You Are Home

The word home has numerous meanings.  It can be a physical place, open to the air or enclosed by walls, windows, doors and a roof.  It can be a space providing sanctuary.  It is where we begin and end each day.  Home can be anywhere if those we love are with us. 

Of the more than 7.7 billion people on our planet, the number of those without homes is stunning.  Habitat for Humanity estimates 1 in 4 people live in conditions that harm health, safety, prosperity and opportunities.  When you read The Bridge Home (Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, February 5, 2019) written by Padma Venkatraman you are keenly aware of the overwhelming obstacles street children, numbering in the millions, in India encounter daily.  You will come to understand how the term home and family are redefined by circumstances.

TOGETHERNESS
Talking to you was always easy, Rukku.  But writing's hard.
"Write her a letter," Celina Aunty said, laying a sheet of paper on the desk.  Paper remade from wilted, dirty, hopeless litter that had been rescued, scrubbed clean, and reshaped.
Even the pencil she gave me was made from scraps.
"You really like saving things, don't you?" I said.
Crinkly lines softened her stern face.  "I don't like giving up." she said.

Viji and Rukku, sisters, live in a home cloaked in a cycle of physical abuse by their father.  Their mother suffers broken bones but feels trapped by her lack of skills or education and won't leave.  When the abuse reaches the girls, Viji, packs what belongings, food and money she can, taking Rukku with her, early one morning.

Being mentally challenged, Rukku, the elder of the two, sees the world differently than others.  It is this difference which binds the girls together.  They believe they will never be separated; not by a sly conductor or a cranky tea shop owner.  They believe people like the kindly shop owner's wife will supply them with food and hope.  They believe the arrival of a stray dog Rukku names Kutti will grow that hope.

Very early in their stay in this new city, the sisters meet Muthu and Arul, two homeless boys living on an abandoned, crumbling bridge over a river.  The girls take up residence there too.  Viji begins working with Muthu and Arul, climbing up and down and wading through piles of garbage to find glass or metal they can sell to buy food.  Using beads given to Rukku on a return visit to the tea shop, she weaves necklaces they can also sell to buy other necessities; food and mats to place on the stone for sleeping.  As meager as their conditions are, the four humans and one canine form a family out of necessity and a growing fondness for each other.

Justified uneasiness on Viji's part results in them running for their lives, leaving behind what they have gathered.  When the monsoon season begins, they are hiding and living in a graveyard.  The rains and hordes of mosquitoes take a toll on two of the children.  Heart wrenching decisions come too late.  Reality descends with unbearable heaviness.  How will hope grow again?


The technique of Viji writing to Rukku employed by Padma Venkatraman to tell their tale is the work of a master storyteller.  It brings us intimately into the lives of the sisters, the two boys and Kutti.  It is also a foreshadowing.  Although Viji indicates in the beginning writing is hard, her descriptive phrases, thoughtful musings and embedded conversations are breathtakingly beautiful.  We feel a constant connection to the characters in each of the forty-four chapters; each as long as necessary to convey a particular moment.

Religious beliefs, Hindu, Islam and Christian, are woven in the story in discussions of faith and one's purpose.  Each night the stories Viji weaves for Rukku, and then for Arul and Muthu, are her way of helping them all to hold fast to their dreams.  Here are several passages.

"Viji and Rukku together?" you asked.
"Always."
"Viji and Rukku," you repeated.  "Always together."
We had no roof or walls to keep us safe, and that probably should have worried me more, but you seemed content.
You pointed at the sky.  "Look, Viji."
"No roof means we get the best view of the pretty stars, right, Rukku?" I said.
"Pretty," you agreed.
We lay shoulder to shoulder and watched the stars sparkle, while Kutti slept beside us.  Your eyes sparkled, too, and the light inside them pierced through my fog of worry.

I'd seen you laugh before, but never quite like this.  This was the first time you'd broken into a laugh halfway through a tantrum.  And the first time you laughed without hiding your mouth behind your hands, as if you were scared to be happy.
Now you threw back your head the way Muthu was doing.  And as the three of you howled away, like a pack of jackals, hungry and homeless though we were, I felt I'd done the right thing by leaving.

I breathed in its citrus scent.  I started to peel it, noticing things I'd never noticed before: how the leathery peel isn't colored the same all the way through, how the papery sections inside feel like leafy veins, how the pulp is shaped like raindrops.
When, at last, I placed a section in my mouth, I could hear it burst as my teeth met the flesh, squeezing the juice out into my tongue, tart at first and then sweet.  Everything else melted away except for the taste, the smell, the feel of the fruit on my tongue.
I ate the fruit slowly.  The way you liked to do things.
Until then, I'd thought it was a sad thing that you were sometimes slower than the rest of us.  But that day, I realized that slow can be better than fast.  Like magic, you could stretch time out when we needed it, so that a moment felt endless.  So the taste of half an orange could last and last.


There are books you remember reading for the first time, the rest of your life.  The Bridge Home written by Padma Venkatraman is one of those books.  Would it be a great read aloud?  Absolutely.  Would it be a super selection for a book group?  Without a doubt.  Will it make a print on individual hearts?  It will.  It has.  It does.  There is an extensive author's note.  You will want to consider having multiple copies in your professional collections.

To learn more about Padma Venkatraman and her other work, please follow the link attached to her name to access her website.  Padma Venkatraman has an account on Instagram and Twitter.  You can read an excerpt at the publisher's website.  Padma Venkatraman reads aloud for the audio book.  Padma Venkatraman writes a guest post at Cynsations, author Cynthia Leitich Smith's site, titled Padma Venkatraman on Golden Silence, Gilded Words.

Of Coffins, Combustion, Chickens And Cursed Contracts

Illustration by Ben Whitehouse

We all know and admire people who look at the world as one large living, breathing machine consisting of a nearly infinite amount of parts working together.  They assess every situation seeking solutions.  There are no boundaries or limits to their imagination.  They are always thinking outside the box.

In The Mechanical Mind of John Coggin (Walden Pond Press, April 12, 2016) written by Elinor Teele with cover and interior illustrations by Ben Whitehouse, two orphans, an older brother and his younger sister, must use their best qualities to survive the clutches of a dastardly relative. A family ritual of storytelling bolsters their hearts.  What each one does and would do for the other is the soul of this story.

The Beginning
"Tell me a story."
"A story? Not now!"
"My dear boy, if not now, when?  Seize the carp, John. Seize the carp." ...

Chapter 1
Once upon a time there was a boy who made coffins.  His name was John Peregrine Coggin, and the Coggin family had been manufacturing wooden caskets in the city of Pludgett for over a hundred years. ...

With this introduction and the beginning of chapter one, your mind is already filling up with questions.  Who was talking to John?  Where are they?  When is this conversation taking place?  You are intrigued to the core.

John, now eleven and his sister Paige, nearly seven, have been living with his Great-Aunt Beauregard since the death of their parents when he was five.  Unfortunately with his brilliant mind and his aunt putting him to work long hours at an early age, he has become the best coffin maker in the swampy community of  Pludgett.  He detests making caskets, yearning for some kind of escape from what promises to be a life of drudgery for both he and his sister.  An unusual impromptu trip away from the shop to a hotel by the sea has the siblings hopeful for a brighter future but then again, this is Great-Aunt Beauregard in charge of the outcome.

Her proposals have John saying things he has never previously said to her face.  The children make an escape out of a locked room with the assistance of a new friend, Boz, an exceedingly long-winded, walking-dictionary and mischief-making scamp.  Where might their destination be, you ask?  They are headed for the company of The Wandering Wayfarers, a circus.  A non-functioning steam powered engine named Autopsy and an unfortunate episode with a local official's newfangled automobile have the children on the run again.  To make matters worse Great-Aunt Beauregard has an uncanny knack of locating them wherever they go.

John, Paige and sometimes Boz, find themselves in one calamitous mess after another, exploding chicken poo being the least of their worries.  Each situation and the characters they meet add to the escalating precariousness of their future.  Will forces for good, ingenuity and teamwork prevail against greed and deceitfulness?  Only a dragon, a shaggy dog and a flying coffin can supply the answer.


As soon as you read the first page, you are drawn into the story by the request for a story.  Without missing a beat Elinor Teele draws us willingly into places seemingly familiar but completely unique, describing the communities, residences and other modes of transportation in which our main characters find themselves.  The phrase, a cast of colorful characters, applies with gusto to this narrative.  John and Paige find themselves thrust not always by choice but more due to circumstances into the presence of diverse and multi-dimensional people.

John's thoughts, the conversations between all the characters and the language each uses create highly engaging and often comedic responses in readers.  You will find yourself mentally assigning voice qualities to the characters based upon their personalities.  Boz's persuasive, embellished observations and suggestions, Great-Aunt Beauregard's boisterous outbursts, Maria Persimmons quiet, loving words, Leslie's arrogant assumptions and Miss Doyle's wise counsel as well as the circus performers requests, insights and advice supply non-stop entertainment, a montage of ingredients in the siblings' stew of life.  Here are some sample passages.

And when that didn't work---and granaries and grannies took to mysteriously disappearing overnight---the settlers began building hovels on top of the ones that were sinking.  The whole city was a layer cake of decay.
Of course, living in a city built on a swamp meant the air smelled like rotten eggs and mosquitoes were the size of pumpkins.  But no one ever complained.  Pludgett citizens were terribly proud of Pludgett.

"Building a story is like any other invention, John my lad," he would say.  "Guts and gung-ho at the beginning, struggles and surprises in the middle, and the glorious moment when everything comes right."

When John found enough balance to peek back at the fence, he could just spy the top of the canary in Great-Aunt Beauregard's hat.  It appeared to be screaming.
"JOHN PEREGRINE COGGIN! I WILL ROAST YOUR GIBLETS FOR THIS!

He stood and began touching his toes.
"One, two, one, two.  A working bakery like this should give me exactly the capital I need to convert my castle at Howst into a showpiece for investors." He threw back his shoulders and pounded his chest for emphasis.  "Harry, you may not know it yet, but you are looking at the next real estate king of this country."
Then, as a fitting finale, Leslie farted.

"Euripides!" Boz blasted.  "By George, I think you've got it!"
John grinned, happiness rising in him like yeasty bubbles.  


The Mechanical Mind of John Coggin written by Elinor Teele with cover and interior illustrations by Ben Whitehouse is a stellar story of high adventure.  You are advised to be prepared to read on the edge of your seat from cover to cover in a single sitting.  As you move with the primary characters from escapade to escapade you, like them, will understand (or have your beliefs confirmed) there is more than one way to define family.

If you desire to learn more about Elinor and this debut title, please follow the link attached to her name to access her website.  Please stop by the publisher's website to read an excerpt.  An activity guide, writing exercises, is available here.  To read the other posts by bloggers in this tour follow this link to the Walden Pond Press blog.


To be able to chat with Elinor through a series of questions is an honor.  I know you are going to be as delighted as I am with her answers.

When I read a book as engaging as The Mechanical Mind of John Coggin (I did consume it in one sitting on a Sunday past.) I find myself marking passages with sticky notes.  One of the first pages I marked in this title referred to a rather vivid description of the town of Pludgett where John and his sister Page live.  I’m curious to know whether the world of Pludgett and the surrounding towns came first to you or did one of the characters present themselves to you? 

It’s been so long since the first draft that I had to go back and do some ferreting! John and Page are loosely based on reality, so they were in my head from the beginning.

But I always had Dickens in mind when it came to creating place. The opening passage of Bleak House and the description of the Thames in Little Dorrit are particular favorites of mine. I wanted Pludgett to be a city that reflected John’s trapped imagination—grime, grit, repetition, and layers and layers of rotting thinking. 

My original notes read:

“Unhappy, unhappy. Grind, grind, grind. Inventiveness frowned upon. Like rats in a maze, directed over the same lines again and again.”

Within the body of the story there seems to be a blend of the past, without our current inventions, with more iconic text.  An example is your description of John as a lean unkeen coffin machine.  Was this blend intentional and would you tell us why?

Yep, it’s intentional. Since I was writing the book for my relatives, I wanted Coggin to have some of the same flavor of The Princess Bride, a family favorite—

·        “Life is pain. Anybody that says different is selling something.”

·        “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”  

And it seemed fitting that John, whose imagination is boundless, shouldn’t be restricted by historical “accuracy” in the tone or text. The book is about busting open the rulebook. 

From your bio on your website you have a keen interest in theater and the study of Anglo-Saxon literature.  Did this influence the character of Boz being verbose in exceedingly descriptive language with a flair for the dramatic? 

Probably, but my siblings will tell you that verboseness and the tendency to be a ham were obvious from my early years! Theatre and my studies in literature just seem to have compounded it.  

I don’t adore all my characters, but I do have a soft spot for Boz. Like Gonzo in The Muppets or Merlyn in The Once and Future King, he doesn’t belong to a particular time period or setting—he’s a master of doggerel and servant of none. I hope folks have fun with the Easter eggs (cultural references) embedded in his speech.

Did you have to do much research to create the scientific thinking of John’s mind? 

Some. I’ve never been good at engineering principles—that honor belongs to my father and my grandfather—and it took me a while to sort out internal combustion. I’m absolutely certain that I’ve made a few clangers in my descriptions. (My apologies to my science teachers!)

But it was intriguing to discover how John’s interest in “how things work” dovetailed with my own exploration of “how writing works.” The two disciplines aren’t that far apart. You have a large variety of component parts that you must put together in a particular order. One thing follows another, and small structural mistakes can be extremely costly.

Would you please describe your writing space for us if you have a specific area?  Do you have a special schedule for your writing? 

I write in an old chicken coop. It still has the faint scent of its former inhabitants, but it’s perfectly serviceable.

There’s no special schedule, other than achieving a certain word count by the end of the week. Hours don’t count—you can stare at the ceiling for a day and call it work. For my own sanity, I have to get something on a page.

Did your work in photography help in creating the places in this book?  Are they based on any actual settings?

Probably not. When I’m taking photos, I’m thinking about framing and light and technical bits; I’m not always concentrating on how to describe the scene in front of me. Sometimes I wonder whether it’s hindering more than helping. But let’s give it the benefit of the doubt—photography has taught me to be more careful about noticing hidden corners.  

And, yes, some of the places are based on actual settings. The street of bakeries where Maria lives is a mash-up of a backpacking trip through York in the U.K. and Hansel & Gretel’s stumble through the forest; the lunar landscape of Miss Doyle’s archeological dig was prompted by a memory of New Zealand; and the train scenes harken back to a cross-country trip through Canada when I was very young.

Is there anything else you would like readers to know?

The Mechanical Mind of John Coggin has taught me nothing is perfect.  Every invention is an adventure.  Every book is about trying something completely new and hoping to hell it works.  I hope I've written something kids will enjoy, but if I've failed, that's okay.  Life would be awfully boring with no mistakes.

Running Toward Life

If you've been fighting the good fight for years, but receive the worst news you can receive, you have a choice.  If you are sick of being sick, you have a choice.  If at the end of the day your best friend is your dog, you have a choice.  You plan.  You run. You do it together.


It's a decision made from heartache; a chance to control your destiny.  It's trying to be strong in the face of fear.  The Honest Truth (Scholastic Press, January 27, 2015) debut novel of teacher, librarian and father of three, Dan Gemeinhart introduces us to twelve-year-old Mark who chooses to reach for the top as long as he is able.

The mountain was calling me.  I had to run away.  I had to. 

The mountain calling to him is Mount Rainier in the state of Washington.  In alternating chapters we travel with him and his dog, Beau and listen to his best friend of years at home, Jessie, describe the reactions of his parents and the secret she carries.  Over the course of several days and nights and hundreds of miles we hang on tight following the emotional and real life roller coaster ride right along with these two people.

Mark has a backpack with his notebook, food, gear and saved money along with his camera, the kind using film.  He's carrying a duffel bag for Beau to climb into when he needs to stay hidden.  He believes he is as prepared as he can be for this kind of trip, a trip steeped in a pledge.  What he does not take into consideration are the people he meets and the impending winter storm.

Jessie's concern for Mark grows as the police continue to come up empty-handed in their search for him.  Their shared experiences bind her as close to him as two people can be without being in the same skin.  Their past promises keep her silent.

We know the comfort of the glowing windows in a diner on deserted streets.  We know the pain felt when dangers lurking in the shadows inflict harm.  We know the relief of singing women in a kitchen.  We know the panic when a path taken threatens to steal away life.  We feel tired; straight to the core, I-can't-go-any-more tired.  Most of all we know truth, the honest truths discovered, or already known, by the characters.


Before we have even read a single line of the narrative the chapter heading page in a black background with a white crevasse, black text reading CHAPTER 1 and white text reading MILES TO GO:  263 establishes a journey to be taken; as a reader a type of tension starts to build.  In the subsequent chapters for Jessie the background is white with a black crevasse.  Her chapters are always the number plus a half.  This is an excellent technique for bringing us more intimately into the story.

Author Dan Gemeinhart describes his characters and their situations expertly, until we feel as though we know each one of them personally, even those who enter the plot briefly.  It's in the little details, the looks on their faces, their body posture and their actions.  Even those hardened by life, committing crimes or following rules, find it in themselves to extend small kindnesses.

We should all wish for friends like Jessie and Beau and strangers like the park biologist Wesley.  Jessie carefully weighs all the conversations she has had with Mark over the years, torn between two rights but as loyal as Beau.  You can tell Gemeinhart has known the love of at least one dog.  Each moment between Mark and Beau is portrayed with moving sincerity.  Wesley's wisdom born of his own grief and his compassionate understanding of Mark are extraordinary chapters.

Here are several passages from the book.  One other technique Gemeinhart employs, along with his cliff-hanger chapter endings, in his writing is the use of the word truth.  As the story progresses, reaching a breaking point, it appears more frequently.

Beau was a small dog.  But size doesn't tell you anything about how important something is.
Beau came out of that duffel bag like hot burning justice.  Like all the right kinds of anger.  Like everything the world ever needed.  He came out into the darkness and the blood of that cold city street fast and loud and hard, all teeth and bark and bravery.

Scared.  A morning walk.
A question needs an answer.
Knuckles on the door.  (Haiku is a significant part of the story.)
Mark's mom answered.  She looked like she hadn't slept all night.  Jessie rubbed Mark's note between her fingers in her pocket.
"We haven't heard anything, honey," his mom said.  "I'm sorry."
"Why did Mark run away?" Jessie asked the question quick, before she lost her nerve.  There was no time for "good morning."  And it wasn't a good morning, anyway.

His next words weren't quite so smooth, not quite as low and even.  "A daddy is supposed to keep his kids safe.  He's supposed to protect them.  That's all there is to it.  That's the truth. ..."


Several days ago I stayed up until 2AM to finish this book.  Just moments ago I finished it again.  Some books like The Honest Truth written by Dan Gemeinhart need to be read more than once.  There is so much life in them they must first be taken in huge gulps, then again a little at a time to fully appreciate the beauty.  I highly recommend this title; a must read 2015 book.

For more information about Dan Gemeinhart and his work follow the link attached to his name to access his website. Dan Gemeinhart was interviewed at The Sweet Sixteens and at the American Booksellers Association.  Dan Gemeinhart is featured at teacher librarian extraordinaire and blogger John Schumacher's Watch. Connect. Read. Please take the time to watch each of the videos created by author Dan Gemeinhart.  They add to the richness of the reading.