Book Cover of the Week: Blessed Be - by Louise Tripp

As Wednesdays go, this one - smack in the caboose of October - felt a little like a virtual iron maiden. So much to do, so little time and me stretched very thin. After stomping around Clark & Belmont seeking Halloween costumes and then going to work for four hours, writing a blog entry was just not in the cards so to speak. Thus, I am presenting the Book Cover of the Week today - Thursday. And since we're in the month of October - the month of Halloween/Sam'hain - this seemed appropriate. My lovely, somewhat smudged and cracked (the spine, anyway) copy of Origins of Modern Witchcraft by Ann Moura. 


A recent conversation with an acquaintance about Wicca, Paganism and the like got me thinking about it. His viewpoint comes from a very sheltered existence, and his most recent brush with any information about these religions was during his newfound Buffy The Vampire Slayer phase. As with anything someone wants to learn about, I recommend books...lots and lots of books. But if you don't read much (*gasp*) then there are some informative videos out there, too.


Challenge: Recreate a book cover in photographs and I'll post it here next week. Or got an idea for a Book Cover of the Week? Email:lulutripp@gmail.com

Louise Tripp grew up in Edenton, North Carolina. She currently lives in Chicago, where she is revising her first YA novel and working in a public library. You can read her regular blog at http://risktoblossom.blogspot.com/.

Book Cover of the Week: I Speak For The Trees – by Louise Tripp

 Maybe you recycle, ride your bike everywhere instead of driving and carry a thermos for water or coffee rather than create more container waste. That's cool. But you're still not as “green” as Dr. Seuss. Because long before everyone started becoming more planet-conscious, Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote a nifty little kids' book called The Lorax. 

The book has been a huge controversy in its time as well as a starting point for activism. With its bright, whimsical cover and playful rhyme, it taught young readers about a forest of “Truffula” trees and the creatures that relied on them – one of which is the Lorax. When the selfish Once-ler comes along, chopping down trees for various “needs” it is the Lorax who warns him. This all happened “back in the days when the grass was still green/and the pond was still wet/and the clouds were still clean” - but The Lorax is told in a flashback. A boy, wondering about why the Lorax was there and why it was taken away, goes to the Once-ler for answers and the Once-ler, from his hiding place, tells the sad story. All the trees are gone; the resources have all been depleted and the Once-ler is all alone. The factories and shops where he sold the things he made with the trees all closed when the last tree was chopped down. Everything the Lorax warned him about has happened.

Yes, it's a tragedy – but Dr. Seuss would never spin so bleak a tale without a shred of hope. The Once-ler gives the curious boy a seed to plant a Truffula tree, so that perhaps the forest can someday be restored. And perhaps someday, the Lorax will come back.

Challenge: Recreate a book cover in photographs and I'll post it here next week. Or got an idea for a Book Cover of the Week? Email:lulutripp@gmail.com

Louise Tripp grew up in Edenton, North Carolina. She currently lives in Chicago, where she is revising her first YA novel and working in a public library. You can read her regular blog at http://risktoblossom.blogspot.com/.

Book Cover of the Week: Waxing Nostalgic – by Louise Tripp

I often wonder what it would be like to still have all the books I had as a kid. All those Judy Blumes, the occasional Beverly Cleary and nearly every book, shelved in order (of course), of The Baby-Sitter's Club and Sweet Valley High series. On impulse one summer during my adolescence, though, I gave them to my parents to sell at our yard sale – because I was too old for them. Funny how that works out. Now in my thirties, I long for those days when all I had to do was read and wish I'd kept their reminders. It's a sunny, cool-but-not-cold day and it's making me nostalgic for that. Which is why I am making this week's Book Cover of the Week a parade of pastels and '80's-style, puffy fonts and dreamy images; these are a few of my favorite covers from books I once owned and loved, but gave away. I just hope someone is caring for them well today and maybe they'd introduced them to the next generation of young readers - their children or nieces, nephews, cousins, friends' kids, etc.

Ramona Quimby was a smart, well-meaning but sometimes mischievous eight year old - but you probably know that. Pretty much everyone I know is familiar with the red-head and her pre-teen sister, Beezus. Beverly Cleary, now well into her 90's, has written the beloved children's stories for most of her life. She started out as an English major, went on to get a degree in Library Science and  then, inspired by the children she worked with in the library, she crafted her charming characters into the kinds of stories she hoped they would want to read. She's still writing today, has been named as an influence for many contemporary authors of young adult and children's books and has a school in Portland, Oregon named after her.  

For some reason, I remember Sweet Valley Twins' book #12: Keeping Secrets as the one with the cover that made me thirsty. Those pops over ice looked really good. Seriously, these books had the best covers. Now I look at it and think, Wow, Jessica almost looks like Billie Piper here. 

When I first discovered The Baby-Sitters' Club I am fairly certain that what lured me in were the girls' outfits on the cover. Claudia always looked the best. 

I always really loved the books of Richard Peck and Paula Danziger, too. Danziger had this great, almost Sci-Fi book about a girl whose family moves them to the brand new moon colony. One particularly memorable scene has the girl and her male friend on Earth, before she has to leave, coming up with disgusting ice cream flavors - I believe "phlegm" is one. Ew. These are the things that stick in my brain like Velcro.

And Richard Peck's Blossom Culp stories had an NBC TV-movie made about it. Later, he also had his book Don't Look And It Won't Hurt made into a movie called Gas, Food, Lodging starring Ione Skye and Fairuza Balk. Anyway, I loved Blossom Culp - she was a geeky know-it-all with a pre-adolescent "thing" for her friend, Alexander, a boy who could see ghosts. 

On a side note, while trying to come up with a topic and cover for this week's entry, I Googled around and stumbled on two sites with an interesting array of book covers. One is just a listing of bizarre books no one could believe existed (plus a gallery of books made from wood which are actually lovely); the other is a fan's look at old pulp novels. Both are fun and so I thought I'd include the links here.

And finally, now I want to read two non-fiction books that seem all about the pleasure of wallowing in the books of our youth: Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading by Lizzie Skurnick and Everything I Wanted To Know About Being A Girl I Learned From Judy Blume by Jennifer O'Connell. I learned about the two books via my GoodReads page and think they sound right up my alley, so to speak. I am almost jealous I didn't think to write them myself. 

Happy Wednesday!

Challenge: Recreate a book cover in photographs and I'll post it here next week. Or  got an idea for a Book Cover of the Week? Email:lulutripp@gmail.com

Louise Tripp grew up in North Carolina. She currently lives in Chicago, where she is revising her first YA novel and working in a public library. You can read her regular blog at http://risktoblossom.blogspot.com/.

Friday Favorites: And The Paper Girl's Gonna Blow Away - by Louise Tripp

"This would be the first time in my life that so many things would never happen again."  - Paper Towns


I am glad it's time for Friday Favorites, because I just finished an amazing young adult novel that's everything I want my own novels to be. It's funny, wise, adventure-packed and filled with fleshed-out, likable and very realistically human characters. Part mystery, part coming-of-age tale, John Green's Paper Towns was an accidental find. I stumbled upon it, thought it sounded interesting and discovered treasure as if I'd followed a map (or clues, like the book's protagonist). While the characters are fast-talking teens with smart mouths, their observations on life, friendship and the future (among other things) are devastatingly shrewd. 


In a (really roomy) nutshell, Paper Towns tells the story of Quentin Jacobsen - a bit of a geek with his future planned out like a map ahead of him - and his obsession with a charismatic girl named Margo Roth Spiegelman. Margo is the kind of girl that rumors fly around about - things like: she was a temporary circus member or she got in backstage at a concert just by sheer cunning. Quentin and Margo were childhood friends because their parents knew each other and the two shared a traumatic childhood experience (I will refrain from spoilers). Years later, they have different cliques and lives and don't talk as much. However, Quentin - known to his friends as Q - admires her from a distance and, we can infer from early conversations with friends, talks and speculates about her often. One night, near the end of senior year, Margo climbs into Q's window and talks him into driving her around for a night of antics that include getting revenge on her cheating boyfriend and breaking into amusement parks. The next day, she disappears. Running away is something Margo is known for, but this time she's eighteen and her parents decide not to look for her again. Q can't seem to help but get wrapped up in the mystery of her disappearance, though, especially when he starts finding clues to her whereabouts that seem directed at him.

That's the general plot of the book. But there are so many moments scattered throughout - of hilarity, of suspense, of wisdom - that make this YA novel defy age or genre. When a road trip ensues, you can feel the freedom of the parent-free excursion. And when Q and his friends are just talking and waxing thoughtful about Margo and her reasons for leaving, the dialogue is so true, so intense and so beautiful that you almost forget you're not reading Wallace Stegner or Raymond Carver. Toss in the references to poets (Walt Whitman and T.S. Eliot to name a couple) and poetry and, well, you had me at page one. 


At the book's close, I felt like crying or dancing like a mad man in the rain - either one would have been appropriate.


Louise Tripp grew up in North Carolina. She currently lives in Chicago, where she is revising her first YA novel and working in a public library. You can read her regular blog at http://risktoblossom.blogspot.com/.