Tag Archives: coming of age

“The Most Appealing Young Heroine Since Scout”: The Kudzu Queen

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I interrupt this blog-pause to bring you delightful literary news: Mimi Herman, one of my longest besties (’cause we’re not OLD), has just published a lively, authentic, and moving novel, set in our home state, North Carolina: The Kudzu Queen.

Oh, and that quote above? That’s from NYT best-selling novelist Lee Smith (once my 9th grade English teacher at Carolina Friends School, where Mimi & I met). You get your book blurbed by Lee Smith, you have arrived.

Got my copy! Get your own.

Some of you familiar with Southern landscapes might be thinking, “Whoa there! Kudzu? That awful introduced plant that tried to eat the South?”

Yes. That. And it’s still trying. (Photo courtesy Wikipedia)

But the dramatic irony of knowing what kudzu will become makes Mimi’s story all the more poignant, because her characters are present in kudzu’s Genesis moment, back in 1941. Why don’t I let the book’s flyleaf tell it?

Fifteen-year-old Mattie Lee Watson dreams of men, not boys. So when James T. Cullowee, the Kudzu King, arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina in 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu—claiming that it will improve the soil, feed cattle at almost no cost, even cure headaches—Mattie is ready. Mr. Cullowee is determined to sell the entire county on the future of kudzu, and organizes a kudzu festival, complete with a beauty pageant. Mattie is determined to be crowned Kudzu Queen and capture the attentions of the Kudzu King. As she learns more about Cullowee, however, she discovers that he, like the kudzu he promotes, has a dark and predatory side. When Mattie finds she is not the only one threatened, she devises a plan to bring him down. Based on historical facts, The Kudzu Queen unravels a tangle of sexuality, power, race, and kudzu through the voice of an irresistibly delightful (and mostly honest) narrator.

(image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

The choice of 1941 is not accidental. Mere months before Pearl Harbor, Mattie Watson, her family, her community, and her country are all aligned on the cusp of transformation: Mattie into womanhood; her family (and, more dramatically, that of her best friend) into a new configuration; her community into the brave new world of cultural and economic change; and her country into its 20th-century world leadership. While kudzu is a very real part of this change–Mimi’s book is thoroughly researched–it is also a perfect metaphor for the way “growth” does not automatically entail “improvement”–or at least, not without cost.

But can I step away from theme for a moment to trumpet some sweet, sweet prose? For a taste:

“The afternoon’s brightness had traveled with me, infusing the white clapboard of our house with its own light. My mother’s azaleas were enjoying their brief moment of pink glory before they subsided into wilted blossoms the color of old newspapers.” (p.88)

“…brief moment of pink glory” (image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

“Sometimes a rain will start so quietly that after a while you realize it’s been raining for some time and you dadn’t even noticed. By the time I grapsed the fact that I was crying, I’d progressed to wet hiccups.” (p. 216)

Much as I enjoy The Kudzu Queen’s active prose, I think I admire its dialogue most.

“‘How many fish are we going to catch, Aggs?’ Danny asked.

‘A million?’ she ventured.

‘At least,’ he told her. ‘I was thinking more like two million.’

She laughed, a sound I heard so rarely that I almost didn’t recognize it.

‘How many can you eat?’ he asked.

‘Six,’ she announced.

‘Excellent. That means six for you and one million, nine hundred ninety-nie thousand, nine hundred and nine-four for me me.’ Danny tugged her sleeve. ‘This your fishing outfit?'” (p. 190)

It’s hard to write too much without spoilers, so I’ll stop with this recommendation: if you want to delve deep into a time of relative innocense without a drop of mawkishness; if you want to give yourself over to that narrator Lee Smith calls “the most appealing young heroine since Scout;” if you’d read anything David Sedaris–yes, David Sedaris!–calls “funny, sad and tender,” then–ask your local bookstore to order The Kudzu Queen, or order it yourself, here.

Mimi autographing a copy for moi! (Image courtesy Cris Wiley)

Oh–I almost forgot this part! Mimi’s “day job,” while producing her own writing, is to be a Teaching Artist. She’s taught gazillion classes and workshops over the years, to writers in every decade of life. Currently, she and partner John Yewell offer tantalizing Writeaways–extended workshops in exotic European castles and other inspiring places. Take a look at the link!

Who could resist?! (Image courtesy writeaways.com)

Congratulations, buddy. And Happy Reading, everyone!

Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime: Why I Have To Say “Relatable”

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Bias Alert: 

  1. Like most English teachers, I shudder at the newly-developing word, “relatable.”
  2. My family and I LOVE the Daily Show; Jon Stewart practically raised our children.

So you might not think we’d love his replacement, Trevor Noah. But you’d think wrong. We loved Trevor from the beginning (forgiving him his occasionally juvenile humor the same way we forgave Jon his old-Jewish-guy schtick).

And now that I’ve read Trevor’s memoir, Born a Crime, I admire him on a whole new level. And I admire his mother more.

I only wish I had finished Trevor’s book before Christmas, so I could have given it to everyone I love. I don’t want to tell you too much about it; the book is comprised of anecdotes, to divulge any of which would spoil your joy in reading.

But I will tell you this. Although Trevor claims a different nationality, gender and race (OK, half different–but in South Africa that MEANS different) from mine, I found his story more…RELATABLE than anything I’ve read in the past year. He doesn’t just write of racial injustice–though there’s plenty of that, growing up in the last days of apartheid. He writes of topics I, privileged white American female, RELATE to:

  • adolescent yearnings to belong
  • a complex relationship with religion
  • self-consciousness over appearance
  • heartbreak (over the opposite sex, pets, family members)
  • joy in his own gifts (languages, foot speed–and you’ll see why that’s important!)
  • deep, unshakable love for his AMAZING mother

The book is also really stinkin’ funny, but that’s something I simply appreciate rather than relate to, because, alas, I am not so gifted.

And it’s shockingly sad. Something else I, thanks be, cannot relate to. But Trevor makes his family’s sadness ACCESSIBLE, and that’s close enough. Also–“accessible” is a real word.

Have you read it? Please add your review here. If not, do yourself or someone you love a favor and read Born a Crime as soon as you can.

 

…4…3…2…1…Launch That Book! Altitude Takes Flight.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, Young Adults and Adults of any age, it is my delight to present to you…Altitude, The Flying Burgowski Book Three.

Click here to purchase a copy of Altitude

 

“To thine own self be true…” Yeah, right.

I banked toward the warehouses, skimming the trees. Gotta find some way to USE my power…Reaching the first ratty rooftop, I hovered, quivering. If I could get Vivian back to the sky… put our powers together—What’s THAT?

Not a seagull. This sound was coming from the alley below. A quiet wail—kittens crying. Was that rusty blue shipping container there before? I landed behind the gnarliest warehouse and peeked into the alley. From street level, the giant rusty container towered above me. The kitten-cries were definitely coming from inside. Maybe someone dumped a pregnant cat in there. The box was hinged at one end—a pair of doors belted with a big ol’ rusty chain and padlock. Why lock a cat in?

 “Kitty-kitty-kitty?” I called. “You in there? Poor thing!”

Two syllables floated from the stinking metal monster. A word I recognized from my Mandarin Terms a Traveler Should Know: “Bāng wǒ.” Help.

After a summer of betrayal and heartbreak and an epically rotten year, 16 year-old Jocelyn (The Flying) Burgowski is fleeing family and friends on Dalby Island for school on the mainland. What good is flying if it wrecks relationships? The guy she fell for almost destroyed her power. Now, discovering the ugly underbelly of mainland life, has Joss stumbled upon a fellow Flyer—only to bring her down? Confronting the dual forces of magic and maturity, Joss must face the question: what does “to thine own self be true” really mean?

 

What if you had a superpower…and it wasn’t enough?

Click here to purchase a copy of Altitude

10…9…8…7…6…5: Countdown to Book Launch

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The Flying Burgowski asked, “Who hasn’t yearned to fly?”

Book Two, Headlands, asked, “What if someone hated you just for who you were?”

And now, Book Three, Altitude, has this to say: “To thine own self be true? Yeah, right.”

“You can’t pray us down, or keep us in a box. We are queens of infinite space.”

Jocelyn  Burgowski was turning 14 when she first invited me into her (fictional) life. Now she’s 16 (can you tell?). And sure, she can still fly–but nothing else is working. Broken heart, broken trust, tanking attitude, friends MIA, Jocelyn feels herself turning into a female Hamlet.

But now, leaving her tiny island community to attend school on the mainland, Joss is discovering the perspective of altitude. Facing society’s dark underbelly of abuse and human trafficking, Jocelyn must face her powers and ask herself, “What is flying for?“

Here’s a scene from Chapter Two, “Bounded in a Nutshell”:

I needed to fly in the worst way.

Literally. The best way is when the energy fizzes through you like your blood has sparkles, and boy you better elevate fast if you don’t want to explode. The worst way—that’s what I was doing. Escape, with eggs and toast turned to cement in my stomach. I launched vertically from the front porch like Ironman—harder than one-two-three takeoff steps, but better than smashing into the trunk of our giant cedar—and rocketed over the woods. I flew at treetop level in fast circles, happy not to live smack in the middle of Dalby Village anymore. But not happy about anything else.

    You thought they wouldn’t find out? C’s are one thing. Skipping an entire Julius Caesar Unit Exam means a big fat F.

Dad thought those disastrous days were over, the year before when Michael and I stumbled through two months of high school on the mainland, trying to live with Mom. Back on Dalby, I’d been a total angel through the rest of ninth grade. Then That Horrible Summer happened. Fourth of July. I got through August by re-reading Harry Potter Book Seven every time I couldn’t unsnag the memories of Whatshisname’s face, or voice, or breath. I know The Deathly Hallows by heart now. Then sophomore year started. And I…

    What do you want to call it, Flygirl? Fell apart? Decided to take over Michael’s role? Started Acting Out?

Anyway, the downhill slide that had started in September was hitting bottom last May, and I needed to get the hell out. So I flew to the edge of the village, landed behind our old store and walked to Louis’s.

Dalby Village was livening up like it always does on Saturdays when spring brings the tourists back. I skirted the Farmers’ Market, turning my head quickly to avoid Mrs. Mac, who would say a lot more than “hi” to her former favorite student. “Mr. Evans tells me you insist on reading Hamlet to yourself instead of Julius Caesar with the rest of the class. Why in the world? You do know you have to pass Sophomore English before you can take my AP class, right?”

I know I know I KNOW. What a moron—can’t even skip like a normal tenth grader, gotta sit there defiantly reading the play Michael’s struggling with in Senior English. “Why in the world?”

I don’t freakin know, alright? Except…Julius Caesar was a pompous ass. Hamlet was depressed, hemmed in, pissed off. “Denmark’s a prison.”

Hamlet I could relate to. And Louis, I remember thinking grimly, could be like Hamlet’s bud Horatio. Louis would fly with me and help me sort out what to do about Mr. Evans. Or not. Louis isn’t really about advice. But he’d listen like Horatio until I figured it out.

So, what I said in that Louis-email I never sent? It’s true, I don’t remember the last time we flew together. Sure wasn’t that breezy day in May.

“Hey, sweetie!” Shasta, Louis’s mom, sang like she’s done since I started barging into their kitchen at, like, age seven. She was washing dishes while her partner Janice dried. “Is it a party, then, Joss? You guys want to make cookies?

I hugged Shasta. “Party?”Ohhh…Louis has company. My stomach, relaxing from my Shasta-hug, tensed again. “No, that’s okay…”

Louis had been hanging around with Erin a lot—duh, they had practically all their classes together, like freshmen do. But since when did they hang out on weekends?

Can I get something straight? I like Erin. She’s a soccer stud, and she’s pretty much caught up to Savannah in geometry since she bumped up to our math class. She laughs at my jokes. She helps Louis with algebra. And writing. And everything else I used to help him with.

It’s just, I was REALLY hoping to fly with Louis right then.

“Hey!” they said together as I stepped into Louis’s teeny room. They were sitting hip to hip on his bed. “What rhymes with ‘metaphor’? We’re writing Mrs. Mac a birthday card,” Erin added, patting the bed for me to join them—like it was hers. I sat, squinching her and Louis closer together.

“That’s what I ‘said it for,’” I responded automatically. Great, forgot Mrs. Mac’s birthday too. Self-centered moron.

“That works,” Louis grunted. His new, manly voice gave me a little jolt back then. Well, it still kinda does—not that I’ve heard it since I bumped into him at the store a week before leaving. Not that I ever heard it saying, “Have fun at boarding school, Joss, I’ll miss ya.”

     Knock it off, Joss. Tell the story.

“’Sup?” Erin chirped. She was in pigtails, wearing her green softball uniform—yeah, she’s a pitching stud too.

    Me and my Horatio-buddy are NOT up, with you here. “When’s your game?” I countered, looking at their feet parked side-by-side like cars in cozy garage.

“Oh, like, an hour.” Erin stood and stretched her arms, and Louis, on the bed, did the same, as if they were connected by an axel. I knew he’d grown taller and muscley-er because, duh, when a person flies doubles with you for over a year, you get to know their body—damn, that doesn’t sound right. You KNOW what I mean, okay? It’s just, he stopped feeling like the same ol’ shrimpy Louis a few months ago, but that was totally okay because he still WAS his same ol’ self. But last May, I was surprised to see how, like, toned his arms had gotten. He was still getting over the shock of being good at baseball.

“Oh.” I felt like I should offer some reason for being there. But why??? Louis is my oldest friend. So I said, “You sure? On my way over, I thought I saw the team heading for the field.”

“Oh, shoot! Are we playing at nine? Louie, sorry, we’ll finish later. Come watch me, ’kay?” And Erin jetted out of there.

“See ya, Erin,” I called. It’s just—I wasn’t used to it then, okay? Louis and Erin. Erin and Louis. It’s not like I needed to keep on being his only friend, like I was for years and years and years. But jeez, couldn’t he have warned me? And “Louie?” Gimme a break.

“Hey, wanna go fly over their game?” Lying hypocrite. I knew perfectly well there wouldn’t be a game to fly over for another hour, and flying over a crowd is verboten. But Old Louis would have suggested something better, like swoop-overs of Whittier’s Bluff, or experimenting with flying just under the fiercest layer of wind, daring it to flip us, like we’d done in…wow. February?

New Louis gave me an un-Louisy smirk. “Seriously, Joss?” he said and stood up. “Yo, my game’s right after Erin’s, I gotta get dressed.”

A chill reached down my chest, even as I felt my face turn red. “Right,” I said, like sure, I came all the way over here to tell you the game schedule. “Hey, come by my house later if you—you know. Want to go up tonight.” Awkward lying hypocrite. I’d never had trouble inviting Louis to fly before.

He tossed his uniform onto the bed. “Whyn’t you fly with your mom?”

“She’s not really into it these days,” I said, flattening the curling edge of Louis’s Seattle Mariners poster. He never used to have such boy-stuff in his room.

“Beth? Not into flying?” Louis’s frown disappeared as he struggled out of that “Visualize Whirled Peas” T-shirt I’d given him for his thirteenth birthday. “I Saw her yesterday over the Spit. Maybe she just doesn’t want to fly with you.” He turned his back, letting the shirt drop to the floor.

“Well,” I said, because “Why yes, you’re absolutely right, that is the problem” would make me start crying, and “Damn, when did you start hiding your bod from me?”—who says that to their buddy? “Mom’s, like, totally independent these days,” I added. “And I guess flying with me—”

“—reminds her of when she wasn’t? Or Fourth of July, almost gettin’ grounded? Yeah, I get that,” said Louis. His bright hair reappeared through his green jersey like a woodpecker in a bush, and my heart cracked a little: You always get it. But turning around, he was still frowning. “Hey,” he nodded toward his baseball pants.

“Right, see ya.” All I got was a grunt. So much for Horatio.

Shasta and Janice offered me tea on my way out. I declined with a smile and head-shake, not trusting my voice. I walked back into the village. My stupid eyes were burning. My flight-urge felt as dead as my oldest friendship.

But no way was I going home after that ominous phone call. I decided to go browse the half-price shelf at the bookstore.

Where I bumped into the last person I wanted to see, after Dad and Lorraine.

Bushy eyebrows appeared around the side of the mystery section. “Well, look who’s here,” said Mr. Evans.

 

To: Nevans@dalby.k12.wa.us

Dear Mr. Evans,

I was just writing about you in my journal, but I got too bummed so I decided to address you directly. I wish to extend my thanks.

Thank you for calling my house so much last year and turning my parents into Homework Vultures. Thank you for setting up all those conferences, especially that last one in May. Thank you for your witty use of Hamlet quotes to sum up my attitude about school: “Jocelyn seems to feel herself ‘bounded in a nutshell,’ and finding her classes, ‘stale, flat and unprofitable.’”

(You were wrong about that, you know. It wasn’t just my classes I was “finding” that way—it was the whole freakin year.)

Thank you for saying, “Jocelyn needs to have her mind blown, or she’s going to drop out next year.” Thank you for saying, “What if she moved to where no one knows she’s a Flyer, where she can be a normal teenager for once?” And suggesting The Horizon Academy and Early Start at Coastal U. And helping to get me in. Hey, my guy Hamlet went away to school too, right? The thought of that escape literally saved my sophomore year—and yes, I know I mean “figuratively,” not “literally.” Put your red pen down. I’m actually being sincere now. Yes, I know I don’t need to say “actually.” I’m here at Horizon now, making new friends—it’s going to be great. As long as I can find a place to fly.

Oh yeah—thanks for not freaking out when I showed you about flying, last fall. And for understanding about the enemies of flying, and how stupid and betrayed they can make you feel. Thanks for telling me I could talk to you about That Awful Summer and Standers and Whatshisname, if I needed to. It’s just kinda awkward when you stand there handing me tissues while I babble about how flying isn’t the problem. And talking to teachers isn’t the solution. I’m sixteen. I’m supposed to have someone of my OWN to listen to me.

Right. I’m not freakin sending this. What kind of a loser ditches her own diary to email a teacher?  I’m going flying. I just

—–Are you sure you want to delete this message?—–

 

Thanks for visiting Wing’s World! See my next post for another peek inside Altitude.

Confessions of the Clueless, Part II: Think Outside of the Genre Box At Your Authorial Peril

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[*Note: Confessions of the Clueless Part I was my #hashtag rant. Here comes Part II.]

Nothing like working on the cover design of a book to let you know how hard you’ve made life for yourself. I’ve been looking for an image that…

…captures the dark beauty of the Pacific Northwest, without being too beautiful

…suggests the ugliness of the American industrial underbelly, without being too ugly

…encompasses an aerial view, but not from too high

…orients the viewer toward the water, but still keeps the shoreline visible

…won’t involve me in complicated and expensive negotiations over copyright usage

…allows for the addition of text elements in line with the previous books in the series

Turns out I really could not have thought up a more difficult set of requirements. Starting with beautiful vs. ugly: waterfront pictures are generally taken for two purposes, a) to lure tourists, or b) to lure business. The first wants only beauty; the second, only utility. And don’t forget that je-ne-sais-quois whiff of Northwest! Gotta have some dark forest in there. I searched internet images from Oregon to British Columbia. These were a couple of the finalists:

Port Angeles, WA–good on ya!

Or maybe, further north:

Powell River, BC, anyone? Great town.

But the image dilemma is really a stand-in for the difficulty my books face in terms of categorizing. You see, the Flying Burgowski series 

…takes its time to drop its heroine into the action, and said action involves no combat, no werewolves, no vampires, and not a single zombie.

…is fantastical enough to involve flying humans, but otherwise very much real-world (sorry, no parallel universe lurking just behind Platform Nine and Three Quarters!)

…deals with political issues like religious extremism, homophobia, and human trafficking

…has a middle-grades heroine, but one who faces adult themes like divorce and addiction from a very early age

…follows said heroine into her mid-teen years where, guess what? sexual maturity is suddenly an issue.

Let me dwell on that last point a moment. Jocelyn Burgowski’s personal literary hero, Harry Potter, also ages in his series, has a crush, finds a girlfriend. But author J.K. Rowling managed to keep Harry’s physical responses to said girlfriend–his natural teenage lust–safely off the page. Author G.K. Wing was not that unrealistic, or smart, depending on your perspective.

So, bottom line? How would YOU characterize this series? Have I made these books difficult to advertise, or what?

I call the first two books of the Flying Burgowski trilogy Middle Grades Fantasy, and the last one YA Fantasy–because I have to call them SOMEthing. But you know what? I’d really just rather call it a damn good read. Can that be a thing?

…

 

Watching Your Writing Role Model Strip Bare: Iris Graville Publishes Hiking Naked

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If you’ve published your words in any form, you know the feeling when someone looks you in the eye and tells you they read what you published. It’s not like singing at a concert or displaying visual art. These are YOUR WORDS, your literal, expressed thoughts, straight from your brain into someone else’s. Who is about to tell you what they think.

Now imagine those words you’ve published are your MEMOIR. And imagine the people who are looking you in the eye are your neighbors, folks you bump into at the market, at the post office. 

My friend Iris’s new memoir, Hiking Naked: A Quaker Woman’s Search for Balance, could not be better titled. As Iris tells it in her latest blog post, “Baring My Soul”:

I reel a bit each time someone says something like, “I’m reading your book, and it really speaks to me.” Or, “I was right there with you.” And, “My back hurt just reading about your work in the bakery!” What stuns me is the realization that, as I go about my life each day, some number of people are reading about it. There’s an intimacy in that knowing that I hadn’t anticipated. I’m discovering that the metaphor of “hiking naked” extends to how I feel about others now reading my words.

(Courtesy Homebound Publications)

My own forthcoming book, Altitude, Book Three of the Flying Burgowski series, could not be more different from Iris’s. My book’s a novel. It’s Young Adult (although I’m finding that Older Adults seem to like it just fine). It’s fantasy–not vampires nor zombies nor dystopian archer-warriors, certainly, but hey! my heroine can fly. So, yes. Fantasy enough.

The only thing my book has in common with Iris’s is that she helped “midwife” mine, via critique, while I did the same with hers (both of us with a LOT of help, and in her case, Masters-in-Fine-Arts-level help).

Well, maybe two more commonalities: they’re both set in the northwest, and they’re both about strong females.But that’s it.

So how can Iris be my writing role model? Because she is, to borrow her metaphor, hiking ahead of me on that rocky path called publication. She started years ago, creating her own press to co-publish Hands At Work: Portraits and Profiles of People Who Work With Their Hands, with photographer Summer Moon Scriver.

Then last year she published Bounty: Lopez Island Farmers, Food and Community–which is just what it sounds like, only more mouth-watering.

But all the while, Iris was working on that memoir. Crafting and drafting, re-crafting, re-drafting; pitching, pitching, pitching; writing and submitting short pieces to increase her visibility; keeping her chin up through inevitable rejections…until one day…

You go, girl.

I am still bummed to have missed Iris’s launch party because of some silly plane tickets to Ireland. But now that I’ve heard about it, I’m totally planning to follow in her footsteps at my own launch party in November.

(Not sure who took this photo…but Iris will tell me.)

Iris introduced by her own writing mentor, Ana Maria Spagna? How ’bout Gretchen Wing, introduced by Iris Graville? 

I better ask her, huh?

Coming of Age in the Land of What-everrr

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Without a deliberate approach to adulthood, we're kinda stuck learning the hard way.

Without a deliberate approach to adulthood, we’re kinda stuck learning the hard way.

The other day I made a birthday cake for a fictional character.

Well, it was an important one! The heroine of my novel was turning 21. On the 21st. Her Golden Birthday.

Only as I was mixing the batter did I realize I had very nearly made my character into my son’s twin. His 21st birthday was the day before. The age was NOT intentional; my character began her life a couple of years younger. I only aged her, using my godlike powers critical judgement, after realizing the plot worked better that way.

The DAY of her birth, however, was no accident. I chose Summer Solstice on purpose for its symbolic value to the story.

And that got me thinking. Because here on the island where I live, a small part of the community offers teenagers–16, 17, 18–the chance to have a real coming-of-age ceremony on the Summer Solstice. I don’t know much about it yet, since I moved here after my kids left for college, but from what I’ve heard, it’s serious stuff. The kids choose a mentor for themselves, a sort of sponsor, who spends time throughout the year having conversations about what it means to be a man or a woman. Then the teen writes his or her own part of the ceremony, and shares it with a group of 100 community members on the longest night of the year. (The number is strictly limited to 100.) The whole ceremony takes place on a smaller, remote island over the course of a few days, and involves community cooking, music-making, and soaking-up of nature.

To me that sounds WONDERFUL. More than that, it sounds like what so many kids in our society need.

If you’re Jewish, you can have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. If you’re Catholic, you can be Confirmed. If you’re a girl of Mexican heritage, there’s the Quinceanera. Most Native American tribes and bands have important rites, and I’m pretty sure Amish kids have something. But these ceremonies are limited by faith and/or ethnic membership–we can’t all participate. And we all know the faith-based ones are often (sorry, God) less meaningful to the kid than the community would hope. PLUS…they can be pretty darn EXPENSIVE.

Life requires important benchmarks.Life requires important benchmarks.

What coming-of-age ceremony is there for that American kid who wasn’t raised in a religious or ethnic tradition, or doesn’t find that tradition meaningful?

Here’s what that kid is left with: Getting a drivers license. And…getting legally drunk.

When my husband called my son to wish him a Happy 21st Birthday, he jokingly said into the phone, “How many fingers am I holding up?” Of COURSE you go out drinking when you turn 21 in America, right? What other benchmarks of adulthood do we have?

courtesy Pinterest

(courtesy someecards)

So am I missing something? Graduation? First hunting trip? What do you think of when you think of Coming of Age in America? Do you think our society suffers as a result of not moving kids more deliberately into adulthood? What kind of ceremony might we adopt?

I love hearing from y’all!