Three of my favorite childhood books:
  
Seventeenth Summer, by Maureen Daly. This is wonderful the story of a teenage girl's first love. Any writer who wants to learn how to create a "sense of place" should study this book. It's so replete with the sights, sounds, smells, textures, tastes, and emotions of being seventeen and in love in Wisconsin in the 1950's, that whenever I read it, I'm there. I try to achieve that richness of experience in my own books.
The Bobbsey Twins and the Goldfish Mystery, by Laura Lee Hope. This was the first mystery I ever read that was set in Japan. It was my first inkling that a mystery could be set in Japan, or any country besides the United States. And the author's name was the same as mine! (I was Laura Lee Joh before I got married.) Wasn't that prophetic?
Now That I'm Sixteen, by Margaret Maze Craig. The heroine of this book is a girl named Beth, who's a good student but unpopular at school. When I was sixteen, I identified with Beth. She attracted the most popular boy in the class, by doing absolutely nothing. I read and re-read this book, trying to figure out how that happened. I never did. Fast-forward eleven years. In a civil engineering class at Wayne State University, I meet a guy named Marty Rowland. I do absolutely nothing. He asks me for a date. Now we've been married for thirty years. Go figure!
July
'08 feature...
In October 2007, I traveled to China with my husband Marty, my mother Lena Joh, and my brother Larry Joh. We went to Beijing, Shanghai, Guilin, Xian on our own private, guided tour. It was a fantastic trip, and we fulfilled a longtime dream of seeing China together. Here are a few highlights.
Laura gets a palanquin ride from Larry on the Xian city wall.
Laura on a river cruise, Guilin.
Laura with Marty, her mother, and Larry in Shanghai.
April
'07 feature...
Sometimes the things we like best aren't high tech, glamorous,
or valuable by anyone else's standards. That's definitely the
case with these favorite things of mine:
Chairman Mao in his tomb: Mao Tse Tung led the Chinese Revolution
and paved the way for China's comeback as a major player in
the global scene. By the time I got to China in 1978, he was
a mummified corpse. I cherish this postcard as a souvenir of
the day I walked past his glass coffin with hundreds of other
tourists. This is probably as close as I'll ever get to such
a world class mover and shaker.
Sculpey: This polymer clay is one of the great inventions
of the 20th century. You can make jewelry, Christmas ornaments,
and all kinds of other cool things with it, bake them in your
oven, and paint them. It comes in colors, too. Sculpey is not
only a wonderful creative medium; it's therapy for frazzled
nerves.
Daddy's
Girl: My husband Marty bought a bird shaped ceramic
music box for me, and a doll's T shirt that says "Daddy's
Girl" for our cat (who was way too big to fit into it).
Neither gift was of much use on its own, so he combined them
into a truly unique art object.
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