For Librarians

Jabberwocky Time Warp Tour

By on September 30, 2015   /   Author Interviews, For Librarians, For Teachers, Giveaways  

Today we welcome not one, not two, but three talented middle grade writers to From the Mixed-Up Files… . Authors Eric Pierpoint, J.B. Cheaney, and Stephanie Bearce are helping us turn back the clock by answering the question: How does writing and researching historical fiction or non-fiction for middle-grade readers differ from writing for adults and how do these writers strive to  bring history to life for young readers? 

Time Warp Tour

 

 

 

 

Eric Pierpoint (The Secret Mission of William Tuck)

The Secret Mission of William TuckTo me, writing historical fiction for younger readers means creating more action and adventure around the facts. What appeals to adults may be boring to middle-graders, so whatever goes into the book must be done in a balanced way that keeps the level of excitement going. There are times where I like to really press on the gas, and then slow it down to make certain points in a different rhythm. I was once told that reading my books was sort of like watching a movie, that they are cinematic. They’re right! I never want to preach history and give too much of a lesson. I’d rather make that history come alive through the eyes of a young person who is caught up in the action of the story. For example, my main character could be in the middle of a scene where our founding fathers are discussing an important topic like prisoner exchange during the Revolutionary War. Rather than explain in long passages to the adult reader the history of prison ships, for a younger audience, my young character would be captured and taken aboard the infamous HMS Jersey and have to figure out a way off. I think it is better to increase excitement while using historical fact rather than spend too much time writing long explanations.

J.B. Cheaney (I Don’t Know How the Story Ends)

I Don't Know How the Story EndsIt doesn’t, much; you just leave out the more lurid details. Researching historical fiction is not just about getting the background facts right; it’s also getting a sense of the people who lived and though in ways we can’t fathom. What was important to them? What did they do for fun? What do we dismiss that they considered of first importance? I think it’s just as important to get those things right for children as it is for adults, because traveling to another time is as mind-expanding as traveling to another country. Kids need to have their minds expanded!

On a more practical level, research is vital for plot development. When the idea for a historical novel is conceived in the author’s fertile brain, she already has a basic idea of the history arc and can match it to her story arc. In 1918, where I set I Don’t Know How the Story Ends, Isobel’s father is serving in France during WWI. I already knew that America officially entered that war in 1917, but didn’t know about the Hollywood war bond rallies (where Isobel impersonates a boy scout), or Charlie Chaplin’s wandering eye (which makes Isobel so nervous about her mother), or D. W. Griffith’s decision to leave Hollywood (which will shift the purpose of Ranger’s film project). Those bits of information added texture and distinctiveness, not to mention important plot developments.

Stephanie Bearce (Top Secret Files)

The Cold WarI love this question because as a teacher it is something I have really worked hard to understand. Teaching or writing about history for children is very different than it is for adults. While an adult may be able to remember different decades, and the styles or fads of each one, a child has a much shorter time perspective. A decade may be longer than their entire life.

Dates and numbers don’t give children any clue as to what was happening at that time period. As adults we read the date 1776 and we can immediately picture men wearing knee breeches and white wigs. Mention Rome in 100B.C. and a grownup knows it’s the time of togas and Roman baths. But those numbers all have to be given context for children.

It’s important to describe what technology was and was not available during the time period. Writers and teachers need to help them understand that during World War One the radio was a brand new invention and airplanes had only been invented a few years earlier. Details about how people lived and how it is different from other time periods are important to give children a sense of the changes that have happened over time. It means telling every story with the idea of how it is different from the modern world of the child.

It’s a challenge, but it’s a fun one!

Want to win a #TimeWarpReads Prize Pack featuring titles from Eric Pierpoint, J.B. Cheaney, and Stephanie Bearce? Enter now!

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Books with Biracial Characters

By on September 25, 2015   /   Book Lists, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, MUF Contributor Books  

 

images-3In the US census between 2000 and 2010 people identifying as more than one race increased by 32%. It is, by most methods of calculation, the fastest growing racial group in the county and one that also needs representation in children’s books.

I didn’t set out to write a book about a biracial child, but I grew up in a neighborhood that seemed outwardly monocultural. As I got to know my classmates and their families over time, I learned that my neighborhood was far more diverse than it appeared. Several friends spent part of  the year living in the Middle East. I regularly babysat for a family with white and Native Alaskan parents.  One of my childhood friends spent every summer in Japan with his grandparents. He was fluent in Japanese and English, passionate about martial arts, and sometimes misunderstood by classmates who found his pride in his grandparent’s culture silly. He bore a strong resemblance to his American father and I remember watching him, and other biracial classmates, navigate the balance between body language, speech patterns and cultural convictions that set them apart and the convenience of looking white enough to blend in.

In writing a story with a biracial character  and thinking through my childhood experiences with an adult’s perspective I’ve found that biracial characters are magnets for conflict in ways that make them useful for story-making though not easy in the actually living of the biracial experience. Here are some avenues of conflict you might explore if you are considering writing biracial or bicultural characters.

1. “But you don’t look Indian!” I actually heard someone say this to an accomplished Native American author recently and she responded with what I felt was the perfect balance of firm resolve and compassion. It’s a terrible thing to say to someone–essentially, “you are not who you are.” That comment, and a dozen equally offensive variations, confront biracial people regularly. The relentless explaining of your identity is soul-wearying and makes a great plot point because even the most confident and well-nurtured biracial person can develop doubts of ever find a place where they belong.

images-22. “Shouldn’t you be more_____?” Is another phrase a biracial person frequently hears. Many minorities feel a pressure to behave in the expected mold of their culture, the intellectual Jew or the violin playing Korean child or the athletic black teenager, for example. imagesIt is hard enough to live up to the imagined-by-outsiders standard of one community, let alone trying to meet the expectations of two or even several. images-1The burden of living up to an impossible standard makes for great internal conflict in a story.

 

3. For many biracial people the aspect of their racial and cultural identity that comes to the fore varies with circumstance. So a family might choose to emphasize the heritage that blends most readily with the community at hand. Or the most advantageous one. For example, if the local schools are substandard, and a Jewish day school with better resources is available, then a family might choose to identify more strongly as Jewish and become more observant than they might have otherwise.  For the biracial child this can feel like  playing favorites with one parent over another or one set of grandparents over another. The tension between wanting the advantage the easy racial identity provides and wanting to see justice done for the disadvantaged racial identity is great food for complex story telling

4. I had a fascinating conversation with Pico Iyer a few summers ago about raising biracial and bicultural children. He’s found that both his own kids and those he knows from his many travels are masters of observation and highly attuned to cultural nuance. Not that the insights they have are unavailable to others who take the time to be attentive and make connections, but that the connections others overlook are blindingly obvious to a biracial or bicultural child. A keenly observant child always makes for a more interesting viewpoint character and the kind of observations readily available to the child who straddles a number of cultural groups is particularly valuable.

5. And here’s the tough part (at least from my perspective as a bicultural but not Unknownbiracial person). Often what white people do to acknowledge and respect cultures other than their own is so awkwardly done that it makes matters worse rather then better. The dressing up as pilgrims and indians in one glaring example. Here’s another. I recently heard hip-hop poet Merlyn Hepworth perform a poem about his 8 year old self and the school fiesta. He is Mexican-American and grew up in Idaho, a state well known for active white supremacist groups. Nonetheless, his 2nd grade teacher wanted to  broaden her students’ world view, so they had a class fiesta. Young Merlyn, all excited, asked his abuela to make tortillas, his favorite food. So she did and on fiesta day he brought them all fresh and warm, with the delicious little scorch marks that hand-made tortillas have. He set this treasure on the table alongside an array of Ortega products, Fritos, salsa in a jar, and chips with melted cheddar cheese. His whole class and teacher and school principal came to the table to eat and not one person would touch his grandmother’s tortillas. And for the first time in his young life Merlyn was ashamed to eat them himself. And so the whole event had the opposite effect from the one the teacher intended. She had wanted to celebrate Merlyn’s culture and ended up making him feel ashamed in a way he  hadn’t before and might not have ever been if he hadn’t brought real Mexican food to a pretend fiesta.

Here are just a few stories with biracial characters you might enjoy.

Misad51C5YsK3BLL._SX338_BO1,204,203,200_ventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Levy9780688173975


Rain is not my Indian Name by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer by Kelly Jones

Operation Redwood 9780385755528by S. Terrell FrenchUnknown

Shadows of Sherwood by Kekla Magoon51Q-2FElUvL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_

I’d love to hear about books that you felt did a good job of representing the biracial experience.  Let me know what books I should be highlighting and I’ll add them to this post and ask the buyer to get them for my bookstore.

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Re-Engaging Disconnected Readers

By on September 21, 2015   /   Book Lists, For Librarians, For Teachers  

Amy Vatne Bintliff is a teacher and researcher who has taught language arts and reading in traditional and alternative programs in Minnesota and Wisconsin. She has developed a wide array of programming for students who struggle with school. A passionate advocate for human rights and multicultural education, she believes strongly in listening to the voices of adolescents.

Amy VB

Amy is a recipient of the 2014 Teaching Tolerance Award for Excellence in Teaching and the author of Re-Engaging Disconnected Youth: Transformative Learning Through Restorative and Social Justice Education (Peter Lang Publishing 2011).
 bintliff cover

I sat down to chat with Amy, who is working on a new edition of the book, adding a new chapter about her recent work with middle school students.

What turns kids away from reading?

For many students, the hectic schedules that they lead turn them away from reading.  They are so busy with athletics, jobs, etc. that they just don’t build in the time.  And then when they do have time to read in class, they often feel sleepy.  That makes sense, right?  We know that most adolescents need more sleep. Feeling that they just aren’t good at reading also causes disengagement.  I find that many students get one MAP score or STAR score back that is low, and their self-esteem just tanks.  No matter how much I tell students that those scores don’t represent their complete lives as a reader, they internalize those scores and carry a feeling of defeat with them.  That turns students away.

Why do you think books with social justice themes are appealing to students and how do you use them in the classroom?

I began using human rights education and social justice education early on in my career partly because that’s where my own passions are.  But then I began really observing how active my students were when they were discussing or debating themes of injustice.  Nearly every young person I have taught has felt the sting of injustice in some way.  At the start of the year, we begin debating what is meant by the word “justice” and “injustice”.  We look at modern texts, such as opinion editorial pieces, plus brief excerpts by philosophers, such as Aristotle.  Then we read about people like Martin Luther King Jr., Mark Twain, Septima Clark, and others involved in social change.  We also each write a personal essay, journal or poem about times injustices have impacted us.  I also directly teach my students different frameworks depending on the text and student interest.  A few of the frameworks are:

Generally, students are presented with the frameworks and then have time to discuss them, choose an article, standard or stereotype that they want to explore more deeply, and present a group or individual project.

I then find some strong examples from literature, usually our class reads aloud to start with, so that we can explore with new eyes.  We then use the frameworks to analyze literature, current events, and our own responses to them.  Students begin to actively engage with text because they have a new vocabulary to back up their thinking.  When we get to Close Reading activities, students can say, “I found a gender stereotype here” or “What’s happening is going against the message of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.  They feel empowered.  They also feel moved by the very human stories involved in the work.  Finally, we create service projects that allow students choice.  For example, last year, my students chose to teach Teaching Tolerance’s Anti-bias Standards to 4th graders.  The service portion of a reading classroom engages them and helps lessen the feelings of sadness, anger and helplessness often associated with reading about social justice themes.

What is the role of diverse books in engaging young people?

Diverse books allow students to create imagined dialogue with people outside of their normal daily interactions.  These imagined dialogues decrease fear and build connections.  It builds capacity, teaches background knowledge, and allows students to reflect on how they are similar or different from narrators or main characters.  Diverse books also teach students that one person’s story does not represent a whole race, gender, etc.  As a teacher, I reiterate that each time we explore a piece of literature.

 What are some of your favorite books to reach disconnected students? 

The graphic novels, March Book One and March Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell are fantastic!  Students who never read full books in the past completed both.  What I love about these graphic novels is that they tie to other social justice texts or current events.  Even though the books may take some students only a matter of days to read, there are many weeks worth of connections and discussions to stem from the graphic novels.  I love that the history re-connected not only struggling readers, but also students who generally weren’t enjoying traditional history texts.

march 2 March 1

I have had great success with the novel Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes.  There is so much to talk about in this book such as bullying, coming of age, poverty, and equality.

ninth ward

I also love poetry books.  Some of my favorites poets for middle school students are Naomi Shihab Nye, Walter Dean Myers and Gary Soto. Paul Janeczko’s book Reading Poetry in the Middle Grades has some good teacher resources.  Also, many of the poets have lesson plans on their websites.

Reading Poetry

In a classroom with students at a range of reading levels, how do you both challenge advanced readers and engage those that are struggling?

I think one of the key things is to engage students with concepts and philosophies that are challenging no matter what their reading level.  If the theme of a story, such as injustice, is carefully selected, students can work with partners, or solo, on the text.  You then need to create space for dialogue so that all students have equal opportunities to share their thinking.  I also help students select books that match their interests and push students to new levels when they are ready.  My reading students select their books of choice and I build in time for independent reading in a comfy part of the classroom.  I work with three rotating stations:  guided reading where I teach new strategies, a writing station and an independent reading station.

In your video (embedded below), you talk about including physical activities in the reading classroom. Can you elaborate on that?

Movement is essential when working with reading students!  I have a whole array of brief “brain games” that I use between station rotations.  I play the game with them, so we build trust by laughing, setting game goals, and getting blood flowing to the brain.

Where can our readers find out more?

Teaching Tolerance’s Appendix D–A tool for selecting diverse texts

The Advocates for Human Rights—Free resources and lessons

The Howard Zinn Education Project—History resources that are great to use with historical fiction

Booklists from Teaching for Change and the Cooperative Children’s Book Center

Jacqueline Houtman is the author of the middle-grade novel The Reinvention of Edison Thomas (Front Street/Boyds Mills Press 2010) and coauthor, with Walter Naegle and Michael G. Long, of the biography for young (and not-so-young) readers Bayard Rustin: The Invisible Activist (Quaker Press 2014).

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