What We're Writing--Debs Draws a Blank

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Happy new year and 2nd day of January, everyone! Time does march on but I am convinced that there are wrinkles in the fabric of the universe that somehow swallow chunks of time without our permission. At least that is what happened to me between Thanksgiving and this week.

The week before Thanksgiving week I was really on a writing roll. I hit my pages per day goals, I had a great conference with my editor, and I could see the end of the book, beckoning to me. Look, in this photo there are more pages in the manuscript pile! (As well as the Christmas cactus that didn't bloom. Sigh.)

And then time did its cute little tesseract thing. As I mentioned in a previous post, a few days before Thanksgiving, our dog got really sick and thus began many, many vet and emergency vet appointments. Also, it was the holidays along with lots of other stuff, including my blog week and two back procedures.

Which brings us to the new year and me staring down the barrel of January only a few pages further along on Duncan/Gemma 20. (I suppose I could tell my editor that the dog ate my homework?) Even the pages of my weekly planner, which normally contain all the color-coded minutae of my life as well as my writing progress are...blank.

This is so frustrating because I know more or less what needs to happen and how the scenes will be blocked out, and I know that the bits I haven't figured out will come to me as I'm writing. (Really, I'm sure they will...won't they?)

My editor (bless her) needs this manuscript finished before the publisher's February sales meeting, which means I have got to buckle down, get a grip on that maverick time, and write the bloody end! 

In the meantime, here is a hopefully not too spoiler-ish snippet for you. I love writing Doug Cullen and Melody Talbot's sometimes cantankerous relationship. They have been on the outs for several months in the gap between books, but now they are in cahoots over helping Gemma with her case. In this scene, Melody is staying in her parents' London townhouse and has invited Doug over for dinner.

“Sorry I’m late,” Doug said as she ushered him in. “And sorry I’m empty handed. I had to stand Kevin a second round and I ran out of time to stop for something on the way.” He smelled a bit beery, but didn’t seem the worse for wear.

“I won’t report you to the etiquette police. Kevin’s your mate?”

“Um, yeah.” Doug was peering into the ground floor rooms, eyes wide. “I know I’ve seen the country house, but this…”

“Yeah, I suppose it is a bit much.” Melody nodded towards the dining room with its table for twelve and the sitting room with its deep emerald green wallpaper traced with golden vines and birds. “But normally they don’t use these rooms much. Come on, I’ll show you where the real action is.” She led him to the back hall and down the bare Portland stone stairs into the basement kitchen/sitting room. Unlike the formal rooms above, these areas were designed for comfort. And utility, as her dad, especially, liked to cook. Even though her parents could certainly afford to have a daily chef, they preferred to organize their own meals or to go out.

Her mum, with her usual genius for color, had painted the walls in a soft color that was somewhere between taupe and mauve, with the cupboards and the base of the island in a deep aubergine. The soft furniture was done in pale neutrals, with scatter cushions and paintings providing splashes of color. When her parents were in residence stacks of newspapers and books would proliferate and that only added to the room’s hominess.

The French doors to the garden were open and the outdoor lighting had begun to come on, illuminating the clean contemporary landscaping. “Wow,” said Doug, going to the doors to look out. “The garden’s nothing like the country house, either.”

“No mixed borders here, and no roses,” Melody agreed. “But it works. I think Dad finds a calmer garden restful after the chaos of the paper.”

Having attempted her dad’s famous whitefish dip as an appetizer, she busied herself putting thin slices of baguette in the oven to toast.  She’d bought only one bottle of wine, a crisp white Bordeaux, and now she poured them each a half glass. Doug wasn’t a big wine aficionado, and she meant not to over-indulge.

Doug ran a hand over the veined marble top of the kitchen island. “This is bigger than my entire kitchen.”

“It doubles as a table.” Melody gestured to the well-padded barstools. “Have a seat. Cheers.” She clinked her glass against his. When the timer dinged on the toasts, she took them from the oven and slid them onto a platter, then removed the dip from the fridge and placed both before Doug.

“Wow,” he said again, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “I wasn’t expecting anything so fancy.”

“You should know better than to underestimate me, Doug Cullen,” Melody retorted, but she realized she was actually nervous. When he'd taken a bite, she said, “So, do you like it?”

Doug responded by piling a second baguette slice with dip. “It’s terrible. I’m forcing myself here.” He rolled his eyes. “Seriously, it’s delicious. Are you sure you didn’t buy it?” Then he grinned and if she’d had anything handy, she’s have smacked him.

Darling REDs and readers, does anyone else suffer from "time derailment syndrome," especially between Thanksgiving and Christmas?

P.S. Jasmine says to tell you that she is doing much better, and that she doesn't have to visit her pals at the vet for a whole week!! Her neck is finally healing, and maybe next Monday the vet will put in the last staples to completely close the wound. We are all crossing our paws and fingers! (She adds that it's nice to be out enjoying the return of some nice weather, even if she does have to wear a silly collar.)

P.S.S. Speaking of time derailments and tesseracts, is anyone else watching the last season of STRANGER THINGS? We have a couple of episodes to go (so no spoilers, please,) but I have loved all the references to A WRINKLE IN TIME in this series. This was such a momentous book in my reading (and eventually, writing) life, and I have to assume it was for the writers of the show as well.  But I also wonder if the references make sense to viewers who didn't grow up with the novel. What do you think, dear Reddies?

Who Read to You?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Back in August, I happened across this piece in my local newspaper, the Dallas Morning News, by the author Christopher de Vinck. (Hopefully the DMS will allow one article behind the paywall!) It was a celebration of the life of New Jersey journalist, and later educator, Jim Trelease.

In 1982, a year before my daughter was born, Jim published a little book called THE READ ALOUD HANDBOOK. While working for the Springfield Daily News, Jim volunteered to visit local classrooms to talk to students about journalism and art. Jim noticed that the children who read for pleasure came from classrooms where teachers read aloud daily. When he began to research, he discovered that children who were read aloud to also had bigger vocabularies and did better academically. 

Sharing the benefits of reading aloud became Jim's life mission. THE READ ALOUD HANDBOOK spent 17 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. It is now in its 8th edition, with an updated treasury of book recommendations. (Ordering a copy for my daughter now!)

If I hadn't already been motivated to read to my daughter, this book would have convinced me! And of course children who are read to read to their own children, as my daughter has to my granddaughter.

It's odd but I don't remember either of my parents reading to me. But my grandmother, who lived with us and had been a teacher, did, and I'm sure that had a lot to do with my having been an early reader and developing a lifelong love of books. 

The defining memory of my grade school years was my sixth grade teacher reading A WRINKLE IN TIME aloud to us. I could not wait for the end of the day and that day's chapter!

Now, I put myself to sleep every night listening to audio books, and I'm not the only one!

Michael Buble falls asleep to Matthew McConaughey every night! There is something so enormously comforting about being read to, and I think we process stories and language in a different way. We shouldn't give up being read to just because we're grown up. (And, of course we have Hank and Hannah to read to us twice weekly with their fabulous First Chapter Fun!) 

My fictional characters carry on the tradition, as you can see in this little snippet from A KILLING OF INNOCENTS:

After supper, Kincaid had overseen baths while Gemma did the washing up. Then he’d read a chapter of The Wind in the Willows to Charlotte and Toby. His mother had recently sent him the copy he and Juliet had read as children, with its original Ernest Shepard illustrations.

Kit, who was supposed to be studying, had come in quietly, removing his earbuds as he folded himself into a seat on the floor just inside Charlotte’s doorway.

“Mum read it to me,” Kit said afterwards, when the younger children were tucked up in their beds and just he and Kincaid stood in the hallway between the bedrooms. “I remember thinking that it had been written just for me, that it was my river, and that if I just looked hard enough I’d see Rat or Mole or Toad.”

REDs and readers, who read to you? Did it spark your love of reading? Do you have memories of particular books? 

My Favorite Teacher

INGRID THOFT

Pencils and notebooks and binders.  That's what I recently stumbled upon in the "seasonal" aisle of my local Target.  Is it really back-to-school season already?  I imagine it can't come soon enough for some parents, but it was a walk down memory lane for me rather than a not-too-distant goal!  I thought about my school days:  dissecting a fetal pig in science class; pieces of pizza that resembled floor tiles; field hockey drills wearing pinnies; and my favorite teacher.

Her name is Mrs. Harder, and I don't think that it's a coincidence that my favorite teacher was my English teacher.  Kind, thoughtful, and energetic, Mrs. Harder was the highlight of my academic day, and she will always be bonded in my mind with Edith Wharton and Shakespeare.  She fed my love of reading, and she taught how to write, which has clearly served me well.  More than that, in her classroom there were always lively discussions about bigger, more complex issues, which suggested she thought we were up for the challenge of beginning to tackle the adult world.  She taught us about values and integrity and the power we all have to choose the kind of people we want to be.  Grammar, punctuation, imagery, and ethics:  It was all on the agenda in Mrs. Harder's classroom.

These days, she insists I call her Joanne, which I still can't quite get used to, and she's one of my most enthusiastic and loyal fans.  She attends my Boston-area events, and last fall, invited me back to speak to the student body at my alma mater.  I feel enormously grateful that she was my teacher all those years ago, but I'm also thrilled that these days she's my friend.

How about you, Reds?  Who was your favorite teacher?  Were you in touch after your school days?

LUCY BURDETTE: Ingrid, you are so lucky to have your favorite teacher morph to fan and friend! Probably like the rest of you, I adored school and going back to school. I think my fave was Mrs. Covey in fifth grade. She was warm and interesting and made school fun. The details are fuzzy, and here's a story that tells more about me than her. Report cards came out and I had nothing but A's. Except for one B, which must have been given by the gym teacher. But my best friend Lynn had an A in gym. I went sobbing to Mrs. Covey, and she changed it to an A:). 

In high school, we had the most wonderful drama and choral music teachers, Mr. Schneider and Mr. Dorhout. I had very modest (almost minimal) talent in both of those subjects, but I was in love with the community they built and the seriousness with which they taught us and their great good humor and dedication. I still remember the alto harmonies from the choral pieces we sang...such a gift!

HALLIE EPHRON: My favorite teacher was in sixth grade, Barbara Ann Schenkel at El Rodeo school in Beverly Hills. She was lively, interesting, and she encouraged me to think for myself and say what I thought. Maybe it was because of her that I decided to go to Barnard College (she was an alum) and become a teacher. Sadly, by the time I tried to reach out to her (I'd moved to the East coast, was teaching education courses at the college level, had started a family...) it was too late. She'd died of breast cancer.

So my advice to everyone about your favorite teachers, if you want to reach out and tell them so, don't wait.

JENN MCKINLAY: I did not love school. In fact, if it weren't for my English teacher, Mr. Taylor, my science teacher, Mr. Meehan, and my favorite teacher, Mrs. Bodwell, I probably would have cut school a heck of a lot more than I did. Mrs. B was the choir teacher at East Lyme High School in CT, and I was lucky enough to be in choir, select choir, and her specially chosen group of eight for a small ensemble choir, where we were invited to perform as backup singers for a Broadway recording and in a gospel church in New London to name just a few of Mrs. B's field trips. Pretty much any cool gig she could throw us into, she did, and it was awesome. She was an amazingly talented woman who performed as a soprano in operas at the Met, but what I remember most about her was that she always wore four inch heels (she was on the small side of petite), kept her blonde hair in a neat bob, and had the biggest grin when she was conducting us from the podium. The woman was a live wire, and it was contagious!

We recently reconnected through social media. She's retired and living in Vermont, while I am in AZ. She still sings, I do not, but we both have a passion for knitting. We've been sharing our knitting adventures, and it's like rediscovering our friendship all over again. During my turbulent teen years, she was definitely one of the few teachers who saw past my tough exterior to the creativity inside of me, looking for an outlet. She taught me to be poised and confident, to pursue my passion wholeheartedly, and to push through failure and try, try, and try again until I got it right. I owe her so very much.

RHYS BOWEN: Like Jenn I did not adore school! I was very smart, always at the top of my class, but I was at an all girls school, and most of my teachers were close to retirement age--mean-spirited old spinsters who loved to criticize and inflict punishments. In sewing class, the teacher would walk around with a ruler and if our hands moved to the wrong position beside the sewing machine THWACK came the ruler over our knuckles!  I did like my music teacher and was also in the choir. We had a lovely young history teacher, but she got married and left. Great weeping and wailing. I didn't particularly like my sixth form English teacher, Miss Willis, but she helped to make me the writer I am. She challenged. She also mocked, I'm afraid, but she set creative assignments and a friend and I took those challenges, which resulted in my winning the English prize, editing the school magazine and being invited to tea with Arnot Robertson, a famous novelist, when she visited the school.

Oh, but college was a different matter.  I had some wonderful professors, especially for my thesis. She never taught. She would throw out seemingly unrelated questions, and then suddenly light would dawn, and we'd see the connection and go "Oh!". She wanted me to stay on and do my PhD, but I got lured away by the BBC. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Have you ever heard of a high school where the English teacher created a club, called The Hastings Club, and encouraged all his students to wear black armbands on the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings to mourn the defeat of the Anglo-Saxons by the Normans? I am thrilled to have a chance to once again honor the name of the fabulous Thomas Thornburg. I was just at my high school's 50th reunion, as you know, and every single person there mentioned how much Mr. Thornburg had changed their life. (He probably would have mentioned that my pronouns do not agree in the previous sentence.)

He was hilarious, and, hoping he doesn't read this, so incredibly cute, and brilliant--and I mean brilliant. He let us all love Shakespeare and Spenser and F Scott Fitzgerald and writing and poetry and the power of our own language and imagination. 

He was incredibly tough grading papers. He had a rubber stamp with the word GUG on it, which he would stamp on our papers when something was so indescribably terrible that he couldn't even manage to explain why it was so terrible.

I would not be where I am today (wherever that is) without him, and I have to say that so many people at the reunion said just the same thing.
The good news is he lives in Montana, and his wife and I are Facebook friends, and how cool is that? (I still imagine him looking just like this photo. And that's me and good pal Susan Palmer in the Hastings Club yearbook photo.)
I have used his name as a character in several of my books, just in honor of him...the books would not exist without him, you know?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: School was not a great experience for me once I hit middle-school, although I did have a very good and encouraging English teacher in tenth grade. But in elementary school, my best friend and I had the same teacher in third and sixth grade, Miss Schwann. I can't imagine what either of us would be like today without her. She was a wonderful teacher, kind and demanding and funny. She always let you know she had expectations, and you had better live up to them. She loved reading, and the half hour when she would read aloud to us was the high point at the end of every day. In sixth grade, she read us A WRINKLE IN TIME, and it was such an experience it has stuck with me ever since. I was a good reader before her classes, and a great (and addicted) reader after.

Here's the "Wrinkle" cover from my youth.  It cost $1.25!  

Tell us readers, who were your favorite teachers?  Do you stay in touch with them?

On Second Thought...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: So once, I liked Beefaroni. And once, I liked Catalina salad dressing, you know that orangy red stuff? And I used to really love--

Well, okay. I’ll say it. Nancy Drew. I really loved Nancy Drew.  But  if you read the Nancys now.…

So. Just read this from a fabulous brand new YA author.

 And then let us know what you think.

Worst Books from My Childhood  

By M.G. Hennessey 

When I became a parent, I looked forward to being able to share the books I remembered fondly from childhood with my kids. But what I quickly discovered, unfortunately, was that some of those books didn’t quite hold up to the test of time. In fact, on re-reading, some were downright awful, to the point that my kids seriously questioned the younger me’s reading tastes. Here are a few that let me down:

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

I was so excited when I saw this on the shelf of our local independent bookstore! I could remember insisting that my parents read the story of Mike and his anthropomorphic steam shovel repeatedly, sometimes multiple times on the same night. So I grabbed a copy and raced home, eagerly anticipating the look of delight on my children’s faces when they got to experience it.

Well, guess what. Turns out that this book is all about the destruction of the environment. Mike and his steam shovel Mary Anne plow over forests, lakes, you name it…all in the name of progress! While this was perfectly acceptable at the time it was written, the illustrations of Mary Anne churning up a gorgeous landscape definitely feels painfully dated. They literally pave over paradise and put in a parking lot.

My preschoolers were understandably horrified. The book ended up in the donation box.

Bridge to Terabithia

I had very distinct memories of certain parts of this story. The boy drank coffee for breakfast! His friend Leslie is the fastest kid in school, even though she’s a girl! All of that stayed with me for decades, delivering a warm fuzzy whenever I heard the title.

Sadly, I’d managed to block out the ending entirely. Spoiler alert: Leslie dies. And not in any earned way, or even to advance the plot. It’s a pointless death that, worse yet, happens offscreen. And it’s also implied that her death is the main character’s (Jess’s) fault.

When we hit that chapter, my kids stared at me, dumbfounded. One started crying, and asked, “But why did she have to die?”

I had no answer. Mind you, this isn’t the first book we’ve read where an important character experiences an untimely demise: The One and Only Ivan, the Harry Potter books…we’ve navigated all of those brushes with mortality, because there was generally a solid reason the character didn’t make it. But here, the lesson seemed to be, “Hey kids, life is sometimes random and cruel, and you could die at any moment if you dare to play outside by yourself.” Not exactly what I’d been hoping to impart.

A Wrinkle in Time

I know, I know…But before you protest, I’m going to ask: have you read this book as an adult? Because if you haven’t, I can assure you that it simply is not very good. And that broke my heart. I’d always listed this as my all-time favorite book from when I was a kid. I bought the t-shirt from Out of Print. I purchased the set when my kids were still too young for them, just because I was so excited to find a collector’s edition.

And guess what? A Wrinkle in Time is actually terrible. Really, really bad, and riddled with novice author mistakes. There are scenes with four or five characters in the room, but only two of them speaking; the others’ presence is not even mentioned for quite literally pages. The plot is slow, ponderous, and poorly explained. The character’s motivations are at best unclear, and at times inexplicable. Halfway through the book, my kids quite seriously asked, “Were all books boring when you were our age?” And I couldn’t fault them for it. Because, aside from a (very) few exciting moments, most of the story meanders along without making any forward progress.

Mind you, there are books that hold up well. The Phantom Tollbooth is still wonderfully inventive and charming. Tuck Everlasting sparked an interesting conversation about whether or not it would be cool to live forever (surprisingly, my kids decided “not cool for them, but okay for our cat,” because they can’t bear the thought of him dying). The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was a bit messier than I remembered, but they enjoyed it. And of course, everything by Roald Dahl is still genius.

As the debut author of an upper middle grade book, part of me dreads the day that my children read The Other Boy to their own children. Will the story of Shane stand the test of time? I hope so, but it’s impossible to know for certain.

I’d love to hear which books from your childhood held up well, and which…not so much.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: First, congratulations for the amazing reviews of THE OTHER BOY. Hurray!

But wait, I loved Wrinkle. Didn’t I?  And I loved the Edward Eager books, but think they hold up. Don’t they?  I do NOT like the Little Princess. SO depressing! But I know Hallie disagrees.

But I’ve got to tell you—you know that Shel Silverstein book The Giving Tree?  That is so distressing I can’t even imagine what the point was.

In fact, I have a next door neighbor who read it when she was seven. She cried for THREE WEEKS. I am not exaggerating. Her mother told me not to say the word “tree,” because it would set her off again.

Reds and Readers: How about you? And M.G. is giving a copy of THE OTHER BOY  to one lucky commenter!

And please, take a moment to check out M. G.’s groundbreaking and heart-touching new book.  We are so pleased the author is joining us today.  

 

M.G.Hennessey is the author of “The Other Boy,”(https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062427663/the-other-boy)  the story of a transgender boy’s journey to acceptance that Jill Soloway, award-winning creator of Transparent, called “a terrific read for all ages” and Ami Polonsky, author of Gracefully Grayson, called “an emotionally complex and achingly real read.”

Award-Winning Children's Books

Continuing our celebration of award-winning books, today Jungle Red welcomes Neil Plakcy.

NEIL: As soon as Rosemary told me that the Jungle Red Writers were celebrating awards in April, I thought of all those books I read as a kid which had gold seals of approval from various awards. The ones I remember most are those which won the Newbery Medal, awarded annually by the American Library Association for the most distinguished American children's books. I thought it would be fun to look at the list of award winners and see which ones I still remembered. The oldest book on the list that made an impression on me is Miss Hickory, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, which won the medal in 1947. I always liked these kind of anthropomorphic books as a kid-- all the odd little creatures living together by the riverbank, for example with Jack-in-the-Pulpit preaching on Sunday. Miss Hickory is a twig doll who is abandoned by the little girl who owns her, and has to go out among the animals and trees and make a new life for herself. Then there’s My Father’s Dragon, an honor book from 1949.

There are three in the series, which I gobbled up greedily. More magical characters! The boy narrator recounts his father’s adventures rescuing and raising a baby dragon. Just looking at the cover brings back a lot of memories. These books were among my real favorites. Another discovery on the list was Carol Kendall’s The Gammage Cup, an honor book from 1960. To this day I remember the Periods-- the foolish members of the upper crust who had names like Geo. and Ltd. Their names came from a list of abbreviations brought back from an expedition. Reading about it today, it sounds like some sort of anti-Communist allegory, but I just remember it as a great book. Two of the Lloyd Alexander books are on the list-- The Black Cauldron from 1966 and The High King from 1969. I just reread these books last year in preparation for a trip to Wales (there’s a lot of Welsh mythology and language wrapped up in them) and they held up beautifully. They are the story of Taran, an assistant pig-keeper (he helps take care of the oracular pig Hen Wen) and his friends Princess Eilonwy and the bard Fflewdur Fflam, as they battle evil in the land of Prydain. I fell in love with the Welsh language through these words. There are lots of others I remember in bits and pieces-- The Island of the Blue Dolphins; It’s Like This, Cat; and Shadow of the Bull. But the biggies on the list for me are two books by E. L. Konigsburg: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Mrs. Frankweiler was such an amazing book, about a girl and her brother who hide out in the Metropolitan Museum. It was a prequel to all the mystery and adventure books I’ve loved ever since. How will Claudia and Jamie survive in the museum? And what’s the secret of the angel statue? And then there’s Me, Elizabeth. Who wouldn’t want a friend who’s a witch? I went through a long period when I searched for every spell-casting book I could find. I bought all these herbs and spices and tried to make my own potions. Sadly all I ended up with was a lot of not-very-nice-smelling potpourri. But it was the sixties, so that was OK-- it went with my Nehru jacket and my psychedelic T-shirts. There are lots more books that were important to me as a kid, but these are the ones which had that Newbery stamp of approval, and that makes them easier to remember, after all the time that has passed. What books made an impression on you as a kid? Any of these?

ROSEMARY: I have to find a copy of Miss Hickory - it sounds wonderful! Misty of Chincoteague is right at the top of the list for me along with every horse and dog book I could lay my hands on. I had to google the Newbery winners since I didn't trust my memory - I seem to remember more of them from my days as a bookseller than as a child (I moved on to the hard stuff early!) I do remember A Wrinkle in Time and in fact I picked up a copy last week at Left Coast Crime because I want to read it again!

HANK: Oh, Black Beauty, of course. And Jane Langton's Diamond in the Window. And A Wrinkle in Time. (Hi, Neil!) Oh, and please--everyone read the Edward Eager books. Thyme Garden. Magic or Not. Knight's Castle. However--Hallie and I will argue over A Little Princess--I really really do NOT like that book! And Neil--you don't know whether those potions worked or not...do you???

DEB: Loved the Lloyd Alexander's--I still have my copies somewhere. But my all time favorite was Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. I read it when I was eleven and then read all her other books. I'm sure A Wrinkle in Time went a good ways towards setting my view of the world. Black Beauty, of course, Hank, but I never thought about it being a Newberry winner. I just read everything horsey I could get my hands on. One I missed was Mrs. Frankweiler--am going to have to look for that one!

HALLIE: My Father's Dragon! I'd forgotten all about that one. I can see the illustrations. I loved all of E. B. White's books for children, but most especially Charlotte's Web which I read aloud to my children. SOME PIG! The Dr. Doolittle books were great favorites, and I read every one of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, though they don't hold up so well on rereading. Then there were the books I gobbled up after my daughter. The Ramona Quimby books, Judy Blume (Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.) -- why didn't a single one of her books ever make the list? Oh, and of course Sarah Plain and Tall. DEB: More Newberries: Johnny Tremain. King of the Wind. The Grey King by Susan Cooper. Interesting to see some of the books that DIDN'T win: Laura Ingalls Wilder. Charlotte's Web. Misty of Chincoteague . . .

ROSEMARY: Misty didn't win? Marguerite Henry was robbed!

RHYS: The ones I remember most are those I read as an adult. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. The Westing Game--truly one of the cleverest mysteries written for kids (and adults). Beverly Cleary's Dear Mr. Henshaw--again such a deep and clever book. Did Zylpha Keatley Snyder ever win? Loved all of hers (and I'm not just saying that because we used to be good friends). I think only adults truly appreciate the best children's books. Kids prefer action and clever dialog. Oh, and I've just remembered an alltime favorite: Bridge to Terabithia.

JULIA: It's wonderful to me to see how vital these books remain for kids today. Between my three children, now 18, 17 and 10, we have a huge number of the titles mentioned here on our bookshelves at home. There's The Wizard of Oz, the first long chapter book my youngest and I read all the way through. My Father's Dragon (and sequels) which my son adored, despite the old-fashioned language and illustrations. And my oldest, who has a treasured copy of Diamond in the Window signed by Jane Langton herself. One series I adored as a kid and have pushed on my own children are the Freddie books by Walter Brooks. Freddie the Detective was my introduction to the world of mystery fiction, as Freddie the Pig and Jinx the Cat solved the mystery of a disappearing train set at Farmer Brown's house. I reread a few of the books with my youngest a couple years back and I agree with Rhys; I loved them as a kid but I only truly appreciated the language and the sly cleverness as an adult.

ROSEMARY: Which books from childhood have stayed with you? Any award-winners?

Neil Plakcy is the author of the Mahu mystery series, about openly gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka. They are: Mahu, Mahu Surfer, Mahu Fire, Mahu Vice, Mahu Men, and Mahu Blood (2011).

He also writes the Have Body, Will Guard adventure romance series, Three Wrong Turns in the Desert, Dancing with the Tide and Teach Me Tonight (2011).

His other books are the Golden Retriever Mysteries In Dog We Trust and The Kingdom of Dog, as well as the novels GayLife.com, Mi Amor, and The Outhouse Gang and the novella The Guardian Angel of South Beach.

Visit him at http://www.mahubooks.com/ http://www.facebook.com/neil.plakcy