Book Review: beyond that, the sea

 Laura Spence-Ash's debut novel, 'beyond that, the sea' drew me in quickly and kept me turning pages eagerly. If you think this is just another WWII story, think again. This one is different. Five stars in my opinion.

Beatrix Thompson is an eleven-year-old British girl whose parents decide to send her to America when the Germans begin bombing London in 1940. Reg and Millie want only her safety. Shy Bea arrives on the docks of New York City, met by the Gregory family from Boston. They have two boys, William and Gerald. One is two years younger than she, and the other two years older. The Gregory family lifestyle is far different than what only-child Bea is accustomed to, but it doesn't take long for her to fit into this loving family. The boys become brothers to her, and she finds girlfriends at school, and a new way of living at the Maine summer home where the family lives during the summers when Mr. G has no more classes to teach and the children are out of school. Letters to and from home are a big part of the time Bea lives with the Gregory family. It is five years before the war is over, and then Bea must go home to London, where life has changed a great deal. But so has she, now sixteen. 

The rest of the novel jumps around in Bea's young adult life, as she blends into a new way of living in her home country while still keeping the Gregory family close in heart. Circumstances bring one of the Gregory boys to visit her, and send her back to Boston to reunite with her American family more than once. There is much more to reveal about this story, but to do so would be spoiling it for the reader.

The book is beautifully written. Divided into chapters headed by a character's name, the reader gets the point of view of the main characters, both those in America and the parents in the UK. The characters feel very real, ones the reader can relate to. The story shows how our childhood experiences follow us in adulthood. This tale is about the love of families, forgiveness, and mother-child relationships.

The format of the book is slightly different, breaking some rules writers normally adhere to, but the reader easily adapts to the author's way of writing dialogue. No quote marks, but done in italics. A conversation between two characters will be done in one paragraph rather than separating as each person speaks. Note that when reviews use the book title, they put it in capital letters, but the title on the book itself is done in all lower case letters. Another change from most books. These differences do not distract from the fine story this gifted author has given us. Five stars from this reviewer.

I look forward to more novels by Laura Spence-Ash. 

A Passion for Reading

 

The greatest gift is the passion for reading.

It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you

knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind.

It is moral illumination.

(Elizabeth Hsrdwick, (1989)

Elizabeth Hardwick was an editor, writer, critic and co-founder of the New York Reviewof Books. Who better to have made the comment above? I am in full agreement with herassessment of reading, and mostly the passionfor reading that is within the quote.

Passion is the necessary element to be classified a real, honest-to-God reader. None ofthis reading a book once a year and an occasional glance at a newspaper or magazine. Ifyou're passionate about reading, never a day goes by that you don't read something. Tome, reading is nourishment for the soul, yet I hunger for more on a regular basis.

Like any recipe, reading requires more than one ingredient. No one would read withoutwriters, editors, and publishers. They bring us the words that fill us with knowledgeand/or entertain us. Some of us will never be more than a reader, but otherswho work in the writing world reap double benefits. Not only do they pursue that glorious passion for reading, but they can offer reading material to the world. For onewho loves the written word, doing that offers satisfaction of the finest kind.

I read three newspapers a day, (local paper, Kansas City Star, and Wall Street Journal). I am always in the process of reading a book. When one is finished, there is another waiting for me. I also enjoy reading magazines. Do I read every single word? In a book, more often than not, I do. In newspapers and magazines I read the parts that appeal most to me, which is usually a good share.

I have a friend who panics if she's finished her stack of library books. She'll drop thingson her to-do list to make a needed trip to the library for more books. She says it's her best and easiest way to get rid of stress. The new stack of books brings her comfort and anticipation of what's to come-namely a good read.

I believe Ms. Hardwick and I would have gotten along quite well as we are of the same mind when it comes to the passion for reading. ['ve heard people comment that they don't have time to read books, magazines and newspapers. They do have time to spend endless hours in front of a TV or a computer or an electronic game. It's not they 'don't' have time, rather that they don't 'take' time to read. Maybe you need that passion for reading before you make it a priority

Write About Your Mother

 It's a little early to celebrate Mother's Day, but I have a reason. You have 12 days to write a tribute to your mother, or something about her for the rest of your family. It's nice to buy her a card, and perhaps a gift, as well. But writing to her or about her would be a gift that would be marked "Priceless!" 

If your mother was a storyteller like mine, you've learned a lot about her early life and beyond. I've always felt blessed that my mother told me and my siblings about her growing up years in a small Iowa coal mining town, and then in a Chicago suburb where life was a complete turnaround from what she'd known her first eleven years. 

Maybe you learned about your mother's early years from your grandparents, or her siblings, or even her close friends. If she's still living, and you don't know a lot about her life before you came along, now is the time to ask her. To see what her life was like before she became an adult and a mother helps you understnad the kind of person she is today, or was as you were growing up. 

My mother's parents separated when she was only eleven, and the hurt lasted forever. If our mothers experienced something traumatic as a child, the effect will still be there when she became an adult. 

Besides writing about your mother's early years, write about the things you remember most about her in your growing up years. What kind things did she do on a regular basis? What kind of punishments did she mete out, and did you finally realize she was helping you become a good person by not being permissive? Did she plan special things for holidays? Your birthday? Did she open the house to your friends? Was she a good cook or not so good, but always managed to put something on the table? Did she take you to church? Or not? Did she take you to movies? 

Before you start writing about your mother, take some time and roll back the years and give some real thought to what she was like. Not all mothers are shining stars, but there must be some good qualities. Perhaps there was a reason some mothers weren't going to win any parenting awards. Delving back into her history might help you understnad. 

You can write her a letter to tuck inside her card. Or write a personal essay. Or a poem. If you have trouble getting started, write two words, then let your mind and your memory take over. Write 'I remember...' 

As I mentioned earlier, if your mother is no longer living, other family members would like to read, or even have a copy, of what you write. I wrote a eulogy which I read at my mother's memorial service, As I read before a large group of her family and friends, I wished I had told her in person many of the things I had written after she passed. 

Use this next twelve days to write about your mother. It could be the gift of a lifetime. 

Writers and Attitude

 

Ever heard someone say "Wow! Does she have an attitude!" They don't mean it in a complimentary way. Maybe we should define  the word. Attitude is a point of view, or your frame of mind. How you view various parts of your life is quite important. Once again, you can be on either the positive or negative side. 

Writers need to strive for the postive side. Sadly, there are many writers who seem to nurture a negative attitude towards their writing life. Why? Maybe receiving multiple rejections from publications where you submitted your writing has created that attitude. Let's face it. Those rejections don't lift us up, but it's up to us to make sure they don't drag us down into an abyss too deep for climbing back to a better thought process.

Rejections aren't the only thing that foster that negative side. When we have a great story in our mind, then write the first draft and are sorely disappointed that it didn't come out the way we'd envisioned, we're deflated. Rewrite the draft and it still doesn't sing to us, and we fall deeper into the rabbit hole. Here's where a good dose of determination comes into play. Don't give up. Keep working on the story that you thought about in your mind.

You can see how easily we can develop a poor attitude about our writing. It's quite simple to become a self-pity writer. Most likely, it is easier to join this parade than it is to march in one that is prepared to aim at a positive attitude. Rejections? Tell yourseld that you can submit to another publication, then do it. Don't merely think about it. Take a hard look at your submission. Are there places that can be revised? 

What else can you do to keep a good attitude regarding your writing life? Make some goals and keep them in mind as a target you're aiming for. Make a few and write each one on an index card or small piece of paper, then put them in plain sight. Somewhere in the area where you write is the best spot. Read them, believe them, and work towards them. 

Your attitude is very personal to you. If it falls into the negative category, I can't change it for you. The lady down the street cannot do it. Nor can the people in your writing group. Oh sure, others can help guide you, but the actual feat of moving from the negative to the positive outlook on your writing world is up to you. The very first step is the desire to do so. 

Making big changes in our lives is seldom an overnight success story. These things take time, and we go one step, then another and another. 

No Wooden Characters in Your Fiction

 

An intriguing plot that piques the reader's interest and holds it throughout the story might be at the top of a list of goals for writing good fiction. As important as plot looms in creating memorable fiction, however, characters that show emotion and carry out the plot may surpass it in importance. No matter how good the story line, stiff and unfeeling characters will deflate a story faster than a pin pops a balloon.

In the classic tale, Pinocchio, a woodcarver named Geppetto creates a puppet boy made of wood. Geppetto's fondest wish is to turn his inanimate creation into a live boy who can love and cry and be a son to him. Pinocchio's adventures and misadventures fill the pages of this beloved children's story. We're writers, not woodcarvers. We don't want to create lifeless characters that might drag a story into oblivion.

We've all read work with characters that move the reader from Point A to Point B, but if they are wooden and show little or no emotion, we lose interest quickly. Emotion drives us, identifies us, and creates feelings of one kind or another for the characters in a story.

Readers want to see emotions in the characters they read about. Let them feel the anger, fear, or sadness in a character. More important than a physical description is to show what that character feels within. Show is the keyword here. 

Consider the following two passages:

A. Jennifer felt angry.

B. Jennifer stormed into the kitchen, picked up a bowl of gravy and threw it against the wall. Body shaking, she clenched her hands into fists and searched wildly for another missile to hurl.

Passage A is short and sweet and tells the reader what the emotion is, while B shows the emotion through Jennifer's actions. The reader can relate to and feel the emotion in B. Depending on the situation in which Jennifer vents her anger, the reader may be angry and empathize with her, or the reader might be in total disagreement and feel no sympathy at all for her. The important thing is that Passage B not only shows emotion in the character, it creates emotion in the reader.

Have you ever read a novel where lengthy physical descriptions of the characters filled page after page? At the end, all you have is the outer layer of the character. You still don't know what they are like emotionally. Let the reader be moved by the character's jealousy, deep love, or sorrow. Naming the emotion the character experiences isn't enough. The writer must make the reader feel what the character feels.

In Lois Lowry's Newberry Award novel, Number The Stars, a girl living in Nazi-occupied Denmark during WWII runs into two German soldiers on her way home from school. Ms. Lowry did not say "Annemarie was frightened by the soldiers." Instead, she wrote the following passage:

Annemarie stared up. There were two of them. That meant two helmets, two sets of cold eyes glaring at her, and four tall shiny boots planted firmly on the sidewalk, blocking her path to home. And it meant two rifles, gripped in the hands of the soldiers.

When a reader comes to this passage, her heart might beat a little faster. She’ll feel the same fear that Annemarie must be experiencing by seeing the soldiers through her child eyes.

In her book, Skylark, Patricia MacLachlan created characters that let us know their feelings through their actions. Consider this passage in which Anna describes a reunion with her father, whom she and Caleb have not seen in many months:

"Papa!" Caleb ran into Papa's arms, and Papa held him close. Papa picked me up, too, and my hat fell off, and I buried my face in his neck.

Instead of Anna saying "I was happy to see Papa," Ms. McLachlan shows us that joy in all three characters with a simple description.

In Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi brings Geppetto the woodcarver to life through his words and actions. When Geppetto carves his wooden puppet, strange things begin to happen, and we see his fear and frustration in the following passage:

In a few minutes it had become an immense nose that seemed to never end. Poor Geppetto tired himself out with cutting it off. The mouth was not even completed when it began to laugh and deride him. "Stop laughing I say," he roared in a threatening tone.

In real life, we often hold back our emotions. When writing, we must learn to do exactly the opposite. If you want to create memorable characters that inspire deep feelings in the reader, release the passion in you and allow the emotion to rise to the top. It's the perfect place to give your own emotions the outlet you might not have in your everyday existence. Make your characters laugh and cry, shout and stomp.

Pinocchio spent an entire book trying to become a real boy. You can create a real person in a paragraph with the right words. Let yourself go. Who knows? It could be a lot of fun! 

National Poetry Month 2023

 April is National Poetry Month. A time to recognize the many poets of today and those from past centuries. A time to read poetry or to write some verses yourself. 

What is that you are saying or thinking? I'm no poet. I can't write verses that make any sense or rhyme or wouold be entertaining to others. Don't be too sure about that. One need not have formal training in this kind of writing to give it a try. I've done it, even had several published, and so can you. 

Start with free verse which gives you more freedom than if you are trying to write more complicated forms of poetry. Write what comes from the heart. Allow your emotions to come through the words you write. 

If you're not up to writing poetry, read some. There are many poetry books available at bookstores and libraries. The variety is endless. I met a young woman last week who told me she is taking Latin in college. She added, "I love reading poetry in Latin." Needless to say, that impressed me. 

We have contemporary poets like Amanda Gorman, who wrote a poem for the last inauguration. Did you know that Robert Frost was the first poet to write a poem for an inauguration? Bill Clinton selected Maya Angelou to write and present a poem for his first inauguration. You can find any of these poems online. Mary Oliver is another contemporary poet, died in 2019, but her award-winning work is still very popular. 

We all studied famous poets when we were in school. Maybe we were at an age when we didn't appreciate them, so why not read the works of some of them now? You might have a different perspective than you did as a student. 

Use a search engine to find the works of poets like Robert Frost, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Barret Browning, Emily Dickinson, Sara Teasdale, Rudyard Kipling, Langston Hughes, and of course, William Shakespeare. 

When you read a poem, don't merely read it through once and call it done. Poetry should be read multiple times to savor the meaning, the use of words, the emotions and more. I find that watching a movie twice lets me see more in the film, things I hadn't noticed the first time. It's the same with poetry. 

Make a point of reading some poetry this month. 

Book Review: Natalie and the Nazi Soldiers (Children's)

Annette Gendler's debut children's book is titled Natalie and the Nazi Soldiers. Ms. Gendler is well-known for her books on writing memoir and family stories. It was one of her own family's stories that provided the inspiration for this children's picture book aimed at 7-9 year old readers. 

The author's mother-in-law was a Jewish child living in Paris with her family when WWII broke out. Natalie and her younger sister, Mimi, ended up in a small village far from the capital city where they were in hiding much of the time.  In 1944, Natalie was confronted by two Nazi soldiers when she took an injured piglet to the village to find help. This is the basis for the book Ms. Gendler wrote.

The interesting illustrations add to the story. Done in pencil and ink sketches with only a touch of color, they fit this kind of tale quite well. 

The story, though simple, will help children of today understand what those who lived in a time of war experienced. It should be emphasized that this is a true story. I would encourage parents to read the book with their children. 

The book can be ordered through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, The Book Depository, or your local bookstore.