One of the advantages of the new blogger format is that we can see how many people read a post. This post, which originally ran on May 2, not very long ago, had almost 800 views. This is substantially more than the average post. For this reason, as per our July reruns, I'm posting it again.
One person I’ve gotten to know well and admire this year is Dr. Myra Zarnowski, Professor of Children’s Literature at Queens College School of Education, part of the City University of NY. Myra specializes in teaching undergraduate and graduate students how to teach nonfiction literature in the classroom. She has studied the books written by iNK authors and she is an expert on the Common Core Standards, now the new educational objectives adopted by 47 states. Recently she gave a webinar for
“They have circular houses made of wood and covered with felt, which they carry about with them…wherever they go. For the framework of rods is so neatly and carefully constructed that it is light to carry. And every time they unfold their house and set it up, the door is always facing south…They live on meat and milk and game and on Pharaoh’s rats, which are abundant everywhere on the steppes. You should know that they drink mare’s milk; but they subject it to a process that makes it like white wine and very good to drink and they call it koumiss. They rely mainly on their bows, for they are excellent archers. They are stout fighters, excelling in courage and hardihood. Their horses, meanwhile, support themselves by grazing, so that there is no need to carry barley or straw.” Marco Polo
 |
| This is a ger, the same kind of circular house Marco Polo describes above |
 |
| This is the door facing south. ( | Click each photo to enlarge) |
To me, one of the best parts about writing nonfiction is the travel. I’ll go just about anywhere to dig up research for true stories from history, and this summer, I got lucky and discovered a goldmine.
How cool would it be to physically fly back in time for hundreds or even thousands of years? If you could journey through some ancient, distant land, what would its crystal clear lakes and road-less mountain passes and sinuous sand dunes and unpolluted star-filled night skies look like? And better yet, what if you could meet people who were living in much the same way they have lived for uncountable generations?
Minus watching costumed actors in a movie or conjuring up a fictional time machine, is it possible to visit such places in real time? It is. With a few caveats (off-road vehicles and small planes, for example), that’s exactly what I did this summer during an expedition to photograph vanishing cultures in Mongolia.
The magnificent country of Mongolia is sandwiched between Russia to the north and China to the south, and it is enormous—larger even than India, which is packed to the gills with over a billion people. Yet outside of Mongolia’s booming capital city of Ulaanbaatar (where over one out of every three citizens lives in the midst of ancient monasteries, ultramodern glass skyscrapers, heavy traffic, and unremarkable Soviet-style concrete buildings) lies this surprise: An endless sweeping landscape almost devoid of human beings.  |
| A young monk in a monastery in Mongolia's capital city of Ulaanbaatar | | |
|
|
 |
| A performer from the Mongolian Opera in Ulaanbaatar |
Mongolia’s entire total population is barely over 3 million people, and its population density is a mere 4.7 people per square mile, by far the lowest in the world except for the tiny Falkland Islands. This means that you can fly across the steppes or over the Altai Mountains or the Gobi Desert for hours at a time without seeing one single hint of civilization.  |
| See what I mean? |
Scattered throughout this land are a nomadic people whose babies learn to ride horses bareback before they can even walk, and whose families live in portable gers built exactly the same way as the ones Marco Polo described in the 13th century. It’s so cold during the winter that temperatures regularly plummet to 50 degrees below zero and the families have to migrate to somewhat warmer territory along with their herds of horses and goats and cattle, often battling with wolves that attack the livestock along the way. So for fun during the brief balmy summertime, they don brightly colored silk robes or barely-there fighting gear or ornate boots with turned-up toes or elegant hats from ages past to celebrate at festivals in which muscular men with enormous thighs wrestle, small children between the ages of 5 and 11 race horses 12 miles across the steppes at breakneck speed, archers of all ages hold archery contests, and men somehow gallop bareback to scoop long poles or small rocks off of the ground without ever falling off their steeds. Their intricate ancient music and dance, often haunting and even more often high-spirited, spans the centuries. Elsewhere, Animist shamans go into trances before a smoky fire and beat their drums.  |
| Winning wrestlers are crowned at a festival | |
|
 |
| Young riders race across the steppe |
Yet despite the ancient ways of life that still persist, this is not at all an intellectually backward nation. Mongolia's national literacy rate is 97%, perhaps the highest in the world and certainly higher than our own. For many Mongolians, this is their life of choice. |
| A camel caravan in the Gobi Desert sand dunes |
 |
| An archer shoots a typical Mongolian bow. Everyone is deadly accurate from years of practice |
The scenery in Mongolia looks like it came straight out of an air-brushed fantasy travel catalog that has been cut and pasted to hide all the buildings and traffic (only these perfectly uncluttered views are for real). There are mountainsides covered waist deep with wildflowers and overlooking gigantic icy blue lakes. There are camel caravans crossing sculpted dunes or canyon lands, and when you hike, you might smell the scent of herbs crushed beneath your feet or get a pungent whiff of onions from the crunchy onion grass in the Gobi Desert. And the sky. You can see the weather for miles and miles around.
Welcome back to INK, everybody. Now to write the book. Stay tuned… |
| Sundown looks just like this every day |
Last night I noticed that the big long wooden shelf above my desk was about to collapse. That’s when I realized that about a third of it was jam packed with fat manila envelopes full of letters from kids, mostly written after I spoke at their schools. So before disaster could strike, I took them all down and started to read.
Lots of these letters are illustrated to the hilt (plenty of future competition since I’m an illustrator too). One class actually re-drew every single page in one of my books using their own interpretations. It must have taken forever. A fourth grade girl sent me a glamorous message with every single letter written in a different color, including silver. Several kids have sent me entire stories of their own, and others send long and eloquent and effusive and flattering letters that are good for the ego. I'm positive their teachers told them to be nice, but hey. The letters can also be short and punchy—I especially love the ones written in kindergarten and first grade. But all of them make me smile...or laugh out loud. Check it out. Here are some very brief excerpts.
Surprises
I had a good time. I liked your book. Thank you for comeing. I was not here that day I whish I was.
[written back in 2004] We really like reading your books they are geater then all of the books I’ve readed Because it is most funny. But it is not geater then pokemon but I still like it.
The ting I liked best about your books are the pictures. I was wondering how do you paint your pictures without going out of the lines.
Thank you for letting us talk with you! Even though I cannot pronounce your name.
I love your books. I wish I had all of them. Truth is I do nat have any.
I wanted to order one of your books but my dad wouldn’t let me. Por me I really wanted one.
Flattery will get you everywhere
What I liked about the author was she had instyle clothes.
You are asame!!!!! I love Divie cakit [Davy Crockett] I love tall talls. Its fun when you put [on] the scoon scin cap.
I loved your presentation on Louis & Clark! I learned that William was a horible speller! He spelled water melon water million!
WADA BING! One day I will be just like You! But I will also be an Athleat!
I hope you visi Churchill Road a 100 times.
Thes wuz fune I likt It.
Der Ms. Schanzer, I rilly liked yor pichers! And wold Like to see more of yor books I wold like to talk to you on the phone with you.
From shows with costumes and sound effects
I love that song we singed. I had so much fun.…I also want to thank you for letting us be very very lowd. My favorite part was when everyone was yelling. Everyone was giggling!
You are a great arthr artis witier and cowwoman. I really liked when Isha, Lochar, and Jack said “Yeehaw!” I also liked when Amy, Nick, and Sarah said “Mooo.”
When I showed my mom the mustache she laughed.
My favorite part was when you talked Tennessee. Did you know blue is one of my favorite colors. I think you did wonderful. I think your pictures look great. When is your birthday? My birthday is December third.
My favorite part was when you talked like a girl from Tennesse. The mustaches were very very funny easpeacialy the yellow one.
Insights and ideas
At school our class has written children’s books. That was when I realized how hard it really is to write a book. [From one of the long eloquent letters]
When I grow up I might make books or be a vet I’m not sure about that yet.
If I were an author I would write about a little girl that was an orfin. I think that idea I gave you was a good idea. Write me back if yo use my idea.
The best part I liked was when the dog was siked about being eaten alive and his eyes bugged out.
Questions
Do you have a jet and a manshin?
Do you like pizza? Do you have a son? I have a little brother. Do you have a dog? I like pizza.
doesn’t your hand get tired once you write a lot?
What do you do at your house. My favorite to do is play on the piano and play babies.
How much years have you been an Artist and the writer. My first book was called My friends. My other book was called MD v.s Duke
I was wondering how she got the [Lewis and Clark] journals? And when she got them was it hard to read them because of Louis and clark’s bad spelling?
Your books are the best books in the world. Are you going to come again? We still remember every word you said. Why did you come up with history instead of non.fichion?
I liked your work because it was realistic and I want to be a part time artist. Where did you start painting and why do you like painting? Did it come in your harritage?
Final word
Well time is almost out. I Just want to say thank yo so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so much!!
And thank YOU so much too, letter writers!
The best novels in the world of fiction tend to be page turners that tell a gripping story. You can’t put them down until you finish the last page, you can’t stop thinking about them after you’re done, and you become so entangled in their various webs that you can remember entire story arcs and even small details for a very long time.
The best books in the world of nonfiction are equally fascinating. Their details are memorable and the ideas they present are truly compelling. With some notable exceptions, though, they aren’t gripping page turners like novels and their story arcs (if any) can be pretty tenuous because the real world is so messy and unpredictable. The result? Readers might put nonfiction books down for a few days without staying awake at night wondering what happens next.
So when I sat down to write my latest book, I wondered if I could combine the best of both worlds by shaping it into a gripping YA novel; every word would be true AND the book would be a page turner with a story line that you couldn’t put down. That’s exactly what I’ve tried to do with Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem. If I could pull it off, it seemed to me that this terrifying episode in America’s history had just the right ingredients for cooking up a thriller, a mystery, and a literary mind-bender all rolled into one.
After all, the things that happened during the Salem Witch Trials were too jaw-dropping to ignore. Who wouldn't wonder why a four year old girl, a heroic minister from afar, a beloved grandmother, and three dogs were demonized and accused of being witches?
The more material I uncovered about this incredible 100% true story, the more curious I became (and the more curious I hoped my readers would become too). Back in 1692, the Puritans thought that the devil and his witches lurked in every nook and cranny, just waiting to afflict innocent children with a dread dis
I’m stumped. Here I sit pondering which words of wisdom I should expound upon in today’s blog, only I can’t think of any. All traces of wisdom I may have possessed at one time or another have rolled out of my left ear, scrammed outta the conga line, and headed off to the beach.
NOOO!!! It’s already paragraph #2, and still I’m stumped! Should I write about strange-but-true factoids, like the factoid that says manhole covers are round because if they were rectangular or square, they would fall into the manhole? Nah. Then I’d have to think up a lot more strange factoids. Besides, does anybody care about manhole covers? Not really.
Should I write about adding humor to nonfiction books for kids? Nah. I do love the idea of adding humor to my books; everything is so much more memorable when it’s funny. Except that today, I can’t think of a single funny thing to say in a book.
If I make a lot of paragraphs, there will be more spaces in this blog and it will take up a lot of room.
There. I just made another paragraph.
Look, I did it again!! :-) Now I’ll probably get kicked out of the blog! :-( All my faithful readers will accuse me of snorting something strange and my reputation will be toast. Maybe I can just use a lot of exclamation points and take up even more space!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Or I could just find a humongous piece of art and plug it in because it could swallow up entire paragraphs worth of space, like this:
OR IF IT'S NOT TOO OBVIOUS, I CAN JUST USE REALLY BIG TYPE.
Oh. I guess that was a little too obvious.
Maybe I can say that quotes are a good thing to use in your books. That would actually be true, and then I could go look up a bunch of cool quotes. That could take up a whole lot of space too. OK, why not. Here’s a quote from Will Rogers (1879-1935):
“It’s awful hard to get people interested in corruption unless they can get some of it.”
(I added the dates after Will Rogers' name to take up space.)
9 Comments on STUMPED, last added: 3/7/2012
What a great post - should be read by every teacher and student - and author - in the whole wide world!
A fabulous post, you really captured the best of our lives. Thanks.
Great post, Roz. I've shared it with the students I'm working with.
Naturally I loved your comments everyone.....thanks! And Vicki, it's great that you showed the kids this post. Very curious to hear if anything comes out of it.