From: Ginny Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 1995 16:39:00 -600

Carla Kozak shared a marvelous quotation from Frances Temple's book The Ramsay Scallop, "She felt herself become a bird and wheel off into the blue sky, rowing with arched wings." What a thoughtful memorial tribute to a fine writer who understood empathy and imagination so well, combining them in her fast moving narratives peopled with such memorable characters. Thank you, Carla.

The novel The Ramsay Scallop contains many examples of Temple's vivid major and minor characters, most of whom were introduced in episodes occurring while Elenor and Thomas made their pilgrimage from England through France to Spain during 1299. Thinking about The Ramsay Sallop reminds me that Frances said she did not keep a journal in the conventional way. However, she did record personally overheard public conversations as well as interchanges and scenes she observed. She attempted to write these down as short, detailed episodes as quickly as possible afterwards. She did not want her memory to distort the exhanges originating in real life. In that way the unique details of dialogue and setting were available to her later to expand, revise and stitch into a longer scene or narrative, if/when she wished. Perhaps this is one reason why Frances Temple's novels are full of unusual details, as well as being lively. She worked close to life in her manner of developing characters and dialogue, just as she was close to life in her choices of themes and settings. Ginny
********************************************************************* Ginny Moore Kruse personal email: gmkruse at macc.wisc.edu Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison
Received on Mon 10 Jul 1995 05:39:00 PM CDT