D.E.A.R. for Grownups

     I first met Beverly Cleary's memorable character Ramona Quimby as a supporting character in Henry and the Clubhouse where she all but stole the book. I was in graduate school before I discovered that after Cleary finished the Henry and Beezus series, she had gone on to give Ramona her own literary stage, where Henry and big sister Beezus were the background characters. The notion of D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) was something I would've loved in my childhood. I had to fashion my own notion of D.E.A.R. It was called Stick a Book in Your Lap and Look Like You're Paying Attention in Class. (OK, it isn't much of an acronym.) It did not make me popular with my teachers.

    As adult writers and teachers, we need to make time for our own D.E.A.R.  I'm not talking about reading the latest (adult) best seller, or flipping through whatever literary dregs are in the doctor's waiting room. I am talking about reading the newest children's books that interest you. You know....the kind of book you want to write?

     I assumed that writers, especially children's writers, are readers. However, I never gave much thought as to what they were reading until last month. I was teaching an adult Writing for Children's workshop and had brought in tons of books from my personal collection (not the books I wrote; the books I own) to use as examples of different styles of writing. I have a very expensive book buying habit, because for the last fifteen years I have either lived where there was no library, or very poor ones. Books have changed since we were kids, even if you are a lot younger than I am (which is probably almost everyone reading this.) Yes, there are classics, like Ramona and her friends who will never die.
The first Henry Huggins book was published in 1950, Charlotte's Web, 1952  A Wrinkle in Time 1962.   These are timeless books although I sometimes wonder, given today's publishing climate if any of these three would be considered "commercial" enough to be published today.

   But back to my workshop.  My students devoured my books, then asked. "Where did you get these books?  How did you even know about them?" These writers were mostly young mothers who read to their children....whatever happened to be on the display counter in the picture book section of the library.   "These books aren't at (fill in the name of your local chain bookstore).  How could I find them in the library, if I don't know they exist?"

    Valid points. Chain bookstores, the only ones available to a good chunk of us, feature "sure sellers"...movie tie-ins, "celebrity" picture books, books that have become TV series or movies. A few of the books I brought were Newbery/Caldecott winners. Those are always front and center in bookstores and libraries, but for the rest of us hardworking, writers, just finding our books is a real challenge, let alone reading them.  They are out there....it's  just knowing where to look.

    That's why I spend thirty minutes of my D.A.R.E. each week scouting out the newest books online. Where?  Goodreads is one of my favorite places to see what other readers (and not professional reviewers) think of a book. (I do not know what effect it's recent acquisition by Amazon will have on this site, if any, but there are already thousands or reviews that have been written before this happened.)
I also like Kirkus Reviews.   Kirkus is a subscription service with a pretty hefty price tag. Their selling point is that they preview books up to two months pre-publication, which is great if you are a book store and need to know two months in advance if you are going to order the book. If you are willing to wait a whole week after publication, you can read the review online, for free. Kirkus is issued biweekly, except for a week mid-summer and one the first of January.

     You can also sign up for Publisher's Weekly online. Another print publication with a steep subscription price, you can get daily digests of articles, news as to what editor has been promoted, demoted or moved to another publisher. Thursdays is there special children's edition.  All free.

    There are tons of bloggers (including us!) who interview authors when they have a new book coming out. However, I would be amiss if I did not mention my favorite source of quality reading recommendations.  That is Cooperative Children's Book Center located at the University of Wisconsin. In addition to interviews and news about programs and lectures (if you happen to live in Wisconsin), b they review a "Book of the Week." The BOW is always a recently published book the staff at CCBC think is outstanding. They don't waste their time on junk. You may not agree with all of their choices but you will read them knowing that their selection was carefully considered by a group of people whose only "agenda" is to expose the children's literature community to the widest and best range of the newest books.

   So why are you still reading me? Right now, drop everything and scout out your next list of D.A.R.E. books.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Note from Carmela: With the impending demise of Google Reader, I'm looking at different ways our readers can follow our blog posts. (I'll be talking about this in my post on Friday.) Meanwhile, today I discovered the Bloglovin' site. In case you're interested: 
you can now follow the TeachingAuthors blog with Bloglovin' .

Reading Lists and Remembrances--posted by Carmela Martino

In her recent post, "Read Your Brains Out" (part of our Children's Book Week series), Mary Ann Rodman shared some references for recommended reading. As a follow-up, we've added links from this blog to online recommended reading lists--see the sidebar section labeled "Children's/YA Reading Lists." Now you have no excuse for not "reading your brains out." (And if you have suggestions for other online recommended reading lists, please let us know.)

By the way, Mary Ann was too modest to mention that her middle-grade novel, Yankee Girl, made one of those recommended reading lists: the Spring '09 Indie Booksellers Recommendations for Kids.
Congratulations, Mary Ann!

Two other new features on our blog:
1) We often receive questions from our students about graduate programs specific to writing children's literature. (Perhaps this is because four of the TeachingAuthors hold MFAs in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College.) To help answer those questions, I've added a section in the sidebar with links to "Graduate Programs in Writing for Children and Young Adults." If you know of any I missed, please let us know.

2) We've added a link to show our support for independent bookstores. We encourage all readers to shop at independent booksellers, either online or in person.

Finally, today is Memorial Day here in the United States, a day to remember those who have died while serving our country. In the May, 2009 issue of the Illinois Reading Council (IRC) Communicator, IRC president Roxanne Owens discusses using the poem "In Flanders Field," by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, as part of a middle school Veteran's Day project. After discovering that the poem has been set to music, Owens incorporated the following YouTube videoclip into her lesson. The clip features high school dancers interpreting the poem's lyrics

Read Your Brains Out

posted by Mary Ann Rodman

At least once a school visit, I am asked (usually by a teacher), "What advice can you give a young writer?" The answer is a two-parter. Part one, "Read your brains out." (Part two is another blog.) I never have enough time to elaborate during a 10 minute Q & A session, but I do right now!

Way back when I came face to face with my first computer, the operating mantra was "Garbage in, garbage out." We were told the computer could only produce what we put into it.

So what does this have to do with reading and writing? When I tell my writing students to read, I don't mean read indiscriminately. Analyze your own reading selections. Are you reading the kind of book you would like to write? (If the answer is yes, then you may skip the rest of this post!)

If the answer is "no" or "I don't know," read on. There are a lot of books out there, and all books are not created equal. "So many books, so little time" is a phrase that runs through my head constantly, in relation to both reading, and my own writing. I am taking a wild guess that none of us are unfettered by jobs, family responsibilities, and a multitude of other mundane things. When we have so little time of our own, we are tempted to invest it all in writing. Don't. You have to read as well. And when your reading time is also limited, try to find the best possible books to read.

I am not a literary snob. I like my literary potato chips on occasion. You know the kind of books I mean, the ones that you don't mind leaving on a plane or loaning to someone who never returns it. But just as a steady diet of junk food will leave you weak, overweight and retaining water, a reading diet of "those kinds of books" will leave you with bad writing habits that are hard to shake.

So how does the average aspiring writer (who isn't a librarian) find these "good" books? This is the time of year when schools send home the dreaded "summer reading list." Your local bookstore will have the list and the books on display. That's a good place to begin if you are writing for middle graders or younger.

For reasons known only to Those Who Make the Lists, very few new or YA books are included on middle and high school lists. In fact, the list my rising sophomore was given could have been the same list I had, circa 1969! The only remotely recent YA book she was required to read since sixth grade was Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, published in 1999. My daughter loved it, although she was puzzled by a book about teenagers that did not text or IM or run up enormous cell phone bills. Which brings me to...

Keep current with what is being published. After years as a librarian, where I had free access to all the review journals, it was hard to carry on without my Horn Book and Publisher's Weekly. Most public library systems carry these review sources and others, but sometimes you have to go to the Main Library, instead of your local branch, to find them. If I had to select only one of these to read or subscribe to, I would choose Horn Book because it is the "choosiest." They are so selective in the books they review, that I have only had the honor once, for My Best Friend. In addition to the reviews, Horn Book has a wealth of articles, essays, and just plain good information on writing workshops and seminars.

I also check in every week at the Cooperative Children's Book Center website www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc for their Book of the Week review, and their monthly book discussion list. For the latest in YA books, I scan the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) site (www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists). Their Best Books Nominations list is updated monthly.

Why all the reading? To write and write well, you have to books in your bones. This is not optional! When you think of it that way, you'll find a way to wedge in some reading time. I always have a book in my purse (which is my criteria for purse buying--must be big enough to hold book). I read in check-out lines, doctor's offices, during my daughter's daily skating lessons, and deadlocked Friday afternoon Atlanta traffic. (OK, I don't recommend that one.) The point is that you can read a book at times and places when you can't write.

So go find your library card. Now.