Christina M. Pagès, author of ‘Lucy In Her Secret Wood’, has been named as a finalist in the ‘50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading’ Book Awards. Her honor came as a result of her appearance on The Authors Show. Pagès was chosen from a field of hundreds of authors through a public voting process. ‘Lucy In Her Secret Wood’ is a multi-award winning children's book that addresses a number of issues faced by young people today including social media, the loss of connection with nature and bullying.
Inspired by Wordsworth’s Wild Child, Lucy Gray, Pagès’s book is also the recipient of Children’s Literary Classics' Top Honors Award -- the 2007 Eloquent Quill Award for Youth Fiction, their Gold Award, Readers' Favorite Silver Award, Literary Classics Seal of Approval, the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award and The New York City Big Book Award.
"I was thrilled to hear last week that I was a finalist in the Great Writers Award," Pagès stated. "This will be the seventh award responding to my children's novel 'Lucy in her Secret Wood (A Story Inspired by Wordsworth's wild child Lucy Gray)'.
Social media and technology have impacted children in a number of ways, some of them unexpected and many of them negative. Children as young as 8 have committed suicide due to bullying. For many young people the natural landscape has been replaced by the digital landscape. This unprecedented trend toward technology causes young people to lose touch with their natural environment. This is a subject that Pagès is passionate about. She manages to weave a tale that seamlessly presents the beauty of the natural world and the connection with Mother Nature with another subject that negatively impacts youth - bullying.
In the storyline of the book, Lucy’s step-father takes her from the tiny room where he has locked her away for years, and drives her out to a remote wood where he leaves her with a bag of food, and her only life-long companion, a stuffed bunny. When Lucy’s fear of her stepfather dies away with his footsteps, and her tiny room world opens up to trees and bluebells, she is in awe of the shapes and colors around her. She recognizes her friends and family in the sentinels of trees, the woodland life and no longer feels lost and alone. She felt more lost inside walls, separated from outdoor life. Lucy needs only a few days in the woods to realize that this is her true home. Through 9-year old Will, who brings her food, two live chickens, and a recorder to copy woodland music, she experiences her first human friendship, and a way to make music that enchants all who hear it.
She is now part of the magical world of woodland animals, birds and butterflies, not locked away from it. Through Lucy, children recognize they are more “alive” when surrounded by the sounds, colors, and music of outdoors, unlike the world of their computers and phone screens which is always ‘on the other side,’ at a distance from them.
Members of the public who want to vote for Pagès in the ‘50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading’ Book Awards can access her entry and vote at The Authors Show site at http://www.TheAuthorsShow.com. Christina M. Pagès is available for media interviews and can be reached using the information below, or by email at cpages@westmont.edu. ‘Lucy In Her Secret Wood’ is available at online retail book outlets. More information is available at her website at http://www.christinapages.com/lucy.
About Christina Pagès:
Christina M. Pagès, Ph.D., grew up in the fields of England, spending hours wandering the countryside. In America, she raised four children while studying for her Ph.D. She was the California State Poetry Society’s Winner in 2005, won a publication award for 'Shadow Words' (2006) published her poetry collection, 'Remember Not to Forget', in 2013, and her children’s novel, 'Lucy in Her Secret Wood' in 2016. Pagès has taught literature in Universities and colleges since 1987. Her writing, painting, piano playing, and gardening, all come from her love of nature as a child. “Nature is our best friend,” she says, “patiently waiting to feed our imagination and spirit.”
Book 2 of the Lucy Series – 'The Woodland Adventures of Lucy and Will' is complete, and will be published by Waldorf Publishing in 2018. Waldorf is in the process of publishing a gift book with some of her paintings and poems that will be titled 'Nostalgia: Poems and Paintings of Beauty, Love and Loss'.
Contact:
Christina M. Pagès
christinampages@gmail.com
http://www.christinapages.com/lucy
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