Tagged again!

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Emily at Emily Reads has tagged me with the Meme of Five. Here it is:

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read the player's blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer.

What were you doing five years ago?
Juggling a busy family, laughing a lot, writing for magazines and working on several book contracts. Bubble Homes and Fish Farts first draft was born.

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
1. Send a thank you note to the teacher librarian who hosted my school visit yesterday.
2. Update research on long-term project.
3. Drive Fabteen#2 to her music lesson.
4. Read and return eight library books (pbs, very do-able)
5. Write this blog post.
Woohoo! Two down, three to go.

What are five snacks you enjoy?
1. Crunchy things
2. Leftover popcorn Fabteen#1 brings home after his shift at the movie theatre.
3. Fresh, cold-from-the-fridge red peppers
4. Saganaki
5. Peanut butter cookies

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Enjoy being a philanthropist.
2. Move even farther into the boonies.
3. Enjoy being a philanthropist.
4. Have a daily head massage.
5. Enjoy being a philanthropist.

What are five of your bad habits?
1. I'm a piler. Oh, the paper. But I know where everything is!
2. Long showers that drain the hot water tank. . .prime thinking time.
3. Speeding. Almost always, but never in a school zone.
4. Not saying "no" often enough.
5. "Oozing". . .the term for an overly lengthy chatty "good bye" time betewen "We're leaving now." and actually leaving a party, family gathering, or other event.

What are five places where you have lived?
1. On the prairies so flat I could see weather coming half a day away.
2. In the subarctic so cold I made snow by throwing water out the front door.
3. In a forest so tranquil the daily visitors = rabbits, birds, deer, and raccoons.
4. By the seashore so changing that every toe-tickling tidal walk was different from the last.
5. In a garden apartment so small I had to leave my kitchen to open the oven door.

What are five jobs you've had?
1. Check this.
2. Stand here.
3. Push this pedal.
4. Watch this.
5. Answer questions.

I now tag:
Annette at The Writing Wild Life (Ha! Backatcha, girl!)
Loree at A Life in Books
Vijaya at Reading, Writing & Arithmetic
Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
Chris at Bartography

Now. . . on to that to-do list of which only the tip of the proverbial iceberg appears in question #1.
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A Peek at Kids' Nonfiction from the 1800s

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For today's Nonfiction Monday post I'm going back in time to look at children's nonfiction books from the 1870s and 1880s. Books from that era aren't readily available for reading in paper form, so I was delighted to get a chance to peek between the electronic covers of several of these oldies, thanks to the digital collection at the Baldwin Library of Children's LIterature at the University of Florida. Consisting of 2500+ digitalized children's books published in the U.S. and Great Britain between 1850 and 1900, this online full-text collection is pretty cool. It sucked up what little reading time I had this week, and I'm looking forward to more "sitting in these electronic stacks" as time permits.

Keying 'science' and 'wild animals' into the search engine brought up some interesting examples of late 19th Century children's nonfiction books. Some titles were timeless---Animals and Their Young and Picture Book of Animals, for example. Some were obviously dated e.g. Talks about Plants, or, Early Lessons in Botany by Mrs. Lankester, and the ever-so-charming Waifs and Strays of Natural History by Mrs. Alfred Gatty, a list book with content based entirely on the author's whims. Oh, the freedom.

I was really pleased to see women authors, but did you notice the "Mrs." in those last two bylines? Mrs? Mrs? When was the last time you saw "Mrs." in a byline, or, oh my goodness, a female author using her husband's first name as her own, even in general correspondence!? Speaks volumes about the social climate of the time, doesn't it?

As expected, the pages were, without exception, text heavy---meant for an adult to read aloud to a child, no doubt---and most illustrations were realistic black and white pen & ink drawings, but I was pleasantly surprised to find writing that, although old-fashioned, was both lively and kid-friendly. . . at least in my limited sample. Who can resist:


"The whale is the largest animal in the world ; so large, that perhaps you have never seen a room big enough to hold one. As it does not live on land, it does not want legs to walk with, but it swims in the sea by the help of its tail and fins." [Picture Book of Animals, p.5]

. . . floating semi-colon and all. And check out the use of "first person owl" from the same book:

In Talks about Plants, the author writes in a conversational style as though she were having a friendly chat with her grandson, Henry. Even in the late 1800s, writers were making new information easier to understand by linking it to information kids already knew. Here's how Mrs. Lankester (no first name credit, poor dear, not even her husband's) explains the concept of plants belonging to a "family" and "genus":

HENRY: Family! Grandmamma? Why, plants don't belong to families do they? Only children do that.

GRANNY: Oh, yes, my boy ; plants, and animals too, are divided into families or groups, of kinds or sorts that most resemble each other in some one or more of their parts. These families are again divided into those that are most alike in many respects, and these again into such as are almost exactly the same. I think I can make it plain to you. There are people called Smith or Jones all over England ; these are the family of Smith or Jones. But there are some of this large family who call themselves Dewsmiths or Fitzjones and have all of the funny snub noses or frizzy hair. These form a genus of the family Jones or Smith. Then in this genus we find some who are called Henry, and have red frizzy hair and blue eyes ; and others who are called Mary, and have brown eyes and dark frizzy hair and so on. These are species of the genus Fitzjones or Dewsmith, of the family Smith or Jones. [p.15-16]

No economy of words, that's for sure, so not something Henry would likely pick up to read to himself, but it's easy to see how it would work as a readaloud, parent to child. And lest you think creative nonfiction is a new form in the world of nonfiction writing, check out Mrs. Gatty's discussion of dying coral from Waifs and Strays of Natural History:

By-and-by, when the bush has grown old, its holdfast to the rock is apt to give way. It is injured, perhaps, by accident, or by sea-worms, which have bored holes in it, till it comes loose, and away go the coral branches, a sport to the ever restless waves. And now comes the end. These coral polyps are delicate creatures, and can only exist when stationary and in quiet. Tossed up and down they die ; the whole overcoat comes off like a worn-out garment, and the beautiful red stems are left naked and exposed ; and these, when thrown ashore after storms, soon fade, or are ground to dust by their everlasting fretting against rocks and stones. [p.6]

So. . . hmm. . . children's nonfiction wasn't always as dry, dull, and lifeless as the texts my contemporaries and I were subjected to in our school days in the 1960s and 70's. Interesting.

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A few words of warning about the Baldwin online collection:

1. The search engine is very sensitive. The more specific the search terms, the better results you'll get.

2. The page numbers in the collection layout don't match the page numbers in the actual books.

3. The viewer has no indication of when a page is blank. Several times I found myself waiting for a page to load, only to discover it had loaded but was blank.

The collection can be found here. Enjoy!

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Links to other Nonfiction Monday posts are on Anastasia's blog today.

Ears a-buzzin', keyboard a-buzzin'

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Just back from four days away at a writers' conference. [contented grin]

On deadline for magazine article. [determined smile]

'Nuff said.
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Revvin' up the promo mobile!

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Here it is, folks! The first tangible promotion---the prepublication postcard. Hot off the presses!

I had wanted to use the actual cover, but the good folks at Charlesbridge... Let's try that again: the amazing folks at Charlesbridge (that's better) are tweaking it to perfection as we speak. This image is part of the cover, though, so it gives you an idea of the feel of the book. Imagine more cool illustration below this image to make the book a portrait rectangle.

Some of the text will be different, too. They've cut "ANIMALS AND THEIR BUBBLES" (yea!), and Carolyn dropped her "Digby" (don't worry, we know where to find it!), and the design folks have been playing with upper case and lower case and font size, so some of that will likely change, too.

I'll post the cover as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, Bubble Homes and Fish Farts steps into the world. . .

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Tagged! Okay, where's the nearest book!

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Well, it's Friday.

And despite the snow we've had today (lace curtain conditions as I type this...and it's almost the end of April, for crying out loud), local hardhat crews are out with their big, yellow, rumbling, crushing, cutting machines doing the tri-annual roadside brush-clearing along my rural road. (imagine one of those men's electric razors with rotary blades, but the blades are 2-3 feet long). The noise is disconcerting---crush, crunch, grind---and very distracting. I'm not getting any work done. So, what great timing to get tagged by a fellow blogger!

Annette over at The Writing Wildlife has tagged me with something a little different---a book meme. Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to Annette's blog once you've posted your three sentences.

Page 123. Hmm...well, that let's out the books that are truly the nearest---all kids' nonfiction, all less than 50 pages:
Kelly Milner Halls' Dinosaur Mummies: Beyond Bare-Bone Fossils,
Kurt Cyrus' Hotel Deep: Light Verse from Dark Water, and
John Wilson's Dancing Elephants and Floating Continents: The Story of Canada Beneath Your Feet.
But. . . if I reach a little farther, I come across the latest stack of library books. Top of the pile? Alex Flinn's Beastly, a contemporary YA retelling of Beauty and the Beast, NewYork style.

Sentences 6, 7, and 8:
I got it. I knew now what it was to be desperate. I knew what it was to skulk in the darkness, looking for some little bit of hope and finding nothing.

. . . which happens to be part of the excerpt on the back cover. A coinkydink? Or is page 123 the theoretical heart of a book? Hmm. . . interesting.

Keep the game going. I'll tag:

Vijaya at Reading, Writing, & Arithmetic
Lizann at The Flatt Perspective
Wendie at Wendie's Wanderings
Mindy at her self-titled blog
Kim at Stone Stoop
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Nonfiction Monday - Wired

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Wired
by Anastasia Suen
Illustrated by
Paul Carrick
Charlesbridge, 2007
Category: Nonfiction Picture Book

Another gem I discovered while serving on the CYBILS Nonfiction Picture Book Nominating Panel.

I confess. . . when I pulled this book out of the mailing envelope, I did so with some trepidation. You see, Anastasia is an online acquaintance, and Wired is not only published by my publisher, but was edited by my editor! What if it wasn't any good? What if I didn't like it? As long as I hadn't read it, I could remain honestly opinionless, but once those covers were cracked, there'd be no goin' back. I'd have to say something if writer or editor cornered me with a "So, what did you think?"

I held the book in my hand for a few minutes,

. . . turned it over and read the author and illustrator bios,

. . . noted the pleasant texture of the matt cover.

I wanted to open it, but lining up the nerve was taking some time.

Hmm... I thought, Great cover. Original. Warm, inviting colours. Nifty close-up image (I'm a sucker for those). Nice perspective. And that groovy bent metal title font cleverly reflects the subject matter. Before I knew it, the cover had sucked me in. The book was open.

Well---big relief---it turns out I had fretted for nothing. This book is great. Another fabulous Charlesbridge addition to the collection.

Wired is the story of electricity---how it's created, where it comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there. Electricity isn't a simple concept. I'd be willing to bet that when most adults flip a light switch or plug in the kettle, the source of the electricity and how it travels remains a mystery. In Wired, Anastasia Suen untangles that mystery, laying it all out one step at a time, in clear, simple terms. From the power plant generators right through to the flick of the switch on the table lamp, Suen explains it all and then tops everything off with a catchy poem that threads through the book like an electrical wire. More points for cleverness.

"humming, thrumming,
power's coming
in the wires
in the wires. . ."

Paul Carrick's acrylic mixed media illustrations are a perfect match.

Okay, so Anastasia and Emily, if you're reading this, you don't need to ask, "So, what did you think?" because the answer is: Well done!

The Nonfiction Roundup of blogposts is hosted here today.
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Be alert...the world needs more lerts

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Okay, so yesterday I finally succumbed and signed up for Google Alerts for my name and book title. It had always seemed like just one more internet email thing to keep track of, so I'd been dragging my feet.

Well, today the first alerts arrived. No surprises in the alerts for my name, but lo, something other than my website came up for Bubble Homes and Fish Farts (Charlesbridge 2009).

AMAZON.COM!!!

Bubble Homes and Fish Farts is on Amazon! Just the title and author name...no cover pic or details yet, but it's THERE!!!

Oh! Oh! Oh! It's coming! It's coming! It really is.

Can you see me chair dancing?
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