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Looking Back on CWIM: The 1992 Edition
An Interview with Jack Prelutsky...

In 1992 I graduated college with a degree in English Lit and Journalism and I'd been an employee of F+W for about a year but had not yet joined the Market Books department. (I was an editorial assistant for a few of the magazines, including Writer's Digest.)

The edition of CWIM published that year was more than 300 pages (at $17.95) and included "A Writer's Guide to the Juvenile Market: Ten Steps to That First Sale," by Elaine Marie Alphin, an article for illustrators on "Portfolio Power," and nine "Close-up" interviews.

Since we're in the midst of National Poetry Month, I pulled an excerpt from an interview with Jack Prelutsky, who, in 2006, was be named the first U.S. Children's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation.

Jack Prelutsky gets his ideas from everywhere. "Everything I see or hear can become a poem. I don't respond to topical events or trends, although some themes, like my book about dinosaurs, were lucky to hit the crest of waves." He says sometimes ideas literally pop into his head. "I find inspiration from everything. I wrote a poem about a boneless chicken because one day when I was in the supermarket shopping for boneless breast of chicken, I started to imagine what the rest of a boneless chicken would look like and what kind of a life it would have.

"Writing for children in general, and I think writing children's poetry in particular, is harder than writing for adults. Literature for children must be succinct, and yet present in the most artful manner possible.

"The children's book market operates, most of the time, quite differently from the adult book market," says Prelutsky. "Adult books often explode upon the publishing scene with a lot of media hype. But most have literal shelf lives of approximately one year as hardbacks and one additional year as paperbacks before disappearing into remainder bins and the eventual exile known as 'out of print.' Children's books generally take years to establish themselves in bookstores and libraries. But once they achieve the status of 'classic,' they will stay in print as long as they remain in the memories of parents, grandparents, teachers and librarians. Patience in this profession is an absolutely necessity."

Jacket description:
"Was an innocent man wrongly accused of murder? On April 26, 1913, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan planned to meet friends at a parade in Atlanta, Georgia. But first she stopped at the pencil factory where she worked to pick up her paycheck. Mary never left the building alive.


A black watchman found Mary's body brutally beaten and raped. Police arrested the watchman, but they weren't satisfied that he was the killer. Then they paid a visit to Leo Frank, the factory's superintendent, who was both a northerner and a Jew. Spurred on by the media frenzy and prejudices of the time, the detectives made Frank their prime suspect, one whose conviction would soothe the city's anger over the death of a young white girl.


The prosecution of Leo Frank was front-page news for two years, and Frank's lynching is still one of the most controversial incidents of the twentieth century. It marks a turning point in the history of racial and religious hatred in America, leading directly to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League and to the rebirth of the modern Ku Klux Klan. Relying on primary source documents and painstaking research, award-winning novelist Elaine Alphin tells the true story of justice undone in America."

Ooh...real life murder mystery for young adults! I used to read all sorts of true crime stories through high school, most of which were probably way above my maturity level, so ones aimed at my age level during that time would have been incredibly useful.

This story of Mary Phagan's murder and the prosecution of Leo Frank is accompanied by lots of black and white photos and other extras such as major figures in the Leo Frank case, a timeline, and a glossary of legal terms. There is a photo of the lynching, just as a warning, but the writing about both the murder and the lynching is tastefully done.

A bit wordy at times, the author, Elaine Marie Alphin, tends to go a tad more in-depth than probably necessary. I found myself skimming several passages, but was overall pretty pleased with the result. I liked the presentation and the fact that the material had been made appropriate for teens, without leaving out a whole lot of "stuff."

Overall result: 3 out of 5
Good choice for fans of true crime and other mysteries.

An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank
Elaine Marie Alphin
152 pages
Non-Fiction
Carolrdhoda Books
9780822589440
March 2010
Review copy received from publishing company

To learn more or to purchase, click on the book cover above to link to Amazon. I am an Associate and will receive a small percentage of the purchase price. Thanks!

Hey, everyone, it's Carl and I'd like to welcome a new friend, Joe, to the ranks of the reader guys. He was in the library doing homework when my cosmic intuition told me that he could be a potential reader guy. We got to talking, I told him all about the glories of our blog (not to mention that he'd get a free book for writng a review), and he got so excited that he filled out a paper form right then. Here's his review:


Ttile and Author: Ghost Soldier by Elaine Marie Alphin



This book was about: A boy who goes to live with his dad at a close friend's house in North Carolina. When he gets there, he finds something unexpected, but you'll have to read it to find out what it is that he finds!



I liked (or didn't like) the book because: I liked this book because the story seemed to come to life! It had me wondering what wiil happen next!



Thanks, Joe! A good book should make you wonder what'll happen next. So does a good review!

Well, here's Joe with his free book:
In case you can't tell, he got an Encyclopedia Brown mystery in his hands. He's a big fan of Encyclopedia Brown and may write a review of that one. Let us hear from soon, Joe!

We've been tagged by NYC Teacher to list our summer goals. (btw--check out the new look on her blog! Way cool! I have banner envy!)

Here are some of my summer goals:

• Read. Lots. Piles. Especially all the professional journals that haven't been touched for months.
• Transfer the yard waste from the old composting bin in the corner of the garden to the new one that will not allow chipmunks to nest there. (did that today)
• Plant the herbs I bought today. (That's on tap for tomorrow.)
  
• Walk to the farm market every Saturday.
• Dust off my bike and go biking again.
• Swim in a one mile open water swim. (Somewhat unlikely, due to falling off the swimming bandwagon in May, but that's what goals are for, right?)
  
• Catch up on letter writing.
• Make bread baking a habit again.
• Blog.
• Scan all of my classroom books into LibraryThing with my new CueCat scanner.
• Read. (Did I already mention that one?)
• Try new recipes.
• Start writing in my writer's notebook again.