All posts by Amber

Blue Thread – Day One #Readukkah Challenge

My Reads, , ,
This year I’m participating in the 2015 #Readukkah Challenge hosted by the Association of Jewish Libraries. The goal is to spread the word about wonderful Jewish books during the eight days of Hanukkah. So here they are: eight days of good reads on Jewish themes. Enjoy!
DAY ONE #READUKKAH CHALLENGE:
BLUE THREAD
by Ruth Tenzer Feldman

Blue thread

About this book:

The women’s suffrage movement is in full swing in 1912 Portland, Oregon—the last holdout state on the West Coast. Miriam desperately wants to work at her father’s printing shop, but when he refuses she decides to dedicate herself to the suffrage movement, demanding rights for women and a different life for herself. Amidst the uncertainty of her future, Miriam’s attention is diverted by the mysterious Serakh, whose sudden, unexplained appearances and insistent questions lead Miriam to her grandmother’s Jewish prayer shawl—and to her destiny. With this shawl, Miriam is taken back in time to inspire the Daughters of Zelophehad, the first women in Biblical history to own land. Miriam brings the strength and courage of these women with her forward in time, emboldening her own struggles and illuminating what it means to be an independent woman.

Why I think you should read it:

It is not about the Holocaust. Books about WWII are important, and I never want to forget that period in Jewish history, but too often it feels like the ONLY Jewish stories are horror stories. BLUE THREAD connects the experiences of Jews in two other important historical periods – the early 1900s during the suffrage movement and Biblical times. Miriam is a wonderful heroine with a distinctly modern voice. Also there is time-travel!!!

*The companion novel to BLUE THREAD is called THE NINTH DAY and it is also an excellent read.

 

Happy Hanukkah

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Shared experience, love of place, and healing

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THE WAY BACK FROM BROKEN got a really nice review from VOYA. One section really resonated with me:

“A valuable theme in the book is how relationships can lead us back from broken. The shared experiences and honest discussion of their emotions are what are able to help Rakmen, Leah, and Jacey to begin a journey of healing. ”

In addition to relationships, I would add “connection to place.” The most healing (and happiest) place in my world is our cabin in Canada, where my family gathers every year to recharge and renew. This is where we linger over coffee and swim in the lake and hike in the forest. This conversation and connection in a peaceful, wild place keeps me sane and hopeful.

From VOYA:

Talking about death is difficult, but there are times in each person’s life when there is no way to avoid such a conversation. Separate traumatic events in the characters’ lives in The Way Back from Broken have forced each of them to confront the topic of death and dying, difficult as that may be. What is more, each must also come to terms with being a survivor and the many emotions that brings—guilt, fear, anger, and of course, overwhelming sadness. This overwhelming sadness gets the book off to a slow start; the situations and relationships appear to be depressing and hopeless. “Not gonna be a happy ending to that story,” writes fifteen-year-old Rakmen in his journal of tragedies, and it seems to be true for this book as well. However, the story becomes both compelling and hopeful when Rakmen and his “crazy” teacher Leah, along with her ten-year-old daughter, Jacey, leave on a summer trip to Canada. This is where progress is finally made in bravely experiencing their grief and learning how to find the strength to live with it.

A valuable theme in the book is how relationships can lead us back from broken. The shared experiences and honest discussion of their emotions are what are able to help Rakmen, Leah, and Jacey to begin a journey of healing. This book is a heartbreaker, but any reader can benefit from its message of honesty, resilience, and courage. —Debbie Kirchhoff.

Bookseller for the Day!

Antics

The Saturday after Thanksgiving (11/28) is Small Business Saturday, which is cool because locally-owned businesses are awesome. It is also Indie’s First, a chance for authors to team up with independent bookstores and be booksellers for the day.

I am really excited to be hanging out and talking about books at two lovely bookstores. Come see me from 10:00-12:30 at Paulina Springs Books in Redmond, OR, and from 2:00-4:00 at Dudley’s Bookstore Cafe in Bend, OR. I will have some great book ideas for the holidays, and of course, you can get a signed copy of THE WAY BACK FROM BROKEN too!

 

A poem by Warsan Shire: What They Did Yesterday Afternoon

Navel Gazing, , ,

what they did yesterday afternoon

by warsan shire

grief-reactionthey set my aunts house on fire
i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who use to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?

i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.

later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.

 

(More from warshan shire in the New Yorker and on her blog.)

Friends, pie, drawbridges, books and one happy author

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This weekend I celebrated the release of my debut novel THE WAY BACK FROM BROKEN at two amazing bookstores: Secret Garden Books in Seattle and A Children’s Place in Portland. It was surreal, humbling, exhilarating, exhausting, and wonderful. It is also a story best told in pictures.

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Rocked out to The Pointer Sisters while waiting for the Ballard Bridge.
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Ballard had braced itself for my arrival.
My road trip companions were amazing
My road trip companions were amazing!
They got me pie!
They got me pie!
I was much more nervous than I look in this picture!
I was much more nervous than I look in this picture.
You should all go to Secret Garden Books and buy a million books.
You should all go to Secret Garden Books and buy a million books. Only one of them has to be mine.
There was a secret reunion of the Mudflat Heathens. I am forbidden from revealing more.
There was a secret reunion of the Mudflat Heathens. I am forbidden from revealing more.
Perhaps 1/2 of Portland showed up the next day!
Perhaps 1/2 of Portland showed up the next day!
Seriously... half of Portland and ALL of my old creative team!
Seriously… half of Portland and ALL of my old creative team!
I got to do my reading in a forest!
I got to do my reading in a forest!
People left with fun swag and books and I left with a very full heart.
People left with fun swag and books.

And I left with a very full heart.

A huge thank you to my tribe!

I am blessed!

 

Book people are better than the Queen

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Book people… you know the ones.

They run book stores. They are teachers and librarians. They craft careful displays of excellent books on Africa or antique airplanes or civil rights or poet-adventurers. Book people hold a book to their chests and then press it into your hands saying, “I love this story.”

Parents and children. Writers and readers. Tea drinkers and skateboarders. Scientists and artists. Book people share words and ideas and emotions and experiences. They will read Sailor Moo, Cow at Sea a hundred times. A thousand. Book people realize that they have two, maybe three, copies of the same book on their shelves. They shrug and say, “I loved it so much!”

Oh but book people are the best humans…

Patti at PNBAIt was my delight to spend the weekend with book people extraordinaire, first at the Pacific NW Booksellers Association Trade Show and then at the Oregon Council of Teachers of English and Social Studies Conference. I was able to show off my book and meet some amazing people! My book stand also looked great. A book friend of mine recommended that I get a personalized banner stand from a company similar to Trade Show Booth to make my book stand out from the crowd and it certainly did! It got so much attention and I was able to share it with so many people.

I did my first ever book signing for THE WAY BACK FROM BROKEN and was thrilled to have the first book go to Patti, an educator that I met several years ago during a school visit. With the Queen

I had the distinct pleasure of exchanging books with Sheila Hamilton (ALL THE THINGS WE NEVER KNEW) and Ellen Urbani (LANDFALL).You are going to want to read these books!

I even gave the Queen a copy of my book. But you know what?

Hanging out with the book people was better! XO

 

The Meaning of Stars

Antics

twosneetchWhen I heard that THE WAY BACK FROM BROKEN was receiving a starred review from Booklist, I went a little crazy. As I shared the news with my family–I got a star! I got a star!–my son stopped me. “Wait a minute, mom. I thought one star was bad.”

And thus we ended up discussing the meaning of stars.

Reviews are both torment and blessing for authors. The bad ones are a bitter pill even though we know (and appreciate) that not every book will appeal to every reader. The good ones are a better than espresso for motivating us to write more books. And, like it or not, reviews matter to sales.

The top reason people will buy a book is because it was recommended to them. Amazon reviews and Goodreads reviews (and their star rankings from 1-5) are the next level up from a personal recommendation. In this realm of reviews by readers, five stars are the magic elixir that raises our book from the depths, and a single star is what we give the neighbor’s dog when he goes poop in our yard.

Hence my son’s question.

The system with professional reviewers for trade industry outlets like School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, The Horn Book, and Booklist is a little different. Among these reviews, only a small fraction of the books reviewed are given a star. In fact, getting reviewed at all is considered an accomplishment. These reviews are important because libraries and bookstores use them to make decisions about what to buy.

Then there are the coveted New York Times and NPR reviews… Most authors never get covered by those outlets much less end up on any of their “best of the year” lists. Local media is more accessible and ultimately more useful to most of us.

It’s weird business, for sure.

We authors need the reviews (no matter the stars). So if you read a book you like (or don’t), post something on Amazon or Goodreads. Even a couple of sentences helps. And authors appreciate it!

As for me, I try not to fret too much about stars. There are plenty of fantastic books that never get the big industry reviews, and other spectacular reads that earn dog-poop-single-stars online. I also try to remember that…

… Sneetches are Sneetches
And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches
That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars
And whether they had one, or not, upon thars.

Thanks, Dr. Seuss. You’re the bomb!

Oh and if you were curious about that starred review from Booklist…

Booklist StarredKeyser’s debut novel is an exquisite and enthralling exploration of loss, love, and healing. Rakmen, 15, is stuck going with his mother to what he calls the “dead baby club,” a support group both for parents who have lost their children and for surviving siblings. Rakmen’s baby sister, Dora, died in his arms, and he blames himself for not noticing that she was in distress until it was too late. The newest members are Mrs. Tatlas, his science teacher whose child was stillborn, and her 10-year-old daughter, Jacey, who is immediately drawn to Rakmen. Though he has an uneasy relationship with the girl, since any brotherly feelings he has for Jacey remind him of his dead sister, to his surprise, he finds himself traveling to Canada with Jacey and Mrs. Tatlas and embarking on a long-distance canoe trip, paddling and portaging through the wilderness. Whether Keyser is describing sensations, like holding a baby or riding the rapids in a canoe, or Rakmen’s palpable grief—“a sludgy wave of pain”—she does so with evocative language and a delicate touch. With a cast of diverse well-rounded characters, poignant relationships that never become schmaltzy, and a compelling high-stakes adventure, this vivid, moving exploration of grief and recovery hits all the right notes.

— Donna Scanlon

 

 

 

 

“Rare in its honesty” — a review from School Library Journal

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“Rare in its honesty…No easy answers…Sincere existential questioning…”

IMG_1433I am so touched by the review of THE WAY BACK FROM BROKEN that appears in School Library Journal this month. What an amazing sensation to realize that the book does what I’d hoped it would do in the hands of a reader. Only a few more weeks and THE WAY BACK FROM BROKEN will be available everywhere. I can hardly believe it!

From School Library Journal (Sept 1, 2015):

Rare in its honesty, this novel tells a poignant story of loss, grief, and recovery. Fifteen-year-old Rakmen’s infant sister dies in his arms, and his family unravels. He accompanies his mother to a support group, where he encounters his unstable teacher, Leah, who’s grieving the loss of her stillborn son, and her young daughter, Jacey. The little girl clings to Rakmen for protection from her mother’s bizarre behavior. The problem: so soon after the death of his own baby sister, Rakmen is not emotionally ready or willing to act as a big brother to the young girl. Summer approaches, and Rakmen’s parents, ignoring his protestations, send him off to spend several weeks at Leah’s slovenly Canadian lake cabin. Yet his parents underestimate Leah’s grief. Is he supposed to babysit Jacey, his teacher, or both? “It’s too heavy for me,” says Rakmen, not only referring to the canoe he carries by the lake. The trio go au large—into the wilderness, the unknown—for three weeks of hiking, canoeing, and sleeping in tents. Despite the familiar themes of “man vs. nature” and “man finds himself,” Keyser spares readers clichés. The characters raise questions to which there are no easy answers, or no pleasant ones, and Keyser wisely allows that. Rakmen learns that life can be excruciating as well as hopeful, and readers will be pleased when his story ends on an optimistic note. This debut novel works on many levels: it presents well-developed characters, a solid story arc, and scenes of rugged survivalism.

VERDICT A subtly touching tale of liberation from grief that, with its sincere existential questioning, will stay with readers and may leave teens feeling the urge to go au large themselves.

–Laura Falli, McNeil High School, Austin, TX

A break from the maelstrom

Travel, , ,

As much as I love the crazy, complicated chaos that is the internet, there comes a time every year when I sign out of Facebook, stop tweeting, and push the power button on all my devices.

Now is that time.

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I will miss (at least a little bit) Lenny Kravitz’s wardrobe malfunctions and cats-vs-roomba and the latest kerfuffle in the YA community. I will miss (much more) the sharp insights and biting wit of my colleagues.

And I will miss you (a lot).

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But I will be listening to pebbles and sliding through water on wings of my own flesh and feeling the smooth wood of a paddle shaft under my palms. The smell of wood smoke will curl through my dreams, and when I wake early, and the mist is still rising, I will crush a leaf of sweet gale between my thumb and forefinger and breathe deep.

It is time.

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When I see you next, my dears, I will be more me and less maelstrom.

The Great Purge

My Reads, ,

1980 Amber readingI wish that I had a list of every book I’ve ever read. Better still, I wish I actually owned every book I’ve ever read.

I could run my fingers over THE SNOW QUEEN and THE SUMMER QUEEN and think about the world they opened to me.

I could reread SACAJAWA and know exactly how I learned about the cruelty of some men.

I could look at that @#%# copy of THE FOUNTAINHEAD and remember the dumb-ass boy I chose because of it.

I could share THE CHALICE AND THE BLADE and the story of female power through history.

It would be amazing… Imagine the bookshelves I would need to store them. Imagine the way it would illuminate a lifetime of voracious, greedy reading.

Instead I am going through my bookshelves and picking books to sell back at Powell’s City of Books. In preparation for my move to a new place in a new town, I am purging, and while it’s easy to shed old sweaters and torn jeans, the books have to be wrenched from my hands.

It helps that I will sell them all for bookstore credit, which can be spent with abandon, but I can’t shake the feeling that I will be less than myself without my books. Without them, will I know where I’ve come from? Will I know who I am? How will I find my way?