Hello All!
Again, my apologizes for the radio silence lately! Life has been super busy! But, in the midst of my busyness, I attended the Warrensburg Children's Liteature Festival with my mom and dear teacher friends. We had a blast, as usual! And it seems each year I go, it's like a reunion with old friends. Here is what happened!
Sunday, March 20, 2016
As usual, we attended the author luncheon on Sunday. The keynote speaker was Susan Campbell Bartoletti, a past Allen County Young Authors presenter and fast friend to my mom (as seen in the pic). In her presentation, Susan talked about writing her first research paper in Mrs. Walsh's high school English class using the research steps found in Warriner's Grammar and Composition textbook. She said how she still uses those same steps to create her non-fiction books such as
Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow or
They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group.
After her presentation, we were off to get our books signed by the authors attending this year. Again, we ran into many authors we have become friends with like Roland and Marie Smith, Ard Hoyt, Sneed B. Collard, Obert Skye, Brad Sneed, Henry Cole, Dorinda Nicholson, Mary Casanova, and Vivian Vande Velde. But then we ran into some new faces this year like Kate McMullan, Leslie Wyatt, Chris Crutcher, and Stephen Johnson. But I was particularly excited to meet Kate Milford, author of one of my most favorite books,
Greenglass House. She was incredibly friendly and down to earth!
After getting all our books signed and having a fun time chatting with our friends, we headed back to the hotel to figure out our schedule for the next two days. Then lights out after reading some of our new books!
Monday, March 21, 2016
Bright and early Monday morning, we headed back to campus to start our day with Susan Campbell Bartoletti. In her presentation, she talked about how writing is similar to catching a fish. Throw out your imagination hook, see what grabs your attention, and reel it in to the end! She discussed how she got into writing by doing the same writing assignments as her 8th grade English students. When they wrote a poem, she wrote a poem. When they wrote a research paper, she wrote a research paper. Sometimes she would share her writing with her students so they could critique her work. Her first book published as a picture book called
Nobody's Nosier Than a Cat. Later, her writing interests changed when she became inspired by the history of her husband's grandparents. His grandfather was a young Italian immigrant who, at age 11, had to leave school and illegally work in the coal mines to help his struggling family. His story inspired her to write several books based on his experiences:
Growing Up in Coal Country;
Kids on Strike!; and
Dear America: Down the Rabbit Hole. Then a sentence in history book about how Hitler rose to power on the shoulders of Germany's youth caused Susan to write the book
Hitler Youth. But her research from that book led her to Helmuth Huebener's story about how he became the youngest person on Nazi death row. So she challenged kids to throw out their hooks to catch onto writing, because you never know what ideas you'll reel in. Fantastic presentation!
Next we saw a new author this year: Kate McMullan. She focused on her Myth-O-Mania series. Each book is based on a famous Greek legend, but retold from the perspective of Hades. It was a fun presentation to revisit both the familiar and lesser-known Greek myths she bases her books on.
Then we were off to see our dear friend, Henry Cole. He thinks we are all crazy to keep revisiting his presentation each year, but he is so entertaining and great with kids...it is worth returning every time! He had a few new books come out recently. These include
Spot the Cat (a wordless picture book),
Brambleheart, and
The Somewhat True Adventures of Sammy Shine. His Sammy Shine book is based on the crazy escapades of Henry, his brother, Jimmy, and Henry's pet field mouse, Sammy Shine.
After having lunch with Henry, we headed to another presentation by new author, Chris Crutcher. Chris's books are based on three themes: athletics, comedy, and emotional conflict. He shared why those three components are important pieces in his books. First, sports are apart of his books because he lived in an incredibly small Idaho town where all the boys in his class of 15 kids had to play sports, whether you were good or not. He then related some hilarious high school stories about how he lost his teeth by getting hit in the mouth by a baseball bat and then getting his false teeth knocked out in front of his crush during a basketball game. But with this comedy, he balances it out with emotional conflicts like abuse, neglect, and family issues. He has gleaned those elements from his time as a child abuse and neglect therapist. A fascinating presentation where the group of teenage kids were hooked to every word he said! Quite a feat!
Finally, our last presentation was with Kate Milford. She is a fan of the old choose-your-own-adventure books, so she based her author presentation on that concept with the kids picking a topic they wanted to learn more about. The kids in our group wanted to discuss publication. Kate said that in her childhood she thought getting published was a simple four step process:
1) Get Idea; 2) Write Idea; 3) Send Manuscript to Publisher (who loves it, obviously); and 4) Success. Later, she realized it was a incredibly long and tedious list with several different phases involved. But she stressed the importance of writing for yourself because the love you have for your art will come through more in the work you do for yourself than in writing for an audience. It was a fun and engaging presentation where she finished by sharing one of the stories she uses in Greenglass House.
After attending our presentations, we met up with Henry, Roland, Marie, and Obert to chat and catch up. Then the four of us went out to eat and go shopping! A fun end to a great day!
I'll be posting the final day of author presentations tomorrow. Stay tuned!
After a quick breakfast, we hustled over to the campus to get our seats for Obert Skye's first presentation. We got there with plenty of time to chat with Obert about his upcoming visit to Allen County Young Authors in April....which I will be attending. Yes, we may have seen his presentation before, but he is a stellar presenter. I love his closing remarks to kids in challenging them to 1) Have courage and suppress fears that keep them from doing the things they love; 2) Think BIG by giving life to their extraordinary ideas; and 3) Be Great at whatever they decide to do and don't settle for being average. Awesome job, Bro. Skye!
Next we visited Mary Casanova. Her presentation focused on how she wasn't a strong reader when she was a kid. She would start reading a book, but would get easily distracted by the inviting Minnesota wilderness and she would leave the book behind to be outdoors. She thought there was something wrong with her, but she realized many people had the same issue. It wasn't until she read Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, that she found her niche with both reading and writing. So her stories deal a lot with the outdoors whether it's her One-Dog Canoe picture books or her Wolf Tracks chapter books...all her material focuses on her love of the great outdoors. At the end of her presentation, she gave me her newest picture book, Wake Up, Island, to review. I'll be putting that up on my blog soon.
After Mary, we saw a new presenter to Warrensburg this year--Leslie J. Wyatt. Leslie is fairly new to the publishing world, but she has published a few books for young adults: River Rats and Poor is Just a Starting Place. She focused her presentation on the cliff dwellers who lived in Mesa Verde. She shared the history of finding Mesa Verde by cowboys and the evidence archeologists have discovered of the people who built and lived in the magnificent cliff palaces.
Our final presenter we saw was Stephen Johnson. Johnson is also fairly new to the children's publishing world. He is foremost a fine artist, but he has designed and written books for children. He uses his artistic abilities to create such books as Alphabet City, My Little Blue Robot, Alphabet School, City by Numbers, and A is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet.
