Spinning Plates and My New Website.

    What am I doing right now...seriously?  You really want to know?  The truth?  Right this minute I'm having a frozen Milky Way bar with my morning coffee, the TV show Hoarding: Buried Alive playing in the background.

     Well, you asked!

     If you are around my age, you remember The Ed Sullivan Show.  At least once a year Ed would have a plate-spinning act...a bunch of guys balancing multiple tall poles with plates twirling at the ends. Every now and then someone would lose a plate, catch it in mid-air, then toss it back to its pole top...and keep on spinning, without missing a beat.

    Every time the spinners came on, my mom would elbow me and say, "Don't even think about trying that." (I already had...just long enough to learn that you can't spin Melamac plates on a yard stick, the closest thing I had to a pole.)

    I've thought about the plate-spinners a lot lately. Those plates whirling high in the air, remind me of my own life. Not to get into my personal melodrama, but just keeping my family going on all cylinders is tough enough. Writing projects are extra poles to juggle, but I've run out of space. Maybe balance the poles on a foot?

   In addition, there is the current national climate. Some people can tune out all the tumult and turmoil.  I can't.  I try to keep it from creeping out of my chest (where it sits like a sullen four-year-old) and into my head (where the four-year-old goes into total tantrum mode.) Doing anything at all these days is like slogging through molasses. Everything.....goes....so....slowly.

    Now that you have all the excuses for my low/slow output, here's what I'm doing.

    I'm building a new website.

    Once upon a time--2009--I took down my old website, intending to have a professional design a new one for me. It's not so easy to design a website when you write in multiple genres for all age groups. I queried a few designers, didn't like their work...and then came the Big Money Crisis of 2009. Suddenly I didn't have the money for a professional designer. At the same time, I had already taken down my old website (what was I thinking?) And so it has been for the last eight years. And some purveyor of questionable material snatched up my domain name.

    A couple of years ago, I started seeing ads for DIY sites. I wasn't at all sure I could handle what ever amount of DIY was involved. (You wouldn't believe how long it has taken me to maneuver around Blogger for TA every two weeks.) I am tech-impaired.

   Then a good friend put up her in new website and I was blown away. Clean, simple, professional looking.  A couple of emails back and forth and I learned that she had used one of the DYI sites.  She alerted me to the quirks and pitfalls of this particular company.   For a business that is supposed to help you build a site, they're own isn't particularly well organized.  With this in mind, I went to work.

      After a week of experimenting with the controls and images, I've finished the first page (ta da!) and  downloaded the images I plan to use on the other page. Right now (like right this minute) I'm working on the pages of text. As you know, it's tough for me to "write short." I'll have to get myself in my old journalistic mode, no more than 150 words per paragraph. (My very first job was working for a local weekly paper when I was 14.)

  I don't know what I expected from a DIY.  A couple of magic right clicks and I'd have a website?
I wish.

     DIY means you have to remember every single thing that goes on a page. If you don't put it in....it isn't there. I could've used one of the ready-to-go templates, but none of them said "children's writer" let alone Mary Ann Rodman, children's author. So, always looking for a way to make a task twice as hard, I started with a blank template and added my own images and design. If nothing else, it will look like ME.  And when I goes up (hopefully next week), you guys will be the first to know. At www.maryannrodman.net

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Odd Girl Out

I was never a reluctant reader. I have to admit, I feared writing about this topic because it is something I know very little about. While my parents were not avid readers, they were willing to drive me to the library. When I was very young, I was confined to bed because of a long illness. I found solace in reading. I learned to read at a young age, and I read everything. I loved action/adventure stories. When I was finally healthy, I couldn’t run fast enough, all the time running about, creating my own adventures. And when I wasn’t running about, I was reading.

Ezra Jack Keat's APT 3

 I was the odd girl out in middle school. I was a nerd before it was cool to be a nerd. High school was a bit easier because it was small and private. The nuns didn’t take kindly if someone came to class without having read the assigned pages, or books as the case may be. So everyone read. No one liked the “or else.”

Of course, I didn’t have computers, iPhones or iPads or video games way back then. There was no Facebook or text talk. Ooo! I shudder to think how Sister Alice Marie might have reacted if I dared write into an essay, AFINIAFI (A friend in need is a friend indeed)!

Although, to be sure, nerds will be nerds, no matter which century, and kids will always be kids. A friend and I had learned Morse code, and then tapped out messages during class. Colonel Seese, the retired Army colonel who taught history, caught on. He was scarier than the nuns. While he approved of our ingenuity, we still had to serve detention.

  Those were different times. I have to wonder if there may be some connection between the gadgetry of today and reluctant readers. As much as these electronic gizmos can be an aid to our learning process, might they also be a deterrent? I wrote in my last post (here) about current studies that suggest old-fashion hand writing helps cognitive development, critical thinking skills, and reading skills. Connected to this is another important question, how does the new technology we use to read change the way we read? Are we still reading as thoroughly and attentively? As Jabr Ferris suggests (Scientific American, 2013), while studies are still ongoing, there seems to be a consensus that “modern screens and e-readers fail to adequately recreate certain tactile experiences of reading on paper that many people miss and, more importantly, prevent people from navigating long texts in an intuitive and satisfying way.”

 Where The Wild Things Are

 So could it be that one key to coaxing reluctant readers is to re-create that tactile and sensory experience?   

I have long been impressed by uber-teacher and Facebook friend Paul Hankins, who teaches English 11. He posts about his strategies that treat the senses and engages the reading process. His projects include using collage, which he calls remixes, to recreate covers of favorite books, including Ezra Jack Keat's APT 3 and Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.

Halloween produces some of my favorite books. What better way for a tactile experience than skin shivers and tingling spines! So many books, but currently I am reading (again) Stephen Messer’s The Death of Yorik Mortwell (Random House/Yearling Edition, 2012), a mock-Gothic horror story inspired by Edward Gorey.

Another treat is Philippa Dowding’s Jake and the Giant Hand (Dundurn, 2014), all about weird stories gone wrong. 

As a writer, I take to heart the wisdom Carmela shared in her post: "If you want your writing to appeal to boys and other reluctant readers, don't try to target this particular audience. That's right, DON'T target them. Instead, write what moves, excites, or interests YOU." In my books (Big River's Daughter and Girls of Gettysburg), you can still find me running about, all the time running, and having the best adventures.

For more information, you might find this interesting: Jabr, Ferris. The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens. (Scientific American, April 2013)

Don't forget about the CWIM giveaway!

What do you think? Share some of your insights, experiences and strategies below!

Bobbi Miller

A Kind Cup o' Publicity!

Were I to write a name poem for my first name Esther, at least one of my E’s would stand for Enthuse.
That’s what I do, often and gladly.
And I especially enjoy enthusing on behalf of others.

So, thank you, Darcy Pattison, for declaring this first week of September Random Acts of Publicity Week, giving me the chance to do some mighty loud praise-singing of several of my fellow Children’s Book World residents.

Once again I can pay Kindness forward, something I also enjoy doing, and introduce our readers to:

Almigal, a spunky little girl with a BIG personality who’s determined to hear “every   single sound in the whole entire universe!”  Almigal’s spirit and her cotton-candy pink cochlear implants will have everyone shouting “LET’S HEAR IT FOR ALMIGAL!”  That happens to be, of course, the title of Almigal’s picture book, written by debut author WendyKupfer and illustrated by Tammie Lyon (Handfinger Press, 2012). Talk about paying Kindness forward!  Five percent of book sales supports deaf children.

Gordy, a courageous little fellow who, with his Doctor’s help, initiates a restrictive diet so that he can be like other children – happy and healthy. Gordy’s triumphant story claims the pages of the picture book Gordy and the Magic Diet, written by first-time authors Kim Diersen and April Runge and deliciously illustrated by Carrie Hartman (Special Kids Enterprises, LP, 2012).  A portion of the proceeds will benefit non-profit organizations that help children navigate restrictive diets!

A spanking-new updated and expanded website - www.sydhoff.org - that celebrates and honors the legacy of award-winning beloved author Syd Hoff  - think Danny and the Dinosaur - that went live yesterday, September 4, on the occasion of his 100th Birthday. Created by his niece Carol Edmonston, the site includes a rich selection of Syd’s cartoons, a Kids page featuring the “how to’s” of cartooning using letters and numbers and a downloadable chapter, just for starters.  

The September 9 launch of author Carol Coven Grannick’s new blog – Today I Am AWriter.  Many of our readers know Carol from her previous inspiring blog, The Irrepressible Writer.  Carol shared that in her newest venture, she plans “to explore the issue of what it means to be a writer without focusing so intensely on ultimate publication in a public way because perhaps I need the feeling of being witnessed.”  Also because she believes she is not alone!  If this issue resonates with you, visit Carol’s blog, posted six days a week, excluding Saturday.

PLUS...

a free cup o’coffee on National Coffee Day, September 29, between the hours of 7 am and 11 am, courtesy of 7-Eleven!

So,
Hurrah! Hurray! Bravo! Mazel tov! – and - merci beaucoup, 7-Eleven!

And, believe it or not…

YOU can continue paying Kindness forward by kindly promoting someone you know.
Children’s Book Publicist Susan Raab of Raab Associates has kindly offered TEN (!) FREE (!) Marketing Consults for the Random Acts of Publicity Week.
The catch?
You can only enter a friend’s name! 
Check out Darcy Pattison’s September 6 post for full details.  You have only 24 hours to enter.  Entries begin at 12:01 am.

Let’s hear it for Kindness!

Esther Hershenhorn

P.S.

Speaking of Giveaways, don’t forget our TeachingAuthor Book Giveway of Heidi Bee Roemer’s and Carol-Ann Hoyte’s poetry anthology And the Crowd Goes Wild! A Global Gathering of Sports Poems.  Entry deadline is 11 pm Tuesday, September 11, 2012 (CST).  The winner will be chosen in a random drawing and announced on September 12.