A Blossom Promise by Betsy Cromer Byars

A Blossom Promise by Betsy Cromer Byars

The Blossom spirit endures as the family confronts the frailty of human life in Newbery Award-winning author Betsy Byars's fourth Blossom Family book. It's a time of ups and downs for the Blossoms. Maggie is thrilled to be the youngest member of the rodeo circuit.until she witnesses Mom kissing a handsome bull rider. Back at home, the family has weathered the worst flood in the state's history. Now Vern and his friend Michael can't wait to test their homemade raft down at Snake Creek, but they don't count on the creek's raging current. Hearing their screams, Pap lassos his old rodeo rope and runs to the rescue when suddenly a heart attack strikes. As Pap clings to life, the Blossoms must rely on the strength of their family and pull together as never before.

Betsy Byars began her writing career rather late in life. In all of my school years, . . . not one single teacher ever said to me, 'Perhaps you should consider becoming a writer, ' Byars recalls. Anyway, I didn't want to be a writer. Writing seemed boring. You sat in a room all day by yourself and typed. If I was going to be a writer at all, I was going to be a foreign correspondent like Claudette Colbert in Arise My Love. I would wear smashing hats, wisecrack with the guys, and have a byline known round the world. My father wanted me to be a mathematician. So Byars set out to become mathematician, but when she couldn't grasp calculus in college, she turned to English. Even then, writing was not on her immediate horizon.

First, she married and started a family. The writing career didn't emerge until she was 28, a mother of two children, and living in a small place she called the barracks apartment, in Urbana, Illinois. She and her husband, Ed, had moved there in 1956 so he could attend graduate school at the University of Illinois. She was bored, had no friends, and so turned to writing to fill her time. Byars started writing articles for The Saturday Evening Post, Look, and other magazines. As her family grew and her children started to read, she began to write books for young people and, fortunately for her readers, discovered that there was more to being a writer than sitting in front of a typewriter.

Making up stories and characters is so interesting that I'm never bored. Each book has been a different writing experience. It takes me about a year to write a book, but I spend another year thinking about it, polishing it, and making improvements. I always put something of myself intomy books -- something that happened to me. Once a wanderer came by my house and showed me how to brush my teeth with a cherry twig; that went in The House of Wingscopyright (c) 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780823421473
ISBN 10	0823421473
Title	A Blossom Promise
Author	Betsy Cromer Byars
Series	Blossom Family
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Holiday House
Year published	2008-06-01
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.