Everybody give a warm welcome to author and illustrator Sally Rippin whose novel Chenxi and the Foreigner based on her own experiences in Shanghai.
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Random Q&A:
What’s the most embarrassing outfit you’ve ever been caught in? Or, if you are so fashion forward, what outfit would you not want to be caught dead in?
When I was a teenager in the eighties I was very inspired by Cindy Lauper (“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”), Madonna (“Like A Virgin”) and Molly Ringwald (Pretty in Pink). A friend and I used to trawl second-hand clothing stores looking for white cotton petticoats, which we would then cut up and tie on colourful scraps of fabric and ribbons. The look was finished off with holey stockings, big black second-hand boots (neither of us could afford the coveted Doc Martens) and a fedora hat tilted backwards – a la Boy George. I still think it’s a great look and love the eighties look that teenagers today are reviving, but wouldn’t be caught dead in it now. 
What is your favorite onomatopoeia?
Squidge. I’m not sure if it is a real word but to me it’s a cuddle mixed up with a squeeze.
What color best describes your personality and why?
Oh, that’s hard. I change daily from sky-blue, cherry-red to steely gray depending on my mood.
We all have our weaknesses. What is your addiction/obsession/guilty-pleasure?
Going to bed in the afternoon is definitely my guilty pleasure. It is one of the great advantages of working at home. There is nothing I like more than sneaking into bed with a hot water bottle and a book in the middle of the afternoon for an hour or so while my kids are at school. I don’t do it often but when I do, it’s heaven.
If you could live the life of any fictional character (from a novel, movie, TV show, etc.), who would it be?
I love Kay Thompson’s picture book character, Eloise, who lives in the Plaza Hotel in New York. I spent much of my childhood in hotels as we moved country often, but we never got to stay in New York. I wouldn’t mind a room in the Plaza New York some day. After my sejour in Paris, of course. I love big cities and I LOVE staying in fancy hotels!
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the guest blog:
Hi The Book Muncher, thanks for inviting me back to your blog. I have to admit the blog world is still very new to me, so I am feeling pretty much like a dinosaur on Mars right now! My tentative entry into blogging highlights for me, once again, how different things were when I was a teenager back in the dark ages (only the 80s!) not just in technology, but also in publishing.
It’s hard to believe it when you look at the thriving YA market today, that my generation were among the first teenagers to have their own writers: writers who wrote just for them. People like Judy Blume, Paul Zindel, John Marsden, Robert Cormier – these were writers whose books I devoured, who wrote about things that mattered to me as a teenager, without preaching or patronizing or pretending.
These were writers who were at the vanguard of a movement that recognized that while many teenagers were perfectly happy to leap straight from Roald Dahl to Wuthering Heights, others, like myself, longed for stories of contemporary teenagers, experiencing the emotions I was experiencing and grappling with them as clumsily as I was.
Even when I was reading about people and situations that were in parts of the world I had never even heard of, or who were experiencing things I could never have dreamed about, like Ponyboy Curtis in a greaser gang in Oklahoma or a grieving Davey Wexler sent to Los Alamos after the shooting of her father, I felt like I knew these kids – these kids could have been me, and I was hungry for these books. But, back then, these books were few and far between – the term ‘Young Adult literature’ hadn’t even been invented, and it was certainly nowhere near as vast as it is today!
So, it seems that despite all the gloomy predictions that advances in technology will turn teenagers away from reading, my brief foray into the book blogging world seems to show the opposite! Not only do teenagers seem to be reading, they are reading lots! And writing, too! And with more eloquence and authority than I could have ever managed as a teenager. So - congratulations – even just for proving them wrong.
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Well, I certainly am glad at how far the book industry has come. Without YA lit, where would I be?!
This RAD was brought to you as part of Sally's blog tour. Make sure to check out her other stops:
Monday, August 31: Tea Time at Annick Press (http://annickpressblog.blogspot.com)
Tuesday, September 1: The Book Muncher (http://thebookmuncher.blogspot.com)
Wednesday, September 2: Cindy’s Love Of Books (http://cindysloveofbooks.blogspot.com)
Thursday, September 3: Green Bean Teen Queen (http://www.greenbeanteenqueen.com)
Friday, September 4: Hey! Teenager of the Year (http://heyteenager.blogspot.com)
Saturday, September 5: Into the Wardrobe (http://peteredmundlucy7.blogspot.com/)
[Note: the dates are based on North American time zones; if you’re following along from Australia (like Sally!), just move everything one day later!]
Anyway, you can visit Sally online at her website: http://www.sallyrippin.com/index.html, or at her blog: http://sallyrippin.blogspot.com/, where she'll be posting updates as well as pictures from her time in China.
2 munch(es) :
Hi Book Muncher, thanks for the great questions. I'll be putting some more photos on my blog today so would love to hear from anyone who happens to drop by.
Even when I was reading about people and situations that were in parts of the world I had never even heard of, or who were experiencing things I could never have dreamed about, like Ponyboy Curtis in a greaser gang in Oklahoma or a grieving Davey Wexler sent to Los Alamos after the shooting of her father pakistani lawn collection , pakistani lawn collection
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