What Adults Can Learn From "this star won't go out"

1. This is the 2nd post in a series about the books I am loving right now.

   
   

   this star won't go out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl
   by Esther Earl, Wayne Earl, Lori Earl, and John Green

Adults forget...not because we are old, but because we want to believe that we weren't something that we surely were.

this star won't go out was my wakeup call to this fact, and it was a call that hit me over the course of the 2 or 3 days it took me to cry my way through its pages.

What do we forget?  We forget what being a teenager was like.  We forget the emotion, the closeness and importance of friends, the real worries and concerns about the future.  We forget that many of us were worthy, deep thinking, caring, fragile people.  As adults, we discount the intelligence of teen's thoughts and the truth of their reality.  I think we do this because we know our adult lives are harder than our teenage lives were.  We see them and think just you wait.  Lately, I have had a hard time seeing them as anything other than horrible little creatures who only want to live in fake, on-line worlds.  I have been wrong. I am wrong.  Ester Earl and her family and friends have taught me that, and I'm glad they did!


So the book...
To talk about  this book, first I have to talk about another book that most of the young adult world (and some of the adult world) has heard of.  It is called The Fault in Our Stars.  It was written by John Green, a very popular YA author and on-line personality.  Google "John Green" and you will be immersed in hours of reading and videos that educate you, make you laugh, make you want to be awesome, feed your obsessions with all things nerdy and Harry Potter, and well you get the idea.  He is pretty fantastic.

Anyway, John Green was writing a book about teens with cancer.  While he was writing it, he met a girl named Ester Earl at a Harry Potter convention called LeakyCon. (Um yeah, how cool is that?)  He happened to be her favorite author, and before she left this world, she became one of his favorite people. No joke, he created "Ester Day" and celebrates it every year on her birthday in the way that she asked it to be celebrated.  Anyway, though The Fault in Our Stars is not based on Ester Earl's life, other than the fact that she had cancer and had to be hooked up to oxygen 24 hours a day, she influenced the way he told the story.  It is a book I would recommend, but you don't need to read it to be impacted by Ester's story.

this star won't go out is a compilation of Ester's diaries, drawings, letters to her family, and on-line chat transcripts, her parent's entries on the CaringBridge website, and essays about her from her friends, family, and doctors.  Each piece of this book is a testament to the world that we- adults- need to give credit and validity to the teens in our lives.  To truly understand any of the lessons I learned, you need to read the book yourself.  I promise you that you will cry your way through it (if you have an ounce of humanity in you).  You will cry a lot, and I think you will be glad for it.

The overarching reminders in this book are obvious and magnificently important.  Our time on this earth is fragile and fleeting.  Love is what matters. Thank God for every moment you have with the people you care about. Cancer sucks! That right there is enough of a lesson for everyone, but I want to take the time to share what I learned about the generation of teens from this book that the world as a whole needs to see and needs to search out.

1. On-line friends are real friends. Don't discount their importance.
2. Teens worries and emotions are valid. We can help them through, but not if we tell them to just get over themselves.
3. Not every teenager is a self-centered brat. They just aren't.
4. Teens love ferociously.  They love their families. They love their friends.  They aren't just concerned with romantic love.
5. They can change the world.  Give them the chance!

And just because I always feel the need to end on a more up beat note...These are the top 5 things I feel the need to know or do now because I read this book.

1. Am I too old to be a "nerdfighter" or go to Leaky Con or like Harry Potter Wizard Rock (Wrock) music?  (please say no)
2. I need to find out more about and catch up on the "wrock" music world.
3. I must carve out hours to watch Ester Earl's and John Green's vlogs. He has a gazillion YouTube channels. Just google him.
4. I want to join the Harry Potter Alliance.  It is not just a crazy fan group.  They are changing the world.
5. What am I doing to help decrease "worldsuck"?  How can I help teenagers become part of answer to decreasing "worldsuck"?

Yeah, so I'm gonna go teach some cool kids some cool stuff now.  Go get this book. The tears will be more than worth it!

Murdering My Youth by Cady McClain

I met Cady McClain at Write the Dream last March.  I knew who she was from her days on the soap opera All My Children.  I had a babysitter named Alice who loved daytime TV.  All My Children was one of my favorites. Yes, I loved soap operas long before I should have been watching them, but that is an entirely different story...

Anyway, Cady led a workshop that was amazing and helped me to create some really good pieces of writing.  Some I have shared, some I haven't. She is one of three or four real celebrities that I have ever met, but more, she is one of the most genuine and real human beings I have ever talked to.  She made me, and I think, the rest of the attendees of the writing conference feel like we really mattered and that our work really mattered.

At the conference she talked about her book and about the process and pain she went through to write and publish it.  Now that I have read her story I know why it was so hard.  I also have even more respect for her as a person.  She did not have an upbringing that would typically turn out such a genuinely kind person.  To say that Cady was taken advantage of as a child by her parents and others close to her would be an understatement of epic proportions.  Her experiences are nearly unbelievable, so heart wrenching, so raw, and yet she tells it like it is.  Her ability to put her life on the page with no holds barred is what kept me reading.  I finished this book in about 2 sittings.  I just could not stop.  She is proof that a person can come through devastation, can learn from mistakes of others and herself, and in the end can learn to trust in humanity again.

When our workshop was over and I was saying goodbye to Cady, she gave me a hug (or let me give her one).  I didn't think anything of it.  She was just that sort of warm, sweet person.  The kind of person who you want to hug.  After reading her book, I look back at that moment now and see something a little more special.  Trusting someone to be in her personal space like that is a big deal, and she trusted me.  Thanks, Cady! Thanks for sharing yourself with me, with other aspiring writers, and with the world.

Check out Cady's website here to find out more about her and to get your own copy of this amazing read.

I Love Books

There are very few things that I would rather do than read a book.  In fact, if I am not currently living in the world of a good book, I get very irritable and tend towards a mini-depressive state.  Because I know that about myself, I often have 2 or 3 books going and about 20 on reserve at my bedside or on my Kindle.  I always ask for books for gifts and they are usually my favorite presents.  I check out tons of things from the library even though I know I won't get to them before they are due.  I have no idea if I am like other readers in the obsessions that I have with particular books.  I go back to certain ones and read them again and again.  Others, I don't read more than once, but they just become a part of me.

Though my life is nothing that I need to escape from, I revel in the escape of words and worlds and wonders that are created inside my mind.  I love learning and delving into the topics and people that are coming alive on the pages for me.  My favorite real life people (besides my dear husband and children, of course) are the people who will talk "books" with me.  My mom, my book club girls, the librarian at my school, the substitute teachers who bring me books they've finished and loved.  And so before I get sappy and philosophical on you about why books are life... on to the real point.

Recently, I've been reading a lot more than usual. This means I am reading a lot, a lot instead of just a lot.  This is partly do to the fact I had 2 weeks off from work for Christmas Break and partly due to the fact that it has been so cold.  I don't want to do anything but cozy up in bed with a book and a hot cup of tea.

I've read some great ones in these last few weeks and I would like to share what I think about them here in the next few posts.  Come back soon for my thoughts on Murdering My Youth by Cady McClain, this star won't go out by Ester Earl with Lori and Wayne Earl, The Clan of the Cave Bear Series by Jean M. Auel, and a re-read of Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon.

I have been touched personally in some way by each of these titles and I believe that is what makes a "good read."  So, I won't be evaluating them for their literary value (though they definitely have it), I will be telling you why they work for me and how they have changed my thinking or encouraged me to do better or be better.  I will let you know why they stuck because lots of books don't.  The books that stick are the books worth reading.  And if in the next few weeks you happen to pick up one of these titles, come back and let me know what you thought.

My Murdering My Youth post will be up sometime in the next couple of days.