Posts Tagged writing

Journaling in the Time of Covid-19

By on May 11, 2020   /   Articles, COVID-19, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, Homeschool Resource  

Six months ago if someone had told me I’d be writing a blog post titled “Journaling in the Time of Covid-19” I would have said, “What’s Covid-19?”

We could all start sentences that way now… “Six months ago, if someone had told me…”

“… schools would be closed for months…”

“… I would not see my parents for months …”

“…. Zoom would be part of everyday life…”

“… a mask would be part of my wardrobe…”

“… people would run out of (WHAT?!) toilet paper…”

Times are rapidly changing and that means we are all having new and unforeseen experiences. There’s no better time than now to be journaling. I have written in diaries and journals off and on since this date:

Friday, June 13, 1975 – I’m nine years old. I got my diary today. I should have gotten it on the 1st of January. But then I never even wanted one.

Not long ago, I shared the following story in a Facebook post:

In February of 1977, I was a fifth grader in Westerville, Ohio when the Energy Crisis coincided with weeks of unusually cold weather. Today I found this diary entry from that very strange winter. We were out of school for two weeks and when we returned, we could not go back to our own buildings. Instead, the district utilized the newest buildings with electric heat, and closed the older ones with big fuel oil furnaces. So we went to school half a day, every other day, in order to allow four elementary schools to use the same building. I don‘t recall how long that lasted. I do recall how unsettled I felt.

Okay, here you go. Straight from the mouth of fifth grade me:

Feb. 1, 1977 – No fair! I really don’t think it’s right. For the past month there has been a gas shortage. It’s awful. The weather is down to 20 degrees below zero and sometimes the chill factor is between 40 and 50 below. Our heat is down to 60 degrees inside. School has been closed for 8 days. Don’t people realize children NEED schooling? More than 1,000 workers are laid off. This is a mixed-up world and I wonder if I have to grow up in such a crazy place.

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Some of my memories of that winter are fuzzy. Some are crystal clear. I remember sitting in someone else’s desk at someone else’s school building. I was glad my teacher was the one standing in the front of the room, and I was happy that my friends were sitting in the desks around me.

I’m really glad I was keeping a diary during that unusual time in my childhood.

Parents, teachers, librarians, anyone with a young person in their life: Gift a child a blank notebook, an empty journal, or even a diary with a lock and key. Tell them to fill the pages.

“With what?” they will most certainly ask. “With words,” tell them. “With words only you can write.”

Then, help them out with this list of questions that pertain to our current world situation.

Do you miss going to school the usual way?

What do like about having school online?

What’s the best thing about staying at home most of time?

What’s the worst thing about staying at home most of the time?

How do you feel about wearing a mask in public places?

Who do you know that has gotten Covid-19?

Are you worried about getting sick? Are you worried about someone you love getting sick?

What do you think it’s like for people in other countries?

What activities have you missed because of the pandemic? How did you feel about missing them?

What have you done to stay busy while at home?

Who do you miss spending time with?

What is different about the grocery store now? The library? The movie theater? The playground? The street where you live? How you and your family go places?

Journal prompts on many general topics are easily found online. Hopefully, they’ll want to write about more than just life in the time of Covid-19. And, hopefully, like me, they’ll find that journaling is fun.

Here’s a bit from Day 2 of my diary-keeping life, 1975 (third grade grammar and all!)

Sat. June 14, 1975 – Lisa doesn’t no how personal a diary is. She wants to no what I write. But, Mom had a talk with her. We staked tomato’s in the garden. The second night I’ve written in my diary – it’s fun! Jackie’s got 10 pups and a knew calf!

Who knows? Forty-five years from now, your youngster could be reading from their first journal. All they need to get started is a nudge from someone who cares. (Thanks to Mom for giving me my first diary and apologies for calling out sister Lisa, who was only a first-grader at the time.)

 

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STEM Tuesday– Symbiotic Relationships– Book List

By on May 5, 2020   /   STEM Tuesday, Symbiotic Relationships  

Symbiosis is a close and long-term biological relationship between two different species. Sometimes both benefit. Sometimes only one benefits. So you might want to study up before you develop that new “friendship” …

Natural Attraction: A Field Guide to Friends, Frenemies, and Other Symbiotic Animal,  by Iris Gottlieb

Watercolor illustrations combine with a humorous, scientific text to examine thirty-five odd and unusual symbiotic animal, plant, and bacteria relationships. It includes statistics, graphs, takeaways, and fun additional facts about mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.

 

Symbiosis, by Alvin Silverstein

Photographs and a sprinkling of fun fact sidebars enhance the examination of plants, animals and fungi partnerships (both beneficial and necessary), symbiosis of numerous parasites and microorganisms (including Ebola and SARS), and the possibility of symbionts from space. The engaging text is supplemented with scientific terms, a glossary, and further research suggestions.

 

Partners in the Sea, by Mary Jo Rhodes and David Hall

You’ve probably heard about cleaner fish, but there are so many more undersea partnerships. There are fish that hang out in anemones, tiny crabs and shrimps that live inside sponges, and a bunch of animals that partner up with algae.

 

There’s A Zoo on You! by Kathy Darling

You share your body with more than a thousand microscopic species of bacteria, fungi, and other too-small to see organisms. Some are beneficial, such as tooth amoebas that eat bacteria. Others, like some fungi, take advantage of the relationship by benefiting at our expense.

 

It’s a Fungus Among Us: The Good, the Bad & the Downright Scary, by Carla Billups and Dawn Cusick

Most land plants live in a symbiotic relationship with fungi, and use the fungal web to share information with their plant buddies in the garden, field, and woods. Some animals develop beneficial partnerships with fungi, too – but others are attacked by fungal parasites.

 

Things That Make You Go Yuck! Odd Couples, by Jenn Dlugos & Charlie Hatton

Everything on earth is involved in a symbiotic relationship, some good and some bad. Amazing close-up photographs coupled with trivia questions, humor, sidebars, and a dash of gross-out facts makes this book on animal, plant, and microorganism adaptation and survival an entertaining and educational read about some unusual and creepy relationships.

 

Forest Talk: How Trees Communicate, by Melissa Koch

Trees are talking all around us, using an underground network of fungi and roots to communicate with one another. They also share chemical messages from their leaves, sending defense signals to other plants when pests attack.

 

Plant Partnerships, by Joyce Pope

An examination of the dependence of numerous plants and lichen on other plants and animals for their habitat or survival. Covers instances of symbiosis, parasitism, gardening, and pollination by insects and mammals.

 

STEM Tuesday book list prepared by:

 

Sue Heavenrich writes about science for children and their families, from space to backyard ecology. A long line of ants marching across the kitchen counter inspired her first article for kids. When not writing, she’s committing acts of citizen science in the garden. She blogs about science for kids and families at archimedesnotebook.blogspot.com.

 

Maria is a children’s author, blogger, and poet passionate about making nature and reading fun for children. She’s been a judge for the Cybils Awards from 2017 to present. And a judge for the #50PreciousWords competition since its inception. Her poems are published in The Best Of Today’s Little Ditty 2017-2018, 2016, and 2014-2015 anthologies. When not writing, critiquing, or reading, she bird watches, travels the world, bakes, and hikes. Visit her at www.mariacmarshall.com.

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Interview: Mae Respicio Talks About Theme And ANY DAY WITH YOU

By on April 22, 2020   /   Author Interviews  

I met Mae Respicio when our debut middle-grade novels released in the same year, 2018, and I was so impressed with her as an author and a person. Now Mae has a brand new MG coming out, ANY DAY WITH YOU. The novel got a starred review from Publishers Weekly and will be on shelves in just a couple weeks, on May 5, published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Mae Respicio

Mae Respicio

Mae is a star at working themes into her writing, so I’m thrilled that she’s on The Mixed Up Files to talk to us about that today.

Hi, Mae, tell us about your new MG book!

Of course—and thanks for having me here—I can’t wait to share ANY DAY WITH YOU with readers! The story revolves around twelve-year-old Kaia, who loves the beach, making movies, and creating effects make-up. When Kaia’s ninety-year-old great grandpa, Tatang, decides to return to his homeland of the Philippines, she doesn’t want him to go. Kaia and her best friends make a movie about the Filipino folklore Tatang loves to tell, and they enter it into a summer film contest thinking that if they win, it’ll stop him from saying goodbye. The book is all about family, friendship, and how we navigate change… an early reader told me she thought it was the warm hug we could all use right now and I love that—it’s a feel-good book for these times.

What gave you the idea for this story?

ANY DAY WITH YOU has a lot of personal connections for me. It’s set in sunny beachside Los Angeles, one of my heart-homes where I lived for many years. It has a filmmaking element, which is a world I’ve been a part of (fun fact: I met my husband when we both worked for the Walt Disney Animation Studios, and he did the teeniest bit of interior art for the book!). The story also features “maker-kids”—I’ve got 2 at home!—and as a girl I always loved to draw and create things. Finally, Tatang’s storyline came to be because it’s loosely inspired by my childhood—my grandparents lived with my family for a little while, so intergenerational relationships played a big role in my life. Somehow I combined all these elements and Kaia’s story was born.

ANY DAY WITH YOU has some great themes. Tell us about them.

One of the main themes of ANY DAY WITH YOU is around resiliency: what happens when your life changes, and how do you choose to deal with it? In this very moment our whole world is connected by change, and we’re all learning how to deal with it through empathy, kindness, and patience. It’s timely and a perfect book for kids right now, especially if teachers and parents can gently guide readers through conversations of how we navigate change to make us stronger.

Do you develop your themes when you’re first working on a story or do you identify them later in the process?

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgI usually brainstorm with certain themes in mind, but they start off big and overarching until I get to know my characters—that’s when I can get more nuanced. For ANY DAY WITH YOU, I wanted to explore “resiliency”—but I didn’t know what that meant until I came up Tatang’s storyline. That also happened with THE HOUSE THAT LOU BUILT. I wanted to write around “dreaming big” and “persistence,” but I didn’t know what that looked like until I came up with details of a girl wanting to build her own tiny house. When developing themes, I try to answer questions around what choices and obstacles would be thrown my characters way, and what emotions I want readers to come away with.

How do you use themes to dig deeper in your work?

Honestly, I don’t think about digging deep when I’m writing a first draft. I start off with a general story line—a beginning, middle, and end—then I let it all come out however messy… usually my first drafts look like a massive pile of words that make no sense! Revision is when I can dig deep, and that’s where a story’s richness comes in. For me that means using specific images, actions, and character choices that keep relating back the book’s themes. In ANY DAY WITH YOU, there’s some ocean and nature imagery relating to resiliency—so for example, showing how waves change daily but still they roll in a regular rhythm, a bit the way humans keep going even when their lives are disrupted.

Writers often explore similar themes in their body of work. Did you find that ANY DAY WITH YOU had similar themes to your earlier MG book THE HOUSE THAT LOU BOOK?


Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgOh, definitely. I’ve also published a lot of nonfiction and personal essay, and what I’ve found is that in most things I write there’s some thread of “home”—how do we discover home and what does that mean based on our different lenses.

Are there other parts of the book where you pulled from your own experiences?

My fiction has a balance of what I don’t know (and want to learn more about), and what I know intrinsically and what I’ve lived—usually from childhood—which is the part I think adds layer and spark. Also, as a parent of middle-grade reading kids, I draw from my parenting life—an endless, funny bounty of honest fodder. I grew up going to California beaches and it’s the way my family enjoys spending time together (my kids surf and love all beachy things!), so it was a fun writing exercise pulling from childhood memories and family experiences around the smells, sounds, and feeling of being near the ocean.

When does ANY DAY WITH YOU come out and how will you be celebrating?


ANY DAY WITH YOU comes out May 5th and I’ll be celebrating from home while sheltering in place! This may involve a cake and pajamas. Okay, maybe not PJs if I end up filming a little celebration video and sharing it online, but obviously there will be cake. Folks can follow me on Twitter and Instagram—or sign up for my (very infrequent!) newsletter—where I’ll be shouting out upcoming events.

Thanks, Mae! I’ve learned so much.

You can pre-order ANY DAY WITH YOU now.

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