Lots to be thankful for…even as summer winds to a close.
1. I’ve been revising two books this summer — and surviving. I was a little worried back in June when I figured out this would happen, but somehow, two editors at two different houses have been intuitive enough to stagger their editorial letters and follow-up emails so that I’ve only had one on my plate at any given time. They’re both friendly, funny, brilliant sorts of editors, too, which makes the whole process a joy.
2. I’m mighty close to finishing a draft of my second Marty McGuire book. A rough, unattractive draft with an untucked shirt and messy hair, but a draft all the same.
3. The leopard frogs are out at the state park near my house.
The kids and I spent the afternoon catching, releasing, and just watching. Also wondering what it must be like to be able to jump fifteen times the length of your body. That is just so cool.
These two posed for me and then jumped away in opposite directions in perfect unison, just like the synchronized divers in the Olympics.
4. We found two tiny Monarch butterfly caterpillars and brought them home to raise in our butterfly house over the next few weeks. Every year, we pick fresh milkweed daily and watch the caterpillars grow fatter and fatter until they climb to the top of the screen house and form their chrysalides. Every year, we watch and wait. And every year, I have to catch my breath on the morning that I come downstairs to find they’ve emerged as butterflies with wet, new wings. It never, ever gets old.
May your last days of summer be filled with wonder (and ice cream), too!
Not only am I spending time in my own 7th grade classroom this week, working on some curriculum with colleagues, but I’ve also gotten a sudden surge of requests for information about my author visits from teachers and librarians who are planning for the new school year.
I’ve just updated the part of my website that deals with school & library visits, and I’m excited about some new presentations I’ll be offering this year. One is the hands-on, historical fiction writing workshop that I piloted last year with these terrific kids in South Burlington.
Another new presentation ties in with the Champlain Quadricentennial — the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s voyage from Quebec to what is now Lake Champlain to encounter the Iroquois. It focuses on the first contact between Native Americans in this area and the French explorers and fur traders, using my upcoming historical novel Champlain and the Silent One as a jumping off point. Click here to check out my updated list of school and library presentations.
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.
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. 
