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 

A Few More Perks...

Want to know more about The Perks of Being a Wallflower? I did, too, and I found a few neat things online. First, Charlie experiences a lot of new music with his friend Sam and books with his teacher Bill. Wikipedia has a list of the songs, movies and books in the novel. Take a look. 

Next, this is a "literary weaving" that a class made after reading the book. The little sections have ideas or quotes from the book, and are woven together to make a piece of art that represents the book. Cool!

If you have ideas for projects to make, or songs that fit with this book, or movies it reminded you of, go ahead, leave a comment! 

The Perks of Being... a Book Clubber.

Well, I just finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower . Let me tell you, it threw me for such a loop.

I picked up Perks because two friends of mine say it's their favorite book. I just had to see for myself what all the renown was about. It's a fast-paced read about a shy, but brilliant, ninth grader named Charlie, who writes to an anonymous friend about his hopes, fears and misadventures. His star football-player brother is off at college, his older sister wants nothing to do with him, and he misses his closest companion, his aunt who died years ago. Charlie, with the help of his new friends and a teacher who believes in him, must navigate the frenzied world of high school--and that includes dealing with drugs, dating, sexuality and self-confidence.

I'm not going to give away the ending, but it was cemented in my brain for days after reading it. I couldn't wait to tell my boyfriend the whole tale. The next day at work, I spilled the ending to Mary, our director, who'd never read it. The thing was, I couldn't help but talk about it. The story spun around in my head all day, like clothes in a washing machine.

This is, of course, the perk of being in a book club like ours: you get a chance to chat about those stories that just beg to be talked about! The books in our library were chosen for their ability to get your brains buzzing! They're wildly exciting or so painful you might tear up. Many take difficult issues and face them head on, with a roar. Regardless of your age or background, we bet these babies will get you talking.

You and your fellow club members don't even have to agree about whether you liked the book or not. Mary, when she picked up the book after me, remembered that she'd read it before -- the story had just so uninterested her that she forgot about it! But we still had a good chat about it.

And you know what? If you've read the book, you know that Charlie is pretty shy, and has a dilemma of watching life go by him. But he learns, I think, at the end of the book to dive in and participate. Well, that's what we say to do with your book club, too!

So, for those of you that have read it, what do you think? Leave a comment! Did you relate to Charlie's character? Did it get you talking? What's your take on that ending?

That's all for now! Happy reading.

-Meredith

We're off and running...

Hi gals,

Today's been an exciting day in the Mainely Girls office. Our first clubs have ordered books! We have one group reading The Book Thief, a 2005 bestseller by Mark Zusak, about a young girl using books to cope with the horrors of Nazi Germany. Another group just asked for Looking for Alaska, a coming-of-age story about a boy and his entanglements with a girl named Alaska. Two great books to start the year!

Check out this site, which has the author discussing The Book Thief: Check it out!

Also, cruise over to Looking for Alaska on Amazon.

The other news is that Maine author Megan Frazer sent us a copy of her book, Secrets of Truth and Beauty. I cracked it open today at lunch, while I soaked up sunlight on a bench outside of the Rockport Library. (What a beautiful thing.) Anyway, I'll let you know what we think about the book. Thanks, Megan, for your generosity!

A New Year!

Hi there! Meredith here. I'm the new Programs Director at Mainely Girls and I'm thrilled! The school year is just starting, and that means it's the perfect time for our Girl's Point of View Book Club to get rolling, too!

You might be wondering what purpose this blog will serve. Well, I'll be sharing info about our clubs and, of course, our books! I definitely want to hear what you have to say about them. See, that's the best part about these clubs: they offer a chance to interact! I want to hear your ideas. Did you really love "The Secret Life of Bees," or "The Bean Trees?" Did you hate that one character, or did you cry at the ending?

I also want to hear about what YOUR club is up to. Do you guys have an awesome idea for a meeting that other gals might want to hear? Did you all get together and watch, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" after reading the book? Did you come up with a brilliant plan to make meetings even more fun? Let me hear it!

The cool thing about having a blog is that we can interact a little differently here than in the clubs. I'll post links to sites that relate to our books, or maybe even video clips that match up with our themes. There's a world of media out there and we can use it take these books off the page and into our larger world.

So, here we go! Hope you'll be joining me for the ride.