For Librarians

Books and Buttercream

By on February 16, 2018   /   For Librarians, For Teachers, For Writers  

I’m a fan of stretching out celebrations as long as possible. Give me a birthday present or slice of cake a day, a week, even a month late, and I’ll be as happy as if I received it on time. Happier, really, because what could be better than making surprises and buttercream last and last?

This year, I got away with stretching one of my very favorite celebrations over two full weeks. February 1 was World Read Aloud Day* and I had a very good problem: more requests for Skype visits than could fit into one school day. With the help of wonderful, flexible librarians and teachers, I was able to say yes to almost all of them.  Each morning I put on my good sweater and sparkly earrings and chatted with students in Canada, Kentucky, Texas, Massachusetts, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, New York…When I Skyped with kids in the Bahamas, I showed them a bowl of Ohio snow!

Still, some people wonder, what’s the value of any school visit? For the writer the answer is obvious: spending time with young readers is a jolt of reality. Sitting alone at a desk all day, our audience can grow dim and abstract.  No way this can happen in a school, where the walls pulse with kids’ energy and curiosity, concerns and confusions,  happiness and vulnerability.  One one Skype visit a fifth grader asked me, “Why do you write for kids instead of grown-ups?” and I said,  “Because! Kids are the most passionate, invested readers on the planet.”  He nodded. Case closed.

What about the value for the students? We writers  hope to convince them they all have stories to tell,  that each of them has a writing voices as unique and special as his or her speaking voice. We try our best to give them tips, to encourage them by sharing how much revision a “professional writer” does, and to empower them to use their imaginations and create their own worlds.

During almost every visit, in person or by Skype, someone asks me, “Did you always want to be an author?” I used to feel bad about having to admit no, and confess how long it took me to find my way. I would wish I was one of those people who knew, from the age of three, that writing was her reason for breathing.

But as time has gone by, I’ve come to feel okay about saying that I didn’t begin to write seriously until I was three of four times their age. I tell them that, as much as I loved to read when I was young, I was certain all writers lived in castles by the sea, cottages covered in roses, or rooms at the top of crooked staircases. Maybe if I’d met a writer when I was your age, I say now–maybe if I’d sat down and eaten pizza with one, or watched one hold her plump orange cat up in front of the camera, or listened to one talk about how many times she heard no before  finally hearing that magic yes–maybe if I’d ever  realized that writers were plain old everyday people, I wouldn’t have taken so long to make the discovery that  I could be one too. And then I tell them how lucky they are, to have such a big head start on me.

*Here’s WRAD’s mission statement. You can find out more at
http://www.litworld.org/wrad/
We think everyone in the world should get to read and write. Every year, on World Read Aloud Day, people all around the globe read aloud together and share stories to advocate for literacy as a human right that belongs to all people.

*****

Tricia’s newest middle grade novel, Cody and the Heart of a Champion, will publish in April.

 

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Keeping Track with Personal Reading Records

By on February 14, 2018   /   Book Lists, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, Op-Ed  

I recently caught up with two former students to talk about – of course – reading! One is at a new school, and I still see the other around campus and in the library, though I’m not regularly in the classroom these days.

I heard from their mothers ( both book people, so of course we’re in touch) that Kenzie and Hannah keep reading records for themselves, and I was very curious to see how – or if – they continued on where their library class with me left off some years ago.

I kept a wall behind my desk depicting my own reading life: covers showing books i’d read and those I planned to read. In addition, a couple of my classes chose to track their reading lives on another wall of the library.I love that this particular wall grew out of these readers’ desires to follow their own lives as readers.

In our recent conversations, I started out by asking the girls why they keep track of their reading. Kenzie uses her list/page count system to prove a point to others and to show that she really is as well read as she says she is, and to see how far she has come as a reader. She also uses a list of books she’s read to keep track of where she’s been. I can relate to that. I remember where I was when I dug through Bronte’s Villanelle on summer in high school, and I opened Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in the security line at Gatwick Airport. Kenzie also pointed out that she likes bonding with new friends over books they both love.

Hannah uses a journal to remember what a book was about, and to set and keep reading goals. She also finds that she can also track her taste in books.

I asked next how the readers keep track of their reading. Kenzie carries two lists. One is of books to acquire/to read. A book goes on this list when it’s recommended or when she decides to read it.  It gets crossed out when it gets added to her (physical) bookshelf.  A book goes onto the second list when she starts reading it, along with its page count. When she’s completed it, she marks it off.

Hannah makes lists of books she wants to read while she browses the library shelves, then adds them to her journal when she starts reading, with synopses, notes, and a rating system. I asked some other students about keeping track of their reading. Many of them simply try to remember what they read, except for those who are currently using their Humanities teacher’s Reading Bingo to track their reading.

I keep an occasional journal as well, noting books that inspire me in some way. Otherwise, I keep track using Goodreads and my library wishlist. If not for these tools, I would be lost.

Inspired by this conversation, I also asked my colleagues how they track their reading. They use  phone notes apps, Amazon and library wishlists, and Goodreads (many are actually on Goodreads but only a few use it, and those are mostly readers who are members of book clubs).

I asked Kenzie and Hannah how they choose their next read.  Kenzie chooses a book from a genre she’s interested in, then explores titles in that genre. A read-alike in that genre inspires her next read. Sometimes she needs a break from a certain type of book, though, like murder mysteries or books with heavier themes.

Hannah finds her next read by using eeny meeny miney mo, from 3-4 books she chooses from the shelves by turning a few pages, according to her mood, and referring to her list.

Asked how they read,  Hannah reads all in print, and Kenzie reads in print or on her phone if she’s out and about. Hannah has expressed that she is not at all an audio book lover (it is my main way to consume books these days, to be honest).

Finally I asked the girls what they’re reading now.

Favorite Genre:

Hannah: Realistic fiction and historical fiction – she feels that she learns more from them.

Kenzie: Mystery

One unforgettable book:

Kenzie: Under the Egg

Hannah: All the Light We Cannot See

A book to recommend to a parent:

Hannah: The Rhyme Schemer

Kenzie: Everything she thinks is good

Here we are with a few of our favorite books.

It was a blast to ask these questions of students I’ve watched grow from early readers through their middle grade years. It is especially rewarding to celebrate the readers we all are today.

Do you keep personal reading records? Why and how?

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The Art of the Swap Interview and Giveaway

By on February 12, 2018   /   Author Interviews, For Librarians, For Teachers, Giveaways, New Releases  

Freaky Friday meets Downton Abbey in this middle grade mystery that features a modern day twelve-year-old switching bodies with a Gilded Age heiress in order to solve a famous art heist.

We are thrilled to have with us today Kristine Asselin and Jen Malone, authors of THE ART OF THE SWAP, which comes out tomorrow. I am gobsmacked to be able to report that Kris, Jen, and Simon & Schuster are giving to one reader of our blog an ENTIRE CLASSROOM OF HARD COVERS of this book! Can you believe that? It’s for classes in the U.S. only, and up to 25 books. To enter, leave a comment with your email address below by 5pm Eastern on Thursday. You can get an additional entry if you tweet about the giveaway (just leave a link to the tweet in your comment). If you aren’t a teacher, you can designate any school for the donation, or Jen and Kristine can suggest a worthy recipient.

What a fun story! Can you share with us the inspiration?

Kris: Thanks so much for having us here at the Mixed Up Files. We are so excited to have this book out in the world. We can’t wait for kids to read it!

The origin story: About four years ago, I was visiting Newport, Rhode Island, with my family. My daughter and my husband and I have always really enjoyed historical properties, and we tour them as often as we can. On this particular trip, we were on a guided tour and the tour guide pointed to a mysterious door as we walked by and said, “that’s the caretaker’s apartment.”

I turned to my daughter. “Wouldn’t it be cool to live here and take care of all of this?”

She replied, “That would be a great story, mom. You should write that.”

When I got home, I did a bit of research and found out that The Elms (the house in our story) had a real life caretaker who raised his daughter in the house. He’s still there, in fact. His name is Harold Matthews. I was immediately intrigued.

About a year later, Jen and I were carpooling to SCBWI New Jersey and got to talking about our works-in-progress. When I mentioned this middle grade idea of a caretaker’s daughter, we began to brainstorm. Through the course of our drive, it became this amazing dual voice, Freaky Friday, time travel story that we absolutely had to write together.

I love getting to see what it is like for girls from two different centuries, living in the same house. What kind of research did you do for the book? 

Jen: Kristine had a lot more experience doing research since she also writes nonfiction titles for the school/library market, but my fiction research to date had been more along the lines of “Where are all the penny press machines in NYC?” and “How much paper mache would it take to build a 50-foot hedgehog float,” so this was a new and welcome challenge for me. The best was our in-person research—we made visits to The Elms together and solo, and spent an amazing day trailing the caretaker, Harold Mathews, into spots not normally accessible to the public and listening to him speak about his adventures as a single dad raising his young daughter in the converted servant quarters-turned-caretaker apartment. That was magical insight we couldn’t have gotten from any textbook (though we relied on those plenty as well). Most fascinating to me was a mysterious opening ¾ of the way up a wall between the furnace rooms and the coal tunnel (pictured here). Harold told us they once filmed a Victoria’s Secret commercial in this space, but that in the 30-plus years he’s managed the property he’d never once investigated that space. Kris and I were dying to pull a ladder right up to it! Alas… he didn’t offer.

Kris: The Elms was a private home until the early 1960s when the Newport Preservation Society saved it from the wrecking ball and turned it into a museum. It’s still hard for me to believe that someone actually lived in the house, it’s so huge. It truly has its own story! It was one of the first properties saved from destruction by the Preservation Society—and today it looks a lot like it did in the early 1900s.

You can visit The Elms and tour it–so if you’re ever in Newport, you can actually see the places in the house where Hannah and Maggie live!

You two have created a fabulous Educators’ Guide for Art of the Swap that is Common Core-aligned for grades 4-7 and includes special activities for Women’s History Month. Can you tell us some about what you’ve included?

Jen: Thank you! Maggie’s character arc was always focused on the differences between how girls are treated in her time (1905) versus in Hannah’s modern day, but after participating in the Women’s March last year, we revised the manuscript to make some big changes to Hannah’s character arc that allow her to realize there are still many strides to be made in the fight for true equality. We’re hopeful the book can be a springboard to classroom conversation about this! Our Educator’s Guide offers several discussion points on this topic, as well as focused activities, such as a timeline of events in the women’s rights movement between the two time periods highlighted in the story. 

My daughter and I are in a book club together, and so I was thrilled to see the Activities Guide for Troops, Book Clubs, and Organizations, as well. What are some of those activities, and why did you decide to create that guide?

Jen: Both Kristine and I are moms to young girls (my daughter is eleven and Kristine’s is fifteen). As we took a deeper dive into feminism with this book, we were also doing the same in our personal lives. We wanted SWAP to be a starting point for discussions on equality, but we also hoped those discussions would lead to action. We created this Activities Guide for Young Activists to offer a script for ways tweens and teens could turn awareness into activism. We have a series of experiments kids can conduct to see where imbalances still present. For example, one has them watching commercials and tallying lines of dialogue and examining the roles in which women were cast. Did you know the average girl has seen 77,546 ads by the time she turns twelve and only 5% of those ads feature women without a man present? Men speak seven times as often as women in commercials and are 62% more likely to be shown in an intelligent role, such as doctor or scientist. From this awareness-building, we offer suggestions for concrete action steps to bring about change—with the idea that girls (and any boy allies who want to join in!) can do most of them in a fun group setting and benefit from that bonding time too. I think every author wants their stories to put more good into the world, even if that’s by simply offering a few hours of escape to our readers, but this book’s subject matter, coupled with our passion for the topic, really made us want to go bigger here! We’re including a sample exercise from the guide below, and it’s available for download on our author sites and on simonandschuster.net/books/the-art-of-the-swap. We’d love to contribute to the movement!

Can you describe the process of writing collaboratively? How did you share ideas and writing?

Kris: First and foremost, we were (and are!) both super excited about this story. Our love for our characters and the themes in the book really drove the process. Once we realized we were actually going to do this, we started by brainstorming most of the plot in one sitting back in August of 2015. We created a very detailed outline which included almost every detail of the plot. This was important because each of us were writing a different voice and character arc, so we needed to have an outline to keep us on track. Can you tell which girl each of us wrote?

As far as nuts and bolts, we had a shared Google Doc in which we wrote the whole story. We would meet (or talk on the phone) periodically to share ideas, but we each wrote our own parts.

Once we had the words in the Doc we could critique each other’s work and then revise. It worked out really well, I think!

We agree! Thanks, Kristine and Jen, for the interview. Now, dear reader, go enter to win all those awesome books!

Kate Hillyer wants to move to an old mansion in Newport, R.I. In the meantime, you can find her in our nation’s capitol, where she reads and writes middle grade, wrangles three kids, and is sure she’s going to start training for that 10k she signed up for any second now. She blogs here and at The Winged Pen, and is a Cybils judge for Poetry. She’s online at www.katehillyer.com and on Twitter as @SuperKate. 

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