Big Cat Pepper in Brooklyn

My pal Allyson spotted this: Big Cat Pepper, on a ramble in a forest of books. Maybe Pepper was wandering back to Lauren Castillo's Brooklyn drawing board where he sprung to life.

Pepper has been getting some nice blog love, as Lauren noted on her blog.

Challenge of writing fiction

In high school I hung out with the theater/music/arts/protesting hippie crowd. These were a bunch of really interesting people. One thing we liked to do was get up into the wild hills above the city. If it was daytime we would hike. At night, we talked about big things -- the way the world was, what we wanted, how we would get there, what we hoped we could change. Lots of philosophizing. One of our group, Roo Borson, was an especially serious, deep thinker. Staring down into the bowl of the bay area one night at all the twinkling lights, she said, "have you ever imagined how many other ways your life could go? How many different possibilities there are? Infinite."

I was staggered.

Now, I think of Roo's sentences as I write a novel. The possibilities are infinite. I have some lovely, earnest, difficult characters, and who knows what they will do? How will they really feel and act when the going gets tough? This is where non-fiction writing is so much easier. Something really happened. My challenge with non-fiction is to do a good job with those facts, dig deep for how people really did react when the going got tough, and make it a fascinating read. There is a map.

With fiction, there's no map, just infinite possibilities. But today, I feel I may have found the right path, and I'm trusting my feet will find their way.

Beautiful, deep thinking Roo Borson has gone on to become an acclaimed poet. She continues to stare fearlessly into the infinitude and bring us back possibilities, wrapped up as poems.

end of summer and M. T. Anderson

Thunder and lightening, with heavy, short rains washed away the summer dust clinging to the porch. Like an exhalation, summer is finished.

We got the barn almost all the way painted -- still have some very-high-up trim to complete. In fact, we have a lot of high up trim to paint still. This is not a fun job to do -- the satisfaction comes in getting it finished before the rains. That's Tom at the top in a white protective suit because he's using a paint sprayer, Felix on the lower ladder, handing up and down rollers, paint brushes, and doing follow up with the paint roller. Sasha is getting all the low trim masked and painted.

Tiring? Yes, very. Sasha and Felix crashed out for the night on the porch, until woken by our eager dog Penny, who finally couldn't wait one more minute, and bounded out, wriggling and wagging.

Back to my city life, where we ate bounty from the garden, and Tobin Anderson eased my transition. He was out here in the bay area with his new book, Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware. Besides being a genius, he's got a lovely, dark, irreverent sense of humor, and a big heart. There's a terrific book trailer here: http://www.simonandschuster.com/multimedia?video=36437626001. Very fun. Here he is with several middle schoolers who wanted to tap into his brain and figure out for themselves how he does it.

Two new books: After (Efaw) and No Choirboy (Kucklin)

Two amazing books just intersected in my reading: Susan Kucklin's No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row, and Amy Efaw's After. No Choirboy is non-fiction. Kucklin interviewed four young, incarcerated men who committed murder before they reached the age of 18, and one murder victim's family. She does an incredible job of interviewing them and putting together first person narratives straight out of what they say. She also includes photos she took. Kucklin is a fearless writer. She tackles incredibly difficult subjects and always does an amazing job. She has a great post up about her latest project on I.N.K. on the murder of Iqbal Masih.

After is the fictional account of 15 year old Devon who is in total denial that she is pregnant, gives birth on the bathroom floor, and stuffs her baby in a dumpster. The entire book takes place in just a few days as she is jailed and forced to confront her own actions. Amazingly well-researched, breathtakingly intense, and heartbreaking.

After is getting lots of well-deserved blog buzz right now, and Viking has set up a website for the book. I finished the book a week ago and can't get Devon out of my mind. I keep wondering how her life is going.... A testimony to the power of well-written fiction.

There are incredible themes in these two books around denial, taking responsibility, consequences and redemption. These books could really, really appeal to teens who aren't usually the least bit interested in reading.

Summer Project

It's been a busy summer in the garden. We decided to double the size of the orchard that is fenced in to keep the deer out. It's a project that requires many hands and strong backs, so we gathered up a bunch of our kids' friends. This is a group of hard-working young women and men who love to be outdoors, and who are interested in growing and eating real food. Most of them garden, and two of the women are heading to Vermont in a few months to start their own organic farm.

Several of our crew worked on the first fence a few years ago, and they feel a wonderful sense of ownership of their orchard.

With enough luck, manure, and TLC, there should be enough apples and pears and peaches and raspberries and garlic and onions for all of us. (Probably there is some equivalent here to "never count your chickens before they hatch," like "never count your garlic heads before they harden off.")

Tom did a bunch of layout prep work the weekend before, and then when the gang arrived the fence posts had to be set, the wire stretched and nailed down, and the gates built and installed. It sounds fairly simple, but it's hard work.

After the fence was up, we even got a few rows dug. I took a turn on the machine....also hard work. The machine wants to run and it's a job to keep up with it and stop it at the end of the row so it doesn't chew up the new fence. After a couple rows I headed back to the kitchen for my usual job: farm wife. After all, a crew like this has to be well-fed.

Last photo: the tired, victorious crew.

National History Day

Several months ago I was contacted by Brandon Diaz at Moreno Valley USD. He was working on a National History Day project on Dorothea Lange. He asked me really interesting questions about her that showed he'd done a lot of research. His project was so strong, he went on to the state level competition where he took second place for Junior Individual Website. Congratulations, Brandon!

In his district there were 14 students who went on to the state level, for the first time ever. As Brandon says, "[and we are EXTREMELY competitive]."

Congratulations to all the students, and thanks to all the parents, teachers and administrators who worked so hard to make this happen!

If you don't know about National History Day, it is basically like science projects for the humanities. (Okay, they'd probably kill me for simplifying what they do to that one sentence.) Here's how they put it: "National History Day, Inc. helps teachers meet educational standards; disseminates high quality curriculum materials; and sponsors challenging contests that teach students the critical skills they need to be effective citizens in the 21st century." Voila.

During the 2009-2010 school year, National History Day wants students to research topics related to the theme: Innovation in History: Impact and Change. Then students, working individually or in a group, put together a documentary, an exhibit, a paper, a performance or a web site. Check it out. It is very, very cool.

Beautiful Toni Morrison quote

Toni Morrison grew up in a family where reading was considered sacred, with enormous power attached to it.

"If you can read, they can't cheat you; if you can't read, they can defeat you."

At the launch of the Free Speech Leadership Council in NYC last week, with thanks to Shelf Awareness.

And while I'm on quotes, here's another that has been sticking in my head for months: Last winter I spoke on an NCTE panel with Marc Aronson, Tanya Stone and Tanya Bolden, chaired by Teri Lesesne. Tanya Bolden said if she'd been able to read about African Americans in books when she was a kid, she would have been "shed of shame" earlier.

What a perfect phrase.