Does Research Count?

Lynne Jonell
Lots of peo­ple ask me for advice on writ­ing.
That’s a hard one to answer. Writ­ing is per­son­al, and it’s dif­fer­ent for everyone. But peo­ple are curi­ous about my process, the dai­ly prac­tice of my craft.
They think that hear­ing about my process might help them in their own work. Maybe it will. At any rate, it is a ques­tion I can answer.more

Lynne Jonell: Accessing Childhood Emotion

Lynne Jonell
They say that, if you’re a doc­tor, it’s not some­thing you want to admit to at an event where you’re going to have to make small talk with a lot of strangers. Because invari­ably peo­ple will want your opin­ion on their rash, or the fun­ny flut­ter in their chest, or the odd bump on their knee. I wouldn’t know, not being a doc­tor, but I under­stand feel­ing cau­tious about admit­ting what I do for a liv­ing.… more

Quirky Book Lists: Classroom Pets

Think­ing about adding a class­room pet? Read and think again!
  8 Class Pets + 1 Squir­rel [÷] 1 Dog = Chaos
writ­ten by Vivian Vande Velde
illus­trat­ed by Steve Bjork­man
Hol­i­day House, 2012 Squir­rel likes liv­ing near a school play­ground. He’s not so sure about going inside, though, espe­cial­ly when he’s chased there by a dog and all the class­room pets get involved.
more

Skinny Dip with Lynne Jonell

Favorite holiday tradition? One of my favorite things ever is when we sit around the table at Thanksgiving and take turns telling what we are particularly thankful for, that year. I get a little choked up, especially when I listen to my sons. Were you a teacher’s pet or teacher’s challenge? I was a teacher’s pet up through sixth grade, and then teacher’s nightmare thereafter.… more

Lynne Jonell: Justice in Another World

by Lynne Jonell I just met a woman who lived through hor­ri­fy­ing emo­tion­al abuse as a child. I had been told about her his­to­ry some years before; but when I met the woman, we didn’t men­tion it. We talked instead about books, a sub­ject of com­mon inter­est, and teach­ing, her passion. I made an effort to for­get what I knew about her past; it was awful enough for her to have lived through it with­out my think­ing about it while we talked, like a bystander at a crime scene who keeps cast­ing sur­rep­ti­tious glances at the pool­ing blood beneath a blan­ket-cov­ered mound.… more