Bookworm Press

It’s time for a poem. This one is by ten-year old Miranda, daughter of the brilliant author Scott Nicholson (see my blog entry about The Skull Ring, 3/3/2010). Miranda obviously walks in her father’s footsteps. She is an aspiring writer, poet, and photographer. Anybody who has ever languished during the long winter months and longed for a sign of spring can relate to this beautifully crafted poem. Enjoy!

Negative Snow

By Miranda Owen

Snow is bad.
It makes me mad.
When there’s no school,
It’s not so cool.
Sitting at my mom’s work place,
I’d really rather be in space.
Snow is cold.
The joke gets old.
It falls in your hair.
And everywhere.
Snow makes ice.
Ice brings mice.
In my house.
Traps for the mouse!
Positive I try to be.
But that job’s really not for me!
Snow please give us a break.
There’s not much more that I can take!

The oldest woman in Switzerland died shortly before her 113th birthday. She fell asleep one night and didn’t wake up. What a way to go! In an interview shortly before her death she said that hearing and eyesight weren’t perfect anymore, but she was still able to walk. I wonder if it was genes, the daily hike, the mountain air? No, I think it was chocolate.

In his compelling and ambitious novel, The Book Thief, the young Australian author, Markus Zusak, breaks at lot of traditional “writing rules” and gets away with it big time. The narrator is Death himself and the time and place is Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The main character of the story is nine-year old Liesel Meminger, who is taken to live with foster parents in a small village. Besides trying to survive and mourning the loss of family and friends, Liesel has another problem–an overwhelming urge and desire to steal books. She steals her first book even before she knows how to read and continues to steal books in the face of great danger. What I found so fascinating about the book is the author’s ability to present deeply disturbing, gloomy, tragic events with dark but comforting humor. You literally “cry with one eye and laugh with the other.” The book is both a favorite with young as well as older adults.

A very different story about a “book thief” I read in the weekly Swiss newspaper I get to keep in touch with events in my second home country. A world-famous neurologist and professor at the University Hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland, was fired from his job and arrested for misappropriating approx. 5 million dollars to support his addiction to–BOOKS! Yep, not drugs or fancy cars or villas, but books. He collected books like a maniac. Fortunately (from my point of view), he wasn’t sent to jail. He was contrite and paid back all the money, donated a large part of his collection to the university library and contributed a large amount to charitable organizations. Although the judge felt he deserved time in the slammer, he gave him a very mild sentence. I bet the judge loved books!

The moral behind these stories: Books are valuable. So keep on writing, authors. If you’re lucky enough, someone will even risk jail to read your stuff!

Looking for a fascinating, suspenseful page turner with a touch of romance?
Try The Skull Ring by Scott Nicholson.

The young woman, Julia Stone, desperately tries to remember what happened to her at age four, when she became the victim of a terrible tragedy in the hands of a satanic cult. This experience left her with nightmares, panic attacks, and a deep distrust of everyone around her. In her quest for truth, she looks for support from two psychiatrists, her boyfriend, a cop, and a young man with an equally troubled past and a dubious reputation. It seems, however, that some of the people who profess to help Julia may have sinister plans of their own. The Skull Ring is a masterfully crafted, psychologically intense, and truly fascinating story, a real page-turner. I highly recommend it. The one drawback: you may suffer from sleep deprivation for a while since you won’t be able to put it down. Turn on that espresso machine and lock the door!