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I am not a fearless woman. I’m actually quite timid. I like order and predictability and rules. When I was a magazine editor, I started each editing task by making sure the fonts and margins and other formatting issues were right. Only then could I tackle the content.
I’ve been thinking about this lately because in the author bio of my most recent book, Roller Derby Rivals, my editor at Holiday House wrote, “Sue Macy loves to write about sports and fearless women.” And it’s true. Nellie Bly got herself committed to an insane asylum so she could write an expose. Cyclist Dora Rinehart rode more than 17,000 miles in 1896 through the muddy, rocky, mountain roads around Denver. Midge “Toughie” Brasuhn (right) regularly careened around Roller Derby rinks with no concern about injuries—and ended up with eight broken noses during her career. To me, these accomplishments are alternately inspiring and terrifying.
As someone who was trained as a journalist, I find it perfectly acceptable observing and writing about fearless women while remaining out of the fray myself. I am moved by women who have the drive and determination to overcome society’s taboos or their own fears in order to follow their dreams. I’ve listened to scores of women who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League talk about their motivation, and the common thread among all of them is the passion they had for the game. Over and over again, they’ve said, “They were paying me, but I would have played for free.”
When people are really passionate about what they’re doing, they grab my attention. At the start of my research on Roller Derby history, I went to a contemporary bout between the Garden State Rollergirls and a visiting team from Maryland. I barely knew the rules of the game at that point. What’s more, the announcer was muffled by an inadequate sound system and the action was so fast and furious that it was hard to follow. But one woman stood out. She was a New Jersey skater, covered with tattoos on just about every visible patch of skin, and she was magnificent. She wove in and out of the opposing skaters, lapping the field and then passing her opponents to score points. Her Derby name was Jenna Von Fury and her skill convinced me that Roller Derby was indeed a sport worth writing about.
Late last year, the computer search engine Bing produced an awesome TV commercial highlighting some of the female heroes of 2013. To the tune of Sara Bareilles’s song, “Brave,” Bing celebrated several fearless girls and women, among them the young Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai; marathon swimmer Diana Nyad; and Edie Windsor, who brought the Supreme Court case that that struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act. It was an impressive example of the never-ending parade of fearless women whose achievements have made an impact on the world, and a virtual shopping list of topics for a writer seeking to be inspired.
So as I finish my final post for I.N.K., I promise to continue producing books about women who made their mark as they challenged the status quo. I'll also occasionally blog on my Web site, suemacy.com. Check it out when you get the chance. Or follow me on Twitter @suemacy1. And thanks for reading.
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on 6/7/2014
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Roller Derby Rivals
By Sue Macy
Illustrated by Matt Collins
Holiday House
$16.95
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2923-3
Ages 5 and up
On shelves July 1st
In my next life I will come back as a roller derby queen. Since the majority of my adult life has come and gone in complete and utter ignorance of this sport, I figure that means it’s too late for me now. But the more I learn about the sport the more I like it. Women on roller skates knocking the bejeesus out of each other in a circular fashion? Yes, please! Not that the sport has ever been particularly well documented in children’s literature. Generally speaking, roller derby tends to show up in YA literature more often than not. Since kids don’t have roller derby teams in elementary school or junior high, fiction leaves them high and dry. That means nonfiction would have to be the place to go, but until Sue Macy decided to write Roller Derby Rivals there wasn’t much to find. Meticulously researched, funny, and fast, Macy and Collins (who perfected their partnership in their previous title Basketball Belles) give us a highly original sports book like no other. A slam bang offering (with an emphasis on the “slam”).
The year: 1948. The place: New York’s 69th Regiment Armory. The event: Roller derby, baby! It’s here that two derby rivals, Midge “Toughie” Brasuhn and Gerry Murray give life to the game. Toughie’s the bad guy in this storyline. A down and dirty girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Gerry’s the glamour girl and the crowd favorite. In a typical game the two take potshots at one another. It’s the era of television and the sport is more popular than ever. But the truth? These two gals are actually friends, and one couldn’t exist without the other. An extensive Author’s Note, Roller Derby Time Line, and listing of Sources and Resources (including Film Clips, Web Sites, and Books) alongside Source Notes and Roller Derby Rules at the start of the book give the tale context.
When writing this book, author Sue Macy had to decide what era of roller derby to cover. She definitely wanted to cover a rivalry, but would she go with something recent or older? Ultimately she went with an older rivalry, and one that wasn’t as well known today. The derby of the 40s and 50s was really something. Here you had post-war women quietly going back to their roles as wives and mothers, and meanwhile on the television other women were knocking the stuffing out of one another on a rink. As Macy puts it, “The bruising, brawling women of Roller Derby were a throwback to the raucous war years, when women’s achievements knew no bounds.” Finding examples for kids of occasions when the women of the past weren’t Donna Reid can be tricky. Here’s one such example.
One thing I’ve never really realized about the sport of roller derby is how similar it is to professional wrestling in terms of “story”. There’s a reason that roller derby, wrestling, and boxing became the most watched sports during the rising of television programming. As Macy explains in her Author’s Note, “they took place indoors and in a confined area, so camera operators could control the lighting and focus on the faces of the participants as well as the action.” Little wonder that personality became an integral part of the sport as well. You had your heroes and you had your villains. Macy acknowledges this in the text for only the briefest of moments right at the end when she writes, “Fans would be shocked to learn that the two women, sworn enemies on the track, actually get along just fine. After all, they need each other. Every hero needs a villain. And every villain needs a worthy opponent.” Admittedly I would have liked the book to spend just a little more time on this topic. The showmanship of roller derby becomes an important part of the sport and one begins to wonder what’s real and what isn’t (and if the audience is implicit in this show or unaware that it’s happening). But I suppose those aren’t suppositions for a picture book, no matter how cool the subject matter might be.
A friend of mine recently pointed out to me that I’m a hard-core stickler for accuracy in my nonfiction picture books. To be blunt about it, I’m not very nice. If I think that a book is dodging accuracy for the sake of interest (including fake dialogue, merging or making of characters, etc.), I get very down on the whole kerschmozzle. How then to judge a book where the original television footage is lost? It’s not as though Macy isn’t just as much a stickler for accuracy as I am. Heck, the woman’s first four books were edited by Marc Aronson, so backmatter and factual writing is important to her. In the case of this book her backmatter includes “An important Notice from the Author and Illustrator” in which they note that since no television footage of the December 5th match survives they had to recreate it from their sources. “All dialogue and skating action are dramatizations based on our research.” Some folks may balk at where their suppositions take them, but I think Macy keeps it pretty within the realm of possibility at all times.
Illustrator Matt Collins gives the entire enterprise a kind of hyper reality. He has a lot to play with here, too. From women flying over rails into audiences to the look and feel of the late 40s/early 50s, this is a cool enterprise. One shot of people gathered outside an appliance store to watch the televisions there has a brilliant view of the seams up the back of a mother’s pantyhoes. There’s an attention to detail here worth noting. You are left in no doubt of the time and place.
One objection I’ve heard to the book is that the Author’s Note is so interesting it makes the rest of the book pale in comparison. I don’t happen to agree with that assessment, though. That’s sort of kicking a book for having interesting source material. It also suggests that though the picture book is interesting, what the reader really wanted was a chapter book on the subject. And believe me, a chapter book on Gerry and Toughie would be fabulous, but that’s a different project. What we have here is a picture book that wants to show a rivalry and does so. And professional rivalries in children’s books can be rare things. Few books for kids tell the really interesting stories about political or sports rivals. Rollerderby Rivals just proves that you’ve gotta start somewhere.
If you tell a kid to find a nonfiction picture book about a sport, nine times out of ten they’ll grab a book about baseball. That’s because baseball makes for perfect children’s literature. Fiction, nonfiction, you name it, baseball is king. Once in a great while another sport will get their day in the sun, but it’s rare. For once, I’m happy to read a book about women. And since finding a book that discusses TWO female athletes at the same time is almost impossible (single bios proliferate but multiples, not so much) it’s just an extra treat that Roller Derby Rivals is as enjoyable as it is. Not like anything else out there, and worthy of note. Ladies and gentlemen, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
On shelves July 1st
Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.
Like This? Then Try:
Interviews: Sporty Girl Books talks with Macy a bit about this project.
Videos:
A simply lovely book trailer for this book, featuring roller derby expert Gary Powers:
Curious to see what Toughie really looked like? I sort of adore this film she starred in. Love the narrator too.
I tuned into ESPN the other night, clicking away at my laptop as I waited for the Stanford-North Carolina women’s basketball game to begin. The end of the Louisville-Maryland contest was on. There was about a minute left, and Louisville was losing by 10 points, which pretty much guaranteed Maryland the win. But wait. A Louisville player, number 23, floated in a terrific three-point shot with 30 seconds left. Then the same player hit another three-pointer with 18 seconds left. And yet another with five seconds left. Maryland had made two foul shots during the Louisville run, and the score was now 76-73. But it was Louisville’s ball. One more three-pointer would send the game into overtime.
I’m a sucker for an athlete who performs well under pressure, so I put down my laptop and stared at the screen. The announcers were full of praise for the Louisville player, a senior named Shoni Schimmel. I have rarely seen anyone with a smoother, more poetic stroke. When Maryland took a timeout before the game's last play, I went back to my computer and Googled her.
I admit I don’t follow college basketball as much as I should. If I did, I would have known that Shoni, and her sister Jude, who also plays for the University of Louisville, are a genuine phenomenon. Their games attract thousands of people who drive from all over the U.S. and Canada to see them. The sisters are Native Americans who grew up on the Umatilla reservation in Pendleton, Oregon. Their success has galvanized Native fans and even attracted a filmmaker, who made a documentary about them titled Off the Rez.
As I read about the Schimmel sisters, I thought, “This is a great story. I should write it.” You probably know that I’ve made a career bringing the true tales of athletes and other bold and brilliant women to the mainstream. As first Shoni and then Jude graduate from college and enter the WNBA, their journeys should have the makings of a great book.
But then I wondered, “Should I write it?” In recent months, there has been a lot of discussion about the underrepresentation of people of color in children’s books. The postings on multicultural literature on the listserv of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, were coming fast and furious the entire month of February. A few weeks later, Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers wrote companion essays in the Sunday Review section of The New York Times under the title, “Where Are the People of Color in Children’s Books?”
One of the strands on the CCBC listserv focused on who actually writes books with characters or subjects of color, and as a corollary, who shouldwrite those books. A number of posters were pretty adamant that they thought books were more authentic—and by extension more acceptable—when they were written by members of the groups they portrayed. By that logic, a book about the Schimmel sisters would be best by a Native person. But why should authors be limited by their backgrounds? I’ve written more than a dozen books, including three biographies, and I’ve never written one with a main character who shares my Jewish heritage. For me, part of the joy of writing nonfiction is getting to explore new worlds while developing the context to tell the story.
That’s what I was thinking as I read many of the CCBC posts. And now I’m finally putting it into words. People expressed a valid concern about getting a more diverse pool of authors (and editors) producing children’s books, but I don’t feel that any authors should be dissuaded from tackling any topics that ignite their passions. Every voice is valid and every perspective is worth considering as we inspire kids' curiosity about and understanding of the world around them.
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For the record, Louisville didn’t win the game, despite an inspired play that put the ball in Schimmel’s hands for one more three-point attempt. She shot, and the ball hit the rim and ricocheted away as time ran out. It was Shoni’s last college game, but hopefully the prelude to an exciting professional career. Perhaps someone will write a book about Shoni and her sister one day. Perhaps it will be me.
My friend, Julie Winterbottom, writes funny stuff. She was editor-in-chief of Nickelodeon Magazine, and she has a new book coming out on March 19. Since I sometimes find it challenging to write funny, I thought I'd ask her to take my I.N.K. slot this month and explain how she does it.
I was a little surprised when Sue asked me to write a guest post for I.N.K. because my forthcoming book, Pranklopedia, while technically nonfiction, is more likely to get shelved under “Humor.” But Sue’s invitation got me thinking about the role of humor in nonfiction. Humor can draw kids who don’t like to read into enjoying nonfiction as much as they enjoy short-sheeting a bed (well, almost). In fact, my hope is that kids will pick up Pranklopedia to learn new pranks and end up reading the many (nonfiction) sidebars about creative capers in history, art, sports, and the White House.
There was another surprise: I found myself thinking about something I don’t usually pay much attention to—the process of writing humor and more specifically, the techniques I use to get myself into a funny frame of mind. I thought I’d share them here. I learned most of them during my 12 years as an editor at Nickelodeon Magazine, where the humor bar was set high. Even the masthead had to be funny! At Nick Mag, we often wrote humor pieces in pairs or small groups. It strikes me now that most of my techniques bring collaborators—real or imagined—into the writing process.
1. Read Something Funny
When I’m not feeling funny, I read someone who is. While working on Pranklopedia, I often started the day by reading a few pages from How to Play In Traffic, one of Penn & Teller’s hilarious books of pranks for adults. It helped me find a devious, slightly conspiratorial voice that was perfect for writing about pranks. On days when my ideas seemed too tame, I would dip into Mad Magazine to unleash my more irreverent side. For those who are more literary, one nonfiction writer I know suggests reading P.G. Wodehouse to get into funny mode.
2. Live With Someone Funny (or have easy phone access)
My boyfriend Stephen should probably be listed as co-author of Pranklopedia. He isn’t a prankster himself, and he doesn’t know much about writing for kids. But he has a fine ear for what’s funny and what isn’t. Whenever I had doubts about something I wrote, I would run it by Stephen. He would not only nix the bad ideas, he would help me brainstorm better ones.
3. Ask Yourself: What Would Jim Do?
My friend Jim is a natural-born prankster. Where other people see a boring trip to the supermarket or another tedious day at the office, Jim sees opportunities for pranks. Whenever I got stuck trying to come up with new pranks, I would pretend to be Jim. I’d find myself looking at everything around me, from the eggs in the refrigerator to the houseplants in the living room, as potential prank material. This technique let me ditch the cautious editor inside me and come up with lots of crazy ideas—some of which actually worked. Who knew that the musical birthday card on my living room shelf would make an excellent prank when taped to the inside edge of a closet door?
4. Wait a Day
When you’re working alone, it can be hard to know if what you wrote is actually funny. One way to find out (besides asking Stephen) is to put the writing aside and read it first thing in the morning. You will know right away whether or not it is funny. This can be a very disappointing experience. I’ve spent whole days writing what I thought was hysterical material only to read it the next morning and cringe: It was forced, unoriginal, and definitely not funny. The good part is that when this happens, it usually leads me to write a much better replacement.
5. Pray for a Last-Minute Request From Your Editor
Some of the funniest pranks and sidebars in Pranklopedia are the ones I added very late in the game, after the book had been designed and there were holes that needed filling. There’s something about a tight deadline that produces superior comedy. I saw this happen all the time at Nick Mag: The humor piece that we wrote in two hours because an ad dropped out at the last minute was always the funniest. Of course it’s hard to employ this technique if external forces are not cooperating. Hmm…maybe I can get writers to hire me to impersonate their editors and then I will make last-minute requests for new material. Any takers?
Where did the time go? I wrote my first I.N.K. blog post five years ago this month. That makes this one of the steadiest jobs I've ever had. But what do I do with my time? In an effort to record some semblance of an answer for posterity, I present a chronicle of one recent day.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
8:20 a.m.: Alarm goes off. Today is a sleep-in day. I usually get up about 7 a.m. to go to the gym, but on Wednesdays I like to sleep late. I inadvertently sleep extra late when I roll over and doze again.
9:00: Finally get up. Feed the cats. Put on my computer.
9:15: Read e-mails, Twitter, Facebook, I.N.K. (Nice post, Marfe.)
9:40: Go over revised book contract for my biography of Sally Ride. We’ve been working on this for three months (the contract, not the book), and it’s almost there. E-mail my attorney with a few points that still need to be fixed.
9:55: Breakfast (pineapple yogurt and iced tea), shower.
10:30: Surprise! The morning mail has brought a jury duty notice. True to form, they’ve scheduled my jury duty for the week I’ll be in California doing school visits. Fortunately, my county makes it easy to request a postponement. I go to their Web site and fill out the form.
10:45: Skim books on tennis history for information on Alice Marble, the 1930s champion who at one time taught the game to Sally Ride. I’ve had these books for decades and feel a tug of nostalgia as I turn to the index and flip pages, rather than typing words into search engines.
11:30: Head to Staples to do some careful photocopying of archival Roller Derby programs that I borrowed from the proprietor of the National Roller Derby Hall of Fame. No, Sally Ride never skated Roller Derby. This is for a picture book. While I’m out, I decide to give myself a treat and buy a six-inch Subway sandwich for lunch. I resist the urge to measure it to see if it really is six inches long. (If you don’t get that reference, see here.)
12:15 p.m.: Arrive home with my sandwich to find an e-mail with a revised contract. Check it and find that a few changes still need to be made. E-mail my attorney.
12:45: Eat lunch, watch a rerun of Flashpoint to clear my head. Mourn the fact that this fine Canadian import ended its first-run shows last week. Wash dishes. Clean litter box.
2:00: Check e-mail and find that my book contract has been revised to perfection. Hallelujah! Print out four copies and sign them. Then realize I’m not sure whether to mail the package to my editor or the publisher’s attorney. Write e-mails. Get answer. Address it to the attorney.
2:45: Check the AT&T Archives Web site to see if they have posted any of the archival films with bonus intros that I wrote last summer. And they have: War and the Telephone. I watch the wonderful George Kupczak deliver the lines that I wrote about the operators who ran AT&T’s World War II telephone centers at shipyards and military bases. It’s my first filmed script.
3:00: FINALLY start writing. Alice Marble, Sally Ride, tennis. Great stuff.
6:15: Feed the cats. Make dinner (a Mexican concoction with cornbread, cheese, chorizos, salsa, and guacamole). Check in on Brian Williams. Listen to him talk about high winds and heavy rain that are approaching the Northeast. Decide to make extra ice cubes, power up my cell phone, and save my work-in-progress on a flash drive in case the electricity goes out. Wash dishes and clean the litter box.
8:00: Start this blog. Wish I could report that I did more actual writing today, but this is nonfiction and I can't make things up. I did stay up till 12:30 last night working on my manuscript, since I knew I could sleep late. When there's a deadline on the horizon, one day pretty much blends into the next.
9:00: Time for a dose of Law & Order: SVUand Top Chef. Crime. Competition. Food. An excellent end to a writer’s day.
I don’t know if people are willing to admit it, but many of us, and I suspect especially those of us who write books, have given some thought to what our legacy will be. I know I have. Since I am childfree—a term I recently heard for the first time—I won’t be leaving any progeny to carry on the family name. But I will be leaving my books to inform future generations. Even if libraries purge their holdings to make way for newer volumes, I’m thinking (hoping) that some of my writings will survive on the dusty shelves, or at the very least, in Cyberspace. I know it won’t really matter to me after I’m gone, but right now, I find the thought comforting.
Perhaps that’s why I had such a visceral reaction to the Gilda’s Club brouhaha that erupted last week. For those who don’t know, Gilda’s Club is a community organization with more than 20 affiliates that is dedicated to offering support to people who are living with cancer, and their loved ones. It was founded in the 1990s in honor of Gilda Radner, one of the original “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” on Saturday Night Live, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989. During her illness, Gilda found encouragement and solace at a California organization called the Wellness Community. Gilda’s Club was modeled after that group. (The name refers to Gilda’s quote that “having cancer gave me membership in an elite club I’d rather not belong to.”)
In 2009, Gilda’s Club Worldwide merged with the Wellness Community to create the Cancer Support Community. After the merger, the home office decreed that affiliates could determine which of three names worked best for them: Gilda’s Club, the Wellness Community, or the Cancer Support Community. A few weeks ago, the affiliate in Madison, Wisconsin, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate its new name, the Cancer Support Community Southwest Wisconsin. The executive director, Lannia Syren Stenz, told the Wisconsin State Journal the name was being changed because the population they serve is getting younger. "One of the realizations we had this year is that our college students were born after Gilda Radner passed," she said. "We want to make sure that what we are is clear to them and that there’s not a lot of confusion that would cause people not to come in our doors.”
Coverage of this event jumped from the Wisconsin State Journalto Gawker.com and pretty much all over the Internet, thanks to Twitter and Facebook. Fans of Gilda, and common sense, pointed out that it would be more meaningful to teach people who Gilda was than to obliterate her from the organization that was founded in her name. Toward that end, actress Martha Plimpton tweeted that she had ordered five copies of Gilda’s moving memoir, It’s Always Something, to be sent to the Madison chapter. Others pointed out that few of us know who Mayo was, or Sloanand Kettering, or Dana and Farber, but we still can find our way to their hospitals when necessary. Among the hundreds of comments on the Madison branch’s Facebook page (now taken down) was this one: "The only educating you're doing is teaching kids that when they die from cancer, their name will be erased from history in 20 years because the next generation doesn't know who they are. Way to give them hope!"
While the Wisconsin affiliate doesn’t seem to have been swayed by the petitions, tweets, and articles blasting their decision, other branches were quick to reassure the public that they had no intention of changing their name. “As the flagship Clubhouse, we value our brand and our association with Gilda Radner,” the New York club posted on their Facebook page. The Chicago branch tweeted, “Gilda’s Club Chicago will remain Gilda’s Club Chicago in honor of the courageous way Gilda, and all of our members, live with cancer.”
Just two months ago, I blogged about the importance of naming buildings and public memorials after women, so there’s no mystery about where I stand on this matter. I was also a big fan of Gilda, who had the guts to bare her soul in the process of reaching her audience. (Just watch this clip from her movie, Gilda Live, to see what I mean.) She did the same in her book, an admirable, intimate account of her struggle with cancer which is back in print with a new Resource Guide and a new chapter on Living with Cancer. And besides all that, she was really funny. Just check out these clips of her characters Roseanne Roseannadanna and Emily Litella.
I joined the New York chapter of Gilda’s Club when a close friend was dealing with cancer. The other day, she reminded me that not too long ago, cancer was something you didn’t discuss. Friends would shy away from you if they knew you were sick and you pretty much suffered in silence. Thanks to Gilda and the movement she inspired, people with cancer have a place to talk about what the “civilians” in their lives might not want to hear, the gritty details of survival. Helping each other empowers them in their own fight. That's why if people don’t know who Gilda Radner was, they sure as heck should find out.
In downtown Rochester, New York, a triple steel arch bridge carries Interstate 490 over the Genesee River. Originally called the Troup-Howell Bridge, this structure was renamed the Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridgein 2007, after two historic heavyweights with ties to the city. Locals affectionately call it the “Freddie-Sue Bridge,” as I learned on a visit there last week. It’s just one of several local monuments to Ms. Anthony. (There’s also a local Roller Derby skater with the truly inspired Derby name Susan B. Agony, but that’s a topic for another post.)
As someone who grew up in a world where almost all schools, bridges, and other public memorials were named after men, I rejoiced at the very visible presence of Ms. Anthony in her adopted hometown. Nothing pleases me more than to see women’s names carved in stone or displayed on highway signs. When I wrote Bull’s-Eye, my biography of Annie Oakley, I shared in the pride that members of the Annie Oakley Foundation felt when they successfully lobbied the Ohio legislature to rename a portion of US127 the Annie Oakley Memorial Pike. When I was working on Bylines, my biography of Nellie Bly, I even was thrilled upon driving past the dilapidated Nellie Bly Amusement Parkin Brooklyn, New York. Alas, this tribute to Nellie’s round the world voyage was renamed the Adventurers Family Entertainment Center when it was refurbished in 2007.
It’s important for women to stamp their names on things, at least as important as it is for men. It helps us remind people of our achievements and our presence in the world. I know I’m not the only one who thinks so. A few years ago, I attended a weekend celebration of women who graduated from Princeton, and President Shirley Tilghmantold the story behind the naming of the university’s newest residential college. The college, home to some 500 undergraduates, was built with donations from 30 donors, but primarily from then eBay CEO Meg Whitman, Class of 1977, and her family and colleagues. President Tilghman implored Whitman to lend her name to the college, but she relented only after the president pointed out that every other residential college, including Rockefeller, Wilson, and Forbes, was named for a man. In 2003, I had the satisfaction of taking part in the dedication ceremony for another institution named for a woman. Madeline “Maddy” English was a veteran teacher and guidance counselor with the Everett, Massachusetts, Public Schools. She was also a standout third basewoman on the Racine Belles of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. After the town voted to name its newest school for her, Maddy asked me to represent the league at the event, since I was then on the board of the Players’ Association and lived only a few hundred miles away. I got to say a few words about her as an athlete and see her pride as the entire community celebrated her achievements. Sadly, Maddy passed away less than a year later, but her school and its “Madeline English Bulldogs” are still going strong.
Some time back, journalists Lynn Sherr and Jurate Kazickas put together a book titled Susan B. Anthony Slept Here: A Guide to American Women’s Landmarks. It’s full of parks, museums, libraries, and other sites that are significant to women’s history. I’d love to see a companion volume of buildings, bridges, and other structures named for women. Are there any in your neck of the woods? Let me know by commenting below.
There’s nothing like the Olympics to get me thinking about the promise and possibility of sports. In an Olympic year, heartwarming stories about athletes who overcame poverty and political oppression temporarily supplant reports of those who commit crimes or suffer debilitating effects from head trauma experienced on the playing field. We see how sports can transform men and women, how they can lift up entire countries and even cause warring nations to cease hostilities, at least for a fortnight. Yes, there are always some bad apples who use performance enhancing drugs or otherwise cheat to get an edge, but they can’t undermine the general feeling of good will that’s in the air.
Perhaps it’s the prospect of this summer’s Olympics that has got me thinking lately about the interrelationship of sports and culture. That, plus a conversation I had with my father last weekend. He was telling me about his recent communication with Denton Cooley, the celebrated heart surgeon who was a classmate of his at the University of Texas. My dad used to play basketball with Cooley, and a few weeks ago they exchanged e-mails about that. My father admitted that he loved basketball when he was younger, but what he loved to play even more was handball.
How did I never know that? I knew that my dad had played basketball as a kid, and softball and tennis later in life, but I don’t think he ever mentioned handball. Still, it makes perfect sense. Handball, played as singles or doubles, was popular when my dad was growing up in the Depression because the only equipment it required was a hard rubber ball. (Some players also wore gloves, and my dad still had his pair readily available—see below—some 70 years after he last used them.) Players took turns hitting the ball against a wall, trying to make shots that their opponents could not return. Much of the handball on the East Coast was played against one wall, but there were other varieties, including a four-wall version that was like racquetball without racquets. Sometimes called American handball, this is different than the Olympic sport of team handball, which involves two teams trying to throw a ball into their opponents’ goal.
American handball was extremely popular among urban Jewish kids like my father, and in fact many of the early champions were Jewish. Vic Hershkowitz, a New York City firefighter, dominated the sport in the 1940s and 1950s, winning 40 national and international titles. Bronx-born Paul Haber, son of handball champ Sam Haber, reached the top of the sport in the 1960s and 1970s, winning five four-wall national championships from 1966 through 1971. Never one to be accused of modesty, the hard-playing, hard-living Haber called himself “the Greatest Jewish Athlete in the World.” There also were noteworthy female players in the U.S. and abroad, including Germany’s Lilli Henoch, who led the Berlin Sports Club and twice won the Berlin Championship of Jewish Handball Players befor
Cornelia Neal, of the Office of Transportation of the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C., was so determined to give her son the experience of riding his bike to school despite the stream of cars on the capital’s roadways that she came up with a creative solution. She regularly piled her son and his bike into her car, drove him to a park en route, dropped him off to cycle across the park, and then picked him up and drove him the rest of the way to school. Neal grew up in the bike-friendly Netherlands, where, she says, “Every kid goes to school on a bike.” She wanted her son to have the same experience, despite his living in Washington.
Neal told her story as a panelist at the first-ever National Women Cycling Forum in Washington on March 20. The purpose of the forum was to explore ways to encourage more women in the United States to ride bicycles. (A 2009 study by the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals showed that only 24 percent of bike trips in this country are taken by women, compared with 55 percent of the bike trips in the Netherlands.) I was honored to be invited to start things off by highlighting the impact of cycling on women during the 1890s bicycle revolution.
I bring this up now because May is National Bike Month, so designated by the League of American Wheelmen (now the League of American Bicyclists) in 1956. This year, specific dates within the month are designated as the first-ever Bike to School Day (May 9), Bike to Work Week (May 14-18), and Bike to Work Day (May 18). Internet resources aboundin support of these efforts, making it possible to map the best cycling routes, enter to win contests (with prizes such as bike racks for your school), and register or find events in your community.
On Bike to Work Day, I’ll be in Washington, DC, where the publisher of Wheels of Change, National Geographic, will be one of the “pit stops” for the 11,000 or more area cyclists expected to take part. It will be fun to be involved in this celebration of the bicycle, some 120 years after the two-wheeler first took America by storm. Today, more and more communities are developing the infrastructure to promote safe cycling and more people are turning to the bicycle as an economical, ecological, and healthy means of transportation. I admit that I have a particular affection for this durable, revolutionary invention of the Gilded Age, and I’m glad to see that its place in society continues to grow.
2 Comments on Happy National Bike Month!, last added: 5/6/2012
In the 1960s, I was a Girl Scout for about a minute. I had been a proud and true Brownie, but my elevation to the next level, which back then was just called “Girl Scout,” came at the same time I started Hebrew school, and the troop meetings interfered with my classes. I wasn’t a big fan of green, anyway, so I wasn’t that heartbroken about giving up the uniform. I stowed away my logo pins and moved on.
Yet here I am, writing about the Girl Scouts, for a number of reasons. First, it’s Women’s History Month, and what better way to kick off the month than by focusing on a group that has empowered generations of girls? Second, March 12 marks the 100th anniversary of the first Girl Scout troop meeting in the U.S., organized by Juliette Gordon Low in Savannah, Georgia. And third, I’ve had a few interactions with the Girl Scouts in recent months that have reminded me how impressive this organization and its members can be.
I proposed writing a biography about Juliette Gordon Low a while back. The project never went anywhere, but I’m happy to report that a number of books on Juliette and her scouts have been published in recent months, in anticipation of this anniversary year. I managed to find First Girl Scout: The Life of Juliette Gordon Low by Ginger Wadsworth (Clarion, 2012) at my local library, and I can’t imagine anyone, myself included, doing a more thorough job of researching this singular woman’s life. Wadsworth tracked Low’s story from Savannah, to New York, to London, and beyond. Her writing is lively and clear, the book is generously illustrated with historic images and reproduced documents, and the back matter is beyond complete. It’s a YA book that's worth reading, whether you’re a Girl Scout or not.
In recent months, the Girl Scouts also have made a literary impact in another way. Last November, in conjunction with the Children's Book Council, they launched The Studio, a Web site that gives authors who write for young people the chance to communicate with Girl Scouts about their work. The lineup has been impressive, with Ann Martin, Jerry Pinkney, Laura Numeroff, and Joseph Bruchac, among others, answering questions about their writing process and sharing behind-the-scenes documents and discussions. I got to have my say the week of January 16.
I wrote my first post for I.N.K. on February 8, 2008, just five days after the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. The subject was “Rooting—and Writing—for the Underdog,” and it explored my soft spot for underdogs, especially in sports and women’s history. Four years later, the same two teams are about to meet again in the world’s most talked about football game (American football, that is), and I still gravitate to sports as a terrific framework through which to explore history. But in light of recent news and events, my enthusiasm is somewhat tempered.
Despite being a lifelong football fan, I can no longer watch a professional or college football contest without being aware of the devastating effects that the violence of the game has on the human body, particularly the brain. After years of ignoring and then denying these effects, the National Football League has finally accepted the overwhelming medical evidence, much of it gathered through research on the brains of deceased players. The league is even planning to run a commercial addressing player safety during this year’s Super Bowl. But owning up to the problem is just the beginning. The jury is still out on whether changes to the rules and equipment can do enough to protect players from the long-term effects of repeatedly jostling their brains during tackles and collisions.
Another recent devastating development in the sports world was the January 19 death of Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke from injuries during a training run on a half-pipe in Utah. Burke, one of the premier athletes in her sport, flipped over after an uneventful run and struck her head, tearing an artery that caused a hemorrhage in her brain. The hemorrhage led to cardiac arrest, depriving her brain of oxygen and causing irreversible damage.
After Burke’s death at age 29, New York Knicks forward Amar’e Stoudemire remembered meeting her at an ESPN event and asking why she chose freestyle skiing, with its gravity-defying spins, twists, and flips. “Because it’s fun,” she told him. In the wake of the tragedy, however, some critics wondered if extreme sports such as freestyle skiing have gotten too extreme. They pointed out that the height of the walls of the half-pipe, the icy trench used in some snowboarding and freestyle skiing events, has increased from 16 to 22 feet, adding excitement, but also risk. Peter Judge, CEO of the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association, told ABC News that in light of Burke�
Last week, I took a trip down memory lane when I attended the annual convention of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) in Washington, D.C. It was my first NCSS conference since 1977, when I was a recent college graduate doing research for an American history textbook that Scholastic was planning to publish. The book was written and field tested, but never saw the light of day, due to the company’s change of heart about entering the basal social studies market. I soon moved on to Scholastic Newstime, a newsmagazine for sixth graders, and eventually, to the company’s math and science publications.
My excitement at being surrounded by social studies teachers again after going to a few dozen math and science teacher conferences was tempered by the news I received on Saturday that a former Scholastic colleague had passed away. Eric Oatman was the editor of Search magazine in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and he was the first person to pay me to write about American history. Besides hiring me as the freelance writer of the teaching guides and reproducibles that accompanied the magazines, Eric also assigned me the articles and history plays that nudged me toward my current career as an author focusing on history. I wrote articles about men who hauled freight across the Old West; an oral history project with World War II Rosie the Riveters; the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919; and the spirit of exploration in America. My classroom plays dramatized the exploits of a former slave who spied for the Americans during the Revolutionary War; the kidnapping of Daniel Boone’s daughter in 1776; and a family’s westward journey during the Gold Rush.
Writing for Search allowed me to indulge my endless curiosity about the people who were left out of the American history textbooks I read when I was growing up. It also gave me the chance to earn a little extra money as I established my independence. (I still have the reclining chair, lovingly called my “Search chair,” that I bought with my first $300 check.) Eric was a wise and enthusiastic editor, offering a guiding hand but letting me go where the stories took me. I also appreciated that he was not without a sense of irony. In 1983, when Search and Senior Scholastic were folded into a new publication, Scholastic Update, Eric assigned me to write the magazine’s last play. It followed Amelia Earhart’s preparations before she set out on the 1937 flight from which she never returned.
Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) Sue Macy
This is a very interesting book because it’s not just a look at bicycle history and how bicycle-mad America was in the late 19th century, but an in-depth look at how the bicycle helped the cause of women’s rights.
The bicycle allowed women greater freedom of movement and an acceptable way to exercise. In order to take part in its popularity, dress had to change and become less restrictive-- good by corsets, hello bloomers! (Did you know that the reason girl bikes don’t have that top bar is to make room for the heavy skirts worn at the time?) I also loved how women’s groups and farmers worked together to call for greater paving of roads-- and how the bicycle helped phase out horses in the years leading up to the automobile.
The design is wonderful-- frequent pull out boxes/side bars show different ways bikes were seen in pop culture-- one’s on racing, one on songs about biking (including, of course “Daisy Bell” aka “Bicycle Built for Two”) , one on bicycles used in advertising, etc, etc.
Lots of primary sources including frequent newspaper articles from around the country and big photographs. I especially loved that not all the photographs were of white riders-- there are a few of African-American women riding their bikes, too.
A refreshing quirky history that was very enjoyable to read.
OH! And a personal surprise-- the forward was written by Leah Missbach Day, the founder of World Bicycle Relief and MY OLD CAMP COUNSELOR. What?!
Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at Playing By the Book.
Book Provided by... my local library
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Of all the subjects I talk about when I do school visits, the exploits of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) seem to resonate most with students of all ages. Those kids who play ball are hungry for details of the games and life in the league. Those who value the players’ role as sports pioneers want to know what motivated them to leave home to forge careers in one of the first professional opportunities for female athletes.
My relationship with the players in this league, about which I wrote my first book, A Whole New Ball Game, has progressed from professional to personal, and I now serve on the AAGPBL Players Association Vision Committee, a group charged with considering how best to preserve the league’s legacy. As such, we have just announced BATTER UP!, a contest that challenges students in grades 6, 7, and 8 (in the United States and Canada) to write short essays answering one of three questions about the impact of the league and its players. The Grand Prize Winner, and a parent or guardian, will get an all-expenses-paid trip to the 2012 AAGPBL players reunion, to be held next September in Syracuse and Cooperstown, New York. Each of the four Runners-Up will win AAGPBL prize packs, including autographed bats and balls and other memorabilia. The winning essay will be published in the AAGPBL newsletter, and it, along with the runner-up essays, will be featured on the organization’s Web site.
“We want to encourage young people to reflect upon the legacy of our league,” explains Players Association president Lois Youngen, a four-year AAGPBL veteran and a professor emeritus at the University of Oregon. “Many of our members became teachers after our playing days,” she added, “so we know how curious and creative young people can be. We’re inviting them to do a little research about our league and to consider its impact.” Some of those players-turned-teachers will serve as first-round contest judges, along with others from a variety of walks of life. If you’re a teacher, librarian, author, or editor who’s interested in joining the panel of final judges, e-mail me at [email protected]. Contest entries are due via the entry form on the contest Web site by March 18, 2012, and the winners will be chosen by the end of May.
We understand that not every kid will jump at the chance to enter this contest. When I told a friend who works with middle schoolers about it, she suggested sexier prizes, such as iPods or iPads. Add to that the fact tha
Hi, Everybody. It’s great to be back blogging on I.N.K. for another school year. I thought I’d start off the year by answering the most frequent question people ask me when they learn I write books for a living, “Where do you get your ideas?” The short answer is that sometimes my editors suggest my book topics, but more often they come from me, usually after percolating for quite a long time. They can spring from anywhere: a book, magazine, or newspaper article; a TV show; a conference I attend, even a conversation. Sometimes, the topic of one book I write suggests an idea for another book.
Specifically, the inspiration for my earliest book, A Whole New Ball Game, came from an item about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in the book First of All: Significant “Firsts” by American Women by Joan McCullough. Having grown up a baseball fan and studied women’s history in college, I was amazed that a professional women’s league had existed for 12 years and I’d never heard of it. I’d been working on Scholastic’s news magazines, writing one article or more per week, and I was anxious to find a subject I could research in depth. When I met with an editor about possible books I could write, she said she could hear the excitement in my voice as I spoke about the league. It wouldn’t be altogether wrong to say that the topic chose me.
After completing a project that was so meaningful to me, I had a hard time choosing what to write next. So I decided to get some perspective by putting together a timeline of women’s sports history. When I was done, I realized the timeline was actually a terrific outline for a book. Winning Ways: A Photohistory of American Women in Sports (published in 1996) looks at the relationship between women’s participation in sports and changing ideas about women’s roles in society from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1990s. As I was writing it, I wished I could take a deeper look at some of the topics I covered. Ultimately, I did, writing three other books whose content grew directly out of Winning Ways: My first picture book, Basketball Belles (published in 2011), looks at the first women’s intercollegiate basketball game, between Stanford and Cal Berkeley in 1896; Wheels of Change (published in 2011) examines the impact of the bicycle on women’s lives in the 1890s; and my as yet untitled second picture book, due to my editor very soon, will look at the phenomenon of Roller Derby in 1948, focusing on star skater—and notorious villain—Midge “Toughie” Brasuhn.
1 Comments on “Where Do You Get Your Ideas?”, last added: 9/8/2011
This month, I.N.K. bloggers will be rerunning their favorite posts from the 2010-2011 school year. To start off, though, I'm presenting one of my favorite posts from my personal Web site. Somehow, I think it will have a larger audience on I.N.K. than it did on my site, though on July Fourth weekend, you never know. I'll be blogging on my Web site in July and August, so stop by when you get the chance. And have a great summer.
History collided with the present on Monday, March 28, when I had the opportunity to give one feminist icon a copy of a book that was inspired by the musings of another. The book, of course, was Wheels of Change, which developed out of Susan B. Anthony’s declaration that bicycling did “more to emancipate women than anything else.” The contemporary icon was Gloria Steinem, the speaker who capped off an impressive celebration of Women’s History Month at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey. I was on a panel about women in sports at the college, which entitled me to an invitation to a reception for Steinem before her very well attended talk.
It’s safe to say that most people Steinem meets don’t ask her if she rides a bicycle, but how could I not? She said she did ride all the time when she was a student at Smith College, but now she lives in New York and the problem with riding there, besides the competition with cars, is that you have nowhere to leave your bike when you get to your destination.
As we approach Mother’s Day this weekend, I’m thinking of one thing: food. The most immediate reason is a practical one. I invited my mom over for brunch on Sunday, and I haven’t yet decided what to make. (If anyone out there has a recipe for a killer brunch item, please share.) But I’ve also been ruminating about the place of food in women’s history generally and in our family’s history in particular.
Food is a commodity that interests everybody on one level or another, but a chance encounter last week inspired me to look at it from a less personal and more global viewpoint. The encounter was with Professor Maria Trumpler, who teaches a course titled “Women, Food, and Culture” at Yale. The course is an interdisciplinary exploration of food production, preparation, and consumption, covering everything from the history of dieting in the United States, to home economics as a feminist pursuit, to the evolution of kitchen design. It’s just one sign that the field of food studies is booming as our current eating habits and food supply are subject to new scrutiny and concern. Food studies is a subject you can really sink your teeth into, pun regrettably intended. In the last year alone, academic books have been published on the development of the grocery store in the 20th century, African-American women who served as cooks in the South from 1865 to 1960, and how women today are hel
Amazon.com thinks I wrote a book with basketball player Chamique Holdsclaw. I never did, but if you go to Amazon, you’ll find the title. Chamique Holdsclaw: My Story, published in July 2003 for readers 9-12, available from one seller for $68. It was published by Tandem Library, they say, and weighs 8.8 ounces. There are no customer reviews.
ARGH! Every time I see this listing, I want to scream, “I NEVER WROTE THE BOOK!” What happened was this: A little over a decade ago, I was in talks with a publisher whose parent company was contracting for a memoir by Holdsclaw, who was a standout athlete at the University of Tennessee with a seemingly great career ahead of her in the WNBA. The publisher wanted to include a kids’ book by Holdsclaw in their contract, and wanted to know if I’d be the co-author. I was honored and excited, but things fell through. Jennifer Frey, the author who co-wrote Holdsclaw’s adult memoir, ended up writing the kids’ book as well. Booklist liked Chamique Holdsclaw: My Story, by Holdsclaw and Frey, concluding that Chamique “comes across as an inspiring role model for readers, no matter what their dreams.”
Even so, this ghost book continues to follow me around on Amazon and on other book sites throughout the Web. What happened, it seems, is that the publisher released the marketing information before a contract was signed. Once it’s released, I don’t think there’s any way to take it back. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s annoying! And now I seem to have another ghost book out there. Recently, I’ve seen a posting on eBay for Bloomers and Hoops, a brand new book available for $16.94. But I can assure you that there will be no
Girls will feel like they've strapped on wings after reading these captivating true stories of early 20th Century women who refused to let their future be decided for them.
Just in time for Women's History Month come two stellar accounts of women who challenged themselves to dream bigger than women ever had: Wheels of Change by Sue Macy and Amelia Lost by Candace Fleming.
Each book is meticulously researched, and packed with gems of information -- anecdotes, quotations, even poems -- that will make readers' spirits soar and inspire girls to be confident in their pursuits and not let anyone hold them back.
How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way)
By Sue Macy
$18.95, ages 8 and up, 96 pages
At the close of the 19th Century, the bicycle was like a silent steed for women -- helping them break free of society's rigid hold and carve their own dreams, according to this charming account.
"Imagine a population imprisoned by their very clothing: the stiff corsets, heavy skirts...," award-winning Macy writes. "...And how liberated they must have been as they pedaled their wheels toward new horizons."
With the arrival of the high-wheeler and later bicycles in America, women gained a degree of mobility they'd never known, and as such, they were gradually, often unconsciously led to try things that at the time only men were allowed to do.
The female cyclist "did not have to be born again in some mysterious fashion, becoming a strange creature, a 'new woman,'" Munsey's Magazine suggested in 1896. "She is more like the 'eternal feminine,' who has taken on wings, and who is using them with an ever increasing delight in her new power."
A few years later, a French cycling poster echoed this perception, showing a Athenian-looking woman with angel wings standing beside her two-wheeler.
The bicycle spurred a fundamental shift in how women were looked upon. Until then, women felt restricted to home and were strictly supervised; now they could hop on a bike and go for a ride and get exercise.
The advent of the two-wheeler "has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world," wrote civil rights activist Susan B. Anthony in 1896. "I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel."
As more women took to pedals, "rational" fashion had to go, and along with it, straight-laced ideas of propriety.
Full skirts, corsets and bulky petticoats of the day were impractical, even dangerous. Fabric would catch in crank bracket and send women flying. So a less restrictive style of dress was born, beginning with ungainly bloomers and eventually shifting to shorter skirts.
Soon women felt encouraged to enter bicycle races and were joining other feminists in demanding the right for better schooling and jobs. However, the road to equality was bumpy, much like the dirt roads they rod
As the reviews for my recently published book, Wheels of Change, have started to come in, I've been pleased to see that many mention the book's beautiful--one reviewer said "flawless"--design. Rather than write about the process of designing this book myself, I invited Marty Ittner to blog about it. Marty has designed all five of my books for National Geographic, and she was a true collaborator on Wheels of Change. (She's also in the process of redesigning my Web site, suemacy.com. More on that next month.) So take it away, Marty....
Why, thank you Sue. Having an author request my design for their book is a great compliment (and good for business). What’s not to love about Wheels of Change? As Sue discovered, folks go bonkers over bikes. I can vividly remember my own exhilaration the first time my father let go of my 2-wheeler seat and I sailed off on my own. And Sue does her homework. She’s that smart kid you hope to sit next to in the back row with the A+ essay and all the test answers.
Wheels of Change ironically describes our design process. It was my first project with National Geographic director of design Jonathan “Jono” Halling and art director Jim Hiscott. The digital revolution has forced us print designers to create more dynamic visuals. It is simply not business as usual. From the get-go, Jono and Jim conveyed the new mandate for Childrens Books: they’ve got to be fun, colorful, lively and engaging. J+J wanted to visually push the concept of how the simple circle of a bicycle wheel enabled women to bust out of their domestic confinements.
Years ago, when I was looking for visuals for my second book, Winning Ways: A Photohistory of American Women in Sports, I came across a Library of Congress photograph of a woman joyfully sculling on the Charles River in the 1920s. I didn’t use the photo in my book, but the confident strength of the sculler stayed with me because she seemed to transcend time. She looked like a contemporary female athlete, not like someone living decades before Title IX opened up opportunities for women in sports. I filed away her name for future reference: Maribel Vinson.
Close to 10 years later, when I was working on Freeze Frame, my book about the Winter Olympics, I came across Maribel again in connection with one of the most tragic events in sports history. On February 15, 1961, a Sabena Airlines flight carrying the entire U.S. figure skating team to the World Championships in Prague crashed, killing all 72 people aboard and one on the ground. Among those who perished were the reigning U.S. women’s singles champion, Laurence Owen, her sister, the reigning pairs skater Maribel Owen, and their mother and coach, Maribel Vinson Owen.
I was stunned. I didn’t necessarily expect the sculler from the 1920s to still be alive some 80 years later, but it seemed wrong that her story had come to such a heartbreaking end. I did some research and learned that Maribel had built a distinguished career in sports since being photographed on the Charles River. She won nine U.S. ladies figure skating titles in the 1920s and ‘30s, setting a record that has yet to be broken, though Michelle Kwan tied it in 2005. Maribel also won six U.S. pairs skating titles. She competed at three Winter Olympics, taking the bronze medal in ladies singles in 1932. (Norway’s Sonja Henie had a lock on the gold from 1928 through 1936.) While she was still skating, Maribel, a Radcliffe graduate, became the first female sportswri
It isn’t every day that a TV award show inspires a whole new direction in one’s artistic life, but a few years ago, that’s what happened to me. I was watching the Independent Spirit Awards, that hip and laid-back paean to independent cinema celebrated annually the evening before the Oscars. During the program, several up-and-coming filmmakers won grants to finish their work and one of them, a woman, invited “anybody out there who has something to say” to embrace the medium of film to say it. Her words didn’t exactly send a lightning bolt to my brain, but a small, possibly 60-watt bulb did switch on. I’d always used photographs to tell the stories in my books, but should I explore using video?
Since I’d never even used a video or movie camera at that point, my first step was to determine how serious I was about this new outlet. After due consideration, I decided to buy a video camera, with some advice from people in the know. I choose a Canon that uses tapes, rather than one that stores everything on an internal hard drive, because it somehow felt better to have evidence of my movie shoots that I could hold in my hand and store as backup. With memories of my dad’s 8-millimeter camera from the 1950s in my head, I was astonished at the exquisite technology that’s now available to anyone with a few bucks. Skill, however, is another story.
I got my feet wet by shooting footage of a friend’s birthday party at a bowling alley, then did some video oral histories with my dad and the father of another friend. Concurrently, I started taking One-to-One lessons at the Apple store, learning how to use iMovie software to edit the footage I shot. Making movies in this way is hugely empowering—something that millions have discovered before me, as evidenced by the fact that people upload hundreds of thousands of videos onto YouTube daily, according to the site’s Fact Sheet. Well, better late than never.
As much as I enjoy the act of capturing movement and sound, I have a constant internal dialogue going on about whether to use my still or video camera. Sometimes video is an obvious choice. Still pictures of my once-in-a-lifetime attempt at karaoke in 2009 would not have the same entertainment value as the video footage that my friend and I shot. (Though those who watched the video might have appreciated the silence of a dramatic photograph of me at the mike.) But I like the ability of a still photo to communicate both information and mystery at the same time. When I look at a photograph, I wonder what happened j
News:
Books by several I.N.K. bloggers are among the winners of the first annual Eureka! Nonfiction Children’s Book Awards issued in October by the California Reading Association. Barbara Kerley’s The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy) was a Eureka! Gold Award winner, while Eureka! Silver Honor Books included Bylines: A Photobiography of Nellie Bly by Sue Macy, Down, Down, Down: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea by Steve Jenkins, Under the Snow by Melissa Stewart, and The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth and Lives of the Pirates: Swashbucklers, Scoundrels (Neighbors Beware!) by past blogger Kathleen Krull.
Melissa Stewart will be presenting at the TED Women's Conference at the Paley Center for Media in Washington D.C. from a satellite location at Olin College in Needham, MA at 1:00 on December 6. http://conferences.ted.com/TEDWomen/
Penny Colman is joining Ink Think Tank and Ink Link:Authors on Call. Penny has written major award-winning books on women's history. Check out her website: http://www.pennycolman.com/
Vicki Cobb is covering the WISE - World Innovation Summit for Education - to be held in Doha, Qatar from December the 7th to the 9th 2010 for Education Update newspaper. She'll undoubtedly be blogging about it for I.N.K.
Book Recommendations:
As I write, 28 November, 2010, let me note that today is the 115th anniversary of America's first
automobile race. I note it here because author/illustrator Michael Dooling did a grand job of showing
and telling all about the event in his book, The Great Horse-less Carriage Race. And, with another
Christmas bearing down upon us all, I'll be reading & recommending Jim Murphy's grand book about
the impromptu Yuletide TRUCE, celebrated by English and German soldiers, caught up in the Great
and Terrible War, in 1914.
Books
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone
Born to Be Giants: How Baby Dinosaurs Grew to Rule the World by Lita Judge
Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman
The Day-Glo Brothers by Chris Barton (illus. Tony Persiani)
An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston (illus. Sylvia Long)
How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page
Lucy Long Ago: Uncovering the Mysteries of Where We Came From by Catherine Thimmesh
Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge
Meet the Howlers by April Pulley Sayre (illus. Woody Miller)
Neo Leo: The Ageless Ideas of Leonard da Vinci by Gene Baretta
Nic Bishop Spiders by Nic Bishop
Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola
Redwoods by Jason Chin
River of Words: the Story of William Carlos Williams by Jen Bryant (illus. by Melissa Sweet)
Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors by Joyce Sidman (illus. Beckie Prange)
Under the Snow by Melissa Stewart (illus. Constance R. Bergum)
Volcano Wakes Up! by Lisa Westberg Peters (illus. Steve Jenkins)
Vulture View by April Pulley Sayre (illus. Steve Jenkins)
What to Do About Alice? How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy! by Barbara Kerley (illus. Edwin Fotheringham)
When the Wolves Returned: Restoring Nature’s Balance in Yellowstone by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent (photos Dan and Cassie Hartman)
Where in the Wild? Camouflaged Creatures Concealed and Revealed by David Schwartz and Yael Schy (photos Dwight Kuhn)
Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator by Sarah C. Campbell and Richard P. Campbell
From Susan Goodman:
I have two new favorite nonfiction book
Anna M. Lewis’s post earlier this week on special childhood books got me thinking about a book that I was obsessed with when I was in fifth or sixth grade. Try as I might, I can’t recall the title or the author, but I do remember the subject: probability. I was fascinated by the fact that you could use numbers to predict the likelihood of an event taking place, and excited that the actual formulas for permutations and combinations were well within my grasp. I devoured that book, reading chapters over and over and rolling dice and flipping coins to test my predictions.
It may seem surprising that the most influential book in the development of an author who focuses on history—and sports history at that—was about math. But mathematics and I have had a long and intimate history, and I still have a great affection for the subject and the people who teach it. It doesn’t hurt that I am the daughter of a CPA who tends to calculate rates and averages and quote them in everyday conversation. Just last week, my dad suggested that we sit in the upstairs balcony during my visit home, because he figured out that his annual property tax payment averages $8 per room per day and he didn’t feel the balcony was earning its keep.
Along with history, math was one of my favorite subjects in school. I loved that my progress could be evaluated by the number of right answers I got, and that those answers were definitively right or wrong. (This was before teachers gave credit for the problem solving process, rewarding creative thinking as well as the final answer.) I even took an extra math class in high school—not surprisingly, on statistics and probability—and then took calculus in twelfth grade. My math teacher, Mrs. Sichel, was smart and engaging and obviously loved the material. Her feelings were contagious.
Yet I never took another math class. When I got to college, I found that my A in high school calculus satisfied the freshman math requirement, so I loaded my schedule with history classes and never looked back….until I was out of school for several years. It was after my first stint at Scholastic, where I had worked on a high school American history textbook and a sixth-grade news magazine. Since I'd left, the company had started
2 Comments on Why I [Heart] Math, last added: 12/4/2010
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Yay! A new Sue Macy book!
I must get this book! I heard about roller derby for the first time when I was pregnant with our first and I knew I had missed my calling. My rollerblading, street-hockey playing kid self would have loved this book and the sport. Can’t wait to see it!