Quiet around here...

Yesterday my oldest left for his week-long school trip. (Well, school week, but five days is still a long time if you'r'e 9 and you've never spent the night away from home). We haven't heard anything, so everything must be going well. Although it's July, it's turning out cold and rainy (50s-60s). They were supposed to do a night hike one of the nights; that sounds just delightful in the rain, doesn't it? Mostly I hope he gets to know the other kids in his class better, and makes some better friendships.

Around here, it's awfully quiet without him. He's a quiet kid who likes to read, but still--the dynamics are different when he isn't here. His brother had a hard time going to sleep without him in the room. Otherwise, though, son #2 is looking at this as a way to get 100% attention from Dad. He even wrote up a week's schedule of  "My Week with Dad!!!" (but all in German). Yesterday was "shopping with Dad." Today is supposed to be the Kristalenjagd--hunt for crystals--with Dad. Tomorrow he's planned to go to the store for "Geburtstagsausrustung" (stuff he needs for a birthday party--yes, he came up with that word all out of his head--isn't German amazing?). So, no sibling rivalry there, huh?

In writing progress, I've been sucked back into Harry Potter, rereading before the seventh book (like everyone else). Ah, what a great beginning book 5 has! I love that scene in the Durselys' house where Harry's two worlds come together. Unfortunately, it all makes me look at my own writing and realize how piddly and wretched it is. But maybe that's what I need to do right now--read a lot. It's just so slow. Any English books I read I have to order, because I'm not in the US and the English collection in the library is very small. And not terribly current. I'm rereading The Star of Kazan, by Eva Ibbotson, and the voice comes through very nicely--but I've read it before. I need something new, that makes you love the characters, with a plot, and that has lovely words (that last bit I can't get in German, due to my language abilities; German is subtle and lovely and all when it's your own language). The word starvation is really the biggest difficulty of living outside the US.

So if anyone has any new favorites to recommend, the kind you read and reread, so they're definitely worth shelling out $$ for a foreign book order, let me know! I like to read, and try to write, books with

interesting, complex characters I can relate to
who DO something
which has a palpable effect on themselves, others, or Life in General
and has a conclusion
(that gives hope).

(It's a given that the book is written in clean, strong prose.)