How to use this Page

In our January/February 2016 issue, reviewer Dean Schneider talked with author Audrey Vernick about her clear love of America’s favorite pastime. Read the full review of The Kid from Diamond Street: The Extraordinary Story of Baseball Legend Edith Houghton here.

Dean Schneider: You’ve written a few books about baseball. Have you always been a fan? Or did you become one after you started writing about the sport?

Audrey Vernick: One of my favorite things about being a grownup is no one can make me write about explorers. I write about baseball because I truly love it and have for decades. While I am a devoted fan of a team I’ll not mention by name in a Boston-based publication, I also love the game’s rich, textured history and the individual stories folded within it.

From the January/February 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

The post Audrey Vernick on The Kid from Diamond Street appeared first on The Horn Book.

Screaming at the Ump will appeal to both boys and girls who are interested in sports (especially baseball), and journalism, coping with the transition to middle school, or dealing with family conflicts.

It’s been nearly 2 weeks since returning from Whispering Pines, a writer’s retreat deep in the woods of the Alton Jones campus of URI. Such a beautiful setting- and a wonderful time as always. The mentors, the camaraderie, the food…everything.

Here’s Lynda introducing the mentors and helpers, who all received thematic welcoming gifts…

Animated author Audrey Vernick talked about how, beyond the craft, luck has a part in the business. She also emphasized not getting hung up on the “rules”.  Kirsten Cappy talked about the various ways you can get the word out about your book, and how to connect in ways we maybe hadn’t thought of yet.

First Pages, as read by Lynda, Mary and Jenny. I must say, the calibre of the submissions we tend to hear at this retreat tends to be stellar!

Panelists Christine Krones, Audrey Vernick, Sarah Dotts Barley, Regina Griffin. 

And then, there are shenanigans… photo fun, palm reading, and a failed attempt at levitation (at least in the bodily sense)!

(come on- you have to believe!) 

Kim, Kristen, Julie, Cameron, and Janet during one of the sessions. 

Gather ’round the inferno! The very cozy common room in the Whispering Pines lodge.

The mentors and organizers, lined up all pretty! Lynda Hunt (author and retreat co-director), Regina Griffin (Executive Editor at Egmont USA), Christine Krones (Editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Kirsten Cappy (of Curious City in Portland Maine), Sarah Dotts Barley (Editor at HarperCollins),  Audrey Vernick (author), and Mary Pierce (retreat co-director).

Christine Krones had some good advice about what today’s market needs to see in submissions, and how they can be pitched to their best advantage.

Sarah Dotts Barley talked about not revising as you go, and allowing a book to marinate for a while so you can gain perspective on it.

Regina Griffin’s talk had some great examples of the windy path that a book’s revision can take, and how nothing you write for a manuscript, even if it’s cut, is ever lost. It’s part of the process of making it better.

(I am obviously highly editing our mentors’ talks, but they were all very in-depth and chock full of good info- I took pages of notes!)

We got lucky with some nice weather that allowed us to get out an explore the grounds…

 Caroline, Laurie and Jen.

Surprise giveaways at lunch! Oh, and by the way… THE FOOD. Always wonderful here.

Three cakes a day? Well, OK, if you insist. 

There are always good times around the table.

Awesome table-mates: Cameron, Julia, Regina, Sally, Kirsten, Sarah, Jen, and Laurie. 

And now, lets reflect on the surroundings, the people, the work ahead. That’s what I am still doing now.

I started writing for kids over a decade ago and soon started meeting other people who also wrote for kids. When they talked about how they had so many ideas and not enough time to write them all, I secretly wished I could pinch them. A really mean pinch—a tiny bit of skin squeezed and twisted brutally between thumb and forefinger, the kind of pinch my sisters and I used to give each other when we were furious.

Too many ideas was not the kind of problem I had. I didn’t have enough.

A decade later, I’ve learned that picture book ideas come to me when I’m supposed to be working on a novel. I’m proud of my subconscious for being so clever. In the past few months, when I was supposed to be toiling on a middle-grade novel, I’ve written drafts of three picture books.

Two were from PiBoIdMo 2011 ideas. The one I finished, FIRST GRADE DROPOUT, went out on submission and sold in two days. That’s a first for me—a quick sale. My PiBoIdMo success story.

If you felt like you were moving well beyond your comfort zone when you signed up for PiBoIdMo 2012, please know that you are not alone. I’m not very good at public writing events. I don’t generally participate in such things—my process is more private-feeling and works on its own clock. But last year I decided to give it a try. In the end, I really liked the way PiBoIdMo pushed out the walls to provide a bigger creative space for me.

And if, in the early days of November, you find yourself worrying about how lame your ideas are or how you have no idea how to get from that idea to a finished manuscript, take heart. It took time for my PiBoIdMo ideas to marinate. If I had started writing FIRST GRADE DROPOUT immediately after jotting down the idea last November, it would have been awful. My PiBoIdMo idea was, I now know, more like half an idea. It was what happened in the book. It took nine months of my brain silently working away to figure out how to tell that story. In this particular case, the how was more important than the what. (I’d tell you all right now, but that would be giving away the punch line years ahead of pub date.)

I’m participating again this year, even though I’m supposedly hard at work on finishing up this novel. PiBoIdMo still scares me. I just know that on one (or more) of those days, when I can’t think of anything new, I’m likely to steal from myself to pad out the list—dig up old ideas that didn’t work to give them some new attention. (I did this last year. Shhhh. Don’t tell Tara.)

But on those days when I run into a writer who has so many ideas and not nearly enough time, well, it’ll be nice to think of my overstuffed PiBoIdMo file. I won’t gloat though, as that’s just awful for those suffering through an idea drought. And I really hate being pinched.

Audrey Vernick is the author of six picture books, including IS YOUR BUFFALO READY FOR KINDERGARTEN?; SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROCKSTAR; and BROTHERS AT BAT; as well as the middle-grade novel WATER BALLOON. Her next picture book, out in June, is BOGART AND VINNIE: A Completely Made-Up Story of True Friendship, with EDGAR’S SECOND WORD following after that. A two-time recipient of the New Jersey Council of the Arts Fiction Fellowship, Audrey lives in a house full of inspiration: one husband, one son, one daughter, and two dogs. She blogs about writing buddies at Literary Friendships.

I read Brothers at Bat yesterday. I love this true story, told with Audrey Vernick's warm, concise writing, and Steven Salerno's strong, modern/retro illustration.  

Read about Audrey's visit to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y!

By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: March 14, 2012

March to the Beat of Your Own Drum

It’s Music in our Schools Month and these recent titles on music (and` loneliness, getting lost, Vivaldi, and being a big sister) and so much more will make you want to groove, rock n’ roll, waltz, and bang your head. So swing to the rhythms, bounce to the beat, sway to the poetic meter, and drift away with these soulful stories.

Symphony City

By Amy Martin

In Amy Martin’s bold debut, a little girl becomes lost in the big city and follows street musicians until she finds her way home. Her hypnotic illustrations will pull young readers into the story where “the best songs love you back.” If Martin’s Symphony City is any indication, McMullens, the new children’s imprint from McSweeney’s, promises dazzling hits that just keep on coming. (Ages 3 and up. Publisher: McSweeney’s Publishing.)

So You Want To Be A Rock Star

By Audrey Vernick; Illustrated by Kirstie Edmonds

Ever dream of rocking out on stage in front of a coliseum full of fans chanting your name? Then Vernick’s new book So You Want To Be A Rock Star will send your little ones into fits of laughter as you shout, “Are you ready to rock?” Tips on posturing, strutting on stage, and signing your autograph in a haughty squiggle will put stars in their eyes. My daughter’s reading inspired her to create a rock video with a friend. For more on Audrey Vernick, check out my interview with her. (Ages 4-8. Publisher: Walker & Company.)

Vivaldi and the Invisible Orchestra

By Stephen Costanza

As with his previous book Mozart Finds a Melody, Stephen Costanza celebrates another great composer and creates a compelling backstory to bring his tale to life. Candida is Antonio Vivaldi’s young assistant who copies his musical notations for the Invisible Orchestra- a group of orphan musicians who mysteriously perform behind the curtain. When Vival

kind words and great questions

Leeza Hernandez: Illustrator, Author, Stranger-Hugger

We just got back from a mini spring break vacation in Cooperstown to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame. This was the first time my baseball fanatic son got to visit and he had a blast. Not to mention all the baseball memorabilia shops lining the Main Street. We got caught in a surprise snow flurry on our two block walk from the hotel to the Hall of Fame--not exactly what we thought spring break would be like, but...

One of the highlights for me was meeting children's author Audrey Vernick at the Hall of Fame where she was signing her new picture book, She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story. It's a true story about the only woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. My son and I enjoyed reading it.



































We also visited nearby Howe Caverns. We took an elevator 15 stories down under a dairy farm to tour a prehistoric cave with an underground river running through it. Not only did we hike through the cave, but we also took a boat ride on the river. Our guide moved the boat along by pushing off a series of metal rods hammered into the cave walls. We had to move slowly one at a time on and off the boat so it wouldn't tip over. Our boat ride ended when we reached a rushing waterfall, stopped only by a flimsy rusty chain. Um...this was scarier than a thrill ride at any amusement park. We were then instructed to move one row at a time to face the opposite direction where we were pushed back to where we started. My kids were unfazed. I was eager to go above ground again. But not before we hiked/squeezed through a windy narrow trail back to the entrance!

On the last day of our vacation, we visited a living history farm circa 1865. It was set up like a small village with a farm, school, general store, pharmacy, and doctor's office. I felt queasy looking at medical instruments from the 1860s and felt immediately thankful for modern medicine with anesthetics and hand washing. Perhaps 100 years from now someone will feel queasy looking at our 21st century doctor's instruments. After my 5 y.o. visited with farm animals up close for the first time, I asked him what he thought about the farm. He said, "I didn't like it. The chickens went to the bathroom OUTSIDE. And I almost stepped on it." There's a city slicker in the making!

Hope you all enjoyed your spring break!

Agent Marietta Zacker has agreed to join Audrey Vernick and Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich for the Humor Intensive Workshop taking place at the New Jersey Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrators Conference June 3rd – June 5th. 

This is a four-hour interactive hands-on session intensive workshop for those who want to develop their craft and understand the nuances of writing humor for kids.

Using a balance of lecture, discussion, exercise, and feedback, we’ll develop a toolbox of humor-writing techniques. We’ll look at old-school rules and structural methods and the myriad ways humor writers break those rules. From idea generation all the way through revision, we’ll talk about how to develop a sort-of-funny idea into a laugh-out-loud manuscript.

You’ll leave with concrete plans for injecting humor into your work and ideas for new stories ripe with humor potential. And stomach muscles that may ache a bit from laughing just a little too hard.

What Marietta brings to the table:

Marietta will sit in on the Intensive and comment on what the attendees write during the session. Attendance is small, which will allow Marietta to review the first 3 pages of a work-in-progress with the attendees and go over it with them during the workshop.

If you have not signed up for this Intensive Session, you might want to consider registering.

Audrey Vernick:  www.audreyvernick.com

Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich:  ww.olugbemisola.com

Marietta Zacker: www.nancygallt.com

Hope to see you there.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

0 Comments on Humor Writing Intensive – June 3rd as of 1/1/1900

April: Texas Library Association Conference
May: International Reading Association Conference
May: SLJ Day of Dialog/BEA
June: ALA Annual Conference

It’s crazy…but we also have lots of fun.  First up is TLA in Austin where we have a phenomenal line-up of authors signing with us:

Wednesday, April 13th
10:15 am – 11:00 am Pat Mora (author aisles)
10:15 am – 11:00 am Rafael Lopez (author aisles)
11:30 am – 12:30 pm Lauren Oliver (author aisles)
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm Will Hobbs (author aisles)
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm Bettina Restrepo (author aisles)
1:30 pm – 2:00 pm Crystal Allen (Harper booth 1824)
2:00 pm – 2:30 pm Sophie Jordan (Harper booth 1824)
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm Tera Lynn Childs (Harper booth 1824)
3:00 pm – 3:30 pm Suzanne Harper (Harper booth 1824)

Thursday, April 14th
9:00 am – 10:00 am Diane Stanley (author aisles)
11:30 am – 12:00 pm Jason Henderson (Harper booth 1824)
2:00 pm – 2:30 pm Jennifer Archer (Harper booth 1824)
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Kevin Henkes (author aisles)
3:00 pm – 3:30 pm Don Tate and Audrey Vernick (Harper booth 1824)

And don’t miss JAMIE LEE CURTIS as the Keynote Speaker on Wednesday, April 13th at 9:00 am!

Aside from our outstanding authors, we’ll have galleys galore at our booth (#1824) and we hope you’ll stop by to say hi to Patty, Robin, and me!

See you in Texas!

~ Laura

Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institute

My daughter’s 4th grade class is celebrating Black History Month in the most wonderful way by creating a version of Kente cloth.  While it’s traditionally made with silk and cotton interweaving threads, her class used pens, paints, and colored pencils to create theirs.

Kente cloth is believed to have originated from the Akan people in West Africa*.  The designs are traditionally bright, geometric, and bold.  Additionally, the colors and shapes are usually symbolic of historic events, family trees, the seasons, and proverbs.  (The Smithsonian Institute has wonderful information online about their “Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity” exhibition)

Making Kente cloths in your library is just one of many ideas to celebrate Black History Month.  Texas Library Club has a wonderful list of books, songs, and activities – including a way of making Kente cloths by weaving strips of paper together.

We’d also love to recommend these books for your Black History Month displays:

• BARACK by Jonah Winter, illustrated by AG Ford
• BLACK IS BROWN IS TAN by Arnold Adoff, illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully
• BOYCOTT BLUES by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney (download the Teacher’s Guide)
• THE GREAT MIGRATION by Eloise Greenfield, illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist
• SHE LOVED BASEBALL by Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Don Tate
• THIS IS THE DREAM by Diane Z. Shore and Jessica Alexander, illustrated by James Ransome
• WE TROUBLED THE WATERS by Ntozake Shang, illustrated by Rod Brown

And you can also download our Black History Month Classroom Kit.

What are you doing at your library to celebrate Black History Month?  We’d love to hear your ideas (or even photos of any displays you’ve created)!

* As a former librarian, I have to share this disclaimer: I got my information from Wikipedia.

This year I will be teaching a workshop on Making a Book Trailer.  I wanted to share with you two excellent examples of book trailers that work.  They both use the beautiful artwork from their book and the sounds (music and voice) add the icing on the cake.  Both trailers make you want to run out and buy the books, which is the mark of an excellent video.  I don’t think either Dan or Audrey made their own trailer, but you can learn to create something just as nice to promote yourself and book.

Audrey Vernick will be at this year’s NJSCBWI conference and Dan Yaccarino is scheduled for 2012.

Dan’s book is available on March 8th.  You can always buy it now and have him sign it next year at the conference.

I will spare you the trailers I have seen that don’t come close to selling a book.  Better to not use a book trailer, if it will make potential buyers run for the hills.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: November 12, 2010

This is a book list for sports enthusiasts, young Einsteins-in-the-making, myth busters, restless minds and grown men! From Potato Chip Science to The World’s Most Amazing Facts and Records, there is seriously something for everyone. And, while I would recommend most of these books to the most reluctant of readers—particularly boys—I would suggest that you don’t rule these suggestions out for girls. Young girls in particular have very curious minds and very much enjoy a good hands-on experiment—there’s also a beautiful and energetic baseball book which tells the inspiring story of Effa Manley.

The Science Books

Potato Chip Science: 29 Incredible Experiments

by Allen Kurzweil (Author), Max Kurzweil (Collaborator)

Reading level: Ages 8-12

Paperback: 96 pages

Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (September 1, 2010)

Source: Author

The packaging of this kit (a “book & stuff”) alone has a ton of kid-appeal—it looks and feels like a bag of potato chips—but it’s not the cover from which we judge, it’s what is on the inside. Judge for yourself …

Add this book (and stuff) to your collection: Potato Chip Science: 29 Incredible Experiments

____________________________________________________________

The Book of Totally Irresponsible Science: 64 Daring Experiments for Young Scientists

by Sean Connolly

Reading level: Ages 9 and up

Hardcover: 205 pages

Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (September 24, 2008)

Source: Personal collection

This is one that dad’s cannot resist working on with their kids.

Add this book to your collection: The Book of Totally Irresponsible Science: 64 Daring Experiments for Young Scientists

____________________________________________________________

Don’t Touch That Toad and Other Strange Things Adults Tell You