San Diego Writer Girl
Lisa Christiano Rose
Lisa Christiano Rose
Writing Samples
EverythingBy LISA CHRISTANO ROSE -- From www.lisawantsthefloor.blogspot.com
There are moments in life when someone says one line -- one line that completely realigns your thinking. So potent and flawless in its simplicity, the line comes to you as if spoken by God.
A few years ago, my babysitter came to watch the kids and brought her nephew along. He was new to California and his ability to communicate in English was surprising after just a few months of 10th grade.
Diego came to America in secrecy, his body stuffed into the hollowed-out space beneath the back seat of an old Toyota. Where he came from, wealth was a daily meal and a pair of shoes. His family worked most of his 15 years of life to gather the $4,000 border crossing fee. On the other side was his aunt, now a citizen, whose arms were waiting. On the other side was a life with possibilities.
Don and I said good-night to the kids and told them to be good for Marcella. As we were leaving, Jack pulled on Don’s arm.
“Can we go to the movies tomorrow, Dad?” he pleaded.
“Maybe next weekend. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”
“Like what? Why can’t we go?”
“Because we have a lot to do around our house.”
“Can we go to the toy store then?”
“No. We need to work on the house.”
“I don’t want to work on the house! Geez! It’s so unfair! Come on, Dad!”
“I’m not going to say it again. The answer is no.”
“I’ll have nothing to do! It will be so boring!”
Jack stomped away, marinating in the injustice. Don shook his head and looked at Diego.
“I don’t know why he acts like that.”
There was a long pause.
Softly, Diego said, “It’s because he has everything.”
There it was. Plain and simple. But the line spoke to me as a statement well beyond the interaction with Jack.
It’s because we have everything. It’s about our advantage and their adversity. It’s about our discontent and their destitution.
I felt ashamed. Here we are. Americans with our big SUVs and cluttered houses and overflowing refrigerators. Here we are with our addictions and anti-depressants. With our firm grip on our kids’ over-scheduled lives. With our heads immersed in technology and our disconnected families.
We live in the land of everything and yet we often feel nothing. It begs the question: How have we lost our way?
The line has stayed with me all these years. “It’s because he has everything.”
It’s the voice in my head that warns me not to spoil. It’s the underlying guilt I feel when I whine about traffic or rude people or hot summers – all packaged as really big deals. It’s the line that resets my compass toward gratitude and simplicity.
In the book, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, author Wendy Mogel, Ph.D., writes: “When horticulturists want to prepare hothouse plants for replanting outdoors, they subject them to stress to strengthen them. Gently and progressively deprived of food and water and exposed to greater extremes of heat and cold than they’ve been accustomed to, the plants grow stronger root systems and thicker stems.”
Most of us haven’t been exposed to many extremes. To what degree have our lives been padded? And to what degree do we pad the lives of our children? How will they grow “stronger root systems” if we red carpet their way and break their every fall?
My babysitter shares her home with her husband, three children and extended family. Diego and the grandparents sleep on couches. Their home is full yet immaculate and their children are A students, Diego included. But what I have always marveled over is the way this family radiates pure joy and celebrates its togetherness.
They have so little, yet so much. They tune into one another instead of Ipods or cell phones or computers. Front-lawn tag is an almost nightly event in which everyone takes part. They work together to pool their resources, and they see America for all its glory and wonder and opportunity. Their struggle has given them a different lens. The little things in life – that we consider daily hardships -- aren’t even visible on their radar.
There is much to glean from people who have suffered. Maybe we can’t know how they feel or what they've been through, but we can learn from their example. We can pause, take a good look around and really see everything. And maybe in the process, we’ll remember that our land of plenty is a place and a state of mind never to be taken for granted again.
Encinitas author offers cricket's-eye view of the Nativity
By: LISA CHRISTIANO ROSE - For the North County Times
The Mickey Mouse watch on her wrist reveals the child that still resides within Edith Hope Fine. A prize-winning children's book author and former teacher, Fine, of Encinitas, has put a twist on the Nativity story in her latest book, "Cricket at the Manger" (Boyd Mills Press, $15.95).
"Cricket at the Manger" is the journey of a sleep-deprived, ill-tempered cricket and his unexpected visit to the manger. Fine described years of voracious reading that came to the fore as she created the sounds and rhythms of the verses in this book.
"You can tell I like variety. I've done fiction and nonfiction articles, stories, and books for adults and children," said Fine. "'Cricket' is quite a departure. Free-verse poetry was new for me.
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"It's made to be read aloud," she said. "While many readers are familiar with the basic story, it puts the focus on one small creature who comes to understand the majesty and meaning of what happened that one night 2,000 years ago in
As evidenced throughout the book, Fine enjoys working with sounds and inventing new spellings.
"Young readers love the noisy 'cu-clup, cu-clup' of the donkey's hooves, the 'THIRR-ummm, THIRR-ummm,' of the angel's wings, and the cricket's cranky 'gar-RUMPH, gar-REECH,'" she said.
The editors at Boyd Mills Press, the children's publishing imprint of the children's magazine Highlights for Children, knew the work of illustrator Winslow Pels and predicted the two would be a perfect fit. Although Fine has never met her, she was pleased by Pels' translation of her vision.
"She really caught the feel of the book," said Fine. "Her detailed collages and the medieval look of the people and animals make readers want to pore over the pages again and again.
"Where the cricket says, 'A young girl's flock of sheep tread by, so close I see their woolly curls,' Pels gave that whole flock distinctive curly, bejeweled coats," said Fine. "She modeled the donkey from her own donkey that lives on her
While "Cricket at the Manger" makes its way to bookstores nationwide, Fine's educational program, the "CryptoKids Decoder Program," is now being used in schools in 46 states across the country.
Fine created this 34-week program to help students dig into the roots of the English language. It evolved from her 2004 book, "Cryptomania! Teleporting into Greek and Latin with the CryptoKids" (Tricycle Press, $15.95), wherein readers (third grade and up) embark on an odyssey with a "microcyanosaurus," a small, blue dinosaur named Alphy. As they learn Greek and Latin word chunks, a mystery unfolds.
According to Fine, the CryptoKids Decoder Kit puts "CryptoMania!" into "a user-friendly context to teach kids basic Greek and Latin root words, along with prefixes and suffixes."
During her years of classroom teaching, Fine said she was aware that this was a critical piece missing from the curriculum.
"Statistics show that well over 60 percent of English words come from Greek and Latin, and with words of three or more syllables, it's 90 percent," said Fine. "I knew that if children understood the Greek and Latin root words, it would help them decode words for a lifetime. These roots are the building blocks for learning English. Now Greek and Latin roots are part of the state standards."
The program grew from classroom presentations, she said. Injecting the curriculum with her creativity, Fine transformed warm-ups for weekly writing lessons into interactive "word-building." Soon, she said, children in grades three to six were deciphering words like "epidermis" by understanding that the root "epi" means "on or upon" and "derm" is "skin."
"Once they started understanding the root words, we began inventing dinosaurs such as Bicephalosaurus, Trianglosaurus Rex, and Polychromopod," Fine explained. "I'd introduce a new word chunk. We'd play with it. I'd ask what English words the students could think of. Then I'd segue to another new word part. Once they were comfortable with the notion of digging out word 'secrets' hidden in long, hard words, we then added dictionary hunts.
"I saw the mental light bulbs turn on for every kid," she recalled. "They got it. They dug in, made connections, and remembered. It was amazing."
After testing the program in the
"Students came away with about 200 Greek and Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes," said Fine. "And, as a side bonus, teachers were excited and were learning, too. I mean, how can you not find 'astronaut means star sailors' totally cool?"
These days, Fine said, she writes almost daily, massaging new book ideas. So many brainstorms come to her during her daily swim that she keeps paper and a waterproof NASA pen by the pool.
"I love being part of the process," Fine said. "There's the writer's part: churning out jillions of rough drafts, honing the text so each word lifts its own weight. Then I watch the artist's part, where I see the sketches. Finally, the story comes to life in full color on the pages."
To date, Edith Hope Fine has written 13 books, including "Cricket at the Manger," several biographies for children, the "Nitty-Gritty Grammar" series (co-written with Judith P. Josephson) and "Under the Lemon Moon," winner of a Parents' Choice Award Silver Honor and designated "Notable Book" by Smithsonian magazine.
Bundt business: Pure Delight cakes taking a slice of the gift market
By: LISA CHRISTIANO ROSE - For the North County Times
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/09/21/food/10_01_249_20_06.txt
