A Conversation With William Brewster

It was a year ago today that I visited Plimoth Plantation in Massachussetts for the first time in several years, and for the first time since I had really taken an interest in the Pilgrims -- particularly in the Allerton family. I was quite hoping to meet Isaac Allerton, but he was back in England on business. I could hardly be disappointed, though; I got to meet all sorts of wonderfully cool Pilgrims, one of whom was William Brewster, and he sure had a lot to say. He talked to me (and my grandparents, who had brought me to the Plantation as a birthday gift) about how he had been put on trial. This conversation really is such a wonderful memory for me. Being so in love with the study of foreign languages, particularly Dutch, I asked him whether he had learnt to speak it during his time in Holland. On the contrary, he had not been amongst those who had lived in Holland; I was mistaken. But, he told me, the little Allerton children had learnt to speak Dutch.

"Isaac Allerton is a cousin of mine," I said, utterly delighted.

He looked amazed.

"No!" he exclaimed. "Really?" Then, looking at me carefully, he added, "I cannot see the resemblance."

After chatting for a while longer, his expression became thoughtful and he asked me, "Are you a schoolgirl? It is hard to judge your age."

"I'll turn fifteen in about a week," I told him.

"Ah! Well! I think I can see it now! You do look like him; your smile, you have the same smile!"

That was such an amazingly wonderful day. I am aching to go back there, and maybe my cousin Isaac Allerton will have returned from England when I finally do.

~Emily

About Reviewing

I am going into reviewer withdrawal, which is this crazy thing having to do with my going the whole summer without being assigned a book and actually missing reviewing so much that I just write reviews of novels to pass the time. Well, it can't hurt, I suppose. Having a file of reviews may come in handy sometime (I have been in the position of writing a review on demand).

The most rewarding part of reviewing is being assigned wonderful books that I would probably never have discovered (or bothered to finish reading) otherwise. This has been the case with most of the books that I reviewed (particularly Every Crooked Pot by Renee Rosen, The Mystery of the Third Lucretia by Susan Runholt, The Game of My Life by Jason McElwain, and The Shadow Companion by Laura Anne Gilman), but of course there is sometimes a bad book. I use the word bad for its generous pool of meanings: I have read novels that were violent, vulgar, utterly traumatizing, gruesomely inappropriate for the targeted age group. When that happens I just have to keep in mind that it is actually work ... and must be done. Horrific content tends to slide off my shoulders more easily with that thought in mind.

The magazine (Voice of Youth Advocates or VOYA) has a rating system -- Q for Quality and P for Popularity, two factors judged on a numerical basis of one to five -- five being the highest. There was one book I disliked so much that I gave it a big fat one for Quality. My review was basically a dainty articulation of "This book should not be read -- no matter what, where, and who the reader may be." One day I was chatting with a writer (who is now a great friend of mine) and mentioned my reviewing said book, and how horrible I had found it. When I named the book and its author, this author said, "Oh, yes, I know her!"

"What? Well, don't tell her what I said!" I squeaked. She assured me that she wouldn't, and I think she will stick to her word.

All in all, the bottom line is that reviewing (at least in my case) makes for a lot of fun.

~Emily

Farewells -- Old and New

Today is the anniversary of the death of Steve Irwin (and surely you know all about him -- played with crocodiles and venom-spewing snakes for a living). I remember hearing the news two years ago and feeling absolutely amazed. He had always been a spark in my life; nobody to whom I paid a tremendous amount of attention but who I liked and who had always been there to make people laugh and smile and freak out over how utterly messed up a person had to be to do what he did, but still, he always came out all right .... and life seemed different without him; I was disturbed in a distant but lingering manner that still returns sometimes. I don't know. Steve Irwin was just so cool and really should be alive today.

(Once, at the age of ten, I was watching him and decided I wanted to be just like him. At that point my mind was changing pretty quickly -- never really settling on any one particular goal, whether it was getting the laundry into the dryer or going to the beach or becoming a novelist. I didn't think too long about taking on a role like Steve Irwin's, but I think I'll always remember that.)

I learnt from http://journal.neilgaiman.com (thanks to Dan Guy the Webgoblin, caretaker of the blog for now) that Geoffrey Perkins, producer of the marvelous BBC radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was killed in a road accident on August twenty-ninth.

This makes me truly sad -- because I can hardly emphasize how much better I always felt about anything and everything after listening to the voices of Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern, Mark Wing-Davey, and everyone else who helped to shape the wild but wholesome world of Douglas Adams.

So I guess I'm off to gag down my daily dose of algebra (because, you know, I have to). Keep Geoffrey Perkins and Steve Irwin in mind.

~Emily

Babies, Books, and Birthdays

Of my three brothers, William is the youngest, and he turns seven today. I can hardly believe it; I mean, seven is a lot older than six. We started school a few days ago and I was simply amazed at how much William seemed to have learnt over the summer -- I had no idea that he could read so well. And now that he is seven, he will probably be reading books like the Magic Tree House series and Junie B. Jones on his own .... Sob. I can't believe he is seven.

On another literary note, the other night I finished reading The Death of Jayson Porter by Jaime Adoff. This is a book that should be read. Period (except for those who find they can't stomach hard-core content).

I've been rereading It's Not the End of the World by Judy Blume. I love that book.

This morning was spent playing with my four-year-old friend and his baby brother; and during all this fun, the boys' mother told me she was expecting another baby!

I'm a sucker for babies -- the kind of person who gasps with raw emotion when she sees one ....

I shrieked and threw my arms around her.

Wish William (who will always be my baby) a Happy Birthday in your heads.

~Emily

Some More About Books (Sorry)

The other night I finished Patricia McCormick's Cut and am really stunned by how marvelous it was. Seriously, if you liked Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, you'll love Cut, which, although the two books share many elements, shines on its own.

I am currently in the middle of The Death of Jayson Porter by Jaime Adoff. This is a truly enthralling and gruesome read.

Yesterday I bought a copy of Huge, the novel I mentioned on here a few days ago (alongside The Patron Saint of Butterflies). It's a very flighty read (although it does competently address some serious issues, such as the emotional baggage that can come with being a fat teenager), and I enjoyed it so much that I really wanted my own copy. (I sometimes love fluffy YA books -- and also hard-core novels, like The Death of Jayson Porter.)

Last night I mustered the courage to watch the entire Snow White play on video (my mother had recorded from the front of the crowd). I can barely stand to watch myself perform, especially since plays tend not to translate well to film. After all, theatre and film are too enormously different mediums.

Sorry about all the book blogging. Maybe it will come in useful to some, though ... read Cut (especially if you liked Speak).

~Emily

Reading

The play turned out wonderfully, although I feel guilty for forgetting to say an important line during the second performance. But the entire cast were so exhausted that I have a feeling I can be forgiven.

Last night I finished reading Cecilia Galante's The Patron Saint of Butterflies. It is a very strange book. There was something that kept me at a distance from the entire story -- the characters, the setting, everything -- but at the same time, I was compelled the entire time I was reading it. It is just an extremely strange but fascinating novel.

And this morning I completed Huge by Sasha Paley. This one was a lot of fun; it doesn't have much moral to it, and is rather flighty, but I enjoyed it so much that I kind of wish I could begin once again and read it all the way through without remembering even a single chapter. You know how some books are ....

The Patron Saint of Butterflies and Huge are two extremely different novels, and I liked them both in very different ways.

Today I entered the library hoping to find Julie Halpern's Get Well Soon and take it home, since I read almost half of it in the library already, but someone had checked it out! I knew I shouldn't have left it on display with the New YA Books, for all the hungry teenage readers to see ....

~Emily

With a Yo Hi Ho Hi Ho

I am the Queen in my town's production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. My throat hurts from the Evil Laugh and all the screaming but I am definitely having a lot of fun. The directors insist that I "conserve" and "rest" my voice, as they claim to have chosen me for the role mainly for my speaking voice.



I love being told that people enjoy my speaking voice. I love nice speaking voices and to have one, I've often thought, would be such a great gift. I really feel so wonderful when I hear that people enjoy listening to my own voice.



(Amongst my very favorite speaking voices is that of Mr. Neil Gaiman, whose audiobooks are always worth listening to.)



I have never seen the entire Disney version of Snow White, having believed, up until the age of perhaps ten or eleven, that it was one of the scariest kids' movies out there. The queen absolutely terrified both me and my brother Benjamin, and we were living under the impression that all queens were evil.

I can't emphasize enough how wonderful it feels to be sitting in the library after a day of rehearsing.

The performance is on Saturday ... I am looking forward to it and just about have every solitary line memorized.

I am off to do nice, relaxing things now, like reading Philip Pullman's The Shadow in the North and customer reviews on Amazon.

~Emily