Collecting Cynthia Voigt

Marguerite and I were supposed to hang out at the nearby Starbucks yesterday (we had gift certificates, lol). We'd stopped by Book Nook - this Book Sale branch in the same mini-mall as the Starbucks we meant to go to - found myself a Cynthia Voigt for Php10 and a back issue of MS Living for Php15, as well as a board book-cum-puzzle for Marguerite for Php45. Armed with knitting needles and crochet hooks and worsted and notions of a genteel moment over tea and milk, we made our way to Starbucks, only to be foiled by the madding crowd. There was some sort of hullabaloo involving bands and freebies and long lines of frenzied freebie aficionados, lol. Afraid of being trampled, Marguerite and I made a detour and went to the frozen yogurt shop instead.

That's why instead of blogging about knitting/crocheting, working on puzzles, reading, bonding yadda yadda at Starbucks, I'm going to talk about Cynthia Voigt. I'd been meaning to for a long time now anyway.

We first saw the movie "Homecoming" on channel 9 before we had cable. It was a very moving story and lovely enough to leave its mark on us permanently. We would chance upon the movie on different channels through the years, until I finally found a copy of "Solitary Blue". As I was reading it for the first time, I noticed the names of the characters (just supporting ones) were the same as those from "Homecoming". I got hold of my sister and we shrieked (we're shriekers -- it can get obnoxious) about the dejavucowinkydinkeureka moment. "Solitary Blue" was awesome in itself, but it was even made more special by its connection to that wonderful movie we had seen years ago. Shortly thereafter, I stumbled across another book, called "The Runner" and realized while reading it that the protagonist in the book was the "Homecoming" kids' uncle. That's how we learned about the Tillerman series. And became huge fans of Cynthia Voigt. Period. Just huge fans. We don't limit ourselves to the Tillermans either. That's why when I came across a copy of "The Callender Papers" yesterday, I immediately grabbed it and audibly cheered "Yay!"

Side anecdote: I was invited by the school where I used to teach to give a talk on being a writer. One of the classes I gave my talk to was Mr. Oviatt's. I think I mentioned Cynthia Voigt somehow and Mr. Oviatt informed me that he had given Cynthia Voigt her first teaching job ever (he used to be a school principal/headmaster). You can just imagine how thrilled I was. I started gushing all over the place, totally bewildering my audience, before I finally got a hold of myself, momentarily dedorkified and went back to my talk.

Anyway, here are the Cynthia Voigt books in our collection thus far and we'll keep on hunting down the ones we don't have yet.