Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

This post is written in memory of Eric Carle, children’s book author and illustrator extraordinaire, June 25, 1929 – May 23, 2021.

The other day, I opened up a few of my favorite childhood picture books. 

Draw Me a Star by Eric Carle

Simple Pictures Are Best by Nancy Willard and Tomie dePaola 

 

 

Round Trip by Ann Jonas

 

 

A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert and Anita Lobel

On Market Street by Anita Lobel and Arnold Lobel

I’ve always enjoyed my family’s collection of picture books. My mom didn’t thin them out as we kids grew up. Instead, she kept them (ostensibly) for the grandchildren … though in reality, neither she nor I could bear to part with them.

Now that I work at a preschool, children’s picture books are a regular part of my life again. It’s one of my favorite aspects of the job. Although reading a particular picture book for the first time as an adult isn’t usually as wonderful as it is in childhood, I can enjoy it vicariously when I see the toddlers’ thrill. I’m on the hunt for my own copies of …

The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don Wood

 

You Are Special by Max Lucado

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle

But books I knew in my childhood are different. I was sad to hear that Eric Carle had recently died. He was one of my favorite illustrators, and we have a sizable stack of his books. (Do you know how he did his art? He painted tissue paper and cut it into shapes to form pictures! Look it up on YouTube sometime.) And Tomie dePaola! He was another icon of my childhood, gone for over a year now. Reading their books and others I loved as a kid transports me back in time, back to when I was savoring them and being absorbed in the world their pictures and simple words created. Nothing else can take me back like that, not even childhood movies or toys.

Draw Me a Star is particularly significant to me now because of how it beautifully links the work of an artist with God’s creation, ending with the artist as an old man who lived out his days and flew into the night sky with a star. Rest in peace, Eric Carle.

One of these days, I plan to do a post (or a series) on the memorable books of my growing-up years, but to finish this one out in honor of Eric Carle, here is a list of just his that I own:

Draw Me a Star

Today is Monday

Dragons Dragons & Other Creatures That Never Were

Animals Animals

Treasury of Classic Stories for Children

Pancakes, Pancakes!

A House for Hermit Crab

Rooster’s Off to See the World

The Tiny Seed

The Mountain That Loved a Bird

The Mixed-Up Chameleon

The Lamb and the Butterfly

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Have You Seen My Cat?

The Grouchy Ladybug

A Color of His Own

The Foolish Tortoise

Did you enjoy any of these books I mentioned when you were growing up?

The Great American Read on PBS

Photo by Jamie Taylor on Unsplash

On the heels of watching a funny yet sad video of Americans being interviewed on the streets of New York City who couldn’t name the title of one book, I watched the launch special of a national reading celebration on PBS. If you’re on Goodreads, you may have heard about it. They’re searching for America’s best-loved novel. One hundred choices are in the running, and we have the chance to vote for our favorites! Voting lasts only during the summer, and in the fall PBS will air seven episodes documenting the search.

I watched the two-hour program in snatches online. It was so interesting! Although I’ve read only 19 of the 100 books so far, I enjoyed the background stories of the novels and the interviews with readers on why those books are their favorites. Book talk is fascinating even if you don’t share all the same tastes as other readers. Each novel has a deep message it conveys that sinks into the souls of those who read it, for good or bad. I’m looking forward to contributing to the conversation by voting for my favorite books (you can vote every day!) and then watching the resulting episodes this fall.

Here’s the link to the program launch. I bet you’re curious which books are on the list! This link will take you to a page where you can see them all. Be sure to look at the checklist where you can see the titles at a glance.

Wondering which 19 I’ve read?

1. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
3. Anne of Green Gables
4. The Call of the Wild
5. Charlotte’s Web
6. The Chronicles of Narnia
7. The Count of Monte Cristo
8. Don Quixote
9. The Giver
10. Gulliver’s Travels
11. The Hunger Games (the first one)
12. Jane Eyre
13. Little Women
14. The Lord of the Rings
15. Moby-Dick
16. The Pilgrim’s Progress
17. Pride and Prejudice
18. To Kill a Mockingbird
19. Wuthering Heights

And there are about a dozen or so more on the 100 list that I want to read. Out of the 100, which have you read? Which one do you think deserves to be styled as America’s Best-Loved Novel?

The Country of the Pointed Firs

Hello, Blog! You are not forgotten! I have a number of excuses I could display for my neglect – writing, editing, reading, travel, wrist pain, general busyness; in short, life – but I only mention them to show you that I do have legitimate excuses and I haven’t ignored you just because I’m tired of you.

Ahem. Now that I have my excuses out of the way, on to the substance of my post. I’ve wanted to write about the literature I’ve been reading during the past few months. You’ve no doubt noticed that I’ve been posting book reviews on recently published books, but I’ve also been reading older works. 

Goodreads

One of my favorites is The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Short Fiction by Sarah Orne Jewett. Have you heard of Sarah Orne Jewett? She was an American who wrote short stories and essays in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She’s well known as one of the best authors of “local color” writing, a popular genre during those decades in America. Local color works describe the way of life in distinctive rural regions where few readers have visited. She mentored Willa Cather and encouraged her to write her poignant fiction about the Midwest (such as My Antonia and O! Pioneers).

Jewett grew up in southern Maine, an area of beautiful scenery, quaint customs, and quirky people. As she developed her writing craft, she realized she could write popular short stories about that locale. I read the fifteen that were included in this book, my favorite being the longest, The Country of the Pointed Firs.

I file these stories under my “cozy” reads. They remind me of Cranford (by Elizabeth Gaskell) with their peaceful pace, their focus on characters and their stories, and their lingering descriptions of comfy homes and lovely landscapes. But they are uniquely American as they portray the difficult life that these farmers and seafarers cut from the wilderness of land and sea.

The Country of the Pointed Firs plus four short stories tell about Dunnet Landing, a fictional town on the Maine seacoast, as viewed from an outsider narrator who grows to love the place and its folk. This lady is never named; she’s a professional writer who travels there for the summer to work but finds herself hard-pressed to do so when she’s tempted by sunny weather, meadow picnics, island excursions, boat rides, and, above all, fascinating company.

She becomes intimate friends with Mrs. Almira Todd, that lady’s brother, William Blackett, and their mother, Mrs. Blackett. All three are kind, genuine people, well past middle age and full of earthy wisdom. Here’s a taste:

“[Mrs. Blackett] was a delightful little person herself, with bright eyes and an affectionate air of expectation like a child on a holiday. You felt as if Mrs. Blackett were an old and dear friend before you let go her cordial hand.”

Her children are opposites of each other: Mrs. Todd is a talkative herbalist, and William is a silent fisherman. The Blacketts live on a small island (which I really wish I could visit) that reminds me of the bits of Maine that I was blessed to see last year.

Photo Taken by Me

“A long time before we landed at Green Island we could see the small white house, standing high like a beacon, where Mrs. Todd was born and where her mother lived, on a green slope above the water, with dark spruce woods still higher . . . . The house was just before us now, on a green level that looked as if a huge hand had scooped it out of the long green field we had been ascending. A little way above, the dark spruce woods began to climb the top of the hill and cover the seaward slopes of the island. There was just room for the small farm and the forest; we looked down at the fish-house and its rough sheds, and the weirs stretching far out into the water. As we looked upward, the tops of the firs came sharp against the blue sky. There was a great stretch of rough pasture-land round the shoulder of the island to the eastward, and here were all the thick-scattered gray rocks that kept their places, and the gray backs of many sheep that forever wandered and fed on the thin sweet pasturage that fringed the ledges and made soft hollows and strips of green turf like growing velvet. I could see the rich green of bayberry bushes here and there, where the rocks made room. The air was very sweet; one could not help wishing to be a citizen of such a complete and tiny continent and home of fisherfolk.

“The house was broad and clean, with a roof that looked heavy on its low walls. It was one of the houses that seem firm-rooted in the ground, as if they were two-thirds below the surface, like icebergs. The front door stood hospitably open in expectation of company, and an orderly vine grew at each side; but our path led to the kitchen door at the house-end, and there grew a mass of gay flowers and greenery, as if they had been swept together by some diligent garden broom into a tangled heap . . .”

Photo Taken by Me

Sounds like an idyllic escape, doesn’t it? If you’re looking for a short, summery, warm-hearted read this winter that ferries you into the good old days, I highly recommend The Country of the Pointed Firs. If you’re enthralled as I was, check out Jewett’s other short stories, too!

Top Fifteen Books of 2016

The year will be ending soon, so it’s time for me to safely tally up the fifteen most impacting books I’ve read in 2016! I love making this list, though, as usual, it was rather difficult to narrow down and rank the best ones. Please comment and let me know if you’ve read any of these books and what you think of them, or if any of them pique your interest. Also, which books in the vast array of literature were your favorite reads of 2016?

#15
The Joy of Less
Francine Jay
Although this book itself was not heavily influential on me, it encapsulated what I’ve been learning this year about minimalism and how less is more where it comes to possessions. Francine Jay, “Miss Minimalist,” was able to make me think very positively of this concept . . . and when you’re a packrat, the first step is to change your thinking. 

#14
Captain Blood
Rafael Sabatini
This swashbuckling adventure was a lot of fun! It’s the favorite book of my character Marion in my upcoming novel, Suit and Suitability. Besides that, I, like Marion, found depth in the honor and courage portrayed by Captain Peter Blood as he faced his hardships.

#13
Coffee With Cooper
Daniel Lee Cooper III
This is a book I proofread, actually. It’s the story of an inspiring journey taken by the author to connect with strangers across North America. Having survived a battle with cancer, Cooper wants to spread hope among people going through life struggles. It’s a fun, honest, thought-provoking look at our problems and how we can cope and move forward.

#12
In His Steps
Charles Sheldon
This Christian classic sparked a movement in the late nineteenth century, prompting Christians to ask, “What would Jesus do?” and follow the honest response. Its timeless message encouraged me to look at my life and how I should act out the answer to that question.

#11
Before Jane Austen
Harrison R. Steeves
This wasn’t just a book of literary criticism; it was a history that gave me a sweeping view of the eighteenth century through its literature. I knew hardly anything about English literature before Jane Austen, besides the most famous classics, and this book enlightened me on many different levels—including why Jane Austen is such a landmark.

#10
Emma
Jane Austen
I delighted in rereading one of my favorite novels of all time. The familiarity was comforting, the characters and humor were always fresh, and the new insights enriched my appreciation for Austen’s talent.

#9
Anne of Green Gables
L. M. Montgomery
Another reread this year, I opened this beloved novel when I found out I was going to Prince Edward Island. I loved it just as much, delighting in its beauty and character, savoring the story I know so well, and being surprised by the situations I had forgotten. Above all it prepped me for PEI!

#8
Grey Is the Color of Hope
Irina Ratuskinskaya
This haunting memoir was difficult to read at times, but it taught an important lesson I had never encountered before: how not to give in to your tormentors and suppressors. How to remain strong and look down on them as the misguided wrongdoers that they are. How to emerge from captivity with your spirit unbroken. 

#7
Cranford
Elizabeth Gaskell
I read this lovely story partially when I was sick (the only time I was sick this year, thank God), and it was one of the most comforting books I could read. With its cozy storyline and cast of sweet and amusing characters and its rich portrait of Victorian village life, it wrapped me in its arms. Miss Matty is delightful and I was of course reminded of the A&E miniseries I love so much.

#6
Pat of Silver Bush and Mistress Pat
L. M. Montgomery
Although I prefer Anne over Pat of Montgomery’s heroines, it was my first time reading these books, so they impacted me more this year. And the last portion of Mistress Pat affected me like few fiction does (i.e., had me sobbing because its resolution touched me right where I was raw at the time). I read these books on my way to and from Prince Edward Island. 

#5
Crazy Love
Francis Chan
This best-selling book about God’s love and how it should inspire us to live had me both convicted and encouraged. It was a faith-strengthening book that I needed when I read it. 

#4
The Bird in the Tree and Pilgrim’s Inn
Elizabeth Goudge
Again, these novels hit me right when and where I needed them. I’m excited to read the third book of their trilogy. Goudge’s beautiful prose sinks into my soul and reminds me of what is beautiful in this world, both in nature and spirit. The characters go through situations that challenge them to die to themselves and to choose the path of real love.

#3
Green Dolphin Country
Elizabeth Goudge
Wow. This was one of the hardest-hitting novels I’ve ever read. The characters, like in all Goudge novels, are extremely well drawn, and their lives take on epic proportions when some of them emigrate from the Channel Islands to New Zealand. All of them had much to learn about God, life, and love. I’ll never forget Marianne, Marguerite, and William and what their lives taught me. 

#2
Pursuing Justice
Ken Wytsma
This book almost made number one. In some ways, it should be in that position. It forever changed my view of how Christians should live; it made me ponder our mission to the world and realize things need to change . . . starting in my own life. It’s a true wakeup call to serve.

#1
Sparkling Gems
Richard Renner
I’d say at least 100 of these daily devotionals touched me on the exact day I was experiencing whatever they addressed. It answered many questions and soothed many issues I was going through, pointing me to the greatest and deepest source of all, God’s Word, and pressing me to take my cares to Him.

Impactful Books

Okay, so I said I might not be posting as much on here because I needed time to focus on my story writing…but I couldn’t resist participating in the Read-to-Win discussion on Homeschooled Authors that will be happening every week. They’ll be short, direct answers to short, direct questions—good blogging material for me right now! (By the way, check out the Read-to-Win program here.)

The first question is: What fiction book most impacted your life?

My answer: I’m bad at narrowing things down. The narrowest I can get is four:
1) Christy by Catherine Marshall
2) Ester Reid by Isabella McDonald Alden
3) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
4) The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Christy and Ester Reid impacted my faith walk as much as or more than certain nonfiction books on Christian living. They showed me what a sold-out-to-God life looks like. Christy especially has become a model to me on how to write fiction where God is the center of my characters’ lives.

Sense and Sensibility, the first Austen novel I read and still my favorite, turned me into a Janeite. Elinor Dashwood is my favorite fictional character and is an example to me of strong, gracious womanhood.

The epic struggle in The Lord of the Rings helped me understand the epic struggle of our lives in this world. Its serious themes yet constant declaration of hope—hope that is always there, despite the shadows—picture to me how to stay faithful to and hopeful in God. 

What fiction book has most impacted you?

Travel the World

One of the principle reasons I read is to learn about the world: I’m a curious person, and good books are miniature substitutes for experiences, because in one lifetime I cannot hope to learn and experience everything firsthand – and it’s impossible, too, because I’d never have an inkling of what it’s like to be, for example, an American pioneer in the West in the 1870s without reading Little House on the Prairie.

So when I decide on my reading list, many books I place there teach me something about other countries, other time periods, other kinds of people. I’ve even made a list I call “Book Geography” so I can keep track of the places I’ve visited by reading. I’ve even thought it’d be fun to label a map with book titles…but that’d be a daunting a task!

Here’s a glimpse of my list, showcasing some of the best, most evocative-of-place books I’ve read:

The U.S.A.
Alabama - To Kill a Mockingbird
Alaska - The Call of the Wild; White Fang
Illinois - So Big; Across Five Aprils
              Chicago - Twenty Years at Hull House
Indiana - Freckles; A Girl of the Limberlost
Kansas - Little House on the Prairie
Maine - Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Massachusetts - The Scarlet Letter; Little Women
               Boston - Johnny Tremain; A Different Kind of Courage Minnesota - On the Banks of Plum Creek
Missouri - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
                The Ozarks - The Rose Years
Nebraska - My Antonia
New York - Farmer Boy; The Last of the Mohicans
                 New York City - The Chosen; All-of-a-Kind Family
Pennsylvania - Julie; I Am Regina
South Dakota - The Little House series, from By the Shores of Silver Lake to The First Four Years
Tennessee - Christy
Texas - Old Yeller; Wildwood Creek; Half Broke Horses
Virginia - Wish You Well; The Serpent Never Sleeps
Wisconsin - Little House in the Big Woods

Canada
Prince Edward Island - Anne of Green Gables series; Emily of New Moon series; The Blue Castle
Alberta - Loves Comes Softly
Ontario - The Incredible Journey

The Caribbean
Captain Blood

Mexico
By Right of Conquest

South America
Ecuador - His Voice Shakes the Wilderness

Europe
England - The Scent of Water; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Lark Rise to Candleford; Our Village; Watership Down; Cranford; North and South; Wuthering Heights; All Creatures Great and Small; Jane Eyre; The Perilous Gard; The Secret Garden; The Pickwick Papers; My Love Affair with England; Notes from a Small Island
Scotland - Kidnapped; The Baronet’s Song; The Shepherd’s Castle; The Martha Years
The English Channel Islands - Green Dolphin Country
Austria - Mozart’s Sister 
France - The Count of Monte Cristo; A Tale of Two Cities; The Hunchback of Notre-Dame; Les Miserables
Ireland - In the Company of Others 
The Netherlands - The Winged Watchman
Romania - The Seamstress
Spain - Don Quixote
Switzerland - Heidi
Ukraine - Tevye’s Daughters
Ancient Rome - Beric the Briton

Asia
Israel - The Bronze Bow; The Zion Chronicles; Tongue of the Prophets; For the Temple
The Middle East - The Brethren; Shadow Spinner
China - The Good Earth (though I didn’t particularly like the book…)
India - Homeless Bird; A Passage to India (though I really didn’t like the book…)

Africa
Egypt - Mara, Daughter of the Nile; The Golden Goblet; Joseph Kenya - Out of Africa; Nine Faces of Kenya
Uganda - Kisses from Katie

Oceania
New Zealand - Green Dolphin Country

The Sea
Moby-Dick; Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

All Over
Around the World in Eighty Days; The Innocents Abroad; The Art of Travel (Alain de Botton); The Bright Empires series

As you can see, I have wide gaps in my armchair travels! (Though since I’ve only included about half the books on my list, the best of the best, there are different places I’ve visited through less evocative books.) I plan to fill in some of the gaps eventually:
War and Peace; Anna Karenina; Angel on the Square (Russia)
Cry, the Beloved Country (South Africa)
Journey to the River Sea (Brazil)
The Good Master (Hungary)
The Enchanted April (Italy)
And more as I find them…

Your turn! What are some of the best, exotically placed books you’ve read, whether fiction or nonfiction? Do you have any suggestions for filling in my map?

The Books They Read

Sorry to have neglected my blog last week…I was meeting with my characters from Suit and Suitability, and since we’re editing their novel, they took all my writing time. They only let me post today because I’m writing about them. (Who knew that even classy, polite people like them could be rather pushy?)

Since I began the Dashiells’ story in Suit and Suitability last year, I’ve dug into what they and other people of the novel would have read for leisure. You can tell a lot about people from the books they like, so knowing what my fictional characters read is a vital tool for characterization. It’s always fun to look back on what was popular and available during a certain historical era. I’ve read some vintage books expressly for the purpose of getting to know the 1930s (I enjoyed all of them but The Good Earth). 

Unsplash

Here’s a sampling of what some of the S&S cast particularly enjoyed in 1935:

Ellen Dashiell - 

Ellen…preferred classics like A Tale of Two Cities and The Scarlet Letter, heavier fare that withstood decades of opinion. Maybe she was a snob, but why read unless one expanded one’s mind? That was her idea of enjoyment. Entertainment came from cinema and radio.

Nineteenth-century classics make you mull over deep things in life, like right and wrong, human psychology, and purposeful living. Ellen values these books because, as a secretary, it’s easy for her to get lost in the finicky details of a single office. She has a searching mind and needs the “heavier fare” to feed it. Some contemporary novels catch her interest, too, but classics are her favorite. She also finds great things in books on Christian living.

Marion Dashiell - 

[S]atiating herself with a swashbuckling adventure novel put her in a happier state of mind and gave her sweet dreams.

Though Marion reads a wide range of fiction (and only fiction), her top picks are historical romance and adventure. Rafael Sabatini is her favorite author. Captain Blood (which I just read!) and his other novels frequently visit her mind because they sweep her out of the mundane. She dreams of being the lead lady in ever-popular historical romance movies. She catches wind of a new dramatization of her best-loved book, Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn, so you can imagine how wild she’ll be when it comes out later in 1935…her only regret is that she wasn’t able to play Arabella Bishop herself!

Augustine Dashiell - Although we don’t see Mrs. Dashiell taking the time to read in S&S, she’s always loved the sweet, faith-building, Christian romances of Grace Livingston Hill. I’ve read four of these novels so far myself for their lovely 1930s atmosphere. They’re just the thing to soothe a woman who worries about her imprisoned husband and maturing daughters.

Greta Dashiell - Greta loves adventure, so she often turns to the kids series of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Nancy Drew is by far her favorite, like many girls of the 1930s. I confess I’ve read only one of the originals that Greta would have known, The Secret of the Old Clock, but Nancy Drew is one of my favorite fictional characters as well. Her detective work thrills both me and Greta.

Frances Lundberg - Frances doesn’t have a whole lot of time to read, since she works full-time as a secretary. She devours popular mysteries like those by Agatha Christie, her absolute favorite author. With a bent for mysteries, she does a little investigating herself when her employer Oliver Dashiell is accused of embezzlement.

Do you ever give your characters favorite books, or portray them reading in your stories?

Beautiful Books: The Writing Process

For those of you who write, have you ever joined in the Beautiful Books/Beautiful People link-up by Further Up and Further In? I’ve done it just once or twice, but it’s really quite enjoyable! November, as national novel writing month, shines the focus on your work-in-progress.

First, an update: While I’m not officially participating in NaNoWriMo, I have been using the motivation of this literary month to apply myself to my WIP, Suit and Suitability. And it’s going well, praise God! My goal is 25,000 words (half the 50,000 NaNo count), and amazingly, I’m ahead of schedule. I wasn’t expecting this, because so many individual days of my past writing life have felt defeating, as I either didn’t write at all, or rejoiced at word counts of 800 words or so max. And, each day this November save one, I’ve written more than that, and with comparative ease, too. Don’t you just love it when the words flow effortlessly, through no struggle of your own? So far I’ve logged two days exceeding the daily NaNo word count—1,692 and 1,715. I am so grateful to God for giving me clarity of mind as I forge forward with this novel.

And now for the fun stuff—Beautiful Books: The Writing Process!

1.    Is the book turning out how you thought it would be, or is it defying your expectations?
It’s mostly turning out how I thought it would. I had a vague knowledge of what needed to happen to my characters once they reached New York, but having to write so much has forced me to make something concrete out of that vagueness.
2.    What’s your first sentence (or paragraph)?
This may or may not be the absolute first two paragraphs, and I may or may not be happy with them, but…here you go:
“Yes, we find him guilty.”  
      The foreman of the jury’s voice was deep, level, and emotionless; it sounded so uncannily like Ellen’s father’s that she could almost believe her father was convicting himself. The foreman looked nothing like him, though—short, paunchy, and dark-haired to her father’s blond hair and straight, well-built form.
3.    Are you a plotter or a pantser? Have you ever tried both methods and how did it turn out?
I am a plotter and haven’t even attempted being a panster. The latter goes against the grain of almost every piece of my personality, so I doubt I could get very far by trying it. Maybe I will, one day, just to see…and who knows? The results may be surprising!
4.    What do you reward yourself with after meeting a goal?
Feeling a deep joy that I can’t really explain, and then telling people about reaching the goal, hoping they’ll rejoice with me. : )
5.    What do you look for in a name? Do you have themes and where do you find your names?
Since Suit and Suitability is a retelling of Sense and Sensibility, I’ve mostly adapted my characters’ names from the original novel, with a 1930s “flair”—Ellen, Marion, Greta, and Everett are my favorites. (If you’ve read Jane Austen’s classic, do you recognize Elinor, Marianne, Margaret, and Edward?)
6.    What is your favourite to write: beginning, middle, or end — and why?
I have the most experience with middles, because they make up the vast majority of my writing…but I would say either middles or ends. Beginnings worry me…I never know if I’m including too much or too little!
7.    Who’s your current favourite character in your novel?
Ellen Dashiell, the protagonist. She’s based, of course, off Elinor Dashwood, perhaps my favorite literary character ever.
8.    What kind of things have you researched for this project, and how do you go about researching? (What’s the weirdest thing you’ve researched?!)
Good question! S&S requires a lot of research, being set in the thirties. Let’s see…I’ve researched the Great Depression; Canton, OH (I was even blessed to do that on location!); theatre, Broadway, and movies; secretaries; typewriters; houses; New York; trains; cars; education; fashion (yum!); books; telegrams…to name a few things. The weirdest thing? Um…I’m not sure. Maybe the typewriters—figuring out exactly what model Ellen (a secretary) used and loved. Or perhaps it was the senior play of 1935 at Canton’s McKinley High School that Marion (an actress) lost her chance to star in (it was “Secrets,” based off a movie by Mary Pickford).
9.    Do you write better alone or with others? Do you share your work or prefer to keep it to yourself?
Alone. Definitely alone. But I do share my work…though only when it passes my approval, usually after one or two readings.
10.    What are your writing habits? Is there a specific snack you eat? Do you listen to music? What time of day do you write best? Feel free to show us a picture of your writing space!
I don’t usually eat while I write; it distracts me. If I do, it’s tea or fruit. Nope, no music…it distracts me. : ) I seem to write best at night, or afternoon. Usually 8:00pm to 10:00pm. As for other writing habits…a bad habit of mine is to have an internet tab open where I sneak to when my writing drags. The guilt steps in quickly, though, and I scurry back before I lose complete momentum. I don’t have a picture of my writing space, but I do have a video! (No, I’m not an over-achiever…I had to do that for an author program I did over the summer. Here is the YouTube link if you're really interested: My Writing Space.)

That was fun! Feel free to join in. If you don’t wish to do a whole post, how about answering a few of your favorite questions in the comments? I’d love to hear them! And if you’d like to check out more writers’ questionnaires, go to Further Up and Further In to see the link-up list!

And I almost forgot! Amanda Tero at withajoyfulnoise.blogspot.com is doing a giveaway of four e-books by indie authors, including one of mine. The giveaway ends in three days, so if you’re interested, check it out right away! 

Books I Treasure

What reader doesn’t like making book lists? I’ve made several on this blog—including favorite fairy tales, funniest books, classics I’ve read, and top 15 reads of 2013 and 2014. But I’ve never done a list of straight-out favorite books. At least not here. On Goodreads, I have a “twenty favorite” shelf:

Kelsey's twenty-favorite book montage

Kelsey Bryant's favorite books »

Now this is my as-of-2015 list. I don’t change it often, but be aware I may change it in the future, as is understandable—reading tastes evolve in everyone. I chose these books because I love the stories, the characters, the settings, the author’s writing style, and the messages more than any other books I’ve read. (Excluding, of course, the Bible! Wonderful book; have you read it lately? It trumps all others.) I wanted to add the two Elizabeth Goudge novels I just read, but these twenty books won’t budge quite yet…maybe re-reading everything will get something to move.

Okay. I’ve rambled enough about that list. Now for the mega-list.

The mega-list? Yes, the one hundred-plus books that I count among my favorites, the books I’d hold onto and re-read…that list. Notice it isn’t here, fortunately (or else this would be a really long post); it’s accessed via a tab at the top of this blog so you can browse it at your leisure. It used to be the top 100 best books I’ve read, but I thought my favorites would be more fun, and more measurable and easy to evaluate. For example, I don’t really like Wuthering Heights but I included it in the “100 best books” because it’s so well-written, but I can’t exactly gush over it. There are tons of other “best books” lists that anyone can make, but only I can make my favorites list.

I wish I had time and space to lovingly describe how each book arrived there…but that would take a book in itself. Somehow or another these beauties just thrilled me while I was reading them and kept me feeling warm long after I’d said goodbye.

I’m assuming you have a list of favorite books, too…have you ever made an “official” one? What are your top favorites and why?