Zoe is spending the day baking with her grandmother. After washing her hands (a prerequisite in my kitchen too!) Zoe observes that her grandmother's hands tell a story. As the two of them mix the dough and then push and pull it, Zoe discovers more about her grandmother's life--and more about herself.
Her grandmother places her hands over Zoe's and together they push and pull the dough. While the dough rises, Zoe realizes that her grandmother's hands tell stories about who she is.
Zoe hears about her Grandmother's dreams to be a dancer. She imagines her "...leaping through time and space. Her fingers are branches, stretching toward the sky." Zoe hears about how her grandparents planted seeds that eventually became delicious food that was served at their table. And Zoe wonders if one day her hands will grow something too.
They check the dough, flatten it, add a dusting of cinnamon sugar, roll it up, cover it with a cloth and wait for it to rise again.
The two go outside for some air and then there is this beautiful pause in the story. "I hear murmurs of her hands, flowing and dancing, praying and planting, stroking my hair when she thinks I'm asleep."
But suddenly, something happens!
The bread goes into the oven and Zoe thinks about the power in her hands to "turn pages, color, and create."
When the two of them eat a chunk of delicious cinnamon bread, they slap their hands together. Her grandmother observes that Zoe's hands are just like hers. "Our fingers are long and skinny. Sweet brown like sugar. Made for holding and reaching."
Zoe goes home and starts typing on her computer. "The words fly out like they're sailing on a breeze."
Here is Zoe's lovely conclusion. "My hands tell a story if you listen."
And here's the trailer:
I love a story that connects generations and this one does exactly that. MY HANDS TELL A STORYoozes love and will be enjoyed by many grandparents, parents, teachers, and children.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
I asked Kelly about her inspiration for the book and the backstory behind it. This is what she told me:
I was inspired by baking with my grandma. As a child, being in the kitchen with her was one of my favorite places to be. I loved the way she could eyeball ingredients and know just how much to include and how her hands moved with such grace and confidence. I thought a lot about her hands as I grew older. They had character and were full of memories. She worked in a steel mill, nurtured plants in a greenhouse, fed the housed, voted for change, cradled her kids, my brothers, cousins, and me, and baked and baked, feeding our stomachs and our souls. Her tradition is one that lives on in my family. Looking at her hands as a child I wondered what mine would do one day. Just like Zoe in My Hands Tell a Story, I discovered the power in my hands through writing.
GIVEAWAY
If you'd like a chance to win this book, please leave me your name and email address (if you are new to my blog) or email me. The giveaway ends June 28. If you follow my blog or become a new follower, let me know and I'll put your name in twice. U.S. addresses only.
Congratulations to Danielle Hammelef who won GRACE BANKER AND HER HELLO GIRLS.
Here is a guest blog by my friend and critique partner extraordinaire, Jean Hall, founder of Write2Ignite!
Whether you write for toddlers or teens, science or history magazines,
school curriculum or drama clubs you’ll find a place at Write2Ignite! 2013, March 15-16 at North Greenville University, South Carolina. And if you write for general markets or for Christian publishers, you’ll find education,
encouragement and inspiration at Write2Ignite!
Our purpose is to offer you:
Instruction in the craft of writing and publishing.
Encouragement to keep on keeping on.
Inspiration to keep you in tune with the calling God
has on your life.
Connections to assist you in the world of publishing.
We are thrilled this year that we can again offer outstanding and generous
speakers and workshop leaders. Author Cecil Murphey (who has more than 150 published titles)
will inspire us through keynote speeches. Familiar names like Kelly Starling Lyons and Joyce
Hostetter are part of our line-up. At Write2Ignite! 2013 editors from Club House, Lighthouse Publishing,
JourneyForth, The Kid’s Ark and more
will offer private consultations.
Literary agents who represent children’s writers will join us, and make
themselves available for individual consultations.
Another of our Write2Ignite! offerings is a special track for middle
school and high school students who write. This year a whole team of
professionals will instruct and challenge the Teen Track students.
Registration is now open, and now is the time to apply for one of our scholarships.
Check our website for information and Registration at www.write2ignite.com or contact
us at write2ignite@jeanmatthewhall.com.
I read Through My Eyesby Ruby Bridges as a part of my research for Half-Truths. I came across a photograph of Norman Rockwell's painting depicting Ruby's brave integration of her Louisiana elementary school. I saw the original "The Problems We All Live With" at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Ma. The huge painting of the white guards escorting the young black girl to school stuck in my mind. The docent remarked how Rockwell used a splatter of red to emphasize the story behind the illustration and how Ruby is pictured, but the men walking with her are faceless.
"The Problem We All Live With", 1963, Look, January 1964
Rockwell published this illustration in the January 14, 1964 issue of LOOK magazine. As Bridges quoted, Rockwell was inspired by John Steinbeck's Travel with Charley:
The show opened on time. Sound of sirens. Motorcycle cops. Then two big black cars filled with big men in blond felt hats pulled up in front of the school. The crowd seemed to hold its breath. Four big marshals got out of each car and from somewhere in the automobiles they extracted the littlest Negro girl you ever saw, dressed in shining starchy white, with new white shoes on feel so little they were almost round. Her face and little legs were very black against the white.
The big marshals stood her on the curb and a jangle of jeering shrieks went up from behind the barricades. The little girl did not look at the howling crowd but from the side the whites of her eyes showed like those of a frightened fawn. THe men turned her around like a doll, and then the strange procession moved up the btoad walk toward the school, adn the child was even more a mite becase the men were so big. Then the girl made a curious hop, and I think I know what it wa. I think in her whole life she had not gone ten steps without skppin, but now in the middle of her first skip, the weight bore er down and her little round feet took measured, reluctant steps between the tall gaurds. Slowly they climbed the steps and entered the school.
Ruby Bridge's account of the events leading up to that day in New Orleans in 1960 are fascinating. She believes that she lost her childhood during that first grade year, when she integrated the school amidst boycotts, riots, and tremendous community tension. She was the only child in her class the entire year because white parents moved their children out. Attendence in school dwindled. Next year, her second grade class was integrated. "William Frantz School was integrated, but the long strange journey had changed me forever." (p. 53)
It wasn't until thirty years later, after her brother's death in a drug-related shooting, that Ms. Bridges began to realize the importance of what she had done in 1960. At that point she began to become proactive in the Frantz School and established the Ruby Bridges Foundation.
This book integrates Ruby's story with local and national history. Newspaper photographs, accounts by her teacher and a child psychiatrist, and a 1960 quote from John F. Kennedy, "Can we honestly say that it doesn't affect our security and the fight for peace when Negroes and others are denied their full constitutional rights?" provide historical context for this picture book for all ages.
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The second book I want to highlight, is Ellen's Broom by North Carolina author, Kelly Starling Lyons. Recently chosen as one of four new picture books celebrating African American History month by USA Today, this story came from Lyons' research into her own family history. According to yesterday's USA Today,
Author Kelly Starling Lyons was researching her family's roots when she came upon a copy of the 1866 Cohabitation List of Henry County, Va. As Lyons learned, the end of the Civil War meant that former slaves, living as husband and wife, could have their unions legally recognized by the Freedman's Bureau. That inspired a heartwarming story about how a young girl discovers the symbolic value of a broom. (Slaves once staged weddings using brooms they leap over "into life together.") Daniel Minter's vividly colored block prints are brilliant.
I think both of these picture books are great classroom resources for African American History month.
For years my children and I enjoyed attending Novello, the book festival that the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library held in downtown Charlotte. After they were too old to attend, I often worked the SCBWI booth which provided "word play" activities for children and information about writing for their parents. When my children were young Novello had been a one-day event; gradually it grew to encompass several weeks of programs and lectures from famous authors and speakers.
Due to budget cuts, this much-loved annual event was not scheduled this year. Fortunately, two Charlotte literacy lovers; former librarian Pat Siegfried, and UNC professor Mark West, have stepped up to the plate and led a grass-roots effort to keep Novello alive.
Although you might have missed last weekend's events for adults, it is not too late to put the children's events on your calendar for this Saturday, October 9. The line-up includes several North Carolina authors who are members of the SCBWI-Carolinas region. I have added web links for the authors who are either part of our region or whose books I have read. Although only one title is listed by their name, most of these authors have published several children's books. They are donating their time and energy to talk about books and inspire young readers. Books will be available for sale; stock up for birthdays or holiday gifts!
All events take place at ImaginOn, 300 E. Seventh St. Here is the schedule:
Picture Books
11 a.m.: Tameka BrownAround Our Way on Neighbors' Day Judy Stead12 Days of Christmas in North Carolina Gail HaleyA Story, A Story Sherry Neidigh, illustrator of Count Down to Fall (her books make wonderful presents for grandkids!)
11:15 a.m.: Stephanie TolanSurviving the Applewhites
Melissa Thompson Keena Ford series Eleanora TateCeleste's Harlem Renaissance
Young adult mystery/suspense
12:15 p.m.: Caroline B. CooneyFace on the Milk Carton
Mark de Castrique Death on a Southern Breeze
Young adult
1:15 p.m.: Carrie RyanThe Forest of Hands and Teeth
Karon Luddy Spelldown Joyce HostetterBlue,Comfort,Healing Water (my co-author of Talking Story!)
P.B.MacEnulty Alixandra's Wings
Novello Festival Press panel
1:30 p.m.: Introducing the press's first bilingual children's book, "Wings and Dreams: The Legend of Angel Falls," by Irania Macias Patterson, illustrated by Catherine Courtlandt McElvane.
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Novello is back to being short and sweet. But who can deny that good things often come in small packages? Make a point to bring your children to ImaginOn this Saturday. This is a unique opportunity for your children to meet local authors and illustrators who are passionate about reading and writing.
It almost makes me wish my kids were little again.
