Just Like Elizabeth Taylor

WINNER — Utah Arts Council Original Writing Competition, Juvenile Division

WINNER — League of Utah Writer’s Juvenile Novel & Diamond Quill

Twelve-year-old Liz Taylor has known for a long time that she would escape—escape the abuse against herself, and against her mother. She just didn’t know how or when.

Then the perfect opportunity comes—money left of the table by her mother’s abuser—and Liz is on the run. But a girl her age doesn’t have many options when it comes to hideouts, making a K.O. A. Kampground and a nearby middle school her perfect choices.

If only she can keep to herself, Liz, now using the name Beth, knows she can make it on her own, until things change, and she realizes she must face her situation head on if she is to save herself and her mom.

Excerpt: I was named after a movie star. Elizabeth Taylor. When Mom was pregnant she watched National Velvet on a cable station playing old movies.

“She was so beautiful, and with our last name being Taylor, I couldn’t resist,” Mom told me. “The doctor in the delivery room placed the tiny bundle that was you across my stomach. Your eyes almost looked violet, and you had a head full of dark hair and a little birthmark on your cheek, just like Elizabeth Taylor. I knew that had to be your name.”

“Liz, if you please,” I reminded her for the millionth time.

I’d read some of the biographies. I didn’t want to spoil Mom’s impression by telling her that baby Elizabeth Taylor had been ugly, her little newborn body covered all over by dark hair. Mom didn’t have any idea that my life—and hers—would turn out to be filled with those same unglamorous experiences her idol had faced. Life wasn’t all movie stars and parties like Mom imagined.

JUST LIKE ELIZABETH TAYLOR, a young adult novel from the Small Town U.S.A. series, is historical fiction with the feel of today. Liz faces challenges too horrific to think about, yet learns much about life and herself as she struggles to survive.

Like with the works of Carol Lynch Williams (Miles from Ordinary), or Sara Zarr (Story of a Girl), readers will find a main character in Liz that they will love, as well as want to save.

Lu Ann Brobst Staheli is a three-time Utah Best of State Medal recipient for Literary Arts and Education, winner of Utah’s Original Writing Competition and the League of Utah Writer’s Diamond Quill for Juvenile Fiction.

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Leona & Me, Helen Marie (A Small Town U.S.A. Novel)

“Watch me, Leona. I’m Miss Tarantula, mysterious tight rope walker of Madagascar!” I lifted my arms for balance and started across the wooden beam in the barn loft, one foot in front of the other, imitating the lady we’d seen at the circus in New Albany. After reaching the wall, I made a little curtsey, trying to pull my overalls out like they were the net skirt the trapeze artist had worn.

“Magnificent, Helen,” Leona said, mimicking a ring master. She held onto a joist about thirty feet away from where I’d ended my trip across the barn.
“With my eyes closed this time,” I said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. Leona was nine, two years older than me, and liked to pretend she was in charge.

“Watch me. Watch me,” I said, closing my eyes and turning around on the beam toward the way I thought I’d come. My bare toes gripped the rough edges of the wood.

“Helen Marie Heffner, you stop right now.” Her voice sounded just like Mama’s when I’m gonna get in trouble, but I took a step. Then another. On the third one, there wasn’t a beam under my foot. My eyes flew open and my legs peddled the air, like a character in the comic papers, trying to find a way to stop falling.

“Le—o—naaa!” I screeched.

Seven-year-old Helen Marie Heffner has a knack for getting into trouble, followed close behind by her older sister, Leona Mae. Whether it’s walking the barn beams like a tightrope, fooling the neighbor boys into thinking they’re being chased by a fiery jack-o-lantern, or making a mess rather than transferring a pattern for Mama’s Christmas surprise, Helen comes out the winner every time.

But life is not always fun and games in 1922 for this southern Indiana family. In the wake of the Depression of the previous two years, the girls and their mama are often left alone in Hancock’s Chapel while their papa travels to find work to keep the family finances alive. Lately, Mama’s been showing signs of not feeling well, and Helen is stuck at home, missing the entire school year while she recuperates from the rheumatic fever that struck her the year before. Mama fears the worst is about to happen. Everything from the barn owl, to the chicken thief, the stranger who passed by one evening to a poor neighbor-boy who falls into the ravine, all point to signs of trouble to come. And sure enough, it does.

Leona and Me, Helen Marie, a middle grade novel from A Small Town U.S.A. series, is hometown historical fiction in the style of Richard Peck (A Long Way from Chicago, The Teacher’s Funeral, Here Lies the Librarian) and Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn-Dixie), with a touch of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie thrown in for good measure.

Winner of the League of Utah Writer’s Diamond Quill for Youth Fiction, Leona & Me, Helen Marie is sure to delight readers with its glimpse into yesteryear.

Author Lu Ann Brobst Staheli is a three time Utah Best of State Medal recipient, former winner of Utah’s Original Writing Competition, and Utah’s Christa McAuliffe Fellow. A native Hoosier, Staheli says, “I still recall vividly my visits to Hancock’s Chapel as a child with my mother. The two-room school house where she attended had been turned into a pig pen, Wenning’s General Store was boarded up, and the house where my mother once lived was gone, but the stories she had told me all of my life brought that tiny crossroads to life in my imagination then, as I hope it will come alive for readers now.”

Small Town U.S.A.

I grew up in Small Town U.S.A. 

Literally! 

My hometown of Alexandria, Indiana, was selected as the focus piece of a booklet, intended as pro-American propaganda during World War II. The booklet, which featured photos of my brother-in-law and his parents and siblings when he was just a kid, was filled with photos of townspeople engaged in shopping, farming, and other family-friendly activities which would show people what a great place America was to be.

Long before I was born, my mother had her picture taken for this booklet, but for whatever editorial reason, her photo didn't make it into the book. That's okay. She knew it was taken, and for the next thirty-five years she made sure other people's photos were treated with more dignity. So did my dad, because the two of them owned and operated Brobst Photo Supplies, originally on Canal Street.

And that was where I started to learn about my hometown and the people in it. I spent most of my young life at the store. My playpen was a Kodak box. I began at an early age to know everyone in town, and it seemed everyone knew me.  By the time I was old enough to roam from store to store on my own, we'd moved to Harrison Street and the center of town. 

In the 1960s, I wasn't worried about the Cuban Missle Crisis, the hippies in Haight-Ashbury, or the war in Vietnam--well, except when my brother's best friend was drafted. In Small Town U.S.A., I spent my time discovering The Beatles and The Monkees, hanging out at the Alex Theater, or grabbing a sloppy joe at the Alexandria Bakery. I made good friends, and even lost some. I changed crushes as often as I changed my clothes. I went to school, and I lived my life.

I was a teenager not much different in desires or fears than kids of today. I may live halfway across the country from my small town home, and despite the fact times have changed, the kids I see each day at school still want the same things I did back in those days--to know they're loved by friends and family, to feel safe, and to succeed and reach their goals.

In "A Note Worth Taking," the first book in my Small Town, U.S.A. series, I give my readers a glimpse into what life was life during the 1960s in a small town. Although this is a work of fiction, the people you meet may feel all too real. Maybe you know them, maybe you don't, but the fun will be in trying to guess who a character might be, if you too grew up in Small Town, U.S.A. 

But that small town didn't have to be Alexandria, Indiana, because these people still exist--everywhere! I've met a few of them multiple times in my years in Utah, and maybe you will know them too, no matter where you live.   

Small Towns are all alike, and as O. Henry once said, "Everyone you meet has a story." I hope you enjoy the ones I choose to share as we visit Small Town, U.S.A.