This is the time of year I
pay tribute to authors who have left us and left an indelible mark on my
reading life. Elmore Leonard is one of my all time favorite authors. His quirky
but realistic style of writing is like no other. Tom Clancy’s international
thrillers were just that: thrilling. And Barbara Park influenced reading for children
like no other author could.
About a decade ago I saw an
interview by Larry King with Tom Clancy who said he couldn’t believe how lucky
he had been because he got to lead a life of make belief in creating scenarios
where the good guy always won, usually his hero Jack Ryan who has been
portrayed on screen by three actors, Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben
Affleck or his second hero Mr. Clark who has been portrayed by actors Willem
Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. The last novel
by Clancy that I read was The Bear and the Dragon. He collaborated with other
writers in continuing his war games. He died of an undisclosed illness at age
66 but one of his friends suggested that his heart wore out.
Barbara Park was the complete
opposite of Clancy and Leonard but her influence in inspiring young girls to
read goes without parallel. Sometime in the late 1990s, I was looking for books
for my then youngest granddaughter Mallory. I had no problem finding books for
her older sister Brittany. But Mallory was just learning to read and all I
could find were simple books about animals. Then one day as I was standing in
the book section of Wal-Mart and wondering if I would ever find something cute
for Mallory, it happened. Out of nowhere Junie B. Jones appeared! Of course, it
wasn’t like that exactly but Junie B., a mischievous kindergartner, stood out
like no other fictional character. I bought one of the books and sent it to
Mallory and she was off and reading! Barbara Park’s sense of humor and
creativity have helped instill a love of lifetime reading as no other author
could have done. She died at age 66 of ovarian cancer but Junie B. and other
characters she created will live on forever.
Elmore Leonard's sense of humor and quirky style captivated me
the moment I started reading his work. The first of his novels that I read was Glitz
where his “hero” goes to Puerto Rico (a place
where I lived for four years) and in it he mentions the Carmen Apartments where
a friend of mine lived with her young son. But it wasn’t just Puerto
Rico that captured my attention, it was the characters and the
plot. I have now read twenty-two of his books, the last one a compilation of
nine short stories titled Fire in the Hole. And the last story in that series, Tenkiller, is one
of the best short stories I’ve ever read. First of all it takes place in Okmulgee , Oklahoma
