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Last Saturday, I attended a terrific conference put on by the Foundation of Children’s Books (FCB) at Lesley University. It’s a regular event and this year it concentrated upon nonfiction. The speakers were nonfiction all-stars including Michael Tougias talking about adapting to write for middle grade after being an adult nonfiction author, Kathy Lasky reflecting upon the evolution of the nonfiction part of her career, Jason Chin finding the narrative arc of science through words and illustrations, and Steve Sheinkin being wildly entertaining while discussing books about very serious subjects.
I was especially pleased, however, to listen to fellow I.N.K. contributor Melissa Stewart. She appeared in the middle of the lineup, and that’s when you could hear pens scratching on notebooks. Melissa was there to discuss “Nonfiction Books You’ll Love” from 2013 and 2014.
The way that she presented them would do any nonfiction writer proud. She organized her info into topics that provided context to her audience. She gave just enough description about each book to inform and create the desire for further research. Her enthusiasm for her subject/s was infectious. She even supplied back matter: a takeaway list of 30 books arranged in alphabetical order by title and by year.
I guess what impressed me most besides Melissa’s careful curation was the generosity of her presentation--praise, yes, but also ways we could appreciate and use the books she mentioned. That’s why authors in the audience were writing down titles as potential mentor texts while teachers and librarians were listing books to add to their collections.
I remember a post Melissa did a while ago, saying that Common Core is here to stay and one of the best things writers can do (if they have the time and interest) is to give teachers easy ways to use their books to teach these standards. Then she helped us further by providing 10 ways to help educators, complete with with examples of these ideas.
During her presentation at the FCB, Melissa showed us a new idea she is using, a multimedia revision timeline that chronicles the very long road she took to finally publish her book, No Monkeys, No Chocolate. It was a fabulous way to show students and beginning authors that effortless writing takes an enormous amount of steps and work.
Now, she has given us 11 ways to help educators.
Recently I was invited to present at a conference of the Northwest Association of Independent Schools on connections between books and technology. Perhaps because I’m a writer married to a technology guy, I see the potential for a rich marriage between books and multimedia resources on a given topic.
For one thing, because of the Internet, students can get a behind-the-scenes view of the research and writing that went into a book. Websites, Facebook pages, and blogs can (miraculously, I think) connect students directly with authors. Many authors have websites (try the author’s first and last name.com or do a google search by using the author’s name and the word “author”). Author websites also often contain links that can deepen students’ understanding of a book or topic.
For example, after reading
Muckrakers by Ann Bausum, they can stop by her
website and click on the "photo research" link for an interactive tutorial on how to conduct photo research using the online collections of the Library of Congress.
After reading Bausum’s
Unraveling Freedom, they can visit
the page for that book and click on the "political cartoons" link to begin an interactive session about decoding political cartoons, using six cartoons from World War I.
Many authors also have Facebook pages which can give readers insights into the on-going life of writers, updates on developments related to their books, and play-by-play descriptions of their current work on new writing projects. (I’m just getting mine going at
https://www.facebook.com/authorelizabethrusch). Some even write blogs or contribute to group blogs like this one. (Try googling the author’s name and the word “blog,” or check author websites, which will have links to their blogs.)
after reading
Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different by Karen Blumenthal, students can check out what’s happening with the company now at
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/ or read recent articles about the company at
www.techspot.com.
After reading my book,
The Mighty Mars Rovers: The incredible adventures of Spirit and Opportunity, students can explore what the rover Opportunity is up to now (10 years after landing!) at
JPL’s website, which includes regular mission updates, press releases, photos and videos; and
follow the newest rover Curiosity, too.
And after reading one of my volcano books—
Volcano Rising;
Will it Blow? or
Eruption! -- students can learn more about current on-going eruptions at
Earthweek;
Volcano Discovery, which includes a map of recent eruptions and webcams at active volcanoes; and
Smithsonian’sGlobal Volcanism Program, which has both weekly updates of volcanic activity and an amazing searchable database of past and current eruptions.
Think this only relates to current events? Think again. Fascinating additional reading and other resources such as audio, films and websites related to American history, 1492 and onward, can be found on the
website of the Zinn Ed Project, which is searchable by theme, time period, document type and reading level. You can also search by book. For instance, the entry for Gretchen Woelfle’s
Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence, (
https://zinnedproject.org/materials/mumbets-declaration-of-independence/) links to actual court records from the lawsuit Mumbet brought against her owners to win her freedom.
Multimedia experiences can bring a book to life. After reading
A Home for Mr. Emerson by Barbara Kerley, students can
visit thehome online. They can
view a slideshowfrom the New York Times about the caretaking of the home, which Emerson bought in 1835; the site includes interior shots of the home, including the rocking horse in the playroom and Emerson's hat, hanging on the wall. To dig even deeper into Emerson’s life, readers can go to an
online exhibit by the Concord Free PublicLibrary with photos and essays about Emerson, which also features many primary source documents.
If you want to offer your students a multimedia experience, most likely you don’t have to do the research on the best resources yourself. Many nonfiction authors include a list of the best multimedia resources in the back matter of their books or on their websites. Check them out – and send your students to them, too. You’ll both be enriched by the experience.
Elizabeth Rusch
My “inner blogger,” which I discovered six years ago when Linda Salzman started this blog, is now in full flower at the Huffington Post. Since September I’ve tried to post twice a week. My initial mission was to add my two cents to the national discussion on education. But a second mission has emerged—to shed light for the general public on our genre, children’s nonfiction literature. To that end I’ve requested that my colleagues send me their most recent books. I read them and write posts that show a book’s timeliness to current events or where it fits into the curriculum. I am not a book reviewer as all of my posts are unabashed cheers for the brilliance of these authors. As an author, myself, there is a conflict of interest for me to act as a critic. But I have no problem endorsing the creativity and insights of my fellow authors.
The adoption of the Common Core State Standards has created an opening for public awareness of our genre. It has helped to create a readership for this blog. When I first read the CCS standards, I saw them as an opportunity for teachers and educators to bring their own passions and creativity to classrooms through, among other things, the use of our books. Children need to know there are many voices out there so they can develop voices of their own. But this opening for diversity has been hi-jacked by standardized testing and the demand that teachers constantly document how they are meeting the CCSS—yet another chore that competes with instructional time. One of the more absurd examples of the implementation of the CCSS is the lesson on close reading of the Gettysburg Address by focusing on text only, with no background knowledge of the Civil War.
Diane Ravitch is leading a movement against the CCSS. I’ve been a faithful subscriber to her amazing blog (she posts 5,6,7 times a day!) and she and her followers are gaining traction. Meanwhile, NY State, for example has a huge contract with Pearson for their textbooks and their texts. Granted, they and McGraw Hill and other textbook publishers are buying rights to our books to excerpt in their publications (and/or in the tests themselves) along with lesson plans making nice, convenient packages for harried teachers and furthering the notion that their books are the only books kids need to read to pass the tests, although their ethics in this are currently being questioned (in the example I've linked above).
My intent through my Huff Post blogis to join Diane's fight against the huge corporations that have dominated classroom reading for many years, the standardized teaching and testing and their ties to teacher evaluation. Instead of emphasizing the horrors of turning teachers in to robots, all teaching the same page at the same time, I want to show the exciting alternatives that our genre offers. So I invite the readership of this blog to join me. This means you need to use social media to spread the word. So "follow," "tweet," "share," and "like." It's the way business is being done these days. So many people out there are still unaware of our existence. This is one positive way we can all help save public education. I’m showing you the covers of the books I've given a shout-out to, so far. The titles below the images are links to my posts. Please join the "resistance" and spread the word.
In the post that went live last Thursday (Here Come the HUMPBACKS!), I featured April’s three recent picture books. I gave a shout-out to all of us who write for this blog and on the iNK website. Keep those (virtual) cards and letters coming!!!
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As I write, it's the Ides of March, official anniversary of Julius Caesar's deathday (44 BCE) and the 246th birthday of cantankerous Andrew Jackson. That is, if this U.S. President No. 7 hadn't been dead for years. But this post goes live on Monday the 18th and seeing as I'm a nonfiction author, given to enthusiastic bouts of looking things up – man oh man, the things there are to FIND OUT. It turns out that a Scottish MP was born 18 March 1891. And on a September night in 1954, during Alice Cullen's time in Parliament, hundreds of her young constituents (ages 4 ~ 14) had to be calmed down, and told to take their knives and sharp sticks and leave a huge old cemetery in Glasgow. Why were they there? Hints: 1. Vampires. 2. Comic books,
In any event, if you're reading this, you may well know that Black History Month grew from the strong and certain belief of such African American scholars as Dr. Carter G. Woodson and Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois that the history of their race was a rich subject for deep academic attention. Out of this devout certainty came Woodson's brainchild, the first Negro History Week, born in February 1926. Why shortish, mercurial February? Because African Americans had long been celebrating Lincoln's birthday and the one which Frederick Douglass chose for himself: February 14. In 1976, America's Bicentennial, after 50 years of progress, protests, violence, and breakthrough civil rights legislation, the week was expanded to a month's worth of study, commemoration, and celebration.
So how is it that March was set aside for making the citizenry aware of women's history? Because of history, as you might expect. Or "herstory," as we might have said back in the 1970s, if it hadn't seemed so pretentious, stilted & weird. On March 8, 1857, just a few days after James Buchanan's inauguration, New York City needleworkers so badly needed to work fewer hours (10 hrs. per shift) in better working conditions, that they went on strike. Heavy-handed policemen, under orders, busted it up. Even more violent was the garment workers' strike in 1908 - on March 8, in honor of those who'd gone before. So it was that the Socialists attending their International Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark, chose March 8, 1910 as the first International Women's Day. So, after 60-some years of parades, protests, the Vote, the Pill, and doors forced open, a group of Californians launched an official "Women's History Week" for the week of IWD, 3/8/1978. That week grew to an entire month, to be proclaimed presidentially and noted nationally, as of 1987, by way of a joint U.S. Congressional resolution. (It's said that a Republican and a Democrat - Orrin Hatch and Barbara Mikulski – actually co-sponsored the legislation. Those were the days, my friend; we thought they'd never end.)
Check out these books ANY time of year, but especially now, in Women's History Month, do avail yourself of this dozen-or-so books (to name but a few) about those who came into the world as girls.
• Ballet for Martha [Graham], by Jan Greenberg, Sandra Jordan, and Brian Floca. • Lives of Extraordinary Women: Rulers, by Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt • Minette's Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat and Clara Schumann: Piano Virtuoso, both written by Susanna Reich • What To Do About Alice? How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy by Barbara Kerley and Edwin Fotheringhan • Write On, Mercy!: The Secret Life of Mercy Otis Warren and Jeanette Rankin: Political Pioneer, both by Gretchen Woelfle • Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship That Changed the World, by Penny Coleman • Bylines: A Photobiography of Nellie Bly, written by Sue Macy • Helen's Eyes: A Photobiography of Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller's Teacher, written by Marfe Ferguson Delano • Remember the Ladies: 100 Great American Women and Rabble Rousers: Twenty Women Who Made a Difference, both by Cheryl Harness 
By the way, if it happens that you don't read my newest, Mary Walker Wears the Pants, DO read someone's book about this real, live, courageous, idealistic, stubborn-as-all-get-out, high octane woman, whose history is well worth the knowing. Pretty well summed up in the subtitle: "The True Story of Doctor, Reformer, and Civil War Hero." DO read up on Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, a valiant, eccentric Medal of Honor winner (only woman to whom it's been awarded), best known in her time as a cranky, outrageous female, who was determined to free those of her sex from genteel purdah. From steel-boned corsets and their long, heavy, unwieldy skirts and petticoats. (Fun to wear once in a while - a reenactment deal or a school visit - like being a transvestite in a time tunnel. But every day? Just. Shoot. Me.)
So, regardless of their race or gender, grateful I am to those souls who braved the storms, walked the walks, and fought the fights. They all deserve a medal.
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Dr. Mary Edwards Walker
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In the past few years, almost every state in the nation has adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The English Language Arts Standards are not limited to upper grades, either. Even the youngest kids—the K through 2 set—will be using the CCSS to explore nonfiction literature in their classrooms, libraries, and homes.
With that in mind, I thought I’d use this post to introduce two things: a new book and a new Teacher’s Guidejust posted on my website, with ideas for how to apply the CCSS to all of my books.
Out this month is my newest book, The World Is Waiting For You. And while the main text only has 115 words, it can still be explored using the CCSS.
The ideas below are built around the Anchor Standards for Reading. (For grade-specific guidelines, click on “Reading: Informational Texts” in the sidebar on that page.)
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.2 Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
The central ideas of The World Is Waiting For You are the importance of getting outside to explore and the benefit of following your curiosity.
My purpose is to encourage kids to get outside, explore, and see where their curiosity takes them—and to suggest that if you follow your curiosity as you grow, it will enrich your entire life.
The book begins with an invitation to explore:
“Right outside your window there’s a world to explore. Ready? Follow that path around the next bend. Who knows where it might lead?”
This question works on both a literal and figurative level. The path itself leads to new places to explore and things to discover; and the act of following your curiosity leads to personal growth and a better understanding and appreciation of the world.
The text and photos then depict exploration on a child-scale, such as hopping into a pond or standing under a waterfall, followed by the same type of exploration on a future adult-scale: scuba diving with dolphins. Similarly, digging in a mud puddle might one day lead to digging for fossils, and star-gazing might one day lead to exploring space as an astronaut.
Throughout the book, kids see the value of exploring now and can imagine where the love of exploration might take them in the future. And the final spread in the book echoes the opening lines and urges them to get going:
“The whole wide world is waiting for you… Ready. Set. Go.”
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.5 Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
In the guidelines for grades K-2, this anchor standard asks students to identify text features and analyze how they provide key facts or information.
The extensive back matter of The World Is Waiting For You provides a wealth of information to enhance the main text.
The explorers depicted in photos in the main text get a fuller introduction in “The Faces of Exploration” section of the back matter. We learn their names, where each photo was taken, and specific facts about their work as explorers. This section also includes quotes from several of the explorers talking about the impact exploration has made on their lives.
In a “Note From National Geographic,” John M. Fahey, Jr., CEO and Chairman of the Board of the National Geographic Society, discusses the Society’s mission and commitment to exploration. He ends the note with words to encourage kids to explore on their own.
Thumbnails of the photographs identify where each was taken and photo credits list the names of individual photographers.
Finally, the back flap of the book jacket shares information about other books I’ve written and my personal experience with exploration.
Check out my Teacher's Guide for ideas on how to apply the CCSS to my other titles, including the biographies Those Rebels, John and Tom; The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy); What To Do About Alice?; Walt Whitman: Words for America; and The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins.
Why do books get published on Tuesdays? I have a book coming out in June, The Boy Who Loved Math, and yes, it's June 25th, a Tuesday. I looked back to when my novel Intentions pubbed--August 14th, a Tuesday. I didn't always know this; in fact I just found it out this past year. I wish I could remember who told me. But the other day I was talking to Ziki, the man who sticks needles in me to make my back and leg pain go away. We made an appointment for the next week (tomorrow) and I told him that afterwards I would be going to a book party for my friend Marguerite's new book:
"But it's not a Tuesday," he said. I told him a book party doesn't have to be on the release date--but wait, how did he know that? He wasn't sure, he just did. He said that albums always had a day to release (he thought Fridays, and maybe it used to be so, but now it seems CDs and DVDs of movies release on Tuesdays, too).
I asked a few people, and no one seemed to know. I posted my question on
twitter and got these answers:
Tradition based on coverage in Sunday papers and getting books on shelves is my understanding.
I asked: Are they reviewed the Sunday before or after.
The answer:
Before. So that booksellers get to spend Monday explaining why people can't buy the books they just heard about.
Hah. Other people chimed in with links:
http://www.verlakay.com/boards/index.php?topic=64015.msg754277#msg754277
http://www.themillions.com/2009/06/ask-book-question-73-tuesday-new_09.html
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/08/17/amazon-monthly-100/
And other answers:
I've heard shipment was a factor--UPS boxes come Monday, scan & put out CDs, etc., Tue.
Probably a less busy day for most stores too. But no one seems to know for sure.I'm 99.9% sure books are Tues b/c of Music release on Tues. So ? would be why music on Tues.
This might answer that question:
http://rulefortytwo.com/secret-rock-knowledge/chapter-4/why-are-cds-released-on-tuesdays/
I read all of those (you don't have to) and it still seems to me that no one knows for sure... I asked some friends who are publishers and editors: nope. They didn't know.
And so I started thinking two things:
1. In the old days, I would have called a reference librarian. My old friend from the Doylestown library (where I used to live) would have found out for me, I know that for sure. So I decided to call the New York Public Library. Oops. I waited too long. It's Presidents' Day. Library closed. But it took me almost a week to remember that I used to talk to reference librarians for this sort of thing. Yes, kids, before the Internet. I used to go to the library, go up to the desk and say, "Jan, how do I find out the answer to this question?" And sometimes Jan would just find out for me, and sometimes she would teach me how to fish. I did this for a long time, even after there was The Internet, until it became more or less part of my right hand.
2.Will this change? Whatever is the cause, will Tuesdays as pub dates change if there are more ebooks and fewer bricks and mortar bookstores? Then will people release books willy nilly? Do people who self-publish books follow the Tuesday rule?
I'm really hoping that someone will post here and tell me... Why do books publish on Tuesday? I've just spent so much time on this... as so often happens when one (me) gets stuck on a research treadmill. I just want to know the answer!
Uh oh. Wait a minute. I just looked up Marguerite's book and it officially published YESTERDAY. Which was Monday. According to
Amazon. And B & N. Her
publisher just says February. Okay, now I'm really confused.
As you may (or may not) know, Vincent Van Gogh was an artist for only ten years. (I know, I know. Take a minute to let
that sink in.) He started late for an artist--at about age 27--and died a decade later. Of course he didn't just start right away painting starry nights and work boots to knock your socks off, he first took a lot of time teaching himself to draw and then paint. He read books on drawing, he took classes and he analyzed what other artists were doing and how they were doing it. Even when he was pretty far along in his career, he kept learning, and using tools that helped him learn. One of the things he used that stopped me in my research tracks (stopped me with delight, I mean) was something called a perspective frame. Here is the Van Gogh museum's
description of it, and below, a sketch of it by Vincent himself:
"During a significant part of his career Van Gogh worked using a perspective frame, a centuries-old artistic aid. The frame could be secured to one or two supports at eye level. Van Gogh would view his subject through the frame and on his blank sheet of drawing paper or canvas would sketch the lines that corresponded to the wires and edges of the wooden frame. In this way he was able to make an accurate assessment of the depth of field and the proportions of his chosen subject and to render these correctly onto a flat surface.".jpeg)
So two things about the perspective frame intrigue me. One is that it is a tool to learn while you are doing. What do we who are writers have that does that? More than the writing itself, I mean. (My friend
Laurie says each book teaches you how to write that book.) And the second is that it is a tool that frames a scene for you, or helps you frame it, I should say, depending on where you place it. Go, stand up, and look out the closest window. That's a frame into your outside world, isn't it? If you wanted to paint that scene, the window frame (or a single pane if you have a multi-paned window) would help you put things into perspective (even without the wires) and also frame it for you in a way that would help you see it more clearly and, I think, even more beautifully.
Recently on a panel someone asked me why I decide to write something as nonfiction or fiction, as picture book or long-form narrative book. I answered that usually the project told me itself (Ok, that sounds weird, but you know what I mean) what shape it wanted to be. But that's only half the story. Once I decide on a frame, that helps me write the book. So the first frame is format and length--fiction, nonfiction, picture book, YA book, middle grade, narrative, photobiography, etc. I put my own perspective frame around it, such as in my new book,
The Boy Who Loved Math. Making it a picture book ensured that I will had to carefully craft a narrative that fit into 32 (or thank you, Roaring Brook, 40) pages. That limit and the limit of the age level and the frame of a book with illustrations all went a long way into helping me shape the book. Looking through that frame every day helped me see it in a very particular way. That creates the second frame, the story I choose to tell. (With
Charles and Emma, it was a love story.) Once I decide on that frame, I have to discard (almost) everything that is outside the frame. What I end up writing is from the perspective of me standing looking out my window into the world of my book. What ends up on cutting room floor is outside the frame.
It's all how you look at things. That is something my parents tried to help me see growing up. That how I looked at the world and at certain things that happened to me would guide me throughout my life. It's all in your perspective of it, they'd say. (Seems they usually said it when I was upset about something!). As I write this, Barack Obama is about to take the oath of office in front of the nation (having already done so in private the day before), and this will have a special meaning for me as a person who likes him, and a different meaning for a person who doesn't. It will probably have a very different and more heightened meaning for someone who is African American, seeing how it is taking place on Martin Luther King Day. If someone writes about that, and helps me see it from his or her perspective, that will make me very happy. (OK, I'm adding this after watching the inauguration. Wow. I couldn't stop crying. And I would like to add that writing that from the perspective of so many of the people who participated would be fascinating: a member of the
Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir; Richard Blanco, the poet; Chuck Schumer; Lamar Alexandar; our President himself.... )
Where was I?
Back to writing: When I told one great writer friend of mine about the perspective frame, she said that we all need a little help sometimes. Yes, we do. So do children when they are learning to write (and to read). Whether it's a writing prompt or a restriction of some kind (I think restrictions really help in writing) or a genre or a format or a word list even, having a little help is an honorable thing. Hey, if it's good enough for Vincent....
But it's what we do with that help and inside that frame that matters. Here's what Vincent said about his frame in a letter to his brother Theo:
"
The perpendicular and horizontal lines of the frame, together with the diagonals and the cross — or otherwise a grid of squares — provide a clear guide to some of the principal features, so that one can make a drawing with a firm hand, setting out the broad outlines and proportions. Assuming, that is, that one has a feeling for perspective and an understanding of why and how perspective appears to change the direction of lines and the size of masses and planes. Without that, the frame is little or no help, and makes your head spin when you look through it."
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Kudos to you for providing this step-by-step guide to your new book!
Thanks, Kathleen. Hope it's helpful to folks getting used to the CCSS!