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I hadn’t been meaning to, but I’ve been rather silent on my blog this month. And here I had promised several book reviews. Well, don’t worry, they’re coming right up.

I had a bit of a soup-accident and was unable to do a lot of typing for a couple of weeks. That’s not to say that I didn’t write anything, it was just a bit of a workout for my fingers and I wanted to focus more on some short stories and a novel idea than blogging. What happened?

I burned the middle and index fingers on my left hand. Steaming hot (and, by the way, delicious) homemade roasted-garlic-eggplant soup splashed onto my hand as I took the bowl out of the microwave. Second degree burns. I watched my skin curl up and peel. Definitely put me into a minor state of shock.

I drove myself to urgent care and got to be a trauma patient. I’ve never been a trauma patient before. The best thing about it is that you don’t have to fill out any paperwork until they’re done taking care of you. Oh, yeah. And you don’t have to actually wait to see anyone. They call for a nurse, take you to an exam room, and take care of whatever is hurting.

It was actually a decent experience. But that might just have been because they prescribed me vicodin and that pretty much erased any negative aspects of that day. That happened three weeks ago.

It was difficult to bend my fingers the first couple of days, plus I kept them wrapped because they were kinda gross to look at, like I had leprosy. Now, however, the peeling is finished and my index finger only has one small red splotch. My middle finger was a little more damaged, and a little more red, but I didn’t lose any range of motion.

For those of you who are interested, there are pictures below, starting with the one I texted to Nick immediately after the event, when I wanted to know if I should go to urgent care.  He took one look at it and texted back, “Go now, you don’t want it to get infected.”

Enjoy.

right after the soup splashed

wrapped up nice & neat

day two, the shine is from the bacitracin ointment

getting better...still a little leprous

today: a little red, a little dry, but (for the most part) healed

I am not enough of a poet to find the words to describe The Green Man by Michael Bedard.  I love to read books about bookstores, especially when the bookstore itself becomes a character in the story.  The magical realism of the story is enchanting.  As an employee of a bookstore, I had no trouble at all identifying with O, the protagonist, (Don’t you dare call her Ophelia, she’s just O) or her Aunt Emily, the owner of The Green Man.

When O’s father goes overseas to work on a project, he sends O to his sister, Emily.  Emily has been having some health issues, and the situation is more O taking care of her aunt than Emily taking care of her niece.  An old curse begins haunting Aunt Emily, and she tries to hide the problem from O, but of course things get out of hand.

I could not put this book down.  The plot moves quickly, and there’s a bit of a love interest but nothing inappropriate for teens and pre-teens.  The prose itself is lyrical and magical, breathtakingly appropriate for a book whose central characters are poets.  I cannot wait for this book to hit the shelves at Gulliver’s, there are quite a few young (& not so young) readers who I know will love it as much as I have.

Forthcoming from Tundra Books, 4/10/12