A Scary Future: How I Live Now

Imagine it's sometime in the near future. You're sent to stay with distant cousins and you spend idyllic days soaking up the sun on the farm, most of the time without annoying adult supervision.

But one day, your aunt doesn't come home. She's stranded and terrorists have invaded your country. Soldiers take over your home and it's up to you to fight for your survival.

Scary picture, right? This is the predicament in which that 15-year-old Daisy finds herself in Meg Rosoff's novel How I Live Now. Everything she has ever known is shattered, and she is left to fend for herself in a world vibrating with the painful effects of war.

I found an interesting video online that offers a movie trailer sort of introduction to the book. Check it out here.

If you've read the book, what do you think about the world that's presented? Could it ever happen to us? How did you feel when you read it?

Tips for Writers from Gail Carson Levine

Believe it or not, Gail Carson Levine, author of beloved book club favorite Ella Enchanted, didn't spend her entire life writing. Though she loved writing as a kid, a single comment from a teacher discouraged her from writing for 25 years.


He called her writing, "pedestrian." Commonplace. Not special.


Luckily for us, Levine picked up her pen again, and has given the world not only Ella (a variation on the fairy tale "Cinderella), but a collection of creative, magical stories that captivate the imagination, including The Two Princesses of Bamarre, Fairest , and Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg. At a talk at the Rockland Library on Saturday, October 3rd, Levine talked about her newest books and offered her advice for young writers.


When she began writing again, Levine said she had to learn to ignore that negative voice in her head that said she couldn't or shouldn't try. She hoped that her newest book, Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly , might inspire young writers to do the same and believe in their creativity. The book offers writing tips, tricks and fascinating story prompts, like this one:


Use one of the situations below (or come up with one of your own) to create a scene full of description and details:

• Your character is on a boat at sea.
• Your character is in the middle of a crowded city.
• Your character is exploring an enchanted forest.

Have the confidence to try, says Levine, and always, always save your work. As crazy as it sounds now, it's easy for adults to forget what it was like to be a kid, Levine says, and your writing (or your art, or even the notes you and your friends pass) gives you a window to your past. 

Finally, don't let criticism get you down. Levine read from a rejection letter in which an editor told her her work wasn't captivating. I bet anyone who's read Ella would disagree! Even famous writers like Gail Carson Levine have had negative comments, but she persevered, and you can, too.  

Levine was kind enough to autograph a book for us, and inside, she offered one last piece of advice: "Don't be too obedient!" (Pick up Ella Enchanted and you'll understand this joke!)

More fun: 

Check out Levine's blog for more of her thoughts on writing. 

Ella Enchanted was made into a movie starring Anne Hathaway!

This site , dedicated to fairy tales, has an excellent description of Levine's books. 

Reflections on "Criss Cross"

Art, whether it's writing or photography or a movie, is a little slice of life. Photos, for instance, capture moments -- like the moments before your date arrives for prom, or someone's first kiss after getting married, or when your new puppy sees his home for the first time. These little slices have a built-in editing system: you don't take pictures of the boring stuff, like doing laundry or doing your algebra homework. 


The same thing can hold true for movies and writing. In movies and books, we meet characters and we follow them on their adventures, but writers edit their characters' stories to make them exciting. There are parts of our characters' lives that are left out because... well, they're just not that engaging, or they aren't relevant to the main point of the story. It's because these stories are "slices of life," pieces put together to tell a story or a teach a lesson-- they're not like exactly like real life.


 I was thinking about this because in an interview with USA Today, Lynne Rae Perkins, author of Criss Cross said that when she was growing up, she needed assurance that "life doesn't always happen like it does in movies and books, but that's OK."  Criss Cross seems to reflect that idea. It's about a group of 14-year-olds coping with the everyday concerns of teenagers: boyfriends, girlfriends, parents, clothes and feeling different. One review of the book criticized it for not having enough plot. "Nothing happens at all," writes one reviewer. Other readers appreciated the pace and the fact that these teenagers weren't living thrilling, glamorous lives, but more realistic ones. (Read a more positive review here .) 


The "slices of life" in Criss Cross are put together, maybe, with the point of showing that the average teenager's life isn't like a perfect snapshot, or like an epic movie with a grand soundtrack. Sometimes, things don't happen to all of us. 


I just wonder if that makes the book more enjoyable or not. What do you think? Sometimes I like escaping to books that don't mirror my life at all. That's part of the fun with art: those slices and snapsots and film clips have the ability to whisk you away and show you something new. So, what do you think about books that stick closer to reality? 


Let me know what you think.
Happy reading!
~Meredith