The Yo-Yo Prophet by Karen Krossing on Sugar Beach

Early Saturday morning I was heading to an Access Copyright meeting in the Star Building at the foot of Yonge. At the south end of Lower Jarvis I happened on a location I'd heard about and always wanted to see: Sugar Beach.  And I had the perfect book to read, Karen Krossing's The Yo-Yo Prophet (Orca Book Publishers)  Her main character Calvin actually performs and predicts from the harbourfront not far from here. I show two photos of the location only because it's such an oddity.  You can't swim from this beach and while it's inviting, the setting is quite industrial with that rusty ship docked nearby.  It took all my will power to keep walking and head for One Yonge Street.  Not only could I not stop to enjoy the book at this beach but on the Go Train in I re-read the black binder full of notes for the meeting.  I only hope my sacrifices give writers like Karen MORE MONEY.    

Meetings done, I made the time to read The Yo-Yo Prophet from a more mundane setting, my dining room.I love the characters,  Rozelle especially.  She's such a feisty big-busted girl full of spunk and innovation.  I wish Karen would write a story all about her.  I like the premise and I'm always intrigued by yo-yoing.  Can't get one to return unless I buy a cheater automatic return.  I think I now need a trick book so I can read it again and try to perform the things Calvin did. I like the unpredictability of the story.  Calvin has problems that don't solve themselves sitcom-like.  He acts on them and manages to shift the balance in his favour but in the end...well you'll have to read it yourself.  And by the way, this is not a book Just for Kids.  You don't have to wrack your brains for whom on your shopping list you should get a copy.  Buy it for yourself and enjoy.  There's no reason young adults should always have all the fun.

How Do You Read to a Rabbit by Andrea Wayne von Koningslow

This is my grandaughter Violet's official first book.  I'm sure there were many other board books that she gummed along the way but How Do You Read to a Rabbit is her go-to favourite because she loves the pictures.  She loves animals, anyway, but how can you resist Andrea Wayne's whimsical gentle drawings?  I love her Bing and Chutney characters too and have a portrait of them hanging in my bedroom.  Violet currently likes the dolphin page in her book and has learned the phrase "all wet" from it. Her dad, my son Craig, also enjoyed many Annick picture books.  I remember his favourite used to be Mashed Potato Mountain by Laurel Gugler.  I'm so grateful to Annick for those little handsized picture books that I used to carry around in my purse, the emergency stories that I used to entertain my three children in the waiting rooms of life.  They introduced my kids to reading and to many great Canadian children's writers like Andrea. 

Linwood Barclay and Chevy Stevens' Thrillers on my Ereader in the forest

My e-reader, just like my laptop, closely resembles my favourite childhood toy, my etch a sketch.  Okay, hands down physical books are still better.  I like to know where I'm at in a book, if I'm close to the end in physical page thickness.  My ereader makes me read faster just like SRA did when I went to school.  Who remembers SRA in the late 60s and early 70s?  Scientific Reading Association.  You were tested and put into a colour and then you had to read short stories on that colour of cards while being timed.  Afterwards you answered questions, again timed, and corrected your answers from another card.  Faster and faster, up the ladder of colours. Yes I can speed read now and it can be a blessing and a curse.  I don't savour details like some people.  Instead I gallop through plots which makes me a pretty good concept editor.  Too bad I have to copy edit things too.

I am a big Linwood Barclay fan as I first encountered him as a Star columnist who wrote about his Burlington (my town) home life.  His first mysteries still had that comfortable suburban feel and column humour.  Now they're gone to thriller twists and turns, but still with the great funny characters. I loved The Accident and read it in this copse of trees at Bronte Creek, in their dog park. Now I hate using any Chinese electric products.  Thanks Linwood!

Chevy Stevens is a BC thriller writer whose stories Still Missing and Never Knowing were great reads to gobble up on an Ereader. In the first, the real estate agent is kidnapped and lives a year with her abductor, bears him a child and all things creepy.  In Never Knowing the main character finds out some horrible truths about her birth father.  Twist seekers charge your Ereaders please.

   

L.M. Falcone Ventures into Graphic Novel

Lucy usually writes scary novels like The Mysterious Mummer or Walking with the Dead (a Silver Birch Winner) but here she's collaborating with my daughter Robin McNicoll to touch up some illustrations on a new graphic novel.  It's still in grant proposal stage so I don't want to say too much about it.  I did read the first fifteen pages and it's hilarious. I hope Canada Council juries like having their funny bones tickled.  Still who cares, as long as I can buy and read the whole book soon.  Attracted by the hum of creativity, Hunter sat down to watch the process and in the end, received an autographed first draft, worth millions once Lucy takes over for J.K. Rowling.

Emceeing Discovery Landing's 2011 Sandcastle Competition

Nothing to do with writing or selling books, I just love sandcastles.  For the past couple of years I've been a judge in Burlington's Sandcastle Competition.  I wouldn't say I'm an expert in anything sandy but I just love the sculptures and the beach, watching the sailboats come in.  This year they made all their past winners judges and really didn't need me.  How about I emcee instead?  So same deal, great sandart pirate themed this year, hot hot weather, good beach music and lots of yachts and other boats drifting in.  I intro'd  bands and events into a microphone, something authors are pretty used to doing and enjoyed the day.  Now I said it had nothing to do with writing but as I stood there looking out on the lake, I remembered the scene from Dying to Go Viral. As part of her redo of her last week on earth, 14 year old Jade wants  to go to the beach but has no car or means and can't share with her family that she's only got a week to live either.  So she hops a bus and heads for Burlington Beach and it's a great day even though it's not Hawaii or California or any other exotic beach locale.  Dying along with Jade, taught me to appreciate local sunrises and sunsets and beaches as well as sand pirates like this.

Death on Track Take 2 Learning how to live

This is the second book in a series I'm working on where the main character dies in the first chapter, stupidly, and meets someone dead from her past at the gates of entry into the next life.  The character begs to return to life to address regrets and is granted the last week of her life to do over.  Can she avoid death? Maybe sometimes.

  In Death on Track, Paige evades bullies by taking a shortcut along the rails during a snowstorm.  Working on the second draft (and by second, I really mean about the hundredth, only this one is as a result of feedback from writers) I wanted to find an actual location where this might have occurred.  Here it is in summer, along Dundas Street.  The mall nearby is unfortunately a strip of box stores.  The high school, unbuilt and unnamed as yet.

When visiting schools and conducting writing workshops, I'm often asked to address rewriting but usually in the sense of how hard we work at it and how many times.  It makes it all seem like such a burden.  

Going through this second draft and painting on a second coat of detail was actually a delight.  I visited and interviewed an independent grocer, Mario of Marilu Foods on New Street.  I think I changed 10 words because of this interview but the story become so much more clear and real to me.   Most of the anxiety of writing is gone too as a result of the feedback.  My writing critiquers made me feel the actual plot of the story was a success.  The way it sounds in the creator's head is not always the way the public reads it so this was a huge relief.

Now I'm waiting for a second round of reviewers to write a third draft.

Around the campfire, The Magic Mustache by Gary Barwin

This is my daughter Jen reading to her four year old son William at their campfire at the Pinery Campground.  What amazes me is how intent he is in a story that he's had read to him a hundred times, The Magic Mustache by Gary Barwin.  In it the son who is a nose, is given the task of selling the only family possession left, a set of glasses.  His parents, a set of eyes, expect a good exchange in return.  But the nose settles for a magic beard.  The eyes throw it out and it grows similarly to the magic beanstalk.  The nose climbs it to the castle of a mouth who threatens to eat him. Lots of great rhyme and hilarity ensues.

There's a pretty happy ending about a face coming together and staying like that.   The magic of reading, the magic of a great story.

On my living room couch Soames on the Range by Nancy Belgue

You read about all kinds of non-traditional families but you have to wonder how a child feels when their mom or dad announces something like a sex change or in Soames' case a father declares he's breaking up with Mom and moving in with his guy lover.  Soames lives in a really small town and looks and even moves like his father.  I cringe for him as I read about what he experiences.  That's the beauty of books, you can go through all the emotions and come out stronger without suffering the slings physically.

In the end something really exciting happens to Soames and while that might not be the case for every kid who has to experience a lifestyle change like this, it does feel right to me.  Even if everything goes wrong, wonderful things can happen too.

I read a lot more books than I posted about right here on this couch in my living room where the air conditioning makes it perfectly cool.

Who Goes to Literary Festivals

It had been a blistering hot week but for Imagine in the (Gage)Park, there had been a cooling rain the morning of the July 24th event.  Gary Barwin, Jean Little, Gillian Chan, myself as well as facepainters, voice coaches, puppeteer  and Frontier literacy volunteers were on the site to entertain and delight. 

Who comes out for these events?  You just never know. Ozo the dog came attached by leash to his master on a scooter. He has appeared on the screen in various roles, Ozo, not his owner.  For my audience, some very intense young writers complete with their manuscripts showed wanting to me to share some writing tips.  I read some of their work and know they'll be presenting at a festival some time.

I only wish I could have come to one of these events when I was kids.

In a Lazyboy chair, The Second Trial by Rosemarie Boll

The lazyboy chair makes a very comfortable seat for reading this gripping but uncomfortable story. It's about a boy who is the only member in his family who gets along with his abusive father  and misses him after he, his mom and sister, go into a witness protection plan.  His new life is his second trial and it spirals downward till he engages in abusive behaviour himself.  Here's where I have to burrow into my chair.  I no longer sympathize with him when he stands by and even helps restrain a red haired boy as he is beaten and set on fire for the colour of his hair. Can you enjoy a read where the character sinks below your level of tolerable bad behaviour? Recently a book of mine was rejected because the main character lied and was therefor unsympathetic to the editorial panel.  I think the only rule, really, is for whatever reason if the reader feels compelled to continue, the story succeeds.   The abusive behavior bottomed out there and was the turning point for the character.  The Second Trial  by Rosemarie Boll is a great argument for adults to read young adult.  The books can be just intense as adult novels but are usually shorter with more of a concrete ending.

Mortie, the Jackapoo, reads The Art of Racing in the Rain

You're not supposed to judge a book by its cover but this novel is a Chapters' staff pick fave.  I could have paid way less had I bought it in eversion but then I couldn't have shared it with Mortie.  Honestly, the cover made me smile.  The dog who narrates has an uncanny resemblance to Mortie, my Jackapoo, The story incorporates racing philosophy with life but (spoiler alert) a key person and the dog die in the end. It feels very Marly and Me.  Maybe this is a trick to sell books. So often the cover doesn't match the story but if we stick to favourite dog breeds, maybe the cover can sell the book because the readers, like me, likes pictures of their dogs.

In a stream: The Writer's Life, The Margaret Laurence Lectures

This series on where and what we're reading was started as as kind of personal PR for books.  I think in this fast paced world of technology where you press 1 for English and 2 for French and never get anyone who really wants to speak to you (although the conversation may be recorded for quality ensurance), we're searching for more and more peaceful happy moments. Or is that just me. Yoga, hot and cold, is suddenly popular. Non fiction books that connect to spirituality in a mainstream way get gobbled up: The Book of Awesome for example.

When I speak to my fellow writers, I realize we're all trying to create more to sustain our living when the answer might be to do less and read more. Think of it as both job sharing and job creating. When we go on holidays whether to the tropics or the local beach, we usually most enjoy a quiet read.  And so for my own purposes I slowed down this summer and tried to document my reading.   I still write, edit for Today's Parent Toronto, and work as director on Access Copyright but I am making a point to READ and enjoy it and to document enjoying it in my favourite places.  Planking, writer's style?

Here I am at the Bronte Creek Dog Park Swimming hole reading an appropriate title:  A Writer's Life, the Margaret Laurence Lectures  25th Anniversary of the Lecture Series

I realize that when I invited others to share their reading holes and material how difficult it is to include a photo of themselves with a book.  It requires a photographer, plus a lot of us don't like pictures of ourselves.  So...to make it easier, if you wish to share, send me a photo of your book where you're reading it.

On the Beach (Lake Erie) Winter of Secrets by Vicki Delany

We never stop talking unless it's to read.  Sometimes we discuss our books.  Gisela Sherman's reading one on world war II as research for the novel she's working on. I'm reading a mystery set in the Kootenays, one of my favourite parts of the world, by Vicki Delany a writer who once took a course I taught (Creative Writing Its Realities--not my title). While I'm not a serious mystery buff,  I like to follow her cast of small town characters, including Constable Molly Smith, as they fumble through and solve crimes.

As we strolled the beach, we met a lady enjoying the latest Harry Potter before she gives it to her granddaughter.  Next door to us in a hammock lay a man who read his ebook for about four hours straight. One of the problems with those is the next door neighbors can't tell what you're reading!

Summer is one of the best times to relax with a great story, in whatever format.

Under a tree: Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee

Often in between writing scenes, I will walk the dog but in the summer Mortie gets too hot and must pause for a treat and water break.  I now carry a book on the hike and here I am conveniently doing research for my latest project:  Death on Track.  The main character is a 14 year old adopted Chinese orphan and her best friend Jasmin is an Indian girl nervous her parents will discover her Canadian boyfriend.
Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee gave me lots of insight but I also went out for an Indian buffet lunch with a new friend Beena.  Of course I watched Bend It Like Beckham.

This tree is close to the library so I could get a new book once I'm finished if only they allowed dogs.

In the dentist's chair, Beyond Blonde by Teresa Toten

By no sheer coincidence, I needed emergency dental attention on the same day as Margaret Buffie's dog.
I broke a tooth but her literary inspiration needed some teeth removed.  I'm sure he read in the dental chair also 'cause it is so comfy, with a head and foot rest and a nice tilt to it.  Here I'm reading Beyond Blonde by Teresa Toten and it's funny enough to keep me happy while my freezing is not taking.

It's another reason why adults should read YA.  The character is  a combination of my best friend in highschool and me, her being the blonde and me the brunette who aspires to be and yes, we both played basketball. Of course, in my highschool everyone's parents spoke and acted like different versions of Auntie Eva.

The  second needle didn't take either so the dentist continued anyway.  He removed a chunk of tooth and installed a temporary filling and I didn't feel a thing--all because of Teresa's hilarious writing.
You can read Beyond Blonde anywhere.  You don't need to wait for a dentist's appointment.

After Dinner, The Gaggle Sisters River Tour by Chris Jackson on Father's Day

This was intended as a Father's Day read.  Craig McNicoll read The Gaggle Sisters River Tour , by Chris Jackson, to his baby girl, Violet on the deck.  But then his wife continued out loud while we were waiting for dessert. Eireann drew a crowd, all the grandchildren plus one adult squeezed around to hear the compelling story of two geese sisters, Dorothy and Sadie and their sail down Wriggle River.

These are computer kids, even two year old Jadzia knows how to operate a mouse and loves to watch a good YouTube still when Eireann read out loud, they all listened.

On a Garden Swing on the Deck, Karleen Bradford reads This Body of Death

Karleen Bradford, author of A Desperate Road to Freedom, the Underground Railroad Diary of Julia May Jackson, Scholastic Canada is my guest reader/blogger today.  I'll have to read that one.  The Dear Canada books come with their own ribbon bookmark which is wonderful because no matter how many bookmarks I own, I never have one at the right time. My favourite story of Karleen's'  is The Other Elizabeth which I'm desperately waiting to get on my ereader sometime this summer.  Currently, Karleen is writing another Dear Canada.  Well, ahem, ahem, currently she is reading.

WHAT I AM READING NOW

I’ve been on vacation, so have been indulging in my favourite holiday reading: mysteries. The one I’ve just finished is This Body of Death, by Elizabeth George. It’s a long book—873 pages—and densely plotted. The kind of book you can only really read when on vacation because there’s no way you can put it down to do mundane things like make dinner or do the laundry. When I finished it, I sat and thought for a long time about how Elizabeth George developed that dense and complex plot. How she kept the story moving and the reader’s interest high. At the end of the book there was a blurb for a non-fiction book of hers, Write Away: One Novelist’s Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life. I decided to order it and find out how she did it. That’s what I’m reading now and I’m finding it interesting and instructive. There’s always something new to learn about the art and craft of writing, there are always problems that we all share.

One thing that she brought out is how she works on the development of her characters before she begins to work on plot, then the characters show her the plot. Not the way I would have thought a mystery writer would work, but very intriguing. I have had the germ of an idea for a mystery running around in my head for a long time, but not ever having written one, I was at a loss as to how to tackle it. I think I will follow her advice and just do some work on the characters—their problems, their motivations, their fears—and see if they can show me the way into my story.

Karleen Bradford
karleenbradford@bell.net
www.karleenbradford.com
http://karleensblog.wordpress.com

My Guest Reader: By her Garden Pond Gisela Sherman Reads The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Let me just introduce my guest reader/blogger today.  You have to run to the library and get King of the Class, Snake in the Toilet, or my personal favourite Grave Danger,  Gisela Tobien Sherman wrote those.
One of the things you might not know about Gisela is that, besides being able to bring words to life, she can coax herbs, vegetables, flowers and trees into a much richer more colourful life.  If you step into her lush green garden you will hear the water babbling, too.  Ahhh!  Here's what she says about where and what she's reading:

In my garden, with pond and flowers, reading The Lacuna. Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favourite authors. Her use of language is brilliant and beautiful. Loved her Poisonwood Bible, and especially Prodigal Summer.  Lacuna's first chapter was a work of art. The book was a bit harder to get into than her others, but ended up fascinating me. It wove the lives of the fictitious writer Harrison Shepherd, with artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, the final days of Leon Trotsky in Mexico and his betrayal by Stalin, and showed how easily a life could be destroyed in the McCarthy Era. So many gems of wisdom and perception. "Don't just listen to what someone says, pay attention to what is left out," has stayed with me.

In a Tub, Reading That Summer in Franklin

Lots of times I read my friends' books and it's a way of staying in touch with them or getting to know them better.  My writing buddies are all Canadian so often I enjoy a fairly local setting too.  Here I'm reading That Summer in Franklin by Linda Hutsell-Manning.  Franklin seems a shoe-in for Cobourg where Linda really lives (and so does my brother).

The two main characters are struggling with failing aging parents, one a father and one a mother. I can identify with that.  They both share a history that involves a death in a hotel during their summer job.
Three-quarters of the way through...must read on to find out what happens or happened in the case of that murder.

In a tree The McGillicuddy Book of Personal Records (Colleen Sydor)

Today I snagged a guest reader, 10 year-old Hunter McNicoll, who was enjoying The McGillicuddy Book of  Personal Records (Red Deer Press)in a tree near the library.  "I like that what happens is unexpected," says Hunter.  He also enjoys the interesting quotes from random famous people at the beginnings of chapters.

From Chapter Seven:  Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore. Dream. Discover.  (Mark Twain)

I had the pleasure of driving author Colleen Sydor from a Mississauga school to Paris (yeah I wish the Eiffel tower one) Ontario.  Immediately I asked the Canadian Children's Book Centre which books she'd written and when I heard about the personal records story thought it might be for Hunter.  Why?  Because he likes the Guinness Book of Records.

Even during her tour for Children's Book Week not one Chapters or Indigo had a copy on hand,
so I crossed my fingers that she had brought some and would autograph a copy in time for Hunter's birthday the next day.  Hurray!  She had!

Now I was warned the book was perhaps for advanced 10 year old readers.  Hunter is a lively enthusiastic sports a holic and I passed the warning along to him, not as a comment on his own reading habits, more in case he found it slow slugging.

My honesty worked like some kind of  reverse psychology and he snatched it up as a challenge, calling out to me during the good parts.

I can't wait to read it myself.  We're lucky that nowadays we can just order books like these online, we don't have to depend on the boxstores' buyers' decisions.

My email is sylvia.mcnicoll@cogeco.ca if you want to show/tell me what you're reading, where and why.

The perfect passtime for summer, reading.  Ahhh!!