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John Lewis is also a great place to spot new designs from MissPrint, and I was pleased to see a new range of ceramics and kitchen storage. Products in the range include tins, storage jars, a milk jug, teapot, salt & pepper set, ramekins and egg cups.
MissPrint also have a new wallpaper design since P&P last reported on them, a smart hand drawn geometric called Nectar..
And
Sketch and final art: “She spread her blankie over them and kissed them good night. Now they looked sleepy and happy.” Hello, Imps. I was out of town, and I missed blogging. But I’m back. And today I’ve got a review over at BookPage of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley’s debut picture book, Twenty […]
भारी स्कूल बैग, बचपन और बच्चे भारी भारी स्कूल बस्ते पीठ पर लादे बच्चे जा रहे होते हैं तो एक दर्द सा उठता है कि आखिर हमारी शिक्षा प्रणाली मे सुधार क्यो नही आ पा रहा है… हर साल स्कूल वाले चाहे सरकारी हो या प्राईवेट दम्भ भरते हैं कि बस्ते का वजन कम करेंगें […]
The post भारी स्कूल बैग, बचपन और बच्चे appeared first on Monica Gupta.
What Is Reverse Graffiti?
You have probably seen traditional graffiti where artists use spray paint to draw a picture or write words on a public space. Reverse graffiti is a method of creating temporary images by removing dirt from a space. You know how you can use your finger to write “Wash me” on a dirty window? That’s reverse graffiti, and some artists have taken it to a whole other level by using a cloth or a power washer to remove dirt on a larger scale and create some incredible artwork.
Because reverse graffiti is temporary, biodegradable, and no toxic ink or paints are used to create it, reverse graffiti is considered more environmentally friendly than spray paint graffiti. Although, that is debatable especially if the artist uses chemical cleaners to create the image. It may also be a waste of water since it takes a lot of water to clean off the dirt.
Spray paint graffiti is considered vandalism, and is definitely illegal if you don’t have permission, but it’s not clear whether reverse graffiti is illegal. Is it vandalism to clean a wall? Some people think so, especially if they don’t like the image created on the wall.
While there are still environmental and legal questions about reverse graffiti, there is no question that some of the artwork being created is amazing! What do you think of reverse graffiti? Tell us in the Comments.
Flickr photo by KylaBorg
[I'm pausing again in my science + poetry celebration to do something a bit different.]
I'd like to toot the horn for a brand new book out today:
The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary by Laura Shovan (published by Random House) and illustrated by Abigal Halpin. Check out Laura's blog here and Abigail's blog here.
This is a new novel in verse for the middle grades (gr. 3-7) and I was fortunate to read an advance copy and create an educator's guide for the book. You can find a link to the whole guide here. (The activities are even correlated with the CCSS, if that's helpful to you.)
Here's the publisher's blurb that describes the book: Is the pen mightier than a bulldozer? Fifth grade poets stand up to save their school in this delightful debut novel. This year, Ms. Hill’s fifth graders are writing poems to put into a time capsule. This year, the school board plans to tear down their school to build a supermarket. They might be the last fifth grade class of Emerson Elementary. No way! Inspired by Ms. Hill’s 1960’s political activism, the students decide to save their beloved school. As they circulate petitions, stage sit-in, and test the waters of democratic action, personal questions, triumphs, and sorrows find their way into their poems.
Here are a few nuggets from the guide to whet your appetite!
Timeframe
This novel in verse is broken into four sections using the idea of “quarters” of the school year and months and days of the calendar. Before each section, stop and talk about what usually happens during this time of the school year (e.g., seasons, holidays, special events). Then after each section, review those highlights and how they affected the fictional students and what readers anticipate might happen next. Use the poem titles to help guide the discussion about the big topics, themes, and ideas along the way.
Before sharing this book, display a copy of your class roster and invite students to consider what a book might be like that features a cast of characters as big as a class. If you have a group photo of the class, show that, too. Or show a vintage photo of a class from years gone by available at Shorpy.com. Talk about how this book offers a verbal “snapshot” of one class across a whole school year—all told through poems written as if by 18 children in one fifth grade class.
Characters
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There are 18 fifth grade students featured in Ms. Hill’s class in THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY and the story unfolds from their multiple points of view. In addition, the students are portrayed in tiny portraits on the cover of the book. Challenge students to visualize each of the student characters in the book as they read, making notes about the unique personality and situation of each character using the “class seating chart” sheet below. They can decide where each student sits on the chart and what key words they would use to describe each student and add those words to each student’s desk. They might even consider which of these fictional students they may want to be for a readers’ theater performance.
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And there's heaps more in the guide itself and in the book to explore!
Related Books
Plus, if you'd like to link this verse novel with other related books of poetry, here you go. For further reading, here are other books of poetry told through multiple (fictional) student perspectives:
Cheng, Andrea. 2008. Where the Steps Were. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills/Wordsong.
Frost, Helen. 2014. Room 214: A Year in Poems. (10th Anniversary Reissue of Spinning Through the Universe, 2004). New York: Macmillan.
Herrick, Steven. 2008. Naked Bunyip Dancing. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills/Wordsong.
Sidman, Joyce. 2007. This is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness. Ill. by Pamela Zagarenski. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
And for a collection of poems that features one poem for every day of the school year, counting down from the first day of school to the last, look for:
Lewis, J. Patrick. 2009. Countdown to Summer: A Poem for Every Day of the School Year. Ill. by Ethan Long. New York: Little, Brown.
By:
Patrick Girouard,
on 4/11/2016
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By:
Monica Gupta,
on 4/11/2016
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डाईट चाट – वजन कम करना ये वजन कम करना नही आसान… मोटू, गोलू मोलू , गोल मटोल नाम भले ही हमें बचपन में प्यारे लगते हो पर बडे होते होते हम अपनी सेहत पर ध्यान देना शुरु कर देते हैं जहां लडकिया अपनी साईज जीरो पर ध्यान देने लगती हैं वही लडके भी स्मार्ट […]
The post डाईट चाट – वजन कम करना appeared first on Monica Gupta.
It's Tuesday! Come share your slice and try visiting a "new to you" slicer today.
April 12th is the
International Day of Human Space Flight. Sponsored by the United Nations, this celebration is rooted in the 2011
Declaration on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Human Space Flight and the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. It reads in part:
We, the States Members of the United Nations, in commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of human space flight and the fiftieth anniversary of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space,
- Recall the launch into outer space of the first human-made Earth satellite, Sputnik I, on 4 October 1957, thus opening the way for space exploration;
- Also recall that, on 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth, opening a new chapter of human endeavour in outer space;
- Further recall the amazing history of human presence in outer space and the remarkable achievements since the first human spaceflight, in particular Valentina Tereshkova becoming the first woman to orbit the Earth on 16 June 1963, Neil Armstrong becoming the first human to set foot upon the surface of the Moon on 20 July 1969, and the docking of the Apollo and Soyuz spacecrafts on 17 July 1975, being the first international human mission in space, and recall that for the past decade humanity has maintained a multinational permanent human presence in outer space aboard the International Space Station;
Here are some poems that celebrate the challenges and accomplishments of putting humans in space.
Blast Off! Poems About Space (1995), compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Melissa Sweet, is an easy to read anthology containing 20 poems by various poets, including Jane Yolen, Bobbi Katz, J. Patrick Lewis, Ashley Bryan, Lee Bennett Hopkins and others. Since this book is in an easy-reader format, the poems are accessible for young children. When I'm An Astronaut by Bobbi KatzFirst I'll get into my spacesuit.
Then I'll bravely wave good-by.
Next I'll climb into my spacecraft
Built to sail right through the sky!
In command inside the capsule,
I will talk to ground control.
When we've checked out
all the systems,
I'll say, "Let the countdown roll!"
And it's 4-3-2-1 - - blast off - -
With a smile upon my face,
I’ll spin loops around the planets
up, up, up in outer space!
Poem © Bobbi Katz, 1995. All rights reserved.
Hey You!: Poems to Skyscrapers, Mosquitoes, and Other Fun Things (2007), selected by Paul B. Janeczko and illustrated by Robert Rayesky, is an anthology entirely filled with poems of address.
Here are two examples.
To An Astronautby Beverly McLoughlandWhen you're in space
So far away
With darkness all around,
And you see the little Earth
Beyond,
Do you miss its windy sound?
Do you feel alone
With endless space
The neighbor at your door?
Do you miss the Earth
So far away?
Do you love it even more?
Poem ©Beverly McLoughlan. All rights reserved.
Out of This World: Poems and Facts about Space (2012), written by Amy Sklansky and illustrated by Stacy Schuett, is a collection of poems about space and space exploration. Readers will also find explanations and fun facts in the margins.
Space Suit
No astronaut
is ever caught
without a suit in space
The temperatures,
extreme for sure,
make it a hostile place.
Lack of air
to breathe out there
means oxygen is key.
The suit deflects
as it protects
from any injury.
Good work is done
in shade or sun,
though movement does lack grade.
No astronaut
is ever caught
without a suit in space
Poem © Amy Sklansky, 2012. All rights reserved.
A Burst of Firsts: Doers, Shakers, and Record Breakers (2001), written by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Brian Ajhar, is a collection of 22 poems about men and women who dared something special and accomplished it first.
First Men on the Moonby J. Patrick Lewis
"The Eagle has landed!" —Apollo II Commander Neil A. Armstrong"A magnificent desolation!" — Air Force Colonel Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr.July 20, 1969That afternoon in mid-July,
Two pilgrims watched from distant space
The moon ballooning in the sky.
They rose to meet it face-to-face.
Their spidery spaceship, Eagle, dropped
Down gently on the lunar sand.
And when the module's engines stopped,
Rapt silence fell across the land.
The first man down the ladder, Neil,
Spoke words that we remember now—
“One small step...” It made us feel
As if we were there too, somehow.
When Neil planted the flag and Buzz
Collected lunar rocks and dust,
They hopped like kangaroos because
Of gravity. Or wanderlust?
A quarter million miles away,
One small blue planet watched in awe.
And no one who was there that day
Will soon forget the sight they saw.
Poem © J. Patrick Lewis, 2001. All rights reserved.
Skywriting: Poems to Fly (2010), written by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Laszlo Kubinyi, is a collection of 13 poems that trace the history of our obsession with flight, beginning with the myth of Icarus and ending with the space shuttle.
Space ShuttleCOLUMBIA sts1092002, United StatesI am the behemoth of adventure, I am the shuttle of Uncle Same,
I run like thirty-nine locomotives, or twenty-three revved-up Hoover Dams.
Seventeen thousand miles per hour in just about eight seconds flat!
I burn a sixty-one hundred Fahrenheit — says so on my thermostat.
I carry people who like to walk in a wilderness outward-bound.
I am your front-row ticket to celestial theater in the round.
Poem © J. Patrick Lewis, 2010. All rights reserved.
That's it for today. I hope you'll join me tomorrow for our next celebration.
By: Betsy Hubbard,
on 4/11/2016
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It's Tuesday! Come share your slice and try visiting a "new to you" slicer today.
By: Betsy Hubbard,
on 4/11/2016
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It's Tuesday! Come share your slice and try visiting a "new to you" slicer today.
I type a title, hit “Reserve;”
My name gets on the list,
A feature of the library
That once did not exist.
I wait a week or two or three
And sometimes even more
But then I get an email
That the book is back in store.
I check it out and have two weeks
To read and bring it back;
Then workers clear my name and they
Replace it in the stack.
Another patron gets a note –
The book has been returned.
The next in line has no idea
Just where it has sojourned.
The cycle will repeat itself
Until the book’s passé
When it will languish on a shelf
Or worse, get thrown away.
The Art of Epic Mickey is a 160-page hardcover landscape coffee table book written by Epic Mickey co-writer Austin Grossman and features a forward by Game Director…
The post The Art of Epic Mickey Book Review appeared first on RABBLEBOY - The Official Site of Kenneth Kit Lamug.
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By: Julie G,
on 4/11/2016
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A struggling Hollywood producer, Richard Baumbach is twenty-nine, hung-over, and broke. Ridiculously handsome with an innate charm and an air of invincibility, he still believes good things will come his way. For now he contents himself with days at the Coffee Bean and nights with his best friend Mike (that’s a woman, by the way).
At thirty-three, Elizabeth Santiago is on track to make partner at her law firm. Known as “La Máquina” The Machine—to her colleagues, she’s grown used to avoiding anything that might derail her quiet, orderly life. And yet recently she befriended a homeless man in her Venice neighborhood, surprised to find how much she enjoys their early-morning chats.
Richard and Elizabeth’s paths collide when they receive a proposal from a mysterious, anonymous benefactor. They’ll split a million dollars if they agree to spend at least two hours together—just talking—every week for a year. Astonished and more than a little suspicious, they each nevertheless say yes. Richard needs the money and likes the adventure of it. Elizabeth embraces the challenge of shaking up her life a little more. Both agree the idea is ridiculous, but why not?
What ensues is a delightful journey full of twists, revelations, hamburgers, classic literature, poppy music, and above all love, in its multitude of forms. The Decent Proposal is a heartfelt and often hilarious look at the ties that bind not just a guy and a girl but an entire, diverse cast of characters situated within a modern-day Los Angeles brought to full and irrepressible life.
WritingI don't want to be too harsh on this one because it's a debut and I think as a first novel it does a decent job. My main issues were with the lack of depth in the characters and the transitions between scenes. The stereotypical LA definitely shines through and I think fans of the city will love the descriptions of the setting. To me, however, the characters reflected the shallow reputation of Hollywood - they just lacked depth. I never felt like I was given a reason to root for them or to even like them, especially Richard. And I didn't get any justification for why they fell in love with each other.
There are also a lot of time jumps that take away from the reader seeing the characters interact. We get to see Richard and Elizabeth's first date take place and it's a great scene, but then we skip forward several weeks with just a basic "time passed" transition. And this happens again and again throughout the book. For every fun scene of interaction between Richard and Elizabeth we get several other scenes of them alone thinking about what has happened off page. I'd much rather spend the time outside of their heads seeing the action, than hearing about it after it's occurred. It's one reason I had such a hard time figuring out why Elizabeth and Richard even fall in love - we see so little of them together.
Entertainment ValueMy dislike for Richard really colored my enjoyment of the story as a whole. I felt like he was just so shallow - and never grew throughout the book. I was waiting for the moment of revelation or realization for him about what matters in life and I just never got it. And I HATED his constant remarks and thoughts about Elizabeth's weight (she's a normal-sized woman). I liked Elizabeth more, and I included the addition of Richard's best friend Mike, but it didn't make up for the distaste I had for Richard. It read quickly and I didn't have a hard time finishing it. I wasn't bored, but I also didn't fall in love with the world and characters the way I had anticipated.
OverallIt's not that this book is terrible - it's readable and enjoyable for a certain audience. The problem is that I just don't fit into that audience. I need more substance from the characters to back up the original plot. I had hoped it would challenge some of my opinions about what LA life is like, but it wound up just reinforcing a lot of stereotypes. Unfortunately, I think there are better options out there for contemporary romance with a literary bent.
Thanks to TLC for having me on the tour.
Click here to see the other stops and get some other opinions!
Here is another installment in my series of science poetry tied to science-themed picture books. My graduate student, Nicole Sportsman (in my "Poetry for Children" class) also selected the focus on “constellations and the night sky” from the series of professional resource books, "Picture Perfect Science Lessons" by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan (and published by the National Science Teachers Association). Here are her three infographics centered around constellations and the night sky. The focus picture book pair is once again:
- When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman (ill. by Loren Long)
- Spots of Light: A Book About Stars by Dana Meachen Rau
Nicole also focused on the classic Walt Whitman poem from the featured book, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.” Below is a graphic featuring all these books, followed by the featured poem, and then the Take 5 activities to accompany the poem along with a "bonus" poem, “Looking at the Sky Tonight” by Janet Wong (a different poem) from The Poetry of Science. Enjoy!
Science of poetry graphics created by Nicole Sportsman
Image credit: dialoguealumninews.wordpress.com
Album: Foxtrot
Year: 1972
I don’t know why, but I almost totally forgot to write about Genesis. For some reason, none of their songs made the original “Certain Songs” playlist from which this whole mess is derived, and while I have processes in place to try to make sure I don’t miss anything, I was distracted by my new job and would have missed them if Tim hadn’t brought it up.
Outside of “Close to The Edge,” (and maybe the first part of “Thick as a Brick,”) this is my favorite of all of the sidelong prog-rock epics.
Which, well, isn’t that huge of a category, but “Supper’s Ready”has always been the wittiest and the most light on its feet of any of them, as evidenced by the segment titles, things like “The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man” most especially “Apocalypse in 9/8, (Co-Starring the Delicious Talents of Gabble Ratchet).” which manages to take the piss out itself while calling attention to the musicianship contained within.
And in fact, it’s the long, winding organ solo played by Tony Banks against the weird-ass beat being supplied by Phil Collins during the “Apocalypse in 9/8” segment that drew me to “Supper’s Ready” in the first place. Then I noticed Peter Gabriel, whose vocals are alternately anthemic, romantic, and utterly hilarious.
Unlike nearly other vocalist in prog-rock history, Gabriel is having fun.
And that sense of fun permeates “Supper’s Ready.” Things like the Steve Hackett / Tony Banks duel during “Ikhnaton and Itascon and Their Band of Merry Men,” or the entire “Willow Farm” section, and of course
“A flower?”
And despite being a bunch of disparate songs basically stitched together until the last segment comes back around to musical themes that had been established earlier, “Supper’s Ready” feels far more organic. Probably because it’s so self-aware.
“Supper’s Ready” performed live in 1973
“Supper’s Ready”
Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.
Check it out!
Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)
Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page
The post Certain Songs #503: Genesis – “Supper’s Ready” appeared first on Booksquare.
life painting. mixed media on paper. 35 x 50 cm
By:
nicole,
on 4/11/2016
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"sweet serenity"
9x12 acrylic on canvas
©the enchanted easel 2016 |
the name of this little beauty.
inspired by
pantone's "GORGOIS" (as my FAVORITE make up artist,
Mally Roncal would say-please, that's a whole different blog post....LOVE that woman...i digress!) palette of 2016, featuring the colors, rose quartz and serenity (hence her name)...and my favorite, lilac grey (ironic, considering i am not a big lover of anything purple).
i'm kind of loving little miss serenity right now and i will be featuring her on some great products in my
Society 6 shop a little later in the week. until then....
PRINTS are available in my
etsy shop and...the ORIGINAL PAINTING IS FOR SALE. contact me
here or message me
here if interested.
{below are some parts of the painting...}
How do you know when to stop spending time, money, and energy on promoting your book?
http://www.jkscommunications.com/how-much-is-enough-book-publicity/
Last week, I spoke at Royal Palm Beach High School in Florida. (I know, sometimes being an author requires you to drag yourself to a place called Royal Palm Beach.) RPBHS was in the midst of week-long events and discussions based around Thirteen Reasons Why. So I'm guessing that's why they invited me!
One student asked me, "Is it weird to think that a whole school is doing this around something you wrote?" Yes, it is. It's very weird!
And it's one of the most amazing things an author can experience.
Students designed book-specific bookmarks, which I've already given a prime spot in my office. But I'm going to assume none of the students ever used the bookmarks while reading 13RW...because they couldn't stop reading it!
Another student designed this poster in the library.
The office door in the library was full of positive notes left by students and faculty.
Then it was time to speak to an audience where so many of the students had already read my book.
During lunch, I dined on Chipotle (they donated everything!) with a group of students wearing shirts designed for this week. These students were chosen from a larger group of students who had created projects--posters, displays, wordles...--dealing with my book.
Then...time to speak again!
Before I left, I was taken on a tour of decorated classroom doors that won a school-wide contest.
Doors, man! I've never been so emotionally moved by...doors!!!
By: Lisa Firke,
on 4/11/2016
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Shoots. #derwentgraphik #lisafirke #linepainter
I am so proud to be part of this - it's an amazing song from a brilliant album. I had to listen to it a LOT to synch up the drawings, and I still love it.
It took me a week of mostly drawing and redrawing rain drops, with assistance from my niece Paula who did the lettering.
An early test. A bit too inky!
Making a big neat sheet of regular rainfall, painted with a calligraphy brush pen.
Scanned and animated.
Most of the rain is hand-drawn to suit the specific scene, though.
Editing the rainfalls drop by drop to make it look more natural that they are missing her face...
Experimental digital weather
Drawing a thunderbolt
Extremely helpful cat
All the lettering and some of the rain, by Paula
Zonked assistants
READ MORE ABOUT THE VIDEO AND THE REST OF THIS EXCELLENT ALBUM HERE!
By: Sue Bursztynski,
on 4/11/2016
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P Is For Alexander "Cannibal" Pearce
Alexander Pearce by Thomas Bock. Public Domain.
In 1822, eight convicts escaped from the same horrific Tasmanian penal colony as Matthew Brady(see B Is For Brady post). Only one survived, Alexander Pearce. Until then nobody had ever escaped - in fact, it was this escape that inspired Matthew Brady and his friends to have a go.
So, these convicts escape. They spend nine miserable days in the bush and finally run out of food. They don't know how to hunt the local wildlife. Someone jokes that he is hungry enough to eat a man... They begin to kill and eat each other. Two run off, but die of exhaustion. When only two are left, Pearce kills his companion in his sleep and leaves with some bits of him.
Eventually he is caught and taken back to jail. When they ask him where are the others, he says he ate them. They don't believe him. He escapes again, with a young boy - and by this time he's hooked on human meat. He's caught again, this time with bits of his companion. This time they believe him and he hangs. But the convicts now know escape is possible...
Q Is For Quirky Aussie Law
While researching Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly, I read somewhere that there had been a loophole in Australian taxation law that allowed crooks to claim their guns and bullets on tax, as tools of their trade. I'm assuming this loophole was closed; I never did find out if anyone had actually tried claiming, though you do have to wonder who suddenly noticed it. Was some legal nerd reading the taxation laws one day and cried out, "Hey! This is weird!" or did some cheeky criminal try it?
If you have enjoyed these stories, why not check out my publisher's web site, for Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly and other great books?
Tomorrow: R Is For Snowy Rowles
S Is For Ikey Solomon
By:
Beth Kephart ,
on 4/11/2016
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This Is the Story of You, my monster storm Jersey Shore story, launches tomorrow. Out into the world.
Whoosh. There you go.
But in the days leading up to now, I've been spending time with the stories of others. For who among us will ever believe that our own work is
the work? Who
should believe that? Who does not think that, at the end of it all, the best thing about being a writer is finding the excuse to curl up with someone else's fine tale—the story another loved, hoped for and through, and found a way to launch?
Today I want to celebrate:
Cordelia Jensen's
Skyscraping, a novel in verse to which I have previously alluded on this blog. Before I met Cordelia a few weeks ago in New York (odd to be meeting her there, for she lives not far from me here), I knew that she was my kind of writer—soulful, attuned to language, serious about producing lasting work.
Skyscraping tells the story of Mira, who learns the secret of her parents' marriage during her senior year in high school and needs to find a way to forgive her father before he is gone from her world. Some novels in verse are just novels written with shorter lines and white space. This is a novel in
actual verse, written by an
actual poet, who has pondered this story for years. This is a novel whose narrator understands time and stars, the cosmos and the particulate, but is never safe (no one is) from hurt. Mira is speaking here about her mother, who has been absent for much of Mira's life:
I used to imagine she saw us as a train
she could ride at will,
instead of a station,
fixed, every day.
I wonder now if maybe
a family is neither of those things
but something stable,
yet always changing,
because the people inside it are.
Peter Gardos's
Fever at Dawn, sent to me by Lauren Wein, an editor you know I love. It's a story based on the real-life tale of the author's parents—Hungarians who, in 1945, find themselves in Swedish hospitals miles apart. They are not well. They have been seared by death camps, racism, horror. They allow the letters they write to one another become their most extravagant form of hope. Miklos sends a blurry photograph to Lili, so that she cannot see his metal teeth. Lili stashes the political book Miklos has sent—unread. They know nothing about each other, actually, until, increasingly, they are nothing without each other. They are seducing each other, even as Gardos, in a book that seems (but isn't) utterly simple, seduces us:
That evening the men sat out in the courtyard with the radio on the long wooden table. The light bulb swung eerily in the wind. The men usually spent half an hour before bed in the open air. By now they had been playing the radio for six hours without a break. They had put on sweaters and coats and their pyjamas (stet) and wrapped blankets around themselves. They sat right up close to the radio. The green tuning light winked like the eye of an elf.
Finally, Cynthia Kadohata's National Book Award winning
The Thing About Luck, which wrapped me around its many fingers this weekend. Let's just say this: Anyone who thinks writing for teens is easy should spend some time in the company of this book, which has everything to teach about mosquitoes, wheat harvesting, combines, and dinners on the road—all within the frame of one of the most likable narrators yet written, a young girl named Summer, who discovers, over the course of many exotic bread-basket weeks (yes, I know what I just wrote), that luck is made, not found:
I don't know. I mean, maybe computers and cell phones and rocket ships are more magical, but to me, nothing beats the combine. That's just the way I see things. In a short time, the combine takes something humans can't use and then turns it into something that can feed us.
Before I go, I extend Happy Book Launch greetings to Robin Black, whose collection of essays,
Crash Course, debuts tomorrow in grand style. Robin will be taking the stage with grammar queen Mary Norris, at the Free Library of Philadelphia.
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I'd like to toot the horn for a brand new book out today:
This novel in verse is broken into four sections using the idea of “quarters” of the school year and months and days of the calendar. Before each section, stop and talk about what usually happens during this time of the school year (e.g., seasons, holidays, special events). Then after each section, review those highlights and how they affected the fictional students and what readers anticipate might happen next. Use the poem titles to help guide the discussion about the big topics, themes, and ideas along the way.
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Great blog! I especially enjoyed seeing the process and incorporation of your childhood sketches in your book! How wonderful! Thanks for sharing!