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I had all kinds of ideas about what I was going to write about for today. Science and art. A term called The Beholder's Share. I was going to tell you about a great trip I had in Maine, where I spoke to librarians about writing non-fiction. I was going to show you a cool NPR story about the wind at sea looking like a Van Gogh sky. But then I opened up the New York Times Monday morning and saw this:

Pseudoscience and Tennessee’s Classrooms

Please read it. I'll wait. I can't say it any better than that because all I want to do is scream. Loudly.

But I will say this, once again, as I've said many times and I think as I showed in CHARLES AND EMMA: Science and faith can co-exist. It does not have to be either or. But science is science and religion is religion. Evolution really happens. Smart theologians, religious people, clerics, rabbis, priests, ministers have NO PROBLEM WITH EVOLUTION. (I guess I am screaming.)

Our children deserve to be taught the truth in school. Period, the end.

Global warming really is happening. Smart politicians know that. Teaching our children the truth about global warming leaves open the possibility of saving our earth. Not teaching them the truth closes that possibility.

I hate conflict and controversy. I got very little of it, thank goodness, when  Charles And Emma came out. I think because their relationship shows how science and religion can co-exist in peace and harmony with understanding. That's beautiful.

What's happening in Tennessee and elsewhere is not beautiful. It's UGLY. And stupid. I'm going to let Spencer Tracy say it for me: Inherit The Wind

[Before taking on this subject, I’d like to thank Barbara Kerley. Her September 9 blog, “An Old Dog, A New Trick,” was the push I needed to go to the bright side, to go Mac.]


I recently participated at a media specialist conference in Florida, where I heard a number of interesting presentations by our fiction writing colleagues. Gayle Forman when she writes she hears the voices of her characters. We nonfiction authors do that, too, of course, but there’s an additional step. First, we must search out real characters, alive or dead, and then find ways to integrate them into our heads. At least that’s my process. Nonfiction writers’ search for characters is indeed a long, twisty road.

This subject led me to the master of all character searches, Luigi Pirandello, who I assume reads INK somewhere in the Italian grand beyond.


I ask him: Caro Senore Pirandello. Per favore. Your Six Characters in Search of an Author is great theater, but how about some help for us nonfiction writers? After all, we share much in common. Just as your characters take control of your play, people represented in nonfiction literature usually take control of the books right from the start. Primary sources are our bread and butter. For this writer, my primary sources, my people, ARE the book.


The way I work is somewhat logical and somewhat not. Before I meet anyone, I need to understand my subject – just enough to be able to ask decent questions – but not so much as to enable preconceived ideas to drive the book. That’s the characters’ domain. Meanwhile the networking in search of said characters begins.

To network, timidity has no place in the lexicon of nonfiction. We must be tough, just like your pushy six characters, Senore. I’ll call anyone I know who might know someone who might know someone. Emails go out to suggested organizations, and to the friends of friends of friends. Fingers crossed, I await the responses. In the best of all worlds, doors fly open, private intimate materials are gingerly handed over, and the most fascinating, introspective, articulate people whoever walked the planet start talking. Oh-oh, now I’m verging into fiction. Truth-be-told, this doesn’t happen quite so quickly, but hey, this is a blog, and our readers are busy people.

While the hopefully discovered most fascinating person talks, I tape, listen, and watch. Does she lean to the left? To the right? Does his upper lip curl when revealing an inner truth? Is she a blinker? When does he laugh nervously? Also: Am I pushing too hard? Not enough? Asking the right follow ups? This is a balancing act whose high wire is based on trust. It’s extraordinarily exhilarating – when it works.

Up to this point, the interviewees are people, not characters who will take over the book. To become characters, they have to go through me. First, all the tapes, every last word, need to be personally transcribed. While pushing rewind, again and again, their voices slowly begin to creep into my being. Suddenly, their speech patterns become my speech patterns, their body language and movement slowly becomes mine. They attach themselves to my bones and seep into my blood. I literally need to know how it feels to be ze [him or her]. I know, I know, this is more than a little weird, but the creative process is usually weird. [Just watch the anomalous routines baseball players go through at bat.]

One of the first entries I wrote for this blog was about reading Philip Isaacson’s Round Buildings, Square Buildings, and Buildings that Wiggled like a Fish long ago—how its beauty and complexity blew me away and made me realize that nonfiction for kids could be an art form and I wanted to try writing it. http://inkrethink.blogspot.com/2008/05/book-that-started-it-all-for-me.html

When Stitches was nominated for a National Book Award in the kids category, I figured I should read it. I had read a few graphic novels before, some okay, some very good, but they didn’t change my reading habits much. No aspersions cast, there are many types of books I don’t read much.

Stitches had me at hello. I would love to say it was literary merit alone, but it was actually because Small's first spread had a single word on it—DETROIT. I live in Boston now, but come from Detroit and have very strong feelings about it.

His second spread had a panel with a row of postwar houses built for returning GIs—one of them looked exactly my childhood house. As subsequent panels slowly drew us toward and inside his home, I noticed his address was 19458. Mine was 18073. As a nonfiction writer, it didn’t take long for me to find out that Small had lived on Pinehurst, not my street, Sorrento. Nevertheless, the hook was set.

It was Small’s story and how he told it that reeled me in, though. Especially that amazing interplay between word and image, where pictures are telling the story, then language carries the narrative baton for a little while, only to pass it off to an image where emotion and action are so perfectly aligned that it takes you someplace else entirely. I was trying to explain this to a friend and she said, “Like a picture is worth a thousand words, basically?” “No,” I answered. “Like the picture does something no words could do.” Examples in this book—pp 62-63, 174, and 250 for starters.

This is not a new insight. Millions (multi-millions) have always known it and I guess I did to. But there’s a difference between knowing something and feeling the one-two punch of its impact, especially within the context of a story. Thank you, David Small, for whacking me over the head.

14 Cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy with Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah, and illustrated by Thomas Gonzalez, is a stunning new book from Peachtree Publishers. Its spare lyrical prose tells the story of a young Kenyan Maasai warrior studying in the U.S. who returns to his village after 9/11. He tells the villagers about the suffering of the Americans, and they give their most precious possessions, cattle, as a peace offering, "because," Deedy concludes, “there is no nation so powerful it cannot be wounded, nor a people so small they cannot offer mighty comfort.”

I was curious about the genesis of this book and Deedy’s creative process, especially her collaboration with Kimeli Naiyomah, the protagonist of the story and so I arranged an online interview with the author.

When did you begin writing 14 Cows for America?

On April 24, 2002, I stumbled across an astonishing story on page 1A of The New York Times. It concerned a small tribe of Maasai cow herders from western Kenya, who had responded to the attacks on September 11 by offering the United States a sacred gift-- fourteen cows. The article was in-depth, and exquisitely written, and served not only to move me deeply (most Americans were still sharply affected by any reference to the tragedy in the months that followed 9/11), but also to whet my appetite for more information. Were these the Maasai Isak Dinesen referred to in her biography? Were they still the lion-hunters of legend? Were these the same Maasai who now lived on the Mara Reserve? It was clear I had a great deal of reading to do.

Fascinated, I clipped the NYT piece, shared it with friends, and soon began to collect (and to receive from others) a maelstrom of news items, articles, and transcribed interviews. Within months I had compiled something of a dossier on the Maasai, but the true story of their extraordinary gift still eluded me. The first drafts were painfully ineloquent--in truth they were dreadful.

Then, in the summer of 2007, I was offered a writing fellowship at the Carson McCullers House. It was during this hiatus that the story, much as it appeared in the final book, emerged.

When did you begin the collaboration with Wilson Kimeli? How did you communicate?

Kimeli and I spoke electronically at first, and I had to confess to him that I found it odd in the extreme to email and IM with a Maasai warrior. I discovered Kimeli to be in possession of a lovely sense of humor. When we spoke I told him that I had written a story about his part in the gift of the fourteen cows. I wanted him to see it, and let me know if he felt he could give it his blessing. I then sent the pdf and waited. I was overjoyed to hear, in his soft-spoken voice, that he was pleased with the story and would be happy to give it his support.

I invited him, with the encouragement of our wonderful publishing house, Peachtree Publishers, to be involved with the project and write an afterword. He was happy, I believe, to be invited into the process, and the book as a whole was better thanks to his intimate knowledge of Maasai mores, and the accuracy of details he brought to the story. We spoke about the text three or four other times, and participated in creative conferences with the illustrator and the publisher.

How much information did he provide?

Kimeli served primarily as a cultural consultant on the book. In other words, the manuscript was in final draft when it was presented to him. Although he did not write any of the text, he offered suggestions regarding the chronology of events, cultural details, and particulars relating to the Maa language.

He suggested that he be shown consulting with the elders before he tells the story of 9/11 to the tribe as a body--a piece that was absent from any of the news reports. Second, that his cow, Enkarus, be mentioned by name. Lastly, he suggested we use the Maa word, Aakua, in the scene where he is greeted by his mother. I think these were all useful additions. Kimeli served as a cultural consultant as the first illustrations emerged, and provided Tom [the illustrator] with his personal photographs from the day of the ceremony.

What are the advantages/pleasures of working with a collaborator?

This was not a collaboration in which two people hacked out the language of a story together. Rather I brought the writing, Tom brought the sketches, and Kimeli brought his experience as a participant in the story, and as a Kenyan from the small Maasai village of Enoosaen. Together we exchanged views, offered opinions, and listened respectfully to all that was expressed. Then we returned to our separate creative corners to incorporate changes that came out of the exchange.

Kimeli was a wonderful person to work with and I believe his involvement enriched the book. Everyone who took part in this undertaking (from editorial, to art, to marketing) wanted to create something we could all be proud of, in memory of a gesture by strangers who appeared--seemingly from the ether--in the wake of catastrophe.

The Blog Tour

Readers, writers, and publishers have mutated from words printed on paper to words and images on screens in the form of websites, blogs, internet research, do-it-yourself encyclopedias, and you-too-along-with-your-pet-can-be-a-video-star. With these new outlets, fewer bookstores, and anemic marketing budgets, the blog tour has come into its own. Peachtree Publishers has put together a 14 Cows for America blog tour for Carmen Deed and Thomas Gonzalez this week that takes them far and wide in the blogosphere. Think about it–author and illustrator reach thousands of people all over the country the world. True, you can’t autograph books in cyberspace (yet!) but it seems like a great way to launch a book. For the full itinerary of the 14 Cows for America blog tour, go to http://www.14cowsblogtour.blogspot.com/

Once an English major, always an English major. Now that Garrison Keillor has made our geeky selves rather cool (at least to each other,) I can publicly admit how much I love to dive into books and pick them apart. And when I read Rosalyn Schanzer’s delightful recent post, Coming to the Theater Near You! and April Pulley Sayre’s stunning Honk, Honk, Goose! Canada Geese Start a Family (illustrated by Huy Voun Lee,) I couldn’t resist taking a dive.

[Full disclosure: April is a good friend of mine, which did not influence this review in any way! I’ve never met Huy Voun Lee – so that proves my objectivity. Besides, I’m just tagging behind the critics who are giving this book stars and more stars.]

So, back to Rosalyn’s movie talk…. As a Screenwriter Sayre has written a tale of romance, danger, and heroic vigilance. Our hero, Father Goose is handsome, assertive, brave, romantic, and good with children – every female’s dream. But his is not an easy job. Predators lay in wait to harm his family. He sometimes fails to avert trouble, but he never gives up. Sigh. What a guy.

Co-directors Sayre and Lee work together to give this story passion and drama. Lee’s stunning cut-paper illustrations give us a stylized but realistic rendering of the world of Canada geese – habitat and predators, as well as details of domesticity. Danger abounds, which Lee shows us in many spot illustrations, but Father Goose is ever-alert. Sayre, as always, uses nature sounds and rhythms to dramatize her story.

Casting Director April chose to make Father Goose the protagonist. Many animal books focus on Mama, but Papa gets the spotlight here. Huy Vuon emphasizes his protector role by showing him with wings spread, neck stretched forward, tongue extended as he speaks his lines boldly: “Honk, hee-honk! Hisssssssssssss!”

Costume Designer Lee exquisitely uses her cut-paper medium to give us finely-cut feathers on the wings which, when spread, dominate the page. She uses downy-textured papers for the geese and goslings’ bodies. Thus we “feel” the power of their bodies and the fineness of their down feathers.

Lee serves as Set Designer with help from Sayre. Lee shows the geese’s habitat of open grassland, (plain green paper with cut-out dark green ridges to show contours and elevation,) and a pond (two-tone mottled blue paper.) This dreamy blue covers the entire double-page spread of the couple’s courtship. We are immersed in the setting as they do what needs to be done to start a family. Sayre’s sounds enhance the setting: “Dabble dip” as they paddle, “Pluck, pull” when they feed, “Stretch, curve, their necks danced.”

Father Goose’s stunts are set up by both author and illustrator. As Stunt Co-coordinators, Sayre describes a raccoon invading the nest and breaking an egg. Father honks, hisses, and lunges. Lee shows us a scary goose in profile, wings reaching beyond the page, neck crossing from one page to another. I’d run away too, like the raccoon.

Cinematographer Lee alters her angles throughout the book: wide establishing shots in the beginning, close-ups for intimate moments, then wide shots showing the new goose family, leading up to the final extreme close-up of Father Goose staring at us and giving us his loudest ever “Honk, hee-honk, honk! Hisssssssss!”

These are Sayre’s Special Effects that bring her hero and the story to life – a sound design that begins with lots of honks, followed by splishes and splashes, flap flaps, more honks, crack crick peeps, still more honks, plop plops, peeps and yawns, and ending with Father’s triumphant Honk. Well done, Father Goose. Well done, April Pulley Sayre and Huy Voun Lee.

Hollywood, are you watching?

One reason why Jim Arnosky’s books are so engaging is that he’s in them. He uses “I walked watchfully” and “I was crawling on my elbows” in a way most nonfiction authors shy away from. In his newest, Slither and Crawl: Eye to Eye with Reptiles, you are right there with Jim as he shares his fascination with snakes, lizards, turtles, alligators, and crocodiles. He answers the question most on my mind-- how can you get over your fear of these guys-- and lots of other questions budding naturalists will have. He paints many of these creatures as life-sized, and in four lavish fold-out spreads reveals more species and even more details (Sterling, ages 8-12).

I find that most kids are boggled to learn that discrimination against women was common and perfectly legal, and it wasn't that long ago. In Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream, I.N.K.’s own Tanya Lee Stone does us all a favor by giving this bias an exhilarating context. In a little-known-to-the-point-of-being-invisible episode in history, thirteen women passed all the tests to become astronauts, only to be turned back when NASA couldn't wrap its mind around the idea of women in space. More than twenty years before Sally Ride took off in 1983, the "Mercury 13" were fighters, dreamers, and serious role models way ahead of their time. Lots of great material here-- especially about women's history (the TV shows, books, and organizations that changed attitudes)--though kids might be most drawn to the drama of the stringent physical tests. Now appearing to starred reviews everywhere (Candlewick, ages 9 and up).

This April 30th, honor the Day of the Child with Book Fiesta!, subtitled "Celebrate Children's Day/Book Day; Celebremos El dia de los ninos/El dia de los libros." Pat Mora's text is straightforward to the point of being nonfiction--an itemization of the coolest places to read books-- and in the back she includes helpful hints for families and teachers to emphasize literacy. The illustrations by Rafael Lopez are boldly stylized in an almost Alice-and-Martin-Provensen way, and the entire production is, of course, totally bilingual (Rayo/HarperCollins,ages 4-8).

Turn off the TV, and read a book... about TV. My publisher might not appreciate this association, but you could celebrate TV Turnoff Week, starting this April 20th, by pre-ordering The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth. Yes, we could blame our whole TV culture on a 14-year-old farm boy who dreamed up the first television back in 1920-- but wait, Philo thought he was inventing a force for good, and in later life wouldn't let his own sons watch what he decided was drivel. My biography, with startlingly electric paintings by Greg Couch (who also illustrated Sue Stauffacher's Nothing but Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson), won’t be out till this fall, but it’s been chosen as a Junior Library Guild Selection, which I'm calling momentum. Another TV Turnoff Week starts September 20th, in time for the book’s actual pub date (Knopf, ages 8-12).

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The Words I originally set my research in motion by excerpting the juiciest and most relevant parts of Darwin’s enormous Beagle Diary, which was written during the journey he began at age 22. His daily entries are chock full of humor, entertaining stories, youthful exuberance, and even lyrical writing, so I was pretty sure folks would get a kick out of reading what he said in his own words. You can just hear his British accent. Soon I was adding quotes from stacks of his other books and letters too. I also play the role of narrator in the book so that I can make segues and explanations.

Extras Among many other things, I added to my book all kinds of fun and interesting science stuff: Pictures showing what the fossil animals looked like and how big they were when they were alive; stories about the ways that European people changed the face of other continents—and how European plants and animals did likewise; very cool examples of 20 experiments and research projects Darwin thought up to help explore his theory; the reasons he kept his work secret for 20 long years, and the effect that his discoveries had on the public in 1859 and on the rest of the world until this very day.

The Tree of Life

...about many of the 2008 titles that just snagged ALA awards. In particular, Kelly Fineman totally called it—a whole year ago—for We Are the Ship, the Kadir Nelson landmark that was awarded the most honors, including the Sibert Medal for Best Informational Book of the Year.

And now for three new biographies with wildly divergent approaches. “Gertrude is having fun and you’re invited. Don’t be late,” urges what may be the first children’s book to portray the author of “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude, by Jonah Winter, is a weird word portrait of Gertrude Stein, her partner Alice B. Toklas, and fortunate friends who happen to be famous--Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway. Like the works of the eccentric writer herself, the minimalist text is nonlinear, playful, sometimes downright nonsensical. Calef Brown contributes Maira Kalman-esque paintings that increase the sensation of being at the most fabulous party ever (Atheneum, ages 4-8).

Just look at the breathtaking front cover--all art, no type-- of Eleanor, Quiet No More: The Life of Eleanor Roosevelt, the play of light on ER's face and hair. Gary Kelley’s luminous paintings, on the cover and throughout, reveal a woman you wish you could get to know. Author Doreen Rappaport, in another one of her distinguished books, provides the next best thing-- this accessible, inspirational life story. Each page is punctuated with a pithy ER quote revealing the powerful arc of how she grew from a girl too scared to speak ("I wanted to sink through the floor in shame") to the most outspoken women of her day, proclaiming, "Government has a responsibility to defend the weak" (Hyperion, ages 9-12).

Also check out this cover portrait of our first President, minus his prissy wig and tooth-concealing attempt at a smile. In Big George: How a Shy Boy Became President Washington, he’s towering and broody: "George Washington wasn't afraid of anything, except making conversation." At this late date there isn't much new to say about him, and Anne Rockwell’s detailed text follows a similar drift to Suzanne Tripp Jurmain’s George Did It (2005)—mainly, that it was really hard for GW to do all he did. But Matt Phelan’s pencil and gouache illustrations do give a new angle on the great man-- Superman meets Heathcliff...meets a vampire? (Harcourt, ages 4-8)

Finally, who wouldn’t love a book with this sentence: “If I were an administrator or literacy coach in a middle school, I would encourage my faculty to conduct a school-wide author study of [insert your name here].” Well, Sharon Kane kindly inserted my name into her Integrating Literature in the Content Areas: Enhancing Adolescent Learning and Literacy, but never fear, she mentions plenty of other authors. Her book is packed with 300+ pages of tips for getting literature into the classroom—fiction, poetry, and (saints be praised) “The Why and How of Using Informational Trade Books,” whole chapters on incorporating biographies, how-to books, etc. An amazing resource (Holcomb Hathway, for teachers).

Trust Kathryn Lasky to be first up with what may end as one of the year’s best— One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin. It’s a sumptuous party for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in certain swaths of the population. The title (which, with a vowel change, could have been One Beatle Too Many: The Story of Pete Best) refers to the famous incident in which young Charles found himself with three rare beetles and only two hands. Showing his dedication early on, he popped one bug in his mouth until he could get to his collecting bottle. The text goes on to shape Darwin into a flesh-and-blood being, and explains the “evolution” of his theories in ways that go down easily. Despite an abrupt ending (without even an author's note to provide more context), this scores points for addressing head-on how evolution fit in with Darwin’s religious beliefs, what creationism is, and the controversy hinted at by Lasky’s dedication: “In celebration of children, whose boundless curiosity gives them a right to know their history on Earth.” Matthew Trueman’s illustrations in mixed-media (the media including weeds and wildflowers) are to drool over (Candlewick, ages 9-12).

Among the millions and billions of Lincoln titles (of which I will have one, Abraham Lincoln Tells a Joke, in 2010), one of the most un-put-down-able is Chasing Lincoln's Killer. James L. Swanson has taken his adult bestseller Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer and refashioned it with verve for young adults. “Chase” is the operative word—this search for John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators moves at a rip-snorting clip, aided by lots of just-what-you'd-want-to-know details and an energetic design in sepia printed on creamy stock (Scholastic, ages 12 and up).

A big “wow” goes to How Weird Is It? A Freaky Book All About Strangeness by Ben Hillman. With alluring chapters like “Fungus Is Family” and photos cleverly Photo-shopped for maximum drama, this looks like a tabloid-y item you might hand to the most reluctant of reluctant readers. Surprise—it’s a science book. A real one, with unsourced but fascinating information about neutron stars, the Big Bang, dark energy, plagues, ghost particles, bizarre animals, what Martians might look us (us), all the latest hot topics in science. For any reader, reluctant or otherwise (Scholastic, ages 8-12).

Finally, we say farewell to 2008 titles (while wondering if the ALA committees will reward any of them come January 26). My apologies to the ones I didn’t get to, like Brenda Z. Guiberson's purely poetic Ice Bears… the dreamy All About Sleep From A to Zzzz by Elaine Scott (drawings by John O'Brien!!)… the truly niche-filling Sing My Song: A Kid's Guide to Songwriting by Steve Seskin... Sandra Markle's innovative Animals Christopher Columbus Saw: An Adventure in the New World…. what else did I miss???