Hollins Highlights

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are all having a good summer or winter, depending on, well, which you’re having. I am having a fantastic summer so far, but it has been characteristically full.

I have just completed my second term at Hollins University, where I am getting my Masters in Children’s Literature. I skipped last year’s term so that I could go to South Africa. So it had been two years since I had been back in Roanoke having stimulating discussions about children’s books with my brilliant, crazy, hysterical friends and classmates. It was a grand reunion, and this summer, though more busy and stressful than the first, was even more thrilling. Rather than try to sum it up further, here are some highlights from the last six weeks:

Most enjoyable outdoors adventure: The night my friends and I arrived at Hollins, southwestern Virginia welcomed us with a torrential downpour. One of my friends (also, conveniently, named Sarah) came up to my room. “Do you want to go on a walk in the rain with me?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, and started out the door immediately. Then, remembering I was a responsible adult, I changed from tennis shoes to flip flops so that my sneakers wouldn’t get soaked. We walked for about an hour getting completely drenched, catching each other up with the deep and delightful parts of our lives since we’d seen each other last. At one point, when we were meandering down a slippery hillside, I was struck by how perfect this all was. I interrupted the conversation briefly to say “Sarah! We could drink off of our faces!” Thoroughly saturated, we went down the hillside and entered our summer.

Most interesting new literary theory: When writing a paper on post-colonialism in Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle books and Jean de Brunhoff’s Babar books, I was exposed to the ideas of Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin. Most interesting to me were his concepts of carnival, which occurs when the dominant hierarchy or assumptions are subverted through humor or a reversal of roles, and the dialogic, which describes various perspectives in a text creating a dialogue.

The aspect of the Hollins campus I was most excited to get back to: The fireflies! I have never lived in a place inhabited by lightning bugs, and for two years, I have been eager to return to these little harbingers of dusk. There is nothing like easing into evening as twilight winks gently around you. This is magic, pure and simple.

Favorite new picture book: A Sick Day for Amos McGee written by Philip Stead and illustrated by Erin Stead. I don’t always agree with the committee that awards the Caldecott medal, but this year, I definitely do. The book is a bit sentimental, but so am I, and I never pass up the opportunity to recommend a good book about friendship.

Favorite new Young Adult or chapter book: Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater. This book was for my Gender Identity and Dragons in Fantasy class. In my opinion, it was a complete anomaly, since it didn’t really have dragons in it, and didn’t have many gender issues, as far as I could see. It didn’t even have a cohesive or conclusive plot. But I thought it was brilliantly bizarre and out of all the books I read this summer, this one made me laugh out loud the most.

Some interesting topics my peers were discussing in class: One of the best things about being at Hollins is the people I get to be in class with. My peers were researching a wide range of fascinating topics: the role of sea monsters in fantasy literature, anthropomorphic companions of Disney princesses, semiotics in Charlotte’s Web. So cool!

Most exciting new Roanoke discovery: My friend Rachel, who lives in Roanoke year round, introduced us to Pop’s, the most amazing restaurant on the planet. The all-vegetarian menu consists mostly of many different kinds of grilled cheese sandwiches. Each sandwich is served with popcorn and a potato patty engraved with a smiley face. The prices are very reasonable, the owners are really nice, the food is delicious, AND AS IF THAT WEREN’T ENOUGH, they also serve AMAZING homemade ice cream. There were several moments when I suspected I might have been dreaming. But my dreams never taste this good.

Most content moment: There were many. But probably the best was when I was at Pop’s with my friends Rachel, Lindsey and Jamie. I was ordering my sandwich (“The Pesto,” if I remember correctly), when a banjo started playing. It turned out we were just in time for a free concert by a bluegrass band called the Wright Kids, consisting of a group of siblings who had been on America’s Got Talent. As I sat with some of my favorite people, listening to phenomenally talented children perform bluegrass covers of “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash and “ABC” by the Jackson 5, I thought I might actually explode with happiness. I didn’t, and that made me even more happy!

Most hilarious enterprise: For the last few years, the conference we put on at the end of the term has featured a short video made by some of the students. The theme of this year’s conference was “Secret Gardens, Secret Worlds,” so we decided to make an abridged version of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. We had a budget of about $12 (which we spent on costumes at Goodwill), and filmed everything in about 3 hours. To view it, and to place your Oscar votes, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzDCGwa6t8s.

I am now back in Spokane and am thoroughly enjoying not getting eaten alive by mosquitoes every time I step outside, and being able to breathe deeply and not feel like I’m drowning because of the humidity. It’s good to be at home with my parents again, and I’m looking forward to seeing any of you Spokane folks soon!

Have a good week,

Sarah/Mouse