So over the course of the past couple of weeks, three things have happened. ONE: our house was struck by lightning and it knocked out two air conditioners, two computers, and our poor little toaster. This happened immediately after event number TWO: my dear, sweet friend Susan Gregg Gilmore had the debut of her second novel, The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove.

I read the manuscript for this book last summer and Susan and I chatted and trouble-shot a couple of small issues. And then guess what she did. Not only did she become a real, true friend, she included me in the acknowledgments. She says, “Becky Brothers, a Southern girl, who has a thirst for big stories and a patience for their telling”. Isn’t that sweet?! And then event number

THREE: businesses in Nashville have overwhelmingly supported A Dry Read: New Books for Nashville. I collected almost 200 books from Moneky’s Treehouse, City Limits Cafe, and Active Learning Center of Bellevue. So I haven’t blogged lately.

I went to Pencil Foundation yesterday and finally got to meet the sweet, patient, all-enduring Ulli Heregger. She’s been so great during what has been an incredibly hard time for their organization. The store looks great. She’s already had over 800 teachers in Davidson county come in to choose free classroom supplies. The community has been so generous, despite these hard economic times and our flood recovery woes. Ulli says she’s been in the paper several times and has been interviewed on all of the local news stations at least twice, three times for some. And I got to see the BEST, BEST, BEST part. They have an entire room filled with books, neatly stacked and sorted on SHELVES. 5,000-6,000 books, she says. That’s since the flood. A few months. She says she’s getting anonymous donations in the mail left and right, people sending brand new books from Amazon.com.

So guess what that means? It means people care about our kids, our teachers, our schools. AND they care about books because they know books can hold some mighty important keys for kids learning to love them.

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YEAH! I’m starting to get really good response from local businesses about participating in A Dry Read: New Books for Nashville. Here in Bellevue we have a wonderful partner in Monkey’s Treehouse. This adorable spot is a wonderful indoor playground my son and I have frequented in the last year. It’s perfect for rainy, scorching, or freezing days. My son would live there in their treehouse, “sand” box, kitchens, and train spots year round if I let him. They’ve agreed to become a donation spot and are offering a dollar off admission prices during the month of August to anyone who brings in their used kids books. Click here for info!

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Ok, what is the deal with all the hype behind Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? I feel like such a failure–I’m 50 or so pages in and I CANNOT get into this book. I’m actually thinking of shelving this and skipping to the movie, an idea that would have made me cringe a few years back. I’ve begun to allow myself to do that now. I’m letting go of the idea that books are assignments and that I get grades, which is hard for an English teacher to do. It sort of undermines my whole existence, really. Maybe I’m just not getting it, but this book is so full of TELLING me what is going on that I can’t watch the action, I can’t see it. There’s nothing to imagine except for the interesting landscape. So I’m going to call this one: the girl’s tattoo is naked, and all you people pretending to see something mysterious and shocking and wonderful are lying to impress each other.

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I’ve been plugging away this summer, reading manuscripts for some local authors. It’s been great fun trouble-shooting and brainstorming with the wonderful clients I have. I’ve been able to venture into new territory this summer, the “cozy mystery” and memoir. Both manuscripts have been so rewarding and I’m looking forward to hearing from my new authors about the developments in their publishing journeys. Two of my clients were picked up by agents this spring–congrats to them both. One has a tentative publishing deal already.

As a writer myself, I admire their hard work and determination. Writing isn’t easy. It’s trying to convey the very best thoughts you’ve had to others in the hopes they’ll listen and even like what you have to say. It’s a brave endeavor and I’m becoming more and more humbled by the people who do it for a living.

Deb Caletti and her book The Fortunes of Indigo Skye

This book was in my swag bag from the Book Bloggers Convention I attended in NYC in May. I’m just now starting to rifle through all those goodies and this one has been a pleasant surprise. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Caletti’s style–breezy and conversational and honest. And while this book might be a bit of a cliche (waitress gets a 2.5 million dollar tip, unhappiness ensues), it’s still a very fine read. The narrator Indigo has a wonderfully flawed personality you can’t help but want to know. It’s been a great read, following this young woman on her journey through struggling with bills to struggling with money. I know, I know. What a problem to have, huh? But Caletti does a wonderful job of philosophizing without preaching about the evils and pitfalls of money. Wise stuff.

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I know, I know. I’m desperately behind the times if I’m just now reading Julia Child’s autobiography My Life In France and Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia. I haven’t seen the film yet but I’m looking forward to it. I thoroughly loved Julia Child’s book. She has an incredible voice (ha ha) on the page. Her sense of humor and enthusiasm for life are astounding. But so is her ambition. You can feel her drive and determination radiating from the pages. There are telling moments in the book when Julia complains about her colleagues or talks about her husband’s failing health as if they are almost asides. Julia is larger than life throughout the book and her sense of self develops so late in her life I think she spent her final years wrapped in nothing but her persona, watching it happen around her, happy to have found it at last. Powell’s book fascinated me for a lot of the same reasons I’m sure it works so well for others; the shear shamelessness of it all is just too horrible to look away from. She lays bare all of her intimate details, including her mental illnesses and her selfishness and abhorrent lack of regard for kitchen hygiene. I think what I’m most looking forward to in the film is seeing how in the world they made this mess of a woman into the beauty she appears to be on the cover of her book (the actress playing her is, at any rate). And of course, there’s Meryl Streep, who can do no wrong. I say this without sarcasm. Love her. So hey–three women of astounding personality. That’ll be fun!

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HI all–sorry for the long absence. I’ve spent some much-needed time away from Nashville. I’m just starting to get back in my routine and then guess what? I’m off again for a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains this next week. In the meantime, I’ve heard more about what our wonderful Pencil Foundation needs. School is starting VERY soon and Pencil is desperate to get school supplies on their shelves. The need the basics, and LOTS of them, by August second. Think pencils, pens, crayons, notebook paper, glue, scissors, colored pencils, notebooks, paper towels, hand soap. Look at this article from The Tennessean. So send along supplies or donate money directly to my favorite local charity: The Pencil Foundation.

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One of the most exciting parts of creating this blog and A Dry Read: New Books For Nashville, in particular, has been meeting other bloggers on-line who are working very, very hard to promote reading. We are members of that lucky group of people for whom reading was a natural, fun, maybe even EASY activity that we would rather do than just about anything else. As a teacher, I know a lot of people who find reading boring, difficult, and unrewarding. When I’m teaching that kind of person, I try to imagine what it would be like if reading were as hard, ugly, and un-fun as exercise. Or a dance class. I still suffer from gym anxiety. The smell of sweaty socks and sour tennis shoes makes my palms sweat. Gym was the bane of my existence as a kid. Couldn’t hit, catch, run, climb, tumble, throw, pitch, tag, stretch, or jump.

But reading, now THERE’S where I shone. Sometimes those of us who love reading take for granted the lifelong rewards and advantages that love brings; we can wade through contracts and puzzling insurance bills and defend ourselves against injustices created by people who like to obscure their misdeeds through difficult prose. But for younger kids who struggle with reading, this is a hard sale. If you had told me working harder in gym class would have made me a healthier, thinner, more energetic adult, I would have argued. Now I see the err of my ways in my softening body and dwindling endurance. Those kids who struggled with reading grow up to be adults who are marginalized by their difficulties understanding the complex adult world. Ask those adults now what they wish, and they’d say, “I wish I had read more as a kid. Wish I had worked harder at it” or “Wish someone had helped me with reading. I feel like I’m always behind.”

Today I got wind of an incredible project through my subscription to a blog called “Rasco From RIF” (Reading Is Fundamental). This blog features incredible stories of book projects all over the place. Today I read about an amazingly creative endevor started by a teacher in Stillwater, MN. She found a way to get inmates and their children reading together. I’ve taught kids whose parents were incarcerated and have seen how those kids fade away at school. This incredible program helps inmates talk to their children about books, finds and gets books to the kids, teaches inmates how to engage their children in reading through letter writing, and even records inmates’ voices reading their kids’ favorite books so the children can listen to their own parent read to them.

This reminds me of another prison program I saw on TV where very violent criminals sentenced to life without the possibility of parole were taught to train seeing-eye dogs and other service animals. Everyone needs a purpose and many of the prisoners ended up in jail because they did not have a purpose in life before they got there. Instead of writing them off as a waste of space, putting them to MEANINGFUL work changes everything. For the reading project, I see this as keeping these parents involved with their kids in a purposeful, educational, loving way that can break the cycle of pain and lost opportunities that perpetuates criminal activity. It gives families back to each other. Congrats to the Stillwater program. I hope I can bring a tiny bit of that kind of creativity to my own blog project and get LOTS of books to Nashville’s needy kids.

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Hey, y’all–

Just got an email from Kyle’s cousin, Betty Bone. She has developed a very cool logo for A Dry Read: New Books for Nashville. I’m loving the colors and the font, and arrangement. As soon as it’s ready, I’ll post it. This takes us one GIANT step closer to our goal. Now that we have this logo, we’ll be able to slap it on some posters, letterhead, fliers, everywhere and drum up some interest. Everyone’s asking for stuff right now. I hope we don’t get lost in the shuffle. I think Betty’s super cool design will help prevent that!

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Here’s the latest version of the press release for our book project. I’m very grateful to Elizabeth Willse for her wonderful editing advice and extensive help on this (and the entire project!). Follow her at www.elizabethwillse.com. She’s become a partner in this venture, offering her blogging space and time and so much more. I am so excited about this part of the project: seeing and meeting more people online who are so willing to help with this very worthy cause. Thanks, Elizabeth!

A Dry Read: New Books for Nashville

Help our community recover from the flood. We need BOOKS.

The flood left our city in desperate need; homes, businesses, jobs, landmarks, and lives were lost. So many things we take for granted were destroyed- homes, clothes, heirlooms, and favorite books. I’m a local teacher and book blogger, no good with a hammer and I’m outright dangerous around power tools. But I know books, and I am keenly aware of the power and comfort books can provide, especially to children who have lost their homes and whose parents are consumed by the process of piecing their lives back together.

The Pencil Foundation program provides a multitude of services to our educational community here in Nashville. Volunteering there at the end of March, I saw their school supply program change lives. Community businesses donate their surplus supplies and brand new school items to the foundation’s “store.” Teachers from Nashville Metro Public Schools make an appointment to “shop” there twice per school year. They can take what their classrooms need for free. I saw dedicated teachers spend hours of their Saturday combing through supplies for their needy students. These teachers didn’t have to do this. Only dedicated, passionate teachers would take the time and make the effort. This is one reason I am so determined to help them out now that the flood has affected them.

In the recent flood, the Pencil Foundation lost over 2,000 books. When I read about this loss in the paper, my heart just sank. But there is hope. Working with Ulli Herreger of the Pencil Foundation, I’ve put together a project called A Dry Read: New Books for Nashville, my blog project and challenge to you. All books will go to the Pencil Foundation. They are thrilled. They plan to hold a book fair on one Saturday this October. Last year’s book fair was an incredible success. They gave away more than 6,000 books in one day. Each teacher was allowed to take 30 free books, so that means more than 200 teachers showed up on their day off to carefully choose books their very needy students would love.

So here’s the next step. They need the following items for the book fair:

1) Books: children’s books: board books, pre-school books, flap books, activity (coloring, sticker) books, picture books, young readers, beginning readers, children’s and young adult chapter books, and high school materials. New or used books are great. As Ulli said, “A book can have many lives and last many years.” I love that! I will provide a collection box, flyers, and posters about the project for you to set up in your business. I’ll come by to collect books every week, or more often if you call me and let me know your box is full: Becky Brothers, 615-336-9956.

2) Plastic storage bins and shelving. Again, one reason they lost so much was that their books were stored in cardboard boxes on the floor. Waterproofing their storage would have helped a lot. I’ll also come by to get these, if you aren’t able to send them onto Pencil yourself at the address below.

3) Volunteers. As books come in and when the book fair itself approaches, Pencil Foundation will need man power to carry, sort, display, and distribute books. I’ll be in contact with Ulli about this, but anyone who wants to go ahead and volunteer can go to the Pencil website: www.pencilfoundation.org and click on “Volunteer”. As we get closer to the “Book ‘SALE’” date, the Pencil site and my site, www.rebeccabrothers.com will provide more details.

Book bloggers and friends on the Internet, we need you! Blog and link to us to spread the word, and send any books you can spare.

Books can be mailed media rate:

LP PENCIL Box at McCann ALC
1300 56th Ave North
Nashville, TN 37209

For questions about A Dry Read: New Books For Nashville, please email me, Becky Brothers, at becky_brothers@yahoo.com and visit my blog, www.rebeccabrothers.com to read more updates on the project. Look for this symbol on my website:

–
Elizabeth Willse

Freelance Writer/Book Reviewer
www.elizabethwillse.com
NY Beer Pairing Examiner: tinyurl.com/beerfoodie
Editor: PinkyShears.

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WOW! I’m sorry to start another entry with that word, but all others are escaping me at the moment. I’ve just read yet ANOTHER wonderful entry by blogger Meg at Write Meg! You’ve got to check out what she says about Nashville’s flood and the very, very best part is the books she’s chosen. She went to Borders and picked out her favorite books to send. One of her readers commented that she would have chosen throw-away books she didn’t want and that Meg had inspired her to do better. Well, me, too. I’m ready to do better, bigger, all of it. Here’s picture of her titles, all of them good. I’m going to go back through my notes from my days of teaching and I’m going to contact teachers I know for more suggestions. I’m working on that Barnes & Noble wish list now!

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