For Writers

Boy book, girl book… or just a book?

By on October 19, 2015   /   Op-Ed, Writing  

So, the little one and I were perusing Halloween costumes last night. (I’d like to say that I’m one of those super crafty, Pinterest-moms who can fashion a fairy outfit from a roll of tulle, some glitter, and two-sided tape. But, no… I’d probably end up taping the kid to the dog, covering myself in glitter, and hot-glue gunning my fingers together. I much prefer to get my costumes the old-fashioned way — direct from Amazon Prime.)

Anyway, the little one excitedly tells me she wants to dress up in a Minecraft costume this year, and I think — yay! That should be easy, right? I mean, every kid under the age of ten is pretty much obsessed with the ubiquitous computer block game. I figure there have to be a ton of costume choices available.

And there were! Tons of choices! For boys…

Yes, no matter how hard we searched, little one and I couldn’t find a girl’s Minecraft costume. Anywhere. Lots of “Steves” and “Creepers.” But no girl characters. At all. Surprising — and kind of sad — considering half of the Minecraft players out there are most certainly girls. I can only guess that someone determined Minecraft=video/computer game=”boy” thing, so why bother with a girl costume?

This got me thinking about books (as things often do), and the gender assumptions we make about the kids who read them. I’ve often heard it said that boys are reluctant readers who need shorter, more action-packed stories to stay engaged. Girls, on the other hand, will allegedly read across genres and can make it through longer, more complex stories. (Ironically, this theory hasn’t held true in my own highly un-scientific sample of two — ie, the children who live in my house. My son has always been an avid reader who can become engrossed in a book for hours, while my daughter prefers drawing and watching videos to reading).

Which makes me wonder — are we doing our kids a disservice when we make such broad assumptions about what boys and girls will read/play with/dress up as for Halloween? If so, what can we do better? Is it a matter of just removing labels, like at Disney and Target? Is it ensuring that books are marketed to all children — not just by gender — as this nationwide campaign in the UK advocates? Or is it something deeper/different?

Tell me, what do you think? Should there be boy books? Girl books? Or just books? Share your thoughts in the comments below… right now, I’ve got a Minecraft costume to make. (And sorry, if you don’t hear back from me right away, it’s because my fingers are glued shut…)

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Settings that Come Alive!

By on October 16, 2015   /   Book Lists, Fiction, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Nonfiction, Writing  

After many years of taking writing classes and reading books about writing while I’ve struggled to learn the craft (a life-long pursuit!), I’ve come to realize that I have a knack for creating “beautifully realized settings”( said School Library Journal).

I adore developing the setting in each of my books and that’s probably because I’m in love with exploring the world, other cultures & people and history. Research means I get to Travel and a Trip means my antennae are on alert the entire time picking up cool tidbits.

My fourth book with Scholastic, The Time of the Fireflies, is also the fourth magical realism story I’ve set in the bayou/swamp country of Louisiana with Cajun culture, baby gators, and Spanish moss dripping from the oak trees. Time of the Fireflies_Cover

From the very first time I went out on a boat with a Cajun fisherman into the swamp and fed bits of chicken to eight-foot alligators sidling up to the boat, I was spinning a story in my mind within fifteen minutes. I knew I HAD to write about a girl who lived in this magical world with its hidden beauties and dangers.

After I spent three years reading everything I could get my hands on and taking another, longer research trip, I came home so inspired I drafted The Healing Spell in three weeks.

I’m in love with the beauty and mystery of that part of Louisiana (from Lafayette down along Highway 90 East to New Orleans) and I’ve visited often for more than 15 years now. I’ve been to practically every small town, eaten  crawfish etouffee and gumbo ( I make a mean gumbo now!), adventured on boat trips with native fisherman on several bayous and read dozens of books about the Louisiana history, language, and customs. A journey filled with love and so many special memories.The Healing Spell paperback cover

I’m not saying that you have to delve that deeply into a locale to bring it alive in a story or novel, but whether I’m writing about the deserts of the Southwest or the ancient Middle East (ie. my recent novel, FORBIDDEN, Harpercollins) or a family living on the edge of the swamp, I do pay attention to setting in lots of little ways.

 

Tips for Creating a Setting that Feels like You’re Really There:

1. While out “on location” in the real world (even if it’s just a trip to the mall to listen to kids/teens interacting), pay attention to not only what your eyes are taking in, but the sounds of the place, as well as the smells, the atmosphere, the mood, the culture, speech/language, the food, and touch/textures (as in petting baby gators!), and then weave those details into your story.

2. Caution: Don’t ever stop your story, the action, or dialogue of your characters to spend a lot of time describing these details. Be sure to incorporate unique tidbits of setting naturally into the prose or the flow of the P1000548“conversation”.

Like this brief scene (On a a hot summer night Livie is out frogging with her daddy): A cloud of mosquitoes flew into my face. One even raced straight into my mouth. I spit into the water and then tightly shut my lips. Daddy chuckled while he watched me flapping my arms. “Those mosquitoes so thick you gotta tie yourself to the boat so they don’t carry you off.”

Someone in California or Wyoming or Paris or Victorian England is going to describe an evening of annoying mosquitoes entirely differently.

3. Your character lives in his/her setting. Be sure to use the language that character would use, the language of “home” to them.

4. Metaphors/Similes: Whether your story takes place in Boston, the Southwest deserts, ancient Egypt, San Francisco, a tropical island, the Florida Keys, or the plains of Kansas, use language and words a character would use in those locales. For a character that lives in small-town Alabama, they’re not going to use the same adjectives/descriptions to describe their l

ife and their world and their point of view as the child of a fisherman living on the seashore in Maine is going to.

baby alligators compressed size

5. Relate how your character interacts with their setting. What do they think of where they live? What do they notice? What’s importan

t to someone of that setting? What do they love/hate about where they live and how are those emotions manifested?

Next time you read a novel or write your next chapter pay attention to how the setting is being used to bring a character or their world more fully to life. Can you feel the sweaty, blistering humid summer day, or the biting cold Vermont winter while tramping through the woods on snowshoes?

Setting makes any novel richer in a myriad of ways, and will bring a unique freshness to your own stories, too!

Kimberley Griffiths Little’s novels with Knopf and Scholastic have won several awards. The Time of the Fireflies was named a Bank Street College Best Books of 2015, a Whitney Award Finalist, a Letters of Mormon Arts Award Finalist, and was recently chosen for the William Allan White Kansas State Children’s Choice List for 2016-2017. 

Find Kimberley on Facebook. and Twitter @KimberleyGLittl. Teacher’s Guides, Mother/Daughter Book Club Guides, and fabulous book trailers filmed on location adorn Kimberley’s website.

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The best way to hear about a book

By on October 7, 2015   /   For Librarians, For Teachers, For Writers  

Flashback to high school. My best friend slid into the seat next to me on the bus and placed a well-worn paperback into my hands. “YOU HAVE TO READ THIS,” she said. “You just HAVE to.”

The cover was enough to draw me in — a forlorn-looking woman in a white dress, standing in a forest, a mysterious black-robed figure approaching her. But more than the cover, it was my friend’s recommendation that held all the weight in my fifteen-year old world. I started the book right there on the bus.

greendarkIt was, by the way, Green Darkness by Anya Seton, a historical romance novel with themes of reincarnation and witchcraft. You may not have heard of it, but believe me, it was the teen equivalent of Eleanor & Park back in the day. At least in my high school. We were all reading it and passing it along to a friend.

Fast forward umpteen years later, and I’m now an author myself. On a recent school visit, I saw a girl hand another girl a paperback and whisper, “You have to read this. It’s so good. It’s the best book I ever read.”

My heart leaped. In this age of online everything, a time so different than when I grew up, the same personal reader-to-reader moment was still happening?

Witnessing the exchange between the two girls made me think about the question many authors have been known to obsess over — exactly how do young readers find books today? Most authors I know promote their books in every avenue possible — trailers, blog tours, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, marketing campaigns, bookstore visits, Goodreads.

It can be quite exhausting, to be honest.

I asked an agent at a recent writer’s conference what really sells books these days, and her answer made everyone in the room laugh. “If we knew the answer to that,” she said, “we’d all be millionaires.”

So with kids and teachers and librarians on the receiving end of all this virtual publicity today, I’ve often wondered, do kids even recommend books to each other anymore? Is word of mouth still relevant?

Secrets_Greeting_Cards_Signature_Cards-500x500I want to share part of an email I received recently from a 12-year old reader:

“So I don’t like to read but my friend told me I should read this book so I went to the library and checked it out. It was amazing! This makes me want to read more books. All I want to say is thank you for writing this book. And by the way, it was published on my birthday!”

Every author loves fan mail, but this one in particular touched my heart because the reader found my book through a friend’s suggestion. And I have to admit, I’m always thrilled when I visit schools and libraries that reinforce the personal aspect of finding books.

I’ve seen book trees in school libraries where kids write mini reviews, a favorite paperback swap event, and a lobby bulletin board where kids post book recommendations for their peers. Several public libraries post reviews on their site written by teens, or have a teen reader’s board in place.

2815a0451194418bbb1e9bdbe8a893ecI truly hope that these type of word of mouth recommendations will always continue to be part of our reading world, no matter how technologically connected future generations become. Nothing can replace that well-worn paperback passed from friend to friend with the ultimate stamp of approval: “You HAVE to read this.”

 

Michele Weber Hurwitz is the author of The Summer I Saved the World in 65 Days and Calli Be Gold, both from Wendy Lamb Books. She still has a copy of Green Darkness in case you want to borrow it. Find her at micheleweberhurwitz.com.

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