Bookology Magazine

May 2015

How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird

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by Melanie Heuis­er Hill Our house­hold has been patient­ly (and not so patient­ly) stuck in a long sea­son of wait­ing for deci­sions around some impor­tant and excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. Every­one has some­thing up in the air. Appli­ca­tions, inter­views, tests, hopes, and dreams are all out there, and now we watch for the mail, check mes­sages com­pul­sive­ly, and try to make friends with the sus­pense….… more

Middle Kingdom: Hartland, Maine

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Street Legal race car
The books that most delight mid­dle school and junior high read­ers often strad­dle a “Mid­dle King­dom” rang­ing from upper mid­dle grade to YA. Each month, Bookol­o­gy colum­nist Lisa Bullard will vis­it the Mid­dle King­dom by view­ing it through the eyes of a teacher or librar­i­an. Bookol­o­gy is delight­ed to cel­e­brate the work of these edu­ca­tors who have built vital book encamp­ments in the tran­si­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry of ear­ly adolescence.… more

Skinny Dip with Liza Ketchum

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Which book of yours was the most difficult to write or illustrate? My non-fiction books required the most intense periods of research, but the YA novel, Blue Coyote, was the most personally challenging. How could I, a straight woman, take on the character and voice of a young male teen who was exploring his sexuality? Yet a number of readers who had read the novel’s prequel, Twelve Days in August, had written to ask, “What about Alex?… more

Graphic Novels: A source of inspiration and mentor texts

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by Mau­r­na Rome Flash­back to the first week of school … we were pass­ing the micro­phone around our large cir­cle of 29 third-graders. It was easy to see that many stu­dents were shy and ner­vous, but one young man was appar­ent­ly look­ing for some shock val­ue. He began with “My name is Michael” then non­cha­lant­ly added, ”I’m a slack­er.”… more

Elizabeth Verdick: A Look at “Autism Fiction”

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by Eliz­a­beth Verdick I spent the month of April read­ing children’s fic­tion fea­tur­ing char­ac­ters with Autism Spec­trum Dis­or­der (ASD). April was Autism Aware­ness Month, but that wasn’t my only moti­va­tion. I love children’s lit­er­a­ture, I have writ­ten non­fic­tion about ASD, and I’m rais­ing a son who’s on the autism spec­trum. I won­dered, Which mid­dle-grade sto­ries could I hand him, say­ing, “I think you’ll real­ly like this”?… more

Collecting Souvenirs

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GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard Not all writ­ers can claim the vast and var­ied assort­ment of sou­venir snow globes I’ve acquired on my trav­els. But most writ­ers I know are con­stant­ly col­lect­ing oth­er things: sto­ries, words, images, emo­tions, quirky char­ac­ters, new expe­ri­ences, and odd­ball facts. These “writ­ing chachkas” clut­ter the rooms of our imag­i­na­tions until we need inspiration Then we pick one up, shake it, and watch to see what lands in our writing.… more

When a Prince Needs a Mechanic

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by Vic­ki Palmquist With a deft sto­ry and oth­er­world­ly art, Deb­o­rah Under­wood and Meg Hunt bring us Inter­stel­lar Cin­derel­la, a fresh and wel­come take on the famil­iar fairy tale with a bit of Andro­cles and the Lion and The Jet­sons thrown into the mix. In this ver­sion, Cin­derel­la loves fix­ing any­thing mechan­i­cal. She has her own set of spe­cial tools, all care­ful­ly drawn and named on the end­pa­pers for the kids who love iden­ti­fy­ing things.… more

Quirky Book Lists: Go Fly a Kite!

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by The Bookologist Curi­ous George Flies a Kite
 H.A. Rey
HMH Books for Young Read­ers, 1977 (reis­sue of 1958 edi­tion)
Ages 5 – 8 First George is curi­ous about some bun­nies, then about fish­ing, and then about his friend Billy’s kite. All’s well that ends well. Ages 5 – 8.   Days with Frog and Toad Arnold Lobel
1979 Harper­Collins
Ages 4 – 8 Five sto­ries with the two famous friends, includ­ing “The Kite,” in which Frog’s opti­mism and Toad’s efforts pre­vail over the pre­dic­tions of some nay-say­ing robins. … more

Princess of the Midnight Ball

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by Melanie Heuis­er Hill My twelve-year-old daugh­ter is inhal­ing books these days — a stack at a time out of the library, every book­shelf in the house pil­laged, major insid­er trad­ing at school, etc. There’s no way I can keep up, but when I move a book from here to there I often flip through or ask her opin­ion. When she start­ed read­ing Princess of the Mid­night Ball, I assumed, based on the PBS Mas­ter­piece The­ater-like attire on the cover’s princess, that it was “just-anoth­er-princess book.”… more

Skinny Dip with Karen Cushman

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  What’s your favorite holiday tradition? Phil is Jewish so we celebrate Hanukkah. I light the house with candles—one hundred or so white candles of all sizes and shapes. It looks beautiful but makes the house very, very warm. Were you a teacher’s pet or teacher’s challenge? Oh, teacher’s pet, without a doubt. I was too nervous to misbehave, smart enough to learn quickly, and quiet enough not to show off (see question #5).… more

Ellen Oh: Researching and Writing the Prophecy Trilogy

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Oh_Prophecy Trilogy
  Bookol­o­gist’s note: Last month we fea­tured Cather­ine, Called Birdy and an inter­view with the author, Karen Cush­man. In that inter­view, non­fic­tion writer Claire Rudolf Mur­phy asked Cush­man about her research and incor­po­ra­tion of his­tor­i­cal fact into her fic­tion. Con­tin­u­ing that explo­ration, this month Bookol­o­gy vis­its with nov­el­ist Ellen Oh. King, the final vol­ume of her Prophe­cy tril­o­gy, was released in March (vol­umes 1 and 2 are Prophe­cy, Harp­er Teen 2013 and War­rior, Harp­er Teen 2014). A blend… more

Marion Dane Bauer: The Power of Novels

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by Mar­i­on Dane Bauer [I]f you are inter­est­ed in the neu­ro­log­i­cal impact of read­ing, the jour­nal Brain Con­nec­tiv­i­ty pub­lished a paper “Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Nov­el on Con­nec­tiv­i­ty in the Brain.” Basi­cal­ly, read­ing nov­els increas­es con­nec­tiv­i­ty, stim­u­lates the front tem­po­ral cor­tex and increas­es activ­i­ty in areas of the brain asso­ci­at­ed with empa­thy and mus­cle mem­o­ry. [Read the whole arti­cle.] … more

Heavy Baggage

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GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard I wrote in “The Beau­ty of Road­blocks” about how stu­dents some­times for­get to include the crit­i­cal ele­ment of conflict in their stories. Some­times I’m faced with a differ­ent prob­lem: a kid will include painful, intense conflict — some­thing that is clear­ly based on their own expe­ri­ences. Some young peo­ple car­ry around “heavy bag­gage,” and a writ­ing road trip can unex­pect­ed­ly wrench those bags open.… more

Skinny Dip with Marion Dane Bauer

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  What is your proudest career moment? My proudest career moment I suppose should be the day in 1986 when On My Honor won a Newbery Honor Award. But though that was the moment that changed my career more than any other, it’s not my proudest. My proud­est was when I was just begin­ning writ­ing, had fin­ished my first nov­el and had no idea whether what I was doing had any val­ue at all.… more

Lit Lunches:
Promoting a love of reading one bite at a time!

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Sandwiches
  by Mau­r­na Rome I admit that I am some­times envi­ous of my friends who work in the busi­ness world and get to enjoy fre­quent din­ing out excur­sions dur­ing their lunch breaks. A 20 – 25 minute rush to digest school cafe­te­ria food, microwav­able left­overs or a brown bag sand­wich isn’t the most appe­tiz­ing mid-day meal expe­ri­ence. How­ev­er, once a month I do get to enjoy a spe­cial book club of sorts, called “Lit Lunch,” with some of the most thought­ful, deep thinkers I’ve ever chat­ted with about books!… more

Lowriders in Space Companion Booktalks

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  To get you start­ed on the Book­storm™ books … 13 Plan­ets: The Lat­est View of the Solar Sys­tem, by David A. Aguilar. Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Children’s Books, 2011.  Grades 2 – 6 Report mate­r­i­al galore, beau­ti­ful­ly organized Illus­trat­ed with a com­bi­na­tion of pho­tographs and dig­i­tal art Includes sev­er­al hands-on activities Car Sci­ence: an Under-the-Hood, Behind-the-Dash Look at How Cars Work, by Richard Ham­mond, DK Books, 2008.… more

Literary Madeleine: Grasping at Stars

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by Vic­ki Palmquist How many chil­dren, over how many years, have learned from their par­ents to iden­ti­fy the stars that make up the Big Dip­per? Can you see them stand­ing out­side, point­ing to the stars in the dark sky, trac­ing the make-believe line that draws a saucepan in the heavens? My moth­er told me some of the sto­ries she knew about the con­stel­la­tions, about the Great Bear and Ori­on and Androm­e­da.… more

Cathy Camper: Writing Lowriders in Space

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Lowriders cover
Lowrid­ers in Space
writ­ten by Cathy Camper
illus­trat­ed by Raul the Third
Chron­i­cle Books, 2014 When did you first become aware of (or involved in) lowrider culture? Probably in the early 1980’s, when I visited a friend of mine who lived in the Mission District of San Francisco. There were a lot of lowriders in the neighborhood, and since we were young women at the time, we’d get flirtatious attention from guys showing off their cars when we walked down the street.… more

Author Emeritus: Eleanor Cameron

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ph_headstones
  Eleanor Frances But­ler Cameron in was born in Win­nipeg, Man­i­to­ba on March 23, 1912. She attend­ed UCLA and the LA Art Cen­ter School for three years before mar­ry­ing Ian Stu­art Cameron, a print­er, in 1934. Mrs. Cameron worked as a ref­er­ence librar­i­an for many years before begin­ning to write full time, and was fas­ci­nat­ed by the way the mind took frag­ments of a writer’s life and rearranged them for writ­ing mate­r­i­al.… more

Raul the Third: Illustrating Lowriders in Space

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Lowriders cover
   Lowrid­ers in Space writ­ten by Cathy Camper
illus­trat­ed by Raul the Third
Chron­i­cle Books, 2014 When did you first become aware of (or involved in) lowrider culture? I feel like I’ve been aware of lowrider culture for my entire life. When I was in high school I would draw the type of imagery you might see used as décor on a lowrider.… more

Two for the Show

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Monster Mama cover
  by Jack­ie Brig­gs Mar­tin and Phyl­lis Root We both love find­ing for­got­ten trea­sures in the “removed from cir­cu­la­tion” sec­tions of libraries or in sec­ond hand book­stores. Some of these books call to us because we remem­ber them from our child­hoods: the Babar books writ­ten out in long­hand, the Flic­ka, Ric­ka, Dic­ka sto­ries about Swedish triplets, Mar­cia Brown’s Stone Soup.… more

Bookstorm: Lowriders in Space 

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Lowriders in Space
In this Bookstorm™: Lowriders in Space
 writ­ten by Cathy Camper
illus­trat­ed by Raul the Third
pub­lished by Chron­i­cle Books, 2014 “Lupe Impala, El Cha­vo Flap­jack, and Elirio Malar­ia love work­ing with cars. You name it, they can fix it. But the team’s favorite cars of all are lowrid­ers — cars that hip and hop, dip and drop, go low and slow, baji­to y suavecito.… more

Fateful Car Trips in Children’s Literature

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  Lupe, Flap­py, and Elirio are among the many fic­tion­al char­ac­ters who have hopped into a car and sped away into adven­ture. Here are a few more!
 … more

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