Unguilty pleasures

I've been indulging again in juvenile fiction...

Firrst Word after Word after Word by Patricia MacLachlan -

Sometimes MacLachlan can be a bit too sweet. But I can't read her picture book All the Places to Love without crying, even when I'm not pre-menstrual. Her new chapter book for young readers was sentimental, but I was drawn into the story, and even better, my 9 yr old, who only wants to read Judy Moody or Harry Potter books, liked it.  Hurrah! Word after Word after Word is Maclachlan's response in novel form to "Why do you write" questions. I felt like I was in the classroom with the students, silent, listening to the mesmerizing voice of Ms. Mirabel.  My throat thickened when the fictional author dumps a bag of prairie dirt on the table and exclaims "This .... is landscape!"

Suddenly, I'm back home. I want to gather all that dirt up in my hands and shove it in my back pocket.  A touch of homesickness. A longing to return. The slightest twinge of regret that we didn't plunk down some theoretical cash for a rectangle of dirt in southern Indiana, and then pack some up in a Ziploc to bring along.

But here we are. And someday we'll miss here, I suppose. I appreciate that yesterday was one of those breezy, sunny days that brought hordes of kids out to the playground in the middle of November.  And I love the way you can just stick a twig in the ground, and it will sprout.  And nothing quite compares to the shock of discovery when you dunk your face underwater in the coral reef, and what looks like a bunch of rocks from the surface becomes a kaleidoscopic fantasyland of living creatures.

But the dirt is red here. If you dumped in out of a plastic baggie, it would thunk, all clumped together. It's clay.  It's resistant to movement.

Maclachlan admits in the author's notes that this book is somewhat autobiographical, and that she really has bags of dirt on her desk and next to her bed and in her pocketbook to remind her "of where I began as a child and the stories I brought with me." I have a friend who has a collection of sand in bottles from all the beaches she's visited.  Ms. Cash, the classroom teacher, has a bottle of ocean water. We've got quite a collection of little shells from past duty stations and vacations. But I wish I had a little bag of dirt to open and sniff every once in a while like a black organic drug, a sedative.

I suppose this emotional response was just what Maclachlan was after when she decided to write about words, "the writer's tool."

The other book I just consumed was When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, which was the Newberry winner a couple years ago, and the subject of a number of favorable reviews.  For a couple chapters, I questioned the reviews - the book is set in a gritty NYC apartment in the 70s, and the main character a sixth grade girl.  Where is this going to go? The way of Francesca Baby, that awful example of Scholastic after-school-special literature we had to read in 7th grade so we'd sympathize with children of alcoholics?

Fortunately, it doesn't go that way. Miranda, the main character, becomes more likable, and although the book starts out feeling like a melodrama, it makes a shift for the better. It's hard to describe without giving away the surprise plot element, which may be why it hasn't been selling like some of the fantasy fiction for preteens, a least that I know of. I wonder if kids who hadn't read A Wrinkle in Time would enjoy it though.

The apparent naturalism of this book did remind me of an reading by Norman Juster in honor of the 50th anniversary of The Phantom Tollboth on NPR last week.  He made the remark that at the time he had finished his book, publishers weren't interested in fantasy. They were afraid it would disorient children.  Now fantasy books take up 85% of the shelf space in the YA section.

And finally an unguilty pleasure that tastes like a guilty one: Chocolate Zucchini cake. A nod to the cuisine of my past. A guaranteed way to make kids like eating zucchini. Made some today in order to appease my twinge of homesickness.  A more appealing evocation of midwestern dirt than dirt.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake with chocolate chips:

1 c. sugar 

1/2 c. butter

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 c. flour

1/2 c sour cream (I used vanilla yogurt, since I didn't have sour cream)

1/4 c. cocoa

1 tsp soda

2 c. shredded zuke (I used two grocery sized - a little more than 2 cups)

6 oz. chocolate chips

1 c. nuts if you like them. 

Mix it all together and bake at 350 in a 13x9 pan for 40-45 mins or until done.

Can you see the zucchini?