An Interview with Paula de Ronde

July 12, 2022 Cynthia Reyes

Paula de Ronde dreamed of writing a book – but never this book.

Q: You were a senior librarian with the Toronto Public Library. What is your relationship with books?

I love books. I am in love with words. Reading has been my number one pleasure all my life. Still today I wake up with a book and go to sleep with a book. It’s more than a habit, it’s me.

Books are gateways to the world. They provide the greatest pleasure anyone can enjoy on their own, or with family, friends and a community. Books are for information, recreation, education. They transform, inspire and transcend the mundane.

I wanted to be a librarian to put people and books together for them to discover the world and the knowledge in it. An informed society results in a more compassionate society. Knowing this led me to my added advocacy work on behalf of libraries and their value to their communities.

Q: What made you write this book?

No one is prepared for this diagnosis or to be a caregiver for this particular disease. So, given my background, when those fatal words were uttered I donned the librarian’s hat and instinctively knew who to ask and where to look. As I found information, sorted out help and support, read others’ accounts of the dementia journey and experienced the convoluted Alzheimer’s world, I realized that I needed to share the information. A dementia diagnosis will always be an ambush but may be less traumatic if you are aware of where to find help. This is a situation that begs for help, professional help and appropriate community resources.

I also wanted to support, enlighten, educate, guide and most of all give as positive a take on the disease as I could based on our own experience. The more I learned about the various levels of help, the less traumatized I felt. Peer support was invaluable.

Caregivers face a life sentence of 6 to 20-plus years. Those years spell sacrifice and a dramatic change for at least two people. Your loved one has the disease but it affects you just as much. So the caregiver must carve out a life that lasts for that sentence. Being informed of what is ahead will help you plan to live with as much joy as can be had.

Q: Your book reveals the daily challenges and joys of a caregiving relationship between a wife and her beloved husband. What’s been the toughest experience/challenge and what’s brought you most joy?

The disease is a tragic comedy and sometimes the comedy is more evident than the tragedy. It has taught me to live in and out of small. Once you accept the fact of the inevitability of this disease’s trajectory, with death always hovering, you begin to notice the small things.

The irony? The toughest challenge and joy may come from your own memory.

I did not recognize how much I was grieving until the day my Bert entered the living room half dressed in pull-ups ready to watch a video with me. This was my rock, my knight, the proper gentleman whose purpose was to make me happy. My Bert is my greatest fan, my encourager, for whom I could do no wrong. Here was my partner in joy and sorrow. I looked at him and knew that Alzheimer’s was taking him from me and I grieved.

Another enormous challenge was accepting the fact that my Bert would end up in a Long Term Care facility. It is perhaps the most gut-wrenching decision a caregiver ever has to make.

What has brought me most joy?

I am not sure I have experienced the greatest joy as yet. Here again memory is most evident. Our travels are amazing. Our life experiences both good and horrible are over the top both before and now during this journey. As the disease progresses we have learned to look at ‘small’ and take the moments of joy that come in the most unexpected ways. It is the days my Bert looks at me and in the midst of chewing says: “I love you very much.”

I smile as I remember the counselor from the Society who just held me tight when in tears I asked: “Have you ever had a client rail at the fact that she could not stand one more ‘I Love you’ from her spouse?”

It’s the little wave I get as I enter the home and the loud ‘that’s my wife.’ It’s how he remembers our son and daughter-in-law and the familiar gestures he makes that confirms the memory. It’s laughter. Oh, how we laughed with our friends and family and still laugh. His spontaneous gift of laughter is always evident. His innate chivalry is intact.

It’s the fact that the disease may be taking away my Bert’s personhood but not his character. My Bert equals joy.

Q: What do you think Bert would say/feel about your book, if he could?

I have read a few paragraphs to him and he will say something like: “That’s me? My head is not right.” I read the happy parts and those that refer to his past in The Netherlands, the war, his siblings. He has for ages told me I should write a book and he likes to hold it. I am grateful that once again my Bert has been the enabler for another of my dreams. I am so deeply sorry that he does not know that he is the star of what he holds in his hands. If he understood he would be out declaring to the world that I am the greatest writer that ever lived!

Q: Memoir writers often contend with the issue of privacy – what to put in, what to leave out. How did you resolve it?

It took some doing but once I decided to put our story into print, the motivating factor was that it had to be real — truthful, unencumbered by too much modesty and recorded in a way that illustrated the good and the bad. There were parts I did not have to include as just saying the words dementia or Alzheimer’s brings up certain pathologies of which even the uninitiated are aware.

However, there is no getting away from some private moments being put ‘out there’ especially when the dynamic duo are spouses. What was important was that in sharing our story I hoped to provide credible and helpful information to readers and to do that I had to share the whole story.

Q: You have a way with words. Is this your first book? If so, what took so long?

Like many, I have been a closet writer for a very long time. I have a collection of bad stories, poetry, extended stream of consciousness articles plus travel journals that I visit and cull maybe once every five years. I write every day in a journal. The truth is that I suffer from imposter syndrome especially after I have read a good book. Yet even as I denigrated my own writing I was aware that good writing is simply a good story.

Writing throughout this journey is my therapy but more than that, I wanted to spare others, to ease the journey just a little by allowing them into my own story, to introduce the tools that worked for me and perhaps can work for them with a little tweaking to fit their particular situation.

Now that the genie is out of the bottle I can’t wait to do another book. Did I say that?

Paula’s memoir, My Bert Has Alzheimer’s, is widely available through online booksellers and at A Different Booklist in Toronto.

A Good Home

Myrtle and the Big Mistake

November 28, 2020 Cynthia Reyes

Note from Cynthia: What a gift! Felicity Sidnell-Reid — author, poet, radio host and retired educator — reviewed not just one book, but all 4 in the Myrtle the Purple Turtle series for children. Huge thanks to Felicity and to Chris the Story Reading Ape, who first published this excellent review.

What makes a picture book special? Perhaps, in this case, it’s a “marriage of true minds” between two authors who love children and the bond they have developed with their illustrator, Jo Robinson.

Cynthia S. Reyes

and

Lauren Reyes-Grange

illustrated by

Jo Robinson

The series is dedicated to building children’s self-esteem and confidence, achieving self-acceptance and celebrating difference. Myrtle’s adventures illustrate the importance of friendship, of supporting those who are facing difficulties, of giving and receiving help and encouraging empathy.

Myrtle and the Big Mistake is the fourth book in this successful series which takes on important topics in a way that engages the hearts and minds of young children, but also appeals to older siblings, parents, teachers and grandparents, offering opportunities for discussion about problems that many children face every day and giving young listeners an opportunity to develop their own ideas about how to tackle these.

Myrtle is a loveable character, self-aware and serious but at the same time friendly and curious. Each story extends Myrtle’s experience of the world and expands her community of friends. In the first book she is hurt when a bullying stranger turtle claims she can’t be a turtle since she is purple. She longs to be green like others in the Big Pond. Her friends however point out that each of them is different —one is a brownish colour, one has spots, another has a differently shaped shell and that they all love her purple shell.

In Myrtle’s Game, the turtles’ favourite game is a form of water-soccer. When they discover that some of the woodland animals play a similar game on grass they encourage Myrtle, their best “blocker” to ask if she can play. When the team tells her that turtles can’t play soccer, she and her friends get together to help her to become an even better player. After training hard, she asks if she can try out for the woodland team and they admit she is a good goalie so she plays with them, cheered on by her turtle friends. As she leaves the field she invites the team to come over and try playing water-soccer with them in the Big Pond.

In the third story, Myrtle Makes a New Friend, a fox family moves into the neighbourhood and some turtles become suspicious and angry. Adults say things that make Myrtle and her friends afraid. Myrtle is nervous but, when she meets young Felix Fox; he is hiding behind a bush and crying because he thinks that all the children will hate him. Myrtle kindly insists that this is not true and says she will be his friend. When Myrtle tells Felix, she is going to be late, he gives her a ride on his back to school, where Myrtle is able to introduce him to the others as her new friend and he becomes part of their play group.

The fourth book examines the fallout, when one of Myrtle’s classmates mishears and spreads a false story about another member of their class. This time Myrtle immediately steps up to defend her friend, Snapper, and tells the gossiper that the story is untrue. But the gossip spreads quickly and Myrtle and her friends have to track down the source of the story, Garret the parrot, and set the record straight. Garret tells all the animals he is sorry and that he made a big mistake. Still feeling bad and unhappy he is about to leave, but before he can fly away, Myrtle and Snapper to his surprise invite him to play. Children are engaged here in understanding complex problems and solutions, allowing them to sympathize with the characters and appreciate Garret’s remorse and his honesty at the conclusion to the story.They can also share in his relief and the happiness of the group of friends as they all go “off to play together”.

Myrtle, and her friends, new and old are deftly developed by the authors into characters who are hard to forget and easy to love. Jo Robinson’s well designed and colourful illustrations capture the emotional moments and turning points of these appealing stories. Young listeners will want to hear these tales repeated over and over again and will, no doubt, be anxious to hear the about Myrtle’s further adventures.

Note: The books in the Myrtle the Purple Turtle series make excellent Christmas gifts and are available at both Amazon (links above) and Chapters Indigo

Felicity Sidnell Reid

A Good Home, Book Reviews, Books, Maya and the Book of Everything, New Books

Un-Put-Downable: Maya

October 19, 2017October 19, 2017 Cynthia Reyes

You know when you’re reading a book – even a mostly interesting book — but you reach a paragraph or page that’s over-written, over-described, over-dense, confusing or just plain boring?

Yes?

Me too.

So I can’t praise highly enough the novel that I finished reading last week. “Maya and the Book of Everything” kept me glued to its pages right to the end.

Blog Photo - Maya and the book of everything

This shouldn’t be. There are many different characters, the book skips from one time and place to another and takes fantastical twists. And yet, the storytelling is seamless, the characters compelling, the dialogue convincing, the quest believably and skilfully portrayed. It was a pure pleasure to read this book.

What makes me even more pleased? This book about a teenaged girl who takes on a seemingly impossible mission is from a small press, and authored by Laurie Graves, a blogger you may know.

With this book, Laurie demonstrates formidable gifts and skill as a novelist.

“How did you make the characters so believable?” I asked Laurie.

“I originally envisioned Maya as more timid, but when I thought of all she’d have to face, I knew she couldn’t have a timid character. Maya wouldn’t have survived her adventures. So then I reimagined her as a fiery young woman, a girl of action—unlike me!—and I immediately knew this was the right way to think about Maya.

“Somehow the characters just came, and it wasn’t all that hard to keep track of them. For me each character has a vivid voice and a distinctive way of speaking.”

Blog Photo - Laurie Graves MCU

Where did the idea for the book originate? I asked.

Laurie got the idea for the book while editing a small literary magazine that she and her husband published.

“I used the Chicago Manual Style, not always an easy book to use. One day, I was tackling a knotty grammatical problem, and I said to myself, ‘I wish I had a book of everything.’ Then came the question: What if there were a book of everything? Where would it come from? What would it do? What kind of danger would it be in? Obviously, many people would covet a true book of everything. From this question came Maya and the rest of the story.”

Blog Photo - Laurie reading VasselboroMaya170604

Laurie is Franco-American. Her ancestors came to Maine from Canada. It was important to her that Maya and several other characters share that background.

“It is the place from which Maya springs, and her heritage, along with place, is one of the things that ground her.”

There is a real place in both Maya’s and Laurie’s stories.

“The street shot (below) is of East Vassalboro, a classic New England village where my mother lived for many, many years and one I came to cherish. It is also where Maya’s grandparents live, and East Vassalboro and its library are essential to the story.”

Blog Photo - Laurie Vasselboro main street

There are subtle but impactful messages woven through this book. Good leadership is one.

“The big messages are that facts do matter and that a place will suffer under a bad leader. The corollary is that good leaders are essential. On a more personal level, I wanted young girls to read about a plucky heroine who turned her face to the wind and faced difficult challenges.”

It’s a great read.

Look out for Book 2: Library Lost, coming next fall.

A Good Home, Author Cynthia Reyes, Children's Books, Children's Story, Illustrations by Jo Robinson

Behind the Scenes of A Picture Book

October 5, 2017October 6, 2017 Cynthia Reyes

Jo Robinson lives and works in South Africa.

I worked there repeatedly in earlier years. (I even bought this favourite tablecloth in Johannesburg.) But I live in Canada.

Blog Photo - Dining table with tulips — *Photo by Hamlin Grange*

Jo and I have never met in person.

Well-respected in the independent publishing world, Jo is an author, editor, book designer and illustrator. I follow her blog so I’d seen this small photo of her there.

Blog Photo - Jo Robinson

~~~

In early January I told my husband: “I’m sending Myrtle to Chris Graham as a guest post for his blog.”

The printed story of Myrtle the Purple Turtle had been in my desk drawer for 27 years, surviving our family’s house moves.

Hamlin shook his head. “I’m telling you — it should be a book.”

I sent it to Chris in the UK anyway.

Chris replied quickly: “I think your husband is right – you should get an illustrator to help you get this made into a children’s picture book.”

“Trust you men to support each other!” I told Hamlin, hiding a grin.

~~~

On Chris’ recommendation, I sent the story to Jo Robinson.

Jo quickly replied: “I love your story and would love to have the opportunity to illustrate it!”

Within days, she sent a few sketches, including this one:

Blog Photo - Myrtle1

And our family knew: this was Myrtle.

I had difficulty describing the images I wanted. So back I went to Hamlin, pouring on emotional blackmail: “Since you and Chris are the ones who got me into this trouble, can you help? Pleeease?”

Blog Photo - Garden White Lilac Flowers in Vase — *Photo by Hamlin Grange*

Hamlin runs a busy company, but he knows photography. Studied it, worked in it and now is my blog photographer. He understands images. So, next thing you know, Jo was working with Hamlin and me both… entirely by email.

Our daughters and sons-in-law also have an eye for these things. So when Jo sent us sketches, I asked their opinions too.

Poor Jo! She was now working with a whole family! (Except for the pets.)

Blog Photo - Jerome sitting.jpg — *Photo by Tim McCarthy*

~~~

In August, Jo sent us several versions of the book cover. The picture of Myrtle was the same, but titles and fonts can make a cover look very different.

We narrowed it down to two then chose one.

Hooray!

I dashed off an email to Jo.

~~~

Minutes later, my friend Jean called.

“I have a vanload of kids here,” she said, sounding breathless — as you’d expect from a woman surrounded by 7 grandkids on a very hot day. “Did you decide on your book cover yet? Would you like me to ask which they like?”

Seven kids, ages 3 to 7. Girls and boys.

Sounded like a focus group from my target readership!

“I’ll ask them individually, so they don’t influence each other,” Jean said.

I sent her two covers, almost sure which they’d like.

Are you ready for this?

Every child chose the one the adults had rejected!

Back to Jo I went.

“The kids have spoken!” I said.

“Fabulous!” she replied.

It was the first version she’d created.

Myrtle the Purple Turtle Cover