Illustrations by Diane Goode fully compliment the text in displaying Rylant's recollection of her experiences in Cool Ridge as if they happened yesterday. The warm colors comfirm the happiest feelings expressed by Rylant as she details her fondest childhood events that happened in the mountains. While I have not lived in this setting, I have a clearer picture of what life would be like living in this type of rural environment. Life doesn't seem as busy and complicated in the past as it does today. I feel somewhat envious of the fact that I haven't experienced the smell of fresh, clean air in the mountains - you can't smell that growing up in a heavily populated city!
Comparing this autobiography to Waiting to Waltz, both pieces are similiar in how Rylant depicts her childhood experiences of growing up in West Virginia. However, Waiting to Waltz contains experiences that were not the warm, fuzzy feelings portrayed in When I Was Young in the Mountains. The poems told more about the moments that challenged her, as well as moments that she experienced grief, sadness, and tragedy (with a few poems that showed times of happiness and certainty). Both stories tell of different times in Rylant's life; When I Was Young in the Mountains demonstrates Rylant's transformation of her childhood into becoming a young woman, while When I Was Young in the Mountains strictly details her experiences and feelings as a young, carefree girl living with her grandparents. I found myself questioning a few things: where was her mother during this time? Why did she leave her son and daughter in the care of grandparents? I found in an article about Rylant's life when trying to find answers to my questions on the web. In the article, it stated that her parents were separated when she was four years old, and her mother wanted to pursue a nursing degree. So young Cynthia and brother were left with their grandparents in Cool Ridge. Four years later, Rylant's mother reunited with her children and moved to Beaver, West Virginia - the setting for her childhood poems, Waiting to Waltz. She once called this new location "without a doubt a small, sparkling universe that gave me a lifetime worth of material for my writing." www.edupaperback.org/showauth.cfm?authid=40
It is evident that Rylant's past truly impacted her success as a writer today. Her experiences I can describe somewhat like a rollercoaster ride - there are many ups, downs, twists, and turns. Sometimes you feel safe, happy, and secure. Other times you feel terribly frightened. I truly admire her as an author as well as a young woman. She inspires me to hold onto memories, both good and bad, as they are all a part of life and make us who we are today.
It's amazing that Rylant is able to pull from her life experiences in so many of her stories, yet each time we read them we feel deeply moved - as if we didn't know about her childhood experiences already! I had read WIWYITM many times and when I read her poetry collection, Waiting to Waltz, I was able to make the connections and recall memories that she had "shared" in other stories. While I am reading about Rylant's life, I never feel like an outsider looking in. She is able to make her readers feel the emotions with her, walk the mountains with her, and dream with her.
ReplyDelete