Posts Tagged kid lit

STEM Tuesday — Checking Your Health– In the Classroom

By on August 14, 2018   /   Common Core & NGSS, Cross-Curricular, Health, STEM Tuesday  

Once again, the STEM Tuesday Team put together a powerhouse book list for this month’s theme: CHECKING YOUR HEALTH.  You can access that book list quickly and easily right HERE.

As always, on Week Two, we’re going to take a few books from the list and talk about classroom application. Upper elementary, middle school, home school, summer school – we’ve got activities for you!

Lights, Camera, Action

Human Body Theater

Use Maris Wicks’s fascinating book Human Body Theater, a Nonfiction Revue to put on a show! The book, which is in graphic/comic strip format (can we say graphic novel for nonfiction? Hmm….) is divided into Acts One through Eleven, with each act explaining one of our bodies’ systems. Students might work in groups, choosing a system and writing a script for a whole-body performance. A ticket to the Human Body Theater might be just be the hottest ticket in town!

 

 

 

 

Then and Now

Bubonic Panic Cover

Using Bubonic Panic: When Plague Invaded America by Gail Jarrow and Ebola: Fears and Facts by Patricia Newman, compare the effects of two devastating illnesses that hit the world at two very different times. What challenges do scientists and medical professionals face today that are similar to those faced years ago? What advances have made research and treatment easier? What still needs to happen in order to prevent an epidemic from ever occurring again?

 

Biology Biography Bash

murphy_breakthrough        reef_florence nightingale

Many classrooms hold Biography Bashes or Living History events or otherwise showcase people from history who’ve had an impact on the way we live. Consider hosting a biography event centered around historical figures who have made a difference in the fields of health and medicine.  This month’s book list contains two fantastic examples: Florence Nightingale: The Courageous Life the Legendary Nurse by Catherine Reef and Breakthrough! How Three People Saved “Blue Babies” and Changed Medicine Forever by Jim Murphy.

And, don’t forget fiction!

Here at The Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors, the STEM Tuesday team loves to highlight great middle-grade fiction with our nonfiction topics.  In Chasing Secrets: A Deadly Surprise in a City of Lies, Gennifer Choldenko’s fictional characters must try to understand a mysterious illness. She sets the story against the very real backdrop that was San Francisco in 1900. I was hooked in chapter one, when the main character says “I know I shouldn’t say things like this. Aunt Hortense says I try hard to be peculiar. But she’s wrong; I come by it quite naturally.”

So, here’s a challenge for the comment section below: Add a middle-grade fiction title that explores a health or medical issue. Contemporary or historical, realistic or science fiction. Can you come up with one to share?

Michelle Houts created today’s STEM Tuesday post. She’s the author of several fiction and nonfiction books for kids, including the STEM-based Lucy’s Lab Chapter Book Series from Sky Horse Publishing/Sky Pony Press. After reading about bubonic plague, tuberculosis, ebola, and other deadly diseases for today’s post, she is now going to go wash her hands. Again. 

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Interview and Giveaway with Author Karen Kane

By on April 11, 2018   /   Author Interviews, Diversity, Fiction, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, Giveaways, New Releases  

I am excited to post my interview with author Karen Kane whose debut novel, Charlie & Frog (Disney-Hyperion), came out April 10. I had the pleasure of previewing this book and getting to hear the backstory.

Hi Karen! Please give us a short summary of the book.

Charlie has been dumped with his TV-obsessed grandparents in the village of Castle-on-the-Hudson. When an old woman disappears after giving Charlie a desperate message in sign language, Charlie is determined to find answers.

Frog, who is Deaf, would rather be solving crimes than working at the Flying Hands Café. When Charlie walks into the café looking for help, Frog jumps at the chance to tackle a real-life case.

Together, Charlie and Frog set out to decipher a series of clues and uncover the truth behind the mysterious message. Charlie needs to learn American Sign Language to keep up with Frog. And Frog needs to gather her detective know-how to break the case before it’s too late.

What two book titles and/or movie titles would you say Charlie & Frog is a cross between? 

My hope is that Charlie & Frog has the heart of Roald Dahl’s Danny the Champion of the World and the humor of Matilda.

Why did you choose the setting you did?

I choose to set Charlie & Frog in the Hudson Valley because, for some inexplicable reason, I have a soul connection with that part of New York. Maybe because it’s the home of one of my favorite detectives, Trixie Belden!

Is it based on any real location?

Castle-on-the-Hudson is a part Cold Spring, NY, part Cape May, NJ and part Pittsford, NY, the village where I grew up.

Would you say you’re more like Charlie or Frog? Why?

I am definitely more like Charlie. I have always had a deep-seated longing for connection and community—and like Charlie I had to learn to look inward to find it. Frog is super-confident and knows herself. I am becoming more like Frog, but I will never reach her level of moxie!

I love how Charlie & Frog has a main character who is deaf but that the book isn’t an issues book. And I thoroughly enjoyed how you could show conversations of characters without spoken words. I know you graduated from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and are a sign language interpreter. How did you become interested in working with people who are deaf?

True confession time: the real reason I became a sign language interpreter is because I failed microbiology in my 2nd year of nursing studies. There was no way I was taking that class again, so I changed my major to one that didn’t require microbiology to graduate—interpreting! I wish I had a more profound reason, but it was an intuitive decision. And the right decision because I have truly loved my work. And interpreting was what connected me to the community who inspired Charlie & Frog.

What research did you end up doing for this book that you didn’t realize you’d need to? What are you currently working on?

All the research I did for the book I ended up using—such as the Dewey decimal system, as well as some Deaf history. And I had Deaf readers give me feedback on how I portrayed Deaf characters and culture in Charlie & Frog.

I am currently writing the next Charlie & Frog book, tentatively called The Boney Hand. The second book happens in the fall, my favorite time of year.

After reading a book, I love knowing what was originally pitched when submitted. Do you remember what your elevator pitch was for Charlie & Frog? After editing, would you say your elevator pitch has changed?

I’m lousy at elevator pitches! Thank goodness I didn’t need one this time because I already had an agent, Jennifer Carlson, who had tried to sell my first book, The Hayley Show. Although Jennifer and I both loved it, we couldn’t find an editor who also did. Ten years later (!) I sent Jennifer Charlie & Frog, which I wrote while attending Vermont College of Fine Arts. This time we were lucky to find several editors who loved it as well. Tracey Keevan, at Disney Hyperion, bought it at auction.

If I did have an elevator pitch, it would still be the same pitch even after the editing process, because the heart and soul and humor of Charlie & Frog have never changed—they have only deepened.

Thank you, Karen, for letting me pick your brain! I highly recommend Charlie & Frog for middle grade readers.

A copy of Charlie & Frog will be given away to one lucky winner! Post a comment below for a chance to win a copy of Karen’s book (shipping within the U.S. only). 

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Never Too Old for Back-to-School

By on August 7, 2017   /   Book Lists, For Writers, Writing  

It’s Back-to-School month for many students, teachers, librarians, and parents. Summer is at its peak, and yet the supermarket aisles are filled with crayons and notebooks and lunch boxes. It’s time to get back to the business of learning.

As authors, we never stop learning, really. At least we shouldn’t. Even though I teach workshops about writing, mentor new writers, and critique others’ work, I still seek out opportunities to learn from those who paved this road I’m lucky to travel.

The best teachers are perpetual students. I believe that with all my heart.

Walking with Jane Yolen at her home, Phoenix Farm, during Picture Book Boot Camp last spring.

It’s important for authors to look for learning opportunities and find ways around all the reasons why we can’t pursue them.  Too far, too expensive, too time consuming, maybe in a few years. Of course, some of those are valid reasons, and no one can do everything their heart desires, but if each of us sought out one mentor encounter a year — attended a lecture, went to a book signing, signed up for an advanced workshop — all opportunity would not be lost on “maybe next year.”

Have you ever been in the presence of someone and I thought, “This is golden. I need to remember everything about this moment?” I look for moments like that. Sometimes I find them among hundreds of people in an auditorium, listening to a speaker. Sometimes, it’s just me, face-to-face with a beloved author, feeling the warmth of their handshake and trying desperately to form words in my mouth that make it sound like I made it past third grade.  That was me at this moment:

Standing on Ashley Bryan‘s front step, Little Cranberry Island, Maine, June 2015.

Here in rural Ohio, I don’t exactly live in a literary hotbed. But, I do live within driving distance to The Mazza Museum, the country’s largest collection of art from children’s literature. I’ve made the trip there to hear dozens of authors and illustrators speak. I’ve sat mesmerized by Tony Abbott, had a conversation with Gary Schmidt. and listened intently to Michael Buckley.

Last winter I drove two hours in the other direction to hear what Kwame Alexander had to say, and one piece of advice he gave the audience made a beeline to my brain and has changed the way I think. “Say yes,” he said. Be that person that says, “YES!” to opportunities.

So what Back-to-School opportunities will our Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors bloggers say “YES!” to this year?  Maybe sign up for that amazing out-of-state-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Take a road trip to hear someone speak?  Attend a presentation at your local bookseller? Listen to a podcast?  Read that craft book on writing you’ve been putting off reading – you know, the one everyone says is “magical?”

It’s time. It’s time to get back to school.

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