Posts Tagged children’s books

A Sense of Atmosphere

By on March 19, 2018   /   For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  

As an artistic quality, atmosphere is easy to spot—sometimes. A moment of high suspense in a scary movie, for example, is highlighted with an accompanying soundtrack; a musical comedy in a theatre might showcase brightly painted backdrops and set pieces. In literature, though, atmosphere must be conveyed through descriptive phrases and other text details. It might be a little more challenging to cultivate atmosphere in books, but it’s just as important for the audience. A convincing sensory environment in a story makes for a tale in which one can get lost, a quality sought by all readers—and certainly by middle grade. Memorable and fulfilling books allow the reader to step inside, breathe the air, sense the mood—these are books with atmosphere.

Since setting and atmosphere are so intertwined, let’s break down setting first: How does a writer create a setting that pulls the reader along for a trip outside their ordinary? It’s a skill worth practicing if you write middle grade, and one worth recognizing if you are a parent, teacher, or librarian. Setting is a lot more involved than its old standby definition you probably learned in elementary school (the time and place of the action). Setting is indeed time and place, but also consider:

  • Weather
  • Hour of day
  • Season and month of year
  • Landscape
  • Geography (natural and manmade)
  • Color, lighting, and shading (of outdoor or indoor light source)
  • Regionalism (the dialect, customs, traditions, and local setting characteristics in a story)
  • Communication systems, language, and vernacular
  • Environment
  • Character observations
  • Socioeconomic factors
  • Back and forth flow of time: impact of past (events, family) and expectations of future

Whew! And when used effectively, the setting details can help this necessary story element become an extraordinary component—one that allows a reader to sink in for a more fulfilling read. All of these setting characteristics work collectively to create the offshoot of a well-composed, well-built world: atmosphere.

Atmosphere is tricky to define, but most literary terminology sources suggest it has to do with the mood or overall “feel” of the scene, based on the setting description, tone, and other literary devices. The mood of the character can match this mood in the air of the scene, but it doesn’t have to. In fact, sometimes the actions and attitudes of the characters can serve as a literary foil to the atmosphere, heightening suspense or making a bittersweet mood even more poignant.

How does a writer cultivate atmosphere? Imagery, word choice, and connotation all contribute, as do character reactions and pace. Some figurative language devices like symbolism and metaphor can add to the developed atmosphere, as well. When seeking inspiration for establishing atmosphere, writers might use photographs, illustrations, history, music, colors, travel experiences, dreams, patterns, and nature.

From my to-be-read pile, I chose a few middle grade openings to think about in terms of atmosphere: one realistic, one sci-fi, and one fantasy.

The Ethan I Was Before by Ali Standish – In the opening chapters of this first-person novel, the atmosphere is heavy and uncomfortable, much like the oppressive heat in Ethan’s new town of Palm Knot, Georgia. As a twelve-year-old boy terribly conflicted over the loss of his best friend, his narration has few lengthy descriptive passages. But Standish provides all the right details through environment, weather, temperature, and observations about this sleepy locale (a rusty parked truck, an untended baseball field, a cracked highway, a murky bay) that readers need in order to feel like they’ve stepped into its atmosphere.

Last Day on Mars by Kevin Emerson – This middle grade science fiction offers up opening chapters with a crisp, tense, nervy atmosphere in which the conflict increases at an alarm-inducing pace. Set in Earth Year 2213, humans living in a Martian colony must evacuate the planet and its rapidly deteriorating conditions. A prelude serves up danger and emotion before delivering a fearful and mysterious clue; here, descriptions are futuristically foreign, yet technologically familiar enough to pull readers in. The main characters resist an acknowledgement of the danger throughout the first chapter, which only serves to increase the suspense. As a solar radiation storm begins to flare, protagonists Phoebe and Liam start a quest of discovery in an atmosphere of uncertainty and confusion.

A Single Stone by Meg McKinlay — This middle grade dystopian abounds with atmosphere from the first paragraph. Young protagonist Jena has a crucial job to perform for her isolated society—she is the leader of a small team of girls who must find harvests of mica inside the mountain. In the opening pages, Jena is crawling through a narrow, natural crevice with only a thin rope connecting her to the six other girls who follow her lead. In the dark, with the chilly rock of the mountain hugging her close on all sides, every movement and every touch seems amplified and intense; the reader immediately feels as if she too is crawling, squirming, wishing for a harvest spot, counting on having enough air to keep going. The dark, the mountain, even the bones Jena happens to grasp accidentally all work to establish a tangible, claustrophobic opening atmosphere—though, paradoxically, Jena seems to feel no such confinement.

The atmosphere of each title considered here had me invested as a reader from the opening chapters. Feel free to comment on the post if you know of a great, atmospheric MG to recommend, or with how-to ideas for writing settings and situations with strong atmosphere! Thanks for reading!

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Reading Roundup: Three Middle Grade Standouts

By on March 14, 2018   /   Book Lists, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, New Releases  

It’s hard to keep up with all the exciting new releases in middle grade fiction that have crossed my desk in the last few months. But there are three from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, I need to crow about. They couldn’t be more different from one another. But each has a plot that will leave young readers breathless and each has characters that will win hearts and minds.

I’ll start with CHECKED by Cynthia Kadota, because although I’m not usually interested in sports books or hockey, I loved it! To the story’s protagonist, eleven-year-old Conor, nothing is more important than playing hockey – and his policeman dad, who was a hockey player himself, supports his son’s dream of playing professionally. But when Conor’s beloved Doberman, Sinbad is diagnosed with cancer, everything begins to change. The dog’s treatment is barely affordable and Conor begins doing odd jobs around the neighborhood to help out with the costs. Soon he begins noticing other people’s problems, like those of his elderly neighbors. Conor is the kind of kid you’d want your kid to be. And his dad is the kind of dad you wish every kid had. The relationship between them is real and totally heart-warming. You can’t help believing in these two. What great role models for young readers!

  The electrifying ESCAPE FROM ALEPPO by N.H. Senzai, takes place at the beginning of the Arab Spring in 2010. It’s the story of twelve-year-old Nadia, who becomes separated from her family as they flee the bombing of Aleppo. Her harrowing journey to reunite with them at the Turkish border brings readers deep inside the danger and uncertainty of the escape. Together with Ammo Mazen, a mysterious old man who takes her under his wing, Nadia makes her way through the city where soldiers and rebel gangs threaten their existence. But as Ammo Mazen weakens, Nadia must develop the courage and resourcefulness to help herself and her friend. It’s a hopeful ending, but young readers won’t soon forget this emotionally wrenching exploration of the war in Syria and its awful cost.

  At the beginning of Avi’s book, THE PLAYER KING, a 15th century scullion named Lambert Simnel is working in a rough tavern in Oxford. Lambert has no family he knows of. He isn’t even sure of his age, which he guesses at “nine, ten or even thirteen.” But because of his resemblance to young Prince Edward, the missing heir to England’s throne, Lambert is purchased by two villains, Brother Simonds and the Earl of Lincoln, who forcibly educate him in the ways of royalty. The villains’ purpose is to have Lambert claim Prince Edward’s identity as the true king, opposing King Henry VII, who sits on the throne in Edward’s stead. It’s an Avi tale for sure—the kind in which the Newbery Award-winning author brings the twisted history of Medieval England to life with all the intrigue and color of the times. Fast paced and action-packed, this new release is sure to please the author’s many fans!

 

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STEM Tuesday Field Work — In the Classroom

By on March 13, 2018   /   Common Core & NGSS, Cross-Curricular, Curriculum Tie-in, Field Work, For Teachers, STEM Tuesday  

Exploring “In the Field”

When you think of scientists working in the field, what do you imagine? I imagine them venturing to remote, possibly dangerous sites. Then again, some field work is closer to home, less rugged. And, as this month’s books reveal, modern field work can sometime mean anxiously awaiting data and video feeds while a specially equipped drone or other remote sensing device ventures far from home. No matter what the exact circumstances may be, this month’s titles transport readers to many places and offer exciting tales of passionate scientists eager to answer their questions. Let’s begin diving into this theme with a look at underwater archaeology.

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgSubmerge Yourself in a Science Mystery

Secrets of a Civil War Submarine is packed with possible science learning connections. Especially relevant to this month’s theme is the archaeological practice of studying objects in situ, carefully documenting and noting the physical relationships among the artifacts at a site. Readers witness  this practice as author Sally M. Walker takes them to the murky, underwater field where the 150-year-lost historic H.L. Hunley was discovered. Here scientists meticulously record the locations and orientations of the objects on the site before removing anything from the site. Later, scientists carefully record the sub’s interior objects’ spatial relationships before extracting them for study. The importance of preserving these details becomes clear when the data later prove important in answering scientists’ questions.

You can enhance students’ appreciation of the value of this information with a simple lesson involving different arrangements of a set of objects undergoing different events.

For example, imagine a site that includes a computer mouse, piece of paper, computer, glass, chair, desk. Ask students to sketch or create 3D scenes of these artifacts’ positions and orientations based on each of the following scenarios:

Scenario A: A left-handed person seated in front of a computer spilled a glass of water on a computer keyboard. Then the person jumped away from the desk, knocking over the chair.

Scenario B: A right-handed person seated in front of a computer fainted and fell out of the chair, knocking over a glass of water.

Scenario C: A left-handed person carrying a glass of water walked toward the desk, approaching it from the right, when a dog ran through the room from left to right, first toppling the chair, then bumping the person, which made the glass of water fall out of his/her hands.

Discuss how (and why) the layout of the artifacts varies in each of the representations, providing unique clues to each event. If you are feeling more adventurous, you might try either of these variations:

  • Before the activity, prepare secret assignment cards. On each card, print only one scenario but make sure A, B, and C are all represented in the class pile of cards. Randomly distribute the cards to student pairs, who must then sketch or use model artifacts to show the event. Next, each team can examine another team’s scene, making careful observations and beginning to make inferences about what happened to result in the objects’ arrangements.  After revealing the three scenarios, challenge students to infer which of the scenarios each student representation seems to match (and why). Discuss the observations and inferences that are related to the spatial relationships among the artifacts, and how they provide clues to a prior event.

 

  • For a more open-ended challenge, ask student pairs interpret other sketches as much as possible, without telling them what the three scenarios are. Support student thinking with questions such as:
    • What’s similar/different between the scene you are looking at and the one you just created? Do you think the scenario implied here is the same or different from the scenario that informed the scene you created? Why?
    • If different, what details about the event can you infer from the scene? What evidence supports your ideas? What is unexplained?

Looking at the entire set of scenes in the classroom, students might infer how many different scenarios are represented, using evidence to make arguments that support their claims. You might decline to tell students the answer, as archaeologists can never go back to the original witnesses and check their ideas.

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgStudy Primates in the Field

As a biography of a groundbreaking field scientist, Anita Silvey’s Untamed, the Wild Life of Jane Goodall covers a lot of territory, including an exciting glimpse into this pioneer’s experiences as a field scientist.

Help students envision a primate scientist’s field work by comparing their own daily routines to their understandings (based on the text) of Jane’s early work in the field. Students might log where they eat, what they have to do to get their food and water, and where and when they sleep. They can break the day down into an hour-by-hour log of activities. For comparison, they can read about Jane’s early field activities on pages 28-33. Pages 71 and 73-77 address some ways that chimpanzee scientists’ field work has changed. They won’t be able to make exact correlations between their days and details about the scientists’ experiences, but they’ll get a flavor of the differences. Ask students to reflect on what aspects of being a field-based primatologist might be most exciting and challenging.

An engaging way to convey the lure of primatologists’ field work is watching videos of primates in their habitats. Show students one or more of these clips (with or without the narration) and discuss their observations (what they see and hear) and inferences (what sense they or the narrator/scientists make of what is observed). You might use some of the ideas in December’s STEM Tuesday In the Classroom installment, which focused on zoology.

Individual animals’ “personalities” and their relationships with other group members are important.  Field scientists often learn to identify individuals by sight. Your students might enjoy trying to learn the names and details about the chimps pictured on pages 84-87, perhaps by creating flash cards with copies of their pictures on the front.

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgJourney into Meteorology and the Eye of the Storm

Of course, field studies extend beyond the bounds of biology, as you will see in Eye of the Storm: NASA, Drones, and the Race to Crack the Hurricane Code, by Amy Cherrix. While you might appreciate the extensive teacher’s guide  that offers many ideas for discussions and classroom activities, you might want to focus specifically on field work. If so, you might show NASA videos featuring drone missions to hurricanes, such as NASA Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HSE) – Studying Storms with the Global Hawk UAV. You can also sign up to connect your classroom to NASA’s airborne missions. If you do, you will gain access to the same video that NASA scientists see when they run the drone flights, and receive additional support.

As you might imagine, classic field-based weather observations make a great connection to this book. For example:

  • Your class might commit to participating in a citizen scientist group of weather watchers, (which may require modest investments in standard equipment), such as the CoCoRaHS Network.
  • For independent observing, students might build and use their own weather stations. Build Your Own Weather Station, published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, offers instructions.
  • If you prefer, challenge students to engineer their own instruments (based on designs that they research), as described in a free Integrated STEM Lesson Plan by R. Bruno.

 

The books on this month’s list offer many opportunities to jump into field work. How might you involve your students in actual or simulated field studies? What suggestions do you have to expand upon the ideas in this post? Please share your comments and questions!

portrait of author Carolyn Cinami DeCristofanoSTEM author Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano is also a STEM education consultant who supports teachers, librarians, schools, and organizations by providing curriculum development and professional development services. Find out about her books at http://carolyndecristofano.com and her consulting at http://bhstemed.us.

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