After considerable discussion with friends over the past month, I've decided the following books desperately need to find their way to bookshelves and e-readers...


I remember receiving my pubertal guide (one of the earliest kid-friendly puberty books, published in 1975), Peter Mayle's now-classic "What's Happening to Me?" at the age of 12 or 13. Since then, Lynne and Area Maderas have introduced their "What's Happening to My Body" series for boys and girls, explaining the mysteries and concerns faced by pubescent teenagers.

Now, at 43 and in surgical menopause, I'm watching my friends and loved ones attempt to navigate the treacherous emotional, physical, and mental waters that surround mid-life for women and men, and I think we desperately need an updated version. We were, after all, pretty much the first generation EVER to be really open and honest and forthcoming about puberty, shouldn't we be the first generation to be open and honest about mid-life?

Women are trained from menarche to prepare for menopause. No, we aren't very well prepared for the decade or so of perimenopause that precedes it, but most of us have watched (in open-mouthed horror) our mothers, aunts, or sisters, undergo "the change" and have some idea of what's about to happen to us. Even if we approach it with the kind of white-knuckled, jaw-clenched attitude with which we approach a new roller coaster ride, we're at least READY to go crazy.

Not so for men. There's all kinds of research that indicates the male of the species also undergoes a mid-life transition similar to menopause... Call it "man-on-pause" or "andropause" or "mid-life crisis" or whatever you want, men need to be prepared to deal with a physical, mental, and emotional transition at mid-life, because it's coming. Sadly, they are even less prepared than women for "the change," and as wives and women, we aren't prepared either.

Book #2 we need...


Parenthood and Adulthood are two entirely different neighborhoods.

Even if you were a bonafide adult when you HAD children, the season of parenthood is something entirely different than adulthood. (Note: We probably need a book for pre-parenthood that outlines the differences.)

Parenthood is a selfless season—regardless of what chronological age you enter it—marked by putting aside one's personality, individuality, needs, desires, sleep, and privilege of peeing and pooping alone. Adulthood, by contrast, is a very selfish season, in which one is (or is supposed to be) free to pursue one's interests, desires, and dreams without consideration for anyone else's needs. Of course, add in a bit of insecurity, some codependency, and a dash of financial lack, and a large percentage of American "adults" have never actually enjoyed the freedom of "adulthood."

Whether entering adulthood for the first time (for those who jumped into parenthood with both feet before ever enjoying adulthood) or returning to adulthood after a season of parenting, this period is fraught with undocumented dangers which are frighteningly similar to the dangers faced in puberty. However, without forewarning, we run the risk of tumbling headfirst into those dangers because we think we're "grown-ups" now.

So, I either need to get busy writing, or someone else does...

What do a conservative Christian dancer, a veiled Muslim woman, and an agnostic hippie have in common? It sounds like the beginning of a questionable joke, but in Dina Sleiman's “Dance From Deep Within” it's the premise for a well-choreographed story that will touch your emotions, challenge your perceptions, and leave you cheering for each of the three main characters at the end.

College students Layla, Allie, and Rain must fulfill a class assignment to learn about each other's cultures. As the girls begin to set aside their assumptions about each other based on external appearances and misguided perceptions, a genuine friendship develops between the three that will change each of them forever. 

No matter your own culture, or spiritual status, or lifestyle, or history, you'll find something in common with each of the main characters, and empathizing with them as they wind their way through relationships, family difficulties, and spiritual questions. As each young woman faces a personal crisis, they find comfort and help in their new friendships, and new ways of looking at each other, and at God.

Sleiman has successfully created believable, likeable characters who give an honest, emotional representation of their diverse backgrounds, and a storyline that will leave you wanting more. I've already requested sequels! 

I indulged in a guilty pleasure yesterday. I bought a paperback novel at the grocery store - with the grocery money. I know... taking food from the mouths of my overgrown babes to satisfy my fiction addiction.

The novel is the latest release in a series I've faithfully followed, written by an author I admire, even though she breaks all the "rules" I've been told to follow if I ever want to reach the end of the publication rainbow. But her books are more than books. They are stories.

Do you recognize the difference? Books are those inanimate things that sit on the shelf and gather dust. Stories are the living things that reach into your soul and move it temporarily out of this realm and into another, with characters as real as a childhood playmate, and settings that you're convinced exist somewhere on the planet.

Children don't clamor for just "another book" at bedtime; they beg for another story. Another pass through the magic wardrobe into an alternate world, just for a few moments before they face the reality of bedtime.

I listened to an interview with an editor at Harlequin/Silhouette recently. When asked what makes her select one manuscript over another, she gave the following (elusive) answer: "The manuscripts I buy have that certain something. A manuscript can be strong, good writing, but if it doesn't have that certain something I don't buy it."

www.treehugger.com

Me: (audible groan)
 
What IS that certain something? Can you define it? What transforms a generic book on a shelf into a beloved story that transcends time, culture, and location?
Ideas, anybody?