Horses, trees and amnesia

You know when you've been meaning to do something forever and you keep forgetting? Like when you finish eating your dinner and you think, hmmm oatmeal-chocolate-chip-raisin cookies would be SO good right now, but you don't have any chocolate chips or raisins so then they'd just be oatmeal cookies so you think, I'll pick up those ingredients tomorrow on my way home from work and then I'll make cookies! Only, the next day you forget because you're thinking about how you have to get home and do laundry because you have no matching socks, which is the reason you had to wear really long pants or winter boots even though it's not cold enough for boots just to hide the mismatched socks and so you have to do laundry so that you don't have to wear mismatched socks again the next day and so you can't go back out to get the cookie ingredients or you'll run out of time to do your laundry before bed and everyone knows you can't leave your wet socks in the washer until the morning unless you want it to smell like moldy horses. So you do your laundry and then the next day you remember the ingredients but when you get home you get distracted by kittens and french fries and a new episode of Dirty Sexy Money and before you know it it's time for bed and you didn't make cookies again even though you know if you'd made them you'd be so happy because you'd have cookies to eat?

Well I've been meaning to blog about Susan Juby's new YA book...



Another Kind of Cowboy for months. When I first received the advanced reader copy, I didn't want to blog* about it yet because it wasn't coming out for a few months and telling you about it is like when your friend goes to the Film Festival and tells you about the fantastic film she saw only it doesn't come out in wide distribution for months or never. What's the point?

* I actually didn't want to read the book, at first, even though I LOVE Susan Juby's writing. I would say I love her, but I don't know her so that's slightly stalkerish. The reason I didn't want to read the book is that I'm not a big horse fan, which is weird because I like to go to the racetrack (actually I like to go for the buffet) and I like to ride horses on the beach in the Caribbean while humming "Careless Whisper" to myself and I really like to use glue, too (all types - UHU, glue guns, sparkly) but that's sort of mean. But I guess I just wasn't sure I was going to like a book about horses.**

** Just to clarify, the book isn't just about horses. There are people in it, too.

But you know what? I loved the book. As Ashley Simpson would say, L.O. L.O. L.O.V.E. (D). it. It was so good. And I thought to myself, as soon as September hits, I will blog about it. And then, September came and every day I would see the book on my desk and say I will blog about it tonight, and then I would come home and then I would get distracted by the pile of socks that needed laundering instead and in my attempt to think of anything to do other than launder my socks, I would forget to blog about Susan's book.

Until now. I was reminded when I found out that Another Kind of Cowboy was nominated for a 2008 White Pine Award, which I'm assuming is some sort of tree award, where perhaps they give you a pine tree in your name (or your book's name) to save it, which would make sense given that Susan Juby lives in B.C., where people wrap ribbons 'round the old oak tree to save it from being cut down. Maybe the pines are in danger too? I'm not sure.

Or maybe, the award ceremony takes place in a white pine forest and all the judges sit in white pine trees reading the contenders and then they debate who should win while trying not to fall out of their trees because if they fall out then the book they want to win gets eliminated. Like Survivor meets Last Literary Judge Standing.

Or maybe...the white pine is a very rare type of pine tree that should be treasured, which would make total sense to name a book award after it because Another Kind of Cowboy is a unique treasurable book, too. Witty, thoughtful and fun, it's like the White Tiger *** of trees. An endangered species we have to preserve.


***When I say White Tiger I mean the furry endangered animal, not Whitesnake...

or White Lion...



...both of which are hair bands from the 80s, both of which are now extinct, rather than endangered.