I confess, I’m a book trailer addict. I love the visuals, the music, and the tantalizing teasers that make my want to run out and read a new book!

Have you ever thought about facilitating a class or school activity in helping your students create book trailers of their own for a favorite book?

I discovered a wonderful librarian from an elementary school in Nebraska, Cynthia Stogdill, who recently finished this terrific experience with her students – and she did it in the short time span of a mere two weeks!

Kimberley: How did you first come up with the idea to have your students create book trailers?

Cynthia: My daughter’s former teacher introduced me to book trailers. I was brainstorming different ideas for my after school reading enrichment program, and I thought book trailers would be something we could try. I try to incorporate some creativity, as well as higher level thinking in our activities.

My activity units run for two weeks. We meet on two afternoons a week so everyone has an opportunity to participate at some time. For this activity we did the planning one day, filmed on two days, and had our screening party on the last day.

Kimberley: How did you choose the books?

Cynthia: I let the students pick the books they wanted to feature.  The only stipulation was that they had to have read the book at some time.

Kimberley: Did they work by classes or in teams? Which grades were involved?

Cynthia: Our after-school reading enrichment program is open to our students in grades 1-4, and we also have some older students drop by as well. The students created individual book trailers, but were supported by their peers. They discussed their ideas with each other offering ideas and suggestions before we started the taping process. A few of the students chose not to participate, but they stayed close by, watched, and offered support to the other students.

We kept the process pretty simple and kept the length to less than a minute. That forced the students to be concise and to the point.

Kimberley: Did they write their own script, or storyboard it out like a movie?

Cynthia: I provided the students with a brief questionnaire to help them outline their book trailer.  It consisted of the book’s title, author and/or illustrator, and brief summary of the book. It also included a comment on why someone should or would want to read that particular book.  I encouraged them to prepare that ahead of time and use it as a guide when they were practicing.

Some students followed their outline very closely, and some didn’t use a guide at all. Additionally, I used the questionnaire as a springboard to get them to really think about their book and why they would recommend it to someone.  I wanted them to move to a reflective level of thought.  In general, I think they accomplished this because they were discussing their choices with each other.

Kimberley: How did they film the trailers? What technology did you use?

Cynthia: I did all the filming with my Flip video camera. It’s easy to use, has a two hour memory, and long battery life.  My kids use it to film plays, sock monkeys, and our pets all the time.  It might sound like a commercial, but it is a great all purpose camera at an affordable price. It was perfect for this project.

Kimberley: Did you use any music or sound for the trailers?

Cynthia: Some of the book trailers have a background sound track.  I ripped short pieces of music and overlapped them to create a repeating background track. I avoided using whole pieces of music for copyright reasons.

Kimberley: How were they edited, and how many book trailers were created all together?

Cynthia: I used Windows Moviemaker to create the book trailers – I am a PC person.  After doing some research, I chose this software for our project.  Ideally, something like Garage Band would have been perfect, but I didn’t have ready access to that software. Moviemaker allowed me to edit the clips, piece them together with transitions, add titles and credits, and soundtrack. The software then allows you to transfer the videos onto a DVD.

One can also use photos instead of video clips, so that is an option. Video can be a big challenge but nothing a brave librarian can’t handle.

My students were younger, so the editing process rested on my shoulders and we kept it really simple.  We created about twelve book trailers that were thirty to sixty seconds long. That translated into about eight hours of editing. I think older students would have a great time creating and editing their own work.  If a librarian had access to a good editing program and time to familiarize students with its workings, this would make a great performance assessment.

Kimberley: Did you have any sort of competition with the book trailers? Prizes?

Cynthia: Nope, but in the future, I would have an awards ceremony and find some plastic statues to give to the students – similar to the Oscars. Just for the fun of it.

Kimberley: What was your culminating activity to show off the book trailers?

Cynthia: We finished the book trailer activity with a screening party. The students had popcorn and pretzels, and they were sprawled out on the floor like a movie party. We watched all the book trailers and then I created a Blooper video with some of their outtakes and mistakes. That was the last thing on the DVD.  I think we watched the entire DVD three times.

Our screening also fell on parent teacher conferences and our Book Fair. I had given the DVD to the principal after our party, and she actually had it running in a conference room for parents to stop in and watch.

Kimberley: The Book Fair Parent night is a great way to let the parents see the children’s book trailers!

Cynthia: Looking back, I wish we would have had the DVD running for both nights of parent-teacher conferences and the Book Fair. Unfortunately, we had some snow days and I really wanted the students to be the first ones to watch the DVD. 

Kimberley: Any closing thoughts or tips?

Cynthia: The Moviemaker program takes a little practice, but it was fun and pretty straightforward.  This activity will definitely make an appearance in the future. I am so proud of the students and their focus and commitment to putting together something really special.

Kimberley: You make this whole process seem very doable for any school or classroom. Thank you so much, Cynthia, for being with us here at FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES!

Some of my favorite Middle-Grade book trailers from the last few months:

This trailer was made with original music and filmed on location

A beautiful new historical in verse that just launched last week.

Book trailer made by some kids, very fun and pretty professional.

Kimberley’s busy eating buttered popcorn while enjoying the latest trailers and books of 2012. Please find her at the Tucson Book Festival March 11 and in Chicago at IRA April 29 presenting an all day Author’s Panel and signing at the Scholastic booth, Monday, April 30th from 3-4 p.m. www.kimberleygriffithslittle.com

I have a confession to make. I fully intended this post to be about body image in middle grade novels. I had recently written about various issues of body image in YA novels, and, remembering fantastic MG books from my own childhood like Paula Danzinger’s The Cat Ate My Gymsuit and Judy Blume’s Blubber, I wanted to explore the many current day middle grade novels tackling the tricky issues of weight, disordered eating, body difference, and self image.

But I couldn’t find them.

I begged my brilliant fellow Mixed Up Files bloggers for suggestions and found this great site on body image in picture books as well as MG and YA novels. Although some of the middle grade titles suggested look fascinating (including Susan Shreve’s Jonah the Whale and Pamela Todd’s Pig and the Shrink), the truth is, most of the books we immediately thought of, including Allen Zadoff’s Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have, Robin Brande‘s Fat Cat, Erin Dionne‘s Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies and Carolyn Mackler‘s The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things were actually young adult novels.

I kept searching, growing increasingly frustrated, until I stepped back and decided to re-examine my assumptions. Certainly, there are middle grade novels out there portraying characters with disabilities. Last year, I posted here at From the Mixed Up Files on the topic, and since then, have found several other fantastic book lists of disability in children’s literature, including this one at YA highway (MG novels included here).

But it occurred to me that while there are surely some middle grade books out there dealing with body image in the same realistic way as Danzinger or Blume (please feel free to share them below!), many are choosing to take difference (both within the realm of ‘different’ able bodies and disabilities) and put it on its head, such that kids’ ‘non-normative’ bodies, abilities, or conditions aren’t problems, but assets.

Consider Rick Riordan’s choice to have his protagonist Percy Jackson’s ADHD be a sign of his demi-god status. What’s called hyperactivity in modern life is in fact the quick reflexes required for battling gorgons and monsters. And Percy’s dyslexia? Why that’s of course because his brain is wired to read ancient Greek, not English. Even secondary characters in Riordan’s series have disabilities that in fact mask their superpowers. Percy’s wheelchair bound teacher is the mythical centaur warrior Chiron (whose special chair magically hides the fact he has the the lower body of a horse), and his best friend Grover’s leg braces and crutches mask the fact that he has goat’s fur and hooves, because he is a satyr.

Or consider Michael Buckley’s N.E.R.D.S (National Espionage, Rescue and Defense Society), in which braces and headgear, buck teeth, asthma and a tendency to eat paste all become secret weapons – the ability to walk on ceilings, for instance (the kid who eats paste, Agent Name: Gluestick) or fly around using an asthma inhaler and nebulizer (Agent Name: Wheezer). Similarly, Ross Venkur’s titular hero in The Autobiography of Meatball Finkelstein is an overweight, socially ostracized vegetarian who discovers that eating meatballs actually gives him superpowers.

Or what about Gitty Daneshvari‘s School of Fear books in which, four twelve-year-olds with morbid phobias – including of confined spaces, water, bugs, and death — are forced to face their worst fears in order to escape a bizarre school run by a seemingly crazy ex-beauty queen. Similar frady-cats headline Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Lenore Look’s Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School and Other Scary Things where wimpiness is, if not a virtue, at least a relate-able state of being. No longer the marginalized sidekick or pick-on-able freak, these wimps are the heroes of their series.

As fellow Mixed Up Files blogger Erin E. Moulton points out, many invincible characters in books are of common upbringing but are ennobled by a lofty cause like glory, truth, honor, or love. The ‘different’, potentially marginalized kids in these middle grade books are in fact ennobled and empowered by that which would otherwise be seen as their deficits.

I find this trend in middle grade fiction not only fun and appealing, allowing kids of all shapes, sizes, abilities and bodies to see themselves as protagonists and heroes, but also a sort of political gesture – to stop framing difference as solely a problem. In the groundbreaking The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Dubois asked “How Does it Feel to Be a Problem?” Since that time, marginalized communities have used this idea to critique and address the way we are represented, such that we are not problems but three dimensional people.

A similar rallying cry has been taken up by some sectors of the children’s literature community. Kidlit authors from David Levithan to Mitali Perkins have long made the point that books about LGBTQ kids and kids of color need to stop treating sexuality and ethnicity as only traumatizing, only oppressive, or only a problem – but rather celebrate the ordinary, funny, silly, and romantic lives of queer and of color kids as well. The modern middle grade books discussed above are taking a comparable step with kids of various abilities and bodies. Like activist movements organized around the concept of “pride” including gay pride, disability pride, and mad pride, these books are (consciously or unconsciously) portraying difference from a position of pride and (super)power.

Now, certainly, if kidlit were to only ‘brightside’ difference, that too would be problematic – despite recent bru-ha-has in the venerable Wall Street Journal on the subject, one important function of children’s literature is to reflect back to young people their own lives, worlds, and problems. Yet, it is clear that there is a canon of realistic (YA and MG) literature doing this quite well already.

In re-framing otherwise non-normative, marginalized bodies and abilities as ‘superpowers,’ these middle grade books are making room for difference as an asset to be celebrated rather than simply a problem to be ‘dealt with.’ (Which is a trend begun perhaps with the X-Men and other similar comics but that’s a longer blog post!) In doing so, these authors have created some fantastic stories. A kid James Bond who makes spy gadgets with braces and headgear? Sounds like a superhero any kid would like to meet; and any kid can imagine becoming.

What are your favorite MG titles celebrating ‘difference’ as a superpower? Or some modern MG titles we missed on body image?

If Sayantani DasGupta had a nerdy superpower, it would be a supersonic beam that blasts out of her mouth every time she laughs (because she laughs embarrassingly loudly). But, as Spidey would say, with great power comes great responsibility…

It’s a great, big, beautiful world out there and if there’s one thing I love, it’s reading about places I’ve never been. I love a book that takes me away, shows me new sights, feeds me delicious food, and teaches me about the traditions, languages, dress, and relationships of another people. Shooting Kabul does just that and today we welcome Naheed Hasnat (N. H. Senzai), author of this award-winning, fun and fact-filled middle-grade novel that will surely charm you.

Me: Welcome to the Mixed-Up Files, Naheed!                                  

Naheed: Thanks for inviting me!

Let’s start with a brief description of Shooting Kabul from Indiebound:

“In the summer of 2001, twelve-year-old Fadi’s parents make the difficult decision to illegally leave Afghanistan and move the family to the United States. But in the chaos of their departure, Fadi’s six-year-old sister gets lost in the crowd—and is left behind.

Adjusting to life in the United States isn’t easy for Fadi’s family, and as the events of September 11th unfold, the prospects of locating Mariam in war-torn Afghanistan seem slim. When a photography competition with a grand prize trip to India is announced, Fadi sees his chance to return to Afghanistan and find his sister. But can one photo really bring Mariam home?”

 

 

Me: Shooting Kabul opens with the main character, Fadi, and his family fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan. As they board the truck that will take them across the border to safety in Pakistan, the terror and confusion of the moment causes Fadi’s little sister to be left behind. Fadi blames himself. Not long after Fadi arrives in America, the country plunges into sorrow with the attacks on September 11, 2001. Shooting Kabul accurately and sensitively describes the sadness, anger, and bewilderment of that time. Fadi’s personal loss and guilt about his missing sister, his fear of fitting in to a new culture, as well as the tumultuous politics of the time worries him throughout the story.   

 Talk a little bit about why you were drawn to write this story and how your personal background influenced the emotion of the writing. What significance do you hope readers take away from the story?

Naheed: I actually didn’t want to write Shooting Kabul and resisted it for many years. Why? Because it deals with many sensitive and personal issues—9-11, the war on terror, Islam, Afghan culture and politics, coupled with my husband’s family’s escape from Kabul, Afghanistan in 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded. Like Fadi’s father, my father-in-law had been a professor of Agriculture at Kabul University and earned his PhD at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was forced to make a terrible decision in 1979, like Fadi’s family, and they escaped Kabul and immigrated to the United States.

But no matter how much I resisted, the story niggled, so finally, I was compelled to tell it. My greatest challenge in writing the book was to make sure I didn’t resort to clichés and sensationalism when telling Fadi’s story; so after much thought I decided to write a fictionalized account of my husband’s journey while explaining the complexities and nuances of Afghan culture and politics in a way that could be understood by young and old alike. Also, I wanted to take a look at 9-11 and how it impacted all ethnic and religious communities. At a time when America contemplates its role in Afghanistan, my hope is that readers don’t automatically think of Afghans as “others.” Although the two countries are different in many ways, the people of both have the same hopes and dreams  – security, education for their children, access to healthcare, employment and hope for a positive future. And kids are kids everywhere; they play, learn, form friendships, and pursue their passions.

 

Afghan children in traditional dress.

 

Me: Shooting Kabul is full of rich references to Pukhtun culture, including traditional dress, food, rituals, and religion. Fadi lives in a section of Fremont in the Bay Area, California, called “Little Kabul.” The story is a snapshot of immigrant life in this neighborhood. How much time did you spend in “Little Kabul” while researching and how much of the setting is fictionalized?

Naheed: I did a lot of research while writing the book! Since I’m not an Afghan, I wanted to make sure I had all the details right. My in-laws, who are Afghan, were very helpful in getting the history, food and cultural parts correct – especially the concept of Pukhtunwali, the code of honor that the Pukhtuns live by. I also did a lot of research on the Internet, the library and talking to people. One of my biggest goals was to be accurate while writing about these subjects. As you can imagine, there is tremendous complexity in explaining things like terrorism, Afghan culture, Islamic practices etc. and I wanted to do it in a nuanced, truthful way. I live fifteen minutes away from Little Kabul and go to the stores and restaurants there often. Most of the places in the book are real and you can visit them, though I’ve changed the names of a few.

Me: Your descriptions of Pukhtun dishes are mouth-watering. What are some of your favorite foods from the story that you would recommend our readers try?

Naheed: Since I love to eat and cook, particularly Afghan food, I talk a lot about food and eating in the book. Afghan food is delicious – geographically it lies on the edge  of Asia and the Middle East, bordering Pakistan, Iran, China and Central Asia. Afghan food is a perfect blend of Indian, Persian and Central Asia flavors. I would recommend going in to an Afghan restaurant, or better yet find an Afghan friend – they are very hospitable, and love to feed their guests. I mentioned many dishes in the book, like Kabuli Pulao (rice with lamb sprinkled with candied carrots and raisins), Bolani (a flat bread filled with spiced potatoes), and many Kabobs (fragrant, flavorful grilled meat) and of course one of my favorites, Mantu (an Afghan style ravioli) which is Mariam’s favorite dish and one that Fadi can’t bring himself to eat until his sister is found.

Delicious Mantu and Naheed's recipe

Ask an adult to give you a hand in the kitchen and try Fadi’s favorite dish.   

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lb ground beef

1 tbsp salt (as needed)

1 tbsp pepper (as needed)

1 ½ tbsp coriander ground

¼ tbsp cumin ground

2 cups chopped onion

1 package wonton wrappers

2 tbsp tomato paste

6 tbsp oil

¾ cup yogurt

¼ tbsp dried mint

2 mashed garlic gloves

1) Mantu Filling: Heat 5 tbsp oil and add 1 ½ cups onion. sauté till softened. Add 1 lb ground beef, salt, pepper, cumin, coriander and 1/2 cup water and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. Let it cool off.

2) Place wrappers on a cutting board and keep a cup of water in a bowl nearby.  Take a wrapper and dip your index finger in the bowl of water and rub the edges of the wrapper to make it wet. Place one tablespoon of the beef mixture on the bottom half of the wrapper. Bring the other half on top of the bottom half making a triangle. Take two opposite corners each in different hands and seal them together making a bow. Place oil in a bowl and dip the bottoms of the filled mantu and place them in a steam cooker. Steam the dumplings for about 25 minutes or longer, on a medium heat.

3) Sauce: In a medium saucepan heat tablespoon oil and sauté onions till translucent. Add remaining beef and brown for 5-8 minutes over medium heat. Add with tomato paste and cook on medium-low heat for 10 minutes.

4) Yogurt: Add garlic, 2 teaspoons water and salt to taste, mix.

5) To serve, pour a layer of the yogurt on a flat serving plate then place the mantu on top. Place another layer of yogurt on top and add a layer of the beef sauce. Sprinkle some fresh or dry mint on top of the plate.

Me: I can’t wait to try Mantu! In Shooting Kabul, Fadi forms a small but diverse, multicultural group of friends at school yet he faces bullying because his family is Muslim. You confront this issue with grace. How is Fadi a typical American middle school kid and how is he different?

Naheed: For thousands of years, Afghanistan has been a battle ground for outsiders – Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan came with their armies, as did the British and the Soviets. All attempted to conquer and occupy, yet failed. Internally, the country has faced ethnic tensions between various groups—Pukhtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, and others. Coming to America, it would be natural for Fadi to adjust to a multicultural community. So in this regard, he is a typical kid, fitting into a new place. And initially the bullying against Fadi and his friends starts out not because of ethnic issues, but over money, where the bullies make the younger kids give them their lunch money. But after 9-11 the mood of the country changes, and this affects children as well. What they hear around them is reflected at school. So, in the story, this highlights that Fadi is targeted because he is “other” – Muslim, Middle Eastern.

Me: What would you like to say to readers about bullying?

Naheed: Bullying is never okay. My definition of bullying is that  if someone says or does something to you that makes you uncomfortable, then that is a form of bullying. Combating bullying should be a task for an entire community which involves parents, teachers and the children affected. Sadly, bullying is on the rise and the roots causes of bullying need to be understood. Children affected by bullying should be empowered to realize that there is nothing wrong with them and that they need to find the support to end it.

Me: *nods and agrees and hopes anyone in fear finds a trusted adult to help* The word “shooting” in your title refers to photography. Fadi is a budding photographer with a keen eye for detail. Along with classmates, he enters a prestigious regional photography contest to try to win a trip that will take him to a country close to where the family suspects his sister is trapped. Why did you choose this talent for Fadi’s character?

Naheed: The idea to include photography in Shooting Kabul came to me when I found an old copy of National Geographic I had had for many years, which has a picture of an Afghan refugee girl on the cover. It is a photo that inspired me to take up photography as a hobby. Here it is:

Original cover from National Geographic--photo by Steve McMurry

Naheed continues: Steve McMurry is the renowned photojournalist who took this image of the “Afghan Girl”, who was on the cover of the National Geographic on June 1985. Steve had taken the picture of girl with the haunting green eyes at the refugee camp in Pakistan during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After the magazine came out, thousands of people contacted Steve to know about the girl – they wanted to help her, adopt her, or even marry her.

Steve looked for her for many years and couldn’t find her. Finally, 17 years later, he finally did.

National Geographic, "A Life Revealed"

They confirmed it was her by using the picture of her iris – the blood vessels acted as a fingerprint, identifying her, since no two people have the same layout of blood vessels. As I looked at pictures of refugee children, I thought how horrible it would be if, in the process of escaping, a brother were to lose his younger sister when her hand slipped through his. With that thought, the plot of the book developed, and I knew photography would lead the final resolution of the book. After I wrote the book, I sent a copy to Steve McMurry, since part of the inspiration for the book came from his picture, and photography plays an important role in the book. I’m happy to report he loved the book and gave it a glowing review.

Me: That is so cool, Naheed. I have the feeling you’ve just inspired young photographers! Shooting Kabul certainly inspired me in many ways, for many reasons. I’ll bet you get a lot of questions from readers. Will you share one of your favorites? 

Naheed: One of the most interesting questions I’ve had was from a student who wanted to know if my in-laws were happy with the book and whether anyone thought that I’d written something wrong. I told her that thankfully, they were all happy and I was in their good graces still!

Thank you for joining us today, Naheed, and it was a pleasure meeting you!

It’s a great, big, wonderful world out there and if you’d like to ask Naheed a question about Shooting Kabul or Afghan life as Fadi sees it, she’s agreed to stick around for a couple days. Just post your question in the comment section below. Don’t forget to check out her website and blog at: www.nhsenzai.com and http://nahasen.blogspot.com/

Diana Greenwood is the author of INSIGHT, Zondervan, 2011. She lives in the Napa Valley and through books, travels everywhere in the world.  Visit her at www.dianagreenwood.com