I.N.K.

My John and Tom (Part Almost 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara Kerley) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:54:00 +0000

I was all set to post the third installment of my FoundingFathersPalooza—an exploration into how I conceived, researched, and wrote Those Rebels, John and Tom, my book about Adams and Jefferson. And I’ll post the final installment next month.

But something wonderful happened a few days ago that fits in so nicely, I couldn’t resist talking about it. You see, in a couple of weeks, I get to meet John and Tom.

In person.

I’ll be participating in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s “Presidents’ Day Family Festival” at the JFK Library in Boston, on February 21st.

And John and Tom are going to be there!

OK, technically, John Adams will be played by Thomas Macy and Thomas Jefferson will be played by Bill Barker – but take a look at the links. Don’t they look fabulous?! Both men are real history buffs and I know will do Adams and Jefferson proud.

We’ve been doing a bit of emailing, setting things up. Under the signature line for Thomas Macy’s emails are the quotes:

"Querulous, bald, blind, crippled, toothless Adams."
- Benjamin Franklin Bache
"I'm not crippled." - John Adams

And Bill Barker signs his emails:

Yr' hm'bl sr'vt,
Thos. Jefferson

I think this is going to be fun…

I am geeky excited. For someone who spent over a year working on the book, this is the next best thing to a time machine.

If you will be in Boston on Feb 21st, please join us, won’t you?

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, I.N.K.!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan E. Goodman) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:55:00 +0000

Is it an anniversary or a birthday? Who knows. But I.N.K. was founded by Linda Salzman right around four years ago and it’s time to celebrate. So a few of our contributors have chimed in with reasons we think being part of this blog is so special.

Happy Birthday INK! Just seems like yesterday that Linda asked me if I wanted to write about art books on this new cool blog that she was creating. Four years later, I’m still on my soap box for art books... And, well, any other kid nonfiction book that I feel the need to talk about. Thanks to all the other amazing INK members for letting me hang out here for the past four years. Full STEAM ahead, INK! -Anna M. Lewis

The I.N.K. blog has been a great forum for sharing my own adventures as a picture book author-illustrator as well as reading what my fellow authors are up to. I've learned so much in the course of researching my own posts and while reading articles by my colleagues. New resources for creating, finding, and marketing books are popping up every day and since I'm checking them out anyway, it's great to have a place to trade information with interested readers. -Loreen Leedy

I like being part of this blog because it is a gathering of writers curious about the world and committed to their craft -- doing the best writing they possibly can to bring the world to kids. -Barbara Kerley

I wanted to be Erma Bombeck when I was growing up. I thought it would be the greatest job in the world to tell people what you think and be funny at the same time. Instead, I write books for children and teens, and I believe that is the greatest job in the world. With I.N.K., I get a little bit of that Erma dream, too--I get to tell people what I think about writing, about nonfiction, and sometimes even about life. Thank you, Linda and I.N.K.! -Deborah Heiligman

The blog has given me a real sense of community and shared purpose through the dedication, commitment and integrity of all the contributors. I LOVE reading the blog every day and I continually marvel at the intelligence and writing skills of each and every member. Thank you, Linda, for creating something that is larger than we are. -Vicki Cobb

As a part-time blogger and full-time reader, I'm grateful to Linda for bringing I.N.K. into the cyber world. Writing is often a solitary profession, one where "process" is a sport played out in an empty field. Before I.N.K. I didn't spend very much time thinking about my own process, I just did it. Then my wonderful nonfiction colleagues came into my life. You help me think through what I do. Writing the blog forces me to articulate how to do it. Then, by reading the way you all approach a subject, I am able to refine and reinforce my own technique. You make me a better writer! Thank you dear colleagues. It's wonderful to have the backs of so talented a group. But I'm not there yet, so please don't quit. Imagine how much there is to learn the next four years. Happy Fourth Birthday I.N.K.ers! -Susan Kuklin

Happy fourth anniversary, INK! Reading the posts at INK has given me a peek into other nonfiction writers' passion and process. I'm continually drawn in by the kindness, humility, and humor my fellow bloggers exhibit. It's reassuring to hear about others' struggles and victories. INK's nonfiction discussion has expanded my knowledge of the nonfiction field and helped me teach educators and kids tackling nonfiction areas (such as history) that I don't cover in my own work. -April Pulley Sayre

Shortly after Linda invited me to join the I.N.K. blog (was it only four years ago?), a rash of memoirs for adults were "outed" as fiction, the most notorious being James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces." This discovery only boosted his sales figures. For many reasons, I was deeply offended by these fictional memoirs. I would bring the subject up with friends, most of whom would stare at me blankly. But then with our new nonfiction blog, I had a forum to voice my literary concerns and to get feedback from other writers who shared my passion for research, careful attribution, and chapter notes. My first blog was a rumination on the definition of nonfiction. Over the years, I've written blogs on a variety of subjects: editing, research, teachers guides, new book announcements, school visits, the creative process and many other topics about our genre for young readers. The open-ended range of subject matter inspires me. In addition I've enjoyed the dialogue with other I.N.K. bloggers, both in posts, in person, and in personal e mails. Thank you, Linda, for your commitment to nonfiction for children, for your vision and perseverance. This is my Valentine to You. -Jan Greenberg

I’ve learned so much from my I.N.K. colleagues. I’m continually reminded of the process we each go through as we try to pursue our ideas and write and draw and make books. I would love to hear that reading about our challenges has helped some young person decide to go into science writing or another nonfiction writing area -- and I know it’s going to happen. I’m grateful to be part of this group and to have a place to write about what I do. -Karen Romano Young

What else is there to say, but "ditto." Thanks, Linda, for creating the blog, and to all the writers who make it so interesting, and to our readers who inspire us to keep going. This is Susan Goodman, ready for another great year.

TOMORROWLAND

noreply@blogger.com (Rosalyn Schanzer) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:00:00 +0000

As my buddy Mr. Darwin once showed us, everything on earth is in a constant state of flux. Gigantic mammals took millions of years to evolve into pygmy versions of themselves, he explained, while earthquakes and volcanoes could change the scenery overnight. Well, lately it seems to me that we’re submersed (but—I hope—not drowning) in the overnight variety of change.

Aaaargh….pretty soon we might have to go to a museum to see books made out of paper! And it’s not just little things like camera film, phone books, record stores, and pay phones that have gone the way of the dodo. The rate of change is accelerating faster than it ever has in all of history. These days we’re constantly inundated by an unimaginable deluge of information from the cloud and a slew of new inventions that sound like they exploded directly from the most mind-bending pages of science fiction.

Partly because we can access messages from around the world in mere nanoseconds, the entire structure of our society is evolving faster and faster just to keep up. Anyone who’s so inclined can simultaneously watch the Super Bowl on TV from their couches while following related Twitter feeds about the game from their favorite celebrities and talking to their friends cross-country on an iPad FaceTime video call. Who woulda thunk it five or six years ago?

Tiny hummingbird-shaped drones can now spy on our enemies, and tinier robots can find bodies buried beneath the rubble in a war zone or an earthquake area. Drinking water can be captured directly from the air in the driest deserts, and in case we’re afraid of being mugged, some dude named David Brown has invented what he calls The BodyGuard, which is a crime-fighting armored glove that features a laser pointer, a stunner mounted on the wrist, and a camera to record the action. There’s even a Medical Mirror out there that can measure our heart rates and may soon be equipped to check out our respiratory rates and blood-oxygen saturation in the privacy of our own rooms.

And besides being true, you may ask, what does all this tech biz have to do with writing nonfiction for kids? Everything! Like it or not and for better or worse and all of that, the way we go about this wonderful business that we know and love is bound to evolve too. As much as every single one of us wants to hold onto the status quo and live in our comfort zone doing what we do best, we’re eventually going to have to evolve or perish. And this presents an enormous challenge to each of us because with every large-scale change to society, something very valuable is lost, but can potentially be replaced by something else that has its own rewards and its own advantages.

A few of us are dipping a few of our toes into these unfamiliar waters. We all love the smell and feel of real paper and the beautiful artwork in real books, but we’re also starting to check out what it’s like to print our own books and e-books and sell them on demand. And we’re doing live interactive videoconferences with schools and other venues around the world too—sometimes with people who live in places that could never afford to meet real authors in person in a million years.

And there’s more. We’re checking out new ways to add valuable links and other bells and whistles to our books without degrading their high quality or cheapening their appearance or diluting their message. We are banding together to work with schools as a group in order to add first-rate nonfiction literature to their curriculum for an entire year.

As the rules change, can we still find enough time to think deeply and to write well? Can we enhance what we do and make our work better than ever? Can we actually feed our families this way and still fulfill our mandate to set the highest standards—or not? Does this shift involve some unforgivable heresy, or is it part of an evolution to a higher level? Life’s a risky business, but although it’s scary to fail when we try something new (and rest assured, there will be failures), this small venture-on-a-shoestring is actually pretty tame, and it’s a whole lot of fun. Besides that, it may offer great creative and financial benefits to all of us authors and illustrators out there. Can we run such business efficiently? Or will we lose something so valuable that it can never be replaced? We shall see.

In Praise of Wrong Turns

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Sheinkin) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:57:00 +0000

So about two years ago I decided to write my next book about an obscure spy named George Koval, and I was super excited about it, and you’ll see why in a second.

Born in Iowa in 1913, the son of immigrants from Belarus, Koval grew up in Sioux City and graduated high school at 15. Soon after, his family disappeared. Only later—decades later—did friends learn he and his parents had moved to the Soviet Union. By this time a committed communist, Koval earned a chemistry degree in Moscow. At some point after graduation, he was recruited by the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence agency, and trained as a spy.

Early in 1940, Koval stepped off a boat in San Francisco. Using his real name and his prefect Midwestern English, Koval resumed life as an American. When drafted soon after the start of World War II, Koval’s test scores were so high, the Army sent him for advanced technical training—having no idea, of course, the man already had a science degree. Army buddies later described Koval as friendly, funny, and a damn good shortstop. Like any trained spy, Koval showed no interest in politics. The only odd thing about the guy, friends said, was that he never had to study.

Then, in 1944, Koval got the kind of lucky break spy agencies rely on. The Army assigned him to the Manhattan Project, and sent him to the top-secret Oak Ridge plant in Tennessee, where Oppenheimer’s scientists were enriching uranium for the world’s first atomic bomb. Koval’s job was to monitor radiation levels in the plant, giving him clearance to go everywhere, see everything.

Historians think he was sending reports to the GRU all the while, but they’ve found no evidence, no decrypted telegrams. We do know he was honorably discharged after the war and that he moved to New York City. In 1948 he told friends he was thinking of going on vacation in Europe. Then he vanished.

Just a year later, Soviet scientists tested their first atomic bomb, years ahead of the CIA’s estimate of when they’d be ready. American intelligence agencies realized spies had stolen atomic secrets, and began looking for suspects. The FBI began investigating George Koval. But by then he was back home in Russia.

It’s an incredible story. You’ve got this elusive hero/villain caught up in an historical event of epic importance. I was sure I had the material for an amazing non-fiction book. As a first step I made a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI, asking for Koval’s file. And they sent me the whole thing on a CD!

It was a gold mine. Or so I thought, until I started to plow through the documents. The file has over 1,000 pages of notes and interviews by F.B.I. agents, but no one the agents talked to seemed to know Koval very well. And the few promising parts, and most of the names of potential characters, were blacked out by government censors.

I started calling experts on Cold War espionage, and everyone referred me to a scholar named Robert Norris. Norris generously shared his knowledge of the Koval case, which he too finds fascinating, but he ended our conversation with a distressing caution: “The problem is, we don’t know exactly what information Koval gave the Soviets, and we don’t know if it was important.”

That sent me into a mild panic. I called my fantastic editor at Roaring Brook, and started pitching really bad alternative book ideas. She talked me down, urged me to take another look at our original idea of a Manhattan Project spy thriller.

And as I kept reading, a new cast of characters began jumping out. Like Ted Hall, a physics whiz-kid who graduated Harvard at 18 and was shipped directly to Los Alamos—and decided, on his own, to share bomb plans with the Soviets. Like Ruth Werner, a KGB agent in Britain who smuggled radio transmitter parts in her kids’ stuffed animals. And Knut Haukelid, a Norwegian Indiana Jones on skis, who was instrumental in sabotaging Germany’s atom bomb operation. And Moe Berg a retired baseball player sent on a secret mission to Switzerland assassinate Germany’s top physicist. And of course the brilliant and tormented Robert Oppenheimer (if Shakespeare could write a play about one figure from American history, I’m thinking he might go with Oppenheimer).

And there are many more, a cast of thousands! Well, dozens. Anyway, the book became a kind of global thriller about the race to make—and steal—the world’s first atomic bomb. It’s unlike anything I’ve tried to write before, and it bears very little resemblance to the book I set out to write.

But that’s what makes this job so fun.

Taking Stock

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Macy) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:15:00 +0000

I wrote my first post for I.N.K. on February 8, 2008, just five days after the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. The subject was “Rooting—and Writing—for the Underdog,” and it explored my soft spot for underdogs, especially in sports and women’s history. Four years later, the same two teams are about to meet again in the world’s most talked about football game (American football, that is), and I still gravitate to sports as a terrific framework through which to explore history. But in light of recent news and events, my enthusiasm is somewhat tempered.

Despite being a lifelong football fan, I can no longer watch a professional or college football contest without being aware of the devastating effects that the violence of the game has on the human body, particularly the brain. After years of ignoring and then denying these effects, the National Football League has finally accepted the overwhelming medical evidence, much of it gathered through research on the brains of deceased players. The league is even planning to run a commercial addressing player safety during this year’s Super Bowl. But owning up to the problem is just the beginning. The jury is still out on whether changes to the rules and equipment can do enough to protect players from the long-term effects of repeatedly jostling their brains during tackles and collisions.

Another recent devastating development in the sports world was the January 19 death of Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke from injuries during a training run on a half-pipe in Utah. Burke, one of the premier athletes in her sport, flipped over after an uneventful run and struck her head, tearing an artery that caused a hemorrhage in her brain. The hemorrhage led to cardiac arrest, depriving her brain of oxygen and causing irreversible damage.

After Burke’s death at age 29, New York Knicks forward Amar’e Stoudemire remembered meeting her at an ESPN event and asking why she chose freestyle skiing, with its gravity-defying spins, twists, and flips. “Because it’s fun,” she told him. In the wake of the tragedy, however, some critics wondered if extreme sports such as freestyle skiing have gotten too extreme. They pointed out that the height of the walls of the half-pipe, the icy trench used in some snowboarding and freestyle skiing events, has increased from 16 to 22 feet, adding excitement, but also risk. Peter Judge, CEO of the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association, told ABC News that in light of Burke’s death, officials “might” examine ways to make the sport safer. I’d change that word to “should.”

I’ve always admired the confidence and self-esteem I see in the female athletes I meet. There’s nothing like excelling at a physical endeavor and working with teammates toward a shared goal to make you feel good about yourself. And I’m still convinced that the positive impact of playing sports far outweighs the negative. Just the other day, Jessica Mendoza, a U.S. Olympic gold medalist in softball and past president of the Women’s Sports Foundation, wrote an article for espnW.com examining the “Top Five Reasons To Play Sports.” Her reasons: To stand out; to be confident; to look good; to be leaders; and because we love it.

I continue to believe that the way people engage in sports is an important reflection of the times in which they live. Sometimes it’s even a factor for change (e.g., women finding liberation through the bicycle in the 1890s). In today’s perilous economic times, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that some sports promise the biggest prizes to those who go for broke with big hits or big air. But the governing bodies of organized sports must act responsibly and work with athletes to safeguard their wellbeing. TV sportscasters must stop glorifying violent tackles and praising players who return to the field too quickly after getting “their bell rung.” Fans must stop expecting the athletes they root for to be superhuman. They’re not, although the best of them sometimes achieve superhuman feats, often with very human consequences.

And with that, I offer a heartfelt but restrained, “Go Giants!”

One Thing at a Time: Not Necessarily Possible

noreply@blogger.com (Karen Romano Young) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:15:00 +0000

Henry Miller’s COMMANDMENTS has been shared among my writer friends on Facebook for the last few days. I know it’s good advice from a brilliant source. I know it would be best to stay devotedly on task. But I have issues with working on just one thing, and I suspect Miller did, too, or he wouldn’t have needed to write these rules. (By the way, Henry, shouldn’t you have been working on your novel instead of writing rules that are so tough to follow?) So here’s my take on this.

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.

Maybe Miller knew what was good for him. I’m 85 percent sure it’s good for me, too. It’s the 15 percent leftover that’s the problem, the part that tugs me away from the novel in draft and the graphic novel in revision to stare at the illustrated nonfiction draft that is tacked on my wall, because that’s how committed I am to it -- even though I know I need to put my focus elsewhere, on the novels.

4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!

But. You knew I was going to say but. But the nature of nonfiction -- particularly the science progress-in-process -- is that, like life, it goes on happening while I’m making other plans. I have to stay on top of my nonfiction topic, deep-sea research via submarine. And that’s why I took a break from the novels recently to make a trip to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to visit some friends -- the little deep submergence vehicle Alvin and the group of engineers, pilots, and scientists who buzz around and inside it wherever it happens to be.

3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.

When last seen by me, in 2008, Alvin was on the deck of its mother ship, Atlantis, in Guaymas, Mexico, the end port of the research cruise I was on along with two dozen scientists. I had dived in the sub to the murky hydrothermal vents a mile and a half deep in the Sea of California, and had learned about new work being done to make Alvin capable of diving deeper.

A new passenger sphere had just been forged. In the computer lab aboard Atlantis, Alvin Expedition Leader and Chief Pilot Bruce Strickrott showed me pictures of the titanium halves of the sphere, glowing red-hot, and told me how they would be hollowed and machined and fitted into Alvin’s skeleton. Since then, all that has been underway on shore, while Alvin stayed at sea working. It’s last dive before coming ashore took scientists to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico to check out the Macondo Drill site after last year’s explosion and oil spill.

Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

This past summer Alvin was delivered to Woods Hole and taken apart. Although I knew I needed to be working on books 1 and 2, book 3 began tugging on my sleeve and whining. I needed to find out what was happening in the Alvin workshop, or I was going to have trouble with Book 3. So I emailed Bruce, asking if I could visit. “There’s nothing much to see,” he wrote back. But I went anyway, opting to see what “nothing to see” looked like, knowing that it would help me understand the Alvin renovation better when it began to accumulate mass.

Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.

Inside a work bay stood what was left of Alvin: the sub was nothing but a skeleton. Before long, the sphere would arrive, and if all went well, the “new” Alvin would be ready for test-dives by fall of 2012.

Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.

Meanwhile, Bruce and the crew had dummied up the interior of the passenger sphere, using taped-up paper and plywood to show where the new viewports, video screens, instrument panels, and observer benches would be positioned. The pilots were experimenting with seats that would give them the view and elbow room they needed to drive the sub, and operate claws used to pick up samples and deploy probes and other instruments.

I intend to cover the rest of the refitting of Alvin in my book, as well as the first dives. Bruce and the guys experimenting with pilot chairs reminded me of kids figuring out a seat for a go-cart, and yet the stakes were much higher. The pilots in this seat would have future oceanic research in their hands once Alvin’s big upgrade was finished, with increased battery hours, pressure resistance and other capabilities needed to dive deeper. The changes will make 99 percent of the ocean floor accessible.

7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.

I left by way of the dock on which the old sphere was set among buoys and trailers and the other flotsam of the research lab’s doc. Bruce rested his hand affectionately on the burnished titanium that glowed softly, reflecting the cloudy sky. Next time I came back, the new sphere would be in the sub and this one would head to a museum.

Discard the Program when you feel like it -- but go back to it next day.

Thanks, Henry. My notes, photographs, and sketches from my day in Woods Hole are packed away. I’ll add to them during visits in April and August, because I wouldn’t be able to get the book done without it.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Vicki Cobb) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:00:00 +0000

It’s hard to believe that our blog, I.N.K., is four years old this month, and, as a charter member, I checked the archives and, sure enough, I posted my first contribution on February 6, 2008. So It seems that today I'm launching our anniversary celebration with this post. I want to congratulate I.N.K.'s founder, Linda Salzman, for her courage and perseverance in starting something that has proven to have staying power and real influence in the nonfiction world. For me personally, however, becoming a part of this blog was the beginning of a life-changing experience and I’m not exaggerating. Let me elaborate:

I remember the conversation with Linda when we chatted about my joining her blog. (I think we chatted over the phone but maybe it was by email.) I asked her if it paid anything. She said no. I thought to myself, “No news here” and I immediately responded that I was on board. My marching order for committing to something is:
1. I might learn something.
2. It might lead someplace
3. It pays well.

Two out of three and I do it. I figured that once a month wasn’t that big a chore and I had a backlog of various articles I had previously written that could plug in if I wasn’t inspired to write something new. Obviously, I had a little insecurity that I had something of value to contribute.

A little backstory here. I grew up pre-woman’s movement when it was not uncommon for girls to believe that men were more intelligent than women. As a young girl, I remember thinking that no one would ever be interested in my opinion about anything. I gravitated toward science partly because talking about science gave me some authority. I was talking about stuff that was verifiable, accepted knowledge, something I could believe in. And it wasn’t easy to acquire this knowledge because when I got to the University of Wisconsin at the tender age of just-turned 16 and discovered my interest in science, I was told that a science major was discouraged for girls because we’d go have families and not use our education. So I transferred to Barnard (a woman’s college) and when said I wanted to major in zoology, I was in, instantly.

Four years ago, when Linda recruited me, I guess I was worried that the well would run dry—I would run out of things to discuss as a regular blogger. There was also a little residual angst about anyone being interested in my opinion. Au contraire! Somehow blogging made me discover that I had LOTS to say. I want to talk about science, about learning, about how teachers can have more fun while they teach and more than meet educational standards by using our books, how our publishing world is changing in this digital age, and how students can learn to love the learning process. I started keeping an idea file for future posts but I hardly ever consulted it. Somehow the topic of the next post welled up in me several days before it was due and I was propelled to my keyboard to start writing. In September of 2010 I started writing a regular blog for Education Update and they can’t post them as fast as I write them. (It’s not like blogspot where we post our own.) It’s as if a spigot was turned on in me and now I can’t shut up. (They say this happens to some women of "a certain age.")

So now let me talk about the Elephant in the Room. The truth is that, for the first time in my career, I have no outstanding book contracts. ( I have a couple of old books currently being updated. That's it on the new book front.) School visits, where I made a very good living, have dried up. I don’t want to retire and I can’t afford to. Scary. Rather than sit and wring my hands with worry, or pretend that this isn't happening, I've been very proactive. This absence of commitments has given me the time and the drive to establish iNK Think Tank and to explore other aspects of contributing to education so that students benefit from the hard work and clear thinking of authors. We are pioneering something very exciting and very new in iNK, although we haven't yet made any money. Through blogging, I have discovered that I am a true writer—I’m happiest when I’m writing. Thank you Linda, for giving me an outlet and a community, through this blog, that has allowed my career to take a new direction.

February Interesting Nonfiction for Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Anna M. Lewis) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

February is right around the corner and that means Valentine's Day! More importantly, that means CANDY!
Fittingly, the February issue of Odyssey magazine is all about Candy!

Be sure to check out my article "Making New Candy Concoctions". Ric McKown, an old friend and author of The Candy Bar Cookbook: Baking with America's Favorite Candy (Longstreet Press, 2000), graciously helped me with some of the candy science. (See, old friends do come in handy.)
To complement my article, Odyssey has a Candy Concoction Contest. Entries must be postmarked by March 30, 2012, so check it out.
And, four pages after my article, check out a piece by fellow INK member, Karen Romano Young. Her Humanimal Doodle is titled "Honey Doodle".

Librarians, teachers, and parents, looking for other books about Candy and Sweets for February? In May 2011, I wrote Sweet! Interesting Nonfiction for Kids with a list of book suggestions.
Here are a few more suggestions that may inspire some candy concoctions:

Ghoulish Goodies: Creature Feature Cupcakes, Monster Eyeballs, Bat Wings, Funny Bones, Witches' Knuckles, and Much More!
by Sharon Bowers
Storey Publishing July 2009

Raw Chocolate
by Matthew Kenney and Meredith Baird
Gibbs Smith February 2012

Twist It Up: More Than 60 Delicious Recipes from an Inspiring Young Chef
by Jack Witherspoon, Sheri Giblin, Lisa Witherspoon
Chronicle Books November 2011

Happy Valentine's Day to All!

They Got "The Call"

noreply@blogger.com (April Pulley Sayre) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:34:00 +0000

This week three of our INK authors, Steve Sheinkin, Sue Macy, and Rosalyn Schanzer, received high honors from ALA. Recently, Vicki Cobb was informed she’s being given a Lifetime Achievement Award by AAAS/Subaru/SB&F. So we’re a-celebratin’ in the virtual INK house. It seems like a good time to hear what it’s like to receive one of these scrumptious award calls.

Roz Schanzer, who received a Sibert Honor as author/illustrator of Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem (National Geographic), heard the news at home. She says, “I got the call in our kitchen right in the middle of a big birthday dinner party bash for my (adult!) daughter. It was so hard to hear who was on the line that I had to run into the living room and clap my free hand over my other ear so I could hear. I was so surprised and excited when I found out who was calling that I started laughing, and I could hear the people on the other end laughing and cheering too. It’s just amazing to me what this evil little book about witches hath wrought! Then they told me I couldn’t tell a soul until 9 AM the next day. Is that hard or what?”

The committee wrote of her book: “Whether being introduced or reintroduced to the topic, readers will be stunned by the research and accusations in this pivotal drama of American history. With a size reminiscent of a prayer book and startling scratchboard-style illustrations, this work of art presents an account of our past and asks questions of our future. Schanzer, a widely traveled author, swimmer and photographer, is a nationally honored artist based in Virginia.” For more about her book and her other works, see http://www.rozschanzer.com/witchesPage.html

Steve Sheinkin says, “I got the call about the award on Saturday. I was home, a typical weekend day with two crazy kids, ages two and five, running around, shouting in the background. The woman who told me I'd won urged me to ‘go out for a great dinner tonight!’ And I just laughed, cause my wife and I don't get out much these days. We'll celebrate one day.”

For The Notorious Benedict Arnold, Steve Sheinkin received the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. http://www.ala.org/yalsa/nonfiction

“This book was sort of like a baby to me (except it took a lot longer to make) so it feels great to see him out in the world doing well,” says Sheinkin.

For info on how obsessed Steve was with Arnold's story, check out his epic Arnold road trip:

http://www.stevesheinkin.com/ArnoldTrip1.html

Some of our honorees received their honor earlier. Sue Macy is the author of Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way).

She says, “My book was named among the five finalists for the YALSA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction in early December, and the winner (Steve) was announced yesterday at ALA. So my moment of excitement came back at the beginning, via an e-mail from my editor, Jennifer Emmett. I was thrilled to be in such fine company as Steve, Karen Blumenthal, Susan Goldman Rubin, and Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos. It was definitely a high point in my career.” She attended the awards ceremony in Dallas and spoke there.

The designer of Wheels, Marty Ittner, did a guest post on I.N.K. last March: http://inkrethink.blogspot.com/2011/03/designing-wheels-of-change.html. Macy’s interview with YALSA in advance of the award ceremony is here: http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/2012/01/10/an-interview-with-sue-macy-yalsa-award-for-excellence-in-nonfiction-finalist/

For information about Sue Macy’s other books, see: http://suemacy.com/books

Vicki Cobb received notification of her 2012 Lifetime Achievement award from AAAS/Subaru SB&F by phone. She says, “My agent told me to be at home for a phone call at noon the next day. I thought it was for a conference call with her. So I was completely surprised and disoriented by the conference call from Sarah Ingraffea and Maria Sosa of Science Books & Films as they blurted (screamed? yelled?) out the news. I, too, have received the call for a Sibert honor and it was a similar experience. Unlike the Oscars, where people know they are in contention, these calls came from out-of-the-blue. My first reaction is to stall for time without saying something stupid that reveals I haven't a clue about who they are and what they're talking about so I don't appear either ignorant or ungracious!”

You can visit Vicki and her books at http://www.vickicobb.com/

However they were informed, these INK folk have plenty of reason to go out and celebrate. (I hope their editors/marketers/agents are dancing, too.) Of course, the committee members, who read so many books over the course of a year, should receive big thanks from the nonfiction community, as well. Because of their passion for literature, these committee members applied their time and discerning minds to help point out and elevate excellent work. We’re all looking forward to see what other books Roz, Steve, Sue, and Vicki cook up in the coming years.

A Look at the 2012 ALA Awards

noreply@blogger.com (Gretchen Woelfle) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:01:00 +0000

CONGRATULATIONS to INKsters Roz Schanzer, Steve Sheinkin, and Sue Macy whose birthdays came early this year!

Every January brings a second birthday to a chosen few children's authors – with perhaps the best presents ever. That's when ALA announces the Oscars of our profession. Monday was that day.

The Newbery and Caldicott awards top the list - literally and status-ly. Finding a nonfiction

book in these lists is rare indeed, but this year we snagged a…

• Caldicott honor for Patrick O’Donnell’s Me…Jane, a picture book biography of Jane Goodall.

See my review here.

CSK AWARDS

We scored big time in the Coretta Scott King awards.

• Kadir Nelson’s Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans won the gold medal for text and a silver for illustration.

If you include poetry in our camp, we won two silvers:

• Eloise Greenfield and Jan Spivey Gilchirst for The Great Migration: Journey to the North

• Patricia McKissack and Leo and Diane Dillon for Never Forgotten. This is an original folktale told in verse and I’m going to claim it for nonfiction, just because I want to!

SIBERT AWARDS

In our own category – the Robert F. Sibert International Book Awards – we find

wondrous variety. The gold medal went to a picture book,

• Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by author/illustrator Melissa Sweet.

The silver honor awards went to…..

• Black & White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor, by Larry Dane Brimner, a middle grade photo-illustrated book;

• Drawing from Memory by Allen Say, a middle grade illustrated autobiography;

• The Elephant Scientist, a Scientist in the Field series book, with text and photos by Caitlin O’Connell, along with co-author Donna M. Jackson and co-photographer Timothy Rodwell;

• Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, a middle grade illustrated book by our own inimitable Rosalyn Schanzer.

YALSA Awards…

…. for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults - and the Gretchen Woelfle awards for the most engaging subtitles:

• The 2012 Excellence winner is Steve Sheinkin, erstwhile INK blogger, for The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, and Treachery.

Finalists were

• INK’s Sue Macy with Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Ties Along the Way.)

• Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos for Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science

• Karen Blumenthal and Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition.

• Susan Goldman Rubin and Music Was It: Young Leonard Bernstein.

Total tally:

14 books, 15 medals - 3 gold; 12 silver (2 for Nelson’s book)

2 illustrated picture books

5 middle grade illustrated books

6 books with photos

1 unillustrated book

And –

1 autobiography

1 folk tale

5 biographies (including one biography/science book)

7 history books

Award-winners covered American history (both white and African American,) world history, women’s history, and music. Judges leaned toward biography this year, with science getting rather short shrift. I wonder why. Nevertheless we’ve got some fabulous books to teach from and enjoy.

Congratulations to all the winners – and to their editors, book designers, and illustrators!

On the Value of Teacher Guides

noreply@blogger.com (Linda Salzman) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:30:00 +0000

I’ve heard writers question the value of providing teacher guides for their books. Those who have tackled writing one themselves have likened it to writing those old books reports we were forced to produce back in the day. Other writers hire professionals to write their guides for them, almost always having to pay for them out of their own pocket. Still others have been known to accept whatever the publisher is willing to provide, without any power to change them. I’ve never contemplated the value for the writer to provide a guide until recently when I’ve found myself searching or guides to help me prepare my lesson plans. Now I ‘d like to voice my opinion on these guides—yes, yes, yes!

After a few weeks of cursory internet searching, it’s clear to me that not all teacher guides are created equal. Those on the publisher’s sites tend to be the worst, meaning less expansive, including only a few questions on the specific book and none on the topic as a whole. From what I’ve seen so far, those who hire “professionals” to write for them are of a mixed bag—some excellent, some sounding like they copy and pasted questions from previous curriculum guides.

But, boy oh boy, some of these things are really well done. I’ve found some gems that are well written, well thought out, and, I might even say, thought provoking. One particular favorite was a full18 pages long and had it’s own table of contents! It talked about how this particular book could be used successfully in ever subject matter from science to art, it provided projects to do in an hour and those to pursue if you had time over a few weeks. I immediately noted down several books suggested to read to accompany their book and headed to the library to check them out.

I don’t know if this kind of guide sells books but it definitely provides a potential reader/ teacher with a reason to choose to read it with their students. It can be quite a challenge to know which book to choose to discuss a broad topic when you only have time to read one book. The well written guides offer ideas on the directions a teacher can go in and, when so many of the options are intriguing, it makes it an easy decision to choose that particular book.

The more I think about it, the more these guides might be the first place to start for one’s own writing. Visualizing how your book might be used by a teacher, what themes could be picked out and what activities could grow out of the ideas the book focuses on. Writing with these ideas in mind, perhaps the final product will have that magic marketing appeal that all publishers are looking for. This could work if we don’t spend a lot of time fussing over the guide as a procrastination tool to writing the manuscript. On second thought, I’d better stick with reading them rather than writing them for now.

Got a Second?

noreply@blogger.com (David Schwartz) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

You’d better use your extra second while you can, because it might just disappear.

I’m talking about the leap second. Leap seconds are a little like leap years but shorter. A lot shorter. (Actually, a “leap year” really should be called a “leap day,” IMHO.) And they are an endangered species.

It’ll take me just a few leap seconds to explain. Once upon a time, time itself was measured by the rotation of the earth. There are 24 hours in a complete rotation (aka one day), 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute, so a little arithmetic tells you there are 24 X 60 X 60 = 86,400 seconds in a day. You could set your clock by it. Actually, your clock was made to show it. This was all fine and well and if anyone was late for church on his wedding day, he really couldn’t blame the clock. But scientists weren’t satisfied because it was hard to be sure of the precise duration of a second, so in 1967 they put official timekeeping in the hands of the hand-less atomic clock. An atomic clock relies on the oscillation frequency of a certain type of atom known as cesium-133. Atomic clocks may be cumbersome on your nightstand, but they sure are accurate. After 100 million years, give or take, an atomic clock will be off by one second. In the techno-world beginning to emerge in the 1960’s, precision in timekeeping was of great importance. Imagine how grumpy networked computers might get if different parts of the network were off by a second here, a second there. Atomic clocks solved that problem, and traditionalists couldn’t complain because the atomic clocks were pegged to the earth’s rotation. A“day” on an atomic clock and a “day” defined as a single rotation of the earth were the same. All was well in timekeeping.

Eventually, something was found to be rotten in Denmark and everywhere else on the planet: the Earth does not run like clockwork. Its rotation is gradually slowing down. Rather than losing a second in 100 million years, it loses a second every few years. In an average human lifetime, the earth might lose 15 or 20 seconds. (Think of what that poor average human could have accomplished with an extra time.) So to keep the world’s atomic clocks in sync with the actual earth, the leap second was born. Because the rate of slow-down is not perfectly predictable, the insertion of a leap second is not on a regular schedule like leap years, which synchronize our calendar’s annual cycle with the earth’s revolution around the Sun by inserting February 29th every four years (with some carefully worked out exceptions). The International Telecommunications Union, an agency of the United Nations, announces leap seconds on an as-needed basis. The last one was in 2008 and there will be another on the night of June 30th of this year. The extra second will be added before July 1^st rolls around. Start planning this gift of time before the summer rush.

But now there’s talk of the leap second’s demise. The extra second on June 30, 2012, is secure, but the ITU will meet in Geneva next month to decide whether to keep or kill future leap seconds. The United States wants to do away with it but the leap second has some heavyweight defenders including Canada, Britain, China and a few other countries that consider extremely punctuality in their national interest. I won’t go into the arguments pro and con, but there was a good article about it in the New York Times last week (Jan 18, 2012). I must say I am leaning toward the side of leap second defenders because leap seconds tie the time of day to the rising and setting of the sun (quaint as that notion may be). If we abandon the leap second and just let those atomic clocks run nilly-willy while the hapless earth slows down, we will get to a point when sunrise would come at the strike of noon. (It’s impossible to predict exactly when this disruption to your lunch plans will occur because, according to the Times, it will be “not more than 100,000 years from now” so please be forewarned.)

So what, if anything, does this have to do with children’s books? For one thing, I am not aware of any book on the leap second or even a book on time that mentions it. (OK, commenters — tell me about all the books I missed.) More importantly, I have confession: In all of my non-fiction science and math books I have simplified some concepts to make them age-appropriate for what I see as the book’s readership. Or I have left them out altogether if I thought an adequate explanation would be too long, too difficult or too uninteresting. This is a judgment call, of course.

Sometimes I have regretted my judgment. There are millions of things you can measure, and time is one of them but in Millions to Measure I did not include the measurement of time. This is probably because I had an axe to grind about the archaic system of measurement still used in the United States. I wanted to concentrate on showing how the metric system works and how much more sensible it is than our uncoordinated system of feet, pounds and fluid ounces. (In fairness, I should disclose that we aren’t the only country using this system. Last I checked, it was also the norm in Liberia and Myanmar.) So in a book comparing metric (technically known as Système International, or SI) units with “customary” (American) units, there was no need to talk about time because — guess what — time is measured the same way in all nations. Amazing but true: everyone uses the same years, days, hours, minutes and seconds! But now that there’s a brouhaha brewing over the leap second, I wish my book had prepared users to understand it. I wish I had included cesium clocks because they are kinda cool (and wouldn’t kids think so, too?).

And one more mea culpa: I even wish I had come completely clean on the mighty meter itself. I stuck with the original definition — one ten millionth the distance from the equator to the North Pole. Eventually, the meter was standardized to a very special piece of metal kept at a constant temperature in Paris, available to be measured any time you needed to check it against your own meter stick (if you had train fare and the right ID). But for much the same reason that time is now measured by atomic oscillations, the world’s leading unit of length is now tied to a measurement that labs around the world can perform if they want to: the wavelength of emissions from atoms of krypton-86. (Common sense tells us that krypton must be related to Superman’s kryptonite, and if it’s good for Superman, it’s got to be good for you and me, dontchathink?)

I imagine all authors of non-fiction for young readers must decide whether content is “too hard” or “not too hard”? It might be an interesting panel discussion subject: how do you decide? Do you just have a hunch or do you use guidelines of some kind? Is there such a thing as “too hard” at all? Can any subject be made accessible in the hands of a master?

While you’re pondering that, I’m going to think about what I’ll do with my leap second on June 30^th because it may be my last.

Blending Fact and Fiction: My Line in the Sand

noreply@blogger.com (Tanya Lee Stone) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:01:00 +0000

I hope I’m not being too repetitive, but I’m nothing if not consistent. Since books keep appearing that blur the lines between fiction and nonfiction, and people keep asking whether or not that’s acceptable; I keep feeling compelled to pipe up with an answer.

If pushed to choose Yes or No, my answer is No. But a Yes or No answer simply won’t suffice in this ever-stretching conversation. So I continue to redefine what is acceptable to me as I think about it. I wrote about this issue for the Horn Book in an article called A Fine, Fine Line (a reference to Avenue Q, which I admit, probably means I need to find a 12-step program for Musical Theatre Lovers Anonymous), and in a New York Times review of a biography that muddied the waters to the extent of inventing a narrator who engaged in fictional dialogue with the real-life subject.

Here is my consistent line in the sand (not that anyone should care what I think!). If an author and/or publisher fictionalize parts of a book, but take the time and care to ensure that readers are made aware of which bits are fiction and which bits are true, I don’t worry as much for the reader. But if the team does not do this, I find it misleading and unfair in terms of our responsibility to our young readers. I have no beef with engaging books, dynamic packaging, and trying to keep things interesting for kids, especially while so much of their non-book media world is so dazzling and shiny and potentially distracting. But when the entertainment factor starts to get in the way of their knowledge base being filled with half-truths, I believe the line has been crossed.

Now, you may have noticed that I am not citing any specific books to scrutinize even though I referenced ongoing conversations about new titles in my second sentence. That is intentional, as I’m starting to think this is less about particular books and more about a growing lack of attention to what, in my humble opinion, has the potential to create a problem for young readers. It’s not a new problem; it is more of a revisited phenomenon that had fallen out of favor and is being embraced once again, as evidenced by a recently published book that has the words “fact and fiction” in the subtitle. So clearly, this blending is being done with some planning and thought. These decisions are intentional, and being made by plenty of smart people in our field, so I welcome any and all opinions—especially those that might shed some light on an aspect I perhaps have not yet considered.

Forget resolutions, let's talk accomplishments!

noreply@blogger.com (Loreen Leedy) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

During a recent walk, I was listening to my favorite #kidlit podcast, Brain Burps about Books by children's author-illustrator Katie Davis. If you’re interested in children's books and like to hear directly from authors, illustrators, editors, librarians, and others in the world of children's books, it’s a "must-listen." In the episode, Katie was interviewing blogger Julie Hedlund about her adventures in writing, including a group challenge Julie recently founded called 12 X 12 in 2012. The idea is to create 12 picture book drafts, one per month and hundreds of people have signed up already. (Note: the deadline is January 29, so hurry up if you're interested in joining in.)

One part of the conversation that caught my ear was the idea of listing your accomplishments from the previous year as Julie did in this post, 2010 Anti-Resolution Revolution, instead of thinking about negative things you want to "fix." Sounds like a good idea to me! Things always go in a different direction than I had originally intended, how about you?

So what did I do in 2011 anyway? In no particular order:

Wrote a post for I.N.K. every month (yay!)
Finished a picture book that's coming out this spring, Seeing Symmetry.
Enlarged some teensy cowboy boot art from the book and made it a coloring page that about 500 people have downloaded already.
Designed a frog logo for my books blog…which I'm already revising (ha!)
Sold a picture book that I'm working on now.
Tweeted quite a bit, am up to almost 700 followers on Twitter.
Redesigned my out-of-print sea turtle book, Tracks in the Sand, and put it on the iBookstore (free sample here).
Bought an iPad 2, got quite a few apps, started reading ebooks mostly.
Spoke about picture book apps at the Florida SCBWI conference in June.
Scribbled down way more ideas than I could ever make happen, even if I live to be 110.
Drew this bear:

Not to go on and on but that's the idea. For many of us, it's all too easy to focus on what we didn't do, couldn't finish, utterly failed at, while ignoring what we did get done. So take a few minutes before January is over to remember what you did in 2011…and ponder what your list of accomplishments might look like 12 months from now.

Loreen
my web site

Focus

noreply@blogger.com (Deborah Heiligman) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

I'm been thinking lately a lot about FOCUS. It's my New Year's Resolution. I try to come up with one word that says it all to me. One word because then maybe, just maybe, I'll remember what it is. Once in a while it's a phrase. But it has to speak to me and usually somewhere around December 30 it just comes. Last year it was ENJOY (as in, life can bring you hard times, so you really should enjoy the good ones!). The year before it was INTENTION (as in, be truly present for every moment). Each year I don't give up the one from the year before because, theoretically, anyway, I should have figured out over the course of the year how to follow that resolution, and so each year I'm adding on to the ones from the years before. This is the goal, anyway.

So this year's resolution and goal is FOCUS. As in--keep your eye, your heart, your mind on what you have set out to do. Be a bird charting your own course, not a bird who is buffeted this way and that by this breeze, or that change in the wind. Sometimes when I say it to myself I add Hocus Pocus. Focus Hocus Pocus. Because it sure is going to take some real kind of magic to focus, isn't it?!

Focusing in 2012 is not so easy. There are so many distractions, both external and internal. I know this is true for writers and other artists. I know it's true for teachers and librarians as well. We have so many demands on our attention and our time. We have way too much input from media and social media and supervisors and guidelines and trends and children and parents and readers and it's just so hard to....

That's my arm, by the way. It's a temporary tattoo my friend Rebecca gave me because she knows my resolution. She gave me two. I might have to order some more. Because this is going to take a lot of reminding, and some real Intention. I have a huge nonfiction book to research and write, another one to finish, and a novel that is calling me and demanding I pay attention to it (and I want to!). I have a new book coming out in August, which will mean a lot of external input threatening my focus. Before that I have to update my web site. And then there's life.

As I write this I know that every single person who is reading this feels the same way. The particulars may be different, but the problems (and I imagine the occasional moments of panic) are the same.

I'm writing this on Friday morning, and was inspired to write it right now because of an article I read in the New York Times. Did you see it? The story about a cell phone disrupting the last, beautiful, very quiet measures of Mahler's Symphony No. 9?

Can you imagine? The man was sitting in the first row, and his cell phone went off--the marimba alarm tone. When you read the article, you'll learn that it was a new phone, an Iphone, that his company had given him, and he had silenced it, but he didn't know that his alarm was set. (Yes, your alarm goes off even if you've silenced your phone. I know this from napping. If you do it on purpose, it's a good thing.)

There are a few things that I like about this story. One is that the conductor, Alan Gilbert, stopped the performance. That sound was disrupting his focus, the focus of his musicians, and, of course, the focus of the audience. We were in London in 2005 at a performance of The History Boys, and the same thing happened. Front row. Awful noise. A crucial scene. Third time. One of the actors, Richard Griffiths (a large and scary man at this particular moment), furiously stopped the scene and said, "I can't compete with these electronic devices." He ordered the man to leave and we all applauded. He then started the scene again, he said, for the second and last time. It was a memorable play and a memorable experience. I imagine the Mahler the other night was, too. I don't think Mr. Gilbert yelled, but he did stop the performance and ask that the phone be turned off. He respected the need for focus, and for the purity of art.

According to the article the man whose phone it was felt just awful and didn't sleep for two nights. Venom was spewed at him all over the internet. According to the Times he was a 20-year subscriber to the New York Philharmonic, and has often been irked by noises in Avery Fisher hall--coughs, people who clap at the wrong time, and cell phones. "It was just awful to have any role in something...so disturbing and disrespectful," he told the Times. When someone from the Philharmonic called him the next day (having figured out who he was) and asked him politely not to do it again, he agreed, of course, and asked if he could apologize to Mr. Gilbert. They talked by phone and the conductor said to him, "I'm really sorry you had to go through this" and accepted his apology. Don't you love it?

But what I also love is what Patron X (as he is called) said. He said that this underscored (pun intended?) "the very enduring and important bond between the audience and the performers. If it's disturbed in any significant way, it just shows how precious the whole union is."

So I read that this morning and I thought--same here. If we let cell phones and other "electronic devices" get between us and our focus on our art--whether we are writing, reading, researching, or teaching, then we are violating a sacred bond.

A Couple of Gravely Endangered Humans

noreply@blogger.com (Cheryl Harness) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , who might have been celebrating his 83rd birthday with his children and grandchildren. He might well have taken time from the festivities to accept an invitation to one or another of the Sunday morning TV talkfests this past weekend to talk about the candidates and the issues faced in the upcoming primary in South Carolina. Would that we could've seen the old warrior, note the whiteness of his hair, how four score and three years were reflected in his face, and heard what scorching words he'd have chosen to say about them and the state of the nation. Would've But no.

"The mountain gorilla faces grave danger of extinction, primarily because of the encroachments of native man upon its habitat – and neglect by civilized man, who does not conscientiously protect even the limited areas now allotted for the gorilla's survival." Dian Fossey, a.k.a. Nyiramachabelli (Her nickname, given to her by her native Rwandan neighbors, means "the woman who lives alone on the mountain."), from her article, Making Friends With Mountain Gorillas, National Geographic, published in January 1970, back when I was a college dork and Richard Nixon was in office. (Doesn't it just knock you out that that wily old politician would have turned 99 just the other day? It does me.) In a kinder, gentler world, the old warrior woman would have been celebrating her 80th birthday today, but no.

Our world is not without gentility and kindness, but because we are capable of self-interested, cruel, and nasty impulses, Dr. King and Dr. Fossey are not among us, the living, today, because they were murdered by their fellow humans. Because they are well worth knowing, many a handsome book has been written about them, their works, and their valiant lives, cruelly cut short.

For instance:

Meet Martin Luther King, a Landmark book by James T. de Kay.

A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr. , by David Adler.

Doreen Rappaport's life of Dr. MLK, Martin's Big Words, illustrated by Bryan Collier.

My Uncle Martin's Big Heart and My Uncle Martin's Words for America: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Niece Tells How He Made a Difference, both written by Dr. Angela Ferris Watkins, well-illustrated by Eric Velasquez.

AND – if I hadn't been writing this blogpost today, I might never have known about this beautiful book. Gee whiz Cheryl, wake up & smell the coffee, why doncha – My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers Growing Up with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., by Christine King Farris, with handsome illustrations by that smartypants genius Chris Soenpiet.

As to books about Dian Fossey, do check out the Nat'l Geographic's completely gorgeous photobiography, Light Shining Through the Mist.

There is Heidi Moore's book, too, in Raintree's "Great Naturalists" series, and, of course, absolutely, turn to Gorillas in the Mist. Dr. Fossey's own book begins with these words: "I spent many years longing to go to Africa..."

Ah well. Thence to heaven.

Once a long time ago, Martin and Dian were winter babies, brand new and unaware. Read about them today, tell about them today, lest they be forgotten in this mean old world.

LiNKing with Our Audience

noreply@blogger.com (Dorothy Patent) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 06:00:00 +0000

A few days ago, Vicki wrote about the success of the first videoconference between an iNK Authors on Call author and students in Bogert School in New Jersey. I happened to be the author in that interaction, but I believe that all of us will have similar successes connecting with the students. Before each of us skypes with them, the students will be familiar with some of our work, and just the idea of having a “real author” interested in them is an exciting prospect. Real people write those books—wow! The enthusiasm of Bogert's devoted teachers also rubs off on the students, and the special projects they will undertake give them a change from routine classroom work. All the elements area there for a successful project.

A key element in what we’re doing that makes our interactions different from a traditional school visit is that we skype with the teachers first and find out what they would like to see in the students as a result of “meeting” their author. Different teachers can have very different goals. For example, Jason and Chris, “my” teachers, hoped that I could help their students to connect with their own real worlds, with their day to day environments, and to become curious about them and begin to ask “why” questions.

As a 20^th century kind of person, I tend to attribute the students’ disconnect with what I would call the “real world” to their incessant contact with input from outside worlds—music from their ipods, text messages on their cell phones, comments on their Face Book pages, and so on. These sources of “information” have little or nothing to do with the environment through which the students are moving on a day to day basis. As a result, when a teacher asks the students what in their lives sparks their curiosity, what around them might they want to learn more about, they have no answer. They are so wrapped up in those outside worlds that they are disconnected from the actual world in which they eat, sleep, and go to school.

So, when I talked to the students, I suggested they take a look around as they go home from school and start to wonder—why do some trees loose their leaves in the fall and others don’t? Where do the ants go when they disappear into a crack in the sidewalk? That sort of thing. From what Jason and Chris have indicated, some of the students are awakening to their environments, and the classes as a whole got truly engaged in our interaction. From five time zones away (I was in Hawaii), I could feel their enthusiasm as they murmured to one another while watching my slide show. As for me, this experience is only strengthening my knowledge that the two things in life that most help me “come to life” are learning new things and communicating the excitement of learning to others. I think that’s a powerful motivating force for all of us who have chosen to write nonfiction books for children, and connecting directly with our readers, even from far away, gives us a special high we can’t get in any other way. It's a win-win process.

My John and Tom (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara Kerley) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 06:37:00 +0000

Last month, I answered the question, “Where do you get your ideas?”—for one book, anyway: Those Rebels, John and Tom.

Having grown up spending so much time with the characters of the Broadway musical “1776”, it’s not surprising I’d one day want to write my version of Adams and Jefferson.

But a picture book needs a tight focus, and so, early on into writing the book, I had to decide where to shine the spotlight on these two, remarkable figures.

My goal for Those Rebels, John and Tom was to give an inkling of who these two men were, how they worked together, and how much their partnership benefitted the country.

Writing about a famous person can be tricky, as they often have a kind of mythology tied to their fame. Those Rebels, John and Tom has not one but two famous people, stuffed into the same book. Talk about mythology! Jefferson is carved in stone on Mt. Rushmore—you don’t really get any bigger than that.

It’s the job of a biographer to dig deeper and present a richer portrait, to take readers past the myth to the man (or woman.)

How does a biographer do this?

Research.

Secondary sources are invaluable to paint an overall picture and provide a cultural and historical perspective. But my favorite source of information is primary sources—what I think of as ‘eyewitness accounts.’ That’s where all the juicy details come from.

And it was in primary sources that I found details to help uncover just who these men were.

And so, for example, we have Adams, detailing in his diary all the culinary wonders he experienced when he first came to Philadelphia in 1774:

“A most sinfull Feast again! Every Thing which could delight the Eye, or allure the Taste. Curds and Creams, Jellies, Sweetmeats of various sorts, 20 sorts of Tarts, fools, Trifles, floating Islands, and whippd Sillabubs.”

(I loved those last two names, by the way – floating islands and whipped syllabubs. As soon as I read them, I just had to find out what they were. The first is a meringue island floating on a sea of custard. The second is a frothy mixture of whipped cream, lemon zest, and wine. Delicious.)

Primary sources showed me that the champion of democracy had a real sweet tooth.

And it was in another primary source—Jefferson’s Memorandum Book—that I read his meticulous notes on his shopping trips in Philadelphia in 1775 and 1776:

“Paid Starr for shoes -- 21 shillings”
“Paid for handkerchiefs -- 6 shillings 8 pence”
“Paid for pair of gloves -- 7 shillings 6 pence”
“Paid Currie for leather breeches -- 35 shillings”
“Paid For a straw hat -- 10 shillings”

The author of the Declaration of Independence, I discovered, was a bit of a clotheshorse.

Biographies are built upon the whipped syllabubs and ten-shilling hats which take men and women off the pedestal (out of the portrait, off the face of Mt. Rushmore) and place them squarely before us, not to be admired as mythological figures, but to be understood as the extraordinary and yet all-too-human people they were.

One thing that struck me early on in the research process was how very very different John and Tom were. And there’s no easier way to see that than by comparing their homes.

Jefferson was born into Virginia aristocracy—and his house, Monticello, reflects that. Monticello is beautiful—and if you have never been, I recommend you go sometime.

But it was not in any sense a practical house.

Most wealthy people in Virginia built their mansions alongside a river, if they could. It made transportation issues simple as you could just float supplies to your doorstep. Alternately, they built their mansions on a road—again, simplifying the transportation of building supplies.

Tom did neither. He erected his mansion on top of a little mountain. He had to have roads cut through dense forest to haul the supplies up and up and up. When the building process started, there wasn’t even enough water onsite to mix the clay to form the bricks—it had to be hauled in from a stream.

Tom drew up the plans for Monticello himself, basing the design on a villa with grand stone columns. In fact, he was intimately involved in all aspects of the design and construction. And when I say “intimately involved” I mean just that—I mean intimately, meticulously, some might say obsessively involved.

Tom designed everything from the placement of those stone columns on the portico down to the size of the individual bricks, measuring and calculating, sometimes down to the ten thousandths of an inch. One of his calculations was a measurement for 1.89916 inches.

This, in an era where bricks were made by hand—filling wooden forms with clay, letting the bricks dry, and then firing them in brick kilns built onsite.

Not two inches; not one and three quarters. 1.89916

Tom liked to oversee the bricklayers’ and carpenters’ work closely, and I can only imagine some of the comments they must have made when he was out of earshot.

Monticello became a life-long obsession with Tom. He began working on the project in 1768 and was still working on it 40 years later—with additions, demolitions, and renovations in between.

The bulk of this work—the building and rebuilding—was done by his many slaves. Jefferson himself did not do manual labor.

Contrast all that to John, the son of a shoemaker.

John may have been a lawyer and Harvard graduate, but he was also a farmer. He prided himself on being hardworking and frugal:

He pruned his own fruit trees, cut his own hay, carted manure out to his fields, and split his own firewood. On occasion, he hired men to help him with the big jobs: building stone walls, digging up stumps, and plowing the fields to plant corn and potatoes.

When John inherited his modest, 100-year-old wooden home, he built a small addition onto the back—just a lean-to of a couple rooms—and then called it good.

He and Abigail lived there for the next 27 years.

John and Tom were certainly compelling characters to write about. And next month, in the third and final segment of this FoundingFathersPalooza, I’ll talk about the themes that brought these two very different men together—and drive the narrative.

Real Revision

noreply@blogger.com (Melissa Stewart) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:26:00 +0000

Tanya Lee Stone. Susan Goodman. Jim Murphy. Kelly Fineman. You know these folks. They’re regular contributors to this blog.

They’re also four of the thirty or so authors featured in Real Revision by award-winning children’s book author Kate Messner. The book is such a gem that you’ll definitely want your very own copy.

Real Revision is published by Stenhouse Publisher, which caters to educators, so this book is written specifically for teachers. That makes it great for all you educators out there. But I know plenty of writers also read this blog. This book is a MUST READ for you, too.

Some chapters focus on fiction-specific revision strategies, but the lion share of the book is useful to nonfiction writers as well. Here are few of my favorite quotations from nonfiction writers.

Kelly Fineman on why she takes time away from a manuscript between writing the rough draft and delving into the revisions:

“It could be as little as half an hour or as long as a year, but I need to have established some sort of distance from it in order to read it at least somewhat objectively and not like a doting author.”

Loree Griffin Burns on the importance of reading widely and carefully considering the structure of nonfiction writing:

“I pay close attention to the structure of the books I am reading all the time, and I compare and contrast them to the structure I’m working with. This is always helpful to me because it gives me confidence . . .or in some cases, helps me see why my own structure is not working.”

Susan Goodman on striking the right balance between sharing information and engaging readers while writing Life on the Ice:

“. . . I was trying to fit in so many facts that I had lost sight of what my book was all about—the excitement on exploration . . . So I sat down at my computer with an imaginary nine-year-old kid beside me. And I simply told that kid an adventure story—one where scientists were the explorers.”

Jim Murphy on finding the proper voice and storytelling technique for his Newbery Honor book The Great Fire.

“I read newspapers and personal recollections of the Chicago fire until I had absorbed the pace and language of the era. . . . I didn’t try to duplicate voices from the past, but I knew I had a faint echo of them in my style.”

Tanya Lee Stone on the importance of sensory details:

“. . . if I interview someone, I will note very specific things about the way they speak, move, dress, smell, etc. These details come in handy when writing a scene that needs to capture the real essence of a person.”

And these great bits or advice are just the tip of the iceberg. Trust me. This is a book you won’t want to miss.

The Past Is Always Present

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Murphy) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:33:00 +0000

Our house has a fairly large wrap-around porch and Alison and I love to use it whenever we can. We watched New Year's Eve fireworks from it this year and have used it in the past to view parades and bicycle and foot races. But just sitting in a wicker chair as the night wears along is a peaceful joy. Traffic dies down at 11 PM and the world becomes very still and deep. When leaves are present, when they surround and embrace the porch, very little light -- whether from street or porch lights or the moon -- disrupts the dark shadows. It becomes a refuge, a haven to escape the day-to-day pressures and responsibilities, a place where I often find myself thinking of the past.*
*
Sitting there I sometimes wonder if the original owners of our house sat out at night as we do? The house was built in 1905 and our town of Maplewood was just beginning to grow and change, with new streets being carved through old apple orchards, sturdy wood frame houses slowly rising up. What did those first owners hear at night? The lonely clip-clop of horse's hooves? The huff and chug of the steam train from Newark? And when did the first automobile make its way past the house? *
*
And what about other owners through the years? What was it like to sit in the absolute quiet of a dark night when the world wars were raging? Did someone bring a radio out to listen to the latest reports from Europe or the Pacific? Did anyone sit on the porch during a heavy snow fall (as I often do) to be surrounded by cold and white and gusting winds? Or stay out when a summer thunderstorm came rumbling through? Yes, I have been known to experience all sorts of storms out there.*
*
And, of course, there are those strange, sometimes unsettling moments, especially after midnight. Twenty years ago we often heard the distant voice of a young girl calling plaintively in the night: "Mommy... Mommy... Mommy..." We nicknamed her the Ghost Child and dispite going out to make sure everything was okay and despite asking neighbors, it was years before we found out the truth. It was indeed a young girl and she was searching for a loved one -- her cat, which escaped regularly and was named Monty!*
*
That was a disappointing end to the story. We had hoped for something a little more, shall we say, picturesque. But the Ghost Child has been replaced these days by the Night Rider. Late at night, usually after midnight, we can hear the thrum of a skateboarder making his or her way up Maplewood Avenue toward our house. The sound gets louder and louder until they get to the corner that borders our house where the rider turns and pushes hard to sail up the side street. We have never actually seen the rider, it's that dark. Just a quick glimpse of moving shadow and then the sound of the wheels fades away into the night. Who is the Night Rider? Where did they come from and where are they going? Will they be safe?*
*
These are decidedly small bits of history. Incidents really that usually aren't recorded because they're, well, so every day and common. But I believe that much interesting history begins with the ordinary. Take what happened to Corporal Barton Mitchell and his friend on September 13, 1862. When the 27th Indiana Infantry halted their march just outside of Frederick, Maryland, Mitchell and his pal went over to rest in the shade and happened to spot a rolled-up piece of paper in the tall grass. It turned out to be Special Order No. 191 (where Robert E. Lee divided up his army). If these two soldiers hadn't found the paper and hadn't realized it was important, there would have been no Battle of Antietam, Lee would have probably been able to reunite his forces, and that would have meant a far different battle between Lee and McClellan than Antietam (and who knows when or even if the Emancipation Proclamation would have been issued!).*
*
Finding those orders was pure dumb luck, but it resulted in an historic battle that changed the course of the war and the world. A tiny bit of history, a mere moment really, that had profound effects. Which is why I love to sit at night on our porch, listening and waiting and imagining. You never know where porch sitting might all lead.*

Take the Challenge!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan E. Goodman) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:12:00 +0000

Happy New Year everyone. I'm not one for resolutions (or keeping them), but this year I've decided to take the 2012 Nonfiction Picture Book reading challenge. Founded by Alyson Beecher of Kit Lit Frenzy and co-hosted by The Nonfiction Detectives, this challenge is to get more people reading and talking about kids nonfiction picture books. What could be bad about that?

Various bloggers and people with GoodReads shelves can read and review nonfiction books. If they sign up with Kit Lit Frenzy or The Nonfiction Detectives, those reviews will also be published once a week throughout the year. It's a way to get the word out about a lot of great books. And a place to find out about a lot of great books.

So once a month when I post, I will also include a short review of a book. Part of my personal challenge is that I'm going to try to alert people to some of the new books coming out in 2012. Since it's January 9th and I haven't had a change to find any 2012 candidates, I'm going to recommend a book that I think is timeless--Dance by Bill T. Jones and photographed by our own I.N.K. colleague Susan Kuklin.

In Dance, Kuklin photographed Jones against white backdrop so he is all we see as he stretches, curls, leaps and floats through the air. His expressive body and a spare lyric text celebrate the joy of movement.

Consider the child who gets to see hear the following words brought to life by pictures of Jones' beautiful movements:
When I am dancing,
I am thinking
and I am feeling.
When I am dancing
I am everywhere,
and I am hardly there.
When I am dancing,
I am everyone,
and I am only one.
I want to dance.

This book gives children the words to describe and understand how they feel when they move. What a gift.

Stupidly, shamefully, this book is out of print. I can only hope Jones and Kuklin got the rights back. And that you can find it in your library.

Five Things I Learned in Social Media Class

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Macy) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 05:15:00 +0000

Last fall, I decided to get my bearings in the world of social media by taking a class at my local community college. The class, “Social Media for Business,” included an overview and then hands-on sessions focusing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. There was also an introduction to the tools companies use to evaluate the impact of their social media presence. A lot of information was tossed around during those nine three-hour sessions, but thanks to my detailed notes, I was able to capture most of it. Here are some things that stayed with me:

#1. Send Seven Tweets a Day: My teacher, the former head of social media at A&P, suggested that one should tweet seven times per day. That includes several new tweets and a few retweets (incoming tweets that you forward to your own followers). He also suggested following 150 people and/or companies. I’m currently tweeting two or three times on a good day and following 90. Those people represent my main business and personal interests: children’s books (love @SLJournal and @CBCBook), sports, women’s issues, entertainment, friends, and a few celebrity tweeters. I’ve dropped some people who tweet too darned much about pointless things, like the singer who tweeted every minute of a three-hour car ride. And I continue to add folks who seem to have interesting things to say.

#2. In Twitter, Avoid Naked Links and Don’t Pander: (This is not nearly as naughty as it sounds.) Tweets may be only 140 characters long, but they still can have plenty of voice and personality. “Naked links” are tweets that are solely Web addresses, with no introduction, no extra information. They’re boring and annoying, almost as annoying as companies (and people representing products or companies) that pander to their customers. If your customer says, “I love your turkey sandwich,” don’t reply, “You have very good taste!” Say something useful like, “Try it on toasted bread,” or “That’s our best-selling lunch product.” Something that adds information.

#3. Get Demographic Info From Facebook: When you set up a Facebook page for a business (as opposed to a personal page), you gain access to all sorts of demographic information that Facebook hopes you will use to advertise your products on their site. You can find out how many Facebook users in your state or town or Zip Code like Glee, or Harry Potter, or The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie. You can find everyone on Facebook who ever worked for the companies you worked for (you also can do this on LinkedIn) or who shares your birthday. You can search this information to your heart’s content, and you never have to actually buy an ad. All that, and setting up a Facebook business page is free.

#4. Remember LinkedIn: Since social media is not an actual job for most of us, there’s only so much time we can spend posting and reading posts. But LinkedIn is a valuable professional resource and having a presence on the site can pay off in unexpected ways. A former acquaintance recently recommended me for a speaking gig at her new job because she’d been following the news about Wheels of Change through LinkedIn. And because you can program your tweets to show up on your LinkedIn profile page, you can keep the page lively without writing actual LinkedIn posts.

#5. Consider Haul Videos: This one isn’t a tip, it’s a head’s up. Until our YouTube class, I’d never heard of “haul videos.” In case you haven’t, either, they are videos in which young women (I haven’t seen any by young men) parade their purchases from a recent shopping trip for all to see. According to my teacher, haul videos represent the fastest-growing segment on YouTube. One enterprising video maker, juicystar07, has entertained close to a million viewers by showing off her winter wardrobe purchases and 1.4 million viewers by revealing her birthday haul. She’s put up so many videos that she had to add a second YouTube channel and she and her sister have started an online business selling makeup and fashion accessories. As of this month, her videos had over 172,000,000 total views. I could have written an entire blog post about haul videos. Do they signal the impending downfall of society or are they evidence of female ingenuity and empowerment? I'll leave it to you to watch a few and decide for yourselves.

My social media connections: Twitter LinkedIn

“What We’re Doing Isn’t Ordinary.”

noreply@blogger.com (Vicki Cobb) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:08:00 +0000

Happy New Year, everyone!

As many of you know, Authors on Call, the interactive videoconferencing (ivc) group of Ink Think Tank, is doing a pilot program with an elementary school in Upper Saddle River, NJ. Eight authors and several consultants are participating. We are hoping to answer the following questions, (among others):

What happens to the learning environment of a school when teachers and a team of award- winning children’s nonfiction authors collaborate in a large-scale, school-wide project where everyone is involved in sharing knowledge and skills?

Is this a way to create inspiration, motivation and the love of learning?

Our first results are starting to come in and they are very encouraging. A little background: Each Ink author suggested titles of his/her own books to fit into the Bogert scope and sequence. The teachers then selected the titles they wished to teach. The plan is to have teachers meet with the author of the book they’ve selected via ivc to brainstorm and plan how to teach the book. Together they plan projects and assignments based on the readings and schedule ivcs for the author to meet with their students to strengthen the personal connection between them. Since the devil is in the details, I’m going to quote some excerpts from the first participants in the project as entered on our wiki , which is the record of the pilot as it unfolds. Chis Kostenko and Jason Parkhurst, are two fifth grade teachers, who selected Dorothy Hinshaw Patent’s book Shaping the Earth.

Jason and Chris first met with Dorothy via Skype, which is the only ivc technology we have available at this school. (The photo at left shows the brainstorming session. Dorothy is on the laptop.) Dorothy later said: “As we talked, we quickly agreed that a major problem is getting students engaged with learning. Jason and Chris both said that even when they ask their students what in their own lives interests them the most, what inspires their curiosity, many of them can't come up with an answer. It seems they are detached even from their own lives. I had come into the session with that same question in a general sense--when we introduce a subject in the curriculum that the children need to learn about, how do we get them to relate to it personally?”

Dorothy then wrote about their plan: “Jason and Chris suggested that by listening to me talk about my own life, how my passion for the natural world drove me then as it does now, might help inspire their students to think about their own lives and spark their own interests. We decided that I would do two half hour Skype sessions with the students, one soon after Thanksgiving, in which I would talk about what drove me when I was a child, how I found my own writing voice that allows me to communicate clearly with my readers, how I write so that people want to read what I've written, and the more practical matter of how I find reliable information and how I choose which information to pass on to readers. Then, after the students have developed their own projects using my book, we would have a second Skype session together. We left the focus of that one somewhat up in the air for now, as we want to see how the project evolves.”

The first ivc with the students took place on Wednesday, December 9. Dave Kaplan, the principal, observed:

“From the general learning perspective, it was awesome. Truly awesome. Students were excited, taking notes, responding, etc. The two classes sat on the floor facing the smart board and there was a chair on which one student speaker could sit front and center. The camera faced the class and seemingly captured everyone. There was a real hum coming from the students as they related to Dorothy's experiences and laughed at some of her stories it was interesting to hear. There was energy in the room. For this first meeting, it was a get-to-know you. I loved that; relationship building = credibility for the kids. Next step is to dig into the learning-content area, writing, reading, etc. I am already talking to the teachers about possibilities and directions. The goal is to get the students more involved. In this introductory meeting, the kids generally listened, though they did come prepared with (great) questions for Dorothy."

Chris Kostenko polled his class the next day, “The class spoke about Dorothy as someone they knew. Here are some of their comments:

"It wasn’t just about books, science, or being an author. We got to learn a lot about you.’‘

"I enjoyed that story about when you and your friend set off the firecracker and set the grass on fire. I would feel embarrassed just like you did. Who wouldn’t?’‘

"I realized that nature is a very important and fun thing to explore. You’ve also inspired me to do my best and to work hard.’‘

"I can’t wait to talk to you again."

"Now when we read your book, we can hear your voice say every little word—no matter who is reading.’‘

"It seemed like you were right in the room with us."

’‘It’s exciting to know an author who can give us tips…I can’t wait to get tips from a real pro.’”

Chris’s conclusion: “What we’re doing isn’t ordinary. We’re playing with something that has extraordinary potential. Wow.”

This week we’re adding two more consultants to help teachers plan, we’re meeting (in person) with the Bogert faculty and curriculum people, and we’re adding some metrics to the program to measure our effectiveness, thanks to a couple of professors from the University of Kentucky. All the interest from the academic community only reinforces that we are on to something.

It looks like 2012 is going to be a very interesting year.

CUTTING THE TIES THAT BIND

noreply@blogger.com (Rosalyn Schanzer) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Happy New Year everyone - here’s to a genuine nonfiction lollapalooza in 2012! And speaking of writing great books, I’d like to propose a literary challenge for the year. Authors, editors, teachers, librarians, school boards, and other movers and shakers, you are hereby invited to cut the ties that bind. No, no, I am NOT saying we should cut the ties binding us to our loved ones. I propose something else entirely; cutting our ties with The Sacred Rules for Writing Children’s Nonfiction.

“What sacred rules?” you may ask. “The only rule I know is that it takes extraordinarily good writing to make an extraordinary book.” I beg to differ. The Rules for writing Fiction for Readers of all Ages and The Rules for Writing Nonfiction for Adults are lenient. The Sacred Rules for Writing Nonfiction for Kids are not lenient. Not at all. Check it out:

Rules for Writing Fiction for Readers of all Ages

1) Nothing is sacred (although porn for kids is a no-no).

It is just fine to showcase terrible violence (The Hunger Games and Hansel and Gretel spring to mind). You can listen in on whatever your protagonist is thinking, invent whole new worlds, or add humor, melodrama, absurdity, or creativity to the mix any time your heart desires, and more power to you.

Rules for Writing Nonfiction for Adults

1) Nothing is sacred.

Be sure to posit brand new theories, promote a strong opinion about religion or politics, tell tales of corruption and scandal, make predictions for the future, and add a sense of humor about all of the above. Do these things and you will be noticed and win a big award.

Sacred Rules for Writing Nonfiction for Kids (just the ones we need to cut)

1) Unless an author is very famous, he or she must tie his or her work directly to the school curriculum whenever possible. According to the publishers, that’s what sells books.

Soooo limiting. How many ways can you spin the stories of the 20 or 30 most famous Americans? I say there are lots of other amazing people and true stories out there that have nothing to do with the standardized tests.

2) Tell the absolute truth unless it’s not politically correct. In that case, leave it out.

No matter what happened in real life today or in the past, women, minorities, and certain religious groups are never allowed to do anything stupid or evil according to today’s moral standards or the book in question is at risk of being banned from the lists of recommended books for schools.

3) Focus on America

There are lots of amazing places in this world that are not tied to the USA in any way. Publishers tend to exclude most of them because the books might not sell, but I’m betting otherwise.

4) Unlike fiction and adult nonfiction, no wimpy kids or other losers are invited to share their diaries in print unless there’s an uplifting ending.

5) Be even-handed at all times so that kids get an unbiased, well-rounded view of the world.

This can be a very good rule, but sometimes it can tie your hands as well.

6) Do not posit brand new theories, promote a strong opinion about religion or politics, tell tales of current corruption and scandal, make predictions for the future, or add a sense of humor about any of the above or your book will be banned and you will not win an award.

I still believe we’re in a Golden Age of Nonfiction for kids and that the best writers are getting better and better all the time. And there is some great nonfiction for kids that breaks the sacred rules; just not very much of it. Congratulations. I hope the outliers sell a million copies. But meanwhile, I sure would like to cut the ties that bind nonfiction authors and don’t apply to authors in other genres. Once we’re not so hamstrung by these sacred rules, just watch our fire.

Join Our Facebook Page!

noreply@blogger.com (Linda Salzman) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Our bloggers are on a little holiday vacation. In the meantime, please join our brand new Facebook page

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See you with a new I.N.K. post on January 3, 2012!