For Parents

Interview with Jess Rinker and Giveaway

By on July 5, 2021   /   Articles, Author Interviews, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Giveaways  

Our guest today is Jess Rinker, author of the middle-grade novels Out of Time: Lost on the Titanic, The Dare Sisters, and The Dare Sisters: Shipwrecked (coming this September). Jess has also written picture book biographies on feminist Gloria Steinem and Brenda Berkman, one of the first female firefighters for the New York City Fire Department.

Thanks so much, Jess for joining us at From the Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors! It has been fun witnessing your publishing success since meeting at the Highlights Foundation workshop several years ago. Can you offer a bit about your journey?

Thank YOU for having me! It’s funny, I always think about our time at Highlights as if it was “last summer”, when in fact it was four years ago! Wow. A lot has happened since then for sure—it’s amazing how connected we’ve all remained and hopefully, we’ll begin to cross actual paths again soon.

My journey started way before then, probably more around 2005 when I went from one of those people who said “someday I’ll write a book” to someone who actually sat down and wrote a book. It would be the first of many shelved manuscripts, but learning I could write a novel changed my life trajectory. Fast forward through years of practice, attending conferences, and taking classes, by 2014 I graduated with an MFA, signed with an agent the following year, and sold my first book Gloria Takes a Stand in 2016. I definitely put in my “10,000 hours” as Malcolm Gladwell says. 2018 was a bit of an explosion for me regarding book sales, and so now I just turned in my third middle-grade novel, which brings me to a total of six books by next summer. Whew.

I know you love the outdoors and rural settings, which shines through in your middle-grade works of fiction. Would you share your inspiration for these settings?

So far, yes, all of my middle grade takes place in rural/small town settings. (Even the super secret one we’re just about to pitch to my editor) I grew up in rural NJ and PA in the ’70s-’80s and my parents were pretty hands-off so I was free to explore all of the woods and creeks and rivers around me. Other than a library card, it was probably the biggest gift they gave me. I had few friends as a young child and the woods and wildlife became my entire world—the perfect place for an imagination to blossom. My mom gave me countless nature books as well, and so learning the names of flowers, trees, bugs, animals, even fish, and frogs, became a way for me to “know” the wildlife around me, as well as order my otherwise chaotic world. I think my mom always had an innate understanding that when you give something a name (or learn its name), you gain an appreciation for it. In my upcoming book The Hike to Home, I give my mom and my young self a little nod in that the main character has a similar proclivity to know all the names of the natural things around her. It’s something I still do and now living in a brand-new place—West Virginia—there are so many new creatures to get to know! West Virginia is an incredibly biologically diverse state with New River Gorge (The nation’s most recent National Park!) being the highest, I believe.

Your picture book biographies feature strong, independent women. Your middle-grade fictional work shares the adventures of strong and independent girls. Tell us a little bit about the background behind these stories.

To be completely honest, I never intended to “brand” myself and when I first started, I was writing angsty YA that didn’t sell. I’ve always approached the writing life—and publishing as much as possible—as someone who just truly loves writing stories. I don’t have a very altruistic sense until the book is on the shelf. Once it’s out there, it’s on its own, but before that it’s all mine and I treasure that creative stage. So ideas come and go and whatever grabs a hold of me the most, I write it. I have plenty of stories and ideas that are not strong-girl stories per se.

That being said, back in 2015 I was reading Gloria Steinem’s canon of literature and that, paired with the sale of the biography, fueled me in a new way as a woman and as a writer. I absolutely became conscious of wanting to write characters who had agency in their lives. I had next-to-none as a child, and many children are powerless because of their circumstances. I chose not to write about those circumstances (yet) and instead write stories that showed children the power they CAN have. Somehow, that turned into strong girls, strong women. I’m not complaining! But it was a natural evolution, driven by my own education and internal revolution, the love of storytelling, and a desire to empower children in whatever little way I can.

I know that you and your family experienced a tragic fire, which engulfed and destroyed your home, including all of your childhood journals. How has writing helped you move forward through that loss?

That was a huge blow, for sure. Sometimes I don’t even remember it happened until someone mentions it and other times I look in my closet and mourn the loss of my favorite summer dress or those precious journals. I mentioned earlier that 2018 was a bit of an explosion for me book-wise, and I think that’s what really helped me quickly recover from that trauma—which was also caused by a literal explosion! I don’t know that we will ever be “over it”, only through the worst of it, but we have found a secure new normal since then. The book sales kept me focused. I’d lost everything I owned, but I still had my family and my job, and it completely kept me going. I’d also been married only a week before the fire, so while it slightly marred our anniversary month, which is August, we had a lot of love and joy.

Exactly a week after the fire, even though we were technically homeless, we still had our wedding party that had been planned for months. Sometimes I wish we could do it over again since my husband and I were in a bit of a fog, but I’m grateful we were able to celebrate. In another wonderful, but long story my wedding dress had been somewhat spared from flame and smoke because of the way it was stored, so a dear friend of mine stole it away, had it cleaned and repaired, and I got to wear it again at the party. We made the news for the fire and the dress. Kind of a beautiful juxtaposing, I think. Everything is writing material, right?!

Whenever I do school visits, both students and teachers are interested in my writing process. Tell us about yours.

Gosh, it changes so much all the time—especially with writing under a few different categories. This question is always tough to answer, but I suppose my main process is to first let myself be entirely swept away with an idea. Whether nonfiction or fiction, I dive into research, notetaking, scene ideas, dialogue, and especially character development before I really write anything. When I’m drafting, I’m in my PJ’s on the couch. Sometimes I try to get away to a place like Highlights where I don’t have to think about normal day-to-day stuff, but that’s not possible as much anymore since I’m also teaching now. I don’t have any fun rituals or anything—it’s just me, silence (when possible), the notebook or computer, and a comfy place to sit.

What stories did you enjoy reading as a child?

Everything. I was never once told I wasn’t allowed to read something so I read everything from the nature books to kids’ books to my mom’s collection of Stephen King and Dean Koontz. My favorite stories often involved survival aspects, like Island of the Blue Dolphin, or My Side of the Mountain, but I also loved classics like Little Women and The Secret Garden.  (Which, come to think of it, have survival aspects in other ways) All of EB White and Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, and Katherine Paterson. But I quickly graduated to adult books and loved horror and dystopian. I weirdly enjoyed reading about grown-ups. I also really loved my grandparents’ shelves of encyclopedias and would page through them quite a bit. It wasn’t until having my own kids, and especially while working on my MFA, that I really got a good dose of the huge variety of children’s books.

I know you teach writers at the collegiate level. What have you learned through this process?

My husband and I were just talking about this! Teaching writing forces you to be a better writer and that’s one of the reasons we both really enjoy it. (Although don’t ask me that when I have 25 essays to grade in two days) Teaching stretches you, keeps you on your toes. Not only for the college but with freelance clients as well. We team up as a couple to coach writers through their projects and we bring different skills and insights to the table, so it becomes a pretty well-rounded process. When you have to help someone craft and revise an essay or plot a novel, it reminds you of all the things you do on a more subconscious level. It’s very eye-opening. My favorite part of teaching, however, is encouraging young writers who want to be better, assuring them that it is a lifetime of practice and devotion, and none of us masters it. We just get better. Hopefully.

As you are married to children’s book author Joe McGee, what is it like working and living with a fellow creative soul?

It’s pretty wonderful. I won’t say there haven’t been some tough spots, because when we first partnered, he was a bit “ahead” of me in the business. I was struggling to sell anything, as well as unable to find a decent job. I had a couple of years of a lot of disheartening “No’s” seemingly coming from everyone and we struggled financially. Those couple years were hard on me. I wasn’t competing with him, but I remember thinking if nothing ever happened for me, and I had to settle for retail jobs for the rest of my life, I didn’t know if I could survive the relationship. This came from my own personal baggage of always feeling like the cheerleader in my previous marriage, and I was very aware of that, and so was Joe. With patience and continued determination, it obviously all panned out. And Joe is probably my biggest cheerleader. 

I’m often asked which is my favorite book that I’ve written…do you have a favorite?

I get that question a lot too—especially from kids. I always tell them my favorite is the one I’m writing right now because it’s true! It’s that special creative time where the story is all mine and I can be lost in it before handing it over to the world. So right now, my favorite book is the one we’re about to pitch to my editor…hopefully more on that very soon!

What is your absolute favorite thing about writing for children?

I do not know. How’s that for an answer! But I really am not sure how to choose one thing. Writing is what I love and it just happens to be for children. I’ve been writing for myself since I was a kid, and then when my kids were little, and I read to them all the time, I thought, “I could totally do this”. So, I did and I never looked back. I’ve never tried writing an adult book, I never have ideas for adult books, and I’m fine with that. I could get super psychological and really pull it apart on a deeper level that has to do with suffering a lot of trauma as a child, and the fact I was treated like a peer to my parents from day one, and so never had a true, care-free childhood….but nah. It doesn’t really matter. Because those very things also made me the writer I am. The fact is, the ideas and voices in my head are always kids and teens, and I just love writing their stories. When a young reader tells me they loved the book, or a parent tells me that it’s the first book their kid ever finished, that is a major heart-warming bonus, for sure. But I’d keep writing regardless.

 

Thank you, Jess! To learn more about Jess, visit her website, www.jessrinker.com. Jess has graciously offered to give a copy of both The Dare Sisters and the upcoming Dare Sisters: Shipwrecked to one lucky winner. Enter here by July 15 for your chance to win. Note: Only residents of the contiguous United States, please.

 

 

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Author Ali Standish discusses The Mending Summer, the power of healing and writing honestly about addiction

By on May 20, 2021   /   Articles, Author Interviews, For Parents, For Writers, New Releases  

 I’m jumping up and down because I get to interview Ali Standish for the launch of her sixth book, The Mending Summer. Ali is also the author of the critically acclaimed The Ethan I Was Before, How to Disappear Completely, August Isle, The Climbers and Bad Bella. She grew up in North Carolina and spent several years as an educator in the Washington, DC, public school system. Ali has an MFA in children’s writing from Hollins University and an MPhil in children’s literature from the University of Cambridge. You can visit her online at www.alistandish.com

Before our discussion officially gets underway, I want to make one thing clear. I’m not an unbiased interviewer. I had the great honor to serve as Ali’s  MFA thesis advisor at Hollins University Summer Graduate Program in Children’s Literature & Writing. It gives me great joy to speak with her now about new middle grade, The Mending Summer.

  • Water plays a central role as a healer and teacher in The Mending Summer. Why did you choose a lake as a setting? How did lakes figure into your own childhood?

 What a great question, Hillary! And thank you so much for having me. I am no unbiased interviewee either.

I think you’re absolutely right that the lake both heals and teaches. That was my experience attending camp each summer on the shores of Lake Wylie, SC. Being around a body of water, be it a lake, a river or an ocean, has always been both uplifting and humbling for me. Water reminds us of how beautiful and wonderous life can be—what’s more majestic than watching the sun set over the sea?—but it’s also something we can’t control or tame, or really even fully understand. It forces us to let go of the idea that we have total agency over our own lives. In children’s literature, we tend to want to emphasize the power of agency, but for children like Georgia whose lives have spun out of control, it’s important to show that there are things, like another person’s addiction, that we don’t have power over. When we relinquish that idea, we can start to focus on what we can control, which is how we treat ourselves.

  • Georgia’s father is an alcoholic, whose drinking increasingly interferes with his ability to be a reliable parent. You don’t shirk from showing us scenes when he becomes “the Shadow Man,” weaving to the front door or even passed out. And yet, you offer the reader many moments, often in flashback, of magical father/daughter engagement. When someone is suffering from alcoholism it’s easy to fall into the trap of defining them only by their disease. You carefully weave in Daddy’s interests from his passion for music to his love of stories. How did you balance this portrait so carefully?

I was very intentional about wanting to show the essence of Daddy’s character—funny, loving, creative—instead of making him into a caricature of an alcoholic or a simple villain. Because my own family members have struggled with alcoholism, and I’ve had many years to process that, I had a lot of empathy for Georgia’s daddy. I think anyone who has loved an alcoholic or an addict has that empathy, even if it is buried under feelings of betrayal, anger, or loss. We know the person underneath the disease, and it’s important to continue to honor, celebrate, and love that individual, even if it needs to be from a distance. Equally, though, it was important to me not to shy away from the more painful scenes where we see how much alcoholism has changed Daddy, or minimize the impact it has on Georgia.

I hope that in showing him from both those angles, readers who may be impacted by addictions in their own family might feel some comfort. If alcoholism can turn a man like Daddy into the Shadow Man, then maybe they will feel less shame and confusion about why it’s happening to their loved ones. Alcoholism can affect anyone.

  • The Mending Summer braids together elements of mystery, adventure, and fantasy, while still giving quite a bit of weight to Georgia’s shifting feelings. She’s quite emotionally intelligent and sensitive. When you were Georgia’s age, were you aware of your own conflicting feelings? How did you figure out how much time to give to Georgia’s interior life versus the exterior action?

 Kids of alcoholics often develop that kind of emotional intelligence early on as a defense mechanism. It’s important to be able to read the room, the situation, the person sitting across from you, so that you can anticipate what’s coming next. I think it took me longer than Georgia to turn that sensitivity inward. It wasn’t until after my family members had been in recovery for a while and our family had stabilized that I was able to understand my own feelings around things. And what I found was that I had swung between healthy ways of dealing with things (focusing on my own achievements, hobbies, relationships with friends) and unhealthy ways (not reaching out for support or sharing what was going on, but instead turning my turbulent emotions inward). In The Mending Summer, that tug-of-war becomes concrete in the form of the wishing lake, and the two children Georgia meets there. Externalizing the struggle in that way meant that there was plenty of room for action and adventure, so that the story (I hope!) didn’t become too weighed down by Georgia’s internal conflict.

  • Aunt Marigold, with whom Georgia stays with in the country during her mending summer, is a potter. Not only does pottery work as a powerful metaphor but eventually Georgia learns how to shape her own clay pieces. How did you come to weave this element into the book?

At first, I actually experimented with Aunt Marigold teaching Georgia piano, but that didn’t feel quite right. With pottery, you are creating a physical object out of a lump of mud (okay not exactly but you get the gist!). That power to create something whole becomes an important counterbalance to Georgia’s home life, which is fracturing into pieces. I experimented with pottery a few summers at camp and always wished I had been able to do more with it. Pottery also has a long history in North Carolina, where I live and where the book is set. Seagrove, NC, is the largest community of active potters in the country!

  • Aunt Marigold, who is actually a great aunt, is one of my favorite characters. She “walked barefoot through the garden and read William Faulkner at the table and wore overalls like a man.” Did you base Aunt Marigold on a real person? If so, I want to meet her!

Me too! Alas, she is not based on a real person, though I did have an image of Sissy Spacek in my mind when I was writing her… I do like to think that I have my own version of Aunt Marigold inside of me—a strong woman who is unapologetic about who she is, and who can be both surprisingly tender and fiercely protective. We all deserve an Aunt Marigold to give us the resolve to keep going when times get tough.

  • A lonely looking gravestone, a mystery room, odd sounds, and eerie characters all figure into this story. There were places I found myself turning on the reading lamp a little brighter. How did you feel about scary stories as a kid? How did you manage to weave in some many spooky moments and yet have the overall story feel uplifting?

I LOVED spooky stories as a kid. Still do! I remember how devastated I was when I first realized that I was too old to really enjoy Goosebumps anymore. I had no idea how to fill the void! I think many young readers are drawn to these kinds of mysteries that carry a hint of danger. My stories are usually about a kid who is struggling with something tough, but they always have room for a few southern gothic tropes. But those locked doors and spooky gravestones always have a human story behind them which, once uncovered, usually have something in them to support the protagonist on their journey to healing. So…come for the scares, stay for the character development—hah!

  • The story includes quite a bit of adventure and some thrilling moments. Did you know in advance that this story would go there? Or did it take you by surprise?

 I did know that it would go there. What happens at the lake mirrors what is happening in Georgia’s psyche. Since she went to some dark places, it was only natural that the lake would, too. Of course, the adventures start out as quite exciting and fun, and that was one of the ways that I tried to keep balance in the book between exploring the tough stuff but threading it through with the kind of mystery and adventure I loved reading as a middle grader.

  • Nature is a both fearsome and healing. In many ways, I was getting some Bridge to Terabithia I’m assuming Katherine Patterson is an influence. I’d be curious to learn a little bit about some of your favorite middle grade books and why you love them.

 I will happily take that comparison, thank you very much! (No take-backsies.) Bridge to Terabithia was a hugely influential book for me. You know how sometimes you see a tree that grows around a large stone, or some man-made object? I feel like my soul kind of grew around that book. It even inspired an entire fantasy world in my backyard—Narbithia (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was also a favorite!). That book gave me a blueprint for how to exercise my imagination, while also showing me the supreme power of story to make readers feel.

More recent favorites include Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me(okay, not that recent, but a perfectly plotted book, in my humble opinion, and one that any aspiring writer can learn so much from) and this year’s Newbery winner, Tae Keller’s When You Trap a Tiger. In fact, I had the honor of blurbing the latter (and will continue to mention this for the rest of my life when given the most minuscule opportunity). When You Trap a Tiger is also a book that blurs the lines between magic and a child’s inner-turmoil. It weaves together Korean folklore with a universal story of family history, love and loss in a beautiful, haunting way.

  • Are you an outliner, panster or a hybrid writer?

 I write books like Boomers drive cars. (At least the Boomers in my family!) I know where I want to start and where I want to go, and I’m pretty sure I know how to do it, but I’m sure as heck not going to bother with a GPS. So there will inevitably be some wrong cars (and some choice language) but eventually, I usually find my way.

  • Anything else you’d like readers to know about The Mending Summer?

Importantly, the cast includes a grumpy cow named Ruby. Why does no one mention her?!

Just kidding, mostly I just want educators, librarians, and young readers to know that there are stories out there for kids who are impacted by alcoholism and addiction. Hopeful, engaging stories that might make them feel less alone and that might help guide them toward making healthy choices, rather than self-destructive ones. And while they deal with serious issues, these stories are necessary to keep on classroom and library bookshelves, because you never know which child might be walking into school each morning with this weighing on their shoulders.

Hillary Homzie is the author of the Ellie May chapter book series (Charlesbridge, 2018), Apple Pie Promises (Sky Pony/Swirl, 2018), Pumpkin Spice Secrets (Sky Pony/Swirl, 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’s also a contributor to the  Kate the Chemist middle grade series (Philomel Books/Penguin Random House). During the year, Hillary teaches at Sonoma State University and in the summer she teaches in the graduate program in childrens’ literature, writing and illustration at Hollins University. She also is an instructor for the Children’s Book Academy. She can be found at hillaryhomzie.com and on her Facebook page as well as on Twitter.

 

 

 

 

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Showing Children Our World – Good and Bad – Through Books

By on May 10, 2021   /   Book Lists, Fiction, For Parents  

As a mother, nothing comes close to my primitive urge as a mom to protect my child. So, I thought it ironic to visit a playground in North Carolina when my son was young and see a warning sign of alligators nearby.

This sign hit me with the realization that while we can provide our children with the resources to defend themselves and make good choices, ultimately we have to let them go out there to frolic amongst the good guys and the gators. This includes opening their eyes through media and books to not-so-nice things that go on in the world.

Especially books. They can open up our child’s eyes to events in history, just and unjust. Books have opened up many dialogues with my son about slavery, civil rights, religion, women earning the right to vote, the Holocaust, bullying, and terrorism.

When my son was six we got a wonderful book called The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein (since made into a movie). In 1974, French aerialist Philippe Petit threw a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center and spent an hour walking, dancing, and performing high-wire tricks a quarter mile in the sky.

This book paved the way for us to talk in depth about the twin towers and terrorism. My son said at the time he hoped that the bad man would be caught and the towers would be rebuilt.

One out of two so far. I was able to report to my son not long after that the bad man had been caught. My son wanted to know how he was found, what happened to his children, his wife, and if his being caught meant this kind of thing would never happen again. How I wished I could have said ‘yes’ to that. But, I hope in having these discussions (as I hope parents are having everywhere) that we are changing the world for the better—one discussion at a time.

As my son got older, middle grade books opened up discussion for us. Here are some of them:

Wonder by R.J. Palacio: about being a disfigured kid in a “normal” world.
Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper: what it could be like to have a voice but not be able to communicate.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the difficult decision of choosing where you belong.
Rules by Cynthia Lord: on autism and asking “what is normal?”
Holes by Louis Sachar: about friendship and believing in yourself.
Surviving Bear Island by Paul Greci: about being separated from your family and having to survive in a strange, dangerous place all alone.
Hoot by Carl Hiaasen: on endangered animals and ecology.
Duck by Richard S. Ziegler: about standing up for yourself when the one person who protects you is gone.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney: fearing middle school and then finding out how cool it really is.

Books. They open us up to new worlds and help us as parents relate the good and bad of the world to our children. They reveal the beauty and the darkness that co-exist in our world—and within us. They inspire feelings of sadness, joy, compassion, or outrage.

Books. They open up conversations with my son about life and death and right and wrong. I watch him as he struggles with these issues even as he becomes a young man now and tries to figure out his place in the world.

And while I empower my son with information and send him out there to navigate the battle field of life with as much armor as possible, I hope the good guys outnumber the gators. I hope he witnesses more glory than gore. And even if the gators in disguise try and get him, I hope it’s “just a flesh wound!”

Are there books you’ve read with your children that opened up discussions about the world around them?

And if you’re looking for a fun, heartfelt adventure to read with your kids, check out the next books 6-10 in my Unicorn Island series, Secret Beneath the Sand, out today! There are new characters, new creatures, and new adventures to enjoy. In the next part of the series, when a mysterious scourge spreads among the unicorns, Sam and Tuck must face a long-buried secret to protect the herd. It releases on Epic, the leading digital library for kids 12 and under, in a 5-part serial May 2021 with illustrated hardcover out winter 2022 by Andrews McMeel.

 

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