Emily Vander Ark

Frozen! Anna’s Winter Dress

Guys, I made this costume for work. The only thing better would be if I could have made it at work. But seriously, this was one of the easiest costumes I’ve ever done! I found the light blue blouse, a black t-shirt, and the blue skirt for $15 in a single trip to the Goodwill one block away from my house. A quick Google for Anna’s costume details revealed stencils and color guides.

I simply trimmed up the t-shirt to the shape of Anna’s vest, hemmed the new edges, and shaped up the collar of the blouse. Then, guided by a YouTube tutorial, I drew the designs onto the vest and skirt with white eyeliner, and painted them in.

Ta-da!

To finish it off, I used one of those great JoAnn’s coupons to get three yards of pink fleece for another $20 and with some quick cuts and just a little bit of sewing created Anna’s cloak. The lining fabric was provided courtesy of Juliet, who shewed up the bottom of our burgundy duvet cover.

Costumes are so fun! I’m thinking that for Halloween, I will try to find time to add the gold details to the bodice and reuse this costume, which is one reason I didn’t mind spending the out of pocket money for the materials. Also – for $35 this costume was cheaper and (in my opinion) better than a store-bought version of Anna’s winter outfit.

Since no one is thinking about Halloween 2015 yet, what did you dress as for Halloween 2014? Did you make your costume or buy it? Let me know!

Review: Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

I first heard about Echo when Pam Muñoz Ryan came to speak at my fall residency last November. Our focus for that residency was on writing for children – more specifically on the fairy tale – and our book in common was Ryan’s Esperanza Rising. During her visit, Ryan shared with us a bit about her upcoming book, Echo. My interest was piqued immediately, and I’ve been anticipating the book ever since.

First, although the cover and appearance of a book is something the author has little to no control over, it’s been proven that the cover of a book really does affect the way potential readers perceive the contents. That won’t be a problem for Echo. The dust jacket is beautiful in reds, blues, and purples, with black and white accents. The board cover is enchanting, a pale wood that closes over bright red end papers. (I love good end papers.)

Second, there are many stories within Echo, but if the book is about one thing the most obvious answer is an enchanted harmonica. Who doesn’t love harmonicas? It’s even a pretty word.

Third, is what I mentioned above: Echo is one book, but it contains many stories. There’s Otto, a young German boy who finds himself inside a fairy tale in the woods; Friedrich, who must try to get himself and his family out of 1933 Germany due to a birthmark that covers his face; Mike, who tries to get himself and his orphaned brother adopted from the orphanage together during the Great Depression in 1935; and Ivy, whose family moves to a new farm in southern California to take care of it while the Japanese owners are held in a 1942 war camp. Each child is connected by the love of music, and each story by the thread of a single, enchanted harmonica.

With so much story, this middle-grade novel comes in at nearly 600 pages – but don’t let that hold you or your child back. The stories provide convenient breaks in the action, and the new characters will keep readers engaged. The pages are not crowded, and I found them turning swiftly. This book is a wonderful entry into conversations about Nazism, orphans, and segregation, but it can also be enjoyed simply for the stories it provides. I would recommend Echo to anyone who loves music – there is much love of music here, for everything from the cello to the piano to the harmonica.

I really love Echo – and I think you will too! If you’d like to read more about it, click here to read an interview Pam Muñoz Ryan did with Horn Book.

What I’ve Been Reading…

Since I switched my genre of study to Writing for Children and Young Adults last November, I’ve been enjoying the reading that comes with that category. Children’s books have a sweetness and a truth about them that isn’t usually there in fiction written for adults. So I love sharing them with other readers!

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a YA novel about a girl with a horrible secret and no friends. Recommended for teenagers who feel misunderstood or who want to understand their friends better.

The Wednesday Wars by Gary Shmidt is an older, upper middle-grade book that brought me to tears. The Vietnam War, Shakespeare, and 8th grade can never again come together with so much beauty. Recommended for mature middle-grade readers who want a poignant story.

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate tells the story of Ivan the silverback gorilla who was once on display in a shopping mall in Washington state. The story of how he was rescued from the mall and integrated into a zoo is a contributor to the larger story of the animal protections we have in place today. Recommended for animal lovers and activists.

Same Sun Here by Silas House and Neela Vaswani is the amazing epistolary story of two children who become pen palls and then best friends. One of them is an immigrant from India who lives in New York, and the other is a Kentuckian who is watching his beloved mountains destroyed by mountaintop removal mining. Recommended for everyone.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith is the classic tale of Francie Nolan’s childhood in Brooklyn, New York. It is a v e r y long book… but it is full of beauty. Recommended for anyone who wants a long read that is guaranteed to move them, some time or another (especially writers).

Blue Mountain by Martine Leavitt is about a heard of bighorn sheep who are crowded out of their mountain’s winter valley by a human settlement. Tuk and his bandmates set out to find the legendary blue mountain where the herd will graze in peace, and they meet, defeat, and are helped by many other animals along the way. Recommended for animal lovers and preservationists.

In addition to what I read for my MFA studies, I also read a lot of the children’s books that I order for the library where I work. Here are some of my favorites:

Shh! We Have a Plan by Chris Haughton is a super cute book. The story is pretty short, but young children will adore it.

Once Upon an Alphabet: Short Stories for All the Letters by Oliver Jeffers is not a short book, but it is lovely. Each letter of the alphabet gets it’s own mini story, just a few pages long. The fun is in finding out which stories are linked.

Home by Cason Ellis is a beautifully illustrated celebration of what a home can be in many different parts of the world, different time periods, and a few places that aren’t on earth at all.

Flare by Kallie George is an easy reader book about a young phoenix learning to be the best phoenix he can be. Companion to Spark, which is about a young dragon who is learning to control his fiery breath.

A Rock Can Be… by Laura Salas is a wonderful successor to Water Can Be… which I loved. Spectacular illustrations help children think outside the box by showing examples of the many, many things in our lives that a rock can be.

How are the Roads?

In Michigan, in February, there is one question I hear more than any other question – more even than “How are you doing?” What question is that?

“How are the roads?”

As much as people instinctively respond “good” to the first question, they seem to take an inexplicable joy in relating just how “bad!” their journey was in the snow. The roads were absolutely terrible, barely even cleared, there were at least a dozen cars on the sides of the roads, and visibility was zilch.

Sometimes that sounds like the answer to the other question. The answer we never give.

Winter tends to have the same effect on my creativity as it does on the roads. It’s hard to find inspiration when everything around me is white or slush brown, and there’s no end in sight. It’s hard to be productive when all I want to do is curl up under every blanket we own and hibernate like a bear until spring.

I think it would be better if I forgot about the bear and tried to be more like skunk cabbage.

Skunk cabbage?

I’d never heard of this plant before moving to Michigan, where it grows freely in the ravine behind my house and my in-laws’ house, and in the local nature center where I like to walk. No one much cares for it, but I think the purple, wild, beak-like flower is really beautiful. What I didn’t know about skunk cabbage until just recently is that it has the ability to generate temperatures 20-60 degrees above the temperature of the air around it.

I know, it’s crazy!

This means that these little green plants started growing in the nature center last week, during the middle of our heaviest, longest snow of the season (so far).

So I want to be a skunk cabbage, and grow, and be green, in February, so I can tell people that the roads are just fine.

Iron Belle

If you live in Michigan, you might have seen (or heard?) the news about the “new” statewide trail that will be going in over the next few years. The Iron Belle Trail stretches from Ironwood at the west end of the Upper Peninsula to Belle Isle just outside Detroit. I’ve been waiting for news of places to do some real hiking for a year now, so I’m ecstatic!

I’m so excited, in fact, that I may or may not have set up a second blog to put trail news. Okay, yes, I did. Right now, at this link, you can find out about the Iron Belle, the North Country Trail, and a few guide books along with information about why there aren’t more.

Here it is: northcountryhike.wordpress.com

I’ll be updating there with news about the trails progress, our progress on the trail, and other relevant information.

Happy Trails!

Sinful Simon or Peter, Redeemed

The practice of yoga tends to be a subject of some controversy among evangelicals due to it’s roots in eastern religion. When I took a class at a Baptist college on yoga (as exercise), we exclusively learned the poses involved. There was no chanting or mumbo jumbo, no meditation. The only possible thing that could be linked to the history of yoga was the word namaste. We ended each class by placing our palms together and nodding our heads to the instructor, who did the same to us, and we said namaste to each other.

According to our instructor, we were simply thanking her for the class, and she was thanking us for our participation. This is an accepted meaning for the term among those who practice yoga as an exercise or sport, but the translation of the Sanskrit word namaste into English is “the divine in me honors the divine in you.”

Conservative evangelicals often shy away even from this word, because of it’s meaning. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder – why don’t we adopt this greeting and use it in our churches?

C S Lewis, in his essay The Weight of Glory, famously pointed out that everyone we meet is someone who will be alive forever.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – there are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

– C S Lewis, The Weight of Glory

How often do we really think like this? It is certainly easy to forget that we are eternal ourselves, and much easier when it comes to those who irritate or harm us in some way. Perhaps if we kept a greeting with connotations of “my eternal self honors your eternal self” or, specifically among Christian communities, “my sanctified self honors your sanctified self” we could better remember that while we are still sinners, the same Christ saved us all, and we will be together with him – and each other – for eternity.

In a recent worship service, a preacher encouraged the congregation to recognize this in the example of Simon Peter. Jesus gave Simon, the sinner, a new name when he became a follower. That name was Peter, the Rock on which Christ built his church. This same person denied Christ three times on the eve of the crucifixion. Jesus, because he has covered this, chose to see Peter and love him, rather than to see Simon and punish the sin. The preacher encouraged us to do this ourselves, in conflict with others, to see the new person Christ has cleansed rather than the old person who was lost.

This is difficult to do even if we remember. But how often are we reminded, or do we remind ourselves? Perhaps it should be a little more often.

Namaste.

10 Things I’ve Learned About Living in a Small Town by Walking in Mine

1. Construction can cause traffic jams anywhere.

2. The sidewalk outside the Village does not get plowed.

3. It is possible to walk to Where the Sidewalk Ends in every direction.

4. The sidewalk can get you to a lot of places, but the library might not be one of them.

5. Even small towns have litter (empty cigarette box, soggy packing peanuts, fast food burger wrappers).

6. There are still enough smokers in Michigan for their cigarette butts to fill the cracks in the sidewalk.

7. They should hire puppies to clean up litter – no back pain and the dogs get a kick out of it.

8. No one else walks their dog at lunchtime on Tuesdays.

9. You cannot get coffee in the Village after 3:00pm.

10. Santa is beheaded on January 20th.

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Walking in Winter

One week ago: the last time the temperature in Berrien County was over 32 degrees – probably for the rest of the winter season. Me being me, I already have cabin fever, which I’ve temporarily soothed by reading the Square Foot Garden and beginning the process of planning out this year’s vegetable garden. But a week ago, as I sensed the winter coming full force around the bend, I went on a (milder) winter’s walk with my beloveds.

Warren Woods is a State Park near Three Oaks, Michigan – the woodsy, lesser known companion park to Warren Dunes. It is a primeval forest full of birch and oak trees, and it made for a lovely new year outing. Only one set of tracks – human – went down the path before us, and they were filled in with enough snow that we knew we’d have the forest to ourselves.

Juliet’s experience with snow is limited to our yard, so she had a blast traipsing around in the cold stuff, and through a few hollow trees.

It was a perfect winter walk, ending with a warm drink and a nice nap at home. Now winter can hurry up and be over, so the real fun can begin. 🙂

2014: A Big Year

Yes, this is a recap post. 🙂 2014 has been such a huge year for me, personally, academically, and in the world of literature. Instead of summarizing my summary, I’ll get right to it.

Winter

In January, I became Mrs. Vander Ark and moved all the way up to Southwest Michigan, during one of the snowiest winters they’d had in years! Our wedding was largely DIY, and it was a huge relief to be done planning for it.

Shortly after we moved into our cozy basement apartment, I received my first online publication (independent from my undergraduate school’s journal) from TWJMagazine.

In February I started working at the Bridgman Public Library, where I do children’s programming and order picture books through middle grade books – which increased the number of books I read quite a lot!

Notable Reads

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
Fortunately, the Milk – Neil Gaiman
Bats at the Library – Brian Lies

Spring

My MFA in creative writing at Spalding University began at the end of May, and the week I spend surrounded by other writers in Louisville, KY, was probably the most inspiring time of my life. It came just after the official closure of my undergraduate degree when we walked with our classmates in the early May graduation ceremony at University of the Cumberlands.

After Memorial Day, I also began writing for the Infusco Coffee Roasters blog… and spending a lot of time in the shop!

Caleb and I also tried our hand at raised-bed gardening for the first time and were far more successful than we anticipated.

Notable Reads

Wonder – R. J. Palacio
The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap – Wendy Welch
Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers – Frank Walker

Summer

We bought a house! And proceeded to spend an entire month renovating. We refinished the floors, painted ceilings, walls, and cabinets, and moved in to our first house.

My CNF story “There Are No Buffalo Here” appeared in print via Garbanzo Literary Journal this summer. I couldn’t have picked a better place for it!

Notable Reads

Norman, Speak! – Caroline Adderson
Young House Love – the Petersiks
This Moose Belongs to Me – Oliver Jeffers

Fall

As if we hadn’t been blessed enough by the rest of the year, September brought us our beloved beagle/foxhound puppy, Juliet. She is smart, loving, playful, and generally pleasant, and we love her to pieces.

We hosted our first Halloween Party and Thanksgiving dinner in our new home, and settled in for the rest of the holiday season.

I switched my concentration at Spalding from CNF to writing for children and young adults, and so far I’m loving it!

Notable Reads

Landline – Rainbow Rowell
Wild – Cheryl Strayed
We Were Liars – E. Lockhart

If you’re interested, you can see everything that I read in 2014 (200+ books) through this link. If you’d rather just know which books I had a lot to say about, check here, here, here, or here.

Here’s to a great 2015! Anyone want to share your resolutions? Mine are to start running again, have a more successful garden, and read more than I did this year. 🙂

Comfort AND Joy

The Christmas season is a time of peace that passes understanding, tidings of comfort and joy, good cheer, and general happiness for many.

I love looking around and seeing the twinkling lights on pine trees and rooftops, wreaths hung up on doors and garlands on fences, Christmas carols playing on the radio, on tv, in the mall. Generosity makes an anuall field day during this time; strangers buy gifts for those they don’t know and go out of their way to provide for those in need. Shoppers pause in silence out of respect for a seven year old who focuses on playing his piano carol. Bells jingle and laughter peaks through the air.

Christmas has got to be the most wonderful time of the year.

But it’s not that, for everyone. Some need comfort before they can have joy.

A few weeks ago as I scrolled through my news feed I saw the news that some friends had lost their premature baby girl. The pregnancy had been fine until a few days before, when doctors recommend a c-section at 23 weeks and delivered the tiny girl. She didn’t live long, and her parents have been both devastated and doing their best to rely on God’s healing, joy and peace.

The very next post as I scrolled down was a photo of my 2 month old niece and her beaming mother beside their Christmas tree.

This struck me as so true of this season. I encourage you to look around and choose to see , yes, the baby by the Christmas tree, but also the tree with an empty cradle beside it. This sentiment doesn’t only apply to babies and which ones are healthy and which ones are not. Many people struggle to enjoy all the wonder if this season for all kinds of reasons. This is a simple reminder not to let your gaze cloud when you see them, not to walk by pushing thoughts of them far from your mind.

Focus your mind on them instead, and do what you can give them even a tiny reason to celebrate the Christmas season. It might just make your season a little brighter, too.