Long Live Printed Books

This email I recently received may be the merriest holiday gift of all to would-be writers. As a lover of printed books, I find it quite encouraging as well.

Dear writers, dreamers, and artists,

The market is saturated. Picture books are dead. Publishing is for optimistic fools.
And yet... There are still stories to be told. And we know how to do it.

In the coming year, we’ll be publishing The Forest of Ancestors, an outstanding series of chapter books with a fantasy twist that makes history personal. And we’re getting great early feedback on our upcoming Wormholes series that features parallel universes and bizarre new worlds.

As we approach 2011, I am preparing my list for 2013. I’ll be looking at fiction and non-fiction titles for children of all ages. I would love to hear from you as I consider new series concepts, titles, and submissions.

What stories do our kids need to read? What amazing adventures can we take them on? What wild people can we introduce them to?

So what’s your big dream? What book do you wish you could have read when you were small and full of wonder? How can we work together?

In January I’ll be reviewing concepts and writing samples, so if you have a piece you’ve been working on and would like feedback, now is the time. If an idea has been brewing for a bit and you’re ready to share it, I would love to hear from you.

Thank you!
Can’t wait to hear all your brilliant ideas!


Heidi


PS
Please share this message with anyone who may be interested.

--
Heidi Kellenberger
Editor
Fiction and Trade
Teacher Created Materials
5301 Oceanus Dr.
Huntington Beach, CA 92649
hkellenberger@tcmpub.com
http://www.tcmpub.com

Otto Grows Down

Today my sixth graders shared their original "What If" stories, based upon Otto Grows Down, written by Michael Sussman and illustrated by Scott Magoon.

These stories were, without a doubt, some of the best we've heard all year. I think some of the credit is due to the organizer I provided for students, but most of it is due to the source book itself. In introducing Otto Grows Down, I told students, "We're using this as a mentor text." We then discussed what that term meant, and this discussion led to students listening to the read-aloud with a very different, very focused goal in mind.

In short, our lesson proceeded in this manner:

1. We read and discussed the book. We also took some time to compare and contrast it with other time travel books and movies we know. We also discussed what the creators chose to include or leave out, and their possible reasons for that.
2. We projected the What If... writing form on our interactive whiteboard, and parsed out the story in simpler terms. This "deconstructing" helped students understand the story structure more clearly, in preparation for creating their own.
3. Students looked over a brief list of What If... prompts, and then chose either one from that list or one of their own.
4. Students completed the prewriting sheet, and then shared with two partners. Partners helped clarify plot points, and also offered other ideas for inclusion.
5. Drafting began, and students again paired up and shared and critiqued after about fifteen minutes.
6. Following another writing session, volunteers read aloud to the class and heard some comments from their peers.

What's great about writing like this is that students who are extremely creative can really take off! Those who struggle not only have periodic check-ins with peers (and with me, whenever needed), but they can also consult the picture book itself. Many students, in fact, reread the book as they were working in order to get a feel for the voice, sentence length, paragraphing, and so on.

So again, I recommend you grab this title for yourself! Joni from South Dakota, however, won't need to: she's our Otto Grows Down giveaway winner! Congrats to Joni! Hope the hand-out helps your students to create some phenomenal stories!

Have other What If... favorites? We'd love to hear about them! Leave a comment below, or email me directly.

UPDATE: Author Michael Sussman checked in to say thanks for the mention. Be sure to check out his Otto Grows Down site; one particularly cool page is Thoughts on Time, which contains a nice poem on time, written by the author.

Writing About "What If" Using Picture Books as Models

What if we traveled back in time? Not an original thought, by any measure. Time travel tales populate our culture in just about every possible permutation. From the very recent and ridiculous Hot Tub Time Machine to more serious works such as Jane Yolen's Devil's Arithmetic, this device continues to find new narratives and new audiences.

But what happens when a young boy begins to experience time reversal in real time? That very funny premise is at the center of Otto Grows Down, written by Michael Sussman and illustrated by Scott Magoon.

When Otto blows out the candles at his sixth birthday party, he wishes baby sister Anna was never born. Then strange things begin to happen. His candles relight, his watch hand spins in the wrong direction, and he rewraps and returns his gifts to their givers.

Over the next few days, Otto's experiences are equally weird: going up the slide at recess, delivering bags of food to the supermarket, bringing in the garbage, and getting his hair longer at the barber's. In this course of events, Otto's sister is returned to the hospital (we're spared further details of that procedure), and Otto experiences his fifth birthday.

The gross details of time reversal are made crystal clear when Sussman writes, "Otto took baths when he was clean - and they made him dirty. And going to the bathroom was downright disgusting." Think about it. My sixth graders did, and they died laughing. The author and illustrator of this book have their audience pegged!

I won't spoil the ending for you, but in my opinion, this book is a winner. Yes, it tells a funny, heartfelt story, but for my purposes, it's a fantastic writing model for students using the "What If..." premise.

The fact is, thousands of stories are based upon various "what if" scenarios. One of the most common literary motifs is for children to be separated from adults and left to their own devices. It's a device that simply asks, "What if children were removed from the rules, guidance, and nurture of adults? How would they fend for themselves?" We see that motif take center stage in Harry Potter; Lord of the Flies; and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In discussing this motif with my sixth grade classes, we discovered that it likewise occurs in a number of our classroom novels: Holes, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and The Outsiders.

So playing "What If..." not only helps you to identify common themes in reading, it can also help your students generate ideas for their own writing. For example, What if

• there were only night?
• the world had no numbers?
• everyone had a twin?
• America had lost the War of Independence?
• Earth began to lose its gravity?
• our school were divided into four houses like Hogwarts?

Whether these prompts are used for simple poems, reflections on current reading selections, or free creative writing, you'll find that the "What If..." model really opens the doors to some divergent thought. Using a simple picture book model such as Otto Grows Down is a fun way to kick off the writing. This book proves that a short story can contain humor, vivid details, and a plot line that works on multiple levels.

Have you read this far? Terrific! Sterling Publishing has kindly offered a giveaway copy of Otto Grows Down, and it's all set to go! Email me to enter the drawing (just type Otto in the subject line). Deadline is 10:00 PM EST on Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Good luck!