For Teachers

Middle-Grade Meets the Moon

By on January 21, 2019   /   Book Lists, Curriculum Tie-in, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, STEM, Teacher Tips  

By the time this post goes live on Monday, January 21st,  we will have all experienced (or slept through) the Blood Supermoon Lunar Eclipse of 2019.  The eclipse is, of course, the passing of the moon through Earth’s shadow. The “blood” comes from the crimson and oranges colors that can be seen, and “supermoon” refers to the how large the moon appears due to its relative proximity to Earth.

NASA has prepared some very useful tools for parents and teachers, and even though the event has passed, everyone will be talking about it. What better time to investigate further? Look for NASA’s Teachable Moments for the 2019 total lunar eclipse here  and lunar eclipse moon lessons guide for teachers is available here.

And, what better time to bring the moon into our to-be-read lists?

Let’s make a list of middle-grade books that capture our imaginations using the mystery of the moon – at least in their titles. I’ll start. Please comment below with additions to this list!

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin is a Newbery Honor winner and it received the 2010 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature.

From Indiebound:  In the valley of Fruitless mountain, a young girl named Minli lives in a ramshackle hut with her parents. In the evenings, her father regales her with old folktales of the Jade Dragon and the Old Man on the Moon, who knows the answers to all of life’s questions. Inspired by these stories, Minli sets off on an extraordinary journey to find the Old Man on the Moon to ask him how she can change her family’s fortune.

 

 

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool is the 2011 Newbery Medal winning middle-grade tale of Abilene Tucker and a Kansas town called Manifest. Abilene navigates Manifest’s present and past mysteries in order to find the answers she’s been looking for.

This is one of my favorite middle-grade novels.

 

 

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

Thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle, proud of her country roots and the “Indian-ness in her blood,” travels from Ohio to Idaho with her eccentric grandparents. Along the way, she tells them of the story of Phoebe Winterbottom, who received mysterious messages, who met a “potential lunatic,” and whose mother disappeared.

As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe’s outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold—the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother.

 

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill is the winner of the 2017 Newbery Medal.  Wait. I’m seeing a pattern here. Are you? Wow! There are a lot of Newbery books with “moon” in the title!  Anyway, this book didn’t stop at the Newbery. It has racked up Best Book of 2016 Awards from School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Chicago Public Library, Entertainment Weekly and New York Public Library. Filled with mystery and wonder, magic and suspense, this is a book comes along once in blue moon. (I had to. I’m sorry.)

 

I haven’t read The Moon Within yet, but only because it isn’t out yet! The pub date for the Aida Salazar’s The Moon Within is February 26, 2019.  But, what a cover! WOW!

From Indiebound:Celi Rivera’s life swirls with questions. About her changing body. Her first attraction to a boy. And her best friend’s exploration of what it means to be genderfluid.

But most of all, her mother’s insistence she have a moon ceremony when her first period arrives. It’s an ancestral Mexica ritual that Mima and her community have reclaimed, but Celi promises she will NOT be participating. Can she find the power within herself to take a stand for who she wants to be? 

 

 

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a firm believer that picture books belong in middle-grade readers’ hands. So, although this is a picture book, I’m featuring Margaret and the Moon.   Written by Dean Robbins and Illustrated by Lucy Knisley, it is the true story of Margaret Hamilton, whose code writing for NASA helped put a man on the moon.

 

 

 

The Far-Out Guide to the Moon was written by Mary Kay Carson, who is one the Mixed-Up Files STEM Tuesday contributors.  A wealth of information and facts, the book makes an excellent addition to middle-grade reading lists.  Strike now while the lunar interest is hot and everyone is talking about the eclipse we had last night!

 

 

 

 

What titles would you add to our Middle-Grade Meets the Moon list? Drop them in the comments below!

 

 

 

 

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Finding Needles in the Haystack

By on January 18, 2019   /   Articles, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, STEM Tuesday  
STEM Tuesday blog page

Information.

It’s everywhere.

It’s all-encompassing.

We are knee deep and rising in the Information Age.

We are surrounded by it every minute of every day of our modern life.

We are writers and readers and teachers and librarians and we are all well aware of this information wave. I can’t count on all my fingers and all my toes the numbers of times just in the past month I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of information while doing book research. You know what I mean, right?

Case in point. A certain, not-to-be-named kidlit author researches the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library website looking for a reaction quote from Ike in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik and several hours later, discovers he’s “accidentally” read through the entire Eisenhower archived collection on Sputnik I.

As important as the information is, though, it’s as critical we are able to store and access that information. The difference between success and failure of an assignment or a project often lies in the ability to find the exact clear and concise data we are searching for without losing time chasing interesting, yet irrelevant information.

The library of humanity grows exponentially each passing day. We are swamped with data and overwhelmed by information. How each of us learns to store and retrieve information has become an important part of daily life. Digital data storage, for example, has evolved as fast and as far as anything else in the technology sector.

From the punch cards of mid-20th-century computers to today’s cutting-edge cloud storage options available to practically everyone, we have seen massive improvements in the past 50-years. We rely on thumb drives and smartphones as much or more than we mature folks used to rely on our 5-1/4” floppy disks.

Hannes Grobe/AWI [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]

The future of data storage looks incredible. There was a paper published in 2012 about using DNA to store digital information. Digital information which can be coded, carried, copied, and preserved in the genome of a microbe. We could possibly one day stream 2001: A Space Oddessey for the family get-together after retrieving the stored digital copy from the bread mold strain we keep in our pantry. An entire encyclopedia of knowledge stored in the philodendron on the window sill of your office? Maybe, just maybe.

Storing information is one thing. Retrieving it is another vital piece of the information pie. We need to be able to find the data we are looking for fast and accurately. Google, the Queen Mother of Internet Search Engines, uses crawling and indexing to find information—even those funny cat videos. And to make myself sound completely ludicrous, how about the magic of Boolean Search? 

Personally, I still have a soft spot in my digital heart for the old school search engine found in a library card catalog. There’s still something magical about sliding out the wood drawer of the cabinet, finding the book or topic you want, and scribbling the call number with a stubby pencil onto a piece of lime green recycled scrap paper. Then the moments of investigative anticipation while walking the stacks until you find the physical book on the shelf right where it belonged.

Information nerd heaven.

Enokson from Alberta, Canada [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

Okay, folks. In case you were beginning to wonder why I’m rambling on about information storage and retrieval, here’s the meat and potatoes of this post. Today, I have the honor of introducing a new feature for the From the Mixed-Up Files STEM Tuesday posts. When the other STEM Tuesday members said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be so helpful to teachers, librarians, readers, etc. if they could quickly search a topic for past STEM Tuesday posts?”, I said, “NO! It’s more fun to make everyone search blindly and wander around the entire blog archive for days and days! (Insert evil laugh)”

Needless to say, the STEM Tuesday team told me to shut up and go write an introductory post for the new feature. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the new feature:

A searchable database of STEM Tuesday content!

Thanks to programming and webmaster brilliance, we now have our own portal to assist teachers, readers, writers, and librarians sort through the STEM Tuesday library of past book lists, classroom activities, writing craft & resources, and author interviews. We hope this search tool makes it quicker and easier to find that one helpful piece of information.

So, without further delay, the STEM Tuesday Search Tool is live! Visit the STEMtuesday.com page and select a topic from the drop-down screen. Searching for MG STEM book info has never been easier.

(BREAKING NEWS! Next month, we’ll announce a contest to celebrate the STEM Tuesday Search Tool. We’re calling it The STEM Tuesday Search Party contest. Details are being finalized for the contest so I can’t tell you any specifics yet, except we already have a fabulous cache of prizes to offer. Stay tuned for the STEM Tuesday Search Party announcement on February 21, 2019!)

And remember, back up those files! Information is the currency of the digital age. Take care of your data!

No data storage system is perfect; even if it’s Tom Brady’s DNA we’re talking about.

 

 

 

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Interview and Two 30 Minute Skype Giveaways with Author Tara Lazar

By on January 4, 2019   /   For Librarians, For Teachers, For Writers  

I’d like to welcome Tara Lazar to the Mixed-Up Files blog. She’s an amazing author and has done so much to help the kidlit community as well as teachers, media specialists, and students.

Please tell us all about Storystorm and how you came up with the idea for it. 

Jealousy, that little green monster, is to blame. In November 2008, I saw writing friends post all about the amazing National Novel Writing Month challenge and I came down with a bad case of FOMO. So I thought–what kind of challenge could I create for picture books? Writing one manuscript in a month was not much of a challenge, and writing one every day for a month was pure insanity. So I thought maybe a story idea a day was doable—a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. I called it Picture Book Idea Month or PiBoIdMo, borrowing from the NaNoWriMo nomeclature. That year I did it on my own. The following year I decided to throw it up on my website. What the heck, right? Maybe a dozen people would participate with me. I had no expectations for it whatsoever.

 

I love how this evolved into Storystorm, where writers, illustrators, and students can use this challenge to come up with 30 story ideas in 31 days for any genre each January. You don’t have to write a manuscript (but you can if the mood strikes). You might think of a clever title. Or a name for a character. The object is to heighten your idea-generating senses. Ideas may build upon other ideas. Your list of potential stories will grow stronger as the days pass. On Tara’s blog, daily posts by authors, illustrators, editors and other publishing professionals will help inspire you. By the end of the month, you’ll have a fat file of ideas to spark new stories.

Sign up for this free idea challenge using this link by January 7 if you’d like the chance to win some amazing prizes! 

What are some great ways for teachers, media specialists, and parents to encourage kids to join in your challenge?  

Honestly, the daily posts are so much fun, they could easily spend just five minutes reading it with the students, then give the students five minutes to brainstorm. It’s just that easy and simple.

 

What has surprised you the most about Storystorm?  

How much writers love it. How many books have been created as a result. I had no idea it would resonate this strongly.

 

How has Storystorm helped writers and students?  

I think it helps everyone tune into their creativity. Creativity isn’t something that necessarily comes naturally. You have to make time and space for it, like anything else in life. The little daily motivation it provides is surprisingly powerful. And hopefully after thirty days, it becomes a habit.

 

If you were giving us a Storystorm Skype right now, how would you motivate us to come up with ideas? 

I often tell students that all you need for a story is a character and a problem. I tell them to just look around the room. Anything can be a character. The chair you’re sitting on. I mean, a chair has a lot to complain about, having all those butts on it all the time.

 

LOL! I wonder if we’ll see a chair book in your future. ?

How do participants keep track of their ideas and how detailed do they need to be?  

Whatever makes the most sense for that writer. A notebook. A Microsoft Word document. A note on your phone. The idea can be one word like “mustache” or a title or a sentence or an entire paragraph. These are your ideas, your rules.

 

Once people come up with all these ideas, what should their next steps be?  

They have to decide what idea calls to them the most, what would make an interesting story. I find I get a gut reaction from certain ideas—they just beg to be written. Maybe not immediately, maybe they just simmer in my brain awhile, but I know I want to write that idea. If you do not get a gut reaction, maybe share your ideas with trusted critique partners or writing friends to see what they think. What idea sounds most promising? This isn’t an exact science, either. Maybe you need to build on your existing ideas until you get an AHA moment. Experiment. Try writing something. You never know what will happen. I love the act of discovery as I am writing a story. Some start out one way and then veer off in a different direction. I then step back and refine the story concept.

 

That’s great advice, Tara! Sometimes I find that a few ideas mesh together into an amazing one. Between the inspiring daily blog posts and Storystorm community, the ideas usually flow for me, but I found a few tricks to spark ideas on slower days, thanks to some of your wonderful archived posts. The ones I use most are 500+ Things That Kids Like and 100+ Things Kids Don’t Like. I also scroll back to posts from previous years, for both Storystorm and the original PiBoIdMo. Tammi Sauer’s posts are always a huge help!

What are some of your favorite tools and tricks for coming up with as many unique ideas as possible?

Get out and live life. I have gotten so many ideas from things that happen to me or things I see around me. The difference is being aware that something can be an idea. If you want lightning to strike, you need to hold a lightning rod. (OK, I don’t mean that literally.) But going through a normal day—knowing in the back of your mind that you are seeking inspiration—causes inspiration to visit. You are looking at the world through a different lens.

 

You have been on fire with your amazing picture books. Huge congratulations to you and all your lucky readers! What are some great ways that teachers and media specialists can use picture books with 9 – 11 year-old students?

Can you find the blue eyeball monster?

I find that the older students are so sharp at picking out hidden humor in picture books and noticing small details. Some of my illustrators have included tiny characters in multiple pages of our books. In 7 ATE 9, there is a tiny mouse in the office of the daring Private I. Who is that mouse? He has his own story. What is it? In THE MONSTORE, there is a furry blue eyeball monster that appears on sixteen pages of the book. Who is he? What is he watching for?

Picture books often have extra characters in their pages—ones who never receive a single line of text from the author. This is a technique many picture book artists utilize to lend more depth to a story.

Have students flip through any picture book to find a recurring background character. They can then write a story from that character’s point of view.

 

That’s a great exercise to use with students. First, they put on a detective hat to find the recurring character and then create a new story from another point of view. Brilliant!

Thank you again for stopping by the Mixed-Up Files, Tara. Your challenge has always been amazing for me (I’ve come up with 40 – 90 ideas each year). I’m so grateful for all the work you put into it and everything you do for writers and readers.

Good luck to everyone who is participating in Storystorm! If you haven’t joined the Facebook group yet, hop on over for some cheers plus even more support and inspiration as your ideas multiply in this fun challenge. I hope the ideas flow and that you discover tons of gems that turn into incredible stories in 2019.

 

Tara has generously donated two half hour Skype visits. Thank you so much, Tara! One is open to everyone—you can ask Tara publishing questions or for extra Storystorm inspiration. The second is a thirty minute Skype school visit for teachers and media specialists—the topic will be decided between Tara and the winner. Teachers and media specialists may enter both Rafflecopter widgets.

Winners will be posted on January 10th. Good luck, everyone!  

You can find out more about Tara Lazar on her website, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. Don’t forget to join the supportive Storystorm Facebook group and check out the challenge chat on Twitter.

Here is the Skype visit that everyone can enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Here is the classroom Skype visit for teachers and media specialists.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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