The Internet and My Brain

When I was a kid I could read nonstop all day long. I became so engrossed in a story that my mother could take me shopping and try clothes on me while, all the time, I had my nose in a book. Not any more. Although I can still focus quite well and be oblivious to my surroundings, I can’t seem to do it as long without a break. And the breaks seem to be pretty frequent, every half hour or so. Maybe it’s age. But after reading The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr, I’m convinced otherwise. All the time I spend at my computer is taking its toll.

Nicholas Carr makes a compelling argument about the perils of increased internet use as a cautionary tale, citing scientific studies for all of his premises. Here’s what he says in a nutshell:

1. The brain is plastic. It changes depending on how it is used.
2. Over the history of mankind the brain has developed different skills at different times and has lost some of the skills it previously had.

For example: Before there were books and writing, memory and recall prevailed. Once writing was available, individual recall and memory became less important but books became very important. Books encouraged the skill of deep reading, necessary for following the thoughts of an author who was practicing deep thinking about a topic.

The internet fosters multitasking and develops an addiction for distraction. Memory or the ability to write well, according to protocols of standard English, is no longer as important.

Carr says: “A personal letter written in, say, the nineteenth century bears little resemblance to a personal e-mail or text message written today. Our indulgence in the pleasures of informality and immediacy has led to a narrowing of expressiveness and a loss of eloquence.” ;-)

3. The internet makes all media available at all times through single devices. The genie is out of the bottle. But it may come at a huge price.

Carr says: “The Net grants us instant access to a library of information unprecedented in its size and scope, and it make it easy for us to sort through that library—to find, if not exactly what we were looking for, at least something sufficient for our immediate purposes. What the Net diminishes is ….. the ability to know, in depth, a subject for ourselves, to construct within our own minds the rich and idiosyncratic set of connections that give rise to a singular intelligence.”

4. At first people thought that the Internet would foster learning through hyperlinks. But they were wrong. Carr says: “Many studies comparing straight reading to reading the same material with hyperlinks have shown over and over again that more is retained by straight reading. Links get in the way of learning.” (Note the absence of hyperlinks in this post.)

Students who had access to the internet while at a lecture, even if some of the sites visited during the lecture were on the same topic, retained less of the lecture than students who just listened. The human brain seems to be hard-wired to respond to distraction—probably a survival skill from the prehistoric days of hunting and gathering when paying attention to the unexpected had real survival value. It is the ability to focus and think deeply that must be cultivated and practiced. (Hence the danger implied by the title "The Shallows.")

Carr is afraid that what may be sacrificed in attributing too much power to this tool is the kind of thinking that is most human: the calm attentive mind, empathy and compassion.

This makes me think that, more than ever, in order to educate our kids, they must read about the real world through the stories and points-of-view of the best thinkers and writers available to them. They must read books that embody coherent thought, not snippets of information patched together without any conceptual framework. Let’s hope that enough people understand this before it is too late.

Personally, I’m glad I still have enough of those old-fashioned literacy skills left in me to read and absorb the brilliant thinking of Nicholas Carr. Gotta go, my email just dinged.

THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: Part Three

Back in the spring and summer of 2009 I wrote a two-part blog entitled The Law of Unintended Consequences. Part One dug up some famous old kiddy-lit that distorted the truth or lied outright in an ironic effort to foist high moral values upon the youth of America. And Part Two explained how a valiant stab at fostering racial and gender equality resulted in lots of children's books that turned everyone into model citizens—everyone, that is, except for white males. Well, The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again. Or does it? Maybe we can overcome a negative consequence if we keep our eyes open.

So what hath America wrought this time around? Here comes Part Three.

First—the back-story: In the year 2000, the 30 industrialized countries who run the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) decided to administer a series of tests in reading, math, and science designed to rank student academic achievement around the world. Called PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) it’s administered to 15-year-old students every three years and it’s supposed to determine how well the students from 57 different countries can apply their knowledge of reading, math, and science to real-life situations. Though all three subjects are covered, a different discipline is featured in depth each time the test is given.

Approximately 400,000 students from 30 member countries and 27 partner countries took the two hour science-oriented test in 2006, including 5,600 students from the United States. The results were absolutely devastating for our students; they ranked 22^nd in the world in science. In math they performed even worse, landing in 27^th place. There was a reading portion too, but scores for U.S. students were tossed out because the tests had been printed incorrectly.

Our panicked educators, politicians, and lawmakers rightfully feared that we could no longer compete with the rest of the world in the global economy or educate the doctors, scientists, mathematicians, and engineers of the future unless we raised the bar of American education. So off they went, setting out on a well-intentioned quest to raise student test scores.

But what has been the unintended consequence? There are still some outstanding schools in America, but in this very short time and in far too many places, teachers are being required to drum rote facts and rote facts alone into their student’s pointy little heads. Just the facts, Ma’am...teach to the tests! Often there’s little or no time or stimulus money left to foster creative thinking, interdisciplinary studies, or solid skills in art, music, or dance. Libraries with their delicious trove of books are being sliced out of the budget and some very boring, disjointed, inaccurate online textbooks are rapidly taking their place. Time for free play during recess and for physical education are being reduced. How can kids learn by sitting still for hours on end and memorizing lists of facts on a computer? And how much fun can it be for a good creative teacher to be tied so tightly to those tests?

So let’s not let our infamous American love of humor and of thought-provoking subject matter and of creativity fade away in the classroom. There are good programs and good books available to get kids excited about art or sports, for example. Let’s enhance the joy of learning by promoting such projects instead of allowing the fun to dissipate. Music and books and athletics and art and culture are the very things that must be saved because they help make all the hard-core subjects on those tests fun and exciting and real and ever so much easier to learn. They include too many of the most vital elements of our culture. And they have helped to make us the greatest inventors and most innovative thinkers and biggest trend setters in the world.

I.N.K. News for November

Susan Goodman is delighted that her book, The First Step, is going to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and will be illustrated by E.B. Lewis.

Loreen Leedy will participate in a panel discussion and reception on Friday, December 3 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale for the exhibit The Storymaker's Art. Work from eight Florida illustrators will be included in the show. http://www.thestorymakersart.com/

Gretchen Woelfle will be traveling with novelist Carolyn Marsden to West Africa (via Paris!) to give author talks at international schools in Bamako, Mali; Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; and Dakar, Senegal. Watch for a full report in December.

Vicki Cobb and Rosalyn Schanzer will be presenting jointly at the Science Teachers Association of Ontario (STAO) conference at 11/11 11 am via videoconferencing. Vicki also has an article in the November Booklistonline Quick Tips called "Nonfiction Books and the Joy of Learning" where she promotes our blog.

Barbie - Interesting Nonfiction for Kids (of all ages)

This month, Tanya Lee Stone launches her new book, The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll’s History and Her Impact on our Culture.  In this month's post, Come on Barbie, Let's Go Party, Tanya shared with I.N.K. the details of her launch party.

Involved with the toy industry for over 25 years, Barbie has been near and dear to my heart. At Mattel, I originally interviewed for the position of Barbie accessories designer. Finally landing in the Girls Dolls and Plush Department, my office was next to the Barbie designers, who became my good friends.
At first, I was worried that the book was going to be another Barbie bashing or, on the other side of the spectrum, full of Barbie fluff.
After reading The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie, I have to say "Bravo" to Tanya Lee Stone!  The message that stands out to me is that girls can do anything. And, I believe that exact phrase was a Mattel advertising tagline one year. Ruth Handler persevered in so many ways - by making things work when everyone said no, by crushing the stereotypical '50s housewife image, by recognizing the new TV advertising medium, etc.

March of last year, Barbie turned 50 and on my blog I wrote about my own personal love of Barbie. Regarding Barbie's negative stereotype:
Grandma cut off some of her own hair and glued it onto Barbie's private parts. Yup. This is how an adult saw Barbie - a grown-up mature woman. To me, Barbie was years of the best play imaginable. The creation of Barbie's life in my mind was priceless.

The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie is a five-star interesting nonfiction read for girls of all ages. The flow of the book is seamless from the beginnings of Ruth Handler's imagination, through the process of Barbie's rising star.  This includes the impact of the revolution of plastic manufacturing, the embracing of diversity, Barbie as an art form, and, of course, the controversies - peppered with fabulous, thought-provoking quotes from Barbie fans and critics. 

As a child, my Barbie play was a treasure-trove of stories and adventures. Barbie's house and town was a mixture of the family couch and lots of blocks and boxes. Barbie's clothes fascinated me - I loved her bright, blue patent leather coat and neon go-go dress. And, as for my self image, my mom told me that I was prettier than all the girls on her soap operas.

Toy and doll history can be used in the classroom to support curriculum in Social Studies, and American and European History. Kids can relate to toys and dolls.  Last November in my Play and Creativity in the Classroom presentation at the Chicago Toy and Game Fair, I shared with teachers how to combine toys and play with social studies, science, and math curriculums. In my I.N.K. post last year, Interesting Nonfiction and Toys, I shared a variety of toy-related nonfiction books.

Last year when my ten-year-old son was having a difficult time picking an appropriate book for his class nonfiction unit, I handed him Toys! Amazing Stories Behind Some Great Inventions by Don Woulffson - now his favorite book. 
I say, give them something that they can relate to - and I know most kids can relate to toys... and Barbies.

Speaking of fun...
Have to mention that I was recently asked to act as Consulting Editor for Appleseeds Let's Play Issue. I'm also writing some extremely fun articles for the issue... almost doesn't feel like work.  And, isn't that what it's all about? Having fun with whatever we do?

Happy Halloween!!!

That Last Two Percent

One thing that many folks don’t know about me— unless they’ve seen one of my keynotes— is that I am a photographer. I’ve been taking photos since I was 11. Decades of travel have given me a library of 60,000 wildlife and landscape photos from Madagascar to Michigan. But until recently, they only appeared as small spot photos in my book. Words are a passion and I’ve been working professionally mostly in that realm; it wasn’t until scanners and iphoto became available that I could efficiently organize my photo content.

Still, even though I’m now doing several books illustrated entirely with my photos, I’m not sure I’d say I’m a master photographer. I’d say I can get 98% on a photo. Solid focus, composition, inspired subject, and sometimes fortunate timing. But then, there’s that 2%. Ah, that last 2%. That’s what takes time–gobs of time. Most of a photographer’s time.

What does that extra 2% look like? Take a peek at the kingfisher diving photos/article by Andy Rouse. Click on the photos to see larger versions of his exquisite work. The dripping bird clutching the fish. The water droplets. The water entry. Ahhhh. You are there.

http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0905/ar0905-1.html

That last 2% is what makes a master photographer. That extra boost of quality is what takes the most skill and preparation and dedication. It’s the days/weeks/months spent in those waders, setting up blinds, studying behavior to catch just the right moment. Those photos are nonfiction dreams. They are beauty. I think lots of us, with our fancy digital cameras, great lenses can do such consistent good work that we’ve forgotten what GREAT work is in the photo world.

Sometimes I pause to look at the Outdoor Photographer’s Network (http://www.naturephotographers.net/) just to appreciate what photo artisans on this level can do. The group includes passionate amateurs and professionals; some of the photos are glorious.

What does it take to get that extra 2% in the world of photography? Andy Rouse describes the work he did just to set up and photograph kingfishers on the nest in this article.

http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0705/ar0705-1.html

And his preparations are relatively tame compared to the stories you hear about photographers trying to photograph elusive bears or cats.

Jeff and I sometimes come across these same folks in far flung birding hotspots. Like us, they know the right time of year, the right marsh to photograph a Blackpoll Warbler, or whatever else is “in season.” They are putting in the time.

Meanwhile, I am putting in my time, to do that extra 2% on my nonfiction writing. Oh, I can get to the 98%. Solid content, specific details, fluid writing. But the extra something—the voice, the surprising details, the joy, the propulsion in the writing—is what is sometimes elusive, even for seasoned writers like me. That’s where skill, passion, time, and pure doggedness are needed.

In the last few days, my 2% has been some endmatter for a book no editor has seen, and perhaps no one will every buy. Who knows? It is not finished yet. I’m not letting it out of my hands until I can make it sing.

Oh, that main text came in a great whoosh, like a gift, fully formed. But I want more for this book. I am weeks in, deep in to the endmatter: consulting world experts, experimenting with ultraviolet lights and magnifying glasses, emailing people in small towns in Wisconsin and Michigan who mentioned something on the Internet about . . . well, about the subject of my book. Here we go. I am diving in.

Of course, I might be convinced to take a break late next year to write text for a certain photographer’s kingfisher book should some editor ask me . . . ;-)

Uh oh, distracted from that last 2%. Don't abandon ship! Focus. Focus. Finish!

TRICKY SUBJECT, THORNY ISSUES

I’ve been writing about Phillis Wheatley, the eighteenth century slave poet from Boston who published her one (and only) book of poems at the age of nineteen. She was the first African American woman, indeed the first African American, to publish a book. She was a celebrity in Boston, and lionized by the aristocracy in London. She met Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, who praised her “great Poetical talents.”

Wheatley was educated by her owners. She also learned the social graces of a proper white girl, became a devout Christian, and remembered virtually nothing of Africa where she was captured and enslaved at age seven. Phillis Wheatley was freed when she was nineteen, but still lived at the Wheatley mansion.

Three weeks after her owner died, she married a bounder who abandoned her and their three babies (who all died in infancy.) Wheatley herself died in a squalid boardinghouse at age thirty. Many children’s biographies have been written about her and most of them focus on her triumphs. But in the world of adult scholarship, things aren’t so rosy.

Since her death in 1784, her reputation has waxed and waned. She and her poetry were praised in the sentimental nineteenth century. Twentieth century feminists championed her for writing at all (her poetry is hard to take today,) while black activists vilified her as an early Aunt Jemima. Now, in the twenty-first century I want to tell her story and talk about how history has treated her. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard scholar and no stranger to controversy, has laid out the territory in his Library of Congress Jefferson lecture, published as The Trials of Phillis Wheatley.

In telling her story I don’t shy away from her best-known, most-anthologized, and most-reviled poem, written when she was but fourteen.

On Being Brought From Africa to America.

‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

“Their colour is a diabolic die.”

Remember, Christians, Negros black as Cain,

May be refin’d and join th’angelic train.

It’s easy to see why she was called “a colonial handerchief head” and “utterly irrelevant to the identification and liberation of the black man[!].” But I see black pride in this poem too: black and white folks are equal before her God. Her gratitude for the “mercy” of slavery is harder to accept, especially when you look beyond her seat on the sofa in the Wheatley parlor. But hey, she was only fourteen. Later on, she wrote against her literal slavery, and called out her Boston neighbors who used the term as a metaphor.

So, tricky subject with a controversial history makes life for this biographer more complicated than for earlier hagiographical writers who ignored these thorny issues. But it’s more fun too.

This I Know

Recently I mentioned to my son that I had just received my certificate to teach social studies in the state of New Jersey. Duly unimpressed by my Ivy League credentials, his immediate response was, “You don’t really know anything, do you?” I’d like to say I had a quick-witted, knowledgeable retort at the ready but no such luck. After thinking (well, sulking) about it for awhile I realized what my reply should have been: “No, but I know how to look things up.”

The truth is I don’t have the complete history of civilization memorized. And what I learned in college is a lot fuzzier than it used to be. But the research skills I gained there are still very much intact. In my writing area, I have numerous books within arms reach to go to as soon as I need to remember or have a better understanding of something. Not surprisingly, many of my most often used reference materials are children’s nonfiction.

Thinking about a new topic and want to put it in historical perspective? I always reach for Joy Hakim’s A History of US. It’s beautifully written and will inevitably tell you what you want to know and something else you hadn’t thought of before. (If anyone is looking for a holiday gift for a favorite blogger, I’d love the complete 11 volume set. For now I make do with a couple of volumes and a trip to the library).

I always seem to have yet another question about a President so I use Presidents. A Time for Learning Book by Melissa Blackwell Burke. I think I haphazardly picked this book up on sale in a Target or Kmart but I’ve had it for years and pull it off the shelf often. My American History Desk Reference by Scholastic is a used copy I scooped up for $4.95 on a wonderful trip to Powell’s bookstore in Portland. Tons of everything one needs in here, including a fascinating facts column for each state. Yes, I sometimes read those just for the fun of it.

I’ve lent out Kathleen Krull’s A Kids’ Guide to America’s Bill of Rights several times but I’m very persnickety about having it returned to me. Although people would like to believe that three years of law school means that a person can knowledgably answer any question on American jurisprudence that is unfortunately not the case. This book certainly helps.

I also use children’s nonfiction for everything from knitting, to crafting, to word synonyms. These books fill my shelves and provide much of what I need to stuff the knowledge gap. I have another book on my shelf, one of Eleanor Roosevelt’s biographies entitled, This I Remember. For me, that would be a much bigger problem.

Are Picture Books Dead?

UPDATE: One of the commenters on this post pointed out that Amanda Gignac was badly misquoted, or quoted out of context, by the New York Times in the article I refer to. Apparently, her misquote has been perpetuated widely on the internet and I am one of the perpetuators. I hereby offer my apology to Ms. Gignac and I will delete two somewhat sarcastic remarks I made in the original version of this post. Her account of what happened and her commentary, can be found on her book blog, The Zen Leaf: http://zenleaf.amandagignac.com, and I urge you to read it.

Despite the unfortunate aspects of this kerfuffle (Ms. Gignac's appropriate word for it), and without meaning disprespect singled out at any individual, it does remain the case that the push for higher test scores and faster achievement in reading has taken a toll on the attitude toward picture books held by many schools, parents and even children. Many of us find that to be a disturbing and counterproductive trend.

David

Did you see the obituary for picture books that appeared earlier this month in the New York Times? You can read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/us/08picture.html

The title of the article is "Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children" but that title understates the purported demise of the picture book. Not only are sales way down and shelf space in bookstores vastly diminished, not only are publishers cutting way back on the number of picture books they're willing to publish each year, but parents are forbidding their children to even peek at the nasty things. That's right, there are parents out there -- plenty of them -- who seem to think that picture books are hazardous to their child's intellectual health. For example, we get to meet Amanda Gignac, who writes a book blog, and whose son started reading chapter books at 4. At 6 1/2, Laurence is forbidden to regress in his reading. "He would still read picture books now if we let him," says the boy's mom. But, according to the New York Times, both parents are firm in their mission to allow only chapter book. But wait a minute... there is one other thing we get to learn about this boy from his mother: "He is still a 'reluctant reader.'"

Well, in their comments, readers of this article excoriated the attitude held by parents such as the Gignacs. I had expected people to pay tribute to some of the unforgettable picture book characters that we all know and love, characters we would hate to have grown up without. But most of the comments focused on the benefits of the pictures in picture books, how they aid in the intellectual and emotional development of children, how they open up worlds of imagination and thought, and how a childhood without them would be an impoverished childhood.

I have no disagreement with any of those sentiments. But for a moment let's forget about the splendid illustrations and beloved fictional characters we'd have to kiss good-bye in a world without picture books, and let's mourn the loss of non-fiction picture books. Not the illustrations and photographs -- magnificent as they often are -- but the concepts and text. Let's imagine a young child like Laurence Gignac totally deprived of them. Here's what I want to know: If he were limited to non-fiction literature outside the picture book section of his local library or bookstore, if he shunned all those big, thin books with pictures in addition to words on every page, would his intellectual capacities develop more rapidly or less rapidly? Comparing the picture book world of non-fiction with the low- or no-picture book world, is the only difference in the reading level? Or is something else missing in that pictureless world?

Here is where I want your help. I think we should compile a running list of non-fiction picture books that have no counterpart whatsoever in the other, more "grown-up," world of chapter books. My hunch is that for every author of this blog, there are oodles, and the same for the zillions of other excellent books by other excellent authors. I'll get you started with one of my own, and then it's going to be your turn.

I might as well pick my first book, How Much Is a Million? It's celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and it's still going strong in both hardcover and paperback (and in a number of languages). I guess somebody must be reading it! The book offers mind-bending ways to picture the numbers one million, one billion and one trillion and gives the reader concrete ways to wrap their minds around the difference in magnitude between those three oft-used but poorly-understood big numbers. For example, if you counted non-stop from one to one million, it would take you about 23 days ... if you counted non-stop to a billion it would take about 95 years ... and to a trillion you'd be at it for 200,000 years! Big diff, eh?

Can anyone show me a chapter book that would lead precocious children to a better understanding of what happens to a number when you put three zeros after it? Does such a book exist? If so, I haven't seen it. Interestingly, since my book came out, a few other authors have tackled similar material in fascinating, original ways. But they're all picture books.

So how about if each reader of this blog (including but not limited to the authors of this blog, who need not be shy about pushing their own books) chimes in with just one example of a non-fiction picture that contributes to the education of its readers in a unique way that has no parallel in the world of more advanced chapter books. We'll put together a list, just to keep track of what humankind will be missing if the portentous trend described in the New York Times continues. We may not have any new picture books, but least we'll have our list!

Serendipity

Almost ten years ago I met the writer/illustrator Debra Frasier at a Children’s Literature Festival in Idaho. She told me that one of her greatest moments in her life was narrating her picture book “On the Day You Were Born” accompanied by a full symphony
orchestra. Standing at the podium, hearing the music surrounding her, she said, was an extraordinary experience. I must admit I was a little jealous. I mean I could do that. Stand up there and read one of my books. I could listen to the sound of violins and cellos and flutes washing over me. How wonderful would that be? Alas I hadn’t written a book that would qualify for such a thing. But from time to time I thought about Debra and her story. Remembering it gave me a vicarious thrill.

So you can imagine my excitement when, by chance, I found myself on a plane seated next to David Robinson, the musical director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Sandra Jordan and I were just finishing the third or fourth draft of Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring. David and I chatted about the book and the music. He could actually hum the whole score, which Aaron Copland had composed for Martha Graham’s dance first performed in 1944, when America had entered WWII. Isamu Noguchi had designed the sets. It was a great collaboration between choreographer, composer, and artist. I told David we were having trouble describing the last, lingering notes of the music. “They seem to ask ‘What will happen tomorrow?’ ” David said. Yes! I mentioned that I had a vision of the text narrated with illustrations, accompanied by the music. I wanted the book to make a contribution to family concerts, a modern alternative to Peter and the Wolff. I wanted to stand up like Debra and hear the full orchestra playing behind me. (I didn’t tell David that part of it.)

He was enthusiastic about the idea, as one of his interests is showing audiences the way the arts interconnect. Two years from that serendipitous meeting, Ballet for Martha was presented with the St. Louis Symphony performing Appalachian Spring. Brian Floca’s illustrations appeared on an overhead screen. We were all there, Sandra, Brian, and our editor Neal Porter. It was exhilarating! In November there will be four performances for younger audiences of Appalachian Spring, along with the narration and images from Ballet for Martha. I guess you’re wondering if I will be up there narrating. Well, no. David, himself, will read excerpts from the text with the images overhead. The orchestra will play fragments of the music as they relate to the story, followed by the complete symphony. As for me, I’ll be sitting happily in the first row with my grandchildren and humming along. But I’m working on the next performance, which will be in Aspen, Colorado next summer. Maybe that will be my big chance!!!

Come on Barbie, Let's Go Party!

My post this month is going to be a tad different than usual because I firmly believe that every milestone in this tough business of ours should be celebrated—and that’s exactly what I did last night. Celebrate.

You may think that nonfiction books and a rockin’ party don’t go together—but you would be wrong! Last night was the official launch party for my new book The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll’s History and Her Impact on our Culture. And let me tell you, people were In the House to celebrate nonfiction!

The place: Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, Vermont.
The time: 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday evening.
The crowd: SRO!



Even after a long day of working, shuttling kids to play rehearsals and soccer games, nonfiction aficionados showed up to usher in this newest addition to the Dewey Decimal shelves. There were parents, teachers, librarians, and kids armed with questions (as well as a few Barbie dolls). Who says nonfiction is dead? Phooey!

On hand were Karen Pike--the photographer I hired for the bulk of the interior images--and Peter Harrigan--the theatre professor/Barbie collector who made the photos possible.

The questions from the audience were fabulous. We talked about writing process, how do you know when it’s time to stop your research, and the many, many cultural questions that come up when people start to talk about Barbie.

The question I addressed first seems to be the most frequent and obvious one surrounding the publication of this book. The question posed to me, in its many forms, always comes from this place: “YOU wrote a book about Barbie? Really? Barbie? You?”

Although I actually anticipated and dreaded this questions several months ago, now I really enjoy it. Why? Because the question is at the heart of why any nonfiction writer (any writer, really) chooses to write about a topic—and why they are the right person to tackle it. It opens up all kinds of avenues for thought and discussion.

Yes, I often write what might be called feminist books, or books that have at the heart of them a desire to empower girls. And yes, on the surface, the topic of Barbie seems at odds with that. But that’s what’s so fantastic about immersing yourself in a topic of nonfiction, looking at the back story, discovering the who, what, why, where, and when of a topic, looking at it from all sides and ultimately synthesizing an understanding of it.

I won’t give away what my conclusions are, lest I be accused of treading into Spoiler territory. But I will tell you that every time I answer the question of “Why, why, why, would YOU of all people choose to write about Barbie?” I am rewarded with the facial changes, head nodding, and verbal feedback that indicate I have made a connection with my audience. I have expressed myself. I have initiated a thought process out in the world that leads to discussion.

This is why I write nonfiction. And THAT is definitely something to celebrate.

So come on Barbie, let’s go party!

Finding books and more by (yes) tweeting

I should resolve to never say never and avoid any future dining upon my own verbiage. Anyway, I joined Twitter in September on a vague impulse. It soon turned out to be a fun way to find all sorts of links to interesting things and interact with people that might be difficult to find otherwise. As a newbie there’s a great deal I don‘t know, but already Twitter is  proving to be an excellent way to find the “headines” and online resources in my interest areas. Tweets may be queries, requests, announcements, observations, mini-rants, or whatever else people want to say in 140 characters or less. 

A few examples (from early October...had to write this post in advance):

Saskateach I am hunting 4 fiction, non fiction books about math. If u have any great books to share I wld appreciate it #mathchat #edchat #elemchat

readingrockets My People: Our video interview with poet, writer & photographer Charles R. Smith, Jr. http://ow.ly/2PER9 #kidlit

RBLib The Cybils, a literary award given by kidlit bloggers, is accepting nominations until October 15: http://www.cybils.com/

thompseg The #elemchat Daily is out - read this Twitter newspaper on http://bit.ly/cHmitK (30 contributions today)

ChildWillRead Vote for the 2010 Educators Tool of the Year (all tech of course!) http://bit.ly/avmGGF #edtech #elemchat #edchat #parenting #lrnchat

The abbreviations and hashtags (such as #edchat) can be off-putting at first, but they serve a purpose, especially the latter. Though you can follow people (receive their tweets on your home page), you have the ability to find anyone talking about particular topics by searching on terms and/or hashtags. For example, a search on alligators brought up this intriguing tweet:

NatGeoSociety What's transforming Florida alligators into mindless #zombies? http://on.natgeo.com/cxHQch #weird #video

Hashtags are abbreviations for a topic area that allow users to find tweets in an instant about, say, education. You can search on multiple tags to narrow down the results. A few of the books and education hashtags I’ve seen so far include:

#authors

#classroom

#ece               early childhood education
#edchat          education chat

#edtech          education technology

#education
#edubk           books about teaching
#elearning      electronic learning
#elemchat      elementary education chat
#elemed         elementary education

#k12
#kedu             kindergarten education
#kidlit             children’s literature
#lessonplans

#librarians

#literacy

#nonfiction

#pblit              picture book literature

#PLN             personal learning network
#STEM          science, technology, engineering, math          

#teacher

#titletalk         about books

#yalit              young adult literature 

Chats such as #edchat are a scheduled event during which bunches of Twitter people chime in on a particular topic. Recently I participated in a #mathchat on the topic “Does ‘mathphobia exist - how do we deal with it?” that garnered quite a few participants. I get the impression that some people use the “chat” hashtags all the time, whether a chat is actually going on or not.

If you haven’t already taken the plunge, try Twitter and see how it may fit into your online experience. And please feel free to follow me @LoreenLeedy.

Letting Content Dictate Form

I had the pleasure of attending and the privilege of speaking at the Rutger's One-on-One Plus Children's Literature Conference this past Saturday. It's a wonderful conference, and I always learn a lot. For example, there was a great panel on social media, given by Deborah Sloan, Alvina Ling, and Katie Davis. If you want to read tweets about the conference, follow #rcclbuzz.

(O.K., how cool and in the know do I sound?)

I was a mentor to a young woman who is working on a non-fiction picture book. She has a great idea, but is struggling with the form. (Or at least I think she is!) As I sat there giving her advice, I realized that the advice I was giving her was advice that I am giving myself as I dive deeper into a huge nonfiction project that has me at times excited beyond belief and at other times terrified beyond beyond. In fact, the advice I was giving her, as well as some tips I wanted to give in my speech (I ran out of time), are kernels of wisdom I have gleaned from others over the years. Although I have written this post to writers, I am hoping that teachers and librarians can use it with their students, not only to help them with their writing, but also to help them read and analyze books. Why did the author choose this format? Why is it a picture book? Middle grade? YA? Why did she structure the book in the way she did? For example, why did she start in the middle of the story and work backwards? What is the climax of the story? Did that happen in the middle of the story or is it just in the middle of the book? Why are there sidebars? Photos or illustrations? And of course, what sources did she use? How did she get her stuff?

Herewith, advice to writers who are feeling caught in the jungle of a new or confusing project, hoping that it will help writers and readers, too:

*Isaac Bashevis Singer asked himself a series of questions before he began to write any book. Although Singer was a preeminent fiction writer (if you haven't read him, please do), I think his questions are essential for narrative nonfiction as well. Here are his questions: Is this a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end? Do I have to write this story? Am I the only person to write it?

I think if you answer yes to the first two, you should write the book. If you can also answer yes to the third one, you should write the book and feel blessed the whole time you are doing it.

*When I was first starting the project I'm working on now, I panicked because I was worried that the way I wanted to structure the book wasn't going to work. I was not finding the information I needed to structure it that way. When my editor asked me how it was going and I told her, she said, "Don't let the form dictate the content, let the content dictate the form." Further, she encouraged me to read wide, and keep open about the structure and even the content. So that is just what I am doing, and I although I still don't know how the book is going to be structured, I am trying to stay loose and relaxed about it. (If you know me, stop laughing, please.)

*Recently I read a fantastic interview with John McPhee in the Paris Review and he added to that advice: "Structure is not a template. It's not a cookie cutter. It's something that arises organically from the material once you have it." If you want to read some more John McPhee brilliance, go here. And better yet, buy or borrow the hard copy because I'm not sure it's all on line. He talks, in this article, about what to do if you are reporting something and the best thing happens at the very beginning of your reporting. This could happen, and has happened to me, in researching history as well. You can't change the order of how things really happened, but you can structure your book or article in the way you want to so that the exciting thing happens where you want it to.

*When you find yourself trying to make stuff up in non-fiction, it means that your story isn't deep enough. You don't deepen it by adding a fictional voice, you deepen it by doing more research. I told my "mentee" that for a picture book of 1,000 words or so, she might have fifty pages of typed notes from her research. Strong young woman, she, she just kept nodding. There were no tears (thank goodness).

*I leave you with this; it's a window into my world right now and is just another way of looking at this process. For my new project I read a memoir by an early 20th century policeman. He wrote: "I've always gone to a sudden death prepared to regard it as a possible murder. But I don't go with the conviction that I've got to make it a murder, and there's a wide distinction. The years have shown me that no officer has the right to accept the first evidence as conclusive."

I have to go now, and see where this project is going to take me next. Let's hope it's not down a dark alley.