Month: September 2013

Songs of Willow Frost

Posted on by Seniye Groff

After reading “Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet”, I waited anxiously for a second book from Jamie Ford.  After several years, Jamie has delivered another stunner!  “Songs of Willow Frost” is set in 1920’s and 1930’s Seattle.  William, a twelve-year-old, Chinese-American boy lives at the Sacred Heart Orphanage.  Not only does he carry the stigma of being an orphan, but he is also Chinese–practically as low as the Coloreds.  William’s only friend, a blind girl named Charlotte, challenges William to find his mother after a school field trip to the city exposes William to a theater poster that he thinks is his mother.

Charlotte and William escape the orphanage and manage to find William’s mother, Willow.  Willow shares her past with William, as he tries to understand why she left him.  Willow is nothing but a hard-luck story; but she never wavered on her love for William.  The 1920’s is a difficult time for a Chinese, unwed mother to try to make her break in show business.  Willow thinks she has found love but cannot verbalize her feelings.  But, alas,  the possibility of hope, love and safety do not materialize.

William returns to the orphanage feeling lonelier than ever.  This story will pull at your heart strings.  Ford writes with passion and empathy as hope, love, struggle and being an outsider collide in this beautiful story.

Working with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

Posted on by Seniye Groff

I am currently working on a development project where I am heavily relying on SMEs.  The course content is very technical (and on a topic I have never developed before).  Existing content is primarily pictures with facilitators spewing facts from their heads.  To no surprise, the SMEs are overly busy with no time to answer a nagging ID!  So I share some ideas when working with SMEs:

  • Remember, SMEs have full-time jobs besides what you are requesting from them.  Consolidate your e-mails, conference calls and documents so that they can use their minimal time efficiently.
  • Put questions in an SME-friendly document.  I recently pulled all my questions from my design document and put it in an easy-to-read table format.  This document was much more user-friendly to the SME than my instructional-focused design document.
  • Create visual maps of your courses.  Sometimes pictures say it better than words and it might be easier for your SME to “see it” rather than read it and try to visualize it in their heads.

What strategies have you used when working with a SME?  Send me a comment!

Instructions for a Heatwave

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Maggie O’Farrell presents the reader with an interesting dilemma as she tells the story of a crisis in the Riordan family.  London is experiencing a vicious heatwave and one morning, Gretta Riordan’s husband of forty years, Robert, disappears while on his morning task of buying the newspaper.  Oh, and he empties out the bank account at the same time.  All the children are alerted and descend upon the family home.  Michael Francis has a failing marriage; Monica is on her second marriage with two stepdaughters that barely tolerate her and mysterious, wild child Aoife flies in from New York City.

While all three children are focused on finding their father, Greta slowly reveals potential clues which revolve around a hidden past.  Simultaneously, each child hides a secret that O’Farrell seductively divulges.  In the end, each family member realizes no one is as they seem.  O’Farrell writes with depth and exposes tantalizing details while moving from one character to the next rather quickly.  Each deep, dark secret is one that a reader can relate to and very much empathize with the character.  There are no “grand” surprises here, but instead, revelations that make each character whole, human and believable.

The Girl You Left Behind

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Jojo Moyes has written an astoundingly great book.  If you read “Me Before You” and were enraptured, get ready to be even more enamored with her latest book, “The Girl You Left Behind/”.  Sophie and Helene are barely surviving in a small French town during the German occupation of World War I. The sisters run the local restaurant, Le Coq Rouge, and are forced to feed the German soldiers every night.    The Kommandant is mesmerized by a painting in the dining room by Sophie’s husband, Edouard Lefevre, called “The Girl You Left Behind”.  It is a painting of Sophie when she was full of love and life after she first met Edouard.  Sophie dreams of Edouard daily; hoping he is alive on the front.  Sophie decides to make the ultimate sacrifice by offering her painting to the Kommandant in return for seeing her husband.

Alternating chapters reveal Liv, a woman living in 2006 London.  She is still struggling four years after the sudden death of her 38 year-old architect husband.  David gave Liv “The Girl You Left Behind“ for their honeymoon and it is proudly displayed in Liv’s home.  Liv’s life has essentially stopped.  She is unwilling to make anything different in David’s house since his death.  During a chance meeting, Liv meets Paul and finally gets a shot at the possibility of a  “normal” life.  But the mysterious painting plays an integral role in both Sophie and Liv’s life as events unfold in this engrossing novel.  

Moyes writes of love, sacrifice and loss with glaring detail.  Her characters leap from the pages with the vivid writing of the author.  “The Girl You Left Behind” is fraught with deeper meaning and readers will be thinking of the characters long after they finish the book.  

Moyes will be reading her book at Powells at Cedar Hills this Monday, September 16th at 7 p.m.