10 Questions for Varian Johnson (Plus a Giveaway!)

14 Comments

The first thing that struck me when I met Varian last October at KitLitCon was that this man has an absolutely fabulous laugh. When he laughs, it rings out across the room, and you can’t help but at least smile, if not laugh along. It was then that I knew I had to interview him. (Didn’t matter that I had never read any of his books!) Thankfully, he was generous enough to give me an ARC of Saving Maddie, which I found to be an interesting, thoughtful read.

And, thankfully, he was kind enough not only to give me an interview, but to include it in the week-long blog tour for the book. Which brings me to this: I have three copies of Saving Maddie to give away to three lucky readers. Just leave a comment (include your email, too, please) about something that struck you from the interview. Oh, and double entries for tweeting this, too (just let me know). You have until March 21st to enter.

Enjoy!

MF: You’re a civil engineer and you write books. Awesome! How do you manage to reconcile/juggle those two (vastly different) careers?
VJ: They actually work pretty well together, most of the time. At least to me, it seems like I work different parts of my brain when I’m designing bridges versus writing a book. Because of this, I don’t feel nearly as wiped out at the end of the day as I would feel if I had a day job in, say, copyediting.

That being said, it can be tough to juggle everything. I try to get up very early in the morning to get my writing done. I’m fresh and eager then, and the idea of having to leave for the day-job really pushes me to take advantage of the little writing time that I have.

MF: What led to your decision to become a writer?
VJ: I always wanted to be a writer. Ever since elementary school, I was always working on short stories, mini-novels, and very bad poetry. But I was also very good at math and science, so when comparing options, being a well-fed engineer seemed like a better life path than becoming a starving author.

However, while in college, I couldn’t shake the writing bug. I eventually begin working on novels while juggling everything else, and was able to start on a manuscript that would become my first published novel.

MF: What was the initial inspiration for Saving Maddie?
VJ: I think Saving Maddie was born from a number of different things. I’ve always been interested in religion, and because I was so adamant on avoiding religion in My Life as a Rhombus (I didn’t want to bog down the novel with the religion versus abortion debate), I was really itching to explore it in my next novel. Also, I really wanted to explore the idea of saving someone, which was also a minor thread in Rhombus. And while Saving Maddie isn’t an autobiographical story, I very much felt like Joshua when I was a teenager—I felt like everyone was trying to force me to be this two-dimensional person. I was the smart one. The good one. I felt like few people saw the real me. But looking back on it, I’d bet that a lot of my classmates felt the same way, and perhaps I was just as guilty of seeing them in very confined ways as they were of seeing me. I found that while I liked most of the characters in the book, I related to Joshua most (says something about me, doesn’t it?).

MF: Do you have a favorite character or scene?
VJ: I don’t have a favorite character, but I have two favorite scene—the motel scenes. Without going into too much detail, I felt that both of these scene were the perfect storm of everything I’d been trying to say in the novel—the combination of love and loss, friendship and sacrifice. In these two scenes, we not only see the real Joshua, but I think we get a glimpse of the man that Joshua is destined to grow into.

MF: In your books, you seem to tackle tough subjects like abortion or religion, and work at finding a balance between all opinions. Is this something you consciously try to do, or is it just the way you look at life/writing/storytelling/issues?
VJ: I try really hard to find a balance between opinions. As an author, I don’t feel it’s my place to dictate want a reader should think or believe. Rather, I want to make it hard for the reader; I want him or her to struggle with what’s going on in the novel, to try to see all sides of an argument. Nothing, not even fiction, is all black and white.

MF: What do you hope people will take away from your book? (Saving Maddie in particular, but all of your books in general…)
VJ: Hmm…that’s a tough question. On one hand, I don’t have any expectations for what people will take away from my novels. Some will read my books for entertainment purposes only, some won’t. Going back to a previous answer, I guess I want my readers to realize that life is complicated; there are no easy answers. What works for one person may not work for another. And that’s okay. We don’t have to agree with everyone’s opinion, but we need to try to respect it.

MF: When did you start blogging? What inspired you to do it? What do you get out of blogging — if anything?
VJ: I started my blog back in the summer of 2005, after hearing author Chris Barton talk about blogging. I wanted a way to interact with the kid-lit community and to talk about my take on the writing life. While I’m not able to blog as much as I’d like, I love how blogging makes me feel so connected to the kid-lit community.

MF: Did you choose to write for a YA audience, and if so, why?
VJ: I would not be a YA author if not for Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger. That novel totally changed the way I thought about the genre. Hard Love is equal parts funny and painful, and while it’s about a straight boy falling in love with a lesbian, it’s so much more than that. I loved the voice and the immediacy of the novel, and I knew after finished it that that was the type of books I wanted to write.

MF: Are there five books — lets be particular here: how about by people of color, since I, in particular, seem to be lacking in that area — you think everyone should read?
VJ: Jumped by Rita Williams-Garcia
Every Time a Rainbow Dies, also by Rita Williams-Garcia
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Tyrell by Coe Booth
If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson

MF: If you don’t mind telling us, what’s next for you?
VJ: I’m actually working on a companion novel to Saving Maddie. I can’t say much about it, other than it’ll be from Madeline’s POV.

Thanks so much for your time, Varian! (And don’t forget about the giveaway!)

And, if you haven’t already, be sure to check out the other stops on the tour.
Melodye Shore in The Author’s Tent.
Reading in Color with Ari.
Gwenda Bond’s Shaken and Stirred
Edi at Crazy Quilts

Library Loot 2010-10

5 Comments

It is well known on my my love for British men. What is less well known is a long-time crush on Andre Agassi. Loved him when I was a teenager, something which continued until his retirement four years ago. Sigh. So, I was incredibly excited when Open showed up at the library for me today. I don’t care if it’s a good book (though it’d be nice if it was, kind of like Sting’s was…). I just want to enjoy Andre for a little bit longer. I’m shameless. 😀

This week’s loot:

Picture Books:
The Goblin and the Empty Chair, by Mem Fox/Illus by Leo and Diane Dillon
Don’t Worry Bear, by Greg Foley
Supersister, by Beth Cadena/Illus by Frank W. Dormer
Have You Ever Seen a Sneep?, by Tasha Pym/Illus by Joel Stewart
Surprise Soup, by Mary Ann Rodman/Illus. by G. Brian Karas

Non-Fiction books:
Open: An Autobiography, by Andre Agassi

Middle Grade Fiction:
Scones and Sensibility, by Lindsay Eland

YA books:
Heist Society, by Ally Carter

Audiobooks:
I don’t often get audiobooks, but we’re going to Oklahoma for a couple of days over spring break, and our new mother-daughter book group is reading The Penderwicks. I thought it’d be a good way to enjoy the drive and get the reread out of the way. Then Hubby complained; he hasn’t read the second book, and wants to. Now we get to duke it out: which one to listen to while driving?!

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, by Jeanne Birdsall
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, by Jeanne Birdsall

The roundup is either at Reading Adventures or A Striped Armchair. Obligatory FTC note: the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I’ll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it’s SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I’m going to keep doing it.

Sugar

9 Comments

by Bernice L. McFadden
ages: adult
First sentence: “Jude was dead.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I don’t quite know what to say about this.

On the one hand, it’s a really well written story about acceptance and redemption (of sorts), of prejudice in a small Southern town, of friendship.

On the other hand, it’s about sex. All kinds of sex. Violent sex. Prostitute sex. Married sex. Lustful sex. How women react to sex. How men need sex. How sex drives so much of what we do.

Sure, the book’s about a prostitute, and it starts with a violent murder/rape. But, I’ve read other books about prostitutes that were less about the sex and more about the person than this book was. It was a bit heavy on the sex for me. Perhaps McFadden meant for it to be this way; perhaps the story couldn’t have been told any other way, but I often felt that the sex was weighing down the story, not allowing the real story — the relationship between our two main characters, Pearl and Sugar, and their respective needs to heal — to come through.

And so, being distracted by all the sex, I wasn’t really able to appreciate what McFadden was attempting to say. Attempting, because I’m not sure she even succeeded without all the sex. The story was well-written — there was some beautiful descriptive language, and sometimes even the vulgarity was used effectively — but meandering. At first, I liked the flashbacks and back story, but by the end, when I as a reader knew more than the characters in the book, it felt wearisome. I wanted more of a redemptive story, and I was given the hopes of one. Then, at the last minute, it was taken away from me; Pearl was sent back into mourning, Sugar went back to her old lifestyle, and Pearl’s husband, Joe, was thrown into the metaphorical fire. Not a happy or even hopeful ending.

However, I’m sure you can chalk this one up to it being just me, for whatever reason.

Shine, Coconut Moon

7 Comments

by Neesha Meminger

ages: 14+
First sentence: “There is a man wearing a turban ringing our doorbell.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

One would expect, in the aftermath of 9/11, a lot more books dealing with the reactions of teens to that event. Perhaps there are a lot out there, but this one was the first one I’ve read that dealt with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the aftermath — not so much the aftermath of loss, but the aftermath of suspicion and racism that was pretty strong for a while (some would argue still is) immediately following the attacks.

Seventeen-year-old Samar — Sammy as her mom and friends call her — is Indian (her family hails from Punjab), but she doesn’t have any connection with her heritage at all. She was raised by a single mom — her father left when she was two — who has severed connections with her uber-strict Sikh family. Her mother has raised Sammy to be an “American” through and through; your typical white, middle class American, that is, with no real sense of her Indian heritage.

And then, the Saturday after 9/11, a turbaned man shows up at Sammy’s house. He turns out to be Sammy’s Uncle Sandeep — her mother’s younger brother — and he sets off a chain of events that lead to Sammy finally question the way her mother’s brought her up, and awakens a desire for her to learn about her heritage, the religion that goes along with that heritage, and her family.

It was an interesting book, taking the issues of assimilation, family and racism head on. Sometimes too head-on; I felt that it had a tendency to get a bit preachy and over-earnest in parts. But, even with that, it was a good story. Sammy’s journey to discover herself — and the conflict that is created by that– is an intriguing one. There’s quite a bit of material for discussion, as well: from the basic outline of Sikhism (and how to pronounce it!) to the knee-jerk reactions of people when it comes to racial stereotypes. It’s a thought-provoking book, which trumps all complaints of heavy-handedness and lack of compelling characters. Which is not something I found I minded.

Sunday Salon: Lists, Battles and Tours: Oh My!

5 Comments

It’s pretty much spring here in Kansas, which means I’m reading less and spending time outside basking in the warm sun. Thankfully, my laptop has a high enough wireless reception that I can take it outside and catch up on all the fun stuff that’s going on this month.

First of all, if you haven’t been following Fuse #8’s Top 100 Children’s Fiction Book list, why not? It’s been a lot of fun to see what’s shown up. There have been lots of books that I’ve thought “Oh, man! Should have put that one on my list!”, a couple that I’ve never heard of and at least one (Order of the Phoenix?!) that I’ve said “Huh. Why that one?” Betsy’s put an amazing amount of work into this, and it shows. (Speaking of Betsy, check out the Forbes article: The Double Life of Betsy Bird. Way cool that a kidlit blogger’s made it *that* big!)

Since we’re all feeling the void that the Cybils finishing has left in our lives (well, I am), it’s a good thing that we have both School Library Journal’s Battle of the Kids Books and Nerds Heart YA coming up. You can nominated books for Nerds Heart YA (link goes directly to the nominating form; stop by the blog for guidelines). Like Liz at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy, I had a hard time following this last year, only catching some of the judges decision. Thankfully, they took care of the problem this year by setting up its own blog. And, for those of you on Twitter, a Twitter account. And, in a really cool difference from last year, we get to vote a book back from the dead (zombie books… oooh…) in the Battle of the Kids books. The catch is that we have to do it before the battle starts. So, go, and choose wisely my friends. (Did I mention that they’re on Twitter, too? They are!)

Finally (last but not least), there are two tours of going on this week. First, Varian Johnson’s book Saving Maddie is released this week, and he’s going on a blog tour. There’s some great stops on the tour (okay, I’m one of them… but really, it sounds like a good tour)… be sure to check it out. From They Call Me Mr. V:

Monday: I’ll be discussing religion, stereotypes and cover art with Melodye Shore in The Author’s Tent.

Tuesday: I’ll be debuting the Saving Maddie Playlist at Reading in Color with Ari. (This is also Release Day. And my birthday.)

Wednesday: I’ll be at Gwenda Bond’s Shaken and Stirred, where I’ll be talking about my writing process for Saving Maddie. (FYI–Gwenda is also a graduate of Vermont College, and is AWESOME.)

Thursday: I’ll be at Book Nut with Melissa, where I’ll be answering questions like, “What’s my favorite scene?”

Friday: I’ll be talking to a student interviewer at Crazy Quilts.

And secondly, it’s time for Share a Story – Shape a Future. The tour begins tomorrow and runs through Friday. (Shameless self-promotion: Jen Robinson asked me to be a part of her day on Friday, so do check back!) This year’s theme is It Takes a Village to Raise a Reader. Do follow along, either on the blog or on Twitter at #sas2010. I’m sure there will be many great posts and great ideas about sharing books with children.

And that’s about it for me, this week. I’m off to go outside and enjoy the day. Hope you are, too!

Howards End

2 Comments

by E. M. Forester
ages: adult
First sentence: “One may as well begin with Helen’s letters to her sister.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Quick memory: I first read this book when Hubby and I moved from Utah to Washington, DC. In one of those weird quirks of time and space (especially since I usually get very carsick if I’m not constantly looking out the window), I was able to read this while we were driving the moving truck across the country. I remember two things about my impressions the book: I liked it and I thought it wasn’t anything like the movie.

I can’t speak for the movie part anymore (though I’m going to re-watch it soon), but I still quite liked the book. If you haven’t read it, it’s the story of two sisters — Margaret and Helen Schlegel. They’re half German, middle class women in their mid- to late- twenties (old maids in Austen’s books, anyway), liberal in their thought. It’s only when they cross paths with two families — one old-school wealthy (the Wilcoxes) and one definitely lower class (the Basts) — that their ordered lives, as well as their philosophy, get thrown into a tailspin.

The thing that struck me most this time around (perhaps it struck me last time, too) was that this not only a book about the class divide in early-20th-century England, but it was also a book about the connections that are made between people. Margaret meets Mrs. Wilcox, which impresses Mrs. Wilcox enough that she wills Howards End to Margaret. This in turn sets the rest of the family off (because it’s just not “done”), which in turn leads the family to interact with the Schlegel sisters, which leads to Margaret’s falling in love with and marrying Mr. Wilcox. In turn, Leonard Bast accidentally meets the Schlegel sisters, and that in turn, eventually changes the course of his life. It’s fascinating seeing all the intricate connections that Forester weaves through the book.

And it works, I think, because Forester is such an astute writer. He doesn’t dribble on like Dickens (sorry), and he’s not as brilliantly pointed as Austen. But, he is observant about people’s characters and, perhaps most of all, their motivations. He is able to get inside a character, so much so that you understand them, even if you don’t like them all that much. And that is what really drives this story, making all the various elements in it work well together. Which is good, because I’m not sure, in the end, that this is a truly memorable story with a memorable plot and memorable characters.

That’s not to say it’s not a good book; it is. It’s just not one that I think I’ll talk about and think about for quite a while.

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

6 Comments

by Louise Rennison
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Dad had Uncle Eddie round, so naturally they had to come and see what I was up to.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Sometimes, you get everything you want out of life. But most of the time — as 14 (well, almost 15)-year-old Georgia Nicholson is finding out — your little sister just leaves her dirty nappies in your bed. Georgia’s trying to wade in the murky waters of makeup (without sticking the mascara brush in her eye), first loves (she’s crushing hard on Robbie, whom she calls the Sex God), and learning how to kiss (oh… SO funny). And, while she mostly is okay, sometimes she’s well… not.

This book, as pointed out by my dear friend Corinne at The Book Nest, is drink-spittingly funny. Snort, chortle, guffaw, too. Sure, it’s not a deep book by any means (what book where the main character spends the entire book obsessing about a boy is?), and yeah, I did get annoyed with Georgia (c’mon girl, cut your parents a break!)… but between the Britishness of it all (oh, I need to use “nuddy-pants” in a conversation now!), as well as the sheer insanity of Georgia and her friends (she shaves off her eyebrows! Had me in stitches.), I couldn’t help but really, really like this book.

Double cool with knobs, definitely.

Library Loot 2010-09

10 Comments

Back to normal, and still a smallish trip. There just aren’t enough hours in the day anymore.

This week’s loot:

Picture Books:
Let’s Say Hi to Friends Who Fly! (Cat the Cat), by Mo Willems
Cat the Cat, Who Is That?, by Mo Willems
Angelina Ice Skates, by Katharine Holabird/Illus by Helen Craig
Boy Dumplings, by Ying Chang Comepstine/Illus. by James Yamasaki
Here Comes Jack Frost, by Kazuno Kohara
Princess Hyacinth (The Surprising Tale of a Girl Who Floated), by Florence Parry Heide/Illus. by Lane Smith

Middle Grade Fiction:
Kaleidoscope Eyes, by Jen Bryant
Kira (Shadow of the Dragon), by Kate O’Hearn

Adult Fiction:
Sugar: A Novel, by Bernice L. McFadden

The roundup is either at Reading Adventures or A Striped Armchair. Obligatory FTC note: the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I’ll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it’s SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I’m going to keep doing it.

Scarlett Fever

6 Comments

by Maureen Johnson
ages: 12+
First sentence: “So let’s set the scene, shall we?”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

It’s the end of the summer, Hamlet (in the dining room) has closed, and Scarlett is nursing a broken heart. Sure, he was never her boyfriend. And, sure, he was a bit of a cad. But that doesn’t stop her obsessing over him (to the point of watching his commercial on the internet a couple… well, maybe 50… times a night).

And it seems the rest of her life is falling apart, too: she still works for the crazy Mrs. Amberson, whose latest client, Crystal, has a whack-job for a mom and a morose older brother whom Scarlett has the misfortune of being in biology with. Her older brother, Spencer (sigh; I know, he’s only 19, but still!) can’t seem to land an acting job, until he lands a part as the baddie in the TV show Crime and Punishment (a nice tribute to Law and Order). Suddenly, he’s the most hated man in New York. Her older sister Lola seems to be going off the deep end, wandering aimless through her life. And — possibly scariest of all — her younger sister, Marlene, is being… nice.

After the slowish beginning (in which I try to remember what Suite Scarlett was about without rereading it), the book picked up speed, and I fell into Maureen Johnson’s wonderful writing style: full of patter, swooning, humor and intelligent asides. About two-thirds of the way, I started wondering how on earth MJ was going to wrap the story up; there seemed to be a lot more loose threads than a book could adequately wrap up. And I was right: she doesn’t. I do have to admit I was a bit disappointed: instead of ending the book, MJ seems to just… stop it. Which, while exciting and all (can’t wait for the next book), is also frustrating. I don’t mind series and sequels, but I do like to have each individual story tidily wrapped up.

But that’s a minor quibble. It’s the Martins (who are still quirkily wonderful), it’s a fabulous portrait of New York City, it’s happiness in a purple cover. You don’t hear me complaining (much).

Frankie Pickle and the Pine Run 3000

Leave a comment

by Eric Wight
ages: 8-10
First sentence: “Presenting… the Prince of Peril… the Sultan of Suspense… the Duke of Danger… the Amazing Piccolini!”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy sent to me by the author.

Frankie and his super-cool imagination are back at it again. This time, however, his challenge is leveling up in Possum Scouts. He can’t seem to keep up with the badges and won’t get to level up with the rest of his troop. Unless… he can win the annual Pine Run 300.

He knows he can do it, and runs to the hobby store (which includes a hilarious diversion with a lawn gnome) to pick up supplies. He sequesters himself in his room — brushing off his dad’s offer of help — and creates… well… a creation. It’s not quite a car, and in a test run, it completely bombs. Only after his first attempt fails does he turn to his father for help. And in doing so, he discovers that not only is the impossible possible, it’s also kind of cool to do things with your dad.

Told with the same humor and creativity as the first Frankie Pickle, it’s sure to tickle the funny bone of any eight-year-old.