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Jill McDonald graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1998 with a degree in textile design. She then went on to work for Baby Gap as a print stylist in Gap’s Manhattan, NY design headquarters. After two years at Gap Jill made the decision to return to her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri where she joined Hallmark Cards working as an illustrator for three years.
In January 2004 Jill felt the time was right to strike out on her own and founded Jill McDonald Design. Jill specializes in surface design collections and illustrations oriented towards baby and kids. Jill has illustrated many children’s books, created bedding collections, Scrapbooking lines, Christmas collections, Stationary collections & Wall art. Jill is now working with her team on a line of products under her name.
View more of Jill’s work.
Write Your Own Mystery or Fantasy
Today's Write On Writing Prompt is a great call out to all you aspiring writers. It comes to us from Fulafuj (who has the most awesome Profile Avatar I've ever seen). Fulafuj prompts:
Write your own mystery. Or fantasy. It has to be adventurous.
Since we wouldn't have room to post an entire story, we challenge you to write the first line of your epic mystery or fantasy. There are some great first lines to stories that suck you in. Like . . .
"It was a dark and stormy night." (from A Wrinkle in Time)
Or
"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." (from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)
Got a great first line for a mystery or fantasy story? Or if you'd rather, post a summary paragraph for your story idea! Be as creative and crazy as you like. Thanks for the great prompt, Fulafuj!
—Ratha, Stacks Writer
Summer can be fun, but it can also be productive! You have a million things going on, but trust me, you can always squeeze in an ALSC webinar. It’s just an hour!
An hour, you say? Yes! An hour chock-full of great ideas and topics on which you crave more information! ALSC webinars are hosted by great instructors who have been there and know what sort of challenges you face today. Take a look at some of the upcoming webinars this summer:
July
Give Me Something to Read! When Social Networking Meets Readers Advisory
Tues., July 10, 2012, 6 – 7 PM CT
Instructor: Joella Peterson, Children’s Librarian, Tumwater (Wash.) Timberland Regional Library
Caldecott Uncovered: What Youve Always Wanted to Know About the Caldecott Medal
Thurs., July 12, 2012, 6 – 7 PM CT [FULL]
Instructor: Rita Auerbach, former Caldecott Award Chair
August
Give Me Something to Read! When Social Networking Meets Readers Advisory
Thurs., Aug. 9, 2012, 10 11 AM CT
Instructor: Joella Peterson, Children’s Librarian, Tumwater (Wash.) Timberland Regional Library
September
The Fine Art of Childrens Book Illustration*
Tues., Sept. 18, 2012, 3 4 PM CT
Instructor: Dilys Evans, author and artist
November
The Fine Art of Childrens Book Illustration*
Thurs, Nov. 8, 2012, 3 4 PM CT
Instructor: Dilys Evans, author and artist
*This webinar is being offered free to personal ALSC members. Registration for non-members is $55.
Archived Webinars
Missed a webinar you wanted to attend? Dont worry! ALSC presents archived versions of webinars, which are offered at a discounted price. Archived webinars cost only $25. Please note that recorded versions are not available until all of the live sessions of that webinar have taken place. See the complete list of archived webinars at: http://www.ala.org/alsc/edcareeers/profdevelopment/alscweb/webinars
ALSC Online Education Proposals
Have an idea for an ALSC webinar or online course? The ALSC Education Committee is adding to ALSC’s online course and webinar offerings. If you are interested in teaching a course or webinar, please fill out the online education proposal form found at ALSC’s website: http://www.ala.org/alsc/online-education-proposal
Wendy Hue, illustrated y Zara Slattery,
Tópé Arrives
AuthorHouse, 2011.
Ages 8-11
When ten-year-old Tópé’s parents are killed in a road accident, his Uncle and Aunty come to Nigeria to take him back to England to live with them and their nine-year-old son Femi and baby daughter Happy. It’s tough having to choose what to take with him and what has to stay behind but his beloved football (soccer ball) is an essential, and at the last minute he manages to squeeze his special wooden boat into his baggage. It’s harder still having to adjust to a totally new life while grieving for his parents. As time goes by, though, he begins to settle into his new school. Being good at football helps, especially when he’s picked for the team in an inter-school championship, but it also causes friction, especially with Joe, who until Tópé’s arrival had been the star player.
As Tópé negotiates his new home, he begins to note similarities as well as differences with his earlier childhood in Nigeria, and the wooden boat is an important tangible link with his past. The story follows him as he makes friends, enjoys Femi’s birthday party, goes on a sleepover that turns into a big adventure, and beats off summer vacation boredom by putting together an act for a local “Star Youth Academy” show. In a sense this performance that draws the book to a satisfying conclusion is what really marks Tópé’s arrival – he’s made it through his first few months in England; he’s joined on stage by Femi and some good friends, including Joe; and they are playing the Nigerian dundun drums that belong to his uncle and whose sound links him to Nigeria and to his father and grandfather especially.
Wendy Hue has created an engaging story that will appeal particularly to boys, who will empathise with the different dynamics in the relationships portrayed; and Zara Slattery’s black-and-white illustrations add atmosphere. Tópé Arrives is also the perfect middle-grade read for any young person who finds themselves thrown into new surroundings, for whatever reason, especially though not exclusively anyone adjusting to life in the UK. Hue’s sensitive awareness of Tópé’s experience, for example, includes such details as his discomfort at having to wear a thick jacket for the English climate. As well as the realistically portrayed hurly burly of school, the adults depicted in the story are reassuring and kind. The reader also shares in some of Tópé’s quieter moments, and indeed Tópé Arrives also has the potential to be of comfort to a young reader mourning a loved one.
Tópé Arrives would make a welcome addition to any middle-grade book shelf, and we look forward to more writing from Wendy Hue in the future.
I've been noticing that alchemy has been popping up in a lot of YA titles lately. The following is not, of course, meant to be remotely exhaustive—these are just the ones that came to mind:
Bloodlines & The Golden Lily, by Richelle Mead: Our heroine is Sydney Sage, alchemist (it also turns out that she has magical powers)! In this series, alchemists are, like, a secret society that polices vampires and keeps them hidden from the human race. Even though they hate them. Or... something like that. It makes more sense in the books, I promise. It's a spin-off of the Vampire Academy books—Sydney first appeared in Blood Promise.
The Alchemy of Forever, by Avery Williams: In this one, the local alchemist's son made our heroine immortal—well, kind of—way back in 1349. Since then, in order to, you know, keep living, she's forced to steal bodies whenever the one she's currently inhabiting starts to break down... which is every decade or so. Now, though, she's had enough with the killing and the abusive alchemist's son. So she plans to escape and commit suicide... but not everything goes as planned.
The Other Countess, by Eve Edwards: Our heroine's father is an alchemist! Who spent all of her true love's family's money! So that's a problem.
This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein #1, by Kenneth Oppel: On his way over to the Dark Side, Anakin Skywalker Victor Frankenstein discovers a secret Dark Library full of dangerous alchemical texts. Later, he and his crew seek out the help of alchemist Julius Polidori in their attempt to create the Elixir of Life. It... doesn't go well.
The Iron Witch & The Wood Queen, by Karen Mahoney: Like Sydney in Bloodlines, our heroine Donna Underwood was born into a secret society of alchemists. There's a war going on between the fey and the alchemists, and poor old Donna is stuck right in the middle of it... while she attempts to navigate high school and all that jazz. I haven't read the second one yet. I should probably get on that.
Anyway, those are the titles I came up with. Any suggestions?
Her website.
Her Twitter feed.
Titles I've written about:
The Other Countess (2010):
It's got loads of witty banter and makes for lots of swooning. It's got two—count 'em!—TWO really likable female leads and tons of period detail. The storyline is, yeah, ultimately predictable, but in agood way, and it's got lots of unpredictable stops along the way.
When Lady Eleanor Rodriguez, Countess of San Jaime, was twelve years old, she and her alchemist father were turned out of William Lacey's lands. "Turned away" is putting it mildly—as Ellie's father was to blame for the Lacey's lost family fortune, she and her father were lucky that the new Earl of Dorset only threw them out, rather than setting his dogs on them.
Four years later, Will is eighteen and headed to Queen Elizabeth's court in the hopes of snagging a rich bride in seek of a title. Someone like Lady Jane Perceval, whose family has plenty of money and would like the social standing to go along with it.
Little does Will know, Ellie and her father are at the Queen's court as well, but now, of course, Ellie's all grown up. When they reconnect, Will is floored by the lovely, witty, scholarly countess... until he finds out who her father is. Oddly, though, even after that discovery, he can't get Ellie out of his mind. Meanwhile, though, Lady Jane's dirtbag of a brother also has his eye on Ellie...
I loved this one. Utter bliss.
It's got loads of witty banter and makes for lots of swooning. It's got two—count 'em!—TWO really likable female leads and tons of period detail. The storyline is, yeah, ultimately predictable, but in a good way, and it's got lots of unpredictable stops along the way. There are cameos by Sir Walter Raleigh (he's a total lech and wears a massive codpiece) and Queen Elizabeth (she's Queen Elizabeth-y).
The Lacey family is adorable and rambunctious and lovable, and Ellie both loves and wants to strangle her absent-minded, selfish, obsessed father. When Will is a jerk, he owns up to it, and Ellie's never one to just stand around and wait to be rescued. (That said, she does get rescued a few times despite herself.)
Politics and religion and other aspects of the era all factor in to the storyline, creating a rich world for the adorbs characters to swan around in.
AND IT WORKS AS A STAND-ALONE!! (BUT, AT THE SAME TIME, IT'S NOT ALL OVER, BECAUSE THERE'S ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT LADY JANE!!)
Holy cow, it doesn't get much better than this. I'm so very, very happy, and I can't wait to sit down with The Queen's Lady.
____________________________________________
Booklist: Alchemy.
____________________________________________
Author page.
____________________________________________
If we feel like getting technical about it the mid-year point really would have been around the time of the last ALA Conference. Alas, I’ve put it off until now. No longer! With my ear planted firmly to the ground I’ve been snuffling about (weirdo mixed metaphor alert), talking to folks, trying to get a sense of where the buzz lies. Buzz is a pitch poor method of predicting this award, but it’s all we’ve got, guys. It’s all we’ve got.
On to the maybes!!!
Newbery 2013
Let’s break this up in a new way, this time around. Usually I just like to list the names and the books and leave it at that. But a wave of creativity has crested over me and what the hey. Let’s go with the flow. It is summer, after all.
Early Contenders
In my last prediction post I listed five books with real potential. Of those titles, only two came out in the spring. The first of these, and the one that folks mention the most often, was of course, Wonder. Usually when a book of this caliber gets this much attention early in a year (heck, it even appeared on my Top 100 Chapter Books Poll at #65) then there’s a backlash to contend with. In this particular case, Wonder hasn’t had to deal with the kind of scrutiny a book like Okay for Now had to suffer. That said, before he died Peter Sieruta came up with a list of questions that we need to seriously ask before we just hand a Newbery over to Wonder, no holds barred. Still, even after we consider that list, nothing has quite toppled Wonder from its throne . . . and yet . . .
The other spring release I mentioned was The One and Only Ivan. Sadly, Ivan’s not getting the support needed for a true Newbery break for the gold. Early good word sustained it for a while, but the buzz has at the moment died down significantly. Seems that there are other books out there from the spring getting more attention. Books like . . .
Summer of the Gypsy Moths by Sara Pennypacker. I’m woefully behind in my reviews or I would have tackled this one already. Regardless, this book’s really remarkable from start to finish. I like to hold up the cover and then pronounce, “It’s about two girls who bury a corpse in their backyard. It’s Shallow Grave for kids”, which is a kickin’ description, if not ent
I love Pete the Cat. He is a most unusual character: a cat with big eyes, blue fur and a continually positive attitude, no matter what happens. The picture book Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons is both a numbers concept book and a story about remembering what's important. Pete the Cat takes great joy in the four groovy buttons on his favorite shirt, even singing about them. But what happens when a button pops off, then another and another and another? You'll laugh when you read my review of Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons and find out. See my list of
children's books that make good graduation gifts to learn why I also included the picture book on that list.
(Cover art courtesy of HarperCollins)
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Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons originally appeared on About.com Children's Books on Monday, July 9th, 2012 at 00:01:26.
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Compiled by
Cynthia Leitich Smithfor
CynsationsCheck out the
book trailer for
The Selection by
Kiera Cass (HarperTeen, 2012). From the promotional copy:
For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in the palace and compete for the heart of the gorgeous Prince Maxon.But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn't want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she's made for herself-and realizes that the life she's always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.
How much time do you have to learn about the Caldecott Medal this summer?
If you have an hour to spare, consider The Fine Art of Children’s Book Illustration – Webinar, free to ALSC members and $55 for nonmembers.
If you have a few hours spread across six weeks, registration is open for the next round of The Caldecott Medal: Understanding Distinguished Art in Picture Books – Online Course taught by Kathleen T. Horning.
If you have a few days available, consider heading to Indianapolis, IN for the ALSC National Institute. This two-and-a-half day biennial workshop features a special Caldecott Celebration for the “Breakfast for Bill” program on Friday morning.
For information about these events or to find more ways to celebrate the Caldecott 75th Anniversary, check out http://www.ala.org/alsc/Caldecott75
...at Noblemania.
Spoiler: 5-year-old Daniel Handler looks amazingly like grown-up Daniel Handler!
Bonus points go to Alan Gratz for the Jack Knight costume! I do have a soft spot for that incarnation of Starman.
What a fun review! Thank you, Hillary! I totally agree - this is such a fun book to share with your little ones!
Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do
*I was sent a copy by the publisher for review purposes.
New hardbacks:
The Springsweet, by Saundra Mitchell:
If it was the slow build of The Vespertine’s pacing that got you down, know this: in The Springsweet, within less than 30 pages, 17-year-old Baltimorean Zora Stewart has already deliberately ruined herself (in the eyes of genteel society), headed off to the Oklahoma frontier to live with her aunt and been set upon by masked highwaymen.
Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls, by Mary Downing Hahn
Liberator, by Richard Harland
The Last Echo: A Body Finder Novel, by Kimberly Derting
The Last Apprentice: Grimalkin the Witch Assassin (Book 9), by Joseph Delaney and Patrick Arrasmith
Kill Switch, by Chris Lynch
Gone, Gone, Gone, by Hannah Moskowitz
Glimmer, by Phoebe Kitanidis
172 Hours on the Moon, by Johan Harstad
The Chaos, by Nalo Hopkinson
The Wicked and the Just, by Jillian Anderson Coats
And here we are at the end of the first arc.
Nina (I finally remembered Mrs. Locke's first name) and Duncan are locked in the wine cellar, Kinsey is unconscious, and Tyler's being held at gunpoint by Poor Crazypants Sam Lesser. Bode is on the loose, and needs to find the Anywhere Key and get it to Dodge before Sam kills another member of the Locke family—he can only hope that Dodge will hold up her end of the bargain.
Artwork?
Now that Nina's cane is broken, I'm curious to see if she'll replace it in the next issue, or if this last (<--well, we'll see) showdown with Sam Lesser will mark the end of her need for it.
Nice shot of Sam using the mirror to catch Tyler's attempt at the gun. He's round-the-bend crazy, but he's not stupid.
I liked Tyler's ghost-tears when he goes through Bode's ghost door. And, of course, that one shot of [SPOILER] Sam Lesser's ghost-self looking in the door.
In the Two Weeks Later epilogue, I liked that Kinsey's face is still healing, the placement of the dialogue bubbles in the reflection, and the unspoken communication between Bode and "Zack". I'm not sure if Bode knows for sure who "Zack" actually is, but he very certainly doesn't trust him. So that's good.
Storyline?
Sam mocking Tyler about his part in Mr. Locke's death was the last straw for me: because of the way this issue played out, I know he'll continue to be a presence in the story, and I'm sure I'll end up feeling sorry for him again at some point, but at the moment, WOW. Dislike.
Kinsey got to come full circle and take action this time, which will probably help assuage her guilt about hiding during the first Sam Lesser attack.
I loved Dodge's monologue when Bode brings her the key, about how of course he doesn't understand what's going on, because this story began far before he came on the scene. "Kids always think they're coming into a story at the beginning, when usually they're coming in at the end." Of course, for us as readers, it's actually Bode's beginning and Dodge's middle (I assume). Her switcheroo into a male body—her (now his) appearance on Ellie the Track Coach's door, and then insinuating himself into the Locke kids' (minus Bode's) trust—suggests that Dodge is going to be around for a good time yet to come.
Speaking of, I went back to the yearbook picture in issue three, and the student hugging Ellie—Lucas Caravaggio—looks a whole lot like Dodge's male form. And he's staring at Rendell Locke's bracelet. Which was a fabulous touch.
Keep going?
I'm going to ILL the second collection tomorrow.
Previously:
Issue #1.
Issue #2.
Issue #3.
Issue #4.
Issue #5.
Dear Dwight Allen:
Thank you for letting me know about
your Stephen King problem (henceforth, SKP). Many people let these problems go, thinking they're not particularly important or, ultimately, relevant to anyone other than themselves, but the science shows that letting these problems linger encourages them to fester, and once they fester they can then lead to all sorts of complications and an endless array of other problems (most commonly, J.K. Rowling problems and J.R.R. Tolkien problems, which themselves can lead to entire textbooks of other problems.) Such suffering becomes an infinite sprawl of frustration, guilt, pain, and, often, anti-social behavior and anal warts.
To assess your treatment needs, let's analyze some of your history and symptoms.
Failure to quarantine. It is clear from your history that you remained healthy after occasional contacts with contagions (most notably in New York City [notable site of contagions of all sorts] in the company of a publishing employee [notable purveyors of marketing-induced illnesses] whilst "possibly" drinking "too much bad beer" [do you think there is such a thing as "enough" bad beer?]. You note that your infected friend had alleviated or at least hidden some of his symptoms with regular infusions of Pynchon, Nabokov, and Gass, but as you now must know, these are not effective medicines against SKP any more than a breath of filtered air is a remedy for the carcinogenic effects of smoking a cigarette). You health after said contact was, though (as is obvious now) relative, because had you truly been healthy, you would not now have a problem. I hope this will be a lesson to you in the future.
It is absolutely essential to quarantine bad influences at the moment you begin to suspect their healthfulness. It is always better to be safe than problematized. First, the contagion infiltrated your brain. Then, like an insect laying eggs beneath your skin, it incubated, eventually bursting through to present as full SKP.
You identify your own failure clearly, even if you don't acknowledge it as such: "During my college and graduate school years and then in my post-graduate working life, I’d read, in addition to much commercially successful literary fiction, a fair amount of genre fiction." It is good that you have separated the healthy ("literary fiction") from the somewhat contaminated ("commercially successful literary fiction") and from the pure contagion ("genre fiction"). But exposing yourself to the contagion in any form is, for roughly 75% of the population, eventually fatal. To be honest, your middle category is an illusion, like being only somewhat pregnant. There really is no middle ground. (As we will discuss later, it is very important to maintain only 2 categories for any sort of healthy judgment.)
Notice how many times you return to the contagion once you have encountered it fully. First,
Christine, then
Pet Sematary, then (saying, "I thought I’d try another King novel, a later one, to see if his writing had changed over the years")
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and
11/22/63. You know, of course, that such exposure is dangerous, and you're now fully aware of the effect, but it's important to be absolutely honest about the steps along the way. Remember, too, that contagion and addiction often present similar symptomatic profiles.
A side note: According to your account, one contagion you did manage to avoid was hipness. You write: "Strangely enough, I’d developed my taste for crime fi
His website.
His blog.
His Twitter feed.
Titles I've written about:
Days of Little Texas (2009):
And all of that doesn't touch on the atmospheric spooky stuff, which is, you know, atmospheric and spooky. Or on Roland Earl's characterization, which is fascinating, sympathetic, and believable, and his voice, which is compelling and rhythmic and, to this Mainer's ears, sounded believably Southern. More than anything else, though, it's his sincerity that makes the book.
When Ronald Earl Pettway was five (or six, he's not rightly sure) years old, his father was arrested on a drug charge. A short time later, his mother died in a meth lab explosion.
He was taken in by his aunt, Miss Wanda Joy King.
When he was ten years old, in San Angelo, Texas, he performed his first miracle of healing at the World-Famous Lake Nasworthy Lamblast and Chili Cook-off. Now sixteen, he's still known as Little Texas, still filling tents across the country, spreading the gospel with Miss Wanda Joy, Sugar Tom, and Certain Certain.
But he's starting to have doubts. Is this what he's going to do for the rest of his life? Is it even what he wants to do for the rest of his life?
And then he heals a girl in a blue dress, a girl who's about his own age, a girl named Lucy. Or at least, he thinks he does.
Until she starts appearing to him, again and again, in place after place. Is she trying to find him to thank him for healing her? Is she really even there? Is she even still alive? Did he really heal her?
Holy cow, there's a lot to this book. So much that I broke my usual Don't Mention Anything Past Page Fifty In The Synopsis rule, and still didn't touch on some of the themes and storylines. In addition to the obvious—religion and ghost story—the book also explores Ronald Earl's sexual awakening, celebrity/theatre, forgiveness and redemption, and the nature of evil. It's a book that will bear a few read-throughs, too—as I've been flipping through to check the passages I marked, I've been wondering about aspects of the story that didn't occur to me the first time through. For instance? Did Ronald Earl really, truly heal Certain Certain that time in Texas? Or was it all a show cooked up by Certain Certain and Wanda Joy, a way to make Roland Earl a True Believer, and thus, a better showman?
I really, truly don't know.
Anyway. So we've got Roland Earl's crisis of faith*—not so much a question of whether or not he believes in God, but a question of whether or not he believes in himself as a conduit to God, and whether or not he believes that this is the life he wants to lead. More and more, he's starting to doubt his aunt's motives. She dresses him in too-large clothes to make him look younger, is frank about their dependence on his preaching for their income, and sometimes seems more concerned with the theatre aspect of the revivals than the preaching:
"That's all I have to say**. Except this: you are not only a professional, Little Texas, you are also a celebrity. More than a celebrity. You are a living representative of the One True God. With that sta
I am trying to find a book for a friend - she is sure she read it when she was a child. Here is how she describes it:
The story was about a girl who has an invalid grandmother (or great grandmother) living with her family. The girl doesn't like her grandma because she is old and cranky and does nothing but scold. The little girl ends up finding her grandma's fort (I think it was a soddy underground.) and reads her diary from when the grandma was a child and the girl realizes that they were very similar.
Does that sound at all familiar?
Anyone, Anyone!?!?!
Thanks for the help - I am really struggling with this one!
Because when monsters get together for a slumber party their scary stories involve people instead!
http://radio-active-girl.blogspot.co.uk/
I love Pete the Cat. He is a most unusual character: a cat with big eyes, blue fur and a continually positive attitude, no matter what happens. The picture book Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons is both a numbers concept book and a story about remembering what's important. Pete the Cat takes great joy in the four groovy buttons on his favorite shirt, even singing about them. But what happens when a button pops off, then another and another and another? You'll laugh when you read my review of Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons and find out. See my list of
children's books that make good graduation gifts to learn why I also included the picture book on that list.
(Cover art courtesy of HarperCollins)
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Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons originally appeared on About.com Children's Books on Sunday, July 8th, 2012 at 21:10:26.
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Ciao,
this extract is appropriate
Mr. Fenton said he thought he had dodged a
bullet until about three years ago, when his tap water began occasionally
fizzing and smelling like petroleum. And even though Encana is giving him
drinking water, Mr. Fenton said he and his family still bathe in dirty water.
In this startling report, scientists declare that there is no "scientific method." Scientists do not strictly follow a process in their exploration of the natural world because some experiments may be too expensive, too difficult for current technology, unethical, or various other problems. In fact, the report asserts that some scientists just disrupt a system to see what happens: curiosity wins the day.
Instead, says Heidi Schweingruber,deputy director of the Board on Science Education at the National Research Council, in Washington, D.C., kids should be studying "Practices of science"-- "or the many ways in which scientists study problems."
Hurrah! Science is finally on our side, because there isn't a strict "writing process" either. Instead, writing a novel is a messy route toward something that falls within the continuum of what we traditionally call a novel. We can talk about the need for prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and then publication all we want, but it is only partly true. I do believe in the writing process; I even wrote the
Wikipedia.org entry on prewriting, which has been viewed 7338 times in the last 90 days. But I don't believe you can definitively say you must follow these steps in this order. It's a much messier process.
When I teach a
Novel Revision Retreat, I talk about strategies of writing, much like the "principles of science." Writers trying to create a character might list character qualities, do a freewrite of description, tape record dialogue, flip through catalogs looking for a model face, sit in a McDonalds and listen for the "right" voice, manipulate sentence length and vocabulary choices in search of a character's voice, type with a blacked-out, powered-off computer screen the better to "hear" the character's voice, or any number of other strategies.
Once, when my daughter was in fifth grade, she wrote a great essay. The teacher promptly asked her to write down the exact steps she took to write that essay. Sigh. Not helpful. It's not the ORDER of the steps that matter, it's the particular strategies and riffs on them that matter. You will NEVER follow exactly the same steps for two pieces of writing.
Instead, pay attention to the strategies you use. Do you like lists? Do you like free writes? Do you like sitting in a noisy place and writing? Find habits of writing that tie you into your creativity and work to make those habits yours. Don't be so tied to them that it becomes obsessive/compulsive; rather, work to find comfortable habits within which you can experiment and play with the assurance that your work will get done.
The article on scientific method also says, "Scientists also recognize something that few students do: Mistakes and unexpected results can be blessings in disguise." Yes, even the practice of science is messy and sometimes, it's a blooper that reveals something new, fresh, exciting. If scientists can embrace a messy process, it's an open door for us to have a blast with our writing process.
----
Darcy Pattison blogs about how-to-write at
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Fascinating post as always on this subject!
For me, Extra Yarn is not a surprise possibility, but rather the clear front runner!!
I’m rooting for Extra Yarn, too!
Twelve Kinds of Ice has been on my to read for a while now, but I still haven’t gotten my hands on it!
Thanks for sharing your predictions! I just ordered The Unfortunate Son (with the unfortunate cover), and I can’t wait to get my hands on Oh, No! One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo and David Small is on my list of potential Caldecott books.
I will be shocked if Extra Yarn doesn’t win at least a Caldecott Honor this year.
I think Wonder and The One and Only Ivan are great contendors. I need to read The Summer of the Gypsy Moths ASAP–it’s always checked out (Pennypacker is very popular with our patrons), so I haven’t had a chance to grab it yet.
As for Caldecott–I love Baby Bear Sees Blue.
It’s official then. Authors and author/illustrators love Extra Yarn.
And how did I miss saying The Unfortunate Son had an unfortunate cover? A swing and a miss, that’s me.
Yeah. Extra Yarn.
I loved Three Times Lucky! And I think The One and Only Ivan still has a good chance for the gold.
And I’m with the others on Extra Yarn for the Caldecott. That’s been the favorite in our house with
kids and grown ups alike this year.
You know what I didn’t like about Extra Yarn? As a knitter, I didn’t like that all the stitches were the same size all the time. Now I know that as a knitter, I should have loved it extra much, but that silly little detail bugged me. Would have liked the knitting colors to be a little brighter, too. But those are probably just personal preferences, not really flaws in any way at all.
For the Newbery, my current favorite is Palace of Stone, by Shannon Hale. But this is my fourth favorite of the year! First it was Wonder, then The One and Only Ivan, then Summer of the Gypsy Moths, and now Palace of Stone. So I’m hoping at least I’m predicting the winner and 3 honors anyway!