Shift Your Reading Habits…

            To Include This Book

Amy Huntley reviews The Shifter by Janice Hardy

“Stitch together enough wrongs and it makes a blanket that almost keeps out the chill.” So says Nya, the main character in this fantastic new Balzer and Bray book, due to be released in October 2009.

Fifteen-year-old Nya is able to remove pain from other people through a simple touch. This isn’t so uncommon in her world. But what is uncommon is the way she can transfer that pain into another person. With unusual abilities comes unusual responsibility. Nya knows that she is in danger of being kidnapped because of her potential as a weapon. She knows she can be forced to inflict pain on others. Her efforts to avoid this outcome place her in complex situations where she finds herself having to bargain with her own moral code.

But don’t be misled by all this talk of morality. This is a book about tough choices, but the mid-grade reader won’t be able to put it down because of its hair raising action and suspense scenes. Set in a vividly imagined world,  and filled with interesting characters, this book is sure to please both male and female readers of all ages. We all have something to learn from it.

I can’t wait for the sequel.

 

How to Create an Enigmatic and Aloof Internet Presence in Ten Easy Steps

Once upon a time, in the good old days, authors were known to be enigmatic and aloof. Then along came the Internet, and ruined all that.

Now authors are commonly understood to be friendly, outgoing, and accessible “normal” people. Chances are, your favorite author is now on FaceBook and MySpace; has a web site; and maintains a blog. (Incidentally, these opportunities are not limited to living authors; rumor has it, Shakespeare now tweets.)

Oh, how we all miss those glory days, when authors were inaccessible and eccentric. Is it too late to turn the tide?

No. No it is not. There’s still time for writers to reclaim their collective and rightful aura of mystery! This impossible-sounding task can actually be accomplished in ten easy steps:

1. Write your blog entirely in the third person. Or better yet, the second person.

2. Resist the temptation to blog on topics popular on other writing blogs, such as: writer’s block; your writing “journey”; writing conferences; and Michelle Obama’s arms. Instead, blog about your writing “process,” and Barack Obama’s arms.

3. Include only obscure authors in your blog roll list. If any of them link back to you, delete them from your list immediately.

4. Alongside your web site or blog “Words Written” gadget, add a “Words Scratched Out”gadget. Specify both counts to two decimal places.

5. Tantalize your readers by offering only limited personal information. For instance, when composing a blog entry about your Ideal Weekend Breakfast, do not specify your preferred cereal brand.

6. All of your web site photos should depict you in silhouette, hunched over a writing surface, surrounded by crumpled paper wads. Use stock photos from a free photo site and/or PhotoShop if necessary. Alternately, use hand-drawn stick figure illustrations. Credit these drawings to your dog.

7. Wear sunglasses to all of your public appearances. When asked about them, state that Sunshine Impedes The Flow Of Ideas. When asked the inevitable follow-up question (“Where do you get your ideas?”), fling the glasses off, sneer dramatically, and shout “Next question!” Be sure that a bookseller films the outburst, and post the video to YouTube immediately.

8. For your Twitter tweets, use the Cyrillic alphabet.

9. Alter your contact link so that instead of bringing up your email address, it launches an audio feed of Philip Glass music.

10. When you use friend as a verb, put it in "quotes."

By following these easy steps, you too can have an Enigmatic Internet Presence ™.

Fellow Write Brainers, any additional suggestions?

A Review of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

 Amy Huntley

Guilty.

I've long been a person who romanticizes Native Americans. Idealized versions of Native American life have been woven deeply into the fabric of our culture. What REAL experiences have I had with Native Americans and their reservation life? Only a few: met a Navajo while passing through the reservation in Arizona when I was 16. He took me into a teepee (that's right, even though Navajos were not teepee dwellers, he had one set up at a roadside area where he was selling jewelry) and told me the story of his experiences fighting in the Vietnam War. He shot a monkey in the jungle and got into trouble for going back to bury it because he considered the monkey his brother. It was a cool story. I've been to Soaring Eagle. I've visited ancient pueblo sites in New Mexico and gone to Pipestone to see where the sacred stone for peace pipes was mined. But what all these experiences have in common is that they have reinforced rather than challenged my romanticized ideals of Native Americans.

What I love about Sherman Alexie's book is that it adds a strong dose of good old Realism (yes, I mean the literary movement that followed Romanticism) to the stew of impressions I have of Native American history and modern culture. Not that there's a single Native American culture. There are many. I learned that long ago in my travels to Native American exhibits, museums and reservations. But with Part-time Indian, for one kid (the narrator, Junior), at one reservation, during the all too vulnerable teen years, I truly got to see another side of Native American culture. Junior's complex feelings about the people of his reservation remind me (in some ways) of how I felt growing up in a small, insular farming town. His frustrations with money troubles, girls, alcoholism within the family, and the high mortality rate for the people of his reservation all ring so true.  His narrative voice is poignant and real. Something any one who remembers the teen years--no matter what their background--can relate to. I walked away understanding the difficulties Junior faced without being overwhelmed by them. Junior himself faces them with grace, dignity and the best humor he can muster. I truly appreciated his story--and the way Alexie shared it.