Our country has a rich history of marching on Washington, to defend rights, to protest, to resist. Two picture books I have been reading capture this dynamic perfectly for young children.
The Youngest Marcher by Cynthia Levinson portrays the energy and idealism of children standing up for justice in the civil rights era. To counteract the cultural dissonance of our current President-elect criticizing civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, read this book to your children. Young Audrey Faye Hendricks participates in the 1963 Children’s March in Birmingham, Alabama, offering a powerful example of youth activism. With beautiful illustrations by Vanessa Brantley Newton, this book was just published this month by Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.
We March by Shane W. Evans shows a family rising early, traveling by bus, and participating in a civil rights march in Washington DC. Its spare words and vibrant illustrations leave a lot of room for the child reader to ask questions or let the story weave its spell. A perfect picture book (Roaring Brook Press, 2011).
The Women’s March is in one week. May it contribute to the great history of marches on Washington to rally, protest, and resist!
Getting an invitation to talk about children’s books and summer? No way I’d turn that down!
WCAI-FM in Woods Hole, MA
I had the chance to join host Mindy Todd and Falmouth librarian Jill Erickson at WCAI-FM (Cape and Islands NPR station) recently, and we talked about so. many. books!
The topic was kids and summer reading.
Some highlights:
**the importance of letting kids make their own choices in the summer, to read exactly what they want to read
**the library is a parent and child’s best friend… a no-cost, community-oriented way to grow a reader
**taking on the Reading Without Walls Challenge is a great way to add some spice and excitement to your summer reading, either for a kid or an adult! The Reading Without Walls Challenge is brought to us by Gene Luen Yang, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.
You can listen to the show by clicking here (it’s about an hour).
Here is a list of books I mentioned on the program:
Summer Reading Recommendations for WCAI- The Point
PIcture Books
SURF’S UP by Kwame Alexander
FRED STAYS WITH ME by Nancy Coffelt… divorce/separation story
LAST STOP ON MARKET STREET by Matt de la Peña
WHEN GREEN BECOMES TOMATOES (Poems for All Seasons) by Julie Fogliano
Deborah Ruddell’s TODAY AT THE BLUEBIRD CAFÉ (bird poem, including the cardinal poem I read)
THIS DAY IN JUNE by Gayle Pitman (Gay Pride)
POEM RUNS by Douglas Florian (baseball poems, including the first base poem I read)
Middle Grade book (for ages 8 to about 12)
DRAMA by Raina Telgemeier… (graphic novel, theater kids)
Donna Gephardt’s LILY AND DUNKIN…transgender character, “outsiders”
Varian Johnson’s THE GREAT GREENE HEIST… main character is Jackson Greene (a smooth operator), a middle school caper reminiscent of Oceans 11. Sequel is TO CATCH A CHEAT. Varian visited Falmouth library and schools this past fall.
PAX by Sara Pennypacker… an animal story… a boy main character…. local author.
DISTANCE TO HOME by Jenn Barnes… baseball, girl athlete main character, will appeal to fans of Cape Cod Baseball League
Kekla Magoon’s CAMO GIRL…. a story about popularity, loyalty, friendship, middle school
Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s FISH IN A TREE… a girl battles with reading difficulties, adopting a trouble-making personality as a smoke screen, until a teacher makes a difference
ONE CRAZY SUMMER by Rita Williams-Garcia…Three African American sisters go to visit the mother who left them, in 1968 Oakland, California….the first book in a trilogy.
Young Adult– teen books
Ellen Wittlinger’s LOCAL GIRL SWEPT AWAY… a juicy Provincetown story… a story of four friends, one of whom gets swept away in stormy weather…. a mystery unravels.
K. A. Barson’s CHARLOTTE CUTS IT OUT… two girls who are juniors in a cosmetology arts program enter a competition, and Charlotte makes a bet with her mother that she’ll win…her mom wants her to give up cosmetology for college.
SIMON VS. THE HOMOSAPIENS AGENDA by Becky Albertalli… Simon struggles to come out to himself and his wonderfully quirky family, approaches a new romance and unravels the mystery behind some secret messages.
There are some other books that I was prepared to talk about on The Point, but we ran out of time!
They are:
A few more picture books:
SLICKETY QUICK: POEMS ABOUT SHARKS by Skila Brown
DRUM GIRL DREAMS by Margarita Engle…the main character is told that girls cannot be drummers…but she dreams and practices and becomes a star drummer in this colorful picture book set in Cuba.
More middle grade titles:
RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE by Kate DiCamillo…a friendship story set in the South… three girls, baton twirling and pageants, and more
GOODBYE STRANGER by Rebecca Stead… perfect for parent and kid to read together; captures the complexity of middle school so well
Mike Jung’s UNIDENTIFIED SUBURBAN OBJECT…Chloe Cho, a Korean-American 7th grader, wants to get in touch with her family history…they are the only Asian family in town… funny, touching, great twist!
Laura Shovan’s THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY… 18 kids try to rescue their school from the wrecking ball… a novel in verse.
Kate Messner’s THE SEVENTH WISH… 12-year-old Charlie catches a magical wishing fish and tries to use her wishes to solve some challenges, but her wishes go awry. Charlie is an Irish step dancer and wishes for a new dress for competition. On a more serious note, she longs for a solution when it’s discovered that her older sister has become addicted to heroin; Charlie grapples with the limits of magical thinking. This subplot is handled sensitively and may resonate with a lot of middle grade readers.
One more YA novel…
Sona Charaipotra’s SHINY PRETTY THINGS…Juicy ballet story, with three characters, it has been likened to “Black Swan meets Pretty Little Liars”…. it has a sequel, SHINY BROKEN PIECES. Diverse cast of characters and lots of drama for those who love ballet!
Mindy Todd, host of The Point
Thank you, Mindy Todd and WCAI-FM, for hosting this fun conversation about reading!
Lively conversation and great questions added rocket fuel to our presentation yesterday on Writing about Characters with LGBT Parents.
The New England SCBWI* Conference is broad and deep– 700 attendees, many workshops on all aspects of the writing life, and powerful keynote addresses. I co-presented with my wife Bonnie Jackman, an LICSW and middle school counselor.
Can you tell we’ve been together 29 years? Active listening! 🙂
Here are a few points from our presentation:
**In a diverse country such as ours, with LGBT rights and protections shifting in real time, SETTING is critical to any story with LGBT characters. Setting can be an antagonist, a support, a mix of the two– think about where your character/family lives and consider the political/social climate for LGBT people there.
**LGBT adults have had to make their peace with living outside the margins of dominant culture/mainstream paradigms of relationships. Where are their children in this process? Age is critical here– a kindergartener may love having her two moms come in to the classroom for a celebration; an older kid might ask to be dropped off two blocks from school.
**Kids of LGBT parents have to explain their existence all the time. Who’s your real mom? Where’s your dad? What do you mean you don’t have a dad? Wait, what? There are many dissonant moments our kids just deal with as a matter of course. How does this affect their character, their quest, their relationships, their school experience? This is rich material for character development.
Famed New Yorker cartoon by Harry Bliss, beloved by lesbian families!
I’ll post more soon… in the meantime, I’m enjoying the post-conference glow. A few people have asked if we’d consider presenting with workshop elsewhere– the answer is yes!
“Please bring these permission slips home to your moms and dads.”
Life is just different for kids of LGBTQ parents. They navigate awkward questions, tricky social situations, and heteronormative language on a daily basis.
That’s just some of the territory we’ll be covering in our presentation at the New England SCBWI conference at the end of the month in Springfield, MA. My wife Bonnie Jackman and I will be discussing sparks for inspiration as well as seeds of conflict in Re-imagining Families: Writing about characters with LGBTQ parents – a morning workshop on Sunday, May 1.
Bonnie and I presenting at the 2015 NESCBWI conference
We’ll offer insights and strategies for writing about families with same-sex and single parents, focusing on gay and lesbian-led families as well as those with bisexual and transgender parents. How can writers realistically portray characters with parents who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender? How will these various family structures affect our characters (from early childhood to middle grade through adolescence)?
Bonnie is a seasoned therapist and school counselor, with lots of anecdotes, developmental info, and insights to share. I’ll bring the craft perspective to the conversation. It should be a fun and lively session. Hope to see you there!
I had the privilege of watching author James Howe present to Nauset Regional Middle School today– the whole school. (I have an inside advantage: my wife Bonnie is a guidance counselor there!) He spoke at two different schools today, and will give an evening presentation, too.
THE MISFITS by James Howe
I was taking in Jim’s presentation on three levels:
Enjoying the ethnographic research of being in a middle school– the drastic differences between 6th, 7th, and 8th graders… the ways of dressing, the height differentials, the hair.
As a writer, it was delightful to hear Jim Howe talking about his writing process, the way he develops character, and his motivations to write.
As someone who does school presentations and writing workshops, watching the ease and charm with which Jim presented was inspiring.
Some observations:
**Jim read a few pages from THE MISFITS first, to set the scene for his conversation. Many of the students had read the book and were familiar with the others in the series.
**Jim showed slides– but not too many. His commentary was relaxed, conversational. He showed some pictures of his own childhood, pet pictures (a big hit), photos of his process (spreading out his manuscript pages on a large table, the three-ring binder approach, and more). He shared a picture of himself and his daughter when she was at middle school age, and said that her struggles in middle school inspired THE MISFITS. He demonstrated a real empathy for how difficult middle school is– something that must be so powerful for his young audience to hear!
Jim Howe and his daughter. “A seed for a book is very often a question.”
**Jim talked openly and easily about being gay, about being married to a woman earlier in his life, and why it took him so long to come out. It was disarming, simple, direct, and related to his books. His books are responsible for the creation of No Name Calling Day across the country, and he spoke about being very proud of that. I kept thinking about the kids in the audience who were out, or coming out– how powerful to have this author and role model up there, being himself in such a natural and comfortable way!
**Jim spoke about “interviewing” one of the characters in his books in order to get to know to the character more deeply. He showed pages of his interview notes and how they ended up as backstory in the novel TOTALLY JOE. He finished with a Q&A.
Finally some kid notes:
**The middle schoolers weren’t playing it too cool. “There he is!” a boy stage-whispered as he entered the auditorium. Another boy literally jumped up and down with excitement as he had his books signed by Jim.
**Blue hair. Purple hair. Green hair.
**Wedge high-top sneakers are apparently a thing.
**Best middle-schooler’s shirt, in my estimation: hand-lettered with a Sharpie, “May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor.”
Meeting Jim Howe was delightful!
All in all, a perfect experience of a great author visit!
Raising a Reader is a non-credit course aimed at parents and caregivers who want to infuse a love of reading and books into their children’s lives. Preschool teachers and home daycare providers may also enjoy this course.
Topics covered in Raising a Reader include: reaching a wide range of learning styles; early literacy skills; book selection; overview of genres and types of children’s books; anatomy of a picture book; putting together a diverse and rich home library; boosting literacy skills during read-aloud; and engaging reluctant readers of all ages.
Participants will also come away with literacy resources, book lists, and on-line resources. Raising a Reader is open to the community (participants do not need to be registered college students or college graduates).
It’s going to be fun! Register here. GOOD NEWS: Bridgewater-Cape Cod has just announced a “bring a friend” special. Register for the class ($149) and you can bring a friend. You can split the cost!
Author and educator Mary E. Cronin teaches Early Childhood Education, Children’s Literature, and Creative Writing at a wide array of institutions including Cape Cod Community College, Bridgewater State University, Barnstable County Correctional Facility, Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School, and more. Mary is a passionate advocate for children’s literacy and the joy of reading. Read more about her at www.maryecronin.com, or on Twitter at @maryecronin.
Like a plane coming in for a landing, I am settling back in to work and writing after the excitement of the holidays and a January trip to Ireland. Thanks to local arts funding, I will be teaching a new version of my creative writing class in the women’s unit of the Barnstable County Correctional Facility here on Cape Cod, and I’m very excited!
Here’s the description:
Mary E. Cronin will lead a ten-week writing workshop, “Connecting Through Kids’ Books,” in the women’s unit of Barnstable County Correctional Facility, where 80% of the female inmates are mothers. In each 90-minute session, Mary will bring a children’s book, which will be read aloud and used as a creative writing prompt. As participants appreciate and write about children’s books, they will improve their own literacy, become newly aware of the power of reading aloud, and add to their parenting skills in anticipation of their release and reunion with their children.
**
It’s been well-documented that when parents are incarcerated, it places enormous stress on their children, impacting child development and the parent-child relationship. Connecting Through Kids’ Books: A Prison Writing Project aims to address those needs on several levels.
First, it will boost the literacy skills of the adult participants by sparking appreciation of high-quality children’s books, building vocabulary, and strengthening writing skills through creative writing.
Second, the program will bolster parenting skills by giving participants a window into the joy and stimulation that children’s books can provide, especially if they themselves were not read to as children. Connecting through Kids’ Books also will give the women an awareness of titles they can read to their children once they are released from prison, and appreciation for the access that the public library can provide.
One of the books we’ll be reading and writing about
I’m thrilled that two Local Cultural Councils from Cape Cod have supported this project, and I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. It starts next week!
I was shaken recently when a friend relayed a story from a school in my liberal state of Massachusetts: an 8th grader received an anonymous note at school, to the effect of “Faggot- hope you kill yourself.”
In my writer world, I admit I get lulled into a sense of security– look at the praise heaped on books like Alex Gino’s GEORGE and Tim Federle’s BETTER NATE THAN EVER! Things are better. So much better!
In my adult world, as an out lesbian, I sometimes forget how hard it is to come out, to BE out, to risk safety and relationships to bewho you are.
That story of the 8th grader reminded me. Not so fast. We have more work to do. More books to write. This is what drives me to write my current novel, Tomfoolery, about a boy who is trying to muster the courage to be who he is.
More vigilance. More supportive adults. Let’s keep at it, with organizations like GLSEN and Rainbow Boxes and The Trevor Project and Lee Wind’s blog. We need to keep being visible. We need to be there for our youth!
I’m still buzzing from a dynamic weekend in NYC. I saw family, covered a lot of ground (Bronx to the Battery!), and attended the Rutgers One-on-One Conference.
The Rutgers One-on-One conference is a different kind of conference: it feels very focused, very professional. Writers must submit their work and an essay in order to be accepted, and an equal number of industry professionals are invited. I was paired up with an energetic agent named Carrie Pestritto from Prospect Agency, and she had insightful things to say about my novel pages, my query letter, my list of next projects, and more. What a dynamo she is!
I’m here in this crowd, taking it all in at the Rutgers One-on-One.
I met several other wonderful writers, editors and agents during the day, and I left feeling very directed, energized, and sure that I am on the right path with my current work, my middle-grade novel Tomfoolery.
With my daughter Rose, I also hit a few spots in NYC that I have been meaning to get to: the Poets House and the Irish Famine Memorial in Battery Park. For a college paper, Rose interviewed author and educator Zetta Elliott about the need for more diversity in children’s literature… and I got to pop in at the end and meet Zetta, too!
With my cousin, I went up to the borough I was born in, the Bronx. We stopped by the church where her and my parents were married, St. Luke’s in the South Bronx (where I teach a poetry workshop once a year)– now home to a new generation of immigrants from Ghana. We marveled at the way that St. Luke’s has always welcomed and educated immigrants– children of Irish immigrants like our parents, children of immigrants from Africa and Latin America now. We also stopped by the new Bronx Brewery and sampled micro-brews… right in the South Bronx! Who knew!
Bronx Brewery in the South Bronx
Now I am back on quiet Cape Cod, ready to dive into my novel and polish it up. My heart and head were filled to the brim on my trip… now it’s time to settle in and get this novel ready to send!
Learning about gender: that was one of my summer reading goals as a children’s writer, a teacher of teachers, and a creative writing instructor. As a lesbian writer and supporter of We Need Diverse Books, I am always on the look-out for new titles to recommend. Two books on my summer reading list have stayed with me.
Middle-grade novel GEORGE by Alex Gino brought me inside the mind and heart of a transgendered child– fourth grader George, who sees herself as Melissa. George yearns to play Charlotte in the school production of “Charlotte’s Web,” and she figures that will be a perfect vehicle for telling her mother and others that she really is a girl, despite being born in a boy’s body. GEORGE is chock full of heart and humor. Within the past few months, I’ve talked to teachers who are figuring out how to best respond to students who identify as transgendered… students ranging in age from preschool to middle school. Teachers, start with GEORGE. Feed your brain with information for allies, statistics and studies… but GEORGE will feed your heart.
Young adult novel NONE OF THE ABOVE, by I. W. Gregorio, taught me so much about the experience of being intersex. Main character Kristin is diagnosed with an intersex condition, and she worries that it means she’s “not exactly a girl.” This book made me think so much about the “either/or” gender dichotomy so prevalent in our world, and how that traps so many kids who feel different or gender variant in some way. There is so much information conveyed gracefully in this book; while I was learning about the intersex experience, I fretted over Kristin’s worries about peer reactions, medical issues, implications for her romantic/sex life, and her future. For teachers wondering about the “I” in LGBTQIA– this is your book!
Now I am back in the groove of juggling teaching, tutoring, writing… but I feel enriched and refreshed by my summer reading, and these two titles still resonate long after I read them under my beach umbrella.
