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Diversity in MG Lit #20 Contemporary Realistic Fiction

By Rosanne Parry on September 16, 2020 / Articles, Book Lists, Diversity, Fiction

I’ve got a big roster of diverse titles with contemporary and realistic settings this month, so my reviews are going to be correspondingly short so I can fit them all in. I’ve organized these with the youngest books first moving toward YA titles that are still appropriate for MG readers.

Evelyn Del Rey is Moving Away by Meg Medina illus. by Sonia Sánchez. Okay technically this is a picture book. It’s lovely though and pitch perfect to the experience of having a friend move away. I think it will also resonate with many 1-4th graders who haven’t moved but can’t see their best friend because of the pandemic. And the cherry on top–a little ode to the Post Office at the end with the MC surrounded by letters from her best friend. Candlewick, 9/20

Planet Omar Accidental Trouble Magnet by Zanib Mian, illustrated by Nasaya Mafaridik. This one’s a chapter book in the vein of Clementine with a well meaning Muslim boy who has a talent for mischief and a big imagination. Many elements of Muslim family life are introduced in a graceful way. Lots of spot illustrations throughout. Putnam 2/20

The Only Black Girls in Town by Brandy Colbert. This is a MG debut for Colbert who has written in the YA space previously. She transitions nicely to a sweet small town friendship story that still manages to point out what a big deal micro aggressions are and what a not-big-deal gay parents are. Bravo. Little Brown 3/20

What Lane by Torrey Maldonado, A short & sweet middle school boys friendship story focusing on the nuances of the biracial experience for black boys. Nancy Paulson Books 5/20

The Last Tree in Town by Beth Turley. Another story about the biracial experience, this one an Irish-Puerto Rican family. It delves into depression in main character Cassi’s high school aged sister and dementia in her grandparent. Love it that Cassi is on her school math olympics team. Simon & Schuster, 5/20

Stand Up Yumi Chung by Jessica Kim. Yumi is a budding standup comedian who dreams of youtube stardom while working at her family’s Korean barbecue restaurant.

A Place at the Table by Saadia Faruqi & Laura Shovan. This strangers to friends story is told in alternating voices. Loved the British Bake Off vibe and the side story of the girls’ mothers working toward their citizenship exams. Clarion 5/20

Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes. Here’s another story delving into the dynamics of the biracial family. This time against the backdrop of economic privilege and a fencing club. Lots of food for conversation here and the sports story element should make it broadly appealing.

Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone delves into the racially complex and deeply sexist practice of school dress codes. My inner twelve year old stood up and cheered. You’re going to want to discuss this with your daughters, and it should be required reading for boys. Reluctant readers may appreciate the short chapters. Putnam 7/20

Once Upon an Eid: stories of Hope and Joy by 15 muslim voices ed. by S.K.Ali & Aisha Saeed I love short stories! This collection does a brilliant job of demonstrating the diversity of experience within the Muslim community world wide. Amulet 5/20

And finally Furia by Camille Saied Méndez. This is a debut YA novel but I think it works for the upper end of middle grade (5-8th) because it focuses so much on athletic ambition. Middle school is when many kids first get serious about their sport. MC Camilla Hasan is an Argentinian teenager who adores soccer and excels at it, earning the name La Furia on the field. But at home she navigates what her ambition will mean in family that values athletic skill in men but not women. There’s an element of romance but sports is first in this girl’s heart. Algonquin 9/20

It’s been a great fall for diverse books. More than 50% of the titles highlighted at the Children’s Institute were diverse, so I’m just scratching the surface here. Please shout out the ones I’ve missed in the comments.

STEM Tuesday — Planets and Stars — In the Classroom

By STEM Tuesday on September 15, 2020 / Planets and Stars, STEM Tuesday

Earlier this year, I read a bunch of books about astronauts. For this month’s theme, I read about astronomical things. (Things related to astronomy, not enormous things – although many astronomical things are astronomical. But I digress…)

The books I read were:

Welcome to Mars: Making a Home on the Red Planet
by Buzz Aldrin and Marianne J. Dyson (2019)

This book imagines what life will be like for the first astronauts and colonists to reach Mars. It looks at how people and things will get there, what their living quarters will look like, and what they might eat for meals. It has activities sprinkled throughout to help understand and think more deeply about different concepts.

A Black Hole is NOT a Hole
by Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano, Illustrated by Michael Carroll (2012/2017)

I had only a very general idea of what a black hole was before I read this book. It did a great job of explaining what a black hole is and how astronomers have learned about them – especially since they’re kind of hard to visit.

Beyond the Solar System: Exploring Galaxies, Black Holes, Alien Planets, and More
by Mary Kay Carson (2013)

If you are curious about how human beings have come to understand what’s out in space, this is the book for you. It chronicles important astronomical discoveries and how they have shaped our understanding of Earth and its place in the universe throughout time. It’s packed with activities that help to understand and further explore different concepts.

The Mighty Mars Rovers: The Incredible Adventures of Spirit and Opportunity (2012/2017) by Elizabeth Rusch

This book tells the story of the Mars rovers named Spirit and Opportunity. This book does a lot more than follow the journey of these robots on Mars. It also gives a glimpse into the world of engineering, geology, and so much more.

As always, a great way to explore these books is to do some of the activities in those that have them and explore the back matter (the stuff at the end of the book). Each book recommends additional books and web sites to check out.

Here are a few additional ideas.

Do Some Star, Planet, & Satellite Gazing

Several of the books suggest this activity. It’s a great way to start getting curious about what’s out in space. All you really need is time and a place to sit and watch the night sky. If you want to see things in more detail, a pair of binoculars or a telescope can help.

Want to know what you’re looking at? Check out Sky and Telescope’s “This Week’s Sky At A Glance” (https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/sky-at-a-glance) or Astronomy’s “The Sky This Week” (https://astronomy.com/observing/sky-this-week) for guidance. You could also download an app like Google Sky or Stellarium. There’s a good list of sky watching apps here: https://astrobackyard.com/astronomy-apps-for-stargazing.

If you want to be more scientific and/or creative, keep a sky watching journal. Any notebook or collection of papers can do. Jot down the date, time, and location for each session. Note the weather and sky conditions – while the weather may be fair, there may be a lot of light pollution from nearby buildings and/or towns that make it difficult to see the planets and stars. Then write down what you see.

Where in the sky was it? (A diagram might help – especially if you can note its relation to known things like the Big Dipper.)
What color was it?
Did its light shimmer or hold steady?
Did it move quickly? (If so, it’s probably a satellite – or perhaps just an airplane.)

You can journal about whatever your thoughts inspire you to. What do you imagine you’re looking at? What if you were able to travel there? Does it inspire you to write a song or a poem? Go for it.

Get a Daily Dose of Astronomy

Even if you can’t get out to gaze at the night sky often, you can get a daily dose of astronomy. NASA posts an “Astronomy Picture of the Day,” often referred to as APoD: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html.

Every day, this site posts a picture related to astronomy, along with some kind of explanation. You can browse the archives or use the index or search features to see images of whatever celestial entity, person, or space tech you’re interested in.

Following the index to a topic gives a short list created by the editors as the most educational. Here is their list for Mars: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/mars.html. For a more thorough listing of photographs, go through the search feature.

Take It With You (?)

Imagine you were one of the first colonists traveling to Mars. In Welcome to Mars, Buzz Aldrin points out that NASA is figuring out what you need to survive and how to get it there. As for personal items, you will be allowed to take items that total up to 5 pounds (2.3 kg).

What would you take with you? Why?

Look at how much each thing weighs. This would be a good time to learn how to calibrate and use a scale. If you don’t have a scale, do a little research online to see if you can find a weight for your item. Or you could build your own balance scale, like the one here: https://www.thoughtco.com/kid-science-make-a-balance-scale-2086574. Then you just need to have items with known weights to compare with your objects.

Add up the weights of the things you want to bring. If you go over 5 pounds, you’ll have to let something go.

You thought getting into space was challenging? I think deciding what to take might be more so.

And if you want to watch a show that imagines the journey to Mars, there is a TV series called Mars – https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/shows/mars – that does so. It is currently available on Disney+ and Netflix; it may be available on other streaming services, too.

Make Some Celestial Art

It was pretty clear from reading these books that art plays a big role in astronomy – even if it’s only to convey ideas to the general public. Many of the images we see are “false colored.” There is a great explanation of this on NASA’s Earth Observatory web site: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/FalseColor/page1.php, and another one on the Hubble site: http://hubble.stsci.edu/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/index.php. Computers translate sensor data into an image we can see. There is a more advanced explanation, with links to other resources, here: https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/blueshift/index.php/2016/09/13/hubble-false-color.

Now it’s time to get creative with an astronomical spin.

Add Your Own Color

Print out a black-and-white image of something celestial. Here are a few, or you can search around for more:
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/299819main_hs-2005-35-b-print_full.jpg
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0514b
https://arasteo.blogspot.com/2016/11/helix-nebulangc-7293ha-5nm.html.

Add your own color, using colored pencils, markers, or paint. Try out different color schemes and/or different media.

Create Your Own Starry Night

This blog post – https://artfulparent.com/sticker-resist-starry-night-cards – has instructions for making “starry night” cards. It uses stickers and a salt-watercolor technique. Instead of stickers, you could color in the “stars” with white crayon. The watercolor paint will not adhere wherever the crayon is.

You could use this technique to make cards of different constellations. (There is a set of free printable constellation cards here: https://littlebinsforlittlehands.com/constellation-activities.)

To learn more about the salt painting technique, there’s a detailed tutorial here: https://www.scratchmadejournal.com/blog/painting-with-salt-watercolor-tutorial or look around for others.

And if you want to explore Vincent VanGogh’s Starry Night, there are lots of things out there, including this printable: https://littlebinsforlittlehands.com/starry-night-for-kids.

Listen to Space-Inspired Music

Lots of artists have been inspired by space and the planets. One of my favorite musical compositions is The Planets by Gustav Holst. Look it up on your favorite streaming service or check a copy out of your local library. There’s a neat listening guide for this piece on ClassicFM: https://www.classicfm.com/composers/holst/pictures/holsts-planets-guide

Composer Eric Whitacre was inspired by the Hubble Telescope’s Deep Field Image. You can listen to the music while watching the images that inspired it here: https://youtu.be/yDiD8F9ItX0.

What do you think of Holst and Whitacre’s interpretations of outer space?

To learn more about how Eric Whitacre’s piece came about, listen to SolveItForKids podcast Episode 5: How Do You Compose Music That’s As Big As the Universe? https://solveitforkids.com/podcast/episode-4-how-do-you-compose-music-that-is-as-big-as-the-universe. (And while you’re there, check out the other space-themed podcast episodes.)

Explore Your Universe!

I could go on, but then we’d all never get on with our days. Hopefully I’ve given you some ideas that will inspire you to explore the universe in different ways. Have fun with your explorations!

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Janet Slingerland has written more than 20 books for children, including many about science-y topics. While she doesn’t do a lot of stargazing, her husband is an astronomy buff. In 2017, Janet and her family traveled to Nashville, TN to see the solar eclipse. This picture shows their viewing spot (along with Janet’s husband and her older son). Although clouds got in the way of a good view of the totality (the full blocking of the sun), the experience was still pretty amazing.

To find out more about Janet and her books, check out her website: janetsbooks.com.

EPIC GARDENING FAILS (And what they’ve taught me about making art)

By Chris Low on September 14, 2020 / Articles, Writing

Growing Food and Writing Fiction

This spring my wife and I decided to stop talking about growing vegetables and actually grow some vegetables. We made this decision without doing much research about the actual business of growing vegetables, and that was mostly thanks to me. Any time my wife opened up a blog or website about growing techniques or climate zones, I’d launch into a lengthy monologue about how vegetables don’t need coddling and if it were really that hard there wouldn’t be gazillions of weeds in our yard.

It turns out growing an eggplant is not the same thing as growing a weed. I suppose this explains why our front yard is not overrun with perfectly formed eggplants.

So I’ve learned a few things about vegetable gardening. And as is often the case, the things I learn in one pursuit inevitably influence the way I think about others. In this case, I’ve noticed a few parallels between my questionable attempts at growing food and my questionable attempts at writing fiction for children. I’m sharing them here because whether you’re writing, teaching, parenting, or growing eggplants, it never hurts to glean a little extra information as you go (which I now humbly acknowledge).

Not everything develops as planned.

Radishes are deceptive little devils. They sprout fast and grow bright, promising leaves. You fawn over them and marvel at how they’ve been so easy to grow and why don’t more people grow radishes? Then you pull them out of the ground after the prescribed 28-day period and realize you’ve been duped. At least that was my experience. We harvested those little liars and I couldn’t believe that after 4 weeks I had nothing to show for all my efforts (and yes, all my bragging), but a few marble-sized nuggets of crunchy vermillion failure.

The radish project looked promising. It all had the signs of a successful enterprise, but under the surface things weren’t developing the way they were supposed to. I have no idea why. Maybe it was the soil. Maybe I watered them too much. Or too little. I may never know. Just like I may never know why the first hundred thousand words I put into middle grade books didn’t develop into huge publishing contracts. But in both cases – my radishes and my writing – I have an opportunity to examine the finished project, no matter how disappointing, and try to figure out what went wrong. I think with the radishes it was the soil. I’m not sure what the writerly equivalent to that would be (stronger coffee during my drafting sessions?). But I’m going to keep exploring, keep dissecting those underdeveloped projects and trade the frustration of an unrealized goal for the promise of a new, and hopefully better crop next season.

Things get bitter when they drag on for too long.

A few people warned us that we’d eventually lose control of our zucchini plants. I shrugged at this, because how could you lose track of a zucchini? They’re bright green and quite large, and those people who lose track of them are probably not as committed to the art of home gardening as I am. But then summer happened – days of busy children and travel and sometimes way too much rain. One day I went out to make sure there wasn’t anything to harvest and found a zucchini the size of my arm snugged up against the wall of the garden. Without giving it much thought (I was still shunning research at this point) I paraded it around the house and then chopped it up for the grill. As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, it was terrible. The skin was tough, the flesh was mealy and bitter, and the seeds were gigantic and totally inedible. That zucchini had been growing for way too long.

I don’t know about you, but I have a few ongoing personal projects that have also reached “zucchini monstrosity” status. They’re the sort of things that never seem finished, and rather than harvesting what I have or simply moving on, I’ve let these projects remain connected to the vine of my creative brain and sap resources from other, more promising ideas.

After chewing my way through that thoroughly unappetizing zucchini, I resolved to never let anything grow that long again, and so far I’m doing better. I hope I can say the same for my creative pursuits – nothing is meant in to go on forever, and as many creatives have noted throughout history, art is never finished, but only abandoned.

Sometimes the most useful part of a project is the seed of something new.

Before I tossed that colossal zucchini in the compost pile, I finally broke down and looked up an online article about harvesting seeds. It turns out that in most cases you can only harvest the seeds of overripe, inedible fruit. So I left some uncooked seeds out to dry, then bagged them in an envelope and now have what I hope will be the beginnings of my zucchini crop next year.

Something similar happened with the second book I ever wrote. It was quite a dud – full of tropes and predictable plot twists. It was long, too. Much too wordy for the middle grade market. And that of course means I spent way too much time writing, editing, and rewriting what would ultimately be a book not even my mom would read (although she did ask several times).

But out of that project came a system of developing characters that I still use now, three books and many short stories later. It was a seed born out of an overripe project that itself would never see the light of day. Most failed endeavors have something like that if you look for it – a seed of something new, pure potential packed into a tiny morsel of nearly overlooked insight.

I think next year our garden will run a little more smoothly. Maybe the corn won’t fall over and the squash won’t vine its way to the top of our evergreen tree. Or maybe next season will be just as chaotic and I’ll have more lessons to learn. Either way, I’ll do my best to be thankful for the parallels and cultivate the garden of my writing with a bit more efficiency and skill.

And I suppose reading a few extra articles wouldn’t hurt, either.