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Middle Grade Favorites

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At the Bath Book Bash in Bath, Maine, I met some author friends and added a few children’s books to my collection – no surprise.

In author Anna Jordon’s debut middle grade historical novel, SHIRA & ESTHER’S DOUBLE DREAM DEBUT, Shira and Esther don’t know each other. But they soon will, thanks to Benny, the hotel bell hop who discovers that Esther has a twin living in the same town.

Formatted as a stage play with an overture (introduction), three acts (chapters), and a curtain call (glossary of Yiddish words), the book invites the reader into the different worlds of two girls with gumption. Esther longs to study Torah, but her stage star mom urges her to be a performer. Shira dreams of being on the stage, but her father, the Rabbi, urges her to practice for her bat mitzvah. When Benny arranges for the two girls meet, they realize that a little mix up could help them realize their dreams, but can they pull it off? As they get to know each other, and their respective parents, they learn, not only are they each other’s mirror image, they were born in the same hospital on the same night!

A delightful deli man named Morty narrates the story and offers occasional commentary sprinkled with Yiddish, becoming a beloved character himself. Anna Jordan skillfully weaves the girls’ stories together, enabling each one to achieve her dream debut, and sets the reader up for a surprise ending which doubles the satisfaction. A charming read and highly recommended not only by me, but also…

  • Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade 2023 (starred review)
  • Publishers Weekly Best Middle Grade 2023 (starred review)
  • Tablet Magazine “The Best Jewish Children’s Books 2023”

 

 

 

A Moon Poem

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A Moon Poem

Ramona hosts Poetry Friday today at Pleasures from the Page. Thank you, Ramona! A big thank you to Irene Latham for the autographed copy of Moonstruck! Poems About Our Moon, edited by Roger Stevens and illustrated by Ed Boxall. In celebration of the upcoming publication of The Museum on the Moon, Irene offered Stevens’ book of poems by random selection. It arrived in my mailbox! The anthology features Roger Stevens’ fun poems, along with moon poems by other poets. Emily  Brontё’s poem “Moonlight, Summer Moonlight” is included.

Moonlight, Summer Moonlight 

‘Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,

But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.

And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head.

 

With all these moon poems in my brain, I visited the Colby College Art Museum and found a moon painting! August Moon, by Dan Namingha, is part of an installation named “Painted: Our Bodies, Hearts and Village.”  20 and 21st century Native artists’ work is paired with art by the Taos Society of Artists in early 1900s New Mexico, creating a dialogue with differing perspectives of Pueblo culture.

Namingha’s gorgeous painting inspired me to write this poem, a Nonet, which I learned to write in this poetry forum. If you’re not familiar with this form, it’s a nine-line poem with the first line containing 9 syllables. The remaining lines contain syllables in descending order. So 9 syllables followed by 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. Since this poem is inspired by a painting, it’s an ekphrastic nonet!

Three Sisters

They stretch in waves of harvest color

now summoned by Moon Mother’s glow.

Three sisters raised with strong roots

helped one another grow.

On a moonlit stage,

corn, beans, and squash,

moon-boldened,

laugh at

Crow.

            ~Joyce Ray ©2023

LIGHT COMES TO SHADOW MOUNTAIN

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LIGHT COMES TO SHADOW MOUNTAIN – a Book Review

This book review comes an admission – Author Toni Buzzeo is a personal friend! She is a New York Times best-selling children’s author who has published twenty-nine picture books, including the 2013 Caldecott Honor ONE COOL FRIEND, illustrated by David Small. I am delighted to recommend Toni’s first Middle Grade novel, LIGHT COMES TO SHADOW MOUNTAIN, published this summer by Holiday House.

Cora Mae Tipton yearns for electricity to come to her Kentucky mountain in 1937. Convinced of its benefits, she and her best friend set out to educate their classmates through a school newspaper, in hopes they will persuade parents to join the electric cooperative. Resistance to change comes from where it matters most – Cora’s and Ceilly’s own homes. As much as Cora loves her rural mountain life, she knows that the future will require communication dependent upon electricity. Her dream of becoming a journalist also depends on light for nighttime exam studies. Cora will win readers’ hearts as she navigates the demands of a mother suffering from depression, the near tragedy of an injured brother, and her own sorrow in her quest to bring light to Shadow Mountain.

Author Toni Buzzeo has created a detailed setting for well-developed characters in this story of friendship, family, loss, and personal motivation. While the action keeps the reader turning the page, Light Comes to Shadow Mountain is a rare gem of a book that invites reflection. Readers who love Lauren Wolk’s Echo Mountain will love Light Comes to Shadow Mountain.

You can visit Toni on her website: https://tonibuzzeo.com/

SUSTAINABILITY, BASHO, AND A NEW BOOK

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What does the 17th century poet Bashô have to do with sustainability? As a Buddhist, this haiku master revered nature. His haiku celebrate frogs, cicadas, summer rain and much more. He lived in simpler times when sustainability was a way of life, not a call to save the planet.

Bashô traveled by foot throughout Japan and recorded his impressions. The Narrow Road to the Interior is his literary travelogue in a totally new poetic form – haibun. Haibun consists of a paragraph of prose followed by a haiku. The haiku is meant to complement the text or suggest new meaning. My new book is both a nod to Bashô and a call to sustainable practices.

the seed of all song
is the farmer’s busy hum
as he plants his rice

~Bashô, The Narrow Road to the Interior

 

Thank you to Linda, hosting today from A World Edgewise. My blog has been on vacation for a long time – Covid, broken arm, rehab, other projects. Sometimes it’s a challenge to pick up from where you left off!

This month I’m thrilled to announce publication of Food for All our Tomorrows, Poems on Seed, Soil, and Sustainability by the Asian Rural Institute Press. AFARI (American Friends of ARI) has generously printed copies for a North American audience.

This book is a collection of twenty-nine bi-lingual poems for middle grade in the haibun style. Four years in the making, the idea for this book germinated throughout three volunteer stints at the Asian Rural Institute in Tochigi, Japan. Though the haiku that complete each haibun are classified as English language haiku, I hope that Bashô might have approved.

ARI is tucked away on a hillside in Japan. It’s a green school, one committed to sustainable farming where grassroots people can learn and share ideas for building a better world.

My husband Bob and I spent 4 months at ARI in 2010, and two months each in 2013 and 2018. We planted and harvested, mucked and fed pigs, along with chickens, goats, and fish. We provided office support, cooked meals, worshiped, sang and played together.

And we fell in love with ARI where grassroots participants from Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Africa and South America produce food, honor the earth by caring for the soil, conserve resources, and care for each other.

 

 

I am honored that the Asian Rural Institute chose to publish this book. I hope it will plant many seeds- seeds of respect for soil and plants, and seeds of awareness of our need for each other.

 

See the Blog Post for comments

After Edna St. Vincent Millay

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After Edna St. Vincent Millay

Karen Eastlund hosts this week’s Roundup. Thank you, Karen. Find all the poetic offerings and end-of-June musings over at Karen’s Got a Blog!  

This week I’m writing from Maine, and it feels so good to be back in my home state. Almost as if to welcome me home, one of my poems aired on WERU Community Radio in Blue, Hill, Maine last week.

During an April online workshop, participants were asked to write a poem using the first line of another poem. I began with the delicious first line of an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem, “Elegy Before Death.”

There will be rose and rhododendron

(after Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Elegy Before Death”)

There will be rose and rhododendron

before you take your leave.

Apple blossoms’ heady scent

will welcome swarms of bees.

In the crotch of Cortland branches,

finches will nest and sing.

Eggs will hatch, young will fledge,

blind to your scourge’s sting.

There will be solitary picnics

beneath gnarled apple trees,

gratitude for setting fruit,

for cool shade of leaves.

Oh, would the plucked fruit of Eve,

her curious mind cursed,

yield knowledge of a longed-for cure

before orchard drops are pressed!

Your demise will leave us reeling.

Our wounds are grave and deep.

Not one of us will mourn your passing;

for you, we will not weep.

~Joyce Ray © 2020

You can hear the radio recording of the poem on a post on my website, along with a piece about my writing journey.  I’d love to have a visit from you!

Litany for Pines

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This past week we had to do a difficult thing; we cut down 10 pine trees very close to our home.

We have lived with these trees for forty-two years, and they were huge when we arrived. This winter strong winds sheared off a thirty-foot top, which, thankfully, did not land on the roof. So it was time to say goodbye with gratitude. We spoke this litany to the sentinels who stood with us for so long.

 

 

To pines who have sheltered us from wind and snow
whose shade has cooled us
we offer gratitude,
And let you go.

For birds’ nests and sighing branches,
for holding swings, wind chimes and clothes lines
we offer gratitude,
And let you go.

To friends who’ve grown older with us,
given us oxygen to breathe,
we offer gratitude,
And let you go.

May your spirits remain close,
your whispers stay in memory,
your legacy bless what shall come anew.
We let you go.

Egg Poems and Saint Hildegard’s Cosmic Egg

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The old blown egg idea came to me this week, probably in anticipation and hope for spring here in the Northeast. Also because we’ve been enjoying eggs from our daughter’s chickens, and somehow I look at each egg less casually since I know the effort that produced it – both the hen’s and our daughter’s!

So I googled blown eggs and set to work with a turkey lacing pin and a lot of hot air! These are the egg poems I wrote.

solitude
embryo sheltering
in place

 

enlightenment
first sunlight streaming
through pecked hole

 

One of my favorite of Saint Hildegard’s visions is “The Cosmic Egg.” Hildegard saw elements of the universe known during the 12th century – fire, earth, water and air, along with the sun, moon, planets and stars. Later in her life, she revised her understanding and saw  the universe as a sphere. But the egg image is distinctly feminine, I think. It implies that we are involved in the creation of our natural world. It operates as a cosmic partnership with everything interrelated, which environmentalists have been trying to tell us for a long time.

 

 

The blowing wind,
the mild, moist air,
the exquisite greening
of trees and grasses –
In their beginning,
in their ending,
they give God their praise.
~ Saint Hildegard

from Meditations With Hildegard of Bingen by Gabrielle Uhlein, OSF

Reader Review by Becky Goodwin

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What a simply beautiful book. The ongoing themes of fear over loss, fear of sexuality, fear of pain and that God will ask too much of her (Hildegard) made her character feel human, approachable and profoundly accessible, even though the details of her life are so foreign to today’s audience. The details of the time period – the specific mention of everything from the furniture in the monastery to the herbs used in the infirmary made the 12th century come alive and created texture to the story – the space itself became real for me. I couldn’t put it down!