February Interesting Nonfiction for Kids

February is right around the corner and that means Valentine's Day! More importantly, that means CANDY!
Fittingly, the February issue of Odyssey magazine is all about Candy!

Be sure to check out my article "Making New Candy Concoctions". Ric McKown, an old friend and author of The Candy Bar Cookbook: Baking with America's Favorite Candy (Longstreet Press, 2000), graciously helped me with some of the candy science.  (See, old friends do come in handy.)
To complement my article, Odyssey has a Candy Concoction Contest. Entries must be postmarked by March 30, 2012, so check it out.
And, four pages after my article, check out a piece by fellow INK member, Karen Romano Young. Her Humanimal Doodle is titled "Honey Doodle".

Librarians, teachers, and parents, looking for other books about Candy and Sweets for February?  In May 2011, I wrote Sweet! Interesting Nonfiction for Kids with a list of book suggestions.
Here are a few more suggestions that may inspire some candy concoctions:

Ghoulish Goodies: Creature Feature Cupcakes, Monster Eyeballs, Bat Wings, Funny Bones, Witches' Knuckles, and Much More!
by Sharon Bowers
Storey Publishing   July 2009

Raw Chocolate
by  Matthew Kenney and Meredith Baird
Gibbs Smith   February 2012

Twist It Up: More Than 60 Delicious Recipes from an Inspiring Young Chef
by Jack Witherspoon, Sheri Giblin, Lisa Witherspoon
Chronicle Books   November 2011

Happy Valentine's Day to All!

My History

Last week, I took a trip down memory lane when I attended the annual convention of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) in Washington, D.C. It was my first NCSS conference since 1977, when I was a recent college graduate doing research for an American history textbook that Scholastic was planning to publish. The book was written and field tested, but never saw the light of day, due to the company’s change of heart about entering the basal social studies market. I soon moved on to Scholastic Newstime, a newsmagazine for sixth graders, and eventually, to the company’s math and science publications.

My excitement at being surrounded by social studies teachers again after going to a few dozen math and science teacher conferences was tempered by the news I received on Saturday that a former Scholastic colleague had passed away. Eric Oatman was the editor of Search magazine in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and he was the first person to pay me to write about American history. Besides hiring me as the freelance writer of the teaching guides and reproducibles that accompanied the magazines, Eric also assigned me the articles and history plays that nudged me toward my current career as an author focusing on history. I wrote articles about men who hauled freight across the Old West; an oral history project with World War II Rosie the Riveters; the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919; and the spirit of exploration in America. My classroom plays dramatized the exploits of a former slave who spied for the Americans during the Revolutionary War; the kidnapping of Daniel Boone’s daughter in 1776; and a family’s westward journey during the Gold Rush.

Writing for Search allowed me to indulge my endless curiosity about the people who were left out of the American history textbooks I read when I was growing up. It also gave me the chance to earn a little extra money as I established my independence. (I still have the reclining chair, lovingly called my “Search chair,” that I bought with my first $300 check.) Eric was a wise and enthusiastic editor, offering a guiding hand but letting me go where the stories took me. I also appreciated that he was not without a sense of irony. In 1983, when Search and Senior Scholastic were folded into a new publication, Scholastic Update, Eric assigned me to write the magazine’s last play. It followed Amelia Earhart’s preparations before she set out on the 1937 flight from which she never returned.

Fortunately, Search did return when Scholastic resurrected it a few years later for another run under three different editors. By then, Eric had moved on to start the company’s sponsored publishing program, setting the standards that guided it in its early years. (He later became a news and features editor for School Library Journal.) And I had become entrenched in math, thrilled to be part of a dynamic editorial team dedicated to making number sense and problem solving relevant to young lives. But the seed had been sown. I longingly read the new Search, occasionally contributed short articles to it, and wondered if writing history was what I was meant to do. I guess it was, because I eventually found my way back. So thanks, Eric, for starting me on my journey.

Note: The Search cover above is from 1980, but it asks a question we could very well ask today.