequel.
Readers who make my job possible.
Readers who will turn into the next generation of writers.
Thank you.
Read MoreYou Can Never Go Back
So many wonderful lines in this amazing essay by Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, I can’t keep myself from quoting:
I’d trade sex and booze and wisdom—all the best parts about being Grown—if I could have back [childhood]. Colors brighter, smells stronger, days bleeding on forever, and oh . . . reading. In childhood, there’s almost nothing to keep you from reading.
Kid’s books are where I personally learned most everything important about the world: About rape and sinister men from Beatrix Potter’s Jemima Puddle-Duck; about eroticism from Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen; about feminism from P.L Travers’ maverick goddess Mary Poppins; about loss and the unceasing progress of time from E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.
And lots more. Go read it!
Read MoreYou Can Never Go Back: On Loving Children’s Books as an Adult
My Best Catch
I’ve been proofreading a new manuscript lately–this is something I do on the side. It made me rememberer the best catch I ever made as a proofreader. I’m still proud of this, years later.
The text in question went like this.
Hero to bad guy: Are you afraid to die?
Bad guy back to hero: You should be the one asking that question!
Can you spot see the error?
Read MoreHappy Halloween!
A creepy tidbit from Mercy: The Last New England Vampire to give you the shivers today!
Our heroine, Haley, and her new friend/potential love interest/eager monster hunter companion, Alan, are exploring the house of a suspected vampire. Here’s what they find:
Read MoreChilly and dim. Filtered through shades and curtains, light couldn’t fill up the rooms, which loomed like caves, the old-fashioned furniture half-lost in shadow.
“Whoa.” Alan looked around appreciatively. “Very atmospheric. Very Stephen King.”
Everywhere, the familiar earthy smell teased at her nose. Cold and heavy and damp. The smell of wet clay—the smell of the grave. It seemed to cling to the air.
And no one was there.
Hallway, living room, dining room—all were empty. She’d never realized before how loud most houses were. A refrigerator humming, a furnace rumbling to life, pipes clanking, a floorboard creaking, a loose window rattling in its frame. None of that here. Haley could hear the air moving in and out of her nose. She could hear Alan breathing at her elbow. She could hear herself swallow.
Sarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Readers will treasure the blossoming friendship between opposites in this whimsically illustrated tale. Short chapters and plenty of action make for an accessible and appealing reading experience. . . . Touching and inspiring.”
—Kirkus Reviews