I finished reading Elizabeth’s novel Burning Marguerite just hours before the reading, so I loved hearing her read and talk about her process. Burning Marguerite is a beautifully written book that reminded me of Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News. If you missed this one when it came out a few years ago, it’s definitely a novel worthy of these last couple weeks of summer.
#5 – My composting worms have become little garbage-eating machines down in the basement.
Last week, I gave the worms a pretty healthy collection of cucumber and zucchini scraps and pear cores. Here’s what was left —
Just a tissue paper-thin skin from the cucumber peels.
And the end I cut off a zucchini, in the process of being devoured.
At the moment, they’re chowing down on melon rinds, banana peels, and coffee grounds. My vermicomposting bible, Mary Appelhof’s Worms Eat My Garbage, says you can dump in the coffee grounds pretty much every day. I do it, but I keep giggling, imagining thousands of little worms all revved up on caffeine. Maybe that’s why they’re getting so much done.
I was going to post a new picture of my composting worms, but when I went to check on them today, they were all too busy eating cucumber peels and yelled at me to close the lid.
Instead, I offer up the most random collection of links you ever did see…
1. I am extremely entertained by this concept.
Click here to spell your own name — or whatever — with Flickr.
3. School librarian Stacy Dillon has started a great blog called Welcome to My Tweendom, reviewing books for those 10, 11, and 12-year-old kids who seem to be stuck in limbo between the children’s room and the YA room at the library.
5. Oprah’s Reading List for kids is out, and it’s pretty darn good. Usually, I’m not much of a fan of reading lists because kids, like the rest of us, like all kinds of different books. But Oprah has some serious clout in our culture, and I’m pleased to see her using it to promote reading. I was impressed with the variety of titles on the list, too — many of which I recommend often in my own classroom.
7. When I walk down the aisle of an airplane to get to my seat, I always look to see what everyone is reading. Sometimes I’ll ask strangers questions about their books. This horrifies my children, but I keep telling them it could be worse. Sonya Worthy has a blog called People Reading, in which she not only checks out the books strangers are reading; she takes pictures, interviews them, and uploads the whole thing to share with the world. That allows the rest of us to gawk away without embarrassing our kids quite so often.
I’ve blogged several reviews of books that feature characters with autism. Cynthia Lord’s Rules and Judith Mammay’s Knowing Joseph are terrific titles that are out now. And I’m really looking forward to my agent-mate Tara Kelly’s debut YA novel Harmonic Feedback (Henry Holt, 2010), which features a character with a form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome. My interest in these books is enhanced by a personal connection, since my 14-year-old nephew Danny is autistic.
Great strides have been made in autism research, but there is still so much work to be done. My brother, Tom Schirmer, is running in the Marine Corps Marathon – Run for Autism this October to raise money for the Organization for Autism Research. Autism affects so many families.
If this is a cause you’d like to support, please click on the ribbon to visit Tom’s fund-raising page and learn more about how you can help.
In many ways, Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning (Walker Books, August 2008) is a coming-of-age story, but here’s the thing… Violet Raines is coming of age on her own terms and in her own sweet time.
Danette Haworth’s debut middle grade novel is perfect for kids like Violet who aren’t in a hurry to grow up, girls who are still more interested in mud pies than makeup. Violet faces her share of issues — a long time boy friend whose really nice eyes she’s suddenly noticing, a new girl who just moved to town from the city, and a best friend who thinks that glamorous lifestyle is pretty interesting. It throws Violet for a loop, and when her friend’s family faces financial troubles, Violet has to decide what’s really important through all those crazy changes.
There are so many things to praise about this novel — the lively, quirky characters, Violet’s fabulous voice, the Florida-in-summer setting, painted so perfectly I kept swatting imaginary mosquitoes while I read.
I loved this book. Really loved it, the way I love fireflies and lake swimming and ice cream cones in summer. Any kid you know who loves that sort of thing is going to love it, too.
And another book note… Tomorrow is the last day to enter Debbi Michiko-Florence’s contest to win a copy of her great book CHINA, full of projects and activities, just in time for the start of the Summer Olympics in Beijing! To enter, follow this link to her blog for details.
Blog readers who said “Eewww!” about my baby spiders and giant slug photos might want to skip this one.
But if you like dirt and squishy things and organic gardening, read on…
See this bin?
Two thousand redworms (Eisenia Foetida) are buried in the mulchy stuff and shredded newspaper right now, eating yesterday’s kitchen scraps. And there may actually be more than two thousand by now because I hear they reproduce quickly.
That’s right…. The Messner family basement is now a vermicomposting center. The kids helped me set up the bin last week, and the worms arrived three days ago.
Kinda cute, aren’t they? In a wormy sort of way?
The worm bin has three tiers. You fill the bottom layer with bedding and worms and then start adding kitchen scraps. (They’re eating cucumber peels at the moment.) When it’s full, you add the next layer and start burying your scraps in that one. The layers are separated by a screen through which the worms can crawl. When they’re finished eating all the garbage in the bottom layer, they mosey on up to the next layer, leaving behind the worm castings that are so good for my giant pumpkin plants. You dump out the castings, refill that tier with bedding, and put it back on the top of the worm bin. Cool, huh?
I’ll keep you posted on their progress, and if you want to learn more about vermicomposting, Mary Appelhof’s terrrific book Worms Eat My Garbage has all kinds of juicy details on the process and how it works.
When I read, I read not only as a lover of story, but also as a writer and a teacher. Some books really speak to the writer in me…the one who loves a beautifully turned phrase, a well-placed detail. Some books speak to the teacher…the one who loves the historical details, believes in “the truth inside the lie,” as Stephen King described fiction, and takes frequent breaks from reading to fantasize about how much fun it will be to share the text with students. And some books…well…some books speak to the story lover and carry her away on wings of words.
Once in a while, I read a truly unique book that speaks powerfully to all three. In the past few weeks, I’ve read advance reader copies of two of those amazing books, both by writers named Anderson, coincidentally, and both about the choices faced by slaves during the American Revolution.
CHAINS by Laurie Halse Anderson tells the story of Isabel, a slave trapped in New York City in the early days of the Revolution. Sold to Loyalists when her former owner dies, she’s offered the chance to spy for the Patriots. But does their talk of liberty really include her? What about the British, who promise freedom to slaves who join their fight against the rebels?
This book is impeccably researched in a way that not only convinced me I was getting “the real deal” as far as the historical details are concerned but also transported me straight back into the 18th century. Some historical novels that have tackled this issue in the past have made it overly simple, but CHAINS is different. The historical context isn’t simplified, the Patriot cause isn’t glorified, and the characters are flawed, complex, and rich. As a reader and as a teacher, I am in serious book-love, and I already have plans to use this novel in my 7th grade classroom next year. CHAINS is a well-researched look at choices made by individuals during the Revolution, a coming-of-age story for a girl and a nation, and an absolute page-turner. It’s everything that historical fiction ought to be.
While I read CHAINS in two days, it took me several weeks to get through M.T. Anderson’s THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING, TRAITOR TO THE NATION, VOLUME II: THE KINGDOM ON THE WAVES. Not because it wasn’t good. It was amazing. But it was a difficult book to read on a few levels. M.T. Anderson is right up near the top on the list of the smartest people I’ve ever encountered, and his prose is dense. The 18th century language of this series occasionally requires a dictionary. More than that, though, Octavian’s story is difficult to read because it feels so, so raw.
Like CHAINS, this book looks at the experience of slaves in the American Revolution through the eyes of an individual – in this case, Octavian Nothing, who grew up as the subject of scientific and philosophical experiments by a group of elite Boston men and in this latest volume, joins Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment to fight the Rebels. Octavian’s life and his choices are based on the experiences of many slaves during this time period. Anderson tells his story with a detachment that is somehow analytical and yet deeply personal and emotional all at once. It’s an amazing, amazing book. And I especially love the way it ends – with an author’s note that challenges us to consider not only the past but the present.
If you have any interest at all in American history, read both of these books when they come out this fall. You’ll be transported by the masterful storytelling. You’ll come away with a deeper sense of our history as a nation — for better or for worse. And you’ll be thinking abut Isabel and Octavian for a long, long time.
I’ve been sitting on a secret for a while…but the cat is out of the bag at Publishers Marketplace today.
July 28, 2008
Children’s: Middle grade
Kate Messner’s untitled book about a 12-year-old girl who has until the end of the week to finish her huge 7th grade leaf project, but she faces comic catastrophes (and real drama) at every turn to Walker Children’s, for publication in Fall 2009, by Jennifer Laughran at Andrea Brown Literary Agency.
I *heart* my new editor at Walker and am so excited to be working with her.
There’s an interesting thread over at Verla Kay’s discussion boards for children’s writers and illustrators right now. It’s about the editorial letter — the letter that shows up from your editor a few weeks or months after your book has been sold. Editorial letters can be anywhere from a few lines to many pages, and they talk about what your editor would like to see in revisions before your book goes to copy editing.
I’m in the middle of two revisions with two different editors right now, and I completely understand the feeling of being overwhelmed (especially when someone is, you know, expecting to see a new draft by a certain date – yikes!). With both, I found that I read the editorial letter and then left it on a corner of my desk for a few days, stealing glances at it like it was some wild animal that had gotten into the house that I wasn’t sure how to deal with. Kind of like the time I opened our garage door and found a raccoon up on the shelf next to the sidewalk chalk, gnawing on a corn cob from the garbage and staring at me with red alien eyes. I crept away quietly and went inside to think about it for a while.
The raccoon wandered away on its own. My editorial letters don’t do that, though, so it helps me a lot to take a letter and turn it into a very simple, bulleted, to-do list on a single sheet of paper. That allows me to sit down and pick ONE JOB each night, crossing it off when I’m done. It makes the whole thing feel much more manageable. Right now, my to-do list looks like this:
New beginning – add classroom scene Make time frame clear VG – change so she’s not new at school KB – add character trait Annie- develop idea of 2 worlds Add conversation w/ teacher Add scene w/ James More scenes w/ Sparky New ending
Does anyone else have tips/tricks/words of wisdom for digging into a revision after the editorial letter arrives?
I visited with a great group of kids at the South Burlington Community Library today — a perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. I read from Spitfire as well as my upcoming release, Champlain and the Silent One. We imagined ourselves as French and Native fur traders in the early 17th century, and we worked our way through an 18th century sailor’s haversack to see what kinds of things they carried during the Battle of Valcour Island in the American Revolution.
As part of my Spitfire presentation, I often pass out samples of hardtack so kids can see what kinds of rations the sailors had in the weeks leading up to battle. I always pass the basket around with a warning…. “Be careful not to bite down quickly because it’s really, really hard.”
Well, today it finally happened. If you look closely at the right side of Alaina’s mouth, you can see the hole where her tooth used to be before she sampled my hardtack.
Actually, the tooth fell out a little while after the presentation. Alaina and her mom drove back to the library to show me. She even let me take her picture so she can be the “be-careful-eating-hardtack” poster girl forever more. Thankfully, the tooth was already very loose before today’s author visit, so I don’t think there will be legal action.
Thanks to librarian Marje Von Ohlsen for inviting me today, to Alaina for being such a good sport, and to all the South Burlington kids and parents who made my rainy Thursday afternoon so much fun.
In many ways, Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning (Walker Books, August 2008) is a coming-of-age story, but here’s the thing… Violet Raines is coming of age on her own terms and in her own sweet time. 
