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G.A.P. HAVE DONE IT AGAIN

Doggie Day Camp: by CYNTHIA REEG and illustrator KIT GRADY. Verb and Adverb Adventures: another Academic Wings book in their Pet Grammar Parade Series. When timid Bubba joins in the adventures at doggie day camp, he soon discovers new friends, new talents, and verb and adverb fun as well.

Andy and Spirit Go To the Fair: by MARY JEAN KELSO and illustrator K.C.SNIDER: an Academic Wings book. Andy and Spirit work together in a riding competition. Although Andy can't walk, riding Spirit he is able to make his dreams come true.

Fun GAP Books for Children
Always published with tender loving care.

We considered ourselves wildly fortunate to land some impressive volunteers our first year out. Inevitably, a few decided not to return this year. But in the case of Loree Griffin Burns, we can't be too sad; after all, she's back as a finalist in nonfiction MG/YA books.

Fiona Bayrock at Books and 'Rocks had a major advantage going into her recent Q&A with Loree: the two met several years ago online and have been best virtual buddies ever since. The resulting post is more low-key banter than eggheaded policy debate, as some might fear from a science book about ocean currents. And yet there's enormous depth throughout.

Knowing her subject so well also meant Fiona could aim straight for the heart of matters. Even in a standard question about process, she skips the usual Q&A cliches to find what might be "organic" about trash. Loree's answer is a dramatic story in itself:

[Books and 'Rocks]: Let's talk a bit about process. I know a book like this takes a tremendous amount of planning. I also read on your website that some parts of the process were "organic". I'd love to hear how the planned vs. organic balance shifted at various points along the way.

[Loree Griffin Burns]: There was a point when the book was ostensibly done, but not finished: I had told Curt and Jim's story, and Charlie's story, and well, then the book just sort of ended. It was not a satisfying conclusion and, worse still, I didn't know how to fix it. While I was struggling with what to do about this, I got a call from a friend. He had heard an NPR piece about scientists collecting net debris in Hawaii and wanted to be sure I had heard it too. I was too worried about my bad ending to be listening to the radio (!) and hadn't heard the story. But I quickly found the report online, learned about the work of ghost net hunters Jim Churnside, Tim Veenstra, and Mary Donohue, and began to envision a new ending.

Several weeks later I interviewed Jim Churnside by phone and asked him how he and his colleagues knew where to look for the ghost nets. His answer gave me goosebumps: "Our first step was to talk to Jim Ingraham about where in the North Pacific Ocean we should look for the ghost nets." These trash trackers -- people I knew nothing about when I started writing the book -- were using computer programs perfected with Curt's tub toy data to find their ghost nets. The story had come full circle ... and I had no idea in the beginning that it would.

I am anal by nature, and so had the writing meticulously planned: proposal, check; interviews, check; drafting of chapters, check; collection of photographs, check; meeting deadline, check. But I found that each step caused me to reexamine the step before.

Read the rest here.