by Rachel Toalson | Books
I go through these little seasons where I’ll read all middle grade fiction or all adult fiction or all young adult fiction. Recently I’ve been on a bit of a young adult fiction kick, so I’ve finished a couple of young adult books that I thought I’d share with you.
A couple of months ago, my book club read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Ring of Endless Light, which is part of the Austin Family Chronicles, a collection of five books. This one was the fourth book, but it doesn’t feel like you’re being thrown right into the middle of things. L’Engle does a great job of writing her series so that people can pick up the books at any point and not feel completely lost.
I’ve been a fan of L’Engle for a long time, but I had never read this series. I still plan to read the rest of the series, but for now, my shelf is a little full. A Ring of Endless Light was a sweet story about a girl visiting her dying grandpa. While her family seemed a little too perfect to be true, I found that the elements of science and poetry that L’Engle introduces into the story seemed to move it along more than the actual plot line. Vicki Austin, the main character, is trying to come to terms with grief and identity and how the world is the same or different after a beloved person has passed from it.
The book begins intriguingly with a funeral, and Vicki’s voice was curious, open and relatable, one that young adults can still identify with, even though the book was written many years ago.
The second young adult book I wanted to share was one called All the Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven. This was the story of two teenagers, Violet and Finch. Finch is a disturbed individual who has attempted suicide and suffers from a mental illness that’s not entirely clear until close to the end of the book. Violet is a girl who suffers from depression, and they find each other on the top of a bell tower at their school, where both of them are considering suicide.
It’s a sweet romance, but incredibly sad. One of those books I’ll probably only read once—not because it wasn’t fantastic but because it was so tragic. So you’ve been warned. You’ll probably need tissues for this one. The story was heartbreaking, the characters unforgettable, and the issues shared so openly and vibrantly will be life-changing for teens who struggle with depression and other mental illnesses. It could even save a few lives, which I believe is a valiant thing and makes this story quite necessary to the literature world, especially the young adult one.
Learning
Lately I’ve been lost in Telling True Stories: a Nonfiction Writer’s Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. This is a book about telling true stories, as the title suggests. But let me just tell you. When you start reading the collected essays from famous nonfiction authors and journalists, you will be more than learning. You will be inspired to write your own contributions to the world of nonfiction—whether it’s essays, narrative nonfiction or daily news stories.
This book is an incredible resource of have on hand for those who are interested in pursuing a nonfiction career. You’ll learn from people like Malcolm Gladwell, Nora Ephron, Gay Talese, Phillip Lopate, Tom Wolfe and so many more masters. You’ll learn about things like the proper way to conduct an interview, how to go about excelling at participatory reporting, how to write personal essays, developing characters in your nonfiction stories, and so much more.
My wheels are turning now about a narrative nonfiction project that’s been on the back burner for quite a long time. I’m looking forward to carving out space to begin using the skills I learned as a reporter again. So stay tuned for that.
Personal
I just returned from observing a Sabbath week, and I cannot tell you how much I needed it. Just before we broke for the Sabbath, I launched three more episodes of my Family on Purpose series, and we were working our fingers to the bone to get everything done on time.
Now, in a couple of weeks, I’ll be releasing the first season of my Fairendale series, so we’ve hit the ground running again. But it was so great to have a break, where I could just read and soak in the lives of my boys and celebrate my husband’s birthday and get away from work.
It doesn’t matter how much we love our work, we need breaks every now and then. And because we’re working so hard, breaks help us avoid burnout. It’s always necessary to take a step back and do something for us for a change. So that’s what I did. I mostly read, but I did a little sewing, tried to make the end-of-year gifts for my boys’ teachers and did a little organization around the house, because I’m a neat freak. I couldn’t stay away from brainstorming, and there were some necessary things I had to do for the upcoming Fairendale release, but, for the most part, I did a pretty good job resting.
And now I feel like I can breathe.
Writing
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I’m an author who self publishes but also is working to become traditionally published. There are a lot of differences between self publishing and traditional publishing. You do a whole lot of work for both, and there are rewards to both and drawbacks to both. What I’m learning is that self publishing takes a whole lot more time, and maybe has, at least for now, when my following is relatively small, small rewards for that. Traditional publishing, which doesn’t have great monetary awards—only about 3 to 5 percent of book sales—actually reaches way more people. And that’s why I’ve decided to do both.
It’s not easy to pursue both. On the one hand, I’ve been consumed with book releases this last month, so I haven’t had time to send out any of the projects I’ve marked for traditional publishing. On the other hand, I get immediate return on all those efforts—because when I publish a book myself, it publishes immediately.
When I send my manuscripts out to agents, it could take two or three years, sometimes longer. I’ve had a manuscript out with an agent for a year already. I’ve done edits, I’ve played the waiting game, I haven’t seen any return for that investment yet. I know I will. But traditional publishing is a much longer game. Which is okay. Because it also means that one day, I’ll be on the shelves of local libraries and in physical bookstores, which only happens with runaway bestsellers in the self-publishing world.
All that to say, more and more authors are becoming what’s called a hybrid author—they’re self publishing but also traditionally publishing. What I do myself is I evaluate my manuscripts. Traditional publishing isn’t as open to what I’d call “nontraditional manuscripts.” I have several nontraditional manuscripts that I’m releasing on my own.
The rest I’m saving for traditional publishing. I’ve given the publishing world five years for each project, and if the project isn’t sold or optioned, then I’ll publish on my own. That time period may change after a while. I may decide it’s not worth it to wait five years. But for now, I have so many manuscripts that it’s worth my while to wait.
Not everyone has that ability. So, really, the decision has to be up to each individual author. Traditional publishing works for some. It doesn’t for others. Self publishing works for some. It doesn’t for others. There is no one right way. Isn’t that good to know?
Listening
I’ve probably mentioned before that when I write my fiction stories and even my nonfiction essays, I write to music. Sometimes I listen to music and words, but lately I’ve been listening only to instrumental music. Specifically the music of Carmina Burana. If you’ve never heard the music of Carmina Burana, you should.
See, when I was in high school, our high school band was really, really good, and one year, for contest season, our band director had us perform three of the movements of Carmina Burana. So not only does listening to this bring back so many memories, but it’s also really great orchestral music.
When I’m writing to Carmina Burana, I feel like my characters can make it through any tragedy that comes their way, because it’s strong, passionate, wild music. I feel like I myself could make it through anything, too.
The University of California Davis Symphony Orchestra has a great rendition of it. Settle into it, because it’s more than an hour long. But you can listen to it in pieces. You’ll be glad you did.
Also, fun fact: I used to be a drum major. That means I conducted all the music for the marching band. So maybe you’re not ready to know I was a nerd. But I still have great memories and pictures from that time in my life. All you band nerds, here’s a shout out. There’s nothing cooler than band. Except being a bookworm.
Yeah, I was really popular in high school.
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by Rachel Toalson | Books
I’ve talked about the Hero’s Guide books before, but I talked more about the incredible narration recorded by Bronson Pinchot (which really is incredible. If you haven’t read these books yet, pick them up on audio first and then read them again in book form).
But today I wanted to talk about the series as a whole. There are three books in the Hero’s Guide series: The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle and The Hero’s Guide to Being an Outlaw. They are all equally hilarious, equally wonderful, equally written by Christopher Healy. I’ve always loved fairy tale retellings, and this is one of my favorites of all times. Not only because it’s so humorous—Healy is really great at making the situations in which the Prince Charmings of popular fairy tale stories find themselves—but because it is great story telling. The characters are lovable and yet comic, and the princesses are on equal footing—maybe even better footing than the princes.
What stands out the most about Christopher Healy’s series is the voice of the narrator. It’s easy to see why Bronson Pinchot did such a fabulous job narrating the series—because Healy writes the narrator with a distinctive voice that is, most notably, sarcastic. The narrator has a personality of his own, which I think is the best feature of the series.
This was one of my favorite passages from The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom:
“The other thing you need to understand about Duncan—and you might have already guessed this—is that he was odd. All the princes had their issues—Frederic was easily intimidated, Liam’s ego could stand to be reined in a bit, and Gustav could use some impulse control—but Duncan was flat-out strange. We all know somebody who is a bit eccentric—the girl who talks to herself, maybe, or the boy who eats the erasers off his pencils like they’re gumdrops. They could be wonderful people, but thanks to their quirky behavior, they don’t have the easiest time making friends. This was true of Duncan as well.
“If Duncan were to become your friend, he would bring a lot of positive energy to your day, he’s certainly make you laugh, and he’d prove himself to be perhaps the most loyal pal you would ever have. Nobody ever got close enough to Duncan to learn this, though. His questionable fashion choices and weird habits (such as trying to play his teeth like a piano) had a way of turning people off.”
Don’t you just love that sarcasm and wit? Duncan (who is the Prince Charming married to Snow White) sounds like a person I’d like to know, weirdly enough—if only just to see him try to play his teeth like a piano.
The Hero’s Guide is a series that now sits on our shelves, because I believe it’ll be one we read again and again. A classic in the making, for sure.
Learning
I’ve been studying this little book called A Writer’s Guide to Active Setting: Trying to Enhance Your Fiction with More Descriptive, Dynamic Settings. I originally picked up this book, because I’m brainstorming a new novel that features some woods as a sort of character. I wanted to know how to write deeper settings for this story. But I had also noticed, when going back through the drafts of my stories, that I’m not that great at providing setting details. They tend to stay in my head instead of out on the page. I knew that tons of setting details don’t keep readers interested in a story, but I wanted to figure out how to include some of those important details that actually move a story forward.
This book has been fantastic for not only providing great examples of authors who have a good grasp on writing their setting but also on explaining the different purposes setting can serve in a book. I probably knew a lot of intuitively, because that’s how writers tend to learn, but it’s been good to make those connections and see examples of them so I can add more setting to my own stories. I’ve even added another draft to all of the novels I write—one where I’ll be assessing how well I use setting and how much more I might be able to do with it in every scene. Not that every scene needs setting—but it’s worthwhile to ask that question in the first place.
Even if I got nothing else from this book, that would be enough. It’s made me much more aware of how to improve my stories in simple ways.
Personal
Recently my family and I traveled to see my mother. We’ve been doing that a little more often lately, because I love her, and also because I’m in the middle of writing a memoir. I’ve been visiting some of my old childhood places, trying to get a feel for what they’re like now. I’ve mentioned before that my memory is not quite as good as I thought it was—I tend to remember things much differently than others. That doesn’t mean my stories aren’t true. It just means that I see them differently than others may. Our memories are never 100 percent accurate; we just do the best we can.
On the latest visit to my mom, we stopped by some railroad tracks again and let our boys play on them, and we visited my old high school and did a few laps on the old track where I ran the 400-meter dash, and then we showed up at my childhood church, which still looks about the same. It’s always good going home. It’s always good feeling like the people who knew you as a child and who have kept up with you as an adult still love you, flaws and all. There’s something about community that’s wonderful and transformative. And there’s something about being from a tiny little town that feels like, no matter how far you go away from it, you’re always forever connected.
Writing
I’ve mentioned before that I have a quite aggressive word count goal this year—two million words. I’m right on track, but lately I’ve been thinking about taking a step back from some of my blogs, and I’ve found myself worried that I won’t be able to make that word goal. When I expressed this worry to my husband, he had some very wise words:
It’s okay to take a step back, he said.
This is a hard one for me. When I commit to something, I really commit to it. There’s no turning back. I won’t let myself out of it, for any reason. I could be sick in bed one day, but I’m still going get that blog up.
But I thought about his words. I thought about big, scary goals that seem impossible when you first latch on to them. I thought about how, somewhere in the middle of reaching for that big, scary goal, it can start to feel like there’s no going back, because the train can’t be stopped. People are depending on you to reach it, because you’re an inspiration to them. And maybe that’s entirely true. Maybe it’s not. Either way, I can’t put pressure on myself for someone else’s inspiration. People don’t think about us nearly as much as we think they do. That means that if I abandoned my goal today, no one would probably even care.
I’m not going to abandon my goal. But I am, now, trying to decide what’s necessary and what’s not, and that may mean that this year I don’t reach that two-million-words goal. I think I will. But there’s no sense in overwhelming myself with a big-scary goal, when I could do much more with much more happiness and fulfillment letting the pressure off a little.
So it’s okay to let the pressure off. Don’t be afraid of disappointing someone. Don’t think that if you don’t meet this big-scary goal you’re never going to meet another goal ever again. Letting the pressure off this big-scary goal may be just the freedom you need to accomplish even greater things.
Listening
Have you heard Kelly Clarkson’s song “Piece by Piece?” I don’t usually listen to a whole lot of Kelly Clarkson—although I have to admit, that at one time I was a big fan—but this song. It is incredibly beautiful. When I first heard it, I wished that I had written it. It’s a song with a powerful story that resonates with my life—a man who left, a man who stayed and picked up all the pieces. It gives me chills talking about it. Just be prepared to cry, if you’re anything like me. I still cry, every time I hear it. I might even cry now, talking about it.
No. I’m okay. But you should definitely go listen to it–especially the version she sang live on American Idol. So good.
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by Rachel Toalson | Books
I read a whole lot to my boys. Every day at lunch, I read to my twins and my littlest one from two picture books and a chapter book. Every night before bed, my entire family gathers around stories—two more picture books and another chapter book. But a surprising time when I read to my boys is during their baths. My boys are still young, so I know this won’t happen forever, but I’m always looking for opportunities where I can read more to my children. Bath time happened to be one of those.
It actually came about when my 9-year-old, who is probably one of the greatest lovers of story I’ve ever known (besides myself, of course), asked me to start reading a book to him while he took a bath. So I did. And then the 6-year-old and 5-year-old asked me the same, once they saw me doing it for their big brother.
Right now I’m reading Chicken Boy, by Frances O’Roark Dowell to the 5-year-old, Rain Reign, by Ann M. Martin, to the 6-year-old, and The Night Gardener, by Jonathan Auxier, to the 9-year-old. These are all books I’ve read already. I like to read books I’ve already read to my boys, because sometimes you don’t know about the content. Sometimes it’s too mature. Sometimes it’s not quite engaging enough for one kid’s particular personality. Every now and then I’ll read books with my boys that I haven’t read yet, but it’s usually only after I’ve done some research on the book’s content and feel, or if I know the author.
I’ve already talked before about Rain Reign, as well as The Night Gardener, so today I’d like to talk about Chicken Boy.
The first thing I noticed about Chicken Boy was the voice. The story is told from the perspective of Tobin McCauley, who is a little bit of a tough guy. He has a crazy grandmother, juvenile-delinquent siblings and a dad who doesn’t take much interest in his kids. He doesn’t really have any friends, because he doesn’t think he needs them, even though he knows, deep down, that he does. But then a new kid comes to town and wants to befriend him. The problem is, this kid cares a whole lot about chickens, and Tobin doesn’t really care about anything.
It’s a story of friendship and identity and what it really means to be loved.
Tobin’s voice is one of the most engaging I’ve ever read in middle grade literature, with sentences like this:
“I thought about Granny’s chickens. You couldn’t pay me money to believe them birds had ever though a thought or felt a single feeling other than a hankering to peck in the dirt for bugs. I’d seen red-tailed hawks out in the woods, and I could imagine they had all sorts of noble ideas. But chickens? Forget it, son.”
At times the story is funny, at times incredibly sad. But what its readers will remember most is the story of a boy who found where he belongs in unexpected places—and came to understand that the person he thought he was, based on his family history, and the person he actually is—a better one than he imagined—are worlds apart.
Learning
A couple of months ago, I began a course called “Your First 10,000 Readers,” which is offered by a successful indie author named Nick Stephenson. He only offers the course about twice a year, so it’s actually not open right now, but it will be in the future. It’s a fantastic course for those who want to make a career out of their writing, whether they want to publish their own work or become traditionally published. The course’s greatest asset is what it teaches about marketing books.
This is one of the areas where I struggle most. I’ve talked about how much I dislike trying to sell myself, but the reality is, if I want to make a living out of my writing, I’m going to have to get over it. My writing has value. I believe that. And if I believe it, then I have to be willing to share that value with other people, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me feel. I’m not selling my work. I’m selling an encouraged heart or a bit of entertainment or some laughter. Those are all valuable things.
So in the weeks leading up to my book launch, I’ve been scouring this course, trying to learn as much as I can about the proper way to set up an email list when you’re a writer and the right kinds of funnels to have in place and the best way to pull off a launch. I have pages and pages of notes that I’ve begun incorporating. I can’t say enough about the 10,000 Readers course. I’m looking forward to seeing just how it changes my book launches from here on out.
Personal
At the beginning of this year, I decided that I wanted to learn a little more about photography. So this year I’ve been practicing more photography—not so I can go professional but because I write so many blogs and love using my own pictures. Sometimes I still have to use free stock images, but most times, especially on my humor parenting site, I use all my own photos.
Photography has done this amazing thing to me. In the mornings, when I’m trying to rush boys out the door to get to school on time, I’ve begun picking up the camera and snapping shots. Photography has a way of slowing down time. Maybe because it’s still shots. You have a moment captured in time, but the moment before you snap the picture, you’re staring through a lens, watching for the best angle or the best facial expression or the best lighting. Even when we’re rushing, I’m taking time to look and see and snap. It’s been amazing.
I haven’t learned much about photography yet. I’m sort of reading a couple of books on it, but I don’t always have the time to study. But what I’ve enjoyed most is not just having these photos I’ve taken myself, but it’s also having the reason to stop and study and see.
Writing
I mentioned recently that I tend to write on a bunch of different projects at a time. I did that, originally, because I have so many ideas, and I wanted to make sure I could get to them all. The problem is, even as I’m fleshing out these book ideas, I’m still coming up with more. So I’ve decided to do something different.
I keep this purple binder near me at all times, which is filled with all my fiction and nonfiction books ideas. I jot down another idea as I have it, and then I let it be. I don’t get started. I wait until the current project I’m working on is finished. What that means is that I’ve gone from working on three book projects at a time every week to working on only one. This has helped me to focus more on the story, because not only do I have the time to really walk around in my world and observe my characters, but I also have the focus to bring their story to life in a greater way. I found it challenging every week, when I was working on multiple projects, to change between the different worlds and tenses and points of view. Some of my books are written in first-person. Some are written in third-person. Some are written in past tense. Some are written in present tense. I found places in my manuscripts where I was getting confused on all of that. So focusing on one at a time has helped me to really dig down deep and get to the heart of the story.
And, as a bonus, it’s helped me actually write those stories faster.
Right now I’m working on a story about a boy with an autistic brother who has to choose between claiming his brother as his brother and being the popular kid at school, for once in his life. I can already tell it’s going to be a good one.
Watching
I tend to be a creature of habit. So every week, on our “date night,” because we don’t get to go out often, Husband and I sit and watch “Once Upon a Time” on Netflix. Husband is a binge kind of person, but I tend to take my one or two episodes every week. The series has gotten interesting, and I enjoy seeing what new fairy tale characters they’re going to introduce next. We’re still in Season Two, but I can already tell that the writing has gotten worlds better than it was, which, if you’re a nitpicky person like I am, you’ll find worth celebrating.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
On My Shelf
I just got done reading The Husband’s Secret, by Liane Moriarty. I discovered Moriarty about a year ago when I picked up her book Big Little Lies and loved it. So I thought I’d try another. The Husband’s Secret is a story about three families that come crashing together in unforgettable ways. The story begins with a letter a wife finds, by accident, in the attic of her home. The letter is addressed to her from her husband and says it’s to be opened after her husband’s death. This, of course, is a great way to start the book, because at first you’re wondering what’s in the letter, and then you’re wondering what she’s going to do about what’s in the letter. (I actually cheated and skipped ahead to have my questions answered, because sometimes I have enough mystery in my life and like to know what’s going to happen in the stories I read.)
Moriarty has a singular style of writing that keeps a reader engaged and entertained and hardly able to put a book down, and I love that about her books. She’s entertaining, interesting and intriguing, and that’s hard to do when you’re not writing something like a mystery thriller. Her characters are quirky and smart and funny, and they really come alive on the page. I’ve got the rest of her books on my list now, because once I find an author I like, I read everything they write. So Liane Moriarty just got another superfan.
Learning
I’ve been on sort of a health kick lately, so I’ve been reading all sorts of books about eating and exercise and the science of mind over body. Two of the books I’ve just finished are Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body, by Jo Marchant, and The Feelgood Plan, by Dalton Wong and Kate Faithfull-Williams.
Cure is a book about exactly what it says: the science of mind over body. It’s been a fascinating read full of research and information about how things like placebos work and how our mind can actually reduce the symptoms of our illnesses, and, in some cases, even the actual illness itself. Maybe it’s because my husband and I just recently finished watching the PBS series “The Brain with David Eagleman,” but I find the brain and its ability to create a whole different reality really, interesting. And a little disturbing.
The Feelgood Plan is a great book about diet and exercise and choosing a healthy lifestyle. I’m always interested in learning more about food and health, and this book has been really great for nutritional information and also motivation. Wong, one of the co-authors, actually trained Jennifer Lawrence before she filmed The Hunger Games, and what he and Faithfull-Williams include in the book is really helpful for someone who’s interested in learning more about food and exercise health.
The book includes a bunch of pictures and graphics, so it’s not just pages and pages of information that puts you to sleep. It’s actually really engaging. What I like most about it is the 12-week plan the authors include in the back of the book, where you’re not just drastically changing everything in Week 1 and shocking your system into submission. You’re easing into a lifestyle change.
Personal
My second son just turned seven, which is really hard to believe. Everyone tells you all the time that parenthood flies by, but I can really see it every time my kids have a birthday. The days feel forever long, but the years are so terribly short. My boys are on their way to becoming young men, and there’s a sadness to that, but there’s also an incredible sense of pride. This is the story of parenthood.
I want to make sure I’m available and present for them every moment I can. While it’s important for them to see me work and be my own person and help take care of the home, it’s also important for me to say with my time, your heart is really important to me. I value my connection with you. So let’s be together for a while and just be.
We schedule this time in our house, and it’s made all the difference in the strength of our relationship and our connections.
Writing
I mentioned last week that I have a few book releases coming up soon, so I’m madly revising and editing my manuscripts. One of my series, Family on Purpose, which is a spiritual nonfiction project, will release May 4, and it’s not as difficult to get this one right, because it’s just a collection of diary entries that detail my family intentional living journey. For a year we lived out our family values and I write in journals about our progress.
But the other series, Fairendale, which releases June 1, is the one that’s starting to make my eyes cross a little. I’ve realized in the revising and editing of this series that I am even more of a perfectionist than I ever thought. It’s so hard to let works go, out into the world. It’s hard not to keep looking at the manuscripts and thinking that this could surely be better. That version two or three or five could be better.
Of course a manuscript could always be better. I’m always growing as a writer and honing my skills. But at some point, I have to release my work out into the world. I have to give it to my readers. I have to send it on its way so that it can live in the hearts of others. That means that at some point, my work has to be good enough.
This is one of the reasons why working with deadlines is great when you’re a writer. A deadline is a finish date. It says, you cannot look over this manuscript one more time. You must let it go. So I’ve got my deadlines circled on my calendar, and this week, I’m going to be finished. Or maybe next week. Or the week after that, because, you know, I’m sure I can make it better if I read through it one more time.
Listening
In the mornings when I’m fixing breakfast for my boys, I tend to be the only one up. So, because I’m sort of afraid to be in a room alone when it’s still dark outside, I usually turn on a narrated story to keep me company. Lately that story has been Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.
The audio book for this classic is read by Jim Dale, who is the narrator of the Harry Potter series and also narrates the classic, Peter Pan. He’s a fantastic narrator and makes classic stories really engaging. Last year my boys and I listened to his narrated version of Peter Pan, and they kept asking for it over and over and over again. It’s one of their favorites.
I’m looking forward to showing them Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and I’m hoping that he reads some other children’s classics—because kids love classics when they’re engaging. And Jim Dale is definitely an engaging voice.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
I’ve been working my way through this year’s award winners, and Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan, has been sitting on my shelf for a while, mostly because I read it aloud to my 4-year-old twins. We had to do it in tiny little pieces, because they don’t sit still for more than about thirty pages. Which I suppose is still pretty good for a 4-year-old.
Echo was a lovely story that covered so many issues: the prejudice against Mexican Americans back during World War II, what happened to Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the prejudice against Germans who were born with what the government called defects, and the fate of children who were orphaned in the trying financial times that cropped up during the war. Like I said, it was a wonderfully loaded book.
It was broken into three parts: one part that told the story of Friedrich, a German with a birthmark. Part two told the story of Mike Flannery and his kid brother, who were both orphans. Part three told the story of Ivy Maria, a Mexican American. All three of the stories were engaging and entertaining.
The book was unusually long for a middle grade read, and I could have seen the three parts broken into separate books, but because Ryan wrote the stories in a way that not only made readers love and care about her characters but also brought history to light in a masterful way, the book didn’t feel long. Ryan linked all the stories together by using music—Friedrich wanted to be a conductor, Mike played the harmonica, and Ivy Maria learned to play the flute.
Echo begins alluringly with a story about three princesses caught in shadow form, which makes you want to keep reading, because it begins almost like a fairy tale. Ryan builds the historic story around that fairy-tale—as if there is something linking the princesses in the story to the characters in the book. And it becomes clear that what links them is a harmonica—the princesses live in the music of a harmonica that every child in every part will find and use.
By bringing the story of the three princesses into the beginning of her book, Ryan ensures that readers will want to continue reading. But even without the princess story, one would have been hooked by Ryan’s language.
The first part begins in Germany, where Friedrich works in a harmonica factory. One day he finds a harmonica far superior than all the others, and he pockets it. Friedrich and his father are being targeted by the Nazis, because Friedrich’s father is an outspoken man. Friedrich has a birthmark on his face, and the Germans want to collect him and put him in an asylum. But his father won’t allow it. When his father is taken away by the Nazis, Friedrich has to figure out how to get him back.
Friedrich’s description of the world after he’s found out he’s going into an asylum was endearing:
“The rhythm of Tchaikovsky’s waltz took hold again. Looking back across Father’s shoulder, he lifted an imaginary baton with his good arm and conducted.
“When the wind brushed his face, Friedrich felt a lightness—a weightlessness—as if bit by bit, the dread and worry that always burdened him were taking flight.
“Had Father not been holding him, he too might have floated away on the wind, like a dandelion’s white-seeded parachutes.”
I love that Friedrich finds his hope and comfort in music. When the world is crumbling around him, he can always find refuge in the music.
One of the things I enjoyed most about Ryan’s book was all the points where music came into play. The people find their feet in the midst of war because of the beauty of music. And music does that to people—when a world is dark, music lends a bit of light.
When Friedrich finds the harmonic and plays it, it makes the most beautiful music he has ever heard. Its music seems to be alive—healing, in a way, as if all the terror and disappointment he has in his life melts away with just one note.
Here’s how he describes what the harmonica feels like in his pocket:
“With every step up from the front walk, it seemed to thump against his chest, like a heartbeat.”
It’s as if the harmonica gives him a new reason to go on. The music keeps him grounded and helps him persevere through even greater challenges that will come.
Here, Friedrich’s father is talking to his daughter, who has just told him that the music of negros—jazz—is considered degenerate by the Nazis:
“‘Music does not have a race or a disposition!’ said Father. ‘Every instrument has a voice that contributes. Music is a universal language. A universal religion of sorts. Certainly it’s my religion. Music surpasses all distinctions between people.’”
I absolutely love this sentiment: that though the world may have a hard time not seeing the differences in race and color and belief, music wipes all of that way.
Later, when Friedrich goes up to his room, he can still hear his father and his sister, Elisabeth, arguing. Here’s what he says about it:
“In the broken chords, he heard the rhythm of Father and Elisabeth’s argument. The alternating notes—their banter back and forth—rose and fell. The music was precise as their conversation had been brittle. As the piece progressed, he felt the gathering tension wind tighter and tighter, like unspoken anxiety. After the movement, a sadness lingered, unresolved.”
Part Two told the story of Mike Flannery and his kid brother. Mike was taught piano by his grandmother, but when she died, he and his brother were sent to an orphanage. Their grandmother specified that they must be adopted together, but there’s a strong possibility that it won’t happen—and then someone shows up looking for a musical boy.
Before Mike is taken to the home of a potential foster parent, he’s talking with one of the 16-year-old boys in the orphanage, who tells him:
“‘Everybody has a heart. Sometimes you gotta work hard to find it. One thing I learned is that if there’s something you want or need to know from grown folks, you gotta step up and ask for it mannerly. Plead your case, that’s what I say. More times than naught, you’ll get exactly what you asked for.”
I love the wisdom in this statement, wisdom that comes through the hard experiences of life.
Mr. Potter, who is a servant at the home where Mike and his brother are taken at one point, turns the song “Twinkle Twinkle” into a blues song with a harmonica. Mike asks him how, and this is what Mr. Potter says:
“‘Easy.” Mr. Potter grinned. ‘You take the tune and break it up. Then do over some of the lines. Then sprinkle in some grit from your insides. You play the song like you’re testifying to the feeling you hold in your heart: happy, sad, angry.’”
It’s a great description of the blues.
The woman who is considering adoption of Mike and his brother is a hard woman to get to know. At one point, Mike thinks she’s going to try to get out of the adoption, and he urges her to at last keep his brother, because he can figure out what to do with himself. He tells her:
“‘Mrs. Potter said you were a kind and loving soul, underneath all the rest. I guess that means your heart’s so sad that it’s hard to get out from under the weight. When I was sad about my mother dying, Granny used to say grief is the heaviest thing to carry alone. So I know all about that.’”
I love Mike’s perspective on grief. One of my favorite things about kid-lit is how much truth is contained in the innocent observations of its characters. It’s true that grief is heaviest when we carry it alone.
Part Three of Echo is about Ivy Maria, who is a Mexican American. Her family is very poor, but her father gets a new job on a farm that belongs to a Japanese family who was put in an internment camp, which happened to many Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. One of the owner’s neighbors wants to prove that he and his families were Japanese spies so the farm will be given to the government and someone else might purchase it. There were so many emotional issues raised in this section of the story: the death of a loved one during a war, the unjust treatment of the Japanese during that time, the unjust treatment of the Mexican Americans or, really, anyone who was from a different race.
When her father told her that their family would be leaving her old school for his new job, Ivy Maria remembered the image of her best friend this way:
“Ivy tried to etch the image into her mind: her best friend, wearing a matching purple hat, waving and blowing kisses to her. She blew kisses in return and pretended they were not the beginning of good-bye.”
This passage was so endearing, because Ivy Maria has left many of her friends behind, because her family is sort of nomadic, as were many Mexican Americans during that time. Ivy Maria captures the pain of children who had to leave their friends and lives behind.
Ivy Maria is a little angry at her father for moving their family yet again:
“Better. Papa was always looking for a place called Better. Once, this place, Fresno, had been better. Now it was nothing more than the last place she’d lived.”
This stuck out to me, because it’s always human nature to pursue Better. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and it’s always hard to know which it is. Ivy Maria is angry about it right now, but she might learn, once the worst happens–the move–that it’s not as bad as she thought.
Echo was a book full of history, lovable characters, and unforgettable stories tucked within a larger Story.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
Saving Lucas Biggs (MG sci-fi), by Marisa de los Santos and David Teague, has been on my reading list for a while. I listened to half of this one on audio book and then read the rest of it, because I found it hard to jot down notes and locate quotes when I was only listening to the audio. And because there were so many passages I wanted to highlight, I had to switch to the hard copy version.
The story begins in a compelling way: with a trial and a guilty verdict. We learn early on that the trial is for 13-year-old Margaret’s father, and, also, that he didn’t commit the crime. This immediately sets up a reason for readers to continue reading. What’s going to happen to her father? Will Margaret be able to save him?
Not only that, but the judge who proclaims the guilty verdict and the impending death sentence is named Judge Biggs. Because he shares the same name as the title, the title becomes another reason readers keep reading—is he Lucas Biggs? Why does he need to be saved?
The story flips back and forth from the perspective of Margaret, who lives in present day, to Josh, who lives in 1938, when Judge Biggs was a young boy. Margaret, who can time travel, tries to prevent her father’s sentence by preventing the chain of events that caused Judge Biggs to become who he is today.
The only problem is, history is trying to work against her.
What I loved most about this book is that it told a story of innocence and good that was corrupted by power and disappointment. It told the story of a boy who was enticed to act outside of who he was because of circumstances that felt too painful for him to bear. It told the story of good and evil in a way that showed evil is not born evil but sometimes comes about due to circumstances or ignorance or desperation.
The authors crafted their two different voices beautifully. Here is Josh, talking about a miner’s strike and a subsequent massacre:
“After the massacre, our job was to keep Canvasburg alive, because if we left, or starved, or froze in the fall wind that’d started cascading down Mount Hosta, everything that’d happened to us would disappear into thin air, and everybody who’d died would’ve died for nothing.”
He’s a valiant child, one who believes in what the miners are doing, because they’re not treated justly. They must demand justice. He doesn’t think their town will be served by giving up. It’s a very heroic standpoint, after so many died because of what they believed. In spite of fear, he believes the miners are right to keep fighting for what they believe.
Here’s a descriptive passage from Josh:
“Fall kept falling, and the desert nights grew cold. I got to thinking that if we stacked rocks around the edges of our tents to stop the mountain wind from whistling straight through them, then maybe our blankets wouldn’t blow off in the middle of the night while we tried to sleep, leaving us dreaming of glaciers and hugging our knees. What I didn’t foresee was how hard it would actually be to find a rock to pick up. Even one. I mean, the desert around there, the whole shimmering thing, was like a work of art. It should’ve had a guard in a uniform with a sign: Do Not Touch.
“It was perfect. It was beautiful. Red! Green! Yellow!
“Brighter than you ever imagined! Every rock fit into every other rock like the pieces of a mosaic.”
This description endeared me to Josh, because it contains so much hope. That time of year, the desert was a perfect work of art. It was beautiful. Beauty can always be found in even the most dire of circumstances. Josh and his family is camping outside their town, and they don’t have much to eat, and they’ve just lost a bunch of their friends and neighbors, and still he’s able to find beauty in the landscape.
In Josh’s description of his brother’s chronic cough, you hear how much he knows and loves his brother:
“The shadow that fed on Preston’s cough grew like a storm loud over us. ‘I’m not complaining,’ he said one night before bed. And that was true. Preston had a nonstop mouth, but he never used it for complaining. ‘I’m just hungry.’
Josh gives us great characterization of his brother. It’s clear that he cares about his brother and that he is worried about the cough that has come back around, even though it was supposed to get better in the desert.
Here Josh is speaking about the day’s beginning:
“I watched the first sunlight of the day boiling over the desert like a tide of red falling up to drown me. I held my breath, as if that would save me, but I couldn’t go without air forever, and as I breathed again, a ruby crescent peeked over the rim of the world. In seconds, it had grown into a scarlet crown; then it was half an orange globe, and then a yellow ball, huge, glued to the horizon, and thwack, the ball pulled itself loose and floated up into the blue sky, burning whiter as it rose.”
The way he describes the sunrise is captivating; it’s as if I’m watching it with him.
And here Josh is speaking of Margaret, when he sees her for the first time after she’s done her time-traveling thing:
“Suddenly, I spied a girl. I’d never seen this girl before. I’d never seen a girl like this girl before, flitting from tent shadow to tent shadow. She had hair as red as the sunlight that’d just singed my retinas. She had eyes so green, I could see them fifty yards away, and her feet were really large.”
What he chooses to highlight in his description—the green hair that tells him who she’s related to in that small town, the red hair that also gives a hint of this ancestry, the large feet, which is a humorous observation for a boy to make—shows a lot about his personality. He’s curious, trying to figure her out. And of course he had never seen a girl like her before; she was from 70 years in the future.
It’s clear that I felt more drawn to Josh’s voice than Margaret’s, since I didn’t jot down any notes from Margaret’s point of view, but all in all the book was an entertaining read full of adventure and all the themes I love most—family, perseverance and good triumphing over the evil that may not be as evil as we had, at first, thought. Saving Lucas Biggs is a treat for adults and kids alike.
