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I’m trying to do some warm up drawings and messing with different styles and brushes, papers, etc.

This is a simple line-art drawing, digitally drawn, without working off a rough. I used Painter 11, with the paper set so it has some tooth. When I use a pencil, I usually use the “grainy cover pencil”, which will cover any colors used underneath the it’s layer, as well as pick up on the grainy texture of the paper. If you work digitally, you know you can control the amount of grain with some of your tools. Painter’s digital watercolors are underneath the line work. I like to use them quick and fast. I don’t like things to look tight, so I’m fighting that ALL the time when I work. And finally, I will sometimes double up the line work and/or color layers, depending on how bold I want things to be. In this case, I went for bold.

by author Janet Halfmann

The inspiration for Star of the Sea: A Day in the Life of a Starfish came about in a rather unusual way. One day about ten years ago, I was browsing at my local library and came upon a series of books that were very similar to the stories I was writing about the lives of animals. There was a backyard series and an ocean series. I decided to write the best story possible about an ocean animal that wasn’t yet in the series and submit it to this publisher. 

Almost right away, I noticed that one of my favorite ocean animals—the sea star—was missing. But with 2000 kinds of starfish, which one should be the “star” of my story? I decided to focus on a common sea star so it would be more familiar to children. I settled on the ochre sea star, the common starfish of the Pacific coast—in part because it is such an important member of its seashore community. 

I found sea stars to be more amazing than I could have imagined. I learned that they can hunt only underwater because they use hundreds of tiny, water-powered feet to move. When hunting on the shore, they have to wait till the tide comes in (that meant lots of research about the timing and workings of tides). I also was surprised to learn that the sea star’s mouth is on its underside. You’ll have to read the book to find out what the sea star does with its stomach!

I also was amazed to find out how deathly afraid other creatures are of the sea star. This beautiful creature may look gentle, but it is a fierce predator—perfect for adding adventure to my story.

I spent months researching, writing, revising. Finally, I felt like I had brought the life of the ochre sea star and its rocky shore home to life for kids. Off went the story. Did the publisher buy it? No. But. . . . .a few months later, one of this publisher’s writers dropped the ball on another story and I was asked to write it—with a deadline of two weeks. Now ten years later, I’ve written ten books for this publisher!

But to get back to the Sea Star story. I sent it out to a few other publishers and then forgot about it for several years. Then, one day, I pulled it out and read it with the eye and heart of a writer who I feel has grown a great deal since originally writing the story. More polishing, cutting, fine-tuning—until I felt every word sang. Out it went again—and this time Christy Ottaviano at Henry Holt bought it. What an exciting day—for me and Sea Star! 

Since writing this final version, I have had the opportunity to touch a live ochre sea star at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. I made sure to investigate every part—its tube feet, its mouth, its spines, the small hole where water enters on its top side. I felt like I and this sea star shared a special bond.

I hope you will feel a special bond with the sea star in this book! Happy Reading!



I recently picked up James Crowley's Starfish.... My comments (below), as I read the book are in red.  

I wanted to quit reading early on, but I've seen a couple of references to the book as a contender for the Newbery Medal, so I forced myself to read the entire book. It is about two Blackfeet children in 1915. They've run away from their boarding school in the winter. Unlike the "Frozen Man" who Crowley introduces at the beginning of the story, the children survive the Montana winters. Thinking about that, I'm reminded of the Kiowa children in Oklahoma who ran away from their boarding school in 1891and froze to death. N. Scott Momaday has a play about them. It is in Three Plays.

Starfish isn't deserving of the medal. It isn't plausible, and it is downright awful in many places. From the posture of the frozen body at the start of the book to the alcohol the kids drink near the end, I found myself wondering why it got published. What does it seek to add to anyone's "knowledge" of American Indians?

Doing some research on Crowley (the author), I see he makes films.

The book is published by Disney/Hyperion Books. Maybe Crowley wants to make a movie and is starting that project with this book. I hope not, but I can see why it would work. On page after page, its one "white man's Indian" after another. That phrase---white man's Indian---is actually the title of a book by Robert Berkhofer. He took great care to document the images of American Indians from early days of America to more recent times,  demonstrating that they aren't really American Indian images---they're only Indians of a white-imagination. Get a copy of The White Man's Indian and study it. It'll help you do your own analyses of books like Starfish.

My analysis is in a chapter-by-chapter format. I invite you to read what I've managed to write.

Debbie

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James Crowley's Starfish, published by Disney/Hyperion, 2010.

Setting: the "Chalk Bluff Indian reservation" in Montana.

As far as I know, there isn't a reservation named that.  In my research I found a place called the "Chalk Bluff Indian Trail" in Kentucky, and, another site called the "Chalk Bluff Indian Massacre" in Texas where twenty Indian men attacked and killed two Indian hunters. There was also a Civil War battle at a place called Chalk Bluff.

State: Montana


Prologue

It is winter and snowing heavily. An old man walks through the snow alongside the "government barracks and outbuildings of the Chalk Bluff Indian reservation."
That doesn't quite make sense.  A reservation is a big place. Today, the Blackfeet Reservation is over a million acres in size. Maybe I'm reading the sentence wrong. To me it seems like the reservation is a single building and that it has barracks and outbuildings near it.

The old man carries a bottle of "corn liquor" in one hand. He drinks from it and:

He remembered the days before there were buildings like this, or of any kind, on the land--the days when he had been known as a great warrior, a great hunter. But that was a long time ago. Now he was known as a drunk.

There's a spark in the children's lit air and her name is Elizabeth Law (her title, by the way, is VP and Publisher, Egmont USA). She's being talked about and interviewed in many places and, from what I'm hearing from friends like Sherrie, Elizabeth's keynote address at SCBWI-LA was exquisite—empowering and enlightening. This is the same Elizabeth Law who stopped by, unexpectedly, to a book chat sponsored by My Friend Amy, on behalf of Nothing but Ghosts. Amy is a book blogger Elizabeth follows on Twitter. Nothing but Ghosts is a Harper title. I was typing away, trying to keep up with the chatter, when it occured to me that the Elizabeth Law whose name kept burbling up among the chat-room many was THE Elizabeth Law, of Egmont.

Imagine that.

Every single time I hear an Elizabeth Law story, I stop and remind myself how entirely lucky I am that my historical novel, Dangerous Neighbors, will be released by Egmont next fall. I don't just get to work with a phenomonal, brilliant editor—Laura Geringer—on this book. I get to work with a publisher who is out there on Twitter and Facebook and Blogs and Chatrooms, talking about books she loves, trends she sees, things she hopes for. Elizabeth Law is a galvanizer. It is peace-yielding to look ahead to this collaboration. I wish that I could have been in LA, at her keynote talk. More than that, though, I hope and believe that the daring and caring that Elizabeth brings to books will become a surge wave that works its way across an industry that desperately needs her kind of energy and faith.