Dealing with The Giver

                So, my novel, which I’m proofing for the last time before sending it out to potential agents (who I know are just going to eat it up), is about a girl whose response to almost anything – is to want to hit something. She is apparently much like me. And, it would appear, I have not been hiding the fact I often feel this way very well – because someone just gave me a sign that says, “It’s National ‘Slap an Idiot I Know’ Day.”

                Currently on my list to slap is the furnace off the children’s room which for the third time in seven years has decided to have a leak in the condensation pan; the person who decided the furnace should be in a room above the elevator mechanical room, so that when it leaks it can also wreck havoc on the elevator; and the cold weather that apparently helps the whole process get going. I am an equal opportunity smacker – wanting to hit inanimate objects as much as people.

                So, Bruce stopped by the office and saw the sign. “Where’d you get that?”

                “Sarah gave it to me.”

                He nodded. “She’s figured you out.”

                For the record, I have never smacked Bruce even though he did drop a rock on my head once. Which probably explains a lot.

                I also like to read books about girls and women who smack things. Even if it’s only a verbal smack down. As I explained to the kids’ writers’ club the other day, “try writing a scene where you slay them with words!” Which I was told is what girls do.

Which brings me to the books I’ve been reading with the Jr. High Book Club. They are proving to be trying, because they involve feelings, and ideals, and thought provoking concepts. And I can’t smack them. Take the The Giver by Lois Lowry. I’ve avoided reading The Giver for years – because really those dystopian rule-oriented stories make me want to hit something.

                Here’s, of course, the issue with a story like The Giver. As a control freak and librarian, I’m all for order, rules, and control. But I want them to be mine. I want to be the one who imposes them. I don’t want anyone else making up the rules and telling me what to do!

I know Lois Lowry was making a mind blowing social commentary that will make us think and possibly change the way we behave. But, really, it just makes me want to hit something.