We didn't know about the shooting

because we were out eating an early dinner.

The owner of the bookstore and the events coordinator and the two visiting authors and the lovely librarian who'd set up the visit, tucked away in a corner booth, sipping our waters and making small talk, at first, but then slipping into a potentially stressful dinner conversation.

The week had been a bad one in the children's book industry

because several prominent male authors had been accused of sexual harassment and people were yelling at each other in the online comment sections, naming names and defending names and meanwhile, I was feeling physically sick, reliving my own crap and also, I knew some of the men, sort of, -- in the way that everyone does in the very small children's book community,

and I had been arguing in real life too, ranting at my best friend, trying to make sense of what I think about women speaking out and the men they are speaking out about and the growing feeling of hysteria, where it seems like no one is really listening to anyone anymore but only yelling at each other,

and the worst thing, for me, is the fear that in the end, after all of the yelling, nothing will really have changed.

But anyway, we were eating dinner.

The authors were Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds, in town for a school visit, and readying, after dinner, to sign books at the bookstore where I work now. The topic came up about sexual assault and harassment and MeToo and the men being named (without naming them) and I could feel myself getting sick, how I tend to, when this topic comes up,

especially because Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds didn't agree with each other.

But they talked and listened and came to some kind of understanding of the other's point of view and we finished eating dinner.

At the signing they talked about the book they wrote together called All American Boys, which is about a police shooting, told from the points of view of a black teen and a white teen. Jason Reynolds, who is black, and Brendan Kiely, who is white, described how the book came to be,

how they were on the road together promoting their books, strangers essentially, traveling and trying not to talk about the things you know you're not supposed to talk about with strangers. Politics. Religion. Race. But there they were, on the road, and the verdict had come down in Ferguson about the police shooting Michael Brown and the riots and protests, and eventually

they ended up talking about it, the black writer and the white writer, talking and listening and trying to understand each other, and eventually, doing the only thing they knew how to do, which was to write.

So they wrote the book together and somewhere along the way, they became friends.

We took pictures and they signed more books and there was something about the conversation that made the world feel more hopeful, to think about the power of reaching out, one person to another, about friendship and disagreement and allowing ourselves to feel uncomfortable and being okay with uncomfortableness because that's the only way to listen, really,

but I lost the hopeful feeling that night, hearing the news about the mass shooting in Florida and then watching all of the yelling commence.

This morning I read Jason Reynolds' book Long Way Down.

It's a brilliant beautiful heartbreaking story about a traumatized boy, with an ending that pretty much killed me because it leaves the reader on a precipice with the boy, holding your breath with him, about to watch him do something terrible--

But now I've decided, after some thinking, that the ending is not what I thought. It's the opposite, in fact,

and I think the boy is going to do the right thing. He's going to be okay. 

Maybe we all will.

Eight books I love this week

(In no particular order)

1. This Book Just Ate My Dog! by Richard Byrne

Bella takes her dog for a walk and it disappears into the crease of the book. On each page, more characters disappear as they search for the missing dog, culminating in a literal shaking of the book to release them.

(I have tested this one out on kids who have visited the bookstore, and they like shaking the book almost as much as I like shaking the book.)


2. Jasmine Toguchi, Mochi Queen by Debbi Michiko Florence,‎ illustrated by Elizabet Vukovic

Eight-year-old Jasmine is tired of her older sister Sophie doing everything first. When it’s time to celebrate the New Year by rolling mochi balls, a tradition in their Japanese American family, Jasmine has the perfect plan to help—and to do something even Sophie has never been allowed to do.

(I love little Jasmine's voice. Kind of a cross between Ramona and Junie B. Jones. Plus, there's a recipe for Mochi included at the back of the book, which I appreciate.)


3. El Deafo by CeCe Bell

CeCe is starting a new school, trying to make new friends (and avoid a couple of not-so-good friends) and at the same time, she's learning how to be a deaf girl in a mostly hearing world. This is a graphic novel with a perfect melding of text and pictures (the book was a runner up for the Newbery Medal).

(It's geared toward 8-12, but it can be read as an adult memoir-- the author based the story on her own experiences. Also, I got a kick out of all of the 80's pop culture references--  Partridge Family, The Waltons, The Beatles.)


4. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Will’s older brother was shot and now Will has stepped into an elevator in his building, prepared to shoot the boy he assumes is the shooter. Over the next 60 seconds as Will wrestles with his trauma, grief and need for revenge, the elevator stops, floor by floor, letting on the ghosts of Will’s community, others who have been destroyed by gun violence.

When the elevator doors open at the end of the book, readers are left to come to their own conclusion about what happens next. A gut-punch of a read.

(I read this in 45 minutes-- it's told in verse, so it's "easy" to read-- but oh my God, here I am three weeks later still stressing about this kid.)


5. Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins

Bruce is a crotchety bear who just wants to be left alone to make his gourmet egg recipes, when one day, the free-range, organic goose eggs he's purchased (the pics show him shopping with a shopping cart in the forest) hatch. Fun fact about goslings? They imprint on the face they see first.

And that, unfortunately, for Bruce,

is Bruce.

(This is a picture book that adults may enjoy more than kids, although the pictures of the baby geese are darling.)


6. Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers

I love this picture book so much I want to give it to every newly expecting parent I know. Jeffers wrote the book for his own two month old baby, as basically a Welcome to the World introductory love letter.

Gorgeous pictures of space and earth and water, people and animals, accompanied by a loving and humorous voice explaining everything you need to know as a new inhabitant of our planet.

(This first time I read this book to a child, he was mesmerized and I burst into tears.)


7. The Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas by Tony Wilson, illustrated by Sue deGennaro

An update on an old classic. Our prince is skeptical that having a prospective marriage partner sleep on a bed of twelve mattresses with a pea hidden underneath is the best way to choose a mate. In fact, it's how his brother chose his bride and that princess is just a little too finicky.

Maybe the answer is one mattress and a bag of frozen peas?

(Laughed out loud reading this one. And glad to see that it broke gender stereotypes. Spoiler alert: the princess had a rough day playing hockey and appreciated the bag of frozen peas.)


8. This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki, Illustrated by Mariko Tamaki

Story of two girls who've been friends at the same lake every summer, but now one is growing up a little faster than the other and struggling with some family dysfunction. I picked this one up on the advice of an editor and guessed (wrongly) by the picture on the cover and by flipping through it (it's a graphic novel, so it has a comic-book look to it) that it's a book for younger kids.

It is not. It's a complicated, moving, heartbreaking story about girl friendship, puberty, the growing awareness of how girls are perceived by men and how they often internalize that.. and hurt each other.

This one blew me away. A winner of the Printz Honor for the writing and a Caldecott for the illustrations. Give it to your older than 14 year old daughter. But first, read it yourself.

On Hearing Jesmyn Ward Speak

Last year I went to a talk by the two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward at the Columbus Metropolitan Library downtown.

I took notes while I was there and cried at the end of the talk and then forgot about it until last week when I finally picked up her book Sing, Unburied, Sing and read it. The book is about a boy turning thirteen in Mississippi and his road trip with his mother to pick up his father from Parchman Prison, a notorious place known for its human rights abuses and horrific treatment of black men. It's also about ghosts and rural life and black Southern culture and the love between siblings and generational poverty and racism and sacrifices people make and cancer and Southern food and police brutality and grandparents. 

It's not an easy book to read, in the sense that it's about a world that many white people want to pretend does not exist. But it is an easy book to read in the sense that you, as a white person, can pick it up and read it. And I hope you will. 

Here are some of the notes I took when Jesmyn Ward spoke: 

It is a mixed crowd of people here, something you don’t usually see at events like this. Usually it’s all older white women, probably going together with their book clubs. 

She tells us about the importance of storytelling and how her parents and grandparents told stories, all of it mixed up with growing up in Mississippi and growing up in America where black people are marginalized and seen as lesser. 

Her experiences as a child being a reader and only finding books about white girls to read. Her classmates at a wealthy private school who talked about the confederate flag as their heritage and grumbled that it was Affirmative Action that got her into Stanford and not her hard work or intelligence. 

During Katrina, her family lost their home and she and her pregnant sister and elderly grandparents were turned away by white people--their neighbors--at the height of the storm. She said she couldn’t write for three years after that. She thought, how could she be a writer in a world like this, and maybe she’d be a nurse. 

Her brother died, killed by a drunk driver, a white man who was only charged with leaving the scene of an accident and not with her brother’s death. She lost three friends at the same time, to drugs and accidents, all young black men from the same small town. 

She says she writes because she feels the burden of needing to tell the stories of people who have been erased. 

When I go to something like this—the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, for example, or hear a speaker, like Jason Reynolds, someone speaking about their experiences with white people, I don’t know how to sit with it. 

I mean, it’s profoundly uncomfortable. It’s embarrassing, actually. I can see myself how they see me, a white woman, and it feels bad. I don’t know what to do with this feeling though. See it. Acknowledge it. There’s no real defense. It just is. 

I bought her book Sing, Unburied, Sing and I thought about standing in line and getting it signed and telling Jesmyn Ward how much her book Salvage the Bones affected me, how I was in awe of how she was able to turn this dark story into something somehow hopeful. 

But then I thought, why? Why does she need to hear my response? She said interviewers ask her if she means to end her novels with some hope, and she said, "Of course I do. If I didn’t, the book would be horror." 

She told us her mother and grandmother rise every day and they keep going because they have hope. This is what we do, she said. Her voice broke then and the people around me, black and white, were crying. 

Holiday Book Giving Guide for the Kids in Your Life (and You)

Everyone who knows me knows that I am the lady who gives books. It's kind of a joke in my family. Hmm, I wonder what Auntie Jody will give us this year...

I read once (in a book) that we give the gifts we most like to receive. News flash: I like to receive books!!

Here are some of my favorites from the past year:

For a baby (or new parent): You can't go wrong with Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers. This was my go-to baby shower gift idea when I worked at the bookstore. Basically, a welcome to the planet earth written and illustrated by a new dad. This book is gorgeous with a kind message. And bonus points for being a fun read-aloud for kids nearer-to-age-three.

Pre-school: What Can a Citizen Do? by Dave Eggers. (The NY Times calls it "obligatory reading for future concerned citizens.") Also by the same author, my all-time favorite Her Right Foot, which tells the story of why the Statue of Liberty's foot is raised.

Early readers: Forget Dr. Seuss (okay, don't forget him, but if you are ready to branch out a little, try anything by Mo Willems in the Elephant & Piggie series. My favorite, of course, is We are in a Book. 

Early chapter books: ready to move beyond Ramona or Junie B. Jones? Try Jasmine Toguchi. She's sassy and smart, and delicious bonus, in the first book there's a recipe for mochi balls.

Middle Grade (8-12): Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed. Eye-opening, thought-provoking and ultimately inspiring story about a girl living in a small village in Pakistan, sent to work (against her will) as a servant in the home of a powerful, corrupt family.

Upper middle grade (10-up): Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (and anything else written by this brilliant, beautiful human). This book is a gut punch-- one 60-second elevator ride down in the life of a boy intent on revenge.

Graphic novel: Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol. Russian immigrant kid in the suburbs, longing to fit in with her American friends, turns to summer camp as the solution. Unfortunately, this camp is not what she had envisioned. An absorbing mix of horrifying and hilarious.

Young Adult: Sadie by Courtney Summers. Riveting and viscerally moving story of Sadie, a girl on a quest to find her sister's killer, told in alternating segments with a podcast that's trying figure out why Sadie herself has gone missing.

Adult: Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott. Like all of Lamott's books this one is a surprising blend of funny, religious, outraged, amused and painfully human.

Spoiler alert: I am buying it for every woman I love this year.