As of two weeks ago, I had never read a book by Caroline B. Cooney, which is amazing considering she has 45 or more! Since she is a featured speaker at the SCBWI Midsouth Fall Conference, I thought I should read a couple so that I could speak intelligently about them and her writing.
Wow! It's hard to say more than that, but I'm sure I'll manage.
I started with
Enter Three Witches, based on
MacBeth. As I'm not a huge Shakespeare fan, I was skeptical, but the title drew me in. It was great! Really, super interesting. I almost want to read
Macbeth. Almost.
Okay, so one book down, and it was really good, so no problem reading more. Next, I chose
A Friend at
Midnight. It's hard to say why because I don't read the back of books; sometimes they give things away! Anyway, it turned out to be a GREAT pick. This book is stunning! There were so, so many instances where I thought, oh, I wish I'd written that; I wish I could write like this; I wish my characters were so full and wonderful. I can not do the writing justice by my descriptions, but this is a must-read for YA authors--or anyone. The book is poignant, funny, heart-breaking, and hopeful. I sobbed through at least the last ten pages, but it was a good kind of crying, not the horrible crying of a kidnapped, murdered child or a canine best friend getting killed after saving the main character from a dire fate. No, this was the kind of crying I love to do when reading a wonderful book. You know the kind--tears flowing with each new sentence from every character. Thank goodness I was at home instead of my usual Starbucks because I wouldn't have been able to prevent those tears. I would have been bawling like a baby, and I'm sure the baristas and my fellow customers would have felt compelled to check on me. And that would have only irritated me--because it would have interrupted those crucial ending pages and the flow of my emotions!
After that, I'm happily onto my next Cooney book,
Goddess of Yesterday, and I anticipate many, many more before the conference. I went from thinking I should read of couple to becoming a die-hard fan. It will be such a pleasure to meet Ms. Cooney and such a thrill to have her sign books for me. Until then, I have lots of happy reading ahead!
Kristi Valiant had a wonderful turnout on Saturday, July 25th during her book signing for Cora Cooks Pancit, the beautiful picture book she illustrated for Shen's Books. The crowd at Barnes and Noble in Evansville, Indiana got to sample homemade pancit, which Kristi's husband made using the recipe from the book. It was an exciting first signing; no doubt Kristi will have many more!
