Archive for July, 2010

Summer so far

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

The (best) reasons why I haven’t been blogging much this summer:

1. I just finished teaching three weeks of creative writing classes to several dozen children and teenagers. During their summer vacation. If you’ve ever taught children, you get what I’m saying.

2. When not teaching or planning the above-mentioned classes, I’ve been wrestling with two unwieldy freelance contracts and one frustratingly shapeless novel. I’m talking seriously shapeless. This is the two-by-four of middle-grade novels.

3. It’s summer! There are beaches to comb, waves to kayak, trees to climb, and patio drinks to sip. Which leaves very little time for blogging.

I have been tweeting away, though. Sometime in the last month I suddenly realized that Twitter is AWESOME, and not scary at all as I used to think. So I’ve been sharing bite-sized news and musings rather than full-length blogs. Which for now will have to do.

Another blog silence looms. In a few days I’m taking off to Ireland, where I plan to spend a Really Big Birthday hiking and horseback riding and wandering the streets of Dublin and Galway. And perhaps finding a few fellow Delaneys. I hear there are one or two of them in Ireland.

I’ll be back soon, hopefully in one piece, surely full of stories and photos. So for now, sláinte!

Posted in General Musings | 1 Comment »

Finding Violet Park

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

So I’ve finally begun to tackle my enormous stack of summer reading, and first up was Finding Violet Park by Jenny Valentine. The main reason I chose to read this one first was, well, it has an awesome cover. Yup, I judge books by their covers. All the time. And I wasn’t disappointed. Jenny Valentine is positively overflowing with talent. Finding Violet Park, published in the UK under the title Me, the Missing, and the Dead (which I kind of prefer) was her first novel, and she won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize for her efforts. Well deserved!

This novel tells the story of 16-year-old Lucas, whose father disappeared five years ago, leaving his family gutted and guilt-ridden. One night Lucas comes across an urn filled with the ashes of a dead woman (Violet Park) while waiting for a cab, and makes it his mission to find out who she is and where she belongs. Little does he know, his mission will actually help him uncover some important things about his father and his family. And of course, himself.

I devoured this novel. From the very first page, it was funny and heart-wrenching, simple and profound, and several times it made me simultaneously laugh and cry. And I loved Lucas’s voice, and the way he contemplated life and all the characters and complications that come with it. I highly, highly recommend this one.

Next up, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. Horray for summer reading!

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