Every now and then I’ll find a great book in a quick moment. My discovery feels like spotting a nugget of genuine gold in a stream full of fool’s gold. I was at the library when I spotted my latest book while returning books, paying my usual fines and supervising my three year old in finding yet another video of trains or cars. On this occasion I made a grab of what was on the shelf to get something in my hands and then moved on, hoping it would be good.
In that moment, I lucked into The Birthday Ball audio CD written by Lois Lowry and read by Elissa Steele.
Both the story and the reader impressed me. Steele knows how to read like Jim Dale reads the Harry Potter series. Her renditions of the Princess Patricia Priscilla and the chambermaid Tess pulled me into the story from the beginning.
I’ve always admired Lowry’s storytelling powers even though her book The Giver upset me with its baldfaced treatment of painful topics. Gossamer impressed me again with the way Lowry wrapped tiny fairies into writing about foster homes and other heavy topics.
The Birthday Ball has very few serious issues aside from a princess doomed to marry repugnant suitors. For the most part it was pure joy and, to combat the sometimes painful plot twists of my own life, I appreciate an author who writes a story just for fun. I could feel Lowry’s enjoyment come through in every turn of the story.
Lowry plays with language throughout the book. She created the Conjoint Counts, Prince Percival and Duke Desmond of Dyspepsia. The author has the princess rhyming with a cat named Delicious, and the names of a few bordering countries are “Analgesia, Bulimia and Coagulatia.” I giggled while listening to Steele read these names with their alliteration.
And, as I told my writing friend, Lowry’s successful use of adjectives and even a few adverbs encouraged me because so often I’m told to avoid these types of words.
“Across the schoolyard the cat perceived an appetizing small rodent of some sort, nibbling on a fern. The tip of a rough, pink glistening tongue emerged.”
The adjectives worked for me. Deliciously.
I’m making up for reading such pure fun by now reading a very serious book: The Orchardist. But I hope to find another gold nugget like The Birthday Ball again soon.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7069884-the-birthday-ball
