Children’s Books—Entertainment in a Time of War

My friend Sharon sent this article on why adults need to read children’s books. It was written by Katherine Rundell, who writes children’s books.

Now some might think, She’s a children’s book writer. Of course she’d say adults need to read children’s books, and then go on about their business. But as someone who writes books for children also, I agree with Katherine. She has a great argument for her premise, so I would not be insulted if you stopped reading this post right now and clicked on the BBC Culture link above.

I’m not naïve enough to think that I can instantly convince you. Back in the days before electricity, when the abacus was cutting-edge technology, I was a college student who loved books for kids. But in my writing program, you weren’t considered a writer unless you produced a GAN—Great American Novel. This was eons before the worldwide fame of the Harry Potter series made everyone look like a fool who believed that “real writers” shouldn’t bother with children’s books.

These days, I find myself drawn to classic children’s books—the books I loved back in the Stone Age when they were still written on papyrus—because I find myself living in a war zone. Every day, I’m reminded about who needs to be castigated, who is superior, who is the enemy. I can’t watch a movie trailer or a movie review without being reminded of the overt message—that I need to take a side in a fight I didn’t ask for.

This is not to say that many classic books aren’t about battles. You can’t read The Lord of the Rings and think this trilogy is about the Olympics or pasta chefs. But the battles were part of the craft of great story writing.

I read to relax, so I don’t tend to choose books that remind me of what’s in today’s headlines and whose neck I need to kneel on. This is not to say that I don’t read news articles. But when I’m relaxing, more than likely, I will pick up one of the many fairy tale books I have around my home.

  

Or, I’ll read a behind the scenes movie development book that features wonderful art by people who love their craft.

These books inspire me to write the kind of stories I wanted to read when I was a kid, and still want to read now that I’ve discovered that (1) the world has electricity and (2) I don’t still have to avoid pterodactyls on my way to the grocery store.

How about you? Are you a read-to-relax reader? Love children’s books? Other kinds of books?

Pterodactyl from clipground. Rundell book cover from Goodreads. Other photos by L. Marie.

The Long and Winding Road

Now that I have you thinking about a certain song by The Beatles, alas, you must put that clean out of your head. (Not so easy, huh? Sorry.) One of Charles E. Yallowitz’s posts for his fantasy writer craft book, Do I Need to Use a Dragon? inspired this post. (That and my need to reveal the winner of a copy of said book. 😊)

   

The post concerns a question readers asked about Nyx, one of Charles’s characters in his book series, Legends of Windemere. If you’re not familiar with that character, don’t worry. You can get familiar with her by purchasing that series (some of which you can get by clicking here). If you only have five minutes, you can either read the post at the link above (please do), or keep reading this one.

The readers wondered why Nyx, a powerful practitioner of magic, didn’t solve the problems that came up in many of the books. Wouldn’t that be easier?

Short answer: It sure would!

You can read Charles’s response to that. But the post reminded me of a question many people have asked about Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy: Why not let the eagles take the ring that rules “them all” to Mount Doom? (If you don’t want even that much of a spoiler, please avert your eyes. But know that the first book was published almost seventy years ago. So you’ve had plenty of time to read this trilogy or to watch Peter Jackson’s film adaptations, which debuted twenty years ago.)

Questions like this seem logical. Why shouldn’t an author explore the easy route—a quick shortcut to the goal? When we were kids, many of us had an are-we-there-yet mentality. The quicker we get there, the better. So why not an easy solution to the problem?

It really depends on the author’s goal, doesn’t it? If his or her goal is to provide an adventure for readers to enjoy, would taking the fastest route possible to a solution help him or her with that goal?

What are your thoughts on the matter? Please comment below. And Mark, get ready to read Charles’s thoughts firsthand, because you are the winner of Do I Need to Use a Dragon? Please comment below to confirm. As usual, thank you to all who comment.

P.S. I am feeling much better! (In case you wondered. If you’re mystified as to why I would say that, click here.)

Book and author photos courtesy of Charles E. Yallowitz. Lord of the Rings bookcover from Goodreads. Shortcut image found somewhere online.

Covid, Round Two

This time, having the virus hasn’t been quite as bad as the last round. But I didn’t want to pretend that nothing is going on, especially since I promised to reveal the winner of Andrew James Murray’s stellar poetry collection, Fifty. (It’s Lyn, by the way.)

A friend dropped off groceries, so I have nothing to complain about. Sure, I feel that weird, bloated feeling in my head. But the coughing isn’t as bad, thanks to cough pills from the last bout of the virus.

I don’t know what it is about being under the weather that puts me in the mood for old animated series like Justice League and The Batman.

My Netflix list. Please don’t judge me.

This goes back to childhood when my parents would bring me chicken soup and ice pops. (See? I purposely avoided the use of a brand name. If you are absolutely confused by that remark, please click here.) They let me watch animated series and movies on TV. So I tend to return to that cozy feeling.

There’s also something about villains being trounced and the good guys riding off to their complicated lives that lets me know everything’s going to be okay.

 

Anyway, how are things in your neck of the woods? Did you have a good fourth? See any good movies? Last week, I tentatively made a plan to pop over and see the last Indiana Jones movie. But that will have to wait.

Author photo and book cover courtesy of Andy Murray. Wonder Woman from the Wonder Woman Wiki. The Batman image from the DC Database. Other photo by L. Marie.

Check This Out: Do I Need to Use a Dragon?

With me on the blog today is none other than Charles E. Yallowitz, whom you know from his blog, Legends of Windemere, and the many books he has published, including the series, Legends of Windemere, War of Nytefall, and others. Today, he’s here to discuss his fantasy writer craft book, Do I Need to Use a Dragon? which was published on July 2.

Cover art by Alison Hunt

El Space: What made you decide to write a craft book on fantasy writing?
Charles: Partially insanity and self-doubt not showing up until I was already well into the project. Well, that’s the funny reason. The truth is that I was texting with a friend about writing and various topics that I discussed on my blog. She suggested that I write a how-to-write-fantasy book, and then her husband chimed in. It was pointed out that I was already giving good advice to authors who asked me questions, so I might as well attempt a craft book. It took me about a year to come up with the presentation style, topics, and titles. After that, I used the first Covid summer to finish writing the last two War of Nytefall books and dove into Do I Need to Use a Dragon? before I could think myself out of it.

Interior art by Alison Hunt

El Space: During an interview, an author of fairy tale retellings gave this advice that I am paraphrasing: “Take a fairy tale you hate and retell it the way you want it told.” Did you have a similar desire—to write a craft book with the kind of advice you would want to be given, rather than advice people often give that you don’t find helpful? Why or why not?
Charles: I’ve had a rough history with craft books, but I had to read a few in college. They definitely felt like they were talking to someone else most of the time. So, I can see how a person can look at them and feel like it isn’t helpful. Another person might read the book as gospel because it’s exactly what they want to hear. For example, I had to read Stephen King’s book on writing in college and most of my classmates thought it sang to them. I sat there feeling like the advice wouldn’t work for my genre, style, and aspirations.

For myself, the problem with most craft books is that they speak with the jargon that one would only know from experience as an author. If that isn’t a big hurdle, then it might be the depth and deviations, which can make a new author feel overwhelmed and quit. This is why I focused on the delivery more than the specific advice. I wrote every section as if it was a long blog post, so there’s a minimal use of jargon and a casual voice. This is how I would have liked to learn about writing instead of it being so clinical. Make me think we’re having a conversation or that you’re talking to me like a person instead of a face in the crowd. This won’t work for everyone, but I hope it helps those who are nervous about their path.

Also, probably helps that I flat out say that my advice won’t work for everyone. That’s a big thing that many people forget.

El Space: What advice on fantasy writing or writing in general has been really helpful to you?
Charles: Thinking back, I can’t remember any solid writing advice that I received. The closest one is probably when a high school teacher told me to pick a tense and stick to it. I had been switching from past to present all the time, including in the same sentences. She explained how it worked and I went with present tense, which is where I am now. Everything else that I could call advice really came from discussions with other authors. You learn a lot from talking to those in the same situation and the casual conversation can reveal nuggets of advice even though the speaker doesn’t intend for it to happen. Situations like this is when I realized characters and plot feed off each other, pantser/plotter hybrids might be the best method, and other aspects of my author identity that have sunk into my core.

El Space: What fantasy series (book, TV, anime) really inspires you? Why?
Charles: I have this voice in my head telling me to say Tolkien or Saberhagen. That’s the safe answer that most authors go for. The truth is that I’ve been inspired by so much over the last 28 years of writing that I can’t pick one thing. Dungeons & Dragons can take the top spot only because many of my stories are based around the campaigns I played. I used those to test out characters and get a sense of story. Even so, I’ve added pieces of various comic books, video games, shows, and novels that triggered an idea. My inspiration really has become this amalgam of sources that I can no longer put a finger on unless we’re talking about a specific series. Probably not the answer people like to hear from authors, but it’s what I realized while pondering this question for an hour.

 

El Space: What, if anything, about the current state of fantasy writing would you want to see changed or explored more?
Charles: Admittedly, I haven’t really checked out a lot of recent fantasy books. It felt like everything was either Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones again. So, the genre appeared to be stale and spinning its wheels. That’s mostly due to streaming shows, which must be overshadowing the books of newer authors. At least, I hope so. If not, then I would love to see more fresh faces and worlds be lifted to the spotlight. I feel like audiences, publishers, and authors themselves are just stuck on the established franchises. It doesn’t leave any air for a new story to be discovered, especially since the indie author trend seems to have become a shadow of its glory days. Too cynical? Probably, but I decided to be honest in Do I Need to Use a Dragon? and I’ll be honest here too.

El Space: What will you work on next?
Charles: My current project is a new fantasy series that I’m hoping to start publishing next year. I’ve actually been writing volumes since 2021 just to maintain my skills. It’s going to be called The Slumberlord Chronicles and will take place in Windemere after the events of Legends of Windemere. The main character is a halfling named Darwin Slepsnor who is seen as a town nuisance because his attempts to help tend to create incidents. He means well, but he isn’t good at social queues and panics very easily. The series follows him after he gains magic and decides that he can be a hero like those in his childhood stories. Of course, Darwin creates messes as well and is simply a friendly, happy force of chaos that is unknowingly disrupting the very fabric of destiny. I’m having a lot of fun writing this character and I hope people enjoy his adventures when I get them ready for publishing.

Thank you, Charles for being my guest.

Looking for Charles E. Yallowitz? You can find him at his blog, website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Looking for Do I Need to Use a Dragon? You can find it on Amazon or in your very own Kindle just by commenting below on good advice you were given about writing or life or both. Winner to be announced sometime next week. But the winner of Andy’s book will be announced later this week.

Check out these books by Charles:

Cover, interior art, series book covers, and author photo courtesy of Charles Yallowitz. Cover and interior art by Alison Hunt. Other book covers from Goodreads.

Check This Out: Fifty

Hello! Joining me on the blog today is the awe-inspiring, your friend and mine, Andrew James Murray (Andy to those of who know his blog, City Jackdaw), who is here to discuss his third collection of poetry, Fifty, which was published Alien Buddha Press on June 2.

El Space: On my shelf are Heading North and In Brigantia. I’ve asked you about themes before. Again, I’m curious as to how you chose the theme for this new collection, Fifty, and how it relates to your other poetry collections, if it indeed does.
Andy: As my milestone birthday began to appear on the horizon, I thought that it would be nice to mark it with a new collection: fifty poems for my fiftieth year. And so I went all-out Adele and called it Fifty. Adding to this personal theme I used for the cover a contemporary photograph of a block of flats that served as my home for the first eighteen months of my life.

Being just fifty poems long, this collection is shorter than both North and Brigantia. I guess they relate to each other in the sense that, if you read all three in chronological order, they would show my evolution as a poet.

El Space: I marked a number of your poems that were piercing in different ways. Your poem, “Ukraine,” was a gut punch. “Eight Lines, Relenting,” hit me around the throat area. Both reactions signaled a deep emotional place in me that I needed to explore. Can you give us insight into why you wrote both, even if the news stories seem explanatory?
Andy: “Ukraine” was written at the point when Russian forces were massing at the border, just as the invasion seemed imminent. I used corn (which is represented by the yellow section of their national flag) as an analogy for the Ukraninan people, just wanting to be left alone to live in freedom

“Eight Lines, Relenting” began life as “Eight Lines, Unrelated,” but, as so often happens, the poem took on a life of its own. The lines related to each other and the poem became the sum of its parts. It’s me finding myself in this middle period, looking back at where I have been while being aware of where I am heading.

Manchester, home of Andy. Photo by Andrew Murray, © 2023.

El Space: The late Mary Oliver, who was interviewed by Krista Tippett in 2015, cited the poet Rumi as someone she regularly read. Who, if anyone, is someone you regularly read—poet or prose writer? What does that person’s writing inspire in you?
Andy: My favourites, poetry wise, remain the two that I name checked in our last conversation: Werner Aspenström and Kenneth White. They inspire me to create the kind of stuff that I like to read.

        

El Space: Have to ask you about “Streetlight.” For some reason, the poems in which you mention a child (like “In Her Laughter”) cause me to feel this well of deep emotion. What’s the story behind either poem?
Andy: There is a poem in my first collection called “Midnight July” which was written one cool summer evening while sitting in my back garden, looking up at the stars and wanting to “know the unknowable.” Somebody passed by on the other side of the house and, without being aware of my presence, connected with me through the sound of their whistle. For ‘Streetlight’ I was sitting in exactly the same place and this time the connection came through the sound of a child singing through an open window.

Photo by Andrew Murray, © 2023.

The child that features in “In Her Laughter” was my (then) young daughter, Millie. Looking up at the night sky, she asked, “Does space go on forever because God is still drawing it?” I was dumbfounded. It was so simple and yet so profound, in a Creator/creation line of thinking.

El Space: For some reason, I can’t help seeing you as a night owl and an observer of humanity. Is that a fair assumption? How would you sum yourself up in a sentence? How does that affect your poetry?
Andy: That would be spot on! The short poem ‘Two-Thirty Hues’ explains it:

oil slick sky
the writer’s blues

dreams snatch
me away
from meaning

window lamp
two-thirty hues

the fire inside
still burning

That is me at 2.30 a.m., burning away. It seems to be my creative time. Sometimes, if I have gone to bed at a reasonable hour, I end up reaching for my phone on the bedside cabinet to write a few lines down in the Notes section before they become lost to sleep.

One of my traits is that I can be incredibly sentimental and nostalgic, with many enshrined memories to fall back on. I think that can make my writing more subjective than objective. When writing a poem about something else it can suddenly become self-referential. For instance the poem “Woodsmoke Nostalgia” began as an ode to a typical winter’s morning which then provoked a flashback to me as a child, returning from a walk down a disused railway line to see three dead rabbits—a poacher’s bounty—strung up on an outhouse door. That image stayed with me.

Photo by Andrew Murray, © 2023.

El Space: What will you work on next?
Andy: I’m nearing the end of an oral history project that I’ve been working on for a few years now. It was interrupted by the Covid pandemic and my mother’s deteriorating illness. I put a few things (fiction and non-fiction) of my own on the back burner as this took precedence—I’ve since been to the funerals of two of the people whose stories I’ve got written down. The responsibility is not lost on me.

Thank you, Andy, for being my guest!

Looking for Andy? You can find him at City Jackdaw.

Looking for Fifty? You can find it at Amazon. One of you will be sent a copy of Fifty simply because you commented. Winner to be announced next week sometime!

Author photo and photos of Manchester courtesy of Andrew Murray. Book cover photo by L. Marie. Kenneth White and Werner Aspenström poetry collection covers came from Goodreads.

Post-Father’s Day Thoughts

I heard a pastor say that a father’s love is sometimes difficult to recognize. He then went on to say that there were things he did in his children’s lives that they are only now recognizing as love, now that they are older. This caused me to ponder over how different my dad and mom are in the way they show love.

When I was growing up, my mother made sure my brothers and I got up in the morning for school, brushed our teeth, ate breakfast, and got out the door. She was quick to hug and quick to go rogue if someone tried to hurt us, or if we did something to embarrass her (like stealing stuff from the store or climbing our neighbor’s fence when we shouldn’t have, or, my cousin’s case, obstructing traffic and getting arrested). In some instances, she was quick with a handbag upside your head

My dad was quick with advice: “If someone hits you, hit him back.” Or “Take the 63rd Street bus—not the 69th Street bus.” Or “If you get lost, the lake [Lake Michigan] is always east.” He made sure I changed the oil regularly in my car and taught me how to change a flat tire. He advised me to have a savings account and put money away every month.

Dad and I would watch Doctor Who on Sunday nights, because we both loved science fiction. Those were our Dad-Daughter bonding moments. He was never one to talk about hair, makeup, and boys (except when letting me know how much he disliked anyone I dated).

Mom was all about the here and now. Dad was all about preparedness for the future—for when I had to go out on my own, whether to high school or to my first apartment. (And especially so he didn’t have to keep getting out of bed to come get me when my beater car broke down on the highway. Another plus for regular oil changes.)

When I was a kid, I measured love by visible demonstrations of it—hugs, having my favorite cookies, asking me about my day versus yelling at me about a no-good boyfriend or telling me to keep getting my oil changed. I didn’t understand the advice giving, especially if I wasn’t asking for it.

But now I realize every piece of advice came with love. My dad has always been my champion. I just didn’t realize it sometimes. There was never a time when he told me I couldn’t do something. (Well, it went without saying that I would never play professional football. Not that I wanted to.) He may never have bought me my favorite cookies. But he used to give me Stephen King or John Grisham novels at Christmas, so there’s that.

Dad, thanks for being you. Thanks for loving me the way that you did, though I didn’t always understand it.

Oil change image from Mobil.com. Doctor Who and Father’s Day images from somewhere online. Bus image from CTA website.

To Update or Not? That Is the Question

So, I booted up my computer, and as per my habit, I clicked on Google Chrome. But nothing happened.

Hmm.

I clicked on it another ten or so times. Still nothing.

I won’t bore you with a play-by-play of the 42 minutes I spent trying to figure things out until it dawned on me that the latest Windows updates that my computer insisted that I install had probably disabled it somehow. Grr. I set about the tedious task of uninstalling those troublesome updates. And whaddya know? After I restarted, Chrome, my internet browser of choice, worked perfectly.

Imagine that.

I couldn’t help equating this experience to writing. Much of it feels like a war zone nowadays with opinions fired and return fire given through books and social media. Since I read to relax and explore other worlds and perspectives, much of what I write reflects that. While I might write about an issue today in a devotional reading, an article, or a book, I’m not trying to continue a war I’m not currently fighting. I’m actually fighting a different war that isn’t against the “patriarchy” or any other human being. This war is for my heart and my peace—my “operating system” if you will.

You know what? I like stories that reveal the wonder in this world or made-up places. I like stories where people of both sexes are honorable instead of one or the other being portrayed as incompetent and stupid to show everyone that all people of that sex are incompetent and stupid. And no, this doesn’t mean stories without antagonists nor does this mean I’m viewing the world through rose-colored glasses. I’m just tired of the war where words are weapons wielded to antagonize and humiliate.

So, I decided to avoid that update. If that makes my writing seem old-fashioned or for a specific audience (i.e., kids, adults who are kids at heart), well then, mission accomplished.

And now, I’ll go back to my sparrows.

Update key image found online.

On a Perfectly Ordinary Day

As I drove into the parking lot of my apartment complex, I saw this (photo above). The day was sunny and low in humidity. My friend Sharon later informed me that this is a fire rainbow. I’d never seen one before.

And no wonder. This website discusses the rarity of seeing one. It also provides a great definition for what they are and the conditions necessary for them.

  

Seeing that cloud was like receiving a smile from God. 😊

Have you ever seen a fire rainbow? What, if any, rare wonders have you seen?

Photos by L. Marie.

A Friend in “Read” Is a Friend Indeed

When I was a freshman in a Chicago high school, back when raptors ran and pterodactyls flew, a typical Saturday routine for me was this:
• Walk two blocks to catch the 119th Street bus (avoiding raptors of course).
• Take that bus to 103rd Street and walk a block to my BFF Christine’s house.
• Catch another bus (these were the days of bus passes, tokens, and supertransfers, when students rode the buses cheaply) to 95th Street to one of our favorite hangouts (besides the mall).

What was that hangout? The Beverly Paper-Back Exchange. (Grammarians, please don’t come at me because of their decision to use punctuation in paperback.) We would spend hours combing through the shelves and would each leave with a paper shopping bag full of books. Note the price in the photo at the right below. All of their books were stamped with the store’s name.

  

Because this was an exchange, you could bring books for them to sell, which would net you a slight discount. Invariably, we’d bring back many of the ones we bought. (Half-Price Bookstore existed, but had not yet spread to the Midwest.)

Christine and I read a ton of Harlequin Romance novels, mostly acquired there, because our goal was to write romance books with a suspense element (ala authors like Victoria Holt). So, we also read mysteries, hence the Perry Mason books.

 

It was great having a friend who loved reading and writing romance stories. We analyzed the Harlequin formula: how the hero and heroine would meet cute, when the first kiss would happen, when the misunderstanding would come, how they would get back together. And since our imaginations ran wild, how many times the heroine would nearly be murdered. (This was back in the day, as I mentioned.) Also, how silly the hero’s name could be, and still, in our minds, sound cool and masculine. Steve Sacks O’Mony. Tyler Tall Endark. We had lofty plans to submit our novels to Harlequin for a ton of money. As I write this, I can’t help laughing because we were so sure we would hit it big as romance novelists.

Though Christine and I lost touch after high school, I managed to hold onto these two books, and the memories I made acquiring them.

Victoria Holt cover from Goodreads. Bus tokens from WBEZ. Supertransfer from the Illinois Railway Museum website. Other photos by L. Marie.

Neighbors

Some neighbors are friendly, dropping over to gossip, borrow a cup of sugar, or bring you cookies at Christmas (after borrowing that sugar). Others are less civil, cutting death glances at people, blasting their music too loudly while ignoring any complaints, or stealing your lawnmower and then trying to sell it back to you. And yes, those descriptions probably seemed oddly specific, because when I was a kid, we had neighbors who did all of the above. (I currently have neighbors who are working on some of the above behaviors.)

And then there are neighbors who move in without a lease agreement. Here are some of mine.

 

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since they are house sparrows after all. They made a nest on the wall somewhere between the joists of the balcony above mine. A while ago, I watched them land on the balcony with nest items—sticks and bits of fluff—as if needing to rest before the final push to the nest.

I didn’t put out a bird feeder, because the rental office stuck signs up everywhere, warning people to avoid feeding the birds and to clear away feeders. But I thought a bowl of water wouldn’t hurt, right?

It’s already had repeat visitors. So far, I haven’t been able to snap a photo, because they seem to visit the water bowl only when I am not carrying my phone.

Every morning, I hear their cheerful chirps regardless of the weather. One or two perch on the balcony rail several times a day as if stopping by to chat. In the evenings before they tuck themselves in for the night, they stop by. Many times during the week, they frolic on the balcony before flitting off.

Two days ago, one dropped a piece of fluff on the balcony. And today, one dropped what looked like an old tissue, while still another dropped tiny feathers on the balcony. I guess it’s time for the offspring to move out and build nests of their own (or take them from others as some online accounts state).

Well, time to segue over to the other purpose of this post: Charles, do me a favor and look on Amazon to see which Shashibo you want, because you’ll be getting one! (Click here if you are totally confused by that sentence.) Comment below to confirm and to let me know which one you would like.

Photos by L. Marie