Taking a "Book Break!" with Author Sarah Maizes

Today I'd like to welcome Sarah Maizes to take a "Book Break?" with us!  She is the author of On My Way To School.

The first is me in front of my collection of my FAVORITE CHILDREN’S BOOKS EVER!!!! I use them for reference sometimes, and sometimes just inspiration…or entertainment! The good ones always make me laugh!

On My Way To School is on the primary ballot for the New York State Charlotte Award.  

I came to write On My Way to School . . .  Actually On My Way to School is the third book in a series. The first two books, On My Way to the Bath and On My Way to Bed came first. I got the idea one night after yelling for my youngest daughter to get in the bath for the 20th time. I was sitting in her room putting some stuff away when I saw her on her crawling past the doorway on the floor saying “I’m a snail. I moving so slow…” And that was it. Then I wrote the next two books like I was following Livi and her day.  I would love to do the next one about going on a playdate - but you’d have to talk to my publisher about that. 

Readers should read my books . . .  I don’t know if I can ever tell someone they “should” read my books, but I will happily say that if they do - and especially if they read them with a kid - they’ll have a great laugh and maybe both walk away with a better understanding of the other person’s point of view.

My favorite place to read . . .  My plush chair in my bedroom. (Picture attached below - Note the foot massager I keep at on the floor in front of it!)

Where I sit to read (chair in my bedroom - notice the foot massager!!!! I’ve nailed this whole “reading nook” thing.)

A book that has touched my heart . . .  A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I must have read this book 100 times as a kid and teenager. Hated the movie remakes. Only the book works.

I collect my ideas and inspiration for writing . . . I get my inspiration just Parenting and watching other people parent. I actually get a LOT more inspiration from the kids I watch than the parents. Parents are boring. But kids have this fresh perspective of the world. We forget it’s all new to them! Then I write things down everywhere. I keep pads of paper in my car, next to my bed and on my desk. I never know when inspiration will strike and if I don’t write something down right away, I completely forget. I have PILES (literally) of little notes and notebooks filled with ideas, jokes, partial stories and observations. When I run out of ideas, I go into these piles (I keep in a big plastic box) and just pick one out. It’s like playing a raffle every time! 

Just a few shelves of some of my favorite books - there’s an entire area devoted to cook books - which I love. This is seriously just a fraction of the books I own. My husband made me just put a ton of them in the garage because I can download them. But to me, nothing feels like paper in hand.

Readers should know . . . I performed comedy for 5 years. Improv, sketch, stand-up - you name it. It was my life’s dream to be a stand-up comedian. But oce I did it for a little bit, I was done. Sometimes, you pursue a dream only to say “Well that was fun, and I’m glad I did it, but…nah.” but I'm SO glad I did it! It forever changed how I write and create entertainment! Best experience of my life, but wow, I’m glad I don’t do it anymore. That’s one tough life!

A project I’m currently working on . . .  I always have 5 or 6 stories I’m working on simultaneously. That way I can procrastinate writing one book by working on another, and still get work done! On top of that, I’m producing an animated preschool show for Jim Henson - which was another dream of mine - and I’m loving every second of it!

Thank you for taking a "Book Break!" with us, Sarah!

Now, be sure to be "on your way" over to Sarah's website to learn even more about  her and her work.  

A Visit with Author Sam Angus

All the way from England, today I'm welcoming Sam Angus, author of Soldier Dog.  Pour yourself a cup of tea and let's take a "Book Break!" with Ms. Angus! 

Soldier Dog by Sam Angus is on the 2016 NYSRA Charlotte Book Award middle school ballot.    

Be sure to check out Sam's website.

Visit the Soldier Dog website. 

Readers should read my book because . . .  History lovers should read it for the little known side it reveals of the first world war and animal lovers should read it for the story of the dog and all adventure lovers should read it for the adventure of the story and but above all read it for the human story.

I came to write SOLDIER DOG . . .          Soldier Dog was my first book and the idea for this came from something I heard on the radio. When I heard it, I knew instantly that I would write about it, that I would tell it as a story and that it would be for children. At the time I wasn’t a writer, I was in the fashion industry and I was running late for a meeting and just stuck in this endless traffic jam and as I sat there in the car I heard the story of a World War 1 messenger dog called Airedale Jack and the story of Jack’s life was what made me take pen to paper and write my first book.  I spent almost two years researching the book before I came to write it and I do think that this is perhaps the best plotted of my books. Most readers seem not to have a sense of how the story will resolve itself.

Some of the pictures I discovered of World War 1 messenger dogs during my research for Soldier Dog. The first sketch is the image I used on my inboard for the character of Soldier.

My favorite place to read . . .  . In bed. I often start off in the living room on the sofa but end up creeping upstairs to bed. Ideally with a cup of tea. 

Oh golly, there are books everywhere in my house. Below are some pics of the shelves in my study.

A book that has touched my heart . . . 

But more than either of these. Ann Holme’s, I am David. Pure intense, brief, poetic, an ideal story. It think it must have moved me very deeply because it is the one I go back to again and again.

I collect my ideas and inspiration for writing . . . The settings or circumstances for my books tend to come from things I read. For example the book I am about to start will be based in an English stately home during World War II. The home, like many others, has been requisitioned by the government for use as a school for children evacuated from the cities. I just loved the idea of setting a school in a large old English home with the family still living there and I was looking at this book. The plot on the other hand, or what happens to the hero tends to come from something that has happened to someone I know, or that I’ve heard people talking about.

An image of me at my desk in London.

Readers should know . . .I love writing children’s stories because you can have happy endings. Adult fiction tends not to have happy endings and since I have a naturally happy temperament, I like to see the book end happily and as Oscar Wilde said, "the bad end happily," and I like things to happen in a story. I like the strong narrative children of work for children, of stories with beginnings, middles, and happy ends. Sometimes I think these are the hardest kinds of stories to write because you have to create a resolution , an ending that is happy, but that is also possible or plausible - so the plotting takes me a tot of time, sometimes as long s actually writing the novel and it is the bit I like least. Then, once I’m there, I start and if all goes well, and the main characters are fully developed in my mind, then the writing all goes along happily and then there’s a certain point where the characters tend to sort of stand up and take over and write the rest of the book themselves. 

A project that I'm currently working on . . . 

My next book come out in June 16. it marks a slight departure from my previous books about war an animals. It is less historical, and less concerned with war though may of the characters do go off to fight. This book is set in the West Indies and is about a gutsy, feisty young girl who is seedily taken from what she tough of as her family in England and transported to the West Indies where she finds she has inherited a sugar plantation. die The twelve year old Idie Grace finds that she issued by both the white plantation class and the local coloured population because she is neither one thing nor the other and worse there is a mystery in her family. Abandoned by her governess, lonely and alone, Idie Grace fills her beautiful home with monkeys and parakeets and toucans and turtles. She keeps her horse in the hall and her toucans on the drinks trolley and the turtles in the tub. She keeps a mongoose in her pocket and hummingbirds eat from the tips of her fingers and she grows to love the island until she is torn apart by a shattering discovery about herself.

I will tell you no more but do read it,  I think it is one of my best. 

Also, ideally, I would live like Idie, with all sorts of creatures coming in and out of the house. We did have a  lamb once that thought it was a dog and he followed by little white west highland terrier in and out of the house all day and trotted up and down the corridor. When Kevin grew big curly horns my husband evicted him and now he hangs about on the lawn looking rather sadly into the lit windows of the house. Sometimes we bring a pony into the kitchen, just for the fun of it, but on the whole I have found that other people are less keen on eating with horses at their table than I am. I’ve tried to get a pony to climb the stairs and have heard from other people that it’s entirely possible though none of mine seem wildly keen on the idea and then I worry I wouldn’t be able to get them back down again as going down has to be harder than going up for a horse.

Here’s a picture I came across which has inspired a section of the novel I am about to work on.  Here are the American troops practicing maneuvers on a beach in North Devon in the preparations for the d day landings of WW2. 

This happens to be my local beach and below is a snap of me and one of my boys riding on that beach!  So the Americans are going to play a large role in the story which is set in an English country house.

And then me in the country with our prize ram. He’s known as Kevin.

A great big thank you to Sam Angus for taking the time to take a "Book Break" with us!  Make sure you visit your school library to check out Soldier Dog.  And we look forward to the forth coming novel, The House On Hummingbird Island.

Celebrate National Library Week With Author Chris Grabenstien

In honor of National Library Week and School Library Month, I am pleased to welcome Mr. Chris Grabenstein to Mrs. Merrill's Book Break! 

Escape From aMr. Lemoncello's Library is a title on the NYSRA CharlotteBook Award imiddle school ballot. 

For more fun, make sure you visit Chris' website!

Readers should read my book because . . . You’ll have so much fun, laughing and solving puzzles, you won’t even realize that you’re learning something. 

I came to write MR. LEMONCELLO'S LIBRARY  . . . After visiting P.S. 10 in Brooklyn and learning that their brand new, state of the art library had been donated by a very generous benefactor. That got me thinking, what if a very generous and eccentric bazillionaire donated an amazing library to the town where he grew up?

           

My favorite place to read . . . On a train!  There’s just something about it.  Second favorite is the cushy chair in my office.

Here are a couple photos of my office with books under construction.  The high shelf in the second photo is where I keep one copy of every book of mine that’s been published.  (36 so far).   I also keep stacks of my most recent books that I give away to folks.

A book that has touched my heart . . . My most recent book with James Patterson, JACKY HA HA touched my heart because while writing about a middle child who finds herself in her “theater family” within the middle school drama club, I revisited my own memories of being a middle child who found himself in his theater family.

I collect my ideas and inspiration for writing . . . In a Peppermint Bark tin in my office.  For years, I wrote down all my ideas and inspirations on 3 by 5 index cards.  If it was an idea for a new book, it went into the box.  If it was an inspiration for what I was working on, it went on one of the bulletin boards lining the walls of my office.  These days, I find that I am recording more ideas and notions on my iPhone notes app…which I can talk into while I’m out walking the dog. Ah, technology!

Readers should know . . .The second book in the series, MR. LEMONCELLO’S LIBRARY OLYMPICS was inspired by a fifth grader who was a big fan of the first book ESCAPE FROM MR. LEMONCELLO'S LIBRARY.  During the Q and A of a school visit, he commented, "I bet Charles Chiltington (the villain of the first book) has the worst Christmas vacation of his life, watching the Lemoncello TV commercials he could've starred in if he'd won the Escape game."  

That made me think that kids all across the country, seeing those same commercials, might wonder why they hadn't been given a chance to compete in the Escape game.  Mr. Lemoncello would receive thousands of letters and millions of emails and decide to host a new series of games, open to the best and brightest bibliophiles from all over the country – his first ever Library Olympics!  Twelve bookish games to find the true champions of the library!

Here is a fun trailer we did for MR. LEMONCELLO’S LIBRARY OLYMPICS.

A project that I’m currently working on . . .

Oh, there are several:

WELCOME TO WONDERLAND: HOME SWEET MOTEL, coming in October 2016

MR. LEMONCELLO’S GREAT LIBRARY RACE, coming in 2017

WELCOME TO WONDERLAND: BEACH PARTY SURF MONKEY, coming in 2017

Co-authored with James Patterson

Treasure Hunters: Peril At The Top of the World with James Patterson 2016

House of Robots #3 - 2016

I Funny: School of Laughs - 2017

And two other projects not yet announced.

Celebrate libraries, celebrate books, and celebrate reading by visiting your school or public library to check out one or ALL of Chris Grabenstein's books!

Celebrating School Library Month & Poetry Month

Proud member of ALA & AASL!

Not only is April National Poetry Month, it is also School Library Month!  Although, I celebrate both poetry and libraries all year, it's the perfect time to indulge in the reading (and rereading) of this wonderful treasure . . . 

EVERY poem in this anthology should be savored and read aloud often.  If this book was life-sized, I'd have the pages displayed in various parts of my school library ~ the poems would entice readers into its pages.  Until I am able to obtain a life-sized copy, I will read aloud all of its beautiful words and perhaps create poem-poster or two to hang in some of the nooks and crannies of my library!


Check out the amazing, Lee Bennett Hopkin's website for more poetry goodness.  

Joan Bransfield Graham's poem, "Librarian," perfectly sums up one of my favorite roles as a librarian ~ Reader Advisor!  Just the other day, someone said to me, "How do you do that?" when I recommended a book to her.  She went on to the tell me that it was just what she was looking for!  Here is a snippet of her poem . . . 

How did you

know?

Can you read

my mind?

How do you

always find

the perfect

book?

Amy Ludwig Vanderwater's poem, "Book Pillows," perfectly puts into lovely words, the way I feel about libraries!  And the way that I want visitors to feel when they step into my library to find just the right book that they need.  Here is a snippet of Amy's poem  . . . 

With my head on a book

I dream of a place

where a pig loves a spider.

I dream of a face

high in a tower

with ropes of hair falling.

When books become pillows

stories come calling ~

Make sure to stop in to your favorite school library to check out a copy of Jumping Off Library Shelves, collected by Lee Bennet Hopkins, illustrated by Jane Manning (Wordsong 2015). 
 

This week's "Poetry Friday" roundup is being hosted at Laura Purdie Salas' site, Writing the World for Kids!  Click on over to enjoy the many poetry celebrations. 

Happy reading & browsing in your school library!