Inspiration in Amsterdam and Sofia

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to tag along on a mini book tour of my husband's. They were publishing editions of his latest book in The Netherlands and Bulgaria and his publishers asked him to come give talks in three places: Amsterdam; Gent, Belgium; and Sofia, Bulgaria. I'd always wanted to visit Amsterdam. Belgium sounded nice, but when he said Bulgaria, I said, "I'm coming!" When else would I have a chance to go there?

I can't tell you about the whole trip in a short piece (though I would love to), but I will tell you about one thing from each place.

First, the thing that "blew my mind" in Amsterdam. No, not that. I was too jet-lagged. The Anne Frank house. I knew I would have to go there. I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was in sixth grade. I'll never forget the moment I finished it, at a family gathering at my grandparents' apartment. I adored everyone in that apartment, and yet when I closed the book, in hysterical tears, I looked at my grandparents, my parents, my aunts and uncles, my older cousins, and I thought: I hate you. I hated them why? Because they never told me. My younger son had the same reaction when he first learned about the Holocaust in Sunday School. Of course this is not about not being told, it's about learning it for the first time for yourself. Experiencing the horrors of the world unfiltered in some way. That happened to me again in the museum that is in Anne Frank's hideout. Walking through the rooms where Anne and her family hid out, reading Anne's words, looking at photographs of Anne and her family, and the others, touching things Anne might have touched, I was deeply moved. Walking through with a crowd of other people from all over the world, all of us silent, was an emotional experience. Thinking of Anne experiencing first (and last) love in those rooms, was almost unbearable. Reading her gorgeous words, her genius that was snuffed out by evil, I was near tears. But it wasn't until the end that I was walloped.

The people at that museum know how to tell a story.

When you get to the end, there are videos of people talking not about Anne, but about her sister Margot. Saying things such as (not an exact quote), "I don't know why they focused on Anne. It was Margot who was special, brilliant..." At first I was upset because this felt like a betrayal of Anne. Then I realized with a thunk: It's all about Margot, isn't it? Because of course Margot was special. Of course her friends would think it was her story that should be told. And how many friends of the millions upon millions of people who were killed in Germany and Poland and etc. by Hitler and co, and in Russia and Lithuania by Stalin and co, and etc. etc. etc. would think that it was their friend whose story should be told? You get to the end of Anne's story and you are not allowed to feel grief about just her life. You have to multiply it by an unimaginable number. And that is, of course the beauty of Anne's story--it is particular and it is universal. But hearing about Margot makes the whole thing overwhelming. Why didn't anyone ever tell me about MARGOT?

Yes, folks. That is the way to tell a story. I understand it's a temporary exhibit. I hope they keep it there always.

I spent only a day in Gent. During that time I did the most important thing one can do in Belgium: I bought chocolate. And ate chocolate. Also pizza. (If it was Wednesday, it was Belgium. I have to go back.) I also got to know a young woman, an academic, who I hope I will see again.

Bulgaria. O.K. first, a confession. I was working on a deadline, and I did no research before we left. I had no idea where exactly Bulgaria is (well, I did look on our shower curtain map) or what the history was (other than Soviet Bloc, Balkan, Iron Curtain...). Fortunately that didn't matter because we had the most amazing hosts in the world. Not only did they set up tons of interviews for my husband (something like 15, including at least four on TV!), not only did they create a book with the best cover of all the editions so far (in my humble opinion),

not only did his book launch include the most famous actress in Bulgaria, a "living legend," Tatyana Lolova, who is a great comedian and singer, not only did they feed us sumptuous meals (once I told them I love eggplant they ordered every eggplant dish on the menu), not only did they take us around Sofia and in an hour and a half tell us everything they possibly could and probably everything we needed to know, not only did they do all of this and more, but they also did what I thought might be impossible for two middle-aged writers: they inspired us about the future of books, and nonfiction books in particular.

Sofia is a wreck of a city in many ways. Huge Soviet buildings--concrete, ugly, covered in graffiti dominate. Public buildings are vandalized regularly. People steal the metal railings to sell to factories. Everywhere we went there were missing banisters, chopped up streets, boarded up windows. Crime is king--not violent crime, but corrupt government, bribes, organized crime... The fashion for men is to look like a crime lord. And YET in this environment there is a small but strong and vocal segment of the population--dominated, I gather, from our delightful hosts--that is determined to foment intellectualism.

Hristo, who is only 26, reads books from morning until night. He has a blog (sadly only in Bulgarian) in which he writes about books that he loves. His job is to read books in English for the publisher, East West, and recommend which ones they should translate. ("Can you believe it? It is my dream job--to read all day!") His current dream is to build a small private free library so people can borrow wonderful books --because there is nothing like that in Sofia. He is raising the money by selling books he's read, delivering them himself on his bicycle. Spending about 48 hours with Hristo and with Petyo, Jon's translator for the visit, who knows 40 languages!, and with Leyuban, the head of East West, and his wife, Girgi, restored my faith in the future of books and intellectualism and even in the possibility of peace through words. O.K. maybe it was all that yogurt. But I felt renewed optimism in that former Soviet Bloc country. It may be seriously dysfunctional, but there is wireless everywhere.

They might publish Charles and Emma in Bulgarian. I hope so, even just so they ask us back. When we parted at the airport, we felt like we were leaving family. I think we were.

I hope to see some of you at ALA this weekend. I will be presenting at the nonfiction book blast, and signing at three different booths. Come say hi!

Avoidance

So, all day long I have been avoiding the great, steaming outdoors - is this Borneo or is this Missouri in June? what's the dif? I ask myself, i.e. you guys, knowing well that there may well be among you, adventurous souls who have, in fact, been to Borneo, as I have not, but then, how many of you have sweated out a summer afternoon in Missouri, which leaves you feeling like a used tea bag? In any case, grateful I am for the luxury of air conditioning and having manuscript revisions to do and have done all this, as is said, the live long day. And what about? The West & our nation's cruel, ghastly, heroic, make-or-break, inevitable expansion thither - oh baybee, can you tell that I've been watching Poirot on PBS? Well, what's the use of being a writer if one can't toss around words such as thither every once in a while?

In truth, I haven't been writing so very much, but rather, letting myself be diverted with painting and genealogy [What I wouldn't give to know what Michael Peter Harness, b. 1 Jan 1699 in York, PA; & his wife Elizabeth, b. 1706, & their 13 kids LOOKED & SOUNDED like! and what in the hell was my great-grandmother's NAME, for crying out loud and why didn't I have the sense to ask my elders before they got their tickets punched?], and fiddle lessons and visiting my friend Natalie Kinsey-Warnock up in Vermont [man oh man oh man, we went on a car trip –

Here's a car song for you, sung to Mr. Sandman:

Mr. Slowpoke!

Get out of the way!

We want to get there sometime today!

You poop along like an old tomater!

Why don't you step on the accelerator?!

Mr. Slowpoke!

What is the deal?

Are you like dead up there at your steering wheel?

We're begging you to please go fast!

Mr. Slowpoke, step on the gas!

– to Campobello Island, where I had the bittersweet honor of standing in the doorway of the room in which Franklin Roosevelt sweated and suffered, with the polio's terrifying onslaught, 90 years ago this summer. I had the privilege of writing & illustrating FDR's & ER's story years ago... the book was in print maybe three or four months, the world being rotten...] and sculpting [an example in the picture here], knowing all the while there was writing to be done. So, when I no longer could avoid it, I set myself to typing on an actual contracted manuscript, the first in too g.d. long a while. I gave myself up to cutting and pasting, to looking things up, Googling, paging through one or the other of my encyclopedia and 26-or-so or so books lined up in a tidy row on the floor beside this desk. What a far out deal, rediscovering what fun writing is, once you tackle the hard part: Getting started.

So I've been obsessing over finding the clearest, most concise way of explaining such things as the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the fur trade, and the National Road, which was begun two centuries ago this year, just for you to know. Happily obsessing until I have to explain the Black Hawk War of 1832. If I hadn't, I'd never have known that old Black Hawk, the prisoner, was taken back east and exhibited a la spoils of war, to the hoi polloi or ever read, shuddering, an account of what happened one summer morning on the banks of the Mississippi. Jeez, there's no avoiding the fact that our kind's history is a nasty & cockeyed caravan. Still, I'm busting to get back to it, first thing in the morning.

Treats

When I was in grad school, I worked as a baker making cookies, pastries, muffins, and bread. I even fried donuts every Friday morning, coming in to work at 2 a.m. (ugh) to get the dough ready and then hovering over a vat of hot grease as the donuts puffed up and rose to the surface, sizzling.

I was chronically sleep-deprived. I burned my hands and forearms sliding trays into and out of the huge oven. I had to wear a hairnet. Plenty not to love about being a baker.

And yet. And yet—on many levels, it was a deeply satisfying job. It was creative, for one thing: the sparest of ingredients (plain flour, water, baking powder, yeast…) could be transformed into a huge variety of beautiful products: chewy rye bread, flaky Danish, melt-in-your-mouth butter cookies, tender muffins bursting with berries.

It was also fun to work in a place where people were generally happy. They were treating themselves, spending time with a friend, picking up a little something for a celebration. Not too many Grumpy Gusses go to bakeries.

Perhaps most important to me, though, was that the job offered immediate gratification (and I don’t mean snack-wise, though I did sometimes sample what I was making.) Often at the end of my shift I would find myself stepping back to look at the shelves of fragrant baked goods—toasty brown, just asking to be enjoyed—and feel this enormous sense of pride and abundance. I had done a good day’s work. I had accomplished something—and row upon row of cookies-muffins-toothsome treats was proof.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve had to learn in becoming a writer, in fact, dealt with just that: Where is the proof I got anything done today? Did I make any real progress on structuring my story, on understanding the people who will populate my book? Stepping back at the end of the day, the shelves sometimes seem empty. Where’s all the pumpernickel and rye?? Where are my two dozen cream cheese Danish???

It used to freak me out when I first started writing full-time: I’d work all day, be utterly brain-dead at the end of it (just ask my husband), and there’d be nothing to ‘show’ for it. Some days I didn’t write a single word, or if I did, it was only to scrawl notes from a reference book. Some days were spent in the library, searching (in vain) for some biographical detail or perfect quote. On days like that, I sometimes wondered if I had even justified the $2.50 I spent to park my car in the university library parking lot.

I felt guilty and a bit like a fraud. It seemed weird how much of the time writing a nonfiction book did not involve writing at all.

But all the groundwork, all that pre-writing, is essential. It can take months of research until you uncover enough information and have a good enough sense of your topic to write even the first line. The poking around, the meandering side-trips that look promising but then end up going nowhere, the incremental building of a base of knowledge—they are all part of the process.

I’ve learned to measure progress not by days but by stages: Getting to know my characters? Check. Getting a sense of the story I want to tell? Check. Tossing the six or eight or ten wrong starting places for the right one? Check. I’ve learned to embrace the concept working on faith—faith in the integrity of my story and in its need to be told—to sustain myself through the long slog of doubting whether I will be able to tell it. I’ve learned to keep working on faith until the story takes on a life of its own, and I can hold on, try to keep up, and try to stay out of the way.

I’ve come to understand that a writer actively writes (pen to paper or fingers on the keyboard)—taking an idea from first draft to revisions to finished product—to get a handle on the story, and that an author can’t truly know a story until s/he writes it down. But before the actual writing starts, there is important work to be done—work that can’t always be shown or proven or sometimes even verbalized in any way that would make sense to anyone else. But important work, nonetheless.

It’s a longer incubation period than whipping up a batch of crispy, chewy raisin oatmeal cookies, to be sure. But when the story finally comes together? Tasty, toasty, satisfying, indeed.

Making information interactive

As part of my quest in recent months to get my arms around the changes in publishing due to digital books, I’ve been exploring interactivity. How can it transform the static page of a print book into a place for readers to explore in new ways?

For this example, let’s explore some interactive ideas about lions using the simple ability to Hide or Show an image or text string. In other words, things can appear or disappear when the Reader taps on the screen:

• Pop-up labels to identify body parts
• Show layers under the skin: muscles, skeleton (i.e. the skin and muscle layers vanish as needed)
• A timeline of lion evolution with thumbnail images that can be enlarged
• Images that can zoom way in to show details of eyes, hair, teeth
• A time-lapse sequence of photos of a growing cub
• African map with lion’s range from historic times through today into a projected future
• Switching out altered photos of a white or black lion to demonstrate how real lions blend into their habitat 

Other options include adding audio of roaring, video of how a lion runs, an interview with a biologist, a game comparing lions with other big cats, and so on.
Though I’m not a classroom teacher, my books certainly seek to inform students so I’m always interested in interesting ideas in education. Recently, I came across a PDF called Interactive Techniques, compiled by Dr. Kevin Yee of the University of Central Florida. There are 182 tips listed, many which could be translatable into an interactive book app. Here are a few:

33. Misconception check: Discover class’s preconceptions...
For a nonfiction ebook, there could be an opening section that explores common myths about the topic. The reader could tap on the text and the myths could melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West, or some other fun effect.

41. Concept mapping: Students write keywords onto sticky notes and then organize them into a flowchart...
How about including a section in the digital book for Readers to move around and organize facts in various ways? They could take a screenshot of their work to save it.

131. Question and Answer Cards: Make index cards for every student in the class; half with questions about class content; half with the right answers. Shuffle the cards and have students find their appropriate partner by comparing questions and answers on their own cards.
There could be a list of question “cards” at the beginning of the ebook, then Reader searches through the material for the answers. As each question and answer are matched up, Reader scores a point.


Speaking of information, for those I.N.K. readers interested in iPad productivity apps, I downloaded, read, and highlighted favorite ideas from Yee’s list with an excellent PDF reader app, GoodReader for iPad. The image below shows the My Documents area where your PDFs are listed. (I added the green logo.) You can browse the internet and download documents at will.

As you read along, it’s easy to highlight text:

There are a variety of ways to highlight passages, you can even draw circles, arrows, or doodles! The annotations can be viewed in a list, each entry becoming a link to allow you to jump around the PDF:

(There normally is a time stamp above each entry, but I removed them for added clarity.)

It’s going to be fun to see how information will be gathered and presented in innovative ways as the technology for creating interactive books becomes more accessible to content creators.

Loreen Leedy
my web site

All Indians Weren't Bad People

I had the pleasure of being on Neil Hally's Total Education blogtalk a few weeks ago with Vicki Cobb. The first question Neil asked me was if I'd always been interested in history, to which I had to say no. Sadly, like a lot of kids (most?) I wasn't at all intrigued by any of the history taught through 6th grade. It all seemed like a dry procession of names and dates and facts heaped upon facts. This all changed in 7th grade.*
*
On the very first day of school that year we were introduced to a new teacher, a man. I attended a parochial school and Mr. Polino was the first male teacher ever hired. He was short and stocky and tough looking, and he began class that day by standing at the front, armed folded across his chest, staring hard at us. He never said a word but he definitely did not looked pleased. Gradually, as more and more kids stopped chattering to pay attention, the room quieted. I thought, "uh, oh, this isn't going to be good" and tied to disappear behind the kid in front of me. At this point Mr. Polino said in a strong voice, "All Indians weren't bad people!"*
*
By Indians he meant Native-Americans and the initial reaction to his simple statement ranged from surprised laughter to astonished gasps to scatterings of "what's he talking about?" Mr. P. then went on to tell us that we'd all been brainwashed into believing the worst about Native-Americans by really bad TV shows and movies. This produced a gentle murmuring of protest from the class; Mr. P. responded by asking us to be honest: "When you think about Indians what are the images that come to mind immediately." Several hands shot into the air and Mr. P. called on one after the other for answers, all of which turned out to be negative stereotypes based on -- guess what -- bad TV shows and movies.*
*
I realized that Mr. P. had trapped us, but he wasn't gloating about out manueuvering us or even lecturing us on wasting our time on trashy programs. He didn't even warn us that we should do better research before forming opinions. In fact, he was actually smiling by this time and seemed almost friendly as he began talking about the Lenni Lanape people and their accomplishments. And he did this for well over an hour. Telling us about their lifestyle, what local rivers and roads bore names using their language, how they had tried to maintain their lands through various treaties only to be betrayed by white settlers. It wasn't just the details he was revealing that grabbed my attention; Mr. P. was clearly animated and passionate about the subject and you could feel that excitement in his every word, every gesture. I sat up pretty tall in my seat so I could see and hear Mr. P. clearly. Afterward, I remember thinking that a whole new world had opened before me, a world where the past held secrets that I could uncover if I just did a little bit of legwork.*
*
I think about Mr. Polino every time I start a new project. Not that I think of myself as an accomplished teacher who might inspire young readers to a life of history. I have too much respect for the heavy lifting teachers have to do to engage and inform kids. But I do tell myself to put aside the cares of the day, to focus my thoughts and energy so I can bring as much passion and excitement to whatever subject I might be writing about. Hopefully, if I can maintain that focus from start to finish, one of my books might aid and abet a teacher in opening new worlds to one or more of their students.*

Author-in-Residence: A Dream Assignment

I have had a great gig this year: author-in-residence at the Michael J. Perkins School in South Boston, a small elementary school set right in the middle of Old Colony Housing Project. Old Colony is being renovated and I was hired to work with the Perkins kids on a blog about being in the middle of a construction zone. I described more about the situation in last October's post.

As the end of the school year approaches, it's natural to look back and access the experience. Having done school visits for many years, I have always been in awe of classroom teachers. Now, I bow down to them. To see what they do every day, day after day, is amazing. To see the pressure to fulfill a state's curriculum--teach X from October 12 to November 3rd and then segue to unit Y on the 4th. To understand more fully how my coming to the classroom with extras means extra resources and richness but extra work squeezing to fit everything in, however worthy it all is.

But some great things happened this year, from K to 5. Some of the highlights:

When the kindergarteners read Mike Mulligan and his Steam Engine, they wondered what the workers on the site had named their machines. They were amazed--maybe a little horrified--when they realized those excavators and dump trucks were just called "it" or "they." That's when the Name That Crane campaign was born--the two kindergarten classes each nominated names, ran campaigns and voted for the name to call the huge crane that lifted the steel (they also learned the democratic process in the bargain, which made the See How They Run author very happy). Voting Day was very exciting, take a look.


Here are the kindergarteners at the naming ceremony--with the Big Giraffe, the newly dubbed 400-ton crane in the background. (A fine name, but I was personally rooting for Mr. Lifty! That's democracy for ya--besides I didn't get a vote.)


For National Poetry Month, one first grade class experimented with acrostic poems, which use the letters in a topic word to begin each line. Then all the lines of the poem relate to this topic. Given what was going on outside their class window, they used the word, CONSTRUCT. This poem above was one of my favorites.
One second grade class is collaborating on a book about the day in the life of a construction worker and what these men and women must do to stay safe. For one week, they spent an hour a day observing the construction site and writing down what they saw.

Then they did interviews; two workers came to their classroom to answer their questions about safety. The kids got to touch and try on the equipment so they could really understand what they were going to write about. In other words, these young kids were learning to research exactly the way we professionals do.



The fifth grade teacher asked me to come in to talk to her class to kick off their nonfiction book writing unit. While I was there I mentioned that I've found that when I'm really interested in my subject, I find that my book turns out better. So this intrepid teacher decided to abandon the "everybody writes about a person in history or an animal" assignment and let the kids pick. Pretty brave for a school where the kids have computer class once a week and no school library, really.

But the next time I came back, the kids were running with it. Give kids a choice and what do they come up with? Books about cancer, profiles of each of the ingredients in pizza, why tears are salty, the history of video games, snakes that swallow their prey whole, New Jersey's role in the Revolutionary war, and a profile of a favorite teacher--among others. Oh, and the Big Bang Theory.

Today I'm going in to show them about dummying up a book. The teacher says it's tough, it's a bit chaotic, but the kids are running with it and have never been so excited about a project. Isn't it the way it should be? Aren't they lucky? Aren't I?

Can't wait for the publishing party.

For anyone who is interested: www.michaeljperkinsschool.blogspot.com

Hanging Out with Biographers

What do a bunch of biographers talk about when they get together? I found out last month when the Biographers International Organization--aka BIO, of course--held its second annual conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. On its website, BIO is described as "the first-ever international organization to represent the everyday interests of practicing biographers: those who’ve published the stories of real lives, and those working on biographies – in every medium, from print to film." My friend Catherine Reef, author of the wonderful Jane Austen: A Life Revealed, had invited me to be on a panel with her about writing biographies for young adults. Mary Bowman-Kruhm, author of The Leakeys: A Biography, completed our trio.

About 30 people showed up for our presentation, a pretty good turnout. (I always like it when the audience outnumbers the panelists.) They were a serious, note-taking bunch, which unnerved me a little until I told myself to think of them as 10-year-olds, my favorite audience. When I shared that with them, most of them smiled. "But I'm not talking down to you," I said, and then commented that good nonfiction books for children don't talk down to readers, either.

Later that day, while I was waiting in line for the restroom, a woman noticed my panelist badge and asked which panel I was on. "Oh, my friend went to that one and told me it was really interesting," she said. Just as I was beginning to preen, she added, "My friend said that writing for kids sounds so much easier than writing for adults that she wants to give it a try." Oh really? I started to bristle, then relaxed. One of our jobs as nonfiction writers for kids is to make complex subjects understandable. Obviously my co-panelists and I had succeeded in making our craft seem accessible. I smiled as sweetly as I could and said her friend should definitely give it a try. And I meant it. Let her learn how easy it is to paint a rich portrait of a human life in only 20,000 words, or in the case of my books, a mere 8,000. Heck, let her try writing a picture book biography!

To be fair, I don't think the woman in line with me was trying to sound condescending. And most of the other biographers I met were intrigued and genuinely interested in my work when I told them I write for children. It was a terrific conference, and I only wish I had had the opportunity to attend more workshops. Among the offerings: Dealing with Black Holes in Your Subject's Life; The Role for Fiction in Biography; How to Organize Your Research; Can I Quote That? Dealing with Copyright, Fair Use, Permission; The Art of Interviewing; Using Technology in Research; and Turning Research into Narrative. The keynote speaker at the luncheon was Robert Caro, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for biography, who spoke about the power of place in biography.

The 2012 BIO conference will be in Los Angeles. Think about it. And in the meantime I'll leave you with these words from Cathy Reef's excellent talk: "A biography written at any level is so much more than a collection of facts about an individual. It is a work of literature, a portrait in words."

GOOD JOB!

Very late last night I was reading some recent posts on INK trying to jog my brain and pry loose an idea for my scheduled blog. Then it hit me! It was so easy to notice that not only do INK’s writers work incredibly hard to unearth the material in their books, but they are incredibly lucky too. This job is fun.

One of the reasons that I was writing this piece so late in the game is a case in point. At 7:00 last night, INK bloggers Dorothy Hinshaw Patent out in Missoula Montana, Vicki Cobb up in White Plains NY, and yours truly from Fairfax Station VA were having some fun by doing a live Computerside Chat via SetFocus. Entitled “Wild Women at Work,” the idea was to let viewers from multiple computers all over creation tune in to see us talk about the most exciting parts of our job; we wanted to discuss a sampling of the adventures we’ve had while ferreting out juicy facts for our books.

Vicki was the moderator, and Dorothy and I were the “wild women” who get to travel all over the planet digging up just the right fodder for our true tales. Between the two of us, we’ve done such things as sail the seas through the Bermuda Triangle, photograph wild elephants and lions from mere inches away, seek out polar bears with snowshoes for feet and hummingbirds wearing white bedroom slippers, and gain a coveted entry to the famous Lascaux Caves in France. And that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. What a deal! (Besides, these are business trips too, which are sometimes tax deductible.)

Dorothy and I also talked a lot about mining original source material, and I see from Steve Sheinkin’s blog about detective work that we must share the same brain. Ever since 1997, I’ve been calling myself a detective too - or even a spy who snoops around looking for clues. Well, clues run rampant in original source material, and the colorful language and stories we’ve found are to die for. Of course in my case, this is a very safe kind of sleuthing, since all the people I’ve been spying on are stone cold dead in the market and have been for hundreds of years.

The fun continues. I get to do all the artwork in my books, and who wouldn’t love to do that at some point in their life? Then there’s Alex Siy. Check out her first INK blog from last Thursday to see what her life is about. Or read about the excitement in Karen Romano Young’s barn on Memorial Day.

This type of fun in the real world has led directly to some of the most amazing nonfiction books kids could ever wish for. So here’s hoping that the adventures these authors undertook on behalf of writing their true tales will spill over into the lives of a few kids who read our books. Maybe they will become the writers of the future. Or the artists. Or the scientists. Or the thinkers and dreamers and inventors and adventurers. Anyway, you get the picture.

Pleasures of Homework

“Some days, I’m really more of a reader than a writer,” I told kids at a recent school visit. “I sit in libraries all day and read and take notes.”

A few kids appeared to cringe. One raised his hand and said, “So, um… you do homework for a living?”

After everyone was done laughing at my expense, I explained that I think of it more as detective work. “Okay,” I said, “maybe a nerdy kind of detective work, but still… My job is to find stories, and I read books to look for clues, follow leads, gather evidence.”

That won a few kids over, at least. But the thing is, it’s really true. And to me, those days spent following sources, never knowing where they’ll lead, are some of the most rewarding days—even when they don’t result in “useful” details or book ideas. Recently, at a used bookstore, I stumbled upon a thick volume from 1895 called Darkness and Daylight in New York, With Hundreds of Thrilling Anecdotes and Incidents, Sketches of Life and Character (and the subtitle goes on for four more lines). In the book's first section, a reformer and relief worker named Helen Campbell describes her work with New York City’s poorest. The details are vivid and shocking, and the text offers a wealth of urban street slang. At one point Campbell lists the names of homeless newsies she’s met, including Yaller, King of Bums, Snitcher, Snoddy, Kelly the Rake, Slobbery Jack, and King of Crapshooters.

I can’t begin to describe the richness of this source, so I’ll just tell one story. One day, at a charity hospital, Campbell met Jack, a boy of about eleven with “grey eyes, large and full of expression,” and a body stunted by hunger. Lying flat on his back, wrapped in splints and bandages, he told Campbell his story.

Late one rainy night, maybe a year before, he’d returned to his usual sleeping spot by the river. “I allus liked it along the docks,” he said. “You could often pick up oranges an’ bananas, an’ many a time I’ve licked molasses off the barrels.” That night another kid was curled up in Jack’s crate. “He wasn’t bigger’n a rat much,” Jack said. The kid, Buster, quickly told his tale of beatings and abandonment. “He was ‘most naked an’ hungry,” Jack said, “an’ when he dried up his eyes after a good a cry, I says to him, ‘We’ll go hunks, an’ whatever I have you shall have the same.’”

From then on, they were partners. They worked selling papers and shining shoes, but the lure of better money tempted Buster into daybreak work. “You don’t know what a Daybreak Boy is?” Jack asked Campbell. “It’s a whole gang what steals from small craft below Hell Gate, an’ sell their stealins for whatever they get, which is mostly nothing.” Jack tried to talk Buster out of stealing, but with no luck. “He liked the fun of it, an’ he was so little he could sneak in anywheres an’ he got to be a champion daybreak, an’ that tickled him.”

All the while Jack kept working, saving pennies toward the dream of moving west, and taking Buster with him. “I was awful worried over Buster,” Jack said. “I know’d if he could only get away he’d do well enough.” Jack followed rumors about his friend, and soon heard he was in hiding from the cops. Jack tracked Buster to a Lower East Side tenement, and tried to convince him to head west before it was too late. “He’d about promised me he’d do as I wanted when the woman in the next room gave the alarm.”

As the police charged up the tenement stairs, Jack and Buster climbed to the roof and ran to the building’s edge. Buster turned to Jack. “You meant to give me away, did you? Damn you!” Before Jack could deny it, Buster pushed him. Jack fell four floors to the ally below.

“He didn’t mean it,” Jack told Helen Campbell from his hospital bed. “And he got away, an’ so I don’t care, an’ he sent me word the other day that when I got well he’d go west or anywhere I wanted. So you see it’s come out pretty good. I’m so tired. I think I’m goin’ to sleep.”

Campbell said goodbye and left. A week later she got a note from a hospital nurse. Jack was dead. He'd had left a scrap of paper for Campbell, which was enclosed in the note. Campbell opened the scrap. On the paper, in shaky letters, were the words: “Please find Buster.”

Finding stories like that—that’s why I do homework for a living.

More on Henrietta Lacks

Two days ago, Vicki Cobb used Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, as the jumping-off point for a post on how authors and publishers determine a book’s length, in the process deciding how detailed a story they will tell. Before we leave the topic of Skloot’s book, I want to add my two cents. I’ve just finished reading it—actually, listening to it—and my overriding reaction is that it just might be the perfect work of nonfiction. It combines dogged reporting, extraordinary interviews, and masterful descriptions of scientific phenomena and legal and ethical issues that make complex content accessible to all.

Skloot’s book is at once a compelling detective story, an unforgettable science lesson, and perhaps the best portrait of an African-American family since Alex Haley’s Roots. Her storytelling style is reminiscent of Fannie Flagg’s in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, a book she says she used as a reference, with shifts between clearly labeled time periods that add perspective and richness to the tale. In a book about science, what one takes away first and foremost is the humanity of people whose lives were impacted after scientists at Johns Hopkins University took malignant cells from Henrietta Lacks, who died of cervical cancer 60 years ago at age 31.

I am more than a little surprised that a book on cell biology has affected me in this way. Science isn’t exactly my strong suit. Back in the early 1990s, when I was editorial director of the math and science magazines at Scholastic, my science editors used to throw their hands up in frustration as they tried to drum into me the difference between a solar and a lunar eclipse. But in Skloot’s book, understanding the science is a means to understanding the history of the Lacks family, and Skloot explains complex concepts such as genetic research and the life cycle of a cell so well that it’s not an impediment for science-phobes like me. She gives just the right amount of detail so the technical information doesn’t interfere with the storytelling.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was Skloot’s first book, and her passion for her subject and dogged determination to get the story right make me think back to my work on my first book, A Whole New Ball Game. An author “owns” her first book differently than she owns her subsequent ones, when editors have imposed deadlines and critics and readers have expectations based on previous work. Skloot spent more than a decade pursuing the story of Henrietta and the HeLa cells. (At the time, cell lines were designated with the beginning two letters of the donor’s first and last names.) She did odd jobs and used credit cards and student loans to stay afloat and pay for scores of trips to see scientists, doctors, and members of the Lacks family. She followed her own timeline, which was dictated by the development of her research rather than by a date in a book contract.

As Vicki mentioned, Skloot will bring out a Young Reader’s Edition of her book in 2012, co-written with Gregory Mone. Aimed at middle graders, it will be published by Knopf and will run 256 pages, about 100 fewer than the “adult” edition. I’m curious to compare the two books. Other than the sometimes graphic descriptions of physical and sexual abuse suffered by the Lacks children and the violent and promiscuous behavior of some characters, the original book seems appropriate for younger readers. Granted, as Vicki said, it runs a bit long, but I wonder what will be edited out.

There’s also an HBO film in the works, being co-produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball, creator of Six Feet Under and True Blood. I can’t wait to see it.

Are you a fan of Skloot's book? What do you expect will be different in the Young Reader's Edition?

Meet Alexandra Siy

Alexandra Siy is a new member and wonderful addition to the Ink Think Tank roster of Ink Thinkers and database contributors. She's on a mission to amaze and engage kids by taking a closer look at nature by using their own eyes. See for yourself.

Exploring Hidden Worlds

By Alexandra Siy

One of my earliest childhood memories is of a summer nature walk around a small pond near our home. The sound of frogs and songbirds, the smell of wildflowers and water, and a thousand shades of green are still alive within me—inspiration for my work as an author, photographer, and educator. Books, both fiction and nonfiction, can draw children into exciting and alien worlds—while helping them understand their own world. Ever since looking through a simple magnifying glass as a small child, I have been fascinated by the microscopic. Several of my books reveal the microscopic world, including my newest title BUG SHOTS: The Good, the Bad, and the Bugly. Illustrated with electron micrographs by my collaborator Dennis Kunkel, our books introduce children to the beautiful and fascinating microscopic worlds that are part of our every day lives. Yet I believe that books should be just part of a child’s relationship with the microscopic world, helping to form a context for real life experience.

Exploring hidden worlds with a child is both exciting and rewarding. It is also a simple and inexpensive activity that you can do again and again. The only equipment required is a small hand lens or jeweler’s loupe and your wide-open eyes. It is truly astonishing what is revealed while looking closely at everyday objects. Flower petals, blades of grass, a seashell, grains of sand, even the skin on your hand, become larger than life. Upon seeing things up close, a child’s mind is expanded and new ideas unfold.

The experience of looking closely is greatly enhanced by using the methods developed by “

The Private Eye.” This remarkable program is designed to “accelerate thinking skills, creativity, literacy and scientific literacy across subjects, K-16 through life, all levels.” I have used The Private Eye Guide to Developing the Interdisciplinary Mind as well as The Private Eye loupes and other materials with children of all ages. (Check out my review of some their products on geekmom.com.)
A few simple questions form the core of The Private Eye experience. While looking at a specimen through a magnifying loupe ask yourself: What else does it remind me of? What else does it look like? Why did it remind me of that? Why is it like that? The answers to the questions lead to analogies, comparisons, and metaphors forming material for creative writing, scientific discovery, inventions, problem solving, and more.

This summer spend some time outside with a child exploring hidden worlds. You may be surprised by what you discover about your world, and about yourself in the process.

“Less” Is the New “More?”

I’ve just finished reading Rebecca Skloot’s well-told story: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In her introduction, she assures her readers that this is, indeed, a work of nonfiction—nothing is made up—which warmed my heart as an author who scrupulously sticks to documented and verifiable facts. It started me thinking about the difference between writing nonfiction for adults and writing nonfiction for children. Certainly, the subject matter of this story—the establishment of a line of human tissue culture cells from the cervical cancer of a poor black women, who died from her disease in 1951 at the tender age of 32, might not be considered appropriate for children (although I understand that a version for young people is in the works). But the most obvious difference between adult and children’s nonfiction is the length of the book— this one was almost 400 pages with no pictures to break up the text. Rebecca Skloot tells a comprehensive story, using techniques of novelists: detailed atmospherics, physical appearances of the characters along with their back stories, and foreshadowing of events to create narrative tension. Maybe it was a tad too comprehensive but I’m a good reader; I can take it.

It’s our job, as authors for children, to wade through enormous amounts of material, to curate the facts most pertinent to the story we want to tell, to figure out a structure for the story and to make the prose as lean and muscular as possible. This discipline makes us excellent writers for the uninitiated of all ages. (Best kept secret: If you want to learn something new, read a kid’s book on the subject.)

In an ideal world, the length of a book should be determined by the author, who would use exactly as many words needed to create a compelling narrative and not one word more. But print formats determine price and so we have constraints that dictate word count. In addition, I hear from a colleague who teaches children’s literature to current and future teachers, that often teachers reject certain children’s books they deem “too wordy” for today’s readers.. Obviously, that message is reaching publishers because I’m currently revising two books published about twenty years ago with the objective of cutting the text so that the redesigned books look less “text dense.” This is forcing me to rethink each sentence, rethink each concept and ruthlessly discard language that I agonized over so long ago. I don’t know yet if the new version will speak more clearly and powerfully than the old one but the effort is worth it if it keeps the books alive for another twenty years. And the shorter version just might be an improvement.

Yet, I have some questions about this. A long book with a page-turning story, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, renders the incomparable experience of “curling up with a good book.” Kids discovered this experience with the Harry Potter books. Some might wonder: Can a work of nonfiction ever be a page-turning book you curl up with? (Yes, read the Immortal Life.......) On the other hand, many adult nonfiction books are over-stuffed (for my taste) with too much information. Is a true story more powerful when written shorter? When does a reader want to know a subject in depth? When is padding a book a self-indulgent ego trip by the author? In short (pardon the pun) what makes a subject or a story worthy enough to be book length? Is “less” truly the new “more?”

The decisions about these issues, as made by authors, are part of what distinguishes literature from ordinary writing.