Girls Rule!

I didn't originally plan on posting about NF books that promote strong women, but the topic has been on my mind a lot lately. Strong women and girls rule because:
a) My daughter, who is also my first born, turns 16 years old this week. I am proud to say that she won "Most Strong-Willed" award in her kindergarten class. I think they created the award just for her. She's somewhat shy and reserved BUT she definitely knows her mind.
b) At this point in our historic Presidential race, I still have no idea who I'm voting for. If there is a small chance that the US support of a woman Presidential candidate would make a difference in other countries where women have little or no rights, then I'm in full support of a woman President.
c) I am a woman.
d) With all the negative influences in the media (from rap music to the fashion industry... to even the toy industry), we should empower our daughters every way we can.

Here are some really cool books that show girls that they can do ANYTHING they set their minds to and the possibilities are endless:


Her Story: A Timeline of the Women
Who Changed America
Charlotte S. Waisman
Jill S. Tietjen
Collins April 2008

This beautiful book is shelved in the Adult NF but should definitely be located in the YA and Children's NF sections. Each page explains years of amazing accomplishments by women and the timeline format illustrates so well the role of women in US and world history. The professions index is fantastic because it groups the women by all the varied occupations; in all areas of arts, business, politics, sciences, and advocacy. Just think of all the inspiration in this book! Hundreds of biographies with wonderful photos illustrate the history very clearly... and will keep children (and adults) of all ages interested.





The Sky's the Limit: Stories of Discovery by Women and Girls
Catherine Thimmesh (author)
Melissa Sweet (illustrator)
Houghton Mifflin 2004 (paperback)

A sequel to the book below, this fun, informative book delves more into the discoveries of women in science: i.e. anthropology, astronomy, biology, medicine. Of course, don't forget the word Girls in the title. There is a fantastic chapter on young girls that made great discoveries.
Wanted to add: just returned from library with daughter. While we were there, she announced, "I need some books on influential women/current history/European for AP European History." I gave her this book and she was happy!


Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women
Catherine Thimmesh (author)
Melissa Sweet (illustrator)
Houghton Mifflin 2002 (paperback)

I fell in love with this book when I saw the cover. How great is this?
Women Inventors! Yes, to a toy inventor this book is golden.
When I entered industrial design school, I was one of just a handful of girls. (My roommates thought that was really cool but not for the reason I write this post.) I was lost in the shop room and no one was willing to help. Thankfully, girls now take shop class in school along with the boys. (Whoops, got a little off topic.)
Very importantly, there's even a chapter on how to produce and submit your inventions.
I have a few patents already... hum, maybe I can be in this book someday. Even grown-up girls can dream!

Cool Women, Hot Jobs: And How You Can Go for It, Too!
Tina Schwager
Michele Schuerger
Free Spirit Publishing 2002

A current complaint of parents today is that high school is too much like college. Students choose classes geared for their major/profession beginning their freshman year and occasionally in 7th and 8th grade. How can children possibly know what they want to be 'when they grow up' when they are that age? (Heck, I'm still asking that... but that's another issue.)
Cool Women, Hot Jobs wonderfully exposes a variety of professions through interviews with 22 fascinating women and then lays out the tools needed to discover your dreams and how to achieve them.

Live Chat Starts NOW!

Many of us INK writers have a passion for biography. We thought it might be fun to have an open dialogue about cool biographies for kids--the how and why of who we choose to write about, how we discover the voice we need for any given topic, and what angle, perspective, or format we decide upon when embarking on a new biography. I've been asked to start, but we'll be open for discussion for a full hour, live, until 1 pm EST, so please jump in with any questions or comments you like to either expand on something we say, or take the conversation in a new, related direction.

This past November, I wrote an article for SLJ about picture book biographies and looked at several fantastic books by authors I inferred were extremely passionate about their subjects. For me, passion is a necessary ingredient. But what other factors inform a writer’s decision-making process? A small gem of information or an interesting angle often piques my interest, or a person who I know to be extraordinary but who seems to have escaped getting his or her fair share of attention for whatever reason. For example, and I admit the evidence for this is purely anecdotal--if you ask a random person who Elizabeth Cady Stanton is, chances are you will get a slightly embarrassed, incomplete response. But they will most certainly know who Susan B. Anthony is from her famous portrait on her coin. This has always irked me. No disrespect intended to Ms. Anthony who was extremely important, but without Stanton, Anthony would likely not have blossomed into the full mover and shaker she became. Stanton was the force behind the first Seneca Falls convention; Stanton was the first one to act on the idea that women should have the right to vote. My disappointment with her seeming lack of notoriety sparked the inspiration that became Elizabeth Leads the Way. This same sense of exasperation fueled my desire to write about the so-called Mercury 13 women who took all the same astronaut testing as our original Mercury 7 astronauts, but NASA would not admit women into the space program. Yet even self-proclaimed space buffs are often amazed that they have never heard of these pioneering women. With any luck, my forthcoming Almost Astronauts book will help change that.

And now, let the conversation begin! As a reader, what do you think of these approaches? As a writer? What other burning questions do you have? What do YOU want to talk about?

Twelve Rounds to Glory — a biography in poems

When I was a kid, boxing was in one of its golden ages. Reigning champs were Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. I watched Ali fight on TV, and talk smack on TV, and make political points on TV. During his smack-talking days, Ali was quite the slam poet. "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see" is just one example. Many more can be found in his press conference appearances pre- and post-fights.

Today's post is about a recent biography of Muhammad Ali. It's one of those new biographies that proves that there is more than one way to tell someone's life story. Similar to The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano (by Margarita Engle), Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali is a biography told in poetry.

At the very end of last year, Candlewick Press put out a wonderful biography by Charles R. Smith Jr. called Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali, illustrated by Bryan Collier. Like the Engle book, this book won awards for its story-telling. Twelve Rounds to Glory won a Coretta Scott King honor as well as a Norman Sugarman Best Biography honor.

The story of Ali's life is told in Ali-like verse that is separated into twelve chapters. Each chapter is a poem that describes an episode in Ali's life - his birth in the segregated south; his childhood and development as a boxer; his early boxing career and his Olympic achievement in Rome; the development of his brash public persona; his boxing bout with Sonny Liston that earned him his first heavyweight championship; his decision to embrace Islam, ditch his birth name (rooted in slavery) in favor of Muhammad Ali, and his position as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war; the career ramifications of his decision to refuse to fight in the war; his loss in the fight with Frazier in Georgia (where he could fight because there was no boxing commission, including Ali's derision of Frazier as an "Uncle Tom") and subsequent fights setting up his challenge to reclaim the heavyweight championship; the "Rumble in the Jungle" - a title fight against reigning champ George Foreman in Zaire ("Ali! Boo-ma-YAY!" - "Ali, kill him!"); his rematch against Smokin' Joe Frazier and the ferocity of that particular match; a loss by decision to Leon Spinks, making Spinks the new heavyweight champion, followed by a decision to retire; the post-retirement bouts in order to earn a few paychecks, and the reasons for the need for money explained; and his out-of-the ring life as a father and, in later years, man with Parkinson's syndrome. The text of the book ends in 1998, with Ali lighting the Olympic torch in Atlanta. The timeline following the text runs through 2005, and his receipt of a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the opening of the Muhammad Ali Center in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, and his being awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Germany.

All of this could be the stuff of legend, but Charles Smith avoids the book becoming a panegyric. He keeps it real by including some of the bad along with the inspiring and the good. Ali was an inspired fighter and an inspirational speaker, but along with his uplifting words on race and the horrors of war, Ali generated some truly ugly taunts when it came to dealing with other fighters. Along with his dedication to the Muslim faith and his search for peace and integrity, Ali's personal relationships were not always terrific, whether it was with women or some of his staff. Because this biography is geared toward children ages 10 and up (middle school and, I would argue, high school), Smith doesn't go into graphic detail, but enough information is given to present at least the basic facts faithfully, without whitewashing any of it.

Here's a taste of the book. And if you'd like to hear it as well as (or instead of) reading it, Charles is only too happy to oblige, and you can access this (and three other poems) as audio files at his website.

ROUND ONE: The Golden Child
"I always felt like God made Muhammad special,
but I don't know why God chose me to carry this child."
—Odessa Clay, Cassius Clay's mother

Bathed in beautiful light
from parental love,
brown skin shimmers
with a glow from above.
In 1942, the seventeenth of January,
you entered the world
in Louisville, Kentucky.
Whites Only stores
and Whites Only parks
sifted you out
because you were dark.
No Negroes Allowed
and No Colored signs
created separate worlds
and drew color lines,
but your middle-class parents
managed to survive
through hard work and faith
and were able to provide
you, their first child,
and your little brother later,
with food, shelter, clothing,
and something much greater:
love
that was passed
to you from day one,
love
that was passed
to you, the new son
of mother Odessa
and father Cassius Clay,
who also passed the torch
of your name
that birth day,
passed down to you
from a white farmer who
inherited a plantation
and your great-grandfather too.
But Clay freed his forthy slaves
during America's dark days,
then fought to end slavery
and fought to change ways
and laws
and thinking
deep in the South,
using newspapers,
knives,
fists,
and his mouth.
He fought with a spirit
that lives in you today,
reflected in your name,
Cassius Marcellus Clay,
reflecting love from your parents,
who had faith and belief
that God would watch over you
and provide inner strength.

Now, in the actual book, this poem appears on one page, split into three columns, with a piece of art by Collier on the facing page showing the infant Ali lying atop a quilt. It is one of the shortest poems in the book, some of which go on for pages with multiple columns per page, which gives you an idea of the commitment that Smith had to getting the information right. The illustrations throughout the book are a combination of watercolor and collage, and they add a tremendous amount of impact to the text.

This book comes in at 80 pages, and those skinny columns and punchy rhymes (pun intended) push you along at a pretty good clip. And the word choices are wonderful, particularly in the fight scenes which actually get a bit too graphic for really young readers or squeamish girls in places, but I imagine that boys would read those same passages and call their friends over and read them again, looking at each other with awe and in glee and exclaiming "COOL!"

A sample of what I'm talking about, from "Round Seven: "Who You Callin' Tom?":

Out of nowhere like lightning
came a leaping left hook
filled with Uncle Tom anger
as Frazier's fist shook
your brain in your skull,
snapping your neck back,
when his fist met your jaw
with one mighty CRACK!
sending millions of ants
into your body as the mat
rose up to smack
your beaten brown back.

From later in the same chapter, and a fight with Ken Norton:

Ten fights,
ten wins,
all led up to Ken
Norton, a boxer
and former marine who
posed a big problem
for you in round two
when his rock-solid fist,
released from way back,
slingshot your cheek
and broke your jaw with a CRACK,
pooling your mouth with blood,
marinating your mouthpiece;
you continued to fight
using your ring expertise.

In all those 80 pages there are only a handful of what might be considered forced rhymes or manipulated line breaks, and to be honest, they're still in keeping with the nature of Ali's delivery style, which Smith channels extraordinarily well. Here's a quote from Smith's website that gives you an idea how Smith went about writing the poems in this remarkable book:

I wanted the book to represent every part of this remarkable man and do it in such a way that hasn’t been done before. Once I had all the facts, double and triple checked, I then had to put it into verse. Each word was chosen with care, which made each line strong, which made each verse strong, which made each chapter strong, which made the book strong. Since it’s about boxing, I wanted it to feel like a boxing match, so to do the fight scenes, I watched old movies of the actual fights and wrote down what I saw, starting with the introductions of each fighter and where it took place.

Most of the images inside the book include people, usually composed in collage format. The only inside spread I could find available on the 'net, however, is the image at the start of the final chapter, which appears not to involve collage, but to be a straight-up watercolor. Feast your eyes on the image that leads off the last chapter, "Round Twelve: Muhammad on the Mountain":


Charles R. Smith Jr. Boo-ma-YAY!

Heroes in Children's Books: Cesar: ¡Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can!

Nutritious nonfiction. Sometimes I have to be tricked into reading what’s good for me. I accidentally read this book and I am so glad. I just read Cesar, ¡Si, Se Puede! Yes We Can! by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, illustrated by David Diaz (Marshall Cavendish, 2004). Wow. It is a luminous, inspiring book. Bernier-Grand gently lays out the life of migrant worker advocate Cesar Chavez through easy-to-read poems. Her work is so loving and understated that you don’t feel you are reading poetry; you are just being pulled piece-by-piece into the daily, yearly events that shape a person strong enough to do heroic things. Teachers would surely love reading one spread at a time and then having brief discussions about what the pieces brought forth. This book is not in-your-face nonfiction. It’s nonfiction and heroism made personal. All the material could be used for kids at young ages…1st grade through 6th. But older kids, and sort-of adults like me love this, too! David Diaz’s art is sunny, joyful, delicious. It seems to grow and glow on the pages. Every school needs several copies of this book. I think it could change lives.

Now I am going to go look up Bernier-Grand's recent Pura Bel Pre author honor book, “Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life!”

Once you get the taste for nutritious nonfiction, you want more and more. Because nonfiction is shelved by topic, not author, it takes a little extra work to hunt down the work of a particular nonfiction author. Yet there are some great nonfiction voices, like Bernier-Grand's, that are worth searching for.

True Confessions

I love to read nonfiction – history, biography, environmental essays, memoirs, kid’s books, adult books – and I love to write nonfiction. But last fall I hit a wall.

Before I started writing for children back in the early 90s I wrote nonfiction (art reviews and features and travel features mostly.) I wrote scripts (nonfiction) for interactive educational multimedia programs. Since then I’ve written nonfiction for early and middle grades and I've loved it all.

So what happened last fall? I had just returned from six weeks in Italy and France: singing in Italian cathedrals, basking on Lake Como, bicycling from Geneva to Nice, lolling on the Riviera. Now I love my hometown, Los Angeles, and I love my work. So when jet lag had faded I surveyed my hard drive. I saw several works in progress, and one I was especially eager to complete. But, for the first time in my life….. I didn’t want to write. I was afraid even to think the phrase wr***r’s bl*ck. Or maybe I just wanted to go back and sit by the Mediterranean, sipping cappuccino and eating croissants still warm from a French oven.

At first I didn’t worry: I had heaps of business to take care of. I traveled to Washington DC for the National Book Festival where my latest book, Jeannette Rankin: Political Pioneer, was featured at the Montana State booth. Back home again, nothing had changed. I dared to think the words wr***r’s bl**k and felt worse. My editor wanted another biography from me. I had an idea or two, but nothing stirred the heart. I read my works in progress. Yawn. I slogged through a revision or two. Then I panicked. Was I finished as a writer? Was I doomed to return to Italy and eke out my days drinking cappuccino by Lake Como? (Ha!)

Three months into spinning-through-denial-slogging-and-anxiety, I attended a guided meditation. I lightly floated “my work” into the cosmos and got a reply: “Focus.” I knew just what it meant: work on one genre, rather than skipping from picture book fiction to biographies to middle grade novels – as I have done for years. Furthermore I knew where to focus: biography. I did have those drafts, I did have an editor wanting more.

Now, epiphanies are common as dirt – just like story ideas. Less common are completed stories and epiphanies made manifest. But this one worked for me. With “focus” lighting the way, I finished one biography, began a second, found a third subject while researching the second, and stumbled across a fourth subject while on a field trip for the third.

So what was my problem? Why the writer’s block? Back to the meditation evening. Jotting down thoughts of my experience, I dared put into words what I didn’t like to admit: I have been a slave to status. Just as children’s writers are the proles of the literary world – “anyone can do it!” – with literary novelists as reigning monarchs, my feudal world of children’s literature was ruled by Baron and Baroness Novelists, surrounded by picture book author courtiers. Below stairs in the scullery, lived the – wince – nonfiction writers. None of this was rational, mind you. I know nonfiction to be just as gorgeous – and difficult – as fiction. But my neuroses dwell not in reason’s realm. Anyway, coughing up my dirty secret allowed me to see that it was – to misquote Mr. Scrooge -- just "a bit of undigested beef.” (And I’m a vegetarian!)

I’m happy to report that while I still long for croissants warm from a French oven, I am working again, neither scullery maid nor duchess, but a (mostly) contented scribbler – writing biographies, telling the best stories I can.

Besides, I’m off to Paris in April, thanks to a winning raffle ticket. More about that next month.

Information Is the Least of It

I don’t write “informational” books although my books certainly contain lots of information. In fact, I dislike the label. In this day and age, with easy access to specific information on the internet on an “as needed” basis, information is the least important component of my work.

Traditionally, the main reason kids read informational books is that they have to do a homework assignment. I want to write books that kids pick up because they are intrigued and can’t put down because their interest is sustained. When I write, I must continually bear in mind who I’m writing for and what other reasons besides a school assignment they might want to know about something. This means that there have to be some big ideas in a book to form a conceptual framework for facts, which are merely decoration for these ideas.

I like to think of my books as “conceptual.” Every book has some underlying theme or thesis that builds the kind of comprehension that makes facts memorable. Let me give you some examples:
The “Imagine Living Here Series” consists of seven books dealing with life in a part of the world that can each be described with one word. This Place is Cold, for example, is about Alaska. The narrative develops around a series of questions my reader might ask. How cold is it? Cold enough to freeze your eyelashes so they break. Why is it cold? The answer brings up a discussion of latitude… which also discusses the ratio of daylight to nighttime. How do animals and plants adapt to this climate? How do people adapt? What kind of culture occurs? How does this show up in their lifestyles and their art? No information is gratuitous—every fact is connected to a big idea.

My “Where’s the Science Here?” series has four books on subjects of intrinsic interest to kids: sneakers, fireworks, junk food, and show business. Sneakers lets me discuss the biomechanics of walking and running, the structure of the foot, the comparison of human locomotion to that of fast animals like the cheetah and the pronghorn antelope, and the engineering of athletic footwear to enhance performance and protect the foot. Fireworks explores the chemistry of fire and the physics of rocketry. Junk Food discusses the gas laws behind popcorn, the packaging of potato chips, the sugar content of regular soda vs. diet soda, the melting point of chocolate and ends with a discussion of the nutritional content of the foods. On Stage describes the theatrical special effects behind fake snow, rain, fire, blood, breaking glass, and flying in the context of the science used to produce them. Simple activities as sidebars illuminate the concepts and give the reader real experience of the science in the books.

The “Science Play” series has four titles. Each explores a very common event in very young child’s life from the point of view of a scientist. This kind of paradigm shift—revisiting the ultra-familiar as a scientist might—lends itself to a series of activities that ultimately lead to a non-intuitive conclusion. I have written an extensive analysis of why I wrote this series in the November 2005 Book Links, (which you can find on my website: here).

I’ve recently had the fun of writing Harry Houdini: A Photographic Story of a Life for DK Books. Telling the story of Harry’s life chronologically like so many other people have done did not appeal to me. After absorbing their work by reading dozens of books it occurred to me that there were recurrent themes running through Houdini’s life as a multifaceted person and I used these themes to organize my book: Harry as a young man, a showman, a self-promoter, a death defier, a scholar and author, a family man, and as a champion of science against spiritualists.

In fiction, characters and plot make up the conceptual framework that drives the story. In nonfiction, facts are not enough. More than ever before, the nonfiction author must find points of view for a narration. The reasoning throughout the work must be inductive—going from the specific to the general (doing the opposite, making general statements and illustrating them with examples is boring) and the specifics must have a compelling fascination for kids to grab their attention. Once you have their attention, the author should be a Pied Piper taking them where she wants them to go. Now that’s a challenge!