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By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 9/17/2012
At the end of August, I spent some time in Atlanta, giving talks at two schools, a library, a girls' group, and a book club. Greater Atlanta Christian School was kind enough to take pictures as I spoke. I've found the pictures entertaining enough to share with you!
I know several of my former students occasionally stop by. I figure they'll be just as humored as I am.
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By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 9/14/2012
I was cleaning out my office a few weeks ago and found this, my son's interpretation of May B.*
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 9/7/2012
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 6/22/2012
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 5/23/2012
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 3/21/2012
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 2/27/2012
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 2/17/2012
I'm at Erin Goodman's Behind the Blog today. Download the podcast here, and join us on Erin's Facebook page Saturday morning for a chat (8:00 am MST/ 10:00 am EST).
Here are some highlights:
1:50 -- Land of Enchantment
3:10 -- writing space
6:30 -- stranger in a strange land
7:10 -- topics I'm drawn to
9:20 -- my teaching years
11:30 -- Caroline by line
15:30 -- blogging with writing deadlines
16:45 -- meeting Mavis Betterly
17:10 -- graveyards and being nosey
19:10 -- learning disabilities in another era
20:30 -- the origins of May's name
23:00 -- when your children aren't ready for certain stories
27:20 -- wolf!
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 2/10/2012
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 1/25/2012
Four of the five MAY Days winners have contacted me. I haven't yet heard from Mia, who left this comment:
I've been to Erica Perl's Chicken Butt at Wellesley Booksmith, Lisa See's at Brookline Booksmith, and Best Travel Writing for Women at Brookline Booksmith.
I'd love to attend your book signing! Please come to Newton, MA!
I need to hear from you by the end of the week, or the package below will go elsewhere.
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 1/25/2012
In an effort to give readers a taste of MAY B., I'm sharing books with similar genres and themes. Today's topic: frontier stories. All descriptions are taken from Amazon.com.
The Long Winter - Laura Ingalls Wilder
The adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as Pa, Ma, Laura, Mary, Carrie, and little Grace bravely face the hard winter of 1880-81 in their little house in the Dakota Territory. Blizzards cover the little town with snow, cutting off all supplies from the outside. Soon there is almost no food left, so young Almanzo Wilder and a friend make a dangerous trip across the prairie to find some wheat. Finally a joyous Christmas is celebrated in a very unusual way in this most exciting of all the Little House books.
Pioneer Girl: A True Story of Growing up on the Prairie - Andrea Warren
Pioneer Girl is the true story of Grace McCance Snyder. In 1885, when Grace was three, she and her family became homesteaders on the windswept prairie of central Nebraska. They settled into a small sod house and hauled their water in barrels. Together they endured violent storms, drought, blizzards, and prairie fires.
Despite the hardships and dangers, Grace loved her life on the prairie. Weaving Grace’s story into the history of America’s heartland, award-winning author Andrea Warren writes not just of one spirited girl but of all the children who homesteaded with their families in the late 1800s, sharing the heartbreaks and joys of pioneer life.
Prairie Song - Pam Conrad
3 Comments on Frontier Stories, last added: 1/25/2012
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 1/23/2012
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 1/10/2012
On Being Vulnerable and Putting Yourself Out There :: Steady Mom
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 12/9/2011
May B.
by Caroline Starr Rose
Intermediate, Middle School Schwartz & Wade/Random 233 pp.
The verse novel form is particularly well suited to this spare survival story set on the homesteaded Kansas prairie. In late August, young May’s parents send her off to work for a newly married couple on their isolated farm fifteen miles away, promising she’ll be back by Christmas. But when the homesick Mrs. Oblinger runs away and her husband sets off to retrieve her and doesn’t return, May is stranded alone in their sod hut, snowed in, unable to get home, unable to send for help.
Dwindling supplies of food and fuel, evidence of wolves, and a blizzard are the external threats that make up the tense plot, but equally dangerous are the psychological challenges of claustrophobia and despair. Only when May chooses to live fully in the present can she gather her resources for a life-saving plan. A backstory involving May’s dyslexia parallels the themes of abandonment and potent effects of small, rare kindnesses. Author Rose uses a close-up lens and a fine sense of rhythm to draw us into her stark world, Little House on the Prairie without the coziness. “It’s the noise that wakes me / in the darkness close as a shroud. / Wind whips around the soddy; / I imagine I hear the walls groan.” sarah ellis
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 12/5/2011
Consider passing the time by listening in on the recent interview I did with Barry Eva of A Book and a Chat. Download the podcast here.
Here are some highlights and where to find them in the interview:
2:00 -- Magic tricks with Caroline the Great
3:25 -- Laura Ingalls Wilder's influence on my writing
5:40 -- Deserts: Saudi Arabia and New Mexico
9:20 -- Marmite, Vegemite, and Promite
11:00 -- Poetry in the classroom
17:40 -- Reflections on the word "poet"
19:00 -- How MAY B. came to be a verse novel
20:30 -- Emily Dickinson's poems and Gilligan's Island
23:35 -- Books I wrote before MAY B.
24:20 -- Roald Dahl's writing advice
26:20 -- Inspiration behind MAY B.
29:30 -- MAY B. and dyslexia
34:15 -- Mail order brides
36:05 -- MAY B. overview
37:03 -- sod houses
41:05 -- more on MAY as a verse novel
43:40 -- A little secret about my exposure to verse novels
44:47 -- My publication journey
49:00 -- The amazing Karen Cushman
49:35 -- The Classes of 2k11 and 2k12
53:50 -- Future projects
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 11/28/2011
May B. doesn't come out until January 10, but that doesn't mean you can't include it on your holiday gift list! Here are a few creative ways you can help a young reader anticipate a gift that will arrive a few weeks into the new year:
Give Book Pairs
There are all kinds of books that are great companion novels for May B. Consider giving one of these titles along with a note explaining its "partner" will arrive soon.
For another frontier story with plenty of snow:
The Long Winter -- Laura Ingalls Wilder
For fans of survival stories:
Hatchet -- Gary Paulsen
Island of the Blue Dolphins -- Scott O'Dell
For another historical verse novel:
Out of the Dust -- Karen Hesse
Pre-order a Signed Copy
For those of you who would like signed copies of May B., my local independent children's bookstore, Alamosa Books, will be happy to mail them to interested customers. Feel free to drop them an email to request a copy!
Get a Signed Bookplate
I'm happy to send your reader a signed bookplate and May B. bookmark and sticker. Email me with your reader's name, and I'll include a personal note -- perfect for a stocking stuffer!
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 11/23/2011
For some people, verse novels are unappealing because of the way words are arranged on the page. Others find them too pretentious, too simplistic, too weird. And that's okay. Readers have the right to feel however they like about certain genres or styles. What I love, though, is when readers are willing to try something new.
I'm finding a number of those who have posted reviews of May B. on Goodreads start in a similar way:
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 8/26/2011
I've got some gorgeous MAY B. stickers and bookmarks, and I've thought up a fun way to share.
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 7/20/2011
There's an amazing author I met last year, not with a formal introduction, but through a book review. That book was like a nourishing meal, meaty and savory and lovely. Now she's read May B., and I am deeply honored by what she had to say about my girl.
Thank you, Beth Kephart, for everything.
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 7/18/2011
Chris Neal has a wonderful new post on his website about the way he approached MAY B.'s cover, an interesting step-by-step with lots of sketches included.
Publishing is a team effort, and much of the process can be likened to a relay race. You are responsible for (and familiar with) only your leg of the journey. That means a lot of the process is left shrouded in mystery, especially for first timers like me.
Thank you, Chris, for this glimpse into your end of things!
By: Beth Kephart ,
on 7/10/2011
It is hard to tell what is sun,That is May B., thinking out loud. That is the quality of the prose that streams through this book—timeless, transcendent, and graced with lyric spark, moving, always, the consequential story along:
what is candle,
what is pure hope.
She rocks again.And:
"The quiet out here's the worst part,
thunderous as a storm the way
it hounds you
inside
outside
nighttime
day."
He had that look that reminds meCaroline Starr Rose is both a teacher and a writer (and a fine blogger). She wondered, she writes, how children with learning differences, such as dyslexia, made their way, years ago, and May B. arose in part from that question, as well as from Caroline's own love for social history. I listen for rhythms in the books I read, and I found them aplenty here. I look for heart, and found that, too—abundant and dear. Special books fit themselves into special places, and May B. has a new home here on my shelves—right beside Ms. Nelson's Carver and Jeannine Atkins' Borrowed Names, where versed, artful, backward-glancing works for younger readers go.
someday he'll be a man.
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 7/8/2011
Heroes come in all sizes, and my newest hero is a pint-sized girl named Mavis Elizabeth Betterly, called May B. Armed with only her book, a broom, and a lot of sheer grit, May B. faces the terrors of school, winter, and the west Kansas prairie. Caroline Starr Rose tells May's story in simple, moving verse that captures the joy of family, the gloomy isolation of a dirt soddy, and the determination of one scared but indomitable young person. May B. is a girl you'll be proud to know. Give her a big hug from me.
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 7/6/2011
May B.'s incredible adventure gripped me right from the beginning. You can almost hear -- and feel -- the cold prairie winds of Kansas whipping through the pages of Caroline Starr Rose's impressive first novel.
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 7/4/2011
By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 6/30/2011
As happy as I am to be writing full time, I miss spending regular time with students. I hope as my book makes it into the world I’ll have opportunities to talk with kids during school visits, library talks, and book club discussions.
Come January
If you are a part of a children’s book club (or know anyone who might be interested), I’d love to work with your group. If you’re local (somewhere in New Mexico), I’ll make every effort to meet with your readers in person. If you’re anywhere else, I’d be happy to Skype with you during your meeting. All I ask is that your kids have read my book beforehand.
If you’re a teacher, go to my Skype an Author page to learn more about classroom or book club discussions. As part of Kate Messner’s Author Skype Tour, I’m also willing to give a few copies of my book away for those interested in a virtual author chat. Stop by to learn more!
I love these!!! You will never fool us into thinking you are anything but gorgeous.
!!
And you are a sweetheart. Thank you.
I wish I'd known you were coming! I would've talked to my daughter's school.
Matt, you're in Atlanta??
Yay! Congrats on the school visit. How fun!!
Ha! I love these too! Especially that first one. You're like, "Ehhh...whaddya want..." But seriously. It looks like you had a lot of fun! :)
It was very fun. The kids were engaged, which makes everything.
These all made me laugh.