Except When They Don't

by Laura Gehl

Except When They Don’t is written by Laura Gehl and illustrated by Joshua Heinsz. The book is about how girls always love pink and princesses, and boys always love blue and robots…except when they don’t! In other words, it is a book that encourages kids not to worry about gender stereotypes and to just be themselves.

After reading Except When They Don’t out loud, try these writing activities with your students:

1. Make a list of “boy” stereotypes and “girl” stereotypes. Then write a story with a main character who does not fit with these gender stereotypes. Maybe you will write a story about a girl who is a football star, or a boy who has the lead role in a ballet. Maybe you will write about a boy who loves wearing necklaces to school, or a girl whose favorite toys are cars.  Remember: your character should have lots of sides to his or her personality, just like every real person does! A girl who loves football might also love pink and be great at math and have five pet cats. A boy who loves wearing necklaces might also be the president of the school student government and play soccer at recess and play the drums in the school band.

2. Can you think of a time in your own life when you felt like you couldn’t do something because of your gender? Maybe you couldn’t get the sparkly red shoes at the shoe store because they were “girl shoes.” Or maybe you couldn’t sign up for wrestling because “that’s for boys.”  Or if you can’t think of a memory like that, imagine that you have a friend coming to you with a secret. Your friend wants to paint his nails, but he is embarrassed to ask his mom to borrow her nail polish, because nail polish is just for girls. Or maybe your friend wants to cut her hair really short, but she is worried everyone will say she has a “boy” haircut. What advice would you give your friend? How could you help?

3. Imagine that you are the owner of a toy store. There are dolls, tea sets, trucks, trains, markers, robots…every toy you can imagine. What if a customer came up to you and said, “I want to buy presents for a little girl and a little boy. Can you give me some advice?” What questions would you ask the customer? How would you decide which toys to recommend?

4. Starting in elementary school, sports teams are usually separated by gender. There are girls soccer teams and boys soccer teams, girls basketball teams and boys basketball teams. Do you think this is a good idea or a bad idea? Why?

5. Imagine 100 kids (50 boys, 50 girls) growing up with human parents and 100 kids (50 boys, 50 girls) growing up with alien parents. The alien parents just arrived on earth and don’t know about our human gender stereotypes. Do you think the kids raised by aliens would grow up wearing different types of clothes and liking different activities than the kids raised by human parents? Why or why not?

 Laura Gehl is the author of picture books including One Big Pair of Underwear (Charlotte Zolotow Highly Commended Title, International Literacy Association Honor Book, Booklist Books for Youth Editors’ Choice); Hare and Tortoise Race Across Israel, And Then Another Sheep Turned Up, and Koala Challah (all PJ Library selections); the Peep and Egg series (Parents’ Choice Recommendation, Amazon Editors’ Pick, Children’s Choice Book Award Finalist); My Pillow Keeps Moving (Junior Library Guild selection, NYPL Best Books of 2018 selection); and I Got a Chicken for my Birthday (Kirkus Best Picture Books of 2018 selection). 2019 releases include Except When They Don’t (Little Bee), Dibs! (Lerner), Juniper Kai: Super Spy (Two Lions); Judge Juliette (Sterling); Always Looking Up: A Story of Astronomer Nancy Grace Roman (Whitman); and the Baby Scientist series (HarperCollins). Laura lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband and four children.  Visit her online at www.lauragehl.com

I Call Dibs!

by Laura Gehl

Dibs, written by Laura Gehl and illustrated by Marcin Piwowarski, is the story of two brothers. Julian calls “dibs” so frequently that his baby brother Clancy ends up saying “dibs” as his very first word. Things get out of control when Clancy starts calling dibs on a bakery, an airplane, and even the White House! But when Clancy gets trapped in space, it is Julian who needs to harness the power of dibs to rescue his little brother.

 After reading Dibs out loud, try these writing activities with your students:

1. If you could call dibs on ANYTHING, the way Clancy does, what would you call dibs on? Why?

2. Julian gets frustrated when Clancy doesn’t follow the “rules” of Dibs. Even though these rules are not written down, most kids know you can call dibs on the biggest cookie but not on a whole bakery. You can call dibs on sitting in the window seat in an airplane, but you can’t call dibs on a whole airplane. Think about rules in your life. What rules at home or school do you wish you could break? What rules do you wish other people followed? Do you have a sibling, cousin, or friend who breaks rules? How do you feel about that when it happens?

3. Some kids who read the book Dibs already know the expression “calling dibs,” and some kids have never heard the expression before. Make a list of expressions that you know. Which of these expressions do you actually use when you talk to your friends?

4. Look at your list of expressions that you know from #3. Can you imagine how a kid could take one of those expressions too far, the way Clancy takes dibs too far in the book Dibs? How could you turn that into a story? For example, think about the expression “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” What if a kid decided that she would eat ten apples—or a hundred apples—or a thousand apples—every day so that she would never, ever get sick? And then she ate so many apples that it actually made her sick! Or maybe she turned into an apple and then her grandma wanted to turn her into apple pie! Take one of the expressions from your list and write a story in which a kid takes the expression too far.

  

Bio: Laura Gehl is the author of picture books including One Big Pair of Underwear (Charlotte Zolotow Highly Commended Title, International Literacy Association Honor Book, Booklist Books for Youth Editors’ Choice); Hare and Tortoise Race Across Israel, And Then Another Sheep Turned Up, and Koala Challah (all PJ Library selections); the Peep and Egg series (Parents’ Choice Recommendation, Amazon Editors’ Pick, Children’s Choice Book Award Finalist); My Pillow Keeps Moving (Junior Library Guild selection, NYPL Best Books of 2018 selection); and I Got a Chicken for my Birthday (Kirkus Best Picture Books of 2018 selection). 2019 releases include Except When They Don’t (Little Bee), Dibs! (Lerner), Juniper Kai: Super Spy (Two Lions); Judge Juliette (Sterling); Always Looking Up: A Story of Astronomer Nancy Grace Roman (Whitman); and the Baby Scientist series (HarperCollins). Laura lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband and four children.  Visit her online at www.lauragehl.com.

One Voice Can Change the World

Guest Post by Kathryn Erskine

It’s true ... with incredible determination and persistence, one person really can change the world. I was introduced to the voice of Miriam Makeba, dubbed Mama Africa, during the oppressive apartheid regime. Despite danger to herself and family, she told the world about the atrocities in her country. Singing was her art and talent, and using that, she forced the world to look at what was happening in South Africa, and to do something about it. We may not have her gifts, but we can all be brave. We can all speak out and change the world.

Young people often feel unheard. As a child, especially a girl in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, I took heart that a woman could speak out and that people would actually listen. I loved that she forced everyone to look at, and deal with, what was happening to her people –and not just in South Africa, but in the United States, and anywhere in the world. Her voice gave me hope that I could have a voice, too. I wanted to give that same feeling of empowerment to young readers today.

To that end, here are some writing activities you can use with Mama Africa:

1. Use Miriam’s story as a jumping off point to learn more about her or one of the other people mentioned in the book, like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. Also, see the timeline and Further Reading sections for more ideas, e.g., Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis. What contributions did these people make? What do you think was most important, and why? If you could ask one of these people a question, what would you ask?

2. What is an issue you feel strongly about? How would you use your voice to tell the world? In today’s world, unlike Miriam Makeba’s during the mid-twentieth century, what avenues do you have available to get your message out?

3. Mama Africa can also be used as an introduction to apartheid, and other oppressive regimes, and how such regimes can be called out and, eventually, brought down. What is happening in the world today that is similar to a tyrannical government like South Africa’s under apartheid? What do you think is an effective way to stop that regime?

And, any of the above activities can be written in the call-and-response style used in the book, either as a song or free verse poem, where the last word of the preceding line is also the first word in the following line.

An example from the book:

Still, that doesn’t stop Miriam from singing.

Singing always gives her strength.

Mama Africa: How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song, was named a 2018 Best Book for Young Children by CABA, Children’s Africana Book Awards.  It was also the 2018 Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award winner.

Kathryn Erskine is the author of six novels for young people, including National Book Award winner, Mockingbird, Jane Addams Peace Award honor book Seeing Red, and most recently, The Incredible Magic of Being, about a boy with anxiety who believes in the power of the universe to save us. She also recently wrote an award-winning picture book, Mama Africa, a biography of South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba.  Kathryn Erskine draws on her life stories and world events for her writing and is currently working on several more novels and picture books.  Visit her at http://www.kathyerskine.com/

Shopping Trip Stories

by Jacqueline Jules

While many students are reluctant to return to school after a too short summer break, most still love back-to-school shopping. Kids have fun choosing new backpacks, pencils, and notebooks.  In Shopping Trip Trouble,  seven-year-old Sofia Martinez goes school shopping with her two older sisters, Mamá, Tía Carmen, and her four cousins—Hector, Alonzo, Manuel, and baby Mariela. Everyone is excited to pick school supplies in their favorite colors. But when Sofia notices that four-year-old Manuel is missing, chaos ensues as the family races around the store searching to find him.

Read Shopping Trip Trouble out loud to your students and have fun discussing their own shopping trip adventures.

Suggested questions:

Were there too many choices of colors and sizes? Not enough? 

Did you have trouble choosing?

What are your favorite back-to-school items? Are there any you do not like?

Did you accidentally knock something over like Hector and Alonzo?

Did the family stay together? Or did a child wander off?

Have you ever heard an announcement over the loudspeaker calling for a lost child?

Is it more fun to go shopping in a large group? 

Or would you rather shop with one person?

What other elements of Shopping Trip Trouble mirrored your own shopping experience?

Use the discussion to help young writers remember and record details for their own writing. Afterwards, ask your students to do one or more of the following:

1.     Write a personal narrative of a family shopping trip.

2.     Create a fictional story in which a child was lost and found in a store.

3.     Write a poem about a specific school supply. (ie: pencil, notebook, backpack, ruler)

4.     Write a diary entry from the viewpoint of a school supply (ie: crayons, markers, notebook) waiting to be chosen by a shopping student. 

  www.jacquelinejules.com

Do You Want to be President?

by Karen Leggett Abouraya

A friend and fellow member of the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, D.C. , Katherine Marsh  was urging her son Sasha to stop teasing his five-year-old sister Natalia.

“She could be president someday,” said Katherine.

“But I don’t want to be president,” responded Natalia.

“Why not?”

“Because I want to be a duck.”

Pamela Ehrenberg, another author friend, helpfully pointed out that Natalia could be both, recalling Duck for President by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin.

Indeed, Duck for President is a perfect starting point to help students write about our own presidential election without sinking into the quicksand of the current campaign. Even the youngest children will appreciate Duck’s constant search for a job that isn’t such hard work. 

Youngsters can write a sentence, a paragraph, a poem or a page –

·       Would you like to be president?  Why or why not?

·       Write a list of fair rules for voters. This could be a class list. In Duck for President, Duck’s first list of voter registration rules said voters must live on the farm, show a valid ID and be at least as tall as Duck. The “mice got together and protested the height requirement. So Duck crossed it off.”  (And there you have the beginnings of a discussion about how to change rules you don’t like.)

·       What do you think is the hardest part of the president’s job?

·       What would be the most fun?

For older students, there is a wealth of election and writing resources in the current issue of “Teaching Tolerance,” from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

from teachingtolerance.org

Students may end up agreeing with Duck that “running a country is no fun at all,” but at least they will appreciate the importance of carefully choosing the person who will. 

A YouTube Read Aloud version of Duck for President is available. 

Happy Writing!

http://childrensbookguild.org/karen-leggett-abouraya

May The Force Be With Your Creative Writers

Guest Post by Laura Krauss Melmed

I wrote my latest picture book, Before We Met, while channeling the remembered wonder and anticipation of awaiting the birth of a child.  In the book, an expectant mother imagines the baby’s smile, the feeling of its skin, the sound of its cry.

In Before We Met, sumptuously illustrated by Jing Jing Song, an expectant mother tells of her hopes and dreams while waiting for her child to be born. 

Just as adult life often entails waiting, children too must wait for all kinds of exciting events, such as a birthday party, a vacation trip, the first day of school, that first loose tooth, or getting a pet.  Using Before We Met as a prompt, children can learn that writing about an anticipated event and its imagined outcome can be a fun way to deal with having to wait.

Here’s the set-up:  Your students are enrolled in the Intergalactic Home Visit Program. In one month, a Star Visitor from a distant planet will be coming to spend a week with them at home.  Because of Intergalactic security rules, your students won’t know any details about the Star Visitors or their home planets until right before they arrive. 

Ask students to draw a picture of their imagined visitor and the visitor’s home planet. Then ask students to write answers to these questions.  

How are you feeling while waiting for your Star Visitor to arrive?

How will you and your Star Visitor greet each other? 

Where will your Star Visitor sleep? 

How will you make your Star Visitor feel at home?

How will your pets react to the Star Visitor?

What does your Star Visitor like to eat?  What Earth foods would you like to introduce them to? 

What games might your Star Visitor teach you?   What games will you teach them? 

What special powers might your Star Visitor have?

What parts of your neighborhood will you take them to, and how might other Earthlings react to meeting them? 

What will it be like when your class brings their Star Visitors to school?

What gift will your Star Visitor give you when they leave?

What will you give your Star Visitor to take back home?

A follow-up exercise could be for students to write about what the visit was “really” like compared to their expectations, and how they felt after their Star Visitor left. 

May the Force be with your student writers as they aim their imaginations toward the stars!

Laura Krauss Melmed is the author of twenty fiction and nonfiction picture books for children, including the New York Times bestsellers, The Rainbabies and I Love You as Much.  Her books have garnered many awards, including the ALA Notable Award, National Jewish Book Award, Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, Parent's Choice Award, Oppenheim Gold Award, Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Master List, and the American Bookseller Pick of the Lists.  She holds an M.Ed. in early childhood education and has been a kindergarten teacher.  Laura loves connecting with students and teachers face-to-face through school visits and writing workshops. She tutors in the DC Schools with Reading Partners, a national organization committed to helping children find the magic key to literacy.  Visit Laura online at www.laurakraussmelmed.com

Writers--RETREAT!

by Jane Harrington

I’m just finishing up a month at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), my first foray into a residency at an artists’ colony. My days have been all writing-writing-writing, punctuated by peaceful walks and reading books in a porch swing. Evenings have been centered around enjoying the creative works of my fellow artists—poetry, prose, paintings, drawings, installations, performance pieces, and musical compositions. To sum up the experience: WOW!

Packing up now, I’m concocting ideas to bring to the upcoming summer months this same kind of inspiration and creative energy. Here are some suggestions for how to turn whole days into personal writing retreats, for you and/or a young writer in your life. In preparation, trawl local newspapers and other event listings, and keep an ongoing list of gallery openings, free concerts, theater and dance shows, author visits, etc. in your local area. Also, reacquaint yourself with the offerings at your nearest parks—nature trails, wetland walks, swimming lakes and the like.

On a day you designate a writer’s retreat—

1.      Write for [you fill in the blank] hours in the morning, with no distractions. (Yes, that means turn your phone off.) (No, not on vibrate—off.) (Actually, put it in another room entirely.)

2.      After that, go enjoy some nature—a walk, for instance, in your neighborhood or at a local park. Alternately, cook a favorite food or crochet a bookmark. Those are inspired activities, too!

3.      Write some more. You decide on length of time.

4.      It will probably be evening by this time. Take in an art event: go listen to music, browse a gallery, watch a show, or attend a reading.

String a few of these days together, and I bet you’ll be feeling creative and cranking out some great writing! That’s my plan.

www.janeharrington.com  

WHAT'S THE STORY?

by Jane Harrington

I just listened to a pretty right-on lecture about fiction writing by Jenna Blum (The Author at Work: The Art of Writing Fiction), so I’ll share an activity based on something she recommends. I think this can help all creative writers, any age. It’s about writing “log lines.”

For those who dabble in screenwriting, this is probably a known term, but it was new to me. A log line is a one-sentence distillation of a story, and can be a very useful means of getting to the bones of a body of creative writing. Whereas “theme” can usually be expressed in one word or phrase (“making new friends” or “recovery” or “loss”) a good log line includes the protagonist and his/her goal or central conflict. Note that endings (spoilers!) are not included in log lines.

Here’s how this activity might work:

1.     Find a bestsellers list, such as the New York Times “Children’s Best Sellers,” and read all the descriptions for the books there. Some in last week’s NYT—

•   “A filthy bird is persuaded to bathe.” (Mo Willems’ The Pigeon Needs a Bath!)

•   “A teenager uncovers the mysteries of a village surrounded by a beast-filled forest.” (David Baldacci’s The Finisher.)

•   “A girl saves books from Nazi burning.” (Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief.)

2. Think about a book or short story you like and know well, and then create a log line for it.

•   For Alice in Wonderland that might be: A girl tumbles into an alternate universe and meets many strange characters in her quest to get home.

•   For Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak: After a traumatic experience at a summer party, a teenage girl tries to endure her next year of high school while keeping a secret.

3. Now, think about something you’ve written or want to write, and create a log line for it. I’ve done this for two of my books here.

•   In letters to her best friend back home, a thirteen-year-old girl describes her progress at accomplishing a list of things she has been dared to do while on a Mediterranean cruise (Four Things My Geeky-Jock-of-a-Best-Friend Must Do in Europe).

•   A ten-year-old girl describes her angsts and adventures in a journal she starts to keep after her memory-impaired grandmother moves in with her family (Lucy’s Completely Cool and Totally True E-Journal).

Some writers might find that brainstorming log lines is a good way to get a handle on a story idea before starting to write. Other writers might find it a useful exercise to guide the revision process, particularly after some free writing. (See Jacqueline Jules’ “Transforming a Free Write” for more ideas along thoselines.)

If used in the classroom, this exercise should help meet the requirements of the following Common Core standards:

CCSS.ELA—LITERACY.RL.1.2 thru 11-12.2

www.janeharrington.com

IF YOU ELECT ME

by Laura Krauss Melmed

Last week I worked with a sixth grade class of about twenty students in a single session poetry workshop.  When I introduced our topic, Hurricane Sandy, some of the boys said they wanted to write about the election instead, since after all, it was the morning of November 6.  The students even started calling out some spontaneous, funny rhyming lines on the subject.   But feeling rather tense about the possible outcome of the election and also wanting to stick to my lesson plan, I had them stay with the topic of the storm.

Once the election was over, I began playing with the question of how it could have become the focal point of a lesson in creative writing.   What if the students were presented with a set of election rivals, but instead of real politicians like President Obama and Mitt Romney, they were funny combinations of rivals such as Cat and Dog vying for Best Pet, or Moon and Sun competing for Best Celestial Body, or Broccoli and Candy Bar facing off for Best Food.  Students could break into two teams, each tasked with preparing materials for one of the candidates.   It would be each team’s job to convince the “voters” that their candidate should win by producing materials such as a campaign slogan, a stump speech, a poster and maybe even a (non-negative!) TV ad.  To accomplish this, students would have to combine creative thinking with humor and the art of persuasive writing.  To conclude, each team might present their materials to another class to be followed by a mock election.  

But getting back to last week’s workshop on the storm, here is the poem my group produced together: 

Loosen the twisting, powerful drops that splash

Loosen the monstrous gale of the wolf

Loosen the sound of the drums

Let the shredding winds go free!

www.laurakraussmelmed.com

WRITING TRIBUTES TO MAURICE SENDAK

by Laura Krauss Melmed

Maurice Sendak, one of the true giants of children’s literature, died on May 8 at the age of 83.  This post is dedicated to him.   

In 1964, Mr. Sendak, in spare words and exuberantly scary pictures, launched a defiant child named Max on a journey that took him sailing

…off through night and day

And in and out of weeks

and almost over a year

to where the wild things are.

With the publication of that book, Where the Wild Things Are, Mr. Sendak sent the field of children’s literature into uncharted waters as well.   This classic work is so familiar to all of us now that it is hard to imagine how different it was from what preceded it.  For the first time, the darker side of childhood was examined in a book for young children.  In Where the Wild Things Are and other titles, Sendak uses dreamlike settings and powerful imagery to depict difficult emotions like anger, fear and rebelliousness.  In each instance, his characters confront and cope with these feelings in ways that ring true for children and adults alike.

As a remembrance of Maurice Sendak, here are some writing prompts to spur students in creating a picture book based on his work:

Where the Wild Things Are.  In this book, a jungle grew in Max’s room after he was sent to bed without any supper.  If you were mad at your parent, what type of fantastical setting would your room transform into?  How would you journey through it?  What would be scary about your destination?  What would be funny about it?  How would you meet the challenges you found there and make your way home?  What would be waiting for you there?

Outside Over There.  Your best friend has been stolen away by magical beings.  It is your job to find your friend and perform a rescue.  Describe where you go and what you do.

Higglety Pigglety Pop.  Your pet just ran away from home.  Why?  Where will it go?  What adventures will it have (the wilder, the better)?  Will your pet learn anything or change in any way?  Will it come home?  (If you don’t have a pet, make one up or write about an animal leaving the zoo.)  

The Nutshell Library.  The Nutshell Library consists of four tiny books in a boxed collection:  One Was Johnny, a counting story; Alligators All Around, an alphabet story, Chicken Soup With Rice (my absolute personal favorite), a story about the months of the year, and Pierre, a cautionary tale about an unpleasant little boy.  Students could make small books on one or more of those themes.   To house a library of four books, a tea box can be cut up and stapled together into a smaller box, then decoupaged to make a home for the collection.

http://www.laurakraussmelmed.com/