Posts Tagged historical fiction

Go Visual-Spatial with Maps and Middle Grade Books

By Jenn Brisendine on August 9, 2019 / For Teachers

I came across the phrase “carto-literate” in an article last week. The author was referring to geography skills, but it made me think of all the cool map-based activities one can offer readers of middle grade books. Maps, globes, and online mapping tools maintain a strong role in the study of history, geography, science, and math; however, the great benefits of using maps as learning tools can be extended to the reading experience, as well. If you haven’t thought about utilizing map activities for literature selections in your classroom, home school, or library, consider these awesome benefits:

Maps immediately call up the use of Visual-Spatial skills, and might engage readers who are not quite as Verbal-Linguistic as others.
Maps promote flexible, creative thinking through the use of to-scale renderings and symbols.
Maps directly connect to math, science, technology, and research skills, and they promote discussions on cultural topics of inclusivity and acceptance. They also encourage an understanding of history, as borders and place names change over time due to migration, conflict, and political transition.
Maps also inspire the imagination with the notion of travel and adventure; after all, it’s easy to envision yourself as an explorer or treasure-seeker when you have a map in hand!

These activity ideas involving maps might inspire a more fulfilling reading experience, and will promote thinking and discussion on these and other titles.

1. Using a world map, locate and mark the literary settings of books that might be new to your library or books on suggested or curricular reading lists. Settings can be approximate or specific; sometimes, while specific names of roads or towns are fictionalized, the state or region is identified—giving students just enough context to pinpoint the setting on a map. For example, these recent MG books have specific or general settings that are “mappable”:

The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman (Chennai, India)

Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier (Northern CA)

The Book of Boy by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Medieval France)

Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-Ransome (Chicago, IL)

North to Benjamin by Alan Cumyn (Dawson, Yukon)

Merci Suarez Changes Gears by Meg Medina (South Florida)

2. Use Google Maps to explore a realistic, named setting and discuss plot conflicts in terms of the story’s geography. Students can zoom in on locations, study city layouts, and even “drive around” neighborhoods in Street View. For example, when reading Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Ninth Ward, students can investigate through Google Maps the geography of New Orleans, and make connections to the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

3. Pinpoint the settings of books that share a historical time period on a map, and consider the ways in which location and culture impacted the plot and characters. For example, on a map of the world, mark the literary settings of books like these that take place in the time of WWII:

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli (Warsaw, Poland)

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (London, England and vicinity)

The End of the Line by Sharon E. McKay (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Lily’s Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff (Rockaway, NY)

4. Maps can help promote comprehension and increase the emotional value of a story when used in conjunction with the travels of a character. For example, readers can use a world map to trace the journey of Ebo, a refugee from Ghana, in Illegal, a graphic novel by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin and illustrated by Giovanni Rigano.

5. In an exploration of their own world-building skills, readers can create maps for middle grade fiction with geography context clues. For example, readers can use close reading skills, logic, and imagination to draw a map of locations in Erin Entrada Kelly’s Hello, Universe, or for works that have a fantasy or purely fictionalized setting. Many MG fantasies showcase beautiful maps of the story’s settings, like Jaleigh Johnson’s The Door to the Lost. Readers can use these already-created maps to note plot points and trace the paths of characters.

6. A start-of-the-year icebreaker I’ve tried with success involves a world map, displayed in the classroom: each student shares the location farthest from home to which he or she has traveled and pins a marker on the map. Put a literary spin on this idea, and have readers share the book title they’ve read with a setting that is farthest from home. Each student can mark the map with the book title and author. A longer project idea might involve individual student presentations of plot summaries or book reviews.

Perhaps you’ll find a map activity here that suits your reader or students! Good luck to parents, teachers, librarians, writers, and readers of MG as we all head back to the classroom this school year.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit Still Relevant

By Meira Drazin on July 4, 2019 / Curriculum Tie-in, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

When beloved children’s book author Judith Kerr passed away in May at the age of 95, I’d been about two weeks into reading to my two sons her classic and still relevant middle-grade novel When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.

This was a seminal book for me as a child: I read it over and over again and vividly remember parts of it to this day. I had great feelings—and memories— for the book, but never particularly thought about who wrote it. When I moved to London 25 years later however, I discovered that in fact its author, Judith Kerr, is the creator of some 30 picture books. This includes one of the most classic children’s books here in England: The Tiger Who Came to Tea which I had immediately fallen in love with.

Two Sequels

In that first year we lived in London, I made another surprising discovery, at least to me: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit actually has two sequels—Bombs on Aunt Dainty which is more upper middle grade or possibly YA, and A Small Person Far Away, which I would also classify as YA or possibly even adult. They’re all fictionalized versions of Judith Kerr’s own story of being a refugee from Germany as Hitler came to power.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit starts when its main character, Anna, is nine, and ends when she is 11 going on 12, which is roughly my own age range when I read this book over and over again. Now an adult myself, it was fascinating to read the continuation of Anna’s life into adulthood. And in essence the three books together are a bildungsroman: the story of the artist as a young woman. But while I greatly enjoyed discovering and reading the two sequels, something held me back from re-reading When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit as an adult. I think I was probably afraid—what if it didn’t hold up to how I remembered it? And when considering a beloved childhood book to read to my kids there is always the extra risk of them hating it, not getting what’s so great about it, or finding it BORE-ING!

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit Still Relevant

But the story in When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which was first published in 1971 and takes place in 1933-36, seems highly relevant right now and I sensed my sons were at a good age for it —at least to try. In any case, I needn’t have worried. The two boys, ages eight and ten, were enthralled. Every night they would literally beg me to read, and read more! In fact, the book not only holds up to how I remember it, but is even deeper.

There were several occasions on reading it—and not ones that I remembered from childhood—in which I was moved to tears. And reading the chapters each night with my sons provoked great questions and discussions. The story is not only so relevant now because of the refugee crisis, but it introduces children to Hitler coming to power and to anti-semitism—as well as the idea of racism—in a forthright and age-appropriate way. It “talks up” to them in a way that both the ten-year-old and the eight-year-old could handle and appreciate.

Pink Rabbit and Writing Craft

But it’s as a writer now myself that I marveled most.

I can’t find the cover image I remember from childhood but I adore this one from the edition I read with my sons

Judith Kerr expertly crafted When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit yet with the lightest of touches so it’s only now that I realize what a feat the book is.

She is telling the story of her life and her family’s experiences, but instead of it being a series of “this happened,” “and then this happened,” it is all harnessed to a cohesive story that has a beautiful narrative shape. She writes in an afterward that although she “filled in the gaps with invented detail” and was writing in the third person about a girl called Anna (because she felt that as a middle-aged English woman she was no longer the same little German girl that had fled the Nazis) she decided early on in the project “that all the important things must be true—the things that happened, how I felt about them, what we, our friends and the places we lived in were like.”

I have recently been reading many books on writer’s craft as I work on a major redrafting of my novel, and I am struck and awestruck at how Judith Kerr accomplished this. For one thing, there is an efficiency to each vignette so that no episode is random (even if it might delightfully seem that way at first) and each comes together in service of the greater story or theme—which is that Anna doesn’t feel like a refugee because as long as her family has stayed together that is her home.

For another thing, Judith Kerr has a way of mining the quiet moments for their drama and humor, while what is truly frightening or deeply upsetting (especially read through the eyes of an adult) are handled with a feather-weight dexterity so that they are not made light of but they are not so scary so as to no longer be appropriate for a children’s book. I think a lot of this comes down to her success at seeing everything through a child’s eye and staying true to that perspective. She doesn’t shy away from depressing moments, that sometimes one feels low, or that bad things happen. But through it all there’s a general positivity and the assurance of grown ups.

Overall, re-reading When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit with my sons, I experienced both nostalgia for how I felt about it as a child, a re-ignition of my love for it, and an all-new feeling of admiration and aesthetic connection. It gave me great joy to read. I wish I could write like her! I will continue to study her novels and figure out just how she did it. Judith Kerr’s work is a huge inspiration to me and children’s literature is richer for her legacy.

Editor Spotlight: Charlie Ilgunas’s Buzz on Middle Grade!

By Gail Shepherd on June 28, 2019 / Articles, Editor / Agent Spotlight

Charlie Ilgunas is Associate Editor at Little Bee Books, which publishes titles for kids 0-12; Little Bee’s new Middle Grade imprint is Yellow Jacket. He earned his BA from Washington University in Saint Louis and a Graduate Certificate in Publishing from the University of Denver, after which he interned at Bloomsbury before moving to Little Bee. Charlie signed his first title as an editorial assistant at Little Bee five years ago. He works mainly on picture books and middle grade.

Hi Charlie, thanks for chatting with us. I’ll say right up front that Yellow Jacket published some of my favorite middle grade titles this year and last: Rajani LaRocca’s delicious Midsummer’s Mayhem, which is getting all kinds of attention, Samuel Pollen’s The Year I Didn’t Eat, about a boy with anorexia, and Melanie Sumrow’s The Prophet Calls, which centers on a girl living inside a religious cult. These are three wildly different middle grade books in subject, theme, and tone, so I’m wondering—what made them all just right for Yellow Jacket?

That selection really speaks to the diverse tastes of our editors here at Little Bee/Yellow Jacket. Some of us are interested in delving into heavier subjects like Samuel’s, some love magical realism and reimagingings of classics like Rajani’s, and some are interested in dropping children into stories that would be completely outside their experience like Melanie’s. And though we’re still guided by our goals of publishing books about acceptance, anti-bullying, awareness, diversity, and empowerment, because middle grade is a fairly new venture for us, we have a lot of freedom to make our case for submissions that may fall outside those guidelines if we see a need in the market for something else or are just moved by a stunning manuscript.

Little Bee Becomes an Indie

In a starred review, Kirkus called Rajani LaRocca’s debut “A delectable treat for food and literary connoisseurs.”

Can you give us a little industry background on Little Bee and Yellow Jacket? I understand Little Bee was recently purchased by its original founders. What’s the relationship with Simon & Schuster? I really love how GLBTQ-positive Little Bee is. How does the partnership with GLAAD work?

Bonnier started Little Bee five years ago, and we launched Yellow Jacket’s first titles last summer. We also have a licensing imprint, BuzzPop, created about a year after Little Bee. Simon & Schuster has been our distributor since we started, and we’ve built a great relationship with their sales team. The last five years have gone pretty well for us—we’ve had such wonderful responses to so many of our books over these years. But because of circumstances outside our control, Bonnier was considering selling Little Bee. Our CEO and CFO offered to buy the company from them, and luckily that all worked out. So now we’re an independent publisher, which has been a pretty exciting transition!

Our partnership with GLAAD came about not too long after I acquired Prince & Knight. We decided we wanted to make a major commitment to publishing LGBTQ+ stories, because we saw how lacking the children’s space was at the time. Now there are so many books out there, especially heavily promoted at stores every Pride month, which warms my heart! So we were looking for partners to help us collaborate on books, developing topics and giving feedback on submissions, as well as assisting us in getting word out about them. GLAAD has been a major help in that regard.

The Buzz on Editing Middle Grade

When I ask people what makes a book middle grade, they usually say something like: a focus on friendship and family. But so many middle grade books are also exploring political activism, gender identity, mental health—subject matter that used to lean more YA. What’s your take? Are kids from 8-12 more sophisticated now? More prepared to handle tougher topics?

Middle grade stories can really go anywhere. It’s my favorite age range, because children are equipped and ready to choose books on their own for the first time and approach them with a boundless imagination, without a lot of preconceived notions and biases. In a lot of ways, the world is so much wider than YA or adult, which can feel more bound by genre.

Friendship and family go part and parcel with many good middle grade stories. It can be hard to sink your teeth into a story without a little heart to ground the characters. And friends and family are constants in all stages of life, even when (and maybe especially when) discussing political activism, gender identity, and such—how a character’s friends and family react in relation to that aspect of their identity. I don’t necessarily think the topics are tougher or heavier than middle grade books from past decades, just a little different. The topics authors are interested in discussing have evolved to engage with the issues facing children today.

Moser’s middle grade is a retelling of the Irish folktale, The Children of Lir.

From Pitch, to Pitch-Perfect

What’s the biggest factor that decides you to give a thumbs up on a book. Is it voice? Concept? What do you consider “fixable” and what isn’t?

Voice, voice, voice! Concept may get me to read a submission quicker, as it’s the first thing I see of any project in an agent’s pitch. But concept without a voice driving the story is just so disappointing. We want to love each submission that we choose to read! Even so, if the writing is of good quality, voice is fixable, but takes a more intense investment than editing story holes and plot elements. You have to read and reread, and delve deep into the heart of the story, and figure out a way to get the author to focus and bring it out a little more in the characters they create.

How hands on are you as an editor with books you acquire? What’s the most intensive editorial project you’ve ever worked on?

It really depends on the project. Some are written so well that I don’t need to do much development work; I can focus on line editing and transitions and such. But some stories need rewriting/restructuring. That has happened more with picture books at this point, since we are newer to acquiring middle grade! Two of the most intense projects I worked on recently, one was a nonfiction picture book about a trans Civil War soldier. The other was a middle grade retelling of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”

The picture book involved so much outside reading (including a 200-page pension file!) as well as photo research to make sure the illustrator’s work was as accurate to the time as possible. For the middle grade book, I did a lot of research into tenth-century Baghdad—the buildings there at the time, the layout of the city, the clothes people wore . . . all fantastically interesting to investigate!

Lenzi’s novel is a reimagining of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” told from the perspective of Marjana.

What unique talents or perspectives do you think you bring to the table as an editor? Are you as friendly as your patronus, the capybara?

Curiosity has been a huge benefit. If I’m reading about something in a submission that I find interesting and think, huh, that’s new to me! Let’s learn a little more about that, that often leads me to discover something else tangentially related that I can discuss with the author about incorporating, or something we can tie to another element of the story. I’m generally interested in history/nonfiction. So it’s not really a chore to do a lot of outside research to make sure the story we’re telling is accurate—it’s a fringe benefit!

And hah, I like to think of myself like that! Friendly, stoic, and easygoing!

What’s on Charlie’s Wish List?

Are there any under-represented MG genres or topics you’d like to see more of? Any trends that really excite you?

Survival stories! In the purely fictional realm, that is. I’ve been looking for one ever since I got outbid on a fantastic submission. Hatchet was one of my favorite books as a kid. I would love to find a nail-biting survival story along those lines.

Other than write the next book, what’s the most effective thing an author can do, pre- or post-publication, to help boost sales of his or her books?

Find a community of authors (published or unpublished) to engage with and share work with. Either to critique and improve a manuscript ahead of an agent submitting it to publishers, or to just enjoy and talk about with friends after a book gets published. I see it as a much more fun version of networking! Authors are so supportive of each other. Becoming fans of each others’ work has benefits as far as sales, too, because if one author has success with a book, they can blurb their friend’s book, or talk to booksellers about it, or do joint signings, panels, etc., bringing the book to their own fans.

Up Next for Yellow Jacket

Crumbled is the first in a series introducing the hilarious Nobbin Swill.

What do you have forthcoming in middle grade?

Fiadhnait Moser’s The Serendipity of Flightless Things comes out in mid-August; it has utterly amazing writing. I was so blown away by some of the passages, and I still think about them all the time. It’s a retelling of the Irish folktale The Children of Lir. It gets quite spooky in the second half!

Crumbled!, the first book in Lisa Harkrader’s new series, The Misadventures of Nobbin Swill, comes out in late August. It is so hilarious, I was just laughing at my desk the first time I read it. And the follow-up, Croaked! (2020) may be even funnier! I love it, too, because it is heavily illustrated in two-color, and I think the illustrations really add to the humor.

And finally, the aforementioned The Forty Thieves: Marjana’s Tale, coming out in October. Christy Lenzi reimagines “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” told from the perspective of Marjana, the girl who keeps saving Ali Baba from the wrath of the thieves after he’s found their treasure. She created a story that adds so much emotional depth to the original, and I can’t wait to get it into readers’ hands!

Thanks so much for your time, Charlie!

You can learn more about Charlie and follow him at:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chillgunas
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cilgunas/
Little Bee Books Website: https://littlebeebooks.com/

Posts Tagged historical fiction

Go Visual-Spatial with Maps and Middle Grade Books

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