The Wisdom Palace With Meredy Rice Benson

Meredy Benson Rice, a long-time Ojai educator, has a side passion as an author. We talk about her most recent release, "The Wisdom Palace," about 12-year-old Isabelle, whose parents are about to get divorced. She is sent off to her grandfather's farm in rural Ontario, where she dreads the disruption and chaos that ensues. As Rice writes, "Instead she is propelled into the chaotic world of her Aunt Beth, a wild menagerie of cousins, and a crazy plan to run a summer camp for the elderly." Among the happy elderly campers are Ida, an exotic 90-year-old who resembles an Ojai icon with her flamboyance and genuine spark, her uncle's crazy solar-powered bicycle invention, a mysterious teenager with a murky past, her lonely widower grandfather and a hay loft where Isabelle faces her fears. Over the course of the summer, the shy tweener begins to take hold of her destiny. Besides "The Wisdom Palace," Rice has also written "A Blue True Dream of Sky," and "Skycatcher," which was shortlisted for the prestigious Ontario Library Association's Silver Birch Award. We also talked about Meredy's love of teaching, her young life in Canada, taking off from Montreal on a trans-Atlantic ship, moving to London for years, and coming to Ojai without a job, raising her children, her intra-school rivalry with the man who would become husband, and flyfishing road trips. Your host did not sing the Christmas jingle for Eaton's, the giant erstwhile department store in downtown Toronto. You can check out her latest book on Amazon.com or wherever you get your books. Also check out Kit Stolz' profile of Meredy in the Spring issue of Ojai Quarterly.