Spokane Author’s ‘Swing Set’ Appeals To Young, Old
Valentino Jiminez isn’t worried about his future. “I didn’t know that there were so many retirement homes around Spokane,” he says. “When we grow old, we’ll have a place to go. They’re all over the place.”
At 47, Jiminez is a long way from needing a retirement home. But in the course of his avocation, he visits them all the time.
The avocation? Jiminez, who owns a janitorial company, performs songs and tells stories in his spare time to audiences comprising both children and senior citizens.
His material is largely, if not exclusively, original. He’s even the author of an activities book titled “The Swing Set,” a collection of stories, songs and poems inspired by his own family experiences.
A Spokane native (he graduated from Mead High School in 1967), Jiminez is the father of two girls, aged 14 and 17. While raising them, Jiminez says, “I always made up stories.”
Then, about two years ago, he got an inspiration.
“I had to take down the kids’ swing set,” he explains. “I was out in the back yard all by myself, and all of a sudden all these memories came back to me. I got all misty and everything, what with all the leaves falling down and stuff. And when I finished, I went into the house and wrote the first poem of the book, ‘The Swing Set.”’
He continued to write and eventually he compiled all the work, got his sister, Mary Jo Coe, to illustrate it. Together, they began marketing the book/audio-tape collection.
“We put it together and just sort of rolled with it,” Jiminez says.
You can find “The Swing Set” at the Children’s Corner Book Shop, Auntie’s Bookstore, Kaufer Christian Supplies, the Hastings outlet at Lincoln Heights and the Spokane Art School (where Jiminez teaches interarts classes blending music, art and drama).
“The Swing Set,” which includes a 90-minute cassette of “relax & nap music” and a 90-minute audiobook, sells for $19.95. Jiminez will perform selections from the book at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Children’s Corner Book Shop, on the skywalk level of River Park Square (for information, call 624-4820).
Remember, though, Jiminez’s book isn’t just for kids.
“It’s really effective at geriatric care facilities,” he says.
A Northwest debut
Despite all the dire reports that American literature is turning into a wasteland of second-rate best-sellers, there remains the occasional book that strives to be much more.
Writers such as David Guterson (who turned a work of art titled “Snow Falling on Cedars” into a best-seller) Dee McNamer and Ivan Doig, among others, continue to tell the small stories of Northwest life in big ways.
First-time novelist Gregg Kleiner aspires to be in their company. The Corvallis, Ore., author, who will read from his debut novel Thursday at Auntie’s (see below), is being touted by at least one Oregon newspaper as the real thing.
“If God is indeed in the details,” writes David Johnson of the Eugene Weekly, “Kleiner’s debut is a holy romp.”
Stories, stories, stories…
Wednesdays are story time at the Children’s Corner Book Shop, that purveyor of kid’s literature located on the skywalk level of River Park Square. At 11 a.m. this week, Jacquie Baucom will do a program titled “Things to Count.”
The session is free and open to the public. For further information, call 624-4820.
The reader board
Kim Barnes, author of the memoir “In the Wilderness,” will read from her book at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the law school courtroom at the University of Idaho.
Gregg Kleiner, author of “Where River Turns to Sky,” will read from his novel at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington.
Pete Bengeyfield, author of “Mountains and Mesas: The Northern Rockies and the Colorado Plateau,” will read from his book at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Auntie’s Bookstore.
Joan Wester Anderson, author of the New York Times best-seller “Where Angels Walk,” will read from her latest book, “Where Wonders Prevail,” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Auntie’s Bookstore.
, DataTimes