For Librarians

Interview with Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu + Giveaway

By on May 25, 2016   /   Author Interviews, Diversity, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers  

Today we have on the blog an interview with Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu, author of SOMEWHERE AMONG, a beautiful and haunting debut novel in verse about an American-Japanese girl struggling with the loneliness of being caught between two worlds when the tragedy of 9/11 strikes an ocean away. Read on for the interview and a chance to win this lovely book!

somewhere among

What inspired SOMEWHERE AMONG?

Our life in Japan! I have lived and raised my children in a binational, bicultural, bilingual, multi-generational home in Tokyo for the past 24 years. Clashes, comedic scenarios and common ground have provided much introspection. Although I don’t see myself as a writer of Asian topics, there were a few things I wanted to share in children’s non-fiction magazine articles and picture books. I found it difficult to fill in the spaces of what American children know.

I started a children’s photo blog in 2006 when my youngest child was in fifth grade. That satisfied the desire to show modern Japan. I later started a novel set in Texas (my home state). After the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, I had to ground myself in Japan. Emotions and images and memories of our life and our nations’ shared history rushed into poems that turned into this story.

At the story’s center is a paper doll that a woman had handed me on the train in my early days here. The doll came with the message “May Peace Prevail on the Earth.” I had tried to write a picture book about that, but the story was too big for 32 pages.

The 2011 disaster spurred me to write about Japan and the paper doll was the inspiration and motivation to try to tell its story again.

What kind of research did you do to tell this story?

I had started out with what I remembered. Then after the first draft, I used news reports, newspaper articles, weather data, and websites like NASA’s. The storyline didn’t change much from the first drafts. Through revisions it was a matter of making sure the timeline was correct and layering details.

The school and family life details were inspired by but altered from our experience. My children went through the Japanese public system and we lived in a multi-generational home. I couldn’t have written this story without that experience. It would have been very shallow.

Hearing the story of 9/11 from the perspective of an American living overseas is fascinating. Is that something you planned from the beginning, or did it come out in the writing process?

I didn’t set out to write about 9-11. This story came about through grounding myself by reminiscing. Sitting down to write about our life and memories here, I couldn’t get very far before 9-11 came up.

However, the sinking of the Japanese fishing boat, the Ehime Maru actually came up first. That incident exemplified the struggle (I especially felt) to reconcile the history and tragedies that my children’s two nations share. I distinctly remember that sadness and the months of TV coverage. The fishing ship tragedy happened in February 2001.

So, through writing this story, I was dragged into dealing with 9-11 again. I was dealing with aftershocks at our Tokyo home and the grief of the tsunami damage from a distance. It was not easy to deal with this. I could have easily avoided writing this story.

What are some books of poetry or novels in verse you would recommend for kids?

Oh! I have to say that I have limited access to English books because of price and place. I cannot afford all the books I would love to buy and our local library only has two or three short shelves of Newbery winners. No verse novels.

The only verse novel I had read before I started Somewhere Among was Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. Holly Thompson’s young adult novel, Orchards, had arrived just before the earthquakes of 2011. I knew it was about suicide so I didn’t get to read it until after the aftershocks and I had written my first draft. I discovered and read Susan Taylor Brown’s Hugging the Rock. I also learned of and read Thanhha Lai’s middle grade Inside Out and Back Again after it had won the Newbery. I read Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming last summer. All of those are wonderful.

Since attending Highlights Foundations Verse Novel workshop in 2012, I have read and enjoyed the work of instructors Virginia Euwer Wolf, Sonya Sones, and Linda Oatman High and attendees K.A. Holt, Sarah Tregay, and Madeleine Kuderick. There are future verse novelists from that group to watch out for.

Helen Frost, Margarita Engle, Mariko Nagai, Leza Lowitz and Holly Thompson’s books are on my wish list. There are many other verse novels I would love to read. Most of them are for young adults. I read and write mostly for middle grade readers 9-12 so middle grade novels are my first choice of purchase now.

Children’s poetry anthologies aren’t particularly age-specific. All anthologies and books by Lee Bennett Hopkins are great. My children loved You be Good I’ll be Night by Eve Merriam. Talking Like the Rain by X.J. Kennedy and Dorothy Kennedy. My favorite children’s poets are Joyce Sidman, Janet Wong, Helen Frost, Charles Ghigna, Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Coatsworth.

I enjoy the video interviews that Lee Bennett Hopkins and Renee La Tulippe produce about children’s poets. There are so many wonderful things done for poetry for children. Sylvia Vardell’s blog www.poetryforchildren.com . Poetry Minute for younger readers www.poetryminute.org and Poetry 180 for older readers www.loc.gov/poetry/180

 

Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu lives in Tokyo, Japan. Her work has been published in Hunger Mountain, Highlights, Highlights High Five, Y.A.R.N., and other magazines. She received a grant from the Highlights Foundation to attend Chautauqua in 2009. Somewhere Among won the 2013 Writers’ League of Texas award in the middle grade category and is her debut novel.

For a chance to win a copy of SOMEWHERE AMONG, please leave a comment below by noon Eastern time on Monday, May 30th. If you tweet about the contest, we can give you an extra entry. Continental U.S. only, please (sorry! It’s the postage!).

Katharine Manning sighed her way through the lovely SOMEWHERE AMONG. She is a middle grade writer of dreamy fantasies and fast-paced soccer books. To see more of her raving about middle grade books, visit Kid Book List. You can also find her at www.katharinemanning.com and on Twitter.

Back to Top

Graphic Novel Lineup for Middle Grade

By on May 23, 2016   /   Book Lists, Fiction, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers  

After the success of graphic novels, such as the Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney, publishers responded with other series geared toward younger readers. During last week’s visit to an elementary school, I spotted kids with their noses buried in Wimpy Kid and Lincoln Peirce’s Big Nate books. so I’ve listed some recent graphic novel releases to whet young readers’ appetites.

wimpy

The latest books in these two series include Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School and Big Nate Blasts Off.

When his town decides to unplug the electronics, Greg Heffley isn’t sure he’ll survive. Adding to that, his problems at school and home give him a heap of trouble.

 

Nate

Nate has a crush on Ruby, but that makes Randy, the school bully, upset. While Nate struggles to deal with Randy, he faces problems at his house and the Mud Bowl annual frisbee tournament.

 

Award-winning graphic novels published since late 2015 include:

The Stratford Zoo Midnight Revue Presents Romeo and Juliet by Ian Lendler

zoo

When the zoo closes at night, the animals come out of their cages to put on dramatic retellings of famous plays. Part of a series that includes Macbeth, these books cleverly hit the important points of Shakespeare’s stories in a unique way, simplifying them and adding touches of humor that will keep kids giggling while they’re learning.

 

Illustrated by Zack Giallongohenrietta

Written and Drawn by Henrietta by Liniers

Using her colored pencils, Henrietta draws pictures of a brave girl’s encounter with a three-headed monster.

 

MirkaHereville: How Mirka Caught a Fish by Barry Deutsch

The tagline “Yet Another 11-Year-Old Time-Traveling Orthodox Jewish Babysitter” is the first introduction to the humorous story within. In this installment, Mirka battles an angry, magical fish that has a connection to Mirka’s stepmother. Part of the Hereville series that includes How Mirka Got Her Sword and How Mirka Met a Meteorite.

Two Junior Library Guild selections to watch for this summer:

Rutabaga, the Adventure Chef: Feasts of Fury by Eric Colossalruta

In Book 2 of this series, Rutabaga and Pot encounter giant killer spiders and a gang of hungry gubblins. Are their wits and cooking skills enough to save them? Coming July 2016

toonDinosaurs in Space: Out of This World! By Pranas T. Naujokaitis

Inhabitants of Planet Meatball and Planet Lettuce travel to Planet Earth. Another space dinosaur story in the Balloon Toons series. Releases August 2016.

 

For previous lineups of graphic novels, check out posts by Brian Kell and Yolanda Ridge.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A former teacher and librarian, Laurie J. Edwards is the author of more than 2200 articles and 30 books in print or forthcoming under several pen names. As Erin Johnson, she writes the WANTED series, set in the Wild West. Reviewers called her heroine, Grace, the “Katniss of the Wild West.” Visit Laurie at www.lauriejedwards.com.

 

Back to Top

Happy Endings

By on May 20, 2016   /   Book Lists, Fiction, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  

I’ve read some sad middle-grade books lately.

I mean sad.  Books about war, separation, poverty, judging, death.

It’s no secret that today’s middle-grade books tackle some serious topics, that authors aren’t afraid to stare down the very same monsters our readers face every day. After all, if children must be brave enough to travel life’s imperfect road, we must be brave enough to write about their journeys.

I used to believe that sad subjects were okay in middle-grade literature as long as there were happy endings. You know, all’s well that ends well.

But some of the books I’ve read lately didn’t have happy endings. And, since some of the books I’m going to talk about are very new, I won’t say any more than that in an effort to avoid spoiling anyone’s reading experience.

Just last week, I finished Lauren Wolk’s Wolf Hollow.

 wolf hollow

Not since William March’s The Bad Seed have I met a child antagonist as deceptive and wrong as Betty Glengarry.  Like anyone caught in the web of a narcissist’s lies, the narrator Annabelle can do little to break free of Betty’s ever-worsening cruelty. As I read, I found myself pleading for justice, fairness, and for Annabelle and others to prevail. But literature – and life – doesn’t always deliver justice and fairness and good over evil.

I also recently finished Pax by Sara Pennypacker.

pax

Okay, let’s talk sad. The book was passed along to me by an author friend I was visiting in Kansas City. I started reading in the airport and started crying on page six. Six. The heartbreaking separation of a boy and his pet  (Pax is a lovable and loving cross between man’s best friend and the most adorable house cat you can imagine  – but he’s a fox) at the very beginning was enough to make any reader believe that redemption would eventually come at the end. But literature – and life – does not always offer redemption.

So, does that mean I didn’t like these books? Or that I didn’t like their endings?

Not at all.  There’s more to a “happy” ending than joy. More than joy, I believe an ending must offer hope. And it must ring true.

Above all, it must ring true.

I can clearly remember having detailed discussions with my editor Claudia Gabel (then with Delacorte Press, now with Katherine Tegan Books) as we worked out the ending of my first middle-grade novel, The Beef Princess of Practical County. It’s a story about Libby, who raises cattle to show at the county fair. In the end, Libby’s beloved steer boards a livestock trailer for the slaughter house. It’s not the hoped-for Charlotte’s Web ending. But it has all the truth in it of a Midwest farmer’s daughter’s experience growing up on a cattle ranch. It rings true.

I promised not to talk about the endings of Wolf Hollow and Pax, so I won’t – except to say that both endings ring true.

And when we, as authors, pledge to traverse life’s imperfect road with our readers, offering truth is – in the end – the best that we can do.

Michelle Houts has written four books for middle-grade readers.  Her books have garnered an International Reading Association Award, Junior Library Guild selection, and inclusion on the Bank Street Best Books of 2014 List. She’s currently completing the first three books in a new science-minded series for younger readers, titled Lucy’s Lab (2017, Sky Pony Press).

 

Back to Top