Monthly archive for August 2012

Upside of Ordinary Giveaway

By on August 27, 2012   /   Giveaways  

Debut middle grade author Susan Lubner stopped by to tell us a little about how she came to write her novel “The Upside of Ordinary”.  She’s also giving away an advanced reader’s copy to one lucky reader.

 

Take one missing uncle, a lucky skull ring, a run-away tarantula, lots of pickles, and an “ordinary” family. Put it all together and you have my debut middle grade novel. The Upside of Ordinary is about eleven-year-old Jermaine— so enamored with the idea of becoming famous that she decides to make a reality TV show about her family.  The inspiration for this story came out of my own fascination with reality TV…not so much by those who watch the reality shows,  but by the many who give up their privacy (and sometimes dignity!) to participate in one.  One of the things that makes The Upside of Ordinary special to me is that it is my first middle grade novel. But I also love the main character’s  resolve mixed with her naiveté and the fact that even though Jermaine finds the idea of fame to be so glamorous and appealing, she eventually discovers what’s simple, but very special, about her own life.  

Thanks, Susan! Due on shelves October 1, you can win an advanced copy n0w by leaving a comment below.

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Art and Letters in Middle-Grade Fiction

By on August 24, 2012   /   Book Lists  

One of my favorite quotes of all time is, “Writing about music is like dancing about art,” pithily describing the inadequacy of one medium to fully capture the nuances of another.

Try dancing to this!

But what of writing about art? Here, in the middle-grade world, we have no shortage of books truly inspired by works of art and the artistic process. Certainly we need look no further than our own namesake, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, where two runaways at Metropolitan Museum of Art must determine whether Michelangelo himself sculpted a statue named Angel.

Writing about art requires, at a basic level, being able to describe the art itself as well the effect of the artwork on the viewer. Consider this short excerpt from Mixed-Up Files:

Claudia was lost in remembrance of the beautiful angel she had seen. Why did she seem so important; and why was she so special? Of course she was beautiful. Graceful. Polished. But so were many other things at the museum.

The effect of the statue is so dazzling that Claudia is lost in remembrance. The statue is graceful and polished, but also has a quality that elevates it above even other pieces in the museum.
Novels about art present a wonderful opportunity to study description and emotion. Here are some ideas for writing exercises to use with students:

  • Use art to build vocabulary. What texture words help enhance description – smooth, rough, choppy, prickly? What words will convey whether the exact colors used in a painting? Robin’s egg blue, navy blue or periwinkle?

  • Ask your students to think about how the artwork makes them feel or the mood they think the artist is trying to convey. Is the artwork playful or serious? Is there a sense of joy or sadness? Ask them to find two or three words that best describes their feelings, or challenge them to come up with a unique metaphor.
  • After the students describe a chosen work of art, challenge them to a mix-and-match gallery of words and art, where they must pair other descriptions with the correct work of art. There may even be an opportunity for re-writing, where the author can see where his or her work can be strengthened, based on the feedback received from other students.

In addition to the Mixed-Up Files, here are other middle-grade books that feature art, along with some related links:

• Chasing Vermeer, by Blue Balliett: Two friends must solve a series clues to recover a stolen Vermeer before it’s too late. This book is the first in a trilogy of art-based mysteries. Follow this link to the National Gallery of Art for a kid-friendly lesson about Vermeer.

• Masterpiece, by Elsie Broach: A beetle with a knack for fine pen-and-ink sketches finds himself and a human friend embroiled in a scandal at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Can they solve the mystery and keep their unusual friendship intact? The website makingartfun.com has this informative page about Albrecht Dürer, the artist whose work is central to the story.

• Noonie’s Masterpiece, by Lisa Railsback: Noonie copes with her mother’s death and father’s frequent absences through her art and her imagined relationships with famous artists. When she creates her own masterpiece, she discovers new truths about herself and her new family. A special National Gallery of Art page also allows kids to create their own works of art and explore art.

• The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate: In this book, the artist in question is Ivan, asilverback gorilla who lives in a cage at the mall who draws with paper and crayons for his owner to sell. While he has convinced himself that his life is not so bad, when he feels obligated to help a fellow animal, he will draw upon all his talents to save her.

 

Do you have a favorite work of art, or book that features art?  Share it in the comments below!

Wendy Shang is the author of The Great Wall of Lucy Wu.

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Second Chances

By on August 22, 2012   /   For Teachers  

I’m writing this as the Olympics end and the athletes go home victorious or defeated, no in-between.  Much as I complain about how hard writing is, I’m thinking lordie lordie, at least nobody watches me do it. No audience cheers or groans as I walk the beam or leap hurdles or execute somersalts from insanely high platforms, all while wearing little more than my own thin skin.  No cameras record and replay ad infinitum my failure to achieve sufficient altitude or my clumsy flip turns.

Of course, writers stumble, fall and land on their own butts all the time, but we get to do it in private, no witnesses.  Happily, the desk doesn’t record how many times we knocked our heads against it, and the keyboard has no comment on how compulsively we dust it while trying to come up with the ending to a scene. Only the coffee mug witnesses the grinding of the teeth, the biting of the nails.

Even better. Writers get to revise.  For us, there’s always more than one chance. Even after something is published, even when we’re reading it in public, we’re apt to slip in one more little edit. No tenth of a point deduction!

I recently read “Splendors and Glooms” by stellar MG author Laura Amy Schlitz. This new novel has a complicated plot told from multiple points of view. A writer could envy how easy Schlitz makes it look—the book features a master pupeteer, and that’s what she seems, pulling all those strings, never getting them tangled. But here is what she has to say about the actual writing and revising:

“This book took me six and a half years to write, and I almost never knew what I was doing…I’d kill off a character in chapter 11, write nine more chapters, and realize I needed the dead man alive again. So I’d throw out the nine chapters—not one of which had been easy to write—and go back to the beginning…It’s hard to keep going back to work that makes you feel profoundly stupid. I kept hoping the book would get easier, but it never did…People who wanted to help me would ask me questions about the plot, and I would glare at them and shriek, ‘I don’t know! I don’t know! It doesn’t make sense!’”

Yikes. I’ve been there (though I tend to shriek behind closed doors).  Getting lost, getting stuck—it’s a maddening, disheartening state.  Yet we’ve always got that second, third, fourth chance to work through it. Revising, as any author will swear, is where the real writing happens.

Lots of writing blogs and books offer revision tips. One I’ve found particularly helpful not just on revising but many aspects of writing and publishing is Scholastic editor Cheryl Klein’s “Second Sight”.  Her chapter Twenty Five Revision Techniques offers tried and true advice like taking time off from the project so you can see it with fresh eyes and compressing the story to one sentence, but also some original and fun exercises to help you judge the success of character, plot and pacing. I especially appreciate the encouragement of Tip # 25: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  We may fudge the take-off or wobble on the landing, but we can work on that. In the end, the main goal is to take our work as far as we can.

Kate Messner is a teacher and a writer who maintains a terrific website, www.katemessner.com I love this quote from her: “I’m an okay writer but I’m a really good reviser.” Kate’s book “Real Revision: Authors’ Strategies to Share with Student Writers” is aimed at teachers taking kids through the writing cycle, but with insights from thirty-five writers including Jane Yolen and Kathi Appelt, it’s a treasure trove for anyone who writes or wants to.

Paul Theroux said, “Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.” I think he was talking about reading, but the words apply as well or even more to writing. Got some of your own revision strategies, or a book or site to share?

Tricia is the author of the award winning middle grade novel “What Happened on Fox Street” and its sequel “Mo Wren, Lost and Found”.  She’s currently deep into revising her new middle grade novel, “Pinch”, but you can find her at www.triciaspringstubb.com    

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