Author: kimventrella

Book Raves

The Poet’s Dog: Book Rave

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The Poet’s Dog: Book Rave

Teddy, a dog, lives in a cabin in the woods with his best friend, Sylvan, a poet. Sylvan reads him stories every night, so many stories that he learns how to talk. But, although Teddy can talk, only special people can hear him, i.e. children and poets. Teddy is happy in his cabin with Sylvan, until one day Sylvan gets sick.

A quiet tale about the healing power of friendship, The Poet’s Dog manages to be poignant, heartbreaking and heroic all in under ninety pages. This is a perfect winter read, especially for me, since my life dream is to live in a cabin in the woods with my dog and write 🙂

Writing Tips

How I Became a Writer

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How I Became a Writer

My first foray into writing greatness came when I won second place in a Think Ink creative writing contest in second grade. I don’t remember the specifics of my story, except that it was essentially a fan-fiction version of my favorite short story at the time, “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl. Yes, it’s true, second grade me did not enjoy Barbie or Disney princesses; she was much more interested in sadistic landladies who killed and stuffed their guests. As far as I can recall, my story was even named “The Landlady,” a fact I only remember because the announcer at the awards ceremony called it “Bag Lady,” which upset me greatly at the time.

Years later, in fifth grade, bored with the usual, nauseating yearbook messages, I decided to get creative. So, when someone asked me to sign their yearbook, I wrote something like, “Hi, I really hope you DON’T go to an amusement park this summer and have all of your internal organs ripped out by a rogue carousel horse that magically comes to life…Have a great summer!” These messages were so popular that everyone in class lined up to discover the elaborate way in which I hoped they DIDN’T die. After I’d finished, I remember someone saying that I would grow up to be a mystery writer.

So, looking back, I think my journey to writing was appropriately weird and creepy. What about you? How did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

Book Raves

Bone Dog: Book Rave

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Bone Dog: Book Rave

Bone DogThis Halloween, I rediscovered one of my favorite picture books, the whimsical, heartbreaking Bone Dog by author/illustrator Eric Rohmann.

One night under a full moon, Gus’s faithful dog and best friend, Ella, tells him she’s getting older, but promises to be with him no matter what happens. Ella passes away soon after, leaving Gus so sad he never wants to leave the house. When Halloween comes around, however, he pulls on his costume and sets off trick-or-treating by himself. The spread showing Gus standing alone in a graveyard holding his candy hits especially hard, due to Rohmann’s muted colors, beautifully stylized imagery and evocative phrases like, “The clouds swallowed the moon.”

Gus’s loneliness is interrupted when a band of wise-cracking skeletons rise from their graves to surround him. They invite him to join them in a raucous danse macabre, until they figure out that he’s not a real skeleton, just a boy in costume, and they decide to eat him instead.

Just as silhouetted skeleton fingers reach across the page to snatch Gus, Ella, now the Bone Dog, descends from the sky surrounded by an ethereal glow. With Ella’s help, Gus frightens off the skeletons, and the two friends return to the same moonlit hill they sat on when Ella was dying. When Gus asks if he’ll ever see Ella again, she repeats that “a promise made under a full moon cannot be broken,” and readers know that she’ll be with Gus always, if only in spirit.

This is a perfect, subtle, simple and yet expansive book on finding solace and wonder in the death of a beloved pet. Like all great storytellers, Rohmann helps readers understand and transcend one of life’s most distressing situations.