Bully Book Review: "Why I oughtta MAKE you read....."

The Education of Little Tree by: Forest Carter

This is the book I have recommended to 3 different people this week, and that's saying something, since it has been 5 or 6 years since I last read it. It still lingers in my mind like the remembrance of a good, not embarrassingly intimate, yet cozy conversation with a dear friend. My husband, Aaron, finally got around to reading it, after my constant bullying, and even read one of the chapters aloud to me. Just one chapter brought back my unshakable sense of what a prize this book is. Just a warning to any naysayers out there: it is vulnerable to your naysaying both in title and opening...this book dazzles sloooowly. In order to savor the home-grown flavors of this story you have to be willing to walk along with the characters for a spell or two, as if you are on the Southern Appalachian mountain trails with Grandfather. Ok, I won't say anymore, for I fear I'm only going to scare off anyone already uncertain about the merits of a book with no readily apparent frills or thrills. Just READ IT...ok? Or I'll steal your lunch money.

The Rocking Horse Manifesto

The Rocking Horse exists to bear witness to any and all artistic dealings and goings-on and general hubub that its writer, Whitni Roche, either initiates herself or discovers and finds compelling. It is a fact of said writer's life that she is a fated "jack-of-all-trades, and master-of-none." Although she will, in June 2010, be universally (or at least academically) recognized as a "Master" of English, she still feels uncomfortable with the notion of utter specificity. In light of the writer's condition, she cannot, though she would like to, seem to buckle down and focus purely on writing stories, poetry, books, comic strips, and the like...though she hodge-podgedly dapples with all of the above. Thus, The Rocking Horse provides a way to house various ideas on a multifarious range of subject-matter--all accessible to her friends and family with the click of a button (or touch of a screen--for all the fancy i-everything people). But if you lean in close, what follows amounts to ultra-secretive fine print about bigger and better plans for The Rocking Horse:

Eventually The Rocking Horse could become a physical reality in the form of an older, multi-story building with one floor as a venue, another as a tea-shop/lending library/yoga studio/ fiber arts collective, and another as recording space. This is, of course, a far off dream--but in the meantime we'll just keep rocking along in cyber space.