Things to be excited about: She’s chosen my Dr. Kate: Angel on Snowshoes as her January 2011 pick!

Photographic proof of the aforementioned excitement with official letter announcing said news :

(taken by 8-year-old directly upon return from afternoon at pool, so blurry and bedraggled)

And finally, my illustrious company:

Book Selections

September
Preschool: My Garden by Kevin Henkes
Primary: Shark vs. Train by Chris Barton & Tom Lichtenheld
Intermediate: Justin Case: School, Drool and Other Daily Disasters by Rachel Vail
Middle School: One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt
High School: Hate List by Jennifer Brown
The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang

October
Preschool: Boo to You! By Lois Ehlert
Primary: Z is for Zombie by Merrily Ruther
Intermediate: American Chillers: Wisconsin Werewolves by Johnathan Rand
Middle School: Boys Without Names by Kashmira Sheth
High School: Stitches by David Small
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

November
Preschool: What can you do with a Paleta?/ Que puedes hacer con una paleta?by Carmen Tafolla
Primary: The Village Garage by G. Brian Karas; Horse Song by Betsy and Ted Lewin
Intermediate: Going Home, Coming Home by Truong Tran
Middle School: Out of my Mind by Sharon M. Draper; Red Glass by Laura Resau
High School: Rush by Jonathan Friesen

December
Preschool: What Will You Be Sara Mee? By Kate Aver Avraham
Primary: Tiger and Turtle by James Rumford
Intermediate: Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
Middle School: The Reinvention of Edison Thomas by Jacqueline Houtman
High School: Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas

January
Preschool: Yes Day! By Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld
Primary: Beautiful Moon/ Bella Luna by Dawn Jeffers
Intermediate: Dream: A Tale of Wonder, Wisdom & Wishes by Susan V. Bosak; Dr. Kate: Angel on Snowshoes by Rebecca Hogue Wojahn
Middle School: My Life with the Lincolns by Gayle Brandeis
High School: Bruiser by Neal Shusterman

February
Preschool: I Can Help by David Hyde Costello
Primary: My People by Langston Hughes
Intermediate: Looking Like Me by Walter Dean Myers
Dyamonde Daniel by Nikki Grimes
Middle School: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick
High School: Shooting Star by Fredrick McKissack Jr.

March
Preschool: Pouch! By David Ezra Stein
Primary: Book Fiesta! By Pat Mora
Intermediate: Trickster: Native American Tales, A Graphic Collection by Matt Dembicki
Middle School: Shooting the Moon by Frances O’Roark Dowell
High School: Liar by Justine Larbalestier

April
Preschool: Never Smile at a Monkey by Steve Jenkins
Primary: A Whiff of Pine, a Hint of Skunk: A Forest of Poems by Deborah Ruddell & Joan Rankin
Intermediate: Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat by Nikki Giovanni
Middle School: All the Broken Pieces by Ann. E. Burg
High School: Partly Cloudy: Poems of Love and Longing by Gary Soto; Crossing Stones by Helen Frost

May
Preschool: A Beach Tail by Karen Lynn Williams
Primary: What if? By Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Intermediate: Top of the Order by John Coy
Middle School: More About Boy by Roald Dahl
High School: Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork

Summer
Preschool: Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd
Primary: Pigs to the Rescue by John Himmelman
Intermediate: Volcano Wakes Up! By Lisa Westberg Peters
Middle School: Albert Einstein: Giants of Science by Kathleen Krull
High School: Candor by Pam Bachorz; Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Related posts:

1. Award Again; Different Book!
2. Me
3. Serendipity through the Mail

Be warned, however. I’ve been through 8 drafts of Malcolm at Midnight (M@M). Each draft presented new challenges. So this is long. Also, Colonel Mustard’s upcoming birthday party (tomorrow–another thing I am procrastinating from by writing this post!) has got me thinking about how revising a story is a lot like…baking a cake. So, fair warning: extended metaphor ahead.

Still with me? Well, then. Let us begin…

Drafts #1-3 were me trying to figure out what kind of cake I wanted to bake. Chocolate? Lemon? Pound? Sheet? Bundt? From a mix? From scratch? So many decisions. I experimented with voice, with plot, with characters and their personalities. Most of them were messy and tasted awful. But there were bits—ingredients, if you will—that I made note of to include in the next batch.

Draft #4 was different. It was the first draft that I mixed all the way up. I’ll admit, draft #4 only came about because I got a lovely call telling me that M@M was an SCBWI WIP grant runner-up. The recognition drew me back to the mixing bowl—could it be that someone would actually want to eat my cake? But I kept getting stuck in this draft. So I posted a reminder on my desktop: It’s not what HAPPENS next. What will Malcolm DO next? Eventually, I finished the draft and when I was done, the kitchen was a disaster, with batter slopped everywhere, dishes stacked in the sink, flour on my nose and in my hair…but as I tasted it, I thought, hmm…maybe…

At this point, an editor asked to see it, lumpy batter and all. But I wasn’t ready to share just yet. How can you serve something that’s still raw? So I went back into the kitchen, mixed up a fresh batch, and put it in the oven for the first time. Out came something I was willing to allow someone to taste. It wasn’t the cake I knew it could be, but it was edible. That was draft #5.

You know how, if you eat too much of one thing, you lose your appetite for it? Sometimes it’s hard to know if something truly tastes good or not. So, while the editor was reading, I took a little break from baking. After about a month off, I went back to draft #5, printed it out, and read through the whole thing.

And this is where the revising truly began. Because I realized something. The characters, the premise, the setting?–they all tasted great. But overall, my cake wasn’t the cake I wanted. It was too dark and had too many ingredients.

It was after this draft that I finally figured out what kind of cake I really wanted. How I wanted people to feel after eating it. And I wrote that up in a handy sentence. A theme, if you will. And I posted THAT on my desktop so I saw it every time I worked.

Then I took out my notecards and started planning. I made a card for each scene and spread them out on a huge bulletin board. I looked for ways I could combine plotlines, simplify story lines, and make things lighter. I shifted and moved things around, made new notecards, tossed old ones. I played around with a few recipes, from Jean Reidy’s Novel Analysis Spreadsheet and from Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass (I especially devoured the Plot Layers, Weaving a Story, and Character Turnabouts and Surprises sections), and Arthur Levine editor Cheryl Klein’s The Art of Detection: One Editor’s Techniques for Analyzing and Revising Your Novel.

When I thought (again!) I knew how to go about baking my cake, I started draft #6. About this time, I heard back from the editor. She liked it, but she also agreed that it needed some remixing. Luckily, we were on the same page in the recipe book. I agreed to keep working and send her my next cake.

When draft #6 was baked, I needed a fresh set of tastebuds, so I sent M@M off to two critique buddies who hadn’t tasted any previous versions. I wanted to know if I was getting closer before I send it off to the editor again. I knew that a second piece of cake was probably all she was going to eat. My readers had great suggestions that went into draft #7.

Draft #7 was the first cake I frosted. After I addressed my critique partners concerns and questions, I went through it, chapter by chapter, reading it aloud, making it “sing” with word choice and phrasing. (I know, I’m mixing metaphors now, but that is the word I think about when I do this.) And when the cake looked as good on the outside as it tasted on the inside, I sent it back to the editor…and out to some agents.

And they liked it! I found a delightful agent with which to work. The editor also liked it.

However, she wanted dainty pink cupcakes with sprinkles. Could I change it?

Meanwhile, the sentence on my desktop–my theme?–was all about chocolate bundt with cherries.

It was a hard decision. But my new agent agreed: let’s see if anyone else likes chocolate with cherries before we start over again.

But first, she had a few suggestions…

Draft #8, this last draft (but not the Last Draft, hopefully), was shoring up ingredients so their flavors exploded. I took my agent’s detailed list of suggestions, a fistful of highlighters, a printed-out version of my story, and I locked myself in my kitchen. I read through the whole manuscript in one sitting, highlighting things accordingly. I made notes, I stared out the window, I crafted charts, I brainstormed. It was messy and I was sweaty and the kitchen was a disaster when I came out. (None of her suggestions were major, but one thing I’ve learned—learned, not perfected, mind you—in my fledgling baking career is that sometimes one little change in the recipe, means other ingredients need to be altered…which then sets off other adjustments to the recipe.)

Then I sat back down and carefully mixed up my latest version of M@M. When it came out of the oven, I let it cool for a while. Then I painstakingly frosted it one more time.

And that’s where I am today. I’m not saying that this is How to Bake a Cake. I’m not saying I even know how to bake a cake.

But I do know that my cake is the prettiest, best-tasting one I’ve ever made.

And so now I wait. Will anyone else want to try a bite? Will they like it enough to bring it to the Big Party? I hope so. But if not, I’ve already headed back into the kitchen.

There’s this new recipe I’ve been dying to try…

…

Related posts:

1. The First Printout
2. done
3. A Continuation of the SCBWI WIP Yay

So when I was looking for book trailers to post to my library blog, I had to laugh at this one, for THE QUIET BOOK by Deborah Underwood and illustrated by Renata Liwska. I’m stuck somewhere between the vegan chocolate and the persistence quotations.

Related posts:

1. The Big Ol’ Revision Post
2. done
3. Warbling About Wordle

Image from BarelyFitz's Flickr Creative Commons

So, it was Father’s Day last Sunday. Per usual, I’m approximately 4 days behind the rest of the world’s calendar. That’s not to say I didn’t give my dad a hug on Sunday (we had him over for a cookout), but I didn’t exactly get his gift to him that day. I delivered it last night.

What do you give a dad who has everything? Who is retired and financially comfortable enough that he has the time and money to get and do whatever he’d like, when he’d like it*? Well, I’ve been giving him booklists. A few years ago, desperate for a gift, I gave him a bookmark with a list of books that sounded “like him.” He carried it around for a year and when he’d come in to volunteer at my school library (yes, he’s that great of a dad), he’d often have one of the books on the list under his arm. He wondered out loud to me once how I had compiled a list of so many great books that tickled his interest.

Ha! Finding books for readers is kinda what I do for a living, Dad. Probably my favorite part.

So, this year, it was time for a new list. And here it is: The Super-Long Father’s Day List of Books. It IS long, in no particular order, a strange mix of nonfiction, mystery, and science fiction/fantasy, and it includes some series halfway through because that’s where my dad is in them. I don’t know why I’m posting it here, except it’s books and it’s a list and I’m a librarian, so pass it on I must in the hopes that someone else somewhere might find their “just right” book.

Enjoy! (And please, I’m always looking for suggestions for next year’s list. Send them my way!)

* Not that he necessarily does. He’s pretty frugal, my dad. Which only makes gift-giving harder because if you give something too extravagant, it might be construed as, well…extravagant.

* I’ve already waxed on about my dad and reading here.

Related posts:

1. The Great Summer Reading Challenge
2. Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller
3. Favorite Reads of 2009

Yes, it's me. All Knuffle Bunnied up.

So, summer vacation is finally here for me! I finished inventorying (is that a word?) all 20,000+ items in my library yesterday. Luckily, I had lots of excellent help!

Summer is writing season for me. It’s also reading season. And this summer I’ve thrown down the gauntlet with my fourth and fifth graders. We’re in a race to see who can read the most pages by the first day of school, September 1. Any student who can beat my total wins UNLIMITED BOOK CHECKOUT for the entire school year. Yes, the right to check out as many books as they want. For the entire school year. I’m keeping track of my reading on a blog. They can check it for my totals or for reading suggestions.

You would not believe how excited they are about this. I’ve run into kids at baseball games and the playground and the grocery store. I’ve overheard parents talking about it at swimming lessons. My challenge is posted on refrigerators all over our neighborhood. The kids are gunning for me–and I love it! Because, of course, though I talk tough, I hope I’ll get beat. (And I know I will. I have some HUGE readers on board.) After all, as I tell my students, the very best way to be ready for 1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, etc., is to read, read, read over break!

Follow along on our reading blog here: http://mrswreads.blogspot.com/.

So, what are YOU reading this summer?

Related posts:

1. The Super-Long Father’s Day List of Books
2. How to Create a Reader?
3. My Wild Self and The First Day Back to Work

One of my favorite activities was my Caldecott unit with my second graders. We finished it with not a moment to spare at the end of the year. It consisted of reading lots of Caldecott books and checking out the different media used by various illustrators, then zooming in on Mo Willems and the Knuffle Bunny books. Finally, we tried our hands at creating art like Knuffle Bunny. Here are some of my favorites.

p.s. Yes, that’s me in many of the pictures. At least I’m smiling, not shushing!

p.p.s. I highly recommend the Scholastic/Weston Woods videos of Knuffle Bunny and Knuffle Bunny, Too. Narrated by the real Trixie and Daddy! And also an interview with Mo Willems.

p.p.p.s. You know there’s another Knuffle Bunny coming this fall, right? Knuffle Bunny Free!

Related posts:

1. The Great Summer Reading Challenge
2. Create Your Own Comics…in the Library
3. Animoto = Ani-mazing

Food Chain Game (put the food chain in order)

Animal Diet Game introduces the terms “herbivores,” “omnivores,” and “carnivores”

Producers, Consumers, Decomposers Game  introduces….well, “producers,” “consumers,” and “decomposers” (I hope you saw that one coming. )

Related posts:

1. News: Hey, We Won an Award!
2. Nudibranchs and Blog Reviews
3. Black Bears in the News (and in Aisle 5)

Related posts:

1. Read On Dr. Kate!
2. News: Hey, We Won an Award!
3. Serendipity through the Mail

You can see their full list of 2009 winners here: http://societyofschoollibrarians.webs.com/2009bookawards.htm.

Related posts:

1. Nudibranchs and Blog Reviews
2. Book Look: The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook
3. A Cloud Forest Food Chain

Related posts:

1. The Super-Long Father’s Day List of Books
2. Every Reader Tells a Story

The blog’s been quiet lately because I’ve been spending my time here instead: 

McKenna Elementary, MALCOLM AT MIDNIGHT

But the truth is, I’m not sure if I’m working hard or hardly working. I’m busy with it, yes, but if you go by page count, it sure doesn’t look like much.

Related posts:

1. The Big Ol’ Revision Post
2. done
3. How to Create a Reader?

I read this book right after I returned from China last summer. It really hit home for me and my experiences, and I knew immediately I would share it with my first graders when they start their “around the world” unit in February. (Coming up soon!) In the meantime, Barbara Kerley talks a little about her book.

Tell us about your book.

One World, One Day follows a day in the life of school kids, around the world, from when they first get up all the way until bedtime.  My goal for the book was to share the idea that kids in America have lives remarkably similar to the lives of kids all over the world–that in spite of our differences, we have much in common.  So the book is a great mix of familiar and unexpected.  A boy in India may wash up in a pond, a girl in China may walk through rice paddies to get to school, and some kids in Brazil may sleep in hammocks instead of beds… but still, around the world, kids get up, go to school, do chores and homework, play with friends, and spend time with their families in the evening.

How did you get the idea for One World, One Day?

The book follows the theme of other books I’ve done with National Geographic: A Cool Drink of Water (a global look at water); You and Me, Together (about parents and kids, around the world); and A Little Peace (about small ways we can all make the world more peaceful).  At the core, all four books are about tolerance and reinforce the theme of how we are more alike than different, in the ways that matter.

The photos are so stunning. How much input did you have in choosing them? Which came first, the images or your text?

The photos were selected by Lori Epstein, the wonderfully talented photo editor for National Geographic Children’s Books.  She pulled photos from the magazine’s archives and also solicited photos from photographers she knows.  In fact, one photo of a big pizza was taken especially for the book!  Once we had the basic concept of the book established, Lori pulled dozens of photos and sent them to me, to give me inspiration for the text.  Then I worked from there.  She found additional photos to fill in the gaps, and I kept tweaking the text to make it fit the great photos she’d found.  We did a lot of back-and-forth, under the guidance of executive editor Jennifer Emmett and art director Bea Jackson.  I did weigh in a little bit on photo selection, but the three of them are such pros that mostly, I just tried to get out of the way and let them work!

How long does it take you to write a book? Where do you like to write? What time of day? (Or anything else you want to add about your process.)

My books with National Geographic typically take several months from concept to completion.  My editor Jennifer and I talk about the idea for a book until we get a concept and focus that we think will work.  Once we have a sense of where to go, I start working on the text.  Because all four books are illustrated with photos, I try to keep the text somewhat flexible to accommodate the availability of photos.  There are lots of issues that Jennifer and Bea and Lori have to keep track of, such as how well a photo will crop to fit a space, and making sure that there is a healthy geographic distribution–they really do work hard to make sure the all corners of the world are represented.  During the writing/photo selection phase, there is a lot of dialog making sure everything fits.  And then, I have to write the captions for each photo for the backmatter, which takes a while.  The whole thing is really a team effort.

The other books I write are picture book biographies with Scholastic Press, such as What To Do About Alice? and the upcoming title The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy). Those books are very research-intensive and take much longer to write, anywhere from six months to several years.

What were you like as a kid?

I was a voracious reader, loved playing dress-ups, and, when I got older, was very involved in theater (both on stage and behind the stage.)  All these interests have helped fuel my desire to be a writer, I think.

Did you like school?

I liked parts of school.  I liked teachers who gave creative assignments and I liked the shelves full of books.  I wasn’t as crazy about P.E., not because I didn’t like sports but because it seemed like I always got chosen almost last when it was time to pick teams.

So…readers want to know….what’s the grossest or most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you as a kid?

I don’t remember a specific incident, but I do remember being very uncomfortable with my height in sixth grade.  I was the tallest girl and the third tallest kid in class (yes, I counted) and remember feeling a bit like a freak and being very jealous of the petite girls in class.  I know now that those girls each probably had their own physical attribute they were equally embarrassed about – the shape of their nose or the way their ears stuck out, or something.  Everyone has something at that age, I think.  But it did take me a long time not to be self-conscious about being so tall!

If you weren’t an author/illustrator, what would you be? Why?

I’d love to be a chef and cook beautiful food that makes people happy.  Cooking is very nurturing and creative.

What’s one thing you’d love to learn to do?

I’d love to become a really good ice skater.  Clearly, I need to move somewhere with a skating rink!

And the coolest place you’ve ever been?

I’ve been fortunate to be able to travel a lot, so I’ve been to a lot of cool places.  The most unusual, I think, is Jellyfish Lake, in Palau, which is a group of islands in the Pacific.  It’s this small, brackish lake filled with non-stinging jellyfish.  The baby ones are the size of cherries, and the adult ones are the size of softballs.  They are a creamy orange color and seem to glow when the sunlight hits the water.  My husband and I went on a snorkeling trip to Jellyfish Lake many years ago.  You can swim out into the middle of the lake through all the jellyfish, which slide down your body as you pass by.  It is sort of what I imagine it would be like to swim through a Jello fruit salad.  Very cool indeed.

We loved your book! Is there a similar book from a different author that’d you’d recommend for kids who liked yours?

Yes!  A dear friend of mine, Deborah Heiligman, has a whole series of wonderful books called Holidays Around The World.  They are published by National Geographic and full of photos and information about different cultures.  There’s even fun stuff in the back of each book, like games and recipes.

What’s next?

Next up for me is The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy), published by Scholastic Press.  When Susy Clemens was 13, she secretly wrote a biography of her famous dad, Mark Twain.  So my book is a biography about her writing a biography.  Mark Twain was a really funny man, and Susy had a lot of spunk, so the book has a lot of humor and affection.

What do you wish we’d asked, but didn’t?

“Do you have a website?”  Yes, indeedy do, I do indeed.  It’s www.barbarakerley.com and it has lots of info about my life, including pictures of my pets and a photo of me as a fifth grade hippie.

Fast facts:

Age? 49
Family? A husband, a 20-year-old daugther, and a 12-pound fluffy orange-and-white cat.
Where do you live? For one more month, I will be living in California.  Then we are moving to Portland, OR.
Other books? Some of my other books include The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins and the novel Greetings From Planet Earth.
Favorite superhero? Book? Sports team? As a kid, I really liked Batman cause he could walk up walls and drove a cool car.  My favorite book was Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, which I must have read at least a dozen times.  My favorite sports team was my soccer team.  I was a fullback and we rocked.

Related posts:

1. Author Talk: Pamela Turner and The Frog Scientist
2. Author Talk: Fran Cannon Slayton and When the Whistle Blows
3. Author/Illustrator Talk: Eleanor Davis