But something I’ve missed desperately is having the time and brain space to read! So…I’m looking forward to the long drive home to see my family and having a Christmas break full of stories. I’ve already made my stack of delicious books and I can’t wait to get started devouring them soon!  Omnomnom!!

Wolves, lightning, silence.

Cabinet of Mysteries,

Built out of pictures.

Snark and bullets fly!

Pageant queens find girl power…

They wave at danger!

Souls? Magic? Hell? The answer is:

This mesmeric book.

This book is an incredible example of voice guiding you through the story. Strangely, the title character is not the first person narrator (Tom), nor even the main character of the book. And yet the book revolves around Firegirl, a girl that has been horribly disfigured in a fire, and explores the way that a single person or single moment in time can define and change us for years to come.

More stunning than the distinctive and strong voice of Tom, is the way that Tony Abbott manages to show Firegirl in a light that always makes us feel empathy, rather than pity.  And despite the sensitive subject matter, there is not a moment of cheesiness in this book. How does Abbott manage to do this?

My best guess is that Abbott lets us see Firegirl through the eyes of a teenage boy who is trying hard to find his place in the world. Tom feels both revulsion and sympathy for this girl, without judging either emotion. His flaw is not callousness, but merely that this is the first time he’s ever imagined what it might be like to be someone else. Or what other peoples lives might be like. Tom is struggling with empathy, right in front of our eyes. It is this struggle that makes Firegirl so unique. And also what makes this story such a compelling read.

During the question and answer segment, a boy got up and asked her, “Why do your books always have sad endings?” Then he listed off the melancholy endings of book after book.

“Well, when you put it like that…” Kate laughed with the audience, looking a little sheepish.  Then she took a minute to really think about the question. She went on to explain that she didn’t mean to write sad endings,  but that life is full of the sad as well as the beautiful, and she tries to write what is in life.

This was a big difference from Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries) who also talked about the sadness of life in her dynamic speech. But Meg Cabot’s answer to this uncomfortable truth about life, and especially childhood, is to write ‘pretty things.’ She said she wants strong girls and glitter and prettiness as an escape from what might be the bleakness of real life.

I found these differing answers to the same truth fascinating. And cleary, judging by the popularity of both their books, both are needed in our world, often by the same readers. Sometimes I want to read a world that has beauty and sadness that reflects our own, but whose stories often make more sense than the seeming randomness of our own lives. But other times, I want to escape, with glitter or dirigibles or princesses, to a world totally unrecognizable from mine.

What struck me the most in these two talks was that both writers, so different in their styles, their presentations, their books, knew why they wrote what they wrote. They were compelled by their subjects and it was this compulsion that led to the confidence in their speaking and in their writing.

Perhaps that is something it takes years to develop. Not just the courage to get your words down on the page or to stand up in front of readers, but a certainty in what you choose to write. Perhaps it is this, more than tears or glitter, that invites us into these authors’ stories. That, word-by-word, builds their worlds around us. And it’s this confidence that makes us want to stay.

What?

Oh. What I meant was how dare William Steig portray the police as pigs! That is outrageous.

And this poem… it just really gets under my skin.

Clearly, it’s teaching materialism by advocating shopping as an exciting activity.

What?

Oh. I meant that Shel Silverstein is teaching our children to be disrespectful and downright malicious! This is terrible.

And how about these cute penguins?? They really make my blood boil! Cause they’re cute and they look like they’re smiling and we all know that penguins don’t smile.

And… um… tell me again what was wrong with the cute penguins?

Oh right. I hate it when books show happy families that love each other. Especially when they’re based on true stories. Those are the WORST.

Clearly picture books are tearing apart the fabric of America, one penguin at a time.

Happy Banned Books Week!

My question then is, Why are teenagers, the ones who are most inundated with this scattered stimulation, reading more than ever?

I should admit a bias right here.  Despite my love of the sinisiter ‘what -ifing’ of science-fiction, I have little tolerance for people who say, “X is ruining the world.”  In my lifetime already, Sesame Street, video games, and, most dangerously, ‘certain’ books have all been accused of bringing civilization to an end as we know it.

But I will concede a point to the author.  It is, of course, important to find time and space in your life for reading.  And his end conclusion is undeniable, this can be difficult.  I’m just not sure that equals technology ruining books.

I’ve been encountering this feeling a lot recently.  Another article I read recently bemoaned lost childhood.  Children, it says, aren’t given the freedom and space to imagine, be alone, have adventures.  I agree that this is often true, but only with a for certain section of the population.  In my neighborhood, kids are still tearing around on bikes, playing clapping rhythm games (really), and buying ice cream from the guy with the cart.  And this is not main street, small town USA.  This is a street of old (and I don’t mean antique or classic) apartments in LA directly behind a strip mall. A place where we have the unique combination of flashing police lights and yard sales.

Am I still on point?  I think I am.  Every generation is different and every other generation foretells the fall of civilization based on these differences.  Has Facebook and blogging and texting changed our world? I answer with an emphatic YES.  But has this led to reading become a lost art?  I don’t think so.

I will offer another illustration of this attitude.  At the risk of offending a great author and those who are fans of his, I will mention a speech I recently heard by Richard Peck.  Now Richard Peck is a incredible writer and speaker. I remember in junior high reading Are You In The House Alone while I was babysitting.  Big mistake. I was scared out of my mind and yet I couldn’t put the book down.

And Richard Peck’s talk held the same riveting quality.  During his stunning speech at the SCBWI Summer Conference, I both laughed and cried and I’m not exaggerating.  More than that, I took away a meaningful understanding of why we write for children that I will keep with me for a very long time.

But I was also unnerved.  In his charismatic speaking style he railed against the vacuum of MySpace (a paraphrase) and a world in which teenagers text at the dinner table.   It wasn’t Richard Peck saying this that made me uneasy, it was the audience’s reaction.  I watched a room full of people who are speaking to, and often for, the younger generation get caught up in this panning of technology.  I find it dangerous that the very people who profess to give voice to the pain and experiences of childhood were also deriding the very tools that generation holds dear.

Are there crappy, stupid things about MySpace or blogging or Twitter? Yes.  But there is also a chance for teenagers and kids to reach out and connect in a way they never could before.  A way for someone who doesn’t fit into their small town to know that there is a larger world out there.  People like them.  There is a way for high schoolers to feel empowered, speaking in voices that the Gatekeepers can’t silence.

The opportunities for this technology are exciting and endless, and yes, scary.  But they are worth exploring, understanding, and giving credence.  These are the tools of our readers and it is making them active participants in this world in a whole new way.  And this will be good and bad and most of all, it will be fascinating.

I also made new business cards.  And by ‘made,’ I mean my brilliant artist of a husband designed them but I’m gonna take all the credit. 

They’re inspired by my book, The Harbinger, and the classic Rider-Waite Tarot card art.  Warning: Colors may not be as bright as in real life.

For a week, I stalked our mail carrier, hoping they’d arrive.  When they finally did, I was blown away. I’m can’t wait to swap them around this weekend.  Hey kids, collect them all!

I can’t imagine any two events more saturated with great minds, creative talent, and genuine inspiration.  So it was with a huge grin on my face that I walked out onto the expo floor on Wednesday night.  And Comic-Con did not disappoint.

There’s an infinite number of ways to amuse yourself at Comic-Con, a point that my friend and fantastic artist Andy Mitchell literally illustrates here.

One of my favorite ‘distractions’ of the long weekend was Quick Draw!  It’s a battle of speed and humor pitting 3 artists against each other.  This year, it was Sergio Aragones from Mad Magazine, Scott Shaw from Hanna-Barbera, and Floyd Norman from Disney.

Displayed on giant projectors, their hands raced to draw a cross between a armadillo and a dung beetle, or to get a member of the audience to guess a secret word, or to illustrate scenarios.  Here’s Sergio Aragones’s answer to “Tragedy strikes Donald Duck.”

I also got a chance to hear Holly Black, author of Tithe and The Spiderwick Chronicles talk about outlining a novel and “the process of ingreatening it.”  She confessed that her original outlines often consist of “insert genius idea here” or “evil is defeated.”  It’s lovely to know that fascinating stories can still materialize out of humble beginnings.

She also spoke about how lazy her characters are.  Holly Black lamented that, while other writers talk about their characters dictating the story to them, her characters spend the whole book trying to get out of being the protagonist.   She quipped that they don’t want to go on a quest, they just wanna go home.  Again, I found these confessions from such a great writer very reassuring.

I had other shining moments this weekend.  Hearing Ray Bradbury talk about the moon landing, Eoin Colfer and Mary Pearson sharing their author experiences, and literally running into Seth Green.  But what struck me most is that Comic-Con is a giant party of people that all love the same things.  All kinds of artists gather together to show each other how they make their art and how much that art is appreciated. It’s a place where you can shake your hero’s hand and snap a picture.

Where you can meet the stars that make your favorite characters leap off the screen.  Or imagine what it would be like to be them.

Where the guy who made the homage t-shirt is thanked by the guy on the t-shirt.  Here it doesn’t matter if you’re an artist, a collector, a writer, a reader, an actor, or a fan. Because at Comic-Con, everyone is part of the same great story.