We’re celebrating Women’s History month with 31 days of posts focused on improving the climate for social and gender equality in the children’s and teens’ literature community. Join in the conversation on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kidlitwomen or Twitter #kidlitwomen
I have never met an educator or children’s book creator who didn’t claim to support diversity in children’s literature. Surely, all of our kids deserve to see themselves in the stories we share. And most of us are rightly troubled when we look at statistics like these:
And yet… Somehow, year after year, we see conference keynote lists and book festival lineups and conference panels that are made up entirely or almost entirely of men and/or white people, which only serves to reinforce the inequities. We see conference panels that promote “FIVE FUNNY MEN!” and “ADVENTURE BOOKS FOR BOYS,” all by white male authors. When girls and people of color see these lineups over and over again, it sends a persistent and insidious message.
Your voice doesn’t matter here.
This business of telling stories and making art is not for you.
Librarian Edi Campbell notes that when indigenous people and people of color are invited to speak, they’re often relegated to diversity panels. “Associations think that having panels on topics of social justice, equity, or diversity makes them look more inclusive. Rather, having these panels with IPOC, LGBT+ individuals or people with disabilities without including them on topics that address literary, scholarly, or professional topics perpetuates the colonization of youth literature,” Campbell says. “Have we ever seen Ellen Oh, Jacqueline Woodson, or Meg Medina afforded the honor (!) of speaking solely on their craft?” Campbell also notes that not enough work is done to make panels accessible. “People with disabilities are often excluded even from panels centered on marginalized people and adding insult to injury, they often are not afforded a way to access the information presented.”
Conference organizers should also think about the issues involved with inviting only one person of color to participate in an otherwise all-white panel. Tracey Baptiste, author of The Jumbies and Rise of the Jumbies, says that can be exhausting. “I have often been the only POC on a panel,” she says. “It’s uncomfortable, especially when someone says something insensitive or low-key racist, like ‘It’s easy to add diversity to your books, just change some of the kids’ names!’ Which is a real thing that was said when I was on a panel of me, and three white men. I’m put in the position of having to teach or correct publicly, or smile and deal with the insult of comments like that, and it’s mentally and emotionally exhausting.”
Most often, an unbalanced panel like this doesn’t happen because organizers are carefully planning to leave out women and people of color. It happens because they’re not planning carefully enough. Creating a great panel or festival lineup or book display takes thought. It requires one to read widely and make a point to learn about new authors and illustrators from all different backgrounds. Often, it requires asking for help.
Author-Educator Colby Sharp often asks for input in creating a more diverse lineup of speakers for NerdCamp MI. “I ask publishers to consider sending a diverse groups of creators to camp,” he says. “They are almost always willing to do this.”
I’ve found this to be the case in recent years, too, and have had great luck when I’ve approached publishers to request an author or illustrator for a panel. But sometimes, this can be tricky territory for educators to navigate. As a conference or panel organizer, you’re often asking publishers to sponsor an author or illustrator’s travel to your event. What happens when you’re trying to create a diverse group and you request a particular author, but the publisher offers up another white male author instead? It’s okay to say no thanks. In this situation, I usually say something like, “I so appreciate this offer. Author A was at the top of our wish-list for this event, but we’re planning to reach out to a few other people if you’re not able to send her. Thanks for considering – and I’ll circle back to you if it turns out that we have another opening for Author B.”
Sarah Mulhern Gross, a teacher & writer who also works on conference lineups says, “When dealing with publishers we are very clear about our focus on the authors/illustrators being representative of our student population. Sometimes we have to say it twice (and often in writing), but so far, so good.”
She brings up a great point. If we’re presenting content related to children’s books, shouldn’t we aim for a lineup of featured authors and illustrators that represents our kids? Census data shows us that America is growing more diverse, and by 2020, half of the nation’s children will be non-white. Just over half of our population is female, too. What does that mean for our conference lineups and panels? If you’re committed to fairness and real representation, it means that you should aim for any group you put together to be at least half women and at least half people of color. And it’s important to think about other kinds of inclusion, too, relating to gender, orientation, religious & cultural backgrounds, and disability.
So here’s the challenge. Can we agree that we’d like to live in a world where all kids get to see themselves in books and see creators who look like them? If so, here’s what we can all do to move a step in that direction.
A CHALLENGE FOR EDUCATORS, CONFERENCE AND FESTIVAL ORGANIZERS, AND PANEL MODERATORS
I reached out to author-educator Donalyn Miller, whose conference panels are among my favorites because they always feature diverse voices and views. She offered four tips for conference, book festival, and panel organizers:
Refuse to moderate groups that are all male or all white.
Read widely, so that you know lots of diverse authors, not just the same four.
Read the books your authors are promoting and look for connections between books beyond representation.
As moderator, ensure equity of voices among panelists, and don’t allow individuals to dominate the discussion (including you)
A CHALLENGE FOR AUTHORS AND ILLUSTRATORS
Don’t participate in all-male or all-white events or panels. Encourage organizers to consider other kinds of diversity as well.
Let your publicists know that this is something you’ve committed to do. (They’ll be great about it – I promise. Publishers are interested in social justice, too.)
When you’re invited to an event, before you commit, ask who else is invited. Explain to the organizer that you’ve made a commitment to only participate in events and panels that feature a diverse group.
Offer to help. The pledge to only participate in events that also feature people of color is one that I made quietly several years ago. A number of times since then, I’ve been invited to be on panels that were originally planned as all-white. I explained to the organizers that I only participate in panels that also feature people from traditionally underrepresented groups, and I offered some suggestions. In one of those cases, I stepped back from a panel to make room for someone else, and in the others, the organizers were happy to add more voices. Most often, people want to do a better job with this. They just don’t always know where to start.
There are many dynamics at work, creating and sustaining the inequities we see in the world of children’s books. But there are also some things we can easily address. If no one moderates or participates in all-male/all-white panels, we’ll stop seeing them, and we’ll begin to see more festival and conference lineups that better reflect the amazing kids for whom we make books.
Give it some thought, okay? Later this month, Mike Jung will be coordinating a pledge for men of children’s literature who are committed to no longer participating in all-male panels or conference/festival lineups. And Laurel Snyder will be coordinating a pledge for those who promise not to participate in events & panels unless they include people of color. It’s important to note that this isn’t the only kind of diversity we need in children’s literature, and we have a long way to go to make sure that all of our kids are represented. But maybe this can be a start. I think it’s a conversation worth continuing.
The trick to writing a series of historical adventures with a time-traveling search and rescue dog is choosing topics that kids are excited to read about. Often, that means dealing with time periods that have been written about many times before but digging to find a story that hasn’t been told over and over.
The latest book in the Ranger in Time series, D-DAY: BATTLE ON THE BEACH, is set during World War II, at the Battle of Normandy. When I started reading and researching to find my way into this book, I discovered a story that I’d never heard before, even though I’d seen plenty of movies like Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day.
It was the story of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, the only African American combat unit to come ashore on D-Day. These men were among the first ashore on Omaha Beach. Their mission was to raise car-sized balloons over the beach to keep German bombers from flying low enough to hit their targets. Those balloons helped to protect Allied troops as they came ashore after their overnight crossing of the English Channel, buying them time to make their way up the beach. One of my main characters in this new Ranger in Time book, Walt Burrell, is based on the men of the 320th. In order to tell his story, I needed to read the stories of the real men who served in that unit.
I read this article in the New York Times, which tells the story of how William Dabney, a member of the 320th who fought on Omaha Beach was finally able to return there to be honored in a ceremony. It was a far cry from the way Dabney and his fellow soldiers were ignored and discriminated against when they finished serving their country and came home to Jim Crow America.
When I talk with students about research, I always share with them how my work begins at the library, with paper books. Next, I read all that I can find about my topic online, and then comes my favorite part of the research process — field trips. I spent a week in France when I was working on RANGER IN TIME: D-DAY: BATTLE ON THE BEACH. I spent time at the incredible Shoah Memorial in Paris, which shares in painful detail the story of how Nazis and the French police who helped them rounded up Jewish people and sent them away to concentration camps. One of my characters is a boy named Leo, whose grandmother sent him away to live with a farmer in Normandy, hoping it would be safer than Paris. His story is based on the stories of so many children I read about at this memorial.
I spent a day at the incredible Caen Memorial Museum, which tells the story of World War II, starting with the early days when the Nazis turned neighbor against neighbor by targeting Jewish people for discrimination. The museum has artifacts, narratives, and documents about nearly every aspect of the war in France.
I also toured Omaha Beach, where Leo and Walt meet one another. This was where the Allied forces came ashore on June 6, 1944 to begin the battle that ultimately freed France from the Nazis. Standing beside the bunkers where German gunners waited for the Allied forces is an experience I’ll never forget.
I’m truly grateful to Claire LeSourde, who served as our expert guide as we walked through the landscapes where the battle took place. Here’s where the men of the 320th were most likely to have come ashore, she’d explain. Here’s where their balloons would have flown. See this hill behind the German pillbox? That’s what they would have climbed on their way to liberate the village of Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer.
Claire had offered to connect me with a man whose family lived in that village — the setting for the opening scene of D-Day: Battle on the Beach — at the time of the invasion. Unfortunately, he was in the hospital on the day we visited. But Claire asked around at the local farm stand and found a woman who said her mother-in-law might be open to talking about her experience. We waited, sipping cider samples while it was arranged, and then we were invited into a nearby farmhouse to meet Jeannette Legallois.
She’s quite shy, Jeannette’s daughter-in-law told us. She may not have much to say. But Jeannette invited my family to sit down at her kitchen table and proceeded to talk with us for well over an hour, with Claire translating.
Jeannette was fifteen years old when the Allies arrived to liberate her village. She remembered how excited everyone was, how the children chased the jeeps and the women brought cider out for the soldiers. But she remembered sadness, too. So many of her neighbors had been killed and hurt in the Allied bombing raids that came before D-Day. They couldn’t believe that it was finally over.
Jeannette told us stories of living in occupied France, too. She remembered how the Nazi soldiers arrived at her farm, demanding five liters of milk each day. Her brothers would stick their fingers in the milk “to put germs in it” before they delivered it. Food was rationed then, and Jeannette would sneak meat in her school bag to give to classmates whose families didn’t have as much. She remembers how her father listened to the BBC on his secret crystal radio in the basement. That was forbidden, so she’d wait outside, pretending to play in the garden but really keeping watch for German soldiers so she could warn him to hide it if they came near. Parts of Leo’s story in D-Day: Battle on the Beach are based on Jeannette’s real-life experiences in 1944.
My trip to Normandy wouldn’t have been complete without paying tribute to some of the real heroes of the 320th who gave their lives on Omaha Beach. We found the graves of Henry J. Harris, Brooks Stith, and James McLean at the American cemetery.
When I returned home from this trip, I was overwhelmed with stories in the best possible way. I brainstormed and transcribed notes and looked over photographs and brainstormed some more. Many months later, I’m so exited to share this story with you. I hope you’ll share it with the young readers in your life who love dogs, history, and adventure.
Ranger in Time: D-Day: Battle on the Beach is out today! It’s available wherever you like to buy books. If you have a wonderful local independent bookstore, I bet you love them just as much as I love mine, and I hope you’ll buy it there.
Hi there – and welcome to the World Read Aloud Day author Skype volunteer list for 2017!
If you’re new to this blog, I’m Kate Messner, and I write books like these:
I also read lots of books, and reading aloud is one of my favorite things in the world. When I was a kid, I was the one forever waving my hand to volunteer to read to the class, and still, I’ll pretty much read to anyone who will listen.
For the past few years, I’ve helped out with LitWorld’s World Read Aloud Day by pulling together a list of author volunteers who would like to spend part of the day Skyping with classrooms around the world to share the joy of reading aloud.
WORLD READ ALOUD DAY 2017 IS FEBRUARY 1, 2018
The authors listed below have volunteered their time to read aloud to classrooms and libraries all over the world. These aren’t long, fancy presentations; a typical one might go like this:
1-2 minutes: Author introduces himself or herself and talks a little about his or her books.
3-5 minutes: Author reads aloud a short picture book, or a short excerpt from a chapter book/novel
5-10 minutes: Author answers some questions from students about reading/writing
1-2 minutes: Author book-talks a couple books he or she loves (but didn’t write!) as recommendations for the kids
If you’re a teacher or librarian and you’d like to have an author Skype with your classroom or library on World Read Aloud Day, here’s how to do it:
Check out the list of volunteering authors below and visit their websites to see which ones might be a good fit for your students.
Contact the author directly by using the email provided or clicking on the link to his or her website and finding the contact form. Please be sure to provide the following information in your request:
Your name and what grade(s) you work with
Your city and time zone (this is important for scheduling!)
Possible times to Skype on February 1st. Please note authors’ availability and time zones. Adjust accordingly if yours is different!
Your Skype username
A phone number where you can be reached on that day in case of technical issues
Please understand that authors are people, too, and have schedules and personal lives, just like you, so not all authors will be available at all times. It may take a few tries before you find someone whose books and schedule fit with yours. If I learn that someone’s schedule for the day is full, I’ll put a line through their name – that means the author’s schedule is full, and no more visits are available. (Authors, please send an email to me know when you’re all booked up!)
World Read Aloud Day – Skyping Author Volunteers for February 1,2018
Authors are listed here (kind of randomly, actually…in the order they emailed me) along with publishers, available times, and the age groups for which they write. (PB=picture books, MG=middle grades, YA=young adult, etc.)
Deborah Heiligman Macmillan Childrens Books/ Two Lions/ National Geographic Elementary, Middle School, High school 9 am to 3:00 p.m. EST http://deborahheiligman.com/contact/
Deborah@DeborahHeiligman.com
Nancy Bo Flood
Charlesbridge and Highlights/BoydsMill Press- Wordsong
Knopf Children’s (Penguin Random House), Lerner, Macmillan Children’s
Elementary 9 am-1pm Central (+Willing to schedule early morn/late night for schools overseas)
Karen Leggett Abouraya
Dial Books for Young Readers + Star Walk Kids Media
Older Elementary/Middle School
Available 8:30 am – 6:00 pm Eastern time handsaroundthelibrary.com leggett@comcast.net
I’ll be updating this list once a week or so until WRAD, so if you check back, you may find that the options will change. Schedules will fill, so some folks will no longer be available, but there will also be new people added.
Authors & Illustrators: If your schedule is full & you need to be crossed off the list, please email to let me know. If you’d like to be added to the list, directions are here. Please note that this particular list is limited to traditionally published authors/illustrators, only to limit its size and scope. I’m one person with limited time. However, if someone else would like to compile and share a list of self-published, magazine, and ebook author/illustrator volunteers, I think that would be absolutely great, and I’ll happily link to it here. Just let me know!
Happy reading, everyone!
“World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology.” ~from the LitWorld website
LitWorld’s magical World Read Aloud Day is February 1, 2018 – and one of the fun traditions of this day of sharing stories is for authors around the world to Skype into classrooms & libraries for short read-alouds. For the past few years, I’ve helped out by compiling a list of author volunteers so that teachers & librarians can connect with them to schedule Skype sessions on that day.
Teachers & librarians: Please hold tight for right now… the list will be coming soon!
Authors & Illustrators: Are you a traditionally published* author or illustrator who would like to be listed as a WRAD Skype volunteer? Please read the information & follow the directions below…
WRAD SKYPE VISITS AREN’T LONG OR FANCY PRESENTATIONS. USUALLY, THEY LAST 10-15 MINUTES AND GO SOMETHING LIKE THIS:
1-2 minutes: Author gives a quick introduction & talks a little about their books.
3-5 minutes: Author reads aloud a short picture book, or a short excerpt from a chapter book/novel
5-10 minutes: Author answers some questions from students about reading/writing
1-2 minutes: Author book-talks a couple books they love (but didn’t write!) as recommendations for the kids
Interested in volunteering? If you’re a traditionally published* author or illustrator, here’s how to sign up:
Send an email to worldreadaloudskype@gmail.com. (Please do not try to send your info in a comment, Twitter DM, or any other way. It won’t be included unless it’s sent via this WRADSkype email address.)
In the subject line, write WRAD Skype volunteer.
In the body of the email, please share your name, publisher, grade level for which your books are most appropriate (Elementary, Middle, or High School), hours you’ll be available and your time zone, your website, and your email or contact page on your website.
Here’s a sample, showing what the body of your email should look like. Please use this exact format so your entry can be copied & pasted into the list.
Laurel Snyder Random House Books for Young Readers Elementary 8 am- 2pm EST http://laurelsnyder.com laurel’semail@gmail.com
Thanks for using this exact format. It saves so much time. Once I have all of your information in this format, I’ll add you to the list, which will be shared in November.
IMPORTANT: Whenever your schedule for WRAD is full, please send another email to worldreadaloudskype@gmail.com to let me know that. As soon as I can, I’ll cross your name off the list so you don’t keep getting requests.
*This list is limited to traditionally published authors/illustrators to limit its size and scope because I’m one person with limited time. However, if someone else would like to compile and share a list of self-published and ebook author/illustrator volunteers, I think that would be absolutely great, and I’ll happily link to it here. Just let me know!
I have two books to talk about today – one that will feel very familiar to my readers & one that’s different from anything I’ve ever written!
First… today is book release day for THE EXACT LOCATION OF HOME! It’s about geocaching, absent parents, great blue herons, homelessness, and friendship. It’s also a companion novel to my 2009 debut THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. This book has been a long time coming. I wrote a draft of it before Gianna Z. even came out, but at that time, Bloomsbury wanted me to wait a while on another book set in the same world. By the time GIANNA Z. won the E.B. White Read Aloud Award in 2010, I’d moved on to other projects, and it was just last year that my editor let me know that she wanted to revisit that Zig book. I revised a bunch more to get it ready for today’s hardcover publication. In some ways, this book feels like a collaboration between the writer I was nine years ago and the writer I am today, so I was thrilled when it earned two starred reviews. SLJ called it “A gentle but truthful look at poverty and homelessness for fans of realistic middle grade novels, such as Gary Schmidt’s Okay for Now and Messner’s The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z., in which Zig is a secondary character,” and Kirkus sums it up with: “Middle school worries and social issues skillfully woven into a moving, hopeful, STEM-related tale.” (I didn’t link to the SLJ review because it’s loaded with spoilers. You can google it if you don’t mind having all your surprises ruined. 🙂
My other book news this week is a cover reveal for a project that’s totally different from anything I’ve written before. BREAKOUT is a novel-in-documents, told entirely through letters, text messages, press clippings, petitions, photographs, comics, and other bits of everyday life that soon-to-be 8th grader Nora Tucker collects for her community’s time capsule project. The project is supposed to share a slice of life in fictional Wolf Creek, a sleepy mountain town in the Adirondacks, but the day after it’s assigned, two convicted killers escape from the maximum security prison where Nora’s father is superintendent. Nora’s collected documents share many points of view on what happens during the two-week manhunt that changes the way Nora sees some of her neighbors and the place she’s always called home. BREAKOUT is a fictional story, but it was inspired by the Clinton Correctional Facility prison break two summers ago, which led to a three-week manhunt in the woods and mountains near my home in Northern NY.
BREAKOUT isn’t out until June 5th, but the one and only John Schu is hosting a cover reveal along with an interview on his blog this Thursday, so be sure to stop by if you’d like to see how the cover came to be and hear more of the story behind the story for this book!
Hundreds of Texas classrooms and libraries lost books in Hurricane Harvey and related flooding, and some have started reaching out to ask for help to make sure kids have books when they return to school. Please note that the best way to help is by donating money, either to individual libraries or to the Texas Library Association Disaster Relief fund, which will be assisting for many weeks to come. Many authors, illustrators, & publishing professionals have also asked about donating new books to some of those schools & libraries. This New Books for Hurricane Harvey Schools & Libraries project aims to connect schools in need with those who have new books to donate.
If you are an author, illustrator, or publishing professional and you’d like to donate a box of new books, here’s information on how to do that.
(Photo above is by Danelle Anderson via fb: Kingwood Library losses)
I’ve been collecting requests from teachers, librarians, and principals and now have a list of dozens of Texas schools that were impacted by Hurricane Harvey and are ready (or almost ready) to receive new book donations. They have all specifically requested this sort of donation. If you are an author, illustrator, or publishing professional who would like to help, please email me (kate messner books at gmail) or DM me on Facebook or Twitter (@katemessner), to request access to the spreadsheet. This link may NOT be shared publicly because it includes many educators’ personal contact information. Please do not post it anywhere.
The spreadsheet has a list of teachers, schools, and needs, along with addresses for sending new books and dates when books can be accepted. I’d like to keep track of what’s been sent to whom so we can make sure everyone gets books. To “adopt” a classroom or library in need, you’ll go to column J on the spreadsheet in the row for the school/library you’d like to adopt. Enter your name, where you’re from if you work at a publisher, and what you are sending. Examples of this: “Kate Messner – 15 of my books” or “Paige Turner from Bloomsbury – 1 case of mixed titles.”
Please note that this effort is for new book donations. While some impacted classrooms might welcome gently used book donations, people who have experienced this sort of catastrophic flooding in the past say that can lead to a flood of unusable materials which then create another job for people who are already overwhelmed. If you were thinking of organizing a used book drive, one idea is to have a used book sale at your school instead and donate the proceeds to the Texas Library Association Disaster Relief Effort. https://squareup.com/store/txla
Welcome to KidLit Cares, an online talent auction to benefit the Red Cross relief effort to help communities recover from Hurricane Harvey and related flooding. Agents, editors, authors, and illustrators have donated various services to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, with donations being made directly to the Red Cross disaster relief fund. You can read more about KidLit Cares here. Now, on to the auction!
Sara Crowe is a senior agent at Pippin Properties. She began her career at The Wylie Agency, and worked in foreign rights for 8 years. For the last decade she has been at Harvey Klinger, Inc. building a list of children’s and adult fiction including many New York Times Bestselling and award winning authors and titles. She loves finding new talent to champion, and nurturing and developing careers.
Sara will critique a full MG or YA manuscript of up to 75k words or less, with a 15 minute phone call to discuss your manuscript and her notes.
Opening bid: $50
Auction ends: Thursday, September 7, 2017 at 10pm EST.
Any bids submitted in comments after that time will be void. (Please note: bidding at the last second isn’t a good idea. Websites get overloaded & there’s always a chance that your bid might not post on time. So please bid your best offer with plenty of time to spare.)
If you’d like to bid on this auction, check the current high bid and place a higher bid by leaving your name and bid amount in the comments, along with some way to contact you (email, FB or Twitter…I’m not fussy.) Winners will be notified when the auction ends and should be prepared to make an online donation to the Red Cross Hurricane Harvey Disaster Relief fund in the amount of the high bid at that time. After you’ve made your donation, you’ll forward your receipt to me, and I’ll put you in touch with the person who donated the service you won so that the two of you can work out the details about how and when. All services will be provided at the convenience of both the person making the donation and the auction winner, but this should happen within three months of the auction’s end unless something else is agreed upon by both parties.
Welcome to KidLit Cares, an online talent auction to benefit the Red Cross relief effort to help communities recover from Hurricane Harvey and related flooding. Agents, editors, authors, and illustrators have donated various services to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, with donations being made directly to the Red Cross disaster relief fund. You can read more about KidLit Cares here. Now, on to the auction!
Award-winning author Christina Diaz Gonzalez is offering a 30 minute Skype visit for your school, library, or bookclub plus FIVE signed books —- choose from The Red Umbrella (English or Spanish versions), A Thunderous Whisper, Moving Target or Return Fire (this can be 5 copies of the same title or an assortment of books).
Christina is the award-winning author of several books including THE RED UMBRELLA, A THUNDEROUS WHISPER, MOVING TARGET and RETURN FIRE. For more information go to christinagonzalez.com.
Opening bid: $50
Auction ends: Tuesday, September 5, 2017 at 8pm EST.
Any bids submitted in comments after that time will be void. (Please note: bidding at the last second isn’t a good idea. Websites get overloaded & there’s always a chance that your bid might not post on time. So please bid your best offer with plenty of time to spare.)
If you’d like to bid on this auction, check the current high bid and place a higher bid by leaving your name and bid amount in the comments, along with some way to contact you (email, FB or Twitter…I’m not fussy.) Winners will be notified when the auction ends and should be prepared to make an online donation to the Red Cross Hurricane Harvey Disaster Relief fund in the amount of the high bid at that time. After you’ve made your donation, you’ll forward your receipt to me, and I’ll put you in touch with the person who donated the service you won so that the two of you can work out the details about how and when. All services will be provided at the convenience of both the person making the donation and the auction winner, but this should happen within three months of the auction’s end unless something else is agreed upon by both parties.
TIME TO WRITE REVISION RETREAT with Linda Urban & Kate Messner
November 3-5, 2017
The What:
The 2017 Time to Write Revision Retreat will include daily craft lectures from Linda and Kate, mentor-facilitated small-group critique sessions, lively community meals, and quiet work time. Cost: $480 (or $455 for early registration by August 1st) includes all lectures & workshops, snacks and meals from Friday dinner through Sunday lunch. Lodging is not included. See below for options.
The When:
November 3-5, 2017. Arrive any time after noon on November 3rd (first session begins at 4pm) and depart after lunch on November 5th.
The Valcour Inn has nine bedrooms with different nightly rates depending on the level of accommodation and occupancy. Some are large with lake views, porch access, and private bathrooms. Some are smaller with a shared bathroom. Most rooms can accommodate 2-3 people, if you’d like to have a roommate or two to reduce lodging costs. There are also larger hotels in Plattsburgh, just a few miles away, and of course, if you live nearby, you are welcome to sleep in your own bed and commute. Valcour room options and rates are here:
Linda Urban and Kate Messner are award winning children’s authors and friends who love to teach and mentor other writers. Between the two of them, they’ve written more than thirty books, presented at over a dozen state and national conferences, and consumed approximately four hundred mocha lattes.
Who should attend?
This is a retreat for experienced novelists, both published and not-yet published. The workshop will be aimed at writers who are working to revise a completed (or mostly completed) draft of a middle grade or young adult novel or chapter book. We’ll be asking for writing samples – just your first few pages – when it’s time to register, so that we know you’re in a place where what we’re offering will be useful and relevant. We can accommodate up to twenty-two writers in this lovely, intimate setting and will cap the retreat at that number. We’ll have the option for returning writers to repeat a craft session from years past or break off into a smaller group workshop.
The How:
Valcour Conference Center is on Lake Champlain in Northeastern NY, 1.5 hours from Burlington, VT, 2.5 hours from Albany, 4 hours from Syracuse, 4.5 hours from Boston, and 5 hours from New York & Rochester. http://www.plattsburghcas.com/valcour-conference-center/directions
You’ll see that the website gives driving directions from Plattsburgh International Airport, but this is not an airport that services many places. The nearest full-service airport is in Burlington, Vermont a little over an hour away (including a ferry ride). If you fly, it will probably be necessary to rent a car or find a friend who’s passing through Vermont to pick you up at the airport.
How to sign up:
Send an email to timetowriteretreat at gmail dot com with your name, address, email, and phone number. Please include a quick note about what you hope to be working on and share a short writing sample (700 words or less) if you’re not a returning writer. Don’t worry about this being a tryout or application; our goal is to make sure the workshop will be useful to you, and this will help us to plan our sessions. If you’re hoping to room with someone at the retreat, please let us know that as well. As soon as we receive your email, we’ll send you more information, including directions for mailing your deposit.
Deadlines:
August 1st for Early Registration Discount ($455)
October 1st Regular Registration Deadline ($480)
To reserve a spot at the retreat, participants must submit a $50 nonrefundable deposit at the time of registration, with the balance due by October 1st. It’s also fine to pay the full amount when you pay your deposit. After October 1st, retreat registration fees are not refundable unless we’re able to find someone to fill your spot.
Questions? Email us at timetowriteretreat at gmail dot com.
FERGUS AND ZEKE, the first book in my new easy reader series with Candlewick is out today!
I’m excited about some great news we’ve already gotten about this book. It’s a Junior Library Guild selection. There’s a lovely review from Kirkus that ends with “Here’s to more adventures for Fergus and Zeke!”
“A dapper fellow with lavender fur, Fergus loves following the rules of Miss Maxwell’s class. ‘When the students solved math problems, Fergus solved them, too,’ we read; ‘he always kept his eyes on his own work.’ But when teacher and children prepare to visit the natural-history museum without him, Fergus embraces his inner outlaw and stows away in a backpack. He soon falls in with Zeke, a gray mouse of insouciant temperament who scoffs at the idea of following ‘people rules.’ Cheery illustrations by Heather Ross add zip to this educational excursion for 5- to 8-year-olds.”
“In a high-spirited series opener set over four chapters, Messner (the Ranger in Time books) lets readers live out their Night at the Museum fantasies through Fergus and Zeke’s explorations, as they clamber over lion and dinosaur exhibits and generally disregard any “no touching” rules (“Those are people rules!” crows Zeke). Ross’s (Grimelda: The Very Messy Witch) energetic full-color cartoons run wild with the museum-as-playground theme, and Zeke’s decision to join Fergus in the classroom neatly sets up their next adventure.”
But what those reviews don’t tell you is the story behind this story…and how the seed for this book was planted years ago at the Rochester Children’s Book Festival.
One of my favorite things about festivals is the way young readers approach an author’s table. “Do you have any mysteries?” they’ll say, or “Have you written any books about dogs? Because I really love dogs.” Five or six years ago, a little girl walked up to my table, looked at me with big eyes, and said, “I just learned to read! Do you have a book I can read all by myself?” I didn’t at the time, and I felt bad about that…like I’d let her down. When I got home, I couldn’t stop thinking about that reader, so I went to my library and signed out a stack of books – the best stories I could find, published with very new readers in mind. I read piles and piles of them and started experimenting. After a towering heap of failures, I wrote FERGUS AND ZEKE.
Fergus is a classroom mouse who’s enthusiastic about everything from music class to story hour. How could he possibly stay behind when it’s time for the big field trip to the natural history museum? So Fergus stows away on his class trip to the natural history museum, has some adventures and misadventures among the butterflies, lions, and dinosaur bones, and ultimately brings home a friend.
I love research, so it’s probably no surprise that my first step in writing FERGUS AND ZEKE was planning a field trip for myself. I’d been to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, but I’d never imagined it from the point of view of a mouse. So with my notebook and my camera, I set off to spend a day at the museum, imagining what it would all look like from a small rodent’s perspective.
When I arrived, the coat check room was bustling – a mouse would have to be careful not to be stepped on there. I’ve always been in awe of the museum’s enormous blue whale model. Imagine how much more colossal it would seem if you were only a few inches tall! It was so much fun to see how our amazing series illustrator Heather Ross created these scenes…
Writing about Fergus and Zeke’s adventures behind the scenes at NMAH allowed me to live vicariously. Who hasn’t always wanted to get inside those glass cases in the mammal hall to play with the elephants or pet the lions?
And wouldn’t it be fun to climb on those dinosaur skeletons?
As a kid, I found that I learned best when I was doing something out of my seat. As a teacher, I always connected with fidgety students who couldn’t quite sit still during a lecture. I did my best to get us all up out of our seats – and out of the building – as often as possible. Those are the kinds of adventures that Fergus and Zeke have, not just in this first installment, but throughout the series. (They’ll be experimenting at the school science fair in book two!)
I’m so excited to share Fergus & Zeke’s adventures with readers – kids who love school, kids who live to explore, kids who don’t like to sit still, and kids like that little girl at my book festival table – who want books they can read all by themselves.
We’re celebrating Women’s History month with 31 days of posts focused on improving the climate for social and gender equality in the children’s and teens’ literature community. Join in the conversation on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kidlitwomen or Twitter #kidlitwomen
The latest book in the Ranger in Time series, D-DAY: BATTLE ON THE BEACH, is set during World War II, at the Battle of Normandy. When I started reading and researching to find my way into this book, I discovered a story that I’d never heard before, even though I’d seen plenty of movies like Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day.
I devoured Linda Hervieux’s book 
Hundreds of Texas classrooms and libraries lost books in Hurricane Harvey and related flooding, and some have started reaching out to ask for help to make sure kids have books when they return to school. Please note that the best way to help is by donating money, either to individual libraries or to the 
Sara Crowe is a senior agent at Pippin Properties. She began her career at The Wylie Agency, and worked in foreign rights for 8 years. For the last decade she has been at Harvey Klinger, Inc. building a list of children’s and adult fiction including many New York Times Bestselling and award winning authors and titles. She loves finding new talent to champion, and nurturing and developing careers.
Award-winning author Christina Diaz Gonzalez is offering a 30 minute Skype visit for your school, library, or bookclub plus FIVE signed books —- choose from The Red Umbrella (English or Spanish versions), A Thunderous Whisper, Moving Target or Return Fire (this can be 5 copies of the same title or an assortment of books).
