Dear Tomato & New Year at the Pier: Food and Forgiveness for Poetry Friday

.
Howdy, Campers--happy Poetry Friday (link at the bottom) and happy home grown veggies to all! (Did you know that August 2-8th was National Farmers Market Week? Or that August 22nd is National Honey Bee Day and September 7th is National Acorn Squash Day?)

We're blogging about going back to school this round. Esther starts us off with a review of Kate Messner's book on revision, a useful and inspiring book; JoAnn writes about using repetition and how to Write a Poem Step by Step, and you can win her book of that very title by entering the latest TeachingAuthors' book giveaway (which ends tonight at midnight) Then Carla shows how to approach the familiar How I Spent My Summer Vacation essay as a non-fiction writer, and Mary Ann tells us the story behind her wonderful book, First Grade Stinks!

Now it's my turn. I'm here to suggest two very different books for this time of year. One about food, one about forgiveness...and the new year.

As the daughter of a farmer and the sister of a sustainable agriculture journalist, I was proud to be included in Carol-Ann Hoyte's latest anthology, DEAR TOMATO ~ an International Crop of Food and Agricultural Poems.  (Great title!)

This collection,with photographs by Norie Wasserman (wonderful cover!) includes poems about small gardens, free range chickens, bees, farmers' markets, fair trade, food banks, a poem that mentions Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, and more.

Any of these would be a wonderful topic for student poems, stories or a class discussion about food and farming.  And the remarkable Renee LaTulippe, at No Water River, has created what she calls "poet-a-palooza" about Dear Tomato. which includes videos of some of the poets reading their poems from this book. Many of the poems are by friends from the Kidlitosphere, including B.J.Lee, Mary Lee Hahn, Charles Waters, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Matt Forrest Esenwine, Bridget Magee, Buffy Silverman, Stephen Withrow, J. Patrick Lewis, Elizabeth Steinglass, and I'm sure I've missed some others. This is the book I've been giving my neighborhood gardeners with whom I trade homegrown veggies.  

Here's one of my poems from the book:

           HOE OBSERVING THE FARMER

           by April Halprin Wayland
            .

            He knows a hoe.

            Never letting go.

            Holds me steady in his grip,

            lifts me up to rip against the weight of air.

            Then he pulls me back, bearing down,

            yielding to the power of the ground.

            Holds me steady in his grip,

            never letting go.

            He knows

            a hoe.

poem (c)2015 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.

my father and mother on the farm

The second book, relevant this time of year is:

The Jewish New Year--Rosh Hashanah--is on September 13-15th this year, so now is a good time to read my picture book, New Year at the Pier--a Rosh Hashanah Story  illustrated by Stephane Jorisch. Here's Dial Books for Young Readers' summary:
Izzy's favorite part of Rosh Hashanah is Tashlich, a joyous ceremony in which people apologize for the mistakes they made in the previous year and thus clean the slate as the new year begins. But there is one mistake on Izzy's I m sorry list that he's finding especially hard to say out loud.

Humor, touching moments between family and friends, and lots of information about the Jewish New Year are all combined in this lovely picture book for holiday sharing.

Winner of the Sydney Taylor Gold Medal for best Jewish picture book of the year

Here are four ways to use New Year at the Pier with kids--and adults:
1) Use it to explain to students where absent schoolmates may be during the Jewish New Year.
2) Use it to open discussions about how to apologize and forgive.
3) Use it to show how other cultures celebrate New Year.
4) Give it to someone you’ve wanted to apologize to for a long time

Click here for more activities,and for New Year rituals around the world.

 And remember to enter our latest book giveaway (which ends tonight at midnight!)

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Reading To The Core--thank you!

It's been nice chatting with you today--thanks for allowing me to share ~ April Halprin Wayland

Giveaway Winner and Teaching Authors in Cyberspace

We've enjoyed celebrating the release of April Halprin Wayland's New Year at the Pier--A Rosh Hashanah Story with all our readers!  If you'd like to learn more about April and her wonderful book, check out these other stops on her blog tour:

• Cynsations interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith
• Barbara Bietz's "Jewish Books for Children" blog interview   
• Tina Nichols Coury's blog interview with Laurie Hornick, editor of New Year at the Pier
• Heidi Estrin’s Book of Life blog podcast interview
• The Just One More Book! blog’s podcast book review of New Year at the Pier

By the way, April isn't the only Teaching Author to be interviewed in Cyberspace this month:

• Mary Ann Rodman was interviewed by Amy Bowllan as part of her School Library Journal blog series on "Writers Against Racism."  
• And I appeared on Scotti Cohn's "It Happened in Chicago" blog. 

As promised, I am announcing our contest winner today. Thank you to everyone who took time to post a goal for the new school year. Your goals are so inspiring! Fortunately, this contest was a random drawing because it would have been too hard to choose the "best" entry.

And now, drum roll please! The winner of a free autographed copy of New Year at the Pier--A Rosh Hashanah Story is Kim Winters! Kim posted:

"My goal is to write two pages a day on my current fantasy novel in progress now through the end of the year."

Congratulations, Kim, and good luck following through on your goal!

And don't forget: we expect everyone who posted a goal to report back on your progress during the first two weeks of January! If you didn't win this time, you'll have the opportunity to enter our "second-chance" drawing then.

Finally, if you're planning to purchase a copy of April's book, we hope you'll do so at an Independent bookseller. You can find an Independent near you by clicking here, or order online by clicking here.  Would you like an autographed book plate to go with your new book? See April's website.

Activities for Teachers, Parents, and Readers Using New Year at the Pier

Today is the last day of our celebration of the new school year with our very own April Halprin Wayland. But don't worry, there's still time to enter for a chance to win a free autographed copy of April's picture book New Year at the Pier--A Rosh Hashanah Story. You have until midnight, Monday, September 7, 2009 (CST), to post your goal for the new school year.  Click here for details.

On Tuesday, September 8, 2009, we'll announce the winner. We'll also have a round-up of links to other sites where April has been interviewed, as well as links to recent interviews with two other TeachingAuthors. We won't be posting on Monday, because of the Labor Day holiday. After Tuesday, we'll return to our usual Monday, Wednesday, Friday posting schedule.

Carmela:
April, here's our last question for you: How would you like to see teachers, parents, and young readers using New Year at the Pier?

April:
I’d like teachers to use it to help explain to students why some of their Jewish classmates are absent…and what they’re doing.

I’d like them to use it in January to talk about all the ways people around the world celebrate the new year. (For more on New Year Rituals Around the World, see my website.)

I’d like teachers and parents to use the book to open discussions about how to apologize. To help, I've listed resources for discussing forgiveness on my website.

I’d like them to use it to act out how to accept an apology.

I’d like older kids to use this book as an opening to discussions about the Rwanda Reconciliation. I've provided resources for this on my website too.

And here's an activity I’d like all readers to try:
Think of one person you’ve harmed.
Write about the incident and read it to someone else.
Sit with the feelings for a bit, then be willing to let them go.
The feelings may not go away, but the first step is to be willing to let them go away.
Then make an appointment to see the person you've hurt face-to-face to apologize.  No excuses—just a simple heartfelt apology…without expectations that you will be forgiven.  Rabbi Neil told me that forgiveness can’t be the focus of the apology.  I can’t apologize in order to be forgiven or to feel better.

Here’s an example:  Last year I gave a 7th grade poetry workshop at a Catholic school.  It was a terrific school, the students were very responsive, and I love teaching this particular workshop.  A few days later, the principal of the school called to say that a website I referred to in the workshop contained X-rated content. 

You can imagine the feedback she’d gotten from parents.

I was mortified. I called a very smart friend and asked her what to do.  She suggested that I use it as a teaching opportunity—that I offer to write an article in the parent newsletter cautioning about the ever-changing internet. She suggested that I could publish the article in a magazine.

I tried to write that article. I really tried. But it didn’t sound very sincere. 

I called my friend Bruce.

“What should I do?” I asked.
“You should apologize,” he said.
“That’s all?” I asked. “But what about the article?”
“How would you feel if you were in their position?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you just want to hear, ‘I’m so sorry?’  Don’t complicate it.” 
So I wrote and sent a sincere letter of apology.  And it felt right. 

Another thing I’d like readers to do with the book is use it to learn about feeding the hungry. I am donating a portion of the profits of this book to Mazon, a Jewish response to hunger.

Finally, how else would I like people to use New Year at the Pier?  I’d love to hear that one of you gave this book to a friend as a way of finally apologizing about something that’s been bothering you for a long-long-long-long time.

Since today is Poetry Friday, I’ll like to end with a story and a poem about apologies:

Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels told me a story of a man who was sorry that he gossiped about someone.  The man went to his rabbi for help to him make it right.

“I can’t help you,” the rabbi said.
 “But I’m really sorry,” the man said. “I want to make it right.”
“You can’t make it right.” the rabbi said.
“But why?” the man asked.
“Go get me a knife and a feather pillow,” the rabbi said.
The man brought back a pillow. The rabbi stabbed the feather pillow and shook out all the feathers, throwing them to the winds.
“There are some things that can never be put back together the way they were.  A situation can be changed through apology, but it cannot be undone,” said the rabbi.

I’M SORRY
by April Halprin Wayland

I ripped your pillow.
Your favorite pillow.
Filled with feathers.
Was it your father’s?

You ran out crying.
So I am trying
to find each feather
and put it back.

The wind is blowing,
the feathers going
out the window
all over the yard

This fixing pillows
is very hard.

© April Halprin Wayland

From Concept to Completion: A New Year at the Pier Time Line

Find out about our Teaching Author Book Give-Away Contest running all this week! Click here for details.

Happy New Year! This week we’re celebrating the new school year and our very own April Halprin Wayland’s book, New Year at the Pier—A Rosh Hashanah Story, which is about another kind of new year—the Jewish New Year.

JoAnn:
Give us a feel for the time line of this book—from the first inkling of an idea to Book On the Shelf.

April:
I’ll tell you, but if you’re an aspiring children’s author, it might be best to cover your ears and sing “La, la, la” through today’s post…especially the very end.

So—here’s how it started. An editor asked me if I had any Jewish stories in me. I had a few…but one ritual was the standout for me: tashlich.

I began by writing down everything I knew about tashlich—how it feels to walk up the pier, singing, with two hundred of my friends, the sun, the waves, the butterflies in my tummy, the feeling I have when I give my “sins” to the winds.



Next, I read books about tashlich, starting with children’s books, though there weren’t many. The most recent children’s book I found in which tashlich is the main subject is Carol Levin’s A Rosh Hashanah Walk (Kar-Ben, 1987).

Then I interviewed my friend, Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of Beth Shir Sholom Temple in Santa Monica, California. Rabbi Neil is very tuned into kids; he’s written many albums of children’s songs.

I just re-read my notes from that afternoon and realize how much of what he taught me infuses the book. Look over my shoulder at a few of my notes:

• Rabbi Neil doesn’t like using the word “mistake,” as mistake means not on purpose, and sometimes you do some of these things on purpose.

• There’s a famous story of a man who goes to his rabbi and says that he gossiped about someone in town and he is now sorry and wants the rabbi to help him make it right. The rabbi said no, he can’t help this man. What? What do you mean, says the man. I really am sorry. I want to make it right. No can do, says the rabbi. But why? Asks the man. Go get me a knife and a feather pillow, says the rabbi. The man does. The rabbi stabs the feather pillow and takes out all the feathers and throws them to the winds. The idea is that you can’t always fix a situation. A situation can be changed through apology, but not undone.

• His example, regarding how you can’t fix something completely, was of a child stealing a doll and bringing it back. She might say, “I know I can bring the doll back, but I can’t make you trust me again.”

• Not: “It’s okay.” (Because maybe it’s not okay.) But: “I accept your apology.”

• Neil suggests that instead of burning her list, she uses it as a checklist.

After the manuscript was written and accepted, my editor, Lauri Hornik, guided me through the rewrites with her clear vision. I growled at her under my breath. She sent edits. I stomped around my computer. She sent more edits. Back and forth, back and forth.

But ask her now how many “Thank you, my dear darling editor!” notes I’ve sent her since the book came out! (Lauri’s since been promoted to President and Publisher of Dutton Children's Books, in addition to her previous title of President and Publisher of Dial. My new fabulous editor at Dial is Jessica Garrison.)

So here, finally, is the spoiler…the actual time line of New Year at the Pier:

• April 2002: interviewed rabbi

• October 2004: accepted by Dial

• many, many, many edits, changes, drafts…

• May 2007: projected publication date is 2008

• September 2007: book delayed until 2009

• April 2008: tiny edit—five small word changes

• June 2009: book is on bookstore shelves—YAY!

SEVEN YEARS?!?!?! Well, yes. Would you believe me if I told you it was worth the wait? Look at the harvest—a starred review in Publishers Weekly and lots of other wonderful reviews!

image credits:
photo of people walking up the pier by Rachel Gilman

erase writing:
http://christinabakerkline.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/red_pencil.jpg

MORE New Year at the Pier

Find out about our Teaching Authors Book GiveAway Contest running all this week! Click here for details.

Happy New Year! This week we’re celebrating the new school year and our very own April Halprin Wayland’s book, New Year at the Pier--A Rosh Hashanah Story, which is about another kind of new year--the Jewish New Year.

Esther:
April, how did being a Teaching Author influence/impact/inform your book?

April:
More than in any other of my books, I teach in this story—about forgiveness, about how to apologize, about friendship, about community.

All of my books have been fiction. My first book was about a child who turns into a rabbit. My second was a flying horse. My third was about a made-up Southern family and their wild grandma. My fourth was a fictionalized novel of my teen years. My fifth (published by a teensy weensy press in Canada) was about a fictional child moving to a new house.

In each of these, I had the freedom to invent anything I wanted in order to serve the story.

But New Year at the Pier is based on an actual event that I wanted to explain.

I sent drafts to religious Jews, I read them to synagogue classes (a Jewish librarian and Hebrew school teacher both suggested that I add someone apologizing to my main character, so we could learn not only how to apologize, but how it feels to receive an apology), and every New Year I watched myself and others celebrate on the pier as if I were a journalist, taking notes and taking photos—all to make sure I was telling the truth of this celebration.

So, I teach in this book more than in any of my others. I tried not to hit people over the head with the lessons!

The other way teaching influenced my writing in this book was this: I wanted to show that in real life, not everything is neatly resolved, tied up in a neat package. I fought to keep this element in the story and am so glad I did.

Now that I’m doing performances, presentations and workshops based on this book, I am talking about forgiveness and apologizing, and I offer tips on these topics on my website.

It’s been a fascinating journey for me to examine my own life and how I have or have not forgiven and how I do or don’t apologize…and how to turn all that humanness into poetry.

What a gift—to teach and to learn, both!

image credits:
tashlich on the pier:
April Halprin Wayland personal photos
sorry cat
http://dl2.glitter-graphics.net/pub/743/743662l45g05d1qv.jpg

New Year at the Pier

Find out about our Teaching Author Book Giveaway Contest running all this week! Click here for details.

Happy New Year! This week we’re celebrating the new school year and our very own April Halprin Wayland’s book, New Year at the Pier--A Rosh Hashanah Story, which is about another kind of new year--the Jewish New Year.

Stay tuned for a series of Q&As from the TAs (say that five times fast) about the gestation of this touching story.

Jeanne Marie:
April, can you tell us a little about your religious identity and why you wrote this book?

April:
Although this book is about the Jewish New Year, it’s really about universal themes of forgiveness and apologizing, friendship and multi-cultural ways to celebrate new year.

Growing up, my Jewishness was all about big hugs from Uncle Raphael, Uncle Izzy, Uncle Avrum, Uncle Chucky, Uncle Davie, Uncle Moish, Uncle Max, Uncle Art, Aunt Fanny, Aunt Cissy, Aunt Sue, Aunt Frances, Aunt Polly, sitting at the “cousins table,” the smells of matzo ball soup, the bright magenta color and hot sting of horseradish, the dark shadow of the holocaust, overlapping layers of talking, laughter, holiday songs, and Yiddish words seasoning conversations, of flickering candles.

Above all, being Jewish meant that part of my job on earth was tikkun olam—to repair the world. My relatives modeled tikkun olam every day.

I’m married to Gary, a non-Jew who embodies tikkun olam in every action, in every breath. We are both political activists in an effort to repair the world, and we weave Judaism into the fabric of our family throughout the year in other ways, too:

On Friday nights, our family goes to our favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant. I’m not sure how Jewish tacos are, but it’s our way of marking the start of the Sabbath, a time of rest and renewal.

In December, we have an annual latke party, inviting neighbors to bring electric skillets, spatulas and aprons. Hanukah latkes are yummy hot-from-the-frying-pan potato pancakes, served with apple sauce or sour cream. We set up latke-making stations, cook, gab, sing, bless the candles, play the dreidle game and eat!

Gary’s a CPA and his busiest time of the year is near Passover. For many years, my son and I traveled overseas during his spring break, where I taught writing and poetry workshops. I’ve taught in schools in Germany, France, England, Italy, Switzerland and Poland, and every year we celebrated Passover with new friends. (One memorable year we ate Passover dinner on the floor of our Berlin hotel room…ask me about it sometime!)

Tashlich is a ritual during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The exact date of Rosh Hashanah varies—in 2009, it’s Sept. 18-20th. When synagogue is over, nearly two hundred of us will walk to the pier, sing songs, and fling pieces of bread into the ocean.

Each piece of bread represents something we wish we hadn’t done in the past year. Tossing the bread (tashlich means “to throw”) is a way of letting go of the past. It represents the footwork we’ve done to sincerely apologize and compensate for any wrongs we’ve done, cleaning the slate for the New Year.

Tashlich is outdoors, in a beautiful setting. Tashlich is community, a huge component of the juiciness of Judaism.

Tashlich is about healing the world, beginning with me.

Tashlich my favorite Jewish celebration. I’ve dragged many friends to the pier so they could taste its poetry. I wanted them to feel the wind, hear the gulls, experience the relief of tossing each piece of bread.

How could I not share all this in a picture book?

**********

Readers, don't forget to post your new-year goals to enter for a chance to win April's wonderful book! Click here for details.

image credits:
interior picture from New Year at the Pier © Stéphane Jorisch 2009
latkes: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQBj6Cw6XOWuLoqddygkaW1gDot9EdiA7JJ_QkXKc4AZu68Ti38CYY8YzF00boCIhHa6HjlzW2jgXNPGjH4z_FLvuJIrzS1YiStIRF_NT0-gyp_W80BkmK0kP938Dui3LN84pZaGmT41M/s400/latkes.jpg