Welcome to the Wild World of Enhanced E-Books

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the publisher of my book The Mighty Mars Rovers: The incredible adventures of Spirit and Opportunity just released enhanced e-book versions of my book and three other Scientists in the Field titles. And I have to say, they are pretty dang cool. Here’s a short video that shows how they work:

If you have trouble viewing the video click here.

I’m a pretty low-tech person (lucky to be married to a high-tech hubby and raising a high-tech tweener) and I still read books the old fashioned way – printed on paper and bound with a cover.  But iPads and the like can do something that print books cannot. They can show video.

When I was researching and writing The Mighty Mars Rovers, I discovered a treasure trove of cool videos and animations produced by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab, available for free to the public. They showed Spirit and Opportunity’s launches (impressive billowing smoke at take-off), the sequence of their landings (parachutes deploying, retrorockets shooting, air-bag-wrapped landers bouncing to a stop), and how their robotic arms move. Several videos strung together photos taken by the rovers so you could watch their journeys across the red planet as if you were rolling in their tracks. And update videos showed scientists and engineers talking about their work on the mission – their hopes and dreams, their disappointments and triumphs.  I loved watching the videos while researching and I remember wishing my readers could watch them, too.  But how would kids ever find them and would they take the time to wade through the archives to find the best ones?  I linked to a few of my favorites on my website, but I really wished readers could see the robotic arm in action while reading about the robotic arm.

And now there they are (among other enhancements). As you flip through the pages, small video icons show where to click to view a short video on the topic discussed. My daughter, who has read the book, spent several hours watching all the videos – some of them multiple times. And I think she got more from the book as a result.

But what if kids simply flip through and only watch the videos? Would that undermine the purpose of the book? From viewing the videos, kids would learn a lot about rovers, about Mars and about the scientific process. Some might be inspired to consider a vocation in science. Others might be inspired to work a little harder to overcome obstacles to follow their dreams. But I wonder: Will some kids be inspired to read a book they might otherwise have passed up? That’s something I’d really like to know. Will the enhancements become a substitute for the written word or a way to pull kids in or lead them to a deeper understanding?

What do you think about interactive enhancements in ebooks? What are the possibilities? What might be the drawbacks? Writers: What have been your experiences with enhanced versions of your ebooks? Teacher, librarians, parents and kids: Have you had any interesting encounters with enhanced ebooks?  What was it like? Did it change the way you approached the book? We are entering a brave new world full of pitfalls and possibilities. I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Elizabeth Rusch

It's All About Momentum

   Was chatting with a friend the other day and he asked me about this CCSS stuff he was hearing about.  I gave him a brief explanation and he thought it sounded like an interesting move and one that might benefit me and other nonfiction writers in many ways for years to come.  I said, "We certainly hope so!"  But as soon as I said that a dark cloud passed over my obvious enthusiasm.  And I added, "But there's been some push back about it."
   And we've all heard about incidents of resistance to and downright loathing for the changes to the CCSS.  Educator Diane Ravitch has come out against the CCSS and has recently called for parents to band together in an effort to get their states to withdraw their agreement to impliment the changes.  Even while saying that she finds much that is good about the changes, her anti-CCSS blogs sound like typical paranoid tea-bag rants about big gubmint and evil private business interests.  Or is that the evil gubmint and big business interests?  Anyway, it's almost as if she knows she won't convince the vast majority of level headed professional educators, so she's gone to scare tactics to get parents into her camp.
   There are other negative voices, of course.  At a recent literary conference the director of the college's library services said he liked the changes to the CCSS, except "there was too much nonfiction."  !!!!  I know a writer of children's nonfiction who feels the changes are profound and wonderful, but hates the Appendix B list of exemplar texts.  I tried to explain why I thought the appendix was useful and appropriate, but this writer would have none of that and still denounces the appendix whenever a discussion of the CCSS takes place.  Could some part of this writer's antipathy be because he/she doesn't have a book on the exemplar list?  Meanwhile, there is a blogger/reviewer who seemed downright annoyed that at last summer's ALA conference more and more publishers, especially of textbooks, are actively promoting their various products as CCSS compliant.  In the same breath, said blogger/reviewer promised to do a review column of books that are CCSS compliant.  Go figure.
   It's not that any of these individual voices will turn back the changes to CCSS on their own.  While insistent, I don't think they are ultimately very persuasive (there's too much obvious self-interest involved in their positions).  But I do think their constant, negative drone can have a wearing effect.  And I do have a parellel situation that, while it might be a bit of a stretch to some, does seem worth thinking about.  That's the anti-gun discussion that's going on right now.
   Following the terrible tragedy at Newtown, CT, there was a massive, emotional out cry for gun law changes.  This was answered by the now famous response of NRA President Wayne LaPierre (that certainly didn't do his or the NRA's image much good).  After this, a variety of news reports of shootings taking place all around the US were reported, until my wife Alison looked at the paper one day and said, "I can't stand to read about any more of these shootings!"  My response was, "if you want real gun reform, you should be ready to read about shootings every day of the week and every one should be on the front page."
   Of course, the news reporting of shootings has dropped off considerably and so has the emotional edge in the gun reform message.  But the anti-reform movement has steadily preached the usual line of "we must be careful about our Constitutional rights" "it's not the guns; it's the crazy people" "we already have enough laws; they just need to be enforced" etc., etc.  As announcers sometimes say about football games, the momentum seems to have shifted.
   What does this have to do with the CCSS?  It seems that a great many teachers, librarians, school administrators, writers and others have embraced the changes and are busily preparing to carefully impliment them.  But they aren't all explaining the changes or defending them publically.  So the negative voices seem to be holding court unopposed.  And having some effect.  Maplewood has an online community called, naturally, Maplewood Online.  Recently one poster who dislikes the school adminstration (and has for years) has begun including a condemnation of the changes to the CCSS as yet another evil plot by the school superintendent and his minions.  You would think other posters might call her on this, but they don't.  She goes on and on in various threads, each adding a negative buzz about the CCSS.  Which reminds me; I have to get a MOL account to respond to her rants!
   And that's my point.  We talk about, praise, and defend the changes to the CCSS here in this blog.  But I think we need to get our voices "out there."  Vicki did this very nicely in a response to a Dianne Ravitch blog and I'm sure others have responded in a variety of ways to similar negative comments.  But I think we need to add our voices if not daily, at least over and over again.  I'm going to respond tomorrow to the Ravitch post (though I promise not to be snarky) and then make it a practice to address the negative noise whenever I encounter it as best as I can.  I have a feeling that if enough positive voices are heard, and heard constantly, we can keep the momentum going in the right direction.                        
                 
    

Literary Mood Swings

As kids’ book writers, when we think conference, we usually think NCTE, SCBWI, IRA, or ALA.  Now that I teach at the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, I’m also a member of AWP (the Association of Writers and Writing Programs).  Last week I went to my first AWP conference—a crazy confab of over 550 readings and panels with 12,000 writers spending four days trying to find connections, inspiration, and bathrooms at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center.    

Writing for young people is a relatively new addition to MFA programs so the proportion of programming devoted to our genre is much smaller.  I also noticed that many of our sessions were the first and last of the day, seemingly less desirable times.  Interpret that as you will.

Hating Your Writing: A Love Story didn’t have a children’s book author on its panel, but still seems a useful discussion for any of us. Five poets and prose writers (Richard Bausch, Molly Peacock, Daniel Nester, Melissa Stein, and Chuck Sweeney) discussed that hideous moment when your euphoric assessment of your draft somehow plummets from brilliance to dross upon the next reading.  What are these literary mood swings?  Is there ever an upside? Can dejection lead to breakthroughs and better writing? 

If any of these writers were feeling literary despair on Saturday, they kept it to themselves.  Instead they tried to share their insights on managing the emotional ups and downs of creative life.  Here are some of their points that struck me:

Chad Sweeney likened these emotional downswings to exhaustion, then commented that exhaustion is sometimes a healthy reaction, especially if you are trying to write to anticipated criticism or expectations or in a style that once fed you but no longer does so.  It can be a sign you have to figure out how you’ve gone off course—dig in or dig out—and come up with something new.

Melissa Stein suggested that there are two types of internal critics: one is discerning and can make helpful comments you should consider, the other is the bad parent (think Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest) who insists you don’t even have the talent or right to tell this story.  Give yourself the time and space to figure out which critic is in your head and act accordingly. 

Richard Bausch spoke like a veteran.  He said it’s working that is important.  Put in the time and at the end of the day, ask yourself, “Did I work?”  If the answer is yes, you’ve accomplished your goal.  Develop a sense of calm; you can’t mess your writing up because you can always do over.  If all else fails, lower your standards and keep on going.  Remember, revision is all.

Molly Peacock agreed.  Keep your standards high and your expectations low; it helps you keep going.  But allow room for dormancy; it’s all right to walk away for a while with the intent of returning.  Furthermore know yourself and how to interpret your energies and feelings.  Peacock is a morning writer.  As a result, she refuses to make any judgments or decisions about her writing after 3 p.m.

Donald Nester said he sometimes gets unstuck by changing the form that he’s writing in a little.  Let yourself get lost again and something new might happen. Even journaling can transform material into the nugget you need to find your way.

Other miscellaneous tips:

--Be kind and compassion, give yourself permission to fail by reaching into new areas.

--Create the conditions you need for good writing--good food or walks--anything that makes you feel more open and engaged and closer to the source.

--Banish the critic and get it out there.  Then draft by draft by draft, things proceed toward grace.

--If you can’t turn off the critical voice, acknowledge it and go on.

--Always remember, things may not be as bad as you think.  Vladimir Nabokov dumped his manuscript of Lolita in the garbage, only to have it rescued by his wise wife. In other words, wait a week and read it again.

School Visits -- Pros and Cons

Young Adult fiction author John Green is famous for his brilliant fiction and his VlogBrothers video blogs. This week, he talked about traveling to sustain his career with speaking fees and book promotion.  And while we write different kinds of books for different kinds of kids, we have that in common.   We both travel – a LOT.

So let's discuss the pros and cons -- in this case, the cons and pros -- of school visits. 

A GREAT hotel in Boise, ID.

CONS

I can’t define what “a lot” means for my friend John.  But I can define it for myself.  I have spoken to between 50 and 75 schools and conferences a year for the past five years.   A few are within driving distance.  Most require airborne transportation.  And both kinds of travel can be really tiring.  Con. 

Ground transportation mix-ups are a frustrating after a full 10 to 12 hours in airports. It's cold on those curbs, waiting for a stranger to pick you up.  But waiting is all that works, with the flight delays of modern times.  So you wait.  LITTLE Con. 

Hotels and hotel beds can be if-y.  Not all neighborhoods are welcoming.  And some beds should be in sleep deprivation museums.  Enough said.  Con.

Hungry?  Sometimes that's a problem.  If your host forgets that authors eat, and your hotel is not within walking distance of a restaurant, those Southwest peanuts you stuck in your bag start to look pretty appealing.  Temporary starvation.  Con. 

PROS

Before I start to look really whiny, hold on.  Am I complaining?  I am NOT – not even for a fraction of an instant.  These CON things don't happen very often, other than the long airport hours.  And I am grateful for the chance to connect with the kids that read my books.  Pro. 

Hanging out with kids keeps me on track to write true stories they care about.  I do this for my financial gain, sure.  But that’s not the real reason.  I do it for those kids.  And when I listen, they confirm my published books were worth writing.  They evaluate my new story ideas and show me where I should go to write the next one.  BIG Pro.

Photo by Roxyanne Young

Then there is research.  When I travel to a new city, I can do research for my future books.  In San Diego, I visited two haunted houses and investigated with a paranormal team for four twilight hours to prep for my ghost book.  Does it get any better than that?  Pro.

I also supplement   my writing income with speaking fees.  And those fees allow me to work well, not quickly.  With school visits, I can take four years  -- two years of research prior to sale, two years after -- to write a book that only paid enough to cover two months,  if I’m frugal; one month upon signing, the other after acceptance two years later.  Thanks to the generosity of parent teacher organizations, I can do serious nonfiction research, even if my topics are non-traditional.   And that is important to me and to the kids that read me.  HUGE Pro. 

Let’s not forget book sales.  I sell more books doing school visits than I could without school visits.  In 2012, I visited 19 elementary schools in February, thanks to the Literacy Connection, a group of retired educators in central Washington that organizes author visit tours each year. I was one of their authors in 2012.  I talked to hundreds and hundreds of kids and sold more than 2,000 hardcover books , along with earning my fees.   The organizers said we sold more books than had ever been sold before – most to reluctant reader boys, aching to love a book.  They loved mine. Pro! Pro! Pro!

Girls like my books, too!

That brings us to my last reason for loving (and enduring) school visits.   Every time I walk into that gym, that library, that commons room, that auditorium, that cafeteria, what I do is plentifully reaffirmed. 

If ever I've wondered if I made the right choice to write 25 years ago, if I've wondered if anyone cares about my books, if I've ever grieved not winning awards, or the pain in my knees, or the flus and viruses I get on the road, the uncertainties vanish the minute I see those smiling faces.  Doubt is replaced with joy, without exception.

I have a genuine passion for writing, and I’m good at it.  But it pales in comparison to my passion for young readers.  “You are my favorite writer.”  “This is my favorite book.”  “I want to do what you do when I grow up.”  Sentences like those discount the con columns.  They wash the cons away. 

I do school visits because they are a part of who I am. I am never more completely myself than I am when I’m with those kids – or the grown-ups devoted to helping them. 

Travel in post 9/11 airports may feel like hell.  But once you get to a destination that feels like heaven, what difference does it make?   

I AM lucky to do what I do -- even when it includes a 6:00 am departure time. So onward! 

And to all of you brilliant, generous hosts out there, thank you for being the angels that you are.  You are not just my hosts, you are my friends. 

Kelly Milner Halls

www.wondersofweird.com

Artistic License and Telling Details

The newest crop of award-winning films from Hollywood, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, and Argo, are all based on true stories.  The key word here is “based.” It seems that film-makers have no trouble inventing scenes, creating dialog, and inserting information that is completely made up if, in their opinion, it makes a better story.  The rationale?  Movie-goers “expect” an exciting chase scene in Argo or a  Navy Seal raid on Osama Bin Laden’s home to be noisy even if it never happened.  Historians are worried because so many people are learning history from the movies.  Will the story from the movie’s point of view become the myth that supplants the careful scholarship and meticulous digging that drives the best historians to get it right?  The good news is that these transgressions are being noticed.  But we authors who contribute to this blog, who craft nonfiction for children, may be held to the highest standards around.  We’re not allowed to make anything up.  Period.  Maybe we’re the last group on the planet to be held to such high standards.  Anna’s recent post on Just the Facts shows how hard we work to make sure we’re accurate.

The erosion of the truth seems to be touching journalism as well. One previously absolutely inviolate journalistic standard was that every fact must be verified by at least three independent sources.   It’s hard for a reader to check on the accuracy of many stories because journalists can keep some of their sources secret.  So one outcome is that people wind up reading and tuning in to the media they agree with. The biased medium becomes the arbiter of what it wants its audience to believe, cherry-picking from the many conflicting “facts” being touted in public that support different sides of critical issues.  It’s no wonder that the “echo chamber” of Fox News [Un]fair and [Un]balanced skewed version of the news kept them in a bubble oblivious to the possibility that Obama would be elected, even after the election results were called by other news services.  Many pundits dissected why Fox News got it wrong but the consensus seems to be that they had problems believing the inconvenient truth of independent polls so their own slanted views became their own truth.  I googled  the words “journalism erosion of standards” and up came a slew of posts with many different  examples about the extent of misinformation foisted on the public.  There was so much disagreement between these posts that I’m now confused about the truth on a variety of issues.  But all the articles seem to agree that many news organizations play fast and loose with the truth in the interest of ratings, readership, political and social bias, and the bottom line. Propaganda is alive and well in the good old USA.

 What happens when misinformation is embedded in a compellingly told story that has a lot of truth to it? What should our response be when it is uncovered?  Here’s a thorny problem from the film Lincoln:  It seems there were two invented Connecticut “nays” against the 13^th amendment in the voting scene in the movie thus casting the Nutmeg State incorrectly on the wrong side of history.  My initial reaction was:  where were the fact checkers?  This is the kind of error that is so easy to correct. Were the film-makers being lazy or sloppy?  The Connecticut congressman, Joe Courtney, called out the error in an open letter to director Steven Spielberg.  In response, Tony Kushner, the screenwriter admitted that it was no accident.  He had made the changes deliberately.   Kushner argues that the facts were changed to serve the larger story: “These alterations were made to clarify to the audience the historical reality that the Thirteenth Amendment passed by a very narrow margin that wasn't determined until the end of the vote. The closeness of that vote and the means by which it came about was the story we wanted to tell. In making changes to the voting sequence, we adhered to time-honored and completely legitimate standards for the creation of historical drama, which is what Lincoln is.” In other words, he used artistic license to shorten the voting scene in the film from the actual historical voting time in the interest of a dramatic effect.  You can read the arguments  here.  So it wasn't laziness or sloppiness. I think he has a point. 

Dramas like Lincoln and Argo create tremendous interest in history. When kids encounter a compelling story or an amazing fact they want to know if it is true. The proper answer is “Mostly.”  But a curious kid now wants to know what’s true and what isn't.  Aha!  A teachable moment!  What an opportunity!  Telling details (small things that catch one’s attention) can add to the credibility of a work if true or, if incorrect, indicate that the work was not vetted for accuracy and perhaps shouldn't be trusted.   If only the interested person knew for sure which were which!

Maybe this is an opportunity for us.  Perhaps it takes authors who write history for children to create white papers on these films.  They could explain what is true and where truth has been manipulated.  They could ask questions like, can you think of another way to meet the requirements of an historical drama without changing the facts? Are there any fabrications that are unacceptable in a work that portrays real events?  If so, what are they and why should they not be included?  What does a careless error of fact tell you about the creators of the work?  Whose responsibility is it for those errors? 

Searching for truth drives us in creating our books.  Perhaps we need to add our voices into the larger conversation engendered by the popular media.

ALERT THE MEDIA – YOU ARE ABOUT TO BECOME A FAMOUS AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR

 Hey teachers!  Kids too!  Are you writing any nonfiction stories in class these days?  Lots of schools are trying out this approach to writing in general, and they’re studying the different ways good nonfiction books are written in particular, especially in light of the CCSS.  So what different kinds of writing might work nonfiction-wise?  There are plenty.

 

Try doing live interviews or writing a journal, for example—they both count as nonfiction. A few ideas:

Maybe your class can interview various folks who were on the scene during a great or terrible historic event, such as the Summer Olympics or even 911. Or try interviewing somebody who has an unusual job; maybe the old Santa Claus at the mall  or a fireman (naturally) or your mayor or a local musician or a TV personality or your own bus driver. 

And maybe you can pen some truly amazing journals during a field trip to a museum or a festival or an historic site. (Of course if you aren’t going on any field trips, you can always write some pretty entertaining journal entries about the food in your cafeteria.)

Or take a stab at uncovering the true story of how your own family came to America. Whether they got here last Wednesday or 300 years ago, doing the research is a hoot…and be sure to ask your parents or grandparents. You'd be surprised what they know and what you don't.

Or you can write research papers about things you’re learning in class—some examples might include compiling all sorts of comments about the frogs (living or dead) in your science lab, or researching and writing about a disterous Civil War battle for your history class, or making like a professional critic who’s writing book reviews for your English class, or examining the statistical issues behind today’s economic crisis in your math classes without putting anyone to sleep.  Now there's a challenge for you.

 

IT IS OK TO HAVE FUN WHILE YOU DO THIS…YOU DON’T NECESSARILY HAVE TO GET ALL SERIOUS (UNLESS YOU WANT TO.)

Yup, your writing has to shine; that’s a given.  But here’s an outstanding tool that lets you spice up everything you write, gets people interested in your stories and papers, helps you learn faster, makes sure readers remember your most complex material in a flash, and entertains your own self at the same time:

 

JUST STIR IN ALL KINDS OF PICTURES AS YOU GO ALONG.

Really?  Most definitely!  After all, just think about it.  Whenever you go online or watch movies or TV or play video games or look inside certain books, they’re all about the pictures.  Lots of you are probably taking pictures yourself today by using a cell phone, or you’re adding pictures to online sites like Facebook.  So while you’re busy writing papers and journals and stories at school, why not think the way you do in the real world…whenever you write, stir plenty of artwork and photos and other visuals of your own into the mix.

Here are a few tiny examples of the gazillion ways to add pictures to your writing:

TAKE THE JOURNALS, FOR EXAMPLE:

 

When you bring your journal along on a school field trip – or even on a regular day – be sure to bring some colored markers or colored pencils or just regular lead pencils. Then draw the coolest things you see.  Try to show the real world and still use your artistic imagination at the same time.  Put pictures next to the words you just wrote or use pictures to make a rebus or spread pictures into the margins or make them into cartoons or make them extremely realistic.  Let some of the pictures fill a whole page or two or three of their own.  They can most certainly be funny. They can most certainly be serious  or scientific. Doodling is just fine.  Cartoons are just fine.  Beautiful pictures are, well, beautiful and wonderful.  And of course you can draw all kinds of fancy lettering in your topic headings along the way. 

 

Trust me, people will want to see what you wrote if it’s illustrated.  When explores like Lewis and Clark or scientists like Charles Darwin wrote journals, they did these exact kinds of things. Their writing was incredibly fun to read and was informative to the max at the same time.  Yours should be too.

 

Another idea is to take photos during the day, print them out, and tape them in later.  Or collect small stuff you find and glue that in too—for example, add brochures or cut them up and tape some of the picture into your journal. Or add small parts of the plants you see on a farm visit. Or leaves you pick up on a hike during the fall.

AND HOW ABOUT ART FOR YOUR INTERVIEWS?

 

One idea is to draw the person you are interviewing yourself! Or take your own photos of them doing something verrry cool and then paste or tape them into your written work. Or if they have any pictures taken when they were kids, make photocopies and add them to the mix. Even if you write your interview (or any other stuff) online, you can scan in your pictures and imbed them. 

GEOGRAPHY CAN BE MEMORABLE IN SPADES:

 

Make colorful illuminated maps of the places you’re studying and add them into the mix.  To see exactly how this works, go here and check out the pictures

 

MORE TIPS:

Think of cool and colorful pictures you can add to your charts and graphs:

 

If they look great, they can offer readers a fast and entertaining way to learn a lot of boring stats in a single glance.

Try putting the quotes inside of talk balloons that point at a picture of the person who's being quoted.  Maybe this person is a new cartoon character of your own creation (kind of like the one Jeff Kinney made up for his Wimpy Kid), or maybe you can research what the people you quoted really looked like and what they really wore, and then draw them accurately.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS:

  

YIKES! Art is in danger of disappearing from our schools, and that would be a DISASTER.  Help bring it back by adding artwork to your written work in school.  

Paint pictures on wood! 

Rough canvas! 

Pebble board!  

Write words on all kinds of unusual paper.  

Try playing around with paint, scraps of cloth, cut paper, or scratch board, and then add them to your written work.  

Experiment with your photographs.   

Make collages using buttons, flowers, seeds, or leaves picked up off the ground....if your essay or journal is lumpy, so what? Your writing will end up being a keeper, and you will learn to think, be creative, do research, and remember what you wrote about for a very long time.