Guest post – Page 51 – Unleashing Readers

Blog Tour, Review, and Author Guest Post!: Thrive by Meenoo Rami

April 22, 2023April 23, 2014 by Kellee

Thrive: 5 Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching
Author: Meenoo Rami
Published March 5th, 2014 by Heinemann Educational Books

Goodreads Summary: As a novice teacher, Meenoo Rami experienced the same anxieties shared by many: the sense of isolation, lack of self-confidence, and fear that her work was having no positive impact on her students. In Thrive, Meenoo shares the five strategies that helped her become a confident, connected teacher. From how to find mentors and build networks, both online and off, to advocating for yourself and empowering your students, Thrive shows new and veteran teachers alike how to overcome the challenges and meet the demands of our profession.

Praise for Thrive:
-“Whether you are entering your first year of teaching or your 40th, Thrive feels as if it were written just for you. At a time in our profession when many of us are feeling stretched thin, Meenoo Rami offers strategies to reignite our passions and rediscover why we chose to teach.” -Christopher Lehman, coauthor of Falling in Love with Close Reading
-“Teaching is a profession that eats its young. Meenoo Rami offers guidelines for surviving the challenges of the classroom as well as the faculty room.” -Carol Jago, author, teacher, and past president of NCTE
-“Thrive includes a mosaic of dynamic teacher voices from many grade levels and content areas. Reading their stories deepened my thinking about the immense untapped potential of our profession. Meenoo Rami’s vision of teaching and learning can sustain us all.”-Penny Kittle, author of Book Love

Join the conversation on Twitter at #edthrive.

About the Author: Meenoo Rami is a National Board Certified Teacher who teaches her students English at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA. Mixing moments of joy, laughter, risk and encouragement, Meenoo pushes her students to think critically about their connection to the word and the world. Meenoo did her undergraduate work at Bradley University in Illinois in areas of Philosophy and English and completed her Master’s degree in Secondary Education at Temple University. Meenoo also contributes to the work of school-wide events and professional learning communities at SLA. Meenoo works as a teacher-consultant for the Philadelphia Writing Project. She has shared her classroom practice at various conferences such as: NCTE, ISTE, ASCD, EduCon, Urban Sites Conference for National Writing Project, and #140edu. Meenoo also runs a weekly twitter chat for English teachers called #engchat which brings together teachers from around the country to discuss ideas related to teaching of English. Her first book, THRIVE from Heinemann will be out in March 2014. In her free time, Meenoo can be found on her bike, on her yoga mat or in her kitchen tinkering with a vegetarian recipe.

To connect with Meenoo, you can find her on these social media networks:
Thrive
meenoorami.org
Twitter
Facebook
Google Plus

Kellee’s Review: In this modern day of education where CCSS and testing seems to have become the most important priority and we’re being attacked in the media for having an easy job and are failing our students, it is very difficult to stay positive—much less thrive. Meenoo Rami says that there is definitely a way to overcome all of these hardships, and she lies it all out in 5 “steps.” Although some of what you might find in this book may seem like common sense, it may not be to other teachers, specifically new teachers. It is also important to get reminders about how to stay true to ourselves. I think this is a book that each teacher needs to read and own so they can read it whenever they need a reminder that there is a way to thrive in this profession that we love.

Ricki’s Review: Meenoo Rami hits the nail on the head with her suggestions to teachers. With as many as 56% of teachers leaving the profession (Rami 3), we need to make a change. Beginning teachers must be prepared for the difficulties they will encounter on the job. This book is cleverly crafted with a variety of text features that are sure to engage readers (QR codes, tweets, figures, etc.). I teach pre-service teachers and am very particular about the texts I use. Too many professional texts are watered down and chockfull of obvious information, and I don’t want my students to purchase a book that will be a waste of their time. Rami achieves the perfect balance of narratives and information, and I will be ordering this book for my students next year. I love how she emphasizes that we, as educators, must constantly hone our art of teaching. I strongly believe that we need to practice what we preach, and we, too, must be lifelong learners.

Guest Post: Meenoo’s Tips for Dealing With Negativity and Other Issues That Keep Many of Us From Staying Positive and Thriving in our Profession

There is a common refrain I often hear when I talk to teachers these days. In hushed tones, they admit that they are tired, weary, and depleted by what they face in the their schools everyday. There are some repeated themes amongst the things they tell me:

I am being asked to deliver a prescribed curriculum, not create my own:

If you find yourself in the position where you’re required to use a prepackaged curriculum, consider how to balance it by incorporating the authentic inquiry that your students bring to your classroom, for example:

In an Environmental Science class, invite your local government representative to answer questions prepared by your students regarding how local policy is impacting local ecology.

The focus on testing has taken the joy out of my classroom:

Try to find the balance between teaching with the inquiry stance and test-prep is you are up against the constant pressures of testing in your school. Can you bring inquiry to this task by having your students actually create the test that they will be asked to take? See my colleague Larissa’s thinking around this here .

I have to sit through mind-numbing, inauthentic professional development every week:

What would it look like if you or your colleagues offered to prepare professional development in your school. Our administrators are often at a loss when it comes to finding creative ways to meet teachers’ professional development needs. What if there was a balance between what needs to be on the agenda and what teachers would like to see on the agenda. Perhaps, your faculty can form personal learning communities and take turns providing professional development to the rest of the faculty. Yes, this will be more work but it can meet the actual needs teachers have in terms of professional development.

I am surrounded by negative colleagues:

Try to listen if you can, persistent complaining might be a cry for help and support. If you cannot do that, offer your support to share resources, ideas, and problem-solve.

Thank you to Jen Vincent for hosting this blog tour, thank you to Meenoo Rami for her amazing guest post, and thank you to Heinemann for proving us copies for review.

and

Make sure to check out the other stops in the Thrive blog tour:

4/9/14|
Jen Vincent at Teach Mentor Texts
http://www.teachmentortexts.com/

4/10/14
Franki Sibberson and Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
http://readingyear.blogspot.com/

4/11/14
Alyson Beecher at Kid Lit Frenzy
http://www.kidlitfrenzy.com/

4/12/14
Kira Baker Doyle at Kira J Baker-Doyle, Ph.D.
http://kbakerdoyle.wordpress.com/blog/

4/13/14
Sarah Mulhern Gross at The Reading Zone
http://thereadingzone.wordpress.com/

4/14/14
Christina Cantrill at Digital Is (National Writing Project)
http://digitalis.nwp.org/

4/15/14
Kate Roberts and Maggie B. Roberts at Indent
http://kateandmaggie.com/

4/16/14
Beth Shaum Use Your Outside Voice
http://useyouroutsidevoice.blogspot.com/

4/17/14
Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
http://www.teacherdance.org/

4/18/14
Troy Hicks at Hickstro
http://hickstro.org/

4/19/14
Joy Kirr at Genius Hour
http://geniushour.blogspot.com/

4/20/14
Tara Smith at The Teaching Life
http://ateachinglifedotcom.wordpress.com/

4/21/14
Antero Garcia at The American Crawl
http://www.theamericancrawl.com/

4/22/2014
John Spencer at Education Rethink
http://www.educationrethink.com/

Blog Tour and Author Guest Post!: Storm Watcher by Maria V. Snyder

March 29, 2014February 21, 2014 by Kellee

Welcome to the Storm Watcher blog tour!

Feb 19 – Mar 5, 2014

Hosted by readnowsleeplater.com

Storm Watcher
Author: Maria V. Snyder
Published October 19th, 2013 by Leap Books

Goodreads Summary: Luke Riley is lost. His mother’s recent death has set Luke and his family adrift. Even though his father, twin brothers, and their three Bloodhounds are search and rescue volunteers, they have been unable to rescue themselves and become a family again. The summer after sixth grade looms in Luke’s mind as a long, lonely three months where the only thing he can look forward to is watching The Weather Channel. Luke is fascinated with the weather, but since his mother’s death in a storm, he is also terrified. Even the promised 13th birthday present of a Bloodhound puppy fails to lift Luke’s spirits. He would rather have a different breed – a petite Papillon, but his father insists he get a Bloodhound.

When Luke decides to get the Bloodhound from Willajean, a dog breeder who owns Storm Watcher Kennel, he works out a deal to help at her kennel in exchange for the expensive dog. Thrilled to have a summer with a purpose, Luke befriends Willajean’s daughter, Megan and together they plan how Luke can get a Papillon puppy instead of a Bloodhound. But nothing seems to work as they struggle with stubborn fathers, summer storms, unhelpful siblings, and hidden guilt. Can one little white dog really save both families?

So, how does one come to write a book about weather?

It all begins with a fascination with hydrometeors and a great teacher.
Squish this together with a writing career and VOILA!

Hydrometeors are Falling on my Head
By Maria V. Snyder

Let me set the scene – sixth grade at Our Lady of Ransom, a Catholic school in the city of Philadelphia – my teacher, Miss Kane is doing a science unit on meteorology. Meteo…what? At the time (1978), I’d never heard of it, except I had. “Oh, you mean the weather, why didn’t you say so?” a beat later, “There are people who study the weather? Wow.” Little did I know it at the time, but that unit was the vital first step to my eventually careers in both meteorology and writing.

I love big storms and loved the idea of studying them. Not only was it super cool that Miss Kane made it rain in our classroom, but I was able to be a real smart-alecky kid. You see I soon discovered that the adults in my life had never heard the word meteorology either. So when they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d reply, “A meteorologist.” Their blank look was always followed be a quizzical, “You want to study…meteors? Like from space?” and I chirped, “Not space meteors, hydrometeors.” No comprehension so I’d explain in a I-can’t-believe-you-don’t-know-this tone that, “hydrometeors are raindrops.” I did warn you that I was bratty – I was also eleven so I had a good excuse J.

As I continued in my education, the questions about my future remained the same, and so did the answer (except, by now my family was well acquainted with those pesky hydrometeors). Sure, I loved acting, dancing, painting, and playing the cello, but I wasn’t a stand out in any of them. However my math and science grades remained strong and nothing else sparked my interest.

Fast forward to my college graduation. I’d earned my BS in Meteorology from Penn State University. My forecasting skills were dismal so I ventured in the exciting new profession of environmental meteorology (whew – I think I have to rest my fingers after typing all that!). Too bad envir meteo wasn’t all that exciting. My creativity eventually woke from its catatonic state (caused by enduring endless hours of fluid dynamics and differential equations). I started writing stories ‘cause it would have been awkward if I started practicing the cello in my cubicle at work.

Writing was a blast and, in my stories, I controlled the weather – hydrometeors fell at my whim – muuhhhaaawwwaaahhh! Er…sorry. Eventually I switched careers to writing, but I never lost my love for storms. In fact, I incorporated the weather in many of my books. However, the one book that brought me back to that snarky sixth grader is Storm Watcher, my debut novel for readers ages 8 to 14 years old. I was able to geek-out along with the main protagonist, Luke.

While writing the story was fun, I was thrilled when my editor asked me to write an appendix of weather facts for those readers who also have a fascination with storms. It’s called “Luke’s Weather Notebook.” For the appendix I drew pictures, found quirky weather facts, wrote a quiz, and included safety tips – delighting my inner weather weenie. We hoped that the teachers who teach that meteorology unit would find the information helpful and maybe hook another student.

I’d like to thank Miss Kane in person – she probably has no idea she set me on this path. Or…maybe she does. Maybe she saw that spark in my eyes as she taught me about clouds and precipitation. In either case, Thank You Miss Kane wherever you are!

Now, I’ve a question for you. How many of you knew hydrometeors were raindrops? Come on, be honest! 🙂

Just shows how one great teacher can truly change your life!

Also, don’t forget to stop by each blog tour stop to learn more about the book.

Tour Schedule

Wed 2/19 – The Book Monsters – review

Thu 2/20 – I Am a Reader – interview

Fri 2/21 – Unleashing Readers – guest post

Mon 2/24 – Bookalicious – review

Tue 2/25 – Kid Lit Frenzy – guest post

Wed 2/26 – Sharpreads – review

Thu 2/27 – The Mod Podge Bookshelf – guest post

Fri 2/28 – The Windy Pages – review, interview

Mon 3/3 – Teenage Reader – review

Tue 3/4 – Read Now Sleep Later – review

Wed 3/5 – The Brain Lair – review

**Thank you to Alethea and Maria for allowing us to be part of the blog tour**

Blog Tour, Review, Giveaway, and Illustrator Interview!: The Real Boy by Anne Ursu, Illustrated by Erin McGuire

July 28, 2015October 12, 2013 by Kellee

We are so excited to be part of The Real Boy Blog Tour hosted by Walden Pond Press!

The Real Boy
Author: Anne Ursu
Illustrator: Erin McGuire
Published September 24th, 2013 by Walden Pond Press

Goodreads Summary: On an island on the edge of an immense sea there is a city, a forest, and a boy. The city is called Asteri, a perfect city that was saved by the magic woven into its walls from a devastating plague that swept through the world over a hundred years before. The forest is called the Barrow, a vast wood of ancient trees that encircles the city and feeds the earth with magic. And the boy is called Oscar, a shop boy for the most powerful magician in the Barrow. Oscar spends his days in a small room in the dark cellar of his master’s shop, grinding herbs and dreaming of the wizards who once lived on the island generations ago. Oscar’s world is small, but he likes it that way. The real world is vast, strange, and unpredictable. And Oscar does not quite fit in it.

But it’s been a long time since anyone who could call himself a wizard walked the world, and now that world is changing. Children in the city are falling ill, and something sinister lurks in the forest. Oscar has long been content to stay in his small room in the cellar, comforted in the knowledge that the magic that flows from the trees will keep his island safe. Now, even magic may not be enough to save it.

My Review: I love middle grade high fantasy! It is always amazing to me that an author is able to build an entire world that doesn’t exist and then puts these amazing characters and magic and story into this world. This is exactly what Anne Ursu did with The Real Boy. More importantly than my review of raving and raving about this book is the guest post I have to share today.

This is the second book that Erin McGuire and Anne Ursu collaborated on and Erin’s artwork adds an even more magic to an already magical story. Today, we are lucky to have Erin here to answer some questions about her work.

Kellee: I’d love to know about your past: When did you know you wanted to be an illustrator? Did you go to school for art? etc.

Erin McGuire: I’ve always loved drawing, and all throughout high school I kept sketchbooks, and still do to this day. My mother is a sixth grade teacher, so she often recommended new kid lit to me (she still does!) and always encouraged reading in general.

As for my education- I attended Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida as an illustration major. While I was a student there, I worked as a student librarian for four years. That was where I discovered Lisbeth Zwerger, Shaun Tan, Adam Rex, and all of the other illustrators who would influence my work.

K: I’m very interested in knowing about how illustrators and authors work together. Did you get the entire manuscript before beginning? Did you just get snippets? Do illustrations have to be approved before they go in the book? How do you choose what the characters are going to look like? Do you get character descriptions from the author? etc.

EM: Each project is a bit different depending on how much I’ll be involved. On books where I only do the covers, sometimes I don’t see the manuscript, just a book summary and a list of character descriptions. For Breadcrumbs and The Real Boy, I read the full manuscripts since I’d be illustrating all the interiors as well. Usually the editor or art director will email me a list of scenes they’d like for the interiors. The artwork always goes through an approval process, being approved by the art director, editor, and (in some cases, but not always) the author.

I did a lot of sketches for the characters to create the look for this world, how the upper and lower classes look different, what the fashion would be, how the rooms should look, etc. All of that was sent to Anne, who gave me some insights into her thought process for the time period and style of the world.

Rarely do I get to work with the author directly, it’s almost always with the editor and art director as middle men. This is intentional, and helps the illustrator focus on their work and sets some limits on how much one can influence the other.

K: You worked with Anne on Breadcrumbs as well – how did it come about that you became the illustrator for The Real Boy?

EM: Breadcrumbs was a really fun project for me, I felt like I was a good fit for that world, and illustrating Anne’s writing felt very natural to me. I think the team felt that I’d be a good fit for The Real Boy as well since I’d done some other fantasy work. My agent asked me if I was interested and I immediately emailed her back an “Absolutely.” As it turns out, I think The Real Boy is now my favorite project ever. It helps that I like drawing cats!

K: I noticed that The Real Boy is a mixture of pencil, ink, and possibly water color — How did you choose the style you are going to use for each book?

EM: The Real Boy felt like a much warmer story than Breadcrumbs. There are so many natural materials, animals, trees, even the magic itself feels natural in the story. I painted all of the Breadcrumbs illustrations digitally, and I didn’t think that same style would make sense for The Real Boy. So for this book, I did all of the illustrations on toned paper in pencil, and a mix of gouache, white chalk, and sometimes ink. All of them were scanned and touched up digitally, but starting out with a more natural drawing felt right for this story.

K: I also loved Darkbeast which you illustrated! Like The Real Boy and Breadcrumbs it is a middle grade fantasy novel. Many of the novels you have done the covers for or have illustrated are fantasy, but you also illustrated the new Nancy Drew Diaries — do you like illustrating fantasy or realistic fiction books better?

EM: It’s really hard to pick a favorite genre, but usually I prefer the stories that have a mix of both worlds (along the lines of Breadcrumbs, where the normal world is affected by fantasy elements in some way). Purely fantasy worlds are fun because you get to create how everything looks, how everyone dresses, and there are fewer rules. I spent a lot of time just gathering reference to create the world for The Real Boy. And I’ve always wanted to draw a fantasy map!

The more realistic work I’ve done (Nancy Drew) is fun in a different way because you just get to “go shopping” for those characters. I’ll go online to different clothing sites and pick out outfits for Nancy to wear. Every project has something different about it that appeals to me.

K: What are some other projects you’ve worked on?

EM: Along with Breadcrumbs and The Real Boy, I’ve worked on the Nancy Drew Diaries series, the Saranormal series, the Higher Power of Lucky series, a picture book called French Ducks in Venice, and covers for many other books. (The whole list is on my website http://www.emcguire.net/).

K: Can you share with us what projects you are working on now?

EM: I’m still working on Nancy Drew, and other projects that I’m not able to talk about yet. I’m also starting to write my own picture books, which is a totally different challenge, but exciting for me!

It is so fascinating how authors and illustrators work together. It really is magical.

Teacher’s Tools for Navigation: On top of the amazing world building and history building, Anne Ursu also writes beautifully. There are examples of figurative language usage all throughout the book. It would be an amazing piece of mentor text for writing workshop. Oh, and it would obviously be an amazing read aloud!

Discussion Questions: What makes someone human?; Do you think cats sense things that humans cannot?; If there was magic, do you think it’d make the world a better or worse place?

We Flagged: “Oscar and Callie sat in the library awhile longer, Callie scanning the books for more information, Oscar just sitting inside his mind. There were not answers about the children, but they did not even know what the questions were anymore. The world had ruptured once again. Even history could disappear under your feet.” (p. 185)

“There is a way the truth hist you, both hard and gentle at the same time. It punches you in the stomach as it puts it s loving arms around your shoulder.” (p. 206)

Read This If You Loved: The Darkbeast by Morgan Keyes, Princess Academy by Shannon Hale, Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu, Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit, Rump by Liesl Shurtliff

Recommended For:

Don’t forget to visit the other Real Boy Blog Tour Stops:

Monday, 9/30 – Maria’s Melange – Maria’s Take on The Real Boy + Giveaway

Tuesday, 10/1 – There’s a Book – Danielle’s Take on The Real Boy + Giveaway

Wednesday, 10/2 – sharpread – Colby Interviews Anne

Thursday, 10/3 – Novel Sounds – Elena’s Take on The Real Boy + Giveaway

Friday, 10/4 – Word Spelunking – Aeicha Interviews Anne

Saturday, 10/5 – The Hiding Spot – Sara’s Take on The Real Boy + Giveaway

Sunday, 10/6 – The Brain Lair – Kathy’s Take on The Real Boy + Giveaway

Monday, 10/7 – Read, Write, Reflect – Anne Talks Oscar with Katherine

Tuesday, 10/8 – Librarian’s Quest – Margie’s Take on The Real Boy + Giveaway

Wednesday, 10/9 – Buried in Books – Heather’s Take on The Real Boy + Giveaway

Thursday, 10/10 – The Book Monsters – Kristen’s Take on The Real Boy + Giveaway

Friday, 10/11 – Cari’s Book Blog – Cari’s Take on The Real Boy + An Interview with Anne

Saturday, 10/12 – Unleashing Readers – Kellee Interviews Illustrator Erin McGuire + Giveaway

Sunday, 10/13 – Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers – Gina’s Take on The Real Boy + Giveaway

Monday, 10/14 – Heise Reads and Recommends – Editor Jordan Brown Interviews Anne
Tuesday, 10/15 – Bulldog Readers Blog – The Bulldog Readers Debut Their Book Trailer

GIVEAWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you to Kellie at Walden Pond Press for a copy of The Real Boy for review and giveaway, for setting up the blog tour and review, and to Erin McGuire for her wonderful interview!

Blog Tour, Review, and Illustrator Guest Post!: The Snatchabook by Helen and Thomas Docherty

May 2, 2015October 11, 2013 by Kellee

This is part of the book blog tour for The Snatchabook by Helen & Thomas Docherty,
organized by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky.

The Snatchabook
Author: Helen Docherty
Illustrator: Thomas Docherty
Published October 1st, 2013 by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky

Goodreads Summary: Where have all the bedtime stories gone?

One dark, dark night in Burrow Down, a rabbit named Eliza Brown found a book and settled down…when a Snatchabook flew into town.

It’s bedtime in the woods of Burrow Down, and all the animals are ready for their bedtime story. But books are mysteriously disappearing. Eliza Brown decides to stay awake and catch the book thief. It turns out to be a little creature called the Snatchabook who has no one to read him a bedtime story. All turns out well when the books are returned and the animals take turns reading bedtime stories to the Snatchabook.

My Review: This book has two very magical elements: the rhyming story and the fun illustrations. The story is one I cannot wait to read to my children. As Brian Selznick says, ” So wonderful it demands to be read out loud.” However, I feel that it is the illustrations that make this book really come to life. It is because of how much I loved the illustrations that when I was asked if I wanted to be part of The Snatchabook blog tour with a guest post, I knew I wanted to hear from Thomas. I am so happy to have his post here sharing what it was like to illustrate The Snatchabook:

The Snatchabook was a real pleasure to illustrate, as well as a lot of work. In fact, at the time of illustrating, it was probably the most complicated book I had done, because of having to create Burrow Down as well as all the woodland creatures that lived there.

I always start with a lot of pencil sketches, and although The Snatchabook came quite quickly, Eliza took a lot longer to develop as a character. At one point, I thought she was going to be a badger!

Once I was happy with the characters and where they lived, I started to plan out the story page by page. I talked through the roughs a lot with Helen and the publishers until everyone was happy and then I started on the final artwork.

I still work in quite a traditional way. I love the physicality of the tubes of paint, bottles of coloured ink, and thick watercolour paper. First I trace my rough drawings onto watercolour paper with acrylic ink and a dip pen using a light box. Then I stretch the paper and when it is dry, I begin to paint washes of colour using watercolour.

It was a lot of fun getting the feeling of suspense into the pictures, trying to make them edgy but not scary. I also love dramatic lighting, so I made sure I had plenty of cold moonlight outside the burrows and warm, cozy lamps inside. The windswept clouds and twisty trees were painted with a lot of dry brushwork and the cold blues in the book are some of my favourite colours.

The Snatchabook is a very rich story, full of drama, emotion and warmth and I hope that I manage to get all of those across to the reader in my illustrations.

I truly believe that he has met his goal! I love seeing how an artist gets from the ideas in his/her head to the amazing artwork that is shared with us!

Teacher’s Tools for Navigation: This book is a great read aloud. It has a lot of opportunities for predictions during the mystery part of the story. It also is a great book to use if discussing rhyming. And of course it can start a conversation about how we would feel if our books started disappearing!

Discussion Questions: How would you feel if your books started disappearing?; On pg. 6-7 it shares some of Burrow Downs’s books. What books to you think they are alluding to?; Write a story of your own using the same rhyme scheme as The Snatchabook.

We Flagged:
The little owls, on Mommy’s lap
were quite surprised to hear a tap
against their bedroom window glass.
Tap, tap! The noise came really fast.
Before they’d even looked around,
the book was gone—without a sound. (p. 8-9)

Read This If You Loved: We are in a Book by Mo Willems, Library Lion by Michelle Knudson

Recommended For:

Blog Tour and Author Guest Post!: The Year of Shadows by Claire Legrand

July 27, 2015August 25, 2013 by Kellee

Today, I am so happy to be part of The Year of Shadows blog tour! First, let me tell you a bit about the book:

The Year of Shadows
Author: Claire Legrand
Published August 27th, 2013 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Goodreads Summary: Olivia Stellatella is having a rough year.

Her mother left, her neglectful father — the maestro of a failing orchestra — has moved her and her grandmother into his dark, broken-down concert hall to save money, and her only friend is Igor, an ornery stray cat.

Just when she thinks life couldn’t get any weirder, she meets four ghosts who haunt the hall. They need Olivia’s help — if the hall is torn down, they’ll be stuck as ghosts forever, never able to move on.

Olivia has to do the impossible for her shadowy new friends: Save the concert hall. But helping the dead has powerful consequences for the living . . . and soon it’s not just the concert hall that needs saving.

I am so excited to read this! One of the things that intrigues me the most is the setting of a concert hall; reminds me of Phantom of the Opera.

Today we are so lucky to have author Claire Legrand as a guest blogger. Claire Legrand used to be a musician until she realized she couldn’t stop thinking about the stories in her head. Now a writer, Ms. Legrand can often be found typing with purpose at her keyboard, losing herself in the stacks at her local library, or embarking upon spontaneous adventures to lands unknown. Her first novel is The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, a New York Public Library Best Book for Children in 2012. Her second novel, The Year of Shadows, releases August 27, 2013, with her third novel, Winterspell, to follow in fall 2014. She is one of the four authors behind The Cabinet of Curiosities, an anthology of dark middle grade fiction due out in July 2014 from Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins. Claire lives in New Jersey with a dragon and two cats. Visit her at claire-legrand.com and at enterthecabinet.com.

Here at Unleashing Readers, one of our goals is helping educators find books that will help them teach their students about different literary elements. We are so excited for Claire Legrand to discuss the literary elements of setting, characterization, and language, and how she utilized those elements to bring the world of The Year of Shadows to life! I think you all will find this post interesting and so useful.

SETTING

The sense of place in The Year of Shadows was one of the first story elements I established. Olivia’s world is an isolated one—she lives at Emerson Hall, she goes to school, she works after school at the tea shop across the street called The Happy Place. We don’t see a lot of Olivia’s city beyond those three locations, and the time spent at Olivia’s school and The Happy Place are relatively minimal. The Year of Shadows is really all about Emerson Hall. It’s not only where Olivia spends the majority of her time; it’s also her new home. I therefore knew I would have to make the Hall as vibrant a character as Olivia herself, full of moods and memories. The Hall needed to feel like a whole new world, one that Olivia explores in the new lens of “home” just as the readers are exploring it for the first time. The state of the Hall, and how Olivia perceives it, represents Olivia’s state of mind.

At the beginning of the story, Emerson Hall is decrepit, shabby, old. Its paint has faded, its carpet is torn, and the once-grand stone angels on the building’s façade have been vandalized. Like Olivia and her broken family, Emerson Hall has seen better days. Olivia directs her hatred of what her life has become at the Hall itself; to her, Emerson Hall and its orchestra lie at the root of her troubles. She doesn’t realize until much later that her refusal to reach out to friends for help and her destructive tendency to isolate herself are more problematic than living in Emerson Hall. Like Olivia and her family, Emerson Hall literally starts to fall apart as the story progresses. Both Olivia and her home undergo crises that could make or break them. It is Olivia’s realization that she and the Hall need each other if they are going to survive that marks a turning point in the story, and allows her to find a peace that, at the beginning of The Year of Shadows, she can’t imagine finding ever again.

CHARACTERIZATION

Imagine for a moment that you are twelve years old. You have enjoyed a comfortable, happy life with your father, mother, and grandmother. Art is in your blood; you are never without your trusty sketchpad, and you studied symphonies with your conductor father from the time you could crawl.

Then, things start to go wrong. Your mother and father start to fight; you lie awake at night listening to them. Your father spends more and more time working and less and less time with you and your mother. The orchestra isn’t doing well; lots of businesses aren’t doing well, and who wants to spend money they don’t have on coming to hear an increasingly crummy orchestra perform? Your stomach is in constant knots.

One day, a day that should have been like any other day, you wake up to find that your mother is gone. She left in the middle of the night without a clue as to her destination. It’s just you and your father now—your father who seems to care more than ever about work, much more than he cares about you. He lets bills and letters from your school pile up. (You’re not doing well in school these days.) He sells your house and moves you into the backstage storage rooms of a music hall that should probably be condemned.

You hate him. You hate everything. Sometimes, you even hate yourself.

This is Olivia. This is the girl whose story I sat down to tell when I wrote The Year of Shadows. She was a difficult character to bring to life; as you can see, her story isn’t a happy one. I needed to both communicate her (righteous, justified) anger and grief while still keeping her sympathetic. To achieve this, I balanced her darker moments—berating her father, insulting people who try to help her—with lighter ones. I felt it was even more important with Olivia than it was for some of my other, more immediately sympathetic characters, to give the reader peeks of the true her, beneath all the hurt that consumes her.

Olivia is an artist. There are beautiful worlds inside her, worlds she brings to life in her sketchpad even when—especially when—nothing else makes sense.

Olivia is kindhearted, devoted to her frail grandmother. She is determined to transform the backstage rooms of Emerson Hall into something like a home—decorating the bare gray walls with pictures from her sketchbook, spending the limited money she earns from working after school to buy her grandmother scarves and a nice warm rug for the cold floor.

Olivia is brave. She will face down ghosts—even the distinctly unfriendly ones—if it means defending her father, as much as she thinks she hates him. (But finding the courage to trust again? That she doesn’t find so easily.)

Creating Olivia was all about finding the right balance between her good moments and her bad ones, and ensuring that even her worst moments came from a place readers could understand.

The other characters in The Year of Shadows help Olivia in different ways. They are like rungs on the ladder Olivia must climb to pull herself out of her depression. Henry is trusting and loyal, traits Olivia can no longer see in herself or in her family. Joan is not afraid of being herself, or of letting others see her, while Olivia is constantly trying to hide. Mr. and Mrs. Barsky are the loving couple Olivia used to see in her parents. Trumpet player Richard Ashley is the love of music Olivia once had, and has now lost.

Even the ghosts play their part. I like to think of the four main ghosts in The Year of Shadows as fulfilling a function similar to that of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, each of which teach Ebenezer Scrooge something about himself. Olivia’s ghosts do the same, each “lesson” increasing in importance. Violinist Frederick helps Olivia rediscover her love of music. Best friends Tillie and Jax remind Olivia of the power and value of friendship. And poor Mr. Worthington, with his horrible secret, shows Olivia that even her family, as dysfunctional as it is, is worth saving.

LANGUAGE

Establishing just the right blend of language to tell Olivia’s story was a tricky process for me. I wanted the language of The Year of Shadows to feel contemporary yet classic, homey yet eerie. The reader needed to feel at home in Emerson Hall, but still feel as unsettled as Olivia does. There are horror elements in this book, but it is not a horror novel; it is ultimately a story about family and friendship. The language needed to both accurately describe intense issues—financial trouble, death and the afterlife, parental abandonment and neglect, bullying, depression—while still being accessible to young readers. Through the narration, I needed Olivia to identify and explore complex emotions; at the same time, I needed her to describe them in such a way that felt authentic for an emotionally confused twelve-year-old.

I think it’s impossible to discuss a story’s language without addressing voice, and establishing Olivia’s voice was essential in developing the right language for The Year of Shadows. I was fortunate to quickly “hear” Olivia’s voice—informal but poetic, intelligent but not book-smart, sarcastic yet brimming with emotion too overwhelming to share. Her voice is conversational, peppered with fragments.

Ultimately, I wanted the language of The Year of Shadows to evoke just that—shadows. Dark, shifting shapes on the wall created by fleeting sweeps of light. Shadows, while they might seem frightening at first, are ultimately hopeful things, because you can’t have a shadow without light. For Olivia, it takes a while to find her light—but she does in the end, even if it wasn’t quite what she was expecting.

Below are a few brief (spoiler-free!) selections from The Year of Shadows that are representative of the book’s overall language:

“The picture I had of them in my head was pretty fuzzy, so I kept drawing them over and over, trying to capture the memory of them on the page. It wasn’t working very well; it’s harder than you might think to draw just the right amount of transparency, of driftiness.”

“The Maestro didn’t cry. The Maestro was made of stone and numbers and anger, and mostly he was made of music—cold, unfeeling, metal-tubed music.”

“Mr. Worthington stared. His eyes and mouth were the largest, hanging open like gateways to some secret, dark place. His head didn’t hang quite right, like someone had screwed it on wrong, and he was skinny as a bundle of twigs.”

“The shades overhead scampered away, but one lingered above me, its face cocked to the side like a bird. It opened its mouth and groaned, this low, rumbling sound that made my ears hurt.”

“In a week and a half, we’d know the Hall’s fate. No, not its fate. Its destiny. I liked that word better. It sounded softer, like something Mom would say. It sounded like stars.”

“Henry didn’t say anything more after that. I think he was afraid to talk to me, afraid that I would crack. He might have been right. All I knew was the tip of my charcoal on my sketchpad, like I was sewing myself back together.”

I can see this post being used in reading or writing workshop; what a great resource for teachers! Also, doesn’t it make you want to read the book even more?!

I want to thank Claire Legrand for stopping by, and I hope you found the post as useful as I did!