I can't remember a year in which I've seen so many children's books published by North Carolina authors. Their variety of genres and age-levels show the amazing artistic richness of our state. Here are some recent books from North Carolina authors.
Carole Boston Weatherford, from Highpoint, publishes Remember The Bridge: Poems of a People (Philomel, $17.99; ages 8 to adult) . This book was begun more than two decades ago as a graduate school photo-essay assignment where she pored over "hundreds of prints and photographs". Over the years she has written word images to go with the visual representations.
Weatherford has created an amazing chronicle with her skillful pairing of pictures and poetry. Her introductory poem, "Remember the Bridge", begins, "Remember the bridge/ that your ancestors crossed, / the sweat that was spilled/ and the lives that were lost" . In concise, prosaic language, she goes on to explain the mission of her book. She sets out to remember slaves, conductors and passengers of the Underground Railroad, Civil War soldiers, people who told tales of traveling to a more industrialized north and those who fought for Civil Rights. This lofty goal is realized with twenty-seven emotive poems which speak for people who were captured in Africa, traveled across the ocean, were sold on slave blocks, fought for freedom, and strived for recognition in all fields. Not only does Weatherford honor people named and unnamed, she celebrates poetry as she alters tones to match periods and enlivens eras with poignant images. The illustrations for these poems are dramatic monochromes that vary from line drawings to a heart-breaking photograph of a horribly scarred run-away slave.
Weatherford's well-shaped book spirals upwards to the final poem, "I Am the Bridge" which summarizes the strength of the voices of all the lives she's made vivid, and their impact on the world. She ends with a sense of continuance and hope, "The past is the foundation, / the future the next span. /We'll bridge the mighty river;/ brothers, sisters, hand in hand."
Wendy Ewald's The Best Part of Me: children talk about their bodies in pictures and words (Little Brown, $16.95; ages 4-8) was created in Durham at Club Boulevard Elementary School. Writings and photographs come from Ewald's Literacy Thorough Photography Project begun at Duke's Center for Documentary Studies. Ewald decided to use "photography as a starting point for writing"and to explore how "children regarded their bodies."
Her approach was driven by the children and their perceptions. She began by asking them to name a favorite body part and took a Polaroid of that part. Together they discussed composition and once the picture was planned, the children were off to compose prose and poems with "their extraordinarily gifted writing teacher", Lisa Lord. Last, each was recorded in the child's own hand and matched to a final photograph.
Both photographs and writings show a range of styles and thoughts, the two images complimenting and enhancing each other. Camila's beautiful hair fills the frame of the photograph and she explains with pride and poetry, "It comes from my Mexican heritage. Its wavy like the ocean." Colette crosses expressive, long-fingered hands in her photo and views their capabilities emotionally. They can "turn the pages of a book slowly and magically", or "wipe my eyes when I am sad". Tramika's hands are square and sturdy and the writing is solid and non-apologetic. "My hands are big, I say strong...Maybe thats why they're big and ugly...See the reason I choose my hands is because I like them even if they're big and ugly." And Nada's hands are crossed and she writes poetically, "When I pray my hands overlap / In the sun they shine / The color of my hands is toasty brown/ These beautiful things are mine."
Greenville author, Pansy Hart Flood, writes a short illustrated novel so full of voice, it hardly needs the accompanying pictures by Felicia Marshall. Sylvia and Miz Lula Maye (Carolrhoda, $15.95; ages 7-10) is the story of two friends; ten-year-old Sylvia and 100-year-old Miz Lula Maye. Sylvia, who has just moved to Miz Lula Maye's small South Carolina town, delivers mail to the elderly woman and these two feisty females soon become friends. Sylvia savors Miz Lula Maye's wisdom and feels "we's somehow connected by some kind of inside spirit". Miz Lula doctors her nine cats, runs a spotless kitchen and teaches Sylvia to make sugar toast, and listens to her.
Sylvia needs this warmth because her momma is "close to herself". Miz Lula Maye asks the child to be patient and loving as "your momma's in need of healin' from something. I'll pray for her and a change will be soon to come." Clues about this change are hinted at in stories of their adventures and evolving relationship, but it's still a surprise when "Mystery Man" enters at the end of the book. Mystery Man has quite an effect on everyone. He's Miz Lula Maye's missing grandson and the father Sylvia has never known. Miz Lula Maye is so surprised she can hardly speak because "My nerves is all tore up". Sylvia throws a giant fit at one more change in her life and wants to "Chew him up like Wrigley's spearmint gum and spit him out like sour milk." But in the end the revelation turns the two friends into family and Miz Lula Maye promises, " ... when we gets to heaven, we'll be friends there, too. We'll water wildflowers with our tears of joy." We care about these characters, are carried along by the plot and the development of their relationship, but the true power of the book is its voice which gathers strength from expressive dialogue, colorful dialect, and the exuberance of the opinionated and vocal Sylvia .
This collection of recently published work, evocative in illustration and word, will create pictures readers will remember.
This year's novels by North Carolina authors have something for everyone. Mystery, history, realism and more, books to satisfy novel readers of all ages!
For younger novel readers, there's the first in new mystery series by Raleigh author, Eileen Heyes. Acting Innocent (Aladdin, $4.99; ages 9-12) stars sleuths Billy O'Dwyer and Virgina Grady who are child actors in 1932 New York City. The historical setting adds flavor and dimension to the mystery. Through dialogue and events, readers learn much about the life of a child-actor, Prohibition, and the Depression. Billy's parents are devastated by the Depression and they trust his manager, Maureen Fritz, with his care. She is abusive and Billy quickly learns off-stage acting, or how to put on a cheery smile and take cues about when to be quiet. His compadre and co-star, Virgina, knows the truth of his situation and she has her own set of problems. Her parents are off in Europe and she's been left behind with an aunt.
The mystery unfolds when heavy-drinking, child-friendly Roscoe "Chubby" Muldoon is accused of a murder and Virginia and Billy decide to clear his name. Billy tells the story and his authentic voice is the result of Heyes' skillful blending the bravado of a child-star who is trying on the pretense of a hard-boiled detective, and is really an emotionally hurting eleven-year-old . Virginia has more polish and sleuth-savvy than Billy who bumbles his way into mystery solutions. Together they make a great team and history-mystery lovers will look forward to further adventures.
Fantasy fans will warm to the return of the dragon and girl first met in Chapel Hill author, Luli Gray's Falcon's Egg (Bantam, $4.50) They make a return appearance in Falcon and the Charles Street Witch (Houghton Mifflin, $15.00; ages 9-12) . The newest adventure begins as Falcon and her little brother Toody end a summer spent with their father cruising through Australia's bush. Waiting in the airplane's bathroom line, impatient Toody leans against the exit handle and they are propelled into space. Separated from her brother, Falcon wakes in New York at the home of Blinda Cholmondely, a plump older woman who is a "pretty good witch, most of the time". Her spells send tea cups clattering and trundling off to wash themselves. She pulls amazing objects from the many pockets of her checkered dresses, and she knows much about dragons.
Gray knows much about dragons, too. Her view of fantasy is illuminating and brings a new reality to the world of magic where volcanoes are dragon lairs, dragon tears smell of lilac, and all dragons misquote humans of yore. Gray builds her fantasies with a respect and knowledge of those who have gone before; Falcon faces realities and situations as strange as Carrol's Alice and Gray builds a foundation strong enough to bear these fantastical occurrences. In this novel, Falcon rediscovers and rescues her fledgling dragon Egg who's now grown old enough to misquote Shakespeare whenever she speaks. She ventures in and out of a parallel New York and makes the acquaintance of wild characters like Harry, a very original Aboriginal, and 1,700 year old St. George who appears in a tracksuit.
Gray renews literary and fantasy traditions with her particular brand of humor and eye for detail. She mingles the sublime and the bawdy, giving children the silliness they desire and the great writing that elevates them. Near the end of the story, for example, we witness the finale of the dragon Dirus' gas attack when "a huge jet of purplish green smoke shot out of the dragon's behind, sending them high into the sky with the sound of a thousand trumpets" and "a foul and fearful combination" of stinky foods, that's enough to turn the poor dragon blue with shame.
Historical fiction comes to us from Durham author Frances Wood in Daughter of Madrugada (Delacorte, $15.95; ages 10-12) Cesa, the thirteen-year-old heroine, has grown up leading a brigade of younger brothers in adventures on their vast California ranch in the mid-19th century. But Mexico lost war with the U.S. and changes begin. Transitions are not easy for Cesa. She's never really recovered from the way her world shifted when her mother died five years later and she'd do anything to avoid change.
Cesa's stability comes from her beloved ranch. Named by a poetic grandmother, it means dawn and the poetry of the author comes out in lush descriptions of the natural beauty which surrounds Cesa. Wood's sensory descriptions of the idyllic setting almost becomes a character. The changing seasons are a framework and foil for the story's events. In May, Wood writes, "...leaves like bright green fingers" hold up long white flowers and "dancing over them all, a host of butterflies...in an amazement of color." Because Wood renders the ranch so skillfully, readers feel Cesa's indignation and sorrow when invading Americans regard gold as more precious than the ranch's beauty, build fences, drive off the cattle, convince Indian hands to leave, and finally, break her grandfather's strong spirit .
Readers are comforted when Cesa faces the harshest change of all, leaving the land that nourishes her, because she knows who and what she is; "My mother's child. A daughter of Madrugada. A Californio woman. Like the land I love, I, too, will thrive." Wood delivers a little-known period of history wrapped in a compelling personal history. Facts and dates melt into the background as the as the well-developed Cesa guides us through her reality.
Two Chapel Hill authors write for older audiences. Louise Hawes' Waiting for Christopher (Candlewick, $15.99; ages 11 and up) begins with the memories that haunt Feena Harvey and change her life forever. As a young child, Feena sneaks into the room of her infant brother, Christy. She pushes treasures through the bars of his crib; little things, "like a moth wing or an elderly dandelion, all whiskers and silk...pieces of the world she knew he needed to look at and touch." Feena's early childhood is happy, there's a sense of joyous expectation. This ends one day as she waits for her mother to leave Christy's room so she can present her brother with a gift of pine cones. She hears her mother's heavy sobs and soon learns her infant brother has died.
We meet Feena again as a teenager, newly moved to Florida, entering high school with no friends. The intervening years have been harsh; her family collapsed, her loving father left, and her mother is depressed. Feena's tenderness and love of small children endures and when she sees a mother mistreating her toddler, she flinches. When this cruelty reoccurs, she whisks him away when the mother abandons him. Suddenly, Feena's world is made of secrets, lies, and hiding the child who bears the same name as her brother. Shockingly, one of the most apparently-cool kids at school, Raylene Watson, is pulled into the intrigue. Caring for this abused baby brings comfort to both girls who have each lost siblings when young. They are friends bound together by history and caring for Christy.
Erika Karres' memoir, A German Tale: A Girl Surviving Hitler's Legacy (Barricade Books, $22.00; teens - adults) presents a new kind of WWII tale of horror. Born two weeks after Germany marched on Poland, "My earliest memories are of violence. Bombs. Loud noises, sounds of explosions. Shrieks, screams..." To escape the bombing in Magdeburg, her mother walked hundreds of miles to Bavaria with four small children in tow, including Erika, the youngest and most sickly. But life in Bavaria brought poverty instead of relief, and the tragic death of her mother. Erika's distant, distracted father returns and soon there's a stepmother who is always in the process of "unraveling" and seven additional siblings.
The present tense writing and the author's painful and graphically described torments lend reality to this post-Nazi world where hunger is "a wild raging animal chewing on my insides", the children are plagued with running sores and bed bugs, and Erika steals toilet paper and cleaning rags to soak up her menstrual blood. When the issues of survival abate, she asks again and again "What happened with the Jews?" Like the brutal childhood she survived, Karres spares readers not at all; horrific details march through the pages and yet one is captured by Karres' honesty and poignant depictions and you keep going in search of a happier end, just as Karres once did.