James Herriot Centenary (Review of Herriot's Treasury for Children)

Today is the centenary of James Herriot, the wonderful vet and writer from Yorkshire. Born a hundred years ago today (October 3, 1916) as James Alfred Wight, he took the pen name of Herriot and produced wonderful stories about his life in the Yorkshire dales. I've loved them for many years and have been enjoying much of his writing again lately, during a season in my life when I've needed his kind of humor, beauty, and comfort.

In honor of the day, I went to my archives and pulled together the review I wrote of his Treasury for Children. I originally posted the review on Epinions.com ten years ago, after enjoying the book with my then four year old. She and I read it together for many years following, and she still keeps it on her shelf, even as a teenager. I hope you'll enjoy this old review!

Kittens, Dogs, Horses, and Sheep...and All in the Beautiful English Countryside
 
A number of years ago I spent some time visiting farms in the beautiful English countryside. Well, okay, I'll be honest -- I've never actually been to England. But I've certainly felt as though I've visited there because of the numerous trips I've taken through beloved books. Whereas some of my favorite English literary landscapes are completely fictional, I've also enjoyed visiting the very real Yorkshire farms of James Herriot's story collections All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful and The Lord God Made Them All. These wonderful collections, beautifully shaped memoir-based narratives of a rural veterinarian, were originally published from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s.

In the mid to late 1980s, I read all four volumes, delighting in the keen observations and clear prose of James Herriot and in the funny and often touching stories he told about animals he'd cared for over the years (as well as their owners)! These stories had such flavor and such narrative shape that it's clear he must have "tweaked" some details here and there, but in general they were autobiographical. James Herriot was the pen name of James Alfred Wright (1916-1995) who served as a vet in the county of Yorkshire for many years, beginning in 1939 upon his graduation from Glasgow Veterinary College.

From 1984 to 1991, a series of children's picture books by James Herriot were published, one each year for a total of eight. These stories were culled from the larger grown-up story collections from the All Creatures Great and Small series. I remember a number of these books from when they appeared, large hardbacks, beautifully illustrated. I bought one of them for myself when I was in high school and I also used to read some of them to my young nieces and nephews, now grown.

In 1992, St. Martin's Press published all eight of the previously released picture books in one volume entitled James Herriot's Treasury for Children. Unlike some "treasuries," this one doesn't edit out anything. All eight stories are here with all their original illustrations, even the ones on the title pages. Basically they simply took all eight books, stitched them together, then added a table of contents and a new cover. I had no idea that one could read all eight of these treasures in one volume so I was completely excited to find it at our local library! Having spent a few pleasurable hours last week reading (and re-reading) some of these gems to my daughter, I have decided I really want to purchase this book for our home collection.

The Stories

Here's what you get in this delightful volume: the complete picture books of Moses the Kitten; Only One Woof; The Christmas Day Kitten; Bonny's Big Day; Blossom Comes Home; The Market Square Dog; Oscar, Cat-About-Town; and Smudge, the Little Lost Lamb.

The first two stories are illustrated by Peter Barrett and the final six by Ruth Brown. Though I prefer the Brown illustrations overall, both illustrators provide fine, detailed paintings that bring the animals, people and rural landscapes of the stories to vibrant life. Brown seems better at capturing more whimsical moments and her people are more realistic looking, especially in their expressions.

Most of the stories are narrated by Herriot, who tells each tale from his perspective as a country vet. Usually the action takes place during one of his visits to a family farm to help an ailing animal, though for the most part the story centers not on the sick animal but on another interesting or unusual animal on the farm.

Moses the Kitten is the story of a bedraggled half-frozen scrap of a kitten brought back to health in the warm stove of a farmer's wife's kitchen. On subsequent visits, Mr. Herriot is astonished to see which barnyard animal has become the kitten's surrogate mother!

Only One Woof is the sweet and funny tale of Gyp and Sweep, sheepdog brothers. Sweep gets sold, but the farmer keeps Gyp who turns out to be hard-working, loyal, and almost completely silent. In all the years they have him, his family only hears him bark one time. Mr. Herriot is on hand for the momentous event and relates it in his poignant style.

And speaking of poignancy, The Christmas Day Kitten tells the story of a stray cat who wanders into the Pickerings' farmhouse for food and momentary warmth by the fireplace, but who refuses to ever stay. One Christmas morning she shows up again, half-dead but carrying a tiny kitten in her mouth. She clearly wants to bequeath her kitten to the household before she dies. Buster grows into a fine looking cat who loves to torment Mrs. Pickering's basset hounds (some of the best illustrations in the entire treasury).

Bonny's Big Day takes us out of the realm of dogs and cats and into the world of cart horses. Bonny is a retired cart horse, and she and another retired horse, Dolly, are much beloved by Farmer John, an eccentric but kind man who recalls his their hard-working years with touching gratitude. When Mr. Herriot suggests that Farmer John enter Bonny in the "family pets" category of the upcoming animal show, Farmer John is skeptical. At least at first...

Blossom Comes Home is one of the funniest stories in the collection. It's really a tribute to the stubbornness and cleverness of a cow named Blossom who simply refuses to acquiesce to the fact that she's been sold!

The Market Square Dog is probably my four year old's favorite. A brown mongrel with pleading eyes and a winning manner can often be found begging at the local farmer's market. One day he's struck by a car and hurt. Mr. Herriot is able to fix his broken leg, but will the sweet little beggar dog ever be able to find a loving home?

Oscar, Cat-About-Town is unusual because it concerns a cat that the Herriot family (James and his wife Joan) actually adopt for a while. They discover, however, that Oscar isn't content to stay at home even though he loves them. Oscar loves to roam about town and to join in group activities like rummage sales and soccer games! This story provides another of my favorite illustrations, of tabby Oscar sitting up and trying to bat the sliding trombone being played in the local brass band.

Finally, there's Smudge, the Little Lost Lamb. This is the only story in the collection told completely in the third person, and though I miss Herriot's first person narration, it's still a very sweet story. Young Harry, Farmer Cobb's son, is given one of the new lambs on the farm as his very own. But one day the curious creature squeezes outside the fence and can't get back in. We follow him on his exciting and sometimes perilous adventures (he even comes face to face with a bull!) until the satisfying conclusion when he makes it home again.

********

So who are these stories for?

That may seem like an odd question since these are all part of a treasury "for children" but it's worth asking. The subject matter, the simple plots, the warmth and sweetness Herriot brings to each story, and the colorful and detailed illustrations all make these terrific picture books for kids. But they are not "easy reads." They're long, for starters -- each one takes at least ten and sometimes as much as fifteen minutes to read aloud, and there's plenty of text per page. And the vocabulary is challenging for young children; in pulling these stories from his collections for older readers, he did not dumb down the language in any way, bless him. I almost wonder if they've gone through any significant adaptation at all. It's unusual but somehow stimulating to find prose like this in a contemporary book marketed for children:

I had driven through and, streaming-eyed, was about to get back in the car when I noticed something unusual. There was a frozen pond just off the path and among the rime-covered rushes which fringed the dead opacity of the surface a small object stood out, shiny black.

Or this:

He was stepping daintily along the display tables, inspecting the old shoes, books, pictures, ornaments, crockery, and he looked really happy. Now and then he cocked his head on one side when something caught his fancy.

I have a feeling these books were originally marketed for children 4-8 or perhaps 6-10, and even though some of the vocabulary will be over the heads of the younger listeners in that range, the flowing cadence and the winning stories will carry them along. These make marvelous read-alouds and they'll learn words from context. (My four year old listened to some of them while quietly playing or drawing, and that worked really well.) If your child can sit through Beatrix Potter (who uses words like "implore" and "exert" with great gusto!) then she will likely enjoy James Herriot. Meanwhile, there's much here for older children and adults to enjoy. I love them as much if not more than my little girl. So yes, it's a children's treasury, but it's also a family treasury.

If you love animals and enjoy good writing, then you'll no doubt enjoy a trip to Yorkshire with James Herriot as your guide. He paints each anecdote with warmth and shows a tender understanding of the fascinating "personalities" of all kinds of animals, as well as a real regard for the people who love them and take care of them.

And he really makes me want to go to Yorkshire.

Happy traveling!

James Herriot's Treasury for Children
Illustrated by Peter Barrett and Ruth Brown
St. Martin's Press, 1992

In Memory

Yesterday, a local musician/singer passed away at the age of 65.

We had seen him perform a few times at the Shaker Festival we attend in Ohio every fall. Actually, when I say see him perform, I really meant we would sometimes stroll past the stage and listen to a song or two. Because it was a "Christmas in October" festival theme, sometimes he was performing Christmas carols. Other times he just covered popular tunes. He had a nice voice, and we liked him, but we knew local friends who had grown up in the area who really adored him. I think there was a special "western PA" connection that people had with him which we, as native Virginians, never quite felt.

I mention this because we saw him again recently, not on stage, but at the cancer center where I am regularly treated. We were in the treatment area so I could get my immunotherapy, and he was in the next chair getting chemo treatments. He looked familiar to us, but we couldn't quite place him. Then some local fans started coming up to introduce themselves and to say how much they loved his work, and the penny dropped.

Even though we then recognized him, and it would have been easy to say, "Oh, we've heard you several times at the Ohio festival!" we opted not to. He seemed very tired that day, and something he said to a woman who was a bit gushing with him indicated to us that he was not entirely thrilled that people were coming up to him while he was in the middle of treatment. He wasn't rude - in fact, both he and his wife, sitting next to him, were very gracious to everyone who talked with them. But you just got the sense that he would have preferred a little privacy, or so D and I agreed when we talked about it later.

I am thinking of his wife a lot today. I know how much love the people who sit in those accompanying roles have. I know they are often the anxious looking ones, the ones who jump up and fetch what the person in treatment needs, the ones who ask the nurses questions and advocate with the doctors and sometimes leap into the middle of patient-doctor conversations to say "well, this is how he's been feeling lately," or "she said last week she felt this way." I know from all that my husband and sister have done for me, how much every cancer patient owes to anyone who comes with them and sits with them through treatment, loving them through the moments when they are allowing toxicity into their bodies in the hopes that it will kill what needs to be killed without hurting anything else.

And I am thinking of him too. The obituary said he had an inoperable brain tumor and was diagnosed in 2007, which means he and wife had been living with the reality of that for nine years. Nine years is a long time to fight, a long time to stay on the mat. A long time to go through treatment, particularly in the knowledge that it might or might not make much difference in the end. I don't know, but I hope it made some good difference. I hope it gave him some years he wouldn't have had otherwise, and some pain relief. I hope it gave him more time to sing his songs and more reason to sing.

And now I am thinking of -- and praying for -- not just this family affected by cancer, but every family afffected by it, including my own. I am remembering that every time I go to the cancer center, the person I sit next to has a story to tell whether or not they choose to tell it (sometimes all it takes is a sympathetic smile and a question for some people to tell their story, or sometimes they ask you for yours and then tell you theirs, and sometimes they'd obviously rather not talk at all). I am remembering that the person sitting next to me may have been on their journey a long time or a short time. They may be facing the incredible news they are on the road to healing,  or the news that they will soon die. They all need prayer, every single one of them, just as I do. They are all thankful for the love of whomever is with them and for the incredible care from the nurses and doctors.

It takes courage to get through illness, courage I never thought about very deeply until I needed to find it, and until I spent time watching other people find it too.

From Mary Oliver today:

"No, I'd never been to this country
before. No, I didn't know where the roads
would lead me. No, I didn't intend to
turn back."

The Power of Poetry: Billy Collins' The Lanyard

Here's the power of poetry: a friend of mine posted a funny picture on Facebook this morning. It was a macrame owl, and he made the joking comment that macrame was making a comeback. Seeing that little rainbow colored owl suddenly made me think of all the sweet but rather lame craft type projects I did in the 70s and 80s, things like weaving strips of cloth together to make pot holders, putting together leather bracelets at the camp craft hut, or carefully gluing together popsicle sticks to make...well, something.

And all of that suddenly triggered the memory of Billy Collins' beautiful poem, The Lanyard.  Collins is a master at taking something ordinary, even something ordinary and a little lame, and turning it round and round so you see all its facets. As though this thing, this moment, that we thought was so ordinary, turns out to be a diamond, because in it we see ourselves and our lives in a new way that is not at all ordinary and might even be profound.

The poem begins with these words:

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

*****

And it  ends with these words:

And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

If you've never read the poem in its entirety, you can find it here at The Writer's Almanac.

It's a poem I've loved for a long time, but this was the first time I'd read it since my mother's passing, and I find that I love it even more. The poem hasn't changed, but I have, and I needed to remember its unworn truths -- not just that we can't repay our mothers (the "worn truth" he admits as the obvious takeaway) but the audacity of our childhood love.

Of course the gift of a lanyard could never "make us even" with the huge, giving generosity poured on us by a loving parent. But here's the wonderful thing I see, from the vantage point of my own motherhood and the vantage point of losing my own dear mother -- a mother doesn't see such gifts as "useless" or "worthless" and that is *part* of the generosity and grace she gives. The poem's narrator looks back ruefully with adult eyes, recognizing how much he owes his mother, and maybe how ungrateful he sometimes was at different times in his life, or how oblivious -- and that in itself is a gift.

But I would be willing to bet that the mother's view of that gift when he gave it is much different than his view of it now. I would be willing to bet that she laughed over that clumsy lanyard (not in his presence) and put it away like a treasured jewel to be brought out years later, when she remembered not so much the gift itself, but the precious boy who gave it to her, and she reflected on how quickly he had grown, and how amazing that he had turned into a man who could grace the world with beautifully made things (like poems) and how good it was of God to have given her the chance to raise him.

And I remember a home movie of my own mother, on a Christmas morning (before I was even born) accepting the gift of some plastic roses from the hand of my older sister or brother (I can't remember which one handed them to her). Her face as she took those plastic blossoms was just luminous. She leaned in and pretended to smell them, and then she reached down and hugged that child with a gratitude that even now, fifty-some years later, feels palpably real and loving.

The Love of Annotated Book Lists (and Blessing the Memory of Gladys Hunt)

This morning, the sweet girl was lingering at the breakfast table (oh, happy summer days!) perusing Gladys Hunt's Honey for a Child's Heart. It makes my own heart very happy to see that she has inherited her mother's love for reading annotated book lists. It's one of my favorite reading past-times, and a great way to discover more books I want to read!

My twelve year old daughter (yes indeed, I can say that now...the birthday weekend festivities are now behind us!) noted that the author Gladys Hunt had also written a book called Honey for a Teen's Heart, and asked if I could find a copy for her. I went looking in our library system, which seldom fails me, but today I could only turn up the earlier edition of that book, from 1992, with a slightly different title. The 2002 revised edition is for sale in various places, and I think I am going to swing a copy from Advanced Book Exchange and chalk it up to a school year purchase. I have always liked Hunt's lists...not only trustworthy book choices (and fun to read annotations) but usually accompanied by small but cogent essays on the importance of reading, why and how we read for best enrichment, ways to discern good qualities in literature, and so on.

Since the last edition of Honey for a Teen's Heart came out in 2002, the year my own almost-teen (gulp) was born, I went looking to see if perhaps there was a third edition in the works. Alas, I see that Mrs. Hunt, rest her soul, passed away in 2010 at the age of 83. Though saddened to hear that news, it was edifying to read her obituary and to discover that in addition to writing these great books for families, she and her husband had a long and fruitful ministry with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship for many years. I was also happy to see that her archived blog from Tumblr is still up, with many good posts about children's and young adult literature.

All of this is making me wonder where I can find good book lists (of the trustworthy and spiritually-rich variety) on young people's literature since 2002. I'm sure there are many blogs and other online resources, and perhaps some new collections too. As I begin to hunt that down, I will report back any finds here!  I may also, of course, need to begin my own annotated list.

Remembering Madeleine L'Engle (Nov 29, 1918-Sept 6, 2007)

It's not often that I can remember what I was doing exactly five years ago, but this evening I can. It was five years ago today that Madeleine L'Engle passed away, moving from this earth to glory.

She meant so much to me as a person and a writer than her loss felt huge. I spent most of this evening, five years ago, crying and re-reading favorite portions of her books ~ which still take up a proportionately large section of my shelves.

I find it interesting that this day slipped up on me almost unawares, and yet I have had Madeleine on my mind and heart almost all week, as I'm working on the outline of a book that would potentially explore her work and the work of several other authors. 

Instead of trying to say anything moving and profound tonight (when I am, quite honestly, very stressed and tired) I thought I would post a few things from my archives. I have shared about Madeleine a good bit over the years.

Here's a post I wrote in honor of A Wrinkle in Time's 50th anniversary several months ago. It's in the form of a letter to Madeleine.

And this was the initial reflection I posted the day after she died, which I entitled, "For Madeleine, May All Her Seasons Be Blessed."  As I wrote there:

Her writing has shaped me and helped me in so many ways. She helped me think about life in terms of seasons; she helped me learn to order my time and count it as precious. She taught me the importance of names and naming, and what a precious gift it is to be given the gift of someone's name. She taught me to hope and believe that marriage, even or especially in its difficult times, could still grow and flourish. She reminded me to be honest in my prayers. Time and again, she returned my focus to God's amazing love for his beloved creation, and especially turned my eyes again and again to the incarnation and the wonderful gift of Jesus.

So thankful for her life. I still miss her.

Happy 100th Birthday, Gene Kelly!

It's the centennial birthday of Eugene Curran Kelly, known affectionately as Gene. The landmark dancer, choreographer, singer, actor, director, and producer was a Pittsburgh native. His alma mater, University of Pittsburgh, marked the occasion by giving umbrellas to their 3,000+ incoming freshmen and having them dance on the lawn.

It was a sunny day here today, no rain in sight, but that didn't stop our family from singing and dancing in the rain in our hearts...and watching the celebrated movie on video.

Gene Kelly is one of my favorite screen actors of all time. I've written numerous reviews of his movies from the 1940s and 50s, but I saved Singin' in the Rain for today: the classic 1952 film he co-directed, choreographed and starred in. Here's my take on the best movie musical of all time.

And here's a high-definition video clip of the joyous and always memorable title sequence.

Happy Birthday, Gene!

Remembering Maurice Sendak

One of the first books I remember really loving as a child was Maurice Sendak's Pierre. I know he was most famous for Where the Wild Things Are (what a rumpus!) and In the Night Kitchen, but I loved his stubbornly apathetic Pierre. "The lion took him home to rest and stayed on as a weekend guest," was one of my favorite lines in all of literature when I was a little girl. I also think it may have been the beginning of my understanding of how a story could have a "moral." CARE. And such a simple, profound moral it was, for all of us who had ever back-talked our moms in bored tones, sat backwards in our chairs, poured syrup in our hair -- or wanted to.

I also enjoyed Chicken Soup With Rice, another book in Sendak's little "nutshell" library. Perhaps my first understanding of personification? "In March the wind blows down the door and spills my soup upon the floor. It laps it up and roars for more!"

I was thinking a lot about these little books yesterday after I heard the news that Mr. Sendak had passed away at the age of 83. Truly the end of a chapter in children's literature.

In honor of his memory, I thought I would post links to two reviews I wrote some time ago. One is to a review of Sendak's book of essays Caldecott & Co.: Notes on Books and Pictures.  The other is to a review of the Leonard Marcus edited Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom (the great children's literature editor at Harper's who discovered Sendak when he was designing windows at FAO Schwarz).

Sendak was an amazing example of someone who took anxiety and fear and channeled them through an artistic process that gave life, hope, enjoyment and catharsis to so many. R.I.P. Mr. Sendak. You will be missed.

Poem

I just found out that a very dear man passed away last night. He turned 98 years old yesterday, and he is one of my sister's closest friends (more like family than friend). He was active and vibrant until almost the end. I had the privilege of getting to know him and his beautiful wife many years ago.

Thinking about him today, and about precious friendships and how quickly life passes, even when we're given a longer-than-usual allotment of years. I found myself trying to remember a certain poem about autumn and loss, but I couldn't recall precisely what it was. So I wrote this instead. It's still a rough draft, but from the heart.

******

A poem is on the tip of my tongue.
A friend has died, and it is October,
the season of loss and deepening cold,
rich orange and red, old brown, bright gold.
A poem is on the tip of my tongue,
but images hover, words escape me.
I can’t even recall if it was one I wrote
or one I discovered late one night
in a pool of yellow lamplight
when I couldn’t sleep
because poetry beckoned.
It called to me then, it calls to me still,
a small gem, a careful bit of art,
a tiny but defiant act of will,
a bit of beauty in the midst of grief,
planted in a book, or loose in sheaf.
What did it say? I’m no pretender.
A poem is on the tip of my tongue,
a friend has died, and I can’t remember
what the poem once said.
I only sense that the words were right,
important, precious, the ones
needed now in this time of grief.
The words drifting past like
a red and orange leaf.
Strange how close they seem,
wind-blown, and with a purpose.

~EMP 10/18/09

Mrs. Jaffee

I just found out that my 11th grade English teacher, who was also my high school creative writing teacher, passed away last week. She was 75 and had been ill with pancreatic cancer.

I haven't seen Mrs. Jaffee in years, probably not since I graduated in 1986. But when my mother sent me the news via email (she and my Dad still live in the town where I grew up, and she had seen the obituary in the newspaper) I felt real grief at her passing. Mrs. Jaffee was the kind of teacher who knew how to shape students for the better by challenging us to be our best. She could drive you a little crazy, yes, but her enthusiasm was catching. She demanded excellent work. And she believed that the best way to help people love reading and writing was to make them read and write. A lot.

I went digging deep down into the oldest layers of my writing files to find a handful of papers I'd saved in high school. A handful of these have Mrs. Jaffee's comments written on them in her bold, red cursive. On the cover sheet of a story I wrote for Creative Writing in October 1984, I find this: "You captured the essence of excitement and wonder and put me there with you." Followed by "Fix awkward areas." :-)

On another short story I wrote for the creative writing final exam the following June, I find these words: "I got chills reading this. It's beautiful."

She was one of the first people to ever read and respond to things I wrote in a way that made me feel I could really write. In ways that helped me to know I could move someone emotionally. In ways that helped me know I could learn to write better.

And yes, I did say creative writing final exam. Bizarre, I know, but hey, my high school never made sense. Every class we were in enrolled in (except perhaps gym or study hall) was assigned its mid-term and final exam periods, even a subject like Creative Writing which would seem to be nigh unto impossible to 'test' students in. But Mrs. Jaffee found a way to make those exam periods count. In fact, she made them downright enjoyable and exciting, at least to a student like me who loved to write. Her "exams" consisted of bringing out a big bag full of clippings: photos, headlines, tiny little feature story bits from the newspaper. She'd spread them all over the table, call us up in little groups or clusters to choose an image or some words that inspired us, and send us back to our desk with pen and as much paper as we needed. And for the next hour and a half, we'd write our little hearts out, producing a story.

During my junior year, I had her for English. That was the year we focused on American Literature. At one point in the course she had each of us choose one modern American author on which to really focus -- we had to read 1,000 pages, I think, of the chosen author. She wanted me to tackle Michener, I seem to remember, and was a little disappointed when I went for Ayn Rand instead (don't ask...adolescents make odd choices sometimes!). That was the year I had a short story and a poem appear in the literary magazine for the first time. My short story won a school-wide contest (one of my best friends, who last I heard has become a published horror novelist, won second place with a story about a kitten). Based on that work, she invited me to become prose editor of the literary magazine (she was the faculty advisor) during my senior year.

But my senior year was something of a disaster. I got ill with mono and spiraled into one of the only seasons of my life of some serious depression. Mrs. Jaffee gently wrested the prose editorship from me, a decision I remember respecting (I wasn't consistently showing up to meetings) but also one that hurt. I think she knew that though. At any rate, in the spring she came to me and announced, in her calm but confident way that would brook no opposition, that she would not let the literary magazine go to press unless I submitted a story. To make things even worse, she told me she felt the magazine was lacking humor -- could I please submit a funny story?

What a thing to ask a depressed teenager! I'm not sure it ever occurred to me until today, 22 years after the fact, that Mrs. Jaffee was giving me the best gift she could. She was challenging me to write during a period when I felt so emotionally lethargic I could barely do anything. And she was challenging me to look for the lighter side. How could I refuse Mrs. J? I wrote her the funny story and she published it. It got recognized by the county school system and turned into a script that was performed the next year downtown (I was in my first weeks of college then, in another state, but my parents saw it...and even sent me a video).

The more I jog down memory lane today, the more I realize how vividly I can recall this terrific teacher, and how easily I can track her influence in my early writing life. Mrs. Jaffee was one of the first people who helped me to understand that one becomes a writer by writing. Writing often, writing poorly, writing well, writing when the mood strikes and when it doesn't, writing when you have to, writing when you feel inspired, writing when you don't. Just writing.

Thank you, Mrs. Jaffee. May you rest in peace.

Jon Hassler (March 30, 1933-March 20, 2008)

I just heard the news that Jon Hassler died on Thursday. I knew he'd been ill for a long time, so this wasn't entirely surprising. But I confess I felt unspeakably sad when I read the news. Hassler's novels -- and especially his memorable characters -- have given me much delight over the years, and much to ponder.

Hassler was a Catholic writer, a Minnesotan. His stories often tapped deep emotions, with grief and humor ever standing close beside each other. It was through his books that I met one of my favorite literary heroines (though I think she would frown at me for using such a term) Agatha McGeee. As a character, Agatha has always felt so real to me that I almost found myself wondering how she was taking the news of Hassler's death.

The Minnesota Post has a moving obituary online here.

Rest in peace, Jon. Thank you so much for all the wonderful stories.