life rattle show no. 1361

Presented on THURSDAY, DECEmber 24, 2015

hosted by laurie kallis

featuring

"The Sarmiento Mafia"
"Jack"
and
"Warriors and Princesses"
by Ivana Sarmiento

tonight's Show

Life Rattle No. 1361 features three new stories by new Life Rattle writer Ivana Sarmiento.

Ivana Sarmiento was born the younger of two daughters in the city of Bogota, Colombia, in 1996. While she was still a baby, her family moved to Mississauga, Ontario. At four, in the corner of her shared room, she read a book by Robert Munsch on her own for the first time and has dreamed of becoming a children’s author ever since. Time passes by the quickest when she writes, reads, draws or acts. Ivana Sarmiento now studies communication and writing.

Ivana Sarmiento has the gift of bringing the essential details into her narratives, details that pull us into the world that she presents and make us feel that it is real. Along the way, she shows us family in a wonderful light that we don’t often see. The experience is uplifting.

In "The Sarmiento Mafia" our narrator’s mom protects her daughter in the face of a teacher with unfair marking tendencies. Just how far Mom goes to protect her child’s interest, whether or not the teacher has reason to be afraid, is not really certain, but by the end of the story we are certain of this family’s love for each other.

"Jack" reintroduces us to our narrator several years later. And to Jack, a boy she is coaching with his reading skills through a reading buddy program at the local library. Jack proves to be a challenging boy who manipulates his father mercilessly and pushes our narrator’s patience to the limit.

Tonight's final story is our Christmas gift to Life Rattle listeners.
"Warriors and Princesses" holds the magic of a family trip to Disney World over the holiday season…with a family that will make you believe in the wonder of childhood again, until, of course, you don’t. But no need to fear, the intrusion of reality is as gentle as reality can be.