Hello, Universe: In celebration of introverted kids, friendship, and intergenerational relationships

Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In celebration of introverted kids, friendship, and intergenerational relationships

I read this book as a facilitator of a book club for kids and it really struck me how four out of six of our all-girl book club members chose Virgil Salinas as their favorite character. They all mentioned that they could relate with his reticent nature. We enjoyed reading this together and some of our assignments were: to come (to the Zoom session) dressed as our favorite characters, create a zoological diary of our pets (inspired by Valencia Somerset), create horoscopes for each other (inspired by Kaori Tanaka), and tell intergenerational stories about different topics (inspired by Lola). The points of view of diverse characters, including that of the bully, made it an interesting read. The Filipino myths, legends, and memories of Lola also provided a unique flavor to the story telling. As a group, we discussed the book's themes of family, fate/ destiny, choices, and courage. Our book club members wrote very insightful essays on these. Overall, a great read for young readers.


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The Girl Who Drank the Moon: Beautiful and Magical

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Beautiful book on finding one's power and what it means to be a family

I read this book as a facilitator for an online kids' book club during Covid-19 quarantine. What a beautiful book! So well-written, so evocative, so magical. The characters are well fleshed-out and weird and varied and wonderful. The themes are so relevant to our times: the importance (and dangers) of storytelling (or controlling the narrative) and censorship, family and love, and hope winning over sorrow. I love the swamp monster, Glerk, who is at once Beast, Bog, World, and Poet. I love how poetry also forms part of this book and reveals so much about the foundational nature of the written and spoken word. The main narrative is interspersed with mini (and meta) narratives...stories woven into the story. I love the unusual family that is made up of a witch, a magical girl, a swamp monster, and a dragonling. I couldn't put it down! This made the quarantine bearable and gave me something to look forward to. It was also a wonderful bonding tool for me and my nine-year-old daughter. Can't endorse it enough.

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The Woman Who Could Be in Two Places at the Same Time (A Short Story)

Road, picture taken by the author.

Stella was a woman who could be in two places at the same time. She managed this feat exactly only three times during her life. The first time it happened was purely accidental. She had woken up one Sunday morning before anyone else in the apartment. It was still dark. So, she brewed herself some coffee. She wasn't annoyed at all that she had risen earlier than usual. She was glad to be alone at such an hour, the husband and kids still asleep. Finally, she had a few moments to herself. She filled up her cup and sat by the window of the apartment, the one facing the east. The sky was starting to lighten with the dawn. She watched it turn a dark blue and then different shades of violet and pink and then finally she saw the sun rise. That and the aromatic black coffee made her feel a sense of peace she hadn't felt in years. At that moment, she looked at the horizon.

The distant mountains there were sometimes blue or sometimes purple when she found the time to look at them. But this particular morning, she wanted to be in the mountains. It was a very pure longing. And then she found that she was in the mountains. She was just in her fluffy bedroom slippers, her nightie and a silk robe hurriedly thrown on. She hadn't even combed her hair yet. But indeed she was along a mountain road at dawn. She could see the city below, in the valley, and lower hills. She wasn't too startled at first. It was like a dream. She still had her coffee cup in her hands. She just walked along the road feeling the morning breeze and feeling blessed for this amazing gift. She was surrounded by trees. No one else was on the road. But then it began to sink into her consciousness: the disorientation. How was she supposed to get home? And who was going to cook her family's breakfast since the maids were on their day off? It was this mounting panic that totally destroyed her peace at finding herself in a faraway mountain. And this was what catapulted her back to her apartment. She stood up and looked at the horizon again. Was that real? she asked herself. She tried thinking of going back to the mountain but nothing happened. She knew it wasn't a dream. Her bedroom slippers were wet with dew. But look at the time! she found herself dismissing what happened and she flew into a whirl of breakfast preparation so the kids could have some scrambled eggs and fried rice as soon as they woke up.

Stella thought about the mountain incident several times. She wondered why she was given that gift or power or whatever it was. The thing was, she couldn't control it. It wasn't for a lack of trying. When she found out her daughter had a high fever while she was at work, she sat down at her desk, looked at her daughter's picture and willed herself to be by her daughter's side. But nothing happened. Apparently, it wasn't due to a pure longing only (what she thought had triggered the incident). She ended up filing for a leave to take her daughter to the ER. Vanessa, her daughter, had malaria.

The second time it happened was completely accidental as well. Or at least Stella thought it was completely accidental. The family was on a road trip to Baguio when in the middle of the trip, right smack in the middle of Tarlac, her three year old son, Carlos, started to cry. When they left at dawn, he had been asleep. But now, he was wailing inconsolably and ruining the trip for everyone. "What's the matter, Carlos?" Stella asked him from the front passenger seat, twisting her body around so she could see his face. "Mama, I want Booboo! I want Booboo!" Booboo was the name of his little stuffed toy T-Rex from his favorite Ninong Danny. It was his favorite toy and he even slept with Booboo. There was going to be no peace for everyone for the entire trip! But instead of feeling upset, she looked into Carlos' face and saw real sadness, a loss that could not be borne. She held his hand and thought for a while. She asked her husband, Bobby, to stop the car so she could console him. She held Carlos tightly in her arms and fully felt his pain, closing her eyes. She opened her eyes and she was back at the apartment. She went into the kids' room and saw Booboo on her son's bed. She picked it up and put it in her handbag. She closed her eyes again. She could hear Carlos wailing again. "Carlos, look what Mama has in her bag?" she asked him. Carlos looked at her incredulously. She opened her bag and handed him his Booboo. A look of utter adoration was on his face. "Ay naku, Stella, why didn't you say you had it all along?" Bobby said irritably when they went back into the car. Honestly, she couldn't explain it so she just smiled. And they went on to have a wonderful time in Baguio.

The last time it happened, she had finally figured it out. Stella was fifty, driving down the Skyway, Southbound, on a trip to Alabang to visit a friend. Out of nowhere, an out-of-control bus, probably running at 120 kph, tried to cut her off. To avoid it, she swerved to the left, hit a cement island marking an exit, slamming into a wall. At that point, she knew her time was up. Strangely, she felt calm even as she felt excruciating pain shooting all over her body. All she could think of was Bobby. It was exactly 10:15 in the morning and she knew he was in a meeting in his office in Makati. She enters the office and sees his assistant, Tina. "Mrs. Eusebio, how nice to see you!" Tina greets her. "I need to speak with Bobby, please." Tina tells her his meeting got delayed and she could just go right in to his office. She enters and sees that he's staring at his computer monitor with a frown. "Honey!" he says in surprise, "what are you doing here? I thought you were on your way to Suzette's." She smiles at him and gives him a hug. She smells his familiar cologne and she just wants to hang on for another five minutes but she knows she can't. She looks into his eyes and says, "I love you, Bobby. That's all." He looks baffled but she steps out knowing that she's at least said goodbye. In her last moments, she realizes that her gift can only come to her in moments of absolute peace and absolute connection to another person. And she realizes that her three moments of this gift were all worth it.

(c) Justine C. Tajonera 2014

Snuggle Wuggle Wee: A Story Behind The Story and The Launch This Weekend

I just want to share with you a lovely project that I worked on together with two other moms from the organization called LATCH (Lactation, Attachment, Training, Counseling, Help) which helps moms become breastfeeding peer counselors (to help other moms with their breastfeeding), only one among its many projects.

It all started when a book project was broached. Ever since I joined LATCH, that was one of the projects where I really wanted to contribute. When Jenny Ong, one of the co-founders of LATCH, told me that she already had an outline to work with, I was elated. Read Jenny's story here.

I had just come from the Little Lit Festival arranged by the National Book Development Board and I was itching to work on a children's book.

Below is my original picture of Clara, the protagonist.

This is my Pages (by Fifty Three) artwork of Clara. 

My inspiration for Clara is my spunky little daughter, Clea, who just turned three last October. Even though she's the youngest, she's obsessed with being an "ate." She likes taking the lead and she can command a roomful of cousins (both older and younger) to "please keep quiet!" I could just imagine what she would be like if she had been the eldest and I was just expecting my son.

The initial story was under five hundred words (something that I picked up from the Little Lit Festival) and it was pretty straightforward, using simple words that I knew my own kids could identify with. Based on Jenny's outline, the story follows Clara as she anticipates the arrival of her parents and her younger, newly born brother, Paolo, who are all coming from the hospital. It deals with what it's like for a little girl to become an older sibling and how she also explores her own birth story. The story focuses on the closeness of the family, with breastfeeding as one of the ways that a family bonds (yes, it takes the whole family, it's not just about mother and child). I showed it to both Jenny and Buding (Aquino-Dee), the President of LATCH for their thoughts. Buding challenged me to make it a fun book, full of silly rhymes and alliterations that would capture the imagination of children. That was how the title came about: Snuggle Wuggle Wee. It's a nonsense phrase that is meant to capture that joyful embrace in a family.

That was how our book collaboration became complete. Jenny was the voice of experience and advocacy, bringing to the project the urgency of choosing the right books that would help her eldest daughter become an "ate" in the context of a breastfeeding family. Buding was the mover-and-shaker, if I may say so! She's LATCH's cheerleader and she cheered me on to really refine the book. I was the word-crafter. :-)  Together, the story of Snuggle Wuggle Wee moved forward and tomorrow it will finally be available for sale!

Of course, it took more than just us co-authors to make Snuggle Wuggle Wee a reality. It took the entire LATCH organization. What a wonderful group and what a wonderful mix of personalities! Moms can make it happen. That's all I can say.

This shows the evolution of Clara. This is the book cover of Snuggle Wuggle Wee.

I really did take so much pleasure from composing the story, really listening not just to the narrative but to the musicality of the words. Bryan Delfin, the illustrator, is really fantastic! He's the fourth storyteller, actually. He took the manuscript and created magical, cinematic images that really stay with the reader. He took the similes from the book and created lovely illustrations that pop up from the page and take you away to a river ("I can see his lips move like a fish from the side") or make a color burst in your imagination ("red as a tomato" -- here, he cleverly leaves out the color red from the lovely tomato illustration so that you can see the color in your mind and associate it with baby Paolo's color). Snuggle Wuggle Wee celebrates family and I hope it helps families, especially those with young children or those expecting an addition in the family,  get even closer.

This is an open invitation for you to come over to the Global Pinoy Bazaar at the Rockwell Tent this weekend so you can get yourself (and your loved ones) a Snuggle Wuggle Wee book. It's a perfect Christmas gift too! It's only Php 250 and proceeds will help fund LATCH projects (including those that have to do with Typhoon Yolanda --- LATCH members are already helping by providing breastfeeding support to affected mothers as well as organizing efforts to get donated breast milk to affected babies).

Below is a trailer of the book:

And here are directions to LATCH's booth at the Global Pinoy Bazaar this November 24 to 25, 2013:

This is where you'll find the LATCH booth at Global Pinoy Bazaar. 

See you there!

NaPoWriMo#25: Join Easter Jaunt, A Portrait

NaPoWriMo or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

Below is a short portrait poem that emerges out of the anagram that comes from my name.

Join Easter Jaunt, A Portrait
by Justine C. Tajonera

Inside my name is an invitation to a journey
on the road to resurrection. Everlasting life is heavy
stuff. So, why make the trip so solemn? A jaunt
sounds like a call in the morning: we're going off
to Sierra Madre, come quick, pack light. It's cramming
into a car and making stops at roadside restaurants
that you won't find in the city. We're going together,
that's what counts. Everlasting life is now, exactly
now, as I turn around to take a picture. It's the smile
that won't leave your lips because, there, around the
bend, there's a view of the light coming through
the clouds, making the mountainside golden. It's
the glory of your hand in mine as we get out of the
car with the children and stand in the wind.

NaPoWriMo#2: Easter Eggs

Easter Eggs
by Justine C. Tajonera

We hid eighty-four eggs in the park, yesterday
and waited an hour and a half for everyone to show up.
Eighty-three eggs were found in thirty minutes, one was unaccounted for.
Inside the eggs were pieces of paper with Easter quotes
about eternal life and temples and resurrection and God's
only begotten son. I had hoped some of the children would
read them before turning them over for the prizes of marshmallows
and star jelly candies and chocolates and lollipops.
Some of them did. But what I remember most was how hot
the afternoon light was. How cooling the breeze.
How peaceful it was with only the two of us looking for
unlikely places for children to find treats among the trees.
We rested on the wooden bench together, exhausted, smiling.
We counted all those eggs. We worked on them with our son,
our daughter. We had twelve big eggs with five small candies
in them. We had twelve small, fancy eggs with designs on them and
sixty regular eggs, each with three small candies in them. Sixty
out of the eight-four eggs had carefully folded pieces of paper.
Easter bunnies have nothing to do with Jesus Christ, I know,
but there was something in the work of that afternoon that was
the resurrection and the life.