Visiting the Mentor, Ohio, Skating Rink

Here's me with the skaters and their counselor, senior
skater Alex DiCola

One of the perks of writing for children is that you have a chance to meet and talk with kids.  I did just that last week when I met with a small group of skaters at the Mentor Skating Rink in Mentor, Ohio. Before moving to Florida, I lived in Mentor for twenty years, and both of my children went through school there.  My daughter Heidi skated at the Mentor rink when she was in junior high and high school, and it was this rink that I pictured when I wrote Pairs on Ice.

It was a young group and included some hockey players, so instead of talking about Jamie and Matt and the pressures of competition, I read some sections of my book, and we talked about getting along with teammates that you don’t like.  They had stories about doing projects with kids they didn’t like or who didn’t do their share of the work.  When I asked what Jamie and Matt could have done differently, they had some good ideas, like “Maybe Matt could have said he was sorry for making her fall,” or “Maybe she didn’t have to yell at him.”

I also talked about how I can live in other people's lives when I'm writing.  "I can't skate very well," I said, "but when I write about Jamie, I'm with her, flying over the ice." One girl asked if I liked to read.  She had a big smile when I said that I had always liked to read, that, like writing, reading let me have many different adventures. I asked if she read a lot.  She nodded. I added that when I was a child, we didn’t have Amazon or e-books, so I would bring a pile of books home every time I went to the library.

I always enjoy talking with children.  They’re spontaneous, honest, and you never know what impact you might have.

Beach Reading

I love the beach!  I love walking along the shore, picking up shells, listening to the waves crash, and even boogie boarding when we’re home in Florida, where the water is warmer and the waves are gentler than up north.  But just as important, I love sitting in a sand chair facing the ocean and––you guessed it––reading.

Me with a book at the Jersey Shore.

I don’t read just any book at the beach.  It’s has to be vacation reading, even if I’m not on an official vacation.  It has to be fun and filled with characters I can identify with and love.  Happy endings are a plus, although I can live with a sad, but hopeful ending.  But no tragedies are allowed on my beach.

My favorite beach authors are, not surprisingly, my favorite authors off the beach, too––those who write about women’s lives and the ups and downs of love, family, and friendships.  It’s even better when the books have beautiful settings, places I’ve been to or would love to go.

These include:  Elin Hilderbrand, who lives and writes in Nantucket, a beautiful, historic island off Cape Cod that I fell in love with my first visit;  Marie Bostwick, whose Cobbled Court Quilts series is set in a quilt shop, a craft I’ve dabbled in (I proudly display my pillows in my living room);  Jane Green, a British writer who now lives in Connecticut and writes about ordinary families (with problems of course) in southern Connecticut towns;  Mary Kay Andrews, many of whose books are set in and around Savannah;  Dorothea Benton Frank, whose books about the South Carolina Low Country I first discovered in a Beaufort, SC, book shop;  Kristin Hannah, whose books delve deeply into family relationships––Home Front and The Nightingale were books I couldn’t put down;  and Anne Rivers Siddons, who writes about both New England and the South. 

Seagulls at New Smyrna Beach, FL

Last week, I enjoyed four days “down the shore” at a beach house in Avalon, NJ, with my daughter and her family.  I brought Jane Green’s The Beach House with me.  The story revolves around an old beach house in Nantucket’s Sconset community.  Finding herself financially strapped, the owner, a widow in her sixties, decides to rent rooms.  Not surprisingly, her guests are men and women escaping life crises.  It was fun watching them resolve their issues and find new friends and a new “family.”  Perfect beach reading.

What do you like to read on the beach?