I will be working on a few projects in the coming months. One of them is still “Melanie’s Gift”. The other…is not something I should talk about right now. It falls under the category of Grown Ups, and it’s still in the embryonic stage. I’ll need some feedback from people who are deeper in the profession before I talk about it to anyone else (other than the Husband).

Hang in there. I am still doing the Lit for Kids and intend to until I am an old white haired lady, wearing a bizarre hat and talking to a cat as though it were human.

I realize that Children’s Book Day came and went without comment from me. I intended to write something, but never got around to it. Remember that I do have 2 small children, a job that has me for 20 hours a week, a house that I must clean, and an addiction to bananagrams.

Wait…scratch that last thing. Forget I said it.

Lately I’ve been working on more art projects than writing projects, but I intend for that to change soon. May is going to find me seriously working on my search for an agent, and finalizing “Melanie’s Gift”. I’ll put up a few of the poems on this site within a week. Promise.

In the four books she appears in, she changes little.  She is eight years old in “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” and seventeen in “The Last Battle”.  Her vocabulary grows, her education grows, but she remains Lucy the Valient.

I cannot count how many times I have read “The Chronicles of Narnia”.  For over two decades they have been my favorite books, and she has been my favorite character.
Lucy on Wikipedia.

I turn to her and her wonderful, wonderful family once a decade, and each time feels like the first time.

I was lucky enough to play her on stage my senior year of high school, and I loved it. Though I’m not the biggest fan of the play adaptation (it’s a tough one to adapt for the stage…films have done it better) to play my heroine remains a highlight of my time on the boards.

Ladies, how long has it been since you revisited Jo (and Meg, Beth, Amy, and Marmee)?

Read about Louisa May Alcott.

4. Neil Gaimen is a master storyteller, in my opinion.  He’s written lots of really great characters in his work both for children and adults, but none are dearer to me than Coraline.  Coraline is a bright girl, with two hard working parents who love her very much, but don’t pay her as much attention as they should.  Also, they’re boring. Coraline discovers a parallel world through a door in her new/old house.  In this other world, everyone is spectacular and fun, and there are Other Parents who dote upon her.  She soon discovers that this perfect, magical world has a horrific secret behind it.  Rather than freak out, this kiddo fights.  Her story is one many kids can identify with, and her handling of it is brave and very smart.

I want to say more about her, but for those who haven’t read the book, I really, really don’t want to spoil anything. If you liked Lucy Pevensie and Hermione Granger, you’re going to love Coraline Jones.

More books by the man who made Coraline.

3. Alice Rumphius is very much in this world.  She was partly autobiographical, which makes author Barbara Cooney cool on so many levels.  As a little girl, Alice tells her beloved grandfather that when she grows up, she want to travel the world and have a house by the sea, just as he did.  He tells her that those are wonderful aspirations, but she has to make sure that she does something to make the world a more beautiful place.

Alice grows up and becomes a librarian.  She travels the world and makes fascinating friends and sees the wonders of nature and foreign cultures.  As an elderly lady, she buys her house by the sea, and remembers her grandfather’s words.   She wonders what to do to make the world a more beautiful place, and the answer comes to her as she recovers from illness.  What she does is so very simple, and makes her corner of the world so very, very beautiful.  To be honest, when I am old, perhaps I will not have travelled all over the world, and I may not own a house by the sea (though I’m not that far right now) but I think I may do the very thing that she did to make the world more beautiful.

More about the real life Miss Rumphius.

6. Anne Shirley is from the Avonlea series by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Growing up as a redhead, I was bound to be drawn to her. Not only redheads love Anne (spelled with an “e”), though. She’s pretty irresistible. Passionate, creative, outgoing and tenacious. We saw her as an insecure girl, desperate to be loved. We got to see her grow into a confident and articulate young woman with a family built by love. Even though she matured, she never outgrew her love for the dramatic and poetic and beautiful. My favorite friends are those who remind me of her.

5. Irene Adler outsmarted Sherlock Holmes in “A Scandal in Bohemia”. Only four people have ever outsmarted Sherlock Holmes, and she’s the only woman who has ever done so. Lots of other writers like to speculate a romantic relationship between them (sex sells, no matter how out of character). In reality, they only met once, interacted for about half an hour, she turned the tables on him and then disappeared. She’s a favorite because of the impact she had in such a short piece of fiction.

Read more about Anne Shirley

Read “A Scandal in Bohemia”

A series of telegrams between Dahlia Travers and her nephew, Bertie Wooster:

“Come at once. Love, Travers”

“Perplexed. Explain. Bertie ”

“What on earth is there to be perplexed about, ass? Come at once. Love, Travers ”

“How do you mean come at once? Regards. Bertie ”

“I mean come at once you maddening half-wit. What do you think I meant? Come at once or expect an aunt’s curse by first post tomorrow. Love Travers ”

“When you say come, do you mean come to Brinkley Court? And when you say at once, do you mean at once? Fogged, at a loss. All the best, Bertie ”

“Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. It doesn’t matter whether you understand or not, you just come at once as I tell you and for heaven’s sake stop this backchat. Do you think I am made of money that I can afford to send you telegrams every ten minutes? Stop being a fathead and come immediately. Love Travers.”

Probably my favorite Dahlia quote ever:

“The girls you’ve been engaged to and have escaped from would reach, if placed end to end, from Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner. I won’t believe you’re married till I see the bishop and assistant clergy mopping their foreheads and saying, ‘Well, that’s that. We’ve really got the young blighter off at last.”

Books like “The Cat Nappers” and “Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves” are worth the read for her hijinks alone.

She’s a little girl with big dreams. She’s more awesome than some of her peers because she’s a pig.

Oh, and she won a Caldecott.

“Shopgirl”, and other books by Steve Martin.

10. (tie) Vida Winter and Margaret Lea from “The Thirteenth Tale” by Diane Setterfield.

Famous, dying Vida chooses quiet, young Margaret to write her biography. Two women with deep, secret sorrows. They love books more than than they love most people. They are fascinating women who love books with fascinating women in them. Walking through Margaret’s mind is both heartbreaking and comforting. Vida Winter’s life story is a spellbinding, almost gothic mystery. If you love Bronte and DuMaurier, give these ladies a read.

The ModBlog entry that gave me the idea.

Author page for Diane Setterfield.

Find your nearest independent bookstore or library.