Friday, February 27, 2015

BLUE BIRDS by Caroline Starr Rose

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe for Roundup.

I'm excited to share with you BLUE BIRDS by Caroline Starr Rose. It's Caroline's second historical verse novel (first was MAY B.), and it is a lovely story of an unlikely friendship between English Alis and native Kimi in 1587 Lost Colony of Roanoke.

The book releases March 10, which is coming up shortly! I was lucky enough to score an ARC -- and now I am giving it away! Leave a comment to enter. Winner will be randomly drawn Sunday night (March 1).

Before I share a few excerpts from the book, you should know that Caroline and I have a few things in common: We love historical fiction. We both lived in Saudi Arabia. We share an editor. We've both written in voices of characters from cultures not our own. And more! Anything Caroline writes, I know I will savor and cherish and delight in.

So, first, allow me to share with you Caroline's responses to a few short prompts:

the difficult:

There are a lot of opinions and strong, strong feelings as to who has permission to write certain books. Im a non-Native American author. What gives me the right to try and speak for a thirteen-year-old Roanoke girl?

Im still not sure. But Ive been a girl. And I know how profoundly friendship can shape a person. Ive been in new cultural settings and have learned to see the foreign as familiar and the familiar as foreign. This answer wont be enough for some readers. I understand that. But Ive gone ahead and written BLUE BIRDS anyway.

the delicious:

BLUE BIRDS hinges on a forbidden friendship, and if thats not delicious, I dont know what is!
When I first started drafting, I thought the story would come from one character, Alis, my English girl. But the more time I spent in her world, the more I realized the story didnt belong to Alis alone.

Back in my teaching days, I loved to tell my students in order to most fully enjoy poetry, it must be seen and heard. A poet communicates with language, yes, but she also speaks to the reader through line breaks, stanza breaks, and the placement of words on a page.

My favorite passages in the book come from the poems Kimi and Alis share together. Here are two girls from two entirely different worlds, and yet they are drawn together. It was essential the structure of these dual-voice poems communicated as much as the words they contained.

the unexpected:

Having heard so much about the dreaded sophomore novel, I was relieved to sell a picture book between MAY B. and BLUE BIRDS. With an entirely different kind of book scheduled to release next, I felt freed up to set aside my worries of comparison between the two novels. But guess what? Though BLUE BIRDS sold a year and a half after my picture book, it will release four months before. Both novels are historicals written in verse. The comparisons will probably come. Im grateful, though, I was able to shut the door on this hangup during the creative process, that I could write without this burden in mind.


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... and now, my favorite poem in the book. It's told in both girls' voices -- which makes it just about impossible to format on this blog! So I'm giving you a photograph instead:


Now, a favorite KIMI poem:

My mother and my aunts
work side by side,
their backs bend
as they tend the crops.

Like the corn,
a woman
spreads her roots wide,
like the bean,
a woman
settles her roots deep.

The English plans have been made plain:
Women mean they'll stay.

If we hope to rid ourselves of them,
push them from us
once and for all, 
we must do it
before their roots take hold.

- Caroline Starr Rose

.................................

Finally, one from ALIS:

All night,
our home is cuffed by violent winds
and waves of rain,
a hurricane.
This settlement will fly apart,
will be ripped like weeds,
until each board is stripped away.

This village is as fragile as an egg
unprotected in its nest.

I pray 
for peace
and silence,
for just an hour of rest.

- Caroline Starr Rose
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15 comments:

  1. I loved May B., so know I will enjoy this one's perspective too. Thanks for sharing the thoughtful words from Caroline and parts of the books, too. I've seen different views about writing from a perspective not one's own. Perhaps it's simply good to write from someone who touches your heart? Looking forward to this book, and thanks, Irene!

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    1. Linda, I love this idea of writing from about those who touch our heart. What an open way to look at things. I try to come back to the fact that I am a person interested in other people and their experiences. It's a good and worthy starting place, I believe.

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  2. I'd forgotten about our Saudi connection! Thank you so much for hosting me today, Irene, and sharing these sweet girls with your readers. xo

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    1. Pleasure to have you, Caroline! Thanks for writing another beautiful book! xo

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  3. (Rubs hands eagerly, licks chops...) I've been really looking forward to this book. Fascinated by our 17th-century history, and this is technically 16th! [Irene, if there's a technical glitch and my name gets thrown in a few times extra, that's fine by me.] Thanks to both of you for the sneak peeks. I recently & reluctantly parted with MAY B. so my first-year-teacher daughter (3rd grade) could share it with some of her students.

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    1. Robyn, you will love this friendship story! The ending really surprised me. And good on you sharing great books with Morgan's class. Books should be READ and ReREAD.... xo

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  4. Like Linda, I really enjoyed May B and know that I will enjoy this one as well! Thanks for the sneak peek, Irene. And thank you, Caroline, for 'writing BLUE BIRDS anyway'!

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  5. Hi there Irene, in the call for more diverse books, this is inevitably one of the raging issues surrounding multicultural children's literature and I am glad to read Caroline's thoughts on this. :) Will be on the lookout for this story.

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  6. Thanks to both of you! This is the kind of book that makes me wish I taught older kids...looking forward to reading it. Love the two perspectives.

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  7. If your setting is hundreds of years ago, you're already writing from a completely different point-of-view, aren't you, no matter what characters you are creating.
    "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" is wonderful, and I don't think Mark Haddon was writing from his own experience. Go forth with your pen!
    Alis' poem is particularly poignant given that the settlement did disappear.

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  8. What a treat to be able to look forward to another book - we love May B. in my classroom. These lines really resonated with me:
    Like the corn,
    a woman
    spreads her roots wide,
    like the bean,
    a woman
    settles her roots deep.

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  9. I loved May B. so I will definitely get my hands on this book! Thanks for the sneak peek!

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  10. Thanks for sharing Caroline's thoughts, and for the preview of the book. Looking forward to reading it.

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  11. It sounds great! As as ex-pat myself I totally the reference about familiar and unfamiliar.

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  12. The book looks beautiful and fascinating. The poem in two voices where the two characters don't understand each other stretched my mind--in a good way. I will look for this one. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

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