The Wide-Awake Princess

Sometimes a "new" twist on an old fairy tale can feel forced or corny. Thankfully, that isn't the case with E. D. Baker's The Wide-Awake Princess, due for release May 2010.

Baker (who apparently also wrote the book Disney's newest movie "The Princess and the Frog" is based on) invites us to a land where every royal personage is blessed with magical gifts at birth in order to be talented, graceful, and most importantly, beautiful. Everyone, that is, except Princess Annie, the younger sister of Gwendolin, the most beautiful princess in all the land. Gwennie was cursed to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and sleep for 100 years, and in order to keep any curses from falling on Annie, she was given the gift of being untouched by magic, good or bad. So when the fateful day arrives and the whole castle falls asleep, Annie is the only one who can fetch Gwennie's true love to bring their kingdom back to life.

But finding a true love is easier said than done! Annie, joined by castle guard Liam travels through all the surrounding kingdoms, meeting one prince after another and sliding from one classic fairytale to the next--from gingerbread houses to ogres and transmogrified royalty--with quick wits learned from growing up without magic. With all the princes around, one of them has got to be Gwennie's true love, right?

This story is wildly entertaining, if at times a bit predictable. Even if the main plot follows the usual happy ending curve, the smaller details are still surprising and full of whimsy. And besides, we wouldn't want an unhappy ending for our heroine, who deserves a true love far more than her overly-magicked sister. My one real objection is that the final action sequence is not done well. It felt incomplete and needed to be either expanded and given more emphasis or left out entirely so as not to distract from the happy ending. And if I were to critique the author as a member or my writing group, I might comment that at times the characters seem to spend too much time explaining things to each other in rather contrived conversations. But with only a few awkward pages in a book that is otherwise truly magical, I'll forgive Baker and offer my compliments for a story well told.

de-cluttering

We've talked about clearing some of the "junk" out of my room, but for the sake of my soul and my sanity I've committed to more than that. I'm also cutting those things that are really just in the way out of my schedule so that I can more fully enjoy those activities that are actually necessary and life giving.

I've always had trouble with the word "no." I don't like to disappoint people, so I generally try to do whatever is asked of me. Part of that is a general sense of generosity, which is a great trait to have when going into a service profession like library/archives work. But another side is the more insidious need to live up to the expectations of those around me. But since the only expectations I should be worrying about are God's, I've learned in the last several years to not worry so much about ruffling a few feathers by not jumping on board every pet project a friend or classmate or even fellow church member wants help with. Really, I already have enough of my own.

This past week I left my new writing group. Don't panic--I know that seems out of character for me, but it will all make sense soon. I am still connected with my first group back home through email and face-to-face meetings whenever I'm in the state of south Dakota, so no worries about me getting disconnected from the craft. This past fall I had also joined a writing group at Park Street Church, in the hope that a local group might hold me more accountable for producing work and actively seeking publication. But this group never felt quite right. We don't all write in the same genre or for the same age level, and there is a definite disparity in the level of talent between several of the members. It also felt very rigid. We met twice a month and at each meeting discussed a new piece of writing. That meant that in addition to my grad school coursework and my own creative writing I was supposed to read and thoughtfully comment on up to 15K words every two weeks. I couldn't always keep up, and felt incredibly guilty when I wasn't prepared for a meeting or missed because of my surgery. So I gave them my apologies and cut myself loose to focus on grad school.

All this to say that I do appreciate what I did receive from the group. It was good to experience a different group dynamic and be exposed to some other styles of writing. And they gave me a true glimpse of how an agent or editor who has never heard of me may react when presented with only the first few chapters of my novel and not the whole story. They were decidedly unimpressed. I met with my home group over Christmas break and talked over their response, brainstorming ways to make the rather slow beginning move along faster and ways to introduce tension. I trust my home group enough to move forward with trying a new beginning, and now that I'm not trying to be creative on someone else's rigid schedule, the ideas are flowing a lot more smoothly. Now that I've gotten rid of the guilt, I can enjoy the truly life-giving experience of creating new worlds with my words.

-Kim

Green Witch

Alice Hoffman's Green Witch, with a release date of March 2010, feels as though it were written just for me. It actually follows another book, Green Angel, but is also approachable on its own.

Green is a teenage girl who has suffered greatly. Her family all died the day the city across the river was attacked and engulfed in flames while Green, left behind that day, watches. Time has passed, and the survivors in Green's village have tried to rebuild their lives. Green's garden grows like magic as she and the land heal. To cope, Green has begun writing down the stories of everyone in the village, making her own paper and ink to use, and adding ingredients fitting the story to be written--cinnamon for the baker's story, grass for the man who made windmills to make the earth green, the last page of a printed book for the schoolteacher.

But certain stories are more important to gather. There is talk of witches in the land--women who stood too long in the shower of ash from the city who now have the power to discern truth and grant a heart's desire. Green begins a journey to find each of these women to write down their stories and search for hope. She is also searching for Diamond, a boy she fell in love with after the tragedy, who left her to search for his own family. Can hope and love prevail as Green learns that the Horde, who destroyed the city have been capturing her neighbors and friends and plan to attack again?

I loved every bittersweet page of this book. Not just because Green is a writer like me, or because I love the description of how she makes her paper. Beyond such details this is a story about finding hope when all seems lost and trusting in love again after pain. Although it is clearly inspired by 9/11, the point isn't hammered into the reader, and we are allowed to make the association on our own, or choose a different pain instead. Loss is universal, but as Green reminds us, so is redemption, hope and love.

This book is labeled for ages 12 and up, and I think adults will connect with it as well. Even though I could see much of the ending coming, there were still a few surprises, and I was never frustrated with the pace. I heartily recommend this book, though I advise that you read it in a quiet place where you can soak it in completely without distraction.

Conviction

On the very same day that I finally published a post about ALA Midwinter, reveling in the amount of free stuff I had been able to acquire, Dianna wrote this. In it she describes her realization that she had far too much "stuff" cluttering both her apartment and her life, distracting her from what was truly important. In fact, she describes it as smothering her.

Wow.

That one hit me right in the gut. How many books did I pick up at ALA? 71. How many of them do I actually intend to read? I don't know, but it certainly won't be all 71. Then why did I take them? Why did I lug a bag of books on each shoulder across the city of Boston each day of the conference even though I didn't feel well?

Greed. I wanted to have more books, more stories to read and keep. And because they were offered to me for free, I didn't give it a second thought at the time, figuring that there was no harm in picking up a few books I was only marginally interested in since it wasn't going to cost me anything.

But there is always a cost. There was the cost of the effort it took to bring them all home on public transportation. There was the time spent sorting them into piles and finding the last open space in my room where I could store them without tripping over the piles. And now there's the guilt of knowing that I will never read them all, at least not before I have to move.

I have always been a pack rat. You can call it collecting or archiving to make it sound better, but the truth of the matter is that I have trouble letting things go, even after they have served their purpose. Because I like to have them. Even books. I would rather buy books than borrow them from a library, because then I can keep the books and return to them again whenever I like. Now, that in itself is not all bad. A person should always have a favorite book close at hand like an old friend. But what about the books that were only fairly good. Why do I need to keep them? Or the ones that are amazingly good, but I know I'll never read again? Why am I keeping Moby Dick? Because someday I might want it, and then I would regret letting it go. At church recently our pastor defined greed as perverted love, and he's right. Love of stories and books is a wonderful thing, but not when taken to this extreme.

Soon I will be moving on and moving out, and much of what I've collected cannot come with me. So it's time to take Dianna's convicting words to heart and clear some of the smothering stuff out of my life. Thankfully, I've already devised a plan. I am still going to read as many of the books as possible, but only the good ones. If I'm not excited by the end of the second chapter, they go immediately. Some won't even get that far. I have reevaluated the stacks of free books and set aside many I know I won't miss and added them to the North Hall lending library. Of those that I actually read, many others may also end up in the cabinet in the dorm lounge, ready to be enjoyed by others. Some truly excellent books will be set aside to be given thoughtfully to those of my friends who I know will enjoy them. So far one has even joined my personal collection, though I mean to keep that category small and exclusive.

In fact, this is to be my pattern in reading from now on. As much as possible I will find books I want to read at the library instead of the bookstore. I imagine this will be good for my bank account as well! If I do buy a book, I will only do so if I am ready right then to read it, not just with a vague inclination that someday I might. And when I have finished, I will consider deeply whether I really intend to read it ever again of it would be better off being enjoyed by someone else. Stories are meant to be shared, after all, not kept. Then a healthy love of story can be spread.

-Kim

Groundhog Day

Oh the irony.

Yesterday I started reading a new book from my ALA freebie pile, a YA fantasy about Sleeping Beauty's sister, a girl who cannot be affected by magic.

Today I awoke at 7:40 in a panic because I was supposed to be at the library at 7:15 for my shift.

I hope I don't have to start repeating this day over again until I get it right...