Writing

Keys. Journal. Imaginations.

By on January 12, 2018   /   Book Lists, Diversity, Fiction, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Nonfiction, Writing  

I recently read Wishtree by Katherine Applegate. I loved this story of children creating change in their community through innocent acceptance.

At the heart of story lies a mysterious key. What does it belong to? And, once discovered, what secrets would be revealed from its home?

I was looking for my extra set of car keys the other day, and I came upon these.

23 keys.

They’ve all traveled with us as we moved into our new home six months ago, and yet, not one of them serves a purpose here. Except one, which is to my garage door. I guess I’d better figure out which one that is.

But, where do the rest belong? Their secrets remain with their notched blades, their wards a mystery.

Samar and Stephen, the two young protagonists of Wishtree, discover that their key, bestowed upon them by Bongo, an animated crow, opens a journal which holds a wish from the distant past. Their sleuthing changes the fate of Red, the long-standing neighborhood oak.

The keys now sit on my desk, as I’ve resolved to figure out which portals they fit into, or likely not, before repurposing them. They have found a temporary home next to a journal that is significant to my personal storyline.

It is a journal given to me by my friend Michelle Houts, editor of the Biographies for Young Readers series I’ve written for. My first contribution shares the life journey of Mildred “Millie” Benson, the original ghostwriter of Nancy Drew. The cover and contents of my gift are from The Secret of Red Gate Farm, a Nancy Drew Mystery Story written by Millie. There are lined journal pages in between the text. How cool is that?

I’ve got over a dozen journals, filled with reflections from our family adventures to all 50 states, notes from writing workshops, and musings.

Yet, this one was special, and its purpose needed to be just that.

I’ve determined it is to be my story idea journal. I get inspirations for stories, both imagined and real, daily. My challenge is finding that one, perfect idea, sticking to it, and finishing it.

I’m certain that my fellow Mixed-Up blog contributors are the same. Life presents us with story all the time. And, for those of you teachers and librarians whose days are filled with characters and plots, I encourage you to start writing them down too.

Find that one key that fits somewhere, and explore it. Use it to unlock your imagination and share the journey with children. They need our stories of acceptance, kindness and empathy.

This is my wish and goal for 2018, and it will be discovered in my journal. All I need to do is look, unravel that one unique, shiny, mysterious idea, and then help it find its place in the world.

As for those other keys? This may be their perfect ending.

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Paper Love: An Author’s Challenge to Writers of All Ages

By on January 10, 2018   /   Cross-Curricular, Curriculum Tie-in, Diversity, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  

Like most authors, I love getting fan mail. I mean, wow! There’s nothing more affirming than THIS:

I’d venture to say that I get more mail than most marginally-known authors. But not because I’m more popular. In fact, sometimes I get letters that ask, “So, what do you do for a living?” You’d think if they’re writing to me, they’d already know. Right?

Not always. Sometimes I do get mail from my young readers. But often, my mailbox is stuffed with letters from those who’ve found the 52 Letters Challenge. Maybe they came across it on my website, in which case they’ve figured out that I’m an author. But sometimes they’ve picked it up from a blog post or by word of mouth. Maybe their teacher has compelled the class to take part. It doesn’t really matter to me how they got the idea to write 52 letters in a year. It matters that they’ve embarked on a writing journey that will make someone’s day. Once a week. For a whole year.

When I started the 52 Letter Challenge, I had no idea how far it would reach. People from Australia, Singapore, and Poland have joined the fun.

Sound do-able? Daunting? Like drudgery?

There was a time when letter-writing was a necessary part of communicating. While writing the biographies of Charley Harper, Dottie Kamenshek, and Emma “Grandma” Gatewood, I depended heavily upon letters written decades ago. Letters to and from and about these individuals provided key information and a unique personal perspective not found in newspaper articles.

A letter from artist Charley Harper to Edith McKee during his years serving in the army during WWII. He called her “Ediepie.”

It makes me wonder how research will be done in the future. With so much communication happening via email and texting, how will those conversations be recovered by researchers? They likely won’t be.  Think of the ideas, feelings, thoughts, reactions, emotions, and responses that will go undocumented. Sure, there will be articles and interviews, but those often contain a person’s most guarded answers to questions.

Next time you decide to send an email of appreciation, consider writing a thank-you note. If you want to text “I love you” to your momma, baby, or sweetheart, by all means, do it! And then put it on paper with a big heart beside it and place it in their hands. I guarantee paper love goes into a box or drawer to be treasured later. E-love will be felt at the time, but it will disappear with the rest of today’s million messages.

A little paper love from my big girl!

Send some paper love to someone today.

 

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Sparking the Imagination with Written Imagery

By on December 13, 2017   /   Book Lists, children's bookstores, Common Core & NGSS, Cross-Curricular, Curriculum Tie-in, Fiction, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, independent bookstores, Nonfiction, Writing  

As a classroom teacher of upper MG readers, I’ve been wondering lately on the constant technological pummeling we get from images—gaming, TV, movies, computers, tablets, phones. Screened devices have a powerful attention-grabbing effect on kids, and with so many stimulating colors, photos, Snapchat animations, and videos to look at, the modern-day imagination is contending with a very different ball of yarn than in decades past. It’s great that we can Google-Machine “Roman Empire ruins” and see hundreds of pictures, and it’s fun to test our eye-hand coordination by slashing air-borne fruit, chopping ropes, or helping a chicken across a road. But for many readers, after all that color and movement and music, the imagination may balk a bit when given black words on a white page.

For that reason, it might be pretty difficult for a middle grade teacher, parent, librarian, or writer to hook readers on books with descriptive passages, figurative language, or a generally more literary bent. But instead of avoiding imagery, it may be more important than ever to give readers an opportunity to envision and imagine through the words on the page. We should strive to provide work-out routines and fitness centers for the imagination in our stories through language and description. Inclusion of imagery in MG stories will complement the reader’s experience and ultimately improve and enhance the reader’s imagination. And imagination is important in any setting, as it drives flexible thinking and creative problem solving.

So, in order to spark readers’ imaginations, how do you recognize good imagery in MG works, and how do you write your own? Here are some qualities typically associated with imagery:

  • Imagery is language that employs a mental use of the five senses.
  • It can use certain figurative language devices like similes and metaphors, personification, and hyperbole, but it can exist without any other lit devices being present, too.
  • Good imagery isn’t fluffy or fancy or filled with words you’d find on the SAT. Sometimes, in fact, incredibly simple syntax and short phrases make up excellent imagery.
  • Imagery lets you see, touch, taste, hear, and smell the surroundings  in the character’s world, and it draws the reader in with those experiences.
  • Most importantly, good imagery leads the imagination off-leash—it guides, but never forces. The imagination has to be allowed to run free, if it’s to grow strong.

Here are some scenes in three works of MG fiction with imagery to consider:

Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. The description of Camazotz is brilliantly creepy in its simplicity. L’Engle’s choice of short, clipped words and phrases reflect the vision concocted in the reader’s imagination of this austere town where anomalies are forbidden:

Below them the town was laid out in harsh angular patterns. The houses in the outskirts were all exactly alike, small square boxes painted gray. Each had a small, rectangular plot of land in front, with a straight line of dull-looking flowers edging the path to the door.

Things get more eerie with the rhythmical description of the kids outside all those houses, girls jumping rope and boys bouncing balls:

Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers.

The imagery prompts our imaginations to not only see Camazotz but to hear and feel its driving beat, too.

Sarah Jean Horwitz’s Carmer and Grit, Book One: The Wingsnatchers. Big, immediate conflicts or surprised exclamations from characters can work beautifully as openers in MG fiction and nonfiction. But atmospheric imagery can be used just as masterfully to hook the reader into the story. In this book, the two-and-a-half-page opener has no dialogue and no loud clatter of forces. But the tone of mystery, the discordant sounds, and the symbolic light/darkness imagery all work together to pull the reader in:

At the South Gate, just outside the winding iron bars, the Autocat waits. Its jeweled eyes gleam in the darkness. It watches as each golden lantern on the pathway blinks out, one by one, and it growls–a rough, scraping sound like metal on metal, a sound never heard in the garden before. The creature slinks off into Skemantis’s black night, its mission accomplished.

Karen Hesse’s Letters from Rivka. Good imagery keeps firmly in the voice of the 1st person character, in this case, a young Russian refugee fleeing to America in 1919 and seeing Poland for the first time:

The same crooked cottages, the same patchy roads, the same bony fences leaning in to the dust. Looking out from the train, we see people dressed like us, in browns and blacks; people wrapped in layers of clothes.

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to share thoughts you have on imagery in MG writing, or name some writers you enjoy who do a great job at sparking readers’ imaginations.

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