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Diversity in MG Lit #24 Jan 2021 Activism in the Spotlight

By on January 15, 2021   /   Articles  
I’m writing this post on January 6th 2021–a day that will surely live in infamy. Below are a collection of books that are not just diverse, but also delve into the vital, messy, redemptive, and dangerous work of protest and reform. I learned new things from each of them at a time when encouragement has been thin on the ground.  We are in the belly of the most tumultuous times in my life. 9/11, even the Newtown massacre of first graders, seems small in comparison to the current assault on the very foundations of our civil society. Teaching young readers about the rich history of activism gives me hope. It’s one of my favorite things about being a teacher and author and bookseller. I hope these books will support you as you navigate these difficult times.
Biography:
decorativeThis is Your Time by Ruby Bridges, Delacorte (RandomHouse)
It delights me that this book comes in a small trim size–reminding me how very small Ruby was when she made her historic stand to attend and all white public school. Her account is thoughtful and spare and well worth the read even with children at the youngest end of the MG range.
Fiction:
Starting from Seneca Falls by Karen Schwabach, Random House
Confession: Elizabeth Cady Stanton is my favorite suffragist. So when I saw this title over the summer about a black girl and an Irish girl in 1848 who go to work as domestics in the household of Mrs. Stanton, I was hooked. It’s a great look at the early days of the Women’s Suffrage movement. It’s well researched and includes a detailed author’s note.decorative
Take Back the Block by  Chrystal D Giles, Random House
Gentrification and its various effects are the backdrop for this novel about the power of young activists and the value of empathy and community.
Poetry:
decorativeLegacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance by Nikki Grimes , Bloomsbury
I couldn’t resist sharing this title. It’s not about activism specifically, though casting a light on artists overlooked or forgotten is its own kind of activism. The poems are lovely–compact but rich in meaning and imagery. Nikki Grimes follows each with a Golden Shovel poem of her own, a form she describes at the start. Each pair of poems comes with an illustration, provided by one of the 19 artists featured. The book ends with a very short bio of each of the Harlem Renaissance poets.
Shorts:
Rural Voices: 15 authors challenge assumptions about small town America, ed. by Nora Shalaway Carpenter. Candlewick
The Urban-Rural divide  in this country is as sharp and complex as any racial or ethnic difference. And rural non-fantasy settings in MG books are rare, and tend to lean in the direction of the white, farm family of yesteryear, rather than the rich ethnic mix of folks who currently make the rural US their home.  In Rural Voices, a diverse cast of writers share their reflections on rural life in essays, short stories, graphic shorts, biography, and poetry.
Non-Fiction:
decorativeThe Black Friend: on being a better white person by Frederick Joseph, Candlewick.
Here’s a gem for a community read or book club. There’s lots of talk about being a good ally. Here are solid suggestions for being the sort of person that builds up the human community and leaves it a stronger and more compassionate place.
Separate No More: the long road to Brown v. Board of Education by Lawrence Goldstone, Scholastic Jan 2021.
decorativeThis is on the upper end of the MG range. I like the focus on early days in the civil rights movement and the pivotal segregation case that forms the basis of so much civil rights legislation. Key white allies are mentioned and vital black leaders are introduced including Ida B Wells, Booker T Washington, W E B Du Bois, Thurgood Marshal, Langston Hughes, and the NAACP.  Historical photos, a bibliography, source notes and an index is included.
Into the Streets: A young person’s visual history of protest in the United States by Marke Bieschke, Zest Books (Learner)
Lots of historical photos and illustrations bring this chronicle of protest from the Pueblo Uprising of 1680 to the Democratic National Convention of 1968 to life. Each entry is brief but there are source notes at the end and it’s a solid place to start for MG readers curious about the roots of the protests they see all around them today.
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Author Interview and Giveaway: Kirk Scroggs – WE FOUND A MONSTER

By on January 13, 2021   /   Articles, Author Interviews  

Today, I am lucky enough to interview the multi-talented writer and artist Kirk Scroggs about his newest graphic novel,
WE FOUND A MONSTER.


Please tell us about your just-released book WE FOUND A MONSTER.

We Found a Monster is the story of a kid named Casey who has a few skeletons in his closet . . . and a She-Bat, and a zombie, some gremlins, a squid monster, and, oh yeah, Frankenstein’s in there too! Casey’s a loner who loves to draw monsters. About a year ago, shortly after his mom passed away, real monsters started showing up on his doorstep. Now he’s got a house full of them that he somehow has to keep hidden from his dad and the neighbors. He’s at his breaking point. He can’t possibly harbor one more critter. But there’s a new girl in town. Her name is Zandra and she needs Casey’s help. She’s found a monster too. A giant, furry, loveable behemoth named Spot. Spot needs a home but there are dangerous secrets lurking beneath his rainbow-colored fur. A dark past that has followed him to Casey’s sleepy little town. Someone, or some Thing, is after Spot. Casey will need Zandra’s help to protect Spot, but she is a bit of a mystery herself. Can she be trusted?

 

 

Casey’s Creature Exhibit showcases his monsters. Do you have a favorite?

It was a lot of fun mixing in some characters from DC’s vaults into this monster mash-up. She-Bat is a cool character. Half human half bat, she used to be a bat researcher before her body-altering accident. I think, for me, the favorite is an old classic- Frankenstein. Franky lives in Casey’s basement near the water heater and he’s got a few quirks. Since he was stitched together out of other classic monsters, he sports some interesting features, like an invisible arm and, when the moon is full, werewolf legs!

 

 

 

 

Casey is a bit of a monster purist – no Adorables and no Fantasticals. What about you? Do you think there’s a place for the fluffy and the fantastic?

Casey is definitely me when I was his age. I was strictly old school when it came to monsters. Dracula, Godzilla, the Wolfman. But, like Zandra in the story, I now appreciate fantasy creatures too and I’m willing to give them full monster status. I think watching the old Sinbad movies and embracing Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter has gradually opened my eyes. All monsters are cool! Even the adorables.

 

 

 

There’s so much happening on every page of WE FOUND A MONSTER. Could you tell our readers a little bit about how you go about creating a project like this? And, do you have any tips for budding graphic novelists?

With We Found A Monster, and The Secret Spiral of Swamp Kid, I definitely mashed a few art forms together—the graphic novel and the journal. It’s such a fun and freeform way to create a story. I like to sit with some plain white paper and just start scribbling and doodling, kind of like Casey does in the book. This journal format lets me experiment with different drawing tools and styles. If Casey is in a hurry, he just doodles out a quick black and white sketch. If he has the time, he pulls out the whole set of markers and draws a full-scale graphic novel sequence.

My advice to aspiring graphic novelists is to play to your strengths. If you’re better at drawing than writing, team up with your buddy who can’t draw so well but writes good stories. And vice versa. And remember to let the art do most of the hard work. No need to be overly descriptive when the art can convey the same information. And keep the dialogue short so it doesn’t block the cool pictures!

 

 

It’s pretty clear that you have a special affinity for monsters. Did you have a favorite when you were a kid? Do any of your childhood monster experiences come through in your stories?

I’ve always had a thing for the tragic monsters. Frankenstein, King Kong, Swamp Thing, Creature From the Black Lagoon—you kinda feel for these critters. They just want to be loved. I think everything I’ve ever written from Wiley and Grampa’s Creature Features to Swamp Kid, even the Muppet books, has woven in classic monster movie elements. I just can’t help it!


 

What can readers expect to see from you next?

There are certainly some follow-up ideas lurking in my head that I’d love to explore. Right now, I’m playing around with some animation proposals and I’m whipping up a top-secret graphic novel manuscript. I can’t say too much about it except robots, middle school, wolfpigs!

 

 

 

Thanks so much for chatting with us, Kirk. Readers, you can find WE FOUND A MONSTER at your favorite bookstores now. Be sure to follow Kirk at his website and on Twitter and Instagram.

 

If you love monsters as much as Kirk does, let us know your favorites in the comments below. And be sure to enter our Rafflecopter giveaway for a chance to win a copy of WE FOUND A MONSTER!

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Mourning the Middle Grade Years and Finding Them Again by Donna Galanti

By on January 11, 2021   /   Articles, For Writers  

It struck me recently that I couldn’t remember the very last time I read a goodnight book to my son, Joshua. I asked him if he knew. As a teenager now, he couldn’t remember either.

“There was probably a night where you couldn’t read to me, Mom, because you were busy,” he said. “And then the next night we forgot about it. And the next.”

“So, it just faded away?”

“Yup.” *Mom choke-up*

Since then, I’ve been bothered by the fact that:
1. I desperately want to remember when and what that last goodnight book was.
2. If I’d known it was the last time, I would have cherished it.
3. Bedtime reading to my son is forever gone and I’m just realizing the significance of this now.

I mourn something now long disappeared that I had not even known was gone.

Along with bedtime reading gone of current children’s books with my son, so has the reading of books to him that I received as a child over 40 years ago. My mother wrote my name in mine, the year I received it, and who gave me the book. The Tooth Fairy brought me books from Beatrix Potter to Laura Ingalls Wilder to Roald Dahl. These books have now long been collecting dust on my son’s shelves.

“Mom, can we pack these books up now?” he asked, pointing to his bookshelf of old and new.

“Never!” I protested and gently dusted of books, taking them to my office where children’s books will never die.

These included my son’s best-loved books like Wonder, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Big Nate, Warriors, Flat Stanley, Goosebumps, Genius Files, Joshua Dread, Captain Underpants (the lunch signs are the BEST!), and Charlie Bone (Mom, this is THE best series EVER! You have to read it). And I’ll never forget my son’s excitement when he found out that the Charlie Bone series author, Jenny Nimmo, was blurbing my first middle grade book, Joshua and the Lightning Road.

All too soon for me, my son left the middle grade world. He moved on to reading dark, dystopian young adult novels.

And I realized, sadly, he also moved on from all of our kid shows: iCarly, Big Time Rush, Good Luck Charlie, Pair of Kings, Drake and Josh, Sponge Bob Square Pants. Watching them with him made me nostalgic for my own shows I grew up with like Little House on the Prairie, The Love Boat, Benson, Greatest American Hero, and re-runs of The Carol Burnett Show and Leave it to Beaver.

Occasionally, I bring up our shared favorite episodes to him of middle grade shows buried in tv-land dust.

“Can’t we just watch a Sponge Bob episode tonight? How about the Frankendoodle one or Pizza Delivery or Best Day Ever?” I asked.

“No, Mom,” he laughed. “That’s kid stuff.”

“What about iCarly where Spencer pranks everyone and does the prank song?” I started bopping around.

“No, Mom.” He gave me an eye roll.

“Okay,” I said with a sigh.

It’s true that I’ve grown with my son as he’s grown, but in doing so I’ve also relived many of my own childhood paths through his middle grade books and shows – and I don’t want them to end. I’ve returned home to a place where I will always be young, laughing myself silly, on magical adventures, and experiencing so many wondrous ‘firsts’.

As a kid growing up in the 1970s and 1980s there weren’t books categorized “middle grade” and so I downed Sidney Sheldon, Stephen King, Jack London, Paul Zindel, and V.C. Andrews (all soooo not kid-friendly). They were my “middle grade” then, but now I have my son’s books, too (and age-appropriate!). And someday, I hope he’ll come back around to them just like I did. Maybe with his own children. He doesn’t need to relive his childhood now. He’s living it. And I realized, my son and his book world set me on my own journey as a middle grade author. What a wonderful legacy he gave me, even though he’s moved on.

He also doesn’t need me to be home anymore after school. He has his own business and drives to his restaurant job. He doesn’t need me to read him bedtime stories or cut up his meat. He doesn’t need me to do his laundry. He can do that simply fine (good!).

Don’t misunderstand me; I am enjoying the new phase of things. Watching him go to work, open a bank account, clean his room because he wants to (faint!), and calm his frazzled mom down when writing deadlines loom.

“It’ll be okay Mom,” he now says. “You’ll get it done. You always do.” He even helped me years ago in writing my first book when I got stuck on plot and character.

He may have said goodbye to middle grade for now, but I love sharing in the continued new wonders with him. I just won’t ever stop loving middle grade, not since I fell in love with it again through my son. I’ll keep writing it and reading it—and waiting for the day he comes back to it. *fingers crossed*

Have you ever mourned moving on from a phase in your child’s middle grade life? What were some of your favorite books as a child? What are some new favorite children’s books now?

 

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