Diversity Panel Highlights and Things To Come

Our diversity panel consisted of two parts: we began with reviews of books for ages Pre-K through teen that were presented by Hannah Peacock and Kelsey Psaute, both librarians at Burnham Memorial Library in Colchester. Hannah introduced the picture book Red, by Michael Hall, noting that there are 1.4 million transgender people in the U.S. and the suicide attempts for them are at 41%. Alas, the call to make all kids feel comfortable in their own skin is tantamount. Hannah finished up her reviews with the YA memoir Being Jazz, by Jazz Jennings. Hannah says Jazz knew she was transgender at age 2, and that Jazz is one of the lucky ones, with a strong family support system that enables her to be a positive spokesperson and ally for other transgender kids.

Kelsey mostly reviewed young adult fiction, including Shadowshaper, by Daniel Jose Older, in which the ethnically diverse character doesn't have to be "strong all the time" and The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle, a book about "not coping" in which the narrator happens to be gay. Kelsey discussed the value of having both "issues books" and books that "happen to have diverse characters" in them. See the complete list of the books Hannah and Kelsey reviewed here.

Will Alexander, whose most recent book is Nomad, and is currently serving on the National Book Award Committee for Children’s Literature and Kekla Magoon, author of the Dorothy Canfield Fisher nominee Shadows of Sherwood and its just published sequel Rebellion of Thieves joined the conversation for the second hour to discuss their viewpoints on diversity in children’s literature.

They began by discussing their own approaches to writing, with Will leaning more toward non-realist storytelling. “Kids are all perched on the verge of transformation. Some things we can’t fully express unless we come at it sideways. That’s what non-realist modes of story-telling – magic, fantasy and metaphor - allows. Plus, aliens! Fun! And, hey, let’s talk about immigration!”

Kekla opts for more realistic storytelling saying many writers have a tendency to write about what is needed by readers (such as the LGBTQ trend) but also what the writer needs to think about herself. She posed this writer’s dilemma: “Do I become a writer who can fill that need or do I just do what I do and hope people come along?” Will countered that a writer shouldn’t write something because he feels a need that a subject be covered. A writer can also be part of the conversation by reading diverse books and being an ally by championing others' work rather than being a megaphone for a cause.

The conversation quickly turned to the publishing industry after it was pointed out that diverse books are being written, they just aren’t necessarily being published. Will said that we need filters when editing books, but we also need to look at the filters we've been traditionally using. Kekla finds that even if people are well-intentioned they aren’t drawn to what they aren’t connected to: “Publishers say they want diverse content but they don’t connect with diverse stories”. Will agreed, but spoke to the industry’s efforts to bring in more young and diverse people, cautioning “this is a very long game", and that it will take decades for today’s interns to be in powerful positions in publishing. An audience member wondered, almost jokingly, if it would take someone like James Patterson using racially diverse characters to convince publishing that diverse characters sell.

Days after our diversity panel I was scrolling through Facebook and found this interesting blog post on Literary Hub by Marlon James titled "Why I'm Done Talking About Diversity". Some not so radical food for thought, because sometimes even the most well-intentioned white book people have a hard time getting things right.

Next Up in the Children's Room:

Friday, November 4, 9:30 - 11:30 am

Words Come Alive!

Dive into Red Clover books with activities from the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts' signature Words Come Alive! program.  Jump into the shoes of characters, travel to exciting settings and connect literacy learning to kinesthetic creativity. Led by Flynn Center artist teacher Karen Sharpwolf. This is a special opportunity to learn more about the multi-disciplinary program that the Flynn Center offers to Vermont students and educators.

Louisiana Book Drive Details

“Our rooms are bare- not even everyone has a while/chalk board. We’re having to bring in items from home to improvise an environment as normal as possible. Students don’t have any reading materials for when they finish their work or when they come into class. We also do not have a library at this location, so reading books is considered a luxury as of now.”   ~Lindsey Kelley, 4th grade teacher at St. Amant Primary School in St. Amant, Louisiana Bear Pond Books, the Kellogg-Hubbard Library and several Central Vermont area schools are joining efforts to help rebuild the St. Amant Primary School library and classroom collections after the recent flooding due to heavy rainstorms around Baton Rouge. Dates: Monday, Sept 19 through Sunday, October 2nd Drop-Off sites: Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Kellogg-Hubbard Library, East Montpelier Elementary School, River Rock School in Montpelier What is needed: NEW or LIKE-NEW books for grades Pre-K through 5, both fiction and most especially non-fiction. Hardcovers are preferred. Bear Pond Books wants to make it easy for you to donate a NEW book to this effort. We will be offering a 20% discount on all books donated to this cause during the book drive when you order on our website. Please note "book drive" in the comments when placing your order and we will adjust your total to reflect the discount. Educators who would like to get involved: If your school or classroom would like to collect books for this drive, please contact Jane at the email address below. To make more connections with Baton Rouge area schools, see author Kate Messner's blog for a longer list of schools in need, including their contact info. See author Tamara Ellis Smith's Another Kind Of Hurricane project to explore other ways to connect your classroom to those in need and to "to turn empathy into the power to help". If this window of time does not work for your school, Phoenix Books in Essex, Vt. will be hosting a book drive in November. Contact them for more info. For more information about this book drive, or a more detailed list of content areas that teachers at St. Amant are seeking replacement books for,  please contact Jane Knight at Bear Pond Books: jane@bearpondbooks.com

Oh, Fall! (sigh)

It's that time of year when we are busy fitting all the pieces into our fall schedule puzzle, and most of you are attempting to find a steady routine in your busy days. It is a time filled with anticipation, inspiration, exhaustion and inward focus. We in the Children's Room hope we can provide a piece of the inspiration puzzle for you with the announcement of our fall Educator's Events schedule

There may be late additions to this line-up, so check back often!

Here goes:

Friday, October 14, 9:30 - 11:30 am

Materials Review- Diversifying and Representing
(A panel of rock stars)

We welcome Kelsey Psaute and Hannah Peacock from the Burnham Memorial Library in Colchester to review books that represent diverse perspectives of ethnicity, race, gender and sexual orientation. During the second hour authors Kekla Magoon and Will Alexander will speak to their experiences in schools and the publishing world, and will address the ongoing call to provide more windows for our predominantly white communities in Vermont.

Will Alexander's Nomad,  new in paperback, is the sequel to Ambassador, a science fiction adventure
for middle graders

Kekla Magoon's newest installment in the Dorothy Canfield Fisher nominated series Robyn Hoodlum
will be published in October.

 

Friday, November 4, 9:30 - 11:30 am

Words Come Alive!

Dive into Red Clover books with activities from the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts' signature Words Come Alive! program.  Jump into the shoes of characters, travel to exciting settings and connect literacy learning to kinesthetic creativity. Led by Flynn Center artist teacher Karen Sharpwolf. This is a special opportunity to learn more about the multi-disciplinary program that the Flynn Center offers to Vermont students and educators.

We are also in the planning stages to host a book drive for an Elementary school in St. Amant, Louisiana.Bear Pond Books, Kellogg-Hubbard Library and Central Vermont area schools will be accepting book donations of NEW or LIKE NEW books to help them rebuild their collections.
From Monday, September 19th through Sunday October 2nd, we will be taking donations of NEW and LIKE-NEW books for grades Pre-K through 5. Bear Pond will pick-up all donations and take care of getting the books to Louisiana. I will be sending additional information in the next week. If you are interested in joining this effort email jane@bearpondbooks.com.  

Poetry with VT Poet Laureate Chard DeNiord

Each April, PoemCity, Montpelier's celebration of National Poetry Month, reminds us how very alive and well poetry is in Vermont. Fittingly, for our April educator event (the last of the spring series) Chard deNiord, Poet Laureate of Vermont, joined us in the Children's Room for a presentation focused on getting students engaged with poetry.

Chard deNiord answers questions from the audience.

Chard offered three possible titles for his talk—"Amazing Sense of Disparate Things," "Panning the Unconscious," and "The Rainbow and the Grebe: The Unconscious and the Imagination"—all of which are different ways of thinking about the topic around which the event revolved. Chard guided audience members through a Mad-Libs style poetry exercise entitled "Testimonial," inspired by and borrowing from former US Poet Laureate Rota Dove's poem by the same name. In this exercise, students choose their own words and phrases to fill in the poem's blanks. The poem, which is rooted in natural imagery, is punctuated by headlines that define its stanzas; while Chard provided a handout of headlines plucked from newspapers (included, along with the exercise, as a PDF below), he noted that it was also fine to craft original headlines.

The exercise "Testimonial" is designed for high school students, however teachers can easily adapt it for middle school and even younger students. Chard read through the poem, asking audience members to fill in their copies with their own word choices as he read, after which several audience members shared their completed poems aloud with the larger group. Attendees' poems contained wonderful and varied opening phrases such as "Back when the world was divided between lava and snow" and "Back when the world was divided between tomato soup and ice cream" and contained lyrics from Bessie Smith and Bob Dylan.

Attendees compose their poems.

This particular exercise is an excellent vehicle for considering the difference between the unconscious and the imagination, as it asks students to employ both. Citing Alan Ginsburg’s motto "first thought, best thought," Chard encouraged audience members to move through the exercise quickly, and to do so as well when using it in the classroom, as this really allows the unconscious to emerge. "Testimonial" also works well for getting students to think about the act of reading poetry versus the act of writing poetry, as it asks students to be both reader and writer. (And, it occurred to me as I thought more about the exercise after the event, how you approach the act of choosing words to fill in the poem’s blanks—by either reading through the poem and selecting words to fit as you go, or simply filling in each blank before reading through the poem—affects the final product.) 

Some of our favorite poetry for young readers.

Chard recommended two books by Kenneth Koch for educators who want to introduce poetry writing to young children: Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Kids to Write Poetry and Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?: Teaching Great Poetry to Children. Another exercise he likes that educators can adapt for writers of all ages is Ruth Stone's poetry game, in which preselected words are put in a hat and students create poems by pulling out words and arranging them together. Former Poet Laureate of Vermont Sydney Lea was in attendance, and he and Chard discussed the merits of asking students to focus on a poem's language and what it does, rather than what the poem means. Other practical poetry work to use in schools that Chard discussed includes getting involved in the Poetry Out Loud program, through which students select and read poems aloud in the classroom (librarians can also incorporate this into a library activity), and which sponsors an annual national poetry recitation competition; asking students to identify poems that relate to their experiences; and developing found poetry exercises, in which students choose lines from everyday sources including (but certainly not limited to) advertisements, songs, and television shows. Teachers can encourage students in grades 7-12 to enter their own poems in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, which offer scholarship and publication opportunities.

Chard's most recent book of poems, Interstate, as well as his previous titles, are available from Bear Pond. 

Further reading and resources on teaching poetry:

• Andrew Simmons's "Why Teaching Poetry Is So Important" on The Atlantic
• Lesson plans for teaching poetry from The Academy of American Poets (Poets.org)
• "Top 10 Tips to Get HS Students (All Students) Interested in AND Excited about Poetry OR What I Learned from Hanging with Kwame" by JoEllen McCarthy on Nerdy Book Club
• Teachers' resources from the Robert Frost Farm, both for teaching poetry in general and on Robert Frost specifically 

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Our Educator Events will return in the fall; stay tuned for the 2016-17 program! If you have an idea for an event—be it a speaker or a topic—please email Jane at jane@bearpondbooks.com.

Spring Materials Review Notes

Trying to impart our love for 37 books in 1 1/2 hours is much, much harder than you'd think. Last Friday veteran Bear Ponder Carrie Fitz, U-32 Librarian Meg Allison and Jane Knight (the latter two are Dorothy Canfield Fisher committee members) burned the adrenaline trying to make sure each book got equal play time. The books that were highlighted were books that did not get chosen for the 2016-2017 Dorothy Canfield Fisher List-- some books weren't eligible because their authors were not from the U.S. or Canada. But many others were eligible and well-liked by the Canfield Fisher committee, yet still did not find their place on the list. 

Often times there are two or more books in contention for a slot on the list that have similar themes and so only one is chosen to represent that theme. Other potential nominees, like Boy In the Black Suit (by Jason Reynolds) or Paper Hearts (by Meg Wiviott) simply feel a touch too old for the list. 

We started off the morning with a round-up of wonderful books by Vermont authors that were published last year. (Those books are noted as such on the book list in the 'notes' section). Both non-fiction and fiction were covered, and instead of killing your eyesight with a tediously long review of each book, we are making the book list available to view with notes. 

A few of our participants shared their memorable titles of 2015-2016, which included Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman, a middle grade selection for lovers of Mr. Lemoncello. The Epic series by Brandon Sanderson was also highly touted for its high-action appeal to middle school and high school (boys especially) students who love Rick Riordan or The Maze Runner series and are ready for something more complex. 

The new 2016-2017 Canfield Fisher books were also prominently displayed and we lightly touched upon each by genre and specific kid appeal. 

If you missed this Materials Review, we host one each season and they are super fun and (we think) worth your Friday morning. 

For a peek into past Materials Review Sessions:

Early Chapter Books October 2015

Fantastic Fiction 2015

Exciting Non-Fiction that Kids Will Read

And a couple handy lists to of notable books being published in 2016:

Notable Children's Books of 2016 (Publisher's Weekly)

A Literary Calendar of Children's Books 2016 (this one is really fun-- The Guardian)

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We will be hard at work plotting for our Fall Events Schedule over the summer and we'd like to hear from YOU! Got suggestions, ideas or something you want to know more about? Contact Jane at jane@bearpondbooks.com.

And....don't miss our last event of the spring!

Saturday, April 9th 11:00 am - Noon

Poetry with VT Poet Laureate Chard DeNiord

Vermont’s new Poet Laureate Chard DeNiord has a goal of getting schools across Vermont involved in poetry. He’s been involved in many poetry organizations, including the Next Stage Speaks initiative that he founded. He’ll speak about his experiences with Vermont students, in Vermont schools, and what opportunities there are for local teachers and librarians to involve kids in poetry.

Exploring the Boundaries of Genre

Authors Tod Olson and Laura Williams McCaffrey joined us in the Children’s Room on Saturday, March 5th to discuss the intersections of fiction and nonfiction, two genres often thought—particularly by students—to be opposites of each other. On the contrary, as Tod and Laura illuminated through an exploration of their writing processes of historical nonfiction and speculative fiction/fantasy, respectively, authors of nonfiction and fiction often use similar tools when crafting their narratives. As a result, works of nonfiction can function like fiction to draw readers into a story, and fantasy can help us better understand the real world.

The Role of the Nonfiction Writer

As an author and editor of narrative nonfiction for young readers—including the How to Get Rich series and Leopold II: Butcher of the Congo—Tod noted that there isn’t a proliferation of books in that genre to begin with, and those that do exist are often packaged for parents and teachers. (Take one look at Tod’s books and you’ll see that this isn’t the case.) While readers often expect nonfiction to be a direct reproduction of what happened, Tod stressed that history writers rely on the memories of multiple storytellers—via such things as diaries, letters, and oral histories—sources that are rich but extremely unreliable, as scientific research on memory has shown. Each story changes based on whose point of view it is being told from; thus nonfiction is built on hundreds of thousands of unreliable narrators, and there are still large holes in the historical record. As Tod said, nonfiction writers transform the large ball of clay that is the historical record into a sculpture by carving out pieces and shaping what is left into story. What is important for students to understand, Tod stressed, is that there is a line between the research and the craft of writing, but that it varies from writer to writer.

Resources for Fantasy Writers

Laura laughingly commented that she feels like she has the easier job as a writer of fantasy because she doesn’t have to decide who is the hero and who is the villain of a story based on conflicting accounts, nor does she have to worry about rightness. While works of historical fantasy/science fiction/speculative fiction—such as those by Octavia Butler and Jennifer Donnelly, whose novels are set within and comment on the historical record—have more direct connections to historical nonfiction, writers of fantasy draw on similar sources in their own writing processes. Laura, who also teaches writing, and other fantasy writers often rely on historical archives as resources, which are useful even if a text isn’t historical fiction. When writing Water Shaper, historical archives helped Laura understand what existed and what interpersonal relationships were like in the medieval period. Real-world sources such as technology help writers understand social order and structure. Imaginative cultural sources like fairy tales and folklore shed light on how we understand ourselves to be—particularly in terms of what we’re scared of. Ultimately, Laura concluded, human beings and their relationship to stories are at the core of fantasy writing.    

Crafting Narratives in Both Genres

Tod and Laura discussed how writers of nonfiction and fiction structure their narratives in order to make them viscerally appealing to readers. Shifting points of view to vary the story and crafting well-shaped chapters in which something important happens are two ways to do this. One of storytellers’ primary functions, as Tod explained, is to manipulate time. Writers of history can and do play fast and loose with time—making it seem as if it expands and contracts—by spending the longest portion of the narrative on the events that occurred within a smaller window of a larger story. This creates the sense for the reader of time slowing down, something we often experience in life even though, of course, time continues at its normal pace. Tod presented survival stories as a particularly appealing genre of nonfiction for younger and older readers alike because of their easily recognizable narrative progression: a catalyzing event followed by several attempts to resolve conflict and a final resolution. Stories that lack this progression, according to Tod, challenge both the writer and the reader. 

Tod is currently working on a book about the Apollo 13 mission, the research for which includes working through hundreds of hours of audio tapes, as well as multiple first-hand narrative accounts from astronauts and controllers. Despite this seeming wealth of sources, Tod noted the absence of  unrecorded back-room conversations. Marked, Laura’s recently released third book, is a dystopian young-adult novel featuring interspersed graphic novel vignettes. For Marked, Laura drew inspiration from a variety of sources, including fairy lore and photographs of enormous mines in National Geographic.  

For further reading on process and genre: 

• Thoughts on the blurring of genre boundaries in young-adult literature from the 2012 Young Adult Literature Symposium 
• Laura's interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith, in which she discusses her writing process for Water Shaper
• Jo Walton discusses subgenres of historical fantasy on Tor.com 

Writing About Tough Topics for Kids - Author Panel

On Saturday, February 6th, authors Kate Messner, Jo Knowles, and Tamara Ellis Smith participated in a panel discussion focused on writing about tough topics for kids. As Jane, our Children’s Room manager, noted in her introduction, the subject of tough topics and how to talk about them with kids is a fraught one, and the differences between the issues kids and adults think kids are ready to explore are striking. The authors discussed this tension and why books that grapple with topics such as loss, addiction, and abuse are important resources for young readers.

L to R: Kate Messner, Jo Knowles, and Tamara Ellis Smith

The panel began with each author discussing her recent works dealing with sensitive and traumatic issues that kids face.


Kate featured two of her works of middle-grade fiction: All the Answers, published in 2015, and The Seventh Wish, coming this summer. All the Answers, in which seventh-grader Ava Anderson discovers her pencil can answer almost any question, deals with the reality of anxiety and catastrophic thinking in kids’ lives, something Kate shared she also experiences. Ultimately, Ava discovers herself asking the pencil questions to which she shouldn’t necessarily know the answer. Kate noted that her work has been criticized for the protagonist having “too many issues” when school, family, and friends converge in her novels. Kate argued that it seems adults often want children’s literature to reflect the lives they wish kids had instead of the lives kids actually have. 

One issue Vermont children increasingly deal with is addiction in the family. The Seventh Wish, Kate’s forthcoming middle-grade novel, is a retelling of the Russian folktale about a wish-granting fish. Kate wondered what contemporary kids would ask for, which would let us know what is really on their minds. The book started as a light-hearted story of a girl asking the fish to help with her dance performance. After learning of a close neighbor’s daughter’s struggle with heroin, Kate’s novel continued in a new direction, delving into how a family member’s addiction affects Charlie, the protagonist. The Seventh Wish demonstrates that not everything can be wished away. Older middle-grade students, Kate maintained, can and do deal with issues like drug addiction in their families, and books are a safe place in which to explore them.

Jo emphasized that she approaches her books from the underside, often focusing on what we don’t see and how it still affects us. For example, in Lessons from a Dead Girl, the story is told from the point of view of a friend of a victim of sexual abuse. Read Between the Lines is her most recent work of young-adult fiction and a tribute to Robert Cormier, author of The Chocolate War. Jo credited The Chocolate War as the first book in which she felt the real world was being shown to her. Read Between the Lines, like The Chocolate War, is a story of bullying told from multiple points of view that exposes life’s complexity. Jo underscored that all of her writing questions how we live with not only what we’re given but also what we observe happening to others, which affects us whether we realize it or not.

Tamara introduced Another Kind of Hurricane, her 2015 work of middle-grade fiction, as a labor of love that she started in 2005 after she took her then 4-year-old son to drop off donations at a Hurricane Katrina food and clothes drive. Her son asked, “Who is going to get my pair of pants, Mom?” Tamara realized that another 4-year-old boy would soon be wearing her son’s pants and imagined what it would be like if he and her son could meet. Another Kind of Hurricane chronicles the intersection of the lives of two ten-year-old boys—Zavion from New Orleans, whose family lost their home in Hurricane Katrina, and Henry from Underhill, Vermont, whose best friend recently died in a tragic accident—who meet after Henry’s blue jeans with his lucky marble still in the pocket make their way to Zavion. In addition to exploring different kinds of loss, the novel asks how and why we connect with other people in places we couldn’t have imagined. Another Kind of Hurricane pulls back the layers society places over us that connect us, creating a map in which kids can identify places of connection.

The panel opened the conversation to the audience, and Jane began the broader discussion by noting that Jo used the phrase “honest places” rather than “dark places” to describe the situations she explores in her writing. Jo answered that her preference for the phrase honest places has to do with the reality of the kinds of issues children experience. Jo contends that books are the safest places to first experience the topics that adults often say children aren’t ready for. Tamara noted that when adults say that children aren’t ready for certain topics, what the adults really mean is that they don’t know how to talk about those topics with kids. The issues of Hurricane Katrina distilled—loss and fear—are issues all kids have experienced in different ways. Kate posited that adults should allow kids to decide if they’re ready for the issues presented in books: kids can and will put books down if they’re not comfortable, and there’s no harm in reading a few pages. If an adult is concerned a child is not ready for a book, he or she could say to the child, “That’s a little edgy; you may or may not like it, ” but not giving kids these books won’t keep away the issues explored in them.

Another audience member inquired about how the authors chose content and context when writing about sensitive topics. Kate pointed out that in The Seventh Wish, heroin use happens off camera. The reader sees the consequences of drug abuse, not the abuse itself. Kate noted that she tackled the issue of heroin addiction differently in this novel written for a middle-grade audience differently than Jo likely would have in a novel for high-school students. Kate referenced her Ranger in Time series as another example of exploring tough issues, this time related to American history. Ranger in Time: Long Road to Freedom unravels sanitized accounts of the Underground Railroad as a highly organized, lantern-to-lantern journey from the American South to Canada. Writing this text challenged Kate to consider how to address the horrific and shameful reality of slavery in America for kids. At the same time, there are aspects of slavery—particularly sexual violence—that she couldn’t talk about in a book for younger middle-grade readers.

The question of whether the books “teach lessons” about tough subjects also arose. Tamara maintained that it’s important when writing to leave space for readers to draw their own conclusions, which creates an interesting collaborative dynamic between the writer and individual readers. Kate added that the big questions explored in all three panelists’ books are more complicated than black and white lessons; she offered “just say no” to drugs as an example of a dictum that we know doesn’t work. Jo said that her books don’t contain lessons, but rather they depict what life is like and how one person navigated it.

One audience member asked whether books like Jo’s Read Between the Lines—books that deal with issues current students experience—are being taught in schools. Jo answered that core curriculum standards make it difficult to add new materials, but that teachers often find alternative ways to introduce such books, often via extracurricular reading groups and summer reading programs. Librarians also play an important role in getting middle-grade and young-adult fiction into the hands of students. Tamara stressed the importance of getting literature into classrooms beyond English. For example, social studies classes could use Another Kind of Hurricane as part of a unit on natural disasters and how to fundraise in their wake. Tamara’s Another Kind of Hurricane Project, launching this month, aims to do just this while connecting schools in one part of the country with others in disaster areas in a “reciprocal learning experience.”

At the end of the discussion, Kate asked the panelists to suggest favorite books written by other authors that cover tough topics. Her own nominations were Kekla Magoon’s How It Went Down and All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, both works of young-adult fiction that deal with issues of race and justice. For younger middle-grade readers, Kate recommended Linda Urban’s forthcoming Weekends with Max and His Dad, illustrated by Katie Kath (available April 5th), about divorce and the transition to two houses. Jo recommended two memoirs for older middle-grade readers: Cece Bell’s El Deafo, because she’s “a fan of the grit,” and Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming, which Jo finds to be a great introduction to free verse poetry. Tamara suggested the recently released Pax, written by Sara Pennypacker and illustrated by Jon Klassen, which is a work of middle-grade fiction that deals with war.

Some links with more information on our panelists, their texts, and author classroom visits:

• Candlewick’s discussion guide to Read Between the Lines
• Jo’s Nerdy Book Club interview about Read Between the Lines
• Kate’s Nerdy Book Club author post about All the Answers 
• Our post about Kate & Jo’s 2014 writing workshop
• Tamara’s interview with VCFA’s The Launch Pad
• Tamara’s interview on Novel Enthusiasts 
• Kate’s School Library Journal post on using Skype in the classroom 
• J&P Volkel’s advice on author classroom visits (both virtual and in-person) 

Cooking for the Classroom

Last Saturday Helen Labun (Discovering Flavor) reviewed some new (and newish) cookbooks for kids that are also useful for teaching subjects beyond cooking. Here's a run down of what we discussed with notes and links to additional information:

Laboratory Science

Exploring Kitchen Science published by the San Francisco-based Exploratorium. This book focuses on scientific principles you can demonstrate via things in your kitchen. . . the experiments may be technically edible, but not all stuff you want to eat. It has lots of classics - the cornstarch solution that's solid under pressure and liquid otherwise, food coloring moved through celery capillaries, Mentos in Coke bottles - and short simple explanations of what's going on. Some experiments do require special equip, but mostly easy to order, inexpensive items. The Exploratorium also maintains a kitchen science section on its website, here.

Science Experiments You Can Eat by Vicki Cobb. This book has many of the same concepts at Exploring Kitchen Science, but with slightly longer explanations of what's going on and chapter-by-chapter groupings that lend themselves to lesson plans. It has more edible experiments than Exploring Kitchen Science but, again, they may not be things you want to eat (for example, cabbage water used in a Ph test). An old version of this book is out right now - an updated version with a more modern look is coming out this summer.


The Lemon Fizz:
(Experiment from Saturday)

Put 4 Tb confectioner's sugar, 2 Tb citric acid powder (available at Hunger Mtn Coop) and 1 Tb baking soda in a food processor and whirr to a fine, uniform powder. This is the British candy sherbet powder - like a Pixie Stick but with fizz (Wikipedia gives a nice run down of all the ways it's used). Added to lemonade or cider it makes a pleasant fizzy drink. It's a more fun version of adding baking soda to vinegar to watch it fizz up. You can take the experiment even further by making a Ph test using red cabbage juice to test for the base (baking soda) and acid (citric acid) and also the Ph resulting from the full reaction of the two. Just grate a red cabbage, let it soak in warm water until the water is well dyed, and pour through a sieve to remove the cabbage. The juice will turn color to indicate acid levels.

The fizzy sherbet powder also has historical tie ins. The search for fizzy water (and there are lots of ways to make water fizz) turns out to be an ancient one, as detailed in this BBC Food Programme episode.

Related Resources:

• Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking is the definitive science in the kitchen tome and would be an excellent reference for any adults working with kitchen science. 
• The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is a new cookbook that reads like a textbook (that's a compliment), and also goes into the science behind the food. Lopez-Alt focuses on detailing experiments conducted to get a better outcome from his recipes. If you've ever read Cook's Illustrated and thought "I wish they went into even more detail on how they developed the recipe" then Food Lab is for you.

Social Science

National Geographic Kids Cookbook This book is full of little factoids on cooking and culture along with the recipes, arranged by year. The drawback is that it's primarily scattered factoids and difficult to use as an organized reference book, it's more of a skim-through book.

Fairy Tale Feasts by Jane Yolen. This book does a nice job of finding a diversity of fairy tales, some that are familiar and some that aren't, and retelling the story with a recipe to follow. More options than simply baking the gingerbread man. Another resource on using fairy tales in the classroom is our 2014 Author-Educator workshop by Meg Allison "Why Fairy Tales Still Matter"

Kids Cook French / Kids Cook Italian Dual language cookbooks for kids. Recipes are a good starting point for translation, since they're mostly a list of vocabulary words (aka "ingredients") plus simple sentences using a known universe of verbs. Learn culture, language, and cooking skills at once.

Related Resources:

• International Night by Mark Kurlansky - If you're looking for sample recipes and menus from around the world, this book shares menus (with recipes) that he prepared with his daughter - each country chosen by spinning the globe and cooking from the country her finger lands on. The book is for adults, but the recipes are designed to lend themselves to cooking with children's assistance. 
• The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman - This book offers a large collection of recipes from around the world, with sample menus. Designed for cooks of all skill levels. It's currently out of print but I believe they're reissuing it (and of course you can order it used).  

Art and Nutrition
An unusual pairing, but it will make sense. . . 

The Forest Feast for Kids by Erin Gleeson. Erin Gleeson is known for her striking food photography and particularly the use of strong color. This artistic sensibility (you can see examples at her website forestfeast.com) lends itself both to arts instruction for kids and to embracing the nutritional advice "eat the rainbow." Gleeson makes the connection to nutrition clear in her introduction, and this book really does make eating a variety of healthy food look enticing. The Forest Feast for Kids comes out this spring and you can preorder it; the longer adult version Forest Feast is available now.

Cooking Experiments: One aspect of Gleeson's recipe style of highlighting one (sometimes two) high-flavor ingredient is that it makes it easy to try out variations on her foods. The Flavor Bible and The Vegetarian Flavor Bible make experimenting with recipes like Gleeson's particularly easy. These books' authors have interviewed well known chefs to find out what flavors they combine together, then they distill these into lists of amenable flavors. So, for example, if you look up "apricots" you'll get a list of ingredients that taste good with apricots and examples of menu items that use apricots in interesting ways. In the workshop we tried Gleeson's Rosemary Shortbread with the addition of powdered bay leaves. It tasted good. If I were to buy one Flavor Bible or the other, I'd choose the vegetarian version (everything goes with bacon! We know that already!)

Related Resources:

• I don't think there's anything out there right now that makes the case for "eating the rainbow" more enticingly than Gleeson's books. However, some nutrition education resources:
• Nutrition.gov - Central government nutrition website
• ChooseMyPlate.gov - Particularly this section on variety in diet.
• Let's Move! - Nutrition section
• Team Nutrition Resource Library
• Nutrition Topics from the CDC
• And for those of you looking for books related to food and gardening:
• Here is a link to a list of books Jane made for home or classroom use-- you'll see it is tacked on to the cookbook list that was handed out at the event 

Other posts on this website related to food and cooking in the classroom:

• "Cooking Experiments Preview"
• "Agriculture in the Classroom"

Addendum on Explorers: 

We promised the folks who were there on Saturday that we'd include these two explorer-related links:

• "Lobscouse & Spotted Dog" - Food that members of the British navy in the 18th & early 19th centuries might have enjoyed. 
• The Norwegian explorer in Antarctica who is very excited about Cheese Doodles

Now that you've read this far, it's time to change writerly hats-- this is Jane. And I'd like to give a HUGE shout out to the mastermind of these educator blogs, the woman of many hats, Helen Labun, who is moving on (and less quickly than she'd like to as we are so reluctant to let her go!) to make experimenting with food an actual job description. If you haven't yet heard about her new endeavor, be sure to check out Hel's Kitchen on Barre Street in Montpelier. Delicious international food for take-out and unique eat-in dinners with special menus each week. After last week's Indian feast we're hoping Helen will linger on Indian cuisine for a bit. We'll miss you, Helen! (but Jane will most of all!)

Cooking Experiments on January 23rd

January 23rd, at 11:00 am in the Children's Room, Helen Labun kicks off the 2016 Author-Educator workshops with Cooking Experiments - a look at recent cookbooks for kids, the range of topics classes can explore with those cookbooks, and some interesting food for us all to taste.

Yes, it is the same Helen Labun writing this blog, but we're pretending it's an outside presenter, and talking in the third person.

Helen's book on how flavor works was published this fall by 99: The Press - Discovering Flavor. It contains many interesting food facts and experiments. Unfortunately, the experiments feature wine, whiskey and black coffee, so aren't a great match for the elementary school classroom, which is why we're featuring other cookbooks, not her own.

We've previously tackled the topic of food and agriculture in the classroom in a 2013 workshop with Gail Gibbons and Abbey Nelson, the notes from that workshop are linked here. Helen also wrote a related post on the Nerdy Book Club Blog - Top 10 Books for Making Lunch.

This time the focus is on cooking, which offers plenty of opportunities for learning about a range of topics. There's science, math (measuring), culture, history. . . even, as we'll see, art. Plus, food and cooking engages all of our senses (literally all of our senses - another thing that we'll talk about on the 23rd) making it a great vehicle for remembering information learned.

Because this is an online preview, we can't hand out actual food samples, so instead here's a sampling of some interesting articles about food, cooking, and creative learning we can do in the kitchen. The articles are primarily for an adult audience, but you'll quickly get a sense of the different insights into the world beyond the kitchen that food can provide to cooks of any age:

• Local author Rebecca Rupp (How Carrots Won the Trojan War; After Eli) has a regular column on the National Geographic blog The Plate exploring little known facts in food, primarily tied to world history. You can read her columns here. You can read notes from her 2013 Author-Educator talk at Bear Pond "Nonfiction with Personality" here.
• Other interesting articles on food and social history: The Social History of Jell-O Salad (from Serious Eats);  How the U.S. Military Helped Invent Cheetos (from Wired); The United States of Chinese Food (from Gastropod).We're also writing our own chapter in social history right now with the rise of a "foodie kid" generation, as explored in this article on MasterChef Junior "Behind the Scenes at the Cutest Cooking Show on Television". Vermont has its own version - Junior Iron Chef , a yearly culinary competition.
• Kenji Lopez-Alt, author of the new cookbook Food Lab, is known for applying the scientific method and controlled experiments to developing recipes for the home kitchen. He began studying science at MIT before deciding that his future was in cooking. Here's one example of his approach to kitchen experiments: The Science of the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. Kenji talks about his approach to food and science in "Food + Science = Victory!" from Freakonomics and in this interview with Ed Levine. On the 23rd we'll look at some scientific method-based cookbooks designed specifically for children.
• One subset of science that's obviously a part of food is nutrition. Here are some kids cookbooks focused on that topic (note that we aren't reviewing these for the 23rd so they are simply FYI links): The Help Yourself Cookbook for Kids, Good Enough to Eat, Kid Chef 
• There's also a lot to be said about food as a way to look at art. The blog Edible Geography often features avant garde projects where art and food meet, like "Ghost Food". A particularly interesting discussion of capturing the spirit of a food through art is in this Edible Geography article "Of Sisters and Clones." On the 23rd we'll look at the work of photographer and cookbook author Erin Gleeson. You can see her work on her website Forest Feast, and her cookbook of the same name. She's coming out with a cookbook for kids this spring, and we'll have an advance copy on hand to look at.
• You can find some interesting links to articles on how flavor works at Helen's website DiscoveringFlavor.com in the "Extras" section, which provides additional information on topics found in her book. Including videos of people eating rotted shark. Who doesn't want to see those?

To learn more about cooking and learning in the classroom, be sure to join us on Saturday, January 23rd, at 11:00 am for "Cooking Experiments". This event is free and open to the public. Certificates of attendance are available for educators who can use this workshop towards continuing education credit. Our full schedule of Winter / Spring 2016 Author-Educator events is found at this link. 

Gareth Hinds & Graphic Novels in the Classroom

Former Vermonter Gareth Hinds is best known for his retelling of classic stories (really classic, like Odyssey classic) in graphic novel form. His latest work, a retelling of Macbeth, was highlighted in the New York Times in this review from February of 2015.

Macbeth will be a focus for Gareth this week, as he visits from his current D.C. home to meet with students at his alma mater, U-32, as well as Montpelier Middle School and High School. Increasingly, educators are looking to Gareth and other graphic novelists as sources of engaging material for classrooms. Once you see Gareth's books, it's easy to imagine how classic stories can come alive on the pages of a graphic novel.

Gareth's next project turns to Edgar Allen Poe, and he notes ". . . I've adapted four short stories and three poems, selected from Poe's most popular works. Each piece is drawn is a slightly different style and time period, and they range from just faintly macabre (Annabel Lee) to downright terrifying (The Tell-Tale Heart)."

Gareth talks about his work and how he thinks about it fitting into the classroom in this Teach.Com interview "The Art of Creating Classics." He'll also be a keynote speaker at the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Conference this May, in Fairlee.

Between now and the Poe publication, you can see Gareth's illustrations in the book Samurai Rising - scheduled to be published February 2nd.

Our Children's Room manager, Jane, anticipates graphic novels and (more broadly) comics increasing in popularity in the classroom. She says: ". . . with visual technology becoming more prevalent in children's lives at younger ages, I think this medium will be more heavily relied upon as a gateway to reading. . . we're also witnessing graphic novels win major literary awards from organizations like the ALA [American Library Association] in categories that include traditional text . . .I think we'll continue to see the bookshelves fill with new offerings from this publishing phenomenon."

Some of these books will come from authors and illustrators educated right here in Vermont at the Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS). Last year, CCS graduate Katherine Roy talked at Bear Pond about using the visual techniques learned in cartoon studies to craft her first picture book, Neighborhood Sharks, which was a finalist for the Sibert Award. The notes on her talk are here. In 2014, CCS announced a new track called "applied cartooning" which focuses on the communications side of cartooning, with skills for conveying information through visual designs. Vermont Public Radio reported on this track and a workshop the Center held for educators in the piece "Cartooning Gets Practical."

We can expect even more national discussion of graphic novels in the new year as graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang takes on the role of Ambassador for Young People's Literature. He follows the previous ambassador Kate DiCamillo. Gene Luen Yang is well known for his graphic novels "American Born Chinese" and "Boxers and Saints", as well as the Avatar series. His newest series "Secret Coders" intertwines mysteries at a strange school and information about computer programming. You can read a new interview with him posted by the Children's Book Council on the Mr. Schu Reads blog at this link.

Publishing, teaching, and book review media outlets also see graphic novels/ books and comics as an important trend in classroom teaching. Some recent articles on the subject:

• "Teaching With Graphic Novels" - School Library Journal
• "Teaching Comics, Learning Comics: Conversation with Gene Luen Yang" - Multiversity Comics 
• "New Teachers' Aides: Superman and Iron Man" - The Atlantic
• "Comics in the Classroom" - links and resources from The Guardian

Plus, some teachers' guides to teaching comics, found via Mr. Schu Reads:

• Scholastic Guide
• Random House Kids Guide
• "Raising a Reader" - Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Unfortunately, we weren't able to bring Gareth to our author-educators workshop series (scheduling conflicts), but hopefully in the near future we'll have an opportunity to look more at graphic novels and comics used in the classroom! And don't forget that he's back in town in May for the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Conference - we'll mention it again closer to the time.