Unusual Characters
When the Setting becomes a Character in your Book
Making a children’s picture book takes time. Like all wonderful things, if you take the time and care to really create something beautiful, a treasure will be produced. I like to describe that the making a children’s picture book is like making a blueberry pancake. If you take a pinch of this and a tad of that, mix it all together and fold in blueberries you get the perfect pancake. Books need the same love and attention. Today, as I await the next step in the making of my next children’s book, I thought I would share with my readers an important character that will be featured in my next book.
My next book focuses on four main characters. My grandmother, her best friend, six children and a lake in northern Michigan. Yes, for me the setting is a main character with a personality, charm and the warmth of a person.
This character, the setting, like I said is a lake up in northern Michigan. This is the lake that I grew up on. My family is from Plymouth, Michigan and every summer we would travel by car the four hours up to the cottage. We would travel most of the trip by highway, but the last half of an hour was a dirt road that went up and down and round and about through the big pine trees. I would usually get car sick during this point, but I also remember rolling down the windows to take in the magical smell of the pine trees. I can still smell this smell of northern Michigan even 50+ years later as I sit here in my living room in Texas. As we would pull our car into the dirt covered driveway at the cottage, we would throw open the doors and breathe in that fabulous smell. Deep in the northern Michigan woods, fallen leaves smashed into the driveway, still wet from the morning’s rainfall setting off the most wonderful musty smell that can only be described as mother earth. Fresh green moss would guide our little feet as we ran for the cottage door to the back porch.
As a child, I always thought the porch door was the front because it is the door we always used, and it is the one that faces the lake. I would later learn that the front door is the one that faces the road. We rarely used that door. It was mostly used to leave open so that the breeze would flow through the cottage.
My cousins and sisters and I would all scamper into the cottage and run for the bedrooms to pick out our respective beds. In the “green room” (the bedspreads and curtains were green) there was an enormous double bunk bed that slept about 6 kids. We would take turns on who got to sleep on the top and who got to sleep on the bottom. The fun part about being on the top was of course that you were way up high and close to the ceiling. We all secretly carved our names into the wood up there. I don’t think our parents ever went up there to look. The best part about sleeping on the bottom bunk was that you could jam your feet though the springs and kick the kids on the top bunk. That and you could also hook your hands and feet on the springs and bars and swing back and forth like a monkey. Both beds were fabulous and extremely comfortable to sleep in covered with beautiful quilts.
Next to the double bunk bed was a single bed that usually one of the adults slept in to keep the kids at bay during the night. Looking back, I feel sorry for who ever lost that coin toss. It was usually my mom.
The “red bedroom”, the bedroom with the red bedding and red curtains, had a double bed and a single bed beside it. My cousin Michael usually slept in there with my aunt and grandma. He was the only boy, so that was his designated bedroom.
The other fun part about the two bedrooms was that in each bedroom there was a closet. The closet was small and had the accordion door that folded open and shut. But the best part was that the closets were connected. We could crawl through the closet and spy on each other. Of course, we never wanted to actually see anything. We just wanted to scare each other. Typical screaming, hysterical little boy and girl fun. The yelling and fighting would begin and then it was into our suits to run down to the lake to swim.
Out the cottage door we would run, letting it slam with a bang that only a good ole screen door can do. It is this part of the story where I should say that this is how the character of the cottage/lake talks, through the screen door. Other speaking parts in my book are the wind, birds, squirrels and chipmunks. Nature has a way of speaking to children. They may not remember the conversations until they are adults, but they are imprinted onto the souls of a child and the child in you never forgets.
Jumping our way down the rickety, sandy topped and wood steps to the lake. Trees, ferns, acorns, pinecones, long natural grass, tree branches, fallen leaves line both sides of the steps. This is once again where my childhood memories have no chance of forgetting this beautiful smell of being at the cottage.
The first few days spent at the cottage as a child we would all wear our tennis shoes into the lake. This was of course before intelligent people came up with the idea of water or lake shoes to protect your feet. Our job, as our parents lounged on the dock soaking in the rays of sun, was to muck up the lake. That’s what they called it. “Get in there and muck up the lake” they would tell us. We gleefully obliged to the mucking. Deep sediments of muck had settled near our dock over the winter months, and it was our very important job to muck up the muck and make it into glorious sand. Gleefully jumping off the dock into the muck trying to avoid rocks sticks. We would put those carefully onto the dock when we found them. Little crayfish would crawl into the wooden holes of our dock. The perfect place for a little round home for them. Minos, tadpoles, bass, ducks and loons all swimming around us during the glorious excitement of the mucking.
I will stop for now. But as you can see, hear and possibly smell, the cottage and lake are a character in its own right. They are living, breathing and almost humanlike. I look forward to sharing my next book that is absolutely precious and takes place right at this glorious place I had the privilege of growing up. Forever in my heart and soul ~ Little Bear Lake.
Blueberry Pancake Publishing 