"broken things always have a story."

Listening To: Gone by The Head and The Heart
Line Obsession: "But then it struck me: if those girls looked over at me, they'd just see a plain looking eleven year old reading a book. They'd never suspect the secret I was hiding. I looked up and down the beach and wondered if maybe everyone could be hiding some big secret." - Sara Pennypacker, from Summer of the Gypsy Moths

  
Biscuit and I are up late because I'm on a novel reading binge. Poor Biscuit. She's snuggled up at the foot of the bed with her favorite squeaky dragon toy, and ever so often she'll stretch and blink a not-so-subtle reminder like ohmygosh, it is 1 AM and why is the lamp still on?!

I'm a chronic night owl. Especially when I find a great book. 

I can sometimes go a week or two without reading much - a few chapters here, a few articles there, and so on. But then I have other weeks when I go straight-up cookie monster on books. I binge read. All nighters for novels. An hour in the library, just meandering around, trying to find love at first line. I load up on magazines. I fan out the newspaper across the table. Prose all night. Poems for breakfast. Nom nom nom.

So. I'm up late. Reading. Tonight I'm reading Sara Pennypacker's SUMMER OF THE GYPSY MOTHS and it's odd and bittersweet and so beautiful that I have to talk about it. It's a story about friendship and change and hope; it seriously feels like the author pressed a ray of warm summer sunlight into every page. In the beginning of the book, there's an ... odd scene. A sad scene. And it's a scene that I'm guessing some readers might be very sensitive to, so I'd recommend reading it before you pass it along to your sibs or your kids. The scene isn't inappropriate, but it deals with death in a way that I haven't read in a kids book before. So, obviously, different readers might respond to that in different ways. (The big positive, I would think, is that it opens a door to talk about an issue that's difficult to talk about it.)

But please know this: even if that initial scene startles you a bit, SUMMER OF THE GYPSY MOTHS is a lovely read, and it's so beautifully written.

This is one of my favorite passages so far: 

"I broke it," I said. "And it was so beautiful."  

"Oh, I like the broken ones fine," George said. He picked up a sand dollar. It was bleached white, at least four inches across, pretty as a sugar cookie. He snapped it in half, and I gasped.  

George held the palm of his hand out to me and tapped the broken shell over it. A tiny white chip fell out, and then another ."Look here," he said. "Inside here, these are the teeth. They look like doves, don't you think? A lot of folks take the sand dollar as a message about God and Jesus and all - the nail holes of the cross on the shell, the little doves inside, you see -- that's all right, I guess. But what I see are the doves being released. Now, I see a broken shell and I remind myself that something might have needed setting free. See, broken things always have a story, don't they?" (- Sara Pennypacker, SUMMER OF THE GYPSY MOTHS, Balzer + Bray, 2012. p.38)

Stella and Angel, the two main characters, are fantastic. Your heart breaks for them and with them, but you also get the vibe - very early on - that you're in the hands of an immensely talented storyteller who is all to happy to remind you that all broken things have a story. In this case, they have a seriously beautiful one.

Your turn! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to grab your current read and share a favorite line or paragraph or a little bit about a character or overall story that you love. I can't wait to hear what you're into! I love your book recommendations. (And, as always, I'd love to hear how you're doing and ohMyLanta that Downton Abbey finale!!!! WHAT?!)