It feels great to be back to this humble, little blog of mine that I so long ago named, "Mrs. Merrill's Book Break". Here's a link to one of my first posts that introduces and explains why I wanted to keep a blog to begin with. Over the years, I have changed and grown and at times I've not published anything here. Although, my thoughts are not shifting in terms of the content that I share, I am thinking in terms of the structure. Basically, I've come to realize that this is a place for me to share my passion for literacy and celebrating not only the "bigger" or perhaps more "profound" ideas and thought, but to simply record MY "little moments," or what some may find to be "ordinary," but I find to be joyous, make my heart happy, and make me smile!
After a very difficult year in terms of my health, I've truly come to appreciate (even more so than I had before), life's little joys. Especially when it has come to reading - since at times, what has always been a part of daily life, was not possible for me to do or when it was possible to pick up a book, it was a real challenge. So, let's not take for granted the small moments or the words and stories that can do so much for our souls.
I have found some peace in reading Amy Ludwig VanDerwater's beautiful poem, "Healer." You too, can read it by visiting The Poem Farm. Amy is hosting Poetry Friday at The Poem Farm. Please visit to see all the others out there who are celebrating life's poetry moments - both big and small. Click here,
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 andOn 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.
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.
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 Dogwas 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.
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 FROMMR. 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 Worldwith 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!
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 intolovely words, the way I feel about libraries! And the way that I wantvisitors 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).
