UUCOC Conversations

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf
by Leo Buscaglia
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Those of you who attended church on Sunday the 15th know that we had a live reading of The Fall of Freddie the Leaf, instead of a video presentation, for our dramatic moment. The author credit was accidentally left out of the order of service, so we wanted to take a moment, and let you all know that while I DID make a couple of adaptations to make it flow better as a three-voice reading, I didn’t write the book.

It’s actually a children’s book that was written by Leo Buscaglia, who also offered the world his book on LOVE.

Dr. Buscaglia may have been a life-long member of the Roman Catholic church, but his ideas were universal, and ‘Freddie’ has been used to help numerous children and adults begin to process the idea of death.

A copy of the book has been donated to the UUCOC library.

Here’s an excerpt, from the end of the story:

Freddie landed on a clump of snow. It somehow felt soft and even warm. In this new position he was more comfortable than he had ever been. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

He did not know that that Spring would follow Winter and that the snow would melt into water. He did not know that what appeared to be his useless dried self would join with the water and serve to make the tree stronger. Most of all, he did not know that there, asleep in the tree and the ground, were already plans for new leaves in the Spring.

Buffalo Gal
Laura Pedersen
Get it from Amazon.com

I first heard about Laura Pedersen’s memoir Buffalo Gal when I was browsing UU World a week or so ago. I was caught by her sense of humor and the fact that she’s roughly my contemporary (five years older, but we watched the same TV shows). I mean, how often does one find a book by a UU woman on mainstream shelves?

Of course I had to buy the book.
Of course I had to read the book.

My measure of a good stort – fiction or non-fiction – is whether or not I feel compelled to read it straight through in one sitting. By this definition, Pedersen’s memoir is a good story. It’s about her childhood in Buffalo, NY, as an only child (another thing I could relate to) of UU parents, in a largely Catholic community.

At times funny, at times poignant, and laced with no small measure of self-deprecation, Buffalo Gal is an enjoyable read.
Buffalo Gal

Writing Down the Bones
by Natalie Goldberg
Available at Amazon >>

This isn’t a book review.

Many people stopped me after church last week to ask for the title and author of the writing book I mentioned, so I thought I’d link it here as the inaugural post for the new category “reading matters.”

What’s this category for?

Well, it can be used for links to books that are mentioned at church, during religious education, etc.

Or it can be for brief reviews of the books any of us are reading, so that we can share them with each other.

Also, if there’s a book mentioned that strikes your fancy, following the link to Amazon to purchase it helps generate tiny amounts of revenue for the church.

Book reviews should be capsule reviews, no more than 300 words. Don’t go through the entire plot, just give a brief sketch and tell us if you liked it. Here’s a sample:

When I first encountered the book Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, I was working in a bookstore/cafe. It was the summer after my freshman year of college, and I was crushing on a poet who would come in and nurse a latte while he wrote in a battered notebook.

He didn’t recommend this book, it just jumped out at me one slow afternoon. I began reading it during my shift, and had to buy it and take it home so I could finish it. I learned about writing as a form of meditation, and that it’s okay to write just for yourself, sometimes.

I also learned that it’s important to give yourself permission to write drivel, as long as you keep writing.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes the written word, whether or not they write professionally, but especially to people interested in memoirs, or in keeping a journal.

Okay. Your turn.