How to use this Page

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Enter to win a prize pack with 6 of the listed Candlewick titles from TIME Magazine's Top 100 Young Adult Books. Giveaway begins January 15, 2015, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends January 31, 2015, at 11:59 P.M. PST.

Add a Comment

I suppose I am a “writing person.” I study it, and teach it, and teach about teaching it pretty regularly. The most common question I get, over and over, no matter what level teachers I am with, is about the best way to teach conventions.

In my experience, teachers have often tried things they don’t feel that great about, and they are looking for new strategies. One tactic I love that is used less often in the upper grades, is to use mentor texts to teach about technical features, which leads me to M. T. Anderson as a punctuation teacher.

I’m not sure how he’d feel about that label, and it certainly isn’t the first thing I want to talk about when discussing his books. But no one is more masterful at punctuating sentences to find a very particular character’s voice. He writes a shifting mix of simply structured, infrequently punctuated sentences mixed with purposeful run-ons here and there to give that fractured feel of being disconnected in Feed. Or he uses long sentences with highly academic uses of punctuation marks to give that classically-trained, high brow feel in the Octavian Nothing books. Each set of punctuation decisions makes you read in a particular way, and each is precisely and perfectly matched to the story being told.

I think too often we give students the idea that there is a right way to punctuate their work or a wrong way, but that feels limiting. With any idea, there are bunches of right ways to use punctuation, as well as a slew that don’t work as well. Part of the fun of writing is making those choices, and I hope students get to have that sort of fun in our classes by learning from great writers.  And if we get pulled into reading more M. T. Anderson as a happy side effect, well, so much the better.

The post M. T. Anderson is my favorite punctuation teacher appeared first on The Horn Book.

Add a Comment

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves M. T. Anderson

Octavian's not everyone's cup of tea. We know that right? This is not a book with mass teen, or general reader appeal. This is a book for your readers. Your nerdier types. You know who they are.

Sometimes, I think we get too hung up on "appeal." We're always asking who the audience is and if they will like it. We deal in buzz and word of mouth and everyone's trying to be the next Harry Potter or Twilight.

We don't have room for the odd book like Octavian. We wonder if, when books like this get awards, if the awards have lost touch with "what kids are reading today" even if the award is about quality and not appeal.

In our desire to get everyone reading and everyone into libraries we forget the nerds. The ones who've always sought refuge in our stacks. And I always wonder, in our quests to make everything appeal to everyone, if we're pushing away our core audience--the misfit geek crew.

Or, in my snarkier days, I'm wondering if we're just trying to make libraries cool so that the fact we spent every lunch period in our youth in the library will now be cool, and not nerdy, because we obviously still have some unresolved issues from our childhoods.

Anyway, Octavian is for the type who comes to the library even if it's not cool. Octavian is for, well, ME.

You should read the first one first. If you liked it, you should read the second. This one finds Octavian and Dr. Trefusis in British-occupied Boston, and then escaping to British-occupied Virginia, where the governor has promised escaped slaves their freedom if they fight for the Crown.

Octavian is taught harsh truths about the freedom is not equality, and no longer being a slave doesn't mean respect, or that people will value your life as much as they value their own. We see war, gritty horrifying war. We watch Norfolk burn. We hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait.

And I cried as I came to see the type of man Dr. Trefusis really was and lost all respect for him.

This book will be less shocking to readers than the first. While Anderson writes powerful and moving accounts of plantation slavery and war, readers are familiar with these themes, unlike the shock of the twisted ways of the College of Lucidity. But, if you liked the first, pick this one up and slip it to your bookworms.

Display Comments Add a Comment

I'm spending a few weeks sharing tips and observations about novel writing. This week I'm going to focus on one of my favorite topics: humor. I've read many novels and believe over and over that light touches of humor would have improved the stories.

What is humor? I think in the simplest terms it is the ability of people, objects, situations or words to make us experience amusement or happiness. I do think that humor is really about touching the the universal incongruities that are connections between us all. Think about this quote from Jane Austen. "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?" Just so, Jane. Just so. Humor is something decidedly human. It's the slant in our worldview that brings much needed levity into our lives. We need that light in our stories.

Consider. It is hard to make someone laugh, especially without the support of any visual enhancement, like rolled eyes, yuk-yuks or guffaws. Still, this kind of writing is generally considered base and inconsequential. Humorous books usually don't win awards, but they do win the hearts of readers. I still have a dog-eared copy of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in my favorite books box under my bed. Destroying the Earth to make room for an interstellar highway touches the universal inside me. We all connect with the idea of paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. I'm still laughing.

How do we incorporate humor into our books? Think of a book as a hand of cards, one played after another. The best writers are aware that jokers are lurking in the deck. Think about this first line of a book that is serious as a heart attack, Feed. "We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck." This line haunts me and makes me laugh at the same time. In Feed by M. T. Anderson nails the mix of humor and tragedy that is a spot on reflection of life. His observation certainly touches the universal feeling within us all that the great adventure of our life has often turned out to suck. As a collective we can connect with that idea. This is the heart of humor.

Humor relieves intense pain. Humor binds people together. Humor brings us together to laugh and play. It is an emotional response that is derived from the power of words. Our response to humor is instinctive. It is a response to the social nature of the human condition. Our minds search for patterns within stories. Think about this familiar pattern: Boy gets girl; boy loses girl. Boy gets girl again. Now let's disrupt the pattern: Boy gets girl; boy loses girl. Girl kicks boy's ass. The disruption of the pattern creates an opportunity for humor. Look for places to surprise your reader. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is created, the result can be a big laugh.

Look for opportunities to twist the familiar patterns. Step into satire. Try to get more out of humor by adding a barb of the writer's firm belief to that one liner. You can generate humor by approving of things you really wish to attack. Don't underestimate the power of humor.

Wow, I've got a lot to say about this topic! I'll write more about the nuts and bolts of generating a laugh later. I hope that you have found something here that will bring power to your storytelling. Think about it. Write it. Make them laugh.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
William Shakespeare

Add a Comment

What a weekend. I totally tried to attend the DC KidLit brunch.

But I overslept. And then when I got there, couldn't find anyone.

This might have been because I had it in my mind that the brunch was THIS morning, but really, it was yesterday. I wore my Kiki Strike shirt and everything.

That's kinda been the story of this whole past week, actually. Oiy.

I'm trying really hard to come up with some writing samples for some stuff. Writing samples ABOUT BOOKS. My brain isn't functioning.

And, when I made my new years resolutions this year, one of the things I promised myself was that I would never be more than a year behind in my reviewing. And here it is, February 3 and I never did get around to reviewing those lonely unreviewed books that I read back in January of 2007, so let's do that today, shall we?

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party M. T. Anderson

Octavian Nothing is a slave, but he doesn't know that. He's treated like a prince. He and his mother are the subjects of bizarre human experiments by an Enlightenment society in Revolutionary America. It's only when his mother is killed during a Pox Party experiment that he realizes what's going on. It's through this that Anderson explores the duality of slavery while fighting for freedom from England.

Told entirely in eighteenth century English, Octavian Nothing is a technical feat of writing to be sure, but Anderson keeps up an impending sense of doom and Octavian's frequent change of topic in narration leads to extremely short chapters (most are only 2-5 pages long). So, the language doesn't get in the way of the story or bog it down--the narration moves a steady to quick pace.

Powerful and horrifying, the two parts of the story are meant to be one 900 page book, but this first part stands perfectly well on it's own. That said, knowing there's another part coming, I can't wait. It was the one author question I asked at the National Book Fest this year-- when will we see Part 2? Anderson told me next fall.

Wide Awake David Levithan

David Levithan is pissed off about what's happening to his country, that much is obvious.

Here we are in the not-so-distant feature. The country has undergone another War to End All Wars (except that people seem to think that this one actually will) a Greater Depression, and something referred to as the Prada Riots. Christians have split into two major political/cultural groups-- the Decents (think Falwell) and the Jesus Freaks (Jesus loves EVERYONE.) And Duncan cannot believe that the candidate he was campaigning for--gay, Jewish Abe Stein, just got elected President.

Then the governor of Kansas disputes the results in his state and... well... we remember what happened in 2000, right?

Duncan's boyfriend, Jimmy, is super-militant about his politics and he's off to Topeka to protest. Duncan can't go. Because Duncan doesn't want to run away from home to go, Jimmy turns into a jerkwad. So Duncan goes.

Topeka is ugly. Part Florida 2000, part Ukrainian Orange Revolution, both sides have turned out to protest for and against Stein. It gets uglier.

Usually, the one thing that Levithan does so well--sweet love stories, doesn't really work in this case. I wanted to smack Duncan around and tell him that Jimmy wasn't worth it. Where there are several love stories here, it's the politics that drives the plot. Levithan's future gets a little strident and annoying at times as well (we don't believe in consumerism anymore! We go hang out at the mall after school and buy stuff, but we don't actually keep it! The store restocks and all the $$$ we spent goes to charity! If you really need something, you buy it online later! Puke.)

But I like Duncan, who, when in elementary school, thought the Boston Tea Party was a revolutionary cat fight during a sit down Tea Party. And I like the Bleeding Kansas parallel, as well as everyone sitting through the night with their bright green glow sticks...

But his portrayal of the Kansas protests is believable and real and it's all we can do to hope that we don't actually have to do it in November.

Can we please have a fairly clear-cut win this year? Something that is announced BEFORE I fall asleep on the couch? Preferably having the person I'm voting for winning?

I've voted in 2 presidential elections so far. The first being 2000. I lived in Iowa at the time, so my first primary was in Iowa caucus. That's some pretty intense stuff right there. We all crammed into the gym of the local elementary school, and my history prof was standing on a table telling the Gore people to go out on the hall and the Bradley people to get into groups of 10 so they'd be easier to count. (Bradly gave a great speech at campus earlier that year-- ours was the only precinct he won-- and he won us by a landslide...) And then, for the general, I had to vote absentee and watch the results from China. Where most English language news sites are blocked. Except MSNBC, which was reporting 2 different winners on the front page.

Class got out at noon, which was midnight Central time, so we figured all we had to do was bop by the internet cafe on the way to lunch, see who won, and go on about our day.

No. All afternoon, every internet cafe was full of Americans hitting "refresh" every 30 seconds. I was just waiting until 7pm, or 7am where my parents were so I could call and ask what the #%@##%^@#@#$!@#!@ was going on. They didn't know.

Then I had to try and get election results from Chinese Central Television. "Ger-a" and "Xiao Bu-shi" are two vocab words I definitely learned that semester. Every time I heard one, I'd scream for my Chinese roommate to translate for me....

Let's not do that again this year, ok?

Add a Comment

This post is for those not in Saipan, and those who are here but somehow missed this annual event in 2007. (Fools, all!)

Display Comments Add a Comment