Happy 10th Birthday, First Grade Stinks! (Join Our Giveaway Celebration)

I've celebrated the 10th anniversary of one of my books (blessedly, still in print) each spring/summer for the past two years.  In 2014, it was Yankee Girl (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). 2015 marked ten years for My Best Friend (Viking). This Wednesday, June 29th, First Grade Stinks! (Peachtree) hits the Big Ten milestone.

How I write and sell my books baffles me. Mysterious forces seem to gather when the time is "right." Here is the story behind the story of First Grade Stinks!

Lily, off to her first day of First Grade

My daughter Lily loved, loved, loved kindergarten. She adored art (her favorite subject), recess (tied with art), and "student chores" (watering plants, handing out paper.) Her classroom was a carnival of color;  bean bag chairs for "share time," multicolored "learning" rug, plus bird and hornet's nests, seed pods, African violets, rocks, shells and other please-touch-me items. Soaring over it all, a Chinese dragon kite dangled from the ceiling.

Lily was a happy kindergartner.  She had no reason to believe that first grade would be any different. If I had used my head, I might have warned her.  

I didn't.

Off Lily went that first day, toting her new red-blue-and-yellow backpack. She sang along with Destiny's Child on the radio. At school, she swaggered through the doors. She had this.

At 2:30, a different little girl dragged herself to the car. She shrugged off her backpack as if it contained the weight of the world, and hauled herself up into her safety seat.  Destiny's Child still sang on the radio, but they sang alone.  Dead silence from the backseat. If Lily wasn't in a talking mood, I'd have to wait until she was.

At home, she slouched out of the car and up the walk.  I opened the door and went in, Lily behind me.  Slam!  We don't slam doors in our house.  Ever.  I turned to see my daughter, back to the door, sliding to the floor.

"That's it," she shouted. "I'm never going back. Ever, ever, ever. I hate First Grade.  First Grade stinks!"

Even as my Mom Brain lined up the words to tell Lily that she had to go back tomorrow and every day for the next twelve years, my Writer Brain thought, "First Grade stinks! What a great title for a picture book!"

As I listened to Lily's recital of grievances, I realized that at that the heart of it was First Grade is different.

There's a story there I thought.

Every day that year, Lily came home with yet another complaint.  There was only one recess, not enough art, the kindergarteners had first lunch and took all the chocolate ice cream.

I wrote it all down.

Lily survived First Grade, but just barely. I learned that her teacher was about to retire, due to ill health.  All Lily knew was this:  first grade is different.

With Lily's on-the-spot reportage, my book slowly took shape.

Now for those mysterious forces . . .

Mysterious occurrence number one. I submitted FGS to be critiqued at a writer's conference in Wisconsin.  The editor who read it, loved it, and wanted a copy when we got home.  Turned out she was from Peachtree Publishers and lived fifteen miles away from me.  I doubt we would've found each other had we not gone to that Wisconsin conference.

Serendipitous occurrence--My fairy godmother/art director at Peachtree paired my words with Beth Spiegel's art. Beth found humor and detail with her illustrations that I hadn't noticed when writing. She is still one of my favorite illustrators.

Personal note--The original manuscript had only four named characters; Hayley and her best friend, Ryan, and the two teachers, Ms Lacey and Ms Grey.  The rest of the characters had "names" like "Boy in Red Sweater" and "Girl with Cornrows."  The day the book was to be typeset, my editor called, minutes before I was to meet Lily at the bus stop.

"I need names for these characters," said my editor. "Real ones. Not Boy-in-A- Sweater.  Call me back in half an hour.

Those characters had descriptions instead of names; I stink at choosing names.  Back then, I used baby name books for that purpose. (Now I use websites.) I didn't have time to thumb through a couple of books. I had a half an hour. My creativity's wheels spun in the mud as I trudged up to the bus stop.

The bus squealed to a stop. Thunk-thunk. The doors opened. I was still churning possible names as part of my brain automatically tallied the kids coming down the bus steps.  Kirk. Erica.  Sasha.  

Hey, those are names!  Chanting the chain of names, so I would remember them.  I called my editor as soon as I hit the front door.  Those first kids off the bus were thrilled they were "in a book."  The kids who got off after the first five, complained "how-come-we're-not-in-your-book?" (Answer: You should've gotten off first!") Most of those "kids" have now graduated from college...and they still gripe about not "making the book."

Join me in celebrating First Grade Stinks' 10th anniversary.  Please enter our Book Giveaway--details below.  I will be giving away a signed, hardcover first edition trade hardcover.  This edition is no longer available.

Here's the giveaway info:

Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter to win an autographed First Edition copy of First Grade Stinks! (Peachtree). You may enter via 1, 2, or all 3 options.

If you choose option 2, you MUST leave a comment on TODAY'S blog post below or on our TeachingAuthors Facebook page. If you haven't already "liked" our Facebook page, please do so today! 

(If you prefer, you may submit your comment via email to: teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com.)

Email subscribers: if you received this post via email, you can click on the Rafflecopter link at the end of this message to access the entry form.

The giveaway ends July 15 and is open to U.S. residents only.

Please note: the TeachingAuthors team will begin our summer blogging break this Friday. Our posts will resume on Monday, July, 18. We plan to be able to announce the winner in that post.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Heart of the Story: The Roller Coaster Kid, Pt 3

     The time has come to tell you about that last ingredient of  The Roller Coaster Kid (Viking).  The element that binds it all together.


     Death.

     No, no one in the book dies in an amusement park. I live near a Major Theme Park, which has had it's share of Unfortunate Incidents. When my local friends ask me what my new picture book is about, I have learned not to answer "Death and roller coasters," because one of those Unfortunate Incidents did involve a death on one of the "super" coasters.

   The heart of The Roller Coaster Kid, is learning to face fear, whether it is of riding a roller coaster, or the death of a loved one.  Publisher's Weekly put it much better than I can.

"When the time is right, you'll face your fear," Zach's grandmother tells him as they ride the Ferris wheel, after he refuses to ride the Whipper roller coaster with Grandpa. (This) moving story of grief and intergenerational ties, then skips ahead a year; "Everything's different.  Grandma's gone. Forever." . . . Rodman gives the story just the right measure of emotion...while underlining the importance of mourning and communication. 

     There really is a Roller Coaster Kid.  He is my next-door-neighbor's eighty-five-year old father. Mr. Baldwin is a good storyteller, and I always enjoy talking to him when he visits his son. (Some of the
incidents in Jimmy's Stars came from his own WWII experiences.) We bonded when I discovered that he grew up ten miles from my mother, at about the same time.

     We were deep into swapping Pittsburgh memories when he said, "Say, have you ever heard of West View Park?"  (See Monday's post for West View Park.) The story that Grandpa tells in the opening pages of The Roller Coaster Kid is Mr. Baldwin's own story. The only difference is that his experience with West View Park's Dips occurred when he was a teenager; in the book, Zach's Grandpa is much younger.

    Death.  What about death?  I'm getting to that.

    It was around this time that death cut a swath through my parent's generation.  Mr. Baldwin's wife.  Both of my in-laws.  My mother. People were comforting at the funerals, rarely at a loss for words.  But in the days to follow, I noticed that people seemed ill at ease with those left behind.  I particularly noticed that no one wanted to talk about the person who died.

    As a high school librarian I attended far too many student funerals. Their classmates wanted to talk about the friend who was gone forever. Students would gather in the library to share memories, personal, poignant, even silly.  The more they talked, the better able they seemed to deal with their loss.

                                     (Pawpaw Rodman, me, Mom, Meemaw, Dad)

   I lost two grandparents (one from each side of the family) within six months, the year I was nine.  I was told over and over that talking about Maga and Pawpaw would make my parents, or my surviving grandmother sad. I was an adult before I felt comfortable talking to my parents about their parents. As a nine-year-old, I was lucky to have literally dozens of cousins, more or less my age, with whom I could share my memories, and they could do the same.  As the cousins talked, we not only eased our own pain, but learned new things about our grandparents from each other.

                                                     (Maga and me)

     I don't claim to be any kind of psychologist or grief counselor. Like everything else I write, I write from my own experience. Zach's desire to cheer up Grandpa came from my own third grade desire to cheer up my parents. Zach's story ends the way I wish my own had.

     Roller coasters.  Fear. Death. Communication.  Those are ingredients that simmered in that mental crock pot for several years before I realized there was A Story In There.

     No discussion of The Roller Coaster Kid should not end without giving illustrator Roger Roth's work a tremendous shout out.  When I envisioned the setting for this book, I saw West View Park, plopped down on the site of Myrtle Beach's Pavilion.  Roger Roth took the sea motif and ran with it in ways I could never imagine (which is why he is an illustrator and I am not!)  Not only did he capture the atmosphere of an old-timey amusement park (think of the original Coney Island parks), he made Zach and Grandpa mirror images...fifty years apart.  Each time I look at the book I see some detail I missed before. I wish I could visit Oceanside Park and ride the Whipper . . . if only it existed.

     Don't forget to enter our Book Giveaway for an autographed copy of The Roller Coaster Kid. (See Monday's post for entry rules. Please remember: if you are entering via a comment, you must comment on that blog post. Or you may enter via email, as explained Monday.)  The deadline is 11pm (CST), Wednesday, July 25.

     Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

P.S.  Mr. Baldwin is still the Roller Coaster Kid. He enjoys traveling, and somehow, wherever he goes, he manages to find a new roller coaster to ride.

Ride with The Roller Coaster Kid, a TA Blogger Book Giveaway

   Welcome back from "summer break," dear readers. Your reward for checking in with Teaching Authors...another fabulous book giveaway.  In this case, the book happens to be my latest picture book,

The Roller Coaster Kid (Viking). Instructions for entering the Giveaway will be at the end of this post.

     Those of you who have been reading this blog awhile have probably encountered my philosophy of "crock pot
writing." (Crock pot not crack pot.)  I think of my creative mind as a slow cooker, simmering with various ingredients, on low heat. Every now and then I lift the lid, give the brew a taste test, to see if "it's soup yet?" (Those of us of a "certain age" will remember that line from the Lipton Cup of Soup commercials.)  Mostly, the answer is no. The lid goes back on until next time.

     The Roller Coaster Kid's "ingredients"come from such diverse sources, I didn't realize I was even writing a book, until the final "ingredient" presented itself in one of those rare Eureka! moments.

    I have mentioned my storytelling family before, particularly my mother's side.  I especially enjoyed the stories that involved their local amusement park, West View Park, in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh. (West View Park appears in Jimmy's Stars.)  Most of the male members of Mom's family, her grandfather and brothers, worked at

West View during the Depression. That good looking fella to the left is my Uncle Andy, working the Milk Bottle Pitch kiosk.

     West View was one of the first amusement parks, built in 1906.
Since it was literally around-the-corner-and-down-the-hill from my Grandmother Smith's house, it was the only amusement park I knew as a child. Of course I had heard about Disneyland (this was waaaay before Disney World or any of the modern "theme parks") but that was in California, for crying out loud. I lived in Chicago and my relatives all lived in Pittsburgh. Only rich kids or Californians went to Disneyland. I didn't know anyone who had been to California let alone, Disneyland.

   Growing up in Chicago, I did see TV ads for Riverview Park, which was roughly the same vintage as West View. Every summer I begged my parents to make the trek from the Southern Suburbs to the North Side of Chicago, but somehow I never got to Riverview. As my mother reminded me, "Why would you want to go to Riverview?  It's just like West View, and you can go to West View with your cousins."
     

   Mom had a point. A trip to West View was always a big occasion, including at least a half of my dozen plus cousins living around Pittsburgh.  A big occasion, which in true 1950's fashion, involved wearing Sunday School clothes, crinolines, patent leather mary janes and all.  How those clothes survived the Bumper Cars, Tilt-a-Whirl and the Round-Up, I don't remember.

      I do remember that most fearsome of all the rides, West View's gigantic wooden roller coaster, The Dips.  Being tall enough to ride The Dips was a real milestone. And if you could ride The Dips without throwing up....well, you were practically a teenager. I think I rode it once or twice before the park was torn down in 1977.

     I suppose you could say that my memories of West View Park were the basic "stock" of the soup that became The Roller Coaster Kid...a book I didn't realize I was writing.

To Enter Our Roller Coaster Kid Book Giveaway: 
1. You must comment to today's post, telling us why you would like to win The Roller Coaster Kid.  Will you be keeping it for yourself or sharing it with another young reader? Addition from Carmela: or you may enter by sending an email to us at teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.
2.  You must include contact information in your comment.  If you are not a blogger or your email address is not accessible from your online profile, you must send us a valid email address in your comment.  Entries without contact information will be disqualified.  Note:  The TeachingAuthors cannot prevent spammers from accessing e-mail addresses posted within the comments, so feel free to disguise your address by spelling out portions such as "dot" and "at."
3.  You must send us your post by 11 pm (CST), Wednesday, July 25. Winner will be chosen at random via Random.org. and announced on Thursday, July 26.  Note:  Winners automatically grant us permission to post their names here on the TeachingAuthors website.
4.  You must have a mailing address in the United States.
5.  You must respond to the notification e-mail and provide a mailing address within 72 hours, or the prize will be forfeited and an alternate winner chose.

Those are the official rules. If you feel like sharing an amusement park memory, that would be great, but certainly not required. I've already told you mine in today's post. I can't wait to hear your memories.

     More on The Roller Coaster Kid Wednesday.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman