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Happy 8th MUF-i-versary! #Giveaways Galore

By on June 8, 2018   /   Articles, Giveaways, MUF Contributor Books  

 

Happy Anniversary to the Mixed-Up Files of Middle Grade Authors blog. Can you believe it’s been 8 years already?  To celebrate our anniversary, we gave ourselves a rockin’ new face lift!  Did you  notice?

We have brought this blog firmly into the 21st century with our updated and  dynamic new home page.  All of your favorite topics are right at your fingertips.  Each post has been placed into a specific category so if you need to look for one, you can just click on the drop down tab and go. Of course, we still have our search the blog option available, but using categories should make things a whole lot easier.

Take a moment and look around. Scroll up and down. See how things zoom across the page at you? Did our smiling faces across the bottom make you want to smile back? Great!  That was our goal.

After all, we want this blog to be a great place for you to visit when you need the latest information on all things Middle Grade KidLit.  But don’t worry, our face lift is not just cosmetic, we have some changes in store for you as well. We have already brought you STEM Tuesday, but now we will be bringing in two new features in the next few months:

Agent & Editor Spotlight   and  Teacher Tips Thursday

Stand by for more information on these exciting additions soon.

For now, our final party of our celebration is our gift to YOU.

Giveaways galore! Just in time to stock up for summer reading or to store in your classroom for next fall. Check out these amazing offerings and sign up now to be entered. Be sure to click through the different pages of the Rafflecopter to see all the great prizes.

The first giveaway is for BOOKS, BOOKS, and more BOOKS!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

The second giveaway is for our Writer friends–

1 free Speedpass to the Rate Your Story service

plus a few 5-page critiques and  query critiques from our amazing members

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Sign up and get the word out about our new site. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Go Middle Grade! Go Mixed-Up Files!

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Dealing with envy in the classroom or at home? Here are some chapter books to the rescue!

By on June 3, 2018   /   Articles, Book Lists, Fiction, For Librarians, For Teachers, Nonfiction  

When awesome things happen to my friends and family, I’m happy for them.

But sometimes I also feel sad. For example, when my family’s economic situation was tenuous, it was hard to hear from a relative that so and so’s new beach house was twice as big than our own house, which we could barely afford at the time.

Or when I was a teen, it was painful to hear how somebody’s father was taking her on a trip to glistening Florida beach town when my own father was dying.

Or something as simple as being a first grader, and being jealous of a friend’s ability to read quickly when I was still stumbling along.

The list goes on. I know you know what I’m talking about. It’s envy. And it’s understandable and so very human. So what do we do with it? How do we celebrate the success of others while finding our own when, for a variety of reasons, we are feeling diminished?

I wish I had an easy answer. But one thing I know is true–we need to talk about it. And an author, I might be biased, but I think that kids also need to read about it.

When looking at some of the themes running through my forthcoming chapter book series, Ellie May, which will be debuting the end of December, I’m seeing a common motif of a kid struggling with envy (in the classroom) running through the books.

In Ellie May on Presidents’ Day, the titular character would like to be flag leader just like her high-achieving classmate Ava.

And in Ellie May on April Fools’ Day, she would like to be as funny as the class clown Mo.

In both of these books, Ellie May yearns for success that she sees others having and goes about claiming it for herself in an exuberant but ultimately wrong-headed way.

I decided to look to see what else there is out tackling this subject for kids 6-9.

What to Do When it’s Not Fair: a Kids’ Guide to Handling Envy and Jealousy by Jacqueline B. toner and Claire A. B. Freeland Is a nonfiction book created to help kids deal with envy. The authors identify triggers that may indicate jealousy and offer alternative ways to reduce envy.

Amber Brown is Green With Envy by Paula Danziger with Amber‘s feelings of unfairness when other people‘s in tact families do not seem to have the same problems as her own.

In Judy Moody Gets Famous by Megan McDonald, third grader Judy gets a famous case of envy when classmate Jessica Finch wins a spelling bee and tries to seek fame of her own in funny and desperate endearing ways.

What are some of your favorite books dealing with envy?

Hillary Homzie is the author of the forthcoming Ellie May chapter book series (Charlesbridge Fall 2018), as well as the forthcoming Apple Pie Promises (Sky Pony/Swirl, October 2018), Pumpkin Spice Secrets (Sky Pony/Swirl, October 2017), Queen of Likes (Simon & Schuster MIX 2016), The Hot List (Simon & Schuster MIX 2011) and Things Are Gonna Be Ugly (Simon & Schuster, 2009) as well as the Alien Clones From Outer Space (Simon & Schuster Aladdin 2002) chapter book series. She can be found at hillaryhomzie.com and on her Facebook page.

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Inspiration for Famous Authors

By on May 11, 2018   /   Articles, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  

Writers are often told to write what they know. Even if they end up writing fantasy, some of their real life often creeps into the story. I recently enjoyed a Children’s Literature Tour of England and Scotland to see the homes and work spaces of famous authors, and I was surprised to see the little details (or sometimes more) from their homes or towns that crept into their work. See if you can recognize any of these places from the books.

Lucy Boston Children of Green Knowe

Tolly arrives at Green Knowe, and this is his bedroom. He leaves his window open a little bit so a bird can fly in. Here’s the bird cage and toy chest too. The room Lucy Boston described in the book belonged to her son, Peter. They’ve kept the room the same so visitors to the house can see what it looked like long ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C. S. Lewis The Lion, The Witch, & the Wardrobe

When Lucy walks into the wardrobe, she heads toward a lamppost in the snow and meets a faun. When Author C. S. Lewis walked along this path in Oxford, he passed this lamppost. Can you imagine him seeing it on a snowy day? What’s even more interesting is that the porch posts on a nearby house have fauns carved into them. Could that be where he got his idea?


J. K. Rowling  Harry Potter

So many scenes in the Harry Potter books and movies are drawn from Oxford. Do these scenes from the Buttery, the Sorting Room, and the staircase look familiar? How about taking a ride on a steam train? Do you think any of these inspired J. K. Rowling?



Howard Pyle  Robin Hood

This giant oak still stands in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, England. Its branches are now propped up, but can you picture this mighty tree sheltering Robin Hood and his band of merry men?

Nancy Farmer  Sea of Trolls

The Holy Isle of Lindsifarne, a tidal island off the coast of England is cut off from the mainland during high tide. Visitors to the tiny town are trapped on the island until low tide. Isn’t this mysterious island the perfect setting for the Sea of Trolls trilogy?

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