Monday, December 7, 2009

Weather

The weather guys are doing their best to scare us now, promising a big snowstorm for the next couple of days. We'll see. I do love a blizzardy view out my window, however, and look forward to that. Winter weather has played a part in a few of my books (all of which are set in Minnesota or Wisconsin, for the most part), but as I do a mental scan of the ones set during summer, I can't think of how weather played a role in those stories. Frigid air and paralyzing snow tend to provide a useful setting for the dramas involving my often emotionally numbed protagonists. Perhaps if I wrote more often about bawdy adolescents I would be more inclined to conjure up some summer heat.

Off the top of my head: The Long Winter (Laura Ingalls Wilder) has to be the best weather story ever. Other suggestions?

MQ

7 comments:

  1. I always loved Brian's Winter by Paulsen and of course The Snow Queen. I wish we would get some snow, but it rarely snows in NC. We look forward to the half a dozen ice storms every year.

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  2. For summer stories, you can't beat Louise Fitzhugh's The Long Secret. Summer is the perfect time for transformations, and I love Beth Ellen's switch from meek to not so meek after all.

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  3. Snow by Uri Shulevitz captures exactly how my kids feel about snow every time it falls.

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  4. Yes--I remember the weather in all of those books! MQ

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  5. Our weathercasters in Kansas City love to over-hype the weather. I heard someone yesterday refer to these broadcasts as predictions of Snow-mageddon.

    The climax of my novel includes a heavy rainstorm, a swollen creek, a nervous horse and a lightning strike. I'm really throwing stones at those poor up-the-tree characters!

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