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B is for Brontë: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

20/8/2019

Gretchen Rubin would say Jane Eyre is an Obliger—a normally obliging and even submissive person who every so often snaps and goes into Obliger Rebellion, revealing a steel backbone.

Jane Eyre has it rough. Her mother and father died when she was months old and her mother’s brother, who took her in and loved her almost more than his own three children, has also died. His wife, her aunt Reed, resented her husband’s affection for his niece and, since his death, she and her children treat Jane like a second-class citizen. When she is punished severely for defending herself against her older cousin’s abuse, she loses it. That’s when her aunt decides to send her away to Lowood Institution, a charity school for orphans.

At first things are even worse for Jane.

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CONNECTED PARENTING BY Jennifer Kolari

13/8/2019

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Connected Parenting stirs up all my hometown pride: Jennifer Kolari is a child and family therapist in Toronto who has taken her social work experience and translated it into a simple and powerful connection technique. Hurray for Canadian talent!

Kolari has found that the techniques of self-psychology that helped her in her social work days are powerful for everyone. It’s the idea that installing an elevator in a subway station, for example, will benefit not only people in wheelchairs but those with large packages or strollers or anyone just feeling too tired to take the stairs.

Same thing here: de-escalation and connection techniques can help the most traumatized child… and your hangry toddler.

Intrigued? Read on.

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K: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

10/8/2019

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Sometimes a story comes along at just the right moment.

I vaguely knew The Secret Life of Bees was about, well, bees, and women, but I had no idea when I first opened the jewel-green cover of the Penguin Drop Caps Edition, with its gorgeous honeycomb K initial on the cover, that I would find inspiration for my own next story.

This summer, my goal was to get my novel As Tall As the Sun is Bright into shape and send it out to publishers. Mission accomplished. Two rejections and counting. But not having any other projects to procrastinate with, except knitting, revealed that I was stuck. What was my character’s real problem? Why does she want to go on her journey? Why does it feel like there’s some massive hole in this plot?

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B is for Brontë: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

CONNECTED PARENTING BY Jennifer Kolari

K: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Carolyn Johnson

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