This Would Make A Good Story Someday

This Would Make A Good Story Someday

Juvenile fiction
"It's official. We are on board. Goodbye, Shipton, Em, Vi,
surf lessons, and our adorable cats, Amos and Boris, who are being fed
by Fiona Dunphy and will probably poop in our shoes to show how much
they miss us. Goodbye, space to get away from Mom and Mimi, who have
practically killed each other fighting about luggage...Or space to get
away from Ladybug, who has brought four stuffed animal cats and Bruce
the Roman centurion. Or space of any kind really."
If Sara, narrator of Dana Alison Levy's This Would Make A Good
Story Someday, sounds morose, she has every reason to be. She and her
best friends have big plans for the last month of summer vaca before
they start middle school. Now she won't be part of their self
improvement projects.
Mimi, one of Sara's mothers, has won a big national competition
for "serious writers to have time and space to create while immersing
themselves in the magic of viewing the country by train." Mimi gets
to take the family so Sarah is about spend that month in very close
quarters with:
*her two mothers
*her obnoxiously loud and cute little sister, Ladybug
*her older sister Laurel who seems to think of nothing but saving the
world,
and *Laurel's ecowarrior boyfriend, Root. As if that prospect is not
bad enough, Mimi, who has blogged about many of Sara's embarassing
moments, is taking notes and seeking quotes for a book she wants to
get published.
An unexpected complication reveals itself on the train. They
will be travelling with the other winner and his family: two
nonegenarian ladies and a strange boy everyone expects her to
instantly bond with because they're about the same age.
It sounds like a twenty-first ring of pre teen Hades or at least
purgatory. But between the East and West coasts a lot can change. A
girl can come to see things quite differently. So in between the
amusing mishaps there moments of sweetness and poignancy.
This Would Make A Good Story Someday is a great read for kids
with less than perfect families nearing middle school and anyone who
has had experiences with the potential to be amusing...
...someday.
On a personal note, I had a very nice surprise when I woke up this
morning. My latest opinion piece was in the Bangor Daily News in the
best spot on the op ed page: center with the cartoon. :) I had a lot
of fun writing it. It was inspired by the athletes trying to draw
attention to injustice by not standing for the national anthem. I
can't say the pledge of allegiance because America does not have
liberty and justice for all. I wrote about my growing disillusionment
with it going all the way back to elementary school when I encountered
the civil rights movement. I'm already getting good feedback on it.
A great big shout out goes out to my editor and the BDN readers.
jules hathaway


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