For Teachers

The Magic of Writing Middle Grade: It’s All About Remembering the Child’s Perspective

By on July 23, 2023   /   Articles, Book Lists, Fiction, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  

Middle grade is without a doubt magical.

And by magical, I don’t mean that it’s all witches, elixirs, and pixies. But there’s certainly plenty of that. You’ll find gobs of delicious magic in lauded books such as The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill and The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton.

However, middle grade encompasses so many kinds of books, from contemporary realistic fiction to science fantasy from biography to adventure.

What I mean by magic—is the magic of childhood itself. After all, middle grade focuses on kids ages 8 until twelve—the very center of childhood. This is when you’re old enough to have hours of independent time away from your parents and yet not ready for the individuation shuffle away from parents and caregivers. At this age, while friendships and peers rule the day, children seek the guidance of kind and wise mentors. This might be parents, teachers, coaches, club advisors or yes, a witch, wizard or conjurer.

However, you don’t need to write about mystical creatures like, say, unicorns in order to find magic. You just need to remember what it is like to be a child.

When I was writing one of my middle grades, Queen of Likes, I momentarily forget what it was like to be a kid. In that book, 12-year-old Karma Cooper gets her phone taken away. At first, I got right to this punishment and had Karma communicating her regret.

Wrong! I had forgotten what it felt like to be a seventh grader. Instead, I was writing the text like—gulp–a mom. At the time, I hated how my kids and their friends were on the phone in the car and didn’t talk to each other. I didn’t allow phones at the kitchen table. I constantly made them put their phones away. But a kid might feel different. She might feel as though Mom is patently unfair. In revision, I had to remember how Karma felt about her phone, not me, the Mom. When I had Karma name her phone Floyd, I got back into a child head space.

One of my favorite authors is Beverly Clearly because she remembered what it was like to be a child.

For example, Cleary’s Ramona Quimby, Age 8, focuses on tension over a beloved eraser. As an adult, it is too easy to forget the attachment that children have to small inanimate objects. Sometimes as grown-ups, we see things merely as tools whereas to a child an eraser is an entire sensory experience and imbued with magic. When Ramona first receives her eraser, this is how her new treasure is described: “smooth, pearly pink, smelling softly of rubber, and just right for erasing pencil lines.”

Unfortunately, this treasure is taken away from her on the bus by some boys. To an adult, losing an eraser may seem trivial, but to Ramona, it’s a catastrophe. From an eight-year-old perspective, it is not just a common school supply, but a “beautiful pink eraser.”

It’s so easy to forget what it’s like to be truly young. In order not to forget, my kids’ preschool teacher, Mz. Lori, would have us adults do this exercise.

  1. Lift up your hands over your head.
  2. Hold them there for 3-5 minutes (it’s not easy) and march in place.

That is what is feels like to be a young child out on a walk and holding an adult’s hand.

What do you do to get back into the child mindset?

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). And her nonfiction picture book, If You Were a Princess: True Stories of Brave Leaders From Around the World is a look at historical and current princesses from many diverse lands who have made their mark (Simon & Schuster, August 2022). During the year, Hillary teaches at Sonoma State University. In the summer, she teaches in the graduate program in children’s 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 Instagram, her Facebook page as well as on Twitter

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Middle Grade Writing Opportunities for the End of School

By on May 12, 2023   /   For Teachers  

Merry and marvelous, the month of May! Congratulations to teachers, librarians, and parents of middle graders on the completion of another year of school. To everyone involved with education, amid the final projects, end-of-year grading, and graduation to whatever is next, the end of school brings a chance to reflect and draw conclusions about the year’s accomplishments. For middle graders, May might bring the end of a year spent with a beloved teacher or the end of their stint in a particular school building. These kinds of upcoming endings can prime students emotionally for reflection, journaling, and other writing activities in the classroom as the days wind down toward summer. Consider celebrating the end of the school year with some MG writing activities geared toward endings.

The End of the Story

Plenty of creative writing assignments allow students to work up a great first line…but since it’s the end of the year, challenge your MG writers to compose nothing but the last line of a piece of original fiction. They might start by filling in a simple activity sheet that lays out the story’s premise (genre, setting, protagonist, conflict, point of view, major themes, atmosphere). Notes in the form of brief phrases or bullet points might help them to fully envision this story they haven’t actually written. Students then compose the last line(s) in a way that both demonstrates the thematic undertones of the tale and brings a sense of closure.

You might encourage your middle graders by reviewing the great books you’ve covered over the year – read the last line aloud, take guesses the title, and have small groups recall the components of the book’s premise so that they are more confident in creating their own. (What a great opportunity to review the works your class has read and run through associated literary devices they will need the next year!) Once they recall the premise, point out that last lines often encapsulate characterization, theme, tone, and genre elements. Some good examples:

  • I’m Lanesha. Born with a caul. Interpreter of symbols and signs. Future engineer. Shining love. I’m Lanesha. I’m Mama Ya-Ya’s girl.    (Ninth Ward, Jewell Parker Rhodes)
  • That’s what a real Florida boy would do. (Hoot, Carl Hiaasen)
  • …but always,/to know that/the world is not/meant to be feared,/and that water,/beautiful water,/will always mean/play.  (Odder, Katherine Applegate)
  • “Until then,” Annemarie told him, “I will wear it myself.”  (Number the Stars, Lois Lowry)

 

Great Endings of Long Ago

For the creative nonfiction writers in your group, a short writing project that explores significant historical endings might be of interest. Consider establishing research and investigation time into these and other history topics, then set writers to the task of composing brief paragraphs that sum up individual events leading to the end. Each student might contribute 1 or more paragraphs, each on a separate 5×8 index card; then students can work together to order and display their events timeline-style. Paragraphs could take on the style of a journalistic headliner or a fiction back cover blurb for practice in modeling specific writing approaches.

Some possibilities:

  • The end of the prehistoric period
  • The “Fall” of the Roman Empire
  • The end of the Revolutionary War
  • The surrender of Lee at Appomattox
  • The eradication of smallpox

 

Endings Mean New Beginnings

With sensitivity in mind for individual circumstances, consider allowing middle grade writers to brainstorm and journal about a local organization, business, or event that met its end in their lifetimes—for example, a favorite town diner that might have closed, or the dissolution of a town gathering during the pandemic—and accompanying fresh starts, such as a new popular restaurant or a reboot of a local festival. Writers also might brainstorm school groups or activities that shifted or changed over the course of their time in the building.

In another interesting angle, students write about the end of particular technologies that have grown obsolete just in their lifetimes and the resulting new tech. Expand this topic to a prediction exercise in which the MG imagination can speculate on current advances that may end within 1-3 years and the consequential new inventions that will take the place of the old.

Some ideas for technologies whose popularity and widespread use came to an end in the last ten years:

  • AOL Instant Messenger
  • Plasma TVs
  • Microsoft Kinect
  • Google Plus
  • Windows phone

No matter how you choose to reflect upon and celebrate the school year’s end, I hope your MG students find fun and fulfillment in their last writing projects, and I hope everyone’s summer is soon off to a safe, happy start!

 

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HOW TO RAISE A RHINO–Interview with Deb Aronson

By on May 3, 2023   /   Articles, For Kids, For Parents, For Teachers  

I am over the moon excited to welcome Deb Aronson today. Deb’s new book, How to Raise a Rhino releases this month.

Anna Merz is My Kind of Hero

I have to tell you, how impressed I was to learn about Anna Merz. She  is a strong, adventurous woman who fought to save a nearly extinct species, and you can learn all about her Deb Aronson’s new book, How to Raise a Rhino.

A Little About How to Raise a Rhino

How to Raise a Rhino is a nonfiction book that tells how Anna Merz retired to Kenya and found her true calling— Kifaru Mama (Rhino Mama).

After Anna witnessed the slaughter of black rhinos for their parts, she became determined to rescue the highly endangered black rhino. Black rhinos can be thought of as the dodo of the modern world — ungainly creatures destined for extinction. They may not have the beauty of a cheetah, the majesty of an elephant or the smarts of a dolphin, but they needed saving. Anna, small, older white woman stepped up.

She fostered (and fell in love with) an abandoned rhino, established a sanctuary for these wonderful creatures, and brought international attention to this species in peril!

Let’s Get to Know Deb       

What take home message do you hope readers find in your book?

I hope young readers understand Anna’s story as a window into the vast range of options they have in their lives. When I was a tween, I had no idea what grown ups did. I write biographies like this to give tweens an idea of things they might do. I purposefully don’t write about famous people because, at least in my mind, there’s no way I could do something a famous person does or has done.

What is your favorite part of the book?

I love the parts where Anna slowly learns, mostly through her relationship with Samia, the rhino she raises, that rhinos are far more nuanced and intelligent than she was led to believe.

If you could save an endangered species which species would you chose?

I’d love to go back in time to save the dodo! But really, I think one message of Anna’s work is, if you work to save one species from extinction, you end up helping many others. At the sanctuary,  Anna focused on black rhinos. The sanctuary also protected rare Grevy’s zebras, the endangered white rhino and several other threatened species.

What is the most exotic place you’ve travelled?

Well…I’m not sure the most exotic but in my younger days I was an archaeologist and for that work I traveled and worked in northern Syria with Kurdish workers. Our lingua franca was rudimentary Arabic – none of us spoke it well. I also traveled to Peru. My grandmother took me with her on a birding trip to Guatemala and Belize when I was in 7th grade. The average age of the group was 60!

Do you have another nonfiction project in the works?

I do! I’m working on a biography of Pauli Murray, whose work as a lawyer, civil rights activist, poet and early transgender activist resonates deeply with me. Like my own late mother (Margaret Aronson), Dr. Murray illustrates that, when you see something that is unjust, if you can do something to right that wrong, do it. Like Dr. Murray, my mother worked side by side with civil rights activist and fair housing champion, Morris Milgram, so that’s an interesting overlap!

Eager to Read More?

This whole conversation has me eager to learn more about endangered animals. After you’ve checked out How to Raise a Rhino, consider:
Will We Miss them?: Endangered Species (Nature’s Treasures) by Alexandra Wright and Marshall H. Peck. This is an introduction to the fascinating lives of endangered species.
Can You Save an Endangered Species? (You Choose Books) (You Choose: Eco Expeditions) by Eric Braun. With dozens of story outcomes, it’s up to the reader to save the animals from extinction—but they have to choose to help.
National Geographic The Photo Ark of Vanishing; The World’s Most Vulnerable Animals by Joel Sartore.

Still interested in more? Check out Stem Tuesday-Extinction-in the Classroom

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