Welcome to another edition of Open Book Blog Hop. This week’s prompt is: “Dear Diary. Write a diary entry or a letter from your character’s point of view.”
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Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
My name is Ashley Sawyer. I’m fifteen years old, and I live in Colorado Springs with my parents, my sister Julie, who is seventeen, and my brother Thomas, who just turned thirteen in June. In case you’re wondering, we do have a Tom Sawyer in the family. My dad, an English teacher at the Colorado State School for the Blind, and my mom, a bestselling author, named him after that character in the Mark Twain book. Tom also had an Aunt Polly and, I believe, a cousin Mary. Why my sister and me weren’t named after them is beyond me. Of course, my dad has a sister in California named Polly. So, having two people in the family named Polly would have been confusing.
Anyway, my friend Sylvia got this book called The Diary of Anne Frank for her birthday last week. She and I mostly like to read romances like what my mom writes, but when I slept over at her house last Saturday, we stayed up late, taking turns reading sections of it to each other out loud. It’s a fascinating and tragic story about a Jewish girl in Holland during World War II who keeps a diary while her family is in hiding from the Nazis.
Sylvia said I could borrow the book, but I wanted my own copy. So, I asked my grandpa, who runs a bookstore in Fowler, if he had it. He was surprised but glad I was broadening my horizons, so to speak. He said he would have to order it, but it would be there the next time we visited.
Meanwhile, I’ve decided to start my own diary, although my life isn’t nearly as interesting as that of Anne Frank. Then again, last summer was amazing! Mom reconnected with an old college roommate and a former best friend she hadn’t seen in years. Julie got a steady boyfriend, and I made a new friend in California. I also got to attend a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game, where my new friend’s brother caught a ball for me. I gave it to Thomas, who was over the moon, being a Colorado Rockies fan.
Oh, gosh, I don’t have time to write any more now. Mom’s calling us all down to breakfast. Then, I’ll have to hurry, so I don’t miss the school bus. I’ll write more tomorrow. I promise.
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Want to know more. Read The Red Dress. If you’re a blogger and would like to participate in this week’s Open Book Blog Hop, click here.
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By the way, for those of you who use the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, The Red Dress is available for download from their site here. No matter how you read it, please be sure to review it wherever you can. That goes for all my books. Thank you for stopping by. Stay safe, happy, and healthy.
New! The Red Dress
Copyright July 2019 by DLD Books
When Eve went to her high school senior prom, she wore a red dress that her mother had made for her. That night, after dancing with the boy of her dreams, she caught him in the act with her best friend. Months later, Eve, a freshman in college, is bullied into giving the dress to her roommate. After her mother finds out, their relationship is never the same again.
Twenty-five years later, Eve, a bestselling author, is happily married with three children. Although her mother suffers from dementia, she still remembers, and Eve still harbors the guilt for giving the dress away. When she receives a Facebook friend request from her old college roommate and an invitation to her twenty-five-year high school class reunion, then meets her former best friend by chance, she must confront the past in order to face the future.
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My Corner 
You’ve captured the simplicity of childhood. Too bad we lose that as we grow up.
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I know what you mean. Thank you for reading and commenting.
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I riff on the Tom and Becky thing a LOT. And use the surprise, look where we are now! Huck Finn excuse to get in to a small caper scene. Great to see a kid expand their horizons.
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I agree it’s nice when kids try to expand their horizons. Thank you for reading and commenting.
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