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So a few weeks ago, I had this idea.  What if my 7th grade English students staged a flash mob poetry event at the food court of our local mall?  I kind of fell in love with this idea, even though I had no idea how to plan such a thing.  I was pretty sure the school and mall would never approve it anyway, so I figured, “Why not ask?”

So I asked.

And everybody said yes.

And my students fell in love with the idea, too, and said a huge YES! PLEEAAASE?!  And so we figured out together how to pull it off.

We chose Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Bells” for both its music and because it has four stanzas — one for each of my four ELA classes to prepare.  We assigned parts — some solo and some choral.  We practiced in the classroom, in the cafeteria (until I thought the front office ladies were going to run screaming from the building with their hands over their ears) and in the parking lot one day when it was nice out. Yesterday, we staged a practice run-through in the cafeteria during lunch (to get used to getting funny looks).  And today… was the real deal.

We had five undercover adults helping — two chaperones, two bell-ringers, and one posing as a mall official chucking a fit over the poetry…until she joins in and it turns out she’s part of the plot.  And we had sixty kids, all set loose in the mall food court with half an hour to order pizza and burgers and eat lunch before the clock struck 11:45.  At that time, they knew they needed to watch for a woman to pull something unusual from her knitting bag as she walked by Taco Bell…and that would start the whole thing rolling.  Watch what happened!

Beverly Cleary turns 95 years old this week, and while I’ve never had the chance to meet her, she’s had a huge impact on me.

It started somewhere around second grade, when my parents decided that taking ballet lessons would be good for me.  I found myself signed up for weekly classes with Miss Laurie in a community center a few blocks from our old, white house in Medina, NY.

I was not a tall, slender, elegant second grader. I was a little chubby, a lot clumsy, and downright clunky when it came to those ballet moves. My leotard didn’t fit right, and my movements were nothing like beautiful, tall, blond Miss Laurie’s.

That was the year Ellen Tebbits became my best friend.

Ellen, with her woolen underwear under her tutu, who itched and scratched her way through her ballet class, was my hero. Finally! Someone who would understand why I kept picking at the elastic and why I frankly did not want to put my leg up on that barre. Why would I want to do that when I could be home on my bed with my feet up on the wall, reading a book?

Ellen Tebbits was my first introduction to the work of Beverly Cleary, the writer whose characters truly carried this awkward kid through elementary school, until I grew into myself and found words of my own. Her characters were a part of me, just as sure as my two left feet.

Sometimes, people ask why I write for middle grade readers, and when they do, I inevitably think of Ellen and Ramona, and of Beverly Cleary.  How many clumsy girls have they befriended in these past sixty years? (Ellen Tebbits was written in 1951, which seemed impossible to me when I was a kid. How could Beverly Cleary have known I’d need that book 20 years before I was even born??)  The books we read when we’re eight and nine and ten years old are the books that raise us, the books that bring us up with love and laughter, empathy and advice. They are the books that make us who we are.   Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume made me a reader, and later on, a writer, too. They were nothing short of gifts to me when I was a kid.  They still are.

Happy Birthday, Beverly Cleary!  And thanks.  For everything.

With Ramona in the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden, Portland, OR – 2008

I team teach an advanced creative writing class full of thoughtful, imaginative 7th graders who are working on novels of their own right now.  But many of them are at that place right now…   If you write, you’ll recognize it.  It’s the place where the book is underway, but the shininess of the idea has worn off, and suddenly, the project is starting to seem like a whole lot of what-do-I-do-now work.  Is it any good?  And what happens next?  Is it bad if I don’t know yet?

It was a great time to bring in an expert…and we found one who is not only talented but also friendly and willing to get up early to Skype with us during our first period class.

Jenny Moss, the author of  WINNIE’S WAR, SHADOW, and most recently, TAKING OFF, joined us from Texas to talk about her writing process.

Jenny was absolutely fascinating as she reminisced about her time with NASA (she was an engineer there before she started writing for kids!) and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster’s impact on her Texas community, and she was so kind to our students, too.

Jenny empathized with their writing struggles and shared her own process, telling students how her first drafts are really like outlines.  “Skeleton drafts,” she called them, and said they might be just 10,000 words or so, but that early writing gives her a starting place, and from there, she can go back to fill in the details and tell the rest of the story.

Jenny Moss is one of the authors who offer free Skype tours for classes & book clubs that have read one of her books (and truly…TAKING OFF would be an amazing book club selection. You can read my thoughts on the book here.)  She’s a truly wonderful person and a friend, too, so if you Skype with her, be sure to tell her I said hi!

After a warm, rainy, and windy start to the week, we have a winner for my “When will the ice go out?” contest! Some time between nightfall and daybreak, the ice between my house and the island was replaced by sparkling open water.

That means Barbara Baker, who guessed noon on April 5th was closest! Congratulations, Barbara – please drop me an email (kmessner at kate messner . com) with your mailing address so that I can send out your ARC of MARTY MCGUIRE.

While I spend a good number of my lunch hours at school Skyping myself out of my classroom to talk with students in other classrooms around the world, I’ve been Skyping some folks into my classroom lately, too!  Last week, as part of our district’s staff development day, I gave a workshop on Web 2.0 tools and literacy.  We talked about class blogs, social reading through Moodle and GoodReads, the joys of professional development through Twitter, and Skype.  Most of the teachers in our department had heard of Skype or used it to talk to relatives but hadn’t used it in the classroom yet.  That changed, though…

David Macinnis Gill, the author of SOUL ENCHILADA and BLACK HOLE SUN, Skyped into our session to talk about how he uses virtual visits to connect with classrooms. He also talked a bit about the world building in BLACK HOLE SUN (which I found to be nothing short of amazing, so I was happy to hear about his methods!). And look who else popped in to visit…

Eric Luper joined us to read a little from his upcoming middle grade novel, JEREMY BENDER VS. THE CUPCAKE CADETS.  Our 6th grade teachers are especially excited about this one since it has such appeal for both boy and girl readers.

Both David and Eric offer free Skype chats with classes and book clubs that have read one of their books, and Eric is also doing an Author Skype Tour for his JEREMY BENDER book launch.

Lest you think the teachers had all the fun…later this week, I’ll post “Skyping with Awesome Authors: Part II” about my creative writing students’ Skype chat with author Jenny Moss.

I recently had my website redesigned & moved to a new server, and along with that change came a new service that counts website visitors and gives other information…like where in the world they’re located and what they typed into a search box to find me.

I have to admit…this last bit of trivia fascinates me. Most people find my website because they searched my name or the title of one of my books. And plenty find my list of Authors Who Skype when they search for “free author Skype visit” and variations on that. But some of the other search terms amuse me to no end. People have landed on my site by searching for all of the following:

mouse tracks under the snow (This made me smile – and I hope the person found out about OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW!)

girls can spit (I have no idea…but I love that someone searched for this)

background information on Kate Messner (Do you suppose they want to have me fingerprinted, too?)

dedication to pi (Wait…pi…or pie?  I am very dedicated to pie.)

Messner aquarium (We used to have a fish tank. Does that count?)

Miranda mink (This is what we named the mink that visited us on the icy lake one winter. Is there another Miranda mink??)

Notes on eli the good by silas house, like certain notes on each chapter (Cheat on your book reports much?)

silent kiss poems (I’ve never written a silent kiss poem…but now I kind of want to.)

“someone should have told me” (Sorry…the list of things I wish someone had told me is too long to blog about.)

Kate Messner Day (Really? I had no idea! What month is it in? I think there should be ice cream.)

and finally…

Is is safe to kayak with alligators in Florida?

I suspect the person who Googled this question was trying to decide whether or not to go on an Everglades kayak excursion like this one my daughter and I took last year. I smiled, imagining maybe a mom and dad arguing over whether it was a good idea. “But Lucy…the alligators will be right there!”  When my daughter and I went, we had a wonderful time. It felt safe (we didn’t get eaten or anything), and the guides were fantastic. I hope they decided yes.

Here it is late March, and the temperatures are still only in the 30s here in the Lake Champlain region.  To pass the time until Spring, I posted a contest this week to see who can guess when the ice on Lake Champlain will break up in front of my house.  Guesses need to be in by Tuesday at 7pm! Here are the entries so far…

March 27 – 12 pm – jeniwrites (Sorry, Jeni…Ice is still solid out there!)

April 5 – 12pm – Barbara Baker

April 7 – 2:47pm – fairwinds2u

April 8 – tracyworld (what time, Tracy?)

April 9 – 4:00pm – Liza Martz

April 10 – 3pm – frieliegh

April 11 – 2:00 pm – dmcordell

April 12 – 2:15 pm – Jennifer Malphy

April 12 – Sarah Wones Tomp (What time, Sarah?)

April 12 -3:30 pm – jpetroroy

April 13 – 4:00 pm -Betsy Lynch

April 14 – 3:27 pm – docstymie

April 15 – (what time, Laura??) – Laura Pauling

April 15 – 6 pm – Melanie Swider

April 18 – 11 am – Kate Linnea

April 22 – 3pm – Mary Zisk

If you entered but didn’t leave a time with your date, please add that in a comment – otherwise, people who also included times automatically beat you if the ice breaks up on your day!

If you haven’t entered yet, you have one more day! Just leave a comment by 7pm  Tuesday 3/29, with the date and time you think the ice will go out. (We’ll define that as the day/time that there are many floating chunks of ice instead of one big slab of ice between my house and the island a mile offshore, okay?)  Whoever is closest wins one of my last ARCs of MARTY MCGUIRE, my new chapter book series with Scholastic coming May 1st.

I just got an exciting letter from my editor at Chronicle Books letting me know that they’ve sold French language rights for my upcoming picture book, OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW, illustrated by  Christopher Silas Neal.

OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW translates loosely to SUR ET SOUS LA NEIGE, though I have no idea whether that will be the French title.

This will be my first book to be published overseas, which I find incredibly exciting… I love the idea of kids on the other side of the ocean reading this story that I drafted on a school bus on my way home from a snowshoe field trip in the Adirondacks.  Better brush up on my French for those Skype visits!

So…I’m having a contest to see who can guess when the ice on Lake Champlain will break up in front of my house. As you can see, it’s still frozen. Lovely and sparkly this morning…but still mighty cold and solid.

To enter the contest, just leave a comment with the date and time you think the ice will go out. (We’ll define that as the day/time that there are many floating chunks of ice instead of one big slab of ice between my house and the island, okay?)  Whoever is closest wins one of my last ARCs of MARTY MCGUIRE, my new chapter book series with Scholastic coming May 1st.

If the ice goes out while we’re all sleeping here or otherwise not available or paying attention, then I’ll have a drawing among all the entries that were close.

I’d posted this contact as a quick mention before, so if you’ve already guessed, don’t worry – you’re all set and I have your date/time recorded!  If you haven’t guessed yet…the deadline  is TUESDAY, MARCH 29 at 7pm EST.  I’ll post ice/weather updates after that so you can root for warm temperatures and windy days near the time of your guess.   Enter, okay? It’ll be fun!

1. I’m thankful for the kind, organized people who have put together a couple great online efforts to raise money in the wake of the recent disasters in Japan. Right now, my books are part of two such auctions.

You can win signed copies of The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z., Sugar and Ice, Marty McGuire (ARC), and Sea Monster’s First Day at the WriteHope auction here. Bidding ends at 1pm Saturday. And you can also bid on those same signed books, plus a 30-minute Skype session with me at the KidLit4Japan Auction here. The Skype session can be with your class or book club, or it can be a mentoring session for an aspiring writer.  This auction runs through Monday.

And please check out the full listings for both auctions – your money will be put to good use, and there are some really great opportunities, like these signed books from Jo Knowles (auction ends today!) and a poetry critique from Kelly Fineman (auction ends Friday!).

2. I got some happy news about SUGAR AND ICE recently.  It’s a finalist for the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award. If you’re an SCBWI member, you can vote on the Crystal Kite Award from your region’s home page after you log in to the SCBWI site.

3. I also found out that SUGAR AND ICE will be on Vermont’s Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award List for 2011-2012.  I love these state lists so much because I think they introduce kids to so many books they might have missed otherwise. Thanks, DCF Committee members!  And if you’re a Vermont librarian or teacher reading the DCF books with your students, please know that I’m always happy to chat with your kids via Skype, free of charge.

4. MARTY MCGUIRE, the first in my new chapter book series with Scholastic, launches in a little over a month. I’m working on line edits now for the second book in the series, MARTY MCGUIRE DIGS WORMS, which comes out in February of 2012. And I’ll be doing a special Skype tour for the first book’s launch in May.  If you work with kids in 1st-4th grade and would like your students to have “Lunch with Marty McGuire” one day in May, please drop me a note from my website. I’ll Skype into your classroom or library at lunch time, read a chapter or two aloud, share a few story-behind-the-story secrets, and answer your students’ questions.

5. It’s Spring!  (Or did Spring not get that memo where you live either?)

Lake Champlain is still very much frozen in front of my house, all the way to Crab Island. When do you think the ice will break up?

I have a couple ARCs of MARTY MCGUIRE left…and I’ll send one to the person who comes closest to guessing the date and time that the ice goes out.  Of course, this is very non-scientific, but we’ll define “ice out” as the day/time that the the solid sheet of ice is replaced by floating chunks between my house and the island, okay?  And if it happens while I’m sleeping or at school and can’t figure out the exact time, then we’ll put everyone who was pretty close in a hat and draw a winner.  Fair enough?  Enter your date/time guesses in the comments! All entries must be received by 9pm  EST Monday, March 28th. Good luck!