The earliest memory Jeanette Walls has is not pleasant. She is three years old, standing on a chair overseeing her hotdogs as they boil on the stove. Juju, the family dog stares at her in hopes of snagging a delicious treat. She caves in and jabs a juicy dog holding it over him to cool. As she bends over to serve him the hem of her dress connects with the burner and catches on fire.
“Frozen with fear, I watched the yellow-white flames make a ragged brown line up the pink fabric of my skirt and climb my stomach. Then the flames leaped up, reaching my face.”
“I screamed. I smelled the burning and heard a horrible crackling as the fire singed my hair and eyelashes. Juju was barking. I screamed again.”
At the hospital Jeanette received skin grafts from her upper thighs to cover the burns on her stomach, ribs and chest. Afterwards, the nurses wrapped her entire left side and attached her left arm to the bed post behind her. She remarked, “Look, I’m a half-mummy.”
The doctors and nurses quizzed her at the beginning. Where did you get all these cuts and bruises? How did you get burned? What are you doing making hotdogs by yourself?
She was confused. She thought, what is so hard about making hotdogs? You just boil water. It isn’t like there is some huge receipt you have to follow. She also wondered why it was important for her mother to oversee her cooking. She was quick to tell them, “Mom says I’m mature for my age and she lets me cook for myself a lot.”
After around six weeks in the hospital, Jeanette’s dad appeared in the hallway door. He told her they were going to check out, Rex Walls—style. He unhooked her arm from behind her head and gentle cradled her against his chest. He then took off for the door. A couple of nurses yelled at him to stop but he kept running.
At the curb, we were met by the rest of the family sitting in the Blue Goose as it idled. Dad yelled for Mom to scoot over because it was time to skedaddle.
As one reads The Glass Castle, many of Jeanette’s memories can be placed in the same “not pleasant” category. Yet, she is not bitter. And, although her story is sad, she writes because she needs to get it out. You will read because you need to find out.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
The Glass Castle (copy)
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Year of Our Lord (copy)
Ever read a book and say, “Man, I would love to meet this guy and all his supportive friends!”? The guy I am referring to is Lucas McCarty and some of his friends include the congregation of The Trinity House of Prayer in Moorhead, Miss. I found him by reading Year of Our Lord: Faith, Hope, and Harmony in the Mississippi Delta by T.R. Pearson with photographs by Langdon Clay.
I spent an enjoyable night reading this nonfiction book. Pearson’s talent includes the ability to make the reader part of the community he describes. I kicked pebbles on the deserted downtown streets of Greenville. I ran a fishing line to check the oxygen levels of catfish ponds in the Delta. I sweated through a three hour sermon as the preacher promised to be brief. Most of all, I twitched and jerked with no control over my drool in a voiceless boy’s body.
Lucas McCarty lacked the oxygen he needed to be healthy. It took the doctor too long to retrieve his little body from his mother’s womb. As a result, he has cerebral palsy. It is a mild case. It could be worse.
Lucas can walk on his knees or scoot around in his wheelchair. He can call out in tune with the choir, but he cannot speak. His hands are drawn-in and jerky which makes typing impossible. In order to communicate he carries a box around filled with push button symbols. Although, he is limited in functionality he has a job as a spokesperson for the box called a Pathfinder.
Since birth, Lucas has known and felt his difference by the way people treat him. He believes the black community treats him in a less standoffish way. For example, he watches a white child stand and stare at him while a black child greets him and starts asking questions.
He also feels more comfortable praising God in a black church versus his Episcopal rearing. In Trinity he is at home amongst an accepting family. His best buddy, John Woods, brought him there as a child and now the choir saves him a spot in the loft. After praising the Lord in voice he moves down to the pulpit and sits behind Bishop William B. Knighten. It is here he will hear the bishop exclaim that God never makes a mistake.
Along with having an outstanding author in Pearson and subject in McCarty, readers will enjoy another delight in the photographer. Internationally known, Clay displays Mississippi and its peoples in a light that makes one think moving watercolors. This book makes me proud to be a Mississippian.
Watch the new YouTube video here!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Snowy Day Books (copy)
What a wonderful gift to be given – a snowy day in the south. It makes surroundings pretty and white and then melts away like a distant dream. As long as one is not on the roads traveling, it can be a perfect day. I consider a day when one can do what one wishes such as sleep late, read a book, piece a puzzle or play in the snow as perfect.
One of my joys as librarian at the Como Public Library was opening on a snowy day. I lived a block away and could easily walk to work and open the building for the locals who might be looking for a book or video. It was also a central location for children to come in and get warm between snowball fights.
In celebration of the white stuff, I pulled four brand-new snow books from our children’s display.
Snow! Snow! Snow! by Lee Harper depicts threes dogs enjoying the day flying down the best sledding hill ever. The two pups, no names included in the story, stand excited by the window. It has snowed overnight and the siblings wake to a winter surprise. Harper depicts them hiking to the lake and then carousing down a steep hill. His illustrations capture a perfect day.
Murray the mouse wants to make a perfect soup. He gathers ingredients but is missing a carrot. The farmer agrees to give him a carrot but first he must haul wood to make a barn. Mouse then visits the horse, but the horse wants jingle bells in exchange for hauling wood. At each point in the story mouse rushes past Snowman to encounter the next barter. Quick children will notice that Snowman has no nose. Lisa Moser’s pyramidal story and Ben Mantle’s illustrations in Perfect Soup is, um, perfect.
When I was little, says children’s book author Patricia Hubbell, “I wanted to grow up and be a farmer.” Well, let us be thankful she is an author because she carries the perfect sing-song quality to all her children’s books. Listen to the bounce in her new book Snow Happy! “We’re silly-willy laughy, feeling slightly daffy, leaping through the snow – Snow Happy!”
The Smiley Snowman by M. Christina Butler and illustrated by Tina Macnaughton can be a little less happy when he becomes cold. His furry building friends, Small Fox, Little Bear and Fluffy the bunny, take turns making him warm and returning his joyful disposition.
As your kids romp and stomp through the snow this winter, remember the library for that perfect quiet time afterwards.
OMG! This appeared in the Commercial Appeal! Where have I been not to see this!!!
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Leaving Gee’s Bend (copy)
Outside of Camden, Alabama is a small community called Gee’s Bend. It is isolated from the rest of the world by the Alabama River that snakes south then strikes west only to head back north to its origin. From the sky, the tear drop looks like the state of Alabama is crying.
Ludelphia Bennett has no time to cry. She must get Doc Nelson in Camden to come to her home and save her mother. Ever since little Rose’s birth, her mother has been unresponsive. She has fits of coughing and powerful sweats and chills, but when she gibbers it is to her own dead mother. Ludelphia knows she is out of her mind.
Everyday has the promise of a better momma. Aunt Doshie gives her a steam treatment that clears her throat, but once it is taken away the rattle comes back. The house is getting stale with the smell of sickness, too. No matter what Ludelphia hopes, she still sees her mother’s eyes sinking.
Her last bout of coughing sets Ludelphia into motion. Her mother sprays something on the quilt and her dad identifies it as blood. Aunt Doshie whispers the word pneumonia and Ludelphia runs outside. She cannot stand the sound of her father crying.
Ludelphia is leaving Gee’s Bend for the first time in her life. She will have to cross a river and walk through a town she has never seen to find a doctor she does not know. She is scared but she has her patches of material and needle with thread to comfort her. This will be the best quilt her mother has ever seen – if she lives.
Set in 1932, young adult readers will love the cliff hangers associated with Irene Latham’s first book, Leaving Gee’s Bend. At a library conference in Vicksburg, Latham explained her idea for the book. She was intrigued by the areas rich history of African American Quilting. Once she started researching the material she ran across photographs from the area of that period.
One photograph in particular displays a girl, approximately 10-years-of-age, gazing out a tenant house window. Latham claims she could almost read the newspaper pages used to insulate the open window. Not made of glass but a large piece of ply wood, the window swings in and out like a barn door.
This girl, leaning in profile on the window sill, is dreaming or that is what Latham begans to imagine. It also occurrs to Latham that she can only see the child’s left eye. What might be this child’s life growing up in rural Alabama with one eye? You will have to read Ludelphia’s story to find out.
