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Laurie Ann Thompson

Laurie Thompson

Review: Picture Yourself Writing Poetry

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Pic­ture Your­self Writ­ing Poet­ry: Using Pho­tos to Inspire Writing
by Lau­ra Pur­die Salas
Cap­stone Press, August 2011
32 pages
Ages: 8 and up
This title is one of the Pic­ture Your­self Writ­ing ____: Using Pho­tos to Inspire Writ­ing series, and it’s quite effective—it inspired me to write! Not only does it demon­strate how one can use images to get ideas for poems, it also con­tains many spe­cif­ic, easy-to-under­stand writ­ing tips. Salas cov­ers such impor­tant top­ics as incor­po­rat­ing sen­so­ry detail, choos­ing con­crete nouns and strong verbs, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and point of view, and struc­ture, all paired with won­der­ful examples. 
The books opens up with the line, “The best poems are mag­i­cal, minia­ture worlds.” It then shows read­ers how to cre­ate those worlds them­selves while invit­ing them to enter sev­er­al cre­at­ed by Salas.
I think this would be a great book to incor­po­rate into any poet­ry cur­ricu­lum. I would also hearti­ly rec­om­mend it to stu­dents who enjoy writ­ing… as well as to those who tend to strug­gle with it.

(Dis­claimers: I received this copy for review for free from the pub­lish­er as part of the Cybils judg­ing process. This review is my opin­ion only and does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect the judg­ing com­mit­tee’s selections.)

The importance of play

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I have a con­fes­sion to make. I’ve nev­er been much of a jour­naler, my cre­ativ­i­ty has always been bursty, and I have nev­er in my life had any­thing resem­bling a dai­ly writ­ing habit.
But I real­ly need one.
“Need” is the right word, too. I almost wrote “should,” but that isn’t quite cor­rect. It’s 1:30 p.m., and I’ve accom­plished next to noth­ing so far today. I’ve been pro­cras­ti­nat­ing, surf­ing, orga­niz­ing, clean­ing… but not one thing that actu­al­ly gets me clos­er to my goals. I have a whole bunch of things I “should” be doing, revi­sions and research. That’s not the prob­lem. The prob­lem is more that I’m in a sort of funk, and none of those “should” tasks appeal to me right now. This slump I’m in, I think is because I’ve lost con­tact with my cre­ative self. I’ve let the inner edi­tor have too much to do, too much to say late­ly. Yes, I’ve need­ed it for the revi­sions I’ve been work­ing on, but it got too much prac­tice, while my cre­ative side withered.
I haven’t writ­ten any­thing brand new, aside from a few blog posts here, for almost six months. Blog posts are good, I guess. I get to cre­ate, write, practice–and it serves a use­ful pur­pose, too (I hope!). A nice win-win.
But, writ­ing some­thing for pub­lic con­sump­tion is not the same as freewrit­ing, prac­tice, PLAY. I’ve been read­ing HOW TO BE A WRITER by Bar­bara Baig  and the first thing she address­es is this need to free our­selves from expec­ta­tion and play with writ­ing, with­out fear of any­one else see­ing the results. I’ve been see­ing this advice show up in var­i­ous snip­pets here and there from var­i­ous wise peo­ple for the past few weeks. The uni­verse is send­ing me sig­nals, but I’ve been try­ing hard to over­look them to focus instead on the “should“s, the con­crete to-do list, the goal-ori­ent­ed approach to achiev­ing my dreams.
I’m a log­i­cal per­son. I write non­fic­tion. I make lists. I set goals, and break them down, and work towards them. This is all good and use­ful… to a point.
But some­times, the well runs dry. I need to rest. I need to read. I NEED to cre­ate. That, after all, is the end goal. So, it’s time to lis­ten to the universe.
You, dear revi­sions, will just have to wait. I’m cur­rent­ly busy with much less impor­tant things.

Review: Only the Mountains Do Not Move

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Only the Mountains Do Not Move cover

Only the Mountains Do Not Move cover
Only the Moun­tains Do Not Move: A Maa­sai Sto­ry of Cul­ture and Conservation
by Jan Reynolds
Lee & Low Books, Sep­tem­ber 01, 2011
40 pages
Grades 3–4
I’ve always been fas­ci­nat­ed by the Maa­sai, so I was pleased to see this book about their cul­ture writ­ten for chil­dren, and this book did­n’t dis­ap­point. Straight­for­ward text is com­bined with Maa­sai proverbs and beau­ti­ful pho­tog­ra­phy to give us a detailed glimpse at mod­ern-day Maa­sai life. This is a bal­anced rep­re­sen­ta­tion: Reynolds isn’t afraid to show the less pleas­ant (bit­ing bugs!) or shock­ing (drink­ing cow blood!) aspects of Maa­sai life, but she also reveals the peace and togeth­er­ness it brings. Espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant to her young read­ers is how she focus­es on what the Maa­sai boys and girls do at dif­fer­ent ages.
One pleas­ant sur­prise was how Reynolds shares with read­ers not only the his­tor­i­cal Maa­sai cul­ture, but also how the Maa­sai way of life is chang­ing due to out­side pres­sures and how they are adapt­ing to this new world, giv­ing the sto­ry con­text in the broad­er world.
I’d be remiss, how­ev­er, if I did­n’t men­tion that there were a few minor draw­backs for me. First, it both­ered me not to have pro­nun­ci­a­tion guides for the Maa words embed­ded in the text (but there is one at the end). Sec­ond, although the Maa­sai proverbs were love­ly, I want­ed more of them and to have them appear more reg­u­lar­ly through­out the text. As it is, with 10–14 pages between proverbs, they sort of sur­prised me each time and felt more like inter­rup­tions than the embell­ish­ments they should have been. Final­ly, I would have liked to get a lit­tle clos­er to the main fam­i­ly through­out the whole book. Some­times the text seems to move way out to the Maa­sai in gen­er­al for a long time, then it zooms in briefly to the main char­ac­ters, then goes right back out again. I would’ve liked more con­nec­tions to have been made between the gen­er­al way of life and the spe­cif­ic family.
On the plus side, the back mat­ter includes an author’s note, a glos­sary and pro­nun­ci­a­tion guide, a web site for more infor­ma­tion, and source notes and acknowl­edge­ments. There’s also a very inter­est­ing inter­view and book talk with the author avail­able here, which should make it ever more appeal­ing for teach­ers hop­ing to use it in the classroom.
This is a won­der­ful book for intro­duc­ing a unique and fas­ci­nat­ing African cul­ture to upper ele­men­tary students.

Lessons learned at the 2011 SCBWI WWA retreat

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I had such a great time at SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton’s Week­end on the Water retreat this year. Nes­tled in a cozy lodge-style resort on the Hood Canal, 49 oth­er writ­ers and I had the priv­i­lege of learn­ing from super­stars Arthur A. Levine and Lin­da Sue Park. I want­ed to cap­ture and share just a few of the nuggets of wis­dom I gleaned from their talks, so here goes…
 
Arthur A. Levine
From Arthur:

  • First chap­ters are like first dates. You need a spark, but also must estab­lish trust if there is to be a long-term rela­tion­ship. You must choose an appro­pri­ate set­ting for the mood you wish to cre­ate. Choose the right outfit—don’t write to trends if they don’t suit you. Don’t give too much away in the beginning—keep a few sur­pris­es for lat­er. Be hon­est. Don’t rush in.
  • Think about your story’s “best self,” the most impor­tant aspect of your book and hope­ful­ly, the one you are best at. Is it char­ac­ter? Plot? Voice? Set­ting? Yes, you need them all, of course, but one prob­a­bly stands out as the key ele­ment or your best trait. Be sure to lead with that com­po­nent in the first chap­ter, both to make a good impres­sion and set the stage for what comes next.
  • Make sure your story’s “beat­ing heart” is revealed in the first chap­ter. What’s the emo­tion­al theme?
  • You can’t start writ­ing with a moral or theme in mind. Go back to the char­ac­ters and find out  why it matters.
  • Main char­ac­ters will have thoughts and feel­ings about the facts you need to present. Reveal char­ac­ter through descrip­tion to get two for one.
  • When receiv­ing feed­back, be sure to ask WHY cri­ti­quers are mak­ing their sug­ges­tions. Don’t just make the changes they pro­pose with­out under­stand­ing the real rea­sons behind them.
  • Enjoy the journey!

 
Linda Sue Park
From Lin­da Sue:

  • Young chil­dren are learn­ing about THEIR WORLD. Mid­dle-grade chil­dren are learn­ing about THE WORLD. Young-adult read­ers are learn­ing about THEMSELVES. “Read­ing is prac­tice for life.”
  • With­out show­ing the where and when of set­ting, you only reveal part of char­ac­ter. Tell read­ers how your char­ac­ters inter­act with their envi­ron­ment, not just what the envi­ron­ment is.
  • Every sen­tence should do dou­ble-duty (plot + char­ac­ter, plot + set­ting, or set­ting + char­ac­ter). Look for this dur­ing revision.
  • Try it! Instead of just think­ing about some­thing, (1st per­son POV vs. 3rd per­son, present vs. past, dif­fer­ent struc­tures and time­lines, dif­fer­ent set­tings, etc.), try it both ways and see what you like bet­ter. Don’t be afraid of wast­ing time! This is the work of writing.
  • Using present tense for what is hap­pen­ing right now is tech­ni­cal­ly incor­rect. Present tense is for things that hap­pen every day or are rou­tine. Present par­tici­ple (-ing) is for what’s hap­pen­ing right now. “I sing” vs. “I’m singing.” But it’d be awful­ly cum­ber­some to right a 1st per­son present nov­el this way!
  • Use line breaks to see the rhythm and length of sen­tences in a pic­ture book. Edit it as free verse, then put it back togeth­er for man­u­script form.
  • Act out the parts and try read­ing your work out loud AS your char­ac­ters! This helps you catch things they wouldn’t say or do and guar­an­tee authenticity.
  • Write one scene at a time. In every scene, you only have to choose if there will be progress or imped­i­ment, and which quest will affect, inter­nal or exter­nal? Now make it MOVE—every scene needs some kind of action.
  • Even if you don’t believe in your­self, believe in your STORY.
  • The only way to know what’s good is to read—a LOT!

 
There was so much more from each of them that my note­book (not to men­tion my brain) is full! If you ever get the chance to hear either one of them speak, don’t let it pass you by. They are both phenomenal.
Anoth­er great com­po­nent of the retreat is learn­ing from the oth­er tal­ent­ed writ­ers in atten­dance.  We had peer cri­tique groups, net­work­ing and social time, and work shared aloud through­out the week­end. So, with all of that feed­back and learn­ing in mind… back to revisions!

Jean Reidy’s Light Up the Library Auction

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LIGHT UP THE NIGHT cover

Author Jean Rei­dy’s new pic­ture book, LIGHT UP THE NIGHT (Hype­r­i­on, Octo­ber 2011) was inspired by her con­nec­tions to Ugan­da and its chil­dren, many of whom have been dis­place due to past civ­il war or orphaned by AIDS. To cel­e­brate the release of the book and hon­or those chil­dren, she is hold­ing an online auc­tion to ben­e­fit lit­er­a­cy in Africa and a library at Musana Chil­dren’s Home in Igan­ga, Uganda.

There are all kinds of great items avail­able including:

Find out how it all works and start plac­ing your bids here. But hur­ry! The auc­tion ends Novem­ber 18, 2011.

November is PiBoIdMo!

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Picture Book Idea Month link

For many writ­ers, Novem­ber is Nation­al Nov­el Writ­ing Month (NaNoW­riMo), a month-long com­mit­ment to cre­ativ­i­ty where­in writ­ers turn off their inner crit­ics and pound out a com­plete 50,000-word nov­el in 30 days. I’ve seen the results, and it’s noth­ing short of amaz­ing. A self-imposed dead­line can be very moti­vat­ing, espe­cial­ly when shared with others!
Alas, how could pic­ture-book writ­ers join in the fun and enthu­si­asm? I sup­pose you could try to ham­mer out 100 500-word pic­ture books in a month, but writ­ing 100 dif­fer­ent sto­ries, even if they’re short, is a very dif­fer­ent beast than writ­ing just one long one. It may not take long to write the first draft of a pic­ture book, but it can take a very long time to find one real­ly great pic­ture-book idea (and we won’t even talk about revisions!).
Last Feb­ru­ary, I par­tic­i­pat­ed in a month-long pic­ture-book writ­ing marathon, where we chal­lenged our­selves to write 26 pic­ture books in 28 days, and it was a fan­tas­tic expe­ri­ence. In fact, two man­u­scripts from that expe­ri­ence are very close to being final drafts ready for sub­mis­sion. Of course, that means there were 24 that weren’t so great, rang­ing from “might be worth work­ing on” to “total stinkers” (lots more in that cat­e­go­ry, to be sure), but still, I feel it was well worth the time–and a ton of fun!
Per­haps an even bet­ter idea, and cer­tain­ly less intim­i­dat­ing now that I’ve done the pic­ture-book marathon, is Tara Lazar’s Pic­ture Book Idea Month (PiBoId­Mo). Sign up starts today, right here!

Picture Book Idea Month link

If you’ve ever even thought about writ­ing pic­ture books, I urge you to try this chal­lenge! So far, almost 300 peo­ple have signed up, so there will be cama­raderie. Tara will fea­ture dai­ly inspi­ra­tion and guest blog­gers to help keep us going. And, as if that was­n’t enough, there will be PRIZES: signed books, pic­ture-book man­u­script cri­tiques, orig­i­nal art by pic­ture-book illus­tra­tors, book jew­el­ry, hand-made jour­nals, vin­tage chil­dren’s books, and feed­back from one of three lit­er­ary agents!
I’ll hope you’ll join me, Tara, and hun­dreds of oth­er pic­ture books writ­ers for this year’s PiBoId­Mo. Please let me know in the com­ments if you’re participating!

Humor in nonfiction books for kids

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Some peo­ple think non­fic­tion is dry and bor­ing. How can facts be fun, right? WRONG! Humor in non­fic­tion not only gets and keeps read­ers engaged, it can also help them retain the infor­ma­tion longer. My fel­low writ­ers of non­fic­tion for kids (on the NFforKids Yahoo group and on Twit­ter) and I have put togeth­er a list of our favorite FUNNY non­fic­tion titles for kids. Here’s what we came up with, in no par­tic­u­lar order:

This is just a sam­pling of our favorites. Do you have any to add? Please let us know in the comments!
I found it inter­est­ing that often the humor is pri­mar­i­ly in the illus­tra­tions, with the text play­ing it fair­ly straight. In fact, in many cas­es it’s only the jux­ta­po­si­tion of the two that tick­les your fun­ny bone. In oth­ers, the humor is mild (a smile rather than a bel­ly laugh) or is just hint­ed at rather than being an explic­it joke. Some­times, the top­ic itself is pret­ty fun­ny, but the text is fair­ly seri­ous. Giv­en how much kids love to read humor, I won­der if that’s all just coin­ci­dence, or if humor just isn’t as tol­er­at­ed in non­fic­tion texts, or maybe non­fic­tion writ­ers just don’t have a sense of humor (I’m sure not buy­ing that last one!). Thoughts? 
 

2011 CYBILS, Nonfiction Picture Books… and me!

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CYBILS logo

CYBILS logo
I’m absolute­ly thrilled to announce that I’ve been select­ed to serve as a judge in the non­fic­tion pic­ture book (NFPB) cat­e­go­ry of the 2011 CYBILS (Chil­dren’s and Young Adult Blog­ger’s Lit­er­ary Awards)!
I write non­fic­tion pic­ture books, so I read a lot of non­fic­tion pic­ture books. Now, I get to help rec­og­nize the best of the best. Nom­i­na­tions have opened, titles are rolling in, and I’ve already start­ed read­ing. You can see what has been nom­i­nat­ed here, and you can add your own nom­i­na­tion here. I’m not sure I’ll get much writ­ing done in Octo­ber, but it will be an epic month of great read­ing, I’m sure! Stay tuned for reviews of nom­i­nat­ed titles.

STEM Friday Book Review: The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs

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The Case of the Van­ish­ing Gold­en Frogs: A Sci­en­tif­ic Mystery
(Excep­tion­al Sci­ence Titles for Inter­me­di­ate Grades series)
by San­dra Markle (Author)
Mill­book Press (Lern­er), Octo­ber 2011
48 pages
Ages: 9–12
From the pub­lish­er’s web page:

Pana­man­ian gold­en frogs aren’t just cute, lit­tle, and yel­low. They’re also the nation­al sym­bol of Pana­ma. But they start­ed to dis­ap­pear about fif­teen years ago. What’s killing them? Could it be a change in their habi­tat? What about pol­lu­tion? Might it be a result of cli­mate change? Fol­low a team of sci­en­tists work­ing to save these frogs and pro­tect frog pop­u­la­tions world­wide in this real-life sci­ence mystery.

San­dra Markle is one of my favorite authors, and frogs are high on my list of favorite ani­mals, so I was thrilled to have a chance to pre­view this title. And I was­n’t dis­ap­point­ed. The text is infor­ma­tive and easy to under­stand, but also tells a fas­ci­nat­ing and com­pelling story.
Markle does a great job of cap­tur­ing both the impor­tance and the fun of sci­ence. First, she explains why the dis­ap­pear­ance of these tiny crea­tures mat­ters. Then, she lays out how the mys­tery unfold­ed: what ques­tions dif­fer­ent sci­en­tists asked, and how the answers led to the next piece of the puzzle–and more ques­tions, for oth­er sci­en­tists, etc.
In fact, that’s one of the things I appre­ci­at­ed most about this book: it does­n’t fol­low just one sci­en­tist and his or her unique work. It demon­strates how one per­son­’s find­ings sparked oth­ers to advance the sci­ence, and how each used his or her own exper­tise and knowl­edge to con­tribute the next vital step in the ongo­ing process. To me, that makes sci­ence feel more acces­si­ble to kids by show­ing that suc­cess­ful sci­en­tists don’t need to solve a whole big prob­lem, they just need to learn some­thing new and tell others.
Aside from the mas­ter­ful text, the stun­ning lay­out and design and big, bold pho­tographs on every page make the book visu­al­ly engag­ing through­out and are more than enough to keep young read­ers turn­ing the pages to see what’s next.
In the author’s note, Markle adds this:

No tale of find­ing a ser­i­al killer could be more excit­ing than this true sto­ry.… But the sto­ry isn’t over yet. The amphib­ian killer is still at large. Per­haps, one day, one of you will become the sci­ence detec­tive who final­ly stops this killer.

The book also includes a table of con­tents, “how to help” sec­tion,  glos­sary, age-appro­pri­ate rec­om­mend­ed resources, index, and pho­to credits.

To check out the rest of today’s roundup of books for kids about top­ics in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing, and math­e­mat­ics, head on over to this week’s STEM Fri­day host, Ras­co From RIF!

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