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I had such a fortunate Teachable Moment while brainstorming my picture book FANCY THAT with my Holiday House Editor Mary Cash. I knew the setting – Berks County, Pennsylvania; I knew the time – 1841; and I knew my story’s Hero – young Pippin Biddle, orphaned without warning, the son of a limner - an itinerant portrait painter.Mary agreed with me that such a picture book would be ripe with historical and arts curriculum connections.
My sketchy plotline was just that – i.e. sketchy: accompanied by his dog Biscuit, (whom I pictured to be lap-size), Pip would travel the Pennsylvania/New York area through the first 3 seasons of the year unsuccessfully earning his keep painting people’s portraits, returning at Thanksgiving with an empty purse and heart.
“But why would young readers care about such a boy on such a journey?” I asked my editor.
“Well,” Mary began, “could he have a few sisters who needed Pip to earn his keep?” she asked.
Orphans, Mary shared, can be lovely in a story.“And, maybe,” she suggested, “Pip’s dog could be part of the resolution?”And then she paused, her gaze meeting mine.“You know, Christmas books do so much better than Thankgiving titles,” she commented. “What if Pip returned at Christmas?”Driven to tell this singular story, I back-burnered Mary’s 3 delicious suggestions with an open mind, even though I’m a nice Jewish girl from West Philadelphia and writing a Christmas picture book was not in my wheelhouse, as they say.
But guess what?
Fast forward to the stacks of the Wilmette Public Library, one week later, when I discovered (1) there wasno Thanksgiving to celebrate in the U.S. in 1841 and (2) few Americans celebrated Christmas at that time!
OOPS!
And OOPS²… except...the German immigrants, who’d just happened to settle in Berks County in central Pennsylvania, had brought along their Christmas tradition of making evergreen wreaths and decorating their fir trees!
So,
while Pip’s dog Biscuit gathers the greenery of each season, and Pip paints his portrait to send home to his Poor House-ensconced sisters Emma, Lyddie and Martha,
before too long,
Pip’s sisters themselves, inspired by Pip’s portraits, create a livelihood that builds them their homeand Pip discovers his hidden talent.
Fancy that!
Lucky Pip and his sisters! Lucky me and my readers!And all quite by accident.
Esther Hershenhorn
P.S.
Jennifer T won the SKIN AND BONES giveaway!
P.P.S.
A writer with whom I corresponded this past week shared the following Dalai Lama quote benath her name. I thought it relevant. "Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck."
When this topic came up, I thought it would be an easy one to write about. I make a lot of mistakes. I tried to think of one I turned into a positive experience. Not so easy.
Brainstorming gave me a couple of ideas. One was
Milton the Monster. The other was Mom saying “Oopsie Daisy” when one of us kids fell down.
The mistakes that haunt me now are often errors of omission—things I should have done but didn’t. Given a difficult choice, I can agonize until it’s too late to do anything. What if a better option comes up? Mom used to say, “Sometimes not to decide is to decide.”
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| Bird feeders outside Mom's window. Can you tell I'm craving spring? |
Fear can be paralyzing, so sometimes almost any action is better than none. What if I make the wrong choice? No use crying over spilled milk, Mom says.
I always try to make the best of whatever situation I find myself in. But when I try to think about my mistakes, well, I don’t want to. Mom's advice? Don't dwell on them. Maybe blocking them out is the best way for me to be able to pick myself up, dust myself off, and carry on.
Thanks, Mom!
Don’t forget to enter our drawing for an autographed copy of the young adult novel Skin and Bones by Sherry Shahan. Today’s the last day!
JoAnn Early Macken
By:
Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 2/4/2015
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Howdy, Campers!
(Before I begin...make sure to enter our latest Book Giveaway of Sherry Shahan's Skin & Bones (which ends February 6th)!
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Two of the six TeachingAuthors in our corporate headquarters.
photo courtesy morguefile.com |
In 2012 we invited author/illustrator (and good friend)
Barney Saltzberg into our tree house for a cuppa tea,
a chat, and a book give-away, and just
last Friday we told you about the newly launched, worldwide
Beautiful Oops! Day based on his book.
Today, to complete the trifecta, Barney is graciously sharing a
Wednesday Writing Workout with us. Take it away, Barney!
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| This is Barney (with friends). He's the cutest one. |
Barney: I thought I'd share something I teach at UCLA Extension which seems to help unleash power and in many cases, people’s dark side. It's terrific.
I call it,
Utter Expression Without Consequence. Here's the prompt:
Write to someone and really let them know how you feel. It’s a chance to get anything and everything off your chest. It could be that you secretly are in love with someone. You could despise someone. Maybe a boss is constantly picking on you and you haven’t opened you mouth to complain. Now's your chance!
It can be in the form of a letter, or even a list.
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Choose your blackest crayon.
from morguefile.com |
This exercise gives you the opportunity to tap into feelings which you've sat on. Topics which you've avoided. Now's your chance to pour everything out...to a boyfriend, a wife, a friend. Or someone you ‘thought’ was a friend. A boss. Anyone you address. Just let it go and flow. This is a very freeing moment.
What I find is that this prompt helps shape a character. Ultimately, I hope this exercise lets the writer get into the head of a character who has a lot weighing on them. It's a step towards shaping a character. Our job is to know who we are writing about, even if some of the background research we write never makes it into our story. It just makes it so our characters appear to be writing the story for us when situations arise, because we know them so well.
Have fun with this--dive in!
I wish I had something brilliant to tell you as far as how this writing prompt helped make a story. I can say that time and time again, I saw how it empowered people. Students who were struggling to find their voice finally had a sense of what that looked and felt like.
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C
C'mon...tell them how you feel!
From morguefile.com |
A woman told off her husband in a letter. A teacher got everything she ever wanted to yell at an administrator on paper. If you are looking for a way to tap into feelings, this is a great way to dive in.
Thank you, Barney! And readers ~ tell us how you
really feel!
posted loudly and proudly by April Halprin Wayland
As April Halprin Wayland reminded us, sometimes mistakes are masterpieces waiting to happen, that there is a “magical transformation from blunder to wonder.”
We continue to celebrate The Beautiful Oops Day!
The transition from blunder to wonder can be challenging. As psychologist Kristi DeName suggested, whenever we experience transitions, we are letting go of Some Thing. These transitions are defined by loss. Some losses are profound: a marriage, a home, a friend, a pet, a job. Some are less profound, as we let go of habits or objects, or an idea. But all change is scary because all loss is scary. It is unsettling, overwhelming, disappointing, and confusing.
Adapting to change forces us to gain perspective. We are forced to re-examine our lives and our choices… and our options.
Blunders Ahoy!
As you know, I’ve long studied American folklore and history. I graduated from Vermont with a four-book contract for picture books that highlighted my love of American folklore and history. But, as much as I knew about writing and story, I knew nothing of the business of children’s publishing. That was my blunder, followed quickly by another: I signed on with the first agent who would help me with the multi-contracts. While this agent helped seal the deal with the contracts, issues arose. Needless to say, that relationship didn’t work out. I was referred to another agent, and more problems arose. It turned out that the contracts contained a couple of damaging clauses. According to this second agent, I couldn’t submit work elsewhere, and she couldn’t renegotiate the clauses. In other words, my career was not only stalled, it was completely derailed.
My first two picture books came out in 2009, eight years after signing the contract. The third book came out in 2012, eleven years after signing the contract. The fourth contract, however, was cancelled. Determined, I went to Author’s Guild, learned what I had to in order to understand these clauses, and then I renegotiated the particular clauses myself.
But there was yet another, stronger riptide I had to steer through. Beginning in 2001, the children’s market was changing dramatically. The folklore picture book market was bottoming out. The very genre that I had studied, loved, and sought as my career was no longer an option. Talk about a bumpy ride! My friend Eric Kimmel said I should write middle grade books.
Middle grade novels? I liked reading middle grade novels, but I had never considered writing them. How was I going to combine all that I had learned and loved in folklore and history with this new format? Was it even possible in a market that no longer viewed folklore as relevant? Historical fiction was having an equally hard time in the market.
As my wonderful new agent, Karen Grencik, said “As long as you are writing what’s in your heart and doing the best you can…” Finally, twelve years after I graduated from Vermont College, Karen sold my first middle-grade novel
Big River’s Daughter to Holiday House. Three months after that, she sold my second middle grade novel,
Girls of Gettysburg, also to Holiday House. All things happen for a reason at the time they are supposed to happen. As River and Tiger plunged into the wilds of the frontier, taking on the Pirates Laffite and the extraordinary landscape of the mighty Mississippi River in the rough-and-tumble Big River’s Daughter, there is that truth of River’s journey:
if one perseveres, life can be full of possible imaginations. “This here story is all true, as near as I can recollect. It ain’t a prettified story. Life as a river rat is stomping hard, and don’t I know it. It’s life wild and wooly, a real rough and tumble. But like Da said, life on the big river is full of possible imaginations. And we river rats, we aim to see it through in our own way. That’s the honest truth of it.” River Fillian, Big River’s Daughter
Bobbi Miller
Don’t forget about our giveaway, featuring an autographed copy of Sherry Shahan’s YA novel, Skin and Bones!
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Howdy, Campers!
Happy Poetry Friday (link at the end, original poem's in this post)!
If you follow this blog, you'll remember the day we spent with author/illustrator Barney Saltzberg and his marvelous book, Beautiful Oops! (Workman). Well, guess what?
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Tell me if this sounds familiar: you've wrapped the gift for your friend Julie, sealed it in a box, stuck stamps on it and then, as you're listening to the Beatles sing "
Hey Jude," you address the package... to Jude. OOPS!
Now what? Well, if you're Barney, you'll make a weird-looking cartoon heart over the word "Jude"...which sprouts legs and arms, a top hat and cane, and suddenly there's a host of fabulous creatures framing Julie's mailing address...a veritable celebration.
That's a Beautiful Oops...a mistake made beautiful.
The point of this book is to encourage all of us to allow "the magical transformation from blunder to wonder," and as schools all over the world celebrate
Beautiful Oops Day (in any month, on any day; a school could decide to celebrate Beautiful Oops Day each month), I wish we'd celebrated it when I was in school!
The Beautiful Oops Day website includes
project ideas shared by teachers from all over the world to get you started. And here's a 1:41 minute video of Barney sharing with young students:
How does this translate to writing? I just happen to have a perfect example. Here's a new poem author
Bruce Balan sent me just this week; beneath it is his "mistake" backstory:
THE PLAINTIFF CALL OF THE WILD
by Bruce BalanI submit to the courtthat this specieshas ignored the proper protocol:They’ve decided that it’s allfor themand no one else;Not fish nor elknor tiny eels.Their ills are real.They spoil and takebreak and forsakeand maulevery spot and plotand it’s not as ifthey don’t know…They do!They just ignore,which underscoresmy call.
Please dear Judge,I do not intend to fawn,butI pray the courtwill look kindly on my callbefore my clients allare gone.(c) 2015 by Bruce Balan. All rights reserved.
Bruce (whose newest book,
The Magic Hippo, is available at the iTunes store,
B&N, and
Amazon) explains: "I was going to write a poem called The Plaintive Call of the Wild (it just popped into my head), but I misspelled plaintive and so ran with it…"
Perhaps today's Beautiful Oops lesson is RUN WITH IT!
So, thank you, Barney Saltzberg, for gifting us the space to make mistakes; to be human.Campers, stay tuned: on February 4, 2015, Barney will share a
Wednesday Writing Workout on this very blog!
posted with inevitable mistakes by April Halprin Wayland 
I just discovered this book for the first time. I spied it in my local B & N while Christmas shopping. I read the book right there and - wow - it was so familiar to me! I loved it and I instantly wished I'd come up with the concept of creating something deliberate from your 'mistakes'. It's especially important to get this concept through successfully to kids. They are so receptive to trying new ideas, and any self-defeating bad habits that they may have picked up really haven't had enough time to make tracks yet.
Hey, look—I have absolutely ZERO against erasers (or the Undo tool, or the History palette, for that matter!). In fact, I embrace all of the above! But, when I was a young kid and I would draw, I developed an interesting compulsion to refrain from using my eraser. I did it to force myself to see what I could create from my 'mistakes'. To this day, I have absolutely no idea where I got the idea to torture myself this way. but wow, wherever I got the idea, I'm so glad that I did.
It's a practice that teaches the philosophy of being an artist or creator and how important it is to be able to switch gears when the unexpected happens. It helps to illustrate turning a problem into an opportunity, brainstorming imaginative solutions and then (important:) executing it. The usefulness of this practice can really change the how we see limitations. (Maybe it can help erase them?)
I will remember this one and we definitely will be buying it for future birthdays. I honestly think every kid should have a copy of this book! (In my guesstimation the right age is right around 4.) Happy shopping!
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By: Jenny Miller,
on 9/5/2011
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Encourage your children to run with an idea and see where it will take them!
The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse, written and illustrated by Eric Carle,
Philomel, $17.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages, 2011.
Due out Oct. 4. From the beloved creator of
The Very Hungry Caterpillar comes a joyful celebration of artistic expression. Inspired by German painter Franz Marc, Carle's story depicts a boy painting animals in colors that don't occur in nature: a lion that's green, a polar bear that's black, a donkey with polka-dots and eventually a horse that's blue. The blue horse, like the one on the cover, is a tribute to Marc's famous and controversial 1911 work
Blue Horse I. Marc believed that color had emotional meaning and he wasn't afraid to use it in unconventional ways. And here, Carle beautifully echoes that idea, showing readers that they don't have to follow every rule of art: Embrace what you see in your imagination, he seems to say, and be true to yourself. Carle makes his point with such joie de vivre that readers will feel energized to get out there and paint just as their heart desires. Also encouraging, every picture in the book looks like a child could paint it: animal shapes are simple collages and fur looks as if it were textured with fingers or the hard ends of paintbrushes. Brilliantly simple, this one's a pat on the back to any young artist who yearns to do things differently.
Boy Wonders, written and illustrated by Calef Brown,
Atheneum, $16.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages, 2011. In this spirited, fun book, the creator of
Flamingos on the Roof captures a boy's eagerness to understand the world. He also gets readers excited about playing with words and asking questions too. Rhyming questions spill onto the page, as the boy makes leaps of logic and reasons through ideas in nonsensical ways. In the first spread, Brown zooms in on the boy's face staring back at readers: "Are you ever perplexed? " the boy asks with beseeching eyes. "Completely vexed? / Do you have questions? / Queries? / Odd Theories?" Well yes, you say to yourself, of course! And from there on, a stream of funny questions gushes out of the boy, suggesting how quickly ideas can spring into a curious mind. On one page the boy inquires, "Do paper plates / and two-by-fours / remember being trees?" On another, he asks a brain-twister. "If I, as the class clown, / am given a paper crown / as a trophy for being goofy, / have I, alas, / bee
I have now officially been on the Beautiful Oops tour nine days. It's funny what one can get used to. Hotels, planes, schools, bookstores. I keep thinking of traveling salespeople. It's a way of life for some people to live like this. As one who is used to getting up and going in to my studio where I work, playing with my dogs and seeing my wife at the end of the day, this is definitely a different way to live.
I'm a bit fried. A bit tired. However, I have met amazing people everywhere! I've been greeted wherever I go with a wastebasket full of other people's oops's. It's been fun to dig in, with kids and parents watching as I pull different things out and tape pieces together on an easel to make Oops Art! It's always something different. Keeps me thinking on my feet. I always imagine each child going home and rummaging through the family trash. I'm spawning a dumpster diver artistic movement. Hopefully, along with it, a sense that no matter what you are handed, you can find a way to make it work!
Good morning, Austin!
I definitely should be sleeping. It's 6:15 AM in Arizona. I am half way through my book tour.
I am being picked up at 8:00 AM to go to another school. After that, the airport where I will fly across the country to Raleigh, NC. Then two more stops in Texas.
I've been to a few schools and two bookstores so far and I have been greeted consistently whenever I arrive with a small waste basket full of trash! We made the video of me making Oops art and I guess it inspired a few book store owners and teachers. I feel like a magician staring into a trash can of crumpled paper, empty boxes, an occasional crushed soda can. "I've never seen any of this before. This is the first time we've met!" Kids seem to be a bit stunned that this old guy is reaching in, pulling out bits and pieces and taping things to a large poster size page, usually tapped to the wall. I have to say, it's always something different! While I'm up there, improvising, I imagine a number of the children watching, coming home and wanting to make art from things they find in the family trash. I am 'hoping' there are some parents out there with really open minds!
Okay, I'm going to try to sleep for fifteen minutes! Adios from Phoenix.
Writers spend a lot of time alone. An idea. You shape it. You write. You re-write. You hit walls. (Mostly figuratively) You stick with it and hopefully that spark has become a book. Sometimes you sell it. Sometimes the book comes out and nobody ever really sees it. Once in a while, a book gets noticed. Adults write reviews. You check your sales ranking on Amazon. (Not very often or it's really depressing) And then, a child writes after they see your book. You realize it was worth it!
Vanessa Ragland wrote: "a cake i baked completely fell in when it came out of the oven. i rolled the bits in chopped nuts, called them truffles." Okay, so I made a male chef... but you get the point! We are using our imaginations!!!!!!
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