The Inkblotter at The King’s English

Ann Cannon at The King's English Bookshop

So TKE hosted an event for my new young adult novel, The Loser’s Guide to Life and Love, and seriously I felt like a debutante at my own debutante bowl, except that I’m 52. And also I wasn’t wearing a corsage.

Anyway, it was a GREAT evening (thanks, Jenn!) with all kinds of amazing and personal touches–from the dragonflies on the banner to the icy cold cans of Dr. Pepper to the readers’ theater (the kids were amazing!) to Anne Holman’s sweet and funny introduction.  Plus there were actual people in attendance. PEOPLE!  No kidding. I’ve had events in the past for other books where nobody came.  So thank you, everybody, for being there.

Sometimes readers ask which of my books I like the best.  It’s a hard question to answer because your books are like your children:  you love them all equally but some days (truth be told) you like the kid who cleans up his bedroom without being asked better than you like the kid who just totaled your new car.   I will say this, though.  I never ever had more fun writing a book than I did writing Loser.  I think that’s because I wrote about things I love: summer nights in Salt Lake City, my Avenues neighborhood, the moon (and Goodnight Moon, too!), sweet and silly teenage boys, overly affectionate cats, old movies, party food, flowers, romance.  I call Loser my happiness book, and while I don’t know if it’s the best book I’ve ever written, it certainly holds the distinction of being closest to my heart.

Now that Loose Girl has hit our shelves, we asked author Kerry Cohen if she’d do a follow-up interview with us, since the first one was so great. Thanks, Kerry!

TKE: Last time we talked, you gave us the lowdown on the vocabulary of Loose Girl. Can you give us some new vocab that reflects your current life?

KC: PDD-NOS: Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified. This is the diagnosis my son received a few years ago. It means he has some, but not enough, symptoms that would qualify him for an autism diagnosis. Yet it also puts him on the autistic spectrum. It also means, “We don’t really know,” and is therefore a pretty useless diagnosis. Those six letters have changed everything about who I am and what I live for. Mostly, I’ve learned what it means to have special needs, and I’ve come to know that my own special needs are much bigger than his.

Intimacy: Loose Girl is about how I came to stop not having intimacy. Since I’ve been married, I’ve been forced to learn how to have intimacy. This learning has been at a crawl’s pace for me. I’m really, really bad at intimacy. I mean crippled bad. I believe we tend to make lots of assumptions about what intimacy is, what it should look like, etc. I’m fascinated by this, and have spent lots of time just considering the concept. I tend to believe that our cultural narrative about intimacy is probably off-base and immensely unhelpful - maybe even harmful - for most people.

TKE: Are there any benefits to having been a Loose Girl — is there something (or some things) that you are glad you went through?

KC: Oh, sure. I like how my past set me in the direction I eventually went, to become a writer and therapist. I love that I gained the perspective I did, and that I was able to write a book that has been meaningful beyond my own self.

TKE: Who/what are your favorite authors/books, and why?

KC: I hate that question! Not because it’s a bad one, but because I can never narrow down my answer, and later, long after I’ve already answered I inevitably think of three names or books I should have said. But… here are the few that come to mind right now. Some favorite authors: Lauren Slater and Gretel Ehrlich. Some favorite books: The Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. The reasons: Slater and Ehrlich are the two nonfiction writers who made me want to write nonfiction. Both see their worlds through intensely unique perspectives. Ehrich, in particular, sees herself more clearly by examining the natural world around her with stunning, accurate prose. Grealy’s book, in my opinion, is one of the best memoirs ever written. She is a master at making her self matter to the larger world. She took something already interesting, if topical–childhood cancer–and expanded the issue to encase female beauty and feelings of self-worth, issues we could all relate to. And she did it with beautiful prose and a tremendous ability with storytelling. Cisneros’ book, which is fiction, holds my favorite narrative voice. No one has ever repeated as well what she has done here. Her chapters are short, quiet, and minimal, and yet they explode with the many complicated experiences of being young, female, poor, and of color.

I know it has been a long time since I wrote, but we went away on vacation to visit relatives in Turkey and I have finally finished putting all our new treasures away. Now I can relax and write

Our voyage was very long, and an activity travel bag is very important for a little one. So, I read other blogs about traveling with kids and looked up different books, and discovered that the most important thing to have in a travel bag is an I SPY book.

Fortunately for me, the week before we left for Turkey, my mom was visiting and we found some I SPY books at a yard sale for $1 each. They were the best $4 I have ever spent. I picked one to take and boy, was it a lifesaver! Can You See What I See?, Cool Collections, Picture Puzzles to search and solve — each page is an assortment of different things. Along the side, they have a list of things to look for. Mina’s favorite pages were the Dinosaur and the Robot. It occupied her for HOURS on the flight.

I also threw in her Goodnight Moon board book and Curious George’s 1 to 10 and Back Again because she was very familiar with them and there were lots of things to pick out and count from each of the pages.

One of the blogs that I read suggested a book about planes. I found a really cool picture book at TKE that are part of a vehicle series. It is called Airplanes!: Soaring! Diving! Turning! (Things That Go!). She really liked the pictures and bold colors in the book. Sometimes you needed to turn the book vertical to read and that added another dimension to the story; none of her OTHER books did that!!

In addition to these bigger books, I threw in a few smaller books that are just the right size for little hands. That way she can read to herself or to her babies without needing Mommy around.

All in all, no travel bag should be devoid of an I SPY book. It is an absolute ESSENTIAL! ~ Elif

I know that I had said that I would do my next mommy blog on sleep, but I have recently read a couple of books here on vacation that I want to chat about first. Mina and I are in Turkey right now visiting relatives and I always bring tons of books to read. We are early risers and I need something to keep me occupied! I am really glad that I have had the time to read these books, which have been collecting dust on the shelf for so long.

I am trying to lay a foundation of expectations, I guess one might call it, for Mina–behavioral expectations. I worked in a day care center for two years before having Mina, specifically in the baby room. It was apparent to me that parenting is not always an innate ability and it is better to be forewarned and forearmed with information! So, when I was pregnant, I devoured baby books and now I am transitioning to toddlerhood with the “terrible two’s” rapidly approaching!

I bought the book Parenting with Love and Logic from TKE a few months ago and just sat down to read it Saturday. It was a pretty rapid read and I found the verbiage very accessible, the scenarios plausible and very relatable. I was surprised, however, to see that each chapter began with biblical Proverb excerpts. This was not a problem for me and they were not too preachy, but I am not a very religious person. Someone of a different faith may have a problem getting past that point because it does quote a religious text, but it would be a shame to let that stop you from reading this book.

I think I am going to start implementing many of the recommendations right now! For example, I liked the part about giving up control and putting it in the hands of the child in certain aspects because it fosters independent thinking and decision making. Too many kids relay on the parents to decide for them and it does not lay a firm foundation for the future. How will the kids ever be ready to enter the real world and decide how to live in it? So, the other day, instead of just putting shoes on Mina, I asked her what shoes she wanted to wear: Dinos. Ok. Fine. Sunday we went to the park and I brought her sweater. I asked her if she was cold, she said no. I left it at that. A few minutes later, she came up, signed “Cold, Sweater, in” and we put on her sweater. It is really working out well! Before we go out, I ask her if she wants to walk out by herself or carried. First she says walk, and then sometimes she puts her hands up after a few minutes and says “up”. I can see how this application can prevent tantrums and foster independent thought processes to develop naturally.

There is one story that really illustrates the basic parental command: “Put your coat on, it’s cold outside.” The kid says no and there is a tussle to get out the door. The example in the book recommends this instead: “It is cold outside. You might want to consider wearing a coat. I am because I don’t like being cold.” The child decides not to and is shivering the car, rethinking his decision. Is the kid going to catch a cold with a quick car ride? No, but the lesson he will learn will last a long time.

The other book that I am about done with is called Magic Trees of the Mind: How to Nurture your Child’s Intelligence, Creativity, and Healthy Emotions from Birth to Adolescence. Mom gave it to me months ago and I am just getting to it now. It has been really interesting to see how the brain functions with regard to learning and enrichment, how it grows and shrinks due to positive and negative influences at such early ages. The author, Marian Diamond, is a brain specialist and you can really feel her excitement for her work as you read.

I have to admit that I skimmed some of the basic brain segment information area–I am on borrowed time when Mina is sleeping, so I wanted to get to the juicy parts! The short version is, they conducted tests with rats in two different cages: one big and full of toys and friends and one small and isolated. Then they measured the size of the cortex. The rat from the bigger cage had a thicker cortex! In some instances, rats with no stimulation had no cortex growth at all. It is a very interesting read about how early treatment of children really affects their learning capabilities later in life.

It was unbelieveable to me how long lasting these early experiences chart the course for life. Another example : A girl is raised by a controlling father who decides what she eats, when she eats, and so on. She doesnt do anything before consulting him. Once she was removed from that environment and was asked what she wanted on her sandwich, she looked blank. The area of the brain that could have made that decision was stunted and she was, at that moment, physically unable to make that decision. The book also goes into how much reading and playing with children enrich their lives and give them such an advantage. Not only do they learn faster, they grow faster too! They said that the increased enrichment process also stimulates the brain metabolism and the kids grow faster, teeth come in faster, etc.

I guess I could go on and on with other examples, but you get the idea. There is a lot of science in this book, but the authors have main-streamed the researc for the everyday reader. Definitely something to read before you get pregnant or while you are pregnant, because i don’t think you will ever get the time to fully absorb all the science after the baby comes (unless you go on vacation!). ~ Elif

I think just about anyone who knows Mina, knows that HOW HOW is a dog. ‘How How’ is what dogs in Turkey say instead of ‘woof woof’. It all started with one book (which at one time used to be in ONE piece!) about a dog on a farm. My mother-in-law brought it over from Turkey for Mina’s first birthday this fall. It was love at first sight! Each page pulled out to reveal what mischief the dog had gotten into. Since Mina really really uses her books, this one didn’t last very long. Pretty soon, the pages were falling apart, but that didn’t matter. We would tell the story from the pieces. Sometimes, she would pick a special page to take with her around the house that day.

She just loves to look at “how hows”. I think we have looked at every book at TKE that has dogs in it. We have a special one that we have to visit each time we go: Dog by Matthew Van Fleet. When we go, she has to take each copy of the book off the shelf and look at each one individually. She especially likes the page where the dogs pees on the tree, and is scared of the page with the sticky tongue. Mina likes very tactile books, but REALLY doesn’t like sticky tongues — she becomes a bit of a drama queen when she gets to that part of the book!

Matthew Van Fleet has a few different books in print, but Dog always tops the list. She was not interested whatsoever in Tails, and got bored with Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings pretty fast. Her interest perked up again with his new Alphabet book — I think it will be a new favorite in the weeks to come.

Autumn by Gerda Muller was her second favorite book. This book is fantastic because it has no words, so you can make up your own story. It lends itself very well to multicultural families, because each family member can explain it in their own language. The illustrations capture your eye and pull you into the story. We have since bought Winter and that was just as big hit as the first one. Mina will sit there and tell you what the girls are doing, or that the boy fell down while ice skating. She loves to sit and soak up everything that is happening, and will get excited when she finds something new! Even though it is a board book, I can envision it having a looooong shelf life in our house. I can just see Mina making up these elaborate stories about the boys climbing the trees, or what sort of jam the mom is making!

As I mentioned in my first post, Mina goes everywhere with her bookbag! We usually have it filled with a few board books and it amazes me that they are so worn in such a short time!! Let’s see… what is in her bookbag this week: Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Gorilla, The Hat, Curious George’s 1 to 10 and Back Again, The Little Mermaid board book, Gossie, Kiss Kiss!, thrown in a knitted baby doll and we are good to go out to eat!

Mina is now transitioning into “big girl” books and they do not fit in her little bag, so we headed out to JoAnn’s to pick up a new canvas bag to decorate. She picked out some iron on patches and decorations and that will be our weekend project. I think the next book to get will be an Alphabet book. Mina has started to pick out letters and wants me to spell words as we go. So far, her favorite letter is “O!”

Well, it is almost 8am and it is time to go and read Skippyjon Jones… She gets up, says “Mama… [says and signs] bounce bounce meow READ!” ~ Elif