Thought for the Day:
“The one thing I’ve learned is that you have to steer a project in the direction of the maximum fun for you.”
~ George Saunders ~
Gifts for My Writer Friends:
Parker Peevyhouse writing for The Writer’s Attic has a great post HERE called “My spine pressed into my throat.” Please stop writing emotion this way. She has terrific examples.
A good pitch is every bit as important as a good book, at least if you want to be published. HERE is a very succinct post by Erica Verrillo on Publishing … and Other Forms of Insanity called What’s Your Book About? How to Make a Pitch.
Alysandra Dutton has written a fascinating article for Writer’s Digest HERE called The Tiffany Problem: Navigating Reader Perceptions and Feelings in Historical Fiction. If you write historical fiction or even if you read historical fiction, you will find this one worth your time.
It’s still baseball season even if my beloved Giants have no shot at all at being in the postseason. I think the Giants’ management has accepted this and is doing something interesting, something I haven’t seen them do before. They are putting many of our veteran players on injured reserve for small things and bringing up bunches of young players from the minor league club. Some only stay up for two or three games, while some are here long enough for us fans to know their names and start to have a relationship with them. These are kids who have an extraordinary chance to get real big league experience when they might have expected to be in the minors for another year or two. They have a chance to showcase their abilities and make a case for why they deserve to be here. They also get to spend a lot of time with some great veteran players and learn from them. All the players on the IR tend to show up and spend time in the clubhouse and dugout. It’s fun to see how they are mentoring these young players, and it is also great fun to see these kids show off their great talent. The Giants may not be winning a lot of games, but they are sure a lot more fun to watch than they were when their fate for this year wasn’t written in stone. The U.S. Open tennis tournament is starting this week, so I will be spending a lot of time watching that. I used to not watch it, and I finally figured out why I didn’t like it. The sound of tennis on a hard court is annoying to me — the squeaking shoes and the echoing in the stadium kind of drive me nuts, but there are some exciting young players to watch, so watch I will.
I’m still waiting for a couple of Gary D. Schmidt novels to come in, so I decided to take a look at the picture books he’s written this week. I was able to get four through my local library. Three of the four could be considered for the youngest middle-graders — those in third or maybe fourth grade, so I don’t think I’m cheating too much by writing about them for my MMGM post.
ALMOST TIME: A Lyrical Picture Book about Maple Sugaring, Loose Teeth, the Change of Seasons, and Learning to Wait is a true picture book for very young children, those who are listening rather than reading independently. Written by Gary D. Schmidt and his late wife, Elizabeth Stickney, and illustrated by G. Brian Karas, it’s a very sweet book about a little boy who is disappointed when there is no maple syrup for his pancakes. His father explains they will have to wait until the sap begins to run in the maple trees. Waiting, as we all know, is not easy. We follow the boy and his father through the waiting time and the sap gathering time and the cooking time to the eating time. This is a charming book for little ones 3-5 years old.
A LONG ROAD ON A SHORT DAY, also co-written with Elizabeth Stickney and with illustrations by Eugene Yelchin is what we used to call a picture story book — a book that is text heavy and not dependent on the pictures to complete the story. The next two books also fall into this category. Mother announces she wishes they had a brown-eyed cow that would give milk for their new baby. Father gets his best knife and invites young Samuel to accompany him on an errand. It is winter and a blizzard is threatening, but off they walk to a neighboring farm. There, Father trades the knife for a pair of lanterns. They continue on to another neighbor and make a trade of the lanterns for a book of poems. And so it goes through the day as Father makes trade after trade until they have what they want. Samuel learns patience and perseverance and that the value of things is different for different people. The writing is lyrical, and the story is a sweet one.
SO TALL WITHIN: SOJOURNER TRUTH’S LONG WALK TOWARD FREEDOM is illustrated by Daniel Minter and is a story about Sojourner Truth’s life as a slave, her family, how she lost her brothers and sisters and her own children, how she gained her freedom, and the important work she did in the abolitionist movement. She had a lot of heartbreak in her life, but she persevered when most would have given up. When she is finally reunited with some of her siblings, it is really heartwarming and will give young readers a picture of how one can overcome the greatest odds with grit and perseverance. I would think teachers would love to have this book in their classrooms.
THE WONDERS OF DONAL O’DONNELL: A FOLKTALE OF IRELAND is illustrated by Loren Long. Here Schmidt tells the story of Sorcha and Donal O’Donnell who have lost their son and seem lost themselves. Three peddlers arrive in a storm and stay to tell fantastical tales of boys who seem lost but are not entirely lost. The magical tales bring comfort to the couple. Schmidt’s writing has a lilt to it that takes his readers straight to Ireland and immerses them in the magic of Irish folk stories.
I am pretty amazed by the breadth of Schmidt’s writing. He certainly is not a one-trick pony! Maybe these charming books will fill a gap for some of your children, grandchildren, or students. I hope you enjoyed my little departure from novels today. If you have read my blog for a while, you know I have a real love affair with picture books, especially those for middle-graders.
Please don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.
Rosi Hollinbeck 