Revolution for the Tested

by Kate Messner (Copyright 2010)

 

Write.

But don’t write what they tell you to.
Don’t write formulaic paragraphs
Counting sentences as you go
Three-four-five-Done.
Put your pencil down.

Don’t write to fill in lines.
For a weary scorer earning minimum wage
Handing out points for main ideas
Supported by examples
From the carefully selected text.

Write for yourself.
Write because until you do,
You will never understand
What it is you mean to say
Or who you want to be.
Write because it makes you whole.

And write for the world.
Because your voice is important.
Write because people are hurting
Because animals are dying
Because there is injustice
That will never change if you don’t.
Write because it matters.

And know this.
They’ll tell you it won’t make a difference,
Not to trouble over grownup things,
Just fill in the lines
And leave it at that.
Tell them you know the truth.
That writing is powerful.
Just one voice on the page
Speaks loudly.
And not only can a chorus of those united change the world.
It is the only thing that ever has.

Read.

But don’t read what they tell you to.
Don’t read excerpts, half-poems,
Carefully selected for lexile content,
Or articles written for the sole purpose
Of testing your comprehension.

Don’t read for trinkets,
For pencils or fast food coupons.
Don’t even read for M&M’s.
And don’t read for points.

Read for yourself.
Read because it will show you who you are,
Who you want to be some day,
And who you need to understand.
Read because it will open doors
To college and opportunity, yes,
And better places still…
Doors to barns where pigs and spiders speak,
To lands where anything is possible.
To Hogwarts and Teribithia,
To Narnia and to Hope.

Read for the world.
Read to solve its problems.
Read to separate reality from ranting,
Possibility from false promise.
And leaders from snake oil peddlers.
Read so you can tell the difference.
Because an educated person is so much harder
To control.

And know this.
They’ll say they want what’s best for you,
That data doesn’t lie.
Tell them you know the truth.
Ideas can’t be trapped in tiny bubbles.
It’s not about points
On a chart or a test or points anywhere.
And it never will be.

Copyright 2010 ~ Kate Messner

I shared this poem as part of my 2011 NCTE/ALAN presentations, and I’ve had many teachers write to ask if it’s okay to share with students and colleagues in the classroom. The answer is absolutely yes.  Share away!

But please do not republish it online without permission. The best way to share a copyright protected poem (or story, or article) with blog readers is to share a short quote from the piece and then link to the original post. Thanks!

SUGAR AND ICE doesn’t actually come out until December 7th, but a few people have asked about getting signed copies in time for holiday gifts, so I figured I’d share the launch plans a little early. Considered yourself invited!

SUGAR AND ICE Book Launch!
When: Saturday, December 11th from 3-5pm
Where: The Bookstore Plus – 2492 Main St. in Lake Placid

I’ll be signing books, visiting with readers, and sharing some cookies as part of Lake Placid’s Holiday Stroll. The Bookstore Plus felt like the perfect place to launch this book because a) it’s one of our family’s favorite indies and b) it’s right up the street from the Olympic Center where much of SUGAR AND ICE takes place.

If you can’t make it…I can’t mail cookies (they’d be too crumbly) but you can still get a personalized, signed book.

SUGAR AND ICE Virtual Book Launch through The Bookstore Plus!
Call 518-523-2950 by Dec. 10th to order a personalized, signed copy.

The bookstore has a special order form for our SUGAR AND ICE launch and will take down all your information about how you’d like the book signed. When I come for the launch party on the 11th, I’ll personalize and sign your copy, and they’ll mail it out that week so it arrives in plenty of time for the holidays.

Saturday morning, we hauled the kids out of bed at 3:30 and piled into the van for a dark, starry drive through the Adirondacks.  What was worth getting up so early? Just about the coolest book festival in the history of book festivals…

This is part of the crowd at the annual Rochester Children’s Book Festival, where more than 40 children’s authors & illustrators spent the day chatting and signing books for thousands of kids, parents, and teachers. Want to see some serious excitement about reading? This was the place to be.

One of the nicest surprises for me was arriving to find that I was table-mates with Julie Berry, the author of THE AMARANTH ENCHANTMENT and SECONDHAND CHARM from Bloomsbury as well as the hilarious SPLURCH ACADEMY chapter book series.  Julie and I both grew up in Medina, NY, and her older sister Joanna was my best friend in junior high school, so we had a wonderful time catching up and book talking one another’s books.

Here’s Julie signing SPLURCH in her reform school garb (the book is about a reform school for naughty boys, run by monsters!)

Here’s Bruce Coville, who made my whole entire day before the festival even started. When I was taking my daughter to the rest room, I saw Bruce in the hallway and stopped to say hello, since he was a speaker at the very first writers’ conference I ever attended.  He looked at my nametag and said, "Gianna Z. right?  I loved that book."  I was blown away but gathered my thoughts enough to say thank you before we walked away.  Then my daughter looked at me, eyes huge, and captured exactly what I was thinking, "That was Bruce COVILLE, and he said he liked your book!"

Here’s Elizabeth Bluemle, signing DOGS ON THE BED, MY FATHER THE DOG, and HOW DO YOU WOKKA WOKKA?

Cinda Williams Chima was there, too, signing her latest, THE EXILED QUEEN.

Michelle Knudsen signs a copy of LIBRARY LION for a festival reader.

Here’s author and festival co-organizer Kathleen Blasi (right) with two book lovers!

And here’s Kathleen’s partner-in-crime, the always energetic author/organizer Sibby  Falk.

Every time I went to get a photo of Vivian Vande Velde, she was busy signing books for kids…so here’s a picture of the top of her head.

One of my Lake Champlain historical novels, CHAMPLAIN AND THE SILENT ONE, deals with the fur trade between Native Americans and the French in the early 1600s, so I brought along this taxidermied beaver that I picked up at a yard sale this summer. He was quite a hit!

Linda Sue Park was there, too!

She signed a copy of her latest book, A LONG WALK TO WATER, for my 7th graders. (I will have it available for sign-out right after I book-talk it today!)

Here are Jane Yolen and Mark Teague, who were busy-busy-busy signing all day long!

Mark Shulman was there, signing his books, including his latest, SCRAWL.

When the festival ended at 4:00, I looked over at Julie – Where had the day gone?  Six hours of visiting with readers and signing books seemed to fly by in minutes. Thank you SO much, organizers, volunteers, and most of all, readers, for such an amazing celebration of books!

I woke up this morning to find a bunch of Twitter friends pointing me to a lovely, lovely review of SUGAR AND ICE from Betsy Bird’s Fuse #8 Blog at School Library Journal. Here’s an excerpt:

Kids reading the book will appreciate that the author knows how to speak to more than just ice skating fans. Don’t get me wrong… for fans of ice skating this book is nothing short of a dream come true. If I don’t see a copy of this book in every single ice skater’s gym bag by the end of December I will eat my proverbial hat. But there’s a lot of rich writing at work here, above and beyond the obvious plot elements. It’s got a relatable heroine, three-dimensional villains, a rags to riches element, some convincingly exhausting sequences, and an ending that will probably catch a couple folks by surprise.

You can read the full review here, but do note that the second-to-last paragraph contains just a bit of a spoiler, so you may want to skip that part if you’re the kind of reader who likes to discover all of a book’s secrets on your own.

Other bits of bookish thankfulness this week…

I’m looking forward to this Saturday’s Rochester Children’s Book Festival at Monroe Community College — one of my favorite events of the year!  It’s a high-energy celebration with more than 40 children’s authors & illustrators.  If you’re a Western NY person, I’d love it if you’d come by and say hello!  I’ll be signing my regional historical novels as well as THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z.   I’ll have SUGAR AND ICE bookplates to sign, too, and Lift Bridge Books will be taking pre-orders for the hardcover, which comes out December 7th.

I’m also excited about NCTE in a couple weeks.  I’m participating in a panel presentation on Skype author visits, speaking at the Middle Level Mosaic, and signing THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. and ARCs of SUGAR AND ICE at the Walker/Bloomsbury booth on Saturday, November 20th.  I’ll post my full schedule with times, etc. when I have it.

I also got an unexpected email from my Scholastic editor this week, letting me know that ARCs of MARTY MCGUIRE, the first title in my new chapter book series illustrated by Brian Floca, will be ready in time for NCTE as well!  If all goes as planned, I’m scheduled to sign MARTY at the Scholastic booth from 10:30-11:30 on Saturday, right after my Walker/Bloomsbury signing.

I’m  feeling some reader-thankfulness, too, this week.  I just finished this book:

SUGAR CHANGED THE WORLD by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos is a fascinating and compelling work of narrative nonfiction that looks at the history of sugar, or rather, the history of the world as it was shaped by sugar.  Amazing book – and I’ll have more to say about it later on.

I was six years old on the eve of the Ford-Carter Presidential election, and I’d heard lots of talk around the house about voting. The grownups were all discussing who was voting for whom, and why, and I was trying to make my own decision.  Somehow, I’d missed the memo that you had to be eighteen to vote, and so I fully anticipated pulling levers of my own on Election Day.  I wanted to make well informed choices. 

"I’m trying to decide who I want to vote for," I announced one night at dinner.

"Is that so?" my mother said. "And what are you thinking?"

"Well, I’m not sure if I want Ford or Carter," I said, sighing.  "Which one do you think would let me go out trick-or-treating without wearing a coat over my Halloween costume?"  (I was one of those single-issue voters.)

"Hmph. Probably Carter," my father said. "He’s irresponsible."

"Oh good! Then that’s who I’m voting for."  I got up to get a cookie.

"No, no, wait…don’t you see? Ford would be more like a father. He wouldn’t want you to catch a cold. You want someone like that, don’t you?"

No. I didn’t.  I’d had it with giant winter coats swallowing my costumes. Enough was enough, though I think I probably let the conversation go at that point.

I didn’t get to vote that year, and I considered it a great injustice. But this Election Day, I do.  These days, health care and education and social justice have replaced Halloween outerwear at the top of my issues list, but I’m still thankful for the conversations around that dinner table at my house back in 1976 and in the years that followed. They paved the way for me to be aware and involved, and though I still disagree with my dad on plenty of issues, I’m thankful that we talked about things then, and still do.

One of my favorite quotes from the 2008 election season came not from one of the candidates, but from Bob Schieffer, who quoted his mom at the end of the final debate.

"Go vote now.  It will make you feel big and strong."

Due out in February, this is a pretty amazing book – and it’s one that I want to talk about as both a reader and as a writer.

Kate-the-reader/teacher says:

This was the first e-galley I ever read on my iPad, and even though I’m not a big fan of e-readers, I’ve never been so motivated to finish a book on one. DELIRIUM is a major league page-turner, full of romance, conflict, and action. Like Ally Condie’s MATCHED, coming out this fall, it’s about a future world where people’s mates are chosen for them by the government. In DELIRIUM, love has been identified as a deadly disease (Delirium Nervosa!) that is "cured" by a mandatory procedure performed when a person turns 18. What happens to those who resist — including main character Lena — forms the central conflict of this book, and keeps readers turning pages through a whole lot of great twists, to find out how it will all end. My 7th grade HUNGER GAMES fans are going to eat this one up.

Kate-the-writer says:

I knew this book was classified as dystopian and assumed that it was set in the future. Because I’m revising a dystopian novel right now and navigating my way through all the related world-building details relating to everyday life and technology, I pay close attention to the way other authors handle this challenge. As I was trying to figure out the time period in which DELIRIUM was set, I found myself confused by the references to present-day name brands, even though oil was strictly rationed and other elements of the novel (regulator squads, government approved music lists) felt more futuristic. It was only after I’d finished reading that I realized that the novel is actually not set in the future but in an alternate reality of our present times. (Note: I read this one quickly, and it’s entirely possible that I missed a reference to the time frame early on in the text – or perhaps I was just so sure it would be futuristic that I ignored the references. I do things like that sometimes…)

Anyway, as a writer, I find this setting choice fascinating because it allowed the author to manipulate the elements of society that needed to be changed for the story to work without reinventing the world in other areas. Now I find myself wondering how the story might have been different if it had, in fact, been set in the future instead. Would the technology changes and other futuristic elements have detracted from the main conflict and the love story? Maybe. Either way, I think it was an interesting choice, and one that worked beautifully for this particular story. 

I also love the cover design. Look carefully.  See the girl showing through the letters in the text?  When the hardcover comes out, you’ll be able to take off the jacket to see the rest of her face. Aside from being lovely and clever, it’s fitting for the story, too.

1.  A final copy of SUGAR AND ICE arrived in the mail today! 

It is even prettier than the ARC – I just love the care that the Bloomsbury/Walker designers take – even under the jacket.

SUGAR AND ICE, for those who may be new to the blog, is my December 2010 figure skating novel.  My agent, Jennifer Laughran, did a blog interview today where she gave a description of the book that I love:

"SUGAR AND ICE by Kate Messner–Kate just nails the middle school voice–probably because she is a 7th grade teacher. SUGAR is about a small-town ice skating girl who gets scouted by a charismatic Russian coach, plucked from obscurity and thrown into the uber-competitive world of "mean girls on ice." I tend to love "star is born" type stories, "outsider" stories, and funny realistic middle grade too. 🙂

2. In addition to being a cheerleader for my book, Jennifer is doing a Q and A session that’s a great resource for anyone interested in agents – you can read the rest of her interview here.

3. I spent yesterday in New York City and Long Island, meeting with the publicity team for my MARTY MCGUIRE chapter book series coming in May and my editor at Scholastic, and giving a speech to the Nassau Reading Council.  It was an amazing day all around…one that will get its just due in its own blog post when I upload all my photos.  But for now…the Scholastic receptionist:

Okay…it was actually the woman behind Clifford at the desk who helped me, but he made me smile.

4. Earlier this week, Fuse #8 blogger/librarian Betsy Bird posted this review of Kathryn Erskine’s MOCKINGBIRD…which led me to post this response…which led Betsy to post this response to my response.  The end result was a lively conversion with a whole lot of commenters talking about the role of research in fiction, reader and reviewer expectations, voice in writing, and other things. If you read the original posts, you may want to stop by again and check out the comments, which are both thoughtful and thought-provoking.

5. My husband’s celebrating a birthday soon, so we enjoyed a quick overnight in Montreal last weekend. Our last stop on the way  home is always the bakery at Atwater Market for croissants and eclairs for the kids, and on Sunday, the market was decked out in its autumn best.

Hope everyone has a colorful weekend and a Happy Halloween!

Librarian blogger Betsy Bird (Fuse #8 at SLJ) reviewed National Book Award finalist MOCKINGBIRD by Kathryn Erskine this week, and I found myself pondering one paragraph of her review in particular:

The Asperger’s I do not question because that is tricky territory. I do not have a child with Asperger’s and Ms. Erskine does. However, this raises a fairly interesting point in and of itself. When Cynthia Lord wrote the Newbery Honor winning book Rules she made her narrator not an autistic boy, but rather his put upon older sister. This was remarkably clever of her. Then, when you get to the end of the book, the reader finds out via the bookflap that the author has an autistic son of her own. The book is therefore lent a kind of authenticity through this admission. As I read Mockingbird however, I found myself wondering if the author had any personal connection or knowledge of Asperger’s that could lend the book similar authenticity. I read the bookflap and the Author’s Note and came up with nothing. Nada. It was only through the grapevine that I heard the rumor that Ms. Erskine has a daughter of her own with Asperger’s. Now why on earth would the book wish to hide this fact? By the time I reached the end I wanted to believe that the writer had some knowledge of the subject, but instead of including a list of useful sources, or even a website kids can check, the Author’s Note speaks instead about the Virginia Tech shootings. A harrowing incident to be sure, but why avoid mentioning that someone you love has a connection to your main character? It made for a very strange gap. (Read the full review here.)

I love Betsy’s Fuse #8 blog and read it regularly, but I find myself wondering about this expectation…that an author share the details when a story is inspired by personal events in his or her life. I read both MOCKINGBIRD and OUT OF MY MIND, and I do remember thinking that each author must have a personal connection to someone like her main character. I didn’t necessarily expect to turn to the back of the book and read all about it, though.

Maybe it’s my role as an author who’s also a parent that makes me view this differently than some other readers. A whole bunch of things in my books are inspired by my own kids…Zig’s fascination with electricity and gadgets in THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. MARTY MCGUIRE’S propensity to fall into ponds when she’s catching frogs. Claire’s love of figure skating in SUGAR AND ICE.

When I wrote the author bio for the jacket of SUGAR AND ICE, I mentioned that I’m a fan of competitive skating and that I volunteer with the Skating Club of the Adirondacks. The jacket flap doesn’t mention my daughter, who is the actual skater in our house, though the Kirkus reviewer mistakenly assumed I was the mother of a competitive skater. Should I have talked about why she’s chosen to participate in her local skating show but forego the more intense world of competition? To me, those felt like her issues. While I realize that I give up a certain level of privacy by writing for publication, she hasn’t made that choice. And in this situation, we’re just talking about a hobby – not a disability that shapes every day of her life.

I heard Cynthia Lord give a talk once about her choice to write a book that deals with autism, knowing that her family’s story would never be just their story again. Is it a fair expectation? Can an author who has a child with a disability choose to write about a character with that same disability without being expected to talk about his or her own family at conferences and award speeches, in authors’ notes and on jacket flaps?

I understand the argument; as a reader, I love knowing the story-behind-the-story. But some stories belong to whole families. Can an author write a book about a character like Draper’s Melody or Erskine’s Caitlin without mentioning the personal connection? And if the author does choose to share that information, should it change the way the book is judged? If a character doesn’t work for you when you’re reading the book but you later learn the author’s personal story, should that change anything? Or should the text stand on its own, regardless of the author’s connection to the main character’s disability? 

For years, my husband and I have shared an office that is also shared with a treadmill, keyboard, and sometimes violin and saxophone.  It has no door, and while it’s a fine place to answer a few emails or do tax stuff, it’s not conducive to writing when there’s a house full of people.

In the past, when I’ve needed to get writing done on weekends, I’ve packed up and headed to our local coffee shop.  They’re extremely writer-friendly and make a mean latte, but this summer, we decided it would really be great if I had a place to work at home.  After a bunch of planning and a few weeks of work by our awesome contractor/handyman person, I ended up with this.

It’s a perfect writing room, for a few reasons. 

1. You can’t get here from the house without going outside.  It is separate — its own space — so when I’m here, I’m officially "not home."  The first week, my husband couldn’t resist the temptation to come to the window and make faces, but since then, it’s worked out beautifully.

2. There’s no internet. Truth be told, I didn’t plan this, but the wireless doesn’t make it this far, and that’s fine.  I run upstairs for a minute if I really need to do some quick research. But otherwise, the lack of connectivity helps me focus.

3. It’s quiet (triple-insulated!) with a big desk that overlooks Lake Champlain.

4. There are bookshelves.

Bookshelves make me happy.  I’ve started filling these with a few research books, but mostly, this is where I’m keeping books that are important to me — friends’ books and the books that made me want to be a writer. Having great books in the room inspires me, even if I’m not going to read them while I’m working.

5. The new room is free from office things; there are no in-boxes, mail, tax stuff, scanners, printers, marketing plans, old manuscripts, contracts, royalty statements, school visit paperwork, etc. etc.  It’s free of pretty much everything, in fact. When I come to write, I bring my laptop, current manuscript & planning pages if it’s a revision, and tea. That’s all.

I’ve spent some time here lately, working on revisions for EYE OF THE STORM that are due by Thanksgiving, and I’m appreciating it more every day. I still write and revise in all my usual places — the kitchen table after the kids are in bed at night, in the bleachers at my daughter’s skating practice, but it’s also been amazing to have a quiet place to work at home.  Not an office…. a writing room.

Thanks to the always-awesome Flying Pig Bookstore, the 3rd and 4th graders in my school district had an amazing author visit with Annie Barrows this afternoon. She’s the author of Chronicle’s IVY AND BEAN series as well as THE MAGIC HALF with Bloomsbury, all of which are big-time favorites in the Messner house. We hosted the visit at the middle school where I teach, since we have a large auditorium that could fit the kids from both elementary schools, and I had a chance to sit in on her reading!

Annie read from her latest IVY AND BEAN adventure, IVY AND BEAN: WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? I loved watching kids giggle as the girls tried out a brilliant if somewhat misguided science experiment. Then it was off to the library office to sign books. And sign more books… And more…

Then we sent Annie on her way for a late-afternoon event at Flying Pig. And look what she was driving!

It’s an Ivy-and-Bean-Mobile!

Thanks, Annie, and Chronicle, and Flying Pig Books, for a great author visit today!