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The Name Game

What’s in a name? Shakespeare’s Juliet says “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Hmm. True, or not? Sorry Juliet, but if your name had been say, Mildred, would you be the same character? Would we even think of you in the same way? Romeo and Mildred just doesn’t have the same ring.

We often get an instant impression of someone just by learning their name. Think of meeting a Frieda or Spike or Priscilla. Whether it turns out to be accurate or not, c’mon, don’t you start getting a feeling right away for the kind of person they might be? A name can define a time or generation, such as a girl named Madison or one named Ethel. Or Morrie or Dylan. And a name can make us recall someone we knew. The name Beth will always evoke the memory of my next door neighbor and first friend in kindergarten.

Many young readers have asked me how I came up with the name Calli for the main character in my 2011 middle grade novel, Calli Be Gold. The truth is, I’m not exactly sure. It sort of just popped in my mind as I was thinking about the story, and I knew that was this character’s name. Calli’s dad goes around the dinner table every night and asks his kids for their accomplishment of the day (he’s an intense, competitive kind of guy), and he does this in ABC order. Calli’s brother is Alex and her sister is Becca, so I wanted a name that started with C. Plus, at the time, I hadn’t heard of another middle grade book with a main character named Calli.

hello-my-name-is[1]Authors use different techniques to come up with original, meaningful, and creative names for their characters. Some have those lightning bolt moments while others painfully search for just the right name. I recently heard Margaret Peterson Haddix speak at my local library and she said that often, as she’s writing, a name just comes to her (hey, we have something in common!), but when she’s stuck, she uses baby name websites. I’ve done that too. I’ve even looked through my kids’ school directory to find unusual first and last names.

However a character is named, aren’t there some that are unforgettable? I know there are for me! Here is my top ten list of favorite middle grade character names:

10. Stanley Yelnats (Holes by Louis Sachar). Who can resist that clever backwards twist?

9. India Opal Buloni (Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo). I love the flow, the first and middle names, and how the last name sounds like bologna!

8. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern (One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia). Okay, these have to be the best sister names ever.

7. Bubba Sanders and Lamar Washington (How Lamar’s Bad Prank Won a Bubba-Sized Trophy by Crystal Allen). Bubba and Lamar. Now these are guys you want to hang out with!

6. Beezus and Ramona (Ramona series by Beverly Cleary). Who couldn’t adore a girl named Beezus?

5. Moose Flanagan (Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko). Wouldn’t every kid want to read about someone named Moose?

4. Turtle (Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm). Instantly makes you want to give this girl a hug.

3. Jeffrey Lionel “Maniac” Magee (Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli). Immediately lets you know about this character.

2. Wahoo Cray, his dad Mickey Cray, and his friend Tuna Gordon (Chomp by Carl Hiaasen). However unlikely, I just think these are hilarious.

And my #1, absolute all-time favorite is…

1. Pippi Longstocking! (Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren). This has nothing to do with the fact that when I was 10, my frizzy, sticking-out braids exactly resembled Pippi’s. But we’ll leave that story for another post.

Write a comment and let me know your favorite character name!

Michele Weber Hurwitz is the author of Calli Be Gold (Wendy Lamb Books 2011) and The Summer I Saved the World in 65 Days (Wendy Lamb Books, coming spring 2014).

Up in the Air by Ann Marie Meyers

I’m so excited to welcome my dear friend and online crit partner, Ann Marie Meyers, to MUF today. Her book, Up in the Air, released in July and she had a very successful launch in Trinidad! Her Canadian launch is coming up soon.

 

Up in the Air by Ann Marie Meyers

Ever since she can remember, ten-year-old Melody has always wanted to fly.
And when she leaps off a swing in the park one day and lands in the mystical land of Chimeroan, her dream finally comes true. She is given a pair of wings. She can fly! Life cannot be any better.
Yet, dreams do come with a price. Even with wings, Melody realizes she cannot outfly the memories of her past. The car accident that has left her father paralyzed, and her unscarred, still plagues her with guilt—she believes that it was entirely her fault.
In Chimeroan, Melody is forced to come to terms with her part in her father’s accident. She must choose between the two things that have become the world to her: keeping her wings and healing her father.

Book trailer and reviews

In the US: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

In Canada: Indigo, Chapters, Coles, Ella Minow Children’s Bookstore, Amazon.ca

In Trinidad: Paper Based Bookshop, Normandie Hotel, Nigel r. Khan Booksellers (several locations)

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Me: I had the chance to read Up in the Air many times in all its various stages. I can attest that it is a wonderful fantasy story. Chimeroan is a magical world that Melody visits – and probably one of the things I loved most about your book. Where did you find your inspiration for the world of Chimeroan? 

Ann Marie: The original idea for Up In The Air came to me one day while I was meditating. I was so excited that I ended the meditation abruptly and went to my computer to type up my ideas. But by chap. 3 I realized that I had no idea what came next. I immediately went back upstairs and sat down to meditate again, but I got absolutely nothing. It took several years and lots of trial and error to figure out the world of Chimeroan, which is a place where dreams, a person’s deepest desires, come true.

The original images I got during the meditation were this: a girl, unhappy, longing to fly, trying to escape her family life, landing in the magical world of Chimeroan and getting wings. The more questions I asked myself (e.g.: Who is this girl? Why does she want to flee? What is this place called Chimeroan? Why does it exist?), the more hooked I became, and the more I knew that this story had to be written. 

Me:  I love that! What child doesn’t dream of flying? I know I still do.  What does that say about me? LOL. Would you say that the main character, Melody, is like you? Or is she like someone else you know?

Ann Marie:  I’ve been asked this question several times, and I’ve always said ‘no’. Yet, the more I think about it, the more I am gradually realizing that, in fact, Melody does bear certain aspects of myself. Melody’s inability to trust is in some way reminiscent of how difficult it was for me to trust others when I was younger. At times I, too, would like to escape my problems and not face up to them. But of course, problems have a way of following you no matter where you go, or how far you run. Dealing with them, both Melody and I have learned, is the best way to achieve inner peace. And then, of course, there is flying. In many of my dreams, I love to soar through the sky. 

Me:  That’s a great message to send to young readers as well. As authors and crit partners we both signed with the same publisher – just weeks apart (and no, it wasn’t planned)! What has your experience been working with a small press? Did you have any expectations, especially pertaining to getting your book in the hands of readers?

Ann Marie: This is a tough question. I don’t think I gave this much thought when I signed with Jolly Fish Press. My mother passed away around that time, and all I could think of was how happy she was when I told her about the interest of Jolly Fish Press to represent my book. My main focus at the time was how wonderful it was to have someone in the industry love and appreciate the story. The idea of Up In The Air being available to everyone was exciting and thrilling and as the months prior to publication passed by, my hope was that people, especially children, would love Melody’s story as much as I did.

Me: That’s a very reasonable expectation and I’m betting that readers will adore Up In The Air!  I’ve seen the pictures on Facebook and you had a pretty incredible launch in Trinidad. Tell us a bit about that.

Ann Marie: The launch was wonderful, and the interest and turnout even more amazing than I could possibly have imagined. The owner of Paper Based Bookstore at the Normandie hotel, where the launch was held, was so happy and impressed by Up In The Air that she offered to arrange school visits for me in Trinidad for next year.

My daughter and I came up with three crafts for the library readings:

1)    On a piece of notepaper, she wrote: “If you could have one dream, what would it be?”’ I had some very interesting discussions with the kids about this.

2)    Coloring two of the illustrations from Up In The Air.

3)    Making wings.

Needless to say ’wing-making’ was the most popular. Here is a link to what this involved and the fun we had.  http://www.annmarie-meyers.com/2013/08/the-evolution-of-wings.html?spref=tw

Me: Fabulous! What creative ideas. So, one last question. Would you rather eat gooey marshmallows or have peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth?

Ann Marie:  I love marshmallows so I’ll choose the first option.  However, I wouldn’t have minded a choice like: would you rather win a trip to Venice or spend a year touring the world?

Me: I wouldn’t have minded a question like that either – especially if you’re paying! 😉  Thanks for joining us Ann Marie and congrats on your debut book!

Ann Marie Meyers_Headshot

Ann Marie grew up in Trinidad and Tobago and graduated from Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia with a Joint Honors Degree in French and Spanish. After leaving university, Meyers took a job at the Trinidad and Tobago Tourist Board and later at the United Nations, New York. While at the UN, she took a translation certificate course at New York University, School of Continuing  Education, and went on to become a freelance translator. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, she started writing and never stopped.

Though adults were Meyers initial target audience, this changed soon after her daughter was born and ideas for children’s stories kept pouring in. Up In The Air, is her first children’s book.

Ann Marie is an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and facilitate a children’s writing group twice a month.

You can find her at her Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and Pinterest

Would you like to win a copy of Up in the Air? Well, you’re in luck! Ann Marie is giving away a book to one lucky winner! Just fill out the rafflecopter form below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Amie Borst writes twisted fairy tales with her 13 year old daughter, Bethanie. Their first book, Cinderskella, debuts October 26th, 2013.

Sky Jumpers! (Author interview and a giveaway!)

sky jumpers

Who doesn’t love a series? Peggy Eddleman’s Sky Jumpers plunges you right from the first page into a post World War III world where things have gone both wrong—and right—since the release of green bombs. There’s enough drama to keep the pages turning and this new series going. Book one releases from Random House on September 24—add a comment below to win a copy!

As the jacket blurb says, it’s the story about twelve-year-old Hope, who lives in White Rock, a town struggling to recover from the green bombs of World War III. The bombs destroyed almost everything that came before, so the skill that matters most is the ability to invent so that the world can regain some of what it’s lost. But Hope is terrible at inventing and would much rather sneak off to cliff dive into the Bomb’s Breath—the deadly band of air that covers the crater the town lives in—than fail at yet another invention. When bandits discover that White Rock has invented priceless antibiotics, they invade. The town must choose whether to hand over the medicine and die from disease in the coming months or to die fighting the bandits now. Hope and her friends, Aaren and Brock, might be the only ones who can escape through the Bomb’s Breath and make the dangerous trek over the snow-covered mountain to get help. Inventing won’t help them, but the daring and risk-taking that usually gets Hope into trouble might just save them all.

Peggy Eddleman authorPeggy Eddleman, who lives at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Utah with her husband and their three kids, took some time to answer a few questions via email:

Mixed-Up Files: Sky Jumpers is post apocalyptic, but yet it’s more hopeful than some of the other books out there. Can you talk about that?

Peggy Eddleman: This came from two things: First, to me, if the world came close to ending and only pockets of people remained, one of those pockets would emerge to be very similar to White Rock. Mankind has an amazing ability to survive and fight to carry on and move forward. When devastating things happen, we emerge stronger. We stick together and we work together to make a life that’s worth living. We, as humans, have a lot of hope in us.

Second, I don’t believe that middle grade kids are as big of fans of dystopia. I think that dystopian conflicts in books work really well for teens—they are at a time in their life where they feel like they are constantly fighting against authority figures to move from childhood to adulthood, so conflicts with an uberly-controlling government are right up their alley. But middle grade kids have their whole lives ahead of them—the whole world ahead of them—and they want to know that the world is going to be one worth living in. That no matter what crazy things happen, they are going to flourish living there.

MUF: Hope struggles to be an inventor like everyone else, since inventions are so important to the survival of the community. How did you get your ideas for the inventions?

PE: The idea for Hope came first—I wanted a character who couldn’t do the one thing that mattered most. So then I asked what mattered most in White Rock? When the answer of inventions came to mind, it felt natural and right. When most of everything we had was destroyed, and there are people alive still who remember what things used to be like, of course inventing would be important. It’s what got us to the point we are at today, and it’s what will get White Rock back to that point in the future.

MUF: One of the other things I love about this book is the strong emphasis on family. Everyone sticks together. Was that important to you?

PE: Very. My husband and my kids mean the world to me, as do my parents and siblings and their families. I think strong families can make an incredible difference in the lives of children, and I wish every kid could experience that. When they can’t experience it in real life, I think they should get the chance to experience it in books.

MUF: Have you ever jumped off a cliff?

PE: Yes. 🙂 But into water, not into the Bomb’s Breath. I think a more close representation to jumping into the Bomb’s Breath would be paragliding, which, sadly, I’ve never gotten the chance to do. But I do take every opportunity to jump into water that I can. And no—you’d never catch me jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. As fun and fascinating as that sounds, the part of my brain that controls my will to live speaks louder than the part that wants to experience that.

Like to win a free copy? Post a comment below by midnight September 24 to be entered in the drawing. The winner will be announced on Thursday, September 26.