Books for kids, teens, & those who are young at heart

Category: Family (Page 20 of 24)

The Personal Heartbreak in Reading THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE by Jandy Nelson

Book trailers are great. I can’t wait to make one for my own book someday. I’ve decided to share trailers and some thoughts (not a review, just some thoughts) of books I’ve read recently. The first one I’ve selected is Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere.

My older sister (my not-really-twin twin sister) gave me this book for my birthday. As I started to read it, I knew exactly why she selected The Sky is Everywhere: It was like Jandy Nelson had been in my brain when my younger sister, Kylene, had died and took my deepest thoughts and feelings and put them on a page. It’s about what happens after, how to refind your life, and how to learn how to live it again. This book is heartbreaking, beautiful, and ultimately joyful.

The Little Things That Bring Me Joy

Sometimes it’s nice just to think about the little things in life that bring you joy. Here are some of mine:

My favorite tea has a kick-ass name: Black Dragon Pearl (I always want to add “Coming to theaters this summer” after I say it and then do a perfect round-house kick). Plus the tea leaves come packed as balls, which only adds to my amusement.

Thunderstorms never stop being scary/exciting.

When it comes to my indoor co-ed soccer team, the “that’s what she said” joke never gets old…ever!

The spin-cycle on my Scandinavian dryer (maybe we’re somehow related!) sounds like a plane taking off. This one’s a double-edged sword because it can also be annoying…like when I’m trying to watch TV or listen to music, or you know, have a conversation or something…but it’s still pretty cool to have it sound like an airplane is taking off in your laundry room.

When my little niece and nephew say the word “rude,” it sounds like they’re saying “wooed.” And they’re still young enough to always be happy to see me.

My older nephew still likes hanging out with me!

I buy Land O’ Lakes American cheese from the deli and the package is labeled LOL cheese. How could you not smile about that?

I’m always wonderfully surprised at how tasty food is when you grow/pick it yourself.

And this is only a sampling of the little things in my life. It’s interesting how many of them are about food…maybe I’m just hungry. Oh, and in case you were curious, my soccer team won again yesterday (we crushed Danbury 6-1), so we’re in the finals next Saturday.

Remembering Kylene With A Poem She Wrote

Today marks the eighth anniversary of my sister Kylene’s death. This was the day the world stopped spinning and turned in a whole new direction. It was also the day I became a writer (even though I wouldn’t realize this for two more years). I may be able to hack it at writing stories, but Kylene was the true poet of the family. Here is one of her poems.

Today I learned about the Math
about the Science
Today I missed out on the life lesson
24 hrs. slipped by
I got an A
I passed the Test
I lied

Days go by, I work, I play
Months go by I give I take
Years go by I live I die
Life’s a circle
Life’s a cycle
Life’s a motion

What’s tomorrow
But another day
A new life?
A Fresh Start?
New Hope?
Clean Slate?
Tomorrow’s but today
Just another day

~Kylene Laraine Carroll

Magnetic Poetry: “Precious Bald Dictionary” Edition

The party-goers have been expressing their creativity again with the magnetic poetry kit. This is how my guests showed their joy at celebrating my mom’s birthday (as always imaginative use of tiles has been preserved as much as possible).

  • imagine beauty which always sucks (the last “s” in sucks was actually part of the word “is,” but this clever–and possibly depressed–person covered the “i” with the word “suck”)
  • my perfect genius monkey boy will make me drown in his sweet brain music (yeah, well my perfect genius monkey boy will kick your perfect genius monkey boy’s butt…ha!)
  • never investigate our skeleton in the attic (what, you keep yours in the closet?)
  • spur cold tree old do nut this but we did an obedient whisper (doesn’t make much sense, but good use of internal rhyme)
  • they expose d my precious bald dictionary to release another inspiration spurt (it’s just all too shocking!)
  • give him the sex y ache ing ghost bosom (maybe this guy should hook up with the skeleton in the attic)
  • use manacle s for transgress ion s by a mean electric spider puppet (that’s sound advice if I’ve ever hear any)
  • ity see lime free off as out right est er un & ness & and i work and mouth black do so ly at at (I think my four-year-old niece put this one up…at least I hope it wasn’t written by someone who actually knows how to read all those words)
  • a girl has the voice too break every man (too 😉 true)
  • must explore pleasure curse (I’ll get on that right away)
  • bleed translucent famous dog bone love (hopefully not all over my kitchen floor)
  • drink down tremendous dead desire spark s then come holy silent night (I’ve heard that is the original title to “Silent Night” but over time the beginning got cut off)
  • devil wine manipulate vision (oh, so that’s why I was seeing double the whole night)
  • her shadow soul howl e d as it was compel ed to pour from he r body like a naked chicken rhythm dance ing (I don’t know about you, but my soul always howls when it pours from my body like a naked chicken rhythm dancing)
  • experience elaborate prostitute between vacuum (the elaborate prostitute rears her ugly head again)
  • e y r l fire of she I are why yes (maybe another one from my niece, but profound in its own way)

It was a record number of sayings on the refrigerator! Thanks to all participants. Feel free to take credit for your work in the comment section.

My Haunted Wedding Location

Let’s start with a bit of a digression: links to three contests. One is to win R.J. Anderson’s book Knife over at Cindy Pon’s blog. A second contest is a book giveaway at the Class of 2k10 blog. The last is for a MG/YA agent contest over at Guide to Literary Agents. And now back to our regularly scheduled post!

The other night the hubby yelled to me from the living room, “You’ve gotta come see this!” I had just gotten out of the shower and was still in my towel, but it sounded urgent, so I dutifully obeyed. He pointed at the TV and asked, “Do you recognize this place?”

Without hesitation I said, “It’s where we got married.” I was thinking that it was pretty cool that the Nutmeg Restaurant was on TV…that is until I realized that it was being featured on an A&E show called Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal. Then I started thinking Okay, that’s kind of freaky.


Check out this video to see the episode of Psychic Kids (you might notice the above chandelier in it). The restaurant doesn’t come in until the 9:28 mark, and the 11:22 mark is when things really start to get scary. The “loft” is where the girl says she feels a ghostly presence and that was where my bridesmaids and I got dressed before the wedding.

When I thought about it, I remembered we did have a bit of a ghostly experience in the loft. We tried to open the window and all of a sudden it fell out of the track. By all laws of physics, the window should’ve gone crashing to the ground, but it didn’t. Something caught it and it teetered there, jutting out a weird angle. Here’s one of the guys from the restaurant trying to put the window back in place.


Come to think of it, my whole wedding seemed kind of cursed. We had originally booked a boat on the Connecticut River, but six months before the date, I got a piece of certified mail with the deposit check (at least I got my money back) and note that said the docking site had been bought out and we’d have to find a new place to have our wedding. That was no easy task, considering we had already booked the D.J. and photographer and couldn’t really change the date. (In wedding time, six months is like two days!)

Luckily the Nutmeg Restaurant was available, so we booked it right up. Then a few days before the date we found out the wedding planner there was “let go.” That meant the main person we had been working with to plan our entire wedding was not going to be working there on the wedding day. It also poured for 13 (gotta love lucky 13) straight days leading up to the wedding. It poured so hard that the hotel we stayed at the night before had massive leaking. And that was just the big things, never mind the million little snafus that happened.

Oh, and I just remembered that my sister accidentally left her dress in the loft after the wedding. The hubby and I went back the next day to try and find dress and to pick up a few other things that had been forgotten. The dress was no where to be seen! (There was a wedding after ours, and it’s possible someone from that wedding took it, but now that I know about the ghost, I’m blaming it on him.)

Turns out the actual wedding was awesome. The ceremony was personal (and brief), the food was delicious, and the dance floor was packed most of the day. The sun even came out in the afternoon. I guess it wasn’t so bad having a haunted wedding site.

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