The first few drafts of Blueberry Truth were called Beanie and Blue. The book was written in three first person voices., alternating between Beanie, Mac, and Blueberry. I liked the format, but after some good advice, decided to cut it back to a single narrator. The resulting book, written from Beanie's point of view, was a faster and better read than the original. Yet I was sorry to lose Blue's point of view, because it was her voice that first inspired me to write the book.
Seven year old Blue came into my head fully formed and fiesty. I loved her from the start. Here's a little bit of her voice, from an early draft of Blueberry Truth:
My granny the one who call me Truth. Ma call me Blueberry because that what she like to eat when she have me. I live with my Ma and Julio and Frostie before she gone off to Florida and I have to go to Granny house and she change my name. No baby be called Blueberry is what she say. I say there no baby here. I am seven years old, old enough that I go to the store by my own self. Granny say I seven years old with a mouth. That be Ma fault, she say. Ma ought to have said me some manners, but Ma run off with trouble, is what Granny say.
Teacher at the new school show us to write, but my letters come in crooked. Child write crooked, teacher tells Granny. Uncle Dee say it cause I stupid. I ain’t stupid, I say. You a little bitch like your Ma, he say. She can’t write good neither. I throw a cup at him, hit him in the nose and make it bleed. Uncle Dee got a good job that pay twenty dollars an hour, Granny say. Don’t you be messing with him. She make me sit in the closet. One hour for being disrespect. One hour, but when I see the clock she let me out it been one hour and one half. I can tell the time. I ain’t stupid.
Seven year old Blue came into my head fully formed and fiesty. I loved her from the start. Here's a little bit of her voice, from an early draft of Blueberry Truth:
My granny the one who call me Truth. Ma call me Blueberry because that what she like to eat when she have me. I live with my Ma and Julio and Frostie before she gone off to Florida and I have to go to Granny house and she change my name. No baby be called Blueberry is what she say. I say there no baby here. I am seven years old, old enough that I go to the store by my own self. Granny say I seven years old with a mouth. That be Ma fault, she say. Ma ought to have said me some manners, but Ma run off with trouble, is what Granny say.
Teacher at the new school show us to write, but my letters come in crooked. Child write crooked, teacher tells Granny. Uncle Dee say it cause I stupid. I ain’t stupid, I say. You a little bitch like your Ma, he say. She can’t write good neither. I throw a cup at him, hit him in the nose and make it bleed. Uncle Dee got a good job that pay twenty dollars an hour, Granny say. Don’t you be messing with him. She make me sit in the closet. One hour for being disrespect. One hour, but when I see the clock she let me out it been one hour and one half. I can tell the time. I ain’t stupid.
I'm giving away a signed copy of Blueberry Truth at Goodreads this month.
Click the link below to enter the contest.
Click the link below to enter the contest.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Blueberry Truth
by Ute Carbone
Giveaway ends February 29, 2016.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
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