I borrowed my school library's copy of this. My niece Dezzy got a copy a few holidays ago, and it looked like fun. Snow is something I've seen a very few times in my life, once in Beersheba, a town in southern Israel and once in the Sinai desert. Oh, and briefly at Tehran airport, back before the Ayatollahs took over. A few snowflakes, that's all. A snowstorm is something completely foreign to me in Melbourne(though I did once see a bit of snow on the ground on my way to work, a very long time ago). So it was fascinating to read about a snowstorm affecting the lives of the characters in this.
The linking storyline is that there has been a huge snowstorm which stranded a train in a small town called Gracetown. In it, there are fourteen cheerleaders with two names among them, a local boy and a girl who was being sent to stay with her grandparents after her parents were arrested over a shopping riot.
The three novellas, are by three top YA novelists, Maureen Johnson, John Green and Lauren Myracle. I've just finished Maureen Johnson's "The Jubilee Express" which is seen from the viewpoint of a girl stuck with the name Jubilee, whose parents have been thrown in the slammer on Christmas Eve for being caught up in a riot over a limited edition ceramic, her boyfriend too busy with his family Christmas party to be bothered with her troubles and having to put up with a train full of cheerleaders. This is a delightful romantic comedy and I'm looking forward to reading the others.
I was right, it is fun.
Now I'll have something more to discuss with our students - and with Dezzy!
The linking storyline is that there has been a huge snowstorm which stranded a train in a small town called Gracetown. In it, there are fourteen cheerleaders with two names among them, a local boy and a girl who was being sent to stay with her grandparents after her parents were arrested over a shopping riot.
The three novellas, are by three top YA novelists, Maureen Johnson, John Green and Lauren Myracle. I've just finished Maureen Johnson's "The Jubilee Express" which is seen from the viewpoint of a girl stuck with the name Jubilee, whose parents have been thrown in the slammer on Christmas Eve for being caught up in a riot over a limited edition ceramic, her boyfriend too busy with his family Christmas party to be bothered with her troubles and having to put up with a train full of cheerleaders. This is a delightful romantic comedy and I'm looking forward to reading the others.
I was right, it is fun.
Now I'll have something more to discuss with our students - and with Dezzy!
The book sounds funny and delightfully quirky! I wish I could write novellas. Mine always turn into novels. I can't seem to judge how many words it'll take to get my ideas across. Maybe someday I'll learn the art of writing a novella.
ReplyDeleteI love snow! I grew up in Massachusetts, and we often had 4 feet of snow at times during the winter. There was lots of sledding and skating on the neighborhood pond. So much fun!
Lexa, don't ever complain about "only" being able to write novels. If you have more to say, you do. But I bet if someone commissioned you to write something for a collection like this, you'd learn. ;-)
ReplyDeleteSounds like you have fond memories of the snow. For me, winter is just a very cold version of summer. We did have snow once, back in the late 1980s. It was a few flakes and a tiny bit on the ground, not even enough to make snowballs with. Probably just as well. We get enough damage from storms and wind.