In 1955 nearly 700,000 American wives and mothers turn into dragons and take to the skies. “They need everything explained to them.” So, prepare to suspend belief and dive into a world both familiar and fantastical, full of high heels and sweater sets, but also claws, smoke, and very big hearts. These fiery, powerful beasts were on the brain.īarnhill admits that she never thought she’d write a book for adults. Barnhill concurrently released a book for young adults, “The Ogress and the Orphans,” that includes dragons. She decided then and there to write a book about “a bunch of 1950s housewives who turn into dragons.” This isn’t as odd as it may sound. In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, Barnhill shares that the book’s kernel came to her while listening to the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings with her middle-school daughter. Tucked between title page and epigraph, the dedication reads, “For Christine Blasey Ford, whose testimony triggered this narrative.” Newbery award winner Kelly Barnhill’s first novel for adults, “When Women Were Dragons,” opens with a brief but fiery blast. Today, Uvalde will be honoring them, and as the town journeys toward calmer waters, it will never forget them. Maite Rodriguez will never study marine biology.Today, I’m thinking of those 19 children and two teachers. Eva Mireles will never go on another hike. Rojelio Torres will never catch another football. Tess Mata will never throw another softball. Today is as much about them as anything, and anyone, else. Here I want to devote a few words to those who are no longer here. It looks at the aftermath, at the past year, at the living. The town has been grieving, and it has been tense and divided.Our story today will describe that in more detail. One fewer journalist in Uvalde today is no bad thing, we thought. It’s one reason the Monitor chose last week to visit. Pedestrians glanced at the memorial as they continued about their day.“Everyone is walking on eggshells,” one local told me last week.
Twenty-one white crosses surround the fountain downtown, decorated with stuffed animals and superhero action figures that filled my eyes with tears. Twenty-one white crosses are staked in front of a “Welcome to Uvalde” sign.
The town I visited last week was quiet, but eerie. Now make it unexpected, add a global media frenzy and a heavy dose of politics, and multiply it by a population of 15,000, and you can begin to imagine what the last 12 months have been like in Uvalde.The town was shellshocked when I visited a year ago. It has been a difficult, surreal year for a town that, like so many others, never thought it would be anything other than a quiet, anonymous town. Grief is a journey – and a long, complicated one at that.Uvalde, Texas, will never be the same after the horrific shooting at Robb Elementary School last May.
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