Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Future Hope

Hi everyone! I am YA author B A Binns , writer of contemporary and realistic fiction for teens. My tagline tells you what I am about - Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men - and the people who love them. 

This month I take on the topic of hope.

You know, that thing that's supposed to spring eternal.

Hope means different things to different people. People buy lottery tickets because they have hope. Or they head for the racetrack because this time their pony will come in. An HEA (Happily Ever After) is hope to romance readers.

The poet Maya Angelou said, "God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us — in the dreariest and most dreaded moments — can see a possibility of hope." I see that rainbow when I look at new people. Just looking at any brand new person gives me the kind of hope romance novels only strive for. That's why I can't talk about hope without talking about the next generation.


This new person is super special, my personal hope for the future: Miss Noelle Harmony, age one month. My first grandchild. She means hope for the future to me, because God, the originator of planned obsolescence, has created her to be my replacement part.

No, she'll do even better than just replace me. I have every hope she will surpass me.

She is tiny right now. Just under 5 pounds at birth. And yes, she still spends most of her time sleeping. When she isn't eating.  And she can even multi-task, eat and sleep at the same time if you put a bottle in her mouth.


You could probably tell she's my granddaughter by my sappy expression while I feed her (if I weren't smart enough to bend my head so my face is in shadow.

You can also tell because my current WIP is a children's book.  She may not know it yet, but she's going to have lots of adventures in lots of stories.

I joined the WeNeedDiverseBooks team earlier this year. The organization is planning its first diversity festival in the Maryland area for summer 2016. I've been asked to develop programming for the younger attendees, children, tweens and teens. Miss Noelle will be in my thoughts as I develop those plans. With a little luck she'll be with me next year, enjoying some of the activities I've organized. That's what hope does. It lets you see the future and plan to make things better, both for yourself and for those around you. For more information on the Day Of Diversity festival, keep your eye on:

http://weneeddiversebooks.org/diversity-festival/#

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In the meantime, I'm collecting diverse books for her home bookshelves. Fun stories I can read to her,  like:




P. S. If you have hopes you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them. People, places, things, or books. I hope everyone has a reason to hope for a brighter tomorrow.

3 comments:

Sarah Raplee said...

Little Noelle is beautiful and precious! Congratulations, B.A.

Like you, I hope to see more diverse books on the shelves in the future. My hope is that some of them will be ones I've written.

I hope - even more, I have faith - that the future holds a world where people understand "the earth is one country and Mankind its citizens." (Baha'u'llah)

Reading news of all the positive, amazing things people are doing to help one another in the world fills me with hope.

Judith Ashley said...

What a beautiful baby girl, Miss Noelle Harmony is. BTW I love her name. I worked in adoption and child welfare for 50 years combined and certainly see children as the foundation for tomorrow or our hope for the future. Many of our grandchildren are growing up in a world so different from the one we experienced that can only give them a head start.

Diana McCollum said...

Congratulations, on your beautiful baby granddaughter! Children are our hope for the future. Endearing blog post!