Friday, August 11, 2006

Shannon Hale

I have just read two of Shannon Hale's book-- The Goose Girl and Enna Burning . Both are young adult fantasy novels, with strong female protagonists. Enna Burning is a companion volume to the first.

While I quite liked both of the books, the most intriguing thing to me was the author herself. I know a woman who met Hales before she had published anything and she told me a bit about her. I also have read information about Hales on her website that describes how she wrote almost the entire book of Enna Burning with an infant sitting on her lap. I am fascinated with the idea of a young Mormon mother who has this rich and vibrant career, just taking off (her third book, Princess Academy, is a Newberry Honor book), and the idea that she can have this career while raising young children. Perhaps I should have chosen a different career! I am so jealous of anyone that has a career compatible with raising children. All the time I was reading, I kept thinking of Shannon Hales, the author, and what it might be like to be able to accomplish such a feat.

As to the books. Both of the main female characters, Isi and Enna, have the ability to communicate with nature--Isi with the wind and Enna with fire. When Enna's ability to communicate with fire starts to be personally destructive to her, she feels that she must renounce the gift in order to stay alive. But, at the same time, she is quite afraid of what will happen to her when she lets it go. She fears that she will be an empty shell of her former self--the feelings she has, a gift she has cherished. What would she be without it? (It turns out happily in the end, as she is able to develop the ability to speak with wind so that the powers balance each other out.)

I have been thinking some about this story. I have recently finished graduate school and am experimenting with staying home full time with my kids. I am so tormented about these decisions at times, and have really struggled to know how to balance the different parts of my identity. I feel like the talents and abilities I developed and honed during graduate school, as well as my strong feelings about feminism and career to some extent, are part of who I am and I feel that I am betraying myself? others? by staying home. If I stay home with my kids long enough, will these parts of me disappear? Will I be empty and barren in those places of me? Or will I be able to nuture them in some way other than working? Not sure. I'm not even sure that I am going to continue staying at home full time.

For now, though, I have decided to stop torturing myself over whether or not to find a job. It's all on the back burner now. I am focusing more on trying to figure out how my talents help me be the mother that I can be. Sometimes I think that my talents have no overlap with the skills needed for motherhood, and on those days, I am depressed and short tempered. But I have to believe that no matter who I am, the talents I have can be useful in some way for raising kids...
Read more . . .