Archive for the 'Photos' Category

YA, TBR, and CBOAS*

March 8, 2010 @ 9:00 am | Filed under: Links, Photos

Young adult lit comes of age – latimes.com — “I think part of the reason we’re seeing adults reading YA is that often there’s no bones made about the fact that a YA book is explicitly intended to entertain,” said Lizzie Skurnick, 36, author of “Shelf Discovery,” a collection of essays about young adult literature from the 1960s and 1970s.”YA authors are able to take themselves less seriously. They’re able to have a little more fun, and they’re less confined by this idea of themselves as Very Important Artists. That paradoxically leads them to create far better work than people who are trying to win awards.”

Léna’s Lit Life: EDGES: ARC show & tell—Lena Roy is the granddaughter of Madeleine L’Engle. HT to reader Kay for the heads-up on Lena’s upcoming novel, due out in December from FSG.

Hopewell Takes On LIFE!: When a book validates your own experience – Review of The Confederate General Rides North by Amanda Gable.

*Cute Boy on a Swing

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My Own Personal Cabbage Patch Doll

March 6, 2010 @ 8:19 am | Filed under: Photos

Photo by: Murray Brannon

I have shamelessly lifted this picture off my dad’s Flickr page. I mean, how could I not?

Whoops, I did it again. Sorry, Dad. Some things just can’t be helped.

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Lavender’s Blue

March 3, 2010 @ 7:37 pm | Filed under: Nature Study, Photos

Dilly dilly.

5 comments  

Sun Worshipers

March 2, 2010 @ 7:45 pm | Filed under: Nature Study, Photos

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My Sleepy Valentine

February 14, 2010 @ 4:27 pm | Filed under: Baby, Photos

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Saturday Snapshots

January 23, 2010 @ 8:12 am | Filed under: Photos

1. My beloved string-of-beads plant surprised me with blossoms.

2. After a week of storms, a delicious glimpse of blue.

3. The days of downpour left everything flattened.

4. And sodden.

5. And washed clean.

6. My excellent father converted a bunch of family photos to coloring pages and emailed them to us for printing out. Rilla and Wonderboy were over the moon. A brilliant way to combat cabin fever. Well done, Grandpa!

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Storm-Soaked

January 22, 2010 @ 7:47 pm | Filed under: Photos

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They Grow Up So Fast

January 15, 2010 @ 4:41 pm | Filed under: Baby, Photos

When Rilla saw this shirt among Huck’s birthday presents (thanks, Grandma!), she said, “We’re going to dress him in MAN clothes!”

Looks like he’s ready for his first job interview, doesn’t he? If the skill set they’re looking for includes eating dust bunnies and ransacking cabinets, he’s a shoo-in.

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One Year Old Already?

January 13, 2010 @ 4:49 am | Filed under: Baby, Family, Photos

From this

To this

::::::::likethis::::::::

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Sunday in the Park with Spreckels

December 21, 2009 @ 7:24 am | Filed under: Advent & Christmas, California landmarks, Family Adventures, Holidays, Photos

One of the many treasures of Balboa Park is the Spreckels Pipe Organ—the world’s largest outdoor musical instrument. San Diego employs a civic organist and offers free organ concerts on many Sunday afternoons throughout the year. I’ve been wanting to attend one ever since we moved here, and yesterday we happened to think of it just in time to catch the Christmas concert and community sing-along. The timing was perfect; my mother was visiting for the weekend. (She comes out for my birthday every year, which is the best possible present.)

We wore our new Christmas hats that my sister Merry made for us.

organ

It was really too warm for them, but we were full of Christmas spirit.

elvesatpark

As were the many doggies who attended the concert along with enthusiastic carol-singers.

dog

It was all very merry and bright.

gigglers

Possibly a little too bright.

toobright

Our all potential Christmas card photos turned out to be outtakes. That’s okay because I’ve already abandoned hope on sending out Christmas cards this year anyway.

group

The best part was when the organist invited audience members to join her onstage for the carol-singing. We didn’t know we’d get to be part of the concert! Beanie, Jane, and I were eager to sing. The rest of the gang watched from the back of the amphitheater.

We thought of our snowed-under East Coast friends when we sang White Christmas.

palmgirl

(Out here it’s a white T-shirt Christmas.)

The best part was the final song—an enthusiastic and somewhat ad-libbed rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus. It is still ringing in my ears.

Methinks we have ourselves a new holiday tradition.

lbaby

Thanks for the hats, sis!

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8 comments  

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children's book author

Melissa Wiley




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Jane, 14 yrs old
Rose, 11 yrs
Beanie, 9 yrs
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Book Log 2010


March


Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith
by Deborah Heiligman
(shows up in posts
here and here)

February


Mare's War
by Tanita Davis

Betsy and Joe
by Maud Hart Lovelace

Mockingbird
by Kathryn Erskine
(notes)

Liar
by Justine Larbalestier

Winona's Pony Cart
by Maud Hart Lovelace


January


Essays of E. B. White
(selections)

Carney's House Party
by Maud Hart Lovelace

How to Say Goodbye in Robot
by Natalie Standiford

Kendra
by Coe Booth

Secret Keeper
by Mitali Perkins

The Prince of Fenway Park
by Julianna Baggott
(I interviewed her here)

The Kitchen Madonna
by Rumer Godden

Asterios Polyp
by David Mazzucchelli


Book Log 2009

(A roundup post with links to my notes and reviews)


Book Log 2008



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Hey, what happened to all those booklists you used to have in your sidebars at the old blog?

They're still accessible at melissawiley.typepad.com, where this blog lived from January 2005-March 2008. You can also find all my Lilting House posts there, or try the search bar here. All my previous Bonny Glen and Lilting House posts have been imported to this site.



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A Word about How I Blog

Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.

(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)




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Be like the bird
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    “Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”

    Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?

    And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?

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