You Are My Only: Beth Kephart

Can we take a moment to thank Egmont for publishing another Beth Kephart exquisite novel? Thank you, Egmont!

You Are My Only will be released October 25th, and I encourage you then to find Beth's newest book. In this realistic fiction novel, you'll breath despair along with several suppressed characters. You'll turn pages and yearn for them each to find hope. One story tells of a young mother's loss of her baby, while the second winds a tale of a teen sequestered from society. How the works intertwine is brilliant. From beginning to end, images and movements echo and resonate back and forth between the stories. At the reveal, I actually stopped reading, stunned by the moment of truth.

As always, I was mesmerized by Beth's rich writing. Even in the smallest detail:

"There is a bird making a tree branch heavy, her gray belly bottom like the high back of the sun."

"Outside the wind sneaks up under the loose skirt of the roof tiles..."

Nesting in the story are sweet truths of life that you can grapple with and then possibly hold.

"Tragedy and blessing," Miss Cloris says. "Sometimes they're the same one thing."

"What do you suppose any of us, Sophie, wish to be remembered for? For the things that tried to stop us or the ways we carried on?"

I'm still thinking over the latter. I'm challenged to find the truth that I would ultimately hold.

You Are My Only is current, relevant, and gracefully written with gripping realism. There is no shrinking back. Thank you, Beth, for staying truly dedicated to the fine art of writing.

You Are My Only
by Beth Kephart
EgmontUSA

What a Girl Wants: Book Recommends

Colleen over at Chasing Ray asked the What a Girl Wants Panel for their recommends this season. Here's my response. Check out all three of her posts though. What a variety!

Lorie Ann Grover says: "When Colleen asked for a book recommend for What a Girl Wants, I went back and scrolled through my goodreads. What have I read this past year, that I'd want to place in the hands of a teen girl? There are so many books! Certainly every readergirlz main feature and postergirlz recommended read. But what rises to the top for me, personally? I've chosen three:

Justina Chen's North of Beautiful because every girl should be challenged to discover her own definition of beauty. Teen girls will identify with Terra as she charts her path away from her constraining, abusive father. They will cheer when she finds truth and beauty through art, and she gathers insight through her new friend Jacob. The beautifully crafted sentences and rounded characters will hold readers with hope and call them to find their own north of beautiful.

Laura Resau's Red Glass is my second recommend. With rich, beautiful language, readers will join Sophie on her journey into Mexico during a summer road trip. An eccentric cast, cultural diversity, and a hint of magical hope infuse this work which will expand the scope of teen girls today. Whether they be touched by the Bosnian war refuge or the six year old Mexican boy who has crossed the U.S. border illegally, the readers' experiences and empathy will be broadened.

And Beth Kephart's House of Dance is my third recommend. The lyrical beauty of Beth's prose just may incite teen readers to reach out to an older generation. As Rosie is charged with tending to her grandfather dying of cancer, she uncovers the life that he loved. Through ballroom dance instruction, Rosie's confidence blossoms until she can stand and give back herself. The sense of community and family love found in this gentle journey will resound in teen readers.

So there are three books of hope, I just realized. As I say to teen readers, "There's hope. Look." (Loose Threads, 2002)"

Colleen Mondor: Oh Justina Chen! Oh Beth Kephart! Can I say how much I love their books? Justina's Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies) remains one of the funniest and most normal books I've read in ages. And yet it is anything but typical it's just that any reader can see themselves in Patty's frustrations. And Beth's Nothing But Ghosts is a revelation, plain and simple. Such gorgeous writing and such a light touch when it comes to family drama and romance and coming-of-age. A book to sink into!

Colleen went on to say:

"And Lorie Ann Grover. Well, good grief, where to begin with my friend Lorie Ann. She writes for teens and toddlers and she is (in my mind) the beating heart of the readergirlz. When I grow up, I will be as powerful and talented and compassionate at Lorie Ann. She makes my world better."

And I say:

Colleen, I'm in awe of all you accomplish and provide the literary community. AND your amazing love and sacrifice for your family is inspiring. Seriously. Inspiring. Thank YOU! xox

Beth Kephart's Review of Hold Me Tight

I just had to share National Book Award Finalist and poet Beth Kephart's most beautiful review of Hold Me Tight. It has lifted my heart and spurred me on. Thank you, Beth!



"Lorie Ann is a readergirlz founder, a homeschooling mother, a former dancer. She is also, let me be clear, a bonafide poet who, with Hold me Tight, captures the bewildering eight weeks in the life of a young girl whose father has left, whose mother is pregnant, and whose classmate has been snatched by a vengeful kidnapper. It doesn't make sense, and yet this is life as Estele Leann knows it, life as she must learn to live it.

A novel-in-poems might sound like a daunting proposition; Hold me Tight is anything but. I can't, in fact, imagine telling this story in any other fashion, with any other tools. More words would have been excess and somehow less true. Fewer would have denied us the long dwell in the cracked-open heart of a child. In line after line, Lorie Ann masterfully reveals a child grappling to understand, and to forgive.

I'm going to shatter
into a million slivers,
and none of my pieces
will end up
touching each other.

She reveals as well a child who is already finding her way:

I gather a few bits
and tape myself
back into Dad's arms.
This is what I have
to show he loved me once.
This was me
before I hated him.
This was then.

Sometimes the people who put others on the stage (as Lorie Ann has put so many on the stage) aren't given enough room beneath the spotlight. Today, on my blog, it's Lorie Ann Grover's turn to leap and to touch down, graced.

Poetry Friday: Beth Kephart

Over at readergirlz, we've introduced Beth Kephart as our new Author in Residence. So she's hanging out with us for 4 months, and she's also posting a blog/vlog entry once a month. Here's her first. I'm sharing it for Poetry Friday because the woman's speech itself is poetic. Listen and be challenged and inspired. Thank you, Beth!



Today's roundup is over at The Boy Reader.

Beth Kephart, House of Dance

There is more beauty in my life because I have read Beth Kephart's House of Dance.

It is one summer for Rosie, her mother, and her grandfather. One summer to reclaim memories and connections. One summer to explore the passion of music and ballroom dance. One summer to heal. And how often does healing begin with an understanding, as Rosie experiences at the start of House of Dance?

"...a mystery, and that was my thought of the hour: that maybe all of us are. That Grandad had been young before he'd been old. That Mom had been a daughter once, like me. That there were things on the verge of vanishing that I barely understood."

Kephart's Rosie lunges to catch the vanishing. "I had been put in charge of myself, and my grandfather was dying," she announces. Her choice is to reach out to him, comb through his possessions, and put those things "In Trust" that matter. Rosie enters his world and finds her own richly renewed.

Kephart's language is lyrical and her images sing. Her vivid descriptions of daily life make me pause and reread passages such as:

"At Pastrami's everything--big hanks of pink meat, sweating wedges of cheese, wide tumbles of tomatoes--was piled high, and down low, in front of the big backward-sloping cases, were the barrels of pickles that Mom once said had been floating on their backs forever."

I left the House of Dance with the reminder to connect while I have the opportunity. Kephart shows us that people do change, and that one can reach out and love even when one isn't receiving love. We matter to each other. The House of Dance greatly mattered to me.