Lake Champlain is pretending it’s the ocean this morning, waves crashing on the shore, licking at the rowboat pulled up on the rocks. Pretty soon, my daughter and I will head to Vermont to meet up with writer-friends for some plotting on a secret bookish-readerish project. It’s going to be a fun ferry ride, for sure. If you don’t know how it works on a day like this, you might be tempted to walk right up to the railing to see the waves…and that would be fine until the boat turned just a bit…and said waves came sloshing over the bow of the boat. (“Oh, yay!” daughter said, looking out at the lake this morning. “This will be a PERFECT day to watch the tourists get splashed when they get out of their cars!)
Thunderstorms notwithstanding, it’s been a lovely summer on Lake Champlain, full of boat rides and swimming, shouting kids and book-reading on the porch. More than a few rainbows, too.
My first picture book, SEA MONSTER’S FIRST DAY, is reviewed in the New York Times this weekend, by none other than celebrity reviewer Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket of Series of Unfortunate Events fame.
My 10-year-old daughter’s reaction? “Mom! Lemony Snicket READ your book?!”
We’re big Snicket fans at the Messner house. My daughter is constantly reading on our car trips, and frequently calls up from the back seat, “Turn down the radio! You have to hear this part,” and then shares a page or two of classic Snicket snark.
So it wasn’t entirely surprising when Handler’s review of Sea Monster was…well…a little lemony.
But still…the New York Times? Pretty cool stuff.
The fact that Sea Monster’s First Day is my best-selling book and seems to be connecting with its intended audience makes a slightly sour review much easier to take. Who knows? Maybe Ernest the Sea Monster will send Mr. Snicket a thank you note. 🙂
Summer is for reading, and I’m happy to report I’ve read some amazing books lately. Here’s a quick rundown of some favorites…
BETWEEN by Jessica Warman
There’s not much more dramatic than a main character who discovers her own body, lifeless and floating next to the family’s boat the morning after a party, in the very first chapter. So begins Jessica Warman’s BETWEEN, a young adult novel about the death and life-after-death of Liz Valchar, a pretty and privileged teenager who finds that even after she dies, she has a lot to learn. Part ghost story, part thriller, part romance, and part mystery, this is a page turner of a novel that was pretty much impossible for me to put down. What impressed me the most is that the main character, for all of her rich-girl flaws, turned out to be incredibly likable. In fact, the whole book is peopled with characters who are far, far from perfect but managed to find their way into my heart all the same.
I’ve heard this book compared to THE LOVELY BONES, and it’s similar in that it’s narrated from beyond the grave, but I felt like the writing in BETWEEN was stronger, and there were so many more layers. Fans of Lauren Oliver’s BEFORE I FALL will enjoy this one, and high school teachers and librarians should take note that while it’s a title that will pull in reluctant readers, BETWEEN would also be a great choice for literature circle discussions. The characters are so multifaceted, and there’s much to talk about here, from choices and consequences to friendships and forgiveness. Highly recommended for high school readers – and a lot of middle school kids who read up are going to love it, too. Teachers of younger students should just be sure to read first; it’s probably one you’ll only recommend to those more mature middle school kids who have already crossed the bridge from MG into YA.
HIDDEN by Helen Frost
The premise of this book should hook kids right from the start: When one girl is accidentally abducted when her mother’s car is stolen, the daughter of the car thief, a child the same age, quietly helps her by bringing her food while she’s hiding in the family’s garage. Years later, those same girls meet at summer camp, recognize one another, and come face to face (literally) with the past that connects them.
Written in verse, with two unique voices and an unusual format twist, this is a quick read that’s emotional, compelling, and beautifully crafted. The white space of the format and high-interest hook make it a great choice for reluctant readers and avid readers alike. Highly recommended.
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan
This book is brilliant. When a friend recommended it and I read on the back that it’s about “aging punk rockers,” I have to admit, I was skeptical. But Egan sucked me in with a stunning first chapter and didn’t let go. And really, the book isn’t about aging punk rockers at all. It’s about how hard it is to be a person – and how beautiful it is, too.
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD is a sweeping story that manages to time travel, jump continents, switch narrator and point-of-view with every chapter, and even change structures along the way (one chapter’s a magazine article; one is written in PowerPoint slides). It sounds bizarre, but it works in a way that’s beautiful, haunting, and real. The characters — and there are a lot of them (I did some flipping around to remember who everybody was and how they were related) are achingly, imperfectly real. I really recommend this one, but give yourself some time to read it so you can savor the language and stop to think along the way. You’ll want to do that.
What about you? What have you been reading & loving this summer? Anything I absolutely must add to my list?
The folks at the Highlights Foundation invited me down for a visit last week, to see the beautiful property where the Founders Workshops take place and to visit with the writers who were there on retreat with author/editor extraordinaire Carolyn Yoder. The drive through New York’s Southern Tier and the Delaware River Valley to the Poconos was beautiful – so many great small spots along the way. Like the Masonville General Store…
…and Butterfields Cafe.
If you’re ever hungry in Deposit, NY…Butterfields is a tiny, charming place with all organic produce and poultry.
Once we arrived in Honesdale, Miss Annie, one of the Highlights interns, welcomed us at the foundation’s offices in Honesdale and took us on a tour that included this office mascot, Giggy.
(It’s actually a model a model of a Giganotosaurus Skull that was used in a promotion a while back)
We got to see some fun sample crafts that Highlights creates to be photographed for all of their craft features in the magazine…
…and the piles of children’s writing and artwork submissions being considered for the kids’ pages.
My daughter was delighted when the Highlights folks pulled out the September 2009 issue in which her mermaid poem appeared. She was tickled to know that her original poem is living in a giant creativity warehouse in Ohio, where all the other past submissions are stored.
We got to see the very first issue of Highlights from 1946.
Some of the features made us smile.
It was great fun to see how the style of the magazine and the depiction of kids and parents (moms especially!) has changed over the years. And then it was off to Boyds Mills to the retreat property.
It’s easy to see why the Highlights Foundation Workshops draw people from all over the country. It’s a remote and beautiful place to write and learn.
Thanks, Highlights family, for a lovely visit to your corner of the world.
I have a book due at the end of August, so much of this summer has been spent covered in Post-It Notes in my writing room or holed up in coffee shops. (I’m the one muttering to myself at the laptop over in the corner.) But today was a hike-to-the-pond day.
I wore what my family affectionately calls my “funny toe shoes” hiking for the first time. It worked out well – and was, as the ads promise, the next best thing to being barefoot. This is a good thing, as I’m not overly fond of shoes in July and August.
Copperas Pond, just outside of Lake Placid in the Adirondacks, is one of my family’s favorite summer hiking & swimming spots. There’s just enough of a climb to keep casual swimmers away. There are big jumping rocks with deep water below them. There are flat rocks for sunning — and this view to take in from the shore…
And there are frogs. Oh, are there ever frogs. In every stage of development.
This pond was one of the inspirations for MARTY MCGUIRE. Marty, a third grader who loves science and nature, would love it here, and every time we come, I think of her. It’s a perfect spot for girls who love frogs…and authors who write about them, too.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that my first book for teachers, REAL REVISION: AUTHORS’ STRATEGIES TO SHARE WITH STUDENT WRITERS, was released from Stenhouse this summer. I’m celebrating with a series of author interviews on the topic of real revision…the nitty gritty, make-the-book-better strategies that some of my favorite authors use when they’re revising a project. Today, I’m following up with one of the authors featured in the book, Karen Day.
First…a little about Karen’s latest book, A MILLION MILES FROM BOSTON…
Sometimes, kids who read my novels write to me and ask what else I think they’d like – so I’ve started keeping a list of other books – stories about regular kids that feel right for 5th, 6th, and 7th graders who haven’t made that leap to older young adult titles. Karen Day’s A MILLION MILES FROM BOSTON is one of those books.
Lucy’s excited about spending the summer before middle school at her family’s cottage in Maine…until she gets there and realizes things are going to be different this summer. There’s a new family (including the most annoying boy in her school at home), new plans for the community’s Big House, and worst of all…a new woman in her dad’s life, and this one looks like she’s going to be around a while. It makes Lucy long for her mom, who died when she was six…and makes her wish things could go back to the way they were. But sometimes, getting older means looking at things a little differently, seeing the other side, and Lucy’s summer in Maine, “a million miles from Boston,” helps her do just that. This is a lovely, fun, and heartfelt book full of beautifully drawn characters that I think young readers are going to love as much as I did.
Karen talked about her revision process for this book in REAL REVISION, but I asked her if she’d elaborate a bit more, and share some additional details of her process. Here’s what she had to say:
Once I have a rough draft (which to me is the most difficult aspect of writing), I always breathe a bit deeper. For me, revision is where the real work begins. And the fun. Over the years I’ve worked hard at developing my revision process. Sometimes I add to it or take away. Mostly it stays the same from book to book.
By far my favorite revision strategy is one that I learned at a NESCBWI conference 10 years ago. This is it: I tear apart the novel and look at it in pieces. First, I make a list of the threads and themes (I like to write with lots of themes). For example, one of the threads in A MILLION MILES FROM BOSTON is Lucy and the camp she runs. One of the themes is that people can “see” the same event but “view” it differently. Once I’ve made a list – which might add up to a dozen – I’ll take the very first thread or theme and follow it – and only it! – from beginning to end. This way I can tell if I’ve repeated myself and/or I’m not moving the narrative forward. Then I go back and follow the next thread or theme. This process can take months, and it’s a bit unnerving because you’re constantly looking at your novel in such a narrow way. But after this process when I read straight through, I’m always amazed at how well it works!
Thanks, Karen! (Reading this made me smile because Lucy’s camp was one of my favorite parts of the book – it made me want to open a summer camp of my own!)
If you love realistic middle grade novels and haven’t read A MILLION MILES FROM BOSTON yet, it’s one you’ll definitely want to add to your to-read list!
Most of us are reading summer books right now, or maybe looking forward to titles that will come out in the fall. But the folks at Scholastic are spending this week in Summer of 2012, learning about the new titles that will launch in that season, finalizing covers, and planning for how they’ll introduce those new offerings to booksellers, teachers, librarians, and readers.
My middle grade mystery, THE STAR SPANGLED SETUP, is part of that list. It’s a humorous, adventure-packed story about the theft of the original Star Spangled Banner from the Smithsonian, and the three kids who try to track down the thieves (on airport carts and through shadowy baggage handling tunnels!) while they’re all snowed in at a Washington D.C. airport.
I was invited to be one of the author guests at Scholastic’s Summer 2012 sales conference luncheon this week, so I got on a plane very early yesterday morning and flew down to New York. I didn’t have to be at Scholastic until lunch time, so I had a few hours to take a walk and explore.
My agent was in the city this week, too, so we met for breakfast. I took it as a very good omen that the hotel had this enormous flag hanging in the lobby.
I stopped in to visit Books of Wonder, a terrific children’s book store on West 18th Street…
…and then it was on to Scholastic.
The luncheon was on the 11th floor, in the dining area Scholastic calls the Greenhouse. It’s easy to see why. Isn’t it a gorgeous room?
Sarah Mlynowski kicked off the readings with a sneak preview of her new series about two kids who find a magic mirror in their basement and use it to travel into different fairy tales. Her reading was so much fun!
Then Tui Sutherland spoke about her upcoming dragon series, which sounds absolutely fantastic.
Tui has written about a zillion books (I am only exaggerating a tiny bit), including some titles in the WARRIORS and SEEKERS series (under the shared pen name Erin Hunter).
I was the last speaker, which meant I had all of lunch to be nervous. 🙂 But I did manage to eat a few bites of my dessert. One has to have priorities, after all…
Here’s my editor, Anamika Bhatnagar, who works with me on both the MARTY MCGUIRE series and the new mysteries.
She gave a lovely introduction to my new book…and then it was my turn.
Anamika had asked me to include a little about why I wrote this book, and one of the things I talked about was how much I love airports. I always have…there’s something about the comings and goings, the emotional hellos and goodbyes. Whenever I travel with my family, we make up stories about the people hanging out at our gate. We give them names, decide where they’re going and why.
After I gave my talk about loving airports, a car was waiting to take me back to JFK…where I discovered that my flight was delayed. (Someone clearly has a sense of humor.) But it wasn’t long before the maintenance issue was fixed and we were on our way. The silver lining? That extra hour on the ground meant we were in the air to see an amazing light and cloud-shadow display on the Hudson River.
It was a spectacular way to end a truly wonderful day. I loved visiting with all the people behind-the-scenes at Scholastic, and I was blown away by their enthusiasm for my upcoming book. Thanks so much, Scholastic (especially Anamika and Lizette!) for the invitation to spend a day with all of you, looking ahead to Summer 2012!
I am closing in on the end of my 2013 novel with Walker/Bloomsbury. It doesn’t have a title right now. It used to have one…but it was the wrong title, and now it’s simply known as Science-Gone-Wrong-Everglades-Thriller, or SGWET, for short. (That’s pronounced Sig-Wet for those who like acronyms…appropriate, given the whole swamp thing, no?)
Anyway…as some of you may know, revision is my absolute favorite part of the writing process. But I don’t revise until I finish my draft. This is mostly because facing down the problems of a new book while I’m still writing that book…bums me out and slows me down and, in darker moments, sends me plunging into fits of despair over why I can’t be better at this writing thing. But revising? When I revise, I am smart, capable, and happy. So drafting, for me, is an exercise in this:
I’m between ten and fifteen thousand words from writing THE END, though, and then the real fun of revision begins. For now…I’ll be swimming and singing.
Along those lines, I have a guest post on the Stenhouse Publishers blog this week, part of their Summer Blogstitute series for educators. My essay, “How to Critique Writing,” uses quotes from the editorial letter my editor Mary Kate sent to help me revise THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. She is smart and kind and really provides kids and teachers and writers of all ages with a great model of how to help an author make his or her writing stronger. Here’s a link to that post.
And finally, look what came in the mail today! (It is sideways… Accept my apologies. I don’t know how to fix that, and I am sleepy.)
It’s a finished copy of my Fall 2011 picture book, OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal. And a French edition, too!! This is the first book for which I’ve sold foreign rights, so it was exciting to read it in another language and see how some words and phrases changed a bit. The French title is A WHOLE WORLD UNDER THE SNOW, which I also like a lot. And Chris’s art, of course, is lovely in any language.
I have to say that this weekend’s book signings were among the most unusual I’ve ever done…not because of the kids for whom I signed books…but because of who else (what else?) attended the events!
Saturday, I read SEA MONSTER’S FIRST DAY for Barnes & Noble story time in South Burlington, Vermont. And guess who came to hear the story!
Champ, the official mascot of the Vermont Lake Monsters baseball team showed up to greet the kids.
Champ particularly enjoyed the final end papers in SEA MONSTER’S FIRST DAY, where illustrator Andy Rash created a world map showing where all of the legendary lake monsters live.
Champ found himself (in Lake Champlain!) right away.
It was such a fun morning, and when it came time to sign books, the kids were doubly excited to have a book with not only my signature, but Champ’s as well!
Signing books with a sea monster… a first for this author!
On Sunday, I visited Champ on his home turf, Burlington’s Centennial Field, where the Lake Monsters were taking on Jamestown. Champ took a break from his on-field antics to enjoy a little reading.
And once again…we both signed copies of SEA MONSTER’S FIRST DAY for young readers. First me…
…and then Champ.
(I was really impressed with how neatly he could write…even with those big, furry paws.)
Many, many thanks to the Vermont Lake Monsters, Barnes and Noble, and all the young readers who came by for such a fantastic, fun weekend of sea monsters, baseball, and books!
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that my first book for teachers, REAL REVISION: AUTHORS’ STRATEGIES TO SHARE WITH STUDENT WRITERS, was released from Stenhouse this summer. I’m celebrating with a series of author interviews on the topic of real revision…the nitty gritty, make-the-book-better strategies that some of my favorite authors use when they’re revising a project. Since most of the author interviews in the book are with middle grade writers, I wanted to feature some authors of my favorite YA novels in this series.
Today…Jo Knowles, whose newest YA novel PEARL is…well…I gushed about it when I was lucky enough to read an ARC this spring. Here’s what I said:
Jo Knowles is one of the smartest, kindest people I’ve ever met, and I loved her first two books, so I wasn’t surprised when this one crept quietly up and swept me away, too. This book keeps its secrets close to its heart, so I’m going to tell you only what I can without giving them away.
Pearl Collatti has lived a pretty mundane life with her mom and grandfather, Gus. She hangs out with her best friend Henry and watches Days of Our Lives with his mom. But when Gus dies, family secrets fly like milkweed fluff in the wind, and everything is different – Pearl’s relationship with her mother, her friendship with Henry, and her image of the grandfather she thought she knew.
PEARL is so many things… it’s part family drama, part romance, and part mystery. It’s peopled with characters so rich, so beautifully imperfect, that it’s hard to believe they’re not real. It’s a book about the cost of keeping secrets, trouble that turns beautiful, and painful truths that make room for love. It is a book that believes in love, too…even after years have passed. This is one I’ll be thinking about for a long, long time – and a book that I think will be an amazing choice for teen book clubs and literature circles when it comes out this summer.
As of this week…PEARL is out! And Jo is here today to talk about revision…
Hi, Jo! So…how do you tackle the revision process? A little at a time as you
write? Or all at once after you’ve finished a draft?
All at once after I finish a draft. Many times while I’m writing a first draft I’m tempted to go back and revise, but I know if I keep doing that, I’ll never finish.
Do you have a favorite revision strategy that helps with any particular
part of the process?
Once I have a first draft, I like to use an outline to help me see the progression of the book. There’s a storyboard method I learned from Carolyn Coman that involves thinking of the strongest image and emotion of each chapter to help you see not only the way in which the action unfolds, but how emotion moves through the story as well.
How do you revise to make sure your pacing works for the story you’re
telling? Were there any parts of your original manuscript for this book
that ended up being cut?
In the early stages of revision, I look at my storyboard and think carefully about what purpose each chapter serves and how it both deepens the story and moves it forward. If I can’t name it in a very clear way, it often gets chopped. In later stages, when I’m fine-tuning, I look at each paragraph within a chapter and ask myself what I’m trying to achieve and how it helps inform or move that particular chapter forward. If it doesn’t serve a clear purpose, I cut it.
What strategies do you use when you’re revising to make characters feel
real & believable?
For me, this often comes in the first draft, when the characters tug at me strongest. In the revision process, I know them well enough to hone the personality traits I learned in the first, and I look carefully to make sure they’re consistent. But to be honest, characters nearly always come to me fully formed, and I don’t give a lot of thought to how I can make them more real, because in my head, they already are, and I just hope they feel the same to readers.
What was the biggest revision job for this particular book? (timeline
changes, new chapters, rearranging scenes, etc?)
The thing I struggled with most was how Bean and her mom could live with Gus but have such opposing feelings for him. How could Bean adore Gus while her mom clearly resented him so much? Wouldn’t one see at least a little of what the other saw? That was a real challenge, especially since at the opening of the book, he’s already dead, which meant that any scenes with Gus had to be flashbacks, which are so hard to do successfully.
Did this book keep its original title, or did it change along the way?
Where did the title come from?
For a long time, it didn’t have a title, so I just used the character’s name. I guess that stuck. 🙂
Anything else you’d like to say about revising this book?
I think when revising ANY book, you have to be willing to make hard changes. In writing, you have to know the difference between gut feelings and stubbornness. There are two things you need to be willing to do: Go to the hard places to find the real truth, and be able to let go of whatever doesn’t lead you there.
Thanks for sharing your revision stories, Jo!
And for everyone else…I really loved PEARL. You won’t want to miss it.
The premise of this book should hook kids right from the start: When one girl is accidentally abducted when her mother’s car is stolen, the daughter of the car thief, a child the same age, quietly helps her by bringing her food while she’s hiding in the family’s garage. Years later, those same girls meet at summer camp, recognize one another, and come face to face (literally) with the past that connects them. 
This book is brilliant. When a friend recommended it and I read on the back that it’s about “aging punk rockers,” I have to admit, I was skeptical. But Egan sucked me in with a stunning first chapter and didn’t let go. And really, the book isn’t about aging punk rockers at all. It’s about how hard it is to be a person – and how beautiful it is, too. 
