making space for creativity
In theory when it comes to drafting novels, there are two types of writers. The first is the sort that sits down generally at the beginning of the story and writes the story straight through, no particular plan, just flying by the seat of his or her pants. This is why they are sometimes…
With Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry, the 1941 Newbery winner (number 20), we join Mafatu, a boy afraid of the sea, as he leaves his island in a moment of rash courage and survives a wild storm. He lands on a wild island where he must survive and escape being made a human…
Evan loves board games, so when we were dating, he naturally asked me if I liked games. Who doesn’t like games? But I found out that my idea of Risk or Monopoly wasn’t exactly what Evan had in mind. He was into European board games, the kind created by German Math professors. Think Settlers…
The 1940 Newbery Medal Winning book was Daniel Boone by James Daughtery. What I liked. Once in passing, my maternal grandmother mentioned that our family is directly descended from Daniel Boone. I haven’t done any research into whether this is true, but it’s always stuck with me. It seems me that most people, myself…
I am not really a city girl. Outside of my infancy in San Diego, the only other time I’ve lived in a city proper before this year was the summer I spent in Paris after my sophomore year. I haven’t accrued a lot of hard-earned urban wisdom. But the lesson that I’ve…
The 1939 Newbery Medal winner, Elizabeth Enright’s Thimble Summer, was really lovely. It was one of my favorite early Newberies so far, and not just because it’s about a plucky Wisconsin girl named Garnet Linden—but that does help. Thimble Summer tells the story of a 1930s family in Southwestern Wisconsin one summer when…
It’s day thirteen of school. (Not that I am counting.) We’ve now been in Wisconsin for six months, and now these past three and a half weeks we have finally started doing (full time) what we came for: teaching and writing and caring for family. To be completely honest, it’s…
In a high-fantasy style, 1938 Newbery winner The White Stag, written by author and illustrator Kate Seredy, lays out the mythology of the ancestors of and prophecy surrounding Attila the Hun and his epic journey into his European promised land. In a tale that seems both like a tiny Wagner opera and Norse-Eastern…
I have nine first cousins, all on my mom’s side. I’m the fourth oldest, which puts me smack in the middle of admiration (boarding on adoration) for my cool three older cousins and complete acceptance and enthusiastic adventuring with my five younger cousins. As a child, I loved seeing my cousins. Comedian…
This week’s Newbery, Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer, features feisty 10 year-old-Lucinda, who is a bit like if Anne Shirley (of Green Gables) got stuck in Manhattan with a pair of roller skates. Set in the 1890s, affluent and inadvertently-troublemaking Lucinda has a year of freedom when her parents go to Italy for…
When Evan and I went Paleo over two and half years ago it was sort of by accident. We didn’t read any books about the philosophy, or tips about how to transition. We did a hard-core, slightly sketchy medical elimination diet. It worked, and when we added things back in, what made me sick…
I do not know how I grew up not reading this week’s Newbery. It was great! Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink is based on the life of the author’s grandmother Caddie. Caddie is the middle daughter of a miller’s family growing up near Menomonie, Wisconsin in the 1890s, and Caddy is a…
This weekend we stayed home and enjoyed Milwaukee. Milwaukee shows off in the summer. The whole city seems to linger on porches or backyards, sipping drinks to the sound of kids running around. Or if they aren’t home basking in the upper 70 degree weather, they are off to the state fair, or Summerfest,…
This week’s Newbery, Monica Shannon’s 1935 Dobry, follows a little Bulgarian peasant boy named Dobry, who loves the beauty of his farming community but longs to capture it in drawings and sculpture instead of just tending the fields. A cozy tale for the beginning of winter, Dobry has vibrant characters — a storytelling grandfather,…
This past weekend we drove down to Illinois for the third week in a row, this time for a wedding. It is, by my count, the 20th wedding Evan and I have attended together. The day we got engaged we went to a wedding, and every year since we’ve been witnessing the sacred vows…