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If I had my own jazz band, my new book, Meet the Howlers, would not exist. That’s because I first imagined it as a song. Specifically, it was song sung in a jazzy swing by a finger-snapping Frank Sinatra wearing a silver suit. Yes, I actually imagined that. (Fiction has no monopoly on strange book backstory, folks!)

The book started simply. There we were on a tower in the Panamanian rain forest. My nephews and I were watching howler monkeys and one of my nephews said, “He’s a howler.” It’s an innocent enough phrase.

That’s all it took. One little alliteration can set me off. I started singing. “He’s a howler, dooby, dooby-dee-doh...” This became the refrain. (As you can now imagine, I am one of the world’s most embarrassing aunties.)

Once I had this melody, I needed verses. So, I sang those as well. My nephews contributed an idea or two, but mostly just looked on, skeptically. We often brainstorm book ideas together but the singing was a new thing. Later, at home, I did the major work of crafting the song. This included all the usual nonfiction steps of research and fact checking. Fortunately, though, I’d observed howler monkeys for years and also studied primatology at Duke University.

The song had rhythm and rhyme and facts. After some more struggling it had structure. Sorry, Sinatra, but the perspective of the song shifted to that of a child. My imagined narrator was a child bemoaning all the things wild howler monkeys can get away with a child wishes he/she could. Yet the book doesn’t really have a child as a character. That child is just in my head, the source of the nonfiction voice used in this expository piece about a howler family.

The problem with my song? Well, again, I lack a band. Where IS my band? Every girl needs a band . . . Anyway, the second problem was this song’s conversion to the picture book form. I’ve often lectured about the connections between song form, story form, and picture book form. (I discovered this song/picture book connection while on a long school visit drive when Loretta Lynn was on the radio. Her songs use a form called the Nashville turnaround which, I noticed, was a classic picture book structure.)

Alas, despite the similarities between songs and picture books, the differences can get you into a pickle during conversion. This, the book’s editor knows. The whole thing had a wild, syncopated jazz rhythm that she and I wrestled to iron out. It was in my head and I could have taught it to you in a minute. But it would have driven a reader mad. Next, we moved on to Woody Miller’s illustrations, which sp

After Gretchen's terrific post on writing across cultural divides, I can't resist a few thoughts on another divide: human vs. nonhuman. Because that's where I like to dance as a writer of both expository and narrative nonfiction.

When I studied biology at Duke University, I was well trained in scientific thought and making sure not to ascribe human emotions to non-human animals. I avoid anthropomorphism. Yes, a bee can be hungry. A bee can search. But can it want to be a butterfly? Can it be disappointed? I can't say that, so I didn't put that in THE BUMBLEBEE QUEEN.

Yet in the years since I graduated, knowledge of nonhuman animal consciousness has increased dramatically. If anything, I feel pushed to study the current literature so I can include more plausible animal reactions and emotions in what I write. It's evident from recent studies that many animals make plans and remember individuals. Birds can count. Snails may experience pain. Dogs have a sense of fairness. The new studies in animal consciousness blur line after line we have tried to draw between ourselves and other animals.


Crabs Feel Pain and Remember Being Hurt


Chimpanzees plan to attack visitors shows evidence of premeditated thought.

Dogs have a sense of fairness


Chimpanzees having premeditated thought? I could have told them that. I would swear the woodchuck is having premeditated thoughts right now about the tomatoes in our garden. But I can't prove that. It's just a feeling, so strong a feeling that I just ran out to make sure it had not enacted said plan.

Personal, daily animal observation lets me know that we know so much less than we think we do. Catbirds, squirrels, crows, grouper, angelfish, and barracuda all vary tremendously in their behavior as individuals, not just as a species. It is hard to resist calling those differences "personalities."

Yet in books, I do resist that temptation. I stick with the facts. That's nonfiction. All my observations of sloths, squirrels, toucans, and sharks are not controlled studies. They are anecdotal evidence, boosted by my own imagination.

It's easy to be conservative in portraying animals as emotionless. That isn't controversial. But soon, we may all need to stretch a bit farther to be realistic in our portrayal of animal consciousness. I can hardly wait to see what the next round of studies reveals.

Once an English major, always an English major. Now that Garrison Keillor has made our geeky selves rather cool (at least to each other,) I can publicly admit how much I love to dive into books and pick them apart. And when I read Rosalyn Schanzer’s delightful recent post, Coming to the Theater Near You! and April Pulley Sayre’s stunning Honk, Honk, Goose! Canada Geese Start a Family (illustrated by Huy Voun Lee,) I couldn’t resist taking a dive.

[Full disclosure: April is a good friend of mine, which did not influence this review in any way! I’ve never met Huy Voun Lee – so that proves my objectivity. Besides, I’m just tagging behind the critics who are giving this book stars and more stars.]

So, back to Rosalyn’s movie talk…. As a Screenwriter Sayre has written a tale of romance, danger, and heroic vigilance. Our hero, Father Goose is handsome, assertive, brave, romantic, and good with children – every female’s dream. But his is not an easy job. Predators lay in wait to harm his family. He sometimes fails to avert trouble, but he never gives up. Sigh. What a guy.

Co-directors Sayre and Lee work together to give this story passion and drama. Lee’s stunning cut-paper illustrations give us a stylized but realistic rendering of the world of Canada geese – habitat and predators, as well as details of domesticity. Danger abounds, which Lee shows us in many spot illustrations, but Father Goose is ever-alert. Sayre, as always, uses nature sounds and rhythms to dramatize her story.

Casting Director April chose to make Father Goose the protagonist. Many animal books focus on Mama, but Papa gets the spotlight here. Huy Vuon emphasizes his protector role by showing him with wings spread, neck stretched forward, tongue extended as he speaks his lines boldly: “Honk, hee-honk! Hisssssssssssss!”

Costume Designer Lee exquisitely uses her cut-paper medium to give us finely-cut feathers on the wings which, when spread, dominate the page. She uses downy-textured papers for the geese and goslings’ bodies. Thus we “feel” the power of their bodies and the fineness of their down feathers.

Lee serves as Set Designer with help from Sayre. Lee shows the geese’s habitat of open grassland, (plain green paper with cut-out dark green ridges to show contours and elevation,) and a pond (two-tone mottled blue paper.) This dreamy blue covers the entire double-page spread of the couple’s courtship. We are immersed in the setting as they do what needs to be done to start a family. Sayre’s sounds enhance the setting: “Dabble dip” as they paddle, “Pluck, pull” when they feed, “Stretch, curve, their necks danced.”

Father Goose’s stunts are set up by both author and illustrator. As Stunt Co-coordinators, Sayre describes a raccoon invading the nest and breaking an egg. Father honks, hisses, and lunges. Lee shows us a scary goose in profile, wings reaching beyond the page, neck crossing from one page to another. I’d run away too, like the raccoon.

Cinematographer Lee alters her angles throughout the book: wide establishing shots in the beginning, close-ups for intimate moments, then wide shots showing the new goose family, leading up to the final extreme close-up of Father Goose staring at us and giving us his loudest ever “Honk, hee-honk, honk! Hisssssssss!”

These are Sayre’s Special Effects that bring her hero and the story to life – a sound design that begins with lots of honks, followed by splishes and splashes, flap flaps, more honks, crack crick peeps, still more honks, plop plops, peeps and yawns, and ending with Father’s triumphant Honk. Well done, Father Goose. Well done, April Pulley Sayre and Huy Voun Lee.

Hollywood, are you watching?

Vulture View

Author: April Pulley Sayre
Illustrator: Steve Jenkins
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (October 2, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0805075577
ISBN-13: 978-0805075571

"Wings stretch wide to catch a ride on warming air. Going where?"

Did you know turkey vultures don't hunt? These birds like their food already dead which is why they're known as nature's clean-up crew.

April Pulley Sayre does a wonderful job of introducing young readers to the turkey vulture in an easy-to-read poetic text. If you're like me, you've probably seen these scavengers swooping high above your highways, (we have one here at our local zoo, too)--but never thought too much about them. After reading this book, you'll think twice about the bird with the ugly bare-skinned face when you see them soaring high in the sky. The final two pages are a "Get to Know Vultures" section that provides information about vultures and a suggestion to check out the Turkey Vulture Society's website at www.vulturesociety.homestead.com, which contains facts and lots of wonderful photos.

Caldecott Honor-winning artist Steve Jenkins provides gorgeous cut-paper collage illustrations in bold colors that pop off the page.

Companion book:

Condor's Egg (Endangered Species)




Nonfiction Monday takes place at various wonderful blogs throughout the Kidlitosphere! Today, you can check out the Roundup at Tales From the Rushmore Kid.

To see the blog schedule for Nonfiction Monday, please visit Anastasia Suen's Picture Book of the Day.

This time of year, when I am visiting schools, I am less focused on what I write for kids than what they are writing. This week, during a wonderful visit to my home state of S.C., I visited with young authors who were making great strides in crafting interesting nonfiction. I'd like to pass along what I shared with them in a Writer's Group Session for grades 3 and 4.

One common assignment is for students to write about someone they admire. They often choose someone they know well: a parent, a friend, or a teacher, for instance. The first drafts of these pieces typically sound like lists. I like my friend because she is sweet. She is nice to me. She is good at sports. She shares with me. She cheers me up when I am sad.

Certainly, a list is a good way to start. But what really fires up these kinds of essays is scenes. For the second draft, I encourage the students to be specific. Choose a characteristic of the admired person and find an instance when this characteristic was expressed. The reader needs to experience what it is like to have this person in his/her life. We need to hear the details. Several short incidents can make a strong piece. These telling details and incidents show us both the character of the admired and the admirer. They loosen up the writing and add character to the piece.

When my mother showed me the letter, she . . .
When I was sad about my cat dying, my friend sat with me and . . .

Of course, an admired person may be a public figure, not a friend or family member. Scenes still apply. Digging for incidents just takes a bit more work.

When he was 14, he . . .
When she was turned down for school, she . . .
When she lost the election, she . . .

That's it. Make a scene. These moments of narrative within expository pieces make nonfiction interesting. I've seen the change they can make in a student's writing.

P.S. My new book is out. I feel like being a bit loud about it. If you read the book, you will see why. (Hint: honk, honk, hisssssssss!) This is not a shy, retiring book. It is:

Honk, Honk, Goose: Canada Geese Start a Family. Illustrated by Huy Vuon Lee and released by Henry Holt.

My thanks to the students of Lexington, S.C. and Gilbert, S.C. This week they gave me the pleasure of hearing it read and performed for the first time. I divided the audience into groups. Some had "honk." Some had "hee-honk." In unison, we hissed. I conducted the group and it was laugh out loud hilarious. Okay, so we were making a scene!

Many parents at elementary schools I visit ask me about how they can help their students thrive as authors. So I would like to share some advice I first published on my website.

Nurturing Your Young Author

Every author and artist needs someone who loves them unconditionally. That may be your most important role. Celebrate your young author’s creativity and the act of putting pen to paper. Keep fun in the process and encourage experimentation and writing in daily life.

In my humble opinion, it is best if someone else can be the critic for your child’s work. (This may not always be possible with home schooling, of course.) But only you know your relationship with your child. Just do not underestimate the weight of criticism that comes from someone who is both parent and family member. Most artists want to be loved through their work. Sometimes a parent just needs to say “hurray!” even if they don’t know what the picture is or what the story is trying to say. The point is to encourage the next artistic leap.

Always celebrate each step in the process. A crummy first draft is still a big leap from blank page to writing. A weak second draft is still a start. Post and frame writing the same way you do pictures.

How do you encourage your young author to push farther? Give them models—great writing. Surround them with words. Let them start to see and understand quality by becoming a good reader.

Encourage writing community. Take your child to young author conferences. Help your librarian/school bring in authors. Ask an aunt, grandparent, or family friend to exchange real letters with your child.

Quality is quantity when it comes to learning writing. Don’t obsess over having your child make every piece perfect. Some writers learn by polishing one piece forever. Some writers learn by moving on to another piece and discarding previous pieces until they have a flow of language. The most important thing is to move forward with writing. The more you write, the better you become at writing. It’s a skill you build by doing, doing, doing.

Give your child great books, blank books, and office supplies for every possible occasion.

Respect your young author’s privacy. The page has a sanctity. Make it a home policy for you and other family members to respect each other’s letters, diaries, emails, and so on. Ask permission before reading someone else’s work. Some young artists/authors are painfully shy, intensely private, or introverted. Having the safety to know that they can let go in their writing is very important.

Offer your child opportunities to share and present writing. Give it the star status of football!

Here are some specific activities to try:

• Write thank you letters to people that go unthanked in your life


• Work together to make poems and nutty labels for your family scrapbook


• Have your child interview family members about family events from different viewpoints


• Hire your child to do the family stories of his/her ancestors


• Create a storybook for each summer, or summer events


• Create a newspaper with articles about your community


• Create a family cookbook/calendar/or other unique gift


• Writing for joy and writing well will help your child immensely, whatever they choose to do in life

I have a secret. I'm a seasonal nonfiction writer. In winter, the fiction hits. The long dark days, the cold, the spiritual struggle of surviving winter in the Midwest makes me escape to reading and writing fiction. Characters and novels fill my soul. Nonfiction pales. I love my second life of creating made-up plots and puzzling out character connections.

But when Spring arrives, I shed my novel skin and I can't even remember why I wanted to write fiction. Spring wildflowers, hooray! Warblers, hooray! Gardening...why did I ever want to spend time away from nonfiction, the science of life sprouting around me?

That's where I am now. I am busy with caterpillars and flowers and nesting birds. Field guides are my life. A stack of novels to read and write lies unloved. Who needs fiction? I am reading about the origins of fruit and the science of stars. My brain is sponging up documentaries on LINK TV. The overgrowth of life and ideas presses against me, making me wonder how much I will be able to uncover and explore in my life. Nonfiction is my season!

But I warn you. I have another side, and it will arrive...oh, around late November. That's when those winter dreams will sprout fiction. Unless I can find a way to go the tropics, where the green may bring my nonfiction back to life. Perhaps if I lived in Southern California, I would be nonfiction all year long. Or would I? And would that be a good thing? Hmm...

I am guessing some of you other readers/writers out there have a seasonality to your subject matter, too. Let me know if I am right!

By the way I recommend you add another patriotic book to your library. Farmer George Plants A Nation by Peggy Thomas, published by Calkins Creek, an imprint of Boyds Mills Press. I dig this book! And digging is appropriate because it brings forth the life of George Washington as a farmer and scientist. It is so great to see a man, mostly understood as soldier or statesman, in the life that fed him: his trees, gardens, and experiments with agriculture. Apparently, his letters were filled with farm life and farm instructions, even when he was on the battlefield. We all have our roots.

I guess an elementary school teacher never knows what activity will stimulate a particular student. When I was a little girl, it was Mrs. Ottewell’s half-hour reports at the Montessori School of Greenville. Here’s how they worked. First, she went to the shelf and pulled down The Topic Box. We reached in and each pulled out a folded slip of paper. On the paper was a topic. We had one half hour to find some books in the well-stocked shelves, read something about that topic, and write a report. It was a wild and crazy knowledge race.

The first attraction of the half hour report was that Topic Box. Oh, how I loved the surprise, the uncertainty, of pulling a paper out of the box. It was like an eight ball, that fluid-filled prediction toy. I never knew what topic I might nab. In a time before Internet use, randomly generated, wide-reaching information was wild and stimulating. It appealed to my sense of rebellion. If I had been told what to write about, I might have balked. But when I pulled it from the box, it was magic, it was organic, it was my choice, yet not my choice. It was destiny!

Through half-hour reports, I sampled the world. I tasted a bit of Russia, spent a few minutes with minotaurs, and found the Himalayas on a map. That was the magic of Mrs. Ottewell’s room.

Now, as part of my career, I have written two children’s books on each continent. I have written a book on each biome, from rain forest to taiga, from ocean to coral reef. I have the luxury of slipping from one topic to another as I shift from book to book. For articles, I may research the geography of China, the shape of rivers, or fish in the Amazon. I follow leads, I do interviews, I am free to pursue my curiosity where it leads. It’s like those half-hour reports. I am free to think and explore and report back, only now it’s to the reading public instead of to the class.

A few years ago, my husband and I visited Mrs. Ottewell at her home. We began to discuss fellow classmates and a friend who had married someone from Egypt. We began talking of Palestine, politics, and the greater world. A question came up. Right there in the middle of the conversation, she stood up and pulled out an atlas. Soon we had a dictionary, too. By the end of the conversation, we were poring over maps and encyclopedias.

You know it has been a full conversation when you end it with books and maps spread out and your mind opened somehow as well.
Thank you, Mrs. Ottewell.
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The passage above is part of a chapter in my book for grownups:

Unfold Your Brain:
Deepen your creativity, expand into new arts, and prosper as a writer, musician, or visual artist

Unfold Your Brain is a workbook/think book about how to deepen creativity. Early chapters are suitable for those just beginning to explore their artistic side; later chapters delve into the arts/publishing business and give hints about marketing, public speaking, and revitalizing creativity mid-career.
You can order Unfold Your Brain from lulu.com. Here is the URL address:
http://www.lulu.com/content/531527

Sometimes you need to be trapped somewhere with a book. I know, it shouldn't be that way. But it is. Some of the great reading I have done as a child and as an adult has been when I was stuck somewhere and at the mercy of books left by someone else.

On a rainy day when I was sick in a cloud forest in Ecuador, I adopted a book left by another traveler. It was a book about the songlines in Australia. That book led to significant creative breakthroughs in my life.

The chore of dusting has brought me to books. Cleaning off the shelves in my mom's house often leads me to end up, half way down the shelf, on the floor, reading a book. I wouldn't normally read a book of quotes by Winston Churchill even if someone gave me the book. But it it's my discovery...well, why not! Note to parents, aunties, and grandparents...assigning someone to clean off a shelf is a good sneaky way to encourage them to dip into new knowledge.

Personally, I believe in the power of boredom, of empty time. I think every child and adult needs that time to let their mind range in organic ways. But seeding a place with some good nonfiction books can yield excellent results. These are knowledge books that lift us up and inspire us in our quiet times. These are books you don't give to a child to read. You just leave them...by the couch or in a vacation house. Put them on a shelf at eye level where "time outs" are done. Stick a few in the pocket on the backs of car seats or in a bag for a long trip.

I think, as Linda Salzman said in her Thursday May 22 post, we sometimes need to start reading what we wouldn't normally choose. Each year, just before their beach vacation, my friends Andrea and Donnie visit the local library and sweep a random assortment of books off the endcaps and fill a bag. They do so without sorting or really choosing. Then they take these book bags to the beach and randomly read. It leads them to all sorts of discoveries.

Nonfiction is perfectly suited to this kind of spontaneous reading. Seed your surroundings with such books and see what happens!

Nutritious nonfiction. Sometimes I have to be tricked into reading what’s good for me. I accidentally read this book and I am so glad. I just read Cesar, ¡Si, Se Puede! Yes We Can! by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, illustrated by David Diaz (Marshall Cavendish, 2004). Wow. It is a luminous, inspiring book. Bernier-Grand gently lays out the life of migrant worker advocate Cesar Chavez through easy-to-read poems. Her work is so loving and understated that you don’t feel you are reading poetry; you are just being pulled piece-by-piece into the daily, yearly events that shape a person strong enough to do heroic things. Teachers would surely love reading one spread at a time and then having brief discussions about what the pieces brought forth. This book is not in-your-face nonfiction. It’s nonfiction and heroism made personal. All the material could be used for kids at young ages…1st grade through 6th. But older kids, and sort-of adults like me love this, too! David Diaz’s art is sunny, joyful, delicious. It seems to grow and glow on the pages. Every school needs several copies of this book. I think it could change lives.

Now I am going to go look up Bernier-Grand's recent Pura Bel Pre author honor book, “Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life!”

Once you get the taste for nutritious nonfiction, you want more and more. Because nonfiction is shelved by topic, not author, it takes a little extra work to hunt down the work of a particular nonfiction author. Yet there are some great nonfiction voices, like Bernier-Grand's, that are worth searching for.

This time of year I am on the road a lot. I speak at conferences and visit libraries and schools. (Check here for a awesome nationwide environmental project/art contest for classrooms K-3 to celebrate my new book TROUT ARE MADE OF TREES. The prize is I come to your school for free.)

I love Firefox. Have I mentioned that I love Firefox? I was browsing the add-ons this morning and found some good, good stuff. 1-Click Weather, for example: a handly little extension that puts current-weather icons in the status bar at...