Destiny, Rewritten by Kathryn Fitzmaurice

My latest reading is a book written by Kathryn Fitzmaurice.  One funny thing about the book itself is that the book jacket is on upside down.  Onlookers may think I am truly weird when I laugh out loud and yet I appear to have the book upside down – but really, just the jacket is.  The library taped it down that way.  I don’t know whether mistakenly or as a symbolic gesture.

Destiny, Rewritten takes us on a journey through the eyes of a  sixth grader named Emily Elizabeth Davis.  She was named after Emily Dickinson because her free spirited, English-teaching mom wants the destiny of her daughter to become a poet much like Emily Dickinson.  Only the Emily telling the story doesn’t particularly care for poetry. She does like romance novels though and will often write letters to Danielle Steel.

Her mother had given her a book that she had purchased on the day before her daughter, Emily was born. It is The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson poems which she says contains over 700 pages. Emily's mom has scribbled notes in the margin to let her daughter know that this poem reminds me of the time you were born, this is when you did a certain thing in your life.  A treasured book that Emily will look at, but doesn’t seem to appreciate the way that her mother does - though she does look at it..

One day she asks the question about the identity of her father and is finally told that his name is written in the book with all the poems and notes.  But there are so many pages  that Emily doesn’t know where to begin.  Her mother reminds her that perhaps it isn’t in her destiny to push it. 

As Emily searches through the book, she is told she has a phone call.  While on the phone, her brother donates a box to good will.  It wasn’t even the right box.  Emily’s book hadn’t even been in either box, and suddenly it has been donated.

Much of this story has made me laugh out loud.  There is a chapter on comparing Laura Ingalls to Emily Dickinson and what an exciting life Laura Ingalls read and how boring her sister Mary was.  I thought that was hilarious.

My latest reading is about the search for the accidently-donated book.  Reading about overly organized Emily trying to change her destination has really put a smile on my face.  I highly recommend this book – even if it appears to be upside down.