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Author Guest Post: “Play is Good Trouble” by Brittney Morris, Author of The Jump

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“Play is Good Trouble”

“Speak up, speak out, get in the way. Get in good trouble. Necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” — Representative John Lewis.

I’m the mother of a [not so little anymore] toddler, and a video game developer. Play is a core part of my daily life, and I fully believe it has the power to change the world. How? A few ways. Let me elaborate.

Play fosters empathy.

If I asked you to empathize with a hypothetical border agent in 1940’s Eastern Europe, you might look at me sideways and maybe conceptualize the scenario from the perspective of an onlooker in the 21st century. Now, imagine if I handed you a controller, and you stepped into a checkpoint booth in loyal service to [fictional] Arstotzka. Now imagine that a woman steps up to your booth and hands you an expired passport and a necklace as a bribe, begging to be let through with her husband who asked you to let her in only moments prior. Imagine she tells you she’s sick and may never see him again. She may even be carrying a baby. You get the idea.

Play invites people in.

Remember the last time you sat down to listen to a speech or a presentation or a lecture on a new subject, and maybe you zoned out for a bit, looked up, and realized the speaker is now so far into the material that you’re totally lost? That might have been me on day 1 of macroeconomics my junior year of college. In fact it definitely was. Now, maybe if we’d all sat in groups and played a game of Settlers of Catan, basic macroeconomic concepts might have jumped out at us in a tangible way: resource management, supply and demand, scarcity, monopoly, the benefits of trade, and even opportunity cost. Even folks who are brand new to economics who might be intimidated by an hour-long 37-slide presentation, might feel a little more welcomed into playing a game about it.

Play makes big problems feel tackle-able.

For this last point, I’d like to cite my own source. Enter, The Jump.

I was inspired to write The Jump after seeing a mini docu-series about the Cicada 3301 cryptology puzzle, which was a real-life worldwide scavenger hunt posted by an elusive group under mysterious circumstances. While the Cicada 3301 puzzle hosted individual adults, I realized how impactful it would be to see teams of diverse teens taking on such a puzzle. And so was born The Jump, featuring Jax, Yas, Han, and Spider, taking on an oil refinery threatening to take over their neighborhood.

I wanted to show why an unethical multinational conglomerate should be VERY afraid of our youth, and even moreso if they’re getting into good trouble. Even by playing a game.

Published March 7, 2023 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
(Paperback Release: February 27th, 2024)

About the Book: Influence is power. Power creates change. And change is exactly what Team Jericho needs.

Jax, Yas, Spider, and Han are the four cornerstones of Team Jericho, the best scavenger hunting team in all of Seattle. Each has their own specialty: Jax, the puzzler; Yas, the parkourist; Spider, the hacker; and Han, the cartographer. But now with an oil refinery being built right in their backyard, each also has their own problems. Their families are at risk of losing their jobs, their communities, and their homes.

So when The Order, a mysterious vigilante organization, hijacks the scavenger hunting forum and concocts a puzzle of its own, promising a reward of influence, Team Jericho sees it as the chance of a lifetime. If they win this game, they could change their families’ fates and save the city they love so much. But with an opposing team hot on their heels, it’s going to take more than street smarts to outwit their rivals.

About the Author: Brittney Morris is the bestselling author of SLAY, The Cost of Knowing, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales – Wings of Fury, and The Jump. She also writes video games and has contributed to projects such as The Lost Legends of Redwall, Subnautica: Below Zero, Spider-Man 2 for PS5, and Wolverine for PS5. Brittney is an NAACP Image Award nominee, an ALA Black Caucus Youth Literary Award winner, and an Ignite Award Finalist. She has an economics degree from Boston University and spends her spare time reading, playing video games, and not doing enough yoga. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband Steven and their son Atlas.

Thank you, Brittney!
Adults often need to be reminded of the importance of play.

Author Guest Post: “Be Kind to the Language” by Chris Lynch, Author of Walkin’ The Dog

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“Be Kind to the Language”

“Wee cliche.”

I have written those words in the margin of my students’ work so many times it is bordering on becoming a wee cliche itself (bordering on? I hear my students cough). To avoid that, I occasionally drop the “wee” part for variety. But the wee is in there for good reason; to call something cliche is among the most stinging critiques one can make of a writer. We are, after all, striving for originality at all times in our work, so to call cliche at somebody is tough stuff. That is one reason I added the wee in the first place—to soften the blow.

But there is another important reason, and that is the fact that I’m usually not flagging one of the big, whopping clichés like “It was a dark and stormy night,” known to writing students the world over. My vigilance is overwhelmingly applied to the small, apparently harmless, turns of phrase that pop up all over our writing without our even noticing. Yes, I include myself in this (boy, do I love editors and editing).

But they are not harmless, are they? As I am known to point out to my students as I attempt to talk them out of hating me: those very small over-common terms and phrases that infect our sentences are the equivalent of termites eating away at the foundations of our prose. They are insidious, and lethal. How many times do we read a piece and get to the end merely shrugging, thinking “That was okay, but it left no pleasant aftertaste”? Going back, you may well find that the language, the syntax, the rhythms (yes, there are cliches of pace and rhythm and theme) are so samey compared to what I have read before. If that is your own writing you are going over, look for all the easy choices, the phrases like broad daylight or a twinkle in his eye, that you almost certainly would not have fallen back on if you hadn’t already heard them a billion times in your life. As a dedicated mentor, I like to emphasize that having heard something a billion times is precisely why you do NOT want to repeat it. Even if it is not a literal repetition of something common, if you even feel like you have heard something before, then treat it as if you have. The joyful endgame here is that in almost every instance where I call out a wee cliche to my students, they come back at me with a fillip, a flipflop, a fandango that instantly stamps that sentence as theirs and nobody else’s.

Now, I am not a linguistic brute. I know these minor weakness of phrase are acceptable in everyday life. Social discourse is scarcely imaginable without them. But. Your creative writing is supposed to be your singularity. You get to lovingly labor over it and polish it until it fully represents you and your artful spirit. So, while you can say in conversation, it is what it is (if you MUST), once you have put it in writing you have expended five words to say exactly nothing. That is a fair description of what we aim to eliminate in a creative writing program.

And while we are at it, please stop using the word Dad as a pejorative? That hurts my feelings.

Publishing March 12th, 2024 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

About the Book: “Lynch is back and better, smarter, and funnier than ever.” —Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award Winner

A boy learns how to be a friend from man’s best friend in this funny and moving middle grade novel about humans being able to change and dogs changing us from acclaimed author Chris Lynch.

In a family of strong personalities with very strong points of view, Louis is what his mother lovingly calls “the inactivist,” someone who’d rather kick back than stand out. He only hopes he can stay under the radar when he starts high school in the fall, his first experience with public school after years of homeschooling.

But when a favor for a neighbor and his stinky canine companion unexpectedly turns into a bustling dog-walking business, Louis finds himself meeting an unprecedented number of new friends—both human and canine. Agatha, a quippy and cagey girl his age always seems to be telling two truths and a lie. Cyrus, a few years his senior, promises he’s going to show Louis how to be a better person, whether Louis wants him to or not. And then there are the dogs: misbehaving border terriers, the four (possible stolen) sausage dogs, the rest of Louis’s charges, and a mysterious white beast who appears at a certain spot at the edge of the woods.

Dogs and human alike all seem to have something they want to teach Louis, including his menacing older brother who keeps turning up everywhere. But is Louis ready to learn the lesson he needs most: how to stop being a lone wolf and be part of a pack?

About the Author: Chris Lynch is the award–winning author of several highly acclaimed young adult novels, including Printz Honor Book Freewill, Iceman, Gypsy Davey, and Shadow Boxer—all ALA Best Books for Young Adults—as well as Killing Time in Crystal City, Little Blue Lies, Pieces, Kill Switch, Angry Young Man, and Inexcusable, which was a National Book Award finalist and the recipient of six starred reviews. Chris is the author of middle grade novel Walkin’ the Dog. He holds an MA from the writing program at Emerson College. He teaches in the creative writing MFA program at Lesley University. He lives in Boston and in Scotland.

Thank you, Chris, for these pointers to focus students’, and our, writing!

Author Guest Post: “The Importance of Muslim Characters in Children’s Books: Fostering Inclusivity and Combating Misconceptions” by Rahma Rodaah, Author of Dear Muslim Child

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“The Importance of Muslim Characters in Children’s Books: Fostering Inclusivity and Combating Misconceptions”

When I was seven, my family left my home country and arrived in Canada. I was the only African and Muslim in my class. I was bullied a lot for being different. Because I couldn’t speak French or English, I learned to read very late compared to other children. Picture books were where I started to learn my first words. But before the words came to me, the images were all I had, and to this day, I remember how none of the pictures ever looked like me or my family. I then understood why I was being bullied; no picture book explained who I was.

Children’s literature is a powerful tool for shaping young minds, influencing perspectives, and fostering a sense of identity. In an increasingly diverse world, literature must reflect this diversity, allowing children to see themselves represented in the stories they read. This is particularly crucial for Muslim children, who often find themselves underrepresented in children’s literature. As Islamophobia continues to rise, the inclusion of Muslim characters in books not only helps Muslim children feel a sense of belonging but also plays a vital role in dismantling stereotypes and fostering understanding among all children.

I cannot overstate the power of representation in children’s literature. When children see characters who look like them, share their experiences, and come from similar backgrounds, it fosters a sense of validation and belonging. For Muslim children, whose identities are often shaped by their faith and cultural background, seeing characters who share their religious beliefs and cultural practices in the books they read becomes an affirming experience. This is one of the reasons why I wrote Dear Muslim Child: I wanted to affirm, celebrate, and normalize the identity of Muslim children.

Representation in literature helps children develop empathy and understanding for those who may be different from them. Exposure to diverse characters broadens their perspectives, cultivating an appreciation for the richness of the world’s cultures. It was important for me to write a book that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the struggles Muslim children deal with due to being misunderstood.

The rise of Islamophobia in recent years has highlighted the urgent need for positive and accurate portrayals of Muslims in all forms of media, including children’s literature. As a woman who veils, I am more hyper-vigilant whenever I am in unfamiliar environments because I fear being attacked. Negative stereotypes and misrepresentations contribute to the perpetuation of harmful biases, leading to discrimination and prejudice. It might seem like a small act, but I think the publishing of proud Muslim characters in children’s books serves as a powerful antidote to these stereotypes, fostering a more nuanced understanding of Islam and Muslim communities.

By offering authentic portrayals of Muslim characters with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and interests, children’s literature becomes a tool for dismantling the monolithic image often associated with Islam. It allows young readers to see Muslims as individuals with unique personalities, dreams, and aspirations rather than reducing them to one-dimensional stereotypes.

Children are naturally curious and open-minded, making them receptive to learning about different cultures and religions. Including Muslim characters in children’s books provides an opportunity to teach young readers about the values, traditions, and practices of Islam in a relatable and accessible manner. This exposure fosters a sense of familiarity, reducing the fear of the unknown and promoting cultural understanding. Moreover, it helps dispel the notion that Muslims are fundamentally different or incompatible with the societies in which they live. As children engage with Muslim characters in stories, they begin to realize the commonality of human experiences, building bridges of understanding that transcend religious and cultural differences.

Imagine reading hundreds of books and never seeing your name, your culture or the celebrations that are so important to you. Fortunately, most of us cannot relate to this experience, but for a lot of us, this is the norm. Children’s literature should be a mirror that reflects the diversity of the world and a window that opens up new perspectives. The absence of Muslim characters in books can inadvertently send a message to Muslim children that their stories are not important or worthy of being told. Inclusion is not only about representation but also about acknowledging the validity of diverse experiences. When Muslim characters are woven into the fabric of children’s literature, it sends a powerful message of inclusivity, telling young readers that their identities are valued and that their stories matter.

Including Muslim characters in children’s books is not only a matter of representation but a crucial step toward fostering understanding, combating stereotypes, and promoting inclusivity. Dear Muslim Child and other picture books are a love letter to Muslim children and a warm invitation to others to witness the joy and love of this community.

Published February 6th, 2024 by Balzer + Bray

About the Book: This inspirational picture book from the author of Dear Black Child encourages Muslim children to take joy and pride in their Islamic faith. Perfect for fans of In My Mosque and The Proudest Blue.

Dear Muslim Child, your story matters.

In this lyrical ode to Islam, Muslim children all over the world are encouraged to celebrate their faith and traditions.

From DEAR MUSLIM CHILD by Rahma Rodaah, illustrated by Aya Ghanameh. All rights reserved. Used by permission of HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray.

About the Author: Rahma Rodaah was born and raised in Hargeisa, Somaliland. At the age of eight, her family immigrated to Canada, where she still resides today. She is a mother of four children and enjoys reading and coming up with silly bedtime stories. She is also the author of Dear Black Child and two self-published picture books. You can visit her online at rahmarodaah.com.

About the Illustrator: Aya Ghanameh is a Palestinian illustrator, writer, and designer from Amman, Jordan. She received her BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design with a concentration in Literary Arts, and completed a year-long Children’s Books & Gifts Design Fellowship at Chronicle Books. You can visit her online at ayaghanameh.com.

Thank you, Rahma, for this reminder of the importance of mirrors (Sims-Bishop) in books for all ages!

Author Guest Post: “Coping with Creative Arts” by Rebecca Weber, Author of The Painter’s Butterfly

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“Coping with Creative Arts”

From the time I could speak, I wanted to be a teacher! I bet you thought I was going to say author. But professional writing seemed like the kind of career that only lottery winners and famous-people-who-were-not-me could achieve. I spent much of my childhood bossing around my younger sister and cousins, forcibly sitting them in front of a stand-up chalkboard and passing out quizzes to be sure they were paying attention to my genius lesson plans. With each scrape of the chalk against the blackboard, I had not a single doubt that teaching was the career path meant for me.

Fast forward to student teaching in college and I got a hard dose of reality real fast. Education is stressful for everyone involved: administrators, teachers, and students alike. While I loved working with kids to enhance their wonder of the world, the nearly unattainable standards and diversity of learning styles threw me for a loop, not-to-mention my undiagnosed anxiety acting as my own worst enemy. I made it through student teaching mostly emotionally intact, and one of my favorite memories of the whole experience was when I created a poetry unit for my fourth grade class. I’d been head-over-heels for poetry since elementary school, and surely the kids would explode with excitement over poetry too.

Not exactly! I got quite the mixed response to my unit plan. Some kids took a very simple approach, creating poems that rhymed but didn’t have much personal significance. Some kids stared at me like I’d grown three heads when I brought up “haikus” and “syllables” and “structure.” I’m sure they were thinking “Poetry is for old people long dead. What’s it matter to me?.” However, there were a select few that completely transformed through the week or two of my unit. One boy in particular, an athlete and class clown, read multiple poems in front of the class, each with deep emotional significance and obvious natural talent. He had never written poetry in his life, and yet his words entrapped me, bared his soul for everyone to see. Without it, I probably wouldn’t have glimpsed his ‘truth’. Proud isn’t a strong enough word. I’ll never, ever forget how poetry helped him unfurl his vulnerability.

Poetry is but one of many forms of art essential to living. I’m of the belief that everyone should have something in which to channel their passion. With anxiety and mental illness pervading current day society as it does, the arts have never been more necessary (or underappreciated). Creative arts allow people to see and understand themselves, to sort through emotional struggles or questions in a proactive and beautiful way. And yet, education insists that tests are the true measure of learning. I taught preschool for many years in a private school because it gave me the freedom to teach kids in a way that suited them best. Preschool makes self-expression a priority through fun first: singing, arts and crafts, dance, and active play. As teachers, we wove academic learning into those artistic activities. And the kids were better for it. Preschoolers are essentially at an age where they’re learning to be functioning humans, but who decided that once kids reach elementary, middle, or high school they’ve suddenly achieved full self-awareness? The idea seems ludicrous to me.

In my debut middle grade novel, The Painter’s Butterfly, 12 year-old foster child, Nova, uses her innate talent for drawing to cope with a lifetime without a permanent home. In fact, I’d say the only reason Nova survived her nomadic lifestyle is because of her art. She finds a kindred spirit in her newest guardian, painter Mr. Russell, and they use their mutual love of art to build a positive bond with one another. While The Painter’s Butterfly is a work of fantasy and fiction, the creative arts hold the same merit and potential in our everyday lives. Writing, painting, drawing, music, you name it…each allow us to channel confusing emotions into something tangible that can be more easily understood. The arts allow us to truly be seen.

The creative arts put human passion and well-being ahead of everything else, and I know many educators who utilize these incredible tools in their classrooms, despite the “teaching to the test” mentality.. I hope one day society puts the arts on their deserved pedestal, but until then…

Have you been creative today?

Published February 7th, 2023 by Kinkajou Press

About the Book: What if art could come alive and guide you home?

Twelve-year-old foster child Nova longs to find her one true home. When jealousy of her art ability upends her most cherished placement, Nova’s dropped in the middle of nowhere to live with painter Mr. Russell in his ramshackle farmhouse.

While exploring, Nova sneaks into the attic and discovers a magical easel that brings paintings to life. She puts her art skills to the test and gets caught in a whirlwind adventure, complete with rainbow butterflies, a devious leprechaun, and a journey to the rainforest.

Following the magic, Nova stumbles upon an underground cellar that houses a startling secret. She’s forced to choose: escape to a prior foster home, or mend her relationship with Mr. Russell. Nova makes a dangerous mistake when she strikes a match of revenge. She must survive the inferno to learn the true meaning of home.

About the Author: Rebecca is a Midwestern girl with a lifelong passion for books! She spends most of her time nurturing her baby girl and two Boston Terrier fur-babies, and flipping houses with her realtor husband. It took fifteen years to find the courage to craft her first novel, The Painter’s Butterfly, but now she’s never letting her feather pen go! While she misses teaching preschool-aged children their ABC’s, Rebecca is thrilled to have the chance to reach middle graders worldwide with her fantastical stories.

Social Media Info:
Twitter: @RWeberWrites
IG: rebeccaweberwrites
Facebook: Rebecca Weber – Author
TikTok: @rweberwrites
Email: rebeccaweberwrites@gmail.com

Thank you, Rebecca, for reminding us of the importance of creativity!

Author Guest Post: “Traveling the Globe with the City Spies” by James Ponti, Author of City Spies: Mission Manhattan

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“Traveling the Globe with the City Spies”

I love to travel and I love to write, so it’s not surprising that the characters in my books do a fair amount of globetrotting. In the first four City Spies adventures, the team has been to London, Paris, San Francisco, Moscow, Beijing, and Cairo. My hope is that in addition to providing exciting backdrops for the stories to unfold, these locales also spark an interest in readers for faraway places.

I research each of them thoroughly and try to visit them in person when I can. (Covid made this impossible for books 3 and 4.) I do this research not only for accuracy, but also inspiration.  An unexpected detail about a location can help bring the story to life and provide a boost to the plot. (For example, while working on this book, I learned that an anti-tank rocket was once fired at MI6 headquarters and bounced off!)

Many educators have told me they use the books to “take their students” to the same locations as the City Spies, which fills my heart with joy. One way you can do that is on my website. There is a page (https://www.jamesponti.com/explore) that features the locations from the books and includes research photographs, maps, and travel videos that I’ve made for each one.

With the release of Mission Manhattan on February 6th, I thought I’d tell you about four of the locations that play important roles in the story. (I visited all of them in person with one exception – just like that rocket, I am unable to get inside MI6 headquarters.) In some instances, I was given special tours and in others I acted like the characters and snuck around hoping not to get caught. Along the way, I took hundreds of photos, a few of which I’ve included here.

Piazza San Marco – Venice, Italy

The book starts off in Venice. (My wife was particularly happy to help me research this stop.) Made up of more than one hundred small islands connected by a seemingly endless number of footbridges, the city is unlike anywhere else in the world. The primary setting in the book is Piazza San Marco, which Napoleon is said to have called, “The drawing room of Europe.”

The pictures I’ve included highlight the famous bell tower that stands over three hundred feet tall. During the action scenes in the first chapters, this is where Kat is positioned as the alpha of the mission. I made sure to get a picture of what she would see and I came across a plaque memorializing Galileo, which I worked into the story.

“Four hundred years earlier, this was where Galileo looked to the heavens with his newly invented telescope and discovered order in the universe. Now it was where a fourteen-year-old spy looked across a sea of demonstrators, hoping to figure out which ones were a threat to the others.”

MI6 Building – London, UK

The headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) is quite conspicuous considering the clandestine nature of what takes place inside. Located in the heart of London, its exterior features prominently in several James Bond movies. In Mission Manhattan, the City Spies travel there to secretly meet with the chief, who is universally known as C.

Since I couldn’t visit in person, I scoured books, podcasts, interviews and their website.  (https://www.sis.gov.uk/) I was particularly interested in the architecture, which is unlike any other building I know.

“The massive Secret Intelligence Service headquarters overlooked the Thames, and its architecture seemed equal parts Mayan temple, medieval castle, and nuclear power plant. Commonly called Vauxhall Cross, it was a well-known London landmark, but up until now, the only time the City Spies had gotten a good look at it was while watching James Bond movies.”

Iranian Embassy – Washington, D.C.

Washington is a favorite city and I visit it frequently. In Mission Manhattan, the City Spies go to some well-known D.C. landmarks like the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, and the U.S. Botanic Garden. But I was most intrigued by a much lesser-known location – the Iranian Embassy.

Located across the street from the British and Brazilian embassies (which feature heavily in the plot), the Iranian embassy has remained empty ever since the United States and Iran severed diplomatic relations more than forty years ago. It stays empty way because of Article 45 of the Vienna Convention, which someone explains in the book.

“Technically, that land is part of Iran. But the Iranians can’t come here and do anything with it, so it just sits there like a haunted house.”

The idea of this mysterious abandoned building in one of the most expensive locations in Washington, D.C. was too interesting for me to pass up. When I visited to research all the locations in the book, I snuck around and took a dozen pictures of the embassy including these.

New York Public Library, Schwarzman Building – New York City, NY

I love the New York Public Library’s mission, collection, and history. Its main building is featured prominently in the climactic chapters of Mission Manhattan.

“The main branch of the New York Public Library was one of the most iconic buildings in the city. Its Fifth Avenue facade featured three grand arches guarded by a pair of majestic marble lions. The building was home to ornate reading rooms, special collections, and literary treasures as varied as Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence and the original stuffed animals that inspired Winnie-the-Pooh.”

For my research, some staff members showed me behind the scenes along with my wife and editor. One of my favorite details from the tour concerned the interior stacks, which are hidden from public view. There are seven floors of cast iron and steel bookcases that are mostly empty because the books have been moved to a more environmentally appropriate location underground. The shelving units can’t be moved though, because they are structural elements and help keep the building standing. For me, it is a fascinating detail and just screamed out to be the setting of a chase.

BEYOND BOOK FIVE

I am happy to say that there will be at least eight books in the City Spies series and that means there are many more exciting locations to come. In fact, the first part of the writing process is always when my editor Kristin asks me, “Where are we going next?”

Here’s hoping that you come along with us!

Published February 6th, 2024 by Aladdin

About the Book: The City Spies head to the Big Apple when a credible threat is made to a young climate activist who is scheduled to speak in front of the upcoming United Nations General Assembly. With Rio acting as alpha and a new member in their ranks, the team’s mission to protect a fellow teen takes them on an exciting adventure in, around, and even under the greatest city in the world as they follow leads to the outer boroughs, the UN Headquarters, and even the usually off-limits stacks that extend deep under the main branch of the New York Public Library.

City Spies 5 – Book Trailer

About the Author: James Ponti grew up in a small Florida beach town, where he dreamed of one day becoming a writer. He loves pasta, laughing at funny stories, and going to the movies on weekday afternoons. One of his absolute favorite things to do is travel with his family, and it was during a trip to London and Paris that he got the idea for City Spies. He now lives in Orlando, Florida and is the New York Times Bestselling author of four middle grade book series. Find out more at JamesPonti.com.

Meet James at his in-person book tour!

Tuesday, February 6 at 6:00pm ET
Politics and Prose at The Wharf (Washington, D.C.)
In conversation with Hena Khan

Wednesday, February 7 at 6:00pm ET
Books of Wonder (New York, NY)
In conversation with Gordon Korman and Adam Gidwitz

Thursday, February 8 at 6:00pm ET
RJ Julia Booksellers (Madison, CT)
In conversation with Jake Burt

Friday, February 9 at 6:30pm ET
An Unlikely Story (Plainville, MA)

Saturday, February 10 at 2:00pm ET
Bush Auditorium at Rollins College (Winter Park, FL)
In conversation with Stuart Gibbs

Thank you, James, for taking us on this journey with you and the City Spies!

Author Guest Post: “Ways to Get Middle-Grade Students Excited About Reading” by Sherry Ellis, Author of Bubba and Squirt’s City of Bones

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“Ways to Get Middle-Grade Students Excited About Reading”

When kids are young, they are excited about books. Many even want to be authors when they grow up. I always chuckle during school visits when I ask the question, “Who wants to be an author when you grow up?” Inevitably, every hand goes up in the kindergarten and first grade groups. As the grade number goes up, the hand numbers go down. Middle-schoolers rarely have ambitions to become an author. Sometimes that also means they don’t enjoy reading. How can we get these kids excited about reading? Here are some tips teachers can use in their classrooms to get them motivated.

  1. Plan lessons around your favorite books and topics. If you’re excited about the book, that enthusiasm will show and may infect your students – in a good way!
  2. Show students you’re reading, too. Post a picture of your current read on a board each week and encourage kids to ask about it.
  3. Maintain a classroom library. I see this in classrooms for the little kids all the time, but not so much in classrooms for older kids. Fill it with a wide variety of popular novels – books that would appeal to both boys and girls. Consider including shorter stories and some with illustrations that may appeal to reluctant readers.
  4. Encourage independent reading by providing time to read. Have students set individual goals and reward students for reaching them. Don’t attach a grade to it though. Students may get turned off by that.
  5. Watch movies of the books after reading them and compare the differences.
  6. Use audio books. Okay, so that’s not exactly reading, but it could get reluctant readers interested in books.
  7. Implement classroom book clubs in which students get to choose what they want to read from a list of books and then get grouped with others who want to read the same thing. Give them some ideas for topics they can discuss that are related to the books. Encourage them to come up with their own.
  8. After reading a book, have students participate in activities that help them flex their own creative muscles: imagine a different ending, write a letter to the main character referencing a specific scene, interview the villain, draw a map of the story’s setting, etc.
  9. Introduce students to a popular new series. The cliff hangers might entice reluctant readers to keep reading.
  10. Adopt an author. If students are excited about an author’s book, visit that author’s website and find out if that author can do a school visit or Skype visit. You can also see if that author has done any videos or webcasts that can be shown in the classroom.

With a little ingenuity, teachers can make reading fun, interesting, and engaging. And who knows? Maybe if a lot of teachers do this, the number of hands of middle-schoolers who want to be authors will go up!

Book #3 of the Bubba and Squirt series
Published January 16th, 2024 by Dancing Lemur Press

About the Book: Creepy Underground Catacombs!

Bubba and Squirt are back for another rousing quest as they travel through the mysterious vortex to Paris, France. It’s another wild adventure as they track down art thieves, encounter terrifying monsters, and discover the whereabouts of their missing father.

Will they make it out alive or join the rest of the skeletons in the City of Bones?

About the Author: Sherry Ellis is an award-winning author and professional musician who plays and teaches the violin, viola, and piano. When she is not writing or engaged in musical activities, she can be found doing household chores, hiking, or exploring the world. Ellis lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
https://www.sherryellis.org/
https://www.bubbaandsquirt.org/
https://www.facebook.com/sherryellisbooksandmusic
https://twitter.com/513sherrye

Sherry Ellis’ Bubba and Squirt’s Big Dig to China won the Reader’s Favorites Silver Medal for the Children’s Grades 4-6 category.

Thank you, Sherry, for sharing some good advice to get readers reading!

Author Guest Post: “Museum Mysteries” by K.H. Saxton, Author of The A&A Detective Agency: The Fairfleet Affair

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“Museum Mysteries”

In The A&A Detective Agency: The Fairfleet Affair, 12-year-old detectives Alex and Asha get their first big case when Dr. Alistair Fairfleet disappears under suspicious circumstances. Dr. Fairfleet, the agency’s primary benefactor, is also the chairman of the Fairfleet Institute and its world-famous museums. As Asha and Alex follow the trail of clues and puzzles that their mentor left behind, they must explore the four main branches of the Institute: the Fairfleet Museum of Art, the Fairfleet Historical Archives, the Fairfleet Center for the Performing Arts, and the Fairfleet Museum of Natural History. These centers of history and culture provide the sleuths with plenty of topics to research and mysteries to investigate, and they present a similar entry point for young readers hoping to learn and engage more deeply with the text.

The Fairfleet Museum of Art

The many masterpieces of the art museum are curated by the equally impressive Dr. Prudence Ito. Admiring the artwork leads Alex and Asha to some important clues as well as more questions. What do an ancient Greek bust of Pallas Athena and a painting of a frog by an elusive French artist have in common? Perhaps that there is more to each of their stories than meets the eye…

Class Activity: You don’t need to travel to Northbrook to give students access to great artwork. Visit a local gallery, explore a student art exhibit at your school, or browse the online collection of a well-known museum like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Let students pick a piece of artwork for a creative writing exercise, then ask them to write a short fictional narrative inspired by their selection. Give them time to observe the piece, brainstorm, freewrite, and share.

  • Does your piece suggest characters and a conflict?
  • Does it make you think of a particular setting, theme, or mood? Feel free to embrace abstract or creative connections.
  • Can you imagine a story in which the piece of art itself shows up as a key detail, plot point, or symbol?

The Fairfleet Historical Archives

The archives house a wide variety of documents and primary sources related to the history of Northbrook, the Fairfleet family, and the other branches of the Institute. A young archivist named Minnie Mayflower helps the sleuths piece together evidence from the past. As Asha and Alex soon discover, good research is critical to good detective work.

Class Activity: Consider what archival materials exist at your school and what might be available for classroom use—an old yearbook or student newspaper, for example. Allow students to peruse one such source and choose a photograph, article, or something else that interests them for further reflection.

  • What do you notice? What details stand out to you?
  • Can you make any inferences about this moment in the past based on your observations?
  • How does the experience of students at the time seem similar to or different from your own?
  • If you could talk to these students from days gone by, what would you ask them?

The Fairfleet Center for the Performing Arts

Quentin Carlisle, the charismatic but conniving artistic director of the FCPA, tests the detectives’ patience as well as their theatrical knowledge as he prepares for a production of King Lear and gives Alex and Asha some additional insight into the Shakespeare-themed clues of the case.

Class Activity: Have students think of a book or a play that they have both read and seen in performance. For many students, this might be a book that was adapted into a movie. Students should spend a few minutes jotting down notes on what they remember about each version and then address the questions below.

  • How was reading this story different from watching it? Which experience did you prefer and why?
  • What changes were made between the text and the performance? Were these changes necessary or effective?
  • If you were to direct your own performance, what choices would you make? Who would you cast in important roles? What costumes, props, or set details would help you realize your vision?

The Fairfleet Museum of Natural History

The natural history museum and its serious executive curator, Dr. John Wright, are at the heart of The Fairfleet Affair. In the Hall of Cultural Artifacts, objects like the Nabataean Zodiac fascinate Asha and Alex and lead them to contemplate questions about museum curation, provenance, and cultural heritage.

Class Activity: Students should pick an object from home that is especially meaningful to them and then imagine that a museum curator 200 years in the future is trying to decide how best to display or share this object with the public.

  • Where and how should the object be displayed? What other items or artifacts might be nearby? What would you call the exhibit?
  • What information should be included on the museum placard?
  • Does the object have personal, family, or cultural significance for you? Do you think that the museum can honor this special meaning? If so, how? If not, what fate would you prefer for the object?

Published September 19, 2023 by Union Square & Co.

About the Book: Follow clues, solve puzzles, crack the code… find the missing millionaire.

The celebrated museums of the Fairfleet Institute are known for curating the mysteries of humanity. But they don’t solve mysteries. Luckily, twelve-year-old friends Alex Foster and Asha Singh of the A&A Detective Agency do. Or they will . . . once they get a real case to test their skills as sleuths.

When Dr. Alistair Fairfleet, the institute’s eccentric chairman, disappears on the first day of Alex and Asha’s summer vacation, they receive a letter written by the missing millionaire himself inviting them to a game involving complicated clues and puzzles. It is just the sort of case they’ve been waiting to tackle. But nothing in the Fairfleet case has a simple solution. As the kids track down clues, they uncover art forgeries, archaeological crimes, and Fairfleet family secrets. All of this tests their partnership and forces them to confront the complicated legacies of the people and places they admire most.

Praise for the Book: 

““[T]he intricate plot—jam-packed with brain teasers, convoluted twists, and red herrings—keeps readers in suspense while neatly paving the way for a sequel in Saxton’s series-starting debut.” —Publishers Weekly

“A complex, cinematic, and eclectic page-turner.” – Kirkus

“Saxton reveals a knack for constructing a mystery, planting baffling clues, and creating interesting characters of varied ages Tension rises and falls, but the pace of the narrative never falters, and readers will enjoy seeing the puzzle pieces fall into place during the satisfying conclusion. A smart, involving first novel.”—Booklist

“Young readers will find The Fairfleet Affair a solid introduction to the genre and will, most likely, look forward to forthcoming Northbrook crimes the A&A duo can solve.” —New York Journal of Books

“Full of clues and puzzle pieces to ponder, this complicated mystery will keep readers guessing all the way until the end.”—School Library Journal / Teen Librarian Toolbox

About the Author: K. H. Saxton is an English teacher and boarding school administrator in Connecticut. The A&A Detective Agency: The Fairfleet Affair is her first novel.

Thank you, K.H., for these amazing activities that tie into your book!