Fiction about the Vietnam War
Search and Destroy by Hughes
Fallen Angels by Myers
Too Big a Storm by Qualey
Fiction about Photography
The Seer of Shadows by Avi
Born Confused by Hidier
Shadow-catcher by Levin
Flash Burnout by Madigan
The Red Thread : A Novel in Three Incarnations by Townley
A Little Friendly Advice by Vivian
Razzle by Wittlinger
Teens as Photographers
Picture Perfect by Alphin
Prom Dates from Hell by Clement-Moore
Rain Is Not My Indian Name by Smith
I was hooked on this book from the very first sentence, "The day after my brother left for Vietnam, me and Private Hollister played thirty-seven hands of gin rummy, and I won twenty-one." Jamie Dexter is a card shark, and an army brat. She and her brother TJ grew up in the army. Their father, who they call the Colonel, liked to say, "The army way is the right way," and they believed it. Jamie tells her own story, and she lets you know right off the bat how confident she is, but you can hear a hint of how much she will come to learn during the course of the story. "I was six months away from turning thirteen and I thought I knew everything." It's the summer of 1969, and TJ enlists in the Medical Corps instead of going to college like his family had planned. Jamie doesn't understand why her father isn't happy --she and TJ have always believed that going to war is the greatest thing possible. She thinks it must be her mother who is putting pressure on the Colonel to get TJ to stay home. She asks TJ to write her letters, but instead he sends her rolls of black and white film, and tells her to develop it herself at the rec center. Jamie started volunteering at the rec center just before her brother left, and has struck up a friendship with Private Hollister. He introduces her to another soldier who teaches her how to work in the darkroom. At first, TJ's pictures are of the landscape and some of the nurses he works with. But with each roll of film he sends her, the images become more disturbing, and she is reluctant to develop them. He also shoots pictures of the moon, his favorite subject. Things come to a head when Jamie finds out that her friend Private Hollister may be sent to Vietnam, where his brother was already killed. This story is about the war in Vietnam, but mostly it's about a family and a girl growing up in a difficult time. Review by Stacy Church
I’ve been writing as long as I can remember, even before I knew it was a job! I’ve always been interested in literature, folklore, history, and culture, so I studied English and anthropology in college. But I’ve only ever worked as a writer (although not all my writing jobs were as interesting as being a novelist).
I’m a native Midwesterner, currently living in the tall grass prairie near Kansas City with my husband and our dogs. When I’m not writing, you can find me with a book, a dog, or my needlework in hand, sometimes all of the above, which makes for some furry embroidery.” –from elizabethcbunce.com
A historical costumer who cuts, sews and embroiders, Elizabeth C. Bunce also has a strong interest in mythology, traditional stories such as myths, fairy tales and legends, and Egyptology, as well as the folklore of ghosts and folk magic. She received her B.A in English and Anthropology from the University of Iowa, with an emphasis in traditional storytelling. "My background in anthropology is a perfect complement to my work as a novelist," says Elizabeth.
"I've always been interested in fairy tales for their adaptability, and retellings such as Robin McKinley's classic Beauty really sparked my imagination as a young reader," says Elizabeth. "The ironic thing is that, of all the fairy tales out there, Rumpelstiltskin was probably my least favorite-I was troubled by the anti-Semitic overtones in the Grimm version, and disturbed by the fact that the miller's daughter betrays the only character in the story who tries to help her."
"I was always fascinated by the fact that in a story about the power of names," continues Elizabeth, "the heroine is anonymous. Unlike most fairy tales, the story is named for its ostensible villain, and the heroine doesn't have any name at all! I wanted to know more about that girl-what she was thinking and how she found herself in such desperate straights. I also wanted to find out about Rumpelstiltskin's back-story. Why was he so desperate to have the miller's daughter's child?"
"The heart of the story-spinning straw into gold-took on a unique resonance for me," says Elizabeth. "As a needlewoman, I am very familiar with gold thread, and so it was natural for me to envision the mill, then, as a textile mill-not the traditional grist (flour) mill of the fairy tale. My early research lead me to local period woolen mill museum, where the inner workings of Stirwaters came to life for me. One of my favorite moments in writing A Curse as Dark as Gold came during my first tour of Watkins Woolen Mill. The tour guide lead us past these huge spinning machines, and casually said, ‘These machines are spinning jacks. The men who operated them were called jackspinners.' Jack Spinner! Suddenly, my Rumpelstiltskin character-the man who spins straw into gold-had an absolutely perfect name."
Elizabeth C. Bunce currently lives with her husband and their dogs near Kansas City, Missouri. – from Scholastic.com
