Tag Archives: middle grade fiction

What I did this summer

Today is my kid’s first day of school and I thought I’d celebrate by tackling my least favorite essay topic from school. I hated it simply because if something exciting happened it felt like bragging to write about it, and if nothing much happened, well, it’s a little depressing to call that to mind at the beginning of a school year.

The truth is I’ve had, by most standards, a very ordinary summer. We took a little trip to the mountains and a day trip to the beach. We did yard work. We made jam. But four things have stood out for me as making a difference in my writing. So I thought I’d say a little bit about all four.

1. A change of setting tends to lead to new work or at least new ideas.

It was my great pleasure to participate in the Outpost Workshop of the Fishtrap Summer Gathering. I spent a week tenting out on the Zumwalt Prairie in northeastern Oregon. It was an astonishing landscape–outwardly empty, yet on closer inspection teeming with wildlife from bull elk to least weasel to all manner of song birds. The days got into the 100s with barely a scrap of shade and the nights dipped down into the 30s. The altitude was a challenging 5000 feet or so. Not the most conducive environment to productive writing, and yet I found myself flooded with story ideas, thinking for example, of what it would be like to homestead such a place with it’s punishing climate but rich resources.

2. New company tends to lead to new perspectives

I met a woman named Janet at the Outpost workshop who has worked on the Zumwalt and in the near by Wallowa Mountains and Snake River canyons for most of her life. She knew an incredible amount about the natural and human history of the area. She shared some of the history of the Joseph band of the Nez Perce who lived near Wallowa Lake up until the famous surrender of Chief Joseph in 1877. You probably remember ‘From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.’ Its one of the most quoted bits of Native American writing ever. Janet gave the fuller version of his surrender and cast the story of Chief Joseph into an entirely different and far more interesting light. Whether the things I’ve learned become a story I write or not, it’s good to periodically revisit what I’ve learned as historical truth, and consider what that truth might look like from a different perspective.

3. World news is less distant than it seems

Along with the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri and the ebola outbreak in Africa, one of the world events that has dominated the news this summer is the solo migration of children from Central America. It would be easy to think of these events as comfortably distant and unrelated to me personally. However, I’ve been researching the famine-era migration of Irish children to the US and a shocking number of them came to this country alone at very young ages. It’s easy to mentally scold parents that would send their children into such danger and hardship and yet, just like Central America of the present day, the children of mid-1800s Ireland faced near certain death in their home country. I find it much easier to think through the issues about what to do with these migrant children knowing my own ancestors were in exactly the same position a mere 150 years ago. I read a great book from a migrant’s point of view called Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea. It was so thoughtfully done and not at all the pedagogic thing I’d be tempted to write if I took on this topic directly myself. The topic of migrant children is a rich one but I think if I took it on I’d write about the famine-era Irish. I’ve been thinking about what books might help children process the information from the ebola epidemic and from the human rights demonstrations in Ferguson, but that is a post for another day.

4. Changing genres is good for the brain

I’ve been working on the same two novels for quite a long time and as much as I love both of the stories I was feeling a bit uninspired at the beginning of the summer. But I spent a little time being a workshop participant rather than a leader and I learned a bunch new things which lead me to try a non-fiction picture book and a screenplay. I managed to get through a whole draft of the non-fiction and part way through a screenplay, and I’m feeling more energized than I have in ages. Not a vacation exactly but definitely a change that did me good.

And all this changing up and refreshing has been perfect timing because one of those two novels I’ve been working on for such a long time is going to be published by Random House in 2016. I’ll do the final edits this fall and now after my summer break I’m 100% ready to dive into the revisions whole-heartedly. The new book will be called The Turn of the Tide. It’s a contemporary middle grade adventure story set in Astoria, Oregon and told in two voices. I’ll have lots more news about that in later posts.

How about you? Did you change things up in your summer routine? Gain an insight from a summer trip? How do you refresh yourself when you’re feeling stale?

Middle Grade Monday Book Review: The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchet

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett, illustrated by Stephen Player

A nightmarish danger threatens from the other side of reality . . .

Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle—aka the Wee Free Men—a clan of fierce, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men.

Together they must face headless horsemen, ferocious grimhounds, terrifying dreams come true, and ultimately the sinister Queen of the Elves herself.

Three things for a kid to like

1. It’s hard to beat Terry Pratchett for humorous fantasy. On a bookshelf full of gloom and doom alternate worlds this story is set in a place that holds all the thrills and chills a kid is looking for and is genuinely hilarious besides. It will work particularly well for fans of British humor. If you’ve got a young reader who is driving you crazy quoting Monty Python and Dr. Who, this is the book for him.

2. Dream worlds are tricky to pull off in a story and it’s an element that made this a challenging read in the original edition. The pictures here do much to enhance the dream world Tiffany enters without overtaking it entirely and leaving nothing to the imagination. In my opinion the illustrations are just scary enough but not so vivid as to be daunting to a tender-hearted reader.

3. There is amid all the boogymen and monsters, some really thoughtful elements about the nature of dreams and the problems associated with getting everything you ask for. Plenty to inspire good conversation.

Something for the writer to think about

I’m seeing more illustrated work for middle grade readers all the time and I’m very happy about the change. I love it that there is more work for the many working artists I know. I think it makes a challenging text more inviting to a struggling reader and more accessible to an immigrant child who often comes to the page with little context for the stories he finds at school. In my own work I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can, not so much beg my publisher to put art inside, but create a story in which the images are integral to the plot and therefore necessary to the finished book.

The most recent two Newbery winners will illustrated and I’d love to hear your recommendations in the comments for other illustrated middle grade books you think were particularly well done.

How I came to review this book.

I first read this book aloud to my kids many years ago and loved it then. Recently I found a beautiful illustrated edition at my library and gave the book a re-read. Not every book I like stands up to re-reading but this one did.

Middle Grade Monday Book Review: Five, Six, Seven, Nate! by Tim Federle

Here’s what it’s about:

In the sequel to Better Nate Than Ever, Nate Foster’s Broadway dreams are finally coming true.

Armed with a one-way ticket to New York City, small-town theater geek Nate is off to start rehearsals for E.T.: The Broadway Musical. It’s everything he ever practiced his autograph for! But as thrilling as Broadway is, rehearsals are nothing like Nate expects: full of intimidating child stars, cut-throat understudies, and a director who can’t even remember Nate’s name.

Now, as the countdown to opening night is starting to feel more like a time bomb, Nate is going to need more than his lucky rabbit’s foot if he ever wants to see his name in lights. He may even need a showbiz miracle.

The companion novel to Better Nate Than Ever, which The New York Times called “inspired and inspiring,” Five, Six, Seven, Nate! is full of secret admirers, surprise reunions, and twice the drama of middle school…with a lot more glitter.

3 things for a young reader to love

1. The thing I loved the most about my childhood reading was being swept away to someplace new and exciting and this book has that in spades! The backstage look at Broadway as a child performer was fun and fresh and eye-opening. Even if you’ve never been in a show or wanted to perform there’s something appealing, and I think fairly universal, in the summer-campy, we’re-all-in-this-together vibe that Federle presents in this story.

2. For kids who do love the theater and are acting, singing, or dancing in community shows I think they’ll find a kindred spirit in Nate, who is such an appealing blend of strengths (memory for lines, heart, team spirit) and weaknesses (perhaps not the best dancer on the set). The arts are so often the red-headed stepchild of after school sports, it’s nice to have a book that celebrates theater with such unabashed joy.

3. The crush in a middle grade book is so tricky to get just right because middle grade kids are all over the map about romance, from deeply repelled to just as deeply intrigued. Nate hits the sweet spot with a story that manages to capture the intrigue of secret admirer notes and the slightly befuddled, what-just-happened-there of a first kiss without ever heading into territory that seemed to be icky or off-putting to the middle grade sensibility. Kids who are ready for a first kiss in a book will love this. Kids who aren’t quite ready for that probably won’t be grossed out.

Something for a writer to think about

Tim Federle has done something fairly amazing here. He’s got a story with a boy’s first kiss with another boy and yet it’s not a coming out story, not really even a story about being gay. The driving conflict in the story has everything to do with the show and orientation is not the contentious issue. Which seems exactly where the middle grade sensibility is with LGBT issues. The characters aren’t brimming over with anxiety about being gay because most kids in 4th to 8th grade are not at all concerned with the issues that drive such passion from older generations. It refreshing to see in print and I hope we see a lot more of it.

Likewise Federle has written a story with a kid who is a little self conscious about his body size without it being a book about a fat kid who needs to get thin. Nobody’s plaguing this kid to lose weight (although they’d like him to be a better dancer). He, in fact, doesn’t get in shape over the course of the story. His eventual triumph is based on his generous spirit, his ability to memorize other people’s parts, and his willingness to perform open heartedly. Qualities which have nothing to do with body type. Again, refreshing and well worth emulating! It’s got a razzle-dazzle cover, but this book is far more subtle than first meets the eye.

How I found this book

Unlike many of my reviews, I’ve never met the author. There are many theater-loving young people in my life which is why I picked it up at my public library and why I’ll be recommending it to lots of singing, dancing and acting kids I know.

Learning to Love your Book-alikes

When my very first book Heart of a Shepherd came out back in 2009 I met Suzanne Morgan Williams from the Class of 2K9 marketing group whose book Bull Rider was astonishingly similar to mine. It was all the more surprising because they were western stories about ranching families with family members deployed to the Middle East. Not exactly the most crowded genre. It was very tempting to think of this as a disaster, a head to head competition, a diminishment of what I had worked so hard on. But my husband pointed out that selling a book is not like selling a car. It’s not like a person buys a book and then doesn’t need another for 5 to 10 years. A very helpful perspective. The beauty of the book business is that the more people read good books the more they want new good books.

And the really terrific thing was getting to know Suzanne and working together to promote our books because we’ve found that if a reader likes one of our stories, they will probably like the other. They aren’t identical books after all. The main character in Suzanne’s story is a little bit older. Heart of a Shepherd is about the experience of having a deployed parent. Bull Rider is about the experience of having a brother return from war with a traumatic brain injury. We’ve done joint book store appearances, spoken together on panels and in workshops at writers conferences, and even sold our books together at the Reno Rodeo. And much to our mutual delight these books have flourished side by side.

But I’ve also known people who’ve worked for months, years even, and seen a book published which is very similar to their own manuscript, and then decided to drop their own project completely. It’s such a shame because there is often plenty of room for multiple

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books on a topic. I think of them as “book-alikes” and in some ways they can be an asset to your own work. If somebody has written a book similar to mine then it’s a great strategy to encourage my book to be grouped in with a similar book. Often teachers are looking for several books from a historical era so that there will be something to suit every reading level in her class. Many bookstores prefer to host multi-author events. The picture to the right is myself and Elizabeth Rusch (dressed as Nannerl Mozart) and Virginia Euwer Wolff. We are doing an event which drew dozens of vocal and instrumental performers and lots of families to a community center to celebrate our three music-themed books: Virginia’s Mozart Season, an absolute classic YA story of a girl preparing for a music competition, Liz’s picture book biography For the Love of Music about Mozart’s big sister, and my middle grade novel Second Fiddle.

I’ve learned to love my Book-Alikes over the years and have become good friends of people whose books are similar to mine. And in celebration of that here are four books who like my story Written in Stone are set in America in the early part of the 20th century. They are Crossing Stones by Helen Frost, A Whistle in the Dark by Sue Hill Long, Born of Illusion by Teri Brown and In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters.

Middle Grade Monday Book Review: Seven Stories Up by Laurel Snyder

In this companion to Bigger than a Breadbox a leap back in time and an unlikely friendship change a family forever. Annie has never even met her grandmother before. In fact, she’s never had much family to speak of. So when she and her mother pull into the drive of her grandmother’s home in Baltimore, Annie can hardly contain her excitement!

But when she actually meets her grandma, the bitter old woman doesn’t seem like someone Annie could ever love, or miss. Until one magical, stormy night changes everything.

It’s impossible that Annie could have jumped back in time. . . right? But here she is in 1937— the year her grandmother was just her age! Molly is an invalid. She lives by herself, on the top floor of a hotel. She seems a little lonely, but friendly and fun, nothing like the horrible old woman Annie just met.

Annie entices Molly down from her room, and together the two girls roam. They sneak around the grand hotel, and explore the brick streets of old Baltimore. Carnivals and taxis, midnight raids on the kitchen. The two grow closer.

But as Molly becomes bolder, and ventures further from the safety of her room, Annie begins to wonder how she’ll ever get back home. Maybe she’s changed the past a little too much. . .

3 Things for a Middle Grade Reader to love

1. TIME TRAVEL! One of my favorite kinds of story when I was a MG reader. And not some grand cloak and dagger plot but a unique friendship story set cosily within a single family.

2. The level of detail for the 1937 setting is just right. Lots of rich imagery and vivid details about city life in Baltimore, but not heavy handed historical themes. There were difficult things going on in this country in the late 30s and Snyder does a good job of mentioning them without highjacking the story. I had an ARC to read which suggested that there will be illustrations at the chapter headings but I haven’t seen them. Even without illustrations I had no trouble picturing the particulars of the setting.

3. There’s a dumb waiter! I was fascinated by those as a child. The details of sneaking in and out of the hotel are great! I remember climbing through the laundry chute and out the window and shinnying down drainpipes–not that I needed to mind you–I did all this for the sheer entertainment of it. Great fun! Okay, to be fair, there are sad bits. But I was totally won over by the fun and the sad parts only made the skulking around more appealing.

Something for a writer to think about

I am not brave enough to write a time travel book. I love them. They seem hopelessly complicated to me and bouncing back and forth, I think, can be a lot to ask of a reader. I really like how the time travel bit worked out in Seven Stories Up. I particularly like the way Annie’s character built herself a mental bridge of stories about her mother to keep the path home open. I do think that story, and family story in particular, is a way kids in trouble find their way home, like Hansel and Gretle’s pebbles in the forest.