Posts Tagged middle-grade readers

Books on the Ground

By on December 7, 2018   /   Articles, Book Lists, Fiction, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers  

When I visit schools, I always like to ask what the students are reading. I think of this as my ‘books on the ground’ question. I know what middle grade books I love and I probably have a good sense of what the librarian is recommending but what are the kids actually reading?  It provides a little insight into what makes these middle grade readers excited when it comes to books. As an author, this is invaluable market research. Sure, I want to tell my stories but I also want kids to read them so knowing what they are carrying around in their overstuffed backpacks is important.

This year I’ve been participating in a program that pairs authors with classroom teachers. A typical author visit lasts for an afternoon and while it’s great to get even that much time with students, #KidsNeedMentors gives us multiple opportunities to interact with a specific group of kids.

Last month I sent my adopted class a video and at the end I asked them the ‘books on the ground’ question. And I was thrilled to get a stack of letters in response, all about what they are reading… and about their pets, siblings, families, sports, hobbies and favorite foods. There is nothing better than a stream of consciousness letter from an eleven year old. Seriously,  this stack of letters absolutely made my week!

Anyway, friends, I want to share some of the books my students are taken with right now – old, new, serious, fun, graphic, series’, sad, heartwarming and more. Maybe you will see something that will work for the middle grade readers in your life. (book descriptions from Amazon.)

 

Two-Faced (Almost Identical), by Lin Oliver

When Charlie compromises her values to help one of the popular girls cheat on a test, Sammie is inadvertantly pulled into the mess. Written from Charlie’s point of view, this story will let readers experience the lengths that wanting to be popular in middle school can take you to, the conflict it can cause, and the tough moral stands a girl sometimes has to take.

Amulet 8, by Kazu Kibuishi

Emily has lost control of her Amulet and is imprisoned in the Void, where she must find a way to escape the influence of the Voice. Meanwhile, Emily’s brother, Navin, travels to Lighthouse One, a space station where the Resistance is preparing to battle the approaching Shadow forces that would drain planet Alledia of all its resources. Emily and Navin must be smarter and stronger than ever to ensure Alledia’s survival.

 

Endling: the Last, by Katherine Applegate

Byx is the youngest member of her dairne pack. Believed to possess remarkable abilities, her mythical doglike species has been hunted to near extinction in the war-torn kingdom of Nedarra.

After her pack is hunted down and killed, Byx fears she may be the last of her species. The Endling. So Byx sets out to find safe haven, and to see if the legends of other hidden dairnes are true.

Along the way, she meets new allies—both animals and humans alike—who each have their own motivations for joining her quest. And although they begin as strangers, they become their own kind of family—one that will ultimately uncover a secret that may threaten every creature in their world.

Grenade, by  Alan Gratz

It’s 1945, and the world is in the grip of war. Hideki lives on the island of Okinawa, near Japan. When WWII crashes onto his shores, Hideki is drafted into the Blood and Iron Student Corps to fight for the Japanese army. He is handed a grenade and a set of instructions: Don’t come back until you’ve killed an American soldier.

Ray, a young American Marine, has just landed on Okinawa. He doesn’t know what to expect — or if he’ll make it out alive. He just knows that the enemy is everywhere. Hideki and Ray each fight their way across the island, surviving heart-pounding ambushes and dangerous traps. But when the two of them collide in the middle of the battle, the choices they make in that instant will change everything.

 

The Big Time, by Tim Green

Things couldn’t be going better for Troy White. The Atlanta Falcons’ football genius is at the top of his game, helping the team get to the playoffs. Agents and lawyers are knocking on his door with big-money offers for the upcoming season. And his own football team has just won the Georgia State Championship! Troy’s celebrating with his friends at linebacker Seth Halloway’s mansion when another lawyer comes knocking—and he says, “I think I’m your father.” In that instant, Troy’s life is changed forever.

 

Fish in a Tree, by Linda Mullaly Hunt

The author of the beloved One for the Murphys gives readers an emotionally-charged, uplifting novel that will speak to anyone who’s ever thought there was something wrong with them because they didn’t fit in.

“Everybody is smart in different ways. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life believing it is stupid.”

Ally has been smart enough to fool a lot of smart people. Every time she lands in a new school, she is able to hide her inability to read by creating clever yet disruptive distractions.  She is afraid to ask for help; after all, how can you cure dumb? However, her newest teacher Mr. Daniels sees the bright, creative kid underneath the trouble maker. With his help, Ally learns not to be so hard on herself and that dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of. As her confidence grows, Ally feels free to be herself and the world starts opening up with possibilities. She discovers that there’s a lot more to her—and to everyone—than a label, and that great minds don’t always think alike.

Rebound, by Kwame Alexander

Before Josh and Jordan Bell were streaking up and down the court, their father was learning his own moves. In this prequel to Newbery Medal winner The Crossover, Chuck Bell takes center stage, as readers get a glimpse of his childhood and how he became the jazz music worshiping, basketball star his sons look up to.

A novel in verse with all the impact and rhythm readers have come to expect from Kwame Alexander, Rebound will go back in time to visit the childhood of Chuck “Da Man” Bell during one pivotal summer when young Charlie is sent to stay with his grandparents where he discovers basketball and learns more about his family’s past.

Jedi Academy: The Force Oversleeps,  by Jarrett J. Krosczka

Victor Starspeeder is back at Jedi Academy for year two, but it’s not going the way he’d planned. He was thrilled about Drama Club and hoped to get the lead in this year’s musical… But a new kid got the role! What gives?! Plus, he keeps oversleeping and getting to class late . . . Worst of all, his big sister Christina is getting ready to graduate from Jedi Academy, and there are rumors going around that she’s a Sith! What’s a Padawan to do? In times when he feels more alone than ever, Victor will have to trust the ways of the Force and his friends if he’s going to survive year two in this all-new chapter in the Jedi Academy series.

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The Limitless Middle Grade Imagination: Ideas for Encouraging Students’ Fiction

By on November 26, 2018   /   For Teachers  

Intro with thesis, three main points, conclusion with cap.

The traditional five-paragraph essay format is one of those topics I’ve been teaching for… let’s just say a lot of years. Valuable and necessary, it’s a handy tool in the toolbox for middle grade students. It helps to structure and organize weighty and mature thoughts into real and powerful language on the page. Students learn to let this formula work for them, the way you let the weight of a hammer do the work of driving the nail. I love the five-paragraph structure for its simplicity and efficiency, and for the way it prompts students to write without worry.

And sometimes, I cheerfully throw it out the window.

Middle grade students — whether in a traditional classroom, a non-traditional environment, homeschool, or virtual learning setting — have vast potential as writers…all sorts of writers. At times, the taming of their wild ideas with that five-paragraph structure is appropriate, but kids in this age group can also bring fierce creativity to writing jobs as seemingly limiting as vocab sentences, and that talent should be given room to grow. And then there’s the untapped storyteller inside many a middle grade student, who needs only a bit of encouragement, a cool assignment idea, and permission from the teacher, librarian, or homeschooling parent to Go ahead…make it up. Forget the 6- to 8-sentence paragraphs that must support your thesis. Don’t dare tame ideas into any kind of structure. Let the tale-spinning begin—and set it free to roam the dark woods and swamps, the castle hallways strewn with trapdoors, the hidden monster-lairs on distant planets.

The freedom of fiction writing in the classroom has just as many (and in some cases, more) educational benefits as learning proper, formal sentence and paragraph structure. This is true at any grade level, but middle grade fiction freedom is especially important. Fiction writing projects

  • Work the imagination–not the handy gadgets and devices.
  • Bring out new talents and skills at a crucial identity-building age.
  • Allow independent, personalized work and countless project options for a variety of types of learners.
  • Can be shared in whole or in part, or in nutshell summations of premises — tasks which offer practice at additional skills.
  • Inspire many middle grade students to read more, inside and outside of the classroom.

Fiction writing projects don’t have to be limited to the classroom. Teachers and librarians might consider the following suggestions for school hours, but parents and after-school group leaders seeking enrichment projects for their middle graders might find them helpful as well.

The Historical Premise: Middle grade writers create a plot scenario with conflict and characters based on a historical setting, time period, and event.

The Character Blueprint: Writers “map” out characteristics for a character unlike any they’ve read, detailing physical and personality traits, likes, dislikes, goals, dreams, family, home, daily life.

The Conflict-driven Plot Scenario: Writers compose short situations that “up” the conflict with each new line: But the next day…suddenly…just then…unfortunately…

The Look-Alike: Writers use already-created characters — perhaps from a shared class read — and send them down unfamiliar roads of conflict, or place them in a conflict from a different novel they’ve studied.

The Choose Your Tale-teller: Writers select a format that suits their story idea best: illustrated picture book, graphic novel, comic book, story in verse.

Remember that in order to truly encourage the creativity that comes with fiction writing, teachers, parents, and librarians might have to rethink traditional lesson planning and writing “rules.” Here are some ideas for inspiring your middle graders as they create fiction.

  • Don’t go with your first idea…dig deeper. Reject that which comes too easily.
  • Don’t worry about a beginning or an end. Start in medias res and stop when you want.
  • Try creating only the premise of a story – without the overwhelming work of writing the actual story.
  • Write a detailed beginning full of mystery and sense imagery, then stop. Write another full of opposite choices to the first (night instead of day, freezing instead of sunny), then choose one to continue.
  • Write a whole scene of dialogue, without narration. Use dialect, jargon, fragments, idioms.
  • Write only a one-page real-time scene (or half a page, or two pages, etc.), without worrying about descriptions and set-up.
  • Write from the point of view of an animal or a plant, or a rock or a wall.
  • Design a character, and write unrelated scenes featuring him or her in different genres.

With fiction writing, the options for learning by doing about literature and storytelling are endless: Plot. Character. Imagery. Genre. Dialogue. Theme. Excellent practice opportunities for mechanics, vocabulary, syntax, and a host of other communication skills come into play in the revision stages, as well.

But best of all, a student has made a piece of something that was not there before, and with these new creations almost certainly come sparks of continued inspiration.

Thanks for reading and good luck to your middle grade-aged writers!

 

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Hero, Mentor, Trickster: Thinking about Archetypal Character Roles in MG

By on September 7, 2018   /   For Writers  

Despite having been an English major in college, I don’t recall learning about archetypal story roles before my graduate writing program. When I finally read Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey for a grad class, it was like seeing through a suddenly-acquired magic spyglass that gave all stories a layer of extra interest and added meaning. Vogler establishes that his thoughts on character and plot archetypes stem from those put forth in the psychological and mythic studies of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. Vogler is able to take the archetypal theories of The Hero’s Journey (described in detail in Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces) and relate them to the craft of writing with popular story examples (from Star Wars to James Bond to Odysseus, and many others).

The general theory is that our story-brains are somewhat hardwired to recognize the ways in which characters fulfill certain roles, because the duties of these archetypal roles remain common over time, genre, length, style, and intended audience of stories. For example, a Mentor character in one story will have something in common with a Mentor character in another story, because their duty as a Mentor will be similar (to help some other character do something/go somewhere for some reason).

These character archetypes can be helpful to us as writers, as teachers, as librarians, and as parents of MG readers. For example:

  • An understanding of archetypal roles can promote discussion of character traits among students in the lit classroom.
  • Family read-aloud time (or movie night) gets a brain boost when we recognize an archetypal character role and make comparisons to characters in other films and stories we’ve shared together.
  • Archetypal role descriptions and examples can help writers to analyze their own characters in works in progress.

Below, I’ve listed some common character archetypes and given some examples from all sorts of MG fiction—recently published to modern classics, realistic to fantasy. Keep in mind that archetypal roles are not static, and that they are rarely “cast” by a writer in a simple, one-to-one list like parts in a play. Good writers and storytellers at all levels allow for an ebb and flow of character growth, change, and development; consequently, a character fulfilling the role of a Shadow in the beginning of the book might be recognized as a Mentor by the end.

This dynamic movement of archetypal roles might be especially notable and important in MG, where readers start grasping the complexities of human interaction perhaps for the first time.

Some common archetypal character roles in stories:

A Hero is usually our protagonist, though other characters can certainly step in and out of the Hero role. The Hero often experiences some kind of journey (physical, spiritual, emotional) and may or may not (but usually does) experience some kind of change as a result. Two key Hero elements are learning or practicing self-sacrifice in helping others, and learning or practicing the ability to take action. Hero and main character Chantel in Sage Blackwood’s Miss Ellicott’s School for the Magically Minded demonstrates this element of self-sacrifice as she puts herself in danger and works to secure safety for the younger girls at the school and all the people of Lightning Pass.

A Mentor is a character who serves to help, teach, train, or lead the Hero in some way as he or she makes the journey. A Mentor might “step in” and be the voice of the Hero’s true conscience when the Hero is conflicted and cannot “hear” his or her own heart. Mrs. Whatsit in A Wrinkle in Time serves many Mentor-duties for Hero Meg.

A Herald is a character who brings some kind of news to the Hero. Usually the news raises the stakes for the Hero—makes things more challenging, or changes the conflict in some unexpected way. Sometimes the Herald helps a character make a connection or see a clue, like when Lola texts Valencia in Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly. The message from Lola triggers Valencia’s deduction on the missing Virgil’s whereabouts, and launches a rescue mission.

A Threshold Guardian is a literal or figurative guard at a doorway or transition point, whom the Hero must get past in order to progress from one place in his or her journey to the next. Usually the Threshold Guardian serves as an obstacle, and might hold some truth or bit of info the hero needs. Stew Mitchum in Lemony Snicket’s Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? is a Threshold Guardian as he impedes young investigator Snicket’s progress in solving the case and in moving about the train.

A Shapeshifter is a character who isn’t necessarily the person he or she seems to be, or a character whom the Hero (or the reader) may not be able to trust. A Shapeshifter can surprise the Hero with unexpected actions, reveals, or switches of loyalty. Characters (and readers) of the Harry Potter series may not realize that Moaning Myrtle holds clues Harry needs several times in the series. Her sudden changes of emotion and her switch of interest in Harry to interest in Draco are Shapeshifter behaviors as well.

A Shadow is the antagonist, the villain, the “bad guy.” This character or group stands in the way of the Hero, works to defeat him or her, and often utilizes the Hero’s own flaws. In Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting, the Man in the Yellow Suit is a Shadow force as he pursues the Tucks and plans to use Winnie for his own immoral gains.

A Trickster is often a funny sidekick character or a comedic relief character; sometimes this character’s sarcasm or verbal irony reveals truth, like a witty jester or a class clown. Examples of mythological tricksters can be seen in many cultures and backgrounds, such as Loki (Norse), Coyote (Native American), and Maui (Polynesian).

There are many other archetypes, and many, many variations on those listed here (for example, according to Vogler, there are anti-heroes, loner heroes, trickster heroes, willing and unwilling heroes, the hero group…). Mentors may not be good teachers, may be on their own journey, or may learn from other characters even as they teach. Shadows often have redeeming qualities and brilliant moments. And a character can fulfill two or more roles in a story; for example, a Threshold Guardian is often also a Herald of information.

Consequently, archetypal roles are not meant to serve as simple labels for the characterizations we see in stories, but instead, provide us with some vocabulary and ideas for use in thinking about and discussing the stories we read.

Thanks for reading and considering these theories on characterization! I’m interested in your thoughts on archetypes, and characters from MG who might fulfill these roles—please share in the comments!

 

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