Road Trip Wednesday: Best Book of January

From YA Highway:

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.







This Week's Topic:  What was the best book you read in January?

This shouldn't be too difficult.  With all the changes that occurred at the end of last year and beginning of this year, I didn't have much time for reading or writing for that matter. I only read two books, one of which was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I wrote about here.  The other was a book I read for the Second Monday Book Club, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.

This was the perfect book to start the new year.  I had read it several years ago -- my friend Katie had sent me a signed copy of the book when Sharon Creech spoke at her library.

Here is a brief list of some of the things I admire about this book:

• Quirky characters. Quirky, compelling characters with stories to tell.
• Parallel storytelling with alternating timelines.
• Hints of mystery.  Why won't Sal's mother return home?  Who is leaving the messages on the Winterbottoms' front porch?
• Exploration of relationships.  Sal and her dad.  Sal and her mom.  Sal and her grandparents.  Her grandmother and grandfather.  Sal's dad and Mrs. Cadaver.  Sal and Phoebe Longbottom.  Sal and Ben.  Phoebe and her mother. Et cetera.  One of the reoccurring themes in my own writing is the relationship between parent and child, so I particularly admired the three similar storylines of missing mothers -- Sal's, Phoebe's, and Ben's.
• Fluid, lyrical sentences.
• The messages:
• Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins.
• Everyone has his own agenda.
• In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter?
• You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.
• We never know the worth of water until the well is dry.

Oh, the birds of sadness.

Huzza, Huzza.