Book Look:, Guest Blogger, Anna

What I liked best about this coming of age novel, Some Rivers End on the Day of the Dead, was the balance between page-turning action and wonderful characters, some of whom are downright funny. The central action of the book follows Marisol -- an immigrant from Mexico -- through a second displacement when a fire ravages the ravine in which she is camped out with her mother and uncle. But Granfors never neglects Marisol's inner life and teenage concerns. Supporting characters -- from the woman whose baby Marisol's mother takes care of, through her best friend from her new school in America -- are finely drawn. So, while we are worried about Marisol finding her family again, we get to spend time with very amusing people, especially the Coach's family, who, frankly, I would have enjoyed living with myself! Marisol comes to realizations about herself and those around her through her ordeal, but they aren't all pat or expected. I especially loved the way she manages to be proud of her cultural heritage without expecting others to understand. Anna

Word Nerd: Mentor

From the original in The Odyssey, the word mentor means someone entrusted to teach or coach. Telemachus was mentored by Odysseus's friend, Mentor.

Note too that the Greek root menos, means intent, purpose, spirit, and passion, all of which should apply to any good teacher or coach.

Word Nerd: Idiom

An idiom is a saying that will not translate well into another language. It is metaphorical rather than literal.

Children often have trouble with idioms, such as "don't cry over spilled milk," and there's no milk anywhere to be seen!

In writing Some Rivers End on the Day of the Dead, I used Marisol's trouble with American idioms as one of the main style ideas of her character.

I also learned that "don't judge a book by its cover" doesn't really translate into Spanish. Instead, the saying is "No todo lo que brilla es oro," meaning all that is shiny is not gold.

(Shakespeare used this old saying in The Merchant of Venice on one of the boxes, "All that glitters is not gold. . . ."

Guest Blog for Book Look

This review comes from Martha Rodriguez, the cover artist for Some Rivers End on the Day of the Dead.

Here it is. A wonderful first book by Eileen Granfors titled, "Some Rivers End on the Day of the Dead. It is available on Amazon for all of you looking for that special Fall going into holiday gift!

I am so enjoying the experience of seeing one of my calavera paintings on the cover of a Dia de los Muertos themed book. As this is the first book by Eileen, this is also my first experience having one of my paintings published as the cover art for a book. I'm thrilled! I feel very fortunate that Eileen and I were able to connect.

I just finished reading Some Rivers End and was completely absorbed in the tale of Marisol's life of transitions and her relationships with new and old friends. Many of us can remember the trials and tribulations of being a teen. To experience those times divided between two countries is even more painful. Some Rivers End was a great read. I highly recommend it!

Book Look: Some Rivers End on the Day of the Dead

Today I celebrate MY book!

It is very exciting to have my first novel (Some Rivers End on the Day of the Dead) out and to see a positive review on Amazon. The book is available at Createspace.com as well as through Amazon.

The novel is a coming-of-age story. Mariso de Lira Lima has lost her father, who was murdered. Lorenzo Lima, a US citizen, had been covering the drug wars from Tijuana. Marisol and her mother flee back to the US, fearful that the cartels will find them and come after them as well.

They live "undercover," in a riverbed camp. Marisol's mother finds work as a nanny. Marisol, who tells the story, wants only to return to her old life, the one that had a father, funny friends who loved her, and a warm bed at night.

Instead, she's stuck in a high school full of rich kids who seem to think Mexicans are all illegal aliens. She does have the support of a new American friend and a loving teacher. If she could only not spar so often with Stan, the class bully.
When a wild fire separates Marisol from her family and her school, she is forced to try to find her way back to Mexico and to decide how she wants to live.

This is a book that is marked YA, but it is great for book clubs, for moms and daughters, and older teens. Chapter 15 takes Marisol into a dangerous situation probably not suitable for 'tween reading.

Marisol is funny and hopeful as she finds her way in a very big world.

Lots of Hispanic traditions are explored.. . a perfect read this October!

Book Look: Little Bee

Absolutely unforgettable, emotional, beautiful, heartbreaking. . .Little Bee by Chris Cleaves is an example of why I read. We are taken through our world, looking at ourselves from the outside in. Little Bee in an immigrant from Nigeria. Her world collides with that of an English couple on vacation.

As the book blurbs warn, we don't want to give too much away.

Here's a passage I loved: "Little girls in your country, they hide in the gap between the washing machine and the refrigerator and they make believe they are in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around them. Me and my sister, we used to hide in a gap in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around us, and make believe that we had a washing machine and a refrigerator. . . "

Cleave makes us look at the turmoil of the developing world, compares it to our world and our worries, and suddenly "globalization" takes on new meaning.

If you have time for only one book this year, let it be Little Bee. If you read two, add my book about Hispanic-American teens in America, Some Rivers End on the Day of the Dead!

Word Nerd: Cock; cocky

Here's a funny word that plays a part in today's Book Look for "Little Bee."

Cocky once meant lecherous. Now it only means overconfident, from the earlier "cockscomb" which meant vain.

Cock is slang in urbandictionary.com for penis. But it also relates to "cock of the walk" (Mr. Macho, Mr. Cool) as well as "cock-eyed" meaning tilted.

As Little Bee says in Cleave's masterpiece, "Every word can defend itself. Just when you go to grab it, it turns into two."

Book Look: Rock & Roll Rip-off

RJ McDonnell rocks and rolls his way through a very unusual mystery, "Rock and Roll Rip-Off," the second in his series.

Not only do we get a wise-cracking gum shoe in the story, we also get an insider's look at the music industry. Now set the story in San Diego, and the exotic locales and favorites places of the locals make you want to jump on a plane and get there to feel the sea breezes.

While you're in San Diego, you'll want Jason Duffy with you. He can handle the bad guys. What he can't handle is his love life.

McDonnell keeps things rolling with surprising twists of the plot, BOOM, right out of the oleander bushes, there's something happening. Between his meddling parents and his very smart girlfriend who's on to his waffling in his commitment to the relationship, it's a blast of a read.

I'm going back to pick up the first book, "Rock and Roll Homicide" as soon as I can.

Word Nerd: splenetic

I was going to use something in connection with the Book Look, but this word called to me.

You do not want to be splenetic, given to bad temper and spite! The etymology stems from the belief in the humors, one of which was spleen, said to cause melancholy.

Frenetic means full of energy.

Splenetic does not mean wonderful or splendid!

Book Look: Dickinson

No one offers insight into poetry as detailed and yet clear as Helen Vendler. I have gained something from each of her books.

This one on Emily Dickinson, like the others, is more of a browser's book. . .find a poem you want to understand better, wrestle with the poem a while by yourself, and then take a look at what Vendler has to say.

While she sometimes makes outlandish claims about the impact of a particular word or meter, she is always entertaining and always helpful in giving the reader something else to think about.

I love Emily Dickinson's work. I cannot say that I truly understand Dickinson's work. With Helen Vendler's help, I can speak somewhat intelligently about the possibility of meaning in Dickinson's work.

Word Nerd: scansion

Scansion: the analysis of verse to show its meter.

While I agree that all verse has meter, that we can hear the beat in the poem, I do not believe EVERY poem must be deconstructed down to its last syllable to understand and enjoy the poem.

For every spondee, trochee, anapest, and iamb out there, there's also a child simply reading and responding to the imagery and beat of the poem. Yes, we have to have a technical language to talk about poetry among great minds, but we don't NEED a technical language to enjoy a poem on any level.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Book Look: Trio

Eve La Salle Caram's anniversary edition of Trio, A Corpus Christi Trilogy will put you into sultry Corpus Christie, the wind blowing your hair and the warm Gulf water tickling your toes. This book anthologizes the 1991 publication of Dear Corpus Christi," the 2000 edition of Rena, A Late Journey, and the long-awaited, much-demanded final book, Looking for Johnny. Eve's students at LACC have asked her for a decade to resolve the question of "what happened to Johnny?"

Caram's work reminds me of those of Virginia Woolf, submerging the reader's senses in the consciousness of the narrator. Dear Corpus Christi is told by Elizabeth in a series of letters to the town she calls home. The letters emphasize a more innocent place and time when Padre Island "was nothing but sand all the way to Mexico."

We see Elizabeth wrestling with her own ambitions, her desire to see the world offset by clinging to the love of those who raised her, her Aunt Rena, her Uncle Leeland, her Uncle Bo, her friend CC (who is a person as well as the city, Corpus Christi). How can she leave them? How can she not? Staying would be "to go to sleep, like a little death, like being left behind." Elizabeth has to decide about Ben, who loves her and wants to go steady. But what about her dreams of New York and Hollywood? She has to choose.

And Elizabeth finds much to love in Corpus Christie, besides Ben. There is the food and the water always calling and the wonder of her burgeoning talent in radio drama. Corpus is part of the family.

Rena, A Late Journey brings us further into the world of the mystical Rena since she narrates this book, after her death. Rena has always seen visions and signs. Her descriptions of near-death experiences sound as if she knows, as if she's been there.

Rena lived a life so wild and impetuous that even a young Elizabeth warned her aunt to be more cautious. At 92, Rena continues to seek adventure, taking a trip on a Greyhound bus. She is looking for the past, for the Corpus Christi she knew. It is gone.Kress's Five and Dime, her own old house, all that made Corpus precious is now cut into parts by a new Interstate (which she negotiates on foot). Rena comes face to face with the dangers of the drug world. Why even churches now have to be locked! Rena's boundless love for life, her knowledge of the ways of the world, old and new, are charming and wise.

Looking for Johnny closes Trio. Johnny is Rena's lost brother, Elizabeth's lost uncle. Surely, someone must know where he went, if he has lived or died. A person cannot just disappear. Caram chooses third person for this part of the story so that we can watch with Uncle Searcy, get to know cousins Violet, Lily, and Iris, see if we can connect the dots before the slick gum-shoe lawyer, John Shearer, manages to do so. (John Shine, thinks Elizabeth). It is a welcome final note in "Trio" to see Elizabeth, older and wiser, looking back at the life she has chosen.

Trio is a sultry, slow-paced read, like listening to stories on the porch on a sweltering summer night. Caram does not dodge the misfortunes of life, yet her characters accept adversity and do what people do, live on, seeking answers and connections and meaning. This is a beautiful and wise look at our world, at what makes family, what makes us human. Sip some limeade and enjoy.

Word Nerd: swelter

Having just come through one of the hottest weeks on record in LA, and then reading Eve Caram's ode to Corpus Christi, Tx,(Trio) the word swelter came to mind.

And having read the etymology, I see that the history of the word certainly fits its current meaning too.

Swelter comes from the Middle English, swelten = to die. Shakespeare used the word (now archaic) as a way of expressing venom itself.

I am not very fond of heat, but add humidity, and I am a pool of unhappy cells. No more sweltering this fall, I plead to the weather gods.