Moose Flannagan and the Prisoners of Alcatraz

Well, I'm back from Solitary ; )

A few months ago, I read Al Capone Does my Shirts. I don't normally like "middle school kids doing middle school things" books (I didn't like them when I was in middle school either...), but this is "middle school boy living on Alcatraz in 1935 and dealing with his autistic sister and the never-ending schemes of the warden's daughter." So, it's much cooler than a standard "average middle school life" book.

I've been meaning to read this for a while because it's a frequently banned and challenged book. I was curious to know why, and also just curious. I mean, come on, that's a title that makes you ask questions.

As to the challenges:

A quick search of the American Library Association's pages on banned and challenged books, lists this as a "frequently challenged young adult book," but doesn't provide reasons for the challenges.

My guesses for the challenges are as follows:

1. On the very first page, Moose, the 12 year old main character, points out that the prisoners on Alcatraz are "murderers and rapists."

2. The Warden, when warning the newcomers that girls and women are not allowed to wear bathing suits on the island, explains to Moose that "many of these convicts haven't seen a woman in years. You're old enough to understand what that means, right?"

3. Natalie, Moose's sister is autistic and on occasion throws tantrums that could, potentially, be bothersome for very young readers.

4. On one very hot day, Natalie takes off her clothes and lays naked on the kitchen floor. Moose worries the neighbors will see her.

5. At one point, a 16 year old girl holds hands with a convict; the Warden's daughter suggests that now the girl might be pregnant.

Honestly, most of these would have either gone over my head at the age of 12 ("you're old enough to understand what that means" - is he?) or just not have been a problem at all.

Moose struggles with family, friends, rules... things that most middle school kids relate to, but also on a much bigger scale. If he disobeys his parents, his father could lose his job. If he succumbs to peer pressure he might encounter actual dangerous convicts. If he breaks rules, someone might literally die.

Moose is strong and smart and, while he obviously loves his sister, caring for her and helping out his parents in just-post-depression America on a prison island is a lot for any kid to handle.

All in all, a delightful book that works for its happy ending.

Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Elizabeth

What did you read when you were eleven? I was most definitely NOT into eleven-year-old-girls doing eleven-year-old-girl things (unless they were training to be witches).

This summer, my best friend asked me if I wanted to go the see the movie Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret (based on the classic young adult book of the same name). I had never read the book, but because we are both big into banned books, I said sure. It struck me as the sort of book she would have read as a kid, and it made me feel good that she wanted to share it with me.

We sat in the dimmed theatre as the previews ended and the title screen and date - 1970 - came up.

I leaned over and whispered, "I've never read the book." There was a pause and she whispered back, "neither have I." Turns out we both assumed, because of our banned books crusades, that the other had read the book at some point.

Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret.

It is one of the long-running repeat offenders on the banned books list. It is 53 years old. FIFTY-THREE. This is one of those books like To Kill a Mockingbird and Julie of the Wolves that every time I see it on a list of challenged titles, I roll my eyes and say, "seriously? This one again?"

Ooh, check out this piece of history (original 1970 cover).

 

One of the more recent covers. I like that it lends itself to the idea of waiting for answers.

Watching the film (and, later, reading the book as my annual personal banned book challenge) it seemed pretty innocuous.

An 11-year-old girl moves from New York City to suburban New Jersey and begins her journey to fit in with other girls her age. She is self-concious that she is still flat chested. She and her new clique discuss bras, when they'll get their periods, what boys they like... y'know, eleven-year-old girl stuff.

The girls sneak a medical reference book and a playboy magazine from various parents to examine the anatomy, wondering what they'll look like when they're older; wondering what their male classmates look like under their clothes.

In addition to being flat-chested, Margaret has also yet to get her period, which causes her much angst when members of her friend group start getting theirs. She and the other girl in her group who have yet to start "men-stroo-ating" buy pads at a drug store, mortified by being rung up by a teenage boy and, in a panic, add a couple other items to their purchase because heaven forbid they should be seen ONLY buying feminine products.

Margaret has a lot of questions. Their joke of a sex ed class consists of a presentation by a representative of a feminine products company. Rumors fly about the busty girl in class and what she may or may not be doing with older boys... Margaret's questions increase when the source of these rumors turns out to have been lying about other things.

Margaret also has questions about religion. Her mother was raised Christian; her father, Jewish. Margarets maternal grandparents disowned her mother when she married outside the faith, but her Jewish paternal grandmother is a constant in her life, and usually a source of support.

The book opens with a "prayer." Despite being non-religious, Margaret often "talks" to god, treating him as a "Dear Abby" sort of figure. At first, her quandry about religion is as simple as whether she should join the YMCA or the Jewish Community Center.

Margaret's teacher, himself new and unsure, assigns the class to each choose a topic for a year-round study. Margaret, having decided that almost-twelve is old enough to choose her own religion, decides that she will spend the year studying different religions to pick one that suits her.

(Though what Margaret considers "different religions" boils down to Jewish and three Christian denominations.)

Sounds pretty innocent, right?

Well, let's keep in mind this book was released in 1970. This was a time when discussing many of these subjects in mixed company would have been taboo, or at least recently-so. Heaven forbid we discuss bras, "busts," periods, and the like. Heaven forbid girls should talk about boys they like, what it might be like to kiss them.

Margaret's parents raising her essentially agnostic and allowing her to choose her own religion as she got older would have been seen as extremely groundbreaking.

This was also a time when there was very little discussion, both in school and the home, about what a young woman could expect when her period started. The presenter at the girls' special assembly gets flustered at the mere mention of tampons. One of the girls in Margaret's circle of friends becomes hysterical when she starts her period in a restaraunt bathroom.

Margaret narrates examining herself in the mirror, looking for signs of puberty. She stuffs three cottonballs into each side of her trainer bra and is pleased with the results. (And if there's anyone reading this who didn't do something similar as a teen or pre-teen I'd be much more shocked than I was reading either scene.) Margaret worries that she's taking too long to develop.

"I just want to be normal. Please, God," she begs.

That, for me, is really the crux of why we should let our kids read these books. "Hey, this girl is worried about x - she's just like me." "This boy is struggling with Y - he's just like me."

In 1970's, kids who couldn't get these answers turned to Playboy and medical textbooks. Now they can turn to YouTube, Tik-tok, and a rabbit's warren of porn and disinformation on the internet.

When my daughter is ten, eleven, twelve, I hope she'll turn to me when she has questions. But if she doesn't I'd rather she turn to Margaret, a book about a girl her age, than pretty much anything else.

Not-so-itty-bitty Controversy

What ever happened to telling our kids, "you can be whatever you want to be?" That's apparently a problem in Texas (but, I mean, what isn't these days?).

Recently, there was a big to-do in the Katy Independent School District. Because of concerns over one book, the entire list of new books for the library for the ‘23-’24 school year was delayed from hitting shelves. A parent complained that the book was "sexually explicit." What was the book? Was it To Kill a Mockingbird with its racially-charged rape trial? Was it I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, detailing a child's sexual assault? Was it a new sex ed book? No. It was... "Itty-Bitty Kitty-Corn," a book for the youngest elementary students. I wish I was joking.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/08/district-halts-all-new-library-books-because-of-a-sexually-suggestive-kids-book-about-a-kitten/

And, if you're wondering, no, this children's book is NOT sexually explicit. Of course it isn't. Someone apparently decided that what they veiwed as an allegory for being trans (and probably isn't intended that way anyway) was reason enough to try and remove the book from the school.

"Itty-Bitty Kitty-Corn" is an adorable little book about a pink kitten who wishes she were a unicorn. Two friends tease her, saying she'll never be a unicorn. Then a REAL unicorn shows up, and he is MAGESTIC. But as the kitten slinks away embarrassed, the unicorn reveals a secret to her. Underneath his flowing mane, he wears a pair of fluffy pink cat ears. Yes. Our unicorn wishes he were...a kitty-corn. "I knew another kitty-corn would understand," the unicorn tells the kitten.

It's a tale of friendship, and of being what you want to be. Since when has that become a problem?

Pulled From the Shelf: "All Are Welcome"

As so often happens, I see a book that has been part of a controversy and I check it out and read it. Upon doing so, I see that either the person raising the fuss hasn't read the book at all, or is egregiously blowing something innocent out of proportion.

Take for example, the Highly Offensive *sarcasm mode* picture book "All Are Welcome" by Alexandra Penfold.

Quelle scandale…

First, we will examine the complaints, because that is the order in which I came at it.

I was first made aware of this book by a former coworker who is a librarian. She posted a short video in which a teacher reads this book. Clearly posted at the begining of the video is a screen shot of someone's complaint about the book - "Why do you all want pornographic books in the hands of children? That's bizarre."

Other complaints I found came from the Westmorland County, PA school board who cited problems with the book, including not clarifying whether the (admittedly diverse) kids in the classroom pictured in the book were here legally or illegally, and the "minority" of heterosexual parents presented in the book.

Now, let's get into the book itself:

It's cute. It's cheerful. It presents a classroom in a seemingly cosmopolitan area - some children arrive by walking, another by taxi, and there are many different skin tones and types of dress. The story rhymes and the pictures are fun and colorful. It is a quick, brief tale of learning together, eating together, playing, drawing, and singing together. It depicts three children in religious head coverings, and one in a wheel chair... but also the majority of the class is able bodied, and wearing standard western clothes. In the class of 24 students, there are four blonds and a redhead. There is a set of twins. There are three children with glasses. Your child will find themself in this colorful, welcoming group, and that is lovely. At the end of the book, there is a fold out page that depicts the class's festival, attended by all parents, showing the children's science projects, lion dancers, a buffet table, and people dancing and playing basketball. It's a beautiful depiction of what a neighborhood school can be.

Now, onto the complaints:

Oh. My. God. Becky.

1. How anyone thinks this book is "pornographic" is beyond me. I'm HOPING that this person saw it on a list of books being considered for removal and just assumed that was the case. The closest thing I can find to that kind of objectionable material is at the end of the day, after having gone home, one little girl takes a bath and puts her pajamas on. In the tub she is up to her chest in water. While dressing, she already has her shirt on, pulling her pants over her barely-seen underwear.

2. Distinguishing "between legal immigration and foreign invaders."

Excuse me? It is a picture book for 2-6 year olds. It ONLY has 240 words (yes, I counted). There is a page where it shows the children pointing to a map with the words "or if you come from far away." But come on. We don't know if the kids are pointing out where they have physically come from, or where their ancestors are from. And are we really gonna write a rhyming couplet about who has a green card and who doesn't?

Somehow, I don’t think the blonde Australian is the one they have the problem with…

3. The "minority" of heterosexual parents.

Here is one of the last pictures in the book - families arriving for the festival. There are five heterosexual couples. Yes, there is a two-woman couple and a two-man couple. There is also a child arriving with what appears to be a grandmother. But just a quick glance at all the pictures in the book (no, I'm not counting again) my eye catches a majority of "standard" mom-and-dad families.

Honestly, the biggest problem I had was believing this many full families were able to take time off work to come to this school event…

My consensus:

For goodness sake people, books like this are NOT a problem. Don't you have better things to occupy your time?

Book Review: Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

"Perks of refusing to play by the rules: you don't have to chose between the boy who'd torture a man to death with you and the boy who'd welcome you back with pastries after."

I've been looking forward to reading this since I watched Xiran's videos on historical accuracy (or lack thereof) in the various Mulan films. And now that I'm finished, I'm chomping at the bit to read the sequel, Heavenly Tyrant. I went straight to Amazon to look for it only to see the listing as "temporaily out of stock," which was annoying. Then I noticed the publication date is next April. C'mon Amazon, it's not "out of stock" if it hasn't been published yet. Still... darn.

Anyway, the actual review.

"I dream about walking on daggers every night, you know....It feels like a nightmare, but I think it's just your life."

Is this the far future, or is it so far in the past that the history has been forgotten? I love a setting that makes you question which it is. For sake of this review, we'll say it takes place in China in the distant future.

200 years ago, the alien Hunduns took over the Zhou province. They are insect-like, and their carpaces can be reworked into armor. Humans have learned how to work this material into giant battle robots called Chrysalises. Due to the need for a balance between yin and yang qi, these battle suits require two pilots - one male and one female - to control them. But... for some reason, the female pilots - called Concubine Pilots - rarely survive a battle.

Wu Zetian was born into this world: a world where boys are valued much more highly than girls, a world where girls are essentially sold - either in marriage or to the army, a world where submission and footbinding* are standard.

*Be warned, you will learn a lot about foot binding and it's not for the faint of heart.

Zetian's sister is sold to the army, in hopes her pay will help finance their brother's wedding. But when she dies before even piloting a mission, Zetian takes it upon herself to avenge her sister's death.

Things do not go according to plan - or maybe they go better than planned. She has to contend with her sister's killer, mysogeny from every corner, getting assigned to pilot with an actual convicted murderer, and the unexpected arrival of her would-be suitor from back home. "You can't shoot me! I'm rich!" Oh, Yizhi...

Layers of secrets are unraveled and Zetian finds allies in unexpected places... and betrayal from those she counted friends. She is beaten down and beaten down and beaten down, but she rises harder and stronger - a true Iron Widow.

(By the way, did I mention this is a very loose retelling of the story of the ONLY female emperor in Chinese history? Long live Wu Zetian.)

I LOVED this book. It was the best book I've read in a while - and I've read a lot of good ones recently. (In fact, this is the best of three "teenage girls fighting the evil empire" books I've read in pretty quick succession.) With that said, though, it's not for the faint of heart. There is murder, battle, trorture, near-rape (and implied offscreen rape of minor characters), cataclismic damage to a city, and mental and physical familial abuse, including society-santioned breaking and regular re-breaking of young girls' feet. Yikes. It very closely skirts the line of what would be too much for YA (in fact, the afterword states that this is a toned-down version from an earlier draft that would very much not be YA.) But that's the stuff I love. It is also full of the fantastically sarcastic and witty humor I've come to expect from Xiran Jay Zhao's YouTube videos. You should look them up - they are hilarious (and educational!)

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Review of Grace Lin's Before the Sword

Just a quick snippet of a review here:

This book had everything I love: coming of age adventure; backstories from mythology and folklore; a misinterpreted prophesy; the hero's backstory; a villain origin story; and, of course, a kick-ass heroine.

Technically a middle-grade book, it's a good, solid story for any age, honestly. The youngest middle grade readers might be intimidated by the size, or slightly frightened by monsters and action, but middle grade, young adult, and YA readers will all find something to love here.

The book serves as a prequel to the 2020 live-action Mulan, and, therefore, has slightly different names and family dynamic than the 1998 animated film.

For more about the book and the author, you can visit Grace Lin’s website.

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Banned Books Week Day 6*: Burn, Baby, Burn

*If you feel like you're missing a day, yesterday I did a Throwback Thursday with my review of Out of Darkness.

Ray Bradbury, writing Fahrenheit 451: You shouldn't ban books.

1950's parents: Let's ban this book!

That seems to be how it goes, doesn't it?

As some of you know, last year I challenged myself to read a classic banned book that I hadn't read before, and review it for banned books week. I decided to do the same this year and, due in large part to nearly unanimous response from my readers, I read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. (F-451, from here on out because I'm lazy.)

I wasn't sure what to expect going into it. I read it without looking up why it had been challenged. I had attempted to read a collection of his short stories a while ago and had not been impressed.

I was very pleasantly surprised with F-451. The language was BEAUTIFUL. The book was written by someone who obviously loved words, about someone who would come to better appreciate words. I haven't read a book with language like that since The Book Thief.

The world was also very well created - it felt very Twilight Zone-y, and I mean that in the best possible way. Of course, it didn't long pre-date the show, and Bradbury's work was used in an episode (and I think also inspired others). For me, there was a very clear atmosphere and color scheme.

What struck me the most, though, was how well a story written in 1953 captured the ennui and lack of attention span of 2022. In F-451, the main character's wife has speakers called seashells that she wears in her ears constantly - they are described as being silver and thimble-sized. She is constantly listening to radio shows, constantly watching her "parlor family," the unending broadcast of TV on the three walls of a room in their house. And that's not enough - she wants to be so immersed in the fictional television world that she asks Guy to buy her a fourth TV wall, even though it would cost about a third of his annual salary.

Honestly, the above is even just a small sample of how far gone most of society has gotten. They listen to their seashells and watch their parlor families unceasingly. The neighbor girl relates how she's constantly losing friends to car crashes - in this society people are so aching for stimulation that they speed and crash as casually as my husband might play a video game.

Of course, the one way in which the population of this world is not allowed to find stimulation is through reading. Books are illegal. Possession of even one will get you arrested. Neighbors report neighbors and the firemen come to burn not only the books but the perpetrator's home.

Guy is one of these firemen, but things take a turn for him in part because of his observant young neighbor's joie de vivre and because a woman's whose book collection they were about to burn gets the jump on Guy and his colleagues and sets both the books and herself on fire in a final desperate attempt to take at least that small act from them.

Guy finally comes to understand that he no longer believes in burning books, that he hates this world he lives in where no one sees, no one feels, no one connects. He starts saving books, but of course is found out. Long story short, he escapes the city and joins a group of "hobos" - who turn out to be "retired*" professors and a minister. They promise to teach Guy a technique they developed to remember the entirety of any book they've ever read. These men are the new library; they promise to pass down their collective knowledge until the world is ready for the books to return.

*Most are strongly hinted to have been driven out of their professions.

Not finding anything too bothersome in the book, I looked up the reasons it was challenged after I was done. Of course, profanity (as always) was at the top of the list... and yeah, maybe for the 1950's it might have been a tad strong, but it wasn't constant, and I feel like there wasn't much worse in there than "damn." Violence was also a complaint, as was a description of the Bible being burnt. (But, wasn't that the point? That Bradbury was CONDEMNING violence and book burning, not condoning them?) Other complaints included mentions of both suicide and abortion. Granted, once again, these came off as very tame to my 21st century sensibilities. The attempted suicide is accompanied by blase technicians who pump the would-be victim's stomach with less interest than a mechanic repairing a car. Abortion is mentioned in passing as Guy hurls accusations of unfeelingness at his wife's friends, one of whom who has had multiple divorces and abortions. And, let's be perfectly honest - a lot of those complaints would either go over younger teens' heads, or be completely unimpressive to older teens today.

All in all though, a really great book. Try reading it instead of burning it.

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Banned Books Week Day 4: Parents Just Don't Understand

With all respect to the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, when it comes to book banning, it's usually the kids who don't understand.

I first observed Banned Books Week while working in the children's department of the public library. I was surprised to find Julie of the Wolves, The Summer of My German Soldier, and other books I remembered reading in late elementary and early middle school were on various banned and challenged lists for having sexual situations or being "sexually explicit." *insert confused head tilt* Really? I didn't remember anything like that...

Around that time, there was a big to-do in one of the local school systems about Z for Zachariah, claiming there was sexual assault in it. *confused head tilt again* My mom was appalled - she remembered me reading that book and asked me if it bothered me. Um... no. Well, the alleged assault didn't bother me. I didn't remember anything about a sexual assault. I remembered that the main character - a teenage girl who assumes she's the only survivor of a nuclear war until an adult male scientist? government official? shows up. At first he works with her, but later they have a physical altercation as he tries to take her away from her camp when he leaves. Was it sexual? If it was, it went WAY over my head. What upset me? The dog died.

Likewise, Julie of the Wolves - I remembered 13-year-old Julie having an argument with her fellow-teen husband (of an arranged and, at the moment, platonic marriage). His friends were teasing him because he couldn't "mate his wife." He forcibly tried to kiss her, she kicked him, they tussled, but he left declaring, "tomorrow! I can!" As as 5th grader, I had a vague idea of what mating meant and understood that he was going to try again, but to me it was "Daniel is being a jerk," not "Julie narrowly avoided getting raped." Again, what upset me more? The dog died (well, wolf in this case).

With Summer of My German Soldier, I didn't even remember there being ANYTHING physical between the main character and the titular character, romantic, violent, or otherwise. I remembered she helped hide him (a teenage German POW during WWII) after he escaped from prison, before she was subsequently arrested and tried for treason. Either on her way to trial or on her way to juvenile detention, someone spits in her hair. That is the scene I remember the most clearly, and the one that was the most bothersome to me.

Again, a lot of this comes down to 1. trusting your child and 2. being involved with your child. Should your 5th grader be reading 50 Shades of Grey? Of course not. Should your 5th grader be reading Old Yeller, The Yearling, Julie of the Wolves, or other books where "the dog dies?" Well, I mean, kids are going to read things that upset them, see things that upset them. We can't shelter them forever, as much as we want to. But, yes, as the parent of a 5th grader, I would definitely be more concerned about the dog dying than vague references to sexual situations.

There's a joke I read once, where two 11-year-old best friends - a boy and a girl - had been spending the night together for years. Now that they were in middle school, though, their parents had started to wonder if maybe that wasn't appropriate any more. Jimmy and his family happened to be over at Susie's house watching a beauty pageant when the kids asked if they could spend the night. The parents hesitated, uncertain. At that moment, the announcer called out the current contestant's measurements - 36, 24, 36. Susie's mom, thinking quickly, said, "Jimmy - do you know what those numbers are?" Jimmy thought for a moment and answered, "96?" He was allowed to spend the night.

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Banned Books Week Day 1: Rules and Regulations

In previous years, I've often started Banned Books Week with a quick little anecdote about a friend being surprised that "they still do that?" Sadly, in the last year, we've see a big uptick in the news about parents pushing for schools and libraries to ban books.

But what does "banning" a book mean, exactly?

You may be picturing book burnings, people keeping books secreted away in hidey holes to prevent the government from seizing them. Those images are exaggerations... usually.

Per the American Library Association, "A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials." This will be on the test ; ) (I'm kidding. But I will referred to both banned and challenged books this week and may not revisit the definition each time.)

For example, if a parent complains at a school board meeting about This Book, and asks it to be removed from the school library, that is a challenge. If the school board agrees and removes This Book from the curriculum or the library - or even makes it harder for students to obtain that book, such as requiring a permission slip - that is a successful ban. A ban doesn't have to be large-scale to count (and I'll revisit that this week, too).

Additionally, the most common reasons for books to be banned or challenged is that an adult feels that a books is inappropriate for students of a certain age group. This can be due to language, sexual situations, or social issues such as race or "alternative" lifestyles. This can be anything from claiming high schoolers aren't ready for graphic sex and violence, to feeling that elementary aged students shouldn't be learning about families with same-sex parents.

For an example, here is the list of the top 10 most challenged books from 2021 (2022's will be released sometime next year). How many have you read? I'm sad to say I've only read one, but it may also be the most well-known at the moment, given the videos about it that went viral last year.

Come back tomorrow for another blog topic, and visit my social media for Meme Monday!

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May-cation

Hello, readers!

Remember back at the beginning of April when I said I was going to get my act together? Yeah... about that...

To make a long, whiney story short, I've had a lot of unexpected things going on the past few weeks and have finally gotten to the point where I'm stressing enough that I need a break. I'm not saying I won't be posting, writing, or submitting at all for the month of May... just that I'm not going to hold myself to my normal schedule. May was going to be a wierd month anyway, between family stuff coming up and Elianna being out of school for half the month before her little camp starts up in June.

In any case, I'm hoping and I can come back restored and refreshed in June.

But before I leave, I did want to drop some updates for you. My followings online have increased per below:

Facebook: stayed 101

LinkedIn: from 77 to 80

Twitter: from 43 to 58

Damn, Twitter! Keep on keepin' on : )

Peace out, y'all. See ya soon.

March Drought, April Showers

So, I'm a nerd. I was trying to remember the opening line of The Caterbury Tales (in the original Middle English). I found it, and it wasn't as I remembered - "Whan that April with his showres soote

The droughte of March hath perced to the roote." But it actually works out better for what I want to say.

I didn't get a whole lot done in March. Again. More on that in a minute. But, as March draws to a close, I'm feeling a little trickle of inspiration coming back. I wrote a story last weekend. Not only that, I had initially sat down with the idea it was gonna be a 500-1000 word flash piece. It now stands at just over 3300 words. (Wanna read it? Contact me on social media, or through this website and ask to be part of my beta reader group. I'll be workshopping it soon.) I also submitted to two publications this month, which isn't a lot, but is more than I did in February.

So, how did I meet my goals?

Submissions:

My goal was to submit three pieces for publication. I almost did that. In fact, I kind of did that. I did actually submit to three different publications... but one of them I had to withdraw. They don't accept simultaneous submissions and after I submitted, I was informed by another publication that I had thought hadn’t accepted the same piece that they had extended their reading period and my story was still under consideration there. So... yay?

Social Media Following:

My goals for March were to bring the following platforms up to:

-Facebook - from 99 to 100 likes. (Oooh, aaah...)

-Actual increase: 101! Yay, I finally broke 100! (Increase of 2%.)

-LinkedIn - from 72 to 76 connections.

Actual increase: 77! (Increase of almost 7%)

-Twitter - from 36 to 50 followers.

Actual increase: 43. (Increase of 19%)

Goals for April:

Submission:

Ok, for real this time - three submissions. I mean it.

Platform:

-Facebook: My growth has slowed way down, so I will aim to continue a 1% increase each month, at least until I can figure out a better way to draw in more people there.

Goal: from 101 to 102.

-LinkedIn:

Goal: break 80, an increase of approximately 5%.

Twitter - My growth in February was huge, an increase of 57%. In March, while it wasn't that drastic, it was still hefty at almost 20%. Granted, I know I can't sustain that kind of growth, so I'm not going to set my goal so high as to be disappointed.

Goal: from 43 to 47-49, an increase of 10-15%

New goal!

As of April fourth I will be rejoining my writing critique group. I haven't been since Elianna was born - baby + pandemic = not the best time for writing groups.

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Special Throwback Thursday: The Baldur Blogs

A day late for National Puppy Day, but oh, well...

Since I alternate weeks, this will be my last Throwback Thursday before the anniversary of Baldur's death on April 3. I was debating whether or not to share some of my posts about him - some are light-hearted and some are sad. But yesterday, I had a really bad headache (weather and allergies) and I lay down to take a nap for a while. At one point, I heard Athena chewing on her feet... except that when I woke up and sat up to pet her, she wasn't in the bed. She hadn't come upstairs.

Now, is it possible I was hearing things? Yes. Is it possible I was dreaming? Of course. But there's a belief that when you dream of the dearly departed it means they have come to visit you - and it would be so in character for our sweet boy to come check on me when I felt bad.

So here I have collected a series of tales of Baldur the Beautiful, Baldur Spleen-Slayer. Come keep his memory alive with me.

One of the best days of my life was when this boy picked me out and said in his sweet, sad-Corgi-face way, "I want you to be my Mommy."

Jason and I came back to pick up our boy and to hear what the vet had found. It wasn't good.

We are preparing for the death of our first fur baby at the same time as we are preparing for the birth of our first human baby.

Remember when Notre Dame Cathedral caught on fire? Shouldn't that have been The Story of the Decade?

We started blaming things on Baldur’s ghost.

It's a place of honor, and place where he can keep an eye on his baby sister. And the thing is... we think he does.

Some days it helps to remember my sweet fuzzies.

Elianna still has her brother to comfort her.

Imagine a Great Dane the size of a small horse looking down at this coffee table sized dog with a confused, "Do I know you?" expression.

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Follow me on Facebook and Twitter for several small snippets each week.

Or, if you're looking for more professional content (less frequent, but more closely related to writing, publishing, or libraries), connect with me on LinkedIn. (I do ask that if you request a connection on LinkedIn that you mention this blog so that I know how you heard of me.)