K.V. Flynn Answers Questions (Just a Little Bit) about Loving Things!

Hey, took a break from writing (and skating) to visit a blog this week. Therese asked me a lot of questions about love and romance, which isn't really a part of ON THE MOVE or anything. But some nice things to think about--because we love books, and what people do for us, too. So check out what I had to say!

She sent along four questions, which I answered sometimes as my middle-school me because I'm writing my prequel, On the Rim, and that's where my head is all day long! Romance is a different sort of thing for 9-14-year-old boys, I think—it’s either not interesting or there’s that growing tension between hanging with your pals or taking time with a cute girl. Some of her readers are moms of skaters and young men--maybe some of my readers here are, too! Who knows? I always think that this book is good reading for anybody's teens.

1. What book left me feeling all sad and missing it, when it ended? When I think about that bereft feeling of loss at the end of a story, the first thing that comes to mind is watching Iron Giant with a kid friend of mine who was about nine at the time. Maybe because the movie was also about a nine-year-old or maybe because it was just awesome storytelling, but we both watched the film and loved it, walked out into the hall outside the movie theater, and burst into tears. Two guys just standing there blubbering and sad that the Giant had been blown apart...even though, hopefully, his parts were finding one another again and would come back together! We also read The Book Thief together and I know I cried reading the ending, it was sad, too. Really wonderful story. And I keep going back to be in the magical baseball fantasy world of Michael Chabon’s Summerland—otherwise I’d be too sad to leave that one, too.

2. Most loving thing I've ever did as a kid? Okay, so my mom gave my dad a Weimeraner puppy before I was born and it sat on the sofa with her every night, she says, until I came along. Grace was her name, and she was ten months old when I arrived and became officially in charge of me. When we moved to the country a year or so later and I’d take myself out for a walk, she would follow alongside my two-year-old self just making sure I didn’t topple into the pool or get lost in the cherry tomato field next door. She lived to be over sixteen years old, and it was really tough for everyone when she had to be put to sleep. So I asked my stepmother, who is a very cool painter, to silkscreen one of her paintings of Grace on to a silk lamp for my mom for Christmas that year. She still has it on her desk so Grace can watch over her, now that I’m not there.

3. Most loving thing done for me as a kid? My mom read to me literally every night before I went to sleep until I basically left for college. Sure, we missed a few evenings, and some nights in middle school and high school I stayed over at my dad’s. But we had a LOT of reading time together. Definitely the best books of my life. Yes, all the Harry Potter books and the Narnia Chronicles, most of which we did not even understand. Hunger Games rocked our world. So did Auntie Mame and Huckleberry Fin and Absolutely True Adventures of a Part Time Indian and Rumble Fish and That was Then This is Now. I can’t list them all but each one was like a magical thing we shared together, and a story that gave me a place to dream into as I fell asleep.

4. Most was my most romantic song as a teenager?...School’s Out For the Summer…School’s Out FOREVER! It means, tons of straight free time to be with your best buddies, sleep in, and skate until the shadows grow long.

I hope you guys (or moms out there) will check out On the Move for teen readers. Especially if they’re skaters! I love to hear from them, too, so feel free to talk back! KVFlynnOnTheMove@gmail.com, or check me out on Facebook/OntheMoveBooks or onthemovebooks.tumblr.com.

And please find my book here: