Family – Page 24 – Unleashing Readers

Modern Immigrant Experience in Fiction Picture Books: Tía Isa Wants a Car by Meg Medina & A Piece of Home by Jeri Watts

July 15, 2016 by Kellee

These two fiction picture books look at modern immigrant experiences from two different lenses; however, they both have one thing in common–search for identity in a new home.

A Piece of Home
Author: Jeri Watts
Illustrator: Hyewon Yum
Published June 14th, 2016 by Candlewick Press

Summary: A child-friendly story about the trials and triumphs of starting over in a new place while keeping family and traditions close.

When Hee Jun’s family moves from Korea to West Virginia, he struggles to adjust to his new home. His eyes are not big and round like his classmates’, and he can’t understand anything the teacher says, even when she speaks s-l-o-w-l-y and loudly at him. As he lies in bed at night, the sky seems smaller and darker. But little by little Hee Jun begins to learn English words and make friends on the playground. And one day he is invited to a classmate’s house, where he sees a flower he knows from his garden in Korea — mugunghwa, or rose of Sharon, as his friend tells him — and Hee Jun is happy to bring a shoot to his grandmother to plant a “piece of home” in their new garden. Lyrical prose and lovely illustrations combine in a gentle, realistic story about finding connections in an unfamiliar world.

My Thoughts: I love the way Hee Jun’s story is told–full of emotions. It is so realistic and a story that so many students will relate to. The story also highlights the struggles and success of all the members of Hee Juns family including his sister and grandmother. And the conclusion of the story will warm your heart!

Tía Isa Wants a Car
Author: Meg Medina
Illustrator: Claudio Muñoz
Published June 14th, 2011 by Candlewick Press

Summary: A little girl pitches in to help her tía save up for a big old car – and take the whole family to the beach – in a story told with warmth and sweetness.

Tía Isa wants a car. A shiny green car the same color as the ocean, with wings like a swooping bird. A car to take the whole family to the beach. But saving is hard when everything goes into two piles – one for here and one for Helping Money, so that family members who live far away might join them someday. While Tía Isa saves, her niece does odd jobs for neighbors so she can add her earnings to the stack. But even with her help, will they ever have enough? Meg Medina’s simple, genuine story about keeping in mind those who are far away is written in lovely, lyrical prose and brought to life through Claudio Muñoz’s charming characters.

My Thoughts: Tía Isa symbolizes all people who move to a new place and have something they want and they go and get it. Even as they save money to send to their family who has yet to join them, Tía Isa and her niece save money for their dream and independence which to them is a car to be able to visit the beach like Tía Isa did at home. This book will touch anyone who has fought financially or without family and have survived!

What other picture books highlight the modern immigrant experience?

**Thank you to Candlewick Press for providing copies of the books!**

Burning by Danielle Rollins

June 30, 2016 by Ricki

Burning
Author: Danielle Rollins
Published: April 5, 2016 by Bloomsbury USA Children’s

Summary: After three years in juvie, Angela Davis is just a few months shy of release, and she’ll finally be free from the hole that is Brunesfield Correctional Facility. Then Jessica arrives. Only ten years old and under the highest security possible, this girl has to be dangerous, even if no one knows what she did to land in juvie. As strange things begin happening to Angela and her friends that can only be traced to the new girl’s arrival, it becomes clear that Brunesfield is no longer safe. They must find a way to get out, but how can they save themselves when the world has forgotten them?

Review: This book was the perfect balance between realistic, interesting characters and chilling, creepy fantastic characters. From the first moment that I met Jessica, my skin began to crawl. Angela, the narrator, is pushing a mop in Seg in the juvenile hall. Jessica is mysterious and quite scary. I was frightened right along with Angela! I love how the characters are developed. While the book is definitely fantastic, I felt genuinely connected with the characters and their stories. I’d use this book as a bridge to help students who love realistic fiction. It would help them explore different genres. The book ends with a hook, and I imagined that Rollins has a sequel in the works! I am very excited to read it!

Teacher’s Tools for Navigation: I imagine that this book will create genuine interest in juvenile halls. I’d ask students to explore and research their own juvenile halls. They might also examine privilege and how the characters’ home lives seems to play a role in the fact that they are in the correctional facility. This would offer an interesting class discussion.

Discussion Questions: Does Angela make good choices in this book? What are some of the choices she makes, and do you think she makes the right decisions? Is she a moral person?; Most of the characters in this book are female. Consider all of the male characters and determine what their role is. How do they add to the story?

We Flagged: “I’m so focused on the blinking red light that I don’t notice the skeletally thin girl in the cell to my left until she skitters across the floor on her hands and knees” (p. 51).

Read This If You Loved: The Merciless by Danielle Vega, Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, Anything by Stephen King; Juvie Three by Gordon Korman

Recommended For:

Thunder Boy Jr. by Sherman Alexie

June 2, 2016June 2, 2016 by Ricki

Thunder Boy Jr.
Author: Sherman Alexie; Illustrator: Yuyi Morales
Published: May 10, 2016 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Goodreads Summary: Thunder Boy Jr. is named after his dad, but he wants a name that’s all his own. Just because people call his dad Big Thunder doesn’t mean he wants to be Little Thunder. He wants a name that celebrates something cool he’s done, like Touch the Clouds, Not Afraid of Ten Thousand Teeth, or Full of Wonder.

But just when Thunder Boy Jr. thinks all hope is lost, he and his dad pick the perfect name…a name that is sure to light up the sky.

National Book Award-winner Sherman Alexie’s lyrical text and Caldecott Honor-winner Yuyi Morales’s striking and beautiful illustrations celebrate the special relationship between father and son.

My Review and Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: I should start by admitting that I have a mildly unhealthy obsession with Sherman Alexie’s work. Ever since I discovered his greatness in college, I can’t get enough of him! So I broke one of my rules and pre-ordered this book. It surely didn’t disappoint! His writing and Yuyi Morales’ illustrations makes for a masterful text. As you can see from the flagged passage (a spread) below, the writing and illustrations pop, and readers will be captivated by the text. My two-year-old son loved reading it with me.

One of the critiques I’ve read about this book is that it should come with a teacher’s guide for Native American naming traditions. I fully understand this critique can understand where it is coming from. While I think an author’s note would have been helpful, as a fellow Native American, I wonder if this really should be a critique of the text. Why must Sherman Alexie (and other Native Americans) feel the need to always justify and explain their stories? I imagine that Alexie would cringe at a teacher’s (well-intentioned) attempt to follow up a reading of this text with their own naming ceremonies/activities. That said, I don’t believe this is necessarily his job. A little bit of background research will surely produce a wealth of materials about the sacredness of these rituals. I believe it seems to normalize Whiteness when we constantly request authors of color to provide teaching materials for texts. Like others, while I’d love for some aspect of the paratext to include this extra material, I don’t believe that this is a flaw of the text.

Discussion Questions: Why does Thunder Boy Jr. want a different name from his father? How does the author build the story in order to share more about Thunder Boy Jr.’s feelings?; What qualities do you share with other family members? How are you different from your family members? Do we all feel a yearning to be unique or different? In what ways are you unique?

Flagged Passage:

Spread from: http://www.slj.com/2016/03/diversity/how-a-library-raised-yuyi-morales-the-award-winning-illustrator-on-sherman-alexies-thunder-boy-jr-and-more/#_

Read This If You Loved: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Crossing Bok Chitto by Tim Tingle, Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith, My Abuelita by Tony Jonston (Illustrated by Yuyi Morales), The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

Recommended For:

Review, Signed Hard Copy Giveaway, and Author Interview: Invisible Fault Lines by Kristen-Paige Madonia

May 5, 2016 by Ricki

Invisible Fault Lines
Authors: Kristin-Paige Madonia
Anticipated Publication: May 3, 2016 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Summary: Tired of living in limbo, Callie finally decides to investigate her father’s disappearance for herself. Maybe there was an accident at the construction site that he oversaw? Maybe he doesn’t remember who he is and is lost wandering somewhere? But after seeing a familiar face in a photo from the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, she wonders if the answer is something else entirely.

Hailed by Judy Blume as a “remarkable young novelist,” Kristen-Paige Madonia, author of Fingerprints of You, explores how to rebuild a life after everything seems lost.

My Review: This book kept me guessing! From the very first page, I wondered what happened to the narrator’s father. About halfway through, I realized that it didn’t matter what happened to him because this is a story about character. It is an emotional ride through the trauma of a young girl’s life after her father goes missing. I felt all of her emotions right along with her—guilt, fear, anger. I particularly enjoyed the evolvement of her friendship with her best friend Beckett. I appreciate authors who feature characters who happen to be gay—rather than making this the sole focus of a story. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy strong character development.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Teachers might consider tying this story into a study of missing persons. This investigation could go beyond children as missing persons and extend into adults who are missing. Students might research local missing persons in their area, and this could lead to advocacy efforts.

Discussion Questions: What do you think happened to Callie’s father? What different potential realities does Callie explore in the story?; How does the author switch the point-of-view effectively to deepen our understanding of the story?; What emotions does Callie experience in the story? How might we tie these into the stages of grief? Should she feel guilty that she doesn’t start looking for her father immediately? Why or why not?

Flagged Passage: “My father disappeared on a Tuesday that should’ve been like any Tuesday, but eventually became the Tuesday my father disappeared.”

Read This Series If You Loved: Fingerprints of You by Kristen-Paige Madonia; If I Stay by Gayle Forman; Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver; Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley, The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci

Recommended For:

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Interview with Kristen-Paige Madonia

Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process/ How has writing this book been different from writing Fingerprints of You?

The most important thing I learned from writing Invisible Fault Lines is that my process will inevitably change depending on the project. My first book, Fingerprints of You, was a fairly straightforward novel with a traditional structure and timeline, so I wrote it start to finish and was able to create the first draft in less than two months — of course it took much longer to revise and polish, but in general is was quick and relatively easy to write. My new novel is much more complicated, as it blends a contemporary mystery set in 2006 with bits and pieces set one-hundred years earlier, as the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake plays a large role in the novel. It’s a hybrid novel, and the narrative arc is a bit more intricate, so though I initially tried to use the same process I used when writing Fingerprints of You, it just didn’t work. Eventually I wrote the book out of order and then went back, during revision, and braided the two storylines together. So in terms of process, I suppose it’s ever changing! And of course that’s one of the reasons that I write – there are no rules and there’s no one way to do it. It’s about experimenting, about doing something different each time you sit down to work.

Where/How did you come up with the premise of this book?

Like most writers, I write from a place of curiosity. With Fingerprints of You, I was curious about the ways we define family, but this novel stemmed from my curiosity about grief and the various modes we use to manage and process loss. I began writing it after hearing David Levithan read from his novel Two Boys Kissing, specifically honing in on the sentence that eventually became the epigraph of Invisible Fault Lines: “How beautiful the ordinary becomes once it disappears.” We were both at Wordstock Book Festival in Portland, and I was in between projects, hoping to find inspiration while traveling to publicize Fingerprints of You. And there it was. That line. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I tend to begin stories with an event after which nothing will be the same for the character, and that idea of ordinary, of how our version of ordinary can shift in an instant, intrigued me. So I wanted to write about that kind of shift and about the possibility of the impossible being possible, which is where the link to the historical event, the earthquake of 1906, originated. I knew I wanted to do something completely different than Fingerprints of You and that I wanted to experiment with form and genre while staying true to my character-driven style of writing.

From the outset, we wonder what happened to Callie’s father, and at one point, Callie and her friends explore potential reasons for his disappearance. We obviously won’t spoil the book for readers, but did you know how the book would end from the very beginning?

I did. I knew that I wanted to invite the reader to participate in the novel in a more active role than my last novel allowed. I believe all books are collaborative projects between the author and the reader, but this novel leans heavily on what the reader brings to the story, on what they want to believe and how they want to interpret the events in the book. When I first imagined the story, I decided that I wanted to write a book that honors the fact that not all questions have clear answers – I think it’s part of our job, as YA authors, to be realistic and honest with our readers while also allowing for and portraying hope, so that was one of my original goals, and it inevitably shaped the ending.

Beck is a wonderfully crafted character. Did you base him on anyone in your life?

Oh, he’s such a scene-stealer, isn’t he?! Every time he showed up in the novel, I fell a little bit more in love with him. No, he’s not based on anyone I know, but I imagine him to be a compilation of my best friends from high school and also my current best friends: honest, hilarious, and one-hundred percent golden-hearted.

You are a professor of YA Lit and creative writing. How has this impacted your position as an author or thoughts as a writer? Do you get feedback from students, or do you keep your work private?

This is such a complicated question, so in attempt to not write a fifteen-page essay here, I’ll simply say that I love what I do. I find great inspiration from working with students who hope to pursue a creative life, who find value in literature and the arts. But the reality is that every moment I spend teaching and planning and grading is one less moment that I spend writing my own work, and that’s the hard part. Teaching reminds me why I write and what my tools are in terms of craft, and actively publishing new work reminds me how important it is to be a positive literary citizen, to serve as a mentor and encourage and inspire young authors. It’s a hard balance, of course, but it’s also a privilege to be both a professor and a published author, so I could never complain about the challenges.

Are you working on anything new?

I am! And I’m in that bizarre and dreamlike phase of being equally terrified and excited by my new project. It’s also a protective phase in terms of not wanting to talk much about it yet, but I will say that it’s a project based on my curiosity about our reliance on technology and the environmental and creative effects of that reliance.

Thanks so much for having me on your blog – it’s been lovely to visit with you!

**Thank you to Kristen-Paige Madonia for providing an copy for review and a signed hard copy for the giveaway!**

Cody and the Mysteries of the Universe by Tricia Springstubb

April 29, 2016 by Kellee

Cody and the Mysteries of the Universe
Author: Tricia Springstubb
Illustrator: Eliza Wheeler
Published April 12th, 2016 by Candlewick Press

Goodreads Summary: Not everything turns out to be as it first appears when Cody and her best friend, Spencer, navigate a neighborhood mystery and the start of a new school year.

Cody’s best friend, Spencer, and his parents are moving in with his grandmother right around the corner, and Cody can’t wait. For one thing, Cody needs Spencer to help solve the mystery of the never-seen Mr. Meen, who lives on the other side of the porch with a skull-and-crossbones sign in the window and an extermination truck out front. How’s Cody to know that a yellow jacket would sting her, making her scream “Ow! Ow!” just as they start spying? Or that the ominous window sign would change overnight to “Welcome home,” only deepening the mystery? In this second adventure, Spencer’s new-school jitters, an unexpected bonding with a teacher over Mozart, and turf-claiming kids next door with a reason for acting out are all part of Cody’s experiences as summer shifts into a new year at school.

My Review: I loved this one as much as the first one. (P.S. You don’t have to read the first one to enjoy this one, but they are both so good you should read both.) What I love most about the books is that Cody and Spencer and their families and the secondary characters are just so flawed and familiar and real. What I love second most about the book is how Tricia Springstubb writes. It is lyrical yet to the point. Beautiful yet not fluffy. See my example below. What I love third most about the book is the humor. Cody is one funny young lady!

Cody’s story this time revolves around two things: Spencer moving nearby and things not going as expected and the mystery behind the Meens, the bullying girls who live next to Spencer. Springstubb navigates both of these topics (bullying and friendship) with ease along with other minor topics like family and identity which makes Cody’s story perfect for all young readers because they will either relate or be able to use the story to help them in the future.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Cody’s story represents so many different types of people: different races, different families, different situations, different popularity, different talents, etc., so her stories are perfect for reading aloud to a class/child.

It could also be used as a mentor text for language during a writing workshop’s narrative unit.

Discussion Questions: What does Cody mean by the baton of love?; Is it ever okay to fight?; Why does Payton’s behavior affect Wyatt so much?; How did Cody expect Spencer being at her school to be? How did it end up?

Flagged Passages: “He [Spencer] was getting ready to practice his violin. Mom and Cody sat down to listen. The song he played was called ‘Go Tell Aunt Rhody.’ The music was complicated. Was it sad? Was it happy? Could it be both at the same time? Cody decided it was perfect night-before-school music. All the while he played, her hand un-itched.” (p. 32)

Read This If You Loved: Cody and the Fountain of Happiness by Tricia Springstubb, The Trouble with Ants by Claudia Mills, Marty McGuire series by Kate Messner, Eleanor series by Julie Sternberg, Lola series by Christine Pakkala, The Top-Secret Diary of Cecile Valentine by Julie Sternberg

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Candlewick for providing a copy for review!!**

Teeny Tiny Toady by Jill Esbaum

April 21, 2016 by Ricki

Teeny Tiny Toady
Author: Jill Esbaum
Illustrator: Keika Yamaguchi
Published: March 1, 2016 by Sterling Children’s Books

Goodreads Summary: When a giant hand scoops up her mama and puts her in a pail, a terrified tiny toad named Teeny hops faster than she ever did in her life. “Mama’s stuck inside a bucket! Help me get her out!” she begs her big, clumsy brothers. “Don’t you worry, kid. We’ll save her!” they promise, bumbling and stumbling and jumbling out the door. But as the boys rush headlong to the rescue, pushing their little sister aside, it becomes clear: brawn isn’t always better than brains—and the smallest of the family may just be the smartest one of all. Written in lilting verse.

Ricki’s Review: I should be honest that frogs and toads are my favorite animal. I love everything about them! Reading this book was such a joy. I loved how the words danced across the page. If you look at the image below, you will see the way the words pop. The toads are personified in a way that makes me smile. They high five, cheer, hold each other up, etc. Teeny may be little, but she is fierce. It takes her some time to realize that she has valuable ideas. I enjoy teaching my son to be critical of gender as we read this book, and I particularly enjoyed the feminist theme.

Kellee’s Review: I should be honest that frogs and toads are one of my least favorite animals. However, that did not keep me from loving this book! Ricki touched on much of what is superb about the book including the onomatopoeias throughout, the way the words hop like toads all over the page, and the joyousness of these toads’ family. I also particularly enjoyed the theme of this book–it definitely shows how you shouldn’t underestimate people especially if you are basing it off of a prejudicial stereotype. It also I plan on using this for one of my precept/theme activities with my students because I feel there is so much that could be discussed in this teeny, tiny book.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: This story would be great to use in a creative writing class. The author and illustrator cleverly craft the phrasing and presentation of the story, and this will be inspirational for writers and illustrators. Teachers might also use this text to teach personification, onomatopoeias, and effective use of rhyme.

Discussion Questions: When does Teeny realize that her ideas are valuable? How does her size impact how she feels about herself?; Are there other ways that Teeny could have gotten her family out of the bucket? Try to think of as many ways as you can and how they would have impact the telling of the story.

Flagged Passage:

Spread from: http://andreacmiller.com/projects/teeny-tiny-toady/

Read This If You Loved: The Frog and Toad series; Stick by Steve Green; Green Wilma by Tedd Arnold

Recommended For:

and

**Thank you to Josh at Sterling Books for providing copies for review!**

Blog Tour, Character Interview, Giveaway, and Review!: The Mechanical Mind of John Coggin by Elinor Teele

May 5, 2016April 15, 2016 by Kellee

The Mechanical Mind of John Coggin
Author: Elinor Teele
Illustrator: Ben Whithouse
Published April 12th, 2016 Walden Pond Press

Goodreads Summary: A quirky, humorous, whimsical, and heartwarming middle grade debut about a young boy who runs away from home with his sister to escape working in the family coffin business—and discovers even more adventure than he bargained for.

John Coggin is no ordinary boy. He is devising an invention that nobody has ever seen before, something that just might change the world, or at least make life a little bit better for him and his litter sister, Page. But that’s only when he can sneak a break from his loathsome job: building coffins for the family business under the beady gaze of his cruel great-aunt Beauregard. Having lost their parents when Page was a baby, how else are they supposed to survive?

Perhaps by taking an enormous risk—a risk that arrives in the form of a red-haired scamp named Boz. When Great-Aunt Beauregard informs John that she’s going to make him a permanent partner in Coggin Family Coffins—and train Page to be an undertaker—John and Page sign on with Boz and hit the road. Before long, they’ve fallen in with a host of colorful characters, all of whom, like John and Page, are in search of a place they can call home. But home, they realize, isn’t something you find so much as something you fight for, and John soon realizes that he and Page are in for the fight of their lives.

Elinor Teele’s picaresque debut is a rollicking tale filled with wild adventures, daring escapes, and—thanks to Boz—more than a little catastrophe.

My Review: One thing I’ve noticed is that so many orphans in stories seem to always get into some sort of trouble and then go on amazing adventures. Like Annie, Grubb from Alistair Grim, and Peter Nimble before him, John Coggin, a recent orphan, finds himself in quite a predicament of a situation when he is forced to work for his great aunt’s funeral home. It is the last straw when Great Aunt Beauregard tries to force Page, John’s sister, to go to work with them, and that begins the adventure! Elinor Teele takes us on quite a journey! With Boz, the comic relief with an amazing vocabulary, our three main characters meet some unique characters along the way.

Teele’s ability to weave such an odd story together and make it seem seamless is remarkable. John, Page, and Boz have about 5 stops along their journey all with a wide-variety of characters who all are a bit quirky but also relatable and you end up loving all of them. Although everything that happens is quite farfetched, you end up believing it all because you just want John and Page to be successful!

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: In the classroom, I think this book would be a perfect opportunity to discuss ways to determine unknown vocabulary within a text. Boz has QUITE a vocabulary and uses words that will be unknown to many of the middle grade readers the book is aimed for; however, the author does a fabulous job of having context clues or restatements of what the words mean. I would love to use passages of this book for vocabulary instruction.

It could also be used as a mentor text for imagery, specifically character description. Like I said, throughout the book we meet some very odd characters, but they are all described so well you can picture them. Same with John’s contraptions and the setting. Elinor Teele’s specific word choice really brings the story to life.

Lastly, I think it would be fun to compare/contrast the orphans within middle grade novels and discuss why orphans are chosen for so many adventurous books. Peter Nimble and Alistair Grim along with John Coggin would definitely be a great place to start, and you could even tie it in with “Annie.”

Also check out the Educational Activity Kit based on the book for more ways to use the book in the classroom or library.

We Flagged: “”Up and at ‘em, troops! The back of a new day is already broken, and time marches on!’

Boz blew into the barn like a category five hurricane and came to rest at John’s feet. ‘Where are the foundations of your perambulation?’ His baffled face collapsed even further into itself.

‘Where are the what?’ John asked blearily. The bright summer sun was making fireflies of the dust around Page’s hair.

‘Your shoes, young man, your shoes.’

‘I threw them outside.’

‘Well, find them! We go, we see, we conquer!’” (p. 58)

Special Guest! Q&A with Boz (by Elinor Teele): Boz may, in fact, be the worst interviewee on the planet. It was barely possible to get him into a hotel lounge and almost impossible to keep him there. And his hair! It seemed to have a life of its own. After this experience, I am firmly convinced his only future is a career as a human firework.

Q. So, first I’d like to ask… Boz? Boz! Could you please stop swinging from the chandelier?
A. Of course, profuse apologies my Fallonesque friend. I was merely trying to pump some blood to my knee joints. I ingested a box of sugar-coated hookoo grubs yesterday and I fear they have inflamed my rheumatics.

Q. Where did you get a box of hookoo grubs?
A. A gift from the Queen of Samarrand. She says she misses my winsome ways.

Q. How did you become friends with a Queen?
A. Oh, I have roamed the bureaus and boards of many a parliament. From the sweat-soaked slums to the blasted heaths, I have crisscrossed this great globe itself in eighty days and under. “A wandering minstrel, I…”

At this point in the interview, Boz yanked open the door to the lobby and vaulted onto the hotel’s front desk. From there, he sang operettas to incoming guests until security guards brought him back into the lounge.

Q. I don’t think the concierge enjoyed your singing.
A. It’s a waste of vitriol trying to please critics. Besides, it gave me an opportunity to relieve him of his time commitments.

Q. You stole his watch?!
A. You may say that, but I couldn’t possibly clarify.

Q. Well, what can you comment on?
A. Anything that tickles your pearly whites.

Q. Okay, how about this? Some people have said that your way of speaking is far too complicated to understand. They point out many kids have enough trouble with basics, so why make it harder?
A. I grant you that my vocabulary may be a little bewildering, but why not be wild? There are so many beautiful words in this world that go a’begging. As my dear friend Dodo Dodgson often opines, “Look after the senses and the sounds will look after themselves.”

Q. Yes, I noticed you tend to appropriate phrases from famous writers.
A. Who was it that said that bad artists copy and great men steal? Or was it that the immature youth imitates and the mature matron plagiarizes? I can’t remember.

At this point in the interview, Boz once again made a grab at the chandelier. This time – thanks to the force of his liftoff – he was hurled round and round the room like a demented tornado.

Q. Are you insane? Should I call the fire brigade?
A. Wouldn’t do that, my dear boy. They’re still irked about the incident with the propane and the propellers.

Q. What did that involve?!
A. A gaggle of insurance investigators, apparently.

Q. I give up. I don’t know how John Coggin put up with you.
A. But John and I are friends! Buddies of the bosom. Compadres of the cabana. Say what you will about my ethical standards, but I always believe in my friends!

This was a revealing comment, and I would have liked to ask Boz more about it. Unfortunately, he had let go of the chandelier and was already rocketing skyward through one of the open windows. I last saw him passing a goshawk.

Walden TV Features John Coggin: http://waldentv.com/video/rtwt-john-coggin/