Midsummer’s Eve Giveaway Hop
June 21st to 30th
Hello again, book fans! Thanks to
I am a Reader for another great giveaway hop. Make sure you hit the links at the end of the post (most bloggers will post their giveaway on Saturday, I'm just a little early) to enter to win more great books and prizes.
Today I'm giving away what is so far my favorite middle grade book of the year --
The Secret Hum of a Daisy by Tracy Holczer! I haven't posted a review yet, since I chose it for my
YABC (book club) pick and the first rule of book club is that you don't talk about the book before the meeting :) I will probably post a review on Amazon and link it since my clubmates don't really read my reviews there. But suffice to say for now that it's a phenomenal book, and I hope it wins many awards in the year to come! The giveaway is open to US only (ends 6/30) because I have to mail something breakable to the winner, but more on that later.
About the book
Twelve-year-old Grace and her mother have always been their own family, traveling from place to place like gypsies. But Grace wants to finally have a home all their own. Just when she thinks she's found it her mother says it's time to move again. Grace summons the courage to tell her mother how she really feels and will always regret that her last words to her were angry ones.
After her mother's sudden death, Grace is forced to live with a grandmother she's never met. She can't imagine her mother would want her to stay with this stranger. Then Grace finds clues in a mysterious treasure hunt, just like the ones her mother used to send her on. Maybe it is her mother, showing her the way to her true home.
Lyrical, poignant and fresh, The Secret Hum of a Daisy is a beautifully told middle grade tale with a great deal of heart.About the author
Tracy Holczer lives in Southern California with her husband, three daughters, and two rather fluffy dogs named Buster and Molly. She has a deep love for the mountains where she grew up so she writes them into her stories.
A 2014 ABA Indies Introduce New Voices pick, her debut middle grade, The Secret Hum of a Daisy, was written in praise of both nature and family, and all that can be found if you're willing to hunt for treasure. It will be also be published by Konigskinder/Carlsen in Germany, fall 2015.
Find out more:
Buy the book:
Autographed copies (note request on the order or they won't know it needs to be autographed!) available at
Once Upon a Time in Montrose, CA
The Giveaway (US only, ends 6/30)
(here is the one Tracy made for me! Answers not provided, haha :) You can read a little more about the answer jar
here.
Giveaway Rules:- Open to US residents only.
- We are not responsible for lost, stolen, or damaged items.
- One set of entries per household please.
- If you are under 13, please get a parent or guardian's permission to enter, as you will be sharing personal info such as an email address.
- Winner will be chosen randomly via Rafflecopter widget a day or two after the contest ends.
- Winner will have 48 hours to respond to to the email, otherwise we will pick a new winner.
- If you have any questions, feel free to email us. You can review our full contest policy here.
- PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE ANY PERSONAL INFO IN THE COMMENTS. Sorry for the caps but we always get people leaving their email in the comments. Rafflecopter will collect all that without having personal info in the comments for all the world (and spambots) to find. Thanks, and good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks to Tracy Holczer for including us on The Secret Hum of a Daisy Blog Tour!
Blog Tour Schedule
We have something a little different for you -- a guide to planning your own book club, literacy cafe, or party centered around her debut middle grade novel. I recently had the privilege of attending Tracy's launch party and her friend threw her a beautiful, daisy-filled one. Your own event might not be as star-studded (a ton of our friendly neighborhood YA and MG authors were there) but that doesn't mean it can't be just as fun! Read on for our ideas, info about the book and author, as well as a giveaway!
About The Secret Hum of a Daisy
After the sudden death of her mother, twelve-year-old Grace is forced to live with a grandmother she's never met in a small town she's never heard of. A town Mama left years before--with Grace in her belly and a bus ticket in her pocket--and never looked back. It doesn't take long before Grace desperately wants to leave, too.
Until she finds the first crane.
A mysterious treasure hunt, just like the ones her mother used to send her on, takes Grace on a journey to find home. And it might just be closer than she thinks.
The Literacy Cafe
My good friend Alyson from
Kid Lit Frenzy and I are in an adult YA book club that meets every month. Sure, we get together because we love discussing books, but we also get together because we love to hang out with friends and eat delicious food. Usually we theme the
menu around the book we have read. You can do that with this book, too! You would be surprised how often food helps spark discussion and recall of what happened in the book. This is part of what makes a literacy cafe such an interesting event to host and to attend.
Alyson usually does literacy cafes at schools, and to help students engage with the books they are reading and discussing, they sometimes do a writing exercise or craft activity related to the book. This helps make it not just memorable, but also creative and fun. (Note: I was planning to have photos of all the examples I was going to give, but this week just got away from me! I will add them into the post when I can get around to it.)
For resources, I have linked to websites I think might be helpful in case you want to find out more, or actually want to make my suggestion happen for yourself. If I wrote out all of the info here, this would be a very long post!
Menu
There are lots of foods mentioned in
The Secret Hum of a Daisy. Part of Grace's search for home involves some basic needs: food and shelter. (This would be a great lead-in to a discussion of
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.) Here are just a few:
- Soup (p. 119) - The Spoons Souperie is the diner in the town where Grace's mother grew up. Grace meets and gets to know various people here. Their menu has the usual: corn chowder, matzo ball, and split pea, but you can serve your favorite soup. Mine is beef and cabbage, with lots of pepper! You could also make it a potluck and have everyone bring their own soup to share. Just make sure someone brings some fresh-baked, crusty bread for dipping.
- Brownies (p. 146) Grace and her neighbor Jo have to bake brownies in the book, but they're not allowed to eat any! You can, though. Here is a basic recipe for brownies, but you can make them how you like: out of the box, with nuts or without, cakelike or fudgy. Blondies instead? I'm an edges kind of girl, myself. Once you know why they bake brownies in the book, you can talk about the choices Grace makes and how they lead up to brownies!
- Chocolate Toast (p. 210) I know the other one already has chocolate, but someone makes this for Grace. It has something chocolatey (Nutella? Cookie Butter Swirl? It's up to you to choose) and slices of banana on top. This is definitely a "Live to Eat" moment rather than an "Eat to Live" one. While you eat it, you might want to discuss what your favorite comfort food is. Does it remind you of a certain place where you are from, or where you felt at home? Does it remind you of a person who used to make it for you?
Activities
Poetry and writing figure quite centrally in the story. There are lots of different things you can do depending on the interests your students/guests/group members have.
- Snippets Guessing Game - Have everyone bring in snippets of their favorite poetry to read out loud, and see if anyone else recognizes the poem or poet.
- Unsent Letters - Not everyone might want to share this with the group, and that's ok. Bring pens or pencils, paper, and envelopes to the event and have everyone write a short letter to someone else that they have wanted to write, but couldn't write before now. They can choose to share the letter, or keep it to themselves. They can choose to send the letter -- though it won't be unsent anymore!
- Answer Jars - Late in the story, someone shows Grace their answer jars -- Mason or canning jars filled with bits of words and phrases. When they can't decide on something, they reach into the jars for some answers. You can recycle jars or containers and use magazines or small pieces of paper to add your own answers.
Art and sculpture also are pivotal to the story. You don't need a lot of fancy equipment, just found objects, scratch paper, and the usual materials (scissors, Mod Podge or Gorilla glue depending on what you're working on, writing/painting utensils).
- Origami Cranes - The Secret Hum of a Daisy is a story about grief, but it is also about hope. Grace sees origami cranes as clues in a scavenger hunt like the ones her mom used to put together for her. You can learn to fold origami cranes with some patience and some perfectly square paper. While you're folding, discuss: where do you hope your cranes would lead you? (link to instructions)
- Found Objects - Grace's mom sculpts birds out of odds and ends. Maybe birds are not your thing, but what is? What's your power animal? Collect some bits and pieces, odds and ends, things that look interesting but maybe incomplete on their own. Get some Gorilla Glue if you're gluing smooth objects like plastic or metal and sculpt your penguin, bear, meerkat, or whatever you come up with.
- Self-Portrait - Grace isn't just searching for home, she's searching for her identity. She's trying to define the people around her, and trying to define herself now that her mother is gone. There are some great self-portrait ideas in the book. Try composing a shadow box: what would you put inside?
- Another Self-Portrait - Alternatively, start with a sturdy cardboard or masonite surface, then draw an outline or silhouette of your head. Now brainstorm some words that describe you... write, letter, or paste them onto the back half of your head (um, the illustration of it, not your actual head). Now go back to your stash of found objects and compose your face out of items that might fit. Glue them on, then stand back and admire your handiwork. It doesn't have to be perfect, but hopefully it's thoughtful and expressive, which is sometimes the most we can get out of life :)
I hope you enjoyed my ideas for hosting a literacy cafe or book club meeting with The Secret Hum of a Daisy. If you've read the book and would like to share more ideas, please leave a comment. Don't post any spoilers, please! I left out some of my ideas since they might give away some later plot points in the story that are better discovered by the reader on their own.
If you do host one, please take photos and share them! I'm sure Tracy would love to see them, too.
About The Author
Tracy Holczer lives in Southern California with her husband, three daughters, and two rather fluffy dogs named Buster and Molly. She has a deep love for the mountains where she grew up so she writes them into her stories.
A 2014 ABA Indies Introduce New Voices pick, her debut middle grade, The Secret Hum of a Daisy, was written in praise of both nature and family, and all that can be found if you're willing to hunt for treasure. It will be also be published by Konigskinder/Carlsen in Germany, fall 2015.
Find out more:
Buy the book:
Autographed copies (note request on the order or they won't know it needs to be autographed!) available at
Once Upon a Time in Montrose, CA
Giveaway
US only, ends May 20
a Rafflecopter giveaway
I'm so excited to kick off the Pasadena Teen Book Festival blog tour! Make sure you read through for an interview with debut YA author Catherine Linka as well as a couple of giveaways and a renaming contest!
Event date: Saturday, April 26, 2014 from 12pm-4pm
Venue: Pasadena Public Library, 285 E Walnut St, Pasadena, CA 91101
About The Secret Hum of a Daisy
Twelve-year-old Grace and her mother have always been their own family, traveling from place to place like gypsies. But Grace wants to finally have a home all their own. Just when she thinks she's found it her mother says it's time to move again. Grace summons the courage to tell her mother how she really feels and will always regret that her last words to her were angry ones.
After her mother's sudden death, Grace is forced to live with a grandmother she's never met. She can't imagine her mother would want her to stay with this stranger. Then Grace finds clues in a mysterious treasure hunt, just like the ones her mother used to send her on. Maybe itis her mother, showing her the way to her true home.
Lyrical, poignant and fresh,
The Secret Hum of a Daisy is a beautifully told middle grade tale with a great deal of heart.
Spotlight on Tracy Holczer
RNSL: What inspired you to write
The Secret Hum of a Daisy?
TH: So many things, really. Living life. Having loved and lost. Soup and all its meanings :) And like a good soup, it all came together in HUM.
RNSL: Grace comes from a very creative family: they make things, they write, they help things grow. Other than writing, what are your favorite creative pursuits?
TH: Really, writing is my only creative pursuit. I don’t even listen to the radio in the car. And any “art” I might produce is pretty much limited to unrecognizable stick figures. My kids never asked me to help with any creative project because, even at age five, they were much better than I could have been. Mothering is a creative pursuit, and I am a mother to three wonderful daughters.
RNSL: The Secret Hum of a Daisy is very much about relationships and emotions. Which relationship (i.e. mother/daughter, girlfriends, etc.) or emotion did you have the hardest time writing about?
TH: Being an only child, the hardest part for me was writing about friendship. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a loner or outcast (even though I’ve felt that way at times), but I definitely enjoy my solitude, as any good introvert will. I’ve been more successful at friendship as an adult than I ever was as a child because I did so much observing rather than connecting back then. I wasn’t around very many children until I was in school, and so they baffled me.
RNSL: There's a lot of poetry in your book. Have you always read and written poetry? Did you grow to love it just recently or did it start when you were a child?
TH: I have always written spectacularly bad poetry about love gone wrong. Example:
Yesterday’s rain had left me alone
Locked up inside of my room
Where I unfolded my memories.
December, 1983
Interestingly, I’m not a huge fan of all poetry. I love simple things, poetry included.
RNSL: I love the Spoons Souperie restaurant in your story. What's your favorite soup?
TH: My small but mighty Italian grandmother, who I outgrew when I was ten, was a great soup maker. She had soup for every occasion. Minestrone, Straccetti (which was what she called egg soup even though actual straccetti has nothing to do with eggs), Lentil, and my very most favorite, square soup.
What is square soup you might ask? Well, its soup with little squares in it. Sounds simple, but nothing was ever simple in Nonni’s kitchen. She’d boil the chicken for the stock (always) and hand roll the pasta for the squares. She cooked them Just So and they were the slightest bit chewy. Even I haven’t been able to replicate it, but I have my memories. No problem was ever too big for the healing properties of Nonni’s square soup.
You can find more about Tracy on her website,
www.tracyholczer.com, and follow her on Twitter @
tracyholczer Giveaways
#1: ARC of A Girl Called Fearless
Winner may request personalization/autograph
Open to US residents only - ends 4/25/2014
Enter with Rafflecopter #1
#2: Choose from 1 of the books featured at the Pasadena Teen Book Festival
Winner may request personalization/autograph
Open to US residents only - ends 4/25/2014
Enter with Rafflecopter #2
#3: $50 Gift Card to Vroman's Bookstore
Open to attendees of the Pasadena Book Festival only! - ends 4/21/2014
To enter, suggest a new, unique/clever/fun name for the Pasadena Teen Book Festival. Examples of other cool names for teen book fests include (already taken, unfortunately)
Teen Author Carnival,
YALLFest, and
YABFest. What should we call our event from now on? Email your top 3 best name suggestions to
[email protected] OR
fill out this form! A panel of judges will choose the best name from all of the submissions. The winner will be announced at the Festival!
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